are many things that cannot be demonstrated by reason yet of necessity must be believed as a father to be a father A man that would travail to a place which he knows not must believe those that have been there And if a man returning from travail report that he hath seen such aman or such a place it were hard he should not be believed except he bring proof or witnesse it being impossible to make demonstration by reason of that 〈◊〉 the like So much for the necessity of belief In the way of Faith we are to observe four Rules 1. It was the Rule of the Heathen that into what art soever a Scholar was initiated Oportet discentem credere the Scholar must beleeve his Master for whatsoever good we receive at the first we receive it from our Teachers And this ground hath this principle Actio perfecti in imperfecto recipitur we are imperfect before we can come to any perfection first imperfect then perfect Wood receives heat from fire before it can burn and be fire So learners receive knowledge by faith from others before they come to be perfect themselves This is confirmed by the Prophet Nist credideritis non stabiliemini if you will not beleeve surely you shall not be established 2. When we have received by beleef then we may seek for demonstrations either a prieri or a posteriori to confirm our belief because ut virtutum 〈◊〉 ita religionis principia quaedam in nobis innata sunt some principles of religion as of other vertues are inbred and natural to us though much defaced and depraved by humane corruption and principia religionis non sunt inter se contraria the principles of religion are not contrary one to another for then we should never come to any certainty of true knowledge But reason and religion agree and the true worship of God is proved by the principles of natural reason True reason is 〈◊〉 help to faith and faith an help to reason but faith is the Lady reason her dutiful Handmaid Eaith and right reason are not contrary but as a greater and a lesser light yea faith is samma ratio 3. Having thus submitted our selves to belief and strengthened it with reason we must look for an higher teacher For though faith be a perfect way yet we being unperfect walk unperfectly in it and therefore in those things which transcend nature and reason we must beleeve God onely and pray to him that by the inspiration of his holy spirit we may be directed and kept in this way 4. Because this inspiration cometh not totally at the first all at once we must grow to perfection pedetentim by little and little and come up by degrees till it please him to send in full measure to us Festinandum lente we must hasten yet slowly and take heed of and avoid praepropera consilia rash attempts according to the Prophets rule Qui crediderit non festinabit he that 〈◊〉 shall not make haste but go on according to the Apostles gradation Adde vertue to faith and knowledge to vertue c. and so by degrees And thus much for this point of via ad Dominum the way to come to God 1. By beleeving 2. By strengthening that belief 3. By expecting the Spirit for our Directer 4. And lastly by proceeding by degrees in a right path CHAP. V. 3 That we must beleeve there is a God Misbelief in four things 1. Autotheisme 2. Polytheisme 3. Atheisme 4. Diabolisme The reasons of Atheists answered Religion upholds all states The original of Atheisme from 1. Discontent 2. Sensuality THe third point is that we must believe there is a God This is our third station or journey for our better preparation and strengthening wherein we are to note four obstacles or errors which the Devil layes in our way Misbelief seen in four points The first is Autotheisme When Adam was in the state of perfection it was impossible to perswade him either 1. That he was a God or 2. To worship any Creature as God or 3. To believe that there was no God 4. Or to worship the Devil as a God And therefore he used all his art to deceive him and perswaded him that by eating the Apple his eyes should be opened and that he should plainly perceive that he should be like to God And by his perswasion he departed from God by unbelief and presumption to whom he must come again by belief and humiliation but in the same day wherein he transgressed Gods command and followed the Devils counsel he confuted that opinion assoon as he had tasted the forbidden fruit by hiding himself behinde the bush So Alexander by his flatterers perswasions was drawn to believe himself to be a god but being wounded at a siege he cryed hic sanguis hominem denotat his blood shewed plainly to be a man And the Emperour Claudius that was in the same humour being scared with a clap of thunder fled into his tent and hiding himself could cry out Hic Deus Claudius non est Deus this is God Claudius is none The second is Polytheisme Because God was a help to Man after his fall in making him garments directs him how to dresse the earth to yield him food and gave him the use of the creatures and this was a help and stay to man the Devil by a false inversion struck into the mindes of his posterity that whatsoever was beneficial to man was his god and so saith the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which feedeth us is a god and so deriving that good to the instrument which was proper to the 〈◊〉 many gods were brought into the opinions of men as Men and Celestial Bodies and at last they came unto such an extremity of absurdity as that Cats Crocodiles and many other unreasonable creatures became to be worshipped as gods The third is Atheisme When this multitude of Gods grew so great as that the Poet said of them Quorum nascuntur in hortis numina they had gods growing in their Gardens it soon became a question and a doubt was made whether there were a God or no. And this was the cause as some conceive why Diagoras first broached this doubt Lastly Diabolisme After that the Devil had brought the World thus far it was impossible it should stay long there therefore to shew his Master-piece he brought himself by his lyes false and doubtful Oracles and the like first into admiration and then even to adoration causing the people to worship him as a god And he wanted not worshippers even of the most learned and greatest persons As Appollonius Tyaneus Jamblicus and Julian the Apostata who being of no religion fell to worship the Devil and proved Necromancers Sorcerers and Conjurers The like successe he had in the East Indies where the Gospel was preached by S. Thomas the Apostle The people in after ages falling into contention about religion they grew at length
THE PATTERN OF CATECHISTICAL DOCTRINE AT LARGE OR A Learned and Pious Exposition Of the Ten COMMANDMENTS With An INTRODUCTION Containing the Use and Benefit of Catechizing the generall Grounds of Religion and the truth of Christian Religion in particular proved against ATHEISTS PAGANS JEWS and TURKS By the Right Reverend Father in God LANCELOT ANDREWS late Bishop of WINCHESTER Perfected according to the Authors own Copy and thereby purged from many thousands of Errours Defects and Corruptions which were in a rude imperfect Draught formerly published as appears in the Preface to the Reader Ecclesiastes 12. 13. Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of Man 1. Corinth 7. 19. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God LONDON Imprinted by Roger Norton and are to be sold by George Badger at his Shop in S. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet-street Anno Dom. 1650. THE CONTENTS The Exposition of the Introduction CHAP. I. Page 1 1. That Children are to be taught and instructed in Religion proved out of Heathen Philosophers out of the Law the Gospel 2. That this instruction ought to be by way of Catechism What Catechising is How it differs from Preaching Reasons for abridgements or sums of Religion Catechizing used in all ages before the flood after the flood under the Law under the Gospel after the Apostles in the Primitive Church Reasons for this custom of Catechising CHAP. II. Page 9 The duty of the catechized 1. To come and that 1. with a right intent 2. willingly 3. with preparation which must be 1. in fear 2. by prayer Other rules for coming 1. with 〈◊〉 2. with purity of heart 3. in faith 4. frequently The second duty to hear or hearken The necessity of hearing The manner 1. with reverence 2. with fervour of spirit 3. with silence 4. without gazing 5. hear to keep How the word must be kept in our hearts 1. by examination 2. by meditation 3. by Conference CHAP. III. Page 14 Of Religion in general and the foundations of it The four first steps 1 We must come to God as the only way to true happinesse No happinesse in riches proved by divers reasons Nor in Honour Nor in pleasure Nor in moral vertue Nor in contemplation General reasons against them all that felicity cannot be in any of them because they cannot satisfie 2 They are not perpetual but uncertain In God onely is true happinesse to be found CHAP. IIII. Page 19 2. The way to come to God is onely by faith not by natural reason alone as the Manichees held reasons against them The way by faith more certain The necessity of belief Rules for coming by faith CHAP. V. Page 22 3. That we must believe there is a God Misbelief in four things 1. Autotheisme 2. Polytheisme 3. Atheisme 4. Diabolisme The reasons of Atheists answered Religion upholds all states The original of Atheisme from 1. Discontent 2. sensuality CHAP. VI. Page 25 That there is a God proved 1. By reasons drawn out of the writings of the Heathens themselves 2. By the frame of the World Objections answered 3. By the beginning and progresse of arts c. 4. By the necessity of a first mover The beginning of things cannot be 1. By Chance nor 2. By Nature 5. By prophecies fulfilled 6. By the artificial framing the bodies of all Creatures 7. By the soul of man Reasons why so many Atheists Natural notions of a diety The Conscience 8. From the miserable ends of Atheists CHAP. VII Page 29 The fourth step That God hath a providence over man Reasons against divine providence answerd why God permitts evil general reasons for a providence particular reasons from all sorts of creatures That second causes work not nor produce their effects of themselves without God That Gods providence reacheth to particulars That God is to be sought and that he rewards them that seek him CHAP. VIII Page 34 The four religions in the world Of Paganisme reasons against the plurality of Gods That there can be but one God proved out of their own Philosophers that their religion was false How man came to be worshipped How beasts Of the Miracles and Oracles of the Gentiles CHAP. IX Page 37 Of Judaisme The positions of the Jews 1. That the Messias shall have an earthly kingdom at Jerusalem confuted 2. That Jesus is not the Messias The contrary proved by Jacobs prophecy Gen. 49. 11. By Daniels seventy two weeks Dan. 9. 25. By diverse other reasons 3. That the Messias is not yet come The contrary proved by sundry arguments CHAP. X. Page 41 Of Christian. This religion proved to be false by seven reasons CHAP. XI Page 42 Of Christian religion The truth thereof in general proved 1. By the antiquity of it out of the Heathen authors themselves 2. By the continuance and preservation of it 3. By the certainty 4 By the end it leads to viz. to God it gives all honour to him Deprives man of all Other reasons It restraines carnal liberty allowed by false Religions reaches to the heart It contains mysteries above mans capacity Teaches contempt of the world requires spiritual worship Confirmed by miracles beyond exception Prophecies CHAP. XII Page 48 Special reasons for the Christian Religion as differing from the Jewish It purgeth the soul shews that God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the testimony of the Apostles and Evangelists the knowledge of what they wrote their honesty the credit of the story testimony from Pagans the star at Christs birth the crosse sacred with the Egyptians the miracles at Christs death the Progresse of Christianity by weak means opposed by power and learning contrary to flesh and blood the excellency of the promises power in conversions the truth of Christs miracles the constancy of Martyrs the ends of the Apostles the Devils testimony against himself CHAP. XIII Page 52 Of the two chief parties that lay claim to Christian Religion Papists and Protestants Their difference about interpretation of Scriptures The Churches authority in expounding Scriptures An additional Observation out of the Authors other works Rules about the sense of the Scriptures Means for finding out the true sense other means controverted Addition about the Churches power in matters of Faith whether infallible Decrees of Councels Consent of Fathers The Pope not infallible CHAP. XIIII Page 58 Christian religion divided into the Law and the Gospel Additions about the use of the Law That the Law of Christ is part of the second Covenant c. The judgement of the Author out of his other books That the Gospel is lex Christi The Law handled first Reasons for this order What the Law teacheth and what the Gospel CHAP. XV. Page 62 In the Law four things 1. The work to be done The Decalogue the Pandects of moral Laws The Laws moral known before Moses written in mens hearts proved in particular In every Law there is evil to be avoided and good to be done
the earth every where wandring 5. Lastly Auscultate ut retineatis Hearken to keep not to forget what you 〈◊〉 this virtus 〈◊〉 a retentive faculty makes a hearer compleat Blessed are they saith our Saviour that hear the word of God and keep it So saith saint John Blessed are they that hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things that are written therein On the contrary If any be a hearer of the word and not a 〈◊〉 he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glasse c. So may we say of them that hear and lay not the words up in their hearts A Rabbin compares such ears to an hour glasse that when one glasse is full of sand it is turned and the sand 〈◊〉 into the other These kinde of ears are ever the worst not worthy to participate the mysteries of God There must not be only a laying up in our memories but in our hearts too till the day starre arise in our hearts Among the Schoole-men there is an opinion quod cor non facit non fit that which the heart doth not is not done at all Pharaoh returned to his house but the thing he heard did not enter into his heart And therefore it was that God said The words which I command thee shall be in thine heart and in that place this order of 〈◊〉 is prescribed plainly We are in these dayes for the most part greedy of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a vain superficial kinde of knowledge but our knowledge should be to give to the simple sharpnesse of wit to the young man knowledge and discretion And when wisdom entreth into thine heart and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul discretion shall 〈◊〉 thee and understanding shall keep thee So that the writing committing to memory and talking of that which we hear should be to this end to work deeper impression in our hearts to practise it And that we may do this the better there are three things required in us 1. Examination 2. Meditation 3. Conference 1. For the first it is to be done by following our Saviours counsel Searching the Scriptures not running after Diviners and Soothsayers but the Law and the Testimony according to that of the Prophet Saint Luke testifieth of the 〈◊〉 that they were more noble then they of Thessalonica why because they searched the Scrpturs daily The Preachen or catechizer must not doe all for us something we are to doe for ourselves If we mean to 〈◊〉 to the knowledge of God let us search saith the prophet And the preacher gave his heart to search out wisdom that is by the holy scriptures That which I knew not saith holy Job 〈◊〉 searched out Saint Peter gave testimony of the Prophets that they searched and enquired diligently the things which concerned their salvation Thus must hearers search the scriptures not as if they could understand them without their teachers much lesse to judge their doctrine but to confirm their 〈◊〉 in what they hear Meditation is the second duty We are to meditate and ruminate as well upon the things we hear as upon those we read S. Paul after he had prescribed rules to Timothy how to order himself gives him this counsel also Meditate upon these things give thy self wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all And after a general exhortation to the Philippians he concludes with Finally brethren c. think on these things The reason is given by S. Augustine Quod habes cave ne perdas take heed thou lose not that which thou hast gotten by reading and hearing If we onely hear and reade and think not afterward upon it it is to be feared that we shall not be bettered by that which we have either read or heard This duty hath ever been in practise with the Saints of God Isaac went out into the fields to meditate And king David did often so as appeareth by the 119 Psalm in diverse places The last duty is conference And this is done either First by Auditors among themselves Or Secondly with the Priest and learned The first we have in the Prophet Malachi They that feared the Lord spake often one to another yet not in Conventicles And the other we have in the Prophet Agge Ask the Priests concerning the Law The reason is given by the former Prophet The Priests lips preserve knowledge because he is the 〈◊〉 of the Lord of Hosts If then in reading or hearing we be at a stand the Scriptures being a deep Sea to wade through repair to the Priest confer with him and desire his direction We see our Saviour while he was young took this course his parents found him not onely hearing the Doctors but conferring with them and asking them questions Though it be the common saying that Experience is the Mother of Knowedge yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conference is the Grandmother for it begets experience Now as the Prophet speaks Hic est omnis fructus ut auferatur peccatum this is the fruit and end of all these duties to take away sin As in diseases there are bastard Feavers which have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verarum febrium symptomes signes of true feavers so is there also 〈◊〉 pietas bastard religion which hath specious shews of true 〈◊〉 Seeing then that preaching and catechizing may fail and that as our Saviour tels Martha Vnum necessarium est there is one thing needful while we have the great blessing of the Word that 〈◊〉 necessarium let us hear it and God in it Lest it happen to us which the Wiseman and the Prophet foretold They shall cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them why because they hated knowledge And as it was with Elies sons they hearkned not to the voice of their father therefore the Lord did slay them Let us therefore labour by hearing to come to the knowledge of God and no doubt but God will have a respect to our hearing and of Catechumeni make us proficients give a blessing to our endeavours we will conclude this point with a saying of S. Cyril an ancient Catechist Meum est docere vestrum auscultare Dei perficere It is my part to teach yours to hear and Gods to perfect and give a blessing to that which I teach and you hear And so much for Venite auscultate CHAP. III. Of Religion in general and the foundations of it The four first steps 1 We must come to God as the onely way to true happinesse No happinesse in riches proved by divers reasons Nor in Honour Nor in pleasure Nor in moral vertue Nor in contemplation General reasons against them all that felicity cannot be in any of them 1 because they cannot satisfie 2 They are not perpetual but uncertain In God onely is true happinesse to be found THe work of
Religion whereof we are to treat is compared by our Saviour to a structure or building and the teacher to a Master builder by the Apostle and the Principles of Religion to a foundation Now in a building the principal care ought to be to make the foundation sure to dig deep enough and lay the foundation upon a rock and not upon earth or sand lest the Devil by undermining shake the foundation and ruine the whole structure And this laying of a slight foundation is the fault of the builders of this age Now to finde when we have a firm foundation we are to examine 1. Whether the grounds of Religion be true or false 2. Whether warranted by Scripture 3. How we know that there is a God 4. What regard God hath of Man But they which without further examination presuppose these for granted build no deeper then the earth leave advantage to the adversary And we know that many have undermined the very foundations affirming boldly that there is no God Insomuch as the Devil bringing his floods and storms hath shaken the dearest of 〈◊〉 children And therefore that we may begin at the hard Rock we will ask these four questions 1. An sit 〈◊〉 whether there be a God And this is against the 〈◊〉 2. An curam gerat mortalium whether he have a care of man and such a care as that he would give him his word to reward the good and punish the evil against the semi-Atheists the Epicures 3. An Scripturae 〈◊〉 sint 〈◊〉 verbum whether the Scriptures we use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 true Word against Turks and Pagans 4. An ex hoc verbo vere sit fundata religio 〈◊〉 whether the Scripture being Gods Word our religion be truly grounded upon it against Jews and Hereticks For the first and second our warrant and direction is from the Apostle He 〈◊〉 cometh to God must beleeve that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him Wherein three things are observable 1. That the end and fruit of our religion is to come to God 2. That the means to attain to that end or fruit is by beleeving 3. That we must beleeve concerning God these two things viz. First Esse Deum that there is a God Secondly Bonis bonum tribuere malis malum that he giveth good things to the good and evil to the wicked 1. That the end and fruit of our religion is to come to God is the first step There hath been much beating of the brain to finde out true felicity the reason is because naturally every man desires that which is good The 〈◊〉 tels us as much that it was that which men thirsted after in his time There 〈◊〉 many that say Who will shew us any good S. Augustine saith that Varro had observed in his book of Philophy such variety of opinions concerning this summum bonum chief good that they amounted to 288 Sects as he cals them And the reason that man is naturally 〈◊〉 of good is because no man of himself is happy The Epithets given to man makes this plain enough as Nudus Miser Naked Wretched 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a feeble creature a true embleme of infirmity and the like So that happinesse not being in man himself it must needs accrew to him by coming to some other thing that is to God It is true and undeniable that while man kept Gods Commandements and submitted his wisdom to Gods will he was partaker of Gods goodnesse and in the state of happinesse But disobeying his will and departing from him he became miserable many wayes For first he fell into sin Secondly into shame Thirdly into fear Fourthly into travel care and vexation of body and minde Fifthly and lastly into death lost all his former happinesse and fell into a sea of misery and infelicity which cannot be repaired but by coming again to God There are some of several opinions that think a man may enjoy true felicity in this world and of himself without having an eye to God They may be reduced to five sorts 1. Worldlings conceive true felicity to consist in wealth 2. Polititians in honour 3. Epicures in pleasure 4. Stoicks in moral vertues 5. Platonicks 〈◊〉 contemplation Against these severally in order we shall make some exceptions 1. Riches are not the Summum bonum 1. Wealth is not to be desired in regard of it self but onely to supply the 〈◊〉 of nature as food raiment c. to preserve Nature from sailing or decaying or to repair or amend it but not to bring it to a higher estate above Nature for that riches cannot effect but that which is true felicity can do both 2. The end of man is better then man it self but these are worse then man for a man for his life will give the whole world If he were possessour of all the wealth in the world he would part with it to save his life The devil could say skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life 3. It were strange that happinesse should consist in that of which much dispute hath ever been whether it be good or evil Seneca saith Semper eguerunt interprete the resolution is yet to make 4. They cannot make a man good that is possessour of them though they make him great 5. The Coelestial Creatures are blessed and happy though they enjoy them not 6. They are not alwayes profitable but sometimes hurtful 7. If it should be granted that true felicity consists in them then men should not be esteemed by what they are but by that they possesse and then a mans full bag is better then himself 8. The goodnesse of riches consists in the use and spending of them and by that reason summa esset foelicitas in discedendo a foelicitate a mans chief happinesse were to part with his felicity 9. As no man esteems the goodnesse of a sword by the richnesse of the 〈◊〉 or a horse by his trappings so neither can a man be judged good by the abundance of his wealth In these respects Wealth or Riches cannot be true happinesse 2. Happinesse is not found in Honour 1. For Philosophers themselves say that Honor est virtutis umbra Honor is but the shadow of vertue and we know that we ought to follow the substance which is vertue and leave the shadow 2. In Honour there must be as well the Honourer as the Honoured and of necessity there are more Honourers then Honoured so that there are many unhappy and but few in felicity if honour should be happinesse 3. As men may be honoured by some so they are despised and envied by others therefore men in honour are foelices in parte happy in part onely and therefore not truly happy 4. If it be objected that if men be not honoured by all that are honore digni worthy of honour it is their faults that should honour them this
Therefore it must be for his honour for to that end did he create us that for his honour we should seek and serve him 2. The next is that he rewards such as seek and serve him Where there are two relatives there is a grounded mutual duty between them as between a father and a son love and obedience between man and wife mutual love between Master and servant care and service between the Creator and Creature providence and honour Now between God and his true servants that seek him faithfully there is reverence and love and reward for it And though we be but verna Domini Gods bond-men and are bound to keep his laws because he is our Legislator Law-maker yet he hath promised reward to them that keepe them and doth not as kings who give laws and yet give no rewards to them that keep them but punish the breakers of them Gods goodnesse is greater to us men And as God hath a reward for his children that seek and serve him so hath he retribution viz. punishment for them that neglect him and break his commandments which we might easily prove both by ancient and modern story So that we may conclude this point that Gods providence is manifest in rewarding the good And so much against the Epicure CHAP. VIII The four religions in the world Of Paganisme reasons against the plurality of gods That there can be but one God proved out of their own Philosophers That their religion was false How man came to be worshipped How Beasts Of the miracles and Oracles of the Gentiles THe next point to be handled is That the Scriptures of the old and new Testament are onely true and that all other either Oracles or Books of Religions besides those are false and erroneous The Apostle hath set this for a principle or ground That though there are 〈◊〉 that be called Gods But to us there is but one God And if but one God then but one true Religion In the search whereof we come into a Quadrivium or way that hath four turnings viz. the four principal religions of the world In which the greatest part of the world have sought God These are 1. That of the Heathen in America and in the East Indies and 〈◊〉 and in a great part of Tartary who worship the Creatures c. and this is called Paganisme 2. That of the Jews scattered through the world and this is called Judaisme 3. That of Turks and Saracens in Asia part of Africa and Europe and this we call Turcisme or Mahometanisme 4. That which Christians hold which is called Christianity Now seeing that according to the Apostles rule there can be but one true It rests to prove which of them is so The Amperours Embassador being at Constantinople with the grand Signior or great Turk and espying in a cloth of estate four Candlesticks wrought with four candles in them three whereof were turned upside down 〈◊〉 the sockets as if they were put out and the fourth of them burning with this Arabique inscription Haec est vera lux this is the true light questioned the meaning thereof and was answered That there were four Religions in the world whereof three were false and the other which was theirs was the true Let us therefore examine which is the true and which the false and first begin with 1. Paganisme And this had once spread it self over all the earth except one corner of Syria and it cannot be denied but that in the knowledge of arts policy and Philosophy the Heathen exceeded all other nations and their light shined that way brightest above others and that in these things we have all lighted our candle at theirs And yet as the wisest of us may wonder at them for their extraordinary naturall and humane knowledge so the simplest of us may laugh at them for their absurdities in the worship of God so dim hath their light burnt in matter of Religion The Apostle in the place last quoted hath two arguments against them to prove that there must needs be but one God and they erred because they had many gods many lords And indeed many they had Varro makes the number of them 30000 whereof there were 300 Jupiters besides a number called dii majorum gentium minorum dii tutelares tutelar gods c. and as S. Augustine speakeh Quis numerare potest the number was so great that no man could reckon them 1. He from whom al things are can be but one The reason is Inferiour causes are resemblances of superiour and they of the Highest but we see in all inferiour causes many branches come from one root many parts are ruled by one head many veins from one Master-vein and many rivers and chanels from one fountaine So in Superiour causes there are many causes from one as many lights from one and many motions from one motion therefore in the highest cause this unity must needs be after a most perfect manner 2. In quem omnia concurrunt in whom all things meet as lines in the center In the mutual order of nature all things depend upon one another Mutuus ordo in se invicem est propter conjunctum ordinem in uno that mutual order which is is from order joyned in one as all things flow from one so they return to one again Therefore one and but one God But their own reasons are sufficient to convince them for Pythagoras saith that there must be an infinite power in God else mans understanding should exceed its cause that is the Creator of it because it is able to comprehend and conceive a greater thing then its cause were it only finite for si potest as infinita est tum natura infinita quia accidentis capacitas non excedit capacitatem subjecti if the power be infinite the subject in which that power is must needs be also infinite because the capacity of the adjunct exceeds not the capacity of its subject And there can be but one infinite therefore but one God If we grant two infinites there must be a line to part them if so then they are both finite and have several forces and being divided cannot be so perfect as if they were joyned together and both one But there can be no imperfectnesse in God Therefore we cannot admit of two Gods Again as Lactantius argueth If there be two Gods and Gods attribute being omnipotency they must be both omnipotent of equal force and power or unequal If of equal then they agree or disagree if equal and both agree then is one of them superfluous but superfluity is excluded from the Diety If they disagree and be of unequal power then the greater will swallow up the lesse and so reduce all into one and so the lesser is not omnipotent and by consequent no god And howsoever the Heathen outwardly held Polytheisme or many Gods because they durst do no other in policy to maintain and uphold their Common-wealths
was first The second way to prove that Christianity is the true Religion is the Continuance and preservation of the scriptures 〈◊〉 that Religion is grounded And this is so miraculous as that no Religion devised or framed by Man or any false God cannot shew the like For it is plain that the Jews were more under subjection to other kingdoms and oftner in Captivity and bondage then any other Nation in the world As under the Egyptians Philistins Moabits Amorits Assyrians Persians Graecians Romans c. And yet though all the Nations about them bare them deadly hatred and sought to suppresse their Religion and that Antiochus the Great bent himself wholly to abolish the Copies of the Law yet were they so wonderfully preserved that they perished not We see that the works of Philosophers Lawyers Physitians and the like who were accompted excellent in their professions which were highly esteemed and for preservation whereof all means have been vsed yet many of them have been lost many come into the world unperfect and many very corrupt yet on the other side though the Jews were a people very odious and contemptible to other nations and though much labour hath been to suppresse their Law yet it stands firme and uncorrupt withont addition or diminution whole and perfect notwithstanding all the worlds malice And as of the Bible so may it be said of their Religion though they were transported into other Countries and in Captivity to strange nations they never changed it whereas experience hath taught us that with changing countryes people commonly or many times change their Religion The third proof is the Certainty of our Religion Whereas all other Religions are either 1. unperfect 2. full of Contradictions 3. Counterfeit 4. or Questionable And none of these can be attributed to ours and therefore it is the true Religion 1. It is most sure that what Religion soever hath his original from Man growes by little and little by degrees to that which they call perfection But at the delivery of the Law of God all that was necessary for the Church before Christ was delivered most absolutely by Moses all the duties towards God or man required in that state of the church being contained in his books and to which nothing is or could be added or detracted from it and in the decalogue is the sum of all moral duties for all may be reduced to some of those heads 2. For Contradiction Mans Laws as the Apostle speaks are sealed with Yea and Nay but the Law of God with Yea and Amen And the Fathers prove that all Contradictions which seem to be in the scriptures may be reconciled by the several Rules of contradictions in Logique 3. That theirs are Counterfet may appear by this that the best of their Authors have obscured their works and kept them from the view of as many as they could for fear of discovery of their falsities and the best of their works have been corrupt in some points and gone abroad into the world under the name of false Authors and sometime those which have been supposititious or counterfeit have so neerly resembled the stile of the Authors whom they have so 〈◊〉 that they could hardly be distinguished from those that which were his own But Gods rule in giving his Law was contrary to theirs for he will have a Copy in the side of the Ark another for the Prince one for the High Priest and for every Priest one and the like for every Tribe and commanded the people to have chief sentences of it expressed in their hangings in their frontlets in the fringes of their garments in the eyes of all men that whatsoever evil should betide them it might not be one whit impaired nor would so many worthy and wise men have dyed for it as did in the time of 〈◊〉 had they suspected it o have been counterfeit in the least degree 4. That theirs is Questionable is thus proved In all theirs somthing hath continually in succeeding ages been altered and amended something abrogated and something added But in the Law of God there hath been no such thing For none of the Prophets ever went about to correct that which Moses commanded or to adde to it but in all their writings they have confirmed and approved what he did The 〈◊〉 way or argument to prove that Christianity is the true Religion is 1. From the end whereto it tends Whatsoever man produceth or bringeth forth as unregenerate it must needs have proprias hominis passiones the proper passions of a man and they will desire and seek to have man their end But Christian Religion makes God the end and acknowledgeth all things to come from him as Saint James speaketh and therefore attributeth all honour to God Finis veroe Religionis est honor 〈◊〉 the end of true Religion is Gods honour and professeth that as God is the author of all essence so also of all good therefore all honour is to be given to him none else must share with him init But so doth no other Religion but the Christian all other seek mans honour either in whole or in part 2. The Poets and Philosophers have much stood upon the natural power and abilities of mans free-will and given him his igniculos semina naturae sparks and seeds of nature and thereby make him authour of his own perfection by 〈◊〉 and encreasing what nature hath bestowed on him But our Religion acknowledgeth nothing good to be mans but that all good comes from God and must be referred to him Again in God there must be an vnity therfore that Religion is false that acknowledgeth any more Gods then one And one of their own saith that Moses went out of Egypt meerly because he would worship but one God The Turks though they seem to hold that there is but one God in Essence yet when it cometh to this point that there is but one God that doth good then they will have their Mediators to that God and so consequently many Gods but we have but one Mediator 3. Now because we hold that there is an innate and natural darknesse in every unregenerate man therefore it cannot be but that in the Religion prescribed by man something that is good is not commanded and something that is evill is not prohibited and but that some lawful things are omitted and some unlawful permitted which we see plainly among the Athenians for with them the breach of faith was of so small account that Graeca fides the Greek faith grew into a proverb So likewise by that of Spartaneum furtum the Lacedemonians theft we may gather the little regard they had to punish that sinne And so likwise by the Lupercalia Floralia and Bacchanalia among the Romans what liberty they took in wantonnesse and excesse may easily appeare No Nation of the Gentiles observed the whole Decalogue or indeed any of the Commandments entirely nay they were so far from keeping that
of Neconcupisces as that they thought Concupiscence no sinne and for the rest though they had some particular Laws respectively against the breach of some commandment as against adultery incest and the like yet they dispensed with them as persons time and place ministred occasion to them Which we may see in the story of a King of Persia who being desirous to marry his own sister and knowing that there was a Law against incest brake his minde to the Magi desiring their opinions they told him that though there were such a Law yet there was another that the King might do what he would Whereas our Religion is so far from dispensing either with that or other the Laws of God that the saints of God had rather suffer death then them to be broken as in the case of John Baptist who told King Herod Tibinon licet it is not lawfull for thee to have thy brothers wife though it cost him his head for saying so 4. Another argument to prove the truth of our Religion is that both it and the Scriptures by which we are guided go to the heart whereas other Religions pierce not the skinne These stop the streames theirs make the Lusts of the flesh but affections Adiaphora indifferent things to be avoyded or not ours by prohibiting Concupiscence stop the fountain of all sinnes 5. Again it is a necessary consequence that that which cannot come from man comes from God But there are some things in Scriptures which are truly Metaphysicall and exceed the capacity of man as that Jehovah Elohim is one God and three persons trinity in vnity that God should become man that God should take upon him to be the redeemer of Mankind and that by his stripes and suffering punishment man should be healed that God should create a world and out of that gather a Church to himself These things and more cannot be comprehended by man and are not to be conceived but onely by our Religion 6. Not to conceale the faults of a mans parents or friends or to speake against a mans own countrey stock kinred or his own self is a thing altogether unnatural and cannot come into any but by a supernatural power But we see that Moses when no necessity compelled him spared 〈◊〉 ot his own stock but spake against his brother Aaron for making the Golden Calfe nor his sister Miriam in the case of murmuring no nor his own selfe at the waters of strife and committed the same to writing that Posterity should take notice of these things Yea and dispossessed his own children from succeeding him in the Magistracy constituting Josuah in their stead these acts cannot agree with the natural man but must needs proceed from a higher cause therefore the writers of these Scriptures must of necessity be inspired by God himself 7. Whereas the whole scope of Philosophers and of the Law makers among the Heathen was to teach how Princes might enlarge their territories and taught it as a point of wisdom to win by all means the favour of princes and great men this Religion teacheth contempt of life the world and worldly honours in respect of God and such was the practize of the prophets who were so far from seeking the favour of Princes that they reproved them to their faces when Gods cause was in hand Therefore this Religion is spiritual and proceeds not from man 8. Again we know that as God is a spirit so must his worship be spiritual and this is the scope of the Scriptures that God be honored without Images or shadows And though in the vnity of God that there is but one God to be worshipped false Religion may agree with the true yet in this point it doth not their Religion and the worship thereof being onely corporeal not spiritual For though in the Old Testament there be many Ceremonial worships prescribed yet God disclaimeth them all yea he abhorreth them if they be performed without the inward worship and sets down the way of worship wherein he most delighteth namely in a broken and contrite heart and spirit Therefore as man is bodily and his motions fall within the compasse of the Body so is that worship which comes from him bodily whereas Gods worship is spiritual and not corporal onely 9. To these may be added by us that we had Miracles and Oracles to confirme our Religion as they did to strengthen theirs And those beyond theirs in divers respects 1. The Miracles mentioned in Scriptures were not done in a corner but openly as were they which were done by Moses upon Pharaoh in the sight of his servants 2. They were notfrivolous or vain but profitable and beneficial 3 They were not imitable nor 〈◊〉 by Magique or mans art for what Magician can divide the Sea or cause the Sun to stand as in Josuahs time or make the Suns shadow goe back as in the diall of Ahas or to rain Manna as in the wildernesse Jannes and Jambres are not able to stand against Moses 2. And for our Oracles they were not as the Oracles of the Gentiles that spake placentia pleasing things or as they themselves say did speak such things as their Kings would have them speake nor are they ambiguous or doubtfull such as theirs that needed Delium interpretem some Apollo to explain them and in that respect as Porphyrius testifies of them they ever had their Postica back-doors evasions to help them But ours are void of flattery and are certain some of them being fullfilled 500. some 1000. years some 3000. years after they were uttered as the enlarging of Japhets tents which hapned not till the calling of the Gentiles and the like So much to prove the truth of both Testaments as our religion agrees with that of the Jews Now follow some reasons proper to the confirmation of the truth of Christian Religion CHAP 12. Special reasons for the Christian Religion as diff ring from the Jewish It purgeth the soul shews that God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The testimony of the Apostles and 〈◊〉 the knowledge of what they wrote their Honesty The credit of the story Testimony from Pagans The star at Christs birth The crosse sacred with the Egyptians The miracles at Christs death The progresse of Christianity by weake means opposed by power and learning contrary to flesh and blood the excellency of the promises power in conversions The truth of Christs Miracles The constancy of Martyrs The ends of the apostles The Divels testimony against himself Saint Augustine out of 〈◊〉 de regressu animae one of the greatest enemies that ever the Church of God had saith that there is no true Religion that confesseth not that the soul of man 〈◊〉 to be purged and addeth that the Platonists received from the Caldeans that the soul of man non potuit perfici 〈◊〉 per principia and we know that Platos principles were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Father the minde and love which
treat of the Summe of Christian Religion it self in it self And this according to the ancient division consists of 1. The Law 2. The Gospel The Law that is the moral Law as it is explicated and enlarged by Christ is a part of the condition of the second covenant and therefore an essential part of the Gospel which consists not barely of promises but of precepts too and those more high and perfect then any before Christ and therefore is the Gospel in the Scripture often called the Law of Christ and so usually stiled inall antiquity The moral Law as it shews men their sins and so convinces them of the necessity of Christ so the knowledge of it may be needful before the Doctrine of faith but as it is the rule of Christian obedience and a condition of the second covenant which is the most proper consideration of it so it ought to follow the doctrine of faith and so it doth in the most authentick Catechism of this Church viz. that in the common prayer Book It is true that Luther and after him many Protestant Divines in their heat against the Church of Rome about the matter of justification seem to make the Gospel a Doctrine consisting meerly of promises and to say that Christ gave no Law but onely explicated and vindicated the Law from the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees in Matth. 5. 6. and 7. as if the moral Law were no part of the Gospel or what Saint Paul speaks of the Law of Moses and the works of that Law were to be extended to the Laws of Christ also and the works of the Gospel and that the onely or chief use of the Law now is to bring men to Christ from which and other the like principles unawares by them laid and by the vulgus of our Divines swallowed without examination the Antinomians Libertines Familists and other Sectaries have by necessary consequence drawn those damnable Doctrines which these Divines little dreamt of or if they had considered I suppose they would have revised these principles and retracted them or else have spoken more warily then they have done The truth is that in that sermon on the mount Christ delivers the new Law or Law of the Gospel wherein the substance of Christian religion and the way to salvation is contained and that he doth not therein onely barely expound the Decalogue given by Moses but as a Legislator delivers his Law to be observed by all that beleeve on him according to the tenure of the second Covenant was the constant opinion of all the Fathers and of the whole Church as among others is fully proved by the incomparable H. Grotius both in his comments on Matth. 5. and in his book de 〈◊〉 belli pacis l. 1. c. 2. n. 6. and if any desire a list of names and testimonies of Fathers and ancient writers to that purpose they may read them in a tract written by a learned and judicious Divine D r Hamond in the passages between him and M r Cheynel p. 129 130 c. And that this learned Prelate was of the same minde is evident in his other works perfected by himself especially in his sermon on Psalm 2. 7. p. 16 17. where among other things we read thus The very Gospel hath her Law a Law Evangelical there is which Christ preached and as he did so must we do the like It is not without danger to let any such conceit take head as though Christian Religion had no Law-points in it consisted onely of pure narratives beleeve them and all is well And true it is that such points there be but they are not all there is a law besides and it hath precepts and they are to be preached learned and as a Law to be obeyed by all Look but unto the grand commission by which we all preach which Christ gave at his going out of the world Go saith he preach the Gospel to all nations teaching them to observe the things which I have commanded you lo here is commanding and here is observing so the Gospel consists not onely of certain Articles to be beleeved but of certain commandments also and they are to be observed Now I know not how we are clean fallen from the tearm Law that we are even fallen out with it the name of Law we look strangely at we shun it in our common talk to this it is come when men seek to live as they list We have Gospel'd it so long that the Christian Law is clean gone from us and I shall tel you what is come by drowning this tearm Law Religion is even come to be counted res precaria no Law no no but a matter of mere entreaty general perswasion c. The reverend regard the legal vigour the power the penalties of it are not set by The rules no reckoning made of them as of Law writs none but onely as of Physick bills if you like them you may use them if not lay them by and this comes by drowning the tearm Law If the name once be lost the thing it self will not long stay And after Christian Religion was in the very best times called Christiana Lex the Christian Law and the Bishops Christianae Legis Episcopi Bishops of the Christian Law and all the ancient fathers liked the tearm well and took it upon them To conclude Gospel it how we will if the Gospel hath not the Legalia of it acknowledged allowed and preserved to it if once it loose the force and vigour of a Law it s a signe it declines it growes weak and unprofitable and that is a signe it will not long last we must go look our salvation by some other way c. Thus we see how he contradiets the popular errours of these times about Law and Gospel and therefore it cannot be conceived that his discourse here tends to the nourishing of such dangerous and novel opinions as our solifidians do now cry up If we have the summe of these two we may assure our selves that we have as much as is needful for our salvation and the summe of them both are necessary principles The Evangelist hath them both in one verse The Law was given by Moses but Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Seeing then that these are the two parts we are to consider in the first place which of them is first to be handled We say we must speak first of the Law 1. First because the Law and the Gospel are nothing else but two Covenants which God made with mankinde and in that respect are called the Old and New Testaments considering them not as they are in the Books for so in the old Testament there is the Gospel also the Law being as S. Aug. saith Evangelium absconditum and the Gospel Lex revelata the Law revealed the Gospel the new law and the Law the old Gospel but as they be Covenants Now taking them as Legacies in a will there are
God Addition 11. Of the seat of faith Reasons why God should be feared Of 〈◊〉 and servile fear How Fear and Love may stand together The sins forbidden 1. Want of Fear 2. worldly fear Motives to fear taken from Gods judgements The signes of fear CHAP. IX Page 128. The fourth inward vertue is humility The nature of it The properties of it Of Pride The nature and degrees of it Signes of Pride The punishments of Pride Of forced humility Of counterfeit humility The means of humility The signes of humilitie CHAP. X. Page 136. Of the fifth inward vertue Hope Hope and Fear come both from Faith The several uses of Hope The nature and exercise of Hope Of Presumption and Despair Reasons against both Means to strengthen Hope Signes of true Hope CHAP. XI Page 142. The sixth duty is prayer The end of prayer Gods Glory The necessity of it The power of prayer The parts of prayer 1. Deprecation 2. Petition Why God denies some things we ask 3. Intercession 4. Thanksgiving which consists of 1. Confession 2. Complacency 3. Promulgation 4. Provocation of others The excellency of praising God The properties of true prayer The helps to prayer Signes of faithful prayer Of causing others to pray CHAP. XII Page 154. The seventh vertue required is Love of God That God is to be loved Of mercenary and free Love The excellency of Love The measure of Love The opposites to the Love of God 1. Love of the world 2. Self-love 3. Stupidity 4. Loathing of God All the motives of Love are eminently in God 1. Beauty 2. 〈◊〉 3 Benefits bestowed Six signes of Love Of drawing others to love God CHAP. XIII Page 163. The proper effects of Love 1. Obedience 2. Patience How Obedience arises from the Love of God It brings glory to God two wayes Is better then sacrifice in four respects Reasons why we should obaudire Deo There be three speakers 1. God who speaks 1. By his Word 2. by his Works 2. The World 3. Our selves These do obloqui gainsay what God sayes The measure and quality of Obedience Of disobedience that it is a great sin The degrees of it 1. Neglect 2. Contempt Motives to obedience Signes of obedience CHAP. XIIII Page 170 Of Patience How it arises from the Love of God The necessity and excellency of patience Afflictions are either corrections or tryals Reasons of patience in both Of counterfeit patience in Hereticks and others Stupidity no true patience 〈◊〉 thereof Of fainting under the crosse Means of patience Signes of patience Of working patience in others CHAP. XV. Page 178. The second thing required in the first Commandment To have the true God for our God Reasons hereof Of true Religion this is the true pearl to be sought Three rules in seeking The extreams of Religion 1. Idolatry 2. Superstition 3. Profanenesse 4. Novelty of which three degrees 1. Schisme 2. Heresy 3. Apostacy The means of true Religion The signes of procuring it in others CHAP. XVI page 182 The third thing required in the first Commandement is to have onely the true God which includes sincerity Reasons hereof The contraries to sincerity Means of sincerity Signes of sincerity Of procuring it in others CHAP. XVII page 184 Of the last words in the first Commandement Coram me in which is implied Integritie Reasons for it Of Hypocrisie and reasons against it Signes of a sound heart An observation from the first words Non habebis They are in the Future tense and imply perseverance Reasons for it The extreams 1. Constancy in evil 2. Inconstancy in good Four reasons against Backsliding signes of perseverance Of procuring it in others The Exposition of the second Commandement CHAP. XI page 192 The general parts of this Commandement 1. The precept 2. The sanction The precept is negative forbids Idolatry and implies the affirmative 1. That God must be worshipped as he requires 2. That reverence must be shewed in the performance Reasons why this and the fourth Commandement are larger then the rest Reasons for the affirmative and negative part Addition 13. That the making of Images was absolutely forbidden the Jews and in that respect the precept was positive and reached onely unto them Addition 14. Whether all voluntary or free worship be forbidden under the name of will-worship CHAP. II. page 196 That God will not be worshipped by Images the several words whereby Image-worship is forbidden why God appointed the making of Cherubims and the brazen Serpent Reasons against worshipping of Images the original of Images four occasions of the use of Images some in times of persecution some in times of peace CHAP. III. page 202 What the Romanists alledge out of the Fathers ancient Liturgies and Councels for Images Add. 13. Of S. Chrysostomes Liturgy Add. 14. Of the second Nicene Councel The words mistaken in the capitular of Charls the great and in the Synod of Frankford and Paris Testimonies of the Fathers against Images CHAP. IV. page 204 The five Rules of extent for expounding this Commandement Of the affirmative part of it In Gods outward worship are two things 1. the substance 2. the ceremony The first consists of 1. Preaching Addition 15. How preaching is a part of Gods worship 2. Prayer 3. Sacraments Addition 16. The Eucharist considered as a Sacrament and a Sacrifice 4 Discipline CHAP. V. page 208 Of Ceremonies in Gods worship The use of them 4. Cautions to be observed abont them The means of preserving Gods worship The signes Addition 17. Concerning customs and traditions of the Church The 6. Rules of causing others to keep this Commandement CHAP. VI page 210 Of the manner of outward worship no reveronce nor worship to be performed to Images 1. The distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 examined 2. That evasion that not the Image but God by the Image is worshipped taken away 3. That they are Lay-mens books examined 4. That Images are to put us in minde of the Saints examined Addition 20. About Images and pictures for memories sake CHAP. VII page 214 The affirmative part of this precept concerning the manner of outward worship 3. Reasons for outward bodily worship Outward honour consists 1. In the signe 2. In the act Of the signe by 1. Vncovering the head 2. Bowing the body Of the act or deed 1. By being at Gods command 2. By doing his work or service Of the gesture of Reverence 1. In publick and private prayer 2. At hearing the word 3. At the administration of Sacraments 4. At discipline The sins against these In publick worship must be 1. Vniformity 2. Fear 3. The heart must be present 4. Silence 5. Constancy to tarry till all be done The means of outward worship The signes CHAP. VIII page 221 Of the second part of this precept The sanction or penalty This is the first Commandment with a penalty Reasons of it The parts of this sanction 1. Gods stile 2. A commination 3. A promise 1. Gods stile
lest at the quitting them from the outward they have neither the inward nor the outward but be like the sons of Belial that is be under no yoke nor government at all 9. The very Heathen could see an aptnesse and disposition in their children to vice and we may perceive their inclinations and propensity to prophane and scurrilous jeasts Therefore we are to take the advantage of their dispositions betimes and to imploy and exercise them in things that are good to which if they be well ordered they will be as apt as to bad For no doubt but if children can say of themselves Bald-head to Elisha they may be easily taught to say Hosanna to Christ. 10. That time is ever to be taken which fitteth any thing best but the time of youth is most fit to learn in respect of the docibility of it They are like to a new Mortar which savoureth most of that spice which is first beaten in it and to a new vessell that retaines the sent of the first Liquor which was put into it Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit 〈◊〉 Testa diu As also in respect that this age is free from those cares and passions which the world infuseth into men of elder age as ambition malice adultery covetousnesse and the like which have been great remoras and impediments in matters of religion to those of riper yeares So much for the time when now for the manner how children are to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will teach or catechize you saith David in this text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Although an argument from the name proveth little yet it explaineth well the English and the Latine follow well the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seemeth also to be proportioned from the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to iterate or to doe any thing the second time or of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth first acuere to whet or sharpen to make it the fitter to enter And 2. repetere to goe over and over the same thing as we use to doe with our knives upon a whetstone And in both these are contained the duties both of Catechist and Catichized Of the first by making his doctrine the easier to enter by giving it such an edg by a perspicuous method as that children may not onely understand but carry away also what he delivereth to them of the later by often going over that which he is taught as a knife doth a whetstone and to repeate and iterate it till he have made it his own So that we see that in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resound is included an iteration from which word we have our Eccho in English 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is indeed to sound the last syllable and such sounders happily there are enough but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to sound the whole after one againe And such is the repetition which is required of the right and true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 young catechised Christians and those places are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that give the whole verse or word againe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catechism is the doctrine of Godlinesse or Religion first declared by the Catechiser to learners of which afterwards account is given by the learners to their instructer And it is thus distinguished from Preaching 1. Preaching is a dilating of one Member or point of Religion into a just Treatise Catechising is a contracting of the whole body of Religion into an 〈◊〉 or Summe 2. Preaching is applyed for the capacity of all sorts of people old and young Catechising is appointed onely for the younger sort and those which are ignorant 3. In Preaching there 's no repetition required from the Auditors In Catechising an accompt or repetition is to be exacted from the Catechised Now upon these differences 3 things are to be considered or 3. queres are to be made 1. By what warrant Abridgments or Summes are made 2. What we have to warrant teaching of children by way of Catechising 3. Upon what grounds answers are to be made by the Catechised 1. The warrant for the first we have from Christ himselfe who in his answer to the Lawyer reduced the whole Law under two heads The love of God and our neighbour 2. Againe our Saviour catechising Nicodemus made an Epitome or Abridgment of the Gospel under one head Sic Deus dilexit Mundum So God loved the world that he gave 〈◊〉 onely begotten Son that whosoever beleeved on him might not perish but have everlasting life 3. Solomon also in his booke of the Preacher reduceth the whole duty of man into two heads 1 feare God 2 and keep his commandments 4. Saint Paul in his speech to the Elders of Ephesus draweth the principles of Religion to these two 〈◊〉 and Repentance Repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. And in another place Repentance from dead works and faith towards God 5. The 〈◊〉 are of opinion that teaching by way of Summe is meant by Saint Paul when he speaketh of the forme of sound words and of That form of Doctrine and the proportion or analogy of faith 6. Lastly 〈◊〉 we know have their 〈◊〉 Lawyers their 〈◊〉 Philosophers Isagoges and therefore Divines may have their Epitomes If we demand a reason hereof our Saviour sheweth us one that we may be able 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have a dependance or be able to referre all our readings and hearings to certain principall head thereby to enclose or limit our study And the Rabbins say that the 2 heads to which Christ reduced the Law and the Prophets were 〈◊〉 legis an hedg of the Law containing the heads of the generall doctrine lest we should wander in infinito campo in too large a field and so waver Clemens calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 basis a foundation or groundplot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a first or rough draught of a Picture And as these abridgments are for our shorter so for our more easy attayning to the knowledg of that which may 〈◊〉 us to salvation And such were the sermons of the Apostles when they baptized so many hundreds in one day Concerning which it is well aid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thanks be to our blessed God who hath made necessary doctrines compendious and doctrines which are not compendious not so necessary But here we must take with us a double Proviso 1. That we remain before Gods judgement seat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inexcusable if we seek not his knowledge being made easy by a short compendium 2. We must grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ And we must not be ever hildren but men in understanding And after we have heard the word of truth so compe diously delivered we must trust and beleeve in it being the Gospel of our salvation We are not
a passage to the Corinthians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I may catechize others We finde three eminent persons noted to us in Scripture that were catechumeni catechized The first was Theophilus of whom Saint Luke testifieth It seemed good to me saith he to write to thee in order that thou mightest know the certainty of those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning which thou wert catechized or instructed The second was Apollos of whom also Saint Luke gives this commendation that he was mighty in the Scriptures and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this man was catechized or instructed in the way of the Lord. The third was Timothy of whom saint Paul testifies that he had known the the Scriptures from a childe And in one place mention is made both of the Catechist and Catechized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. After the Apostles times the first Catechist of any fame was the Evangelist Mark in Alexandria after him Pantenus then Clemens Origen Cyril of Jerusalem Gregory Nyssen Athanasius Fulgentius S. Augustine and others And that there were catechumeni in the Church in all ages may appear by the canons of diverse Councels Hegesippus converted from Judaism to Christianity in his Ecclesiasticall story reports that this work of catechizing wrought so great effect that there was no known commonwealth inhabited in that part of the world but within fourty years after our saviours passion 〈◊〉 superstition was shaken in it by Catechizing So that Julian the Apostata the greatest enemy that ever Christians had found no speedier way to root out Christian religion then by suppressing Christian schools and places of catechizing and if he had not been as a Cloud that soon passeth away it might have been feared that in a short time he had overshadowed true Religion 1 And when Catechizing was left off in the Church it soon became darkned and over-spread with ignorance The Papists therefore acknowledge that all the advantage which the protestants have gotten of them hath come by this exercise and it is to be feared that if ever thy get ground of us it will be by their more exact and frequent Catechizing then ours 3. Concerning the third quaere The reasons why this custome of catechizing by way of question and answer hath ever been continued seem to be these 1 Because of the account every one must give Our Saviour tells it us reddes rationem we must render an accompt And every man will will be most wary in that for which he must be accomptable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Because we are all young and old to give an accompt of our faith Be ready saith Saint Peter alwayes to give answer to every one that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you a solid reason not a phanatique opinion And by this we shall be the better fitted to these four necessary duties 1 of examining the doctrine we heare 2 Of examining our selves before we heare the word and receive the sacrements 3 Of admonishing our brethren which we cannot doe unlesse we be fitted with knowledge 4 Of adhering to the truth Because being children we doe imbibere errcres ergo exuendi sunt et induendaveritas we drink in errours which must be shaken of and our loynes must be girt with truth The Heathen man adviseth us that in all our actions we propound to our selves Cui bono What good will arise by that we goe about In this certainly the fruit is great diverse wayes 1 It will be acceptable to God to spend our hours in his service 2 We shall learn hereby to know God and his son Jesus Christ. Whom to know is life eternal 3 It will procure length of happy dayes in this life 4 Lastly the fruit of it is holines and the end everlasting life Now 〈◊〉 the fruit is so great we are to take especial care that the hours we spend in this exercise be not lost and so we be deprived of the fruit For as in natural Philosophy it is held a great absurdity ut aliquid frustra fiat that any thing be done in vain or to no purpose and in morall ut sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there be a vain and fruitlesse desire so in divinity much more S. Paul useth it as an argument to the corinthians to prove the resurrection that if there should be none then both his preaching and their faith were in vain And in another place he did so forecast his manner of the conversion of the gentiles ne forte currat in vanum lest he might run in vain Therefore as the same Apostle desired the Corinthians not to receive the grace of God in vain so are we to be careful that we heare nothing in vain lest we be like those in Jeremy that let the bellows blow and the lead consume in the fire and the founder melt in vain upon which place saith the glosse that all pains and labour which is taken with such people is in vain and lost But the word of God cannot be in vain in three respects 1 In respect of it self 2 In respect of the Catechist 3 In respect of the Catechized 1 In respect of it self it cannot be in vain For God himself maintaineth the contrary As the rain cometh down saith he by the Prophet and the snow from heaven and returneth not thither but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth and budd that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater So shall the word be that goeth forth out of my mouth it shall not return to me void but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it 2 Nor can it be in vain in respect of the Catechizer or him that delivereth it I have laboured in vain saith the Prophet I have spent my strength for nought and in 〈◊〉 yet surely mark that my judgement is with the Lord and my work with my God The paines which the Catechizer takes is not in vain because God seeing he hath done his part will accept of his endeavours though his 〈◊〉 reject and 〈◊〉 them And if the son of peace be there 〈◊〉 peace shall rest upon him if not redibit ad vos it shall returne to you again saith Christ to his disciples And the Apostle most plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish Therefore we ought to be very carefull how we behave our selves in hearing 3 Lastly it cannot be in vain to the Catechized If we come to heare with a good intent the spirit of God takes order that the word shall be profitable and fruitful like good seed sowed in good ground And to this purpose it is that Saint Gregory saith Cum verbiboni auditores 〈◊〉 pro reficiendis eis majora
to worship him in an image called Thor and continue his worship to this day We shall insist especially upon the third Errour Atheisme They which have stood in defence of this errour set down these five Heads for their grounds 1. That there was a time when there was no society among them but that they wandred promiscuously like 〈◊〉 2. That by the wisdom of some excellent man they were reduced into society and became sociable being made a political body 3. That to contain men within their duties and to preserve this society lawes were enacted 4. That these lawes being not able to bridle them and keep them in order another course was invented which was to perswade men that there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an invisible power that took notice of mens secret actions and would punish them for their offences either in this life or hereafter and that severely as well in soul as body This they say but prove nothing and yet themselves will yeeld to nothing nor be perswaded to any thing without great proofs and demonstrations and so condemn themselves by their own practise Nor can they alledge reason or authority all these grounds being false For first if there were Nomades such kinde of people as they alledge yet they became so not generando by creation but degenerando by degenerating from that whereunto they were created either being outlawed by othere or 〈◊〉 themselves from society for some notable offence committed by them 2. That a society was made from these Nomades is as untrue for 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est animal politicum Of himself man is naturally a 〈◊〉 and sociable creature and political societies began first in Families and from Families they 〈◊〉 to Villages and from them to Cities c. 3. Lawes were made after Religion Religion was long before Lawes as the very Poets and other Heathen Writers testifie For in 〈◊〉 time there was Religion and yet no Laws other then the wils and pleasures of Princes known then and their own stories testifie that Lawes came into the World 1000 years after Religion But when men began to degenerate and that Religion became too weak not powerful enough to keep such bruitish people with in their bounds then were Laws enacted to be as bridles to untamed and unruly horses But more particularly of these 1. The universality of the perswasion of the worship of God is not onely written in the heart of every man but it is confirmed by the consent of all History for there is no History but it describes as well the Religion as the manners of the people and therefore it is impossible to be the invention of man As for instance The Nations and Countreys that have been discovered within these hundred years by the Spaniards and Portugals in the Americane part of the World both in the South and West which had no entercourse or commerce with any other Nations the Natives whereof though in a manner they seemed barbarous as having no apparel to cover them nor lawes to govern them yet were they not without a kinde of Religion and something they had which they called and worshipped as a god though they had nothing but either natural instinct to lead and direct them to it or general and unquestioned tradition continued from the first parents of mankinde 2. Nor can it be truly affirmed that these Nations should have learned their religion meerly from others bordering upon them in respect of the difference and 〈◊〉 of Religion among them there being as much variety therein as is possible and without the least proportion or likenesse of one religion to another though in conditions they be very like But all inventions will have some analogy with the 〈◊〉 For as soon as the Jewes came to worship an invisible thing God himself all the Gentiles worshipped things visible as the Heavens Stars Planets Elements Birds Beasts Plants Garlick and Onions some a piece of red cloath hanging upon a pole some the thing they first met with they worshipped all the following day Therefore it is evident that Religion came not meerly by Propagation from one Nation to another 3. Falsehood can claim no kindred with Time for truth onely is Times 〈◊〉 or rather we may say more truly that truth is beyond all time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delet dies naturae indicia confirmat Time obliterates the fictions of 〈◊〉 opinions but confirmes the right and true 〈◊〉 of nature Therefore whatsoever is besides truth and brought in by mans invention or any other way wears 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 is was and shall be perpetual never wears out 4 If it be objected that the reason why Religion continueth so long is because they are kept in awe by it that otherwise would be exorbitant This is an argument against them that make that objection For falsehood and truth are not competible cannot stand together And they will not say that policy is a fained thing in a Common-wealth Therefore if Religion uphold policie it must needs be true and not fained for truth needs no fained thing nor falsehood to maintain it The very Heathen confesse that Religion upholds all politique states and common-wealths and that it is the Back-bone of them And that it is so we may see it by three things 1 It preserves faith in mutuall transactions and commerce For take away faith or fidelity from among men and men would not trust one another There would be no dealings no commerce at all 2 It preserves temperance for without Religion the head-strong concupiscence and unbridled affections of men would not be kept in true temper and order 3 It preserves Obedience and submission to Government No people without Religion would be subject to Authority no one Country would obey one Prince and so no Kingdom would subsist Now concerning the Originall of Atheisme the very persons that forged it and the just time and place of that forgery cannot easily be shown The person or first broacher of it as some conjecture was Chaem the youngest son of 〈◊〉 whom the Heathen call Cambyses who upon the Curse of God and his father denounced against him began it Egypt was the place and the time accord-to Josephus was about Anno Mundi 1950. This man seeing himself deprived of all future joyes gave himself to sensualitie and brutish pleasures in this world and began to teach that there was no God but fell to worship the Devil from whence he was called 〈◊〉 the great Magitian This is the opinion of some But doubtlesse whosoever was the Author the time was ancient and not long after the deluge For then as the world encreased with people so it was fruitfull in sin and impiety So that neare to these times it must needs take its originall And surely those things that were the true causes of it afterwards doubtlesse gave it the first being Namely 1 Stomack anger and desire ofrevenge 2 Sensuality and delight in the pleasure of this life drowning all thoughts of a better life hereafter
yet privately they condemned it and held it inconvenient And therefore though they had many gods yet to some they gave the place and title of a father and to the other of children to some of a King and to the rest of Subjects The advise of Pythagoras to his Shcolers was to search till they came to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unity in every thing And Aristotles drift was to seek for primum the first and the omnium primum and the primum ex primis the first of all Plato in his first epistle to Dionysius gives him this rule that in those epistles which he writes of certain truth he begins with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and in those which contain doubtful things he begins with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods making God his note of truth and Gods of uncertainty 〈◊〉 rule to his Scholers was Dicite plures dicite nullum say there be many Gods and say there be none and Sophocles held in truth Vnus est Deus there is but one God So that among themselves they muttered the truth howsoever either for fear of punishment or disturbing the peace of the Common-wealth they thought fit to suffer the people to live in their errour of Polytheisme But because Saint Augustine saith that in the Primitive Church the Philosophers were ashamed of their multiplicity of Gods and therefore gave out that the Ancients were never so absurd as to worship many Gods but onely gave one God diverse names to distinguish their effects and not conceiving that there were diverse Gods but ascribed power to one God onely we will consider it a little further 1. For first it is certain that they had diversity of Gods 2. and secondly they erected several images to them Now if they were circumscript then could they be no gods for Deus non potest circumscribi quia infinitus God cannot be circumscribed because he is infinite and if an image could expresse them they were circumscript 2. Again the whole course of Heathen religion sought no further then their eye led them struck no further then the skin looked only after outward actions they neither would nor could search into the reins nor had any remedy to restrain the heart and minde and the vices thereof as hypocrisy c. but true religion such as is that of the Christians forbiddeth concupiscence and bridleth the affections strikes deeper then that of the Heathen therefore have the Heathen neither true God nor true Religion 3. They attribute but particular honour to particular Gods in respect of the particular benefits they conceive that they receive respectively from them as to some for the benefit of physick to some for their good successe in war and the like but that God onely is to be honoured whose providence extends universally and hath power alike in all things which as they confesse theirs had not and there fore are not Gods 4 Again the objection of Cyrill to Julian which made him to stagger is strong against them That it being the sinne of the body which defileth the soule the soule had need of something to purge and cleanse it but their Religion having nothing in it to cleanse the heart and soule as well as the body cannot be the true Religion 5 That their Gods were no Gods but men appeares in that their parents were known and confest by the Heathen writers themselves as of Hesiod in his Theognia Tullie de natura deorum and others as also by Cyril against Julian Augustine in his bookes de Givitate dei Eusebius de preparatione Evangelica but best by Gregory Nyssen cyprian de vanitate Idolorum And Alexander the Great in a private conference with Leo a priest of Egypt was enformed by him that the Gods of the Graecians and other nations came out of Egypt that the religion of the Greeks came from Egyptians by the meanes of Cecrops and from Phaenicia by Cadmus That the Romans had theirs from the Greeks by Numa Pompilius And the Egyptian Gods were but men for their descents were known as Hermes Tresmegistus and Esculapius who discended from Vranius and Mercurius and yet these were reputed to be their Gods 6 Again Their Gods were not onely Men but wicked men For Religion being nothing but a faculty to make men perfect and fit them for a more blessed life by framing them in fimilitude to the actions and perfections of God their Gods as they were but men and no Gods so were they men of wicked lives and conversation stigmatyzed with rapes adulteries and the like sins as not onely their own stories testifie of them but other historians also without exception as Eusebius Cyrill 〈◊〉 against Appion Athanasius Origen Tertullian Lactantius and others But here will be made a question or objection consisting of 2. parts 1. If their Gods were but men how came they to be worshipped Cultu divino with divine honour 2. And secondly how came Beasts to be worshipped by the Heathen with the like worship 1. To these may be answered First that after the flood there being a general revolt from religion and the true worship of God except that among the Jews there was infuced this Maxime into the minds of many that men were to worship them that did them good or delivered them from evill 2 Another cause of divine worship given to men we have from Porphyries relation that Ninus having obtained the Monarchy erected an image to the honour and memory of his father Belus and because he would have it no lesse respected by others then by himself he made it a sanctuary for offendours and debters So that many having received benefit by it and withal thinking to ingratiate themselves with Ninus who then bare absolute rule instituted feasts upon certain dayes to it at which times they adorned the Image with garlands and made hymns which they sang to the honour of father and son Now the ground of this institution being forgotten they which succeeded in after times became so superstitious in this service that they made prayers and offered sacrifices to this image which was the same Bel which in the broader dialect of the Hebrews was called Baal Thus images erected to the memory of mens vertues became to be worshipped when the cause of their erection was forgotten And from Prosopopeia's and Apostrophes to the deceased they began to pray to the very images 2 For the diefying of Beasts the answer is this Plutarch reports that Osyris being King of Egypt and dividing his kingdom into Provinces gave a several badge or cognizance to every one according to the quality and condition of each province as most natural to the things most abounding in it as to that which consisted most in 〈◊〉 he designed an Ox to that which was most plentiful in woods a Dog to that wherein was most meadow a Clod with a little grasse on the top which we call a Turfe and to that wherein was most
untruthes in it whereof two are in one Section 1. That the Virgin Mary was sister to Moses and 2. That Abraham was the son of Lazarus the Begger neither of them being contemporary by many hundreds of years 3. Their Doctrine is carnal and foolish placing happinesse in pleasure taken in things visible and sensible and hath many fond relations as that Mahomet being in heaven did see not onely Gods face but felt his hand and that they were seventy times colder then ice And that the Angels have bodies and heads and one of them seven thousand heads That the Devils are circumcised and therefore have bodies That the stars are nothing else but candles in a round glasse hanging down by chains and the 〈◊〉 foolish and absurd doctrines are contained in the book of their religion 4. His promises are meerly carnal too fit for none but Heliogabalus such are those of his paradise and honours with the lusts of the flesh And his precepts are licentious giving indulgence to perjury and swearing to revenge and murder accounting it an impioùs thing non ulcisci injuriam not to revenge an injury Their practise confirmes their permission of Polygamy for every man may have four wives and more Concubines They favour Adulterie for no Adulterer is condemned without four witnesses For the sin against nature and coupling with Beasts they have a toleration nay they which offend most this way are reputed the holiest And for spoiling and robbing of others in via Dei as they call it in the way of God we see by experience that it is so common with them that it is dangerous travailing in those countreys except there be an hundred or two hundred in a company 5. Mahomets Miracles are set down but without witnesse or possibility of truth As that he being a childe and driving cattel for that was his profession the Angel Gabriel took a lump of blood out of his heart and closed it again This lump he affirmed to be the original sin in man but Anatomists say that there is no such blood in the heart Another as grosse as this is That he being with one his of kinsmen abroad in a cleare moon-shine night his Cousin requested him to cause the Moon to come down and to divide it self and that the one half of it might come into his kinsmans sleeve and the other into the other sleeve and come whole again out of his breast and then ascend again which it did But it is a great wonder that the Astronomers at that time missed her not from heaven seeing they have noted the very least Eclypse but indeed it was a private miracle between them two and a man of mean understanding would conceive it impossible that so great a body should come into a little pair of sleeves 6. The means of propagating his Religion was unnatural and cruel that is by the sword for God as he affirms delivered a sword to him to compell and force men that otherwise would not be perswaded to adhere to his Religion 7. Lastly this Religion and Christianity increased not the same way for Christianity was propagated by being killed Turcisme by killing Christianity by Truth the other by perjury Christianity by the word of God the other by the policy of men hath increased to that growth and height it is And therefore as we said of the two former so here this Religion is false and to be consemned CHAP. XI Of Christian religion The truth thereof in general proved 1. By the antiquity of it out of the Heathen authors themselves 2. By the continuance and preservation of it 3. By the certainty 4 By the end it leads to viz. to God it gives all honour to him Deprives man of all Other reasons It restraines carnal liberty allowed by false Religions reaches to the heart It contains mysteries above mans capacity Teaches contempt of the world requires spiritual worship Confirmed by miracles beyond exception Prophecies THe last and true Religion is Christianity which being in the last of the four points propounded in the beginning That the Scriptures of the old and new Testament being Gods word whether our religion be truely grounded upon it Saint Peter saith concerning this religion we have a more sure word of prophecy c. that is we are certain and assured that the Scriptures are true and so were they from whom we received them And though there be but a small portion of them immediately from God yet the rest which were delivered by the Ministery of Man were inspired into them that left them to us by the spirit of God and therefore we must hold them as infallible truthes And that the Scriptures and Christianity are so is to be proved by four arguments 1. from the antiquity of them 2. from the continuance and preservation of them 3. from the certainty of them 4. From the end whereto they tend for we are to 〈◊〉 both the word of God and Christian religion in all the arguments subsequent except some few 1. Touching the Antiquity we say that seeing that a man is to come to God by some way or means and that as we have seen religion is the onely way it must necessarily follow that this way is as ancient as man himself else man should have been sometime without a way to come to his Creator if at any time he had been without religion and so consequently have been frustrate of the end of his creation For religio est copula relationis religion is the 〈◊〉 of relation between God and Man the Creator and the Creature 2. Tertullian saith quod primum id verum that which is first is true and this maxime holdeth as well in Religion as in other things For the Philosophers say Prima entia sunt maxime vera the first essence are most real and true Because that as the ttuth is an affection of that that is so falsehood is an affection of that which is not for falsehood cannot consistere in suo sed in alieno consist in any thing which is its own but from another Therefore falsehood must be after truth But the Christians religion is in some sort included in that which the Jews had before Christ so that 〈◊〉 Law may be called the Old Gospel and the Gospel the new Law In the Law is Evangelium absconditum the Gospel under a vail in the Gospel is Lex revelata the revealed Law So that the Jews agreed with us till the coming of Christ and then left us As for the Heathen Religion part of their stories which are the records thereof is fabulous and part true 1. That part which is fabulous began with their gods and their original further then that they cannot go And Homer and Orpheus write not of them till after the Trojan war and lived after the time of Moses above eight hundred yeers and almost three thousand yeers after the Chronology of the Bible began which is testified
by divers of their own writers 2. And if their fabulous part come short of our religion for Antiquity then much shorter must that part needs be which is true For Varro who lived not above fifty years before our Saviours time saith that the true Story of the Heathen could not be derived above 700 yeers before his time And it is sure that the most ancient records of theirs which are true began with the seven wise men of Greece of whom Solon was the chief and most ancient and he was contemporary with Croesus he with Cyrus and Esdras with him Now Esdras was one of the last Canonical writers of the old Testament So that we may safely conclude this against the Heathen religion that almost the whole story of the Bible was written before any authentique writer or record was extant of the Heathen story and most part of it was written before the fabulous part of it was delivered to them in writing Their ancientest Historiographer is Herodotus who beginneth his story with the acts of Croesus By all which we may plainly perceive that Christian Religion is of farre greater antiquity then the Heathen This also we may adde that whatsoever is either good or true in their Religion was had from the Jewes For the Druides among the Gauls and the Bardi an offspring of them derive all theirs from the Greeks as also the Romans and the Greeks from Cecrops an Egyptian as also the Carthaginians from Cadmus a Phoenician Now Phoenicia bordereth northward upon Jury and Egypt southward So that all that was good in the Heathen Religion must be derived from the Jews The wise men of Greece enquiring of their Oracles how they might get wisdom and from whence the knowledge of arts was to be had received this answer that it was to be had from the Chaldees Solus utique Chaldeus sapiens the Chaldean was truely the onely wise man Which speech in the Greek idiotisme denoteth some particular part of the Chaldeans which was the Jews For Abraham coming from Chaldea was reputed a Chaldean and the Jewes from him were termed Chaldeans Orpheus also the Poet saith that when God being angry with mankinde had destroyed all he revealed all knowledge and wisdom uni Chaldeo ' to one Chaldean onely And Plato in his Epimenides referred all learning uni Barbaro If we enquire who by this Chaldeus or Barbarus was meant the Egyptians tell us by calling him Theut which in the Chaldee language signifies a stranger which in all probability must be applied to Abraham who was by God called out of Chaldea And Eusebius out of Manetho testifies that Abraham was had in such reverence in those parts that their chiefest Exorcisms were wont to be per deum Abraham by the god Abraham And the same Manetho alledgeth that in many places of those countreys in their Temples and elswhere his name was written and engraven for memory of him Again the verses of Phocylides the Poet who lived in the fifty ninth Olympiad seem to be translated verbatim out of the Law of Moses and may be particularly pointed at in Deuteronomy Numbers and Exodus But to examine their own records Plutarch saith that Solon fetched all his wisdom from the Egyptians and Plato his from Chaldea Strabo saith that Pythagoras had daily conference in Mount Carmel and that in that mount were ambulachra Pythagorea Pythagoras walks and there be some of the Heathen that report him to be circumcised Eusebius saith out of one Clearchas a Peripatetick that though Aristotle were never in Egypt yet he daily conser'd with an Egyptian or a Jew And Demetrius Phalereus that was Librarie keeper of Ptolomeus Philadelphus in Egypt told him that he heard the Disciples of Aristotle say that divers Philosophers and Poets had attempted to translate the Old Testament into Greek And in the same book in the Epistle of Aristobulus it is said that part thereof was translated before the Persian Empire began long before it was translated by the Septuagint or seventy men But it appeareth that it hath pleased God in a most strange manner to leave some Register or Chronicle in every famous Nation of it as among the Egyptians Manetho Sanchoniathon among the Phoenicians Berosus among the Chaldeans In Asia Minor Rabbi Abidelus among the Persians Megasthenes c. In Herodotus we shall finde the storie of Sennacherib the edict of Cyrus and almost the whole prophecie of Daniel though somewhat corrupted It is storied by Josephus that Alexander being to travail towards Persia and hearing that the Jews denyed to pay him tribute and for some other affronts as he conceived came towards Jerusalem with purpose utterly to destroy the Jews Whereupon Jaddua the High Priest in his rich and white ornaments accompanied with other Priests met him in the way Assoon as Alexander cast his eye 〈◊〉 Jaddua and remembred that in a vision he had seen one in all resemblance like 〈◊〉 him who had encouraged him to attempt the conquest of the world and as 〈◊〉 he had been a God suddenly alighted and 〈◊〉 down worshipped before him but being admonished thereof by Parmenio he said he worshipped that God whose Priest he was and afterward when Jaddua had shewed him and expounded 〈◊〉 Prophecy concerning his Monarchy he gave large priviledges to the Jews and dismissed them honourably After his dayes by the means of Ptolemy in requital of the Interpreters pains taken in translating the Bible the Jews Religion was much propagated Laertius in the life of Epimenides saith that the Athenians consulting with the Oracle concerning the cause of a great plague among them were answered that they were not to sacrifice to their own gods as in the Acts but to another which was above theirs and had sent this plague among them and withal that they must appease him by Sacrifice But the plague neverthelesse continuing they sent again to know where they should sacrifice the answer was they should let the beasts go voluntarily and where they staid they should sacrifice The horses hereupon were turned loose with sacrifices upon their backs and they stayed in the street of Mars in a fair broad place where they built an Altar and dedicated it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the unknown God The like is in the Roman story The Romans in memory of a victory obtained of their enemies erected a Temple to Bacchus calling it Templum pacis 〈◊〉 the everlasting Temple of peace And afterwards consulting with their Oracle how long it should continue received this answer Donec peperit virgo while a virgin should bring forth a child which because they conceived would never be they called it eternum But at the time when Christ was born in the shutting up of an evening the Temple fell to the ground of it self And thus much for the Antiquity of Christian religion and consequently for the truth of it according to the Maxime of Philosophers Quod primum id verum that is true which
was an enigmatical speech of our Trinity But no Religion teacheth the purgation of the soul but ours And it teacheth that the word took the similitude of sinful flesh to purge away the sinne of Man Therefore our Religion is the true all other are meerly fabulous For their Exorcismes and sacrifices are meerly corporeal not spiritual and the Christians God is not like the Heathen Gods 2 God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of man he delighteth not in cutting of throats or burning men to ashes like to the Devills to whom virgins babes old and young men were sacrificed And the sacrifices in the old Law were vsed in these 2 respects 1 To be Types of things in the Gospel 2 To admonish men that they have deserved to be slain and sacrificed But God is so far from the sacrificing of men to him that he himself came down from heaven and suffered for us offering himself a sacrifice for our sins and what greater love can there be then that a man should give his life for that he loveth there can be no greater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then this 3 For the credit of the Gospel we have Evangelists and Apostles for witnesses And in witnesses two things are required Knowledge and Honesty 1. For skill and knowledge That which our witnesses have left us upon record is not taken upon trust but they related it as eye witnesses And none of theirs either Homer Plato or any of them can say as Saint John said That which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled For they had theirs from others and but upon bare report Besides neither any of their ancient or latter Historians though they hated the writers of the Scriptures durst at any time offer to set pen to paper against them 2. For the honesty of our witnesses there can be no better reason or proof given then that which Tacitus giveth to confirme the testimony of an honest witnesse which is Quibus nullum est mendacii 〈◊〉 that have no reward for telling an untruth And certainly the Evangelists and Apostles had nothing for their paines nay they were so far from that as that they sealed their testimonies with the blood of Martyrdome 3. For the credit of the Story itself We know that the Sybils oracles were in so great credit among the Heathen that they were generally beleeved Now if they be true which we have of them as ther 's no question but many of them are divers of which we refer to Christ being mentioned in their own writers Virgil Cicero and others it will follow that nothing can make more in their esteeme for the credit and truth of the Nativity life and death of Christ then their Oracles for we may see almost every circumstance in them And by reading their verses divers of their learned men were converted to Christianity as Marcellinus Secundanus and others 4. Tacitus and Suetonius say that about Christs time it was bruited through the world that the king that should rule over all the world should come out of Jury and for this cause it was that not onely Vespasian but Augustus and Tiberius who had heard the like had a purpose to have destroyed all the Jews even the whole nation of them because they would be sure to include that Tribe out of which this king should come 5 Coelius Rhodiginus and Volateranus upon their credits leave us this in their writings that among the Monuments of Egypt was found an Altar dedicated Virgini pariturae to a Virgin that should have a child like to the Temple of peace before mentioned that should stand Donec peperit virgo untill a virgin should bring forth a child And Postellus testifies from the Druides that they had an Altar with this inscription Ara primo-genito Dei an Altar to the first begotten of God 6. Suetonius saith that in such a yeare which was the year before Christs birth in a faire day at the time of a great concourse of people at 〈◊〉 there appeared a great Rain-bow as it were about the Sun of a golden colour almost of equal brightnesse with the Sun The Augur's being demanded the reason answered that God would shortly 〈◊〉 humanum genus visit mankinde And upon the day that our Saviour was born three Suns appeared in the firmament which afterward met and joyned into one The Augur's being likewise questioned about this apparition their answer was that he was then born whom Angustus the people and the whole world should worship whereupon as it is storied Augustus at the next meeting of the Senate gave over his title of dominus orbis terrarum Lord of the whole world and would be so stiled no more 7. But the most remarkable thing that hapned at Christs birth was the star mencioned in the Gospel and confessed by the Heathen themselves to be stella maxime salutaris the happiest star that ever appeared for mankinde Plinie calleth it Stella crinita sine crine A blazing or hairy star without haire Vpon the appearance and due consideration of which star many were converted to the truth as Charemon among the stoicks and Challadius among the Platonists who meditating upon the strangenesse of it went into Jury and became Proselytes 8. Now concerning the death of Christ we finde that the ancient Egyptians who vsed no letters but Characters or Hieroglyphiques when they would expresse vitam aeternam everlasting life they did it by the signe of the Crosse whereby they deciphered the badge of our salvation which concurred with the manner of Christs death 9. The next is the two wonders or strange accidents mentioned by the Holy Ghost at the death of our Saviour 1. The general Earthquake and 2. the universal Eclypse of the Sun so often cast in the teeth of the Heathen 1 For the first they are not ashamed to confesse it As 〈◊〉 himselfe and Trallianus and Phlegon say that it came not of any natural cause For in nature every thing that is moved must have an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 somewhat to stay upon but this Earthquake went thorow the whole world 2 For the Eclypse many were converted by reason of the strangenesse of it as Dionysius and others For all 〈◊〉 of the Sun are particular this general and vniversal This hapned at the feast of the Passeover which was 14 a Lunae the fourteenth day of the Moon when it was just at the full which is cleane opposite to the Rules of Astronomy and mans reason 10. It is reported that in the raigne of Tiberius presently upon this Eclypse there was a general defect of Oracles Of which argument Plutarch hath a whole Treatise in which he saith that a man in great credit with the Emperour sayling by the Cyclades heard a voice as it were coming out of those Islands saying that the great God Pan was dead The Emperour hearing this report sent for the Augurs
to know who this Pan should be but they could give him no satisfaction herein And one asking counsel at the Oracle at Delphos about these things was told that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Puer Hebreus an Hebrew child that had silenced them 11. 〈◊〉 Tertullian and Justin Martyr testifie so doth Eusebius that 〈◊〉 wrote to Tyberius about Christs miracles after his death and that he died and suffered as an innocent person Whereupon Tiberius wrote to the Senate commanding them to deifie him But the Senate refused because Pilate had written to Tiberius and not to them A cheife man in this opposition was Sejanus who afterward came to a miserable end 12. The next and none of the least general arguments to prove the truth of Christian Religion is the progresse of it For whereas nature and reason teach us that in every action fit Instruments must be had and used or else the action will prove defective and vain and that the matter must be well fitted and disposed before we can work it in this case there were neither For in the eye of man there could be no unfitter instruments then the Apostles they being rude unlearned and most of them Mechanique Men And for the matter to work upon they had it altogether unprepared nay clean against them For the Jewes continued the hatred to the Disciples which they had born to the Master continually persecuting them And the most learned among the Gentiles were the greatest opposite to that which they endeavoured namely the propagation of the Gospel as might be as Vlpian the greatest Lawyer who wrote many books against it and the Christians Galen the greatest Physician Plotinus the greatest Platonist Porphyrius the greatest Aristotelian Libanius a great writer in the Greek tongue Lucian a great scoffer and Julian the great Sorcerer who not onely made Dialogues between Christ and Peter to breed hatred and contempt against Christianity but being Emperour bent all his force against it prohibiting Christian schools c. Besides if we consider the ten bloody Persecutions wherein many thousands of Martyrs suffered and that in most horrid and barbarous manner and kindes To which if we adde which was touched before the unaptnesse of the instruments and the matter the World so rigid ill disposed and harsh to work upon and yet to have the work effected it cannot but be confessed that Christianity is the true Religion and that magna est veritas praevalet great is the truth and prevaileth 13. In the next place if we consider how averse and unpleasing to flesh and blood the precepts of this Religion are we must confesse the premises to be true For they give us not leave to be Libertines or licentious and carnal as the Religion of the Turk of which we spake before For instead of taking revenge of our enemies for injuries done unto us we are bound by them to love our enemies and to speak good of them that persecute us Instead of committing folly with a Woman we must not so much as cast our eye upon a woman to lust after her there is not the least thought left at our pleasure Non concupisces Instead of covetous heaping up of riches we must leave all for the truths sake 14. The promises contained in the Scriptures to them that shall observe this Religion are not of the nature of those in the Religion of the Epicures and Turks c. that is honour preferment wealth pleasure in this World and the like but the contrary as They shall whip and scourge you they shall binde and leade you whither you would not take your Crosse and follow me and leave all and follow me But this a man would think were not the way for sequimini me follow me but discedite a me depart from me rather a deterring and disheartning then any manner of perswading And in this there is a great resemblance between the Creation and the Regeneration In the first something was made of nothing and here nothing to confound something that we may plainly see and 〈◊〉 that it is digitus Dei qui hic operatur the finger of God that bringeth this to passe that strength should be confounded by weaknesse something by nothing Therefore this Religion cannot be but Divine 15. Again if we consider the times when Mahomet began to broach his forged Religion we shall finde it to be in a dissolute time a time of idlenesse and ignorance when Heraclius and Constans ruled the Empire the first being an incestuous Prince one that married his brothers daughter and exasperated the Saracens in denying them pay in his wars the other being a Monothelite and bloody having murthered his brother both of them giving opportunity to the Saracens not onely to enlarge their territories but to propagate their Religion And if we shall observe the Ecclesiastical story well we shall finde that Age very much destitute of learned and pious men Whereas on the contrary when Christianity began and prevailed the world was never so full of eyes never so many learned men as the Scribes and Pharisees the Greek Philosophers c. yet it pleased God to work upon the hearts of many of them in converting them to it as upon Paulinus Clemens Origen Augustine Ambrose and others especially many of the Jewish Priests before these Acts 6. 7. 16. And indeed Conversions are a great argument of the truth of Religion The most memorable whereof we see in S. Paul who was a zealous Pharisee who not only had a warrant from the Counsel at Jerusalem to apprehend and imprison all sorts of people addicted to Christianity but was a principal actor in the martyrdom of Saint Stephen And yet he neglecting the preferment he was like to come to by this his forwardnesse was content upon a sudden to expose himself to all dangers and disgrace to whippings perils by sea and land c. and to embrace this as the true Religion And if any say he aimed at honour and esteem among Christians his practice shews the contrary for when the men of Lyaconia would have sacrificed to him and Barnabas with great zeal he opposed it they rent their clothes and ran in amongst them and told them they were men like themselves so far were they from vain glory Insomuch as Porphyrius said of him that it was great pity that so great a Scholar and so near to preferment should have been converted to Christianity The like may be said of Origen after him the fairest for preferment of any in his time who being scholar to Ammonius and preferred by him before Plotinus afterward loaded with honours in the Common-wealth yet he was content to leave all and to betake himself to a poor Catechists place in Alexandria where he was every minute in danger of his life Never in any other Religion appeared the like examples of life and manners as in those of the Christian Religion as of fasting abstinence
continence justice repentance fortitude and other holy vertues insomuch as Plotinus an unpartial witnesse admiring their fortitudes said of them Soli Christiani mortis contemptores Christians are the only despisers of death 17. It was an objection of the Jews we know that our Saviour wrought his miracles malis artibus that he cast out Devils by Beelzebub But the heathen Philosopher Longinus was of another belief For saith he They say that your Saviour wrought his miracles by the skill he learnt in magick while he was in Egypt but I hardly believe it For I reason thus with my self If he were a Magician and wrought by inferiour spirits he could not triumphare de diis triumph over the gods And we may reason thus with ourselves that if he and his followers wrought this way they would never have commanded such austerity of manners and life and forbid all such unlawful means But sure it is that the Christians of the Primitive Church were of such innocent life that Pliny the second testifies to the Emperour Trajan that there were never more innocent people then they and gave him counsel that if any of them were accused for Christianity he should enquire after them because it was contrary to the laws of the Empire otherwise that he should forbear to trouble them if there were no accuser 18. The next general reason to prove the truth of Christianity is the constancy of those that suffered for it not onely of men able and of strength to endure misery but of old and feeble men weak and frail women and young children and that in so ambitious a manner as that they conceived they could attain to no greater honour then to receive the Crown of Martyrdom in defence of it As we may see in the story of the woman with the childe in her armes that crossed the Pro-Consuls horse hastily and being asked the reason answered lest she should come too late to suffer with the other Christians whose names he had in his bill to be put to death for I also said she am a Christian. Tertullian hath an excellent passage concerning this constancy of Christians Nature saith he teacheth every man to be touched with shame or fear for the evil he committeth and therefore malefactors desire to hide themselves to shun discovery trembling for fear of apprehension Being taken and accused they deny the fact and confesse not easily though tortured They lament when they are condemned and rage against themselves imputing it to the malignity of fate or their stars and renounce the fact as knowing it to be evil But Christians do not so none of them is ashamed none of them repenteth but in that he was a Christian no sooner If any man take notice that he is so he glorieth if he be accused and interrogated he conconfesseth freely and voluntarily being condemned he is thankful What evil is in all this What is it evil that he hath no shame fear denyal repentance or lamentation What evil is it when the guilty person rejoyceth whose glory it is to be accused and whose punishment is his happinesse c. Now there is no sect of the Philosophers but one Edict commanding it to be left upon pain of death would dash it as it did in the case of Pyrrho and his fellowes but no Edict could or hath ever Glenced this Religion No 〈◊〉 either by pen or sword could ever suppresse it but the Christians ever tired and made their persecutors weary 19. Another argument is the horrid end of the opposers of Christianity For all the opposers and persecutors of Christians from and before the first persecution under Claudius to the tenth under Dioclesian and all the Emperours that signed the Edicts against Christians came to fearful miserable and untimely ends except onely Libanius the Philosopher that was converted to Christianity by S. Basil. As Herod eaten with lice Judas hanged himself 〈◊〉 died in exile Sejanus had a traytors death c. So that one alluding to the bad successe of persecutors said to an Emperor Parce nobis si non nobis pace tibi si non tibi Carthagini Spare us if not us yet thy self if not thy self yet be good to Carthage 20. The Devils testimony against himself may be another argument For it is a maxime in Law that how ill soever the witnesse be disposed yet his testimony is to be taken cum 〈◊〉 in dedecus suum when that which he testifies is against his own reputation And Zozomen hath a story that Julian the Apostata being at Antioch and desirous to know why the Oracle at Daphnes in the suburbs of that City had not given answer as formerly it had done went thither and having offered his sacrifices the Oracle or the Devil rather in it answered that he could not satisfie his expectation till the body or tomb of Babylas the martyr were removed so hard a matter it was for the Devil to do any thing there where the bones and ashes of a poor Christian lay And Tertul challengedthe Emperor Severus who raised the fifth persecution against the Christians concerning his religion saying Suffer me to come into your Temple and have conference with any of the spirits in the images there and if I or any Christian force it not to confesse as much as the foul spirit in the Gospel confest and to come out of the image let your religion prevail and ours take the foil And surely the Emperour had taken that large offer had he not feared the event 21. Lastly Plotinus confesseth as Cyprian and Origen report that Apollonius Thyaneus and other of the Heathen attempting to raise the images of Jupiter Mars c. and effected it but they all confest that endeavouring to raise the image of Christ they and their spirits were forced away with confusion This also to close up this point may be added that their gods were afraid of Styx but now we have found him before whom Styx itself and all the powers of Hell do fear and tremble CHAP. XIII Of the two chief parties that lay claim to Christian Religion Papists and Protestants Their difference about interpretation of Scriptures The Churches authority in expounding Scriptures An additional observation out of the Authors other workes Rules about the sense of the Scriptures Means for finding out the true sense other means controverted Addition about the Churches power in matters of faith whether infallible Decrees of Councels Consent of Fathers The Pope not infallible ANd now having found out the true way and being thus far entred into it we are come where it is divided into two For there are two sorts of Christians that lay claim to the true way and each party pleads possession of it each thinking the other to tread in a by-path and to be out of the right way We will therefore examine which of the two are in the right Christian Religion as it now stands in these parts of the World consists of Papists and
outward so in some sence that commandment which requires the one requires the other for every precept is given to the whole man though chiefly to the soul and to the body as the instrument of the soul yet in regard that worwip may be performed either by the heart alone or by the whole man therefore that distinction may be in some sort admitted and so it may be said that the first commandment looks chiefly to the heart though not excluding 〈◊〉 outward man and that the second looks more immediately at the outward manner of performance yet not excluding the heart CHAP. V. In the first Commandment three things are contained 1. We must have a God 2. We must have the Lord for our God 3. We must have him alone for our God The sin opposite to the first is profanenesse to the second is false religion to the third mixt religion How our nature is 〈◊〉 to those sins Reasons against them THis first precept is primae necessitatis and therfore first to be regarded it was never dispensed withal nor ever shall be And according to the first Rule of extension Praeceptum faciens non faciens It being a negative implyeth an affirmative The negative is Thou shalt have no other Gods The affirmative our Saviour quoteth to the Devil out of 〈◊〉 Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve There are three propositions which naturally arise out of this Commandment 1. That a God we must have 2. That we must have the Lord for our God 3. That we must have him alone for our God 1. The meaning of the first is that we should not be Gods our selves which was the beginning of all mischief Dii eritis ye shall be Gods in judging good and evil at our own election but to acknowledge a superiour power from whence we are to take our rules and directions both in following good and abstaining from evil and not to be led by our own affections And to this superiour power so instructing us and promising to bring us to the full fruition of the chiefest good we should submit our selves acknowledge him and tye our selves to him which acknowledging and tying our selves to him is the proper act of Religion which is therefore called 〈◊〉 a religando as S. Augustine derlves it this is in the first place to have a God and a Religion and consequently to worship him as God 2. The meaning of the second is to inform us that the Gods of the Nations are but Idols no Gods and therefore the service and worship done to them is false and Idolatrous But 〈◊〉 our God who hath manifested himself many wayes to be the true God is the onely God and his religion true religion and therefore we are to shake off all worship and service to others and 〈◊〉 our selves wholly to him and his service 3. This third teaches us that there are no Idols nor Gods that can do as he doth either in rewards or punishments none can reveal or bestow eternall happinesse but he none can joyn with him or help him therein but he alone is both able and willing and therefore he alone will have all the glory to himself he will have none to participate with him Gloriam meam 〈◊〉 non 〈◊〉 my glory will I not give to another 1. Now the opposite sinne to the first is called Prophanesse when a man will be carried by his own affections in every thing and do that which seemeth good in his own eyes when he will be under no yoke or bands but breake them giving credit to nothing but what his own God corrupt reason 〈◊〉 him to doing nothing but by his own direction and what his own will stands affected to 2. The sinne contrary to the second is false worship and 〈◊〉 religion The holy Ghost is pleased here to call it the having of other Gods as in the Scripture he 〈◊〉 evill by the name of strange as a strange woman a harlot so strange worship Idolatry strange Gods false Gods And this is forbidden in the second proposition 3. The sinne against the third is that which Elias called mixt worship halting between two opinions mingling Gods religion with others following both God and Baal Like the Samaritans that feared the Lord when he sent lions among them and yet served the Gods of the nations whence they came they sware by the Lord and by Miclcom A sinne that divers of the kings of Israel and Judah were taxed with 2 Kings 13. 1 Now these are three things which the devil aymeth at and hath helps in our nature to set forward and bring to effect his purpose According to his own name Belial he is without yoke so would he have others to be also His argument in the first temptation was to have Adam cast off his yoke and be under no director Tast but the apple and thou shalt be a director to thy self and be able of thy selfe without any other guide to judge of good and evil And this vain desire of licentiousnesse whereby men by corruption of nature delight dissolutly to follow their concupiscence and in all things to sit Judge in defining good and evil is the high way which leads to the greatest transgression opening the door to prophanesse and Atheisme 2. So in the second place there is a marvilous itching desire in us of change which the Devil also nourisheth Stollen bread matters of secrecy strange flesh c. And where once prophanes 〈◊〉 he faileth not to adde a curious longing to search beyond the truth till at last he causeth them to finde a lie in stead thereof for there was never any error broached but it sprang from a desire of innovation and a wandring out of the beaten path And this he brought Solomon to who having the knowledge of true Religion as much as any yet not content fell to enquiring after forrein Religions mystries and conceits and so fell to 〈◊〉 3. In the third there is also a great desire in us to reconcile God and Mammon And though our Saviour said it was impossible to serve both yet are we desirous beyond measure to heape up temporal things and get eternal too to have a Paradise here and else where there is a desire in us to communicate our selves to all and to use a like freedom to good and bad thinking that while we are in the world the world will do us good and when we come to heaven God will do us good too And this the devil misliketh not for he runs not upon soli or 〈◊〉 for when he tempted Christ with promise to give him all the kingdoms of the earth it was not upon so strict a condition to worship him onely but to joyne him with God in his worship and service 1. Now the reasons whereby these are forbidden are these We must confesse that the nature of man hath recieved a great wound insomuch
law of nature may teach them He that hath the Law of God in his heart as every one is some measure hath if he set himself to seek God he shall surely finde him for God hath made his minde known to them that are careful to observe the rules of Nature habenti dabitur to those that use the general light well God will not be wanting in means of further knowledge These may be excused but the last a tanto from so much but not a toto from all They are not absolutely without sin But there two other 〈◊〉 of ignorance utterly inexcusable 1. Affectata ignorantia affected ignorance when it comes to that height Noluerunt intelligere ut bene agerent they would not understand to do well and it is in them that know they are ignorant and are unwilling to come out of it but nectunt sibi argumenta devise arguments to defend their ignorance They will not know that they are workers of iniquity this is cum libenter ignorent 〈◊〉 liberius peccent when men are willfully ignorant that they may sin the more freely without check or remorse when men shut their eyes against the light and reject means of knowledge saying as they in Job depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes S. Augustine saith ubi non est dolus in inquisitione ibi non est peccatum in inventione where there is no deceit in enquiry there is no sin in finding out but many would ask his opinion and he would answer dolose quaesisti dolose invenisti thou soughtest fraudulently and foundest accordingly This it is in effect when a thing is made plain to us we will not have it plain and so we continue in this kinde of ignorance 2. Supina ignorantia is the second and that is a carelesse and wretchlesse ignorance and this is the fault of these times When a man hath ex quo discat sed non vult discere may learn if he will take the pains but will not And it is chiefly in them that either propter 〈◊〉 sciendi or 〈◊〉 discendi carelessenesse to know and slothfulnesse to learn or ob verecundiam querendi modesty in seeking after knowledge will be ignorant still Of one of which the whole land is for the most part guilty The second thing forbidden is a light knowledge contrary to the Apostles rule according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith so that not onely the whole want of faith but the want of the measure of faith is condemned When a thing is commended to us in measure not onely the not having it at all but the not having the measure of it is a fault and not onely that but it is also required that according to our years and guifts our knowledge should increase We must according to the Apostles rule be men in understanding and children in malice The Prophet goeth lower Whom shall he teach knowledge and whom shall he make to understand doctrine them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts This is as low as may be Therefore as we grow in years we must grow in knowledge and not be ever taught and never learning To have precept upon precept as he speaks in the next verse line upon a line here a little and there a little not too much at once Ever learning as the Apostle and never coming to the knowledge of the truth And it is that which is inveighed against in another place that the Hebrew Christians after much time spent in learning profited no better but still needed to be catechized in the principles of religion It was prophecied before Christs time that the succeeding ages should have great knowledge as by Daniel They that be wise shall shine as the brightn 〈◊〉 of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousnesse as the stars for ever and by Joel I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh And by Esay All thy children shall be taught of God and great shall be the peace of thy Children And this was foretold of the primitive Church by the same Prophet The people that sate in darknesse have seen a great light c. And the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. S. Paul was so confident of their knowledge in his time that he asketh a question not by way of doubt but of full perswasion of it and that not in small matters but high mysteries Know ye not saith he that the Saints shall judge the world And in in the next verse Know ye not that we shall judge the Angels And we may see that the Corinthians were so forward in Religion that the women thought themselves able to dispute and teach the weightiest points in it so that the Apostle is forced to make a prohibition to them not to speak in the Church which argueth much knowledge though too great boldnesse in them In the Acts of the Apostles we see Aquila was but a Tent-maker yet he afterwards attained to such knowledge that he became a pillar of the Church The Ecclesiasticall story makes mention of Severus that he was at first but of mean condition yet afterwards for his knowledge was chosen Bishop of a great See Antioch Now if we consider these and see how carefull they were to exceed in knowledge we shall think it an odious thing to be of the number of the ignorant And if that which the prophet speaks of prevail not with us I have written to them the great things of my Law but they were counted as a vain thing because we may pretend the profundity as an impediment Yet let the tax upon the Hebrews work shame in us that whereas we should be past the principles we have not that measure of knowledge in us The extent of our knowledge must reach as to a discerning quid verum what is true so to a giving of reason quare verum why it is true To prove that we say or know as the Apostle and as our Saviour speaks to know our own Shepherd and his voice or at least with S. Peter to give a reason of that we hope Yet is it not fit with our Sciols for the people to enter into dispute of controversies of discussing great and hard questions this is not required of them but of Timothy and others to whose office and place it wholly belongs for in such things sancta simplicitas est virtus Laicorum holy simplicity is a vertue in Lay-men yet as it is not required or expedient they should jangle about every quiddity so must they not be like them that know not nor will understand but walk in darknesse nor such as will take upon them to check or controll their teachers for herein they shew their own ignorance for if the foundations be out of course that is the teachers how can the building
next chapter he makes his prayer to God for it This prayer is also set down in the book of the kings and which is more the text saith that the speech 〈◊〉 the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing When we have attained to knowledge we must as is required in Deut. 1. bring it into our heart that is past the brain 2. we must whet or Catechize our children for Catechizing in the principles must be diligently observed 3. We must talk of Gods statutes that is use conference 4. We must write them which includes also reading both fruitful 5. We must binde them before our eyes which implyes meditation 6. We must bind it about our hands a thing unusual in these dayes but yet as in physick it is a rule per brachiam fit judicium de corde The pulse comes from the heart to the hands so in Divinity by the arm practise and excercise is meant and this is to binde it on our armes It is a good way to make a conscience to practise what we know Saint Bernard saith Quod datur 〈◊〉 quod aperitur 〈◊〉 id exerce practise what we have attained by prayer and industry for the contrary not practising what we know brings coecitates poenales for illicitas cupiditates The heathen man saith that he that hath an habit of Justice shall be able to say more of it then he that hath a perfect speculation of all the Ethicks So the meanest man that hath practised his knowledge shall be able to say more of God and Religion then the most learned that hath not practised It is in divinity as in other things Exercitium signum est 〈◊〉 and so signum scientiae practise is the signe of power and so of knowledge It is a true saying that the best rule to judge of the Consequence is by the Antecedent as if fear be wanting there can be no Love if love be away there can be no obedience but especially if humility be wanting there can be no saving knowledge Saint Augustines prayer was Domine noverim te noverim me and adds that no man knows God that knoweth not himself And vera scientia non facit 〈◊〉 exultantem sed lamentantem True knowledge puffs not up but dejects a man and the Heathen man could say Inter sapientes sapientior qui 〈◊〉 he is the wisest among the wise that is humblest and he that hath a conceit of himself can never come to kowledge Aristotle in his Metaphysiks saith Scientis est ordinare he is wise that can order his doings prefer every thing according to order as in divinity knowledge of God which brings life eternal should be prefered before other knowledge which brings onely temporal profit But we do contrary for it is a common order with us as to prefer private profit before publick so to place temporal things before eternal and the knowledge of the one before the knowledge of the other which is a signe that our knowledge is not rightly ordered The Apostle saith we must not be children in knowledge that is carried away with every false winde of doctrine but must be rooted and grounded that we may be stedfast in the truth not clouds without water carried away with every winde as Saint Jude hath it and like waves of the sea that is carried with the tide here with the ebbe and there with the flood as it is in our times The last rule is we must not hinder knowledge in others either by authority commandment permission or counsel but provoke others to it and increase it in them as much can be Our knowledge must be to help others and that three wayes 1. In teaching them that are ignorant 2. In satisfying them that doubt and strengthning them that waver 3. In comforting the distressed and afflicted conscience And thus much for knowledge the first duty of the minde CHAP. VII The second Inward vertue Commanded in the first precept is faith Reasons for the necessity of faith Addition 8. Concerning the evidence of faith and Freedome of assent The certainty of faith Of unbeleif Addition 9. Concerning the nature of faith means of beleeving Of Trust in God for things temporal The trial of our trust six signes of faith THe next inward vertue of the minde is faith This supposes a knowledge of the object or things to be beleeved which being propounded sufficiently as credible our assent thereto is called faith which rests upon divine authority though it see not the proper reasons to enforce assent for seeing we cannot by meer natural reason attain sufficient knowledge of supernatural truthes but that divine revelation is needfull therefore besides natural knowledge faith is necessary which reecives them for this authority of the speaker To explain this There is in every proposition an affirmation or a denial 1. Sometimes a man holdeth neither part because he sees that equall reasons may be brought on both sides and that is called doubting 2. If we encline to one part yet so as we feare the reasons of the other part may be true then it is called Opinion As Agrippa was almost perswaded to be a Christian 3. If we consent to one part that is called kowledge which goes beyond both the other and arises from evidence and assurance of the truth Knowledge is threesold 1. By sense 2. By discourse of reason 3. By relation of other men and this is properly faith 1. Knowledge by sense is such as was that of Josephs brethren that had seen him before they sold him into Egypt and therefore knew him 2. Knowledge by discourse Such as Jacobs was when he saw the chariots come out of Egypt he conceived straightway that his son was alive 3. That by relation of others as Jacob knew that his son yet lived when his sons told him so 1. For the first when a thing cannot be present to the sense then must we rely upon the third Relation The Queen of Sheba did first heare of Solomons wisdome in her own land before she came and heard him her self 2. For point of reason ther 's nothing absent from that but that which is supernatural and above our understanding when a thing exceedeth the capacity of meer natural reason without divine illumination as we see in Nicodemus a great Rabbi in Israel For concerning mysteries in religion the Apostle saith out of the prophet eye hath not seen or eare heard nor hath it entered into the heart of man that is they exceed both the capacity of the sense and reason and therefore we must come to the third way which is by faith for as Job speaks God is great and we know him not neither 〈◊〉 the number of his years be 〈◊〉 therefore it must necessarily follow Nisi credider it is non stabiliemini as the Prophet assures us if ye will not beleeve ye shall not be established And yet this restrains us not so far but
Ghost saith In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly And In all this did not Job sin with his lips He did nothing to bewray impatience True patience is humble and saith with David Tacui Domine quia tu fecisti I kept silence O Lord because it is thy doing 2. The other note is Alacrity It was observed by the Fathers that the Circumcelliones in their sufferings had no alacrity but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without passion it is true they were not moved but they suffered not cheerfully They bore them but they rejoyced not they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 overcome as those that in some diseases cure without pain or using Narcotick medicines do overcome the pain but Christian patience doth more In all these saith the Apostle Romans 8. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we do more then overcome It doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 overcome and more then so for it rejoyceth too So the Apostles after they had been scourged departed rejoycing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the Name of Christ whereas the suffering of Hereticks though it discovered no fear or grief yet it wanted this rejoycing it had no alacrity in it Now concerning the sixth Rule as is in the former It is not enough for a man to say to his own soul Why art thou so impatient but we must say to others Sustine Dominum as the Psalmist wait and that patiently on the Lord. We do what we can by our comforts and exhortations to make them patient On the other side if there be any provocation to impatiency in others as Jobs wife we must answer them with him And this is the knowledge that every one should have and it is folly in them that have it not For Doctrina viri per patientiam noscitur the discretion of a man deferreth anger saith Solomon Proverbs 19. 11. and as S. Gregory addes Tanto minus quisque ostenditur doctus quanto convincitur minus patiens nec enim potest veraciter bona docendo impendere si vivendo aequanimiter nesciat mala tolerare every man shews himself the lesse learned by how much the lesse patient nor can he well teach to do well if he know not how to bear evill And thus much concerning the first Proposition Thou shalt have a God CHAP. XV. The second thing required in the first Commandment To have the true God for our God Reasons hereof Of true Religion This is the true pearl to be sought Three rules in seeking The extreams of Religion 1. Idolatry 2. superstition 3. Prophanenesse 4. novelty of which three degrees 1. Schisme 2. Heresy 3. Apostacy The means of true Religion The signes of procuring it in others The second Proposition THere remain two propositions more in this Commandment 1. Thou shalt have me the true God for thy God and this includes the vertue of religion viz. true religion which is the having the true God for our God All other religions are the extreams forbidden 2. The second is Thou shalt have no other Gods but me that is thou shalt have one God alone and thou shalt have me alone and this includes the vertue of sincerity which is opposite to all mixtures of true religion with any other Besides these propositions drawn out of the whole precept there are two other vertues included in the first and last words of this Commandment 1. Upon the last words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 coram facie mea before my face is grounded the vertue of integrity or uprightnesse opposed to hypocrisie and upon the first words Non erunt tibi thou shalt not the vertue of perseverance For the words are in the future tense and extend to the whole course of our life and these are the particulars that remain to be handled in this commandment The second proposition then is Thou shalt have me for thy God For it is not enough to have a God unlesse he be the true God And this is true religion Naturally our affections are bent and chiefly bestowed on some one thing above the rest and to this all our actions refer and this whatsoever it be is our God As some upon an Idol or false god which as the Apostle speaks is nothing Or some upon the god of this world that is the Devil Some have their belly for their god that is the flesh Some idolize their money and wealth the love where of is idolatry as the same Apostle Thus as S. Augustine saith unusquisque comeditur ab aliquo zelo every man is zealous for some thing or other And concerning all such the Prophet makes his complaint that there is a generation of men that turn the glory of the true God into dishonour that are not careful to render God his true honour and their religion is as the Apostle saith of knowledge scientia falsi nominis religion falsly so called For they follow vanity and lies and therefore eat the fruit of lies as the Prophet speaks that is grief of minde smart of body and confusion of soul. That which Plato saith of this is true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Every soul if it hath not the truth it is not because it wants desire of the truth and if it finde it not out it is against the will of it unlesse it degenerate from its nature When Abraham had told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister not his wife he though a Heathen could tell Abraham that he had done that he ought not to have done And that which is more strange the Devil though the father of lies could say to the woman Yea is it true indeed Hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden He was desirous that Eve should give him a true answer So we see the force of truth that howsoever it is not practised yet in judgment not only the good but the wicked even the Heathen and the Devil himself would not willingly be beguiled with falshood One reason why God though he commands onely true religion yet permits the false is in respect of that which was named before the tryal of our faith which is more precious with God then all the riches of the world This tryal hath been the cause why God hath permitted and doth permit so many errours heresies and false worships we may allude to it by comparison that albeit God hath abundance of all things to make all men rich and so could have done yet for tryal of a liberall and compassionate minde in the rich he saith The poor shall never cease out of the land So it may be said in the case of truth It had been an easie matter for God to have taken order that every man should enjoy the true profession but on ly for this tryal Ideo oportet haereses esse inter vos therefore there must be heresies among you and why because they which are approved
may be made manifest among you He that said Fiat lux let there be light and it was made could have as easily said Sit veritas let there be truth let there be plenty of truth and it should have been so but he hath given the reason why he suffereth errour that they may be tryed that seek after the truth Another reason of this is that forasmuch as God hath magnified his word and truth above all things and that it is the chiefest thing and that he maketh most account of he would therefore have it diligently to be sought by us that we should shew our conformity to him in the estimation of it and magnifie it above all things For the necessity of it much need not be spoken it hath been partly handled already but because truth and true religion is a way as S. Peter calls it and that way must bring us to the right end then it follows that of necessity we are to finde it The spirit of truth is to guide us and therefore it is requisite we finde him If we finde it not we cannot come to our end Eunti in via aliquis trit terminus but error immensus est if a man keep the way he shall at length come to an end of his journey but errour hath no end therefore the way must be found The thing commanded is Religion and true Religion veri nominis Religio which our Saviour under the name of the kingdom of heaven compareth to a pearl and him that sought after it to Merchant that seeking after many found one pearl of inestimable price and value and when he had found it sold all that he had and bought it In which we may consider his desire which is branched out into three acts 1. Quaesivit 2. Invenit 3. Emit He sought found and bought 1. In regard of the manifold errours and falshoods in the world Investigation is most necessary that is an earnest study and applying of the minde to finde out truth among many errours contrary to the custome of this age where no man desires to seek but in that Religion wherein a man is born in that he will grow up and in that he will dye and imagine that he hath found the pearl without seeking and so when our studies ripen we onely stick to some mens institutions Moses seemeth to be of another minde and not onely exhorteth but commandeth the Israelites to enquire into all antiquities and in all parts and ends of the world whether there were any Religion so true as theirs No man then ought to suppose he hath found the truth before he hath sought it and a promise there is of finding if we seek The promise of the calling of the Gentiles that God would be found of them that sought him not is no rule for us in this case but as we must enquire so we must examine all truths There are many counterfeit pearls a man must be able to distinguish before he sell all to buy a pearl Hereditary Religion Religion upon offence taken Religion upon a sudden these three at this time possesse the most of mankinde 1. Either because they will be of the minde of Auxentius In hac fide natus sum in hac item moriar and in this case Religion findeth us and not we it 2. Or because I have received some indignity in one Religion I will be of another or because we have sustained some losse or had some crosse by our Religion therefore we will go over seas and there we will seck and finde the pearl and are able to defend it to be so 3. There is religio repentina a sudden religion This is a stumbling upon Religion without study by some that seek to revelations and prefer fancies before ordinary means whereas God hath given ordinary means we must have time and study and means to finde it for in other cases and without these there 's no promise nor warrant from God that we shall light upon it But if any shall say we have found it before we sought it as God saith of a people I was found of them that sought me not we must adde with the Apostle Omnia probate there is an examination answerable to seeking they that have it must either seek it or examine it and not make examination of the truth in Religion a matter of death as the Turks do Seek therefore we must and in seeking the Fathers give many rules but especially two rules must be observed 1. The first our Saviour gives quaerite primū It must be sought before all other things and in the first place because the seeking of it will it all things else Seek the Lord saith the Prophet while he may be found and call upon him while he is neer S. Paul saith All seek their own not the things which are Jesus Christs But if we give primum to our own and not when we seek for Christs God will not be neer but leaves us 2. The second is given by Moses If thou seek the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul thou shalt finde him God saith by the Prophet Ye shall seek me and finde me when ye shall search for me with all your heart We must seek with tears as Mary did the body of Christ John 20. 15. we must seek for the truth as Solomon saith men must do for wisdom how is that as men seek for silver or hid treasures and as the Prophet if ye will enquire enquire that is enquire indeed But if either we primum quaerere grandia if we first seek great things for 〈◊〉 selves and religion after or seek and not seek by seeking coldly 〈◊〉 seeking his fathers asses and the woman seeking her groat will prove to be with more care then ours for religion such seekers will never finde 3. The third is As we must seek for the truth if we have it not and when we have it examine it so when we have it we must acquiescere we must rest in it The use of religion serves us instead of a girdle to 〈◊〉 our loyns that is truth must be applyed as close to our souls as a girdle to our reins For the negative part what is here forbidden may be reduced to these two heads 1. One extream opposite to true religion is 〈◊〉 the excesse when we give honour either cui non oportet to whom it is not due or quantum non oportet or more then is due the first is commonly called Idolatry the other superstition 2. Another extream is parum the defect when we do not give honour cui oportet to whom it is due or not quantum oportet not so much as is due The first is called prophanenesse which usually ends in Atheisme the other is non-acquiescence or not resting in religion when men seek out novelties and receive the truth 〈◊〉 in part and this
divides it self into two branches 1. Schisme 2. Heresse which ends in Apostacy 1. The cui non oportet is Idolatry whether it be by giving divine honour and worship or ascribing any part of Gods office to any creature as S. Augustine speaks within which comes dealing and covenanting with the Devil or trusting to his instruments Sorcerers Charmers Dreamers and other Inchanters So if a man yeeld any of the former affections and vertues as love fear c. to the Devil if he fear the stars or attribute any thing to dreams inchantments ligatures lots characters c. it is comprehended within this God telleth us by the Prophet that none can foreshew things to come but himself not meaning things known by natural causes but where there is causa libera a free cause Therefore if divine honour be attribute to any of these a part of Gods peculiar offices is taken from him and the most of them are reckoned up by Moses and God threatens to punish them In the 〈◊〉 Jeremy there is a plain commandment against the ascribing any thing to stars So 〈◊〉 against Wizards and divination Saul enquired of the Witch of Endor and you see Gods anger towards him for it And Ahaziah using the like means to recover his sicknes was reproved by Elijah Is it not because there is no God in Israel that ye go to inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron Though the Witch at Endor foretold Sauls death and spake truth yet Sauls act is condemned 1. Chronicles 10. 13. And though the Pythonist in the Acts confessed that the Apostles were servants of the living God yet S. Paul rebuked the spirit that was in her and made him come forth Yea though a Prophet foretell a truth and yet saith let us go after other gods he shall be put to death 2. The other quantum non oportet to give too much honour is commonly referred to superstition The second Council at Nice erected images and their principal reason was because God could not be remembered too much but that was no good argument for then there could be no superstition Tully shews how the word superstition came first up There were certain old Romanes that did nothing but pray day and night that their children might outlive them and be superstites whereupon they were called superstitious In this respect we also condemn the Euchytes It is true as the Fathers say that for quantitas absoluta the absolute quantity if we were as the Angels there were no 〈◊〉 but for as much as in man there is but quantitas ad analogiam or ad propartionem and thereby he hath no absolutenes but ex conditione we must do that whereby we may continue and go forward to the glorifying of God and because of his weaknes for a man to spend himself in one day maketh a nimium in religione and consequently superstitition 2. For the other extreame Parum when we give too little and that either 1. cui non oportet or non quantum the fi st is commonly called Prophanent 〈◊〉 which was a punishment from the beginning that a man should be such a one that he should not come intra sanum within the Church but to stand extra which many now a dayes count no punishment nay it is to be feared that it hath a reward and that such people are the better thought of Too many of this fort are in these times that value religion and Gods worship no more then 〈◊〉 did his birth-right 2. The second part of this extreame is when we give not quantum oportet so much to God as we ought when we will not rest or acquiesce in what God hath by his Church prescribed and delivered to us but affect novelties and desire new and strange things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore that God might make novelties the more odious to us he hath made it a name for those things he most hateth Nadab and Abihu are said to have offered strange fire to the Lord and the wiseman calleth an harlot a strange woman Jacob commands his family to put away strange gods It is called in Deut. for 〈◊〉 post deos alienos This being bewitched with the desire of novelties and new devises hath changed the pure doctrine of the Primitive religion and marred this religion where it is predominant Thus the Galatians were bewitcht Galat. 3. 1. and none but the Attica ingenia which is spoken of in the acts are given to it Academick doubting spirits Scepticks in Religion There are three degrees in novelty 1. Schisme 2. Heresy 3. Apostacy In which one makes way for another 1. Schisme is the high way to superstition as also to prophanenesse And it is so called properly when a man upon unjust dislike either of government or worship or doctrine professed or for some indifferent rites withdraws from the communion of the Church in publike duties and refuses to submit to his spiritual governours the Bishops and Pastors of the Church and so will make a rent in and from the whole body whereas the Apostles counsel is that all would speak one thing and that there be no dissentions but be knit in one minde and in one judgement and in another place not to forsake the fellowship we have among our selves 2. Heresy is as S. Augustine defines it Dum scripturae bonae intelliguntur non bene quod in 〈◊〉 non bene intelligitur etiam temere audaciter asseritur when good Scripture is not well understood and that they affirm that rashly and boldly that they understand not well S. Jerome goes further Quicunque alias scripturam intelligit quam sensus spirious S. flagitat quo conscripta est licet de ecclesia non recesserit tamen haereticus appellari potest he that makes another interpretation of Scripture then according to the sense of the holy Ghost although he depart not from the Church yet may be called an Heretick This must not be understood of every errour but of sundamental errours and such as are wilfully held when there are sufficient means to convince one of the truth Acts 5. 17. 3. Apostacy is a general defection or falling from all points of religion The means to finde out true religion are besides the publike and general means Hearkening to the voice of the Church to whom Christ hath entrusted the truth and which is therefore called by S. Paul the ground and pillar of truth 1. The Eunuchs means reading the Scripture He read the Prophet Esay 2. Cornelius meanes prayers almes and fasting and that which is strange being a Heathen before he was called he was said to be a man that feared God But the Fathers resolue it well why he was said to be so quia non detinuit veritatem in injustitia he withheld not the truth in unrightousnesse as the Apostle speaks and did not abuse his natural light and therefore
that I was valued at by them a price more fit to buy potsheards and therefore he casts it to the potter Surely God sets no such price on us or valued us at so small a rate however we value Christ or his truth Empti estis pretio saith Saint Paul we are bought with a price more then thirty pices of filver not with corruptable things as gold and silver but with the blood of Christ as of a lamb withour spot a lesser price would not serve to redeeme us for if it would all should have gone rather then he therefore as he prized us so must we prize him and his truth aboue all corruptible things in the world The signes of sincere or true religion have been handled before we shall touch onely a few 1. True religion ascribes all good to God alone and gives no part of his honour to any creature 2. It favours not man in his corrupt desires it s no doctrine of liberty but restraines all carnal liberty it teaches us to despise father and mother friends yea a mans self and all for God 3. It is free from those mixtures which have been the decay of religion which were 1. mingling it with errours of vain Philosophy which Saint Augustine calls rationes philosophorum obtusae acutae the acute and yet obtuse or blunt reasons of Philosophers Thus Clemenes Alex. and Origan by Platos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Aristotles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vshered divers errours into the Church 2. With Jewish fables which the Apostle bids Titus beware of Jewish rites and ceremonies abrogated by Christ which he calls egena et infirma elementa weake and beggerly rudiments 3. It doth penetrare cor it pierces into the soul circumcises the heart mortifies all carnall lusts and desires false religion reaches chiefly to the outward man True religion enflames the heart and affections with love of God and makes us prize him aboue all worldly things that we can say with David whom have I in heaven but thee c. And makes us able to answer Christs question to S. Peter diligis me plus c. Louest thou me more then these that we can say we love him more then these all these things on earth and where this is not there is not sincere religion rooted in the heart The sixth rule is for procuring sincerity in others especially we must exhort others as the Apostle doth Timothy and all those that succeed him in the like office of a Bishop in the church to keep the commandment that is the doctrine and religion left commanded by Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without spot unrebukeable and when Saint Peter seemed to Judaize he reproved him to his face so ought we in our places and stations to oppose the corruptions and novelties brought into religion contrary to the primitive and Catholique truth CHAP. XVII Of the last words in the first Commandment Coram me in which is implied Integrity Reasons for it Of Hypocrisie and reasons against it Signes of a sound heart An observation from the first words Non habebis They are in the Future tense and imply perseverance Reasons for it The extreames 1. Constancy in evill 2. Inconstancy in good Four reasons against Backsliding signes of perseverance Of procuring it in others Coram me Before me This is the last part of this Commandment And this Coram me saith saint Augustine hath a great Emphasis in it even so much as makes a distinction between this and the three other Commandments of the first Table and it is to be taken according to the third rule of Extent before specified viz. that is spiritual and extends to the heart Coram me Not in my sight That is thou shall not have any other God not so much as in the secret corner of thy heart for God is scrutator cordis a searcher of the heart This implies the vertue of integrity The law is spiritual saith the Apostle and therefore the duties here commanded are to be not onely coram facie humana et coram luce in the sight of men and in the light which reach only to the exteriour act of Gods worship but this coram tenebris et coram facie Dei in the darknesse and in Gods sight reaches to the thoughts the inward parts of the soul which belong properly to the sight of God It is God that formed the light and created the darknes And therefore as the Psalmist saith the darknes and light are both to him alike And he that made the eye shall he not see He sees not onely what the eve seeth but also because he formes the spirit of man Zach. 12. 1. He seeth what the eye seeth not but onely the spirit of a man beholds and that as Saint Augustine saith whether the Candle burne or is put out and which is more then all this he seeth further then the spirit of man can see for though our heart condemnes us not yet he can for he is greater then our heart and knows more then our heart or spirit Again this Coram me distinguishes true obedience from a bare appearance for bonum apparens good in shew may be Coram homine before man but bonum verum is onely Coram me before God For Coram homine before man or any other Coram argues nothing to be other then in appearance but Coram Deo makes it indeed Saint Paul Ephes. 3. 16. Divides every man into an inward and an outward man and the same words are use byd Plato before him whence some gather he had read Plato there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an inward and an outward man and which of these two pleaseth God best himself sheweth in Eliab and David Samuel had a liking to Eliabs countenance but God said look not on it for I have refused him God saw more into him then Samuel could God looketh into the heart and therefore requireth truth in the inward parts For there God rules especially The kingdom of God is within you as our Saviour said to the Pharisees There it must begin and there he delighteth to be most if our heart he right from thence he expects his worship For in the heart is the principal seat of Christs scepter there be rules subduing our wills to God There is in all men a corrupt desire of appearing outwardly to men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we affect to seem something as Saul when he spake to Samuel who had told him that God had rejected him yet saith he Honour me I pray thee before the elders of my people and before Israel such is our nature to appear outwardly to men but this appearance commends us not to God for he delights most in the truth and sincerity of the heart for as the common saying is every man is chiefly delighted with that wherein he is singular and exceeds others and because that God
and four footed beasts and creeping things of birds as the Ibis among the Egyptians the golden calf among the Israelites the Owl among the wise Graecians and the Eagle with the Romans and Belus in the shape of a Dragon with the Babylonians and worms with the Trogloditi 4. Plants as the Dodonean Grove to Jupiter Nay they descended even to garlike 5. They worshipped also things made by art as a Piece of Red cloth as Strabo relates of Nations in the North East 3. In the waters They worshipped Syrens and Dagon as it is in the first of Samuel who was resembled by a water snake and dragons and Crocodiles fishes as the Dolphin as also 〈◊〉 whom they adored as God of Physick in the shape of a water Serpent So that God seeing what had bin done to his dishonour and foreseeing what would be done and that men had and would abuse all his creatures in this kinde interdicebat 〈◊〉 gave a straight injunction against them all allowing neither similitude nor pattern God would be resembled by none of them And therefore 〈◊〉 making as it were a comment upon this Commandment and letting them know that they must not account of Gods worship as a ceremonial thing puts them in minde that when God spake to them out of the midst of the fire they heard a voice but saw no similitude but onely a voice and therefore a voice say the Rabbins because a voice cannot be drawn into any shape and so was not likely to deprive God of any part of his honour and he bids them therefore take heed that they attempted not to make any likenesse of any thing as you may read there at large for if God had bin willing they should have made any certailny he would have represented himself to them in some forme or shape when he came unto the mount Let us take heed therefore that we take not upon us to frame to our selves any representation of God and to make Images to his dishonour It is the nature of faith to beleeve things not visible and therefore to make invisible things become visible in religion is the next way to dishonour God and to overthrow faith and consequently religion it self Our Saviour tells the woman of Samaria that the time was coming when the true worshippers should worship God in spirit and truth and in Images there is no truth but 〈◊〉 veritatis a resemblance of truth the very Temple of Jerusalem as a type should not be accepted It is objected if all similitudes be condemned how came it to passe that God himself prescribed the making of Cherubins and they were resemblances There was no such resemblance in them as their definition of an Image imports which is as they say quod habet exemplar in rerum natura that is like some natural thing but Cherubins were not so for they were made like boyes without armes instead thereof were two great wings which we cannot paralel in nature But it is plain that God caused them not to be made to the entent to be worshipped for then he would not have put them into the darkest places in the sanctum sanctorum whither 〈◊〉 came but the high priest and he but once a year And indeed God sheweth wherfore he made them that the Priest might know from whence to receive his answer and to signify the readinesse of the angels to execute the will of God And Tertullian answereth this fully God saith not that an Image should not be made but non facies tibi thou shalt not make it to thy self God commanded these to be made by Moses God might dispense with his own precept so far as it was positive as the prohibition of making any Image is but to worship or give any divine honour to it which is malum inse simply evil though it were not forbidden this God never allowed or dispen'ed with the other is onely malum quia prohibitum this is prohibitum quia malum It is said also why then did God command the image of the fiery serpent to be made This was not ut coleretur sed ut mederetur not that it should be worshipped but that it should be as a means to heal the people that had bin plagued for their murmuring And indeed Tertullian hath the same objection and answereth it thus Quod idemDeus vetuit lege similitudinem fieri 〈◊〉 prescripto aeneum serpentem 〈◊〉 fecit si tu eandem legem 〈◊〉 legem habes eam observa si 〈◊〉 preceptum factum 〈◊〉 feceris tu imitare Mosen idest ne sacias tibi simulachrum nisi Deus te 〈◊〉 that the same God did both forbid by his law the making of images and yet by an extraordinary command caused the brasen serpent to be made if thou observe the same law thou hast a law keep it if thou be afterward commanded to make an image imitate Moses that is make none except God command thee Concerning this point we have shewed what moved God to make this restraint on his own part Now it followeth to shew why he did it on our part in regard of our corruption 1. Tertullian saith in the booke before quoted that before the flood even in the dayes of Seth the worship of God was corrupted with images and that Enochs instauration was nothing but the restoring of pure religion again and that therefore he is said to have walked with God Again we see that after the flood Jacob by being in 〈◊〉 house had learnt to take Teraphim Images of gods and to mingle them in Gods worship Now the reason of this God himselfe gives Man is but flesh Though he consists of two parts flesh and spirit yet the grossnesse of the flesh overgrows the purenesse of the spirit and corrupt it turning that other part of man the spirit into flesh insomuch as the Apostles many times in their writings call the soul and minde by the name of flesh and Saint Paul gives us warning to take heed of the flesh of the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And hence it is that we have an affection in us which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desire to feel or see This was the disease of Saint Thomas that would not beleeve except he might feel Christs wounds and see him himself 〈◊〉 of Mary Magdalen and Martha about their dead brother both told Christ. Lord if thou hadst bin here my brother had not died and not theirs alone but of all the Apostles they were desirous that Christ might stay and be with them alwayes to erect an earthly kingdom insomuch that he was fain to tell them that if he went not away the Comforter would not come unto them And such a thing there is in religion Moses had bin in the mount but three dayes and the Israelites cry out to Aaron fac nobis Deos visibiles make us gods which shall go before us Upon
Strong and weak good and bad Corn and chaffe vessels of gold and silver of wood and earth and therefore hath need of some thing to cleanse the floore and to sever the corn from tares and to prune bad succors from the vine And this the Church doth by Discipline and Censure which all that live within the Church must either willingly submit to or else be forced to obedience Quicunque Dei 〈◊〉 jam sibi nota non facit et corripi non vult etiam propterea corripiendus est quia corripi non vult Saith Augustine He that knoweth the will of God and doth it not nor will submit to correction is to be corrected even for that because he refuseth correction But there are a sort of people and ever hath bin that cry out against discipline as a tyrannical burden imposed upon the conscience Saint Augustine tells of such as these which were in his time Multi sunt qui sanae doctrinae adversantur justitiam 〈◊〉 et disciplinam imperium esse judicant c. There are many that oppose sound doctrine finde fault with justice and account discipline as a thing imperious and ascribe moderate correction to an act of pride whereas there can be nothing imperious but that which is commanded unjustly nor can any thing be more properly termed Pride then the contempt of discipline But howsoever we esteeme of it it is neither unjust nor new We finde it commanded by our Saviour Dic Ecclesiae Tell it to the Church And Saint Paul gave order to deliver the incestuous person to Satan that his spirit might be saved which is the true end of discipline And in divers other places he gives order for care to be had that discipline fal not to the ground Be ready to revenge all disobedience and Corripite inquietos Warne or rebuke the unruly To Timothy he prescribes many rules concerning it and among them Them that sinne rebuke before all that others also may fear Whereupon Saint Augustine saith sinne must be punished that the party punished may be thereby amended or else that others thereby may be terrified from offending in the like manner And upon Saint Pauls words put that wicked person from among you he saith Ex quo appare ut qui aliquid tale commisit 〈◊〉 dignus sit Hoc enim nunc agit 〈◊〉 in excommunicatione quod agebat in veteri Testamento interfectione The Church doth now that by Excommunication which the church in the old Testament did by putting to death And therefore to conclude this point Disciplina Ecclesiae dormire non debet the Discipline of the church ought not to sleep CHAP. V Of Ceremonies in Gods worship The vse of them 4. 〈◊〉 to be observed about them The means of preserving Gods worship The signes Addition 17. Concerning customs and traditions of the church The 6. rule of causing others to keep this Commandment THe second general considerable in the external worship of God are ceremonies not Jewish but Christian which how soever they are by some that either well weigh them not or by others possessed with a spirit of opposition accounted Antichristian and repugnant to the word of God and therfore to be abolished out of the church yet in the judgement of moderate and well affected men nay of al men that are not sowred with the leaven of schisme or 〈◊〉 they are reputed no 〈◊〉 part of this external duty for they which are versed in the ancient story of the church cannot but confesse that in all ages before Popery had its birth and in al places where christianity was profest some ceremonies have ever bin practized as lawfull and necessary nor was there at any time any religion ever practized in the world without some ceremonies nay the most seemingly reformed sectaries themselves cannot but vse some ceremonies in the practize of their religion and therefore of their own fraternity the wisest sort have acknowledged That they are necessarily to be observed as conducing to the advancing of the true worship of God 〈◊〉 saith one 〈◊〉 ad Dei cultum atque necesse est et sint persokae destinatae in Ecclesia qui Magistri vel Ministri potius sint Ceremoniarum eas exerceant in Ecclesia secundum Domini instituta Ceremonies belong to the worship of God and it is very necessary that there should be some persons in the Church appointed to be Masters or Ministers rather of Ceremonies to use them in the Church according to the Lords institution and he closeth with a good reason Vt norint cultores Dei qualem Deo cultum exhibeant that the worshippers of God may know what manner of worship to exhibit to him For the Fathers take the judgement of S. Augustine for the rest Nulla Disciplina in his est melior gravi prudentique Christiano quam ut eo modo agat quo agere 〈◊〉 ecclesiam ad quamcunque forte devenerit quod enim neque 〈◊〉 neque contra bonos more 's injungitur indifferenter est habendum pro corum inter quos vivitur societate servandum there is no better 〈◊〉 in these things viz. ceremonies to a sober and wise Christian then to observe them in that manner which he sees the Church wherein he lives to keep them for whatsoever is enjoyned so it be neither against faith nor good manners it is to be held as a thing indifferent and to be observed in regard of the society of those among whom we live And this is a good way to follow the Apostles Counsel to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace You shall hear the same Fathers censure against them that are refractory in this point In 〈◊〉 rebus de quibus 〈◊〉 statuit divina Scriptura mos populi Dei constituta majorum tenenda sunt Et sicut praevaricatores divinarum legum 〈◊〉 contemptores Ecclesiasticarum consuetudinum coercendi sunt In those things of which the holy Scripture hath determined nothing the custome of Gods people and the Constitutions of the Ancient are to be observed and the Contemners of Ecclesiastical Customes are no lesse to be reduced to conformity then they which offend against Gods Laws And withal there is no doubt but these ceremonies may be changed and varied according to the diversity and alteration of times and nations and other circumstances S. Aug. saith in defence of this point Non itaque verum est quod dicitur Semel recte factum 〈◊〉 est mutandum mutata quippe temporis causa c. that is not then true which is said A thing once well established may not by an means be altered for as time so true reason may call for 〈◊〉 alteration and whereas they say it cannot be well done to change it so truth may say it cannot be well sometimes if it be not altered because both may well stand together and be right if upon alteration
much more because his name is a more glorious name then any mans can be We use to say what is a man but his good name Crudelis est sibi homo qui famam negligit vel inultam sinit He is cruel to himself that is negligent of his good name or will not vindicate it Solius laesae famae duellum est permittendum quia pari passu ambulat cum vitae duels may be permitted say some Casuists for the vindication of ones name because when a mans reputation is lost he is as good as dead If it be so with men and that they will defend their good name to the death yea the name of a friend or any that we receive benefit by God is not then to be accused if he punish those that abuse his name So then to conclude if Gods name be as most certainly it is most glorious in it self How glorious is thy name in all the world And as it is glorious so is it holy and reverend too Holy and reverend is his name saith the Psalmist Then it must be so in every one of us it bebooves every one to use it 〈◊〉 and reverently and to glorifie it to their power If we do it not willingly it shall be glorified upon us nolentes volentes whether we wil or not as it was upon Pharaoh I will harden 〈◊〉 heart and I will get me honour upon Pharaoh and all his host Exod 14. 4. God saith of Israel Thou art a holy people to the Lord. Deut. 14. 2. We must be as Israel or as Pharaoh If we glorifie him not with Israel he will glorifie it upon us with Pharaoh for the Lord will not hold him guiltlesse that taketh his name in vain THE EXPOSITION OF THE Fourth Commandement The Fourth Commandment Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it Holy c. CHAP. I. The excellent order of the Commandments Why God himself appointed a set time for publick worship Why this Commandment is larger then the rest Six special things to be observed in this Commandment which are not in the rest The general parts of it 1. The precept 2. The reasons In the precept 1. The affirmative part what is meant by Sabbath what by sanctifying How things sanctifyed differ from other things God sanctified it not for himself but for us We must sanctifie it 1. In our estimation of it 2. In our use of it AS Gods order in all his works is most excellent for he is the God of order so in the placing of these Commandments it is most admirable For in the First he commands us to beleeve in a God setleth Religion in us and shews that he and no other is that God and how he is to be worshipped Intus within 2. In the Second he prescribeth how we are to behave our selves towards him in our exteriour worship and how to expresse and manifest our inward affections towards him by our outward gesture 3. In the Third how his glorious name ought to be magnified by our outward expression in our words when we converse with others These three first Commandments contain our general and perpetual duties towards God Now in this fourth Precept because men should not be left at liberty when or at what time to perform these duties God hath taken order for a set and certain time to that purpose appointing a day whereon to do it and that more solemnly in a general or publick meeting or Assembly which he elsewhere calleth an Holy Assembly or Holy Convocation that all men together may set forth and make publick professions of their worship of him in fear and give him honour praise and glory As also to learn and be instructed in what hath past in former times and how to behave themselves for the time to come by laying the foundations of Religion and lastly to acknowledge as well the great goodnesse of God and his benefits to us as our duty and service to him It is true which we usually say and which the Heathen man did well see that Publicorum cura minor the care of publick matters is the least of all other for commonly that which ought to be regarded by all is regarded by few or none And so no doubt men would have dealt with God for publick worship had he not provided a particular day for himself and setled it by a special Commandment as we see in those that talk of a perpetual Sabbath who come at length to keep no day at all And therefore God knowing our innate negligence in his service which of right ought to be every ones care did by enacting this law provide for a particular and set time for it This Commandment being of as large or larger extent and more copcious in words then the second should work in us no lesse regard and consideration of this then of that Nor is it in vain that God hath so enlarged it Wee see that four duties of the second Table are ended in a word as it were Non occides Thou shalt not kill Non moechaberis Thou shalt not commit adultery Non furaberis Thou shalt not steal Non falsum testimonium feres Thou shalt not bear false witnesse And the reason is because civil honesty and the writings of Heathen Philosophers who were chiefly guided by the light of Nature and civil Laws urge the observing of them and our Bars and judgement seats condemn sins therein forbidden but the fifth Commandment because God foresaw our stiffenecked humours that we would not willingly or easily be brought under subjection God thought it necessary to fence it with a reason So likewise in the tenth there is great particularity used because men are apt to conceive that their thoughts are free and that they shall not come to judgement for using their liberty in them In the first Table every Commandment hath its particular reason but this fourth Precept hath more then any It hath six particular respects not to be found in any of the other 1. Whereas the rest run either barely in the affirmative as the fifth or barely in the negative as the other in this both parts are expressed The affirmative in these words Remember thou keep holy c. and the negative in these Thou shalt do no manner of work c. so that a mans inclination to the breach of this Commandment is both wayes met withall 2. In this This precept is not onely given to our selves but to all others that belong to us God proceeds here to a wonderful kinde of particularity by a particular enumeration comprehendeth all that with us and by us may be violaters of this Commandment naming all which he doth not in any of the other 3. The other Commandments are imperative onely and run in a peremptory way of command whereas the word here used though it be of the Imperative mood yet it rather intreats then commands Remember and may serve as a note of separation from the
requires that children shew piety at home and requite their parents affirming that it is good and acceptable before God and for those that requite evil for good 〈◊〉 Wise man saith That evil shall not depart from their house This requital must not be only non subtrahendo by not making away wasting or pilfering their fathers goods which is condemned as a great fault such a son saith Solomon causeth shame and reproach and is a companion of a destroyer but by aiding them if they want ability for so the Apostle requires to requite their parents and as it follows to take order to relieve them that the Church be not charged that so it may relieve those that are widows indeed viz. which have no children able to maintain them Our Saviour would rather have the Corban go without then the father should want And the Council of Gangra hath a severe Canon which doth anathematize those which shall neglect their parents in this case And we have the example of our Saviour Christ performing this part of duty and taking care for his mother even at his death This the very Heathen saw to be a duty by the light of nature for at Athens Children after they came to be thirty years of age were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cherishers of their parents in their old age and they had laws which were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Stork laws and the story tells us that it was taken from the Storks which as writers testifie of them bring every morning and evening meat to the old storks when by agethey are not able to flie and they young ones when the old would drink take them on their backs and carry them to a river And the neglecters of this duty in their laws are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not capable of honour and were pronounced short lived Homer gives the reason of one that died suddenly that he did not nourish his parents To this may be added the duty which the godly have performed to their parents in their sicknesse and at their funerals An example we have in Joseph who though he were in a high estate yet came to his father Jacob in his sicknesse and when he was dead honoured him with solemn funerals And we may see it even in the ungodly for though Ishmael and Esau were wicked sons yet they thought it so great a piaculum to neglect their duty in this point that they concurred with their 〈◊〉 in the enterring of their deceased fathers 3. The third duty of parents is to bring up their children in the fear of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the fear and nurture of the Lord as the Apostle speaks The former dutie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to nourish their bodies most parents are careful enough of but this of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which concerns their souls they are carelesse in Men are apt enough with the mother of Zebedees children to take care for their preferment which is but a worldly care but for the care of their souls it is many times and with many the least of their thoughts Let them see their son break a bone or the like and they are presently much moved but though they see them break the Law of God it much troubles them not If their children come to any temporal punishment or shame or if they be disfigured in body or the like they will grieve and sigh but for any deformity in the soul or sinful practises whereby they incur the displeasure of God they are not troubled Therefore their duty is 1. in the first place to follow Abrahams example to incorporate them into the Church assoon as they can else as the Apostle speaks their children are not holy 2. After their initiating followeth their instruction because that non recedat ab co cum senex 〈◊〉 quod didicit juvenis he will not depart when he is old from that he learned when he was young And this instruction must not be curious or 〈◊〉 but after a familiar sort and in a plain way that may 〈◊〉 them with the principles of religion before they come to be auditors in the Church lest otherwise that which they hear 〈◊〉 may seem strange to them wherein they have the examples of Abraham and David It was also the practise of godly parents in the new Testament Timothy knew the holy Scriptures from a childe as S. Paul testified of him 1. The best way to make instruction profitable is example for as one saith very truely Validiora sunt exempla quam verba plenius opere dicetur quam voce examples are more prevalent then words and a man may speak more by his action then his voice I saw and considered it well and looked upon it saith the Wise man and so I received instruction Therefore parents example must not be repugnant to what they teach for then armatur natura exemplo corrupt nature is armed and strengthened by example if their example be repugnant to that they teach little profit will arise by instruction When the parents set the children a good example and say Go thou and do likewise or learn of me as Christ to his hearers their speech and pattern together will be very prevalent with their children 2. Another way to help instruction is by Discipline which the Wise man calleth the rod and reproof And this it is which puts wisdom into the soul which is kept out by folly which as it ariseth by impunity which the Rabbines call Magna venefica a great bewitcher so the rod of correction shall drive it away Solomon answereth one objection in this point which is I cannot love and correct too That is not so saith he He that spareth his rod hateth his son hut he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes If you correct him not you love him not And indeed in another place he scoffs at the lenity of those that make such objections Withhold not correction from thy child for if thou beat him with the rod he shall not die there is no fear of that but assurance of two great blessings by it as it followeth 1. It shall liberare animam ab inferno it shall deliver his soul from hell And 2. Afferre soiatium animo patris bring joy and comfort to the fathers heart But with this caveat that it be done dum spes est while there is hope 〈◊〉 the twig will grow so great that it will break before it bend S. Augustine proving out of our Saviours words to the Jews that we must do the works of Abraham tells us how we shall do them Omnis qui trucidat filiorùm voluptates tale sacrificium offert Deo quale Abraham he that kills pleasure in his children offers such a sacrifice to God as Abraham did If he kill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
how were they the creatures made Dixit facta sunt by the word by him And how these Kings by the same Ego dixi even by the same that he himself Dixit 〈◊〉 Domino Deo As he then they And so doth Christ himself interpret Ego Dixi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word came to them And what manner was it Saint Paul telleth us it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ordinance a word of high authoritie the imperial decrees have no other names but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This now then is more then a per of Permission a per of Comission it is a special warrant an ordinance imperial by which kings raigne Expressed by his word his word onely 〈◊〉 nay his deed too his best deed his gift Dedi vobis Regem gift of grace as even they acknowledge in their stiles that gratia Dei sunt quod sunt Given by him sent by him placed in their thrones by him vested with their robes by him girt with their swords by him annoynted by him crowned by him All these by him 's we have toward the understanding of per â—m so by him as none are or can be more By him nay more then by him There is not by in the Hebrew and yet the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that in true and exact propriety rendred is not by me but in me The meaning is that they are first in him and so come from him And yet so from him as still they be in him both Corona Regis saith Esay and Cor Regis saith Solomon their persons and estates both in manu Domini And in him as he saith my father in me and I in him so they in him and he in them For as it is true They raigne in and by him so it is likewise true he raignes in and by them he in them as his Deputies they in him as their Author and Authorizer He by their persons they by his power Now I weigh the word Reges what any by him any in grosse qualification what without any regard of religion at all sure if none but true professors had been here 〈◊〉 it must have been but per me Rex for none but one but this Solomon was then such of all the Kings of the earth but in that it is Reges the holy Ghosts meaning is to take in all the rest Hiram and Pharoah and Hadad they are in too in this Reges for where the Scripture distinguishes not no more do we be their religion what it will by him they are But what if they take too much upon them Corahs exception Then it is Dedi vobis Regem in ira saith God by the Prophet Angry I was when I gave him but I gave him though per me iratum it is but per me still But this onus principis say they in the Prophet how may we be rid of it is there any other per me to go unto to deprive or depose them sure where the worst is reckoned that can be of them Clamabunt ad Dominum is all I finde No per to do it but he By him and by none but him these be by him and by none but him they cease to he In nature every thing is dissolved by the same means it came together In law 〈◊〉 and destitution belong both to one In divinitie the Prophet in one and the same verse saith Dedi vobis Regem in the forepart and with one breath abstuli 〈◊〉 in the latter so both pertain to him Dominus dedit Dominus abstulit and for this new per me we argue from the text He makes no King we know and as he makes none so he can unmake none It is 〈◊〉 true that the main frame of government the first raising of it could be by none but this per me But I 〈◊〉 upon particulars rather wherein any that shall but weigh what difficulties what oppositions be raised what plots and practises to keep Reges from Regnant those from it whose of right it is shall be forced to confesse that even by him they have their first entrance Take him 〈◊〉 next 〈◊〉 Solomon and he that shall mark Adonijahs plot drawing the high Priest Abiathar and the general of the field Joab into a strong faction against him shall finde Solomon was bound to acknowledge that per me he came 〈◊〉 if he will not Adonijah himself will he was forced to do it That the kingdom was turned from him and was his brothers for it came unto him even per me by the Lord. This confession of his is upon record 1. King 2. 15. If per me Reges be from Christ from whom is the other Per me Rebelles Per me Regicidae from whom they If by me Kings raigne be Christs by me Kings slain whose per is that That per cannot be the per of any but of Christs opposite who is that Quae conventio Christi Belial what agreement hath Christ and Belial there he is you see whose brood they be that go that way even Belials brood He out of his 〈◊〉 against per me can neither endure Reges nor Regnant but stirs up enemies against them both both Reges and Regnant Against 〈◊〉 Regicidas to assault their persons against Regnant Rebelles to subvert their 〈◊〉 This and much more to this purpose we may read learnedly and elegantly in that sermon The like we may finde in his other sermons as in that on 1 Chr. 16. 27. Touch not mine Anointed P. 800 801. c. 807. And in many other places As we have shewed the original of Magistracie so we shall adde somewhat briefly of the ends of it which are two 1. The chief end of 〈◊〉 is to preserve religion and the true worship of God as was shewed before that men may live together in all Godlines and honesty Therefore Abraham not finding this in Caldea where he was pars patriae one of the country chose rather by divine warrant to leave his country and kinred and sojourn in a strange land And this end is intimated when Israel being under a Heathen King in Egypt one that knew not Jehovah desired to leave Egypt and to go and serve God in the wildernes The want of this end made the Priests and Levites leave their country and their possessions and depart from Jeroboam to Judah and Jerusalem because Jeroboam had 〈◊〉 religion and cast them out from ministring in the priests office before the Lord and because this is the chief end of all Magistracy God appointed that the king as soon as he was settled in this throne should have a copy of the law to read for his direction in the exercise of his office When this end therefore cannot be had where true religion is not maintained à man may leave his country and live elsewhere where it may be enjoyed 2. After this comes in
not his brother hanged his look his countenance fell Laban upon displeasure taken against Jacob altered his countenance it was not to him as before S. Jerome upon the 16 verse of the 80 Psalm saith there is 〈◊〉 increpationis a chiding countenance and 〈◊〉 detractationis a countenance that can detract which is as the Wise man saith when one doth harden his face or put on a bold face when he is rebuked or hath as David saith a proud look whereby he doth as much as in him lies 〈◊〉 laedere dishonour him by his looks Elisha saith that if he had not reverenced the face of the king of Judah he would not once have looked upon Jehoram intimating that to Superiours especially being godly reverence must be shewed and that it may be shewen even in the looks For Superiours because as they say their power is bottomlesse so their abuses are bottomlesse therefore there are certain signes of a good government 1. The Prophet tells us that in a good government the eyes of them that see shall not need to wink and the mouth of them that can speak shall not need to be silent a man may speak the truth freely without danger or controll a flagitious man shall not be called Good Sir and as it is verse 5. the base shall not be called liberal nor the churl bountiful He gives us to understand that in an ill government a man must see and not see as the Poet said Quod scis 〈◊〉 We may see this in the examples of Esay and Amos. Amos lived in the dayes of Vzziah and Jeroboam and he tells us that then it was a time for the prudent to keep silence because it was an evil time A wise man must hold his peace lest it should fare with him as with the Levite when the Danites cried Tace hold thy peace which he was forced to do lest they should have slain him It was certainly no signe of good government when our Saviour for saying he was not bound to accuse himself before Caiaphas was 〈◊〉 on the face by a Catchpole and when Ananias commanded S. Paul to be smitten on the mouth because he pleaded his own cause whereas Esay living in the dayes of Hezekiah a good king durst say to Shebna Who are you whence come you and God deal thus and thus with you 2. A second signe of evil government is when men cannot have justice but are delayed by those that should right them S. Paul notwithstanding his appeal to 〈◊〉 could get no justice because Nero being upheld by his under governours must also uphold them Achish could confesse that David was upright yet he told him he must not go with him for fear of displeasing the Lords of the Philistims 3. Another signe is by their speech which the Heathen observed A good Governour saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is my duty and I must do it An evil Governour will say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have power and I may do it He boasts with Saul I can give you vineyards c. and with Pilate I have power to crucisie thee and power to let thee go 4. A fourth signe is out of Menander when their eye-brows swell so that they will refuse to amend what is amisse If there be any fault and if you tell them not of it they will say Why did you not tell me of it and if you do they will say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we will consider of it and then it shall be as much amended as if it had never been mentioned and also you shall when opportunity serves be remembred with some mark of displeasure as one too busy or pragmatical When one told Joah of Absaloms hanging in a tree he asked him why he did not kill him but the other replied that considering the kings strict charge to the contrary Joah himself if the fact had been done by another would have been ready to accuse him to the king and to have him punished 5. It is a signe of ill government when Religion is pretended to stop justice It was much practised in the primitive times and oft complained of by the Fathers If any of the Rulers or Officers had wronged a Christian Bishop and he had complained to the Emperour who promised justice and appointed a day for hearing then would the Deputy come and say This man is a Christian he ought to be patient and to forgive injuries and not to go to law it s against the principles of his religion And thus they were dismissed without justice and reproached for their labour So it is often with others especially if any Clergie-man seek for justce 6. Lastly The thriving of the righteous is a good signe In his dayes saith the Psalmist shall the righteous flourish But on the contrary when as the Heathen observed The flatterer is chief in esteem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Sycophant the next and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the lewd and naughty person is the third This is a signe of ill government Such a Sycophant was Doeg who accused David to Saul and made him pursue him his crime was such that there was no sacrifice appointed by the Law to 〈◊〉 it and therefore David said Let him be cursed before the Lord. It is reported that when Caesar first entred upon his tyrannical government he gave preferment sic 〈◊〉 non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tamen inquinaret ornamenta so that the men had no honor by them but dishonor was brought upon the preferments and these places of preferment are discredited when unworthy men as Sycophants and lewd persons are placed in them by governours 6. The sixt rule for expounding the precepts is that we do not onely observe them our selves but cause them to be observed by others According to this we must not onely honour our Superiours but draw others to this duty The negative precept is given by the Wise man My son Fear God and the King and 〈◊〉 not with those that are given to change c We must neither be principals nor accessories in any rebellious course against our Soveraign neither do any thing of our selves nor draw others to joyn with us in any such unlawful course An example we have in David when he had Saul at 〈◊〉 he would not hurt him himself nor would he suffer Abishai to destroy him for who saith he can stretch out his hand against the Lords anointed and be innocent And as they contain a dehortation from disobedience and rebellion so e contra we have an exhortation for obedience and subjection Gedaliah as he was willing to submit himself to the Chaldees so he exhorts others Let us serve the king of Babel and it shall be well with us When any shall rise in the gain-saying of Corah against Moses or Aaron we must not onely not joyn with them but withdraw others from them and say with Moses