All the greater Bodies of those who divide from our Constitutions have some Rituals of their own so the Dispute in this must only be concerning the degrees and extent of this Power For if any Authority is allowed it will not be easy to fix any other Bounds to it but this that it must not invade the Divine Authority nor do any thing beyond the Rules and Limits set in the Scriptures for if there is the least degree of Authority in the Church the grounds upon which it is founded must carry it to every thing that cannot be proved to be unlawful Bare unfitness though it ought to be a Consideration of great weight when such things are deliberated about yet when they are once concluded can be no reason for disobeying them since the fitness of Order and the decency of Unity and Obedience is certainly of much more value than any special unfitness that can be supposed to be in any particular Instance So that one of these two must be admitted either that the Pastors of the Church have no sort of Authority even in the smallest Circumstances but are limited by the Rules of the Scripture and can only execute them strictly and not go beyond them in a title or this Authority must go to every thing that is lawful On that I will dwell no longer here the fuller discussion of this matter belonging to another Discourse It is a natural Consequence of the Authority given to the Pastors of the Church That they having declared and fixed their Doctrine and having setled Rules for their Rituals may excommunicate such as either do not live according to the Rules of their Religion which are a main part of their Doctrine or do not obey the Constitutions of their Society Excommunication in the Strictness of things is only the Churches refusing to receive a person into her Communion now as every Private man is the Master of his own Actions it is clear that every Body of Men must also be the Masters of theirs And thus though Excommunication in some respects is declaratory it being a solemn denunciation of the Judgments of God according to the tenor of the Gospel against persons who live in an open violation of some one or more of its Laws so it is also an authoritative Act by which a Church refuses to communicate with such a Person In this it is true Churches ought to make the terms of Communion with them as large and extensive as may consist with the Rules of Religion and of Order but after all they having a Power over themselves and their own Actions must be supposed to be likewise cloathed with a Power to communicate with other Persons or not to do it as they shall see cause in which great difference is to be made between this Power in it self and the use and management of it for any Abuses whether true or only pretended though they may well be urged to procure a proper Reformation of them yet cannot be alledged against the Power it self which is both just and necessary It is not so very clear to state the Subordination in which the Church is to be put under the Civil Power and how far all Acts of Church Power are subject to the Laws and Policies of those States to which the several Churches do belong It is certain that the Magistrate's being a Christian or not does not at all alter the Case that has only a relation to his own salvation for his Authority is the same whatever his Belief may be in matters of Religion His design to protect or to destroy Religion alters the Case more sensibly for the regards to that Protection and to the Peace and Order that follow upon it together with the Breaches and Disorders that might follow upon an ill understanding between Church and State are matters of Such Consequence that it is not only meer Prudence which may give perhaps too strong a Bias to carnal Fears and Policies but the Rules of Religion which oblige the Church to study to preserve that Order and Protection which is one of the chief Blessings of the Society and a main Instrument of doing much good Great difference is to be made between an Authority that acts with a visible design to destroy Religion and another that intends to protect it but that errs in its conduct and does often restrain the Rules of Order and impose hard and uneasy things Certainly in the latter much is to be born with that may be otherwise uneasy because the main is stil safe and private slips when endured and submitted to can never be compared to those publick disorders that a rigid maintaining of that which is perhaps in it self good must occasion But when the design is plain and that the Conduct of the Civil Powers goes against the Truth of Religion either in whole or in any main Article of it then the Body of the Christians of that State ought to fortify themselves by maintaining their Order and their other Rules in so far as they are necessary to their preservation Upon the whole matter it does not appear that the Church has any Authority to act in opposition to the State but meerly in those things in which the Religion that she professes is plain and positive so that the Question comes to be really this Whether is it better to obey God than Man There the Rule is clear and the Decision is soon made So when the Church acts meerly in obedience to Rules and Laws laid down in Scripture such as in declaring the Doctrine in administring the Sacraments and maintaining the setled Officers of the Church she is upon a sure Bottom and must cast her self upon the Providence of God whatever may happen and still obey God but in all things that have arisen out of ancient Customs and Canons in every thing where she has not a Law of God to support her I do not see any Power she has to act in opposition to Law and to the Supreme Civil Authority In this the constant practice of the Iews is no small Argument whos 's Sanhedrin that was a Civil Court and the Head of their State did give Rules and Orders which their Priests were bound to obey when not contrary to the Law of God We are sure this was the Rule in our Saviour's time and it was never censured nor reproved by him nor by the Apostles The Argument is also strong that is drawn from the constant practice of the Church from the time that she first had the protection of the Civil Authority till the times of the Papal Domination in which we find the Emperours all along making Laws concerning all the Administrations of the Church we find them receiving Appeals in all Church matters which they appointed such Bishops as hapned to be about their Courts to examine This was like our Court of Delegates for the Bishops who judged those matters did not act according to Canon or by the Ecclesiastical
their Majesties and their Government and to endeavour to keep your People always in mind of the extream Miseries as well as of the visible Dangers of Popery and Tyranny This must still be remembred as a lasting honour to this Church That some years ago there was in a day of Trial so noble an Opposition given to that Religion and the steps that were then made to bring it in upon us We are still in the struggle and are strangely mistaken if we imagine the Danger is past We plainly see the Clouds return after the Rain and a Relapse into that State would make the latter end much worse than the beginning The Hope which then supported and afterwards delivered us would no more soften our Miseries with the prospect of better Times The Rage as well as the Power of our Enemies would be much encreased and there is no doubt to be made but that those who have no Religion whose numbers God knows do swell vastly would hope to atone for all that has been done with the change of their No-Religion for that to which their Interest should lead them And if ever God for our great and crying Sins is provoked to visit us in so terrible a manner we who have been hitherto the most favoured of all the Churches of God must become the most miserable Whither can we fly for shelter or where can we promise our selves either Retreat or Relief The prospect of such a Calamity seems to be one of the blackest of all that has been since the World begun and yet how tamely do many look for it while others with a fury that is as much without bounds as it is without sense are endeavouring to bring on that Evil Day to make the Nation grow weary of its Deliverance and present Quiet and return back into Egypt While they spread so many False Reports with a Spite that is as restless as it is insolent shall we at such a time stand as neutral and unconcerned while all is at stake Shall it be said That whereas some years ago during the Debates concerning the Exclusion we sided so openly and with a Zeal that shewed it self on all occasions and in Instances which were better forgotten than remembred yet now when all that can concern us either as we are Men and Englishmen or as we are Christians and the Ministers of the Church of England is in such eminent danger we seem to let all Parties fight it out the best they can while we only do what is enjoined and express neither affection nor zeal I will not offer to say any thing to convince you of the Lawfulness of the present Constitution For I cannot admit so bad a thought of any of you as to imagine that you could take the Oaths and continue to perform Divine Offices Ordinary and Extraordinary unless you were fully satisfied in your Consciences concerning the Lawfulness both of the one and of the other This is so black an Imputation to suppose that Men of common Probity not to say Men that ought to be the Paterns as well as the Instructers of others should swear an Oath and adhere so long to it which is an interpretative renewing of it ever till it is openly retracted and should in those frequent returns of daily Prayers besides the special Offices of Fasts and Thanksgiving-days offer up Devotions to God contrary to their Persuasions that no man is capable of so heinous and so continued a Prevarication unless he is either a determinate Atheist or a man of a seared and hardned Conscience Now as this is of so odious a nature that indeed it is not easy to find words severe enough to set it out by so supposing men once convinced of the Lawfulness of our present Scituation it is very extraordinary if they are cold and unconcerned in a Point which when it is once yielded to be lawful is unquestionably of the greatest importance and consequence possible If Liberty and Religion are valuable things and if they are not what is valuable If the maintaining the Purity of the Christian Religion free from Idolatry and Superstition from Imposture and Cruelty if the maintaining a Church that without partiality is to be preferred to any Church now in the World and if the keeping out of a Religion which is without partiality the worst of any that carries the Name of Christ If the preserving a Government that is just and mild that is guided by Law and that maintains Property and that leaves Mankind to all the Liberties of a free-born Nature and of a well Constituted Society And if the withstanding an absolute and Despotical an Arbitrary and Violent Tyranny that tramples on all thinge Sacred and Human that oppresses Liberty and destroys Property and that makes men Slaves and treats them as brute Beasts If I say all these things are well weighed then we must conclude That we owe the utmost degrees of affection and zeal to Their Majesties and to Their Government We ought to make all our People sensible both of the Happiness that we do now enjoy and of the Miseries that we are preserved from by Their means and under Their Protection We ought to set Popery and Slavery before them in their true Colours with all the light and life that we can give them We ought to set our selves against those false Brethren that pretend they are of the Church of England but are not and are of the Synagogue of Satan which in its strict notion signifying an Adversary we may without any breach of Charity affirm that they associate themselves to the Enemy of our Nation and of our Religion whose Person Government Forces and Successes they are always magnifying on design to intimidate such as can be wrought on by their false Surmises These things we ought to repress and oppose on all occasions with the Spirit and Courage that such matter require It is Stupidity and not Patience to be cold and luke-warm while England and the Protestant Religion are in the last struggles whether they must live or die If God does not bless so good a Cause in all the steps it makes with the Success that we ought to desire and pray for we should teach our people not to murmur nor aggravate matters not to sink or despond but to consider how much our sins have provoked God's Wrath how small a share we bear of those devouring Calamities that have ruin'd so great a part of Europe while we only bear the Charge but feel few of the Miseries of War If some years are less prosperous than others have been we ought to reflect on former Successes and the ill use that we have made of them which may have provoked God to change his methods and yet take all together it must be acknowledged that we have had of late more publick Blessings and fewer Misfortunes than any Nation under Heaven Can one reflect on the Blasphemy and Infidelity the dissolution of all good Morals and
respects as bad as ever this indeed is so slight a thing that a greater disparagement cannot de offered to our Religion nor can a greater strengthning of sin be contrived than the giving any sort of encouragement to it for it is one of the greatest and the most mischievous of all those practical Errors which have corrupted Religion These are the most important parts of our whole Commission and therefore we ought to state them first aright in our own thoughts that so we our selves may be fully possessed with them that they may sink deep into our own minds and shew their efficacy in the reforming of our Natures and Lives and then we shall be able to open them to others with more clearness and with better advantages when our hearts are inflamed with an overcoming sense of the Love and Goodness of God If the Condition of this New Covenant were deeply impressed on our thoughts then we should publish them with more life and joy to others and we might then look for the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel on our selves and on our labours DISCOURSE III. Concerning the INFALLIBILITY AND AUTHORITY of the CHURCH AFTER we are well setled in the Belief of the Christian Religion our next enquiry must naturally be into the Way and Method of being rightly Instructed in the Doctrine and other parts of this Religion and that chiefly in one great Point Whether we ought to employ our own Faculties in searching into this and particularly into the meaning of those Books in which it is contain'd or Whether we must take it from Oral Tradition and submit to any man or body of men as the Infallible Depositaries and Declarers of this Tradition In this single point consists the Essence of the differences between us and the Church of Rome While we affirm that the Christian Doctrine is compleatly contain'd in the Scriptures and that every man ought to examine these with the best helps and all the skill and application of which he is capable and that he is bound to believe such Doctrines only as appear to him to be contain'd in the Scriptures but may reject all others that are not founded upon that Authority On the other hand The foundation upon which the Church of Rome builds is this That the Apostles deliver'd their Doctrine by word of mouth to the several Churches as the Sacred Depositum of the Faith That the Books of the New Testament were written occasionally not with intent that they should be the Standard of this Religion that we have these Books and believe them to be Divine only from the Church and upon her Testimony that the Church with the Books gives us likewise the Sense and Exposition of them they being dark in many places and that therefore the Traditional Conveyance and the Solemn Decisions of the Church must be Infallible and ought to be submitted to as such otherwise there can be no end of Controversies while every man takes upon him to expound the Scriptures which must needs fill mens Minds with Curiosity and Pride as well as the World with Heresies and Sects that are unavoidable unless there is a living speaking Judge This they also prove from some places of Scripture such as Christ's words to St. Peter Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it and unto thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven Tell the Church I am with you alway even to the end of the World the Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth This is their Doctrine and these are their chief Arguments upon which it is founded There is no point in Divinity that we should more clearly understand than this for it is in it self of great Consequence and is that which determines all the rest if it is true it puts an end to all other Controversies and if it is false it leaves us at liberty to examine every thing and gives us the justest and highest prejudices possible against that Church that pretends to it without just grounds It is also that which of all others the Missionaries of that Church understand the best and manage the most dextrously they are much practised to it and they begin and end all their practice with this which has fair appearances and will bear a great deal both of popular Eloquence and plausible Logick so if men are not on the other hand as well fortifi'd and as ready on the other side of the Argument they will be much entangled as often as they have occasion to deal with any of that Church There is not indeed any one point that I know of that has been open'd and examin'd both with that Beauty and Force that is in Chillingworth's Unvaluable Book upon this Subject Few things of this nature have ever been handled so near a Mathematical Evidence as he has pursu'd this Argument and his Book is writ with such a thread of Wit and Reason that I am confident few can enter upon it without going through with it I shall now endeavour in as narrow a compass as is possible to set this matter in its true Light We must then begin with this That the freedom of a man's Thoughts and Understanding is the most Essential Piece of his Liberty and that in which naturally he can the least bear to be limited therefore any Restraints that are laid upon him in this must be well and fully proved otherwise it is to be suppos'd that God could never intend to bring us under the yoke in so sensible and so valuable a thing without giving clear and evident warrants for it And as every Invasion on the Liberties of the Human nature ought to be well made out so every Priviledge which any person claims against the common fate of Mankind ought to be also fully proved before others can be bound to submit to it We perceive in our selves and we see in all others such a feebleness of understanding such an easiness to go too quick and judge too fast and such a narrow compass of knowledge that as we see all Mankind is apt to mistake things so we have no reason to believe that any one is exempted from this but as there are evident Authorities to prove it Since then this is a Priviledge in those that have it as well as an Imposition on those that have it not it ought not to be offer'd at or obtruded on the world without a full Proof Probabilities forced Inferences or even disputable Proofs ought not to be made use of here since we have reason to conclude that if God had intended to put any such thing upon us he would have done it in so plain and uncontested a way that there should have been no room to have doubted of it Besides all such things as do naturally give jealousy and offer specious grounds of mistrust ought to be very clear Since
Faculties since these passages and that which necessarily relates to them will lead a man into the understanding of the hardest parts of the whole New Testament If this method is let go they must prove the Infallibility of the Church by Arguments drawn from some other Visible Characters by which a man is to be convinc'd that God has made her Infallible If there were such eminent ones as the gift of Tongues Miracles or Prophecies that did visibly attest this here were a proof that were solid indeed It were the same with that by which we prove the Truth of the Christian Religion But then these Miracles must be as uncontestedly and evidently proved they must also belong to this point that is they must be Miracles publickly done to prove the truth of this Assertion But to this Appeal they will not stand what use soever they may make of it to amuse the weaker and the more credulous The Character of an uninterrupted Succession from the days of the Apostles is neither an easier nor a surer one since other Churches whom they condemn have it likewise nor can it be search'd into by a private man unless he would go into that Sea of examining the History the Records and Succession of Churches This is an Enquiry that has in it Difficulties vastly greater and more insuperable than all those that they can object to us If they will appeal to the vast Extent of a Church that so many Nations and Societies agree in the same Doctrine and are of one Communion this will prove to be a dangerous point for in the state in which we see Mankind Numbers make a very bad Argument It were to risque the Christian Religion too much to venture on a Poll with the Mahometans In some Ages the Semi-Arrians had the better at numbers and it is a question if at this day those that are within or without the Roman Communion make the greatest body Nor must a man be put to chuse his Religion by such a laborious and uncertain way of Calculation To plead a continuance in the same Doctrine that was at first deliver'd to the Church by the Apostles is to put the matter upon a more desperate issue For as no man can hope to see to the end of this so it lets a man in into all Controversies when he is to compare the present Doctrine with that which was deliver'd by the Apostles Let then any Character be assign'd that shall oblige a man to believe the Church Infallible and it will soon appear very evidently that the searching into that must put the world on more difficult Enquiries than any of those that we are pressed with and that in the issue of the whole the determination must be resolv'd into a private Judgment Another Difficulty follows close upon this which is In what Church this Infallibility is to be found Suppose a man was born in the Greek Church at any time since the IX Century how shall he know that he must seek the Infallibility in the Roman Communion and that he cannot find it in his own He plainly sees that the Christian Religion began in the Eastern parts and by every step that he makes into History he clearly discerns that it flourished for many Ages most eminently there but now that there is a breach between them and the Latins he cannot judge to which Communion he is to adhere without he examines the Doctrine for both have the outward Characters of a Succession of Martyrs and Bishops of Numbers and an appearance of continuing in the same Doctrine only with this difference that the Greeks have the advantage in every one of these they have more Apostolical Churches I mean founded by the Apostles than the Latins and they have stuck more firmly with fewer Additions and Innovations to their Ancient Rituals than the Latins have done How can he then decide this matter without examining the grounds of their difference and making a private Judgment upon a private Examination of the Scriptures or other Authorities If it be said that the present depress'd and ignorant state of those Churches makes it now very sensible that there can be no Infallibility among the Easterns To this it is to be answer'd that I have put the case all-along from the 9th Century downward In many of those Ages the Greeks were under as good Circumstances and had as fair an appearance as the Latins had if not better for the outward appearances of the Roman Communion in the next Centuries the 10th and 11th are not very favourable even by the Representation that their own Writers have made of them and if we must judge of the Infallibility of a Church by outward Characters it may be urg'd with great shews of Reason that a Church which under all its Poverty and Persecutions does still adhere to the Christian Religion has so peculiar a Character of bearing the Cross and of living in a constant state of Sufferings that if Infallibility be in the Church as a favour and priviledge from God and not as the effect of human Learning and other Advantages I should sooner believe the Greek Church Infallible than any other now in the World But when these difficulties are all got over there remain yet new and great ones Suppose one is satisfi'd that it is in the Roman Church he must know where to find it without this it is of no more use to him than if one should tell a hungry man that there is food enough for him without directing him where to seek for it he must starve after all that general Information if he has not a more particular direction And therefore it seems very absurd to affirm that the believing of Infallibility is an Article of Faith but that the proper Subject in whom it rests is not likewise an Article of Faith This is the general Tenet of the whole Roman Communion who that they may maintain their Union notwithstanding their difference in this do all agree in saying that the subject of this Infallibility is not a matter of Faith This destroys the whole pretension for all the Absurdities of no end of Controversies of private Judgment and every man's expounding the Scriptures do return here and the whole design of Infallibility is defeated For how can a man be bound to submit to this in any one Instance or to receive any proposition as coming from an Infailible Authority if he does not know who has it Thus according to that Maxim of Natural Logick that a Conclusion can have no certainty beyond that which was in both the Premises if it is not certain with whom the Infallibility dwells as well as that there is an Infallibility in the Church all the noise about it will be quite defeated and of no use If a man had many Medecines of which one was an Infallible Cure of such or such Diseases can it be suppos'd that he would communicate these to the World and tell that one of them
next to examine the Pretences for disjointing this Union among our selves and see whether the main Body among us I mean our Church has imposed unlawful terms of Communion on her Members for if that is true we by so doing have broke this Union or whether any who have separated from us have not done it upon less binding Considerations for then they have broken the Union This I will manage with all possible fairness and without the least reflection on Persons and Parties I will state their grounds and put their Arguments with the utmost force that I can apprehend belongs to them and when I have weighed them I will leave the whole matter to an Impartial consideration The first point in which every man must fix his thoughts is that it is not free to him to chuse to which Body he will join himself as it is free to him to chuse in which Parish he will settle himself for since all Parishes make but one Communion and Church the one cannot be compared to the other And if all that was said before is true then certainly it is not lawful for any man to break the Union of the Body unless he is persuaded that it cannot be maintained but upon unlawful terms Therefore except a man is under this persuasion he sins if he departs from the Union of the Body But since Conscience is a word that may be used in the following part of this Discourse its true notion ought to be well setled which is according to the natural signification of the word in all Languages an inward persuasion founded upon some reason apprehended to be true concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a thing By this it will appear that a bare aversion or dislike to a thing without any reason on which that dislike is grounded cannot be called Conscience since things with which we are not acquainted or that are uncouth to us which we have often heard spoken against are disliked by us through a habit or prejudice conceived against them but unless this is founded upon some reason that appears to us true drawn either from the nature of things or from the Scriptures it is not Conscience I do not say that every man under these Convictions must be able to maintain those his Reasons to others to be just and good for then a better Arguer who can silence him should be able to alter his Conscience But though he cannot answer Objections yet as long as his Persuasion appears to be well grounded to himself such a man is still under the bonds of his Conscience I am not now to examine how far an erring Conscience obliges or at least excuses it is enough to have stated in general the true Notion of Conscience by which every man that does not intend to deceive himself may certainly know whether he is really under the persuasions of Conscience or if he is only guided by Humour Conceit or the power of Education and Prejudice The main Foundation out of which most of the Objections against some of the Terms of our Communion are rais'd is this That the Church is only empower'd to execute those Rules and Orders that are set Christians in the Scriptures That the pretending to add to these is to accuse the Scripture as defective That all Additions to those Rules set us in Scripture are Superstitious Usages That they impose a yoke upon us and so deprive us of our Christian Liberty That if some Rites may be added others upon the like reasons may be also added to these and so on without bounds as in Fact it appears That when the Church went once off from the first simplicity in which the Apostles deliver'd the Christian Religion to the World and that new Rites were invented to beautify the Worship these Additions did at last swell up to that intolerable height in which they are now in the Church of Rome In Religious Matters it is not enough according to St. Paul's Rule that a thing is lawful it must also be expedient But for that pretended expediency which is alledged for some Rites that they are expressive and significant it is rather an Argument against them for a significant Ceremony is of the nature of a Sacrament the common definition of which that it is a visible sign of an invisible Grace agreeing to it and certainly the appointing Sacraments is above the power of the Church and can belong only to Iesus Christ who is its Head and Founder But all this is in appearance the stronger if Rites so enjoin'd have been abus'd to Idolatry and are parts of an Idolatrous Worship To retain these is to conform our selves to it tho the Scriptures command us to come out from among all such and not to be conformable to them Hezekiâ— broke the Brazen Serpent tho a Memorial of a signal Miracle in which it had been in some sort an Instrument yet when even that was abus'd to Idolatry a good King broke it to pieces This will hold stronger against things that are but of human Institution That they ought to be taken away how innocent soever they may be in themselves after they are grosly abus'd To keep up the use of such things is to scandalize and offend the weaker Christians tho St. Paul lays great weight upon this and charges all Christians not to lay a stumbling-block in one anothers way he calls the doing otherwise the destroying a weak Brother and in conclusion since St. Paul said whatsoever is not of faith is sin these Rites therefore not being warranted from Scripture cannot be of Faith the Object of which is a Divine Revelation they must therefore be sinful And thus I have set down all the Branches of the Plea against Ceremonies with as much advantage as I can imagine belongs to them I go therefore in the next place to take it to pieces and to examine the strength of the whole and of every part of this Reasoning that as must be acknowledg'd wants not fair and specious colours The main stress lies upon this Whether the Church in her Rituals is so limited to the Scriptures that she has no power to add any thing to what is prescribed in them Great difference is to be made between matters of Doctrine Rules of Life Foederal Acts together with the other Acts of Worship which are parts of the New Covenant or conditions of it and some Ritual Appointments such as the Circumstances of those Instituted Acts the forms for the Solemn Acts of Worship together with some other Institutions which are helps to Devotion and do fix or raise the attention For the former sort it is confess'd That Christ and his Apostles having deliver'd this Religion to the World it must continue in the same state in which they setled it without additions or variations but since all instituted Actions must be determined by the Circumstances of persons places times words and postures these must be all manag'd with such
the Holy Ghost fell visibly on Cornelius and his Friends Can any man forbid water that those should not be baptized who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we And with this he settled the minds of those who were a little offended at that action This shews that no pretence to a high dispensation of the Spirit can evacuate that Precept since on the contrary an evidence of the giving the Holy Ghost was pleaded as an Argument for baptizing Nor does any one passage in which Baptism is mentioned in the New Testament limit it to that time and intimate that it belonged only to the beginnings of Christianity or that it was to determine when it was more fully setled so that this with the constant practice of all succeeding Ages without a shadow of any Exception must conclude us as to this Point Our Saviour did also appoint the other Sacrament to be continued in remembrance of him by which St. Paul says we shew forth his death till he come Now these words cannot be understood of any supposed inward and spiritual coming since the most signal coming in that sense was the effusion of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost and yet after that time the Apostles continued to practice it and delivered it to the Churches as a Precept still obligatory till Christ should come If then we ought still to remember him and shew forth his death if it is the Communion of his Body and Blood if it is the new Covenant in his Blood for the remission of sins then as long as these things are Duties incumbent on us so long we must be under the obligation of eating that Bread and drinking that Cup. Further If Christ has left different Gifts to different Orders of men some Apostles some Prophets some Evangeliste and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting the Saints for the work of the Ministry and for edifying the Body of Christ till we come unto a perfect man and are no more in danger of being tossed to and fro and carried away with every wind of doctrine These words do plainly import That as long as mankind is under the frailties of this present state and in this confused Scene that some of these Orders must still be continued in the Church and that those Rules and Preceps given to Timothy and Titus concerning such as were to be ordained Bishops or Elders that is Priests and Diacons were to be lasting and standing Rules for indeed if the design had not been to establish that Order for the succeeding Ages there was less need of it in that in which there was such a plentiful Measure of the Spirit poured out upon all Christians that such Functions in that time might have been well spared if it had not been for this that they were then to be setled under the Patronage if I may so speak of the Apostles themselves from whom they were to receive an Authority which how little necessary soever it might seem in that wonderful time yet was to be more needed in the succeeding Ages Therefore we may well conclude That whatsoever was ordered concerning those Offices or Officers of the Church in the first Age was by a stronger parity of reason to be continued down through all the Ages of the Church and in particular if in that time in which Women received the Gifts of the Holy Ghost so that some prophesied and others laboured much in the Lord that is in the Gospel yet St. Paul did in two different Epistles particularly restrain them from teaching or speaking in the Church to which he adds That it was a shame for Women to speak in the Church that is it might turn to be a reproach to the Christian Religion and furnish Scoffers with some colours of exposing it to the scorn of the Age. This was to be much more strictly observed when all those extraordinary Characters that might seem to be exemptions from common Rules did no longer continue As for those distinctions into which they have cast themselves of the Hat and the denying Titles and speaking in the singular Thou and Thee it is to be considered That how unfit soever it be and how unbecoming Christians to be conformed to this world yet it rather lessens than heightens the great Idea that the world ought to have of the Christian Religion when it states a diversity among men about meer Trifles Our Saviour and his Apostles complied as much in all innocent Customs as they avoided all sinful ones Honour to whom honour is due is a standing Duty and though the bowing the Body and falling prostrate are postures that seem liker Idolatry and more abject in their nature than the Hat yet the very Prophets of God paid these respects to Kings Outward Actions or Gestures signify only what is entended to be expressed and what is generally understood by them so that what is known to be meant only for a piece of Civil respect can never be stretched to a Religious respect and though that abject homage under which the Iewish Rabbies had brought their Disciples and which they had exprest in Titles that imported their profound submission to them was reproved by our Saviour yet we see that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir or Lord was then used as commonly as we now do since Mary Magdalen called him whom shee took for a Gardener Sir or Lord. And St. Paul gave Festus the Title which belonged to his Office it being the same that Claudius Lysias gave Felix who certainly was not wanting in that and that being the Title of men of Rank St. Luke adresses both his Books to Thephilus designing him in one ofthem in the same manner Words signify nothing of themselves as they are meer sounds but according to the signification in which men agree to use them so if the speaking to one man in the plural number is understood only as a more respectful way of treating him then the plural is in this case really but a singular Indeed these things scarce deserve to be so narrowly lookt into The Scruple against Swearing is more important both to them and to the Publick They have indeed the appearance of a plain Command of our Saviour's against all manner of Swearing which is repeated by St. Iames but this must be restricted to their communication according to the words that follow since we find Swearing not only commanded in the Old Testament but practised in the New The Apostles swear at every time they say God is witness and more solemnly when God is called for a record upon their Soul The Angel of God lifts up his hand and swears by him that lives for ever and ever God swears by himself and an Oath for confirmation that is for affirming any matter is the end of all Controversy We find our Saviour himself answered upon Oath when adjured by the High Priest to tell If he was the
Four Discourses Delivered to the CLERGY OF THE Diocess of Sarum CONCERNING I. The Truth of the Christian Religion II. The Divinity and Death of Christ. III. The Infallibility and Authority of the Church IV. The Obligations to continue in the Communion of the Church By the Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of SARVM LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCXCIV Imprimatur JO. CANT Ian. 22. 1693 4. TO THE CLERGY OF THE Diocess of Sarum My Reverend and dear Brethren THESE Discourses were at first prepared for you and were delivered to you among a great many more on other Subjects on several occasions they were so well received by you that many of you desired that you might have them copied out for a more lasting use This has set me on publishing these that follow they relating to Four different sort of men with whom you may be engaged The first is against Atheists and Libertines who grow to be so bold and insolent that it is of the last importance that you should be well furnish'd with Answers to those Objections with which they make the greatest noise This is the Pest of the Age we live in the most dangerous as well as the most contagious of all others It strikes at all and corrupts the whole Man as well as it dissolves all the bounds of Nature and Society This promises such an Indemnity and gives so entire a liberty that depraved Inclinations and Affections will be always of its side and it has some specious things to alledge the Novelty and Boldness of which makes them pass for Wit and Good Humour which will be always taking to those who want and desire supports and excuses for sins Upon all these accounts and chiefly upon the fatal progress which this Blasphemous Spirit of Infidelity has made among us it becomes us to consider these matters well that we may be throughly acquainted with all those depths of Satan and know what to answer to all those false shews of Wit or Reason as wall as to the more petulant demands by which that prophane Crew study to undermine and beat down all Religion One of their common Topicks is the decrying all Mysteries and in this they fall in to the same opposition with the Socinians tho upon very different designs For the Socinians run down all Mysteries and think they can make it appear That those passages of Scripture by which they are commonly proved have another meaning whereas Libertines do it being persuaded that they are indeed contained in the Scriptures and therefore they hope that they will gain their main end of decrying all Revealed Religion if strong prejudices are once formed against Mysteries and yet they are at the same time consider'd as parts of the Christian Religion and are believed to be contain'd in the Scriptures I must also do this right to the Socinians as to own that their Rules and Morality are exact and severe that they are generally men of Probity Iustice and Charity and seem to be very much in earnest in pressing the obligations to very high degrees of Virtue Yet their denying all secret Assistances must cut off the Exercises of many Devotions that give a softness and tenderness to the mind which if once extinguish'd it must of necessity draw after it a dry flatness over all a man's thoughts and powers their denying the certainty of God's foreseeing all future events that depend upon the freedom of a man's Will must very much weaken our Confidence in God our patience under all misfortunes and our expectations of a deliverance in due time Their Notions of another state do also take off much of the terror under which Bad men ought to be kept and lessen the Ioys of Good men On all these accounts their Opinions seem to have a great Influence upon practice but with â—â—lation to the great Article of Christianity concerning the Person and sufferings of Iesus Christ their Doctrine gives so different a view of this Religion in its most important Head that either we have been guilty of a most Irreligious prophanation in esteeming one to be God and giving him all the Acknowledgments and Adorations that belong to the Great and Eternal God who yet is a meer Creature or they must be no less guilty who if he be the Great and the True God do look on him only as a Creature and yet offer him all divine Honour and Worship and if his Death was only a pattern or any thing else than a true propitiatory Sacrifice then we who look on it as our Propitiation and Redemption who claim and trust to it as our Ransom and Atonement do very impiously raise its value beyond the Truth and fix our Confidence with relation to our Peace with God upon a false foundation Whereas on the other hand If God has set forth his death as a Propitiation for the forgiveness of sin then they are guilty of black Ingratitude and of defeating the chief design of the Gospel who so far detract from its value as to reckon it only a patern of dying a confirmation of the Gospel and necessary preliminary to a Resurrection Upon all these accounts it is that I could never understand the Pacificatory Doctrines of those who think that these are questions in which a diversity of Opinions may well be endured without disturbing the Peace of the Church or breaking Communion about thâ—m They seem to be the Fundamentals of Christianity and therefore I thought it was very necessary for me to give you a ful and clear Instruction in this matter The 3d. Discourse relates to that upon which the whole Cause of Popery turns for if they are Infallibâ—e it is to no purpose to dispute about any thing else and if they are fallible their pretending to Infallibility is of it self a just prejudice against their whole Church and against all their other Doctrines when they claim to so high an authority without good grounds Since therefore this is the most Important part of all our Controversies with that Church and since it is that to which they always turn themselves by which they gain Prosclites and estâ—blish their own Votaries and set them out of the reach of all Convistion the understanding of this matter in its full extent seems to be a very necessary piece of study We are apt upon a little Interval of quiet to forget the practices of that Church and because we do not think of them we may be apt to fancy that they think as little of us but they do still pursue their point with an unwearied diligence They never give over but when one design fails they either study to retrieve it or to set another on foot with an Industry that ought to awaken us and keep us always on our guard The Numbers of their Emisâ—aries are great and their Zeal is ever warm and active therefore we must never lose sight of them and
the Article of our Church the arguing from any one passage in them is not to be allowed yet if Subjects standing on their own defence in the case of a total Subversion is to be esteemed Rebellion then we bind up with our Bibles and recommend to our People two Books that set out a History with great pomp and with an Air of much Piety which was no other than a down right Rebellion To this the only answer that I have ever yet seen made is That the Iewish Dispensation being founded on Temporal Promises whereas the Christian Religion is a Doctrine of the Cross things of this kind might have been Lawful among them tho they are not so to us and that the rather because by a Practice that was authorised from the Example of Phinehas and the praise given him for it private Men might among the Jews when the Magistrate was remiss fall upon Offenders and punish them especially in the case of Idolatry This is all that seems to be offered with any colour of Reason to take off the Argument from the practice of the Maccabees and therefore the considering and stating it aright will determine the whole matter First then The true Arguments against Resistance being drawn from the Magistrates having the Sword from God together with all the Topicks that belong to that head they are equally obligatory to all Nations and all Religions it being no part of any special Doctrine delivered in the New Testament but arising from the Attributes of God and the Peace and Order of the World which did bind Jews as well as Christians tho there are indeed Specialties in the Christian Religion that do enforce this the more and aggravate the transgression of it more apparently So that if Subjects defending themselves in the case of a Total Subversion it must ever be remembred that I am now only arguing upon this Supposition is the sin of Rebellion it was a sin to the Jews to the Maccabees in particular as well as it is a sin to Christians As for that of the Zealots tho at first appearance it seems to be of some force yet when examined it will be found to have very little in it If we consider the first Authorities for Zealots we shall find that the Jews stretched this matter beyond all bounds so that to their mistakes about it they owed a great part of their last fatal Miseries which ended in their ruin This matter has been also too implicitly taken by many Christian Writers from them The first beginning of Zealotism was in the Instance of Phinehas his killing Zimri and Cosbi but before this was done Moses who was the chief Ruler did command all the Judges of Israel that every one should slay his men that were joined to Baal-Peor Phinehas was one of these Judges for as Eleazar had been set over the Tribe of Levi when his Father was High-Priest so Aaron being dead at this time and Eleazar made High-Priest in his stead Phinehas was now over the Tribe of Levi and thus Moses Command was in particular directed to him therefore though the Zeal with which he executed it was highly acceptable to God yet it was exactly Regular since Moses had given a general Order for it After this followed some Instances of Men eminently authorized by God by the Gifts of Prophecy and Miracles who did in some Cases punish Idolaters such was Samuel's hewing Agag in pieces in execution of the Divine Command and Elijah's ordering all the Priests of Baal to be killed after he had by an astonishing Miracle proved that Jehovah was the true God and that he was his Prophet This was suitable to their Dispensation which being a Theocracy an authorized Prophet might well have entred upon the Functions of the Magistrate when the King himself was in fault and the Law was openly profaned Upon the same grounds our Saviour after his Miracles had openly declared that he was sent of God did whip the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple when they had profaned the Court of the Gentiles and had made that House of Prayer a Den of Thieves Thus it is plain That none of the Presidents from the Zealots of the Old Testament could justify private Men such as Mattathias and his Children to do any thing that was of it felf irregular and unlawful Phinehas his practice was a Precedent for acting in the matters of their Law with much spirit and courage but it could not justify any man who should presume to do that which was not otherwise lawful for him to do and though the Spirit of the Christian Religion is very different from the Spirit by which Elijah and other Prophets under the Old Testament were acted as our Saviour told his Disciples particularly in this that whereas in the one Prophets did immediately by Miracles or otherwise punish some Offenders in the other all was to be managed with a Spirit of Gentleness and Charity yet after all the lasting Rules of Morality and Human Society were the same then that they are now This Instance I think does fully justify those who seeing a total Subversion of our Religion so far advanced that the Pope's Authority was publickly owned and that all the Laws that secured it were declared to be under a Dispensing Power which was in it self a total Subversion of our Constitution did think it lawful to accept of a Deliverance to concur in it and to assist towards it The other Instance is taken from the first beginnings of Christianity's being the Legal and Authorized Religion of the Roman Empire and from the first Council that is esteemed General where a Precedent is laid down that is no less full for justifying those who tho they did not concur in procuring our Deliverance yet have since closed in it with all humble Gratitude and Obedience to those whom God made the Instruments in so great a Work After Constantine and Licinius had given out those Edicts at Milan by which the Christians had full liberty both for their Belief and Worship and had all the Rights and Immunities of other Corporations granted them Licinius being still in his heart an Enemy to that Religion began in the Year 319 to persecute the Christians He durst not for fear of Constantine fall upon them openly but his Intentions being well understood by his Ministers the Governours of the Provinces committed in many places great Cruelties He likewise turned the Christians first out of his Houshoud and next out of all his Armies He made a Law against relieving such as were in Prison by which those who relieved them were to be punished as Complices of their Crimes He apprehending that most of the Bishops wisht well to Constantine and that in their hearts they were set against himself went on by degrees in his design against them he by one Edict forbade the Bishops to meet together or to meddle with the Concerns of one another's
Churches By another he designed to expose them to Scandal and Scorn He forbade Men and Women to meet together to worship God or Bishops to visit Women or Women to come to be instructed in their Schools and appointed that Women only should instruct Women He also forbade their holding Assemblies within Cities and ordered them to meet in the open Fields Some Churches were pulled down by his Orders and others were shut up and his first Successes made him resolve on a general Persecution For not only Eusebius but both Socrates Sozemen and several other Writers do all affirm That there was no general Persecution begun but that there were visible steps made towards it When all this was represented to Constantine he was much affected with it and resolved to help the oppressed and thought it was a pious and holy Action to save a mulitude by the destroying of one Person For he saw no other way was left to relieve the Oppressed and his engaging in a War with Licinius was by the Bishops of the East that is Licinius's own Subjects ascribed to an immediate Conduct and Providence of God It is true Eutropius puts this upon Constantine's Ambition and his aspiring to be the single Monarch of the World This is also insinuated by Aurelius Victor and more fully set out by Zosimus whose hatred both of Constantine and of the Christian Religion breaks out into so many Partialities unbecoming an Historian and engages him into so many Stories that are evidently false that little regard is due to any thing he says I will not enlarge upon the War that followed only I must observe that tho Constantine as the Senior Emperour had the precedence of Licinius yet he had no sort of Authority over him So here two Princes both equally Sovereigns of the Roman Empire Colleagues and Brothers-in-Law for Licinius had maried Constantine's Sister were engaged in a War the quarrel was not a general persecution but such steps made as did plainly discover there was one intended A Peace soon after followed The Cement of it was The declaring Licinius's Son Licinian Caesar who was then 21 years of Age this put him in the Succession But a second Rupture followed quickly after that Licinius's hatred to the Christians being rather encreased than abated since he observed that they all loved Constantine This proved fatal to Licinius for he was totally defeated at Andrianople the 3d of July 324. and after some fruitless Attempts he was forced to put himself in Constantines hand on the 18th of September following Whereupon he was sent to live a private man at Thessalonica but Constantine understanding that he could not rest ordered him to be put to death in the beginning of the Year 325. Now we are in the next place to see what was the sense of the whole Church of this Transaction I confess we ought not to take it singly from Eusebius for he is rather a perpetual Encomiast of Constantine than his Historian but we have a much more certain and Authentical Authority for this Constantine in the same year in which he had put Licinius to death and had taken no notice of Lucinian tho but a year before made Caesar by his own Act called the first General Council to meet at Nice For in his Speech to them he tells them that he had given Orders to call them together as soon as he had overcome the Tyranny The Council made no Exceptions to Constantine as an Invader they did neither enquire after Lucinian nor complain of Licinius's Fate On the contrary When Constantine came in and harangned them Eustathius of Antioch did entertain him with a Panegyrick full of high Commendations and another seems to have been made by Eusebius blessing Almighty God upon his account which Speeches pronounced in full Council are at least a strong Presumption that they all approved of the War and rejoiced in iâ— the deliverance This is yet more evident from the 11th Canon of the Council in which they reflect upon the late Tyranny of Licinius which shews that tho his death and the ruin of his Family must have naturally given some Compassion for one that was then scarce cold and that had so lately been their Prince for almost that whole Council consisted of those who had been the Bishops in his share of the Empire yet they considered the danger they and their Religion had been in under him and their deliverance by Constantine as vastly superiour to their Ties to him so that there was an Universal Ioy over the whole East upon the Successes of Constantine The having adhered to Licinius and taking part with him in the War tho he was then actually their Prince was a matter of such Scandal and Infamy that Constantine in a Letter which he writ to the Nicomedians against Ensebius their Bishop reproaches him with this That he had been always in Licinius's Councils and Secrets that he had all along stuck to him and had treated himself with Reproach that he had imployed Spies to procure Intelligence to Licinius and that he had given him all sort of Assistance except the bearing of Armes for him all which Constantine affirms he is ready to prove by some Priest and Deacons who had adher'd to Eusebius and whom he had taken Prisoners And thus we see what the sense of the whole Church in one of its best Ages and of the first General Council was of a Deliverance procured by one Sovereign Prince's attacking dethroning and possessing himself of the Empire of another who had not yet set on foot a General Persecution but had only violated the Laws which the Christians had for the security of their Religion had committed many Acts of Injustice and violence against them and had declared his Intentions so visibly that there was all possible reason to conclude that a General Persecution was coming on Not a Bishop nor a Priest stood out against Constantine not so much as a private Christian was of Licinius's Party All went into the Revolution and rejoiced in their Deliverance I will not go on to shâ—w how parallel that Case was to ours the attempt were as needless as it might seem invidious Only I may well conclude That it is not easy to imagine how we can be better assured of the sense of the whole Church in any point then we are of the sense of the Christians of that Age in this particular I have not said any thing to justify my putting Constantine's prevailâ—ing over Licinius in the Year immediately before the Council of Nice tho Baronius puts it six before it But it is visible that he has disordered the whole History of Constantine on design to maintain his being baptized at Rome with other unjustifiable things besides that Eusebius's Chronology in this particular as it is of authority of it self without any other support so it is fully confirmed by the dates of some Laws in the Code and several
other Circumstances It should be hoped that so great and so plain a Precedent should conclude those who have made the Primitive Church their Pattern and who have always reckoned this one of the special Glories of the Church of England that she built upon and conformed her self to the first Ages of Christianity I have now opened these two Precedents very particularly to you they seemed to weigh much with you when I have laid them out to you in some Conferences that I have held with you upon this Subject I hope you will both feel the force that is in them and and will be able to manage them with more advantage now that you have them lying before you To conclude all I do charge you by all the Authority I have over you and beseech you by all the Interest that I have in you to set your selves wholly to your Studies and Labours to be earnest in Prayer to continue in it and to join fasting with it Search the Scriptures diligently give your selves to reading and meditation and be you wholly in them that so your profiting may appear unto all men and watch over the Flock committed to your charge Be instant in season and out of season to instruct admonish exhort and reprove and by so doing you shall both save yourselves and them that hear you In doing these things you shall always have the most constant Assistance and the most earnest Prayers of My Reverend and Dear Brethren Your most Affectionate Brother and Humble Servant in the Lord G. SARUM 8. Decem. 1693. PART I. Concerning the TRUTH OF THE Christian Religion THERE is not any one thing that we ought to enquire into with so peculiar exactness as the Truth of that Religion which we believe nor is there any thing in which we ought to be so conversant and to which we should be so well prepared as to defend this great Argument the Foundation of our Faith and Hope It is a very preposterous way of Study to be able to argue about the retail of our Religion I mean the particular Doctrines of it and the subdivisions into which it is broken and not to know how to maintain it in gross when the truth of it is called in question either in the petulant way of profane Liberty or with the subtilties of Philosophy and Criticism We may have to do with both in the Age in which we live The Divisions among Christians have made the World conclude that they had a right to prove all things that so they may know how to hold fast that which is good The Enthusiasms and Hypocrisies of some and the Looseness and Disorders among others the superstitious magnifying of small matters and the contending eagerly for them while the greater as well as the more useful and more uncontroverted Rules have been too visibly and generally neglected have furnished them with prejudices that must be confessed to be but too specious and plausible And I wish some of us may not have contributed to make many think we are scarce in earnest in arguing for the Truth of our Religion while our Lives do but too openly testifie that we do not firmly believe our own Arguments The great Author of our Religion has left this woe upon the World that offences must come and the heaviest part of that woe will certainly fall upon those by whom they come But when we are enquiring into so Important a Matter it certainly becomes us to free our Minds from Prejudices as much as we can And neither to suffer our selves to be possessed by the first Impressions that Education made upon us nor by our present Stations and Engagements on the one hand nor to be led away by the fury of our Appetites and Passions and the bad Examples that the World abounds in on the other hand That so we may more freely search after Truth and both find it out and follow it As a Preamble to what is to come afterwards let us look into our Natures and see if we do not feel a Principle within us that both thinks and acts freely which is totally different from matter which neither thinks nor chuses This Principle then feels that its thoughts do direct its freedom in all that it does and therefore is capable of good or evil of reward and punishment The more distinctly that it thinks and the more exactly that it follows those Truths which by thinking it discovers it feels it self become the more perfect the more that it can resist all the Impressions which arise either from the constitution of the Body or from outward Objects and Accidents it grows to enjoy a perfecter calm within and is enabled to go through the fatigues and chances of Life with much more ease and patience The more it resists the furious cravings of the Body it enjoys a longer life and perfecter health There is also a Chain of Rules which arise out of these two Qualities that in the opinion of all Mankind are the best our Nature is capable of which are Veracity and Goodness which render all the Societies of Men both safe and happy They establish a confidence and maintain an entercourse in the World they give credit and draw esteem they endear Men to one another and make all the Ties and the whole Neighbourhood and Commerce of Life firm and useful And there is also a train of thoughts which run through a Man's mind and life which makes him live with great advantage and die with much firmness which give him much courage and attract much esteem These are all things that a Man may safely affirm since none question them and as no Man who sees the constant mirth in which some in Bedlam do pass their days will be from thence tempted to think that they are truly happy so the mad frolick in which some Libertines waste both their Bodies and Minds their Lives and Fortunes has never imposed so far on the World as to make Men so much as to doubt whether it were better to be as they are or to be good and wise calm and sober This then being laid down it is a great step made in favour of any Religion if it does exactly quadrat with it all If the Principles that it contains and the Rules that it prescribes are so much of a piece with this that they do both improve and fortifie it This does not prove it to be true indeed but it renders it probable it makes us inclined to believe or at least to wish it to be true The thoughts of a Supream Being who made and preserves all things who is every-where and can do whatsoever he pleases raise vast Idea's in us and give a sort of opening and enlargement to our Powers The sense of his knowing all things begets a composure and creates an awe the perswasion of his governing the World gives a quiet when we know that as Infinite Power cannot be withstood so Sovereign Wisdom cannot be mistaken Nothing
can have such influence both on our Lives and in our Death as the Belief of another World and of the Account that is to be made after Death Nothing strikes the hatred of Sin or the obligations to Vertue deeper than the whole Theory of the Death and Sufferings of Christ. The Rules given in the Gospel to all the Orders of Men and in all the Relations of Life would make all Families and Societies both easie and happy the obligation to strict justice to all others and to an abatement of what in justice we might demand from others by doing as we would be done by The Rules of not only passing by and forgiving Injuries but of loving Enemies and doing good for evil the tenderness as well as the extent of our charity the measures and manner of our bounty to the Poor the modesty of deportment the condescending gentleness as well as the unaffected humility that are enjoined have all such Characters in them so suited to our Faculties and to Human Society to the calm of a man's mind as well as to the comforts of his life to fortifie him against misfortunes and to support him against the feebleness and frailties of his Nature that he who will suffer himself to weigh all this carefully must feel a strong disposition to believe a Religion to be true that agrees with the highest thoughts that we can have of God and the best Seeds or Principles that we feel within our selves All this receives a vast accesfion from the simplicity of the Worship prescribed by it which consists chiefly in the exercise of the sublimest thoughts that we can entertain of God and the justest that we ought to have of our selves all which are to be expressed in the most genuine and simplest manner possible with the fewest but the plainest and most significant Rites Thus a great advance is made when a Man can be induced to lay all these things together The whole moral and practical part of Christianity together with the modesty and reasonableness of its Worship are great Inducements if not Arguments to believe all the rest of it And this will appear the more sensibly if one sets by it the Idolatry and Magick the Cruelties and Brutalities that have defiled the whole Gentile World either as we find them anciently even among the Politest Nations of Greece and Rome and as they continue to this day in so great a part of the World which lies still under the darkness of Paganism according to the Descriptions that Navigators and Travellers have given us Here is the first foundation to be laid To this is to be added That a Nation which hates our Religion does yet retain many Books that give a vast strength to it and so much the greater as they the Iews I mean have preserved those Books with great care It was a remarkable step when those Books were put in a Language of greater extent and more certainly understood than that in which they were first writ and that long before our Religion appeared which was done by the Men of that Nation That Translation was received and long used by them which prevented endless Disputes that must have otherwise arisen in the beginnings of Christianity concerning the true rendring of many Passages in them which relate to an extraordinary Person that was to be sent to them and was looked for by them under the name of the Messias For the Hebrew Language as it was little known so it was capable of such different Readings and Interpretations that if the matter had not been setled before by an Authentical and Authorized Translation it does not well appear how it could have been done A Christian would not have had credit enough nor a Iew honesty enough to have given a Work of this kind in which the World would have acquiesced Now in these Books as there are some Predictions that seem looser and more general such as those concerning the Seed of the Woman the Seed of Abraham and the Issue of David so some chiefly of the later Prophets fixed upon a period of time as that he should come during the Second Temple and within a limited course of Years and that he should be cut off but that afterwards the City and Sanctuary should be destroyed That Desolations were determined till the War should be at an end Now without entring into the exact adjusting of the time limited of 70 Weeks we do certainly know that their Temple and City were destroyed many Ages ago and but a few Years after that he whom we believe to be that Messias had appeared among them and was cut off by them So that either it must be owned that this was not a true Prophecy or the Messias came before the destruction of Ierusalem This Argument receives a vast strength by those who have made out the point of Chronology of the 70 Weeks of Years that is 490 Years which does exactly agree to the interval of time This whole Matter receives a great confirmation from that Unvaluable History which Iosephus a Iewish Priest and a Man of great Learning and Judgment well skill'd both in Civil and Military Affairs and full of zeal both for his Country and Religion has writ in so particular a manner he having been an Eye-witness and a considerable Actor in the whole Affair Whosoever is at the pains to compare that dismal Scene with our Saviour's Predictions sees such an agreement between them that this is no small Argument to prove the truth of the whole Religion Nor is it to be past over without a special remark that we have this piece of History writ by a Iew who cannot be suspected had a Christian writ it he might perhaps have been thought too partial to his Religion or had a Roman writ it he might have been suspected to have aggravated matters for raising the Triumphs of his Country but there lies no possible colour of suspicion against Iosephus And since he mentions the Story both of the Forerunner and of the Disciple of our Saviour this is a great presumption either that the Passage relating to our Saviour himself is genuine or that if he said nothing of him it was because he knew he could say nothing that could derogate from his Credit and that he would say nothing to raise it For it is plain from those Relations concerning St. Iohn Baptist and St. Iames that he was acquainted with the beginnings of our Religion besides that we see a particular Curiosity possessed him of being well informed concerning all the different Sects that were among them and their particular Tenets and Customs There are so many Passages in the Gospel of which the Iews must have had such Full and Authentical Information that if they had been falsly related it must have been in their power to have confuted them beyond the possibility of a contradiction So that as to this part of the Argument so much is certain That the Iews looked for their
ordinary of bringing the last word the govern the whole period placing the word Priest at the head of it nothing can be plainer and more full to the point that is there driven at And thus many passages that appear difficult when they are but slightly looked at become very intelligible when more attentively examined and as we can make this out in a great many Instances so if there are others in which we do still stick we have all possible reason to impute our Ignorance to our wanting a sufficient number of helps and of Books writ in that Country and at that time from which we might better collect the Opinions Customs Phrases and Allusions of those Parts and Times For since the Books of our Religion were writ for the use of plain and simple People to whom they were addrest and in whose hands they were to be put they must have been writ in a popular and not in a Rhetorical or Philosophical Style which tho it is more correct and more lasting yet it is both drier and more laboured and shews always more of Art than of Nature I have now gone over all the Heads that I thought necessary to make this discourse full in all its parts I have left nothing behind me that seemed to be material I have not been afraid to lay open all the secrets of Infidelity with the utmost strength that I could ever find them urged in because I was fully satisfied in my own mind that I could answer them all There is only one particular remaining which I have reserved to the last place because it affords a proper conclusion to this Discourse One of the main things in which Infidels support themselves is that tho they speak out yet let others deny or disguise their Thoughts as much as they please either out of Interest or Modesty since their Doctrine has an ill sound in the World yet they think with them because they live with them and not according to the Doctrine which they espouse and they seem to conclude with some advantage That we collect what men think much more infallibly from what they do than from what they say And this they urge with much Malice And would to God that I could add with as much injustice against too many of our selves Whose arguings upon these Heads are so much the less to be regarded than other Mens because we have espoused the Cause and have made it our own both in point of Reputation and Interest I wish and pray that we may all resolve on the only effectual Confutation of which this is capable by setting such a patern to the World and leading such exemplary Lives that in these they may see how firmly we believe that to which we endeavour to persuade others who wait for our halting and are critical in observing our failings and malicious in aggravating them It gave the chief strength to the first Apologies that were made for Christianity that they durst appeal to the Lives of the Christians to give the World a right Idea of their Doctrine whereas we must now decline that Argument and appeal from the Lives of Christians to their Doctrine Yet wheresoever numbers embrace any thing there must especially in a course of many Ages follow upon it a great declining from what was while they were fewer in number and that the thing was newer and fresher upon their Thoughts Besides that the best Christians are those who are the least known their Modesty and Humility leading them to hide their best Actions whereas those who make the most noise and the greatest show are for the most part hot or designing Men. A Man may also be really a much better Man than one would take him to be that sees him only on one side and does not know him wholly The frailties of some Mens natures will hang heavy upon them and sometimes burst out even in scandalous instances notwithstanding all their principles and struglings to the contrary Therefore upon the whole matter tho we cannot deny but that there is too much truth in this prejudice yet it is but a prejudice and cannot bear much weight So that it is a most unaccountable piece of folly to venture Mens Souls and their eternal Concerns upon a reflection that as it is not generally true so has no solidity in it Yet after all the use that we ought to make of it is that we ought to frame our own Lives and the Lives of all that are in our Power as much as may be to a Conformity to our Doctrines that so the World may observe in us such a true and unaffected course of solid Vertue and useful Piety that we may again recover that Argument which we have too much lost for the truthand beauty of our Religion from the Lives of those who believe and practise it and that so the Apologies now writ which in all other respects are the strongest that ever were may again have their full perfection and their entire effect upon the World DISCOURSE II. Concerning the Divinity and Death OF CHRIST THE main Articles of the Christian Religion as it is distinguished from all other Religions are those which relate to the Person and Sufferings of Christ and therefore it is of the last importance for us to have our Notions concerning these right and truly stated and that the rather because in the Age in which we live the laughing at every thing that is resolved into a Mystery passes for a piece of Wit and has the Character of a free and inquisitive Mind And while some would have every thing taken for a Mystery others set their strength to the decrying of every thing that is proposed as such as if that were an Imposition upon Human Nature and the bringing Mankind under a Yoke that it cannot and ought not to bear Therefore that I may treat of this Matter in a proper method and with a due clearness I shall first in general consider this Prejudice against all Mysteries and when I have thus prepared my way I shall come to the consideration of those which I intend now to treat upon Mystery in its first and common signification stood for some Sacred Rites by which Men were initiated into any form of Religion which the Priests of corrupt Religions kept as Secrets that either they might by that concealment encrease the value of them which if they had been generally known might have appeared so slight and mean as to have become contemptible or that they might hide some Immoralities or Frauds in the management of them and all those Theories which were kept up from the Herd and only communicated to confiding persons were also given out under this Name as things known only to those that were initiated In this sense there is no secret in Christianity no hidden Rites nor concealed Doctrines that are not trusted to the whole body of Christians But by an extent of the use os this word it came to be
applied among the Christians of the first Ages to those Holy Rites of our Religion that were Instituted by our Saviour and which they also called Sacraments because in those the Vows that tie us to God in this Religion were both made and renewed The Venerable Truths of this Faith and Secrets then made publick were also by S. Paul expressed by this Name which as it is now commonly understood signifies some Theory or point of Doctrine that we believe because we are persuaded that it is revealed to us in Scripture tho' we cannot distinctly apprehend how it can be and that in the common view which is offered concerning it it seems to contradict our common Notions In this sense it is opposed by many who say There can be no such thing in Religion that every thing of which we can form no distinct Idea is nothing to us and that we cannot believe it since we can only believe that of which we have some thought God having made us reasonable Creatures cannot intend that we should act contrary to our Natures and believing any thing contrary to our apprehensions seems to be a flat contradiction to our faculties and it is a question whether those who plead for Mysteries can believe themselves after all their Zeal for them since a Man can no more think that to be true of which he has no Idea than a Man can see in the dark for let him affirm ever so much that he sees all other persons who perceive it to be dark are sure that he sees nothing It seems to be the peculiar Character and Beauty of the Christian Religion that it is our reasonable service or the Rational way of Worshipping God and therefore those who would propose it as containing Mysteries under a pretence of magnifying it do rather lessen it and give advantages to the Enemies of it to expose it on that account For upon this supposition of there being some Mysteries in it those who corrupt it seem to have a ground given them for raising a much greater super structure and for silencing all objections against their unconceivable Doctrines with this word Mystery which being so apt to be abused and carried too far seems to give a just prejudice against it upon this ground they conclude that we are to believe nothing but that which we can distinctly apprehend and that if any word or expression in Scripture seeme to import any other thing we must soften these to a sense agreable to our faculties but that we ought never to yield to a sense that is unconceivable which as they argue is still nothing to us This is the Foundation of their Reasonings and upon this it is that they justify or excuse some expositions that seem forced and unnatural for they say they are sure they are not to be understood in the Mysterious sense because of this general Theory and therefore they must give them the best sense that they can find that is suited to their Principles Upon the right stating of this the whole matter turns and because this whole Speculation is urged to much worse purposes by Atheists and Deists it will be necessary to consider it carefully It is certain we can apprehend nothing but as our faculties represent it to us no more than we can see Sounds or hear Colours it is also certain that we can receive nothing that contradicts our faculties for let a Man strain for it as much as he will he cannot believe that any thing both is and is not at the same time or that two and three do not make five and neither more nor less The objects of sense do also determine us for when we see a thing clearly before us we cannot force our selves to think or so much as to doubt that we see it not But after all there are many things which we believe upon the report of others or upon the Consequences of our own Observation that seem to be so far out of our own reach that our faculties cannot easily receive them For instance let us make a discourse of light and of seeing to a Blind-man Let us tell him that a vast Globe called the Sun which as he feels creates a great heat in the Air at some Hours in some Seasons of the Year gives such pushes to infinite numbers of small parts of matter that they are upon that put in a vast motion and that as these strike upon every resisting body and recoil from it they carry in them some mould of its figure and bigness and of another thing too called Colour of which he can frame no sort of Notion and that these in this motion striking upon that which he can feel to which is his Eye do go through it and enter at a small passage that is in a second Coat of his Eye which an Anatomist may make him feel to and within it as they have passed through those humours that he can also feel those small movers do at last so strike against the most inward Coat that from thence a Man may know the figure matter bigness and distance of such objects as the blind Man can only feel to and that a great many Miles of and that with one glance of his Eye he can see many Millions of objects at once and be able to judge concerning them and concerning their distance from him and from one another a great way off and that he can see the Sun and Stars tho' distant from us many Millions of Millions of Miles Now tho' it is to be confessed that a blind Man can form no true Idea of all this yet he may be bound to believe it not only from the testimony of all seeing Men but from his own observation for by setting a Man at a considerable distance from him and holding up towards him all such things as he knows by feeling he by the other Man's answers may perceive plainly that he knows them tho' he not only cannot apprehend how this is done but seems to raise whole Schemes of Impossibilities against it But to give another Instance of this that will be more universally sensible let a Man practis'd in Geometry shew a Clown a small Quadrant and tell him that by it he can measure the Compass of the whole Earth and the distance between the Earth and the Heavenly Orbs he will laugh at him as a boasting vain Man or one that intends to impose upon his credulity but if this Mathematician will to convince him take the heigt of any Building or Precipice that he can measure the Clown when he finds that the Observation agrees with the length of his Plumbline is somewhat convinced and is apt to think either that the two Stations and the Computations which he saw him make on Paper were Magical Spells or that he has a Method that leads him to this by degrees of which he himself is utterly ignorant so by all this it is plain that a Man may be bound from some
be One and in what respects they are Three By explaining a Mystery can only be meant the shewing how it is laid down and revealed in Scripture for to pretend to give any further account of it is to take away its Mysteriousness when the manner how it is in it self is offered to be made intelligible In this too many both Ancients and Moderns have perhaps gone beyond due bounds while some were pleased with the Platonical Notions of Emanations and a Fecundity in the Divine Essence For we have footsteps of a Tradition as Ancient even among Heathens as any we can trace up which limited the Emanations to Three And these thought there was a Production or rather an Eduction of two out of the first In the same manner that some Philosophers thought that Souls were propagated from Souls and the figure by which this was explain'd being that of one Candle's being lighted at another this seems to have given the rise to those words Light of Light It is certain many of the Fathers fell often into this conceit and in this way of explaining this matter they have said many things which intimate that they believed an inequality between the Persons and a Subordination of the Second and Third to the First So that by the same Substance or Essence they do in many places express themselves as if they only meant the same Being in a general Sense as all human Souls are of the same Substance that is the same order or sort of Beings and they seemed to entitle them to different operations not only in an Oeconomical way but thought that one did that which the other did not This was indeed more easily to be apprehended but it seemed so directly to assert Three Gods which was very contrary to many most express Declarations both in the Old and New Testament in which the Unity of the Deity is so often held forth that therefore others took another way of explaining this making it their Foundation that the Deity was one Numerical Being They then observed that the Sun besides his own Globe had an Emanation of Light and another of Heat which had different Operations and all from the same Essence and that the Soul of Man had both Intellection and Love which flowed from its Essence So they conceiv'd that the primary Act of the Divine Essence was its Wisdom by which it saw all things and in which as in an inward Word it designed all things This they thought might be called the Son as being the Generation of the Eternal Mind while from the Fountain-Principle together with this inward Word there did arise a Love that was to issue forth and that was to be the Soul of the Creation and was more particularly to animate the Church And in this Love all things were to have Life and Favour This was rested on and was afterwards dressed up with a great deal of dark nicety by the Schools and grew to be the Universally received Explanation Tho many have thought that the term Son did not at all belong to the Blessed Three but only to our Saviour as he was the Messias the Iews having had that Notion of the Messias that as he was to be the King of Israel so he was to be the Son of God We find Nathanael addressed himself thus to him and when the High-Priest adjur'd our Saviour to tell if he was the Messias he knits these two together Art thou-the Christ the Son of the most High God which shews that they did esteem these two as one and the same thing Now some Criticks do apprehend that since in many places the term Son of God has manifestly a relation to Christ as the Messias there is in this an Uniformity in the whole Scripture Style so that every where by the phrase Son of God we are to understand Iesus as the Messias in which the human Nature being the first Conception they conceive that all the places importing an Inferiority of the Son to the Father have no difficulty in them since they are only to be understood of Iesus as the Messias but that the Divine Principle that was in him is in the strictness of Speech to be called as St. Iohn does the Word So that by this if true all the Speculations concerning an Eternal Generation are cut off in the strict sense of the words tho in a larger sense every emanation of what sort soever may be so called These and a great deal more of this kind that might be further branched out and enlarged upon are the Explanations that Divines have offered at upon this Mystery But it may be justly questioned whether by these they have either made it to be better understood or to be more firmly believed or whether others have not taken advantage to represent those subtilities as dregs either of AEones of the Valentinians or of the Platonical Notions which last being in so high and just a Reputation among the Greeks it is plain that many of the Ancients thought it was no small service to the Christian Religion to shew a great Affinity between it and Plato's Theology and it being long before these Theories were well stated and setled it is no wonder if many of the Fathers have not only differed from one another but even from themselves in speaking upon this Argument While men go about to explain a thing of which they can frame no distinct Idea it is very natural for them to run out into a vast Multiplicity of words into great length and much darkness and confusion Many improper Similies will be urged and often impertinent reasonings will be made use of All which are the unavoidable Consequences of a man's going about to explain to others that which he does not distinctly understand himself This in general is the sum of the Received Doctrine That as there is but One God so in that undivided Essence there are Three that are really different from one another and are more than only three Names or three outward Oeconomies and that the Second of these was in a most intimate and unconceivable manner united to a perfect Man so that from the Human and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of the Messias who was both God and Man Here new Subtilties have been found out to state the formal Notion of a Person which was supposed to consist in a special Subsistence so that it has been thought that the Human Nature in Christ had no special Subsistence of its own tho it was not easy to explain this Notion since if Subsistence belonged to the Human Nature it might seem that it was not perfect if it had not a proper Subsistence A Hypostatical Union was proposed as a term fit to explain this by that is to say the Human Nature was believed to subsist by the Subsistence of the Word but it was not easy to make this the more intelligible by offering a Notion full as unintelligible as it self to explain it
do propose him as the proper Object of Adoration at the same time that they commanded the World to renounce all Idolatry and to serve the living God St. Paul gives this Definition of Heathenish Idolatry that it was a worship given to those who by nature were not Gods yet he prays to Christ he prays for Grace Mercy and Peace from him to all the Churches he writes to he gives him Glory for ever and ever a Phrase expressing the highest Act of Adoration he believes in him he serves him he gives Blessing in his Name he says That all in Heaven and Earth must confess him and bow before him a Phrase importing Adoration he says the Angels of God worship him In other Epistles this is also often mention'd and in St. Iohn's Visions all the Hosts above are represented as falling down before him to worship him Now the bare Incurvation does not import Divine Worship but may be made â—o a Creature yet Incurvation join'd with Prayers Acts of Faith and Trust and Praises is certainly Divine Worship Since then our Saviour in his Temptation said to the Devil that according to the Law we must worship the Lord our God and serve him only since also the Angel when he reproved St. Iohn for falling down before him bids him worship God then when these things are laid together and it appears that all the Acts of Adoration by which we worship God are also ascribed to Christ and offered up to him either it must be confess'd that he is truly God or that the Christian Religion sets up Idolatry at the same time that it seems to design the pulling it down every where as if Idolatry had only been to be changed in its object and to be transfered from all others to the Person of our Saviour This point of the worship of Christ is so plainly set forth in the New Testament that the chief Opposers of the Article of his Divinity have asserted it with so much Zeal that they deny that such as refuse to pay it to him deserve to be called Christians and yet there is not any one point that is more fully and frequently condemned through the whole Scriptures than the worshipping a Creature It is also a main part of all the Exhortations of the Apostles Angels were often sent on Divine Deputations as the Instruments of the great God but yet they were never to be worshipped Idolatry is an Evil in it self and is not only the Transgression of a positive precept but it is a transferring of the Honor and Homage due to the Author of our Being and the Fountain of all our Blessings and the ascribing these to a Creature it is a worshipping the Creature besides the Creator And if the same Acts of Prayer and Thanksgiving in the same words can be offered up both to the Creature and the Creator then how can we still think that God is a jealous God and that he will not give his Glory to another In a word this is that which seems so sensible that one does not know what to think of those men's Reasons who cannot bring themselves to believe any thing concerning the Divine Nature which differs from their own Notions and yet can swallow down so vast an Absurdity that is more open to the compass of their Understandings as that the same Acts in which we acknowledge and adore God should be at the same time offered up to a Creature But to urge this a little more closely it is well known how averse the Iews were to all the appearances of Idolatry in our Saviour's time their Zeal against the figures of the Roman Eagles set over the Temple-gates by Herod and against the Statue of Caligula besides many other Instances prove this beyond all question They were much prejudiced against the Apostles as well as they had been against our Saviour and the Apostles do in several passages of their Epistles set down these their prejudices together with their own Answers to them They excepted to the abrogating the Mosaical Ordinances and to their calling in the Gentiles and associating themselves with them but it does not appear that they did ever charge them with Idolatry nor do the Apostles in any hint ever offer to vindicate themselves from that Aspersion Now if Christ had been only a Man Defi'd advanc'd to Divine Honor or if he had been ever so Noble a part and even the first part of the Creation and had been now made the Object of the worship of the Christians let any Man see if it is conceivable that the Iews who were such implacable Enemies to Christianity should not have held to this as their main Strength chief Objection Since as this was a very popular thing in which it was easy to draw in all their Country men so it was the easiest as well as the most important part of their Plea they might have yielded that all the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles were true and yet upon this pretence of Idolatry they had the express words of their Law on their side If there ariseth among you a Prophet or a Dreamer of Dreams and giveth thee a Sign or a Wonder and the Sign or the Wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet or that Dreamer of Dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your Heart and with all your Soul This was such an express and full Decision of the Case that he may imagine any thing that can imagine that they could have past it by and that they should not have objected it or that the Apostles if their Doctrine had been either that of the Arians or of the Socinians should not have either answer'd or prevented the Objection since they dwell long upon things that were much less important Several that join'd themselves to Christianity were scandaliz'd and fell back to the Iews but it does not appear that any of them ever charged them with Idolatry or that the Iews ever reproach'd them with it which yet we cannot think they would not have done if the Christians had offer'd Divine Adoration to a Creature to one that was a meer Man newly dignifi'd or that had been made by God before all his other Works Here a Creature was made a God and the Christians were guilty of serving other gods whom their Fathers had not known This cannot be retorted on us who believe that Christ was God by vertue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him The Iews could make no Objection to this who knew that their Fathers had worshipped the Cloud of Glory because of God's resting upon it So the adoring the Messias upon the supposition of the Godhead's dwelling Bodily in him could bear no debate among the Iews
and since it was singly upon this point that they could let it pass without raising Objections or Difficulties about it and since we find in fact that they did let it pass and that the Apostles made no Explanations upon it we have all possible reason to conclude that it was thus understood of all hands at that time I think it is not possible to imagine that this could be otherwise so that upon these Reasons we may well and safely determine that Christ was truly both God and Man and that the Godhead did as really dwell in his Human Nature and became united to it as our Souls dwell in our Bodies and are united to them Having then laid down this Matter from Authorities that run through the whole New Testament and that return often in every Book of it I may now upon greater Advantages refer such as will descend to a more particular Enquiry to all those passages that assert Christ's having created all things Angels as well as Men that he is over all and in all before all things in whom all things do subsist that he is the Lord of Glory the Great God and the true God the Lord Almighty who was is and is to come who knows all things and can do whatsoever he will who is the first and the last the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who alone hath Immortality who was in the form of God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God who will raise the dead at the last day and judge the World who is God manifested in the Flesh the great Mystery of Godliness who is over all God blessed for ever These and many more such like passages but above all the beginning of the Gospel of St. Iohn on which I need not insist since that has been done with such Strength and Clearness of Reason by a much better Hand All these single passages I say are so many express Proofs of this great Article of our Religion that I am confident those who have clear'd themselves of that great prejudice against it to which the first part of this Discourse was directed cannot read them without feeling that they are wrestling against the full current of the whole New Testament who oppose this I know a great deal has been said to take off the force of every one of them for if a Man resolves beforehand not to believe a thing he may easily bring out matter enough to avoid the most express words that can be invented yet this I dare positively affirm that at their rate of answering passages with which we urge them it were easy to answer the most express words that we could be capable to contrive for setting out our Doctrine to which this is likewise to be added That it will be very hard to preserve any respect for Writings that are filled with such Intimations of so Important a Doctrine all which at first view seem to carry a Sense which they judge Monstrous and Impious and that with much labour and difficulty are wrought to another sense It will not be easy to think those men had the common degrees of Honesty and Discretion not to speak of Inspiration who writ in such a Style with such Phrases and in such a continu'd Strain that ordinary Readers must stumble in every step and that in a point of such vast Consequence as whether a meer Creature is the great and true God or not and that a great deal of Dexterity and Diligence is necessary to give them another sense I must own that if I could think so of the Scriptures I should lose all Esteem for them and could think no other of the Pen-men of them but that their great Affection for their Master had led them to say many things concerning him that were Excessive and Hyperbolical and not strictly true This is literally and without any aggravation the sense that I have of this Matter and the prophane Tribe of Libertines go all into this of laughing down all Mysteries knowing well that when they have once gain'd that point the New Testament it self will be laughed down next in which they are so plainly contain'd And indeed the Christian Religion must be the most self-contradicting of all the Religions in the World since it does so often condemn the worshipping of Creatures and yet heaps all sorts of Divine Honors on a Creature and St. Iohn must be a most incongruous Writer who could at the conclusion of his first Epistle say of Christ Jesus This is the true God and Eternal Life and in the very next words add Little Children keep your selves from Idols when in the very preceding words he had been setting them on to it if St. Paul's definition must hold true that Idolatry is a service to those who by nature are not gods It is true upon this they will recriminate and say That there being nothing more expresly and frequently contain'd in Scripture and that indeed arises more plainly out of our Idea of God than that he is One we destroy that by setting up Three This would press hard if we did affirm three distinct Beings but since that wich is One in it self may be Three in other respects it is only a consequence that they infer but which we deny That we set up more Gods than one and no man is to be charg'd with the suppos'd Consequences of his Doctrine when he himself does not own them but denies them and thinks he can plainly show that they do not necessarily follow from it We do plainly perceive in our selves two if not three different Principles of Operation that do not only differ as Understanding and Will which are only different modes of thinking but differ in their Character and way of Operation All our Cogitations and Reasonings are a sort of Acts in which we can reflect on the way how we operate we perceive that we act freely in them and that we turn our Minds to such Objects and Thoughts as we please But by another Principle of which we perceive nothing and can reflect upon no part of it we live in our Bodies we animate and actuate them we receive Sensations from them and give Motions to them we live and die and do not know how all this is done It seems to be by some Emanation from our Souls in which we do not feel that we have any liberty and so we must conclude that this Principle in us is natural and necessary In Acts of Memory Imagination and Discourse there seems to be a mixture of both Principles or a third that results out of them for we feel a freedom in one respect but as for those Marks that are in our Brain that set things in our Memory or furnish us with words we are necessary Agents they come in our way but we do not know how We cannot call up a Figure of things of words at pleasure Some disorder in our Mechanism hides or flattens them
the works of the law And by the tenor of the whole Discourse it is plain That by the works of the law are meant the Mosaical Precepts and not the Works of Moral Vertue For St. Paul had divided Mankind into those who were in or under the law and those who were without law that is into Iew and Gentile The design of the Epistle was not to give us Metaphysical Abstractions and Distinctions between Faith as it is a special Grace and Works or Obedience to the Laws of God but by Faith he means the entire receiving of the whole Gospel in its Commands as well as Promises for so he reckons Abraham's readiness to offer up his Son Isaac as an Act of his faith so that faith stands for the complex of all the Duties of Christianity and therefore his Assertion of our being justified by faith without the works of the law signifies no more than that those who received the Gospel who believed it and lived according to it were put in the favour of God by it without being brought under the obligation of the Mosaical Precepts The same Argument is handled by him upon the same grounds in his Epistle to the Galatians only there he gives a more explicite notion of that faith which justified that it was a faith that wrought by love So that in all St. Paul's Epistles he understands by faith the compleat receiving the Gospel in all its parts But whether these Expressions were any of those that St. Peter says the unstable wrested to their own perdition or not we see plainly by St. Iames's Epistle that some began to set up the Notion of a bare believing the Gospel as that which justified as if the meer profession of Christianity or the persuasion of its truth without a suitable Conversation justified For St. Iames speaks not of the works of law but of works simply and as he had just reason to condemn a Doctrine that tended to the total corruption of our Faith so he plainly shews that he did not differ from St. Paul since he takes his chief Instance from Abraham's Faith which made him offer up his Son Isaac upon the Altar by which he was justified so that faith wrought in his works and by works faith was made perfect And he concludes all That as the body without the spirit was dead so faith without works was dead also From whence it is plain that faith in St. Iames stands strictly for a believing the Truth of the Christian Religion and not for an entire receiving the Gospel which was the faith that St. Paul had treated of These things will appear so clear to any one who will attentively read and consider the scope of St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians and the Discourse in St. Iames's Epistle that I am confident no scruple can remain in men that are not possessed with prejudices or over-run with a nice sort of Metaphysicks that some have brought into these matters by which they have instead of clearing them rendred them very intricate and unintelligible Their stating the instrumentality of faith in Justification their distinguishing it from Obedience in this but joining it with it in Sanctification are niceties not only without any ground in Scripture but really very hurtful by the disquiet they may give good minds For if the Christian Doctrine is plain in any one thing it must be in this which is the foundation of our quiet and of our hope It would make a long Article to reckon up all the different Subtilties with which this matter has been perplexed As whether Justification is an immanent or transient Act whether it is a Sentence pronounced in Heaven or in the Conscience or whether it is only a Relation and what constitutes it what is the efficient the instrument and the condition of it these with much more of the like nature filled many Books some years ago The strict sense of Iustification as it is a legal term and opposite to Condemnation is the absolution of a Sinner which is not to be solemnly done till the final Sentence is pronounced after death or at the day of Judgment But as men come to be in the state to which those Sentences do belong they in a freer form of speech are said to be justified or condemned And as they who do not believe are under condemnation and said to be condemned already that is they are liable to that Sentence and under those Characters that belong to it blindness obduration of heart and the Wrath and Judgments of God So such Believers to whom the Promises of the Gospel belong and on whom the final Sentence shall be pronounced justifying them are said now to be justified since they are now in the state to which that belongs They have the Characters of it upon them Faith Repentance and Renovation of heart and life by which they come to be in the favour and under the protection of God The Gospel is of the nature of a publick Amnesty in which a Pardon is offered to all Rebels who return to their duty and live peaceably in obedience to the Law and a day is prefixed to examine who has come in upon it and who has stood out upon which final Acts of Grace or Severity are to pass It is then plain that though every man is pardoned in the strictness of Law only by the final Sentence yet he is really in the construction of Law pardoned upon his coming within the Terms on which it is offered and thus men are justified who do truly repent of and forsake their sins who do sincerely believe not only the truth of the Gospel in general but do so firmly believe every part of it that acts proportioned to that belief arise out of it when they depend so much on the Promises that they venture all things in hope of them and do so receive the Rules and Laws given in it that they set themselves on obeying them in the course of their whole life and in a most particular manner when they lay claim to the Death of Christ as their Sacrifice and the means of their Reconciliation with such a Repentance as changes their inward Natures and Principles and such a Faith as purifies their hearts and makes them become new Creatures These are the Conditions of this Covenant and they are such Conditions that upon lower than these it became not the Infinite Purity and Holiness of God to offer us pardon or to receive us into his favour For without these the Mercies and Favours of the Gospel had been but the opening a Sanctuary to Criminals and the giving encouragement to Sin if a few howlings to God for mercy and the earnest imploring it for the sake of Christ and on the account of his Death would serve turn This every man under the least agony of thought will be apt to do especially when death seems to be near him and yet be still in all
World in which they should be authoris'd to dissolve the Obligation of the Mosaical Laws and to confirm such parts of them as were Moral and perpetually binding which the Apostles should do with such visible Characters of a Divine Authority empowering and conducting them in it that it should be very evident that what they did on Earth was ratified in Heaven These words thus understood carry in them a plain sense which agrees well with the whole design of the Gospel but whatsoever may be their sense it is plain that there was nothing here peculiarly given to St. Peter As for our Saviour's praying for St. Peter that his faith might not fail and his restoring him to his Apostolate by a threefold charge feed my sheep or lambs it has such a visible relation to his fall and threefold denial that it is not worth the while to enlarge on or to shew that it is capable of no other signification and cannot be carried further And thus I have gone through all that is brought from the Scriptures for asserting the Infallibility of the Church and in particular of the Pope's and have I hope fully shew'd that they cannot bear that sense but that they must genuinely bear a plainly different sense which does no way differ from our Doctrine It was necessary to clear all this for tho as was before made out it is no proper way for them to resolve their Faith by passages out of Scripture yet these are very good objections to us who upon other Reasons do submit to their Authority There remains but one thing now to be clear'd which is this If the Church is not Infallible it does not easily appear what certainty we can have concerning the Scriptures since we believe them upon the Testimony of the Church and we have no other knowledge concerning them but what has been handed down to us by Tradition If therefore this is fallible we may be deceiv'd in our persuasion even concerning them But here a great difference is to be made between the carrying down a Book to us and the Oral Delivering of a Doctrine it being almost as hard to suppose how the one could sail as how the other should not fail The Books being in many hands spread over the whole Churches and read in all their Assemblies makes this to be a very different thing from discourses that are in the Air and to which every man that reports them is apt to give his own Cue A great difference is also to be made between the Testimony of a Witness and the Authority of a Judge If in any Age of the Church Councils had examin'd controverted Writings and had upon that past Sentence this had been in deed a judging the matter but no such thing ever was The Codex of the Scriptures was setled some Ages before any Provincial Council gave out a Catalogue of the Books which they held as Canonical For no ancient General Council ever did it and tho the Canonical Epistles of which there not being such a certain Standard they not being addrest to any particular Body that had preserv'd the Originals were not so early nor so universally receiv'd as the others were yet the matter was setled without any Authoritative Judgment only by examining Originals and such other Methods by which all things of that nature can only be made out But this matter having been so fully consider'd and stated in another Discourse I shall dwell no longer on it in this As for the Authorities which are brought from some of the Ancients in favour of the Authority of the Church and of Tradition it is to be considered that though the word Tradition as it is now used in Books of Controversy imports a sense opposite to that which is written in the Scripture yet Tradition is of its own signification a general word that imports every thing which is delivered And in this sense the whole Christian Religion as well as the Books in which it is contained was naturally called the Tradition of the Apostles So that a great many things said by Ancients to magnify the Tradition of the Apostles and by way of Appeal to it have no relation to this matter Besides when men were so near the Apostolical Age that they could name the Persons from whom they had such or such hints who had received them from the Apostles or from Apostolical men Tradition was of another sort of Authority and might have been much more safely appealed to than at the distance of so many Ages Therefore if any thing is brought either from Irenaeus or Tertullian that sounds this way here is a plain difference to be observed between their Age and ours which does totally diversify it But to convince the World how early Tradition might either vary or misrepresent matters let the Tradition not only in but before St. Irenaeus's time concerning the observation of Easter be considered which goes up as high as St. Polycarps's time We find that as the several Churches adhered to the practices of those Apostles that founded them so they had quite forgot the grounds on which it seems these various Observations were founded Since though it is very probable that those who kept Easter on the Iewish day did it that by their condescendence to the Iews in that matter they might gain upon them and soften their Prejudices against Christianity yet it does not appear that their Successors thought of that at all for they vouched their Custome and resolved to adhere to it nor is there any thing mentioned on either side that give us the account of those early but different Observations If then Tradition failed so near its Fountain we may easily judge what account we ought to make of it at so great a distance Many things are brought with great pomp out of St. Austin's Writings magnifying the Authority of the Church in terms which after all the allowances that are to be made for his diffuse and African Eloquence can hardly be justified Yet when it is considered that he writ against the Donatists who had broke the Vnity of the Church upon the pretence of a matter of fact concerning the Ordainers of Cecilian which had been as to the point of fact often judged against them And yet as they had distracted the whole African Churches so they were men of fierce and implacable Tempers that broke out daily into acts of great fury and violence and had set up a principle that must for ever break the Peace and Union of the Church which was that the vertue of all the publick Acts of Worship of Sacraments and Ordinances depended upon the personal worth of him that officiated so that his Errors or Vices did make void all that past through his hands Now when so warm a man as St. Austin had so bad a Principle and so ill a disposition of mind in view it is no wonder if he brought out all that he could think on upon the subject so
Authority which had put the Church in a stated line of Subordination according to the division of the Provinces of the Empire They acted only by an Imperial Authority so that though they were Bishops they acted by the Emperor's Commission Such Authorities as these drawn from the practices of the Iewish and the Primitive Church are at least strong Inducements to believe this to be true But the Argument that seems to determine it is That Men cannot be obliged to obey two different Authorities that may happen to contradict one another this were a strange distraction in Mens Thoughts and Consciences and therefore it cannot be supposed that God has put them under such a divided Authority for all Temporals will easily be fetched within an in ordine ad spiritualia Since then every Soul is bound under the hazard of damnation to obey the Supreme Powers we must be bound to obey their Laws in every thing that is not contrary to the Law of God which seems to be the only Limitation that this can admit of That settles this whole matter which otherwise must be ravelled out into vast Intricacies and yet it must be supposed for certain that the Rule for Mens obedience must be distinct and fixed To conclude this whole matter The best and surest way for preserving the Order and Authority of the Church as well as its Peace and Prosperity is for the Clergy to live and labour so to be so humble and modest so self-denied and heavenly-minded that from thence the Laity may be brought to see that whatsoever Power they have will be employed for the Publick good of the whole This will make them to be less jealous and more submissive and this will secure to them most commonly the protection and encouragement which they may expect from the Civil Powers who will be apt to have regard to their Clergy according to the esteem which they observe their other Subjects have for them DISCOURSE IV. Concerning the OBLIGATIONS To continue in the COMMUNION of the CHURCH THERE is nothing that concerns the Peace and Order of Churches and indeed the quiet and good Government of Mankind more than rightly to understand our Obligations to continue in the Communion of that Church in which we were born or which is the main Body of that Society of Christians among whom we live The extreams in this matter are dangerous on both hands A lazy Compliance with every thing that is uppermost because of the Law and Advantages that may be on its side and an implicite believing and receiving of every thing that happens to be proposed to us does on the one hand depress our Faculties render us so easy to every Form in Religion that we become at last indifferent to all and concerned in none it makes way for tyranny in those that govern and sinks those that are governed into a sottish stupidity On the other hand a wanton cavilling at every thing thebreaking of an Established Order the making Divisions and the drawing of Parties the quarrelling about nicer points of speculation or some lesser matters in Rituals do occasion much passion and animosity they take men much off from the great ends of Religion they divide Christians from one another and sharpen them against one another all which are Evils of so high a nature in themselves and in their Consequences that it will be of great advantage to find so true a mean in this matter that in it we may avoid the mischiefs of both extreams The foundation then to be laid here is first to consider the natural obligation that all men who are united by any common Bond come under to maintain a cordial affection and a mutual good understanding among themselves both as it is an instrument to preserve and strengthen their Body and as it makes such a Body of men easy and happy But this that is a consideration common to all joint Bodies of men becomes much stronger in the Christian Religion one of its main designs being to knit mens hearts to one another by a tenderness of brotherly kindness and charity our Saviour having made this the distinction by which all the world might know who were his disciples and who were not so And all his Apostles have in every one of their Epistles not excepting the shortest prest this in such a variety of copious and most earnest Directions that whosoever reads the New Testament carefully must see that this is enlarged on beyond all the other Duties of our Religion and prest in the most comprehensive words and with the most enforcing considerations possible the chief of all being the love which our Saviour himself bare to us in imitation of which he has required us to love one another to love enemies to pass by and to forgive injuries doing good for evil to relieve the necessitous and have bowels of compassion for all men This is a main part of the glory as well as of the duties of our Religon To advance this and to endear us to one another we are obliged to pray with and for one another we are bound to assemble our selves together that by our seeing of one another and meeting in the same Acts and Duties of Religion our love and union may become stronger and more firmly cemented Sacraments are sacred Rites instituted not only to maintain our Devotion towards God as Acts of Homage and Solemn Vows made to him but likewise as Bonds to knit us together as well as to unite us to our Head And it is no small confirmation of all this that our Saviour in his last and longest Prayer to the Father when he was interceding for his Church has repeated this Prayer so often no less than five times in no very long Prayer that they might be one and be kept and made perfect in one and the Unity prayed for is so sublime that it is compared to that unconceivable Unity or Union that was between the Father and the Son and by this the world was to be convinced of the truth of his Religion That the world might believe that the Father had sent him More needs not be said upon this Head to make it evident that it is of the greatest importance to the Christian Religion to maintain an entire union among its Members and that the chief mean of doing this is their uniting themselves in the same Acts of Worship Now the only Question that will remain will be How far must this go and the only Answer that can be made to it is That it must go till the Body in which we happen to be engaged imposes unlawful terms of Communion on its Members In that case we must remember that it is better to obey God than man and that we must seek peace and truth since an Union on unlawful terms is a combination against God and his Truth and is no piece of Christian Charity This will be agreed to on all hands in the general So I will go
Infants and the coldness of these Climates since such a manner might endanger their lives and we know that God loves mercy better than sacrifice this form of baptizing is as little used by those who separate from us as by our selves If we consider only the words of the Scripture without regarding the subsequent practice of the Church we see reason enough to imagine that the washing of feet should be kept up in the Church We have our Saviour's practice for it and words that seem to import an obligation on us to wash one anothers feet together with the moral use and signification of it that it ought to teach us Humility From all these things this Inference seems just That according to the practices of those who divide from us the Church must be suppos'd to have an Authority to adjust the Forms of our Religion in those parts of them that are meerly Ritual to the Taste to the Exigencies and Conveniencies of the several Ages and Climates I say in things that are meerly Ritual for I do not think that these Instances can justify a Church that should alter any main part of a Foederal Rite instituted by Christ such as the giving the Chalice in the Sacrament since this Institution is deliver'd with so particular a Solemnity and in express words is appointed to be continu'd till Christ's second coming and the Cup is given as a Seal of the New Covenant in his blood for the remission of sins which therefore all are requir'd to drink We are to consider that in matters that are meerly Ritual unless we suppose that Charms are ti'd to particular Rites there could be no other design in them but to secure some good purpose or to keep off some bad practice by those outworks If then the state of Mankind does so alter that what is good in one Age is liable to abuse mistake or superstition in another there must be suppos'd to be a power in the Pastors of the Church to alter or add as they see real occasions or good warrants for it Outward appearances work much on Mankind things that look light must dissipate men's Thoughts as much as graver methods do recollect them Dancing in the praises of God would look very wild now but in other Ages it had a better effect Since therefore the Christian Religion was to last to the end of the World and to be spread to very different Climates and since there is no special Rubrick of Forms digested in it since there is also no Limitation put upon the Church in this point but rules are given that sound very much to the contrary of doing all things that tend to Order Edification and Peace this great prejudice seems to be fully taken off and answer'd Nor do such Institutions lead to Superstition but rather to the contrary Superstition in its strict Notion is a baseness of mind that makes us fear without cause and over-value things too much imagining that there is more in them than really there is If things that are ritual were unalterable there might be from thence more occasion given to Superstition according to the conceit of the Iews who thinking that their Rites were unalterable came to fancy from thence that there was a real value in them which upon their own account render'd men the more acceptable to God Superstition is more effectually beat down by the opinion of the alterableness of all external forms according to the different Exigencies of times and places since this shews that Rites are only matters of Order and Decency which have no real value in them because they are alterable If any grow superstitious in the observance of them this is an abuse to which all things even the most Sacred the Sacraments themselves are liable It can as little be said That these Rules in Ritual Matters are Impositions on our Christian Liberty they are rather the exercise of a main part of it which is our not being tied up so strictly by a Law of Commandments as the Iews were The Notion of Liberty as it is stated by St. Paul is the Exemption under which Christians were brought from the Precepts of the Mosaical Law for those who asserted the standing Obligations of that Law were bringing Christians under a heavy Yoke in opposition to which the Apostles asserted their Liberty But it is likewise a true piece of Liberty and a very necessary one for the Societies of Christians to have among them a power of of using or forbearing to use such external things as do either advance or obstruct the main ends of Religion That some Churches may abuse and that others have abused this Authority by carrying it too far and imposing too great a load of external performances is not to be denied The number of them may become a vast burden and a distraction rather than a help towards the main Design of Religion Ludicrous Rites begetâ— prophaneness and Pompous ones and undue gaity But the apprehension of an abuse in the extent of an Authority cannot justify the quarrelling at a few Rites when it is visible there is no disposition to swell or encrease them If every year were producing some new Rite or other there might be good ground to fear that there would be no end of such Impositions but this cannot be appli'd to our Circumstances It is also a question whether in case that there were indeed too many Rites enjoin'd every one of which were innocent in it self so that no special Objection lay against any one but against them all as too many whether I say in such a case private persons were not oblig'd rather to bear their burden than by shaking it off to rend the Body and disturb the Peace and Order of the Church It seems they ought rather to bear it The Rulers of a Church have indeed much to answer for who press her too hard with burdens that are both useless and heavy to be born but the obligations to Peace seem to conter-ballance this inexpediency For tho private persons must judge for themselves whether things requir'd of them are lawful or unlawful and must act accordingly yet Expediency or Inexpediency is only to take place in cases in which they are entirely at their own disposal and where the rules of Prudence or Charity can only determine them But where the quiet and order of the Body is concern'd Publick orders and determinations being interpos'd they are not to depart from those upon their conceiving them inexpedient for it is certainly more inexpedient and mischievous to break Publick Order than it can possibly be to practice any Rite which perhaps if left free to us might seem not expedient and were better let alone The expediency of Forms and Rites is a very proper Subject of publick Consultations and those who are concern'd in them will have much to answer for to God if they do not weigh this together with all that counterbalances it very critically but
that Nation there were still some among them that as a remnant were to be gained to Christianity and therefore while there was ground to hope for that they went on in that condescention to their infirmity observing that very Low which was then maintained by the Iews with the highest insolence and cruelty possible against Christ and his Followers When this Point is well weighed in its full extent and in all its consequences it will I hope satisfy many how far so great an end as the publick Peace and the edification of the whole Body ought to be pursued when the Apostles went so far in order to the gaining of a few And here it will be no impertinent digression to observe the Rules that St. Paul lays down to Christians in this whole matter I cannot think that it was so fully opened in Epistles that have been preserved down to our days as a main part of the Canon of our Faith without a special Providence of God that in those Rules we might see our own duty in the management of such Controversies as should afterwards arise Since besides a historical knowledge of the state of that time this is all the use that it seems we can now make of such long Discourses and Arguings and if this can be well stated it will be a sure thread to guide us First then St. Paul leads men above the valuing such matters too much as if the being of the one or the other side signified any thing towards their peace with God For all fierce Zealots are apt to imagine that by their zeal they please God and atone for great faults Therefore to take away that false Conceit this is often repeated That in Christ Iesus neither Circumcision nor Vncircumcision a vailed any thing but a new creature or faith which worketh by love and the keeping the Commandments of God and that the Christian Religion or the Kingdom of God consisted not in meat and drink that is in Rituals concerning the distinction of Meats clean and unclean but in much higher things righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And he seems to assert that whosoever served Christ in these things was acceptable to God and ought to be approved of men whatsoever his sense might be as to all other things Another Position laid down is That every man ought to he fully persuaded in his own mind to have clear Principles and to frame these into as distinct Rules as possibly he could And this is the meaning of doing all things in faith which word signifies persuasion and ought to have been so rendered here And then all those difficulties that arise out of the misunderstanding of that word would cease so that the paraphrase of those so oftencited words will run thus Hast thou a persuasion have it within thy self so that then mayst appeal to God upon it For happy is the man that is so setled that he does not waver in a distraction of thoughts sometimes approving and at other times condemning the same thing for while a man is still doupting he is condemned within himself For instance If he eats freely of all Meats without regarding the Iewish distinctions and yet has within him an opinion of the obligatory force of those Laws he does not act upon clear Principles and Persuasions for while a man acts without these not knowing but that he may be sinning against God he does then really sin since he does things which he thinks are sins so that they become sins to him This is a plain account of those words which as it agrees exactly to their natural signification so it shuts out all the difficulties which arise out of them For the word rendred by doubting according to the sense in which it stands in all the other parts of the New Testament signifies the making distinction so that the meaning of it is He who thinks that there is still a distinction between meats clean and unclean is very guilty if he eats as long as he is under that persuasion A third Rule laid down by St. Paul is Teat in all such matters men ought not to assume an Authority to judge others that is to impose things upon them as if they had a Judiciary Authority over them Let not man judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of a holy day that is Let no man in matters left at liberty pretend to an Authority over another for God is the sole Judge of all men And let no man judge his Brother that is offer to call him to an account of his Actions for we must all stand at the judgement-seat of Christ where he who is our only Judge as a Law giver will then be our Iudge by calling us to an account of our Actions Upon this follow the Rules of mens deportment towards one another Those that have larger Principles and higher Notions who in that respect are stronger and who by that freedom of mind and thought did eat without those nice distinctions of clean and unclean ought not to despise such as were yet fearful and straitned in their thoughts and durst not emancipate themselves as if they were men of low thoughts and narrow minds On the other hand Those who were still entangled with an opinion of the obligation of the Mosaical Law ought not to condemn such as acted with more freedom as if they were loose and lawless men To this a fourth Assertion is added That in such diversities of apprehensions men of both sides might be received and accepted by God both acting with good Intentions and following sincerely their Persuasions One man regarded a day He observed the Iewish Festivities their New Moons and days of rest called by the general word of Sabbaths yet in doing this under the sense of the Obligations of that Law lying still over him be regarded it to the Lord Another who reckoned himself freed from that Yoke did acknowledge that this his Liberty was occasioned by the Christian Religion so he in not observing it acknowledged that Religion which had set him free The same Rule is also instanced in observing the distinction of Meats the one did eat freely and thanked God for that liberty while the other did abstain from forbidden Meats and thanked God for that Law by which the Iewish Nation had so many special Priviledges beyond all other Nations so that God was honoured by both even in all that diversity of practices And perhaps a diversity of practices if with that a tender and perfect Charity could be maintained might be yet a greater honour to Religion than an absolute ageement in all points since it is a higher Instance of the power of Religion if men can love one another notwithstanding a diversity in opinion and practice than if they loved one another being in all points of the same mind and agreeing in the same practices After these came two Rules relating to private mens behaviour towards
divide from us any of the appearances of vertue in a sober and grave deportment a modest and humble way of behaviour a solemn seriousness the fear of an Oath a plain simplicity of living a mutual union and tenderness for one another and a seeming to be in earnest in the matters of Religion together with a true strictness in breeding their Youth to understand Religion and study the Scriptures let us not deny that which we see to be true but let us study to bring our selves and our people to outdo them in these things and to add to these an exact probity and justice candor and truth fidelity and integrity a meek and gentle behaviour free from rash censuring and evil speaking a universal Charity to all Mankind a readiness to forgive Injuries to do good for evil and liberality in our bounty to the necessitous straitning our selves to relieve others And if we can bear with them by our charity as well as the Law tolerates them in their Opinions we may hope by the blessing of God in a competent time to overcome all their Prejudices and so to heal all our Divisions and to become of one heart and mind FINIS THE CONTENTS DISCOURSE I. COncerning the Truth of the Christian Religion Pag. 1. DISCOURSE II. Concerning the Divinity and the Death of Christ. 25. DISCOURSE III. Concerning the Infallibility and Authority of the Church 52. DISCOURSE IV. Concerning the Obligations to continue in the Communion of the Church 83. Books lately Printed for R. Chiswell A Discourse of the Pastoral Care By the Lord Bishop of Sarum 8 vo An Imperial History of the Late Wars of Ireland from the beginning to the end In two Parts Illustrated with Copper Sculptures describing the most Important Places of Action Written by George Story an Eye-witness of the most Remarkable Passages 4 to A Discourse of the Government of the Thoughts By George Tully Sub-Dean of York 8 vo Memorials of the Most Reverend Thomas Grammer Archbishop of Canterbury Wherein the History of the Church and the Reformation of it during the Primacy of the said Archbishop are greatly illustrated and many singular Matters relating thereunto now first published in Three Books Collected chiefly from Records Registers Authentick Letters and other Original Manuscripts By Iohn Strype M. A. Fol. Origo Loegum Or A Treatise of the Origin of Laws and their Obliging Power As also of their great Variety and why some Laws are immutable and some not but may suffer change or cease to be or be suspended or abrogated In Seven Books By George Dawson M. A. Fol. A Brief Discourse concerning the Lawfulness of Worshipping God by the Common Prayer in Answer to a Book Intituled A Brief Discourse of the Vlawfulness of Common-Prayer Worship By Iohn Williams D. D. 4 to A True Representation of the Absurd and Mischievous Principles of the Sect commonly known by the name of the Muggletonians 4 to 1 Macc. 1.20 24 25. V. 41. V. 54. V. 57. 2 ch 24 25. V. 26. V. 50. V 64. V. 67 68. 4 Macc. 46. 11 Dan. 31 32 33 34. 11 Heb. 34. Art 6. 25 Num. 5. 3 Num. 32. 20 Num. 28. 1 Sam. 15.33 1 Kings 18.40 21 Mat. 13. 9 Luke 55 56. Eus. Chron Theoph. Anonim Vales. Eus. l. 10. c. 8. Eus. de Vit. Con. l. 1. c. 5. c 53. Eus. l. 10. c. 8. De vit Con l. 2. c. 2. cap. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eus. l. 10. c. 8. Lib. 10. Principatum totius Orbis affectans Eus. Vit. Const. l 3 c. 12. Theod. l. 7 De Vit. Const. l. 3 c. 11. Theod. l. 1. c. 20. 9. Dan. 24 25 26 27. Justin. Apol. 2. 1 Pet. 4.12 â—â— Acts 22. 16. Matth. 16 25. Rom 15.19 1 Cor. 14. 2 Cor. 12.12 3 Gal. 5. 1 Thes. 1.5 1 Tim. 1.20 Heb. 2.4 Sueton. in Claudio Tacit. annal 15. 1 Cor. 2.4 6 Heb. 4.5 Plin. Lib. 10. Ep. 97. Luke 16.31 Numb 12.8 Heb. 1.10 11 12. V. 15 16. Gal. 3.16 1 Pet. 3.19 Isa. 61.42 Isa. 7.49 Isa. 9.1 2. Heb. 6.20 Heb. 7.3 Psalm 110 4. Lev. 21.7 13.14 2 Hag. 6.7 8 9. 2 Cor. 3 18 1. Heb. 3. 1. John 14. 2 Cor. 4.4 Verse 6. 18. Mat. 7. 1 Cor. â— 5 6. 1 Thes. 1.9 4 Gal. 8. 2 Phil 10. Heb. 1.6 Rev 5.8 4. Mat. 10. 19 Rev. 10. Isa. 42.8 Deut. 13.1 2. 2 Col. 9. 1. Çol. 16.17 2 Jam. 1. 1 Cor. 2.8 2 Tit. 13. 1 John 5.20 1 Rev. 8.21 Joh. 17. 3 Phil. 21. 1 Tim. 6.17 18. 2 Phil. 6. 5 John 21. to 29. 6 John 54. 1 Tim. 3.16 9 Rom. 5. 1 Joh. 2.2 1 Pet. 2.24 1 Cor. 15.3 2 Cor. 5.21 1. Gal. 4. 3. Gal 13. 2 Tit. 14. 20 Mat. 28. 3 Rom. 25. 4 Rom. 25. 5 Rom. 6.10 11. and to the end 1 Cor. 1.30 1 Eph. 7. 1 Col. 14.20 21. 1 Joh. 29. 9 Heb. 11 12 13 14. 8.26.28 10. Heb. 10 12 14 19. 13. Heb. 12.20 22. Luke 44. 26. Mat. 36 37 38. 4. Rom. 3. 2. Rom. 12. 3. Rom. 28. 5. Gal. 6. 2 James 12. to the end 3 John 18. 16 Mat. 18 19. 18. Mat. 20 28 Mat. 20. 16. Joh. 13. 1. Tim. 3.16 17. Deut. 8 9 10 11 12 13. 2. Mal. 7. 16. John 13. 5. Gal. 20. 6. Joh. 5 3. 15. Act. 23. to 30. Athan. de Deer Sin Nicen. Aug. con Maxim l. 3. c. 19. 1 Tim. 3.15 28. Mat. 20. 2 Cor. 6.16 13 Heb. 5. 16. Mat. 18 19. 2. Eph. 20. 3. Rev. 7. 11. Luke 52. 18. Mat. 18. 22. Luke 32. 21. Joh. 15. 13 Joh. 35. 17. St. Joh. verses 11 21 22 23. Verse 23. 1 Cor. 10.23 2 Kings 18.4 14. Rom. 13. â— Vers. 23. 15. Act. 9. 16. Rom. 1. 1 Tim. 5.9 1 Pet. 5.14 16. Rom. 16. 1 Cor. 16.20 2 Cor. 13.12 1 Cor. 11.21 6 Rom. 3 4 5. 2 Col. 12. 13. John 14 15. 14. Rom. 19. 1 Cor. 14.26 40. 5. Gal. 1. 16 Acts 3.21 Acts 24. 1 Cor. 9.20 5 Gal. 6. 6 Gal. 15. 14. Rom. 17. V. 18. V. 5. V. 23. 2 Col. 16. 14. Rom. 6. V. 13. V. 15. 1 Cor. 3.5 2 Cor. 3.6 6.4 11.23 3 Eph. 7. 1 Col. 23 25. 6 Eph. 21. 4 Col. 7. 1 Thess. 3.2 8. Rom. 28 29. 12. Rom. 1. 10. Mark 13. 1 Cor. 7.14 2 Acts 39. 12. Exod. 11. 2 Thess. 3.14 1 Cor. 5.11 1 Cor. 11.28 3. Jam. 5. 7. Zech. 5. 8 Zech. 19. 9. Esther 21.27 10 John 22. 28. Mat. 20. 3. John 5. 16. Mark 16. 10 Act. 47. 11 Act. 17. 1 Cor. 11.26 4 Eph. 11 12 13 14. 1 Tim. 3. 1 Tit. 1. 1 Cor. 14.34 35. 1 Tim. 2.11 13 Rom. 7. 2 Sam. 20.41 1 Sam. 24.8 1 Kings 1.23 23 Mat. 8.9 10. 20 John 15. 26 Acts 25. 23 Acts 26. 1 Luke 3. 5 Mat. 34. 5 Jam 12. 1 Rom. 9. 1 Thess. 2.10 2 Cor. 1.23 10 Rev. 5 6 6 Heb. 16.17 18. Lev. 7. 1 Sam. 14.24 38 39. 17. Judg. 2. 26. Mat. 63 64. 1 Sam. 2.36 1 Cor. 9.11 13 14