by the Church they must not be suspected by the children that their mother the Church would put poison in their milk or else they must try by learning the first language Hierom. in lib. cont Helvid Aug. lib. 15. de Civitate Dei cap. 13. whether it so or no and in the mean time receive them thankfully as they be and as doubts arise inquire for satisfaction And if this rule be not kept we shall beleeve either many or not any and be of many religions or of none Truely it is a lamentable case that children should suspect parents and more for the Church to give them cause to suspect her Deut. 17. For God commands the Jewes to sit down silent upon the definitive sentence of the Priests and no doubt so must we upon the Churches unlesse we mean to beleeve our selves more then either Church or Scriptures The variety in translation makes no considerable difference in the sense but like descant in Musick makes the ground plain note seem more grave and full or like the variation of the compasse makes the Pilot more studious to steer his course Mathe. Of what antiquity is the translation among us Christians Phila. Long before printing Bed lib. 1. hist cap. 1. For Bede tels us it was in five languages of the Britains And Vphila Bishop of the Goths translated it for his people Such Copies were among the Armenians Russians Socrat. lib. 4. c. 33. Eccius cap. de miss Lati. Agrip. de vanit scientiarum Ethiopians Dalmatians and Muscovites And these translations were allowed by the Nicen Synods decree that no Christian might want a Bible in his house So Chrysostom exhorteth people of his time Hom. 9. in Epist Colos and rightly cals them the physick for the soul And therefore we were better to lay out monie then want health and sell our cloak then want a Bible and have as good opinion of the Churches translation as of a Physitians prescription or an Apothecaries composition In this case we must beleeve our selves or some body else and why not the Church thy mother and thy nurse It is a great judgment of God upon men when they suspect the learned whose lips preserve knowledge and beleeve the ignorant and so the blind leads the blind I know some say the Apostles were ignorant men so they were at first but after Christ and the Spirit had taught I think they were the most learned men in the world In vain do men therefore preserve ideots before him to whom God hath given the tongue of the learned or to suspect antiquity and trust novelty and love to hear no more then they know already and so bring the Scriptures into question the Churches doctrin into suspition and the true knowledge of God to be disregarded For we have little reason to mistrust the Churches translation except she be notoriously proved to be a deceiver and a patronesse of adulterous faith or maintain opinions contrary to the truth of which the Church of Rome was guilty and from which the Protestant Church is refined of whose fidelity if we now doubt we must either fall to Atheisme or back Papisme or be overrun with Barbarisme Mathe. But how shall we find the sense of Scripture Phila. If you mean in things necessary to faith and manners Esa their sense is plain to an ordinary capacity as was prophecied If you mean the sense of difficult places there if we use diligence and yet fall into error there is no danger in it because it is not necessary and therefore he that erreth and he that erreth not may both be saved holding the points necessary to faith and fact If men therefore would look upon Scripture not as the tree of knowledge with the eie of curiosity but as the Tree of Life affording all things necessary to their salvation John 15.26 the saving sense would soon be found especially if men when they read would pray for the spirit who can best explaine his own writing Mat. 11.25 for they are indeed spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2.12 So if they would lay by carnall thoughts and selfe opinion and receive it with meeknesse as a little child or a new born babe purged from the corruption of our naturall birth by repentance and preparednesse to beleeve the Gospell for no other end then for gods glory and one souls happinesse not desiring so much to increase as to better conscience Mathe. But if I doubt of thesense who shall be judge Phila. If the Scripture be a perfect rule to judge there needs no other judge of it And if it be not a perfect rule who can one trust to judge in matters of faith having no perfect rule to judge by The sense therefore is found by analogy and lying parallel with other parts of Scripture and with those axioms collected therefrom and generally agreed upon Therefore if any sense that I gather from it run contrary to the Lords Praier in matter of devotion or to the Commandements in matter of action or to the Creed in matter of faith I may suspect it so if that sense crosse any other place of Scripture evidently that sense may justly be thought to be adulterate Surely S. Paul aimed at some such thing when he bad Timothy hold fast the form of sound words which if men do they may hold both peace and truth For as a naturall man finds out a truth by reason so doth a Christian find out saving Truth true Religion and a true Church by the Scripture which is the perfect rule for that purpose and so it may be a judge of those things now Rom. as well as it shall be at the last day and as well as mans reason nature or by art may be a rationall though not a personall judge of other things Mathe. What need have we then of Preachers Phila. 1. To remember people of what they have been taught 2. Heb. 2.1 2 Pet. 1.13 To stir them up to do what they have not practised 3. To confirm and establish them in what they have beleeved Acts 8.14 and cap. 14.21 22. 4. To convert those that are not converted 5. To edifie and build them up farther in the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ Acts 20.32 6. To explaine difficult places of Scripture 7. To confute the adversary to truth Isa 54.13 For though it be prophecied they shall be all taught of God which John 6.45 Christ makes good and expounds it ver 46. not that any one hath seen the Father that is immediatly taught of the Father but by that more clear medium the Son of God and his Ministers which the world never knew before which ministry must stand to the end of the world Mat. 28.20 till the mystery of God be finished and the number of the elect be accomplished It is a great presumption for men to think themselves above Ordinances They may be in higher forms of knowledge and holy experience then some
rightly to know and beleeve leads to life eternall Mathe. How may one attain this knowledge Phila. By right understanding the holy Scriptures in its propositions and consequences Now the Scripture tels us that the first man sinned and so incurred the wrath of God upon himselfe and all his posterity Rom. 5. yet he so graciously promised him that the seed of the woman should break the serpents head i. ruine the policies and works of the Devill wrought in and against man Now from whence commeth this doth God intend to put up this wrong and passe it over then how can his justice be satisfied or if infinite justice must be satisfied by some suffering for that sin then who must undergo it If we look upon God as absolutely one without distinction then the offended must mediate with himselfe and so put up this offence yea the Father God must be the sufferer without any mediator Gnosticks or Patrispassiani But this cannot be for a mediator is not of one but God is one Gal. 3.20 yet infinite justice must be satisfied by an infinite person The scriptures therefore declare that in the Godhead there be three persons Father Son and holy Ghost Now though we cannot so well apprehend how the essence divine can mediate to it selfe for man yet we may conceive how one person can mediate to another and so that the Son who lay hid in the bosome of the Father before all time did consult and mediate with the Father about it We must therefore understand first That God made man as perfect as a creature rationall could be made saving only that he gave him not immutability which is a portion beyond created nature For the very Angels that stood once were yet mutable in themselves and they that stand now are not immutable in themselves though they be in their estate and the reason is they that fell chose to stand by their own naturall power without dependency upon God they that stood chose to stand by dependency upon the Archangell the Son of God the first born of every creature Colos 1.15 and of whom the whole family of heaven and earth is named Eph. 3.15 these were the elect Angels Now as they stood by love so man must be recovered by faith in him Aug. Servans hos salvens illos that is the same Archangell and Son of God Jesus Christ who is the head of men and Angels Col. 1.18 creating both but preserving them and saving us from all the bitter effects of sin and leading us to eternall selicity by grace on earth to glory in heaven This is the way to felicity first To know God Then secondly my selfe and miserable condition and thirdly The remedy in Christ Mathe. How come men to wander so much in the seeking of it Phila. The reason of it is first The sin of Adam and Eve who sought to find the chief good in that which God the chiefe good prohibited Mans soule is troubled with a vertigo ever since and running round in a maze is not able to find the right object and if any time we come neer it yet like the Sun comming to his verticall point in the tropick we turn back to the old course Some men know nothing of felicity yet they aime at something they fansie to be good for them yea at a kind of immortality as in writing building or to practise Arts or Arms or purchasing and conquering all which are but shadowes of felicity and may keep our names alive while the soule may be damn'd as the body is dead Some are worse that place their felicity in carnall delights as in cating drinking Phil. 3.19 and wantonnesse which ends commonly in bitternesse shame and death Now though that felicity is thus divorsed by mans mistakings running round in a large circumference of mans vain apprehensions yet by serious consideration it may be reduced to one centrall point for when we have wearied our selves like Noah's Dove we must return to the Ark at last for rest and safety for only in God the soule takes rest Aratus for as we are the off-spring of God Acts 17.27 28. so he is not far from any of us and we may find him by nature if we would grope after him but especially by Scripture which teacheth us to know God in Christ for none can come to the father but by him otherwise we know not felicity at all or not rightly for as no man can divide a circle till he have found the center so neither the circumference of true felicity till we fix the foot of our affection in God like one foot of a compasse And as a man may find the center of a circle though he seeth it not so may one find God in the circumference of his works though he never saw him and felicity in Christ though he never yet knew it before Mathe. The knowledge of God being mans felicity it is not amisse to prove there is a God for he that commeth to God must beleeve that God is therefore I pray you prove to me there is a God Phila. I suppose you urge not this question because you doubt it but because you would have reason to satisfie others therein Therefore that there is a God fit to be known of all men I shall prove by reason for though Scriptures be enough to prove it to us that beleeve yet not to them who beleeve not therefore reason in this point is needfull for many will not beleeve unlesse their understanding be over-powred by miracle or revelation or by some extraordinary energeticall operation of God upon the soule they will not beleeve except their reason be convinced of the truth of Scriptures that they are of God and of divine revelation otherwise he thinks that his faith is but implicit or folded up in other mens beleefe or a weak yielding to antiquity or authority of Lawes and Customes without examination of their analogy and agreement with pure and primary reason and I beleeve if pure reason were not clouded by idlenesse ignorance or wilfulnesse it would prove a more impartiall judge of truth than the Pope himselfe who beleeves the Scripture by the ground of antiquity and forceth his conclusions drawn therefrom upon mens consciences by his own authority which men being made his vassals yield to any thing for quietnesse sake though themselves have no satisfaction therein From whence it is that most Christians profession of Religion is but either forced by fear of authority or voluntarily resigned up to another mans judgement or setled upon ones obstinate wilfulnesse neither which is saving faith For though we give some assent to Scriptures at first being moved by the authority of the Church to whom we owe respect and reverence as the people of Samaria first beleeved for the womans sake John 4.42 yet at last they beleeved for Christs sake So people within the pale of the Church first hear the voice of their mother the
Church but at last they beleeve it for God the Fathers sake whose voice they find speak in Scripture which is the foundation of true faith being the last principle into which faith can be resolved Mathe. Are there any other reasons to prove God beside Scriptures Phila. None better then Scripture to them that beleeve it but because many beleeve not the Scriptures as the Heathen denie the whole Bible and the Jewes halfe of it namely the N. T. therefore reason must be found to convince such The heathen know not the true God and the Jews know not God in Christ and so one worships a false God and the other the true God but in a false manner And we need not scruple at reason in this point because God gave reason before Scriptures and holy Reason before holy Writ to divers men which lead them to Religion and therefore though it be well proved to us out of the Old Testament that there is a God of the Jewes whom the very Heathen feared 1 Sam. 4.7 8. And also out of the New Testament that to us there is but one true God of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 8.6 by whom are all things and we by him And beside we know that nothing can testifie better of the truth of Gods being then the truth of Gods writing yet for other mens sakes who beleeve not the Scriptures and yet by reason may be induced to beleeve them it is good to urge reasons Now the first reason to perswade men that there is a God is Because it seems written in the minds of all nations by a naturall impression or mentall presumption which forceth rather to worship any thing for a god then no god at all Rom. 2. Cic. de Nat. De. lib. 1. p. 198. Cic. lib. 1. Tusc pa. 112. Rom. 1.2 which sheweth the first Commandement written in their hearts that they shall acknowledge a god though what god it is they know not and so they worship divers things for gods which are not so From hence it is that some have worshipped Sun and Moon some worshipped Beasts Serpents some the Images of Men some Crocodiles some Devils under strange shapes of Satyrs whose upper part was manlike and the under part like a Goat the Aegyptians worship * Shor-apis an Oxe head the Bramenes of India worship the first thing they meet in the morning as the god of the day Orteli Cosm So in Baida they worship a piece of a red clout tied to a crosse-stick like a banner some worship a Crosse as the god of raine This may be some old traditions of the Crosse antiquated I would they that understand their language would bring that God to them whom they ignorantly worship as Paul did to the Athenians it would prove a happy voiage I know the Papists use some endeavours among them to little purpose till they have convinced their understanding and so they do but draw them from one superstition to another and can give as little reason for one as the other yea I beleeve the subtill Indian observing the Idolatry of the Papists think their own Religion to be as good as the Papists Mathe. How comes men to be so sottish Phila. Through ignorance and immoderate passions of love and fear For as through ignorance some worshipped Fortune and Vices as contumely and impudence as did the Athenians Clem. Rom. l. 5. Recog others Flora and Priapus as did the Romans some worshipped Nymphae and Hymen and Mons Veneris which words signifie the secret parts of womens bodies fo which they made gods and goddesses as some inamoured Gallants do of their mistresses And thus the Devill hath taught men to debase themselves even unto hell Isa 57.9 So by fear men worshipped Serpents and Crocodiles and other hurtfull creatures as the Indians do the Devill for fear he should harm them others worshipped the Images of both under certain shapes called Telesmes which were made to defend them from something they feared So Love erected strange Idols As those that passionately desired to preserve the memory of their friends did after their death set up an Image of them which in processe became a sanctuary for offenders Dioph. Laced in Antiq. as did the Image of Synophanes son which he set up in love of his memory to which Image his servants offered incense and did fly to it for pardon of their offended master and upon reliefe would offer it gifts of thankfulnesse From hence came superstition the end whereof was Cicero that their friends might be superstites or survivors when they were dead that is kept in memory after death So Ninus set up the Image of Belus his father in his new built City Niniveh which became a sanctuary to all kind of offenders and in processe of time came to be religious worship Sophocles which even some heathen Poets confuted From Belus came Baal so often named in Scripture signifying Lord as Baal-Sephon Exod. 14.1 the Lord of the watch Tower and Baal Berith the Lord of the Covenant Judg. 8.33 and Baal-zebub the Lord of flies Dan. 3.1 And it is very likely that Nebuchadnezzars golden Image Dan. 2.38 was to be a memoriall of himselfe because Daniel had told him that he was the head of Gold but God crossed his purpose by the delivering of the three children from the fiery furnace However his Babylonians set up their god Bel which is very likely that they had brought from the Assyrians by conquest Mathe. But in what times did this false worship arise Phila. Certainly it arose first in Cain's posterity of whom it is said Gen. 4.26 Then began men to call on the name of the Lord where the Hebrew word huchar signifieth to prophane as Num. 30.2 And Jewish Rabbies so take it R. D. Kimchi though the Chaldee Paraphrase doth not for they say that then they began to call men by the name of gods and lords and placed the souls of their famous men in the stars and called the images here on earth by the name of god and began to give them divine worship This being a prophaning of that true Religion which was held in the family of Sheth you find in the fifth of Genesis men are ranked into two sorts sons of God and sons or daughters of men but when these sons of God of the line of Sheth married with the daughters of men which were of Cain and became infected with their Idolatry god drowned the world Yet this Idolatry ceased not but after the flood it began again in the race of Nimrod Belus and Ninus who were all Idolized by their followers placing their souls among the stars and erecting their Images here upon earth to which when they did sacrifice they beleeved that thereby the souls departed Elat in Symp. were called to their Images and took cognisance of their cases and then like patrons sollicited them before
in those times which is not competent with us Abraham to make his halfe sister his wife Iacob to have many wives which is not competent with other ages Mal. 2.15 and therefore reproved by the Prophet So neither are those actions imitable which many were agitated to by zeal and fervour of spirit for Gods cause as that of Moses to excite one brother to slay another nor that of Phineas in transferring Zimri and Cosbi for what actions are exorbitant from common Law are not to be made exemplar Mathe. What may we judge of those that are called Apocryphall books Ph. We are to think them as helps to understand Scripture in many places especially Solomon Wisd and Eccl. Judith Tobie Esdras Mac. and to know the State of the Jewes before the Prophet Malachies time in their captivity and after it also And so neither to contemn them nor yet to build our faith upon all things there written as the Church of Rome injoineth people to do under penalty of a curse as we are to beleeve the Canonicall Scriptures Conc. Trid. but to trie what analogy they hold with truth and so make use of them as in Heb. 11.35 takes an instance of faith from the mother of seven sons 2 Machab. 7.7 Mathe. Some make doubt of the Scriptures Canonicalness because they say there be more books in the world then we have inserted in our Bibles and all that we have in our account Canonicall are not thought to be so Phila. You need not trouble your selfe with that but rather make an holy use of that we have by building our selves up in our holy faith and thank God that he hath reserved for us by his Church a copy of sacred writ sufficient for our salvation which is written that we may beleeve and the rest lost or left out John 21.25 that we may not look after more then is necessary The Jewes reckoned but 22 books of the old Testament we find more Joseph cent Appion Vid. Concil Lao. de lib. Canon Magd. cent 4. fol. 838. c. 4. yet they contained as much as we have but their compiling differed from ours And these were consigned by Ezra the scribe after the return from Babylon in the time of Hagge Zachary and Malachy all in Hebrew Which tongue though it be a good signe of Canonicall Scripture yet it is not the only signe for many of the Apocryphall books were so written at first as Ecclesiasticus seems to be by the Preface a book of great worth and next sure to the Wisedome of Solomon So Tobit and the fourth of Esdras but rather the consignation of the Jewish Church and their continuall receipt of them for such Atha in Synop. So some write of more Psalms of David then 150. but if we should admit of more I feare it would encourage many selfe conceited men to make Psalms too under pretence that they had the spirit of God as well as David as did some in the Councill of Laodicea Conc. Lao. ut supra c. 59. and urged for it Ioel 2. your sons and daughters shall prophecy which Council excludes or at least omits the Epistle to the Colossians and the Apocalyps yet it reckons 14 Epistles of St Pauls of which that to the Colossians must be one or else there is but 13. Kirstonius in Arab. notes on the Evangel Calv. vid. Bod. method hist c. 7. And why the Apocalyps was left out it may be was because more lately written and divulged except the Councill were of their minds who reckoned it Apocrypha or theirs who slighted it as Ambrese did Persius the Satyrist because of its obscurity We read also of the Gospell of St Thomas and St Bartholomew all which is nothing to us so long as we know that our old Testament and the Jewes agree together still and are the same they were in the time of Christ And for the New Testament we have those that have been generally received as Orthodoxall by the Church and for 1300 years together consigned as Canonicall by the Councils as Nice Laodicea and Carthage Mathe. But whether have not the Iewes corrupted the old Testament Phila. 1. Aug. They would not certainly out of envy to the Gentiles rob their own posterity of the truth Philo. Beside they held it as a sin inexpiable so to do Polanus leb 1. cap. 37. and would die an hundred deaths rather then change one jot of them They know also that the world was created for the Scriptures sake and therefore the world would be turned to a chaos ere they should be altered and so they were faithfull trustees Rom. 3.2 But 2. They could not do it for there was so many Copies dispersed by reason of their dispersion over the world that it was impossible to corrupt it Bellarm. Beside certainly God would not suffer that to be corrupted by which he meant to save the world and therefore Christ said Luke 16.17 that not one iota should perish till heaven and earth passed away Mat. 5.18 And 3. They did not for then they would above all other places expunged or altered those that related to Christ as Esa 7. ver 14. Behold a Virgin shall conceive Gnalemah Bethulah not a young woman for that had been no wonder nor worth the world Behold So Esa 9.6 To us a child is born and a Son is given called Wonderfull c. Nor did they deface his passion though they deformed him foreprophecied so clearly Esa 53. Bellarm. Which words in their own language do more forcibly convince the Jewes then the Vulgar Latine doth as in Psal 2.12 Kisse the Son Nesheku Bar. i. embrace Christ not Discipline And therefore certainly the Old Testament was not corrupted by the Jewes 4. Our Saviour never charged them with corrupting the Text but only with misunderstanding or mis-interpreting nor any of the Fathers in their writing against them Just Marr. except one for wronging the Septuagints translation So that it is void of corruption however in the reading there may be some variation yet no deprvation of the Copy Mathe. But methinks they deliver things impossible and some things contradictory and some things in them seem doubtfull in regard of difference of text and margent in the old Testament and diversity of readings in the new Phila. Not things impossible to him whose word it is who to his works requires our faith more then our understandings else his works did not exceed magitians 2. Nor is there any contradictions in them if you observe the rule of contradictions which must be a assertion of the same thing at the same time according to the same part notion or apprehension You must know therefore that there is a vast difference between Scriptures and other books For they do not omit somethings out of mis-knowledge as other books do nor at all contradict themselves but sometimes things are omitted for mystery sake as Moses a
most accurate describer of Genealogies leaves out the Father and Mother of Melchisedeck that he might be a type of Christ to Abraham and all others For Christ considered simply as God had no mother and simply as man he had no father not that Melchisedeck had no generation though not in the Genealogy Heb. 7.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid Arab. caten c. 31. fol. 67 c. 30. fol. 66. at a. For we may find in some Eastern writings that he was the son of Heraclim the son of Phaleg the son of Eber. So sometime that is set before which is done afterward to stir up our diligence to search as 1 Sam. 16.21 Saul entertaineth David and loveth him and chap. 17.55 Saul enquireth whose son he is So there is great difference between Moses Genealogy from Shem to Abraham and of Lukes from Abraham to Shem in which we find two Nachors Gen. 11. and two Canaans Luke 2.34 c. So Heber to be the son of Nachor whom Moses sets down for the son of Selah which differences may be reconciled by comparing the Hebrewes account with the Grecists or Greek Jewes who very likely have made the mistake So by the Genealogy of Matthew Jacob is Josephs father and by St Luke Heli is his father but Iacob was his naturall father and Heli his father in law Mat. 1. Luke 2. by having Mary to his wife The doctrine of Scriptures also seems to vary but doth not and is reconciled by distinguishing as St Paul saith faith only justifieth and St Iames saith works justifie that is faith only justifieth by applying Christs merits to the soul but faith alone justifieth no mans christian profession but that is justified by works in the sight of men and faith it selfe is also approved by them These differences do vindicate the Scripture from any politike or crafty design that the authors had to impose upon men a sounder beleefe by continuing all circumstances most precisely without any appearing difference 3. R. Moses B. Maimon As for any diversities of readings in the Text and Margent of the Old Testament there be waies and books of directions enough to reconcile them the marginall notes being put down by the members of their great Synagogue Manasseh B. Israel his Conciliator vet Testam R. Isaac Jacob and Elias Levits a modern Jew who made the consignment of the Canonicall books such as was Daniel Ezra Haggai Zacharie and Malachi and that not because the Text was doubtfull but for some mystery Mathe. But we find divers books rejected by some Churches Phila. If they rejected them upon reason no doubt other Churches found as great reason to receive and hold them and I know not why one reason should not prevaile with you to hold them as well as the other to doubt of them I know Ecclesiastes is condemned by some as a book maintaining Epicurisme but it is rather Solomons recantations in the beginning crying down all for vanity and in the end concluding the summe of mans duty Others takes the Canticles for a love-ditty made to Pharaohs daughter but many of the expressions of it are not competible with womanhood nor beauty Cant. 7.4 It is rather a spirituall song full of Antiphona's and Responsories betwixt Christ and his and his Church Rab. Abr. Aben Ezra in cant cap. 1. The Jewes that best knew their own Canon say that it is abominable to think that this book treateth of venereall matters Indeed it is the rarest and most excellent not only of many which Solomon made to whit as some say 1005. but also the best of any other in sacred writ because it containeth in it doctrin of all sorts Porphyr So some say the Prophecy of Daniel is but an history written after the things there written were done namely in the time of Antiochus but indeed the book was delivered to King Alexander by Iaddus the high Priest 150. years before that time Others refuse the Epistle to the Hebrewes because it hath not the name of the author set to it They may as well reject the Book of Iudges and Ruth But this Epistle was alwaies received in the Greek Church as for the Latine Church it makes too bold with Scripture to put in or to dash out of it at her pleasure So some have questioned the Epistle of St Iames and Peters second Epistle and Iohns third Epistle yet upon debate they have been received and therefore now the lesse to be doubted Mathe. But some regard Scripture not to be the word of God the more for the Canon John 1.1 1 John 1.1 John 6.63 For they say the Word of God is God himselfe and that Christ the Son of God is the Word and that Gods word is Spirit and life not the letter for the letter killeth Phila. You may easily answer these thus Ask them from whence have they these arguments against the written Word but in the written Word If they allow not the written Word from whence they have these to be the word of God their arguments against the written Word are nothing If they do allow it so to be then they make God to fight against himselfe We know that a word of God there is that may be called himself As 1. The Word essentiall in the divine mind Genesis 1. as when God said i. the Trinity said or determined Let us make man This word cannot be any thing but God nor divided from God no more then thoughts can be from our minds 2. Hence is the Word personall and so Christ is the word begotten before all worlds by whom the world and all things were made and he is called God 3. Hence is the Word prophorical or enuntiative which God giveth by his spirit divers waies to men as by visions dreams inspiration and by an audible voice this is not called properly God though the fountain of it the holy Spirit be God The first of these words is immanent and consultative The second is emanent and generative The third is proceedent and communicative and therefore communicates Gods will declaratively to certaine men who spake and wrote as they were inspired by that divine spirit whose writing the Scripture is and is as improperly called God as God may be called the Bible The fourth is the word operative or efficacious Gods spirituall benediction of it to us But these men must pretend to some hidden way to make the world wonder a while and at last to smile at their simplicity who are not content to hear God speake in his word but must turn the word into God himselfe and so make him or it a kind of Idoll Mathe. But men doubt it because their translations are differing Phila. Either the Scriptures must be translated or else are never like to be known to the world abroad 2. They must be translated as every language will bear or else they will not be well understood Vid. Preface to Ecclus Now being so done
time for Shiloh to come and set up another Kingdome that never should have end For he began with death where all Empires do end and riseth again in despite of death and so reigneth over the quick and the dead which Kingdome is everlasting and never shall end as God promised David Mathe. But what necessity is it that Christ should be born of a Virgin Phila. I say First It was so And secondly It must needs be so First it was so you may see in the Prophet Isa 7.14 Behold a Virgin shall conceive and if he had meant a young woman Betuloth the Hebrew word given of Rebekah signifying one ripe for marriage or Ishah a virago a match for a man as was given of Adam to Eve might have served Alamoth is writ with â— clausum so Jacob called him Sbiloh the son of the Secundine which belongs not to a man 1 John and not Alamoth a covered virgin And indeed such an one she must be that he may be of womans seed not mans Nay more that he may be a fit Redeemer For if we suppose man a sinner against an infinite God either he must be subjected to infinite wrath or satisfie that wrath some other way If a man doubt that he be a sinner and so deceive himselfe by conceiving that sins are nothing but mans properties and inclinations which beasts have and yet sin not let him consider that meer nature will do nothing to destroy it selfe Prov. 1. though depraved nature will An horse drinks no more then will do him good but man will In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird yet men are caught by that they know and which they wilfully offend This argueth something of sin by which we remain not in the honor of our creation but became worse then the beasts that perish Now for this sin all men must suffer eternall wrath except God can be satisfied Now Angels cannot for they be not of our kind or if they were they be so many severall personalities as there are Angels and as the sin of one taints not anothers nature except there be a personall consent so neither can one merit for another though there be consent And for the other creatures irrationall they cannot because they are of lesse value then mans nature The blood of buls and of goats and sheep Heb. 10.4 5. and birds though sacrificed yet that was not to satisfie but to shew what man deserved and in reference to a more full satisfaction to be done in due time For which cause God dispensed with such sacrifice for a time Heb. 9.22 for mans relative instruction that without bloodshedding could be no remission Therefore this redemption must be made by a man because that man had offended so in the old law a brother must redeem But he must be more then a man too for no man that is meerly a man can redeem his brother out of Gods hand of justice Psal so then he must be one that is equivalent with God that the sword of justice must be exercised upon Zach. 13.7 Awake Osword against him that is my fellow Therefore if he must be a man then he must not be begotten by the ordinary way of generation by man and woman for then he is a sinner in the first conception Psal 51. and so had need of a Redeemer himselfe Nor by a man only for nature hath denied conception breeding and bearing to a man Then he must of necessity be made of a woman without a man and then she must needs be a virgin and though this Virgin her selfe came of a sinfull line yet sin being but an accident is left and the substance of her was only taken and immediately united to the divine nature by the power of the Holy Ghost so making both natures one person by which he becomes so meritorious a Redeemer for all mankind Mathe. What Prophecies are there of his Death Resurrection and Ascension Phila. Not to trouble you with heathen oracles or the prophecies of those twelve Exotick women the Sybils though such be enough to confute the heathens who deny Christ and have been used by some ancient Doctors to that purpose yet because I would that your faith should neither be diabolicall nor historicall but divine I shall only commend Scripture to you Therefore as his Nativity was prophecied by Jacob Gen. 49.10 under the name of Shiloh and fulfilled Mat. 2.1 in the daies of Herod the King And the place of his birth prophecied by Micah Mic. 5.2 Thou Bethelem Ephrata out of thee shall come the Ruler of Israel i. the Israel of God in a spirituall sense and government Rom. 9 6. for all are not Israel that are of Israel by nature no more then they are Jewes that are so outwardly by Nation or Country Rom. 2.28 Which prophecy of Micah was fulfilled Mat. 2.1 when Jesus was born at Bethelem And the condition of his Mother prophecied by Isaiah 7.14 Behold a Virgin shall conceive fulfilled also Luke 1.27 The Angell Gabriel was sent to a Virgin called Mary espoused to Joseph but not carnally known by him Mat. 1.25 yea his very name Immanuel was foretold by Isaiah which was the name of union God united to man Isa 7.14 and so the beleevers as it is said should call or apprehend him Mat. 1.23 But in regard of the effect of his redemption his Mother should call his name Jesus Mat. 1.21 and so she did Luke 2.21 And thus as Isaiah said cap. 9.6 To us a child is born and to us a Son is given Luke 2.7 so to us he was born Luke 2.11 that was wonder by his wisdome and miracles the everlasting Father by his divine essence not subsistence and the Prince of peace by his reconciliation of God and man And this birth of his was not only sanctified by circumcision on the eight day Luke 1.21 as Isaacs figure was Gen. 21.4 but also it was graced by a star foretold by Balaam Num. 24.17 and fulfilled Mat. 2.9 which conducted the wise men out of the East to Jerusalem and then to Bethelem where they worshipped him and offered precious things to him which was foretold Psal 45.12 the rich among the people shall do thee homage and the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift And Kings shall bring presents to thee Psal 68.29 And the Kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts Psal 72.10 And to him shall be given of the gold of Arabia Psal 72.15 and all this was fulfilled Mat. 2.11 when those great wise men of the East did worship him and offer to him gold incense and myrrhe So also was his death prophecied of First by God himselfe Christs death Luke 22.53 in Gen. 3.15 saying to the serpent thou shalt bruise his heel And this was done by the power of darknesse when he was betraied into the hands of sinners and cut off from the land of the living Isa
everlasting Heb. 7.24 A Sacrifice he was in his manhood not Eucharisticall but expiatory offered up whole like the Holocaust for sin which was burned up to ashes by the fire of Gods wrath And his Godhead was the spirituall Altar called the eternall spirit by which he offered up himselfe Heb. 9.14 yet the Crosse might be taken as a materiall Altar upon which his body was laid for though the Altar sanctifieth the gift as it is the utensill of Gods instistution yet he that sanctifieth himselfe may sanctifie the Altar too by his own oblation the fruit whereof made a blessed attonement by the sweet savour thereof Eph. 5.2 for all those that are crucified with him by crossing their own corrupt natures and that look upon Christ by faith as on the brazen Serpent that cured the people Iohn 3.14 and also to consecrate themselves to God as a living sacrifice to his service Rom. 12.1 Mathe. I pray shew me the reasons why he was erucified in such a manner Phila. He was crucified naked to satisfie for Adams losing the garment of innocence and might uncloath us of mortality of which the skins given to Adam for cloathing was an Emblem and cloath us with his merits also that he and we might enter into heaven naked as Adam did into earthly paradise so to comfort us that when the world and death strips us naked of all we have to suffer it joyfully for we shall find a cloathing from heaven 2 Cor. 5.4 when mortality shall be swallowed up of life and therefore to be content in the mean time Lignum mortis Lignum vitae that the world be crucified to us and we to the world Again he was fastned to the wood that death might be driven out of the world by a tree as it came in by a tree and life brought back to us again He was laied on the crosse as Isaac on the wood and nailed as foretold Psal 22.17 they digged my hands and my feet also that all bils and bonds of law against us might be nailed with him to his Crosse 1 Pet. 2.14 Then he was lifted up that he might carry our sins from the earth and conquer the spirits that rule in the aire Col. 2.15 He was crucified with his hands spread as reaching them out to embrace both Jewes and Gentiles that are not a gainsaying people His blood was shed on the Crosse to answer all the sacrifices of the Law without which there had been no remission Heb. 9.18 whereas it is now an universall medicine for all our soules languishing 1 John 17. and obtaineth for us eternall redemption Heb. 9.12 Beside he was crucified between two theeves 1. Because it was foretold that he should be reckoned among the transgressors 2. Esa 53.12 That he might sanctifie the death of repenting malefactors for his death in effect was to be divided among sinners of whom at last he would be Judge while some stand on his right hand and some on his left as the bad and repenting Theefe hung Now while he hung on the Crosse alive he suffered beside the paine 1. The division of his garments and casting lots on his vesture as was prophecied Psal 22.19 2. To shew that his very enemies should partake of his graces 3. Into four parts to shew that his good grace should edifie the four parts of the world So the not dividing his other coat shewed that his righteousnesse should be applied whole to every beleever And the casting lots for it argued that no man had his merits by their deserving but by the meer gift of God Col. 1.12 who disposeth of the Lot To all which misery they added derision Mat. 27.39 wagging their heads and upbraiding him with his words of destroying and building the Temple in three daies Yet it was truth in his sense of his resurrection ut praedixit sit revixit and mocking at his miracles saying he saved others but himselfe he cannot save Others mocked at his trust in God Others at his praiers as if he called upon Elias to save him which he suffered that we might know the abominableness of our sins that heaped such contempt upon the Son of God Also that we might be delivered from the scorn of this world and enjoy the comfort of our repute from God and a good conscience Heb. 12.3 without reviling the world again Nay more they blasphemed God as if he could not deliver him as the wicked said Psal 22. with whom they join issue and so condemn themselves to be of the wicked crew even like theeves who also did the same But beside all this he suffered great torments both in body and mind In body by hanging on the Crosse by his nailed hands and feet so that his heart might be rightly said to be melted like wax Psal 22.15 This was undergone to satisfie for our despising the threatning and the power of God in punishing those sins we had committed in the body also to free us from eternall torments and to sanctifie whatsoever pains we suffer in the body by diseases or from persecutors So he suffered anguish in soule when he cried out my God my God why hast thou forsaken me which some writers take to be meant of his descending into hell for now God seemed to desert him by deferring his deliverance and by withdrawing from his humane nature the divine support of comfort that he being sensible of them we might be delivered from them by his meritorious suffering them Yet we are not to conceive that the divine nature of the Sonne did forsake the humane but that the union was obscured or eclipsed nor that God the Father forsook him quite but permitted his humane nature as surety to feele what was due to the principall And this first confutes those that think he suffered not in soule though the Prophet say he made his soule an offering for sin And if not in soule his bitter cry argued more impatience then the Martyrs had It also may comfort men in their distresse of mind since Christ was forsaken for a time and surely it should work in us a feare of sin that made God thus to deale with his only Son whom he spared not being only the principall how terrible will he be against unrepenting sinners whom he will forforsake for ever and to make us consider with commiseration those that are troubled in mind a wounded spirit who can bear No wonder if many of them cry out they be damn'd of whom we are to judge charitably since Christ complains of Gods forsaking him through fear whom yet he calleth his God by faith Lastly he through paine suffereth thirst and they to adde to his misery gave him vinegar and so they fulfilled the Scripture Psalm 69.22 and he compleated our redemption saying it is finished Mathe. But did he only suffer on the crosse without any glorious testimony of his roialty and Deity Phila. No God left him not without witnesse For Pilats
was learned He like some schismaticks now accounted humane learning heresie and so they may see their error is popish while they condemn learning as if it were popery Next comes Sixtus the fourth Innocentius the eight Alexander the sixt who imprisoned and banished many Cardinals Then followed Pius the third and next Julius the second who by the Emperour Maximilian and the King of Spain and France's aids spoiled the Venetians of many territories yet he received them again into favor and so discontented the Emperour and the King of France that they thought to depose him by their Councill at Pisa But he called another Councill at Rome which disanulled all they did at Pisa He lived in wars all his time Leo the tenth succeeds him He endevoured to suppresse Martin Luther but could not Adrianus the sixt followed and threatned the Duke of Saxony for maintaining Martin Luther Clement the seventh succeeds who poisoned many and was poisoned himselfe Paulus the third followeth whose authority in England was abrogated by King Henry the eighth who called himselfe supreme head in his own dominions in all causes Ecclesiastick and Civill He cursed King Henry the eighth of England therefore and interdicted the Kingdome ratified the order of Jesuites and called a Councill at Trent where the Protestants would not appear because they said that Councill was not lawfully called and the Pope sate Judge who was the party they were to accuse of errors and abusing the Church He carried the Councill to Bononia Iulius the third followed who brought it back again to Trent and sent in Queen Maries daies Cardinall Pool to absolve England from the interdiction of Paul the third But havock was made in England of Protestants Paulus the fourth followed who hated Charls the Emperour who resigned his government to his son Ferdinand and died in a Monastery The Pope approved not this election but Ferdinand esteemed not of his approbation Pius the fourth followed In his time the Councill of Trent called by Paul the third was dissolved which had sate six yeers only of eighteen But before that he sent an Embassador into England to invite the Clergy to that Councill but Queen Elizabeth would not suffer him to land Nor would the Germans send any Scotland also revolted from popery He massacred Protestants at Montalto in Italy to the number of eighty because they met at an house to hear a Sermon They were drawn out one by one and their throats cut but none recanted their Religion Pius the fifth followed who with the Venetians and the King of Spain and his own aids overcame the Turks at Lepanto under the conduct of John of Austria Gregory the thirteenth followed He founded a new Colledge for Jesuites and gave it great revenues to bring up schollers to convert the Germans The Guises faction and the Queen Mother made an horrid massacre in Paris of the Protestants whom they called Huguenots 1572. Which act this Pope commended and sent Charls King of France 40000. Duckats to set forward the war against them This Pope set forth a new Kalender Sixtus the fift followed who excommunicated the King of Navar and the Prince of Condie both Protestants Now was Henry the third killed by a Frier Clement the eighth absolved Henry the fourth King of France from the excommunication of Sixtus the fifth upon his abjuration of the protestation by his Orators which King was slain by a proselyte of the Jesuits called Ravilack Mathe. I desire to know how the Protestant Religion came in and whether it be ancient and how it hath been persecuted by the Pope his adherents whether Princes or Prelates and by what heresies opposed for the Papists still upbraid us that our Religion was begun by Luther who began an innovation in the time of Pope Leo the tenth Against whom Henry the eighth of England did write and obtained the title from the Pope of Defender of the faith Phila. You are to understand that the substantiall points of the Protestant Religion are the same which are grounded upon Scripture and maintained from the Primitive times by the Church Christian but obscured in tract of time by divers heresies and popish traditions which like tares and weeds over-grew the good seed which yet still appeared in divers places of the field of the Catholike Church plain enough to prove a visible being both of the truth and professors of it till the Protestants made a more full declaration of it by refining the old truths from the drosse of heresie and popish superstition Mathe. I desire to have a more plain view of those hereticks that turned from Gospell truths And secondly how the Pope sell off being that the Roman Church did oftentimes excommunicate those hereticks And thirdly how the Protestants came to reform themselves they being once in the bowels of the Romish Church Phila. You know I have shewed many already among the persecuting hereticks yet it shall not be irksome to me if it be not to you to view them a little better especially the Manicheans who sprung up before Arrius with which heresie Augustine was entangled but the Lord God that bringeth good out of evill converted him by the pains of Ambrose Bishop of Millain and he became a great light to Gods people and a confuter of that cursed heresie Manicheus opinions were that there were two beginnings one evil and the other good which is all one as to say there be two Gods No wonder if their patron Manes called himselfe the Holy Ghost Maniches as Montanus did if he proceeded from such principles This Manes forbade flesh and wine neglected the old Testament ascribed the sin of man not to his free will Vid. Aug. cont Mani but necessity because he said mans body was made of the substance of the Prince of darknesse He died a fearfull death Theo. l. 4. c. 4. For as Arrius voided his guts at a draught-house before he came to dispute against the truth so this Manes was sent for being a Persian by the King of Persia to cure his son who died in his hands and he was imprisoned but escaped yet heard of in Mesopotamia was taken and flead Socrat. l. 1. c. 21. and his skin stuffed and set up at the gate of the City Mathe. Sir lest it be too much trouble to you and no great benefit to me to recite all the heresies I desire only the chiefe of them which do directly oppose true Religion Phila. I intend so and therefore first I will shew you the ancient heresies and then the modern that you may see how far the latter are raked out of the former We find some holding God to be like a man because Gen. 1.21 God is said to make man after his image Anthropomorphites but that in the soule and the endowments thereof wisedome and righteousnesse The Author of this heresie was one Ardaeus a Syrian Then followed the Messalians called Euchitae because they thought the whole duty of
society then murther for that destroieth but some men but Heresie and Schisme destroieth or endeavoureth to destroy the Church 2. Murther can but destroy the body but this the soule Murther destroies only naturall life but this destroieth life spirituall and eternall Beside Heresie rents a man from the truth and Schisme from the communion of the Church and so breaks the bond of unity and charity by which God is forsaken as well as the Church and if they think to maintain these rents they have made from the Church of England to be lawfull let them tell you what Church hath lesse error or lesse evill manners and yet maintains none either by her doctrine or authority I beleeve they will find even the Church of Corinth and many of the Churches of lesser Asia to be guilty of greater error and worse manners then the Church of England was when they separated from it and yet Paul cals one the Church of God and Christ in the Revelation doth call the other Churches yet these men while they condemn the Church of England of tyranny they have been more cruell to themselves by separation then the Church could be or was by excommunication Mathe. I pray before you tell me of their punishments let me know what other kind of Sectaries have vexed the Church Phila. Papists when they were in authority they persecuted the Church when they were supprest Papists then secretly they corrupt the Church By Papists I mean not the old before the Trent Councill or rather Conventicle begun in the year 1546. in the time of Pope Paulus the third though they were bad enough but the Papists that sprung up since because they have brought in new errors as other new Sectaries have done As 1. Concerning free will that it works by it selfe with grace in our conversion though the Apostle saith that the naturall man receiveth not the things of God 2. 1 Cor. 2.14 They say originall sin is quite taken away in baptisme so that it ceaseth to be sin yet St. Paul saith that when he doth that which is evill it is by sin that dwelleth in him Rom. 7.17 So they hold that the certainty of salvation depends only upon hope not on faith contrary to John 1.12 saying Christ gave them power to be made the sons of God that beleeved on his name They say the merit of Christs death and obedience is our satisfaction not our righteousnesse but Paul saith he was made to us righteousnesse and made sin for us that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him So they say we are justified by a generall faith of apprehension by which we beleeve the Scriptures to be true but Paul saith by a particular faith of application of Christ and all his merits to our selves as Gal. 2.20 who died for me and gave himselfe for me So they say a man is not justified by faith alone but by other vertues but Paul saith we are justified by faith without the deeds of the Law for indeed good works do but justifie our faith not us nor do they justifie us as a cause but are signs and fruits of our justification So they say a man may merit at Gods hands because God hath promised to reward us and Christ hath deserved that out works should merit but Paul refuseth all for Christs merits and desireth only to be found in him Phil. 3.9 and not in his own righteousnesse So they say that Christ hath satisfied for our sins and eternall punishment belonging to them but the temporall we must satisfie in this world or in purgatory It is true we must satisfie men for wrongs done this is but a civill satisfaction So we must fatisfie the Church by some testimony of repentance if we have offended the Church but we know of none we can make to God but only in Christ and for purgatory after life we find none in Scripture but beleeve as death leaves us so judgement finds us So they talk much of traditions to be beleeved as necessary to salvation because the Apostle bids the Thessalonians to hold fast the traditions which they had been taught 2 Thes 2.14 whether by word or by our Epistle But then they ought to prove to us that the traditions which they would have us receive are such as were delivered of Christ to his Apostles or from the Apostles to the Church 2 Tim. 3.16 or else give us leave only to hold that the Scriptures alone hold forth to us all things necessary to salvation So they hold vowes of things not commanded are a part of Gods worship such as is a vowed single life wilfull poverty and blind regular obedience which destroy Christian Liberty and therefore till they prove such things commanded in Scripture they must give us leave to hold only our vow in baptisme and to reject the other as humane inventions of seducing spirits spoken against 1 Tim. 4.1 2 3. So they hold the worshipping of images to be a religious work but that is forbidden in the second Commandement which they have taken away and divided the tenth into two Pascha Raubertus first sets it forth in lib de Corp. Christi sang cap 14. Ioannes Diaconus in vita Grego 1. Legend of Simeon Metaphrastes in vit Arsenii the better to bring the people to image-worshipping So they hold Christ to be bodily present in the Communion Bread and Wine a strange opinion which was at first but at School-Question afterward maintained by tales and fictions of Christ appearing in the Sacrament like a little child A shamefull opinion to subject Christ to orall eating and gutturall swallo wing True it is that Christ is really there present in a spirituall and mysticall manner in a Sacramentall relation to the signs and by faith to the beleeving receivers yet I know the Church of Rome hath peremptorily condemned them for hereticks that would not hold the bodily presence For Pope Leo the ninth and Victor the second and Nicolaus the second called Councils against Berengarius who had disproved it by Aug. and Scotus Yet Pope Innocent the third in his Conventicle of Lateran gave it the name of Transubstantiation and ratified the doctrine thereof and hath been the destruction of many a godly Martyrs life in the time of Queen Mary So they call the Lords Supper a sacrifice which they call the Masse and it serves for the quick and dead with them But it is not properly so called but only as it is a memoriall of Christs offering up himselfe or because then we do in Christ offer up our selves a living sacrifice or because we make an offering at that time for the Minister and the poor So they make fasting it selfe a part of Gods worship Rom. 14.17 whereas the Kingdome of God consisteth not in meat or drink nor in fasting from it though temperance is a good vertue in a Christian but to set up a necessity of formall fasting as a piece of
he had so little knowledge in the tongues and Arts. Socin Respons ad Defi. Puccii p. 49. One book handles the authority of Scripture the other handleth the cause for which the Gospell of Christ is to be beleeved The error of this Socinus was spread far in Sarmatia and Transylvania Silesia Lituania Mathe. What were their errors Phila. That there is no naturall knowledge leading a man to a beliefe of a Deity contrary to Paul who saith that the invisible things of God are seen by things created Rom. 1.20 and that the Gentiles do by nature the things written in Gods law Rom. 2.14 So they say Christ is not God and yet they give him divine worship and so make him an Idol and themselves Idolaters So they deny the Godhead of Jesus Christ which forfeits their own Christianity and overthroweth Christian Religion and all divine honour due to Christ from men This was the heresie of Samosatenus Bishop of Antiochia of whom you have heard already How can these men be called Christians who deny the office of Christ No marvell though they refuse to be baptized in the name of the Trinitie if they denie with Sabellius two persons in the Trinitie for they say Christ is not trulie God Iohn 8.58 yet Paul saith he was in the form of God Phil. 2.6 and the character of his glorie Heb. 1.2 and in him dwelt the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily Col. 2.9 So they say that the Holy Ghost is not God and so Macedonius held who was justlie condemned by the second generall Council of Constantinople in the year 386. But if the Holie Ghost be not God why doth St. Iohn rank him as equall to the Father and Son 1 Iohn 5.7 Again they say the Incarnation of Christ is repugnant to reason which I have formerlie disproved and that it is not fullie proved in Scripture yet St Iohn tels us that the Word became flesh Iohn 1.14 So they say that Christ did not by his death satisfie for our sins yet it is said that he is the propitiation for our sins and that is all one 1 Iohn 2.2 So they say it is against Scripture to beleeve three persons in the Godhead and yet Christ institutes baptisme to be given in the three names of Father Son and Holie Ghost So they say man was not created in originall righteousnesse yet Solomon saith God made man upright but he hath sought inventions So they say that the old Testament is not necessarie for a Christian man yet Christ saith Moses spake of him Iohn 5.46 and the men of Berea searched the old Testament to prove the truth of the new Acts 17.11 These are very dangerous errors because they overthrow the foundation of Christian faith namely Christs satisfaction for us and plainlie Antichristian in denying Christ to be God And also they denie the person of the Holie Ghost They confound faith and works together They say the Law is imperfect and yet that man is justified by the works of the Law not by the law of faith Rom. 3.27 Also that the soule of man hath no subsistence after death whereby it apprehendeth joy or sorrowes and so consequently they may denie heaven and hell as things only imaginarie They stand much upon reason and would subject not only Fathers and Councils but also the Scriptures to it and so every man doth like the Pope in being the judge of all by his own reason Beside they are tied in a knot with Arminians and Anabaptists concerning the power of magistrates and are one as lawlesse as the other And the Papists are well pleased with them because they perceive them to do their work for them in rooting out all Protestant Magistrates and Ministers Mathe. What Achans beside have troubled our Israel Phila. The Antitrinitarians Antitrinitarians who hold opinions against the Holie Trinitie and scraped up the old Heresie of Arrius denying Christ to be God and with the Socinians denie the Trinitie of persons and that the eternall generation of the Son is against truth contrary to Micah 5.2 whose goings out have been from everlasting And they say Christ is called God not in regard of his divine essence but his dominion yet Christ saith I and my Father are one Iohn 10.30 So they denie the Holie Ghost to be God yet St Peter told Ananias when he lied to the Holie Ghost that he lied not to man but to God Acts 5.3 These by some Writers though first sprung up in Polonia 1593 are called Legatinarians from one Legate who for obstinate holding these opinions was burned in Smithfield March 18. Anno 1611. and after him in April following another was burned at Leichfield for the same heresie Mathe. I hear also of men called Millenaries who pretend to antiquity and would prove their opinions from Scripture I pray what are their opinions Phila. They are a branch of the Anabaptists in some of their opinions Millenaries Their antiquitie is fetched from Cerinthus a Jew who lived about the 96 year after Christ in the time of Domitian who held with Ebion that Jesus was only begotten of Ioseph and Mary and that he was not Christ born but that Christ came upon him at his Baptisme in the form of a Dove and that Jesus suffered but that Christ fled away whom St Iohn confuteth in his Gospell John 1. This man pretended revelations from Angels and held that eternall life was here upon earth and that after the resurrection Christs Kingdome should be on the earth and that his subjects should eat and drink marry and keep holy daies and offer sacrifice and that this should last a thousand years Into which error also Papias fell Euseb l. 3. c. 36 the Bishop of Hierapolis for want of observing the Apostles writings So did Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons in France both men of great authority in their times Iren. l. 5. cont Valent. namely in the first hundred years after Christ So in the reign of Galienus Nepos and his followers called Nepotiani affirmed from Rev. 20. 5 6. that the godly should rise before the wicked and should live with Christ upon the earth in abundance of all earthly pleasures Eus l. 7. c. 22. But if that text be taken literally those godly must be beheaded and so dead first and then rise againe yea and Christ must be come first These were convinced by Coracion Eus l. 7. c. 23. But our latter Millenaries exceed all those before them in error for they will not stay till Christ come or those godly be raised Oh that men would study dark mysteries lesse and divine duty more the Kingdome of Christ lesus would be the better obtained but say that Christs Kingdome must be set up out of hand to promote which alll the ungodly must be slain that the meek may inherit the earth in which the ungodly have no propriety of estate By which doctrin the people are filled with mad zeale and coveting of
Stephens sermon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which argued only vexation envy and malice This kind of repentance may go before faith and be without faith but the true repentance to salvation is caused by faith or else it is meerly sinfull Rom. 14.23 nor can it purifie the heart without faith Acts 21.24 and therefore the arguments for repentance are drawn from the promises of grace exhibited in Christ Mat. 3.2 Two things must especially be observed in repentance 1. That it be not put off and deferred 2. That it be continued because the faithfull do continually sin little or much as appeareth Psal 32. and Psal 51. Mat. 18.2 and therefore even the very regenerate are exhorted upon their fals to repentance and pardon is promised them Ezek. 33.11 and Rev. 2.9 notwithstanding the rigid doctrine of the Novatians and the Catharists who denied repentance to those that had sinned after baptisme For though God in Christ takes away the power of sin yet not the power of sinning the dominion of sin is destroied but sin is not quite taken away out of our nature in this life that so we may the more aspire toward heaven where no sin shall remain Now the parts of this repentance is 1. A turning of the heart from evill with hatred and mortification of the old man and a turning of the heart to good with a love thereof and practice of it by enlivening of the new man Esa 61.2 V.d. Aug. lib. de vera falsa penit cap. 13. from whence floweth a sadness for offending God and a joy that arises from the hope of pardon Psal 51.10 for we need not hold contrition confession and satisfaction to be essential parts of true repentance because that reprobates have them and yet have not true repentance as Judas yet may they be the effects of true repentance in them that have it but not a cause of remission nor have power to blot out all sin as the Papists suppose as not the sin of a reprobate nor the sin against the Holy Ghost Nor need we think confession is absolutely necessary to salvation for Peter wept but said nothing as we read of yet sanctification produceth a confession of sin first to God either publickly as Neh. 9. or privately as Psal 32.5 and that generally of all sin Luke 18.13 or parricularly of the sins of our lives Jam. 5.16 as Psal 19.13 And 2. To my neighbor Mat. 18.15 that I may receive counsell and comfort from him and he satisfaction from me and so reconciled one to the other as Mat. 5.23.3 There is another confession which is made before the Pastors of the Church of some sins which burden conscience Luke 19.8 So there is a publick confession of sins made by Priest and people to God in the publick place and exercise of religion either ordinarily of the common sins that cleave to nature or extraordinarily on the times of humiliation for some peculiar sins that have infected both Priest and people Neh. 1.7 So there is a confession which hath been used in the Church by those which for disobedience have been excommunicated and could not be received into the congregation again without such confession But these confessions prove not papisticall auricular confession of all sin to be either forced upon men as lawfull or necessary to our reconcilement with God for as it is impossible to confesse all sins Psal 19.13 so it is not any where commanded in Scripture nor any example given that it should be so done to a Priest or to that end and the rather because there is another rule of remission and justification with God set down Ezek. 18.21 and Rom. 4.23 namely repentance and faith Indeed confession of sin was not established as the Papists urge it till the time of Pope Innocentius the third who did order in the Councill of Lateran at Rome about the year 1215. that all of either Sex after they came to the years of discretion should confesse all their sins faithfully once in a year to their own Priest which was seconded by the Councill of Trent which enjoined confession before Easter but we find it not imposed by any divine authority as it is of no great antiquity Therefore though a man may in case of a troubled conscience go and confesse to one that is a true minister and lawfully called thereunto having the word of reconciliation and Gospell dispensation committed to him yet he is not to be forced thereunto for in that there is too much formality and something of tyranny or if thou hast wronged thy neighbour thou maist confesse thy fault to him but if thou beest ashamed to confesse it Chryl hom 2. in Psal 50. lest it prove approbrious to thee yet confesse it daily to God and thine own soule and devise some means or way to make him satisfaction Aug. lib. 10. conf cap. 3. Amb. lib. 10. in Luke cap. 96 as the case requireth for some sins as Peters are confessed by the eie in tears when shame stops the mouth of confession and let those exactors passe that are very curious in the search of other mens sins but too sloathfull to amend their own Now the effect of repentance is a christian holy life by which we come to be of the communion of Saints And such a life we must lead that we may recover that chiefe part of Gods image lost consisting in righteousnesse and holinesse And this is necessary because our God is holy and we are joined to this holy God and made his people by covenant and he hath in Christ purged us redeemed us and adopted us his children and because Christ hath inserted us into his own body as his members and the Holy Ghost hath dedicated us as temples to God and hath appointed us to heavenly incorruptibility and therefore a Christian life consisteth not in an outward profession of the Gospell in tongue but in an imitation of Christ having his word for the rule and Gods glory for our end and scope simplicity and sincerity for the mode and manner of it with a continuall perseverance and daily progresse in it Now of this life there be three parts 1. A deniall of our selves 2. A meditation of life to come 3. A right use of worldly goods Mathe. I pray declare how Phila. First a deniall of our selves there must be the foundation whereof is because we are not our own but Gods who by Christ hath redeemed us Rom. 14.7 8 9. and therefore we must renounce all our affections that resist the law of God as impiety pride and hypocrisie and have an humble and voluntary subjection in all things to the will of God and a practice of those things that God requireth of us as of sobriety righteousnesse and godlinesse as Tit. 2.12 Therefore this life must have respect both to God and men First to men so that is honor we prefer before our selves those whom we ought and as much as we ought and so by
This swelling title of head of the Church and Christs Vicar and Universall Bishop was a forerunning signe of Antichrist as said Gregory the great who was Pope in his seventh Book Greg. M. lib. 4. Ep. 36. and Epist 39. to Mauritius the Emperor and therefore he much declined and waved such titles Mathe. I pray what think you of Antichrist what or who is he Phila. You know St John tels you there were many Antichrists in his time 1 John 2.18 that is some that were contrary to the Gospell of Christ in faith or manners or both Jerom. in Mat. 24. Some account all the heads of Heresies to be Antichrists Others say that they be such as overthrow all good manners and so one describes the state of the Church of Rome saying that the Princes and Judges are the beasts seale Papa Honorius in dial de libero arbit the Clergy his pavilion the Monasteries his Tabernacle the Nunneries his bedchamber and the people to bear his image This he spake of the second Beast Rev. 13.11 And Bernard the Abbot saith plainly Bern. ad Gaufrid Lorat Epi. 125. who writ about 546 years since that the Beast in the Revelation to whom a mouth is given speaking blasphemies is he that sits in Peters chair The other Beast is more subtle as this is cruell yet both joine against Christ So many other conclude the Pope and Papacy to be that man of sin and son of perdition that hath laied an opposite foundation to Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thes 2.3 4. politickly pretending Christian profession and yet overturning his truth Indeed if one would be lead by Chronograms or the numerall letters in the word Lateinos Pet. Mart. in 2 Reg. 4. Iren. l. 5. c. 25. or Ecclesia Italica or in the Hebrew word Romiith or in Maometis one may find the number of the Beast Rev. 13.18 which is 666. about which time after Christ the Pope was made supreme and universall Bishop in the West and Mahomet chiefe Prophet in the East And though I will not build my faith on numbers in names nor do I think that all names be imposed inevitably by the influence of the stars yet this is not altogether to be despised since Nimrods name included his nature i. an apostate rebell and Cyrus his name in Hebrew was like himselfe wh was an head to the people and in the Persian language a glorious Sun This Antichristianity is called the mysterie of iniquity 2 Thes 2.7 for it is a secret wickednesse in the name and nature of it for Antichrist may signifie one that is a vicegerent for Christ As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Deputy or a Lievetenant for him and thus the Pope would be thought Christs Vicar because he sitteth in the Temple of God or a part of the Church visible corrupted and exalts himselfe above all earthly power that hath given to it the title of God or Lord and shewing himselfe as God 2 Thes 2.4 both in placing and displacing Kings and forgiving sins So is the nature of his doctrine opposed to Christ very subtilly namely because faith must appear by works therefore to set up works to justifie our persons which works the popish writers call also the works of faith not of the law though they be but works of mens inventions and so they prefer works before the formall righteousnesse of Christ imputed to man for justification Mahomet speaks also very well of Christ but he enjoins externall works of his own collection by which men must be saved So the Pope and Mahomet join in one against Christ in this and also in holding that the holy Scriptures are not sufficient for salvation but their canons and rules of obedience have more attributed to them for performance then the obedience of faith which devices are like the locusts that came out of the bottomlesse pit of their inventions Rev. 9. having the face of a reasonable creature but a scorpions sting which gives no rest to the soule but poisons it yet if hue and cry were made after the Pope and Mahomet a man might justly stop the Pope upon suspicion of being the more proper Antichrist for these reasons First because the name of Antichrist agreeth most properly to him and his seat yea all the descriptions of Antichrist in Scripture doth so likewise But by the Pope we mean not every Bishop of Rome from the Primitive times for many of them were Confessors and Martyrs till the time of Sylvester neither was Antichrist discovered much till Boniface the third took from the Emperor Phocas the name of Universall Bishop and his See of Rome to be called the supreme head of all Churches After this we find in the Pope and Church of Rome all the marks of Antichrist for he sets in the Temple of God like an Hornet in a Bee hive driving out the labouring Bees and devouring their hony The popish writers make this an argument of their Church being the true Church and Temple of God because Antichrist sits there It is true that they have the name and shew of a Church Christian but have neither true Doctrine nor Sacraments in their simplicity as the Scripture sets them forth and hath delivered them to the Church so that they have only the name of a Church as Sardis had that she was living but indeed was dead Rev. 3.1 And in this Church Antichrist sitteth as a usurping Tyrant over Gods ordinances abusing them and changing them at his pleasure and over all authority Ecclesiasticall and Civill that beareth any similitude of Elohim even as St Paul foretold 2 Thes 2.3 4. And this may be proved from their own writers some of them saying that it is not lawfull for any man to reprove what the Pope approves for all men ought to be judged by him Zodericus Zamorra lib. 2. cap. 1. but he by none and that he hath all power in heaven and earth so assuming to himselfe the right of Christ as well as his title King of Kings and Lord of Lords which made him so bold as to let Emperors kisse his feet Alexand. pap 3 and to set his foot upon the neck of the Emperor Frederick abusing the 91 Psalm saying thou shalt tread upon the Lion and the Dragon as also Pius the fift did when he deposed Queen Elizabeth abused Jer. 1.10 Behold I have appointed thee this day over Nations and Kingdomes Beside is not he right Antichrist that arrogates to himselfe power over Gods word and his law and saith Gratia in gloss that he can dispense with the law of nature and contrary to the Apostles and therefore hath dispensed with Princes to marry their brothers wives which St John Baptist would not allow to Herod and make parricides saints and forgives sins to the unrepentant yea sins before they are committed yea they say it is lesse dangerous to break Gods Commandements then the Popes
will their law and Gods word their rule otherwise whereas they might be the balm of the Church they prove her bane as many have done namely the second Nicen Synod and that of Constance and the Roman under Innocent the third and many others so that the outward communion of the Church hath been often dissolved though the inward hath and must hold among the faithfull Mathe. I desire to know what the Communion of Saints is Phila. The participation of those benefits to which the Saints only have a right in common and this communion they have with God and of his benefits among themselves That they have a communion with God you may see 1 John 1.3 7. by which we have a connexion and union with him by love of him towards us and our love to him and his word and service and so as it were cohabiting and dwelling one in and with another Iohn 14.23 as a father with his children by providence children with their father by a loving obedience And this communion is express in Scripture particularly with the blessed Trinity As first with the father by being made his sons 1 Iohn 3.1 through Christ by faith Iohn 1.12 and by the vertue of the Holy Ghost who leadeth us into all saving truth Iohn 16.13 and testifieth to us that we are the children of God Rom. 8.16 17. For as the Father by his love to us draweth us to Christ Iohn 6.44 so Christ dwels in our heart by faith Eph. 3.12 and the spirit acteth and perfecteth this union and communion by his operation through his spirituall graces Rom. 8.14 Therefore as God the Father hath given us his Son so his Son hath united our nature to himselfe by an union indissoluble as a body and members to the head 1 Cor. 12.12 So the Holy Ghost doth combine him and the Saints by a true and reall union and communion of his substance not by his body being in ours or ours in his but as the branches are in the vine which though differing in sight yet agree in connexion communication and assimulation By this spirit we have communion with Christs divine nature because it dwels in us and conforms us to it selfe 2 Pet. 1.4 and also with his human nature as children are partakers of the same flesh blood Heb. 2.14 yea of the same spirit 1. Cor. 6.17 and of his sufferings also Rom. 8.17 that we may be glorified with him For by the union we have with Christ is obtained all the benefits of his birth death resurrection and ascension spoken of before together with all the blessed effects thereof wronght in us as free justification regeneration adoption and freedome from sin satan and the sinfull world with all the consequents thereof which is remission of sin resurrection of our bodies and life eternall all which is sealed to us by the two Sacraments Baptisme and the Lords Supper by both which we have communion with Christ for all that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ Gal. 3.27 and the cup of blessing and the sacramentall bread is the blood and body of Christ to faith 1 Cor. 10.16 Mathe. What need was there of two Sacraments since both of them have relation to the death of Christ Phila. He that did first institute them knew best the reason of appointing two and the Scripture which is the expresse mind of Christ sets forth baptisme to us as the Sacrament of initiation or entrance or first grafting into Christ and his mysticall body the Church The other as the Sacrament of sustentation by which we are with the word nourished up to life eternall Therefore St Paul Rom. 6.5 cals baptisme a planting into the similitude of Christs death and Rom. 11.17 he saith the Gentiles were grafted into the true olive which no doubt was at first by the word of faith preached and baptisme received And the Sacrament of the communion is represented to us as food to which Christ had some respect John 6.55 saying my flesh is meat indeed though he explains it afterward in a spirituall sense ver 63. saying the spirit quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing It is true that there is no clear analogy between grafting and washing except we consider the subject of that Sacrament in divers respects 1. As a wild tree and so by baptisme one is said to be grafted because it is a means ordained for our admittance into the stock 2. If we consider man as a polluted infant in birth naturall so washing is proper Ezek. 16.4 5. and therefore baptisme is called the washing of regeneration or the new birth and differs as much from the other Sacrament in the thing signified as in the sign for the sign of one is water of the other wine So the thing signified in the one is the all-cleansing spirit of God John 3.5 which in effectuall baptisme operates with the water the thing signified by the other is the all-cleansing blood of Christ not but that both are in both the blood of Christ concurring with baptisme through the efficacy of it though not signified by it and the Holy Ghost in the communion by his powerfull operation conveying the efficacy of his body and blood to every beleever Mathe. Though Baptisme be but the Sacrament of entrance yet there be many tender minds who cannot comfortally bring children to it as there be many being fearfull of their own unworthiness and to partake with such as are not fit as they suppose to abstain from the Lords Table I pray therefore to help me therein that I being strengthened I may comfort others Phil. First I know no reason why any Christians should doubt of bringing their children to baptisme for the reasons I have already shewed But beside if Christ did admit children that were carried in peoples arms to his person for a blessing Luke 18.15 no doubt they may be admitted to baptisme where his blessing is to be expected especially there being no other ordinance appointed whereby we may bring children to him but this and that we find no prohibition in Scripture against it And whereas some say they may not because they have not faith they cannot prove they have none because Christ saith there be little ones that beleeve in him Greg. Decret lib. 3. cap. â— de baptis Nor can they prove that none may be baptized that beleeve not for Simon Magus was If they say that he made a confession of it I say they may make a better confession and profession by their parents and witnesses than he did by himselfe Or if there were a Text containing these words he that beleeveth not shall not be baptized would discreet men think it meant only of those that could hear and understand and not of Infants who cannot understand no more then that place of St Mark 16.16 includes infants damnation where Christ saith he that beleeveth not shall be damned And what forbids us to beleeve that being God worketh without means upon