creature as both are representations to mans mind and therefore in themselves of the same nature yet the one represents God incomparable to that which the other represents concerning the creature As for the outward signes of honour though they may be equivocall and ambiguous yet there wants not meanes to determine whether a man intend to expresse that esteem which is incomparable to any he can have of any creature or not This is the esteem which the propper name and worship of God signifies which if they who know not God should tender to a creature they must be thought Idolaters If they which know God they must know that God is in that creature as Christians know that God is in Christ whom therefore they worship for God When therefore we find the Fathers of the Old Testament worshipping the apparitions they had for God when the Scriptures call them God it is because God was in them for the time as for ever in Christ after whose coming we do not find any angel called God or worshipped for God Not that before his coming all angels that come from Gad are called by the name of God But that where they are so called so it was For I need not stand here to shew how many apparitions of Angels are mentioned in the Old Testament of whom there is none called by the proper name of God or said to be worshipped by the Prophets whom they deal with It is true S. John in the New testament two severall times tenders the Angel that appeares to him that worship which he refuseth Apoc. XIX 10. XXII 12. But though he saies in refusing it worship God yet doth it not appear nor is it of it self any way credible that S. John should be so surprized as to honour and esteem the Angel as God whom he knew to be sent by God For to bid him reserve unto God that honour which he refuses is to bid him reserve unto God that honour which is incomparably more then that which he refuseth And who is it that can say or imagine that Cornelius intended to worship S. Peter for God because he tenders him that honour which S. Peter refuseth Acts X. 26. Saying Arise I also am a man Being one whose Religion was to worship the onely true God whose servant be thought S. Peter to be And therefore I shall not need to say that which otherwise I should have said That S. John knew not this difference betwen the dispensation of God in the Old and New Testament nor the reason why the Fathers worshipped those Angels that dealt with them in Gods Name which out of this difference may be observed To wit because the Word of God who at this time had assumed our flesh in the womb of the Virgin subsisting therefore by the Word which assumed it and not to be dismissed any more formerly assumed an Angel subsisting afore to deal with man by and therefore dismissed him againe when the businesse was done Let us now compare that sense which these words create according to Socinus with that which followeth from the premises and then I will be willing to leave it to the reader to choose For is it not a great secret which the Evangelist discovers by these words in his sense that when S. John Baptist began to preach there was such a man in the world as he whom God had appointed to publish the Gospel Is it that which he needed tell them that knew all before that there was six moneths between their ages Or did it not concern them to know that the same Word of God which dealt with the Fathers which by and by he meanes to tell them was incarnate the same was from the beginning that is to say to the confusion of Arrius no lesse then of Socinus from everlasting Was it not to the purpose to settle that which Cerinthus undermined upon the same credit upon which they were Christians Proceed we now to that which followes and we shall finde that if we admit Socinus his sense when S. John saies The Word was with God and afterwards The same was in the beginning with God I say if we admit the sense of these words to be this That what time S. John Baptist preached Jesus was with God in heaven We shall not give an account of those things which he sayes of himself in the Gospel pertinent to Christianity Which according to the sense of the Church we shall do John III. 11 12 13. Our Saviour saith to Nicodemus Verily verily I say unto thee We speak that we know and we witnesse what we have seen but ye receive not our witnesse If I have said to you earthly things and ye believe not how will ye believe if I tell you heavenly And no man is gone up into heaven but he that came down from heaven even the Sonne of man that is in heaven Againe John V. 19 20 30. Our Lord giving a reason why he bad the man whom he had cured take up his bed and walk Answers and sayes to them Verily verily I say unto you the sonne can do nothing of himself except he see the Father do something For what he doth the same doth likewise the Sonne For the Father loveth the Sonne and showeth him all that he doth And will shew him greater things then these that ye may marvaile And to the same effect our Lord saith to the Jewes John VIII 38. I speake what I have seen with my Father and therefore ye do what ye have seen with your Father Or at your and my Fathers house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So John VI. 46 50 51 58. 62. Not that any man hath seen the Father but he that comes from God He hath seen the Father And This is the bread that commeth down from heaven that a man may eat of it and not dy I am the living bread that is come down from heaven And againe This is the bread that is come down from heaven And last of all What then if you see the Son of man go up thither where he was before Finally when our Lord now ready to leave the World tells his disciples John XVI 29. I came forth from my Father and came into the World Againe I leave the World and go to the father I demand of all the World that read and believe by these words that our Lord going back to the Father stayes there for everlasting whether they can understand when he affirmes in the same form of words that he came from the Father that he meanes onely that he had been with the Father since the Baptist began to preach Or that he had been there from everlasting before When he saith What if you see him go up thither where he was before That he had been there afore while the Baptist was preaching or that he had been there afore a while answerable to that while that he shall stay there after his going hence When he saith That they will
Whatsoever my Father giveth me shall come to me And No man can come to me unlesse my Father that sent me draw him And the Apostle 1 John VI. 19. We love him because he loved us first Heb. XII 2. Every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no change or shadow of turning Gal. VI. 3. If any man think himself something being nothing he deceives himself Heb. XIII 22. God make you of one mind in every good work to do his will working in you that which is acceptable before him through Jesus Christ To wit by the meanes of his Spirit 2 Tim. â— 9 10. It is God that hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but his owâ— purpose and grace given us through Christ Jesus before eternall times but now manifested by the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ having abolished death but shined forth life and incorruption by the Gospel The abolishing of death and the declaration of eternall life wherein the calling of men to Christianity consists together with the saving of us which is effected by meanes of the Sonne how these things come by Christ we learn from his words John XII 24 31 32 33. Verily verily I say unto you If a graine of wheat fall not into the earth and dy it remaineth alone But if it dy it beareth much fruit And Now is the judgement of this world Now shall the prince of this world be cast forth And I when I am lifted uâ— from the earth will draw all men to me This he said signifying what death he should dy But signifying also what should be the force and effect of that death Then those Scriptures which make charity to be the gift of God and of the holy Ghost John IV. 7. Rom. V. 5. 1 Cor. XII 31. XIII 1. Gal. V. 22. which holy Ghost our Lord Christ by his death hath obtained for us as afore Unto all which I will adde in the last place those which speake of the predestination of God as it signifies no more then the preparation of that grace from everlasting whereby we are saved in time S. Paul indeed when he excludes the presumption which the Jews had of being saved by the Law as the Fathers they thought were distinguishing between the seed of Abraham according to the flesh and according to promise Rom. IX 6-13 which promise he supposes to be the forerunner of Christs Gospel Manifestly declares no more then the question which he is there engaged in requires him to declare To wit that they were not saved by virtue of the Law but by virtue of that Grace which now the Gospel openly tendereth So that Israel and Esau holding the figure of the Jews that expected to be saved by the works of the Law Isaac and Jacob consequently answer the Christians who expect salvation not by their birth but by Gods promise not by works but by him that calleth To wit to the said promise Whereby it appeareth that the words of the Prophet which he alledgeth Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated signify no more according to the spirituall sense of the Old Testament which the New Testament yeildeth but the accepting of the Church in stead of the Synagogue of the Christians in stead of the Jews And that this is the purpose of God according to choice which S. Paul speakes of immediately afore In as much as God purposed from the beginning when first he took the seed of Abraham from among the Nations to place his name among them that his choice ones of Isaacs posterity as well as Abrahams should be those that bore the figure of the Christian Church promised afore and born upon the promise that they should be beloved All this being granted which I count most true and undeniable notwithstanding the purpose of God according to choice as it expresses a declaration of receiving the Church in stead of the Synagogue so it implies and presupposes a purpose of God to make and to build Christs mysticall body which is the Church upon which purpose of God all those prophesies are grounded whereby God foretelleth of his new people Israel according to the Spirit which Christians know to be those children which he raised up to Abraham out of the stones For we cannot think so slightly of Gods providence that by foretelling this secret he obliges himself onely to finde sufficient meanes to convert men to Christianity But also those which should take effect and bring to passe the conversion of the World to Christianity by the Gospel of Christ Seeing then that the Church is nothing but the souls whereof it consisteth and that the foreknowing and the foretelling of the Church which Christians believe to be fulfilled consisteth in foreknowing and foretelling the conversion of those persons who have constituted and shall constitute the number of believers from the preaching of Christianity til the worlds end It followeth that this purpose of God according to election can no way stand without an intent of God to bring the said election that is this multitude of Gods choice ones to Christianity whether by the preaching of the Gospel or by the helps which depend thereupon as it depends upon Christs death And this is most manifest by S. Pauls answer to an objection which followes upon his conclusion of this point That if God hath mercy upon whom he pleaseth and pardons whom he pleaseth he has no cause to complaine of any man to wit of the Jews who believe not because no man can resist his will That is to say because he is able to convert them if he please Which inference S. Paul not denying that God could convert the unbelieving Jews if he pleased thus avoideth Nay O man who art thou that disputest with God shall the pot say to the potter Why hast thou made me thus and afore What shall we say then Is there injustice with God God forbid For he saith to Moses I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I compassionate So it is not in the willing nor in the running but in God that shewes mercy Rom IX 18 19 20. 15 16. Where it is plaine that S. Paul no way denies the truth of the assumption That God may if he please imploy such meanes as shall make any man a Christian How he avoides the consequence is another matter and not belonging to this dispute inasmuch as it is manifest to all that understand learning that it is one thing to prove a truth another to clear the objections that ly against it That I shall indeavour to do before I leave the businesse In this I shall think thus much evidenced by the premises that God who knew from the beginning of the sending of Christ and inabling his Apostles and their successors of the Church to convict the world of it who should obey the Gospel and who
bring all that might be alleged Because I may make this generall inference from the premises that all precepts all exhortations all promises all threats made to induce man to perseverance in that estate to which the promises of the Gospell are any way signified to be due are necessary arguments to show that those to whome they are made may faile of the perseverance to which they induce And this by virtue of the generall reason premised that they are all evidences of that free will of men which the grace of God destroyeth not but cureth And therefore as when they are used to induce men to imbrace Christianity they containe an evidence that he may doe otherwise So also when they are used to induce man to persevere in that profession which he hath once undertaken they must necessarily by the same reason containe an evidence that it is possible for any man not to persevere who is induced by them to persevere in the course of a Christian For if it be said that without the grace of God they cannot with it they cannot but be effectual Either it is supposed the grace of God here named shal become effectuall to induce them to persevere to the end supposing that God foresees that they shall soâ—persevere or something else including the fore-sight of the perseverance it selfe or not If so it is no mervaile that the said exhortations cannot but prove effectuall because God foresees they shall be effectuall and that which shall not be can never be foreseene But if not supposing this any man undertake to say that the exhortation of the Gospell with the helpe of Gods inward grace must necessarily prove effectuall he will necessarily fall into all the inconvenience which I have charged them with who maintaine that the will of man is immediately determined by the will and operation of God to doe whatsoever it doeth Which is no lesse then the destruction aswell of all civility as of Christianity But let us see what the Apostle writes Heb. VI. 4-7 For it is not possible to renew unto repentance those that being once inlightned and having tasted the heavenly gift and been partakers of the Holy Ghost and relished the good word of God and the powrs of the world to come fall a way and crucify to themselves and traduce the Sonne of God For the earth that drinkes the raine that oft comes upon it and beares herbes fit for them by whome it is tilled receives a blessing from God But that which beares thornes and thistles is reprobate and neare a curse the end whereof is to be burned Could more have been said to expresse the state of grace For if any man can undertake to have the Spirit of God without premising Christianity I say confidently there is no cause why any man should be a Christian Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here as Ebr. X. 32. signifieth neither more nor lesse then Christened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the ancient Church signifies Baptisme because of the darknesse of Hethenisme or Judaisme which it dispelleth What is then the heavenly Gift which Christian tast be it remission of sinnes or be it the Gift of the Holy Ghost that followes expressing the same thing in severall parallel termes my businesse is done if the Gift of the Holy Ghost be not granted but upon that condition which makes all other promises of the Gospell due Wherefore I am content that relishing the good word of God shall signify no more then that conditon to wit That sense of Christianity which resolveth a man to undertake it But to relish the powers of the world to come no man can be understood but he that upon supposition of the said condition becomes sensible of that peace and joy of the Holy Ghost which under Christianity onely Christianity can give And therefore though I dispute not here how he means that it is impossible to renew those that fall from Christianity to repentance yet I challenge that impossibility of renewing to contain both a former right in and a possession of that estate to which they are renewed by repentance and also the present losse of it by falling from the condition which gâ—ves it So that the comparison which followes of fruitful and barren land upon tillage as it expresses a promise of following helpes of grace to them that use those which went a fore aright contained in the promise of giving the Holy Ghost to inable them who sincerely professe Christianity to performe that which they undertake So it convinceth the fruitlesse to be liable to the curse of fire which it is said to be neare because it is called reprobate The same is the effect of the like exhortation Ebrews X. 26 -29. For if we sinne voluntarily after receiving the acknowledgement of the truth there remaines no more any sacrifice for sinne but a certaine terrible expectation of vengeance and glowing of firâ— that is to consume opposers If one set at naught the Law of Moses without mercy he dies upon two or three witnesses Of how much worse punishment think you shall he be thought worthy that treads the Sonne of God under foot and esteems the blood of the Covenant by which he is sanctified unâ—leane and doth despite to the Spirit of Grace I say this is to the same effect if it be once granted that this sinne may be committed by a true Christian which no man can deny For can a Christian be thought to doe that despite to the Spirit of Grace which the Scribes and Pharises are said in the Gospell Matt XII 28. 32. Marke III. 29. Luke XII 10. to doe in sinning that sinne against the Holy Ghost which our Lord there pronounces irremissible Is it not manifest that their sinne consisted in attributing the miracles by which our Lord sought to convert them to the uncleane spirit being in Judgment convinced that by the Holy Ghost alone they were done And is it not as manifest that a Christian having received the Spirit of Grace promised to those that are baptized out of a sincere resolution of Christianity abuses the spirit which is so given him and which he hath and which had allready wrought that worke of conviction which the scribes and Pharises sufferd not to take effect in their harts Especially when the Apostle expressely premiseth the washing of them called here sanctifying by the blood of the Covenant which is the cleansing of that vessell by remission of sinnes into which the new wine of the Holy Ghost is to be put Wherefore I will not say that the faith of these men is true faith if you meane that onely to be true faith which lasts to the end which is many times in common language that which truth signifieth But if you meane that to be true faith which effecteth remission of sinnes and qualifieth for the world to come he must set the scripture upon the rack that will make it confesse any other sense Now consider what the Apostle
divinity of Plato was a tradition derived by Pythagoras from the familiarity which he had with uncleane spirits seeking to refine the grosse Idolatry of the Gentiles into a more subtill way of worshiping the Devile Which being imitated by Simon Magus and his followers of whom Menander professed Magick as Basilides and Marcus also did and the monuments of the Basilidians Magicke are extant to this day in the hands of Antiquaries as you may see in Baronius his Annales and the life of Peireski written by Gassendus and still more plentifully in a latter Booke on purpose to expound the monuments of the Basillidians God called Abraxas in those severall Fulnesses of the Godhead which the severall sects of them tuaght worshipped brought forth that worship of Angels which S. Paul condemned Col. II. 8-9 Whether as belonging to the fulnesse of the Godhead or as revealers of it Especially if it be considered that the deriving of the Originall and beginning of evill from a principle belonging to that Fulnesse of the Godhead which each sect of the Gnosticks acknowledged a position common to them all is also a part of Plato and Pythagoras his Philosophy which the Stoicks also from whom the Heretick Hermogenes in Tertullian deriveth it were tainted with as well as with the opinion of Fate utterly inconsistant with the worship of the true God as Aristotle and Epicurus his Philosophy free enough from familiarity with uncleane spirits is with denying of providence at least in human affaires which the eternity of the world necessarily produceth Neither is the Heresy of Cerdon and Marcion which succeeded the Gnosticks any thing else but Pythagoras his position of a principle of Good and an other of Evil applyed to the supposition of Christianity though such as they thought good to admit As for that of the Manichees we may an well allow Epiphanius deriving it from one Scythianus a rich merchant from Arabia to Egypt who having also learned their Magick writ foure books to maintaine Pythagoras his two principles And going unto Jerusalem to confer with the Christians there who maintained one true God and getting the worse betook himselfe to his Magick and exercising the same on the top of an house was cast downe from thence and dyed His disciple also and slave Terbinthus whom he left his heire going into Persia to confer with the priests of Mithras about the same purpose and being worsted betook himselfe to his masters Magick and got his death as his master had done Thus saith Epiphanius and that Manes marying his widow by his books and by his wealth became author of this sect onely that having got the books of the Old New Testament he used what colours they would afford him to intitle his device to Christianity for the seducing of Christians But whoso considers what master Pocâ—â—k hath produced out of the relations of the Saracens concerning the religion of the Persians p. 146. 150. whatsoever contest his predecessors might have with the Persians must acknowledg the Heresy of the Manichees to come from the Idolatry of the Persians the divines where of acknowedg a Principle of darknesse opposite to a Principle of light as we read also in Agathias expressely lib. II. that the religion of the Persians is that of Manichees And these considerations here put together upon this occasion may well seeme as I conceive to satisfie us that it is no marvaile the Pagane Greeks Romans should be so brutish as to worship stocks and stones having among them those wits that have left such excellent things of God and of mans duety to God upon record Seeing it appeares that the most divine of them were no otherwise taught then as it might best serve the Deviles turne to detaine them in the more subtill Idolatry of Magicians The rest being tainted with such positions as stand not with the worship of one true God So that it is no marvaile if they complyed with the vulgar Idolatries of their nations to him that considers that which I have written in the review of my booke of the right of the Church in a Christian state p. CLXVII to show that the followers of Plato and Pythagoras in the first times of Christianity as they were themselves Magicians so were great instruments to promote the persecuting of Christianity Which is also the true reason why the Gnosticks having devised every sect a way of Idolatry proper to themseves did indifferently counterfeit themselves Jewes Christians or Pagans for avoiding of persecution or for gaining of Proselytes eating things sacrificed to Idoles in despite of S Paul and taking part in the Idolatrous spectacles and sight of the Gentiles as Irenaeus with the rest of the Fathers witnesseth These particulars I have thus far inlarged to make a full induction of all the waies of Idolatry mentioned in the scriptures wherewith all the writings of the Jewes Pagans and Christians exactly agree by which induction it may appeare that all the waies of Idolatry which the Scripture mentioneth doe presuppose the beliefe of some imaginary and false Godhead properly called an idole as imaginary and without subsistence though that name is no lesse properly attributed to the image of it then the Image of any thing is called by the name of that which it representeth because of the intercourse which by the meanes of such Images those that worshipped them had with the author of such Imaginations even the Devile thinking they had it with theire imaginary Deities And the worshipping of those Dieties whether before under such an image or without it is that which is called Idolatry in the Scriptures For though the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may generally signifie all images and can have no bad sense in the usage of Hethen writers because they could never thinke amisse of the Images which they thought represented their Deities Yet when Christianity had brought in a beliefe that it was the Devile whom the Gentiles worshipped under those Images the word Idole being appropriated to them must needs be are a sense of that which the Christians detested Iust as I said even now of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it must needs beare another sense to the eares of Christans then it could among the heathen poets or Philosophers This language S. Jerome useth when in his translation of Eusebius his Chronicle num MDCCCLIV he saith of Judas Maccabaeus Templum ab Idolrum imaginibus expurgavit that he purged the temple from images of Idoles supposing the difference which I make between imaginary deityes and their Images And S. Austine in lib. Jud. Quaest XLI speaking of the case of Gedeon Cum Idolum non fuerit id est cujusdam Dei falsi simulacrum seeing it was no idole that is to say the image of any false God Which if it be true it will no way be possible to exempt the case of Aaron or Jereboam from that reason of Idolatry which this induction inforceth Or to imagine that
nothing but sufficient evidence that they came from God could have brought to passe Here if any man should say I know I have the Writings of Homer Aristotle or Tully by the Writings themselvs he might be convicted by tendering them to one that knowes nothing of Tully or Homer or Aristotle and asking him whether hee can say by those books whether they be Homers or Aristotles or Tullies Writings Bu◠he that first understands what account the world alwaies hath had their Writings in and studying them finds the marks in them may well say that hee knows the authors by their Writings So tender the Scripture in Ebrew or Greek to a savage of the West-Indies and ask him whether they be the Word of God or not who believes not in God as yet do you believe hee can tell you the truth But convict him of that which I have said how and by what means they came to our hands how they have been and are owned for Lawes to the hearts and lives of Gods people and hee will stand convict to God if hee believe not finding that written in the Books which the men own for the rule of their conversations So by the same means that all records of Learning are conveyed us are the Scriptures evidenced to be mater of historical faith But inasmuch as the mater of them had never been received but by the work of God in that regard they become mater of supernatural faith in regard of the reason moving in the nature of an object to believe as well as in regard of Gods grace moving in the nature of an effective cause I know there have been divers answers made to assoile this difficulty by those that dispute Controversies That the Scriptures authority is better known in order of nature the Churches in that order by which wee get our knowledg as Logicians and Philosophers use to distinguish between notius naturâ and notius nobis because our knowledg rises upon experience which wee have by sense of particulars and yet the general reason being once attained by that means is in some sense better known than that which depends upon it That the authority of the Scripture is the reason why wee believe but the authority of the Church a condition requisite to the same creating in the mindes of men that discreetly consider it a kinde of inferior Faith though infallible which disposes a man to accept the mater of that Faith which God onely revealeth though the reason why we believe is only the act of God revealing that which he obligeth us to believe But all this to no purpose so long as they suppose the foundation of the Church in the nature of a Corporation for the ground of admitting the mater of Faith not the credit of all believers agreeing in witnessing the motives of Faith I remember in my yonger time in Cambridge an observation out of Averrois the Saracene his Commentaries upon Aristotle which as I finde exactly true so may it be of good use That in Geometry and the Mathematicks the same thing is notius naturâ and nobis to wit the first principles and rudiments of those sciences which being evident as soon as understood produce in time those conclusions which no stranger to those studies can imagine how they should be discovered For being offered to the understanding that comprehendsthe meaning of them they require no experience of particulars with sense time brings forth to frame a general conceit of that in which all agree or to pronounce what holds in all particulars Because it is immediately evident that the same holds in all particulars as in one which a man has before his eyes The like is to be said of the processe in hand though the reason be farre otherwise Hee that considers may see that the motives of Faith assured to the common sense and reason of all men by the consent of believers are immediately the reason why wee believe the Scriptures in which they are recorded to be the Word of God without so much as supposing any such thing as a Church in the nature of a Corporation indowed with authority over those of whom it consists The consent of Christians as particular persons obliging common reason both to believe the Scriptures and whatever that belief inferres As this must be known before wee can believe the Scriptures so being known it must be if any be the onely reason why we believe either the Scriptures or that Christianity which they convey unto us And if it be the onely reason why wee believe then is it better known in order of reason as well as of sense to be true than the authority of the Church the knowledg whereof must resolve into the reason why wee are Christians And if this be true then is not the authority of the Church as a Corporation to be obliged by the act of some members so much as a condition requisite to induce any man to believe All men by having the onely true reason why all are to believe being subject to condemnation if they believe not But not if they believe not the Corporation of the Church unlesse it may appeare to be a part of that Faith which that onely reason moves us to believe Neither doth the credit which wee give to all Christians witnessing the motives of Faith to be true by submitting to Christianity in regard of them create in us any inferior Faith of the nature of humane because the witnesse of man convayes the motives thereof to our knowledg But serves us to the same use as mens eyes and other senses served them when they saw those things done which Moses and the Prophets which our Lord and his Apostles did to induce men to believe that they came from God For as true as it is that if God have provided such signs to attest his Commission then we are bound to believe So true is it that if all Christians agree that God did procure them to be done then did hee indeed procute them to be done that men might believe For so great a part of mankinde could not be out of their wits all at once Let not therefore those miracles which God hath provided to attest the Commissions of Moses and the Prophets of our Lord and his Apostles be counted common and probable motives to believe unlesse wee will confesse that wee have none but common and probable motives For what reason can wee have to believe that shall not depend upon their credit Unlesse it be the light of natural reason which may make that which they preach more evidently credible but never evidently true If these works were provided by God to oblige us to believe then is that Faith which they create truely divine and the work of God Though had all men been blinde they had not been seen and had all men been out of their wits wee might presume that they had agreed in an imposture And now it will be easie to answer the
rather here to prevent the objection that may be made that I ground my selfe upon the authority of men when I allege the testimonies of Church Writers For those that may abuse themselves with such a fond imagination as this are to consider that I claime as yet no other credit not onely for Tertullian who after hee turned Montanist was not of the Church but for the Fathers of the Church but that which common sense allowes men of common sense in witnessing maters of historical truth To wit that they who published writings that are come to posterity would not have alleged things for true which every man might see to be false in point of fact Because by so doing common sense must needs tell them that they must of necessity utterly discredit the cause which they meant to promote As in the case in hand If wee say that Tertullian being a Montanist alleged against the Church things so notoriously false that all the world might see and know them to be false wee refuse him the credit of a man in his right senses For what were hee but a mad man that would tell the Church that such or such Customes you know are practised among Christians knowing that they were not practised by the Catholick Church though they might be among the Montanists Therefore though I put a great deal of difference between the authority of Tertullian and S. Basil in regulating the Church yet in witneshng mater of fact I can ascribe no more to S. Basils testimony in his book de Sp. S. cap. XXVII than I do to this of Tertullian His words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of things decreed and preached that are kept in the Church some wee have from written doctrine some wee have received as delivered in secret down to us from the Tradition of the Apostles both of the same force to godlinesse And this will no man contradict that hath but a little experience in the rules of the Church For if wee go about to refuse unwritten customes as of no great effect wee shall unawares wound the Gospel in the dangerous part or rather turn the Faith preached into a bare name As first to mention the first and commonest Who taught us by writing to mark with the figure of the Crosse those that have hoped in the name of our Lord Christ Jesus What Scripture taught us to turn to the East when wee pray Which of the Saints left us by writing the words of invocation upon discovering the bread of Thanksgiving and the cup of Blessing For wee are not content with those which the Apostle or the Gospel mentions but promote and inferre others as of great force toward the Sacrament which wee have received by unwritten doctrine Wee also blesse the water of Baptisme and the oile of anointing and besides the man himself that is baptized from what Scripture and not from silent and secret Tradition And indeed what written word taught the very anointing of oile And that a man is drenched thrice whence comes it And other things about Baptisme renouncing Satan and his Angels from what Scripture come they And not from this unpublished and secret doctrine I will not here dispute the saying of S. Basil that these orders are of the same force toward Christian piety as the Scriptures And that Christianity would be but a bare name were it not for these unwritten customes how the truth of it holds Nay it were easie to instance against him as well as against Tertullian that among the particulars which they name there are those which never were in force through the whole Church but onely in some parts of it My present purpose demands onely this that Christians had rules which they observed for Lawes in the exercise of their communion And therefore by the intent of those who inforced those rules do constitute a Society or Corporation by the name of the Church Which Corporation Tertullian whether a Montanist or not when hee writ the book which I quote claimeth to belong to in reckoning himself among those that observed the Rules of the Catholick Church If wee suppose the Church to be one Body consisting of all Churches which are all of them several Bodies it will be not onely reasonable but absolutely necessary by consequence to grant that some orders there must be which shall have the force of the whole others onely in some parts of it And though S. Basil or Tertullian mistake local customes for general yet had there not alwaies been a Body capable of being tied by general customes there had been no room for this mistake No prejudice shall hinder mee to name here the Canons and Constitutions of the Apostles Not as if I meant to maintain that the writings so called were indeed penned by them But because they contain such limitations of customes delivered the Church by the Apostles as were received and in use at such times and in such parts of the Church where those who penned those writings writ For though I should grant that those limitations are not agreeable to that which was brought in by the Apostles no man would be so ridiculous as to demand that there were never any orders or customes delivered the Church by the Apostles which succeeding times did limit otherwise The book of Canons which was acknowledged by the representatives of the whole Church in the Council of Chalcedon if it be survayed shall be found to contain onely particular limitations of general orders held by the Church before those Canons were made by the several Councils either the same with those in the Canons and Constitutions of the Apostles or differing onely according to several times and places For wee have yet extant a book of Canons made out of the Africane Councils containing the like limitations of the same customes and orders which though not the same yet served to preserve the Churches of Africk in unity with the rest of the Church This Code wee finde added to the former by Dionysius Exâ—guus in his translation of the Canons together with the Canons of the Council at Sardica And Cassiodore who lived the same time with Dionysius affirmes that this collection was in use in the Church of Rome at that time Divin lect cap. XXIII But there is extant a later Collection of Canons under the title of the Church of Rome consisting of the same Canons together with some of the Rescripts of Popes which were come into use and authority in the Western Church at such time as the said Collection was made Of the same Canons consisteth another Greek collection printed by du Tillet and commented by Balsamon which addeth hereunto the Canons of the sixth and seventh Synod in use in the Greek Church but not acknowledged by the Latine Where instead thereof the collections of Martinus Braccarensis and Isidorus Mercator of Burchardns Bishop of Wormes and Ives of Chartres where last of all the collection of Gratiane the Dominican Monk was in
be and was sufficient means under the Law to make them understand their obligation to that spiritual obedience which the Gospel covenanteth for though wee suppose as the truth is that the Law expresly covenanteth onely for the temporal happinesse of the Land of Promise Therefore there was also sufficient meanes to oblige them to expect the coming of the Christ as wee see by the Gospel that they did at the coming of our Lord and as all that will maintain Christianity against the Jewes are bound to maintain And therefore to the objection proposed I answer That though the words of the precept of loving God with all the heart and all the minde and all the soul and all the might may contain all that Christianity requireth to be done in consideration of duty to God and with an intent of his honor and service Yet neverthelesse that sense thereof that depends upon the Covenant of the Law is to be limited to the observation of those precepts which God should confine their civil life to in the service of him alone The intent of the Covenant being to contract with God for temporal happinesse in the Land of Promise they undertaking as a Common-wealth to live by such civil Lawes as hee should give as well as to worship him by such Ceremonies as hee should prescribe And therefore supposing they observed those precepts they were to expect the inheritance of the Land of Promise though wee suppose that they did it out of respect to that reward and not onely to God and to his honor and service Yea though wee grant that for the acknowledging of the true God alone they were bound to indure persecution and death rather than for fear of torment to deny God or sacrifice to Idols or renounce his Law as wee see Daniel and the three Children did under Nebuchadnesar and the zealous Jewes in the Maccabees time under Antiochus Epiphanes For if the Heathen had cause to believe that which is received of all as the ground of civil Society that particular persons are bound to expose their lives for the defense of their Countrey that is to no other end but that they may live and die in the Lawes under which they are bred though they had no promise of God that they should hold their inheritance of this world by maintaining them Cereainly the people that obtained their inheritance by taking upon them Moses Law shall stand bound not onely to maintain it by the sword under the conduct of their Soveraignes but also by suffering for it when they were not to maintain it by force A thing nothing strange to a man that shall consider how desâ—rable life is to him that is forced from the Lawes of his Countrey As for the other part of loving our Neighbor as our selves it is without doubt pregnant with an evident argument of this truth seeing in plain reason the extent of the precept might so argue the intent of it For it is evident by infinite Texts of the Law that a mans neighbor in this precept extends no further than to Israelites whether by birth or by religion that is to say those that are ingraffed into the Covenant by being circumcised For example Let mee ask how the Law could forbid the Israelites to seek the good of the Moabites and Ammonites if it be part of the same Law to love all men under the quality of neighbors as themselves Let mee demand of any man how Mordecai was tied not to do that honor to Haman that his Soveraigne commanded to be done How hee could in conscience disobey his Prince in a mater of indifferent nature of it self had it not been prohibited by the Law of God Whether a Jew that is commanded by the Law to professe hostility against all Amalekites could be dispensed with in this obligation by any act of his Soveraign Whether any just reason can be alleged for Mordecai but this Nay those who are called strangers in the Law That is to say those that had renounced all Idols and professed to worship the true God and thereupon were privileged to dwell in the Land of Promise out of which the Israelites were sufficiently commanded to root all Idolaters those strangers I say by the leter of Moses Law are not comprehended in the precept of loving our neighbor as our selves For hee that asked who is the neighbor that the Law speaks of Lut. X. 27-37 is not convicted by our Lord by any leter of the Law but by a Parable intimating the example of that which hee did for mankinde to be the reason of that which the Gospel requires Forsooth if the love of Christians extend to strangers and enemies because the good Samaritâ—ne which is our Lord Christ extended his so farr then not because Moses Law had convenanted for it Therefore besides this precept of loving our neighbors as our selves it was requisite that the Law should by a particular provision limit that respect and tenderness wherewith they were required to use those strangers as converts to the true God for so the Syriack translation of the Law calls them alwaies to wit in the rank of Widowes and Orphans If this be true the precept of not coveting by the immediate intent of Moses Law stands confined to that sense which the Jewes at this day give it according to the decisions of their Doctors that no man by contrived oppresion or vexation designe to force his neighbor that was by the Law inabled to make a divorce to part with his wife or any thing else that hee called his own Which sense our Lord also in the Gospel manifestly favors Mar. X. 19. where recounting the precepts that those must keep that will inherit life everlasting after thou shalt not bear false witnesse hee inserres thou shalt not take away by fraud or oppression that which is another mans for the sense of the tenth Commandement thou shalt not cover that which is thy neighbors All which extendeth no further than the over act of seeking what is not a mans own And though this be out Lords answer to him that asks what hee is to do to obtaine life everlasting yet it may well seem that our Lord intended first to propound unto him the civil Law of Moses as necessary to salvation and a step towards it because the Gospel saith that our Lord loved him that answered All these things have I kept from my youth up as acknowledging that hee said true For that hee had kept these precepts in that spiritual sense and to the intent and purpose which the Gospel requireth it was not true And by that which followes when hee askes what remained to be done namely that hee leave all to follow Christ hee inferrs in one precept the whole inward and spiritual obedience of God which under the Gospel is expresly required To wit that a man set all the world and himself behinde his back that hee may follow Christ Therefore though they be the obedience
allegorizing the Old Testament is used by our Lord and his Apostles not onely in the Ceremonial Law but in all that properly belongeth to the Old Testament I do conclude not that the Scriptures have two senses but that the Scriptures of the Old Testament have an obvious sense that was understood or might be understood by Jewes and a retired sense which could not be understood but by those under the Old Testament that belonged to the New as S. Austine many times distinguishes And by thus limiting my position I avoid a great inconvenience which Origen and those that go the same way with him though to several purposes have incurred Hee in his Exposition upon S. John notes it for the fashion of the Valentinians and other Gnosticks to draw their strange fantasies from some mystical sense which they fasten upon the Scriptures though they be not able to prosecute and make good the same sense throughout the text and thred of that Scripture which they allege for it as wee understand by Irenaeus in the later end of the first Chapter of his first book To avoid this inconvenience both Origen and many after him have sought for a mystical sense of the Scripture many times where it is not to be found that is to say where the reason and ground of the difference between the Leter and the Spirit reackes not For the ground thereof is the purpose of sending our Lord Christ in due time and in the meane time the Prophets to prepare the way for the Covenant of the Gospel which hee came to proclaime But first the Chief of them Moses was to treat and strike a Covenant between God and his people whereby they should hold their freedome in the Land of Promise upon condition of serving him and governing their own civil conversation by such Lawes as hee should give It will therefore be necessary to grant that those Scriptures which proceed not upon supposition of such a purpose but of the accomplishment of it have but one sense To wit that which was figured by the Old Testament But this being excepted the rest of the Scriptures which suppose this purpose not yet declared must by the same necessity have this twofold sense according as the subject of several parts of it shall be capable of or require both Here those that know what an allegory is must distinguish the vulgar use of it even in the Scriptures themselves from that which standeth upon this ground which is particular to the Scriptures Wherein even men of learning sometimes lay stumbling blocks before themselves For as an allegory is nothing but an ornament of Language it is plain that even the literal sense of the prophesies of the Old Testament and other parts both of the Old and New is set forth by allegories The sense whereof hee that should take to be the allegorical sense of the Scriptures would deceive himself too much For the allegorical sense which wee speak of here is seen as well in things done as said in the Old Testament as not contained in the sayings there recorded immediately but by the meanes of things done under the Old Testament wherein that which is written is true indeed But so that the things which come to passe in the outward and temporal estate of Gods people are intended to figure that which comes to passe in their spiritual estate under the Gospel or in their everlasting estate of the world to come The ground whereof being the purpose of making way for the coming of Christ and the Gospel which hee was to preach as all Christians against the Jews are bound to maintain The New Testament being figured by the Old must needs be the intent and meaning of all that which figured it This wee shall finde by the writings of the Apostles and the arguments which upon supposition of this truth they draw against those who having received Christianiâ—y and upon that account admitting it for a principle did neverthelesse by acknowledging the obligation of the Law seek thâ—ir salvation by it Thus S. Paul 1 Cor. XV. 45. And so is it written the first Adam was made a living soul The last Adam a quickning spirit Meaning that his being made a quickning spirit is in correspondence to the Scripture that saith Adam became a living soul Gen. II. 7. whereby hee establisheth this way of allegory which wee treat upon correspondence between corporal and spiritual from the beginning of the Bible For upon this ground that which wee reade in Genesis of the dominion of Adam upon living creatures is by the Apostle transferred to the subjection of all things to Christ being exalted to the right hand of God Heb. II. 6. 1 Cor. XV. 27. Eph. I. 22. Neither doth the Apostles arguing the duties of Wives and Husbands upon that which Christ performed to his Church Eph. II. 31 32. stand upon any other ground but this So when S. Peter argues that Christians are saved by Baptism as Noe by the floud 1 Pet. III 20 21. hee appropriates eternal salvation to the New Testament by finding it figured in the temporal deliverances of the Fathers Whose Faith manifestly tending to the Land of Promise the Apostle by allegory shewes the secret of Christianity tending to eternal life in it Heb. XI 13-16 For Abraham and his Successors died saith hee without receiving the promises but seeing and saluting them afarre off and confessing themselves strangers and pilgrims in the land whereof they had received the promise Which they that professe declare they have a Countrey which they seek For if they had thought of that which they had forsook they had time enough to return But now they desire a better that is an heavenly Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God For prepared them a City Can this be understood without the correspondence between their inheritance of this world and that which was figured by it of the world to come So when S. Paul expounds those things which befell the children of Abraham and Isaac by the allegory of the Jewes and Christians Gal. IV. 22 Rom. IX 7-10 plainly hee maketh the promise of the life to come proper to the New Testament upon such termes as I have said And if this be the reason why and how those things that went before the Law shadowed and were to shadow the Gospel it could not but hold in the Covenant of the Law and the precepts of it This appears by the Apostles exhorting the converted Jewes to stick close to the Gospel from the Psal XCV 7 Heb. III. 12 where if the Israelites who having seen Gods works forty yeares in the Wildernesse tempting and provoking him entred not into his rest but left their carkasses in the Wildernesse Hee inferres thereupon Heb. IV. 1-11 that they are to beware least having received a promise of entring into Gods rest they also should come short by the example of the same disobedience Which all supposes this correspondence for the ground of such
them obliged If there were no more in question but the uniting of seven persons into one of our Independent Congregations or as many more as may all hear any man preach at once I should grant that such Bodies might subsist for such a time as the cōmon batred of the Church restrains the peevishnesse of particular persons from breaking that Communion which no tye of conscience obliges them to maintain But if the experience of divers years hath not brought forth any union betwixt any two such Congregations in England so farr as I can learn what was it that united all Christians from East to West into that one Communion visibly distinguished from all Heresies and Schisms which till about the Council of Chalcedon remained inviolable supposing no obligation of our common Christianity delivered by the Apostles to maintain it Is it possible for any man to imagine that with one consent they would have cast themselves into such a form of observation and practice as all to acknowledge the direction of the same persons in several parts to acknowledge those Rules which Generally were the same though in maters of lesse moment differing in several parts to intertain or refuse communion with them that were intertained or refused by the Church where they dwelt for a common cause had there been nothing but their own fansy to tell them not onely what was requisite to intertain such communion but whether it were requisite to intertain such communion or not If such a thing should be said the processe of my discourse were never a whit the more satisfied unlesse some body could show mee how the truth of Christianity can be well grounded upon those motives the evidence whereof resolves into the consent of all Christians And yet that which all Christians have visibly made a Law to their conversation from the beginning to wit the communion of one Catholick Church not belong at all to the mater of our common Christianity And therefore this plea is no lesse ruinous to our common Christianity the ground whereof it undermineth than to common sense For that in such difference of judgments as mankinde is liable to the whole Church should be swayed to unanimity herein by the Prerogative as it were of the Synagogue uniting themselves by imbracing the Ordinances thereof the evident state of the times whereof wee speak will not admit to any pretense of probability The division between Jews and Christians being then advanced to such a hatred on the Jews part that it would have been a very implausible cause to say that Christians ought to follow the Jewes whose curses they heard every day whose persecutions they felt in the tortures which at their instance were inflicted by the Gentiles A thing so evident both by the Writings of the Apostles and the ancientest records of the Church that I will not wrong the Readers patience to prove it True it is that at times and in places great compliance was used by Christians to gain them who elsewhere were so ready to persecute their fellow Christians As at Jerusalem under and after S. James at Ephesus and in Asia under S. John there is great appearance to believe In the mean time hee that can make a question whether the separation between Jewes and Christians and the hatred ensuing upon it were formed under the Apostles must make a question of the truth of S. Pauls Epistles to the Galatians to the Colossians to the Philippians to Titus and especially that to the Hebrews Besides that during the time whereof Irenaeus speaks Christianity was extended so farr beyond Judaisme that a great part of the Church could not be acquainted with the conversation of the Jewes much lesse learn and imbrace their orders And therefore as I do admit and imbrace the diligence of those learned men who bestow their paines to show how the Rules and Customes of the Church are derived from those of the Synagogue So I prescribe one general prejudice concerning all orders that may appear to be so derived that they are all to the Church Traditions of the Apostles and by their act came in force in it And that upon the premises that neither they had any force from the Law of Moses not could be admitted by common consent of Christians after the separation was formed that is after the Apostles time And therefore by their authority were introduced into the Church Having excepted thus much it will notwithstanding be time to distinguish that the orders and customes and observations of the Church may be said to be voluntary as nothing is more voluntary than Christianity it self though there be nothing to which a man is so much obliged For though the will of God and our salvation and whatsoever God hath done to show that salvation depends upon Christianity oblige us to it yet they oblige us also to imbrace it voluntarily so that whatsoever should be done in respect of it without an inward inward inclination of the will would be abominable In which regard whatsoever our Christianity obliges us to is no lesse voluntary than it is And in this sense I grant that the confederation of common Discipline which prevailed in the primitive Church was by the free and voluntary consent of Christians who be freely and voluntary consenting to the profession of Christianity consented freely to maintain the Communion of the Church which they knew to belong to that profession as a part of it But then this consent which is voluntary in regard that the choice of Christianity is free becomes necessary upon the obligation of making good the Christianity which once wee have professed the Communion of the Church professed by all obliging every one for his part to maintain it So when Pliny reports to Trajan of the Christians Ep. X. Solitos Sacramento se obstringere ne Furta ne Latrocinia ne Adulteria committerent nè fidem fallerent ne depositum negarent That they were wont to tye themselves by a Sacrament to commit no Thefts Robberies or Adulteries not to fail of their faith or deny that which was deposited in their trust being demanded It is manifest that all this is the profession of all Christians and that the Sacrament of Baptisme is properly the Vow of observing it And though I dispute not here that the Eucharist is called a Sacrament and Sacramentum in Latine signifies an Oath yet in as much as it is the meaning of the Sacrament of Baptisme I conceive I understood not Pliny amisse when I conceived that hee speaks in this place of the Eucharist when hee reports that they were wont before day to sing Psalms in praise of Christ as God and to tye themselves to the particulars hee names by a Sacrament And the same Tertullian understood by Pliny when hee saith hee reports to Trajan Apolog. II. Praeter obstinationem non sacrificandi nihil aliud se de Sacramentis as Heraldus truly reads it eorum comperisse quà m coetus antelucanos ad canendum
that hee hath any end but himself nor that hee doth any thing to any other end than to exercise and declare his own perfections If hee do sundry things which of their nature have necessarily such an end as they attain not it is to be said that Gods end never fails in so much as by failing of the end to which they were made they become the subject of some other part of that providence wherein his perfections are exercised and declared Seeing then that all Controversies concerning the Faith have visibly their original from some passages of Scripture which being presupposed true before the foundation of the Church ought to be acknowledged but cannot be constituted by it And seeing that no man that out of the conscience of a Christian hath imbraced all that is written can deny that which hee may have cause to believe to be the sense of the least part of the Scripture without ground to take away that belief It remains that the way to abate Controversies is to rest content with the means that God hath left us to determine the sense of the Scripture not undertaking to tye men further to it than the applying of those means will inferre And truly to imagine that the authority of the Church or the dictate of Gods Spirit should satisfie doubts of that nature without showing the means by which other records of learning are understood and so resolving those doubts which the Scriptures necessarily raise in all them that believe them to be true and the word of God is more than huge cart-loads of Commentaries upon the Scriptures have have been able to do Which being written upon supposition of certain determinations pretended by the Church or certain positions which tending to reform abuses in the Church were taken for testified by Gods Spirit have produced no effect but an utter despair of coming to resolution or at least acknowledgment of resolution in the sense of the Scriptures Whereas let men capable of understanding and managing the means heretofore mentioned think themselves free as indeed they ought to be of all prejudices which the partialities on foot in the Church may have prepossessed them with and come to determine the meaning thereof by the means so prescribed and within those bounds which the consent of the Church acknowledges They shall no sooner discern how the primitive Christianity which we have from the Apostles becomes propagated to us but they shall no less clearly discern the same in their writings And if God have so great a blessing for Christendom as the grace to look upon what hath been written with this freedom there hath been so much of the meaning of the Scripture already discovered by those that have laid aside such prejudices and so much of it is in the way to be discovered every day if the means be pursued as is well to be hoped will and may make partizans think upon the reason they have to maintain partialities in the Church If God have not this blessing in store for Christendom it remains that without or against all satisfaction of conscience concerning the truth of contrary pretenses men give themselves up to follow and professe that which the protection of secular Power shall show them means to live and thrive by In which condition whether there be more of Atheism or of Christianity I leave to him who alone sees all mens hearts to judge CHAP. XXXIV The Dispute concerning the Canon of Scripture and the translations thereof in two Questions There can be no Tradition for those books that were written since Prophesie ceased Wherein the excellence of them above other books lies The chief objections against them are questionable In those parcels of the New Testament that have been questioned the case is not the same The sense of the Church HAving thus resolved the main point in doubt it cannot be denied notwithstanding that there are some parts or appertenances of the Question that remain as yet undecided For as long as it is onely said that the Scripture interpreted by the consent of the Church is a sufficient mean to determine any thing controverted in mater of Christian truth there is nothing said till it appear what these Scriptures are and in what records they are contained And truly it is plain that there remains a controversie concerning the credit of some part of those writings which have been indifferently copied and printed for the Old Testament commonly marked in our English Bibles by the title of Apocrypha And no lesse concerning the credit of the Copies wherein they are recorded For though it is certain and evident that the Old Testament hath been derived from the Ebrew the New from the Greek in which at first they were delivered to the Church Yet seeing it appeareth not of it self impossible such changes may have succeeded in the Copies that the Copies which the Jews now use of the Old Testament are further from that which was first delivered than the Vulgar Latine as also the Copies of the Greek Testament now extant It is a very plain case that this doubt remaining it is not yet resolved what are the principles what the means to determine the truth in maters questionable concerning Christianity I must further distinguish two questions that may be made in both these points before I go further For it is evidently one thing to demand whether those writings which I said remain questionable are to be counted part of the Old Testament or not Another whether they are to be read by Christians either for particular information or for publick edification at the assemblies of the Church And likewise as concerning the other point it is one thing to demand what Copy is to be held for authentick another thing to dispute how every Copy is to be used and frequented in the Church To wit whether translations in mother languages are to be had and into what credit they are to be received For it is manifest that the one sense of both questions demands what the body of the Church either may do or ought to do in proposing or prohibiting the said writings or Copies to be used by the members thereof for their edification in Christian piety But the other what credit they have in themselves upon such grounds as are in nature and reason more ancient than the authority of the Church and which the being and constitution thereof presupposeth And as manifest as it is that these are two questions so manifest must it needs remain that the one of them to wit that which concerns the authority of the Church and the effect of it does not belong to this place nor come to be decided but upon supposition of all the means God hath given his Church to be resolved of any truth that becomes questionable As for the other part of both questions though it hath been and may be among them that will not understand the difference between principles and conclusions because it is for
their turn that differences in religion should be everlasting the subject of great Volumes written for and again Ye to them that are content to set aside that which cannot here be decided I am confident there remains so little to be said that the resolution of them will appear to be meer consectaries and inferences from that truth which hitherto hath been premised For supposing that which common sense is able to inform that the writings which wee call Apocrypha are more ancient than the Church of Christ And that whether they were written by inspiration from God as wee believe the Law and the Prophâ—â—s to have been the Church never had any expresse revelation beside the credit upon which it received them from the Synagogue it remains that whether they were received by the Synagogue as inspired by God is all that can remain questionable Seeing it is not within the compasse of common sense to imagine that being not inspired by God at the beginning when they were penned they can become inspired by God by virtue of any act of the Church inducing them to be received for such Here then is to be seen the use of that distinction which was made between the Church as a Society of men visible to common sense and the same Church as a Society of men founded by God and visible onely to the faith of Christians For the belief of this later presupposes the truth of Christianity the motives whereof without more ado must evidence the truth of the Scriptures And so this question must be decided by such means as are more evident than the being of the Church in this later sense to wit by the being thereof in the former sense And this is that which I said that the testimony of the Synagogue in maters of this nature is every whit of as much force as the testimony of the Church Both of them proceeding upon the same evidence which the visible consent of such a company of men advanceth to common sense In fine if it may appear that the writings in question were from the beginning admitted by the Synagogue in the nature of writings inspired by God there will remain no cause why they should not be received into the same credit with other writings whereof the Old and New Testament consisteth If it may appear to the contrary it will be utterly in vain to allege any act of the Church to inforce that which is as evidently beyond the Power of the Church as it is evident that there is such a thing as the Church Neither can there be any question whether these writings were ever received by the Synagogue in this nature seeing it is evident that they do not receive any Prophets after Malachi I will not undertake that they do not believe that any body after that time was inspired by God to foretell things to come For that is not all that belongs to those whose writings are to be received as inspired by God It must appear further that they are sent by God to his people with commission to declare his will to them There must be evidence that they are moved to speak by the Holy Ghost and by consequence the people of God to whom they are moved to speak obliged to receive them How else should the gifts of Gods Spirit and the commission upon which they that have it are sent challenge of duty the acknowledgment of Gods people I reade in Josephus of divers things foretold with truth after this time nor I do I finde my self obliged to maintain that the motions were not from God But in as much as they were not furnished with such means as God appoints to manifest unto his people whom hee sends on his message they are not to receive them as sent from God whatsoever his secret purpose may be in sending such motions but shall alwaies remain obliged to govern themselves according to his will otherwise declared Now there is nothing more manifest than the declaration of Josephus intending to acquaint the Gentiles with the Faith and Laws of the Jews That untill the time of Artaxerxes that succeeded Xerxes being in his opinion the time whereof I speak the Prophets had written the relation of their own times But after that time things were written indeed but not with the like credit because there was no succession of Prophets Cont. Ap. I. And what can be more agreeable to the conclusion of the Prophet Malachi IV. 4 where having warned them to give heed to the Law of Moses the Statutes and Ordinances which God by him had given Israel Behold saith hee I send you Elias the Prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord come and hee shall turn the hearts of the Fathers to the children and of the children to the Fathers least I come and smite the Land with a curse Which the Gospell tell us was fulfilled in sending John the Baptist to make way for the Christ the Chief and end of all the Prophets Luke I. 17. Mat. XI 14. XVII 12. according to the saying of the ancient Jews that the Christ is to be annointed that is solemnly invested in his Office by Elias And for this reason when Judas Maccabeus purged the Temple and the question was what should be done with the stones of the Altar that had been polluted it is said 1 Mac. IV. 46. And they laid up the stones in a fit place in the Mount of the Temple untill a Prophet should come and give answer concerning them And speaking of the persecution after the death of Judas it is said 1 Mac. IX 27. And there fell out so great tribulation in Israel as had not been from the day that no Prophet had been seen in Israel And this time it is whereof it is either said or prophesied Psal LXXIV 10. Wee see not our tokens there is no Prophet any more neither any that understandeth any thing Now it is manifest that in the Scriptures as well as in the Jews writings the name of Prophet is not understood onely of foretelling things to come but of uttering things unknown to humane understanding And so the Law and the Prophets contains all the Scriptures of the Old Testament If therefore there were no Prophesie from those times to the coming of our Lord and John the Baptist it followeth that there is no Scripture inspired by God left us by those times according to the words of Eusebius in his Chronicle at the XXXII year of this Artaxerxes Hucusque Hebraeorum divinae Scripturae annales temporum continent Hither to the divine Scriptures of the Hebrews contain the annals of the times And the Synagogue in S. Jerome in Es cap. XLIX lib. XIII Post Aggaeum Zachariam Malachiam nullos alios Prophetas usque ad Joannem Baptistam videram From Haggai Zachary and Malachy to John the Baptist I had seen no other Prophets And so S. Austine de Civ Dei XVII 24. Toto ille tempore ex quo
communion with or obligation of dependance one upon another either in the Rule of Faith or service of God according to it wherein they may seem elder brothers to those who have put the like principle in practice among us though without supposing any other Rule of Faith then that which every Church so constituted shall agree to take for the sense of the Scriptures Now how soon it may come into the mind and agreement of a Church so constituted to take up the profession of Socinus for the Rule of their Faith I leave them that are capable to judge if yet we have no experience of it But I have observed by reading Socinus his Book de Christo Servatore one of the first if not the first of all the Books whereby he declared his heresie that being extreamly offended at his adversaries opinion he seems to have been thereby occasioned to fall upon another extream of denying the satisfaction of Christ and so by degrees his Godhead as the only peremptory principle to destroy the satisfaction of Christ and by consequence as well that reason of the Covenant of Grace which the Church as that which his adversary maintaineth Conceiving then his error about the Covenant of Grace to have occasioned his error in the Faith of the holy Trinity I conceive I shall handle the chiefe Controversies in Religion that divide the Church at present according to the title of my Book though I maintain not the faith of the Trinity against Socinus otherwise then as the maintenance of the Covenant of Grace grounded upon the satisfaction of Christ as that upon his Godhead shall require Another reason I had because this Heresie seems to be too learned to become popular among us though branches of it may come to have vogue For though there hath been but too much either of wit or Learning imployed in framing the Scriptures to the sense of it in the chiefe points of Christianity Yet is it hard to make the vulgar understanding not onely of hearers but of teachers such as these times allow capable of that sense to which they have framed the most eminent passages of the Scriptures and the grounds of it together with the consent and agreement of the severall points of Christianity among themselves according to it Upon this consideration I charge not my selfe with the maintenance of the Faith of the holy Trinity otherwise then as the consideration thereof shall be incident to resolve the nature of the Covenant of Grace which is the first part of my purpose Therefore that a few words may propose many and great difficulties from whence it comes and what it is that renders Christians acceptabe to God sand heirs of everlasting life who as men are his enemies by sinne here and â—ubjects of his wrath in the world to come this I conceive to be the sum of what we are to inquire Concerning in the first place that disposition of mind which qualifies a man for those blessings which the Gospel tenders upon that condition which the Covenant of Grace requires and in the second place whether this disposition be brought to passe in us by the free Grace of God and the helps which it provides or by the force of nature that is by that light of understanding and that freedom of choice which necessarily proceeds from the principles of mans nature It is well enough known how great dispute there is between them that professe the Reformation and the Church of Rome whether a man be justified before God in Christ by Faith alone or by Faith and Works both speaking of actuall righteousnesse or if we speak of habituall righteousnesse by Faith and Love For though the whole Garland of supernaturall vertues concurrs to the habituall righteousnesse of Christians which is universall to all objects actions Yet seeing the reason of them all is derived from that which Faith believeth and the intent of all referred to that service of God which love constraineth where Faith and Love are named there the rest may well be understood Whether Faith alone therefore or Faith and love so much the parties must in dispite of them remaine agreed in that there is some disposition or act of mans mind required by the Covenant of Grace as the condition that qualifieth a man at least for so much of that Promise which the Gospel tendreth as justification importeth But this being supposed and granted it may and must be disputed in what consideration it qualifieth for the same Which is to make short whether the inward worth of that disposition whatsoever it shall prove to be oblige Almighty God to reward it with that which the Gospel promiseth Or whether in consideration of the obedience of Christ performed in doing the message which he undertook of reconciling Man unto God he hath been pleased to proraise that reward which is without comparison more then can be due to that disposition which he requires as the condition to qualifie us for the promise Here must I relate the position of the Socinians concerning the intent of Christs comming Not to purchase at Gods hands those helps of Grace which inable Christians to become qualified for the promise which the Gospel tendreth which the Church with S. Austin in the dispute with the Pelagians cals therefore the Grace of Christ Not to reconcile us to God in the nature of a meritorious cause his obedience being the consideration for which God accepteth that disposition which qualifies us for the promise of the Gospel as the condition upon which he tenders it But to yield us sufficient reason both to perswade us of the truth of his message as by the rest of his works so especially by rising again from the dead and also to induce us to imbrace the Gospel by assuring us of the fulfilling of that promise to us which we see so eminently performed in him by that height to which we believe him to be exalted and then having induced us to undertake the Gospel of Christ to secure us both of protection against the enemies thereof here by that power which he that went before us in it hath obtained for that purpose and of our crown at the judgement to come And all this not in any consideration of the merits and sufferings of Christ but of Gods free Grace which alone moved him to deale with us by Christ to this effect and to propose a reward so unproportionable to our performance which would not redound to the account of his free Grace if it should be thought to have been purchased either by the satisfaction of Christ in regard of our sins to be redeemed or by his merits in regard of the reward to be purchased As for the matter of Justification by Faith alone it is to be observed that Socinus is obliged by the premises to understand that Grace for which the Gospel is called The Covenant of Grace to be no Grace of Christ that is to say not given out of any
because speech it self standing upon reason shews it to be the former as that whereupon it standeth But even so it maters not For though God had not yet sent forth his speech he had it no lesse within himself with and within his very reason silently thinking and disposing with himself those things which he was to utter by speech Further Cap. VI. VII Nam ut primum Deus voluit ea quae cum Sophia ratione sermone disposuerat intrase in substantias species sâ—as edere ipsum primum protulit sermonem habentem intra se individuas suas rationem sapientiam ut per ipsum â—ierent universa per quem erant cogitata disposita imo facta jam quantum in Deisensu Hoc enim eis deerat ut coram quoque in suis speciâ—bus substantiis cognoscerentur tenerentur Tunc igitur etiam ipse sâ—rmâ— speciem ornatum suum sumit sonum vocem cum dicit Deus Fiat Lux. Hâ—c est nativitas perfecta sermonis dum ex Deo procedit conditus ab â—o primum ad cogitatum in nomine Sophiae Dominus condidit me initium viarum dehinc generatus ad effectum cum pararet coelum aderam ei siâ—â—l exinde â—um patrem sibi faciens de quo procedendo filius factus est primogenitus ut ante omnia genitus unigenitus ut solus ex Deo genitus proprie de vulvâ— cordis ipsius secundum quod Pater ipse testatur Eructavit cor meum sermonem optimum Ad quem deinceps gaudens proinde gaâ—deâ—tem in persona illiâ—â— Filius meus es tu ego hodie genui te ante Luciferum genui te Sic filius ex sua persona profitetur Patrem in nomine Sophiae dominus condidit me initium viarum in opera sua For as soon as God pleased to put forth into their own substances and kinds those things which he had ordered within himself with the reason and speech of wisdom the first he brought forth was speech having in it reason and wisdom from which it is unseparable that all things might be made by that whereby they had been devised and disposed nay made aleready as to the sense of God For they wanted onely this to be known and had in their own kindes and substances Then therefore even Gods speech it self assumed his own kinde and dresse sound and voice when God said Let there be Light This is the perfect birth of speech as it proceedeth from God First made by him for a thought devised by him under the name of Wisdome the Lord made me the beginning of his wayes then ingendered to effect I was together with him when he prepared the heavens thenceforth making him his Father for I read Patrem sibi faciens not Pâ—câ—m as I find it promised by proceeding from whom he became a Sonne firstborn as born before all things and onely as alone ingendered by God from the proper womb of his heart according as the Father himself also witnesseth My heart hath uttered an excellent speech To whom rejoycing according as he rejoyceth in the Fathers person he saith Thou art my Sonne this day have I begotten thee And before the morning starre have I ingendred thee As the Sonne also in his person professeth the Father under the name of Wisdome The Lord made me the beginning of wayes unto his works All this if it be understood as becometh God will containe nothing prejudiciall to the Faith of Gods Church whether it containe the true sense of the Scriptures or not through sound and voice and speech and thought or devise if they be understood as they signify in Gods creatures are inconsistent with his excellence But so farre it will be from Arius his heresie as to answer the very ground of it by saying That the Word or reason or Wisdome of God which incaâ—nate is our Lord Christ was from everlasting in God but not under the notion quality or attribute of Sonne till the making of the World And that as Tertulliane said in the place from whence the objection is quoted accidentis rei mentio the mention of an accessory to wit the declaration of Gods will to make the World gave him the denomination of Son which he bore not afore according to Tertulliane whether he hit the true sense of the Scripture in it or onely indeavour so to do though alwayes the same from everlasting The answer to this difficult passage of Tertulliane may serve for another contra Praxeam Cap. II. unicum Deum non alias putat credendum quam si ipsum eundemque Patrem Filium Spiritum dicat Quasi non sic quoquc unus sit omnia dum ex uno omnia per substantiâ— scilicet unitatem nihilominus custodiatur aeconomiae sacramentum quae unitatem in trinitatem disponit tres dividens Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum Tres autem not sâ—aâ—â— sed gradu non substantia sed forma nec potestate sed specie Vnius autem status unius substantiae unius potestatis quia unus Deus ex quâ— gradus isti formae species in nomine Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti deputantur He thinkes he is not otherwise to believe one God then saying that the Father the Sonne and the Holy Ghost are all one As if one were not all as well if all proceed from one By unity of substance forsooth preserving neverthelesse the mystery of that distribution which disposeth the Vnity into a Trinity ordering three the Father the Sonne and the holy Ghost But not three for state but for rank not for substance but for forme not for power but for specialty But of one state one substance one power because one God from whom those ranks and formes and specialties are understood These words non statu sed gradu both Cardinal Bellarmine and Valentia meeting in a passage of Bullinger not naming his author have charged with Arianisme being indeed Tertuallians words manifestly expressing the Unity of the Godhead the substance state and power of it in the Father Sonne and holy Ghost by their personall properties characters or notions in the terms of gradus formae species rankes formes and specialties no other being then in use In like sort Ignatius according to the true Copies saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Goa was born Epist ad Ephes he calls him there Son of God and Son of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God manifest as man He calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The eternall Word that came not forth from silence Epist ad Magnes Athanasius de Synodis quotes out of him We have one Physitian bodily and incorporeal ingendred and not ingendred God in man Justine calleth him the word of God indistinct from him in virtue and Power and â—â—caranate He makes him the Lord of hosts and the King of Glory He expresseth his procession by light kindled from light and fire from fire
24. Col. III. 9 10. Therefore man was first created in that righteousnesse and true holinesse to which Christians are renewed which renewing is called therefore the new man by S. Paul To this it may be answered on behalf of the other part That the dominion over the creatures belonges to the image of God in man according to the words of Moses Let us make man after our image and likenesse and let him bear rule over the fishes of the Sea and therefore God requireth a mans bloud of his brother and of beasts because he was made in the image of God Gen. IX 6. So that the image of God remaineth true righteousnes and holines being lost And therefore it seemeth that according to the natural state of man he is made according to Gods image in regard of this dominion over the creatures But according to that spirituall estate which the Gospel calleth us to much more in regard of the dominion over sin and concupiscence which the spirit of righteousnesse and true holinesse bringeth with it Though both derivative from the image of God in Christ to whom the Apostle Heb. II. 6-9 ascribeth that dominion as to the second Adam which the Psalmist setteth forth in the first Psal VIII 5-8 And if it be said as I said it may be that the precept given to them forbidding the fruit of the tree of knowledge is manifestly carnall and concerning their nature it is easie to say on the other side that the garden and those trees and therefore the precept concerning them are not understood if they be not taken as Symbolicall and mysticall to signifie that which S. Augustine in two words of free will and Christ comprehendeth That as the source of death is to satisfie the appetite of our owne particular profit or pleasure so to satisfie the appetite of that true goodnesse which that Word or Wisdome of God which now incarnate is our Lord Christ teacheth is the fountain of Life Not as if there were not two such fruits one granted to preserve life the other forbidden on paine of death But because they not onely did signifie which the other opinion may grant but also were understood by Adam to signify more as I have said As for the giving of names to living creatures which is commonly made an argument of more then humane wisdome in Adam to wit from Gods Spirit I conceive the other side may say That no names can signify the natures of things but some sensible properties by which they are known and discerned So that to give names ingeniously argues no more then taking due notice of those things which sense discovers to be most remarkable in each kinde And that not above the pitch of nature But when Adam saies This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh And Therefore shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they two shall be one flesh And S. Paul thereupon Ephes V. 30. This mystery is great but I mean as to Christ and the Church There is appearance that the Fathers have reason to suppose Adam a Prophet not onely to say the words which foretell the coming of Christ and the effect of it but also to understand the meaning which they contained Not as if he foresaw the incarnation of Christ which supposed his own fall But because by that word of God which spoke to him in his transe he understood that his posterity should be united and maried to God And yet on the other side it may be said without prejudice to Christianity that though this is certainly the mysticall sense of these words yet it is no more necessary that Adam when he spoke them should understand it then that the rest of those who were figures of Christ by their actions in the Old Testament did understand that they were so much lesse wherein that figure consisted Last of all it seems strange that Adam should so easily be cast down with so slight a temptation supposing that he was indowed with that divine wisdome which Gods Spirit giveth which will be no such marvaile if we suppose him to know no more then the conduct of his naturall life in Paradise might require Which notwithstanding this is no such advantage as it may seem For as the description of Paradise and the two trees and the precept concerning them so is also the temptation delivered in Symbolicall terms under the figure of that which concerned the preservation of their life representing all that may move the Sons of the first Adam to fall away from God And whatsoever be the reason that it is called the tree of knowledge to be like unto God and that by a way of such knowledge as should not depend on Gods will but their own choice may easily be understood to be the most dangerous temptation that an estate of so much advantage was capeable of how difficult so ever it be to understand by the words how they might believe it to depend upon eating the forbidden fruit And as the state of meer nature requiring the knowledge of so few things as the leading of such a life in obedience to God required must needs inferre that simplicity and innocence that made them more liable to be tempted So a state of supernaturall knowledge by the Spirit of God withdrawing their consideration from inferior things of this world to be conversant about the matters of God they might be exposed to temptation as well by not attending as by not apprehending the things of the world As on the other side they were fortified against it no lesse by that innocence and simplicity which made them not sensible of that which provoketh it then by that resolution of Gods Spirit which set them above it These being the considerations which appear to me in those things which the Scriptures propose unto us of this estate I will not stick to say that I hold the common opinion to be the more probable for two reasons The first Because it seemeth to me farre more consequent to the effect of mans fall which is the losse and want of spirituall grace necessary to the conduct of him in his spirituall life here to eternall life in the world to come that he should have transgressed and forfeited the meanes thereof then onely that innocence that should have inabled him to yeeld God obedience onely in an estate of meer nature and to the purpose of it Secondly because I find it to be received by the Fathers of the Church after S. Irenaeus who seemeth to have delivered it in expresse and clear terms And yet I must say on the other side that I find it no reason to count it a matter of Faith but onely the more reasonable supposition among divines So that the matter of Faith concerning originall sinne is more easily understood to depend upon it and more reasonably inferred from it and maintained by it Not onely because you see the reasons out of the Scriptures
I would not have you ignorant brethren that our Fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the Sea and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloude and in the Sea and all eate the same spirituall meate and all drank the same spirituall drink For they all drank of the spirituall rock that followed them Now the rock was Christ They that entred into a Covenant of workes to obtaine the Land of promise as I have showed they did entred not expressely into a Covenant of Faith in Christ for obtaining the world to come No more then being baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the Sea as he sayes here they were that is into his goverment into the observation of the Lawes he should give in hope of the promises he should give they can be said to have been baptized expressely into Christ and that profession which his promises require Wherefore when he saith that the rock was Christ his meaning is not immediately and to those that rested in this temporall Covenant of workes But as the Manna was Christ and Moses was Christ by the meanes of that faith which God then received at their hands to wit the assurance of everlasting happinesse for them who under this calling should tender God the spirituall obedience of the inward man upon those grounds which his temperall goodnesse the tradition of their Fathers and the instruction of their Prophets afforded at that time Now I appeale to the sense of all men how those can be said to have that interest in Christ which I have showed that Christians have and therefore upon the same ground if there were no consideration of Christ in the blessings of Christ which they injoyed Wherefore when S. Paul proceeds hereupon to exhort them not to tempt Christ as some of them tempted we must not understand that he forbids us to tempt Christ as they tempted God But that they also tempted Christ who went along with them in that Angel in whom the name of God and his word was as I said afore So when the Apostle saith that Moses counted the reproch of Christ greater riches then the treasures of Aegypt for he looked at the recempense of reward Ebr. XI 26 when putting them in mind to follow their teachers considering the end which they had attained and Moses aimed at he addeth Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day and for everlasting Ebr. XIII 8. when S. Peter sayes that the Prophets who foretold the Gospell searched against what time the Spirit of Christ that was in them declared and testified before hand the sufferings of Christ and the glorious things that followed 1 Pet. I. 10. when S. Paul saith that all Gods promises are yea and Amen in Christ 2 Cor. I. 20. me thinkes it is strange that a Christian should imagine that there was no confideration of Christ in these promises under which they ranne the race of Christians Nor could S. Paul say As by Adam all dy so by Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. XV. 22 Nor could the comparison hold betweene the first and second Adam which he makes Rom. V. 12-19 if that life which I have showed how Christ restores Christians to were given to the Fathers before Christ without confideration of Christ Nor could the Apostle otherwise say That Christ is the mediator of a New Covenant that dâ—â—th coming for the ransome of those transgressions that were under the Old they that are called may receive the promise of an everlasting inheritance Ebr. IX 15. but because those sinnes which were redeemed onely to a temporall effect by the sacrifices of the Old Law as also those which were not redeemed at all by any as I said were by the sacrifice of Christ redeemed to the purchase of the world to come Which is that which S. Paul tells the Jewes Acts XIII 29. that through Christ every one that beleeveth is justifiyed from all thinges which they could not be justified of by the Law of Moses For as the Law did not expiate capitall offenses so it expiated none but to the effect of a civil promise And though we construe the wordes of S. John Apoc. XIII 8. whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lambe slaine from the foundation of the world out of the same sense repeated Apoc. XIII 8. Not that the Lambe was slaine from the foundation of the world but that their names were written in his book from the foundation of the world yet in as much as it is called the book of the Lambe that was foreknown from the foundation of the world 1 Pet. I. 19. when Moses demands not to be written in Gods book or when mention is made of it in the New Testament it must be the book of Christ in the mysticall sense And when S. Paul sayes that Christ gave himselfe a ransome for all A testimony for due time What can he meane but that though he gave himselfe for all yet this was not to be testified till the proper time of preaching the Gospell And what is this but that though this is testified onely by the preaching of the Gospell yet he was a ransome for all Which reason suffers not the same terme all Ebr. II. 9. Rom. III. 23. to be restrained from that generality which it naturally signifies Lastly when the Apostle argues that if Christ should offer himselfe more then once that he might more then once enter into the Holy of Holies he must have suffered oft from the foundation of the world that is before the end of the world in which he came indeed Ebr. IX 25. 26. he must needs suppose that he suffered for all that were saved before the Gospell For what pretense can there be that he should suffer for sinnes under the Gospell before the Gospell more then that the High Priest before the Law should expiate those sinnes which were committed against the Law by entring into the Holy of Holies And here you may see that I intend not to affirme that all that were saved under the Law though in consideration of Christ did know in what consideration Christ should be their salvation as Christians under the Gospell doe But to referre my selfe to the determination of S. Augustine and other Fathers and Docters of the Church that they understood it in their Elders and Superiors the Prophets of God and their disciples the Judges of Israell who were also Prophets and the Fathers of severall ages of whom you read Ebrews XI who being acquainted with the secret of Gods purpose were to acquaint the people with it so sparingly and by such degrees as the secret wisdome of God had appointed These things thus premised I do acknowledge and challenge the act of God in dispensing in the execution of his originall Law and bringing the Gospel into effect in stead of it not to be the act of a private person remitting this particular interest in the punishment of those sinnes whereby
would not I agree with the Law that it is good But it is not I that do it but sinne that dwelleth in me And this law in his members warring against the Law of his mind he sayes lead him captive to the Law of sin in his members so that he cries out Miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Whereunto is added the authority of S. Augustine pressing this exhortation so hard that it serves for an aspersion of Pelagius his heresy for a man not to allow it Though S. Augustine is not alone in it Methodius against Origen in Epiphanius writing against his heresy S. Gregory Nazianzene and others perhaps among the Fathers follow the same sense But the aspersion is too abusive For I have showed that the Tradition of the Church declared by the records of the Fathers extendeth not to the exposition of particular Scriptures but to give bounds within which the Scriptures are to be understood Wherefore had S. Augustine and his party truly expounded this Scripture yet ought it not to be a mark of Plagianisme to maintaine another exposition without supposing any part of Pelagius his heresie But if they consider further that S. Augustine acknowledges no more then the motions of concupiscence which are alive in the regenerate to divert the rigor of their intentions from the course of Christianity not the committing of any sinne that layeth wast a good conscience to be consistent with the state of grace they will have little joy of S. Augustines exposition of this place For what is that to the murther and adulteries of David to the apostrasy of S. Peter to the Idolatries of Solomon Or what consequence is it because concupiscence is alive in Christians that are at peace with God untill death that therefore David S. Peter and Solomon were at peace with God before they had washed away those sinnes by repentance Wherefore I must utterly discharge S. Augustine and those of his sense of having said any thing prejudiciall to Christianity by expounding S. Paul according to it The question that remaineth will be how S. Paul can call himselfe carnall and sold under sinne how he can say I like not that which I doe For I doe not what I would but what I hate And to will is present with me but how to doe that which is good I find not And I find a Law by which when I would doe well evill is at hand to me And that this Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind leades mee captive to the Law of sinne that is in my members And wretched man that I am who will deliver me from the body of this death The question I say will be how all this can be said of him of whome it followes Rom. VIII 1 2 5-8 There is therefore now no damnation for those in Christ Jesus that walke not after the flesh but after the spirit For the Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the Law of sinne and of death For they that are according to the flesh mind the thinges of the flesh They that are according to the Spirit the things of the spirit For the sense of the flesh is death but the sense of the spirit life and peace Because the sense of the flesh is enemy to God for it is not nor can be subject to the Law of God Neither can they that are in the flesh please God For if these things cannot be said of the same man at the same time it remains that though we allow S. Augustine and those of his sense that a Christian falls continually into sinne and by continuall offices of Christianity comes cleare of it yet when he willfully runnes into that sin which he cannot but know that it cannot stand with his Christianity he cannot be of that number for whom S. Paul sayes there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus that walke not after the flesh but after the Spirit And therefore for the true meaning of the Scripture in hand it will be requisite to have recourse to that figure of speach whereby S. Paul himselfe declareth that he speakes that of himselfe which he would have understood of others meerely for the a voiding of offense 1 Cor. IV. 6. So is it no mervaile if to make those that were zealous of the Law beleeve that they could not be saved but by Christianity he whom they took for an Apostle show it in his owne case before he was a Christian saying Is the Law sinne Nay I had not knowne sinne but by the Law Rom. VII 7 I have showed you how Grotius hath understood him to speak of himselfe in the person of an Israelite comparing himselfe considered as having received the Law and under the Law with himselfe before he received it If any man think this consideration to farre fetched for S. Paul to propose to those zealous of the Law that he writes to He may understand him to speake in the person of one of them to whome the Gospell had been proposed and thereby conviction of the spirituall sense of the Law which therefore the concupiscence which we are borne with cannot but make great difficulty to imbrace according to the premises For seing the Scribes and Pharises having received the Tradition of the world to come in opposition to the Sadduces had prevailed with the body of that people to believe that the outward observation of the law according to the letter was the means to bring them to the rewards of it It is no mervaile if S. Paul in the person of one so reduced say I had not known concupiscence had I not found the Law to say Thou shalt not covet For he that understood not the Law of God to prohibit the inward motions of concupiscence till by the preaching of Christianity he learned that to be the intent of the precept may very well say that he knew not concupiscence but by the Law so preached By that same reason might he say as it followeth Without the Law sinne is dead But I was once alive without the Law To wit when he thought himself in the way to life under the doctrine of the Pharisees But when the commandment came to be declared to him in that sense which the salvation tendred by the Gospel requireth it s no marvaile if sinne that was in him and concupiscence of it revived and he was discovered to be dead in sinne as not yeelding to the cure of it But that the commandment which was given for life became unto his death because sinne taking occasion by it deceived and slew him All this takes place in that Pharisee who being perswaded by the Pharisees that by not contriving to take away his neighbors wife and goods he stood qualifyed for the world to come now coming to know by the preaching of the Gospell the restraint of inward concupiscence is commanded by it found himself by meanes of the
ac debeant si fideliter laboraro volueriut adimplere Here also we believe according to the Catholick faith that all that are baptized having received grace by baptisme may and ought to fulfill those things which belong to their salvation if they will faithfully labour it Which is no more then to say That they have sufficient grace to preserve them from falling away Or from falling into those sinnes which forfeit the state of Grace Though I easily yeild this possibility is rather naturall than morall And that considering the many opportunities and provocations even to those sinnes which the occasions of the world present the inclinations of Concupiscence with it is in the judgement of discretion impossible that a man should not forfeit the state of grace though absolutely there is nothing to inforce that it must necessarily come to passe And truly the Prophet Davids prayer To be cleansed from secret sinnes but to be preserved from presumptuous sinnes Psal XIX 12 13. showes difference enough between the kindes But the obtaining of this prayer not to fall into any presumptuous sinne depends upon that diligent watch which even the regenerate may neglect to keep over themselves Now for him that shall have committed this forfeit though the promise of the holy Ghost and the habituall assistance thereof is thereby voide yet the knowledge of Christianity that is the obligation and matter of it and that facility of living the life of a Christian which custome leaves behind it remaining the actuall assistance of the H. Ghost which alwaies accompanieth the preaching of the Gospel cannot be wanting where so great effects of it are extant to procure the recovery of him that is fallen away Whether they shall take effect or no it is in the justice and mercy of that Providence which onely maketh them effectual The wisdome of God which shall laugh at the calamities and mock when the feares of them come that refuse when it calls and regard not when it stretcheth out hands Prov. I. 22 representeth the condition of those that forfeit the Promise exceedingly terrible in that they are fallen under Gods meer mercy though it be granted that they want not sufficient helps to restore them till they be come to the end of their race But in very deed the hardest of this point is to give account how this holds under the old Law how any man could be saved by fullfilling that Law which the Gospel declars to be taken away because no man could be saved by fulfilling it To which my answer must be according to the supposition premised concerning a twofold sense of Moses Law that is to say a twofold Law of God under the Old Testament that it is no marvaile if the civile happinesse of Gods ancient people which the Law of Moses in the litteral sense tendred for the reward of it were to be obtained by worshipping the onely true God and that civile conversation according to it which that people of their naturall freedome were able to performe True it is indeed which S. Peter saies Acts XV. 10. that â—â—ither they nor their Fathers were able to bear the burthen of Moses Law And that for that reason which not onely Origen but divers others of the ancient Fathers have alledged against the Jewes that there went so many scruples to the precise observation of it as it was not possible for any people in the world to overcome For there being such variety of cases incident to the observation of such variety of precepts as no man could further be secured in that he proceeded according to the will of God then as the determination of those whom God by the law of Deut. XVII 8-12 XVI 18. had referred it to might secure him And that alwaies new cases must needs prevent new determinations of necessity the precise observation of Moses law even outwardly and in the literal sense was in ordinary discretion thing impossible Which is effectuall indeed to convince the Jewes that God never was so in love with their Law as to accept them for precisely keeping of it even in the world to come But provided it for an outward and civile discipline to countenance the inward godlinesse and righteousnesse of the heart till he should think fit openly to inact it for the condition of the world to come In the the meane time having tendered the Law for a condition by which they might hold the land of promise it is manifest that the obtaining of it depended not upon that precise observation of all scruples which the nature of the subject rendred in humane reason impossible But that in case they worshipped God alone and observed the precepts of the Law with that dilligence which a reasonable and honest man would use in that case the promise must become due Whereby the law in this sense is a fit figure to represent both the impossibibility of Gods originall Law and the gentlenesse of that dispensation thereof which the Gospel importeth As for the inward and mysticall sense of Moses Law it is manifest that the countenance which the Law gave true righteousnesse by inforcing the worship of the onely true God together with so many acts of righteousnesse among men and temperance chastity and sobriety with temporall penalties With the faith of the world to come and the doctrine of spirituall righteousnesse of it self acceptable to God received from the Fathers and maintained by the Prophets and their disciples in all ages maintained alwayes a stocke of such men as God accepted of even to the reward of the world to come In whose condition notwithstanding we must observe a kind of limitation or exception to the temporall promises of the Law not onely at such time as the people fell away from God to the worship of Idols but in regard of hypocriticall Governors who pretending zeal to Gods lawes of sacrifices and ceremonies and the promises of God due to them in that regard under that colour took advantage sufficiently to abuse and oppresse his poor people For when these cases fell out the Prophets whose office it was to reprove such things in Gods name and their disciples and followers must needs fall under great persecution at these mens hands So that their right in the land of Promise turning to a sorry account of happiness for them who of all men were the most severe observers of Gods Law of necessity the temporal promises thereof were supplied and made good to them by the hope of the world to come Which as Origen wisely and ingeniously observes if a man well consider he shall find that flaw in the promises of the Old Testament to be as a chink or breach in a wall through which we may discern the light of the Gospel beyond it For if the matter be rightly considered it will appear that these hypocriticall Governours of Gods ancient people which thought the promises of the Law for ever entailed upon themselves and their successors upon the observing of
have not received any more the Spirit of bondage to fear but ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby ye cry Abba that is Father For those that are led with the hope of temporall promises as all must necessarily be led under that Law which was established upon such must needs be subject to fear of disgrace with God whensoever their sinnes allowed not those promises to take place So then though they were then partakers of Gods Spirit as the Prophet Ezekiel showes us XXXVI 27. XXXVII 14. XXXIX 20. Yet in as much as it is called the Spirit of feare there is due argument that they were not pertaker of that peace and joy in the holy Ghost which Christians afterwards were moved with to indure all persecution for the maintainance of their profession But the Apostle pointeth us ouâ— further the sourse of this feare Heb. II. 14 15. When he saith that our Lord Christ tooke part â—f flesh and bloud that by death he might abolish him that had the power of death â—ven the devil and discharge all those that through the fear of death were all their life long subject unto bondage For so long as the promises of this life ended in death and the punishments thereof conducted to it they who knew that death came into the world upon the transgression of Adam could not think themselves discharged of Gods wrath so long as they found themselves liable to the debt of it No marvaile then if the Spirit of God were the Spirit of fear in them who saw not as yet the kingdom of death dissolved by the rising of our Lord Christ from the dead Another argument I make from the words of our Lord when the disciples were ready to demand fire from heaven upon those Samaritanes that received them not after the example of Elias Luke IX 52-56 Ye know not what Spirit ye are of saith our Lord For the Son of man came not to destroy but to save mens lives Whereby he declareth that because the Gospel bringeth salvation whereas the Law wrought wrath as S. Paul saith by tendring conviction of sinne without help to overcome it Rom. III. 20. IV. 15. VII 8-11 therefore God requireth under the Gospel of those that are his the Spirit that seeketh onely the good of them from whose hands they receive it not Whereas under the Law even his Prophets revenged themselves of their enemies by vengeance obtained at Gods hands And by this meanes we have an answer for that difficulty otherwise insoluble in our Lords words of John Baptist Mat. XI 11. Verily I say to you there never arose among those that are born of women one greater then John the Baptist But the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater then he For if God under the Law required not of his Prophets that perfection of Charity which the Gospel exacteth of all Christians if in those things which they said and did by Gods Spirit they have not expressed it well may it be said that the least of all those that belong to the Gospel in truth which here is called the kingdom of heaven is in a respect of so great concernment greater then the Prophets of the Old Testament As for the example of Jael the wife of Eber the Kenite who being in league with Jabin and Siâ—era for the good of Gods people knocked him on the head being retired into the protection of her house and is commended for it by the Spirit of God in Deborah the Prophetesse Jud. V. 17-21 VI. 24-28 The instance indeed is difficult enough And they that are so ready to condemne the fact of Judith in cutting off Holefernes by deceit and that by the example of her father Simeon that spoiled and destroyed the men of Shecheâ—â— contrary to covenant Judg. IX 2. Gen. XXXIV 23. are not advised how to come clear of it Suppose there was just cause of hostility between them a daughter of the house being dishonoured by the Prince of that people For among Gods people their chastity was alwayes as highly valued as it was little regarded among Idolaters Suppose that they condescended to be circumcised not for love to the true God but for hope of increasing their own power and riches by bringing the Israelites under their Government as there is appearance enough in the words of Hamor Gen. XXXIV 20 21 22. Yet a league being inacted upon such a pretense the zeal of Simeon and Levi in destroying those that were come under the covering of Gods wings so farre very well figures the zeal of the Jewes in persecuting the Apostles and not allowing the Gentiles any room of salvation by their own onely true God And therefore it is excellently observed by S. Jerome Tradit Hebr. in Genesin that the Scribes were of the tribe of Simeon as the Priests of the tribe of Levi in whom the curse of Jacob by the Spirit of God detesting their fact and prophesying the like to those their successors in the case of our Lord Christ and his Apostles I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel Gen. XLIX 5 6 7. was evidently fulfilled in the mysticall sense The tribe of Levi for gathering of Tithes and the tribe of Simeon for imployment of Clarkes and Notaries dwelling dispersed through all the tribes as Solomon Jarchi in his glosse upon the place literally expoundeth it But the case of Judeth is the case of a stratageme in professed hostility which whether Christianity allowe or not certainly no Law of nations disallowes And therefore though she propose to her self the zeale of Simeon and Levi for the honour of their people and the successe they had against their enemies yet if we understand her not to commend the meanes by which they brought it to passe to wit by violating the publick faith we shall not find her contradict the Spirit of God which by Jacob condemns them for it As for the â—act of Jael it is in vaine to alledge any mysticall sense to justify it as some would do unlesse we can undertake that there was no such thing done in the way of historicall truth which I suppose no man will be so madde as to do And therefore if any man will not believe that the Spirit of God in Deborah extolls onely the temporall benefit which the people of God reâ—ped by that fact of hers for which she was alwayes to be famous amongst them leaving to her self the justification of her conscience Let him seek a better answer But he who transgressing that Charity that is fundamentall in Christianity and therefore without which no Christian can obtaine the Spirit of God shall make her example a motive to that which he cannot justify even in Gods ancient people Though I allow him to mistake Christians for Pagans and Idolaters whose professed enmity to Gods people upon the account of Religion was the ground of that revenge which they were allowed then to pursue them with yet I must not allow him
as our Lord was when hee spoke the words that I indeavor to clear When therefore the properties of the divine nature are attributed to the Manhood of our Lord supposing as all good Christians do that neither natures nor properties are confounded what can wee say but this That by such attributions as these in the Language of his Prophets the Apostles God would have us understand a supernatural conjunction and union of two natures in one person of our Lord And what shall wee then say when the name of Christs body and bloud is attributed to the bread and wine of the Eucharist but that God would have us understand a supernatural conjunction and union between the body and bloud of Christ and the said bread and wine whereby they become as truly the instrument of conveying Gods Spirit to them who receive as they ought as the same Spirit was alwaies in his natural body and bloud For it maters not that the union of the two natures is indissoluble that of Christs body and bloud onely in order to the use of the elements that is speaking properly from the consecration to the receiving The reason of both unions being the same that makes both supernatural to wit the will of God passed upon both and understood by the Scriptures to be passed upon both though to several effects and purposes Therefore I am no way singular in this sense All they of the Confession of Auspurg do maintain it before mee and think it enough to say that it is an unusual or extraordinary maner of speech when one thing is said to be another of a several kinde and nature but which the unusual and extraordinary case that is signified both expounds and justifies They indeed maintain another reason of this presence and therefore another maner of it For if by virtue of the hypostatical union the omnipresence of the God-head is communicated to the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist then is the flesh and bloud of Christ there not onely mystically but bodily But if supposing both the elements and the flesh and bloud of Christ bodily present it may neverthelesse truly be said This is my flesh This is my bloud How much more if as I say the elements onely be there bodily but the flesh and bloud of Christ onely mystically and spiritually And therefore I finde it reasonable for mee to argue that the sense of so many men both learned and others understanding the words of our Lord in this sense ought to convince any man that it is not against common sense and therefore tending so much to make good the words of our Lord and the holy Scripture it not to be let go I do not intend neverthelesse hereby to grant that the sense of these words This is my body this is my bloud for This is the signe of my body and bloud is a true sense because abundance of learned as well as ordinary people take it so to be But well and good that it might have been maintained to be the true sense of them had no more been expressed by the Scripture in that businesse For then I suppose the sense of the Church of which I say nothing as yâ—t could not have evidenced so much more as I have deduced by consequence from the rest of the Scripture But the mystical presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Eucharist being further deduced from the Scripture by good consequence I conceive the common understanding of all those men who granting that do not grâ—nt the Elements to be abolished sufficient ground for mee that the signification of these words This is my body this is my bloud inforceth it not Whereas on the other side the substance of the Elements is not distinguishable by common sense from their accidents for whether the quantity and the mater be all one or not whether beside the mater and accidents which the quantity is invested with a substantial form berequisite is yet disputable among Philosophers And therefore no reason can presume that the Apostles to whom these words were spoken did understand This of which our Lord speaks to signifie the sensible accidents of bread an swine severed from the material substance of the same I may therefore very well undertake to say that this sense of the words is more proper than conceiving the substance of bread and wine to be abolished the effect of grace to the Church remaining the same For the property of speech is not to be judged by the signification of a single word but by the tenor of the speech wherein it stands and the intent of him that speaks declared by his actions and the viâ—ible circumstances of the same Now our Lord having taught those to whom this was spoken that the eating of his flesh and drinking of his bloud is done by living faith must be supposed by appointing this Sacrament tendring his flesh to eat and his bloud to drink to limit and determine an office in the doing whereof his flesh and bloud is either eaten and drunk or crucified according to the premises If then the eating and drinking of his flesh and bloud out of the Sacrament be meerly spiritual by living faith shall not the presence thereof in the Sacrament be according Shall it not be enough that they are mystically present in the Sacrament to be spiritually eaten by them that receive them with living faith to be crucified of them that do not Is it any way pertinent to the spiritual eating of them that they are bodily present Is it not far more proper to that which our Lord was about tending without question to the spiritual union which hee seeks with his Church that hee should be understood to promise the mystical than the bodily presence of them in the Sacrament which is nothing else than a Mystery by the proper signification and intent of it I grant an abatement of that which the terms of body and bloud were originally imposed to signifie being without question that which is visible and subject to sense But if the nature of the action which our Lord was about of the subject which his words expresse be such as requires this abatement then cannot the original sense of these words be so proper for this place as this abatement Here I will observe that the Council of Trent it self Sess XIII cap. I. speaketh so warily in this mater as not to exclude all maner of tropes from the right sense of these words saying Indignissimum sanè flagitium est ea à quibusdam contentiosis pravis hominibus ad sictitia imaginarios trapos quibus veritas caernis sanguinis Christi negatur contra universum Ecclesiâ— sensum detorqueri It is indeed a very great indignity that they are by some contentious and perverse persons wrested aside to contrived and imaginary tropes whereby the truth of Christs flesh and bloud is denied contrary to the whole sense of the Church They were wiser than to
quà m ex institutionis disciplinâ Caeterùm inquit immundi nascerentur quasi designatos tamen sanctitati ac per hoc etiam saluti intelligi volens fidelium filios Ut hujus spei pignore matrimoniis quae retinenda censuerat patrocinaretur Alioquin memin erat dominicae definitionis Nisi quis nascetur ex aquâ spiritu non ibit in regum dei id est â—oâ— erit sanctus Ita omnis anima eo usque in Adam censetur donec in Christo recenseaâ—ur For hereupon the Apostle also saith that men are born holy of either sex sanctified as by prerogative of seed so by breeding and discipline Otherwise saith he they should be born unclean giving to understand that the children of Christians are as it were designed to holinesse and thereby to salvation that he might patronize those mariages which he thought fit to be maintained by the pledge of this hope Otherwise he remembred the determination of our Lord Unlesse a man be born of water and the spirit he shall not go into Gods Kingdom That is he shall not be holy So every soul is so long listed in Adam till it be listed again in Christ Which you see is not done but by Baptism according to Tertullian Therefore in the end of the next Chapter Proinde cùm ad fidem pervenit reformata per secundam nativitatem ex aquà supernâ virtute detracto corruptionis pristinae aulaeo totam lucem suam conspicit Therefore when it comes to the faith being reformed by a second birth of water and the power above and the curtain of former corruptions drawn she sees her whole light And de Bapt. cap. XVII shewing in what case a Lay-man might baptize Sufficiat scilicet in necessitatibus utaris sicubi aut loci aut temporis aut personae conditio compellit Tunc enim constantia succurrentis excipitur cùm urget circumstantia periclitantis Let it suffice thee to use it the right of baptizing in cases of necessity if at any time the condition of place or time or person constrain For then is the resolution of him that helpeth accepted when the case of him that runneth bazard presseth There is no such thing as any case of such necessity in the opinion of our Anabaptists therefore it is not Tertullians He shows that the Church alloweth a Lay-man to baptize because it believed that the children of Christians could not enter into the Kingdom of God otherwise The words of Gregory Nazianzene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be all this saith he that delays Baptism in those that demand Baptism But what would you say of Infants that are neither sensible of the losse nor of the Grace Shall we baptize also these By all means if any danger should presâ— For it is better they should be sanctified insensible then depart unsealed and not persued And of this circumcision that is applied on the eighth day to those who cannot reason is a reason to us The daubing of the door-posts also preserving the first born by things unsensible For the rest I give mine opinion staying three years or something over or under that at which age they may hear and answer something of Religion though not perfitly but grosly understanding it then to sanctifie their souls and bodies with the great Sacrament that perfecteth us By and by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it is in all reason of more advantage to be fortified by the Laver for the suddain accidents of danger that incounter us not being capable of helpe He proceeds disputing against those that would not be baptized aâ—ore thirty because of our Lords example All this is so plain that I will adde nothing to point out the effect and consequence of his words Nor doth the VI Canon of Neo-caesarea signifie any more then this providing that women be baptized while they are with childe And that it be not thought that the baptism of the Mother concerns the child 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because every ones proper purpose upon profession is declared Nor Walafridus Strabus de Rebus Ecclesiasticis cap. XXVI saying plainly that in the primititive times the Grace of Baptism was wont to be granted onely to them that were found in body and mind to understand what they expected and what they undertook by being baptized For though the solemn profession of Baptism be a powerfull means to make it effectuall yet what is that to the necessity of baptizing before death And that the custome here testified was not generall the Infant that received the Eucharist in S. Cyprian de Lapsis besides the opinion of Nazianzene which you had even now will witnesse Neither do the examples of S. Chrysostome who being bred under Meletius Bishop of Antiochia was not Baptized till one and twenty or of the same Nazianzene who having a Bishop to his Father was not baptized till he came to mans age prove any more than the then custome of the Church allows that it was by particular men thought fit to be deferred supposing that in case of necessity it were secured But a great many witnesses speak not so much as the Law the rule the custome of giving Baptism by any man that was a Christian in that case of necessity For out of that case of necessity the office of baptizing belonged to the very highest in the Church to wit to as might stand with the more weighty imployments of their office For otherwise a little common sense would serve to inform them that those offices which required more of their personal knowledge skill wisdome and goodnesse were to be preferred before the office of Baptizing which though it concerns salvation yet requires no such qualities Can any man then imagine any reason why all Christians are licensed or rather commanded to baptize in that case but the necessity of the office and that no Infant should go out of the world unbaptized And this chokes all the exception that is made from the custome of giving Infants the Eucharist in the ancient Church For as I have shewed before that it was not held necessary to salvation as Baptism was so here I must alledge that it cannot be said that the Eucharist was celebrated and that all Christians might celebrate the Eucharist in this case of necessity to the intent that Infants might not go out of the world either unbaptized or without the Eucharist As for Origen upon the Romans and S. Austin de Gen. X. 43 who affirmed the Baptism of Infants to come from the Tradition of the Apostles suppose we for the present that it is not Origen that speaks them but Ruffinus that translated him and that this is said IVC years after the birth of Christ CCC and more after the death of the Apostles was it not visible to them what came from the Apostles what from the determination or practice of the Church For that it should come from abuse he that would tell me must first perswade me that Antichrist was in being
requiring of those who acknowledge the same absolute conformity in things altogether needlesse to the unity of the Church the true end of all due Power in the Church For were conformity in this point necessary to the unity of the Church had the Power of the Church of Rome and of the Pope in behalf of it been such by virtue of the first instituting of it as might have required it why then was it not required from the beginning that the service of God through the whole Empire should be celebrated in Latine being the language which the mother Church of the mother City did use and farr more frequented then in Greece than now in the West which is forced to use it Seeing then it appeareth that there is nothing at all to be alleged for so great an inconvenience but that which I have alleged for it and which I acknowledge to be truly alleged and justly but not justly admitted it remaineth that the Church is provided by God of other Laws the observation whereof is and would be a cure to the danger alleged from the change of the publick service of God into the vulgar languages For this danger proceedeth from nothing but from the false pretense of absolute and infallible authority in the Church which is indeed limited by the truth of that Christianity whereupon the Church is grounded and for the maintenance whereof it subsisteth For though this pretense may be a mean to contain simple people in obedience to any thing which shall be imposed so long as they know not any thing better that they ought to have yet if conscience be once awaked with reasons convincing that the authority instituted by God in his Church is abused to the prejudice and hinderance of the salvation of Gods people it is no marvail either that they should neglect all their interest of this world to seek themselves redress or that they should mistake themselves in seeking it and think the redress to be the destroying of all authority in the Church So that the preventing of danger by the necessary reformation of abuses in Church maters must not be thought to consist in pretenses as inconsistent with the common good of the Churches as with the truth of Christianity But in submitting to those bounds which the grounds of Christianity evidently establisheth And which unlesse Christianity make people more untractable then all the rudenesse which they are born and bred with makes barbarous Nations and wilde Beasts the sense of those mischiefs which difference of Religion hath brought in and maintained in Christendome must needs have disposed them to imbrace and to cherish for the future avoiding of the same In the next place supposing the Eucharist as the rest of the service to be celebrated in a language vulgarly understood we are to debate whither the Eucharist require Communion or whether the private Masses now allowed and countenanced in the Church of Rome be of the institution of our Lord and his Apostles Nor shall I need to use many words to free the term of private Masses from the exception which is sometimes made That all Masses are publick actions of the Church repeating the Sacrifice of Christ crucified to the benefit of his Church For seeing the term of a private Mass signifieth a thing visible The celebration of that Eucharist whereof no body but the Priest that consecrates it doth communicate I ask no man leave to use the term signifying no more by it but putting the rest to debate whither as de facto in the Church of Rome so de jure according to the institution of our Lord and his Apostles the sacrifice of Christ crucified is and ought to be either repeated or represented and commended by celebrating the Eucharist so as no body but the Priest that consecrates to communicate or whether the institution of our Lord require that Christians communicate in the Eucharist which they celebrate A dispute wherein nothing that is said in the Scripture concerning the order and practice of our Lord and his Apostles can leave any doubt For though there may be mention of celebrating the Eucharist where there is no mention of communicating in it which is an argument meerly negative not from the Scripture but from this or that Scripture and of no consequence to say S. Paul 1 Cor. XIV 14-17 1 Tim. II. 1-6 mentioneth the celebration of the Eucharist not mentioning any Communion therefore no body did communicate yet are we farr from the least inckling of any circumstance to show that there was this Sacrament celebrated when there was none but he that consecrated it to communicate Nay if we regard the institution Do this in remembrance of me referring as much to take eat and drinke as to the blessing or thanksgiving whereby I have showed that our Lord did consecrate If we regard S. Paul affirming that the bread which we bless and the cup which we drinke is the communion of the body and blood of Christ 1 Cor. X. 16. and reproving the Corinthians because the rich prevented the poor and suffered them not to communicate in their Oblations out of which the Eucharist was consecrated as I showed afore We shall be bold to conclude that so farr as appears by the Scripture all that did celebrate did communicate as all that assisted did celebrate if that be true which I proved afore that the Prayers of the Congregation is that which consecrates the Eucharist to wit supposing Gods Ordinance The same appears by Justine Martyr and other the ancientest Records of the Church that describe this office But I canot better express the sense of the Church in this point then by alleging the decretall Epistles of the Popes before Innocent the I. or his Predecessor Syricius which being forged by Isidore Mecater some DCC years after Christ as hath been discovered by men of much learning do notwithstanding contain this Rule that he who communicates not be not admitted to the service of the Church Which he that forged them would never have fathered upon the ancient Popes had it not been evident to all that were seen in the Canons of the Church that it was of old a mater of censure to be present at celebrating the Eucharist and not to communicate in it A thing evident enough by many Canons of Councils yet extant and foisted into those decretals to no other purpose but to make men believe in after ages that those Canons were made to prosecute and to bring to effect those things which the Popes had decreed afore as if their authority had been always the same as it was at the time of this forgery Now it is well enough known what pretenses have been made and what consequences drawn from the speculation of the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross repeted or represented by this Sacrament to perswade Christendom that the benefit thereof in remission of sinnes and infusion of grace and all the effects of Christs Passion is derived upon Gods
and sending other false Apostles as I said afore in thebeginning to Antiochia and other places saying that unless ye be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses ye cannot be saved there came no small trouble as I said afore and these are they that in Paul are called false Apostles deceitfull workers transforming themselves into Apostles of Christ. For here Epiphanius distinguishing two kinds of false Apostles one that pretended to be sent by our Lord Christ another by his Apostles applyes unto them the words of S. Paul 2 Cor. XI 23. by virtue of that of the Synodicall Letter of the Apostles Acts XV. 24. to whom we gave no such charge and sayes that whatsoever they pretended they were neither sent by our Lord Christ nor yet by his Apostles commission from Christ Herewith agrees all that which the Apostle writes against eating things sacrificed to Idols in the VIII and X. Chapters of this first Epistle For there is no question to be made that the Sect of Cerinthus was one of the Gnosticks because it is expressed in Epiphanius that they also taught the unknown God whom they pretended to make known And therefore when S. Paul saith in the beginning of that eighth chapter As concerning things offered to Idols we know that we all have knowledge knowledge indeed puffeth up but charity edifieth It is manifest that he civily reproveth that pretense of knowledge which some weak Christians were then in danger to be carried away with to believe That those who knew the true God whom their masters pretended to teach and the Idols of the Gentiles to be nothing might without scruple of conscience communicate in the worship of those whom they scorned and thought to be nothing Intending in the X. Chapter to protest that they could not communicate in the same without renouncing their Christianity And if any man say that Cerinthus according to Epiphanius saith That our Lord Christ is not to rise againe till the last day and therefore that the opinion of those that deny the resurrection which S. Paul disputes against 1 Cor. XV. can neither be imputed to Cerinthus nor the Câ—rintâ—ians It is answered that Epiphanius himself declares that the Cerinthians were not all of a minde Some of them denying the resurrection of Christ and by consequence of Christians against whom the maine of that Chapter argues Others affirming that Christ was not to rise again till all should rise againe at the worlds end And truly I see not why S. Paul should argue that it is necessary that we should believe the resurrection of Christ saying If Christ be not risen againe then is our preaching vaine and we are found false witnesses then is your faith vain and yâ— are yet in your sinnes 1 Cor. XV. 14-17 Unlesse among those whom he argues against the resurrection of Christ had been questioned which is Epiphanius his argument And I would faine hear who can give a better account of that everlasting difficulty in S. Pauls words that follow 1 Cor. XV. 29. For what shall those that are baptized for the dead do if the dead rise not againe why are they baptized for the dead then Epiphanius gives according to this supposition and that upon the credit of Historical truth not of any conjecture of his owne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 .. For in this countrey I mean Asia and Galatia this Sect flourished much Among whom a point of Tradition is come to us how some of them dying before Baptisme others are baptized for them in their name that rising at the resurrection they may be liable to no sentence of punishment as not having received Baptisme and become obnoxious to the power of him that made the world Where by the way you see the Cerinthians were Gnosticks because by baptisme they pretended to free men from the bad principle which made the world This being the doctrine of the Gnosticks Now if it be true as Epiphanius understood that the Cerinthians in Asia and Galatia baptized others for those that were dead without baptisme shall we think it strange that those false Apostles who transformed themselves into Apostles of Christ as Satan into an Angel of light should teach the Corinthians to do the same And what need S. Paul stand to condemne this condemning all their impostures by the dispute of both Epistles Neither is it more difficult to discerne those whom S. Paul disputes against in the second Chapter of his Epistle to the Colossians to be of the same stamp if we observe two points of his reproofe The one the worship of Angels the other abstinence from certaine meats and from women which S. Paul couches in these words Colos II. 21. Touch not taste not come not nigh those things which all tend to perish in the using This you may perceive by the warning he gives Timothy of the like men who afterwards should depart from the faith giving â—eed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of devils who should forbid marriage and injoyne abstinence from meats which God hath made to be received of those that know him with thanksgiving 1. Tim. IV. 1 2 3. I know there is a plausible opinion abroad that these doctrines of devils as I translate it are the Traditions which have crept into the Church for the worshiping of the souls of holy men departed which some Christians have brought into the ranke of those secondary gods which the Gentiles call daemones or daemonia But this opinion cannot be true First because it is plaine that the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serves to interpret the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now it is manifest that by seducing spirits S. Paul can mean nothing but those inspirations true or pretended which the devil and his ministers corrupted Christianity with And therefore when he declares himself further by adding and doctrines of devils He meanes doctrines taught by devils Secondly because the word daemones or daemonia is never used in a good sense among Christians as it is among Pagans For those that knew not the difference between good spirits and bad but in effect as S Paul saith 1 Cor. X. 20 21. worshiped devils it is not to be expected that they should expresse a meaning to scorne or detest those whom they worshipped And whatsoever opinions those Philosophers which followed Plato and Pithagoras had of the vulgar Idolatries of their countryes seeing there is so much appearance as I have shewed in another place that they were Magicians it is no marvaile that they make not the difference between good and evil spirits which Christianity alone fully declareth The Jewes themselves not having sufficiently discovered it in and by the Scriptures of the Old Testament But as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Idol signifying of it self indifferently any image or representation to Christians and Jewes who understand the Gentiles to worship false gods signifies the image of those Gods in an ill sense So to those that understand the devils to put themselves
upon the world to be worshipped for gods the doctrines of devils must needs be those which men guided by devils do advance I must here suppose further that which I reade in Epiphanius that Marcion and Tatianus with his Scholars the Encratites who enjoyned their disciples to abstain from women and certain kindes of meats as not of Gods making had their beginning from Saturninus he from Simon Magus as Iraeneus I. 30. affirmeth Whereby it cannot seem strange that their doctrine should be in vogue during the time of the Apostles I demand then what reason can be given why they who taught the worshipping of angels should also injoyne abstinence from women and meates were there not in the case an opinion that marriage and those creatures come not from God but by some failleur of his as Simon Magus said from the beginning from the Angels To which purpose we must observe that S. Paul gives them warning of Philosophy Col. II. 8. because it is certaine that these sects took their rise from the writitings of Plato and Pythagoras and their followers whom Tertâ—llianâ— therfore stileth the Patriarchs of Hereticks But the words of Irenaeus deserve here to be considered Having promised to refute Marcion in due place Nunc autem necessario meminimus ejus ut scires quoniam omnes qui quoquo modo adulterant veritatem praeconium Ecclelaedunt Simonis Samaritani Magi discipuli successores sunt Quamvis non conâ—iâ—eantur nomen magistri sui ad seductionem reliquorum attamen illius sententiam docent Christi quidem Jesu nomen tanquam irritamentum praeferentes Simonis autem impâ—etatem varie introducentes But it was necessary that we should remember him now that thou mightest know that all those who any way adulterate the truth and wrong that which the Church preacheth are the Scholars and successours of Simon the Magician of Samaria Though to deceive others they professe not their masters name yet they teach hâ—s sense Pretending indeed for a Stale the name of Christ Jesus but divers wayes introducing Simons impious doctrines And by and by Vt exempli gratia dicamus a Saturnino Marciâ—ne qui vocantur Continentes abstinentiam a nuptiiâ— annuâ—ciaverunt frustrantes antiquam plasmationem Dei oblique accusantes eum qui masculum foeminam ad generationem hominum fecit â—orum quae dicuntur apud eos animalium abstinentiam induxerunt ingrati existentes ei qui omnia fecit Deo To speak for example from Saturninus and Marcion those that are called Encratites preach abstinence from marriage frustrating that which God framed of old and indirectly blaming him that made male and female for the procreation of mankind and introduce abstinence from those which they call living creatures being ungratefull to God that made all things If Marcion and Saturninus had this doctrine from Simon Magus of necessity it must have been on foot during the time of the Apostles Onely here will ly a difficult objection from that which I shewed a little afore that Simon Magus baited his doctrine with the pleasures of sensuall concupiscence as the meanes to gaine followers if in stead of the hardship of Christs Crosse he could perswade them that believing the secret knowledge which he taught the free use of them was the meanes to attain the world to come And of Cerinthus in particular he that shall peruse what Eusebius hath related out of Caiâ—s and Dionysius of Alexandria Ecclesiast Hist III. 28. shall easily perceive the whole aime of his Sect to have been the injoying of sensuall pleasure So that the saying of those whom Saint Paul writes against 1 Cor. XV. 32. Let us eate and drink for to morrow we shall dy exactly fits his followers And so doth the pretense of those who seduced the Galatians to observe the Law though themselves kept not the Law that they might not be persecuted with the Crosse of Christ Gal. VI. 12 13. That is that would have them comply with the Jewes in keeping the Law so farre as might save them from being persecuted by the Jews as well as with the Gentiles in their Idolatries to save them from persecution at their hand According to the common principle of the Gnosticks that it was a folly to suffer for professing the Faith To this it is easie to answer That the devil might have severall baits for severall qualities of persons even in the same common principles of Simon Magus whereof if we see some sects imbrace some others those that seem inconsistent with them being certified that both spring from the same source it is no wayes incredible that the seeds of all of them were sowen in his common doctrine That Carpocrates that Prodicus and the Gnosticks that followed Nicolas according to Epiphanius should be remarkable for unnaturall uncleannesse having the way plained for them by Simon how can it be strange that refined spirits should be taken with such grosse pretenses as brutish people are apt to be seduced with would be strange on the other side And that Magick which Simon and Menander with the Basilidians and Carpocratians frequently practised whatsoever the rest did had alwayes pretenses of austerity in discipline not onely as a meanes to obtaine influence from powers above but to seduce the simple with a colour of severity and abstinence Seeing then that Saturninus upon Irenaeus his credit derived this discipline from the doctrine of Simon Magus how can it seeme improbable that during S. Pauls time some branch of the same doctrine should spread over the parts of Asia concerned in S. Pauls Epistles to Timothy and to the Colossians Whether by Cerinthus or by whom besides him I need not dispute There is no doubt indeed but according to Epiphanius his Heresie had vogue in these parts As in Galatia besides Epiphanius Sirmondus his Praedestinatus saith that it is condemned there by S. Paules Epistle And Gaius in Eusebius III. 28. testifieth that Cerinthus pretended revelations by Angels and Tertulliane contra Marc. V. that those who seduced the Colossians did the like But whether Cerinthus or some other branch of Simon Magus the source of his doctrine is plainly from the same principle with Marcion and the Eucratites afterwards Now if any man demand what all this may conduce to the understanding of those Scriptures which speak of our Lord Christ let it be but considered that Simon Magus pretending to be the Christ and to seduce Christians from our Lord Jesus to himself and withall and to be worshipped with honours due to God doth hereby effectually suppose that our Lord was effectually so worshiped by Christians from the beginning Irenaeus saith further of the doctrine of Simon Magus I. 20. That he was glorified of many as God and taught that he was the man who had appeared among the Jewes as the Sonne that is the Messias had come in Samaria as the Father but to the rest of the Gentiles as the holy Ghost So that being indeed the soveraigne