and using all men as Brethren both near and dear unto us supposing Christ to love them tenderly so as they keep the profession of the Gospel and joyn in the outward communion of Saints Whereof the one doth-warrantize unto us their Faith the other their love till they fall away and forsake either the one or the other or both and then it is no injury to term them as they are When they separate themselves they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not judged by us but by their own doings Men do separate themselvs either by Heresie Schism or Apostasie If they lose the bond of Faith which then they are justly supposed to do when they frowardly oppugn any principal point of Christian Doctrine this is to separate themselves by Heresie If they break the bond of Unity whereby the Body of the Church is coupled and knit in one as they doe which wilfully forsake all external Communion with Saints in holy Exercises purely and orderly established in the Church this is to separate themselves by Schism If they willingly cast off and utterly forsake both profession of Christ and communion with Christians taking their leave of all Religion this is to separate themselves by plain Apostasie And Saint Iude to expresse the manner of their departure which by Apostasie fell away from the Faith of Christ saith They separated themselves noting thereby that it was not constraint of others which forced them to depart it was not infirmity and weaknesse in themselves it was not fear of Persecution to come upon them whereat their hearts did fail it was not grief of torment whereof they had tasted and were not able any longer to endure them No they voluntarily did separate themselves with a fully settled and altogether determined purpose never to name the Lord Jesus any more nor to have any fellowship with his Saints but to bend all their counsel and all their strength to raze out their memorial from amongst them 12. Now because that by such examples not onely the hearts of Infidels were hardned against the Truth but the mindes of weak Brethren also much troubled the Holy Ghost hath given sentence of these Backsliders that they were carnal men and had not the Spirit of Christ Jesus lest any man having an overweening of their Persons should be overmuch amazed and offended at their fall For simple men not able to discern their Spirits were brought by their Apostasie thus to reason with themselves If Christ be the Sonne of the Living God if he have the words of Eternal life if he be able to bring Salvation to all men that come unto him what meaneth this Apostasie and unconstrained departure Why do his Servants so willingly forsake him Babes be not deceived his Servants forsake him not They that separate themselves were amongst his Servants but if they had been of his Servants they had not separated themselves They were amongst us not of us saith Iohn and Saint Iude proveth it because they were carnal and had not the Spirit Will you judge of Wheat by Chaff which the winde hath scattered from amongst it Have the Children no Bread because the doggs have not tasted it Are Christians deceived of that Salvation they look for because they were denyed the joys of the life to come which were no Christians What if they seemed to be Pillars and principal Upholders of our Faith What is that to us which know that Angels have fallen from Heaven Although if these men had been of us indeed O the blessedness of a Christian man's estate they had stood surer than the Angels that had never departed from their place Wherein now we marvel not at their departure at all neither are we prejudiced by their falling away because they were not of us sith they are fleshly and have not the Spirit Children abide in the House for ever they are Bond-men and Bond-women which are cast out 13. It behoveth you therefore greatly every man to examine his own estate and to try whether you be bond or free children or no children I have told you already that we must beware we presume not to sit as Gods in judgement upon others and rashly as our conceit and fancy doth lead us so to determine of this man he is sincere or of that man he is an Hypocrite except by their falling away they make it manifest and known that they are For who art thou that takest upon thee to judge another before the time Judge thyself God hath left us infallible evidence whereby we may at any time give true and righteous sentence upon our selves We cannot examine the hearts of other men we may our own That we have passed from death to life we know it saith St. Iohn because we love the Brethren And know ye not your own selves how that Iesus Christ is in you except you be Reprobates I trust Beloved we know that we are not Reprobates because our Spirit doth bear us record that the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ is in us 14. It is as easie a matter for the Spirit within you to tell whose ye are as for the eyes of your Bodie to judge where you sit or in what place you stand For what saith the Scripture Ye which were in times past Strangers and Enemies because your mindes were set an evil works Christ hath now reconciled in the body of his Flesh through death to make you holy and umblameable and without fault in his sight If you continue grounded and established in the Faith and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel Collos. 1. And in the third to the Colossians Ye know that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of that Inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ. If we can make this account with our selves I was in times past dead in Trespasses and Sinnes I walked after the Prince that ruleth in the Ayr and after the Spirit that worketh in the Children of Disobedience but God who is rich in mercy through his great love wherewith he loved me even when I was dead hath quickned me in Christ. I was fierce heady proud high-minded but God hath made me like the Childe that is newly weaned I loved pleasures more than God I followed greedily the joyes of this present World I esteemed him that erected a Stage or Theatre more than Solomon which built a Temple to the Lord the Haâ—p Viol Timbrel and Pipe Men-singers and Women-singers were at my Feast it was my felicity to see my Children dance before me I said of every kinde of vanity O how sweet art thou in my Soul All which things now are crucified to me and I to them Now I hate the pride of life and pomp of this world now I take as great delight in the way of thy Testimonies O Lord as in all Riches now I finde more joy of heart in my Lord and Saviour than the Worldly-minded-man when his Wheat and Oyl do much abound
much prudence and tenderness so happily begun and prosecuted with more zeal then the establishment of Your own Throne The still crazy Church of England together with this Book its great and impregnable Shield do further need and humbly implore Your Majesties Royal Protection under God Nor can Your Majesty by any generous instance and perseverance most worthy of a Christian King more express that pious and grateful sense which God and all good Men expect from Your Majesty as some retribution for his many miraculous mercies to Your Self then in a wise speedy and happy setling of our Religious peace with the least grievance and most satisfaction to all Your good Subjects Sacred Order and Uniformity being the centre and circumference of our Civil Tranquillity Sedition naturally rising out of Schism and Rebellion out of Faction The onely cure and antidote against both are good Laws and Canons first wisely made with all Christian Moderation and Seasonable Charity next duly executed with Iustice and Impartiality which sober Severity is indeed the greatest Charity to the Publique Whose Verity Vnity Sanctity and Solemnity in Religious Concernments being once duly established must not be shaken or sacrificed to any private varieties and extravagancies Where the internals of Doctrines Morality Mysteries and Evangelical Duties being as they are in the Church of England sound and sacred the externals of decent Forms Circumstances Rites and Ceremonies being subordinate and servient to the main cannot be either evil or unsafe neither offensive to God nor good Christians For the attaining of which blessed ends of Piety and Peace that the sacred Sun and Shield of the Divine Grace and Power directing and protecting may ever shine upon Your Majesties Person and Family Counsels and Power is the humble Prayer of Your Sacred Majesties most Loyal Subject and devoted Servant IOH. EXON TO THE READER I Think it necessary to inform my Reader that Doctor Gauden the late Bishop of Worcester hath also lately wrote and publisht the Life of Master Hooker and though this be not writ by design to oppose what he hath truly written yet I am put upon a neccessity to say That in it there be many Material Mistakes and more Omissions I conceive some of his Mistakes did proceed from a Belief in Master Thomas Fuller who had too hastily published what be hath since most ingenuously retracted And for the Bishops Omissions I suppose his more weighty Business and Want of Time made him pass over many things without that due Examination which my better Leisure my Diligence and my accidental Advantages have made known unto me And now for my self I can say I hope or rather know there are no Material Mistakes in what I here present to you that shall become my Reader Little things that I have received by Tradition to which there may be too much and too little Faith given I will not at this distance of Time undertake to justifie for though I have used great Diligence and compared Relations and Circumstances and probable Results and Expressions yet I shall not impose my Belief upon my Reader I shall rather leave him at liberty But if there shall appear any Material Ommission I desire every Lover of truth and the Memory of Master Hooker that it may be made known unto me And to incline him to it I here promise to acknowledge and rectifie any such Mistake in a second Impression which the Printer says he hopes for and by this means my weak but faithful Endeavours may become a better Monument and in some degree more worthy the Memory of this Venerable Man I confess that when I consider the great Learning and Vertue of Master Hooker and what satisfaction and Advantages many Eminent Scholars and Admirers of him have had by his Labours I do not a little wonder that in Sixty years no man did undertake to tell Posterity of the Excellencies of his Life and Learning and the Accidents of both and sometimes wonder more at my self that I have been perswaded to it and indeed I do not easily pronounce my own Pardon nor expect that my Reader shall unless my Introduction shall prove my Apology to which I refer him The Copy of a Letter writ to Mr. Walton by Dr. King Lord Bishop of Chichester Honest ISAAC THough a Familiarity of Forty years continuance and the constant experience of your Love even in the worst times be sufficient to indear our Friendship yet I must confess my affection much improved not onely by evidences of private respect to those very many that know and love you but by your new demonstration of a Publick Spirit testified in a diligent true and useful Collection of so many Material Passages as you have now afforded me in the Life of Venerable Mr. Hooker Of which since desired by such a Friend as yourself I shall not deny to give the Testimony of what I know concerning him and his learned Books but shall first here take a fair occasion to tell you that you have been happy in chusing to write the Lives of three such Persons as Posterity hath just cause to honour which they will do the more for the true Relation of them by your happy Pen of all which I shall give you my unfeigned Censure I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable Friend Dr. Donne late Dean of St. Pauls Church who not only trusted me as his Executor but three days before his death delivered into my hands those excellent Sermons of his which are now made publick professing before Dr. Winniff Dr. Montford and I think your self then present at his bed-side that it was by my restless importunity that he had prepared them for the Press together with which as his best Legacy he gave me all his Sermon-Notes and his other Papers containing an Extract of near Fifteen hundred Authors How these were got out of my hands you who were the Messenger for them and how lost both to me and your self is not now seasonable to complain but since they did miscarry I am glad that the general Demonstration of his Worth was so fairly preserved and represented to the World by your Pen in the History of his Life indeed so well that beside others the best Critick of our later time Mr. Iohn Hales of Eaton Colledge affirm'd to me He had not seen a Life written with more advantage to the Subject or more reputation to the Writer than that of Dr. Donnes After the performance of this task for Dr. Donne you undertook the like office for our Friend Sir Henry Wolton betwixt which two there was a Friendship begun in Oxford continued in their various Travels and more confirm'd in the religious Friendship of Age and doubtless this excellent Person had writ the Life of Dr. Donne if Death had not prevented him by which means his and your Pre-collections for that Work fell to the happy manage of your Pen A Work which you would have declin'd if imperious perswasions had not
Reasons were not powerful enough to incline him to a willing acceptance of it his wish was rather to gain a better Country Living where he might be free from Noise so he exprest the desire of his Heart and eat that bread which he might more properly call his own in privacy and quietness But notwithstanding this aversness he was at last perswaded to accept of the Bishops Proposal and was by Patent for Life made Master of the Temple the 17th of March 1585. He being then in the 34th year of his Age. And here I shall make a stop and that the Reader may the better judge of what follows give him a Character of the Times and Temper of the people of this Nation when Mr. Hooker had his Admission into this Place A Place which he accepted rather than desired and yet here he promised himself a virtuous quietness that blessed Tranquillity which he always prayed and laboured for that so he might in Peace bring forth the Fruits of Peace and glorifie God by uninterrupted Prayers and praises for this he always thirsted and yet this was denied him For his Admission into this Place was the very beginning of those Oppositions and Anxieties which till then this Good man was a stranger to and of which the Reader may guess by what follows In this Character of the Times I shall by the Readers favour and for his information look so far back as to the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth a time in which the many pretended Titles to the Crown the frequent Treasons the Doubts of her Successour the late Civil War and the sharp Persecution that had raged to the effusion of so much Blood in the Reign of Queen Mary were fresh in the memory of all men and these begot fears in the most Pious and Wisest of this Nation least the like days should return again to them or their present Posterity The apprehension of which Dangers begot an earnest desire of a Settlement in the Church and State believing there was no other probable way left to make them sit quietly under their own Vines and Fig-trees and enjoy the desired Fruit of their Labours But Time and Peace and Plenty begot Self-ends and those begot Animosities Envy Opposition and Unthankfulness for those blessings for which they lately thirsted being then the very utmost of their Desires and even beyond their Hopes This was the temper of the Times in the beginning of her Reign and thus it continued too long For those very people that had enjoyed the desires of their hearts in a Reformation from the Church of Rome became at last so like the Grave as never to be satisfied but were still thirsting for more and more neglecting to pay that Obedience to Government and perform those Vows to God which they made in their days of Adversities and Fear so that in short time theree appeared thre several Interests each of them fearless and restless in the prosecution of their Designs they may for distinction be called The active Romanists The restless Non-conformists of which there were many sorts and The passive peaceable Protestant The Counsels of the first considered and resolved on in Rome the second in Scotland in Geneva and in divers selected secret dangerous Conventicles both there and within the bosom of our own Nation the third pleaded and defended their Cause by Establisht Laws both Ecclesiastical and Civil and if they were active it was to prevent the other two from destroying what was by those known Laws happily establisht to them and their Posterity I shall forbear to mention the very many and as Dangerous Plots of the Romanists against the Church and State because what is principally intended in this Digression is an account of the Opinions and Activity of the Non-conformists against whose judgement and practice Mr. Hooker became at last but most unwillingly to be ingaged in a Book-war a War which he maintained not as against an Enemy but with the spirit of Meekness and Reason In which number of Non-conformists though some might be sincere and well-meaning men whose indiscreet zeal might be so like Charity as thereby to cover a multitude of Errors yet of this Party there were many that were possest with an high degree of Spiritual wickedness I mean with an innate restles radical Pride and Malice I mean not those lesser sins that are more visible and more properly Carnal and sins against a mans self as Gluttony and Drunkenness and the like from which good Lord deliver us but sins of an higher nature because more unlike to the nature of God which is Love and Mercy and Peace and more like the Devil who is not a glutton nor can be drunk and yet is a Devil those wickednesses of Malice and Revenge and Opposition and a Complacence in working and beholding Confusion which are more properly his work who is the Enemy and disturber of mankind and greater sins though many will not believe it Men whom a furious Zeal and Prejudice had blinded and made incapable of hearing Reason or adhearing to the ways of Peace Men whom Pride and Self-conceit had made to overvalue their own Wisdom and become pertinacious and to hold foolish and unmannerly disputes against those Men which they ought to Reverence and those Laws which they ought to obey Men that laboured and joyed to speak evil of Government and then to be the Authors of Confusion of Confusion as it is Confusion whom Company and Conversation and Custom had blinded and made insensible that these were Errours and at last became so restless and so hardened in their opinions that like those which perisht in the gain-saying of Core so these dyed without repenting these spiritual wickednesses of which Coppinger and Hacket and their adherents are too sad testimonies And in these times which tended thus to Coâ—fusion there were also many others that pretended a Tenderness of Conscience refusing to submit to Ceremonies or to take an Oath before a lawful Magistrate and yet these very Mâ—n did in their secret Conventicles Covenant and Swear to each other to be assiduous and faithful in using their best endeavours to set up a Church Government that they had not agreed on To which end there was many Select parties that wandered up and down and were active in sowing Discontents and Sedition by venemous and secret Murmurings and a Dispersion of scurrilous Pamphlets and Libels against the Church and State but especially against the Bishops by which means together with very bold and as indiscreet Sermons the Common people became so Phanatick as St. Peter observed there were in his time some that wrested the Scripture to their own destruction so by these men and this means many came to believe the Bishops to be Antichrist and the onely Obstructers of Gods Discipline and many of them were at last given over to such desperate delusions as to find out a Text in the Revelation of St. Iohn that Antichrist was to be
small thing perswadeth them to change their opinions it behoveth that we vigilantly note and prevent by all means those evils whereby the hearts of men are lost which evils for the most part being personal do arm in such sort the Adversaries of God and his Church against us that if through our too much neglect and security the same should run on soon might we feel our estate brought to those lamentable terms whereof this hard and heavy sentence was by one of the Ancients uttered upon like occasions Dolens dico gemens denuncio sacerdotium quod apud nos intus cecidit foris diu stare non poterit But the gracious providence of Almighty God hath I trust put these Thorns of Contradiction in our sides lest that should steal upon the Church in a slumber which now I doubt not but through his assistance may be turned away from us bending thereunto our selves with constancy constancy in labor to do all men good constancy in Prayer unto God for all men Her especially whose sacred power matched with incomparable goodness of Nature hath hitherto been Gods most happy instrument by him miraculously kept for works of so miraculous preservation and safety unto others that as By the Sword of God and Gedeon was sometime the cry of the people of Israel so it might deservedly be at this day the joyful Song of innumerable multitudes yea the Emblem of some Estates and Dominions in the world and which must be eternally confest even with tears of thankfulness the true Inscription Stile or Title of all Churches as yet standing within this Realm By the goodness of Almighty God and his servant Elizabeth we areâ— That God who is able to make Mortality immortal give her such future continuance as may be no less glorious unto all Posterity then the days of Her Regiment past have been happy unto our selves and for his most dear Anointeds sake grant them all prosperity whose Labors Cares and Counsels unfeignedly are referred to Her endless welfare through his unspeakable mercy unto whom we all owe everlasting praise In which desire I will here rest humbly beseeching your Grace to pardon my great boldness and God to multiply his Blessings upon them that fear his Name Your Graces in all duty RICHARD HOOKER A PREFACE To them that seek as they term it The Reformation of Laws and Orders Ecclesiastical IN THE Church of England THough for no other cause yet for this That Posterity may know we have not loosly through silence permitted things to pass away as in a Dream there shall be for Mens information extant thus much concerning the present state of the Church of God established amongst us and their careful endeavor which would have uphold the same At your hands beloved in our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ for in him the love which we bear unto all that would but seem to be born of him it is not the Sea of your Gall and Bitterness that shall ever drown I have no great cause to look for other then the self-same portion and lot which your manner hath been hitherto to lay on them that concur not in Opinion and Sentence with you But our hope it that the God of Peace shall notwithstanding mans nature too impatical of contumelious malediction enable us quietly and even gladly to suffer all things for that work sake which we covet to perform The wonderful seal and fervor wherewith ye have with stood the received Orders of this Church was the first thing which caused me to enter into consideration Whether as all your published Books and Writings peremptorily maintain every Christian man fearing God stand bound to joyn with you for the furtherance of that which ye term The Lords Discipline Wherein I must plainly confess unto you that before I examined your sundry Declarations in that behalf it could not settle in my head to think but that undoubtedly such numbers of otherwise right well-affected and most religiously enclined minds had some marvellous reasonable enducements which led them with so great earnestness that way But when once as near as my slender ability would serve I had with travel and care performed that part of the Apostles advice and counsel in such cases whereby be willeth to try all things and was come at the length so far that there remained only the other clause to be satisfied wherein he concludeth that what good is must be held There was in my poor understanding no remedy but to set down this as my final resolute perswasion Surely the present Form of Church Government which the Laws of this Land have established is such as no Law of God nor Reason of Man hath hitherto been alledged of force sufficient to prove they do ill who to the uttermost of their power withstand the alteration thereof Contrariwise The other which instead of it we are required to accept is onely by Error and misconceipt named the Ordinance of Jesus Christ no one Proof as yet brought forth whereby it may clearly appear to be so in very deed The Explication of which two things I have here thought good to offer into your own hands Heartily beseeching you even by the Meekness of Iesus Christ whom I trust ye love That as ye tender the Peace and Quietness of this Church if there be in you that gracious Humility which hath ever been the Crown and Glory of a Christianly disposed minde If your own souls hearts and consciences the sound integrity whereof can but hardly stand with the refusal of Truth in personal respects be as I doubt not but they are things most dear and precious unto you Let not the Faith which ye have in our Lord Jesus Christ be blemished with partialities regard not who it is which speaketh but weigh onely what is spoken Think not that ye read the words of one who bendeth himself as an Adversary against the Truth which ye have already embraced but the words of one who desireth even to embrace together with you the self same Truth if it be the Truth and for that cause for no other God he knoweth hath undertaken the burthensom labor of this painful kinde of Conference For the plainer access whereunto let it be lawful for me to rip up the very bottom how and by whom your Discipline was planted at such time as this age we live in began to make first tryal thereof 2. A Founder it had whom for mine own part I think incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did injoy since the hour it injoyed him His bringing up was in the study of the Civil Law Divine knowledge he gathered not by hearing or reading so much as by teaching others For though thousands were debters to him as touching knowledge in that kinde yet be to none but onely to God the Author of that most blessed Fountain The Book of Life and of the admirable dexterity of Wit together with the helps of other learning which
them that so to do were so sin against their own souls and that they put forth their hands to iniquity whatsoever they go about and have not first the sacred Scripture of God for direction how can it chuse but bring the simple a thousand times to their wits end how can it chuse but vex and amaze them For in every action of common life to since out some seâ—tence clearly and infallibly setting before our eyes what we ought to do seem we in Scripture never so expert would trouble us more then we are aware In weak and tender minds we little know what misery this strict opinion would breed besides the stops it would make in the whole course of all mens lives and actions make all things sin which we do by direction of Natures light and by the rule of common discretion without thinking at all upon Scripture Admit this Position and Parents shall cause their children to sin as oft as they cause them to do any thing before they come to years of capacity and be ripe for Knowledge in the Scripture Admit this and it shall not be with Masters as it was with him him in the Gospel but servants being commanded to go shall stand still till they have errand warranted unto them by Scripture Which as it standeth with Christian duty in some cases so in common affairs to require it were most unfit Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiency of holy Scripture each extreamly opposit unto the other and both repugnant unto truth The Schools of Rome teach Scripture to be unsufficient as if except Traditions were added it did not contain all revealed and supernatural Truth which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in this life to know that they may in the next be saved Others justly condemning this opinion grow likewise unto a dangerous extremity as if Scripture did not only contain all things in that kinde necessary but all things simply and in such sort that to do any thing according to any other Law were not only unnecessary but even opposite unto salvation unlawful and sinful Whatsoever is spoken of God or things appertaining to God otherwise then as the truth is though it seem an honour it is an injury And as incredible praises given unto men do often abate and impair the credit of their deserved commendation so we must likewise take great heed lest in attributing unto Scripture more then it can have the incredibility of that do cause even those things which indeed it hath most abundantly to be less reverendly esteemed I therefore leave it to themselves to consider Whether they have in this First Point overshot themselves or not which God doth know is quickly done even when our meaning is most sincere as I am verily perswaded theirs in this case was OF THE LAWS OF Ecclesiastical Polity Book III. Concerning their Second Assertion That in Scripture there must be of necessity contained a Form of Church Polity the Laws whereof may in no wise be altered The Matter contained in this Third Book 1. WHat the Church is and in what respect Laws of Polity are thereunto necessarily required 2. Whether it be necessary that some particular Form of Church Polity be set down in Scripture sith the things that belong particularly to any such Form are not of necessity to salvation 3. That matters of Church Polity are different from matters of Faith and Salvation and that they themselves so teach which are out Reprovers for so teaching 4. That hereby we take not from Scripture any thing which thereunto with the soundness of truth may be given 5. Their meaning who first urged against the Polity of the Church of England that nothing ought to be established in the Church more then is commanded by the Word of God 6. How great injury men by so thinking should offer unto all the Churches of God 7. A shift notwithstanding to maintain it by interpreting Commanded as though it were meant that greater things onely ought to be found set down in Scripture particularly and lesser framed by the general Rules of Scripture 8. Another Device to defend the same by expounding Commanded as if it did signifie grounded as Scripture and were opposed to things sound out by the light of natural reason onely 9. How Laws for the Polity of the Church may be made by the advise of men and how those being nor repugnant to the Word of God are approved in his sight 10. The neither Gods being the Author of Laws nor yet his committing of them to Scripture is any Reason sufficient to prove that they admit no addition or change 11. Whether Christ must needs intend Laws unchangeable altogether or have forbidden any where to make any other Law then himself did deliver ALbeit the substance of those Controversies whereinto we have begun to wade be rather of outward things appertaining to the Church of Christ then of any thing wherein the nature and being of the Church consisteth yet because the Subject or Matter which this Position concerneth is A Forms of Church Government or Church-Polity It therefore behoveth us so far forth to consider the nature of the Church as is requisite for mens more clear and plain understanding in what respect Laws of Polity or Government are necessary thereunto That Church of Christ which we properly term his body Mystical can be but one neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man inasmuch as the parts thereof are some in Heaven already with Christ and the rest that are on earth albeit their natural persons be visible we do not discern under this property whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body Only our minds by intellectual conceit are able to apprehend that such a real body there is a body collective because it containeth an huge multitude a body mystical because the mystery of their conjunction is removed altogether from sense Whatsoever we read in Scripture concerning the endless love and the saving mercy which God sheweth towards his Church the only proper subject thereof is this Church Concerning this Flock it is that our Lord and Saviour hath promised I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any pluck them out of my hands They who are of this Society have such Marks and Notes of distinction from all others as are not objects unto our sense only unto God who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogitations unto him they are clear and manifest All men knew Nathaniel to be an Israelite But our Saviour piercing deeper giveth further Testimony of him then men could have done with such certainty as he did Behold indeed an Israelite in whom there is no guile If we profess as Peter did that we love the Lord and profess it in the hearing of men charity is prone to believe all things and therefore charitablemen are likely to think we do so as long as they see
that which ordereth his Work is Wisdom and that which perfecteth his Work is Power All things which God in their times and seasons hath brought forth were eternally and before all times in God as a work unbegun is in the Artificer which afterward bringeth it unto effect Therefore whatsoever we do behold now in this present World it was inwrapped within the Bowels of Divine Mercy written in the Book of Eternal Wisdom and held in the hands of Omnipotent Power the first Foundations of the World being as yet unlaid So that all things which God hath made are in that respect the Off-spring of God they are in him as effects in their highest cause he likewise actually is in them the assistance and influence of his Deity is their life Let hereunto saving efficacy be added and it bringeth forth a special Off-spring amongst men containing them to whom God hath himself given the gracious and amiable name of Sons We are by Nature the Sons of Adam When God created Adam he created us and as many as are descended from Adam have in themselves the Root out of which they spring The Sons of God we neither are all nor any one of us otherwise then onely by grace and favor The Sons of God have Gods own Natural Son as a second Adam from Heaven whose Race and Progeny they are by Spiritual and Heavenly Birth God therefore loving eternally his Son he must needs eternally in him have loved and preferred before all others them which are spiritually sithence descended and sprung out of him These were in God as in their Saviour and not as in their Creator onely It was the purpose of his saving Goodness his saving Wisdom and his saving Power which inclined it self towards them They which thus were in God eternally by their intended admission to life have by vocation or adoption God actually now in them as the Artificer is in the Work which his hand doth presently frame Life as all other gifts and benefits groweth originally from the Father and cometh not to us but by the Son nor by the Son to any of us in particular but through the Spirit For this cause the Apostle wisheth to the Church of Corinth The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost Which three St. Peter comprehendeth in one The participation of Divine Nature We are therefore in God through Christ eternally according to that intent and purpose whereby we are chosen to be made his in this present World before the World it self was made We are in God through the knowledge which is had of us and the love which is born towards us from everlasting But in God we actually are no longer then onely from the time of our actual Adoption into the Body of his true Church into the Fellowship of his Children For his Church he knoweth and loveth so that they which are in the Church are thereby known to be in him Our being in Christ by Eternal fore-knowledge saveth us not without our Actual and Real Adoption into the Fellowship of his Saints in this present World For in him we actually are by our actual incorporation into that Society which hath him for their Head and doth make together with him one Body he and they in that respect having one name for which cause by vertue of this Mystical Conjunction we are of him and in him even as though our very flesh and bones should be made continuate with his We are in Christ because he knoweth and loveth us even as parts of himself No man actually is in him but they in whom he actually is For he which hath not the Son of God hath not Life I am the Vine and ye are the Branches He which abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much Fruit but the Branch severed from the Vine withereth We are therefore adopted Sons of God to Eternal Life by Participation of the onely begotten Son of God whose Life is the Well-spring and cause of ours It is too cold an interpretation whereby some men expound our Being in Christ to import nothing else but onely That the self-same Nature which maketh us to be Men is in him and maketh him Man as we are For what man in the World is there which hath not so far forth communion with Jesus Christ It is not this that can sustain the weight of such sentences as speak of the Mystery of our Coherence with Jesus Christ. The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam Yea by Grace we are every of us in Christ and in his Church and in his Church as by Nature we were in those our first Parents God made Eve of the Rib of Adam And his Church he frameth out of the very Flesh the very wounded and bleeding side of the Son of Man His Body crucified and his Blood shed for the Life of the World are the true Elements of that Heavenly Being which maketh us such as himself is of whom we come For which cause the words of Adam may be fitly the words of Christ concerning his Church Flesh of my Flesh and Bone of my Bones a true Nature extract out of my own Body So that in him even according to his Manhood we according to our Heavenly Being are as Branches in that Root out of which they grow To all things he is Life and to men Light as the Son of God to the Church both Life and Light Eternal by being made the Son of Man for us and by being in us a Saviour whether we respect him as God or as Man Adam is in us as an original cause of our Nature and of that corruption of Nature which causeth death Christ as the cause original of Restauration to Life The person of Adam is not in us but his nature and the corruption of his nature derived into all men by Propagation Christ having Adams nature as we have but incorrupt deriveth not nature but incorruption and that immediately from his own Person into all that belong unto him As therefore we are really partakers of the body of Sin and Death received from Adam so except we be truly partakers of Christ and as really possessed of his Spirit all we speak of Eternal Life is but a dream That which quickneth us is the Spirit of the Second Adam and his Flesh that wherewith he quickneth That which in him made our Nature uncorrupt was the Union of his Deity with our Nature And in that respect the sentence of Death and Condemnation which onely taketh hold upon sinful flesh could no way possibly extend unto him This caused his voluntary death for others to prevail with God and to have the force of an Expiatory Sacrifice The Blood of Christ as the Apostle witnesseth doth therefore take away sin because through the Eternal Spirit he offered himself unto God without spot That
that men ought to Fast more often then Marry the best Feast-maker is with them the perfectest Saint they are assuredly meer Spirit and therefore these our corporal devotions please them not Thus the one for Montanus and his Superstition The other in a clean contrary tune against the Religion of the Church These Set-fasts away with them for they are Iewish and bring men under the yoke of servitude If I will fast let me chuse my time that Christian Liberty be not abridged Hereupon their glory was to fast especially upon the Sunday because the order of the Church was on that day not to Fast. On Church Fasting days and especially the Week before Easter when with us saith Epiphanius Custom admitteth nothing but lying down upon the Earth abstinence from fleshly delights and pleasures sorrowfulness dry and unsavory Diet Prayer Watching Fasting all the Medicines which holy Affections can minister they are up be times to take in of the strongest for the belly and when their veins are well swoln they make themselves mirth with laughter at this our service wherein we are perswaded we please God By this of Epiphanius it doth appear not onely what Fastings the Church of Christ in those times used but also what other parts of Discipline were together therewith in force according to the ancient use and custom of bringing all men at certain times to a due consideration and an open Humiliation of themselves Two kindes there were of Publick Penitency the one belonging to notorious offenders whose open wickedness had been scandalous the other appertaining to the whole Church and unto every several person whom the same containeth It will be answered That touching this latter kinde it may be exercised well enough by men in private No doubt but Penitency is as Prayer a thing acceptable unto God be it in publick or in secret Howbeit as in the one if men were wholly left to their own voluntary Meditations in their Closets and not drawn by Laws and Orders unto the open Assemblies of the Church that there they may joyn with others in Prayer it may be soon conjectured what Christian devotion that way would come unto in a short time Even so in the other We are by sufficient experience taught how little it booreth to tell men of washing away their sins with tears of Repentance and so to leave them altogether unto themselves O Lord what heaps of grievous transgressions have we committed the best the perfectest the most righteous amongst us all and yet clean pass them over unsorrowed foâ— and unrepented of onely because the Church hath forgotten utterly how to bestow her wonted times of Discipline wherein the publick example of all was unto every particular person a most effectual mean to put them often in minde and even in a manner to draw them to that which now we all quite and clean forget as if Penitency were no part of a Christian mans duty Again besides our private offences which ought not thus loosly to be overslipt suppose we the Body and Corporation of the Church so just that at no time it needeth to shew it self openly cast down in regard of those Faults and Transgressions which though they do not properly belong unto any one had notwithstanding a special Sacrifice appointed for them in the Law of Moses and being common to the whole Society which containeth all must needs so far concern every man in particular as at some time in solemn manner to require acknowledgment with more then daily and ordinary testifications of grief There could not hereunto a fitter preamble be devised then that memorable Commination set down in the Book of Common Prayer if our practice in the rest were suitable The Head already so well drawn doth but wish a proportionable Body And by the Preface to that very part of the English Liturgy it may appear how at the first setting down thereof no less was intended For so we are to interpret the meaning of those words wherein restitution of the Primitive Church Discipline is greatly wished for touching the manner of publick penance in time of Lent Wherewith some being not much acquainted but having framed in their mindes the conceit of a new Discipline far unlike to that of old they make themselves believe it is undoubtedly this their Discipline which at the first was so much desired They have long pretended that the whole Scripture is plain for them If now the Communion Book make for them too I well think the one doth as much as the other it may be hoped that being found such a well-willer unto their cause they will more favor it then they have done Having therefore hitherto spoken both of Festival days and so much of solemn Fasts as may reasonably serve to shew the ground thereof in the Law of Nature the practice partly appointed and partly allowed of God in the Jewish Church the like continued in the Church of Christ together with the sinister oppositions either of Hereticks erroneously abusing the same or of others thereat quarrelling without cause we will onely collect the chiefest points as well of resemblance as of difference between them and so end First In this they agree that because Nature is the general Root of both therefore both have been always common to the Church with Infidels and Heathen men Secondly They also herein accord that as oft as joy is the cause of the one and grief the Well-spring of the other they are incompatible A third degree of affinity between them is That neither being acceptable to God of it self but both tokens of that which is acceptable their approbation with him must necessarily depend on that which they ought to import and signifie So that if herein the minde dispose no it self aright whether we rest or fast we offend A fourth thing common unto them is that the greatest part of the World hath always grosly and palpably offended in both Infidels because they did all in relation to false gods godless sensual and careless mindes for that there is in them no constant true and sincere affection towards those things which are pretended by such exercise yea certain flattering over-sights there are wherewith sundry and they not of the worst sort may be easily in these cases led awry even through abundance of love and liking to that which must be imbraced by all means but with caution in as much as the very admiration of Saints Whether we celebrate their glory or follow them in humility whether we laugh or weep mourn or rejoyce with them is as in all things the affection of Love apt to deceive and doth therefore need the more to be directed by a watchful guide seeing there is manifestly both ways even in them whom we honor that which we are to observe and shun The best have not still been sufficiently mindful that Gods very Angels in Heaven are but Angels and that bodily exercise considered in it self is no
her tears Our Lord doth love that many should become suppliant for one In like sort long before him Tertullian Some few assembled make a Church and the Church is as Christ himself When thou dost therefore put forth thy hands to the knees of thy brethren thou touchest Christ it is Christ unto whom thou art a supplicant so when they pour one tears over them it is even Christ that taketh compassion Christ which prayeth when they pray Neither can that easily be denyed for which the Son is himself contented to become a suitor Whereas in these considerations therefore voluntary Penitents had been long accustomed for great and grievous crimes though secret yet openly both to repent and confess as the Canons of Antient Discipline required the Greek Church first and in processe of time the Latine altered this order judging it sufficient and more convenient that such offenders should do Penance and make confession in private onely The cause why the Latins did Leo declareth saying Although the ripeness of faith be commendable which for the fear of God doth not fear to incur shame before all men yet because every ones crimes are not such that it can be free and safe for them to make publication of all things wherein repentance is necessary let a custome so unfit to be kept be abrogated lest many forbear to use remedies of penitency whilst they either blush or are afraid to acquaint their enemies with those acts for which the Laws may take hold upon them Besides it shall win the more Repentance if the Consciences of Sinners be not emptied into the peoples ears And to this only cause doth Sozomen impure the change which the Grecians made by ordaining throughout all Churches certain Penitentiaries to take the Confessions and appoint the Penances of secret offenders Socrates for this also may be true that more inducements then one did set forward an alteration so generally made affirmeth the Grecians and not unlikely to have specially respected therein the occasion which the Novatianists took at the multititude of publick Penitents to insult over the Discipline of the Church against which they still cryed out wheresoever they had time and place He that sheweth Sinners favour doth but teach the innocent to Sin And therefore they themselves admitted no man to their Communion upon any Repentance which once was known to have offended after Baptism making Sinners thereby not the fewer but the closer and the more obdurate how fair soever their pretence might seem The Grecians Canon for some one Presbyter in every Church to undertake the charge of Penitency and to receive their voluntary Confessions which had sinned after Baptism continued in force for the space of above some hundred years till Nectarius and the Bishops of Churches under him begun a second alteration abolishing even that Confession which their Penitentiaries took in private There came to the Penitentiary of the Church of Constantinople a certain Gentlewoman and to him she made particular Confession of her faults committed after Baptism whom thereupon he advised to continue in Fasting and Prayer that as with tongue she had acknowledged her Sins so there might appear likewise in her some work worthy of Repentance But the Gentlewoman goeth forward and detecteth her self of a crime whereby they were forced to dis-robe an Ecclesiastical person that is to degrade a Deacon of the same Church When the matter by this mean came to publick notice the people were in a kind of tumult offended not onely at that which was done but much more because the Church should thereby endure open infamy and scorn The Clergy was perplexed and altogether doubtfull what way to take till one Eudemon born in Alexandria but at that time a Priest in the Church of Constantinople considering that the causes of voluntary Confession whether publick or private was especially to seek the Churches ayd as hath been before declared lest men should either not communicate with others or wittingly hazard their Souls if so be they did communicate and that the inconvenience which grew to the whole Church was otherwise exceeding great but especially grievous by means of so manifold offensive detections which must needs be continually more as the world did it self wax continually worse for Antiquity together with the gravity and severity thereof saith Sozomen had already begun by little and little to degenerate into loose and careless living whereas before offences were less partly through bashfulness in them which open their own faults and partly by means of their great austerity which sate as judges in this business these things Eudaemon having weighed with himself resolved easily the mind of Nectarius that the Penitentiaries office must be taken away and for participation in Gods holy mysteries every man be left to his own Conscience which was as he thought the onely means to free the Church from danger of Obloquie and Disgrace Thus much saith Socrates I am the bolder to relate because I received it from Eudaemons own mouth to whom mine answer was at that time Whether your counsel Sir have been for the Churches good or otherwise God knoweth But I see you have given occasion whereby we shall not now any more reprehend one anothers faults nor observe that Apostolick precept which saith Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of Darknesse but rather be ye also Reprovers of them With Socrates Sozomen both agreeth in the occasion of abolishing Penitentiaries and moreover testifieth also that in his time living with the younger Theodosius the same Abolition did still continue and that the Bishops had in a manner every where followed the example given them by Nectarius Wherefore to implead the truth of this History Cardinal Baronius alledgeeth that Socrates Sozomen and Eudaemon were all Novatianists and that they falsifie in saying for so they report that as many as held the Consubstantial Being of Christ gave their assent to the abrogation of the forehearsed Canon The summe is he would have it taken for a Fable and the World to be perswaded that Nectarius did never any such thing Why then should Socrates first and afterwards Sozomen publish it To please their Pew-fellows the Disciples of Novatien A poor gratification and they very silly Friends that would take Lyes for Good-turns For the more acceptable the Matter was being deemed true the lesse they must needs when they found the contrary either credit or affect him which had deceived them Notwithstanding we know that joy and gladness rising from false information do not onely make men so forward to believe that which they first hear but also apt to scholie upon it and to report as true whatsoever they wish were true But so farr is Socrates from any such purpose that the Fact of Nectarius which others did both like and follow he doth disallow and reprove His speech to Eudemon before set down is proof sufficient that he writeth nothing but what was famously known to all
respect of their bad qualities their wickedness in it self a deprivation of right to deal in the affairs of the Church and a warrant for others to deal in them which are held to be of a clean other Society the Members whereof have been before so peremptorily for ever excluded from power of dealing for ever with affairs of the Church They which once have learned throughly this Lesson will quickly be capable perhaps of another equivalent unto it For the wickedness of the Ministery transfers their right unto the King In case the King be as wicked as they to whom then shall the right descend There is no remedy all must come by devolution at length even as the Family of Brown will have it unto the godly among the people for confusion unto the wise and the great by the poor and the simple Some Kniper doling with his retinue must take this work of the Lord in hand and the making of Church-Laws and Orders must prove to be their right in the end If not for love of the truth yet for shame of grosse absurdities let these contentions and stifling fancies be abandoned The cause which moved them for a time to hold a wicked Ministery no lawful Ministry and in this defect of a lawful Ministery authorized Kings to make Laws and Orders for the Affairs of the Church till it were well established is surely this First They see that whereas the continual dealing of the Kings of Israel in the Affairs of the Church doth make now very strong against them the burthen whereof they shall in time well enough shake off if it may be obtained that it is indeed lawful for Kings to follow these holy examples howbeit no longer than during the case of necessity while the wickednesse and in respect thereof the unlawfulness of the Ministery doth continue Secondly They perceive right well that unlesse they should yield Authority unto Kings in case of such supposed necessity the Discipline they urge were clean excluded as long as the Clergy of England doth thereunto remain opposite To open therefore a door for her entrance there is no remedy but the Tenet must be this That now when the Ministery of England is universally wicked and in that respect hath lost all Authority and is become no lawful Ministery no such Ministery as hath the right which otherwise should belong unto them if they were vertuous and godly as their Adversaries are in this necessity the King may do somewhat for the Church that which we do imply in the name of Headship he may both have and exercise till they be entered which will disburthen and ease him of it till they come the King is licensed to hold that Power which we call Headship But what afterwards In a Church ordered that which the Supream Magistrate hath to do is to see that the Laws of God touching his Worship and touching all matters and orders of the Church be executed and duly observed to see that every Ecclesiastical Person do that Office whereunto he is appointed to punish those that fail in their Office In a word that which Allain himself acknowledgeth unto the Earthly power which God hath given him it doth belong to defend the Laws of the Church to cause them to be executed and to punish Rebels and Transgressors of the same on all sides therfore it is confest that to the King belongeth power of maintaining the Laws made for Church-Regiment and of causing them to be observed but Principality of Power in making them which is the thing we attribute unto Kings this both the one sort and the other do withstand Touching the Kings supereminent authority in commanding and in judging of Causes Ecclesiastical First to explain therein our meaning It hath been taken as if we did hold that Kings may prescribe what themselves think good to be done in the service of God how the Word shall be taught how the Sacraments administred that Kings may personally sit in the Consistory where the Bishops do hearing and determining what Causes soever do appertain unto the Church That Kings and Queens in their own proper Persons are by Judicial Sentence to decide the Questions which do rise about matters of Faith and Christian Religion That Kings may excommunicate Finally That Kings may do whatsoever is incident unto the Office and Duty of an Ecclesiastical Judge Which opinion because we account as absurd as they who have fathered the same upon us we do them to wit that this is our meaning and no otherwise There is not within this Realm an Ecclesiastical Officer that may by the Authority of his own place command universally throughout the Kings Dominions but they of this People whom one may command are to anothers commandement unsubject Only the Kings Royal Power is of so large compass that no man commanded by him according to the order of Law can plead himself to be without the bounds and limits of that Authority Isay according to order of Law because that with us the highest have thereunto so tyed themselves that otherwise than so they take not upon them to command any And that Kings should be in such sort Supream Commanders over all men we hold it requisite as well for the ordering of Spiritual as Civil Affairs in as much as without universal Authority in this kinde they should not be able when need is to do as vertuous Kings have done Josiah parposing to renew the House of the Lord assembled the Priests and Levites and when they were together gave them their charge saying Go out unto the Cities of Judah and gather of Israel money to repair the House of the Lord from year to year and haste the things But the Levites hastned not Therefore the King commanded Jehoida the Chief-priest and said unto him Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in out of Judah and Jerusalem the Tax of Moses the Servant of the Lord and of the Congregation of Israel for the Tabernacle of the Testimony For wicked Athalia and her Children brake up the House of the Lord God and all the things that were dedicated for the House of the Lord did they bestow upon Balaam Therefore the King commanded and they made a Chest and set it at the Gate of the House of the Lord without and they made a Proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem to bring unto the Lord the Tax of Moses the Servant of the Lord laid upon Israel in the Wilderness Could either he have done this or after him Ezekias the like concerning the celebration of the Passeover but that all sorts of men in all things did owe unto these their Soveraign Rulers the same obedience which sometimes Iosuah had them by vow and promise bound unto Whosoever shall rebel against thy Commandments and will not obey thy words in all thou commandest him let him be put to death only be strong and of a good courage Furthermore Judgement Ecclesiastical we say is
where once he dwelleth What shall become of his Promise I am with you to the Worlds end If the Seed of God which containeth Christ may be first conceived and then cast out how doth S. Peter term it immortal How doth St. Iohn affirm It abideth If the Spirit which is given to cherish and preserve the Seed of Life may be given and taken away how is it the earnest of our inheritance until Redemption how doth it continue with us for ever If therefore the man which is once just by faith shall live by Faith and live for ever it followeth that he which once doth believe the foundation must needs believe the foundation forever If he believe it for ever how can he ever directly deny it Faith holding the direct affirmation the direct negation so long as Faith continueth is excluded Object But you will say That as he that is to day holy may to morrow forsake his holiness and become impure as a friend may change his minde and be made an enemy as hope may wither so saith may dye in the heart of man the Spirit may be quenched Grace may be extinguished they which believe may be quite turned away from the Truth Sol. The case is clear long experience hath made this manifest it needs no proof I grant we are apt prone and ready to forsake God but is God as ready to forsake us Our mindes are changeable is His so likewise Whom God hath justified hath not Christ assured that it is his Fathers will to give them a Kingdom Notwithstanding it shall not be otherwise given them than if they continue grounded and stablished in the Faith and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel if they abide in love and holiness Our Saviour therefore when he spake of the sheep effectually called and truly gathered into his fold I give unto-them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any pluck them out of my hands in promising to save them he promised no doubt to preserve them in that without which there can be no salvation as also from that whereby it is irrecoverably lost Every errour in things appertaining unto God is repugnant unto Faith every fearful cogitation unto hope unto love every stragling inordinate desire unto holiness every blemish wherewith either the inward thoughts of our mindes or the outward actions of our lives are stained But heresie such as that of Ebion Gerinthus and others against whom the Apostles were forced to bend themselves both by word and also by writing that repining discouragement of heart which tempteth God whereof we have Israel in the Desart for a pattern coldness such as that in the Angels of Ephesus soul sins known to be expresly against the first or second table of the Law such as Noah Monasses David Solomon and Peter committed These are each in their kind so opposite to the former vertues that they leave no place for salvation without an actual repentance But Infidelity extream despair hatred of God and all goodness obduration in Sin cannot stand where there is but the least spark of Faith hope love and sanctity even as cold in the lowest degree cannot be where heat in the highest degree is found Whereupon I conclude that although in the first kind no man liveth which sinneth not and in the second as perfect as any do live may sinne yet sith the man which is born of God hath a promise That in him the Seed of God shall abide which Seed is a sure Preservative against the sinnes that are of the third suit Greater and clearer assurance we cannot have of any thing than of this that from such sinnes God shall preserve the Righteous as the apple of his Eye for ever Directly to deny the foundation of Faith is plain Infidelity where Faith is entred there Infidelity is for ever excluded Therefore by him which hath once sincerely believed in Christ the foundation of Christian Faith can never be directly denied Did not Peter Did not Marcellinus Did not others both directly deny Christ after that they had believed and again believe after they had denied No doubt as they confesse in words whose Condemnation is nevertheless their not believing for example we have Iudas So likewisewise they may believe in Heart whose Condemnation without Repentance is their not Confessing Although therefore Peter and the rest for whose Faith Christ hath prayed that it might not fail did not by denial sinne the Sinne of Infidelity which is an inward abnegation of Christ for if they had done this their Faith had clearly failed Yet because they sinned notoriously and grievously committing that which they knew to be expresly forbidden by the Law which saith Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve necessary it was that he which purposed to save their Souls should as he did touch their Hearts with true unfeigned repentance that his mercy might restore them again to life whom Sinne had made the children of Death and Condemnation Touching the point therefore I hope I may safely set down that if the Justified erre as he may and never come to understand his errour God doth save him through general repentance But if he fall into Heresie he calleth him at one time or other by actual repentance but from Infidelity which is an inward direct denial of the foundation he preserveth him by special providence for ever Whereby we may easily know what to think of those Galatians whose hearts were so possest with the love of the Truth that if it had been possible they would have pluckt out their eyes to bestow upon their Teachers It is true that they were greatly changed both in perswasion and affection so that the Galatians when Saint Paul wrote unto them were not now the Galatians which they had been in former time for that through errour they wandred although they were his sheep I do not deny but that I should deny that they were his sheep if I should grant that through errour they perished It was a perilous opinion that they held perilous even in them that held it only as an Errour because it overthroweth the foundation by consequent But in them which obstinately maintain it I cannot think it less than a damnable Heresie We must therefore put a difference between them which erre of ignorance retaining neverthelesse a mind desirous to be instructed in Truth and them which after the Truth is laid open persist in the stubborn defence of their blindness Heretical defenders froward and stiff-necked Teachers of Circumcision the blessed Apostle calls Doggs Silly men who were seduced to think they taught the Truth he pitieth he taketh up in his arms he lovingly imbraceth he kisseth and with more than fatherly tenderness doth so temper qualifie and correct the speech he useth towards them that a man cannot easily discern whether did most abound the love which he bare to to their godly
declining or swarving aside which absolute perfection when did God ever finde in the Sons of mere mortal men Doth it not follow that all Flesh must of necessity fall down and confess We are not dust and ashes but worse our mindes from the highest to the lowest are not right If not right then undoubtedly not capable of that blessedness which we naturally seek but subject unto that which we most abhorr Anguish Tribulation Death Wo endless Misery For whatsoever misseth the way of Life the issue thereof cannot be but Perdition By which reason all being wrapped up in sinne and made thereby the Children of Death the mindes of all men being plainly convicted not to be right shall we think that God hath indued them with so many excellencies more not onely than any but then all the Creatures in the World besides to leave them in such estate that they had been happier if they they had never been Here commeth necessarily in a new way unto Salvation so that they which were in the other perverse may in this be found strait and righteous That the way of Nature this the way of Grace The end of that way Salvation merited presupposing the righteousness of mens works their Righteousness a natural hability to do them that hability the goodness of God which created them in such perfection But the end of this way Salvation bestowed upon men as a Gift presupposing not their righteousness but the forgiveness of their unrighteousness Justification their Justification not their natural ability to do good but their hearty sorrow for their not doing and unfeigned belief in him for whose sake not-doers are accepted which is their Vocation their Vocation the Election of God taking them out from the number of lost Children their Election a Mediator in whom to be elect This Mediation inexplicable Mercy his Mercy their Misery for whom he vouchsafed to make himself a Mediator The want of exact distinguishing between these two wayes and observing what they have common what peculiar hath been the cause of the greatest part of that confusion whereof Christianity at this day laboureth The lack of diligence in searching laying down and inuring mens mindes with those hidden grounds of Reason whereupon the least particular in each of these are most firmly and strongly builded is the onely reason of all those scruples and uncertainties wherewith we are in such sort intangled that a number despair of ever discerning what is right or wrong in any thing But we will let this matter rest whereinto we stepped to search out a way how some mindes may be and are right truly even in the sight of God though they be simply in themselves not right Howbeit there is not onely this difference between the just and impious that the minde of the one is right in the sight of God because his obliquity is not imputed the other perverse because his sin is unrepented of but even as lines that are drawn with a trembling hand but yet to the point which they should are thought ragged and uneven nevertheless direct in comparison of them which run clean another way so there is no incongruity in terming them right-minded men whom though God may charge with many things amiss yet they are not as those hideous and ugly Monsters in whom because there is nothing but wilful opposition of minde against God a more than tolerable deformity is noted in them by saying that their mindes are not right The Angel of the Church of Thyatyra unto whom the Son of God sendeth this greeting I know thy works and thy love and service and faith notwithstanding I have a few things against thee was not as he unto whom Saint Peter Thou hast no fellowship in this business for thy heart is not right in the sight of God So that whereat the orderly disposition of the minde of man should be this Perturbation and sensual Appetites all kept in awe by a moderate and sober will in all things frained by Reason Reason directed by the Law of God and Nature this Babylonian had his minde as it were turned upside down In him unreasonable cecity and blindnesse trampled all Laws both of God and Nature under seet Wilfulness tyrannized over Reason and Brutish Sensuality over Will An evident token that his out-rage would work his overthrow and procure his speedy ruine The Mother whereof was that which the Prophet in these words signified His minde doth swell Immoderate swelling a token of very eminent breach and of inevitable destruction Pride a vice which cleaveth so fast unto the hearts of men that if we were to strip our selves of all faults one by one we should undoubtedly finde it the very last and hardest to put off But I am not here to touch the secret itching humour of vanity wherewith men are generally touched It was a thing more than meanly inordinate wherewith the Babylonian did swell Which that we may both the better conceive and the more easily reap profit by the nature of this vice which setteth the whole World out of course and hath put so many even of the wisest besides themselves is first of all to be inquired into Secondly the dangers to be discovered which it draweth inevitably after it being not cured And last of all the ways to cure it Whether we look upon the gifts of Nature or of Grace or whatsoever is in the World admired as a part of man's excellency adorning his Body beautifying his Minde or externally any way commending him in the account and opinion of men there is in every kinde somewhat possible which no man hath and somewhat had which few men can attain unto By occasion whereof there groweth disparagement necessarily and by occasion of disparagement Pride through mens ignorance First therefore although men be not proud of any thing which is not at lest in opinion good yet every good thing they are not proud of but onely of that which neither is common unto many and being desired of all causeth them which have it to be honoured above the rest Now there is no man so void of brain as to suppose that Pride consisteth in the bare possession of such things for then to have Vertue were a Vice and they should be the happiest men who are most wretched because they have least of that which they would have And though in speech we do intimate a kinde of vanity to be in them of whom we say They are Wise men and they know it yet this doth not prove That every Wiseman is proud which doth not think himself to be blockish What we may have and know that we have it without offence do we then make offensive when we take joy and delight in having it What difference between men enriched with all aboundance of earthly and heavenly Blessings and Idols gorgeously attired but this The one takes pleasures in that which they have the other none If we may be possest with Beauty Strength Riches Power Knowledge
his absence should bereave them of and secondly of the sundry evils which themselves should be subject unto being once bereaved of so gracious a Master and Patron The one consideration over-whelmed their Souls with heaviness the other with fear Their Lord and Saviour whose words had cast down their hearts raiseth them presently again with chosen sentences of sweet encouragement My dear it is for your own sakes I leave the World I know the affections of your hearts are tender but if your love were directed with that advised and staid judgment which should be in you my speech of leaving the World and going unto my Father would not a little augment your joy Desolate and comfortless I will not leave you in Spirit I am with you to the Worlds end whether I be present or absent nothing shall ever take you out of these hands my going is to take possession of that in your names which is not only for me but also for you prepared where I am you shall be In the mean while my peace I give not as the World giveth give I unto you Let not your hearts be troubled nor fear The former part of which Sentence having otherwhere already been spoken of this unacceptable occasion to open the latter part thereof here I did not look for But so God disposeth the wayes of men Him I heartily beseech that the thing which he hath thus ordered by his Providence may through his gracious goodnesse turn unto your comfort Our Nature for coveteth preservation from things hurtful Hurtful things being present do breed heaviness being future do cause fear Our Saviour to abate the one speaketh thus unto his Disciples Let not your Hearts be troubled and to moderate the other addeth Fear not Grief and heaviness in the presence of sensible Evils cannot but trouble the mindes of men It may therefore seem that Christ required a thing impossible Be not troubled Why how could they choose But we must note this being natural and therefore simply not reproveable is in us good or bad according to the causes for which we are grieved or the measure of our grief It is not my meaning to speak so largely of this affection as to go over all particulars whereby men do one way or other offend in it but to teach it so farr onely as it may cause the very Apostles equals to swerve Our grief and heaviness therefore is reproveable sometime in respect of the cause from whence sometime in regard of the measure whereunto it groweth When Christ the life of the World was led unto cruel death there followed a number of People and Women which Women bewayled much his heavy case It was a natural compassion which caused them where they saw undeserved miseries there to pour forth unrestrained tears Nor was this reproved But in such readiness to lament where they less needed their blindness in not discerning that for which they ought much rather to have mourned this our Saviour a little toucheth putting them in minde that the tears which were wasted for him might better have been spent upon themselves Daughters of Ierusalem weep not for me weep for your selves and for your children It is not as the Stoicks have imagined a thing unseemly for a Wise man to be touched with grief of minde but to be sorrowful when we least should and where we should lament there to laugh this argueth our small wisdom Again when the Prophet David confesseth thus of himself I grieved to see the great prosperity of godless men how they flourish and go untoucht Psal. 73. Himself hereby openeth both our common and his peculiar imperfection whom this cause should not have made so pensive To grieve at this is to grieve where we should not because this grief doth rise from Errour We erre when we grieve at wicked mens impunity and prosperity because their Estate being rightly discerned they neither prosper nor go unpunished It may seem a Paradox it is truth That no wicked man's estate is prosperous fortunate or happy For what though they bless themselves and think their happinesse great Have not frantick Persons many times a great opinion of their own wisdome It may be that such as they think themselves others also do account them But what others Surely such as themselves are Truth and Reason discerneth farâ— otherwise of them Unto whom the Jews wish all prosperity unto them the phrase of their speech is to wish Peace Seeing then the name of Peace containeth in it all parts of true happiness when the Prophet saith plainly That the Wicked have no peace how can we think them to have any part of other than vainly imagined Felicity What wise man did ever account Fools happy If Wicked men were wise they would cease to be wicked Their Iniquity therefore proving their Folly how can we stand in doubt of their misery They abound in those things which all men desire A poor happinesse to have good things in possession A man to whom God hath given Riches and Treasures and Honour so that he wanteth nothing for his Soul of all that it desireth but yet God giveth him not the power to eat thereof such a felicity Solomon esteemeth but as a vanity a thing of nothing If such things adde nothing to mens happiness where they are not used surely Wicked men that use them ill the more they have the more wretched Of their Prosperity therefore we see what we are to think Touching their Impunity the same is likewise but supposed They are oftner plagued than we are aware of The pangs they feel are not always written in their forehead Though Wickedness be Sugar in their mouths and Wantonness as Oyl to make them look with chearful Countenance nevertheless if their Hearts were disclosed perhaps their glittering state would not greatly be envied The voyces that have broken out from some of them O that God had given me a heart sensless like the flints in the rocks of stone which as it can taste no pleasure so it feeleth no wo these and the like speeches are surely tokens of the curse which Zophar in the Book of Iob poureth upon the head of the impious man He shall suck the gall of Asps and the Viper's tongue shall slay him If this seem light because it is secret shall we think they go unpunished because no apparent Plague is presently seen upon them The Judgments of God do not always follow crimes as Thunder doth Lightning but sometimes the space of many Ages coming between When the Sun hath shined fair the space of six dayes upon their Tabernacle we know not what Clouds the seventh may bring And when their punishment doth come let them make their account in the greatness of their sufferings to pay the interest of that respite which hath been given them Or if they chance to escape clearly in this World which they seldome do in the Day when the Heavens shall shrivel as a scrowl and the Mountains
and to morrow condescend to have him beheaded or with the other Herod say they will worship Christ when they purpose a massacre in their hearts kiss Christ with Iudas and betray Christ with Iudas These are Mockers For Ishmael the Son of Hagar laughed at Isaac which was heir of the Promise so shall these men laugh at you as the maddest People under the Sun if ye be like Moses choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sinne for a season And why God hath not given them eyes to see nor hearts to conceive that exceeding recompence of your reward The promises of Salvation made to you are matters wherein they can take no pleasure even as Ishmael took no pleasure in that promise wherein God had said unto Abraham In Isaac shall thy seed be called because the Promise concerned not him but Isaac They are termed for their impiety towards God Mockers and for the impurity of their life and conversation Walkers after-their own ungodly lusts Saint Peter in his second Epistle and third Chapter soundeth the very depth of their impiety shewing first how they shall not shame at the length to profess themselves prophane and iâ—â—eligious by flat denying the Gospel of Jesus Christ and deâ—ding the sweet and comfortable promises of his appearing Secondly that they shall not be onely deâ—iders of all Religion but also disputers against God using Truth to subvert the Truth yea Scriptures themselves to disprove Scriptures Being in this sort Mockers they must needs be also Followers of their own ungodly lusts Being Atheists in perswasion can they choose but be Beasts in conversation For why remove they quite from them the feat of God Why take they such pains to abandon and put out from their hearts all sense all taste all feeling of Religion but onely to this end and purpose that they may without inward remorse and grudging of Conscience give over themselves to all uncleanness Surely the state of these men is more lamentable than is the condition of Pagans and Turks For at the bare beholding of Heaven and Earth the Infidel's heart by and by doth give him that there is an eternal infinite immortal and ever-living God whose hands have fashioned and framed the World he knoweth that every House is builded of some man though he see not the man which built the House and he considereth that it must be God which hath built and created all things although because the number of his days be few he could not see when God disposed his Works of old when he caused the light of his Clouds first to shine when he laid the Corner-stone of the Earth and swadled it with bands of Water and Darkness when he caused the Morning-star to know his place and made bars and doors to shut up the Sea within his House saying Hitherto shalt thou come but no further he hath no eye-witnesse of these things Yet the light of Natural reason hath put this wisdom in his reâ—ns and hath given his Heart thus much understanding Bring a Pagan to the Schools of the Prophets of God prophesie to an Infidel rebuke him lay the judgements of God before him make the secret sinnes of his heart manifest and he shall fall down and worship God They that crucified the Lord of Glory were not so farr past recovery but that the preaching of the Apostles was able to move their hearts and to bring them to this Men and Brethren what shall we doe Agrippa that sate in judgement against Paul for Preaching yielded notwithstanding thus farr unto him Almost thou perswadest me to become a Christian. Although the Jews for want of knowledge have not submitted themselves to the righteousnesse of God yet I bear them record saith the Apostle That they have a zeal The Athenians a people having neither zeal nor knowledge yet of them also the same Apostle beareth witnesse Ye men of Athens I perceive ye are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some way religious but Mockers walking after their own ungodly lusts they have smothered every spark of that heavenly light they have stifled even their very natural understanding O Lord thy Mercy is over all thy works thou savest Man and Beast yet a happy case it had been for these men if they had never been born and so I leave them 10. Saint Iude having his minde exercised in the Doctrine of the Apostles of Jesus Christ concerning things to come in the last time became a man of wise and staid judgement Grieved he was to see the departure of many and their falling away from the Faith which before they did professe grieved but not dismayed With the simpler and weaker sort it was otherwise Their countenance began by and by to change they were half in doubt they had deceived themselves in giving credit to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Saint Iude to comfort and refresh these silly Babes taketh them up in his armes and sheweth them the men at whom they were offended Look upon them that forsake this blessed Profession wherein you stand they are now before your eyes view them mark them are they not carnal are they not like to noysom carrion cast out upon the Earth is there that Spirit in them which cryeth Abba Father in your bosoms Why should any man be discomforted Have you not heard that there should be Mockers in the last time These verily are they that now do separate themselves 11. For your better understanding what this severing and separating of themselves doth mean we must know that the multitude of them which truly believe howsoever they be dispersed farr and wide each from other is all one Body whereof the Head is Christ one building whereof he is the Corner-stone to whom they as the Members of the Body being knit and as the stones of the Building being coupled grow up to a man of perfect stature and rise to an holy Temple in the Lord. That which linketh Christ to us is his mere mercy and love towards us That which tyeth us to him is our faith in the promised Salvation revealed in the Word of Truth That which uniteth and joyneth us amongst our selves in such sort that we are now as if we had but one Heart and one Soul is our love Who be inwardly in Heart the lively Members of this Body and the polished stones of this Building coupled and joyned to Christ as flesh of his flesh and bones of his bones by the mutual bond of his unspeakable love towards them and their unseigâ—ed faith in him thus linked and fastned each to other by a spiritual sincere and hearty affection of love without any manner of simulation who be Jewes within and what their names be none can tell save he whose eyes do behold the secret disposition of all mens hearts We whose eyes are too dim to behold the inward man must leave the secret judgement of every Servant to his own Lord accounting
Children from the Cradle to be his Cardinals He hath fawned upon the Kings and Princes of the Earth and by Spiritual Cozenage hath made them sell their lawful Authority and Jurisdiction for Titles of Catholicus Christianissimus Defensor Fidei and such like he hath proclaimed sale of Pardons to inveigle the ignorant built Seminaries to allure young men desirous of Learning erected Stews to gather the dissolute unto him This is the Rock whereupon his Church is built Hereby the man is grown huge and strong like the Cedars which are not shaken with the winde because Princes have been as Children over-tender hearted and could not resist Hereby it is come to pass as you see this day that the Man of Sinne doth war against us not by men of a Language which we cannot understand but he cometh as Iereboam against Iudah and bringeth the fruit of our own Bodies to eat us up that the bowels of the Childe may be made the Mother's grave and hath caused no small number of our Brethren to forsake their Native Countrey and with all disloyalty to cast off the yoke of their Allegiance to our dread Soveraign whom God in mercy hath set over them for whose safeguard if they carried not the hearts of Tygers in the bosomes of men they would think the dearest blood in their Bodies well spent But now saith Abiah to Ieroboam Ye think ye be able to resist the Kingdom of the Lord which is in the hands of the Sonnes of David Ye be a great multitude the golden Calves are with you which Ieroboam made you for gods Have ye not driven away the Priests of the Lord the Sons of Aaron and the Levites and have made you Priests like the People of Nations Whosoever cometh with a young Bullock and seven Rams the same may be a Priest of them that are no gods If I should follow the Comparison and here uncover the Cup of those deadly and ugly Abominations wherewith this Ieroboam of whom we speak hath made the Earth so drunk that it hath retled under us I know your godly Hearts would loath to see them For my own part I delight not to take in such filth I had rather take a Garment upon my Shoulders and go with my face from them to cover them The Lord open their Eyes and cause them if it be possible at the length to see how they are wretched and miserable and poor and blinde and naked Put it O Lord in their hearts to seek white Rayment and to cover themselves that their filthy nakednesse may no longer appear For beloved in Christ we bow our Knees and lift up our hands to Heaven in our Chambers secretly and openly in our Churches we pray heartily and hourly even for them also though the Pope hath given out as a Judge in a solemn Declaratory Sentence of Excommunication against this Land That our gracious Lady hath quite abolished Prayers within her Realm and his Scholars whom he hath taken from the midst of us have in their published Writings charged us nor onely nor to have any holy Assemblies unto the Lord for Prayer but to hold a Common School of Sinne and Flattery to hold Sacriledge to be God's Service Unfaithfulnesse and breach of Promise to God to give it to a Strumpet to be a Vertue to abandon Fasting to abhor Confession to mislike with Penance to like well of Usury to charge none with restitution to finde no good before God in single life not in no well-working that all men as they fall to us are much worse and more than afore corrupted I do not add one word or syllable unto that which Mr. Bristow a man both born and sworn amongst us hath taught his hand to deliver to the view of all I appeal to the Conscience of every Soul that hath been truly converted by us Whether his heart were never raised up to God by our Preaching Whether the words of our Exhortation never wâ—â—â—g any tear of a penitent heart from his eys Whether his Soul never reaped any joy and comfort any consolation in Christ Jesus by our Sacraments and Prayers and Psalms and Thanksgiving Whether he were never bettered but always worsed by us O merciful God! If Heaven and Earth in this case do not witness with us and against them let us be razed out from the Land of the Living Let the Earth on which we stand swallow us quick as it hath done Corah Dathan and Abiram But if we belong unto the Lord our God and have not forsaken him if our Priests the Sons of Aaron minister unto the Lord and the Levites in their Office if we offer unto the Lord every morning and every evening the Burnt-offerings and sweet Incense of Prayers and Thanksgiving if the Bread be set in order upon the pure Table and the Candlestick of Gold with the Lamps thereof burn every morning that is to say if amongst us God's blessed Sacraments be duly administred his holy Word sincerely and daily preached if we keep the Watch of the Lord our God and if ye have forsaken him then doubt ye not this God is with us as a Captain his Priests with sounding Trumpets must cry alarm against you O ye Children of Israel fight not against the Lord God of your Fathers for ye shall not prosper THE SECOND SERMON Epist. JUDE Verse 17 18 19 20 21. But ye beloved remember the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ How that they told you that there should be Mockers in the last time which should walk after their own ungodly lusts These are makers of Sects fleshly having not the Spirit But ye beloved edifie your selves in your most holy Faith praying in the Holy Ghost And keep your selves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto eternal life HAving otherwhere spoken of the words of Saint Iude going next before concerning Mockers which should come in the last time and Backsliders which even then should fall away from the Faith of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I am now by the aide of Almighty God and through the assistance of his good Spirit to lay before you the words of Exhortation which I have read 2. Wherein first of all whosoever hath an eye to see let him open it and he shall well perceive how careful the Lord is for his Children how desirous to see them profit and grow up to a manly stature in Christ how loath to have them any way mis-led either by examples of the wicked or by inticements of the world and by provocation of the flesh or by any other means forcible to deceive them and likely to estrange their hearts from God For God is not at that point with us that he careth not whether we sink or swim No he hath written our names in the Palm of his Hand in the Signet upon his Finger are we graven in Sentences not onely of Mercy but
of Judgement also we are remembred He never denounceth Judgments against the Wicked but he maketh some Proviso for his Children as it were for some certain priviledged Persons Touch not mine Anointed do my Prophets no harm Hurt not the Earth nor the Sea nor the Trees till we have sealed the Servants of God in their Foreheads He never speaketh of godless men but he adjoyneth words of comfort or admonition or exhortation whereby we are moved to rest and settle our hearts on him In the second to Timothy the third Chapter Evil men saith the Apostle and deceivers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and bring deceived But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned And in the first â—â— Timothy the sixt Chapter Some â—â—â—â— lusting after man â—â— have erred drown he Faith and pearced themselves thorgâ— with many â—â—rrows â—â—â—â— thou O man of God â—â—y these â—â—â— things and follow after righteousnesse godlinesse faith love patience meeknesse In the second to the Thessalonians the second Chapter They have not deceived the love of the Truth that they might be saved God shall send them strong delusions that they may believe lies But we ought to give thanks alway to God for you Brethren beloved of the Lord because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctifications of the Spirit and faith in the Truth And in this Epistle of St. Iude There shall come Mockers in the last time walking after their own ungodly lusts But believed edifie ye your selves in your most holy Faith 3. These sweet Exhortations which God putteth every where in the mouths of the Prophets and Apostles of Jesus Christ are evident tokens that God sitteth nor in Heaven carelesse and unmindful of our estate Can a Mother forget her Childe Surely a Mother will hardly forget her Childe But if a Mother be haply found unnatural and do forget the fruit of her own Womb yet God's judgements shew plainly that he cannot forget the man whose heart he hath framed and fashioned a new in simplicity and truth to serve and fear him For when the wickednesse of man was so great and the Earth so filled with cruelties that it could not stand with the righteousness of God any longer to forbear wrathful sentences brake out from him like Wine from a Vessel that hath no vent My Spirit saith he can struggle and strive no longer an end of all flesh is come before me Yet then did Noah finde grace in â— of the Lord I will establish my Covenant with thee saith God thou shots go into the Ark thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons wives with thee 4. Do we not see what shift God doth make for Lot and for his Family in the â—â— of Genesis lest the fiery destruction of the wicked should overtake him Over-night the Angels make enquiry what Sons and Daughters or Sons in law what wealâ—â— and substance he had They charge him to carry out all Whatsoever thou hast in the City bring it out God seemeth to stand in a kinde of fear lest some thing or other would be left behinde And his will was that nothing of that which he had nor an hoof of any Beast not a thred of any Garment should be findged with that fire Iâ— the morning the Angels fail not to call him up and to hasten him forward Arise take thy Wife and thy Daughters which are here that they be noâ— destroyed in the punishment of the City The Angels having spoken again and again Lot for all this lingereth out the time still till at the length they were forced to take both him and his wife and his daughters by the arms the Lord being merciful unto him and to carry them forth and set them without the City 5. Was there ever any Father thus careful to save his Childe from the â—lame A man would think that now being spoken unto to escape for his life and not to look behind him nor to â—arry in the Plain but to hasten to the Mountain and there to save himself he should do it gladly Yet behold now he is so far off from a chearful and willing heart to do whatsoever is commanded him for his own weal that he beginneth to reason the matter as if God had mistaken one place for another sending him to the â—â— when salvation was in the City Not so my Lord I beseech thee Behold thy Servant hath found grace in thy sight and thou hast magnified thy mercy which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life I cannot escape in the Mountain lest some evil take me and I dye Here is a City hard by a small thing O let me escape thither is it not a small thing and my Soul shall live Well God is contended to yield to any conditions Behold I have recived thy request concerning this thing also I will spare this City for which thou hast spoken haste thee save thee there For I can do nothing till thou come thither 6. He could do nothing Not because of the weaknesse of his strength for who is like unto the Lord in power but because of the greatness of his Mercy which would not suffer him to lift up his arm against that City nor to pour out his wrath upon that place where his righteous Servant had a fancy to remain and a desire to dwell O the depth of the riches of the mercy and love of God! God is afraid to offend us which are not afraid to displease him God can do nothing till he have saved us which can finde in our hearts rather to do any thing than to serve him It contenteth him not to exempt us when the Pit is digged for the Wicked to comfort us at every mention which is made of Reprobates and godlesse men to save us as the apple of his own eye when fire cometh down from Heaven to consume the Inhabitants of the Earth except every Prophet and every Apostle and every Servant whom he sendeth forth do come loaden with these or the like exhortations O beloved edifie your selves in your most holy Faith Give your selves to Prayer in the Spirit keep your selves in the love of God Look for the mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto eternal life 7. Edifie your selves The speech is borrowed from material Builders and must be spiritually understood It appeareth in the sixth of Saint Iohn's Gospel by the Jews that their mouths did water too much for bodily food Our Fathers say they did eat Manna in the Desart as it is written He gave them Bread from Heaven to eat Lord evermore give us of this Bread Our Saviour to turn their appetite another way maketh them this answer I am the Bread of Life he that cometh to me shall not hunger and he that believeth in me shall never thirst 8. An usual practice it is of Satan to cast heaps of worldly baggage in our way that whilst we desire to heap up gold
no proof to the contrary But that our love is sound and sincere that it cometh from a pure heart a good conscience and a faith unfeigned who can pronounce saving only the searcher of all mens hearts who alone intuitively doth known in this kind who are his And as those everlasting promises of Love Mercy and Blessedness belong to the mystical Church even so on the other side when we read of any duty which the Church of God is bound unto the Church whom this doth concern is a sensible known company And this Visible Church in like sort is but one continued from the first beginning of the World to the last end Which company being divided into two moyeties the one before the other since the coming of Christ that part which since the coming of Christ partly hath embraced and partly shall hereafter embrace the Christian Religion we term as by a more proper name the Church of Christ. And therefore the Apostle affirmeth plainly of all men Christian that be they Jew or Gentiles bond or free they are all incorporated into one company they all make but one body The unity of which visible body and Church of Christ consisteth in that Uniformity which all several persons thereunto belonging have by reason of that one Lord whose servants they all profess themselves that one Faith which they all acknowledge that one Baptism wherewith they are all initiated The visible Church of Jesus Christ is therefore one in outward profession of those things which supernaturally appertain to the very Essence of Christianity and are necessarily required in every particular Christian man Let all the house of Israel know for certainty saith Peter that God hath made him both Lord and Christ even this Iesus whom ye have crucified Christians therefore they are not which call not him their Master and Lord. And from hence it came that first at Antioch and afterward throughout the whole world all that were of the Church visible were called Christians even amongst the Heathen which name unto them was precious and glorious but in the estimation of the rest of the world even Christ Jesus himself was execrable for whose sake all men were so likewise which did acknowledge him to be their Lord. This himself did foresee and therefore armed his Church to the end they might sustain it without discomfort All these things they will do unto you for my names sake yea the time shall come that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God good service These things I tell you that when the hour shall come ye may then call to minde how I told you before-hand of them But our naming of Jesus Christ the Lord is not enough to prove us Christians unless we also embrace that Faith which Christ hath published unto the World To shew that the Angel of Pergamus continued in Christianity behold how the Spirit of Christ speaketh Thou keepest my Name and thou hast not denied my Faith Concerning which Faith The rule thereof saith Tertullian is one alone immoveable and no way possible to be better framed anew What rule that is he sheweth by rehearsing those few Articles of Christian belief And before Tertullian Irency The Church though scattered through the whole World unto the uttermost borders of the Earth hath from the Apostles and their Disciples received Belief The parts of which Belief he also reciteth in substance the very same with Tertullian and thereupon inferreth This Faith the Church being spread far and wide preserveth as if one House did contain them These things it equally embraceth as though it had even one Soul one Heart and no more It publisheth teacheth and delivereth these things with Uniform consent as if God had given it lut one onely Tongue wherewith to speak He which amongst the Guides of the Church is best able to speak uttereth no more then this and less then this the most simple do not utter when they make Profession of their Faith Now although we know the Christian Faith and allow of it yet in this respect we are but entring entred we are not into the Visible Church before our admittance by the door of Baptism Wherefore immediately upon the acknowledgment of Christian Faith the Eunuch we see was baptized by Philip Paul by Ananias by Peter a huge multitude containing Three thousand Souls which being once Baptized were reckoned in the number of Souls added to the Visible Church As for those Vertues that belong unto Moral Righteousness and honesty of life we do not mention them because they are not proper unto Christian Men as they are Christian but do concern them as they are Men. True it is the want of these Vertues excludeth from Salvation So doth much more the absence of inward belief of heart so doth despair and lack of Hope so emptiness of Christian Love and Charity But we speak now of the Visible Church whose Children are signed with this mark One Lord one Faith one Baptism In whomsoever these things are the Church doth acknowledge them for her Children them onely she holdeth for Aliens and Strangers in whom these things are not found For want of these it is that Saracens Jews and Infidels are excluded out of the bounds of the Church Others we may not deny to be of the Visible Church as long as these things are not wanting in them For apparent it is that all Men are of necessity either Christians or not Christians If by External Profession they be Christians then are they of the Visible Church of Christ and Christians by External Profession they are all whose mark of Recognisance hath in it those things which we have mentioned yea although they be impious Idolaters wicked Hereticks Persons excommunicable yea and cast out for notorious improbity Such withal we deny not to be the Imps and Limbs of Satan even as long as they continue such Is it then possible that the self-same men should belong both to the Synagogue of Satan and to the Church of Jesus Christ Unto that Church which is his Mystical Body not possibleâ— because that Body consisteth of none but onely true Israelites true Sons of Abraham true Servants and Saints of God Howbeit of the Visible Body and Church of Jesus Christ those may be and oftentimes are in respect of the main parts of their outward Profession who inregard of their inward disposition of minde yea of External Conversation yea even of some parts of their very Profession are most worthily both hateful in the sight of God himself and in the eyes of the sounder part of the Visible Church most execrable Our Saviour therefore compareth the Kingdom of Heaven to a Net whereunto all which cometh neither is nor seemeth Fish His Church he compareth unto a Field where Tares manifestly known end seen by all Men do grow intermingled with good Corn and even so shall continue till the final consummation of the World God hath had ever