can they be differenc'd but by something that is besides the nature of the action it self A thought of theft and an unclean thought have nothing by which they can excel each other but when you cloath them with the dress of active circumstances they grow greater or less respectively because then two or three sins are put together and get a new name 7. III. There is but one way more by which sins can get or lose degrees and that is the different proportions of our affections This indeed relates to God more immediately and by him alone is judg'd but the former being invested with material circumstances can be judg'd by men But all that God reserves for his own portion of the Sacrifice is the Heart that is our love and choice and therefore the degrees of love or hatred is that measure by which God makes differing judgments of them For by this it is that little sins become great and great sins become little If a Jew had maliciously touch'd a dead body in the days of Easter it had been a greater crime than if in the violence of his temptation he had unwillingly will'd to commit an act of fornication He that delights in little thefts because they are breaches of Gods Law or burns a Prayer-book because he hates Religion is a greater criminal than he that falls into a material heresie by an invincible or less discerned deception Secure but to God your affections and he will secure your innocence or pardon for men live or die by their own measures If a man spits in the face of a Priest to defie Religion or shaves the beard of an Embassador to disgrace the Prince as it hapned to Davids Messengers his sin is greater than if he kill'd the Priest in his own just defence or shot the Embassador through the heart when he intended to strike a Lion For every negligence every disobedience being against Charity or the love of God by interpretation this superaddition of direct malice is open enmity against him and therefore is more severely condemned by him who sees every thought and degrees of passion and affection For the increase of malice does aggravate the sin just as the complication of material instances Every degree of malice being aâ— distinct and commensurate a sin as any one external instance that hath a name and therefore many degrees of malice combine and grow greater as many sins conjoyn'd in one action they differ only in Nature not in Morality just as a great number and a great weight So that in effect all sins are differenc'd by complication only that is either of the external or the internal instances 8. IV. Though the negligence or the malice be naturally equal yet sometimes by accident the sins may be unequal not only in the account of men but also before God too but it is upon the account of both the former It is when the material effect being different upon men God hath with greater caution secur'd such interests So that by interpretation the negligence is greater because the care was with greater earnestness commanded or else because in such cases the sin is complicated for such sins which do most mischief have besides their proper malignity the evil of uncharitableness or haâ—ing our brother In some cases God requires one hand and in others both Now he that puts but one of his fingers to each of them his negligence is in nature the same but not in value because where more is required the defect was greater If a man be equally careless of the life of his Neighbours Son and his Neighbours Cock although the will or attendance to the action be naturally equal that is none at all yet morally and in the divine account they differ because the proportions of duty and obligation were different and therefore more ought to have been put upon the one than upon the other just as he is equally clothed that wears a single garment in Summer and Winter but he is not equally warm unless he that wears a silk Mantle when the Dog-star rages claps on Furrs when the cold North-star changes the waters into rocks 9. V. Single sins done with equal affection or disaffection do not differ in degrees as they relate to God but in themselves are equally prevarications of the Divine Commandment As he tells a lie that says the Moon is foursquare as great as he that says there were but three Apostles or that Christ was not the Son of Man and as every lie is an equal sin against truth so every sin is an equal disobedience and recession from the Rule But some lies are more against Charity or Justice or Religion than others are and so are greater by complication but against truth they are all equally oppos'd and so are all sins contrary to the Commandment And in this sence is that saying of S. Basil Primò enim scire illud convenit differentiam minorum majorum nusquam in Novo Testamento reperiri Siquidem una est eadem sententia adversus quaelibet peccata cum Dominus dixerit Qui facit peccatum servus est peccati item Sermo quem loquutus sum vobis ille judicabit eum in Novissimo die Johannes â—ociferans dicat Qui contumax est in filium non videbit vitam aeternam sed ira Dei manet super eum cum contumacia non in discrimine peccatorum sed in violatione praecepti positam habeat futuri supplicii denunciationem The difference of great and little sins is no where to be found in the New Testament One and the same sentence is against all sins our Lord saying He that doth sin is the servant of sin and the word that I have spoken that shall judge you in the last day and John crieth out saying He that is disobedient to the Son shall not see eternal life but the wrath of God abideth on him for this contumacy or disobedience does not consist in the difference of sins but in the violation of the Divine Law and for that it is threatned with eternal pain But besides these Arguments from Scripture he adds an excellent Reason Prorsus autem si id nobis permittitur ut in peccatis hoc magnum illud exiguum appellemus invicto argumento concluditur magnum micâ—ique esse illud à quo quisque superatur contráque exiguum quod unusquisque ipse superat Vt in athletis qui vicit fortis est qui autem victus est imbecillior eo unde victus est quisque ille sit If it be permitted that men shall call this sin great and that sin little they will conclude that to be great which was too strong for them and that to be little which they can master As among Champions he is the strongest that gets the victory And then upon this account no sin is Venial that a man commits because that is it which hath prevail'd upon and master'd all his strengths 10. The instance is
not Gods enemy for if a vice be incorporated into our nature that is if our natural imperfections be chang'd into evil customs it is a threefold cord that is not easily broken it is a legion of Devils and not to be cast out without a mighty labour and all the arts and contentions of the Spirit of God 67. II. In prosecution of this propound to thy self as the great business of thy life to fight against thy passions We see that sin is almost unavoidable to young men because passion seises upon their first years The days of our youth is the reign of passion and sin rides in triumph upon the wheels of desire which run infinitely when the boy drives the chariot But the religion of a Christian is an open war against passion and by the grace of meekness if we list to study and to acquire that hath plac'd us in the regions of safety 68. III. Be not uncertain in thy resolutions or in chusing thy state of life because all uncertainties of mind and vagabond resolutions leave a man in the tyranny of all his follies and infirmities every thing can transport him and he can be forc'd by every temptation and every fancy or new accident can ruine him He that is not resolv'd and constant is yet in a state of deliberation and that supposes contrary appetites to be yet in the ballance and sin to be as strong as grace But besides this there are in every state of life many little things to be overcome and objections to be master'd and proper infirmities adherent which are to be cured in the progression and growth of a man and after experiment had of that state of life in which we are ingaged but therefore it is necessary that we begin speedily lest we have no time to begin that work which ought in some measure to be finish'd before we die Dum quid sis dubitas jam potes esse nihil He that is uncertain what to do shall never do any thing well and there is no infirmity greater than that a man shall not be able to determine himself what he ought to do 69. IV. In contentions against sin and infirmities let your force and your care be applied to that part of the wall that is weakest and where it is most likely the enemy will assault thee and if he does that he will prevail If a lustful person should bend all his prayers and his observations against envy he hath cur'd nothing of his nature and infirmity Some lusts our temper or our interest will part withal but our infirmities are in those desires which are hardest to be master'd that is when after a long dispute and perpetual contention still there will abide some pertinacious string of an evil root when the lust will be apt upon all occasions to revert when every thing can give fire to it and every heat can make it stir that is the scene of our danger and ought to be of greatest warfare and observation 70. V. He that fights against that lust which is the evil spring of his proper infirmities must not do it by single instances but by a constant and universal mortal fight He that does single spights to a lust as he that opposes now and then a fasting day against carnality or some few alms against oppression or covetousness will find that these single acts if nothing else be done can do nothing but cosen him they are apt to perswade easie people that they have done what is in them to cure their infirmity and that their condition is good but it will not do any thing of that work whither they are design'd We must remember that infirmities are but the reliques and remains of an old lust and are not cured but at the end of a lasting war They abide even after the conquest after their main body is broken and therefore cannot at all be cured by those light velitations and pickqueerings of single actions of hostility 71. VI. When a violent temptation assaults thee remember that this violence is not without but within Thou art weak and that makes the burden great Therefore whatever advices thou art pleased to follow in opposition to the temptation without be sure that thou place the strongest guards within and take care of thy self And if thou dost die or fall foully seek not an excuse from the greatness of the temptation for that accuses thee most of all the bigger the temptation is it is true that oftentimes thou art the more to blame but at the best it is a reproof of thy imperfect piety He whose religion is greater than the temptation of a 100. l. and yet falls in the temptation of a 1000. l. sets a price upon God and upon Heaven and though he will not sell Heaven for a 100. l. yet a 1000. l. he thinks is a worthy purchase 72. VII Never think that a temptation is too strong for thee if thou givest over fighting against it for as long as thou didst continue thy contention so long it prevail'd not but when thou yieldest basely or threwest away thy arms then it forraged and did mischief and slew thee or wounded thee dangerously No man knows but if he had stood one assault more the temptation would have left him Be not therefore pusillanimous in a great trial It is certain thou canst do all that which God requires of thee if thou wilt but do all that thou canst do 73. VIII Contend every day against that which troubles thee every day For there is no peace in this war and there are not many infirmities or principles of failing greater than weariness of well doing for besides that it proclaims the weakness of thy resolution and the infancy of thy piety and thy undervaluing religion and thy want of love it is also a direct yielding to the Enemy for since the greatest scene of infirmities lies in the manner of our piety he that is religious only by uncertain periods and is weary of his duty is not arriv'd so far as to plead the infirmities of willing people for he is in the state of death and enmity 74. IX He that would master his infirmities must do it at Gods rate and not at his own he must not start back when the burden pinches him nor refuse his repentances because they smart nor omit his alms because they are expensive for it is vain to propound to our selves any end and yet to decline the use of those means and instruments without which it is not to be obtained He that will buy must take it at the sellers price and if God will not give thee safety or immunity but upon the exchange of labour and contradictions fierce contentions and mortification of our appetites we must go to the cost or quit the purchase· 75. X. He that will be strong in grace and triumph in good measures over his infirmities must attempt his remedy by an active prayer For prayer without labour is like
faciem ejus in confessione let us prevent his anger by sentencing our selves or if we do not let us follow the sad accents of the angry voice of God and imitate his justice by condemning that which God condemns and suffering willingly what he imposes and turning his judgments into voluntary executions by applying the suffering to our sins and praying it may be sanctified For since God smites us that we may repent if we repent then we serve the end of the Divine judgment and when we perceive God smites our sin if we submit to it and are pleased that our sin is smitten we are enemies to it after the example of God and that is a good act of repentance 114. IV. For the quality or kind of penances this is the best measure Those are the best which serve most ends not those which most vex us but such which will most please God If they be only actions punitive and vindictive they do indeed punish the man and help so far as they can to destroy the sin but of these alone S. Paul said well Bodily exercise profiteth but little but of the latter sort he added but Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come and this indeed is our exactest measure Fastings alone lyings upon the ground disciplines and direct chastisements of the body which have nothing in them but toleration and revenge are of some use they vex the body and crucifie the sinner but the sin lives for all them but if we add prayer or any action symbolical as meditation reading solitariness silence there is much more done towards the extinction of the sin But he that adds Alms or something that not only is an act contrary to a former state of sin but such which is apt to deprecate the fault to obey God and to do good to men he hath chosen the better part which will not easily be taken from him Fasting prayer and alms together are the best penances or acts of exterior repentance in the world If they be single fasting is of the least force and alms done in obedience and the love of God is the best 115. V. For the quantity of penances the old rule is the best that I know but that it is too general and indefinite It is S. Cyprian's Quà m magna deliquimus tam granditèr defleamus If our sins were great so must our sorrow or penances be As one is so must be the other For sorrow and penances I reckon as the same thing in this question save only that in some instances of corporal inflictions the sin is opposed in its proper matter as intemperance is by fasting effeminacy by suffering hardships whereas sorrow opposes it only in general and in some other instances of penances there is a duty distinctly and directly serv'd as in prayer and alms But although this rule be indefinite and unlimited we find it made more minute by Hugo de S. Victore Si in correctione minor est afflictio quà m in◠culpâ fuit delectatio non est dignus poenitentiae tuae fructus Our sorrow either in the direct passion or in its voluntary expressions distinctly or conjunctly must at least equal the pleasure we took in the committing of a sin And this rule is indeed very good if we use it with these cautions First that this be understood principally in our repentances for single sins for in these only the rule can be properly and without scruple applied where the measures can be best observed For in habitual and long courses of sin there is no other measures but to do very much and very long and until we die and never think our selves safe but while we are doing our repentances Secondly that this measure be not thought equal commutation for the sin but be only used as an act of deprecation and repentance of the hatred of sin and opposition to it For he that sets a value upon his punitive actions of repentance and rests in them will be hasty in finishing the repentance and leaving it off even while the sin is alive For in these cases it is to be regarded that penances or the punitive actions of repentance are not for the extinction of the punishment immediately but for the guilt That is there is no remains of punishment after the whole guilt is taken off but the guilt it self goes away by parts and these external actions of repentance have the same effect in their proportion which is wrought by the internal Therefore as no man can say that he hath sufficiently repented of his sins by an inward sorrow and hatred so neither can he be secure that he hath made compensation by the suffering penances for if one sin deserves an eternal Hell it is well if upon the account of any actions and any sufferings we be at last accepted and acquitted 116. VI. In the performing the punitive parts of external repentance it is prudent that we rather extend them than intend them that is let us rather do many single acts of several instances than dwell upon one with such intension of spirit as may be apt to produce any violent effects upon the body or the spirit In all these cases prudence and proportion to the end is our best measures For these outward significations of repentance are not in any kind or instance necessary to the constitution of repentance but apt and excellent expressions and significations exercises and ministeries of repentance Prayer and Alms are of themselves distinct duties and therefore come not in their whole nature to this reckoning but the precise acts of corporal punishment are here intended And that these were not necessary parts of repentance the Primitive Church believed and declared by absolving dying persons though they did not survive the beginnings of their publick repentance But that she enjoyn'd them to suffer such severities in case they did recover she declar'd that these were useful and proper exercises and ministeries of the Grace it self And although inward repentance did expiate all sins even in the Mosaical Covenant yet they had also a time and manner of its solemnity their day of expiation and so must we have many But if any man will refuse this way of repentance I shall only say to him the words of S. Paul to them who rejected the Ecclesiastical customs and usages We have no such Custom neither the Churches of God But let him be sure that he perform his internal repentance with the more exactness as he had need look to his own strengths that refuses the assistance of auxiliaries But it is not good to be too nice and inquisitive when the whole Article is matter of practice For what doth God demand of us but inward sincerity of a returning penitent obedient heart and that this be exercised and ministred unto by fit and convenient offices to that purpose This is all and from this we are to make
them but Diocesan and therefore the lesser but conventus Capitularis or however not enough to give evidence of a subscription of Presbyters to so much as a Provincial Council For the guise of Christendom was always otherwise and therefore it was the best argument that the Bishops in the Arian hurry used to acquit themselves from the suspicion of heresie Neque nos sumus Arii sectatores Quî namque fieri potest ut cum simus Episcopi Ario Presbytero auscultemus Bishops never receive determination of any article from Priests but Priests do from Bishops Nam vestrum est eos instruere saith S. Clement speaking of the Bishops office and power over Priests and all the Clergy and all the Diocess eorum est vobis obedire ut Deo cujus legatione fungimini And a little after Audire ergo eum attentius oportet ab ipso suscipere doctrinam fidei monita autem vitae à Presbyteris inquirere Of the Priests we must inquire for rules of good life but of the Bishop receive positions and determinations of faith Against this if it be objected Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari debet That which is of general concernment must also be of general Scrutiny I answer it is true unless where God himself hath intrusted the care of others in a body as he hath in the Bishops and will require the souls of his Diocess at his hand and commanded us to require the Law at their mouths and to follow their faith whom he hath set over us And therefore the determination of Councils pertains to all and is handled by all not in diffusion but in representation For Ecclesia est in Episcopo Episcopus in Ecclesiâ saith S. Cyprian the Church is in the Bishop viz. by representment and the Bishop is in the Church viz. as a Pilot in a ship or a Master in a family or rather as a steward and Guardian to rule in his Masters absence and for this reason the Synod of the Nicene Bishops is called in Eusebius conventus orbis terrarum and by S. Austin consensus totius Ecclesiae not that the whole Church was there present in their several persons but was there represented by the Catholick Bishops and if this representment be not sufficient for obligation to all I see no reason but the Ladies too may vote in Councils for I doubt not but they have souls too But however if this argument were concluding in it self yet it loses its force in England where the Clergy are bound by Laws of Parliament and yet in the capacity of Clergy-men are allowed to chuse neither Procurators to represent us as Clergy nor Knights of the Shire to represent us as Commons In conclusion of this I say to the Presbyters as S. Ambrose said of the Lay-Judges whom the Arians would have brought to judge in Council it was an old heretical trick Veniant planè si qui sunt ad Ecclesiam audiant cum populo non ut quisquam Judex resideat sed unusquisque de suo affectu habeat examen eligat quem sequatur So may Presbyters be present so they may judge not for others but for themselves And so may the people be present and anciently were so and therefore Councils were always kept in open Churches ubi populus judicat not for others but for themselves not by external sentence but internal conviction so S. Ambrose expounds himself in the forecited allegation There is no considerable objection against this discourse but that of the first Council of Jerusalem where the Apostles and Elders did meet together to determine of the question of circumcision For although in the story of celebration of it we find no man giving sentence but Peter and James yet in Acts 16. they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 decrees judged by the Apostles and Elders But first in this the difficulty is the less because Presbyter was a general word for all that were not of the number of the twelve Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors And then secondly it is none at all because Paul and Barnabas are signally and by name reckoned as present in the Synod and one of them Prolocutor or else both So that such Presbyters may well define in such conventual assemblies 3. If yet there were any difficulty latent in the story yet the Catholick practice of Gods Church is certainly the best expositor of such places where there either is any difficulty or where any is pretended And of this I have already given account * I remember also that this place is pretended for the peoples power of voicing in Councils It is a pretty pageant only that it is against the Catholick practice of the Church against the exigence of Scripture which bids us require the law at the mouth of our spiritual Rulers against the gravity of such assemblies for it would force them to be tumultuous and at the best are the worst of Sanctions as being issues of popularity and to summe up all it is no way authorized by this first copy of Christian Councils The pretence is in the Synodal letter written in the name of the Apostles and Elders and Brethren that is says Geta The Apostles and Presbyters and People But why not Brethren that is all the Deacons and Evangelists and Helpers in Government and Ministers of the Churches There is nothing either in words or circumstances to contradict this If it be asked who then are meant by Elders if by Brethren S. Luke understands these Church-officers I answer that here is such variety that although I am not certain which officers he precisely comprehends under the distinct titles of Elders and Brethren yet here are enough to furnish both with variety and yet neither to admit meer Presbyters in the present acceptation of the word nor yet the Laity to a decision of the question nor authorising the decretal For besides the twelve Apostles there were Apostolical men which were Presbyters and something more as Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Evangelists and Pastors besides which might furnish out the last appellative sufficiently But however without any further trouble it is evident that this word Brethren does not distinguish the Laity from the Clergy Now when they heard this they were pricked in their hearts and said unto Peter and to the rest of the Apostles Men and brethren what shall we do Judas and Silas who were Apostolical men are called in Scripture chief men among the brethren But this is too known to need a contestation I only insert the saying of Basilius the Emperor in the Eighth Synod De vobis autem Laicis tam qui in dignitatibus quà m qui absolutè versamini quid amplius dicam non habeo quà m quòd nullo modo vobis licet de Ecclesiasticis causis sermonem movere neque penitùs resistere integritati Ecclesiae universali Synodo adversari Lay-men says the Emperor must by no means
or two forc'd tears against a good time and believe it that 's a great matter too that is not ordinary But if men lose an estate Nemo dolorem Fingit in hoc casu vestem diducere summam Contentus vexare oculos humore coacto Men need not to dissemble tears or sorrow in that case but as if men were in no danger when they are enemies to God and as if to lose Heaven were no great matter and to be cast into Hell were a very tolerable condition and such as a man might very well undergo and laugh heartily for all that they seem so unconcerned in the actions of Religion and in their obedience to the severe laws of Repentance that it looks as if men had no design in the world but to be suffered to die quietly to perish tamely without being troubled with the angry arguments of Church-men who by all means desire they should live and recover and dwell with God for ever Or if they can be forc'd to the further entertainments of Repentance it is nothing but a calling for mercy an ineffective prayer a moist cloud a resolution for to day and a solemn shower at the most Mens immota manet lachrymae volvuntur inanes The mind is not chang'd though the face be for Repentance is thought to be just as other Graces fit for their proper season like fruits in their own month but then every thing else must have its day too we shall sin and we must repent but sin will come again and so may repentance For there is a time for every thing under the Sun and the time for Repentance is when we can sin no more when every objection is answered when we can have no more excuse and they who go upon that principle will never do it till it be too late For every age hath temptations of its own and they that have been us'd to the yoke all their life time will obey their sin when it comes in any shape in which they can take any pleasure But men are infinitely abus'd and by themselves most of all For Repentance is not like the Summer fruits fit to be taken a little and in their own time it is like bread the provisions and support of our life the entertainment of every day but it is the bread of affliction to some and the bread of carefulness to all and he that preaches this with the greatest zeal and the greatest severity it may be he takes the liberty of an enemy but he gives the counsel and the assistance of a friend My Lord I have been so long acquainted with the secrets of your Spirit and Religion that I know I need not make an apology for dedicating this severe Book to you You know according to the prudence which God hath given you that he that flatters you is your enemy and you need not be flattered for he that desires passionately to be a good man and a religious to be the servant of God and be sav'd will not be fond of any vanity and nothing else can need to be flattered but I have presented to your Lordship this Discourse not only to be a testimony to the world how great a love and how great an honour I have for you but even by ascribing you into this relation to endear you the rather every day more and more to the severest Doctrines and practices of Holiness I was invited to make something of this by an Honourable Person who is now with God and who desir'd his needs should be serv'd by my Ministery But when I had entred upon it I found it necessary to do it in order to more purposes and in prosecution of the method of my other Studies All which as they are designed to Gods glory and the Ministery of Souls so if by them I can signifie my obligations to your Lordship which by your great Nobleness do still increase I shall not esteem them wholly ineffective even of some of those purposes whither they are intended for truly my Lord in whatsoever I am or can do I desire to appear My Noblest Lord Your Honours most obliged and most affectionate Servant JER TAYLOR THE PREFACE To the Right Reverend and Religious FATHERS BRIAN Lord Bishop of SARVM AND JOHN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER And to the most Reverend and Religious Clergy of ENGLAND my dear Brethren Men Brethren and Fathers THE wiser part of Mankind hath seen so much trifling in the conduct of disputations so much partiality such earnest desires of reputation such resolution to prevail by all means so great mixture of interest in the contention so much mistaking of the main question so frequent excursions into differing matter so many personal quarrels and petty animosities so many wranglings about those things that shall never be helped that is the errors and infirmities of men and after all this which also must needs be consequent to it so little fruit and effect of questions no man being the wiser or changed from error to truth but from error to error most frequently and there are in the very vindication of truth so many incompetent uncertain and untrue things offered that if by chance some truth be gotten we are not very great gainers because when the whole account is cast up we shall find or else they that are disinterest will observe that there is more error than truth in the whole purchase and still no man is satisfied and every side keeps its own unless where folly or interest makes some few persons to change and still more weakness and more impertinencies crowd into the whole affair upon every reply and more yet upon the rejoynder and when men have wrangled tediously and vainly they are but where they were save only that they may remember they suffered infirmity and iâ— may be the transport of passions and uncharitable expressions and all this for an unrewarding interest for that which is sometimes uncertain it self unrevealed unuseful and unsatisfying that in the event of things and after being wearied for little or nothing men have now in a very great proportion left it quite off as unsatisfying waters and have been desirous of more material nourishment and of such notices of things and just assistances as may promote their eternal interest And indeed it was great reason and high time that they should do so for when they were imployed in rowing up and down in uncertain seas to find something that was not necessary it was certain they would less attend to that which was more worthy their inquiry and the enemy of mankind knew that to be a time of his advantage and accordingly sowed tares while we so slept and we felt a real mischief while we contended for an imaginary and phantastick good For things were come to that pass that it was the character of a good man to be zealous for a Sect and all of every party respectively if they were earnest and impatient of contradiction were sure to be sav'd by
more deliberate in their absolutions and severe in their impositions of satisfactions requiring a longer time of Repentance before the penitents be reconcil'd Monsieur Arnauld of the Sorbon hath appeared publickly in reproof of a frequent and easie Communion without the just and long preparations of Repentance and its proper exercises and Ministery Petavius the Jesuit hath oppos'd him the one cries The present Church the other The Ancient Church and as Petavius is too hard for his adversary in the present Authority so Monsieur Arnauld hath the clearest advantage in the pretensions of Antiquity and the arguments of Truth from which Petavius and his abettor Bagot the Jesuit have no escape or defensative but by distinguishing Repentance into Solemn and Sacramental which is just as if they should say Repentance is twofold one such as was taught and practis'd by the Primitive Church the other that which is in use this day in the Church of Rome for there is not so much as one pregnant testimony in Antiquity for the first four hundred years that there was any Repentance thought of but Repentance toward God and sometimes perform'd in the Church in which after their stations were perform'd they were admitted to the holy Communion excepting only in the danger or article of death in which they hastened the Communion and enjoyn'd the stations to be afterwards completed in case they did recover and if they did not they left the event to God But this question of theirs can never be ended upon the new principles nor shall be freely argued because of their interest For whoever are obliged to profess some false propositions shall never from thence find out an intire truth but like caskes in a troubled sea sometimes they will be under water sometimes above For the productions of error are infinite but most commonly monstrous and in the fairest of them there will be some crooked or deformed part But of the thing it self I have given such accounts as I could being ingaged on no side and the servant of no interest and have endeavour'd to represent the dangers of every sinner the difficulty of obtaining pardon the many parts and progressions of Repentance the severity of the Primitive Church their rigid Doctrines and austere Disciplines the degrees of easiness and complyings that came in by negligence and I desire that the effect should be that all the pious and religious Curates of Souls in the Church of England would endeavour to produce so much fear and reverence caution and wariness in all their penitents that they should be willing to undergo more severe methods in their restitution than now they do that men should not dare to approach to the holy Sacrament as soon as ever their foul hands are wet with a drop of holy rain but that they should expect the periods of life and when they have given to their Curate fair testimony of a hearty Repentance and know it to be so within themselves they may with comfort to all parties communicate with holiness and joy For I conceive this to be that event of things which was design'd by S. Paul in that excellent advice Obey them that have the rule over you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 submit your selves viz. to their ordering and discipline because they watch for your souls as they that must give accounts for them that they may do it with joy I am sure we cannot give accounts of souls of which we have no notice and though we had reason to rescue them from the yoke of bondage which the unjust laws and fetters of annual and private Confession as it was by them ordered did make men to complain of yet I believe we should be all unwilling our Charges should exchange these fetters for worse and by shaking off the laws of Confession accidentally entertain the tyranny of sin It was neither fit that all should be tied to it nor yet that all should throw it off There are some sins and some cases and some persons to whom an actual Ministery and personal provision and conduct by the Priests Office were better than food or physick It were therefore very well if great sinners could be invited to bear the yoke of holy discipline and do their Repentances under the conduct of those who must give an account of them that they would inquire into the state of their souls that they would submit them to be judged by those who are justly and rightly appointed over them or such whom they are permitted to chuse and then that we would apply our selves to understand the secrets of Religion the measures of the Spirit the conduct of Souls the advantages and disadvantages of things and persons the ways of life and death the lahyrinths of temptation and all the remedies of sin the publick and private the great and little lines of Conscience and all those ways by which men may be assisted and promoted in the ways of godliness for such knowledge as it is most difficult and secret untaught and unregarded so it is most necessary and for want of it the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist is oftentimes given to them that are in the gall of bitterness that which is holy is given to Dogs Indeed neither we nor our Forefathers could help it always and the Discipline of the Church could seize but upon few all were invited but none but the willing could receive the benefit but however it were pity that men upon the account of little and trifling objections should be discouraged from doing themselves benefit and from enabling us with greater advantages to do our duty to them It was of old observed of the Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they obey the laws and by the excellency of their own lives excel the perfection of the laws and it is not well if we shall be earnest to tell them that such a thing is not necessary if we know it to be good For in this present dissolution of manners to tell the people concerning any good thing that it is not necessary is to tempt them to let it alone The Presbyterian Ministers who are of the Church of England just as the Irish are English have obtained such power with their Proselytes that they take some account of the Souls of such as they please before they admit them to their communion in Sacraments they do it to secure them to their party or else make such accounts to be as their Shibboleth to discern their Jews from the men of Ephraim but it were very well we would do that for Conscience for Charity and for Piety which others do for Interest or Zeal and that we would be careful to use all those Ministeries and be earnest for all those Doctrines which visibly in the causes of things are apt to produce holiness and severe living It is no matter whether by these arts any Sect or Name be promoted it is certain Christian Religion would and that 's the real interest of us all
this also we exercise a holy fear and work out our salvation with fear and trembling It enlarges our care and endears our watchfulness and caution It cures or prevents our pride and bold challenges of God for rewards which we never can deserve It convinces us of the necessity of the Divine aid and makes us to relie upon Gods goodness in helping us and his mercy in pardoning us and truly without this we could neither be so sensible of our infirmities nor of the excellent gifts and mercies of God for although God does not make necessities on purpose that he may serve them or introduce sin that he might pardon it yet he loves we should depend upon him and by these rare arts of the Divine Oeconomy make us to strive to be like him and in the midst of our finite abilities have infinite desires that even so we may be disposed towards the holiness and glories of eternity 38. IV. Although God exacts not an impossible law under eternal and insufferable pains yet he imposes great holiness in unlimited and indefinite measures with a design to give excellent proportions of reward answerable to the greatness of our endeavour Hell is not the end of them that fail in the greatest measures of perfection but great degrees of Heaven shall be their portion who do all that they can always and offend in the fewest instances For as our duty is not limited so neither are the degrees of glory and if there were not this latitude of duty neither could there be any difference in glory neither could it be possible for all men to hope for Heaven but now all may The meanest of Gods servants shall go thither and yet there are greater measures for the best and most excellent services 39. Thus we may understand that the imposing of the Divine Laws in all the periods of the world was highly consistent with the Divine Justice and an excellent infinite wisdome and yet in the exacting them Mercy prevail'd because the Covenant of Works or of exact obedience was never the rule of life and death since the Saviour of the world was promised that is since the fall of Adam but all Mankind was admitted to repentance and wash'd clean in the blood of the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world and was slain from the beginning of it Repentance was the measure of our duty and the remedy for our evils and the Commandments were not impossible to him that might amend what was done amiss SECT III. How Repentance and the Precept of Perfection Evangelical can stand together 40. THAT the Gospel is a Covenant of Repentance is evident in the whole design and nature of the thing in the preparatory Sermons made by the Baptist by the Apostles of our Lord by the seventy two Disciples and the Exhortations made by S. Peter at the first opening the Commission and the secret of the Religion Which Doctrine of Repentance lest it should be thought to be a permission to sin a leave to need the remedy is charged with an addition of a strict and severe holiness the Precept of Perfection It therefore must be such a repentance as includes in it perfection and yet the perfection is such as needs repentance How these two are to stand together is the subject of the present inquiry Be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect that 's the charge To be perfect as God and yet to repent as a Man seem contrary to each other They seem so only For 41. I. It does not signifie perfection of degrees in the natural sence of the word For as Philo said well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perfections and the heights of excellencies are only proper to one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Clemens of Alexandria God alone is wise he alone is perfect All that we do is but little and that little is imperfect and that imperfection is such as could be condemned if God did not use gentleness and mercy towards us But II. Although perfection of degrees cannot be understood to be our duty in the periods and spaces of this life because we are here in the state of labour and contention of pilgrimage and progression yet even in this life we are to labour towards it and Be ye perfect viz. with the highest degrees of holiness is to be understood in a current and transient sence For this Precept thus understood hath its obligation upon our endeavour only and not upon the event When a General commands his Army to destroy the Enemy he binds them only to a prudent a possible and vigorous endeavour to do it and cannot intend the effect but by several parts answerable to the steps of the progression So is that in the Psalms Be learned ye that are Princes of the world that is learn and so by industry and attention arrive at knowledge For although though every man be a sinner yet he that does not endeavour to avoid all sin is not only guilty of the sin he commits but the negligence also which is the parent of the sin is another sin and directly criminal So it is in the degrees of perfection what we cannot attain to we must at least desire In this world we cannot arrive thither but in this life we must always be going thither It is status â—iae grace is the way to glory And as he that commands us to enter into a City from which we are hugely distant means we should pass through all the ways that lead thither so it is here The Precept must be given here and begun and set forward and it will be finished hereafter But as a man may be an adulterer or a thief with his heart and his eye as well as with his hand so it is also in good things A mans heart and eye may be in Heaven that is in the state of perfection long before he sets his feet upon the golden threshold His desires are first crown'd and fainted and then the work shall be made perfect 43. III. There is another sort of perfection which may not be improperly meant in this charge of duty and that is a perfection of state Be ye perfect that is Be ye holy for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sanctifico and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is festum or a holy day a day that hath the perfection added to it of which a day is capable a day sanctified to the Lord. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sanctifie is to make perfect Nihil enim sanctificavit lex so the Latin reads the words of S. Paul but in the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The law made that perfect which it did sanctifie So that Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect is Be ye holy like him or in imitation of him And thus the word is expounded in Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 's the perfection of
expiation of them they fancy and consequently give what allowance they list to those whom they please to mislead For in innumerable Cases of Conscience it is oftner inquired whether a thing be Venial or Mortal than whether it be lawful or not lawful and as Purgatory is to Hell so Venial is to Sin a thing which men fear not because the main stake they think to be secured for if they may have Heaven at last they care not what comes between And as many men of the Roman perswasion will rather chuse Purgatory than suffer here an inconsiderable penance or do those little services which themselves think will prevent it so they chuse venial sins and hug the pleasures of trifles warming themselves at phantastick fires and dancing in the light of the Glo-worms and they love them so well that rather than quit those little things they will suffer the intolerable pains of a temporary Hell for so they believe which is the testimony of a great evil and a mighty danger for it gives testimony that little sins can be beloved passionately and therefore can minister such a delight as is thought a price great enough to pay for the sufferance of temporal evils and Purgatory it self 3. But the evil is worse yet when it is reduc'd to practice For in the decision of very many questions the answer is It is a venial sin that is though it be a sin yet there is in it no danger of losing the favour of God by that but you may do it and you may do it again a thousand thousand times and all the venial sins of the world put together can never do what one mortal sin can that is make God to be your enemy So Bellarmine expresly affirms But because there are many Doctors who write Cases of Conscience and there is no measure to limit the parts of this distinction for that which is not at all cannot be measured the Doctors differ infinitely in their sentences some calling that Mortal which others call Venial as you may see in the little Summaries of Navar and Emanuel Sà the poor souls of the Laity and the vulgar Clergy who believe what is told them by the Authors or Confessors they chuse to follow must needs be in infinite danger and the whole body of Practical Divinity in which the life of Religion and of all our hopes depends shall be rendred dangerous and uncertain and their confidence shall betray them unto death 4. To bring relief to this state of evil and to establish aright the proper grounds and measures of Repentance I shall first account concerning the difference of sins and by what measures they are so differenc'd 2. That all sins are of their own nature punishable as God please even with the highest expressions of his anger 3. By what Repentance they are cur'd and pardon'd respectively SECT II. Of the difference of sins and their measures 5. I. SINS are not equal but greater or less in their principle as well as in their event It was one of the errors of Jovinian which he learned from the Schools of the Stoicks that all sins are alike grievous Nam dicunt esse pares res Furta latrociniis magnis parva minantur Falce recisuros simili se si sibi regnum Permittant homines For they supposed an absolute irresistible Fate to be the cause of all things and therefore what was equally necessary was equally culpable that is not at all and where men have no power of choice or which is all one that it be necessary that they chuse what they do there can be no such thing as Laws or sins against them To which they adding that all evils are indifferent and the event of things be it good or bad had no influence upon the felicity or infelicity of man they could neither be differenc'd by their cause nor by their effect the first being necessary and the latter indifferent * Against this I shall not need to oppose many Arguments for though this follows most certainly from their doctrine who teach an irresistible Decree of God to be the cause of all things and actions yet they that own the doctrine disavow the consequent and in that are good Christians but ill Logicians But the Article is sufficiently cleared by the words of our B. Lord in the case of Judas whose sin as Christ told to Pilate was the greater because he had not power over him but by special concession in the case of the servant that knows his Masters will and does it not in the several condemnations of the degrees and expressions of anger in the instances of Racha and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou vain man or Thou fool by this comparing some sins to gnats and some to Camels and in proportion to these there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Luke many stripes a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. James a greater condemnation * Thus to rob a Church is a greater sin than to rob a Thief To strike a Father is a higher impiety than to resist a Tutor To oppress a Widow is clamorous and calls aloud for vengeance when a less repentance will vote down the whispering murmurs of a trifling injury done to a fortune that is not sensible of smaller diminutions Nec vincit ratio tantundem ut peccet idémque Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti Vt qui nocturnus Divûm sacra legerit He is a greater criminal that steals the Chalice from a Church than he that takes a few Coleworts or robs a garden of Cucumers But this distinction and difference is by something that is extrinsecal to the action the greatness of the mischief or the dignity of the person according to that Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet quanto major qui peccat habetur 6. II. But this when it is reduc'd to its proper cause is because such greater sins are complicated they are commonly two or three sins wrapt together as the unchastity of a Priest is uncleanness and scandal too Adultery is worse than Fornication because it is unchastity and injustice and by the fearful consequents of it is mischievous and uncharitable Et quas Euphrates quas mihi misit Orontes Me capiant Nolo furta pudica thori So Sacriledge is theft and impiety And Apicius killing himself when he suppos'd his estate would not maintain his luxury was not only a self-murtherer but a gluttonous person in his death Nil est Apici tibi gulosius factum So that the greatness of sins is in most instances by extension and accumulation that as he is a greater sinner who sins often in the same instance than he that sins seldom so is he who sins such sins as are complicated and intangled like the twinings of combining Serpents And this appears to be so because if we take single sins as uncleanness and theft no man can tell which is the greater sin neither
shall all likewise perish Neither does God exacting or describing Repentance in several lines use any respect of persons but with the same measures he will deal with all For when there is a difference in the Divine mercy it is in giving time and grace to repent not in sparing one and condemning another who die equally criminal and impenitent Those little lines of hopes are not upon either of these foundations For whatsoever is known or revealed is against these persons and does certainly condemn them Why then are they bidden to hope and repent I answer once for all It is upon something that we know not And if they be not sav'd we know not how they cannot expect to be saved by any thing that is revealed in their particular When S. Peter had declar'd to Simon Magus that he was in the gall of bitterness and yet made him pray if peradventure the thought of his heart might be forgiven him he did not by any thing that was reveal'd know that he should be pardoned but by something that he did not know there might be hope It is at no hand to be dissembled out of tenderness and pity to such persons but to be affirmed openly there is not revealed any thing to them that may bid them be in any degree confident But he that hath a deadly wound whom the Chirurgeons affirm to be hopeless yet is willing to receive Cordials and to be dress'd 2. If in the measures of life and death which are described in large characters there be any lines so indefinite and comprehensive that they who preach and declare the doctrines do not fully take in all that God intends upon the account of our weakness and ignorance there may be some little rushes and twiggs to support their sinking hopes For although the matters of duty and the conditions of life and death are so plain and legible that we can all understand our obligation yet things are seldome so described that we can give the final sentence concerning others There is a secret in these things which nothing shall open but the day of Judgment No man may judge his brother that is no man can or ought to say This man is damn'd and yet we know that he that dies an impenitent Traytor or Rebel or adulterer is damn'd But yet that Adulterous Natta or the Rebel Cinna or the Traytor sâ—â—ti line is actually damn'd that we know not The reason is because our duty is described for us to guide and walk our selves by not to judge and sentence others And even the judgment of the Church who hath authority to judge and sentence yet it is only for amendment it is universal it is declarative it is conditional not personal final decretory and eternal For otherwise does man judge otherwise does God II. There is some variety in the case and in the person and in the degrees of Repentance There is a period beyond which God will not admit a man to pardon but when it is we know not There is a minimum Religionis the least measure of Religion the lowest degree of acceptability but what it is we cannot tell There is also a proper measure for every one but no man can fathom it And the duties and parts of Repentance consist in the terms of a great distance and latitude and we cannot tell when a man first begins to be safe and when he is newly escaped from the regions of sin and when he begins his state of grace Now as God abates great measures of his wrath and forgives all that is past if we return betimes and live twenty years in piety and repentance so he does if the man do so nineteen years and eighteen and still shortning till you come to a year or any the least time that can do the work of Repentance and exterminate his vicious habit Now because Abraham begg'd for the pardon of Sodom if there should be found fifty righteous there and then abated five and then five more and then ten more till he came to ten alone and it is supposed that Abraham first gave out and that God would have pardon'd the City for one righteous mans sake if Abraham had still persevered to ask if any man will suppose that it may be done so in the abatements of time to be made to a returning sinner though I say it is a strange diminution to come from years to one day yet I will say nothing against it but that length or shortness of time makes nothing to the mercies of God but it makes very much to the duty of man because every action requires some time and every habit much more Now we have reason to say that the condition of a dying penitent after a whole wicked life is desperate because so far as we understand things habits are not to be extinguish'd and the contraries acquir'd but with long time and study But if there be any secret way by which the Spirit of God does work faster and produce undiscerned miracles we ought to adore that goodness by which it is so and they that can believe this may hope the other In the mean time neither the one nor the other is revealed and so it stands as it did in the whole Question IV. We find in the instance of Abrahams faith that against hope he believed in hope that is that he had great arguments on both sides and therefore that in defiance of one he would hope in the other because this could not fail him but the other could If it can be brought to pass that a dying man can hope after a wicked life it is a hope against hope and of this all that I can say is that it is no contradiction in the thing to affirm that a dying penitent who hath contracted vicious habits hath not time left him to perform that repentance which God requires of habitual sinners under the pains of eternal death and yet to bid such a person do what he can do and pray if peradventure God will be intreated Because that little hopes which he is bid to have are not warranted or relying upon pretence of any particular revelation contrary to the so many expressions of severe duty and stricter conditions but are plac'd upon the foundation of the Divine Power and such little proportions and similitudes of things and guesses and conjectures of kind persons as can only be sufficient to make the dying man try what can be done V. The first ages of the Church did exactly use this method of Doctrine and Discipline In some cases whereof I shall afterwards give account they refus'd to declare them pardon'd to minister Gods pardon to dying penitents but yet would not bid them despair but refer them to the Divine judgment which if it be reduc'd to the causes of things if we believe they proceeded reasonably must mean this that they knew of no revelation concerning the pardon of such persons but whether God would or no pardon
cannot be expected to be of the same manner and continuance as it ought to be in our general repentances for our many sins and our evil habits For every single solly of swearing rashly or vainly or falsly there ought to be a particular sorrow and a special deprecation but it may be another will intervene and a third will steal in upon you or you are surpriz'd in another instance or you are angry with your self for doing so and that anger transports you to some undecent expression and as a wave follows a wave we shall find instances of folly croud in upon us If we observe strictly we shall prevent some but we shall observe too many to press us If we observe not they will multiply without notice and without number But in either case it will be impossible to attend to every one of them with a special lasting sorrow and yet one act of sorrow is too little for any one chosen sin as I have proved formerly In this case when we have prayed for pardon of each confess'd it acknowledged the folly of it deprecated the punishment suffeâ—'d the shame and endur'd the sorrow and begg'd for aids against it and renewed our force it will fall into the heap of the state and generality of repentance that is it will be added to the portentous number of follies for which in general and indefinite comprehensions we must beg for pardon humbly and earnestly all the days of our life And I have no caution to be added here but this only viz. That we be not too hasty to put it into the general heap but according to the greatness or the danger or its mischief or its approach towards a habit so it is to be kept in fetters by it self alone For he that quickly passes it into the general heap either cares too little for it or is too soon surpriz'd by a new one which would not so easily have happened if he had been more severe to the first 97. XI It is a great matter that in our inquiries concerning our penitential sorrow we be able to discern what is the present motive and incentive of it whether fear or love whether it be attrition or contrition For by this we can tell best in what state or period of pardon we stand I do not say we are to enquire what motive began our sorrow for fear begins most commonly but we are to regard what is the present inducement what continues the hatred that is whither our first fears have born us If fear only be the agent at the best it is still imperfect and our pardon a great way off from being finished and our repentance or state of reformation nothing promoted But of these things I have in the former doctrine given accounts To which I only add this as being an advice or caution flowing from the former discourses 98. XII He that upon any pretence whatsoever puts off his repentances to the last or the worst of his days hath just reason to suspect that even when he doth repent he hath not the grace of Contrition that is that he repents for fear not for love and that his affections to sin remains The reason is because â—hat proceeds from an intolerable and a violent cause as repentance in sickness and danger of death or in the day of our calamity does is of it self for the present defective in a main part and cannot arrive at pardon till the love of God be in it so Christ said of Mary Magdalen Much hath been forgiven her because she loved much but from a great fear to pass into love is a work of time the effect of a long progression in repentance and is not easie to be done in those straitnesses of time and grace which is part of the evil portion of dying sinners Therefore besides those many and great considerations which I have before represented upon this account alone repentance must not be put off to our death-bed because our fear must pass into love before our sins are taken off by pardon proponimus illic Ire fatigatas ubi Daedalus exuit alas We have a great way to go a huge progression to make a mighty work to be done to which time is as necessary as labour and observation and therefore we must not put it off till what begins in fear cannot pass into love and therefore is too likely to end in sorrow their fears overtake such men it is too much to be feared that what they fear will happen to them 99. XIII And after all it is to be remembred that sorrow for sins is not repentance but a sign an instrument of it an inlet to it without which indeed repentance cannot be supposed as manhood must suppose childhood perfect supposes that it was imperfect but repentance is after sin of the same extent of signification and contains more duties and labour to the perfection of its parts than Innocence Repentance is like the Sun which enlightens not only the tops of the Eastern hills or warms the wall-fruits of Italy it makes the little Balsam-tree to weep precious tears with staring upon its beauties it produces rich spices in Arabia and warms the cold Hermit in his grot and calls the religious man from his dorter in all the parts of the world where holy religion dwells at the same time it digests the American gold and melts the snows from the Riphaean mountains because he darts his rays in every portion of the Air and the smallest Atome that dances in the Air is tied to a little thread of light which by equal emanations fills all the capacities of every region so is repentance it scatters its beams and holy influences it kills the lust of the eyes and mortifies the pride of life it crucifies the desires of the flesh and brings the understanding to the obedience of Jesus the fear of it bids war against the sin and the sorrow breaks the heart of it the hope that is mingled with contrition enkindles our desires to return and the love that is in it procures our pardon and the confidence of that pardon does increase our love and that love is obedience and that obedience is sanctification and that sanctification supposes the man to be justified before and he that is justified must be justified still and thus repentance is a holy life But the little drops of a beginning sorrow and the pert resolution to live better never passing into act and habit the quick and rash vows of the newly returning man and the confusion of face espied in the convicted sinner if they proceed no further are but like the sudden fires of the night which glare for a while within a little continent of Air big enough to make a fire-ball or the revolution of a minutes walk These when they are alone and do not actually and with effect minister to the wise counsels and firm progressions of a holy life are as far from procuring pardon as they are from
nor charitable to extend the Gravamen and punishment beyond the instances the Apostles make or their exact parallels But then also it would be remembred that the Apostles speak as fiercely against communion with Fornicatours and all disorders practical as against communion with Hereticks If any man that is called a brother be a Fornicatour or Covetous or an Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one no not to eat I am certain that a drunkard is as contrary to God and lives as contrary to the Laws of Christianity as an Heretick and I am also sure that I know what drunkenness is but I am not sure that such an Opinion is Heresie neither would other men be so sure as they think for if they did consider it aright and observe the infinite deceptions and causes of deceptions in wise men and in most things and in all doubtful Questions and that they did not mistake confidence for certainty But indeed I could not but smile at those jolly Friers two Franciscans offered themselves to the fire to prove Savonarola to be a Heretick but a certain Jacobine offered himself to the fire to prove that Savonarola had true Revelations and was no Heretick in the mean time Savonarola preacht but made no such confident offer nor durst he venture at that new kind of fire Ordeal And put case all four had past through the fire and died in the flames what would that have proved Had he been a Heretick or no Heretick the more or less for the confidence of these zealous Ideots If we mark it a great many Arguments whereon many Sects rely are no better probation then this comes to Confidence is the first and the second and the third part of a very great many of their propositions But now if men would a little turn the Tables and be as zealous for a good life and all the strictest precepts of Christianity which is a Religion the most holy the most reasonable and the most consummate that ever was taught to man as they are for such Propositions in which neither the life nor the ornament of Christianity is concerned we should find that as a consequent of this piety men would be as carefull as they could to find out all Truths and the sence of all Revelations which may concern their duty and where men were miserable and could not yet others that lived good lives too would also be so charitable as not to adde affliction to this misery and both of them are parts of good life To be compassionate and to help to bear one another's burthens not to destroy the weak but to entertain him meekly that 's a precept of charity and to edeavour to find out the whole will of God that also is a part of the obedience the choice and the excellency of Faith and he lives not a good life that does not doe both these But men think they have more reason to be zealous against Heresie then against a vice in manners because Heresie is infectious and dangerous and the principle of much evil Indeed if by an Heresie we mean that which is against an Article of Creed and breaks part of the Covenant made between God and man by the mediation of Jesus Christ I grant it to be a very grievous crime a calling God's veracity into question and a destruction also of good life because upon the Articles of Creed obedience is built and it lives or dies as the effect does by its proper cause for Faith is the moral cause of obedience But then Heresie that is such as this is also a vice and the person criminal and so the sin is to be esteemed in its degrees of malignity and let men be as zealous against it as they can and employ the whole Arsenal of the spiritual armour against it such as this is worse then adultery or murther inasmuch as the Soul is more noble then the Body and a false Doctrine is of greater dissemination and extent then a single act of violence or impurity Adultery or murther is a duel but Heresie truly and indeed such is an unlawful war it slays thousands The losing of Faith is like digging down a foundation all the superstructures of hope and patience and charity fall with it And besides this Heresie of all crimes is the most inexcusable and of least temptation for true Faith is most commonly kept with the least trouble of any grace in the world and Heresie of itself hath not onely no pleasure in it but is a very punishment because Faith as it opposes heretical or false Opinions and distinguishes from charity consists in mere acts of believing which because they are of true Propositions are natural and proportionable to the understanding and more honourable then false But then concerning those things which men now a-days call Heresie they cannot be so formidable as they are represented and if we consider that drunkenness is certainly a damnable sin and that there are more drunkards then Hereticks and that drunkenness is parent of a thousand vices it may better be said of this vice then of most of those opinions which we call Heresies it is infectious and dangerous and the principle of much evil and therefore as fit an object for a pious zeal to contest against as is any of those Opinions which trouble mens ease or reputation for that is the greatest of their malignity But if we consider that Sects are made and Opinions are called Heresies upon interest and the grounds of emolument we shall see that a good life would cure much of this mischief For First the Church of Rome which is the great Dictatrix of dogmatical Resolutions and the declarer of Heresie and calls Heretick more then all the world besides hath made that the rule of Heresie which is the conservatory of interest and the ends of men For to recede from the Doctrine of the Church with them makes Heresie that is to disrepute their Authority and not to obey them not to be their subjects not to give them the empire of our Conscience is the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Heresie So that with them Heresie is to be esteemed clearly by humane ends not by Divine Rules that is formal Heresie which does materially disserve them And it would make a suspicious man a little inquisitive into their particular Doctrines and when he finds that Indulgences and Jubilees and Purgatories and Masses and Offices for the dead are very profitable that the Doctrine of Primacy of Infallibility of Superiority over Councils of indirect power in temporals are great instruments of secular honour he would be apt enough to think that if the Church of Rome would learn to lay her honour at the feet of the Crucifix and despise the world and prefer Jerusalem before Rome and Heaven above the Lateran that these Opinions would not have in them any native strength to support them against the perpetual assaults of
it self I can only say what Secundus did to the wise Lupercus Quoties ad fastidium legentium deliciásque respicio intelligo nobis commendationem ex ipsa mediocritate libri petendam I can commend it because it is little and so not very troublesome And if it could have been written according to the worthiness of the Thing treated in it it would deserve so great a Patronage but because it is not it will therefore greatly need it but it can hope for it on no other account but because it is laid at the feet of a Princely Person who is Great and Good and one who not only is bound by Duty but by Choice hath obliged Himself to do advantages to any worthy Instrument of Religion But I have detain'd Your Grace so long in my Address that Your Pardon will be all the Favour which ought to be hop'd for by Your Grace's most Humble and Obliged Servant Jer. Dunensis A DISCOURSE OF CONFIRMATION THE INTRODVCTION NEXT to the Incarnation of the Son of God and the whole Oeconomy of our Redemption wrought by him in an admirable order and Conjugation of glorious Mercies the greatest thing that ever God did to the World is the giving to us the Holy Ghost and possibly this is the Consummation and Perfection of the other For in the work of Redemption Christ indeed made a new World we are wholly a new Creation and we must be so and therefore when S. John began the Narrative of the Gospel he began in a manner and style very like to Moses in his History of the first Creation In the beginning was the Word c. All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made But as in the Creation the Matter was first there were indeed Heavens and Earth and Waters but all this was rude and without form till the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters So it is in the new Creation We are a new Mass redeem'd with the bloud of Christ rescued from an evil portion and made Candidates of Heaven and Immortality but we are but an Embryo in the regeneration until the Spirit of God enlivens us and moves again upon the waters and then every subsequent motion and operation is from the Spirit of God We cannot say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost By him we live in him we walk by his aids we pray by his emotions we desire we breath and sigh and groan by him he helps us in all our infirmities and he gives us all our strengths he reveals mysteries to us and teaches us all our duties he stirs us up to holy desires and he actuates those desires he makes us to will and to do of his good pleasure For the Spirit of God is that in our Spiritual life that a Man's Soul is in his Natural without it we are but a dead and liveless trunk But then as a Man's Soul in proportion to the several Operations of Life obtains several appellatives it is Vegetative and Nutritive Sensitive and Intellective according as it operates So is the Spirit of God He is the Spirit of Regeneration in Baptism of Renovation in Repentance the Spirit of Love and the Spirit of holy Fear the Searcher of the hearts and the Spirit of Discerning the Spirit of Wisdom and the Spirit of Prayer In one mystery he illuminates and in another he feeds us he begins in one and finishes and perfects in another It is the same Spirit working divers Operations For he is all this now reckoned and he is every thing else that is the Principle of Good unto us he is the Beginning and the Progression the Consummation and Perfection of us all and yet every work of his is perfect in its kind and in order to his own designation and from the beginning to the end is Perfection all the way Justifying and Sanctifying Grace is the proper entitative Product in all but it hath divers appellatives and connotations in the several rites and yet even then also because of the identity of the Principle the similitude and general consonancy in the Effect the same appellative is given and the same effect imputed to more than one and yet none of them can be omitted when the great Master of the Family hath blessed it and given it institution Thus S. Dionys calls Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfection of the Divine birth and yet the baptized person must receive other mysteries which are more signally perfective 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Confirmation is yet more perfective and is properly the perfection of Baptism By Baptism we are Heirs and are adopted to the inheritance of Sons admitted to the Covenant of Repentance and engag'd to live a good Life yet this is but the solemnity of the Covenant which must pass into after-acts by other influences of the same Divine principle Until we receive the spirit of Obsignation or Confirmation we are but babes in Christ in the meanest sence Infants that can do nothing that cannot speak that cannot resist any violence expos'd to every rudeness and perishing by every Temptation But therefore as God at first appointed us a ministery of a new birth so also hath he given to his Church the consequent Ministery of a new strength The Spirit mov'd a little upon the waters of Baptism and gave us the Principles of Life but in Confirmation he makes us able to move our selves In the first he is the Spirit of Life but in this he is the Spirit of Strength and Motion Baptisma est nativitas Vnguentum verò est nobis actionis instar motûs said Cabasilas In Baptism we are intitled to the inheritance but because we are in our Infancy and minority the Father gives unto his Sons a Tutor a Guardian and a Teacher in Confirmation said Rupertus that as we are baptized into the Death and Resurrection of Christ so in Confirmation we may be renewed in the Inner man and strengthned in all our Holy vows and purposes by the Holy Ghost ministred according to God's Ordinance The Holy Rite of Confirmation is a Divine Ordinance and it produces Divine Effects and is ministred by Divine Persons that is by those whom God hath sanctified and separated to this ministration At first all that were baptiz'd were also confirm'd and ever since all good people that have understood it have been very zealous for it and time was in England even since the first beginnings of the Reformation when Confirmation had been less carefully ministred for about six years when the people had their first opportunities of it restor'd they ran to it in so great numbers that Churches and Church-yards would not hold them insomuch that I have read that the Bishop of Chester was forc'd to impose hands on the people in the Fields and was so oppressed with multitudes that he had almost been trode to death by the people and had died with the throng
Let us therefore Brethren abide in hope and persevere in Catechizings saith S. Cyril although they be long and produced with many words or discourses The same also we find in S. Gregory Nazianzen and S. Austin The use that I make of this notion is principally to be an exhortation to all of the Clergy that they take great care to Catechize all their people to bring up Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord to prepare a holy seed for the service of God to cultivate the young plants and to dress the old ones to take care that those who are men in the World be not mere Babes and uninstructed in Christ and that they who are children in age may be wise unto Salvation for by this means we shall rescue them from early temptations when being so prepared they are so assisted by a Divine Ministery we shall weaken the Devil's power by which he too often and too much prevails upon uninstructed and unconfirmed Youth For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Confirmation is the firmament of our Profession but we profess nothing till we be Catechized Catechizings are our best Preachings and by them we shall give the best accounts of our charges while in the behalf of Christ we make Disciples and take prepossession of Infant-understandings and by this holy Rite by Prayer and Imposition of hands we minister the Holy Spirit to them and so prevent and disable the artifices of the Devil for we are not ignorant of his devices how he enters as soon as he can and taking advantage of their ignorance and their passion seats himself so strongly in their hearts and heads Turpiùs ejicitur quam non admittitur hostis It is harder to cast the Devil out than to keep him out Hence it is that the Youth are so corrupted in their Manners so Devilish in their Natures so cursed in their Conversation so disobedient to Parents so wholly given to vanity and idleness they learn to swear before they can pray and to lie as soon as they can speak It is not my sence alone but was long since observed by Gerson and Gulielmus Parisiensis Propter cessationem Confirmationis tepiditas grandior est in fidelibus fidei defensione There is a coldness and deadness in Religion and it proceeds from the neglect of Confirmation rightly ministred and after due preparations and dispositions A little thing will fill a Child's head Teach them to say their Prayers tell them the stories of the Life and Death of Christ cause them to love the holy Jesus with their first love make them afraid of a sin let the Principles which God hath planted in their very Creation the natural principles of Justice and Truth of Honesty and Thankfulness of Simplicity and Obedience be brought into act and habit and confirmation by the Holy Sermons of the Gospel If the Guides of Souls would have their people holy let them â—each Holiness to their Children and then they will at least have a new generation unto God better than this wherein we now live They who are most zealous in this particular will with most comfort reap the fruit of their Labours and the blessings of their Ministery and by the numbers which every Curate presents to his Bishop fitted for Confirmation he will in proportion render an account of his Stewardship with some visible felicity And let it be remembred that in the last Rubrick of the Office of Confirmation in our Liturgy it is made into a Law that none should be admitted to the holy Communion until such time as he could say the Catechism and be Confirmed which was also a Law and Custom in the Primitive Church as appears in S. Dionysius his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and the matter of Fact is notorious Among the Helvetians they are forbidden to contract Marriages before they are well instructed in the Catechism And in a late Synod at Bourges the Curates are commanded to threaten all that are not Confirmed that they shall never receive the Lord's Supper nor be married And in effect the same is of force in our Church For the Married persons being to receive the Sacrament at their Marriage and none are to receive but those that are Confirmed the same Law obtains with us as with the Helvetians or the Synodus Bituricensis There is another little inquiry which I am not willing to omit but the answer will not be long because there is not much to be said on either side Some inquire whether the Holy Rite of Confirmation can be ministred any more than once S. Austin seems to be of opinion that it may be repeated Quid enim aliud est Impositio manuum nisi oratio super hominem Confirmation is a solemn prayer over a man and if so why it may not be reiterated can have nothing in the nature of the thing and the Greeks do it frequently but they have no warranty from the Scripture nor from any of their own ancient Doctors Indeed when any did return from Heresie they Confirmed them as I have proved out of the first and second Council of Arles the Council of Laodicea and the second Council of Sevil But upon a closer intuition of the thing I find they did so only to such who did not allow of Confirmation in their Sects such as the Novatians and the Donatists Novatiani poenitentiam à suo conventu arcent penitus iis qui ab ipsis tinguntur sacrum Chrisma non praebent Quocirca qui ex hac Haeresi corpori Ecclesiae conjunguntur benedicti Patres ungi jusserunt so Theodoret. For that reason only the Novatians were to be Confirmed upon their Conversion because they had it not before I find also they did confirm the converted Arrians but the reason is given in the first Council of Arles quia propriâ lege utuntur they had a way of their own that is as the Gloss saith upon the Canon de Arrianis consecrat dist 4. their Baptism was not in the name of the Holy Trinity and so their Baptism being null or at least suspected to make all as sure as they could they Confirmed them The same also is the case of the Bonasiaci in the second Council of Arles though they were as some of the Arrians also were Baptized in the name of the most Holy Trinity but it was a suspected matter and therefore they Confirmed them But to such persons who had been rightly Baptized and Confirmed they never did repeat it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gift of the Spirit is an inedeleble Seal saith S. Cyril 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Basil calls it it is inviolable They who did re-baptize did also re-confirm But as it was an error in S. Cyprian and the Africans to do the first so was the second also in case they had done it for I find no mention expresly that they did the latter but upon the fore-mentioned accounts and either upon supposition of the
all the New Testament It speaks of Friends often but by Friends are meant our acquiantance or our Kindred the relatives of our Family or our Fortune or our Sect something of society or something of kindness there is in it a tenderness of appellation and civility a relation made by gifts or by duty by services and subjection and I think I have reason to be confident that the word Friend speaking of humane entercourse is no other-ways used in the Gospels or Epistles or Acts of the Apostles and the reason of it is the word Friend is of a large signification and means all relations and societies and whatsoever is not enemy But by Friendships I suppose you mean the greatest love and the greatest usefulness and the most open communication and the noblest sufferings and the most exemplar faithfulness and the severest truth and the heartiest counsel and the greatest union of minds of which brave men and women are capable But then I must tell you that Christianity hath new christened it and calls this Charity The Christian knows no enemy he hath that is though persons may be injurious to him and unworthy in themselves yet he knows none whom he is not first bound to forgive which is indeed to make them on his part to be no enemies that is to make that the word enemy shall not be perfectly contrary to friend it shall not be a relative term and signifie something on each hand a relative and a correlative and then he knows none whom he is not bound to love and pray for to treat kindly and justly liberally and obligingly Christian Charity is Friendship to all the world and when Friendships were the noblest things in the world Charity was little like the Sun drawn in at a chink or his beams drawn into the centre of a Burning-Glass but Christian Charity is Friendship expanded like the face of the Sun when it mounts above the Eastern hills and I was strangely pleas'd when I saw something of this in CICERO for I have been so push'd at by herds and flocks of people that follow any body that whistles to them or drives them to Pasture that I am grown afraid of any Truth that seems chargeable with singularity but therefore I say glad I was when I saw Laelius in Cicero discourse thus Amicitia ex infinitate generis humani quam conciliavit ipsa natura contractares est adducta in angustum ut omnis charitas aut inter duos aut inter paucos jungeretur Nature hath made friendships and societies relations and endearments and by something or other we relate to all the world there is enough in every man that is willing to make him become our Friend but when men contract friendships they inclose the Commons and what Nature intended should be every mans we make proper to two or three Friendship is like Rivers and the strand of Seas and the Air common to all the world but Tyrants and evil customs wars and want of love have made them proper and peculiar But when Christianity came to renew our nature and to restore our laws and to increase her priviledges and to make her aptness to become religion then it was declared that our Friendships were to be as universal as our conversation that is actual to all with whom we converse and potentially extended unto those with whom we did not For he who was to treat his enemies with forgiveness and prayers and love and beneficence was indeed to have no enemies and to have all friends So that to your question How far a Dear and perfect Friendship is authoriz'd by the principles of Christianity The answer is ready and easie It is warranted to extend to all Mankind and the more we love the better we are and the greater our Friendships are the dearer we are to God Let them be as Dear and let them be as perfect and let them be as many as you can there is no danger in it only where the restraint begins there begins our imperfection It is not ill that you entertain brave Friendships and worthy Societies it were well if you could love and if you could benefit all Mankind for I conceive that is the summ of all Friendship I confess this is not to be expected of us in this world but as all our graces here are but imperfect that is at the best they are but tendencies to glory so our friendships are imperfect too and but beginnings of a celelestial friendship by which we shall love every one as much as they can be loved But then so we must here in our proportion and indeed that is it that can make the difference we must be friends to all that is apt to do good loving them really and doing to them all the benefits which we can and which they are capable of The Friendship is equal to all the World and of it self hath no difference but is differenced only by accidents and by the capacity or incapacity of them that receive it Nature and Religion are the bands of friendships excellency and usefulness are its great indearments society and neighbourhood that is the possibilities and the circumstances of converse are the determinations and actualities of it Now when men either are unnatural or irreligious they will not be friends when they are neither excellent nor useful they are not worthy to be friends when they are strangers or unknown they cannot be friends actually and practically but yet as any man hath any thing of the good contrary to those evils so he can have and must have his share of friendship For thus the Sun is the eye of the world and he is indifferent to the Negro or the cold Russian to them that dwell under the line and them that stand near the Tropicks the scalded Indian or the poor boy that shakes at the foot of the Riphean hills But the â—luxureâ— of the Heaven and the Earth the conveniency of abode and the approaches to the North or South respectively change the emanations of his beams not that they do not pass always from him but that they are not equally received below but by periods and changes by little in-lets and reflections they receive what they can And some have only a dark day and a long night from him snows and white cattle a miserable life and a perpetual harvest of Cataâ—â—hes and Consumptionâ— Apoplexies and dead Palsies But some have splendid sires and aromatick spices rich wines and well-digested fruits great wit and great courage because they dwell in his eye and look in his face and are the Courtiers of the Sun and wait upon him in his Chambers of the East Just so is it in friendships some are worthy and some are necessary some dwell hard by and are fitted for converse Nature joyns some to us and Religion combines us with others Society and accidents parity of fortune and equal dispositions do actuate our friendships which of themselves and in their prime
and signifies as much as Vnity can mean and every consent and every pleasure and every benefit and every society is the Mother or the Daughter of friendship Some friendships are made by nature some by contract some by interest and some by souls And in proportion to these ways of Uniting so the friendships are greater or less vertuous or natural profitable or holy or all this together Nature makes excellent friendships of which we observe something in social Plants growing better in each others neighbourhood than where they stand singly And in Animals it is more notorious whose friendships extend so far as to herd and dwell together to play and feed to defend and fight for one another and to cry in absence and to rejoyce in one anothers presence But these friendships have other names less noble they are Sympathy or they are Instinct But if to this natural friendship there be Reason superadded something will come in upon the stock of Reason which will ennoble it But because no Rivers can rise higher than Fountains Reason shall draw out all the dispositions which are in Nature and establish them into friendships but they cannot surmount the communications of Nature Nature can make no friendships greater than her own excellencies Nature is the way of contracting necessary friendships that is by nature such friendships are contracted without which we cannot live and be educated or be well or be at all In this scene that of Parents and Children is the greatest which indeed is begun in nature but is actuated by society and mutual endearments For Parents love their Children because they love themselves Children being but like emissions of water symbolical or indeed the same with the fountain and they in their posterity see the images and instruments of a civil immortality But if Parents and Children do not live together we see their friendships and their loves are much abated and supported only by fame and duty by customs and religion which to nature are but artificial pillars and make this friendship to be complicated and to pass from its own kind to another That of Children to their Parents is not properly friendship but gratitude and interest and religion and whatever can supervene of the nature of friendship comes in upon another account upon society and worthiness and choice This relation on either hand makes great Dearnesses But it hath special and proper significations of it and there is a special duty incumbent on each other respectively This friendship and social relation is not equal and there is too much authority on one side and too much fear on the other to make equal friendships and therefore although this is one of the kinds of friendship that is of a social and relative love and conversation yet in the more proper use of the word Friendship does do some things which Father and Son do not I instance in the free and open communicating counsels and the evenness and pleasantness of conversation and consequently the significations of the paternal and filial love as they are divers in themselves and unequal and therefore another kind of friendship than we mean in our inquiry so they are such a duty which no other friendship can annul because their mutual duty is bound upon them by religion long before any other friendships can be contracted and therefore having first possession must abide for ever The duty and love to Parents must not yield to religion much less to any new friendships and our Parents are to be preferred before the Corban and are at no hand to be laid aside but when they engage against God That is in the rights which this relation and kind of friendship challenges as its propriety it is supreme and cannot give place to any other friendships till the Father gives his right away and God or the Laws consent to it as in the case of marriage emancipation and adoption to another family in which cases though love and gratitude are still obliging yet the societies and duties of relation are very much altered which in the proper and best friendships can never be at all But then this also is true That the social relations of Parents and Children not having in them all the capacities of a proper friendship cannot challenge all the significations of it that is it is no prejudice to the duty I owe there to pay all the dearnesseâ— which are due here and to friends there are some things due which the other cannot challenge I mean my secret and my equal conversation and the pleasures and interests of these and the consequents of all Next to this is the society and dearness of Brothers and Sisters which usually is very great amongst worthy persons but if it be considered what it is in it self it is but very little there is very often a likeness of natural temper and there is a social life under the same roof and they are commanded to love one another and they are equals in many instances and are endeared by conversation when it is merry and pleasant innocent and simple without art and without design But Brothers pass not into noble friendships upon the stock of that relation they have fair dispositions and advantages and are more easie and ready to ferment into the greatest dearnesses if all things else be answerable Nature disposes them well towards it but in this inquiry if we ask what duty is passed upon a Brother to a Brother even for being so I answer that religion and our Parents and God and the Laws appoint what measures they please but nature passes but very little and friendship less and this we see apparently in those Brothers who live asunder and contract new relations and dwell in other societies There is no love no friendship without the entercouse of conversation Friendships indeed may last longer than our abode together but they were first contracted by it and established by pleasure and benefit and unless it be the best kind of friendship which that of Brothers in that mere capacity is not it dies when it wants the proper nutriment and support and to this purpose is that which was spoken by Solomon Better is a neighbour that is near than a Brother that is far off that is although ordinarily Brothers are first possessed of the entries and fancies of friendship because they are of the first societies and conversations yet when that ceases and the Brother goes away so that he does no advantage no benefit of entercourse the neighbour that dwells by me with whom if I converse at all either he is my enemy and does and receives evil or if we converse in worthinesses and benefit and pleasant communication he is better in the laws and measures of friendship than my distant Brother And it is observable that Brother is indeed a word of friendship and charity and of mutual endearment and so is a title of the bravest society yet in all the Scripture there are no
precepts given of any duty and comport which Brothers that is the descendents of the same Parents are to have one towards another in that capacity and it is not because their nearness is such that they need none For Parents and children are nearer and yet need tables of duty to be described and for Brothers certainly they need it infinitely if there be any peculiar duty Cain and Abel are the great probation of that and you know who said Fratrum quoque gratia rara est It is not often you shall see Two Brothers live in amity But the Scripture which often describes the duty of Parents and Children never describes the duty of Brothers except where by Brethren are meant all that part of mankind who are tied to us by any vicinity and indearment of religion or country of profession and family of contract or society of love and the noblest friendships the meaning is that though Fraternity alone be the endearment of some degrees of friendship without choice and without excellency yet the relation it self is not friendship and does not naturally infer it and that which is procured by it is but limited and little and though it may pass into it as other conversations may yet the friendship is accidental to it and enters upon other accounts as it does between strangers with this only difference that Brotherhood does oftentimes assist the valuation of those excellencies for which we entertain our friendships Fraternity is the opportunity and preliminary disposition to friendship and no more For if my Brother be a fool or a vicious person the love to which nature and our first conversation disposes me does not end in friendship but in pity and fair provisions and assistances which is a demonstration that Brotherhood is but the inclination and address to friendship And though I will love a worthy Brother more than a worthy stranger if the worthiness be equal because the relation is something and being put into the scales against an equal worthiness must needs turn the balance as every grain will do in an even weight yet when the relation is all the worthiness that is pretended it cannot stand in competition with a friend for though a friend-Brother is better than a friend-stranger where the friend is equal but the Brother is not yet a Brother is not better than a friend but as Solomon's expression is There is a Friend that is better than a Brother and to be born of the same Parents is so accidental and extrinsick to a mans pleasure or worthiness or spiritual advantages that though it be very pleasing and useful that a Brother should be a friend yet it is no great addition to a friend that he also is a Brother there is something in it but not much But in short the case is thus The first beginnings of friendship serve the necessities but choice and worthiness are the excellencies of its endearment and its bravery and between a Brother that is no friend and a friend that is no Brother there is the same difference as between the disposition and the act or habit a Brother if he be worthy is the readiest and the nearest to be a friend but till he be so he is but the twi-light of the day and but the blossom to the fairest fruit of Paradise A Brother does not always make a friend but a friend ever makes a Brother and more And although nature sometimes finds the tree yet friendship engraves the Image the first relation places him in the garden but friendship sets it in the Temple and then only it is venerable and sacred and so is Brotherhood when it hath the soul of friendship So that if it be asked which are most to be valued Brothers or Friends the answer is very easie Brotherhood is or may be one of the kinds of friendship and from thence only hath its value and therefore if it be compared with a greater friendship must give place But then it is not to be asked which is to be preferred a Brother or a Friend but which is the better friend Memnon or my Brother For if my Brother says I ought to love him best then he ought to love me best if he does then there is a great friendship and he possibly is to be preferred if he can be that friend which he pretends to be that is if he be equally worthy But if he says I must love him only because he is my Brother whether he loves me or no he is ridiculous and it will be a strange relation which hath no correspondent but suppose it and add this also that I am equally his Brother as he is mine and then he also must love me whether I love him or no and if he does not he says I must love him though he be my Enemy and so I must but I must not love my Enemy though he be my Brother more than I love my Friend and at last if he does love me for being his Brother I confess that this love deserves love again but then I consider that he loves me upon an incompetent reason for he that loves me only because I am his Brother loves me for that which is no worthiness and I must love him as much as that comes to and for as little reason unless this be added that he loves me first But whether choice and union of souls and worthiness of manners and greatness of understanding and usefulness of conversation and the benefits of Counsel and all those endearments which make our lives pleasant and our persons Dear are not better and greater reasons of love and Dearness than to be born of the same flesh I think amongst wise persons needs no great inquiry For Fraternity is but a Cognation of Bodies but Friendship is an Union of Souls which are confederated by more noble ligatures My Brother if he be no more shall have my hand to help him but unless he be my friend too he cannot challenge my heart and if his being my friend be the greater nearness then Friend is more than Brother and I suppose no man doubts but that David lov'd Jonathan far more than he lov'd his Brother Eliab One inquiry more there may be in this affair and that is Whether a Friend may be more than a Husband or Wife To which I answer that it can never be reasonable or just prudent or lawful but the reason is because Marriage is the Queen of friendships in which there is a communication of all that can be communicated by friendship and it being made sacred by vows and love by bodies and souls by interest and custom by religion and by laws by common Counsels and common fortunes it is the principal in the kind of friendship and the measure of all the rest And there is no abatement to this consideration but that there may be some allay in this as in other lesser friendships by the incapacity of the persons if I have not