mortalitie of that infection Else how should he have said Come out of her my people that yee bee not partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her plagues If the place had not beene infectious he should not have needed to forwarne them of the danger wherein they stood of partaking in her sinnes and if the infection had not beene mortall he would not have put them in minde of the plagues that were to follow and if in the place thus mortally infected God had not preserved a people alive unto himselfe he could not have said Come out of her my people The enemie indeed had there sowne his tares but sowne them in the LORDS field and among the LORDS wheate And a field we know may so bee overgrowne with such evill weedes as these that at the first sight a man would hardly thinke that any corne were there at all even as in the barne it selfe the mixture of the chaffe with the wheate is sometime such as a-farre off a man would imagine that he did see but a heape of chaffe and nothing else Those worthy husbandmen that in these last 600. yeares have taken paines in plucking up those pernicious weedes out of the LORDS field and severing the chaffe from his graine cannot be rightly said in doing this eyther to have brought in another field or to have changed the ancient graine The field is the same but weeded now unweeded then the graine the same but winnowed now unwinnowed then Wee preach no new faith but the same Catholique faith that ever hath beene preached neyther was it any part of our meaning to begin a new Church in these latter dayes of the world but to reforme the old A tree that hath the luxurious branches lopped off and the noxious things that cleave unto it taken away is not by this pruning and purging of it made another tree than it was before neyther is the Church reformed in our dayes another Church than that which was deformed in the dayes of our fore-fathers though it hath no agreement for all that with Poperie which is the Pestilence that walked in those times of darkenesse and the destruction that now wasteth at noone day And thus have I finished that which I had to speak concerning the unitie of the faith for the further explication whereof the Apostle addeth and of the knowledge of the Sonne of God Wherein wee may observe both the Nature of this Grace and the Object of it For the former we see that Faith is here described unto us by Knowledge to shew unto us that Knowledge is a thing that is necessarily required in true beleeving Whereof this may bee an argument sufficient that in matters of faith the Scripture doth use indifferently the termes of knowing and beleeving So Iob 19.25 I know that my Redeemer liveth Ioh. 17.3 This is life eternall that they know thee the onely true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent Esai 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant iustifie manie As therefore in the fundamentall truthes of Christian Religion unitie of faith is required among all those that belong to the Catholick Church so in those maine grounds likewise there is unitie of knowledge generally required among all that professe the name of Christ. For some things there be the knowledge whereof is absolutely necessarie necessitate medij vel finis as the School-men speak without which no man may expect by Gods ordinarie law to attaine unto the end of his faith the salvation of his soule And in these a man may lose himselfe not by Heresie onely which is a flat denying but by Ignorance also which is a bare not knowing of them these things being acknowledged to be so necessarie that although it lay not in our power to attaine thereunto yet this invincible Ignorance should not excuse us from everlasting death Even as if there were one onely remedie whereby a sicke man could be recovered and freed from corporall death suppose the patient and the Physitian both were ignorant of it the man must perish as well not knowing it as if being brought unto him he had refused it And therefore in this case it is resolved that from the explicite faith actuall knowledge of these things nothing can excuse but onely such an incapacitie as is found in infants naturals and distracted persons and that in all others which have the use of reason although they want the meanes of instruction this Ignorance is not onely perillous but also damnable The danger then of this Ignorance being by the confession of the most judicious Divines of both sides acknowledged to be so great the wofull estate of the poore Countrey wherein I live is much to bee lamented where the people generally are suffered to perish for want of knowledge the vulgar superstitions of Poperie not doing them halfe that hurt that the ignorance of those common principles of the faith doth which all true Christians are bound to learne The consideration whereof hath sometime drawne mee to treate with those of the opposite party to move them that howsoever in other things we did differ one from another yet wee should joyne together in teaching those maine points the knowledge whereof was so necessary unto salvation and of the truth whereof there was no controversie betwixt us But what for the jealousies which these distractions in matters of Religion have bred among us what for other respects the motiō took small effect so betwixt us both the poor people are kept still in miserable ignorāce neither knowing the grounds of the one religion nor of the other Here the case God be thanked is farre otherwise where your Maiesties care can never be sufficiently commended in taking order that the chiefe heads of the Catechisme should in the ordinarie ministerie be diligently propounded and explained unto the people throughout the land Which I wish were as duely executed every where as it was piously by You intended Great Scholars possibly may thinke that it standeth not so well with their credite to stoop thus low and to spend so much of their time in teaching these rudiments and first principles of the doctrine of Christ. But they should consider that the laying of the foundation skilfully as it is the matter of greatest importance in the whole building so is it the very master-peece of the wisest builder According to the grace of God which is given unto mee as a wise master-builder I have layd the foundation saith the great Apostle And let the learnedest of us all try it when-ever wee please wee shall finde that to lay this ground-worke rightly that is to apply our selves unto the capacitie of the common Auditorie and to make an Ignorant man to understand these mysteries in some good measure will put us to the tryall of our skill and trouble us a great deale more than if we were to discusse a controversie or handle a subtile
structure verie different kindes of materialls may be laid upon the same foundation some sound and some unsound so in either of them there is a great difference to be made betwixt such as are more contiguous to the foundation and such as be remoter off The fuller explication of the first principles of faith and the conclusions deduced from thence are in the ranke of those verities that be more neerely conjoyned to the foundation to which those falsities are answerable on the other side that grate upon the foundation and any way endanger it For that there be diverse degrees both of truthes and errors in Religion which necessarily must be distinguished is a thing acknowledged not by us alone but by the learnedest also of our Adversaries There be some Catholick verities say they which doe so pertaine to faith that these being taken away the faith it selfe must be taken away also And these by common use wee call not onely Catholick but verities of Faith also There are other verities which bee Catholick also and universall namely such as the whole Church holdeth which yet being overthrowne the faith is shaken indeed but not overturned And in the errors that are contrary to such truthes as these the faith is obscured not extinguished weakened not perished Neverthelesse though the faith bee not altogether destroyed by them yet is it evill at ease and shaken and as it were disposed to corruption For as there be certaine hurts of the bodie which doe not take away the life but yet a man is the worse for them and disposed to corruption eyther in whole or in part as there be other mortall hurts which take away the life so likewise are there certaine degrees of propositions which containe unsound doctrine although they have not manifest heresie In a word the generall rule concerning all these superstructions is that the more neere they are to the foundation of so much greater importance be the truthes and so much more perillous be the errors as againe the farther they are removed off the lesse necessary doth the knowledge of such verities prove to be and the swarving from the truth lesse dangerous Now from all that hath beene said two great Questions may be resolved which trouble manie The first is What wee may judge of our Fore-fathers who lived in the communion of the Church of Rome Whereunto I answere that wee have no reason to thinke otherwise but that they lived and dyed under the mercie of God For wee must distinguish the Papacie from the Church wherein it is as the Apostle doth Antichrist from the Temple of God wherein hee sitteth The foundation upon which the Church standeth is that common faith as we have heard in the unitie whereof all Christians doe generally accord Vpon this old foundation Antichrist raiseth up his new buildings and layeth upon it not hay and stubble onely but farre more vile and pernicious matter which wrencheth and disturbeth the very foundation it selfe For example It is a ground of the Catholick faith that Christ was borne of the Virgin Mary which in the Scripture is thus explained God sent forth his Sonne Made of a Woman This the Papacie admitteth for a certaine truth but insinuateth withall that upon the Altar God sendeth forth his Sonne made of Bread For the Transsubstantiation which these man would haue us beleeve is not an annihilation of the Bread and a substitution of the Bodie of Christ in the stead thereof but a reall conversion of the one into the other such as they themselves would have esteemed to be a bringing forth of Christ and a kinde of Generation of him For to omit the wilde conceits of Postellus in his booke De Nativitate Mediatoris ultimâ this is the doctrine of their graver Divines as Cornelius à Lapide the Iesuite doth acknowledge in his Romane Lectures that by the words of consecration truely and really as the bread is transsubstantiated so Christ is produced and as it were generated upon the Altar in such a powerfull and effectuall manner that if Christ as yet had not beene incarnate by these words Hoc est corpus meum he should be incarnated and assume an humane bodie And doth not this new Divinitie thinke you shrewdly threaten the ancient foundation of the Catholick beleefe of the Incarnation Yet such as in the dayes of our fore-fathers opposed the Popish doctrine of Transsubstantiation could alledge for themselues that the faith which they maintained was then preserved among the laitie and so had anciently beene preserved And of mine owne knowledge I can testifie that when I have dealt with some of the common people that would be counted members of the Romane Church and demanded of them what they thought of that which I knew to be the common Tenet of their Doctors in this point they not onely rejected it with indignation but wondered also that I should imagine any of their side to be so foolish as to give credit to such a senselesse thing Neither may we account it to have been a small blessing of God unto our ancestors who lived in that kingdome of darkenesse that the Ignorance wherein they were bred freed them from the understanding of those things which being known might prove so prejudiciall to their soules health For there be some things which it is better for a man to be ignorant of than to know and the not knowing of those profundities which are indeed the depths of Satan is to those that have not the skil to dive into the bottome of such mysteries of iniquitie a good and an happie Ignorance The ignorance of those principles of the Catholique faith that are absolutely necessarie to salvation is as dangerous a gulfe on the other side but the light of those common truthes of Christianitie was so great and so firmely fixed in the mindes of those that professed the name of Christ that it was not possible for the power of darkenesse to extinguish it nor the gates of Hell to prevaile against it Nay the verie solemne dayes which by the ancient institution of the Church were celebrated for the commemoration of the Blessed Trinitie the Nativitie Passion Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour Christ did so preserve the memorie of these things among the common people that by the Popish Doctors themselves it is made an argument of grosse and supine Ignorance that any should not have explicite knowledge of those mysteries of Christ which were thus publikely solemnized in the Church And which is the principall point of all the ordinary instruction appointed to be given unto men upon their death-beds was that they should looke to come to glorie not by their owne merits but by the vertue and merit of the passion of our Lord Iesus Christ that they should place their whole confidence in his death onely and in no other thing and that they should interpose his death betwixt God and their sinnes betwixt
and life they looke upon the Sonne of God and him onely The holy Scriptures within the bounds whereof the utmost extent of all our faith and knowledge must be contained are able to make us wise unto salvation but yet through faith which is in Christ Iesus 2 Tim. 3.15 So by his knowledge or the knowledge of himselfe shall my righteous servant iustifie many sayth the Father of the Son Esay 53.11 And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me saith the Apostle Gal. 2.20 The children of Israel in the wildernesse being stung with fierie Serpents were directed for their recovery to looke upon the brazen Serpent which was a figure of the Son of man lifted up upon the Crosse that whosoever did beleeve in him might not perish but have eternall life Now as the Israelites with the same eyes and with the same visive facultie wherewith they beheld the sands and the mountaines in the desert did looke upon the brazen Serpent also but were cured by fastning their sight upon that alone and not by looking upon any other object so by the same faith and knowledge whereby we are justified we understand that the world was framed by the word of God and beleeve all other truths revealed and yet fides quâ iustificans faith as it doth justifie us doth not look upon these but fixeth it selfe solely upon the Son of God not knowing any thing here but Iesus Christ and him crucified And thus hath our Saviour a speciall and peculiar place in that larger foundation according to that of the Apostle Ephes. 2.20 Yee are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets of which for so his words in the Originall may well beare it Iesus Christ is the chiefe corner-stone It followeth now that wee should proceed from the foundation to the structure and so leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ goe on unto perfection unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ There is a time wherein Christ is but begun and as it were a-breeding in us Gal. 4.19 My little children of whom I travell in birth againe untill Christ be formed in you After that he hath beene formed in our hearts he is at first but as a babe there yet resteth not at that stay but as in his naturall body hee increased in stature so in every part of his mysticall body hee hath set for himselfe a certaine measure of stature and a fulnesse of growth which being attained unto a Christian is thereby made a perfect man And for this end also doth the Apostle here shew that the Ministery was instituted that we henceforth should be no more children as it is in the words immediately following my Text but that we might grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ. For the perfection which the Apostle here speaketh of is not to be taken absolutely as if any absolute perfection could be found among mâ—n in this life but in comparison with childhood As the opposition is more clearely made by him in 1. Corinth 14.20 Brethren be not children in understanding howbeit in malice be you children but in understanding be perfect that is to say of mans estate And Heb. 5.13.14 Every one that useth milke is unskilfull in the word of righteousnesse for he is a babe but strong meat belongeth to them that are perfect that is that are of full age as our Interpreters have rightly rendred it Now as there is great difference among men in their naturall growth so is there no lesse varietie among them also in respect of their spirituall stature there being severall degrees of this imperfect kinde of perfection here spoken of which according to the diversitie of times places and persons may admit a greater or a lesser measure For we may not thinke that the same measure of knowledge for example is sufficient for a learned man and an unlearned for a Pastor and for an ordinarie Christian for those that lived in the time of darkenesse and them that enjoy the light of the Gospel for them that have the meanes and them that want it But according to the measure of the gift of God wee must know notwithstanding that it is required generally of all men that they grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ. 2. Pet. 2.18 not in knowledge onely but in grace even grow up into him in ALL things which is the head as our Apostle here admonisheth us Wee must proceed from faith to faith Rom. 1.17 that is from one measure and degree of it unto another and this being the root and other graces as it were the branches if it grow apace other graces also must hasten and ripen and grow proportionably with it else thou mayest justly suspect that thy growth is not sound and answerable to that which the Apostle sheweth to be in the mysticall body of Christ which according to the effectuall working in the measure of EVERY part maketh increase of the bodie unto the edifying of it selfe in love The time will not permit me to proceed any further and therefore here I end Now the God of peace that brought againe from the dead our Lord Iesus that great Shepheard of the Sheepe through the bloud of his everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good worke to doe his will working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Iesus Christ to whom be glorie for ever and ever Amen FINIS a Num. 10.35 b Psal. 68.1 c Ephes. 4 8.20 d Heb. 9.4 e Heb. 12.24 f Esa. 53.5 g Math. 3.15 and 5.17 h Rom. 10.4 i Psal. 40.7.8 Heb. 10.7 k Psal. 132.14 l Ibid. vers 8.9.16 2 Chron. 6.41 m Act. 10.38 n Mar. 16. o Ioh. 17.4 p Ioh. 16.28 and 19.30 q Act. 3.21 r Rev. 11.19 s Mat. 28.20 t Psal. 68 18. u Ephes. 4.8 x Ephes. 4.11.12 y 2 Chron. 6.41 Psal. 132.9.16 z Ephes. 4.10 a Ib. ver 12. b Col. 1.19 c Ephes. 1.23 d 1 Pet. 2.5 e 1 Cor. 12.13 f Psal. 2.8 g Esa. 43.5.6.7 h Augustin ep 48. Quà m multi nihil interesse credentes in quâ quisque parte Christianus sit ideò permanebant in parte Donati quia ibi nati erant eos inde discedere atque ad Catholicam nemo transire cogebat Et paulò pòst Putabamus quidem nihil interesse ubi fideÌ„ Christi teneremus sed gratias Domino qui nos à divisione collegit hoc uni Deo congruere ut in unitate colatur ostendit i Rev. 17.18 k Ibid. ver 15. l Ibid. vers 5. m Ib. v. 3. 7. n Gal. 4.26 o Rev. 18.7 p Rom 11.20 21.22 q Subesse Romano Pontifici omni humanae creaturae declaramus dicimus definimus pronuntiamus omninò