Fathers but by this and the following discourses you will find the doctrine of man is no sure ground to build your Faith and Salvation on but only on the Word of God Moreover were the Doctrines of the Fathers of far more Authority yet among their Writings there are many spurious Books foisted in by idle Monks who were the common transcribers of the Fathers Works before Printing Bellarmine the great Champion of the Papists doth acknowledge this and hath written a Book to distinguish the true from the false yet hath reserved some in his Catalogue for true making for their Doctrines as spurious as those he hath cast out You see then 't is very difficult to know which are the genuine Books of the Fathers and when you know that 't is as difficult to know what is the clear sence of their Writings and thirdly to know which are their Orthodox Opinions which their Errors for there is no learned Papist but will acknowledge they had Errors and after all this we have no warrant to build our Faith and Salvation on their Doctrine Wherefore to save all men this great labour both needless and fruitless I resolved on this short easie plain way to prove That in the Scripture alone without any other Book in the world we have clear full and compleat instruction for matters of belief and practice in summ all things necessary for our salvation in Scripture and that there is no need to consult any other Book but the Bible alone for all And Secondly I do here further prove that it is both dangerous and impious to affirm the Scriptures are not compleat in themselves for our Salvation And Thirdly that 't is both irreligious and idolatrous to believe in any man or assembly of men in matters of Salvation which saves all men the labour of looking farther than the Bible for it And because the Papists pretend Scripture which we acknowledge to be our Rule of Faith for some of their Opinions differing from us I have here I hope fully Explained and Answered those Scriptures especially what they pretend for Transubstantiation and Corporal Presence of our Saviour Christ in the Lords Supper which I shall add at the end in a short Tract by it self because it is not at all contained in that Text whereon my three Sermons depend And thus I hope this little Book if not confuted subservient to Scripture may without any other satisfie and settle any one in all the Controversies we have with the Papists First by having proved we are not to believe any thing with divine Faith but what is plainly contained in Scripture Secondly by having Answered what they pretend from Scripture Thirdly because for all other differences with us they have no Scripture Now if any Papist can confute me in any one of these material principal things I shall heartily thank him and promise in the word of a Christian I shall readily acknowledge my Error and embrace his Truth But if he only cavil or scurrilously scoff at trivial things as some to their own shame and reproach have formerly done I shall thank them also for this for thereby they prove their own Errors and confirm my Truths I have this one thing more only to trouble the Reader with The first of my three Sermons on that Text Search the Scriptures was Preacht in September 1677 and in June 1678. comes out a little book to the same intent of that Sermon expressing several things in it and in the very same manner by what means I know not but this I and many others know that my Sermon was Preached almost a year before that Book came forth and therefore I could not have them from that Author called The same Author that wrote the whole Duty of Man who it seems must countenance Books to the worlds end However I thought it fit to Print that Sermon with the other two first because it contains several things not in that Book and secondly the other two would be very defective without it And now good Reader I beg your favourable Censure if you find any small Mistakes or Errors for you know and I confess being a man I may err humanum est errare sed in errore perseverare belluinum est therefore I abhorr it I conclude all with my Prayers for you and begging your Prayers for me that God in his great mercy by the light of his holy Word and holy Spirit would guide us all into all saving truth And to his Divine Majesty from whom cometh every good and perfect gift be ascribed as is most due all Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen A SERMON ON JOHN V. Ver. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have Eternal Life WHEN I last appeared here my business was to arm you with Christian Courage and firm resolution to fight manfully the good fight of Faith with full assurance of a glorious reward from the sure hand of our most gracious God who never fails to reward those that seek and serve him And this our fight must be not with the arm of flesh and sword of steel which is often subdued and broken by a stronger but with the power of the Word and Sword of the Spirit which no power upon earth or under the earth can subdue because he that is with us is stronger than all that are against us Now for the present I shall endeavour to shew you what we are to fight for And this we learn from the Apostle St. Iude who commands us to contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints once for all the faith which was delivered by our Saviour and his Apostles once to remain to all future Generations for the Salvation of all Mankind Which Faith is contained in the Holy Scriptures and written there for our Learning as the Scripture it self tells us Search therefore the Scriptures for it for in them ye have Eternal Life In these words we have two things set forth unto us First A Command Secondly The Reason of the Command The Command to Search the Scriptures then the Reason of this Command for in the Scriptures we have Eternal Life Both these things are so plain in themselves that they need no explication But the perverse wits of evil men who can find nodum in scirpo have invented some difficulties in them to excuse their pernicious practices clean contrary to them The Governours of the Romish Church guilty of such practices have invented these difficulties For they having many things in their Church Devotions quite contrary to Scripture as I shall shew you e're this business be ended find it necessary to shut up the Scripture from the Laity who would not so blindly be seduced into them had they the light of Holy Scripture to discover the grossness of them And therefore First They will have it that this command of our Saviour to Search the Scriptures belongs only to the Clergy and they are to teach the people out
passages which otherwise we could not well understand Thirdly Where a passage of Scripture may have several significations and thereby make it doubtful what is the more proper meaning of it there those Primitive Fathers can best tell us in what sence it was received in the Primitive Church And surely in doubtful places every modest man will think it fit to incline to those Primitive Godly men whose nearness to the Apostles gave them great opportunities of knowing the true sence and whose godly lives give us great assurance of their fidelity in delivering unto us what they received from their godly Fore-fathers some the very Disciples of the Apostles Several other reasons might be added for our regard and reverence to these Primitive Fathers in their Expositions of the dark or doubtful places of Scripture Yet I humbly conceive nothing of all this is necessary to understand those matters of faith which are necessary to Salvation as that God created and governs the world or the incarnation death and resurrection of Christ. These and such necessary things are so plainly set down in Scripture as that men of ordinary capacity may understand them without any Comment of the Fathers But what if any one or more very learned and very godly Fathers even such as laid down their lives for the faith what if they teach me a Doctrine in which the Scripture is wholly silent Ought I not to believe in them To this I small give you an answer from Tertullian one of the first Christian Writers who lived in the second Century about a hundred and fifty years after Christs Ascension He tells us in his Prescriptions against Heresies that this was the rule among Christians That they were not to believe any thing but that which Christ and his Apostles had delivered unto them in the Scripture Hoc priùs credimus non ess◠quod ultra credere debemus And a little after sets down a Creed which very little varies from that which we have amongst us called the Apostles Creed This saith he is our rule of faith and we believe Nihil esse ultra quod credere debemus That there is nothing more for us to believe for this rule here set down is a compendium of all I do not cite this out of Tertullian as if I would prescribe unto you from him what you are to believe by his Authority for he doth not tell us this as his own opinion but only relates what was the belief and practice of the Church in his Primitive days who was so near after Christ. And this Tertullian is generally believed by the Learned to be as faithful a relater as any antient Writer whatsoever And he was of so great a credit with that learned and godly Father and Martyr of the Church St. Cyprian who lived not many years after Tertullian that he always called him Master and daily read his Works calling to his Servant Da Magistrum Give me my Masters Book to read Which shews he was of great credit But Tertullian after the discourse I now mentioned out of him confirms what he had said by Scripture Authority which is of far more weight than Tertullian and St. Cyprian both citing that place of St. Paul to the Galatians Chap. i. vers 8. Though we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached let him be accursed Now you must know that the Original Greek from whence our Gospel is translated hath this more effectual to our purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which more exactly in English is rendred thus If any man preach unto you any thing besides what we have preached he doth not say contrary to what we have preached but besides which is the same in effect as to say any thing more And Arius Montanus a learned Papist in the University of Sevil in Spain who translated the Greek new Testament word for word sets it down just as I have done unto you Praeter quod evangelizavimus Besides what we have preached St. Paul means If they shall preach any more as necessary to Salvation for this is to make the Word of God of no effect he having in his Holy Word given us a rule of Faith for our Salvation and then for any one to say you must believe more is in effect to say Gods Word is not sufficient This is an accursed saying according to St. Paul Now if neither St. Paul nor an Angel from Heaven had any Commission to preach any thing besides what is already set down in the Scripture certainly we may shut up our ears to any one or to all the Doctors of the Church preaching unto us any thing more than what is there contained As for Example If they shall preach 't is necessary to obey the Pope to believe Purgatory or the like things which are not expressed in Scriptures let them be accursed as St. Paul saith A second Question may be what you are to do when any Father or Fathers expound a place of Scripture contrary to what you believe is the plain meaning of that place Must you quit your own judgment and believe in them This is just like the Prophet whom God sent to Bethel with an express command not to eat bread there he hearkened afterward to the old lying Prophet who pretending to have received a contrary message from God dissuaded him from what God had commanded for which he was slain by a Lion in his return And surely all men have great reason to expect the like recompence for their disobedience who forsake that which they verily believe is Gods Command and hearken to the Doctrins of men To this my Answer I shall give you another from a person of great Authority St. Austin a most eminent Doctor of the Church In one of his Epistles to St. Ierome he gives a clear judgment in this case First He tells us that when he reads the Holy Scriptures he entirely submits his own judgment to them and absolutely believes every thing there to be true meerly because it is contained there Gods Word is truth it cannot be otherwise therefore whether he understands it or no yet still he believes it truth But as for all other Writers he saith Alios autem ita lego ut quantalibet sanctitate doctrináque praepolleant non ideo verum putem quia ita ipsi senserint sed quia mihi vel per illos autores canonicos vel probabili ratione quod à vero non abhorreant persuadere potuerint Other Writers I so read as that be they ever so Holy ever so Learned I do not therefore believe their opinion to be true because they thought so but so far only as they prove it true by Canonical Scripture or by such reasons as seem not to be contrary to the truth And then tells St. Ierome that he doubts not but he is of the same mind And as for my part I am fully of Saint Austins mind and farther think it
of Truth and the way of Error the way of Godliness and the way of Iniquity the way of Life and the way of Death I most humbly and most earnestly beseech our most Gracious God for his Son Christ Iesus's sake to give you a right understanding in all things and to preserve you continually in the way of Truth Holiness Righteousness and Life Everlasting Amen THE END A SUPPLEMENT To the PRECEDING SERMONS TOGETHER WITH A TRACT concerning the Holy Sacrament OF THE Lords Supper Promised in the PREFACE By the Right Reverend Father in God HERBERT Lord Bishop of HEREFORD London Printed for Charles Harper 1679. A SUPPLEMENT To the Preceding SERMONS IN the Preceding Sermons I have proved these six things 1. That by God's special appointment all persons are to read and learn the Scriptures for their Edification in Faith and good Life and therefore 't is both foolish and impious for vain Man to take upon him to give reasons why the People should not read them 2. The reason of this because that in the Scriptures we have eternal life as our Saviour tells us which St. Paul explicates more particularly saying That they make us wise unto salvation that is they teach us all things necessary for our belief and they throughly furnish us unto all good works that is they teach us all things requisite for good life And these things the Scriptures compleatly contain in themselves without any Humane Doctrines so that if there were no other Writings nor Instructions in the World but the Scriptures alone yet we should not want any thing necessary to eternal life 3. That we are not to believe any thing with Divine Faith but what is clearly contained in Scripture for such a belief is a Duty belonging to God alone and 't is the greatest and most acceptable Duty and Sacrifice we can perform unto God to captivate our understandings in Obedience to Faith in God and therefore to give this principal Divine Service unto Man is high Idolatry and consequently to believe in the Apostles themselves had been great Idolatry had not Christ fully assured us That they should have the Holy Ghost to guide them into all Truth So that to speak properly we do not believe in the Apostles and Prophets but in God the Holy Ghost speaking in them And for this reason we find St. Paul very wary in distinguishing and declaring to the people what he delivered as from the Lord and what he delivered as from himself though he was perswaded he had the Spirit of the Lord even in that But yet no clear and full assurance that it was spoken directly by the Lord. Nay our blessed Saviour himself though God and Man yet would not have us believe in him as Man and therefore assures us That the words he spake were not his but the Father's speaking by him 4. I have proved that we have not any clear and full assurance from God That any Assembly of Men or Church since the Apostles are infallibly guided by the Holy Ghost into all Truth and therefore to believe in any Assembly of Men or Church without this full assurance of the Holy Ghost's speaking in them is Idolatry also for by such a belief you pay them the greatest Divine Worship 5. Though we should grant That some promise of Infallibility were made in Scripture to the Church yet this must include the Laity as well as the Clergy for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate Church is always set in Scripture for the Congregation of the Faithful and is not once set for the Clergy distinct from the Laity But there is no such thing as Infallibility granted to any neither Priests nor People nor both together 6. Grant yet farther that the word Church in Scripture should signifie the Clergy and a promise of Infallibility made to them as Successors to the Apostles yet the same Promise being made and the same Authority given to all the Apostles alike the Successor of St. Peter and his Clergy cannot from hence challenge any more Infallibility than the Successors of the other Apostles with their Clergy and Church But the Papists deny this Infallibility to other Churches Certainly then other Churches may as well deny it to them All these things I have proved But now for a fuller conviction of the Papists and perchance for better satisfaction to some others I have a mind to grant yet farther That Christ made some particular Promise to St. Peter above the other Apostles yea and to St. Peter's Successors also 't is impossible from Scripture to prove either of these but let it pass so let us now see how the Papists can from hence fix this Infallibility to the Bishop of Rome and his Churches For I have shewed you from Scripture which doubtless is of better Authority than any Writings the Papists can bring for St. Peter that Rome was comprised in St. Paul's Jurisdiction and that he lived and preached and suffered there But we will pass over this also and yield to St. Peter's Jurisdiction over the whole World What then Then St. Peter was Bishop of Rome and setled his Successor there And how do the Papists prove this They answer that many authentick Historians tell them so is this all their Proof Humane Testimony from History is this a sufficient foundation for a prime Article of Faith on which depends the Salvation of all Christian Souls Is this a sure Rock or rather a bank of Sand to build their Infallibility upon Do not the same Historians relate that St. Peter was Bishop of Antioch and we have more reason to believe History for this because the Scripture tells us he was there but not one tittle of his ever being at Rome but strong Presumptions to the contrary St. Luke in the Acts speaking so much of St. Paul's going thither hath not one word of St. Peter's who being as the Papists believe so eminent an Apostle above all the rest seems somewhat neglected by St. Luke which makes me suspect St. Luke was not of their Opinion And shall we accuse St. Paul also for want of charity or civility never to mention St. Peter in all those his particular and numerous Salutations to and from others in his Epistles we must not think that their quarrel at Antioch where St. Paul withstood St. Peter stuck so long in his mind as to omit all Salutation to him in several Epistles We ought rather in charity to St. Paul to believe St. Peter was not at Rome And truly methinks the Papists themselves who pretend so much to honour St. Peter do him no small dishonour in affirming him to be at Rome when St. Paul answered for himself before Nero the first time St. Paul complaining that no man stood with him but all forsook him And if those Historians which the Papists rely on for St. Peter's being Bishop of Rome speak true in the circumstance of time then he was at Rome when St. Paul first answered
would have startled at as I said And can any Man think but that our Saviour would have more particularly instructed them in so high and wonderful a Mystery as the Papists make of it before he had delivered them his real Body to eat he knew well the weakness of their Faith Nor do we find St. Paul when he instructed the Corinthians concerning this Sacrament say any thing which might give them any apprehension of so difficult and sublime a Mystery as the Bread to be changed into Christ's very Body and that all which they saw felt tasted were only meer accidents remaining no Man can conceive how and 't were giddiness to believe unless they had been particularly and fully exprest by divine Authority then I grant we ought to believe it without hearkning to our Sense or Reason as we do other Mysteries Let the Papists shew us in Scripture their Transubstantiation and accidents thus remaining and we will believe all as firmly as they I do not require their fine School-word Transubstantiation but to shew any expression which clearly imports it and that shall suffice But to believe contrary to all Sense to all Reason without divine Affirmation were sensless indeed not faithless no Scripture requiring this Faith And that Scripture in St. Iohn which seems to say most towards it the Papists themselves take as we do in a spiritual sence not literal What shall we say to these Will-worshippers Will-believers 'T is meer Will-godliness for gain This new-found Sacrifice with new-found Pargatory brings store of Mass-grist to their Mill. This we readily and with cause believe and so do they The Papists then taking that passage in St. Iohn in a spiritual sense as we do they have nothing in Scripture for their Transubstantiation but those words This is my Body which taken barely in themselves can signifie no more a substantial change than I am the Bread And if we add to the words the Circumstances of the Institution or the relation to the former Types or to our present Sacrament of Baptism in none of these we find the least Motive to a substantial change of the Bread but quite contrary as I have shewed you Yet I pray you let us see what strange stuff and confused kind of business the Papists make with this their Transubstantiation We will talk a little with them in their own Language Well my Friends let us hear how you order this your Transubstantiation Our Saviour takes Bread in his hand and says This is my Body I desire you to expound to me in a plain Catechistical way how you understand these words and to save you as much trouble as I can I will tell you my weak apprehension of them if right the Work is done if wrong I pray you instruct me better I humbly conceive when a Man takes a thing in his hand and says This if a Staff he means This Staff if a Stone he means This Stone And so when our Saviour took Bread in his hand and said This I conceive according to the literal sense he means This Bread is my Body how can I conceive otherwise No say the Papists Christ cannot mean so for this would Logically infer a direct contradiction for Bread whilst Bread cannot be Flesh and Bones Flesh is not Bread To say then This Bread is Flesh is the same as to say This Bread is not Bread a flat contradiction How my Friends do you stand upon your Logick-Inferences and deny the plain literal meaning of Christ's words because your Logick tells you it cannot be It seems you are now become the unbelieving Hereticks But how then do you understand This is What is What doth Christ here affirm is his Body The Papists answer He means no real determinate thing but something in imagination only The word This must here be taken as an Individuum vagum that is an imaginary Species of Bread in abstracto communi which is a meer School-conception that hath no other being than in the brain of Man This Individuum vagum we know not what is Christ's Body Good Reader Do you understand them I believe no more than I do that is not at all What strange Whimsies are these to enter into the heads of Men that would pass for learned and serious and in a matter of so great weight Beloved Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ Col. ii 8. Did Christ ever instruct the Apostles concerning this your Individuum vagum or of accidents of Bread appearing without the substance of Bread Not a tittle of iâ— How then should these abstruse School-notions come into such mens illiterate Heads They then must needs understand our Saviour according to the measure of their capacity Wherefore when our Saviour took Bread in his hand shewed it them and said This is my Body they having no notion of Individuum vagum nor of accidents of Bread hanging in the Air without the substance of Bread to support them things to be admired by all Men understood by no Man nor believed without express plain and divine revelation which they had not they must needs understand this Bread real Bread And all Mâ—n understanding that Bread could not be our Saviour's real carnal Body when our Saviour said This is my Body they must needs understand This represents my Body their Capacity could not understand it otherwise nor their Faith believe it otherwise unless our Saviour had before fully instructed them which he never did but quite contrary Ioh. vi told them The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life surely then to be understood in a spiritual and not a carnal sence Had Christ said This Bread I will change into my Body that in a miraculous manner it may enter in at your mouthes and pass down into your breasts I hope the Apostles then would and we now should by God's Grace readily believe it I believe Christ to be God and can do what-ever he pleases And I humbly conceive Christ would have made some such necessary Paraphrase on his words to make the Apostles and us understand his meaning for certainly without some such divine Declaration no Man could ever have conceived much less have believed such a Mystery as the Papists make of it I am sure what-ever we find in Scripture relating to this Sacrament makes against the Papists St. Paul instructing the Corinthians concerning this Sacrament had likewise a fair opportunity yea as I humbly conceive I may say a necessary obligation to declare unto them this Papal hidden mystery had he believed as they do a real change of the Bread into Christ's Body I say a necessary obligation for St. Paul Acts xx 26. expresses it to be blood-guiltiness if he did not declare unto them all the Counsel of God That is all mysteries necessary for the Salvation of their Souls it was necessary then
back that was profitable Doth not this I pray you fully confirm what I said That the belief of any thing more than what is declared in Scripture may prove rather a hinderance than a help to Salvation Nay 't is not only may be but probably if not certainly will be a hinderance and not a help since the Apostle assures us that he declared all things profitable that is all things helpful And doth not St. Peter 2 Epist. i. 8. and following verses discourse to this purpose For there he tells them that in doing those things which he had taught them they should make their calling and election sure and that thereby an entrance should be ministred unto them abundantly Were it not then as sensless as dangerous to venture on any other means or helps as they call them than what the Scripture shews for our Salvation for if we follow that it makes our Salvation abundantly sure But say the Romanists all that the Apostles declared was not committed to writing but some by word of mouth and so passed by tradition from hand to hand and for this they bring us a Scripture 2 Thes. ii 15. My Brethren stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught whether by word or our Epistle From whence say they 't is evident that all things the Apostles taught for mans Salvation were not delivered in writing but some by tradition from word of mouth The answer to this is very easie for though St. Paul did not teach the Thessalonians all things by writing but some by word of mouth yet it doth not follow but that his Epistles to the Thessalonians with other his Epistles as also the Epistles of the other Apostles the Acts the Gospels all together did contain in them all things necessary and profitable also to Eternal Life For this reason St. Paul commanded his Epistles written to one Church to be read to other Churches as I formerly shewed you And so St. Peter in his Epistles commends to the people likewise the Epistles of his beloved Brother Paul And therefore I did not say that any one Epistle two or three did contain all things necessary to Eternal Life Nor did our Saviour tell the Iews that in any one or more Prophets they had Eternal Life but in the Scriptures they had Eternal Life in Moses Psalms Proverbs Prophets in the whole Scripture And if the Old Testament were so perfect and so glorious as to contain in it all things necessary to Eternal Life which glory was to be done away as St. Paul saith shall not the New Testament the Ministration of the Spirit be much more glorious and perfect 2 Cor. iii. 7 8. Would God be less careful of his Church establish'd by his own Son in Person which was to remain to the end of the world than of that erected by Moses his Servant which was but a shadow of that to come Can any man be so simple as to think this though perchance so perverse as to affirm it This and such like things they may whisper in a corner to silly women or men as silly but certainly none can have the face to say this to any man of understanding 't is so absurd and so fully confuted by St. Paul not only in the places before cited but also in 2 Tim. iii. 16 17. where he tells him that all Scripture is given by inspiration from God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Observe I beseech you That the man of God may be perfect perfect in Doctrine in faith in good works in all things Oh! my beloved God send me and you the perfection of Scripture the Doctrine and Works there taught and let the Papists follow their Doctrines of men their perfection their works of merit yea and of supererogation too Whereas we learn from Scripture that when we have done all we can we are unprofitable Servants but their Doctrines of men teach them that their great Saints Bennet Francis Dominick Ignatius and many hundreds more are such profitable Servants and have done such mighty works of perfection as not only to merit Heaven for themselves but also to gain Heaven for others by their superabundant merits which the Pope hath power when he pleases to apply to Souls scorching in Purgatory and dismiss them away presently to Heaven Sure a hard hearted cruel man that will let any lie long in those raging flames if he have power to release them Who can but pitty those poor silly Souls that are led into everlasting flames by these seducing Teachers so flatly contrary to the Scriptures cited now and others That no man may deliver his brother or make agreement unto God for him For it cost more to redeem their Souls it cost the blood and death of our Saviour Jesus For our sins being trespasses against the infinite majesty of God none but our Saviour who is also of an infinite Majesty both God and man could make a just satisfaction for them Had a thousand Bennets Dominicks c. and ten thousand thousands more been sacrificed on Crosses all had been in vain we should all lie for ever in everlasting flames These Scriptures are shut up from the eyes of poor blind-folded Papists But Blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear Matt. xiii 16. Your eyes and your ears see read and hear these Scriptures daily preached unto you Hold fast these the words of Eternal Life which alone will make you wise unto Salvation and throughly furnish you unto all good works make you perfect without any Doctrines of men as you shall hear more particularly by and by What then must we lay aside all the Writings of the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church even in the purest times by no means for they may be very helpful to us in expounding obscure places of Scripture for which several sorts of learning are very useful First The perfect understanding of the Original Languages in which the Scriptures were written as the Hebrew the Syriac the Greek Languages Now many of the Primitive Fathers were either born or much educated when those Languages were naturally spoken and thereby could much better judg of the propriety and full signification of many words which we are much to seek in and each Country Language hath several proverbial sayings and antient forms of speech which in process of time grow out of use and very hard to be understood we see that very few now are able to understand old Chaucers Language English being very much altered since Secondly History and Geography are very necessary for the understanding of several passages in Scripture And certainly those Primitive Fathers living near the times and places when and where our Saviour and the Apostles taught and acted may be able to inform us of several circumstances and give us great light in many
to be great impiety to be of another mind which I shall shew you by a familiar example Put the case an authentic Book of the Laws of England confirmed by Act of Parliament tells us There is one King of England namely Charles the Second and that we must all obey him who would not from hence undoubtedly conclude there is but one King Charles the Second whom we ought to obey But now come two or three esteemed great Doctors of the Law and tells us we are quite mistaken in the meaning of the Law which though it tells us there is one King yet from hence it doth not follow but that there may be more than one and we assure you there are a hundred Kings whom we ought to obey Were not this very absurd and contrary to all reason that the Law should formally declare unto us there is one King if there were a hundred or twenty or two yet forsooth we must quit our reason and believe these Lawyers there are a hundred Were not this directly to believe these Lawyers rather than the Law Just so the Scripture the Word of God tells us There is one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Iesus and that we ought to present our supplications to God by him from whence we undoubtedly conclude according to reason that there is but one Mediator But we meet with some great Doctors of the Church who tell us we are quite mistaken for though the Scripture name one yet notwithstanding there are a thousand Mediators Saints and Angels by whom we ought to present our supplications but shew us no other Scripture to make this good yet require us to believe it meerly because they tell us so were not this to forsake Gods Word and believe in man rather than in God which I say is downright Idolatry For the better understanding this my assertion I must shew you what Faith is Divine and Human. Divine faith is the gift of God saith St. Paul Eph. ii 8. a grace infused into our minds by God whereby we believe his holy Word to be so true as that 't is impossible it should be otherwise and though it seem contrary to our reason yet it captivates our understanding in obedience to the faith and makes us believe it meerly because God said it Human faith is when we believe upon the Authority of another man who tells us such a thing because we believe him an understanding and honest man he will not easily be mistaken or deluded nor will he tell a lie Yet we know the wisest may be deceived and the truest may tell a lie So that all Human belief still supposes a possibility at least that it may not be true Herein then lies the difference between Divine faith and Humane That there is no possibility of untruth in Divine faith Therefore we say that we believe in God we entirely submit and captivate our understanding to Gods Word he is truth it self But when we speak of man we say that we believe man not that we believe in man for this implies an impossibility of untruth in that man and we undoubtedly believe the thing meerly because he spake it Such a belief is due only unto God and is called Divine Faith and is a supernatural gift of God unto us There is no such thing in nature the natural man receiveth not the things of God neither can be know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. ii 14. Having thus informed you what Divine and Humane Faith is I come now to the business of Idolatry I say then To believe in man that is to believe any thing to be infallibly true meerly because such a man said it and to venture your Salvation on it is directly Idolatry yea though an Angel said it For in so believing in man or Angel you make him God I mean you worship him as God Yea it is the greatest Idolatry you can perform for you give him the principal and greatest worship of God To offer incense to sacrifice Rams and Bulls is nothing to this Idolatry nay to sacrifice your own body to man is much inferior to it for 't is but sacrificing so much dirt One Soul is worth a hundred bodies of beasts or men and therefore to sacrifice your Soul and your reason the principal highest faculty of your Soul to captivate your understanding in obedience to faith in man is the highest act of Divine Worship and consequently to give this to man is most abominable Idolatry And contrariwise to worship God with our Soul and captivate our understanding in obedience to faith in him is the most acceptable service we can possibly perform this is the justifying act the saving grace this alone acquires Heaven and without this the whole world cannot purchase it Without this faith 't is impossible to please God Heb. xi 6. and with this Abraham so pleased God as that God thereupon promised to multiply his seed as the stars of Heaven and as the sand which is upon the sea shore and that all the nations of the world should be blessed in him Gen. xxii 17 18. I hope you are now fully satisfied that to believe in any man ever so learned ever so holy is great Idolatry for therein you make him God God hath three peculiar Attributes Unus Verus Bonus God is one God is true God is good Our Saviour questioned that man that called him good Why callest thou me good there is none good but one that is God Mark x. 17 18. As if he had said Why callest thou me good dost thou believe me to be God otherwise thou oughtest not to call me good So we may say Why call you this man true Do you believe him God for there is none true but God no man perfectly true so true but he may be deceived or false And therefore the Psalmist saith All men are liars that is all men have by nature the vice of falshood in them as well as other vices and so 't is not only possible but probable also that any man may tell a lie if God give him not the grace of truth Much more is it possible and probable for any man to be deceived and speak a falshood though he intend it not God only is perfectly true he can neither deceive nor be deceived But now perchance you think to wave this Idolatry which I have laid to your charge by answering that you do not believe in the Fathers of the Church as you believe in God you do not worship them with Divine faith Say you so what then with Humane faith only Why then I am sure your Humane faith shall never save you you were as good lay it by we are saved only by Divine faith not of our selves it is the gift of God But what if your Saints in whom you believe work miracles then you will say you believe in them with a Divine and saving faith their miracles being wrought by the power
of God to confirm their Doctrine for we have no other assurance of the Doctrine delivered by the Apostles but the miracles which they wrought in confirmation of it Excuse me for herein you are foully mistaken we have our Saviours command given them to preach the Gospel to all the world and we have his promise made to them that he would send the Holy Ghost unto them to lead them into all truth which we are assured did descend upon them working miraculously in divers and sundry manners Wherefore to speak properly we say That we do not believe in the Apostles but we believe in God the Holy Ghost speaking to us by the Apostles And which is yet more our Saviour himself which was both God and man yet he doth not require us to believe in him as man but as God assuring us so Ioh. viii 28. I do nothing of my self but as my father hath taught me I speak these things And again xii 49. I have not spoken of my self but the father which sent me he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak By which we are fully instructed that we are not to believe in any man living but only in God speaking to us by man and therefore we are not to give Divine Faith to the Doctrine of any man the greatest Saint that ever was unless we are as fully assured that he hath God the Holy Ghost speaking in him as we are that he spake to us by the Apostles And certainly we have no such assurance of any man since the Apostles no special command given by Christ to preach any new Gospel no promise of the Holy Ghost to lead them into all truth no visible descension of the Holy Ghost in after Ages no gift of tongues nor prophesie But it may be you think that at the end of St. Matthews Gospel where Christ sends the Apostles to preach and says Lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world this promise must be intended to the Apostles Successors also the Fathers of the Church that Christ would be with them unto the end of the world for the Apostles themselves were not to continue unto the end of the world but their Successors All this I grant that Christ will be with the Fathers of the Church the Successors of the Apostles to the end of the world who succeed the Apostles in their Doctrine as well as in Office Christ will bless them and prosper that Doctrine unto the end of the world Wherefore I pray you consider the whole context of that place Vers. 19 20. Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world So long as you teach the things I have commanded you so long I am with you even to the end of the world The promise then of being with them to the end of the world is conditional viz. If they teach the things that Christ hath commanded either by himself or by his Apostles who were guided by his Spirit all which commands of Christ and his Apostles are delivered unto us in the Scriptures On this condition the promise was made in teaching the things commanded and not otherwise What is this to teaching of new Doctrine not commanded by Christ not contained in Scripture Not one tittle of promise made for that nor any commission given to teach new Doctrines but rather a curse for the person teaching any other Gospel than what was already preached be he man on earth or Angel from Heaven Gal. i. 8. Why because the Doctrine preacht by Christ and his Apostles was compleat for our Salvation And therefore we do not find that any one of the antient Holy Fathers doth pretend to any such infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost and thereby require submission and obedience to his Doctrine but rather declares quite contrary as I have newly mentioned unto you out of St. Austine one of the four principal Doctors of the Church who gives us a general rule Not to give any assured belief to any the most learned and most Holy Fathers farther than they can prove their Doctrine by Scriptures that is our compleat rule of faith Is it not then a strange disobedient wilful blind submission to their Doctrine expresly contrary to the rule of faith given by themselves And great reason had St. Austin to give us this rule when he had found as he expresses in another place that St. Cyprian a preceding Father of the Church most eminent for learning and sanctity who laid down his life for the faith this great Doctor Saint and Martyr taught and maintained an error even unto death which error of his was condemned afterwards by the whole Christian Church And not only St. Cyprian but all the great Bishops of Affrica joyned with him in this error And long before St. Cyprian Papias Bishop of Hierapolis whom that famous Bishop of Lyons Irenaeus affirms to have been a Disciple of St. Iohn the Evangelist and very probably he might be so for St. Iohn dyed in the hundred and second year of our Lord and Papias was then a Pastor of the Church He taught if not began as most antient Writers conceive the error of the Chiliasts That Christ should come again to reign here on earth a thousand years Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons mentioned before learnt this error of him and did propagate it farther till at length it infected most Writers of that Age. And this Irenaeus himself was the Disciple of St. Polycarpus and Polycarpus the Disciple of St. Iohn and therefore 't was no wonder that this error was taken up by many Doctors of the Church having two such famous men the Authors of it Yet this error was not long after rejected by the whole Christian Church Good reason then had St. Austin to give us that rule not to subscribe to any Doctrine of the Fathers but such as they proved by Holy Scriptures And it was a seasonable caution to future Ages against his own Doctrine for he himself taught the error that it was necessary to administer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Infants and this was an opinion generally believed in the Christian Church for many years though afterwards and to this day concluded a gross error And I beg leave to say this as true as free That whoever reads the Doctors and Fathers of the Church writings of the erroneous customs generally practised in their times but afterwards rejected by the whole Christian Church as well by the Papists as others shall find these Fathers as zealously maintaining by forced arguments and wrested Scriptures those their erroneous customs as the soundest truths God is my record I say not this out of any reproach to them whereof many have been great Champions for the fundamental truths and
as the Iews people and Priests also erred and so grosly erred as to become Idolaters yet the Oracles they bare never erred so we may too truly say to the proud boasting Papists their whole Church Pope Princes People have and do all err and so grosly err as to be guilty of great Idolatry worshipping and praying and thereby giving Gods glory to Saints and Angels to Pictures and Images This is most rationally and learnedly proved by Dr. Stillingfleet now the Reverend Dean of St. Pauls and most practically and palpably shewed in a small Book Intitled A Letter to a Friend concerning Popish Idolatry which in one hours reading fully declares it Of which Letter I will say only this That I am sure all there set down is truth for with my own eyes I have seen all having lived many years abroad amongst them But I grant they are not all practised here in England for two reasons First They would be ashamed to set up Pictures and Images here publickly to worship in the face of the Gospel-Sunshine where very Children would deride them And Secondly the Laws and Government would not suffer them Wherefore to conclude this point whoever reads the Gospel and by that examines the Doctrines of the Romish Church shall see that she is not the infallible Church she is pretended to be as plainly as you see the Moon is not the Sun you will discover such foul black spots in her face as may assure you she is not that beautiful beloved Spouse set forth in the Canticles for she hath so foully erred against the truth of the Gospel in several things which I have formerly laid before you as makes it most evident that she is neither truth nor so much as the pillar of truth but the pillar of error stifly mainteining several errors and doth not so much as hold forth the Gospel of truth to teach the people the way to Heaven but shuts it up from the people that she may lead them blindfold into error And so much be spoken concerning this Text The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth If any man can give a better exposition of this Text I shall be glad to learn it of him but I am sure the Papists have not yet by all that ever I saw or heard of They bring us another Text much like this Matth. the last Chapter where Christ sends forth his Disciples to teach all Nations promising to be with them in teaching unto the end of the world This Text I fully answered in my last Sermon Moreover these words being spoken by our Saviour to all the Apostles in general and their Successors of necessity gives equal Commission to them all and therefore makes more against the superiority of the Romish Church than for it for by this all Churches planted by other Apostles have the same promise The Papists therefore have one Scripture more which they urge particularly for their Church but it hath been so oft disputed and so fully confuted by whole Volumes of our Writers as a man would wonder to see them like Cats knockt down and quite dead in all appearance yet rise up again with this Text in their mouths It is this Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Matt. xvi 18. As to this I shall give you the heads only of several answers as plainly and briefly as may be for your more easie remembrance But I pray you still remember what we are searching Scripture for and that is a plain easie rule to determine all doubts that may arise in matters of faith And certainly this Text is not such but as far or farther from that than the former for 't is a figurative speech all along it speaks of building on a rock and the gates of Hell of binding and loosing almost every word a figure and the greatest Doctors and Fathers of the Church have disputed very variously about it the Papists cannot deny it and therefore this cannot be a plain easie rule to clear doubtful matters it being so doubtful in it self Let us now hear what the Text it self saith Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Is here any one word that the Church shall be infallible and cannot err The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church therefore say they she cannot err The veriest dunce in the University would be ashamed to make such ridiculous consequences Put the case God had promised the King of England that the French King should not prevail against him must it therefore follow that 't is impossible the French King should set foot upon English ground or kill any one of our Kings Subjects or take any of his Ships Rare nonsence Many Princes after several battels lost much of their Country invaded yet have prevailed and driven out the Enemy many a man after several wounds received hath prevailed and killed his Adversary Let then the Papists go and learn what that means The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel Gen. iii. 15. The seed of the Woman crushed the Head of Satan and prevailed against the gates of Hell though the Prince thereof bruised and wounded him in the heel Many errors and Heresies have bruised and wounded the Church yet have not prevailed to destroy it the vitals the fundamentals have still been preserved That profession of Peter whereon Christ built his Church was Thou art Christ the Son of the living God This saith hath still been preserved in the Church the gates of Hell never could prevail against it This is all our Saviour here promised and this he hath ever to this day made good and will assuredly make good to the end of the world But put the case these words The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church did imply some infallibility promised to the Church in general yet how come the Papists to challenge this insallibility to the Church of Rome and deprive all other Churches of it Why say they Christ here promises to build his Church on St. Peter 'T is false the Text doth not say Thou art Peter and upon thee will I build my Church but Upon this rock will I build my Church and that rock was Christ 1 Cor. x. 4. Christ the Son of the Living God whom Peter professed on this rock was the Church built But suppose yet farther that our Saviour had promised he would build his Church on Peter what then Yet not on him alone for St. Paul tells us Eph. ii 19 20. That the House of God which is the Church of God is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ Iesus himself being the chief corner stone built upon other Apostles and Prophets also as well as on Peter but chiefly on Christ himself And then for those words Binding and
being in the form of the true Church was a true Baptism But Cyprian notwithstanding the Decree of Stephen with his Bishops persisting in their opinion of Rebaptizing them Stephen Excommunicates them which S. Cyprian valued not a straw but called Stephen his obstinate Brother and a favourer of Hereticks Marcion Valentine Apelles and other Blasphemers against God as is set forth in his Epistle to Pompeius writing of this business And Firmilianus another Bishop of the African Church writing to S. Cyprian of the same matter says that the Roman Church vainly pretend the Authority of their Apostles meaning St. Peter and St. Paul seeing that they did not observe those things which were delivered them from the beginning by their Founders Eos autem qui Romae sunt non ea in omnibus observare quae sint ab origine tradita frustrà Apostolorum authoritatem praetendere And a little before expresly affirms that as the Hereticks are persons condemned of themselves so the Romanists favouring and approving their Baptism did adjudge and make themselves partakers of their damnable Heresies By all which it is most evident that S. Cyprian and the other Bishops of Africa did not mean the Roman Church for the Mother Church and Noah's Ark out of whose Communion there was no Salvation for though they were Excommunicated by the Bishop of Rome and his Clergy persisted in their Opinion and slighted very much his Excommunication and esteemed their own Church to be that Mother Church and Noah's Ark out of which there was no Salvation And in like manner I conceive all other Fathers who so magnifie the Churches Authority mean that Church who are of the same Faith and Communion with themselves supposing still their own to be the right though ever so wrong So that before you can with reason submit your self to the Faith and put your self into the Communion of any Church it is requisite for you to be assured which Church hath the true Faith and saving Communion which must be found out by that only safe Rule of Scripture by which all Churches ought to be examined and tried And now I shall proceed a little farther with the Papists and here challenge them to bring me any one sentence from any one antient Father of the Church who with all his magnifying the Authority of the Church of Rome or the whole Church in general doth yet ascribe unto it power to propose any new Article of Faith by their own Authority without Scripture-proof much less to countermand any one Scripture-precept And unless the Papists can shew this they shew nothing for their belief and practice of those many things I have formerly mentioned and for which they have not one tittle of Scripture proof And this I have said for the fuller confutation of the Papists for we take the Scripture for our only rule of faith and conceive our selves bound to believe nothing more than what is there declared as I hope I have fully proved The conclusion then of all must be That we can have no infallible assurance for our faith to rest upon but the Scriptures the word of God and not of man In the Scriptures we have Eternal Life and therefore are commanded to search them for it and there we shall find all necessary saving truth plainly set forth as I shewed you The humble searcher and fervent Prayer cannot fail of it He that thus seeks hath our Saviours never-failing promise to find And thus the beginning and ending of our discourse must be one and the same Search the Scriptures for in them ye have Eternal Life Having at length finished the several parts of my Text I shall now in as few words as may be declare unto you my motive end why I undertook this work No man is such a stranger in our Ierusalem as not to know what is daily discoursed in all places Many timerous Zelots cannot hold in their fears many insulting Papists cannot hold in their hopes that Popery will again bear rule in this Nation For my own part weighing things according to reason I mean such a measure of reason as God hath given me I cannot see any great probability of it for the great goodness of God hath given us so gracious a King and so averse to Popery as that when it would have been a very great advantage to him he could not by any means be brought to embrace it We may be then assured he will not hearken to it now when in all probability it will dangerously shake if not overturn also the very foundations of Regal Government in this Nation Besides the Sunshine of the Gospel for ever blessed be God for it hath so long appeared in our Church and so discovered the grossness of Popish errors in matters of faith such foppish superstitions in their practice as that men women and children plainly see and deride them So that Scripture and Reason being so prevalent against Popery and the Universal genius of the Nation so averse to it in reason I should think we are pretty safe from it But when I consider our course of life is so contrary to Reason and so bestial so contrary to Religion and so atheistical so contrary to Gospel light and such deeds of darkness daily committed it seems too probable we may soon become of any or no faith who are already become such beasts and devils in practice Have we not then great cause of fear that God after so many and so great blessings to draw our hearts unto him with cords of love and these failing of effect after so many chastising judgments to fright us from our sins by smarting Rods and all these also rendred vain and God daily provoked more and more by our loud crying sins for vengeance Have we not great cause of fear that God will bring upon us that sinal and severe judgment as to take from us the light of his Holy Gospel which we have so desperately abused and profaned and leave us to our own blindness to work out our present confusion and future damnation Hence and hence only arises all my fear This makes the whole head sick and the whol heart 〈◊〉 Isa. i. 5. For this cause I did resolve to advise you That whilest you have the light you would walk as Children of the light and whilst you have the Scriptures before you you would search into them and arm your selves against the assaults of the world and the flesh against the powers of darkness and cunning craftiness of those that lie in wait to deceive What God pleases to do with us he only can tell I will never cease to hope in his infinite mercy nor can I cease to fear our own wickedness almost infinite certainly never so excessive in this Nation Whether God for this hath determined to bring upon us the evil day I know not but this I know that if he hath so determined now is the time to prepare for it before hand and not when 't
said before and yet the Divine and Humane Natures are not so extreamly opposite as the Spirit of God and the spirit of the Devil May we not then in all humility desire to hea to see narrowly observe yea and handle with our hands some fiâ—m Evidence of this Union of the Spirit of God and the spirit of the Devil in the heart of Pope Alexander the sixth guilty of Rapine Murther Incest and all other Abominatiâ—ns imaginable Let then the Papists shew us from St. Iohn or some other Apostle some such full Evidence as this of St. Iohn for this incredible Union and I shall submit but certainly never till I hear see and handle it let them believe what they please Having thus as I suppose given you sufficient reasons to take you off from so long a Journey as to Rome to consult his infallible Holiness the Pope Perchance you will ask me to whom then you are to make your address for the determination of such doubts and disputes as may arise in matters of Religion Hath God left his Church without any Head to guide and govern it No certainly we have a Head and Guide Infallible Christ Jesus our Lord. But he is in Heaven we cannot ascend thither nor must we expect miraculous Voices from thence to answer us I grant it for there is no need Hearken to St. Paul Rom. x. 6 7 8 9. Say not in thine heart who shall ascend into Heaven that is to bring Christ down from above Or who shall descend into the deep that is to bring up Christ again from the dead But what saith it The Word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the Word of faith which we preach That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Iesus and shalt believe in thine heart That God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved You have Christ s Word at hand God be blessed for it 't is daily before you If thou shalt confess with thy mouth and believe with thy heart what is there plainly set forth thou shalt be saved You have God's Word for it in several places as I have shewed you and that there is nothing more necessary to be believed and if you will not believe God's Word in this you will not believe though one rose from the dead nor though an Angel descended from Heaven And as for doubts and disputes there is no need lay them by nay there is hurt in them for they gender strife of words from whence cometh envy railings evil surmisings 1 Tim. vi 4. I have often told you What is necessary is plain without dispâ—te But you will say The common people do not understand half no◠〈◊〉 quarter of the Scripture as it there lies What then Then 't is necessary to instruct them further In the Name of God do so make them understond as much as you can of Scripture the more the better though not necessary And I dare affirm That whoever believes explicitely as much as he understands of Scripture though it be not the hundredth part of it and believes all the rest implicitly that is believes all the rest to be true because God spake it and also practises according to that he doth understand that man shall be saved And this I will undertake to make good against all the Wise and Disputers of the World But if any man will be contentious we have no such custom nor the Churches of God 1 Cor. xi 16. T is probable you may Object It often happens that Disputes do arise both among the People and among the Priests also and though the things disputed be not necessary yet 't is necessary to have some of Authority to determine and compose them otherwise great Disorders and Tumults may follow No doubt but restless and perversespirited men will raise Disputes and Troubles where there is no ground for them yet there will be no need to determine the truth on either side but rather to compel both Parties to peace and quiet that neither cause disturbance to Church or State and this belongs to the Civil Magistrate and his Authority For 't is not the determination of Priests or Pope will keep such busie-bodies quiet they will as readily dispute their determination Was it not so in the Arian dispute which was determined by that famous Council of Nice yea and confirmed also by the Emperor's Decree yet all without effect the Arians stifly maintaining their Opinion hundreds of years after We see then that Determinations are as fruitless as needless But in the first three hundred years of Christianity there was no 〈…〉 of Faith but the Scripture alone neither did any Man or any Assembly of Men after the Apostles take upon them to determine any new matter of Faith though there were several Heresies started in those days The Pastors of the Church only preached the Scripture and required Men's Obedience to that they that refused were excluded the Congregation and Society of the Faithful and they proceeded no farther If it be answered That all the Princes of the World were then Heathens by reason whereof no General Councils could be called to determine more though ever so requisite I answer let us then see when that great General Council of Nice was called under Constantine a Christian Emperor what they determined The Church then had three hundred years experience to find out what was wanting and composed another Creed for all the World yet added no new Article of Faith to that called the Apostles Creed but only explained some things in that more fully and whoever believed and subscribed to that Creed passed for an Orthodox a true believing Christian. Doubtless so many Learned and Godly Bishops would not omit any thing necessary to Man's Salvation Let us then hold fast to that for now I hope all was compleated The Bishop of Rome as well as other Bishops approved and subscribed to this We all profess that Nicene Creed and if that Creed was sufficient to save all Christians then sure it will save all Christians now Why then do they require us now to believe more Purgatory praying to Saints and a thousand other things whereof there is no mention in the Nicene Creed or Council The Papists will answer Because many oppose them now but nobody opposed them before the Council of Nice They answer most truly no man opposed them before and why because no man professed them before These are new matters of a later hatching no man in these days so much as dream't of such things But 't is not at all to our purpose whether any then professed them or any opposed them for be they true or be they false there is no necessity to believe them This is true or else all the Bishops of that Council were fowly to blame in not putting them into their Creed from whence 't is evident they thought them not necessary then and so may we safely think now But the
Imprimatur Jan. 20. 1678. Guil. Jane R. P. D. Hen. Episc. Lond. Ã sacris domesticis THE LEGACY OF THE Right Reverend Father in GOD HERBERT Lord Bishop of Hereford To his DIOCESS OR A SHORT Determination of all Controversies We have with the PAPISTS By Gods Holy Word JOHN xvii 17. Thy Word is Truth LONDON Printed for Charles Harper at the Flower-de-luce over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1679. To All within my Diocess especially those of the City of HEREFORD Dearly Beloved in the Lord T IS now a year and half since in my Cathedral I told you my sad apprehensions of Popish designs to destroy both us and our Religion for though no particular discovery could then be made yet the discourse and actings of several Papists in these parts did plainly shew they were then preparing that which is now discovered for they were then providing Horse and Arms they posted about day and night they threatned many that they must ere long turn or burn and some told their friends that if it came to cutting of throats they should be saved which made it evident that not only they had some bloody design but thought themselves also sure to effect it Whereupon I besought you to arm your selves for the day of Tryal and preached a Sermon to that effect and afterwards the better to strengthen you against the incursion of Popish Superstitious Doctrines I preached several Sermons how you were to stick close to the Scriptures Gods Holy Word which was our only Rule of Faith and not knowing what kind of Pastor you might have after my death whether a Protestant Pastor not well verst in such matters or a Popish Pastor wholly devoted to them I resolved at my decease to leave you these Sermons as a Legacy for my great age of seventy five years past assuring me according to 2. Pet. 1. 14 15. That shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle I will endeavour that you may be able after my decease to have these things alwaies in remembrance But now I have a new and farther reason to hasten this my Legacy to you because I hear my bloody Enemies the Jesuitical Priests are resolved as soon as they can find opportunity to hasten my death This hath made me speed these Sermons to the Press lest I and they fall into their hands who will give the same speedy end to both And the truth of what I now deliver to you I trust by Gods assisting grace to seal with my blood if he call me to it for then I know he will enable me for it And though I am a weak carnal worm of my self not able to do any thing yet by Gods powerful grace I may and I hope I shall be enabled to do all things for he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee And therefore I most humbly and most readily commit the keeping of my Soul to him in well doing as unto a faithful Creator His will be done Amen TO THE Christian Reader THere being so many Books of our Controversies with the Papists both learned and unlearned already printed this may seem both useless and vain yet I hope it may prove otherwise because I humbly conceive you may find some useful things here not uttered before and if but one yet considering the great concern of the matter in hand our right faith and our salvation thereon depending no conscientious man will repent the spending five or six hours time in that short space the whole may be perused in the pursuit of it and I heartily wish more hours were not spent in things as useless sometimes even by good and learned men But put the case there be not one good thing here but what hath formerly been better set forth yet this little Book may be useful Experience shews man to be so affected with novelty as soon to grow weary of the best things and for variety take up worse and so this meaner discourse may have better effect by being new And if I may any way contribute to the establishing my Diocess and others in the true primitive Catholick Religion I shall not repent my labour though you do yours Considering with my self that the greater part of men are illiterate and can reap but little benefit by learned Treatises and of the more literate some not so zealous in Religion as willingly to spend much time in the search of truth I resolved on such a plain and compendious way as might satisfie and settle the greater part of men not troubling their heads with many or scarce any quotations out of several Authors which pardon me if I say can be useful but to very few men For such small scantlings as are there set down can give little or no assurance of the sence of the Author We see that Christian Writers taking here and there pieces of heathen Virgil make him speak Christianity so taking small parcels of any Orthodox Father you may make him speak Popery Wherefore such short quotations can serve only as Indexes to guide men to the Tracts from whence they are taken and before you can have the clear meaning of the Author you must observe the main business in hand and the scope he drives at you must also know his usual way of expression whether allegorical or plain literal rhetorical or concise with several other circumstances and it will be often necessary to compare one place with another of the same Author all which not one man of a thousand hath ability leisure and will to perform and he that hath and doth so yet after all his labour he hath but human assurance in a matter of his salvation which is no better than a bank of sand to build his eternal ill or welfare on which sure no wise man will do but only on that Rock Christ Jesus and his Holy Gospel hold fast to that and be sure to observe our Saviours way of encountring the Devil and his deluding ministers with a Scriptum est thus and thus it is written you will be sure to drive them away and overcome them But if you once quit the Word of God and hearken to the doctrines of men your unstable heart like a wave of the sea will be tossed to and fro with diversity of doctrines For you will find one Father say this another that yea the same Father say diversly in divers places St. Austin wrote a whole Tract of Recantations with great piety and ingenuity acknowledging his former Errors had he dyed before he wrote those Recantations then all those Errors by the rule of the Papists had past with great Authority for Truths I heartily wish the other great Doctors of the Church had seriously reviewed in their riper Age what they wrote in their Youth as St. Austin did doubtless some of them would have found things to recant as well as he Whoever hath a mind to see more of this let him read Daillee of the true use of the
of them Secondly As to the reason of the Command That in them we have Eternal Life the Romists add that you must take along with you the explication of the Church and such other additions as the Church shall propose for the Church say they is guided by the same Holy Ghost as did guide the Apostles and Evangelists to dictate and write the Scriptures and therefore the Doctrines of the Church are equally to be held and as necessary to Eternal Life But Beloved these are meer juggling mists cast before the eyes of men to lead them blindfold into their superstitious gainful practices And God willing I shall prove unto you that both these their assertions are groundless and false First I shall prove that this command of our Saviour Search the Scriptures belongs to all that are capable to understand matters of Salvation whether Clergy or Laity Men or Women or even Children and that 't is not only lawful but pious to search into the Scriptures Secondly I shall prove that the belief of the Scriptures alone is sufficient to Eternal Life without any addition and that we are not bound to believe any Doctrine the Church shall teach but what is fully contained in Scripture or so clearly deduced from thence that any man of common understanding may plainly see the evidence of that deduction And farther I shall prove that 't is a damnable thing for any man or Church to teach any Doctrine as necessary to Salvation but what is so fully contained in or so clearly deduced from Scripture as I now mentioned And seeing both these points are matters of Salvation wherein all mankind learned or unlearned high and low are concerned I think it necessary to handle these matters in so plain a way as may sute with the capacity of all even the unlearned who are most easily seduced into error I begin with the first part the command of our Saviour Search the Scriptures and to prove that this belongs to all And for the more methodical proceeding in this business I shall divide all sorts of men into three ranks and shew that to search the Scriptures belongs to all three Priests Princes and People And first for Priests there can be no doubt The only doubt in this point is whether they do search the Scriptures so diligently and studiously as they ought that St Pauls objection be not laid to their charge Thou that teachest others teachest thou not thy self Wherefore I beseech you of the Clergy that are present to consider what a shameful and scandalous thing it is that a poor mechanick tradesman should be more ready in quoting Scripture for his error than you for the truth and you that should be able as the Apostle saith with sound Doctrine to stop the mouths of all gainsayers such weak silly gainsayers should stop your mouths with corrupted Doctrine and mistaken Texts and you not able to shew their gross mistakes and so with the noise of Scripture-proofs they go away triumphant confirmed in their errors by reason of your neglect of reading the Scriptures or not understanding what you do read I beseech you consider it well and let this brief admonition suffice without any farther enlargement on this matter And now I may proceed to the second sort of men that are to search the Scriptures that is Princes and all Magistrates for Deut. xvii 18 19 20. we find a command for them And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his Kingdom that he shall write him a copy of this Law in a book out of that which is before the Priests the Levites And it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God to keep all the words of this Law and these statutes to do them That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and that he turn not aside from the Commandment to the right hand or to the left This command was given hundreds of years before the Iews had any Kings which shews great providential care and earnestness in God that Kings should be studious in his Holy Laws And 't is a very pertinent note that learned Grotius hath on this place That the King is to write himself a Copy of Gods Laws which is the best way to imprint a thing in a mans memory for when a man Copies out any thing he insists upon every word the time of writing and so makes the deeper impression in his mind to remember it Whereby you see that Kings are required as well as Priests to be very conversant in the Scriptures to read them all the days of their life And the reason of this is given by the Prophet Isa. xlix where speaking of the Church of Christ which was to be set up among the Gentiles he tells the Church that Kings should be her nursing-fathers and Queens her nursing-mothers And sure Fathers and Mothers should be able to teach their Children and not their Children teach them From whence I might infer that Kings should be more knowing in Scripture than Church-men Kings being as it were their Fathers And so it was with King David he did so meditate on the Laws of God both day and night that he thereby became wiser than his teachers I suppose he means the Priests who taught him in his minority But let this pass and let us take nursing-fathers here as Protectors only and Governours yet as such they ought to be very knowing in Scripture that they may distinguish between sound and corrupted Doctrine for sure they are not to protect and nurse up Heresie which they may chance to do if they have not a right understanding of Scripture but are led away by false and deluding teachers as the Arrian Emperours were and so proved oppressing Tyrants over the Orthodox Church Thus you see 't is necessary for the Spiritual Government of the Church that Kings should observe this command of God and have the Bible before them and read therein all the days of their life And 't is very necessary also for the Civil Government of the State as 't is there in Deut. exprest that their hearts be not lifted up above their brethren and that they do not multiply to themselves wives nor silver nor gold What is here said of Kings or great Persons concerns all you that are in Authority under the King at present or are like to be hereafter For seeing that Kings cannot be personally present in all parts of their Dominion they are constrained to appoint others under them to perform that which they cannot do themselves From whence it necessarily follows that this command of God to Kings belongs to all those who act by their Authority And as it is in the business of Godfathers and Godmothers that inferior persons are often substituted to perform the parts of great ones so is it in Church-fathers and Church-mothers and their Substitutes are to be Nursing-fathers to
burthen of his imposed Superstitions and zealously embrace them then perchance you may have leave as I said of your Confessor to read the Scriptures and then 't is no sin Your Confessor your Confounder thus insolently to usurp over your Christian Liberty You that are called to the glorious liberty of the Children of God and have heard God the Father speaking unto you in the Law God the Son speaking to you in the Gospel God the Holy Ghost speaking to you in the Apostles three Persons one Almighty God commanding you to read the Scriptures and teach them your Children must you now ask a silly blind worm of the Earth leave to read them Can you ever suffer your selves thus to be blindfolded fettered and enslaved under Popish Tyranny Thus to be deprived of the Gospel the Word of Life the Power of God unto Salvation No Beloved I hope you will never be so infatuated by deluding words nor so terrified with any threatning powers upon Earth or under the Earth as to quit this Heavenly Food of your Souls Man liveth not by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God Earthly Food entreth into the belly and so passeth out into the draught but this Heavenly Food the Word of God abideth for ever and shall nourish up our Souls unto Everlasting Life This ought to be our daily bread herein we should read and meditate day and night and say with David I have more delight in thy Commandments than in thousands of gold and silver For here we find a Heavenly Treasure for our Souls here we learn all things profitable for our Salvation this is the Book which teaches Priests that blessed work of gaining Souls unto Christ by sound Doctrine and godly Example which will make them shine in this World as Stars in the Firmament Let your Light so shine This is the Book that teaches Princes and all Magistrates their duty to God for the People to administer justice with uprightness to shew mercy with prudence to subdue the rebellious to protect the oppressed and this will make them feared loved and even adored as Gods upon Earth I said ye are Gods this Book will teach the People their duty and piety towards God their duty and loyalty to their Sovereign reverence to all in Authority love and peace with their fellow Subjects Here great ones learn humility rich men charity poor contentedness the oppressed patience the afflicted comfort it worketh all in all to Gods glory and our own eternal happiness Happy are the people that are in such a case yea blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God and his Holy Law for their instruction in all things as we have other Books may be helps to Devotion and give us some instruction for life but all come much short of this Holy Book When you would have a Tree thrive and bear fruit you dig about it you manure it with soil and water it all these are good helps yet all these without Sun-shine upon it effect little 't is the Sun that fetches up the sap causes it to budd blossom and bear fruit And so 't is that Sun of Righteousness who there speaks to us and sends the powerful raies of his grace upon our hearts 't is he that worketh in us and causeth us to bring forth fruit The Law of the Lord as David saith converteth the Soul it doth not only instruct the Soul as other Books but also converts the Soul gives life unto Souls dead in sin for 't is the word of life the power of God unto salvation And blessed be the infinite goodness and mercy of God who so freely imparts this Heavenly Blessing to us all Come come hither all ye that hunger and thirst ofter Righteousness come Clergy come Laity come Male and Female come Old and Young come Rich and Poor come and ye shall all be satisfied Come buy without money and without price for our God is a most gracious God he will not send any one away empty no but giveth liberally to all men And to this our most gracious God be ascribed as is most due all honour and praise majesty and glory now and for ever Amen The Second SERMON ON JOHN V. Ver. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have Eternal Life THE former part of this Text Search the Scriptures I have already treated of shewing you that this Command of our Saviour belongs to all conditions of men and women and that 't is not only lawful but pious also and profitable for all to read the Scriptures and to teach them their Children that from their very infancy they may suck in the sincere milk of the Word that they may grow thereby And this I proved unto you by the whole current of the Bible both Old and New Testament And therefore it is a strange presumption very foolish and very impious for vain man born ignorant as the wild Asses Colt to pretend to give reasons for shutting up the Scripture from the People God having so expresly and so often commanded all to read the Scriptures And consequently 't is a blasphemous speech to say that the peoples reading the Scripture causeth them to fall into schisms and heresies for it casts a reproach upon Gods Command making him the Author of Sin But now put the case that the peoples reading of Scripture were the real cause of their falling into Schisms and Errors which God forbid we should say in earnest but only let us suppose it and then consider whether or no it be not far worse with them that shut up the Scripture from the people than with us that let them read it For first none of our Sectaries that depend on Scripture fall into such damnable Errors as the Papists Idolatrous worship and dismembring the blessed Sacrament and some others Secondly we have but few in corners here and there run into Errors not one of a hundred or scarce of a thousand whereas their whole Church from the lowest to the very highest People Priests Bishops Archbishops Pope and all as it was with the Iews in their fits of Idolatry all run into the same Nay 't is worse with these than with the Iews for these have not recovered themselves out of their Errors many hundred years together but most obstinately persist in them notwithstanding the many learned Protestant Writers that have so palpably discovered them yet like Demetrius the the Silver-Smith with his Crafts-men so the Pope and his adherents animate one another saying their Craft will be in danger to be set at nought their Idol-Temples would be despised and their wealth and magnificence utterly destroyed And thus Beloved you see the miserable and desperate condition of these poor blinded and fettered Christians the Pope hath got them fast within his enchanted Chain and 't is his interest never to let them go and all this by shutting up the Scripture Lord have mercy upon them and
great examples and leaders to piety and godly life but I say it only to prevent our being led into errors by their Authority who though they were very learned and godly men yet still were men and being men were subject to error and for this cause no assurance can be had in the word of man alone but of him only who was God and man for God only is truth And as for the miracles pretended to be wrought by the Fathers of the Church in confirmation of their Doctrine I answer First We find in no authentick Author any miracles wrought by the prime and principal Fathers of the Church in confirmation of any Doctrine taught by them St. Cyprian St. Ambrose St. Ierome St. Austine St. Chrysostome St. Gregory Nazianzen and such like Secondly For the pretended Fathers of the Church in later Ages and Mothers also it is sufficiently known what gross and ridiculous impostures have been in later Ages noised abroad for great miracles Our learned Dr. Stillingfleet hath sufficiently set them forth in their proper colours These fine devices began about the six hundredth year after Christ and in a few years after they grew as familiar as jugling feats especially in the female sex of whom I find none that wrought them in the Apostles days when true miracles were frequent among men and when there were women certainly as holy as any whatsoever in future Ages We do not find that the blessed Virgin her self ever wrought any miracle though now the Papists will tell you of a thousand wrought daily by several images of hers But this we know that in the later days lying wonders shall be wrought to deceive if it were possible the very Elect and we also know that whatever seeming miracle is wrought contrary to the word of God is a lying wonder for Gods word is truth and all liars that speak against that But these miracles which they pretend to be wrought at the images of the blessed Virgin and other Saints are apparently contrary to the word of God which commands us not to bow down to nor worship any images and consequently these must needs be lying wonders wrought to deceive the people who are thereby induced to worship those images and do daily visit them and prostrate themselves before them with as much reverence and devotion as if Christ himself were there present This is fully known to every man that hath travelled those parts But the Popish Priests here surely ashamed of their own Devotions will boldly deny it and finding us too strongly fortified with Scripture truth to be seduced by their supposititious Saints with their lying wonders and too quick-sighted to be catched with such stauking horses they come upon us with a whole Army of the Church Militant the Universal Catholick Church meaning the Romish Church falsly so called yea and back'd with Scripture too and so fight us at our own weapon and thence thunder out irresistable Cannon Shot He that will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen man and a Publicane Matt. xviii 17. Beloved my time would fail me should I now engage in a fresh battel I shall therefore refer this to another time and for the present add only a few words of direction for those who take comfort in reading the Scripture and desire to improve their knowledge therein but meet with many obscure and difficult places which exceed their capacity in which they would gladly be farther instructed To this I answer first That I conceive it fit to advise with some learned orthodox sober and godly Divine if they have any such in their Neighbourhood for give me leave to say men so compleatly qualified are not every where to be found in these unfortunate days But if they can find any such let them desire his assistance and if this godly person can by other plain places of Scripture and clear reason make the sense of that doubtful place evident to his understanding then he may well conclude that to be the true meaning of the Holy Ghost But if this godly Counsellor makes use of any human Authority that is any one or many Fathers of the Church or Councils or the like to make good his exposition and cannot do it by clear places of Scripture or such circumstances as make that doubtful place clear to your understanding but require you to submit meerly to their Authority then you are to afford him no more than a human belief which helps you nothing forward to your salvation for that wholly depends on divine faith and belief in God not in man as I have shewed you And as for the doubtful places pass them over as doubtful and the clear knowledge thereof not necessary to your salvation God requires of no man beyond the talent which he hath given him and in his infinite goodness hath so provided that all things necessary for salvation may be understood of all What can be more plainly set forth to common understanding than it is in Scripture That there is one God Creator of Heaven and Earth one Saviour Iesus Christ the Son of God who dyed for all men rose again the third day ascended into Heaven and shall come again at the last day to judge and reward every man according to his deeds And then for the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper and such like necessary things they are also plainly set forth in Scripture even to vulgar understandings And lastly for our course of life what can be more plainly prohibited than fornication adultery all lasciviousness murther striking railing cousening What can be more plainly commanded than to do justice shew mercy charity c. and in sum to do unto all men as we would have them do unto us Now whosoever shall believe and practise all these plain things my Soul for his he shall never miss of his Salvation though he miss the understanding of a hundred places of Scripture many whereof the most learned understand very little better though they can talk more of them When our Saviour represents unto us the great Judgment day Mat. XXV He doth not call any to his right hand because they understood these and these dark places in Scripture nor curse any on his left hand because they understood them not but the whole Judgment depends on doing or not doing Come ye blessed for ye have fed the hungry cloathed the naked c. and go ye cursed for ye have not done so Wherefore the question in the Gospel is Good Master what shall I do to inherit Eternal Life and our Saviour's Answer is This do and thou shalt live And S. Paul tells us though we understood all Mysteries yet this profiteth not without Charity Charity and the deeds thereof with a firm belief of so much of Scripture as God enables us to understand would undoubtedly bring us to Christ's right hand in that great day Were but our practice according to the measure of our knowledge it
would be happy for us but hence comes our misery that instead of practising what we understand we fall to disputing of that we understand not and so we grow into passion from passion into faction from faction into schisms and heresies Were our passion laid aside there would be no need of laying aside the Scriptures but we should read them to our edification whereas we now read them to our destruction and confusion and thus the word of Eternal Life becomes unto us the savour of Death unto Death Wherefore my beloved when you take the Scriptures into your hands to read let your main intention be to observe the Instructions there given for your behaviour and course of life and then labour to stir up your affection and desire to practise it As for matters of belief as much as is necessary will quickly be attained but for practice that will require the whole study of a mans life Neither doth this consist so much in reading as in meditating on what we do read and striving to subdue our hearts in obedience to it and sending up also short but fervent ejaculations to Almighty God for the powerful assistance of his holy spirit to enable us to perform that is the end of all to perform This do and thou shalt live And if we thus read the Scriptures they will be unto us as the words of Eternal Life and the power of God to our Salvation Which God of his infinite mercy grant THE THIRD SERMON ON JOHN V. Ver. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have Eternal Life THE last thing we were upon in handling this Text was that the Scriptures wherein we say we have Eternal Life tells us that we are to hear the Church and he that will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican Mat. xviii 17. Here say the Papists we have a plain easie and safe rule to guide all in matters of Faith both learned and unlearned this cuts off all disputes and prevents all errors Hear the Church what the Church believes we must belieue and if we will not hear the Church we are hereticks heathens If this be the safe and only way to heaven what man in his right wits would not take this safe and easie way Doubtless a very easie way and truly I think that is the reason why many so much incline to it most men love an easie way to Heaven and few are found willing to take much pains for it And those few that are conscientious in their way are often scrupulous also and fearful and being wearied with anxieties and disputes in their melancholy moods may be willing to lie down on this specious bank not considering Latet anguis in herba the lurking Adder that there lies concealed For certainly this way is as dangerous as easie far from safe Can any man think it a safe way to forsake the God of truth and his holy word and hearken to vain erroneous men and their doctrines whereof our Saviour bids us beware No Let God be true and every man a liar Rom. iii. 4. But you will say what the Papists here urge is not the Doctrine of men but the Word of God Hear the Church I grant 't is the Word of God but strangely abused by the interpretation of men and wrested very far from the clear meaning of the Text as I shall now shew you Look I pray you a few verses before and see what is the business here treated of and to what this saying relates V. 15. If thy Brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother V. 16. But if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established V. 17. And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican I beseech you what is this to our purpose to the determination in matters of Faith Are trespasses matters of Faith No but they will prove from hence by necessary consequence That if you are to hear the Church in matters of fact such as trespasses much more are you to hear the Church in matters of faith They will prove I thought we had laid aside all proofs and consequences for they produce this Text as a clear evident rule to cut off all doubts and disputes a plain and safe way for all men learned and unlearned What is proposed as a plain rule to clear all doubts and determine all controversies ought in it self to be as clear as the Sun so that whosoever is not stark blind must needs see it and then doubtless I am stark blind for I cannot see one word here tending to matters of faith But they will argue thus If we are to hear the Church in temporal matters much more in spiritual matters for the Church being a spiritual body hath more to do in spirituals than temporals As blind as I am I plainly see as gross a mistake here in the word Church as before in the word Trespasses Did not I fully shew you the other day that this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text which we in English translate Church never in Scripture signifies the Clergy but the Congregation of the people the assembly of the faithful though we in English use the word Church very variously which is often the cause of great mistakes and therefore I pray you remember it well that in Scripture it still signifies the Congregation of the People And would the Papists have the Congregation of the People be our Infallible Guide to give rules of Faith and determine all controversies If so I see a sure and fatal consequence to their Infallible Head the Pope he and his triple Crown would soon be tumbled from his Throne to the ground and all his power under foot But put the case we would take the word Church here for the Clergy as the Papists would have us yet this gives no commission farther then to determin trespasses And as for their consesequences 't is very absurd to infer that because God leaves unto men to determin the small matters of this world therefore men may determin matters of that infinite weight as the eternal salvation of Souls For though the Church that is the Congregation should make a wrong judgment in the case yet the party suffering may if he please make great advantage by it for the patient suffering the loss for peace sake as God hath required he shall gain a hundred fold in Heaven but the party that forsakes Gods Wâ—â—d and hearkens to the wrong determination in matters of Faith shall suffer a hundred fold damage in Hell This therefore God reserves to himself and his Holy word unto which we are
not to add any thing nor subtract from it under a severe penalty there declared Wherefore we must take this Text as it lies without any human addition and so 't is evident that it contains nothing but the determination of matters of trespass between Neighbours of which our Saviour would have the offender privately admonisht and if no amendment than appeal to the Congregation in publick Not one word here concerning matters of Faith And thus beloved you see what a vain empty sound this great clamor is which the Papists make of this Text Hear ye the Church and whoever will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican Every part of it most grosly mistaken and wrested from the true meaning matters of fact such as trespasses and injuries wrested to matters of Faith the word Church wrested from the Congregation to the Clergy contrary to the whole current of Scripture Wherefore my beloved you see how necessary it is for you to follow this counsel of our Saviour and search the Scriptures and advise also with the more learned Pastors of our Church to arm you against these seducing teachers I hope this Text is sufficiently cleared and so I pass unto another 1 Tim. iii. 15. There 't is said The Church is the Pillar and ground of truth This Scripture say the Papists plainly relates to matters of Faith for truth is the object of our Faith we readily grant it What then Why then we are to hold fast to the Faith of the Church for that is the Pillar of truth ergo she cannot err This is another of their feigned consequences far from the meaning of the Text let us then peruse the Text it self with the circumstances there set down as we did the former and you will not find any such thing here as the Papists pretend That thou mayst know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God which is the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of truth First That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God There is nothing more frequent in Scripture than to set the word House for the People the house of Israel for the people hundreds of times And so Moses was faithful in all his house Heb. iii. 2. that is among all his people And so 1 Pet. ii 5. tells the Christians That as living stones they are built up a spiritual house to God And again iv 17. If judgment begin at the house of God that is the people of God Wherefore here Behave thy self in the house of God signifies the houshold the people of God That place where a man dwells is commonly called his house and God being said to dwell among his people 2 Cor. vi 16. I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people therefore the people are called the house of God Next follows Which is the Church of the living God that is the Congregation of the living God for 't is the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I shewed you alwaies in Scripture signifies the Congregation Now I pray you put this together that thou mayest know how to behave thy self among the people of God which is the Congregation of the living God the pillar and ground of the truth This last part of the verse the pillar and ground of the truth is metaphorical and may be interpreted several ways according to several mens apprehensions But in the first place I conceive all must grant that no metaphorical saying can be a clear evident and general rule to explain and determin other sentences but rather in it self needs an exposition But however you take this place it is evident that the Papists from hence can never have any proof for the infallibility of their Church as they would have it for S. Paul calls the Congregation of the people the pillar and ground of the truth But to shew you how little this Text will serve their turn though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never in Scripture signifies the Clergy yet for their greater conviction let it pass The Clergy are here called the pillar and ground of truth What then Why then the assembly of the Clergy must be infallible Hold there I beseech you Why can truth be fallible no certainly but the pillar of truth may fail the pillar may decay and go to ruin but the truth of God endureth for ever 1 Pet. i. 23. What then is meant by these words The pillar and ground of the truth I will shew you I suppose you have seen pillars set up in high ways at the meeting of several ways together and inscriptions written on the several sides of the pillars This way leads to such a place That way leads to that place some pillars have arms in them and hands pointing to the ways The pillar is only that which bears the inscription 't is the inscription that gives you the true information which is the way Now St. Paul saith Rom. iii. 2. speaking of the people of the Iews and the great advantage they had over other Nations For unto them were committed the Oracles of God And so St. Stephen Acts vii 38. tells his brethren the Iews that their fathers received the Oracles of God to give unto us So we may say of the Christians to their great honour and advantage above all other people in the world To them were committed the Oracles of God the Holy Scriptures to give unto us As then of old the people of the Iews were peculiarly the people of God the house of God which was then the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of the truth and they bare the Oracles of God the Holy Scriptures So St. Paul now calleth the Christians the peculiar people of God the house of God which is the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of the truth for they now bear the Oracles of God the Holy Scriptures the word of truth teaching us the true and perfect way to the Heavenly Ierusalem This my Exposition is strongly backed and confirmed by another Text of Scripture which is accounted by all men the best way of expounding Scripture Rev. i. 20. The seven Churches or Congregations are set forth by seven golden Candlesticks and you know candlesticks give no light of themselves but only hold the candles which give the light so the Churches are to hold forth Christ he is the light of the world and his Doctrine contained in the Scriptures they give the light they teach us the way to Eternal Life As in the former place the pillars bear and hold forth the inscriptions the Oracles of God so here the Candlesticks hold forth the light of Gods Holy Word this teacheth us the way herein lies the infallible truth not in the Church the Congregation that consists of fallible men Gods Word is truth all men are liars And
is come for then mens hearts will be so filled with fears and cares to avoid the present evil and to preserve what they have in this world as that they will not be able to make a right judgment of things relating to the world to come but their reason will be so biassed by their affections as then to think those Arguments for the Popish Religion rational and plausible which now they think very simple and absurd Wherefore now in this time of peace and calmness when your reason is not disturbed with tumults nor your conscience awed with dangers I here ask you in the presence of God Are your judgments convinced by those Arguments which I have laid before you in Gods Holy Word that the Scriptures contain in themselves compleatly Eternal Life and thus you ought to take them alone for the only rule of faith and that you are not to hearken to any Doctrines of men ever so holy ever so learned farther than they can make their Doctrine evident to your understandings by plain places of Scripture and that whatever miracles are pretended to be wrought by them if they tend to prove any things which you according to the best of your understanding verily believe are against Scripture you are to take them for lying wonders wrought by that great deceiver and tempter of mankind the Devil Are you now fully perswaded of all this or no For your fuller satisfaction I repeat it again and do you consider it well Are your judgments c. If you doubt of any part of this I as your lawful Pastor set over you by God and the King his vicegerent require you to repair to me and propose your doubts and I hope by Gods assistance to give you full satisfaction And if you are already satisfied then in Gods name I require you to hold fast to the Scriptures his Holy Word and not to suffer your selves to be carried away with any wind of Humane Doctrine And when if ever times of change and danger come and your judgment begins to alter from what now seems to you apparent truth and fully agreeable to Gods Holy Word you ought to conceive that alteration proceeds from the delusion of the devil the world and the flesh not from any new inspiration from God for he is the same to day and for ever he cannot change 't is you that change But perchance some will say in those days This Papist tells me things I never heard of before new and better arguments and upon better information I may and ought to change to better resolutions Oh my beloved take heed 't is not better information but the old man loves to have it so for it will then make better for his enjoyment of this world But I will now take from you this subterfuge you shall not 'scape me so Go now to the ablest Papist you can hear of consult with such see what new and better arguments they can now give you and if you think you have met with such come to me I shall take any pains to give you better satisfaction But if you come no more at me now but in the change of times your heart and reason change I shall if I so long live and you ought infallibly to conclude 't is not Reason nor Religion but the blindness of your heart and the corruption of your flesh that leads you blindly away from the God of truth to follow the Doctrine of erroneous man For no doubt you may now in times of settlement and quiet make a far better judgment of things than in times of bustle and danger No man whilest he carries this house of clay about him can mount to that high pitch as to be above the reach of storms and combustions but will undoubtedly be shak'd and disordered with them The stiffest Oak will bend with boisterous winds Wherefore now as I said is the time to make a clear rational judgment of truth and to make also firm resolutions to adhere to that And then if danger comes and your heart be besieged by powerful enemies be sure to observe the counsel of good King Hezekiah 2 King xviii 36. Hold your peace and answer not a word to any deluding Rabshakeh who shall endeavour to withdraw you from our Heavenly King Christ Jesus and his holy Word and revolt to the proud Prince of Babylon the Pope of Rome Disputing is dangerous when interest is the Argument that takes captive the hearts of most men silence then will be the safety And be you assured that in that great and terrible day of the Lord the word that I have now spoken unto you for 't is the Word of God shall judge and condemn you if you swerve from it Lastly for a Conclusion let me advise all those who are not throughly setled in their Religion to endeavour it with all speed no man ever so young ever so strong hath any assurance of life for a day we see it by daily experience and it would be a very sad thing for a dying man to be then to chuse his Religion I advise you therefore not to delay this necessary work and when you are on serious mature consideration well setled in the Faith admit no more of debates for 't is a great artifice of the Devil so to busie mens heads in matters of Faith as wholly to neglect good Life without which Faith is fruitless and dead for though we are justified by Faith yet it must be Faith working by Love Gal. v. 6. And he that loves God keeps his Commandments Iohn xiv 15. and 21. And therefore 't is meer Hypocrisie in those who seem so zealous for the truth of Religion but take no care to live the life of Religion of which sort there are too too many they wear out their Life and their Bible in tumbling it over for Texts to oppose the Papists but pass over all those Texts wherewith they should be armed to oppose the temptations of the Devil These ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone Mat. xxiii 23. These persons will be ranked with those who in that final day shall come and say Lord Lord we have Prophesied in thy Name cast out Devils and done many wondrous works and yet shall hear that dreadful Sentence from the Lord I never knew you depart from me all ye that work Iniquity Mat. vii 23. You are then to search the Scriptures both for true Faith and good Life and to captivate yoâ—â— hearts in obedience to Gods Commandments as well as your understandings in obedience to the Faith both are equally requisite to Eternal Life and both are plainly and fully declared in the Scriptures they make us wise unto Salvation and throughly furnish us unto every good work so that we are lest without excuse in either You know these things and happy are ye if ye do them not otherwise And thus Beloved having laid plainly before you out of Gods Holy Word the way
the-flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him What can be more plainly exprest even to the meanest capacity of men Good Reader I suppose you conceive that here we are hard beset for these words certainly carry far more appearance for their transubstantiating the Bread into real Flesh than the bare saying This is my Body which as I shewed you is a common figurative way of speaking in Scripture But yet as our Saviour saith If ye have faith ye may say unto this mountain be thou removed and it shall be done So you shall see this their mountain of Objection presently removed Come then my Papist Doctors Will you have these words in St. Iohn literal down right literal without any figure I beseeeh you then tell me What becomes of all the Laity in your Church Will you send them into Hell Body and Soul for ever to make good this new-found Transubstantiation Doth not our Saviour here expresly declare That Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud ye have no life in you Eat and Drink mark and Drink And do the Laity eat and drink literally no certainly How then shall they enter into life Must none but the Priests be saved Poor miserable Laity I am sure you must literally be damned for ever to save Transubstantiation a sad doctrine for you whatever becomes of your Priests I fear they will fare little better that thus blindly lead you into this fatal ditch of damnation Consider I beseech you how they delude and gull you They press these words of St. Iohn upon the ignorant Laity My flesh is meat indeed to perswade them 't is real flesh in the Sacrament but when we press them with those words Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud ye have no life in you thereby shewing That 't is necessary for all to drink the blood as well as eat the flesh then they say all here is to be taken in a spiritual sence of eating and drinking by Faith Wherein they say truly but yet shew they deal falsly with you making you believe all here is to be taken literally whereas in truth all is to be taken spiritually and they compelled to acknowledge it so by their unlucky Decree of taking the Cup from the Laity Had it not been for this good God how would they have dunn'd our ears with this Chapter of St. Iohn there would have been no enduring their lowd clamors for their literal sence But now I beseech you calmly to consider this passage in St. Iohn Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his bloud ye have no life in you Who so eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day These words carry far more appearance of Christ's real Flesh in the Sacrament than those in St. Matthew This is my Body which as I said before is a figurative way of speaking very frequent in Scripture and no body startled at it but when our Saviour pronounced those words in St. Iohn most that heard them were very much startled and disordered at them yea many Disciples left following our Saviour upon them crying This is an hard saying who can bear it for really it sounds very hard if you take the bare words in themselves without our Saviour's Comment upon them whereof we shall speak by and by This then is the thing I pray you to consider if these words in St. Iohn which carry so much a greater appearance of real flesh in the Sacrament yet may and ought to be taken and are taken by the Papists themselves in a Spiritual sence Is it not a most unreasonable and senceless thing in the Papists to cry out upon us for taking those words in St. Matthew This is my Body in a spiritual sence It is just the same as for a man that refuses to take a guilded shilling for pure Gold 〈◊〉 out on me because I will not accept of a piece of plain brass for pure gold But setting aside the Papists who take all Scriptures right or wrong as they serve most for their turn and as they blasphemously call the Scripture a nose of wax so use it and shape all to their own â—ancy let us now see our Saviour's own Comment on his own words that is the sure way to have the right sence of them I pray you then observe how our Saviour in this Chapter v. 47. just before he began this discourse prepares his Disciples for the spiritual understanding of what follows by saving Verily verily I say unto you He that believeth on me hath everlasting life Which plainly shews that the words he was going to speak were to be apprehended by Faith and not in a carnal way for as he saith in this 47 Verse with a double asseveration Verily verily I say unto you He that believeth on me hath everlasting life So Verse 53. Verily verily I say unto you Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood ye have no life in you Here he affirms the very same of eating his flesh as before of believing in him shewing that our eating must be by Faith and not carnally And then again after our Saviour saw that many were offended at those words of Eating his flesh to take them off from any gross carnal apprehension he tells them The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life After that our Saviour had thus instructed his Disciples in the true spiritual sence of his words we find it so rectified their Understandings as that when he administred to them this holy Sacrament and gave them that which figuratively he called his Body to eat not one of them in the least scrupled at it which doubtless some one or other would have done had they imagined our Saviour had given his real Flesh. They who startled at hearing it would much more at acting it for their Faith was not yet so strong as to believe such a miraculous Transubstantiation as the Papists fancy and that his whole Body should enter in at the narrow circle of their mouthes For we see how weakly they staggered at our Saviour's Resurrection though forewarned of it several times by him and they had seen him also raise several others from the dead yet would not believe his Resurrection till they saw him and scarce then All which plainly shews they took the Bread as real Bread according to Christ's Institution in remembrance of his Passion and Death and not as his very Body entring in at their mouthes into their breasts which doubtless some of them
same which it was before Consecration so Saviour's Body after the Resurrection remains the very same both in form and substance as it was before Which words are as plain in themselves and as flatly contrary to the present Romish belief as any Man can express What I have here produced out of these two Fathers is found in those Books of theirs which the Papists themselves allow to be their own authentick Writings not out of any controverted Books as the Papists often do cite many things out of spurious Books which bear only the Name of Fathers but are not their own genuine Writings and acknowledged by Bellarmine and other learned Papists to be supposititious And now I desire the Papists first to produce any one cotemporary or later Father or Doctor of the Church that condemns St. Austin's or Theodoret's Opinion or Arguments in this Matter and what they wrote was published to all the Church Certainly then if they had published this flatly contrary to the received Opinion of the Church some or rather many would have reproved them but none ever did ancient or later Assuredly then the Church did not believe Transubstantiation for that expresly declares the substance of Bread to be changed and also necessarily infers that Christ's Body is in many places at once and that his whole Body is contained within the compass of a little Wafer all which St. Austin flatly denies It is most evident that St. Austin and the Church then believed directly contrary to what the Papist-Church now believes And I farther desire the Papists to consider That what I have set down out of St. Austin is not a Sentence fallen from him as it were by chance but a serious Affirmation in Answer to a Question concerning this very Matter and the thing not only barely affirmed but proved by many convincing Arguments Secondly I desire the Papists to produce any one Father or Doctor of the Catholick Church within four I may say five or six or more hundred years after Christ that by way of Doctrine and in a continued Discourse plainly affirms That the substance of Bread is changed into Christ's Body or any accidents of Bread hanging in the Air without real Bread to support them as their subtil fanciful Schoolmen now talk or that Christ's real Body can be in many distinct places at once or that his whole Body can be contained within the compass of an inch as it is now believed by the Papists And had the ancient Church believed such strange mystical things of this blessed Sacrament as the Romanists now do who can doubt but some one or other of the many famous Writers in those days would have some where explicated and declared the same I know full well that some of the ancient Fathers have in their Rhetorical Discourses expressions that carry some colour for them and as many for us which truly I value not much on either side for a very good Reason which Valentia the Jesuit gives being urged with some Arguments out of the Fathers against himself concerning Transubstantiation That before this Question of the Sacrament was agitated 't is no wonder if some of the Fathers minùs consideratè rectè hac de re senserint scripscrint did not so considerately think and write of this Matter but took great liberty of speech not fore-seeing the ill use would be made of it And therefore to stir up the People's Devotion to the Sacrament which was fallen much from the primitive zeal to great coldness they used high Rhetorical expressions such as the Papists themselves will not allow of in a literal sence As when Chrysostome telleth the People That their Teeth are fixed in the Flesh of Christ their Tongues bloudied with his Bloud and that the Assembly of the People was made red by the same Which strange expressions in the Papist's behalf and some other as much against them Bellarmine is forced to excuse by a Rhetorical Hyperbole but are really inexcusable And if the Papists will not go home with us to the uttermost of their expressions why should we be bound to foot it just according to their measures here to move there to stop just as they please to lead the Dance And I shall make this further Use of Valentia's and Bellarmine's Sayings That if the ancient Fathers did write so inconsiderately of our Matters in Controversie how is it possible for any Man to settle his Conscience and build his Faith upon the Writings of the Fathers they having so many Sayings so contrary one to the other And still I pray you remember that not one of them writes directly of this Subject All which will force us to adhere close to that only true and safe Foundation of our Faith the Word of God who is one and the same to day and for ever I have written all this to give some satisfaction to those Papists who are so inclined to hearken to the Fathers whom by Saint Austin's Rule we are to believe no farther than they can prove what they affirm from Scripture Having as I humbly conceive fully answered the Papist's Pretence from Scripture for their Transubstantiation I shall now very briefly answer two or three Scriptures more which they likewise pretend for some other Errours For Purgatory that of 1 Cor. iii. where there is mention of trying Men's Works by fire and saving by fire c. which relates no more to their Purgatory-fire than to a fire swilling a Hog as appears most evidently by the subject Matter in hand Saint Paul discourses there of his own and Apollo's preaching the Gospel and building up the Corinthians in the Faith whereof Christ is the only Foundation You must remember that Apollo was a Jew mighty in the Scripture as 't is said Acts 18. but converted to the Christian Faith mightily convinced the Iews proving that Iesus was Christ yet it seems did some-what adhere to the Iewish Ceremonies and as I humbly conceive did thereby cause some Divisions among the Corinthians which Saint Paul doth there gently hint not willing to disgust a new Beginner yet a great Labourer in the Gospel For there Saint Paul accuses the Corinthians of Divisions some crying I am of Paul others I am of Apollo That is I am with Paul against Iewish superstitious Ceremonies I am with Apollo for them Now Saint Paul desirous to unite all in Christ tells them that neither Paul nor Apollo was any thing but Christ must be all in all for he is the only Foundation and all Doctrines to be preached must be built on him and all tend to Edification in the Spirit as Christ told the Samaritan Woman that we are no more to worship God either at Samaria or at Ierusalem that is we are not to worship God either after the Samaritan or after the Iewish Customs and Ceremonies which Saint Paul here calls Wood Hay Stubble but only in Spirit and in Truth which he calls Gold Silver precious Stones All those external carnal