strengthen the argument it is observed that such divisions and subdivisions among those that fall from the Churches unity are significant marks of their falsity and that they are not of the true Spirit of God Irenaeus reports of the Valentinians that when they were very numerous scarce two or three agreed in the same opinions And S. Austin of the Donatists that in his time they were cut asunder and divided into very many small pieces factions and the same may be observed by almost all the ancient remarkable heresies And how much of this observation falls upon such as have departed from us I leave to the impartial Reader to judge Qu. But do you follow no directions of the Spirit in your profession Ans. Yes in these foure wayes or respects First I follow the guidance of the holy Scriptures as they were given by inspiration of the holy Spirit Secondly I follow the examples pattern and Doctrines of the first Churches which were planted by the Apostles and Apostolick men of the first age who were directed by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit as of prophesying tongues and miraculous healing as was then expedient for the conviction of the world that they were from God Thirdly I follow that light of truth which the universall Church of Christ have kept and preserved as to all times and places which I beleeve to be the effect of Christs promise of sending his Spirit of truth to guide into all truth Fourthly I follow the direction of the holy Spirit whereby I am taught of God that is instructed and inabled by his preventing and assisting grace to lead a holy life and to have my judgement spiritualized that I may mind desire discern and design spiritual things Now whatsoever new light is pretended inconsistent with the holy Scriptures so interpreted by the common judgement of the first planters and the Churches nearest them or that shall destroy the All-truth of the Spirit in fundamentals maintained and confirmed by universal profession or that consists not with godlines and the Gospel-rules of a holy life mercy charity peaceablenesse justice and the like I dare not embrace any new light upon the grounds forementioned Quest What is your second direction or caveat Ans. To beware of such a profession that hath no other ground then a plea from Sripture upon private interpretation which ground though it hath not produced such monstrous effects of errour as the former yet hath been more dangerous and destructive to the Churches peace and unity Now the unsafetinesse of such a profession in the first place appeares because the most absurd hereticks of the ancient Church in bringing in their then novel errours as plainly and undeniably appeares by the practices and histories of the Manichees Arians Sabellians Pelagians Donatists and others when they would no otherwise accomplish their enviousnesse against the then present Church departed from its communion upon new principles of dangerous consequence and cried up Scripture for their cause A testimony or two I may instance in from the Ancients instead of many Tertullian speaking of hereticks saith That when they perswade of matters of faith but out of the writings of faith they pretend the Scriptures and by such boldnesse move many to them To the same purpose Athanasius Endure not those that perswade you to new things contrary to the faith received although they anthorize them from the holy Scriptures In the next place I shall further adde as a reason to suspect the unsafetinesse of such a profession the fatall infelicities and irreconcileable differencies that have alwayes befallen the Church but especially in these last ages upon the presumption of private interpretation whereby every man as he hath been indulgent to his own opinion which either education prejudice advantage or ignorance hath inclined his spirit to so hath he decided and determined the controversies of the Church or made new ones worse then the former And I am confident were there a thousand cells and so many of our private Interpreters in them obliged to passe their judgements to determine the controverted doctrines to make a confession of faith to marshall a Church-government to form a service and worship of God from the Scriptures by their private interpretations and they all supposed to lay aside those few principles which they have continued from the received doctrines and practices of the Church and no singling of principles one to another we should soon and certainly find a progeny of a thousand several religions and professions Now the main reason is this though the holy Scriptures be in themselves most perspicuous and plain as to the direction of life and manners for which cause David calls them a light to his feet and lanthorn to his paths yet as to the deep mysteries of faith and the determination of many considerable emergent controversies of doctrine and government God hath pleased to deliver his truths in so dark and abstruse a manner that they that want humility to hear the common judgement of the Churches of Christ and their received interpretations may easily be delivered over by God to find arguments enough in Scripture to captivate and satisfy a private and prejudicate spirit in any errour of religion wresting the Scripture to their own destruction Quest In what manner do you hold the direction of the Scriptures and their interpretation as to your profession Ans. First I acknowledge the Blessed Scriptures to be the rule of faith the end and decision of all controversies and where they are clear and evident I submit my soul to them as to the final end of all my enquâ—ries and doubts Secondly in the things that God hath pleased should be doubtfully delivered which is occasioned either from some difficulty in the Idiome or from seeming difference with other places requiring curious distinctions or when the expressions are clad and darkened with tropes and figures which are frequent in Scriptures or Lastly when the Scriptures are occasionall and a due consideration of the time when and the persons to whom they were spoken or written is necessary to the understanding of them I say in things so doubtfully delivered as to doctrine or government I submit my private reason and opinion to the grand interpretation and common consent of the first Churches for these reasons First because they were uninterested in our present controversies so without danger of being byassed by passion and they ordinarily lying under persecutions were not likely to gratify an errour for any private or worldly regards Secondly because they had most reason to know what were the practices of the Apostles and Apostolical men most certain guides to follow in controverted and doubtful points of Government and the circumstantial parts of religion Their footsteps which had so lately planted the Churches of Christ could not be so soon worn out but that they left discernable tracts for their immedate successors to walk in Thirdly they
knew better the occasions of the Apostles writings and other co-incident circumstances of the then present times to which many passages of great concernment do refer which a private person laying aside Antiquity would be farre enough from discerning and so most likely to mistake the meaning of them being ignorant of the scope and drift of such holy expressions For these reasons it is that the learned professors of this Church have offered the trial of the established profession by Scripture so interpreted against all its adversaries And I will instance onely in that yet unanswered appeal of the Authour against Fisher the Jesuit in these words That all the positive Articles of the Church of England are grounded upon Scripture we are contented to be judgby the joynt and constant beleef of the Fathers which lived within four or five hundred years after Christ when the Church was at the best and by the Councels held within those times and to submit to them in all those points of doctrine Quest What is the third direction Ans. Not to embrace a reliligion that is taken up contrary to a received profession upon the credit of the plausible behaviour and smoorh conversation of the promoters and leaders of it The unsafetinesse of such a profession may be easily observed and concluded First because it is observable that when our Saviour gives a caveat concerning false Prophets he foretels them not distinguishable by their outward behaviour For though they shall be raveing wolves inwardly that is in their designes of turning the Church of Christ yet shall they cover their villany with sheeps cloathing that is so great a proportion of framed sanctimony and formed piety outward innocency and humility or so much of either or all of them as may advance a reputation of their new doctrines to a discontented or prejudicated people This St. Paul calls the form of godlinesse to uphold the credit of such as forsaking publick Assemblies shall creep into houses and lead captive silly women And for such ends it is as easy a matter for false Apostles to transform themselves into the Apostles of Christ as for the devill himself to appear an Angel of light as St. Paul argueth And secondly it is not only possible for the greatest enemies of Christ in pursuance of their designes to put on such deceitful habits of outward holinesse and therefore a new profession taken up upon that ground very unsafe But it is also necessary and therefore the more dangerous that such bringers in of new lights and principles must pretend to more then ordinary sanctity having no other just or semblable plea to perswade or attract men to their misguidances Now though many sad experiences in these times may clearly evince this assertion yet I appear to an universal observation of the ancient enemies to truth in propagating their errours for a confirmation of it Among which I may instance in one or two St. Austin mentioning the artificies of the Manichees to deceive their followers the main was That they carried before them an appearance of a pure life and memorable continence The next is of St. Basil who affirmes of the Arrians That for their fictitious holinesse they got a general beleef of their way Now the great stratagem in their design of personating such degrees of holinesse zeal piety is to take advantage to check the imperfections and imprudencies into which the true Pastours of the Church by time and peace have been betrayed and to raise a repute to themselves by their odium and accidesital disgrace which by such arts they have attempted to put upon them with the people Therefore such a profession that is entertained onely upon the argument of outward sanctity must needs be very unsafe because the greatest enemies to Christian truth have will and must palliate their notable changes in religion by such pretences Quest But what can you say for the defence of your profession that may satisfy them that object against you the corruptions of the lives of your Ministers and Professors Ans. First we know and can prove that no profession in it self containes doctrines of more universal submission to all the commands of Christ nor principles more obliging to unity peace or purity to greater reverence or more solemn worship of God to faithfuller subjection to authority or purer charity to man then the received doctrines of the Church of England Examine but this poore shadow of its religion in this preceding Catechisme and I challenge any man to an objection to shew what impieties to God injustice to men or unsobriety in our selves in body or mind we allow That our Professors and Ministers have not universally lived up to the purity of its doctrine is as certainly true as that all outward Professors of Christ and alwayes have been a mixt company of good and bad which the â—et in the Gospel intimates to which the Kingdom of God that is the state of the Gospel is likened or as that the very Apostles and first followers of Christ were so or as that St. Paul in most if not in all his Epistles especially to the Corinthians and that in the very societies admitted to the Sacrament clearly evinceth to be so or Lastly as certainly true as that all the Churches of Christ have been so in all ages and places Now in this mixture the numbers of hypocritical and loose Professors and their deviations from the holiness of the Gospel have been more or less with respect to the times in which they lived as they were more or lesse courted with peace and prosperity or oppressed with adversities and persecutions It often falling out that the true Churches of Christ have at some times made the lesse visible progresse up the stream of piety as the stronger torrents and winds of contrary temptations have borne them downe and opposed them So that to take offence and quarrel against a religion or profession upon the argument of the mixture of the professors when the doctrines be pure and holy is most unjust and unreasonable and might be evineing against the best Churches of Christ that ever were or will be to the end of the world It is true it is a great felicity and glory to a profession when the numbers of Saints increase and are predominant when Gods honour is more generally preferved and his worship maintained godlinesse encouraged and sin shamed and strictly corrected but if in a corrupt age it becomes otherwise so loug as the established profession be holy in it self there is no argument to forsake her communion and much lesse to pursue a destruction to the religion it self They should rather continue in it take off the offence from it and make it better by their exemplary living then to make the offence worse by departing from it or to take the task of an enemy to ruine and overthrow it Now the result is this the mixture of all the best Churches
weaknesse or necessity to defraud or go beyond him in a negotiation not to advantage my self in any matter by anothers losse not to encroach upon the right or possesse the estate goods or livelyhood of another Quest It s true God is an avenger of all such But doth this justice prohibit the lawfull gain of them that live by commerce and trading Ans. No So they use no deceit in the commodity nor exact beyond the ordinary gain or rate allowed by the common consent of honest minds and that is proportionable to the ingagement of their stock pains and craft Quest But suppose a man through want of Gods grace and the true knowledge of his duty have injured any person against this rule of Gospel justice what doth then Religion oblige him to do Ans. To restore to him whatsoever he hath unjustly taken from him making him satisfaction for whatsoever losse he hath suffered by him to the utmost farthing and if he be not able to do it to desire it and expresse his willingnesse to do it if he were in capacity Quest What if the tumults and confusion of his affairs shall hinder him from the designment of the particular persons whom he hath wronged and if in what he knows the persons be dead and no heirs in being to whom he may restore What is then safe to be done Ans. To pay in his satisfaction to the great Chancery of heaven by relieving the poor and other acts of mercy and charity For the retaining of that unholy possession as it can never free his repentance to God from insyncerity so it shall become a continuall gravell to his contentment and a moth to consume his lawful injoyments to him and his posterity Quest But is this justice of the Gospel to be observed in satisfaction for noother injuries but such as are incident to trade and commerce Ans. Yes For if a man by himself or any other through his abetment consent or connivence have injured anothers honour or detracted from his credit or abilities that lives and subsists by his reputation or if any man shall wound lame or maim another or by any other such way disadvantage him he is bound in conscience by the law of Christian justice to give him satisfaction to the proportion of the wrong if the injured person remits it not Quest Is not interest or use for money lent to be accounted an unjust gain Ans. No there being a voluntary contract for it upon consideration of profit or at least of convenience to the borrower and there being no law of Christ or Moses to inhibit any such contract for it any otherwise than to prevent the oppression of the poore and an obligement to a free and charitable lending to them and to restrain the biting and serpentine usury of the rich The command of Christ to lend expecting nothing again as it was spoken by our Saviour onely in pursuance of the Doctrine of mercy so it may be transgressed in requiring the principal as well as the interest by unmercifully oppressing him that is unable to pay either If therefore a mans usury exceeds not the reasonable rate provided for by lawes as to the rich nor offends charity as to the poore it is safe as to justice CHAP. VI Quest HAving gone along with the commands of Christ in the two former branches of the third Condition which consisted in living godly and justly its requisite thou shoulst now inquire into the third part of that holinesse that concerns thy obedience to Christ which is as thou saidst to live soberly as to our selves In what therefore consists that sobriety which as a Christian thou oughtest to observe Ans. First in the sober use of my mind Secondly of my body Quest How mayest thou obey Christ in the sober use of thy mind Ans. In these two respects First not to mind high things that is not anxiously to aspire to heights in temporalls above my sphere nor to indulge lofty conceits of my own knowledge nor sollicitous thoughts of a great esteem for piety proudly lifting up my self above other humble and holy servants of God but to evidence a quiet and meek spirit in all professions and actions Quest What is the second respect in which consists the sobriety of thy mind Ans. Not to torture my mind with discontents in the state and condition God hath placed me whatsoever it is being humbly thankfull for the portion of blessings he hath allowed me and quieâ—ly sober and meek in all adversities judging them best for me because the merciful providence of my God hath ordered them unto me Quest What sobriety doth the Gospel oblige thee to observe as to the use of thy body Ans. It respects first the sober use of my tongue Secondly of my body as to chastity Thirdly as to Temperance Quest Great insobrieties being expressed in our discourses and a world of evil committed by the tongue What directions dost thou take as to thy holy â—arriage towards God in the sober use thereof Ans. To avoid all discourses against piety and mixing Religion or Scripture in any vain merâ—iments andiall discourses against charity as slandering detracting judging censuring or whatso-ever tends to the lessening of another To avoid all boasting and glorying of our own worth and abilities or insulting over another mans infirmities to avoid all lying dissâ—mbling foolish jesting and superfluity of talking All which are very inconsistent with the strict sobriety of a Christians carriage and conversation Quest In the next place what is the command of the Gospel for the sober use of thy body as to chastity Ans. Not to defile my body which is the temple of the Holy Ghost in the time of my virginity with any impurity and in my mâ—trimoniall estate to keep my bed undefiled knowing that Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge Quest But are onely the very acts of uncleannesse forbidden by the Gospel of Christ Ans. No A l wanton looks also with lust are accounted Adultery much more all unchast discourses and immodest actions all chamâ—ering wantonnesse and lasciviousnesse are sins against this Gospel holinesse Quâ—st What sobriety doth the Gospel oblige men to as to temperance Answ. Such as concern the temperate use of eating and drinking Quest What is thy duty and Christian temperance as to eating Ans. To make conscience of all immoderate eating with desigue of pleasure or giving fuell to lusts of all unreasonable choicenesse for varieties and delicacies to the suâ—fetting my body and unfitting me for the holy exercises to God and the offices of my calling Quest How is the holinesse of the Gospel preserved as to sobriety in drinking Ans. Not only not to be drunk with wine and strong liquours but also not to drink
such as were first disobedient to him And this way of God is most conspicuous in his dealing with his people the Jewes to whom those places in the question chiefly referre For his severity upon them was only unto such that first fell from him They had a day of mercy which they despised after which it was just with God to make it a time of hardening and excluding them from mercy Which when God shall so do what art thou O man that thou shouldst question his justice or reply against him who hath power as a Potter over his clay to make some vessells to honour and some to dishonour when some accept others reject and despise his grace Therefore Gods wayes are â—â—equal That this truth may yet be fully signified we argue that the stony and other unprofitable grounds wanted not their seed the unfruitful tree had its husbandry manuring and long forbearance before it was sentenced to be cut down The refusing guests at the great Supper had their invitation To conclude Ierusalem had a day of visitation in which they neglected the things of their peace before the fearful sentence was past that they should be hid from their eyes From all which it followes that to want grace to be hardened to be a vessel of dishonour can be no arguments to suspect God will deny such grace and sufficient spiritual assistancies but rather motives to beware of the abuse and neglect of grace when it is offered lest we forfeit our peace by neglecting the day of mercy Quest But further may I not fear to be shut out from grace and all hopes of salvation by a fatal and irrevocable reprobation from eternity the necessary consequence of an irrespective decree for the salvation of some Ans. I know some places of Scripture have administred occasion of endless dispute wherein men have waded as in the dark into an abyss of doubts of unfathomed depth and by their passionate disceptations even to uncharitablenesse about that which I am confident is no further revealed then what may make it necessary to be acknowledged a mystery and to put reason to a trial to submit to that which it could never comprehend by any enquiries have made conclusions about the point which in naturâ rei will have and must hinder and put a barre against a lively undertaking the purposes of strict Gospel-obediencence and weaken the applications of Gods grace in pressing endeavours to work out salvation by the performance of the conditions of the holy Covenant Therefore passing by the enumerations of the differing opinions of the divines both of the Romish and Protestant faith laying aside all examination of such secluse secrecies of God and all unnecessary disputes about them I set up my rest in this one thing that I am comfortably confident that whatsoever Gods election and predestination is it doth not contradict his promises of mercy nor his end of giving Christ unto the world both which by the universal scope of the Gospel are general and conditional And it is the doctrine of the Church of England in the end of the seventeenth Article that we must receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture and in our doings that will of God is to be followed whiâ—h we have expressely declared unto us in the Word of God Quest Another scruple yet occurres that if salvation through Christ shall be given to them only that perform the conditions when I consider the weakness of my faith the defects of my repentance and my innumerable failings in every part of the performancies of holy living I find nothing but arguments of discouragement and little hopes of being accepted to salvation How may I satisfy my soul in such a discomfort Ans. Though as it is evident that the faith repentance and holinesse of Gods best servants have ever been and shall ever be defective and imperfect they being unable through their corruptions perfectly to perform those Gospel-conditions yet is God pleased to accept of their faithfull and sincere endeavour to fulfill them For the state of Grace doth not necessarily suppose a soule exempt from all sin but from the reigning power rule and dominion of it and a safe condition towards God is not to be accounted by a freedome from all sinning who then could appeare before God and the reflections of his own concience with comfort but is to be collected by observation that the spiritual part hath the greatest predominancy in the thoughts affections designes and actions and that the lusts and carnall part are lesse and every day lessening by the power of the predominant grace In which estate the failings and defects being suddenly retracted and the soule humbled for them are unquestionably pardoned through the blessed plea and advocation of Christs precious merits and his never ceasing intercession Quest Now because you have mentioned such an hope of pardon by the merits of Christ I conceive it will tend much to thy satisfaction in the first attempt and in the whole course of obeying the Gospel rightly to understand what Christ hath merited for thee that thy soul may know what comforts to rejoyce in for what mercies to blesse God and what duties stand on thy account to be performed What therefore hath Christ as a Mediatour and Redeemer merited for thee Ans. A new Covenant of Grace whereby man being at present enmity with God might be reconciled to him and being in a lost estate might be recovered and redeemed to life and salvation Now the whole work of Redemption may be represented in these five effects of his death and mediation Quest What is the first Ans. Christ hath by his universal passion especially by his death and price of his blood satisfied and attoned the justice of God for the sins of the world to become effectual to the justification and salvation of as many as shall by faith accept of him upon his own terms receive his grace and sincerely perform the conditions of the Covenant Quest What is the second Ans. Christ hath merited that those conditions should not be like the lawes imposed upon the Iewes numerous troublesome full of business and attendance to shadowie rites and ceremonies but should become a light burden an easie and pleasant yoke and that his Commandements should not be grievous but should become approveable to right reason and acts in themselves of the greatest prudence and most conducible to the peace and felicity of all societies and persons Quest You see here a most blessed progresse of mercy to mankind first a dreadful justice satisfied which the sacrifice of worlds could never have done by the suffering of him that was both God and Man then secondly a condition propounded in a law which man could not but have given himself had God allowed him a capacity to have chosen one whereby to
truth should have depended upon worldly successes and prosperity what advantages should its enemies have had and with what poor comforts should its members have been supported when it lay so long under the bloody persecutions of the Roman Emperours Nero Domitian Trajan c Now if any just cause that is oppressed if any part of Christs Church that is afflicted may plead no disadvantage to them by Gods permitting them to bee outwardly miserable much more the Ministery whose of all just causes and who of all parties in the Church have been ever exposed to the saddest providences as to the worlds eye We shall find therefore as if the cross had been the Label of the Apostles Commission Our Saviour tells them when he sends them forth it should be as sheep in the midst of Wolves From whom what entertainment they were likely to receive he expresseth more fully in a sollowing passage They should be hated of all men for his Names sake And as if they had received with their commissions a commonpasse of trouble they must be persecuted from one City to another All which as they were infallibly to become true in our Saviours prediction so were they as evidently accomplished in the following tragedies of the Churches miseries when the Apostles were set forth as men appointed to death when they were made a theatre a common spectacle a people shewen forth for mockery and misery to Angels and to men For they hungred and thirsted and were naked and buffeted and had no certain dwelling place Afterward followed the violent deaths of all the Apostles under the hands of their Persecutors St. John onely excepted and of the first renownned Fathers os the Church Ignatius Polycarp Irenaeus Justin c. which paid their lives to the prevailing enemies of the Gospel of Christ all which to relate would rather require some large Martyrolygy then a digression in a small Tractate But were all these forsaken of God because they had not prosperity and present successes What providence should then have been followed the prosperous or the adverse If their scornes troubles and oppressions under the hands of their prosperous enemies had disproved the truth of their calling or cause the very Gospel it self might as justly upon the same argument have been called in question By all which it appeares that the charge against this Church for its adversities and miseries is most unjust especially by them who have themselves been instrumental to them It is a hard case first to be made miserable and forlorne and then to be quarrel'd with and disputed against for being so But I leave this to their own consciences and timely repentance only I desire to mind them of a notable prediction by learned Hooker of them and of the ruines of this Church by them even at a determinate period of time which is directly this present age Which becauso it fell from so grave and deliberate a pen I will set down in his own words By these or the like suggestions meaning our adversaries endeavours to overthrow the Ministery in their maintenance and otherwise received with all joy and with like sedulity practised in certain parts of the Christiag world they have brought to passe that as David doth say of a man so it is in hazard to be verified concerning the whole Religion ond Service of God The time thereof may peradventure fall out to be threescore and ten years or if strength do serve unto fourscore what followeth is likely to be small joy for them whatsoever they be that behold it By these considerations I find all my scruples answered and doubts satisfied that I can with all clearnesse of judgement assert the truth of the visible Church of England Now I desire to recline my soul in her bosome and most cheerfully undertake and exercise the whole course of those forementioned Rules of Christian living in its profession as the safest in the world FORMES OF PRAYER For private PERSONS AND FAMILIES To the READER WHosoever thou art I beseech thee but if thy soule stands upon my account to God I mean if thou beest one of my care and charge then I earnestly beg of thee that when thou readest and ownest these plaein directions for Devotion thou obligest thy self upon as strong purposes to follow them or at least the duties intended by them as the interest of saving a soule requires That thou take care by making it a part of thy duty to Christ to season thy children as with the first elements of religious knowledge so with suitable practices of prayer as soon as they shall be capable of these little formes And that thou thy self accont no busines so necessary which should betray thee to forget to sanctify at least the morning and evening of every day in thy privacy and family with prayers and praises considering that the houres spent in this or other religious exercises will be of more concernment and eomfort to thee at thy dying hour then all the pleasures profits and present advantages whatsoever thou canst obtain by the engagement of the rest of thy time I desire thee that before thou enterest upon these exercises or in the midst of them where I have directed thee thou readest part of holy Davids Psalmes by certain periods that thou mayest imitate Davids spirit in thy addresses to God And do not read them as an history meerly to affect thy understanding but as acts of service with affection reverence and piety befitting such communions with God as most of the Psalmes perport Do thou also before thou departest from serving God in any of these offices read some part of she holy Scriptures in such order as thy prudence shall direct thee and digest the same by meditation to particular application to thy self that thou mayest live in the strength of it in all thy actions to God and man I have divided as thou shalt observe the prayers into several parts according to the most considerable periods of the duty First because they will be the more fit and methodical to be taught to children servants and such as cannot read Secondly that after the end of any one part of the devotion the supplicant may stay and collect his spirit to a frame fit for the next considering as to instance that confession and thanksgiving and so the rest do require different carriages of the Spirit Thirdly because the pious soule may more fitly stay in any part and poure out it self to God as spiritual necessity will be administred and yet not break the order of the devotion Lastly because such a partition will alleviate the weariness that is apt to be contracted by one long continued form Now having rigg'd this little ship ef devotion The Lord give thee an heart to venture thy soul in its bottome and grant thee a prosperous gale of his Spirit to drive thee forward to the port of rest which is desired designed and sincerely endeavoured by