Churches by the Ministers There are many circumstances required by Canonists and Casuists and Lawyers to determine of promulgation which no man ever applied to Scripture which is the formal object of our Faith and to the particular doctrines which compose our Religion If bare promulgation a common apprehension and sense enough to understand the Grammatical meaning of ordinary words were sufficient requisites to make a Religion accepted what Religion almost could be false Or how was not Arianisme of old how is not the Council of Trent now true If Grammatical meaning in our History be equipollent to literal and opposed to figurative how then is not Transubstantiation not to mention other tenets how is not it credible If a common apprehension and sense enough to understand the Grammatical meaning of ordinary words be the standard by which faith is to be regulated or measured is not the Natural man capable hereof though incapable of the things appertaining to God 1 Cor. 2.14 In a Synod holden in a Council before Constantine Helena where it was disputed whether the Iewish law or the Christian should be preferred Craton the Philosopher who would not possess any worldly goods Zenosimus who never received Present from any one in the time of his Consulship were appointed for judges With which doth accord that saying of Gerson the learned Chancellour of Paris There was a time when without any rashness or prejudice to faith the controversies of faith were referred to the judgment of pagan Philosophers who presupposing the faith of Christ to be such as it was confessed to be however they did not believe it yet they knew what would follow by evident and necessary consequence from it Thus it was in the Council of Nice as is left unto us upon record So likewise Eutropius a pagan Philosopher was chosen judge betwixt Origen and the Marcionites who were condemned by him Is it not recorded that the Devils believe and tremble Iam. 2.19 they are qualified with all our Virtuoso requires to be Religious yet sure He will not say they are so Where is that exceeding great and hyperbolical grace of God by which true converts are induced unto and fixed in the Christian Religion what needed the Apostle to pray for the Ephesians thus That the God of our Lord Iesus Christ the father of glory might give unto them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledg of him the eyes of their understanding being enlightned that they might know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power Why did he pray of God for any more then that he would make them good Grammar-scholars and give them a common apprehension In what language must this promulgation be made In the vulgar Latine If none but ordinary words must be the ingredients of our Religion and Symbols what must become of the words Essentia Persona Hypostasis the first second and fifth Articles of our Church and the Athanasian Creed what of justification mediator imputed righteousness Grace new birth and regeneration and many such words that have a place in our Confession Must we all turn Nicodemus's who must be the judge of words ordinary some words being ordinary with the learned which are not so to the ignorant and illiterate where is the Authority of the Church in controversies of faith avowed by our Church Artic. 20. if a common apprehension be that according to which controversies of faith must be decided Should a man demand of our Virtuoso according to what is here laid down what is the formal object of his faith or why he believes the Protestant religion here in England established I doubt the Answer would not be satisfactory nor agreeable to the Church of this Nation which should be shaped thereupon If Religion must not be the subject of Disputations we must receive it implicitely we must not try any thing nor in order to our holding it fast consider and dispute what is good but what promulgated such an Assent is the reasonable sacrifice which we must offer up and this that reason of our faith which we must be ready to give to all that ask us Oh foolish and not more generous Beraeans that durst controvert this Religion and searched the Scriptures daily to see whether those things were so which the first missionaries promulgated and therefore believed because they found the truth of the doctrine confirmed by the holy writers Act. 17.12 13. Why did Christ dispute with the Doctors in the temple both hearing them and asking questions why did he argue with the Sadduces about the resurrection why did Paul dispute at Athens with the Iews and devout persons and sometimes in the school of Tyrannus what mean those argumentations in the word of God by which the principal points of our Religion are evinced Besides if Faith be not a blind assent if we must hear and understand Math. 15.10 if we must search the Scriptures John 5.39 if an understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be requisite that we may know him that is true 1 Iohn 5.20 If we must take heed how we hear Luc. 8.18 If we must prove all things 1 Thes. 5.21 and try the spirits whether they be of God 1 Ioh. 4.1 If the very nature of faith be such that it cease to be what it is if it be not discursive it not being an adherence to principles self-evident but an Assent grounded upon Divine Revelation so that it necessarily involves in it this Syllogisme Whatsoever God revealeth is true But God hat revealed this or that Ergo. If this be true how can it be said that Religion ought not to be the subject of disputations but by one who thinks the owning thereof to be needless and that faith is but empty talk If it be certain Christiani non nascuntur sed fiunt if there be any such thing as Conscience which is a Syllogism and defined Applicatio generalis notitiae ad particulares actus if there be any such thing as those practical argumentations by which Believers apply unto themselves particularly the general promises of the Gospel it is manifest that there must be Disputes Whereas he sayes that Religion should not stand in need of disputes me thinks it is a reflection upon the Divine Providence which so ordered the condition of mankind that disputes are unavoidable as Heresies are who introduced Faith amongst the intellectual Habits and made it an Assent firme certain but destitute of scientifical evidence who made us but to know in part and to see even that but as it were in a glasse the consequent of which mixture of light and shade knowledg and ignorance is disputatiou and fallibility Alphonso King of Portugal professed that if he had assisted God Almighty at the Creation he could have amended
the fabrick of the world Our Historian in this passage insinuates almost as much had he been amongst the first Promulgators of Christianity I cannot also conceive but that He condemnes all Sermons Expositions Homilies Ceremonies and all those rational contrivances by which the Church hath endeavoured gently to gain upon the Affections and Opinions of men in that he asserts that Religion should not stand in need of any devises of men Religion should in this be like the Temporal Laws of all Countries towards the obeying of which there is no need of Syllogismes or Distinctions nothing else is necessary but a bare promulgation a common apprehension and sense enough to understand the Grammatical meaning of ordinary words That there may be have been in some Countries Temporal Laws to the obeying which there is no need of Syllogismes or Distinctions I am ready to grant but to say it hath been so in all Countries is such an Assertion as becomes not an English-man nor one that understands the Civil Law or that even of the Iews No Lawes in a Government not Despotick ever were so contrived to all circumstances that to the obeying of them there would not need any Syllogismes or Distinctions In our Nation t is notorious nor is it so facile a thing to determine what is included in the extent of a Law what influence the preamble and title have upon the subsequent Act a Common Apprehension and sense enough to understand the Grammatical meaning of ordinary words will not carry a man through without Cowel's Dictionary Spelman's Glossary and many other Law books so as to understand the meaning of our Lawes and as to their being in force how many Arguments are there about that when the obligation of the Law ceaseth whether discontinuance or the ceasing of those motives which give being to a Statute or the introducing of a contrary Law without repealing the former expresly do abrogate any Statute An infinite of Controversies daily arising shew that Syllogismes and Distinctions are necessary to our Temporal Laws being understood and executed But perhaps our Virtuoso may propose a new regulation of Law and Gospell too but till that be effected I am sure his Assertion is false But if the case in Temporal Laws were such as t is represented as it is not but in Seignoral Monarchies yet were there great reason for men to be more solicitous about their Religion or Spiritual Lawes than about the Civil and Municipal That Scripture which subjects us to the Civil Magistrate for conscience sake Rom. 13.5 bids us first to seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousnesse Math. 6.33 and rather to fear him that can kill the body and soul than him that can onely kill the Body Matth. 10.28 Luc. 12.4 5. If the person whose Majesty is offended be greater if the penalties be more horrid upon the violation of the true Religion than upon transgression of the Civil and Municipal Laws men are to be excused for being more solicitous inquisitive and disputatively searching into the will of God to see what enterferes with and what is conformable to the will of the Magistrate where their Commands are repugnant it is better to obey God than Man Act. 4.19 As much as God is above any ordinance of man and an Essential underived Majesty above secondary and communicated power 1 Pet. 2.13 as much as the soul and its welfare is above the body so different ought to be our concernes about these two obligations For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and loose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul Matth. 16.26 He that a sinner hath to do with is a jealous God and a consuming fire It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.31 He must be worshipped in spirit and in truth John 4.23 24. Therefore a Christian must with Syllogismes Distinctions Humility and Prayer soberly search into his heart and examine that he erre not in the Object of his Religion or the manner of his worship and obedience or in the frame of spirit which is requisite to them that worship the true God He must be satisfied about the lawfulnes of each action a bare Imperial command though promulgated will not ingender in him a pious plerophory who knows that such Edicts have no direct and immediate influence upon the conscience that they are not in themselves a sufficient Rule of action for then the Command of an earthly Sovereign were alwaies to be obeyed actively and a disobedience to the decrees of Ieroboam Manasseh and Nebuchadnezzar were criminal though we do submit our selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to King as supreme or unto inferiour Governours 1 Peter 2.13 Whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation But this hinders not a Christian from disputing piously the commands of his Superiour and paying him an Obedience meerly passive where he cannot act without sinning against God No Christian was ever obliged to think every Decree of his Iudg to be just or every penalty inflicted righteously but since a Christian's concern is not much in this world either as to life or goods since his stay on Earth is but a deprival of greater and more stable happiness since whatever any Humane Law can bereave him of a thousand casualties may take from him since he is forbid to set his heart on things below to turn the other cheek being buffeted on the one and to give up his coat after his cloak is taken away from him he is very indifferent in the transactions of this world neque Cassianus neque Nigrianus He is of a passive temper his Eye is alwayes fixed on his Lord that compliance which he permits and enjoyns he readily payes and in other cases patiently submits but still considers still acts or suffers out of a principle of faith and holynesse without which it is impossible to please God without which every performance is sinful Hebr. 11.6 Rom. 14.23 True Religion is not onely directed to God and the Father but seeks an interest in Christ Iesus who pronounceth I am the way the truth and the life no man commeth unto the father but by me Iohn 14.6 Through him we have accesse by one spirit unto the Father Ephes. 2.18 A general knowledg of a Deity will not satisfie God where a man is not sollicitous about further discoveries or where accessional improvements may be attained we ought not to acquiesce in the first rudiments not alwayes to be Babes and pursue milk in stead of stronger meat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Meditate upon these things give thy self wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all 1 Tim. 4.15 No more will a general intention to serve God content Him if his worship be not celebrated in a right manner Since the Gospell t is impiety to
serve him according to the Law Galat. 4.9 10 11. or to worship the true God by way of Images Rom. 1.21 22 23. Amidst such nice difficult and perillous considerations who can wonder if Men be more scrupulous about Divine than Humane Laws and the active complyance therewith who can blame the sober disputers who work out their salvation with fear and trembling who cannot rest in a bare Promulgation who fear least sometimes the Grammatical meaning of ordinary words may not alwayes be the mind of God who may use Greek words Hellenistically or as Hebraisms and use the language of one Countrey with relation to the Idioms customs sentiments of another who can conceive that the course of our Historian will produce in a Christian that Faith which must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or that t is fitting for us to neglect and slight all those means which our Divines have alwayes agreeably to S. Austin inculcated for the discovery of the will of God in holy Scripture the knowledge whereof joyned with Obedience constitutes the Religion of a Christian. But further it is observable that our Virtuoso passeth in this Paragraph ab hypothesi ad thesin and having spoken before of Christianity he here speaks indefinitely as if no Religion were to be the subject of Disputations which condemnes the Original of the Gospel and the propagation of it where a different Religion is setled it justifies the Turks Paynims as well as forreign Papists in their sentiments though they be without Christ aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenant of promise having no hope without God in the world Ephes. 2.12 To conclude the Censure upon this place I desire our Historian not to introduce Law-termes yet to be scrupulous about the Scholastick and Transcendental notions pag. 354. nor to think Christianity injured by being carried into the Schools of our Divines any more then of old into the Schools of the Prophets the Church and Schools are not opposite though distinct amongst us a Divine may be and is found in holy places without doing unseemly much less apostatising 'T is his duty to be able to convince gainsayers and the Schools do but qualifie him for that work Shew us how the Divines of the Church of England have carryed Religion captive from the Church into the Schools Is not the Word of God there the Rule and formal object of faith Are the Scriptures so immured up there that they are banished from their proper place However this Objection might be made against the Papists who deprive the layity of the Scriptures binde their Church to the Latine version yet 't is a Calumny to impute this to the Church of England and yet that seems touched in this insinuation if not only aimed at for all that discourse of our Vertuoso is to shew that the constitution of the R. S. will not prejudice the established Religion and Church of England Shew me the defaults of our Liturgy Articles Homilies Canons whereby it should appear that our Divines have very much corrupted the substance of their own knowledge as yet I as little believe it as I do that the Israelites lost their Religion with the Arke unto the Philistines and that Samuel and others not Idolaters had lost all Piety as long as that discontinued I read how a Woman said That the Glory of Israel was departed 1 Sam. 4.21 But I never heard that all their Religion was lost at that time before now nor do I understand what connexion there was betwixt the Arke and the Religion of the Israelites so as that the absence of the former should extinguish the later They were religious before the Arke was made and there is not any ground in the Text to imagine that Samuel lost all sense of Religion during that Interval but rather to the contrary The generality of the Israelites had been wicked and Idolatrous serving Baalim and Ashtaroth after the decease of Joshuah Judg. 2.11 1 Sam. 7.3 4. but that they did rather amend than grow worse during their overthrow and the seven Months absence of the Arke appears by the History Besides the Prophets and other Israelites that were not Idolaters in Samaria were deprived of the Arke yet 't is manifest they did not loose their Religion 1 Kings 19.18 I shall conclude this Animadversion with one Note that the Arians long ago to overthrow the Council of Nice and the Catholick faith made use of this pretext which our Virtuoso pursues here and elsewhere more than once in the History They desired that the uncouth words of Homousios Hypostasis c. might be forborn as not to be found in Scripture nor to be understood Evitant Homusion atque Homoeusion quia nusquam scriptum sit And because the answer of S. Hilary will justifie the Church of England in her Articles in her Liturgy and in her Scholastick controversies I shall set that down Oro vos ne ubi pax conscientiae est ibi pugna sit suspicionum Inane est calumniam verbi pertimescere ubi res ipsa cujus verbum est non habeat difficultatem Displicet unquam in Synodo Nicena Homusion esse susceptum Hoc si cui displicet necesse est placeat quod ab Arianis est negatum Si propter negantium impietatem pia tum fuit intelligentia confitentium quaero cur hodie convellatur quod tum piè susceptum est quia impiè negabatur Si piè susceptum est cur venit constitutio pietatis in crimen quae impietatem piè per ea ipsa quibus impiabatur extinxit Under the Emperour Constantius there was a Decree made that the word Homusios and such other terms as fill the Athanasian Creed should be laid aside and disused as which with their novelty and difficulty did very much distract and puzzle the Church this the Arians gained and it proved an infinite advantage to the growth of that Heresie the restoring of those transcendental notions Scholastick terms did resettle that Peace in the Church which could not be effected by the prohibiting of them and acquiescing in the Grammatical meaning of plain words Nolo verba quae non scripta sunt dici Hoc tandem rogo quis Episcopis jubeat quis Apostolicae praedicationis vetet formam Dic prius si rectè dici putas Nolo adversum nova venena novas medicamentorū comparationes Nolo adversum novos hostes nova bella Nolo adversum novas insidias consilia recentia Si enim Ariani haeretici ideò idcirco 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hodie evitant quia priùs negaverunt nonne tu hodie idcircò refugis ut hi nunc quoque denegent Novitates vocum sed prophanas devitari jubet Apostolus Tu cur Pias excludis It is but too apparent that those in our dayes who joyn with the Arians in decrying new words and such as are not in Scripture who think that Christianity ought not to