no wonder if he raises the Authority and the Priviledges of the Church to a vast height Yet after all these were not his setled thoughts for he goes off from them whensoever he has an eye on his Disputes against the Pelagians for the System which he had framed in those Points could not bear with any other Notion of the Church but that of the persons predestinated to whom all the Promises belonged And thus whatever he himself asserts in his zeal against the Donatists comes to be thrown down when the Pelagians are in his view so we see from hence how much deference is due to his Authority in this Point The last head relating to this whole matter is to explain in what the Authority of the Church does consist what it is both in matters of Faith and Discipline As to matters of Faith it is certain that every Body of men is bound to study to maintain its own Order and Quiet and must be authoris'd to preserve it otherwise it cannot long continue to be one Body This binds the Body of Christians yet much more who are strictly charged to love one another to worship God with one heart and mouth to be of the same mind and judgment to assemble themselves together and to withdraw from all such as cause divisions or corrupt the great Trust of the Faith committed to their keeping It must be therefore a great part of the duty of those that are bound to feed the flock to observe when any begin to broach new Opinions that they may confirm the weak and stop the mouths of gainsayers which as the Apostles themselves did during their own lives so by the charges that they gave to the Churches in their Epistles and more fully by those given to Timothy and Titus it appears that a main part of their Care and Authority was to be employ'd that way When therefore any new Doctrines are started or when there arise Disputes about any part of Religion the Pastors of the Church ought to consider whether or not it is in a matter of any great consequence in which the Faith or Lives of men may be concerned If the point is not of a great importance it is a piece of wisdom to connive at lesser matters and to leave men to a just freedom in things where that freedom is not like to do hurt only even there care is to be taken to keep men in temper that they become not too keen in the management of their Opinions and that they neither disturb the Peace of the Church nor State upon that account If the matters appear to be great either in themselves or in the consequences that are like to follow upon them then the Pastors of the Church ought to consider them with an equal and impartial mind they ought to here Parties fully and weigh their Arguments carefully they ought to examine the sense of the Scriptures and of the best times of the Church upon those Heads and finally to give Sentence In which two things are to be considered the one is That great regard is due to a Decision made by a Body of men who seem to have acted without prejudice or interest For I confess it will be very hard to maintain such a respect for a Company in which matters are carried with so much Artifice and Intrigue as even Cardinal Palavicini represents in the management of the Council of Trent where Bishops were caressed or threatned well paid or ill used as they gave their Voices Such a proceeding as this will rather inflame than allay the opposition but a fair and equitable a just and calm way of examining matters of dispute will naturally beget a respect even in such as cannot yield a submission to their Decrees After all it must be confessed That no Man can be bound to a blind Submission unless we suppose an Infallibility to be in the Church yet Private Men owe to Publick Decisions when decently made a due respect they ought to distrust their own judgments and examine the matter more accurately But if they are still convinc'd that the Decision is wrong they are bound to persist in their own thoughts only they ought to oppose modestly to consider well the Importance of Order and Peace and whether their Opinion even suppose it true is worth the Noise that may be made about it or the Disorders that may follow upon it After all If they are still convinced that their Opinions are true and that they relate to the indispensible Duties of Religion or the necessary Articles of Christianity they must go on as they will answer it to God upon the sincerity of their Hearts and the fulness of their Convictions So that the Definitions of the Church may have very good Effects even when it is not pretended that they are Infallible Another thing to be consider'd in those Decisions is That though they are not Infallible yet they may have Authority in this respect That they are the established Doctrine of such a Body of Christians who will have no other to be taught among them and will admit none to be of their Body or at least to be a Teacher among them who is not of the same mind In this it is certain great Tenderness and Prudence is to be used and the natural liberty of Mankind is not to be too much limited But yet as any Man may fix and declare his own Opinion so certainly by a much greater parity of reason any Society or Body of Men may declare their Opinions and so far fix them as to exclude all other Doctrines and the Favourers of them from being of their Body or from bearing any Office in it So that though such Decisions do not enter into Mens Consciences nor bind them further than as they are convinced by the Reasons and Authorities upon which they are founded yet they may have a vast influence on the Order and Peace of Churches and States As to Rituals it is certain that there are many little Circumstances and Decencies that belong to the Worship of God the Order of Religious Assemblies and their Administrations and that in these the Pastors of a Church by the Natural Right that all Societies have to keep themselves in order must have a Power to determine all things of this nature This becomes yet clearer in the Christian Societies from the Rules that the Apostles gave to the Churches To do all things in Order and for the ends of Edification and Peace There is not one of the Rules laid down in Scripture concerning the Sacraments or the Officers of the Church to which many Circumstances do not belong now either these must be all left to every Man's liberty which must needs create a jarring disagreement in the several parts of this Body that would both breed confusion and look very ridiculous and absurd or there must be an Authority in the Pastors of the Church to meet together and to settle these by mutual consent
and since it was singly upon this point that they could let it pass without raising Objections or Difficulties about it and since we find in fact that they did let it pass and that the Apostles made no Explanations upon it we have all possible reason to conclude that it was thus understood of all hands at that time I think it is not possible to imagine that this could be otherwise so that upon these Reasons we may well and safely determine that Christ was truly both God and Man and that the Godhead did as really dwell in his Human Nature and became united to it as our Souls dwell in our Bodies and are united to them Having then laid down this Matter from Authorities that run through the whole New Testament and that return often in every Book of it I may now upon greater Advantages refer such as will descend to a more particular Enquiry to all those passages that assert Christ's having created all things Angels as well as Men that he is over all and in all before all things in whom all things do subsist that he is the Lord of Glory the Great God and the true God the Lord Almighty who was is and is to come who knows all things and can do whatsoever he will who is the first and the last the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who alone hath Immortality who was in the form of God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God who will raise the dead at the last day and judge the World who is God manifested in the Flesh the great Mystery of Godliness who is over all God blessed for ever These and many more such like passages but above all the beginning of the Gospel of St. Iohn on which I need not insist since that has been done with such Strength and Clearness of Reason by a much better Hand All these single passages I say are so many express Proofs of this great Article of our Religion that I am confident those who have clear'd themselves of that great prejudice against it to which the first part of this Discourse was directed cannot read them without feeling that they are wrestling against the full current of the whole New Testament who oppose this I know a great deal has been said to take off the force of every one of them for if a Man resolves beforehand not to believe a thing he may easily bring out matter enough to avoid the most express words that can be invented yet this I dare positively affirm that at their rate of answering passages with which we urge them it were easy to answer the most express words that we could be capable to contrive for setting out our Doctrine to which this is likewise to be added That it will be very hard to preserve any respect for Writings that are filled with such Intimations of so Important a Doctrine all which at first view seem to carry a Sense which they judge Monstrous and Impious and that with much labour and difficulty are wrought to another sense It will not be easy to think those men had the common degrees of Honesty and Discretion not to speak of Inspiration who writ in such a Style with such Phrases and in such a continu'd Strain that ordinary Readers must stumble in every step and that in a point of such vast Consequence as whether a meer Creature is the great and true God or not and that a great deal of Dexterity and Diligence is necessary to give them another sense I must own that if I could think so of the Scriptures I should lose all Esteem for them and could think no other of the Pen-men of them but that their great Affection for their Master had led them to say many things concerning him that were Excessive and Hyperbolical and not strictly true This is literally and without any aggravation the sense that I have of this Matter and the prophane Tribe of Libertines go all into this of laughing down all Mysteries knowing well that when they have once gain'd that point the New Testament it self will be laughed down next in which they are so plainly contain'd And indeed the Christian Religion must be the most self-contradicting of all the Religions in the World since it does so often condemn the worshipping of Creatures and yet heaps all sorts of Divine Honors on a Creature and St. Iohn must be a most incongruous Writer who could at the conclusion of his first Epistle say of Christ Jesus This is the true God and Eternal Life and in the very next words add Little Children keep your selves from Idols when in the very preceding words he had been setting them on to it if St. Paul's definition must hold true that Idolatry is a service to those who by nature are not gods It is true upon this they will recriminate and say That there being nothing more expresly and frequently contain'd in Scripture and that indeed arises more plainly out of our Idea of God than that he is One we destroy that by setting up Three This would press hard if we did affirm three distinct Beings but since that wich is One in it self may be Three in other respects it is only a consequence that they infer but which we deny That we set up more Gods than one and no man is to be charg'd with the suppos'd Consequences of his Doctrine when he himself does not own them but denies them and thinks he can plainly show that they do not necessarily follow from it We do plainly perceive in our selves two if not three different Principles of Operation that do not only differ as Understanding and Will which are only different modes of thinking but differ in their Character and way of Operation All our Cogitations and Reasonings are a sort of Acts in which we can reflect on the way how we operate we perceive that we act freely in them and that we turn our Minds to such Objects and Thoughts as we please But by another Principle of which we perceive nothing and can reflect upon no part of it we live in our Bodies we animate and actuate them we receive Sensations from them and give Motions to them we live and die and do not know how all this is done It seems to be by some Emanation from our Souls in which we do not feel that we have any liberty and so we must conclude that this Principle in us is natural and necessary In Acts of Memory Imagination and Discourse there seems to be a mixture of both Principles or a third that results out of them for we feel a freedom in one respect but as for those Marks that are in our Brain that set things in our Memory or furnish us with words we are necessary Agents they come in our way but we do not know how We cannot call up a Figure of things of words at pleasure Some disorder in our Mechanism hides or flattens them
which when it goes off they start up and serve us but not by any Act of our Understanding or Will Thus we see that in this single undivided Essence of ours there are different Principles of Operation so different as Liberty and Necessity are from one another I am far from thinking that this is a proper Explanation or Resemblance of this Mystery yet it may be called in some sort an Illustration of it since it shows us from our own Composition that in one Essence there may be such different Principles which in their proper Character may be brought to the terms of a Contradictition of being free and not free So in the Divine Essence which is the simplest and perfectest Unity there may be Three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies By the first God may be suppos'd to have made and to govern all things by the second to have actuated and been most perfectly united to the Humanity of Christ and by the third to have Inspir'd the Pen-men of the Scriptures and the Workers of Miracles and still to renew and fortify all good Minds But tho we cannot explain how they are Three and have a true diversity from one another so that they are not barely different Names and Modes yet we firmly believe that there is but one God and with this I conclude all that I have intended to say on the Head of the Divinity of Christ. The next Head that I have now before me is his Death and Sufferings Which I intend to treat in the same general way in which I consider'd the former I must first observe that School-men and the Writers of positive Divinity have upon this Head laid down a great many Subtilties in which the Scripture is absolutely silent They begin with a Position that is the Foundation of all their Calculations that God cannot freely forgive sin that purishing as well as remunerative Justice are essential to him that God being Infinite every Offence against him has an infinite Guilt and must be expiated either by Acts of infinite Value or of infinite Duration and that a Person of an infinite Nature was only capable of Acts of an infinite Value that such a one was necessary for expiating sin But in all this gradation there is one main defect That the Scripture sets none of these Speculations before us nor is it easie to apprehend that a right of punishing which is in the Legislator and a right to a Reward which passes from him to the person that acquires it should be equally essential to God In the one his Fidelity and Justice are bound because of the right that accrues to another but the other of punishing seems to be a Right that is vested in himself which he may either use or not as he pleases and if every sin as being of infinite Guilt must be expiated by an infinite Act it will not be easy to make this out how the Acts of Christ tho infinite in Value should stand in a strict Equality with all the sins of so many men every one of which is of infinite guilt Therefore these being a subtil Contexture of Legal Metaphysicks of which the Scripture is silent it best becomes us to take our Notions from the Scriptures themselves It is true Iustice and Iustification being the terms used upon this Head in some of the Epistles that seems to give some Authority to those reckonings which are laid down to make out a Justice in all God's Proceedings But those who observe the Style of the Scriptures more narrowly will see that those words import no more but a state of Favour and Acceptation with God for the Righteousness of the Law was a man's acceptation that had served God in the Mosaical Dispensation and the Righteousness of Faith was the Acceptation that a man in the Gospel-Dispensation had in the sight of God so that the frequent use of those words will be found to have no relation to those subtil weighings of Infinities one against another But I go next to shew in what Notion and under what a set of Phrases this matter is stated to us in the New Testament It is then to be consider'd that when the New Testament was writ there was not any one thing that all people understood better than the Sacrificatory Style and all the Phrases that belonged to it The Iews were much accustom'd to it and had a great variety of Sacrifices that they offer'd up to God and the Gentiles were likewise well acquainted with all the several sorts of Sacrifices that us'd to be offer'd up among them And this was not one of the secrets of their Religion that was kept only among the Priests and was not to be communicated to the people it was known to them all most particularly for they were to bring and offer those Victims Therefore it is plain that no Forms of Speech were then so fully and so generally understood as those which related to Sacrifices The Heathens had their Expiatory and Piacular Sacrifices by which they did reckon that they transfer'd their sins on the man or beast that was devoted and that they thereby expiated them and those they reckon'd aton'd the offended Deity by their death which they suffer'd in their stead They also had many Lustrations and Ablutions upon their offering their Sacrifices to import the Atonement that was made by them and at the making their Covenants they had Sacrifices with which they propitiated Heaven and seal'd their Covenant This practice of Expiatory Sacrifices had been indeed both so Ancient and so universally spread that it is not an unreasonable Conjecture to think that there was a Tradition in favour of it convey'd down from Noah We are very sure that both Greeks and Romans were at the time that the New Testament was written very full of the Style and Phrases that belong'd to Expiatory Sacrifices The Iews were no less acquainted with them they had both their Sin and Trespass Offerings their great yearly Expiation by the Sacrifice of a Goat they burnt a Red-Cow in a peculiar manner and with its Ashes they were purifi'd and sprinkled They had also their daily Offerings of two Lambs and their Peace Offerings and Free-will Offerings and in their Law the Sacrifice was call'd their Atonement by which their sin was forgiven it was also said to bear their Iniquity which was among them a Phrase importing Guilt For while a man stood under the guilt of his sin liable to punishment he was said to bear his Iniquity Their Sin-Offerings were in their Language call'd simply their sins to which tho our Translators have added the word Offering yet in the Hebrew they are call'd Sin or Trespass and in the Greek render'd for Sin and in this all the people of that Nation were certainly well instructed it being by these that their Consciences were quieted their Sins pardon'd and God reconcil'd to them So this ground that I lay down is certain That
there was not any one sort of things which the whole World knew better than all that belong'd to Sacrifices At the time of writing the New Testament they certainly were more accustom'd to it and understood it much better than we generally do now in Ages in which those practices have so long ceas'd that the Memory of them is quite extinguished It is indeed very probable that many particular Phrases belonging to them might have been by a Poetical Liberty extended to other Matters for things of the sacred'st nature are by Poets and Orators made use of to give the liveliest Illustrations and raise the strongest passions possible yet after all an entire Thread of a sacrificatory Style was a form of description that the World must have known could belong only to an Expiatory Sacrifice that is to some person or thing that was devoted to God by a Sinner in his own stead and upon the account of his sin and guilt was to be some way destroy'd in sign of what he own'd he had deserv'd and this was to be done in order to the reconciling the guilty Person to God the Guilt being transfer'd from the Person to the Sacrifice and God by accepting the Sacrifice was reconcil'd to the person whose sin was upon that account forgiven This being thus laid down let us look next to the whole strain of the New Testament particularly to those parts of it in which this matter is more fully treated about Here I will again follow the method that I took upon the former Head and not enter so particularly upon the Criticisms of some passages but will view the thing in gross that seeming to be both the most convincing way in it self and the best suited to my present purpose I must further observe that this was a point of vast Consequence as being that which concern'd men's Peace with God the pardon of their sins and their hopes of God's Favour and of Eternal Happiness Therefore we ought not to imagine that Rhetorick or Poetical Forms of Speech could be admitted here to the aggravating of so solemn a piece of our Religion boyond its true value so that we must conclude that here if in any thing the Apostles writ strictly besides that their manner of writing is always plain and simple When then they set forth the Death of Christ with all the Pomp of the sacrificatory Phrases we must either believe it to be a true Propitiatory Sacrifice or otherwise we must look upon them as warm indiscreet men whose Affections to our Saviour heated them so far as to carry them in this Matter out of all measure far beyond the truth Those who oppose this Article believe that Christ only died for our good but not in our stead that by his Death he might fully confirm his Gospel and give it a great Authority that so it might have the more Influence upon us they also believe that by his dying he intended to set us a most perfect pattern of bearing the sharpest Sufferings with the perfectest Patience and Submission to the Will of God and the most entire Charity to those at whose hands we suffer and that by doing this he was to Merit at God's hands that supream Authority with which he is now vested for our good that so he might obtain a Power to offer the World the pardon of sin upon their true Repentance and finally That he died in order to his Resurrection and forgiving a sensible Proof of that main Article of his Religion That we shall all be raised up at the last day therefore he was to die and that in such a manner that no man might question the truth of it that so his Resurrection might give a most demonstrative Proof both of the possibility of it and of our being to be raised up by him who was thus declared to be the Son of God by his Rising from the dead On the other hand we believe that God intending to pardon sin and to call the World by the offers of it to Repentance design'd to do it in such a manner as should both give us the highest Ideas of the guilt of sin and also of his own Love and Goodness to us which he thus order'd That after that Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word had sufficiently opened his Doctrine and had set a perfect pattern of Holiness to the world he was to be fallen on by a company of perfidious and cruel men who after they had loaded him with all the spiteful and reproachful Usage that they could invent they in conclusion Crucified him he all the while bearing besides those visible Sufferings in his Person most inexpressible Agonies in his Mind both before and during these his Sufferings and yet bearing them with a most absolute Submission to his Father's Will and a perfect Charity to those his Persecutors and that in all this he willingly offer'd himself to suffer both upon our account and in our stead which was so accepted of God that he not only raised him from the dead and exalted him up on high giving to him even as he was Man all power both in Heaven and Earth but that upon the account of it he offer'd to the World the pardon of sinâ— together with all those other Blessings which accompany it in his Gospel and that he will have us in all our Prayers for pardon or other favours claim them through that Death and owe them to it These are two contrary Doctrines upon this Head Now let us see which of them come nearest the Manner and Style in which the Scriptures set it out in the New Testament Christ is said to have reconcil'd us to his Father to be our Propitiation to have born our sins and to have been bruis'd for our Iniquities to have been made sin for us to have been accursed for us to have given himself for our sins that he might redeem us from all Iniquity he is said to have died for or in the stead of our sins to have given his life a ransom for us or in lieu of us he is said to have born our sins on his own body he has appointed a perpetual Remembrance of his Death in these words That his body was broken for us and that his blood was shed for many for the Remission of sins Remission of sins is offered in his name and through his blood God laid upon him the iniquities of us all he was our justification our peace and our redemption He is called the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World His Death and intercession are very copiously compared to the Expiation made on the solemn day of the Atonement for the whole Nation of the Iews on which after the Sacrifice was offer'd on the Altar the High Priest carri'd in the Blood to the Holy of Holies and set it down before the Cloud of Glory as that which reconcil'd that people to God This is done in so full a
Faculties since these passages and that which necessarily relates to them will lead a man into the understanding of the hardest parts of the whole New Testament If this method is let go they must prove the Infallibility of the Church by Arguments drawn from some other Visible Characters by which a man is to be convinc'd that God has made her Infallible If there were such eminent ones as the gift of Tongues Miracles or Prophecies that did visibly attest this here were a proof that were solid indeed It were the same with that by which we prove the Truth of the Christian Religion But then these Miracles must be as uncontestedly and evidently proved they must also belong to this point that is they must be Miracles publickly done to prove the truth of this Assertion But to this Appeal they will not stand what use soever they may make of it to amuse the weaker and the more credulous The Character of an uninterrupted Succession from the days of the Apostles is neither an easier nor a surer one since other Churches whom they condemn have it likewise nor can it be search'd into by a private man unless he would go into that Sea of examining the History the Records and Succession of Churches This is an Enquiry that has in it Difficulties vastly greater and more insuperable than all those that they can object to us If they will appeal to the vast Extent of a Church that so many Nations and Societies agree in the same Doctrine and are of one Communion this will prove to be a dangerous point for in the state in which we see Mankind Numbers make a very bad Argument It were to risque the Christian Religion too much to venture on a Poll with the Mahometans In some Ages the Semi-Arrians had the better at numbers and it is a question if at this day those that are within or without the Roman Communion make the greatest body Nor must a man be put to chuse his Religion by such a laborious and uncertain way of Calculation To plead a continuance in the same Doctrine that was at first deliver'd to the Church by the Apostles is to put the matter upon a more desperate issue For as no man can hope to see to the end of this so it lets a man in into all Controversies when he is to compare the present Doctrine with that which was deliver'd by the Apostles Let then any Character be assign'd that shall oblige a man to believe the Church Infallible and it will soon appear very evidently that the searching into that must put the world on more difficult Enquiries than any of those that we are pressed with and that in the issue of the whole the determination must be resolv'd into a private Judgment Another Difficulty follows close upon this which is In what Church this Infallibility is to be found Suppose a man was born in the Greek Church at any time since the IX Century how shall he know that he must seek the Infallibility in the Roman Communion and that he cannot find it in his own He plainly sees that the Christian Religion began in the Eastern parts and by every step that he makes into History he clearly discerns that it flourished for many Ages most eminently there but now that there is a breach between them and the Latins he cannot judge to which Communion he is to adhere without he examines the Doctrine for both have the outward Characters of a Succession of Martyrs and Bishops of Numbers and an appearance of continuing in the same Doctrine only with this difference that the Greeks have the advantage in every one of these they have more Apostolical Churches I mean founded by the Apostles than the Latins and they have stuck more firmly with fewer Additions and Innovations to their Ancient Rituals than the Latins have done How can he then decide this matter without examining the grounds of their difference and making a private Judgment upon a private Examination of the Scriptures or other Authorities If it be said that the present depress'd and ignorant state of those Churches makes it now very sensible that there can be no Infallibility among the Easterns To this it is to be answer'd that I have put the case all-along from the 9th Century downward In many of those Ages the Greeks were under as good Circumstances and had as fair an appearance as the Latins had if not better for the outward appearances of the Roman Communion in the next Centuries the 10th and 11th are not very favourable even by the Representation that their own Writers have made of them and if we must judge of the Infallibility of a Church by outward Characters it may be urg'd with great shews of Reason that a Church which under all its Poverty and Persecutions does still adhere to the Christian Religion has so peculiar a Character of bearing the Cross and of living in a constant state of Sufferings that if Infallibility be in the Church as a favour and priviledge from God and not as the effect of human Learning and other Advantages I should sooner believe the Greek Church Infallible than any other now in the World But when these difficulties are all got over there remain yet new and great ones Suppose one is satisfi'd that it is in the Roman Church he must know where to find it without this it is of no more use to him than if one should tell a hungry man that there is food enough for him without directing him where to seek for it he must starve after all that general Information if he has not a more particular direction And therefore it seems very absurd to affirm that the believing of Infallibility is an Article of Faith but that the proper Subject in whom it rests is not likewise an Article of Faith This is the general Tenet of the whole Roman Communion who that they may maintain their Union notwithstanding their difference in this do all agree in saying that the subject of this Infallibility is not a matter of Faith This destroys the whole pretension for all the Absurdities of no end of Controversies of private Judgment and every man's expounding the Scriptures do return here and the whole design of Infallibility is defeated For how can a man be bound to submit to this in any one Instance or to receive any proposition as coming from an Infailible Authority if he does not know who has it Thus according to that Maxim of Natural Logick that a Conclusion can have no certainty beyond that which was in both the Premises if it is not certain with whom the Infallibility dwells as well as that there is an Infallibility in the Church all the noise about it will be quite defeated and of no use If a man had many Medecines of which one was an Infallible Cure of such or such Diseases can it be suppos'd that he would communicate these to the World and tell that one of them
next to examine the Pretences for disjointing this Union among our selves and see whether the main Body among us I mean our Church has imposed unlawful terms of Communion on her Members for if that is true we by so doing have broke this Union or whether any who have separated from us have not done it upon less binding Considerations for then they have broken the Union This I will manage with all possible fairness and without the least reflection on Persons and Parties I will state their grounds and put their Arguments with the utmost force that I can apprehend belongs to them and when I have weighed them I will leave the whole matter to an Impartial consideration The first point in which every man must fix his thoughts is that it is not free to him to chuse to which Body he will join himself as it is free to him to chuse in which Parish he will settle himself for since all Parishes make but one Communion and Church the one cannot be compared to the other And if all that was said before is true then certainly it is not lawful for any man to break the Union of the Body unless he is persuaded that it cannot be maintained but upon unlawful terms Therefore except a man is under this persuasion he sins if he departs from the Union of the Body But since Conscience is a word that may be used in the following part of this Discourse its true notion ought to be well setled which is according to the natural signification of the word in all Languages an inward persuasion founded upon some reason apprehended to be true concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a thing By this it will appear that a bare aversion or dislike to a thing without any reason on which that dislike is grounded cannot be called Conscience since things with which we are not acquainted or that are uncouth to us which we have often heard spoken against are disliked by us through a habit or prejudice conceived against them but unless this is founded upon some reason that appears to us true drawn either from the nature of things or from the Scriptures it is not Conscience I do not say that every man under these Convictions must be able to maintain those his Reasons to others to be just and good for then a better Arguer who can silence him should be able to alter his Conscience But though he cannot answer Objections yet as long as his Persuasion appears to be well grounded to himself such a man is still under the bonds of his Conscience I am not now to examine how far an erring Conscience obliges or at least excuses it is enough to have stated in general the true Notion of Conscience by which every man that does not intend to deceive himself may certainly know whether he is really under the persuasions of Conscience or if he is only guided by Humour Conceit or the power of Education and Prejudice The main Foundation out of which most of the Objections against some of the Terms of our Communion are rais'd is this That the Church is only empower'd to execute those Rules and Orders that are set Christians in the Scriptures That the pretending to add to these is to accuse the Scripture as defective That all Additions to those Rules set us in Scripture are Superstitious Usages That they impose a yoke upon us and so deprive us of our Christian Liberty That if some Rites may be added others upon the like reasons may be also added to these and so on without bounds as in Fact it appears That when the Church went once off from the first simplicity in which the Apostles deliver'd the Christian Religion to the World and that new Rites were invented to beautify the Worship these Additions did at last swell up to that intolerable height in which they are now in the Church of Rome In Religious Matters it is not enough according to St. Paul's Rule that a thing is lawful it must also be expedient But for that pretended expediency which is alledged for some Rites that they are expressive and significant it is rather an Argument against them for a significant Ceremony is of the nature of a Sacrament the common definition of which that it is a visible sign of an invisible Grace agreeing to it and certainly the appointing Sacraments is above the power of the Church and can belong only to Iesus Christ who is its Head and Founder But all this is in appearance the stronger if Rites so enjoin'd have been abus'd to Idolatry and are parts of an Idolatrous Worship To retain these is to conform our selves to it tho the Scriptures command us to come out from among all such and not to be conformable to them Hezekiâ— broke the Brazen Serpent tho a Memorial of a signal Miracle in which it had been in some sort an Instrument yet when even that was abus'd to Idolatry a good King broke it to pieces This will hold stronger against things that are but of human Institution That they ought to be taken away how innocent soever they may be in themselves after they are grosly abus'd To keep up the use of such things is to scandalize and offend the weaker Christians tho St. Paul lays great weight upon this and charges all Christians not to lay a stumbling-block in one anothers way he calls the doing otherwise the destroying a weak Brother and in conclusion since St. Paul said whatsoever is not of faith is sin these Rites therefore not being warranted from Scripture cannot be of Faith the Object of which is a Divine Revelation they must therefore be sinful And thus I have set down all the Branches of the Plea against Ceremonies with as much advantage as I can imagine belongs to them I go therefore in the next place to take it to pieces and to examine the strength of the whole and of every part of this Reasoning that as must be acknowledg'd wants not fair and specious colours The main stress lies upon this Whether the Church in her Rituals is so limited to the Scriptures that she has no power to add any thing to what is prescribed in them Great difference is to be made between matters of Doctrine Rules of Life Foederal Acts together with the other Acts of Worship which are parts of the New Covenant or conditions of it and some Ritual Appointments such as the Circumstances of those Instituted Acts the forms for the Solemn Acts of Worship together with some other Institutions which are helps to Devotion and do fix or raise the attention For the former sort it is confess'd That Christ and his Apostles having deliver'd this Religion to the World it must continue in the same state in which they setled it without additions or variations but since all instituted Actions must be determined by the Circumstances of persons places times words and postures these must be all manag'd with such
set and stated Forms and these ought to be cast into the plainest and most comprehensive simplicity possible since that is always suited to all Mankind whereas Men are vastly diversifi'd in every thing that is lively or fanciful Such a way of Worship ought neither to be unreasonably long nor excessively short The length must be proportion'd to what the greater part of Mankind can bear it ought also to be so diversifi'd that Mens minds be not kept too long at any one part of it or their Bodies in any one posture and there should be as great a compass in it for taking in the several Acts and Offices of Devotion as may be and in all these respects it may be safely affirmed That our Forms have as few defects are as little liable to Objections and are indeed as perfect not only as the Forms or Liturgies of any Church that we know of Ancient or Modern but are as perfect as we can in reason expect in any thing that came from Men not immediately inspir'd Any small exceptions that may be made as they do all admit of very good Answers so can never be put in the Ballance with the Peace and Order of the Church and the Edification that the Members of our Body might receive from such Pure and Spirital Devotions If Men grow too languid and flat in them even this is much more supportable than the gross Affections and the scandalous Indecencies that are so common to say no worse in the tumultuary way Man is indeed so made that he grows soon corrupt and Dead in what method so ever he is put but as Mankind bears the longest and the most generally with common food and is less disgusted at the continuance of it than it would be with more chosen Delicacies which would become much sooner nauseous than simpler Nourishment so it may be positively affirm'd that grave and well-compos'd Devotions fitly diversifi'd and often broken as ours are have not only Reason and Authority clearly on their side but have great Advantages in them and few disadvantages to ballance those They are such as are proper for us to offer up to God they have in them all the Gravity and Solemnity that becomes a Religious Assembly they comply with our very Infirmities and give us such breathings as may be necessary for loose and vagrant minds and they carry in them the whole Complex of a Religious Service So in going that round with due degrees of Attention we are sure we offer up to God the several Branches of that Reasonable Service or Rational Worship that we owe him The more particular exceptions lie chiefly against our forms in the two Sacraments The Anabaptists object our not Dipping when we Baptize which was not only the practice of Christ and his Apostles but seems to be recommended by the Mystical Allusions made to the being Buried in the Water and the being again Raised up out of it as was formerly observ'd Indeed if we could think that a Divine Vertue follow'd the application of the Water only to the parts washed with it so that there were a sort of a Charm in it we must acknowledge our Baptism to be defective but since Water is only us'd as an Emblem of the Purity of our Religion it seems in the nature of things to be all one whether the Person Baptized is put into the Water or if the Water is put upon him The design of Baptism is a Foederal Sponsion upon which Water is to be us'd with a determined form of words and when these are observed all that is primarily intended in it is observed nor will Allusions made to the Rites with which this was at first managed prove that those ought to be perpetual these being only devout and instructive Thoughts offer'd upon the occasion of such forms Yet after all our Church is so little liable to censure in this matter that the Rule given in the Rubrick is first for Dipping Sprinking is only allowed of so that tho it comes to be more commonly practised yet no Person that desires it in the form of Dipping can be denied it among us since it is the form that is chiefly favoured by the Rubrick tho the practice runs in a current the other way There is a more important Scruple rais'd upon Infant Baptism since the Persons mention'd to be Baptized in the Scriptures were all of Age capable to answer and promise for themselves and since by the Institution of Baptism the making of Men Disciples is set before it and the Teaching them to observe all that Christ hath Commanded comes immediately after it both these seem to be Characters importing that they should be of an Age capable of Instruction since They only can make the answer of a good Conscience So that the Baptizing upon a Vow or Promise made by another seems to be a new sort of Foederal Sponsion not instituted by Christ and by consequence not warranted by the Gospel Nor will the Argument from Circumcision appear conclusive when it is consider'd that Females not being capable of it that Rite seems rather to have been a national Mark to distinguish them as Abraham's Posterity from other Nations than a Rite relating to the Blessings of a future state But to all this we must answer That since our Saviour took Baptism from the Iews it being visible that they were not at all surprized at St. Iohn Baptist's Baptizing they only questioning him upon his Mission and Authority for it we have reason to conclude that he took it from them as they practised it And we find by their Writings that when any Proselytes came over to their Religion they not only Baptized them but also their Children This being their practice and our Saviour making no Exceptions as to this Particular but saying words that plainly favour it Suffer little Children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of God or the Gospel-dispensation this is no small Argument for it But that which seems to determine the matter is the resolution that St. Paul gives in a Case that must have been very common in those days when one of the married Parties was converted to Christianity the other remaining still in Infidelity he determines that the Husband ought not to put away the Wife nor the Wife leave the Husband and the reason he adds is That there was a Communication of Sanctification from the believing to the unbelieving Party which descended to their Children who should be otherwise Vnclean but now they were Holy Now it is to be consider'd that in the New Testament Holy or Saint and a Christian stand promiscuously for one another and the word Holy can only signify either a real inward Holiness or a Holiness of dedication in which sense all things appropriated to God are said to be Holy A Believer could not Communicate a real Holiness either to the unbelieving Yoke-fellow or to the Issue since that is