â—omething for the placing of every man every momâ—nâ— â—◠〈◊〉 estate which thereby hee fore-seeth And the possibility oâ— fore-seeing what will follow being something because no conâ—râ—â—iction destroyes the consistence of the terms inâ—errs by the infiâ—â—â—â— perfection of God the actual fore-sight of what will come to pâ—â—â— though not in it self which is nothing yet in God who is all things And all this involving no predetermination of mans will by God the discourse cannot be superfluous which resolveth the foresight of future contingencies into the decree which supposeth the knowledg of things conditionally future not which inferreth the fore knowledg of things absolutely future For by this means nothing that is found in the Scripture will contradict the substance of Faith which predetermination destroyeth though disclaiming all possibility of making evidence to common sense how it may come to pass And though Gods decree to permit sin can be no sufficient ground of his fore sight that what hee hindreth not shall come to pass as I have argued pag. 209. yet if wee consider withall that there is no question of Gods permitting any man to sin but onely him that is prevented with temptation to sin it may not untruly be said that God fore-sees sin in his own deccee of permitting it including the state of him that is tempted in that case wherein God decrees to permit sin In which case God fore-seeth it properly in his decree of placing the man in that estate not of suffering himto sin which the opinion that I contradict in that place absolutely refuseth And upon these terms when it is resolved Chap. XXVI that predestination to the first Grace is absolute you must not understand predestination to the act of conversioâ— but to the helps which effect it For whatsoever be the motives upon which a man actually resolves it in whatsoever circumstance hee meets them nothing but his own freedom determines his conversion though without those helps hee had not or could not have determined it And therefore if it be said that it is a barr to the prayers and indeavors of those that are moved to be Christians to tell them that their resolution depends upon something which is not in their Power To wit that congruity wherein the efficacy of Grace consisteth The answer is That absolutely whatsoever is requisite to the conversion of him who is called to be a Christian is in his Power Though upon supposition of Gods fore-knowledg that may be said to be requisite without which God fore-sees hee will not be converted when absolutely if hee would hee might have been converted and when supposing hee had been otherwise moved hee would have been converted In which case it is absolutely enough to the charging of any man with his duty that absolutely hee wanted nothing requisite to inable him for a right choice Though upon supposition of Gods fore-knowledg the doing of his duty requires whatsoever God fore-sees that it will not be done without it I have no more to say but that the Contents of the Chapters are premised instead of a Table for which they may well serve in books of this nature And that in regard to the difficulty of the Copy and the ordinary faileurs of the Press the Reader is desired to correct the faults that are marked before hee begin and to serve himself in the rest THE CONTENTS OF THE First Book CHAP. I. ALL agree that Reason is to decide controversies of Faith The objection thaâ— Faith is taught by Gods Spirit answered What Reason decideth questions of Faith The resolution of Faith ends not in the light of Reason but in that which Reason evidenceth to come from Gods messengers Page 1 CHAP. II. The question between the Scripture and the Church which of them is Judge in matters of Faith Whether opinion the Tradition of the Church stands better with Those that hold the Scripture to be clear in all things necessary to salvation have no reason to exclude the Tradition of the Church What opinions they are that deny the Church to be a Society or Corporation by Gods Law 3 CHAP. III. That neither the sentence of the Church nor the dictate of Gods Spirit can be the reason why the Scripâ—ures are to be received No man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit without knowing that he is a true Christian Which supposeth the truth of the Scriptures The motives of Faith are the reason why the Scriptures are to be believed And the consent of Gods people the reason that evidences those motives to be infallibly true How the Scriptures are believed for themselves How a circlâ— is made in rendring a reason of the Faith The Scriptures are Gods Law to all to whom they are published by Gods act of publishing them But Civil Law by the act of Soveraign Powers in acting Christianity upon their Subjects 7 CHAP. IV. Neither the Dictate of Gods Spirit nor the aâ—thority of the Church is the reason of believing any thing in Christianity Whether the Church be before the Scripture or the Scripture before the Church The Scriptures contain not the Infallibility of the Church Nor the consent of all Christians 18 CHAP. V. All things necessary to salvation are not clear in the Scriptures to all understandings Not in the old Testament Not in the Gospel Not in the Writings of the Apostles It is necessary to salvation to believe more then this that our Lord is the Christ Time causeth obscurity in the Scriptures aswell as in other Records That it is no where said in the Scriptures that all things necessary to salvation are clear in the Scriptures Neither is there any consent of all Christians to evidence the same 25 CHAP. VI. All interpretation of Scripture is to be consined within the Tradition of the Church This supposeth that the Church is a Communion instituted by God What means there is to make evidence of Gods Charter upon which the corporation of the Church subsisteth The name of the Church in the Scriptures often signifieth the Whole or Catholick Church CHAP. VII That the Apostles delivered to the Church a Summary of Christianity which all that should be baptized were to profess Evidence out of the Scriptures Evidence out of the Scriptures for Tradition regulating the Communion of the Church and the Order of it Evidence for the Rule of Faith out of the records of the Church For the Canons of the Church and the pedegree of them from the order established in the Church by the Apostles That the profession of Christianity and that by being baptized is necessary to the salvation of a Christian CHAP. VIII That the power of Governing the whole Church was in the Apostles and Disciples of Christ and those whom they tooke to assist them in the part of it The power of their Successors must needs be derived from those Why that succession which appears in one Church necessarily holdeth all Churches The holding of Councils evidenceth the Unity of the Church
Christ shed for reâ—â—ission of sins the life of the Kingdom of heaven See the unbaptized deprived also of the bread and cup of life is divided from the Kingdom of Heaven where Christ the well of life remains So it appears that the African Church had this custome but held it not necessary to salvation as Baptism But by Gennadius de dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis Cap. LII It appears to have been a custome of the Church when Hereticks were reconciled to the Church by confirmation to give their little ones the Eucharist presently upon it And Ordo Romanus de Baptismo prescribes it after the solemn Baptism before Easter which the French Capitulary I. 161. and Alcuinus also de divinis officiis provideth for And in the Eastern Church Dionysius in the end of the booke de Hierarchiâ Ecclesiasticâ In the mean time it is to be considered that there being no order that all should be baptized Infants nor at what age Whereupon St. Gregory Nazianzene Orat. XLII in Sanctum Bapt. advises at three or four years of age it cannot be said to have been a generall custome of the Church Nor that it could be originall from the Apostles because the solemn times of Baptisme at Easter and Whitsontide cannot be thought to have been settled till Christianity was grown very vulgar For as for those that were baptized upon particular occasions or in danger of death it cannot be thought that the Eucharist was celebrated for their purpose nor doth any example appear that it was ever brought them from the Church On the contrary when the times of Baptisme came to be disused because it was found to be for the best that all should be baptized Infants upon this occasion the receiving of the Eucharist came to be deferred as much longer then was fitting in my opinion then it was given too soon in S. Cyprians time according to the example related by him in his Book de Lapsis where the Child whom the Pagans had given bread dipped in the wine that had been consecrated to their Idols because too young to eat of the flesh of their sacrifices receives the Eucharist in the Church CHAP. XXIV Two sorts of means to resolve whatsoever is resolvable concerning the Scripture Upon what terms the Church may or is to determine controversies of Faith And what obligation that determination produceth Traditions of the Apostles oblige the present Church as the reasons of them continue or not Instances in our Lords Passeover and Eucharist Penance under the Apostles and afterwards S. Pauls vail eating blood and things offered to Idols The power of the Church in limiting these Traditions I May now proceed I conceive to resolve generally upon what principles any thing questionable in Christianity is determinable and as franckly as briefly do affirm that there are but two sorts of means to resolve us in any thing of that nature Tradition and Argument Authority and Reason History and Logick For whatsoever any Artist or Divine hath said of the great use of the languages in discovering the true meaning of the Original Scriptures by the ancient Translations as well as the Originalls which I allow as much as they demand they must give me leave to observe that seeing all languages are certain Lawes of speaking which have the force of signifying by being delivered to posterity upon agreement of their Predeoessors all that helpe is duly ascribed to Tradition which we have from the Languages Indeed this is no Tradition of the Church no more then all History and Historicall truth concerning the times the places the persons mentioned in the Scripture concerning the Lawes the Customes the Fashions and orders practised by persons mentioned in the Scriptures in all particulars whereof the Scripture speaks which whether it be delivered by Christians or not Christians as far as the common reason of men alloweth or warranteth it for Historical truth is to be admitted into consequence in inquiring the meaning of the Scriptures and without it all pretense of Languages is pedantick and contemptible as that which gives the true reason to the Language of the Scripture whatsoever it import in vulgar use This helpe being applied to the Text of the Scripture it will be of consequence to confider the process of the discourse pursuing that which may appear to be intended not by any mans fancy but by those marks which cleared by the helps premised may appear to signifie it Which is the work of reason supposing the truth of the Scriptures And whereas other passages of Scripture either are clearer of themselves or being made clearer by using the same helps may seem to argue the meaning of that which is questioned whereas other parts of Christianity resolved afore may serve as principles to inferre by consequence of reason the truth of that which remains in doubt not to be impured therefore to reason but to the truth from which reason argues as believed and not seen this also is no lesss the work of reason supposing the truth of the Scriptures But whereas there be two sorts of things questionable in Christianity and all that is questionable meerly in point of truth hath relation to and dependance upon the rule of faith as consequent to it or consistent with it if we will have it true or otherwise if false I acknowledge in the first place that nothing of this nature can be questionable further then as some Scripture the meaning whereof is not evident createth the doubt And therefore that the determination of the meaning of that Scripture is the determination of the truth questionable For seeing the truth of Gods nature and counsails which Christianity revealeth are things which no Christian can pretend to have known otherwise then by revelation from God and that we have evidence that whatsoever we have by Scripture is revealed but by the Tradition of the Church no further then all the Church agreeth in it all that wherein it agreeeth being supposed to be in the Scripture and much more then that It followeth that nothing can be affirmed as consequent to or consistent with that which the tradition of the Church containeth but by the Scripture and from the Scripture So that I willingly admit whatsoever is alleadged from divers sayings of the Fathers that whatsoever is not proved out of the Scriptures is as easily rejected as it is affirmed limiting the meaning of it as I have said But whatsoever there is Scripture produced to prove seeing we have prescribed that nothing can be admitted for the true meaning of any Scripture that is against the Catholick Tradition of the Church it behoveth that evidence be made that what is pretended to be true hath been taught in the Church so expresly as may inferre the allowance of it and therefore is not against the rule of Faith But this being cleared so manifest as it is that the Church hath not the priviledge of infallibility in any express act which is not justifiable from the universall
the second of the LXX whose privildges are not to be communicated to any authority to be preserved in the Church afterwards But the importance of these exhortations is not such as can inferre any imagination of infallibility in those whom they are exhorted to follow For they that know the bounds of that Power which the Apostles had trusted with the Governours of particular Churches presupposing the Christianity and Laws of Ecclesiastical communion which themselves had delivered may safely be exhorted to acknowledge them to esteem them above measure in love to obey them and to give way to them remembring those from whom they had first received Christianity from whom they had received these instructions as well as their then Rulers because they had long before received and yielded obedience to those things which we except from the obedience of present Rulers as presupposed to any power they can challenge As for the words of S. Paul 1 Tim. III. 15. I confess they containe a very just and full attribute of the Church and a Title serving to justifie all the right I challenge for it For if the Church be the House of the living God then is it by Gods founding and appointment a Body consisting of all members of the true Church wherein God dwells as of old in the Temple at Jerusalem as he dwells in every Christian as he dwelt in the Tabernacle and Campe of the Israelites And if it be the Pillar that sustains the truth then must it have wherewith to maintain it beside the truth it selfe which is the Scriptures And what what can that be but the testimony of it selfe as a body and fellowship of men onely which securing it selfe that is succession by the evidence made to the Predecessors of the same body maintains the truth once committed to the trust of it not onely by writing but also by practice But what is this to the gift of Infallibility for suppose the Church by the foundation of it inabled to maintain both the truth and the sufficience of the motives of faith against Infidels and also the rule of faith against Hereticks by the evidence which it maketh that they are received What is this to the creating of faith by decreeing that which before it was decreed was not the object of faith but upon such decree obligeth all faithful to believe Surely the Church cannot be the Pillar that sustains any faith but that which is laid upon it as received from the beginning not that which it layeth upon the foundation of faith Here I will desire the Reader to peruse these words of S. Basil Epist LXII speaking of the Bishop of Neo caesarea deceased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a man gone that of all men of his time most evidently excelled in all and every of those good things that belong to men The stay of his Country the ornament of the Church the Pillar that sustained the truth For if a particular Prelate may duly be qualified as well the Pillar that supporteth the truth as the prop of his Country Well may the Church be thought capable of the same stile though it create no matter of faith by decreeing but onely preserve that which it hath received by defending and maintaining it CHAP. XXXI The Fathers acknowledge the Sufficience and clearness of the Scriptures as the Traditions of the Church They are to be reconciled by limiting the terms which they use The limitation of those sayings which make all Christian truth to be contained in the Scriptures Of those which make the authority of the Church the ground of Faith IT is now time having showed the meaning of those Scriptures which are alleged for both extremes which I avoid to do the like for some of those sayings of the Fathers which are pleaded to the same purpose This abridgment cannot consider all Therefore I will not multiply those which speak to one and the same purpose Nor marshal them according to the mater which they speak to Finding them speak to any branch of those extremes which I decline I will put them down as they come S. Augustine again de Doctr. Christianâ II. 6. for one place you had afore Magnifice salubriter Spiritus Sanctus ità Scripturas modificavit ut locis apertioribus fami occurreret obscurioribus fastidia detergeret Nihil enim ferè de illis obscuritatibus eruitur quod non planissimè dictum alibi reperiatur Gallantly as well as wholesomly hath the Holy Ghost so tempered the Scriptures as to satisfie hunger by those places that are plain by those that are obscure to wipe of queasiness For there is scarce any thing digged out of those dark places that is not found most manifestly said elsewhere Epist III. Tanta est Christianarum profunditas literarum ut in eis quotidie proficerem si eas solas ab ineunte pueritiâ usque ad decrepitam senectutem maximo otio summo studio meliore ingenio conarer addiscere Non quòd ad ea quae necessaria sunt saluti tant â in eis perveniatur difficultate Sed cùm ibi quisque fidem tenuerit sine quâ rectè pieque non vivitur tam multa tamque multis mysteriorum umbraculis opaca intelligenda proficientibus restant So great is the depth of the Writings of Christianity that I should profit in them continually if I should indeavor to learn them onely at very great leasure with most earnest study having a better wit from the beginning of my nonage till decrepit old age Not as if it were so hard to attain to that which is necessary in them But when a man hath attained the Faith without which there is no good and godly living there remain so many things to be understood and so darkly shadowed with manifold mysteries Clemens Protreptico 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hear yee then that are farre off hear yee that are near hand The word is not hid from any It is a common light it shineth upon all men There are no Cimmerians in the Word As some said then that there were in the world that had no Sun Irenaeus II. 46. Vniversae Scripturae Propheticae Apostolicae in aperto sine ambiguitate similiter ab omnibus audiri possunt All the Scriptures both of the Prophets and Apostles are open and without ambiguity and may be heard or understood alike of all III. 15. Doctrina Apostolorum manifesta firma nihil subtrahens neque alia quidem in abscondito alia verò in manifesto docent um The doctrine of the Apostles is clear and firm and conceals nothing As not teaching one thing in secret and another openly Origen contra Celsum VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The vnlgar after their entrance made may easily study to apprehend even the deeper notions that are hid in the Scriptures For it is manifest to any man that reads them that they may have much deeper sense than that which straight appears in them Which becomes
The Word shines upon all and is hid to none saith Clemens to the Gentiles But it is enough for his purpose that they may be convinced of Christianity whether the Scriptures contain it clearly to all understandings or not Tertullian prescribeth that when once wee believe wee are to believe that wee have nothing else to believe because the Gnosticks pretended secrets which our common Christianity they confessed contained not Claudius Apollinaris is afraid that our common Christianity might be thought unperfit if hee should write against Montanus And does not Christians writing one against another cast a mark of imperfection upon it in the opinion of unbelievers though Christians ought to know that God is not tyed to prevent offenses Assuredly the Gospel of which hee speaks is neither any one Gospel nor all four Nor can the word Gospel signifie either the New Testament alone or the Old and New both Nor could hee be thought to adde to them by expounding them and thereby maintaining the Church Therefore hee inferrs a good consequence that because it is forbidden to adde to or take from the Law therefore our common Christianity is not unperfit nor ought wee to do that whereby it may seem unperfit Now as for the sayings alleged out of S. Austine that import as much as the words which wee had afore Ego Evangelio non crederem having showed what is the effect and intent of them I shall not be very solicitous to show how all that is said to the same effect is answered For as there is no head so hard that cannot distinguish between the authority of the Church as it is a visible Body of men that could never have been cozened into the beliefe of Christianity upon pretended motives whether sufficient or not and as it is supposed by Christians to be a Body founded by God So is there no heart so hardned with prejudice as to refuse this demand That the authority of the Church as the Church presupposes the truth of Christianity and therefore proves it not And by consequence no truth that Christianity either containeth or inferreth Which being admitted if any thing be ascribed to the Church which seems not to suppose any part of Christian truth it must be referred to the authority and credit of the Church as a visible Body of men moving others to imbrace the Christian Faith For though this credit contribute to the making of those men Christians which are won to the Church already setled and so the Church is the Church before they are Christians Yet is the ground and reason which makes the Church a Body founded by God to wit the profession of Christianity more ancient in order of reason and nature than the being of the Church And upon supposition of this ground that is that the Church hath true reasons as well as sufficient to believe proceeds all that authority of the Church which S. Austine allegeth to the Manichees upon so high terms that hee would not believe were hee not moved by it to believe Neither was it the authority of the Church vested in the rest of the Apostles that gave S. Paul the authority of an Apostle over the Church though I have said afore that all the authority which the Church can ever have was in the Apostles and disciples of our Lord for the time And though it is manifest that S. Paul could not have had the Authority of an Apostle over the Church had he not been owned by the rest of the Apostles but the Authority of our Lord Christ in the Apostles of the same effect in obliging the Church to receive S. Paul for an Apostle as to receive that which they preached for the Faith Nor is the mater much otherwise in the receiving of any Scripture for Canonital For neither can any mans writing be owned for Canonical Scripture not supposing his person owned by the Apostles And his authority being so owned is necessarily before any authority of the Church and the very being of it That some Scriptures may be received in some Churches and not in others is not because any Church can have authority to reject that which another is bound to receive but because some Church may not know that some Scripture comes from a man so owned by the Apostles though another may know it and yet be a Church and salvation be had in the communion of it such knowledg depending meerly upon evidence in point of fact And therefore the act of the Church in listing the Scripture hath no authority but that which the presumption of such evidence createth As for the rest of that which is alleged for the authority of the Church if S. Jerome resolve to stand to the Church of Rome it is not because hee takes the sentence thereof to be infallible but because hee had reason to presume that it were in vain for an Angel in heaven to preach any other Faith to it than that which once had been received Nor doth S. Cyprian make the not believing the Popes infallibility the sourse of all Heresie and Schism but the neglect of authority derived from the Apostles upon the Heads of particular Churches in the consent of whom the visibility of the true Faith and Church both consisteth For it is meer slight of hand to take the Rock which the Gates of Hell vanquish not in S. Austine for the Church of Rome because hee spoke of it in the words next afore Being meant of the Vine which hee had speech of a little afore that to wit the Christianity which our Lord Christ preacheth For in S. Bernards time I grant the stile was changed and it might passe for good doctrine to say That the Faith cannot suffer any failleur in the Church of Rome As for all those passages of the Fathers which are alleged in recommendation whether of Tradition for the Rule of Faith or of Traditions which are the Lawes of the Church they are all mine own They cannot serve the turn of any opinion but that which I pretend That the Tradition of the Church witnessed and evidenced by the continual exercice and practice of the Church extant in the records of the Church not constituted and created by any expresse act of those that have authority in behalf of the Church as it giveth bounds to the interpretation of the Scripture in such things as concern the Rule of Faith So it discovereth what Lawes the Church received from the Apostles and by consequence what is agreeable and consequent to the intent of the same in future times according to the difference between that and the present state of the Church Let those things therefore which have been produced here be added to that which I alleged in the beginning to make evidence for the Corporation of the Church from the Lawes given it by the Apostles Irenaus shall serve both for the authority of the Scripture antecedent to the authority of the Church and for the Tradition of the Church bounding
provided a visible Judg infallible in determining Controversies of Faith either because originally his goodnesse requires it or because wee cannot suppose that men can be obliged to imbrace the Gospel upon other terms It is sufficient that having given the Scriptures hee hath over and above provided the Communion of the Church to preserve the Rule of Faith and the Laws of the Church in the sensible knowledg and common practice of all Christians that the means of salvation might be sufficient and yet men remain subject to trial whether they would render them uneffectual or not to themselvs and the rest of mankinde I confess indeed it would be much for the ease of the parties and would shorten their work very much if it might be admitted for a presumption that all things necessary are clear in the Scriptures or that the Church is an infallible Judg in Controversies of Faith For then the superficial sound of the words of Scripture repeated by rote in the Pulpit or out of the Pulpit would serve to knock the greatest question on the head without any advise what difficulties remain behind undecided upon no lesse appearances in Scripture On the other side a decree of the Council of Trent would serve to put the Scripture to silence without any proffer to satisfie the conscience that is moved with the authority thereof equally obliging with our common Christianity with the sense of the Church on the same side to boot Thus much is visible that they whose businesse it is in England to reconcile souls to the Church of Rome finde their work ready done when they have gained this point and men all their lives afore grounded upon contrary reasons in the particulars which are the subject of the breach change their profession without any coutrary resolution in those particulars that is their former grounds remaining in force Surely nothing were more desirable than a ready and short way to the truth in things so concerning But to pretend it upon a ground which if any thing can be demonstrative in this kinde is demonstratively proved that it cannot be true To wit the authority of the Church decreeing without means to derive that which it decreeth from the motives that should evidence it to be revealed by God This I say to pretend is no better than an Imposture And if this be true I remain secure of that which every man will object against the resolution which I advance that whereas the meaning of the Scripture alone is a thing too difficult for the most part of men to compasse I require further that it be assured by the records of the Church which are endlesse and which no mans industry can attain to know So that the meer despair of finding resolution by the means propounded will justifie to God him that followes probabilities as being all one in that case whether there be no truth or whether it cannot appear to those whom it concerns This Objection I say I do not finde so heavy upon mee that I have any cause to mince but rather to aggravate the difficulty of it having showed that the means provided by God to make evidence of the Faith to the consciences of particular Chaistians is not any gift of infallibility vested in any person or persons on behalf of the whole Church but the Unity of the whole Church grounded upon the profession of the same Faith as the condition of it For in all reason what Unity bindes that Division destroyes And whatsoever Unity contributes to the assurance of a Christian that hee is in the way to salvation so long as hee continues in the Unity of the Church that the Division of the Church necessarily derogates from the same assurance in him that cannot continue in that Unity which is once dissolved and yet believing the Scriptures and our common Christianity to be infallibly true cannot believe the parties to be infallible as they are And what hath hee that desireth the Unity of the Church to do but to aggravate that difficulty of attaining salvation which the division thereof produceth I do therefore grant and challenge as for mine own Interest that it is very difficult for unlearned Christians to discern the truth in those Controversies about which a settled division is once formed as now in the Western Church At least upon so true and so clear grounds as may assure them that they make their choice upon no other interest than that of Gods truth But I do not therefore yield to that which this difficulty it seems hath wrung from Vincentius Lerinensis with whom agreeth the Opus imperfectum in Mat. as you have them quoted afore That there is no means but Scripture to convince inveterate Heresies The reason whereof the later of those authors renders Because those Heresies have their Churches their Pastors and the succession of them and their Communion as well as Catholick Christians For hee supposeth Pastors lawfully constituted to have fallen away to those Heresies And truly the case of this difficulty was put when the Arian Faction had possessed so great a part of the Church that S. Gregory Nazianzene in the place afore quoted acknowledges that the true Church could not be judged by numbers With whom S. Hilary libro de Synodis agreeth But if the same Nazianzene scorn them that value the Church by numbers Liberius in the place afore quoted out of Theodoret revies it upon him in saying that the cause of the Faith could not suffer though hee were alone For not onely the Scriptures continue alwaies the same but though the present Church fail it follows not that the Tradition of the Whole Church must fail with it So long as the original sense of the Whole Church may be evident by the agreement thereof with the Scripture wee may discern what is Catholick without the sentence of the present Church And that which is not so to be discerned for Catholick wee may presume that our salvation requires us not to believe it And therefore Vincentius and his fellow are so to be understood that it is difficult indeed to make evidence to private Christians of Tradition contrary to that which they see received by Heresies And therefore that for the convicting of them in the truth recourie is to be had to the Scriptures But Vincentius who as I showed you acknowledges evidence for Tradition from written records of the Church need not have said that there is no means to convince inveterate Heresies but the Scriptures Be this difficulty then the evidence how much it concerns the salvation of all Christians that the Unity of the Church be restored That the choice of private Christians in maters concerning their salvation be not put upon the sentencing of those disputes the reasons whereof they are not able to manage For being restored upon agreement in those things which it is sufficient for all Christians to believe it will neither be easie for private Christians to frame to themselves opinions
destructive to their particular salvation within that compasse neither will their fall be imputable to the Church but to themselves if they do But neither shall this difficulty be so great an inconvenience in our common Christianity nor so insuperable as it seems to those that are loth to be too much troubled about the world to come For I never found that God pretendeth to give or that it is reason hee should give those means for attaining that truth by which wee must be saved which it should not lye within the malice of man to render difficult for them to compasse whom they concern I finde it abundantly enough for his unspeakable goodness and exactly agreeable with those means whereby hee convicteth the world of the truth of Christianity that hee give those whom it concerns such means to discern the truth of things in debate as being duly applyed are of themselves sufficient to create a resolution as certain as the weight of the mater in debate shall require And such I maintain the Scripture to be containing the sense of it within those bounds which the Rule of Faith and the Lawes given the Church by our Lord and his Apostles do limit For what is more obvious than to discern what the whole Body of the Church hath agreed in what not what is manifestly consequent to the same what not what is agreeable to the ground and end of those Lawes which the Church first received from our Lord and his Apostles what not Let prejudice cast what mists of difficulties it can before the light which God hath given his Church to discover the truth hee that stands out of their way shall discern much more art used to obscure than to discern it Neither is there any reason why it is so hard to make it discernable to all that are concerned but the unreasonable prejudices either of the force of humane authority in mater of Faith and the extent of Tradition beyond the Rule of Faith or that the consent of the whole Church may as well come from Antichrist as from the Apostles If the records of the Church were handled without these prejudices lesse learning than this age shows in other maters might serve to evidence the consent of â— Church in more controversies than wee have to those that would be content to rest in the Scripture expounded according to the same But if the Church that is those that uave right in behalf of the Church being perswaded of a sacrilegious privilege of Infallibility shall take upon them to determine truths in debate to limit Lawes to the Church without respect to this Rule which if they respect they manifestly renounce the privilege of their Infallibility I mervail not that God suffers his people to be tried with such difficulties whose sins I doubt deserve this tryal But then I say further that it is not the providence of God that is the means which hee hath provided to resolve men in debates of Christianity but it is the malice of man that makes that means uneffectual which God hath made sufficient I must now answer an envious objection that this resolution is not according to the positions of those that professe the Reformation with us To which I will speak as freely as to the rest having profess'd my self utterly assoiled of all faction and respect of mens persons to way against the means of finding the truth and for that reason devested even the Fathers of the Church of all authority which their merits from Christianity have purchased to hear what their testimonies argue in point of Historical truth I say then first that may saying no way prejudices the intent and interest of the Reformation whatsoever insufficience it may charge the expressions of Reformers with I know the worst that can be alleged in this point is that Luther in appealing from the Pope and Council called by him to a Council that should judg meerly by the Scriptures first framed this Controversie between the Scriptures and the Church which since hath been alwaies in debate so that hee which will not be tried by the Scriptures alone plainly seems to quit the party and give up the game Who has this imagination though never to apparent let mee desire him to go a little higher to the first commencing of the plea about Indulgences For there can be nothing more manifest than this That when those that undertook that cause against Luther found that the present practice of the Church could not be derived from any thing recorded in the Scripture they were forced to betake themselves to the authority of the Church not that which consisteth in testifying the faith once delivered but in creating that which never was of force untill the exercice of it Here let all the world judg for I am confident the case is so plain that all the world may judg in it whether Luther had any Interest to demand that the Scripture alone should be heard in opposition to the Tradition received from the beginning by the Church tending as I have said to nothing but to limit the meaning of the Scripture Or that his Interest required him to protest that the truth for which hee stood was not to be liable to the Sentence of the present Church And therefore when afterwards hee appealed to a Council which should pronounce by the Scriptures alone if this tend to exclude those means which are subordinate to the attaining of the meaning of the Scriptures I do utterly deny that it can be understood so to be meant by any man that would not defeat his own enterprize And therefore that it must be understood to exclude onely the authority of the present Church so farre as it proceeds not upon supposition of those grounds whereupon the Church is to pronounce For what hinders the sentence of the Church to be infallible not of it self alone but as it proceeds upon those means which duely applied produce a sentence that is infallible And truly were not his plea so to be understood all his Followers Melancthan Chemnitius and others who have written Volumes to show how their profession agrees with that of the Catholick Church should have taken pains to commit a very great inconsequence For as I have argued that those who maintain the Infallibility of the present Church do contradict themselves whensoever they have recourse either to the Scripture or to any Records of the Church to evidence the sense of the Scripture in that which otherwise they professe the authority of the Church alone infallibly to determine So those that will have the Scripture alone to determine all Controversies of Faith and yet take the pains to bring evidence of the meaning thereof from that which hath been received in the Church may very well be said to take pains to contradict themselves Some of our Scottish Presbyterians have observed that the Church of England was reformed by those that had more esteem of Melancthon than of Calvin and
is held and practised convincing where the truth is and on which side especially if wee content our selves with what is probable from it expecting from Tradition what is definite and certain For supposing so great a Congregation as the Church to take this for the ground of their Faith that nothing is to be believed for revealed truth but what they have received from hand to hand from the Apostles it must be granted First that they had the same perswasion from the beginning Because having never declared to their successors what are the particulars they are to receive either they had from the beginning this principle to distinguish mater of faith from that which is not or could never introduce it without grosse imposture And besides that holding this perswasion they could never admit any thing as received from their Fore-fathers which was not so indeed Because whole Nations can never agree so to deceive in a mater subject to sense as to say that they received this or that from their Fore-fathers when they did not the reason being the same in all ages since Christ as in our own For the Christian Faith being so repeated so inculcated by the preaching of the Apostles how long soever wee suppose the remembrance of their doctrine to have remained certain in the Church so long wee may inferre that age which had this certain remembrance must convey it as certain in a sensible distance of time and by the means of such distances that it must needs come no lesse certain to us Neither can any breach have been made upon the Faith without contesting the common principle of Tradition in the first place and secondly the consequence and correspondence which the Articles of Christianity have one with another by means whereof hee that questioneth one must needs by consequence prejudice others And Religion being a bond by observing which people are perswaded they shall attain happinesse the same motives to enter into this bond in general the same grounds of embracing Christianity in particular remaining how should wee imagine any part of it should be either lost or changed which necessarily must concurre to the effect of the whole For being dispersed as from the beginning it hath been over so many Nations whose authority can be a sufficient reason to perswade them all that which hee sayes to have been received from the Apostles not that which they were possessed of afore Who is able to move them with hopes and fears answerable to those which wrought them to imbrace it either to silence or to change it And yet so long as it can appear that the contrary was received so long time must the change require to prevaile and so much more to leave the truth forgot and yet subject to be evidenced by any Records that may remain So that there is no appearance that the principles producing such a change should so long time prevail as those motives that first evidenced the truth And further upon all this appearance in point of fact it is argued à priori and as it were in point of Right That God having provided so many possibilities to make the preservation of Christianity so easie the effect must needs have followed lest the means should have been provided in vain if no effect should insue All possibility being to no purpose when no effect followes and no effect but this answering the means that render it so possible CHAP. XXXI That the Scriptures which wee have are unquestionable That mistakes in Copying are not considerable to the sense and effect of them The meaning of the Hebrew and Greek even of the Prophets determinable to the deciding of Controversies How Religion delivered by Tradition becomes subject to be corrupted THis is the summe of this new account which to my understanding maintains the Infallibility of the present Church upon as high terms as those that resolve the reason of their Faith into it and yet not upon any gift of Infallibility intailed upon any visible act of any persons however qualified on behalf of the Church but upon a pretense of evidence made to common sense that those who acknowledge Tradition cannot receive any thing not onely which they believe to be but which is indeed inconsistent with it Wherein I shall protest in the first place that I have nothing to do with the terms of great error or Christianity so as to say here that either Christianity which hee calleth Christs Law or any part of it either hath been or may be renounced by them that pretend to admit nothing as revealed truth but what they believe was received from the Apostles and that so great an error as this may have crept into the Church For the present purpose being general to try how any thing in debate may be tryed whether agreeable to the Faith or not I should count it a great impertinence and the ruine of all that I design to infer upon sufficient principles which I pretend those which I reject not to be to be ingaged to show how great any error may be before I have a ground to inferre whether it be an error or not But if I may proceed to settle such a ground I shall make no doubt to convince all that remain convict of the truth thereof how great the error is which it convicteth It shall therefore suffice mee for the present to state the opposition which I make to this pretense upon these termes That the common sense of all Christians determineth those who pretend to admit nothing as of Faith but what they receive from our Lord and his Apostles to be subject neverthelesse under that pretense to receive things really inconsistent with it and which may be discerned so to be by the means which wee have to decide such questions The Scriptures interpreted by the Original and Catholick Tradition of the Church The evidence of this position necessarily consists in that which is to be said for Scripture and Tradition joyntly as the onely sufficient means to evidence Christian truths that is to say that having showed the arguments made against Scripture alone and for Tradition alone to be ineffectual and void That which remains for the truth will be this that the Scripture with Tradition to determine the meaning of it do both together make a sufficient means to determine the truth of any thing questioned concerning Christianity I say then in behalf of the Scripture which this plea so undervalueth as not to acknowledge any such thing but in favour to them whom they dispute with that it is a mervail to see how the greater difference with common enemies is forgot upon lesse quarrels among our selves For if there be any such men as Atheists that deny the beginning of the world and the marks of Gods providence expressed in the government of it as I would there were none I demand how they could be more gratified than by making it beleeved that we are no more tied to beleeve Moses writings
the motives of Christianity could never have prevailed to introduce it into the belief and profession of all Christendom had they not been true But it followeth not therefore that Christianity beeing settled and a Power to conclude the Church lawfully vested in some members of it in behalf of the whole within due bounds The act of this Power transgressing the due bounds shall not be able to produce in so great a Body an opinion of the like obligation upon the expresse act of this Power as upon Tradition truly derived from the Apostles For the truth of Christianity professed called in question mens lives and fortunes which they were not therefore so ready to ingage upon an imposture But if when Soveraigns own the act of that Power which concludeth the Church hee that acknowledges it not calls in question his estate and reputation or whatsoever good of this world the protection of the Church ingageth Upon this account then it is possible that innovation should come into the Church without calling in question the common principle that nothing is to be admitted which comes not from the Apostles Nay without calling in question other points of Christianity so received Because nothing hinders things inconsistent with or at least impertinent to that which the Apostles have delivered to be received as consequent to that which indeed they have delivered though not as expresly contained in the same And because I would not speak without instance in a businesse so general I demand of those that hold this opinion whether they believe that the Greek and Latine Church at such time as the Schism fell out between them did both believe Tradition as well as Scripture And when it appears that there was no visible difference between them in that regard at that time I shall desire them to tell mee what they think of their demand that all Sectaries have alwayes left Tradition to betake themselves to Scripture alone For though I pretend not to suppose either the one party or the other guilty of Schism or Heresie in this place yet I pretend it visible to common sense that they who pretend to receive nothing but from the Apostles may think that which is not to be received from the Apostles unlesse contradictories may be both true at once Another instance I will give that learned Gentleman Tho. White who professeth to put Rushworths Dialogues into the world as his ward and an Orfane out of the book which hee hath published of the mean state of souls between death and the general Judgment to show that there is a Tradition of the Church that the greatest part of the souls of Christians that are not damned continue in a state of joy or grief proportionable to the affection they had to this world while they were of it to be purged thereof at the general Judgment but are not translated by any prayers of the Church to the kingdom of heaven from Purgatory pains For I demand of him that believes this whether it be received now or not how hee will defend his Ward that maintains the present Tradition to be alwaies the same For if it be said that it is not decreed by the Church though generally believed and practiced accordingly I will say that my businesse is done when the most votes by so many degrees are consenting to that which hee maintains is contrary to the Tradition of the Apostles his vote and perhaps two or three more in the communion of the Church of Rome not hindring that which is received in practice to be a more effectual Law in force than abundance of things inacted in writing that will never come to effect A third instance I will give in the difference between the Reformation and the Church of Rome concerning the Canon of Scripture Supposing that the late Scholastical History thereof hath made evidence that those books belonging to the Old Testament which the Council of Trent maketh Canonical Scripture were never received for such from the Apostles In as much as it is evident that there were in all ages of the Church that did not take them for Canonical Scripture For this being supposed what question can remain that this decree cannot be taken to proceed from Tradition of the Apostles But from a mistake in the Power of the Church as grounded upon a gift of infallibility tyed by God upon the visible act of persons inabled to decree in Council Otherwise men of reason would not have taken upon them to make that Canonical Scripture which there is evidence that they never received for Canonical Scripture And indeed I who have no more to demand here but that something may be thought by the Church to come from the Apostles which in truth it never received from the Apostles do seek no more by the premises but this That no general presumption from the present Church be receivable against evidence of historical truth in the records of by-past ages That men will not take that for the Tradition of the Catholick Church which some part of the Church they see hath not owned for such That they will abate of the generality of their position as the particulars out of which the induction must rise may require I take not upon mee to say here that any foundation of Faith necessary to the salvation of all hath been or can have been extinguished by Tradition of the present Church But I say here that something may be taken by the present Church to come from the Apostles which in truth comes not from the Apostles And so long as that is true I say that the choice of Religion cannot be prejudged by common sense without taking into consideration the weight of those truths which may appear to be held otherwise by the present Church then originally they have been received from the Apostles Now to that which is said that unlesse Christianity continue as it was delivered the possibilities provided by God to that end will be in vaine Though it be a dispute as unseasonable here as to little purpose yet because it requires no more than common sense to judge I say that the ends of Gods creatures and works are none of Gods ends My meaning is that it is one thing to say God would have this to be the end of his creature happinesse for example to be the end of man another thing to say that hee made man to bring him to happinesse The difference being the same in the works of his providence whether it be said that hee provided such means as of their nature tended to propagate the truth of Christianity preached by the Apostles to all posterity or that hee intended thereby to propagate the same In a word whether it be said to be Gods end or the end of his works And truly hee that sayes it was Gods end consequently sayes that God falls short of his end if it come not to passe But hee that will speak of God with reverence must not imagine
Valerianus de Flavigny Professor of the Ebrew in the University of Paris written in opposition to an opinion vented in the Preface to the great Bible lately published there in disparagement of the Ebrew Copy of the Old Testament Where hee shall see that opinion refuted with that eagernesse and the contrary attested by the opinions of so many Divines of so great note in the Church of Rome since that Council that no man that sees them can deny that notwithstanding the decree it is free for every man to maintain the original Copies to be authentick And truly hee that should affirm the credit of the Scripture to stand upon the decree of the present Church or upon the testimony of the Spirit must by consequence have recourse to the same visible decree or to the same invisible dictate whensoever it shall be necessary to accept or refuse the reading of any text of Scripture with that faith which if it be false the whole truth of Christianity will be forfeit What Rushworth and his possession would do to evidence what reading of the Scripture is indeed authentick when as it doth not appear what is the reading which the Church is truly in possession of let him advise For in that case hee must expresly avow the consequence of his position that the Scripture is not considerable in resolving Controversies of Faith Because the Church is not in possession of the certain reading of any Scripture For if hee say hee hath made short work in that question having discharged the Scripture of being necessary to the Church and therefore acquitted himself of any necessity to show how wee may come by true Scripture and in stead thereof and all other means of deciding Controversies in the Church established the tradition presently in possession First it will be easier for mee to verifie the short Rule of Faith by the Scriptures interpreted according to that which by records may appear to have been from the beginning of force in the Church than it will be for him to show what is the Tradition which the Church is in possession of at present And that this being showed I shall not need to fear any great danger that hee may object from the variety of reading which may be found in several Copies the necessity of salvation being secured And then in the next place to say That the Scripture is not necessary though not for the salvation of every Christian yet for the salvation of the Body of Christians which is the Church Though that faction which separation ingenders will suffer no opinion to be plausible but those which are in extreams Yet I hope the malice of Satan hath not yet debauched the ears of Christians to indure And thus as afore it was settled that the whole Scripture is received for the word of God upon the credit of Tradition so of every part and parcel of it wherein the credit of several Copies consisteth it is consequently to be said that nothing can oblige the faith of a Christian to receive it unquestionably for the word of God the Tradition whereof is not unquestionable But thus mâ—ch being settled That what was originally delivered in Greek and Ebrew is to be received for the authentick Word of God What was originally delivered in Greek and Ebrew may still remain questionable That is to say this being agreed it may still remain questionable what Copies they are that do contain that which was originally delivered in Greek and Ebrew How probable it is I need not yet say but any man of common sense must say that it is possible through the changes that time is able to produce that the translations shall prove better than the originals and that the Scriptures shall be truer read among those that have received than among those that delivered them And this is indeed the true state of the question which is now come to be disputed upon due terms as it seems To wit whether the Ebrew Copies which now wee have from the Jews and the Greek Copies of the New Testament now extant contain that Scripture which all Christians are bound to receive upon their Christianity not onely in opposition to the Vulgar Latine which the Council of Trent injoyneth and to the authority of the present Church thinking that it is concluded in that decree but in opposition to that Tradition which other ancient Copies either original or translated may and do contain and evidence In which point I shall in the first place professe as concerning the Old Testament that I finde it no inconvenience but a great deal of reason to grant that at what time those books were made up into a Body and consigned unto the Synagogue the reading which wee have received from them was not delivered as unquestionable so that it should be any prejudice to the Law of God to suspect it but as the most probable and by admitting whereof no prejudiee to the said Law could follow And the safety of this position both Jews and Christians will witnesse with mee For if the Jews rruly acknowledg and insist that their Judaism is sufficiently grounded and witnessed by the leter of the Old Testament which wee have the Christians that their Christianity is as sufficiently to be evidenced by the Copies wee have as Christianity was intended to be delivered by the Scriptures of the Old Testament Is it possible that it should be a mater of jealousie for mee to admit that in that Body of the Old Testament which the Christians have received from the Jews there may be found some passages the reading whereof was not received as unquestionable when the Body of the Old Testament was consigned to the Synagogue from whence the Church receiveth it I say not when this time was nor would I have that which I affirm here to stand upon a circumstance so disputable I do believe the Jews when they tell us of the men of the Great Synagogue after the return from the Captivity from whom and by whom the Scriptures they believe were settled and delivered to their posterity I do also believe that this Assembly might and did indure whilest the Grace of Prophets had vogue and was in force among Gods people For if I believe them when they tell mee that there was such a company of men I cannot disbelieve them that the Prophets Haggai Zachary and Malachi the Scribe Esdras the same with Malachi as they tell us for any thing I know for why should I not believe Malachi being appellative and signifying my messenger to be Esdras his surname given him from that which is prophesied Mal. III. 1 Mordecai Nehemias Josue the son of Josedok and many others of that time were of it But shall I believe that their Prophetical grace was imployed to decide the true reading of the Scripture shall I believe that a new revelation was given to notifie how every leter and syllable was to be read when neither the consequence of the mater required it
in the judgement of many that think themselves the most refined Christians that they allow it not that common sense in managing the businesse of Christianity which they must needs allow Jews Pagans Mahometans in faithfully serving their own faithlesse suppositions and which all experience shows us that it serves all mankind to what purpose soever it is imployed and that notwithstanding so great a triall of it as the governing of so great a Body as the Church is in unity so farre and so long as this Unity hath prevailed it is therefore necessary to give a reason why the Church so used them Which supposing the premises it will be as easie as it is necessary for me to give and that more sufficient if I mistake not then can possibly be given not supposing the same For if the secret of the resurrection the general judgement and the World to come if the mystery of the Holy Triniâ—y consisting in the Word or Wisdome and Spirit of God if the inward and spiritual service of God in truth of heart be more clearly opened in them by the work of Providence dispensing the effect of Canonicall Scripture by the occurrences of time then in the Law and the Prophets themselves which I have showed both that so it is and why so it is from the ground of the difference between the Old and the New Testament then I suppose there is sufficient reason why those who admit the Old Testament to be made for common edification in the Church should not put any question concerning those Scriptures Those new lights among us who do not allow the Psalter to be pertinently and reasonably imployed for the publick service of God upon all occasions as the Church hath alwaies imployed it may assure us that they understand not why the Scriptures of the Old Testament are read in the Church because they understand not the correspondence between the Old and the New Testament in the understanding whereof the edification of the Church by the Scriptures of the Old Testament consisteth There may be offence taken at divers things in these Scriptures I deny not But there may be offence taken in like maner at divers things in the Canonicall Scriptures of the Old Testament The humility of Christians requires them edifying themselves in that which they understand in the Scriptures according to our common Christianity in the rest which they understand not to refer themselves to their Superiours The Church understood well enough this difference and this correspondence to be discovered by these writings as the time required when it appointed Learners to read them And though I stand not upon terms yet I conceive they are more properly called Ecclesiastical because the Church hath imployed them to be read in the Church then Apocryphal according to the use of that word in the Church to signifie such writings as the Church suspecteth and therefore alloweth not to be read whither in publick or in private Whereupon I conceive also that the term of Canonical Scripture hath and ought to have two senses one when we speak of the Jews Canon in the Old Testament another when we speak of the Canon of the Church For seeing the Tradition of the Synagogue is perfect evidence what Scriptures of the old Testament are to be received as inspired by God the word Canon in that case may well signifie the Rule of our Faith or maners But because the Church cannot pretend to create that evidence originally but onely to transmit what she receiveth from the Synagogue Pretending neverthelesse to give a Rule what shall be read for the edification of the Church the word Canon therefore in that case will signifie onely the list or Catalogue of Scriptures which the Church appoints to be read in the Church which seems to reconcile the diverse accounts extant in severall Records of the Church CHAP. XXIII The consideration of the Eucharist prescribed by Tradition for the mater of it Lords Prayer prescribed in all services The mater of Prayers for all estates prescribed The form of Baptism necessary to be prescribed The same reason holdeth in the forms of other Offices IN the next place I do maintain that the Order of celebrating the Eucharist and the Prayer which it was was from the beginning solemnized with were from the beginning prescribed the Church by unwritten custome that is by Tradition from the Apoâ—â—les containing though not so many words that it was not lawful to use more or lesse for these were always occasions for celebrating the Eucharist emergent which must be intimated in fewer or more words in the celebrating of it yet the mater and substance of the Consecration of it together with the mater and substance of the necessities of the Church for which it was offered that is to say for which the Church was and is to pray at the celebration of it as hoping to obtain them by the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross which it representeth as received from the beginning was every were known to be the same This I inferr from that which I have said in the Book afore quoted of those Texts of S. Paul where those Prayers of the Church which the Eucharist is consecrated with are called Eucharistia or Thanksgiving if not rather the thanksgiving because it was a certain form of Thanksgiving well known to all Christians by that name from whence the Sacrament â—o consecrated was also so called from the time that our Lord hâ—ing blessed or given thanks to the Father over the Elements had said This is my body this is my blood and order is given that at the celebration thereof Prayers be made for the necessities of the Church and of all people 1 Cor. XIV 25. 26. 1 Tiâ—â— II. 1-8 Together with those passages of primitive antiquity from whence it appeareth there that the form of consecrating the Eucharist used and known generally in the Church is called Eucharistia and that the custome of interceding for all the necessities of the Church and for the reducing of unbelievers to the same is and hath been taken up and ever frequented by the Church in obedience to and prosecution of the said precept of the Apostles This observation might perhaps be thought too obscure evidence â—o bring to light a point of this consequence were it not justified by all that I produced afore to show that the Eucharist is consecrated by the Prayers of the Church which celebrateth it upon the faith of our Lords institution and promise For the mater of these Prayers tending to a certain purpose that the Elements may become the Body and Blood of Christ and convay his Spirit to those who receive them with living faith the Consecration which is the effect of them requires that the form of them be prescript and certain though not in number of words yet in sense in tent and substance And this by the evidence there produced may appear to have been maintained from the beginning by Tradition in
is to determine controversies of Faith And what obligation that determination produceth Traditions of the Apostles oblige the present Church as the reasons of them continue or not Instances in our Lords Passeover and Eucharist Penance under the Apostles and afterwards S. Pauls vail eaâ—ing blood and things offered to Idols The power of the Church in limiting these Traditions 178 CHAP. XXV The power of the Church in limiting even the Traditions of the Apostles Not every abuse of this power a sâ—fficient warrant for particular Churches to reforme themselves Heresie consists in denying something necessary to salvation to be believed Schism in departing from the unity of the Church whether upon that or any other cause Implicite Faith no virtue but the effect of it may be the work of Christian charity p. 163 CHAP. XXVI What is to add to Gods Law What to adde to the Apocalypse S. Pauls Anathema The Beraeans S. Johns Gospel sufficient to make one believe and the Scriptures the man of God perfect How the Law giveth light and Christians are taught by God How Idolatry is said not to be commanded by God 168 CHAP. XXVII Why it was death to transgress the determinations of the Jewes Consistory and what power this argueth in the Church A difference between the authority of the Apostles and that of the Church The being of the Church to the worlds end with power of the Keyes makes it not infallible Obedience to Superiours and the Pillar of truth inferre it not 175 CHAP. XXXI The Fathers acknowledge the sufficiencie 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â—rnesse of the Scriptures as the Traditions of the Church They are to be reconciled by limiting the termes which they use The limitations of those sayings which make all Christian truth to be contained in the Scriptures Of those which make the authority of the Church the ground of Faith 181 CHAP. XXXII Answer to an Objection that choice of Religion becomes difficult upon these terms This resolution is for the Interest of the Reformation Those that make the Church Infallible cannot those that make the Scriptures â—â—ear â—nd sufficient may own Tradition for evidence to determine the meaning of the Scriptures and controversies of Faith The Interest of the Church of England The pretense of Rushworthes Dialogues that we have no unquestionable Scripture and that tâ—e Tradition of the Church never changes 192 CHAP. XXXI That the Scriptures which wee have are unquestionable That mistakes in Copying are not considerable to the sense and effect of them The meaning of the Hebrew and Greek even of the Prophets determinable to the deciding of Controversies How Religion delivered by Tradition becomes subject to be corrupted 198 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 chiâ—fe objections against them are questionâ—ble In those parcels of the New Testament that have been questioned the case is not the same The sense of the Church 207 CHAP. XXXIII Onely the Originall Copy can be Authentick But the truth thereof may as well be found in the translations of the Old Testament as in the Jewes Copies The Jewes have not falsified them of malice The points come neither from Moses nor Esdras but from the Talmud Iewes 218 CHAP. XXXIV Of the ancientest Translations of the Bible into Greek first With the Authors and authority of the same Then into the Chaldee Syriack and Latine Exceptions against the Greek and the Samaritane Pentateuch They are helps never thelesse to assure the true reading of the Scriptures though with other Copies whether Jewish or Christian Though the Vulgar Latine were better than the present Greek yet must both depend upon the Original Greek of the New Testament No danger to Christianity by the differences remaining in the Bible 224 The CONTENTS of the second Book CHAP. I. TWo parts of that which remains How the dispute concerning the Holy Trinity with Socinus belongs to the first The Question of justification by Faith alone The Opinion of Socinus concerning the whole Covenant of Grace The opinion of those who make justifying Faith the knowledge of a mans Predestination opposite to it in the other extream The difference between it and that of the Antinomians That there are mean Opinions p. 1 CHAP. II. Evidence what is the condition of the Covenant of Grace The contract of Baptism The promise of the Holy Ghost annexed to Christs not to Johns Baptism Those are made Christs Disciples as Christians that take up his Cross in Baptism The effects of Baptism according to the Apostles 5 CHAP. III. The exhortations of the Apostles that are drawn from the patterns of the Old Testament suppose the same How the Sacraments of the Old and New Testament are the same how not the same How the new Testament and the New Covenant are both one The free-will of man acteth the same part in dealing about the New-Covenant as about the Old The Gospel a Law 12 CHAP. IV. The consent of the whole Church evidenced by the custome of catechising By the opinion thereof concerning the salvation of those that delayed their Baptism By the rites and Ceremonies of Baptism Why no Penance for sins before but after Baptism The doctrine of the Church of England evident in this case 17 CHAP. V. The Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles evidenceth that some act of Mans free choice is the condition which it requireth The correspondence between the Old and New Testament inferreth the same So do the errors of Socinians and Antinomians concerning the necessity of Baptism Objections deferred 23 CHAP. VI. Justifying faith sometimes consists in believing the truth Sometimes in trust in God grounded upon the truth Sometimes in Christianity that is in imbracing and professing it And that in the Fathers as well as in the Scriptures Of the informed and formed Faith of the Schools 30 CHAP. VII The last signification of Faith is properly justifying Faith The first by a Metonymy of the cause The second of the effect Those that are not justified do truly believe The trust of a Christian presupposeth him to be justified All the promises of the Gospel become due at once by the Covenant of Grace That to believe that we are Elect or justified is not justifying faith 37 CHAP. VIII The objection from S. Paul We are not justifyed by the Law nor by Works but by Grace and by Faith Not meant of the Gospel and the works that suppose it The question that S. Paul speakes to is of the Law of Moses and the workes of it He sets those workes in the same rank with the works of the Gentiles by the light of nature The civil and outward works of the Law may be done by Gentiles How the Law is a Pedagogue to Christ 43 CHAP. IX Of the Faith and Justification of Abraham and the Patriarkes according to the Apostles
question hereafter for the Principles which here wee seek to decide but supposing sufficient reason propounded to make it evidently credible And hee that alleges Gods Spirit for what hee cannot show sufficient reason to believe otherwise may thank himself if hee perish by believing that which hee cannot oblige another man to believe Here wee must make a difference between those men whom God imployes to deal with other men in his name and those which come to God by their means For of the first it is enough to demand how it appears that they come from God To demand by what means hee makes his will known to them supposing they come from him is more than needs at least in this place For if it be granted mee that the Apostles and Prophets were the messengers of God suppose I cannot tell how Prophesies are made evident to the souls of them to whom the Spirit of God reveals them No body will question Whether or no hee ought to believe these whom hee acknowledges Gods messengers And therefore it will be no prejudice to my purpose to set aside all curious dispute how and by what means God reveales his messages to those whom by such revelations hee makes Prophets But those that derive their knowledg from the report of such as are believed to come from God must as well give account how they know that which they believe to come from such report as why such report is to be believed For if wee believe that God furnished those whom hee imployed with sufficient means to make it appear that they came on his message wee can dispute no further why their report is to be believed If wee believe it not there will be no cause why those who pretend themselves to be Gods messengers should not be neglected as fools or rejected as impostors Nay there will be no cause why wee should be Christians upon the report of those that show us not sufficient reason to receive them for Gods messengers But this being admitted and believed unlesse evidence can be made what was delivered by them that came on Gods message it is in vain to impose any thing on the Faith of them that are ready to receive whatsoever comes upon that score The resolution then of all controversies in Religion which the Church is divided about consists in making evidence what hath been delivered by them whom all Christians believe that God sent to man on his message And therefore there will remain no great difficulty about the force and use of reason in matters of Faith if wee consider that it is one thing to resolve them by such principles as the light of reason evidenceth another to do it by the use of reason evidencing what Gods messengers have delivered to us For all dispute in point of Faith tends only to evidence what wee have received from the authors of our Faith Till that evidence come doubt remaineth when it is come it vanisheth Without the use of reason this evidence is not made though not by that which the light of nature discovereth yet by those helps which reason imployeth to make it appear what wee have received from those from whom wee received our Christianity Which without those helps did not appear But if competition fall out between that which is thus evidenced to come from God on the one side and on the other side the light of reason seeming evidently to contradict the truth of it First wee are certain that this competition or contradiction is only in appearance because both reason and revelation is from God who cannot oblige us to make contradictory resolutions Then there is no help without the use of reason to unmask this appearance I will not here go about to controule that which may be alleged on either side in any particular point by any general prejudice chusing rather to referre the debate to that particular question in which cause of competition may appear then to presume upon any thing which the truth of Christianity the only supposition which hitherto I premise appeareth not so contain Only this I will prescribe It is not the exception of a Christian to say That which the light of reason evidenceth not to be possible is not true though commended to us by the same reasons which move us to be Christians For the nature of God the counsails of God the works of God being such things as mans understanding hath no skill of till it be enlightened by God from above That sense of Gods oracles which the motives of Faith do inforce is no lesse undisputable then it is undisputable whether that which God saith be true or not who inacts his revelations by those motives CHAP. II. The question between the Scripture and the Church which of them is Judge in matters of Faith Whether opinion the Tradition of the Church stands better with Those that hold the Scripture to be clear in all things necessary to salvation have no reason to exclude the Tradition of the Church What opinions they are that deny the Church to be a Society or Corporation by Gods Law THe cure of all diseases comes from the sound ingredients of nature when they get the upper hand and restore nature by expelling that which was against it Neither can the divisions and distempers of the Church be cured but by the common truth which the parties acknowledg when the right understanding of it clears the mistakes which mans weaknesse tainteth it with There is a sufficient stock of sound Principles left all the parties which I mean when all of them acknowledg the Scriptures that is so much of them as all agree to contain the word of God But supposing the truth of them to come from God First it remaines in difference how the meaning of them may be determined when doubt is made of it And then because nothing but the true meaning of the Scripture can be counted Scripture if there be a way to determine that Whether any thing over and above it is to be received for the word of God with it Concerning which point it is well enough known what opinions there are on foot When Luther first disputed against the Indulgences of Leo X Pope those that appeared in defense of them the Master of the Popes Palace and Eckius finding themselves scanted of mater to allege out of the Scriptures betook themselvs to the common place of the Church and the Power of it the force whereof stood upon this consequence That whatsoever the Church shall decree is to be received for unquestionable Afterwards certain Articles extracted out of Luthers Writings being condemned by a Bull of the Pope Luther interposes his appeal to a Council that should decree according to the Scripture alone This is the rise of the great Controversie still on foot between the Church and the Scripture between Scripture and the Tradition of the Church of what force each of them is in deciding controversies of Faith They that hold
the Church to be the onely infallible Judge of all Controversies of Faith necessarily suppose that the Church is by Gods appointment that is Jure divino a Corporation Society or Body of men visible though not Civil because standing upon Gods will revealed in order to the happinesse of the world to come In which Society because in no Society all that are Interessed can act for themselvs it behooveth that there be a publick Authority vested in some persons or Bodies the Act whereof may oblige the whole And thus it may and must be understood that the Church is maintained to be Judge in Controversies of Faith by the definitive sentence of those that have authority to oblige the Body Whether Pope or Council wee dispute not here or what else may be imagined For that as all other Controversies in Religion is to be decided by the resolution of the point now in hand what is the means to determine by reason all such differences Which if it could not be decided without supposing whose authority is to tye the Church there could be no end of differences in the Church whatsoever there will be Here is then an opinion famous enough that the Church is indowed with a gift of Infallability by virtue whereof whatsoever sentence is passed by them that are authorized on behalf of the Church becomes matter of Faith and obliges all men to receive it by the same reason for which they receive the Christian Faith Now they who in opposition to this opinion do maintain the Scriptures to be the onely Judge in Controversies of Faith do involve in this opposition an equivocation manifest enough For it is manifest that their intent is to render a reason by this position why they submit not to that sentence which condemneth their positions in the name of the Church To wit because it is contrary to the Scriptures And further why they with-draw themselves from the communion of that Church which condemneth them and joyn in communion grounded upon the profession of the positions condemned maintaining themselves thereupon to be the true Church of God and those that condemne them the corrupt and counterfeit Whereby it appeareth that in effect they do maintain that there is no Judge provided by God to be visible in his Church with the gift of Infallible But that they are themselves and ought to be Judges to condemne all sentences given against the Scripture by any authority established in the Church By which means the Scripture becomes no more the Judge but the Rule or the Law by which men are to judge Whether they are to stand to such sentences as are given in the name of the Church or not Now if the Scripture be the Law or the Rule by which Controversies of Faith are to be judged there will be no pretense to exclude any means that may serve as evidence to clear the meaning of it And therefore there will be no cause why the Tradition of the Church should not be joyned with the Scripture in deciding Controversies of Faith Not disputing hitherto whether or no it contain any thing that the Scripture containeth not to clear and to determine the sense of the Scripture Whereas they that maintain the sentence of the present Church to be the reason of believing can no way resolve their belief into the Tradition of the Catholick Church Because that supposes only the act of our Lord and his Apostles delivering to the Church that which it holdeth Which who so supposeth can allege no other reason why hee believeth And therefore the sentence of the present Church cannot be the reason why any man should believe that which there was reason from the beginning to believe without it They who to exclude the Tradition of the Church state this position upon these terms That all things necessary to salvation are clearly contained in the Scriptures pretending to limit the generality of the question put it upon an issue not to be tryed till wee have resolved what means there is to determine the meaning of the Scripture For to be necessary to salvation is to be true and something more So that nothing can appear necessary to salvation till it can appear to be true Nor appear to be true untill it can be resolved what means there is to distinguish between true and false Besides how unlimited this limitation is may appear by this Because whatsoever is clear is said to be clear in relation to some sight And there is so much difference between the sight of several Christians that nothing can be said to be clear to all because it is clear to some And that which is not clear to all whose salvation is concerned in it what availes it those to whom it is not clear Now I suppose those that advance these termes will not grant that nothing is necessary to salvation that may be questioned by an argument out of the Scripture which all Christians cannot answer Knowing that such things as themselvs hold necessary to salvation may be assalted by such reasons out of the Scripture as they do not think all Christians fit to resolve Besides they do not pretend that all things necessary to salvation are clear in the Scripture of themselvs but by consequence of reason which may make them clear Now hee that would draw true consequences from the Scripture had need be well informed of the mater of that Scripture which hee drawes into consequence And to that information how can it appear that any thing is more necessary than the Tradition of the Church Therefore though I say not yet whether it be true or false that all things necessary to salvation are clearly contained in the Scriptures yet at the present I say that this is not the prime truth which must give a reason of all that followes upon it but demands a reason to be given for it by those principles upon which the resolution of all maters of Faith depends All this while wee agree upon the supposition that the Church is a Society of men subsisting by Gods revealed will distinct from all other Societies Because as I said those that have departed from the Church of Rome have hitherto pretended their own communion to be the true Church For if it be said that they do not or scarce ever did agree in communion one with another so that they can pretend to constitute all one Church That is not because they do not think that they ought all to constitute one Church but because they agree not upon the conditions Each part thinking that the other doth not believe as those whom they may communicate with ought to believe But this is now manifestly contradicted by two opinions among us though the one can be no â—ect the other as yet appears not to be one The first is that of them that think themselves above Ordinances the Communion of the Church onely obliging proficients and every perfect Christian being to himself a Church Of these
from the beginning and therefore lay aside this principle not as false but as uselesse and not to be put in practice Wherein that men mistake not themselves they must take notice That it will not concerne my position That all original Catholick Tradition is to be supposed for unquestionable truth in deciding what is questionable concerning the truth of the Scripture that concerning most maters there is no Catholick Tradition or consent of the Church For I do professe that were not the Church or had it not been one Society one visible Body Communion or Corporation of men from the beginning the communion whereof alwaies confined the profession and conversation of Christians to some certain visible Rule I should think it impossible to make evidence of any common truth received of all Christians But if it can be made to appear that the Church was from the beginning such a Society then may such Rules as reasonably appear to be original and Catholick as it can appear reasonable to any man that hee ought to be a Christian Here I must note that concerning the State of the Church whether it be such a Society as I have said distinct from all Civil Societies of Christian Kingdomes and Common-wealths there may be two questions made The one of Fact whether indeed the Church hath been such a Society since the first being of it and the conversion of believers to Christianity The other of Right whether by the appointment of God or by humane consent of such who being converted to Christianity agreed to live in communion by whatsoever Rule it may appear they have admitted But these two are so near one another that if the question of Fact can be voided and it appear that such was the Church from the beginning it will be a presumption in a maner peremtory of the Churches Title by divine right Though there is difference made between them as appeâ—rs by the opinion related afore that the power of Excommunication was settled in the Church afore Constantine by humane consent not by Gods appointment Which by consequence of like reason extends to all other points wherein the power of the Church consists For my present purpose it were enough to make it appear that the Church was de Facto such a Society from the beginning But the proving of the point of Right will be only making the same inference which hath been alwaies concluded out of that evidence which resolveth the point of Fact And the conclusion thus inferred will be both necessary and effectual to clâ—are the positive right of the Church in deciding Controversies of Faith which will be the best satisfaction why negatively it cannot extend to create the ground upon which wee are to believe I will therefore wrap them up both together in the processe of my discourse In which I finde that difficulty which S. Augustine observeth in proving any of those things which are most manifest to common reason and sense For it shall be hard to bring arguments that are much clearer than that which they intend to prove That the Church had been from the beginning one outwardly by visible Communion as well as one inwardly by invisible Faith and love could not be questioned so long as it prevailed Neither was it foreseen at dissolving the Unity of the Western Church for the Reformation that it would ever come to this dispute whether there had been alwaies and ought to be one Catholick and Apostolick Church For each party hoped well to be so themselves as being perswaded that their adversaries ought to unite themselves unto them upon acknowledgment that the truth was on their side And truly I acknowledge that there is no clear mention of a precrpt of God commanding all Christians to hold the unity of the Catholick Church by outward communion with it For the intent of God to call the Gentiles to Christianity seemeth to be the utmost of that which is clearly declared by the Scriptures That his intent was to unite all Christians in one visible communion of the Church there is evidence by consequence to be had from the Scriptures But what the form should be before the materials were prepared it were as strange to think that the stones and timber particular Christians ought to know as that the Surveyors the Apostles and their fellowes should not know That therefore the Church was from the beginning and ought to be one visible Communion must be showed by the ingredients and principles or elements of all visible Societies Which in the Society of the Church will appear proportionable to the nature and pretense of it Supposing from common sense and experience that all Civil Societies or Common-wealthes unto which the name of Societies or Communities principally because most visibly belongeth are constituted and founded upon certain Rights of Soveraigne Power which some call in Latine Jura Majestatis being indeed the particulars wherein the Right and Power of Soveraignty consisteth For when it is once resolved in what hands that Power is to remaine then is the State and Form of Government constituted and thereby distinguished from other formes of Common-wealth according to the qualitie of those persons in whom this Power is established That being ruled by certain Lawes acknowledging certain Governors being subject to the Power of the Sword by which those Governors execute those Lawes are the effects of Soveraigne Power being the principal of the said ingredients or particulars the certain and necessary marks of a distinct Common-wealth is that which I suppose from common experience There are Societies which subsist by the Law of Nature and Nations As that which Aristotle observes among those that are imbarked in the same bottome for the same voyage That which the Jewes Law supposes among the Caravans of the East consisting of subjects and members of several Common-wealthes There are Communities and Corporations which subsist by the Act of Soveraigne Power in each Common-wealth allowing that Power over the Members to the whole ihat is such persons as are allowed to act for the whole as they think fit If the whole Church from the beginning have acknowledged certain Lawes by which they were governed in those things wherein the Communion of the Church consisteth certain Governors to whom they ought to give respect according to those Lawes a Power of putting out of the Church answerable to the Power of putting to death by the sword into which the coâ—ctive Power of Common-wealths is resolved then is the Church and alwaies was such a Society wherein the same Rule of Faith might be and was alwaies from the beginning preserved by Tradition and Custome which is my present businesse to show And if the Church alwaies was so de Facto then is it so alwaies de Jure If it did alwaies hold unity in the Faith and communion in the service of God by the meanes of certain Lawes certaine Rulers certaine Power of granting or refusing this Communion Then was there a precept of
thing which was deposited in trust with thee through the Holy Ghost that dwelleth in us II. 2. And those things which thou hast heard of mee under many witnesses deposite with trusty persons who may alsobe able to teach others Would you have any thing plainer than this to show that the Summe of Christianity was delivered for a Rule by the Apostles by which their Successors were to examine all Doctrines Therefore 1 Tim. II. 20. O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust avoiding profane novelties of termes and oppositions of knowledge falsly so called which some professing have failed of the Faith By the Rule of Faith which he had deposited in his trust he will have him exclude the pretenses of the Gnosticks which every man might see were inconsistent with it Whereupon S. John calls it the Unction 1 John II. 20-24 27. by which they knew all things To wit that belong to the common Faith of Christians And therefore the inconsistence of it with the pretenses of the Antichristian They continuing in that which they had heard from the beginning when they turned Christians And you saith the Apostle have an unction from the Holy One and know all things I write not to you because you know not the truth but because you know it and that no lye is of the Truth Therefore let that which you have heard from the beginning abide in you If that which you have heard from the beginning abide in you then shall you also abide in the Sonne and in the Father It is plaine enough why this truth which they have heard from the beginning of their Christianity is called the Unction because the anointing of the Holy Ghost the gift whereof as I have showed you presupposeth Christianity is granted upon consideration of being baptized into the profession of Christianity Wherefore it followeth in S. John As for you the Vnction which you have received of him abideth in you And yee need not that any man teach you But as the same Vnction teacheth you of all things and is true and no lye and as it hath taught you abide in it The Unction teacheth all things that a Christian is to avoid because it teacheth to avoid all that agreeth not with the truth which the same Unction had taught him afore When according to that which hath been said being moved by the Holy Ghost to become a Christian hee was taught that truth upon profession whereof hee received the gift of the Holy Ghost for an habitual indowment And the same is the Apostles meaning when hee saith again 1 John III. 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sinne for his seed abideth in him The seed of which a Christian is born is the Word of the Gospel which begetteth children to God when it prevaileth with sinners to become Christians This Word obliging Christians upon their salvation not to sinne abideth not in him that sinneth neither sinneth hee in whom it abideth So whether you call it Vnction or Seed In regard it is the Rule of our conversation as well as of our belief as hee that abideth in the truth must needs reject Heresies contrary to it so in whom the seed which hee is born of abideth hee cannot sinne And in his second Epistle 6 7 9. with S. Paul hee calls it the commandement which they had received from the same beginning to preserve them from the impostures of that time inticing to transgresse it In fine that this Tradition is the Law whereupon our Christianity standeth you may see by the Apostle 1 Pet. III. 20. when hee saith that Baptisme saveth us not the putting away the filth of the flesh but the examination of a good conscience to God That is to say the answer that is made out of a good conscience to the interrogatories that were even then propounded to them that were baptized by which answer they tied themselves to professe the Faith and to live according to it Which S. Paul therefore calls that good profession which Timothy had made before many witnesses 1 Tim. VI. 12 13 14. to wit when hee was baptized and therefore conjures him by the good profession which our Lord made before Pilate of his Kingdome for which hee suffered death to preserve it unspotted Which if it be so then must no Christian imagine that the receiving of this Tradition or Rule of Faith upon which men were admitted to Baptisme and made Christians consisted onely in professing to believe that which is necessary for the salvation of all Christians to be believed but also in undertaking to live as Christianity requireth Therefore S. Paul sometimes in his writings referres himself to the precepts not onely which hee had delivered them but also which they had received of him charging his flock not onely with their duty but also with their engagement 1 Thess IV. 1 2 11. 2 Thess III. 6. But besides the Rule of Faith there is another sort of Traditions concerning the outward order in the Church by which Unity is preserved in the communion of those Offices which God is to be served with by Christians which Christians come to be subject to by receiving their Baptisme from the Church and consequently undertaking to serve God with the Church For it is manifest that this communion cannot be maintained without certain Rules limiting the maner and circumstances of Gods service for time and place and the persons both which are admitted to communion with the Church and which are inabled to minister the Offices of the same Baptisme is the door to all Gods Ordinances that Christians are obliged to serve God with The praising of God the reading and hearing of the Scriptures and the expounding of them the common prayers of Christian Assemblies are all Offices which no Christian doubts that God is to be served with under the Gospel though there be no expresse precept of the New Testament what Offices the publick service of God is to consist of because before the Gospel they were alwaies in use among Gods people The Sacrament of the Eucharist being instituted by Christ to be frequented by the Church at their Assemblies for the service of God must be reckoned among the positive Laws of God to his Church obliging only because commanded Hee that supposeth the Church a Corporation founded by God to maintaine the communion of those that believe in these Offices must consequently maintain a Power of settling good order in the exercise of them as for all other circumstances so especially for the qualities of persons concurring to the celebrating of them Hee that shows by the Scripture that this order was provided for by the Apostles in the Churches of their founding shows that they intended the Church for a Body indowed with Power of limiting the like Rules for the future And this is to be showed by many passages of S. Pauls Epistles 1 Cor. XI 2 3-16 20-34 having commended them for observing his Traditions as hee had delivered
mentioning the Devil and his Angels nor of that not mentioning the creation of Angels The knowledge then requisite to save a Christian containeth the Apostasy of the evil Angels whether it be in the Creed or not because neither the Creed as it is nor Baptisme in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost can be understood to have any sense without supposing it And therefore Irenaeus I. 2. could not deliver this Rule without mentioning the Devil and his Angels though I intend not thereupon to argue that it was contained in the words of the Creed at that time By S. Cyrils Catechises you shall understand that those who pretended to Baptisme at Easter were to be instructed in the sense and grounds of their Creed during the Lent And S. Augustine in his book de Catechizandis rudibus where hee acquaints his friend that had writ to him about something of that office with the form that hee was wont to use instructs him to begin with the beginning of Genesis and setting forth what course God had taken with mankinde before and under the Law to bring down his discourse to the coming of Christ and from thence to his second coming to Judgment Which is to the very same purpose onely taking opportunity to mixe the motives of Faith which the Old Testament containeth with the mater of Faith which the New Testament requireth Whatsoever then is said of the Rule of Faith in the writings of the Fathers is to be understood of the Creed Whereof though it be not maintained that the words which Pretenders were required to render by heart were the same yet the substance of it the reasons and grounds which make every point necessary to be believed were alwaies the same in all Churches and remaine unchangeable I would not have any hereupon to think that the mater of this Rule is not in my conceit contained in the Scriptures For I finde S. Cyril Catech. V. protesting that it containes nothing but that which concerned our salvation the most selected out of the Scriptures And therefore in other places he tenders his Scholars evidence out of the Scriptures and wishes them not to believe that whereof there is no such evidence And to the same effect Eucherius in Symb. Hom. I. Paschasius de Sp. S. in Praef. and after them Thomas Aquinas secunda II. Quest I. Art IX all agree that the form of the Creed was made up out of the Scriptures Giving such reasons as no reasonable Christian can refuse Not onely because all they whose salvation is concerned have not leisure to study the Scriptures but because they that have cannot easily or safely discern wherein the substance of Faith upon the profession whereof our salvation depends consisteth Supposing that they were able to discern between true and false in the meaning of the Scriptures To which I will adde onely that which Tâ—rtullian and others of the Fathers observe of the ancient Hereticks that their fashion was to take occasion upon one or two texts to overthrow and deny the main substance and scope of the whole Scriptures Which whether it be seen in the Sects of our time or not I will not say here because I will not take any thing for granted which I have not yet principles to prove but supposing it onely a thing possible I will think I give a sufficient reason why God should provide Tradition as well as Scripture to bound the sense of it As S. Cyril also cautioneth in the place aforenamed where hee so liberally acknowledgeth the Creed to be taken out of the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For saith hee the Faith was not framed as it pleased men but the most substantial maters collected out of the Scripture do make up one doctrine of the Faith For I beseech you what had they whosoever they were that first framed the Creed but Tradition whereby to distinguish that which is substantial from that which is not Heare Origen in the Preface to his books 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cùm multi sum qui sentire se putent quae Christi sunt nonnulii eorum diversa à prioribus sentiant servetur verò Ecclesiastica praedicatio per successionis ordinem ab Apostolis tradita usque ad praesens in Ecclesiis permanens Illa sola credenda est veritas quae in nullo ab Ecclesiasticâ discordat traditione Illud tamen scire opor tet quoniam sancti Apostoli fidem Christi praedicantes de quibusdam quidem quaecunque necessaria crediderunt omnibus credentibus etiam his qui erga inquisitionem divinae scientiae pigriores videbantur manifestissimê tradiderunt Rationem scilicet assertionis relinquentes eis inquirendam qui Spiritûs dona excellentia praecipuè sermonis sapientiae scientiae per ipsum Spiritum Sanctum percipere merebantur De aliis verò dixerunt quidem quia sint quomodo autem aut unde sint siluerunt profectò ut studiosiores quoque l. quique ex posteris suis amatores sapientiae scientiae exercitium habere possent in quo ingenii sui fructum ostendere valerent Hi videlicet qui dignos se capaces sapientiae praepararent Species verò eorum quae per praedicationem Apostolicam manifestè traduntur hae sunt There being many that think their sense to be Christian and yet the sense of some differs from their predecessors But that which the Church preaches as delivered by order of succession from the Apostles being preserved and remaining the same in the Churches That onely is to be believed for truth which nothing differs from the Tradition of the Church This notwithstanding wee must know That the holy Apostles preaching the Faith of Christ delivered some things as many as they held necessary most manifestly to all believers even those whom they found the duller in the search of divine knowledge Leaving the reason why they affirmed them to the search of those that goe to receive the eminent gifts of the Holy Ghost especially of utterance wisedom and knowledge by the Holy Ghost Of other things they said that they are but how or whereupon they are they said not Forsooth that the more studious of their Successors loving wisedom and knowledge might have some exercise wherein to show the fruit of their wit To wit those that should prepare themselves to be worthy and capable of wisedom Now the particulars of that which is manifestly delivered by the preaching of the Apostles are these Which hee proceedeth to set down But Vincentius Lerinensis hath writ a Discourse on purpose to show that this Rule of Faith being delivered by succession to the principal as S. Paul requires Timothy to do and by them to those that were baptized was the ground upon which all Heresies attempting upon the Faith were condemned So that so many Heresies as historical truth will evidence to have been excluded the Church from the Apostles time for mater of belief so many convictions of this Rule Which
be said that God granteth the Secular Power any right to punish him for that choice for which hee maketh him unaccountable The ground of my reason lies in that which hath been said against the Infallibility of the Church For if the sentence of the Church be not of force to oblige any man to believe the truth of it much lesse can the sentence of any Christian though never so Soveraign oblige the meanest of his Subjects to believe that Religion to be true which hee commandeth because hee commandeth it And whatsoever penalty the Soveraign inflicteth upon those that concurre not to the exercise of that Religion which hee holdeth forth as when hee denieth them protection in the exercise of their own which as I have showed is no mean one implieth a command of exercising his and is inflicted in consideration of obeying Gods command which the Subject is inabled by God to judge that hee hath against all the world to the contrary So that upon these terms the Secular Power which is inabled to judge for it self upon the same account with the meanest Subject thereof cannot have power to punish any Subject for exercising any Religion which it alloweth not For all Power as I said afore is a moral quality consisting in a Right of obliging another mans will by the act of his will that hath it Therefore if a Subject cannot be obliged by the will of his Soveraign to professe and to exercise that Religion which his Soveraign prescribeth then cannot the Soveraign have power to impose any penalty upon his Subject for professing or exercising that Christianity which hee believeth All Christianity obliging a man to the utmost of his ability to professe and to exercise that Religion which hee believeth to be true And the reason is manifest For Christianity is from God and the Secular Power is from God though by several means Christianity by the coming of Christ and the preaching of his Apostles Secular Power by what means I will not here dispute nor yet suppose any thing that is questionable That which serves my turn is evident to the common reason of all men That by another act of God than that upon which Christianity standeth That Christianity dependeth not upon it That as I argued against the Leviathan by a Law which no Secular Power can abate If therefore God oblige a Christian by his Christianity to serve God otherwise than his Soveraign commandeth hee is bound by the same bond to disobey his Soveraign to obey God which obliged the primitive Christians to suffer death rather than renounce the Faith But I intend not to say that absolutely which I say upon supposition of this Doctors sense Nor do I intend here to dispute that which I have resolved in another place what kind of penalties Secular Power is able to inact that Christianity with which it self professeth The question is now how the Secular Power is able or becomes able to impose penalties in maters of Religion which as a Christian it is not able to oblige the Subject to acknowledge not how far these penalties may extend A question which cannot be answered not supposing the Church A question which is no question supposing it For supposing that God sending Christianity founds for part of it the visible society and corporation of a Church assuring the common sense of all people thereby what is the condition upon which Salvation is to be had by communicating with it What will remain but to conform to the communion of this Church labouring to work out every man his own Salvation by the means which the communion thereof furnisheth Which whoso doth not but pretends to disturbe it will remain punishable by the Secular Power for I have said already that the Church is not inabled to inflict temporal penalties not absolutely because it is Christian but upon supposition that it maintaineth the true Church The acts whereof as Excommunication by the original constitution thereof inforceth So did not the Secular Power inforce that Excommunication it must of necessity become ineffectual when the world is come into the Church and Christianity professed by the State And this is the resolution that I have given in another place that the acts of the Church for the mater of them are limited by the Church that is to say by persons qualified by the Church and in behalf of it but the force that executes them must come from the State For supposing the Church to be founded by God and the power of it resolved into that act wherein this foundation consisteth Whatsoever the Church is by this power inabled to do will belong to the Church by Gods Law to do though the mater of that which it doth be not limited by Gods Law but by the act of men inabled by Gods Law to do it S. Cyprian and others of the Fathers have reason when they argue that the acts of the Church are the acts of God For no man capable of common reason can doubt that what is done by commission from superiour Power is the act of that Power which granted the commission so far as it ownes the execution of it And I have sufficiently limited the Power granted the Church heretofore by the mater of that communion for which it subsisteth and the supposition of the Christianity upon which it subsisteth What is therefore done by virtue of this commission though perhaps ill done for the inward intent with which men do it yet being within the bounds of the Power established by God is to be accepted as his own act without contesting whose act of founding the Church it cannot be infringed Which if it be true so far is the Secular Power from being able to create or constitute a Church by creating that difference of qualities in which the difference between several Members thereof consisteth that it is not able of it self to do any of these acts which the Church that is those who are qualified by and for the Church are thereby qualified to do without committing the sinne of Sacrilege in seizing the Powers which by Gods act are constituted and therefore consecrated and dedicated to his own service into its own hands not supposing the free act of the Church without fraud and violence to the doing of it CHAP. XXI How the Tradition of the Church limits the interpretation of Scriptures How the declaration of the Church becomes a reasonable mark of Heresie That which is not found in the Scriptures may have been delivered by the Apostles Some things delivered by the Apostles and recorded in the Scriptures may not oblige S. Austines Rule of Apostolical Traditions ANd by this means I make account I have gained another principle towards the interpretation of Scripture and resolution of things questioned in Christianity either concerning the Rule of Faith or such Laws and Customs determining the circumstances of Ecclesiastical Communion as I showed afore are understood by the name of Apostolical Traditions Which principle that no
man mistake mee pretends not any general Rule for the interpretation of Scripture even in those things which concern the Rule of Faith but inferrs a prescription against any thing that can be alleged out of Scripture that if it may appear to be contrary to that which the whole Church hath received and held from the beginning it cannot be the true meaning of that Scripture which is alleged to prove it For the meaning even of those Scriptures which concern the Rule of Faith must be had by the same same means by which I shall come by and by to show that the meaning of all Scriptures whatsoever they concern is to be had and established But the being and constitution of the Society of the Catholick Church from the beginning is of force to prescribe this limitation to the Fansies of all men that take upon them to interpret the Scriptures that they neither admit nor impose upon any man any thing for the true sense of Scripture whereby the substance of Christianity which the Rule of Faith importeth may become questionable So that an evidence of such opposition ought to out-shine and supresse any appearance or supposed evidence of truth in any such sense The Rule of Faith Not to go about to determine in this place what it containes because it is the Master-piece of all the Divines of Christendome to say what is fundamental in Christianity and what is not but to give a grosse description of what men mean when they inquire for it consists partly in things to be believed partly in things to be done Hee that holds so much of Christian truth as may reasonably certifie him of all that is requisite to qualifie a Christian man for remission of sins and life everlasting which are the promises of the Gospel may well be said to hold the whole Rule of Faith in things to be believed Hee that holds so much of Christian truth as may reasonably certifie him of all that is requisie to preserve all Christians with consciences void of sin may be said to hold it in things to be done For the common Rule of Faith importeth not what is necessity for any Christian but for all Christians And that any thing contrary to the salvation of all Christians should be held and professed by all Christians is a grosse contradiction to common sense Whereupon it is no lesse evidently true that the Catholick Church of all ages and places is utterly infallible In as much as it is a grosse contradiction to suppose a number of men to attain salvation who all do hold some thing destructive to the salvation of any one So much difference there is between the whole Church which is the Catholick Church of all times and places and the present Catholick Church respectively to those ages in which the Communion of the whole was not interrupted by any breach but effectuated by actual correspondence For the act of the Catholick Church in this sense which I call the present Church if it be lawfull obligeth all that are of it But it self stands obliged to the Faith of the whole Church as that which the being privilege of a Church resupposeth to beâ— rofessed by it And of this I cannot conceive how any question should remain The difficulty that remains is how it may appear that all this is not a fine nothing how it may reasonably seem to signifie something towards the limitation which I prescribe to the interpretation of those Scriptures which may be alleged in mater concerning the Rule of Faith And the answer is that seeing it hath appeared that the Apostles of our Lord Christ established from the beginning one Catholick Church consisting of all Churches by the will of God and his appointment and that in consideration of that which was made to appear afore that all things necessary to the salvation of all Christians though evidently extant and discernable in the Scriptures are not neverthelesse evidently discernable by all them whose salvation they concern that therefore the unity and Communion of the Catholick Church was provided by God as the depository of his truth the acknowledgment whereof should be necessary to obtain life everlasting So that the effect of this trust deposited by God in the Church to be at least thus much That whatsoever was advanced in any part thereof as belonging to the Rule of Faith being condemned where first it was advanced and in consequence of that condemnation by all other parts of the Church to that effect as to render those that held it uncapable of the Communion of all the whole Church That this I say might be accounted a reasonable mark to discern such doctrine to be destructive to the Rule of Faith And thus were all Heresies marked for such by the Church and upon this ground those marks were receivable not onely before Constantine but so long as it may be visible that nothing hindred this correspondence wherein the actual unity of the Church consisted to operate and have effect For if this be the reason and ground which made these marks reasonable as grounded upon it then hee that supposes this reason either actually interrupted or impeached cannot presume upon the like effect And therefore the justifying of these marks requires the evidencing of this correspondence of the Church and no more And truly I could not but admire to finde it alleged by Crellius the Socinian in his answer to Grotius concerning the satisfaction of Christ where hee argues that no Ecclesiastical Writer ever profest that opinion I say I admired to finde him answer that Pelagius the Heretick maintained the same For sure it is not much more pertinent than if hee should allege that the Jewes professe our Lord Jesus not to be the Messias or that the Gentiles do not worship one true God In as much as though they be further from the faith of true Christians than Pelagius yet an Heretick is no lesse excluded from the Communion of the Church than a Jew or a Gentile And the whole reason for which the testiemonies of Ecclesiastical Writers is receivable to evidence maters concerning the Rule of Faith to which they can give no credit but are by acknowledging the same receivable for Christians is the Communion of the Church which make it evident that what such men professe in the Church is not against the Faith of the Church And this in the second place may be a reasonable presumption or evidence of that which belongeth to the Rule of Faith when a thing is so ordinarily and vulgarly taught by Church Writers that there can be no reasonable presumption made by the doctrine of any of them that the contrary was ever allowed by the Church So then I do not tye my self to this that if any thing be found in the writings of any of those whom wee call commonly Fathers it is therefore not contrary to Christianity or to the Rule of Faith that is either expresly or by consequence For
who will or can think it reasonable that the Church should be thought to avow all that hath been written by any of the Church and is come to the hands of posterity by whatsoever means Or who will think it strange that a Christian should not understand the Rule of his Christianity though the right understanding thereof should have been the condition requisite to the making of him a Christian If the profession made by the writing from which posterity hath it were evidently so notorious to the Church and the maintenance thereof so obstinate that the Church could not avoid taking notice of it and contradicting it without quitting the trust of the Rule of Faith deposited with it then and not otherwise I do admit that the contrary of that which is regularly and ordinarily taught by Church Writers is inconsistent with the Rule of Faith Besides this another presumption or prescription limiting the interpretation or Scriptures in such things as concern the Traditions of the Apostles wee may be confident to have gained from the Society of the Church demonstrated by the premises To wit that if any thing be questionable whether it come by Tradition from the Apostles or not there can no conclusion be made in the negative because it is not expressed in the Scriptures Here I desire all them that will not mistake mee to take notice that I intend not here to conclude or inferre what force those Traditions which I pretend may come from the Apostles though it be not certified by the Scriptures may have to oblige the Church which question I found it requisite to set aside once afore But that which here I affirme onely concerns the question of fact that it is not impossible to make evidence that some Orders or Rites and customes of the Church had their beginning of being brought in for Laws to the Church by the Apostles though not written in the Scriptures Confessing neverthelesse that the proving hereof which no reason can hinder mee to proceed with here will be a step to the resolving of that force which the Traditions of the Apostles whether written or not written in the Scriptures have and ought to have in obliging the Church at present when it shall appear to be common to written and unwritten Traditions to have their authority from the Apostles And the evidence of this prescription depends upon a more general one limiting the interpretation of Scripture in mater of this nature that is concerning the Laws of the Church how far they were intended by the Apostles to tye the Church not to exceed the practice of the Church succeeding the times of the Apostles The demonstration whereof consists in certain instances of things recorded by the Scriptures of the New Testament either evidencing onely mater of fact that is what was then done and therefore importing no precept what was to be done for the future or importing such precepts as no man will stand to be now in force It is manifest that the Scriptures report how the Disciples under the Apostles were wont to assemble themselves to serve God by the Offices of Christianity upon the first day of the week called vulgarly Sunday after the Resurrection of Christ John XX. 19 26. Acts. XX. 7. Con. XVI 2. Apoc. I. 10. Speaking of the banishment of S. John conforming himself to the times of the Church for the service of God and thereupon ravish'd in Spirit Which no man questions It is said indeed in this case as it is said by others in the question of Tithes that the first day of the week is commanded to be kept holy of Christians by the fourth Commandment But I demand of any man that can tell seven whether the first day of the week and the seventh day of the week be the same day of the week or not And if this be unquestionable I demand further whether the Jews were tyed by the fourth Commandement to keep the last day of the week or not Assuring my self that whosoever believes the Scriptures and reads the Commandement that obliges them to rest all that day in which God rested from making Heaven and Earth can no more doubt that they were bound to rest on Saturday than that God rested from making Heaven and Earth upon that day I demand then whether the same precept that obliged them to keep Saturday can oblige Christians to keep Sunday And do conclude that it can no more be said then that the same word signifies both the seventh and the first day So wide an error so small a mistake can cause when faction hath once swallowed it A man would think it a very easie mistake to understand the seventh day of the week which God commands to be hallowed as if it signified one of the seven and no more Which if it were true then were the Jews never tied to rest on the Saturday by Gods Law but might have chosen which day of seven they would have rested on notwithstanding that God rested on the Saturday which is to make the reason of the precept impertinent to the mater of it I intend not to deny that the reason and ground upon which the Christian Church came to be enjoyned to keep the first day of the week is drawn and to be drawn from the fourth Commandment But I say further that the reason and ground of a positive Law makes it not a Law but the act of him that hath power to give Law signifying that hee intends to inact it for a Law whether hee expresse the reason or not And thus I say as I have hitherto said concerning other Ordinances which have the force of Law to oblige the Church that they can no more stand by virtue of such Ordinances as I acknowledge to have been torrespondent to them under the Law of Moses than Christianity by the virtue of Judaisme or the Gospel by virtue of the Law which though it bear witnesse to the Gospel yet hee were a Madman that should say That hee who was bound to be circumcised by virtue of that circumcision should be bound to be baptized supposing him of the number of Christians who agree that Baptisme coming in force circumcision could no more continue in force And surely those simple people who of late times have taken upon them to keep the Saturday though it were in truth and effect no lesse than the renouncing of their Christianity yet in reason did no more then pursue the grounds which their Predecessors had laid and drawn the conclusion which necessarily followes upon their premises that if the fourth Commandment be in force then either the Saturday is to be kept or the Jews were never tied to keep it Besides this particular it is manifest that the Apostles observe the third and sixth and ninth hours of the day for the service of God Acts II. 15. III. 1. X. 3 9 30. And this according to an Order then in force among Gods people according to the Scriptures Psal LV. 18
I. 1. Theodoret in Levit. Quaest IX Theophilus II. Paschali S. Jerome in Psal XCVIII Omne quod loquimur debemus affirmare ex Scripturis Sanctis Whatsoever wee say wee are to prove out of the Holy Scriptures To the same purpose in Mat. XXIII in Aggaei I. Origen in Mat. Tract XXIII That wee are to silence gain-sayers by the Scriptures as our Lord did the Sadduces Adoro Scripturae plenitudinem quae mihi factorem ostendit facta I adore the fulness of the Scripture which showes mee both the Maker and what hee made saith Tertulliane contra Hermog cap. XXII S. Austine de peccat meritis remiss II. 36. Credo etiam hinc divinorum eloquiorum claerissima autorit as esset si homo sine dispendio promissae salutis ignorare non posset I believe there would be found some clear authority of the Word of God for this the original of mans soul if a man could not be ignorant of it without losse of the salvation that is promised In fine seeing it is acknowledged that the Scripture is a Rule to our Faith on all hands the saying of S. Chrysostome in Phil. III. Hom. XII is not refusable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Rule is not capable of adding to or taking from it For so it looseth being a Rule For the same reason S. Basil in Esa II. and Ascet Reg. I. condemns all that is done without Scripture On the other side in the next place a greater thing cannot be said for the Church than that which Tertul. contra Marc. IV. 2. S. ser Ep. LXXXIX S. Aust cont Faust XXVIII 4. have said that S. Pauls authority depended upon the allowance of the Apostles at Jerusalem Tertul. Denique ut cum auâ—oâ—ibus contuâ—â—t convenit de regulâ Fidei dextras miscuere In a word as som as hee had conferred with men in authority and agreed about the Rule of Faith they shook hands S. Jer. Ostendens se non habuisse securitatem praedicandi Evangolii nisi Petri caeterorum Apostolorum qui cum eo erant fuisset sententia roboratum Showing that hee had not assurance to preach the Gospel had it not been confirmed by the sentence of Peter and the rest of the Apostles that were with him S. Austine That the Church would not have believed at all had not this been done Among the sentences of the Fathers which make S. Peter the rock on which the Church is built the words of S. Austine contra partem Donati are of most appearance Ipsa est Petra quam non vincunt superbae inferorum Portae This Church of Rome is the Rock which the proud gates of Hell overcome not S. Jerome is alleged hereupon consulting Damasus then Pope in maters of Faith as tied to stand to his sentence Epist LVII and Apolog. contra Rufinum Scito Romanam fidem Apostolicâ voce landatam istiusmodi praestigias non recipere Etiamsi Angelus aliter annunciet quà m semel praedicatum est Petri authoritate munitum non posse â—â—utari Know that the Faith of Rome commended by the voice of the Apostle is not liable to such tricks Though an Angel preach otherwise than once was preached that being fortified by the authority of S. Peter it cannot be changed The saying of S. Cyprian is notorious Non aliunde haereses orta sunt aut nata schismata nisi indè quòd Sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur nec unus in Ecclesiâ ad tempus Saeerdos ad tempus Judex Christi vice cogitatur cui si secundum magisteria divina fraternit as obtemperaret universa nemo adversùm Sacerdotum Collegium quicqam moveret nemo discidio unit atis Christi Ecclesiam scinderet Heresies spring and Schisms arise from no cause but this That the Priest of God is not obeyed that men think not that there is one Priest in the Church one Judg in Christs stead for the time Whom if the whole Brother-hood did obey as God teacheth no man would move any thing against the College of Priests or tear the Church with a rent in the Vnity of it The authority which the Church giveth to the Scripture is again testified by S. Austine contra Epist fundamenti cap. V. Cui libro necesse est me credere si credo Evangelio Quum utramque Scripturam similiter mihi Catholica commendet authoritas Which book of the Acts I must needs believe if I believe the Gospel Catholick authority alike commending to mee both Scriptures To the same purpose contra Faustum XI 2. XIII 5. XXII 19. XVIII 7. XXVIII 2. XXXIII ult Therefore hee warns him that reads the Scriptures to preferr those books which all Churches receive before those which onely some And of them those which more and greater Churches receive before those which fewer and lesse So that if more receive some and greater others though the case hee thinks doth not fall out the authority of them must be the same And contra Cresconium II. 31. Neque enim sine causâ tam salubri vigilantiâ Canon Ecclesiasticum constitutus est ad quem certi Prophetarum Apostoloruus libri pertineant quos omnino judicare non audoamus For neither was the Rule of the Church settled with such wholesom vigilance without cause to which certain books of the Prophets and Apostles might belong which wee should dare on any terms to censure Where manifestly hee ascribeth the difference between Canonical Scripture and that which is not to an act of the Church settling the same Of the Power of the Church to decide Controversies of Faith all the Records of the Church if that will serve the turn do bear plentifull witnesse But the evidence for the gift of Infallibility from them seems to consist in this consequence That otherwise there would be no end of Controversies neither should God have provided sufficiently for his Church S. Austine contra Cresconium I. 33. Quisquis falli met uit huyus obscuritate quaestionis Ecclesiam de illâ consulat quam sine ullâ ambiguitate Scriptura sacra demonstrat Whosoever is afraid to be deceived by the darkness of this question concerning Rebaptizing let him consult the Church about it which the Holy Scripture demonstrateth without any ambiguity S. Bernard Epist CXC ad Innoc. II. Papam Opertet ad vestrum referri Apostolatum pericula quaeque scandala emergentia in regno Dei ac praesertim quae de fide contingunt Dignum namque arbitror ibi potissimum resarciri damna Fidei ubi non possit Fides sentire defectum All dangers and scandals that appear in the kingdome of God are to be referred to your Apostleship For I conceive it sitting that the decaies of the Faith should there especially be repaired where the Faith is not subject to fail As concerning the mater of Traditions wee are not to forget Irenaeus III. 2 3 4. where hee showes that the Gnosticks scorning both Scripture and Tradition as coming from those that knew not Gods minde
every Instrument of a contract contain every thing that is in force by the said contract Surely it is a thing so difficult to contain in writing every thing that a contract intends that many times if witnesses were not alive other whiles if general Lawes did not determine the intent of words in fine if there were nothing to help the tenor of such Instruments things contracted would hardly sort to effect Consider now what is alleged on the other side how resolutely how generally the Tradition both of the Rule of Faith and of Lawes to the Church is acknowledged even by those witnesses whose sayings are alleged to argue the sufficience perfection and evidence of the Scriptures Is it civil is it reasonable to say that the Writers of the Christian Church make it their businesse to contradict themselves which no Scholar will admit either Infidels Pagans Jewes Mahumetans or Hereticks to do Is it not easie to save them from contradicting themselves by saying that Tradition of Faith containeth nothing that is not in the Scriptures but limits the meaning of that which they contain Tradition of Lawes may contain that which is not in the Scriptures for the species of fact but is derived from the Scripture for the authority from whence it proceeds Or is it possible by any other means reasonably to save them from contradicting themselves These generals premised freely may wee make our approaches to the particulars and by considering the circumstance of the places where they lye make our selves consident to finde some limitation restraining the generality of their words to make them agree as well with my position as with themselves For example Epiphanius Haer. LXXVI Irenaeus II. 46. III. 15. Athanasius Dispcum Ario say all is clear in the Scriptures Meaning that the sense of the Church is clearly the sense of the Scriptures in the points questioned But not to them who exclude that Tradition which themselves include and presuppose Observe again that the perspicuity of the Scriptures is not limited to things necessary to salvation in all that hath been alleged but once in S. Austine Epist III. and observe withall that the knowledg of things necessary proceeds upon supposition of the Rule of Faith acknowledged and received from the Church in the Catechizing of those that were baptized Not determined by every ones sense of the Scriptures It is therefore easily granted that the Scriptures were made for all sorts of people that they might profit by them Alwaies provided that they bring with them the Faith of the Catholick Church for the Rule within the bounds whereof they may profit by reading them otherwise they may and they may not And therefore those sayings which were alleged to prove them obscure convincing that they are not clear to all understandings because they require study and search and digging do necessarily leave him that comes without his Rule not onely in doubt of finding the truth but in danger of taking error for it Upon the like supposition S. Austine affirms de Vtilitate credendi VI. that any man may finde enough in the Old Testament that seeks as he ought For to seek humbly and devoutely is the same thing for him that is no Christian For the Manichees to whom S. Austine recommends the Old Testament in this place were Christians no further than the name as it is for him that is a Christian to seek like a Christian that is having before his eyes the Faith of the Church And this is that which S. Austine means that hee who is no Christian so seeking may finde enough to make him a Christian That is as much as hee is to expect from the Old Testament And this supposition is exprest by Origen contra Celsum VII when hee sayes that the unlearned may study the Scriptures with profit after their entrance made For this entrance is the Rule of Faith which they were taught when they were baptized And the Catechism of that time containing as well the motives as the mater of Faith appears to the unlearned the way into the deep that is the mystical sense of the Scripture Upon the same terms may wee proceed to grant all that is alleged to show that which is not contained in the Scriptures not to be receivable in point of Christian truth For having showed that the Rule of Faith is wholly contained in the Scriptures And nothing contained in the records of Church Writers to be unquestionable but the Rule and Tradition of Faith Whatsoever further intelligence and information can be pretended either tending to establish the same or by consequence of reason to flow from it if it cannot be pretended to come from Tradition because there is no Tradition of the Church concerning that wherein the Church agrees not either it must come from the Scripture or by the like revelation as the Scriptures which no Church Writer pretends to have For as for that which by consequence of reason is derived from those things which the Scripture expresseth Seeing the words of the Scripture is not the word of God but the sense and meaning of them it were a thing very impertinent to question whether or no that be contained in the Scripture which the true sense of the Scripture by due consequence of argument imports But if the question be of Lawes delivered the Church by the Apostles having showed that there may sufficient evidence be made of such though not recorded in the Scriptures there can no presumption be made being not found in the Scriptures that therefore a Law was not first brought into the Church by the Apostles And yet it remains grounded upon the Scriptures in point of righâ— because the authority by which it was brought into the Church is either established or attested by the Scriptures Mater of fact being competently evidenced by other historical truth besides And upon these terms wee may proceed to acknowledg the goodness of an argument drawn negatively from the Scriptures that is to say inferring this is not in the Scriptures therefore not true Doth my position then oblige mee to deny Irenaeus affirming III. that the Apostles writ the same that they preached Or S. Austine in Psalmum XXI de Vnitate Ecclesiae cap. V. and Optatus V. tying the Donatists to be tried by the Scriptures Both parties pretending to be children of God are to be tryed by their Fathers Will that is by the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament But if there shall fall out any difference about the intent of their Fathers Will the meaning of the Old and New Testament shall I think that is said in vain which is alleged on the other side out of the same S. Austine contra Cresconium I. 33. that if a man would not erre in that point hee is to advise with the Church which the Scripture evidenceth For the question being about the rebaptizing of Hereticks that is about a Law of the Church if you will have S. Austine agree with S. Austine
it must be upon the terms of my position the practice of the Church giving bounds to the sense of the Scripture I can therefore safely agree with the Constitutions of the Apostles with S. Cyprian and Leo and whosoever else teaches that it is not safe for the people to assure their consciences upon the credit of their Pastors But it is because I suppose the Unity of the Church provided by God for a ground upon which the people may reasonably presume when they are to adhere to their Pastors when not To wit when they are owned not when they are disowned by the Unity of the Church For though this provision becomes uneffectual when this Unity is dissolved yet ought not that to be an argument that the goodnesse of God never made that provision which the malice of man may defeat But that whosoever concurrs to maintain the division concurrs to defeat that provision which God hath made As safely do I agree with all them who agree that whatsoever is taught in Christianity is to be proved by the Scriptures For if it belong to the Rule of Faith it is intended by the Scriptures though that intent is evidenced by the Tradition of the Church If to the Lawes of the Church the authority of it comes from the Scriptures though the evidence of it may depend upon common sense which the practice of the Church may convince If over and above both it is not receivable if not contained in the Scriptures And in this regard whosoever maintains the whole Scripture to be the Rule of Faith is throughly justified by all those testimonies that have been alleged to that purpose For though it be not necessary to the salvation of all Christians to understand the meaning of all the Scriptures yet what Scripture soever a man attains to understand is as much a Rule to his Faith as that which a man cannot be saved if hee understand not the sense of it whether in and by the Scripture or without it And though a man may be obliged to believe that which is not in the Scripture to have been instituted by the Apostles yet is he not obliged to observe it but upon that reason which the Scripture delivereth And upon these terms is the whole Scripture a Rule of Faith from which as nothing is to be taken away so is nothing to be added to it as the saying of S. Chrysostome in Phil. II. Hom. XII requireth And the saying of S. Basil in Esa II. and Ascet Reg. I. condemning all that is done without Scripture takes place upon no other terms than these Not as Cartwright and our Puritanes after him imagine that a man is to have a text of Scripture specifying every thing which hee doth for his warrant For as it is in it self ridiculous to imagine that all cases which fall out can be ruled by expresse text of Scripture our Christianity being concerned infinite wayes of which it is evident that the Scripture had no occasion to speak So if the words of the Scripture be lodged in a heart where the work of them dwelleth not a thing which wee see too possible to come to passe it is the ready way to make the Word of God a color for all unrighteousnesse not onely to others but to the very heart of him who hath that cloke for it It is therefore enough that the reason of every thing which a Christian doth is to be derived from that doctrine which the Scripture declaeth And where a man proceedeth to do that for which hee hath not such a reason so grounded as reasonable men use to go by then cometh that to passe which S. Basil chargeth Ascet Reg. LXXX That What is not of faith is sin It is true according to that sense which hitherto I have used after many Church Writers the Rule of Faith extendeth not to all the Scriptures but onely to that which it is necessary to salvation to believe and to know Which every man knowes that all the Scripture is not For though it be necessary to salvation to believe that all the Scripture is true yet is it not necessary to salvation to know all that the Scripture containeth And the reason why I use it in this sense is to distinguish those things contained in the Scriptures which Tradition extendeth to from those to which it extendeth not For upon these terms is the sense of them limitable to the common Faith But I quarel not therefore the opinion of them that maintaine the whole Scriptures to be the Rule of Faith acknowledging that whatsoever it containeth is necessarily to be believed by all that come to understand it And whatsoever it containeth not though the Scripture alone obligeth not to believe the truth of it is not necessarily to be observed for any other reason but that which the Scripture declareth As for S. Basil making it apostasy to bring that which is not written into the Faith It is a thing well known that the Arians were charged by the Church for bringing in words that were not in the Scriptures saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was a time when Christ was not And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That hee was made of nothing On the other side after the Council of Nicaea the Arians charged the Church for bringing in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same substance Where then lay the difference between the Inndelity of the Arians and the Faith of the Church Theodoret showes it Hist Eccles I. 8. out of Athanasius de Actis Concil Niceni 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith hee They were condemned by written words piously understood But how appears this piety For I suppose the Arians would not have granted it Hee addeth that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been used by the Fathers which had it been inconsistent with the sense of the Church could not have been indured in a mater concerning the Rule of Faith whereas their terms were contrary to that which is found in the Scriptures Now S. Basil acknowledgeth that hee had elsewhere dealing with Hereticks used terms not found in the Scriptures to exclude their sense contrary to the Scriptures as you shall finde by the Authors alleged that the Council of Nicaea had done but to those who desired information with a single heart hee resolves to rest content with the Scriptures The terms whereof his meaning is that the Hereticks did not rest content with because they had a minde to depart from the Faith Upon the same terms Tertullian pronounces the Wo that belongs to them which adde to Gods Word upon Hermogenes because his error concerned the Article of our Creed that God made heaven and earth And S. Austine presumes the reason why there is no clear Scripture for the original of the soul to be because hee presumes that it concerns not the substance of Faith Besides these Observations some of those passages which are alleged may concern Christianity rather than the Scriptures
the sense of it For if the same Faith which first was preached was afterwards committed to writing by the Apostles and how should those Christians which had not the use of leters be saved otherwise then was it the authority of the Apostles acknowledged by them that found themselves tyed to be Christians which made the Faith to oblige whether delivered by writing or without it The consent of all Churches in the same Rule of Faith serving for evidence of the Apostles act in delivering the same to the Churches Nor can any further reason be demanded why that knowledg which the Gnosticks prerended to have received by secret wayes should be refuted than the want of this And therefore it is in vain to allege that as they scorned the Scripture so they alleged Tradition for this secret knowledge The Tradition which they alleged being secret and such as could not be made to appear But no lesse contradictory to the Tradition of the Church than to the Scriptures both infallibly witnessed by the consent of all Churches And hereupon I leave the sayings of S. Austine setting aside the authority of the Council of Nicaea and affirming that former General Councils may be corrected by later without answer As also the sayings of them who affirm the Faith which our Lord hath taught to be the rock upon which the Church is built For if no building can lay that foundation upon which it standeth then cannot the Church make mater of Faith being founded upon it And that authority which may be set aside or corrected can be no infallible ground of Faith It is true it is pleaded that though in the Church of Rome there be some that do believe that the Church is able to make new Articles of Faith that is to make such determinations in maters of Faith as shall oblige all men to believe them as much as they are obliged to believe all that which comes from our Lord by his Apostles Others that do believe onely that the Church is able to evidence what the Apostles delivered to the Church and that this evidence is the ground whereon particular persons are to rest that whatsoever is so evidenced was indeed so delivered by the Apostles yet both these agree in one and the same reason of believing both of them alleging the Tradition of the Apostles to the Church for the ground of their Faith But this is more than any man of reason can believe unlesse wee allow him that affirms contradictories to ground himself upon one part of the contradiction which the other part of it destroyes For seeing that there must be but one reason one ground upon which we believe all that we believe and that it is manifest that those Articles of Faith which the determination of the Church creates being not such by any thing which that determination supposes are believed to be such meerly in consideration of the authority of the Church that determines them By consequence the Scripture and whatsoever is held to be of Faith upon any ground which the authority of the Church createth is no mater of Faith but by the authority of the Church determining that it be held for such On the other side hee that allowes Tradition to be the reason why hee believes the Christian Faith necessarily allowes all that hee allowes to be mater of Faith not onely to be true but to be mater of Faith before ever the Church determine it So that allowing him to say that hee holds his Faith by Tradition hee must allow mee that hee contradicts himself whensoever hee takes upon him to maintain that the Church creates new Articles of Faith which were not so the instant before the determination of the Church CHAP. XXXII Answer to an Objection that choice of Religion becomes difficult upon these terms This resolution is for the Interest of the Reformation Those that make the Church Infallible cannot those that make the Scripture clear and sufficient may own Tradition for evidence to determine the meaning of the Scriptures and Controversies of Faith The Interest of the Church of England The pretense of Rushworthes Dialogues that wee have no unquestionable Scripture and that the Tradition of the Church never changes AS little shall I need to be troubled at any reason that may be framed against this resolution having answered the prejudice that seems to sway most men to apprehend that God must have been wanting to his Church if all things necessary to salvation be not clearly laid down in the Scriptures For it is very manifest that the very same presumption possesses the mindes of the adverse party that God must needs have provided a visible Judge infallible in deciding all Controversies of Faith Whether the Church or any person or persons authorized in behalf of the Church for the present all is one I shall therefore onely demand that it be considered first that God was no way tied either to send our Lord Christ or to give his Gospel which because it comes of Gods free grace is therefore called the Word of his Grace and the Covenant of Grace Then that hee hath not found himself obliged to provide effectual means to bring all mankinde to the knowledge of it resting content to have provided such as if men be not wanting to their own salvation and the salvation of the rest of mankinde may be sufficient to bring all men to the knowledg of it And when it is come to knowledg all discreet Christians notwithstanding must acknowledg that the motives thereof fully propounded though abundantly sufficient to reasonable persons yet do not constrain those that are convicted by them to proceed according to them as necessary reasons constrain all understandings that see them to judg by them For how should it be a trial of mens dispositions if there were no way to avoid the necessity of those motives that inforce it Now if any knowledg can be had of truth in maters of faith that become disputable it must all of necessity depend upon the sufficiency of those motives which convict men to imbrace the Christian Faith And if there be any such skill as that of a Divine among Christians of necessity all of it proceeds upon supposition of the said motives which not pretending to show the reason of things which they convict men to believe convict them notwithstanding to believe that they are revealed by God For what conviction can there be that this or that is true unlesse it may appear to fall under those motives as the means which God hath imployed so to recommend it Therefore can it not be reasonable to require a greater evidence to the truth of things disputable among Christians than God hath allowed Christianity it self which being supposed on all hands it remains questionable whether this or that be part of it Therefore can it not be presumed that God hath made the Scriptures clear in all points necessary to salvation to all understandings concerned or that hee hath
therefore affected a compliance with the ancient Church And truly it is fit it should be thought that they complied with him because hee complied with the Catholick Church for by that reason they shall comply with the Church if in any thing hee comply not with it But it is a great deal too little for him to say that will say the truth for the Church of England For it hath an Injunction which ought still to have the force of a Law that no interpretation of the Scripture be alleged contrary to the consent of the Fathers Which had it been observed the innovations which I dispute against could have had no pretense If this be not enough hee that shall take pains to peruse what Dr. Field hath writ hereupon in his work of the Church shall find that which I say to be no novelty either in the Church of England of in the best learned Doctors beyond the Seas And sure the Reformation was not betrayed when the B. of Sarum challenged all the Church of Rome at S. Pauls Crosse to make good the points in difference by the first DC years of the Church Always it is easie for me to demonstrate that this resolution That the Scripture holding the meaning of it by the Tradition of the Church is the onely means to decide controversies of Faith is neerer to the common terms that the Scripture is the onely Rule of Faith than to that Infallibility which is pretended for the Church of Rome Having demonstrated that to depend upon the Infallibility of the present and the Tradition of the Catholick Church are things inconsistent whereas this cannot be inconsistent with that Scripture which is no lesse delivered from age to age than Tradition is though the one by writing the other by word of mouth and serving chiefly to determine the true meaning of it when it comes in debate And if prejudice and passion carry not men headlong to the ruine of that Christianity which they professâ— it cannot seem an envious thing to comply with the most learned of the Church of Rome who acknowledge not yet any other Infallibility in the Church then I claime rather than with the Socinians the whole Interest of whose Heresie consists in being tryed by Scripture alone without bringing the consent of the Church into consequence and that supposing all mater of Faith must be clear in the Scripture to all them that consult with nothing but Scripture But I cannot leave this point till I have considered a singular conceit advanced in Rushworthes Dialogues for maintaining the Infallibility of the Church upon a new account The pretense of that Book is to establish a certain ground of the choice of Religion by the judgement of common sense To which purpose I pretend not to speak in this place thinking it sufficient if this whole work may inable them who are moved with it duely to make that choice for themselves and to show those that depend on them how to do the like But in as much as no man will deny the choice of Religion to be the choice of truth before falshood in those particulars whereof the difference of Religion consists It is manifest that the means of discerning between true and false in mater of Faith which I pretend cannot stand with that which hee advanceth It consists in two points That the Scripture is not and that Tradition is the certain means of deciding this truth Which if no more were said will not amount to a contradiction against that which I resolve For hee that sayes the Scripture is not the onely means excluding that Tradition which determines the meaning of it doth neither deny that Tradition is nor say that the Scripture is the certain means of deciding this kind of truth But the issue of his reasons will easily show upon what termes the contradiction stands Hee citeth then common sense to witnesse that wee cannot rest certain that wee have those Scriptures which came wee agree by inspiration of God by reason of the manifold changes which common sense makes appearance must come to passe in transcribing upon such a supposition as this That so many Columns as one Book contâ—ins so many Copies at least are made every hundreth years and in every Copy so many faults at least as words in one Column Upon which account 15 or 16 times as many faults having been made in all copies as there are words it will be so much oddes that wee have no true Scripture in any place Abating onely for those faults that may have fallen out to be the same in several copies And if Sixtus V Pope causing 100 copies of the Vulgar Latine to be compared found two thousand faults supposing two thousand copies extant which may be supposed a hundred thousand in any Language what will remain unquestionable It is further alleged that the Scripture is written in Languages now ceased which some call Learned Languages because men learn them to know such Books as are written in them the meaning whereof not being subject to sense dependeth upon such a guessing kind of skill as is subject to mistake as experience showes in commenting of all Authors But especially the Hebrew and that Greek in which wee have the Scriptures That having originally no vowels to determine the reading of it wanting Conjunctions and Preposiaions to determine the signification of him that speaks all the Language extant being contained in the Bible alone the Jews Language differing so much as it does from it the Language of the Prophets consisting of such dark Tropes and Figures that no skill seems to determine what they mean This so copious and by that means so various in the expressions of it though wanting that variety of Conjugations by which the Hebrew and other Eastern Languages vary the sense that to determine the meaning of it is more than any ordinary skill can compasse Adde hereunto the manifold equivocations incident to whatsoever is expressed by writing more incident to the Scripture as pretending to give us the sense of our Lords words for example not the very syllables Adde the uncertainties which the multiplicity of Translations must needs produce and all this must needs amount to this reckoning That God never meant the Bible for the means to decide controversies of Faith the meaning whereof requires many principles which God alone can procure because so indefinite Which the nature of the Book argueth no lesse as I observed being written in no method of a Law or a Rule nor having those decisions that are to oblige distinguished from mater of a farre diverse and almost impertinent nature Upon these premises it is inferred as evident to common sense that the Scripture produces no distinct resolution of controversies though as infinitely usefull for instruction in virtue so tending to show the truth in maters of Faith in grosse and being read rather to know what is in it than to judge by it by the summary agreement of it with that which
of their people that wee have the vulgar Latine and that ancient and worthy Christian translation into the Syriack is there any body will undertake to say Either that having these helps wee cannot assure our selves of the Scripture which God delivered to the Church so farr as the necessity of the Church requireth to be assured of it Or that nothing but the Copy which now wee have from the Jews is to be regarded God having provided us so many helps over and above For suppose the Samaritane Copy of the Law to have been fâ—lâ—ified by Desitheus must it not needs have been falsified upon some certain design And will one certain design require or will it indure that all should be falsified whether it concerned that design or not So suppose those Jews of Alexandria who turned the Old Testament into Greek gave themselves liberty to make the Book of Job the Proverbs more of the Old Testament if more can be alleged not what the original contained but what themselves fansied would be handsom shall wee therefore say the whole work is not a translation but a Romance which wee see stick so close to the original in the most of the Scripture Surely the very great antiquity of both Copies and the experience which all that study the Scriptures with an intent to clear the meaning of them have of the great advantage which the comparing of the Greek advances more and more every day to that design will no way indure that it should be counted no translation of the Old Testament Or that though a man pretend not to build upon the credit of either of those Copies alone in opposition to the Ebrew which wee now use Yet the agreement of them with other Copies together with the reason and consequence or pertinence of sense inforced by the text of the Scripture may give him just ground to assure himself and the Church of the true reading of the Scripture yea though the present Ebrew should not agree with others For I shall not need here to say what or how great faults may be found in our Ebrew Copies who had rather be assured that there were none at all to be found greater or lesse But that wee who neither relye upon the dictate of the Spirit to them that are able to conclude the Church nor much lesse to particular Churches for assuring the true reading of Scripture are not bound to resolve our faith in it into the present Tradition of the Synagogue having over and above so considerable helps to the verifying of the same For magnifying first the providence of God in that the Jews having Christians in utter hatred should neverthelesse neither be willing for their interest nor able for their malice to falsifie those things in their own books which bear witnesse against themselves Seeing God hath given the Church that most ancient Greek Translation which is commonly ascribed to LXX Interpreters sent from Jerusalem but more justly to the Jews of Alexandria besides that Copy of the Law which the Samaritanes still use Since wee have considerable remains of those Greek Translations made by Aquila Symmachus and Theodotion the Bodies whereof to the great losse of the Church have perished with the worthy labors of Origen in joyning them in columes to the Ebrew Since wee have those ancient translations into the Chaldee which the Jews make so much esteem of Since wee have the Syriack and Vulgar Latine made by Christians to say nothing of the Arabick whether made by Jews or Christians or of any other though ancient translations which have not had the like use and credit in the Church So far am I from giving way to that unreasonable demand so destructive to the being of Christianity that wee cannot assure our selves that wee have any Scripture That in all that I have to say or shall have said concerning the dispute on foot in England about Religion I shall neither undertake to assure men that will be content with reason that I allege nothing for Scripture which I cannot justifie so to be or else undertake to resolve that which shall come in debate without the help of that which I cannot assure to be such Not intending in that which follows to allege any more evidence hereof in the particulars than I have done in the premises But building my self upon the resolution premised and intending that there shall be nothing to be objected from the true means of questioning and settling the true reading of the Scriptures that may breed any considerable scruple concerning the truth of those Scriptures which I shall imploy to my purpose As for the part of the difficulty which remains concerning the true reading of the New Testament it is in vain to maintain the decree of the Council of Trent by pretending that the Greek Copy out of which the Vulgar Latine was translated vvas more intire and of better credit than the Greek Copies novv extant Understanding that decree to make that Copy authentick in point of faith by virtue of any gift of Infallibility intailed upon the decrees of the present Church For if it be onely made authentick because the use and credit of it is not allowed to be questioned in the Church it is another question as I have said already vvhich I pretend not to touch in this place For supposing the Copy from which the Vulgar Latine was translated to have been better than any Greek Copy now extant the credit of the Vulgar Latine is not to be ascribed to the decree of the Council that decrees this any more than the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom of England were the fundamental Laws thereof by virtue of any Act of Parliament by which they were not constituted but declared and acknowledged to be such And if the credit of the Vulgar Latine be derived from the Greek Copy out of which it was translated then is it no further authentick than as it expresseth the authentick reading which then was found in the Greek out of which it was translated And so the whole credit of the Scripture is resolved into the credit of the Originals whereof wee stand possest in the translations of them that remain in whatsoever Language So that the question comes to be the very same that remained before concerning the authentick Copy of the Old Testament and the resolution clear that the Original Greek is the authentick the reading thereof being first assured neither by the dictate of Gods Spirit to any persons inabled to oblige the Church by their decrees nor to any never so good Christian much lesse by the Tradition of any particular Copy which the Church stands possest of but by that Tradition which is justified and assured by all Copies wherein the leter of the Scripture is recorded to the Church For though I do for disputation sake suppose yet do I not grant for a truth that the Copy out of which the Vulgar Latine was translated is to be held of better credit than that
God which it restraines in these words to the Father from any that by the sense of him that speaks them can be understood to be included in it And that the sense of our Lord may be notwithstanding this onely to include the Sonne in the property of this attribute the true God I go no further then the sense of all Christians who all affirme the father to be the onely true God but believe the Sonne to be the same onely true God neverthelesse And that this is his sense I referre my self to the titles attributes workes and worship of the onely true God challenged hitherto from his words And this sense the words of S. John the meaning whereof according to the ordinary reading I have shewed before not to advantage Socinus seem to intend according to the true reading which the Vulgar Latine justified by the Marques of Velez his Spanish Copies as you may by the readings added to the Great Bible preserveth We know that the Sâ—nne of God is come and hath given us understanding to know the true one Et sumus in vero filius ejus Jesu Christo And we are in his true Sonne Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternall life Whereas it is ordinarily read And we are in the true One in his Sonne Christ Or Through his Sonne Jesus Christ 1 John V. 20. For it seemeth that the Apostle folding up both attributes of the True one that is as it followeth the True God and the True Sonne of God in our Lord Christ pointeth at the words of our Lord recorded by himself alone John XVII 3. This is eternall life to know thee the onely true God and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ Challenging for him that he is no more to be excluded from the Title of onely true God then from that of author of eternall Life If it be said This cannot be Because there would be then more then one onely true God The answer is ready that this is not an argument from the force of these words that this cannot be the sense of them But from the light of reason that this sense cannot be true I know it is a trick that Crellius puts upon the Reader throughout his first Book de Deo Trino Vno that the sense of the Church is not the sense of the Scriptures because it contradicteth the evidence of natures light But when the sense of the Scripture is in question the dictate of reason concerning the truth of the matter is to be set aside that it may be judged without anticipation of prejudice from evidence planted in the very words of it And this is the answer to the rest of those texts that have the like exclusive but not in so strong terms as this Now when our Lord saith Of that day and hour knoweth not the Sonne I know S. Hilary laboureth very eloquently to shew that he meanes no more then that he had not commission to declare it But this would make the sense of our Lord to be the sense of those men who when they are asked that which they hold unfit to declare and yet would not seem to refuse the civility of declaring it do answer that they know not to wit so as to hold it fit to be told I will not tye my self to maintaine this reservation fit for our Saviour to use Especially where no circumstance of the case or the discourse appeares to intimate such a meaning to them whom he discourseth with When he said in the Comoedy Tu nescis id quod scis Dromo si sapias If thou beest wise thou knowest not what thou knowest Every man understands his meaning to be thou wilt not declare it Whether when the Messias saith I know not the day of judgement Men would conceive that he meant no more then this That he is not to declare it seems to be very questionable I can by no meanes comprehend how it can be prejudiciall to the Faith to say that the humane soul of Christ the knowledge whereof is necessarily limitted to the capacity of a creature and knowes things above nature by voluntary revelation of the Word and Spirit which knowes whatsoever is in God 1 Cor. II. 10 11. should be ignorant of something that is to come Luke II. 40 52. It is said The child grew and waxed strong in Spirit growing full of wisdome and the grace of God was upon it And Jesus improved in wisdome and stature and grace with God and men Shall I go and say that he seemed thus to grow as boyes in the Schools when they cannot answer texts of Aristotle that he speakes there in the sense of the ancient Philosophers The Schoole Doctors will have our Lords humane soul to have known all from the moment that he was conceived and think him not â—ound in the Faith that doubts of it But if onely originall Tradition be matter of Faith according to the Principle that is setled the meaning of particular texts of Scripture cannot be such Especially when it is evident that such a meaning is not necessarily consequent to that which is matter of Faith And if you look but upon the sayings of the Fathers that are alledged by the learned Jesuite Petavius 1 De Trinitate III. 5-11 You shall easily perceive how truly it is said by Leontius de Sectis pag. 546. Speaking of the Agnoâ—tae who were a Sect of Eutychians which held that our Lord knowes not all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But we say that we are not to stand stifly upon these things Therefore neither did the Synod of Calcedon trouble is about any such position as this Yet it is to be known that many of the Fathers even almost all say that he was ignorant Certainly Irenaeus and Athanasius if narrowly examined demand no more but that he is ignorant of nothing according to his Godhead So that it is so farre from being matter of Faith that it is not in the Church ever to make it so whatsoever the Church may do to oblige the members of it not to declare their judgment to the scandale of others in a point so obscure Now the words of S. Paul do manifestly distinguish between our Lord Christ and all Creatures insisting thus Who is the Image of the invisible God the first born of the whole Creature For in him were all things created whether in Heaven or on Earth Surely he in whom as by whom all things are sayd to have been made is not intended to be comprised in the number of things made by being called the first born of the whole Creature And therefore I conceive the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the compound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to signifie according to the Hebrew not first but before We have eminent examples in the Gospels John I. 15. the Baptist sayth of our Lord Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because he was before me Our Lord. John XV. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The world
Irenaeus expresly maintaineth him one and the same God with the Father and true God and his generation ineffable without beginning and from everlasting Clemens makes him God â—quall to God as his Sonne Origen not in any work now extant that may be questioned but as he is alledged by Athanasius de decretis Synodi Niceâ—ae saies of him that if there be any image of God who is invisible that image must also be invisible with a great deal more to the same purpose where he also quotes Theognostus in secundo hypopseon affirming the same at large to set aside those that are questioned And shall we not think our selves obliged so to understand their words which the importunity of Heresies have made questionable that they may consist and agree with those which remaine unquestionable Especially all of them agreeing in this That the world was made and is governed by Christ And that the whole dispensation of God tending to the salvation of mankinde whether before the Law or under the Law as well as since his appearing in the flesh was executed by him as a preface and prologue to his coming in the flesh a supposition which all seem to ground themselves upon especially against the Jewes in giving account of our common Christianity That our Faith is in the Father Sonne and holy Ghost That we are to glorifie to worship and to be baptized in the Name of the Father Sonne and holy Ghost And in counting all Hereticks that denied it For communion with the Church not communicating with those who believe it not because they believe it not is an evidence which no words of doubtfull construction can obscure in the judgement of any man that is reasonable Nay among the very heathen that have made any mention of the Christian Faith doth not Plinies Epistle concerning the Christians acknowledge that they sung hymns to Christ as to God Doth not Lucian in his Philopatris manifestly expresse the Faith of the Trinity as the cognizance of Christians at that time hath it not appeared by these inventions wherewith the Gnosticks sophisticated it that the Fulness of the Godhead consists in the Trinity according to the Christian Faith as according to the severall Sects of them in their severall inventions That the Christians honoured and worshipped the blessed Trinity as those Sects did those imaginatitions of their own which they call the Fullnesse of the Godhead When Ebion Cerinthus Artemon Theodorus and after them Sabellius Noetus Praxâ—as and Paâ—lus Samosatenus were disowned by the whole Church and excluded the communion of all Christians did not all Churches that agreed in refusing them find themselves possessed of a contrary Faith as the reason for which they were refused Were all Christians out of their simplicity cunning enough to assoile all the reasons whereby these and Arius to boot did or might argue their pretenses from texts of Scripture Or did they think themselves bound to rest in the visible consent of the whole Church whether they were able to do that or not In fine the learned Jesuite Petavius in the Preface to his books de Trinitate and the beginning of the first as he hath evidently shewed that the substance of the faith of the Trinity is acknowledged by these ancient Christians some of whose words seem to disparage the Godhead of our Lord Christ So he indeavoureth to shew that they did it out of a desire to reconcile the faith with the doctrine of Plato and his followers If his opinion be admitted there will remaine evidence enough for the Tradition of Faith even in their writings whose skill in the Scriptures goes not the right way to maintaine it The plain song will be good musick though the descant transgresse Though for my part having seen what he hath said I repent me not of that which I had conceived out of Tertullianâ— That out of a desire to reconcile the creation of wisdome in the Proverbs according to the Greek not the doctrine of Plato with the rule of Faith they conceived this a supposition fit to do it That by Gods proceeding to create the World his mind or wisdome which incarnate is our Lord Christ attained not the essence and being which it had in God from everlasting but the denomination and quality of his Word and Sonne For you shall find there that most of them concurre in the speculations of Tertulliane Whereby you may see that this learned Jesuite is not agreed with the Cardinall du Perron to deny the reason why we hold the Faith of the holy Trinity originally from the decree of the Council of Nicâ—a and from that authority of the Church which maintaineth it But from the reason whereupon that decree was grounded and made That is from the meaning of the Scriptures expressed and limited by the Tradition of the Church And therefore not burthening my self here with the expounding of all those passages of their writings before Arius which may seem to derogate from the Tradition of the Church in that point I shall referre the Reader to those things whereby he showeth that they do unanimously concurre in maintaining the same Faith For if there be amongst them that have had speculations tending to reconcile some Scriptures to it which are not onely ill grounded as I dispute not but this of Tertulliane is but also prejudiciall to the Faith as some of Origens whom I have mentioned already That this is to be imputed to the inconsequence of their severall discourses not to any difference in their common Faith I remit you to that which he hath said to judge Onely whereas he de Trinitate II. 2. hath given you a full account of those Fathers which expound the words of our Lord The Father is greater then I to be meant of his Godhead which I have onely named in gross I will advise you again hereupon that many things which are said of the Sonne as inferior to the Father as when he is said to Minister unto the Father in creating the World may be imputed not to any inequality in that Godhead which is the same in all the Trinity but unto the manner of having it the Father originally as the Fountaine the Sonne and the holy Ghost as from him wherein the difference of the persons consisteth To the same Petavius de Trinitate VIII 2. I remit them that would be satisfied of the sense of the Fathers in that which I alledged for the reason why our Lord is called the Word by S. John To wit that the intercourse between God and man after the fall was executed and managed by his Ministry Not because I think this name of the Word unfit to signifiy the originall proceeding of the Sonne from the Father much lesse his concurrence in and to the creation of all things But because believing as I do that the mystery of the Trinity is revealed by the coming of our Lord I find great reason to conceive that his Apostle intended thereby to intimate
so ballanced But chiefly because I see the subject of the dispute to be all upon the literall and mysticall sense of these Scriptures Without the knowledge whereof I am confident the Faith of a Christian is intire though the skill of a divine is nothing And for the consent of the Fathers how generall soever it be after Irenaeus I have the authority of the same Irenaeus backed by his reason in that excellent Chapter where he distinguishes between the Tradition of Faith and the skill of the Scriptures to resolve me that neither this point nor any other point which depends upon the agreement between the Old Testament and the New as this does can belong to the Faith of a Christian but onely to the skill of a divine But now this being premised and setled it will be easie for me to inferre that a state of meer nature is a thing very possible had it pleased God to appoint it by proposing no higher end then naturall happinesse no harder meanes then Originall innocence to man whom he had made The reasons premised sufficiently serving to shew that there is no contradiction in the being of that which there is so much appearance that it was indeed But I must advise you withall that I mean it upon a farre other supposition then that of the Schoole Doctors They supposing that man was created to that estate of supernaturall happinesse to which the Gospel pretendeth to regenerate Christians hold that it was Gods meer free grace that he was not created with that contradiction between the reason and appetite which the principles of his nature are of themselves apt to produce Whereupon it foloweth that concupiscence is Gods creature that is the indowment of it signifying by concupiscence that contrariety to reason which the disorder of sensuall appetite produceth A saying that hath fallen from the pen of S. Augustine and that after his businesse with Pelagius Retract I. 9. allowing what he had writ to that purpose against the Manichees in his third book de libero arbitrio which he mentioneth againe and no way disalloweth in his book de Dono perseverantiae cap. XI and XII but seemeth utterly inconsistent with the grounds which he stands upon against Pelagius For supposing contrariety and disorder in the motions of mans soul what is there in this confusion which it hath created in the doings of mankind that might not have come to passe without the fall Unlesse we suppose that a man can be reasonably madde or that concupiscence which reason boundeth not could be contained within any rule or measure not supposing any gift of God inabling reason to give bounds to it or preventing the effect of it which the supposition of pure nature alloweth us not to suppose For the very state of mortality supposing the immortality of the soul either requireth in man the conscience of integrity before God or inferreth upon him a bad expectation for the world to come And therefore though the sorrows that bring death might serve for advantage to happinesse were reasonable to govern passion in using them yet not being able they can be nothing but essayes of that displeasure of God which he is to expect in the world to come And therefore this escape of S. Augustine may seem to abate the zeale of those who would make his opinion the rule of our common Faith That which my resolution inferreth is no more then this That supposing God did not create man in an estate capable to attaine the said supernaturall happinesse he might neverthelesse had he pleased have created him in an estate of immortality without impeachment of trouble or of sorrow but not capable of further happinesse then his then life in Paradise upon earth importeth Not that I intend to say that God had been without any purpose of calling man whom he had created in this state unto the state of supernaturall grace whereby he might become capable of everlasting glory in the world to come as Christians believe themselves to be For the meaning of those that suppose this is that God purposed to exercise man first in this lower estate and having proved him and found him faithfull in it supposing Adam had not fallen to have called him afterwards to a higher condition of that immortality which we expect in the world to come upon trial of fidelity in that obedience here which is correspondent to it Whereupon it is reasonably though not necessarily consequent that this calling being to be performed by the Word of God which being afterwards incarnate is our Lord Christ and the Spirit which dwelt in him without measure our Lord Christ should have come in our flesh though Adam had not fallen to do this And this is alledged for a reason why afterwards the Law that was given to Moses covenanted expresly for no more then the happinnesse of this present life though covertly being joyned with that discipline of godlinesse which the people of God had received by tradition from their Fathers it afforded sufficient argument of the happinesse of the world to come for those who should imbrace the worship of God in spirit and truth though under the paedagogie and figures of the Law For they say it is suitable to the proceeding of God in restoring mankind that we understand him first to intend the recovering of that naturall integrity in which man was created by calling his people to that uprightnesse of civile conversation in the service of the onely true God which might be a protection to as many as under the shelter of such civile Lawes should take upon them the profession of true righteousnesse to God Intending afterwards by our Lord Christ to set on foot a treaty of the said righteousnesse upon terms of happinesse in the world to come But thesâ— things though containing nothing prejudiciall to Christianity yet not being grounded upon expresse scripture but collected by reasoning the ground and rule of Gods purpose which concerns not the truth of the Gospel whether so or not I am neither obliged to admit nor refuse So much of Gods counsel remaining alwaies visibly true That he pleased to proceed by degrees in setting his Gospel on foot by preparing his people for it by the discipline of the Law and the insufficience thereof visible by that time which he intended for the coming of our Lord Christ though we say that man was at first created in a state of supernaturall grace and capable of everlasting happinesse For still the reason of Gods proceeding by degrees will be that first there might be a time to try how great the disease was by the failing of the cure thereof by the Law before so great a Physitian as the Sonne of God came in person to visite it This onely I must adde because all this discourse proceeds upon supposition that man might have been created in an estate of meer nature if indowed with uprightnesse capable to attaine that happinesse which that estate required That
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
began to make some question of it upon some disputes which he met with That S. Gregory first professed an opinion of it granted upon no scripture no nor Tradition of faith but upon aparitions and revelations That there is great appearance that Venerable Bede having received it from S. Gregorys Scholars who planted Christianity here added much to it by his credulity in such maters And yet that they had yet assigned no quarter in the Verge of Hell for this purpose but onely believed it of certaine soules in some places of this earth untill the Schoole hammered out a debt of punishment to which souls acquited both of the guilt and staine of sin may remaine lyable The extending of indulgence to the voyding of this how properly soever it may be counted purging of soules made the position a mater of great jelousy for the interest of profit which our common Christianity abhorreth And indulgence indeed of Canonicall penance I have showed hath the first ground in S. Pauls example and necessary use in the Church But when redeeming of penance was come into practice in the Church it was granted upon considerations with Christianity and the safety of poore soules allowed not Of paying a rate of taking the Crosse against Infidels of moderne Jubiles But that there should be a stock of merit in the Church upon account of works of supererogation done by the Saints which theire owne reward answereth not and that the Church in granting indulgence of penance may allow it to his account that receives indulgence is a conceite as injurious to the merits of Christ the consideration of all pardon and to the Covenant of Grace the condition whereof it abateth so that hath no evidence from any rule or practice of the ancient Church But that they should be thought to be of force to redeeme soules out of Purgatory and that taxing the time which they grant and the like for which neither there is nor can be any ground The best that is said or can be said in defense of them who publish them to poore people by whom they are frequented is that they get themselves mony the account whereof being almes they charge themselves with And that people are by this meanes imployed in the works of devotion which if not available to the effect which they imagine are how soever good for their soules health As for the translating of soules to heaven before the day of judgement it is so diametrally contrary to all antiquity that the very naming of it takes away all pretense for Traditon on behalfe of Purgatory It is acknowledged indeed that a number of the ancient Fathers during the flourishing times of the Church doe believe that the fire which the world is to be burnt up with as it shall involve the wicked and cary them to be everlastingly tormented in the sink of the world so it shall touch and scorch even the Saints themselves to try if their works be such as Gods vengeance can take hold of and to purge away that drosse which the love of the world they dyed with importeth This is by divers called Origens Purgatory because they conceive his credit might move S. Hilary S. Basil S. Ambrose Gregory Nyssene and Nazanizain S. Jerome S. Austine and S. Chry. with divers others to follow it But Blondel having observed that it is found in the Sibyles verses will needs have them all to have taken it up from thence Which as I have no reason to yeild to having showed already that the credit of that book was not the foundation of other particular opinions which had vogue in the Church So do I not find those famous Doctors so affected to Origen whose writings concerning the exposition of the scriptures they were necessarily obliged to frequent as to admit an opinion so neere concerning the faith upon this recommendation on whom they declare so much jelousy in mater of Faith For my part as I find it very agreeable to the words of S. Paul when he saith that they whose works are burnt up shall escape themselves but as through fire So how mens works should be tryed or burnt up by that fire I find it not easy to be understood And therefore without taking upon me to censure so great persons for innovating in the Church or to maintaine that in which there is no concurrence of any Scripture with any consent of the whole Church I leave the truth of this to judgement as secure that it will not concern the common Faith But this I say peremptorily that admitting it there remaines no pretense for Purgatory in the Tradition of the Church unlesse it be by equivocation of words For this coming to passe at the day of judgement admitteth no release before And without release before Purgatory fire goes quite out No Indulgences no Jubilies no stock of merit to be dispensed by the Church to such workes of devotion as it limiteth can be any of any request if they take not effect afore the day of judgement Take away the opinion of translating souls from the Verge of hell which Purgatory to the sight of God and the Clergy of the Church of Rome shall no more eat the sins of the people as the Prophet complaines of the Priests under the Law For while the people are perswaded that their sins are cured by the sentence of absolution once pronounced Penance serving onely to extinguish the debt of temporall punishment remaining and that to be ransomed by the services which they pay for in the name of their friends which are dead the Clergy live by those sins of which the people dy because they are not duly cured For the lusts for which men sin not being cured by that hardship of Penance which the case requireth to change attrition into contrition the guilt of sin remaines upon the head of him in whose heart the love of sin remaines alive notwithstanding the keyes of the Church mistaking in that case Besides take away the opinion of translating soules from hell to heaven since the coming of Christ and there will remaine no ground for the translating of the Fathers souls from the verge of hell which is Limbus Patrum to the sight of God by the descent of our Lord into hell and his rising from the dead againe There will be no cause why that reason which I tender for that vanity of immaginations rather then opinions or belief in the Fathers which that which all agree in is intangled with should not be admitted For the translating of Christian soules from Purgatory to heaven not being believed why should the translating the Fathers souls remaine Why should not the simple Faith in which all Christians agree revive and take the place of Tradition in the Church which indeed it hath that between death and the day of judgement the good are in joy the bad in paine both incomplete till both be fulfilled after both shall have received their finall doome CHAP. XXIX The
not that which is invisible by their authority in point of right For want of this authority whatsoever is done by virtue of that usurpation being voide before God I will not examine whether the forme wherein they execute the Offices of the Church which they thinke fit to exercise agree with the ground and intent of the Church or not Only I charge a peculiar nullity in their consecrating the Eucharist by neglecting the Prayer for making the elements the body and blood of Christ without which the Church never thought it could consecrate the Eucharist Whether having departed from the Church Presbyteries and Congregations scorne to learne any part of their duty from the Church least that might seeme to weaken the ground of their departure Or whether they intend that the elements remaine meere signes to strengthen mens faith that they are of the number of the elect which they are before they be consecrated as much as afterwards The want of Consecration rendering it no Sacrament that is ministred the ministring of it upon a ground destructive to Christianity renders it much more On the other side the succession of Pastors from the Apostles or those who received their authority from the Apostles is taken for a sufficient presumption on behalfe of the Church of Rome that it is Catholick But I have showed that the Tradition of Faith and the authority of the Scriptures which containe it is more ancient then the being of the Church and presupposed to the same as a condition upon which it standeth That the authority of the Apostles and the Powers left by them in and with the Church the one is originally the effective cause the other immediately the Law by which it subsisteth and in which the government thereof consisteth That the Church hath Power in Lawes of lesse consequence though given the Church by the Apostles though recorded by the Scriptures where that change which succeeds in the state of Christendome renders them uselesse to preserve the unity of the Church presupposing the Faith in order to the publick service of God But neither can the Church have power in the faith to add to take away to change any thing in that profession of Christianity wherein the salvation of all Christians consisteth and which the being of the Church presupposeth Nor in that act of the Apostles authority whereby the unity of the Church was founded and setled Nor in that service of God for which it was provided There is therefore something else requisite to evidence the Church of Rome to be the true Church exclusive to the Reformation then the visible succession of Pastors though that by the premises be one of the Laws that concurre to make every Church a Catholicke Church The Faith upon which the powers constituted by the Apostles in which the forme of government by which the service of God for which it subsisteth If these be not maintained according to the Scriptures interpreted by the originall and Catholicke Tradition of the Church it is in vaine to alledge the personall succession of Pastors though that be one ingredient in the government of it without which neither could the Faith be preserved nor the service of God maintained though with it they might possibly faile of being preserved and maintained for a mark of the true Church The Preaching of that Word and that Ministring of the Sacraments understanding by that particular all the offices of Gods publicke service in the Church which the Tradition of the Whole limiteth the Scriptures interpreted thereby to teach is the onely marke as afore to make the Church visible To come then to our case Is it therefore become warrantable to communicate with the Church of Rome because it is become unwarrantable to communicate with Presbyteries or Congregations This is indeed the rest of the difficulty which it is the whole businesse of this Book to resolve To which I must answer that absolutely the case is as it was though comparatively much otherwise For if the State of Religion be the same at Rome but in England farre worse then it was the condition upon which communion with the Church of Rome is obtained is never a whit more agreeable to Christianity then afore but it is become more pardonable for him that sees what he ought to avoide not to see what he ought to follow He that is admitted to communion with the Church of Rome by the Bull of profession of Faith inacted by Pius IV. Pope not by the Councile of Trent besides many particulars there added to the Creed which whether true or false according to the premises he sweares to as much as to his Creed at length professes to admit without doubting whatsoever else the sacred Canons and generall Councils especially the Synode of Trent hath delivered decreed and declared damning and rejecting as anathema whatsoever the Church damneth and rejecteth for heresie under anathema But whether the whole Church or the present Church the oath limiteth not Here is no formall and expresse profession that a man believes the present Church to be Infallible And therefore it was justly alledged in the first Booke that â—he Church hath never enjoyned the professing of it But here is a just ground for a reasonable Construction that it is hereby intended to be exacted because a man swears to admit the acts of Counciles as he does to admit his Creed and the holy Scriptures Nor can there be a more effectuall challenge of that priviledge then the use of it in the decree of the Councile that the Scriptures which we call Apocrypha be admitted with the like reverence as the unquestionable Canonicall Scriptures being all injoyned to be received as all of one rancke Which before the decree had never been injoyned to be received but with that difference which had alwaies been acknowledged in the Church For this act giving them the authority of prophetical Scripture inspired by God which they had not afore though it involve a nullity because that which was not inspired by God to him that writ it when he writ it can never have the authority of inspired by God because it can never become inspired by God Nor can become known that it was indeed inspired by God not having been so received from the begining without revelation anew to that purpose yet usurpeth Infallibility because it injoyneth that which no authority but that which immediate revelation createth can injoyne Further the decree of the Councile concerning justification involving a mistake in the terme and understanding by it the infusion of grace whereby the righteousnesse that dwelleth in a Christian is formally and properly that which settles him in the state of righteous before God not fundamentally and metonymically that which is required in him that is estated in the same by God in consideration of our Lord Christ Though I maintaine that this decree prejudiceth not the substance of Christianity Yet must it not be allowed to expresse the true reason by which it
CHAP. IX The Keyes of the Church given to the Apostles and exercised by excommunication under the Apostles The ground thereof is that profession which all that are baptized are to make That Penance and abatâ—ment of Penance hath been in force ever since and under the Apostles In particular of excluding Hereticks CHAP. X. Evidence of the Apostles act from the effect of it in preserving the Vnity of the Church Of the businesse of Marcion and Montanus That about keeping Easter That of the Novatians of rebaptizing Hereticks of Paulus Samosatenus of Dionysius Alexandrinus and Arius Of communicatory leters and the intercourse of the Church under and after the Apostles CHAP. XI Upon what grounds the first book de Synedriis holds that the Church cannot excommunicate Before the law there was no such Power nor by it Christians went for Jewes under the Apostles His sense of some Scriptures What the Leviathan saith in generall concerning the Power of the Church Both suppose that Ecclesiasticall Power includeth Temporall which is not true Of the Oxford Doctors Paraenesis CHAP. XII That the Law expresly covenanted for the Land of Promise A great Objection against this from the Great precept of the Law The hope of the world to come under the Law and the obedience which it required was grounded upon reason from the true God the tradition of the Fathers and the Doctrine of the Prophets The Love of God above all by the Law extendeth no further than he precepts of the Law the lâ—ve of our Neighbor onely to Jews Of the Ceremonial Judicial and Moral Law CHAP. XIII That the Law tendereth no other promise but that of the Land of Canaan How the Resurrection is signified by the Prophets Expresse texts of the Apostles Their Arguments and the Arguments of our Lord do suppose the mystical sense of the Scriptures That this sense is to be made good throughout the Scripture wheresoever the ground of it takes place Christianity well grounded supposing this What parts of Scripture may be questionable whether they have a mysticall sense or not The sayings and doings of our Lord have it As also those passages of the Old Testament which are fulfilled by the same The sense of the Fathers CHAP. XIV The Leviathans opinion that Christ came to restore that Kingdome of God which the Jewes cast off when they rejected Sâ—muel It overthroweth the foundation of Christianity The true Government of Gods ancient people The name of the Church in the New Testament cannot signifie the Synagogue Nor any Christian State CHAP. XV. How the Power of the Church is founded upon the Law The Power of the Kingdome Priesthood Prophets and Rulers of that people all of divine right How farre these qualities and the powers of them are to continue in the Church The sense of the Fathers in this point That the acts of S. Paul and the rest of the Apostles were nâ—t of force by virtue of the Law What Ecclesiastical Power should have been among the Jewes in case they had received the Gospel and so the state had stood CHAP. XVI The Church founded upon the Power given the Apostles What is the subject mater of Church Lawes The Right of the Church to Tythes and Oblations is not grounded upon the Law though evidenced by it and by practice of the Patriarchs Evidence of the Apostles Order in the Scriptures The Church of Jerusalem held not community of Goods The original practice of the Church CHAP. XVII The Power of Excommunication in the Church is not founded in the Law What argument there is of it in the Old Testament The allegorical sense thereof is argumentative It was not necessary that the Christians should incurre persecution for using the Power of the Keyes and not by virtue of the Law CHAP. XVIII The difference between S. Pauls anathema and that of the Jews It is not necessary that the Christians anathema should signifie cursing That the incestuous person at Corinth was Excommunicated by S. Paul Jurisdiction of the Church Telling the Church binding and loosing holding him that is bound for a Heathen or a Publicanâ— signifie the same The coherence of our Lords discourse Of Excommunication and Indulgence by private persons in the Ancient Church That Excommunication and the Power of the Church could not come in force by the voluntary consent of the first Christians How it may be said to be voluntary Of the confederacy of the primitive Christians CHAP XIX That Power which was in Churches under the Apostles can never be in any Christian Soveraign The dâ—fference between the Church and the Synagogue in that regard The interest of Seculâ—r Power in determining maters of faith presuppâ—seâ—h the Socieâ—y of the Church and the act of it No man can be bound to profâ—sse tâ—e contrary of that which he believeth Every man is bound to professe thâ—t Christianity which hee believeth The Church is the chiefe Teacher of Christianity through Christendom as the Soveraign of Civil Peace thorough his Dominions Why the Church is to decide maters of Faith rather then the State neither being infallible 146 CHAP. XX. The rest of the Oxford Doctors pretense The Power of binding and loosing supposeth not onely the Preaching of the Gospel but the outward act of Faith Christians are not at liberty to cast themselves in what formes of Churches the Law of Nature alloweth They are Judges in chief for themselvss in mater of Religion supposing the Catholick Church not otherwise Secular Power cannâ—t punish for Relâ—gion but supposing the act of the Church nor do any act to inforce Religion unlâ—sse the Church determine the mater of it 151 CHAP. XXI How the Tradition of the Church limits the interpretation of Scriptures How the declaration of the Church becomes a reasonable marke of Heresie That which is not found in the Scriptures may have been delivered by the Apostles Some things delivered by the Apostles and recorded in the Scriptures may not oblige S. Austines Rule of Apostolical Traditions 159 CHAP. XXII The Authority of the Fathers is not grounded upon any presumption of their Learning or Holinesse How farr they challenge the credit of Historical truth The pre-eminence of the Primitive The presumption that is grounded upon their ranks and qualities in the Church Of Arnobius Lactantius Tertulliâ—n Origen Clemens and the approbation of Posterity 165 CHAP. XXIII Two iâ—stances against the premises besides the obâ—ection concerning the beginning of Antichrist under the Apostles The General answer to it The seven Trumpeâ—s in the Apocalypse fore-tell the destruction of the Jewes The seven Vials the plagues inflicted upon the Empire for the ten persecutions The correspondence of Daniels Prophesie inferreth the same Neither S. Pauls Prophesie nor S. Johns concerneth any Christian Neither the opinion of the Chiliasts nor the the giving of the Eucharist to Infants new Baptized Catholick 169 CHAP. XXIV Two sorts of means to resolve whatsoever is resolvable conceâ—rning the Scripture Vpon what terms the Church may or
Of the Prophets and righteous men under the Law Abraham and Rahab the harlot justified by Workes if justified by Faith The promises of the Gospel depend upon works which the Gospel injoyneth The Tradition of the Church 52 CHAP. X. What Pelagius questioneth concerning the Grace of Christ what Socinus further of the state of Christ before his birth The opposition between the first and second Adam in S. Paul evidenceth original sinne Concupisence in the unregenerate and the inability of the Law to subdue it evict the same The second birth by the holy Ghost evidenceth that the first birth propagateth sin 66 CHAP. XI The old Testament chargeth all men as well as the wicked to be sinful from the wombe David complaineth of himself as born in sin no lesse then the Wise man of the children of the Gentiles How Leviticall Laws argue the same And temporal death under the Old Testament The book of Wisdome and the Greek Bible 76 CHAP. XII The Heresie of Simon Magus the beginning of the Gnosticks That they were in being during the Apostles time Where and when the Heresie of Cerintâ—us prevailed and that they were Gnosticks The beginning of the Encratites under the Apostles It is evident that one God in Trinity was then glorified among the Christians by the Fulnesse of the Godhead which they introduced in stead of it 80 CHAP. XIII The Word was at the beginning of all things The apparition of the old Testament Prefaces to the Incarnation of Christ Ambassadors are not honoured with the honour due to their Masters The word of God that was afterwards incarnate was in those Angels that spoke in Gods Name No Angel honoured as God under the New Testament The Word was with God at the beginning of all things as after his return 89 CHAP. XIV The Name of God not ascribed to Christ for the like reason as to creatures The reasons why the Socinians worship Christ as God do confute their limitations Christ not God by virtue of his rising again He is the Great God with S. Paul the true God with S. John the onely Lord with S. Jude Other Scriptures Of the form of God and of a servant in S. Paul 94 CHAP. XV. Not onely the Church but the World was made by Christ The Word was made flesh in opposition to the Spirit How the Prophets how Christians by receiving the Word of God are possessed by his Spirit How the title of Sonne of God importeth the Godhead How Christ is the brightnesse and Image of God 100 CHAP. XVI The testimonies of Christs Godhead in the Old Testament are first understood of the figures of Christ Of the Wisdome of God in Solomon and elsewhere Of the writings of the Jewes as well before as after Christ 112 CHAP. XVII Answer to those texts of Scripture that seem to abate the true Godhead in Christ Of that creature whereof Christ is the first-born and that which the Wisdome of God made That this beliefe is the originall Tradition of the Church What means this dispute furnisheth us with against the Arians That it is reason to submit to revelation concerning the nature of God The use of reason is no way renounced by holding this Faith 116 CHAP. XVIII The necessity of the grace of Christ is the evidence of Original sinne How the exaltation of our Lord depends upon his humiliation and the grace of Christ upon that All the work of Christianity is ascribed to the grace of Christ Gods predestination manifesteth the same 133 CHAP. XIX Evidences of the same in the Old Testament Of Gods help in getting the Land of Promise and renewing the Covenant And that for Christs sake That Christianity cannot stand without acknowledging the grace of Christ The Tradition of the Church In the Baptism of Infants In the Prayers of the Church In the decrees against Pelagius and other records of the Church 140 CHAP. XX. Wherein Original sinne consisteth What opinions are on foot That it is not Adams sinne imputed to his posterity Whether man were at the first created to a supernatural end or not An estate of meer nature but innocent possible Original sinne is concupisence How Baptism voids it Concerning the late novelty in the Church of England about Original sinne 151 CHAP. XXI The opinion that makes the Predestination of mans will by God the sourse of his freedom And wherein Jansenius differs from it Of necessity upon suppositiou and absolute The necessity of the Will following the last dictate of the understanding is onely upon supposition As also that which Gods foresight creates The difference between indifferent and undetermined 163 CHAP. XXII The Gospel findeth man free from necessity though not from bondage Of the Antecedent and consequent Will of God Praedetermination is not the root but the rooting up of Freedom and Christianity Against the opinion of Jansenius 170 CHAP. XXIII A man is able to do things truly honest under Originall sinne But not to make God the end of all his doing How all the actions of the Gentiles are sinnes They are accountable onely for the Law of nature How all men have or have not Grace sufficient to save 181 CHAP. XXIV Though God determineth not the will immediately yet he determineth the effect thereof by the means of his providence presenting the object so as he foresees it will chuse The cases of Pharoah of Solomon of Ahab and of the Jews that crucified Christ Of Gods foreknowledge of future conditionalls that come not to passe The ground of foreknowledge of future contingencies Difficult objections answered 189 CHAP. XXV The grounds of the difference between sufficient and effectual How naturall occasions conduce to supernatural actions The insufficience of â—ansenius his doctrine Of sufficient grace under the Law of Moses and Nature 202 CHAP. XXVI Predestination to grace absolute to glory respective Purpose of denying effectuall Grace absolute of punishing respective The end to which God predestinates is not the end for which he predestinates Grace the reward of the right use of Grace How much of the question the Gospel dètermines not That our indeavours are ingaged no lâ—sse then if predestination were not it determineth Of the Tradition of the Church and of Semipelagians Predestinatians and Arminians 212 CHAP. XXVII The question concerning the satisfaction of Christ with Socinus The reason why Sacrifices are figures of Christ common to all sacrifices Why and what Sacrifices the Fathers had what the Law added Of our ransom by the price of Christs propitiatory Sacrifice 233 CHAP. XXVIII Christ took away our sinne by bearing the punishment of it The Prophesie of Esay LIII We are reconciled to God by the Gospel inconsidâ—cation of Christs obedience The reconcilement of Jews and Gentiles Men and Angels consequent to the saâ—e Of purging and expiating sinne by Christ and making propitiation for it Of Christs dying for us 238 CHAP. XXIX The grant of Grace in consideration of Christ supposes satisfaction made by him for sinne Neither
Imperial Lawes could never be of force to void the Power of the Church Evidence for it 125 CHAP. XV. Another opinion admiâ—ting the ground of Lawfull Impediments What Impediments arise upon the Constitution of the Church generally as a Society or particularly as of Christians By what Law some degrees are prohibited Christians And of the Polygamy of the Patriarchs Mariage with the deceased wives Sister and with a Cousin Germane by what Law prohibited Of the Profession of Continence and the validity of clandestine Mariages The bound of Ecclesiastical Power in Mariage upon these grounds 134 CHAP. XVI Of the Power of making Governours and Ministers of the Church Vpon what ground the Hierarchy of Bishops Priests and Deacons standath in opposition to Presbyteries and Congregations Of the Power of Confirming and the evidence for the Hierarchy which it yeeldeth Of those Scriptures which seem â—o speake of Presbyteries or Congregations 145 CHAP. XVII The power given the XII under the Title of Apostles and the LXX Disciples That the VII were Deacons Of the first Presbyters at Jerusalem and the interest of the People Presbyters appropriated to Churches under the Apostles S. Pauls Deacons no Presbyters No ground for Lay Elders 152 CHAP. XVIII The Apostlet all of equall power S. Peter onely chiefe in managing it The ground for the pre-eminence of Churches before and over Churches Of Alexandria Antiochia Jerusalem and Rome Ground for the pre-eminence of the Church of Rome before all Churches The consequence of that Ground A summary of the evidence for it 161 CHAP. XIX Of the proceedings about Marcion and Montanus at Rome The business of Pope Victor about keeping Easter a peremptory instance The businesse of the Novatians evidenceth the same Of the businesses concerning the rebaptizing of Hereticks Dionysius of Alexandria Paulus Samosatenus S. Cypriane and of the Donatists under Constantine 168 CHAP. XX. Of the constitution and authority of Councils The ground of the pre-eminence of Churches in the Romane Empire The VI. Canon of the Council of Niâ—aea The pre-eminence of the Church of Rome and that of Constantinople Some instances against the Superiority of Bishops out of the records of the Church what offices every Order by Gods Law or by Canon Law ministreth 175 CHAP. XXI Of the times of Gods service By what Title of his Law the first day of the week is kept Holy How the Sabbath is to be sanctified by Moses Law The fourth Commandment the ground upon which the Apostles inacted it Vpon what ground the Church limiteth the times of Gods service Of Easter and the Lent Fast afore it Of the difference of mâ—ats and measure of Fasting Of keeping of our Lords Birth-day and other Festivals and the regular hours of the day for Gods service 190 CHAP. XXII The people of God tied to build Synâ—gogues though not by the leter of the Law The Church to provide Churches though the Scripture command it not Prescribing the form of Gods publick service is not quenching the Spirit The Psalter is prescribed the Church for Gods Praises The Scriptures prescribed to be read in the Church The order of reading them to be prescribed by the Church 203 CHAP. XXIII The consecration of the Eucharist prescribed by Tradition for the mater of it The Lords Prayer prescribed in all Services The mater of Prayers for all estates prescribed The form of Baptism necessary to be prescribed The same reason holdeth in the formes of other Offices 211 CHAP. XXIV The service of God prescribed to be in a known Language No pretense that the Latine is now understood The means to preserve Unity in the Church notwithstanding The true reason of a Sacrifice inforceth Communion in the Eucharist What occasions may dispense in it Communion in both kinds commanded the People Objections answered Who is chargeable with the abuse 217 CHAP. XXV Prayer the more principall Office of Gods service then Preaching Preaching neither Gods word nor the meanes of salvation unlesse limited to the Faith of Gods Church What the edification of the Church by preaching further requires The Order for divine service according to the course of the Church of England According to the custome of the universal Church 273 CHAP. XXV Idolatry presupposeth an imâ—gination that there is more Gods then one Objections out of the Scripture that it is the worship of the true God under an Image the Original of worshipping the elements of the world The Devill And Images Of the Idolatry of Magicians and of the Gnosticks What Idolatry the cases of Aaron and Jeroboam involve Of the Idolatries practised under the Kings and Judges in answer to objections 282 CHAP. XXVI The place or rather the State of happy and miserable Soules otherwise understood by Gods people before Christs ascension then after it What the Apocalypse what the rest of the Apostles declare Onely Martyrs before Gods Throne Of the sight of God 302 CHAP. XXVII The Souls of the Fathers were not in the Devils Power till Christ Though the Old Testament declare not their estate Of Samuels soul The soul of our Lord Christ parting from his body went with the Thiefe to Paradise Of his triumph over the powers of darknesse Prayer for the dead signifieth â—o delivering of souls out of Purgatory The Covenant of Grace requires imperfect happinesse before the generall judgement Of forgivenesse in the world to come and paying the utmost farthing 310 CHAP. XXVIII Ancient opinions in the Church of the place of souls before the day of judgement No Tradition that the Fathers were in the Vâ—rge of Hell under the Earth The reason of the difference in the expressions of the Fathers of the Church What Tradition of the Church for the place of Christs soul during his death The Saints soules in secret mansions according to the Tradition of the Church Prayer for the dead supposeth the same No Purgatory according to the Tradition of the Church 325 CHAP. XXIX The ground upon which Ceremonies are to be used in the service of the Church Instances out of the Scriptures and Tradition of the Apostles Of the equivocation of the word Sacrament in the Fathers The reason of a Sacrament in Baptism and the Eucharist In extream Unction In Mariage In Confirmation Ordination and Penance 340 CHAP. XXX To worship Christ in the Eucharist though believing transubstantiation is not Idolatry Ground for the honour of Saints and Martyrs The Saints and the Angels pray for us Three sorts of Prayers to Saints The first agreeable with Christianity The last may be Idolatry The second a step to it Of the Reliques of the Saints Bodies What the second Commandment prohibiteth or alloweth The second Council of Nicaea doth not decree Idolatry And yet there is no decree in the Church for the worshipping of Images 350 CHAP. XXXI The ground for Monastical life in the Scriptures And in the practice of the primitive Church The Church getteth no peculiar interest in them who professe it by their professing of it
it may be said in some regard that the Church was before the Scriptures when as in order of reason it is evident that the truth of Christianity is supposed to the being of it inasmuch as no man can be or be known to be of the Church but as hee is or is known to be a Christian And truly those that dispute the authority of the Church to be the the reason to believe the sentence of it in mater of Faith to be true are to consider what they will say to that opinion which utterly denies any such authority any such thing as a Church Understanding the Church to be a Society founded by Gods appointment giving publick authority to some persons so or so qualified by that appointment in behalf of the whole For this all must deny that admit Erastus his opinion of Excommunication to be true if they will admit the consequence of their own doctrine Which opinion I have therefore premised in staring this Question that it may appear to require such an answer as may not suppose the being of the Church in that nature but may be a means to demonstrate it But as it is not my intent to begg so great a thing in question by proceeding upon supposition of any authority in the Church before I can prove it to be a Corporation founded with such authority as the foundation of it requireth So is it as farre from my meaning to deny that authority which I do not suppose For hee that denieth the authority of the Church to be the reason why any thing is to be taken for truth or for the meaning of the Scripture may take the due and true authority of the Church to be a part of that truth which is more ancient than the authority of the Church Inasmuch as it must be believed that God hath founded a Society of them which professe Christianity by the name of the Church giving such authority to some members of it in behalf of the whole as hee pleased before it can be believed that this or that is within the authority of the Church For that there is a Church and a publick authority in it and for it and what things they are that fall under that authority if it be true is part of that truth which our Lord and his Apostles whose authority is more ancient than the Church have declared Indeed if it were true that the first truth which all Christians are to believe and for the reason of it to believe every thing else is the saying of persons so and so qualified in the Church then were it evident that the belief of that which is questioned in religion could not be resolved into any other principle But if it be manifest by the motives of Christianity that the authority of the Apostles is antecedent to it that all Scripture and the meaning of Scripture which signifies nothing beside it own meaning and Tradition of the Apostles if any such Tradition over and above Scripture may appear is true not supposing it as appeares by the premises then is the authority of the Church no ground of Faith and so not Infallible There are indeed sundry Objections made both out of Scripture and the Fathers to weaken and to shake such an evident truth which are not here to be related till wee have resolved as well what is the reason of believing in Controversies of Faith as what is not In the mean time if wee demand by what means any person that can pretend to give sentence in Controversies of Faith knowes his own sentence to be infallible or upon what ground hee gives sentence Hee that answers by Scripture or authority of Writers that professe to have learned from the Scriptures or reasons depending on the authority of our Lord and his Apostles acknowledges the authority of the Church not to be the reason of believing For what need wee all this if it were If hee say by the same means for which these are receivable that is by revelation from God It will be presently demanded to make evidence of such revelation the same evidence as wee have for the truth of the Scriptures Which because it cannot be done therefore is this plea laid aside even by them who neverthelesse professe to imbrace the Communion of the Church of Rome because they believe the Church to be Infallible But if it be destructive to all use of reason to deny the conclusion admitting the premises then let him never hope to prevaile in any dispute that holds the conclusion denying the premises For to hold the sentence of the Church Infallible when the means that depend upon the authority of our Lord and his Apostles proves whatsoever is to be believed without supposing any such thing when revelation independent upon their authority there is acknowledged to be none averreth Infallibility in the sentence of the Church denying the onely principle that can inferre it And therefore those that speak things so inconsequent so inconsistent I shall not grant that they speake those things which themselves think and believe but rather that like men upon the rack they speak things which themselves may and in some sort do know not to be true For whosoever holds an opinion which hee sees an argument against that hee cannot resolve is really and truly upon the rack and of necessity seeks to escape by contradicting what himself confesseth otherwise Which every man of necessity doth who acknowledging the reason of believing Christianity to lye in the authority of our Lord and his Apostles challengeth neverthelesse that Infallability which is the reason of believing to all sentences of the Church the mater of which sentence if it be true the reason of it must depend immediately upon the same authority upon which the authority of the Church which sentenceth dependeth But the consequence of this assertion deserves further consideration because all that followes depends upon it Suppose that the Scriptures prove themselves to be the Word of God by the reasons of believing contained in them witnessed by the common sense of all Christians For this admits no dispute If the same consent can evidence any thing belonging to the mater of Faith that will appear to oblige the Faith of all Christians upon the same reason as the Scriptures do whether contained in the Scriptures or not For who will undertake that God could not have preserved Christianity without either Scriptures or new revelations And therefore hee chose the way of writing not as of absolute necessity but as of incomparable advantage If therefore God might have obliged man to believe any thing not delivered by writing whether hee hath or not will remain questionable supposing the Scriptures to be the Word of God upon the ground aforesaid Besides there are many things so manifest in the Scriptures that they can indure no dispute supposing the Scriptures to be the Word of God Many things are every day cleared more and more by applying the knowledg
made of a General Council whether constituted according to right or not whether proceeding without force and fraud or not Is it as evident to all Christians as their Christianity or the Scriptures that it is not If it be said that all Catholicks agree that the Pope with a General Council or a General Council confirmed by the Pope cannot erre First what shall oblige them to agree For if they agree not their Infallibility is not evident to all Christians nor if their agreement appear casual can it be taken for a ground of Faith that is undefeifible Then to set aside all the East which contesting the Power of the Pope cannot concurre to this Infallibility about the Councils of Constance and Basle when the dispute between the Pope and Council was at the hottest there lived divers Doctors of repute that have maintained this Infallibility to be the gift and privilege not of the present but of the Catholick Church By name Ockam Alliacensis Panormitane Antoninus Cusanus Clemangis and Mirandula Whose words you may see in Doctor Baron of Aberdene his dispute de Objecto Fidei Tract V. Cap. XIX XX. Further I demand if there be in the Church a gift of Infallibility indâ—pendent upon the Scripture that is obliging to believe the decrees thereof which our common Christianity evidenceth not can it appear without the like reasons for which wee believe the Scripture Where is the evidence that Gods Spirit inspires them with their decrees Nay when wee see Popes and Councils imploy the same means to finde the truth of things in question which other men do would they have us believe that they shall not fail by Gods providence when they use no means but that may fail nor have themselves any reason in them to evidence that they do not fail For if they had they might make it appear But of all things the strâ—ngest is that they should undertake to perâ—wade the world this when as the Church it self never determined it Of all things that ever the Church of any time took in hand to decree it will never appear that ever it was decreed that the decrees of the present Church are to be admitted for Gods truth And therefore there is not so much appearance of any opinion the Church of Rome has that it is true as there is of humane policy in breeding men up in such prejudicate conceits which education makes them as zealous of as of their Faith though meer contradiction to the grounds of it That being intangled in their own understandings to hold things so inconsistent they may be the fitter instruments to intangle others in that obedience to the Church which they hold necessary though upon false reasons For as Antony disputes in Tully de Oratore that no man is so fit to induce others into passion as hee that appears really possessed with the same so is no man so fit to imbroile the true reason and order of believing in another mans understanding as hee that is himself first confounded in it There is indeed a plauâ—â—ble inconvenience alleged if it be not admitted to wit that differences cannot be ended otherwise But to object an inconvenience is not to answer an argument say Logicians Nor is it say I to demonstrate a truth It is requisite the Church should be one Suppose wee this for the present for it is not proved as yet but it is not therefore necessary that the unity thereof should depend upon the deâ—ision of all Controversies that arise what true what false It is a great deal easier to command men not to decide their own opinions than to believe their adversaries For to decide is nothing else but to command all men to judge one part to be true when it appeareth that a great part have already judged it to be false But not to offend him that hath declared a contrary judgment is a thing to be attained of him that cannot see reason to judge the same Charity may have place in all things in question among Christians though Faith be confined to the proper mater of it though wee cannot yet determine what that proper mater is and upon what termes it standeth It remains therefore that all presumption concerning the truth of the Churches decrees presupposeth the corporation of the Church the foundation thereof nor can any way be evidenced by supposing onely the truth of the Scriptures and the consent of Christians as Christians which conveyes the evidence thereof unto us So that the belief of the Scriptures and of all things so clear in the Scriptures that they are not questioned in the Church depending upon the evidence of Gods revelations to his messengers But the belief of the Churches decrees inasmuch as not evidenced by the Scriptures upon the presumption of the right use of the Power vested in them that decree by the foundation of the Church if that foundation may appear they do not allow us the common reason of all men that require us to yield the same credit to both CHAP. V. All things necessary to salvation are not clear in the Scriptures to all understandings Not in the Old Testament Not in the Gospel Not in the Writings of the Apostles It is necessary to salvation to believe more than this that our Lord is the Christ Time causeth obscurity in the Scriptures aswell as in other Records That it is no where said in the Scriptures that all things necessary to salvation are clear in the Scriptures Neither is there any consent of all Christians to evidence the same IN the next place to proceed by steps I must negatively conclude on the other side that all things necessary to the salvation of all are not of themselves clear in the Scriptures to all understandings Whereby I say not that all such things are not contained in the Scriptures as if some thing necessary to the salvation of all were to be received by Tradition alone Nor that being in the Scriptures they are not clear and discernable to the understandings of those that are furnished with means requisite to discern the meaning of the Scriptures But that which I stand upon is that it is not nor ought to be a presumption that this or that is not necessary to salvation because it is not clear in the Scriptures Which if it were admitted whosoever were able to make such an argument against any Article of Faith as all understandings interessed in salvation could not dissolve such as it is plain may be made against the truth of Christianity should have gained this that though it may be true yet it cannot be an Article of Faith To my purpose indeed it were enough in this place to prove that this is not the first truth in Christianity to wit that all things necessary to salvation are clear by the Scriptures For having obtained that there is no Rule to conclude those doctrines which may be questioned not to be Articles of Faith so that it cannot thereupon be
Church For it is manifest that hitherto the authorities of Church Writers cannot be considered any otherwise than as the opinions of particular persons which no wayes import the consent of the whole Church For whereas hitherto there is nothing to oblige the Faith of any Christian but that which is plaine by the Scriptures and the consent of the Church It no wayes appears as yet how the authorities of Church Writers can evidence the consent of Church I will not therefore be curious here to heap up the sayings of the Fathers commending the sufficience and clearness of the Scriptures One or two I will take notice of because they are all I can remember in which the limitation thereof to things which our salvation requires us to believe is expressed S. Augustine de doctr Christianâ— II. 9. In eis quae aperte in Scripturis posita sunt inveâ—iuntâ—r illa omnia qnae continent fideâ— moresq vivendi In those things which are plainty set down in the Scriptures is found whatsoever that Faith or maners by which wee live doth containe S. Chrysostome in II. ad Thessal Hom. III. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things are plain and plain and straight in the Scriptures all things that are necessary are mâ—nifest Whereunto wee may addâ— the words of Constantine to the Council of Nâ—â—â—a in Theodoreâ— Eâ—clef Hist l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles and the Oracles of the ancient Prophets plainly teach us what wee are to think of God But I will also take notice that the same S. Augustine de doctr Christ III. 2. saith that the Rule of Faith which hee had set forth in the first book is had from the plainer places of the Scripture and the authority of the Church And the same S. Chrysostome in the same Homily sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those things which the Apostles writ and those which they delivered by word of mouth are equally credible Therefore let us think the Tradition of the Church deserves credit It is a Tradition seek no more And Vincentius in the beginning of his Commâ—nitorium or Remembrance confessing the Canon of the Scriptures to be every way perfect and sufficient requires neverthelesse the Tradition of the Church for the steddy understanding of it And therefore I have just ground to say that all that is necessary to salvation is not clear in the Scriptures to all that can reade in the opinion of S. Chrysostome and S. Augustine But to all that reade supposing the Rule of Faith received from the Church to bound and limit the sense and exposition of the Scriptures And therefore may more justly suppose the same limitation whâ—n they speak of the perfection and sufficience and clearnesse of the Scripture at large without confining their speech to that which the necessity of salvation requires us to believe And this is already a sufficient barr to any man that shall pretend the consent of the Church which concurreth to evidence the truth of the Scripture for the perspicuity thereof in things necessary to be believed to all whom they may concerne For so long as Tradition may be requisite besides Scripture that cannot appear When it shall appear whether requisite or not then will it appear how farr the sufficience and perspicuity of the Scripture reacheth And this I come now to inquire CHAP. VI. All interpretation of Scripture is to be confined within the Tradition of the Church This supposeth that the Church is a Communion instituted by God What means there is to make evidence of Gods Charter upon which the Corporation of the Church subsisteth The name of the Church in the Scriptures often signifieth the Whole or Cathelick Church THis presumption then which is able to prejudice the truth by disparaging the means God hath given to discover it And that by possessing men that things pretended to be necessary to salvation would have been clear of themselves to all men in the Scriptures if they were true But nothing conducing to clear the doubtfull meaning of any Scripture that is never so true This presumption I say being removed and the authority of the Church as the reason of believing taken away it remaines that wee affirm whatsoever the whole Church from the beginning hath received and practised for the Rule of Faith and maners all that to be evidently true by the same reason for which wee believe the very Scriptures And therefore that the meaning of them is necessarily to be confined within those bounds so that nothing must be admitted for the truth of them which contradicteth the same Wee saw before that the Scripture consisteth of motives to Faith and mater of Faith That in the motives of Faith supposing them sufficient when admitted for true a difficulty may be made upon what evidence they are admitted for true That the conviction of this truth consisteth in the profession and conversation of all those who from the beginning receiving Christianity have transmitted it to their successors for a Law and Rule to their beliefs and conversations Wherefore there can remain no further question concerning the truth of that which stands recommended to us by those same means that evidence the truth of those 〈◊〉 for which wee receive Christianity Had there been no 〈◊〉 Christianity to have been read in the profession and practice of all that call themselves Christians it would not have been possible to convince the enemies of Christianity that wee are obliged to believe the Scriptures If the professing and practising things so contrary to the interest of flesh and bloud be an â—vidence that they are delivered and received from them who first showed reasons to believe It must first remain evident that there are certain things that were so professed and practised from the beginning before it can be evident that the motives upon which they are said to be received were indeed tendred to the world for that purpose This is that common stock of Christianity which in the first place after receiving the Scriptures is to be admitted for the next principle toward the settling of truth controverted concerning the meaning of them as flowing immediately from the reason for which they are received and immediately flowing into the evidence that can be made of any thing questionable in the same It is that sound ingredient of nature which by due application must either cure all distempers in the Church or leave them incurable and everlasting And truly if it were as easie to make evidence what those things are which have been received professed and practised from the beginning by the whole Church as it is necessary to admit all such for truth I suppose there would remain no great difficulty in admitting this principle But in regard it is so easie to show what contradiction hath been made within the pale of the Church to that which elsewhere otherwhiles hath been received I cannot tell whether men despaire to finde any thing generally received
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
use till the Rescripts of the Pope took place and excluded the Canons of the whole Church The succession of which Law is so visible that hee that may say that the order presently in force can no way agree with that which was established by the Apostles shall not have the face to asfirm that there never was any order established by the Apostles instead of it so visible shall the impressions be of that corruption by which it declines from the order first established by the Apostles And therefore I allege here in the last place the consent of those of the Reformation who in answering this objection when it is argued that therefore Tradition is necessary as well as Scripture do not deny that there was a Rule of Faith that there were Orders delivered the Church by the Apostles to preserve the Unity of the Church But to answer for themselves why they stand not to the present Church of Rome in them do allege That the Rule of Faith delivered the Church by word of mouth is also delivered by writing and contained in the Scriptures Tnat the Rules of good order which the Apostles delivered were never intended to be unchangeable as you may heare Tertullian say de Velandis Virginibus cap. I. For in making this answer they do acknowledge that the Church had a Rule of Faith which it had received for a Law from the Apostles and therefore delivered for a Law to all that became Christians But whether this Rule be contained in the Scriptures or not concernes not my present purpose seeing it will be as much the cognizance of Christians and foundation of the Society and Corporation of the Church tending to maintain unity in the profession and exercise of Christianity whether so or otherwise Onely no man will deny that it may be not so easie to discern by the Scriptures alone what belongs to it what not as it may appear to be by the Churches delivering of it Nor do I pretend here that the orders delivered by the Apostles are all unchangeable For who knoweth not that the Lawes of every Common-wealth do change from age to age the state of Government remaining the same because those rights in which Soveraignty consisteth remain the same And therefore it is enough for my purpose that the Church had certain orders regulating the proceeding thereof in maters wherein it is to communicate as well under the Apostles as in succeeding ages Nor requiring that they should be alwaies the same but that they should come alway from the same power which they left in the Church that so the Body may appear to continue alwaies one and the same And that I proceed to prove by showing that the power of those publick persons which did alwaies act in behalf of the Church in admitting into and excluding out of the Church whereby those Laws were in force and wherein the Unity of the Church consisteth is derived from our Lord by the act of his Apostles CHAP. VIII That the Power of Governing the whole Church was in the Apostles and Disciples of Christ and those whom they took to assist them in the parts of it The Power of their Successors must needs be derived from those Why that Succession which appeares in one Church necessarily holdeth all Churches The holding of Councils evidenceth the Vnity of the Church FOr this I must presume of in the first place That as the Church is and was to be the true spiritual Israel of God when his ancient people departed from him by refusing the Gospel So to signifie this did our Lord chuse out XII Apostles and LXX Disciples answerable to the XII Princes of Tribes and the LXX Elders which with Moses were to govern Gods ancient people Neither do I mervail that wee finde in the Scriptures no further use made of these LXX no further power exercised by them under that title The difference between Gods ancient and new people appearing straight after our Lords Ascension and making that order uselesse for the future For Israel dwelling all in one Land might easily be governed by one Soveraign Court in maters of the Law answerable in power to that of Moses and his LXX Elders But Christianity being to be dispersed all over the world those LXX with our Lord chose for his present service could not serve for the like purpose in time to come It is therefore enough that the number of them signifies unto us the foresaid purpose their office for the time to come being swallowed up in the offices of the rest of our Lords Disciples besides the XII Apostles remaining alwaies the Judges of the XII Tribes of Israel here and in the world to come I am sensible that some both of our Presbyterians and Independents have been nibbling at this point as if they had a minde if they durst to say That the Apostles had no authority in the Church but as writers of Scriptures As for the Goverment of the Church that the people or their buckram Elders were to give them checkmate in it But having met with this pretense in another place and heard no man open his mouth to maintain it I shall at present rest content to have showed afore that their authority is the ground of the authority of their writings here that their Traditions were Law to the Church and that by their writings which mention not so much as what the Traditions were Whereby it appears that they took place as acts of their perpetual authority over the Church not as revelations of Gods will sent by those Epistles wherein sometimes they are not so much as named Besides the Apostles then at such time as the Church of Jerusalem contained all Christendome as I observed afore you have mention of the Elders at Jerusalem Acts XI 30. XV. 2 4 6 22 23. And again after the propagation of Christianity XXI 18. Of leading men also among the brethren who were also Prophets Doctors and Evangelists XV. 22 32 35. These then had not their commission from the Apostles because other disciples as well as the XII received at our Lords own hands the power of remitting sins by the Holy Ghost John XX. 18-23 But there was never yet any doubt made that their authority was limitable by the Apostles because of the eminence of the XII among the Disciples And therefore hee that would say that the LXX were contained in the number of those Elders and Leaders could no more be contradicted then some of the Ancient Fathers can be contradicted in reporting that some of them were of the number of the VII that were chosen to assist the Apostles Acts VI. S. Paul further rehearsing the graces that our Lord hath granted for the edification of his Church reckoneth Apostles Evangelists Prophets Pastors and Doctors Eph. IV. 11. 1 Cor. XII 28. Now it is the whole Church that the Apostle speaks of here as I observed afore and therefore the authority here mentioned extendeth to the whole Church But
may have an issue which I pretend requires the Tradition of the Church and that the communion and Corporation of the Church as the onely meanes to maintain and propagate Tradition in it This our Independent Congregations cannot allow but must stand upon the other plea of those Hereticks that it came in beside if not against Gods appointment which the Donatists questioned not And therefore you shall finde S. Austine in the place aforenamed allege against them the Scriptures fore-telling the calling of all Nations which hee supposeth fulfilled in the Catholick Church then visible and therefore supposeth the communion to be ordained by God wherein the visibility thereof consisteth Otherwise it had been strange to tell the Donatists that they communicating with the Catholick Bishop of Rome communicated with all the Church that acknowledged him but the Donatists acknowledging the Donatist Bishop whom they had set up at Rome were therefore disowned by all the Church beside I do not deny that those of the Reformation are to give account of those things which the Donatists are charged with Nor do I imagine that their account cannot be sufficient because that of the Donatists was not But I say that the trial must be by the Scriptures which both parts acknowledge And I say further that the rest of the Reformation may and ought to admit the Unity of the Church in visible communion as the Donatists did because otherwise they cannot pretend that others are bound to bâ— what they are But our Independent Congregations cannot because if all were as they there could be no one Church obliged to that communion which makes it visible Now I must here caution that I intend not here to inferre that these Rulers succeeded the Apostles by a title of Divine Right as if it were Gods Law that this succession should alwaies continue For I demand for the present upon the exception of those of the Reformation that succession of Faith and doctrine is of more consequence than succession of persons And therefore that there can be no Law of God whereby the right which men hold by personal succession can or ought to hinder the Reformation of Faith and doctrine of Christianity if it may appear that the succession of persons hath not been effectual to preserve the succession of Faith That which I demand from the premises is this That no man in his right senses can imagine that all Christendome should agree in acknowledging those for lawfull Rulers of the Church in the times next the Apostles that had usurped their places contrary to the will of the Apostles and those Disciples which concurred to the work of the Apostles and those who derived their authority from either of both during the time of the Scriptures which I spoke of afore For those of the Reformation that make this exception by making it do acknowledge that there was such a visible succession of Pastors the correspondence of whom as here I argue maintained the unity of a visible Corporation in the Catholick Church And how many records of historical truth undeniable of all that would not be thought to renounce their common sense do testifie unto us visible acts of the Apostles giving power to them whom they left behinde them as those whom they gave it to have transmitted the like power to their successors But when it once appeares that they were owned by the consent of all Christians communicating with them in that quality which they held in their own Churches it can no more be imagined that they could attain those qualities by deceit or violence contrary to the will of their predecessors than it can be imagined that the common Christianity which wee all acknowledge could prevail over all by imposing upon their belief such motives to believe as never were seen because never done And therefore whatsoever change may have succeeded in those qualities from that which the Apostles instituted from the beginning or by abuse of the same in the Faith which they were trusted to propagate without adding or taking away which changes may be the subject of Reformation in the Church and the belief of it yet that this point is not of that nature That all lawfull authority in the Church is derived from that which was in the Apostles propagated by some visible act of theirs I will presume upon as proved by the premises CHAP. IX The Keyes of the Church given the Apostles and exercised by Excommunication under the Apostles The ground thereof is that profession which all that are baptized are to make That Penance and abatemeut of Penance hath been in force ever since and under the Apostles In particular of excluding Hereticks IN the last place the right of Excommunication consists in the power of remitting and retaining sins given by our Lord to his Church with the Keyes of it First to S. Peter alone our Lord saith Mat. XVI 19. I will give thee the Keyes of the kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt binde on earth shall be bound in heaven whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed there But afterwards to the Body of his Disciples Mat. XVIII 17 18. If hee heare thee not tell the Church If he hear not the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen or a Publicane Verily I say unto you Whatsoever yet binde as afore And to the XII breathing upon them John XX. 22 23. Receive yee the Holy Ghost Whose sins soever yee remit they are remitted and whose sins soever yee retaine they are retained By virtue of this Commission S. Peter saith to Simon Magus discovered a counterfeit Christian Acts VIII 20-24 Thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought to purchase the gift of God with money Thou hast neither part nor lot in this Word for thy heart is not right before God Repent thorefore of this thy malice and pray God that if possible this device of thine heart may be forgiven thee For I see thou art in the gall of bitternesse and the bond of unrighteousnesse And Simon answering said Pray you to the Lord for mee that nothing come upon mee of that which you have said Where having excluded him from the benefit of Christianity what hee is to expect hee leaves to the trial of future time But most manifestly S. Paul 1 Cor. V. commandeth them to deliver the incestuous person to Satan adding directions and reasons why they are to abstaine from the conversation of such Christians And pursueth this discourse with a charge of ending the sutes of their Christians within the Church 1 Cor. VI. which either signifies nothing or inforces the power of Excommunication to oblige the parties to stand to the sentence But the case of the incestuous person is made still more manifest by the reason of the sentence in joyned upon his repentance and the sorrow testified by the Church 2 Cor. II. 4-11 VII 8-11 In the Epistle to the Ebrewes VI. 4-8 X. 26-29 the Apostle declaring that they
truth as to show further how well it agreeth with the sense of the Catholick Church by which I had begun to show that wee are to examine all maters of Faith Indeed I must caution this first that I do not pretend as if this point were any part of the Rule of Faith which is the substance of Christianity to be believed but of all points concerning the knowledge of the Scriptures which is the skill of Christian Divines I hold it of most consequence And that therefore though I am not obliged to affirm that it is expresly taught by all the primitive Doctors of the Church as all maintaining the mystical â—ense it may be maintained that by consequence they do all unanimously deliver it Origen in praef de Principiis so accounts it so will it be necessary to show how well it standeth with the sense of them that it may appear that there is no consent of the whole Church against it It shall be therefore sufficient to name S. Jerome S. Chrysostome and S. Augustine the first affirming that hee reades nothing of the kingdom of heaven in all the Old Testament Epist CXXIX Mihi in Evangelio promittuntur regna coelorum quae vetus Instrumentum omnino non nominat To mee the kingdom of heaven is promised by the Gospel which the Old Testament nameth not at all The second in his Homilies de Lazaro and divers others places raising his exhortations drawn from examples of the Saints in the Old Testament upon this ground that if they did so and so when the Resurrection was not preached it behooveth us under the Gospel to do much more The last besides other places whereof some you may finde quoted in my book of the Service of God at the Assemblies of the Church in the book de Gestis Palestinis relating it for one of the Articles which Pelagius renounced at that Synod not onely that the Saints under the Law obtained salvation by it but even that the salvation of the world to come was preached under the Law The Article charged upon Pelagius you shall finde there to be this cap. V. Regnum coelorum etiam in veteri Testamento promissum That the kingdome of heaven was promised also in the Old Testament To which Pelagius answering That this may be proved by the Scriptures was judged by the Council not to depart from the Faith of the Church Which notwithstanding when S. Austine considers That the Old Testament in vulgar Language signifies the books of the Old Testament in which the kingdome of heaven is promised as the Gospel is fore-told But in the Scriptures the Old Covenant in which it is not promised Hee sayes as much as I have done Therefore hee saith further In illo verò Testamento quod Vetus dicitur datâ—m est in monte Sinâ non invenitur apertissime promitti nisi terrena foelicitas But in that which is called the Old Testament and was given in mount Sina none but earthly felicity is found to be very openly promised Whereupon hee proceedeth to observe that the Land of Canaan is called the Land of Promise in which the promises of the Old Testament figuring the spiritual promises belonging to the New are tendred by the Law And reason hee had to insist upon this because of another Article charged upon Pelagius of kin to this that men were saved under the Law as under the Gospel As you may see there cap. XI Which might well be understood to mean without the Grace of Christ But having cleared the ground of the difference between the literal and allegorical sense of the Scriptures of the Old Testament I hold it utterly unnecessary if not altogether impertinent to tender further proof of this position from the Fathers then the constant agreement of them in maintaining that difference Being when it is rightly understood the necessary and immediate consequence of it Indeed it cannot be maintained that they did understand expresly the true ground of this difference which had they done they would not have been found to use it impertinently and unseasonably as all lovers of Truth must avow that many times they do Notwithstanding in as much as they agree in maintaining and using of it from which use the ground of it which is this position is to be inferred it shall be enough that all of them agree in delivering that by consequence which the principal of them at least in expounding the Scriptures do expresly asfirme For nothing obliges mee to maintaine that this is a poiâ—t necessary to the salvation of all Christians to be believed And by consequence that it hath been every where taught and no where contradicted It is sufficient that I can and do hold it more generally necessary to the right understanding of the Scriptures than any other point of skill in the Scriptures Now if any man object that this is the doctrine of the Socinians I answer first That they also hold that nothing is necessary to salvation to be believed but that which is clear to all men in the Scriptures And that this position hath a necessary influence into their whole Heresie which is grounded upon the unreasonable presumption of it On the contrary the difference between the Law and the Gospel is a principle from which I hope to draw good consequences in maintainance of the Faith of the Church against the Socinians who if they did alwaies see the consequence of their owne positions would not deny the Tradition of the Church as I observed afore If they do not I am not to waive the doctrine of the Fathers because the Socinians acknowledge it But lastly I demand whether Socinus provide for the salvation of the Fathers or not If so why is his opinion blamed If not why is mine opinion that do taken for his CHAP. XIV The Leviathans opinâ—on that Christ came to restore that kingdome of God which the Jewes cast off when they rejected Samuel It overthroweth the foundation of Christianity The true Government of Gods ancient people The name of the Church in the New Testament cannot signifie the Synagogue Nor any Christian State THis position being settled in the next place I will proceed upon it to argue the vanity of that conceit of the Leviathan pag. 263. that the intent of Christs coming was to regaine unto God by a New Covenant that Kingdome which being his by the Old Covenant had been ravished from him by the rebellion of the Israelites in the election of Saul For supposing most truly that God became their King by the Covenant of the Law and that under him Moses had the Soveraigne Power to all purposes pag. 250 251 252. hee inferreth further that after Moses it was by God vested in the High Priests Aarons Successors though hee for his time was subject to Moses And this pag. 217. from that text of Exodus XIX 6. where God promiseth them that upon undertaking his Covenant they should be a Sacerdotal Kingdome which in
is evident that hee allowes them that which the Apostles had forbidden because it is evident that this is one of those differences which Jews by the Law were bound to make If therefore there be this difference in the Scriptures it is manifest that the leter of them doth not determine what obliges So again the same Apostle 1 Cor. XI 1-16 disputeth at large that men ought not but women ought to cover their heads at praying or prophesying in the Church For the intent whereof though it hath been the subject of whole books in this age I conceive I need go no further than Tertullians book de Velandis Virginibus who living so much nearer the Apostles knew better the custoÌ„ms of their Churches than all the Criticks of this time Hee disputes the case in question then whether Virgins had a privilege not to vail their faces at Divine Service by arguing that they cannot be excepted from S. Pauls words and alleging the example of the Church of Corinth where at that very time the Virgins vailed their faces at Divine Service as other women did Which whether it tye the Church or not at this time it will scarce be granted by those who now practice it not And in another place 1 Tim. V. 3-6 hee showeth that there was then an Order of Widowes whose maintenance hee ordereth to come from the stock of the Church as likewise how they are to be qualified and how imployed Of which Order there is no where any step remaining in the Church at â—resent though nothing be more imperative than the Order concerning it So the precept of the Apostle serves not to oblige the Church at present though by Scripture And if I may use the argument ad hominem upon the supposition of those that I dispute with who intend not to take any thing for true which I prove not as debating the principles of Christian truth it is manifest that the Apostle James V. 14. appointeth that the sick be anointed with oil together with prayers as well for the recovery of their health as for the forgivenesse of their sins Which it is manifest that it cannot appear not to oblige the Church at this time by virtue of that Scripture which injoyneth it And therefore to say nothing at present whether it do indeed oblige the now Church or not those that believe it doth not oblige cannot be able to give a reason why it obligeth not by the Scripture alone And this is the argument whereby I prove that the interpretation of Scripture as concerning mater of Law to the Church or the means to be used in determining what obligeth what not cannot transgresse the tradition and practice of the Church Because that which is propounded in the Scriptures as meer mater of fact may oblige and that which is propounded as mater of precept creating right may not oblige the Scripture not determining whether it intend that obligation to be universal or not For having showed afore that the Church is a Society instituted by God to which these Rules are given as Laws to govern it in the exercise of those Offices wherein the Communion therâ—of consisteth all reasonable men must grant that as the intent and meaning of all Laws is to be gathered from the primitive and original practice of that Society for which they were made so is the reason of all Orders delivered to the Church by the Apostles and by consequence their intent how farr they were to oblige to be measured by the first and most ancient practice of the Church which first had them to use Whereunto let us adde these considerations That the Orders delivered the Church by the Apostles were of necessity in force before mention can be made of them in their writings That the writing of them is neither the reason why they oblige nor a thing thereunto requisite but meerly supervenient to the force of them And that there is sufficient evidence that those motives to believe which the Scripture recordeth but cannot evidence are neverthelesse true and that the truth of those motives cannot be evident but by the Society of the Church which the said Laws do maintain For upon these conâ—â—derations it will appear necessarily consequent that as there be Apostolical Traditions which the Scripture evidently witnesseth so evidence may be made of them without Scripture The Rule of S. Austine how to discern what Traditions do indeed come from the Apostles is well enough known to be this To wit that which is observed over all the Church though it cannot be discerned when where or by whom it came first in force that is in his times by the authority of what Synod it was settled that must be deemed and taken to come from the authority of the Apostles themselves I will not use the terms of Synod or Synods because I conceive the Church was from the beginning by virtue of the perpetual intelligence and correspondence settled and used between the parts of it a standing Synod even when there was no Assembly of persons authorized to consent in behalf of their respective Churches Such things as became requisite to be determined in any Church being thereby so communicated to the rest as the order taken in one either to be accepted by them or redressed Neither will I say that the Rule is so effectual as it is true For I cannot warrant how general the practice of every thing that may come in question can appear to have been over the whole Church nor whether it may appear to have begun from some act of the Church to be designed by some place or persons or not which in S. Austines time I doubt not might be made to appear and being made to appear would maintain the Rule to be true Nor have I need of any such Rule as may serve to discern whatsoever may become questionable whether it come from the Apostles themselves or not It shall suffice mee here to presume thus much that no man can prescribe against any Rule of the Church that it comes not from the Apostles because it is not recorded in the holy Scriptures And therefore that nothing hindereth competent evidence to be made of the authority of the Apostles in some Orders of the Church of which there is no mention in the Scriptures Correspondently to that which was settled afore concerning the Rule of Faith that no man can prescribe against any thing questionable that it is no part of it because it is not evident in Scripture or because such arguments may be made against it out of the Scriptures which every one whose salvation it concerns is not able evidently to assoile And all this being determined I intend neverthelesse that it still shall remain questionable how farr these Orders of the Apostles oblige the Church Because I intend not to prescribe from all this that those Orders which shall appear to have been brought in by the Apostles may not become uselesse to the Church CHAP.
to range themselves among their own respective Sectaries So that to impute the corruption of their damnable inventions to the Church because they mixed themselves with the Church till they were discovered is the same justice that the Gentiles did the Christians in charging them with those horrible incests and vilainies which the Gnosticks only were guilty of because they so farr as it was for their turn affected to shelter themselves under the profession of Christians I shall have occasion in another place to inquire further concerning the riâ—ng of the Gnosticks during the time of the Apostles In the mean time because I see those who know not how to yield to the truth when it is showed them stand in the justification of the wrong that is done the Church by expounding of the corruptions of the Papacy that which Hegesippus saith of the Gnosticks it shall be enough to give you his own words in Eusebius Eccles Hist III. 32. R. Steph. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hegesippus saith That till that time the Church remained a pure Virgin and undefloured Those that indeavored to adulterate the true Rule of that preaching which saveth the Rule of Faith which I said so much of afore lurking in obscure holes of darknesse till then if any such there were But the sacred quire of the Apostles having found the several ends of their lives And that generation of men being past that were vouchsafed to hear the wisedom of God with their own ears then did the confirmation of atheistical error receive beginning through the deceit of false Teachers Who now none of the Apostles remaining undertook bare-headed for the future to preach that Knowledge which is falsly so called in opposition to the preaching of the truth For here you have in expresse terms that Knowledge falsly so called from whence the Church after S. Paul calls all those Hereticks Gnosticks as pretending to have got it by such means as our Lord had not discovered to his Apostles You have also the difference between their lurking under the Apostles and their open preaching after their death in terms so expresse that hee must have a good will to it whoever oversees I shall be obliged to referr my self to these same words in another place Now to that which is objected concerning the opinion of the Millennaries I answer first that it cannot be thought ever to have been Catholick For Iustine the Martyr who first mentions it in his dispute with Trypho the Jew not many years after the Apostles expresly testifies that it was the opinion of the most orthodox Christians to wit in his judgment but withall that it was contradicted by others who were neverthelesse Christians even in his account that is of the Communion of the Church Which as it is a peremptory exception against the Universality so is it a reasonable presumption against the Originality of it Seeing that in so few years between him and the Apostles those that believed not all which they had delivered for the common Christianity can in no probability be thought to have injoyed the Communion of the Church And truely had it not been contradicted elsewhere that excellent Prelate Denys of Alexandriae that suppressed it in Egypt about CXXX after as you may see in Eusebius Eccles Hist VII 23 24 25. would have found a hard text of it For the intelligence and correspondence then in use between all parts of the Church would easily have confirmed those of his charge even against him The reason of atchieving the work was because the rest of Christendom insisted not on it Neither is the number or repute of Writers extant the reason to conclude any thing Catholick if the premises be true But the evidence which may be made sometimes from the disputes of able Writers but much more from the acts which past in the Church according or against that which they dispute that their doctrine was received or not received by the Church in whole or in part as necessary or not And therefore secondly I say that the mater of this position concerneth not the Rule of Faith commonly obliging all Christians but the interpretation of a true Prophesie indeed but the true understanding whereof whoso would make necessary to the salvation of all Christians should tye all Christians upon their salvation to understand the Apocalypse which who does To justifie this opinion it hath been showed that the Jewes have this opinion that their Christ shall raign M years when hee comes which seeing they cannot be supposed to have received from the Christians it makes a just presumption that they had it even in S. Iohns time The Jewes have a Tradition which they attribute to the School of one R. Elias mentioned in many of their writings by name in Baal haturim upon Gen. II. and which is also the conceit not onely of Lactantius VII 14. Tychonius the Donatist in his V Rule for expounding the Scripture and the Epistle anciently intitled to S. Barnabas and lately published but also as you may see in the late Lord Primates Latine Discourse of Cainan That as there passed II M years before the Law under the Law counting from Abraham II M years so the dayes of Christ should be II M years and after that the everlasting Sabbath But whether or no the Jews of S. Iohns time could expect this thousand years for the complement of the Sabbath or work of VIIM years which this Tradition promised Whether or no Christians may expect the end of the World at the end of VII M years the Sabbath that shall succeed being eternity according to that of S. Peter and of the Psalm that M years are as a day in Gods sight let them that have nothing else to do inquire Certainly it will not concern the meaning of the Apocalypse unlesse it could be said that the M years there fore-told are to begin after II M years of our Lord are finished Indeed this wee see that the Jewes whom King Alphonsus imployed to make the accounts of the Celestial motions in appointing the motion of the fixed Starrs from West to East to come rome round in XLIXM years the irregularity of that motion to come round in VII M years and that not being obliged to it by any observations made the like account of Sabbaths of thousands of years and VII thousands as the Law doth of dayes or years or Sabbaths of years But if these Jewes be pitifully put to it when to excuse their not believing in Christ who came when the World was about IVM years old according to their own Tradition they are fain to say that it hath failed a small mater of almost XVII C years for their sins Among the Christians what can be said more but that it pleased God to promise them M years of prosperity and raign which the Jews forsaking Christ promised themselves to no purpose Seing the beginning of them cannot be tyed to the end of VIM years from the beginning of the
clearly all things necessary to the salvation of all Christians it will not hurt my opinion to inferre That because it is unlawful to adde any thing to Moses Law by saying that it is and ought to be part of it when it is not nor ought to be therefore it is unlawfull to adde any thing to the Bible by saying that it is necessary to the salvation of all Christians though not written there For this my opinion sayes not And truly I must here alledge that Gods Law Deut. XVII 8 -12 provideth a power in that people to resolve and determine all things which the peace and unity of that people requireth to be determined And that for the effect of this power we have to show all the constitutions and determinations whereby the precepts of Moses Law are limited how they are to be observed which we find recorded in the Jews Talmud and all the disputes and debates that have ended in those determinations In as much as we have to allegde that our Lord in the Gospell hath commanded to hear the Scribes and Pharisees as those that sit in Moses Chair For those constitutions derive their Pedigree from those that were in force in our Lords time by the authority of the Scribes and Pharisees as it appears to all that compare them with the particulars mentioned in the Scriptures in Philo and Iosephus For though the particulars be not alwaies the same because time produces continual charge in particular custome yet there is agreement enough to show that it was successively the same authority that made such orderly and moderate changes as the state of the time might require or mens fancies imagine in the practise of their Law Whereby it is evident that the power of so interpreting the Law being established by the Law cannot be against the Law as forbidden by it And this abundantly enough for the justifying of that which I have said For the interpretation and limitation of the Precepts of the Law by the tradition left with Moses and by the Authority setled in the Synagogue being established by the Law cannot be counted an addition to the Law Therefore the interpretation of the Scriptures by Tradition left the Church by the Apostles and the limitation of the circumstances which the service of God is to be regulated with by the Authority setled in the Church cannot be counted an addition to Gods new Law or to the Scriptures of the New Testament But because the satisfaction of the Reader in the true intent of these precepts of the Law requires more I shall say further That I conceive that God providing a power requisite to determine all circumstances which the practice of the Law should require repeats neverthelesse a caution of adding to or taking from the Law that it might not be thought that this Power extended to alter any thing in the worship of the one true God which all the precepts of the Law tended to limite Surely in the Text of Deut. XII 32. this caution followes immediately upon warning given not to worship God by any of those Ceremonies with which the Gentiles honoured their false Gods the reason whereof is plain least by using the like ceremonies the honour of those false Gods to whom they were tendred by those that believed in them might be admitted Whereupon when it is inferred that nothing be added to or taken from those precepts by which the Law commandeth to serve the true God it is manifest how well the limitation of circumstances questionable in the practice of the Law stands with this caution so soon as it appears that the precepts thereof cannot be practised till so limited And upon the same caution Deut. IV. 2. he inferres immediately Thine eyes have seen what the Lord did to those that served Baal-peor now they are dead and thou alive this day As supposing this consequence That if they stuck close to their own the true God nothing should seduce them from his Laws Not this That if they stuck close to their own the true God nothing should perswade them to practice the precepts of his worship in that sorm which the power appointed by him should determine So that both Texts prepress upon them the precepts of the Law as those whereby the worship of the true God is distinguished not as if of themselves they contained mater to oblige that people or to procure them happiness And surely the determinations of their Elders as they concur to the same ends so are they inforced by the same obligation which the precepts themselves produce And therefore it will not be amiss to take notice how far the Jews who acknowledge all that I say of limiting the Law are from thinking it to be contradicted by these Scriptures Solomon Jarchi upon Deut. VI. 2. Thou stalt not adde As for example to the five Sections in the Phylacteries to the five kinds in the banquet which we cary at the feast of Tabernacles to the five Thrummes in the Fringes And so when he sayes Thou shalt not take away They are commanded by the Law to wear frontlets upon them to put them in remembrance of the precepts thereof Ex. XIII 9. Deut. VI. 8. XI 18. to carry in their hands and to walk with a Bush made up of the branches of severall trees at the feast of Tabernacles Levit. XXIII 40. to put a fringe to the corners of their Garments made of a thred of Hyacinth among others Numb V. 38. 39. But that those frontlets should contain five Sections of the Law no more that those fringes should consist of four kinds besides the Hyacinth which are the determinations of their Elders these according to his opinion they are as much forbidden to adde to as to take from that which is determined by the leter of the Law Abenezra seems to be more sober upon the same place Thou shalt not adde saith he Of your own conceit as thinking the worship of God to consist in it For believing that they vow to worship one God alone and that no passive acts which the light of nature injoyneth not can be esteemed the worship of God of themselves but in the doing of them is the keeping of that Law which appoints them it is one thing to worship God as the precepts of the Law determined by that Power which it appoints do injoyn another thing to introduce rules of worshipping God not by virtue of his Law but upon a mans own conceit And therefore it is forbidden them to inquire after the fashions by which the Gentiles worshipped their Gods Deut. XII 30. as a presumption that he which should say that he would worship God as they did their Idols had a mind to worship their Idols in stead of God otherwise he would rest content with that way of worshipping God which the Law had prescribed Whereupon the Jews determine that there are four Ceremonies which who so does to any thing but to God alone must be understood to worship it
for God which are sacrificing burning incense pouring out drink-offerings and adoration But others there are by doing which a man cannot be concluded to worship any thing but God till he do it in that way and fashion as is one by those that professe to worship it for God If it be said that these are Jews which allow Traditions but that there is another sort of Jews called Scripturaries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which admit nothing but the leter of the Scriptures I answer that those also who admit onely the Text of Scripture and pretend to determine all controversies about the Law by consequences to be drawn from it could never come to agreement among themselves what consequence should take place and what not did they not acknowledge some publick persons whose determinations the whole body of them submitteth to the consequences which they derive their observations by from the leter of the Law being so ridiculously insufficient that they could not satisfie the meanest understandings otherwise as may appear by those which the Talmudists alledge for their constitutions Which being no lesse ridiculous then the traditions which they alledge incredible would be both to no effect did not the publick power of the Nation which while the Law stood was of force by it but now it is void ought to cease put all pretenses beyond dispute And for that which is alledged out of the Apocalyps which in sound of words seems to import some such thing concerning the vvhole book of the Scriptures as these Texts of Moses import concerning the Lavv I shall desire the understanding Reader but to consider that protestation vvhereby Irenaeus conjures all that should copy his Book to collate it vvell vvith the Original that they might be sure neither to adde to it nor take from it as Eusebius relateth out of his Book de Ogdoade against the Valentinians Eccl. First V. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I adjure thee that shalt copy out this Book by our Lord â—esus Christ and by his glorious presence when he comes to judge the quick and dead to collate what thou hast transcribed and correct it by this Copy whence thou hast transcribed it with care and likewise to transcribe this adsuration and puâ—â—it in the Copy Setting aside this adjuration what is the difference between S. Iohns charge and the matter of it And finding the words of S. Iohn to import neither more nor lesse to tell me what he thinks of this argument S. Iohn protesteth in the conclusion of his Revelation that who so shall adde any thing to the true and authentick Copy of these Prophesies to him shall be added the plagues written it who so taketh from it from him shall be taken his share in the Book of life and the holy City and the good things written in that Book Therefore all things necessary to the salvation of all Christians are contained in the Scriptures clearly to all understandings But strain the consequence of this Text beyond the words of it which concern onely the words of the prophesie of this Book that is the Apocalyps if you please and take it for a seal to the whole Bible forbidding to take any thing from or to adde any thing to it for some of the Ancients have so argued from it shall he that addeth the true sense to or taketh false glosses from the Bible by force of that evidence which the Tradition of the Church createth be thought therefore to adde to the Word of God or to take from it Then did God provide that his own Law should be violated by his own Law when having forbidden to adde or to take from Moses Law he provided a power to limit or to extend both the sense and practise of it and that under pain of death to all that refractarily should resist it Now I demand of them that shall alledge S. Pauls Anathema against him that should preach any other Gospel then what he had preached to the Galatians against the position that I maintain whether he do believe that the Galatians had then the New Testament consisting of the four Gospels and other Apostolicall Scriptures or whether he can maintain that they had any part of it For if this cannot as is evident that it cannot be affirmed then of necessity S. Paul speaks of the Gospel not as we have it written in the Books of the New Testament but as they had received it from the preaching of S. Paul by word of mouth which being common to all Christians unlesse we question whether all the Apostles preached the same Gospell cannot be thought to destroy either the being of the Catholick Church or the saith which it supposeth or the power wherein it consisteth and the Authority of those acts which have voluntarily proceeded from it As for the Beraeans that examined even the doctrine of S. Paul by the Scriptures is it a wonder that they should not take S. Paul for an Apostle of Jesus Christ upon his own word but should demand of him to show by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ that so they might be induced to believe him sent to preach the Gospel of Christ Therefore when they were become Christians we must believe that they understood themselves and S. Paul better then to call his doctrine under examinarion or to dispute with him about the meaning of the Scriptures which he should alledge which our illuminati which take this for an argument must consequently do because they value not in S. Paul the commission of an Apostle but the presumption they have that the Holy Ghost moved him to write the Scriptures which he hath left us though they have nothing to alledge for it but the general commission of an Apostle To the words of the Evangelist Ioh. XX. 30. 31. I answer that he speaks onely of his own Gospel And that the things written in that Gospel are sufficient to induce a man to believe that believing he may have life But that is not sufficient to inferre that therefore all things necessary to the salvation of all Christians are clearly expressed either in S. Iohns Gospel or in the whole Scripture because he that is induced by the things there written to belive the truth of Christianity may seek further instruction in the substance thereof that he may attain unto life by imbracing the same So S. Iohn saith not that a man hath life by believing what is there but what by knowing it he cometh to believe As for those words of S. Paul 1 Tim. III. 16. 17. I confidently believe that S. Paul speaketh onely of the Books of the Old Testament then before the writings of the Apostles were gathered into that body which now is the New Testament known by the name of the Scriptures Being well assured that no evidence can be made to the contrary because of those alone it could be demanded that they should bear witnesse to that which the Apostles preached and taught There being no
as they pretended to do thence calling themselves Gnosticks may be convinced by that evidence which the consent of all Churches in the same Faith tenders common sense for the Tradition of the Apostles Which saith hee wee must have stuck to had they left us nought in writing as those Christians then did which had not the use of leters Epiphanius Haer. LXI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Gods words do not need allegory but are to be understood as they are But they need consideration to know the force of each mater Tradition also is to be used For all is not to be had from Gods Sriptures For the Holy Apostles delivered some things in writing others by Tradition as the Apostle saith So Haer. LV. LXXV S. Jerome advers Lucif Multa quae per Traditionem in Ecclesiis observantur auctoritatem sibi scriptae Legis usurpà runt Orthod Non quidem abnuo hanc esse Ecclesiasticam consuetudinem Sed quale est ut Leges Ecclesiae ad haeresim transferas Many things that are observed in the Churches by Tradition have usurped to themselves the authority of written Law The Orthodox party answers I deny not the custome of the Church to be such But what a business is it that you transform the Lawes of the Church into Heresie S. Austine Epist CXVIII Illa autem quae non scripta sed tradita custodimus quae quidem toto terrarum orbe servantur dantur intelligi vel ab ipsis Apostolis vel plenariis Conciliis quorum est in Ecclesiâ saluberrima auctoritas commendata atque statuta retineri But those things which wee observe though not written but delivered being observed all over the world wee are given to understand that they are held as recommended and setled either by the Apostles themselves or by General Councils the authority whereof is very wholesom in the Church To the same purpose de Bapt. contra Donat. II 7. IV. 6 24. V. 23. de Vnitate Ecclesiae XIX contra Cresconiam I. 31 32 33. The supposed Dionysius the Areopagite Eccles Hierarchiae cap. I. mentioneth that instruction which the Apostles delivered without writing as a witnesse of the Church though not as a Scholar of the Apostles And Eusebius de demonstr Evang. I. 8. acknowledgeth written Lawes of the Apostles Concilium Gangrense in fine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And wee desire in summe that all things delivered by the Scriptures of God and the Traditions of the Apostles be observed in the Church And Greg. Nazianzene Orat. I. advers Jul. referrs those Ordinances which I quoted out of him afore to the Apostles as Authors of them Some sayings of the Fathers are also alleged to show that they held the Scriptures obscure Origen in Levit. Hom. V. allegorizeth the Law of burning some part of the peace-offerings to signifie that some things in the Scriptures are reserved to Gods knowledg least wee understand them otherwise than truth requires The same saith Irenaeus II. 47. even in the world to come that man may alwayes learn but God alwayes teach the maters of God S. Chrysostome in Joan. Hom. XL. observes that our Lord bids Search the Scriptures By digging as for mines or treasure So if they may be understood with searching yet it followeth not that every one is able to take that course in searching them that is requisite And Opus imperfectum in Mat. Hom. XLIV Ergò non sunt Scriptnrae clausae Sed obscurae quidem ut cum labore inveniantur non autem clausae ut nullo modo inveniantur Therefore the Scriptures are not shut Dark indeed they are so that they are found with pains But not shut so as by no means to be found Adding that as it is for the praise of them that finde them that they sought so for the condemnation of them that seek not that they understand them not S. Jerome ad Algasiam Quaest VIII Omnis Epistola ad Romanos miris obscuritatibus involuta est The whole Epistle to the Romanes is involved with marvellous darkness Epist ad Paulinum Hoc autem velamen non solùm in facie Moysi sed in Evangelistis Apostolis positum est This vail is not onely in Moses face but upon the Evangelists and Apostles And Nisi aperta fuerint universa quae scripta sunt ab eo qui habet clavem David qui aperit nemo claudit qui claudit nemo aperit nullo alio reserante pandentur Unless all things that are written be opened by him who hath the Key of David who opens and no man shuts who shuts and no man opens no man else will unlock and lay them forth Before him Origen in Exodum Hom. XII is afraid that the Evangelists and Apostles as well as the Prophets will prove not onely vailed but sealed to us as the Prophet saith unlesse wee both study and pray that the Lamb of the Tribe of Juda may open us the Seals of it Here I will advise the parties to consider how they can advantage themselves by those sayings of the Fathers which contain not the terms of that position which they do nothing unlesse they inforce Allege they what they can allege out of the Fathers to show that they acknowledg the Scriptures both sufficient and perspicuous I shall not be troubled at it but shall willingly concurr to acknowledg the same I acknowledg the Scriptures to be an Instrument of God though a Moral Instrument And I shall have a care not to acknowledg that God ever provided or used au Instrument that would not serve his turn Instrumentum Vetus Novum is a term in every mans mouth to signifie the Old and New Testament But there are Natural Instruments and there are Moral Instruments I say not that there is no third kind of Instruments for it may be there are Artificial Instruments of a several nature from both but my present purâ—ose obliges mee not to consider that difference When the substance or frame of the Instrument inables it to serve him that imployes it well may it be called a Natural Instrument as the parts of mans body or other creatures which execute the operations of the soul When neither the substance nor frame of the thing which that substance produces concurrs to the work to the which it is Instrumental but it is done meerly by the consent of mans will the reason is the same of Gods will if it be an Instrument between man and God then is it great reason why it should be called a Moral Instrument because the force of it lyes in the maners of those who use it to testifie those acts which they do not mean to transgresse Such as all civil records are in regard of the effect of those contracts or deeds which they come to witnesse The Old and New Testament are the records of two several Treaties or Contracts if you please that have passed between God and Man And therefore authentick because the writings of those who contracted those Treaties But does
that we have to come from God than we please For if it be fifteen or sixteen to one that the words which we have are not from God what respect can oblige us to do more And would Pagans and Idolaters think themselves lesse bound to us if we could perswade them that whatsoever is pretended in Scripture of a Covenant made by God with Abraham and his posterity to acknowledge and worship him alone for the true God may be denied so farre as by saying that no man can say we have any Record of it As for the Jews what a favour were it to them to quit them all that can be alleged against them out of Moses and the Prophets by saying That we cannot be assured that it is their writing For if it be said that whatsoever the Church hath interest to use against Atheists Pagans and Jews will be admitted upon Tradition having renounced Scripture can it be imagined that having granted that the whole narration upon which Christianity steppeth in may have been counterfeited in writing any man can undertake to show the truth of the same unquestionable by word of mouth Surely it may well astonish a man void of prejudice to see it so carefully alleged how many ambiguities and equivocations necessarily fall out in expressing mens mindes by writing never considering that the same may fall out in whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth so much more uncureably as a man writes upon more deliberation than hee speaks and posterity can affirm with more confidence that which is delivered by writing to have been said than that which is onely so reported For let common sense judg by what is usually done by men for the preserving of evidence concerning their estates whether it be more effectual to have it in writing or onely by word of mouth For whatsoever can be pretended to come by Tradition from the Apostles must first have been delivered in the Ebrew language at least that language which they spake and was so near the Ebrew of the Old Testament that in the New Testament it is called by that name Thence being turned into Greek or Latine it must have come afterwards into the now vulgar languages of Christendom Neither can any man imagine how the profession of Christians should be conveyed by Tradition and not by word of mouth Where though they that heard the Apostles certainly understood their meaning which there can be no question of when the intent is familiarly to teach it yet the terms wherein it was delivered not remaining upon record as much difference may creep in as there may be difference in several mens apprehensions saving that which the communion of the Church determineth And will any common sense allow that the meaning thereof shall be more certain than the words are more certain than the meaning of written words which are certain though obscure and yet not without competent means to bring the intent of them to light But I must not preferr any thing of this nature before any thing wee have in the Scriptures so long as both sides acknowledg it I demand then whether the precept of the Law which injoyned the Israelites to teach it their children concerned the written Law or not The Prophet David Psalm LXXVIII 1-8 shewes the practice of it and so do other passages of the Old Testament and surely there can be no doubt made that Moses himself did deliver and inculcate the sense of the precepts to his hearers But will any common sense allow that hee forgot his text when hee expounded the meaning of it Our Lord commands the Jews to search the Scriptures hee remits Dives in the Parable to Moses and the Prophets S. Paul presses that all things that are written are written for our learning that wee through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope That all Scripture inspired from God is profitable and a great deal more to the same effect and shall wee open the mouth of Atheism with an answer that this concerns not us who no way stand convict that wee have the words of Moses and the Prophets of our Lord and his Apostles Let this therefore passe for a desperate attempt of making a breach for Atheism Heathenism Judaism to enter in provided that the Reformation should have nothing to say against the Church of Rome But let it be demanded whether any of those that writ for the Church against Heresies were masters of the common sense of men or not And let it be demanded when they alleged the Scriptures against them whether they thought the meaning of them determinable or not It is true Tertullian prescribed against Hereticks that the Church was not tied to dispute with them out of the Scriptures and certainly had just reason so to do Because though they admitted the Apostles to have Gods Spirit yet they admitted not that Spirit to have declared to them the bottom of the truth as to themselves and therefore made use of the Scriptures as the Alcoran doth so farre onely as they agreed with the Traditions of their own Masters whom they supposed to have the falnesse of the truth Whereas it is manifest that Christianity admits no dispute from the Scriptures but from them that acknowledg no gifts of Gods Spirit that suppose not Christianity and the Scriptures Therefore those that disputed against the Heresies that grew up afterwards and acknowledged no revelation but that which had brought on Christianity what did they dispute upon For evidently they neither had nor used that prescription which Tertullian insisted upon against his Hereticks But as Tertullian might though not bound to so much use the Scriptures against such Hereticks as well as against Jews and Infidels did they who succeeded onely use it against succeeding Heresies that own no further revelation than that which Scripture came with not as necessity but to show the advantage they had for this they must do if nothing but probability is to be had from the Scriptures but the peremptory truth is without Scripture evident in the determination of the present Church which was first visible in ejecting Hereticks Certainly such a breach upon common sense cannot be admitted as for them that have evidence for the truth to compromise it to a dispute of probabilities Here therefore I do appeal to the common sense of all men that see how all the disputes that have been made from the beginning for the Faith against Heresies do consist of Scriptures drawn into consequence against them though in behalf of that which they professed to hold from the Apostles whether all this pains was taken to show what was probable or what was true upon the evidence of the true sense of Scripture falling within the compasse of that which they held from the Apostles The ground then of that account which pretends that wee have no Scripture is very frivolous For if common sense be valued by the experience of those that handle written Copies not by
great difficulty could remain in reading that which was of it self understood The necessity of this method in writing is the difficulty of understanding that is to say a capacity of being determined to several senses in those writings to which it is applyed Suppose now that to be true which I showed afore to be probable that from the Captivity the study of the Law came in request according to the Law From that time it must be known amongst them how the Scriptures were to be read And truly from that time the Scribes were much more in request though I have showed elsewhere that their profession began under the Prophets being nothing else but their Disciples which wee reade of in their writings I have also showed that the profession extended from the Judges of the Great Consistory to School-masters that taught children to reade and Notaries that writ Contracts These mens profession consisting in nothing else but the Scriptures for what learning had they in writing besides is it strange that children could be taught by Tradition to reade it though the vulgar language was somewhat changed This supposition indeed will inferr that the reading could not be so precisely determined for all to agree in the same But it will also inferr that the more the study was in use the more precise determination they must needs attain Now I desire the indifferent Reader to consider two points both of them certain and resolved in the Tradition of the Jews The first that this method of points is part of the Law delivered by word of mouth as appears by the Tradition in the Gomara that hee that hath sworn that such a one shall never be the better for him may teach him the Scriptures because that they may be done for â—ire but hee may not teach him the points because the Law by word of mouth must not be taught for hire The second that it was never held lawfull to commit this civil Law to writing till the time of R. Juda that first writ their Misnaioth or repetitions of the Law upon a resolution taken by the Nation that the preservation of the Law in their dispersions did necessarily require that it should be committed to writing as Maimoni the Key to the Taâ—mud in the beginning and divers others of the Jews do witness Hee that would see more to justifie both these points let him look in Buxtorfius his answer to Capellus I. 2. where hee hath showed sufficient reason to resolve against his own opinion That all the Jews say of the points delivered to Moses in Mount Sinai is to be understood of the right reading and sense of the Law which must be delivered from hand to hand but was unlawfull to be committed to writing before the beginning of the Talmud by R. Juda To wit with authority For it was lawfull for Scholars to keep notes of their lessons Upon these premises I inferr that there were no points written in the Jewes Bibles before this time and that upon this decree they began to busie themselves in finding a method by points and applying the same to the Scripture though it is most agreeable to reason that it should have been some ages before it was setled and received by a Nation so dispersed as they were And herewith agreeth all the evidence which the records of that Nation can make Though I repeat not here the testimonies in which it consisteth having been so effectually done already in books for the purpose CHAP. XXXIV Of the anciâ—n est Translations of the Bible into Greek first With the Authors and authority of the same Then into the Chaldee Syriack and Latine Exceptions against the Greek and the Samaritane Pentateuch They are helps nevertheless to assure the true reading of the Scriptures though with other Copies whether Jewish or Christian Though the Vulgar Latine were better than the present Greek yet must both depend upon the Original Greek of the New Testaâ—ent No danger to Christianity by the differences remaining in the Bible THe first turning of the Bible into Greek the common opinion saith was done by the authority of the High Priest and heads of that people residâ—nt at Jerusalem and by men sent on purpose VI of every Tribe in all LXXII called therefore by the round number for brevities sake the LXX Translatoâ—s to Ptolomee Philadelphus But this relation suffers many difficulties that have been made of late years and indeed seems to come from a writing pretending the name of Aristeas a Minister of the said Prince from whence Philo and Josephus seem to have received the credit of it Who being of those Jews that used the Greek tongue may very well be thought to cherish that report which makes for the reputation of their Law with them that spoke it Josephus wee know in other points hath related Legends or Romances for historical truth as that of the acts and death of Moses and that of the third of Esdras concerning the dispute of the three Squires of the Body to King Darius As for Philo wee have S. Jerome who hath made sport of the legend hee â—ells of this businesse To wit how that being shut up every man in a several room at the end of so many dayes they gave up every man his Copy translated all in the same words to a tittle Which rooms Justine the Martyr couzened by the Jews of Alexandria reports were extant in his time and that hee had seen them in his dispute with Trypho the Jew But the particulars are too many to finde a room in this abâ—idgment Those that would be further informed in this point may see what Scaliger hath said against this Tradition in his Annotations upon Eusebius his Chronicle and what Morinus and others have said for it But though wee grant the book of Aristeas to be a true History not a Romance which â—â—w will do that reade it for the roughnesse of the Greek makes it rather the language of some obscure Legendary then of a Courtyer at Alexandria though wee grant that there were LXXII sent from Jerusalem to Philadelphus and did translate him the Law because besides the agreement of all other Jews and Christians Aristobulus a learned Jew of Alexandria writing to Pâ—olomee Philometor in Eusebius de Praepar Evang. XIII 7. an exposition of the Law some CXXX years after averrs it yet will not that serve the turn to make this Copy which wee have their work Because the same Aristobulus together with Josephus and Philo the Talmud Jews besides and S. Jerome among the Christians do agree that those LXXII that came from Jerusalem translated onely the five books of Moses as you may see them alleged in a late discourse of the late Lord Primate of Ireland de LXX Int. Versione Cap. I. Now it is most evident that the Copy which wee have is all of one hand and that it can by no means be thought that the five books of Moses which are part of it were translated by
out of which that excellent translation into the Syriack which to the great benefit of Christianity these last ages have brought into Europe was made The antiquity of this later and the eminent helps which it hath contributed toward the understanding of the New Testament being so great as the Vulgar Latine though very learned and therefore very helpfull can never out-shine And yet will I never grant that either one or both of them and that with the help of the Arabick and other the most ancient Translations which the Church beside may have are not to give account to the consent of many Copies now extant nay to the credit of some one if it should so fall out in any passage that the sense of the Scripture which cannot be made out by the rest is clear to common reason according to that one Whether such a case do ever fall out in any part of the Scripture or not The assurance of Christianity not standing in this that either this or that is or must needs be true but in this that the Church is assured in all cases But by this it may appear how innocent the resolution of the authentick Original of the Old Testament vvhich I have premised is and hovv safely I ground my self not upon the credit of the Jevvs Copy but upon all the records vvhereby the Church assureth the Tradition of the Scripture In that it is freely confessed that the difference of reading vvhich can become questionable notvvithstanding the superstitious diligence of the Jevvs in preserving their Copy is neither so frequent nor any thing so vveighty as in the Nevv Which hovv much more considerable it is tovvards the upholding of our common Christianity is plain enough to him that shall have perused but the premises And surely vvere it not true as hath been premised that a certain Rule of Faith vvas from the beginning delivered to the Church it vvould seem strange that wee cannot deny that there have considerable differences crept into the reading of the New Testament so much more nearly concerning our salvation than the Old in the reading whereof through the diligence of the Jews there remains no considerable difference But if wee remember that S. Paul makes the ministery of Preaching the Gospel to be the ministery of the Spirit in opposition to the ministery of Moses in giving the Law which was the ministeâ—y of the leter wee shall finde that Faith the receiving whereof qualified Christians to be indowed with the Holy Ghost to be of such sufficience that remaining intire wee need not think the Church disparaged if the records thereof suffer decay so long as the effect of them remains written by the Holy Ghost in the hearts and lives of Christians Alwayes it being unquestionable that there are considerable differences remaining in the reading of the New Testament it will be a very great impertinence to fore-cast any danger in granting that some question may be made to the Jews Copy of the Old Testament though neither so frequent nor so considerable And all that hath been said hath issue in this consequence to justifie and to recommend to the world the usefulnesse of the design lately set on foot in London for printing the Bible with the most ancient and learned Translations in columns most agreeably to the design of Origen in his Teâ—rapla Hexapla and Octapla that is Old Testament of four six and eight columns recording the several numbers of Translations or columns whereof his several Editions consisted For in a word this furniture and that which serves to the same purpose for who will undertake that one book shall contain all is the Instrument I appeal to for evidence of the Scripture which wee have And further here is the original means of determining the sense of the same though besides this I have claimed many other helps to be requisite to that purpose The end of the First Book LAUS DEO OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE The second BOOK CHAP. 1. Two parts of that which remains How the dispute concerning the Holy Trinity with Socinus belongs to the first The Question of justification by Faith alone The Opinion of Socinus concerning the whole Covenant of Grace The opinion of those who make justifying Faith the knowledge of a mans Predestination opposite to it in the other extream The difference between it and that of the Antinomians That there are mean Opinions THE greatest difference that is to be discerned among those things that concern the duty of all Christians consists in this that some of them concern Christians as Christians others as members of the Church For though all Christians as Christians are bound to be members of the Church in as much as it is a part of their profession to believe one Catholick Church yet their obligation to be Christians being in order of nature and reason before their obligation to be members of the Church because the very being of the Church presupposeth all that are members of it to be Christians that obligation which is originall and more ancient must needs be presupposed to that which is grounded upon it Of what consequence it may be to distinguish this difference in the matter of Christian duties will perhaps appear in due time In the mean I shall freely say my opinion that all the Divines in the Christian world cannot more pertinently and to better purpose comprise the subject which they professe to be imployed about then by dividing it into that which concerns Christians as Christians and that which concerns them as members of the Church For mine own present purpose it is evident that the disputes which divide us do concern either the state of particular Christians towards God or the obligation they have to other Christians as members of the Church So that the matter which I propose to my insuing discourse is sufficiently comprised in two heads one of the Covenant of Grace the other of the Laws of the Church I know it may be said that the heresie of Socinus is of the number of those that have footing among us and that the principal point of it concerning the faith of the holy Trinity comes not properly under either of these heads And I deny not that it is very dangerous for us in regard of two points that have so great vogue among us The first is the cleare sufficience of the Scriptures commonly passing so without any limits that it seems to follow of good right that what is not clear out of the Scriptures to all understandings cannot be necessary for the salvation of all Christians to believe So that no man can be bound to take that for an Article of his Faith against which they can show him arguments out of the Scriptures which he cannot clearly assoile The other is that they put it in the power of Christians to erect Churches at their pleasure though supposing the Faith which Socinus teacheth and pretending to serve God according to the same without
of penance failing of that which they had undertaken by it What is reformation in the Church and what is not is the subject of this present dispute therefore I cannot here grant that which some of the reformation may have done to be well done Otherwise I am secure no man will choke me with naming a Church that had no discipline of penance But that so it was I refer my self to that which I have said in the first book I demand here what is the ground and reason that so it must be For supposing the Keys of Gods Kingdom exercised in the first place in limiting the terms upon which baptisme is granted not in ministring of it Of necessity it followeth that in the second place it be seen and exercised in limiting the terms upon which those that have failed of that which they undertook at their Baptism may be restored to the visible communion of the Church upon presumption that they are restored to the invisible communion of those promises which the Gospel tendreth Not supposing this there is no reason why it should signifie any more than a scene acted upon a stage as it is taken to signifie by those who understand not this Lastly I will mention here the expresse Doctrine of the Church of England in the beginning of the Catechism declaring three things to have been undertaken in behalfe of him that is baptized That he shall forsake the Devil and all his works the pomp and vanities of this world and the evil desires of the flesh and not to be seduced by him either from believing the faith of Christ or from keeping Gods Commandements And again in the admonition to the Sureties after Baptism you must remember that it is your parts and duties to see that these Infants be taught so soon as they shall be able to learn what a solemn vow promise and profession they have made by you For all that come to Christianity believing what promises they get right to by it and being admitted to it uppon those terms there can remain no question upon what terms they attain the said promises Nor can or ought any Doctrine of that Church to what purpose soever cautioned be interpreted to the prejudice of that wherein the salvation of all consisteth But further in the Introduction to the Office of Baptism For asmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin and that our Saviour Christ saith None can enter into the Kingdome of God except he be regenerate and born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost I beseech you to call upon God that these children may be baptized with water and the Holy Ghost and received into Christs holy Church and be made lively members of the same Proceeding to pray That they comming to thy holy baptisme may receive remission of their sins by their spirituall regeneration In the exhortation after the Gospel Doubt ye not therefore but earnestly believe that he will likewise favourably receive these present Infants that he will imbrace them with the arms of his mercie that he will give unto them the blessing of eternall life and make them partakers of his everlasting Kingdome Again Ye have heard also that our L. Jesus Christ hath promised in his Gospel to grant all these things that ye have praied for And after the Sacrament Seeing now that these children be regenerate and graffed in the bodie of Christs congregation And again We yield thee heartie thanks that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this Infant with thy holy Spirit to receive him for thine own child by adoption and to incorporate him into thy holy Congregation All this can leave no doubt of the communion of the Church of England with the whole Church in this point so nearly concerning the salvation of all Christians CHAP. V. The Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles evidenceth that some act of Mans free choice is the condition which it requireth The correspondence betwen the Old and New Testament inferreth the same So do the errors of Socinians and Antinomians concerning the necessity of Baptism Objections deferred THe whole tenor of the Scripture would afford matter of Argument to inforce this consequence But it shall be enough to have thus far pointed out the ground upon which the meaning of the rest is to proceed The reasons of this position from the principles of Christianity can be no other than those which have been touched upon occasion of treating the passages of Scripture hitherto alledged Yet to make the consequence still more evident I will here repeat first the consideration of Gods sending our Lord Christ to show the world sufficient motives why they should imbrace his Gospel as well as to teach them what it is and wherein it consisteth I will not here insist upon any supposition of the clear sufficience of the Scriptures or the necessity of Tradition besides the Scriptures But I will appeal to the common sense of all men to judge whether it be within the compass of reason that our Lord Christ should come to preach and to exhort men to acknowledge him to be come from God and to take up his Cross should show them reasons to believe that all which he preached is true that so they might be perswaded willingly to follow him Should give certain proofs of his rising again from death to inforce the same If men have no will no choice no freedom to do what he requires them or not to do it whether in other things they have it or not The same to be said of his Apostles and Disciples who were strange Creatures to expose their lives for a Warrant of the truth of what they said if they had not willingly and freely imbraced that profession themselves which they pretended to induce the world with the like freedome of choice to imbrace Thus far then we are assured by common sense that the condition required by the Covenant of Grace on our part must be some act of mans free choice the doing whereof at Gods demand must qualifie us for those promises which it tenders But this is not all that may appeare to common reason by the proceeding of our Lord and his Apostles The preaching of the Gospel-premises for a supposition upon which it proceedeth That mankind are become enemies unto God through sin and subjects of his wrath Proposing therepon the termes upon which they may be reconciled to God and intitled presently to and in due time possessed of everlasting happiness Suppose these terms purchased by the satisfaction of Christ though not granting it because all that call themselves Christians in the West do not is it possible to imagine that they who declare all mankind to be Gods enemies for sinne should have commission to declare them heires of his Kingdome not supposing them turned from sin to that righteousnesse which shall be as universally according to Gods will as their sin is against it As on the contrary supposing this do you not suppose
having received the promises but having seen them afarre of and being perswaded and having saluted them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth for they who say such things declare that they seek a country And had they been mindfull of that which they were come out from they might have had time to turn back But now they desire a better that is an heavenly Whereupon God is not ashamed to be called their God For he had prepared them a City And againe 39 40. These all being witnessed by faith received not the promises God having provided some better thing for us that they might not be perfected without us Where it is plaine that they according to the Apostle expected the kingdom of heaven by virtue of that promise which is now manifested and tendered and made good by the Gospell whereof our Saviour saith John VIII 98. Your father Abraham leaped to see my day and saw it and rejoyced And againe Mat. XIII 17. Verily I say unto you that many Prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things ye see and have not seen them and to hear the things ye hear and have not hard them CHAP. IX Of the Faith and Justification of Abraham and the Patriarkes according to the Apostles Of the Prophets and righteous men under the Law Abraham and Rahab the harlot justified by workes if justified by Faith The promises of the Gospel depend upon works which the Gospell injoyneth The Tradition of the Church HAving thus shewed that the interest of Christianity and the grounds whereupon it is to be maintained against the Jewes require this answer to be returned to the objection it remaines that I shew how the apostles disputations upon this point do signify the same Of Abraham then and of the Patriarches thus we read Heb. XI 8 10. By faith Abraham obeyed the calling to go forth unto the place he was to receive for inheritance and went forth not knowing whither he went By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as none of his own dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob heirs with him of the same promise For he expected a City having foundations the architect and builder whereof is God Is it not manifest here that both parts of the comparison are wrapped up in the same words which cannot be unfolded but by saying That as Abraham in confidence of Gods promise to give his posterity the land of Canaan left his country to live a stranger in it So while he was so doing he lived a pilgrim in this world out of the faith that he had conceived out of Gods promises that he should thereby obtaine the world to come And is not this the profession of Christians which the Apostle in the words alledged even now declareth to be signified by the pilgrimages of the Patriarchs And is not this a just account why they cannot be said to have attained the promises by the law but by faith Therefore that which followeth immediately of Sarah must needs be understood to the same purpose By faith Sarah also her self received force to give seed and bare beside the time of her age because she thought him faithfull that had promised Therefore of one and him mortified were born as the stars of heaven for multitude and as the sand that is by the sea shore innumerable For S. Paul declareth Gal. III. 16. IV. 22 Rom. IX 7 8 9. that the seed promised Abraham in which all the nations of the earth shall be blessed is Christ and the Church of true Spirituall Israelites that should impart the promise of everlasting life to all nations And this promise you saw even now that Abraham and the Patriarchs expected Sarah therefore being imbarked in Abrahams pilgrimage as by the same faith with him she brought forth all Israel according to the flesh so must it needs be understood that she was accepted of God as righteous in consideration of that faith wherewith she traveled to the world to come Neither can it be imagined that S. Pauls dispute of the righteousnesse of Abraham by faith can be understood upon any other ground or to any other effect then this What then shall we say that Abraham our father got according to the flesh saith he Rom. IV. 1-5 For if Abraham was justified by works he hath whereof to glory but not towards God For what saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousnesse But to him that worketh the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the wicked his faith is imputed for righteousnesse The question what Abraham found according to the flesh can signifie nothing but what got he by the Law which is called the flesh in opposition to the Gospel included in it which is called the Spirit Did he come by his righteousnesse through the Law or not For had Abraham been justified by works that should need none of that grace which the Gospel tendreth for remission of sinnes well might he glory of his own righteousnesse and not otherwise For he that acknowledges to stand in need of pardon and grace cannot stand upon his own righteousnesse Now Abraham cannot so glory towards God because the Scripture saith that his faith was imputed to him for righteousnesse which signifies Gods grace in accepting of it to his account not his claime as of debt Whereupon the Apostle inferreth immediately the testimony of David writing under the Law in these words As David also pronounceth the man blessed to whom God imputeth righteousnesse without works Blessed are they whose iniquities are remitted and whose sinnes are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sinne What can be more manifest to shew that the Apostle intends no more then that the Fathers pretended not to be justified by those workes which claimed no benefit of that Grace which the Gospel publisheth Especially the consequence of Davids words being this Psal XXXII 2. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sinne and in whose spirit there is no guile For the Prophet David including the spirituall righteousnesse of the heart in the quality of him to whom the Lord imputeth righteousnesse without works the Apostle must be thought to include it in the Faith of him to whom the Lord imputeth it for righteousnesse Now when S. Paul observeth in Moses that Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousnesse Upon the promise of that posterity which he expected not Gen. XV. 6. It cannot be said that Abraham had not this faith afore Or that it was not imputed to him for righteousnesse till now Because the Apostle to the Hebrews hath said expresly that he had the same faith and to the like effect ever since he left his country to travail after Gods promises And certainly it was but an act of the same Faith to walk after the rest of those
Eve was the Mother of the living And though conceived in sin yet was not be in sin or sinfull But whether every one that turns from sin to Faith turn from sinfull custome as from his Mother to life one of the twelve Prophets will be my witnesse saying shall I give my first-born for impiety the fruit of my belly for the sin of my Soul He traduceth not him that said Increase and multiply but he calleth the first inclinations from our birth by which we are ignorant of God impieties He saith most truly that they cannot render a reason how we are born under Adams curse but by charging God He granteth actuall sin in conception but that not the sin of the Child that is conceived He saith the custome of sin may be our Mother Eve in the mysticall sense of David But he ascribeth it to those first motions from our birth which make mankind ignorant of God till they turn to Christianity Whether this be my plea or no let him that hath perused the Premises judge This same is to be said of S. Chrysostome in his Homily ad Neophytos denying that Infants are baptized because they are polluted with sin To wit that he appropriateth the name of sin to actuall sin But as Clemens acknowledges the first motions that we have from our birth to tend to ignorance of God So S. Chrysostome Hom. XI in VI. ad Rom. Hom. XIII in VII ad Rom. cleerly ascribes the coming in of concupiscence to Adams sin or rather to the sentence of mortality inflicted by God upon it wherein he is followed by Theodoret in V. ad Rom. observing that the want of things necessary to the sustenance of our mortality provokes excesses and that sins If this reason can generally hold so that all concupiscence may be said to be the consequence of mortality Christianity will be sound the necessity of Christs coming for the repair of Adams fall remaining the same But this is the reason why the same S. Chrysostome Hom. X. in VI. ad Rom. when S. Paul saith By one mans disobedience many are made sinners understandeth by sinners liable to death Concupiscence wherein Originall sinne consisteth as I have shewed being the consequence of mortality according to S. Chrysostome As for those that censure books at Oxford if they like not this I demand but one thing what they think of Zuinglius his Writings For I suppose none of them believes that Zuinglius holds originall sinne to be properly sinne or that infants are damned for it though whether they come to everlasting life or no notwithstanding their concupiscence which they are born with I find not that he saith Let them therefore choose whether they will censure Zuinglius his bookes or professe that they have the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons And therefore I do not understand why I should make any more of this difference of language then of that which was on foot in the ancient Church about the terms of hypostasis in the blessed Trinity among those who haâ—tily adhered to the Faith of the Church And I conceive I may compare it with the difference between the Latine and the Greek Church about the procession of the Holy Ghost whether from the Father and the Sonne oâ— from the Father by the Sonne For though I do believe with the Western Church that he proceedeth from both Yet the Eastern Church acknowledging as it doth from the Father by the Sonne If it had been in me the matter should never have come to a breach in the Church about that difference Even so the terme of Originall sinne being received in the Western Church to exclude the heresie of Pelagius I do not intend to take offence at the using or give offence by the refusing of it But I shall not therefore condemn those times or persons of the Church that used it not as unsound or defective in the Faith the Tradition whereof is not to be derived but by that which all parts agree in professing As for the punishment of everlasting torments upon infants that depart with it it is a thing utterly past my capacity to understand how it concerns the necessity of Christs coming that those infants who are not cured by it should be thought liable to them Would his death be in vaine would the Grace which it purchaseth be unnecessary unlesse those infants that have committed no actuall sinne go into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels Shall the corruption of our nature by the fall of Adam be counted a fable unlesse I be able to maintaine that infants are there or shew where they are if not there Or will any man undertake to shew me that consent of the whole Church in this point which is visible by the premises as concerning that corruption of nature which I challenge to be mater of Faith It is not to be denied that S. Augustine and enow after him have maintained it and perhaps thought that the Faith cannot be maintained otherwise But can that therefore be the Tradition of the whole Church which Doctors allowed by the Church do not believe In this as in other instances we see a difference between maters of Faith and Ecclesiasticall doctrines of which you have a Book of Gernadius intituled dâ— dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis For such positions as passe without offense when they are held and professed by such as injoy the communion of the Church or more then so rank of authority in it must necessarily be counted doctrines of the Church And yet if it appear that the contrary hath been held other whiles and else where they do not oblige our belief as matters of Faith As for the article of the Church of England which ascribeth the desert of Gods wrath and damnation to Originall sinne â— conceive it is alwaies the duty of every sonne of the Church so to interpret so to limit or to extend the acts of the Church of England that is the sense of them that it may agree with the Faith of the Catholick Church Because all such acts serve and are to serve onely to maintaine the Church of England a member thereof by maintaining the Faith of it How much more at this time that unity and communion which these acts tendred to maintain amongst our selves being irrecoverably violated by men equally concerned in the cherishing of it For admitting the Faith and the Laws of the primitive Church what can any Church allege why they are not one with us Not admitting them what can we alledge why we are not one with others It followeth therefore of necessity that the wrath of God and damnation which Originall sin deserveth according to the Article of the Church of England be confined to the losse and coming short of that salvation to which the first Adam being appointed the second Adam hath restored us There being no more to be had either by necessary consequence from the Scripture or by Tradition
Covenant of Grace and by that Faith whereby we undertake that Christianity wherâ—into we are baptized they who make the office oâ— Faith in justifying no more then beleeving the Gospell to be true seeme as voide of the truth in that as those who place it in reposing trust and confidence in God upon it For as the Gospell gives sufficient ground of trust and confidence in God from the first moment that any man heares of it what state soever it is and how sinfull in which it overtakes him if we speak of confidence that we may or shall obtaine remission of sins upon condition of imbracing and performing the condition which it advanceth So if wee speake of trust and confidence in God as indeed and actually reconciled to God seeing it supposeth justification it must needes suppose that Faith which justifieth And so justifying Faith cannot be said to consist in it but by consequence of nature to produce it On the other side whereas all the works that a man can doe after he sincerely beleeves the truth of the Gospell but before he hath made profession of Christianity by being baptized cannot availe to the forgivenesse of sinne much lesse to intitle him to everlasting life according to the doctrine of the Apostles It can by no means be imagined that when they attribute justification to Faith whether alone or in opposition to workes or to the Law they doe attribute it to that Faith whereby he remains not justifyed not to that which he iâ— necessarily justifyed as soone as he hath And this is the true end of that endlesse dispute between Faith and good workes when it is questioned whether true Faith can be without Good workes or not For it is manifest that Hereticks Schismaticks and sinfull Christians doe as truely beleeve either the whole Gospell so farre as the Common salvation of Christians requireth or at least that part which their Heresy or Schisme contesteth not as a good Christian really doth It is nolesse manifest that not onely Heretickes and Schismatickes but even badde and sinfull Christians also not onely may but really have a true and reall confidence in God as to the world to come without which those that beleeve the world to come could not live and dy in that course which indeed renders them uncapable of it But the Faith which whosoever is baptized plighteth to God to professe the Faith which he hath taught to the death and to live according to it must needes either be counterfeite and so produce no effect but the damning of him that is baptized with it or produce the workes of Faith so long as it is and continues sincere And thus is the Tradition of the Church concerning justification by the good works of Christians reconciled not onely with the doctrine of the Apostles that a man is not justified by the workes that go before Christianity But also with the Tradition of the Church concerning the ingredience of Baptisme into the same work And with the doctrine of the Fathers manifestly distinguishing that true Faith which produceth good workes from that dead faith which doth not not by the accession of Love but by marks intrinsecall to the nature of it manifestly distinguishing those good workes which indeed doe justify from those which for the mind which they are done with doe not justify but for their kind might had they been done by Christians by the boundary between them which is baptisme But so that the workes themselves are but the materiall part that is the thing which the Covenant of Grace requireth But the reason and consideration in which they are accepted by God to that effect is not the influence of our free will though cured of concupiscence as cured it may be in this life and acted by Gods Spirit but the Grace of God moving him in consideration of our Lord Christs sufferinges first to publish the Gospell then to accept the profession and life of Christians according to it for a condition qualifying them for that which he promiseth by it Which is but the English of that which is commonly said that God accepteth of our workes as dipped in Christs bloud which he accepteth not if he accept them not to that effect which his Gospell promiseth having as he doth if the Gospel be true all that he accepteth not to that purpose Having said this in common as it were to both these opinions in particulare to that which I propose last or rather to the rest of it I say three things First that it may be understood two wayes To wit that this holds Either by virtue of the originall Law of God or by virtue of that dispensation in it that abatement of the penalty of it which the Gospell imports For so long as it is onely said that God infuseth into him that receives the Sacrament of Baptisme out of a resolution of Loving God above all an habit of supernatuall righteousnesse which is formally the remission of sinnes as extinguishing them by contrary dispositions and that this is the righteousnesse which he pleades to God for the reward of the world to come I say all this while it is not said whether the nature and kind of the quality thus produced oblige God to give him that happinesse of the world to come in recompense of it or whether the promise of the Gospell decreed and declared out of his meer goodnesse render that due by way of recompense which otherwise this disposition could no way claime For he that sayes that the naturall worth of the qualities here supposed claimes the reward as due by Gods justice must needes say that they justify by Gods originall Law But he that sayes by Gods promise and onely by that justice which consists in keeping promise by the Covenant of Grace Now then I say if that this opinion proceed upon first ground it is destructive to the Christian faith For I have shewed that the Gospel containes a Covenant of Grace not onely in regard of helpes of Grace to fulfill the condition which it requires which I have shewed that God grants in consideration of our Lord Christ and his obedience but also because in the same consideration he accepteth of the condition both to extinguish the debt of sinne and to intitle us to everlasting life which otherwise it inables us not to claime And both these regards I have showed belong to the Christian Faith Now he that affirmeth that the righteousnesse which God infuses into those that are baptized challengeth remission of sinnes and everlasting life or rather challengeth everlasting life because it extinguisheth sinne by Gods originall justice acknowledges indeed the Grace of God in granting those helps by which we attaine the said righteousnesse and that in consideration of our Lord Christ and his obedience But acknowledgeth not the Grace of God through Christ in accepting of it to such purpose and therein as I suppose denies the Covenant of Grace which the Gospel containâ—s Secondly I
that the Grace whereby we are justified is a quality habitually informing the soule of man as supernaturally infused by God into it But onely that Faith Hope and Charity are infused into them that are justified and inherent in them as shed into theire hearts by the Holy Ghost Which they say may all be understood supposing that a man is justified by the acts of Faith Hope and Love infused or shedde into the hart by the Holy Ghost as well as by habites supernaturally created to reside in the soule For you may see by Morinus in his Late worke de Administrationâ— Pâ—nitentiâ— VIII 2. 3. 7. that for MCC yeares after Christ a good while after the Schoole Doctors were come in there was no question at all made whether we are justified by an infused habit of grace or not and that it was about the yeare MCCL that this opinion intirely prevailed in the Schooles Whereby it appeareth that as this opinion containes nothing destructive to the faith if it be understood in that sense which the Church of Rome allowes that it is not the naturall worth of it which justifies but Gods accepting of it to that effect So if it did yet could not the Church of Rome be said to teach any thing destructive to the faith But onely to allow since â—uch things to be taught For the Council of Vienna under Clement V. determines it not as matter of faith but as the more probable opinion as you may see Clement de summa Trin. Fide Cathol Tit. I. Cap. VII And therefore Albertus Pâ—ghius de libero Arbitrio lib. V notwithstanding this decree stickes not to count this doctrine forged without any authority of Scripture And those that speake of it with more respect then he thinke not themselves tied to that which the Council holdâ— the more probable It is indeed manifest by the experience of all Christians that the custome and practice even of supernaturall actions to which the inclination of corrupt nature is utterly averse breedes in a man an habituated disposition of doing those things with â—ase and pleasure which at the beginning of his Christianity he could not doe without offering himselfe much violence But that habit which custome and practice leaves behind it though supernaturall for the cause or effect of it because the acts upon which it accrues as also those which it produces cannot accrue from meere nature without the helpe of Christs grace is notwithstanding for that wherein it consists a disposition really qualifying the nature and substance of the soule and inclining it to act otherwise then without it Besides the Gospell promising the Holy Ghost for a Gift to abide with and dwell in those that are baptized nothing hinders the Gift thereof to be held and termed an habituall grace In these regards I find it neither prejudiciall nor inconsequent to the Christian faith to acknowledge habituall grace though neither scripture nor tradition of the Church owne any habit of grace created by God and infused into the soule in a moment as the Schoole imagineth But they seeme to have committed another mistake in that the Church having decreed against Pelagius that the Grace of Christ is necessary to all truly good actions and therefore that man cannot merit the first grace this infused habit of grace they have made to be that First grace which God giveth before man will indeavor any thing towards it For so the Master of the Sentences determineth that grace which preventeth mans indevors to be faith with Love libro II. distinct XXVI D. which though it be capable of a very good sense That the motion to beleeve the truth of Christianity out of the love of God is that which Gods grace prevents all mans compliance with yet in what sense they swallowed it will appeare by the difficulties and dispuâ—es they were intangled with about that sorrow which the heart conceives for sinne out of meerâ— love to God not feare of punishment which the love of our selves breedeth For this sorow being necessarily a disposition preparing him for justification that cometh to God in regard the first grace which God preventeth all manâ— indeavors with is to them this infused habit of Faith and love which formally justifieth how he should come prepared for justification by that contrition which without Gods grace man cannot have who is justified by that infused habit of grace which he was first prevented by God with hath been among them the subject of endlesse jangles Whereas it is manifest the maintenance of the Faith against Pelagius requireth no more then that the resolution of persevering in Christianity to the â—nd be thought necessarily to depend upon the motion to imbrace it which God first preventeth man with without respect to any act of man obliging God to grant it And therefore it is manifest that the Church decreed no more against Pelagius but that the first motion to become a good Christian that every man is prevented with must be ascribed to Gods free grace through Christ not ingaged by any act of mans goeing afore Now requiring onely the actuall assistance of Gods preventing grace it is easy enough to say not how attrition that is sorrow for sinne in regard of punishment accompanied with slavish feare is changed into contrition that is sorrow for sinne out of the love of God whome it offendeth For it is not possible that he who loveth God should be sory for sinne for the same reason which he was sorry for while he loved the world But how the man that was attrite becomes contrite For when first the Gospell reveales unto a man his desperate estate in and by the first Adam it is not possible that he should remaine uâ—touched either with sorrow for the present or apprehension for the future And yet no lesse unpossible is it according to Gods ordinary way of working even by his Grace that he should in an instant resolve to imbrace the onely way to give him peace in that exigence But while he neither casts off the motion of grace nor resigneâ— his interest in himselfe and the world to it but considers upon what reason it behoves him to resolve this consideration by the worke of Gods Spirit disâ—overing to him how much God and the next world is to be preferred before himselfe and this as the love of God and the world to come prevailes in him above the love of himselfe and this accordingly of necessity must the greife of having offended God afore prevaile in him above all that he can conceive for the misery he hath incurred And all this by virtue of those helpes which God grants though allwayes in consideration of our Lord Christ yet not by virtue of that Covenant which is not contracted till â— man be baptized but of his owne free goodnesse dispensing the effects of Christs coming according to the reason of his secret wisdome which the Covenant of grace discovers not I neede say no more to show how a
necessity of that which is necessary as a thing commanded him that will obtaine salvation differ onely in this That the necessity of the meanes of salvation is undispensable in regard of whosoever will be saved But the necessity of a thing commanded takes not hold till a man becomes liable to the precept whereby it is commanded The want of Baptisme then not being peremptory to the salvation of them that are prevented of it by unavoidable casualties but of all others Chuse whether you will call it necessary as the meanes not supposing that exception or necessary as a thing commanded supposing it But that opinion which justifies without it because before it and makes it signify nothing to the not predestinate to them that are onely to signify that which is done without it is necessarily destructive to the Covenant of Grace Whereas supposing repentance to justifying faith the necessity of the Baptisme of repentance may be maintained Nay repentance implying a conversion to all that Christianity requires and Christianity requiring Baptisme in reason implied it is in that repentance which that opinion presupposeth to justifying faith But that Volkelius Instit IV. 3. makes justifying Faith to consist in believing all that Christ taught and trusting in him out of a resolution to keep his commandments I take to be the meaning of S. Paul when he saith that a man is justified by Faith alone Provided that a man be baptized with that disposition which he calls justifying faith believing that being inabled by the holy Ghost in consideration of Christs merits accompanying his Baptisme to perform what he undertakes he shall attaine the life to come in consideration of the same CHAP. XXXI The state of the question concerning the perseverance of those that are once justified Of three senses one true one inconsistent with the Faith the third neither true nor yet destructive to the Faith Evidence from the writings of the Apostles From the Old Testament The grace of Prophesie when it presupposeth sanctifying grace Answer to some Texts and of S. Pauls meaning in the VII of the Romans Of the Polygamy of the Fathers What assurance of Grace Christians may have The Tradition of the Church THat which hath been said properly concerns onely them that first heare of the Gospell at mans age and are justified by being baptized into the profession of it But the reason of it is the Rule of that which is to be said of all To extend it so as to answere all questions concerning all mens cases There remains yet another question whether those are once justified can fall from the state of grace so as finally to be damned Which he that will speake truth must allow to have beene burthened with unchristian prejudices without any cause For who knowes not that commonly it hath been given to understand that whoso alloweth this granteth Gods everlasting grace and purpose towards him whom he accepteth in Christ as righteous to faile and become voide Which I grant to be truly consequent to the opinion of those that hold justifying faith to consist in beleeving that a man is predestinate to life For if that were so then he that should faile of his justification must by consequence faile of his predestination That is to say the decree of God by which he purposed finally to save him that is justifyed by beleeving that he is predestinate must faile and become voide when soever he ceaseth to be justified But what is that to him that beleeves and hath proved that God absolutely decreeth whom he will give and whome he will refuse the helpes of effectuall grace whereby they attaine that disposition which qualifies them righteous before God That the helps of Grace whereby they are effectually inabled or not inabled to continue or not to continue in the same disposition are granted in consideration of the right use of those helps which went afore That the decree of reward or punishment passeth in consideration of persevering or not persevering to the end in the same Is there any ignorance in the world so slanderous as to pretend any change in the purpose of God when his sentence changes upon the change of the condition upon which he grants remission of sins and right to everlasting life If any man do let him first call him self to account whether he will undertake to maintaine that position whereupon it followeth to wit that to believe a mans self prdestinate to life is that faith which alone justifieth And undertaking it let him take this defiance from me that his opinion is destructive to the foundation and ground of Christianity But as I said before that there is so great difference between those that hold justification by believing a mans self to be predestinate to life and by trusting in God for the obtaining of his promises in our Lord Christ that the one opinion is destructive to Christianity but the other not at least in those that require and presuppose true repentance to go before that trust in God wherein justifying faith in their opinions consisteth So must I consequently say concerning this point that it may be held and I have some reason to think that it is held by divers upon such termes as seem not to render it destructive For when I see that they require repentance to go before justifying faith as a condition requisite to that trust in God wherein justifying faith consisteth I must needs inferre as I see some Authors of that opinion to grant that when the children of God fall into such sinnes as Tertulliane saies lay waste the conscience neither remission of those sinnes which justification includeth nor that trust in God wherein that faith which onely justifyeth consisteth can be understood to have place before repentance if they speak things consequent in reason to theâ—r own positions How then shall they pretend that the sentence of justification once granted or rather the promise obtained by virtue of that contract which the Gospel tendreth as I have showed can remain firme the condition failing which it necessarily presupposeth Surely I suppose in that maner as it is ordinarily said in many disputes and that very truly how much soever to the purpose that a thing is in some respect false which is absolutely true or contrariwise absolutely false which notwithstanding in some respect holds true So seem they that are possessed with this prejudice to imagine that when God admits any man into the state of Grace by virtue of that contract which the Gospel tendereth that is as I say by being baptized upon a sincere profession of Christianity if this be done with an intent of granting the grace of perseverance then is that person said absolutely to be justifyed who when he falls into such sinnes as I have named becomes in some respect not justified to wit for the present and in respect of those sinnes of which he is not yet reconciled by repentance And consequently the act of justifying faith is
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
S. Gregory saith Scholasticus composed whether hee mean a man of that name or as I conceive some Doctor that professed the Scriptures if S. Gregory should tell mee that some other form to the same effect was not in use I could not believe him believing the premises The substance and effect whereof under the name of Eucharistia or the Thanks-giving is that which the Church from the beginning consecrated the Eucharist with by the appointment of our Lord and according to the practice of his Apostles So Rabanus de Institutione Clericorum I. 32. affirms that the whole Church consecrates with Blessing and Thanksgiving the Apostles having taught them to do that which our Lord had done Walafridus Strabus de Rebus Ecclesiasticis cap. XXII relates two several opinions concerning this businesse as it appears by his discourse Et relatio majorum est ità primis temporibus Missas fieri solitas sicut modò in Parasceve Paschae in quo die apud Romanos Missae non aguntur communicationem facere solemus Id est praemissâ— Oratione Dominicà sicut ipse Dominus noster praecepti commemoratione passionis adhibitâ eos Corpori Dominico communicâsse Sanguini quos ratio permittebat And there is a relation of our Predecessors that in the first times Masse was done as now on Good Friday on which day Masse is not said at Rome the communion is wont to be made That is that the Lords Prayer premised and the commemoration of his death applyed those whom reason allowed did communicate in the Body and Bloud of our Lord. The practice of the Church of Rome here mentioned is that which still continues not to consecrate the Eucharist either on Good Friday or the Saturday following For then Masse is said so late that it belongs to Easter day And on Maundy Thursday the Eucharist is consecrated and reserved to be received on Good Friday That any commemoration of Christs death is made at the receiving of it as Rabanus saith I finde not This is certain that no man imagines that the Eucharist is consecrated by any thing that is said or done at the receiving of it but at the Masse on the day before And this in the Greek Church is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Liturgy of the elements that were consecrated afore Which they use on other days besides Therefore this opinion that the Apostles should celebrate so would import that they celebrated the Eucharist without consecrating of it That is that they never appointed how it should be consecrated Which neither Rabanus nor any of these whose opinion he relates can maintain Nor supposing the premises is it tenable And therefore I take the true meaning of S. Gregories words to be laid down in another opinion related afore by Rabanus Quod nunc agimus multiplici orationum cantilenarum consecrationum officio totum hoc Apostoli post eos proximi ut creditur orationibus commemoratione passionis dominica faciebant simpliciter That which wee act by an Office compounded of many and divers Prayers Psalms and Consecrations all that the Apostles and the next after them did plainly with prayers and the commemoration of our Lords passion as it is thought For the consecration may well be understood to be made plainly by prayer with commemoration of our Lords passion in opposition to that solemnity of Lessons Psalms and Prayers which at the more solemn occasions of the Church it was afterwards celebrated with Though wee suppose it to conclude alwaies with the Lords Prayer as S. Gregory requires And herewith the words of S. Gregory seeâ— to agree when hee â—aith Vt ad ipsam â—solummâ—do orationem To consecrate at or with it alone not by it alone But if this opinion cannot passe having indeed no constraining evidence but that S. Gregories words will needs require that they conâ—ecrated the Eucharist by the Lords Prayer alone I will will then â—ay that the Apostles understood the petition of our dayly bread as S. Cyprian upon the Lords Prayer doth To wit of the breâ—d and drink of the Eucharist daily celebrated and received For supposing this intent and meaning there is nothing pretended to be done by the consecration which that Petition signifieth not Praying that God will give us this day the dayly food of our â—ouls by the elements presently provided for that purpose And all this will no way prejudice that which hath been said of the mater and form of the consecration derived by Tradition from the Apostles to be frequented at more solemn occaâ—â—ons of Christian Assemblies For that Assembly which believing that Christians are justified by undertaking to professe the Faith and to live according to it and that our Lord hath left us his body and bloud of the Eucharist to convey the Holy Ghost to our â—ouls that they may be able to perform what they undertake should pray the Lords Prayer over the Elements proposed with that intent I cannot doubt of their receiving the Body and bloud of Christ Provided that where the occasion will bear more solemnity the Order of the Church received from the Apostles be not neglected Whereas supposing Christians to believe that they are justified by believing that they are justified or predestinate in consideration onely of Christs sufferings and that the Eucharist is instituted onely for a signe to confirm this Faith Though they should regularly use that form of consecration which I maintain to come by Tradition from the Apostles I would not therefore grant that they should either consecrate the Eucharist or could receive the Body and bloud of Christ by it Sacrilege they must commit in abusing Gods ordinances to that intent for which hee never appointed it but Sacrament there would be none further then their own imagination And upon these premises I am content to go to issue as concerning the sense of the Catholick Church in this point If it can any way be showed that the Church did ever pray that the flesh and bloud might be substituted instead of the elements under the accidents of them then I am content that this be counted henceforth the Sacramental presence of them in the Eucharist But if the Church onely pray that the Spirit of God coming down upon the Elements may make them the body and bloud of Christ so that they which received them may be filled with the grace of his Spirit Then is it not the sense of the Catholick Church that can oblige any man to believe the abolishing of the Elements in their bodily substance because supposing that they remain they may neverthelâ—sse become the Instrument of Gods Spirit to convey the operation thereof to them that are disposed to receive it no otherwise than his flesh and bloud conveyed the efficacy thereof upon earth And that I suppose is reason enough to call it the body and bloud of Christ Sacramentally that is to say as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist It is not here to be denied that
reconcilement with God For where there is means for those that are detected of notorious sinnes to be restored to the Communion of the Church without the hardship of Penance there can be no reason to imagine that those whose sinnes are secret will of themselves submit themselves to the Keyes of the Church to procure pardon or to assure themselves of it I find great reason to believe that at the first those sinnes which were brought under publick Penance by the primitive Church were onely those three great crimes of Murder Adultery and Idolatry which the Montanists and Novatians excluded from reconcilement by Penance and the branches that were reducible to the same For Pacianus Paraenesi ad Poenitentiam speaking expresly of this mater expresses no more But when the Empire was Christian and the Church became ingraffed into the State then was the Rule inlarged to all crimes that the Laws of the State made capital to which in point of conscience those that are infamous by Civil Law are not inferiour though being not so pernicious to the world they are not by Civil Law punished with death The Reformation of Ecclesiastical Law intended here under Edward VI. hath taken notice of these terms As for the Presbyterians that would so fain be authorized by the State to swagger domineer over the consciences of their poor Neighbors that they have not been ashamed to submit the Original power of the Church to an appeal to the secular which is in English to let Parliament men live as they list so themselves might be inabled to do what they listed with litle ones to give them the power of the Church is to destroy the Church the power whereof they pretend not to exercise to the curing of sin but onely to the abolishing of scandall which the Church never pretended to abolish but by curing the sinne And yet they must give me leave to ask further either how that conscience can be cured of sinne that is not wounded with it or how it can be wounded with it that is bound to believe the pardon of sinne before repentance So necessary it is that they be required to disclaim the remission of sinne and the opinion of saving faith without supposing repentance and the same to be procured by the Keys of the Church before we suppose them to be a Church CHAP. XI The Unction of the sick pretendeth onely bodily health upon supposition of the cure of sinne by the Keyes of the Church Objections answered The Tradition of the Church evidenceth the same BEfore I leave this point I am here to consider what Ecclesiasticall power it is and how well grounded which the Church of Rome pretendeth to exercise in extream Unction so called because it belongeth to the sick in extremity and being accounted by them in the number of the seven Sacraments is applyed unto the sick over and above the Sacraments of Penance and of the Eucharist The question of the Sacraments wherein the nature of them consisteth and by consequence how many of them there are I wholly set aside from the present discourse Because I conceive it will be determined more briefly upon more setled grounds all at once when I shall have discovered what powers they are which the Church indeed exerciseth by those actions which are or which may be pretended to be Sacraments But it is plain enough that the Church of Rome pretendeth also to exercise the power of the Keys in extream unction because according to the words of S. James afore quoted they assign the effect of it to be the remission of sinne On the contrary they who by the promise of bodily health to be restored to the sick upon the unction which the Apostle prescribeth do gather that the whole office there commanded was temporary as only intended for those ages when the miraculous grace of healing was in force in the Church by consequence do not admit any office to be incharged or any power estated upon the Church by it That which hath been premised to show that the circumstances of the Apostles words together with the originall and generall practice of the Church argueth aloud his intent to concern the exercise of the Keyes of the Church and the power of them towards those that are in danger of death ingageth my resolution to be this That the unction of the sick together with the prayers of the Church for the recovery of their bodily health which Christianity alloweth not without praying principally for the health of the soul is no way commanded by S. James but as an appertenance or an appendant to the exercise of the power of the Keyes in reconciling the sick to the Church whereupon the prayers thereof become due and therefore without further promise of remission of sinne or grace then that generall promise which the injoyning of prayer for the sick presupposeth The reason of this assertion is now to be deduced out of the Scriptures supposing for grounds those things which hitherto have been setled When our Lord sent his Disciples to preach the Gospel and to do those works that might witnesse them to be the Disciples of him that was sent by God it is said Mark VI. 13. That they cast out many Devils and annointed many sick with oyl and healed them Now it is evident that the miracles of the Apostles as did their Masters tended to one generall purpose by bodily cures to intimate the cure of sinne and the recovery of life and health to the soul which our Lord pretended to bring and tender them though by his works convincing them that he was the Messias whom they expected to bring them deliverance from their bodily enemies and the happinesse of injoying freely the Land promised by their Fathers Whereby we may see what consideration those Writers of Controversies have of the Scriptures that ground the unction of the sick which they will have to be a Sacrament of the New Testament upon this action of the Apostles when as the Gospel though now in preaching by the Apostles as well as our Lord yet was not established till his death past and accepâ—ed by God and by his resurrection declared to be accepted as the ratification of that ambassage of reconcilement and peace which he came to publish Far more discreet is that which the Council of Trent hath said that being intimated by S. Mark it is published by S. James At least if we understand the ground whereupon we maintain that the cure of sin is intimated by that bodily health which S. Mark relateth to have been restored by the Apostles For so indeed it is The bodily cures which the Apostles then did seemed to intimate that the imbracing and undertaking of Christianity is from Christs death forwards in consideration thereof the cure of the soul and the restoring of it from death to life Which if it be so then hath the Church no further power in the pardoning or abolishing of sinne then the absolute
Epist IX ad Probum Statuimus fide Catholica suffragante illud esse conjugium quod primitus erat divina gratia fundatum Conventumque secundaemulieris priore superstite nec divortio ejectâ nullo pacto posse esse legitimum We decree the Catholick faith voting for it that to be mariage which first was founded upon Gods grace that was first made according to Christianity and that the wedding of a second wife leaving the first can by no means be lawful Which exception could possibly signifie nothing if in no case not of adultery a second could be maried while the first is alive And in the West Chromatius of Aquileia in Mat. V. as well as in the East Asterius Homil. an liceat dimittere uxorem the first damns him that shall mary again excepting adultery The second would have his hearers perswaded that nothing but death or adultery dissolves mariage But do I therefore say that the Church cannot forbid the innocent party to mary again or is bound by Gods law to allow it All Ecclesiastical Law being nothing but the restraining of that which Gods Law hath left indefinite And the inconveniences being both visible and horrible I conceive I am duly informed that George late Arch-bishop of Canterbury was satisfied in the proceeding of the High Commission Court to tie them that are divorced from marying again upon experience of adultery designed upon collusion to free the parties from wedlock having been formerly tender in imposing that charge The Greek Church may beter avoid such inconveniences not being tied to any Law of the Land but the tempering of the Canons remaining in the Governors of the Church But they that would not have the Lawes of the Church and the justice of the Land became Stales and pandars to such vilanies must either make adultery death and so take away the dispute or revive publick Penance and so take away the infamy of his bed and the taint of his issue that shall be reconciled to an Adulteresse or lastly bear with that inconvenience which the casualties of the world may oblige any man to which is to propose the chastity of single life in stead of the chastity of wedlock when the security of a mans conscience and the offence of the Church allows it not But though this in regard of the intricacies of the question and the inconveniences evident to practice may remain in the power of the Church yet can it never come within the power of the Church to determine that it is prejudiciall to the Christian faith to do so as by Gods Law And the Church that erres not in prohibiting mariage upon divorce for adultery will erre in determining for mater of faith that Gods law prohibites it so long as such reasons from the Scriptures are not silenced by any Tradition of the whole Church It is easie to see by S. Augustine de adulterini conjugiis II. 5-12 that publick Penance was the means to restore an adulteresse to the same reputation among Christians which an adulteresse that turned Christian must needs recover among Christians And that is the reason why the Canon of Arles orders that young Christians be advised not to mary again that their wives may be recovered of their adultery by Penance and so their mariage re-estated I see also that Justiniane Nov. CXVII hath taken order that women excessive in incontinence be delivered to the Bishop of the City to be put into a Monastery there to do Penance during life And supposing adultery to be death according to Moses Law the inconvenience ceaseth If the Civil Law inable not the Church to avoid the scandall of this collusion it is no marvail that the Church is constrained to impose upon the innocent more then Gods law requires to avoid that scandall which Gods law makes the greater inconvenience And thus having showed you that S. Austines interpretation of fornication is not true I have into the bargain showed you that it cannot serve to prove divorce upon other causes besides adultery and so the insolubility of mariage excepting our Saviours exception is as firmly proved as the consent of the Church can prove any thing in Christianity I know Origen argues that poysoning killing children robbing the house may be as destructive to the Society of Wedlock as Adultery And he thereupon seems to inferre that our Saviour excepts adultery onely for instance intending all causes equally destructive to wedlock as Grotius who follows his sense seems to limit it But Origens opinion will not interrupt the Tradition of the Church unlesse it could appear to have come into practice sometime in some part of the Church Neither would it serve his turn that would have those divorces which the secular Power allowes to extend to marying again For Origen never intended that his own opinion should bind but that it is in the power of the Church to void mariages upon other causes For he saith he knew some Governours of Churches suffer a woman to mary her former husband living Praeter Scripturam besides the Scripture And that as Moses permitted divorce to avoid a greater mischiefe But I may question whether they thought that against the Scripture which Origen thought to be against the Scripture And in the mean time as I do not see what breach his report can make upon the Tradition of the Church so it is plain the Power of the Church and not the secular did that which he reports And truly what the testimony of S. Austine extending that Adultery upon which our Saviour grants divorce to all mortall sinne but confining him that is so divorced not to mary another can avail him that would intitle the secular Power to create causes of divorce to the effect of marying again let all reason and conscience judge I shall conclude my argument Exceptio firmat regulam in non exceptis An exception settles the rule in all that is not excepted Either our Saviour intended that who had put away a Yoke-fellow for adultery should mary again or not If so he hath forbidden marying again upon other causes If not much more For though upon adultery he hath forbidden to mary again And thus is the Power of the Church in Matrimoniall causes founded upon the Law which our Lord Christ hath confined all Christians to of marying one to one and indissolubly whither without exception or excepting adultery For seeing that of necessity many questions must arise upon the execution of such a Law and that Civil Power may as well be enemy to Christianity as not and that as well professing to maintain it as professing to persecute it to say that God hath left the Consciences of Christians to be secured by the Civil Power submitting to what it determines is to say that under the Gospell God hath not made the observing of his lawes the condition of obtaining his promises This is that power which Tertulliane in several places expresly voucheth de Pudicitiâ cap. IV. Penes nos speaking
Churches of all one Soveraignty constitute the Nationall Church containing all the Provinces thereof so would they have also Provincial Synodical and Classical Churches consisting of the Congregations Classes and Synods which each respective Classis Synod or Province containeth The other mean opinion is the frame of the Catholick Church I as have showed and shall show it to have been in force from the time of the Apostles Having first showed that the visible unity of the Church is a thing commanded by God in the first place for the communion of all Christians in the true faith and in the service of God according to the same For it is visible that the means by which this hath been attained is the dividing of Christendom into Churches which we now call Dioceses providing each of them a sufficient number of Priests and Deacons under one Head the Bishop as well to regulate the faith and maners of the people as to Minister unto them the offices of Gods service Therefore whatsoever means I imployed at the beginning to show that those persons who succeeded the Apostles in time obtained not their places by force or fraud but by their will and appointment will here be effectual to prove that the qualities which they held in their severall Churches were not obtained by force or fraud but by the same appointment Wherefore having showed that from the beginning the unity of the Church hath been mainâ—ained by the mutuall intelligence and correspondence of the chief Churches upon whom the less depended And that this intelligence and correspondence was alwaies addressed and managed by the heads of the said Churches nor could it indeed have been maintained had there not been such Heads alwaies ready to address and manage the same I have in effect showed that this was the course whereby the Apostles executed their design of maintaining unity in the Church Is it not plain by the instances produced in the first Book that the whole Church remained satisfied of the saith of each Christian upon the testimony of his Bishops because they rested satisfied of his That hereupon whosoever was recommended by his Bishop was admitted to communion as well abroad as at home What other interess had the Church of Rome in the faith of Paulus Samosatenus or Dionysius Alexandrinus the Churches of Alexandria and Antiochia in the proceedinge of Novatianus all Churches in the fortune of Athanasius What other reaâ—on can any man give for that uniform difformity of Ecclesiasticall Traditions and customes which â—ppeareth from point to point in all maters the whole Church agreeing in things of highest concernment but all Churches differing in maters of lesse consequence Is it not manifest whensoever inâ—stead of this daily correspondence Synods were assembled upon more pressing occasions that onely Bâ—shops appeared in behalf of their respective Churches For if others appeaâ—ed in the name of Bishops upon occasion of old age or other hinderances I need not say that it was the Bishops right in which another appeared Into these qualities and preheminences over the rest whether of the Clergy or People that Bishops should be able to inâ—â—nuate themselves all over Christendom had it not been so appointed by the Apostles it is no lesse contradictory to common sense then that Christianity should ever have been received had not such men as our Lord Christ and his Apostles preached and done such things as the Scriptures relate to make it receivable Or then that all Christians should of their own inclinations agree to those Laws which have made the Church one Society from the beginning had they not found themselves tied to follow the appointment of the Apostles that founded it Wherefore I will not take upon me to show you the names of Archbishops Primates and Patriarchs in the Scriptures Much lesse any command there recorded that all Churches be governed by Bishops all higher Churches by higher Bishops But I pretend to have showed by the particulars produced in the Right of the Church Chap. III. in the Primitive Government of Churches throughout and in the Apostolical form of Divine Service Chap. IV. and never contradicted to my knowledge that there are express marks left us in the Scriptures of severall Churches planted in several Cities so that there is never mention of more Churches then one in one City but perpetually of more then one in one Province of Heads of those Churches whether Apostles themselves or their fellows and successors applyed to the charge of several Churches Of chief Churches and inferiour Churches according to the capacity of the Cities in which they were first planted I challenge further here as proved by that which hath been said in the first Book That this form of Government hath been in sorce ever since the time of the Apostles whose immediate successors are to be named in the greatest Seas upon which it is evident that inferiour Churches depended from the same time As manifest by that which hath been said in the places afore-named That the advice and assistance of Presbyters together with the ministery and attendance of Deacons to and upon the said Heads is as anciently evident in the Records of the Church as any Record of any Church is ancient And upon these premises I conclude That the same course and way of Government by Bishops Priests and Deacons which afterwards prevailed throughout the whole Church was first begun by the Apostles as without whose authority it could not have taken effect all over the Church And of those that take upon them to depart from the Church that they may not be so governed I take my self inabled to demand where there is any precept recorded in Scripture that the Government of the whole Church be setled either in Independant Congregations or in Congregationâ—l Classical Synodical Provincial and National Churches The very names are as barbarous to the language of the Scriptures â—s the subject is to the Writers of it And yet were all this showed me I would say that as the Magicians of Pharoah in the third Miracle so must the Architects of this design fail in the highest point of aecumenical or Catholick Which having never been compassed but by the means of single heads of the chief Churches it is absolutely too late for any other form to pretend I say not to come from any command of the Apostles but to be receivable in the Church being founded by God for one and the same body to continue till the coming of Christ to judgement For if the Apostles of our Lord determining in part that Order which should preserve the unity of the Church which what it was the original practice of the whole Church evidenceth leave the rest to be determined by the Church for its own necessity and use That which is so determined by the Châ—rch whensoever it becomes necessary to maintain unity in the Church shall no lesse oblige then that which the Apostles determined in specie themselves The reason is the unity
of the Church not onely of divine right as provided for by the Apostles but holding the rank of an end to which particular provisions of the Apostles in this mater seem but as means It is true I am farre from believing that had the Reformation retained this Apostolical Government the Church of Rome would thereby have been moved to joyn in it But when I see the Schisme which it hath occasioned to stand partly upon this difference When I see so many particulars begun by the Apostles as the Scriptures themselves evidence others determinable by the Church When I see those that correct Magnificat introduce instead of them those Lawes which have neither any witnesse from the Scriptures nor any footing in the authority of the whole Church I must needs conclude those that do these things in as much as they do them to be causes of the Schism that is Schismaticks For what authority upon earth can introduce any form reconcileable with that which the Apostles first introduced to procure the vanity of the Church being to continue one and the same Body from the beginning to the end but he must give cause of dissolving the unity of the said Body unlesse he can convince the rest of the Church that it is Gods act to whom all the Church is to be subject whereas to him they are not Wherâ—fore let not Presbyterians or Independents think that they have done their work when they can answer texts of Scripture so as not to be convinced that Bishops are of divine Right Unless they can harden themselves against the belief of one Catholick Church they must further give account why they depart from that which is not against Gods Law to introduce that which it commandeth not For that is to proclaim to the Church that they will not be of it unlesse they may be governed as they list themselves Whereas they cannot be of it by being governed otherwise then the whole Church from the beginning hath been Let them not marvail that those who go not along with them in it forewarn others of making themselves Schismaticks by communicating in their innovations But against the Independants I must further take notice that by the supposition of one Society of the whole Church the whole pretense of the Congregations is quite excluded For if God appointed all Churches to make one Church by the communion of all in the service of God supposing the same faith then did not God appoint all Congregations to be chief within themselves but to depend upon the whole both for the Rule of Faith and for the order of Gods service Again it is evident to common sense that the people of one Church can pretend no interess to give Law to another Church Whereas whomsoever we inable to preserve the unity of the whole those persons must eithâ—r have right to oblige those that are not of their own Congregations or else God shall hâ—ve provided that the Church shall be one but excluded the onely means by which it can be preserved one And therefore to all those texts of Scriptures which are alleged to prove the chief Power of the People in the Church which is the ground of the Congregations I give here this general answer which elsewhere I have applied to the said several passages First by way of exception that they can inferre no more now against the Clergy then they could thâ—n against the Apostles So that seeing the Apostles were then chief notwithstanding all that those Scriptures contain the Clergy also remain now chief in the Church Secondly and directly that they import no more then the tesâ—imony consent and concurrence of the people by way of suffrage or agreement and applause to the Acts of the Clergy the interess whereof is grounded upon the sensible knowledge which the people have of the persons concerned in Ordinations Censures or other Acts of the Church in regard whâ—reof it is no more then reason requires that they be duly satisfied of the proceedings of the Church without making them Judges of maters of Right in it So that to make the people chief in Church maters upon account of this Title is to make the people of England Soveraign because English Juries have power to return evidence in mater of fact either effectual or void Another reason I here advance upon supposition of the force and weight of the Tradition of the Church in evidencing the reason and intent of the sayings and doings of the Apostles recorded in the Scriptures Philip one of the seven having preached and converted and baptized the Samaritanes the Apostles at Jerusalem send down to them Peter and John at whose prâ—yers with â—â—ying thâ—â—r 〈◊〉 on them they receive the Holy Ghost Act. VIII 14-17 And so S. Paul â—â—yes hâ—nds upon the twelve men that were baptized afore at Ephesus â—â—â—â—hey receive the Holy Ghost Act. XIX 1-8 For what reason shall we imagine why they that were inâ—bled to baptize were not â—â—abled to give the Holy Ghost baptism being the condition upon which the Holy Ghost was due by the promise of the Gospel but to show that they were baptized into the uniâ—y of the Church out of which they were not to expect the Holy Ghost Thâ—refore that their Baptism may have effect that is give the Holy Ghost the allowâ—nce of the Apostles upon whose government the unity of the Church dependeth is requite Whiâ—h allowance their prayers for the Holy Ghost and Impoâ—â—â—ion of hands implâ—eth and presupposeth It cannot be doubted that the visible Grace of â—peaking in strâ—nge languages the great works of God was then given for an evidence of the presence of the Holy Ghost with Gods people whereupon it is called by S. Paul 1 Cor. XII 7. The manifestatioâ— of the Spirit But evâ—n of this kind of Graces S. Paul saith again 1 Cor. XIV 32. 33. The Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets For God is not the author of unsetlednesse but of order as in all Churches of the Saints If therefore there come no confusion upon Prophets Prophesying one by one because God who is the Author of Order grants such inspirations and revelations to inferiours that they cease not therefore to be subject to those which he grants to Superiours How much more re asonable is it that the Gift of the Holy Ghost promised to them that are baptized should neverthelesse deâ—end upon the blessing of the Apostles So that when S. Peter sayes to them that were convâ—rted at Pentecost Act. II. 38. Repent and be Baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto remission of sinnes and yâ— shall receive the gift of the Holy â—host It seems to me no more then reason requires that he â—upposes the same blessing As also S. Paul in those of whom he saith That having believed in Christ they were sealed by the Holy spirit of promise And again Grieve not the holy spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day
Congregations I do indeed acknowledge that there is difficulty in expounding those texts of the Apostles which speak to this purpose so as to agree them with the Originall and universal practice of the Church And therefore it is no marvail if learned men that have handled this point among us where without affectation I may say that it hath been most curiously and ingenuously disputed have gone several wayes upon severall grounds in assigning the reason why the degree of Deacons is mentioned next to the degree of Bishops in so many texts of the Apostles having the order of Priests between both as the original and perpetual custome of the Church required For it is well enough known that there is an opinion published and maintained by many learned observations in the primitive antiquity of the Church that during the time when those texts of the Apostles were written there were but two Orders of Bishops and Deacons established in the Church though Bishops also are called Presbyters the name not being yet appropriated to the midle order while it was not introduced as afterwards it came to be And this opinion allegeth Epiphanius very fitly confuting Aerius the Heretick or Schismatick objecting the same that at the beginning the multitude of believers in less places being so small that one Governour together with some Ministers to attend upon him in executing his Orders might well serve them it is no marvail if there be no mention of any more Orders in so many texts of the Apostles And it may be said that as there were Churches founded and governed by a certain order from the beginning that we read of them in the Apostles so no Bishop Priest or Deacon was appropriated to any particular Church till after that time by degrees they came to be selled to certain Churches by Ecclesiastical Law and Custome So that during the time of the Apostles themselves and their companions whom they associated to themselves for their assistance were in common the Governours of Churches then founded according as they fell out to be present in these Churches to whom they had the most relation by planting and watering the faith planted in them either by virtue of the agreement taken by the Apostles within themselves or by the appointment of some of them if we speak of their companions and assistances But afterwards when the faith came to be setled then as those which had been Governours of Churches in common before became chief Governours of particular Churches to whom by lawful consent they became appropriated so were they provided of Priests and Deacons to assist and attend them in the execution of their office towards the body of Christians then mulplyed in severall Churches I do confess to have declared an opinion something differing from both of these sayings about the reason here demanded As not being perswaded either that the Order of Presbyters was not yet introduced into the Church during the Apostles time or that chief Governours were not appropriated and setled in some Churches during the same though I have no need to undertake that in all they were believing and maintaining that the Apostles themselves in the Churches of their own planting and watering were acknowledged chief Governours in ordering notwithstanding their extraordinary both Power not confined to any one Church and graces and abilities porportionable In which regard and under which limitation visible to the common sense of all men of their own and the next ages I do maintain Bishops to be their successors Whereupon it follows that I allow the name of Bishops in the Apostles writings to comprehend Priests also because of the mater of their function common to both though with a chief Power in the Bishop in Priests so limited as to do nothing that is to say nothing of consequence to his Power over the whole Church without his consent and allowance But this variety of opinion in expounding these Scriptures draweth after it no further consequence to prejudice the primitive Law of Goverment in the Church then this That there are more waies then one to answer the seeming probabilities pretending to make the evidence of Catholick Tradition unreconcileable with the truth of the Scriptures in the agreement whereof the demonstration of this truth consisteth I conceive therefore I might very well referre my self to the Readers free judgement to compare the reasons which I have produced with those that since have been used Notwithstanding I shall not think much briefly according to the model of this design to express the sense I have of the most native meaning of the most texts alleged in this businesse that I may have opportunity to point out again the peremptory exceptions which â—re visible in them either to the imagination of mungrill Prâ—sbyteries compounded of Clergy and People during the time of the Apostles or of the chief Power of any such Presbyteries in their resepective Churches CHAP. XVII The Power given the XII under the Title of Apostles and the LXX Disciples That the VII were Deacons Of the first Presbyters at Jerusalem and the Interest of the People Presbyters appropriated to Churches under the Apostles S. Pauls Deacons no Presbyters No ground for Lay Flders FIrst then as the name of Apostle in the Originall meaning is very general to signifie any commissary Proxy delegate or Ambassador so the use of it in the Apostles writings is larger then to be confined to the twelve For when S. Paul saith That our Lord appeared to the twelve afterwards to all the Apostles 1 Cor. XV. 5. 7. He must needs understand other Apostles besides the twelve perhaps the same that he meant where he reckoned Andronicus and Junias remarkable among the Apostles Rom. XVI 7. And that in another â—ense then Paul and Barnabas are called Apostles Act. XIV 4. 14. For the name of Apostle intimating whose Apostle he is that is called an Apostle we have no reason to count Paul and Barnabas any mans Apostles but our Lord Christs though they were first sent with the blessing of such Doctors and Prophets as the Church of Antiochia then had Acts XIII 1. 2 3. whose authority cannot in any reason be thought to extend so farre as to constitute an Apostle parâ—llel to the Twelve which S. Paul so oft so expresly challenges For since we see their commission is immediately from the Holy Ghost that is from God we are not to value their right by the solemnity which it is visibly conferred upon them with Unlesse you will say that by virtue of that Imposition of Hands they were messengers and Commissaries of that Church and that they then appeared to be no more then so though afterwards God set on them marks of the same authority with the Twelve Truly those whom S. Paul calls false Apostles transferring themselves into the Apostles of Christ 1 Cor. XI 13. must neâ—ds be understood to have pretended commission from our Lord Christ himself For hereupon they stood upon it that they had
whereby they thought they held their estate whether of this world or the hope they might have of the world to come For my opinion obligeth me not to say that Idolatry was commanded by this law of Jeroboam or practised by all that conformed to it But that though not expresly commanded yet it followed by necessary consequence upon the introducing of the Law Not by consequence of naturall necessity from that which the terms thereof imported but by that necessity which the Schoole calls morall when the common discretion of men that are able to judge in such matters evidences that supposing such a Law it must needs and will come to passe CHAP. XXVI The Place or rather the State of happy and miserable Soules otherwise understood by Gods people before Christs ascension then after it What the Apocalypse what the rest of the Apostles declare Onely Martyrs before Gods Throne Of the sight of God I Come now to the nicest point if I mistake not of all that occasions the present Controversies and divisions of the Western Church the state of soules departed with the profession of Christianity till the day of Judgement The resolution whereof that which remaines concerning the publick service of God the order and circumstances of the same must presuppose This resolution must procede upon supposition of that which the first book hath declared concerning the knowledge of the Resurrection and the world to come under the Old Testament and the reservation and good husbandry in declaring it which is used in the writings of it The consideration whereof mightily commendeth the wisdome and judgment of the ancient Church in proposing the bookes which we call Apocrypha for the instruction of the Ca echumeni or learners of Christianity For these are they in which the Resurrection and the world to come and the happy state of righteous soules after death is plainly and without circumstance first set forth I need not here repeat the seven Maccabees and their mother professing to dy for Gods Law in confidence of Resurrection to the world to come 2 Mac. VII 9 11 23 36. nor the Apostle Ebr. XI 35-38 testifying the same of them and the rest that lived or died in their case But I must not omit the Wisdom of Solomon the subject whereof as I said afore is to commend the Law of God to the Gentiles that in stead of persecuting Gods people they might learn the worship of the onely true God For this he doth by this argument that those who persecute Gods people think there remains no life after this but shall find that the righteous were at rest as soone at they were dead and in the day of judgement shall triumph over their enemies Wisdome II. III. 1-8 V From hence proceeding to show how the wisdome of Gods people derives it selfe from Gods wisdome who so strangely delivered them from the persecutions of Pharaoh and the Egyptians for a warning to those that might undertake the like In particular the Kings of Egypt under whom this was writ and the Jewes most used the Greek The Wisdome of Jesus the sonne of Sirach pretending to lay down those rules of righteous conversation which the study of the Law the off-spring of Gods Wisdome had furnished him with is not so copious in this point though the precepts of inward and spirituall obedience and service of God from the heart which he delivers throughout can by no meanes be parted from the hope of the world to come being grounded upon nothing else And he proposeth it plainly from the beginning when he saith He that feareth God it shall go well with him in the end and at the day of his death he shall be blessed The very additions to Daniel are a bulwarke to the Faith of the Church when it appeares that the happinesse of righteous soules after death is not taken up by any blind tradition among Christians but before Christianity expressed for the sense of Daniels fellows in those words of their hymne O ye spirits and souls of the righteous blesse ye the Lord praise him and magnify him for ever And whatsoever we may make of the second book of Maccabees the antiquity of it will alwayes be evidence that the principall author of it Jason of Cyrene could never have been either so senselesse or so impudent as to impose upon his nation that prayers or sacrifices were used by them in regard of the resurrection if they believed not the being and sense of humane souls after death 2 Mac. XII 43. Proceed we to those passages concerning this point which the Gospell afford us and consider how well they agree herewith I will not here dispute that our Lord intended to relate a thing that really was come to passe but to propose a parable or resemblance of that which might and did come to passe when he said Luke XVI 19 There was a certaine rich man that was clad with fine linnen and purple and made good chear every day But I will presume upon this That no man that meanes not to make a mockery of the Scriptures will indure that our Lord should represent unto us in such terms as we are able to bear that which falls out to righteous and wicked soules after death if there were no such thing as sense and capacity of pleasure and paine in souls departed according to that which they do here I will also propose to consideration the description of the place whereby he represents unto us the different estate of those whom it receiveth And in Hell lifting up his eyes being in torments he sees Abraham from afarre and Lazarus in his bosome And afterwards And besides all this between us and you there is a great gappe fixed so that those who would passe from hence cannot nor may they passe from thence to us For I perceive it is swallowed for Gospell amongst us that Dives being in Hell saw Lazarus in the third heavens Whereas the Scripture saith onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the invisible place of good and bad â—oules For so the processe of the Parable obliges us to understand it Sâ—â—ing it would be somewhat strange to understand that gappe wherewith the place of happy soules is here described to be parted from the place of torments to be the earth and all that is between the third heavens and it The Jewes at this time as we see by the Gospell believing according to the testimonies alleged that righteous soules were in rest and pleasure and happinesse wicked in misery and torments called the place or state of those torments Gehenna from the valley of the sonnes of Hinnom neer Jerusalem where those that of old time sacrificed their children to devils burnt them with fire The horror of which place it appears was taken up for a resemblance fit to represent the torment of the wicked soules after death In like manner Gods people being sensible of Gods mercy in using meanes to bring them back to the ancient inheritance
either from Hethen writers or from the Scriptures There being nothing under the earth but that which answereth this Hemispere above the earth Which clause is added to meete with one opinion of the Gentiles that the lower hemispere is the place of soules and the torments of Hell which they call Tartara as much beneath it as heaven is above this Onely here it must be provided that the gulfe be not forgotten which our Lord fixeth between Abrahams bosome and the place of torments Dionysius Eccles Hierarch Cap. II. seemeth to agree with Gregory Nyssenâ— and so doe others whom unlesse you distinguish thus you wil not find to speak things consequent to themselvs And I am much confirmed in it first by the difference of opinions among the fathers concerning Samuels soul Which we as there be enough of them that cannot indure to yeild it to have been in the devils power to raise so are they by that meanes obliged to maintaine the rest of the Fathers souls with Samuels to have gon into Abrahams bosom with Lazarus Secondly by their agreement in acknowledging that Paradise which was shut upon man for the sinne of Adam is opened by the death of Christ to receive the righteous For to conceive that they understood this of that Paradise which Adam was expulsed would be to make them too childish But understanding it of that estate which that Paradise signified you have Saint Basil assigning Paradise to Lazarus de Jejunio Hom. I. Besides another Homily intitled to Zeno Bishop of Verona Nay you have expresly in Philo Carpathius upon Cant. VI. 2. My love is gone into his garden Or his Paradise Tunc enim Paradisum triumphator ingressus est cum ad inferos penetravit Then did he enter Paradise in triumph when he pierced into hell Making the beds of spices there to be the souls of the Fathers to whom our Lord conducted the good thiefe And Olympiodorus upon Cant. III. saith that some make Paradise under the earth and that there Dives saw Lazarus Others in heaven Whereas the letter of the Scripture placeth it upon the earth But howsoever that the righteous are both in joy and peace and also in Paradise Thinges not to be reconciled not distinguishing as I do Lastly the reason of Faith setleth me upon this ground The reason of Faith I say not the rule of Faith For I do not say that any part of the dispute belongs to that which the salvation of all Christians necessarily requireth them to believe He who understandeth that himself is saved by imbracing Christianity and living according to it I do not understand why he should be damned because he understood not by what meanes the Fathers afore Christ were saved provided he deny not their salvation to the disparagement of Christianity whereof they were the forerunners And this is the case of Hermes and Justine and Clemens and if there were any others who thought that the Fathers or the Philosophers were saved by believing in Christ at his descent into hell meerly because they understood not the ground of that difference between the litterall and mysticall sense of the Old Testament which I have said Indeed in regard it is by consequence destructive to Christianity that the Fathers should have attained salvation any wayes but as Christians in that regard I answer the position is by consequence prejudiciall to Christianity But because by that consequence which the most censorious of the error do not owne and not owning necessarily incurre some other inconvenience to Christianity I say not that they destroy the common faith who hold it but that they destroy the true reason of it which subsisteth not unlesse we grant that the Fathers obtained salvation by Christ Nor that unlesse we grant that they came not under the Devils Power by death who died qualified for salvation as that time required There remaines no question what company the soul of Christ was with for the time that it remained parted from the body nor how the descent thereof to Hell is to be understood supposing the premises The Tradition of the descent of Christs soul into hell can by no meanes be parted from the Tradition of an intent to visite the soules of the Fathers That supposes that the soules of the Fathers were disposed of under the earth whether in the intrails of the earth or in the hemisphere below us as the Heathen did imagine And infers that the intent of it was to redeem them out of the devils hands to go with our Lord Christ into his kingdome Could this be maintained to be the Tradition of the Church I might be straitned by the Tradition of the Church But as I have showed it to be by consequence prejudiciall to the Faith So I have showed that there is no Tradition of the Church for the disposing of all soules before Christ under the earth whether in the devils hands or otherwise Nor for the translating of any soule from under the earth to heaven with Christ and by Christ But for the continuance of all in those unknown lodgings where they are disposed at their death till the day of judgement whether before or after Christ Though the Latine hath no name to signify them but inferi or infernum necessarily signifying as to the originall of the word the parts beneath the earth There is therefore no question to be made as to the Tradition of the Church that the soule of Christ parting with the body went to the soules of the Fathers which the Gospell represents us in Abrahams bosom whether the death of Christ removing the debt of sin which shut Paradise upon Adam make that place known to us by the name of Paradise to which our Lord inducted the good thiefe Or whether the Jewes had used that name for the place to which they believed the soules of the righteous do go But there is therefore no Tradition remaining of the descent of Christs soul into hell to rescue the soules of the Fathers out of the Verge of Hell commonly called Limbus Patrum to go with him into his kingdome True it is which Irenaeus saith and the Tradition of the Church will justify it that our Lord Christ was to undergo the condition of the dead for the redemption of mankind And therefore the separation of his humane soul from the body was really the condition in consideration whereof we are freed from the dominion of death True it is that this dominion of death is signified in the Old Test by the returning of Adam to the earth of which he was made And that the grave is an earnest of the second death in all those that belong not to the N. Test while the Old was in force Therefore that our L. Christ was to undergo the condition common to mankinde to which the first Adam was accursed is a part of our common faith Because the curse was to be voided by his undergoing of it Accordingly therefore you shall find by the
you say something more to limit the ground upon which they may be no lesse What limitation I would adde is plain by the premises The preaching of that Word and that ministring of the Sacraments which the Tradition of the whole Church confineth the sense of the Scriptures to intend is the onely mark of the Church that can be visible For I suppose preaching twice a Sunday is not if a man be left free to preach what he will onely professing to beleeve the Bible which what Heresy disowneth and to make what he thinks good of it And yet how is the generality of people provided for otherwise unlesse it be because they have preachers that are counted godly men by those whom what warrants to be godly men themselves In the mean time is it not evident that Preachers and people are overspread with a damnable heresy of Antinomians and Enthusiasts formerly when Puritanes were not divided from the Church of England called Etonists and Grindeltons according to severall Countries These believe so to be saved by the free Grace of God by which our Lord died for the Elect that by the revelation thereof which is justifying Faith all their sinnes past present and to come are remitted So that to repent of sinne or to contend against it is the renouncing of Gods free Grace and saving Faith How much might be alledged to show how all is now overspread with it The Book called Animadversions upon a Petition out of Wales shall serve to speak the sense of them who call themselves the godly party as speaking to them in Body Thus it speaks pag. 36. Look through your vail of duties profession and ordinances and try your heart with what spirit of love obedience and truth you are in your work And whether will you stand to this judgement Or rather that God should judge you according to grace to the name and nature of Christ written upon you and in you Sure the great Judge will thus judge us at last by his great judgement or last judgement Not by the outward conversation nor inward intention but finally by his eternall Election according to the Book of Life This just afore he calleth the seed of Christ and his righteousnesse in a Christian And pag. 38. When we are inraged we let fly at mens principles being not satisfied to rebuke mens actions opinions and workes but would be avenged of their Principles too As if we would kill them at the very hart pull them up by the Rootes and leave them in an uncurable condition rotten in their Principles But Principles ly deeper then the heart and are indeed Christ who is the Principle and beginning of all things who though heart fail and flesh faile yet he abides the root of all Shall he pretend to be a Christian that professes this Shall any pretend to be a Church that spue it not out Let heaven and earth judge whether poor soules are otherwise to be secured of the Word then by two sermons a Sunday when the sense of the Godly is claimed to consist in a position so peremptorily destructive to salvation as this It will be said perhaps that now the Ministers of the Congregations have subscribed the confession of the Assembly But alas the covering is too short When a Bishop in the Catholick Church subscribed a Councile there was just presumption that no man under his authority could be seduced from the Faith subscribed Because no man communicated with the Catholick Church but by communicating with him that had subscribed it Who shall warrant that the godly who have this sense not liable to any authority in the Church shall stand to the subscriptions of those Ministers or to the authority of the Assembly pretended by the Presbyteries If they would declare themselves tied so to do who shall warrant that there is not a salvo for it in the Confession which they subscribe If there were not why should any difficulty be made to spue out that position which is the seed of it That justifying Faith consisteth in believing that a man is of the number of the Elect for whom Christ died excluding others Why that which is the fruit of it That they who transgresse the Covenant of Baptisme come not under the state of sin and damnation come not from under the state of Grace Why but because a back-door must be left for them that draw the true conclusion from their own premises reserving themselves the liberty to deny the conclusion admitting the premises It is not then a confession of faith that will make the Word that is preached a mark of the Church without some mark visible to common sense warranting that confession of Faith As for the Sacraments no Church no Sacraments If they suppose that ground upon which that intent to which the whole Church hath used them there is no further cause of division in the Church for that secures the rule of Faith If not they are no Sacraments but by equivocation of words they are sacriledges in profaning Gods Ordinances The Sacrament of Baptisme because the necessary meanes of salvation is admitted for good when ministred by those who are not of the Church but alwaies void of the effect of grace To which it reviveth so soone as the true Faith is professed in the unity of the Church If a Sacrament be a visible signe of invisible grace that baptisme is no baptisme which signifieth the grace it should effect but indeed effecteth not Such is that Baptisme which is used to seale a Covenant of Grace without the condition of Christianity a Covenant that is not the Covenant of two parties but the promise of one Whence comes the humor of rebaptizing but to be discharged of that Christianity which the baptisme of the Church of England exacteth Why do they refuse Baptisme in New England to all that refuse to enter into the Covenant of Congregations How comes it more necessary to salvation to be of a Congregation then to be Baptized and made a Christian Is it not because it is thought that salvation is to be had without that profession of Christianity which the Sacrament of Baptisme sealeth That it is not to be had without renouncing it Upon these termes those that are denied Baptisme by the Congregations because they are not of the Congregations are denied salvation as much as in them lies but not indeed and in truth For the necessity of baptisme supposing a profession of the Catholicke Church they perish not by refusing it who will not have it by renouncing the Catholicke Church that is by covenanting themselves into Congregations They that are so affected must know that they have authority of themselves to baptize to effect which no Congregation in New England is able to do If the Sacrament of the Eucharist seale that Covenant of Grace which conditioneth not for Christianity it is no sacrament but by equivocation of words Where that conditionall is doubtfull or voide there is no security
therefore how shall it appeare to signify here any more then him that pretends to be the Christ For it is evident that Saint John both there and 1 John IV. 3. speakes of his own time As for the Revelation neither is it any where said that it prophesieth any thing of Antichrist nor will it be proved that it saith any thing of the Pope Much of it being a Prophesie hath been expounded to all appearance of something like the Pope though with violence enough All of it without Prophesying what shall come to passe could never be expounded to that purpose and it is not strange that so great a foundation should be laid upon the event of an obscure Scripture such as all Prophesies are to be conjectured by that which we think we see come to passe For I referre to judgement how much more appearance there is that it intendeth the vengeance of God upon the Pagan Empire of Rome for persecuting Christianity both in the Text and composure of the prophesie and in the pretense of tendring and addressing it Nor is there any thing more effectuall to prove the same then the Idolatries which it specifies that the Christians chused rather to lay down their lives then commit True it is no man can warrant that by praying to Saints for the same things that we pray to God for and by the worship of Images Idolatry may not come in at the back door to the Church of Rome which Christianity shuts out at the great Gate But if it do the difference will be visible between that and the Idolatry of Pagans that professe variety of imaginary deities by those circumstances which in the Apocalypse expresly describe the Idolatries of the Heathen Empire of Rome And therefore I am forced utterly to discharge the Church of Rome of this imputation and to resolve that the Pope can no more be Antichrist then he that holds by professing our Lord to be the Christ and to honour him for God as the Christ is honoured by Christians can himself pretend to be the Christ Nay though I sincerely blame the imposing of new articles upon the faith of Christians and that of positions which I maintaine not to be true yet I must and do freely professe that I find no positinecessary to salvation prohibited none destructive to salvtion injoyned to be believed by it And therefore must I necessarily accept it for a true Church as in the Church of England I have alwaies known it accepted seeing there can no question be made that it continueth the same visible body by the succession of Pastors and Lawes the present customes in force being visibly the corruption of those which the Church had from the beginning that first was founded by the Apostles For the Idolatries which I grant to be possible though not necessary to be found in it by the ignorance and carnall affections of particulars not by command of the Church or the Lawes of it I do not admit to destroy the salvation of those who living in the comunion thereof are not guilty of the like There remaines therefore in the present Church of Rome the profession of all that truth which it is necessary to the salvation of all Christians to believe either in point of faith or maners Very much darkned indeed by inhansing of positions either of a doubtful sense or absolutely false to the ranck and degree of matters of Faith But much more overwhelmed and choaked with a deal of rubbish opinions traditions customes and ceremonies allowed indeed but no way injoyned which make that noise in the publick profession and create so much businesse in the practice of Religion among them that it is a thing very difficult for simple Christians to discerne the pearl the seed and the leaven of the Gospel buried in the earth and the dough of popular doctrines and observations so as to imbrace it with that affection of faith and love which the price of it requires But if it be true as I said afore that no man is obliged to commit those Idolatries that are possible to be committed in that communion it will not be impossible for a discerning Christian to passe through that multitude of doctrines and observations the businesse whereof being meerly circumstantiall to Christianity allows not that zeale and affection to be exercised upon the principall as is spent upon the accessory without superstition and will-worship in placing the service of God in the huske and not in the kernell or promising himself the favour of God upon considerations impertinent to Christianity As for the halfe Sacrament the service in an unknown language the barring the people from the Scrptures and other Lawes manifestly intercepting the meanes of salvatian which God hath allowed his people by the Church It seems very reasonable to say that the fault is not the fault of particular Christians who may and perhaps do many times wish that the matter were otherwise But that the Church being a Society concluding all by the act of those who conclude it there is no cause to imagine that God will impute to the guilt and damnation of those who could not help it that which they are sufferes in and not actors Nay t is much to be feared that the authors themselves of such hard Lawes and those who maintaine them will have a strong plea for themselves at the day of judgement in the unreasonablenesse of their adversaries That it is true all reason required that the meanes of salvation provided by God should be ministred by the Church But finding the pretense of Reformation without other ground than that sense of the Scriptures which every man may imagine and therefore without other bounds and measure then that which imagination for which there are no bounds fixeth They thought it necessary so to carry matters as never to acknowledge that the Church ever erred in any decree or Law that it hath made Least the same error might be thought to take place in the substance of Christianity and the Reformation of the Church to consist in the renouncing of it Which we see come to passe in the Heresy of Socinus And that finding the Unity of the Church which they were trusted with absolurely necessary to the maintenance of the common Christianity whereby salvation is possible to be had though more difficult by denying those helps to salvation which such Lawes intercept They thought themselves tied for the good of the whole not to give way to Laws tending so apparently to the salvation of particular Christians On the other side supposing the premises there remaine no pretense that either Congregations or Presbyteries can be Churches as founded meerly upon humane usurpation which is Schisme not upon divine institution which ordereth all Churches to be fit to constitute one Church which is the whole I need not say that there can be no pretense for any authority visibly convayed to them by those which set them up having it in themselves before I
ground upon which Ceremonies are to be used in the service of the Church Instances out of the Scriptures and Tradition of the Apostles Of the equivocation of the word Sacrament in the Fathers The reason of a Sacrament in Baptisme and the Eucharist In extreme Vnction In Marriage In Confirmation Ordination and Penance NOW to come to the reason for which Ceremonies are to be used in the publick service of God I must here rest in that which I have rendred in my Book of the service of God at the assemblies of the Church being satisfied that it pointeth at the very ground for the use of them from the beginning among Gods people Man is compounded of soule and body and the worship of God and prayer to God is an act of the soule which the body by the senses thereof may diverte the mind from but cannot help forwards it till by the motion and gesture of the body the soul be ingaged to attend on that which the mind proposeth Therefore the people of God in the Scripture pray alwaies either standing or kneeling unlesse some speciall cause move them to prostrate themselves That their ordinary posture was standing appeares by Mat. VI. 5. Mark XI 25. Luke XVIII 11. Neh. IX 5. Jerem. XV. 1. XVIII 19. Job XXX 20. And they have reason who derive the Stations of the primitive Christians and the use of not kneeling on Lords dayes and between Easter and Whitsontide from their custome But therefore they kneeled in Lent and ' Daniel kneeled when he fasted IX 20. and Moses fell prostrate before God Deut. IX 18 25. but Esdras upon his knees Esd IX 5. X. 1. as Daniel also VII 11. to what purpose but to cast down the mind by the posture of the body that being sensible of his wants a man may attend upon God with deep devotion and reverence The Publicane durst not lift up his eyes to heaven Luke XVIII 13. which showes that otherwise they did lift up their eyes and spread their hands to heaven as Lam. III. 41. 1 Kings VIII 54. 1 Tim. II. 8. But the Publicane smote upon his brest because he exacted Penance of himselfe He was a foole for his paines if that be Reformation which is pretended to claime familiarity with Almighty God by talking with him negligently to signify that we are sure of him having Faith that we are predestinate to life as of the number of those for whom Christ died exclusively to the rest of mankind Or if it be Reformation to sit and censure with how fit and pertinent conceptions in how proper and choice terms a man expresses his necessities and the necessities of his people to God But praying to God is something else than all this and not onely the ancient people of God but those who have no sense of religion but that which nature forceth them to show us by their practice that lowlinesse of the body stirreth as well as testâ—fieth reverence in the minde to God in his service All this holdeth taking a man by himselfe as a single Christiane But supposing the society of a Church and an assembly of Gods people for his service there is more to be said The people of God spoke much by visible signes not all by words Jeremy might have said to them of Jerusalem take example by the Rechabites who drink no wine upon the order of their Patriarch But that was not enough He must bringe them to the Temple and set wine before them that having formally refused it he might thereupon protest to his people The same Jeremy might have told the Jewes as Saint Paul doth the Romanes that men are as clay in the Potters hands without going down to the Potters and seeing him spoile a vessell that he was making that he might thereupon take his rise and say that God was framing evil against them whom he had made Jer. XVIII 1-5 without buying an earthen vessell and breaking it before the ancients of the People and of the Priests to tell them that God would break them likewise Jer. XIX 1 11 12. when he makes all that businesse on purpose he showes what force visible signes have to make impression upon the minde of that which words signify neverthelesse The Law would never have appointed to sit still on the Sabbath in remembrance of the creation of the world or the deliverance from Egypt to carry a bundle of branches in the hand and to dwell in booths in remembrance of the voiage through the wildernesse otherwise And is not this reason fit to be applied to the assemblies of Christians Witnesse the Prophet Joel Why must they weep and mourne with their fasting why must the children and sucklings assemble why must the joy of the bride chamber be superseded but to make impression of sorrow upon particulars from that which the publick expresseth Joel II. 13-16 The people of Niniveh and the King thereof put on sackcloth and sat in ashes nor man nor beast must tast foode or drinke water at the preaching of Jonas III. 5. 6. 7. On the contrary at the bringing of the Arke into the City of David Chron. XIII 8. XV. 28. They have seen thy goings O God even the goings of my God my King into the sanctuary The singers went before those that played on instruments followed amongst them were the damsels playing on timbrells And the solemnity which the wall of Jerusalem was dedicated with you may read in Nehem. XII 27-43 The Festival of our Lords Resurrection presupposeth the Fast of the Passion makes all the Lords dayes of the year festivall by renewing weekly that joy which it solemnizeth The Fast which goeth before it by the institution of the Apostles agreeing in it because not agreeing when it should end in Tertullians time was inlarged to those dayes on which the Bridegroome was not missing but by just use of the Churches Power is inlarged to fourty dayes Shall it be superstitious for the Church to professe solemn Penance and mourning for that time which gained the Ninivites that grace which the Gospel tendereth the Gentiles that repent according to their example If it be Reformation to abolish all ceremonies let it be Reformation for Gods people to understand any difference between an humiliation and a thanksgiving Saint Paul disputeth hard that the women of Corinth ought to be vailed the men unvailed Not for any consideration of reverence to God which the uncovering of the head did not signify in those times But to signify the humility and modesty of the sex which had he spoken of serving God in private he need not have stood upon and therefore in regard to the Church Which if it be true if consideration ought to be had of the Church in celebrating the service of God at the assemblies thereof then it is requisite that when the World is come into the Church and all assemble those ceremonies should be used which were not requisite when the numbers were small and the assemblies thereof
to communicate All are bound to communicate once a year at Easter and before they do it to say they are sory for the sinnes they confesse undertaking the Penance which is injoyned not for cleansing the sinne but to remaine for Purgatory if they do it not here The like at the point of death with extreme unction over and above Within the compasse of this law Christians may fall into the hands of conscientious Curates and Confessors that shall not faile to instruct them wherein their Christianity and salvation consists and how they are to serve God in Spirit and in truth preferring the principall before the accessory rubbish of ceremonies and observations indifferent of themselves but which spend the strength of the seed and root of Christianity in leaves and chaff without fruit But they may also fall under such as shall direct them to look upon the virtue of the sacrifice that is repeated in the Masse and promise themselves the benefit thereof by the work done without their assistance To look upon their Penance onely as that which must be paid for in Purgatory if not done here To do as the Church does and to believe as it believes promising themselves salvation by being of communion therewith though it import no more then I have said Nay though they be directed such devotions as are common to God with his creature as spend the seed of Christianity in the chaffe of observations impertinent to the end of it On the other side departing thence to Congregations and Presbyteries what meanes of salvation shall a Christian have Two Sermons a Sunday and a prayer before and after each But whether it be the Word of God or his that Preaches whether Christianity allow to pray as he prayes or not no Rule to secure And whether Christian liberty allow that men be tied to serve God from Sunday to Sunday or not untill Gods spirit indite what every man shall say to God no way resolved A man may possibly light upon him that does not take justifying Faith to consist in beleeving that a man is of the elect for whome alone Christ died or that beleeving it presses the consequences which contradict his owne premises as if he did not But how easy is it to light upon him that drawes the true conclusion from the premises which he professeth and maketh meere Popery of the whole duty of a Christian Certainly the Church of Rome holdeth no error in the Faith any thing neare so pernicious as this That of transubstantiation is but a fleabite in comparison of it He who by reason of his education is afraide to thinke that the elements remaine is he therefore become incapable of the Spirit of God conveyed by the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Sacrament And certainely that is the prime Interest of our Christianity in it though the bodily presence of the elements is no way prejudiciall to the same But who so beleeveth he hath Gods Word for his salvation not supposing any condition requisite may think himselfe tied to live like a Christian but by no meanes but by holding contradictories at once Which though all men by consequence do because all erre Yet in matters of so high consequence to do it cannot be without prejudice to the work of Christianity and dangerous to the salvation it promiseth Nor can Baptisme or the Eucharist be Baptisme or the Eucharist but equivocally to them that allow the true consequence of this And shall any man perswade me that unlesse a man will sweare that which no man is able to show that a Christian may sweare he perishes without help for want of this communion so obtained Or on the other side that his salvation can be secured who to obtaine that meanes of salvation which Congregations or Presbyteries tender concurre to the open act of Schisme which they do So necessary is it for me to continue in the resolution of my nonage as being convinced upon a new inquiry that the meanes of salvation are more sufficient more agreeable for substance to the Scriptures expounded by the originall practice of the whole Church though perhaps not for forme in that meane then in either extreme This resolution then being thus grounded what alteration can the present calamity of the Church of England make in it to perswade a man to believe thosearticles which the Bull of Pius VI. addeth to the common faith to maintaine whatsoever is once grown a custome in the Church of Rome as for that service of God which it destroyeth Or on the other side to become a party to that expresse act of Schisme with misprision of Heresy involved in it which the erecting of Congregations and Presbyteries importeth Epiphanius mentioneth one Zachaeus in Syria that retired himself from communion with the Church to serve God alone If the force of the Sword destroy the opportunities and meanes of yeelding God that service which a mans Christianity professed upon mature choice requireth shall it be imputable to him that desiring to serve God with his Church he is excluded by them who ground their communion upon conditions which the common Christianity alloweth not Or to them by whom he is so excluded I can onely say to the scattered remaines of the Church of England whose communion I cherish because it standeth upon those termes which give me sufficient ground for the hope of Salvation which I have cherished from my cradle that the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Church of England being no longer in force by the Power of this world are by consâ—quence no longer a sufficient Rule for the order of their communion in the offices of Gods service In which Order the visibility of every Church consisteth Not as if the nature of good and badde in the matter of them had suffered any change but because being the mean to preserve unity in the service of God upon those termes which the Law of the Land inforced they are no sufficient meane to preserve it upon those termes which onely our Christianity requireth To wit that it be distinct from Congregations and Presbyteries as well as from the Church of Rome Which in my opinion making it necessary to the salvation of every Christian to communicate with the Catholicke Church that is with a Church which ought to be a member of the whole Church is of great consequence For neither is it actually and properly a Church the order whereof in the service of God is not visible Nor is there sufficient meanes in that case for the effect of a Church and of that visible order in which the being of a Church consisteth towards the salvation of those who are of it or might be of it And this is that which must justify that which I have done in speaking out so farre what I conceive the Rule of Faith what the Lawes of the Catholick Church require to be provided for in every Church and every estate For if they be not wanting to themselves to their
Title to the salvation of Gods people they have enough in the Scriâ—tures interpreted by the Original Tradition practice of the whole â—hurch both to condemn the errors which the ground of their Comâ—â—nion obliges them to disown to give such a rule to the order of 〈◊〉 Communion in the offices of Gods service as the present state 〈◊〉 compared with the primitive state of those Christians who â—â—fir â—ucceeded the Apostles shall seem to require It is indeed a very great case to me that having declared against untrue and unsufficient causes for dividing the Church for which there can be no cause sufficient I have owned the cause which I think sufficient for a particular Church to provide for it selfe without the consent of the whole For by this meanes I secure my self from being accessory to Schisme and the innumerable mischiefes which it produceth But I confesse this declaration makes me liable to a consequence of very great importance That there is no true meane no just way to reconcile any difference in the Church but upon those grounds and those termes which I propose For supposing the Society of the Church by Gods Law upon what termes the least sucking Heresy amongst us is reconcileable to the party from which it broke last supposing it reconcileable upon the grounds and termes of our common Christianity upon the same termes is the Reformation reconcileable to the Church of Rome the Greek Church to the Latine all parts to the Whole the Congregations and Presbyteries to the Church of England Whereas not proceeding upon those grounds not standing on those termes all preâ—ense of reconciling even the Reformed among themselves will prove a meer pretense Laus Deo FINIS Faults escaped in the firse Booke PAge 7. line 47. r. shall it be disc pag. 20. l. 45. r. to all sentences p. 21. l. 50. 1 Thes V. 14 15. r. 12 13. l. 52 Heb. XII r. XIII 23. 39. r. the act 40. 6. then those r. better then â— 28. under-r undertooke 48. 30. r. washing or sitting downe to 59. 53. r. adulterers 66. 28. Ladies day r. Lords day 89. 53. secret to the r. seâ—reâ— so 95. 46. with r. which 115. 26. those found r. thes 116. 33. that this r. that is 121. 4. r. intertainment 122. 7. Church with r. with him 137. 8. without r. within 140. 13. r. virtue of the 147. 1. we had r. he had 57. r. indowment 155. 25. now have r. now are 172. 34. after Acts put 176. 25. dele rome 177. 52. r. he eat 178. 28. then it was r. as it was 181. 57. r. so continuall 182. 51. to Gods r. to use G. 183. 37. comming from Christ r. of Christ 185. 6. after lamented put 186. 21. there may r. may be 189. 29. r. change 190. 14. banquet r. banquet 28. passive r. positive 45. r. owned 193. 16 â—ele argument 221. 2. not up r. cast up 235. 18. if when r. when 237. 16. which the r. with the 37. aliver r. alone 241. 16. Ahab r. Jehn 248. 50. Jeroboams then r. Jeroboams sinne 250. 38. neither r. either Second Book Pag. 7. l. 30. r. we be p. 8. 36. John 7. 37. r. 39. 40. r. now if 20. 41. Joh. IV. r. Ephes IV. 22. 12. that those r. those that 62. 19. he pert r. be pâ—rt 23. Heb. IV. 16. r. 1. 68. of as r. of man as 71. 33. r. evidenced 101. 55. r. the Angels 109. 9. and both r. so bâ—th 116. 56. as you may by r. as you may see by 118. 35. Solomons r. Solomons words 36. r. composed 119. 51. dele â—â— 125. 28. r. to deriâ—e 26. 53. which r. with which 128. 31. r. they thought 162. 5. tendred r. raended 164. 54. serve or the purpose not r. serve the purpose or not 165. 24. concerning r. consining 56. upon necessity r. upon the like n. 166. 21. after that r. the line afore iâ—ports this or that 167. to see that it supposeth r. that it is sup 171. 55. r. comes not to passe 174. 45. will not r. shall not 184. 28. of that k. r. or that k. 57. for which they addict themselves to love r. which they addict themselves to for love 51. r. with the 189. 35. discerne r. deserve 192. 36. ye knowing r. ye knowe 193. 34. or r. if 195. 15. â—ay r. might 35. 1. Ad â—â—â—ah 198. 24. that is r. that it is prophets r. prophet 199. 12. were r. we are 17. in r. is 49. r. soverainty 201. 13. upon passe r. to â—asse 203. 31. generation r. regen 206. 49. observations r. observation 207. 51. lusted r. lasted 208. 56. teach r. reach 209. 10. deceâ—t r. decree 22. you r. them 26. verifying r. resolving 211. 34. supposed r. suppose 215. 21. causes r. clauses 216. 6. XI r. I. 217. 53. refutes r. refuses 218. â—agined r. imagining 52. without the bonds r. wâ—thâ—n the bounds 219. 9. adxe r. adde 220. 3. of the r. to the 37. r. allwayes freely doe it 221. 24. whereby r. that order 922. 34. by one r. by somâ— 223. 37. revealed r. related 224. 30. S. S. Austine point S. Austme 225. 57. of God r. to God 240. 31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 247 49. r. or to show 250. 12. they can be r. can be 251. 32. this part r. his â— 256. 55. in sending r. â—endriâ—g 259. 16. r. conceiving 260. 32. r. having excluded 35. r. proposes 261. 29. 31. r. premises premises 264. 27. r. 〈◊〉 281. 6. r. â—â—â— can 282. 38. r. distinguisâ—eâ—h 289. 45. r. which the 296. 26. let him in r. let them 297. 7. the rank of it r. the werk 300. 25. as I said 1. I said 304. 33. should be r. that God should 307. 13. but the r. be â—â—â—â—â— Third Book Pag. 6. l. 9. r. to be no more 12. 54. it not r. is not 14. 2. which r. with 16. 1. is not r. is the 19. 6. after r. afore 37. 47. r. though not under 54. 7. r. times r. termes 55. 53. r. promises 58. 21. truly one r. done 61. 23. r. on purpose 64. 21. r. S. Peter 65. 51. r. Zonarâ—â— 66. 10. a dore r. alone 69. 37. r. refused 38. r. construed 48. r. whatsoever 70. 1. r. Predestinatians 86. 1. r. Novatians 88. 55. r. Homil. 91. 25. r. Cappadocâ—â— 95. 25. r. Synedrâ—â—s 98. 58. repentance r. upon rep 110. 55. r. prescribed 111. 22. r. ministery 32. was Apostle r. we Apostles 113. 56. r. import 57. practice 1. Priests 115. 53. r. prefers 116. 4. for forn r. except for â— 117. 54. r. draw them 119. 57. corrected r. 〈◊〉 122. 1. time r. â—erme 123. 12. r. is it 128. 2. r. Mileu 137. 49. r. Gentium secuâ—â—â—m 〈◊〉 139. 13. r. her husbands brother 145. 4. r. all one 151. 29. r. setled 160. 16. r. Eldest 163. 58. r. will find 164. 41. according the r. to the 169. 33. r. the third 43. r. of the chief 178. 42. r. rights 191. 44. r. good works 197. 2. first r. seventh 206. 39. r. further for the ord 209. 1. r. so subject to 25. r. once a moneth 252. 2. r. if it be true all 273. 32. or so as 276. 46. or r. nor 277. 54. r. noâ— by the order 279. 2. r. conferred 280. 12. r. preached 282. â—2 and more r. and not 283. 46. r. oblige 285. 17. r. which God 44. upon r. up an 288. 10. r. God which tho 292. 20. seem r. serve 31â— 22. r. apparitions 316. 10. r. it is 318. 56. r. if the fire 327. 26. our r. one 328. 58. dele ne 334. 41. r. consecration 335. 29. in the r. is 336. 41. as he r. she 338. 7. r. grounded 56. this rec r. 〈◊〉 339. 31. r. variety 341. 22. r. and makes 26. not missing r. missing 29. any dif r. â—o â— 342. 16. r. which by to blessing 345. 30. r. Chrisme 36. hands r. bâ—nds 5â— some r. serve 349. 50. r. subsisteâ—â— 352. 6. r. premises 353. 53. instructing r. in serving 356. 55. sometimes 360. 7. r. no â— 364. 58. r. reasâ—â—able though noâ—â— 370. 55. r. Laickâ— 372. 53. r. ground 373. 38. r. necessarily 374. 5. r. degrees 374. 39. sureâ—y r. society 378. 13. r. as when 381. 36. r. upon Ep. but upon acts of the 385. 1. r. supposeth 40. r. supposition 54. r. of â—â—â— then that