cas consci l. 4. c. 10. c. 2. l. c. 12. c. 18. as they speak although they doe it not for the manner with obligation to the particular enumeration of all sinnes nor for the matter with any absolute necessity of doing it and therefore Luther used to say that he sometime communicated without confession to shew it was not necessary and other times confessed himself for the comfort of absolution and the Church of Rome also bottoms her rigid practice carnificinam animarum as their own Cassander calls it upon the same grounds that these men do their probation because say they It is the duty of the Priest to repell the unworthy and admit the worthy which is best done upon the Penitents estate manifested in confession Valentia Tom. 4. disp 6. q. 8. punct 3. p. 931. and Time the Mother of Truth may discover whether these principles be not some previous dispositions to the generation of such a practice of confession and that as necessary In the ancient Church were excluded from the Communion the Catechumeni energumeni persons excommunicate and Penitents and such as lapsed into Heresie until they repented and that any other save under these notions and capacities were shut out and debarred the Monuments thereof in Ecclesiastick History have not fallen within my angust Horizon Homil. 3. ad Ephes c. 1. Tom. 4. p. 356. Hom. 50. Tom. 10. p. 115. de medicina poenitentiae super illum 1 Cor. 5. si qui frater nominatur Tom. 9. c. 3. p. 210. ad 4. senten distinct 9. in 3. Aquin. q. 50. art 6. Duran Biel Estius Cajetan Valentia Suarez Vasquez Nugnut Sylvius c. Biel in 4. distinct 9. q. 2. Lessius de justit jure l. 2. c. 16. dub 4. S. 55. p. 158. Baldwin l. 4. c. 9. cas 1. Ursin Catechis part 2. q. 81. p. 578. He that partakes not is a Penitent saith Chrysostome We can saith Augustine repell no man from the Communion although this prohibition be not yet mortal but medicinal but one that by his own conscience or the sentence of the Ecclesiastical or civil Judicatory shall be accused and convicted of some crime And in another place which Gratian cites under the name of Hilary but it is St. Augustines in his 118. Epistle Si peccata tanta non sint ut excommunicandus quisquam homo judicetur non se debet à quotidiana medicina Dominici corporis separare And the School if it have any regard left it doth generally hold as also doe the Casuists Baldwin Navar Lessius Filiacius c. and besides divers reasons they cite the authority of St. Augustine to fortifie their opinion That the Communion is not to be denyed to a secret sinner that is not notorious if he openly desire it lest he be thereby diffamed and lest the minister be as saith Biel Proditor criminis inferens poenam ante criminis probationem poenam publicam ob peccatum occultum and he is not a Casuist minorum gentium amongst his Partizans who tells us that aliquis in peccato occulto licèt jus petendi Eucharistiam non habet petendo peccat tamen habet jus ne à parocho infametur neither is it enough that the Minister know the offence Per scientiam privatam nisi etiam per publicam notoriam much less si rumor aliquam de iis su spicionem moverit nam si nondum sit apertè reus nec satis convictus aut confessus admittendus est ne tam pretioso animi sui thesauro per nos defraudetur saith a reformed Casuist and though as Lessius would have it it were indeed sinful in these to demand the Commun on yet notwithstanding it may not be righteous for the Minister to deny it them for they are two questions in the judgment of a grave Divine Qui debeant accedere Et qui debeant admitti ad coenam prior est angustior posterior latior generalior quia tantùm pii debent accedere sed non tantùm pii verùm etiam hypocritae nondum patefacti sunt ab Ecclesia admittendi In those first times they generally communicated daily which St. Augustine saith he neither approves nor reprehends afterward twice or thrice a week at length constantly on the Lords day as appears by Justins Apology and others of the Ancients but the fervour of devotion rebating it was ordained that generally every one pubertatem excessus which was about the 15. or 16. year should communicate thrice a year thus decreed Fabianus Bishop of Rome as also did the Agathon Councel This Decree is found under the name of the Apostles Canons being the tenth in common account and the ninth in Zonaras which though I am not ignorant are not rightly fathered upon them yet are ancient and not contemptible As many of the faithful as come into the Church and hear the Scripture and continue not out the prayers nor receive the Holy Communion let them be put from the Communion as men that work the breach of order and it is noted in the Margin upon the same Canons in old times all that were present did communicate and consonantly the Councel of Antioch decreed That all that come into the Church of God and hear the holy Scriptures and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Zonaras interprets upon pretext of reverence and humility Chamier the violation of religious order refuse the receiving of the Lords Sacrament let them be put from the Church and to like effect determines the Bracharen Councel Quid causae est De verbis Domini secundum Johan Serm. 2. saith St. Augustine ô Audientes ut mensam videatis ad epulas non accedatis In vain saith Chrysostome we stand at the Altar when none will participate c. If thou stand by and doe not communicate thou art wicked thou art shameless thou art impudent I would not onely have you to participate but to be worthy partakers thou wilt say I am unworthy to partake of the holy mysteries then art thou unworthy to be partaker of the prayers not onely by those things set before us Homil. 3. ad Ephes c. 1. Tom. 4. p. 356. but by Hymnes also doth the Holy Ghost descend you that are under penance depart c. He that partaketh not is a Penitent Why therefore saith he depart ye that cannot pray c Neither onely was the participation of the Eucharist injoyned as a common duty and the omission thereof complained of but the common right thereof asserted by the Ancients That which is the Lords they make proper to themselves In 1 Cor. 11. Homil. 27. Tom. 4. p. 110. In 1. ad Cor. c. 11. Tom. 8. p. 494. saith Chrysostome those things which are the Lords are not this servants and not that servants but common to all he permits it not to be the Lords that permits it not to be common to all It is not the Lords saith Hierom but mans when every one invades it as
They are not the next ages before us that we look upon as they odiously insinuate but the most antient and yet I wish that the present times may not ingratiate and endear the former age notwithstanding its corruptions and have the fate which some think Augustus aimed at in adopting Tiberius that the memory of his Government might be more sweetned by the succession of a worse In the 13. Section for we will still endeavour to collect and unite together what they have scattered of one concernment they seek to enervate the testimony of the antient Church by telling us out of the Lord Verulam That they which too much reverence old times are a scorn to new That the Fathers agreed in mistakes and were divided in truths That the Opinion of the Chiliasts taken for an errour is by Justin Martyr referred to the Apostles Irenaeus affirms that Jesus Christ lived fifty years on earth Lubbertus is cited to say it is the manner of the Fathers when they would commend a thing not knowing its original to refer it to the Apostles and primitive Times In the three first Centuries the Learned are perplexed with spurious works of the Fathers which makes uncertain the state of the Primitive Church which some extend not beyond the Apostles days or third Century and it is stretched too far to the age of Chrysostome We know and acknowledge that the Fathers like the Moon never borrowed so much light from the Sun of the Scriptures as to be clear of all spots Stapleton himself grants there is none of the Fathers in which something erroneous may not be observed they are like the Birds hatch'd at Cair by the warmth of an Oven which have every one some blemish and I wish their errours were of no other alloy than such as the Apologists have detected Piscator Alsted Mead Hackwel Gallus c. whereof that of the Chiliasts themselves dare not stigmatize for an errour and therfore unaptly alleage it but only say it hath been taken for one perchance they are more indulgent thereunto because it is a Darling fostered much fawned upon by many of their Brethren and indeed hath divers more learned assertors than them who consent in the thing though with some difference in the manner and for the conceit of Irenaeus it is a Chronological no Dogmatical errour and Chronologers are one of those three things that never agree Id calumniâ carere debebit saith Sulpitius Severus But because the Fathers might or did erre therefore to give no credit to their Witnesses would be in effect destructive to all kind of humane testimony From hence onely can be concluded that they are not infallible and therefore our understanding not to be captivated into any obedience to their Dictates in that sense we call no man Father save the Ancient of days and that iis in enucleandis fidei controversiis non necessarium est consentire tanquā ab omni exceptione veris Chamier tom l. 1. c. 6. p. 4. Aquin. 1. q. 1. art 8. ad 2. aut etiam in se possunt proferri ut quibus ex certa Suppositione certis etiam circumstantiis hic discernendi rectum ab obliquo usu convenire queat saith Chamier and authoritatibus Canonicae Scripturae utitur proprie ex necessitate argumentando authoritate autem aliorum Doctorum Ecclesiae quasi arguendo ex propriis sed probabiliter c. as Aquiaas But the errours of a single Father or their mutual differences cannot lay any obstructions in our way who lay no such great waight on their singular Opinions yet set much by their general consent in what the most and most famous in every age have delivered as received of them that went before them and as practised or beleeved by them What Lubbertus is alleaged to say will not make either scale theirs or ours to move much with the waight thereof the notion Apostles is not alway taken properly Dr. Ham. Resol 6. quae q. 5. p. 351. And see Parker of the Cross part 2. p. 126. de Baptis Contr. Don. l. 4. c. 24. alii Epist 118. c. 1. or strictly to be understood one great learned man hath manifested it that in the Primitive Times Bishops were usually called Apostles and another hath told us that the ancient Church extended the Apostolical Times beyond the age of the Apostles even to the Nicene Council The ignorance whereof perplexed Baronius to reconcile it How Scithianus and Terebinthus are said to live Temporibus Apostolorum who lived in Aurelians time 300. years after Christ and howsoever yet I know it was the rule of Saint Augustine often inculcated and approved by our principal Divines in matters of fact and practice That which the universal Church holdeth and which was not appointed by Councils but always observed is most rightly believed to have been delivered by Apostolical Authority If some Bastard Writings are put upon the Fathers which like Eaglets being brought forth to the sun are not very hard to be discerned by their inability to endure the light of critical examination there are others which the Learned are agreed upon to bear the characters of their true Off-spring which set the antient Church within our light and prospect and it is no argument that because some coyn is counterfeit therefore none must be current let them reject it if we offer to pay them with false money But I doubt their practice will need some counterfeit Writings to support it for the genuine Works of the Antients will lend it no authority They should much have favoured our ignorance to have pointed at those had their authority been worth our notice who confine the Primitive Church within the age of the Apostles or extend it not beyond the second centeury that we might have tryed what weight their reasons or authority carry in the counter-scales against the generality of the polemical Divines who though primitive be a relation and spoken always with respect to another so that what is primitive in reference to one is not so toward another yet they dilate the antient Church Doctoribus Ecclesiasticis 6. priorum saeculorum veterum patrum adscriberemus titulum Rivet tract de patr Author Tom. 2. p. 648. According to one of the Epocha's the time for the measured purity of the Inner Court and that is the visible Church remaining in its primitive purity is 454. years Mede's Remains on Rev. p. 20. whereunto more reverence and esteem is rendred unto the first five hundred years and within which Latitude of five hundred did Bishop Jewel impale the testimonies which he challenged his adversaries to produce in confirmation of several pieces of Popery and sure the age of Chrysostome which was the latter end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth Century was like the eighth Sphere which though not next to the first mover according to the old obsolete hypothesis yet had more bright stars than all the Orbs beside What they
her but he acted like a man that did relinquere suum jus Magistratui as Brentius In locum noluit munus legitim judicii abrogare as Musculus Sicut reliquis suis exemplis aut Evangelicae doctrinae praeceptis nullum voluit facere praejudicium eorum quae cuique ex officio pro salute reioub conveniunt ita nec hoc suo facto as Iansenius and because Hoc non erat ejus officium as Piscator non venerat ut esset externus Judex scelerum as Iansenius or suum munus cum ossicio Magistratûs consundere as Aretius whereunto are consonant Estius Barradius and Deodate And the power of inflicting capital punishments being then taken from the Jews as they confess it was not lawful for them to put any man to death though I know also some learned Men give another reason of that Speech it is thought they brought the adulterous woman in regard thereof thinking thereby to have ensnared him and to evade that snare and frustrate their designe he condemned her not It was not then for want of Accusers for they had formerly testified her offence to have been notorious by evidence of fact shee was taken in ipso facto or furto as the Greek is by a Synecdoche speciei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but being gone off Christ asked where they were and whether any had condemned her onely that in absolving her he might defeat the designed surprise of the Pharisees Ii te non condemnant neque ego te condemno quod illi faciunt ego facio objicere in me non possunt leginos repugnare in the words of Barradius you may see then how Diaphonous the example of the adulteress is to that of Judas But it seems the Apologists are like Blondus of whom it is said that he cared not quà m vera but quà m multa sâ—riberet Yet Horatius will lend Dioxippas a Sword to cut off his head as it is in the prophane Story suitable to that of Golias and David in the sacred for if Christ could not judge the woman to punishment because there were no Accusers and no man had condemned her why doe they then punish with loss of the Sacrament those that have had no accusers nor have been condemned by judicial process To their Epiphonema or rather Io-poean in the close of the Section attending their triumphs over so poor and despicable an Argument as this I shall onely say Rode caper vites tamen hîc cùm stabis ad aras In tua quod fundi cornua possit erit And I shall conclude with that which Bullinger alleageth out of Zuinglius Bullinger ad Petrum Dathenum advers Anabapt l. 6. c. 9. p. 230. whereunto are perfectly consonant what himself delivers against the Anabaptists Apertum esse satìs quales ipse Dominus primae suae coenae quae haud dubiè omnium fuit absolutissima adhibuerit convivas neque decere ut nos Dei filio qui solus corda filiorum hominum perspecta habet acutiores nobis sumamus oculos aut nobis ipsis in coena sumamus judicium quod ille nobis neque praecepto neque exemplo dedit DIATRIBE SECT III. The sufficiency of Scripture whereupon Negative Arguments are grounded The Argument deduced from 1 Cor. 11.28 It is difficult and unsafe to judge of other mens estate Of temerarious judgment of judging men to be wicked or irregenerate With what difficulty and what a pedegree of consequences their proofs are derived from Scripture General Rules for satisfaction of doubting Consciences perswade the contrary to their way Of Christs admitting onely Disciples Heb. 13.17 Matth. 18.16 Revel 2.2 1 Pet. 3.15 1 Cor. 5.11 explained and vindicated THE Canon prescribing and directing the due administration and receiving of the Sacrament is 1 Cor. 11. We cannot with Tertullian adore the fullness of the Scripture unless we yeeld it to be a perfect rule of faith and manners which it cannot be if it be deficient in any thing necessary to be done or beleeved especially in such places where it purposely handleth things of that concernment The Law of the Lord is perfect perfectum est cui nil deest and it is able to make wise unto salvation and thoroughly to furnish the man of God And therefore here and onely here an Argument ab authoritate negativè holdeth good But in that Chapter to the Corinthians I finde a precept Let a man examine himself none that he should necessarily pass the examination of another between the proper examination of himself and eating and drinking no other thing intervenes Let a man examine himself and so let him eat So without more examination having done so he must not be letted and therefore this very Commentary is made upon that Text by pathetical Chrysostome He doth not bid one man to examine another but every man himself making the judgment private and without witnesses Paraeus strikes in Unisons with that ancient Father The Apostle saith not the Priest shall examine or prove them but every man himself So doth Sarcerius He commands not that one should be approved to another but each one to himself as long before Clemens Alexandrinus accounted every mans Conscience to be his best director in this case By what authority then can he be put back from the Sacrament that hath examined himself And to suspect that any have not examined themselves who shall profess to have done so without a violent suspicion which is neer to a moral certainty of the contrary how can it be competible with Charity that hopeth all things beleeveth all things and thinketh no evil This being a stubborn hard bone much adoe there is to overcome it without drawing blood from the jaws One sets his teeth to it and saith That the precept of examining a mans self excludes not the examination of his Pastor or the Elders or the Congregation both may be consistent and both requisite But the offerture is supervacaneous for the Argument concludes not A man must examine himself therefore the Minister c. may not or need not examine him but we onely argue that because where the Apostle professedly prescribeth the preparative dispositions and duties requisite to worthy receiving he not onely gives no express precept that the Ministers or Elders or Congregation shall examine nor the people submit to examination but rather the contrary for having examined himself he permits himself so to eat therefore it is not of the necessity of duty for what the Scripture commands not obligeth not he permits a man to pass from self-examination to receiving without any other thing intervening Let him examine himself and so let him eate without any more adoe in respect of examination which if it had been requisite the Apostle would as well have said Let him also pass the examination of his Pastor c. as examine himself And this Argument from the Authority negative of Scripture though bet him eate affirms also the liberty of access without
shine that walk in it like the bright light of the Sunne which gilds all his spots and makes them invisible which some by their Prospectives discern in the body thereof What farther rise it may have or progression make we cannot certainly fore-tell but may solicitously fear since men of these principles are like the Crocodile which never ceaseth growing while he lives so doe they still increase in new singularities and humours and pretended discoveries yet I hope they will also be as sagacious as the Crocodiles of Nilus who never hatch any thing but they lay it without danger of being hurt by the rising flood yet in the interim an ordinary judgment may easily discover that a Fortress founded in the Conscience and raised on the advantage ground to command our reputation may keep all the parts adjacent in subjection and bring them under contribution And seeing Priam at this age was not unhappy and confession it self in so short time had neither so enlarged her phylacteries or out-grown her girdles which was punish'd with death among the Gaules as this probation hath done therefore we fear the Year when the Spring is so nipping and it is more like to be a sharp Thorn that pricks so soon And since we see that not onely by an extraordinary power as in the time of Elias but as Fromundus tells us by natural course a small Cloud may soon over-cast our Heaven and of a small Seed as Mustard a Tree may spring up wherein the losty and high soaring Birds may build their Nests We may be excused if we cannot make light of this cloud with a nubecula est citò transibit as Athanasius of Julian and if with the Ant we bite the seeds that they grow not However they may seriously and plausibly talk to us here of reformation and satisfaction and honour of the Church and elsewhere of the smallness of the thing required yet Timeo Danaos dona ferentes Or perhaps rather petentes We remember what the shepherd in Aesop said who beholding the smoothness and tranquility of the Seas after a former Tempest which enforced him to cast all his Dates over-board which he had sold his Flock to buy and adventure in the way of Merchandize Palmarum fructus concupiscit opinor ac tranquilitatem propterea praese fert and we cannot be so simple as they say the African Dabath is who is so charmed with Musick sweetly sounding in his Ears that he the whiles suffers his feet to be fettered DIATRIBE SECT IV. No pre-examination in the ancient Church save of Catechumeni Sending the Eucharist to Persons absent and Strangers The institution and abolishment of Confession Liberty to approach the Lords Table upon self-examination Whom the ancient Church excluded from the Eucharist The judgment of the Fathers Casuists and Schoolmen concerning those that are to be admitted and to be debarred To partake was anciently commanded as a common Duty The omission reprehended the common right asserted HAving now heard the Nightingale her self to sing perchance all will not be of Agesilaus his humour and refuse to hear any that imitate her voyce having therefore examined the Authorities of Scripture let us survay the judgment of the Fathers and practice of the Primitive Church which cannot but elucidate and confirm our sense and interpretation of Scripture for as Plato said Majores nostri propiores fuere progeniei deorum so the ancient Church stood neerer the light being neerer the Sunne of truth and his twelve signes which signified and shewed forth his Gospel and through which he moved round about the world In these Primitive Times I finde that mutual reconciliations and in the African Churches Vigils or watchings in Prayers and in Chrysostome's time Fastings and sometimes and in some places the publick renouncing of some particular Heresies were antecedent to the Synaxis but I meet with no Records of any command or example of previous probations as necessary save for Catechumen's The Eucharist was then often sent to persons absent Justin M. Euseb ex Iraeneo centur Magdeb. cent 2. p. 85. it was given to strangers coming to Rome as a pledge or Symbol of their Communion and consent in the same Faith where was no probability or surely no evidence of precedent probation When the Church that saw the benefit of publike Confessions for publick Offences redounded as well to the subduing of the stubborness of their hard hearts and the improving of their deeper humiliation as to their raising up again by those sensible comforts which they received by the publick prayers of the Church and use of the keyes some men reflecting hereupon and finding their own Consciences smarting for like offences which being secretly carried were not obnoxious to the censures of the Church to the end they might obtain the like consolation and quiet of minde did voluntarily submit themselves to the Churches discipline herein and underwent the burden of publick confession and penance And to the end this publication of secret offences might be performed in the best way and discreetest manner some prudent Minister was first acquainted therewith by whose direction the Delinquent might understand what sins were fit to be brought to the publike notice of the Church and in what manner the pennance was to be performed by them At first it was left free to the penitent to chuse his Ghostly Father but at length by general consent of the Bishops it was ordained that in every Church one discreet Minister should be appointed to receive Confessions untill at length in the time of Nectarius Bishop of Constantinople who dyed A.D. 401. upon occasion of the infamy drawn upon the Clergy by the confession of a Gentlewoman Socrates hist l. 5. c. 19. p. 349. defiled by a Deacon in that City it was thought fit it should be abolished and liberty should be given to every man upon the private examination of his own conscience to resort to the Holy Communion which doubtless occasioned Chrysostome the Successor of Nectarius to make those deliveries of himself which have been formerly mentioned The result of those premises is this That the ancient Church sometime thought it requisite that confession of sinnes should precede the Communion which at length also was laid aside but without any other examination verbal or real of all Communicants But seeing Faith and Repentance are as necessary as knowledge to worthy receiving and as principal a part of that whereof every one ought to make examination of himself or others are to make of him I wish it might be advisedly perpended whether there be not as great reason to have auricular confession in some rectified and qualified manner and to impose it as necessary in order to the communion as to introduce their particular examination as a duty so necessary especially since the Lutherans assert and practise it upon Homogeneal or like principles as preparatory and antecedent to the Sacrament contra 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nonnullorum Calvinianorum Baldwin
sine causis sciendi nor sets up a mark for blinde men to shoot at but the Directory for admission is that which we may well reade and make easie judgment thereby viz. Church-membership with a dogmatical faith and therefore we may perceive that any other voyage will be with hurt and much damage when neither Sun nor Stars do appear from above nor can we frame to keep any compass below whereby to steer our course and being exceedingly tossed with such a tempest the onely way is to lighten the ship of this load DIATRIBE SECT V. By a free communion there is no Damnum emergens by pollution of the Ordinances Minister or Communicants the visible Church is aggregated of good and evil It is Schism to renounce communion of Sacraments with evil men not duly censured the Administration not to be intermitted because all are not sufficiently prepared or those that are unworthy may partake The Similitudes defeated of giving a Cup of poysoned Wine onely with admonition of giving a Legacy to scholars of such a capacity and parts which the Trustees cannot otherwise distribute of being guilty of the sins we hinder not the weak to be encouraged and promoved by admission As much danger by mixt communion in the Word and Prayer as in the Sacrament The Reasons pretended to debarre from the one as argumentative to exclude from the other Matth. 7.6 examined whether the receiving the Sacrament be a duty enjoyned to all and a good work in all Whether it be a converting Ordinance What the Sacraments seat and how Whether they conferre grace The same evil effects ensue by male-administration of Discipline as by a free communion and the same Reason which forbid separation in the one doth also in the other case CLemens Alexandrinus magnifies it in Socrates that he hearkened unto none but Reason and Plutarch tells us Idem est deum rationem sequi suitable to that Stoical Principle well illustrated by Perseus Ni tibi concessii ratio digitum exere peccas which is very true being understood of reason rectified by and subordinate to holy Scripture Having therefore pondered the authorities of Sacred Writ and propended the testimonies of the ancient Church let us try on which side the weight of reason will incline the Beam in this controversie There is no Damnum emergens in admitting to and there is Lucrum cessans in rejecting from the Sacrament any that profess the faith of Christ though but formally and are not openly wicked and scandalous to the manifest belying of their profession what then should rationally impede and obstruct their admission or promove and imperate the rejecting of them whom it obligeth in duty to come and in no mans duty is it written down to repell them or separate from them There is no emergent mischief or inconvenience by their receiving either in respect of the Sacrament quod others cum quibus the Minister à quo or themselves qui the Sacrament is not defiled by their partaking no more is it by being preach'd unto faithless people and that is no more than our Lord Christ was by the kiss of Judas or an Angel by descending upon earth into some unclean place Those that communicate with them are not polluted more than the sons of God were by Satans coming among them to present himself before the Lord nor thereby defrauded of the fruit and efficacy of the Sacrament more than the rest of the Guests were deprived of the Feast by the sitting down of one that had no wedding garment God doth not binde us to set up an Inquisition into other mens consciences Contra literas Petil. tom 7. p. 26. Nemo curiosus qui non malevolus nor can their hypocrisie or cold formal profession hurt any beside themselves Tale cuique sacrificium fieri saith Augustine qualis accedit ut offerat qualis accedit ut sumat ità si offerat deo malus accipiat inde bonus tale cuique esse qualis ipse fuerit quia illud scriptum est omnia munda mundis To God saith a learned man they seem such as they are Hooker Eccles Polit. l. 5. sect â—8 p. 370. but of us they must be taken for such as they seem in the eye of God they are against Christ that are not truly and sincerely with him in our eyes they must be received as with Christ that are not in outward shew against him Multi corriguntur ut Petrus multi tolerantur ut Judas multi nesciuntur donec c. Many are amended as Peter many are tolerated as Judas many are not known untill the Lord come who shall enlighten the hidden things of darkness and manifest the counsels of all hearts De poenitent medicina tom 9. p. 210. homil 50. tom 18. p 115. Ad mysteriorum divinorum signacula celebranda multi mali c. To the celebrating of the Seals of divine mysteries many wicked men also may have access for God in this life commendeth his patience that in the next he may shew forth his severity saith St. Augustine Christ would be baptized with the promiscuous multitude and with the same Baptism wherewith the Scribes and Pharises were baptized to confute saith acute Spanheym those Dub. Evang. part 3. p. 153. who in imitation of the Catharists and Anabaptists come not to the Lords Supper if it be administred to such as are in their opinion flagitious what prejudice or pollution or reproof from the Apostle reflected upon the Corinthians that were worthy receivers for the concurrence and communion of those that came unworthily who onely did eat and drink damnation to themselves not to others but when he said He eateth judgment to himself he sufficiently sheweth saith Augustine that he eateth not judgment to another but to himself because the fellowship with evil men defileth not in the participation of the Sacraments but in the communion of works The Master of the Feast said to him that had no wedding garment Friend how comest thou in hither Not Friends why come you in which such a guest Neither were they for his sake commanded or permitted to forsake the Wedding our teeth shall not be set on edg with the sowre grapes that others eat every one lives by his proper righteousness In Ezek. 18. not anothers and dies for his own sins not another mans saith Origen Quibus mali placeant in unitate ipse communicant malis quibus autem c. Those to whom evil men are pleasing in unity they communicate with evil men but those whom they displease who cannot amend them nor before the time of Harvest dare to root up the Tares lest the Corn be also eradicated they communicate not with their actions but with the altar of Christ so that not onely they are not polluted by them but by the Word of God they deserve to be commended and magnified because lest the Name of Christ be blasphemed through horrible Schisms Contra Donat.
reflection it is that they deny that those humane lawes doe properly bind the conscience which obliege not in respect of the matter thereof because they bind not primò per se sed secundariò atque mediatè per accidens ab ordinatione Dci not in their proper nature but in another viz. that principle Let every soul be subject c. Fifthly this is an itinerant Topick and a common argument and may be imprest to serve me against them and will muster among my Forces who am as certain to have made it evident that their way is not decent nor orderly as they are confident to have proved it to be so Eccles l. 3. c 4. And if order be as Iunius out of Augustine Per quem aguntur omnia quae constituit Deus and the rules directions which now or at other times had or should be given by the Apostle and the Rule of Decency be the custome of the Church as Dr. Hammond noteth not the singularities or innovations of privat or particular men then we are yet to seek of any such rule or direction of Scripture and by no search can we find that the Churches of God had any such custome Sixthly if they had evidenced their way to be decent and orderly yet that could onely rise to justifie it selfe not reach to condemn another it might warrant the setting up thereof not condemn the pulling down of all beside another way might be as orderly and decent as that for these have some latitude and consist not in a point though unum verum convertuntur yet one and orderly or decent are not so convertible In locum and Ordo Ecclesiasticus aliis atque aliis locis non modo diversus sod saepe contrarius ad aedificationem facere potest saith Paraeus Every lawfull or good thingis not by and by necessary as was before recited out of Camero qui salubres cibi sunt non continuò necessarii there is no necessity incumbent on any man to eate all or any one determinate meat that is wholsome especially when he hath no stomack to it or is already satisfied with it Seventhly when this text was produced by the Episcopall party to warrant some ceremonies I know who denyed the argument T.C. and asked why we should hang our judgment upon the Churches sleeve and why in matters of Order more than in matters of Doctrine But however this be a rule by which things belonging to the policy of the Church are to be regulated in Discipline and Rites and things indifferent not specially determined by Scripture yet the matters that fall under such regulation bind not the conscience of themselves and with such constitutions God is not worshipped saith Paraeus In locum ibid. and they are left free and alterable to the will and pleasure of the Church to constitute or abrogate and that also which this power determines is not de re aut substantiâ sed rei externa precuratione Camero de verbo Dei p. 463. Contr. 4. de Eccles q. 7. tom 2. p. 715. and the determination binds only quia oportet unumquemque stude epaci and they are to be observed non ut his conscientia implicetur nisi propter scandalum contemptum legitimae authoritatis alià s res ipsas esse medii generis as Whitaker affirmeth And therfore though they bravingly avow That this text well managed will justifie against all the world such courses as have an excellent and holy use in the Church which use that their course hath is a principle that needs no proof for want of better managery that which they have setcht to fight for them doth convert its arms against them and surrenders up that strength which they set it to keep for now their Discipline which they held out for the expresse will of God so great a part of the kingdom of Christ and so essential and necessary to reformation and for the introducing of this their order have put the Church so much out of order is yet become onely a matter of Decency and Order which owes its spring to the Churches will and may take its fall at her pleasure sic transit gloria mundi And thus like the Dolphins in an eager pursuit of their prey they dash themselves upon the râ—cks They conceive and say it is confessed That it were a glorious and comfortable thing if none but holy persons did draw neer to this holy table and they assume A general Rule will bear up a glorious and comfortable practice in the Church And if that be the Proposition and this the Assumption what I beseech you is like to be or what is likely they intend should be the conclusion which among so many terms we can upon no terms make out This may be some of Chrysippus his Logick which the Gods would have used but men were too dull to understand the use thereof If they intend that a glorious and comfortable practice will be born up by this command to do all things decently and in order I suppose it would be better supported by its proper strength formally as it is a glorious and comfortable practice more than as decent and orderly but then what is this practice viz. that onely holy persons draw near the holy table Be it so let that be a glorious and comfortable practice as they can take no glory so neither can we any comsort if they should thence infer therefore they may debarre from coming all those of whose holinesse they are not convinced We have elsewhere shewed they are severall questions and of sundry latitudes who should come and who ought to be admitted none may be excluded but for crimes notorious but it is enough that they are not scandalous to make them capable to be received And I hope we have sufficiently demonstrated that al that having a Dogmatical faith are members of the Church which is Christs family have a right to eat at his Table and common sense will shew that those that are not cut off from Ecclesiasticall communion cannot be kept off from the main part thereof communion in Sacraments If then none but holy persons shall draw to the holy table all Church members must be holy really I mean for relatively they are so but all the whole visible Church collectively shall be sincerely holy when any the parts thereof distributively are perfectly holy and that shall be onely when we come to eat and drink at his table in his Kingdome An holy and blameless Church without spot or wrinkle is indeed glorious but it is gloriae patriae non viae a glory reserved for the triumph not bestowed during the warfare and it is now so glorious onely in the hope it shall be here her falrness is but comparative among Women in respect of the rest of the world inter animas terrenas non autem inter evangelicas beatitudines saith Bernard The subject matter therefore of glory and comfort beares
COENA quasi ΚΟΙÎΗ The New-INCLOSVRES broken down AND THE LORDS SUPPER Laid forth in common for all Church-members having a Dogmatical Faith and not being Scandalous In a Diatribe and Defence thereof AGAINST The Apology of some Ministers and Godly People as their owne Mouth praiseth them asserting the lawfulness of their administring the LORDS SUPPER in a select Company Lately set forth by their Prolocutor Mr. HUMPHREY SAUNDERS Written by WILLIAM MORICE of Werrington in DEVON Esq LONDON Printed by W. Godbid for Richard Thrale and are to be sold at the Cross-Keyes at Paul's gate entring into Cheap-side M. DC LVII Augustin in Psal 48. Concio 1. Tom. 8. Pag. 93. EXigitur a manducante quod manducat non prohibeatur à dispensatore sed moveatur timere exactorem Chrysostom in 1. ad Cor. 11. Hom. 27. Tom. 4. Pag. 110. Quoniam Dominica coena hoc est Domini debet esse communis quaeenim Domini sunt non sunt hujus servi aut alterius sed omnibus communia quod enim Dominicum est idem commune nam si Domini tui est quemadmodum est non debes tanquam propria tibi assumere sed tanquam res Domini communiter omnibus proponere siquidem hoc est Dominicum nunc autem non sinis esse Dominicum cum non sinis esse commune sed tibi comedis Bullinger adversus Anabaptist l. 6. c. 9. p. 229. 232. Probationem Ministri aut Ecclesiae judicio non relinquimus ut tum demum aliquis ad coenam Domini accedat cum Ministri vel Ecclesia satis dignum fidelem sanctum judicaverit Probet homo seipsum non debet ab alio probari Musculus in 1 Cor. 11.28 Pag. 438 439. Apparet necessarium utile esse eorum studium qui neminem ad coenam Domini admittant quem ipsi antea non probaverunt si modus discretio adhibeatur nec velut universali lege indiscriminatim omnes etiam qui inculpate se gerunt in Ecclesia ad hujusmodi examen constringantur verum juxta timendum est ne institutum hoc quà m nunc magni aestimatur tam olim in priscam servitutem Ecclesiam Christi reducat noxium reddatur Sane Apostolica institutio nihil hujus requirit sed hortatur unumquemque ut seipsum probet sed quid si Minister Ecclesiae hac Apostoli sententia nolit esse contentus nec admittat nisiquos ipse explorat item quid si fidelis ad panis tantum non poculi Dominici communicationem admittatur sicut in Papatu fieri videmus Respondeo ubi nec Domini ea institutio nec Apostolica Doctrina servatur ibi non est ut communicet fidelis sinat Magistratus illos regnare in Ecclesia donec visum fuerit Domino modum imponere illorum Dominio Chamier Panstrat Tom. 4. l. 7. c. 19. S. 17. Pag. 196. Non sunt digne praeparati Scelus hominis cur indignos Sacramento dicis quos indignos negas pace Ecclesiae Itane tibi videatur qui censeantur in corpore Christi ut indignos pronuncies qui vescantur Christo at Chrysostomus negabat dignos esse qui vel precibus interessent quodnam quaeso ingenium tuum est Chrysostomi certe Catholicum vide ne tuum non Christianum Casaubon exercit ad annal Baron exercit 16. S. 31. Pag. 366. Coena Domini privatae epulae non sunt natura sua sed publica fidelium omnium invitatio The Summe of the Dissertation DIATRIBE SECT I. OF Antiquity and Innovation the Character of their Discipline the state of the question p. 29. DEFENCE SECT I. What Authority the Diatribe ascribed to the Fathers and ancient Church Why the Apologists derogate from them p. 32. SECT II. Of Antiquity Custome sad consequences of Independency the novelty thereof the Fathers not without errors yet not to be sleighted What may be called the Primitive Church Protestants alwayes honoured their Fathers and never declined their Testimony p. 33. SECT III. How the Apologists have suited their Discipline to comply with several-Parties and Interests the odious Blots of their Pen. p. 42. SECT IV. Whether the Diatribe were guilty of Petitio Principii 44. SECT V. Whether their Discipline advance Godlinesse The Sacraments are Seales of the Conditionall Covenant which Doctrine hath no affinity with semi-Pelagianisme Whether the exhibiting the Sacrament make men Saints Whether the giving thereof without discrimination upon tryal blind men in their sins or be the setting of the Seal to Blanks Whether the Sacraments are privileges of the Godly 1 Cor. 10. argumentative for a free Communion 46. SECT VI. Independent Bookes and Arguments Of Rhetorique what Builders the Apologists are 62. SECT VII The Apologists causlesly irritated by an Allegory 67. SECT VIII In whom the School vesteth the Power of Church-Censures Whether the Apologists may de jure or do de facto censure alone How they have restored the Sacrament 68. SECT IX The state of the Question the model of their Church Whether their way smack of Donatus his schisme Ecclesiastical Communion consists principally in Communion of Sacraments Of Examination precedent to the partaking of the Eucharist Whether and how necessary What knowledge may be competent What profession of Faith the antient Church required before admission to Sacraments Of Excommunication Suspension Presbytery the Apologists no friends thereunto 71. DIATRIBE SECT II. The Lord Jesus examined not his Disciples antecedently to his Supper He admitted Judas to the participation as the Fathers consentiently assert and the Scripture evinceth Luke 22.21 Joh. 13.2.26 27 30. discussed 96. DEFENCE SECT X. How we know Christ examined not the Apostles The force of Arguments from the Authority negative of Scripture Of the washing of the Apostles feet VVhether any did partake the last Supper save the 12. Apostles The Apologists conceit of the 70. Disciples Of Confession of Faith how and when necessary Examination is a virtual and interpretative diffamation VVhether it be a small thing they require VVhether Examination if it be necessary ought to be made but once 111. SECT XI Judas did communicate at the Lords Supper What is thereby inferred The Attestation of the Fathers in that matter the consent of later Divines The weight of the testimonies on either side the Apologists confess there was no visible cause to exclude him VVhether Christ in admitting him acted onely as a man His not condemning the adulterous woman 122. DIATRIBE SECT III. The sufficiency of Scripture whereupon Negative Arguments are grounded the Argument deduced from 1 Cor. 11.28 it is difficult and unsafe to judge of other mens estate Of temerarious judgment Of judging men to be wicked or irregenerate With what difficulty and what a Pedegree of consequences their proofs are derived from Scripture Generall Rules for satisfaction of doubting Consciences perswade the contrary to their way Of Christs admitting onely Disciples Heb. 13.17 Mat. 18.16 Rev. 2.2 1 Pet. 3.15 1 Cor. 5.11 explained and vindicated 134. DEFENCE SECT 12. 1
for the constitution and exercise thereof as may suit with order and decency and conduce to edification in godliness and advance of truth and peace so my tractable will is ready to embrace and submit to any that shall not check with these rules nor retrench those ends as to me Independency seems apparently to do but which else shall be to those ends most subservien I suppose may be aptly demonstrated ex posteriori and not obscurely determined by Time the Mother of Truth and Experience the Mistress of Wisdome rather than in an unhappy contest about setting on such or such a garment on the Church to tear her flesh and scatter her limbes and in a difference about making the hedge to burn up or devast the field And as Discipline seems but as the Garment of the Church so Joseph may be his Fathers darling and yet have a party-coloured coat Epist 86. Tom. 2. p. 76. In ista veste varietas sit scissura non sit saith St. Augustine and elsewhere in the like case Omnis pulchritudo filiae regis intrinsecus illae autem observationes quae variae celebrantur in ejus veste intelliguntur unde ibi dicitur in fimbriis aureis circumamicta varietate sed ea quoque vestis ita diversis celebrationibus varietur ut non adversis contentionibus dissipetur To think to hang the whole frame of a Government upon two or three words onely in Scripture as Curio did the people of Rome upon one hook in his Amphitheater and which may as rationally be understood of and as properly applyed to another subject matter and persons as those which they expound it of and which would hardly ever be so interpreted but by a judgment seasoned with their infusions and predisposed by their glosses or facilitated by proper affection to beleeve what they would have to be Truly I cannot but wonder with Cato that one Soothsayer doth not laugh when he meets another A wise and learned man tells us Sir W. Raleigh that Ignorance hath set Philosophy Physick and Divinity in a Pillory and written over the first Contra negantem principia over the second Virtus specifica over the third Ecclesia Romana to which we may adde the fourth though set there more by Interest and Faction than Ignorance even Discipline and superscribe Jure Divino I am not of that Elevation nor my judgment at that Ascendent that either should be worth the notice Et melius fuerat non scribere namque tacere Tuum semper erit and therefore the Greek Epâ—gran called Silence Pharmacum tranquillitatis fortissimum And perchance the not carrying of a stone in my mouth like the Cranes flying over the Cilician Mountains to prevent their cacklings may draw many about my ears for to deliver my self in such an opinion is to set Athanasius against the whole World and the whole World against Athanasius but because Momus would have every one to have a window in his brest and the importunity of the Apologists hath coacted me to manifest that I hold no opinion which I dare not own and as that Romane professed of his house I could be content my bosome were patent to every man I have therefore adventured to deliver my judgment as one that am peaceable and faithful in Israel And though Ursius Crispus found more of safety when Ille igitur nunquam direxit brachia contra Torrentem Yet he should have had more honour and conscience had he been Civis qui libera posset Verba animi proferre vitam impendere vero But yet I do not know why I should not claim my share of that rara temporum felicitas as Tacitus calls it and wherein our age exceeds that of Nerva Ubi sentire quae velis quae sentias loqui licet But Quis coelum terris non misceat mare coelo In tabulas Syllae cùm dicant discipuli tres Who can patiently hear the Apologists traduce others as averse from Presbytery when that disaffection lies in their own Wallet More vulgi suum quisque Contra Ruffin l. 3. flagitium aliis objectantes as Tacitus in the case of Vedeius Aquila yet forgetting that caution of Hierom Caveas in alterum dicere quod in te statim detorqueri potest and what is their opinion of or affection to Presbytery make judgment as they did of Hercules by this foot-step they tell us that Mr. § 37 Jeanes hath his advantage upon his adversaries among whom it seems they rank themselves by this P. 170. that he holds them strictly to Presbyterian principles from which it appeares they would go loose whereas they think it safer to transgress a disputable principle of Presbytery so as it appears they are not convinced of the certainty of those principles which by being still disputable are onely problems and not principles than to offend against the light of the word Whence it follows that a man cannot keep close with Presbyterian principles without clashing with the Word and then also these principles are not disputable but undoubtedly and indisputably false and vitious if they cannot adhere to them without receding from the holy Scripture When they can wipe off and expiate these blots which their Pens have drop'd upon Presbytery and point out any as black and odious shed from mine let them mark others with a black coal or their black Ink for adversaries to that way in the interim Nonne igitur jure merito vitia ultima fictos Contemnunt Scauros castigata remordent Besides how little their model and course symbolizeth with the Presbyterian way he may reade that runs it over Rarely do the Presbyterians use Censures and on very few do they inflict them Who ever in any of those forrein Churches of that Discipline hath found the farre greatest part of their people under suspension or any suspended but upon regular process for the scandal of some notorious evil obstinately continued in after admonition Because they turn aside from this way we walk not with them who should easily be at agreement did their way agree with the Presbyterian DIATRIBE SECT II The Lord Jesus examined not his Disciples antecedently to his Supper He admitted Judas to the participation as the Fathers consentiently assert and the Scripture evinceth Luk. 22.21 Joh. 13.2 26 27 30. discussed IT is St. Basils conclusion extracted from the Exordium of Moses and St. John In the Beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to begin at the beginning In quavis institutione quod primum est praecipuum Et primum in uno quoque genere est regula mensura reliquorum Consentaniously St. Paul makes Christs first institution the pattern of all subsequent administrations as being perfect and exact in all Essentials He received of the Lord what he delivered and he disclaims all additionals but now our Lord Christ when he first instituted this Sacrament made no previous examination of his Disciples before he administred it to them he
shewed them the nature use and ends thereof and he washed their feet an Emblem of the preparative cleansing by Faith and Repentance and purifying of the affections Usus allegoriâ ex communi hominum usu desumptâ qui in balneis aut quovis lavacro corporaliter sunt jam recèns loâ—i caetera quidem mundi sunt attamen quidem necesse habent abluere pedes quos contactu terrae quotidie inquinant etiam cùm primùm balneo egrediuntur aut etiam cùm adhuc in illo nudis ambulant pedibus Jansenius harm c. 130. p. 140. In locum Idem Grotius to which Protasis of Jansenius St. Augustine addes the Antapodosis Homo quidem in sancto baptismo totus abluitur verùm tamen cùm in rebus humanis posteà vivitur utique terra calcatur ipsi igitur humani affectus sine quibus in hac mortalitate non vivitur quasipedes sunt ubi ex humanis rebus afficimur but to enable the discharge of this duty of purifying a general instruction and exhortation on the Ministers part is proportionable without a particular examination as is here verified and sufficiently warranted by the practice of our Saviour If any shall answer that the Apostles were enrich'd with an extraordinary talent of knowledge and sanctity which frustrated and prevented the necessity of probation I shall reply First that it is evident by sundry passages of Scripture 1 Cor. 15.17 as is evident by Joh. 20.9 and knew nothing of his death Luk. 9.44 45. that they were then somewhat ignorant yea even of the resurrection of Christ without which all Faith is vain which doth not so much disparage them as magnifie the powerful inspirations of that holy Spirit which so soon after and so abundantly endued them with knowledge as well as power from on high that Leo might have said Quà m plenè as well as quà m citò discitur quod docetur ubi Deus magister est But secondly if the Apostles needed not to be examined because the sufficiency of their knowledge and holiness could not be doubted then by a proportionable accommodation of reason neither ought such now to be whose competency of knowledge cannot well be suspected nor lives reproved for notorious crimes which is the issue we plead for Thirdly they were clean but not all and if Christ admitted Judas to the Communion of his last Supper with the rest of the Apostles who though he might look with a face of Religion toward the other Disciples yet Christ whose eye pierced into his heart beholding him under the true notion of an hypocrite and without hope of repentance and yet admitting him together with the rest without any satisfactory signs of holiness which Judas could not give and Christ needed not to make re-search of but onely as being at that time no sinner notorious I should gladly learn by what authority and precedent any that profess the Faith and are innocent of notorious and scandalous sinnes which may check with their profession can be rejected and by what means the unworthiness of some receivers can be so spreading or diffusive as to reflect guilt on him that administers or pollution on the Ordinance or prejudice on others that partake in the Communion since the unworthiness of Judas could have no such influence And because the weight of this precedent will sway very much to the turning of the Scales in this controversie and the Fathers in their contests with the Donatists made so much use thereof upon the like occasion I shall prompt my self with an hope that it may quit the cost of time which is the price of discourses as well as business to inlarge in a copious discussion of this question Whether Judas did partake of the last Supper of our Lord wherein our Antagonists are eager and very much ingaged to maintain the Negative But that our Saviour admitted Judas to such participation is the consonancy of the Fathers Veteres ingentia nomina Patres None of them that are majorum gentium that I know have contradicted it besides Hilary I am conscious that a learned man hath mustered up some ancient names which he would impress to fight for the contrary But either his Witnesses are not such as he pretends or their testimonies not so as he suggests For first Ammonius Alexandrinus though he first repeat the story of Judas his receiving the Sop and going forth immediatly thereupon and afterward rehearse the Institution and Distribution of the Sacrament yet it follows not that therefore Judas did not communicate for the Author that cites this testimony doth much insist upon this as a principle That things are not always acted in the same order wherein they are recited and besides I hope to verifie it that Judas his receiving of the Sop and immediate going forth hath no such influence upon this question as to evince that which they suggest which are for the Negative Dionysius ancient though counterfeit doth not assert that which is pretended for when he saith In which Supper that is the Lords as the Alleager tells us a little before the Author of those Symbols doth justly deprive or cast out Judas who had not holily with agreement of minde supped together with him on holy things We cannot upon his Ipse dixit assent that In which Supper must signifie before Supper and that by holy things can onely be meant the Paschal Supper and that Christs separating Judas from the society of the Apostles can be onely a separation corporal not spiritual or could be made at no time else but immediately before the Institution of the Sacrament But not onely Aquinas and Valentia Part. 3. q. 81. ar 2. part 3. d. 6. q. 9. p. 2. pag. 989. De Scriptura 9. 6. c. 12. p. 385. but the most learned Whitaker alleage Dionysius his authority for our opinion As for Maximus who was yet a Century short of the six hundred years within which the Learned impale the Fathers of more signal authority and Pachymeres who was a Youngling of the thirteenth Century and whom indeed Doctor Whitaker casts on that side yet neither of them do seem so cleerly to testifie that for which they are produced They both expresly say that Judas received the mystical bread and cup which could not be meant of the Passover for whatever they may say of the Bread yet the Cup there was not mystical being not essential to the Paschal Supper but occasional for they used it as a common drink with their meat neither by the mysteries which they say Christ gave to his Disciples alone after Judas was gone forth from Supper is it necessary to understand the Sacramental Elements for thereby they might understand the mysteries of the Kingdome of Heaven as they are called Matth. 13.11 and mysteries of the Faith as they are named 1 Tim. 3.5 more cleerly set forth in our Saviours Divine Sermons subsequent to his last Supper And though upon another account the former Author say That after the
thereunto yet I deny that it could not be so though done two or three days before hand The Jewes had their preparative before the Passeover and the Lamb was tyed as some think to the Bed-posts four days before that they might better remind the reason of the Institution and dispose themselves to the Celebration and our Saviour might also on like grounds some dayes before prepare his Disciples for the receiving of that Supper which he instituted in stead of the Passover Concerning the washing after Supper the learned man which denyed that Iudas did partake of the Passover pressed with this Argument tells us that for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some Greek Copies have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nonnius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but indeed Maldonat supposeth that Nonnius used that word onely because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would not stand in his verse and so the sense were as Augustine and so I know do others expounds it Supper being prepared and ready to be set upon the Table Of this else-where the same Author gives some instances and if this were so the Argument were evaded and the doubt assoiled for if the Washing were not after Supper then it was not peculiar to the Passover But indeed this plaister is too narrow to cover all the wound the Author took no notice of verse 14. where it is said he rose from Supper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as this washing could not precede it I therefore answer That this lotion being to an extraordinary end was not made in the usual manner and method and to shew it was not to mundifie and fit them in order to that present Supper according to the National Custome but to another end and for a mystery our Lord inverted the usual order and makes that subsequent which was commonly antecedent to Supper what ever the reason were melius est dubitare de occultis quà m litigare de incertis and here also not altogether unfitly may be applyed that of Gregory Qui in factis Dei rationem non videt infirmitatem suam considerans cur non videat rationem videt it is but a weak Hinge to hang such a consequence upon viz. The Iewes washed not after supper but at the Passover therefore it was at the Passover that Christ after supper washed his Disciples feet As if I should argue thus Because the Jews onely at the Feast of Tabernacles cut down and brought in boughs Tremel Annot in Iohan. 7. S. 2. and cryed Hosannah so as the boughs and days of the whole Feast were called Hosannah from the usual acclamations of the people when they carryed the boughs up and down therefore our Saviours triumphal entry into Hierusalem when they cut down boughs and cryed Hosannah was at the Feast of the Tabernacles which in truth was made but a few dayes before the Pasover which was always kept in Nisan whereas the Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated in Tisri six moneths after If any shall now after this tedious discourse interpose with Cassius Cui bone and tell me that howsoever it may be yeelded that Judas did partake of the Lords Supper yet this cannot conclude an admission of persons scandalous and openly flagitious since Judas his sinnes were then secret and uncensured I shall say that it is not of my concernment to answer the objection which may perhaps be pertinently obtruded to the Erastians but is excentrick to my motion and heterogeneal to the case I plead for who undertake not to be an Advocate for persons notoriously wicked and scandalous not asserting that those which are notorious for sinnes may not be rejected but that without tryed and approved notes of sanctity they may be admitted nor that men whose flagitiousness is publickly known may be repelled but none upon any private notice of their faults may be excluded And thus much will be inevitably concluded from the example of Judas his admission which was Hos quaesitum munus in usus DEFENCE SECT X. How we know Christ examined not the Apostles The force of Arguments from the Authority Negative of Scripture Of the washing of the Apostles feet Whether any did partake of the last Supper save the twelve Apostles The Apologists conceit of the seventy Disciples Of Confession of Faith how and when necessary Examination is a virtual and interpretative defamation Whether it be a small thing they require Whether Examination if it be necessary ought to be made but once THE initiation of this Section of theirs is like an initial Letter which is fairly flourish'd but signifies nothing viz. to the point in hand Our heat of pursuit after the main question will make us separate those Heterogeneals and taking no notice of their shoots at Rovers we shall onely gather up the Arrows which they have aimed at the mark They first ask us How know you that Christ did not examine his Disciples since the Evangelists tell us that all that Christ did was not written How know you that 1. Ad hominem § 12 I pray them to tell me how they know it for they say it and I trust they are men that know what they say Dicitque tibi tua pagina They tell us that St. Paul prescribed no other but self-examination to the Corinthians because he ey'd Christs performances with his Disciples whom he needed not to examine being known to him as therefore he that being roughly asked by one of King Ptolomies Courtiers Who let him into the Palace answered nothing but ran to the wall and with a Coal drew his Portraiture in black lines so we need make no other answer but draw forth their own lines to shew how we might have known this themselves very credible men in their own judgment told us so An ignorabas apud Lucullum coenare Lucullum The Argument of the Paper was built on this ground that the action of Christ in the first Institution of the Sacrament was the Archetypon and exemplar cause of all subsequent Administrations so that herein matter of fact being matter of Law and Rule as well what Christ did as what he did not being in some sort Dogmatical for we are thereby taught that it was not necessary to be done and then in Laws not to appear and not to be being equivolent Lex saith Gabriel Biel in 3. dist 37. q. vinc art 1. Est signum notificati nam quia nulla Lex obligat si notificata non fuerit therefore upon this Foundation this was our Architecture viz. What was not recorded to be done at the first Institution it is not necessary to doe in the following Dispensations this being a conclusion resulting from the former principles so as then to ask how we know that Christ did not examine his Disciples is virtually and in effect to demand how we know that all which Christ ordained as necessary to be done is recorded in Scripture and so to put us to prove the perfection of Divine Writ but they say the Evangelists tell
voce seu ex Scripto verbo divino congruenter quae fuerit Dei voluntas in institutione Sacramentorum concionatorum omnino verbum requiritur ut enim verbi Dei voluntas nullo verbo declarata nequit efficere ut in signi materia quidquam praeter eam materiam intueamur quae ipsa per se materiam signi vel Sacramenti non habet Ibid. S. 35. pag. 11. Instit l. 4. r. 14. S. 4. p. 472. In 5. ad Ephes Tom. 4. l. 1. c. 15. S. 9. p. 16. In Evang. Tom. 4. l. 3. c. 2. p. 75. Piscator in Matth. 26.26 p. 280 282. without accession to the Element of that word which was to be not onely constitutive of the Sacrament but also declaratory of the mysterious Rites and the thing represented and also promissory of the graces thereby exhibited For sine doctrinae copula attoniti undo aspectu sensus nostri redderentur saith Calvin and in another place Sola mysterii explicatio facit ut mortuum elementum incipiat esse Sacramentum for the elements and actions being no natural but instituted signs there must necessarily have been a concurrent Word to manifest the reason and end of the Institution and the things which they were instituted to signifie for Signa indeterminata ex se ad significandum determ nantur per verba quibus instituuntur as Chumier and correspondently Barradius tells us Cùm panem benedixit gratiásque patri egit animos discipulorum verbis praeparasse And to supersede any larger demonstration thereof a most logical and very learned Divine hath collected the definition including the nature use and end of the Sacrament out of the very words of Institution the Genus and the Difference taken from the various Arguments as not onely the adjuncts the matter not onely that of Bread and Wine but the matter of another kinde in breaking and pouring forth of them where consists part of the use the form viz. the relation of the Elements to the things signified and sealed by them in both which is very much of the Nature the Ends being four the representation of Christs death the testification of the fruit thereof the vivifying and consolation of the faithful and an excitement to Thanksgiving and so thus concludes his explication thereof Atque haec est doctrina simplex ac salutaris de coena domini ex ipsis v rbis institutionis deprompta ejusmodi certè ut fideles omnes meritò in ea acquiescere possint omissis quaestionibus aliis non necessariis c. And if we may acquiesce in the Doctrine of the Sacrament extracted from the words of Institution then the nature end and use of the Sacraments must be held forth in and may be collected from these words else we could not rest in the Doctrine contained therein But if the Apologists intend and it is onely charity which formally respecteth their good not justice which relates to our debt that must incline us so to understand them that the nature use and end of the Sacrament was not shewed by the washing of the Disciples feet it is like the Rainbow Thaumantis silia and very wonderful how any that hath common sense could impute that sense to me but it seems if they could not finde they would make somewhat which they could confute but they have therein onely done as if Antipheron should have charged fiercely upon his own phantasme Was there any colour that having said Christ shewed his Disciples the nature end and use of the Sacrament that I did infer or conclude it out of his washing of their seet As there was no causal or illative particle exprest that might insinuate that sense so a conjunctive particle onely was understood and to his shewing them the nature use and end out of the words of Institution I joyned also his teaching them the duty of preparation in order to the right use by the lotion of their feet with an implication likewise that this being specially recorded it was as likely that the particular pre-examination of them would in all probability have been as well recited had it preceded or been so necessary And yet neither did I relate that as my proper sense or that I supposed the washing to be directed as a type or emblem to that signification But 1. I reminded Potest aliquae interpretatio esse secundum quid hoc estjuxta analogiam fidei Scripturae si ei non repugnet quae tamen non sit vera simpliciter hoc est juxta genuinum sensum alicujus loci Paraeus in Gen. c. 1. v. 1. p. 30. Mede in 1 Cor. 10.3 4 5. Diatrib p. 598. that some of the ancient Fathers did so allegorically interpret and apply it and if their Interpretations be true secundùm quid though not simpliciter I am not very willing to check with them 2. Though the Fathers are of little reckoning and stand in the lowest place of account where these men dispose of the Counters yet farther I remembred it to be the sense of divers modern Theologues and among the rest of one higher by the head than the ordinary rank surmounting them Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi The washing saith he of the Disciples feet before Supper what doth it else call for but a cleansing of our hearts before we communicate And though I would not willingly erre with Plato and doe reckon Truth a greater friend yet I would not willingly quarrel with Plato when he crosseth not my way 3. I finding some thus to judge thereof who are of somewhat like judgment with the Apologists in this Controversie I took it up as an interpretation ad hominem non ad rem I alledge it ex hypothesi non thesi for as long as a Dog is not like to bite me what need I hold him by the ear and I thought perchance they would have given a more favourable reception thereunto for their friends sake since it falls out often what Stapleton adviseth to Olim quandoque in Ecclesia receptum fuit pedes lavare ante sacram Comnionem Durantus de Eccl. ritibus l. 2. c. 55. Sect. 10. p. 816. which sprung from this mystical consideration That men look rather who speaks than what is spoken and imitate the Athenians who approved that speech in one mans mouth which they liked not in anothers The truth is I have elsewhere contradicted this reference and shewed it not to be the mystical sense of Scripture but the artifice of the Interpreters and the application or dilatation of the proper sense and an allegory illate not innate and therefore Viderit utilitas Let them of whose interest it is to assert that allegorical sense endeavour to vindicate it if they can for my part I shall not feather Arrows to be shot against me and then be put to ward their stroaks here the Apologists and I shall easily concur and our lines meet in angles however elsewhere they runne parallels but though he washed their
read it with Gregory and Bede's Spectacles wherewith they saw things that had no existence or else met with it in the Gospel of the Hebrews the Acts of Paul and Tecla the Epistle to the Laodiceans or the Acts of St. John according to Cerinthus Here the Apostle mentions no tryal by others for two Reasons First because the Corinthians to whom he speakes were newly admitted to Church-fellowship by profession of their Faith and needed not to be called to this again but in our Church true discipline hath been neglected and many are unfit I have formerly superseded this answer and shewed the impertinency thereof and shall not actum agere onely since they know that we cannot swallow what they offer without chewing it they should have brought some proof that the Corinthians did make such a profession of their Faith as they require in order to admission to the Sacrament for we finde cause to doubt that there was no such discipline practised in the first times since when three thousand were baptized in one day and added to the Church we cannot imagine it facible that every one of them should make such an explicite verbal profession as they require and there could not sure be such an Evidence of the ability of all those Corinthians that they should be all taken to be such Disciples as they say are not to be examined but the profession of their Faith is sufficient But since the Corinthians were so ignorant not convinced of the Resurrection and so criminous as the Epistle chargeth them to be if yet upon self-examination the Apostle permits them to communicate that liberty cannot rationally be denyed to those who doubtless are not so culpable as they were The Precept Let a man examine himself is universal and catholique and why then should the permission to communicate upon self-examination be peculiar onely to those Corinthians at that time and so to separate what God by St. Paul hath joyned together To restrain and limit Divine Rules to particular times or persons without cogent circumstances sets open a desperate way to evade the force of Arguments deduced from Scripture and to betray or make breaches in the Fortress of Faith and though the Apologists to escape out of a presont strait 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to serve a turn take that way yet when they have soberly re-minded themselves they will finde this path leads to a precipice and that hence some may take the advantage and encouragement to tell them that Excommunication was onely a temporary discipline in joyned while the Church wanted a secular Magistrate If some in our Churches may be suspected to be unfit it may perchance be fit to bring them under tryal by examination but why paucorum crimen should be attended with paena in omnes and the unfitness of some should introduce a necessity of examining all I am not acute enough to discern the consequence 2. The Apostle here eys Christs performances with his Disciples whom he needed not to examine being known to him We are fully reconciled to this assertion that the Apostle reflected upon the actions of Christ as his pattern and delivered onely what he had received of the Lord but then it seems that neither in what he received nor what he delivered is any the least hint of any other save self-examination Cranmer Defence true and Cathol doct of Sacram p. 5. And then the Morning Star of our English Reformation having explicated what the Evangelists and St. Paul in this 1 Cor. 11. have left written of the Institution concludes That things spoken done by Christ and written by the Holy Evangelists and St. Paul ought to suffice the Faith of Christian people as touching the doctrine of the Lords Supper and Holy Communion or Sacrament of his body and blood as Cyprian had long before assured us that in sacrificio quod Christus obtulit non nisi Christus sequendus est so that we are safe enough if we beleeve and practice so much as either in the Evangelists describing Christs Institution of the Sacrament or St. Paul repeating and explaining it and directing to the right administration and due receiving thereof we finde to have been done or prescribed and we may hope sooner to finde pardon for not advancing beyond what we have their example or precept for than they can to obtain excuse for seeking to lead us farther If the Apostles needed not to be examined because known to Christ then without examination mens fitness may be manifested and such as are known need no farther tryal but if the Apologists would condescend to be as gently and familiarly conversant with their people as Christ was with his Disciples perhaps they might have as much knowledge of them also or infuse so much knowledge into them as to prevent and fore-stall examination Yet according to their model the Apostles howsoever ought to have made a publick profession of their Faith though they were not obnoxious to examination And if they tell us in earnest that for example sake those whose knowledge is elevated above suspicion yet ought to submit to examination I hope they will yeeld there had been far more reason for our Saviour whose practice was to be our pattern and whose example was to pass into a Law to have examined his Disciples though he actively or they passively needed it not yet because we needed it as a standing influential example since that being the first administration in that kinde was to be the rule measure of all to follow And surely it is not easily imaginable that where professedly the Institution is recorded by the Evangelists and repeated by the Apostle with directions for the fit reception of the Sacrament that there being the proper seat of such Doctrine there should be no one word of previous tryal and that it should else-where hang upon a long chain of consequences and by several distillations be extracted from such places of Scripture where is no mention at all of the Sacrament or any preparation thereunto The celebrious name of Zanchy is mentioned not to reflect light but to raise a cloud for they neither produce his words nor direct us where we may take view of them If none of these Reasons were of weight as they cannot but sense enough to distrust for sure they will not turn those very scales at Sedan which Capellus tells us would break with the four hundreth part of a grain yet why may not examination of Pastors and Church Officers stand with that of a mans self these being not contrary but subordinate and the Precept being not exclusive Let a man examine c They are so accustomed to ignoratio elenchi that it is passed into their nature we doe not say those two are so contrary as to be incompatible nor argue that because one is injoyned the other is excluded but we reason thus that the liberty of communicating onely upon self-examination granted by St. Paul so let him eat cannot
concernment can it hâ—ld with duty to take Physick enforced upon them when they are not sick and to receive a Salve that is proper for another sore that which may be a wholesome medicine for curing a disease in one may cause it in another this may be a proper recipe for an ignorant person but renders a man of knowledge interpretatively ignorant like as Myrth stops a bleeding vein makes a sound to bleed and Trifolium laid to a wound made by a Viper heals it but put to whole flesh causeth the same pain that the stinging of a Viper doth What obligation of duty can it have to give proof of that which cannot be doubted to satisfie those that are already convinced and to translate the Stage into the Church making some Histrionically to personate that which they are not and a knowing man to play the part of an ignorant only for a shew and in a kind of pageant And the Marcionites who used to give Baptisme to men after they were dead that had not received it in their life and set one under the bed to answer interrogatories for him might have defended their pageant which Chrysostom and Epiphanius so deride with this specious pretence that it served to set forth the necessity of Baptisme in respect of the Precept and to excite others that were alive to partake it as well as the Catechizing of men grounded in and approved for knowledge is here supported by this counterfeit colour that it conduceth to supple others that may need to undergo this tryal They cannot by overmuch Charity be prodigal of Church Priviledges and therein of Christs blood Aquinas 22. q. 119. art 3. I shall not remember them that it is determined not only in the Ethicks but in the School that the Covetous man is more deteriorate than the prodigal and that upon this score of reason because prodigality is beneficial to many and more approximate to liberality a more plausible and endearing habit and more easily to be rectified though these circumstances perchance might not ineptly be applyed to this case but I shall first deny that there is any inordination of giving beyond the measure of reason to whom and for what and as it ought not for time place or manner which carries the definition of prodigality when the Sacrament is exhibited to those that are not cast out for notorious wickedness but is rather an act of justice as it respects their debt and of charity as it regards anothers good and to prove this this whole discourse is a medium 2. It seems then that Baptisme is no Church privilege Dr. Morton Cathol appeal for Protest l. 2. c. 22. sect 15. p. 108. and that Ambrose affirming that in Baptisme there is the invisible blood of Christ and Augustine saying that every one Baptised before he eat of the Bread of the Eucharist is notwithstanding by vertue of Baptisme partaker of the body and blood of Christ were both grosly mistaken though our Divines have alleaged those testimonies against the Papists to shew the Fathers spake the same of the Sacramental Element of Water which they did of those Bread and Wine Or else in Baptizing all the Infants of their Congregations they have a commission to be prodigal only of such Church privileges and of Christs blood also in such manner as they shall think fit and expedient and as it shall be subservient to their ends and interests 3. Not to insist on here what hath been considered elsewhere how farre the partaking of the word and prayers is a Church-privilege yet the blood of Christ is as well held forth and offered to us in the word preached as in those visible and tangible words the Sacrament and we drink the blood of Christ when we hear his word as Origen expresseth it it is the same thing in both though in a different manner as hath been formerly demonstrated Paul was jealous and afraid Diodat Annot. in utrumque locum In locum Ardenter vos in Deum depereo Menoc annot in loc yet not uncharitable Paul had indeed a jealous care of the Corinthians 2 Cor. 11.2 but it was not so much a distrust as a desire to keep them in union with Christ Ambio vos Dei zelotypia metaphora à zelo parauymphi pro gloria sponsi salute sponsae saith Piscator non patier aemulos pseudo-apostolos qui vos quasi virginem meam ambiunt as A Lapide and consonantly Aquinas and Estius and Ostendit saith Calvin cur desipiat gloriando nam hominem zelotypia quasi transversum rapit and he was afraid of the Galatians Gal. 4.11 for declarat pro iis suam solicitudinem saith Estius and solicitudo is onely rationabile sludium ad aliquid consequendum but let it be properly fear which is any expectation of an impendent evill or ex imaginatione futuri mali corruptivi 〈◊〉 dolorem inserentis perturbatio quadam ac dolor there was evident ground and cause sufficient for such a fear and we do not dream that a just fear cannot be compatible with charity but nevertheless that fear did onely move to an admonition or reproof and there did rest it did not transport him to divine of their estate and suspend them from the Sacrament we impugne not all doubtings or suspitions of others if the signes from whence they result be not light nay we have conceived that in order to cautell or admonition for avoiding a detriment or applying a remedy even doubtful things may be interpreted in the worst part Silvius in 22. q. 60. art 4. p. 317. not definitively judgeing another to be ill but suppositively fearing he may be such and demeaning themselves externally in these respects as if he were such for such acts neither are nor include a judgement of another as evill but involve onely a judgement that they ought to be cauâ—ious and wary and tender of them but we only limit prescribe them to abstain from what may be defamatory and poenall for else they will goe farther than the Apostles example or any line of Scripture will reach or extend unto What they say of the Angel of the Church of Ephesus his trying some we have elswhere made triall of and shewed it can be no Angel tutclar for them or their course Charity they say is not blind but sure it is so dul-sighted in nothing as in prying into and censuring other mens faults and especially their state and condition it hath eyes clear from all vitiating humors which receive the species according to their tinctures and dispositions it hath no close nor contracted pupill whereby according to the Opticks mens faults seem bigger than they are but large and dilated whereby they rather appear less and is contrariwise affected toward their graces They are not bound to hope contrary to their knowledge and experience then it seems they have broken the bands in sunder that Charity laid on them for it is the property and Eulogy thereof to
But yet as it is called power 2. Cor. 13.10 so they that carry and exercise it however considered in themselves and in their manner of acting which respects their persons they are ministers yea servants of all yet considered as delegates of Christ bringing and executing his Command they act with authority as Ames distinguisheth A power therefore it is yet nevertheless the sword must not be the bound of their power as it was sald to be of the dominion of Sparta nor is it to be extended as farre as they have strength to carry it but rather as Pompey said to be terminated by justice and not to make that Law which is of the advantage of Sparta and that honest which is profitable Iunius in Bell. cont l. 3. tom 2. p. 497. their power is as Junius Legatiouis non imperii nam domini non servi imperium est mandatoris non mandatarii et Legatus exhibebit literas legationis suae ad hoc ut credatur ipsi it is no Dictatoria potestas neither Praetoria that hath power jus dare but onely dicere being restrained to the prescript of divine Lawes Ubi supra Sect. 28 29. and they to be onely praecones et interpretes and not imperare aut dominari ne in spiritualibus sed docere monere hortari obsecrare minari terrere as Paraeus They say They are Stewards in Christs house and we wish they would remind themselves to be so for a Steward hath no dominion in the house Non veluti Dominus res tractat sed veluti aliena et herilia dispensat non sua esse dicens quae sum heri sed è diverso quae sua sunt heri esse as Theophylact takes the hint from Chrysostom he may not smite his fellow servants and shut them out at doors at pleasure he must give their meat to those of the houshold not keep them hungry to draw dependancies upon himself by dispensing it onely to such as can evidence and merit his good opinion this is not fidelis dispensatio sed crudelis dissipatio this cannot be compatible with that faithfulness to the peoples right which they speak of and as little is it subservient to the dignity of the Sacrament an argument borrowed from the Popish School who blanch their private Masses and maimed Communion with regard to the reverence of the Mysteries The dignity of the Sacrament is not as the Abyssiue Princes supposed of themselves to be shut up from the people major è longinquo Majestati reverentia it consists in the use thereof to those ends it was instituted to be Communem caenam et communem mensam et communes mensas as I have brought forth the verdict of the Ancients and it hath the more honour by being accknowledged by a greater multitude reforting to it to be a divine institution which it is their duty to attend upon the partaking of and to be a moral instrument of gracious effects And as the honour of the King is in the multitude of his people so Christ the King of Glory is more honoured when so numerous assemblies acceding to the Sacrament do thereby witness their faith in the death of Christ which is there represented and as God gave unto his Son the Nations for his inheritance as Augustine tells the Donatists so it his Glory that his Church is Catholique as well as holy and is signal for the extent as well as the purity and that all that have entred themselves into his houshold shall be fed at his table In Mark 9.40 while they remain in the house and that it shall be onely their proper fault if they do him not faithful service Did they impose any thing not commanded of God or act Bishop-like in a sole Iurisdiction they confess they could not avoid this blame And then first I doubt Manet indelebile crimen For as for any authority from God though they have framed and brought forth a draught Grant and Conveyance yet whether it have the Testo of the Court of Heaven and be signed and sealed by the Spirit speaking in Scripture is that which is in issue betweeen us and after our traverse and pleading let the godly and learned give their verdict What their Scripture-evidence is we shall farther examine in due place and make experiment Whether or no perverso corde scripturas non eas faciunt obesse nobis sed sibi as Augustine to Parmenian and if or not remanet iis nisi sola infirmitas animositatis quae tanto languidior est quanto se majores vires habere aestimat We know that sometime the clouds seem formed according to mens imaginations and the Organ makes the species sometime affection makes promptly credible that which agrees and suits therewith Quicquid amatur imposturam facit sometime wit makes a Mercury of a Log as Carneades having plausibly argued for a thing could suddenly convert his discourse with as much energy against it sometime audaciousness that transports themselves fascinates others as Appollonius pretended to understand the language of birds which no others could discerne or find out but yet all these elegant frauds or cunning impestures or deceptions of sight are but like a Magicians feast which takes the eye with speciousness but gives no strength nor nourishment or like the house and furniture of the Lamia at Corinth which vanisht when Appollonius a juditious man entred and surveyed it If they can produce out of Scripture any command to injoyn or warrant to justifie to decoct a Church from an hundred to one to break into pieces and demolish an established Church so to patch up a small one out of the ruines thereof with such parts as they shall approve and be well satisfied of and so the Pastor to chuse his Church that was wont to be chosen by them to gather new Churches made up of those which had formerly entred into the Church by the door of Baptisme to drive men in heards from the Communion that the farre greater part of those adult persons that communicate in the one Sacrament and the Word and Prayers do not in the Lords Supper to cast out any that is not convicted of some positive special crime that hath rendred him scandalous and accordingly is duly censured to constrain those to come under examination of their knowledge that cannot justly be suspected to be ignorant or to debarre any such from the Eucharist that will not submit to be examined If they can produce such evidence surely I shall not so much gratulate the felicity of this age Quod genus humanum ingenio superavit et omnes Perstrinxit stellas which can read and understand it as cendole the blindness of former daies quantum mortalia pectora coecae Noctis habent which could not see or comprehend it and though it be nothing strange that I Oculis qui lippus injunctis cannot discover and observe it yet it is admirable that not one of elder times though tam cernit acutum Quà m
Thess 3.2 which the least breath will easily fanne and winnow and suddenly dissipate Baptista Porta relates of Candles made after a certain Composition which will make things seem to be that are not and to appear otherwise than they are and sure it must be some such strange new light that can make it apparent that to be delivered from unreasonable and evil men is to suspend them from the Sacrament as if deliverance could be no otherwise obtained but by suspension Can they produce any one Interpreter that ever thought this to be the meaning of the Apostle or sense of this place Or is it consonant to the phrase and idiom of Scripture or indeed of common understanding that to be delivered from men is to separate them from the Communion They are so set upon Separation that it seems they will be divided in their Expositions from all Interpreters Hath not this somewhat of Bernard his Abelardus Omnes sie Ego autem non sic In Joh. 6.62 or perchance as Maldonat confesseth though he had no Author for his Exposition yet he embraced it because it checkt most with the sense of the Calvinists so they without any Authority take up this sense because it will serve to oppose against their Antagonists The Synod of learned Interpreters by unreasonable and evil men Calvin Aquinas Diodate Slater Estius A Lapide c. think the Apostle meant the contradicting and persecuting Jewes who were not capable of being driven from the Communion that were never received thereunto vagrant or vagabond Jewes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the word in the Original that need not be kept off being still running about and no where settled and Dr. Hammond conceives the villanous Gnosticks to be here understood as others also do Hereticks in general as Gagnaeus out of Chrysostom and that to be delivered from them was to be rescued out of their malicious hands cripiamur as the Syriack Beza Piscator defendamur as Castalio it is not ut illi cripiautur that his Preaching might be successful and prosperous meeting with no such obstacles as might hinder the progresse thereof and Calvin supposeth that the Apostle being now on his journey to Jerusalem and having been Prophetically admonished of the persecutions there attending him desired their Prayers for his deliverance c. This is the only proper collection from the text and therefore when they would impose upon us such irrational and impertinent Arguments we had need wish to be delivered from unreasonable men and evil Disputers But that which they lead up in the next ranck may seem to be gravioris armaturae the proof taken from the 6 14 and 15 verses of that Chapter which they say the best Divines expound of Church Censures And I will not be refractory to that Exposition then nor shall it be said of me Direxit brachia contra Torrentem Notwithstanding there is a strong and deep current tending the other way for others think the 6. verse not pertinent to Church Censures non ad publicam excommunicationem pertinet sed ad consuetudinem privatam vetat enim ne quid familiaritatis babeant c. saith Calvin and Chrysostom hath a singular conceit that by subduction should be meant a with-drawing of Eleemosynary relief from the lazy and idle whereupon the subsequent verses reflect some colour The 14 and 15. verses are by Sa and Menochius interpreted also only of declining Commerce and Conversation with such as are evil and Grotius in which sense many concur supposeth that to note is not immediately to censure but to depaint him out by his marks in an Epistle to be written to the Apostle and others interpret both verses to be only such a command to abstain from all voluntary open and pleasing conversation and communication with scandalous persons as Aretius A Lapide Diodate c. And this interpretation is not without some roots in the text from whence it may spring As 1. It is said With-draw your selves but in Church Censures the innocent do not with-draw themselves from the criminous but drive out these from them 2. The command is to have no company with him which in propriety of the phrase and immediately seems to resent a familiar conversation and consortship in civil things though I am mindful that such refraining of commerce also is the consequent of the greater excommunication 3. The Apologists themselves do not extend this Censure to a with-drawing of themselves in all Communion from every one that walketh disorderly and obeyeth not or having no company with him in any case or noting him universally for they admit those whom they note for such not only to a civil society but to a fellowship in the Word and Prayer and that this with drawing not companying and noting should be restrained and appropriated only to the Lords Table hath no colour of ground in these Scriptures and if this duty of with-drawing and not companying and noting may be complyed within any other possible lawful and convenient way it is not necessary that it should be only at the Sacrament by Suspension Erastus himself allows privati convictûs commercii interdictionem but whereas amongst the Reasons rendred for this precept of with-drawing not companying and noting one is expressed in the text That he may be ashamed and thereupon amend and another rendred by interpreters to avoid contagion For the first Erastus supposeth that a brand inflicted by some punishment from a civil Magistrate would strike and impresse more shame than any note by Church censure which profligate persons will little reckon of and that it were a more prompt and effectual expedient in order to amendment to impart unto them the means of Grace rather than to with-hold them And for the second A man that will stand in an higher place and signifie more in their account than Erastus viz. Aretius interpreting those texts affirms That private familarity corrupteth the manners of those that converse together but the common use of the Sacraments doth not so I must eschew his familiarity whom I ought not to avoid at the Sacrament for at the Sacrament he will not corrupt me that may do so at a private supper And this opinion is fortified with pregnant Reasons which we have elsewhere produced In the diatribe and which may be farther backt and seconded for at the Sacrament evil men take truce with all examples of evil influence from whence others may contract or suck in contagion and Saul himself did prophecy whiles he was among the Prophets and there we converse externally at least and have to do with God not men and we may chuse and must discreetly make choice of our familiar companions but it is neither in our power nor of our duty to make such discrimination of our company at the Sacrament for we finde only a command that every man should examine himself in order to communicating but if we were patible of any insection to be attracted or