Gods Word already confirming this duty and to leave others to every ingenuous Christians diligent use of it to avoid prolixity And for the objections which may be made and are commonly found against what is above delivered for the same reason I pass them over as likewise because I intend not here Controversie but Positive Institutions CHAP. XXVII An Application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the Communion of Christ and his Members The Church of Christ taken specially for the Elect who shall infallibly be saved never visible But taken for true Professours of the Faith must alwayes be visible though not Conspicuous in comparison of other Religions or Heresies THE Reasons moving me to insist a while upon Civil Government before I entred upon Ecclesiastical are First because I find Authors of the grounds of Christian Religion to treat of the same generally Secondly because where breaches have been made often in the Faith and Discipline of the Church there necessary provision ought to be made to secure them for the future but for want of due understanding of this Doctrine licencious zeal blinded with presumption hath transported very many into unchristian practises Thirdly because it is a necessary introduction to the more clear and compendious pursuing of our subject of the Spiritual Society of the Church of Christ and particularly its Form The Form of Christs Church may be distinguished according to the vulgar Notion into invisible and visible or inward and outward Invisible we here call that which doth not at all offer it self to our outward sense of seeing cannot be beholden with our eye Or that which may in some manner appear to our sight but not as a Church of Christ though in truth it so may be According to the first acceptation of invisible we understand the Body Mystical of Christ consisting of himself the only proper Head the Holy Spirit animating and influencing the same and the particular members of the holy most happy invisible Spirits in heaven and Saints on earth spiritually united to them by Christ in the divine band of holiness And hitherto do the words of the Apostle to the Ephesians seem to be applyed saying Having made known the mystery of his will That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather Ephes 1. 9 10. together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are in earth even in him signifying hereby the mystical conjunction of Men and Angels in Christ Jesus although there are who not improbably and more literally do understand these words only of the collection and uniting of Jews who in respect of their peculiar exaltation to Gods service and favour are stiled in Scripture heavenly compared with the Gentiles and Gentiles into one Faith and Church of Christ which therefore divers times is called a Mystery as Romans the 16. 25 26. Ephes 3. v. 3 4 5. Col. 1. 26 27. 1 Tim. 3. 16. because as is there expressed it was an hidden and incredible thing to the Jews that the Gentiles should be taken into the like priviledges and rights of serving God as were once esteemed incommunicable to any so fully as to the Jews But whether the Scripture according to its most genuine and literal sense intendeth at any time to comprehend into one Society Angelical Peings and Humane as the Church of Christ as I do not find though the Ancients as well as Modern have held such an opinion so do I not oppose the Mystery of which we now speak being sufficiently verified in the preternatural and invisible conjunction of Christ and his Church in the indissoluble bands of his Spirit guiding the members thereof into all sufficiencie of Grace here and immortal absolute glory hereafter in heaven To understand this co-union or conjunction of Christ and his Members the better we are to call to mind a threefold union intimated in holy Writ unto us First a conjunction of Nature when more are of the same individual nature as the three Persons in the Holy Trinity are united in the same Divine Nature though in themselves distinct which is so proper to that mystery of the Trinity that it is not to be found elsewhere no not in that intimate communion we now speak of between Christ and his Members their natures continuing distinct Again another conjunction proper to Christian Religion is the union of two natures into one Person as in the Mystery of Christs incarnation when the humane and divine Nature become one so far as to constitute but one Person Christ Jesus So do not Christ and his Church But by a third way are Christ and his Church united into one aggregate Spiritual Body or Society which is effected by his Spirit which yet do not make properly a Part of that Body but by its manifold divine Graces do produce and conserve the same Christ thereby and his Church being as St. Paul saith One Spirit He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit And 1 Cor. 6. 17. St. John likewise saith Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit This truly and only in a proper sense is invisible and that alwayes and hath two Parts the triumphant in Heaven which is a most perfect pure holy and blessed Society which have through the bloud of the Lamb and the power of his Spirit overcome the three grand Enemies Sin Death and the Devil and reaped the fruits of their sufferings and labours all tears being wiped from their eyes all sorrows being fled away all temptations for ever conquered and ceasing to molest them Now this part of Christ's Church remains alwayes invosible unto us here below And as for the other Part which is called Militant and are described to be A number of faithful and elect people living under the Cross and aspiring towards the perfection of Grace and Glory hereafter supposing at present what may hereafter be farther discussed viz. That such a peculiar number of holy persons there are within the visible Church of Christ which shall infallibly attain to everlasting bliss in heaven yet neither are these as such at any time visible or discernable to our common senses It being scarce if at all possible to judge infallibly who shall be saved and who shall not be saved it being much more difficult for any man to be assured of another mans salvation than of his own seeing that as is said hereunto an inward testimony of Gods Spirit is required which is the ground of that sound hope which is commonly called Assurance but the Promises of God in holy Scripture do not extend in like manner to the assuring of any man that another shall be saved as that he himself shall or that anothers faith shall not fail as that his own shall not but thus far only probably a truer and more certain sentence may
A Course of Divinity OR AN INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion Especially as Professed by the CHURCH OF ENGLAND In two Parts The one containing The Doctrine of Faith The other The Form of Worship By MATTHEW SCRIVENER LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Robert Clavil in Little Brittain MDCLXXIV THE ENTRANCE FOR the better conceiving and judging of this ensuing Treatise I have held it necessary Christian Reader to premise and propound to thy consideration these two things principally viz. The Occasions me thereunto moving and the manner of proceeding in it One Occasion given me was the multitude and variety of the like Books set forth by other Churches whereby not only the persons under them were trained up in the Knowledge and Faith professed there but the minds of many of our Church were prepossessed and their manners swayed by such Doctrines which seemed to me as forreign in nature as place to those of our Church and the Ancient I could have here given the Reader the names of above fourty Tractates of this nature many of which have been translated into the English Tongue to the corrupting of weaker judgments And not so much as the Christians of New-England have been wanting to the Interest of their Religion so far as to â—mit so advantagious a Work but by John Norton Teacher as he calls himself of the Church at Ipswich in New-England have collected certain Principal Heads of Divinity into a Body called The Orthodox Evangelist And as the great number of forreign Books have incited me so the Paucity of the like in and from our Church hath no less emboldened me to undertake this I am prevented by Industrious Mr. Baxter in giving any account of such who have made attempts this way and what hath been done by them without bringing their design to desired issue Only that excellently Learned Person Mr. Thorndyck passed over by him in his declining years hath given greater demonstrations of his zeal and learning in behalf of the English Church than any extant before him in one continued Body purposing a Review in the Latin Tongue wherein he intended to have more clearly expressed his meaning in some things of which it might be said as of St. Pauls writings they were hard to be understood and he himself saw to be wrested to evil ends and senses but his declining body and years would not suffer him to accomplish so good a Work What Mr. Baxer himself hath performed in his late large Volume I shall not give my censure but how well he is qualified for such a Work I may presume to give the Reader in the words of Esâ— Baxterus câ—â—is desiinatis sententiâ—s minimè omnium hominun addictus ut qui non plus faveat Presbyteriants quam Independentibus nec est infensus Hierarchicis sed medius dubiusque partibus nisi in causa Dei sanctitatis vitae Ludovicus Molinaeus Patroni p. 12. a great admirer of him Baxter saith he is of all men least addicted to any resolute opinions being one that favoureth not more the Presbyterians than the Independents neither is he sharp against the Episcopal Party but between them and doubtful what side to take except in the cause of God and holiness of Life The greatest part of which Character is but too true being as much with me as if he had said He were of no Religion at all For however Beza and Cartwrights opinions of a certain and definite Discipline Essentially requisite to a Church as a Church is to Christian Religion be by Puritans laid aside for the present and like embers buried up in the Ash-heap till they shall rise again next day and kindle a new fire and now nothing but Get Christ Purity of Ordinances is notorious amongst them to the Vulgar yet when people are deceived by that they call Pure and Powerful Preaching of Christ into new Societies of their own Manufacture then presently doth most apparent Reason and inevitable Necessity constrain them to invent and impose new Covenants and Bonds to conserve them in their new Fraternities contrary altogether to that General Liberty before propounded and promised them No more than doth the charm of Christian Liberty sound in their ears No more of the free use of Indifferent things so contrary to the Decrees and Practise of a Church but then come into credit again such sayings as these There must be Order There must be Government There must be unity in the Church dealing herein with poor simple Christians as men do with their horse they would take up carrying in one hand provender which they show him and make a great noise with and behind them in the other hand a bridle to hold him fast to them and ride him as they please And if Mr. Baxter be of no regulated determinate Society or Church adheres to no particular Communion submits to no Government nor Governours in special but to all or any as it should seem be must bear it as well as he can when he bears himself not out of passion or envie at his new and singular device of going to heaven but justice and reason censur'd for a man of no Religion at all or if any of his own making which teaches him to persevere in that fond and haughty design he once had when he took upon him to top his Brethren of the Ministery in the Western Parts and to frame Grounds and Aphorisms for both Civil and Ecclesiastical Politie of his own with as little judgment and humility as safety to the Church and State as if he had aim'd at nothing so much as to be according to forreign Phrase and Presidents an Extraordinary Pastor without any Original or Rule but from himself but failing of this he now thinks it best to become an Extraordinary Sheep of all and no fold writing Books as uncertain and contrary as himself on all sides and for all Palates as if he had found out the Universal Character for Religions like to that of Languages in which all men doing as he wou'd have them shou'd agree in going to Heaven And now all that lately and most officious and serviceable method of mounting our selves and crushing and trampling on the necks of others and them our Governours by most unjust and cruel acts most false and bitter language must be laid aside and thrown overboard as the Turks did their Cemiters when they lost the day at the battle of Lepanto not because they liked them not but because they could do them no more service and least they should come into the Christians hands and be used against them So indeed Sectaries now-a-dayes call for modesty and moderation on all hands casting away that unchristian language which stood them in so much stead against them they resolved to destroy not without horrible Success And yet we see while they call so charitably for moderation and would have no revilings of them that differ in opinions only their churlish nature and
of Christ and his Members The Church of Christ taken specially for the Elect who shall infallibly be saved never visible But taken for true Professours of the Faith must alwayes be visible though not conspicuous in comparison of other Religions or Heresies Chap. XXVIII Of the outward and visible Form of Christs Church Christ ordained One particularly What that was in the Apostles dayes and immediately after The vanity of such places of Scripture as are pretended against the Paternal Government of the Church Chap. XXIX Of the necessity of holding visible communion with Christs Church Knowledge of that visible Church necessary to that communion Of the Notes to discern the true Church how far necessary Of the nature or condition of such Notes in general Chap. XXX Of the Notes of the true Church in particular Of Antiquity Succession Unity Universality Sanctity How far they are Notes of the true Church Chap. XXXI Of the Power and Acts of the Church Where they are properly posited Of the fountain of the Power derived to the Church Neither Prince nor People Author of the Churches Power But Christ the true Head of the Church The manner how Christs Church was founded Four Conclusions upon the Premisses 1. That there was alwayes distinction of persons in the Church of Christ 2. The Church was alwayes administer'd principally by the Clergy 3. The Rites generally received in the Church necessary to the conferring Clerical power and office 4. All are Usurpers of Ecclesiastical power who have not thus received it In what sense Kings may be said to be Heads of the Church Chap. XXXII Of the exercise of political power of the Church in Excommunication The Grounds and Reasons of Excommunication More things than what is of Faith matter sufficient of Excommunication Two Objections answered Obedience due to commands not concerning Faith immediately Lay-men though Princes cannot Excommunicate Mr. Selden refuted Chap. XXXIII Of the second branch of Ecclesiastical Power which is Mystical or Sacramental Hence of the Nature of Sacraments in general Of the vertue of the Sacraments Of the sign and thing signified That they are alwayes necessarily distinct Intention how necessary to a Sacrament Sacraments effectual to Grace Chap. XXXIV Of the distinction of Sacraments into Legal and Evangelical Of the Covenants necessary to Sacraments The true difference between the Old and New Covenant The Agreement between Christ and Moses The Agreements and Differences between the Law and the Gospel Chap. XXXV Considerations on the Sacraments of the Law of Moses Of Circumcision Of the Reason Nature and Ends of it Of the Passover the Reason why it was instituted It s use Chap. XXXVI Of the Evangelical Sacraments Of the various application of the name Sacrament Two Sacraments univocally so called under the Gospel only The others equivocally Five conditions of a Sacrament Of the reputed Sacraments of Orders Matrimony and Extream Unction in particular Chap. XXXVII Of Confirmation What it is The Reasons of it The proper Minister of it Of Unction threefold in Confirmation Of Sacramental Repentance and Penance The effects thereof Chap. XXXVIII Of the proper Affections of Repentance Compunction Attrition and Contrition Attrition is an Evangelical Grace as well as Contrition Of Confession its Nature Grounds and Uses How it is abused The Reasons against it answered Chap. XXXIX Of Satisfaction an act of Repentance Several kinds of Satisfaction How Satisfaction upon Repentance agrees with Christs Satisfaction for us How Satisfaction of injuries necessary Against Indulgences and Purgatory Chap. XL. Of Baptism The Authour Form Matter and Manner of Administration of it The general necessity of it The efficacie in five things Of Rebaptization that it is a prophanation but no evacuation of the former Of the Character in Baptism Chap. XLI Of the second principal Sacrament of the Gospel the Eucharist Its names Its parts Internal and External It s Matter Eread and Wine and the necessity of them Of Leavened and Unleavened Bread Of breaking the Bread in the Sacrament Chap. XLII Of the things signified in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the Body and Bloud of Christ How they are present in the Eucharist How they are received by Communicants Sacramentally present a vain invention All Presence either Corporal or Spiritual Of the real Presence of the signs and things signified The real Presence of the signs necessarily infer the Presence of the Substance of Bread and Wine Signs and things signified alwayes distinct Chap. XLIII The principal Reasons for Transubstantiation answered Chap. XLIV Of the Sacrifice of the Altar What is a Sacrifice Conditions necessary to a Sacrament How and in what sense there is a Sacrifice in the Eucharist Chap. XLV Of the form of consecrating the Elements Wherein it consisteth Whether only Recitative or Supplicatory Chap. XLVI Of the participation of this Sacrament in both kinds The vanity of Papists allegations to the contrary No Sacramental receiving of Christ in one kind only How Antiquity is to be understood mentioning the receiving of one Element only The pretended inconveniences of partaking in both kinds insufficient Of adoration of the Eucharist Chap. XLVII The Conclusion of the Treatise of the subject of Christian Faith the Church by the treating of Schism contrary to the visible Church Departure from the Faith real Schism not formally as to the outward Form Of the state of Separation or Schism Of Separation of Persons Co-ordinate and Subordinate Of Formal and Virtual Schism All Heresie virtually Schism not formally Separation from an Heretical Society no Schism From Societies not heretical Schism Heretical Doctrine or Discipline justifie Separation How Separation from a true Church is Schism and how not In what sense we call the Roman Church a true Church Some Instances of heretical Errors in the Roman Church Of the guilt of Schism Of the notorious guilt of English Sectaries The folly of their vindications That th Case of them and us is altogether different from that of us and the Church of Rome Not lawful to separate from the Universal Church The Contents of the Second Book of the First Part. Chap. 1. OF the formal Object of Christian Faith Christ An Entrance to the treating of the Objects of Faith in particular Chap. II. Of the special consideration of God as the object of Christian Faith in the Unity of the Divine Nature and Trinity of Persons in that Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature as to the simplicity of it And how the Attributes of God are consistent with that simplicity Chap. IV. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature as to number and how the Trinity of Persons may consist with the Unity and Simplicity of the Deity Of the proper notions pertaining to the Mystery of the Trinity viz. Essence Substance Nature Person The distinction of the Persons in the Trinity Four enquiries moved How far the Gentiles and Jews understood the Trinity The Proof of the Doctrine of the Trinity from the New Testament and the explication of
virulent tongues cannot forget their wonted strains of dishonesty and extream spite and railings witness one for all the foresaid Ludovicus Molinaeus who as civilly and reverently as he carries himself towards Mr. Baxter for none of his vertues we may be sure as exorbitantly in the old Puritans language and on their Grounds flies in the face of the Greatest and Best of the Rulers of the Church and State too who have at any time resolutely opposed the designs and Schismatical devices of such unchristian Reformers as himself only I must confess he is favourable to his late Sacred Majesty whose invincible Piety and unparallel'd innocency of Life and Ignominious yet Glorious Death hath not only struck Sectaries dumb who once opened so loudly and perniciously against him but extorted cold commendations from them not much unlike that approbation given by that Parricide Antonius the Emperor who when he understood how the people of Rome magnified and even deâ—fied his virtuous Brother Geta whom he had wickedly murdered said Sit Divus modò non sit vivus i e. Let him be Divine so he be not living But whom doth he or his Fellows occasion serving spare Hath he not raked the stinking Canal of all â—ld lyes and feigned rumors invented to imbroyl the Church in Schism and Kingdome in Sedition and Bloud and indeavoured to put new life into them and Authentize them to other Countries as well as ours It was soberly and seasonably said by that excellent Arch-bishop Speech Delivered in the Star Chamber p. 2. whom he would traduce in basest manner were not his merits above the Calumnies of such wretched Fellows in his Speech in the Star-chamber at the Charge of Prin Burton and Bastwick viz. There were times when Persecutions were great in the Church even to exceed Barbarity it self Did any Martyr or Confessor in those times Libel their Governors Surely no not one of them to my best remembrance yet these complain of Persecution without all shew of cause and in the mean time libel and rail without all measure so little a kin are they to those who suffer for Christ or the least part of Christian Religion This witness is most true of these Cretians And it is my great glory not only to be named among such eminent persons as lately but at present are living in our Church whom this Molinaeus traduceth And why so because of my rude usage of Mr. Daillee whom I spit on if any will believe him Lud. Molin Antidure Epist p. 54. rather then dispute against That I spare not the memory of Diodate That I am no fairer to Mr. Bochartus And why doth be forget my railing too against his Brethren the Puritans This he might better say But neither he nor any man else can say that I imitate Puritans in railing against my Betters or Governors that 's their peculiar and inseparable virtue and hath been from the first founding of the Discipline by Penrie Whittingham Goodman and Cartwright with others to the confounding of the Church so far as lay in their power I ever was not only an approver but an admirer of the personal Gifts of Calvin and Beza of Monsieur Daillee and Monsieur Bochart c. but I owe them no more respect in the cause of Religion than they do me or any man else of our Church but I profess I owe more Reverence to the least of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church whom Puritans have so basely treated then to the greatest of them and so do Sectaries too as ill as they are galled to hear of it But what do I speak so irreverently after all against Mr. Daillee Not a word hath this Zelote found in my whole Book against him nor in that Action against our Schismaticks whom I confess to have severely treated in that I give them their own some mens dealings being so foul as theirs have been that the very bare recitation of them is lookt on as railing though never so faithfully done If any of them or their friends can tell me wherein I have done them wrong in misreporting their Facts I do here assure them I will make them all the satisfaction I am able in retracting and acknowledging my Error and that as publickly as I have injured them with the next opportunity Cyprian Optatus Hierom Austin Nazianzen and Chrysostom as holy and sober persons as they were in their Generations made no great scruple to paint Schismaticks out in their Colors with language which cuts where it goes and I am sure these upon no better grounds than they have or can possibly offer of departing from and dividing our Church are no better Nay in this hath the Puritan Sectary transcended all Hereticks and Schismaticks that ever went before them For though divers Factions were raised and fomented to a great height in the Church of God of old and Altar was erected against Altar and Chair against Chair i. e. Worship against Worship and Governor against Governor of the Church yet do we find none through all the Histories of the Church that ever became so presumptuous and desperate as to endeavour the total subversion of the Government of the Church in it self and to set up another in the room of it quite of another nature which we read not that Aerius himself ever attempted though he preacht up the equality of Bishops and Presbyters And so far am I from such a spirit of meekness I confess that I shall never smooth them or their cause over so civilly as to imply the contrary until they bethink themselves without their customary frauds and dissimulations of their duties and return to the Peace and Unitie of the Church which I shall not cease to pray for But one of the most material things charged on me is That I liked Dailee's Book the worse because it pleased the Puritans so much which says my Accuser is to be of the spirit of Maldonate the Jesuite But he is mistaken For Maldonate indeed rejected a sense of Scripture which otherwise he approved because it was Calvins If I disliked Dailees opinions only because they were Dailees or our Puritans he had been somewhat near the matter but no such thing hath fallen from me I disliked indeed his Book because it so far pleased the Puritans that they were thereby notably confirmed in their obstinate Opinions against the Authority of the Ancient and our Present Church Here were evil effects also to be disliked Next let us bear how I abuse Diodate of Geneva in that I rehearse this saying of him against King Charles the first viz. That Christ in the Gospel commands us to forgive our enemies but not our friends This he calls Crassum mendacium A gross lye in me whereas the lye if there be any must necessarily be in himself or his brother Puritan Cook the Sollicitor against King Charles the first at his Sentence in that monstrous Court. For I no where say of my self that Diodate said those words
him and the Matter it self far from judicious or solid in many places Much more wisely and learnedly had Joannes Forbesius of Aberdeen in Scotland set forth his Controversial Work called Instruct Hist Theol. l. 4. c. 4. § 29. Instructiones Historico Theologicae yet imperfect as it should seem by himself who refers us to the twenty forth and twenty fifth Book of that Work there being extant only sixteen And surely as the Book argues great Learning in the Author so might it have proved no less beneficial to the Christian World had there been less complyance with Calvin in it which might be the reason that it found not that entertainment in England that otherwise it might have had but was commended and published to the World by Andrew Rivett the Dutch Divines giving full approbation thereunto to whom it should seem declining the judgment of that Church he stood more obliged to he submitted his Work which yet might be excused in part it being a time viz. 1645. when such havock and dissipation of the English Church was made by the Calvinizing Scots and Scotizing English as were not to be excused nor ever forgotten For mine own particular I would not have any to expect here a Book of Preaching or Devotion of both which and especially the former there seems to be little want amongst us so neither purely Scholastical but serving to all these purposes And therefore I have wrote it in the English Tongue aiming at no higher end than to profit those of our own Church and Nation And therefore I call it An Introduction intimating my principal Intention to be to prepare the way to the Readers ascent from this to more high and ample Disquisitions And this farther according to the mind of the Church of England I say this was my Purpose I do not say that this I have alwayes exactly and infallibly attained any more than those Learned Writers before me who have endeavoured to give us the sum of the Laws of our Nation as I have of the Religion of our Church have attained their ends according to their desires and therefore much less to the expectation of others Wherefore the Apology which Learned Dr. Cowell used to the Reader of his Institutions of the English Laws with some little variation may aptly enough serve my turn against the proneness of some Censurers whom it may offend that I take upon me to determine what the Church of England holds when as there is and alwayes will be and that in all Churches some Diversity in the Writers But as Littleton of old advised his Son so would I advise Vt autem Littletonus suum … um sic ego vâ—â— praemonitus multâ—o magis esse cupio ne omnia huc congesta Juri nâ—stro consentanea statim exâ—â—…iâ—etis Neque enim hoc opus est nâ—strae â—talia tamen esse non injuriâ forte polliceor c. Johan Cowellus Praefat. Institut Juris Anglic. you much more that ye do not presently perswade your selves that all things here collected are agreeable to our Law for this is past our power Yet such I may promise them to be as will not be unprofitable And I may safely adde I have not invented any thing which I know to be repugnant to the Established Faith or Worship amongst us The Method that I here use I hope is not obscure nor unuseful to the Reader nor Illogical but consisting of parts cohering with one another and succeeding each other visibly enough though I know well I might have subdivided several Chapters and Heads into more distinct Sections and peradventure might have erred and offended more on the other hand as Seneca hath observed Philosâ—phiam in partes nâ—n in frusira dividamidividi enim illam non concidi utile est Nam comprehendere quemadmedum maxima iâ— minima dist â—â—le est Senec. Epist 89. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyssâ—de virâ Mosis p. 180. and daily may be seen in the Compendiums on this Subject of Forrein Writers they do who are too curious confounding by distinguishing In the general Division of this into two Parts I follow Gregorie Nyssene who summeth up all Religion under these two Heads Worship which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the other a Right Understanding of the true Nature of God Only Natural Reason teaching every man that he must Know aright before he can Do aright I have set Knowledge which is the same with Faith in a Christian in the first place and Worship in the Second Part of this Draught of Religion It remains now that according to the custom of Adventurers into the Censure of this captious Age I should bespeak the favourable opinion and friendly or rather in this case charitable acceptance of my present endeavours from the true Christian Reader for from others my hopes are very small but I shall only crave the removing of that prejudice and improving of that Purity of Intention in the reading which I may with a good Conscience profess to have had in the writing And especially shall pray God to prosper it to those dissenting Brethren amongst us who I fear are no less apt to take offense then our professed Enemies as disagreeing from their perswasions in many things But that is none of my fault But my hearts desire and prayer to God is with St. Paul Rom. 10. 1. that they might be saved For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge To inform therefore such was my principal design as likewise to exhort them in the fear and for the love of God and the Truth to consider at length and lay seriously to heart the scandalous and most pernicious evil of that Division for which as yet they have given no tolerable reason which they can with any confidence perswade themselves will hold before God And having themselves wrote so many and horrible things against such Schism all their allegations and complaints against their Governours for hard usage of their tender Consciences are no more to be regarded by the Church than the froward cryes and carriage of Children when their Parents would look their Heads and take out their Vermine For what is that moderation and compounding with us they sometimes offer and excuse themselves from the foresaid accusations by as if they sought Peace and Vnity but to imitate the worst of Bankrupts and thrive by breaking now their open and most cruel dealings towards us have failed them And which is most unreasonable of all neither can nor will give any just assurance of persevering in a true and cordial communion with the Church so modelled as they propound in their Moderation until it becomes such as they could wish and that is quite to overthrow the whole visible constitution of it as their Oaths and Covenants not disclaimed bind them And to stick so immoveably as too many do at lighter things such as Rites and Ceremonies which cannot possibly
infinite reasons First from the Object of their worship generally directed to a multitude of Gods and patching up a plenitude of power out of the shreds of innumerable Demi-gods or pieces of Gods whereof one should have power and vertue in one thing and another in another but this is to deny God in effect who if he be not absolute is not at all and indeed all the arguments before used to prove there can be but one God do prove that to be a false and foolish Religion which alloweth and worshippeth more than one Neither can it suffice to excuse them to say that the wiser of the Heathens acknowledged but one God because it availeth nothing at all but to add to their condemnation for any persons to have a right sense and meaning reserved to themselves and to proceed directly contrary to such found judgment in their practice and worship it self And therefore the most absurd and abominable manner of worshipping their pretended Deities is sufficient conviction of the Religion it self For whereas modesty sobriety temperance chastity truth justice and the like moral vertues were such as the Light of Nature did commend to all men and all consented to be excellent and laudable All these were contemned by the admirers of these Gods yea the very Religion it self tempted and incited many to offend against all these and that which is most intolerable from the examples of the pretended gods so chusing to be worshipped from whence must needs follow what St. Paul affirmeth of the Gentiles Religion and gods The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to Devils and not to God They were impure and wicked 1 Cor. 10. 20. spirits delighting in absurd and vitious practises And therefore upon this subject no more need be spoken at present The Neat pretender to true worship may be the Mahometan who worshipping the True God so far as may be discerned yet faileth egregiously in the manner of exhibiting the same the very grounds and end also being false and unreasonable For first that the Author and Coiner of that worship was an impostor and made pretences of Sanctity in the midst of impurities and infirmities he was subject unto is apparent out of Histories of those times and places where he by the assistance of a Fugitive Nestorian Monk laid the plot and whole design of his Religion and that among a people altogether rude ignorant barbarous easie to be deceived and cheated into a credulity of pretended Revelations Again the many absurdities and contradictions of their Law most sacred as misnaming of persons mistiming of Facts mistaking of Histories in the gross impossible prophane blasphemous opinions concerning the nature the will the Actions of God contrary to common philosophy and reason Ridiculous and foolish imaginations of Angels utterly false opinions of the nature of things and such like being duly and soberly weighed and examined do convince the whole Fabrick of that superstition of Idleness and foolish fictions And not to multiply more arguments here The way of propagating this Erroneous Fashion of serving God discovereth the Errour of the thing it self For it is a general and most rational Principle deserving admission and belief of all That Religion being the most excellent act of humane Creatures ought to have the most high and noble Faculty of the soul for its proper seat and fountain from whence it should proceed such as is the intellectual faculty of Man But this superstition is carried on by the ministery of the Senses chiefly And moreover It ought to have for its end the most sublime and divine of all But the Mahometan constituteth the low pleasures of the Senses as the sufficient and proper end of all their service making the beatitude of Heaven to consist in perpetual Licentiousness and fresh delights of senses And therefore no need of insisting on this subject here What is here spoken being for method sake rather then necessity or a formal confutation of those Errours CHAP. V. Of the Jewish Religion The Pretence of the Antiquity of it mulled Their several Erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered DUT the Religion of the Jew requireth more diligent examination as well because of a notable presumption from ancient Tradition and a certain preoccupation of divine truths and auctority of divine Constitution as because the consideration thereof is an introduction to Christian Religion and the disproof of that a proof of the Christian And if according to Christians own concessions and the eminentest Apostle St. Paul they were once the people and true Church of God To Rom. 3. 2. cap. 9. 4. them were committed the Oracles of God To them pertained the Adoption and the glorie and the Covenant and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises Why not alwayes a Church If once Gods people Why not alwayes so If once confessed to be pure and Faithfull When did they cease to be so When first entred corruptions into their Church Under what High Priest And who brought such errours first in This is the sum of what they can say either for themselves or against the Christians of whose Religion which undoubtedly they do and will call Heresie they can give the time and place when and where it sprang up and the person who first founded and advanced the same And if any Church or Society of men in the world can lay claim to the Promises of perpetuity and infallibility surely the Jewish will pretend much more from the Prerogatives peculiar to them as do witness every where the Law and the Prophets To all this a sufficient answer shall be comprehended in the prosecution of the contrary Grounds which here follows which I reduce to these two whereof One concerns their Errour about their Law and the Other about their Messias The first general Errour concerning their Law is first that they suppose that the word of God given to Moses for their proper use was equally to oblige all Nations saving where certain priviledges were pretended to Jews by birth which they suppose no people were worthy or capable of except the stock of Abraham But that all nations could not be included in that Covenant which was made with Abraham nor were all obliged to the Rites and Ceremonies thereof appears from the ordinary impossibility of being observed by all People For how could people of the remotest parts of the earth appear thrice a year at Jerusalem as was commanded the Israelites by God who dwelt in the Land of Canaan How Levit. 12. 6. could all Nations at any time bring their Sacrifices to the door of the House of the Lord to be there received and offered by the Priests Another Errour concerning their Law received by Moses is that they say It was it whereby men should be justified Which is false and that First because the most ancient holy and renowned Patriarchs of the Jewish Line were not so Justified They were not justified by the
Traditions It is as seldome found That a tale should be reported in the very same phrase or words it was at first told as it is that things transcribed with any common honesty or diligence should fail considerably so much as in the Letter And if they say in Tradition forms of words are not so much to be stood upon doth it not altogether hold as good when this Tradition is written How then do not men blush to argue so boldly and at the same time so weakly There is therefore a twofold Infallibility to be distinguished as well in Relation to unwritten Doctrines as written the one consisting in the Matter delivered the other in the manner so delivering And truly as to this later it cannot be said without some strong Presumption to the contrary the written Traditions which are the Scriptures have been so preciseâ—y and absolutely defended from either the common injuries of time or special miscarriages incident to humane frailty or perhaps as some conjecture the studious mischiefs of sacrilegious hands laid on them as not one title one word one period should not have been damnified thereby The Providence of God granting some such minuter defections from the Original Copies hath been singular in preserving them in that degree of perfection and entireness we now enjoy them So that infinite is the disparity in this case between them and unwritten Traditions which none have been so audacious positively to affirm though indeed their large and loose reasons seem to tend that way that any one unwritten doctrine hath been conserved unto us in the same form of words it was at first delivered to the Church And the like though not so great advantage is to be acknowledged on the Scriptures part compared with the pretended unwritten word of God in reference to the matter and that in these three respects 1. The Evidence 2. The Importance and 3. The Influence that the doctrine of the Scriptures have and ought to have over all Traditions And for the first It is impossible taking traditions as they are distinguished from Scripture that the like grounds of Faith should be offered to us as we have above shown are to be found proving the Scriptures to be the word of God For are all or some only Gods word All cannot be because Traditions in several Places of the world have been diverse and even contrary Because some are acknowledged to have been the Constitutions of Men or the Church since the Apostolical Age. Because many are acknowledged to have been quite lost Because many have been confessed to be changed of them which remain Now if the Church hath failed in the due Custodie of such treasures committed to her How can any man be assured sufficiently of the integrity of the remainer How can the Church be esteemed an Infallible Witness of traditions And who can but admire the Confidence of such Patrons of the Churches fidelity or rather felicity for I would not nor need I call in question its good will and Honesty in her Office of Preserving the Monuments of our Religion untouch'd by errors who by reasons would demonstrate that that cannot be which we see done before our eyes For at other times the same Party if not the same persons stick not to profess that divers Antienter Traditions are perished and more modern have succeeded them They say that some Traditions are as 〈◊〉 as sense can make them The Tradition that there were such famous Cities as Nineve and Babylon and are such as Constantinople and Rome requires the same Faith as the beholding them with our Eyes But first It should have been said in the argument They are as evident as those things we are informed of by our senses but this is far from truth All the testimonies of Past and present persons affirming that to be so which I have no sense of immediately being abundantly sufficient to beget a belief but not equalling in evidence the testimonie of any mans well-disposed senses For does not this so general testimonie it self depend upon a mans senses receiving the same Or can any man be so well assured upon the Credit of any persons whatever that the Apostles delivered such things to be believed and observed by the Church as if he himself immediately received the same from them If it be said that the case of Ecclesiastical Tradition is far different from humane in that the Church is divinely assisted to such ends supposing this at present still we are no less intregued then before For as is said The truth of a thing and the Evidence whereby it appears to be true are very much different And here it will be no less difficult to make such a supposed Assistance appear then the tradition it self which it commends to the World upon such pretences And therefore they who have sifted this matter more narrowly and stated it most rationally have thought it best to forsake such topicks at present as Extraordinarie Assistances and Hen. Holdeni Analysis Fid. tell us plainly that what the Church doth in this case she doth it not as divinely directed but as so many Men delivering their testimonie which is true but then what becomes of Infallibility all men singly and conjointly as men being fallible Well therefore they proved to tell us That to a jugde of Controversies Credible Testimonie or moral infallibilitie may suffice and to this I agree in the main though the term Moral Certainty and Moral Infallibilitie seems to me as vain and improper as it is modern it upon enquirie amounting to no more then the old Probabilitie well and reasonably grounded The next thing in Holy Writ is the much greater importance the things therein contained are of above unwritten doctrines For who of all the Ancients but such as are by tradition stigmatized for Heretiques for such their Basil Ma. de spiritu sancto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 opinions did constitute any rule of Faith distinct from the Scriptures or bring any to stand in competition therewith Some 't is true have distinguished between Dogmes of Traditions and doctrines of the Scripture and haveaffirmed That as well the one as the other ought to be received by a good Christian All this we agree to how we shall show by and by more fully and here by comparing this by the words of St. John saying This Joh. 4. 21. Commandment have we from him that he that loveth God love his brother also By which it is not required that any Christian should with the same kind or degree of Love love his neighbour with which he loveth God For we must love God only for his own sake and our brother for Gods sake Nay when God sayes we must love our neighbour as our selves he does not exclude difference in degrees of love In like manner when it is said That we ought to believe and receive the unwritten as well as written traditions it was never intended by that excellent Father that we should admit
particularly assured of his being in Christ The whole Antecedent I grant viz. That every man believeth Christ when he receiveth him and that Christ is received by Faith And that every man is bound to apply Christ particularly and his Promises to himself But the consequence here made follows not from hence For by the former a man believes assuredly that the Promises of Grace made through Christ to the Church do particularly belong to him he hath a right to them being called to the Covenant Neither do we promise any other security of Salvation by only Faith but to those that labour in their calling and be fruitful of good Works Dr. Fulk on Rhem. Test Phil. 3. v. 11. And thus far a man is and ought to be sure of his Salvation But there being implyed in all Promises of Everlasting Salvation certain conditions of obeying and repenting as well as believing simply whether a man is to that degree proficient in these as to put him in actual possession of Christ this is no where revealed neither are we commanded to believe it And when St. Paul saith to the Romans * Rom. 8. 15 16. See likewise 1 John 5. 9 10 Ye have not received again the spirit of bondage to fear but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father What is more plain than that his meaning is to distinguish the general state of the Church of the Jews from the Church of the Gentiles and the spirit of Moses as I may so say which tender'd to bondage from the spirit of Christ which is that free Spirit For as it is elsewhere said If the Son make you free then shall you be free indeed And from hence no more can be concluded to any single person than to the whole Church of God in which there are many reprobates as all agree Neither is the matter helped out any whit by what follows The Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Sons of God I presume few will be so severe and ignorant as to deny the large acceptation in Scripture of the Children of God and Sons of God and Saints viz. That generally they signifie no more than those who were elected outwardly to the Faith and Profession of Christ and to the means of becoming not only denominatively and of Right but really and effectually in Fact the heirs of Eternal Salvation To be then the Sons of God here with St. Paul signifies no more than by Faith to be the peculiar people and favorites of God above all such as were not thus brought home to Christs Fold Now that such singular Grace and Priviledges belonged to Christian St. Paul proves from the testimony of the Spirit namely That the Christian Religion is only the true Religion thus The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirit Our own Judgment our Consciences doth stedfastly assure us that we are the Children of God but this is not all this proves nothing to another to the convincing of him that we are the true Servants and Children of God but the Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit doth And the Spirit of God beareth witness with us sufficiently when it declareth openly by miracles signs and wonders wrought before the eyes of our Adversaries that what we preach and believe is the truth Which is the same with what St. Paul writes to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 2. 4. saying And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your faith might stand not in the wisdom of man but in the power of God In which words he plainly sheweth the ground of the Corinthians faith not to be taken from any fair or plausible Rhetorick or form of words whereby men are led oftentimes to believe against reason but on the more solid grounds of extraordinary miracles wrought by the power of God and which did demonstrate to all equal judges That it was the Spirit of God which both taught them such mysteries of Faith as they preached and confirmed the same by such signs and wonders as did appear generally at the publication of the Gospel Now what doth all or any of this concern the supposed particular inward tacit testimony whereby it is said a man is to be assured of his Salvation And no more do the words of the Apostle in the end of the same Chapter prove too long to be recited but this Rom. 8. 35 36 37 38 39. is briefly to be answered 1. That they speak not at all of any individual single Christian but of the Church of God and that indefinitely or at large viz. That God hath so determined to plant propagate and maintain that Religion into which divers were collected by the ministry of the Apostles that whatever or from whomsoever evils might befall the Church of God yet they should never prevail with such persecutions to separate the faithful from Christ no not all the Powers nor Principalities on Earth nor all the Angels of Heaven or of Hell But to secure these and the like testimonies the better to their opinions some much admired persons of the Reformation peradventure suspecting what might be answered have proceeded to say That what promises Calvin Inst Christ hath made to his Church do equally concern every Christian as well as the Church which I cannot yield to without these Exceptions First That it may be understood of a particular Church as well as particular Persons But as may hereafter appear God hath made no absolute promise to any particular Church so far that it can be any point of Faith to believe that Gods counsel decree are such to it as never to suffer it to Apostatize from him So that no individual Church can be sure of its perseverance in the truth and if not that how should any particular person claim so much But the Promises of Christ being taken as they ought of a Church indefinitely it is most agreeable to Gods word to maintain an infallible perpetuity of the same Again It is to be remembred that all this while we are speaking not so much of certainty before God according to which we may yield the Salvation of men to be infallible but certainty before men or to the party concerned immediately which we call Assurance or Evidence In the body of an Orthodox Church it is certain in it self that many men shall be saved but not certain to us that any one therein shall nor evident to any one that he shall To the reasons taken from the Power of God who is able to save and reveal this And the truth of God who is faithful in his Promise And the Knowledge of God that he knoweth who are his what need we make any answer besides showing the vanity of that inference which is drawn from the possibility of any thing to the Fact it self and of that presumption rather than faith which
without blame before him in love And it hath been shewed before how that when in the New Testament we read of Gods Calling and choosing and electing we are not so much to understand the eternal purpose or decree of God but the execution thereof in Gods actual calling and electing certain persons to the profession and belief of the Faith of Christ which he effected by the fulfilling of the Prophesie made by Christ in St. Matthews Gospel relating to the Matth. 24. 31. destruction of the Jewish Polity and Church and erecting of the Christian instead thereof viz. And he shall send his Angels that is his Messengers and Ministers with a great sound of a trumpet i. e. the Gospel preached and published and they shall gather together his elect i. e. such as he shall make choice of from the four winds i. e. from all quarters of the world from one end of heaven to the other Now these persons by Gods word and good-will called from such vanities ignorances and vices are in the Scripture called Saints not so much because they were all so throughly or absolutely sanctified from their former natural or moral impieties contracted in their state of Nature and Gentilism as that they should retain no sin and none of them should fail of heaven hereafter But first either from the better part the whole was denominated actually holy which is not unusual in all speech Or because having made renunciation of the World and Flesh and Devil in Baptism they were called and consecrated to Holiness Or lastly because they made open and solemn profession thereof however some so called might be and did appear to be reprobates And names and appellations are given not from any inward affection or quality which sense cannot judge of but from such things as are visible and apparent And thus in the Old Testament as well as New it is used As in the Psalmes Gather my Saints Psalm 50. 5. together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice which imply the whole body of the people of Israel as the words going immediately before do also declare And wherever in the Book of Psalms which is in divers places we find the Congregation of the Saints is meant the Israelites in general And in Daniel Chap. 7. v. 8. 21 22 25 27. is the word necessary taken Now it being most customary with the Penmen of the New Testament to borrow the phrase of the Old this tearm Saints was translated from the Jewish Synagogue to the Christian Church by St. Paul expresly to the Romans saying To all that be in Rome beloved of Rom. 1 7. God called Saints so the original better then the insertion of to be made in the translation As likewise in his first Epistle to the Corinthians To the Church of God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ 1 Cor. 1. v. 2. Jesus called to be Saints withall that in every place call upon the name Jesus Christ their Lord and ours And the like salutation we shall find in most of St. Pauls Epistles as also most frequently in the body of them as may be obvious to any reader though I deny not but sometimes in the New Testament it is taken in a more restrained sense signifying especially the victorious and triumphant not Militant Saints From all which it doth sufficiently appear in what sense the Church may and ought to be described a Society or Collection of Saints And withal how miserably and mischievously they err who giving that title to a Party hold themselves bound to gather a certain select number out of Christians not accusable of any notorious errour from the Faith of Christ as the Apostles of Christ did out of Heathens and Jews and to constitute and call them Saints Another thing requisite to the constitution of a Church is That it be a Communion of Saints it sufficing not that persons elected or selected as above-said be many in number but holy by nature or institution as God ordained of old in the forming of the Jewish Church Deut. 7. 6. Thou art Deut. 7. 6. 26 19. 18 9. an holy people unto the Lord thy God The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all the people that are upon the face of Earth Which words are with advantage applyed unto the Christian Church by St. Peter Whence it is that the same St. Peter maketh it an 1 Pet. 2. 9 10. 2 Pet. 1. 4. end of calling this company together That they may be partakers of the Divine Nature or as it is otherwise more plainly render'd Of a Divine Nature Holiness drawing us near unto the Nature of God himself As the Wiseman also writeth The giving heed unto her Laws is the assurance Wisdom 6. 18 19. of Incorruption and Incorruption maketh us near unto God And not only must they be holy but to that end must of necessity hold a twofold communion The one Invisible with one Head Christ The other Visible and external with one another For the Apostle tells us speaking of Christians The head of every man is Christ And to the Ephesians The 1 Cor. 11. 3. Ephes 5. 23. husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church and and he is the Saviour of the world There can therefore no question be made but it is most essential as well to the Church in general as every particular Christian or Member of the same that Christ be the Head of his Church as St. Paul yet more clearly expresseth it to the Colossians excepting against such Professors of Christian Religion as held not the Head from which all the Body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit 2 Col. 2. 19. together encreaseth with the increase of God Therefore leaving that as on all hands granted we come to the external communion of the Church CHAP. XXIV A Preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the Peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not Revocable by the People IN the outward Communion of the Church two things are to be enquired into First the Nature of it wherein it consisteth Secondly the Adjuncts or Affections thereof First we shall treat Civitas à conversatione multorum dicta est pro eo quod plurimorum in unum constituat contineat vitas Origin Homil. 5. in Genesim briefly of the Nature of this Communion To understand which clearly it will be expedient to begin with the definition of Communion in General or Society humane For Communion is nothing else but Humane Society And Humane Society is nothing else but a conversation of men out of natural reason inclining and moving them thereunto for the mutual supply of the
the fall of a well-built State But this perpetual plague of discontented ambitious Incendaries both Divine and Politick plying the common people with language agreeable to their humour and nothing ravishes them more than to be told what an interest they have in modelling States is that which alone suffices to overthrow all order in a Republick And this we intended for a second Argument A third may well be the common and villanous gloss inseparable from such pestilent Principles executed For the same Histories that relate to us how crafty and seditious Ring-leaders of Ego â—â—nquam existimavi universi populi Judicio eam rem constituendi reges permitti deberi sed ut prope ad consuetudinem nostram ex omnibus ordini bus Selecti ad Regem in consiliumâ— coirent Buchananus DeJure Regni apud Scotos pag. 11 an inchanted multitude have deluded them by infusing such false Dogmes do tell us that they finding it impossible to obtain the concurrence of all persons who according to the pretended Laws of Liberty and Equity ought as one to agree in one design do first with great injustice interpret their Rule to hold and be fulfilled in the Major part of the people only Then finding themselves most commonly destitute of that advantage they proceed to expound it more to their purpose tyrannical and and boldly affirm That by the People is not meant necessarily the most but the best and soberest and godliest and such only that study really the good of Religion and the Liberties of the People And are not these fine doings Do not these popular tenets hang well together and end well which in process of their own reason and practises confute the very first Principle of all viz. That People have an absolute Supream Power to frame Governments when before they can bring matters to their intended conclusion they are forc't to deny them But this popular dogme will appear yet as more false so more odious from what we shall now speak of the Second Point in this general discourse of Government CHAP. XXV Of the Form of Civil Government The several sorts of Government That Government in General is not so of Divine Right as that all Governments should be indifferently of Divine Institution but that one especially was instituted of God and that Monarchical The Reasons proving this THE Second thing to be here examined is the Form of Government To speak orderly of which it is necessary to call to mind the several forms or kinds of Government extant in the World which though according to the infinite variety of prevailing Factions may also be infinite yet may best be reduced to these two Monarchy or the Supremacy of One presiding over all others within such or such Dominions and Polycrasie or Polyarchie where many have the power in their hands of administring the Republick And this again is subdivided into many forms As Polycrasie here properly and strictly taken not as before for any number opposite to One but for a great number of persons invested with Civil Power And Aristocracie consisting of a Few comparatively with the others and them of the Nobler and richer of the People And Democracie wherein the People are said to retain the Power of Government in their own hands But this last is only said and by some ignorant and undiscerning people phansied to be rather than in reality is so or ever was or possible for to be and that upon the reasons amongst divers others already given against the Peoples power This the Philosopher in This Aristotle shews Politicks lib. 4. cap. 4. initio his Politicks doth in effect as far as he dar'd confess amidst so many pretenders to it And they who dispute of it are constrained to desert the proper genuine sense of the word Democracie which should comprehend the people generally without exclusion of any and to affix a new meaning to it whereby many of the inferiour and ignobler sort are taken into the numerous Counsel and Court of Judicature administring the Publick And thus at this cheap rate are the people choused into a fond and empty opinion that they are some body when 't is not the thousand part of them who are at all actually concerned in Government The Histories of the frequent and vain but fatal attempts made by the Roman and Grecian Populacie to become Masters of themselves and to Rule their Rulers are more than enough to confute any man willing and able to learn what a Chimera such a Government is and what devastations rather than security such presumptions have exposed Cities unto who when they were most popularly governed and so should be most free never regarded in the least the adjacent peoples freedom which lived without their City never admitted their Voâ—es never advised with them as they ought to have done if they would have made good their principles which teach that Power is of right in the People and consequently that they ought to govern and by no violence or fraud ought they to be defeated of this their pretended Birth-right and they without the Gates in remoter parts are of the same condition with Citizens And if they recurr to the old hold of the Patrons of such natural Rights in people to say That notwithstanding them there must be some over-ruling power to bring things into settlement and order and therefore the universal judgment and approbation of every person must not be expected I as easily reply and more strongly conclude That therefore there can be no such natural Right in them so much as to prescribe to themselves it being most ridiculous to affirm as well as dishonorable to God to believe That the All-wise Providence should so dispose of Power that unless humane wit mended it nay quite changed it it could never be exercised to the benefit of mankind And this being made good not only must this Democracie be found a meer imposture upon people but the pretended Right of Government communicated unto the Chief in the other two Species's of Government Aristocracie and Polycracie For these persons must either profess a right growing up unto them from the powerful usurpations and oppressions made by them over their brethren the rest of the people who naturally and justly were and ought to be as free as themselves and so all the frame is founded in injustice or this was freely communicated unto them from the people But against this is sufficient what we have often both said and shewed before That the People never had any such Power and if they had ought not nor could part with it or remove it from that place and proper subject wherein it was by God seated and settled And therefore none of these can be just or natural for nothing that is unjust can be natural or agree with the Divine Will And from hence is refuted the vulgar Warrant that is used to justifie as indifferent in their kind all sorts of Civil Government telling us That God
hath instituted Government in General but not limited it to any one kind but left it to the wisdom and choice of men to pitch upon what Government best agrees with a Nation But to what mens wisdom to some few or to many or to all men of that Nation All or the major part have no wisdom nor possibility to choose Few or many choosing doth manifest injustice to the others But what needs repetition of what is said quite opposite to all this This therefore is only here to be added That the supposition here made is utterly false and incongruous to the nature of all things else constituted by God and contrary to the course of nature and Gods manner of working which apparently is not to begin with Generals and so to proceed to Particulars but first he makes Particulars â—nd creates only Individuums single beings and by a necessary consequence whatever existence the General Nature hath it borroweth from thence As God did not at first make man in General and then left some body else as they thought to make Adam and Eve and the rest nor did he irst and only make a living Creature in General and then left the Angels or some other unknown Creatures to us to make what special Animals they pleased out of that but he first made Adam and so mans nature was made He first made the Sun and Moon so far as we read and upon that followed that he made great Lights And the like method must of necessity be acknowledg'd in Gods Institutions Moral and Civil and he must inevitably so far as humane wit can reach first ordain some one Government in particular before he could be said to be the Author of Government generally taken Now if it doth not at all appear That God had any more than a common hand whereby evil as well as good doth spring up in the World in the institution of any more than one sort of Government and that he did particularly pitch upon one and gave instances and intimation of his choice of one and nothing can be alleadged in behalf of the opposite to that as proceeding in any direct special manner from him then will the form of Government we now seek after commend it self unto us And this we shall do by giving the Divine Prerogatives which Monarchical Government hath above others invented by man to stand in competition with it And this not by wading deep or wandring far into an uncertain and tedious Disputation of finding out reasons on both sides which may seem to commend and prefer one above another and so consequently to conclude a divineness in one especially but by certain visible indications and motives evidencing this to every imprejudic'd mind And they are these First Consider we that simple and imperfect Regiment which is Natura enim commenta est Regeâ—â— quod ex aliis animalibus licet cognoscere ex apibus quarum regi amplissimum cubile est medióque ac tutissimo loco Seneca de Clement lib. 1. cap. 9. Vide etiam Hieron Epist 4. Isidorum Pelusiat Epist lib. 2. ep 216. Origen cont Cels lib. 4. pag. 217. Basil Ma. Hom. 8. in Hexaem Chrysost in Rom. Serm. 23. pag. 189. found in Animals and there will appear a resemblance of this Monarchical power only as in herds of Deer and Cattle and Bees in which is observed the Superiority of one over all so far as there is any subjection at all Yea St. Cyprian and divers other Fathers writing against Gentile Idolatry do prove the Monarchy of God over all the World from the Unity of Inanimate things as the Sun in the firmament raigning as it were over all the other Celestial Bodies Secondly The more proper and refined Law of Nature written in mens heart and inclining them to this kind of Government only do not a little argue the hand of God in its institution That being received for a Law of God natural to which all people without syncretizing consulting or combining mutually do consent and practise Now it is evident so far as any History doth inform us That all Nations were at first governed by a single person And whereas Nimrod is reported by some first to have usurped Regal Power over men because the Scriptures tell us how he was a mighty hunter before the Lord it hath more of phansie thaâ— substance in it Yet possibly he might be the first that collected many petty Princes of Families together constraining them to lay aside their Domestick Monarchy and to be subject unto him Or that he brought his neighbour Princes all to his Dominion and so became a Tyrant overthem And at this day if we advise with those People in both Indies discovered we shall find that they scarce ever heard of any other Government but that of Monarchy and that almost Paternal being extended to very few Persons compared with the multitude of which Kingdoms or Governments generally consist And in truth it may give some repuâ—e to the Government of many that Christian Religion favoureth it but it can give no credit to Christian Religion That it only practises and acknowledges a different way of Ruling people from all the known world besides For it will be hard to find any other but Regal Power out of Europe and in Europe not the tenth part owning Antimonarchical Government And of those that do differ from Monarchical Power not two agreeâ—ng in the same form but only negatively against a single Persons Suprenacy So that we may see they have no general Rule to go by but every Nation are a Rule to themselves Thirdly the Paternal Power being acknowledged to be natural and of Divine institution and differing from Monarchical and Regal but as Magis and Minus the lesser degree doth from the greater the thing is in a manner yielded But fourthly Divine Presidents and Examples do further confirm this and that taken from the Word of God in all which there is no mention at all made of any Government but Regal though not alwayes under that name For before the children of Israel went into Egypt the Father or Patriarch of them had this power without competitor In the the Captivity and Servitude of Egypt they had no publick Government besides that of the Kings of Egypt unless peradventure every Tribe had a Chief by succession over them without any Civil Autority From their departure out of Egypt to the death of Joshuah the Supremacie was in one notwithstanding subordinate Councels and Rulers constituted by Moses After Joshuah arose Judges by Gods special appointment not many at once thereby framing an Aristocracie but one Eminent person giving Law to all others And these differed from that of more formal Regal Persons instituted by God at the desire of the discontented people in that before Saul God kept the choice of their Governours more immediately in his own hand and ordained them Deliverers and Judges according to his pleasure and occasions offered which was the
may be a falling away It could never appear which is the true Church if judgment were to be made not from the outward Forms and Faith professed but from the affection and inclination of Persons or from the invisible decrees of God of granting or denying persevering Grace to persons in the Church So that it is manifest from hence how lurious frivolous vain and sophistical disquisitions must needs be which are founded and managed upon the ground of an invisible Church properly so called The improper acceptation then of Invisible can only occasion a just controversie i. e. as it is taken comparatively and in relation to a much more conspicuous and glorious Society and that either of Infidels who may by numbers much exceed in outward glory much out-shine it in power over-rule it and by persecution and oppression so far straiten lessen and crush it that it may be termed obscure and invisible Or otherwise compared with the Societies of much more publick and outwardly glorious Hereticks and Schismaticks pretending the Catholick Church And truly if acute and exact Geographers computing the several professions of Religion and their possessions of the earth deceive us not the Church of Christ may comparatively with other superstitions Mahometan Jewish and Gentile be not unaptly said to be invisible Christian Religion being allowed but Five parts of Thirty Mahometan six and Idolaters nineteen parts of the earth But if we shall divide Christian again into Catholick according to the Judgment of several See Brerewoods Inquiries Chap. 14. Writers there will not remain at present above two parts of all the Thirty parts of the earth to be possessed by the Catholicks and if so what will become of the visibility of the Church thus understood And if a moderate sense of visibility be admitted signifying a real and apparent being only of the Church though inferiour in pomp and number unto others how doth the great end and benefit for which chiefly the Church is to be maintained Catholick and Visible shrink up into little or nothing when it cannot commend it self for any such glory to the beholder nor signalize it self to the doubter of the true Faith in the Church as may hereafter appear more fully when we shall come to speak of the Notes of the Church It may suffice to conclude this Point with these two First That Christs Church is essentially and so long as it is at all must necessarily be a Society or a communion of many For so we are taught to believe out of the Apostles Creed which speaking of the Catholick Church exegetically interpreteth what we are to understand by that term viz. The Communion of Saints And therefore we are to distinguish between being of the Catholick Church and being Christians A man may be a Christian and yet not be of the Church For no man can be of the Church who doth not hold communion with it For to deceive himself and say though he be not of the visible Communion or visible Church he may be or is of the invisible and mystical is to take for granted that which he ought to prove but never can be able but from somewhat external and the ordinary method and most effectual means of being mystically united unto Christ is by being Politically united which must be visibly unto the Body of Christ the Church It hath been therefore ever matter of greatest wonder to me to hear and read how freely all struglers and Factions of Christians how inconsiderable soever do assert to and confidently to assert that common Rule Without the Church there is no salvation and are so obscure nice or absurd in their sense of it having very little or nothing to secure themselves from self-condemnation besides an ill grounded presumption that they are inwardly united to Christ and are of the invisible Church which in truth is no Church but a certain state wherein there is no administration or order that we can learn now all Society must necessarily have order and administrations for their regulating but none such do we read of to be in Christs invisible Body Christ himself being all in all and therefore improperly called a Church And therefore all such being infallibly saved who are so of Christs Body they that so abruptly and peremptorily assure themselves they are of that invisible State do in effect contradict themselves and mean they shall be saved without being of the Church For surely the Authour of that saying meant nothing else but that before one could be according to Gods ordinary dispensation revealed in his word of Christs mystical Body called abusively the Invisible Church he must belong to the visible communion of Christs Political Body or Church So that it is not sufficient to comfort our selves with an opinion that we are good Christians and hold the same Faith entirely and purely that is required of us unless we hold outward communion And therefore secondly as Christs Church must necessarily be a Society communicating so must it be a visible communion and outward For how is it possible that such communion which constitutes a Society should be entred into unless it be visible There shall therefore as well out of the very nature of the Design God and Christ had to establish a Church as from the many promises fortifying that Resolution and perfecting that Design be evermore an outward visible company of Professours of Christian Religion in the world which shall retain the Faith of Christ and the necessary effects of it in Worship to that degree of perfection which shall or may lead a Believer certainly to Salvation as will more plainly appear from what is now to succeed viz. the outward Form of the Church CHAP. XXVIII Of the Outward and Visible Form of Christs Church Christ ordained One particularly What that was in the Apostles dayes and immediately after The vanity of such places of Scripture as are pretended against the Paternal Government of the Church FOR the Church to be and to be visible or appear to be I reckon the same thing and therefore thought good to speak of that and premise it to what in order follows on this subject viz. The Visible Form 2. The Adjuncts or Affections And 3. the Power of the Church of Christ By the Form of the Church we mean that frame and outward constitution whereby the Society of Christian believers are not only united mystically and inwardly to Christ as their proper Head and universal nor as agreeing in the substance of one Faith and Worship but as conventing and consenting in one outward Discipline or Administration of this Body so collected So that Discipline otherwise called Government is by principal Sectaries themselves rightly affirmed to be an essential ingredient into the nature of a Church which will manifestly appear if we distinguish between the nature of a Christian or many Christians separate in themselves from any Jurisdiction and the nature of a Church For a Christian or a true Believer differeth from
determined to any one Province or Nation is very groundless and injurious to the whole design Christ had in propagating the Faith For the said commission of Christ given to his Apostles was not Lex but Jus a Right to Act not a Precept indispensably enjoyning the execution according to the full extent of the Letter Again It was not said to each singly Go and teach all nations but to all conjoyntly So that to all it was a direct Precept which was fulfilled if all Nations were by all the Apostles not all by each of them instructed in Christ But the interpretation which taks All nations to be rather understood negatively in opposition to the Jewish Church which enviously denyed the like Priviledges of salvation to the Gentiles which they claimed proper to themselves rather then positively as if by virtue of Christs injunction they were necessitated to pass all the world over which it is certain that neither any one nor all ever did the intention of Christ being to open a wide door of Grace to all Nations so far as humane ability could ordinarily promote the work quite disables that argument As it was lawful therefore for all the Apostles and every one of them to pass into any Part of the world so was it not unlawful to make choise of some one considerable portion wherein to move and officiate according to his Place For otherwise how should it be lawful for them to continue in some one City two three or seven years as 't is as certain as any thing in History can be that some of them did taking a peculiar and pastoral care thereof and its Appendages Now because as their Presence was finite in reference to place so their lives were to time therefore when in any one large Province they could not manage immediately themselves every City of note and command they assigned certain Substitutes to continue and promote what they had begun even during their lives in many Countries And departing this life left them to succeed in a perpetual line to all ages not by intrusion and spontaneous invasion possessing themselves of Rule and Authority over others but according to the same form that themselves were sent by Christ For Christ not only sent his Apostles but enabled them to send others in the like Pastoral charge And these Apostolical Pastours together with that personal Power given them to be exercised by them had also a real paternal Power to constitute others of the like or inferiour order as necessary emergencies required upon the increase of the Professours of Christian Religion as may in due place be more cleerly proved From hence a reason may be rendred of the Opinion of some very sober Bilson and learned Defenders of Episcopal Government who seeing neither the Apostles alone to govern the Church nor Bishops alone have said It is very hard to determine what was the Discipline of the Church in the very Primitive times of all For surely while the Apostles lived the Government of the Church was Apostolical and not properly Episcopal because those Elders otherwise called Bishops said in Scripture to be set over Cities were themselves wholly at the beck and disposal of the Apostles ordaining them and governed and taught under them no otherwise than a Priest may be under a Bishop in all subjection But the Apostles dying and their intire power also with them part of it devolved unto that Person who before in their Right presided over such a Church the Apostolicalness excepted which consisted in an immediate Ordination to that Office by Christ and illimitedness as to the exercise thereof with other signal gifâ—s and graces not here to be insisted on and was properly Episcopal which consisted in an Authority derived from the Apostles and consequently from Christ to govern the Church and not only present for their dayes but because it was to continue to all Ages which it could not without Governours and Teachers to ordain such who should ordain others without interruption for ever And these not only such who should succeed them in the like Pastoral care but who might together with them though under them by their counsel and labours as the common Fathers of the Church take part of his charge upon them in teaching and governing such a portion of that Church as was allotted them And these were called Priests or Presbyters And as the Bishop was constrained Christians multiplying to ordain an assistent Presbyter to him so when the People under that Presbyter increased so far that it was too difficult for him to discharge all Offices of publick and private ministration it was found expedient to ordain an inferiour Officer in the Church to him for his assistance called a Deacon or Minister Not that these two last Orders themselves were of humane or moderner Institution than the Apostles dayes but that they might be likewise undetermined in the place of their Function to any particular Person until the consummation of the Apostolical age But in truth it is hard to determine what the Scripture intends speaking of Deacons and therefore I offer this mean opinion as not inconsistent with theirs who hold them of Apostolical Institution nor with theirs who make them much later For the first may be true as to the Office which was a degree Ecclesiastical as St. Paul intimateth and the other as to the manner of exercise in reference to one place and one presiding there And the like seems most probable concerning the Evangelists who were persons commissioned by the Apostles to preach the Gospel under them without any determination to a certain place or people and saving this large Licence were in no higher degree than simple Presbyters the Apostles themselves presiding in all such places as Pastours But when they were by their farther Authority fixt to one City and Country with a power to create Successours or Co-adjutors in the Government of that Church then they became formal and proper Bishops For the allegation of them is most frivolous who would elude the express testimonies of Scripture affirming that Timothy and Titus were Bishops by saysaying they were Evangelists For by the same reason they may deny they were Presbyters because probably they were Evangelists and so make them of no order in the Church or of another which is yet unknown to the world which whatever it may please men to call it certainly it must be founded on Priestly Power or else they could not have regularly acted as they did Neither was it as some may phansie to degrade such Evangelists whose faculty extended to all places to be confined to one afterward as Bishop First because such power was more truly indetermined to one than extending actually to all For it depended on the pleasure of the Apostles to send them to what place they thought fit Secondly this fixing of them to one place was not without the accession of power of Government as well as preaching which is no where found to
not so much enquired into how absolutely one man may be known from another nor how one Church may be distinguished from another as the Roman from the Greek or the English from the French Church for this thought it be very easie is scarce worth the labour but the doubt and material difficulty is How to know which of these are Catholick and true Churches of Christ and which are Heretical or Erroneous in any degree I say the Enquiry is not which is which Church as a man might be known to be such an one by name from his stature his hair or the like but which of these are true and orthodox Churches This can be by no other notes infallibly but such as are truly and constantly proper to true Churches and are no less found in other true Churches than in this And therefore it is most true what is commonly said That the true Church is known by the true Faith professed right Discipline administred and the holy Sacraments duly used but not before it be certainly known that all these are actually so observed and really not pretendedly only And so is it as true That it being known certainly which is the true Church it must be known likewise by necessary consequence that all these three are faithfully observed in that Church which could not be true without them Now if we first must judge of Churches by the three General Instances and Indications we must first judge of these Ingredients into its Nature and before we can do so must run through a whole body of Divinity and that with fallible judgment in the search of it On the other side if we would know which is the true Religion from the true Church to know the true Church first we must pass through infinite Disputes and Controversies with the like uncertainty of judging aright as before and in doing both these we forsake the pretended method of judging by Notes for we are hereby immers'd in the indagation of the thing it self without consideration of Notes which if they could be had apparently and infallibly would prevent that long and tedious labour of examining the matter it self But such as I have said I know none positive the neerest we can come to the point is Negatively when there is apparently wanting such things as declare at least the unsoundness and imperfection of the whole Body so defective CHAP. XXX Of the Notes of the true Church in Particular Of Antiquity Succession Vnity Vniversality Sanctity How far they are Notes of the true Church THE four principal Notes of the true or rather false Church not found in it are Antiquity Unity Succession Universality and as moderner Controverters in England especially the name of Catholick it self To the first of these we say That her Antiquity is not to be compared with things of quite another nature but with things of the same nature and comprehended in some eminent Period of time For the Natural worship was more ancient than the Mosaical and the Mosaical than the Christian in such things wherein they differed For we have before shown That Christian Religion according to the material and natural Part of it which was that connatural light and reason shining cleerly in the heart of man and directing him to the belief and worship of one God exceeded in time the Jewish worship yet was not to be preferred before it and the like may be said of the Jewish and Christian But the enquiry is chiefly about those of the same Oeconomy the same profession and denomination As if it should be demanded which of the natural Religions were the truest answer might well be made That which was most ancient and agreeable to prime Institution And in like manner That must be the purest of the Jewish or Mosaical which agrees most exactly with the most ancient and first instituted of that kind and so of the Christian undoubtedly that which retained most of the divine Truths and Worship ought to be preferred as the best of that kind as is plain from the Prophet Jeremiah advising that degenerous people and Church thus Stand ye in the wayes and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls Nay we may extend this to the Mahometan Religion thus far truly viz. to be informed from antiquity which of all the several Sects are most truly Mahometan weighing their agreement to or discrepancie from the Institutions of the first Author of that Superstition But here it will be necessary to distinguish between things agreeable to the institution things instituted and things contrary to institution and that as well for our better satisfaction in the following notes as this present though I confess all this is overthrown if that be taken for granted which some mischievously would obtrude upon the Christian Church in these last dayes That nothing whether intrinsick or extrinsick to Religion it self in the substance must be instituted but by Christ and such as were divinely inspired by him But this at present I shall take for groundless sensless and unpracticable by the Assertours and Defenders of it some other place being more proper for its confutation But this diversity being allowed as all reason requires the resolution of this case will be much facilitated For surely that Church have it never so many and fair advantages otherwise to commend it to the world which shall either have lost any material Article of Christian Faith or notably corrupted and perverted or introduced any Tenet which is contrary to the first Institution and for which no good ground or reason can be alledged out of the all-sufficient Rule of Faith must needs be false and that no such warrant can be there had the total silence or contrary Doctrine of the Ages next under the Date of Scriptures which we here make the Rule do prove For where neither the Scriptures most ancient expresses or necessarily infers any Doctrine of Faith nor Tradition hath never so understood the Scriptures there no greater evidence can be found upon earth to discern truth from falshood and consequently the Catholick and Apostolick Faith from the Spurious and Heretical And from this head it was that we find the ancient Fathers to oppose and confute the Heretical Inventions and Innovations of men contrary to sound Faith For supposing that Christ was the first founder and dispenser of Christian Doctrine and that he delivered this to the Apostles to be farther propagated in the world what could be said more effectually against perverters of the same than to shew that such fond and impous tenets as Hereticks obtruded upon the world could never have Christ for their Author because those who immediately drew from that Fountain never taught any such thing but the contrary rather And that they did not they proved from instances in all the principal Sees of the Apostles and their immediate and following Successors who never delivered any such Doctrine
to be for certain reasons they draw at their pleasure out of Scripture and the necessity of our knowledge of it which is as solid a way of proceeding as if I finding my self by natural sense cold another should attempt to demonstrate the contrary because it is Midsommer But this use we may yet make of Universality to jude of Catholickness of Faith taking it for the most constant for time place and persons according as all humane account requires to ascribe that to the more numerous and eminent which is strictly proper only to the whole entire Body as a Councel or Senate is said to decree a thing when the chiefest do so some dissenting surely this is a very probable argument of the Catholickness of that Faith and consequently that Church so believing But what we before observed must not be forgotten here viz. That in all such enquiries as these the Estimate must be taken from the whole Church passed as well as Present and that there is as well an Eminency of Ages as Persons to preponderate in this Case Lastly the advantage Negative from Universality is very considerable to discern the true Faith and Church from false because it is most certain if any Doctrine or Discipline shall be obtruded on the Church which cannot be made evident to have been actually received in the Church and not by colourable and probable conjectures and new senses of Scripture invented to that purpose in some former Age that is Heretical and Schismatical and in no good sense Catholick The last Note which we shall mention is Sanctity which we hold very proper to this end taken abstractedly from all Persons as considered in Doctrine and Principles For if any Church doth teach contrary to the Law of nature of moral vertues of Justice or the like we may well conclude that to be a false Church though it keeps it self never so strictly to the Rule of Scriptures in many or most other things For it is in the power of mans wit and may be in the power of his hands to devise certain Religious Acts and impose them on others which shall carry a greater shew of severity and sanctity than there is any grounds for in Scripture or Presidents in the best approved Churches and yet this is not true Holiness of Believers For to this is principally required that it be regulated and warranted by Gods holy Word Yet neither so directly and expresly as if it were unlawful to act any thing in order to Holiness without special precept from thence For I see no cause at all to reject the ancient distinction found frequently with the Fathers of the Church of duties of Precept and duties of Councel For there ever was and ought to be in Christs Church several ranks of Professours of Christs Religion whereof for instance some live more contemplative some more active lives But if all commendable and profitable States were under Precept then should all sin that do not observe the same but God hath taken a mean course in not commanding some things of singular use to the promoting of Piety in true Believers but commending the same unto us Such are Virginal chastity Monastick life Travelling painfully not only towards the salvatian of a mans own soul but of others likewise and certain degrees uncommanded of Duties commanded as of charity towards our Christian neighbours Watchings unto Prayer and spiritual Devotion which being prescribed no man can determine to what degree they are by God required of us precisely some therefore are left to the Freewill-offerings of devouter persons who thereby endeavour either to assure themselves more fully of their salvation or increase of the glory afterward to be received For as Christ tells us in the Gospel Much was forgiven to Mary because she loved much so shall much be given upon the same reason They therefore that teach contrary to such wholesome and useful means of Holiness as these or the like under perhaps vain suspicion of too great opinion may be had of their worthiness incur at least with me the censure of being enemies to the holiness of Christs Church and render their Churches more suspected for the opposing of them than others for approving or practising them The Holiness then of the Church commending it to the eye and admiration of the World doth consist in the divineness and spiritualness of its Doctrine and Ecclesiastical discipline in use in it exceeding moral civility For it may be that such a severe hand of civil Justice may be held over a people that they may live more orderly and inoffensively to the world than some true Christian Churches but if this be done as often it is out of civil Prudence natural Gravity or a disposition inclined rather to get an estate than riotously and vainly to spend on which brings such scandal to Religion then is not this a sign of a true Church or Christian because it proceedeth not from principles proper to Christian Religion but secular interest how specious soever it may appear to the World CHAP. XXXI Of the Power and Acts of the Church Where they are properly posited Of the Fountain of the Power denyed to the Church Neither Prince nor People Authour of the Churches Power But Christ the true Head of the Church The manner how Christs Church was founded Four Conclusions upon the Premisses 1. That there was alwayes distinction of Persons in the Church of Christ 2. The Church was alwayes administred principally by the Clergy 3. The Rites generally received in the Church necessary to the conferring Clerical Power and Office 4. All are Vsurpers of Ecclesiastical Power who have not thus received it In what sense Kings may be said to be Heads of the Church AFter the Church found and founded as abovesaid the special Acts thereof claim due consideration and the Power or Right of so acting And this Power we make two-fold in General Political and Mystical or Sacramental Of both which we must first enquire after the proper Subject before we treat of the proper Acts thereof That all Power which is given by Christ doth reside in the Church as its subject no man can or doth question But because the Church it self being as is said a Society united in one Faith and administred outwardly by Christian Discipline according to Christs mind admitteth of several senses and acceptations therefore it must be first understood which and in what sense is according to Christs intention the proper seat of this power And before we come to Scriptural grounds we take no small help in this Enquiry from the common state of all Government which we have already shown to be such as is not ascending but descending It cometh not originally nor can from the multitude or people who are the object of this power i. e. the Persons properly to be governed and not governing all the Examples of former Ages confirming not only the unnaturalness and unreasonableness but impossibility of the People governing
Eucharist and especially going upon the grounds of Luther Calvin Perkins and some others of Great note that all Sacerdotal they may call them if they please Ministerial Acts done by him who is no true Minister are really null and void Fourthly we conclude that seeing all Ecclesiastical power as Ecclesiastical doth proceed from Christ and his Successors and that by Ordinary and visible means they who have not received the same by such Ordinary Methods are usurpers of the same whether Political or Mystical And that to deny this to the Church is to deny that which Christ hath given them and such a Principle of the Churches well Being without which it cannot subsist and it not subsisting neither can the Faith it self And to the reason above given we may add Prescription beyond all memory For from Christs time to this day a perpetual and peculiar power hath ever been in the Clergy which hath constantly likewise born the name of the Church to assemble define and dispose matters of Religion And why should not Prescription under Unchristian as well as Christian Governours for so many Ages together be as valid sacred and binding to acknowledgment in the Case of Religion as Civil Matters will ever remain a question in Conscience and common Equity even after irresistible Power hath forced a Resolution otherwise It is true such is the more natural and Ancient Right Civil Power hath over the outward Persons of men than that which Religion hath over the Inward man that it may claim a dominion and disposal of the Persons of even Christian subjects contrary to the soft and infirm Laws of the Church because as hath been said Men are Men before they are Christians and Nature goeth before Grace And Civil society is the Basis and support to Ecclesiastical Yet the grounds of Christianity being once received for good and divine and that Religion cannot subsist nor the Church consist without being a Society and no Society without a Right of counsel and consultation and no consultation without a Right to assemble together the Right of assembling must needs be in trinsique to the Church it self Now if no man that is a Christian can take away the essential ingredient to the Church how can any deny this of Assembling For the practise of it constantly and confidently by the Apostles and brethren contrary to the express will of the Lawful Powers of the Jews and Romans and the reason given in the Acts of the Apostles of obeying God rather then man do imply certainly a Law and Charter from God so to do and if this be granted as it must who can deny by the same Rule necessity of Cause and constant Prescription that they may as well provide for the safety of the Faith by securing the state of the Church as for the truth and stability of the Church by securing the true Faith by doctrine and determination The Great question hath ever been Whether the Church should suffer loss of power and priviledges upon the Supream Powers becomming Christian Or the Supream power it self loose that dominion which it had before it became of the Church For if Christianity subjected Kings necessarily to the Laws of others not deriving from them then were not Kings in so good a Condition after they were Christians as before when they had no such pretences or restraints upon them and so should Christs Law destroy or maim at least the Law of God by which Kings reign But there may be somewhatsaid weakning this absurdity For Granting this That there is a God and that he is to be worshipped and that as he appointeth all which we must by nature believe it seems no less natural to have these observed than the Laws of natural Dominion Now granting that at present which if we be true to our Religion we must not deny viz. That Christian Religion is the true Religion and that God will be worshipped in such sort as is therein contained For any Prince absolute to submit to the essentials of that Religion is not to loose any thing of his Pristine Rights which he had before being an Heathen for he never had any Right to go against the Law of God more then to go against the Law of Nature but it doth restrain his Acts and the exercise of his Power And if the Supream after he hath embraced Christianity shall proceed to exert the same Authority over the Church as before yet the Church hath no power to resist or restrain him Civilly any more than when he was an Alien to it Now it being apparent that Christian Faith and Churches had their Forms of believing and Communion before Soveraign powers were converted and that he who is truly converted to a Religion doth embrace it upon the terms which he there finds not such as he brings with him or devises therefore there lies an Obligation upon such powers to preserve the same as they found it inviolate And truly for any secular Power to become Christian with a condition of inverting the orders of the Church and deluting the Faith is to take away much more than ordinary accrues unto it by such a change It is true the distinction is considerable between the Power of a Christian and unchristian King exerted in this manner because taking the Church in the Largest sense in which all Christians in Communion are of it what Christian Kings act with the Church may in some sense bear the name of the Church as it doth in the State acting according to their secular capacity but much more improperly there than here because there are no inferiour Officers or Magistrates in such a Commonwealth which are not of his founding and institution whatsoever they do referr to him and whatsoever almost he doth is executed by them But Christ as we have shewed having ordained special Officers of his own which derive not their Spiritual Power at all from the Civil and to this end that his Church might be duly taught and governed what is done without the concurrence of these can in no proper sense bear the name of the Church But many say the King is a Mixt person consisting partly of Ecclesiastical and partly Civil Authority but this taken in the ordinary latitude is to begg the Question and more a great deal than at first was demanded For who knows how far this Mixture extends and that it comprehends not the Mystical Power of the Church as well as the Political And how have they proved one more than the other by such a title It were reasonable therefore first to declare his Rights in Ecclesiastical matters as well as Civil and thence conclude he is a Mixt Person and not to affirm barely he is a Mixt Person and from thence inferr they know not what Ecclesiastical power themselves And if he hath such power whether it is immediately of God annexed to his Natural Right or by consent of the Church is attributed unto him For by taking this course we
may reconcile many otherwise contrary opinions found amongst the Ancient Fathers sometimes ascribing much of the Ecclesiastical Power to Christian Emperours and sometimes calling the same in question The Church of England so far as she hath declared herself herein seemeth to take the mean way and follow herein the Prescriptions of the Old Testament and the Precedents of Christian Emperors found in the Antient Church under the Gospel and doth profess to be the due of our Kings as much as ever any Kings upon earth to sway in Ecclesiastical matters In execution of which power as there was alwayes approbation moderated according to the customes of the Church so was there always Opposition when the bounds were exceeded And undoubtedly true is That we are taught by our Church to acknowledge That whatever in Church Constitutions and Canons Church of England Can. 2. matters was the Right of Jewish Kings or Christian Emperours of Old is so now the Right of our Kings But some not content herewith have out of the Title of Head given at the first attempts of Reformation to our King and made by acts of State Hereditary to his successors drawn an argument to prove all that power which rested in the Church to be devolved on the Kings of this Nation But this hath ever been disowned and disclaimed in such a large sense by themselves as appears by Queen Elizabeths Injunctions and an Act of Parliament in confirmation whereof I shall here only recite the opinion or testimony of Bishop Jewel in his view of Pius Quintus his seditious Bull Bishop Jewel against the Bull of Pius 5th against her in these his own word Where is the called Supream Head Peruse the Acts of Parliament the Records the Rolls and the Writs of Chancery or Exchequer which pass in her Graces name Where is she ever called Supream Head of the Church No No brethren she refuseth it she would not have it nor be so called Why then doth Christs Vicar blaze and spread abroad so gross an untruth c. This was her Judgement and modesty then when there was greatest cause to apprehend some such thing and what she thought of it I never could learn was ever otherwise interpreted by her Successors For notwithstanding that according to the most ancient and undoubted Rights of this Emperial Crown our Kings are supream Governors of the Church as well as State yet never was it expounded of the Church as they were Ecclesiastical but as they were of Civil capacity For herein differeth the Right of Kings according to our Reformation from that of Roman Perswasion That Clergy men becoming Sons of the Church in more especial manner than they of the Laity are not thereby exempted from the Civil Power either in matter of propertie or Criminalness But the Roman Church so far exalted and extended their Ecclesiastical Power as to withdraw such Persons and their Cases civil from Civil cognizance and judgement and assume it to themselves And this the Pope claiming very injuriously as Head of the Church To root up this usurpation Henry the eight null'd that his pretence and took the title to himself intending nothing more then to vindicate his Prerogative in that particular For though it cannot be denied that many and great Priviledges to this effect have been of Old granted by Christian Emperours to eminent Bishops to judge of their own Sons as they were called within themselves yet did they never claim this as a Native Right of the Church or Christianity but as an act of Grace from the Civil Power And though the Church following therein the Councel of St. Paul to go to Law rather before 1 Cor. 6. 1. the Just than unjust and that Christians should rather determine Causes of differences amongst themselves by arbitration than scandalously apply themselves to the Judgement Seat of Heathen did ever endeavour to determine business within it self and yet more especially the Clergy Yet they never denied a Right in Civil Autority to call them in question upon misdemeanours or to decide their Cases of Civil nature And for the other of Divine nature or purely Ecclesiastical Princes never expected or desired to intermeddle therewith This the Roman Deputy of Achaia Gallio understood not to concern his Juridical power when Act. 18. he refused to be a Judge of such matters as were esteemed Religious though in that violence was offered to the body of St. Paul before his face he might and ought to have shewn his Autority But when the Soveraign Power became Christian it was not thought unlawful at all nor scandalous to address themselves to it for decision of Controversies And this is it which is intended to be demanded now by our Kings in their Supremacy in Cases Ecclesiastical and Civil and acknowledged by the Clergy of this Church to be his due without that servile way of seeking leave from the Bishop of Rome or any under him Onely where it may be showed that Peculiar Grants of Exemptions from the common course of Justice have been made by Princes to the Clergy of the Church may it not seem equal that they should enjoy the benefit of them as well as others in other Cases But nothing is more unreasonable or intollerable then the impudence of those spitefully and malitiously bent against the Religion professed in our Church who argue from the Kings Supremacy over the Church such an absolute dominion there as they will by no means acknowledge due to him in the State If by Acts of Parliament a thing be confirmed to the Commonwealth it is lookt on as inviolable by the King and unalterable without the like solemn Revocation as was the Constitution But by vertue of the Ancient Right of the Crown they would have it believed the King may at his pleasure alter such solemn Acts made in behalf of the Church Without the concurrence of the Three Estates nothing is lookt upon as a standing Law to the Civil State but by vertue of this Supremacy Ecclesiastical they would have it believed that without any more ado without consent or counsel of the Church he may make what alteration of Religion he pleases which was never heard or dreamt of Yea and whereas not only his Civil but Ecclesiastical Power always acknowledged the Bounds of common benefit and extended not to destruction they would have it thought that he may when he pleaseth by vertue of such Headship destroy the Body of the Church and Religion and leave none at all so far at least as the withdrawing of all secular aid and advantage do hasten its ruine But they will not be of this opinion any longer than they have brought about their mischievous purposes Surely St. Paul who had 1 Cor. 5. 12. nothing to do at all with State matters and could not touch one that was without the Church by Ecclesiastical censure was as much the Head of the Church as ever any Prince in Christendom doth expressly declare that whatsoever
consent and sentence is the same in effect with Excommunication and therefore breeders of separation and divisions are no less subject to excommunications than are Hereticks though they hold nothing directly contrary to the Faith But if men will say that What St. Paul did we may do and no more because he did no more this is invented only to destroy but will not hold strong enough because the examples of the Governours of the Church our Rules are not to be restrained to the very same Cases only but to them of like general nature St. Paul justifyes by his practice the excluding out of the communion of the Church such as bred causeless contentions and divisions and from hence the succeeding Governors are justified in doing the like For nothing can be said less to the question in hand than to recite many places out of St. Paul commanding to bear one anothers burdens and that we should not judge one another and that the strong should bear with the weak and such like For all these Texts speak either of Churches not Formed or constituted but rather breeding or of single persons amongst themselves coming to Christian Religion with the strong prepossessions of the Excellency of certain Rites before Religiously observed wherein all Reason Justice and Religion require that no man should impose his conceit upon another without autority But do we find in any place of the Holy Scriptures that St. Paul denied this Right of Judging censuring and commanding to the whole Church Nothing less yea nothing more than the contrary as may more fully appear when we are to speak of Rites and Ceremonies But it is commonly and as they think accutely said that they are the Authors of divisions and Schisms who will not do what they may to prevent them And therefore if Governours impose more then is necessary to salvation or Faith upon others they must answer for the divisions arising from this I may marvel who before late years I may say rather dayes ever understood the Scriptures in this manner but they will wonder perhaps again I should think they are no better interpreters and appliers of Scriptures than are to be found in times and societies of old Let that pass But so must not their mistake either of the power of the Church or the nature of Charity and common Justice The power of the Church being meerly ministerial and servile as to Christ and the Rule of all Christianity the Scripture but Magisterial in relation to inferiour members extendeth only to things of Christian Prudence and extrinsecal to Faith and the things uncommanded in Scripture properly For in other things it is determined without any power to vary from thence this done utterly destroyes all Right and Autority as to outward matters which they can never themselves approve of in the practise nor have done But this is not all for we say that those Governors are not the cause of Divisions and Schisms who do not suspend and withdraw all Injunctions extrinsecal to Faith or good life but they rather who do not receive and obey such as are not contrary to either This is the state of the controversie then between us supposing there is Order and Legitimate autority constituted amongst us whether this is more or so much bound for peace and unity sake to gratifie such as are in their rank subject in the Lord to them in all things possible according to the Scripture or these on the contrary are obliged to receive and observe all such decrees and constitutions which are indeed much accused and traduced but cannot be proved to be any wayes contrary to the word of God or any Analogy of Faith which is not devised by themselves And granting there were somewhat of Charity in reluxing of the rigour of Orders to be observed is there not much more of Charity to be expected from them in obeying How can they so vehemently urge that upon others which they are much more bound to keep and practise themselves but never reguard it Does not Charity much more bind them to obey their Superiours then their Superiours them Nay can they lay any claim to a thing upon the account of Charity who deny the same thing upon the account of Justice Justice and a debt of obedience flowing from subjection requires no less than Charity a compliance of the Wills of the Inferiour with that of the Superiour But only Charity can be pretended and that only pretended where there seems to be an indifference in the thing commanded For if they betake themselves to the inward temper and bent of particular consciences opposing or approving things they must needs come off Loosers by such trials For there will soon be found consciences on the contrary that will be as stiff and resolute for the defense as theirs are for the abrogations of such indifferent things No reason is possible to be given why one conscience may not think as well of them finding them not forbidden as another doth evil finding them not commanded For the too vulgar doctrine which teacheth That what is not commanded is forbidden in Scripture is as notorious a falsity as any thing can be pretended upon the Scripture But farther we absolutely declare against all such tryals of Publick Laws and Customes as Particular and especially private consciences as unjust and unreasonable and in trut intollerable in all Churches This is the Rule we maintain and hold to That nothing ought to be ordained or imposed which may justly offend the conscience and that is only evil If therefore the thing it self be acknowledged or may reasonably be proved to contain nothing sinfull which only may offend the conscience it is one of those evils which cannot be avoided and such of which Christ speaketh in the Gospel of St. Luk. 17. â—1 Luke It is impossible but that offences will come For either the dissenting or Assenting conscience must suffer and which should in such cases suffer who should determine but Autority Was ever that chosen for a Rule which is infinite in uncertainties So are mens consciences in particular But still they are Instant and say We grant such things may be left undone without prejudice to the Faith And to the same argument we return the same answer in effect as before viz And they grant they may be done without prejudice to the Faith But their Case is little less than ridiculous if it be truly considered what they lay down and what they crave at our hands For Peace sake say they we ought to yield what is not unlawful and all indifferent things As if they much more were not so bound to do But that we now add is That there being two Parties diversly constituted yet as 't is supposed differing only in things of a middle nature between Good and Evil. If the one Partie should come unto the other promising to have peace and be at unity with it on condition that it would yield all things that they
with Christians denying them all outward conversation as well as spiritual in matters of Religion Now this seems to be a branch of the Old Greater Excommunication and not in all places disusâ—d And sometimes is unlawful and otherwhile lawful according to the extent and application of them For to inflict the same to the dissolving of ties of nature is not agreeable to the simplicity of the Gospel And Natural Ties we call such as are between Subjects and Soveraign Parents and Children Husband and Wife which by no Ecclesiastical Excommunication can be broken or nulled The reason whereof besides the monstrous effects ensuing upon their evacuation not here to be treated of is this That Ecclesiastical Power can take away no more than it gave nor Christianity destroy what it never builded But Christianity did never simply confer such Rights on men but the Law of Nature only it regulated and directed the same therefore can it not null it It is therefore unchristian for any pretending Ecclesiastical Power to absolve subjects from obedience Civil or Children from natural and the like But every Christian in that he is adopted of God by baptism and admitted into the Society of Christians doth receive thereby certain Rights and power to communicate with it in all things which power may be forfeited and lost by breach of Covenant as well with the Body of the Church to live and believe according to the Received Faith and practice thereof as with the Head Christ And this being so judged by those who are over the Church in the Lord it is very consonant to Christian Religion to deny such of what order or rank soever they be the signs of outward communion Prayer and Communication of the Holy Sacraments of Christ The Church hath power to declare even soveraign Princes uncapable of such Communion and deny it them which we call the Lesser Excommunication Yet because as we said No natural Right can be extinguished upon unchristian misdemeanours If a Supream Prince of a Place should disdain to be denied or opposed in such cases and would make his entrance into the Church by vertue of his Civil Right to all places under his Dominion the most that the Church could do justly in such cases were to diswade him but by any force to resist his entrance into any Church were unlawful as it would be also to minister in a Christian manner in his presence for this cannot be commanded by him but in such cases suffering must be put in practice as for the Faith it self sought to be destroyed Some there are yet who call in question the peculiar and incommunicable Right of decreeing this Censure of Excommunication to those called the Clergy which is very strange seeing this Power is part of that of the Keys delivered by Christ himself to such only as he constituted Governors of the Church and that in Christs days their was a distinction between the Members of his Body as to Inferiority and Superiority Obedience and Command Teacher and Learner and much more in the Apostles days after Christs Assention and much more yet after their days according as the matter of the Church Christians encreasing and improving became more capable of a more convenient form and fashion For as it is in the production of natural things though the Form be certain and constant and the very same at the first production as in its perfection yet it doth not appear so fully and perfectly as afterward So was it with the Body of Christs Church It is certain therefore that from the beginning this Act of Excluding from the Communion was never executed but by the Rulers and Presidents of Congregations though the people might concurr thereto Now that these Rulers whom we may call Bishops or Presbyters were not created by the People nor by the Prince we have shewed already and therefore did nothing in their Right but in the Power of Christ whose Ministers alone they properly were And this being essential to right Administration of the Church how can it be supposed either to be separable from the Church in General or from those persons who are the proper Administrators of it For to say with some It is needless Selden de Jure Gentium apud Bibliander apud Erastum wholly where Christian Magistrates rule whose proper office it is to rebuke and punish vice and scandalous misdemeanors which say they can only be just cause of Excommunication is to destroy the subject of the question which supposes it needful and upon this enquires after the Persons which should Execute the same And spitefully to defeat the Church of all Authority from Christ doth indeed translate this Power to the Civil Magistrate And is not the absurdity the very same which endowes the Christian Governor with Civil Power and which endows the Civil Magistrate with Christian If it be not absurd for a King to be a Philosopher it is not absurd for a Philosopher to be a King If it be not absurd for a Civil Magistrate to have Priestly power it is not absurd for him that hath Priestly power to be a Magistrate There is certainly no inconsistency on either side For things of a far different nature and intention may easily meet in the same person though the things themselves can never be the same Here therefore the things differing so egregiously it is no more than nacessary that a different cause be acknowledged necessary which not appearing the Effect must be denied Now the Cause of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as Ecclesiastical must needs come from him from whom the Church it self hath its Original and being And it is a certain Rule that a man is born to nothing that comes from Christ as Head of his Church but is made and instituted Which whoever is not cannot lay any just claim to any Office under him I know it is objected that Preaching being an Ecclesiastical Act hath without contradiction been practised by diverse and to this day may be no ordination preceeding To which I thus answer by distinguishing first between doing a thing Ex Charitate and Ex Officio out of Charity and out of duty Preaching was ever permittedin the Church especially taken in the larger sense wherein it signifies all declaration of the Gospel out of Charity But the office of Preaching was never suffered but upon antecedent qualifications And these two differ yet farther For he that doth a thing out of Office doth it so that it is not lawful for him absolutely to omit it but he that doth it out of Charity and only by connivance not by commission may cease at his pleasure and as he made may suspend himself when he will Again he that teaches without Autority upon bare permission nay be silenced without any other cause renderd but the will of him that hath the Jurisdiction or if a reason be given because He hath no autority is sufficient But he that is orderly instituted to that end cannot without
alledge in there excuse and Defence They are readie to return but they cannot be admitted but upon unreasonable Terms and conditions How does this appear if it should be denied as without all peradventure it will Must not the Defendents be here forced to take their grounds of Apologie and Justification from the very things themselves under debate and put in their exceptions against the terms upon which they are to be receiv'd or condemn themselves Neither will it suffice to say We shall be hardly used or beaten if we return to such severe Masters and therefore we will keep out For they may deserve it and though nature teacheth a man as it did Hagar to flee from her Mistris Sarahs Tents for fear of blows yet God and Justice and Christian Charity advise us to return to our Duty It must then be necessarily alledged and made good That we deserve not to be so ill used or rather that it is ill usage which we fore-see shall befall us and that the case so standing it is not our duty to return and all this can no waies possible be made good but by examination of the matter it self And that which will Justifie us from not returning will also warrant our free Separation at first T is the cause then that makes the Separation Schism or not An Instance whereof we have in the famous Schism of the Donatists which almost all Christians now adays confess to have been notorious Schismaticks because they could not make good their Reasons which induced them for could they they had not been Schismaticks as a sober Author notes upon Optatus thus If those things were true which Albaspinus Observat In Optat pag. 3. the Donatists laid to Caecilianus and Mensurius and Caecilianus had polluted themselves with Idolatry The Donatists had offended nothing against the Discipline and Canons of the Church refusing to communicate with Caecilianus and his Companions That is they had not been Schismaticks if so be they could have made good their Principal Charges against the Church And this we may bring home to our selves as now we stand devided from other Churches and particularly that of Rome For if the Corruptions in doctrine and Practice be not sufficient to justifie our present posture of opposition if they had not before we left them departed from the true faith if they were not really and materially Schismatiques before we were divided from them then surely we were at our separation and so continue For to say We have a willing mind to unity we have Charity so great that we earnestly desire Reconciliation with them is to deceive the world and our selves and encourage and justify Schism in others who no doubt will all pretend to so much charity as to declare themselves willing to embrace unity upon their own terms But in such cases we cannot be said to go to them though in outward apparence we may seem so to do as they come to us The question therefore is to be put under the circumstances as now they are and as the Case is now with them And in that it ought and may be roundly and resolutely answer'd We neither can nor ought nor will re-unite and yet well enough free our selves from Schism upon the account of the Justness of the occasions and Causes there found and given us to divide from them Then ought it to be enquired for this they passionately call for what are those errors which that Church is subject to for which a Separation may be Legitimated and not participate of the nature of Schism It is commonly and with general consent averted and that even by leaving Schismaticks amongst us That Corruption in Act or manners is not sufficient to warrant a Separation from a Church subject to them and so infected no not perhaps though Idolatry it self should be too common amongst them in it when no necessity lies upon the particular Members to be obnoxious to the same the doctrine of Christ bearing up its head above it and obeyed truly by others But when Evil actions and notorious errours in Fact shall come to that height as to be reduced to doctrine and formed into an heretical or Idolatrous proposition as in time it must of necessity be it being natural as well to all Churches as persons to defend by argument what they choose to practise and be taught publickly then doth that Church become truly Heretical and Idolatrous and from that Church which hath so far departed from the Faith any Church or person may lawfully depart without Scruple of Schism though such separation be not absolutely necessarie because though the infection be common it is not necessarily so general that all should be obliged to espouse it and be corrupted by it but when to this degree of doctrine shall be added a third which is of Precept and such unsound and pernicious opinions shall be imposed on others and exacted of all there it is not only lawful but necessary to salvation to divide from such a pretended Church of Christ I mean a necessity of Precept though not of Means as if it were not possible that a man should be saved who liveth in an Heretical or Idolatrous Church though with those many circumstances of a general Right Intention humble walking with God and invincible ignorance of the more pure and Christian Faith and worship For there is undoubtedly a Mean between these two Necessity to Salvation and Necessity of Damnation Well might Athanasius say Whosoever will be saved it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith and add yet farther Which Faith except a man do keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly and so give us the particulars of that Faith so necessary For he means no more than that such Errors are in themselves damnable But heresies do not work after the manner of such natural Causes which have such effects infallibly but may be said notwithstanding naturally to tend to such events which yet may be prevented by various Allayes of Circumstances both inward and outward impeding such Effects The Consideration of which possibility of escaping the ordinary danger can no ways excuse a man or confirm him in such errours but the common and as you may say natural tendence of them to ruine and perdition strongly oblige him to relinquish that Church wherein it is only possible by vertue of some extraordinarie indulgence of God to come to salvation and whose errours are of themselves damnable So if the Question be put as generally it is Whether for example a man may not be saved in the Roman Church The answer is abundantly sufficient within Religion and Divinitie though perhaps not so formal in Logick That they certainly may be damn'd and that for holding the Faith and worship there commanded and received with full approbation And this is sufficient to call any sober Christian off from that communion though there may occur so many mitigating Circumstances as to a Person of
is so defended as to call in question the truth of Christs divine nature and to commend and command the direct worship of those objects so mistaken then certainly it is Heresie and somewhat more And so their doctrine of Communicating in one Kind contrary to all the mention we have of celebrating the Eucharist in the Scriptures and those deserving the name of Fathers in the Church may rightly be termed Heretical when it shall be drawn into such a Proposition as this as of necessity it must viz. That it is of equal vertue and use to receive the Sacrament in one kind alone as both Kinds whereas only to deny the use of it is no more than an unjust and sacrilegious piece of Tyranny over the Laicks To these it were easie to add more of like natures as sufficient Grounds to leave such a Church as maintains them But for those who are not in Episcopal nor yet so much as Metropolitan subordination and subjection to that Church but only Patriarchal which obliges cheifly if not only to a recognition of a Remote Right of Order and Principle of unity when the Church is united in bringing them to Councels and keeping them to those Laws which are prescribed by General Consent of the Church and this not originally by first planting and forming a Christian Church in a Nation but restoring and augmenting it the case is yet more plain that it is free for such Churches to relinquish communion of any Church subject to less Errours than are properly called Heresies But for persons educated in a Church and thereby subject to it and owing Canonical obedience not only as they most weakly and wickedly imagine to the Rule of Faith therein asserted and maintained but to the Rule of Unity and Communion outward for such I say to divide from that Church which hath not by falling into notorious Heresies or Idolatrous practices first fallen from Christian Faith is to profess Schism For to alledg that they would incorporate with the Church if certain things which may possibly be parted with without destroying the Faith at least immediately were granted to them is to demand that their Superiors should bow to them rather than they to their Superiors and in effect to make the condition of their obedience and uniting with the Church to be this That first the Church should be of their Religion the difference between them consisting in things in their own nature mutable For though Faith consisteth in those things which are judged necessary in themselves to be received Yet Religion is made up as well of the manner of serving God as the material grounds of it And therefore it is according to the manner of their treaties of peace in other Cases to require the thing in debate to be granted them before they will bear of a commodation or reconciliation This senseless Charity is that of most Desperate Schismaticks Yet not absolutely to despair of reducing some few of them and much less of preventing the like ruine of souls in others we shall now conclude with a few words concerning the Second thing in the beginning of this Point viz. The guilt of Schism Supposing then what is above said that Schism is a Causeless Separation from the Church of Christ meaning by Causeless not want of all reasons or causes but Sufficient as are errours now mention'd in Faith we farther understand by Separation not that of the inward and hidden man but outward and Visible answerable to that we have called and acknowledged to be properly called a Church i. e. Visible For possible we grant it is what we do scarce believe to be actually true though we hear such things sometimes spoken that dissenters may have a tolerable good opinion of a Church as that it is a true Church in their private senses they may pretend some general kindness and Charity to the Members of it Nay they may hold it no grievous sin to communicate with it for some persons especially and yet for all this be rank Schismaticks For Schismatizing in its remoter Cause may spring from evil opinions and dispositions of the inward man but its formality is altogether in outward profession of averseness separation and opposition to a Church This is it which hath raised so much just clamour of the Ancient and even of those very modern Persons who stomach nothing more than to be reduced to their own general Rules and have worthily brandished their swords and pens to bring people to the unity of that Cause which never was the true Faith and to that Visible Company which never was a Church and yet cannot understand their own language nor receive their own reasons and arguments in Cases infinitely more capable of such vindications than the Party they created and asserted Herein surely they have exceeded all other Factions in immodesty and undauntedness that whereas those have been very scrupulous and sparing in delivering doctrines of coercion and constraint to unity and therefore may though with no reason with some little colour stand out against Unity and oppose all Coaction thereunto They of the Presbyterian Sect have preach'd spoken and written so much and expresly against Schism and the Liberty which tends necessarily to it that it is beyond not only reason but admiration they should neither be affected with what other men have said against them nor what they have unanswerably said against themselves but proceed no otherwise than brutishly to hold their Conclusion and stick to their invet eraâ—e errours as if they could find no Church to unite to or had no souls to save or did not even according to their own principles run the apparent hazard of loosing them by that sin which they confess is one of the Greatest Size viz unnecessary division And unnecessary division themselves call what is not for to avoid Idolatrous practises or Heretical errours and yet in their Apologies for themselves alledge none but frivolous instances tending as they judge to Superstition wherein they prove themselves much more superstitious by such religious opposition as they make against them and deeply concerning their best Consciences than they possibly can be who for order sake solemness of worship and conformity to the ancient Customs of Christs Church and to avoid offence unto other Churches sticking inseparably unto them retain rather than invent such adjuncts to Divine Religion It is hard to search out any new Topick from whence to draw out reasons against this hainous sin of Schismatizing wherein I am not prevented by them disputing upon the false suppositions that they at any time were a Church and if they had been that they who opposed them could be said to Divide Schismatically from them of whose communion they never were nor ever were obliged to be They are therefore with others to consider How solemn and severe a command of Christ they slight and contemn who divide from a Church without more weighty exceptions than hitherto have been offered by them or heard
both possible and laudable And that it is lawful to vow Celibacie or Widowhood No Presidents in the Old Testament favouring Virginity The Virgin Mary vowed not Virginity no Votary before the Annunciation VVE now come to speak more particularly of Vows as to their matter And because the matter of Vows may be infinite as good and evil to which they extend themselves to Good affirmatively and Evil negatively I shall confine my Discourse at present to the three most noted things in Vows in which we have said the states of serving God principally consisteth A Clerical state a state Virginal or Vidual and a state Monastical all which ordinarily do or may relate to the worship of God in a more eminent manner yet not with such inseparable vertues to that end that it may not and doth not often happen that they expose to greater mischiefs But it must alwayes be remembered that we nor any man else do not compare the vices of a single life with the vertues of a married life nor compare the vices of a separate and claustral life with the sobriety of a political life For who is so fond and blind a Patron of them as to commend them before these And yet we find most of the Adversaries of the said states to argue from this most unequal supposition that the one lives contrary to his Rule and Order and the other agreably to his and then having thus disadvantageously stated the Case triumph in a vain and silly victory they presume to have obtained But put the Case as in all justice and reason it ought to be between a person that keeps to the rules and ends of separate and single life and him that keeps to the rules and ends of a conjugal life or political and then let the matter be fairly debated and determined which is to be preferred before other Now that such a supposition may be made and that a separate state from women and on the other side of women from men may be laudably made good which too many are so hard of belief as to judge next to impossible will appear from these three heads From the Scripture From Examples And from the favourable sense to be made of such estates First our Saviour supposes it done and implicitly recommends the doing of it to others which he would never have done had there been no moral possibility of observing the same For saying in St. Matthew There be Matth. 19. 12. Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heavens sake He that is able to receive it let him receive it Is there any Expositour of account in the Church who can deny that Christ spake here of marriage Can they deny that Christ gives his approbation of that Eunuchism voluntary or denyal to a mans self the ordinary use of women Can they deny that he advises to it upon supposition that a man is able How then can they deny the moral possibility of Virginal Chastity And doth not St. Paul wishing that All men were as he 1 Cor. 7. 7. was wish that they lived in single estate at least if not Virginity And doth he not in the forecited place to Timothy condemn those persons who have 1 Tim. 5. violated their troth given to Christ to live sequester'd from men I know late Interpreters have drawn the Apostles words to another sense but contrary to the received and therefore easily not received by any man These and many other places of Scripture especially in the Seventh Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians which do prefer and exhort to single life do much more advise us of the possibility of duly persevering in that state and at the same time of the Eligibleness of that state above the contrary Secondly The examples of the pure and holy life of unwedded persons are innumerable and so glorious as it puts me to the blush for them who cannot blush to oppose such a cloud of witnesses of Fathers and Councils and Canons Special concerning the tuition and value of such Livers rather than Injunctions to that state and eminent lights of Examples as all Ecclesiastical Histories abound with They are confessedly many great and certain and therefore I shall spare the labour of instancing in any of them as likewise of the many and rich ornaments of Rhetorick wherewith the ancient Fathers have decked and commended that state even to that degree that they may be thought sometimes to have overdone in the point And do often put in seasonable and serious Cautions that the eminence of Aug de Sanct. Virginitar c. 1. cap. 8. cap. 11. 1 Cor. 7. 35. Ecclesia Christi gratid ejus qui pro se crucifixus est roberata c. Origen Hom. 3. in Genes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Chrys Hom. 61. Tom. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Hom. 77. in Matthaeum that condition should not give them the temptation of high-mindedness and pride As Augustine saying Virginitas is not only to be magnified that it might be loved but admonished that it be not puffed up And afterward For even that it self is not honorable so much because it is Virginity but because it is dedicated to God So that in another place he saith I speak not rashly a Woman that is married is better then a Virgin to be married for she hath what the other desireth It is not therefore simply good but only as it renders a person more apt to serve God with better attention less distraction as St. Paul intimateth and more devotion and is a great victory over the natural will and a self denyal of the lawful use of the world as Origen upon Genesis noteth For saith he the Church of Christ being fortified by the Grace of him that was crucified for her not only abstaineth from unlawful and abominable beds but also from lawful c. St. Chrysostome commends the state of Religion under the Gospel from this that under the Law Virginity is not so much as mentioned any farther then by way of Prophesie as to be in the New Law of Christ and that particularly in Psalm 45. v. 14 15. And in another Homily he gives us the reason why Virginity was not commanded in the New Testament viz. because of its Excellencie which all good Christians could not attain to And perhaps which is a third thing to be noted in devoting single life to God the severities and fears are too much aggravated by some and the difficulties of preserving the soul and mind chast and pure wherein true Virginity consisteth rather than in corporal Integrity as the Fathers and particularly St. Austin grants and proves at large For when Chastity is vowed certainly all evil motions and inward lustings Aug. de Civ Dei lib. 1. cap. 17 18. are declared against as well as outward impurities but alwayes with a supposal of humane frailties and allowances for suddain unadvised and unapproved evil cogitations Nay perhaps though a person fails so far as to
suffice equal minds to grant That as there is a praeemimence in the state of Virginity upon true Christian and sober principles above that of marriage upon Christian principles likewise so the state of the Clergy being designed for more high and spiritual acts and ends than others may be more fit and proper subjects of such Evangelical vertues Another reason to induce them for it cannot bind them to it is commonly taken from Covetousness which they say generally attends the marriage of the Clergy But doth it more constantly follow upon Priests marriage than Lay-mens this would be well known But Clergy-men must do good with that they have above other men It is very true in all moral and Christian vertues they ought to exceed others But we are now enquiring what evil is in Priests marriage not what good may be supposed to be done out of that state And we should farther inform our selves whether to do more good in the state of Matrimony than others not Priests may not competently answer mens reasonable expectations from them Thirdly it would be considered whether singleness of life be such a general cure against Covetousness as is taken for granted and whether rather the inward vice doth not incline a man to it than outward occasions I know those who have challenged the magnifiers of Clergy-mens single life being themselves such to give so many instances of married Priests that were covetous as they could of unmarried And in truth there appears to me little difference in the studiousness of Priests or Lay-men for their Nephews or near Kindred and for their own Children yet should I not deny but commonly the sollicitude may be greater in behalf of a mans own then other mens children A third reason against Priests marriage is the encumbrances of the world and the cares of a family But others affirm with great probability that a wife takes off more cares then she brings to a man especially him that is of the Clergy and must keep a Family as it often happens and would mind other imployments And it is very rarely found that men of that function who keep house and consequently are necessitated to keep a woman servant in their house do void the scandal if the sin it self of an unchast life And now I appeal to the judgments consciences of the Romanists themselves upon the impartial weighing of both Cases that of the secular Priests absolut interdiction of marriage that of liberty granted to marry whether they really and faithfully believe there is more chastity in that Church where it is prohibited or in that where it is permitted I willingly grant that many according to their Vows keep their Vessels in sanctification and honour But must withal crave leave to presume that so many more walk quite contrary that it may be feared God is much more dishonored by imposed Celebacie than permitted Matrimony And if so how can the Church in reason exact an oath of Virginity from all Priests which tends to the violation of the ends of single life Chastity This consideration viz. that the ends and most general event of such laws are quite besides the forms propounded hath prevailed so far with the soberer and more judicious of the Roman Church it self such as Gerson Panormitanus Cassander and others who dare not speak their minds so freely That what was at first wisely Cassand Consult c. 23. and devoutly constituted by the Church may with no less reason and religion be now reversed And to this Cassander doth add a second reason the great diversity of the Churches frame now from what it was when such constitutions or customs rather at first prevailed And to this he adds a third reason for the relaxation of such laws viz. From the detriment of the Church where such Chastity is commanded and rigorously exacted without such gross connivances as are undeniable That many sober and eminent persons for learning and other worths would be constrained to seek some other course of life than the Priestly to take that liberty which otherwise they may But I shall not need to prosecute this subject any farther than that grave Author hath done to whom I commend the Reader concluding that though it seems very unsafe for men unserviceable for the Church unrighteous in the Governers and not at all to the glory of God or honor of Religion to deny entrance to all that refuse a vow of Chastity into the Church yet at the worst it is neither Heretical nor Antichristian so to do but tyrannical simply And it is little better than heretical for any to deny the excellencie of true Virginity above true Chastity in marriage or that it is unlawful for any man upon good advice to take a vow to persevere in that estate Lastly in answer to such for too many now adays of such are to be found who may well be thought to deliver their opinions against the marriage of the Clergy out of Policy rather than Piety and out of spite and envy that they should enjoy any thing of the world which pleases them so well rather than out of any sincere wishes to Religion or the Church saying It is not sit Ministers should marry What should they do with Wives and a great deal of high and boisterous stuff to this purpose I shall refer them that argue out of conscience and sincerity for satisfaction to what is spolem already about this But to the pretended States-man I shall offer this consideration That all politickly given as almost who is not that hath been at a Coffee-house do lay it down as a Rule of their Polities the encrease of People in the Nation Now a general complaint being made of want of People in his Majesties Dominions can they look on it as nothing or no prejudice to the Civil State that twenty thousand persons for so many and more I may well number of the Clergy in all his Majesties Dominions should be restrained from lawful marriage and adding of people to the Nations under him For my part I use not this argument but to show the vanity and madness of certain loose tongu'd persons who regard little what they say against Religion and those related more immediately to it so that sometimes you shall hear from them somwhat religiously as it were spoken when they intend thereby to mischive and abuse it But I hope it will not be displeasing to them if we acknowledge that Holy Orders do bring a man into such a peculiar state of serving God and obliging of self-denial and dedication of himself to God in not only sober but severe living and not only severe but spiritual that what either of Precept is required of other Christians or of Counsel obliges them do much more firmly bind a Priest And of this the ancient and holy Fathers have written so much that to add were hard at any time and to alledge unreasonable at present Yet shall I crave leave to end with this
and worship of God is apparent and undenyable and that it is only for the Sermons sake that ever they meet as Christians in the Church Now if it doth appear that this sort of Religion is no worship of God at all and that God is not served at all by that by which they imagine they serve him entirely what becomes of these mens Christianity it self For Christian Religion as this whole work proves consists of Doctrine and Worship and if they have not both of them they cannot be Christians And if they have no prayer they have no worship and if they rest on preaching as that which contains all they loose all For in making or hearing a Sermon we serve not God at all in propriety of speech but rather he serves us I confess we have propounded preaching as one of the kinds of worship but intended not so to do as equalling it with that of prayer but only reductively and remotely so calling it as that whose end it is that God should be worshipped and no other at all And that which ministers good matter and prescribes excellent manners and rules of worship may by a figure not unusual be called the thing which it so promotes but in strictness of speech it is not nor in its own nature the reasons whereof may be these First Because all true worship of God consisteth necessarily in somewhat of action and not in meer passiveness But hearing of Sermons and so reading of Scriptures or other good Books have nothing of Divine action in them but the person therein concerned is meerly passive and suffers somewhat it may be with patience and content to be done unto him but himself does nothing There is indeed somewhat of a natural act in writing Sermons and reading Books but this action is not nor can properly be directed to God but to a mans own self that he may make himself more capable of that benefit which he seeks thereby to himself but this is to give nothing to God but still to be of the taking hand from him But in all proper worship we are to exercise some act towards God For hearing is not doing And secondly All worship of God requires somewhat exhibited unto God as our service due naturally to him but in hearing of Sermons we render nothing at all to him therefore we serve him not at all but rather we receiving those blessed means of serving him and attaining grace here and glory hereafter He at whose appointment and charge this is done to us doth serve us and do us honour and not we him though as he that scornfully turns his bach and stops his ear against the words of his betters we may be said to dishonou and sin against him if we refuse to hear his Law according to that of Solomon He that turneth away his ear from hearing the Prov. 28. 9. Law even his prayer shall be an abomination though I take the true intent of these words to be of obeying and living according to the Law of God and as much as if it had been said He that liveth wickedly and breaketh Gods commands which is not to hear it his prayers shall not be accepted of Vis scire quam praetiosa sit Oratio Nulla justitia Thymiamati assimilitur nisi Oratiâ— Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum Hom. 13. Exod. 23. 15. God But still the true service of God consists in offering something to him there being no difference in the nature of the Service or Sacrifice given to God under the Gospel from that under the Law but only in the matter This was material and corporal that is to be spiritual but yet an offering God laid a charge upon his people of old Thou shalt not appear before the Lord empty Meaning surely that none should believe they had done their duty in any competent manner when they came to the Temple and there saw what was done lik'd it well enough heard what was said but offered nothing themselves God would have no such service But such like service do they give to God who come to Church and only hear a Sermon for they come empty to him and perhaps to be filled with good things but what think we will that stand for when he requires that we should be offerers as well as receivers and doers as well as sufferers And whereas in the true spiritual Sacrifice we pray to God In preaching according to the language of the Scriptures God prays to us For saith the Apostle to the Corinthians Now then we are Embassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God And truly God often complains of the empty and superficial service of the lip without the heart but yet even that as dilute a thing as it is hath much more of worship of God than hath hearing of Sermons For that is an outward part but this is neither outward nor inward Thirdly The means only of serving of God is not the service of God it self no more than the means is the end They whose religion lies in preaching and hearing do very aptly and currently call Sermons the Means in a signal sense I suppose they intend thereby the Means to Salvation and Means of Grace and so indead Teaching and Instruction are according to that special place upon which all their good opinion of Sermons above prayer is grounded viz. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word Rom. 10. 17. of God 'T is most certain but must that which is first in order be likewise first in honour too Or that which is most necessary be most excellent Yea that which is excellent only as a way and means carry it from the end which it serves and is designed to This is supposed or nothing is concluded but this is weakly taken for granted and therefore the conclusion from thence must needs be weak and pitiful The Grace of Nature which I call Reason is much more necessary in the ordinary way of Gods saving us then the Grace of the Gospel Faith because without that humane apprehension of what is delivered no man can believe what is said and so the hearing of the Ear than Reason because Reason depends upon it and so doth Faith on preaching and the worship of God on preaching going before and directing to do it aright is it therefore any more then they the worthier or is it at all the very service of God The quite contrary is easily proved from this very reason seeing it must necessarily be that the End is much more desirable than the Means and preaching is accounted rightly but as the Means to the means of Grace and Salvation believing doing the will of God as St. Augustine hath in a certain place rightly observed But before we can appropriate the worship of God to prayer in contradistinction to preaching an Objection must be here noted which calls in question prayer it self as incapable of
amongst themselves as to have nothing more than a blind presumption and credulity that all is or will be well But what should we protract an argument of this nature any longer against them who are arrived to such an unnatural height of admiring fresh phrases inverted numbers of words when the matter is much the same that their own uttered conceptions to day affecting themselves and others wonderfully and lookt on as spiritual and divine tomorrow nay on the afternoon nay next hour shall be sentenced by themselves and auditors as an humane invention and injurious to God and Man Nay which is yet more The form which Christ gave his Disciples and left to all to be practised who would be his Disciples hath met with such hard entertainment amongst these illuminated ones that 't is well it escapes a reproach when it is rehearsed Tell them here how the ancient and eminent Saints and Servants of Christ did use it in terms and that daily and that frequently every day and that often in the service of the Church in publick you make the matter worse for them Tell them how diverse of our own holy Martyrs blessed God for what they saw that day wherein they were redeemed not only from blind obedience but worship had the comfortable opportunity of worshipping God according to this manner so contemned they stick a little and premise some small respect to such good men as would dye against Popery but for such devout and constant adherence to the Liturgy of the Church they have no good words for them But it must be either their unhappiness that they knew no better their weakness they were so fond of that their want of zeal for a thorow reformation and of light to see what they did so clearly as they at this day And many such pieces of tattle have they in readiness having neither truth nor judgment nor charity in them but declare plainly they who thus discourse and practise to the contrary are not of the same Religion with them as to speak what I hold my self bound to profess I am not of theirs who refuse such publick communion with our Church and hold it utterly unlawful to give so much as ear to them in their will-worship and especially such as use that way in dislike of opposition to the established And so let this end CHAP. IX A third abuse of the Worship of God by Sectaries in neglecting publick Prayers without Sermons censured That Prayer in a publick Place appointed for Gods Worship ought at all times to be offered to God Scripture and Vniversal Tradition require it above that in private Places The frivolousness of such Reasons as are used against it The Reasons for it WE come now to take notice of another instance of their injuriousness to the Glory of God in their vile and low opinion of publick Prayer in Gods House Whither it should seem they would scarce ever invite Christian people but for the Sermons sake And this they may do for their own sakes because they love to be encouraged as who doth not by a full appearance of Auditors For whoever saw a Sectary at prayers alone in the Church as was the manner and ought to be the practise at this day of devout Christians even upon all occasions to visit Gods house of Prayer to pour out their hearts before him to put up the private requests of their soul to God there as the properest place I am ashamed to hear and much more to utter what they have to say against this excellent practice 'T is out of one of their Common-places which fights against most of what they approve not amongst us and there 's an end of it It makes I am sure ten times more for the reputation of them whom they bitterly enough hate then they are aware of Shall all Jews be not only permitted but excited to frequent Gods house even at those hours of Prayer in which the publick Sacrifice was not offered Shall the Apostles of Christ after the Resurrection as did Peter and John Acts 3. 1. in express manner and without all peradventure the rest who are not expressed observe the publick place as well as common time of prayer Shall our Saviour Christ himself often resort to the Temple and that of the corrupt Jews to pray Nay shall this end be especially mention'd as to which the Temple was ordained by Solomon that men in private may offer 1 Kings 8. 38 39 c. up their Prayers to God And shall it not become Christians much more We know not of any publick prayers the Jews had in their Temple at all but he that shall prove they had any even at their offering Sacrifice which I neither positively deny nor know of but should gladly learn from others must I am confident prove it a Set form But every man likely pray'd for himself as his own heart and occasions moved him but commonly in a Set form For when I doubted of prayer in the Temple it was of any which was common publick or general as with Christians So that the principal end of Gods house then next to sacrificing was that particular men might come and worship God and pray to him And to this end the Temple doors were not then only opened when the Sacrifice was made and that ended clap'd to again presently to shut men out from praying there at any time of the day Nay the doors of the Gentile Temples were not shut up against commers in to worship And much less they of the ancient Christians when a publick and peculiar place was appointed for their worship whatever they were before If it were so that in the infant and extreamly persecuted state of the Church before Christian Religion dar'd to show its face abroad the doors of places appointed for Gods worship were shut from the time the service was over nay and at the very time of assembling will John 20. 19. they bring us back to that again We find it indeed to be their Negative use of Antiquity and Prescriptions That if it cannot be prov'd that such a thing was in use from the first beginning of Christians they hold themselves sufficiently exempted from the same but if it can they will not hold themselves bound to do it One of their fair dealings But we think it altogether sufficient in unquestionable Presidents to alledge them as imitable and binding that such were so early and general as could well consist with the safety and advantage of Christianity it self and its Professours And this we have beyond all doubt to favour and commend to us an open Church even when there were no publick prayers though that was daily and much less a Sermon which was rarely and yet God serv'd I speak modestly as well as any where since the Reformation and free and frequent access was had to the House of God to pray in This was continued in all Ages and all Christian Countries
certain Houses may become the houses of God in a peculiar manner no less than Houses and Lands may be the rights of Man will appear from the very same grounds which are generally three Donation Purchase Occupation Donation is the Transferring of the Right of one Man to another under which we reduce Inheritance which though now custom of Law has made to descend to the next heir without any act of the predecessour yet originally it was constantly by gift and the Law supposes now a gift of the deceased where no formal donation is mentioned to him that is to succeed nor any other Purchase is the transferring of the Right or Dominion one hath of any thing to another upon civil contract and consideration whereas the other seemed rather to be natural Occupation is the possession of a thing free from any proprietary and retaining the same unto his own proper use All these ways both Houses and Lands may be transferred unto God upon this farther supposition that to the acquiring of a Right of Dominion the act of the person to whom it is transferred is not immediately necessary but another in his name and right may assume it So that if any entring into uninhabited and unpossessed Countries to which no man layeth a claim shall take up such a quantity of ground in Gods name and declare it devoted to the use of Religion and the Service of God it as undoubtedly becomes the possessions of God as it would have belonged to himself had he retained to himself the right of the first Occupant as they call it Again when out of the revenues of such sacred Estate commonly called Church-Lands or Means there is purchase made to the same end and in the same nature But most known is that of Free Donation either of one or more to the Service and Honour of God which we call Dedication Which Dedication is an outward act or ceremony signifying the Alienation of the right formerly posited in others and Translation thereof to Gods Service which because God conversing not with us Civilly as we do one with another it cannot be put immediately into the hands of God is taken up in Gods name for his use by his more immediate Servants and by consequence is not to be wrested from him nor alienated to any prophane I mean common humane uses any more than is that which in right belongs unto one man to be granted to or usurped by another without concession or consent in some manner implyed if not expressed This ancient Rite of Dedicating Churches was at first very agreeable to the simplicity of Christian Religion it self yet like all passing of Estates from one to another in the more natural and rude condition of Humane Society where there was alwayes a change of the Propriety where was any propriety at all but very simple and rude without any formalities as are now in use in those called civilized Countries but with no less validity And so it was at first in the alienation of Houses from humane Proprietaries and devoting them to God For as Baronius hath observed As the Kings Baron Ann. 112. num 45 46. or Emperours Exchequer was wont at first to lay claim to any thing by casting over it the Emperours Mantle or putting his Image or Name upon it even so the Bishops were wont to consecrate Churches to God no otherwise than by marking them with the Title of the Cross or with its Banner Whence it was that the Emperour Theodosius Leg. ult de Paganis Cod. Theod. commanded that the Temples of the Gentiles should serve for Christian Religion by placing upon them the sign of the Venerable Cross Hence is that of Perkins concerning this matter who saith The ancient Consecration of Perkins Demonst Problem Churches was with meer words and prayers not with crossings or such like rites And dedication of Churches began about the year 300 after Christ is partly found true and partly erroneous For Funcius yields much more confessing Funcius Comment l. 2. ad Ann. 141. that Hyginus Bishop of Rome ordained that Temples should be dedicated to God with solemn Rites and Ceremonies which was about the year 141. And yet it is true what Perkins saith that very simple was the first form But we do not so much here enquire into the Antiquity or Form of Consecration as the reasonableness and effect of such consecration And the reasonableness doth appear from the common grounds already laid and the necessity of some outward visible form to be used in such Dedications as well to manifest to the world the renunciation of propriety in any that may otherwise pretend to reserve their right to themselves anciently enjoyed as also to declare to what end and upon what conditions they so part with that right and to whom it thenceforward belongs all which if it must be traduced with the opprobrious name of Superstition so pass as invalid or sinful I would pray such enemies as he did those that desired Aristocratical Government to settle it first in their own Families and then as experience should prompt to them to commend it to the Publick First to take up estates upon such simple unceremonial acts themselves and as they find the event to offer that as the most simple and sober way for Gods House to pass from others hands into Gods I know the haters of Superstition to far greater superstition are wont to say It suffices that such is the consent of Christians that a place should be allotted in convenient manner to Gods Service and that it is sufficiently consecrated if they dare speak such a bold word by concomitancie that is when such acts of Divine worship as their prayers and specially preaching are there exercised But this will no ways be accepted both because they do the same duties in places which they hold no wayes thereby alienated from their common uses And this is no more than for a man to lend another his house to keep a Feast in it and not so much as if a man should let out his house for one to keep his Shevalry or Majoralty in But that we require is that a place should so be made over to Gods use that it should be out of all mens power justly to reduce it to humane propriety and uses And this can only be done and is done by such acts of publick Dedication as we plead for and never could hear half a note of sense reason or religion against it though we hear too great and unchristian clamours to the contrary with wonted revilings Supposing then this we pass to the effect of such Dedications unto Almighty God one of which is contained and expressed in the formal abrenunciation made of all Civil Right to such a place and by consequence for any man to convert any part of it to his own use is sacrilegiously to prophane the same A thing which I take this occasion to note against the gross abuse of Churches
by the Greater sort who commonly by building themselves large and stately Pews and inclosing what is every poor Christians Freehold as well as the richest and noblest of the parish make it more sacred to the common Christian than any other part of the Church besides For that must be kept under lock and key and if not yet the greatness and power of the person who hath laid that out for himself suffices to deter any ordinary man from making the like use of that as of any other part of the Church lest his secular hand lye heavier upon him than the Ecclesiastical power can or must upon him for such invasion of every parishioners right as well as his So that what it is not lawful for or just to do to the Common for beasts or Town-Green where he lives he makes no scruple at all to do to Gods Peculiar and the Common to Christians As if so be Churches now-a-dayes were of the same nature with new found and possessed Lands in the Indies every man may have what he can enclose and fense in for himself and his friends only Whereas this should be well understood by every good Christian that hath the fear of God as a Christian ought before his eyes that the poorest person that takes collection in the parish hath as much reason and right to erect places in the Church to themselves and to possess themselves of any part of it as the rich but that it is not so much in his power And doth any man think he hath a good Right because he can do it That we can do saith the Law which we can Idpossumus qued sure possumus lawfully do But that we can lawfully do which the Common Law doth not interdict alwayes For the Common Law whether because it concerns altogether men in their civil capacities and proprieties such as this is not or whether it hath not heretofore been such a Dragg to enclose all it could lay hold on without consideration of other Courts Ecclesiastical which were alwayes received in all Christian Commonwealths but left many things to the decision of the more peculiar Laws made in behalf of Churches and Ecclesiastical Cases hath made no provision at all for the securing of the Rights of the Church or Christians thereunto belonging I mean in their Capacities properly Ecclesiastical so that scarce any remedy can be obtain'd from thence if a man shall steal any thing off the very body of the Church it self And can any man that hath any sense of Religion take sanctuary or protection from that in defense of his violation of Christians Rights and think all well done that is not punishable by that Law and lawful that it doth not interdict For by the same reason a man may inclose to himself a third part or more of the Church But they will modestly say that were unreasonable and I will boldly say so is the other and especially where when the Authours of such Fabricks making no use of them themselves shall deny the use of them to others case so requiring But that which is yet more intolerable is That the power and purse of the Great man who is alwayes to remember that the poorest man in the parish hath as much Law and Right on his side to shut him out as he hath to exclude and over-top the poor in his building should enable and embolden him so far as to take a considerable part of Gods sanctuary and inclose that from all use and access to lay the bones of his Family in and wholly to alienate it from all Divine Services and dedicate it only to corruption and with impudent Sacriledge to erect many Monuments and Tombs in a Canton they have usurped to themselves which being as is said no less lawful for any man than for one man instead of Christians in time we should have a Church filled with Sepulchres of the dead And when this is once done to endeavour a redress of such sacrilegious invasions of Gods and good Christians Rights is to expose Gods servants to not only the obloquy power and mischief of too potent an Adversary but to the dammage of Common Law which though it can give no right so to do yet will certainly defend the wrong-doer if he can plead custom But I have often thought that God in this last Age hath done himself Justice against such Families as have been guilty of such prophane usurpations in that he hath stirred up a barbarous Sect of Christians of late and let them justly into Churches like Goths and Vandals to break to pieces pull down and raze the scandalous monuments of many Churches erected to the honour of Man and dishonour of God At first all dead Bodies were lookt upon by the Heathens themselves as unclean and unworthy to be buried within the walls of their City Lycurgus was the first that suffered Corps to be interr'd in the City and that Plutarch in vita Lycurg Eutropius Lib. 8. Cicero de Legibus l. 2. near the Temples in Lacaedemon saith Plutarch The first of all Roman Emperours and much more of the inferiour people that was buried within the City was Trajane the Emperour which was prohibited by a Law of the twelve Tables as Cicero witnesseth And St. Vedastus was wont to say That the dead should not be buried within the walls of a City which was a place for the living and not for the dead as Alcuinus in his life writes And it is certain no Christians at all were buried in Churches for many hundred years but certain proper Cemateries or Dormitories were allotted for that purpose remote from Churches Pope Nicholas the first about the year 867 was thought to be preferred to be buried before the Church doors of St. Peter saith Nauclere And the same Nauclere writeth how Nauclerus Vol. 3. p. 64. ibid. p. 94. that about the year 983 Otho the third Emperour was buried at the Threshold of St. Peter at Rome And when they had brought dead bodies to the Church door they soon presumed to bring them in and found a reason so to do because the bodies of true Believers and holy Servants of God were not to be looked on as unclean or unworthy of so sacred a place because they had been themselves Temples of the Holy Ghost and were to be rennited again to their blessed spirits in heaven And not only so but the nearer the Altar always the better mistaking that place in the Apocalypse I saw under the Altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and Rev. 6. 9. for the testimony which they held collecting from hence that for Martyrs and holy persons that was the properest place to be buried in And the Cannon Law surely misguided by such a vain perswasion hath decreed it necessary to the Consecration of a Church that there be the body or at least some Relique of a Saint there posited But more reasonably doth it erre when it
affirmeth that it is Desecrated by the interrment of Hereticks there But certainly the words in the Revelation expressing a Vision meant no such thing as they are alledged for but only that in that Vision the holy Apostle beheld the souls of Saints and Martyrs departed humbled before or at the foot of the Altar as the manner was anciently to pray especially at the time v. 10. of offering crying aloud and with great importunity for justice and revenge upon the Persecutors of the Church and Murderers of them for the Testimony of Christ Jesus But because such hath been and I fear ever will be the corruption of Christian Religion that he that hath power in his hands and money good store in his purse shall be Sainted so far as outward ceremonies and priviledges can advance him he that would be at the charge of breaking up of the ground hath not been denyed nor dare any that I know whatever they ought to do deny him the liberty of being buried in the Church This may be and must be passed over but the affectation or irreligious ambition of building stately Seats and making that which is common to all Christians peculiar to some house so as upon no occasion it must be used by others is wicked and sacrilegious and much more the taking in of any the least part of Gods ground as the Church is to the prophane uses of making Tombs and Sepulchres and no other They are wont to say There is room enough besides It may be so for they commonly who thus enclose or usurp Gods Land have thin'd the inhabitants of the place where they live by illegal enclosures of the Common belonging to the Parish and so almost dispeopled the place But what is that to them more than any body else And why may not any man upon the same reason violently or fraudulently take away certain Acres of Land from him and say in his defense He hath left him enough still And least such as are Patrons of Churches and have certain supposed Prerogatives over the Chancels above what can be pretended to by the common sort of people should conceive they may there do as they please they are to know That in right and conscience such fore-mention'd practises can least of all be done For as the Founder of the Church so likewise the Builders of Chancels from whence only they can pretend such priviledge and as the maintainers of it in repair do at the time of the consecration consent to a total alienation of all civil propriety from themselves they can neither build nor bury there nor incommodate the place more than any other man for they are only Guardians and not Owners of that place upon which they may and ought to exclude and refuse all such incommodations of others as may any way deface or straiten or empair the same but they have no more right to do any such things there themselves then he that is Trustee or Guardian to an Orphan to seize upon his estate or any part thereof to his own use And it is only civil custom which hath given him a peculiar right of burial there rather then any body else And this may seem sufficient if not too much to have said of the Negative force of Dedication of Churches against Usurpers of Gods and Christians Rights The positive effect which is a veneration and worship therein of God Almighty doth farther confirm this and is contained in the end expressed as well as in the form of Dedication used by Solomon as the constant practise of the Jews whose Tabernacle or Temple had nothing of constant preaching or instruction of the people but only Prayers and Sacrifices Afterward their Synagogues called also Proseuchae for convenience because Acts 13. 27. all people could not meet at the Temple were erected where as the Scripture tells us the Law was read and Moses preached every Sabbath day but they had their special denomination fâ—ouâ— the Office and Acts of Prayer Synagogue signifying no more than an Assembly in general From whence if not also from the consent of all Nations besides who had Temples to their Gods it may appear that the most principal end of Gods House was alwayes till an ignorant irregular Generation sprang up esteemed the House of Prayer and Worship and teaching and instruction of people very necessary indeed as the foundation upon which all worship must be built was not that main end as is pretended And this worship being in its proper place in the Church was always and ought to be performed in most publique manner and most solemn as to outward appearance as well as inward affection to which too many deluded by a gross and cheap piece of Sophistry would confine Gods worship It is time we have no direct precept in the New Testament that I can call to mind enjoyning any particular behaviour at the time of Gods service nor yet in the Law And why so were not that very necessary in case any outward carriage were necessary Yes truly if so be such a Religious manner of worship could be known to us no other way than by Revelation extraordinary For Gods word is very sparing in those things of which we may by the common light of Nature attain to the knowledge For who is there that knows there is a God that knoweth not also that he is to be worshipped Who is there that knoweth that God is to be worshipped thar knoweth not also that he is to worshipped in the most lowly and reverent manner And that reverence outward is mutable and various according to the opinion of several Countries and therefore no one general Rule could be made comprehending and obliging all people but this is laid down to us that what is accounted in any Nation most solemn humble and reverent is that which is required of us in the worship of God But surely kneeling bowing the body uncovering the head yea and prostration of the body in convenient time and place are acts of worship such as were in use among the Jews of old continued by the Apostles and successors in Faith and Devotion as innumerable places of Holy Writ in the Old and New Testament intimate unto us where falling low at Gods footstool bowing the knee and such like outward acts of reverence are put for prayer it self which they never would have been had not they been the known manner of worship And Salvian describes Salvian de Provid lib. 7. Ad domos statim dominicas 〈◊〉 c. to us the custom of Christians in his early days thus We presently haste to the Lords house we cast our bodies on the floor and pray with weeping and joy mixt together And I am not advis'd of more then one place which interdicts any one piece of irreverence as unnatural and that the superstition of Puritans hath cast them into and that is covering of mens faces in the time of publique prayer when the hat as an instance
exposed to any other actions than for which they were consecrated nor should any go unpunished who in them shall not accommodate himself altogether to such sacred religiousnesses And must that odious name of Papist render such excellent acts and customs odious as all the Christian world for many hundred years before Popery prevailed frequented be blasted with the slaunder of Popery and no more objected against it but they defend and practise it Away with such fond to speak more moderately than the case requires inferences out of Christians sober mens mouths It is no better than prophaneness all this For proof hereof saith Perkins they alledge the practise of some particular persons in Scriptures which is much more then can be alledged against the practise Of Anna who prayed privately in the Temple Luke 2. 37. Of David who in his exile desired greatly to have recourse unto the Temple And of Daniel who is said to look out of the window towards the Temple and pray Dan. 6. 10. Of these likewise we have spoken above and shown in what sense they oblige to imitation For that the Temple of Jerusalem and the prayers and worshippers in it may be in some case Presidents to us Bertram himself a Genevan doth grant drawing a determinate place for Gods worship in peculiar manner from the dayes of Adam himself and not only from Solomons Temple writing thus It is manifest that a place is due in peculiar manner Bertram de Rep. Judaeor cap. 2. Constat locum debitum esse c. to Divine worship And some of the ancient Expositours of the Jews do not unfitly draw from Gen. 4. 3 4. that the Sacrifices of Cain and Abâ—â— were brought to Adam for there was a place to that purpose c. But let us hear how Perkins comes off from the allegations of Papists as he calls them to the advantage of his Cause These places saith he are abused by the Popish Church For there is a great difference between the Temple of Jerusalem in the Old Testament and our Churches in the New That was built by particular commandment from God so were not our Churches That was a type of the very body and Manhood of Christ Heb. 9. 11. and of his mystical body Again the Ark in the Temple was a pledge and signification of the Covenant a sign of Gods Presence a pledge of his mercy and that by his own appointment for it was his will there to answer his people but the like cannot be shewed of our Churches or Chappels And whither tends all this so much as to shew that the Jews Religion was a better Religion than the Christian For surely that Religion which hath God nearest and most of his holy presence is better than that which wants it And if it be said That this was the outward presence of God chiefly and not so spiritual and therefore inferiour to the Christian which is true Then will I say that notwithstanding the said instances of Gods presence be not to be found with us in our Churches yet the more spiritual and properly divine is in a greater degree in our Churches then that Temple And therefore those places of Scripture are not abused by Papists 2. It doth no where appear in Scripture that they were commanded to build a Temple to God as is there supposed but when David entertained the thoughts of it and Solomon prosecuted the same design they had special directions how they should build it 3. There needs no Evangelical precept to enjoyn that which both by the light of nature as we have seen and such a President of the Law was propounded sufficiently to Christians without a new Revelation 4. The Temple of the Jews was not a proper type of Christs body Christ indeed in the Gospel compares his body to a Temple but every similitude is not to be held a type for then should every common shepheard have been a type of Christ as well as David and the Vine should have been a type of Christ and what not that bears any similitude unto Christ But properly they only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Serm. 3. in Judaeos can be called types of Christ which were ordained and instituted of God to prefigure and shadow out Christ to come And the Temple had not this for its end but only it was a thing meerly incidental to it 5. Our Temples or Churches are no less types of Christs mystical Body then was the Jewish And the presence of God is more eminently though not sensibly in ours than in them Nay that Temple as the worship in it seemed to be a type of our Temples and Religion as our Temples are a type of Heaven the Holy of Holiest As their Sabbath is granted by all to be but a type of our Evangelical and our Evangelical of the Celestial Of which Evangelical Sabbath we are in the next place to speak CHAP. XII Of the Second Circumstance of Gods Worship Appointed times Of the Sabbath or Seventh Day how it was appointed of God to the Jews but not by the same Law appointed to Christians Nor that one day in seven should be observed The Decalogue contains not all moral duties directly Gentiles observed not a Seventh Day The New Testament no where commands a Seventh Day to be kept holy THE Question and Scruple moved by ignorant unquiet and superstitious persons against observation of Days in order to Gods Service is propounded and well answered by the wise Man in Ecclesiasticus saying Why doth one day excel another whenas all the light of every day in the year is of Eccles 33. 7. the same By the knowledge of God they were distinguished and he altereth 8. Seasons and Feasts Some of them hath he made high days and hallowed them 9. and some of them hath he made ordinary days I make no doubt but here it will be answered presently That God did this and appointed solemn days and seasons to the Jews and to them only which things as St. Paul speaks Gal. 4. 10 11. are to be done away in Christ And this is very true in great part For those Judaical days were appointed by Gods immediate order and by his will again evacuated and revers't at the coming of Christ But then all days in use among the Jews were not so ordained by God as the Feast of Purim and the Feast of Dedication but by humane prudence which when they would disgrace sufficiently and acquit themselves from they are wont to call Humane Inventions as if because God hath in his Word signaliz'd for evil such humane inventions as were quite contrary to his institution none other agreeable to his word and subservient to it were to be patiently endured St. Paul then when he saith Which things are done away in Christ doth undoubtedly mean the Jewishness and figurativeness of them and not absolutely the days and times instituted to the service of God in Christ God suffered God approved
contrary A Third abuse noted by Mr. Perkins is That a man may say the Canonical hours of one day for another which may be an abuse or no abuse as the matter is ordered To neglect wilfully ones usual prayers is certainly ill but having so done to double his prayers the next day is no such error as may be supposed Much besides this may be said out of the Authority of the Church and more out of Scripture than may be found for some things by Puritans religiously observed Much likewise is here wont to be said about the Hours themselves the reason and number of them but I cut off all them at present and resolve all into the general reasonableness and piety of such a practice and the manifold benefit which may accrue unto the serious and devout user of them though he ties not himself to any one form strictly and so shall rest till I can hear what can be objected worthy of a Christian against them more than I have found already which may be as well objected against Morning and Evening prayer as them CHAP. XIV The Third thing to be considered in the Worship of God viz. The true Object which is God only That it is Idolatry to misapply this Divine Worship What is Divine Worship properly called Of the multitude and mischiefs of New distinctions of Worship Dulia and Latria though distinct of no use in this Controversie What is an Idol Origen's criticisme of an Idol vainly rested on What an Image What Idolatry The distinction of Formal and Material Idolatry upon divers reasons rejected The Papists really Idolatrous notwithstanding their good Intentions pretended Intention and Resolution to worship the true God excuse not from Idolatry Spalato Forbes and others excusing the Romanists from thence disproved That Idolatry is not always joyned with Polytheism or worshipping more Gods than one How the Roman Church may be a true Church and yet Idolatrous FRom the nature kinds acts circumstances of Place and Times of Prayer we pass to the object of this worship of Invocation and Adoration which is the most important of all and which as duly observed is the end complement and perfection of all Religion so mistaken is the foulest of all errors and the highest of all provocations and affronts of almighty God who Isa 42. 8. protesteth by his Prophet upon this occasion I am the Lord that is my name and my glory will I not give unto another neither my praise unto graven Images This therefore it were superfluous to prove which all Christians yea almost all the world as well Unchristian as Christian doth readily and unanimously assent to That God only is the proper object of Divine or Religious worship And they that glory that they stick firmly to this what do they more than do Infidels and Heathens who all hold that God is to be worshipped with supreamest worship and that Idolatry is a notorious errour and offence against him This I say all rational men assent to in the notion that the worship of the true God or which seems to be the very same the true worship of God is to be given only to God and yet fall flat into the Practice of that great sin For though Idolatry be so odious in its name yet in its nature it is very pleasing and ravishing of our senses and hath of late days been so fairly and neatly trimmed up by the fine wits and curious hands of men and they especially Christians and they more especially Catholiques God bless us that now there is either no such thing to be found in the world or that the least sin one of them in the world And this is brought about by the ministry and help of innumerable distinctions which I think may be reduced to these two heads viz. to those concerning the Act of worshipping and those concerning the Object of worship Concerning the Act we find such as these very common and current first Natural and Civil and Divine and Religious And these again Properly Divine or Improperly supream and Inferior Direct and Indirect Absolute and Relative Ultimate and subalternate or subordinate Mediate and Immediate For it s own sake or for anothers sake Again for its own sake which we worship as a thing in it self or as a Representation of another All these but these are not all to be found in Learned Authors books to rectifie the worlds errours in its Religion And besides these more may be found concerning the Object but this one shall I only name which is their strongest Hold and Refuge That to secure them from all assauls of Adversaries this to receive them when they shall by strong hand at any time be beaten out of their fastnesses And that is that modern but very famous distinction of Material and Formal So that some of no mean knowledge have thus defended themselves What if for instance in the Mass we should by errour worship that as God which is not God yet this would be but Material Idolatry at the most and not Formal seeing we believe that to be very God which we so adore and Material Idolatry with such circumstances we must suppose is one of the least sins that we can be subject to Thus have some discoursed to me though 't is well known some others of them as Costerus do acknowledge that if Costerus Enchirid Catholicks miss their mark and that be not really God which they with divine worship adore in the Sacrament they are gross Idolaters Of this we shall speak more by and by Now are we to consider first of the first sort of distinctions to pass over all which by a particular examination would be too tedious a task for my self and Reader too I shall therefore only examine the most reasonable and comprehensive of them and them I take to be that of Worship Civil and Divine and of Absolute and Relative not omitting altogether others And to understand clearly what is meant by Divine Worship we are to enquire whether the Act makes the Worship or the Object For all worship as other Acts moral takes it specification from the Object as Philosophers say then unless the Object be Divine or God himself cannot the Worship be Divine and so by consequence a man cannot give Divine Worship though he would never so fain unto an object not Divine and so cannot though he would commit Idolatry because the worship it self is not Divine but much inferior because the object is such which constitutes not Divine Worship being some Creature But if the Act in its own nature be intrinsecally Divine it would be known what is that which makes it so For they say all acts external are equivocal and dubious in themselves and indifferent to Civil Religious Inseriour or Supream worship and that nothing can be concluded from thence Idolatrous For we bow the head we bend the knee we fall down at the feet of men many times whom we give no Idolatrous worship unto
it is That divine Adoration receives its specification from the intention which is an act principally of the will so that be the object what it will yet if I have no intention to worship any other than the true God I worship him when I direct my worship to that which we may suppose not to prove upon tryal God But this is not to be granted that intention is sufficient to denominate worship or constitute it true and Catholick though it suffices abundantly to make a worship false when it is intended for such And then may a man be said to intend false worship not only when he knows it to be false but when he might possibly know it to be so and when he intends to worship that which actually is a false object For as hath been said Idolatry consists principally in the understanding as also the Scripture intimateth when it charges the Idolatrous Israelites with ignorance 2 King 17. 26. Isa 4. 9. of God For were not the Samaritans Idolaters who knew not the manner of the God of Israel And what saith the Prophet Isaiah They that make a graven Image i. e. to worship it are all of them vanity and their delectable things shal not profit and they are their own witnesses they see not nor know that they may be ashamed Surely if any man saw and were convinced of his error he would be ashamed of it but 't is his ignorance that detains him as well as precipitates him into such errors Ephes 4. 18. as St. Paul witnesses of the Gentiles Having their understanding darkened through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart Fifthly There is no reason to grant that simplicity and sincerity of Intention and Resolution of worshipping none but the true God may not consist and hold good in worshipping more than one God as in the Act. 17. 23. case of the Athenians worshipping the unknown God in the Acts For as Pausanias in Eliacis taking notice of this inscription hath it The Persians threatning Greece with War the Athenians sent to the Lacedemonians to beg aid of them Pan met their Embassador Philippides and expostulated with him why the Athenians had made no statue to him but left him our adding that if they received him he would stand by them Hereupon they erected this Monument To the unknown God Others say That they being miserably harrassed with the Pestilence and finding no relief from them they worshipped bethought themselves there might be a God neglected by them who might relieve them and so dedicated an Altar To the unknown God Might not all these things stand with very great sincerity of intention And yet I suppose it was Idolatry So that sincere resolution and intention of worshipping none but the true God only may be found where many are worshipped For though to us as St. Paul saith * Toletus Instruct Sacerdotum l. 4. c. 14. § 6. There is but one God and one Lord yet with all Nations it was not so they might really and stedfastly believe there were more Gods than one And therefore Tolet the Jesuit well writeth thus Therefore Idolatry is the exhibiting of a Divine worship to a false God For to worship him for true God who is not God either by praising him or invoking him or Sacrificing to him or any wayes prostrating our selves to him is to commit Idolatry False adoration which is Idolatry is never but where an Error in the understanding goeth before †De Ratione lure definiend pag. 273. Num ut Supersationis caput est Id. 〈◊〉 iâ—a emnus Dei caltus non solum extrav ritatem fidei sed etiam extra uniatem Ecclesis alterius Dei cultum in se contnet ab coquem Fides Christiarorum communis intra Ecclesiam colendum propâ—nit Omnis enim Commentitia religio talem sibi Deum colendum pâ—â—ponit qualem sibi ipsa commenta sit non qualem se ipse ostendit Quod Idololatrioe instar quoddam est And besides all this the Author of this tenet in another place acknowledges it to be a sort of Idolatry to feign or device a worship of God otherwise than was instituted of God and that not only to worship God out of the verity of Faith but out of the unity of the Church containeth in it a worship of another God than is propounded by the Christian Faith to be worshiped in the Church And again All commentitions religion propounds such a God to be worshipped as it hath feigned to it self not as he hath declared himself to be By which words I understand him to explain himself and draw nearer to the common notion of Idolatry than he is commonly taken to do For granting that it is a kind of Idolatry to offer any superstitious worship interdicted by God and that in thus doing a man doth in effect frame to himself a God distinct from the true God it may be easily granted that all Idolatry consisteth in Polytheism or plurality of Gods because in effect a man makes strange Gods though not formally as he that constituteth one of purpose to worship as the object of his Devotion And this agreeth with what othet learned men have written of Idolatry Quicunque de Deo secus sentit quam revera est c. Erasm in symbolum Catechesm 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epict. Cap. 38. Perkins Cases of Conscience l. 2. c. 11. Luther Colloq Mensalia p. 91. extending it to a false notion or judgment of the one true God For Erasmus in his Catechism on the Creed saith Whosoever thinketh otherwise of God than in truth he is or doth not believe him to be such as the Authority of the Holy Scriptures hath described him to us believeth not in God but in an Idol To the same purpose speaketh Mr. Perkins thus If adoration be given to the true God with a false and erroneous intention it makes him an Idol For example if the body be bowed with this intent to worship God out of the Trinity as the Turk doth Or if he be worshipped out of his Son with the Jews thus doing we worship not the true God but an Idol To these I add these words of Luther All manner of Religion let it have never so great a name and lustre of Holiness when people will serve God without his word and command is nothing else but plain Idolatry It may be said in behalf of Jews and Turks that they are not Idolaters because they worship God according to the true Light of Nature asserting and magnifying above all men the unity of God and directing their worship after the manner of the service of God before Christ To which answering I shall wave the question about the measure of knowledg the Jews had of the Trinity before Christ of which somewhat hath been said before and rather distinguish between the manner of their believing or disbelieving those mysteries For it is much different
outward shew of self denyal and preaching Christ in sincerity Christ is no less deserved Religion no less endangered and men no less preach themselves as they say than they who with much ambition of honor profit and applause debauch the noble and Majestick Simplicity of the Gospel and preaching of Christ with the vain and impertinent mixture of human learning and eloquence the difference is only in this that the one hath his end the making of the Common people the other the making of the Court and they perhaps somewhat worse than these from whence they suck no small advantage Much and high talk there hath been of late about Preaching of Christ And scarce any body hath been thought worthy to be accounted such a Preacher who hath not first layd aside modesty manners civility prudence and gravity and flown out into certain exotique tones actions and barbarous demeanures unworthy of a man which Christ nor his Apostles nor Apostolical persons after them never taught nor practised themselves never required of them but have been taken up to serve their own turns rather than Gods and hath been a direct preaching themselves as any they could ever instance in on the contrary side There are two things surely wherein generally consisteth the preaching of Christ Sober and sincere manner of composing a mans self to that Great work and the matter he is to treat of according to which latter Mr. Perkins well noteth four things to be requisite Fist Generally Perkins on Gal. c. l. v. 15. 16. to teach the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ and of his three Offices his Kingly Office his Prophetical Office and his Priesthood with the execution thereof This in good earnest is so much Preaching of Christ that scarce any thing else is meant in Holy Scriptures where it speakes so much of Preaching of Christ they ayming chiefly thereby at the manifestation of Christ as the true Messias promised of Old and then come into the world What is said above this is or may be true but somewhat besides the Letter of the Scripture Secondly to teach that Faith is an Instrument ordained of God to apprehend and apply Christ with his benefits Which is very true in the signification of Faith common in Scriptures viz. as it is taken for that Complex Evangelical Grace comprehending all particular Christian vertues and Graces springing from that Head but not so as Faith signifies now adayes a single Grace contradistinct to others Thirdly To certifie and reveal to every hearer that it is the will of God to save him by Christ in particular so he will receive Christ 1 John 1. 11. It were to be wished this Author had kept closer to this opinion here expressed Fourthly to certifie and to reveal to every particular hearer that he is to apply Christ with his benefits to himself in particular and that effectually by his Faith Grant we now that this is to preach Christ yet that this must be done in such unnatural and uncouth manner both of Speech and Gestures as are no less than ridiculous we must not grant this is for them who affect and use it to preach themselves Again this preaching of Christ or hearing of Christ thus preached is not Worshipping of God as it hath been mistaken grossely to have been The reading of the word of God was ever looked upon as a necessary part of the service of God amongst Jews of Old and Christians to this day Believers thereby declaring their Faith towards God no small act of serving God But the Sermons of men since the Apostles never till this superstitious age were advanced to that esteem or dignity For no man can without derogation from the Scriptures call them though sound and Scriptural the word of God but with limitations Well saith a learned and grave Preacher However the whole Sermon is Dr. Donne Serm. 33. on Whitsunday the ordinance of God the whole Sermon is not the word of God meaning that it is the Precept of God that Christian people should be taught by those that have the spiritual care and tuition of their Souls but that what is taught is not worthy of the glorious title of the word of God no though it be very agreeable unto it It may much more properly be said to be the will of God than the word of God But what falls short in the nature they hope to make up in the measure of their Worship And therefore frequentation of Sermons and painful preaching as they call it must and doth carry it from all other Pretensions to the true Service of God and those they traduce with the reproach of a lazy Ministry must without farther dispute yield to be reformed by them and to their modes too And truly Industry and painfulness are such undeniable vertues in all Moral and Civil matters that no man can object against no man but must commend And in spiritual matters often arise to the nature of divine Graces which are rewardable with proportionable glory when the Great Lord of us all shall take an account of every servants improving his Talent and to the fruitful say Well done thou good and faithful Servant Thou hast been faithful in a little be thou ruler over much But what is all this and more which may be added to the nature of the work it self which God requires at our hands as our bounden service as a man may do a good thing negligently so he may do an ill thing diligently and industriously We are now enquiring whether Preaching be worshipping God or God is served principally by it If it be then no doubt but diligence therein is the more commendable But if it be not as we have shewed it is not then our diligence were better placed elsewhere namely on that wherein consisteth more formally the worship of God which is prayer But what if after all this cry of Laboriousness on their side rather than on their Adversaries part their Ministry is the lazy Ministry rather than ours as in truth it is I compare not here Persons which would be infinite but Religions and the manner of Ministration and worship constituted by the Church of England and that of any Sect whatever Let them tell which Religion requires most vigilance attendance and pains That which prescribes every Parish-Priest to officiate three dayes in a week and propounds dayly Ministration in the Publique place of worship or that which sets men free all the week unless on the Lords day That which prescribes so strictly visiting the sick upon all occasion or that which is maintain'd chiefly by their Minister visiting the Well and gutling from house to house amongst their favourers and benefactors of their Faction That which observes or commands the observation of constant Fasts or that which derides them and accuses them contrary to all Examples of former Churches of Superstition That Religion which requires a punctual observation of that Liturgy which they profess to be grievous
the opinion of Tertullian They who tranâ—gress the Rule of Discipline cease to be reckoned among Christians And as Clemens Alexandrinus saith As it behoveth a person of Equity to falsifie in nothing and to go back from Qui excedunt dâ— Reculâ— disciplinâ— dâ—sinunt hâ—berâ— Christiani Tertul. Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. p. 753 764. nothing that he hath promised although others should break Covenants so it becometh us to transgress the Ecclesiastical Canon in no manner And to convince any man of conscience or fear of God of this Balsamon's reasons may suffice demonstrating a greater reverence and respect to be due to the Constitutions of the Church than to the Laws of the State For saith he the Canons being explained and confirmed by Kings and Holy Fathers are received as the Scriptures But the Laws of the State were received and established by Kings alone and therefore do not prevail against See Photius's Nomocanon Tit. 1. c. 2. cum Palsamone p. 817 818. the Scriptures nor the Canons And this I rather instance in from the Greek than Latin Church because the ignorant and loud clamors of Sectaries have had nothing more to alledg against the Sacredness of Ecclesiastical Constitutions than that which serves their turns in all things Popishness of Canonical Obedience But may they judg what they please according as design and interest sway them this we constantly and confidently affirm that whoever despises the Rules of of Obedience and Laws of the Church cannot rise higher in that Part of Christian Religion which we call Worship of God than may meer Moral men Because that which chiefly distinguishes good Christians from good honest Heathens next to the doctrine of Faith is proportionable Obedience as well to those God hath substituted under him to ordain things omitted in the Scriptures for the security of the Faith regulating devotion and worship and peace of the Church none of which can long subsist without such a Power acknowledged and obeyed in the Governors of the Church And this â—pparently is at the bottom of the deceitful pretences of Christian Liberty and Conscience for disobedience of them who are designed thereby to ruine and overthrow as matter of fact hath demonstrated But it is not only the Puritans intollerable dogms against obedience but the contrary practise of no small persons of place and esteem in the Church who can heartily and with zeal even to indignation prosecute Sectaries inconformity to the Discipline and Rites of the Church glorying and boasting that they are Sons of the Church and yet do more mischief to the Church by their ill govern'd persons as to common honesty sobriety and gravity and more advance and bring into credit and reputation the enemies of the Church than all their fair and fallacious pretences could otherwise possibly do If such persons who have not attained to common Moral prudence or Philosophy bear such kindness as they flourish with to the Church let them shew it as that lewd Fellow in the Athenian Senate was advised who notwithstanding his vitious life had somewhat very beneficial to the Common-wealth to propound in the Senate and commend it by the mouth of another For what can be more absurd and ridiculous than for any such person to profess esteem to that Church which condemns him more than any other Society And whereas it supposes as a foundation natural justice continence and temperance and the like moral vertues to the divine Precepts and Institutions of Perfection what may turn the stomach and raise laughter more at a man then for such an one to discover his offense at an unceremonious Puritane the matter of whose Crime is nothing comparable to his If thou beest a Christian saith a holy Father either speak as thou livest or live as thou speakest What evil spirit hath set thee on first to abuse thy self with scandalous practises and then the Church by taking Sanctuary in it Can stupidity so far accompany vice as first to break the known and common Laws and Rules of good conversation which is affront enough to the Church and then to add to that affront by professing a special duty to that which thereby is destroyed There is no Sect or Schism whose Orders and Laws of Christian walking with God can be compared with those of the Church of England there being nothing amongst them besides Faith which an Heathen may not do that never heard of Christian Perfection accounting nothing needful to be done nothing unlawful to them which is not punishable by the Law of man or against the light of nature Christ they say hath purchased for them a liberty to do what they please in eating drinking sleepping and other matters so that they wrong not their own bodies nor injure their Neighbors And shall there be that protect themselves under this Churches shelter in such light loose foolish and vitious courses to the degrading of it beneath her inferiors Is this to be sons of the Church and not only so but to brag that such they are in open hostility to it I confess notwithstanding all this in comparing the enemies to the true Faith together we are to distinguish between the doers of evil simply and the teachers of men so to do And that though drunkenness and uncleaness be greater sins by far in their nature than is dissent from a ceremony or Rite not necessary in its nature Yet for any man with a spirit of opposition and contention to take upon him to declare against such an unnecessary order and teach men against the unity and peace of the Church otherwise than becomes him is no less criminal in the consequence before God yea probably much more than those other more scandalous before men and will more endanger his Soul But concerning such persons as are in profession really Sons and perhaps Fathers of the Church and yet wilfully and studiously violate the Laws Constitutions Rubricks or Canons of it no necessity compelling them no reason being to be alledged defending them but what is taken from their ease which otherwise would be much interrupted or their benefit and profit which would be much hindred I leave their own hearts and Consciences to condemn them until God himself doth which certainly without repentance he will and that out of their own consciences and mouths their consciences which witness that these are the true causes of their negligence and contempt of their Duty in their proper stations and their mouths and professions in that they pretend obedience and are much offended at the disobedience of Puritans as if God and the Church would be sufficiently satisfied with their Anger against them while they themselves regard it no farther than is for their turn Two vulgar apologies I shall here take notice of only For as for that which is also commonly said that evil times hinder them from their duty I shall say no more but humbly advise them to deal sincerely with God and their own consciences in such cases
be true what St. John saith that No man hath seen God at any time and what the John 1. 18. Schools teach as I believe that fleshly eyes cannot possibly discern God immediately may we not much more truly say that we cannot hear Gods voice with our fleshly ears and live any more than see God and live But God says expresly No man shall see me and live But as God maketh certain Exod. 33. 20. representations of himself to our eye which are not himself but yet bear his name in Scripture so God produceth or causeth to be produced audible sounds which are not really and properly his voice yet represent so much to the ear of man which when it comes attended with more than natural or ordinary circumstances as did the voice at the giving of the Law it is more especially and signally ascribed unto God as his Lastly It is said in Exodus that Moses wrote upon the Tables the words of Exod. 34 28. the Covenant the Ten Commandments which in the beginning of the Chapter God is said to write I will write upon these Tables the words that were Exod. 34. 1. in the first c. which moved the Fathers as Cyprian and Austin whom Lyra follows to understand them so that God wrote Autoritatively and Moses Ministerially But later Jewish and Christian Expositours have thought good rather to refer the later part of these words And he was there with the Lord fourty dayes and fourty nights he did neither eat bread nor drink water and he wrote upon the Tables the words of the Covenant the Ten Commandments to God not without some violence to the sense more current otherwise But in such variety and obscurity as is here I see no remedy but men must judge for themselves However I suppose the second thing propounded is from hence competently clear concerning the Nature of this Law That as it is undoubtedly Divine so from the Authority delivering it it hath no more force or obligation upon us than other words of God extant in holy Scripture Nor is it easily to be conceived how any thing can be said to be more or less divine which is acknowledged to come from God by vertue of any manner of delivering it whether mediately or immediately by a still and quiet inspiration or by a publick and majestick declaration but from the matter it may And Buxtorf in his forementioned Tractate on Buxtorf in Decalog num 51. Priscis temporibus c. the Decalogue hath these words In ancient times it was a custome among the Jews that the Decalogue should every day in the Morning Prayers be publickly and privately rehearsed and repeated This laudable custom in latter times they have abolished the reason whereof the Talmud renders to be lest the people should believe that the Decalogue had any â—ore divineness in it than other parts of Scripture From whence we may observe First That anciently the Jews had a constant Form of Worship Secondly That there is no such ridiculousness in Prayers publick and private to repeat the Creed and Ten Commandments as certain pretenders to giftedness have presumed Thirdly That the Jewish Doctours discerning the great inconvenience that might happen from admitting degrees of Sacredness in Divine Revelations chose to prevent such errours by taking away the presumed occasion For however some have distinguished between Divine Right and Apostolical making this a mean between humane purely and divine yet in propriety of speech all Constitutions are either divine purely or purely humane And therefore Apostolical Right can be no more than humane Right when it is distinguished from Divine This we speak of Constitutions taken in their formality not as oftentimes they are used for the things themselves so ordained For no doubt but as there are degrees of sins against Laws so these degrees are estimated from the weightiness or lightness of the matter against which offences are committed And thus we may hold that the Ten Commandments are more Sacred that is contain more important matters than generally the rest of the Scriptures do that is again in the like number words being certainly the most perfect and plain and compendious form of serving God that the Jews had any where revealed unto them if not a more absolute sum of our practical duties towards God and Man then we find collected together in so few words in the Gospel and therefore not unworthily inserted into the Second part of the Office of our Church But whether this Decalogue was ever intended by God as such a perfect and compleat Rule of Obedience that nothing to which Jew or Christian was obliged hath escaped it may well be question'd understanding the Question not so much of ceremonial or extrinsecal Duties of Religion as moral and perpetual Many have this last age brought forth who though they look upon it little less than ridiculous to make any use of the Ten Commandments in our worship of God yet ascribe so great perfection to it as a Rule that they suppose they have convinced you of absurdity enough if they drive you to either of these straits To deny any Moral duty to be contained in the Decalogue or to affirm any Ceremonial to be therein included For then they loudly cry concerning the First you make the Law of God an Imperfect Rule And concerning the Second as by name doth Dr. Twisse in his Treatise on the Sabbath with innumerable others If for instance the Fourth Commandment be not Moral what doth it among the Ten Commands And having said this they need they think say no more to confound their adversaries To the former therefore we say that improving the Art of Reduction to the height no doubt but all Moral and Ceremonial duties too may be reduced to some of the Ten Commandments For if our Saviour Christ our Great and Infallible Master reduced these Ten to two and again all things contained in the Law and Prophets which must be all Moral duties to Love of God and Love of our Neighbour in St. Matthews Gospel saying On these two Commandements hang all the Law and the Prophets Nay and Matth. 22. 37 38 39 40. which is yet more St. Paul brings all Christian duties under one Head of Love saying Love is the fulfilling of the Law Do we wonder at or can Rom. 13. 10. we censure those who would have all Christian vertues included and vices and sins excluded by the Decalogue But surely they who contend for such a comprehension as may be useful to a man do not intend that it self should be incomprehensible and illimited which at this rate it must be reducing every thing to any thing but certain Rules have been invented for the limiting and directing of men in this matter which being not taken from the Reason of the thing it self so much as the Arbitrary wit of the Hic video quosdam in hoc elaborasse ut universa proecepta sive jubentia sive
non esse peccatum mortale Thom. ib. But Thomas speaks soundly and plainly It is therefore an Heresie to say simple Fornication is no mortal sin And if simple Fornication be as certainly it is a mortal sin then surely it is much more grievous when it hath the aggravations of Constupration or Deflouring of a Virgin her Virginity being her natural grace and glory And much more Ravishing or invading violently the chastity of others And so Incest committed against the Laws of Nature of God or the Religion we profess concerning consanguinity and affinity And there is another Degree of Lust which is called Sacriledge extending the word a little of the farthest to express the great wickedness of abusing those who have dedicated themselves in a state of Virginity to Gods Service For as we have shown before as it is not only lawful but very commendable in any good Christian upon sober and mature consideration of the probability of being able to make good such holy resolutions to devote himself or her self to such excellent means of serving God and that by a Vow so can it not be but a notorious offence against God to mock him either with committing fornication or entring into marriage otherwayes lawful If indeed Marriage were such a Law as some grosly conceive of it that not to comply with it were to offend God then were it not lawful to design any such life as Virginity nor yet widowhood being in ordinary capacity and then were most of their arguments good urged against the state of Virginity chosen by way of Vow But it being a Jus or Right rather that every man hath of God then a Lex or Law that he should marry their reasons prove very fallacious and vain And they who shall go about to seduce to marriage and much more other more scandalous and vitious acts them that have so decreed in their heart to live to God do very wickedly notwithstanding so great a President as Luther may be alledged to the contrary and the judgment of Perkins and others Lastly To these may be reduced all outward acts and signs of Lightness and Lasciviousness tending to Wantonness and Lust Evil Dalliances and Speeches and Gestures and Attire and Ornaments to insinuate evil to others or to tempt them as likewise Intemperance fomenting the Law of the Members as St. Paul speaks against the Law of the mind The Eighth Commandment is Thou shalt not steal In the Second Table §. VIII Gods principal intention it was to preserve one man from offering violence or injury to another Injury is done to man two wayes in General To his Person or To his Goods and Possessions The Injury done to a mans Person is either committed against him simply and this is forbidden under the Commandment Thou shalt do no murder or against him joyntly as he is one with another For so God saith They two shall be one flesh man and wife making in several senses but one Person and therefore to offend against the Person of one is to wrong both And therefore it is said Thou shalt not commit Adultery For hereby notorious injustice is done to the person so united to the Party suffering evil Neither can it be alledged what too often happens that there is consent on one part and so no injury because first Neither God nor the other Party to both which the will of the Offender is to be no less subject than to himself doth consent A Second Injury is done to the Goods of a man by sustaining loss or detriment and against this evil doth God here provide by saying Thou shalt not steal Concerning which we are to consider briefly The Ground The Extent or Kinds and lastly The Evil of Thefts The Original and Cause of this Commandment is certainly Justice and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Equity to be observed between man and man in all Common-wealths and without which no humane and much less Divine or Religious Society can long continue Justice is or may be taken two wayes Abstractly as it may be considered in it self as a Divine Rule and Law propounded by God according to which he requireth all men to conform their Actions And therefore Plutarch speaketh divinely God not only hath Justice sitting by him but is himself Justice and Right and the ancientest and perfectest of all Laws In which yet he seems to be prevented by more Divine David saying of God Psal 9. 4. Thou satest or sittest in the throne judging right God is Justice and so is his Will revealed as a Rule of humane affairs And Justice is in man too concretely as they speak and so is defined A perpetual and constant will of giving every man his due though Gerson would have Gerson de Vita Spirituali Lect. 3. this to relate principally to God And that of Fact it doth is most true it being impossible God should do or desire to do injury to any man but as of Form and Right it concerneth man no less because he is perpetually and immutably obliged to do justly though actually he doth it not For Aug. Civ Dei c. 4. without this what are Kingdoms or Common-wealths saith Austin but Slaughter-houses And much more may we say What is Religion without Justice but extreamest Villany there being nothing so ridiculous to all men or blasphemous to Christ as to imagine a man can be a good Christian before he is an honest and just man This Justice hath two parts as Lactantius writeth Piety to God and Equity Lactan. l. 5. cap. 14. to man For Justice as we have showed in the beginning of this Work it is to be Religious towards God and to worship him and greatest Injustice to deny him such his due Equity towards Man is that we even now described and which is in this Law commanded But because Justice or Equity are said to be Vertues whereby a Man gives every one his due or own they must be grounded upon Dominion and Dominion is nothing else but a Propriety a man hath to use a thing which he possesseth as he pleaseth The principal act of Injustice then is to violate this Propriety or withdraw or withhold any thing from another which of right belongs to him not observing our Saviours rule in his Sermon on the Mount Whatsoever Matth. 7. 12. ye would that men should do to you do you also unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets The Law and the Prophets both contained and here signifie the whole substance of Religion of the Church under the Law and therefore such moral honesty and justice as this being the chief subject of these Books is likewise the substance of Religion it self improved by Christ to some higher perfections Now the Extent of this sin of stealing or injustice is First to open violence in Robbery and spoiling of others of that which they are rightly possessed of without colour of Justice which is indeed the most notorious of all because
Tinder-box when they have attained so much of their ends as by the flames they raise to undo and destroy others and enlighten themselves and become powerful and glorious they presently cover those mischievous sparks and put them quite out denying they teach or hold any such things easily foreseeing they must needs have the same effect upon themselves as they had upon others if they be suffered to blaze out as they did when they lighted their Candles Yet so again that they reserved to themselves the same instruments and means of kindling new flames to their advantage when their Interest shall so require it This we have seen done most unjustly and disingenuously unless therefore men could be persuaded first to be faithful and severe observers of the Rules of sincerity and common Justice and deliver no other Rules to their Superiors to Govern them by than they themselves being in Power would hold reasonable to keep religiously themselves which we hear indeed much prosessed but ever saw practised contrarily in vain do men endeavour to dispute men into Reason Faith or Truth It must be the singular and Almighty power of Gods Grace to convince and convert them to the Truth they being the true object of our Pity and Prayers but not of Instructions Perswasions or Arguments And what more pertinent and particular prayer ought we or can we offer to God for their more sound information and confirmation in the truth of Gods Word and Worship then that they object so oft and unadvisedly against us viz. That God would vouchsafe to deliver them from their many private and humane inventions and not teach for Doctrines the Commandments Matth. 15. 9. Hebr. 13. 9. Jer. 7. of Men nor be carried about with divers and strange Doctrines Nor worship God so as he never commanded them neither came it into his heart Alas if they would but keep themselves faithfully and entirely to these Laws which with so much rigour and zeal they exact from others they must let go their hold not of Ceremonies and orders meerly devised by themselves but the greatest part of their Doctrines and Worship wherein they differ from us And the time will once certainly come when we shall not only with confidence but with the greatest comfort expect the full decision of these unchristian Controversies For as St. Jude saith Behold the Lord Jude v. 14 15. cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodlily committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against them c. I shall end all this with one or two instances of their Superstition and into erable rigour who loudly tax the Church therewith They have often charged the Church with Idolatrous Superstition in propounding and practizing Adoration towards the East And Voetius who hath another dogme for the Puritans comfort viz. That preciseness can no wayes be separated from Voetius Disp Part. 3. de Idolatr In dic th 2. true Religion hath also said That it is a sort of Idolatry by interpretation for a man that prayeth in the Church to turn himself to the East although he hath no consideration that there is or was the Quire wherein Papists are wont to turn to the East But what saith his fellow-Calvinist Maresius who Quo utroque asserto nihil absurdius Sam. Maresius Fascicul Paradoxorum Part. 22. Nec minoris erit superstitionis c. reckons up this and another of his dogms of like nature Then both which assertions nothing is more absurd And after a little interposed he addeth Neither will it be any whit less superstitious to beware of the East at the time of prayer precisely then precisely to make choice of it which was most truly spoken Another instance we have from the same Authour in the same Treatise Paradox 2S where speaking against Voetius his preciseness in pleading for hair shorn close to mens head a fond piece of Religion which in past years Puritans were wonderfully strict in but have of themselves lately seen the vanity of such their practises and laid down he saith As he doth amiss Id. Parad. 28. Ut perperam faciat c. who glories in long hair so shall not he be void of Superstition whoever shall affirm the hair ought wholly to be taken away or clip't above the ears and shall therefore think himself holier than other men that he shows the Asses ears of Midas and then adds very soberly True Godliness is strong and being supported with the base of Christian Liberty throughly understood is not pressed with such anxiousnesses Well adviseth Tilenus Part. 2. Thes Disput 44. Chap. 19. 20. That where the true knowledge and sense of this Liberty is wanting Consciences can take no rest there is no mean nor end of Superstitions For Satan is wont of very toyes and trifles to make dangerous and deadly snares for souls Rom. 14. 5. So he that shall begin to doubt of eating flesh or the use of certain garments by little and little shall find scruples of a murmuring Conscience in other things likewise and at length shall hang in suspense in a perplexed and inextricable Labyrinth Thus far they The evil event of the contrary precise Superstition appearing from two or three instances given by the Parrons of Scruples For according to former grounds Voetius his son by his Fathers insinuations as may well be presumed in a publick Disputation at Utrect June 7. 1643. delivered it for unlawful to wear shooes much longer than the foot or horn-like And I make great doubt whether he had any better reason against that fashion than a certain noted Puritan who seeing me being then a young Scholar wear such shooes accosted me in these very words Why dost thou make thy foot longer than Jesus Christ hath made it To whom I presently answered in these words Why dost thou make thy hair shorter than Jesus Christ hath made it And in truth I continue of this mind still that such a reply is no idle answer to such an idle superstitious question For if it should be demanded why I extend Christian Liberty in the use of Ceremonies farther than Jesus Christ hath extended it not commanding them I would first answer I do not extend it farther because it is impossible for him or any man else to prove that Christ hath denyed this Liberty For that which they imply that Christs command must go before all Christian Acts or Ceremonies in his Service is quite contrary to Christian Liberty For no Christian is left to his liberty where such Laws or Precepts are delivered to him But Christian Liberty is an undetermined power of doing or not doing within the sphere of Good and Evil prescribed which power next under Christ residing in the Heads or Governours of the Church may restrain the indifferencie of inferiour Members of it Secondly I would
be convicted of moral evil and so unconcernedly to omit the weightier matters of the Law as Judgment Mercy or Charity in Vnity and Faith what can Charity call this but meer Pharisaism and where must such Pharisaism end at length but in Sadducism even denying of the Blessings and Curses of a Future Life For as Drusius hath Si Patres nostri selvissent mâ—râ—â—â—s resurrecturâ— praemia manere â—ustos â—â—st hanc vitam nâ—n tantoperè râ—bellassent Drusius in Mat. c 3. v. 7. Item in c. 22 23. observed it was one Reason alledged by the Sadduces against the Resurrection If our Fathers had known the dead should rise again and rewards were prepared for the Righteous they would not have rebelled so often not conforming themselves to Gods Rule as is pretended by all but conforming the Rule of Sin and of Faith it self to the good Opinion they had of their own Persons and Actions which Pestilential Contagion now so Epidemical God of his great Mercy remove from us and cause health and soundness of Judgment Affection and Actions to return to us and continue with us to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. I. OF the Nature and Grounds of Religion in General Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious Chap. II. Of the constant and faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine Supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledge of a God not natural Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God Chap. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A brief censure of the Gentile and Mahumetan Religion Chap. V. Of the Jewish Religion The pretence of the Antiquity of it nulled The several erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered Chap. VI. The vanity of the Jewish Religion shewed from the proofs of the true Messias long since come which are many Chap. VII The Christian Religion described The general Ground thereof the revealed Will of God The necessity of Gods revealing himself Chap. VIII More special Proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several reasons Chap. IX Of the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood Chap. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficulty of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof Chap. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to interpret it decisively The Spirit not a proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined Chap. XII Of Tradition as a Means of understanding the Scriptures Of the certainty of unwritten Traditions that it is inferiour to Scripture or written Tradition No Tradition equal to Sense or Scripture in Evidence Of the proper use of Tradition Chap. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temporarie and Miraculous Faith are not in nature distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith explicite and implicite Chap. XIV Of the effects of true Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguish'd from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes Chap. XV. Of the effect of Good Works which is the effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical Chap. XVI Of Merit as an effect of Good Works The several acceptatations of the word Merit What is Merit properly In what sense Christians may be said to merit How far Good Works are efficacious unto the Reward promised by God Chap. XVII Of the two special effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows Chap. XVIII Of Justification as an effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and how The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the principal cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ Chap. XIX Of the efficient cause of Justification Chap. XX. Of the special Notion of Faith and the influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith solitary and only Of a particular and general Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works justifie Chap. XXI A third effect of justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. Chap. XXII Of the contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their Differences The difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie the evil disposition of the mind and the falsness of the matter How far and when Heresie destroys Faith How far it destroys the Nature of a Church Chap. XXIII Of the proper subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion visible as well as invisible necessary to the constituting a Church Chap. XXIV A preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not revocable by the people Chap. XXV Of the Form of Civil Government The several sorts of Government That Government in general is not so of Divine Right as that all Governments should be indifferently of Divine Institution but that One especially was instituted of God and that Monarchical The Reasons proving this Chap. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The confusion of co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why Chap. XXVII An application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the communion
there be no Sermon there to offer their Prayers unto God and be instructed and edified out of the Word of God But I hold it best considering the many prejudices and superstitious surmises that are bred in the minds of too many simple Christians concerning the use of Gods house and the worship therein to propound what might more accurately be spoken of that subject from the opinion of Chrysostome that devout and judicious Father in an Homily against such as absented themselves too much from the House of God in these words so near as I could translate them He that loves doth not only desire to see his friend Chryâ—ostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pag 1. 2 103. Tom. 8. whom he loveth but the very house only and the gate yea not only the gate of the house but the very holes and passages thereunto And if he sees but the garment or pantofle of his beloved he imagines himself to be present Such were the Prophets because they saw not God who is incorporeal they beheld his House and by his House imagined they had him present I should choose to be prostrate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the House of God rather then to dwell in the Tents of sinners Every place Every Room Psal 84. compared with the House of God is the Tent of sinners though it be a Court of Justice though it be a Council-house though any mans private House For though there should be Prayers though Supplications there yet must there necessarily be strifes and contentions and evil language and debates about secular cares But this House is clear from all these Wherefore they are the Tents of wicked men but this the House of God And as the shore free from winds and waves affords great safety to the Barks which put into them In like manner the House of God drawing such as enter into it from the stroms of outward businesses causeth them to abide in great calmness and security and to hear the Oracles of God This place is the Foundation of Vertue the School-house of Philosophy or wisdome and that not only at the time of assembling when the Word of God is heard and spiritual Doctrine and the Reverend Fathers are assembled but likewise at every other time Enter into the Porch only and suddainly as it were a spiritual Brees incloses thy soul And this quietness leads thee to trembling and teaches thee to be wise It elevates the mind and suffereth thee not to mind these present things It transports thee from Earth to Heaven And if so great benefit doth aâ—crue unto thee being there when there is not any Congregation what great profit must they needs reap who are then present and what great dammage must they suffer who are absent when the Prophets on all sides sound forth when the Apostles are preached when Christ stands in the midst when the Father disposes matters there done when the Holy Spirit affordeth its own joyes Would ye know where such persons spend their time who despise the Congregation what witholds them and what withdraws them from this sacred Table and of what is there discoursed Or rather I know clearly For rather they prate of absurd and ridicuious matters or are fix'd on worldly cares But both these exercises fail of pardon and have extream punishment And for the former there is no need so much as of a word or demonstration Yea that they who pretend the affairs of their house and alledge the unsupportable necessity from thence can by no means obtain pardon being called once aweek and even not then enduring the preferring of Spiritual before Earthly things is apparent from the Gospels For they who were called to the spiritual Marriage made such excuses as these One that he had bought a yoke of Oxen one that he had purchased a field another that he had married a bride but they were all alike punished They may be necessary causes but when God calls they are no Apology For after God all things are necessary After his honour let all other things be regarded For what servant I pray tell attends the affairs of his own house before he hath finished his Lords service c. And in another place he as plainly and zealously contendeth for the Time as here he doth for the Place of Gods worship directly refuting the vain imaginations of them in his days who contented themselves in appearing in Gods Chrys Proaem in 6. Orat. in Annam Tom. 5. p. 78. To. 8. p. 8. House on Festival days only I would we had not them that had learnt worse Doctrine then this Such saith he are to be perswaded to communicate according to every Festival assembly For though saith he Whitsuntide is passed yet the Feast is not over For every coming together is a Feast Whence doth this appear From the very words of Christ himself Matth. 18. 20. whereby he saith Where two or three are gathered together in my Name I am there in the midst of them But when Christ is in the midst of them assembled what other proof of a Feast would ye have greater than this Where there is teaching and praying where are the Benedictions of the Fathers the hearing of Laws where the assembling of Brethren is and the bond of sincere Charity where there is conversing with God and God discourses with men why should we not call that a Feast and Solemn meeting c. Thus he And are not all these to be had many dayes even when there is no Sermon And have not men been of late taught to despise and prophanely deride such incomparable daily blessings as these and the benefits flowing from them the more is the shame and the more is the pity God of his great mercy and grace teach us better and better settle us and incline us delivering us from that prophane imposture which hath of late been wrought into the minds of Christians most unchristianly that it is needless nay perhaps worse superstitious in publick or private manner to visit Gods House by Prayers and Praises offered there to him but when a Sermon is at hand A second Precept of the Church is to all conscientious Christians and obedient Children of God and the Church To observe the Fasts of Directions after the Kalendar and Rubrick after the Nicene Creed the Church which Fasts the Church makes fourfold The Fourty Days of Lent Ember Days at the four Seasons being the Wednesday Friday and Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent after the Feast of Pentecost after September the Fourteenth and after December the Thirteenth The Three Rogation days being the Monday Tuesday and Wednesday before Holy Thursday or the Ascension of our Lord. In all which we must note and suppose that Fasting it self in general is the Ordinance of God himself and not of the Church this duty in a manner contrary unto that of rejoycing unto God and Feasting standing upon the same Grounds that Festivals and Days of
Thanksgiving to God do For first it seems to be so far natural to man as Religion it self is All people that worship a God having generally their vicissitudes of Feasting and Fasting according to occasions justly offered or the prudence of the first Founders and Administratours of that Religion Again By the Precepts and Precedents contained in the Scriptures is Fasting required so that no instances are needful to confirm the same And the true reason why the Precepts positive in the Old Testament are but few is because it was agreeable to the Law of Nature that it was not so needful to add multitude of positive Injunctions to confirm the same The most express if not only Law given concerning this in the Scriptures is that of Leviticus the 16th vers 29. where God ordains that on the Seventh Moneth they should afflict their souls for ever by a perpetual statute but in what manner is not expressed whether by abstaining from all meat or their ordinary dyet is not mentioned but the Tradition and Custom of the Jewish Church interpret it to be total Abstinence until the Evening that is the Sun going down And the reason why no express Precept is given in the Gospel to Fast where many Directions and Rules are given to Fast is because To Fast was a setled practise of old in the Church of God and needed nothing more then the accommodation thereof to the future state of the Gospel which was done partly by the said Advices and Instructions how to Fast and partly by the power and prudence of the Governours of the Church extending to such ends But they say against this That Fasting must be voluntary and not of constraint and necessity and therefore must not Authority impose such duties upon Christians but they must take them up freely or omit them according to their Christian Liberty But this miserable and contentious exception they are forced to recal again though they would not be seen in it to save themselves who being in Power however acquired propose and impose both Fasts and Feasts at their pleasures so that they plainly mean That such Fasts are only to be enjoyned by themselves who cannot as all others commanding contrary to them possibly injure Christians in their Liberty For so saith Thomas Cartwright mocking St. Paul We cannot do any thing against the truth but for the truth But farther we say Not only all Fastings but Prayer and Hearing of the Word of God yea all Moral Vertues as Justice and Temperance ought to be freely taken up of every good Christian but doth it therefore follow they may not be enjoyned Or lastly doth it follow that what is commanded and conditionally necessary may not be freely chosen if not according to the utmost extent of liberty of will according to Philosophy yet according to the Divine and Scriptural sense in which whatsoever is done readily chearfully and willingly in the Service of God is accepted of God who loveth a chearful giver as the 2 Cor. 9. 7. Scripture affirms not taking notice whether there be any incumbent necessity or not upon the person And may not what St. Peter advises and exhorts the Elders and Governours of the Church to viz. To feed the Flock of Christ among them taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly concern the governed equally May not there be a 1 Pet. 5. 2. constraint upon these as well as on them in their Ranks consisting with a laudable willingness Nay more than so and quite contrary to the Divinity of factious Pastours and Flocks should the laudableness of the thing it self fortified and enforced with the Commands of Superiours make men that have any just pretences to Christianity more willing and chearful in the performance of those duties This was ever wont to be so until pestilent tongues had corrupted the minds and hearts of simpler Christians to make them suspect hate and oppose whatever their Governours ordained and then to argue They can by no mean do so because they do not like it and this dislikes their Consciences St. Paul saith Do all things without murmuring or disputings these modern Doctours say Phil. 2. 14. Do nothing without murmurings and disputings Let therefore this be one motive and qualification to Fasting that it be done willingly and the rather because it is required A second reason is to excite to humiliation and to quicken our Devotions in Prayers and Repentance while we judge our selves unworthy of Gods common benefits otherwise appointed But not to excurr here on this subject as I might Let it suffice to relate here both the Description and Grounds of Fasting as we find them in our Churches Homilies Homilies Church of England 2. Part. p. 85. 78. Fasting is a witholding of meat and drink and all natural food from the body for the determinate time of Fasting Again There are three ends of Fasting 1. Chastizing the Flesh 2. Fervencie of Spirit 3. Sign of Humiliation But idle and ignorant persons give the same definition to Fasting as they do to Repentance For to abstain from sin is both Fasting and Repentance not considering as we have before shewed how that things when the end and effect of them is highly commended and magnified are vulgarly described by them yet remain in nature altogether distinct as in that remarkable place of Syracides He that keepeth the Law bringeth Eccles 35 1 2 offerings enough he that taketh heed to the commandment offereth a Peace-offering He that requiteth a good turn offereth fine flour and he that giveth alms sacrificeth praise Were not he think we an excellent Interpreter that should take these expressions in the strictest sense they are delivered And is not he the very same that shall define either Repentance or Fasting by abstinence from sin in a proper sense as all definition Hom. 84. To. 5. Tom. 1. Hom. 8. ought to be framed in St. Chrysostome who in a certain Sermon speaks as much as any in behalf of abstinence from sin as a Fast truly acceptable to God was never so mad or silly as to exclude thereupon outward and bodily Fasting but in very many Sermons of his upon Genesis which were delivered in the time of Lent as were St. Basils also upon the Six days work of God nothing occurs more frequently then that literal and outward Fasting commended to his hearers Infinite might be the citations to prove the Judgment of the holy Fathers and Martyrs and Monks in this particular but it is confessed by dissenters who know any thing above the Divinity of Ursin and Calvin and such like unhappy masters of Errours in this point And what are the other principal reasons against such Fastings as our Church by vertue of Canonical obedience injoyns Why A superstitious discrimination of Meats as if some were cleaner than other under the Gospel This they would needs bring it to because they can do nothing without this which is just nothing For they