is to determine controversies of Faith And what obligation that determination produceth Traditions of the Apostles oblige the present Church as the reasons of them continue or not Instances in our Lords Passeover and Eucharist Penance under the Apostles and afterwards S. Pauls vail eaâ—ing blood and things offered to Idols The power of the Church in limiting these Traditions 178 CHAP. XXV The power of the Church in limiting even the Traditions of the Apostles Not every abuse of this power a sâ—fficient warrant for particular Churches to reforme themselves Heresie consists in denying something necessary to salvation to be believed Schism in departing from the unity of the Church whether upon that or any other cause Implicite Faith no virtue but the effect of it may be the work of Christian charity p. 163 CHAP. XXVI What is to add to Gods Law What to adde to the Apocalypse S. Pauls Anathema The Beraeans S. Johns Gospel sufficient to make one believe and the Scriptures the man of God perfect How the Law giveth light and Christians are taught by God How Idolatry is said not to be commanded by God 168 CHAP. XXVII Why it was death to transgress the determinations of the Jewes Consistory and what power this argueth in the Church A difference between the authority of the Apostles and that of the Church The being of the Church to the worlds end with power of the Keyes makes it not infallible Obedience to Superiours and the Pillar of truth inferre it not 175 CHAP. XXXI The Fathers acknowledge the sufficiencie 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â—rnesse of the Scriptures as the Traditions of the Church They are to be reconciled by limiting the termes which they use The limitations of those sayings which make all Christian truth to be contained in the Scriptures Of those which make the authority of the Church the ground of Faith 181 CHAP. XXXII Answer to an Objection that choice of Religion becomes difficult upon these terms This resolution is for the Interest of the Reformation Those that make the Church Infallible cannot those that make the Scriptures â—â—ear â—nd sufficient may own Tradition for evidence to determine the meaning of the Scriptures and controversies of Faith The Interest of the Church of England The pretense of Rushworthes Dialogues that we have no unquestionable Scripture and that tâ—e Tradition of the Church never changes 192 CHAP. XXXI That the Scriptures which wee have are unquestionable That mistakes in Copying are not considerable to the sense and effect of them The meaning of the Hebrew and Greek even of the Prophets determinable to the deciding of Controversies How Religion delivered by Tradition becomes subject to be corrupted 198 CHAP. XXXIV The dispute concerning the Canon of Scripture and the translations thereof in two Questions There can be no Tradition for those books that were written since Prophesie ceased Wherein the excellence of them above other books lies The chiâ—fe objections against them are questionâ—ble In those parcels of the New Testament that have been questioned the case is not the same The sense of the Church 207 CHAP. XXXIII Onely the Originall Copy can be Authentick But the truth thereof may as well be found in the translations of the Old Testament as in the Jewes Copies The Jewes have not falsified them of malice The points come neither from Moses nor Esdras but from the Talmud Iewes 218 CHAP. XXXIV Of the ancientest Translations of the Bible into Greek first With the Authors and authority of the same Then into the Chaldee Syriack and Latine Exceptions against the Greek and the Samaritane Pentateuch They are helps never thelesse to assure the true reading of the Scriptures though with other Copies whether Jewish or Christian Though the Vulgar Latine were better than the present Greek yet must both depend upon the Original Greek of the New Testament No danger to Christianity by the differences remaining in the Bible 224 The CONTENTS of the second Book CHAP. I. TWo parts of that which remains How the dispute concerning the Holy Trinity with Socinus belongs to the first The Question of justification by Faith alone The Opinion of Socinus concerning the whole Covenant of Grace The opinion of those who make justifying Faith the knowledge of a mans Predestination opposite to it in the other extream The difference between it and that of the Antinomians That there are mean Opinions p. 1 CHAP. II. Evidence what is the condition of the Covenant of Grace The contract of Baptism The promise of the Holy Ghost annexed to Christs not to Johns Baptism Those are made Christs Disciples as Christians that take up his Cross in Baptism The effects of Baptism according to the Apostles 5 CHAP. III. The exhortations of the Apostles that are drawn from the patterns of the Old Testament suppose the same How the Sacraments of the Old and New Testament are the same how not the same How the new Testament and the New Covenant are both one The free-will of man acteth the same part in dealing about the New-Covenant as about the Old The Gospel a Law 12 CHAP. IV. The consent of the whole Church evidenced by the custome of catechising By the opinion thereof concerning the salvation of those that delayed their Baptism By the rites and Ceremonies of Baptism Why no Penance for sins before but after Baptism The doctrine of the Church of England evident in this case 17 CHAP. V. The Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles evidenceth that some act of Mans free choice is the condition which it requireth The correspondence between the Old and New Testament inferreth the same So do the errors of Socinians and Antinomians concerning the necessity of Baptism Objections deferred 23 CHAP. VI. Justifying faith sometimes consists in believing the truth Sometimes in trust in God grounded upon the truth Sometimes in Christianity that is in imbracing and professing it And that in the Fathers as well as in the Scriptures Of the informed and formed Faith of the Schools 30 CHAP. VII The last signification of Faith is properly justifying Faith The first by a Metonymy of the cause The second of the effect Those that are not justified do truly believe The trust of a Christian presupposeth him to be justified All the promises of the Gospel become due at once by the Covenant of Grace That to believe that we are Elect or justified is not justifying faith 37 CHAP. VIII The objection from S. Paul We are not justifyed by the Law nor by Works but by Grace and by Faith Not meant of the Gospel and the works that suppose it The question that S. Paul speakes to is of the Law of Moses and the workes of it He sets those workes in the same rank with the works of the Gentiles by the light of nature The civil and outward works of the Law may be done by Gentiles How the Law is a Pedagogue to Christ 43 CHAP. IX Of the Faith and Justification of Abraham and the Patriarkes according to the Apostles
should follow that under the Gospel there should be no such Power in the Church For had it been never so clear never â—o much granted that such a Power was in force under the Law yet could it not be derived upon the Church mediately or immediately from some act of our Lord Christ founding his Church it would not have served the turne The Law of Moses continuing Scripture to the worlds end but Law to none but to those whom it was given to oblige That is the people that subsisted by receiving it and that for that time when it was intended to be in force But if it may appear that the Church is made one Society and Communion by the act of them that founded it and that such it cannot be without a Profession limiting or uniting the right of that Communion to him that makes it nor stand such without power of denying the same to him that visibly makes that Profession and visibly failes of it Whether any such thing were in force under the Law or not under the Gospel it shall not therefore fail to be in force True it is that this cannot be true unlesse a competent reason may be made to appear of something answerable to it under the Law in the same proportion as the correspondence between the Law and the Gospel between the Synagogue and the Church holds But such a one will not be wanting in this case They that argue from the excluding of Adam out of Paradise to the putting of sinners out of the Church if they argue no more than a figure discernâ—ble by the truth when competent evidence of that truth is made conclude not amisse For though this be before the Law yet not before the purpose of God in figuring Chriâ—â—ianity was set on foot And that Paradise as it is a figure of heaven and the joyes thereof so likewise is a figure of the Church upon earth is necessarily conâ—equent to the reason upon which the mystical sense of the Old Testament is grounded So likewise under the Law the shutting of Lepers out of the camp of Israel answerable in the Jewes Law to the City of Jerusalem and supposing the truth of the Gosâ—el a figure of the visible Church neither signified any cause nor produced any effect but of a legal incapacity of conversing with Gods people But supposing a spiritual people of God intitled by their profession to remission of sins and life everlasting a visible failleure of this profession is the cause which producing inviâ—ble separation from God is competent to produce a visible separation from the Church which is visibly that people The penalty allotted to the neglect of circumcision is The childe to be cut off from his people Which penalty beginning there is afterward much frequented by the Law in many cases the penalty whereof is to be cut off from Gods people Signifying as hee hath learnedly showed and saved mee the pains of doing it again that such a forfeiture should make him that incurred it lyable to be suddenly out off by Gods hand from the land of his people And because it was an evident inconvenience that a civil Law should leaye such faults to Gods punishment who never tied himself to execute the punishment though hee made the transgressor lyable to it therefore the Antiens of Gods people according to Gods Law have allotted to such faults the punishment of scourging as next in degree to capital for grievous But there are several other crimes mentioned in the Law which who incurres is by the same Law cut off from Gods people by being put to death I demand now what correspondence can be more exact supposing the Law that tenders the happinesse of this life in the Land of Promise to them that undertake and observe it to be the fore-runner of the New Covenant that tenders remission of sins and life everlasting upon the same terms than is seen betwixt the invisible and visible forfeiture of the privileges of Gods people in the Land of Promise and the invisible and visible forfeiture of the Communion of Gods people as the sin is notorious or not Nor will it serve his turn to scorn S. Cyprian urging as you may see by my book of the Right of the Church that Origen and S. Austin do pag. 27. that Excommunication in the Church is the same as putting to death under the Law As proving that by a meer allusion which if it have not other grounds is not like to be received For S. Paul saith well that the Scriptures are able to make a man wise unto salvation through Faith in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. III. 15. speaking of the Scriptures of the Old Testament Because without faith in Christ upon the motives which his coming hath brought forth to the world they are not able to do it but supposing those motives received do inable a Christian to give a reason of that different dispensation whereby it pleased God to govern things under the Law and so not onely to attain salvation but with wisedom to direct others in it and take away stumbling blocks oâ—t of their way to it And in this case should a man go about to perswade Christians to admit such a Power over them by no other argument than this well might the motion be scorned by them to whom it were tendred But there being no pretense in this allegation but of rendring a reason for a Power of the Church from that of the Synagogue and the Fathers so well stated in the difference between the Law and the Gospel as not easily chargeable of the indiscretion to use ridiculous arguments it is to be maintained that they have given such a reason from the Old Testament as is to be required by such as would be wise to salvation by it Indeed I could not but observe in the late History of Henry the Eight p. 157. where the Writer imagines what reasons Cardinal Woolsey gave the Pope for his consent to the dissolving of some little Monasteries for the erection of his Colleges at Oxford and Ipswich that hee alleges among others That the Clergy should rather fly to Tropes and Allegories if not to Cabbala it self than permit that all the parts of Religious worship though so obvious as to fall easily within common understandings should be without their explication The intent whereof may justly seem to charge the Clergy to have advanced the mystical sense of the Scripture as a means to make the Religion they maintaine more considerable for the difficulty of it But I would there were not too much cause to suspect from other writings of the same Author a compliance with Porphyry Celsus Julian and other enemies of Christianity that have not spared to charge our Lord Christ and his Apostles with abuse and imposture in alleging the Scriptures of the Old Testament impertinently to their purpose though here hee charge onely the Clergy for that wherein they follow his and their steps To mee I confesse
yet to all within the compasse of it So that if Christianity onely inable Christian Soveraigns to determine maters of Religion right the Power of determining will be the same in the Great Turk supposing him a lawfull Prince as in any Christian Soveraign And if his act oblige the Christians under him being well used why not ill used the Power being the same But though I commend him as a Philosopher for charging his own opinion with the greatest difficulties When hee answers that a Christian in that case shall stand bound to reserve the belief of his Christianity to himself for satisfaction of his conscience but to professe or act outwardly as his Soveraign commands I must so much detest this answer for a Christian that I cannot conceive any thing so destructive to the foundation of Christianity hath been published among Christian people since the time of Simon Magus and the Gnostiaks who when Christianity was not protected would do this and yet pretend to be Christians Onely the difference is that hee does it not but declares himself free to do it if the Soveraign commands it Which though it may seem to preserve him the quality of a Christian yet it is to be considered that by so declaring himself hee recalleth that solemn vow promise profession upon which hee was admitted to Baptisme or made a Christian in the Church of England For hee that is free to renounce the Faith at the command of his Soveraign cannot be bound by the promise of professing it unto death If therefore it prove that this promise is the substance of our whole Christianity hee will prove an Apostate if onely part of it an Heretick But I perceive hee is well enough aware of the Interest of his opinion for love whereof hee waives the Interest of Christianity For as all Divines have made the profession of Christianity the outward act of Faith the inward act whereof is to believe So upon this profession the visible act of Christianity the visible Society of the Church is built which there is no pretense for if this be not commanded nor against if it be This profession solemnized by the visible though mystical act of Baptisme that is signifying more to the understanding than the meer sight of the eyes can evidence being as S. Austine argues nothing else but the entring or dedicating of a Christian unto God in that visible body of Religion which the profession of Christianity designs Which consideration sets right the mistake that is commended to us from a true Principle that Soveraign Powers are the chief Teachers of their People For the relation Offices and Interests of Teachers and Scholars do not subsist but upon supposition of some certain Society contracted between Masters and Scholars as may appear by the instance of Masters and Apprentices the society between whom is grounded upon a contract of learning the Trade And no man denies that there is a Society between Soveraign Powers and their People lawfully to be contracted And that this Society makes the Soveraigns Masters and Teachers and the People their Scholars if it be rightly understood Though that it should make them no more would be an imagination so absurd that hee is not farr from that absurdity who takes notice of no more seeing all Teachers cannot make their Scholars learn as Soveraigns can do But this relation must be limited by the ground of civil Society which is of necessity no more than civil life though the grace of God by Christ addeth unto it a capacity of advancing everlasting life by maintaining the profession of Christianity which is meerly accessory to it as appears by all those Common-wealths that never were Christian And therefore that which civil Society teacheth is no more than that civil conversation which the maintenance of civil Society requireth If therefore there be any such thing as a Relation of Teacher and Scholar in Christianity which this argument supposeth that there is seeing that the common quality of Christian is no ground at all of that difference which the different denominations of Teacher and Scholar suppose of necessity it followeth that there must be a Society of the Church upon supposition whereof the qualities and relations of Teachers and Scholars in Christianity are grounded and subsist Which relations which Society did they not suppose Christianity to come from God but to be a religion either invented by the Soveraign as Mahumedisme by the first founder of that Power under which Mahumetane Princes now claim or inforced by the Powers that professe it as Heathenisme then were it essentially a Law of that civil Society the act whereof is all that obligation by which it standeth And truly hee that should believe Christianito be no more than a Religion taken up as a means to govern people in civil peace which is not onely the opinion of Machiavillians if any such there be who by believing no more of that Religion which they professe signifie that they believe no more of God or of Religion at all but also of those Philosophers if any such there be who do admit a Religion of all maxims which nature and reason hath taught all men to agree in but that which supposeth revelation from above onely as the Religion of their Countrey not as true I say hee that should believe this must necessarily believe nothing of the Church more than the Soveraign Power shall make it But as hee that makes outward Profession to be no part of it can never give account how the inward belief of it could be maintained and propagated to the worlds end as I suppose all Christians agree that God would have Christianity So hee that leaves the determination of all maters questioned in Christianity to the Secular Power that is Soveraign by dissolving the Society of the Church into the Common-wealth that is Christian and that without limitation because by Gods Law hee must by consequence oblige men to professe that as the means of Salvation which the Interest of State shall oblige every Soveraign to think necessary for the preservation of it And that is the answer that I shall make to him who shall object the same inconvenience to mee that the determinations of the Church are subject to fail To wit that there are three points of difference between it and the Secular Power in consideration whereof it is reasonable to believe that God should provide a Society of the Church for the maintenance of Christianity notwithstanding that hee leaves them subject to fail The first because this right cannot be said to be assigned the Soveraign Power by the Scriptures For in the Scriptures of the New Testament there is no mention made of Soveraign Powers that were Christian And as for the Old Testament if any man argue That the Power which the Kings of Gods ancient people had in marais of Religion the same Christian Princes have in Church maters not onely â—â—â—wer hath been made by denying the consequence
the Church provided for the service of God upon supposition of this common Christianity evidently destroyeth what it pretendeth to maintain I leave the case at present for their plea who cannot obtain the consent of the whole if they reform themselves But you see what reason I have to deny that this Reformation consisteth in voiding the obligation of the acts and decrees of the Church For the same reason the authority of Pastors is as visibly derived from the act of the Apostles in primitive Churches as their own authority is visible in the Scriptures And unlesse all Christendom could be cousened or forced at once to admit such an imposture they can be no Churches further than the name in which it is derived from the Law of nature and reason and the liberty left private Christians to dispose of themselves in Ecclesiastical communion where they please For of that liberty neither the Scriptures nor all Christianity since the time of them will yield one example I marvel therefore that S. Pauls commission to Timothy 1 Tim. V. 17. should seem to import no more then a reproof and that at the discretion of him that is reproved whether hee will admit it or return him as good as hee brings For if S. Pauls commission to Timothy extend no further what could hee have done more himself had hee been present And the Apostle injoyning obedience to those who first brought the Gospel and to those who presently ruled those Churches in the same terms Hebr. XIII 7 17. must needs be thought to give the successors their predecessors authority saving the difference observed afore So certain is it which I have advanced in another place that this opinion is not tenable without denying the authority of the Apostles in the quality of Governours of the Church For as to the exception that may be made concerning the use of this Power I have already demurred to the doubt that may rest in difference between the succession of Faith and the succession of persons In fine not to insist here what the respective interests of publick and private persons in the Church are and ought to be because it is a point that cannot here be voided It shall be enough to say that of necessity the authority of publick persons in and for the whole must be such as may make and maintain the Church a Society of reasonable people not a Common-wealth of the Cyclopes in which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no body is ruled by any body in any thing according to Euripides As for the Synagogues that may be presumed rather then evidenced to have subsisted in the ten Tribes during the Schisme Let him make appear what hee can hee shall never have joy of it towards his intent so long as the difference between the Law and the Gospel stands which I have â—ettled that the Church and the State were both one and the same Body under the Law as standing both by the same title of it But several under the Gospel the one standing upon the common ground of all Civil Government the other upon the common Faith of Christianity which ought to make all Christian States one and the same whole Church For in the two Tribes who were at their freedom to resort to the Temple for that service of God which was confined to the Temple which all could neither alwayes do nor were bound to do there is no record of any settled order for assembling themselves to serve God either in the Law obliging of right or actually practised according to Historical truth How much lesse in the ten Tribes being fallen from the Law by the Schism And if there wanted not those who had not bowed the knee to Baal nor Prophets and schools of Prophets under whom they might assemble themselves yet was this far from a Society formed by a certain Rule and Order for communicating in Gods service as I have shewed the Church is And therefore hee who upon that account thinks himself free from the Rule of Gods service under which wee now have in the Church of England must first either nullifie the Gospel as owning no such thing as one visible Church or prove the Church in which hee received his Christianity to be apostate Now I confesse our Doctor here makes use of an assumption which I intend not to deny being an evident truth That every man hath the Soveraign Power of judging in mater of Religion what himself is to beleeve or to do For how should any man be accountable to God for his choice upon other termes But hee will intangle himself most pitifully if hee imagine That God hath turned all men loose to the Bible to make what they can of it and professe the Religion that they may fansie to themselves out of it Even those who make men beleeve the Infallibility of the Church must in despite of themselves appeal to the judgement of whomsoever they perswade to pronounce that so it is And for the rest how much soever he referre himself to him that hath intangled him in that snare it proceeds wholly upon this supposition to which hee hath once made his understanding a slave But if all the world should do as men do now in England make every fansy taken up out of the Bible a Law to their Faith not questioning whether ever professed owned or injoined by the Church or not it would soon become questionable whether there be indeed any such thing as Christianity or not these that professe it agreeing in nothing wherein they would have it consist And for my part the the mater is past question supposing what hath been said That God provided from the beginning of Christianity that all Churches should be linked together by a Law of visible Communion in the service of God and so to make one Church For by this means to become a Member of any Church was to become a Member of the whole Church by the right of visible Communion with all Churches into which all Members of any Church were baptized And this it is which made the Church visible For when a man had no further to enquire but what Christians they were who in every City communicated with all Christians besides the choice was ready made without further trial avoiding the rest for Hereticks or Schismaticks And this choice being made there was no fear of offense by reading the Scriptures the sense whereof this choice confined to the Faith and Rules received through the whole Church So that speaking of Gods Institution every man is Soveraign to judge for himself in mater of Religion supposing the Communion of the Church and the sense of the Scripture to be confined within that which it alloweth But hee who thereupon takes upon him to judge of Religion out of the Scripture not knowing what bounds the Communion of the Church hath given the sense of it shall never impute it to Gods Ordinance if hee perish by chusing amisse Now if it be objected
therefore affected a compliance with the ancient Church And truly it is fit it should be thought that they complied with him because hee complied with the Catholick Church for by that reason they shall comply with the Church if in any thing hee comply not with it But it is a great deal too little for him to say that will say the truth for the Church of England For it hath an Injunction which ought still to have the force of a Law that no interpretation of the Scripture be alleged contrary to the consent of the Fathers Which had it been observed the innovations which I dispute against could have had no pretense If this be not enough hee that shall take pains to peruse what Dr. Field hath writ hereupon in his work of the Church shall find that which I say to be no novelty either in the Church of England of in the best learned Doctors beyond the Seas And sure the Reformation was not betrayed when the B. of Sarum challenged all the Church of Rome at S. Pauls Crosse to make good the points in difference by the first DC years of the Church Always it is easie for me to demonstrate that this resolution That the Scripture holding the meaning of it by the Tradition of the Church is the onely means to decide controversies of Faith is neerer to the common terms that the Scripture is the onely Rule of Faith than to that Infallibility which is pretended for the Church of Rome Having demonstrated that to depend upon the Infallibility of the present and the Tradition of the Catholick Church are things inconsistent whereas this cannot be inconsistent with that Scripture which is no lesse delivered from age to age than Tradition is though the one by writing the other by word of mouth and serving chiefly to determine the true meaning of it when it comes in debate And if prejudice and passion carry not men headlong to the ruine of that Christianity which they professâ— it cannot seem an envious thing to comply with the most learned of the Church of Rome who acknowledge not yet any other Infallibility in the Church then I claime rather than with the Socinians the whole Interest of whose Heresie consists in being tryed by Scripture alone without bringing the consent of the Church into consequence and that supposing all mater of Faith must be clear in the Scripture to all them that consult with nothing but Scripture But I cannot leave this point till I have considered a singular conceit advanced in Rushworthes Dialogues for maintaining the Infallibility of the Church upon a new account The pretense of that Book is to establish a certain ground of the choice of Religion by the judgement of common sense To which purpose I pretend not to speak in this place thinking it sufficient if this whole work may inable them who are moved with it duely to make that choice for themselves and to show those that depend on them how to do the like But in as much as no man will deny the choice of Religion to be the choice of truth before falshood in those particulars whereof the difference of Religion consists It is manifest that the means of discerning between true and false in mater of Faith which I pretend cannot stand with that which hee advanceth It consists in two points That the Scripture is not and that Tradition is the certain means of deciding this truth Which if no more were said will not amount to a contradiction against that which I resolve For hee that sayes the Scripture is not the onely means excluding that Tradition which determines the meaning of it doth neither deny that Tradition is nor say that the Scripture is the certain means of deciding this kind of truth But the issue of his reasons will easily show upon what termes the contradiction stands Hee citeth then common sense to witnesse that wee cannot rest certain that wee have those Scriptures which came wee agree by inspiration of God by reason of the manifold changes which common sense makes appearance must come to passe in transcribing upon such a supposition as this That so many Columns as one Book contâ—ins so many Copies at least are made every hundreth years and in every Copy so many faults at least as words in one Column Upon which account 15 or 16 times as many faults having been made in all copies as there are words it will be so much oddes that wee have no true Scripture in any place Abating onely for those faults that may have fallen out to be the same in several copies And if Sixtus V Pope causing 100 copies of the Vulgar Latine to be compared found two thousand faults supposing two thousand copies extant which may be supposed a hundred thousand in any Language what will remain unquestionable It is further alleged that the Scripture is written in Languages now ceased which some call Learned Languages because men learn them to know such Books as are written in them the meaning whereof not being subject to sense dependeth upon such a guessing kind of skill as is subject to mistake as experience showes in commenting of all Authors But especially the Hebrew and that Greek in which wee have the Scriptures That having originally no vowels to determine the reading of it wanting Conjunctions and Preposiaions to determine the signification of him that speaks all the Language extant being contained in the Bible alone the Jews Language differing so much as it does from it the Language of the Prophets consisting of such dark Tropes and Figures that no skill seems to determine what they mean This so copious and by that means so various in the expressions of it though wanting that variety of Conjugations by which the Hebrew and other Eastern Languages vary the sense that to determine the meaning of it is more than any ordinary skill can compasse Adde hereunto the manifold equivocations incident to whatsoever is expressed by writing more incident to the Scripture as pretending to give us the sense of our Lords words for example not the very syllables Adde the uncertainties which the multiplicity of Translations must needs produce and all this must needs amount to this reckoning That God never meant the Bible for the means to decide controversies of Faith the meaning whereof requires many principles which God alone can procure because so indefinite Which the nature of the Book argueth no lesse as I observed being written in no method of a Law or a Rule nor having those decisions that are to oblige distinguished from mater of a farre diverse and almost impertinent nature Upon these premises it is inferred as evident to common sense that the Scripture produces no distinct resolution of controversies though as infinitely usefull for instruction in virtue so tending to show the truth in maters of Faith in grosse and being read rather to know what is in it than to judge by it by the summary agreement of it with that which
is held and practised convincing where the truth is and on which side especially if wee content our selves with what is probable from it expecting from Tradition what is definite and certain For supposing so great a Congregation as the Church to take this for the ground of their Faith that nothing is to be believed for revealed truth but what they have received from hand to hand from the Apostles it must be granted First that they had the same perswasion from the beginning Because having never declared to their successors what are the particulars they are to receive either they had from the beginning this principle to distinguish mater of faith from that which is not or could never introduce it without grosse imposture And besides that holding this perswasion they could never admit any thing as received from their Fore-fathers which was not so indeed Because whole Nations can never agree so to deceive in a mater subject to sense as to say that they received this or that from their Fore-fathers when they did not the reason being the same in all ages since Christ as in our own For the Christian Faith being so repeated so inculcated by the preaching of the Apostles how long soever wee suppose the remembrance of their doctrine to have remained certain in the Church so long wee may inferre that age which had this certain remembrance must convey it as certain in a sensible distance of time and by the means of such distances that it must needs come no lesse certain to us Neither can any breach have been made upon the Faith without contesting the common principle of Tradition in the first place and secondly the consequence and correspondence which the Articles of Christianity have one with another by means whereof hee that questioneth one must needs by consequence prejudice others And Religion being a bond by observing which people are perswaded they shall attain happinesse the same motives to enter into this bond in general the same grounds of embracing Christianity in particular remaining how should wee imagine any part of it should be either lost or changed which necessarily must concurre to the effect of the whole For being dispersed as from the beginning it hath been over so many Nations whose authority can be a sufficient reason to perswade them all that which hee sayes to have been received from the Apostles not that which they were possessed of afore Who is able to move them with hopes and fears answerable to those which wrought them to imbrace it either to silence or to change it And yet so long as it can appear that the contrary was received so long time must the change require to prevaile and so much more to leave the truth forgot and yet subject to be evidenced by any Records that may remain So that there is no appearance that the principles producing such a change should so long time prevail as those motives that first evidenced the truth And further upon all this appearance in point of fact it is argued à priori and as it were in point of Right That God having provided so many possibilities to make the preservation of Christianity so easie the effect must needs have followed lest the means should have been provided in vain if no effect should insue All possibility being to no purpose when no effect followes and no effect but this answering the means that render it so possible CHAP. XXXI That the Scriptures which wee have are unquestionable That mistakes in Copying are not considerable to the sense and effect of them The meaning of the Hebrew and Greek even of the Prophets determinable to the deciding of Controversies How Religion delivered by Tradition becomes subject to be corrupted THis is the summe of this new account which to my understanding maintains the Infallibility of the present Church upon as high terms as those that resolve the reason of their Faith into it and yet not upon any gift of Infallibility intailed upon any visible act of any persons however qualified on behalf of the Church but upon a pretense of evidence made to common sense that those who acknowledge Tradition cannot receive any thing not onely which they believe to be but which is indeed inconsistent with it Wherein I shall protest in the first place that I have nothing to do with the terms of great error or Christianity so as to say here that either Christianity which hee calleth Christs Law or any part of it either hath been or may be renounced by them that pretend to admit nothing as revealed truth but what they believe was received from the Apostles and that so great an error as this may have crept into the Church For the present purpose being general to try how any thing in debate may be tryed whether agreeable to the Faith or not I should count it a great impertinence and the ruine of all that I design to infer upon sufficient principles which I pretend those which I reject not to be to be ingaged to show how great any error may be before I have a ground to inferre whether it be an error or not But if I may proceed to settle such a ground I shall make no doubt to convince all that remain convict of the truth thereof how great the error is which it convicteth It shall therefore suffice mee for the present to state the opposition which I make to this pretense upon these termes That the common sense of all Christians determineth those who pretend to admit nothing as of Faith but what they receive from our Lord and his Apostles to be subject neverthelesse under that pretense to receive things really inconsistent with it and which may be discerned so to be by the means which wee have to decide such questions The Scriptures interpreted by the Original and Catholick Tradition of the Church The evidence of this position necessarily consists in that which is to be said for Scripture and Tradition joyntly as the onely sufficient means to evidence Christian truths that is to say that having showed the arguments made against Scripture alone and for Tradition alone to be ineffectual and void That which remains for the truth will be this that the Scripture with Tradition to determine the meaning of it do both together make a sufficient means to determine the truth of any thing questioned concerning Christianity I say then in behalf of the Scripture which this plea so undervalueth as not to acknowledge any such thing but in favour to them whom they dispute with that it is a mervail to see how the greater difference with common enemies is forgot upon lesse quarrels among our selves For if there be any such men as Atheists that deny the beginning of the world and the marks of Gods providence expressed in the government of it as I would there were none I demand how they could be more gratified than by making it beleeved that we are no more tied to beleeve Moses writings
I said there can be no sect as communicating in nothing visible as Christians But I need not have recourse to such an obscure Sect as this For the same is necessarily the opinion of all the sect that makes every Congregation Independent and Sovereign in Church maters For if particular Congregations be not obliged to joyn in communion to the constitution of one Church wee may perhaps understand the collection of all Congregations to be signified at once by the name of the Church but wee cannot imagine that the Church so understood can be obliged by any sentence that can passe in it And if this opinion be true it must be acknowledged as of late years it hath been disputed amongst us that there is no crime of Schisme in violating the unity of the Church but when a breach is made in a Congregation obliged to communicate one with another in Church maters For where there is no bond of unity what crime can there be in dissolving it This is then the ground of all Independent Congregations that there is no such thing as the Church understanding by the name of the Church a Society or Corporation founded upon a Charter of Gods which signification the addition of Catholick and Apostolick in our Creed hath hitherto been thought to determine But there is a second opinion in the Leviathan who allowes all points of Ecclesiastical Power in Excommunicating Ordaining and the rest to the Soveraign Powers that are Christian Though before the Empire was Christian hee granteth that the Churches that is to say the several Bodies of Christians that were dwelling in several Cities had and exercised some parts of the same right by virtue of the Scriptures As you may see pag. 274-279 287-292 Making that right which the Scriptures give them for the time to eschete to the Civil Power when it is Christian and dissolving the said Churches into the State or Common-wealth which once Christian is from thenceforth the Church And this I suppose upon this ground though hee doth not expresly allege it to that purpose Because the Scripture hath not the force of a Law obliging any man in justice to receive it till Soveraign Powers make it such to their subjects but onely contains good advice which hee that will may imbrace for his souls health and hee that will not at his peril may refuse Thus hee teacheth pag. 205. 281-287 If therefore the act of Soveraign Power give the Scripture the force of Law then hath it a just claim to all rights and Powers founded upon the Scripture as derived from it and therefore vested originally in it Hence followeth that desperate inference concerning the right of Civil Power in mater of Religion not for a Christian but for an Apostate to publish that if the Soveraign command a Christian to renounce Christ and the faith of Christ hee is bound to do it with his mouth but to believe with his heart And therefore much more to obey whatsoever hee commandeth in Religion besides whether to believe or to do The Reason Because in things not necessary to salvation the obedience due by Gods and mans Law to the Soveraign must take place Now there is nothing necessary to salvation saith hee but to believe that our Lord Jesus is the Christ All that the Scripture commandeth besides this is but the Law of Nature which when the Civil Law of every Land hath limited whosoever observes that Law cannot fail of fulfilling the Law of Nature These things you have pag. 321-330 The late learned Selden in his first book de Synedriis Judaeorum maintaining Erastus his opinion that there is no power of Excommunicating in the Church by Gods Law grants that which could not be denied that the Church did exercise such a Power before Constantine but not by any charter of Gods but by free consent of Christians among themselves pag. 243 244. Which if hee will follow the grain of his own reason hee is consequently to extend to the power of Ordaining and to all other rights which the Church as a Corporation founded by God can claim by Gods Law And upon this ground hee may dissolve the Church into the Common-wealth and make the power of it an eschere to the Civil Power that is Christian with lesse violence than the Leviathan doth Because whatsoever Corporations or Fraternities are bodied by sufferance of the State dissolve of themselves at the will of it and resolve the powers which they have created into the disposition of it And that this was his intent whoso considereth what hee hath written of the indowment of the Church in his History of Tithes of Ordinations in the second book de Synedriis of the right of the Civil Power in limiting causes of divorce in his Vxor Ebraica hath reason to judge as well as I who have heard him say that all pretense of Ecclesiastical Power is an imposture I say not that hee or the rest of Erastus his followers make themselves by the same consequence liable to those horrible consequences which the Leviathan admits But I say that they are to bethink themselves what right they will assign the Civil Power in determining controversies in Religion that may arise And what assurance they can give their subjects that their salvation is well provided for standing to their decrees Besides I was to mention these opinions here that those who take the sentence of the Church to be the first ground of Faith into which it is lastly resolved may see that they are to prove the Church to be a Corporation by divine Right before they can challenge any such power for it For that which is once denied it will be ridiculous to take for granted without proving it And whatsoever may be the right of the Church in deciding controversies of Faith it cannot be proved without evidence for this charter of the Church as you shall see by and by more at large CHAP. III. That neither the sentence of the Church nor the dictate of Gods Spirit can be the reason why the Scriptures are to be received No man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit without knowing that hee is a true Christian Which supposeth the truth of the Scripture The motives of Faith are the reason why the Scriptures are to be believed And the consent of Gods people the reason that evidences those motives to be infallibly true How the Scriptures are believed for themselves How a Circle is made in rendering a reason of the Faith The Scriptures are Gods Law to all to whom they are published by Gods act of publishing them But Civil Law by the act of Soveraign Powers in acting Christianity upon their Subjects IT would not be easie to finde an entrance into such a perplexed Question had not the dispute of it started another concerning the reason why wee believe the Scriptures whether upon the credit of the Church or for themselves or whether nothing but the Spirit of God speaking to each mans heart
inward witness of Gods Spirit dictating to his Spirit that they are the word of God it will be utterly impertinent to our purpose For seeking as wee do the means to resolve one another it will be impertinent to allege that which though a man is inwardly satisfied with yet outwardly to another cannot appear And certainly if there be no reason to satisfie another man of the truth of the whole that is of Christianity or of the Scriptures It cannot be expected that there should be satisfaction why this or that should belong to the truth of Christianity or the intent and meaning of the Scriptures For of necessity whatsoever evidence can be made for this or that truth contained in the Scriptures must depend upon the reason for which Christianity is received as Gods truth In fine the reason why controversies in Religion may and are to be ended by dispute of reason is this as hath been premised because that the Holy Ghost which effectually moveth us to believe supposeth sufficient reason moving in the nature of an object proposed to believe Therefore neither the truth of Christianity nor the Scripture is admitted upon the dictate of Gods Spirit but supposing the reasons which convict us that they are to be admitted And correspondently the gift of the Holy Ghost that inableth to continue in the profession and exercise of Christianity supposeth the belief of that Christianity which a man from his heart professes And by consequence the reason why hee is to believe which will not fail to inferre the truth of the Scriptures But if it be said That any person or persons as Rulers of the Church have the promise of inspiration or revelation from God for a ground upon which others are to believe It hath been showed that all such grace supposeth the profession of Christianity and the truth of the Scriptures and therefore the grounds of the same If any man should say as I perceive some have a minde to say that the gift of Infallibility in the Church supposes no such inspiration or revelation but onely the qualities of such persons as have power to conclude the Church and that they do visibly proceed to determine It will be evident that they can no more challenge this right not supposing Christianity and the foundation of the Church than the High Priest of the Jewes could proceed to give answer by Uâ—im and Tummim not supposing that God had given the Law and appointed the Priest so to do The resolution of this Question may make it appear that Christians falling out among themselves maintain themselves upon such grounds as would leave no room for the truth of that Christianity which both suppose Had wee to do with the enemies of it it would easily appear wee must allege such reasons for the truth of Gods Word as might convince the enemies of it and not suppose the truth of it when the question is how it may appear to be true It were therefore fit to consider whether a man can reasonably be a Christian and yet question the truth of the Scriptures or rather not fit to consider that which there can be no doubt in The whole content of the Scripture is either the motives or the mater of Christianity They that professe Christianity suppose the motives of it true which they admit to be sufficient Supposing them true they cannot question the Scriptures that record them Supposing those Scriptures they cannot question those motives for true Whether sufficient is resolved by admitting Christianity Alwaies the same reason that moves a man to be a Christian resolves him to believe the Scripture neither would hee allege any other had hee to do with the enemies of Christianity What those motives are concernes not us proceeding upon supposition of common Christianity to determine differences within it Yet that I may be the better understood my meaning is That the miracles done by those from whom wee have the Scriptures is the onely motive to shew that they came from God and therefore that wee are obliged to receive what they preached and by consequence the Scriptures that containe it Not intending hereby to quit the advantage which the Law hath of Heathenism and the Gospel of the Law in regard of the reasonablenesse and holinesse of the mater of each above other respectively justified by the light of nature But because the businesse is at present onely to shew the evidence wee have that God did send whatsoever reason may be given why hee would send which without other evidence had remained unknown though never so probable or reasonable Not intending hereby to balk that witnesse which the Scriptures of the Old Testament yield to the truth of the New But because that witnesse depends upon the miracles done by Moses and the Prophets to evidence their Commission from God And so the credit which the New Testament hath from the Old is resolved into those miracles which evidenced the sending of Moses and the Prophets and consists in the miracle of fore-telling those things by the one which by the other are fullfilled I know the Jewes expresly deny the credit of the Law to depend upon any miracles done by Moses and the Prophets but onely upon the appearance of God at giving the Law to all that people and speaking to them mouth to mouth The like whereof not having been done nor to be done in giving Christianity belonging to all nations who could not meet at once to receive it they think themselves grounded thereupon that the Law is not nor could be reversed by it Thus are they content that God sending Moses on his ambussage with the miracles which hee gave him for his letters of credit shall be thought not to have convicted Pharao That the Law provided no legal tryal God no evidence to the conscience of his servants distinguishing true and false Prophets which cannot be imagined but by their sayings and doings predictions and other miracles Well may the delivering of the Law have circumstances which no other miraculous action recorded in the Scriptures can compare with Shall that obscure the glory of Christs resurrection fore-told by him expresse to witnesse the truth of his message Shall it make an Ocean of miracles done by him and his Apostles to stand for nothing Shall it disable God himself to do any thing competent to make faith of a message the nature whereof bore not those circumstances which hee had used afore Now if the reason why wee believe the Scriptures to come from God as they pretend be the motives of Christianity strange it is that a man should be troubled how to answer the difficulty that may be made how wee know the truth of those motives speaking onely to Christians which have admitted them to be true But I am sure neither the witnesse of the Church nor the dictate of the Spirit can be alleged to Infidels but by them that would have themselves and this Gospel laught at both at once Seeing
to have been a meer humane Law so did it no way concern the service of God which the Excommunicate among the Jewes were not excluded from by it But was a meer civil punishment tending to change and abate the estate and condition of him that was under it in his freedom and intercourse with his own peole By all this hee seemes to fortifie the argument which Erastus had made showing that there is no such thing as Excommunication commanded or established by that Law and therefore that there is no such power in the Church But further seeing that there was no other company of men extant in the world for the Apostles to understand by the name of the Church when our Lord commanded him that was offended among his Disciples Tell it to the Church Mat. XVIII 16-20 hee insists strongly that neither the Church of Christ nor any Consistory or Assembly of men or particular person claiming or acting in behalf and under the title of the Church can be understood by those words of our Lord But that the name of the Church must necessarily signifie the Body of Jewes as well as Christians as unbelievers or that Consistory which was able to act in behalf of them in their respective times and places such as wee must also understand the witnesses there mentioned to be For it is manifest that at the beginning of Christianity onely Jewes were admitted to be Christians in so much that the dispute was hot about Cornelius and his company Acts XI 1. being no Jewes in Religion but yet such as believed in the true God and had renounced the worship of Idols Whereby it seemes the command of our Lord to baptize all Nations Mat. XXVIII 19. was then understood to concern onely those of all Nations that had made themselves Jewes by being circumcised afore Accordingly wee see that by virtue of Claudius his Edict commanding all Jewes to depart from Rome Aquila and Priscilla being Christians came to Corinth Acts XVIII 2. to show that Christians at that time must needs use the Jewes fashions who were therefore reputed Jewes by the Law of the Romanes and injoyed the benefit of their Religion by the Jewes privileges granted or confirmed by the same Claudius in Josephus Antiq XIX 4. Whereupon it seems necessarily to follow that the Excommunication then in force was that which the Jewes had introduced by humane Law confirmed by the Law of the Empire Though it is to be thought that the Christians upon particular agreement among themselves such as wee finde they had by Pliny Epist X. 97. Tertul. Apolog. cap. II. Euseb Hist Eccles III. 33. S. Hierome Chron. 2123. Orig. contr Celsum I. pag. 4. had limited the use of it to such causes and termes as their profession required Therefore when our Lord in the next words commands that hee which will not heare the Church be accounted as an Heathen or a Publicane As it is manifest that hee gives the Church no power but onely prescribes what hee would have the party offended to do So neither Heathen nor Publicane being in the condition of an excommunicate person among the Jewes how can it be understood that our Lord would have him to be excommunicate whom hee commands to be held as a Heathen man or as a Publicane The effect then of this precept of our Lord will consist in limiting the precept of the Law Levit. XIX 17. to the publishing of those offenses between parties the private complaint whereof should be neglected So that if the opinion of Gods people should be no more esteemed by the osfeuder the party offended freely to return his scorn by avoiding his familiarity as Jewes were wont to avoid the familiarity of Heathen men and Publicanes Now when our Lord adds in the next words Whatsoever yee binde on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever yee loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven The sense must either be general to signifie the obligation of all Law and the right and Power which one man may have by the act of his will to tye and limit another mans Or particular to the Law of Moses Whereby what was declared unlawfull by the Doctors and Professors of it was said in their language to be held or bound that which was permitted loose Which signification our Lord also uses Mat. XXIII 4. Luc. XI 46. This later sense concerning things and not persons will be farre from signifying that any man should be excommunicate And though Excommunication be a bond and was so among the Jewes yet how should wee understand that the Church is inabled to tye this bond by a commission the termes whereof containe all that superiors may do to oblige their inferiors This Author then acknowledges that S. Paul threatens Excommunication Gal. I. 8 9. 1 Cor. XVI 22. and that hee wishes himself that estate which it imports Rom. IX 3. Not as it hath been falsly imagined among Christians to be cut off from the communion of the Eucharist and other offices of Christianity But as it was used among the Jewes to inferre the abridgment of a mans freedome in publick conversation as vile and subject to the curses of the Church But when the same Apostle gives order that the incestuous person be delivered to Satan 1 Cor. V. 5. As also when hee saith that hee had delivered Hymenaeus and Philetus 1 Tim. I. 20. when hee ordereth them not to converse with such persons 1 Cor. V. 11. this hee takes no more to concerne Excommunication than those verses of the Psalms Blessed is the man that bath not walked in the counsail of the ungodly Or I have not sate with vain persons nor will have fellowship with the deceitfull That is to say that it is bad counsail towards God but neither ground nor signe of any commission to excommunicate in the body of the Church Whereas the Leviathan to show here out of order his sense of that place though hee acknowledge that both ancient and modern writers have understood it as if by the extraordinary graces which the Apostles then had to evidence the presence of God in his Church the excommunicate became subject to plagues and diseases inflicted by evil Angels to show that they came under the power of Satan when they were put out of the Church yet hee satisfies himself by saying that other learned men finde nothing like the excommunication of Christians in it pag. 209. and that it depended upon the singular privilege of the Apostles These are the grounds upon which the power of the Keyes and by consequence the charter and corporation of the Church and all Ecclesiastical right and power grounded thereupon are taken away in the first book de Synedriis to the same effect as in Erastus his positions But the Leviathan comes up close to the point in general and following the supposition which I have refuted That the Gospel or Christianity and the Scriptures that contain it are not Law till the secular Power that
that wee are at a distance from the Church of Rome and all who communicate with it upon a just cause of refusing the Reformation as all that professe the Reformation suppose And therefore that there remains no visible presumption what is true the ground of visibility being destroyed by the division of the Church I shall be far enough from extenuating the force of this objection or the effect of this division acknowledging that according to my opinion holding both the Reformation and the Catholick Church the Church should be visible but is indeed invisible Not absolutely but as that which is hardly visible may truly be called invisible because every one whom it concerns cannot attain to discern it upon clear grounds For my intent is to aggravate the mischiefs of division to the highest which they who believe not the Catholick Church do not take for any inconvenience And therefore I grant all and do acknowledge that division in the Church necessarily destroyeth that provision which God hath made for the unlearned as well as the learned equally concerned in the common Salvation of Christians to discern by their common sense where to resort for that which is necessary to the Salvation of all and how to improve and husband the same as their proficience in Christianity calls for more at their hands then the Salvation of all requires Whereby it comes to pass that they are put to make their choice in maters whereof it is not possible for ordinary capacities to comprehend the grounds And so must chuse out of fansy education prejudice faction or which is the vilest of all interest of this world which is in one word profit But this being a choice that must be made and though difficult yet possible to be well made hee that without supposing Infallibility on the one side or Reformation on the other side would discern between true and false supposing the Original unity of the Catholick Church must be a madman if hee advise not with the Records of the Catholick Church though out of date as to force of Law on both sides to tell him wherein Reformation infallibly consisteth For by that means though hee shall not be able to restore that unity which is once violated the duty of all but obliging to an effect that cannot take place without the consent of parties yet hee shall be able so to behave himself and that Church which goes by this Rule be it greater or be it lesse shall be so constituted as not to make but to suffer the division which it is charged with But hee who preaches original liberty to all Christians to cast themselves into Presbyteries or into Congregations at their choice bids them sail the main Sea without Ballast and besides departing from the Unity of the Church by becoming Members of arbitrary Societies not parts of the whole by the visible act of visible power in it expose themselves to the shelves and quick sands of positions destructive to the Faith of the Church And I am to demand of this Doctor if the Presbyteries be Churches by association of Congregations and the Congregations Churches without it and those which are neither Presbyteries nor Congregations that is in effect all the Parish Churches of the land be Churches no lesse than either of both because they have one whom the Triers call a godly man sent them to preach whatsoever he can make of the Bible I say I must demand of him what it is that qualifies a man a Member of a Church or a Church a Church and how a man by being such a one becomes a Member of the whole Church which hitherto hath been thought necessary to the Salvation of every Christian For who knoweth not the dispute that remains between the Reformation and the Church of Rome which shall be the true Church Which if every man be at liberty to become a Member of a Congregation with any six more that hee likes who by that means shall be a Church is plainly about nothing And therefore wee are plainly invited to a new Christianity part whereof hath hitherto been to think our selves Members of the Catholick Church by being Members of some particular Church part of the Catholick So certain it is that had not the Creed been first banished out of mens hearts it had not been banished out of the Church But when this Doctor maintaineth further that all men having power in chief to chuse for themselves in mater of Religion the Soveraign hath Power not onely to chuse for it self but to impose penalties upon those which owe no man any account of their choice if they chuse not that which the Soveraign chuseth I confesse I find this toucheth mee and the remnant of the Church of England to the quick edifying the Soveraign to deny protection in the exercise of Religion to them who find themselves bound never to communicate in the change that is made and in making in Religion amongst us But I find withal so much inconsequence and contradiction to his own sense and the sense of all Christians in it that I hope no Secular Power will be so prodigal of a good conscience as to make it self the executioner of a doctrine tending to so unchristian injustice For if as hee saith no man is answerable for the Religion hee chuseth to any but God how shall hee be liable to be punished by man for that wherein hee offendeth him not Or how can any man offend him to whom hee is not countable Nor will it serve the turn to say That by denying protection in the exercise of Religion the Secular Power punisheth no man for the judgement of his conscience For all Christians of what profession soever do generally believe that they are bound to exercise the Religion which they are bound to professe That Baptisme wherein by the positive will of God under the Gospel the profession of Christianity consisteth truly obliging true Christians to assemble themselves for the service of God with his Church according to the Rules of it It cannot therefore be said that it is no penalty no persecution for Religion to deny protection in the exercise of Religion to them who are not punished for the judgment of their conscience For whosoever can be supposed to be a good Christian not onely had rather but surely had better lose his life much more any comfort of it than lose the exercise of his Christianity in the service of God whereupon his Salvation so neerly dependeth Nor will it serve the turn to say as this Doctor saith that in persecuting the Christian Faith much more in denying protection to the exercise of any profession which it inforceth the Heathen Emperors exceeded not their Power but onely abused it having granted afore that a man is free to chuse for himself that is not countable for his Religion to his Soveraign For if it once be said that God granteth all men all freedom in the choice of their Religion it cannot
be said that God granteth the Secular Power any right to punish him for that choice for which hee maketh him unaccountable The ground of my reason lies in that which hath been said against the Infallibility of the Church For if the sentence of the Church be not of force to oblige any man to believe the truth of it much lesse can the sentence of any Christian though never so Soveraign oblige the meanest of his Subjects to believe that Religion to be true which hee commandeth because hee commandeth it And whatsoever penalty the Soveraign inflicteth upon those that concurre not to the exercise of that Religion which hee holdeth forth as when hee denieth them protection in the exercise of their own which as I have showed is no mean one implieth a command of exercising his and is inflicted in consideration of obeying Gods command which the Subject is inabled by God to judge that hee hath against all the world to the contrary So that upon these terms the Secular Power which is inabled to judge for it self upon the same account with the meanest Subject thereof cannot have power to punish any Subject for exercising any Religion which it alloweth not For all Power as I said afore is a moral quality consisting in a Right of obliging another mans will by the act of his will that hath it Therefore if a Subject cannot be obliged by the will of his Soveraign to professe and to exercise that Religion which his Soveraign prescribeth then cannot the Soveraign have power to impose any penalty upon his Subject for professing or exercising that Christianity which hee believeth All Christianity obliging a man to the utmost of his ability to professe and to exercise that Religion which hee believeth to be true And the reason is manifest For Christianity is from God and the Secular Power is from God though by several means Christianity by the coming of Christ and the preaching of his Apostles Secular Power by what means I will not here dispute nor yet suppose any thing that is questionable That which serves my turn is evident to the common reason of all men That by another act of God than that upon which Christianity standeth That Christianity dependeth not upon it That as I argued against the Leviathan by a Law which no Secular Power can abate If therefore God oblige a Christian by his Christianity to serve God otherwise than his Soveraign commandeth hee is bound by the same bond to disobey his Soveraign to obey God which obliged the primitive Christians to suffer death rather than renounce the Faith But I intend not to say that absolutely which I say upon supposition of this Doctors sense Nor do I intend here to dispute that which I have resolved in another place what kind of penalties Secular Power is able to inact that Christianity with which it self professeth The question is now how the Secular Power is able or becomes able to impose penalties in maters of Religion which as a Christian it is not able to oblige the Subject to acknowledge not how far these penalties may extend A question which cannot be answered not supposing the Church A question which is no question supposing it For supposing that God sending Christianity founds for part of it the visible society and corporation of a Church assuring the common sense of all people thereby what is the condition upon which Salvation is to be had by communicating with it What will remain but to conform to the communion of this Church labouring to work out every man his own Salvation by the means which the communion thereof furnisheth Which whoso doth not but pretends to disturbe it will remain punishable by the Secular Power for I have said already that the Church is not inabled to inflict temporal penalties not absolutely because it is Christian but upon supposition that it maintaineth the true Church The acts whereof as Excommunication by the original constitution thereof inforceth So did not the Secular Power inforce that Excommunication it must of necessity become ineffectual when the world is come into the Church and Christianity professed by the State And this is the resolution that I have given in another place that the acts of the Church for the mater of them are limited by the Church that is to say by persons qualified by the Church and in behalf of it but the force that executes them must come from the State For supposing the Church to be founded by God and the power of it resolved into that act wherein this foundation consisteth Whatsoever the Church is by this power inabled to do will belong to the Church by Gods Law to do though the mater of that which it doth be not limited by Gods Law but by the act of men inabled by Gods Law to do it S. Cyprian and others of the Fathers have reason when they argue that the acts of the Church are the acts of God For no man capable of common reason can doubt that what is done by commission from superiour Power is the act of that Power which granted the commission so far as it ownes the execution of it And I have sufficiently limited the Power granted the Church heretofore by the mater of that communion for which it subsisteth and the supposition of the Christianity upon which it subsisteth What is therefore done by virtue of this commission though perhaps ill done for the inward intent with which men do it yet being within the bounds of the Power established by God is to be accepted as his own act without contesting whose act of founding the Church it cannot be infringed Which if it be true so far is the Secular Power from being able to create or constitute a Church by creating that difference of qualities in which the difference between several Members thereof consisteth that it is not able of it self to do any of these acts which the Church that is those who are qualified by and for the Church are thereby qualified to do without committing the sinne of Sacrilege in seizing the Powers which by Gods act are constituted and therefore consecrated and dedicated to his own service into its own hands not supposing the free act of the Church without fraud and violence to the doing of it CHAP. XXI How the Tradition of the Church limits the interpretation of Scriptures How the declaration of the Church becomes a reasonable mark of Heresie That which is not found in the Scriptures may have been delivered by the Apostles Some things delivered by the Apostles and recorded in the Scriptures may not oblige S. Austines Rule of Apostolical Traditions ANd by this means I make account I have gained another principle towards the interpretation of Scripture and resolution of things questioned in Christianity either concerning the Rule of Faith or such Laws and Customs determining the circumstances of Ecclesiastical Communion as I showed afore are understood by the name of Apostolical Traditions Which principle that no
Christianity as the corruption of it Surely he that considers not amiss will finde that it was a great ease to them that were convinced to acknowledg a God above them to imagine the name and honor of this God to rest in something of their own choice or devising which being set up by themselves reason would they should hope to please and have propitious by such obedience and service as they could allow Correspondently God having given the Jewes a Law of such precepts as might be outwardly performed without inward obedience whosoever believe the most difficult point of Gods service to be the submission of the heart will finde it a gain that hee can perswade himself of Gods peace without it whatsoever trouble whatsoever cost hee be at for that perswasion otherwise If then there be in mans nature a principle of Paganism and Judaism notwithstanding that men cannot be at quiet till by imbracing a religion they think they are at peace with God Is it a strange thing that they who have attained the truth of Christianity should entertain a perswasion of peace with God upoâ— terms really inconsequent to or inconsistent with the true intent of it Surely if wee reflect upon the motives of it and the motives of them it cannot seem strange I have said and it is manifest that the nature of Christianity though sufficient yet were purposely provided not to be constraining that the effect of them might be the trial of those dispositions that should be moved therewith And is it a mervail that means to perswade those that have received Christianity that things inconsistent with that which was first delivered are indeed consequent to the same should be left among those that professe that they ought to receive nothing but what was first delivered by our Lord and his Apostles I say nothing now of renouncing Christianity while men professe this for I confesse and insist that while men do believe that there is a society of men visible by the name of the Church it will not be possible for them to forget their whole Christianity or to imbrace the contrary of it But I say that notwithstanding the profession of receiving Christianity from our Lord and his Apostles the present Church may admit Lawes whether of belief or of Communion inconsistent with that which they received at first I allege further that so long as all parts of the Church held free intercourse and correspondence with one another it was a thing either difficult or altogether impossible to bring such things either into the perswasion or practice of all parts of it according to the difficulty of bringing so great a body to agree in any thing against which any part might protest with effect And this held not onely before the Church was ingraffed into the State of the Romano Empire but also so long after as this accessory help of Christianity did not obscure and in the end extinguish the original intercourse and correspondence of the Church For then it grew both possible and easie for them who had the Secular Power on their side to make that which the authority thereof was imployed to maintain to passe for Tradition in the Church Seeing it is manifest that in the ordinary language of Church Writers Tradition signifies no lesse that which the Church delivers to succeeding ages than that which it received from the Apostles Adde hereunto the opinion of the authority of the Church truly pretended originally within the true bounds but by neglecting the due bounds of the truth of Christianity which it supposeth infinitely extended to all States which Powermay have interest to introduce For if it be not impossible to perswade those who know they have received their Christianity upon motives provided by God to convince the judgments and consciences of all that see them to imbrace those things to which the witnesse of them may be applyed that they are to imbrace whatsoever either the expresse act or the silent practice of the Church inforces whether the motives of Faith be applicable to them or not Then is it not impossible to perswade them any thing which this Power shall think to be for their Interest to perswade For no mans Interest it can be to go about to perswade the world that expresse contradictories are both true at once And if it were not impossible that the imaginations of most of them that dispute Controversies for the Church of Rome should be so imbroyled with the equivocation of this word Church as not to distinguish the Infallible authority thereof as a multitude of men not to be deceived in testifying the truth from the authority of it as a Body constituted upon supposition of the same Shall it not be easie for those who can obtain a reputation of the World that their act is to oblige the whole Church to obtain of the same to make no difference between that which is presently decreed and that which was originally delivered by the Apostles The said difference remaining disputable not onely by any text of Scripture but by any record of historical truth testifying the contrary to have passed for truth in any other age or part of the Church Upon these premises I do appeal to the common sense of all men to judge whether the Church professing to hold nothing but by Tradition from the Apostles may not be induced to admit that as received from the Apostles which indeed never was delivered by the Apostles For when the Socinians pretend that the Faith of the Trinity of the Incarnation and Satisfaction of our Lord Christ not being delivered by the Apostles in their writings crept into the Church as soon as they were dead they still maintain that nothing is to be admitted but what comes from our Lord and his Apostles But upon their supposition that Antichrist came into the Church as soon as they were dead are obliged to renounce all that can be pretended to come by Tradition and in that very next age Which I yield and insist that whosoever shall consider the intercourse and correspondence visibly establisht by the Apostles between all parts of the Church shall easily perceive to be a contradiction to common sense But when so much difference is visible between the State of the Church in several ages and what change hath succeeded in things manifest to inferre what may have succeeded in things disputable Hee must have his minde well and thoroughly possessed with prejudice to the utter renouncing of common sense that can indure a demand so contrary to all appearance to be imposed upon his common sense The same I say to the other demands of certain and sensible distances of time which they that see the end of may be certainly assured what was received at the beginning of them and so by mean distances this age what was held by the Apostles Of the like time for blotting out the remembrance of the truth as for introducing falshood For it is evidently true that
than there is between the Greek of the LXX and any of them judging of Aquila Symmachus and Theodotion by the remains of them recorded by the Fathers of the Church As for the Syriack and Vulgar Latine both made by the Christians and the former justly challenging as great antiquity and therefore as great credit as the early coming of those parts to Christianity thereupon the necessity of having the Scriptures inforces it is manifest that they were translated out of Copies which were had from the Jewes and yet that the sense was not determined in those Copies as it is by the vowels determined in the Ebrew Copies wee use Whether that in S. Jeromes time the method of points was not complete and written into their books or whether they would not suffer such Copies to go out of their hands for the use of Christians I confesse I have met with a passage in the Gemara Brachoth cap. ult that seems to argue the contrary It is reported there that R. Akiba about Adrian the Emperors time decreed that they were not saving your presence to wipe the backside with the right hand because it shows the accents of the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if there were then accents to be showed certainly there were vowels But the Glosse of R. Solomon Jarchi clears the meaning of the passage to be no more than this that by holding the right hand up or down they signified how the lessons of the Law were to be sung according to that whether Musick or howling which still it seems they use in their Synagogues Now to come to the resolution of the point propounded I think it not unfit to divide from the rest the Greek and Samaritane Copies because a reason is pretended why they should never be taken into consideration when there is any question of the true reading of the Old Testament whatsoever account is to be had of the rest By the Scripture of 2 Kings XVII wee understand that the Samaritanes at their first planting were Idolaters and worshipped God as the God of that Countrey not as the one true God that made heaven and earth In which worship there must needs be as much Idolatry as in the Athenians worshipping the unknown God among innumerable Idols Though that title yielded S. Paul an argument against Idols When the Temple and City came to be restored under Esdras and Nehemias they offered themselves to assist the work pretending that they they worshipped the true God onely Esdras IV. 2. And what reason can wee have to doubt that they said true in it For when in opposition to the Jews they had built themselves a Temple upon Mount Geriziâ—â— and sacrificed there as the ten Tribes did at Bethel and Dan from Jeroboams then there can no question be made but that they sacrificed to the true God though not according to the true intent of his Law at Jerusalem but as Schismaticks where they pleased themselves Whatsoever then was the reason why under Esdras and Nehemias they were not admitted to build the City and Temple with the Jews as just there might be and no doubt was though wee suppose them not to have been Idolaters from the time that they were thus rejected I make account wee may clearly say that they have been and are Schismatical Jews professing the Law but according to a Copy of their own which for a rarâ— monument of antiquity is printed in the Great Paris Bibles and so extolled by those that pretend to oblige the Christian world by publishing the same as if it were the true Copy of Moses As for the rest of the Old Testament seeing it cannot be said that ever they admitted either the writings of the Prophets or the Resurrection and world to come which under them was more and more declared I leave to those of better skill to consider whether this were not the reason why they were refused the communion of the Jews under Esdras and Nehemias This is the original credit of this Copy of Moses Law which cannot be greater than the credit of those that use it But it is alleged over and above out of an extract from Eulogâ—us Patriarch of Alexandria in Photius that this Copy was falsified by Dositheus a Doctor of such credit among the Samaritanes that Origen upon S. Mathew XXIV informs us that hee pretended to be the Messias whom the Samaritanes as Jews did expect As for the Greek of the LXX it is alleged that by comparing it with the original which is the most effectual conviction of common sense it may appear that they who made it never intended to translate the Ebrew which they had before them but to inlarge abridge and change the sense and mater of it as best pleased their own fansies though to what purpose it is hard to affirm This is alleged to be visible in the Book of Job the Proverbs Esther and I know not whether any other parts of the Old Testament Supposing these exceptions made to those two the ancientest Copies besides the Ebrew that the world has I will not enter into the dispute concerning the true Copy of the LXX which every man knows what difficulties it becomes lyable to by the diligence industry of Origen who that it might appear at one view what the difference was between the Greek and Ebrew Copies first set a mark upon every word which the Greek of the LXX had exâ—râ—ssâ—d more than the Ebrew contained then under another mark added to the same Copy that which being found in the Ebrew was not found translated in the Greek of the LXX For those marks being afterwards left out by the negligâ—nâ—e of Copyists there came into the common use of the Church a mixt Copy of the Greek according to the LXX and that which the Ebrew had more than the Greek according to Theodotion whom Origen had stuck to in that businesse Whereby and by several Copies corrected and ordered by Luciane Hesychius and others to set a period to this disorder it is become impossible to say what is the true Grâ—ek of the LXX or Alexandrian Jews in abundance of places But this dispute I conceive I shall not need to enter into having nothing to do here to say how well or how ill the Church hath been served by the multiplying of several Copies whiâ—h is a far divers point that may come to hand in due place But onâ—ly supposing things to be as they are what means we have to assure our selves of unquestionable Scripture in order to the deciding of difficulties in mater of Religion which not onely ordinarily but universally have their beginning from some uncertainty in the meaning of the same But supposing the Greek and Samaritane lyable to these exceptions supposing that wee have a very â—nâ—ient translation of the Old Testament into that language which the Jews from the Captivity used for what can be the reason why the Jews should turn it into Chaldee but for the vulgar use
of their people that wee have the vulgar Latine and that ancient and worthy Christian translation into the Syriack is there any body will undertake to say Either that having these helps wee cannot assure our selves of the Scripture which God delivered to the Church so farr as the necessity of the Church requireth to be assured of it Or that nothing but the Copy which now wee have from the Jews is to be regarded God having provided us so many helps over and above For suppose the Samaritane Copy of the Law to have been fâ—lâ—ified by Desitheus must it not needs have been falsified upon some certain design And will one certain design require or will it indure that all should be falsified whether it concerned that design or not So suppose those Jews of Alexandria who turned the Old Testament into Greek gave themselves liberty to make the Book of Job the Proverbs more of the Old Testament if more can be alleged not what the original contained but what themselves fansied would be handsom shall wee therefore say the whole work is not a translation but a Romance which wee see stick so close to the original in the most of the Scripture Surely the very great antiquity of both Copies and the experience which all that study the Scriptures with an intent to clear the meaning of them have of the great advantage which the comparing of the Greek advances more and more every day to that design will no way indure that it should be counted no translation of the Old Testament Or that though a man pretend not to build upon the credit of either of those Copies alone in opposition to the Ebrew which wee now use Yet the agreement of them with other Copies together with the reason and consequence or pertinence of sense inforced by the text of the Scripture may give him just ground to assure himself and the Church of the true reading of the Scripture yea though the present Ebrew should not agree with others For I shall not need here to say what or how great faults may be found in our Ebrew Copies who had rather be assured that there were none at all to be found greater or lesse But that wee who neither relye upon the dictate of the Spirit to them that are able to conclude the Church nor much lesse to particular Churches for assuring the true reading of Scripture are not bound to resolve our faith in it into the present Tradition of the Synagogue having over and above so considerable helps to the verifying of the same For magnifying first the providence of God in that the Jews having Christians in utter hatred should neverthelesse neither be willing for their interest nor able for their malice to falsifie those things in their own books which bear witnesse against themselves Seeing God hath given the Church that most ancient Greek Translation which is commonly ascribed to LXX Interpreters sent from Jerusalem but more justly to the Jews of Alexandria besides that Copy of the Law which the Samaritanes still use Since wee have considerable remains of those Greek Translations made by Aquila Symmachus and Theodotion the Bodies whereof to the great losse of the Church have perished with the worthy labors of Origen in joyning them in columes to the Ebrew Since wee have those ancient translations into the Chaldee which the Jews make so much esteem of Since wee have the Syriack and Vulgar Latine made by Christians to say nothing of the Arabick whether made by Jews or Christians or of any other though ancient translations which have not had the like use and credit in the Church So far am I from giving way to that unreasonable demand so destructive to the being of Christianity that wee cannot assure our selves that wee have any Scripture That in all that I have to say or shall have said concerning the dispute on foot in England about Religion I shall neither undertake to assure men that will be content with reason that I allege nothing for Scripture which I cannot justifie so to be or else undertake to resolve that which shall come in debate without the help of that which I cannot assure to be such Not intending in that which follows to allege any more evidence hereof in the particulars than I have done in the premises But building my self upon the resolution premised and intending that there shall be nothing to be objected from the true means of questioning and settling the true reading of the Scriptures that may breed any considerable scruple concerning the truth of those Scriptures which I shall imploy to my purpose As for the part of the difficulty which remains concerning the true reading of the New Testament it is in vain to maintain the decree of the Council of Trent by pretending that the Greek Copy out of which the Vulgar Latine was translated vvas more intire and of better credit than the Greek Copies novv extant Understanding that decree to make that Copy authentick in point of faith by virtue of any gift of Infallibility intailed upon the decrees of the present Church For if it be onely made authentick because the use and credit of it is not allowed to be questioned in the Church it is another question as I have said already vvhich I pretend not to touch in this place For supposing the Copy from which the Vulgar Latine was translated to have been better than any Greek Copy now extant the credit of the Vulgar Latine is not to be ascribed to the decree of the Council that decrees this any more than the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom of England were the fundamental Laws thereof by virtue of any Act of Parliament by which they were not constituted but declared and acknowledged to be such And if the credit of the Vulgar Latine be derived from the Greek Copy out of which it was translated then is it no further authentick than as it expresseth the authentick reading which then was found in the Greek out of which it was translated And so the whole credit of the Scripture is resolved into the credit of the Originals whereof wee stand possest in the translations of them that remain in whatsoever Language So that the question comes to be the very same that remained before concerning the authentick Copy of the Old Testament and the resolution clear that the Original Greek is the authentick the reading thereof being first assured neither by the dictate of Gods Spirit to any persons inabled to oblige the Church by their decrees nor to any never so good Christian much lesse by the Tradition of any particular Copy which the Church stands possest of but by that Tradition which is justified and assured by all Copies wherein the leter of the Scripture is recorded to the Church For though I do for disputation sake suppose yet do I not grant for a truth that the Copy out of which the Vulgar Latine was translated is to be held of better credit than that
or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which are sometimes translated in the Greek of the Old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying confidence â—s the resolution of Horatius Cocles not giving way to the enemy is called by Polibius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Livy subsistere â—osteâ—â— is to stand the enemy So Heb. III. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the first confidence of Christians and 2 Cor. VIII 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confidence in bosting So Rom. III. 25. Whom God hath proposed as a Propitiatory through faith in his blood The propitiatory was set before the Israelites to assure them of Gods help according to the Law So is Christ faith the Apostle to them that have recourse to him with confidence alledging for themselves his blood shed for us So Jam. 1. 6. 7. But let him ask in faith nothing doubting For he that doubteth is like the sea waves tossed and stirred with the windes Let not such a man think that he shall obtaine any thing of God Where the efficacy of prayer is ascribed to an assured confidence of obtaining that which is desired and therefore that beliefe which according to the words of our Lord Mar. XI 23. 24. seemeth properly to consist in this assurance obtaines all prayers And not supposing S. Paul to speak of the common faith of all Christians when he faith 1 Cor. XIII 2. If I have all faith so as to remove mountaines yet as he insinuates that this is done by that particular assurance and confidence which that grace giveth him that hath it So must the conquest of the World by the common faith of Christians be ascribed to that assurance and confidence with which all Christians expect Gods promises And truly through the manifold indifference of signification which words will afford them that will use them to their purpose it cannot be denied that to believe God and to believe in God is sometimes all a thing Yet it is very hard to believe that they are intended by the Scripture to signifie alwayes the same thing being so frequently and ordinarily used with a difference For if we consider that in very many texts of the Old Testament the nature of Faith is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which speeches trusting and confidence in some body or some thing particularly in God when the speech is of religion is signified as well by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies believing in God it will be impossible to imagine that all such expressions import no more then barely believing those things to be true which God or man sayes though sometimes believing God and believing in God may signifie all one The Apostle Hebr. XI 33 34 35. thus reckoneth the marveilous things which through faith came to passe to the Fathers of the Old Testament Who by faith subdued kingdomes wrought righteousnesse obtained promises stopped the mouthes of Lions quenched the force of fire escaped the edge of the sword recovered of infirmities prevailed in warr put to flight armies of strangers women received their dead raised againe others were beaten to death not expecting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection And can it be reasonable to impute these effects to the bare belief of Gods power or goodnesse or whatsoever else can be thought requisite for them then to believe when as that trust and confidence in God which supposeth that beliefe is both by the nature thereof nearer to these effects and apt to dispose them to undergoe those trials under which they found such deliverances For of them all we may say as the Apostle of Elias James V. 17 18. Elias was a man subject to like passions with us and he earnestly prayed that it might not raine and it rained not upon the land for three years and six moneths And againe he prayed and the heavens gave raine and the earth put forth her fruit The confidence which Elias had grounded upon Gods presence with him made him first pray for drought and then for raine which came to passe according to his saying 1 Kings XVII 1. that there should be neither dew not rain for those yeares but according to his word And so the trust which the rest there mentioned had in God to obtaine so great things as the Apostle sayes befell them that rather then the beliefe of Gods power and goodnesse or whatsoever else they were to believe chalenges so great effects to be ascribed to it I must now observe a third notion which this word faith signifies especially in the writings of the Apostles from whence this difficulty is in the first place to be derived which you shall find Hebr. X. 39. We are not of apostasy to destruction but of faith to the saving of the soul What is opposite to falling from faith but perseverance in it or what doth all this Epistle but learn the Jews that were Christians not to forsake Christianity for the persecutions raised against them by those of their kindred So here Faith is Christianity as apostasy the renouncing of it Then S. Paul when he saith that his Apostleship was for the obedience of faith in all nations Rom. I. 55. and Rom. XVI 26. that the Gospel is made known to all nations for the obedience of faith must needs signifie that submission which those that render themselves Christians do undertake for the performing of that condition whereupon the Gospel tenders everlasting life Of which he saith againe Rom. III. 27. that boasting is not excluded by the law of works but by the law of faith For every law being a condition upon which a man enjoys some benefit in some society whereof he is a part the law of faith must needs be that condition the undergoing whereof intitles all men to the common claime of all Christians which is their Christianity So when S. Paul exliorteth them Rom. XII 3. 6. to think of themselves unto sobriety according as God hath divided to every one a measure of Faith As againe If any man had the gift of Prophesie according to the proportion of faith It is manifest that his meaning in the latter text is If any man had profited so farre in Christianity that God thereupon had bestowed on him the grace of prophesying For though it is well known that God sometimes gave that grace to those whom he loved not to life as Saul and Balaam and Caiaphas and those who shall say once Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name Mat. VII 22 which notwithstanding under Christianity is limited to the profession thereof as I shewed you in the beginning yet it is as certaine that those whom God imployeth to his People and Church upon those commissions that require such graces those he useth to chuse for their proficiency in true Godlinesse The prophets of the Old Testament being so ordinarily assumed out of those that had lived in the study of godlinesse
creature as both are representations to mans mind and therefore in themselves of the same nature yet the one represents God incomparable to that which the other represents concerning the creature As for the outward signes of honour though they may be equivocall and ambiguous yet there wants not meanes to determine whether a man intend to expresse that esteem which is incomparable to any he can have of any creature or not This is the esteem which the propper name and worship of God signifies which if they who know not God should tender to a creature they must be thought Idolaters If they which know God they must know that God is in that creature as Christians know that God is in Christ whom therefore they worship for God When therefore we find the Fathers of the Old Testament worshipping the apparitions they had for God when the Scriptures call them God it is because God was in them for the time as for ever in Christ after whose coming we do not find any angel called God or worshipped for God Not that before his coming all angels that come from Gad are called by the name of God But that where they are so called so it was For I need not stand here to shew how many apparitions of Angels are mentioned in the Old Testament of whom there is none called by the proper name of God or said to be worshipped by the Prophets whom they deal with It is true S. John in the New testament two severall times tenders the Angel that appeares to him that worship which he refuseth Apoc. XIX 10. XXII 12. But though he saies in refusing it worship God yet doth it not appear nor is it of it self any way credible that S. John should be so surprized as to honour and esteem the Angel as God whom he knew to be sent by God For to bid him reserve unto God that honour which he refuses is to bid him reserve unto God that honour which is incomparably more then that which he refuseth And who is it that can say or imagine that Cornelius intended to worship S. Peter for God because he tenders him that honour which S. Peter refuseth Acts X. 26. Saying Arise I also am a man Being one whose Religion was to worship the onely true God whose servant be thought S. Peter to be And therefore I shall not need to say that which otherwise I should have said That S. John knew not this difference betwen the dispensation of God in the Old and New Testament nor the reason why the Fathers worshipped those Angels that dealt with them in Gods Name which out of this difference may be observed To wit because the Word of God who at this time had assumed our flesh in the womb of the Virgin subsisting therefore by the Word which assumed it and not to be dismissed any more formerly assumed an Angel subsisting afore to deal with man by and therefore dismissed him againe when the businesse was done Let us now compare that sense which these words create according to Socinus with that which followeth from the premises and then I will be willing to leave it to the reader to choose For is it not a great secret which the Evangelist discovers by these words in his sense that when S. John Baptist began to preach there was such a man in the world as he whom God had appointed to publish the Gospel Is it that which he needed tell them that knew all before that there was six moneths between their ages Or did it not concern them to know that the same Word of God which dealt with the Fathers which by and by he meanes to tell them was incarnate the same was from the beginning that is to say to the confusion of Arrius no lesse then of Socinus from everlasting Was it not to the purpose to settle that which Cerinthus undermined upon the same credit upon which they were Christians Proceed we now to that which followes and we shall finde that if we admit Socinus his sense when S. John saies The Word was with God and afterwards The same was in the beginning with God I say if we admit the sense of these words to be this That what time S. John Baptist preached Jesus was with God in heaven We shall not give an account of those things which he sayes of himself in the Gospel pertinent to Christianity Which according to the sense of the Church we shall do John III. 11 12 13. Our Saviour saith to Nicodemus Verily verily I say unto thee We speak that we know and we witnesse what we have seen but ye receive not our witnesse If I have said to you earthly things and ye believe not how will ye believe if I tell you heavenly And no man is gone up into heaven but he that came down from heaven even the Sonne of man that is in heaven Againe John V. 19 20 30. Our Lord giving a reason why he bad the man whom he had cured take up his bed and walk Answers and sayes to them Verily verily I say unto you the sonne can do nothing of himself except he see the Father do something For what he doth the same doth likewise the Sonne For the Father loveth the Sonne and showeth him all that he doth And will shew him greater things then these that ye may marvaile And to the same effect our Lord saith to the Jewes John VIII 38. I speake what I have seen with my Father and therefore ye do what ye have seen with your Father Or at your and my Fathers house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So John VI. 46 50 51 58. 62. Not that any man hath seen the Father but he that comes from God He hath seen the Father And This is the bread that commeth down from heaven that a man may eat of it and not dy I am the living bread that is come down from heaven And againe This is the bread that is come down from heaven And last of all What then if you see the Son of man go up thither where he was before Finally when our Lord now ready to leave the World tells his disciples John XVI 29. I came forth from my Father and came into the World Againe I leave the World and go to the father I demand of all the World that read and believe by these words that our Lord going back to the Father stayes there for everlasting whether they can understand when he affirmes in the same form of words that he came from the Father that he meanes onely that he had been with the Father since the Baptist began to preach Or that he had been there from everlasting before When he saith What if you see him go up thither where he was before That he had been there afore while the Baptist was preaching or that he had been there afore a while answerable to that while that he shall stay there after his going hence When he saith That they will
is easily seen extendeth further then those Psalms which by the Titles of them or by other circumstance of Scriptures may appear to have been composed to be sung in the Temple though this contain a peremptory instance against this strange demand that it should be unlawful to serve God with set forms For what difference can be imagined between Psalms and Prayers as to that purpose But the conclusion is directed against that new light which pretendeth to cast the Psalms out of the Church because it appeareth that they were composed upon the particular occasions of the Prophet David or other servants of God by whom they were penned and therefore not concerning the state of Christs Church so as to be frequented by Christians upon publick as well as private occasions for the praises of God This conceit is sufficient to show how litle these new lights do understand of our common Christianity over-looking that which the Church hath alwayes supposed against the Jews as the onely ground whereupon she wresteth the Scriptures of the Old Testament out of their hands and turneth them to the interest of the Church against themselves To wit that the Prophets being inspired by the same spirit which our Lord sent his Apostles did preach the same Christianity with them though according to the dispensation of that time figuring the spiritual estate of Christians by the temporall estate of Gods then people and injoyning the duties of Gods spiritual obedience in a measure correspondent to the light of the time For upon this ground hath it been received by the whole Church that the case of David and of other the servants of God who penned the Psalms is the case first of our Lord Christ then of Christs Church whitheâ— in the whole thereof or in the state of particular Christians David and the rest bearing first the person of Christ then of his Church according to the principles premised in the first Book I might here allege that ingenious saying of S. Hilary that Christ hath the Key of David because the spiritual sense of the Pâ—â—lter is opened by the discovery of Christ and his Church I might allege S. Austine accepting of Tychonius the Donatist his rules for the exposition of the Psalmes that those things which are literally understood of the temporall state of David and Gods then people are to be spiritually understood of the state of our Lord Christ here on earth first then of the spiritual estate of his whole Church and of each Christian But I had rather allege the practice of of Gods whole Church of which there is no age no part to be named and produced in which it may appear that God was not served by singing the Psalms of David to his praise Not that I would confine this office to that form which the Psalter yeelds or think that the Apostles exhortations Col. III. 16. James V. 13. Ephes 19. can be confined unto them Being well assured by comparing that which I read in the Apostles whith that which I read in Tertullians Apologetick where he saith that the Christians at their feasts of love were wont to provoke one another to sing something of Gods praises that they did in a simple stile but from a deep and losty sense compose the praises of God in Psalms of their own fitted to that light which the coming of Christ hath brought into the Church But that I would have this lothing of the Book of Psalms recommended not by the Church of England but by the whole Church to be taken for an evident mark that we are weary of the common Christianity of Gods people and do lust for new meat of our own asking if not for the fleshpots and Onyons and Garlicke of Egypt As for the reading of the Scriptures in the Church which the whole Church hath used as generally as it hath had the Scriptures for we understand by Irenaeus and may see by our ancestors the Saxons that Christianity hath subsisted among people that had not not the use of leters Though our anceflors the Saxons had the Scriptures before they had the use of leters by the means of them who brought them Christianity But Irenaeus speaks of barbarous Nations that were Christians before they knew of any Scriptures I see it rather neglected then disputed against by the sects of this time Why neglected divers reasons may be conceived though they perhaps as a disparagement to the Spirit whence they may pretend to have their Orders the carnall man onely chusing in Religion that which by the use of reason he is convinced to come from God contrary to the principles setled at the beginning think fit to allege none Their illuminati perhaps are already so perfit in the Text that it were loss of time for them to assemble to hear the Scriptures read To whom I must say That those who are inlightned by God are alwayes humble and ready to continue in the unity of the Church as I have showed by the premises that all Christians ought to do That if they do so the greater part of the Church by much will have need to learn the Scriptures that â—is instruction out of them by hearing them read in the Church That all that are inlightned by God are taught to condescend to the necessities of the weak and simple And that those who break from the Church rather then do so may think themselves strong but their strength is the strenth of Madmen that see not what they do In fine that they who have received light by the knowledge of the Scriptures must needs add to their light by hearing them read and that there is no beter way for them to add to it being the way which the primitive Fathers took for that purpose It may perhaps be imagined that the reading of the Scriptures takes up the time of assemblies and excludes the preaching of the Word To which I must say for the present that it is a strange piece of providence to exclude the reading of the Scripture which we know to be the word of God and to have in it no cause of offence but that which the want of understanding in the hearers thereof ministreth out of a desire to make way for that which pretendeth indeed always to be the word of God but no understanding so simple no conscience so seared that must not needs know that it is not that it cannot always be the word of God because of the contradictions that pass under that Title And that in maters of so high nature at this time that if the one be the word of God the other must not be counted the word of humane weakness but of diabolical malice There are indeed certain bounds within which that which is preached out of the Pulpit may be presumed and taken for the word of God as it might be if it were said in another place But if ignorant people that cannot take upon them to judge shall presume it of that
the enemies of Gods Church as of the members of it I conceive I have named the substance of these prayers the particulars whereof you may see in our English Litanies to be the same that the most ancient Writers of the Church witness to have been used after the exposition of the Scriptures whether they describe the celebration of the Eucharist as doth Justine Martyr or not as Tertullian And from hence I hope to resolve that question which I have proposed in another place and no man yet hath taken in hand to answer Why as well in the Ancient Latine as well as Eastern Liturgies as also by the testimonies of S. Austine and others it appeareth that these Prayers are twice repeated at the Eucharist The reason being this that first those who offered the creatures of which the Eucharist is consecrated and by which offering the assembly of the Church was maintained might testifie that they do it out of devotion to God hoping by so doing to obtain at his mercy not onely their own but the necessities of all other orders and estates by virtue of the Sacrifice of the Cross which at present they intend to commemorate and repete Which notwithstanding the elements being consecrated and the Body and Bloud of Christ once sacrificed on the Cross here and now represented they offer to him the same Prayers again presenting him as it were the same sacrifice here and now represented for the motive inducing him to grant the said necessities And therefore have reason to account this service the most eminent service that Christians can offer to God and those prayers the most effectual that they can address unto him as being proper to that Christianity in virtue whereof they hope to obtain their prayers and of nothing besides That which remains of this point is onely the consideration of those prayers which are made at those assemblies of the Church which pretend not to celebrate the Eucharist how they may appear to be prescribed by Christianity Where I shall need to say nothing of such Prayers as are to be made by Christian assemblies for the necessities of all Orders and Estates whether within or without the Church because I have already spoken of them when they are made upon occasion of celebrating the Eucharist The difference between that occasion and other occasions which the Church may have to frequent the same Prayers when the Eucharist is not celebrated inferring no difference in that which is prescribed to the Church or by the Church either in the mater or form of the same As for the Prayers which every assembly maketh for it self concerning the common necessities of all Christians as such which I conceive were first called Collecta because the assembly ended in them and was dismissed with them from gathering the same as the Mass hath the name in Latine Missa from dismissing it as I observed afore I shall need to say as little having showed by what authority all Christians are to be limited in such things as have been left unlimited by our Lord and his Apostles For the necessities of Christians as Christians become determinable if any thing cōcerning them become questionable by the same authority that governeth every Church upon such terms as it ought to govern the same But if any cause appear as many ages since there hath appeared necessity enough why particular Churches should be ruled in those forms by Synods that is by the common authority of more and greater Churches for maintaining unity in the whole which the form of Church Service may be a great means to violate as wee know by lamentable experience it remains that the same means be imployed for maintaining unity in this point which God hath provided for maintaining the same in all cases So that supposing that in process of time whether by direct or by indirect means the Church of Rome hath gained so much ground of the whole Western Church as to conform their Prayers and in a maner the whole Order of divine Service to the patern prescribed by it which I take to have been the case at the Reformation with all the Western Church it cannot be alleged for a sufficient cause of changing that the Church of Rome hath no right to require this conformity by Gods Law But the question must be whether the uniformity introduced by the same be so well or so ill for the prejudice or advancement of Christianity that it shall be requisite for the interest thereof to proceed to a change without the consent of the Church Which if it be true then whatsoever hath been objected to the Church of England upon this Title as agreeable to the form used by the Church of Rome not as disagreeable to Christianity is to be damned as ignorantly and maliciously objected for to make division in the Church without cause These same reasons will serve to resolve how necessary it is that those Prayers wherewith the rest of Ecclesiastical Offices Baptism Confirmation Penance the Visitation of the Sick and Mariages are celebrated be of a certain form and prescribed by the authority of the Church It were a thing strangely unreasonable for him that hath considered that which I have said in the second book how our Christianity and salvation is concerned in the Sacrament of Baptism and how much the disputes of Religion that divide the Western Church depend upon the knowledg of it to imagine that all those who must be admitted by the Church to the ministring of it can be able to express the true intent of it in such form of words as may be without offense and tend to the edification of Gods people in a thing so nearly concerning their Christianity Rather it may justly be questioned whether they that take upon them to baptize and consecrate the Eucharist not grounding themselves upon the authority of the Church supposing the Faith of the Church expressed in such a form as the Church prescribeth but their own sense concerning the ground and intent of those Sacraments Do any thing or nothing That is whether they do indeed minister the Sacrament of Baptism necessary to the salvation of all Christians or onely profane the Ordinance of God by professing an intention of doing that which is not indeed that Sacrament under pretense of celebrating it Whether they do indeed consecrate the elements to become sacramentally the Body and Bloud of Christ and so communicate the same to those which receive or onely profane those holy mysteries of Christianity and involve his people in the same guilt by pretending to celebrate so holy an Office and in effect doing nothing as not knowing what ought to be done nor submitting to those that do A consideration very necessary in regard of those who forsake the Baptism which they received in their infancy in the Church of England to be baptized again by new Dippers For it is true the Church hath admitted the Baptism of Hereticks for good but not of all
indeed there is a great deale of reason to maintaine that those living creatures consisting of four faces whereof one was the face of an oxe heifer or calf which Ezekiel in the I. II. III. and X. Chapters of his Prophesies describeth drawing the Throne of Gods Majesty were no other then the Cherubim which Moses according to the pattern showed him in the mountaine had caused to be made over the Arke Which is also to be said of the Seraphim with six wings which the Prophet Esay saw about Gods Throne Esa VI. and is expresly said of the four living creatures which Saint John sees Apoc. IV. 6 7 8. in compassing Gods Throne They conceive then that Aaron and Jeroboam intended no more but to give the people a visible signe of Gods presence out of his own prescription to Moses Aaron onely to satisfy the people and to retaine them to the worship of the true God whom he proposed to them to worship by this slight But Jeroboam being under the Law which God had made that his presence should no where besought but at the place which he should chuse and that choice being executed by his appointment of Solomon to build him the Temple at Jerusalem Deut. XII 5-14 compared with Levit. XVII 3-6 2 Sam VII 2 3-13 1 King V. 5. VI. 11 12 13. VIII 29. 1 Chron. XXII 10. 2 Chron. VII 12. It is manifest therefore that he transgressed this Law and made a Schisme in Israel by transgressing of it who were to remaine one people in Religion by the meanes of it whatsoever might succeed in the civile government But it seems neverthelesse that he intended no way to recall them from the worship of the true God And therefore Joahaz the sonne of Jehu not departing from the sinne of Jeroboam prayes to God and obtaines deliverance from the Syrians And his Son Joas obtaines an answer from God by the Prophet Elizeus 2 King 4 5 6 14-19 as did his son Jeroboam by Jonas XV. 25 26 27. And indeed when Jeroboam is said to set upon house of high places 2 King 12. 31. why should we make this worse then other high places which for a time were tolerated in Israel because it was not yet fully declared what place God would chuse but after the Temple was built were indeed unlawfull but so that no man can conceive that it was Idolatry to sacrifice in them For when the good Kings are commended for destroying Idolatry and seeking onely the true God it followeth oft times that neverthelesse the people still resorted to the high places 1 Kings XII 2 3. XIV 3 4. XV. 3 4 34 35. which would be inconsequent if it had been Idolatry to resort to the high places though it was an evil custome that prevailed against the Law Therefore the Prophet Osee declares it for a curse against Israel that they should remaine a long time without sacrifice statue Ephod or Teraphim Os III. 4. And Micah of Mount Ephraim his mother having consecrated her money to the Lord that is to the true God for it is the incommunicable name God which the Scripture there useth and made thereof a molten and a carved image had an house of God with an Ephod and Teraphim having set them up in his house Jud. XVII 1-5 to wit because he served God in the same order as he was served at the Tabernacle onely before an image representing his presence as it was represented by the Cherubim in the Tabernacle This therefore is the Idolatry which the second Commandment forbiddeth namely to make an image representing the prefence of God and consequently to fall down and worship the true God before it Which when God declareth to be matter of jealousie to him he sheweth it to be the breach of the Covenant of wedlock which he had entred into with the Synagogue which she on her part was found to renounce by so doing Though it is true those that excuse Aaron and Jeroboam as if they intended onely to use the same symbole of Gods presence which Moses and Solomon by Gods order had set up at the place appointed by God thereby to perswade the people that it was all one whether they found God at Jerusalem or where they set them up must say by consequence that in so doing the Covenant of God was violated by departing from that precept of his law but with no intent to fall away to other Gods for to commit Idolatry in it For had Jeroboams intent been to bring in false gods what had been the difference between his sinne and the sinne of Omri and Ahub of Ahaz and Manasses afterwards 1 Kings XVI 25 30-33 XXI 25 26. 2 Kings XVI 3. XXI 3-9 For if all Idolatry implieth a defection and apostasy from the true God to imaginary deities was it not the same thing for Jeroboam to set up his calves supposing that he set them up to represent such deities as for Ahab to serve Baal or Manasses and the ten tribes 2 Kings XVII 7 8 9. to commit the same Idolatries for which the Amorites were cast out from before the Israelites Besides that in reason it seemeth utterly uncredible that the Israelites having worshipped the true God till Solomons death nay that Jeroboam himself having received assurance of the kingdome by Gods Prophet Ahiah 1 Kings XI 26-40 as Jehu by Eliseus with instructions concerning the house of Ahab the execution whereof God alloweth 2 Kings IX 7-10 X. 30. I say it seemeth a thing very incredible that those people in a moment of time as it were upon the publishing of Aarons and Jeroboams innovations should change the inward sense and reverence which in their heart they had acknowledged the true God to yield the same to any imaginary godhead which they by their Calves might pretend to represent Neither was it a thing any way consequent to Jeroboams interest which it is plaine was the onely reason that moved him to innovate to debauch the people to this point For if he might obtaine of them not to go up to Jerusalem to worship the true God there how did it concern him to insist further with them to worship any false God of his devising within his dominions A thing farre more difficult to draw all them to who feaâ—ed God from the heart in the ten tribes then to induce them for fear of him to worship him at a wrong place continuing faithfull to his Kingdome This is the difficulty or if you please these are the difficulties which are or may be alledged against that definition which to the nature of Idolatry requireth the beliefe of more gods then one But no way tend to satisfy us of any other generall reason for which both this and other actions should hear upon them the common mark and stamp of Idolatry by the penalties of it in the Scriptures For what reason can indure to believe that the mark and penalties of Idolatry should rest upon actions of so vast a distance
sacrificed unto Idolâ— which were not God To gods whom they knew not to new gods that came newly up whom your Fathers seared not Sacrificing to new gods they sacrificed to devils Psal CVI. 35 37 38. And they served their Idols which were a snare to them yea they sacrificed their sonnes and daughters unto devils and shed innocent bloud even the bloud of their sonnes and daughters whom they offered to the Idols of Canaan and the land was defiled with bloud Offering their sons and daughters to the Idols of Canaan they offered them to devils And S. Paul 1 Cor. X. 19 20 21. What say I then that an Idol is any thing Or that which is offered in sacrifice to Idols is any thing As afore VIII 4. we know that an Idol is nothing in the world and that there is but one God but I say that the thinges which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to devils and not to God And I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils Ye cannot be partakers of the Lords table and the table of devils Having said that an Idol is nothing and that things sacrificed to Idols are nothing because they are sacrificed to that which is nothing and that because there is but one God how doth he inferre that things sacrificed to Idols are sacrificed to devills Surely idols are nothing because there is but one God in regard they pretend to be gods that is to say images of gods whereas indeed there can be no more Gods but one And if this were all since nothing can have no effect sacrificing to idols being nothing could not pollute the sacrifices as some Christians alledged to prove that they might eat of things sacrificed to Idols But because in sacrificing to nothing the devill steps into Gods place having caused that nothing to be taken for a God and maintaining that conceit by the same wayes which he raised it with therefore all that communicated in serving those idols which all did that communicated in the feasts which they made of those sacrifices communicated in the worship of devils Whereby it is evident that idolatry presupposeth an erroneous opinion of a false Godhead under which the devil suborneth himself to be worshipped whom did men take for that which Christians take him for they would be farre enough from worshipping him for God And herewith agreeth the reason of idolatry in the worshipping of images For by the premises it is evident that idolatry is more ancient then the worship of images and perhaps the truth is it came not in till the custome came up to worship dead men for gods which as I said afore I believe was later then the worshipping of the elements of the world though I go not out of my way to prove it nothing obliging me so to do Now it appeares by Varrâ— in S. Augustine De Civitate Dei IV. 31. that the Romanes had subsisted above CLXX yeares before they had images But let no man therefore imagine that they were not idolaters during that time For it is evident that there is no record of learning so ancient among the Gentiles as their Idolatries onely the Scripture recordeth time before the same The words of Varro there recorded by the said Saint Augustine tell us truth in that businesse that those who brought in images errorem addidisse metum dempsisse Increased error abated Religion For it is not strange that a knowing man as Varro was should bear witnesse to that truth which the Centiles imprisoned in unrighteousnesse by acknowledging an error in the multitude of their Gods which was by that time grown so ridiculous that a child should it have spoken what reason indited might have reproved it This Error then Varro saith not that it sprung from Images but that they were the means to increase it though to the a batement of Religion which could be but counterfeit when men tooke upon them to make their own Gods But was it thus with the Romans onely was not the case the same with the Grecians also before Sculpture and Picture and other waies of Imagery were devised chiefly for the advancement of this error as the wise Jew Wisdom XIV 18-21 and diveres of the ancient Fathers of the Church as S. Austine de civitate Dei XVIII 24. in Psalm CIII do often alleage Why doe we reade then in Pausanias his most excellent survay of Greece that of old time they worshiped stones onely sharpned at the top for their Gods Could they have found in their heart so to doe had they not formerly imagined a Deity which they meant to remind themselves of by so grosse a marke rather then image But is not this madnesse an evidence that they came by degrees to the representation of those Dieties which they had imagined afore and sought onely meanes to have them alwaies present Joseph Scaliger in that learned appendix to his book de Emendatione Temporum showeth us that the Phenicians had the like custome of having of rude stones for the symboles of their Gods And no marvile For by the act of Jacobs pouring oyle upon the stone at Bethel it appeareth that the Fathers themselves used such records of the true God and of his worship which Idolaters afterwards imagined their false Gods to be present at and thereupon no marvrile that the Law prohibited afterwardes Levit. XXVI 2. seeing it is evident by the writings of the Grecians and the Romans that Idolatry increasing it became an ordinary custome to make every stock and every stone a monument of that Worship which every superstitious sool thought he had cause there to tender to his God by pouring oil upon it as Jacob did Gen. XXVIII 18. by dedicating garlands or the like as Tilullus hath expressed in these verses Et veneror seu stipes habet desertus in agris Sive quiâ— exiguus florea serta lapis with infinite more authors to that purpose And can any man doubt that the Idolatrie of the Persians were not as bad as these though they had neither statues nor pictures Surely those Hethen Philosophers found it otherwise who being weary of the Empire under Justinian because of the ill countenance they found there in favour to Christianity and betaking themselves into Persia as Agathias in his second book relateth found themselves quickly weary of it in regard of those barbarous customes as they understood them which the Idolatries of the Persians had introduced Thus much for certaine that worship which the fire was served with by the Persians was not that which could be tendred in honour of God that made it as conceiving it a prime creature So that considering these things without prejudice wee must needs stand convict that Idolatry in generall is more ancient then the worship of images though particular Idolatries must needs be advanced by it And in that instance that the wise Jew propoundeth for the beginning of idolatry
VII 47-50 He showeth plainly that the vulgar conceit of the Jewes came farre short of the doctrine of the Prophets in this point and that this was then a great hinderance to the Jewes Christianity which vulgarly publisheth that which onely the worshippers of God in Spirit and truth understood under the Law As Barnabas also in that Epistle which the ancientest of the Fathers have acknowledged and is lately set forth declareth Now for the text of the Judges concerning that which the Jewes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Idol of Micah Is it to be considered that there may be and are two opinions concerning the true sense and intent of the second commandment where it saith Thou shalt not make to thy self any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or carved image the likenesse of any thing For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the originall of it signifying all carved work it may be thought that God intends by these words to prohibite all use of carved work among his people Not as if the making of a carved image were idolatry but to avoid the occasions of idolatry which as I have said that art though it introduced not yet it increased And therefore it followeth For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God For jealousie forbids as well the meanes of adultery as adultery But if we suppose the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extended by use beyond the original of it it may import onely such statues as are made to represent a godhead imagined afore And then the letter of the precept forbids no more then to make any carved work for the image of God According to the first sense the making of the Cherubims over the Ark falls within the precept And is to be taken for a dispensation of the Lawgiver in the matter of a positive precept which his own act onely rendered unlawfull But according to the later being not included in the matter of the precept there needs no exception to render it lawfull The same is to be said of the brazen serpent Whether of these opinions is true I need not here dispute Onely as I began to say afore I say further that during the time that high places were licensed it can be no inconvenience to grant that there was the like furniture provided for the service of God there to that which was prescribed in the Tabernacle For upon what ground that People thought it commanded by God there in which there could be no just occasion of idolatry upon the like ground and to the like purpose it might be taken up in the high places Though that reason which had moved God to prohibit high places after the place of his worship should be setled Levit. XVII 5. 7. might alwayes indanger them to go astray as the story of Gideon showes For though so long as they understood the ground upon which and the intent to which they were used they remained secure yet forgetting it by the deceitfullnesse of error they were subject to be seduced The fact of Micah then hath two of these handles which Epictetus his manuall mentions It may be taken as if he meant onely to make an high place for the service of the onely true God according to the Law the carved work which he furnished it with being onely in stead of the furniture of the Tabernacle Which is the case of Gideon as I stated it afore For when the Prophet Osee threatens the ten tribes that they shall dwell a long time without Ephod or Teraphim He does not mean it for a punishment that they should be restrained of the idolatry which they practised to the Calves But he signifieth that the Cherubim of the Temple where they ought to have served God and where it would be the blessing of that promise which the Law tendereth to serve God have the name of Teraphim common to them with the Calves Though those the objects of idolatry these the instruments of Gods service For on the other side the fact of Micah may be so taken as if he intended to set up a carved image of an imaginary Godhead to be worshipped for the onely true God And this intent seems to me the more probable of the two For there stands upon it the mark of a thing done against Gods Law Judg. XVII 6. In that day there was no king in Israel every man did what seemed right in his own eyes Which of the case of Gideon originally could not have been said And besides That Micah could not have any of the Tribe of Levi to minister in this high place but was faine to take his sonne in the mean time till he lighted upon a wandering Levite whose necessity might debauch him to any imployment This also seems an argument that his house of gods which he furnished with Ephod and Teraphim Judg. XVII 5. was erected to false gods For that his mother had consecrated her money to the incommunicable name of God v. 2. is easily answered by the same that hath been said to the cases of Aaron and Jeroboam But my opinion remaines never a whit prejudiced though these arguments seem insufficient and though it be said that the worship of the true God was that which Micah hereby intended For still the same alternative will have recourse which takes place in Jeroboams case Either his intent was the service of the true God and then though we suppose that he sinned against the precept of the Law Levit. XVII 5. yet he sinned not the sinne of idolatry Or his intent was the service of some imaginary Godhead and then he committed idolatry according to my opinion notwitststanding that he used the name of the onely true God in the businesse As for that which is objected that according to this opinion there would be no sufficient reason for that difference which the Scripture maketh between the sinne of Jeroboam which made Israel to sinne and the idolatries of Ahab and of the house of Omri and those wherein Manasses followed the Amorites How much he is deceived that thus reasons may easily appear to him that compares those murders those uncleannesses those horrible vilanies which the devil had seduced the Gentiles to under the pretense of Gods worship and for the discharge of that obligation which the sense of Religion binds all men with That compares these I say with the service of a false God but otherwise according to the same rites and ceremonies which the Law commands the true God to be served with Nor shall I need to say any thing to that which remaines either what interest Jeroboam could have to cary the people to the worship of any other then the true God who was to count his turn served if they went not up to Jerusalem Or how either he or they who conformed to his command could by onely so doing blot out of their mindes that opinion of the true God which they had suckt in with their milke and
held to be God namely the image â—t is to be granted that whosoever it was that writ the book against Imageâ— under the name of Charles the great did understand the council to injoine the worship of God to be giveâ— the image of our Lord For of any othâ—r image of God there was no question in that Councile But it is not to be denied that it was a meere mistake and that the Councile acknowledging that submission of the heart which the excellence of God onely challenges proper to the Holy Tâ—inity maintaines a signification of that esteeme to be paid to the Image of our Lord. For the words of the Councile I refer you to Estius in III. Sentent distinct IX ss II. and III. where you shall see besides the honour due to God alone and the honour due to his Saints the Council injoines a kind of honour for the images of either respectively signifying the esteeme we have for God and of his Saints I know there is much noise of Latria to signifie the honour due to God alone and Dulia that which belongs to his Saintâ— And I am satisfied that there is no ground for the difference either in the originall reason or use of the words But as nothing hinders them to be taken as words of art use to be taken to signifie peculiar conceptions in Christianity so if dulia be understood as S. Austine understandes it câ—ntra Faustum XX. 21. for that love and communion which we imbrace the saints that are alâ—ve with there is no fear of Idolatry in honouring the Saints departed with dulia But the honour we give the images is not the honour we give the principal but onely by the equivocating of terms according to the decree of the Council Therefore that honour of images which the decree maintaineth is no Idolatry But he that saies it is no idolatry which they injoine does not therefore justifie or commend them for injoyningit It were a pittifull commendation for the Church that it is not Idolatry which the decree thereof injoynes It is therefore no evidence that the decree obliges because it injoines no idolatry You saw how neere the honour of Saints in the prayers which come from this decree came to Idolatry And though those that counted Images idoles in the East stood for the honour of the Saints yet it is certaine and visible that the authors of the decree did intend to advance the honour of the Saints thereby and effect it What is that effect That the Saints are prayed to by Christians in such forme and with such termes as doe not distinguish whether they hold them Gods or creatures Grant they agree with their profession and you must construe them to the due difference suppose they understand not the common profession or the consequence of it who warants them no Idolaters It is alleged out of S. Basil de Spiritu Sancto cap. XVIII that the honour of the Image passeth to the principall He speaketh of the honour of the Sonne that it is the honour of the Father whose image the Son is And so it is indeed The honour of the Father and of the Son is both one and the same To say that the image of our Lord is to be honoured as he is is perfect idolatry But he who believes the Son to be of the fathers substance and his picture to be his picture cannot say so if he be in his wits Either he commits Idolatry or he contradicts himselfe That may and must be said It is easy to see how many Divines of the Church of Rome make images honourable with the honour of their principall The images of our Lord by consequence with latria the honour proper to God When this is said it must be cured by distinguishing though not properly yet improperly though not by it self yet accidentally reducible to that honour which the principall is worshipped with that is the image of Christ as God Yet you are not to use these termes to the people least they prove Idolaters or have cause to think their teachers such So Cardinall Bellarmine de Imaginibus II. 23 24 25. There is a cure for Idolatry in the distinction supposing him to contradict himself For what greater contradiction then that the honour that may be reduced to the honour of God should be the honour of God seeing that it is not the honour of God which is not proper to God as consisting in the esteeme of him above all things So for the adoration of the Crosse the signe of the Crosse which I spoke of before is onely a ceremony which being from the beginning frequented by Christians upon all occasions the Church had reason to make use of in the solemnizing of the greatest actions of Gods publike service particularly those whereby the authority of the Church is convayed and exercised The Crosse whereon our Lord Christ was crucified is a relique though not parte of his body yet for coming so nere to his body deserving to be honoured Other Crosses are the images of that The Schoole Doctors question what honour it is which the true Crosse of Christ demands And the head of them Thomas Aquinaâ— answers the honour proper to God by the name of latria Either as representing the figure of Christ crucified or as washed with his blood If the Crosse of Christ must be worshipped with the honour proper to God because washed with our Saviours bloud then must it have received divine vertue from his bloud Is not this construction reasonable And what made the Idoles of the Hethen idoles but an opinion of divine vertue residing in them by being set up for the exercise of their religion that supposed many Gods I grant the construction is necessary though not reasonable For I find it construed otherwise To make a difference between the true Crosse of Christ which is honoured for a relique and other Crosses which are honoured as the pictures of it and signes putting us in mind of Christ on the Crosse So the words of Thomas Aquinas may be reasonably taken to teach Idolatry If they be not necessarily so to be taken yet as he teacheth to honour it with Latria either he teacheth Idolatry or contradicteth himself for the same reason as in Images What the effect of these excessive positions hath been is easie to see They clothe their images they paint them they guild them the finest they may They think themselves holy for touching kissing and caressing them as children do their babies They touch their bodies with them and think themselves hallowed by the meanes They put a cotton on the end of a stick and touch first the images then the eyes the lips and the noses of them that come and that in their surplisses Thus are they induced to pray directly to the Saints for their carnall concupiscences as did the heathen idolaters to vow to give themselves to them to put themselves under their protection and defence to set them up in their