them render Catholicks extreamly odious to their neighbours and perjured if they took them And here I cannot but commend the conscientiousnes of Pagan emperors our ancient persecutors who though they ceased not to deprive the poor Christians of their dignities state and lives yet did they never offer them an oath concerning religion which they knew beforehand to be against the articles of their beleef those great heroes knowing full well that as perjury is a deviation from the right reason of humanity so can it be no other to drive any one upon it Nay emperour Julian sirnamed Apostate openly protested in one of his epistles that he would have no manner of violence offered to the conscience of the Galileans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know that to pacify the Puritans who excepted as highly as any catholick against them although upon other grounds the Oaths were by roial interpretation both of Queen Elizabeth and King James much mollified but that their exposition was private incompleat and unknown to Catholicks and which the words as they sounded would hardly and very hardly bear However catholicks as they did ever offer themselvs to take any oath of allegiance which were purely such and involved not an abnegation of their antient Christianity so likewise have they ever shewed in deed and fact that they would keep the allegiance tho they took not the oath whereas others took the oath and broke the allegiance And which of these two is most honest and Christian like our B. Saviour has in the like case long agoe decided A certain man said he had two sons and coming to the former he said son go to day and work in my vineyard and he answering said I will not but after repenting himself he did it Now coming to the other he said in the like manner but he answering said I go my Lord and went not Which of the two did the will of his father They said unto him the first Jesus said unto them Amen I say unto you that publicans and harlots shall go before you into the kingdom of God the reason of this application is becaus the Jew had entered an oath or covenant with God but did contrary the publicans took no such oath but yet when time served fulfilled it But whiles we thus armed our selvs against the Roman catholicks the disgusted part of Protestants who deeply disliked this new episcopacy whereby they might be as much curbed as by the catholick one before did multiply amain and were oftentimes ready to make head both in the dayes of queen Elizabeth and king James insomuch that the byshops and state were often in great perplexity and utterly to seek what they were best to do if they should favour the puritan so the antepiscopal protestant began then to be called or let them alone they would increas unto publick danger if they should resist them as it could not be done without scandal and hazzard so neither could they tell how plausibly to effect it either by word or sword for this there was no sufficient colour for that no reason sith they did but only press home the first principles of reformation which if they were fals by what right was the Roman catholick so persecuted and undon if true why should english protestant-episcopacy against those principles be permitted to stand Yet at length our state concluded still publickly to persecute the Catholick thereby to give some little content to the Puritan and privately with all vigilant care to suppress the puritan thereby to be more inabled to maintain our selves against the Catholick whose state and dignities we had entered upon And our English byshops they chose rather to side with their younger foe the Puritan than with the Catholick their elder antagonist becaus unto him in so doing they might seem free benefactours to the other but just restorers of their due besides the novel levity of the Puritan could not if it were a little countenanced or connived at in any probability do so much prejudice to our prelate-protestant as would the antient renown of Catholicks if the religion should com again into favour with that land that had not yet utterly forgot its former glory And although the danger to protestancy might be equal on both sides if the power were alike yet the Catholick would with a more uncontroulable justice enter upon his own means and dignities of which he had been deprived by violence than could the puritan invade anothers which yet he never had although indeed he might pretend as much right to undermine the new established protestant-episcopacy as protestants the antient catholick faith and clergy which although in truth it signified no right at all yet ad hominem it was good enough and the puritan if he did it must be justified or the protestant if he judged him must condemn himself In the interim these waters of puritanisme increased and swelled so high that about threescore years after this our english reformation they brake out into effect in the reign of good K. Charls the first and overflowed all and the of these twenty years civil wars wherein the rage of sword bore down all before it is not yet out of our minds Whence we may see how vain the policies and consultations of men sometimes be God sits in heaven and laughs at them Our favouring of the puritan which we chose for our safety when we studied the Catholicks overthrow hath brought upon us a speedy ruin And yet we are still but where we were and in the like fears of that generation which knows not the things of peace whereas the grave and sober Catholick if he had been countenanced had by this time morally speaking much innobled and strengthened the land and reduced it to the former splendour it had in antient times As soon as the puritan had got the victory and overthrown both our ecclesiastick and civil state he fell himself into many subdivisions of presbyterian anabaptist and quaker which struggled and contested one with another not only in pulpits towns and cities of the land but in our parliaments too those very parliaments that had overthrown popery as they called it namely our protestant religion and monarchy with the few Roman catholicks that were in the land when they had once subdued all to their-will And how zealously every one of these canonises his own way to the disparagement of all others what biting books and sermons are darted forth by this latter progeny against one another as well as against the papist and protestant is so evident I need not speak it The Puritan seems now to have yielded up his place and title this his great battle being ended unto the new and later off-spring of Presbyterian and Independent who are now grown old enough to begin a new battle and sight if they want a common adversary with one another for all the brood is able and strong enough at ten years old to go forth to battle which will still
comfortles of whom the world is not worthy whereas the slightest of men even vanity and sensuality it self vaunts it in silks and fulnes of all plenty I should be infinite if I should specify the innumerable uncouth changes and chances in this world all which carry no reason or equity at all in their forehead The stories of empires and kingdoms from the beginning of time to this day the records of all provinces the lives of all particular persons in the world are all but little draughts and epitomies of this great amazement all whose causes since they be so utterly unknown to us that we can discern no reason or right for them it appears that we know of our selvs as little of this great abyss as of the former And it concerns us I should think not to be puffed up as generally we are in our opinions but to humble our selves wherein consists our greatest wisdom before the great creatour and governour of the world as well in this as other secrets altogether unsearchable and say Surely thou O Lord art just and wise and entirely upright in all thy wayes altho we worms understand it not for shall not the judg of all the world do right Shall not he do right himself that judges and punishes every creature for their iniquity and wrong This is an abyss that hath in it not only amazement but danger and therefor I leave it more willingly Thus God both in himself and works and providence is a triple great abyss altogether unsearchable by man as we may in a manner see by all has been hitherto said and much more to that purpose reserved to thoughts and meditation But the more to strengthen my assertion I will conclude this matter with the addition of autority which coming now into my mind I cannot totally omit To the unsearchableness of the first abyss which is God in himself that great prophet attests who proclaims him to be a hidden God a God that hides and conceals himself God saviour of Israel and no less that grave Apostle who professes of this great God that he inhabites light unaccessible though it be light yet whiles it is inaccessible light we are never the near to see it To the unfoardablenes of the second he subscribes that was esteemed the wisest of men to the other one of the holiest The wise man speaks thus Vide afflictionem quam dedit Deus filiis hominum c. I saw an affliction which God hath laid upon the sons of men that they should be rackt in it he made all things good in their time and gave up the world to the disputation of men that man might not find out the work which God hath wrought from the beginning even to the end Men talk and dispute of Gods works but what is the event to find out somthing surely tho it be but little nay nay if we may beleev wise Salomon to find out nothing even just nothing from the beginning to the end and who would not wrangle and disturb the whole univers about such disputes as these where opponent and respondent conclude nothing And that the world might not think this speech of his to be hasty or less considered he repeats it again afterwards Intellexi saith he quod omnium operum Dei nullam possit homo invenire rationem eorum quae fiunt sub sole quanto plus laboraverit ad quaerendum tanto minus inveniat etiamsi dixerit sapiens se nosse non poterit reperire The holy man of the third abyss which is of God providence and ordination of things speaks thus O altitudo divitiarum c. O the height and depth of the riches of the sapience and science of God how incomprehensible are his judgments and his wayes unsearchable Who hath known the sens of our Lord or who hath been his counsellour or who first gave unto him and retribution shall be made for out of him and by him and in him be all things to him be glory unto endles ages Amen And all that I have hitherto said about our ignorance both of nature and providence is but in explication of our B. Saviours antecedent in his argument to Nicodemus and to close up my whole discours I finish all with his syllogisme If you conceiv not saith he terrestrial things when they are spoken or propounded to you how can you think of your selves to comprehend celestial and so say I. §. 10. Help NOr are we much helped either by Plato or Aristotle himself and many hundreds of his disciples and our masters who have filled the world with their philosophical discourses in this our speculation After a thousand questions and disputes wittily raised nimbly handled prolixly discussed resolutely determined and strongly guarded against all opposition of argument after our whole courses of logick physick and metaphysick well penetrated and understood our heads indeed we find a little stuft with strang and uncouth words which is the outward rind and bark of knowledg but real science where is it what do we yet truly and certainly know of the many things God hath made or done amongst us Even so little and in so small a manner that without offence we may call it nothing And so must every one acknowledg except he will pretend himself to be wiser than Salomon And the business of religion must needs concern either God in his own nature and properties or his works or providence in all which things we are of our selves equally ignorant as well he that advances his way with passion as he that defends himself as well the opponent as respondent and the advantage if any there be is precisely on his side that exceeds in humility and resigns himself to some greater autority than any private mans can be Let us therefor be sure we are in the right before we whet our indignation about it against our innocent neighbour and since we can never find that out of our selves let us never strive against him with passion but either discours with a sweet charity and moderation or els leav him altogether as he is in his own thoughts which for aught I can know of my self may be true and good his reasons tho not to me yet to an indifferent arbiter may be equally perswasive with mine own and perhaps more efficacious and on both sides but topical places at the best if both opinions be personal and stand alone separated from all autority extrinsecal whence they should receive a further and more prevailing power for no demonstration or uncontroulable science is to be expected in this world by such poor worms as we about either God or his works or constitutions and whatsoever is said be it asserted never so peremptorily may by the same or semblable grounds be as stoutly contradicted What then can we do better or more consonant to the darknes of our present condition than to have peace with all men to judg none to suspect our selves and commend the innocent
words and Christ then should but only administer matter for this great new rising Sun to quicken On the other side if I be not to follow anothers reason but my own what variety would there be in the world about the same thing not only betwixt man and man but betwixt one man to day and the self same man to morrow for the opinions which be totally from our selves we change continually upon the variety either of our own intrinsick dispositions or casual alterations from without and in each seaven years resolution we find a whole volum of new thoughts and judgments within us contrary to former ones we had of the same things diet clothing pastimes company nature providence books and yet all must ever be true for generally in all the ages of our life we are equally obstinate in that we set upon so that whiles reason is licensed to create a religion not only all the religions which any particular man shall run through in his life time but those also what ever they be which whole kingdoms and nations shall at any time accept of in a word all the religions of the whole earth must needs be justified And he can mean no less who would have that to be religion and only that which reason makes forth Both heretick and catholick both Jew and Christian pagan and Mahometan do all and every one stifly defend that his religion is rational that his best reason is with it and for it and that no right reason can be against it If reason that should follow once go before and lead religion it will sodainly thrust Christ out of his chair and separate at once all his Church from him For if I hold nothing but what reason dictates then is not Christ my master nor will there be any Church that may any more belong to Christ than to Democritus Aristotle or at least dame Nature If any reply that we must take the words from Christ and his gospel but the proper sense which words of themselves cannot carry with them our own reason must make out This indeed is true thus far that as we do understand languages and human words so are we accordingly to conceiv of their meaning as we know those words were either at first imposed or by long use have got the power to make out and if those words speak faith the same Church gives both words and sens together expounding them by her very practis which we daily convers withal but if any will further by his pretens of reason give power to any or all men to make out at his pleasur a particular sense of his own differing from the ancient meaning conveighed together with those words this must needs justifie Calvins private interpretation from which this new doctrin differs but in words whiles that is here called reason which he calls spirit and both do equally exclude the guidance of any Church besides the temple of their own heads in both wayes every one is in deed and reality chief byshop to himself and equally will religion be as various and mutable as our thoughts and answerable to the natur either of our reason or spirit here wide there narrow there none at all Nay what is there in christianity that one reason or other as well as peculiarity of spirit may not deprave and frustrate the gospel may be made to speak Mahometisme with one reason the Alcoran to Evangelise by another S. Paul had no doubt a very sublime intellect and yet he declares that his own and every understanding in the world is to be captivated unto the obedience of Christ and his faith and that all Christians walk by faith and not by species or evidence which is a quite contrary way to this that would have no religion but what coms from reason According to this all are to walk by sight and not by faith but in St. Pauls judgment all Christians are to walk by faith and not by sight this would have faith captivated to the obedience of the understanding St. Paul would have the understanding captivated to the obedience of faith And good reason it should be so for are not most part of the things our Lord revealed contingent and hid from our eyes And if there can be made no demonstration in nature of the things we do see and touch and convers withall as is sufficiently insinuated how can things invisible be reached and confined and concluded by reason and this indeed is the very ratiocination of Jesus Christ to Nicodemus whose word I should beleev although I did not my self know either the antecedent to be true or the inference certain and necessary In my mind it is a poor imagination to think that doctrinal words delivered beleeved and practised in the world for almost two thousand years should now at length be to receiv their true sens from a new doctour in our times which hitherto the whole Christian world wanted and through the universall ignorance of mankind could not till now finde it out and to adde for further countenance of the way that the Church hath three times 't is pitty she is not allowed her quatuor tempora in the first she walked by credulity in the second by probability and in the third which begins in these daies of ours by scientifical demonstration is as weak a fansy as the other for one and the same Church must have the same motives and grounds and practise and articles of religion which must needs be all of them excessively divers if that were true The same conclusions and articles can never issue from a dark credulity a purblind probability and a staring demonstration I know that in the second and all ages of the Church preachers and doctours explicated and declared their faith by congruous similitudes and reasons but neither then nor in any time of Christianity did they frame their faith either by reason or probability nor yet allowed it either to stand or fall by those means St. Austin Eusebius and St. Bernard lived in that which is by our new Rationalists called the age of probability and yet the first in his book de utilitate credendi confutes the Manichees for saying that faith is not to be admitted till a clear reason of every thing be given Eusebius in the fifth book of his history condemns the Arthemonites for straitning faith within the limits of human wit St. Bernard in his epistles confutes Abailard for the same fault And they were all three backt with that great apostle who speaks confidently that fides est rerum non apparentium Heb. 11. And again by another if not the same as great as he who said we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a scandal to the Gentiles folly for the Jews ask a sign and the Gentiles require wisdom 1 Cor. 1. So that in St. Pauls divinity as 't is Judaisme not to beleev without a sign so likewise to suspend our faith upon philosophicall reason is pure paganisme
disputant and moderatour both opponent and maister of the chair both interpreter and judg The Roman catholick I do not here mention for the taking Him for his guide and judg from whom he first received his scriptur and faith and expecting all resolutions of doubts only from his lips can never stagger or fall into perplexity But with Protestant Presbyterian and Independent whose utmost resolv is in their own hands the case is otherwayes And the combat that is amongst them is the most desperate imaginable whiles any visible speaking judg being excluded by them all each one fights against all the rest with the same topick ratiocinations that none but he that uses them must judg Scripture is for us scripture is easy and we have it the spirit that is in us teaches all truth the light from above us is only to direct us and not men who are lyers c. And these if they prevail overthrow him that uses them so that to the same combatant must needs happen by the same means both death and victory and the same autorities and argumentations if any of them obtain his desire must bear both a probility for him and a prejudice against him Thus the Protestant if he do or will pretend to convince the Presbyterian then must he at the same time and for the same reasons yield to the Roman catholick with whose discourse and arguments he flourishes and triumphs against him and yet being uttered from the mouths and pens of Catholicks against himself he contemned and jeered them And if the Presbyterian texts and reasons be of force against the Protestant then must the Protestant fall by that instrument by which himself stands and subsists against the Papist against whom he hath ever used those very assertions and arguments and the Presbyterian too must stand and fall upon the same account the same weapon laying him dead before the Independent which against the Protestant supports him The Independent if he be able by strength of his light and spirit to maintain himself against all his foregoers Presbyterian Protestant and Papist then by the same reasons must he needs fall when a new fansy rises by any succeding generation A strang case and indeed a meer riddle but a certain truth And the Catholick all this while to a disinterested understanding whiles all his enemies condemn one another stands uncontroulably justified in his oppositions to them The Independent is in the wrong saith the Presbyterian and Protestant the Presbyterian erres saith the Protestant and Independent the Protestant is deceived saith the Independent and Presbyterian you are all mad men quoth the Roman Catholick you first abused and supplanted me and now by the same wayes and means you do supplant and abuse one another But if I may interpose my judgment the Protestant although I honour his gravity above all the rest seems to be in a wors case than either Presbyterian or Independent for these in maintaining themselvs and their wayes do but strike home the first principles of protestant reformation whereas the Prelate-protestant to defend himself against them is forced to make use of those very principles which himself aforetime when he first contested against popery destroyed as be the difference betwixt clargy and laiety the efficacy of episcopal ordination the autority of a visible Church unto whom all are to obey and the like so that upon him falls most heavily even like thunder and lightning from heaven utterly to kill and cut him asunder that great oracle delivered by S. Paul in his letter he wrote to the Christians of Galatia Sī quae destruxi iterum haec aedifico praevaricatorem me constituo If I build up again the things I formerly destroyed I make my self a prevaricatour an impostour a reprobate A heavy sentence But truth will out and wisdom will be justified at long running even by her greatest adversaries It seems that those pieces of popery we so desperately inveighed against for our own interest were indeed not evil but good The Protestant may indeed with some plausible show excuse himself and say that the first Reformers though sent from God yet might they notwithstanding have some little mixture of humane passion and infirmity and so out do their work and decry more then in truth they ought to have don as he that would straighten a crooked wand bends it as much the other way to the end that by that over force it may at length recover its mediocrity and straightnes and what ever is done amiss by earnestnes of passion may by a second thought be mended And this excuse would find place in any busines of humane concernment but whether it may be of any weight in affairs of religion and divine faith I leav others to judg for what may be pretended by all unto endles changes can never be rightly said by any and S. Paul having assigned that property as a signal mark of a prevaricatour I should think we may beleeve it without further dispute However by the reassuming of this episcopacy be it the substance or shadow of Popery or what you pleas our English Protestant Church became by that means the very best and choisest flower of all the Reformation no order no decency no peace no uniformity in all the world where Protestancy was received like unto that we here enjoyed under our bishops in England nor could any man by the force of nature suspect any the least rottennes in the foundation of such a handsom fabrick I am sure I had not but by a strang chance that happened to me in my childhood And although our Prelate-Protestant is not able to answer the Presbyterian objection standing upon his own first principles of reformation which do indeed and ever will justify all revolts to the worlds end yet by the principles of his Recovery those I mean by which he reassumed Episcopacy too precipitously decried by the first reformers which principles be firm and good and right Christianity he will easily frustrate and dissolv all opposition but then he must creep into the bosom of Roman catholicks and beg the assistance of their arguments which before he foolishly contemned For every Body be it what it will natural politick or spiritual must so long as it remains entire and sound have the same principal parts and organs it was born withal and cannot endure long even in a contrary posture of them without dissolution and ruin Take any kingdom that is settled in monarchy and if you endeavour once the subversion of that Polity you do at the same time take away the life of all her laws and rights and utterly disturb her happines and peace which are so mixed and intangled in the very nerves and sinews of her laws and these again so settled upon the polity as upon the prime innate influent Calid and radicall primogeneal Humid that all goes together and take part alike either in weal or woe This truth we have had a sad experience of in the
them or to them in the catholick but not in the protestant sens If any one like not this my way of explicating this holy custom of the Church he may use what other he pleases But this I do use as most facile and connatural to pious oratory which easily diverts unbeleevers objections and best answers to the state not only of Christian saints but also those of the old law who could not see the necessities of men upon earth by any mirrour of divine essence which then they enjoyed not and yet they were prayed unto then as well as the Christian Saints be now And to me it seems irrational to defend an easy custom of religion by a hard subtility of philosophy which clears not but renders that obscure and doubtful which was clear and utterly undoubted of before All Christians ever beleeved saints invocation to be lawful and pious but it entered not into the Creed of any that those of another world either hear or see what we do in this and this opinion brought to clear the other practis is harder to beleev than it and no point of faith neither although by the subtility of Christian Philosophers it be rendered probable enough to such as allowed of the Christian custom aforehand This pious rite of saints-invocation common to the Hebrew and Christian Church is necessarily justified upon the supposal of three principles which all I think will grant First that Gods grace whereby men are made partakers of the divine nature is in a singular manner in some persons more than others secondly that the souls of those holy people and merits of their good works are immortal with God even after their death thirdly that God cannot dislike the reflections of his divine nature diffused in them out of the fulnes of his beloved son when any one makes use of them the easier to find mercy in his sight And all protestant objections as Come unto me saith Christ c. are but childish for who does a man come unto or go unto but Christ and God alone when he sues to none but him for grace and mercy whether he use or use not the helps of other intercessour with himself to facilitate his request As innocent therefor is popery in this as in any other her religious practises and we destitute of argument to carp at them for it Let us therefore love and not hate rather honour than diminish them without caus §. 28. Dirge ALl over the catholick world prayers are constantly made for the dead both in publick and private Insomuch that one day in a week the altar is set apart for that purpos and it is a rare thing when one half hour in every day is not spent there by some priest or other together with the people for that end nor is there a private person in the world that makes any orisons apart but will send forth som short ejaculations for the requiem of souls departed before he give over So that I may truly say it is as ordinary for Catholicks to pray for the dead as for the living and for one another as for themselvs And this custom carries with it so great a show of piety that for my part I could never dislike it and I have heard but few discreet persons speak otherwise against it than only as an ungrounded opinion For of it self what can it be but purest humanity to remember our friends when they are out of sight and to pray for them even after their deceas a most pious charitablenes The question is whether the doctrin be well grounded or whether it may make for good accordingly to use it If the deceased be utterly dissolved and soul and body equally extinguished then it is likely my praier cannot avail for any benefit nor will it becom either my charity or discretion to pray for them that are not for God is not the God of the dead but of the living as our Lord speaks nor is he to be requested for benefits to any thing that is not existent and absolutely incapable to receiv them But if their souls be still immortal with God where or in what condition soever they be it cannot hurt I should think either me or them to wish them well for wheresoever they are if so be they are any thing they are present to God who fills all things if not more yet assuredly as much as we that live this mortal life and as they themselvs were when they lived amongst us and God whom we pray unto is equally present both to them and us who assuredly hears and sees and knows us both And since the Almighty has set a limit to our knowledg none to our charity towards any man no reason can be given why I may not wish well unto them all my life time even after their deceas whom I might pray for while they lived even by the command of him who bad me do well unto all and have love which is ever accompanied with well wishes and praiers even to my very enemies never prescribing me either limit of time or measure of charity Those I pray for after their deceas must needs be if they be yet subsisting either in hell or heaven or som third place I speak vulgarly that I may be understood not heeding at all whether a soul in Aristotles philosophy may be said in rigour to be in any place or no in right reason whatsoever is must needs be somwhere and that is all my meaning If the soul I pray for should chance even then to be in heaven then my prayer for him is answerable to Gods will and so not evil but good whiles I beg rest to him to whom God hath given it for prayer though it often supposes yet it doth not necessarily require a want of the good thing prayed for in him I wish it unto otherwayes I could not say as well and truly Our father who art in heaven sanctified be thy name thy kingdom com thy will be don as I say afterwards Give us this day our daily bread c. In the former there is no want to be imagined for they both are and shall be whether I pray so or no and I do but only show my love and charity to God in wishing him to be as he is most holy powerful and just and desiring that to him which he neither does nor ever can want all sanctity power and glory but in the other requests a want is presupposed before the petition If he should be in hell fith it is not Gods will I should know so much I can no more be interpreted to gainsay his pleasur than when I prayed for the same person upon earth and wished him what he should never have for even then also I knew no more of Gods disfavour towards him than now I do and my good wishes in both places presented ever under a tacite condition of Gods good pleasur may be equally acceptable in order to any effect either