agreement and ornament of the Whole So that as in Musick some light passing Notes of discord do add grace and sweetness to the Parts the petty particular disagreement of Creatures illustrate and commend the excellency of the Order of Creatures in the World And as it Athanas ib. p. 42. is yet further impossible but if two several Musicians should compose a Lesson or Song consisting of several Voices not consulting with one another but from their several phansies and humours these put together must needs make horrible jarring and discord so were there more then One God who should have an hand in framing this Universe it could not possibly have been avoided but the infinite and destructive inconveniencies in the parts thereof would betray the absurdness of such different Agents Again if there were more Gods then one there may as well be believed Si sint duo quare non plures Terrul cont Marcionem l. 1. c. 5. to be more then a hundred then a thousand then ten thousand and so on For who shall limit or determine them And so the World would be like a Common-wealth which should have more Soveraigns then Subjects Neither can it be imagined with any reason that such a multitude of gods should hold a Common Counsel and lay their heads together as Poets have devised for the wiser management of their Kingdom of this world because all such deliberations and consultations do imply a particular defect Quid intersint Numeri quum duo paria non differant uno Una enim res est quae cadem in duobui Id. ibid. of power and knowledge which are made up in some manner by the concurrence of many supplying such single defects But this supposition quite overthrows the Divine Nature And farther either these supposed Gods must be equal or inferiour to one another in their Attributes If the latter then must such inferiour ones be turned out of the List as insufficient and incapable of such an Equidem unum esse Deum sine initio sine prole naturae sew Patrem magnum atque magnificum quis tam demens tam mente captus neget esse certissimum high dignity If equal to what purpose are many invented when two or more differ not from One Sixthly Infiniteness and Unity are convertible in the inquiry after the nature of God For if God be Infinite he must necessarily be but One if he be One he must necessarily be Infinite Nothing less then Infinite answering the onely less then Infinite necessities of Creatures in the World which all stand in need as well of support and governance as of a First Cause to produce them 7. Lastly The same consent of Nations and People as hath been intimated Hujus nos virtutes per mundum esse diffusas multis vocabulis vocamus c. Maximus Mad. August Epist 43. agreeing in but one GOD as well as in this That there is a God sufficiently evinceth this For not to speak of the more stupid who are no competent Judges in such cases who notwithstanding readily assent to this noble truth once propounded but the more Learned and Wise who upon disquisition and search duly and thorowly made have ever unanimously received this for a most certain truth CHAP. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A Brief censure of the Gentile and Mabomitan Religion HItherto have we treated of Natural Religion as it were that which all men by the light and force of principles put into Man by the hand of God who made him so that scarce doth the Infant turn more naturally to the breast of the Mother than doth Man arrived to the years of reason and common understanding seek to God by way of recognition and dependance on him But this one end to which all tend so unanimously admitteth of many roads leading thereunto which particularly to enumerate were both superfluous and tedious and therefore may well be reduced to these four Heathenish Jewish Mahometan and Christian which are so many Religions according to which One God is worshipped The Heathen or Gentile as the Scripture calls him worship a God and surely desiring as all men naturally do not to err or be deceived especially in such matters as are of greatest importance as the choice of a Deity is do likewise rudely intend to adore none but the true God For as St. Paul well noteth and teaches us in his Epistle to the Romans Rom. 8. 20. the Creature was made subject unto vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope By which creature he doth certainly mean the Gentile who according to the phrase of Holy Writ speaking according to the received sense and opinion of the highly opinion'd Jews was reputed no more of then a simple creature and nature in opposition to which St. Paul often makes mention of another and New creature as He that is in Christ Jesus is a New creature and elsewhere And by Vanity 2 Corin. 5. 17. Gal. 5. 10. Jonah 2. 8. is commonly understood False Gods and Idols as in Jonah They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies meaning False Gods as the Prophet Jeremie likewise affirmeth of the Heathens Gods They are but Jerem. 10. 15. vanity the works of mens hands Now the Creature or Gentiles were unwillingly made subject to these Vanities and false worships in respect of that general Principle inserted in Man whereby he chooses truth before error and consequently the true God before the false however through some particular Blindness of their understanding and darknes their Ephes 4. 18. hearts be alienated from the Life of God or from the living God which is the same Which Darkness of the heart may well be imputed to that Original defect or sin traduced from Adam to all his Posterity Yet notwithstanding even after that general waste made in the Soul of Man God as St. Paul well tells them left not himself without a witness in that he Acts. 14. 17. did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness So that the Invisible things of him as saith the Rom. 1. 20. same St. Paul from the beginning of the VVorld are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and godhead so that they are without excuse And the reason hereof goeth before Viz. V. 19. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them The invisible things of God are said to be seen clearly because they are sufficiently exposed to be seen and therefore if they do not see them it must be the affectation of some sensual error which so darkens their mind that they cannot or will not And being thus first corrupted no marvel if their Religion be like unto it not only false but unreasonable and abominable as may appear from these few amongst
particularly assured of his being in Christ The whole Antecedent I grant viz. That every man believeth Christ when he receiveth him and that Christ is received by Faith And that every man is bound to apply Christ particularly and his Promises to himself But the consequence here made follows not from hence For by the former a man believes assuredly that the Promises of Grace made through Christ to the Church do particularly belong to him he hath a right to them being called to the Covenant Neither do we promise any other security of Salvation by only Faith but to those that labour in their calling and be fruitful of good Works Dr. Fulk on Rhem. Test Phil. 3. v. 11. And thus far a man is and ought to be sure of his Salvation But there being implyed in all Promises of Everlasting Salvation certain conditions of obeying and repenting as well as believing simply whether a man is to that degree proficient in these as to put him in actual possession of Christ this is no where revealed neither are we commanded to believe it And when St. Paul saith to the Romans * Rom. 8. 15 16. See likewise 1 John 5. 9 10 Ye have not received again the spirit of bondage to fear but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father What is more plain than that his meaning is to distinguish the general state of the Church of the Jews from the Church of the Gentiles and the spirit of Moses as I may so say which tender'd to bondage from the spirit of Christ which is that free Spirit For as it is elsewhere said If the Son make you free then shall you be free indeed And from hence no more can be concluded to any single person than to the whole Church of God in which there are many reprobates as all agree Neither is the matter helped out any whit by what follows The Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Sons of God I presume few will be so severe and ignorant as to deny the large acceptation in Scripture of the Children of God and Sons of God and Saints viz. That generally they signifie no more than those who were elected outwardly to the Faith and Profession of Christ and to the means of becoming not only denominatively and of Right but really and effectually in Fact the heirs of Eternal Salvation To be then the Sons of God here with St. Paul signifies no more than by Faith to be the peculiar people and favorites of God above all such as were not thus brought home to Christs Fold Now that such singular Grace and Priviledges belonged to Christian St. Paul proves from the testimony of the Spirit namely That the Christian Religion is only the true Religion thus The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirit Our own Judgment our Consciences doth stedfastly assure us that we are the Children of God but this is not all this proves nothing to another to the convincing of him that we are the true Servants and Children of God but the Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit doth And the Spirit of God beareth witness with us sufficiently when it declareth openly by miracles signs and wonders wrought before the eyes of our Adversaries that what we preach and believe is the truth Which is the same with what St. Paul writes to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 2. 4. saying And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your faith might stand not in the wisdom of man but in the power of God In which words he plainly sheweth the ground of the Corinthians faith not to be taken from any fair or plausible Rhetorick or form of words whereby men are led oftentimes to believe against reason but on the more solid grounds of extraordinary miracles wrought by the power of God and which did demonstrate to all equal judges That it was the Spirit of God which both taught them such mysteries of Faith as they preached and confirmed the same by such signs and wonders as did appear generally at the publication of the Gospel Now what doth all or any of this concern the supposed particular inward tacit testimony whereby it is said a man is to be assured of his Salvation And no more do the words of the Apostle in the end of the same Chapter prove too long to be recited but this Rom. 8. 35 36 37 38 39. is briefly to be answered 1. That they speak not at all of any individual single Christian but of the Church of God and that indefinitely or at large viz. That God hath so determined to plant propagate and maintain that Religion into which divers were collected by the ministry of the Apostles that whatever or from whomsoever evils might befall the Church of God yet they should never prevail with such persecutions to separate the faithful from Christ no not all the Powers nor Principalities on Earth nor all the Angels of Heaven or of Hell But to secure these and the like testimonies the better to their opinions some much admired persons of the Reformation peradventure suspecting what might be answered have proceeded to say That what promises Calvin Inst Christ hath made to his Church do equally concern every Christian as well as the Church which I cannot yield to without these Exceptions First That it may be understood of a particular Church as well as particular Persons But as may hereafter appear God hath made no absolute promise to any particular Church so far that it can be any point of Faith to believe that Gods counsel decree are such to it as never to suffer it to Apostatize from him So that no individual Church can be sure of its perseverance in the truth and if not that how should any particular person claim so much But the Promises of Christ being taken as they ought of a Church indefinitely it is most agreeable to Gods word to maintain an infallible perpetuity of the same Again It is to be remembred that all this while we are speaking not so much of certainty before God according to which we may yield the Salvation of men to be infallible but certainty before men or to the party concerned immediately which we call Assurance or Evidence In the body of an Orthodox Church it is certain in it self that many men shall be saved but not certain to us that any one therein shall nor evident to any one that he shall To the reasons taken from the Power of God who is able to save and reveal this And the truth of God who is faithful in his Promise And the Knowledge of God that he knoweth who are his what need we make any answer besides showing the vanity of that inference which is drawn from the possibility of any thing to the Fact it self and of that presumption rather than faith which
denied him as having no pre-existent matter out of which they can be said to be fram'd It must be consessed the word Create and Creation in Scripture is not so strictly used as in Philosophers Books but imports any notable production as well as that simple one without pre-existence Yet the thing it self is affirmed as where it is said All things were made by God for there nothing is excepted or exempted from his Power as Heb. 11. Heb. 11. 13. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear and he only can preserve all things who maketh all things But God in Christ or Christ through God upholdeth all things by the word of his Power Heb. 1. 3. Rev. 4. 11. And in the Revelations it is said Thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure Chap. 10. 6. they were and are created And in the tenth Chapter the Angel sweareth by him that liveth for ever and ever who created Heaven and the things that are therein and the Earth and the things that therein are and the Sea and the things that are therein And aptly do the words of the Psalmist answer the History of the Creation who speaking of the particulars Psal 148. 5. of this natural world saith of God He commanded and they were created this being the only means and method that we read all things to have been produced viz. the word of his Power Let there be Light Let there be the Firmament c. which being a demonstration of his immediate will most wisely implieth as some eminent Philosophers have with great admiration observed the proper Power of God Almighty to whom nothing is difficult that he willeth should come to pass Now where there is no limitation upon an agent but what proceeds from its own will there nothing is impossible and if it be possible for God to will as must be seeing man may desire to produce somewhat from nothing it must be possible to come to pass what so is willed by him otherwise God should be disappointed and frustrated in his intentions than which nothing can be thought more absurd or repugnant to the Nature of God And thus at the same time it appears as well what God made as how viz. That there is nothing extant whether visible or invisible but what was framed by him and that absolutely as the Apostle more expresly testifieth to the Colossians By him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in Col. 1. 16. earth visible and invisible whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were created by him and for him By which we understand that all the Angels and several orders of those invisible Spirits in Heaven were the effect of his Power no less than were inferior and visible Creatures And though there be no particular mention of the time order place or manner of the Creation of Angels yet that they were so created general assurance we have from the Word of God the holy Ghost advisedly omitting and mens wits only conjecturing at the other things to prevent pride and curiosity in man to whom it was sufficient to make a description of those things which related to this visible world and concerned him to know So that the Heavens themselves with the glorious and numerous Lights thereof are no farther explained unto us than as their influences concern the nature and actions of Man It is a true Axiom that all things were made for man but it is not true that they had no other end why God created them namely Heavens heavenly Bodies and heavenly Spirits but for to serve the uses of man next to the ultimate end of all his own Glory For though it be said of Angels and we take the word in the properest sense and not as it may be for the several Messengers and Dispensers of Gods will and Word to the several Ages of men Are they not all ministring Spirits Heb. 1. 14. sent forth to them who shall be heirs of salvation Yet we look on their attendance in such cases as an honorary command and tuition over us and secondary end to their first Institution rather than any thing of subjection or servility For when the Shepherd looks to his Flock and when the King is said to be for the People we are not in reason or sobriety to imagine a worth in the governed above the governour as some have sondly wretchedly and dangerously concluded For that Rule The end is more excellent than the means or thing ordained to that end holds true only when the thing is so ordain'd that its own end and good is not equally or more eminently included in the same or when the end is the principal agent in instituting such a thing to such an end But the Sheep never appointed the Shepherd to serve to rule and protect them nor did men oblige Angels to wait upon them nor as is above demonstrated the People firâ—t erect or constitute Governors or Governments over themselves these were done by a superior Power over them neither at this day can they that is ought by any imaginary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoretus Haeret. Fabular lib. 5. cap. 7. Charter alter the Archetype of Gods Institution And they that do attempt and have pretended to confer Power sometimes on Governors can at all do it directly and validly But they seem and are interpreted by many so to do when they unwarrantably and unreasonably deny it to others and submit to their own favourites though how lamely and improperly these acts of strength and not of right are carried on is also elsewhere shewed For no question but if the common sort of men could extend their presumptuous Power to Spirits as they do to Princes they would take such offence against their tutelary Angels as to put them out of office when they find themselves crossed in their inclinations or designs by them or perswading themselves they are neglected by them choosing others in their places and justifie such their acts from a dignity supposed in themselves from being the end of their care and ministration If indeed we appointed Spirits or Princes over us as men do choose servants to do their work for them and serve them then surely we might as justly turn them off again when ever they became unserviceable and prejudicial to us but seeing both are appointed by God we are to know our distance notwithstanding the good offices they do for us And that considering secondly That their own ends are no less principally and primarily served in such ministrations than the ends of others And yet I make no doubt but many persons to whom God hath given holy and righteous Spirits to protect and preserve them being ungoverned and refractory lewd and licentious contrary to the mind and motions of them presiding over them do in effect
the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood IT being found what is the Letter of the Word of God It is necessary to know what is the true sense of it For this is only in truth the Word and not the Letters Syllables or Grammatical words To know this we must first distinguish a Sense Historical and Mystical The Historical Sense is the same as the Literal so called because it is that which is primarily signified and intended by such a form of words And this is twofold For either these words are to be taken in the proper and natural signification as I may call that which is in most vulgar use or in their borrowed and mataphorical Sense As when I call a thing hard and apply it to Iron or Stone I speak properly and according to the Natural sense but when I apply Hardness to the heart I speak improperly and Metaphorically and yet Literally too intending thereby to signifie not any natural but moral quality in the heart The Seven Ears saith Joseph in Genesis are seven years and the Seven fat Kine are Seven years And so Christ in the Gospel This is my Body and infinite others in Scripture are Metaphorical and Literal Senses both The Mystical Sense is that which is a translation not so much of words from one signification to another as of the entire Sense to a meaning not excluding the Historical or Literal Sense but built upon it and occasion'd by it And is commonly divided into the Tropological Allegorical and Anagogical which some as Origen make coordinate with the former saying The Scripture is a certain Intelligible world wherein are four Parts Origen Homil 2. In Diversos as four Elements The Earth is the Literal Sense The waters is the profound Moral Sense The Air is the Natural Sense or natural science therein found And above all the sublime sense which is Fire In another place he mentions only the Historical Moral and Mystical And generally Idem Homil. 5. in Leviticum the Fathers do acknowledg all these though with some variation not distinguishing them as we have as might be shown were it needful to enlarge here on that subject The Moral Sense is that which is drawn from the natural to signifie the manners and conditions of men The Allegorical is a sense under a continuation of tropes and figures The Anagogical a translation of the meaning of things said or done on earth to things proper to heaven The Oxe being suffered to eat while he trod out the Corn according to St. Paul in the Moral sense signified that the labourer was worthy of his hire Mount Sinah and Mount Sion as the same Gal. 2. 24 25. Apostle saith signified the two Cities of God Earthly and Heavenly Allegorically And the Church of God upon Earth the Church Triumphant in heaven It is therefore without reason and modesty both that some strickt Modern Divines have set themselves against the Antient in contracting all these senses into one so as to allow no more which is of very ill consequence to the Faith both of Jew and Christian For generally all the hopes of the Jews concerning the Messias to come and all the proofs of the Christian taken from the Old Testament That he is come would come to little or nothing seeing there is manifestly a Literal or Historical sense primarily intended upon which the Mistical is built So that the arguments of the Evangelists and St. Paul in his Epistles convincing that Christ was the true Messias must needs be invalid seeing their quotation to that purpose had certainly another Literal Sense And it is against the condition of the whole Law it self which as St. Paul Heb. 10. 1. saith was a Shadow of good things to come and not the very things themselves It is here replied commonly That all these are but one Literal Perkins on Galâ—â— 22. sense diversely expressed which is to grant all that is contended for but with a reservation of a peculiar way of speaking to themselves that having been so infortunate as to judge of things amiss they may in some manner solace themselves with variety of phrase too commonly found amongst such as resolve to say something new where there is no just cause at all And to that which seems a Difficultie That no Symbolical sense can be argumentative or prove any thing in Divinity we answer That it cannot indeed unless it be known first to be the true Mistical sense of the words alledged For neither is the Literal sense it self until it be known that such was the true intent of the Speaker But those things which were symbolically and Mystically delivered in the Law being well known to Christ and his Apostles as likewise to the Learnedest of the Jewish Doctors by a received current tradition amongst them were of force to the ends alledged by them But where such a Mystical sense is not received nothing can be inferred from thence which is conclusive CHAP. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficultie of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof IT availeth a Christian as little to have the Letter of the word of God without the genuine sense as it doth a man to have the shell without the Kernel For the sense is the word of God not the Letter Wicked men yea the Devil himselfe maketh use of the Letter to contradict the truth it self as St. Hierome hath observed and other Fathers and constant experience certifieth not without the consent of the Scripture it self which saith of it self In it are some things hard to be understood which 2 Pet. 3. 16. they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do all other Scriptures to their own destruction Therefore because it is very necessarie to be informed of the difficulties and dangers in misinterpreting Scripture before we can throughly apply our selves to prevent and avoid them we will First shew briefly That many things are difficult in Scripture and the Reasons why and after proceed to the most probable means rightly to interpret the same And these obstacles in attaining the true sense of Gods word are either found in our selves or in Gods wisdome and Providence or lastly in the Word of God it self Some indeed piously but inconsiderately make all the reason of difficulties not denied by them altogether in the Scripture to be in Man supposing they hereby vindicate Gods Providence from that censure it might otherwise be liable unto if so be that God should deliver such a Law to man which could not well be understood but apt to mislead men into errour And therefore say they It is the darkness and perversness of mans understanding and will that make things in Scripture obscure and not the condition of the Scriptures themselves But this no ways doth attain its end For when did God deliver his written word unto Mankind
Passive preparedness we speak of doth not so much as either open the eye to discover the use or benefit of Grace nor in the least incline the Will to desire it Now because the holy Fathers and especially St. Augustine and moderner Divines do speak of the Works of the Unregenerate as not only insufficient and imperfect but sinful yea sin it is very requisite to take their true meaning which cannot possibly be as if they were simply evil for then were they simply to be forborn and omitted but Synecdochically they intend alwayes to intimate a sinfulness in defect of what was due to such Actions compared with the divine Rule Or they called them Sin not so much from the nature of the Actions themselves as the inseparable evil of Commission alwayes accompanying them as was Pride and presumption upon their such laudable works as sufficing of themselves without a Saviour or Sanctifier Extraordinarie which they were either wholly ignorant of or contemptuously rejected to intitle them to exact Philosâ—phers and observers of the law of Nature wheâ—ein the blessedness of a man in this life consisted according to them and afterward to open the door of a Paradise framed to themselves Of these Good works thus mischievously attended as constantly they were in Natural men truly might be said by St. Austine on the Psalms Good works without Faith do but help Aug. in Psal 31. men to go faster out of the way And by Chrysostom sometimes speaking more than enough of the use of works preparatory Nothing without Faith is Good and that I may use such a Similitude as this they seem to me who flourish with good works and are ignorant of Gods worship to be like the Reliques of dead persons finely adorned And the voice of Scripture is so clear that there is no need to alleadg the same against the inefficacie of the best natural Acts to spiritual ends and purposes The more principal and useful enquiry then is concerning the works of the Regenerate done upon the grounds by the vertue and to the proper ends of Faith what they may avail a true Believer For that they are beneficial and that most of all to the benefactor himself Man is in a manner consented to unanimously or if it be not we shall make no great scruple plainly and stoutly to affirm so much after the holy Scriptures have so clearly and positively delivered the same as amongst many in these places Finally brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest Phil. 4. 8. whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise think on these things Those things which ye have both received 9. and learned and heard and seen in me do and the God of peace shall be with you And Heb. 6. 8. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh Heb. 6. 7. oft upon it and bringeth forth Herbs meet for them for whom it is dressed receiveth blessing from God But that which beareth Thorns and Briars is rejected 8. and is nigh unto cursing whose end is to be burned Who sees not here that a good Christian fruitful in good works is compared to good ground which is blessed of God and evil Christians barren and unfruitful compared to ill ground next to cursing And elsewhere This 2 Cor. 9. 6. I say he that soweth the seed of good works sparingly shall reap sparingly but he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully And the Psalmist Psalm 62. 12. agreeable hereunto saith Unto thee O Lord belongeth mercy for thou renderest to every man according to his works And Jeremie rendereth it as a Jerem. 32. 19. reason of Gods greatness which is an inseparable and essential attribute of God that he is so equal in this case saying Great in Counsel mighty in work For thine eyes are open upon all the wayes of the Sons of men to give every man according to his wayes and according to the fruit of his doings And yet more plainly St. Paul to the Romans speaking of God Who will Rom. 2. 6 7 8 9. render every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuing in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish to every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile But glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile I shall add but one more Text and that found in the Epistle to Titus which not only in sense but almost in terms proves what I laid down concerning the beneficialness of good works This is a faithful saying and these things Tit. 3. 8. I will that thou affirm constantly That they which have believed in God might be careful to maintein good Works these things are good and profitable unto men And so far as we now urge good Works the answer is very sufficient to that place alledged against the Effect of good Works in general Luk. 17. 10. where our Saviour saith in St. Luke And when ye shall have done all things which are commanded you say We are unprofitable servants We have done that which was duty to do To this I say it is fully answered though more might be said We are unprofitable to God our Master who commanded us to work for so saith David likewise My Goodness extendeth Psal 16. 3. not to thee but it is not said We are unprofitable unto our selves or that no good accreweth unto our selves thereby And I would to God that though no good Christian can deny the usefulness of Good works in general that do not denie the Scriptures or common sense yet they would be more firmly setled in the belief hereof than too many are and suffer this Faith to have its proper influence upon their lives which might be safely admitted and that without any offense or prejudice to the freeness of Gods grace as will yet further appear For the Effect of Good works doth not only confine it self to certain temporal blessings of this world and outward prosperties which in truth was the proper portion and promise made by God to the Jew under the Old Law so far as it was Ritual and Mosaical upon their obedience but it extendeth it self plainly to the spiritual blessings upon earth and immortal in heaven as our blessed Lord expresly teaches us in his Sermon on the mount saying Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter Mat. 7. 21. into the Kingdom of heaven but he doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven that he shall is to make no criminal addition to Scripture the sense being so plain And so St. Paul to Timothy teaches It is a
in this case no power at all is given or can be given nor in truth ought to be taken away as the manner is from Princes entring through the populacie into the Throne For God only is the proper and immediate Author of Right and Power which he hath inserted into Parents over their Children and hath proportionably prescribed to Kings and Princes without ever advising with the People or expecting their consent or confirmation This the Scripture it self calls Jus Imperii or 1 Sam. 8. 9. lefs significantly with us The Manner of the King Reason calls the same Justice which never takes its measure from earth originally but from heaven not from the People but from God And that Similitude found in the works of a very judicious and learned man to shew the Prophets right to institute at first Kings from their right to restore Kingly Power lapsed by reason of the visible Heir to it ceasing viz. That as the Lord of a Mannour resuming the estate of a Tenant whose legal Heirs are unknown to himself doth argue that it first proceeded from him so the right of the People to constitute a Prince over them upon a total cessation of legal Pretenders do imply an original right to be in the People of founding Monarchs doth to my apprehension infer the contrary being better stated For it sheweth no more than this That in truth God being the true and proper Lord of the Mannour this dominion is devolved unto him and not to the People And that even in such cases a tacit hand of God is seen by many eminent Instances in Histories designing the Person receiving that Rule the People being but so many Stewards of Gods Court in admitting a new Tenant to Kingly Power For by me saith the Prov. 8. 15. Dan. 2. 23 â—â—testas 〈◊〉 est apud Electores ergo nec ab ipsis datur sed ab ipsis tamen certae personae applicatur Grotius De Imperio Summarum Potestat cap. 10. §. 2. Idem de Jure Bel. Pa. lib. 3. c. 3. § 8. 1. Simpliciter esse verum negat Populum creare Magistratus Scripture Kings reign and Princes decree Justice And the like doth Daniel assert to God He changeth the times and seasons he removeth Kings and setteth up Kings he giveth wisdome unto the wise and knowledge c. The most therefore that the People do when they act most in creating Kings is under God to apply the Person to the Place or Office of Governing And therefore in the second place it is no better than Sacrilegiously done by them to mutilate that Power which God hath given by the necessary and common Laws of Natural Justice to Supream Rulers and transfer of it to themselves as it would be for a Guardian to an Orphans estate to pare and pill it and bestow it on himself although perhaps out of terrour the consent of the party so defrauded be obtained lest he should loose all Yet doth not all this contradict the general practise of Subjects who having long continued under equal and reasonable Laws explaining and particularly applying the common Supream Law of Justice to a State or People do present such Rules of Regiment to their future Prince for his confirmation unless they be so far urged on him who hath a Personal Right by Birth to succeed in the Throne as to deny absolutely to submit to him without such conditions yielded unto Indeed could they prove the Right of Choice of the Person to be the same with the Power belonging to the Place they might mangle alterate and adulterate it as they pleased For 't is a Law that a man free from Rulers as these are supposed now to be may do what he will with his own and choose whether he will part with any of it or not and what and how much he will give away but it not being so and a duty lying upon him of being Just He that as our Saviour saith is unjust in the Luke 16. 10. least is unjust also in much But thirdly to shew that there can neither be Divine nor Natural Right in the People to choose or create Governours and much less Government the impossibility of the real and just execution of this power abundantly sufficeth For if men as some have been so blind and bold to affirm were naturally free untill they brought this subjection upon themselves Then first this were general and without exceptions or but partial and with exceptions If this latter be true and some were naturally subject This will destroy the principal dogme it self and open a way to the unanswerable reasons against natural freedom For that which we have by nature we have in common and without exception of the thing it self though peradventure with some discrimination in the degree and measure But if the first be granted That all are free then must cease of necessity subjection natural of children to their parents which hath been with better advice and reason received then it hath by some been well-nigh quite disowned to the making way for Novel Politicks And again Grant that all men were once but no body could never tell when and in a certain place but no body could ever tell where equally free or at least all of years of discretion which is most uncertain It would be known first How men dare to be so presumptuous as to make such a breach of the Law of Nature as this must be viz. To part with their birth-right and to imbezel that which God had given them concomitantly with their own lives I say what a notorious ingratitude and an offense against God to alter nature it self who we may well suppose doth all things most consonantly to Divine reason If therefore men had this Liberty naturally in them I hold it no less a sin to give it away than for one to cut off a member of his body or to destroy ones reason if it lay in his power And to say that the People in such cases do not absolutely devest themselves of power nor part with what God and Nature hath placed in them because they commit only to such the Administration of such power as is resident in them radically it being neither commodious nor possible for the universal Body to manage it self to the due ends of civil Society but reserve unto themselves a right of Revocation upon the Male-administration or abuse of Power so delegated This is to traduce Divince Providence and Wisdom notoriously For what can be a greater reproach to a wise man or the most wise God than to admit such a gross errour as to so constitute and frame a thing to such ends and purposes which it can never attain and to endow a people or person with such a faculty which can never avail nor succeed to the intention of it and never be executed as certainly Supream in the People cannot but must be delivered over to another more capable subject Thus it seemeth to
to the world Upon this Innovating Hereticks were forced to seek subterfuge from revelations and extraordinary discoveries promised as they corruptly understood Scripture by Christ in St. John saying I have yet many things to say unto you but ye Joh. 16 12 13. cannot bear them now Howbeit when the Spirit of truth shall come he will guide you unto all truth c. Hence they collected That Christ communicated not all to his immediate Disciples but reserved diverse things to be imparted extraordinarily to them and the phansie of such extraordinary favours from God is such a bewitching device that few not soundly setled in Faith can chose but expect and thirst after and at last conceit that so God doth deal with them when there is no such matter And of this Sacrilegious and Heretical folly are those Churches no less than simple single persons guilty which under pretense of power in the Church which must not be denyed of declaring the sense of Scripture and Faith do in very deed invent and introduce new Articles of Faith and absurd Scholies unheard of before either in substance or form and say They do but explain only what was before implyed and included in holy Writ For all Articles of Faith all necessary and due Discipline all true Administration of Sacraments wherein the truth of Christian Churches are generally affirmed to consist must long since have been discovered from the Rule of all these or otherwise they who were ignorant of or defective in these could not lay any just claim to be true Churches of Christ So that in truth Antiquity thus understood is an excellent Note of the true Faith and the true Faith not contradicted in worship as is possible more than a Note or Sign of a true Church it is the very Being it self But where Antiquity it self is obscure the condition of a Note according to the Canvasers of this point being to be more cleer than that which is in question it cannot do this good office for us And to argue backward as too many do very incongruously endeavouring to prove that which should prove is to discover the fondness of their opinions and falsness of their cause at the same time For instance to say the Church cannot err in Doctrine therefore we must believe this to be most ancient And to affirm that no man can precisely declare the time and place when such a Doctrine entred the Church taxed for innovation is very absurd as commonly and confidently as it is used For St. Augustine on whose grounds they seem to build this supposition supposed that First no time could be instanced in when such an usance was not in the Church but many times this can be done against pretences to Apostolicalness though the direct time when it began may not be instanced in For whenas most Doctrines of Faith have some practical worship proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristoteles Polit Lib 5. 8. 175. to them and evidencing them such as are the form the matter the rites of prayer none of which recorded in the Church insinuate any such opinions in that age of the Church especially of publick approbation is it not an argument more than conjectural there was then no such thing believed in the Church though we be not able to determine when it first sprung up Again it is very weak and frivolous which is presumed as unquestionable that all abuses and corruptions in the Church had some proper period wherein they must needs show themselves according to that formality as afterwards they appeared in and became notorious No doubt is to be made but points of Doctrine had their conceptions augmentations and progressions insensible as infinite other things in nature and manners have had and daily have A man may better demand the hour in which an Apple began first to rot or the week in which an old Groat began first to be defaced and loose its form than require a determinate point of time or perhaps the year in which such a Doctrine began to be corrupted into an heretical sense and practise But many of these are very exactly and faithfully set down and found short of immemorialness of Tradition as they term it For Succession another note of the Church I find it by some divided into Succession Doctrinal and Personal meaning better than they speak For I know nothing properly succeeding but where something is departed or lost Now the Doctrine of the Church being incessant and perpetual and not diverse from it self cannot be said so properly to succeed it self as to persevere in the Church But if we should pass that order and allow this language yet the thing it self seems here quite to be mistaken it being not at present enquired into the Faith of the Church which if it were granted to be sound and Catholick doth not of it self necessarily and fully infer a true Church and upon the reasons before agreed to viz. Due administration of Discipline to be essential to a true Church but into the Form constituting it a Visible and Formal Church to which is indispensably required proper Pastors and that by the appointment of Christ as St. Paul thus witnesseth speaking of Christ leaving Ephes 4. 11 12 the earth and ascending into heaven and deputing thereupon certain Officers in his stead in a visible ministration which he ceaseth now to exercise He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ Now it is not necessary here to determine the quarrel about the kind of Officers here mentioned it sufficing to our purpose what is very evident that they who are Governours of the Church must be given to the Church by Christ But Christ acting no longer politically or visibly as hath been said and must be yielded but mystically he cannot be said to ordain any immediately in his own person but by the ministry of others Now how is it possible to distinguish them whom Christ hath appointed to constitute others in the Church from them to whom he hath given no such order but by this succession we now speak of namely a traduction of that faculty which is in one deriving it originally though by many intermediate hands from Christ himself to another succeeding him because as the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks the Priests are not suffered to continue by reason of Death This Hebr. 7. 23. surrogation then of Pastors and Priests is not to be at the pleasure or arbitrement of men to institute but must be by the will of Christ and this will of Christ must be revealed unto us either by the ordinary line and course from himself and Apostles or else must by some extraordinary and miraculous way be made known to men For though we deny it to be Christs practise to commission men to these ends we do not deny it to be
may possibly to them were this any more than to say They would be at peace and unity with them when they became of their mind did as they would have them and not differ from them But I have transgressed I fear on this subject here at present which yet is not impertinent altogether it proving that it is Lawful to Excommunicate such who agree with us in Faith And the summ of the reason is this viz. Because there are as hath been acknowledged on both sides yea is almost on all sides granted two things essential to the Church Doctrine and Government or Discipline as it is called to act any thing to the violation of either of these may justly subject a man to this Ecclesiastical Censure And however at first sight dissension and opposition to the Rites and practices of a Church may not appear of a mortal nature of themselves as being perhaps about things in nature alterable yet in the consequence making a breach in the wall of the City of God they let in certain ruine and destruction Thieves and Robers And this holds no less to the Justification of the Church in Excommunicating refractory and disobedient persons to the Church in her citations though in truth the ground of her citation be matter of small moment It were indeed much to be wish'd that such severe sentences might not be executed but on occasions of greatest moment not only for the persons sake so excluded but the Churches sake denouncing whose autority must needs be much weakened and her sentence much contemned when upon matters appearing meerly trivial and light it is inflicted And therefore most useful it seemeth That redress of pecuniary pretensions on persons relating to Ecclesiastical Courts should not be by Excommunication but from the Civil Power enabling the Ecclesiastical to exact their dues But where this is not in use and where no other means appears of obliging men to reverence and submit to Ecclesiastical Powers but the punishment Ecclesiastical I would fain have such persons who profess not the utter abolition of such autority and dissolution propound some other effectual way of keeping up the power and autority of those Courts besides Excommunication before they declare so smartly against the abuse of it Lastly whosoever doth by contempt and disobedience first deny the Churches power and in very deed sever himself from it can he or any man of Christian reason or modesty contradict the Churches Act in declaring and formally manifesting what was more closely but really before done by himself So far as a man disobeys and opposes the Church so far is he really separated from it And to be partly on and partly off as some men propound to themselves and please themselves in thinking it free to choose and leave at their pleasure what their private judgements shall lead them to is not at all to clear them from the guilt or imputation of Schismaticalness For all proper Schismaticks agree in many things with the Church which they trouble and divide And every Schismatick stands divided from the Church And may not the censure of the Church by Excommunication most reasonably at least follow a mans own Act and declare that to be so which himself hath made so especially not only thereby or so much punishing the Offendor as securing the innocent and sound by such notice from the like contagion Doth not St. Paul cleerly imply so much when Gal. 5. 12. he saith to the Gallatians I would they were even cut off that trouble you How did these intruders and seducers so trouble the Church as to deserve such Excision or Cutting off By two things principally one whereof follows in the next verse by a presumption of such Christian Liberty which was never intended by Christ for his Church Another was in point Gal. 1. 6 7. of doctrine innovating rather in form than words For it was not another doctrine of the Gospel that was offered to these green and unstable Christians but another Form the easier to prevail upon their Consciences and to alienate them from their true Pastors Such as these would the Apostle have Cut off and therefore very false and frivolous is that ground of Socinian Extract mentioned in the beginning viz. That nothing which in it self hinders not salvation can give just occasion of Excommunication I do not here as many insist much upon the words of Christ in St. Matthew whereby he warrants a man to account him as Heathen and publican Math. 18. 15 16 17. who shall refuse to hear the Church arbitrating and judging within it self because I am of their opinion who expound this not of excommunication from the Church but of a freedom granted to a man to go to the humane Civil Power for justice against such a brother as if he were no better than a Heathen and Publican who will not listen to the voice and judgement of the Church Yet surely this intimates a power in the Church to determine and a duty in the members of it to submit unto the Judgement of it and if a private man may treat one of his brethren as he would a heathen in some cases may not the Church This is the least we can honestly make of Christs Charter given to the Church by St. Peter in Mat. 16. 19. the same Gospel I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven But consideration and limitation of this grievous censure is not to be omitted according to diversity of Persons Relations and the Causes given from whence I suppose arose the distinction of Major and Minor or Greater and Lesser Excommunication of ancient use in the Church And Anathema and Excommunication according to the Ancient differ For Excommunication is nothing else but a denunciation of a person alienated from the Communion of the Church in the mysteries and worship proper to Christians And this we may take to be the Lesser Excommunication but Anathema or the Greater Excommunication besides excluding from Christian Communion added a Curse corporal which the Scripture calls properly a Delivering unto Satan as well for the destruction of Body as Soul Thus was that incestuous person excommunicated by St. Paul For the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit may be 1 Cor. 5â— 5. saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ For though we say that this Anathema was to the destruction of the flesh we mean only Actually as in that state but the end of that was rather the Salvation of it by such outward judgements reducing the offender to repentance This Anathema upon the body by plaguing it being miraculously inflicted hath ceased But yet not all bodily punishments with it taking here bodily punishments not only for bodily pains but bodily and outward losses Of this sort may be those separate men from all Civil Communion
danger or necessity in the case of their Souls as Bodies and therefore neglect the proper means conducing to their everlasting health And this is yet more expresly propounded to us in the fifth Chapter of Leviticus where we read of many Errors and Offences to be redressed and omitted And that by bringing a Trespass-offering for the sin that he hath committed a female from the flock a Lamb or a Kid of the Goats for a Sin-offering and the Priest shall make an attonement for him concerning his sin Now the manner how and the terms upon which this attonement was to be made are expressed in the words before viz. He shall confess that he hath sinned Ego ut efficacibus scripturae testimonus argumentis irrefutabilibus non pâ—ssum à 〈◊〉 vincere hanc confessionem hanc inquam qualis nune in usu est à Christo aut etiam ab Apostolis esse institutam ita piis omâ—ibus religiose observandam censâ—o veluti saltem ab Ecclesiae proceribus non sine afflatu Spiriâ—ûs Divini inductam Erasm in Exomologesi apud Gesnerum Tom. 5. in that thing And to whom to God privately or to the Priest also who was upon his Confession to make an attonement for him There can be no doubt of the latter And in the Gospel though I dare not nor Erasmus affirm any particular direct Procept purposely delivered to enjoyn this yet by consequence and implication it seems to be required especially in some cases of apparent and grievous errors committed against the Faith and Holiness of the Gospel For hither may the words of Christ well be drawn whereby he commissioned his Apostles to act in his stead himself leaving this world * John 20. 23. Whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained Which words some Modern Interpreters restraining to the power of preaching the Gospel though I confess that to be true must patiently suffer others to leave them as they have their Predecessours in that gloss For first the Gospel might be preached by others as well as the Apostles And next whatever Remission of sins attends the publication of the Gospel is to be imputed not simply and barely either to the Preaching or Hearing or Believing the same but to the admitting by an effectual Faith all the things the Gospel requireth to be done by us And as by the preaching of the Gospel in general and common a general remission is also published So by a particular application of the same unto the particular and private Case of some one Person is confirmed in particular the state of Grace or Impenitency to particular persons according to the judgment of the Priest And to this also pertaineth what Christ saith in the person of St. Peter to all bearing this Office I will give unto thee the Keys Matth. 16. 19. of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou bindest on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou loosest on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Implying indeed a Power communicative of persons scandalous to the Faith and Church of Christ But of the same power it is a branch which is in every single Priest proceeding judiciously in the Court of Conscience to the binding that is declaring bound a sinner or loosening declaring him at least absolved from his sins upon his repentance manifested to him Now the Reasons obliging a man to this Confession upon Scripture grounds are these First That the Minister of God being according to his office not only to preach Christ and Repentance and Faith and remission of sins to all in general but to apply and accommodate himself to the particular exigencies of men receiving and diversly affected with the Gospel which cannot possibly be but by a particular revelation made to him either from heaven or the party to be judged So that although it should be a sufficient discharge of the Priests part and office to make a general promulgation of the Gospel and so declare that whosoever believeth and repenteth shall be saved but whosoever believeth not shall be damned Yet the hearer or receiver doth not thereby fully discharge his part unless he understands more satisfactorily than ordinarily men can of themselves their condition under the Gospel For secondly By this Confession to another a man comes better to understand and judge himself as to his Faith and Manners As no man can naturally without the help of Art see his own face nor those eyes which see all things see themselves but by looking stedfastly in the eye of another may So can no man so well at least no not by the glass of Gods word discern those things in himself which are to be seen by anothers eye and therefore it must needs be a means to bring the presumptuous to repentance and the distrustful to a comfortable serenity of mind and consolation Thirdly Confession is not only a sign or an act of Contrition but a proper means thereunto For some there are who come to confess their sins and have no true sense of them others have a real sense which is commonly called Attrition being well assured and convicted by their own Consciences they have done wickedly and broke Gods sacred Laws but there wanting the grace of ingenuous sorrow and an affection out of Charity or Love to God this sense will not avail to obtain pardon at Gods hands wherefore by the wise Ministry of the Confessour as he is called he is to be wrought to a sorrow of love and such as is conceived as well for the evil of sin in it self as the evil of punishment it subjects him unto Whence Chrysostome in a certain place speaketh thus I would have you have a sense of Chrys Tom. 1. pag. 139. your errors by Confession and shew your ingenuity of your selves For though it be a foul errror to hold as many of the Church of Rome do that the very coming to Confession or the customary sentence of the Priest turneth Attrition into Contrition i. e. imperfect and of it self unprofitable sorrow into saving yet the joynt exhortations not to be separated in such cases do tend naturally to the more sincere conversion of a sinner unto God upon the account of vertue it self and the love of Good and of God Fourthly Such Confession is a very notable aw and restraint upon the offender it being too common with us here to fear the eyes and ears of men more than of God And infinite sins we daily commit which if we were thoroughly perswaded should come to the knowledge of Man we would not dare to do though we be assured in general that they must be known to God And 't is an extream folly and direct untruth which some have entertained That we must do things only upon the most perfect principles to the most perfect ends For 't is better a man should abstain from drunkenness to save his purse than not at all And that a child
They are of three sorts Some profess him to be God but deny him to be true and real Man Others believe him to be Man but deny him to be God But the Faith truly Christian professes both viz. That Christ was God and Man We shall remit for brevities sake the Reader to what hath been said before proving the mystery of the Trinity out of the Scriptures and that Christ the second Person in the Trinity is the Son of God by natural Generation supernatural to us And to prove the second out of the word now there is scarce one such Heretick who denyes it may seem superfluous That which is to be demonstrated is That there was time of union of that second Person in the Trinity with Man and that this union was such that it constituted not two Persons but one as St. Paul plainly writeth to Timothy There is one God and one Mediatour between God and man the Man Christ 1 Tim. 2. 5. Jesus And therefore whatever doctrine so speaks of this Mystery as to divide the Natures into two Persons as if there were two Mediatours two Saviours two Christs between God and Man destroyeth the Faith of a Christian no less than that doth which denyes these two Natures to concur in one Person the Eternal and Divine Nature and Person assuming in the fulness of time humane Nature inconfusedly into the Divine To the proving this we take that as a sure ground and founadtion which St. John hath laid to build his Gospel on That there was an Eternal Divine Nature in and from the beginning and that this Divine Nature was diversified by three distinct Persons that one of these Persons is called the Word For he saith In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with John 1. 1. God and the Word was God Ridiculous are the violences offered to these words by Hereticks who first take here Beginning not for that highest and higher than the Creatures comprehension can mount to of all durations which none is afore and none come properly after but for a tearm of time properly fixt and for want of more remarkable do pitch upon the first publication of the Gospel as that beginning answerable forsooth unto that speech of Moses In the beginning God created the heaven and the Gen. 1. 1. earth but the agreement is too little to make such interpretation because it is plain that heaven and earth not only had a beginning but gave beginning to time it self measured and observed by them And it is plain that the Gospel did not begin so soon by almost thirty years as Christ began according to his humane nature And if it be taken of the Person of Christ What can be more absurd than to say In the beginning was the Word that is Christ began when he began Therefore the word here can neither be taken for the Gospel or Word preacht but it must be meant of a word superiour and anteriour to both as doth yet more plainly appear from the phrase used The Word was with God and the Word was God For the heavens and earth which are said in Genesis to be made in the beginning cannot be said either to have been with God or to have been God nor can the humane nature of Christ not extant till some thousands of years after the first Creation be said to have been in the beginning with God and much less to have been God And the like may be said of the Word spoken by Christ and his Apostles which the Scriptures do not reckon to have begun at Christs birth nor many years after For thus saith St. Peter in his Sermon to Cornelius That Word ye know which was published throughout all Acts 10. 37. Judea and began from Galilee after the Baptism which John preached The Word therefore according to this account was not at the beginning but after Johns Baptism But this is not all this is nothing in comparison of what is added The Word was God The humane nature of Christ precisely taken was not God therefore another Word must be allowed to be God And that must be the Word Eternal and Personal And if this be doubted of I thus argue from the words following In that sense that Christ is said to be Light is he said to be the Word but Christ is said to be Light and the Light is said to be Christ and St. John Baptist disavows that Light John 1. 7 8 9 10. and ascribes it to Christ And therefore as the Person of Christ is signified by the Light so is it by Word And how can we possibly make sense of Christs words in St. John if Christ prae-existed not before he came into the World in the flesh And now glorifie thou me O Father with that glory which I had with thee before John 18. 5. the foundation of the World It may be said that before the foundation of the World such decree of glory might be given to one future but thus it cannot be said of him who is described to be actually possessed of it before the foundation of the World and that a man is said to be possessed of which he is said to have had as here And how could Christ say truly Before Abraham was I am when he was not Fifty years old according John 8. 57 58. to the Jews account And that he puts a distinction between his comming from the Father and his seeing the Father otherwise than any before him or of his time proves a prae-existence and presence singular with God Not any man hath seen the Father save he which is of God he hath seen the John 6. 46 62. Father And to this adde what follows What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before Doth not this plainly imply that as Christ did really ascend after his Resurrection and sate at the right hand of God in his humane nature so he was there before some way or other and no way can be thought of but his Divine nature as St. Paul intimated to the Ephesians He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above Ephes 4. 10. all heavens Now if any will be so captious as to except against this because the Divine Nature cannot properly be said to descend because it filleth all things it is true in rigour of speech what they say but not according to the form of speech frequent in Scripture which then affirmeth God to descend when as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha he appeareth Gen. 18. 21. and revealeth himself more sensibly as Christ did taking humane nature on him And this prae-existent Nature of Christ to his humane being proved that these were so united together must be also shown And to this the single express testimony of St. John may suffice an equal mind The Word John 1. 14. was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us And we beheld his glory the glory
and state than Religion in common so yet in Christian Religion it self are there more large and free and more strait and determined wayes of serving God which when they are not moveable or mutable in themselves may be aptly called states of Religion subordinate to the general Profession We are therefore first to consider the formal cause of this stating a mans self in Religion and then the principal matters wherein this state doth consist which may be reduced to these three Holy Orders Celebacy or Singleness of Life Monastick Life with its appendages of Poverty and Obedience That which gives the formality to all these and makes them a proper state is the bond of a Vow under which a man binds himself duly to observe the same And a Vow is a solemn and sacred promise made to God by a Person free to that thing of performing somewhat above his ordinary obligation For by the common covenant and obligation every Christian hath upon him as a Christian and baptized he hath bound himself to observe all things directly commanded by God and which are necessary to salvation But because these things necessary to salvation are not so easily determinable by every man but varying according to the talents of Grace and Nature according to outward means and according to opportunities put into the hands of Man by God it hath been ever both prudently and piously practised by devout and faithful persons to secure the necessary duties by taking upon them some things that are not of themselves or generally necessary to the pleasing God and saving themselves These extraordinary Services are commonly known by Counsels Evangelical or Perfections because they tend to a more perfect and devout walking with God in Mortifications Self-denyals of the pleasures and unnecessary Comforts of this world and more pure immediate and spiritual communion with God in the exercise of acts of Religion There are many amongst the eminent Reformers who oppose such Evangelical Counsels it is to be feared because they would carry away the credit from others of being Religious and cannot endure to have any thing more eminent in that Religion condemned by them than is to be found in their Reformation and therefore they say there is no such thing to be allowed or received as Evangelical that is in plain tearms Christian Perfection but all states of Christianity are alike For surely had it not been self-defense and self-love not to venture flesh and bloud farther than is absolutely necessary but that they might enjoy the world in all its benefits and accommodations not inconsistent with future bliss they would never have dar'd to have contradicted the common voice of all Christians one or two perhaps excepted who were manifestly reprehended by the general sentence of the age wherein they lived and not only Christians but Jews and not only Jews but Heathens too pretending to Religion And for my part as I reverence that as a Law of Nature in which all men generally conspire and concur so do I esteem that as a Law of Religion which all Religious People have in some manner used But all People as well Christian as Unchristian have ever allowed as very laudable the use of Vows in Chastity and secludedness from the common course of the world And this is of greater force to me than any arguments by the adversaries brought to the contrary They want not indeed certain pretty colours to perswade rather than prove their modern singularities Some of which and the principal are these First that we are commanded to love and serve God with all our hearts with all our souls with all our strength and therefore there can be no place for such perfection seeing it is no more than we are bound to do To which I answer That to love and serve God with all our might is in the general a direct Precept and not barely an advice or counsel given to us But the special duties wherein this universal and absolute service of God consist are not so determined For we may love God with all our hearts according to the intent of the Command in any one state of life that is so far as to prefer God and his service before and above all and this may suffice to carry us to Heaven But this All may be taken Intensively or Extensively Extensively when we subject all things really to our esteem of God not idolizing any worldly thing or equalling it to him But still Intensively a man so long as he continues in this world may proceed to higher degrees of the Love of God And these more perfect degrees are acquired by more constant attendance on Gods worship and this attendance is caused by sequestring our selves from those many worldly cumbrances incident to us in this world which though not absolutely unlawful for were it that Marriage or Monastick life were simply and generally necessary no question but they would have been commanded or forbidden directly yet upon common consent more hazardous than the severer part of Christian life may be And neither wedded life or a political life are of themselves evil but expose a man to more temptations and leave him less at liberty to attend on the Lord without distraction Yet all this will admit of exceptions some men undoubtedly whether Laical or Clerical living much chaster in wedlock than others do in Celebacy and singleness of life and some men living more divinely and holily in the midst of much business and tumultuous Cities than others in Cloysters or Desarts remote from the worlds contagion and vanity For might not this be Precepts would certainly have been delivered in Scripture to bind us to one way But no judgment or conclusion of a Case is wont to be made by wise men from the variety and uncertainty of particular persons but in reference to the thing it self whether such ways of serving God which are vulgarly called Evangelical Counsels are not in themselves with the like concurrence of Gods Grace and other due circumstances which may be supposed common to other states more probable and apt means to attain heaven and serve God more devoutly than the other and whether this state of separation and dedication of our time and actions unto God are not more susceptible of the Grace of God than common conversations The Affirmative we maintain and see not how the foresaid reason opposes it to any purpose A second main reason is That though it is lawful and may be expedient to choose such a kind of life yet it is not so fit to bind our selves to it by a Vow For we must vow to do nothing which is not in our power to perform But such kind of Chastity suck kind of Separation and Sequestration of our selves from the World and civil Society is not in our power to fulfil And that because they are the special Gifts of God as the Scripture telleth us when it saith Every man hath his proper gift of God 1 Cor. 7. 7.
home Thou mayest pray indeed but thy prayer not have the like efficacie as when it is made with the proper members as when the entire body of the Church sendeth up its Petition with one consent with one voice the Priests being present and offering up the prayers of the whole multitude Wouldst thou know of what great force the prayer that is made in the Church is Peter was bound in Prison c. Acts 12. 5. And is it not most strange to consider the bold ignorance of the common sort who dare to turn the words of Solomon and that even in that prayer of Dedication and signalizing the House of God above all places else for Gods worship against that and all other Houses to that holy intent and to make all places alike when there is nothing so manifest as that that place was only assigned by God with special injunctions and promises For when Acts 7. 48. c. 17. 24. 1 Kings 8. 27. they say God doth not dwell in Temples made with hands out of the Acts of the Apostles what do they say more than Solomon at the time of dedication But will God indeed dwell on the earth Behold the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee how much less this House which I have built Doth not the argument prove that God is no where to be worshipped because he is locally no where contain'd in a place Or does it prove that he is to be worshipped in private Houses or contained in them rather then in the publick The Gentiles as St. Pauls words intimate imagined that by certain Images they could bind their Gods to be present and limit them to certain places from whence they could not well stir And this is the reason that some ancient Fathers as Arnobius and Minutius Felix denyed the Christians had any Temples then meaning such charmed Images and Shrines to hold God fast to them The Jews imagined as appears by St. Stephens words that Gods promises and blessings were so precisely determined to that One Temple amongst them that he would by no means impart himself in like manner in any other place To this fond and superstitious conceit it was very proper to quote their own Prophets against them who imply what St. Paul expresses else where Is he the God of the Jews only Is he not Rom. 3. 29. also of the Gentiles Yes of the Gentiles also c. And by vertue hereof whatsoever the Scripture may seem to ruder readers of it to speak by way of disesteem of material and visible Temples implies no more than an equal right of the Gentile Temples dedicated to God under the Gospel with the Jewish under the Law But that even the publick places of Christians should be looked upon with no greater respect or religion then that which comes next to hand is no where to be found and far from being the purpose of Christs words out of which another exception is made viz. Where two or three are gathered together Matth. 18. 20. in my Name there am I in the midst of them For what I pray is it to meet in the Name of Christ Only to take his Name into our mouths To turn over the Scriptures and to turn them this way and that way and prosess great matters out of them By no means 'T is true this is somewhat towards it But notwithstanding this men may meet in the name of the Devil rather than of Christ and do the works of the Devil rather than of Christ For to do the will and work of either is to meet in the name of either And no men who in their very meeting it self as such are enemies unto Christ can be said to meet in the Name of Christ speak they never so gracious and glorious things of Christ and Religion But they who lightly vainly and causlesly affect separation and dismember themselves from the visible I say visible Body of Christ the Society of Saints by Election and Profession are thereby direct enemies to Christ and can never meet in Christs Name according to Christs intention though as the worshippers of Baal on Baal they call on Christ with never so much zeal and earnestness from morning to evening as we have already shewed where we treated of Schism And when at length will they who under such obscure and fond pretenses separate produce any one thing which may countervail the notoriousness of the evil of separation as a reason to warrant them so to do But this either the gross insensateness of the vulgar in such points or the desperate resolution to hold their own whatever may be said against them is little or nothing look't after till it be too late CHAP. X. A fourth corruption of the Worship of God by confining it to an unknown tongue Scripture and Tradition against that custom A fifth abuse of Prayer in denying the People their Suffrage contrary to the ancient practise of the Church BUT before we leave this publick worship we are to observe somewhat of the manner how it ought to be performed and that to rescue it from two abuses principally crept into it The first of the Papist and the other of the Puritan unluckily falling into the same condemnation with the other Two things are as evident as Tradition not to say Scripture can make any thing First that all publick and private prayers were instituted in a known tongue Secondly that there was a concurrence of the vulgar Christians with the publick Minister of such Offices Both these are now quite almost worn out of use amongst the Romanists and being disused a defense framed studiously against the practise of them The latter hath been practised and maintained by Puritans though first invented by Papists The authority of Scripture for the publick prayers to be made in a known tongue seems to us and not only to us but to our more ingenuous adversaries very express in St. Pauls Epistle to the Corinthians The subject 1 Cor. 14. of the fourteenth Chapter of the first Epistle is to redress the vanity of certain gifted persons who presumed to teach and pray in such a forreign tongue which no man understood but themselves For whereas it is commonly replyed by the Learned Romanists that the Apostle speaks of preaching chiefly and not of praying in publick It matters not much if he doth speak of preaching as certainly he doth so it be evident that he speaketh of prayer also nor that he principally teacheth of prophesying if he omitteth not publick prayer Is there any thing need be plainer than this on our side If I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth but v. 14 15. my understanding is unfruitful What is it then I pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the understanding also I will sing with the spirit I will sing with the understanding also Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned
by the Greater sort who commonly by building themselves large and stately Pews and inclosing what is every poor Christians Freehold as well as the richest and noblest of the parish make it more sacred to the common Christian than any other part of the Church besides For that must be kept under lock and key and if not yet the greatness and power of the person who hath laid that out for himself suffices to deter any ordinary man from making the like use of that as of any other part of the Church lest his secular hand lye heavier upon him than the Ecclesiastical power can or must upon him for such invasion of every parishioners right as well as his So that what it is not lawful for or just to do to the Common for beasts or Town-Green where he lives he makes no scruple at all to do to Gods Peculiar and the Common to Christians As if so be Churches now-a-dayes were of the same nature with new found and possessed Lands in the Indies every man may have what he can enclose and fense in for himself and his friends only Whereas this should be well understood by every good Christian that hath the fear of God as a Christian ought before his eyes that the poorest person that takes collection in the parish hath as much reason and right to erect places in the Church to themselves and to possess themselves of any part of it as the rich but that it is not so much in his power And doth any man think he hath a good Right because he can do it That we can do saith the Law which we can Idpossumus qued sure possumus lawfully do But that we can lawfully do which the Common Law doth not interdict alwayes For the Common Law whether because it concerns altogether men in their civil capacities and proprieties such as this is not or whether it hath not heretofore been such a Dragg to enclose all it could lay hold on without consideration of other Courts Ecclesiastical which were alwayes received in all Christian Commonwealths but left many things to the decision of the more peculiar Laws made in behalf of Churches and Ecclesiastical Cases hath made no provision at all for the securing of the Rights of the Church or Christians thereunto belonging I mean in their Capacities properly Ecclesiastical so that scarce any remedy can be obtain'd from thence if a man shall steal any thing off the very body of the Church it self And can any man that hath any sense of Religion take sanctuary or protection from that in defense of his violation of Christians Rights and think all well done that is not punishable by that Law and lawful that it doth not interdict For by the same reason a man may inclose to himself a third part or more of the Church But they will modestly say that were unreasonable and I will boldly say so is the other and especially where when the Authours of such Fabricks making no use of them themselves shall deny the use of them to others case so requiring But that which is yet more intolerable is That the power and purse of the Great man who is alwayes to remember that the poorest man in the parish hath as much Law and Right on his side to shut him out as he hath to exclude and over-top the poor in his building should enable and embolden him so far as to take a considerable part of Gods sanctuary and inclose that from all use and access to lay the bones of his Family in and wholly to alienate it from all Divine Services and dedicate it only to corruption and with impudent Sacriledge to erect many Monuments and Tombs in a Canton they have usurped to themselves which being as is said no less lawful for any man than for one man instead of Christians in time we should have a Church filled with Sepulchres of the dead And when this is once done to endeavour a redress of such sacrilegious invasions of Gods and good Christians Rights is to expose Gods servants to not only the obloquy power and mischief of too potent an Adversary but to the dammage of Common Law which though it can give no right so to do yet will certainly defend the wrong-doer if he can plead custom But I have often thought that God in this last Age hath done himself Justice against such Families as have been guilty of such prophane usurpations in that he hath stirred up a barbarous Sect of Christians of late and let them justly into Churches like Goths and Vandals to break to pieces pull down and raze the scandalous monuments of many Churches erected to the honour of Man and dishonour of God At first all dead Bodies were lookt upon by the Heathens themselves as unclean and unworthy to be buried within the walls of their City Lycurgus was the first that suffered Corps to be interr'd in the City and that Plutarch in vita Lycurg Eutropius Lib. 8. Cicero de Legibus l. 2. near the Temples in Lacaedemon saith Plutarch The first of all Roman Emperours and much more of the inferiour people that was buried within the City was Trajane the Emperour which was prohibited by a Law of the twelve Tables as Cicero witnesseth And St. Vedastus was wont to say That the dead should not be buried within the walls of a City which was a place for the living and not for the dead as Alcuinus in his life writes And it is certain no Christians at all were buried in Churches for many hundred years but certain proper Cemateries or Dormitories were allotted for that purpose remote from Churches Pope Nicholas the first about the year 867 was thought to be preferred to be buried before the Church doors of St. Peter saith Nauclere And the same Nauclere writeth how Nauclerus Vol. 3. p. 64. ibid. p. 94. that about the year 983 Otho the third Emperour was buried at the Threshold of St. Peter at Rome And when they had brought dead bodies to the Church door they soon presumed to bring them in and found a reason so to do because the bodies of true Believers and holy Servants of God were not to be looked on as unclean or unworthy of so sacred a place because they had been themselves Temples of the Holy Ghost and were to be rennited again to their blessed spirits in heaven And not only so but the nearer the Altar always the better mistaking that place in the Apocalypse I saw under the Altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and Rev. 6. 9. for the testimony which they held collecting from hence that for Martyrs and holy persons that was the properest place to be buried in And the Cannon Law surely misguided by such a vain perswasion hath decreed it necessary to the Consecration of a Church that there be the body or at least some Relique of a Saint there posited But more reasonably doth it erre when it
the matter before such as they find startled and impatient at such plain derogation of Gods honor But they who openly profess to give Divine honor to Saints thus state the matter as doth Azorius Hoeretiques Azor. Instit Moral l. 9. c. 10. Quinto quaeritur c. saith he no wayes deny that Saints are to be honoured with that worship and honor which men eminent for vertue power wisedom nobility and Authority may be worshipped with for such honor as this is altogether civil and human but they tax Catholiques for worshipping them as God that is that they give divine honor to them But greatly are they mistaken For Catholiques worship them not as God but for Gods sake worship and honor them For as before Minime cols pro Deo sâ—d propter Deum c. we said Catholiques worship not the Image for God but for Gods sake So in like manner we honor not Saints only with that honor wherewith we honor vertuous wise and noble men but with divine honor and worship which is an Act of Religion But we give not divine honor to them for their own sakes but for Gods sake Thus he Against which we object sacriledg and Idolatry thus loosly delivered For as for the distinction it serves their turn nothing at all It implies with us a contradiction For to give Divine honor to any Creature is Idolatrous for what reason or for whose sake soever it be given Neither is it possible a man should give it to a Creature for Gods sake meaning as I suppose they do for the honor of God For divine worship being proper to God and incommunicable to any but him can no more be given for his sake to the Creature than supream honor to a Villain for the Kings sake And therefore as he goes on to erect Temples and Altars and offer Sacrifices in honor of Saints which is to tell us more plainly what they mean by Divine worship and this as they say for Gods sake is with us Idolatry who deny that any such things can be done really to Gods honor and much more that God would have them so honour'd or himself by them And whereas a little before he saith It was the Heresy of Eustathius as Socrates writeth in his History l. 2. c. 33. That Saints were not to be worshipped but God alone as being against the first Commandment There is no such thing to be found in that place but this we find which expresses the dealing of the Romanists in this and other controversies viz. how that Sccrat l. 2. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eudoxius being in Julians dayes placed in the Episcopal Throne of Constantinople he uttered these words in publique God the Father is impious but God the Son is pious at the hearing whereof the minds of all present being much troubled and beginning to mutiny He added Let not this saying trouble you For 't is true thus God the Father is impious because he worshippeth none but God the Son is pious because he worshippeth the Father Which being heard the tumult was appeased and instead of it they all fell out into laughter and so was that saying ever after look'd on as ridiculous In like manner when these new Divines come with great swelling language of divine honor to be given to the Creature in their interpreting themselves they must be very heretical and prophane or very ridiculous Or rather it is both to say We must give divine honor to Saints for Gods sake yea an abomination yet greater to make God the author of his own injury and degradation as it were to set up a competitor to a King against his will or at least without his will for his sake But suppose what may not be granted that there is a favourable interpretation and tolerable practise in the Church of Rome of these things I am sure this is not tolerable that such sayings as these and many more should pass untouched or uncersur'd by them yea are kept and nourished and preferred much by the most Visible autority of their Church and the other softer inferior sense allowed and made use of chiefly to dispute with and to decline the force of a resolute accuser and to satisfie green proselytes with who are not able to digest the stronger and ranker Divinity they have for them in store when it shall be too late to see the truth and must have their mouths stopt and all objections and scruples answered with this The Church cannot err It is most apparent that God neither in Old nor New Testament hath given any such warrant as Ahasuerus did to Haman to exalt Mordecai or Pharaoh to honor Joseph for us to honor Saints in exhibiting any thing of divine worship to them I shall not need therefore trouble this place with their citations to that purpose which is not to the purpose when it was there manifest to all that such honor was the honor not of a King but a principal subject and Minister of state Neither do Scriptural reasons advance their cause Whereof some are so parabolical and forced that they fall to nothing before they come to us as that of Mat. 24. 26. and that of Saint Peter 2 Pet. 1. 14. 15. being plainly intended of the records he would leave with them he wrote to to bear in memory what he delivered to them as Cajetane hath noted And the Power promised Rev. 2. 26. to them that overcome is not as they violently give out a power to dispense blessings and therefore to be sought to by Invocation but a power to be victorious in the Faith against all persecutions And those reasons drawn from Apoc. 5. 8. and 6. 10. and 8. 3 4. Are all besides the vanity of the form of the argument it self upon a false foundation and supposition viz. as if those things there related were acted in Heaven and not upon earth True it is as hath been noted before that the Vision of the Apostle is implyed to have been in Heaven concerning things there revealed to him but it was of things only to be fulfilled on earth And though it is most easie fit and obvious to interpret the Angel offering incense as the servent prayers of the holy Saints upon earth to God the Father yet it is I conceive more literal and agreeable to the intent of the Revelations made to interpret them partly as descriptions of things doing then in the Church and partly as prophesies of the future condition of the Church in the publique Service of God where by the Angel we are to understand the Bishop who in the first dayes of the Church was wont in presence and behalf of the people to offer up the common prayers of the People at the golden Altar viz. The special place of his ministration which prayers and worship did like incense ascend unto the holy Throne of God And the fire which is said to be cast from the Censer and Altar unto the earth is
there be no Sermon there to offer their Prayers unto God and be instructed and edified out of the Word of God But I hold it best considering the many prejudices and superstitious surmises that are bred in the minds of too many simple Christians concerning the use of Gods house and the worship therein to propound what might more accurately be spoken of that subject from the opinion of Chrysostome that devout and judicious Father in an Homily against such as absented themselves too much from the House of God in these words so near as I could translate them He that loves doth not only desire to see his friend Chryâ—ostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pag 1. 2 103. Tom. 8. whom he loveth but the very house only and the gate yea not only the gate of the house but the very holes and passages thereunto And if he sees but the garment or pantofle of his beloved he imagines himself to be present Such were the Prophets because they saw not God who is incorporeal they beheld his House and by his House imagined they had him present I should choose to be prostrate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the House of God rather then to dwell in the Tents of sinners Every place Every Room Psal 84. compared with the House of God is the Tent of sinners though it be a Court of Justice though it be a Council-house though any mans private House For though there should be Prayers though Supplications there yet must there necessarily be strifes and contentions and evil language and debates about secular cares But this House is clear from all these Wherefore they are the Tents of wicked men but this the House of God And as the shore free from winds and waves affords great safety to the Barks which put into them In like manner the House of God drawing such as enter into it from the stroms of outward businesses causeth them to abide in great calmness and security and to hear the Oracles of God This place is the Foundation of Vertue the School-house of Philosophy or wisdome and that not only at the time of assembling when the Word of God is heard and spiritual Doctrine and the Reverend Fathers are assembled but likewise at every other time Enter into the Porch only and suddainly as it were a spiritual Brees incloses thy soul And this quietness leads thee to trembling and teaches thee to be wise It elevates the mind and suffereth thee not to mind these present things It transports thee from Earth to Heaven And if so great benefit doth aâ—crue unto thee being there when there is not any Congregation what great profit must they needs reap who are then present and what great dammage must they suffer who are absent when the Prophets on all sides sound forth when the Apostles are preached when Christ stands in the midst when the Father disposes matters there done when the Holy Spirit affordeth its own joyes Would ye know where such persons spend their time who despise the Congregation what witholds them and what withdraws them from this sacred Table and of what is there discoursed Or rather I know clearly For rather they prate of absurd and ridicuious matters or are fix'd on worldly cares But both these exercises fail of pardon and have extream punishment And for the former there is no need so much as of a word or demonstration Yea that they who pretend the affairs of their house and alledge the unsupportable necessity from thence can by no means obtain pardon being called once aweek and even not then enduring the preferring of Spiritual before Earthly things is apparent from the Gospels For they who were called to the spiritual Marriage made such excuses as these One that he had bought a yoke of Oxen one that he had purchased a field another that he had married a bride but they were all alike punished They may be necessary causes but when God calls they are no Apology For after God all things are necessary After his honour let all other things be regarded For what servant I pray tell attends the affairs of his own house before he hath finished his Lords service c. And in another place he as plainly and zealously contendeth for the Time as here he doth for the Place of Gods worship directly refuting the vain imaginations of them in his days who contented themselves in appearing in Gods Chrys Proaem in 6. Orat. in Annam Tom. 5. p. 78. To. 8. p. 8. House on Festival days only I would we had not them that had learnt worse Doctrine then this Such saith he are to be perswaded to communicate according to every Festival assembly For though saith he Whitsuntide is passed yet the Feast is not over For every coming together is a Feast Whence doth this appear From the very words of Christ himself Matth. 18. 20. whereby he saith Where two or three are gathered together in my Name I am there in the midst of them But when Christ is in the midst of them assembled what other proof of a Feast would ye have greater than this Where there is teaching and praying where are the Benedictions of the Fathers the hearing of Laws where the assembling of Brethren is and the bond of sincere Charity where there is conversing with God and God discourses with men why should we not call that a Feast and Solemn meeting c. Thus he And are not all these to be had many dayes even when there is no Sermon And have not men been of late taught to despise and prophanely deride such incomparable daily blessings as these and the benefits flowing from them the more is the shame and the more is the pity God of his great mercy and grace teach us better and better settle us and incline us delivering us from that prophane imposture which hath of late been wrought into the minds of Christians most unchristianly that it is needless nay perhaps worse superstitious in publick or private manner to visit Gods House by Prayers and Praises offered there to him but when a Sermon is at hand A second Precept of the Church is to all conscientious Christians and obedient Children of God and the Church To observe the Fasts of Directions after the Kalendar and Rubrick after the Nicene Creed the Church which Fasts the Church makes fourfold The Fourty Days of Lent Ember Days at the four Seasons being the Wednesday Friday and Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent after the Feast of Pentecost after September the Fourteenth and after December the Thirteenth The Three Rogation days being the Monday Tuesday and Wednesday before Holy Thursday or the Ascension of our Lord. In all which we must note and suppose that Fasting it self in general is the Ordinance of God himself and not of the Church this duty in a manner contrary unto that of rejoycing unto God and Feasting standing upon the same Grounds that Festivals and Days of
parts both of which retain with them inseparably the necessary ingredient of Fear excessive and needless And the one is a Fear of omitting something judged necessary to be done though in truth it be not The other is a Fear as vain and groundless of committing something necessarily to be avoided as either unlawful in it self or interdicted of God when there is no such matter though he be loudly told there is Both these are really Superstitions the first Positive and the latter Negative being both influenced from Conscience which terrifies the one to do and deters the other from doing without cause not without suspicion or presumption For Conscience taken in the Religious sense cannot be affected but at the apprehension of Apparent Good or Evil at the least And if this be but only an Apparence and not a Reality then is the conscience mistaken and falls into superstitious acts and places Religion in those things which are not capable of such high acts Thus for instance If a man should ascribe as much to the worship of the Body given to God as he doth to the Soul or Heart he were undoubtedly superstitious in excess And on the other side if a man having heard much of the excellencie of Spiritual Worship above outward or Visible should think so contemptibly of this and all acts thereof as unlawful and sinful or superstitious without doubt he were notoriously guilty of Superstition Why Because according to his own principles and phrase he places Religion where God hath not and makes a conscience of that which God no where willeth him to do but rather contrariwise adviseth him to comply with though not by a particular express Law by general and implicite First requiring as really though not so primarily bodily acts and outward reverence as inward and spiritual Secondly by endowing his Substitutes Governours Ecclesiastical with such power as we have before proved to belong to the Church by Gods concession And this agrees very well with the most received definition of Superstition amongst Christians till of very late years when men having a mind to secure their own stake and to blast and traduce the opinions of such as think otherwise than they do fansied and framed to themselves definitions of that and other things as might best agree with their own perswasions and impugn their Adversaries By which unlearned and unjust proceedings they grosly define Superstition by Popery it may be or somewhat else they dislike answerably and Popery by Superstition or a little more regularly not more truly by Will-worship or Humane Inventions for which there appear at least to them no grounds in the Word of God But this they are mistaken much in as well in respect of the Rule by which they would try and condemn Superstition as of the Cause Humane Prudence which they will have no otherwise termed than Humane Inventions when it sutes not with their pleasure which is too commonly called called Conscience For the Scripture hath no where tyed up Christian Authority so strictly as not to permit it to interpose in any thing concerning the Worship of God without special and manifest warrant from thence But the contrary is most certain that it hath granted so much Liberty to Christian Churches as to fashion themselves and modellize their Worship without fear of incurring the violation of it or the offence of God so far as manifest restraints and inhibitions do not appear to the contrary And this Calvin himself once well noted if his own Interests would have suffered him to have been constant to what he delivered against the Anabaptists Improbare quod numquan imprâ—baâ—it Deus niâ—â—ae est homini c. Calvinus contr Anabapt p. 27. 8o. viz. To oppose what God never opposed I must tell you is more rashness and arrogance than is fit for man But let us constantly hold to this that the Authority of God is usurped when that is condemned which he hath permitted They therefore who set their Consciences against those things be they Rites Ceremonies or Traditions by good Ecclesiastical Authority enjoyned which God hath no where forbidden do certainly fall into flat Superstition and that as themselves describe it though not intend it For they without Gods word frame to themselves Fears and Scruples They as the Prophet saith Fear where no fear is creating Good and Evil out of their own heads and at their own pleasures yea contrary very often to the express general Licence and Warrant of Gods Word And whereas Humane Inventions are much cryed out against and made very formidable to such superstitious fearful Heads they are to be earnestly desired to be willing to understand what we can scarce think them so weak as not to be able to understand How that in no place either of Moses or the Prophets or the New Testament Inventions of Men are used in an evil sense but as they imply somewhat rather contrary to then besides the Divine Precepts Sometimes they are used for gross defection from Gods prescribed Worship and for Idolatrous Superstition and sometimes for opinions and practises inconsistent with Gods Law as the Traditions of the Jews condemned by Christ in the Gospel And what is all this to those usances against which after more then an hundred years eager search of the Scripture to this evil intent nothing hath been found or alledged contrary to them But general exceptions tinctur'd speciously with Scripture phrases to no real effect There is no more pernicious Humane Invention than this their fundamental Maxim Nothing must be commanded by Man which is not commanded by God and It is against Christian Liberty to obey Lawful Superiours but where they show Scripture particularly for what they command whereas the truth is these ought according to all reason and good conscience to produce sufficient testimonies of Scripture exempting them from submission under the guilt of disobedience and superstition too both plainly condemned by God in his Word before they oppose themselves to Authority And to this do well agree the Definition given by Thomas of Superstition Thom. 22. Q. 92. 1. Superstition is a Vice opposite to Religion in the excess or extream Not that a man can give more of Divine Worship than is due to God but that he gives Divine Worship either to that he ought not or in a manner he ought not To the first part belong all Direct Idolatry and all Indirect such as are Divinations and innumerable vain Observations of superstitious Heads who from every light unusual occurrence in the Earth of Beasts in the Air of Birds and Fowls in the Water or Fire or Heavens do collect and conclude unlikely things to the great disquiet and fear of their mind their distrust or neglect of Gods Providence and the forsaking of the common rule of Reason and the word of God which ought to regulate mens hopes and fears above all things in the world To the other appertain both that we call Positive Superstition
dismiss them the holy Guardian refusing such an unprofitable and servile office and at the same time in effect invite evil Spirits to joyn with them in their dissolute courses and to manage them therein To the confirmation of which I shall only translate the words of St. Hierom upon Habbacuck As Christ is the Head of his Church Hieron in c. 3 Habbac and every man so is Belzebub the Prince of Devils the head of all such Devils as rage in this world and every company of them hath their Heads and Princes For example Spirits of Fornication and Uncleanness have their Head the Spirits of Covetousness have their Prince the Spirits of Vain-glory the Spirits of Lying the Spirits of Infidelity have their Presidents of mischief This I say supposing the great opinion which asserteth the Ministration of good and evil Angels as is here intimated from the grounds given in Scripture and such a cloud of ancient and modern witnesses against Calvin in Act. 15 Psal 90. Mat. 18. 10. whom it pleased Calvin to interpret Scripture in this point with addition of scoffs and derisions which I here leave to them that like them well and proceed to this visible and inferior World CHAP. VI. Of the Works of God in this visible World Of the Six days Work of God All things are good which were made by God IT is plainly affirmed in the entrance of the History of the Creation that In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth By Gen. 1. 1. which two general Bodies we understand all particular reducible to either of them and that there is nothing so pure perfect or noble above which we call heavenly Bodies but God first gave it a Being neither is there any earthly Substance so imperfect base or impure but his hand descended to the framing of it For first Nothing is abâ—olutely evil but only as there are sâ—me more excellentand divine things made by God which eclipse their glory which otherwise would be seen and noted in the most vile thing of all And secondly Nothing is so base but that an infinite Power is requisite to the first production of it neither did the divine hand labour more in produâ—â—ng an Angel than the first deformed Matter out of which other things were made So that the error of such Hereticks as the Marcionites and Manichees who constituted two Gods from the diversity of things appearing to them good and evil was no less sottish than blasphemous and derogatory to Almighty Gods Nature and Providence For as the Scripture tells us after a particular view made by God of every days work he pronounced all things to be good so at the consummation of all things he passeth this sentence upon all his works together And God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was Gen. 1. 31. very good And to the general Objection against this taken from the contrariety and Vide Petrum Comestorem in Genesim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost in Gen. Serm. 7. enormities one thing hath to another in the world and especially the great evil that many things bring unto man for whose good they seem principally to be intended such as are ravenous wild Beasts venemous Serpents and deadly poysons lurking in Plants The answer is ready and fair viz. That God made not any thing absolutely for anothers no not for mans good but for his own Glory and the manifestation of his Power Wisdom and Goodness to all And therefore though by nature some things are repugnant to one another nothing is contrary unto God all the contrariety to God found in the Creature is meerly accessory and not natural and that only in such Creatures as were at first endued with so much freedom of will that they might persevere in that natural perfection given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aeneas Gazaeus in Theophrasto them or fall from it Again After the chief of Gods ways as the principal order of Angels and Man were degenerated into evil the Universe continued notwithstanding perfect and God provided for the evil it self crept into it For as in a Dispensatory all things are not sweet but some sharp and bitter all things are not lenitives but some corrosive and cutting and there are poysons and counter-poysons So is it in this great World God hath disposed every thing in its proper place and to its proper end and one contrary to counterwork another to the benefit of the whole and constituting of all a most excellent harmony As in a well-tuned Lute or Harp the strings stand many times of themselves in discord but being toucht by the skilful hand of the Artist do render to the ear excellent harmony In like manner the discord of the Elements and other compounded Bodies being most wisely ordained and moved by the hand of the all-ruling Providence do make an excellent consort to the praise and glory of God Lastly As it is no less necessary to the preserving of the common peace and tranquillity of a Nation that there should be Prisons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysoft To. 6. Serm. 102. p. 895. Psal 8. 1. 3. Psal 19. 1. as well as Palaces and whips and halters as well as honours and riches So is it in the world the Commonwealth over which God alone presides necessary that for the deterring of evilly-inclined persons for the repressing of seditiously and rebelliously-disposed persons and malefactors against God their Soveraign there should alwayes be at hand Gods Instruments to châ—stise and punish them and this is done by commissioning and arming the Creature to seize upon them by afflicting the body or estate of the contumacious or meliorating them to an higher degree of perfection So that though some things to man in some one capacity may be found to be evil yet is it not in all respects and in it self not at all And thus is resolved as well the evil aspects and influences of the Heavens as the violences of inferior bodies against man nay the reason of Hell it self as Chrysostome saith For that the Heavens are the work of Gods hands hath been shewed before in the general Discourse and may yet farther from the Authority of the Psalmist which saith of God He hath set his Glory above the Heavens And The Heavens are the work of thy fingers the Moon and the Stars which thou hast ordained And The Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy-work 1. That God therefore made the Heavens and all the Hosts thereof is most plain and as most plain so most necessary to be believed but concerning the nature and number of them it is rather a Philosophical curiosity than Christian duty to enquire And that little which we may draw from Scripture hath more of reason in it than all the presumptuous imaginations of men for such I call their defining them to be solid oâ—bicular bodies moving like wheels about the earth and
consisting of eight Sphears with a Primum Mobile or First Mover and an Empyreal Heaven and a special Court as it were where God sets more especially enthron'd arched over with the roof of another Heaven for all which there is no more solid reason than Scripture to be found though some for want of soberness and better proofs as the Jewish Rabbi have presumed to determine the number of the Sphears from the expression in the eighth Psalm where it is said The Heavens are the work of thy fingers ten fingers Psal 8. 3. ten Heavens but the Scriptures speak of no more than three 2 Cor. 12. 2. And that they are rather to be understood as so many Regions distinguishable in the air than such superior bodies appears from the synonymous use of the Fowls of the air and the Fowls of Heaven as in Psal 79. 2. and Psal 104. 12. Jer. 7. 33. Ezek. 31. 6. Gen. 1. 26 28. Yet as no man can out of Philosophy or Scripture determine the nature or number of Heavens is it not to be peremptorily denied that there are distinctions of places of Bliss And though it be little otherwise than blasphemous to confine God to the highest largest fairest room called 2 Chron. 2. 6. an Heaven as that there should be any â—imits set to his Court or Throne of Glory yet may we well believe God is somewhere more gloriously revealed than commonly he is in all places though he be in all places and where he displays his Glory and beatifies his more immediate servants there is Heaven as we say There is the Court where the King is It is true we gather reasonably from the position and motion of celestial Lights a distinction in distance and motion of them and that a peculiar tract there is for most of them but that this space should be roof'd over round with a pellucide solid aetherial substance is an absurd collection of Philosophers no ways favoured by Scripture which as it hath touched things of this nature with greater simplicity so with much more probability inviting us rather to an admiration of the divine Power and adoration of its Providence in ordaining so admirably those bodies as for his Glory so for our instruction and edification in his service The same reason doubtless there is of Time and Place as weâ—l â—n respect of the Creator as the Creature It is impossible but the Creature should be limitable by time and space both and it is impossible God should by either be so and therefore no less derogatory to his Being is it to imagine God terminated by space than by time The other part of this visible World is that which we call Earth with the several bodies pertaining unto the same as Water Fire and Air all which though of very different nature or use to us are properly earthly The solid part and grosser which we signally call Earth and that liquid fluid and purer substance we caâ—l Water being the two most principal parts and elements out of which all things here proceed Fire and Air being no distinct bodies of themselves but subsisting upon their grounds and especially Air being nothing else but a purer composition of the substance of Earth and Water flying about the earth and ministring continuall refreshment to all earthly living things Fire indeed is of a wonderful subtil nature and operation most active but whether any thing in substance distinct from the other and not only in quality is scarce to be understood And though Philosophy busies it self to the losing of its way in the search after these things and presumes to determine and impose upon others its uncertain Conclusions yet the modesty of Religion contents it self to keep a mannerly distance where God by the Mysteries of Nature and much more of Theology seems to say Stand off which we shall contenting our selves at present with that brief narration of the manner and order of the Creation of all things found in the first Chapter of Genesis where we note the way of Gods working to be most like himself without any pains or trouble but by the simple and absolute word of his command given Let there be Light It is said indeed that God in six days made all things in Heaven and Earth as if the Creation took him up both time and pains to compleat it whence some fearing to make the matter too gross on Gods part have as Austin introduced an Evening and Morning relating rather to the Angels than Men making that the Morning when those holy Spirits beheld things to be Created in the divine Nature and Vision and that Vespertine when they were actually seen in themselves existing which interpretation hath not been received in the Church as solid But rather this Morning and Evening which could not be natural until the Sun was created which it was not at the first is understood of a competent distance of time which it might please God not out of necessity but free choice to work in to declare his order and give us a more distinct knowledge of things and especially to prevent that error to which man was too inclinable in conceiving all things were eternal which we now see For if they were so then could there be no distinction or distance of time between one thing and another but where there is such a diversity of time there of necessity must be posteriority and priority and so no eternity For that which some bring out of Ecclesiasticus to prove the production Eccles 18. 1 of all things in one moment viz. He that liveth for ever created all things together is a mistake in the Latin Translation only which renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek so which is better translated as we do In general intimating that nothing subsisted but by him Or it may be said All things were created together or at once meaning that what God did produce he did it not after the manner of men who bring their work to perfection by degrees and many acts but every thing that was made by him was made at once in an instant And this general consideration of the six dayes Work of God may suffice here not descending to each particularly only we shall speak of the Creation of Man in particular as the chief of Gods wayes and the Rule and end of other Creatures CHAP. VII Of the Creation of Man in particular according to the Image of God Of the Constitution of him and of the Original of his Soul contrary to Philosophers and the errors of Origen concerning it The Image wherein it consists principally CREATION we have shewed is the production of a thing from nothing and so the first man was not created immediately for it is said God formed man of the dust of the ground and Gen. 2. 7. breathed into his nostrils the breath of life And St. Paul likewise to the Corinthians saith The first man was of the earth 1 Cor. 15. 47.