be convicted of moral evil and so unconcernedly to omit the weightier matters of the Law as Judgment Mercy or Charity in Vnity and Faith what can Charity call this but meer Pharisaism and where must such Pharisaism end at length but in Sadducism even denying of the Blessings and Curses of a Future Life For as Drusius hath Si Patres nostri selvissent mâ—râ—â—â—s resurrecturâ— praemia manere â—ustos â—â—st hanc vitam nâ—n tantoperè râ—bellassent Drusius in Mat. c 3. v. 7. Item in c. 22 23. observed it was one Reason alledged by the Sadduces against the Resurrection If our Fathers had known the dead should rise again and rewards were prepared for the Righteous they would not have rebelled so often not conforming themselves to Gods Rule as is pretended by all but conforming the Rule of Sin and of Faith it self to the good Opinion they had of their own Persons and Actions which Pestilential Contagion now so Epidemical God of his great Mercy remove from us and cause health and soundness of Judgment Affection and Actions to return to us and continue with us to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. I. OF the Nature and Grounds of Religion in General Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious Chap. II. Of the constant and faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine Supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledge of a God not natural Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God Chap. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A brief censure of the Gentile and Mahumetan Religion Chap. V. Of the Jewish Religion The pretence of the Antiquity of it nulled The several erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered Chap. VI. The vanity of the Jewish Religion shewed from the proofs of the true Messias long since come which are many Chap. VII The Christian Religion described The general Ground thereof the revealed Will of God The necessity of Gods revealing himself Chap. VIII More special Proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several reasons Chap. IX Of the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood Chap. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficulty of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof Chap. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to interpret it decisively The Spirit not a proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined Chap. XII Of Tradition as a Means of understanding the Scriptures Of the certainty of unwritten Traditions that it is inferiour to Scripture or written Tradition No Tradition equal to Sense or Scripture in Evidence Of the proper use of Tradition Chap. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temporarie and Miraculous Faith are not in nature distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith explicite and implicite Chap. XIV Of the effects of true Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguish'd from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes Chap. XV. Of the effect of Good Works which is the effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical Chap. XVI Of Merit as an effect of Good Works The several acceptatations of the word Merit What is Merit properly In what sense Christians may be said to merit How far Good Works are efficacious unto the Reward promised by God Chap. XVII Of the two special effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows Chap. XVIII Of Justification as an effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and how The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the principal cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ Chap. XIX Of the efficient cause of Justification Chap. XX. Of the special Notion of Faith and the influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith solitary and only Of a particular and general Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works justifie Chap. XXI A third effect of justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. Chap. XXII Of the contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their Differences The difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie the evil disposition of the mind and the falsness of the matter How far and when Heresie destroys Faith How far it destroys the Nature of a Church Chap. XXIII Of the proper subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion visible as well as invisible necessary to the constituting a Church Chap. XXIV A preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not revocable by the people Chap. XXV Of the Form of Civil Government The several sorts of Government That Government in general is not so of Divine Right as that all Governments should be indifferently of Divine Institution but that One especially was instituted of God and that Monarchical The Reasons proving this Chap. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The confusion of co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why Chap. XXVII An application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the communion
infinite reasons First from the Object of their worship generally directed to a multitude of Gods and patching up a plenitude of power out of the shreds of innumerable Demi-gods or pieces of Gods whereof one should have power and vertue in one thing and another in another but this is to deny God in effect who if he be not absolute is not at all and indeed all the arguments before used to prove there can be but one God do prove that to be a false and foolish Religion which alloweth and worshippeth more than one Neither can it suffice to excuse them to say that the wiser of the Heathens acknowledged but one God because it availeth nothing at all but to add to their condemnation for any persons to have a right sense and meaning reserved to themselves and to proceed directly contrary to such found judgment in their practice and worship it self And therefore the most absurd and abominable manner of worshipping their pretended Deities is sufficient conviction of the Religion it self For whereas modesty sobriety temperance chastity truth justice and the like moral vertues were such as the Light of Nature did commend to all men and all consented to be excellent and laudable All these were contemned by the admirers of these Gods yea the very Religion it self tempted and incited many to offend against all these and that which is most intolerable from the examples of the pretended gods so chusing to be worshipped from whence must needs follow what St. Paul affirmeth of the Gentiles Religion and gods The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to Devils and not to God They were impure and wicked 1 Cor. 10. 20. spirits delighting in absurd and vitious practises And therefore upon this subject no more need be spoken at present The Neat pretender to true worship may be the Mahometan who worshipping the True God so far as may be discerned yet faileth egregiously in the manner of exhibiting the same the very grounds and end also being false and unreasonable For first that the Author and Coiner of that worship was an impostor and made pretences of Sanctity in the midst of impurities and infirmities he was subject unto is apparent out of Histories of those times and places where he by the assistance of a Fugitive Nestorian Monk laid the plot and whole design of his Religion and that among a people altogether rude ignorant barbarous easie to be deceived and cheated into a credulity of pretended Revelations Again the many absurdities and contradictions of their Law most sacred as misnaming of persons mistiming of Facts mistaking of Histories in the gross impossible prophane blasphemous opinions concerning the nature the will the Actions of God contrary to common philosophy and reason Ridiculous and foolish imaginations of Angels utterly false opinions of the nature of things and such like being duly and soberly weighed and examined do convince the whole Fabrick of that superstition of Idleness and foolish fictions And not to multiply more arguments here The way of propagating this Erroneous Fashion of serving God discovereth the Errour of the thing it self For it is a general and most rational Principle deserving admission and belief of all That Religion being the most excellent act of humane Creatures ought to have the most high and noble Faculty of the soul for its proper seat and fountain from whence it should proceed such as is the intellectual faculty of Man But this superstition is carried on by the ministery of the Senses chiefly And moreover It ought to have for its end the most sublime and divine of all But the Mahometan constituteth the low pleasures of the Senses as the sufficient and proper end of all their service making the beatitude of Heaven to consist in perpetual Licentiousness and fresh delights of senses And therefore no need of insisting on this subject here What is here spoken being for method sake rather then necessity or a formal confutation of those Errours CHAP. V. Of the Jewish Religion The Pretence of the Antiquity of it mulled Their several Erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered DUT the Religion of the Jew requireth more diligent examination as well because of a notable presumption from ancient Tradition and a certain preoccupation of divine truths and auctority of divine Constitution as because the consideration thereof is an introduction to Christian Religion and the disproof of that a proof of the Christian And if according to Christians own concessions and the eminentest Apostle St. Paul they were once the people and true Church of God To Rom. 3. 2. cap. 9. 4. them were committed the Oracles of God To them pertained the Adoption and the glorie and the Covenant and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises Why not alwayes a Church If once Gods people Why not alwayes so If once confessed to be pure and Faithfull When did they cease to be so When first entred corruptions into their Church Under what High Priest And who brought such errours first in This is the sum of what they can say either for themselves or against the Christians of whose Religion which undoubtedly they do and will call Heresie they can give the time and place when and where it sprang up and the person who first founded and advanced the same And if any Church or Society of men in the world can lay claim to the Promises of perpetuity and infallibility surely the Jewish will pretend much more from the Prerogatives peculiar to them as do witness every where the Law and the Prophets To all this a sufficient answer shall be comprehended in the prosecution of the contrary Grounds which here follows which I reduce to these two whereof One concerns their Errour about their Law and the Other about their Messias The first general Errour concerning their Law is first that they suppose that the word of God given to Moses for their proper use was equally to oblige all Nations saving where certain priviledges were pretended to Jews by birth which they suppose no people were worthy or capable of except the stock of Abraham But that all nations could not be included in that Covenant which was made with Abraham nor were all obliged to the Rites and Ceremonies thereof appears from the ordinary impossibility of being observed by all People For how could people of the remotest parts of the earth appear thrice a year at Jerusalem as was commanded the Israelites by God who dwelt in the Land of Canaan How Levit. 12. 6. could all Nations at any time bring their Sacrifices to the door of the House of the Lord to be there received and offered by the Priests Another Errour concerning their Law received by Moses is that they say It was it whereby men should be justified Which is false and that First because the most ancient holy and renowned Patriarchs of the Jewish Line were not so Justified They were not justified by the
which we have shewed they have not as Jews and he will undoubtedly conclude against their antiquated Religion and Innovated Superstitions CHAP. VII The Christian Religion described The General Ground thereof The Revealed Will of God The Necessity of Gods Revealing himself AFTER the consideration of Religion in General and the reasonableness thereof with the Exclusion of the principal false pretenders of worshipping the true God it follows to treat of the Christian Religion and the Reasonableness and several incomparable Prerogatives thereunto proper And first it is to be known what we mean by Christian Religion and what it is Christian Religion is the worship of the only true God in the unity of nature and trinity of persons through one Mediatour between God and man the Man Christ Jesus according to his Will and Laws revealed in his holy Word commonly called the Scriptures This description whether artificial enough I will not contend but full enough I suppose it is to declare as well What it is in it self as Wherein it is distinct from others And therefore omitting to treat of the more curious and formal part thereof we shall here shew briefly What great advantages it hath above any other to the obliging us to a more faithful and devout observation thereof and that this only and no other can truly please God and lead us to him and crown us hereafter with eternal bliss and glory And it having been proved that by the consent of all Nations there is a God and it following more strongly upon that ground supposed that such a Supream and Infinite being is to be worshiped and that this worship is that which we call Religion and that of the Religions pretending to be divine the others have been found vain and deficient the Right of being received as the only proper worship of God must of necessity devolve upon the Christian Religion as that which is least obnoxious to the same or like exceptions and hath many more sober and rational inducements to perswade the same to any equal judgment Which argument might well be drawn from the very Body of this Religion and the several parts whereof it consisteth together with manifold Pregnant Circumstances attending the same But because this would ask a far longer time and more tedious labour both to Writer and Reader then can consist with this intended Compendium it may abundantly suffice to give such probable and credible proofs of the Scriptures That they are the revealed will of God as Christians do believe without question For the summ and substance of all Christian religion so far as it is truly so called and professed being founded on the Holy Scriptures and there expresly contained if it be evinced that they are of divine Original it will follow That what they deliver is so likewise and consequently the Religion built upon them But because it is one Principle which Christian Religion is built upon in common with all Religions that somewhat must so be believed that no natural reason or Mathematical can invincibly demonstrate And the reason hereof is because the ground of all such demonstations is setled upon the order of Nature between Cause and Effect in point of right rather than matter of fact But that the Scriptures are so the word of God as to be revealed by his Holy Spirit to certain select Persons to that end is altogether matter of fact and that not proceeding from such a necessary and natural Agent as that according to the course of Causes and Effects it could be no otherwise but from a free Agent which certainly might have suspended such acts of Revealing his Will And the same Reason holds against all proper Demonstration from Effect For as it cannot be demonstrated that such a Cause must necessarily have such an Effect it cannot be infallibly proved that such an Effect must have such a Cause For unless it could be proved that fire must necessarily burn it could not be proved that what we see burnt must necessarily proceed from fire For before this can be don it must be shewed that nothing in the world has the same virtue but fire and this supposes that we have a perfect and exact knowledg of every thing and the nature of it in the world Take we an instance yet nearer to our present subject It is a common Maxime amongst the Schoolmen That no Creature can work a Miracle of it self but it must have the Supernatural power of God either immediately or mediately and That whatsoever Effects are wrought by any Spirit inferiour to God deserve not the name of a Miracle And yet it is confessed withall that diverse such works which appear to us as extraordinary and above nature are not of God but some perhaps evil Creature Must it not then first be known what those extraordinary acts are and how they are wrought before it can be concluded that they are of God And how can this infallibly be discern'd but by another miracle and this by a third a third by an infinity of which there can be no knowledg So that in truth the received doctrine of the Schools being thorowly examined the contrary will appear the more reasonable of the two and that we must rather first of all acknowledg a Divine Power precedent and effecting this extraordinary stupendious work before we may call it a Miracle than first admit this to be a Miracle and then and thence infer a Divine Power So that it seems very difficult and dubious to make scientifical conclusions of any thing divine And that after all there may be sufficient presumptions to render a thing credible without lightness and rashness yet the Arguments perswading shall not be so pressing and cogent but due place should remain for a Faith or assent which may not be properly humane and natural which it must needs be if it proceeded simply from sense or reason natural but divine and an admirable temperament be found in that we call The true Christian Faith wherein the Grace of God inwardly moving and inclining the Will to embrace that to which it might notwithstanding all reasons to the contrary not altogether unreasonably have dissented and yet with reason doth assent the Grace of God pulling down 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. strong holds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and bringing into Captivity every thought unto the obedience of Christ As St. Paul excellently saith speaking of the carnal warfare of humane ratiocinations either for or against Divine Faith and Doctrine which have no might but through God as he suffers by his justice the reasonings and eloquence of men to take place against his doctrine or to prevail towards the receiving of the truth by the superadded Power of his Holy Spirit as to this end St. Paul speaks in his first Epistle to the Corinthians thus And my speech and my preaching was not 1 Cor. 2. 4 5. with enticing words of mans
particularly assured of his being in Christ The whole Antecedent I grant viz. That every man believeth Christ when he receiveth him and that Christ is received by Faith And that every man is bound to apply Christ particularly and his Promises to himself But the consequence here made follows not from hence For by the former a man believes assuredly that the Promises of Grace made through Christ to the Church do particularly belong to him he hath a right to them being called to the Covenant Neither do we promise any other security of Salvation by only Faith but to those that labour in their calling and be fruitful of good Works Dr. Fulk on Rhem. Test Phil. 3. v. 11. And thus far a man is and ought to be sure of his Salvation But there being implyed in all Promises of Everlasting Salvation certain conditions of obeying and repenting as well as believing simply whether a man is to that degree proficient in these as to put him in actual possession of Christ this is no where revealed neither are we commanded to believe it And when St. Paul saith to the Romans * Rom. 8. 15 16. See likewise 1 John 5. 9 10 Ye have not received again the spirit of bondage to fear but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father What is more plain than that his meaning is to distinguish the general state of the Church of the Jews from the Church of the Gentiles and the spirit of Moses as I may so say which tender'd to bondage from the spirit of Christ which is that free Spirit For as it is elsewhere said If the Son make you free then shall you be free indeed And from hence no more can be concluded to any single person than to the whole Church of God in which there are many reprobates as all agree Neither is the matter helped out any whit by what follows The Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Sons of God I presume few will be so severe and ignorant as to deny the large acceptation in Scripture of the Children of God and Sons of God and Saints viz. That generally they signifie no more than those who were elected outwardly to the Faith and Profession of Christ and to the means of becoming not only denominatively and of Right but really and effectually in Fact the heirs of Eternal Salvation To be then the Sons of God here with St. Paul signifies no more than by Faith to be the peculiar people and favorites of God above all such as were not thus brought home to Christs Fold Now that such singular Grace and Priviledges belonged to Christian St. Paul proves from the testimony of the Spirit namely That the Christian Religion is only the true Religion thus The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirit Our own Judgment our Consciences doth stedfastly assure us that we are the Children of God but this is not all this proves nothing to another to the convincing of him that we are the true Servants and Children of God but the Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit doth And the Spirit of God beareth witness with us sufficiently when it declareth openly by miracles signs and wonders wrought before the eyes of our Adversaries that what we preach and believe is the truth Which is the same with what St. Paul writes to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 2. 4. saying And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your faith might stand not in the wisdom of man but in the power of God In which words he plainly sheweth the ground of the Corinthians faith not to be taken from any fair or plausible Rhetorick or form of words whereby men are led oftentimes to believe against reason but on the more solid grounds of extraordinary miracles wrought by the power of God and which did demonstrate to all equal judges That it was the Spirit of God which both taught them such mysteries of Faith as they preached and confirmed the same by such signs and wonders as did appear generally at the publication of the Gospel Now what doth all or any of this concern the supposed particular inward tacit testimony whereby it is said a man is to be assured of his Salvation And no more do the words of the Apostle in the end of the same Chapter prove too long to be recited but this Rom. 8. 35 36 37 38 39. is briefly to be answered 1. That they speak not at all of any individual single Christian but of the Church of God and that indefinitely or at large viz. That God hath so determined to plant propagate and maintain that Religion into which divers were collected by the ministry of the Apostles that whatever or from whomsoever evils might befall the Church of God yet they should never prevail with such persecutions to separate the faithful from Christ no not all the Powers nor Principalities on Earth nor all the Angels of Heaven or of Hell But to secure these and the like testimonies the better to their opinions some much admired persons of the Reformation peradventure suspecting what might be answered have proceeded to say That what promises Calvin Inst Christ hath made to his Church do equally concern every Christian as well as the Church which I cannot yield to without these Exceptions First That it may be understood of a particular Church as well as particular Persons But as may hereafter appear God hath made no absolute promise to any particular Church so far that it can be any point of Faith to believe that Gods counsel decree are such to it as never to suffer it to Apostatize from him So that no individual Church can be sure of its perseverance in the truth and if not that how should any particular person claim so much But the Promises of Christ being taken as they ought of a Church indefinitely it is most agreeable to Gods word to maintain an infallible perpetuity of the same Again It is to be remembred that all this while we are speaking not so much of certainty before God according to which we may yield the Salvation of men to be infallible but certainty before men or to the party concerned immediately which we call Assurance or Evidence In the body of an Orthodox Church it is certain in it self that many men shall be saved but not certain to us that any one therein shall nor evident to any one that he shall To the reasons taken from the Power of God who is able to save and reveal this And the truth of God who is faithful in his Promise And the Knowledge of God that he knoweth who are his what need we make any answer besides showing the vanity of that inference which is drawn from the possibility of any thing to the Fact it self and of that presumption rather than faith which
virulent tongues cannot forget their wonted strains of dishonesty and extream spite and railings witness one for all the foresaid Ludovicus Molinaeus who as civilly and reverently as he carries himself towards Mr. Baxter for none of his vertues we may be sure as exorbitantly in the old Puritans language and on their Grounds flies in the face of the Greatest and Best of the Rulers of the Church and State too who have at any time resolutely opposed the designs and Schismatical devices of such unchristian Reformers as himself only I must confess he is favourable to his late Sacred Majesty whose invincible Piety and unparallel'd innocency of Life and Ignominious yet Glorious Death hath not only struck Sectaries dumb who once opened so loudly and perniciously against him but extorted cold commendations from them not much unlike that approbation given by that Parricide Antonius the Emperor who when he understood how the people of Rome magnified and even deâ—fied his virtuous Brother Geta whom he had wickedly murdered said Sit Divus modò non sit vivus i e. Let him be Divine so he be not living But whom doth he or his Fellows occasion serving spare Hath he not raked the stinking Canal of all â—ld lyes and feigned rumors invented to imbroyl the Church in Schism and Kingdome in Sedition and Bloud and indeavoured to put new life into them and Authentize them to other Countries as well as ours It was soberly and seasonably said by that excellent Arch-bishop Speech Delivered in the Star Chamber p. 2. whom he would traduce in basest manner were not his merits above the Calumnies of such wretched Fellows in his Speech in the Star-chamber at the Charge of Prin Burton and Bastwick viz. There were times when Persecutions were great in the Church even to exceed Barbarity it self Did any Martyr or Confessor in those times Libel their Governors Surely no not one of them to my best remembrance yet these complain of Persecution without all shew of cause and in the mean time libel and rail without all measure so little a kin are they to those who suffer for Christ or the least part of Christian Religion This witness is most true of these Cretians And it is my great glory not only to be named among such eminent persons as lately but at present are living in our Church whom this Molinaeus traduceth And why so because of my rude usage of Mr. Daillee whom I spit on if any will believe him Lud. Molin Antidure Epist p. 54. rather then dispute against That I spare not the memory of Diodate That I am no fairer to Mr. Bochartus And why doth be forget my railing too against his Brethren the Puritans This he might better say But neither he nor any man else can say that I imitate Puritans in railing against my Betters or Governors that 's their peculiar and inseparable virtue and hath been from the first founding of the Discipline by Penrie Whittingham Goodman and Cartwright with others to the confounding of the Church so far as lay in their power I ever was not only an approver but an admirer of the personal Gifts of Calvin and Beza of Monsieur Daillee and Monsieur Bochart c. but I owe them no more respect in the cause of Religion than they do me or any man else of our Church but I profess I owe more Reverence to the least of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church whom Puritans have so basely treated then to the greatest of them and so do Sectaries too as ill as they are galled to hear of it But what do I speak so irreverently after all against Mr. Daillee Not a word hath this Zelote found in my whole Book against him nor in that Action against our Schismaticks whom I confess to have severely treated in that I give them their own some mens dealings being so foul as theirs have been that the very bare recitation of them is lookt on as railing though never so faithfully done If any of them or their friends can tell me wherein I have done them wrong in misreporting their Facts I do here assure them I will make them all the satisfaction I am able in retracting and acknowledging my Error and that as publickly as I have injured them with the next opportunity Cyprian Optatus Hierom Austin Nazianzen and Chrysostom as holy and sober persons as they were in their Generations made no great scruple to paint Schismaticks out in their Colors with language which cuts where it goes and I am sure these upon no better grounds than they have or can possibly offer of departing from and dividing our Church are no better Nay in this hath the Puritan Sectary transcended all Hereticks and Schismaticks that ever went before them For though divers Factions were raised and fomented to a great height in the Church of God of old and Altar was erected against Altar and Chair against Chair i. e. Worship against Worship and Governor against Governor of the Church yet do we find none through all the Histories of the Church that ever became so presumptuous and desperate as to endeavour the total subversion of the Government of the Church in it self and to set up another in the room of it quite of another nature which we read not that Aerius himself ever attempted though he preacht up the equality of Bishops and Presbyters And so far am I from such a spirit of meekness I confess that I shall never smooth them or their cause over so civilly as to imply the contrary until they bethink themselves without their customary frauds and dissimulations of their duties and return to the Peace and Unitie of the Church which I shall not cease to pray for But one of the most material things charged on me is That I liked Dailee's Book the worse because it pleased the Puritans so much which says my Accuser is to be of the spirit of Maldonate the Jesuite But he is mistaken For Maldonate indeed rejected a sense of Scripture which otherwise he approved because it was Calvins If I disliked Dailees opinions only because they were Dailees or our Puritans he had been somewhat near the matter but no such thing hath fallen from me I disliked indeed his Book because it so far pleased the Puritans that they were thereby notably confirmed in their obstinate Opinions against the Authority of the Ancient and our Present Church Here were evil effects also to be disliked Next let us bear how I abuse Diodate of Geneva in that I rehearse this saying of him against King Charles the first viz. That Christ in the Gospel commands us to forgive our enemies but not our friends This he calls Crassum mendacium A gross lye in me whereas the lye if there be any must necessarily be in himself or his brother Puritan Cook the Sollicitor against King Charles the first at his Sentence in that monstrous Court. For I no where say of my self that Diodate said those words
only to signifie how Christ was lifted up on the Cross but as practised in the Roman Church to the intent direct and divine Worship be given it 7. Wicked men eat not the Body of Christ Sure enough in a proper sense not denominatively only as the consecrated Elements are called the Body of Christ very often and currently 8. That they who communicate not are to be put out of the Church This is such an Error as the Ancient Church was guilty of as well as we as your own Vicecomes sheweth at large Vicecomes Vol. 3. l. 1. c. 18. 9. The Keys of the Church consist only in opening the Word of God No such thing is held by us 10. Private Confession is to be taken away Not so much as Sectaries say this absolutely 11. The Ceremonies of the Church are to be abrogated Simply and falsly said and directly contrary to the Articles of our Artic. 20. Church 12. Prayers in the Latin Tongue are barbarous and against St. Pauls Precept Very true where they are at first so instituted and understood by very few or none and so are they in the English Tongue or any other 13. No man can fulfill the Law This is true or false as it may be taken 14. More Masses then one cannot be said in one day in one Church Here our Accuser saith he knows not what For neither doth our Church inhibit more then once to officiate Liturgically neither did the Ancient Church practise if permit it for above four hundred years after Christ as appears from Dioscorus Bishop of Alexandria consulting with Leo the first Bishop of Rome what he should Leo 1 Epist 79 or as some So. See also Grecian consecr Dist c. 51. do when Christians were so numerous that they could not all be received into the Church at once who answered In such cases he might safely reiterate the office And the Council of Antisiodorum or Auxere held about the Year 578 decreed that but one Mass should be said upon one Altar in one day which is as much observed by the Church of Rome now-a-days as other Canons of Councils which lye in their way thrown out And where in the Ancient Church do you read of above one Altar in one Church 15. Unity is no Note of the Church Discords and Divisions are certain signs of Errors but Unity is no certain sign of Truth nor so much as of a Church how then can it be of a true Church 16. Universal Councils may be repeal'd by Particular This See Petrus Gregorius Syntagm l. 15. c 3. is nothing he might have said by particular persons as the Popes who may according to that Church null Acts of Councils Oecumenical But we only hold that in things mutable according to the condition Article 34. of Time Place and other Circumstances rendring some Decrees prejudicial to some Churches contrary to the intention of the first Ordainers of them a Provincial Church may make alterations 17. The Church may erre in Faith And what of that meaning any one Individual single Church as the Roman hath according to our Articles 18. The Precepts of the Church concerning set Fasts are A Doctrine of Devils It is rather a Doctrine of Devils to teach so 19. Peter was not the Prince of the Apostles Peter was A or if you will The Principal Apostle but he was not the Prince of any one of them much less of all 20. The Bishop of Rome is Antichrist We are not so much agreed about this point as to give in a full verdict but we agree he is Antichristian 21. The difference concerning Leaven and Easter is inconsiderable Where no danger of Schisms or confusions may alter the case it is true 22. It is Heathenish to invoke Saints that reign with Christ Whether heathenish or no may be doubted they never worshipping any relating to Christ But for all that it may be and is superstitious and idolatrous in the sense very current in the Roman Church 23. The Reliques of Saints are not to be worshipped We hold so indeed though we hold they are to be respected relatively 24. The Saints in Heaven have no merits It is true taken strictly and properly 25. Indulgences of the Church are vain They are not only vain but wicked and generally blasphemous and ridiculous as mangâ—ed by the Church of Rome contrary or at least without all Precedents of the Christian Church for many hundred years viz. in remitting Sins or Punishments after this life and that divers times before they are committed Is not this fine and wonderful ancient and Catholick 26. Nothing is to be read in the Church besides Canonical Scripture This is rank Puritanism contradicted by themselves in their practise who read their Sermons as well as others and pray which is aequivalent to reading in this case out of their own heads rather than Scripture 27. In Oecumenical Councils and Private for the explaining of the Doctrine of Faith the consent of Lay-Princes is necessary It is necessary for the orderly assembling of such Councils It is necessary for the giving any Secular enforcement unto them 28. That it is lawful for Lay-men alone the Clergy opposing to introduce the Ancient Religion This is true no farther then that of Gerson which is alledged to this purpose A Lay-man with Scripture on his side is to be preferred before a Council without it Supposing a monstrous Proposition no wonder if a monstrous conclusion follows 29. He is no Bishop that teacheth not This is also a Puritan strain It being only true that he is no faithful conscientious Pastor but either proud or treacherous or sloathful or basely prudent who doth not in person discharge his Office so far as he is able without turning the care of his flock over to others using that for an argument of keeping close in his Cabin which is rather an argument of appearing in his charge viz. storms on the Church Opposition the Faith and Orders of the Church meet withal and difficulties obstructing the truth It being both shameful and ridiculous both in Bishop and Priest to censure others for enemies to the Church and for them so to wast it in all mens esteem in deserting it and delivering it up to the care of others themselves seeking little else then their temporal Harvest and case These men are over the Church indeed but 't is as the Extinguisher is over the Candle to put it out They pretend for themselves they have been sufferers for the Church and so it should seem indeed by their carriage to it in that through their scandalous negligence as to their charge they take a course to revenge themselves of it by making it suffer as much or more for them 30. Faith alone justifies How this is held we have even now as also we shall hereafter more fully explain 31. There are no Merits in Good works There are none properly so called 32. Priests and Monks may marry 'T is true where the
him and the Matter it self far from judicious or solid in many places Much more wisely and learnedly had Joannes Forbesius of Aberdeen in Scotland set forth his Controversial Work called Instruct Hist Theol. l. 4. c. 4. § 29. Instructiones Historico Theologicae yet imperfect as it should seem by himself who refers us to the twenty forth and twenty fifth Book of that Work there being extant only sixteen And surely as the Book argues great Learning in the Author so might it have proved no less beneficial to the Christian World had there been less complyance with Calvin in it which might be the reason that it found not that entertainment in England that otherwise it might have had but was commended and published to the World by Andrew Rivett the Dutch Divines giving full approbation thereunto to whom it should seem declining the judgment of that Church he stood more obliged to he submitted his Work which yet might be excused in part it being a time viz. 1645. when such havock and dissipation of the English Church was made by the Calvinizing Scots and Scotizing English as were not to be excused nor ever forgotten For mine own particular I would not have any to expect here a Book of Preaching or Devotion of both which and especially the former there seems to be little want amongst us so neither purely Scholastical but serving to all these purposes And therefore I have wrote it in the English Tongue aiming at no higher end than to profit those of our own Church and Nation And therefore I call it An Introduction intimating my principal Intention to be to prepare the way to the Readers ascent from this to more high and ample Disquisitions And this farther according to the mind of the Church of England I say this was my Purpose I do not say that this I have alwayes exactly and infallibly attained any more than those Learned Writers before me who have endeavoured to give us the sum of the Laws of our Nation as I have of the Religion of our Church have attained their ends according to their desires and therefore much less to the expectation of others Wherefore the Apology which Learned Dr. Cowell used to the Reader of his Institutions of the English Laws with some little variation may aptly enough serve my turn against the proneness of some Censurers whom it may offend that I take upon me to determine what the Church of England holds when as there is and alwayes will be and that in all Churches some Diversity in the Writers But as Littleton of old advised his Son so would I advise Vt autem Littletonus suum … um sic ego vâ—â— praemonitus multâ—o magis esse cupio ne omnia huc congesta Juri nâ—stro consentanea statim exâ—â—…iâ—etis Neque enim hoc opus est nâ—strae â—talia tamen esse non injuriâ forte polliceor c. Johan Cowellus Praefat. Institut Juris Anglic. you much more that ye do not presently perswade your selves that all things here collected are agreeable to our Law for this is past our power Yet such I may promise them to be as will not be unprofitable And I may safely adde I have not invented any thing which I know to be repugnant to the Established Faith or Worship amongst us The Method that I here use I hope is not obscure nor unuseful to the Reader nor Illogical but consisting of parts cohering with one another and succeeding each other visibly enough though I know well I might have subdivided several Chapters and Heads into more distinct Sections and peradventure might have erred and offended more on the other hand as Seneca hath observed Philosâ—phiam in partes nâ—n in frusira dividamidividi enim illam non concidi utile est Nam comprehendere quemadmedum maxima iâ— minima dist â—â—le est Senec. Epist 89. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyssâ—de virâ Mosis p. 180. and daily may be seen in the Compendiums on this Subject of Forrein Writers they do who are too curious confounding by distinguishing In the general Division of this into two Parts I follow Gregorie Nyssene who summeth up all Religion under these two Heads Worship which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the other a Right Understanding of the true Nature of God Only Natural Reason teaching every man that he must Know aright before he can Do aright I have set Knowledge which is the same with Faith in a Christian in the first place and Worship in the Second Part of this Draught of Religion It remains now that according to the custom of Adventurers into the Censure of this captious Age I should bespeak the favourable opinion and friendly or rather in this case charitable acceptance of my present endeavours from the true Christian Reader for from others my hopes are very small but I shall only crave the removing of that prejudice and improving of that Purity of Intention in the reading which I may with a good Conscience profess to have had in the writing And especially shall pray God to prosper it to those dissenting Brethren amongst us who I fear are no less apt to take offense then our professed Enemies as disagreeing from their perswasions in many things But that is none of my fault But my hearts desire and prayer to God is with St. Paul Rom. 10. 1. that they might be saved For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge To inform therefore such was my principal design as likewise to exhort them in the fear and for the love of God and the Truth to consider at length and lay seriously to heart the scandalous and most pernicious evil of that Division for which as yet they have given no tolerable reason which they can with any confidence perswade themselves will hold before God And having themselves wrote so many and horrible things against such Schism all their allegations and complaints against their Governours for hard usage of their tender Consciences are no more to be regarded by the Church than the froward cryes and carriage of Children when their Parents would look their Heads and take out their Vermine For what is that moderation and compounding with us they sometimes offer and excuse themselves from the foresaid accusations by as if they sought Peace and Vnity but to imitate the worst of Bankrupts and thrive by breaking now their open and most cruel dealings towards us have failed them And which is most unreasonable of all neither can nor will give any just assurance of persevering in a true and cordial communion with the Church so modelled as they propound in their Moderation until it becomes such as they could wish and that is quite to overthrow the whole visible constitution of it as their Oaths and Covenants not disclaimed bind them And to stick so immoveably as too many do at lighter things such as Rites and Ceremonies which cannot possibly
But first consider we the silliness of their reasons and weakness of their arguments against a Deity who will yield to nothing but manifest palpable and invincible demonstrations for it and it will be sufficient to confirm any sober mind in the faith of it For how many hath Pride to be thought some body extraordinary in maintaining Paradoxes Singularity to find out somwhat new as Lactantius observed of those Philosophers that were reputed Atheists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysoft In Hebraeos Ser. 4. that took upon them such opinions because they could find out nothing else to make themselves talkt on and famous How many hath boldness and impudency vain-glory and to appear free and illimited in their opinions and practices How many hath Riot Lust and such like excesses converted to this kind of infidelity more then Sobriety or Philosophie It is alas no wit no choice no freedom or generousness of mind at all If as Chrysostome hath said the nobleness of the mind consisteth in believing the high and noble things but a contracted stupidity or sordid servility and unavoidable necessity to enjoy themselves in their low and base courses which constrain them to these perswasions unnatural to them But I deny not but some of the Learned and for ought we know grave Philosophers have inclined to Atheisin as have many Great Rich and Powerful But first however some Princes have been dogmatical within themselves and Practical Atheists in their unjust dealings towards others yet never dared they to commend or incourage such principles in their Subjects nor discover professedly such to their Neighbours by reason of the visible and monstrous mischiefs presently and naturally rushing out of them to the ruin of themselves and others And can that be a truth which is so pernicious to the Authors and promoters of it all over the World Again Can there be any thing more required to prove a thing to be irrational and absurd then that it should never by all countenance and advantages given to it by Power and Learning be able to prosper into any one Society upon earth That it should never prevail so far as to be generally and publickly owned in any one Land or Nation But like a flash of wild-fire make a noise and a show and presently come to nothing Never could Atheists yet from the Creation to this present unite into a Body or become a Commonwealth but against all endeavours and devices when Religion has for a time been discountenanced and crushed by impious Agents it hath recovered it self again in despite of its adversaries Which shews that it is implanted in Man as a natural principle which may be oppressed but never extinguished For whereas Socinus and his crew of late would prove that Religion is not natural to Man from some remote Indians who he says acknowledg no God It is hard for any to make that good But were it so It doth not overthrow our opinion here which teaches chiefly such a naturalness as upon presentation of the thing to the mind of man outwardly doth meet with such compliance inwardly as may well be called Natural And besides a principal doubt was whether infinite People directly and positively asserting and believing a Deity any one can be found which dogmatically oppose the same None of Socinus his instances reach to this And it is not so improbable but inhumanity it self may have prevailed over some people so far as to have buried all Civility in them And what wonder is it or what weakning to our Cause in hand that they who have ceased to be men should have layd aside Religion I do not think Divinity or the belief of a God more inseparable from Man then common humanity and yet I may hold it natural too CAHP. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God NOthing is so intimate and necessary to the very Being of a thing as the Unity of it as say Philosophers Of the Unity of the Deity therefore as necessary to Faith we shall here briefly speak Where first it is to be noted to the advantage of the Faith holding there can be but one God that though many great Wits have attempted boldly to deny a God yet none of them who have granted a Deity have ever so much as denyed the reasonableness of that Opinion which asserts the Unity of such a Deity All generally looking on it as an Excellency to the Divine Nature to be but One However it is written of some ancient Hereticks what is scarce to be found amongst the wiser sort of ancient Natural Philosophers that there was a God of Evil as well as of Good conceiving indeed so far aright that the most Perfect absolute good cannot produce directly what is evil but erring herein that they either thought that to be evil which was not so in it self as evil Beasts poysonous Plants excessive Tempests and the like or supposing that what was really evil must have some positive and direct Agent to produce it which upon due examination will be found contrary to reason And surely though the first thing and most obvious to common apprehensions is that there is a God absolutely yet this being granted and supposed it is much more easie to convince an adversary who shall call in question the Unity of God that he is but one then that he is simply So immediately and necessarily does it follow from the very subject it self For what does the very notion of God imply and include in it Deum cum audis substantiam intellige sine initio sine fine simplicem sine uâ—la admistione invisibilem incorpoream ineffabilem inestâ—â—abilem in quo nihil â—adjanctum nihil crentum sit sine autore Ruffinus in symbolum but a thing most absolute most perfect most glorious most entire and whatsoever and more then what ever the mind of Man can comprehend of excellency But if there be more then one God and these distinct and separate in nature or space then is there in one what is not in the other and the one is what the other is not for else they were not divers or many but one which is argued against by Doubters And if the properties or perfections of one be not communicated to the other but remain peculiar to each nothing can be more certain and apparent than that all perfections are not united into one Being and so consequently that Being imperfect and defective in something and so not absolutely and simply perfect and so not God whom we suppose to be most perfect or not at all And the general and wise concord and harmony found in the World do strongly convince the unity of the First Cause and mover thereof Athan. cont Gentes p. 41. Tom. 1. True indeed some contrarieties and contentions are seen in particular creatures of opposite natures and qualities but this doth rather argue the Unity of a Sovereign power which doth reconcile them into a commodious
Abraham all which sufficiently nulls the Jews pretensions taken from their Law We now proceed to the Second general Head against them taken from their Messias CHAP. VI. The Vanity of the Jewish Religion shewed from the proofs of the true Messias long since come which are many BOth Jews and Christians agree that the Covenant made by God with Adam and Abraham was through the Messias But the difference between them is notwithstanding very great The Jews still expecting the Messias to come and the Christian believing it as the first Article of his Faith that he is actually come and hath delivered his Laws and performed all things prefigured and promised by the Law of Moses If this supposition of the Christian be not true then is the whole Bodie of his Faith a meer shadow and false And if the Messias be come then is the Religion of the Jew false and no better then a vain Superstition This therefore is diligently and Faithfully to be enquired into though with this Caution premised That it is a thing to be supposed no less and taken for granted in the Christian Religion that Christ the Messias is come then it is to be supposed to Religion in general that there is a God These following Circumstances evince the Messias to be come First the certain expiration of the time prefixed by the Holy Scriptures and the Jewish Doctors themselves for the coming of Christ The great Masters of the Jews affirm that the world shall continue six thousand years whereof two thousand are to go before the Law and two thousand should be under the Law of Moses and that in the fifth thousand year the Messias should Sixtus Senenfis Bibl. lib. 2. Genebr Chro. initio Vid. Rayl mundum Martini Pug. fidei Part. 2. cap. 6. come into the world Who these are and from whence they collect this is no place to shew here Genebrard Galatinus Raymundus Martini have done it and many of the Fathers receiving their tradition from them have spoken to that purpose But the Jews themselves do reckon from the Creation to this day above five thousand four hundred years and yet there is no appearance of a Messias for their turn So that being driven to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extremitie they have been constrained to take up this curse to secure their suspected Cause viz. Let the Spirit of all them be burst in pieces who compute times as Buxtorfe relates to us And if it be so as some Jews have Buxtorf Synagog cap. 3. Vid. Ray mundum Martini Pug. fidei Part. 2. cap. 6. phancied viz. That the Messias was born the same day their Temple was burnt at Jerusalem Where has he spent his time all this while Why doth he not appear to their deliverance They are wont to say It is for their sins In which I agree with them that indeed it is for their sins that they are never like to see that Messias whom they dream of because they rejected See Chrysostom Serm. 3. Against the Jews Tom. 6. p. 338 339. him who came to them as the true Messias Secondly The apt Analogie and correspondence between the Messias received by Christians and foretold by the ancient Prophets doth declare him come For instance that of Genesis That the seed of the woman should Gen. 3. Deut. 18. 15. break the Serpents head That in Deutronomie A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up of your brethren like unto me c. That of Esay the seventh and thirty fourth verse Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bring forth a child Esa 7. 34. and they shall call his name Immanuel however modern Jews endeavour to pervert and corrupt that text That of the Psalmist The Lord said unto my Psal 110. Lord fit thou on my Right hand until I have made thine enemies thy footstool That of Micah And thou Bethlehem Judah art not the least amongst the Princes Mich. 5. 2. of Judah For out of thee shall come a Governour which shall rule my people Israel And many more like places are interpreted of the Jews themselves of the Messias And it being so whom have they to show now the time is past that many stand in competition with Christ our true Messias Thirdly several Events prove the Messias already come In Genesis it is Gen. 49. 10. Numb 24. 17. Esa 9. 6. Esa 4. 2. John 5. 43. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanasius de Incarnatione Chrysostom Ser. 2. against the Jews p. 333 334. to 6. sheweth how that thrice they were cōfounded in attempting to rebuild their City and Temple said The Scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the law-giver from between his feet until Shiloh come c. And so in Numbers there shall come a Star out of Jacob and Scepter out of Israel And in Esay To us a Son is born to us a Child is given and the Government shall be upon his shoulders And by the same Prophet it is said In that day shall the Branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious c. To which many other places might be added All which we urge not upon our own authority but the judgement of their ancient Rabbies especially that Famous Chaldee Paraphrast so applying them Now these can belong to none but him whom we acknowledge for the Messias Christ Jesus though diverse Impostors and false Christs have pretended to such Prophecies to the delusion and confusion of that unhappy and blind Nation as Christ truly foretold And however great varietie may be found amongst Learned Christians concerning the precise times wherein the said Predictions had their verification yet all unanimously agree that they are fulfilled the Jew in vain dissenting Fourthly the Destructions and Dissipations of that Nation and Church prove the truth of the Messias come For now so great obscurity and confusion are found in their best Records and especially their Genealogies upon which depend their assurance of their Messias that not knowing now them of the Tribe of Judah from them of any other Tribe and much less the Line of David from others They are not able to distinguish a vain pretender from a real heir of David and so must needs suspect all pretenders to be the Messias Fifthly by vertue of the Ancient Phophecies and promises made unto the Jews by their Predecessors their form of worship was to continue unto their Messias at least but nothing is more plain than that this is actually dissolved and that in the most material parts of it Their holy City Jerusalem their more Holy Temple in it and their most Holy Altar in that are all ruined and buried in oblivion and a Mock City built in opposition to that by Alius Adrian and from him called Aelia properly Sixthly The unparralell'd Judgments of God continually pursuing that Nation until the accomplishment of all things foretold by Christ and his Apostles concerning destruction to come upon them to the utmost confuteth their Expectations
and confirm our Faith in Christ as the true Messias For First about the time of Christs Coming into the world the Scepter of all Political and Ecclesiastical Power was utterly taken from them Herod Scaliger Proleg in Chron. Euseb that Alien what ever Scaliger and some others siding with him say making him a Jew invaded all civil Power and kept it to himself and then proceeded to baffle all Sacerdotal Rights Killed most of the Heads of the Principal Families and at his pleasure put in and out Priests as also the Romans did likewise All which some find in the Misterie of Christs age when he was put to death For it is observed that there were thirty Jubilees from the time that the Israelites first entred into the Land of Promise until the Coming of Christ to preach and publish the Gospel at which time the Scriptures tell us that he was about thirty years of age after which time there were never any more kept by that People And that John the Baptist who was the Voice in the wilderness preparing the way for Christ was that Trumpet which was to sound at the Publication of the Evangelical Jubilee and cessation of the Legal and abolition of the whole Fabrick of that Church For to proceed in the historie of their miseries and ruine about the Fourtieth year after the birth of Christ and scarce seven years after his death and Passion whereby they had brought the curse of innocent blood upon themselves and children a very sore calamnitie seised all that people at once by the Emperour Caligula his commanding his Statue to be erected amongst them as a God which caused a great slaughter of them at Alexandria and coufusion in Judaea And when Philo Judaeus of Alexandria attempted to satisfie and pacifie the Emperour Philo Judeus de Legatione ad Caium without it himself witnesses with what shame scorn and sharp reprehension he was repulsed and thrust out of the Emperours presence Who thereupon with his philosophie endeavouring to comfort his brethren with expectation of Divine assistance found himself deceived their troubles multiplying upon them until the death of that Emperour About the same time in Babylon and Seleucia perished about 50000 under the Grand Mutinier Annelus About the year of Christ 68 Florus Procurator of Syria crushed the Jews two years together until rebelling against the Romans they were set upon by Cestius the Roman General who slew great numbers of them wasted their Country took their strong holds of Defence held against the Romans and rased them came to Jerusalem it selfe and might have taken that also but that God had reserved them to greater mischiefs and vengeance the Roman army being called off upon other occasions In the thirteenth year of Nero the year after Vespasian under the Emperour was recalled out of Achaia to invade and reduce the Jews to more absolute obedience and subjection who coming into Gallilee destroyed the Country and put to death no fewer then 100000 persons and led captive with him to the number of fourty thousand in the year 72 Vespasian himself being Emperour sent his son Titus into Jewrie to finish the conquests of those mutinous and obstinate Countries and after devastations of the same coming to the siege of Hierusalem it self so many and unparallel'd were the miseries suffered by them that no age or history could equal them till at last taking the City firing the Temple against his will and strong endeavour by the tacit and irresistible decree of God there were numbred of those that perished in the Citty no fewer then 1100000 and about fourtie thousand Captives with the sale of which all persons were glutted refusing them at the lowest and basest rates the prophecie of old being at this time especially verified Ye shall be sold to your enemies for bondmen Deut. 28. 68. and bond-women and no man shall buy you This ruine and waste so quelled and broke them that they were disabled and disheartned for divers years to attempt any mischiefs but about the year 116 under Trajan the Emperour Gods Justice began to awake against them farther For in several parts of the Roman Empire as it were by consent at the same time rebelling they slue of Greeks and Romans above two hundred thousand and as many in the Island of Cyprus alone but Trajan sending the Roman Forces amongst them destroyed innumerable thousands of them In the year 130. mutinying again under Adrian the Emperour being seduced by a false Prophet and Christ Barchocab they were destroyed with great slaughter And five years after mutinying again Julius Severus was called out of Britain and going against them destroyed fifty thousand of them with fifty strong holds nine hundred principal Towns rasing eighty to the ground leaving the Land in a manner desolate And the year following finished the work by destroying five hundred and eighty thousand Jews besides an infinite multitude which perished by Exile ansd Famine all the Jews being forbidden to remain in any part of Judea or so much as to look back upon it Jerusalem is laid quite waste and another City built not far from it named as is said Aelia from Aelius Adrianus the Emperour And to pursue these miserable obstinate wretches no farther since that time which is as great an Instance as any hath been or can be given of Divine wrath against them though they be in numbers great and in riches too and industrious and zealous for their superstition they have been both so infatuated and blasted in all their counsels and designs that they could never make a Society amongst themselves so far as in any part of the World to be governed within themselves or exercise their Religion but by restraint and at the will and pleasure of others Now to conclude That that should be the true Religion which for these sixteen hundred years could no where be truly practised or exercised according to the pretended obligations of their Law the ground and form of the same is incredible and next to impossible Or that the true Messias should not be actually come or Christ should not be he whose predictions and Justice have been so manifestly verified upon his implacable enemies and withal hath so far raised and exalted and asserted and propagated and defended the believers in him is most unreasonable to doubt of after such convictions and evidences But last of all Let any indifferent judge compare the Doctrine and Services of the Jewish Superstition with the received Rule and ground of it the Old Testament and he shall easily discern how they have by their many Talmudical inventions their bold and ridiculous Comments upon the Scripture held in no less if not much greater veneration than the Scripture it self their infinite absurd and directly false Traditions imposed upon all of their way as Oracles turned their Faith into Fables and their Facts to have no agreement with the Letter of their Law but newly invented most of them except Circumcision
wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your Faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God Signifying unto us that the power of God is no more than necessary to concur with humane reason to the heightning it to such great effects though the Grace of God be all sufficient of it self to produce such effects without yea contrary to such reasons as humane Philosophy or Eloquence can minister to a man And this I have held not unnecessary to be premised to this great difficulty of asserting and evidencing the Scriptures to be the word of God as well ingenuously to profess there appear no such convincing reasons to prove the same as some make shew of and promise as to discover the error of such who would have Christian Religion to stand upon humane Faith For if Christian Faith be built upon the Scripture as is most undeniable and the assurance we have that the Scriptures are the word of God can be absolutely wrought by outward reasons which cannot be drawn from the Scriptures being supposed at present under question certainly all our Faith must hang upon the veracity and certainty of such Reasons Therefore must this middle way be chosen to acknowledg such prerogatives even of outward reason preparing and disposing mens hearts that no other Religion or writing can lay any tolerable claim to and yet such as shall stand in need of a divine concourse to perfect the same to the nature of a truly divine and Christian assent and Faith Now the foresaid preparatory and justly inclining motives may be these following peculiar to the Scriptures The first thing then which must be supposed in this case is that which all Religions and even common Reason require that it is the will of God that some of mankind should be saved that is become blessed and happy after this Life is ended in heaven But this cannot be supposed without due obedience and worship given unto that great and bountiful Creatour and Saviour and this Obedience or worship cannot be given unto God in a manner acceptable to him unless this manner be first of all known unto man and this cannot Vid. Thomam 1. â—â— q. 1. 1 cor be known unless God teaches him that knowledg And this teaching of him must either beby inward or outward Revelation Inward Revelation is the natural endowment of the understanding given by God unto Man enabling him to judge of things and this all People equally share in not that there is a necessary equality or so much as disposition to knowledg in all men but that no order of People are denied this benefit which some persons stir up and improve to a more high and excellent degree of knowledg yet not so but we see many persons and almost people so degenerate as not to perceive those things which conduce necessarily to the ends of common humanity and civility Therefore God at first in creating of man purposely instituted him least the greatest part of his own workmanship and that by his own intention should miscarrie in the due ends of being or the defects of him originally redound on himself To determine this more accurately is the office of some other place only this may suffice here to note that man apparently being defective in this so necessary a point standeth in need of some supply to perfect him in it divine inward Revelation failing him generally even in matters of an inferiour nature to devine worship Wherefore that his will be cleared and revealed outwardly which inwardly is obscured and corrupted is necessary to the foresaid ends And therefore that the Word of God which is received by Christians as proceeding from him and a Declaration of his Will to mankind is to be made appear so far as it may be credible to an indifferent and imprejudicate mind and serve the ends for which it was ordained of God viz. Instruction of man in the mind and will of God and leading him unto eternal happiness CHAP. VIII More special proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several Reasons IT coming to the same end to prove the Scriptures to be the Word of God and the Religion built upon them to be of God we shall here endeavour to give farther evidence of both together in this order First If the Scriptures and Christian Religion have been preserved and asserted by God himself it is plain that they proceed originally from God For as the Scripture telleth us not without the assent of rational men Whatsoever plant God hath not planted shall be rooted out Mat. 15. 13. But God hath specially and wonderfully owned and maintained the Doctrine of the Scriptures therefore by his appointment were they ordained For it is a Rule in Natural Philosophy which holds no less true in Supernatural We are nourished and conserved by those things of which we consist Neither is it probable that God should give any direct countenance to that as Divine which is forged and counterfeit But we see that whereas many eminent and Learned mens Works highly approved and applauded have perished the Holy Scriptures have been preserved entire And this attestation of God to them hath been more apparent in the concomitant Acts and Miracles wrought by Christ the immediate Author of them and his Apostles and Servants under him Christ saith expresly My Doctrine is not mine but his that sent me This he thus proves elsewhere Joh. 7. 16. Joh. 10. 25. Joh. 14. 11. The works that I do in my Fathers name they bear witness of me And again Believe me for the very works sake And again If I do not the works of my Father believe me not From all which fair dealing it appears that Christ Joh. 10. 37. intended not to impose a groundless and reasonless Faith upon the world but to commend such an one as had such competent demonstrations as that subject was capable of or the like Moral things Now that such miracles were wrought by Christ and that not by sleight of hand after the manner of cunning Impostours the Effects themselves in himself and which is much more his Followers and Servants in his name is matter of Credit as much as any thing delivered unto us in humane Histories Besides Christs Apostles professed they delivered nothing but from God and Christ to us and this they prosecuted with many and great difficulties dangers distresses and generally with the loss of their very bloud cheerfully poured out and their lives prodigally spent in that testimonie that no men of reason or common sense would have gone through so much dry service but upon a divine impulse and assurance of the truth they delivered an expectation of an everlasting reward for it Here therefore both Jews and Gentiles enter their Caveat and affirm That what Christ did was by indirect means of Evil Spirits Some Jews specially
inconditionate and absolute on mans part is to blaspheme the immutable Justice of God and withall destroy the use of Faith in order to our Justification For it is impossible any thing bearing the name of a cause or condition as Faith certainly doth when we say We are Justified by â—aith should be posteriour to the thing it so relates unto The promise indeed of pardon and Justification of a sinner is actually made to those who do not actualâ—y believe and repent but promise answerably and covenant to believe and repent Non enim ut fâ—â—â— eat ignis cal facit sed quia fervet Nâ—c ideo benâ— currit roâ—a ut rotunda sâ—t sed quia rotunda Aâ—g ad Simplic Qu. 1. but the Execution and performance of this promise is not made before there be an actual fulfilling of our Covenant with God But then on the other side there must be perfect Justification before there can be that perfect Sanctification which we all aspire unto and God expects from us For then are we truly Sanctified when our works are holy and acceptable unto to God which they are not untill they proceed from a person so far Justified as to be accepted of God Whence may be resolved that doubt about Gods acceptation of the person for the works sake or the work for the persons sake For wisely and truly did the wife of Manoah inferr Gods acceptation of their sacrifice from the favour and grace he bore unto their persons and at the same time prove the favour God bore to their persons from the Acceptance of their sacrifice saying If the Lord were pleased to kil us he Judg. 13. 23. would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these That God therefore accepted their Burnt-offering it is a sign he approved their persons but the reason antecedent of Gods acceptation of their sacrifice was because he first approved their persons And yet notwithstanding the goodness of the person is the original of the goodness of the work nothing hinders but the goodness of the work may add value favour and estimation unto the person As to use Luthers comparison and others after and before him the tree bears the fruit and not the fruit the tree And the goodness of the tree is the cause of the goodness of the fruit and not the goodness of the fruit the cause of the goodness of the tree Yet the fruit doth procure an esteem and valuation from the owner to the tree and endears it to him to the cultivating the ground and dressing it and conferring much more on that than others In like manner the Person Sanctified and Justified produces good works and not those good works him but some actions accompanied with Gods grace antecedent and inferiour to the fruit it self Yet doth the fruit of good Works add much of esteem and honour from God to such a person and render him capable of an excellent reward for St. Paul to the Philippians assureth them and us when he saith I desire fruit that may abound to your account Phil. 2. 7. CHAP. XVIII Of Justification as an Effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and How The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the Principal Cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ. TO the informing our selves aright in the much controverted point of Justification which whether it be a proper effect of Good works or not doth certainly bear such a relation â—o them as may well claim this place to be treated of it seemeth very expedient after we have distinguished and illustrated it by Sanctification explained to proceed to distinguish it likewise from Justice For as Righteousness or holiness the ground of Sanctification is to be distinguished from Sanctification it self so is Justice the ground to be distinguished from Justification its complement and perfect on This being omitted or confusedly delivered by diverse hath been no small cause of great obscurities For Righteousness or Justice seems to be nothing else but an exact agreement of a mans actions in general to the true Rule of Acting and that Rule is the Law or word of God For he that offends not against that is undoubtedly a Just man of himself by his own works and needs nothing but Justice to declare and ackowledg him for such no mercy nor favour As that thing which agrees with the square or Rule is perfect But notwithstanding such supposed perfect conformitie to the Law of God be perfect righteousness yet is not this to be Justified Neither can any man in Religion be said more to Justifie himself than in civil cases where it is plainly one thing to be innocent and to be an accurate unreproveable observer of the Law in all things and to have sentence pronounced in his behalf that so indeed he really is For this is only to Justifie him though in pleading his own case in clearing and vindicating himself a man is vulgarly said to Justifie himself And no otherwise if we will keep to the safe way of proper and strict speaking is it in Religion Supposing that which never happen'd since Christ that a man should have so punctually observed every small as well as great precept of Gods Law that no exception could be taken against him yet is he not hereby Justified though he may be said to be the true Cause of his Justification and that he hath merited it Which St. Paul seems to implie unto us saying For I know 1 Cor. 4. 4. nothing by my self yet am I not hereby Justified For in truth Justification is an act of God only as Judge no less then author of his own Laws upon the intuition of due Conformitie to it or Satisfaction of it And as a man may possibly be just and yet never be Justified taking things abstractly so may a man be unjust and guilty and yet be justified doth not the word of God as well as common reason and experience certifie so much He that Justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the Just even Prov. 17. 15. they both are abomination unto the Lord. This then surely may be No man then can be justified by himself or any Act or Acts of him no not through Christ But though he cannot thus Judicially and formally Justifie himself it is not so repugnant to reason or Scripture to be said Materially and Causally to act towards his Justification Nay he cannot come up to the rigour of the Rule nor excel so far in Justice and holiness as to demand at Gods hands his absolving sentence yet that he cannot contribute towards it is not only false but dangerous doctrine leading men into a sloathfull despondencie and despair so that they shall do nothing at all because they cannot do all that is required of
others to justifie and now crouding into it all others to make it justifying they affirm what at first they were so much denyed namely That justifying Faith is not so much a single or singular Christian Grace as a confluence of many Evangelical Graces together which render a man capable of being justified according to the Covenant of Free Grace before God though never worthy To which we readily assent Again If as they say Faith Sola non Solitâ—riâ— Only not Alone justifies it will be no less difficult for them to give either good autority or reason why the same may not be ascribed to Love or Charity or to Hope and when the insufficiencie of either of these be declared to that effect it may not as reasonably now as before he replyed and said Charity only doth justifie but not alone because Faith and Hope must be conjoyned with it There is little judgment or sincerity in such manner of disputings as these But here to prevent suspition of mis-reporting the opinions of such as contend for a modern notion of justification by Faith which the Holy Fathers were ignorant of I find my self constrained to set down the state and reason of the Question as that learned man Mr. Perkins hath explain'd Perkins on Gal. 3. v. 10. c and defended Justification by Faith In his Reformed Catholique Point the fourth And in his Comment on the Galatians he moves this necessary Querie as most material to the clearing of the Controversie What is that very thing that causeth a man to stand righteous before God and to be accepted to Life everlasting To this in both places he answers altogether to the same sense and purpose and with very little alteration of words saying The Obedience or Righteousness of Christ and it stands in two things his Passion in Life and Death and his Fulfilling the Law joyned therewith which he calls the Active and Passive Obedience of Christ In which resolution there is no difference between us no exception justly to be taken Perkins Reform Catholick pag. 570 Now sayes he afterward pag. 570. Reform Cath. All both Papists and Protestants agree that a sinner is justified by Faith This agreement saith he is only in word And why so The Papist saying we are justified by Faith understands a General or Catholick Faith whereby a man believeth the Articles of Religion to be true But we hold That the Faith which justifieth is a Particular Faith whereby we apply to our selves the Promises of Righteousness and Life everlasting by Christ But if we say That even the General Faith not taken for the Object or Articles of Faith but Habit exercised performeth this sufficiently though not immediately as in truth we do by the influence it hath upon inferiour and subordinate Graces whereof a Particular is but one then in vain is all laid upon the Particular Faith And that place by him alledged out of Galatians 2. 20. makes more against what he would prove by it than for it viz. I live by the Faith of the Son of God For it is directly denyed That hereby is intended such a Particular Faith as is before mentioned by us The words of the Apostle before and the main design of his Epistle declaring that he understood no other Faith in Christ here than that General whereby he relinquished the Law of Moses with all its imperfect umbrages and betook himself by Faith to Christ and liv'd now according to Christ and not to Moses Neither doth that which follows prove the specialty of this St. Pauls Faith as he conceives viz. Who hath loved me and given himself for me particularly For this is apparently a Predicate of Christ and not of the Faith there spoken of It is a description of Christ and not of the Faith in Christ which if it were would make but little to the purpose For who knows not that a General Faith comprehends a particular Faith and the Faith whereby we believe and receive the Gospel disposes us to believe that Christ died for us which is one part of that Faith And the Faith that believes that Christ dyed for all doth necessarily lead us to believe that Christ dyed for me particularly Therefore still it remaineth unresolved what singular and signal vertue there is in the Particular Grace of Faith which other Evangelical Graces depending upon the General Faith as well as doth this Particular Faith may not be capable of in order to our Justification Hear we then to understand this better what the same learned Author sayes in the entrance to that Treatise of the Reformed Catholick A man is justified by Faith alone because Faith is that alone instrument created in the heart by the Holy Ghost whereby the sinner layeth hold on Christ his Righteousness and applyeth the same unto himself There is neither Hope nor Love nor any other Grace of God within man that doth this but Faith alone Thus he Where several things are taken for granted not to be granted First That Faith is any more created in the heart of man than any other Grace there expressed or implyed Secondly That it is an Instrument Active laying hold of Christ in a special different manner from other Graces For in truth we are not so much justified or made partakers of Christ by our laying hold of him as by his laying hold of us Thirdly That in what sense Faith may be said to lay hold on Christ in the same the other Graces may not likewise be said so to do because all Graces speaking properly which are indeed operative as is said towards our Sanctification are but Passive in order to our Justification which is an act of God only declaring and holding us Just in Christ Jesus So that the old Querie here returns upon us again Which of all these Graces prevail most to the inserting us into Christ which I grant to be the General Faith as a foundation and first mover of all Graces And as for the particular Faith compared with its fellow Graces it may be allowed a greater vertue but not of another kind in reference to our union with Christ For when an humble and desponding Christian considering his own unworthiness and the unsufficiency of his repentance it self and graces to incline God to mercy so far as for their sakes to accept him in Christ for just and innocent he as the last refuge he hath quitteth all worth and capacities in himself and fleeth with a strong confidence which in this case is called Faith unto the free and absolute Grace of God revealed in Christ Jesus unto us upon which God beholding the whole glory of the Absolution of such a sinner to redound to his Grace is pleased to receive such a person to mercy according to that of the Prophet Esay Thou shalt keep him in perfect Isâ—iah 25. 3. peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee Than which words I find no testimonies of Scripture of the many
not so much enquired into how absolutely one man may be known from another nor how one Church may be distinguished from another as the Roman from the Greek or the English from the French Church for this thought it be very easie is scarce worth the labour but the doubt and material difficulty is How to know which of these are Catholick and true Churches of Christ and which are Heretical or Erroneous in any degree I say the Enquiry is not which is which Church as a man might be known to be such an one by name from his stature his hair or the like but which of these are true and orthodox Churches This can be by no other notes infallibly but such as are truly and constantly proper to true Churches and are no less found in other true Churches than in this And therefore it is most true what is commonly said That the true Church is known by the true Faith professed right Discipline administred and the holy Sacraments duly used but not before it be certainly known that all these are actually so observed and really not pretendedly only And so is it as true That it being known certainly which is the true Church it must be known likewise by necessary consequence that all these three are faithfully observed in that Church which could not be true without them Now if we first must judge of Churches by the three General Instances and Indications we must first judge of these Ingredients into its Nature and before we can do so must run through a whole body of Divinity and that with fallible judgment in the search of it On the other side if we would know which is the true Religion from the true Church to know the true Church first we must pass through infinite Disputes and Controversies with the like uncertainty of judging aright as before and in doing both these we forsake the pretended method of judging by Notes for we are hereby immers'd in the indagation of the thing it self without consideration of Notes which if they could be had apparently and infallibly would prevent that long and tedious labour of examining the matter it self But such as I have said I know none positive the neerest we can come to the point is Negatively when there is apparently wanting such things as declare at least the unsoundness and imperfection of the whole Body so defective CHAP. XXX Of the Notes of the true Church in Particular Of Antiquity Succession Vnity Vniversality Sanctity How far they are Notes of the true Church THE four principal Notes of the true or rather false Church not found in it are Antiquity Unity Succession Universality and as moderner Controverters in England especially the name of Catholick it self To the first of these we say That her Antiquity is not to be compared with things of quite another nature but with things of the same nature and comprehended in some eminent Period of time For the Natural worship was more ancient than the Mosaical and the Mosaical than the Christian in such things wherein they differed For we have before shown That Christian Religion according to the material and natural Part of it which was that connatural light and reason shining cleerly in the heart of man and directing him to the belief and worship of one God exceeded in time the Jewish worship yet was not to be preferred before it and the like may be said of the Jewish and Christian But the enquiry is chiefly about those of the same Oeconomy the same profession and denomination As if it should be demanded which of the natural Religions were the truest answer might well be made That which was most ancient and agreeable to prime Institution And in like manner That must be the purest of the Jewish or Mosaical which agrees most exactly with the most ancient and first instituted of that kind and so of the Christian undoubtedly that which retained most of the divine Truths and Worship ought to be preferred as the best of that kind as is plain from the Prophet Jeremiah advising that degenerous people and Church thus Stand ye in the wayes and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls Nay we may extend this to the Mahometan Religion thus far truly viz. to be informed from antiquity which of all the several Sects are most truly Mahometan weighing their agreement to or discrepancie from the Institutions of the first Author of that Superstition But here it will be necessary to distinguish between things agreeable to the institution things instituted and things contrary to institution and that as well for our better satisfaction in the following notes as this present though I confess all this is overthrown if that be taken for granted which some mischievously would obtrude upon the Christian Church in these last dayes That nothing whether intrinsick or extrinsick to Religion it self in the substance must be instituted but by Christ and such as were divinely inspired by him But this at present I shall take for groundless sensless and unpracticable by the Assertours and Defenders of it some other place being more proper for its confutation But this diversity being allowed as all reason requires the resolution of this case will be much facilitated For surely that Church have it never so many and fair advantages otherwise to commend it to the world which shall either have lost any material Article of Christian Faith or notably corrupted and perverted or introduced any Tenet which is contrary to the first Institution and for which no good ground or reason can be alledged out of the all-sufficient Rule of Faith must needs be false and that no such warrant can be there had the total silence or contrary Doctrine of the Ages next under the Date of Scriptures which we here make the Rule do prove For where neither the Scriptures most ancient expresses or necessarily infers any Doctrine of Faith nor Tradition hath never so understood the Scriptures there no greater evidence can be found upon earth to discern truth from falshood and consequently the Catholick and Apostolick Faith from the Spurious and Heretical And from this head it was that we find the ancient Fathers to oppose and confute the Heretical Inventions and Innovations of men contrary to sound Faith For supposing that Christ was the first founder and dispenser of Christian Doctrine and that he delivered this to the Apostles to be farther propagated in the world what could be said more effectually against perverters of the same than to shew that such fond and impous tenets as Hereticks obtruded upon the world could never have Christ for their Author because those who immediately drew from that Fountain never taught any such thing but the contrary rather And that they did not they proved from instances in all the principal Sees of the Apostles and their immediate and following Successors who never delivered any such Doctrine
to be for certain reasons they draw at their pleasure out of Scripture and the necessity of our knowledge of it which is as solid a way of proceeding as if I finding my self by natural sense cold another should attempt to demonstrate the contrary because it is Midsommer But this use we may yet make of Universality to jude of Catholickness of Faith taking it for the most constant for time place and persons according as all humane account requires to ascribe that to the more numerous and eminent which is strictly proper only to the whole entire Body as a Councel or Senate is said to decree a thing when the chiefest do so some dissenting surely this is a very probable argument of the Catholickness of that Faith and consequently that Church so believing But what we before observed must not be forgotten here viz. That in all such enquiries as these the Estimate must be taken from the whole Church passed as well as Present and that there is as well an Eminency of Ages as Persons to preponderate in this Case Lastly the advantage Negative from Universality is very considerable to discern the true Faith and Church from false because it is most certain if any Doctrine or Discipline shall be obtruded on the Church which cannot be made evident to have been actually received in the Church and not by colourable and probable conjectures and new senses of Scripture invented to that purpose in some former Age that is Heretical and Schismatical and in no good sense Catholick The last Note which we shall mention is Sanctity which we hold very proper to this end taken abstractedly from all Persons as considered in Doctrine and Principles For if any Church doth teach contrary to the Law of nature of moral vertues of Justice or the like we may well conclude that to be a false Church though it keeps it self never so strictly to the Rule of Scriptures in many or most other things For it is in the power of mans wit and may be in the power of his hands to devise certain Religious Acts and impose them on others which shall carry a greater shew of severity and sanctity than there is any grounds for in Scripture or Presidents in the best approved Churches and yet this is not true Holiness of Believers For to this is principally required that it be regulated and warranted by Gods holy Word Yet neither so directly and expresly as if it were unlawful to act any thing in order to Holiness without special precept from thence For I see no cause at all to reject the ancient distinction found frequently with the Fathers of the Church of duties of Precept and duties of Councel For there ever was and ought to be in Christs Church several ranks of Professours of Christs Religion whereof for instance some live more contemplative some more active lives But if all commendable and profitable States were under Precept then should all sin that do not observe the same but God hath taken a mean course in not commanding some things of singular use to the promoting of Piety in true Believers but commending the same unto us Such are Virginal chastity Monastick life Travelling painfully not only towards the salvatian of a mans own soul but of others likewise and certain degrees uncommanded of Duties commanded as of charity towards our Christian neighbours Watchings unto Prayer and spiritual Devotion which being prescribed no man can determine to what degree they are by God required of us precisely some therefore are left to the Freewill-offerings of devouter persons who thereby endeavour either to assure themselves more fully of their salvation or increase of the glory afterward to be received For as Christ tells us in the Gospel Much was forgiven to Mary because she loved much so shall much be given upon the same reason They therefore that teach contrary to such wholesome and useful means of Holiness as these or the like under perhaps vain suspicion of too great opinion may be had of their worthiness incur at least with me the censure of being enemies to the holiness of Christs Church and render their Churches more suspected for the opposing of them than others for approving or practising them The Holiness then of the Church commending it to the eye and admiration of the World doth consist in the divineness and spiritualness of its Doctrine and Ecclesiastical discipline in use in it exceeding moral civility For it may be that such a severe hand of civil Justice may be held over a people that they may live more orderly and inoffensively to the world than some true Christian Churches but if this be done as often it is out of civil Prudence natural Gravity or a disposition inclined rather to get an estate than riotously and vainly to spend on which brings such scandal to Religion then is not this a sign of a true Church or Christian because it proceedeth not from principles proper to Christian Religion but secular interest how specious soever it may appear to the World CHAP. XXXI Of the Power and Acts of the Church Where they are properly posited Of the Fountain of the Power denyed to the Church Neither Prince nor People Authour of the Churches Power But Christ the true Head of the Church The manner how Christs Church was founded Four Conclusions upon the Premisses 1. That there was alwayes distinction of Persons in the Church of Christ 2. The Church was alwayes administred principally by the Clergy 3. The Rites generally received in the Church necessary to the conferring Clerical Power and Office 4. All are Vsurpers of Ecclesiastical Power who have not thus received it In what sense Kings may be said to be Heads of the Church AFter the Church found and founded as abovesaid the special Acts thereof claim due consideration and the Power or Right of so acting And this Power we make two-fold in General Political and Mystical or Sacramental Of both which we must first enquire after the proper Subject before we treat of the proper Acts thereof That all Power which is given by Christ doth reside in the Church as its subject no man can or doth question But because the Church it self being as is said a Society united in one Faith and administred outwardly by Christian Discipline according to Christs mind admitteth of several senses and acceptations therefore it must be first understood which and in what sense is according to Christs intention the proper seat of this power And before we come to Scriptural grounds we take no small help in this Enquiry from the common state of all Government which we have already shown to be such as is not ascending but descending It cometh not originally nor can from the multitude or people who are the object of this power i. e. the Persons properly to be governed and not governing all the Examples of former Ages confirming not only the unnaturalness and unreasonableness but impossibility of the People governing
Eucharist and especially going upon the grounds of Luther Calvin Perkins and some others of Great note that all Sacerdotal they may call them if they please Ministerial Acts done by him who is no true Minister are really null and void Fourthly we conclude that seeing all Ecclesiastical power as Ecclesiastical doth proceed from Christ and his Successors and that by Ordinary and visible means they who have not received the same by such Ordinary Methods are usurpers of the same whether Political or Mystical And that to deny this to the Church is to deny that which Christ hath given them and such a Principle of the Churches well Being without which it cannot subsist and it not subsisting neither can the Faith it self And to the reason above given we may add Prescription beyond all memory For from Christs time to this day a perpetual and peculiar power hath ever been in the Clergy which hath constantly likewise born the name of the Church to assemble define and dispose matters of Religion And why should not Prescription under Unchristian as well as Christian Governours for so many Ages together be as valid sacred and binding to acknowledgment in the Case of Religion as Civil Matters will ever remain a question in Conscience and common Equity even after irresistible Power hath forced a Resolution otherwise It is true such is the more natural and Ancient Right Civil Power hath over the outward Persons of men than that which Religion hath over the Inward man that it may claim a dominion and disposal of the Persons of even Christian subjects contrary to the soft and infirm Laws of the Church because as hath been said Men are Men before they are Christians and Nature goeth before Grace And Civil society is the Basis and support to Ecclesiastical Yet the grounds of Christianity being once received for good and divine and that Religion cannot subsist nor the Church consist without being a Society and no Society without a Right of counsel and consultation and no consultation without a Right to assemble together the Right of assembling must needs be in trinsique to the Church it self Now if no man that is a Christian can take away the essential ingredient to the Church how can any deny this of Assembling For the practise of it constantly and confidently by the Apostles and brethren contrary to the express will of the Lawful Powers of the Jews and Romans and the reason given in the Acts of the Apostles of obeying God rather then man do imply certainly a Law and Charter from God so to do and if this be granted as it must who can deny by the same Rule necessity of Cause and constant Prescription that they may as well provide for the safety of the Faith by securing the state of the Church as for the truth and stability of the Church by securing the true Faith by doctrine and determination The Great question hath ever been Whether the Church should suffer loss of power and priviledges upon the Supream Powers becomming Christian Or the Supream power it self loose that dominion which it had before it became of the Church For if Christianity subjected Kings necessarily to the Laws of others not deriving from them then were not Kings in so good a Condition after they were Christians as before when they had no such pretences or restraints upon them and so should Christs Law destroy or maim at least the Law of God by which Kings reign But there may be somewhatsaid weakning this absurdity For Granting this That there is a God and that he is to be worshipped and that as he appointeth all which we must by nature believe it seems no less natural to have these observed than the Laws of natural Dominion Now granting that at present which if we be true to our Religion we must not deny viz. That Christian Religion is the true Religion and that God will be worshipped in such sort as is therein contained For any Prince absolute to submit to the essentials of that Religion is not to loose any thing of his Pristine Rights which he had before being an Heathen for he never had any Right to go against the Law of God more then to go against the Law of Nature but it doth restrain his Acts and the exercise of his Power And if the Supream after he hath embraced Christianity shall proceed to exert the same Authority over the Church as before yet the Church hath no power to resist or restrain him Civilly any more than when he was an Alien to it Now it being apparent that Christian Faith and Churches had their Forms of believing and Communion before Soveraign powers were converted and that he who is truly converted to a Religion doth embrace it upon the terms which he there finds not such as he brings with him or devises therefore there lies an Obligation upon such powers to preserve the same as they found it inviolate And truly for any secular Power to become Christian with a condition of inverting the orders of the Church and deluting the Faith is to take away much more than ordinary accrues unto it by such a change It is true the distinction is considerable between the Power of a Christian and unchristian King exerted in this manner because taking the Church in the Largest sense in which all Christians in Communion are of it what Christian Kings act with the Church may in some sense bear the name of the Church as it doth in the State acting according to their secular capacity but much more improperly there than here because there are no inferiour Officers or Magistrates in such a Commonwealth which are not of his founding and institution whatsoever they do referr to him and whatsoever almost he doth is executed by them But Christ as we have shewed having ordained special Officers of his own which derive not their Spiritual Power at all from the Civil and to this end that his Church might be duly taught and governed what is done without the concurrence of these can in no proper sense bear the name of the Church But many say the King is a Mixt person consisting partly of Ecclesiastical and partly Civil Authority but this taken in the ordinary latitude is to begg the Question and more a great deal than at first was demanded For who knows how far this Mixture extends and that it comprehends not the Mystical Power of the Church as well as the Political And how have they proved one more than the other by such a title It were reasonable therefore first to declare his Rights in Ecclesiastical matters as well as Civil and thence conclude he is a Mixt Person and not to affirm barely he is a Mixt Person and from thence inferr they know not what Ecclesiastical power themselves And if he hath such power whether it is immediately of God annexed to his Natural Right or by consent of the Church is attributed unto him For by taking this course we
well as Southern Scaliger exercit 292. ¶ 4. people who have no such Grain amongst them as we have mentioned For 't is very hard to acknowledg an ordinary necessity of this blessed Sacrament Plerosque nos vidimus frumenti usum et vini penitus ignorantes Ammian Marcellinus Lib 14. Cap. 12. to the having life spiritual in us to the comfort of our souls to the strengthening of our Faith to the resisting the temptations of the Devil and in fine to the salvation of our souls and yet supposing what St. Paul testifieth that God would have all men to be saved there should be a natural incapacity of the means of the ordinary means of Salvation And considering withal that Bread may be easily taken not for that only which is made of our common Corn but for that also which supplies the 1 Tim. 2. 4. use and fulfils the natural ends of Bread and bears sufficient proportion to the agreements between the Natural and Spiritual Bread as St. Paul hath stated it We being many are one bread for we are all partakers of that 1 Cor. 10. 17. onebread In the first he compares the conjunction of Christians in this communion with the union of the many several grains into one bread And so though the parts constituting one Loaf be more distinct than they which may concurr to the compounding one body of this Supplemental bread yet are the Parts distinguishable so far as to truly denominate that body a Compound In the latter Analogy of St. Pauls saying We are all Ejusmodi esse debet Eucharistiae ut multa in unum redigantur Aug. Tract 26. in Joann partakers of that one Bread that is as we all in the Communion partake of one Loaf outwardly so we inwardly all partake of that one Bread of God that came down from heaven Christ Jesus no less in some other one body than in proper bread I say not absolutely determining that so actually it is but that the Representation makes no such difference but so it may be And this methinks they should be most inclinable to who religiously observe the mixing of water in the other Element Wine which otherwise must needs infinitely and inextricably perplex the minds of the Consecrater and Communicant both For it being not at all determined in nature what the Schools in general determine viz that so much water may be mixed with wine till it ceaseth to be truly wine and yet the Element capable of effectual consecration I say it being not determinable in nature by the acutest judgement precisely what quantity of water destroyeth a quantity of wine it may so fall out that by the undue mixture of water the wine ceases to be wine and then what becomes of that Sacrament which they say essentially and indispensably requires wine It is very hard and presumptious to affirm that none but natural no artificial water drawn from distillations have any efficacy in baptism especially if they have a cleansing nature with them as all or most in some degree have seeing they may signify the same for which Natural water was ordained For otherwise we may say that Hot water being in some sense artificial was not in any case to be used to such ends And distilled waters are certainly not absolutely made for then there might be more reason to exclude it but is that Elemental water of which the natural Body doth consist though not distilling naturally but praeternaturally from the body out of which it is forced and retaining more mixture than the common sort doth And so may we affirm much more of Bread that the commonly known Bread is that which should be preferred without all doubt yea not without greatest scruple should be neglected but when that which is in place and common use amongst some Nations seems to them more natural and ours more unnatural and artificial doth there not appear great reason to admit that Or can we imagine that Christ whom we find the least superstitions or scrupulous of all men of his age in things not directly limited by a Law but of themselves indifferent would not have followed the customs and opinions of men in such Regions had he conversed with them Is it not a reason rendred by the Ancients and that a very sufficient too against the Perpetuity and Universality of the Jews worship Eusebius Demonst Evang 1. that all Nations could not possibly be concerned in it or obliged by it because of an incapacity they were in by the extreme distance from Jerusalem the place of principal worship to fulfil the Laws and Precepts of it And will not it or at least may it not be alledged as strongly against the proper Catholickness of Christian Religion that the Laws thereof and that one of the most solemnand necessary cannot be observed by all Nations It will be said That such things as are so necessarly required may be imported from other places Very true And surely where it may it ought But to make any Countrey which Gods Providence extendeth it self to of it self uncapable of receiving as good Christians as any place in the World or to make the Religion of Christians to depend on Merchandizing necessarily is more than in modesty can be said or by reason maintained Neither doth the condemnation of the Heresie of the Aquarii of old or such as solemnized this Sacrament with water alone condemn absolutely the use of all other Liquors besides Wine in it because they condemned the use of all besides Water in that Sacrament contrary to Christs Institution Christ without doubt celebrated with proper wholesome Wine of the fruit of the Vine And this argues sufficiently that the like is to be used and none other where it is attainable And the argument of the Schoolmen which say That neither Sider nor Perry nor liquor pressed out of Raisins nor Vinegar nor such like are apt matter for consecration because they are not proper Wine may be allowed taking apt for proper and convenient but scarce if taken for Possible as if they were not susceptible of Sacramental consecration where they are in common use And though Vinegar seems to draw neerest to the nature of Wine and in that respect more apt than other Liquors yet in this it is more unapt because it is the drink of no people And yet Alexander Alensis granteth that in some Regions they consecrate altogether of Vinegar because to them Wine in its pure nature cannot be brought This they understand rather of Wine degenerated of it self into such an acidity or sowrness than of that which is studiously made so But if nothing which art hath counterfeited and adulterated can be received as the matter of this Sacrament how many Sacraments in Christendom would be absolutely void and Communicants deluded of their expectations And seeing in the corruptions of Wine by other ingredients as well as Water the Casuists determine that it ceases then only to be capable of this sacred use
may clear our selves thus First by putting a difference between the Church so united as is here supposed to rightly denominate it the Catholick or Universal Church and the Church disunited and divided long before any Reformation came to be so much as called for in these western Parts with attempts to put such desires into practice The division or Schism between the Western and Eastern Churches happened about the years 860 and 870 under Nicholas the first of Constantinople and Adrian the Second Bishop of Rome Where the guilt was is of another subject But the Schism rested not here but infested the Greek Church also subdividing the Armenian from the Constantinopolitan Now in such Case as this which is as much different from that of the Donatists who divided from all these entirely united together as may be who can conclude a Division from the Church so divided long before a Schism ipso facto because a Division was made from one Part of it calling itself indeed the Catholick Church Had therefore Reformers so divided from the Catholick Church united as did the Donatists it were more than probable that their division might from thence be known to be Schism without any more ado but it is certain it was quite otherwise And therefore some other Conviction must be expected besides that Characteristick And what must that be The Infallibility of any one Eminent Church which like a City on a Mountain a Beacon on a Hill a Pharus or Lighttower to such as are like to shipwrack their Faith may certainly direct them to a safe Station and Haven And all this to be the Church or See of Rome But alas though this were as desirable as admirable yet we have nothing to induce us to receive it for such but certain prudent inferences that such there is because such there ought to be for the ascertaining dubious minds in the truth and therefore so say they actually it is and lest humane reason should seem too malapert to teach what divine Autority ought to do therefore must the Scripture be canvas'd and brought against the best Presidents in Antiquity to the Contrary to Patronize such necessary Dogms The matter then returns to what we at first propounded viz. the Judging of Schism from the Causes and of the Causes from the Scriptures and the more Genuine and ancient Traditions of Christs Church before such Schism distracted the same These two things therefore we leave to be made Good by Romanists in which they are very defective First that there is any One Notorious infallible Judge actually constituted whereby we may certainly discern the Schismaticalness or Hereticalness of any one Church varying from the truth and this because It were to be wish'd a Judg were somewhere extant Secondly that what ever Security or Safety of Communion is to be found in the Visible Church properly and inseparably belongs to the Roman Church because some of the Ancients tell the time when it did not actually err But if our proofs be much more strong and apparent which declare that actually it doth err and wherein it doth err what an empty and bootless presumption must it needs be to invite to its communion upon her immunity from Erring or to condemn men of Schism for this only That they communicate not with it which is the bold method of Roman Champions THE Second BOOK OF THE FIRST PART CHAP. I. Of the Formal Object of Christian Faith Christ An Entrance to the treating of the Objects of Faith in Particular AND Thus far have we treated of Religion in General and specially of Christian Religion or Faith in its Rule the Scriptures Its Causes its Effects its Contraries its Subject the Church in its several Capacities Now we are briefly to treat of the Particular Object Christian Faith That as God is the true and proper Author of Christian Faith he is also the principal Object is most certain and apparent and is therefore by the Schools called the Formal Object that is either that which it immediately and most properly treats of or for whose sake other things spoken of besides God and Christ are there treated of For other Religions as well as Christian treat of God and the works of God but none treat of God or his works as consider'd in Christ his Son but the Christian For the two Greatest Acts which have any knowledge of of God being Creation and Redemption both these are described unto us in Holy Writ to be wrought by God through Christ Jesus as the Book of Proverbs and of Wisdom intimate to us when they shew how God in Wisdom made the Worlds Christ being the true Wisdom of the Father And more expresly in the entrance into the Gospel of St. John Joh. 1. 2 â— the Word of God being Christ is said to be in the beginning with God and All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made And St. Paul to the Ephesians affirmeth All things to be created by God Eph. 3. 9. Col. 1. 15 16. by Jesus Christ And to the Colossians speaking of Christ the Image of the Invisible God addeth For by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in the Earth Visible and Invisible c. This therefore discriminates the treating of things natural in Christian Theologie from all other Sciences and Theologies that all is spoken of in relation to Christ Jesus Therefore having in the beginning of this Tract spoken of God in General as supposed rather than to be proved in Divinity viz. of his absolute Being his Unity being but one His Infiniteness being all things in Perfection and Power we are here to resume that matter and continue it by a more particular enquiry into the Nature Attributes Acts and Works of God here supposing what before we have spoken of the First notion of Gods Being and those immediately joined with them His Unity and Infiniteness which Infiniteness necessarily inferreth all other Attributes proper to him as of Power Prefence in all places and all times and Omniscience and therefore here we shall speak only of the Nature or Being of God in the more peculiar sense to Christians that is being distinct in Persons as well as One in Nature CHAP. II. Of the special consideration of God as the object of Christian Faith in the Vnity of the Divine Nature and Trinity of Person FROM the Unity or singularity of Gods nature as to number doth flow an Unity and Simplicity of that one Individual Nature in it self For as the Nature of God cannot be found in several and separate Persons subsisting by themselves as may the nature of man so neither ought we to imagin that there is multiplicity of natures constituting the same God For as there are not many Gods differing Generically as there are Bodies Celestial and Podies Terrestial and again of Terrestial some Bodies Elemental and uncompounded naturally Other Mixt and compounded and such are Fish Foul
indifferently Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift 39. of the Holy Ghost For the promise is unto you and your Children and to all that are far off even as many as the Lord your God shall call And St. Paul to the Romans Now the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested Rom. 3. 21 22. being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Even the Righteousness of God which is by Faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference And to these many other like places of Scripture may be added declaring no man destined to incredulity or impenitency aforehand until such time as he hath declared against both and that to the end of his Life But on the other side rather that God puts no difference Now if St. Pauls argument held good as certainly it did that a wife should not put away her husband who was an Infidel nor the believing husband his wife upon the grounds of ignorance of a good event Should a man put away his Soul For what knowest thou O wife Rom. 7. 16. whether thou shalt save thy husband Or how knowest thou O man whether thou shalt save thy wife So what knowest thou O man who doubtest of Gods Decrees whether thou shalt save thy soul Whence we may conclude That it is no ground of discomfort that the event is determined for it is equal on our side as much as against us but it is the ground of all reasonable satisfaction from the General Law requiring obedience Evangelical and from the Promises made without any discrimination which a man cannot apply to his disadvantage or discouragement without being first guilty of unreasonableness and unnaturalness to himself Now Religion and the designs thereof do suppose a man a true natural man to himself before it attempts to draw him to an higher good or nobler ends So that if a man will deny his own natural reason and self-love due to himself such a man is indeed no fit person to be treated with any more than a direct mad man but this natural reason suggests to him that where he knows it not to be an invincible Evil which he is to contend with and knows not but that the way is as easie the door as open the means as effectual to him as any man living to attain happiness he is to take heart and courage and resolution to effect his desires For to omit a certain duty of Faith and Hope upon an obscure and uncertain ground is monstruous and ridiculous I conclude therefore that as almost all the actions of mans life yea and his life it self which are no less determined with God then the state of Grace or Wickedness Glory or Misery do not cause him to suspend endeavours leading to the end propounded to himself so neither in the Concernments of his soul keeping his natural Reason to himself entire can he obstinately refuse to act according to the ends of Religion Yet I might adde this also which is most true that if it were revealed to a man that he should never escape damnation do he what he can or what he will yet that desperate carelesness and loseness could not be but greatest stupidity because God doth certainly proportion salvation and damnation as to the degrees of them to the degrees of Holiness and Sins in this Life and therefore it were more than worth a mans time and diligence by a more restrained and Christian conversation to obtain a mitigation of the evil he so fears And yet that part of the argument commonly used which saith That it is in vain for a man who is so determined to strive to free himself and to abound in religious acts is directly false and to be denyed For no good works shall go unrewarded And this is no less infallibly true That to him that hath shall Matth. 13. 20. Rom. 2. 8 10. more be given and to him that doth righteousness and to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life And that the external acts and means are effectual to these great ends Christ tells us saying To you that hear shall more be given than Mark 4. 24. that Gods Grace is necessarily required to all true Conversion and Holyness I know those of Dort following Calvine and Peter Martyr and such of eminencie in Reforming answer otherwise But in truth their Reply is no Answer For granting an invincible state of unregenerateness and a total insufficiencie in Man to free himself without the effectual Grace of God yea and an irreversibleness in Gods Decrees so that all endeavours and acts should be frustrated to the obtaining the blessed end generally promised and the terrour of those under this Necessity they oppose only good counsel to this and much more and reprove them lightly at least that meditate too much on the severer part of Gods Decrees the abstruser Counsels of him and determinations to the taking them off from those good duties which God without exception requires of all But all this and the like to this is very little or nothing to the purpose For they certainly hereby betray their Cause and grant the whole argument to be good and duly to infer all that is intended by it only they oppose barely the Conclusion and would not have it take place though they can find no fault with that it is grounded on What a miserable shift is it for any who are not able to deny that upon their own reason such a thing follows to say Yea but this ought not to be and to perswade contrary to conviction of themselves as well as others But occasion will be given of these matters more fully in what follows CHAP. XI Of the Execution of Gods Providence in the Predestination and Reprobation of Man How the Decrees and Providence of God are distinguished The Reason and Method of Gods Decrees Righteousness is the Effect and not Cause of Predestination to Life Predestination diversly taken in Scripture as also Election and Vocation God praedestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil fore-going as Calvin and some others would have it GOD having in his secret mysterious Counsels ordained all things according to his Divine will and pleasure without being lyable to that saucie expostulation of any Creature Why hast thou made me thus or What doest thou For 't is as certain Rom. 9. 20. Job 9. 12. as there is a God that God neither doth nor can do any injury to the Creature though man may and often doth injure him and himself too in mis-representing him he proceedeth next to the execution of his Decrees and Counsels which are so many acts of his Providence And because it would be much too long and extravagant to turn to the more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Protagoras
Heaven and Hell But we deny not that the Ancients prayed for the Dead nor do we dissent much from them in that pious act our selves however there are quarrellers amongst us well known by their other affected and morose follies who oppose it because they have no express Scripture for it but we deny they ever prayed for the pardon of their sins or ease of torments so anciently but for an happy rest and restauration in a Resurrection So that we peremptorily deny and well may notwithstanding all proofs brought to the contrary that Prayer for the Dead necessarily infers Roman Purgatory And for the Consequence of this Opinion of Roman Purgatory Indulgences it is so rank a Corruption such a novel and impudent invention as the Church of Rome under that defection it now is never did so great a miracle as to get it any place in sober and knowing mens minds both thing it self and the abuse of it being such as alone may suffice to disgrace the Authours of it and make their pretenses to infallibility alwaies false very ridiculous We know indeed that scarce any thing was of ancienter use in the Church then some Indulgences but no more like these than Earth is like Purgatory Indulgences were made by such who were in autority in the Church towards Penitents who had their Penances allotted them for scandalous Crimes committed against the Faith and Church which Penances were often relaxed and mittigated by the favour and indulgences of the Fathers of the Church good cause appearing for to do so But that ever it was in the power of the Church to give ease to such as were punished in that other Life to come was never heard of for above a thousand years after Christ Alphonsus de Castro is worth the Alphonsus de Castro lib. 8. Adv. Haer. de Indulg reading upon this who is positive for Indulgences but going about to prove them prepares his Reader with a long Preface for such a short Discourse telling him that He ought not to expect for all points of Faith Antiquity or express Scripture For many things are known to the moderner which those ancient Writers were altogether ignorant of For seldome any mention is made in ancient Writers of the transubstantiation of the Bread into Christs Body of the Spirits proceeding from the Son much rarer of Purgatory almost none at all especially among Greek Writers for which reason Purgatory is not believed of the Greek to this day c. The ancient Church caused men to satisfie in this life and would leave nothing to be punished in the Life to come and therefore there is no mention of Indulgences Thus he But adds Amongst the Romans the use of them is said to be very ancient as may in some manner be collected from their stations And it is reported of Gregory the First of whom we even now spake that he granted some in his dayes It is said and reported by where and by whom he could not tell us But he tells us indeed how Innocent the Third that great Innovator and Corrupter of the Church constituted it in the Latherane Council and the Council of Constance after that much which was not before the Year 1200. Judge we from hence what great account is to be made of the many sayings of the Fathers pretended to approve this devise And judge we farther what great Reason or Scripture there is for the Popish faction to derogate so far as they do from the efficacy of Gods Holy Spirit of Grace in the repenting sinner though straitened of time in the exercise and demonstration of his true Conversion and from the fullness of Christs mediation and merits which are ordained for the remission of all sins upon true Repentance For the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin saith St. John and so say they understood as in this Life and the Life to come but St. John nor any other holy Writer of Scripture gives us the least intimation of any other season of pardon then that of this Life Therefore here to end this First Part with the end of Man in this world seeing Gods Promises are so liberally revealed unto penitent sinners in this Life without exceptions of matter time or place of venial or mortal sins Seeing Christs merits are absolutely sufficient to acquit the sinner and no limitation is to be found upon Faith and Repentance in Scripture Seeing lastly that Gods Spirit of Grace is of vertue sufficient to sanctifie to the washing away of all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and this life is only mentioned in Scripture for the exerting of this work and perfecting this cure of the soul Let us rather thankfully embrace so great salvation and work it out for St. Paul supposes we may with fear and trembling in this life that so as St. Peter hath 2 Pet. 1. 11. it An entrance may be ministred abundantly unto us into the everlasting Kingdem of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF THE INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion CHAP. I. Of the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the Necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the Name of Religion the Nature of religious worship wherein it consisteth REligion we have defined to be A due Recognition and Retribution made by the Creature to God the Fountain of all Being communicating himself freely to inferiour Beings And this description we have in substance given us by David in his last and most serious charge to Solomon his Son saying And thou Solomon my Son know thou the God of 1 Chron. 28. 9. thy Fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind c. From whence we take the ground of our distinction of Religion into two Parts The true knowledge of God which is attained by the Doctrine of Faith revealed in Gods holy Word and the worship of him there in likewise contained Of the former having already spoken we now proceed more briefly to treat of the second The worship of God And that God is to be worshipped is such an inseparable notion from the acknowledgment of God as nothing can follow more necessarily then that doth from this And it were more reasonable though that be brutish for to deny God absolutely then to deny him worship and service And therefore Seneca saith well The first worshipping of God is to believe there is a God The next to yield to him his Majesty to yield him Sen. Epist 95. his Goodness to understand that he or they governs the world And afterward He sufficiently worships God who imitates him And Tully The Cicero de Natura Deor. lib. 2. worship of God ought to be most excellent and pure and holy and full of piety so that we may constantly worship him with a pure intire and uncorrupt mind and voice
suffice equal minds to grant That as there is a praeemimence in the state of Virginity upon true Christian and sober principles above that of marriage upon Christian principles likewise so the state of the Clergy being designed for more high and spiritual acts and ends than others may be more fit and proper subjects of such Evangelical vertues Another reason to induce them for it cannot bind them to it is commonly taken from Covetousness which they say generally attends the marriage of the Clergy But doth it more constantly follow upon Priests marriage than Lay-mens this would be well known But Clergy-men must do good with that they have above other men It is very true in all moral and Christian vertues they ought to exceed others But we are now enquiring what evil is in Priests marriage not what good may be supposed to be done out of that state And we should farther inform our selves whether to do more good in the state of Matrimony than others not Priests may not competently answer mens reasonable expectations from them Thirdly it would be considered whether singleness of life be such a general cure against Covetousness as is taken for granted and whether rather the inward vice doth not incline a man to it than outward occasions I know those who have challenged the magnifiers of Clergy-mens single life being themselves such to give so many instances of married Priests that were covetous as they could of unmarried And in truth there appears to me little difference in the studiousness of Priests or Lay-men for their Nephews or near Kindred and for their own Children yet should I not deny but commonly the sollicitude may be greater in behalf of a mans own then other mens children A third reason against Priests marriage is the encumbrances of the world and the cares of a family But others affirm with great probability that a wife takes off more cares then she brings to a man especially him that is of the Clergy and must keep a Family as it often happens and would mind other imployments And it is very rarely found that men of that function who keep house and consequently are necessitated to keep a woman servant in their house do void the scandal if the sin it self of an unchast life And now I appeal to the judgments consciences of the Romanists themselves upon the impartial weighing of both Cases that of the secular Priests absolut interdiction of marriage that of liberty granted to marry whether they really and faithfully believe there is more chastity in that Church where it is prohibited or in that where it is permitted I willingly grant that many according to their Vows keep their Vessels in sanctification and honour But must withal crave leave to presume that so many more walk quite contrary that it may be feared God is much more dishonored by imposed Celebacie than permitted Matrimony And if so how can the Church in reason exact an oath of Virginity from all Priests which tends to the violation of the ends of single life Chastity This consideration viz. that the ends and most general event of such laws are quite besides the forms propounded hath prevailed so far with the soberer and more judicious of the Roman Church it self such as Gerson Panormitanus Cassander and others who dare not speak their minds so freely That what was at first wisely Cassand Consult c. 23. and devoutly constituted by the Church may with no less reason and religion be now reversed And to this Cassander doth add a second reason the great diversity of the Churches frame now from what it was when such constitutions or customs rather at first prevailed And to this he adds a third reason for the relaxation of such laws viz. From the detriment of the Church where such Chastity is commanded and rigorously exacted without such gross connivances as are undeniable That many sober and eminent persons for learning and other worths would be constrained to seek some other course of life than the Priestly to take that liberty which otherwise they may But I shall not need to prosecute this subject any farther than that grave Author hath done to whom I commend the Reader concluding that though it seems very unsafe for men unserviceable for the Church unrighteous in the Governers and not at all to the glory of God or honor of Religion to deny entrance to all that refuse a vow of Chastity into the Church yet at the worst it is neither Heretical nor Antichristian so to do but tyrannical simply And it is little better than heretical for any to deny the excellencie of true Virginity above true Chastity in marriage or that it is unlawful for any man upon good advice to take a vow to persevere in that estate Lastly in answer to such for too many now adays of such are to be found who may well be thought to deliver their opinions against the marriage of the Clergy out of Policy rather than Piety and out of spite and envy that they should enjoy any thing of the world which pleases them so well rather than out of any sincere wishes to Religion or the Church saying It is not sit Ministers should marry What should they do with Wives and a great deal of high and boisterous stuff to this purpose I shall refer them that argue out of conscience and sincerity for satisfaction to what is spolem already about this But to the pretended States-man I shall offer this consideration That all politickly given as almost who is not that hath been at a Coffee-house do lay it down as a Rule of their Polities the encrease of People in the Nation Now a general complaint being made of want of People in his Majesties Dominions can they look on it as nothing or no prejudice to the Civil State that twenty thousand persons for so many and more I may well number of the Clergy in all his Majesties Dominions should be restrained from lawful marriage and adding of people to the Nations under him For my part I use not this argument but to show the vanity and madness of certain loose tongu'd persons who regard little what they say against Religion and those related more immediately to it so that sometimes you shall hear from them somwhat religiously as it were spoken when they intend thereby to mischive and abuse it But I hope it will not be displeasing to them if we acknowledge that Holy Orders do bring a man into such a peculiar state of serving God and obliging of self-denial and dedication of himself to God in not only sober but severe living and not only severe but spiritual that what either of Precept is required of other Christians or of Counsel obliges them do much more firmly bind a Priest And of this the ancient and holy Fathers have written so much that to add were hard at any time and to alledge unreasonable at present Yet shall I crave leave to end with this
exposed to any other actions than for which they were consecrated nor should any go unpunished who in them shall not accommodate himself altogether to such sacred religiousnesses And must that odious name of Papist render such excellent acts and customs odious as all the Christian world for many hundred years before Popery prevailed frequented be blasted with the slaunder of Popery and no more objected against it but they defend and practise it Away with such fond to speak more moderately than the case requires inferences out of Christians sober mens mouths It is no better than prophaneness all this For proof hereof saith Perkins they alledge the practise of some particular persons in Scriptures which is much more then can be alledged against the practise Of Anna who prayed privately in the Temple Luke 2. 37. Of David who in his exile desired greatly to have recourse unto the Temple And of Daniel who is said to look out of the window towards the Temple and pray Dan. 6. 10. Of these likewise we have spoken above and shown in what sense they oblige to imitation For that the Temple of Jerusalem and the prayers and worshippers in it may be in some case Presidents to us Bertram himself a Genevan doth grant drawing a determinate place for Gods worship in peculiar manner from the dayes of Adam himself and not only from Solomons Temple writing thus It is manifest that a place is due in peculiar manner Bertram de Rep. Judaeor cap. 2. Constat locum debitum esse c. to Divine worship And some of the ancient Expositours of the Jews do not unfitly draw from Gen. 4. 3 4. that the Sacrifices of Cain and Abâ—â— were brought to Adam for there was a place to that purpose c. But let us hear how Perkins comes off from the allegations of Papists as he calls them to the advantage of his Cause These places saith he are abused by the Popish Church For there is a great difference between the Temple of Jerusalem in the Old Testament and our Churches in the New That was built by particular commandment from God so were not our Churches That was a type of the very body and Manhood of Christ Heb. 9. 11. and of his mystical body Again the Ark in the Temple was a pledge and signification of the Covenant a sign of Gods Presence a pledge of his mercy and that by his own appointment for it was his will there to answer his people but the like cannot be shewed of our Churches or Chappels And whither tends all this so much as to shew that the Jews Religion was a better Religion than the Christian For surely that Religion which hath God nearest and most of his holy presence is better than that which wants it And if it be said That this was the outward presence of God chiefly and not so spiritual and therefore inferiour to the Christian which is true Then will I say that notwithstanding the said instances of Gods presence be not to be found with us in our Churches yet the more spiritual and properly divine is in a greater degree in our Churches then that Temple And therefore those places of Scripture are not abused by Papists 2. It doth no where appear in Scripture that they were commanded to build a Temple to God as is there supposed but when David entertained the thoughts of it and Solomon prosecuted the same design they had special directions how they should build it 3. There needs no Evangelical precept to enjoyn that which both by the light of nature as we have seen and such a President of the Law was propounded sufficiently to Christians without a new Revelation 4. The Temple of the Jews was not a proper type of Christs body Christ indeed in the Gospel compares his body to a Temple but every similitude is not to be held a type for then should every common shepheard have been a type of Christ as well as David and the Vine should have been a type of Christ and what not that bears any similitude unto Christ But properly they only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Serm. 3. in Judaeos can be called types of Christ which were ordained and instituted of God to prefigure and shadow out Christ to come And the Temple had not this for its end but only it was a thing meerly incidental to it 5. Our Temples or Churches are no less types of Christs mystical Body then was the Jewish And the presence of God is more eminently though not sensibly in ours than in them Nay that Temple as the worship in it seemed to be a type of our Temples and Religion as our Temples are a type of Heaven the Holy of Holiest As their Sabbath is granted by all to be but a type of our Evangelical and our Evangelical of the Celestial Of which Evangelical Sabbath we are in the next place to speak CHAP. XII Of the Second Circumstance of Gods Worship Appointed times Of the Sabbath or Seventh Day how it was appointed of God to the Jews but not by the same Law appointed to Christians Nor that one day in seven should be observed The Decalogue contains not all moral duties directly Gentiles observed not a Seventh Day The New Testament no where commands a Seventh Day to be kept holy THE Question and Scruple moved by ignorant unquiet and superstitious persons against observation of Days in order to Gods Service is propounded and well answered by the wise Man in Ecclesiasticus saying Why doth one day excel another whenas all the light of every day in the year is of Eccles 33. 7. the same By the knowledge of God they were distinguished and he altereth 8. Seasons and Feasts Some of them hath he made high days and hallowed them 9. and some of them hath he made ordinary days I make no doubt but here it will be answered presently That God did this and appointed solemn days and seasons to the Jews and to them only which things as St. Paul speaks Gal. 4. 10 11. are to be done away in Christ And this is very true in great part For those Judaical days were appointed by Gods immediate order and by his will again evacuated and revers't at the coming of Christ But then all days in use among the Jews were not so ordained by God as the Feast of Purim and the Feast of Dedication but by humane prudence which when they would disgrace sufficiently and acquit themselves from they are wont to call Humane Inventions as if because God hath in his Word signaliz'd for evil such humane inventions as were quite contrary to his institution none other agreeable to his word and subservient to it were to be patiently endured St. Paul then when he saith Which things are done away in Christ doth undoubtedly mean the Jewishness and figurativeness of them and not absolutely the days and times instituted to the service of God in Christ God suffered God approved
in that greatest of all sins and hardens our hearts against repentance and amendment because at the most and worst we are certified it is but Material Idolatry and material Idolatry is the least of all sins if we mean well And thus have we seen what havock is made with Idolatry and whereas my perhaps private opinion is this that God hath made that generally most easie and obvious unto us which is most necessary to be done or avoided by us and Idolatry is the greatest of all sins next to Atheism and therefore should be most easie to be judged of and apprehended such and so many have been of late the subtilâ—ies and devises of men that now it is one of the hardest things to know what is Idolatry and when it is committed and that amongst Christians too the first principle of whose Religion is the worship of the only true God in Christ Jesus True it is That it is assented unto generally by Christians on all sides almost that it is Idolatry to worship any thing as God which is not but we are little the nearer for this because it is made so doubtful and difficult to judg what is divine and proper worship And secondly when we intend such worship to a false God which happens to be given For upon supposal that we do worship a false Deity yet if we intend to worship only the true all is well and safe But then if it be doubted as well it may seeing all men naturally desire and intend to worship the true God how there should be any Idolaters in the world or any such sin as Idolatry This difficulty hath much perplexed the Patrons of Formal and Material Idolatry For the Heathens themselves could scarce if such a distinction may be allowed be convinced of the one and Christians may easily be convinced of the other For I see nothing of consequence replied to the instances of the learned amongst the reformed whereby it doth plainly appear That the wiser Heathens and if we go no further our turn is served did not ony as all men intend to worship the true God but in their writings and minds Gage Histor West Indies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod Hâ—retic Fab. l. 5. 3. dâ—d reduce all those various Gods to one And though they worshipped Images of Gods they declared they did it not for the Image sake but for Gods sake and for their own sake that they might by means of them obtain favor of the God they worshipped ultimately A modern instance we have in the Spaniards conversiâ—g with and converting the West Indians They were very zealous as a late rude Historian hath delivered against the mâ—â—â—trous worshipped Idols by the Indians and broke them to pieces as well they might with great indignation and severe menaces against the servers of them accusing them of gross Idolatry and stupidity in worshipping such foul objects to the contempt and dishonor of the true God To this some of the freest and wisest answered You worship Images as well as we do you not Yes said the Christians but we do not so worship the Image but we worship the true God besides knowing very well that those things before us are not God And so do we replied the Heathens We know very well that this we see is not God himself but we worship our God by this and have found by experience that he answers us by this as well as yours What those Christians did answer this is not said neither could they say any thing whereby they should excuse themselves and justly accuse others that shall so defend and explain themselves of Idolatry Therefore of late hath a very grave and learned person pitch'd upon an unheard of opinion concerning this to salve the reputation of Christians labouring under this grand imputation which is this That there is no Idolatry but where more Gods than one are worshipped The ground and motive to which opinion is this because he that worships more than one God must inevitably worship a false God because there is but one True God The inclusive part of which opinion and argument viz. That without all excuse such are Idolaters I readily grant but not the exclusive That only such and no others are And my reasons are these First because none of the Christian Fathers of old ever framed or received such a Restriction of Idolatry and that they did not I need no better argument than may be taken from the learned Author himself of this opinion For being so throughly verst in antiquity as he was some suffrage of the Fathers some record of the Church must needs have fallen into his hands and so undoubtedly would have fallen from his pen confirming his opinion but none we find produced Secondly I see no reason of departing without greater necessity than hath appeared as yet from the consonant judgment hitherto of the Church of England which though it hath not in a formal decree declared this point yet so far as her opinion doth appear in the writings of the Principal of the Church it is to the opposing of that sence of Idolatry as hath in part been shown by others and make no doubt but might further by the same hand as he affirmeth finding it not difficult to do it my self Thirdly They for relief of whom surely this opinion was chiefly thought of and asserted will not own the invention For though they like nothing more and alledg nothing oftner to retuod the force of our arguments proving them Idolatrous than the judgment of so learned a man as he against us and in defense of themselves yet they certainly disliking the Premises upon which such a conclusion is inferred and sticking only to the Conclusion viz. That they are not guilty of Idolatry can take no more shelter from thence or benefit than can he that denies the Conclusion and grants the Premises For I would thus expostulate first with the Author Whether if Intention directed rightly doth not excuse from Idolatry the Romanists may not be said to be Idolatrous I make no question but he that holds as he doth that there is no transubstantiation would grant they were upon such a supposition Again I would demand whether if this ground be false which is supposed as true by him That all Idolatry implys a plurality of Gods worshipped He that worships one false God may not be said to be an Idolater I see no reason to doubt but he that held there was any such thing in the world would and must yield to the Affirmative viz. That it is supposing that there is Idolatry not consisting in more Gods than one Now the Papists do certainly not only suppose but hold that Idolatry may be committed in worshiping one God who is falsly so called and therefore though according to his single Hypothesis they may defend themselves yet neither according to their own grounds nor ours Fourthly The ground of that his supposition is not to be allowed For this
it is That divine Adoration receives its specification from the intention which is an act principally of the will so that be the object what it will yet if I have no intention to worship any other than the true God I worship him when I direct my worship to that which we may suppose not to prove upon tryal God But this is not to be granted that intention is sufficient to denominate worship or constitute it true and Catholick though it suffices abundantly to make a worship false when it is intended for such And then may a man be said to intend false worship not only when he knows it to be false but when he might possibly know it to be so and when he intends to worship that which actually is a false object For as hath been said Idolatry consists principally in the understanding as also the Scripture intimateth when it charges the Idolatrous Israelites with ignorance 2 King 17. 26. Isa 4. 9. of God For were not the Samaritans Idolaters who knew not the manner of the God of Israel And what saith the Prophet Isaiah They that make a graven Image i. e. to worship it are all of them vanity and their delectable things shal not profit and they are their own witnesses they see not nor know that they may be ashamed Surely if any man saw and were convinced of his error he would be ashamed of it but 't is his ignorance that detains him as well as precipitates him into such errors Ephes 4. 18. as St. Paul witnesses of the Gentiles Having their understanding darkened through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart Fifthly There is no reason to grant that simplicity and sincerity of Intention and Resolution of worshipping none but the true God may not consist and hold good in worshipping more than one God as in the Act. 17. 23. case of the Athenians worshipping the unknown God in the Acts For as Pausanias in Eliacis taking notice of this inscription hath it The Persians threatning Greece with War the Athenians sent to the Lacedemonians to beg aid of them Pan met their Embassador Philippides and expostulated with him why the Athenians had made no statue to him but left him our adding that if they received him he would stand by them Hereupon they erected this Monument To the unknown God Others say That they being miserably harrassed with the Pestilence and finding no relief from them they worshipped bethought themselves there might be a God neglected by them who might relieve them and so dedicated an Altar To the unknown God Might not all these things stand with very great sincerity of intention And yet I suppose it was Idolatry So that sincere resolution and intention of worshipping none but the true God only may be found where many are worshipped For though to us as St. Paul saith * Toletus Instruct Sacerdotum l. 4. c. 14. § 6. There is but one God and one Lord yet with all Nations it was not so they might really and stedfastly believe there were more Gods than one And therefore Tolet the Jesuit well writeth thus Therefore Idolatry is the exhibiting of a Divine worship to a false God For to worship him for true God who is not God either by praising him or invoking him or Sacrificing to him or any wayes prostrating our selves to him is to commit Idolatry False adoration which is Idolatry is never but where an Error in the understanding goeth before †De Ratione lure definiend pag. 273. Num ut Supersationis caput est Id. 〈◊〉 iâ—a emnus Dei caltus non solum extrav ritatem fidei sed etiam extra uniatem Ecclesis alterius Dei cultum in se contnet ab coquem Fides Christiarorum communis intra Ecclesiam colendum propâ—nit Omnis enim Commentitia religio talem sibi Deum colendum pâ—â—ponit qualem sibi ipsa commenta sit non qualem se ipse ostendit Quod Idololatrioe instar quoddam est And besides all this the Author of this tenet in another place acknowledges it to be a sort of Idolatry to feign or device a worship of God otherwise than was instituted of God and that not only to worship God out of the verity of Faith but out of the unity of the Church containeth in it a worship of another God than is propounded by the Christian Faith to be worshiped in the Church And again All commentitions religion propounds such a God to be worshipped as it hath feigned to it self not as he hath declared himself to be By which words I understand him to explain himself and draw nearer to the common notion of Idolatry than he is commonly taken to do For granting that it is a kind of Idolatry to offer any superstitious worship interdicted by God and that in thus doing a man doth in effect frame to himself a God distinct from the true God it may be easily granted that all Idolatry consisteth in Polytheism or plurality of Gods because in effect a man makes strange Gods though not formally as he that constituteth one of purpose to worship as the object of his Devotion And this agreeth with what othet learned men have written of Idolatry Quicunque de Deo secus sentit quam revera est c. Erasm in symbolum Catechesm 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epict. Cap. 38. Perkins Cases of Conscience l. 2. c. 11. Luther Colloq Mensalia p. 91. extending it to a false notion or judgment of the one true God For Erasmus in his Catechism on the Creed saith Whosoever thinketh otherwise of God than in truth he is or doth not believe him to be such as the Authority of the Holy Scriptures hath described him to us believeth not in God but in an Idol To the same purpose speaketh Mr. Perkins thus If adoration be given to the true God with a false and erroneous intention it makes him an Idol For example if the body be bowed with this intent to worship God out of the Trinity as the Turk doth Or if he be worshipped out of his Son with the Jews thus doing we worship not the true God but an Idol To these I add these words of Luther All manner of Religion let it have never so great a name and lustre of Holiness when people will serve God without his word and command is nothing else but plain Idolatry It may be said in behalf of Jews and Turks that they are not Idolaters because they worship God according to the true Light of Nature asserting and magnifying above all men the unity of God and directing their worship after the manner of the service of God before Christ To which answering I shall wave the question about the measure of knowledg the Jews had of the Trinity before Christ of which somewhat hath been said before and rather distinguish between the manner of their believing or disbelieving those mysteries For it is much different
Thanksgiving to God do For first it seems to be so far natural to man as Religion it self is All people that worship a God having generally their vicissitudes of Feasting and Fasting according to occasions justly offered or the prudence of the first Founders and Administratours of that Religion Again By the Precepts and Precedents contained in the Scriptures is Fasting required so that no instances are needful to confirm the same And the true reason why the Precepts positive in the Old Testament are but few is because it was agreeable to the Law of Nature that it was not so needful to add multitude of positive Injunctions to confirm the same The most express if not only Law given concerning this in the Scriptures is that of Leviticus the 16th vers 29. where God ordains that on the Seventh Moneth they should afflict their souls for ever by a perpetual statute but in what manner is not expressed whether by abstaining from all meat or their ordinary dyet is not mentioned but the Tradition and Custom of the Jewish Church interpret it to be total Abstinence until the Evening that is the Sun going down And the reason why no express Precept is given in the Gospel to Fast where many Directions and Rules are given to Fast is because To Fast was a setled practise of old in the Church of God and needed nothing more then the accommodation thereof to the future state of the Gospel which was done partly by the said Advices and Instructions how to Fast and partly by the power and prudence of the Governours of the Church extending to such ends But they say against this That Fasting must be voluntary and not of constraint and necessity and therefore must not Authority impose such duties upon Christians but they must take them up freely or omit them according to their Christian Liberty But this miserable and contentious exception they are forced to recal again though they would not be seen in it to save themselves who being in Power however acquired propose and impose both Fasts and Feasts at their pleasures so that they plainly mean That such Fasts are only to be enjoyned by themselves who cannot as all others commanding contrary to them possibly injure Christians in their Liberty For so saith Thomas Cartwright mocking St. Paul We cannot do any thing against the truth but for the truth But farther we say Not only all Fastings but Prayer and Hearing of the Word of God yea all Moral Vertues as Justice and Temperance ought to be freely taken up of every good Christian but doth it therefore follow they may not be enjoyned Or lastly doth it follow that what is commanded and conditionally necessary may not be freely chosen if not according to the utmost extent of liberty of will according to Philosophy yet according to the Divine and Scriptural sense in which whatsoever is done readily chearfully and willingly in the Service of God is accepted of God who loveth a chearful giver as the 2 Cor. 9. 7. Scripture affirms not taking notice whether there be any incumbent necessity or not upon the person And may not what St. Peter advises and exhorts the Elders and Governours of the Church to viz. To feed the Flock of Christ among them taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly concern the governed equally May not there be a 1 Pet. 5. 2. constraint upon these as well as on them in their Ranks consisting with a laudable willingness Nay more than so and quite contrary to the Divinity of factious Pastours and Flocks should the laudableness of the thing it self fortified and enforced with the Commands of Superiours make men that have any just pretences to Christianity more willing and chearful in the performance of those duties This was ever wont to be so until pestilent tongues had corrupted the minds and hearts of simpler Christians to make them suspect hate and oppose whatever their Governours ordained and then to argue They can by no mean do so because they do not like it and this dislikes their Consciences St. Paul saith Do all things without murmuring or disputings these modern Doctours say Phil. 2. 14. Do nothing without murmurings and disputings Let therefore this be one motive and qualification to Fasting that it be done willingly and the rather because it is required A second reason is to excite to humiliation and to quicken our Devotions in Prayers and Repentance while we judge our selves unworthy of Gods common benefits otherwise appointed But not to excurr here on this subject as I might Let it suffice to relate here both the Description and Grounds of Fasting as we find them in our Churches Homilies Homilies Church of England 2. Part. p. 85. 78. Fasting is a witholding of meat and drink and all natural food from the body for the determinate time of Fasting Again There are three ends of Fasting 1. Chastizing the Flesh 2. Fervencie of Spirit 3. Sign of Humiliation But idle and ignorant persons give the same definition to Fasting as they do to Repentance For to abstain from sin is both Fasting and Repentance not considering as we have before shewed how that things when the end and effect of them is highly commended and magnified are vulgarly described by them yet remain in nature altogether distinct as in that remarkable place of Syracides He that keepeth the Law bringeth Eccles 35 1 2 offerings enough he that taketh heed to the commandment offereth a Peace-offering He that requiteth a good turn offereth fine flour and he that giveth alms sacrificeth praise Were not he think we an excellent Interpreter that should take these expressions in the strictest sense they are delivered And is not he the very same that shall define either Repentance or Fasting by abstinence from sin in a proper sense as all definition Hom. 84. To. 5. Tom. 1. Hom. 8. ought to be framed in St. Chrysostome who in a certain Sermon speaks as much as any in behalf of abstinence from sin as a Fast truly acceptable to God was never so mad or silly as to exclude thereupon outward and bodily Fasting but in very many Sermons of his upon Genesis which were delivered in the time of Lent as were St. Basils also upon the Six days work of God nothing occurs more frequently then that literal and outward Fasting commended to his hearers Infinite might be the citations to prove the Judgment of the holy Fathers and Martyrs and Monks in this particular but it is confessed by dissenters who know any thing above the Divinity of Ursin and Calvin and such like unhappy masters of Errours in this point And what are the other principal reasons against such Fastings as our Church by vertue of Canonical obedience injoyns Why A superstitious discrimination of Meats as if some were cleaner than other under the Gospel This they would needs bring it to because they can do nothing without this which is just nothing For they
undoubted Right of lawful Governours under God to propound and impose Laws serviceable to the common ends of such a Society as thereby is disposed and regulated And there are three things principally requisite to make a Law obligatory upon men The first is taken from the Person Giving or propounding this Law and that is Authority without which the best Laws that can be invented are directly tyrannical and unjust as well in respect of the Person whose Right is thereby invaded and usurped so that Conscience is so far from being obliged by it that rather it is bound to oppose and resist such Laws though in themselves very profitable and reasonable because they imply a wrong to another to whom only pertaineth the Legislative Power as of the persons to whom such goodly Laws are given because thereby is an unjust service and bondage brought upon them But no man can be bound to this double injury though peradventure such a Case may be put in which to decline a greater evil and mischief a man may be patient and passive under such usurpers A second thing is taken from the matter and nature of the Law it self which if it be not just and reasonable bindeth not the Conscience though enacted by Authority altogether lawful and unquestionable The reason whereof is that so often abused place of holy Writ which adviseth to obey God rather then men Gods eternal and indispensable Law Acts 5. 29. exacteth of man due observation and that chiefly upon account of his absolute Soveraignty and Dominion which no inferiour Power ought to controul or can make void But should any mortal man command contrary of God it could signifie nothing more then the folly of his own heart and the distemper of his mind and a foul revolt and defection in him that should suffer himself to be so abused But is there no difference think we between the Powers on earth acting quite contrary to God and such as only want special warrant for what they sometimes expect from their Subjects The ignorance or wilful negligence of this distinction or notion is it which hath hurried men into so many unchristian acts and made such havock especially in Religion A third principal ingredient into a Law is that taken from the Persons to whom it is made not that they must owe obedience unto the Lawgiver thought that be true for this is the very same with the first For wherever there is the first part of the Relation there must also of necessity be the second and so wherever there is Power and just Authority to command and rule there must necessarily be a duty of obedience in others but knowledge and manifestation of a Law before touched is absolutely requisite to bind people to the observation of it And yet I mean not actual and inevitable knowledge but possible and ordinarily attainable it being most certain that the same persons who stand generally obliged to observe a Law made and propounded are likewise bound to take notice of its promulgation and this neglecting subject themselves to the like penalties as the wilful Violators of it There may well be added unto these three a Fourth Condition to the validity of a Law and that is Power How Power and Authority differ is not unknown viz. that the first consists in sufficient strength and force to constrain obedience or inflict the punishment denounced against disobedience not necessarily inferring Right so to do And this is not intrinsecal to a Law because it is only to be exercised as a necessary instrument subservient to the ends of Right and Justice preceeding which is Authority properly so called which duly exercised doth oblige without force to submission and that out of Duty and Conscience as appeareth from what we have said already in the First Book of the First Part of this Treatise Now though this Power be not intrinsecal to the Obligation of a Law as some unnatural Philosophers have of late days imagined and boldly and basely endeavoured to maintain yet may it be essential to the Execution of the same Men being generally so unreasonable and averse to Order and Government and the publick Good when no special and immediate advantage accrues to their particular person that without the iron rod to constrain the Majesty of the Scepter will not sway them And but that I have found such prodigious tenets in the writings of late Politicians denying all Justice and Conscience and destroying them as far as their blind and pestilent wits will enable them which certainly they never shall any more than to destroy God himself and extinguish the notion of a Deity out of the minds of men I should have thought that for want of such a distinction between the Obligation and Execution of a Law they fell into such flat and portentous errours For what doth argue greater stupidity than to conclude there is no necessity of violence this should be done therefore it ought not to be done Or because that man is impious who because he is strong enough to be successful scruples not at all to invade and prey on another and he may become ridiculous that commandeth without any ability or probability of effecting what he requireth therefore no obligation lyes on the persons to whom he directs himself to obey Aristotle indeed Arist Politic. l. 3. c. 4. §. 78. tells us of a Law that the Hares should make in their solemn Assemblies that all beasts should share alike in the earth but at this said Antisthenes the Lyons laughed and well they might when such Laws proceeded from them who had neither Right to make nor Power to enforce them but where there is Right without Might the matter is more to be abhorred on the one side than decided on the other True it is that Marsilius Patavinus does make Coaction an ingredient into Lex propriè sumpta Praeceptum coactivum est de fiendis aut omittendis humanis actibus sub poena transgressoribus infligenda Marsilius Patavinus de Jurisdictione Matrimoniali the definition of a Law and that not amiss if we consider that definitions of things are to be made according to the Habitude of things rather than Actualness and so this his definition is very good A Law properly taken is a Coactive Precept of doing or omitting humane acts under punishment to be inflicted on transgressours For though a Prince deprived of Power makes Laws which he is not able to enforce or the Church yet while indelible Right to Power resides with him as an Habitude the Law is of force and is of a Coactive nature though not actuated And this being not unduly as we hope premised we now proceed to the explication of that particular Law of God called the Decalogue which though it branches it self into ten parts yet according to the Jews not amiss conceiving is but One Law as proceeding from one Fountain pronounced in one breath say they engraven or written as one Line or Word on
all modesty and moderation but what fear of their necks may suggest is laid aside and all become a prey to them that fall into their hands To which may be referred all unjust and unreasonable and tyrannical Laws extorting from Subjects that which no cause requires of which Esay complaineth Thy Princes are rebellious and companions of Thieves Esay 1. 23. And probably may intend to condemn all excessive Fees of Lawyers and Physicians who though they directly rob not men of what is theirs yet discover such unsatisfiedness and ravenousness in their Offices that unless they find unconscionable consideration for their pains they will neglect the trust put in them Secondly to clandestine frauds and cousenages which are committed sundry wayes 1. By direct stealing from another his Goods which being privily acted is called properly Thievery against which God hath specially declared in Exodus 2. v. 2. c. And it is either against the Publick and is called Peculatus or Pillaging when a man robs the Common Stock or uses artifices to refuse to pay those legal dues of Custom or Tribute or other just Taxes made legal by good Authority Many men think it scarce any sin which in truth is a notorious one to cheat the Civil Powers of what is due to them but Solomon implyeth the contrary when he Prov. 28. 4. saith Whose robbeth his Father or his Mother and saith it is no transgression the same is companion of a destroyer And Christ commandeth by St. Paul Rom. 13. to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custom to whom custom fear to whom fear honour to whom honour So that there seems to be and really is a justice in giving outward reverence and honour to our Superiours and rudely and stoutly to deny them this is to rob them of their dues before God and to offend against this Commandment Thirdly not to pay what we owe and according to the Circumstances we owe any thing to another and especially to detain the wages of the hireling or labourer from him Lev. 19. 13. James 5. 4. which will cry against the hard Master who delayeth to pay what is earnt according to agreement For as Casuists hath observed He that payeth not exactly according to the known custom and rule though he afterwards payeth all in kind yet in effect he doth not pay all was due seeing many inconveniencies do commonly happen to the dammage of the Creditour upon such delays But that which is most intolerable and unjust is the too common craft of covetous and wicked minds to withold or refuse due payment of debts upon many vain and unconscionable pretences so long till the Credit our becoming almost desperate of that debt shall be wrought upon by fear to abate of his due least he should loose all They who do not pay according to the agreed time ought rather to adde for satisfaction of so long detaining to their debt than to make new capitulations whereby the principal sum should be impaired to the loss of the Creditour Fourthly to use adulterations in Commodities contrary to the common rule and expectations of men is a sort of stealing and unjustice here condemned as to mix and corrupt Wines Siders Money Bread or after the manner of Druggists and Apothecaries to sophisticate any Drugg or Liquor or to counterfeit any more precious thing with a viler and baser is to commit an offence against this Command and no better than stealing in the eyes of God how customary soever this may be and with a seared Conscience and bold face carried on Nay frequently this is worse a great deal than simple filching and stealing in that the bodies of men are often by such sophistications if not poysoned yet corrupted and so ends in a degree of murder and if not for the present and particular mischief yet for the general and gentle deserves the halter and hell no less than direct Thieves and Murderers Fifthly Sacriledge and open or subtile or private alienation of what is devoted to sacred and common ends of Religion and usurping the same to a mans private secular use against the intention of the thing hath this double aggravation above common simple theft First in that what was designed for publick uses and ends is perverted to particular For example Endowments and Donations made to Churches serve not only to the maintenance of that Person who in that capacity possesses them but to the benefit and comfort of all in that district communicating in Spiritual things wrong is done unto all them who upon the withdrawing of such due support want their due ministrations Secondly in ordinary thefts or injustice the matter passes but from secular to secular ends but in Sacrilegious Thefts it passes from one kind to another from Spiritual to Secular or Temporal besides the particular injury done to the Person to whom it is due And whereas it is said in defense of Sacriledge that the owners of such Spiritual Maintenances abuse them themselves by lazy luxurious and other vitious courses contrary to the true end of them all this may be granted and lamented But they who preach up vertue out of such wicked principles and ends should withal consider how this involves the secular as well as spiritual Person For no man hath any legal temporal Right to any estate so far as that it should prejudice the common good And if upon vitiousness of the one the estate he owneth may be alienated will it not hold good in the other And have not the King and Judicial Courts as great power over Temporal estates as Ecclesiastical We can give many instances sacred and humane whereby it should seem he hath greater And would these zealous men for vertuous and sober life hold it reasonable the Estates of Spendthrifts and Drunkards and Whoremasters should be taken from them by violence and given to soberer men I would fain see the disparity This scarce any but sees to the advantage of Ecclesiastical revenues above Secular That if the Party possessing them committeth Treason against his Soveraign neither Religion nor Common Laws do adjudge such Estates to be confiscated to the Crown as they do others which argues that Ecclesiastical Estates are put more out of the Kings power than are Secular and therefore more unreasonably are seized on than these It is true the King is in a more immediate way a Guardian and Protectour of Church-estates than of the Secular but Guardians have no more Interest or intrinsick Right to the Estate they dispose of to the true owner than they have of other mens Or does it at all extenuate the crime that frequently it is committed against such persons as cannot help themselves Yet even cold Friends to the Churches Right in such Cases hath observed and been constrained to confess that the displeasure or to speak without mincing the Curse of God hath pursued those more then ordinary and egregiously frustrated their hopes and expectations who have fingered or
our Saviour Christ informs us in the Gospel extending it to all in common civil society with us And as in the preceding Commandments God required that we should not wrong our Neighbour in evil acts or deeds so here doth he prohibit us from doing him any wrong in word Which word is primarily meant of wrong in Judgment when men are called to testifie to the truth of a matter they by no means should deliver against their Neighbour what is false which may be done three wayes First by false accusations and charges of facts or crimes not committed contrary to Gods word Lev. 19. 16. Thou Lev. 19. 16. Accusatorum lemeritas tribus medis detegitur tribus poenis suljicitur Aut enim calumniantur aut proevaricantur aut tereiversantur c. Annot. in Grot. Par. 2. Cau. 2. Q. 3. Lev. 19. 15. shalt not go up and down as a Tale-bearer among thy people neither shal s thou stand against the bloud of thy Neighbour I am the Lord. And this false dealing in Judgment may be committed three wayes as the Annotatour on Gratian hath observed For false Accusers saith he either slander by bringing false crimes or prevaricate by concealing true crimes or commit tergiversation in quite relinquishing the charge All which are enemies to justice and truth here commanded A second offence in Judgment is in the person of a Witness to affirm a falsity or deny a truth A third is to give a wrong sentence in the office and place of a Judge forbidden by God so severely and frequently and particularly in Leviticus Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment thou shalt not respect the person of the poor nor honour the person of the mighty but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy Neighbour And in common conversation men offend against this Law several wayes Prov. 22. Eccle. 10. 11. Differunt susurratio detractio in fine Nam principalis intentio detractoris est famam proximi denigrare Susarronis autem intentio principalis est illum cui sie invidet per mala quae de eo dicit ab amicitiâ— altorum separare Gerson de 7 Viriis Capitalib 1. By detraction or defamation of our Neighbour whereby properly a man endeavours to lessen and bring to nothing the worthy parts or deeds of him and to amplifie and aggravate his faults and failings to the diminution of his reputation But Solomon tells us A good name is better than precious oyntment Of him likewise we read in Ecclesiastes Surely the serpent will bite without inchantment and a babler is no better He smiteth stingeth woundeth and destroyeth as a Serpent or Adder before he be discovered and hath his name as he doth the office of the old Serpent who hath the name of Devil in the Greek and Latin Tongues from his mischievous slaundering of God and Man He differeth from the Talebearer or Susurro of which before as Gerson observeth in the end For the chief end of the Detractour or Slaunderer is to slur the reputation of his Nighbour But the chief end of the Whisperer or Talebearer is to alienate him whom he envies from the esteem and friendship of another by the evil he speaks of him Which seems to be grounded on Solomon Proverb 16. 28. A froward man soweth strife and a whisperer separateth chief friends And the same more fully and particularly by Solomon Prov. 6. v. 14. declaring how God hateth him that soweth discord and v. 19. A false witness that speaketh lies and him that soweth discord among brethren Another sort of offenders are on the contrary Flatterers and Dissemblers with God or Man whose lips are all oyl and their hearts gall and vinegar or if they should not intend any great mischief directly yet by idle and unreasonable soft and smooth language they corrupt and poyson the minds of their hearers with a vain opinion of themselves to the conceiving of Pride and bringing forth folly and running into so many evils which an open enemy could not have brought upon them Of these therefore speaketh Solomon also Faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of Prov. 27. 6. an enemy are deceitful But of all flattery none so abominable to God or pernicious to Man as that of Religion in soothing men up in wicked known sins for some special quality or singularity of believing and worshipping which upon tryal will not all prove worth a straws end whenas the most material parts of Religion as Humility Charity Unity Obedience of unquestionable worth and excellencie are trampled on as of no use or rather hinderances to sinister and vile ends Murmurers likewise and Complainers may well be brought under the lash of this Law who upon every frivolous and light exception or defect in their Governours are restless unquiet discontented envious mutinous factious and given to alienate the hearts of the Inferiours from their Superiours by suggesting many groundless fears and suspicions and putting in Caveats against them and all this while with very specious pretexts of zeal for truth and the publick good As did Dathan Corah and Abiram against Moses and Aaron as did Aaron and Miriam against Moses and as did Absolom against David and sometimes the whole Congregation of Israel against their Governours which one would have thought being the body of the People which some make the true Supream Power might have passed for Right and Reasonable St. Paul knowing that the Light and Faith of the Gospel seldom masters mens corrupt natures and inclinations so far as to secure them in innocencie from such evils advertises Christians from their examples to beware of such sins saying Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed 1 Cor. 10. 10. of the destroyer And such are they also who raise false reports and raise or spread false news of no small consequence many times without any tolerable grounds But last of all to this belongs the sin of Lying in general even when it is not accompanied with the mischiefs aforesaid of Detraction or Slandering A lye saith St. Augustine well Est falsa significatio cum voluntate fallendi is Aug. de Menda ad Consen cap. 12. Quantum in ipse est mentitur ille qui dicit verum quod putat falsum Quantum enim ad animum ejus attinet quia nen quod sit hoc dicit non verum dicit quamvis verum inveniatur esse quod dicit nec ullo modo liber est a mendacio qui ore nesciens verum loquitur sciens autem voluntate mentâ—tur Id. Enchirid. cap. 18. a false signification with an intent to deceive Where we must first distinguish between Lying and Telling a Lye He that tells a lye may not lye but speak truth for it may be true that such a lye as is reported was told but to lye it is not necessary a man should make a lye for it suffices he tells that for truth which he either knows or believes to be false