bounds do the same things she doth by Equivalencie and run to the same End by a quite contrary way The Romish Church it cannot be denyed makes her Popes and Prelates with other Pillars of their Church plain Idols They which out of an undiscreet and furious zeal seem most to abhor this kind of Idolatry commit Sacrilege and rob God of his honour as the Romish Church doth And he that robs God of his honour doth the very same thing and no other which an Idolater doth Now they are said in Scripture to rob God of his honour and to commit an abomination more then heathenish for the heathen do not spoil their Gods which defraud him of his tithes offrings which were due unto the Priest for his ministration and service in Gods House But they rob God of his honour more immediately and more directly which despise or contemn his Embassadors not in word only but in taking that Authority from them which he hath expresly given unto them and which is worst of all in seeking to alienate it unto them over whom he hath in matter of salvation appointed them Guides and Overseers That Precept of our Apostle I am sure will stand good when all Laws or Intendments of Laws to confront it will fail Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves Heb. 13. 17. What Rule doth he mean meerly Civil or Temporal No! What then Ecclesiastick Not that only But the Rule of Government spiritual such as is proper to the Bishops of the Church For so it follows for they to whom you are to submit your selves watch for your souls as they that must give an accompt and you are therefore to obey that they may do their office with joy and not with grief for that saith the Apostle is unprofitable for you Now that in this plenty of preaching and frequencie in hearing The most hearers profit so little in the School of Christ the true Reason is for that men do not submit themselves unto their Pastors in such sort as they ought but think it his Duty or Office only to preach and their duty only to hear not to be Ruled or Governed by him whereas the ones preaching is vain and the others hearing is vain unless this duty of obedience be first planted in their hearts The Pastors Grief which ariseth from neglect or contempt of this Duty will prove in the issue the Peoples Curse 8. But the main stream of Popery from which the name of Babylon is derived unto Rome was the Absolute Infallibilitie of the Romish Church Representative The branches of this supposed absolute Infallibilitie were Two The First That the sense of Scriptures which that Church doth maintain or avouch concerning Faith or Manners is alwayes Authentick undoubted and true But whereas many Points as well of Doctrine as Practise concerning Faith and Manners were in that Church established by Prescription and Use without so much as any Pretence of warrant from Scripture They were inforced in the Second Place to maintain That the Unwritten Traditions of the Church were of equal Authoritie with the Scriptures and that the present Church was as Infallible in her Testimony of the One as in her Judgment of the other The Infallible Consequence of which supposed Infallibilitie is This That the people were absolutely to believe whatsoever that Church should propound unto them as a Point of faith or practise commendable and to abjure whatsoever that Church should condemn for heresie or ungodliness By Absolute Belief or obedience they intend a belief or obedience not only without Condition or scruple in the first undertaking but without Reservation of appeal upon any new discovery of dangers unseen unsuspected in the first undertaking The Churches Authority once declared was in their Divinity sufficient to quell or put to silence all succeeding Replies or mutterings of Conscience Both these dangerous Errors were well Reformed The later stream or puddle of Traditions in a manner drained by this Church and State For every Bishop at his Consecration doth solemnly promise or vow not to propound any thing to the people as a Point of Faith unless it be either expresly conteined in the Scripture or may be thence deduced by necessary Inference To bind or tie all Bishops thus solemnly unto the observance of this Rule the wisdom of those Times had these Reasons Not only to curb or restrain the licentious Abuse of Bishops former Authoritie but because they knew that the people were in many Cases concerning the service of God and other Christian duties bound to yeeld more credence and obedience to their Bishops and Pastors then unto men not called to Sacred or Pastoral Function It is One Thing to believe any Doctrinal Proposition as A Point of Faith necessary to salvation Another to believe it so far as we may safely adventure upon any practise or duty injoyned by superiors That is to believe it not Absolutely but Conditionally and out of such belief to obey them not absolutely but conditionally that is with reservation of freedom or libertie when either the truth shall be better discovered then now it is or greater dangers appear then for the present we do suspect The Obedience which we give unto Superiors may be Ex Fide of Faith albeit the points of doctrine or the perswasions out of which we yeeld this obedience be not De Fide No points of Faith or necessary to salvation 9. But a great many well-meaning men there were who shortly after this happy Reformation could not content themselves to stand upon such sure Termes of Contradiction unto the Romish Church as the first Reformers had done but sought in this Point which was indeed above all others to be abhorred to be most extremly Contrary unto her Wherein then doth that Contradiction to the Romish Church wherein the first Reformers of Religion did entrench themselves and wherein doth the Extream Contrarietie whereunto others more Rigid Reformers if they could have effected their Projects would have drawn this Church and Land consist The Romish Church as you heard before did make Unwritten Traditions a Part of the Rule of Faith as soveraign as the written Word of God and did obtrude those observances which had no other warrant then such Tradition as altogether necessary to salvation The First Reformers of this Error were contented to contradict them only in this And their Contradiction is expresly mainteined partly in the Articles of Religion partly in the Book of Consecration of Bishops The Contradiction is This That all things necessary to salvation are contained in Scripture which is all one as to say That the Scripture is the only Rule of Faith Yet did they not for all this utterly reject All use of Tradition or Ceremonies as you may find expressed in the thirty fourth Article in which though Rites and Ceremonies or other customs of the Church be not injoyned in particular as they take for granted by God himself
place of Sacramental eating and drinking was because they saw no possibilitie how to maintain the peremptorie decrees of the Councels of Constance and Basil concerning Communion under one kind if the words of our Saviour ver 53. of this Chapter be to be understood of Sacramental eating and drinking For it is granted by all that the Consecrated bread is Sacramentally his Bodie not his Blood and that the Cup is Sacramentally his Blood not his Bodie And yet our Saviours words are express Except ye eate the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you So that all which hope to have life must Sacramentally drink his blood aswel as eat his flesh if this place be meant of Sacramental eating That evasion which most oâ—â— modern Priests and Jesuites use for eluding rather then answering this Objection was too palpable in the Judgement of these two great Divines as it since hath seemed to others of that Church which yet maintain that the former words of our Saviour are to be understood of Sacramental eating Christs flesh and drinking Christs blood The evasion of modern Priests and Jesuits is that he which Sacramentally receives Christs Bodie under the shape or form of Sacramental bread doth with it receive his blood per Concomitantiam by way of concomitancie because there is blood conteined in his bodie which they thus receive But this cannot satisfie any Romish Divine which understands himself or the ancient Doctrine which that Church pretends to follow For this device of receiving Christs blood in the bread per concomitantiam was but a late invention little above 200. years before Jansenius or Hessels lived And the newnesse of this imagination or invention which was generally applauded in the Romish Church in his time was one special motive why that Reverend Pastor of Blessed memorie Mr. Gilpin did disclaim the Romish Churches Doctrine in the Point of Transubstantiation as Bishop Tunstall his Uncle before him had done Secondly Admitting the bread were turned into Christs very bodie and after this conversion had blood in it as truly as flesh and bones yet all this would not salve the literal sense of our Saviours words in the 53 d verse if the eating and drinking which he there speaks of were Sacramental For suppose a man should feed upon raw flesh or upon flesh which had visible or material blood in it we might say indeed that he did eat blood per concomitantiam by way of concomitancie because the flesh which he eats had blood in it But no man would say That he did drink blood per concomitantiam For eating and drinking are two distinct acts and incompatible at one and the same time He that eateth flesh with blood in it doth not eat the flesh and drink the blood whilest he only eats but eats both together the one as principal the other as an appurtenance if he eat as a man and not as Swine do draugh which is no more an eating then a drinking Or if a man should drink blood mingled with some small portions of flesh we might say He did drink flesh by way of Concomitancie but no man would say that he did eat blood per concomitantiam albeit there were flesh in the blood which he drinks for he drinks both together he doth not eat either And for these reasons Pope Innocent expressely denies that he which eats Christs bodie whilst he only eats it doth drink his blood In his fourth Book Myster Evangel Legis ac Sacramenti Eucharist Chap. 21. Edit Venet. in quarto 8. The only refuge which the most learned in the Romish Church since Jansenius and Hessels dyed have found out for answering the former Objection of Reformed Writers is That the words of our Saviour Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man And drink his blood ye have no life in you are to be Expounded disjunctively as thus Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man Or drink his blood ye have no life in you The use or Corollarie of this Exposition is That if Christian people do Sacramentally Either eat Christs flesh Or drink his Blood as they ought that is with due preparation this will suffice seeing as they pretend there is no Divine precept which enjoynes all Christian People Sacramentally to receive Christs bodie and blood under both kindes Nor all Priests but only such as do Officiate or Consecrate The precept of Institution Bibite ex hoc omnes Drink ye all of this was punctually directed as they alledg to our Saviours Apostles only who were at this time made Priests and authorized to minister Christs bodie and blood after his death Yet were they not by their leave at this time Sacerdotes conficientes Our Saviour Christ himself did Consecrate both the Bread and Wine the Apostles were as much inferior to him as the meanest Lay-people are to the greatest Priest in the Romish Church to the Pope or summus Pontifex himself But the further Discussion of this Point belongs more properly to the words of the Institution The other Point of expounding et by vel or of shuffling in Or for And belongs to the Cognizance of the 53 and 56. verses To justifie this exposition Cardinal Tollet would perswade us That St Johns Greek Text is full of Hebraismes and there is nothing more familiar with Moses or with other sacred Hebrew writers then to use And for Or Et for Vel. And he brings divers instances to this purpose As for example that in Exod. 21. 17. He that curseth father And mother shall surely be put to death So it is word for word in the Hebrew and yet our English Translation as well as the Vulgar Latin renders the Original thus He that curseth father Or mother shall surely be put to death And it would be an ungodly Evasion for any Magistrate not to censure him as a transgressour of this Law which curseth his father albeit he do not curse his mother or which curseth his mother albeit he do not curse but rather blesse his father But must the true interpretation of such as are to judge according to this Law be derived from the peculiar phrase or dialect of the Hebrews No this was Cardinal Tollet's Errour for the Rule of Interpretation so the matter or circumstance be the same would hold as true in any dialect or language whatsoever The Question then is What certain general Rule we have when or in what cases the conjunctive particle And doth produce this or the like disjunctive sense or may warrant this or the like Exposition of this Law He that curseth father And mother shall surely die that is he which curseth Either father Or mother shall surely die For the like Exposition the Rules are Two One General and infallible Rule is this Whensoever the particle And doth couple not two parts of one and the same proposition but two intire propositions together That which is thus conjunctively affirmed of
two propositions coupled together must be disjunctively expounded of either proposition divided one from the other Now when it is said He that curseth Father And Mother shall die there be two intire propositions coupled together by this particle And implicitly the explicit sense or Resolution of which speech is this He that curseth his Father shall surely die And he that curseth his Mother shall surely die And if both these propositions conjunctively taken be true this disjunctive will be as true He that curseth either father or mother shall die Secondly the Rule is universally true When two incompatible attributes are conjunctively avouched of one and the same subject in one and the same ê“position universally taken the particle And in this case must be resolved into the particle Or when the universall ê“position or subject of it is divided into its parts Quae dicuntur conjunctim de genere dicuntur divisim de specie As for example the Philosopher describing the native propertie of quantitie saith maximè proprium est quantitati ut ex ea dicantur res aequales inaequales But in as much as equalitie and inequalitie are incompatible if wee apply them to the the same particular things which are compared together for quantitie hence it is that every particular substance which is compared to or measured with another must either be equal or unequal unto it That one and the same particular substance should be both equal and unequal to another for quantitie is impossible So the Philosopher saith and it is a naturall truth which none can deny that the living or sensitive creature universally taken is rational and irrational but because one and the same living Creature cannot be both rational and irrational when wee descend to particular living creatures wee cannot say that any of them is both rationall and irrationall but either rationall or irrationall Yet in as much as every particular living creature is either endowed with reason or not endowed with reason the living creature universally taken that is as it comprehends every particular living creature must be both rationall and irrationall For Quicquid dicitur divisim de Specibus dicitur conjunctim de Genere 9. To give such a direct and punctuall answer to the Cardinals instance out of Exod. 21. 17. He that curseth father and mother shall dye as may satisfie all the rest which he brings or can be brought to like purpose we say as was intimated before there be two intire propositions 1. He that curseth his father shall dye 2. He that curseth his mother shall dye and the explication or unfolding of these two propositions is disjunctively set down by our Saviour himself Matth. 15. 4. He that curseth father or mother shall surely dye But there are not two propositions but one proposition in this Text He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him He doth not say here or elswhere He that eateth my flesh dwelleth in me and I in him and he that drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him Nor is this disjunctive any where in Scripture exprest That he which eateth Christs flesh or drinketh his blood dwelleth in Christ and he in him That instance which the Cardinall would wrest to justifie his interpretation of our Saviours words in the 53. and 56. verses doth make against him His instance is 1 Cor. 11. ver 27. Whosoever shall eat this bread or drinke the cup of the Lord unworthily is guiltie of the body and blood of the Lord. For in as much as S t Paul had said before vers 26. that as often as wee eat this bread and drink this cup wee shew the Lords death till he come it will necessarily follow that albeit wee eat the bread not unworthily and yet put such a Case drink the cup unworthily we become guiltie both of his Body and Blood because in both wee solemnize the memory of his death and he that should both eat the bread and drink the cup unworthily is twice guiltie of the body and blood of the Lord As he that curseth both farther and mother is worthy of double death because he that curseth either father or mother is guiltie of death Nor can it be alledged that the severall parts of this proposition He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me are incompatible or cannot be performed at one and the same sacramentall action by one and the same man or that they are to be universally or collectively understood of the whole Church as consisting of Priests and Laicks and not distributively of every man and therefore to seek a disjunctive sense of these words to this or like effect he that eateth my flesh or drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him is to seek a knot in â—â—ulrush or a division in Unitie Again The form of our Saviours speech ver 53. is exceptive Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you The form is the very same as if we should say Except a man honour his Father and Mother his seed shall not long prosper upon earth Now it would be impiously absurd to make this construction of that Commandment Except a man honour Either his Father Or his Mother his seed shall not long prosper upon the earth And no better then Thus is the Construction which Cardinal Tollet or his followers make of our Saviour's words in the 53. verse Our Saviour had told them before that He was the Bread of life which came down from heaven And pressing the Belief of this Point upon them further not by division but by addition he addeth ver 51. That The Bread which he meant was his Flesh And when the Jews ver 52. strove about this He further adds ver 53. Verily Verily Except ye eat and drink ye have no life in you 10. But besides the former plunge whereto the best Scholars in the Romish Church are put in justifying their practice for Deteining the Cup from the Laitie if This Chapter be meant of Sacramental eating there is another Difficultie which neither the late Device of Drinking Christs Blood per concomitantiam nor the Cardinals interpretation of ver 56. by Disjunction will any way touch much lesse satisfie And the Difficultie is this If these words be literally meant of Sacramental eating and drinking their literal sense must be as plain and as void of all Trope or Metaphor as the words of the Institution related by Saint Matthew Chap. 26. 26. are by them supposed to be Now when Christ saith in Saint Matthew That the bread is his Bodie this speech in the literal sense as they contend inferreth a substantial change of the Bread into the substance of his bodie Now our Saviours words are in this place as plain and as certain as in that He avoucheth again and again that he is the bread of life that the bread which he will
It is my Iudgement That had this learned Author left none other These Thirteen Treatises put together would make a very Excellent Compend of Christian Instruction CHAP. XVII ROMANS 6. Ver. 21 22 23. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed for the end of those things is Death 22. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life 23. For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life Through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Connexion of the fifth and sixth Chapters A Paraphrase upon this Sixth The Importance of the Phrase Dead to Sin No Christians in this life so dead to sin as to come up to the Resemblance of Death Natural True Christians Dead to Sin in a proportion to Civil Death All Christians at least all the Romans to whom St. Paul writes did so in Baptism profess themselves Dead to Sin and vow Death to Sin by a true Mortification thereof All have in Baptism or may have a Talent of Grace as an Antidote and Medicine against the deadly infection of Sin as a strengthening to make us victorious over sin Three Motives to deter us from the Service of Sin 1. It is fruitless 2. It is Shameful 3. It is Mortiferous Two Motives to engage us in Gods Service 1. Present and sweet Fruit unto Holiness 2. Future Happiness THese three verses being the Close or binding of all the rest in this Chapter or as the Solid Angle in which there is a punctual and full Coincidence of all the former Lines I must be inforced to exhibit unto the Reader A Model or Abstract of the Whole before I can shew him the true Connexion or References between these later and the foregoing verses And the Model or Abstract of the whole Chapter is This. Our Apostle had given up this Conclusion as the main Aphorism or Resultance of the fifth Chapter verse 20 21. Where sin abounded Grace did much more abound That as sin had raigned unto death even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now whether it were to check that preposterous Inference which some had alreadie made of this Doctrine when first it was delivered unto them for it was delivered before he wrote this Epistle or whether it were to prevent the making of it upon the reading of the former Chapter our Apostle propounds that Objection which either had been or might be made against the former Doctrine in the begining of this Sixth Chapter and he propounds it by way of Interrogation What shall we say then Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound And he gives the Answer unto it in the second verse by an Absit God forbid That is far be it from us far be it from every Christian thus to resolve thus to infer say or think And to shew the absurditie of that inference he adds this Reason How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein But this Refutation may seem to participate more of Rhetorical Passion or indignation then of sound and Logical Reason an artificial Evasion rather then a concludent Proof For these Romans might have demanded of him what just fear is there that we shall what possibilitie that we can live any longer in sin if as you suppose we be already dead unto it Only prove what you suppose or take as granted that we are already dead to sin or that sin is dead in us and we shall make just proof that we neither do nor can live any longer in it that it doth not neither shall it live in us 2. All the Question then is and a Great Question it is upon whose true resolution the resolution of all the questions or difficulties which are emergent out of this and other Chapters depends In what sense every true Christian is said to be dead to sin as St. Paul supposeth all these Romans were which were true members of the true visible Church Of death there be but two sorts or kinds usually known or acknowledged The one a Natural the other a Civil Death He that is dead according to a Natural Death is utterly deprived of all sense or motion he cannot feel he cannot taste he cannot smell see or hear his heart pants not his lungs cease to send forth any breath And according to this kind of death Saint Paul himself could not be accompted dead to sin Sin was not so fully mortified or put to death in him but that it had its Motions in his inward parts and these Motions he by experience felt But there is a civil as well as a natural death and many are said to be civilly dead whose natural life is yet sound and entire Thus men which are condemned or sentenced to die are said to be dead in Law albeit the execution or taking away of their natural life be a long time deferred The like we say of men which have been free born but afterwards fall into slaverie or bondage Both these sorts of men are said to be dead in Law or to be subject to civil death because they cannot do or make any legal act either to the benefit of their friends or posteritie or to the prejudice of their enemies Of any civil contract or legal deed they are as uncapable as he that is naturally dead is of breathing sense or motion And according to this acception or importance of death Every one in whom the reign or dominion of sin is broken in whom the flesh is made subject to the spirit is truely said to be dead to sin that is in every man thus qualified sin is put unto a civil though not unto a natural death But neither is this civil death the death here punctually meant by Saint Paul when he saith How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein For he speaks not of such a death to sin as was peculiar to himself or to some few but of such a death as was common to all these Romans and to every true member of the visible Church He doth not suppose nor was it imaginable that all of them to whom he wrote were thus actually dead to sin or that sin did not or could not raign in some of them at least it may and doth to this day raign in many which have by baptisme been admitted into the visible Church whereas Our Apostles Reason equally concerns all that are baptized All and every one of them are in his sense and meaning in this place dead to sin and yet are not all of them dead to sin or sin dead to them or in them either by a natural or civil death In all of them sin retains some life or being in many of them it still retains its Soveraigntie or Dominion how then are all of them how are all of us that have been baptized dead to sin Thus
Kingdom to give it countenance And whilst either the Church or Lawes of the Kingdom do enjoyn you to do these things which in themselves are not unlawful in obeying them you obey Gods Law which commands obedience in disobeying them you disobey the Lawes of God which forbid disobedience to the higher powers If then you will obey the Lawes specially where they command fasting or abstinence or devotion in publick God will blesse your private devotions and your use of meat and drink the better CHAP. XXVII ROMANS 6. 23. For the wages of sin is Death but the Gift of God is Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. About the Merit of Good Works The Romanists Allegations from the force of The word Mereri amongst the Ancients and for the Thing it self out of Holy Scriptures The Answers to them all respectively Some prove Aut nihil aut nimium The different value and importance of Causal particles For Because c. A difference between Not worthie and Unworthie Christs sufferings though in Time finite of value infinite Pleasure of sin short yet deserves infinite punishment Bad works have the Title of Wages and Desert to Death But so have not good works to Life Eternal 1. DEath as was expressed in the 21. verse is the End of sin and Life Eternal as you have it verse the 22. is the End of Holinesse or of the service of God The Proof of both Assertions you have in this 23. verse because Death is the wages of sin and Life Eternal the Gift of God the last and best Gift wherewith he crowneth such as serve him in holinesse and righteousnesse Now the final recompence or reward whether that be good or bad is the End or Period of all our wayes or works Herein then doth Life and death everlasting only agree that as well the One as the Other is the End or issue of mens several wayes or courses here on earth Yet these Ends are Contrary the one to the other and so are the wayes which lead unto them The only way to the One is Righteousness and holiness the ready way unto the other is sin and wickedness But however sin be injustice and the author of sin be most unjust yet herein they both observe the Rule of Justice that they pay their servants their wages to a mite and unlesse the righteous Judge did moderate their cruelty they would pay their servants more then is their due But doth not the Just Judge deal so with his servants Yes he payes them more then is their due yet this he doth without injustice for he rewardeth them not according to the Rule of Justice but according to his Mercy and Bountie To punish men beyond their desert is injustice But to Reward men above their deserts is no way contrary to Justice but an Act of mercy triumphing over Justice But hath Justice no hand no finger in distribution of the Final Reward of Holinesse This is or should be the brief issue of that great Controversie between the Romanists and Reformed Churches An bona opera renatorum mereantur vitam aeternam Whether the Good Works of men regenerate do deserve or merit eternal life And it is a very Good Rule which a Great Champion of Reformed Churches hath given us To reduce all Controversies to those places of Scripture wherein they are properly seated and out of whose sense or meaning they are emergent To handle them especially in Pulpit upon other occasions or to go out of our way to meet with them is but to nurse Contention And of all the places in Scripture which are brought either Pro or Con for the Merit of Works none is more pertinent none more fit to be discussed then this 23. verse of Rom. 6. Those Answers which are often given by Romanists unto other places of Scripture alleadged by our Writers will appear impertinent if they be rightly examined by our Apostles Conclusion in this Chapter Our Method in handling this Controversie shall be this First To set down the Arguments brought by the Romanist for establishing the Merit of Works Secondly To press the sense and meaning of our Apostle in this 23. ver of Rom. 6. against them Thirdly To joyn issue with them or to set down The true State of the Question not only betwixt us and them but between the just Judge and our own souls and Consciences 2. First They alledge That the word Merit is frequent in the Antient Fathers of the Church and that albeit the same Word be not so frequent in the Scripture yet the matter it self which the Fathers expresse by the word mereri is often intimated or necessarily implyed in Terms Equivalent And if we agree upon the Matter it is but a vanity to wrangle about Words Both points of their Allegation deserve the scanning To the First Concerning the word mereri or to merit in the Latine Fathers we reply that as Coyns or metals instamped so Words do change their value or importance in different Ages and in several Nations Custom hath as great authority in the one Case as Soveraign power hath in the other Mereri to merit imports as much in the antient secular Roman or Latine Writers as to deserve that which we sue for or attain unto or to have a just Title unto it So a Souldier is said to merit his pay a servant his wages and good States-men or Commanders in warre their honours But unto this pitch or scantling the Ecclesiastick Writers as St. Austine St. Jerome or later as St. Bernard do not extend the word Merit Mereri according to their meanings is no more then Assequi that is to attain or get that which men desire So Turonensis brings in a blind man supplicating to an Holy Man of his time in this form Ut possim per preces tuas mereri visum that I may merit my sight through your prayers In which words the word Mereri to merit can imply no more either in the poor mans meaning or in this Historians then Assequi to get or obtain For no man can merit any thing by anothers prayers If these could properly merit or deserve any thing at Gods hand the merit should be his whose prayers God vouchsafed to hear not his for whom he prayed The same word Mereri with some Writers doth not import so much as to obtain or get any thing at Gods hands by vertue of our own or others prayers but only to be an Occasion or Condition without which that which befals us though not desired by us should not have befallen us So as we said before one speaks of Adams sin Felix peccatum quod talem meruit redemptorem O happy sin which merited such a Redeemer Now there is nothing in the world which could less deserve any benefit at Gods hand then sin which yet was the Occasion or Condition without which the Son of God had not been incarnate at least had not been Consecrated through Affliction
Omnipotent because the glorie of God wherewith he is glorified is every where or because the Power or Right-hand by which he is strengthned is a Power Omnipotent Omnipotencie it self Thus much of that Absolute Infinitie or Infinitie in Act unto which Christs Humane Nature was not Exalted and yet it was Exalted in some sort Infinitly above all other created substances and so Exalted or at least declared to be so Exalted specially by the Ascension of it into heaven and by its Sitting at the Right-hand of God the Father 8. That is Infinitum actu or actually Infinite Extra quod nihil est which is so perfect and compleat that nothing in the same kind can be added unto it That is Infinitum potentia or potentially Infinite unto which somewhat may successively be added without end or ceasing Thus Philosophers have taught that In continuâ quantitate non datur minimum in discretâ non datur maximum There is not the least quantitie but is divisible into infinite parts There is no member so great but may still be made greater by Addition and albeit Addition were made every moment unto the worlds end yet the Product could not be actually infinite some number might be added unto it which as yet is not contained in it In this manner the participated Power or Glorie of God or the participation of this Power or Glorie may be infinite The participation of this Power or Being may every moment whilest the world lasteth or whilest immortall creatures continue in being be greater then other and yet never come to be so great but that it may be augmented or bettered and that which may be augmented or bettered cannot be actually Infinite The least parcel of earth could not subsist without the participation of Gods Power or Being and the least or dullest part of the earth which participates of his Being doth in a sort infinitly exceed Nothing or that which is not Nothing could have any Being but by participating of his Being who is infinite No power besides Infinite Power could out of Nothing produce Something Trees and plants and other workes of the 4 th and 5 th dayes creation excell the earth Beasts of the field excell them Man excelleth the beasts of the field and the Angels excell man in nobilitie and dignitie of being And yet the most excellent amongst the Angels is but a participation of Gods Power or Excellencie and as Divines collect God hath not made any creature so excellent but he may make it more excellent every day then other yet this supposed should not the Excellencie of it be Actually infinite because it may be still bettered Yet may that which is not actually infinite in any one kind or according to any one branch of Infinitie actually contein greater Excellencie or perfection in it then the addition of perfection unto some other creature though by succession infinite can attain unto And thus Christs Humane Nature by reason of the Personall Union which it hath with the Godhead or with the Son of God containes greater Excellencie in it of diverse kinds then any other created substance not so united though the faculties or perfections of it were continually bettered could reach unto 9. But omitting the Dignitie of Christs humane Nature in the general it will be a more profitable search to examin the particular Effects or Efficacie which his Humane Nature now Exalted hath in respect of us These may not be measured much lesse limited by other mens most noble Faculties or perfections The most dull sight on earth may see as far as the Sun or Starrs and the most quick sight cannot see beyond them No mans eye-sight can pierce through the thickest clouds much lesse through the heavens above or through the rockes here on earth Though thus to do were absolurely impossible to man or any other creature endued with sight we might not hence thus collect Christs glorified eyes are humane eyes as ours are created eyes as ours are Therefore He cannot with these bodily eyes look down from heaven and behold what is done or lyes hid in the most secret corners of the earth or that his facultie of hearing because a created facultie cannot apprehend all the blasphemies or oathes even the most secret murmurings of his enemies either against him or his Church Or admitting any Saints eyes already glorified in bodie in heaven could by vision of the Divine Nature see all things that are done in earth or that his eares could hear all the Conference that passeth in this Kingdom for some one day yet this excellencie of his outward senses being supposed his internal or intellective faculties were not able to distinguish betwixt every thing so heard or seen or to censure every word or deed as it deserves Nor could his memorie perhaps perfectly retain what for the present the apprehends or conceives Yet may we not hence argue Christs intellective Faculties are but Humane not divine Ergo he cannot distinctly and infallibly Judge or censure every thing he sees or hears or infallibly retayne the Records of his Judgment or censure inviolate and entire unto the day of Judgment Bound we are rather to beleive that Christ as Man or with his Humane eyes sees all our wrongs and as Man hears all our prayers and takes notice of all our doings Or that he who as Man shall bee our Judge is in the mean time an Eye-witnesse of all our misdeedes or well doings an Eare-witness of all our speeches good or bad Nor may we again by broken Inductions gathered from the effects or efficacie of natural bodies or created substances upon other bodies take upon us to limit or bound the Efficacie of Christs Bodie upon the bodies or soules which he hath taken to his protection We may not collect that Christs bodie because comprehended within the heavens can exercise no reall Operation upon our bodies or soules here on earth or that the live Influence of his glorified Human Nature may not be diffused through the world as he shall be pleased to dispense it or to sow the seeds of life issuing from it sometimes here sometimes there 10. This Real though Virtual Influence of Christs Humane Nature is haply that which the Lutherans call the Real Ubiquitarie presence of Christ Bodie Luther himself never denyed Christs very bodie or Humane Nature to be comprehended within the heavens and yet he affirmed it to be present with us in such a manner as the sound is present with us which is really made or caused a great way from us And we may not deny This Real Influence or Virtual Presence of Christ to be in a manner Infinite or at least to extend it self to all created substances that are capable of it in what created distance soever they be from his bodie whose Residence we beleive to be in the highest heavens at the Right hand of God This kind of Infinitie of his Presence can seem no Paradox or improbable Imagination to
mitto lapidem in Sionem I lay or place a stone in Sion the meaning is as if he had said I lay or found Sion the spirituall Sion or new Jerusalem in a Stone or cheif corner stone elect and pretious But whether this be the grammatical or literal sense of the prophet I leave for Criticks in the Hebrew dialect to determine Both constructions the ordinary and this Critical are true and compatible both in respect of the matter are necessarie Christ God and man was layd in Sion as a sure foundation stone as Imus angularis Lapis as the lowest corner stone unto which S. Peter for precedencie of time so far wee yeild unto his primacie was first annexed Peter was the first living stone which was Built upon this foundation stone the other Apostles were layd not upon Peter but upon the same foundation stone whether one after another or all together wee will not dspute However all that beleive as Peter and the other Apostles did or shall so beleive unto the worlds end are immediately layd upon the same foundation stone not one upon another no one of them upon Peter or upon any other Apostle their union or annexion unto Christ is as immediate as Peters was and is or shal be as indissoluble as his was to Christ albeit their growth be not so great nor for qualitie so glorious The best inscription of this edifice thus immediately erected upon the same stone would be that of the Poet Crescet crescentibus illis As the number of living stones which are layd upon this foundation stone increase so the foundation or corner stone which God did promise to lay in Sion doth still increase As every particular living stone increaseth or groweth from a stone into a pillar of this house of God from a pillar in the house of God unto a temple of God so this foundation stone that is Christ as man still groweth still increaseth not in himselfe but in them For they grow by his growth in them or by diffusion of life from him into them 23. But though Christ be often called A stone a rock a living stone a living rock or a stone which being cut out of a mountain became a Mountain which filled all the earth yet the manner of his growth in us or the manner of his inlarged habitation through the Church may be best conceived by the manner of the soules growth or diffusion of his Vertue throughout Vegetable or sensible bodies that is through trees or plants or through the bodies of men of beasts or such as wee call living creatures There is a vegetable soul in the Ake-corn when it is first set or planted and this soul we may truely say dwelleth or abideth in the Akorn and is the cause why the Akorn sprouteth into a rod the same soul is the cause why the rod or twig groweth greater the true cause why this twig growes into a stemme why the stemme grown greater spreads it self into branches why every branch beareth leaf blossom or seed Now the greater the stemme doth grow the further the vegetable soul doth spread it self The same vegetable soul which was in the Akorn diffuseth it self into the stemme into the branches into the leaf into the blossom into the Fruit or seed None of these could thrive or prosper at all unlesse the vegetable soul did abide or dwell in them none of them can thrive or prosper any longer than the vegetable soul abideth or dwelleth in them Thus was Christ the root out of which S. Peter sprouted the soul of Peter as he was a living or Spiritual man He had no life but from Christ he grew by Christ dwelling or abiding in him And as he did grow by Christ abiding in him So he bare fruit by Christs dwelling in him by the diffusion of life and vegetation from Christ And so all they that abiding in Christ do grow in faith grow by Christ dwelling in them and spreading his vertue through them after such a manner as the vegetable soule doth diffuse it self throughout the Branches which spring from the root or stemme or through the branches which are ingrafted or inoculated into it And this manner of the vegetable souls diffusion of it self or of its vertue into all the Branches which are ingrafted into the same stock or root doth better resemble the manner of Christs dwelling in us than the diffusion of life or vegetation from the root into the stemmes stovens or branches which without ingraffing or inoculation naturally spring from it 24. But this later similitude of the Stock and Grafts although it well expresse the manner of Christs abiding or growing not in himself but in us and the manner of our abiding or dwelling in him it may seem to fail in this That ordinarie Stocks howsoever the ingrafted branches be supported by them and receive life and nutriment from them yet do they not receive their specifical kind of life from the stocks into which they are ingrafted but still retain their own native qualitie As a good Apple or Pear grafted into a Crab stock or Thorn doth not degenerate into a Crab or Thorn but reteins its native sweetnesse and bears the same fruit which it would have done although it had grown up into a Tree from its own root or from the root whereof it was a native Branch It would be a Soloecism to say That any such stock doth remain or dwell in the Graft because it doth not diffuse its specifical qualitie into it But Christ in this manner abideth or dwelleth in us He is the Root and Stem and we the Grafts and inset branches and yet he is said as truely to dwell in us as we in him This argues that the manner of our ingrafting and abiding in him is not natural because the Stock or Stem is for nature and qualitie much better than all the Branches or Grafts which are supported by it which receive life and nutriment by it Hence saith the Apostle Rom. 11. 24. That we Gentiles were cut out of the Olive tree which was wild by nature and were grafted contrary to nature into a good Olive tree This ingraftment is contrary unto nature two wayes First In that the Grafts being wild by nature without any root or fat or sweetness in themselves grow better qualified then they were by participation of the sweetness of the Stock Secondly In that the Stock whereinto they are ingrafted is a good Olive whereas the Olive tree naturally admits no ingraftment or incision being by nature so fat that it seems to envie or scorn to participate his fatness unto any other Branches In arbore pingui non vivunt insita Grafts do not thrive or prosper in any fat tree or stock saith A late Naturalist And as an Hebrew Doctor hath Observed the Olive being the fattest of Trees will admit no incision nor ingraftment Nor will any Olive Graft thrive or prosper unlesse it be ingrafted in an hungry
as immediately from Christ or from God the Father and the Son in the same manner as Saint Peter did though not in the same measure But the Difference of the measure in which we receive it or the difference of our growth in Christ doth not argue a different manner either of our receiving it or of growth by it 7. But is this the worst Practise of the Romish Church that she adds one Article more unto our Creed than Saint Peter knew or taught others to believe or that she makes Peters successors to have a Foundation which he had not If thus she did and no more this were enough to convince her of Grosse Heresie But this one Article of faith or this second foundation of faith which she pretends is of such a transcendent nature that it devours all the rest and doth if not overthrow the First foundation of our faith yet which is all one it draws us from it For as many successions as there be of Popes or of Peters pretended successors so many several foundations there be of their faith which successively adhere unto them Nor are these several or successive foundations either immediately cemented or firmly united to the first Foundation which is Christ or one to another They are as so many Rows or Piles of stone laid one upon another without any juncture or binding than loose sand And all that absolutely unite themselves to the present Romish Church that is to Peters pretended successors must of necessity fall off from the First Foundation Christ God and man and flote with these secondarie foundations to wit Peters succcessors when the floods of temptations do arise The point then to be proved is this That the present Romish Church to wit the present Pope or such as rely upon him as a second or intermediate foundation in this structure cannot possibly be built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets they cannot grow up together as living stones firmly united in Christ Jesus as in the Corner-stone Now the proof of this Point is clear because none can be built upon the Foundation of the Prophets and the Apostles unlesse they absolutely believe as they believed and firmly acknowledge that which they have commended unto us in their writings to have been delivered unto them by God himself for so they expressely teach us to believe Believing then as they believed we must believe that albeit the Apostles and Prophets be not the Foundation here meant in the Text yet that they were Master Builders appointed by God for squaring and fitting all that lived with them or that succeeded them for this foundation and that the Rule by which as well the Pastors and Teachers as the people taught by them must be fitted and squared for this foundation is the doctrine of faith conteined in their Writings Both these parts of truth to wit that the Books of the Old and New Testament are their Writings or Dictates and that in these Writings the Doctrine or Rule of Faith is contained must be absolutely believed and taken for unquestionable before any modern pastors in the Church can be fram'd or fashioned to be true stones in this building But no man which absolutely believes the present Romish Church can have any absolute belief that the Old and New Testament or the Writings of the Apostles and Prophets are infallibly true or contain the Word of God The best belief that any Romanist can have is but Conditional and the Condition is this If the present Romish Church to wit the Pope and such as rely upon his authoritie be absolutely infallible and cannot err in matter of faith But it will be Replyed In as much as the Roman Catholicks take it as a Principle most unquestionable that their Church cannot erre they for this reason must beleeve the doctrine of the Apostles and Prophets concerning Christ to be infallible and the bookes of the Old and New Testament to conteyne the word of God because the Church their Mother which they firmely beleeve cannot erre doth tell them so or as their owne writers speake because the Church their mother doth Canonize these bookes for the bookes of God This indeed is the chiefe advantage which they Presume their Lay-people have of ours in that they believe the Churches testimony concerning the bookes of God to be infallible and if they beleeve the Church to be in this point infallible they cannot doubt but that these bookes are the word of God But if wee look more narrowly into this mysterie of iniquitie and take their full meaning with us it will further appear that this absolute belief of this present Churches absolute infallibilite doth overthrow or undermine the whole frame of faith For they extend this supposed infallibilitie of the Romish Church so farre and make the belief of it so necessarie that without this fundamentall principle as they say wee cannot infallibly believe or know the bookes of the Old and New Testament to containe in them the word of God And in avouching this it is evident that they leave both the Authoritie of the Apostolical and Prophetical writings and the Authoritie of the Present Church altogether uncertaine so uncertaine that nothing avouched by either of them can be by their doctrine so certain as to become any Foundation of their faith If wee cannot infallibly believe the bookes of the Old and New Testament to be the bookes of God himselfe and of divine Authoritie otherwise then by believing the present Romish Church to be infallible let them tell us how they can possibly believe or prove that the Romish Church or any other Congregation of men hath any such infallible authoritie This authoritie must be either believed or known by light of nature or by Divine Testimonie or Revelation That the infallibilitie of their Church can be known by light of Nature they do not they dare not say For that Peter on whom that Church as they pretend is founded was an Apostle of Christ cannot be known by light of Nature or by sense it cannot be infallibly believed but by Divine Authoritie Revelation or Testimonie By what Divine Testimonie then do they know that Peter was an Apostle or that the Church was to be builded on him or on his successors You know they pretend that place of S. Matthew Chap. 16. 18. Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church and that of S. Luke Chap. 22. 32. I have prayed for thee that thy faith shall not fail And yet they deny that we can possibly know these words to be the words of God or to have any such meaning as they make of them unlesse we will believe the Churches Authoritie in avouching them to be the words of God and her interpretation of them to be infallible But leaving them wandring in this Round or Circle as we found them long agoe let us further consider the manner how we are built upon Christ the Chief Corner-stone and how we must
of infamy and hope of Honour were of themselves sufficient to keep most men within the compass of civilitie or moral goodness were it not generally true in all Common-wealths which Solomon had observed in his times Prov. 28. 4. That they which forsake the Law do praise the wicked and so St. Peter tells us 1 Pet. cap. 4. v. 4. That such as walked in the wayes of the Gentiles in lasciviousnesse lust excesse of wine ryotings banquettings and abominable idolatry did think it a strange thing that these late Converts to whom he wrote this Epistle did not run with them to the like excesse And for this cause as he adds they speak evil of them that is they put all the shame they could upon them As then so now Every societie of lewd or naughtie men have their usurped customs which are equivalent with them to Laws have their Parliaments whereby wo unto them Esay 5. 20. they attempt to alter or invert the Law of God and the Law of nature to establsh evil for good and to disgrace goodness as if it were evil What course of life what branch of lewdness more infamous by the Law of God then ryot or drunkenness a vice so shameful that the Fathers eye must not pity it in his Children that are tainted with it but even their natural Parents as well the Mother as the Father are bound by the Law of God Deut. 21. 20 21. to inform against them to accuse them before the Magistrate lest the shame and sin should reflect upon themselves by connivance And by the same Law the publick Magistrate is bound upon the accusation of their Parents to put them to an ignominious death And yet there is a generation of men outwardly professing the knowledge of God and of Christ which seek to put shame ignominie upon all such as will not run with them to the like excess which have their Laws and Rules for authorizing and cherishing this lawless and unruly custom God again by his written Law and by his Sentence against Cain awards death and shame to murtherers And yet the seeds of this accursed sin are more then legitimated ranked amongst the essential parts of honour made as the very touch and tryal of Gentry by men which esteem it a greater shame to indure the breath of a verbal Lie from anothers rash mouth then to tell or devise an hundred real Lies or to outface a truth by false oaths And by this corrupt custom which goes currant for a soveraign Law amongst braver Spirits as they account themselves the observance of Laws divine and humane which forbid all private Revenge all resolutions to kill or be killed is branded with the infamy of Cowardise A terrible bug-bear but to such only as are Men in maliciousness but Children in Knowledge For it is a sign of the greatest Cowardise that can be to be affrighted at the noise of vain words or to forsake the Fortress upon a false Alarm or representation of counterfeit Colors As these so every other vice hath its Baud or Advocate to give it countenance and to disgrace the contrary vertue 6. The old Serpent which beguiled the first Man by the first woman works still upon the weaker vessel and makes it his instrument to foyl the stronger He is not ignorant that this masculus pudor as the Philosopher cals it this virile or manly fear of shame whereby youth is naturally restrained from shameful courses cannot easily be vanquished but by suborning this effeminate or womanish fear of worldly or popular disgrace to betray it as Dalilah did her Husband Samson And the expelling of this masculine by this womanish fear of disgrace or reproach is as the putting out of the eyes of discretion whereby we discern good from evil So that Satan leads them up and down at his pleasure as the Philistines did Samson after he had lost his bodily eyes by the cutting off his hair We have a Saying or Proverb rather Past Shame past Grace The Heathens had the like Observation save only that they knew not what Grace meant They had no use of the word Grace in that sense which is most common and yet most proper with us A Child or man past Grace is with us as much as Filius perditus A Son of perdition Such an one as Judas was who yet was not past Grace that is not irrecoverably lost until he became impudent and obdurate in sin Now it was the observation of one and he was none of the precisest amongst the Heathen Illum ego periisse dico cui quidem periit pudor I give that man saith Plautus for lost which hath lost modestie or is past shame Our Common Proverb and the Saying of this Poet have this sure Ground in true Divinitie That want of modestie or a face uncapable of shame supposeth a great measure of iniquity in the brest That which we call a Brazen face hath alwayes for its Supporter an Iron sinew or a brawny heart Jer. 3. 3. and 5. 3. and 6. 15. and 8. 12. 7. As nothing passeth into the understanding but by the gates of sense So the true belief of that which God threatened unto sin and that was death is ushered into the heart of man by shame and confusion of face The first impression of Gods threatenings unto our first Parents was made upon this part And all the Sons of Adam even unto this day either have or might have a pledge of that which Moses relates concerning their and their eldest Sons hiding themselves and going out from the presence of the Lord. To this day it is true Qui male agit odit Lucem an evil conscience flies the light or presence of men And the face commonly bewrayes the heart as he said Heu quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu It is an hard matter not to confess a crime or the truth although the mouth be silent Yet as some men by long custom in sin degenerate into Atheists and see no reliques of Gods image wherein they were created in themselves although the notion of a Godhead or Divine Power be naturally ingrafted in all So though shame and blushing be most natural to man when he doth evil yet some by long continuance in sin shake off this vail or covering of their nakedness Such they are of whom Jeremie spake in the Old and in the New Testament St. Jude speaks ver 10. Men that are prone to speak evil of those things which they know not but what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves and become as impenetrable by shame as bruit beasts whom God hath deprived of reason He that is not subject to this passion participates more of the nature or disposition of collapsed Angels than of collapsed man The Divels we read do tremble at their belief or apprehension of Gods Judgments We do not read that they are ashamed of the evil which deserves it as our first
life is but a walking prison or moveable Cage unto the immortal soul yet the soul being long accustomed to this prison doth naturally chuse to continue in it still rather then to be uncertain whither to repair after it go hence That some Heathens have taken upon them to let their souls out of their bodies before the time appointed by course of nature or doom given upon them by their supream Judge This was but such a delusion of Sathan as one man somtimes in malice puts upon another For so oftimes a secret enemie or false friend hath perswaded others to break the prison whereto they were upon presumption rather then on evidence of any notorious fact committed to make them by this means unquestionably lyable unto the punishment of death which without such an escape they might have escaped For any man wittingly and willingly to separate the soul and body which God hath joyned is A damnable presumption an usurpation of Gods own office or Authoritie To sollicit or sue for a divorce betwixt them is not safe for any save only for such as have Good Assurance or probable hopes that when they are dissolved they shall be with Christ Now the souls of such as die in him have no desire to return unto the former prison of the body But such as have not in this life been espoused unto him would chuse rather to remain in or to return unto their former prison then to be held in custody by their spiritual enemies Their estate for the present is worse then the sufferance of bodily death being charged both with perpetual sufferance and expectation to suffer the second death 3. And this death differs more from the First death then inter numerandum that is more then in order of accompt or rank of place What then is not the second death a privation of life Yes it is all this and somewhat more besides Every vice includes a privation of the contrary vertue and is a great deal worse then want of vertue So every sickness includes a privation of some branch of health and is much worse then a Neutralitie or middle temper if any such there be between health and sickness So doth the Second death include an extream contrarietie to life and all the contentments of it Blindness is a meer privation of sight and the eye which cannot see is dead in respect of this branch of life and this death or deprivation of this sense is only matter of losse The eye or subject of sight oft-times after the loss of sight suffers no pain no more doth the ear after it becomes deaf nor the sense of feeling after it be numm'd A man stricken with the palsie feels no smart in that part which it possesseth Whilest any part of our body is sensible of pain it is an argument that it is yet alive not quite dead And yet is all pain rather a branch of death then of life For much better it were to die the first death then to live continually in deadly pain No man but would be willing to loose a tooth rather then to have it perpetually tormented with the tooth-ach Now the second death is no other then a perpetual living unto deadly pain or torture Bodily death or not being is not so much worse then life natural with all its contentments as the second death is worse then the First or the bodily pains which can accompany it The parts or branches of the first death are altogether as many as the parts of life natural The seat or subject of the second death is larger There is no member of the body or facultie of the soul whether sensitive or rational which becomes not the seat or subject of the second death As this death is the wages of sin so it is for Extention commensurable unto the body of sin Now there is no part or facultie in man which in this life hath been free from sin And whatsoever part or facultie hath in this life been polluted with sin becomes the seat dwelling place of the second death Wheresoever sin did enter it did enter but as an Harbinger to take up so many several Roomes for that death Who is he that can say that lust hath not sometimes entred in at the eye that the seeds of lust of Envy of murther and of other sins have not taken possession of the ear that his tongue or tast hath not given entertainment to ryot gluttony and excesse in meat and drink That his sense of smell hath not been sometimes a pander to these and the like Exorbitances And the other fifth or grosse sense of Touch is as the common bed of sin for it spreads it self throughout all the rest and is the foundation of every other external sense 4. To give you then a true map of the second death and more then a Map of it or of their estate that are subject unto it we cannot exhibit The Map with the true scale for measuring the Region of death with the miserable estate of its inhabitants is thus Nature and common Experience afford us These general un-erring Rules That all pain and grief are improved by one of these two means or by both As First by enlarging the capacitie of every sense or facultie which is capable of pain or discontent Secondly by the vehemency or violence of the object or agent which makes the impression upon the passive sense or capacitie One and the same Agent aswell for qualitie as for intention of its active force doth not make the same impression upon different subjects though both capable of impression As one and the same flame and steam of fire hath not one and the same effect on iron steel and wax though all of them be in the same distance from it Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis How powerful soever any Agent be the Patient can receive or retein no more of its power then it is capable of Again how capable soever the Patient be of any violent impression yet the capacitie of it is not filled unlesse the force of the Agent be proportionable unto it And though it be able to receive never so much yet it is true again Nihil dat quod non habet nec plus dat quam habet No creature no Agent whatsoever can bestow any greater measure whether of good or evil whether of pain or pleasure then is conteined within the sphere of its activitie From these unquestionable Principles this Universal Conclusion will undoubtedly follow That all excesse or full measure of pain of grief or woe of every branch of malum poenae must amount from the improved capacitie of the sense or facultie which receives impression and from the strength and potencie of the Object which makes the impression 5. There is no humane body which is not by nature capable of the Gout yet such as are accustomed to courser fare to moderate dyet and hard labour are lesse capable
of this disease then such as cherish and pamper the sense of taste and touching What is the reason Daintiness of diet improves the capacitie of the sense of feeling and makes it more tender and so more apt to receive the impression of noisom humours and the same daintiness or excesse of delicate fare is more apt and forcible to breed plentie of forcible and peircing humours then courser fare or moderate dyet is For the same reason he whose sense of smelling or tast is by natural disposition of Bodie or by accustomance more subtle or accurate will be more offended with loathsome smells and nastie food then he which hath the same senses by a natural disposition more dull or more dis-used from delicate odours or daintie meats And a musical ear accustomed to melodious consorts will be more displeased with jarring or discording sounds then he which hath the same sense of hearing unpolished by Art or accustomed to ruder noises The more accurate a mans sight is by natural disposition or the more insight a man hath in the Art of limning or painting or the more accustomed he is to view fresh colours and proportions the more impatient he is to behold unsightly Objects or deformed prospects And according to the increase of unsightliness or ugliness in the object his offence or grief doth still grow and increase The Rule then is general That the discontent the grief or pain of every one of the five outward senses still accrues from the capacitie or aptitude of the sense to receive ingrateful impressions And from the potencie or efficacie of the Agent to make such impressions The same Rule holds as true in our internal faculties or senses A man by natural disposition of immoderate appetite for meat and drink is far more tormented with the same want of them then a moderate or less greedie appetite is And this sense which is none of the five hath this peculiar propertie that it is tormented with its own Capacitie without any agent or object to inflict pain upon it The meer want of food is more grievous to it then any positive pain that can befal it by any external Agents To a man again of a curious Phansie or accurate Judgment an ignorant or slovenly discourse is more unpleasant then to an illiterate man or to one of duller capacitie for wit To an ambitious or popular man the least touch of dis-esteem or jealousie of dis-respect is more bitter then an open affront or disgrace unto an honest upright heart which looks no way but one to that which leads to truth and honestie And he that labors to improve this appetite of honor or popular esteem doth but sollicit the multiplication of his own woes For seeing Honor est in Honorante honor is seated in them that do the honor not in them that are honored seeing popular applause depends upon the breath of the multitude the man that sets his mind upon it doth but as one that exposeth his naked body to the lash or scourge or at the best to others courtesie A man that much mindeth his gain and hath his senses exercised in cunning bargainings takes the loss of opportunitie or fair advantage to increase his wealth more deeply to heart then another man whose mind is weaned from the world doth his very want or penury So that though the want or loss of the one be much greater then the others yet the Capacitie of his appetite or desire of gain is much less and therefore no way so apt to receive the impression of discontentment or grief from the same occurrences or occasions which torment the other 6. Now to put all these together Let us suppose one and the same man to be immoderately desirous of worldly honors and riches And by this means of an extraordinary Capacitie for receiving all those parts of grief or sorrow which can accrue from loss of goods from contempt disgrace and scorn and yet withall as capable of and as much inclined to all the pleasures of bodily senses whereby his Capacitie of pain or torture may be improved to the uttermost Let us also suppose or imagine the same man to be daily exposed to all the temptations to all the vexations that his bodily senses or internal faculties are capable of from the occurrences or impressions of objects most ingrateful as to be daily cheated daily disgraced to have his eyes filled with ghastly sights his ears with hideous noises his smell cloyed with loathsome savours and his tast vexed with bitter and unpleasant meats or rather poison which cannot be digested and his sense of touch daily infested with deadly pain his appetite of meat and drink daily tormented with hunger and thirst And from a man in this woful estate and piteous plight we may take the surface or first dimension of the second death but not the Thicknesse or Soliditie of it That we must gather thus first by Negatives How capable soever a mans bodily senses may be of pain or pleasure or his internal faculties of joy or sorrow yet it is Generally true in this life Vehemens sensibile corrumpit sensum The vehemencie or excessive strength of the Agent or sensible Object doth corrupt or dead the sense Huge noises though in their nature not hideous or for qualitie not displeasing will breed a deafness in the ear And though light be the most grateful object that the eye can behold yet the too much gazing upon it or the admission of too much of it into the eye will strike it with blindness Long accustomance unto daintie meats doth dull the taste and take away the appetite Likewise too much cold or too much heat doth either dissolve or benumme the sense of feeling and a man may loose not the smelling onely but even the common sense or Animal Facultie by strong perfumes much more by loathsome and abominable smels There is not one of the five outward senses but if its proper object be too violent or too vehement may let in death to all the rest A man may be killed without a wound either at the eye or at the ear at the nose or at the mouth so he may be by the sense of hunger or thirst without any weapon or poison only by meer want of food The Gangrene or other like disease which works only upon the sense of touch or feeling brings many to an end without any forraign enemie Some have died a miserable death by close imprisonment in a nastie prison without violence to any other sense save only to the sense of smelling Many have died of surfets though of delicate and in their kind wholsome meats Regulus that famous Romane Senator did die as miserable a death as his enemies could devise against him without any other instrument of crueltie besides the force or strength of the most grateful object which the eye can behold that is of the sun unto whose splendent beams his eyes were exposed without the mask or
shelter of his ey lids which his cruell enemies for increasing his pain and lingring torture had cut off Others again which wanted no contentment either of the outward or internal senses have died through meer grief and sorrow first conceived either from losse of goods or friends or for fear of disgrace and shame and some through excessive and suddain joy So that in this life it is universally true and undoubtedly experienced in all the bodily senses and most other faculties of the soul Nullum violentum est Perpetuum There is no grief no pain or sorrow whether inflicted by external Agents or whether it breeds within us or be hatched by the reflection of our own thoughts upon others wrongs or our own oversights or misdeeds but if it be violent or excessive it becomes like a raging flame which both devours the subject whereon it exerciseth its efficacie and puts an end to its own Being by destroying that fuel which fed it 7. This then is the propertie of the second death and the miserable condition of such as must receive the wages of sin That after the Resurrection of the body the capacitie aswell of the bodily senses as of other faculties are so far improved so far inlarged that no extremity of any external Agent no virulency of any disease which breeds within them no strength of imagination or Reflection upon what they have in time past foolishly done or what they suffer for the present or may justly fear hereafter can either dissolve or weaken their passive capacities or strength to indure the like Every facultie becomes more durable then an Anvil to receive all the blows that can be fastned upon them and all the impressions how violent soever which in this life would in an instant dissolve or dead them So that the second death as is said before is a life or vivacitie continually to sustain deadly pains The Dimensions of this death may be deduced to these three heads First to the intensiveness of the pain or grief which is more extream then any man in this life can suffer because the capacities of every sense or passive facultie are in a manner infinitely inlarged and so is the strength or violence of external Agents and the sting of conscience or perplexed thoughts wonderfully increased Secondly to the duration of all those punishments for it is a death everlasting Lastly to the uncessant perpetuitie of these everlasting pains for they are not inflicted by fits but without all intermission though but for a moment There is not an ill day and a good not an ill hour and a good not an ill minute and a good not an ill moment and a good in hell All times are extreamly evil varietie of torments breed no ease Thus much appeared by the Parable of the rich glutton who could not obtain so much of Abraham as a drop of water to cool his tongue which if it had been granted could not have effected any intermission or intercision of pain nor any abatement for the present which would not have inraged the flame as much in the next moment So that such as suffer the second death know not how to ask any thing for their good because indeed nothing can do them any good but all things even their own wishes conspire unto their harme and increase their wo and miserie 8. Some taking occasion from this Parable have moved a question not much necessarie whether the fire of hell be material fire or no that is such as may palpably or visibly scorch the body and torment the outward senses Sometimes this fire is described by a flame as in the Parable of the rich glutton sometimes by the blackness of darkness as in Saint Jude It is not the flame or visibilitie of this fire which argues it to be material the flame is least material in our fire And palpable it may be though not visible But with this question I will not meddle being impossible to be determined without sight or experience which God grant we never have It shall suffice therefore in brief to shew how this fire or rather the pains of the second death are decyphered or displayed in Scripture Now As the joyes of Heaven are set forth unto us under such Emblemes or representations as are visible or known unto us and yet we do not beleive that they are formally or properly such as these shadows or pictures represent but rather eminently contain the greatest joyes that by these representations we can conceive or imagine So we are bound to beleive That the pains of Hell are at least either properly and formally such as the Scripture describes them to be or more extream and violent then if they were such as the characters which the holy Ghost hath put upon them do without Metaphor import or signifie More extream they are then flesh and blood in this life could endure for a minute For as flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven so neither can they endure or inherit the kingdom of Satan there must be a change of this corruptible nature before it be capable of these everlasting pains So much the description of it in holy Scripture doth import The first and that a Terrible description of it is Esai 30. 33. Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared the pile thereof is fire and much 〈◊〉 the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it The like but more terrible hath Saint John Rev. 20. 10. The Divel that deceived them was cast into the Lake of fire and brimstone where the Beast and the false Prophet are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever and as he adds ver 14. This lake of fire is the second death And Saint Jude tels us that The destruction of Sodom and Gommorrah and the cities about them is set forth as an example or type of this eternal fire that is such fearful torments as that people suffered for a moment the damned shall suffer in hell eternally The ruines of Sodom and Gomorah and the dead sea or brimstone Lake wherein neither fish nor other creature liveth was left unto all future ages to serve as a map or picture of that lake of fire and brimstone which Saint Iohn mentions that is of Hell Now the very steam of such a Lake would stifle or torment flesh and blood to death in a moment the outward senses are not capable of its first impressions 9. Some School-men have moved A more pertinent Question whether this punishment of sense which or the instrumental mean of which is thus described unto us by a Lake of fire and brimstone be greater or lesse then the Poena damni that is Whether their imprisonment or confinement to Hell and their subjection to tormenting Fiends be worse then their Exclusion out of Heaven and the perpetual loss of Gods joyful presence The most Resolve That Poena damni the loss of Gods
The imperfection of all Contentments incident to this life discovers it self these Two Wayes First The several capacities are too narrow and feeble in themselves to give entertainment to any portion of sincere and true joy the very best Contentments which here they find in any Object are mingled with dregs Secondly The satisfying of one capacitie defrauds another of that measure of contentment whereof in this life it was otherwayes capable And commonly the satisfying of the baser facultie or meanest capacitie doth deprive the more noble facultie of its due Men given to their bellies or solicitous in purveying for the grosser senses of taste or touch defraud the sense of sight which is the gate of knowledge and the ear which is the sense of discipline of their best Contentments For as the old saying is Venter non habet aures the Belly hath no ears And too much insight in the means which procure bodily pleasures doth blind or darken the Common sense Others not so solicitous to feed the belly with meat as the ear with pleasant sounds or the eye with delightful spectacles do by both means rob the reasonable soul of her best solace and as it were block up these ports and havens by which provision should come into her Every handy-craft or art of husbandry requires an ordinary capacitie not of the Common sense only but of the understanding And yet such as have their minds exercised in these and the like imployments are thereby dis-enabled for bearing Rule or Government over more civil and ingenuous men as may be collected from the wise Son of Sirach Ecclus. 38. from the 25. to the 33. Even amongst the capacities or faculties of the reasonable soul there is not that harmony or concord which were requisite for her better contentment Some men in a manner freed from the servitude of their outward senses and able to command their service for contemplation by too much contemplating upon one sort of objects make themselves uncapable of reaping that delight which other objects would more plentifully afford to these Contemplators Some by studying the Mathematicks too much do benum their apprehensive faculties or capacities of prudence or civil knowledge Others whiles they seek to give too much satisfaction to their desires or capacities of civil wisdom or humane Prudence do infeeble their capacities and starve their desires of divine Mysteries or spiritual understanding Quite contrary it is in the life to come First The Capacitie of every sense or facultie is improved to the uttermost and no object shall intrude or offer it self but such as are able to give severally full Contentment without satietie Secondly The Harmony or Consent between the several Capacities and desires of every Sense and Facultie is most exact the satisfying of one doth no way prejudice but rather further another Every one is apt to bear its part for making up of that full harmony which is required to true happiness And For those grosser Senses of Touch and Taste â—ith the Appetite of meat and drink All the pleasures in this life wherewith that are commonly overtaken are as we said before medicines of diseases rather than any true Contentments The first degree or step to happiness is To be freed from those diseases wherewith they now are pestered For though it be a miserie for a man to want food when he is an hungry or drink when he is thirstie or rayment when he is cold or needs it for ornament yet we all conceive it to be a far greater happiness to enjoy continual health and liveliness without either hunger or thirst or to have perfect comeliness without clothing or rayment And for this reason that branch of happiness which consists in satisfying the Capacities of these Senses is in Scripture described by Negatives As there shall be no hunger there no thirst no greif no pain These are the Symptomes of those grosser Senses in this life which in the life to come shall not enjoy the pleasures or Contentments which are contrary to these annoyances as we say in kind but by a happy Exchange by such an exchange as he that turns lead into silver doth forego a great deal of dross or baser metal but gains that which contains the full value of it in a small waight or compass Of all and every one of the bodily Contentments we can possibly imagine the very immortalitie of glorified Bodies is for qualitie more then the Quintessence or Extraction It containeth health and chearfulness of Spirit with all the pleasures that accompany them as we say Eminenter that is As one pound waight of Gold fully contains in its worth many hundreds of lead so one Moment of immortalitie the least waight of glory we can imagine is worth a full Age of all the health and happinesse that can be had on earth Instead of material food which perisheth with the use and whose fulness doth alwayes breed satietie the appetite of meat and drink shall be continually satisfied with the Tree of Life which or rather the Emblem or Type of which our First Parents were not admitted to touch in Paradise 6. When the Sadduces captiously demanded Which of those seven brethren should have that woman to his wife in the world to come which had been successively married to all the seven Our Saviour answers The children of this world marry and are given in marriage but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage neither can they die any more for they are equal to the Angels What then shall such as have enjoyed the comfort of wedlock be utterly deprived of that comfort in heaven which was allotted to Adam in Paradise even in the state of innocencie They shall not have it in kind for seeing flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven there shall not be there any Two in one flesh but in lieu of this comfort such as observe the Commandements of Christ shall be more neerly espoused and joyned in spirit unto Christ For as man and wife make one body so he that is joyned unto the Lord is one spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. This is the consummation of that Great Mystery which is here begun on earth and whereof the first marriage in Paradise was but the visible sign or shadow This is the very perfection of all pure and chast love As for those other purer Senses of Sight and Hearing they shall enjoy their former Contentments both Eminenter and Formaliter both in kind and by happy exchange Though enabled they shall be to see far more glorious sights and to hear more heavenly sounds then in this life they could either hear or see Yet shall they not be disenabled to see the same sights or hear the same sounds which sometimes in this life they did But these they shall hear and see with infinite more delight and joy because the Capacitie of these senses shall
in the instruments of the same senses and so it shall be in every other particular sense or faculty wherein sin hath lodged or exercised his dominion The hint of this general Rule or doctrine is given unto us by our Saviour in the Parable of the rich Glutton the principal crime wherewith he is expresly taxed was his too much pampering of the sense of tast without compassion of his poor brother whom he suffered to die for hunger And the only punishment which is expressed by our Saviour is the scorching heat of his tongue which is the Instrument of taste and his unquenchable thirst without so much hope of comfort as a drop of cold water could afford him though this comfort were earnestly begged at the hands or rather at the finger of Abraham who in his life time had been open-handed unto the poor a man full of bounty mercie and pitie But these are works which follow such as practise them here on earth into heaven they extend not themselves unto such as are shut up in that everlasting prison which is under the earth CHAP. XXIV ROMANS 6. 23. The wages of Sin is Death But the Gift of God is Eternal Life through Iesus Christ our Lord. The Body of Death being proportioned to the Body of Sin Christian meditation must applie part to part but by Rule and in Season The Dregs or Reliques of Sin be The sting of Conscience and This is a Prognostick of the Worm of Conscience which is chief part of the Second Death Directions how to make right use of The fear of the Second Death without falling into despere and of the Hope of Life eternal without mounting into presumption viz. Beware 1. Of immature perswasions of Certaintie in Salvation 2. Of this Opinion That all men be at all times either in the Estate of the Elect or Reprobates 3. Of the Irrespective Decree of Absolute Reprobation The use of the Tast of Death and pleasures The Turkish use of Both. How Christians may get a Relish of Joy Eternal by peace of Conscience Joy in the Holy Ghost and works of Righteousness Affliction useful to that purpose 1. SEeing the Body of the Second Death is in every part proportionable to the Body of Sin which not mortified doth procure it The Art of Meditation upon the one branch of this Great Article viz. Everlasting Death must be thus assisted or deduced First By right fitting or suiting the several members or branches of the Second Death unto the several members of the Body of sin The force or efficacie of this Medicine depends especially upon the right Application of it And the right Application consists in counterpoizing our hopes or desires of unlawful pleasures with the just fear of sutable Evils Now as the fear of those evils whereof we have a distinct or comprehensive notion hath more weight or force upon our affections then the fear of evils far greater in themselves but of which we have only an indistinct confused or general notion such as a man blind from his birth may have of colours which in the general he knows to be sensible qualities but what kind of qualities in the particular he cannot know So of those evils whereof we have a specifical or distinct notion those have the greatest sway upon our several corrupt affections which are most directly contrary to our particular delights or pleasures which accompany the exercise or motions of the same affections So as the chief if not the only means to mortifie the several members of the old man or body of sin is to plant the fear of those particular evils in the same sense or faculty by whose peculiar delights or pleasures we find our selves to be most usually withdrawn from the wayes of life For the fear of any evil distinctly known though in it self more weighty doth not so directly or fully countersway any delight or pleasure unless it be seated in the same particular subject with it and move upon the same Center Curiosity of the eye is not so easily tamed with any other fear as with fear of blindness Lust or delight in the pleasures of the flesh are not so forcibly restrained by any other fear as by fear of some loathsome disease or grievous pain incident to the Instruments or Organs of such pleasures Pride and Ambition stand not in so much awe of any other punishment as of shame dis-grace or dis-respect 2. But how good soever the Medicine be it is either dangerous or unuseful unless it be applied in due season The same Physick hath contrary effects upon a full and a fasting stomack And as a great part of the Art of Husbandry consists in the observation of times and seasons wherein to sow or plant So a great part of this divine Art of Meditation depends upon our knowledge or observance of opportunities best fitting the plantation of this fear of particular evils which must countersway our inclinations to particular pleasures This must be attempted as we say in cold blood and in the Calm of our affections or in the absence of strong temptations which scarce admit of any other Medicine or restraint save only flying to the Force of Prayer It was a wise Caveat of an heathen that as often as well call those pleasures or delights of the body or sense whereof we have had any former experience to mind we should not look upon them as they did present themselves or came towards us for their face or countenance is pleasant and inticing But if we diligently observe them in their passage from us they are ugly and loathsom and alwayes leave their sting behind them And as the several delightful Objects of every particular outward sense meet in the internal Common sense or Phantasie So the dregs or Reliques which every unlawful pleasure at his departure leaves in the sense or faculty wherein it harboured do all concur to make up the Sting of Conscience And the Sting of Conscience unless we wittingly stifle the working of it doth give the truest representation of the Second Death and makes the deepest impression of hell pains that in this life can generally be had 3. There is no man unless he be given over by God to a reprobate sense whose heart will not smite him either in the consciousness of grosser sins unto which he hath in a lower degree been accustomed or of usual sins though for the quality not so gross Now if men would suffer their Cogitations to reflect upon the regretings which alwayes accompany the accomplishments of unlawful desires as frequently and seriously as they in a manner impel them to reflect upon those inticing Objects which inflame their brests with such desires these cogitations would awake the natural Sting of Conscience and This being awakned or quickned would not suffer them to sleep any longer in their sins For the smart or feeling of the Sting of Conscience is as sensible and lively a Prognostick of the Worm which
never dieth which is the chief part of the second Death as heaviness of spirit or grudgings are of Fevers or other diseases which without preventing Physick or diet do alwayes follow them 4. But this Prognostick of the second death or this fear of hell pains which the Sting of Conscience alwayes exhibits must be warily taken and weighed with Judgment The right observance of them as every other good quality or habit is beset with Two contrary extremes The one in defect The other in excess The defect is Carelesnesse The excesse Despere or too much dejection of mind The intimations or Prognosticks which the Sting of Conscience exhibits of death spiritual are often mistaken for the effects of bodily melancholy and the best medicine for melancholy is pleasant society or mirth Out of this mistaking most men prevent that Compassion which is due to their own souls after such a manner as Jewish parents did prevent their natural pity towards their children when they sacrificed them unto Molech by filling their ears with the loud sound of wind Instruments lest the shrikes of the Infants whom they inclosed in an Image of hot glowing brass by entring in at their ears might move their Jewish hearts to pity And most men lest they should be stung with grief of spirit or conscience seek to stifle their first murmurings and repinings either with unhallowed or unseasonable mirth Others by seeking to avoid this common extreme often fall into the contrary which is of the Two the worse to wit dispere or too much dejection of spirit That which the Heathen observed of grief in General is most true of this Particular the grief of a Wounded Spirit Dolori si fraena remitt as nulla materia non est maxima If we let loose the reins to grief or sorrow the least matter or occasion of either will be more weighty then we can well bear Mans unbridled fancie is as a multiplying Glasse which represents every thing as well matter of sorrow as of pleasure in a far greater quantity then it really hath And unless our Cogitations or sad remembrances of sins past be moderated with Judgment and discretion they will appear to our fancies like Cains transgression greater then can be forgiven or then we can hope that the God of mercy will forgive For holding the right mean betwixt these Extrems Carelesnesse and despere there is no means so effectual as to be rightly instructed in the hope of everlasting Life and Fear of everlasting death Immature or unripe hopes of the One ingendereth carelesnesse or presumption so doth erroneous fear of the other bring forth despere He that is perswaded that every one always is in the Estate of the Elect or of the Reprobate cannot avoid the one or other extreme And the only remedy to prevent despere or being swallowed up with grief either in the consciousnes of grosser sins lately committed or whiles we reflect upon sins past is to purge our selves of that Erroneous Opinion concerning Absolute Reprobation or irreversible ordination to death before we were born or from the time of our second birth by baptisme 5 To purge our brain or fancie of this opinion let us take the form and Tenor of the Final sentence into consideration which we may do without digression or diversion Both branches of this sentence we have Mat. 25. The first branch ver 34. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world he doth not say before all worlds though this in a good sense is true most true if we speak of Gods designe or Act for all his Acts or designes are as he is Eternal without beginning so are not the things designed or enacted by him they take their beginning in time or with time The Kingdom prepared for Gods people was prepared when the world was made not before so good and gracious was our God that he did not make man or Angel untill he had prepared a place convenient for them take them as they were his creatures or workmanship and they were all ordained to a life of bliss Paradise was made for man and it may be after man was made but the Heaven of Heavens was prepared for man before he was made and made for the Angels if not before they were made yet when they were made But the Sentence of death ver 41. runs in another Tenor Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire he doth not say prepared for you from the foundation of the world but prepared for the Divel and his angels Those immortal spirits which now are divels were sometime Angels God made them so They made themselves divels Now hell fire was not prepared for them whilst they were Angels not from the foundation of the world but from the time wherein of Angels they became Divels Nor are men at all ordained to it untill of men they become Satans angels And as Satan and his angels the spirits which fell with him continue the self same individual substances which they were when God first created them yet are no way the same but quite contrary for qualitie and disposition so the place whereto they are confined may be for substance space and dimension the same it was at the first creation but not the same for quality it became a prison or place of torment when Satan and other spirits which fell with him of Angels made themselves Divels Satan as some think brought that fire wherein he and his Angels shall be tormented into the bowels of the earth when he fell like lightning from heaven However if the Angels had not sinned there had been no hell no tormenting fire and unless men become the Divels Angels they shall not be cast into hell fire God doth not ordain men to be Satans angels but men continuing his sons or servants God ordaines them to take their portion with him So that if we remove the opinion of Absolute-Reprobation or of irreversible ordination of mens persons unto death before they were baptized or born or if men would be confirmed in faith that no such Sentence or Decree is gone out against them whilst they have either will desire or opportunitie to call upon God through Jesus Christ for remission of sins whether by confession of them or by absolution from them upon such confession or by receiving the Sacrament of Christs body and blood no danger can accrue from the frequent meditation of everlasting death or from such representations of the horrours of it as the often reflecting upon our sins past and the working of the Sting of Conscience upon such reflections will present unto us 6. Another excellent Use and that a Positive One there is of these meditations For no man ordinarily can have a true Tast or rellish of Eternal Life but he which hath had some Tast or grudging of everlasting
desert or only of Gods free Mercy and favour The first Grace being lost though lost it cannot be without their default that had it the second Grace in their Divinity may be merited de Congruo in congruity And this is A strange Tenet that seeing the First Grace cannot be merited by any works of ours either de Condigno or de Congruo that is either out of the true worth of our works or out of any Congruitie or proportion which is between them and Grace the second Grace should be at all merited when the Grace which is the Foundation of this merit is utterly lost this is all one as if they should say The fruit may be good or fair when the Root or Tree which bears it is dead or that the Roof may stand when the foundation is taken from it or that any Accident may remain without a substance Yet thus to hold they are inforced if they wil speak consequently to their other Tenets or Positions concerning the merit of works done out of Grace or charitie For many of their Arguments which they bring for confirmation of their merits in General do either conclude That the Second Grace may be merited or awarded by the course of Gods justice not of mercie only or that the Apostasie into which they should otherwise fall may be prevented by the vertue or efficacie of their former works of charity or else they conclude nothing at all for any merit 3. The Especial or as some think the Only place of Scripture which can with probability be alledged for the Revival of Merits after the Grace from which these merits did spring is utterly extinguished is that Heb. 6. 9 10. But beloved we are perswaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation though we thus speak In the formet verses the Apostle had threatned them with the danger of that Irremissible sin which they call The sin against the Holy Ghost into which no man can fall but by forsaking the works of his First Love What then is the Reason that our Apostle doth hope so well of these back-sliding Hebrews He grounds his hopes as the Advocates for the Romish Church contend not so much upon Gods Free mercie or Favour by which only the First Grace was bestowed upon them as upon Gods Justice And if his hopes be grounded upon Gods Justice more then upon his Free Mereie or Favour Then the Recovery of their former estate or the prevention of that Apostasie into which they were falling was more from the merit of their former works then from Gods Free Mercie or Grace Now That the Apostle did ground his hopes of their Recovery upon Gods Justice they take it as proved from the tenth verse For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love which ye have shewed towards his name in that ye have ministred to the Saints and do minister These words seem to import That if God at this time should have cast them off He had not been just and right in his Judgements and if it had been any injustice in God at this time utterly to have forsaken them Then their perseverance in such Grace as was left them for the Recovery of such Grace as they had lost was out of merit or desert and perhaps meritorious of the Recoverie For every man doth deserve or properly merit that which without injustice or unrighteousness cannot be detained from him This is the most plausible argument which they bring for the Revival of Merits after Grace be lost or decayed and if merits may revive after Grace be lost then questionless Whiles Grace continues without interruption or intercision men may merit more degrees or increase of the same Grace and so Finally Everlasting Life which is here said to be the Grace of God I have been bold to put this Argument drawn from our Apostle Heb. 6. as far home as any Advocate for the Romish Church hath done or can do Because the true and punctual Answer unto it will easily reach all other Arguments which they can draw from the like Head or Topick as when it is said God shall reward us in righteousnesse or as a righteous Judge c. 4. To this Place I Answer That the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek or Justitia in Latine doth sometimes import strict or legal Justice as it is opposed to mercie favour or loving kindness Sometimes again it imports universal Goodness or all the branches of Goodness So the heathen had observed that Justitia in sese virtutes continet omnes that Justice universally taken did comprehend all vertues in it And in this sense A loving or friendly man is said to be A Just or righteous man So the holy Ghost speaks of Joseph the betrothed Husband of the Blessed Virgin that being a Just man he was not willing to make her an example but was minded to put her away privily though he found her with child between the time of her Espousal and the time appointed for her marriage yet not with child by himself Now so long as he was ignorant that she had conceived by virtue of the Holy Ghost it had been no injustice but rather a branch of Legal Justice to have made her an example to have had her severely punished for so the Law of God in this Case as he yet understood the Case did not only permit but seemed to require And to present a fact punishable by the Law of God is alwayes lawful and just Yet this was no part of that Justice or righteousness which the Holy Ghost commends in Joseph when he saith he was a just man To be Iust then in his Dialect in this Case was to be A loving a friendly and favourable man And if the Romish Church would take Righteousnesse in the same sense in those places wherein it is said that he shall reward the Saints as a righteous Iudge and crown them with Glory their Conceit of merit could find no supportance from those Testimonies of Scriptures which they most alledge for it But To the former place in the Epistle to the Hebrews it is further to be noted That our Apostle doth not say there though it be most true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The God you have to deal withall you cannot say is not just but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is not unjust As there is a great difference between not worthy and unworthy so is there betwixt not Iust and unjust When our Apostle denies God to be unjust this Negative is Infinite and doth include all other branches of Gods Goodness besides that Justice by which he renders to every man his due It specially importeth in our Apostles meaning his favour or loving kindnesse or his unwillingness to take the advantages of Law or strict Justice against these Hebrews or a willingness not so much to remember their present misdeeds or back-slidings in his Justice as to remember their former works which
deep touch of Pity or Compassion would raise our spirits to an higher point of service unto Christ then any relief or supply of their bodily wants can amount unto You may if you will for Christs sake be pleased to do it distribute so unto their bodily necessities as you may lay a necessity upon their souls of coming to the ordinary knowledge of Christ and of Gods mercies in him towards man You may by authority put the Precept of our Apostle in execution Such as will not work let them not eat or such as will not work the ordinary works of God that will not labor to be instructed in his fear and in his Laws let them not be partakers of your Bounty and Pity To constrain the poor the halt and lame to enter into the Lords house were a matter easie if as the Law of God and man requires none were permitted to remain amongst us but such as were confined to some certain dwelling or abode where they might live under the inspection or cure as well of Civil as of Ecclesiastick Discipline And consider with your selves I beseech you how either the Civil or Ecclesiastick Magistrate will be able to answer the great King at the last day through whose default whether joyntly or severally many children have been by Baptism received into Christs Church and yet permitted after to live such a roving and wandring life that no Tie can be laid upon them to give an account of their Faith or Christian conversation to any Church or Embassador of Christ But as Bodies while they are in motion are in no place though they pass through many so these wandering Meteors are of no Church though they be in every Church If I should in private perswade You Magistrates to seek some Redress of this Enormitie and blemish to the Government of this place I doubt I should be put off with the Exception to which I could not easily replie That you have better experience then I or others of my opinion or profession have And out of that experience see greater difficulties then we can discern But now having express warrant from our Saviour's words and this Fair opportunitie of Time and Place You must give me leave to reply unto you as an ingenuous and learned Scholar once did to a Christian Emperour which pretended greater difficulties in a good work which he commended to his Princely care then you can do in this Yet a work not all together so necessary nor so acceptable unto God as this work would be In rebus pijs aggrediendis nefas est considerare quantum tu potes sed quantum Deo fidis qui omnia potest Think not when you are about works of Pietie so much of your own Abilitie or weakness but examine how much you relie and trust in Almightie God who is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we conceive or think CHAP. XXXI MATTH 25. 34. 41. Come ye Blessed of my Father FOR I was hungry and ye gave me meat I was thirstie Go ye Cursed FOR I was an hungred and ye gave me no meat I was thirstie Jansenius his observation and disputation About merit examined and convinced of contradiction to it self and to the Truth The definition of Merit The State of the Question concerning Merit Increase of Grace no more Meritable then the First Grace A Promise made Ex mero motu sine Ratione dati et accepti cannot found a Title to Merits Such are All Gods promises Issues of Meer Grace Mercy and Bountie The Romanists of kin to the Pharisee yet indeed more to be blamed then He. The objection from the Causal Particle FOR made and answered 1. AGainst such as denie the merit of humane works Thus much saith Jansenius an ingenuous and learned Bishop though a Papist is diligently to be observed That Christ in this place deputes this Kingdom to the righteous FOR their works sake hereby giving us to understand that Life Eternal is bestowed upon them FOR their works by which the righteous Merit Life Eternal even as the wicked by their evil works Merit everlasting punishment The only ground or reason of this Assertion is For that our Saviours Form of speech in both Sentences is the same and Causal in both As he saith unto the wicked Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire FOR I was an hungred and you gave me no meat c. ver 41 42. So he saith unto the righteous or them on his Right-hand v. 34. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you FOR I was an hungred and you gave me meat c. Yet least any man should except against him as dissenting from the Doctrine of Christ elsewhere delivered and from the Apostolick and Catholick Church By which Our salvation is ascribed to Gods Grace and mercy he adds this salve to the wound which he had made Non tamen Sic merit is nostris putetur dari vita aeterna c. Let no man think that life eternal is So bestowed upon our merits as All may not be given to the mercie of God from which we have our good works or merits He grants withal That the salvation of the Righteous depends upon Gods Blessing and Predestination upon which likewise their Good works depend Lest any should glory in himself A sin forbidden by Gods Prophet Jer. 9. ver 23. That All then is to be attributed to Gods mercie that no man may glorie in himself or in his works is true Our enemies in this Point being Judges is confessed by our Adversaries even in this place from which they seek to establish Merits And This we may conclude is A Point of Catholick Doctrine taught by Christ Prophets and Apostles stedfastly imbraced by all Reformed Churches and expresly in words acknowledged by the Romish Church With this Point of Catholick Faith we mingle no Doctrine no Opinion which may but questionably pollute or defile it We avoid all occasions of incurring the least suspition of contradicting it and for this cause We abandon the very name of Merit as now it is used or rather abused by the Romish Church Although in some Ages of the Church it were an indifferent and harmlesse Term Mereri importing no more as was shewed Chapter 27. then to Get or Obtain But Merit in the language of the modern Romish Church Est actio cuijustum est ut aliquid detur is An action or work to which something or any thing is due by Rule of Justice Yet doth the Romish Church not only Enjoyn the Use or Familiarity of this Name in this Sense or signification but Require the Assent of Faith unto the Reality Expressed by it 2. The Points then which lie upon that Church to prove if she will acquit her self from polluting the holy Catholick Faith are Two The One That this Doctrine of meriting heaven by works doth not contradict the former part of Catholick doctrine acknowledged by her to wit that
hearing the word Life The life of man is short And The Text of the Law wherein the precepts are contained is long The Commentaries of the Prophets and sacred Histories necessarie for the Exposition thereof are voluminous and large The true sence or meaning of either in some points not easie to be found out unless we be well instructed how to seek it so as what the Jesuite saith absolutely but falsly of all Scripture is Comparatively true of This advice of Solomons It is a plain and easie way a light of mans life after it be once well learned but it is hard to Learn without a good Guide to directs us Wherefore behold a greater then Solomon Christ Jesus himself directs us in One and that a very short Line unto that Point whereunto the large discourses both of The Law and the Prophets do as it were by the Circumference Lead us Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets that is The Summe of the Law and the Prophets is contained in this short Rule 3. Because our Saviour gives it we may believe it that this is the best Epitome that ever was given of any so large a Work Or rather not an Epitome of the Law and the Prophets but the whole Substance or Essence of the Law and the Prophets Herein all their particular Admonitions are contained as Branches in their Root Out of the practise of this Principle or Precept all the Righteousness which the Law and the Prophets do teach will sooner spring and flourish much better then if we should turn over all the Learned Comments that have been written upon them without the practise of this Compendious Rule This Abridgement is a Document of His Art that could draw a Camel through the eye of a Needle that spake as never man spake Sure then if any place of Scripture besides those which contain the very Foundation of Christian Faith as Christs Incarnation Passion or Resurrection be more necessary to be learned then other then is this most necessary and most worthy the Practise Seeing all Doctrines of good Life of honest and upright Conversation are derived hence as particular Conclusions in Arts and Sciences from their Causes and Principles 4. For any Coherence of these words with any precedent or consequent we need not be sollicitous It sufficeth to know They are a principal part of our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount in which He delivered the true meaning of the Fundamental Parts of the Law purging the Text from the corrupt Glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees Every Sentence therein is a Maxim of Life and as it were an intire compleat Body of it self not a limb or member of any other particular Discourse Every full Sentence of it This Main Rule especially may be anatomized by it self without unripping any other adjoyning For which Reason some Learned have thought that St. Matthew was not curious to relate every sentence in that Rank and Order as it came from our Saviours Mouth but set them down as any one would do all the memorable good sentences he could call to mind of a good Discourse read or heard placing that perhaps first which was spoke last or that last which was spoke in the middest Yet if as in Description of Shires men usually annex some parts of the Bordering Countries any desire to have the Particular words or Speeches of our Saviour whereunto this Illative Therefore is to be referred he must look back unto the fifth Chapter of this Gospel verse 42. Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow turn thou not away For so St. Luke who is more observant of our Saviours method in this Sermon then St. Matthew in the sixth Chapter of his Gospel verse 30 31. Couples these two Sentences together which St. Matthew had set so farre asunder And immediately after the words of the Text he inferres by Arguments that Duty of loving our Enemies which he had set down the precept for before verse the 27. though St. Matthew place both Duty and Arguments immediately after the Sentence before cited viz. Give to him that asketh c. So that this Precept Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you c. as is most probable came in between the matter of that 42 and 43 verse of that fifth Chapter And yet it might be repeated again in the latter end of that Sermon by our Saviour At least for some special Use or Reason placed there by St. Matthew because being the Foundation or Principle whence all other Duties of Good Life are derived it seems the Evangelist would intimate thus much unto us That of all our Saviours Sermon which contained the very Quintessence of the Law this was the sum And for this Reason he adds that Testimonie concerning the Excellencie of this Rule which St. Luke omits namely That in it is contained the Law and the Prophets 5. The Method which I purpose by Gods Assistance to observe is This. First To set down the Truth and Equitie of the Rule it self Whatsoever ye would that men c. with the Grounds or Motives to the practise thereof Secondly To shew in what sense or how farre the Observation of it is The Fulfilling of the Law and the Prophets Doctrine with such Exceptions as may be brought against it Thirdly Of the meanes and method of putting this Rule in practise It was A Saying of the Father of Physiicans Natura est Medica let Physicians do what they can Nature must effect the Cure The Physician may either strengthen Nature when it is Feeble or ease it from the oppression of Humors But Nature must work the Cure This is in proportion true for matters of Moralitie or Good Life Natura est optima Magistra All that the best Teachers can perform in natural or moral Knowledge is but to help or cherish those natural Notions or Seeds of Truth and Goodness which are ingrafted in our Souls Art doth not infuse or pour in but rather ripen and draw out that which lay hid before And it is the skill of every instructor to apply himself to every mans nature and to begin with such Truths as every one can easily assent unto as soon as he hears them albeit without help of a Teacher he could not have found them out himself And yet the more easily we assent to any Truth the lesse we perceive how we were moved thereto and the lesse we perceive it the more ready we are to imagin that we did more then half move our selves or that we could have found out that by our selves which we have learned of others Whereas in truth there is nothing more hard then to speak to the purpose and yet so in matters of Morality and Good Life as every man of ordinary capacitie shall think upon the hearing of it that he could have invented or said the like Ut sibi
ferratusque sones Ego divitis Aurum Harmoniae dotale geram It was a dishonour in her esteem to be disclaimed by an Imprecation for a Princes Daughter to adorn her head and neck with costly Jewels like a Bride whilest her Husband was clad in steel and yet so clad every hour in peril of life During the time of this his danger abroad she desires no greater train at home then would suffice to expel Melancholick fear And that artire doth please her best which best suted with her pensive heart most likely to move her Gods to Commiseration of her widdowhood For such costly ornaments as were now profferd she thought a fitter time would be to wear them when her Husband returned in peace with such rich spoiles from the enemies Court And in this Resolution well fitting her present estate she leaves them to the proud upstart insolent baggage whose longing desires after those unseasonable fooleries had inchanted the poor Prophet her husband to Countenance an Ominous unfortunate war the issue whereof was this that after most of the Noble Argives sent thither by the enemies sword the Prophet himself went quick down to hell This Conclusion you will say is false in the litteral sense or rather fained but I would to God the Fiction were not too true an Emblem of the most State-Prophets in later Ages Such as are here represented and no better are the usual fruits of untimely desires or discording appetites of parties united in strict bond of common dutie especially in men consecrated to publick ministerie Alwayes they are displeasing to God in nature preposterous hateful as death to civil and ingenuous minds 10. But herein the Poet as the Philosopher well observes exceeds the Historian for moral instructions He may paint men and women as they should be not as they are whereas the Historian must express them as he finds them Most Women indeed are not for their affections like this Poetical Picture of Argia Yet the Carriage of Portia as the ingenious Historian hath exprest it did farre exceed it When her Husband Brutus had disclosed that inward grief and perplexitie by his ill rest by night which he had purposely concealed from her in his waking thoughts she takes his Concealment as a disparagement to her birth and education and as a tacit impeachment of her honestie Brutus saith she I had Cato to my Father and was matched into thy family not as a whore to be thy Companion only at bed and bord but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be as true a Consort of thy miseries as of thy welfare I had never cause to complain of thy usage no occasion to suspect thy loving affection towards me but what assurance canst thou have of my love to thee If I may not be permitted to sympathize with thee in thy secret greif nor bear a part in those anxieties whose communication might ease thy mind and much set forth my fidelitie I know well the imbecillity of our Sex we need no rack to wrest a secret from us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But know O Brutus that there is a secret vertue in good parentage ingenuous breeding and conversation for setling and strengthening the frame of our affections even where they are by nature brickle and unconstant And this is my portion in these Pre-eminences A woman I am by sex but Cato his Daughter and Brutus his Wife To give him a sure experiment answerable to these Protestations how ready she could be in all misfortunes to take grief and sorrow at as low a Note as for his life he could She had cast her self into a burning Feaver by a grievous wound of her own making before she vented the former complaint which she uttered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the extremity of her Fit or pangs I may truly here apply that verse of old Ennius as the late extinguished Lamp of this University once out of this Lantern in another Case did Vos Juvenes shall I say nay verily Nos viri Patres Fratres animos gerimus muliebres Illaque Virgo viri Was this praeeminency that she was Cato's daughter and Brutus's wife of power sufficient to arm her female heart with man-like resolution and true heroical constancy to bear the yoke of all misfortunes with her Conjugal Mate and is it no Praerogative in Christian men before a Heathen woman that they have God for their father and holy Church for their mother Christ Jesus supream Governour of the world the Lord of life and Conquerour of Death and Hell for their Brother Is Baptisme into his death but a naked name that our professed unitie therein cannot unite our hearts in like affections Is the effusion of Gods spirit but as the sprinkling of Court Holy-water are our dayly Sermons but as so many Bevers of wind whose efficacy vanisheth with the breath that uttereth them or hath the frequent participation of Christ precious body blood no better operation on our harts then the exhalation of sweet odours upon our brains Be they no longer comfortable then whilst they be in taking Are all those glorious similitudes of one head and many members of one Vine and many branches but Hyperbolical Metaphors Is our mystical union only a meer Mathematical imagination are those or the like Praerogatives of our calling but like the Soloecisms of the Romish Church matters of meer title or ceremony without realitie Beloved in Christ if either we actually were or heartily desired or truly meant to be true branches of that Coelestial Vine were it possible the strongest boughes thereof should be so often shaken with dangerous blasts of temptations and we no whit therewith moved could so many flourishing Boughes dayly fade and we hope that our Luxuriant branches should always flourish should their goodly leaves hourly fall and we live still as if we never looked for any winter or should God so often threaten to pluck up the vineyard which his own right hand hath planted and yet the dressers of it still seek after great things for themselves as if they never dreamt of dispossession would the most of us either seek to raise our selves as high as the highest room in the Lords house or make it a chief part of our care how to forecast mispense of time in merriment gameing or other worldly pleasures or contentments whilst sundry of our poor brethren and fellow Prophets perhaps in worth our betters die of discontent whilst others younger run mad after riot abroad least they should be attached by sorrow and grief at home whilst other begin to expect a change and entertain a liking of Romish Proffers Others which have ever hated Rome more then death begin to loath their lives and set their longing on the Grave desirous to give their bodies to be devoured by that earth which hath not ministered necessary sustenance to them as being overcharged with maintaining the unnecessary desires and superfluous pleasures of worse deservers Or would so many were they
greater part of men we do necessarily breed a greater scruple or nurse a more dangerous Doubt of salvation in all men as yet not effectually called then the Romish Church doth For Gods Intention or purpose to save men is without all question more Essential to the Efficacie of the Word preached or of the Sacraments administred then the Romish Church can conceive the Intention of her Priests to be Besides all this If their Doctrine were true who teach That all such men as in the issue prove Goats or Reprobates were such from their birth or irreversibly destinated to death before they were born God should with-hold or withdraw his Purpose or Intention of Salvation from farre more hearers of the Word and partakers of the Sacraments then the Romish Priests usually do 8. But many you will say which hear the Word are already assured of their Estate in Grace or of their salvation And this Doctrine cannot occasion any doubt or distrust in them It cannot indeed whilst they are thus perswaded But even this Perswasion it self if it be immature or conceived before its time doth secretly nurse A Presumption which is far worse then Doubt or distrust of salvation And sometimes occasions a worse kinde of distrust or Doubt then the former doctrine of the Romish Church doth For suppose A man which is to day strongly perswaded of his present Estate in saving Grace and certain of his salvation should to morrow or the next day fall into some grosse or grievous sin and continue in it or the like for many dayes together If his former assurance remain the same it was it is No Assurance of Faith No true Confidence but Presumption Or if his former Confidence or Assurance upon consciousness of new sins fail or abate The Former Division of All Mankinde into Goates and sheep into Elect and Reprobates will thrust him into Despere For the Consciousnesse of freedom from grosser sins or of practise of good works cannot be a surer token of his Estate in Grace or salvation then the consciousness of foul and grievous sins is of Rejection or Reprobation if it were true that every man is at all times either in the state or condition of an Elect person or a Reprobate For The Rule of life and Faith is as plain and peremptory that no Adulterer no murtherer no foul or grievous offender shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as it is That all such as live a godly and a sober life shall enter into it And yet our own consciences can give a surer Testimony that we have committed grosse and greivous sins then that they are cleansed from the guilt of former sins Seeing the heart of man is more deceitful or more deceivable in its perswasions or Judgement of its good deeds or resolutions then in its apprehension of grosser facts committed by us And for this Reason I cannot perswade my self That any man which hath any sense or feeling of True Religion or rightly understands himself in these or the like Points can in the consciousness of grosse and fouler sins rest perswaded that he is in the same Estate of Grace wherein he was or in the same way to life Howbeit even in the consciousness of foulest sins he may and ought to have hope that he may be renewed by repentance And yet to have such an hope were impossible unlesse he were perswaded that there is a Mean or middle Estate or condition between the estate and condition of the Elect and the Reprobates 9. But let us take a man that hath been long perswaded that he is and hath been in the irreversible state of salvation and is not conscious to himself of any grosse or palpable sin or at least of continuance in any such sins since this perswasion did possesse him Yet if he have embraced this opinion or perswasion before his soul were adorned with that golden chain of spiritual vertues which St. Peter requires 2 Pet. 1. whether for making our election sure in it self or for assuring it unto us This immature or misplaced perswasion may fill his soul with the self same presumption which the absolute infallibilitie of the present Romish Church doth breed or occasion in all such as beleeve it And that is A presumption worse then heathenish For though an Heathen or Infidel kill men uncondemned by law live in incest and fall down before stocks and stones or other dumb creatures Yet such a man being called in question for killing men uncondemned by Law will not justifie his Action If his incest be detected he will be ashamed of it or being challenged for worshipping stocks and stones he will not allege any sacred Authoritie for his warrant But if you challenge a Romanist with some like practises and tell him that he transgresseth the Law of God in those particulars as grossly as the Heathens do his Reply will be Though our facts be outwardly the same yet our practises are most dislike Our practises cannot be against the Law of God seeing they are warranted by the authoritie of the Church and Pope who is the faithful Interpreter of Gods Laws and cannot erre in matters of faith or practice authorized by him In the like case if you shall oppose a man that makes himself thus certain of his salvation before his time in this or the like manner Sir you are as covetous as great an oppressor of the poor as uncharitable as malitious as proud and envious as are the Heathen or others whom you condemn for Infidels and no good Christians And press him with such evident particulars in every kind as would amate or appall an ingenuous Heathen or other meer moral man that were conscious of the like yet you shall find him as surely locked up in his sins by this his immature perswasion of his own infallible estate in Grace as the Romanist is by his Implicit Belief or the Churches absolute Infallibilitie So long as this Perswasion lasts that he shall certainly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven no Messenger of God shall ever perswade him that he hath done or continues to do those things which whosoever continues to do shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Grosse and palpable or open sins might happily shake or break this perswasion how stiffe soever it had been before but so will not secret or lurking sins It rather animates or quickens those secret sins of envy ambition pride or malice And of all other fruits of this preposterous perswasion or misplaced Truth this is the worst that it makes men mistake their malice towards men whose good parts or fame they envy to be zeal towards God or to his Truth 10. Unless Sathan had put this Fallacie upon some men in our times it were impossible that they could sleep upon the consciousness of such uncivil behaviour as they use or such unjust aspersions as they cast upon all others without respect of persons which dissent from them in Opinions often disputed between
other passages of Scripture is evidently extended unto such as perish In stead of many words unto this purpose uttered by him that canot lye those few Ezek. 33. 11. shall content me As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes For why will ye dye O ye house of Israel If God will the safetie of such as perish yea even of most desperate stubborn sinners no question but he wills all should be saved and come unto the knowledg of his truth The Former distinction then will not stop this passage Howbeit some Learned amongst the School-men and other most religious Writers of later times have sought out another for intercepting all succour this or the like places might afford to the maintenance of that truth which they oppugn and we defend That God doth not will the death of a sinner Voluntate signi they grant but that he wills it Voluntate beneplaciti they take as granted That is in other termes God doth not will the death of him that dies by his Revealed Will but by his Secret Will Not to urge them to a better declaration then hitherto they have made in what sense God being but One may be said to have two Wills That he wills many things which we know not that he hath divers Secret Purposes we grant and believe as most true indefinitely taken But because these Wills or Purposes are Secret man may not man cannot without presumption determine the particular matters which he so willeth or purposeth otherwise they should not be secret but revealed to us whereas things secret as secret belong only unto God Deut. 29. 29. In that they oppose Gods Secret Will to Gods Revealed Will they do as it were put in a Caveat That we should not believe it in those particulars whereto they apply it For we may not believe any thing concerning the salvation or damnation of mankind or the meanes which lead to either save what is revealed But this Secret Will is not Revealed therefore not to be believed Nor are we by the Principles of Reformed Religion bound only not to believe it but utterly to disclaim it For admitting what was before granted an Indefinite Belief that God wills many things which he keeps secret from us yet we must absolutely believe That he never wills any thing secretly which shall be Contrary or Contradictory to that whereon his Will Revealed is set or to that which by the expresse warrant of his written Word we know he wills Now every Christian must infallibly and determinately believe That God wils not the death of the wicked or of him that dies seeing his written Word doth plainly register his peremptorie determination of this Negative therefore no man may believe the Contradictory to this to wit That he wills the death of him that dies otherwise this Distinction admitted untwines the very bonds of mans salvation For what ground of hope have the very Elect besides Gods Will Revealed or at the best confirmed by oath Now if we might admit it but as probable That God Voluntate Beneplaciti or by his Secret Will may purpose some things contrary to what he promises by his Revealed Will who is he that could have I say not any Certainty but any moral Probabilitie of his Salvation Seeing God assures us of Salvation only by his Word Revealed not by his secret will or purpose which for ought we do or possibly can know may utterly disanul what his Revealed Will seems to ratifie Lastly It is an infallible Rule or Maxime in Divinitie That we may not attribute any thing to the most pure and perfect Essence of the Deitie which includes any imperfection in it much lesse may we ascribe any impuritie or untruth unto that Holy One the Author of all truth But to swear one thing and to reserve a secret meaning contrary to the plain and literal meaning professed is the very Idaea of untruth the Essence of impious Perjury which we so much condemn in some of our Adversaries who if this Distinction might generally passe for current amongst us might retort that we are as maliciously partial against the Jesuites as the Jewes were against Christ Jesus that we are readie to blaspheme God rather then spare to revile them seeing we attribute that unto his Divine Majestie which we condemn in them as most impious and contrarie to his Sacred Will who will not dispense with Equivocation or mental Reservation be the cause wherein they are used never so good because to swear one thing openly and secretly to reserve a contradictorie meaning is contrary to the very Nature and Essence of the First Truth the most transcendent sin that can be imagined Wherefore as this Distinction was lately hatched so it were to be wished that it might quickly be extinguished and lye buried with their bones that have revived it Let God be true in all his words in all his sayings but especially in all his oaths and let the Jesuite be reputed as he is a double dissembling perjured Liar 5 The former Place of Ezekiel as it is no way impeached by this distinction last mentioned so doth it plainely refute another Glosse put upon my Text by some worthy and Famous Writers How oft would I have gathered you and you would not c. These words say they were uttered by our Saviour manifesting his desire As Man But unlesse they be more then men which frame this Gloss Christ as man was greater then they and spake nothing but what he had in expresse Commission from his Father We may then I trust without offence take his words as here they sound for a better interpretation of his Fathers Will then any man can give of his meaning in this passage uttered by himself in words as plain as they can devise These words indeed were spoken by the mouth of him that was man yet by a mouth as truly manifesting the desire and good will of God for the salvation of his people as if they had been immediately uttered by the Godhead without the Organ or Instrument of humane voice But why should we think they were conceived by Christ as he was man not rather by him as the Mediator between God and man as the Second Person in the Trinity manifested in our Flesh He saith not Behold my Father hath sent but in his own Person I have sent unto you Prophets and Wise men c. Nor is it said How often would my Father but How often would I have gathered you This Gathering we cannot referre only to the three yeers of his Ministerie but to the whole time of Jerusalem her running astray from the Prophets Calls from the first time that David first took possession of it till the last destruction of it For all this time He that was now sent by his Father in the similitude of man did send
Rule of Gods Justice to make some feel his mercie and kindness before they seek it that others may not dispere of finding it he having assured all by an eternal Promise That seeking they shall find and that they which hunger and thirst after righteousnesse shall be satisfied 10. The second Suspition or Imputation is That this Doctrin may too much favour Free-will In Brief we answer There have been Two Extremities in Opinions continually followed by the two main Factions of the Christian world The One That God hath so decreed all things as that it is impossible ought should have been that hath not been or not to have been which hath been This was the Opinion of the Antient Stoicks which attributed all Events to Fate and it is no way mitigated but rather improved by referring this absolute Necessity not to second Causes or Nature but to the Omnipotent Power of the God of Nature This was refuted in our last Meditations because it makes God the sole Author of every sin The Second Extremity is That in man before his Conversion by Grace there is a freedome or abtliment to do that which is pleasant and acceptable unto God or an activity to work his own Conversion This was the Error of the Pelagians and is in part communicated to the modern Papists who hold a mean indeed but a false one betwixt the Pelagians and the Stoicks The true Mean from which these Extremities swerve may be comprized in these two Propositions The One Negative In Man after Adams Fall there is no Freedom of will or ability to do any thing not deserving Gods wrath or Just indignation The Other Affirmative There is in man after his Fall a possibility left of doing or not doing some things which being done or not done he becomes passively capable of Gods mercies doing or not doing the contrary he is excluded from mercie and remaines a vessel of wrath for his Justice to work upon For whether a man wil call this Contingencie in humane actions not a possibility of doing or not doing but rather a possibility of acknowledging our infirmities or absolute impotencie of doing any thing belonging or tending to our salvation I will not contend with him Only of this I rest perswaded That all the Exhortations of Prophets Apostles to work humilitie and true repentance in their Auditors suppose a possibility of Humiliation and Repentance a Possibility likewise of acknowledging and considering our own impotencie and misery a Possibility likewise of conceiving some desire not meerly brutish of our redemption or deliverance Our Saviour ye know required not only a desire of health of sight of speech in all those whom he healed restored to sight or made to speak but withal a kind of natural belief or conceit that he was able to effect what they desired Hence saith the Evangelist Mark 6. 5. Matth. 13. 58. He could not do many miracles among them because of their unbelief Yet Christ alone wrought the Miracles the parties cured were mere Patients no way Agents And such as solicited their cause in Case of absence at the best were but By-standers Now no man I think will deny that Christ by the Power of his Godhead could have given sight 〈◊〉 or health to the most obstinate and perverse yet by the Rule of his divine Goodnesse he could not cast his Pearles before swine Most true it is that we are altogether dead to life spiritual unable to speak or think much less to desire it as we should yet Belief and Reason moral and natural survive and may with Martha and Mary beseech Christ to raise their dead brother who cannot speak for himself 11. The third Objection will rather be preferred in Table-talk then seriously urged in solemne Dispute If God so earnestly desire or will the life and safetie of such as perish his will should not alwayes be done Why Dare any man living say or think that he alwayes doth whatsoever God would have him do So doubtlesse he should never sin or offend his God For never was there woman so wilful or man so mad as to be offended with ought that wen◠not against their present will nor was there ever or possible can be any breach of any Law unlesse the will of the Law-giver be broken thwarted or contradicted for he that leaves the Letter and followes the true meaning of the Law-givers will doth not transgresse the Law but observes it And unlesse Gods will had been set upon the salvation of such as perish they had not offended but rather pleased him by running headlong in the waies of death Yet in a good sense it is alwayes most true That Gods will is alwaies fulfilled We are therefore to consider That God may will some things Absolutely others Disjunctively or that some things should fall out necessarily others not at all or contingently The particulars which God absolutely wils or which he wills should fall out necessarily must of necessitie come to pass otherwise his Will could in no case be truly said to be fulfilled As unlesse the Leper to whom it was said by our Saviour I will be thou clean had been cleansed Gods Will manifested in these words had been utterly broken But if every particular which he wills disjunctively or which he wills should be contingent did of necessitie come to passe his whole Will should utterly be defeated For his Will as we suppose in this Case is that neither this nor that particular should be necessarie but that either they should not be or be contingent And if any particular comprized within the latitude of this Contingencie with its consequent come to passe his Will is truly and perfectly fulfilled As for Example God tells the Israelites that by observing of his Commandments they should live and die by transgressing them Whether therefore they live by the one meanes or dye by the other his Will is necessarily fulfilled because it was not that they should necessarily observe his Commandments or transgresse them But to their transgressions though Contingent death was the necessary Doome So was life the absolute necessarie Reward of their Contingent observing them 12. But the Lord hath sworn That he delights not in the death of him that dieth but in his repentance If then he never repent Gods delight or good pleasure is not alwayes fulfilled because he delights in the one of these not in the other How then shall it be true which is written God doth whatsoever pleaseth him in heaven and earth if he make not sinners repent in whose repentance he is better pleased then in their death But unto this Difficultie the former Answer may be rightly fitted Gods Delight or good Pleasure may be done Two Waies either by us or upon us In the former place it is set upon our repentance or obsequiousness to his Will For this is that service whereto by his Goodness he ordained us But if we cross his Good Will or pleasure