YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Bought with the income of the D. NEWTON BARNEY FUND CHRISTIAN INSTITUTES A SERIES OF DISCOURSES AND TRACTS, SELECTED, ARRANGED SYSTEMATICALLY, ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES, CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, D.D. MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND RECTOR OF BUXTED WITH UCKFIELD, SUSSEX. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. & F. RIVINGTON, st. Paul's church yard, and waterloo place, pall mall. 1837. LON DON GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. CONTENTS OF VOLUME III. PRINCIPLES OF SOCIETY AND OF GOVERNMENT, CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL. I. Origin and Nature of Government and of Law . II. Origin and Nature of Government . . III. Liberty not to be made a cloke of Licentiousness IV. Nature and end of Civil Government .... V. Obligations to Society and to Government . . VI. Religious Establishments. Church and State . VII. Unity of the Church .... VIII. Power of the Keys ... IX. A threefold Ministry . . . . X. Episcopacy of Apostolical Institution XI. Divine right of Episcopacy . . XII. Of Episcopacy Bp. Andrews XIII. Ecclesiastical Synods, and Metropolitan, &c. Ju risdictions ... XIV. Obedience to Spiritual Guides XV. Temporal Condition of the Clergy .... XVI. The Honours and Property of the Superior Clergy XVII. Sacrilege XVIII. Places for Divine Worship .... . . XIX. The Religion of Ceremonies XX. Dissuasive from Schism XXI. Essays from Lord Bacon XXII. Essays from Lord Clarendon XXIII. Universal Redemption PAGE Bp. Sanderson 3 Bp. Horsley Bp. Butler Burke . Burke . Burke . Barrow Barrow Wm. Hey Chillingworth 34 48 65 7796 116169186 210 Bp. Sanderson 215 and Du Moulin 111 Barrow BarrowBarrow Hooker 267 274332363 Ld. Clarendon 405 South . . Bp. Butler Wm. Wall Barrow 418 438 453 489 513 592 PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, BISHOPS SANDERSON, HORSLEY, AND BUTLER AND FROM BURKE : ALSO, OF ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT, BARROW, HEY, CHILLINGWORTH, SANDERSON, AND OTHERS. VOL, I IT: " Hail to the crown, by Freedom shaped — to gird An English sovereign's brow ! and to the throne Whereon he sits ! whose deep foundations lie In veneration and the people's love ; Whose steps are equity, whose seat is law. — Hail to the State of England ! And conjoin With this a salutation as devout, Made to the spiritual fabric of her Church ; Founded in truth; by blood of martyrdom Cemented ; by the hands of Wisdom reared In beauty of holiness, with ordered pomp, Decent, and unreproved. The voice that greets The majesty of both, shall pray for both ; That, mutually protected and sustained, They may endure as long as sea surrounds This favoured land, or sunshine warms her soil." W. Wordsworth. " Politics are from God ; not only allowing and approving governments, >ut commanding them, for the better manifestation of His own glory, and nen's greater good, temporal and spiritual. Hence it is evident, that Politics, )oth Civil and Ecclesiastical, belong unto Theology; and are but a iranch of the same." — George Lawson. I. PR^LECTIO SEPTIMA, DE OBLIGATIONE LEGUM HUMANARUM EX PARTE CAUSAE EFFICIENTS. SEPTIMA PR^LECTIONIS SUMMARIUM. § 1. Ante-dictorum recensio. 2,3. Dubium primum. Cuj us sit leges condere? Ubi statuitur. Potestatem vo/xoOaTiKrjv esse potestatem superioris. 4. externam jurisdictionem habentis. 5. idque cum summo imperio. 6, 7, 8. Quse conclusio fuse explicatur. 9, 10. Quae et varie confirmatur. 11, 12. Rejecto nupero co-ordinatse potestatis figmento. 13. Dubium secundum. An ut leges obligent, populi aliquis saltern consensus requiratur? 14, 15. Summum imperium a Deo est. 16. ¦ estque patrise potestatis propago. 17, 18, 19, 20. Inprincipe constituendo quse sint populi partes? 21. Potestatem (dato quod esset principi a populo delata) po- pulus resumendi jus non habet. 22, 23, 24. Unde fiat, ut ad legis obligationem populi consensus aliquis putetur esse necessarius. 25, 26, 27. Dubium tertium. Qualis quantusque populi con sensus requiratur? 28. Dubium quartum. De legibus minorum communitatum. a From Bishop Sanderson's " De Obligatione Conscientiaj Praelectiones Decern." P. 182—210 b2 4 BISHOP SANDERSON. Per me reges regnant, et legum conditores justa decernunt. — Pbov. vm. 15. I. De legum humanarum obligatione egimus superiore termino : cum in genere, quod nimirum leges humanse rite constitutse obli gent subditorum conscientias a ad obediendum: turn etiam in specie b, quoad ilia dubia quse ad causam materialem propius per- tinere videbantur. Quatenus scilicet obligent latse leges, primo de rebus impossibilibus ; secundo, de possibilibus sed multum onerosis : tertio, de necessariis; quarto, de illicitis et inhonestis ; quintd, de malis permittendis ; sexto, de rebus mediis et adia- pkoris in communi; septimo, de ritibus ecclesiasticis in speciali. In quibus omnibus eorum quse dicta sunt, (ne, dum singula re- peto, molestus sim,) summa hue redit; obligari subditos ad pa- rendum legibus justis, ad parendum injustis non obligari; juxta quod in textu proposito exigit a legum conditoribus Salomon, ut non nisi quse justa sunt decernant. Pergendum porro ad eorum reliqua quse sunt ante a me proposita prosequenda : In quibus tractandis, utar qua potero, et res feret, brevitate, ut rem univer- sam saltern quod ad legum obligationem attinet idoneo tempore absolvam. II. In causarum ordine, pro observata mihi alias c methodi ra- tione, materiam proxime sequitur efficiens : excipit hanc forma : ultimum agmen ducit et clauditt/zm"s. — De legum causa efficiente, quum in quintce prcelectionis conclusione tertia satis ostensum fuerit, leges humanas nisi a persona legitimam potestatem ha- a On this celebrated question, " Whether and how far human laws bind the conscience," the reader, in addition to Mason's Sermon, §. 9, and Sander son's 7th Sermon, ad Popuhm, §§. 39, and 45 — 8, given below in this Col lection, may consult Sanderson, De Conscientia Prselect. v. §. 6 — 41. (the argument here referred to) ; and 3 Hooker, p. 371—2 ; Field On the Church, book iv. chap, xxxii. 4; Bishop Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, book hi. chap. i. rules 1 — 9. Works, vol. xiii. p. 230—305, and chap. iv. rules 2—5 p. 563. 88. ; and Pott's Rights of Sovereignty in Christian states, 1821, 8vo. pp. 79, 80, 100-10, 152, 3. b In the whole of the Sixth Lecture. c " Cum autem ubi omnes causa; concurrent ad effectum producendum, materia imprimis requiratur, ut primum subjectum generationis ; proxime efficiens causa, quse agendo formam producat ; tertio forma, quse in materiam per actionem efficientis introducatur ; finis denique cujus gratia efficiens ope rator : nos hunc quasi naturae ordinem secuti, a materid ordiemur ; hinc ad reliqua, suo ordine progrediemur."— De Juramenti Obligatione, preelect. iii. §.1. See also De Obligatione Conscientiae, praelect. vi. §. 1. Prcdectio Septima. 5 bente latas non obligare ; illud nunc imprimis dispiciendum restat, penes quos h£,ovoia vojuoOetjkJj, hoc est, justa et legitima leges ferendi potestas; sive quinam sint legum conditores illi, quibus ex mente Salomonis justa decernendi jus competit. Huic dubio primo et in hoc causae genere longe prsecipuo, ut plene respon- deatur, duo interim supponenda sunt. — Suppono itaque primo, potestatem legumlativam esse potestatem alicujus superioris, sicut praecipere, (prseceptionis appellatione prohibitionem etiam com- plector) qui est actus legis proprius, est actus superioris. Distare non parum hac ex parte ,animadvertere est tria hsec : promis- sionem, petitionem, prceceptionem. Commune est omnium indis- criminatim, superiorum, inferiorum, eequalium, promittere. Po test enim promittere aliquid, et pater filio, et filius patri, et frater vicinusve fratri aut vicino. Petere autem proprie est inferiorum, parium etiam aliquatenus ; ut petit sibi dari veniam, vel gratiam fieri, a patre filius, et a vicino vicinus : non autem superiorum, nisi improprie admodum, et per quandam o-vjKaTaj3ae virzpixovri. Nequis ultra dubitare possit, quid sibi velit illud Paulinum Tate vTTEpfxovo-aiQ l^ovmaiq3. Samuel etiam, ut propheta Dei, ita regise potestatis plenitudinem populo cogitandam proponit 4. Ut siquis rex in suo regno supremus, singula quse ex illo capite sibi licere constat, nulla subeunte justa causa, sed mera dominandi libidine faceret, et se pro rege tyrannum ostenderet ; etsi non esset dva^oprijroe, nee peccato careret apud Deum : esset tamen 1 1 Pet. ii. 13. a See Hooker, Book I. chap. x. § 5. vol. 1. p. 137. above, and note. 2 1 Pet. i. 13. 3 Rom xiii j 4 j gam yiii Prmlectio Septima. 9 d vvirivQuvoQ ", nee deberet a populo coerceri ; dicique propterea mereretur, abusus quidem ille potestate sua, sed tamen sua. a See Blackstone's Commentaries, Book I. chap, 7- — "No government could stand a moment, if it could be blown down with any thing so loose and indefinite as an opinion of • misconduct.' They who led at the Revolution, grounded the virtual abdication of King James upon no such light and un certain a principle. They charged him with nothing less than a design, con firmed by a multitude of illegal overt acts, to subvert the Protestant Church and State, and their fundamental, unquestionable laws and liberties ; they charged him with having broken the original contract between king and people. This was more than misconduct. A grave and overruling necessity obliged them to take the step they took, and took with infinite reluctance, as under that most rigorous of all laws. Their trust for the future preservation of the constitution was not in future revolutions. The grand policy of all their regulations was to render it almost impracticable for any future sove reign to compel the states of the kingdom to have again recourse to those violent remedies. They left the crown, what in the eye and estimation of law, it had ever been, perfectly irresponsible. In order to lighten the crown still further; they aggravated responsibility on ministers of state. By the Stat, of 1 King William, sess. 2. called, 'The Act for Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, and for Settling the Succession of the Crown,' they enacted that the ministers should serve the crown on the terms of that Declaration. They secured soon after," &c. Burke, On the French Revo lution, Works, vol. v. p. 118. edit. 1801. Again : — " Kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the servants of the people, because their power has no other rational end than that of the general advantage ; but it is not true that they are, in the ordinary sense, by our constitution at least, any thing like servants ; the essence of whose situation is to obey the commands of some other, and to be removeable at pleasure. But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person ; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience. The law, which knows neither to flatter, nor to insult, calls this high magistrate, not our servant, as this humble divine calls him, but " our sovereign lord the king ;" and we, on our parts, have learned to speak only the primitive lan guage of the law, and not the confused jargon of their Babylonian pulpits. " As he is not to obey us, but as we are to obey the law in him, our con stitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible. Our constitution knows nothing of a magistrate like the Justicia of Arragon ; nor of any court legally appointed, nor of any process legally settled for submitting the king to the responsibility belonging to all servants. In this he is not distinguished from the Commons, and the Lords; who, in their several public capacities, can never be called to an account for their conduct ; although the Revolution Society chooses to assert, in direct opposition to one of the wisest and most beautiful parts of our con stitution, that ' a king is no more than the first servant of the public, created by it, and responsible to it.' " 111 10 BISHOP SANDERSON. Apud nos Anglos a saltem qui potest aut certius constare aut liquidius, (nisi siqui in sole meridiano coecutire malint, quam uti oculis,) quam ad unam serenissimam majestatem regiam supre- mam trium istorum b regnorum potestatem pertinere ? Quem et majestatis titulo, non modo ex usu loquendi communi, sed et in solennibus legum sanctionibus, et in omnibus juris formulis et actionibus, insignire solemus ; et omnium personarum causarum- que in suis regnis supremum, im6 et solum supremum modera- torem, solenni prsestito juramento (tactis sacrosanctis Dei evange- liis) agnovimus. VIII. Sciendum quarto. Cum dicimus penes unum Regem esse jus condendarum legum, non id ita intelligendum, quasi vellemus quicquid regi libuerit jubere id continue) legis vim obtinere : nam et populi consensum aliquem, aliaque nonnulla ad legem constituendam requiri mox ostendam0. Quin hoc est quod volumus, quod sciLicet plebiscita, senatus-consulta, csete- rseque procerum, plebis, aliorumque quorumcunque rogationes, nisi regia insuper authoritate muniantur, non obligent subditos nee habeant vim legis : quibus tamen mature et rite praeparatis, simul ac regis accesserit consensus, legis nomen, formam, et authoritatem protinus accipiunt, incipiuntque statim ac promul- " 111 would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations, and precarious in its tenure ; if they had been able to contrive no better remedy against arbitrary power than civil confusion. Let these gentlemen state who that representative public is to whom they will affirm the king, as a servant, to be responsible. It will be then time enough for me to produce to them the positive statute law which affirms that he is not." — Ibid. p. 121. a So this same writer, on another occasion : — " And as for the sovereignty, be it as it will with other states and common wealths, in regard to their constitution; to us of this nation it is so evident, where it resides, that we need not have recourse to statesmen or lawyers for information in that point. The known laws of the land have declared it so fully, and particularly the oath of supremacy has expressed it so clearly, that any man of ordinary capacity may understand it as weU as the deepest states man m the world. . . . Are not the words of the oath, That the king's highness w the only supreme governor of this realm, &c. as plain and obvious to every man's understanding, as the wit of man can devise ? " Preface to Archbishop Usher's." The Power communicated by God to the Prince, and the Obedience required of the Subject." Section xiv. b See Art. XXXVII. of the Church of England. c Sect. 13, &c. Prcelectio Septima. ] 1 gatse fuerint, subditos obligare. Cum igitur ilia sola a censenda sit cujusque rei causa efficiens principalis et sufficiens, quse per a " I will not say that the king can make laws to oblige the whole nation without the consent of both Houses of Parliament, though never so much for the public good, or ever so necessary for the preservation of the whole king dom. But this I will say, that though such laws cannot be made without their consent, yet it is not they, nor their consenting to them, that makes them to be laws. For then, either the bills would be laws as soon as they were passed by both Houses ; or the being passed by the two Houses must oblige the king to pass them also. But neither of these is true, according to the legal and fundamental constitution of our government ; as appears, not only by the constant practice to the contrary, but by the frequent and impor tunate addresses made unto the late king by the two Houses of the rebellious Parliament, to make their Ordinances to be laws, by his consent to them : which, certainly, being so high as they were then, they would never have done, if they had thought that either their ordinances were laws, or had the obliga tory power of laws, before the king gave it to them ; or that he might not, if he would, refuse to give it. So that it being not only the king's consent, but his free, arbitrary, and voluntary consent that gives being to all laws, the legislative power, properly so called, must needs be in the king, and in the king only. The legislative power, I say, properly so called: I mean the very making of that to be law, which is law ; abstracting from whatsoever it is that goes before, or that follows after, it is made ; for certainly neither of them can be essential to the making of it, and yet both of them may be very requisite for the making of the laws to be such as may the more willingly be obeyed by the people. Now by what goes before the making of laws here with us, I mean the considering, debating, and agreeing of both Houses what shall be proposed to the king by them, to be by him made to be laws : and by what follows after the king by his Le Roy le veult hath made them laws, J mean the solemn preface or preamble to them, whereby it is declared that there was a concurrence of the Lords and Commons to the making or enacting of them ; because the subject matter of them was prepared and agreed on by the Lords and Commons, and then, and not till then, proposed to the king by them, to be made laws by him ; so that the subject-matter of our laws is, and always must be, from the two Houses, or at least from their agreement and consenting to it. And in this respect it is that they may be said to concur to the making of our laws, though they do not make them. For it is, as I said before, not the matter, esc qua res est, out of which a thing is made, which is prepared and proposed by the Houses, but the form, per quam res est, by which a thing is what it is, which is wholly from the king, that makes what the Houses propose to him to be made a law, to be a law : which, although he may do, or refuse to do, as he pleaseth, yet he can make nothing to be law, but what by the agreement of both Houses is proposed to him to be made a law by him ; and consequently, though our laws are not, nor cannot be made by them, yet they are not, nor cannot be made without them neither. Therefore I say, they do concur to the making of them, though they do not make them. They concur to the making of them, because the 7 12 BISHOP SANDERSON. se et immediate producit, et in materiam prseparatam introducit eamformam, quae illi rei dat nomen et esse ; etsi ad productionem ipsius effectus alia etiam concurrere oporteat, vel antecedere potius, ut prsevias dispositiones quo materia ad recipiendam for- mam ab agente intentam aptior reddatur : omnino constat, quot- cunque demum ea sint quse ad legem recte constituendam antecedenter requiruntur, voluntatem tamen principis (ex cujus unius arbitratu et jussione omnes legum rogationes aut ratse habentur aut irritae,) esse solam et adsequatam publicarum legum efficientem causam. IX. His praemissis, confirmatur conclusio multiplici argumento. — Imprimis testimonio Sacrae Scripturse : — 1. Genesis xlix. 10. in celebri illo Jacobi Patriarchae jam mori- turi testamento, " Non auferetur sceptrum de Juda, et legislator de femore ejus," vaticinium est de futura in ilia tribu regia dig nitate : quam irEpifpaariKwg describit pius senex, adhibitis in earn rem potestatis regiss et notissimo insigni, sceptro [S/o}7rrov;YOi |3oo-tXi}Ec] et potissima prserogativa, jure legislativo. 2. Deuter. xxxiii. 4, 5. Moses eo nomine fuisse dicitur quasi " Rex in Israele," quod congregatis principibus populi et tri- bubus legem eis praeceperit. 3. Psalm, lx. 7. " Judah legislator meus," id est " Rex :" sicque ibi vertit vulgatus interpres, " Judah rex meus." 4. In textu demum proposito, Prov. viii. 15. " Per me reges regnant, et legum conditores justa decernunt." Ubi (quod solenne est Salomoni in toto hoc Proverbiorum volumme, ut versus pars posterior prioris, aut exegesin contineat, aut anti thesis) iidem ipsi, qui in priore commatis parte, reges, in poste- riore tl^-yip-ncwc legum conditores dicuntur. 5. In Novo etiam Testamento vop.ov (5ao-i\iKov meminit Jacobus Apostolus, Jac. ii. 8. X. Confirmatur Secundo, philosophorum, historicorum, et juris cum civilis, turn nostri Anglorum municipalis, consultorum, quae passim occurrunt frequentibus testimoniis : nos paucissimis, ut re manifesta, contenti erimus. Legem principis opus esse asserunt legislative matter, or the matter whereof laws are made, and must be made, is from them ; but they do not make them, because the form, whereby they are made to be what they are, is not at all from them, but solely and wholly from the king ; and consequently he is the sole efficient cause, or maker of them."— Bishop of Winchester's {Morley's) " Vindication of himself against Mr. Richard Baxter." — 4to. 1683. p. 351-4. Praelectio Septima. 13 Aristoteles, Plutarchus, aliique innumeri optimse notse authores. Sed imprimis celebre est illud Ulpiani, quod in jure Romano habetur, Quod principi placuit a legis habet vigorem. Quod, ne (nrXwe et perperam intellectum tyrannicse dominationi viam struere videatur, sic olim explicuit Bractonus nostras : Quod principi placuit ; id est, non quicquid est a rege temere et ex animi perturbati impetu quodam et sestu prsesumptum, sed quic quid ex magnatum suorum consiLio (regio assensu authoritatem praestante) et habita super hoc deliberatione et tractatu (sic enim ille loquitur) recte fuerit definitum. Quin et in jure nostro, et in quotidianis processibus juridicis in foro contentioso, ex solenni formula regiae leges dici solent [the king's laws'] : non aliam ob causam, ut nos docuerunt juris nostri periti, quam quod reges Anglise sint fons justitise et legum : et legibus ipsis (ipsis legibus id ipsum avroXs^ei profitentibus) ut prolegibus habeantur vim omnem imponendi, habeant concessam sibi a Deo avroicpa- ropiKrjv potestatem \ Ut nihil sit opus, in pluribus congerendis testimoniis operam collocare non necessariam. XI. Sed enim et istis supersederi potuisset, si non tarn clarae luci nebulas offundere conatus esset, putidissimo suo et ante hsec infelicia tempora inaudito figmento, de co-ordinata nescio qua potestate, avix>vvp.og nescio quisb tenebrio. Qui ut vtairtpi- a But it must be borne in mind, that this maxim, in these terms, Quod principi placuit, &c. is a principle of the imperial law, and not of the law of England. In the sense in which it is used by Roman jurists, it is not, nor ever was, a principle of English legislation : quite the contrary. And there fore these words cannot be resorted to without much qualification and reserve, in any investigation of the constitutional principles of the English monarchy. This, indeed, is apparent enough from Sanderson's words in the text. The reader, however, will farther find some very curious remarks on the manage ment which was applied to this dictum by our ancient authorities on the Laws of England (Bracton, the author of " Fleta,'' and Thornton,') in order to accommodate it, in some degree, to our free government, — in Hurd's Dia logues, vol. ii. 198 — 203. edit. 1765. See also Selden's " Dissertation ad Fletam," vol. ii. 1045,6; and Fortescue, " De Laudibus Legum Angliae," 125, 6, Amos' s edit. 1 Cui avTOKpaTopucijv legibus ipsis legum vim imponendi potestatem Deus dedit. — Finch, Nomotech. in Epist. Dedic. b Though Sanderson gives us no quotation from this writer, either here, or in another place, where he has noticed him in similar terms of censure ; — " Such a co-ordination in the government, as was hatched amidst the heat of the late troubles, but never before heard of in our land," — Preface to Usher's " Power of the Prince," j xiv.*yet, I doubt not, the Work referred to is a 14 BISHOP SANDERSON. £ovtwi/ quorundam nefariis consiliis et conatibus supparasitaretur, (quse cum omni juris prsesidio destituerentur, specioso tamen short pamphlet, entitled, "A fuller Answer to a Treatise written by Dr. Feme, entitled, 'The Resolving of Conscience.' " 1642. 4to. and the writer I con sider it equally certain, was Charles Herle, Rector of Winwick, in Lancashire, one of the Licensers of the Press under the two Houses, a member of the As sembly of Divines, &c. &c. Mr. Herle's object is to justify the war which the two Houses were now waging against King Charles I., and his theory for accomplishing this justification is of the following nature. That the Govern ment of England is a co-ordinative monarchy : that this co-ordination con sists of three estates, a King, and two Houses of Parliament: that this co-ordination of the three subsists in the very supremacy of power itself. — (p. 3.) " But, you will say, Can there be more than one highest ? No ; there is but one, but that one is a mixt one." (p. 4.) This co-ordinate su premacy, however, was to take a prudent care of itself; it was to be invio lable and irresponsible : " Unto this mixt power no subordinate authority may in any case make resistance." (p. 3.) All this might go on pretty well, while these three distinct minds coincided, and agreed in one. But what if they did not agree ? In such case, the author was furnished with a second maxim : " Co-ordinata invicem supplent ; co-ordinates supply each other." (p. 3.) " In a co-ordinate government, one part's refusal exempts not the others from their duty ; nor must it defraud the whole of its safety. What then shall the two other estates do?" (p. 10, 11.) Co-ordinates, by their very nature, are bound to supply one another's deficiencies ; and since, as he very profoundly observes, " one is less than three," (p. 3.) then, if the King did not agree with his other two brothers, by joint virtue of that maxim, and this undeniable arithmetic, they might and ought to control and coerce their refractory associate. In reply to this theory, the Royalists argued, — that if it be allowed that there is something of the nature of a co-ordination in the legislative depart ment of the constitution, the King and the two Houses having respectively their several negatives, yet this was by no means true of the executive power. For instance, the right of the sword was by law vested in the King ; and the attempt of the two Houses now to wrest it out of his hands by force, was nothing less than sheer rebellion. It was further urged, repeatedly, by way of objection ,to this scheme : But what if the King and House of Lords agree ? if two shall then still continue to be more in number than one, what, in such case, becomes of the House of Commons ? I do not find that Herle himself, (though he wrote two more pamphlets in defence of the first, — " the last blow, in these crowing times, being, [as he says, ' Ahab's Fall,' &c. 1644, 4to. p. 35.] accounted the vic tory,")— or that any of his associates, ever deigned to offer any answer of a verbal nature to this argument. But, in due time, they gave a very conclu sive reply to it of a practical kind, when, having destroyed the monarchy, they very shortly after extinguished the House of Lords ; and so, ere long' made a way, by a just retribution, for their own destruction by an usurper and tyrant : he too himself, under God's providence, becoming the instru- Prcelectio Septima. 15 aliquo tibicine quantumvis tenui et infirmo, fuerant pro tempore suffulcienda:) edito libello id agit sedulo at populum dedoceat inanem illam philosophiam, qua hactenus ei impositum est ab iis qui negant contradictoria posse simul esse vera : Regem scilicet et supremum esse, id est, non habere parem ; et habere parem, id est, non esse supremum. Fuisse tamen, qui hoc tarn ridicu- lum commentum, ut ccelitus delapsum oobv $dpjuaicov, (nimirum quod ipsorum intererat haec vulgo credi) avide arriperent, et am- babus ulnis amplexarentur, non tarn mirandum est; quam dolen- dum reperiri potuisse, qui tarn crasso sophismate sibi persuaderi paterentur, ut turpissimo se interim perjurio alligarent. Quid enim perjurium dici mereatur, si hoc non sit manifestum perju- rium; quem solum esse supremum in suo regno moderatorem con- ceptis verbis juraveris, ei parem aliam in suo regno potestatem constituere et agnoscere ? Apage ergo cum suis portentosis strophis co-ordinatorem nostrum, qui nobis hanc remoram injecit : et pergamus. XII. Confirmatur dicta conclusio, tertio, Ratione. Praecipuus actus gubernationis praecipuam requirit potestatem : actus enim omnis, cum sit exercitium alicujus potentise, supponit in agente potentiam sibi proportionatam. Est autem vofioBsaia, sive legumlatio actus gubernationis supremus et prsecipuus. Non ergo potest exerceri nisi a persona habente, aut saltem in virtute et ex authoritate habentis supremam potestatem et jurisdictionem in communitatem sibi subjectam. Cum enim jurisdictionis sive potestatis politicse duse sunt nobilissimae et prse reliquis praecipuae sive species, sive partes, vo/aoOetikt) et KpiTtmrj, potestas scilicet legumlativa, et potestas judiciaria, harumutraque injure dicendo consistit : unde et jurisdictionis nomen. Sed cum hoc discrimine, quod jurisdictio judicis sit juris tantum dati dictio ; jurisdictio vero legislatoris sit juris etiam dandi dictio : unde sequitur multo angustiorem esse illam judicis potestatem, augustiorem hanc legis latoris. Illius est jus populo dicere, et ex lege jam lata senten- tiam ferre : hujus vel ipsi judici jus dicere, et quse sit ipsi judicandi norma legem de novo condere. Ille ex prsescripto juris constituti pronunciare tenetur : hie ex plenitudine potestatis ment for preparing men's minds for a return to the ancient state of things, by a restoration of King, Lords, and Commons. Happy they, (and happy we in them,) if they and we shall but continue to be wise and virtuous enough, have a head able to understand, and a heart to feel, our happiness. 16 BISHOP SANDERSON. prsescribit et constituit jus, quod non minus judex ipse inferior, quam reliquus populus, tenetur in posterum observare. Non est igitur inconveniens, potestatem judiciariam, cum sit inferioris generis potestas, ab inferiore etiam persona ordinarie exerceri : at suprema ilia et architectonica legis ferendi potestas omnind expedit, ut, non nisi a persona cujus sit suprema potestas exer- ceatur. Atque de dubio primo hactenus. XIII. Dubium secundum est, an ad legis obligationem requi ratur populi consensus? — Ex jam dictis enim possit fortassis aliquis existimare potestatem ferendi leges ad principem ita pleno jure pertmere, ut ex nostra sententia subditorum nullse essent omnino hac in re partes, nee, siquid ille statuerit, populo quic- quam superesse aliud quam jussa capessere et colla jugo subdere. Et sane videtur pro dominantium Libidine, illud, sic volo sicjubeo, apud prisci sseculia reges ita obtinuisse, dum mera principum arbitria pro legibus erant: ut ipsum tyranni nomen innocens initio et honestum, ex tam salutaris potentiae fcedo abusu, in con- tumeliam jamdiu abierit, et horrendum aliquid auribus nostris, quoties auditur, inferre putetur. Atqui populi saltem consensum aliquem requiri, et ante prcemonui b, et ab omnibus °, quos mihi videre contigit, probatissimis scriptoribus conceditur. Adeo ut ipsi Jesuitse, qui sunt oecumenicse et nullis conclusse finibus pon- tificis sui omnipotentiae assertores acerrimi, excusandos tamen ad non servatas concilii Tridentini et bullae ccense leges, eo solo nomine putent in Germania et alibi multos, quod in iis gentibus nunquam fuerint illae leges usu receptee. Dico igitur, et est communis sententia, institutas et propositas a capite communitatis seu principe leges non obligare subditos, nee vim legis habere, nisi ab ipsa communitate recipiantur, et utentium vel suffrages vel moribus comprobentur. Demostheni lex est ttoAewc o-wdfan koivt), communis sponsio civitatis: cujus siquem minus moveat hac in causa authoritas, quod in Atheniensium republ. populari versaretur; accedat Juliani Jurisconsulti authoritas, qui sub Romanis imperatoribus vixit pleno jure imperantibus ; cujus verba sunt 1. 32. F. de Legibus, " ipsae leges nulla alia ex causa nos tenent, quam quod judicio populi receptee sunt." XIV. Sed enim istius receptionis sive consensus necessitatem, a See Hooker, Book i. chap. 10. § 5. above, Vol. i. p. 137, and note fc) b See § 8. c See Hooker, Book i. chap. 10. § 8. above, Vol. i. p. 143, and note. Prmlectio Septima. 17 etsi omnes agnoscant, non tamen ex eodem fonte omnes accer- sunt. Sunt qui putent, populi consensum in condendis legibus propterea requiri quod principes potestatem suam omnem a populo eiuxam" habeant, qua si abusi fuerint (abuti autem potestate a The expression is Fortescue's, in his Treatise De Laudib. Leg. Anglian, chap. 13, p. 221. — "Ad tutelam namque Legis, subditorum, ac eorum corpo- rum et bonorum Rex hujusmodi erectus est, et hanc potestatem, a Populo effiuxam, ipse habet; quo ei non licet potestate alid suo populo dominari." I incline to think, however, that it may be fairly questioned, whether the expression, (indeed, whether the whole passage), be not much too concise and too general to admit of all that weight and extent of meaning which both the enemies and the friends of the theory of deriving the sovereign authority by an actual transfer from the people concur in imputing to it. Is it certain that Fortescue really intended much more than what Sanderson would readily have allowed, that the consent of the people is necessary, (as a condition sine qua non ?) Fortescue's own words in chap. xiv. seem entirely consis tent with this notion : "pro eorum substantia? vitanda jactura, et pro suorum tutela corporum ipsi se Regis imperio arbitrio proprio submiserunt." That " the Sovereignty originated from the People is," Mr. Burke says, " a position not denied by him, nor worth denying or assenting to." But the danger lies, he held, among those who maintain that " in the people the same sovereignty constantly and unalienably resides i that the people may lawfully depose kings, not only for misconduct, but without any misconduct at all ; that they may set up any new fashion of government for themselves, or continue without any government at their pleasure ; that the people are essentially their own rule, and their will the measure of their conduct ; that the tenure of magistracy is not a proper subject of contract, because magis trates have duties and no rights ; and that if a contract de facto is made with them in one age, allowing that it binds at all, it only binds those who are immediately concerned in it, but does not pass to posterity. These doc trines concerning the people (a term which they are far from accurately defin ing, but by which it is plain enough they mean their own faction) tend, in my opinion, to the utter subversion, not only of all government, in all modes, and to all stable securities to rational freedom, but to all rules and principles of morality itself." Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs. Vol. vi. 147, 8, 8vo. Mr. Burke, no doubt, had his reasons for what he has asserted at the com mencement of the above extract. Yet, assuredly, the position is "worth denying," if it can be denied justly ; for all the frightful doctrines which he proceeds to enumerate are regarded by those who hold them as legitimate inferences from that grand first principle, and are entertained by none who do not lay their foundations in that position. If the people were not first taught that they have the right to give authority, and have given it, they would never think of claiming a right to take it back again. They learn easily to regard the native fountain, which they are taught to feel boiling within, and the streams which flow from it, as connected naturally by relations homogeneous and continuous, and of which they are the masters and managers. VOL. m. C But 18 BISHOP SANDERSON. sua censendi sunt, si earn longius latiusve proferre et extendere velint, quam populo visum fuerit,) poterit populus pro jure suo potestatem quam ipsis ante concesserat denuo resumere. Pericu- loso admodum errore, et quem merito abominari debeant, quot- quot non sunt humani generis et publicse tranquilLitatis hostes. Nititur enim tota haec ratio duplici fundamento ; debiLi utroque et ab omni sana ratione alieno : altero, principes totam potesta tem suam populo acceptam ferre : altero, potestatem quisquis alteri concesserit, posse earn cum ipsi libuerit revocare. O egre- gium sophistam, si hsec ita essent, Samuelem magis, qui ut populum 3-eoKpan'ae jamdiu pertsesum a perverso rerum novan- darum studio absterreret, regise potestatis amplitudinem eis ob oculos proposuisse satis habuit? an magis fatuum popellum Israeliticum qui sui juris ignarus pati se potuit tam futili sophismate sic pivbg ayeaOai ut plane obmutesceret ? Adeone omnes bardos et stupidos, nulliusque aut mentis aut animi, ut nee unus aliquis in tam magna populi corona reperiri potuerit, cui tantum inesset acuminis et audaciae ut ad ista omnia prompte responderet ? cum tam facile fuerit Samueli sic peroranti statim regessisse, " Pueris hsec minare et qui nihil sapiunt : nos, si sic dominari cceperit rex noster, jure nostro utemur; auferemus ei mox earn quam ante dedimus potestatem." Quam brevi responso totum negotium confecissent, et os prophetse in seternum obtu- rassent, si superioribus illis sseculis tam credita fuissent haec novorum magistrorum figmenta, quam sunt ab illis fidenter disci- pulis suis obtrusa, et a temeraria plebe lubenter excepta. XV. Sed ut serio agamus, et ad rem ipsam accedamus pro- piiis : dico primo, prsesidendi in republ. potestatem, quocunque tandem modo ad earn perveniatur, ab ipso Deo1 esse, solo et immediate, nullatenus autem a populo. Apertissima sunt in hanc rem sacrae Scripturae testimonia. " Per me reges regnant," Prov. But, it is satisfactory to observe, that even Burke himself found occasions in which he places the rights of sovereignty in terms as emphatic as has been done by any other, whether Divine, Lawyer, or Philosopher, on their true basis— the one supreme authority of Almighty. God. "They conceive that He who gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue, willed also the neces sary means of its perfection : He willed, therefore the State : He willed its connexion with the source and original archetype of all perfection." Works, vol. vi. p. 236, given below in this volume. 1 'E/c S'e Aids /3atri\jjff. Homer in Hymn. Prcelectio Septima, 19 8, id est, mea unius, non humana aliqua authoritate. Quse sunt, a Deo sunt (non a populo) constitute potestates \ Ipsi magis tratus qui populo prsesunt, Dei sunt administri, Geou Xurovpyoi, Qeov omicovot 2. Dii propterea dicti 3, quod ipsius Dei in terris vices gerant4, idque Deo ipsis conferente hanc potestatem, non populi suffragiis. " Ego dixi, dii estis." Poteritne populus aliquis sine turpis idololatrise crimine sibi Deos constituere, cum sit uniuscujusque hominis, ei qui ipsius vices gerat, potestatem vicariam sua authoritate demandare, non alieno arbitratu? Aude- bitne quisquam mortalium id juris sibi arrogare, ut qui Dei in terris minister et vice-Deus futurus sit omnem illam suam autho- ritatem et potestatem ab ipso sibi collatam agnoscat ? Utut for- tassis poterint esse populi circa personam ut potestatis subjectum partes aliquae (ut mox videbimus ;) quemadmodum in generatione rerum naturalium, sunt aliquae praevise alterationes, quae prae- parent et disponant materiam ad recipiendam formam introducen- dam: coUatio tamen potestatis regitivae, sive applicatio ejus ad personam, non est populi opus, sed Dei ipsius immediate ; sicut productio formae in subjectam materiam est immediatum opus agentis sive generantis. Scitum est illud Irenaei, cujus jussu homines nascuntur, hujus jussu et reges constituuntur 5. XVI. Dico secundo, (ut digitum ad fontes intendam) domina- tionem politicam ab initio non nisi patriae potestatis propaginem fuisse. Ipsa rerum primordia quibus otium est paulo diligentius rimari, gentes deprehendent olim non ex mutua populorum con- sensione in regna et respub. coaluisse ; sed inter Noachi pos- teros aliquandiu omne imperium intra _paternse authoritatis metas constitisse. Nondum reges erant ; sed nee reguli quidem ; nedum amplissimarum ditionum monarchse : multo autem minime aristocratici vel popularis status- regimina; inaudita priscis saeculis toto orbe nomina, et in Graecia primum, gente levi et cupida novitatis, Kaivorofiovvrtov quorundam libidine vel furore, intro- ducta. Penes famiLiarum capita 6 stetit adhuc omnis dominatio, in quibus qui promogenitus7 erat cujusque familise, sine suffragiis 1 Rom. xiii. 1. 2 Rom. xiii. 4. 6. 3 Psalm lxxxii. 6. 4 Non alio animo populus rectorem suum intuetur, quam si Dii immortales potestatem visendi sui faciunt. Senec. 1. de Clem, 19. 5 Lib. 5. contra Hseres. cap. 20. 6 'Ev oUiq. irpGirov apxal KaL ^V7ai iro\iTtiae, Kal dixaiov. Aristot. f. Eun- dem 10. 7 Ilao-a owia fjaaCktvtrai virb rov 7rpeaf3vTarov. Id. 1. Polit. 1. c2 20 BISHOP SANDERSON. aut electione aliqua, quodam quasi naturae jure, et sacrorum et civilis administrationis antistes, et totius cognationis princeps habebatur. Qui pro suo arbitratu delinquentes moderatis primo pcenis castigabat; mox excrescentibus in magnam multitudinem famiiiis, gravioribus suppliciis nocentes coercuit : donee tandem, aucta indies hominum multitudine, et succrescentibus una vitiis, irrogandi sceleribus capitalia supplicia accessit necessitas. Inde factum ut pater in liberos totamque familiam jus olim haberet l vitse et necis : cujus juris, etiam post constitutes plerisque in gentibus reges, mauserunt tamen diu vestigia qusedam. Hinc ilia notata Aristoteli, sed improbata patrise potestatis apud Persas nimia severitas : et vetus ilia quae apud A. Gellium Noct. Attic. 1. 5. c. 19. extat arrogandi liberos solennis Romanorum formula, [UTI . El . Y1TM . NECIS . QUE . IN . EO . POTESTAS . SIET . UTI . patri. endo eilio. est.] Ab his initiis per incrementa fami- liarum, pullularunt paulatim ubique terrarum regna, quibus qui prseerant, et reges dicti sunt, et in suis ditionibus, exiguis illis quidem (unica fortassis urbecula cum paucis adjacentibus pagis et viculis) merum tamen imperium exercuerunt. " Principio rerum, gentium nationumque imperia penes reges erant 2 ;" sic historiam suam orditur Justinus. Et ante eum Cicero, " Omnes," inquit, " antiqua? gentes regibus quondam paruerunt3." Et utroque antiquior, Aristoteles eas civitates i testatur quae suo tempore liberse habebantur (Grsecas nimirum et earum exempla secutas intelligit) sub regio primitus imperio fuisse. Hujus quam dixi originis, inter alia plurima, hoc quoque argumentum est non leve, quod tam arctis finibus claudebantur olim regum ditiones, ut in una Canaanitide, regione non magna, triginta et unum reges ab Israelitarum duce Josue debellatos habeamus 5 ; quibus tamen superstitem reliquisse eum istiusmodi regulorum numerum duplo fere majorem, non improbabili conjectura vel ex eo mihi colligi posse videtur, quod non multo post ipsius Josue excessum Adoni-bezekum in septuaginta reges a se devictos barbaro more sseviisse legimus 6. Quid multa ! Magnae familise principem inter, et angusti territorii regem, tam exile discrimen est, ut 1 Pater jussi, hoc nomen omni lege majus «st. Jus nobis vitse necisque concessum est. Quintil. declam. 5. 2 Justin, i. Hist. i. 3 Cic. iii. de Legib. * Tb irpGirov ifiasCKtvovTo oi iroksic Kai vvv in rd. i6vi). Arist. i. Polit. 5 Jos. cap. xii. « Jud. i. 7. Prcelectio Septima. 21 nomine et mole1 magis quam re et potestate, distare inter se videantur: ita ut nemini possit esse dubium, siquidem rationes rite subducere velit, patriam dominationem procedente tempore, paulatim et imperceptibili actu, in regium nomen et imperium adolevisse ; nee aliunde quam ex hoc capite" petendam esse summi imperii originem. Et hactenus sane in conferenda regia potes- 1 Oi ry ooijj Kai travri, aXKa nf vdaip iiovip hcupipti. Greg. Presb. in vita Greg. Naz. a Compare Hooker, b. i. c. x. § 4. given above, vol. i. p. 134. Overal's Convocation Book, p. 2 — 8, also given above, vol. i. p. 134. note. Sanderson's Preface to Usher, On the Power communicated by God to the Prince, § 18. and Thirlwall's History of Greece, vol. i. p. 163 — 165. Bishop Cumberland, also, who in his controversy against Hobbes, had occasion to give much con sideration to all these points, seems to have been of opinion that the origin of Civil Government might be much the most justly and naturally explained in this method. " Ita cum de hominibus agitur, primum quidem exemplum ordinis est in virum ac fceminam, in qua naturaliter vir est superior, utpote qui plerumque majores habent intellectus vires, et majus corporis robur, adeoque plus con- fert ad effectum ex eorum societate quaesitum ; commune scilicet utriusque bonum in rebus sacris et humanis. Nihilominus magis conspicuum est im perium paternum, postquam liberi e priore ilia societate nati fuerint. Ideo- que hinc sumendum est exemplar, hinc etiam petenda est vera origo potestatis tam Civilis, quam Ecclesiasticae, utramque enim in patre primo fuisse necesse erat propter finem quem dixi necessarium : atque adeo familia prima erat societas ordinata, prima scilicet Civitas primaque simul Ecclesia. Ex auctis autem in numerum familiis, in numerum pariter creverunt civitates et eccle sia;. Atque haec sane, ut cum naturd rerum rectdque adeb ratione, quae inde derivatur, consentiunt, ita histories antiquissimae fidissimasque (Mosaicam intelligo, qua? etiam divina est), per omnia consonant." De Legibus Naturaa, cap. ix. § 6. See also Sir Wm. Temple, On the Original and Nature of Go vernment, Works, vol. ii. p. 29 — 57. Mr. Amos, in his valuable edition of Fortescue De Laudibus Legum An- gliae, thus expresses himself, apologetically in reference to the prevalence of the theory of an original contract among the great leaders at the era of the revolution : " The distinguished statesmen who contributed to renovate the constitution of this country, at the period of the revolution, effected no doubt an important change in the opinions of the nation, respecting the true ends of government, in bringing back the minds of men to the liberal views and principles which were to be learnt from a writer of the age of Henry the Sixth ; and it is no disparagement of the high merit, which will always be ascribed to them, by a grateful nation, if, in the present day, we are struck with a sense of impropriety, perhaps of the danger, of resting the indestruct ible privileges of mankind upon the fiction, adopted by them, of an original compact," p. 46. Hooker apparently foresaw, and had considered the objections against this 22 BISHOP SANDERSON. tate, nullas fuisse, nee quidem esse potuisse, populi partes, certo certius est. XVII. Ex his, ut opinor, satis conficitur (ut illud obiter ad- notem, quod dignum est observatu) illam regiminis formam, in qua totius familise primogenitus in jura paterna succedit ut pro- pinquior haeres, merito caeteris prseferendum esse; cum ob alias plurimas nee contemnendas rationes, turn vel hac una de causa maxime, quod origini suse, ad quam homines natura ipsa quo- dammodo instituisse videtur, optime respondeat. A qua anti- quissima et naturae congruentissima forma simul abscessum est (impotenti scilicet et effrseni dominandi libidine alias sibi vias quibus ad imperii culmen ascenderetur moliente), tyrannidi pariter et popularibus studiis opportuniora exinde facta sunt scheme, to which I apprehend Mr. Amos here alludes (and which are stated with great ability and force by Dr. Paley, in chap. iii. of his Political Philosophy); and would perhaps not lave allowed that his theory of the Social Contract was liable to them. " Touching kings, which were first instituted by agree ment and composition made with them, over whom they reign, how far their power may extend the articles of compact between them are to show; not only the articles of compact at the first beginning, which, for the most part, are either clean worn out of knowledge, or else known to very few, but what soever hath been after in free and voluntary manner condescended unto, whether by express consent (whereof positive laws are witnesses), or else by silent allowance, famously notified through custom, reaching beyond the memory of man : by which means of after-agreement, it cometh many times to pass in kingdoms, that they whose ancient predecessors were by violence and force made subject, do by little and little grow into that sweet form of kingly government which philosophers define ' regency willingly sustained, and indued with chiefty of power in the greatest things,' " vol. iii. p. 309. — Again, book i. chap. x. § 8, above, p. 146. " Corporations are immortal. We were then alive (five hundred years since) in our predecessors ; and they in their successors do live still." And these were probably the views of some of the great men at the revo lution. But, is this much more than attempting to sustain one fiction by another ? These after-improvements may, in themselves, severally partake much of the nature of a contract ; but to consider them as identified and amalgamated with, or as contributing to constitute anything of an original contract, whereby a transgression on either side of any of them should be looked upon as an immediate dissolution of the obligations between prince and people, and a disruption of the whole frame of the government, is a most perilous view of the subject. See the arguments against the theory of an Original Contract, stated also with great ability by Bishop Sanderson in his Preface to Usher " On the Power of the Prince," § 15-^18. Prcelectio Septima. 23 omnia. Qui enim alia quam legitima successione imperium ob- tinent, uno e tribus modis ad regna promoveri necesse est : aut aperta vi et militaribus armis; aut fraudibus etastu; aut libera demum electione. Qui vi et armis sibi quaesiverunt imperium, sive mera usurpatione sine aliquo juris praetextu id factum fuerit, sive bello justo hostibus a quibus injuste lacessiti sunt illato (utrovis modo enim fieri contingit), hos etiam certum est, autho- ritatem suam nihilo magis subditis suis debere, quam qui jure hereditario in regna avita succedunt. Quin multo etiam minus : in quantum isti volentibus civibus et jugo assuetis, illi invitis et (si resistendo pares essent) repugnare paratis dominantur. Ergo nee hactenus apparent in conferenda summa potestate, populi ullse partes. XVIII. At in stabilienda eorum potestate, qui tyrannidem per dolum occupant, negari non potest, populum suas habere partes, easque praecipuas. Solent enim qui tyrannidem affectant, animum imprimis ad favorem popularium conciliandum intendere ; " potentiam ex vulgi adulatione quserentes I." Affatim hftjus rei exemplorum suppeditant plurimarum gentium historise. Apud unum Trogi abbreviatorem, quibus artibus Pisistratus Athenien- sium2, Heracliensum Clearchus3, Dionysius junior Siculorum4, alii aliorum populorum turbam in suas partes pellexerint, reperire est. Invidiosis oratioriibus credulas multitudinis animos adversus optimos quosque cives concitare: nonnulla publice laudanda et quae speciem haberent Clementiae, Justitiae, et in plebem benigni- tatis, facere ; omne genus blanditiis ac delinimentis, quibus decipi amat et solet vulgus, in civium affectus se insinuare, velut pub lico libertatis unicos futuros assertores, vindices et patronos : simulatio officii, crebrse pollicitationesj injecta spes feliciorum temporum et mutandse in melius publicarum rerum administra tions : hse nimirum sunt egregise illae artes, quibus qui ad impe rium per fraudes affectant viam, incautum et leve vulgus solici- tant5, inflectunt, qua libet impellunt, £kx See further below, the latter part of this extract, and Horsley's Sermon above, p. 38. Burke, no doubt, in what he here writes in so profound and masterly a manner on this particular topic, and in much else of what he delivered on Society and Government in connexion with French affairs, had Mr. Locke in his mind, though I think he never names him. We may guess, perhaps, how this reserve happens. Here again we must not forget in what school Mr. Burke had been brought up ; and there were multitudes of friends and school-fellows, whom he would be loath to bring down upon himself by expressly taxing and turning against their old and common master. See Locke's Treatise on Government, part ii. chap. 8. "If Society and Government. 85 law of our original nature ; but such constructive whole, residing in a part only, is one of the most violent fictions of positive law that ever has been or can be made on the principles of artificial incorporation. Out of civil society nature knows nothing of it ; nor are men, even when arranged according to civil order, other wise than by very long training, brought at all to submit to it. The mind is brought far more easily to acquiesce in the proceed ings of one man, or a few, who act under a general procuration for the state, than in the vote of a victorious majority in councils, in which every man has his share in the deliberation. For there the beaten party are exasperated and soured by the previous contention, and mortified by the conclusive defeat. This mode of decision, where wills may be so nearly equal, where, according to circumstances, the smaller number may be the stronger force, and where apparent reason may be all upon one side, and on the other little else than impetuous appetite; all this must be the result of a very particular and special convention, confirmed afterwards by long habits of obedience, b, y a sort of discipline in society, and by a strong hand, vested with stationary, permanent power, to enforce this sort of constructive general will. What " If it be the major vote that is affirmed to have the sovereignty," says Richard Baxter, " I answer, " 1. Nature giveth no such power. There is nothing in nature to tell us that one thousand should have power of governing, and so of the lives of nine hundred and ninety-nine. " 2. Nature giveth them not so much as an aptitude, much less authority and right. The aptitude is in a supereminency of wisdom, goodness, and power; but nature giveth none of these, much less all to the major vote : therefore it gives not to the major vote so much as an aptitude for govern ment. "(1.) The world knows that knowledge ioRoviesth. not the major vote. A few learned, experienced men may be wiser than a thousand times as many of the vulgar. (2.) And their virtue will be as defective as their wisdom is. And (3) though power be more for execution than for proper government, yet it is known that ten strong men may beat twenty weak ones, and that an army of 30,000 doth often beat an army of 40,000. " 3. Yea, nature usually denieth the aptitude for government to the major vote. For, (1) they are ordinarily most imprudent, wanting the natural and acquired parts that others have. (2.) They are usually most vicious. The most are seldom the best, in the best countries of the world. (3) They are commonly divided, and hardly kept in unity amongst themselves ; and there fore are unfit to be the centre of unity to the rest." Holy Commonwealth, p. 65, 1659- See also same work, p. 185 — 8, and 92 — 5. See also Sander son's Preface to Usher, " On the Power of the Prince," § xvii. 86 EDMUND BURKE. organ it is that shall declare the corporate mind is so much a matter of positive arrangement, that several states, for the validity of several of their acts, have required a proportion of voices much greater than that of a mere majority. These pro portions are so entirely governed by convention, that in some cases the minority decides. The laws in many countries to con demn require more than a mere majority; less than an equal number to acquit. In our judicial trials we require unanimity either to condemn or to absolve. In some incorporations one man speaks for the whole ; in others, a few. Until the other day, in the constitution of Poland, unanimity was required to give validity to any act of their great national council or diet. This approaches much more nearly to rude nature than the insti tutions of any other country. Such, indeed, every common wealth must be, without a positive law to recognise in a certain number the will of the entire body. If men dissolve their ancient incorporation, in order to regene rate their community, — in that state of things each man has a right, if he pleases, to remain an individual. Any number of individuals, who can agree upon it, have an undoubted right to form themselves into a state apart, and wholly independent. If any of these is forced into the fellowship of another, this is con quest and not compact. On every principle, which supposes society to be in virtue of a free covenant, this compulsive incor poration must be null and void. As a people can have no right to a corporate capacity without universal consent, so neither have they a right to hold exclusively any lands in the name and title of a corporation. On the scheme of the present rulers in our neighbouring country, regenerated as they are, they have no more right to the territory called France than I have. I have a right to pitch my tent in any unoccupied place I can find for it ; and I may apply to my own maintenance any part of their unoccupied soil. I may purchase the house or vineyard of any individual proprietor who refuses his consent (and most proprietors have, as far as they dared, refused it) to the new incorporation. I stand in his independent place. Who are these insolent men calling themselves the French nation, that would monopolize this fair domain of nature ? Is it because they speak a certain jargon? Is it their mode of chattering, to me unintelligible, that forms their title to my land? Who are they who claim by prescription and descent from certain gangs of ban- Society and Government. 87 ditti called Franks, and Burgundians, and Visigoths, of whom I may have never heard, and ninety-nine out of an hundred of themselves certainly never have heard; whilst at the very time they tell me, that prescription and long possession form no title to property ? Who are they that presume to assert that the land which I purchased of the individual, a natural person, and not a fiction of state, belongs to them, who in the very capacity in which they make their claim can exist only as an imaginary being, and in virtue of the very prescription which they reject and disown ? This mode of arguing might be pushed into all the detail, so as to leave no sort of doubt, that on their principles, and on the sort of footing on which they have thought proper to place themselves, the crowd of men, on the one side of the chan nel, who have the impudence to call themselves a people, can never be the lawful, exclusive possessors of the soil. By what they calL reasoning without prejudice, they leave not one stone upon another in the fabric of human society. They subvert all the authority which they hold, as well as all that which they have destroyed. As in the abstract, it is perfectly clear, that, out of a state of civil society, majority and minority are relations which can have no existence ; and that, in civil society, its own specific conven tions in each corporation determine what it is that constitutes the people, so as to make their act the signification of the general will : to come to particulars, it- is equally clear that neither in France nor in England has the original, or. any subsequent com pact of the state, expressed : or implied, constituted a majority of men, told by the head, to be the acting people of their several communities. And I see as Little ;of policy or utility, as there is of right, in laying down a principle that a majority of men told by the head are to be considered as the people, and that as such their will is to be law. What policy can there be found in ar rangements made in defiance of every political principle ? To enable men to act with the weight and character of a people, and to answer the ends for which they are incorporated into that ca pacity, we must suppose them (by means immediate or conse quential) to be in that state of habitual social discipline, in which the wiser, the more expert, and the more opulent conduct, and by conducting enlighten and protect the weaker, the less knowing, and the less provided with the goods of fortune. When the mul titude are not under this discipline, they can scarcely be said to 7 88 EDMUND BURKE. be in civil society. Give once a certain constitution of things, which produces a variety of conditions and circumstances in a state, and there is in nature and reason a principle which, for their own benefit, postpones, not the interest but the judgment, of those who are numero plures, to those who are virtute et honore majores. Numbers in a state (supposing, which is not the case in France, that a state does exist) are always of consideration — but they are not the whole consideration. It is in things more serious than a play, that it may be truly said satis est equitem mihi plaudere. A true natural aristocracy is not a separate interest in the state, or separable from it. It is an essential integrant part of any large body rightly constituted. It is formed out of a class of legitimate presumptions, which, taken as generalities, must be admitted for actual truths. To be bred in a place of estimation ; to see nothing low and sordid from one's infancy ; to be taught to respect one's self ; to be habituated to the censorial inspection of the public eye; to look early to public opinion; to stand upon such elevated ground as to be enabled to take a large view of the wide-spread and infinitely diversified combinations of men and affairs in a large society ; to have leisure to read, to reflect, to converse ; to be enabled to draw the court and attention of the wise and learned wherever they are to be found ; — to be habi tuated in armies to command and to obey ; to be taught to des pise danger in the pursuit of honour and duty ; to be formed to the greatest degree of vigilance, foresight, and circumspection, in a state of things in which no fault is committed with impunity, and the slightest mistakes draw on the most ruinous conse quences — to be led to a guarded and regulated conduct, from a sense that you are considered as an instructor of your fellow- citizens in their highest concerns, and that you act as a recon ciler between God and man — to be employed as an administrator of law and justice, and to be thereby amongst the first benefac tors to mankind — to be a professor of high science, or of liberal and ingenuous art — to be amongst rich traders, who from their success are presumed to have sharp and vigorous understandings, and to possess the virtues of diligence, order, constancy, and re gularity, and to have cultivated an habitual regard to commutative justice — these are the circumstances of men, that form what I should call a natural aristocracy, without which there is no nation. Society and Government. 89 The state of civil society, which necessarily generates this ari stocracy, is a state of nature ; and much more truly so than a savage and incoherent mode of life. For man is by nature rea sonable ; and he is never perfectly in his natural state, but when he is placed where reason may be best cultivated, and most pre dominates. Art is man's nature. We are as much, at least, in a state of nature in formed manhood, as in immature and helpless infancy. Men, qualified in the manner I have just described, form in nature, as she operates in the common modification of society, the leading, guiding, and governing part. It is the soul to the body, without which the man does not exist. To give therefore no more importance, in the social order, to such descrip tions of men, than that of so many units, is a horrible usurpa tion. When great multitudes act together, under that discipline of nature, I recognise the people. I acknowledge something that' perhaps equals, and ought always to guide the sovereignty of convention. In all things the voice of this grand chorus of national harmony ought to have a mighty and decisive influence. But when you disturb this harmony ; when you break up this beautiful order, this array of truth and nature, as well as of habit and prejudice ; when you separate the common sort of men from their proper chieftains so as to form them into an adverse army, I no longer know that venerable object called the people in such a disbanded race of deserters and vagabonds. For a while they may be terrible indeed ; but in such a manner as wild beasts are terrible. The mind owes to them no sort of submission. They are, as they have always been reputed, rebels. They may law fully be fought with, and brought under, whenever an advantage offers. Those who attempt by outrage and violence to deprive men of any advantage which they hold under the laws, and to destroy the natural order of life, proclaim war against them. We have read in history of that furious insurrection of the common people in France called the Jacquerie : for this is not the first time that the people have been enlightened into treason, murder, and rapine. Its object was to extirpate the gentry. The Cdptal de Buche, a famous soldier of those days, dishonoured the name of a gentleman and of a man by taking, for their cruelties, a cruel vengeance on these deluded wretches : it was, however, his right and his duty to make war upon them, and afterwards, in moderation, to bring them to punishment for their rebellion ; 90 EDMUND BURKE. though in the sense of the French Revolution, and of some of our clubs, they were the people ; and were truly so, if you will call by that appellation any majority of men told by the head. At a time not very remote from the same period (for these humours never have affected one of the nations without some influence on the other) happened several risings of the lower commons in England. These insurgents were certainly the ma jority of the inhabitants of the counties in which they resided : and Cade, Ket, and Straw, at the head of their national guards, and fomented by certain traitors of high rank, did no more than exert, according to the doctrines of our and the Parisian societies, the sovereign power inherent in the majority. We call the time of those events a dark age. Indeed we are too indulgent to our own proficiency. The Abbe John Ball understood the rights of man as well as the Abbe Gregoire. That reverend patriarch of sedition, and prototype of our modern preachers, was of opinion with the National Assembly, that all the evils which have fallen upon men had been caused by an ig norance of their " having been born and continued equal as to their rights." Had the populace been able to repeat that pro found maxim all would have gone perfectly well with them. No tyranny, no vexation, no oppression, no care, no sorrow, could have existed in the world. This would have cured them like a charm for the tooth-ache. — But the lowest wretches, in their most ignorant state, were able at all times to talk such stuff; and yet at all times have they suffered many evils and many oppressions, both before and since the republication by the National Assembly of this spell of healing potency and virtue. The enlightened Dr. Ball, when he wished to rekindle the lights and fires of his audience on this point, chose for the text the foDowing couplet : When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman ? Of this sapient maxim, however, I do not give him for the inventor. It seems to have been handed down by tradition, and had certainly become proverbial; but whether then composed, or only applied, thus much must be admitted, that in learning, sense, energy, and comprehensiveness, it is fully equal to all the modern dissertations on the equality of mankind ; and it has one advantage over them, — that it is in rhyme. Society and Government. 91 There is no doubt, but that this great teacher of the rights of man decorated his discourse on this valuable text, with lemmas, theorems, scholia, corollaries, and all the apparatus of science, which was furnished in great plenty and perfection out of the dogmatic, and polemic magazines, the old horse-armoury of the schoolmen, among whom the Rev. Dr. Ball was bred. It was, no doubt, disposed with all the adjutancy of definition and division, in which (I speak it with submission) the old marshals were as able as the modern martinets. Neither can we deny that the philosophic auditory, when they had once obtained this know ledge, could never return to their former ignorance ; or after so instructive a lecture be in the same state of mind as if they had never heard it \ But these poor people, who were not to be envied for their knowledge, but pitied for their delusion, were not reasoned (that was impossible) but beaten out of their lights. With their teacher they were delivered over to the lawyers ; who wrote in their blood the statutes of the land, as harshly, and in the same sort of ink, as they and their teachers had written the rights of man. Our doctors of the day are not so fond of quoting the opinions of this ancient sage as they are of imitating his conduct ; First, because it might appear, that they are not as great inventors as they would be thought ; and next, because, unfortunately for his fame, he was not successful. It is a remark, liable to as few exceptions as any generality can be, that they who applaud prosperous folly, and adore triumphant guilt, have never been known to succour or even to pity human weakness or offence when they become subject to human vicissitude, and meet with punishment instead of obtaining power. Abating for their want of sensibility to the sufferings of their associates, they are not so much in the wrong; for madness and wickedness are things foul and deformed in themselves ; and stand in need of all the coverings and trappings of fortune to recommend them to the multitude. Nothing can be more loathsome in their naked nature. Aberrations like these, whether ancient or modern, unsuccess ful or prosperous, are things of passage. They furnish no argument for supposing a multitude told by the head to be the people. Such a multitude can have no sort of title to alter the 1 See the wise remark on this subject, in the Defence of Rights of Man, circulated by the societies. 92 EDMUND BURKE. seat of power in the society, in which it ever ought to be the obedient, and not the ruling or presiding part. What power may belong to the whole mass, in which mass the natural aristocracy, or what by convention is appointed to represent and strengthen it, acts in its proper place, with its proper weight, and without being subjected to violence, is a deeper question. But in that case, and with that concurrence, I should have much doubt whether any rash or desperate changes in the state, such as we have seen in France, could ever be effected. I have saida, that in all political questions the consequences of any assumed rights are of great moment in deciding upon their validity. In this point of view let us a little scrutinize the effects of a right in the mere majority of the inhabitants of any country of superseding and altering their government at pleasure. The sum total of every people is composed of its units. Every individual must have a right to originate what afterwards is to be come the act of the majority. Whatever he may lawfully originate he may lawfully endeavour to accomplish. He has a right there fore in his own particular to break the ties and engagements which bind him to the country in which he lives ; and he has a right to make as many converts to his opinions, and to obtain as many associates in his designs, as he can procure : for how can you know the dispositions of the majority to destroy their government, but by tampering with some part of the body? You must begin by a secret conspiracy, that you may end with a national confederation. The mere pleasure of the beginning must be the sole guide; since the mere pleasure of others must be the sole ultimate sanction, as well as the sole actuating principle in every part of the progress. Thus, arbitrary will (the last corruption of ruling power) step by step, poisons the heart of every citizen. If the undertaker fails, he has the misfortune of a rebel, but not the guilt. By such doc trines, all love to our country, all pious veneration and attachment to its laws and customs, are obliterated from our minds; and nothing can result from this opinion, when grown into a principle, and animated by discontent, ambition, or enthusiasm, but a series of conspiracies and seditions, sometimes ruinous to their authors, always noxious to the state. No sense of duty can prevent any man from being a leader or a follower in such enterprises. No thing restrains the tempter; nothing guards the tempted. Nor is a Above, p. 83. Society and Government. 93 the new state, fabricated by such arts, safer than the old. What can prevent the mere will of any person, who hopes to unite the wills of others to his own, from an attempt wholly to overturn it ? It wants nothing but a disposition to trouble the established order, to give a title to the enterprise. When you combine this principle of the right to change a fixed and tolerable constitution of things at pleasure, with the theory and practice of the French Assembly, the political, civil, and moral irregularity are if possible aggravated. The Assembly have found another road, and a far more commodious, to the destruction of an old government, and the legitimate formation of a new one, than through the previous will of the majority of what they call the people. Get, say they, the possession of power by any means you can into your hands; and then a subsequent consent11 (what they call an address of adhesion) makes your authority as much the act of the people as if they had conferred upon you originally that kind and degree of power, which, without their permission, you had seized upon. This is to give a direct sanction to fraud, hypocrisy, perjury, and the breach of the most sacred trusts that can exist between man and man. What can sound with such horrid discordance in the moral ear, as this position, That a delegate with Limited powers may break his sworn engage ments to his constituent, assume an authority, never committed to him, to alter all things at his pleasure ; and then, if he can per suade a large number of men to flatter him in the power he has usurped, that he is absolved in his own conscience, and ought to stand acquitted in the eyes of mankind? On this scheme the maker of the experiment must begin with a determined perjury. a So it was, here in England, in the time of the Usurpation. " By this time" (says Bishop Sanderson, in his preface to Abp. Usher's Treatise on the Power of the Prince, sect. 2) " the flatterers of that great tyrant had learned by a new device, upon the bare account of Providence, without respect to the justice of the title, the only right and proper foundation, to interpret and apply to his advantage," (Cromwell's) " whatsoever they found either in the Scriptures or in other writings, delivered concerning the power of princes or the duty of subjects, — profanely and sacrilegiously taking the name of that holy providence of God in vain, and using it only as a stalking horse, to serve the lusts and interests of ambitious men." Compare Clarendon's Survey of Hobbes' Leviathan, p. 306, where see Lord C.'s emphatic eulogium on the loyalty and fidelity of the great body of the Clergy of the Church of England to King Charles I. in all his extremities, p. 304—8. 94 EDMUND BURKE. That point is certain. He must take his chance for the expiatory addresses. This is to make the success of villainy the standard of innocence. Without drawing on, therefore, very shocking consequences, neither by previous consent, nor by subsequent ratification of a mere reckoned majority, can any set of men attempt to dissolve the state at their pleasure. To apply this to our present subject. When the several orders, in their several bailliages, had met in the year 1789, such of them, I mean, as had met peaceably and con stitutionally, to choose and to instruct their representatives, so organized and so acting, (because they were organized and were acting according to the conventions which made them a people) they were the people of France. They had a legal and a natural capacity to be considered as that people. But observe, whilst they were in this state, that is, whilst they were a people, in no one of their instructions did they charge or even hint at any of those things, which have drawn upon the usurping Assembly, and their adherents, the detestation of the. rational and thinking part of mankind. I will venture to affirm, without the least apprehension of being contradicted by any person who knows the then state of France, that if any one of the changes had been proposed, which form the fundamental parts of their Revolution, and compose its most distinguishing acts, it would not have had one vote in twenty- thousand in any order. Their instructions purported the direct contrary to all those famous proceedings, which are defended as the acts of the people. Had such proceedings been expected, the great probability is, that the people would then have risen, as to a man, to prevent them. The whole organization of the Assem bly was altered, the whole frame of the kingdom was changed, before these things could be done. It is long to tell, by what evil arts of the conspirators, and by what extreme weakness and want of steadiness in the lawful government, this equal usurpation on the rights of the prince and people, having first cheated, and then offered violence to both, has been able to triumph, and to employ with success the forged signature of an imprisoned sovereign, and the spurious voice of dictated addresses, to a subsequent ratifica tion of things that had never received any previous sanction, general or particular, expressed or implied, from the nation, (in whatever sense that word is taken) or from any part of it. After the weighty and respectable part of the people had been murdered, or driven by the menaces of murder from their houses, Society and Government. 95 or were dispersed in exile into every country in Europe ; after the soldiery had been debauched from their officers; after property had lost its weight and consideration, along with its security ; after voluntary clubs and associations of factious and unprincipled men were substituted in the place of all the legal corporations of the kingdom arbitrarily dissolved; after freedom had been ba nished from l those popular meetings, whose sole recommendation is freedom. — After it had come to that pass, that no dissent dared to appear in any of them, but at the certain price of life; after even dissent had been anticipated, and assassination become as quick as suspicion; such pretended ratification by addresses could be no act of what any lover of the people would choose to call by their name. It is that voice which every successful usurpation, as well as this before us, may easily procure, even without making (as these tyrants have made) donatives from the spoil of one part of the citizens to corrupt the other. The pretended rights of man, which have made this havoc, can not be the rights of the people. For to be a people, and to have these rights, are things incompatible. The one supposes the pre sence, the other the absence of a state of civil society. The very foundation of the French commonwealth is false and self- destructive; nor can its principles be adopted in any country, without the certainty of bringing it to the very same condition in which France is found. 1 The primary assemblies. VI. ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SOCIETY, OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, AND OF RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS — UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE NATURE AND EXCELLENCE OF THE ESTABLISH MENT OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND a. These doctrines, or rather sentiments, seem prevalent with your new statesmen. But they are wholly different from those on which we have always acted in this country. I hear it is sometimes given out in France, that what is doing among you is after the example of England. I beg leave to affirm, that scarcely any thing done with you has originated from the practice or the prevalent opinions of this people, either in the act or in the spirit of the proceeding. Let me add, that we are as unwilling to learn these lessons from France, as we are sure that we never taught them to that nation. The cabals here, who take a sort of share in your transactions, as yet consist of but a handful of people. If unfortunately by their intrigues, their sermons, their publications, and by a confidence derived from an expected union with the counsels and forces of the French nation they should draw considerable numbers into their faction, and in consequence should seriously attempt any thing here in imitation of what has been done with you, the event, I dare ven ture to prophesy, will be, that, with some trouble to their country, they will soon accomplish their own destruction. This people a From Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Works, vol. v. p. 170—198. Religious Establishments. — Church and State. 97 refused to change their lawa in remote ages from respect to the infallibility of popes ; and they will not now alter it from a pious implicit faith in the dogmatism of philosophers, though the former was armed with the anathema and crusade, and though the latter should act with the libel and the lamp-iron. Formerly your affairs were your own concern only. We felt for them as men ; but we kept aloof from them, because we were a The plot laid to induce them to relinquish their liberties is thus described and commented upon by Bishop Hurd. "Nay, the courtesy of that time had so-far dignified their vices, that the very name was had in honour. Ego Gulielmus Bastardus is even the pream ble to one of William the First's charters. " Yet, as respectable as it was become, there was one unlucky check on this favourite indulgence ; and this, with the Barons' leave, the confederate bishops would presently take off. Subsequent marriage by the imperial, as well as canon, laws, legitimated bastards as to succession ; whereas, the common law kept them eternally in their state of bastardy. It is not to be doubted, but the barons would be sensible enough of this restraint ; they earnestly wished to get rid of it. And could any thing bid so fair to recom mend the imperial law to their good liking, as the tender of it for so desira ble a purpose ? At a parliament, therefore, under Henry III., rogaverunt omnes episcopi, ut consentirent quod nati ante matrimonium essent legitimi. What think you now of this general supplication of the hierarchy ? What could the barons do but comply with it, especially as it. was so kindly intended for their relief; and the proposal was even made with a delicacy that might enable them to come into it with a good grace, and without the shame of seeming to desire it ? All this is very true. Yet the answer of the virtuous barons is as follows : ' Omnes comites et barones und voce responde- runt, quod nowmus leges Anglle motari.' " We see, then, what stuck with them. These barons, as licentious as they were, preferred their liberty to their pleasure. The bishops, they knew, as partisans of the pope, were for subjecting the nation to the imperial and papal laws. They offered, indeed, to begin with a circumstance very much to their taste. But if they accepted the benefits of them in one instance, with what decency could they object to them in others ? They rejected a proposition most agreeable in itself, lest their acceptance of it should make way for the introduction of foreign laws, whose very genius and essence they well knew was arbitrary, despotic power. Their answer speaks their sense of this matter. Nolumus leges Anglia mutari. They had nothing to object to the proposal itself ; but they were afraid for the consti tution." Dialogues, Moral and Political, vol. ii. 188 — 91. edit. 1765. On the Constitution of the English Government. The curious reader will find in the above passage a singular example of how much Hurd was in the habit of being indebted in his writings to the suggestions of his friend Warburton. See Letters from a late eminent prelate to one of his friends. Letter 84. VOL. III. H 98 EDMUND BURKE. not citizens of France. But when we see the model held up to ourselves we must feel as Englishmen, and feeling, we must pro vide as Englishmen. Your affairs, in spite of us, are made a part of our interest; so far at least as to keep at a distance your panacea, or your plague. If it be a panacea, we do not want it, We know the consequences of unnecessary physick. If it be a plague, it is such a plague that the precautions of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it. I hear on all hands that a cabal, calling itself philosophic, receives the glory of many of the late proceedings ; and .that their opinions and systems are the true actuating spirit of the whole of them. I have heard of no party in England, literary or political, at any time, known by such a description. It is not with you composed of those men, is it, whom the vulgar, in their blunt, homely style, commonly call Atheists and Infidels ? If it be, I admit that we too have had writers of that description, who made some noise in their day. At present they repose in lasting oblivion. Who, born within the last forty years, has read one word of Collins, and Toland, and Tindal, and Chubb, and Mor gan, and that whole race who called themselves Freethinkers ? Who now reads Bolingbroke ? Who ever read him through? Ask the booksellers of London what is become of all these lights of the world. In as few years their few successors will go to the family vault of " all the Capulets." But whatever they were, or are, with us, they were and are wholly unconnected individuals. With us they kept the common nature of their kind, and were not gregarious. They never acted in corps, or were known as a faction in the state, nor presumed to influence in that name or character, or for the purposes of such a faction, on any of our public concerns. Whether they ought so to exist, and so be per mitted to act, is another question. As such cabals have not existed in England, so neither has the spirit of them had any influence in establishing the original frame of our constitution, or in any one of the several reparations and improvements it has undergone. The whole has been done under the auspices, and is confirmed by the sanctions, of religion and piety, The whole has emanated from the simplicity of our national character, and from a sort of native plainness and directness of understanding, which for a long time characterized those men who have succes sively obtained authority among us. This disposition still remains ; at least in the great body of the people. Religious Establishments. — Church and State. 99 We know, and what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort '. In England we are so convinced of this, that there is no rust of superstition a with which the accumulated absurdity of the human mind might have crusted it over in the course of ages, that ninety-nine in a hundred of the people of England would not prefer to impiety. We shall never be such fools as to call in an enemy to the substance of any system to remove its corrup tions, to supply its defects, or to perfect its construction. If our religious tenets should ever want a further elucidation, we shall not call on atheism to explain them. We shall not light up our temple from that unhallowed fire. It will be illuminated with other lights. It will be perfumed with other incense than the infectious stuff which is imported by the smugglers of adulterated metaphysics. If our ecclesiastical establishment should want a revision, it is not avarice or rapacity, public or private, that we shall employ for the audit, or receipt, or application of its conse crated revenue. Violently condemning neither the Greek nor the Armenian, nor, since heats are subsided, the Roman system of religion, we prefer the Protestant ; not because we think it has less of the Christian religion in it, but because, in our judg ment, it has more. We are Protestants, not from indifference, but from zeal. We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his con stitution b a religious animal ; that atheism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts ; and that it cannot prevail long. But if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium from 1 Sit igitur hoc ab initio persuasum civibus, dominos esse omnium rerum ac moderatores, deos ; eaque, quae gerantur, eorum geri vi, ditione, ac numine ; eosdemque optime de genere hominum mereri ; et qualis quisque sit, quid agat, quid in se admittat, qua, mente, qua pietate colat religiones intueri : piorum et impiorum habere rationem. His enim rebus imbutae mentes haud sane abhorrebunt ab utili et & vera, sententia. Cic. de Legi bus, 1. 2. a " —. — Great God ! I had rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; Or hear Old Triton blow his wreathed horn." Miscellaneous Sonnets by W. Wordsworth. Sonnet 35. b See Bp. Butler's Sermon, On the Love of God : above, vol. i. p. 625, &c. H 2 100 EDMUND BURKE. the hot spirit drawn out of the alembic of hell, which in France is now so furiously boiling, we should uncover our nakedness by throwing off that Christian religion which has hitherto been our" boast and comfort, and one great source of civilization amongst us, and among many other nations, we are apprehensive (being well aware that the mind wilL not endure a void) that some uncouth, pernicious, and degrading superstition might take place of it. For that reason, before we take from our establishment the natural, human means of estimation, and give it up to contempt, as you have done, and in doing it have incurred the penalties you well deserve to suffer, we desire that some other may be presented to us in the place of it. We shall then form our judgment. On these ideas, instead of quarrelling with establishments, as some do, who have made a philosophy and a religion of their hostility to such institutions, we cleave closely to them. We are resolved to keep an established church, an established monarchy, an established aristocracy, and an established democracy, each in the degree it exists, and in no greater. I shall show you pre sently how much of each of these we possess. It has been the misfortune (not as these gentlemen think it, the glory) of this age, that every thing is to be discussed, as if the constitution of our country were to be always a subject rather of altercation a, than enjoyment. For this reason, as well as for the satisfaction of those among you (if any such you have among you) who may wish to profit of examples, I venture to trouble you with a few thoughts upon each of these establish ments b. I do not think they were unwise in ancient Rome, who, when they wished to new model their laws, sent commissioners to examine the best constituted republics within their reach. First, I beg leave to speak of our church establishment, which is the first, of our prejudices, not a prejudice destitute of reason, but involving in it profound and extensive wisdom. I speak of a See Bishop Butler's Sermon, On the Love of God, vol. i. p. 626, above. " It was doubtless intended," &c. b But, see p. 347, where he " reserves for another time" what he had " proposed to say concerning the spirit of our British monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, as practically they exist." It is to be regretted that he does not appear ever to have resumed this subject in its just extent. A few hints on some parts of it may be found towards the close of the Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791. Works, vol. vi. 8vo. Religious Establishments. — Church and State. 101 it first. It is first, and last, and midst in our minds. For, taking ground on that religious system, of which we are now in possession, we continue to act on the early received, and uni formly continued sense of mankind. That sense not only, like a wise architect, hath built up the august fabric of states, but like a provident proprietor, to preserve the structure from profanation and ruin, as a sacred temple, purged from all the impurities of fraud, and violence, and injustice, and tyranny, hath solemnly and for ever consecrated the commonwealth, and all that officiate in it. This consecration is made, that all who administer in the government of men, in which they stand in the person of God Himself, should have high and worthy notions of their function and destination; that their hope should be full of immortality; that they should not look to the paltry pelf of the moment, nor to the temporary and transient praise of the vulgar, but to a solid, permanent existence, in the permanent part of their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in the example they leave as a rich inheritance to the world. Such sublime principles ought to be infused into persons of exalted situations; and religious establishments provided, that may continually revive and enforce them. Every sort of moral, every sort of civil, every sort of politic institution, aiding the rational and natural ties that connect the human understanding and affections to the divine, are not more than necessary, in order to build up that wonderful structure, Man ; whose prerogative it is, to be in a great degree a creature of his own making a ; and who, when made as he ought to be made, is destined to hold no trivial place in the creation. But whenever man is put over men, as the better nature ought ever to preside, in that case more particularly, he should as nearly as possible be approximated to his perfection. The consecration of the state, by a state religious establish ment, is necessary also to operate with a wholesome awe upon free citizens; because, in order to secure their freedom, they must enjoy some determinate portion of power. To them there fore a religion connected with the state, and with their duty towards it, becomes even more necessary15 than in such societies, a See Butler's Preface to his Sermons, vol. i. p. 541, above. b " With regard to the two particular branches last mentioned, I would observe, that our laws and whole constitution, civil and ecclesiastical, go more upon supposition of an equality amongst mankind, than the constitu- 102 EDMUND BURKE. where the people, by the terms of their subjection, are confined to private sentiments, and the management of their own family concerns. All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust; and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society. This principle ought even to be more strongly impressed upon the minds of those who compose the collective sovereignty, than upon those of single princes. Without instruments, these princes can do nothing. Whoever uses instruments, in finding helps, finds also impediments. Their power is therefore by no means complete ; nor are they safe in extreme abuse. Such persons, however elevated by flattery, arrogance, and self-opinion, must be sensible, that, whether covered or not by positive law, in some way or other they are accountable even here for the abuse of their trust. If they are not cut off by a rebellion of their people, they may be strangled by the very janissaries kept for their security against all other rebellion. Thus we have seen the king of France sold by his soldiers for an increase of pay. But where popular authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better founded confidence in their own power. They are themselves, in a great measure, their own instruments. They are nearer to their objects. Be sides, they are less under responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on earth, the sense of fame and estimation. The share of infamy that is likely to fall to the lot of each indi vidual in public acts, is small indeed ; the operation of opinion being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment in their favour. A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world. tion and laws of other countries. Now this plainly requires that more par ticular regard should be had to the education of the lower people here, than in places where they are born slaves of power, and to be made slaves of superstition. It is, I suppose, acknowledged, that they have greater liberty here, than they have any where else in the world. But unless care be taken for giving them some inward principle to prevent their abusing this greater liberty, which is their birthright, can we expect it will prove a blessing to them ? or will they not, in all probability, become more dissolute, or more wild and extravagant, whatever wrong turn they happen to take, than people of the same rank in other countries?" Bishop Butler's Spital Sermon, p. 325, 6, edit. 1807. Religious Establishments. — Church and State. 103 As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can be made subject to punish ment. Certainly the people at large never ought: for as all punishments are for example towards the conservation of the people at large, the people at large can never become the subject of punishment by any human hand \ It is therefore of infinite importance that they should not be suffered to imagine that their will, any more than that of kings, is the standard of right and wrong. They ought to be persuaded that they are full as little entitled, and far less qualified, with safety to themselves, to use any arbitrary power whatsoever ; that therefore they are not, under a false show of liberty, but, in truth, to exercise an unna tural, inverted domination, tyrannically to exact, from those who officiate in the state, not an entire devotion to their interest, which is their right, but an abject submission to their occasional will; extinguishing thereby, in all those who serve them, all moral principle, all sense of dignity, all use of judgment, and all consistency of character ; whilst by the very same process they give themselves up a proper, a suitable, but a most contemptible prey to the servile ambition of popular sycophants, or courtly flatterers. When the people have emptied themselves of all the lust of selfish will, which, without religion, it is utterly impossible they ever should, when they are conscious that they exercise, and exercise perhaps in a higher link of the order of delegation, the power, which to be Legitimate must be according to that eternal, immutable law, in which will and reason are the same, they will be more careful how they place power in base and incapable hands. In their nomination to office, they will not appoint to the exercise of authority, as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function; not according to their sordid, selfish interest, nor to their wanton caprice, nor to their arbitrary will ; but they will confer that power (which any man may well tremble to give or to receive) on those only, in whom they may discern that predo minant proportion of active virtue and wisdom, taken together and fitted to the charge, such, as in the great and inevitable mixed mass of human imperfections and infirmities, is to be found. When they are habitually convinced that no evil can be ac- 1 Quicquid multis peccatur inultem. 104 EDMUND BURKE. ceptable, either in the act or the permission, to him whose essence is good, they will be better able to extirpate out of the minds of all magistrates, civil, ecclesiastical, or military, any thing that bears the least resemblance to a proud and lawless domination. But one of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth and the laws are consecrated, is lest the temporary possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act as if they were the entire masters ; that they should not think it amongst their rights to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric of their society ; hazarding to leave to those who come after them a ruin instead of an habitation — and teaching these successors as little to respect their contrivances, as they had themselves respected the institutions of their forefathers. By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways, as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer. And first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is the collected reason of ages, combining the principles of original justice with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded errors, would be no longer studied. Personal self-sufficiency and arrogance (the certain attendants upon all those who have never experienced a wisdom greater than their own) would usurp the tribunal. Of course no certain laws, establishing invariable grounds a of hope and fear, would keep the actions of men in a certain course, or direct them to a certain end. Nothing stable in the modes of holding property, or exer cising function, could form a solid ground, on which any parent could speculate in the education of his offspring, or in a choice for their future establishment in the world. No principles would be early worked into the habits. As soon as the most able instructor had completed his laborious course of institution, in stead of. sending forth his pupil, accomplished in a virtuous discipline, fitted to procure him attention and respect, in his place in .society, he would find every thing altered; and that he a See Hooker, book i. chap. x. § 5. vol. i. p. 137, 8, above. Religious Establishments. — Church and State. 105 had turned out a poor creature to the contempt and derision of the world, ignorant of the true grounds of estimation. Who would insure a tender and delicate sense of honour to beat almost with the first pulses of the heart, when no man could know what would be the test of honour in a nation, continually varying the standard of its coin ? No part of life would retain its acquisi tions. Barbarism with regard to science and literature, unskilful- ness with regard to arts and manufactures, would infallibly succeed to the want of a steady education and settled principle ; and thus the commonwealth itself would, in a few generations, crumble away, be disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality, and at length dispersed to all the winds of heaven. To avoid therefore the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution ; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion ; that he should approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe, and trembling solicitude. By this wise prejudice we are taught to look with horror on those children of their country, who are prompt rashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put him into the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they may regenerate the paternal constitution, and renovate their father's life. Society is indeed a contract.. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee a, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary a " The Parliament is a court, not so merely temporal, as if it might med dle with nothing but only leather and wool." — Hooker, book viii. Again : " A gross error it is to think that regal power ought to serve for the good of the body, and not of the soul; for men's temporal peace, and not for their eternal safety ; as if God had ordained kings for no other end and purpose, but only to fat men up like hogs, and see that they have their mast." — Hooker in " Clavi Trabales," p. 56. Again: "Nova infanda execranda Theologia ista est qua? docet curam subditorum pertinere ad principem tantum quatenus Homines sunt, non qua tenus Christiani." — Casaubon's Dedication to King James of his "Exercita- tiones" against Baronius. See also Burke, vol. x. p. 43, 4, given above in note, p. 65, 6. 106 EDMUND BURKE. interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence ; because it is not a partner ship in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in alL perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living,— but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, accord ing to a fixed compact, sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the wilL of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to sub mit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at Liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate commu nity, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme ne cessity only, a necessity that is not chosen % but chooses; a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, — which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical dis position of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force : but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this a See above, p. 61, 2, and note. Compare also Archbishop Bramhall, Works, 551. "Thus far well: but then comes a handful of gourds that poison the pottage, — ' except in cases of necessity.' Give to any person, or society, a legislative power without the king, in case of necessity ; permit them withal to be sole judges of neces sity, — when it is, how long it lasts, — and it is more than probable, the neces sity will not determine till they have their own desires ; which is the same in effect as if they had a legislative power. Necessity excuses whatsoever it doth ; but first, the necessity must be evident ; there needs no such great stir who shall he, judge of necessity ; when it comes indeed, it will show itself. When extreme necessity is disputable, it is a sign it is not real." Religious Establishments. — Church and State. 107 world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow. These, my dear Sir, are, were, and, I think, long will be, the sentiments of not the least learned and reflecting part of this kingdom. "They, who are included in this description, form their opinions on such grounds as such persons ought to form them. The less inquiring receive them from an authority, which those whom Providence dooms to live on trust need not be ashamed to rely on a. These two sorts of men move in the same direction, though in a different place. They both move with the order of the universe. They all know, or feel this great ancient truth : — " Quod LUi principi et praepotenti Deo qui omnem hunc mundum regit, nihil eorum quae quidem fiant in terris acceptius quam concilia et ccetus, hominum jure sociati quse civitates appellantur." They take this tenet of the head and heart, not from the great nameb which it immediately bears, nor from the greater from whence it is derived ; but from that which alone can give true weight and sanction to any learned opinion, the common nature and common relation of men. Persuaded that all things ought to be done with reference, and referring all to the point of refe rence to which all should be directed, they think themselves bound, not only as individuals in the sanctuary of the heart, or as congregated in that personal capacity, to renew the memory of their high origin and cast ; but also in their corporate character to perform their national homage to the institutor, and author and protector of civil society ; without which civil society man could not by any possibility arrive at the perfection of which his nature is capable, nor even make a remote and faint approach to it. a " Men little think how immorally they act in meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. They who truly mean well, must be fearful of acting ill. The British Constitution may have its advantages pointed out to wise and reflecting minds ; but it is of too high an order of excellence to be adapted to those which are common. It takes in too many views, — it makes too many combinations, — to be so much as comprehended by shallow and super ficial understandings. Profound thinkers will know it in its reason and spirit. The less inquiring will recognize it in their feelings and experience. They will thank God they have a standard, which, in the most essential points of this great concern, will put them on a par with the most wise and knowing." — Burke's Appeal to the Old Whigs, Works, vol. vi. 261, 2. 8vo. b Cicero, Somnium Scipionis, c. 3. 108 EDMUND BURKE. They conceive that He who gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue, willed also the necessary means of its perfection. He willed therefore the state— He willed its connexion with the source and original archetype of all perfection. They who are convinced of this His will, which is the law of laws, and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this our corporate fealty and homage, that this our recognition of a seigniory paramount, I had almost said this oblation of the state itself, as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be performed as all public, solemn acts are performed, in buildings, in music, in decoration, in speech, in the dignity of persons, according to the customs of mankind, taught by their nature; that is, with modest splendour, with unassuming state, with mild majesty and sober pomp. For those purposes they think some part of the wealth of the country is as usefully em ployed as it can be in fomenting the luxury of individuals. It is the public ornament. It is the public consolation. It nou rishes the public hope. The poorest man finds his own import ance and dignity in it, whilst the wealth and pride of individuals at every moment makes the man of humble rank and fortune sensible of his inferiority, and degrades and vilifies his condition. It is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue, that this portion of the general wealth of his country is employed and sanctified. I assure you I do not aim at singularity. I give you opinions which have been accepted amongst us, from very early times to this moment, with a continued and general approbation, and which indeed are so worked into my mind, that I am unable to distinguish what I have learned from others from the results of my own meditation. It is on some such principles that the majority of the people of England, far from thinking a religious national establishment unlawful, hardly think it lawful to be without one. In France you are wholly mistaken if you do not believe us, above all other things, attached to it, and beyond all other nations ; and when this people has acted unwisely and unjustifiably in its favour (as in some instances they have done most certainly), in their very errors you will at least discover their zeal. This principle runs through the whole system of their polity. Religious Establishments. — Church and State. 109 They do not consider their Church Establishment as convenient, but as essential to their State ; not as a thing heterogeneous and separable ; something added for accommodation ; what they may either keep or lay aside, according to their temporary ideas of convenience. They consider it as the foundation of their whole constitution, with which, and with every part of which, it holds an indissoluble union. Church and State are ideas inseparable in their minds, and scarcely is the one ever mentioned without mentioning the other. Our education is so formed as to confirm and fix this impres sion. Our education is in a manner wholly in the hands of ecclesiastics, and in all stages from infancy to manhood. Even when our youth, leaving schools and universities, enter that most important period of life which begins to link experience and study together, and when with that view they visit other coun tries, — instead of old domestics, whom we have seen as governors to principal men from other parts, three-fourths of those who go abroad with our young nobility and gentlemen are ecclesiastics ; not as austere masters, nor as mere followers, but as friends and companions of a graver character, and not seldom persons as well born as themselves. With them, as relations, they most commonly keep up a close connexion through life. By this connexion we conceive that we attach our gentlemen to the Church ; and we liberalize the Church by an intercourse with the leading charac ters of the country. So tenacious are we of the old ecclesiastical modes and fashions of institution, that very little alteration has been made in them since the fourteenth or fifteenth century : adhering in this parti cular, as in all things else, to our old settled maxim, never entirely nor at once to depart from antiquity. We found these old insti tutions, on the whole, favourable to morality and discipline ; and we thought they were susceptible of amendment, without altering the ground. We thought that they were capable of receiving and meliorating, and above all of preserving, the accessions of science and literature, as the order of Providence should succes sively produce them. And after all, with this gothic and monkish education (for such it is in the groundwork), we may put in our claim to as ample and as early a share in all the improvements in science, in arts, and in literature, which have illuminated and adorned the modern world, as any other nation in Europe : we 110 EDMUND BURKE. think one main cause of this improvement was our not despising the patrimony of knowledge which was left us by our forefathers. It is from our attachment to a Church establishment, that the English nation did not think it wise to entrust that great, funda mental interest of the whole to what they trust no part of their civil or military public service, that is, to the unsteady and pre carious contribution of individuals. They go further. They certainly never have suffered, and never will suffer, the fixed estate of the Church to be converted into a pension, to depend on the treasury, and to be delayed, withheld, or perhaps to be extinguished by fiscal difficulties : which difficulties may some times be pretended for political purposes, and are in fact often brought on by the extravagance, negligence, and rapacity of politicians. The people of England think that they have con stitutional motives, as well as religious, against any project of turning their independent clergy into ecclesiastical pensioners of state. They tremble for their liberty, from the influence of a clergy dependent on the crown; they tremble for the public tranquillity from the disorders of a factious clergy, if it were made to depend upon any other than the crown. They there fore made their Church, like their king and their nobility, inde pendent. From the united considerations of religion and constitutional policy, from their opinion of a duty to make a sure provision for the consolation of the feeble, and the instruction of the ignorant, they have incorporated and identified the estate of the Church with the mass of private property, of which the state is not the proprietor, either for use or dominion, but the guardian only and the regulator. They have ordained that the provision of this establishment might be as stable as the earth on which it stands, and should not fluctuate with the Euripus of funds and actions. The men of England, the men, I mean, of light and leading in England, whose wisdom (if they have any) is open and direct, would be ashamed, as of a silly, deceitful trick, to profess any reLigion in name, which, by their proceedings, they appear to contemn. If by their conduct (the only language that rarely lies), they seemed to regard the great ruling principle of the moral and the natural world, as a mere invention to keep the vulgar in obedience, they apprehend that by such a conduct they would defeat the politic purpose they have in view. They would 7 Religious Establishments. — Church and State. Ill find it difficult to make others believe in a system to which they manifestly gave no credit themselves. The Christian statesmen of this land would indeed first provide for the multitude; because it is the multitude ; and is therefore, as such, the first object in the ecclesiastical institution, and in all institutions. They have been taught, that the circumstance of the Gospel's being preached to the poor, was one of the great tests of its true mission. They think, therefore, that those do not believe it, who do not take care it should be preached to the poor. But as they know that charity is not confined to any one description, but ought to apply itself to all men who have wants, they are not deprived of a due and anxious sensation of pity to the distresses of the miserable great. They are not repelled through a fastidious delicacy, at the stench of their arrogance and presumption, from a medicinal attention to their mental blotches, and running sores. They are sensible, that religious instruction is of more consequence to them than to any others; from the greatness of the temptation to which they are exposed ; from the important consequences that attend their faults ; from the contagion of their ill example ; from the neces sity of bowing down the stubborn neck of their pride and ambi tion to the yoke of moderation and virtue ; from a consideration of the fat stupidity and gross ignorance concerning what imports men most to know, which prevails at courts, and at the head of armies, and in senates, as much as at the loom and in the field. The English people are satisfied, that to the great the consola tions of religion are as necessary as its instructions. They, too, are among the unhappy. They feel personal pain, and domestic sorrow. In these they have no privilege, but are subject to pay their full contingent to the contributions levied on mortality. They want this sovereign balm under their gnawing cares and anxieties, which, being less conversant about the limited wants of animal life, range without limit, and are diversified by infinite combinations in the wild and unbounded regions of imagination. Some charitable dole is wanting to these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void that reigns in minds which have nothing on earth to hope or fear; something to relieve in the "killing languor and over-laboured lassitude of those who have nothing to do ; something to excite an appetite to existence in the palled satiety which attends on all pleasures which may be 112 EDMUND BURKE. bought, where nature is not left to her own process, where even desire is anticipated, and therefore fruition defeated by meditated schemes and contrivances of delight ; and no interval, no obstacle, is interposed between the wish and the accomplishment. The people of England know how little influence the teachers of religion are likely to have with the wealthy and powerful of long standing, and how much less with the newly fortunate, if they appear in a manner no way assorted to those with whom they must associate, and over whom they must even exercise, in some cases, something like an authority What must they think of that body of teachers, if they see it in no part above the establishment of their domestic servants ? If the poverty "were voluntary, there might be some difference. Strong instances of self-denial operate powerfully on our minds ; and a man who has no wants has obtained great freedom, and firmness, and even dignity. But as the mass of any description of men are but men, and their poverty cannot be voluntary, that disrespect, which attends upon all lay poverty, will not depart from the ecclesiastical. Our provident constitution has therefore taken care that those who are to instruct presumptuous ignorance, those who are to be censors over insolent vice, should neither incur their contempt, nor live upon their alms ; nor will it tempt the rich to a neglect of the true medicine of their minds. For these reasons a, whilst we provide first for the poor, and with a parental solicitude, we have not relegated religion (Like something we were ashamed to show) to obscure municipalities, or rustic vil lages. No ! we will have her to exalt her mitred front in courts and parliaments. We will have her mixed throughout the whole mass of life, and blended with all the classes of society. The people of England will show to the haughty potentates of the world, and to their talking sophisters, that a free, a generous, an informed nation honours the high magistrates of its Church ; that it will not suffer the insolence of wealth and titles, or any other species of proud pretension, to look down with scorn upon what they look up to with reverence ; nor presume to trample on that acquired personal nobility, which they intend always to be, and which often is, the fruit, not the reward (for what can be the a With this noble argument, compare Hooker, book vii. p. 231 — 4, vol. iii. edit. 1793, given below in this collection. Religious Establishments. — Church and State. 113 reward?) of learning, piety, and virtue. They can see, without pain or grudging, an archbishop precede a duke. They can see a a bishop of Durham, or a bishop of Winchester, in possession of ten thousand pounds a year ; and cannot conceive why it is in worse hands than estates to the like amount in the hands of this earl, or that squire ; although it may be true, that so many dogs and horses are not kept by the former, and fed with the victuals which ought to nourish the children of the people. It is true, the whole Church-revenue is not always employed, and to every shilling, in charity; nor perhaps ought it; but something is generally so employed. It is better to cherish virtue and hu manity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss to the object, than to attempt to make men mere machines and instru ments of a political benevolence. The world, on the whole, will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist. When once the commonwealth has established the estates of the Church as property, it can, consistently, hear nothing of the more or the less. Too much and too Little are treason against property. What evil can arise from the quantity in any hand, whilst the supreme authority has the full, sovereign superintend ence over this, as over any property, to prevent every species of abuse ; and, whenever it notably deviates, to give to it a direction agreeable to the purposes of its institution ? In England most of us conceive that it is envy and malignity b a What comment ought to be affixed to this passage, since some recent proceedings in parliament (1836), I leave to my reader to determine. b " For some hundreds of years together, they which joined themselves to the Church, were fain to relinquish all worldly emoluments, and to en dure the hardness of an afflicted state. Afterward the Lord gave rest to His Church. Kings and princes became as fathers thereunto. The hearts of all men inclined towards it, and, by His providence, there grew unto it every day earthly possessions in more and more abundance, till the greatness thereof, bred envy, which no diminutions are able to satisfy. For, as those ancient nursing-fathers thought they did never bestow enough ; even so, in the eye of this present age, as long as any thing remaineth, it seemeth to be too much. Our fathers we imitate in perversum, as TertuUian speaketh : like them we are, by being in equal degree the contrary unto that which they were. Unto those earthly blessings which God then did with so great abundance pour down upon the ecclesiastical state, we may, in regard of most near resemblance, apply the selfsame words which the prophet hath : ' God blessed them exceedingly, and by this very mean turned the hearts of their own brethren to hate them, and to deal politically with his servants.' — (Psalm cv. 24, 25.) Computations are made, and there are huge sums set VOL. in. i 114 EDMUND BURKE. towards those who are often the beginners of their own fortune, and not a love of the self-denial and mortification of the ancient Church, that makes some look askance at the distinctions, and honours, and revenues, which, taken from no person, are set apart for virtue. The ears of the people of England are distin guishing. They hear these men speak broad. Their tongue betrays them. Their language is in the patois of fraud ; in the cant and gibberish of hypocrisy. The people of England must think so, when these praters affect to carry back the clergy to that primitive evangelic poverty, which, in the spirit, ought always to exist in them, (and in us too, however we may like it a) but in the thing must be varied, when the relation of that body to the state is altered ; when manners, when modes of Life, when indeed the whole order of human affairs has undergone a total down for princes, to see how much they may amplify and enlarge their own treasure : how many public burdens they may ease : what present means they have to reward their servants about them, if they please but to grant their assent, and to accept of the spoil of bishops, by whom Church goods are but abused unto pomp and vanity. Thus albeit they deal with one, whose princely virtue giveth them small hope to prevail in impious and sacrilegious motions ; yet shame they not to move Her Royal Majesty even with a suit not much unlike that wherewith the Jewish high-priests tried Judas ; whom they solicited unto treason against his Master, and proposed unto him a number of silver pence, in lieu of so virtuous and honest a service." — Hooker, book vii. chap. 24. p. 279, 80. a See Hooker, Preface, chap. iv. § 3. and note, given below in this Col lection. Again : "In plenty and fulness, it may be, we are more forgetful than were requisite. Notwithstanding men should remember how not to the clergy alone it was said by Moses, in Deuteronomy, ' Ne cum manducaveris, et biberis, et domos optimas sedificaveris.' If the remedy prescribed for this disease be good, let it be impartially applied. ' Interest reipublicae ut re sua quisque bene utatur.' Let all states be put to their moderate pensions ; let their livings and lands be taken away from them, whosoever they be, in whom such ample possessions are found to be matters of grievous abuse. Were this just? Would noble families think this reasonable? The title which bishops have to their livings is as good as the title of any sort of men unto whatsoever we account to be most justly held by them. Yea, in this one thing, the claim of bishops hath pre-eminence above all secular titles of right, in that, God's own interest is the tenure whereby they hold ; even as also it was to the priests of the Law an assurance of their spiritual goods and possessions : whereupon, though they many times abused greatly the goods of the Church, yet was not God's patrimony therefore taken away from them, and made saleable unto other tribes." Hooker, book vii. chap. xxiv. p. 282, edit. 1793. Religious Establisliments. — Church and State. 115 revolution, we shall believe those reformers then to be honest enthusiasts, not, as now we think them, cheats, and deceivers, when we see them throwing their own goods into common, and submitting their own persons to the austere discipline of the early church. With these ideas rooted in their minds, the commons of Great Britain, in the national emergencies, will never seek their resource from the confiscation of the estates of the Church and poor. Sacrilege and proscription are not among the ways and means of our committee of supply. The Jews in Change-alley have not yet dared to hint their hopes of a mortgage on the revenues belonging to the see of Canterbury. I am not afraid that I shalL be disavowed, when I assure you, that there is not one public man in this kingdom, whom you would wish to quote, — no, not one, of any party or description, who does not reprobate the dis honest, perfidious, and cruel confiscation which the National Assembly has been compelled to make of that property, which it was their first duty to protect. It is with the exultation of a little national pride I tell you, that those amongst us who have wished to pledge the societies of Paris in the cup of their abominations, have been disappointed. The robbery of your Church has proved a security to the pos sessions of ours. It has roused the people. They see with horror and alarm that enormous and shameless act of proscription. It has opened, and will more and more open, their eyes upon the selfish enlargement of mind, and the narrow liberality of senti ment of insidious men, which, commencing in close hypocrisy and fraud, have ended in open violence and rapine. At home we behold similar beginnings. We are on our guard against similar conclusions. VII. A DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH \ " Dissimilitude in great things is such a thing as draweth great incon venience after it; a thing which Christian religion must always carefully prevent. And the way to prevent it is not, as some do imagine, the yielding up of supreme power over all churches into one only pastor's hands, but the framing of their government, especially for matter of substance, everywhere according to one only law, to stand in no less force than the law of nations doth, to be received in all kingdoms ; all sovereign rulers to be sworn no otherwise unto it, than some are to maintain the liberties, laws, and received customs of the country where they reign. This shall cause uniformity even under several dominions, without those woeful inconveniences whereunto the state of Christendom was subject heretofore, through the tyranny and op pression of that one universal Nimrod, who alone did all. And till the Christian world be driven to enter into the peaceable and true consultation about some such kind of general law, concerning those things of weight and moment wherein now we differ, if one church hath not the same order which another hath, let every church keep as near as may be the order it should have, and commend the just defence thereof unto God ; even as Judah did when it differed in the exercise of religion from that form which Israel followed." — Hooker. One body, and one spirit. — Ephbs. iv. 4. The Unity of the Church is a point which may seem somewhat speculative and remote from practice ; but in right judgments it is otherwise; many duties depending upon a true notion and con sideration of it; so that from ignorance or mistake about it we may incur divers offences or omissions of duty ; hence in holy Scripture it is often proposed as a considerable point, and useful to practice. a From Dr. Isaac Barrow's Works, vol. vi. p. 495 — 549. The Unity of the Church. 117 And if ever the consideration of it were needful, it is so now, when the church is so rent with dissensions; for our satisfaction and direction about the questions and cases debated in Christendom ; for on the explication of it, or the true resolution wherein it doth consist, the controversies about church-government, heresy, schism, liberty of conscience, and, by consequence, many others, do de pend; yea indeed all others are by some parties made to depend thereon. St. Paul, exhorting the Ephesians, his disciples, to the main tenance of charity and peace among themselves, does, for induce ment to that practice, represent the unity and community of those things which jointly did appertain to them as Christians : the unity of *that body whereof they were members ; of that Spirit which did animate and act them ; of that hope to which they were called; of that Lord whom they all did worship and serve; of that faith which they did profess ; of that baptism whereby they were admitted into the same state of duties, of rights, of privi leges ; of that one God and universal Father, to whom they had all the same relations. He begins with the unity of the body ; that is, of the Christian church ; concerning which unity, what it is, and wherein it does consist, I mean now to discourse. In order to clearing which point, we must first state what the church is, of which we discourse; for the word church is am biguous, having both in holy Scripture, and common use, divers senses, somewhat different : For, 1. Sometimes any assembly or company of Christians is called a church; as when mention is made of the church in such a house1, (whence TertuUian says, " Where there are three, even laics, there is a church V) 2. Sometimes a particular society of Christians, living in spi ritual communion, and under discipline ; as when, the church at such a town 3 ; the churches of such a province 4 ; the churches, all the churches 6, are mentioned : according to which notions St. 1 Rom. xvi. 5. Col. iv. 15. Philem. 2. 2 Ubi tres, ecclesia est, licet laici. Tertull. de Exh. Cast. cap. 7- 3 Acts viii. 1. xiv. 27. v. 11. 1 Cor. i. 1. Col. iv. 16. 1 Thess. i. 1. 2 Cor. i. 1. Apoc. ii. 1, &c. Rom. xvi. 1. 4 Acts ix. 31. Gal. i. 2. 1 Cor. xvi. 1. 19- 2 Cor. viii. 1. » Rom. xvi. 4. 1 Cor. iv. 17- xi. J6. Acts xvi. 5. Apoc. ii. 7- H- Kar' 'EiacXncriav, Acts xiv. 23. 118 DR. ISAAC BARROW. Cyprian says, " that there is a church where there is a people united to a priest, and a flock adhering to their shepherd 1:" and so Ignatius says, " that without the orders of the clergy a church is not called3." 3. A larger collection of divers particular societies combined together in order, under the direction and influence of a common government, or of persons acting in the public behalf, is termed a church; as the church of Antioch, of Corinth, of Jerusalem, &c. each of which at first probably might consist of divers congrega tions, having dependencies of less towns annexed to them; all being united under the care of the bishop and presbytery of those places ; but, however, soon after the Apostles' times, it is certain that such collections were, and were named churches.. 4. The society of those who at present do, or in course of time shall profess the faith and gospel of Christ, and undertake the evangelical covenant, in distinction to all other religions; parti cularly to that of the Jews, which is called the synagogue 3. 5. The whole body of God's people that is, ever has been, or ever shall be, from the beginning of the world to the consumma tion thereof, who having (formally or virtually) believed in Christ, and sincerely obeyed God's laws, shall finally by the meritorious performances and sufferings of Christ be saved, is called the church. Of these acceptions the two latter do only come under pre sent consideration; it being plain that St. Paul does not speak of any one particular or present society, but of all at all times who have relation to the same Lord, faith, hope, sacraments, &c. Wherefore, to determine the case between these two, we must observe that to the latter of these a (that is, to the Catholic society of true believers and faithful servants of Christ, diffused through all ages, dispersed through all countries, whereof part does sojourn on earth, part does reside in heaven, part is not yet extant : but all whereof is described in the register of divine pre ordination 4, and shall be recollected at the resurrection of the just; that, I say, to this church especially) all the glorious titles 1 Ecclesia, plebs sacerdoti adunata, et pastori suo grex adhasrens. Cypr. Ep. 69. 2 Xwpic tovtiov 'EnicKnaia oi> KaXurai. Ignat. ad Trail. 3 Matt. xvi. 18. Eph. iii. 10. Gal. i. 13. 1 Tim. iii. 15. Acts xii. 1. ji. 47. xx. 28. 1 Cor. x. 32. xii. 28. xv. 9. xiv. 12. 8 See Hooker, book iii. chap. i. < Eph. i, 10. The Unity of the Church. 119 and excellent privileges attributed to the church in holy Scripture do agree. This is " the body of Christ," whereof He is " the head \" and Saviour. This is the spouse, and wife of Christ ; whereof He is the bride groom and husband 2. This is the house of God, whereof our Lord is the master; which is " built upon a rock, so that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it 3." This is " the city of God ; the new, the holy, the heavenly Jerusalem, the mother of us all V This is the " Sion, which the Lord hath chosen, which he hath desired for his habitation," where He hath resolved to " place his rest and residence for ever 5." This is " the mountain of the Lord, seated above all mountains, unto which all nations shall flow 6." This is "the elect generation, royal priesthood, holy nation, peculiar people 7." This is " the general assembly, and church of the first-born, who are enrolled in heaven 8." This is " the church which God hath purchased with his own blood9;" and, " for which Christ hath delivered himself, that he might sanctify it, and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, nor any such thing ; but that it might be holy and unblemished10." To this church, as those high eulogies most properly do apper tain, so that unity which is often attributed to the church does peculiarly belong thereto. This is that " one body, into which we are all baptized by one Spirit;" which is " knit together, and compacted of parts affording mutual aid, and supply to its nourishment and encrease " ;" the 1 Col. i. 18. 20. 2 Eph. v. 25. 32. Apoc. xix. 7. Matt. xxii. 2. xxv. i. 3 Matt. xxiv. 13. 1 Tim. iii. 15. Heb. iii. 5. 1 Pet. ii. 5. Eph. ii. 21. Matt. xvi. 18. 4 Apoc. iii. 12. xxi. 2. 10. Gal. iv. 26. Heb. xii. 22. 5 Psal. cxxxii. 13. 6 Isa. ii. 22. Mic. iv. 1. 7 1 Pet. ii. 9. 8 Heb. xii. 23. 9 Acts xx. 28. 10 Eph. v. 25. " 1 Cor. xii. 13. Rom. xii. 5. Eph. iv. 16. Col. ii. 19. 120 DR. ISAAC BARROW. members whereof do hold a mutual sympathy and complacence1; which is joined to one head, deriving sense and motion from it; which is enlivened, and moved by " one Spirit V This is that " one spiritual house, reared upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." This is that one family of God, whereof Christ is the Oko- oW7^o^lJe• whence good Christians are oIkeToi Qeov 3. This is that one city, or corporation, endued with an ample charter and noble privileges, in regard to which St. Paul says we are o-v/xiroXtTai W5v 'Ayiatv, (fellow citizens of the saints,) and that our TroXirEv/xa (our civil state and capacity) is in heaven, or that we are citizens thereof*. , That one holy nation and peculiar people, (the spiritual Israel,) subject to the same government and law, (that which is called the kingdom of Heaven,) enjoying the same franchises and pri vileges, following the same customs and fashions ; using the same conversation and language ; whereof Jesus Christ is the Lord and King 5. This is the " one flock, under one shepherd 6." This is the society of those, for whom Christ did pray, that they might " be all one 7." It is true, that divers of these characters are expressed to relate to the church after Christ; but they may be allowed to extend to all the faithful servants of God before, who in effect were Christians, being saved upon the same account a : and therefore did belong to the same body 8. i 1 Cor. xii. 26. 3 1 Cor. xii. 13. 3 Heb. iii. 6. 1 Tim. iii. 15. Matt. x. 25. 4 Heb. xii. 22. Apoc. iii. 12. xxi. 2. 10. Eph. ii. 19. Phil. iii. 20. 5 1 Pet. ii. 9- Ezek. xxxvii. 22. 6 John x. 16. Ezek. xxxvii. 24. xxiv. 23. i John xvii. 20, 21. a Compare Hooker, book i. chap. xiv. § 4. above, vol. i. p. 172, 3, and note. 8 Ex quo vocantur sancti, est ecclesia in terra. Aug. in Psal. cxxviii. " Since men are called saints, there is a church upon earth." — Sancti ante legem, sancti sub lege, sancti sub gratia, omnes hi perficientes corpus Domini in membris sunt ecclesias constituti. Greg. Mag. Epist. iv. 24. " Saints before the law, saints under the law, saints under the Gospel, all these make up the body of Christ, and are reckoned among the members of the church." Tfie Unity of the Church. 121 To this church in a more especial and eminent manner all those titles, and particularly that of unity, are ascribed; but the same also, in some order and measure, do belong and are attributed to the universal church sojourning upon earth. For because this visible church does enfold the other, (as one mass does contain the good ore and base alloy ' ; as one floor the corn and the chaff; as one field the wheat and the tares; as one net the choice fish and the refuse 2 ; as one fold the sheep and the goats ; as one tree the living and the ' dry branches 3 : ) because this society is designed to be in reality what it is in appearance, the same with the other: because therefore pre sumptively every member of this doth pass for a member of the other, (the time of distinction and separation not being yet come * :) because this in its profession of truth, in its sacrifices of devotion, in its practice of service and duty to God does com municate with that : therefore commonly the titles and attributes of the one are imparted to the other. " All," says St. Paul, " are not Israel who are of Israel;" nor " is he a Jew, that is one outwardly 5 ;" yet in regard to the con junction of the rest with " the faithful Israelites;" because of ex ternal consent in the same profession and conspiring in the same services, all the congregation of Israel is styled a holy nation and peculiar people 6. So Likewise do the Apostles speak to all members of the church as to elect and holy persons, unto whom all the privileges of Christianity do belong ; although really hypocrites and bad men do not belong to the church, nor are concerned in its unity, as St. Austin does often teach 7. 1 " One great house hath vessels of honour and dishonour," 2 Tim. ii. 20. (Rom. ix. 21.) 2 Matt. iii. 12. xiii. 38. 47- 3 John xv. 2. * Matt. xiii. 30. * Rom. ix. 6. ii. 28. John i. 18. 6 Sicut lilium in medio spinarum, ita proxima mea in medio filiarum. Unde filias appellat, nisi propter communionem sacramentorum ? Aug. de Unit. Eccl. cap. 13. " As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. Why doth he call them daughters, but for the communion and agreement in sacraments ?" 7 Non ad eam pertinent avari, raptores, fceneratores. Videntur esse in ecclesia, non sunt. Aug. de Bapt. c Don. iv. 1. vi. 3. Ecclesiam veram in- telligere non audeo nisi in Sanctis et justis. Aug. de Bapt. v. 27. " I dare not understand the true church to be but among holy and righteous men." Pax autem hujus unitatis in solis bonis est. Sicut autem isti qui intus cum 122 DR. ISAAC BARROW. The places therefore of Scripture which do represent the church one, as unquestionably they belong (in their principal notion and intent) to the true universal church1, (called the church mystical and invisible;) so may they by analogy and par ticipation be understood to concern the visible Church Catholic here in earth; which professes faith in Christ, and obedience to His laws. And of this church" (under due reference to the other) the gemitu tolerantur, quamvis ad eandem columbae unitatem et illam gloriosam ecclesiam, non habentem maculam aut rugam, aut aliquid ejusmodi non per- tineant. Aug. de Bapt. iii. 18. Nee regenerati spiritualiter in corpus et membra Christi co-aedificentur nisi boni, &c. Idem de Unit. 18. Multi tales sunt in sacramentorum communione cum ecclesia, et tamen jam non sunt in ecclesia. Idem de Unit. Eccl. cap. xx. " There are many such who communicate in sacraments with the church, and yet they are not in the church." Omnes mali spiritualiter a bonis sejuncti sunt. De Bapt. vi. 4. " All evil men are spiritually severed from the good." 1 ' EtcKknaiav koKZ rb aBpoiafja rwv IkXcktuiv. Clem. Alex. Str. vii. p. 514. " I call the church the congregation of the elect." a " That Church of Christ, which we properly term His body mystical, can be but one ; neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man, in asmuch as the parts thereof are some in heaven already with Christ, and the rest that are on earth (albeit their natural persons be visible) we do not dis cern under this property, whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body. Only, our minds, by intellectual conceit, are able to apprehend that such a real body there is ; a body collective, because it containeth a huge multitude; a body mystical, because the mystery of their conjunction is removed alto gether from sense. Whatsoever we read in Scripture concerning the endless love and the saving mercy which God showeth towards His church, the only proper subject thereof is this church. Concerning this flock it is that our Lord and Saviour hath promised, ' I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hands.' (John x. 28.) They who are of this society have such marks and notes of distinction from all others, as are not objects unto our sense; only unto God, who seeth their hearts, and understandeth all their secret cogitations, unto Him they are clear and manifest. All men knew Nathaniel to be an Israelite. But our Saviour piercing deeper, giveth further testimony of him than men could have done with such certainty as he did ; ' Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.' (John i. 47.) If we profess, as Peter did, that we love the Lord (John xxi. 15.), and profess it in the hearing of men ; charity is prone to believe all things, and therefore charitable men are likely to think we do so, as long as they see no proof to the contrary. But that our love is sound and sincere, that it cometh from ' a pure heart, a good conscience, and a faith unfeigned,' (1 Tim. i. 5.) who can pronounce, saving only the Searcher of all men's hearts, who alone intuitively doth know in this kind who are His ? And as those everlasting promises of love, mercy, and The Unity of the Church. 123 question is, wherein the unity of it does consist, or upon what grounds it is called one ; being that it comprises in itself so many persons, societies, and nations. For resolution of which question, we may consider, that a blessedness belong to the mystical church ; even so, on the other side, when we read of any duty which the Church of God is bound unto, the church whom this doth concern is a sensible known company. And this visible church, in like sort, is but one, continued from the first beginning of the world to the last end. Which company being divided into two moieties, the one before, the other since the coming of Christ ; that part which since the coming of Christ, partly hath embraced, and partly shall hereafter embrace the Christian Religion, we term, as by a more proper name, the Church of Christ. And therefore the Apostle affirmeth plainly of all men Christian, that, be they Jews or gentiles, bond or free, they are all incorporated into one company, they all make but " one body." The unity of which visible body and Church of Christ consisteth in that uniformity which all several persons thereunto belonging have, by reason of that ' one Lord,' whose servants they all profess themselves ; that ' one faith,' which they all ac knowledge ; that ' one baptism,' wherewith they are all initiated. The visi ble Church of Jesus Christ is therefore one, in outward profession of those things which supernaturally appertain to the very essence of Christianity, and are necessarily required in every Christian man." Hooker, book iii. chap. i. Again, " By the church, therefore, in this question, we understand no other than only the visible church. For preservation of Christianity there is> not any thing more needful, than that such as are of the visible church have mutual fellowship and society one with another. In which consideration, as the main body of the sea, being one, yet within divers precincts hath divers names; so the Catholic Church is in like sort divided into a number of distinct societies, every one of which is termed a church within itself. In this sense the church is always a visible society of men ; not an assembly, but a society : that is, a number of men belonging unto some Christian fellowship, the place and limits whereof are certain. That wherein they have communion, is the public exercise of such duties as those mentioned in the Apostles' Acts, ' instruction, breaking of bread, and prayer.' (Acts ii, 47.) As, therefore, they that are of the mystical body of Christ have those inward graces and virtues wherein they differ from all others which are not of the same body : again, whosoever appertain to the visible body of the church, they have also the notes of external profession, whereby the world knoweth what they are : after the same manner, even the several societies of Christian men, unto every of which the name of church is given, with addition betokening severalty, as the Church of Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, England, and the rest; must be endued with correspondent general properties belonging unto them as they are public Christian societies. And of such properties, common unto all societies Christian, it may not be denied that one of the very chiefest is ecclesiastical polity." Ibid. chap. i. 124 DR. ISAAC BARROW. community of men may be termed one upon several accounts and grounds; as, For specifical unity of nature, or as unum genus ; so are all men one by participation of common rationaLity ; to avSpwirivov, humanum genus. For cognation of blood ; as, gens una ; so are all Jews, how ever living dispersedly over the world, reckoned one nation, or people ; so all kinsmen do constitute one family : and thus also all men, as made of one blood, are one people. For commerce of language; so Italians, and Germans, are esteemed one people, although living under different laws and governments. For consent in opinion, or conformity in manners and prac tices ; as, men of the same sect in religion or philosophy, of the same profession, faculty, trade ; so Jews, Mahometans, Arians ; so orators, grammarians, logicians; so divines, lawyers, phy sicians, merchants, artisans, rustics, &c. For affection of mind, or compacts of good-will ; or for Links of peace and amicable correspondence ; in order to mutual interest and aid ; as friends and confederates. For being ranged in order under one law and rule ; as those, who Live under one monarchy, or in one commonwealth ; as the people in England, Spain, France; in Venice, Genoa, Holland, * &c. Upon such grounds of unity or union a society of men is de nominated one ; and, upon divers such accounts, it is plain that the catholic church may be said to be one. For, I. It is evident, that the church is one by consent in faith and opinion concerning all principal matters of doctrine ', especially in those which have considerable influence upon the practice of piety toward God, righteousness toward men, and sobriety of conversation; to " teach us which the grace of God did appear V As he that should in any principal doctrine differ from Plato (denying the immortality of the soul, the providence of God, the natural difference of good and evil3,) would not be a Platonist; so he that dissenteth from any doctrine of importance, manifestly taught by Christ, does renounce Christianity. 1 " My sheep hear my voice." John x. 27. 16. 2 Tit. ii. 12. 3 Regula fidei sola immobilis et irreformabilis. Tert. de Virg. vel. 1. The Unity of the Church. 125 All Christians are delivered into one form of doctrine ', to which they must stiffly and stedfastly adhere, keeping the depositum committed to them " : they must strive together for the faith of the gospel3; and, earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints 4 : they must hold fast the form of sound words — in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus"; that great salvation, which at first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto them by His hearers, God also bearing them wit ness with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will. They are bound to mind 6, or think, one and the same thing 7 ; to stand fast in one spirit with one mind ; to walk by the same rule 8 ; to be joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment 9 ; with one mind and mouth to glorify God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 10. They are obliged to disclaim consortship with the gainsayers of this doctrine ; to stand off from those who do trepoSoScTv ", or who do not consent to the wholesome words — of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness 12; to mark those who make divisions and scandals beside the doctrine which Christians had learnt, and to decline from them 13 : to reject heretics ", to beware of false prophets, of seducers ; of those who speak perverse things to draw disciples after them 15 : to pro nounce anathema upon whoever shall preach any other doctrine 16. Thus are all Christians one in Christ Jesus : thus are they (as Tertullian speaketh17) confederated in the society of a sacrament, or of one profession. This preaching and this faith the church having received, though dispersed over the world, does carefully hold ; as inhabiting one house ; and alike believeth these things as if it had one soul, and 1 Rom. vi. 17. 2 Col. ii. 7. Heb. iii. 6. xiii. 9. 1 Cor. xv. 58. Eph. iv. 14. 3 Phil. i. 27. 4 Jude 3. 5 2 Tim. i. 13. Heb.ii. 3. c To 'iv Kai avrb Qpovtiv. 7 Phil. ii. 2. 2 Cor. xiii. 1 1 . s Phil. i. 27. iii. 16. 9 1 Cor. i. 10. 10 Rom. xv. 16. n ' AQiaraoQai. " 1 Tim. vi. 4. 2 Thess.iii. 16. 13 Rom. xvi. 17- u Tit. iii. 10. 13 Matt. vii. 15.-xxiv. 11. Actsxx. 29. 30. 2 Pet. ii. 1. Eph. iv. 14. 16 Gal. i. 8. iii. 28. (26.) 17 De societate sacramenti confcederantur. Tertull. in Marc 4. 5. 126 DR. ISAAC BARROW. the same heart, and consonantly does preach, and teach, and de liver these things, as if it had but one mouth 1. As for kings2, though their kingdoms be divided, yet He equally expects from every one of them one dispensation, and one and the same sacrifice of a true confession and praise. So that, though there may seem to be a diversity of temporal ordi nances, yet an unity and agreement in the right faith may be held and maintained among them. In regard to this union in faith peculiarly the body of Chris tians, adhering to it, was called the Catholic Church, from which all those were esteemed ipso facto to be cut off and separated who in any point deserted that faith ; such a one (says Saint Paul) e^Eo-TpaiTTai, is turned aside, or has left the Christian way of life. He in reality is no Christian, nor is to be avowed or treated as such, but is to be disclaimed, rejected, and shunned 3. He (says Saint Cyprian) cannot seem a Christian, who does not persist in the unity of Christ's gospel and faith 4. If (says TertuUian) a man be a heretic, he cannot be a Chris tian 5. Whence Hegesippus says of the old heretics, that they did di vide the unity of the church by pernicious speeches against God, and his Christ 6. The virtue (said the pastor Hermas, cited by Clemens Alexan- drinus,) which does keep the church together, is faith 7. 1 Touro to Krjpvyua irapti\t}ipvXa, Kai Tavrtjv rijv iriariv ¦>) 'E/e/cXjjo-ia Kaincp iv oKip r(p Koafiqi Sieairapukvn eTrifitkuig fyvXaoan wg 'iva oIkov oi/cou)v avTt)v %xovaa Kapiiav Kai avpfiiviog ravra Krtpvaau Kai SiSdaKU, Kai irapadiSojci, wc tv aropa KiKTnpkvn. Iren. i. 3. (apud Epiph. Hser. 31.) 2 Reges — Quorum etsi divisa sunt regna, sequaliter tamen de singulis dis, pensationem exigit, unamque de eis vera? de se confessionis hostiam laudis exspectat — ut etsi dispositionum temporalium videatur esse diversitas, circa ejus fidei rectitudinem unitatis consonantia teneatur. (P. Leo 2. Epist. 5. ad ErvigiumR. Hisp.) 3 'EUorpairTai 6 rotoiiroc, Tit. iii. 10. Rom. xvi. 17. 2 John 10. 4 Nee Christianus videri potest, qui non permanet in Evangelii ejus et fidei veritate. Cypr. de Unit. Eccl. 5 Si haeretici sunt, Christiani esse non possunt. Tert. de Preescr. c. 37. 6 O'lnvtg tjiipiaav t>)v ivoiaiv rrjg 'EicicXjjtriac fBopipaioig Xoyoic Kara rov Geov, Kai Kara tov Xpwrou airov. Euseb. Hist. iv. 22. 7 'H avvhxovaa rtjv "EKK\r)aiav aptr?), r/ Uiang tari. Herm. apud Clem. Strom, ii. p. 281. The Unity of the Church. 127 So the fathers of the sixth council tell the emperor that they were members one of another, and did constitute the one body of Christ by consent in opinion with him, and one another ; and bv faith1. 3 We ought in all things to hold the unity of the Catholic Church ; and not to yield in any thing to the enemies of faith and truth2. In each part of the world this faith is one, because this is the Christian faith 3. He denies Christ, who confesses not all things that are Christ's 4. Hence in common practice, whoever did appear to differ from the common faith, was rejected as an apostate from Christianity, and unworthy the communion of other Christians. There are points of less moment, more obscurely delivered — in which Christians without breach of unity may dissent, about which they may dispute, in which they may err — without breach of unity, or prejudice to charity s. The faith of Christians did at first consist in few points, those which were professed in baptism, whereof we have divers sum maries in the ancients6 — by analogy whereto all other propo sitions were expounded, and according to. agreement whereto sound doctrines were distinguished from false: so that he was accounted orthodox who did not violate them — So he that holds that immovable rule of truth which he received at his baptism, will know the words and sayings and parables which are taken out of the Scriptures, &c. 7 II. It is evident, that all Christians are united by the bands of mutual charity and good-will. 1 Mekwv aX\i]\o)v ovtoiv r)fj.S)V, Kai rb 'iv aS>p,a avviOTibvTtav Xptorov Sid. rrjg 7rpbg avrbv Kai d\Ki)\ovg bjioSo^iag Kai irioTtuig. Cone. vi. Act. 18. p. 271. 2 Per omnia debemus Ecclesia? Catholicse Unitatem tenere, nee in aliquo fidei et veritatis hostibus cedere. Cypr. Ep. 71. (ad Quint, de Steph. P.) 3 Utriusque partis terrarum fides ista una est, quia et fides ista Christiana est. Aug. c. Jul. i. 2. (p. 203. 2.) 4 Negat Christum, qui non omnia quas Christi sunt confitetur. Ambr. in Luc. lib. iv. cap. 9. p. 90. (Vid. p. 85.) 5 Alia sunt in quibus inter se aliquando etiam doctissimi atque optimi regulae Catholicse defensores, salva, fidei compage non consonant, &c. Aug. c. Jul. i. 2. p. 205. 5 Iren. i. 2. 7 Sic autem qui regulam veritatis immobilem apud se habet quam per bap- tismum accepit, hsec quidem quse sunt ex Scripturis nomina et dictiones et parabolas cognoscet, &c. Iren. i. 1. vid. Gr. (p. 4.) 7 128 DR. ISAAC BARROW. They are bound to wish one another well, to have a compla cence in the good, and a compassion of the evils incident to each other, to discharge all offices of kindness, succour, consolation to each other. This is the command of Christ to all ; " This is my command ment," says He, " that ye love one another 1 ;" this is the common badge by which His disciples are discerned and distinguished. " Hereby," says He, " shall all men know that ye are my dis ciples, if ye love one another2 :" they must have the same love 3 : they must love as brethren, be compassionate, pitiful, courteous each to other 4 : they must bear one anothers' burthens ; and, especially, as they have opportunity, do good to the household of faith5. If one member suffer, all the members must suffer with it " ; and if one member be honoured, all the members must rejoice. " The multitude of them who believe must be (like that in the Acts) of one heart, and of one soul 7." They must " walk in love, and do all things in love 8." Whoever therefore does highly offend against charity, malign ing or mischiefing his brethren, does thereby separate himself from Christ's body, and cease to be a Christian. " They that are enemies to brotherly charity, whether they are openly out of the Church, or seem to be within, they are pseudo- Christians and anti-Christs. When they seem to be within the Church, they are separated from that invisible conjunction of charity ; whence St. John, " They went out from us, but were not of us. He saith not, that by their going out they were made aliens, but because they were aliens, therefore he declareth that they went out 9." Wherefore the most notorious violations of charity being the causing of dissensions and factions in the church, the causeless separation from any church, the unjust condemnation of churches ; whoever was guilty of any such unchristian behaviour was 1 John xv. 12. 1 John iii. 11.1 Thess. iv. 9- 2 John xiii. 35. 3 Phil. ii. 2. 4 1 Pet. iii. 8. 5 Gal. vi. 2. 10. 6 l Cor. xii. 26. 7 Acts iv. 32. s Eph. v. 2. 1 Cor. xvi. 14. 9 Hujus autem fraternas charitatis inimici sive aperte foris sint, sive intus esse videantur, Pseudo-christiani sunt et Anti-christi. Aug. de Bapt. iii. 19, Cum intus videntur, ab ilia invisibili charitatis compage separati sunt ; unde Johannes, (1 John ii. 19.) ex nobis exierunt, sed non erant ex nobis. Non ait quod exeundo alieni facti sunt, sed quod alieni erant, propter hoc eos exisse declaravit. Ibid. The Unity of the Church. 129 rejected by the Fathers, and held to be no Christian. Such were the Novatians, the Donatists, the Meletians, the Luci- ferians, and other schismatics. " For what can be more acceptable and pleasant than to see those who are severed and scattered into so many places, yet knit and joined together in the bond and union of charity as harmoni ous members of the body of Christ l." " In old time, when the church of God flourished, being rooted in the same faith, united in love ; there being as it were one con spiracy or league of different members in one body 2." " For the communion of the Spirit is wont to knit and unite men's minds, which conjunction we believe to be between us and your charitable affection 3." " They therefore who by the bond of charity are incorporated into the building settled upon the rock V " But the members of Christ are joined together by the charity of union, and by the same cleave close to their head, which is Christ 5." III. AIL Christians are united by spiritual cognation and alli ance ; as being all " regenerated by the same incorruptible seed, being alike born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God ; whence, as the sons of God, and brethren of Christ 6," they become brethren one to another ; so that it is a peculiar title or appellation of Christians, " the breth ren" signifying all Christian people; and "a brother" being the same with a Christian professor 7." 1 Tt yap av ykvotro xa9^ffTiPov, V rovg Toffovrtp Tip irXriQti tojv tottiov Siupy- psvovg ry Sid rrjg aydirng hv&ffu icaQopqv elg piav fieXiov dpfioviav iv ffbtfjaTi Xpitrrou SeSitrOai. Bas. Ep. 220. 2 'Evi r&v dpxaiwv KaipSv r\v'iKa i)v9ovv at 'EKKXnaiai rov Qtov lppi£o)- pkvai Ty 7riffTU, »/2>Wjuei>ai ry dydlry' biGirtp iv ivi (j^taan pidg ffvpirvoiag Sia- piXEia ipirouTv iritpVKS ttjv oiKiiitxyiv, r\v ypXv tlvai irpbg t>)v dydirriv vpuiv ¦KnriaTivKaptv. Bas. Epist. 182. 4 Qui ergo compage Charitatis incorporati sunt sedificio super petram con stitute, &c. Aug. de Unit. cap. 18. 5 Membra vero Christi per unitatis charitatem sibi copulantur, et per ean- dem capiti suo cohasrent, quod est Christus. Aug. de Unit. cap. 2. Omnes sancti sibi charitate cohaarent. Aug. de Bapt. vi. 3. 6 1 Pet. i. 23. James i. 18. John i. 14. Gal. iii. 26. John i. 12. Heb. ii. 10, 11. 7 1 Cor. vii. 15. v. 11. Rom. xiv. 10, &c. VOL. III. K 130 DR. ISAAC BARROW. IV. The whole Christian church is one by its incorporation into the mystical body of Christ; or as fellow-subjects of that spi ritual, heavenly kingdom, whereof Christ is the sovereign Head and Governor; whence they are governed by the same laws, are obhged by the same institutions and sanctions ; they partake of the same privileges, and are entitled to the same promises, and encouraged by the same rewards 1 ; (" being called in one hope of their calling V) So they make up one spiritual corporation or repubLic, whereof Christ is the Sovereign Lord3. " Though the place disjoin them, yet the Lord joins them together, being their common Lord 4," &c. Hence a habit of disobedience does sever a man from this body ; for, " not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven 5," or continue therein. Every such person who " denieth God in works 6" is a rebel, an outlaw, re nouncing his allegiance, forfeiting his title to God's protection and favour. He is not " a sheep" of Christ, because he does not " hear his ¦ 7 J) voice . He is separated from the body, by not " holding the head 8." " 'Tis a lie to call one's self a Christian, and not to do the works of Christ V " He that does not the work of a Christian name seems not to be a Christian 10." " When instead of the works themselves he begins to oppose even the most apparent truth, whereby he is reproved, then he is cut off (from the body, or the church ")." 1 They are under a covenant of allegiance. 2 Eph. iv. 4. a 'O ydp avrbg Kvpiog irdvriitv. Rom. x. 12. 4 Ei St b Toirog x&ipi&i, dXX' b Kipwg avrovg ovvdirTEi xoivbg w, &c. Chrys. in 1 Cor. Orat. 1. Vid. s Matt. vii. 21. « Tit. i. 16. 7 Qui eum non sequitur, quomodo se ovem ejus dicere audebit ? Aug. de Unit. Eccl. cap. 10. John x. 27. 3 Col. ii. 19. 9 Mendacium est, Christianum se dicere, et opera Christi non facere. Ambr. " Qui Christiani nominis opus non agit, Christianus non esse videtur. Sato, de Gub. D. 4. 11 Cum pro ipsis operibus etiam veritati apertissimse, qua, redarguitur, resistere cceperit, tunc prseciditur. Aug. de Unit. Eccl. cap. 20. Tlie Unity of the Church. 131 Hence St. Austin often denies wicked persons to be in the church, or to appertain unto its unity '. " For when there is one and the same Lord that dwelleth in us, he every where joins and couples those that are his with the bond of unity2." V. All Christians are linked together in peaceable concord and confederacy ; so that they are bound to live in good correspond ence ; to communicate in works of piety and devotion ; to defend and promote the common interest of their profession. Upon the entrance of the gospel by our Lord's incarnation, it was by a celestial herald proclaimed, " Peace on earth, and good will among men 3." It was our Lord's office " to preach peace \" It was a principal end and effect of His death, " to reconcile all men, and to destroy enmity 5." He specially charged His disci ples, EiprivEvEiv iv aXXriXoig, " to maintain peace one with ano ther 6." It was His will at parting with them, " Peace I leave with you 7." The apostles frequently do enjoin to " pursue peace with all them who call upon the Lord with a pure heart " ;': to follow the things " which make for peace and edification mutual ; to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace °." It was in the prophecies concerning the evangelical state declared, that under it, " The wolf should dwell with the Lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the sucking child should play on the hole of the asp 10 ;" that is, that men of all tempers and conditions, by virtue of this institution, should be disposed to live innocently, quietly, and lovingly together ; so that they should " not hurt or destroy in all God's holy moun tain;" for that would be a duty incumbent on the disciples of this institution, which all good Christians would observe. The evangelical covenant, as it does ally us to God, so it does confederate us together. The sacraments of this covenant are 1 Vide supra. 2 Nam quum Dominus unus atque idem sit, qui habitat in nobis, conjun- git ubique et copulat suos vinculo unitatis. Firmil. apud Cypr. Ep. 75. 3 Luke ii. 14. 4 Acts x. 36. Eph. ii. 17. 5 Col. i. 20. Eph. ii. 14. 6 Mark ix. 50. 7 John xiv. 27. " 2 Tim. ii. 22. 9 Rom. xiv. 19- Eph. iv. 3. 10 Isaiah xi. 6. lxv. 25. lxvi. 12. ii. 4. They shall learn war no more, k2 132 DR. ISAAC BARROW. also symbols of peace and amity between those who undertake it. Of baptism it is said, " that so many of you as have been bap tized into Christ have put on Christ," and thence, " ye are all one in Christ Jesus. — All in one Spirit have been baptized into one body V And in the Eucharist, by partaking of one indi vidual food, they are transmuted into one body and substance ; " We," (says St. Paul) " being many are one bread, one body ; for all of us do partake of one bread 2." " By which sacraments also our people appear to be united : for as many grains collected, and ground, and mingled together make one bread, so in Christ, who is the bread of heaven, we may know ourselves to be one body, that our company or number be conjoined and united together3." " With us there is both one church, and one mind, and undi vided concord *." " Let us hold the peace of the Catholic Church in the unity of concord 6." "The bond of concord remaining, and the individual sacra ment of the Catholic Church continuing 6," &c. " He therefore that keeps neither the unity of the Spirit, nor the conjunction of peace, and separates himself from the bond of the Church, and the college (or society) of priests, can have nei ther the power of a bishop, nor the honour 7." Thus in general. But particularly, All Christians should assist one another in the common defence of truth, piety, and peace, when they are assaulted, in the propagation of the faith, and enlargement of the Church; which is avvaOXeiv ry iriarEi rov EvayyEXiov, " to contend together for the faith of the Gos- 1 Gal. iii. 27, 28. 1 Cor. xii. 13. 2 1 Cor. x. 7. 3 Quo et ipso sacramento populus noster adunatus ostenditur : ut quemad modum grana multa in unum collecta, et commolita, et commixta panem unum faciunt ; sic in Christo, qui est panis coelestis, unum sciamus esse cor pus, cui conjunctus sit "noster numerus et adunatus. Cyp. Ep. 63. * Nobis et ecclesia una, et mens juncta, et individua concordia. Cypr. Ep. 57- 5 Catholicse ecclesiae pacem concordise unitate teneamus Ep. 45. 6 Manente concordise vinculo, et perseverante catholicse ecclesiae individuo sacramento, &c. Ep. 52. (ad Anton, p. 96.) ' Qui ergo nee unitatem Spiritus, nee conjunctionem pacis observat, et se ab ecclesise vinculo, atque a sacerdotum collegio separat, episcopi nee potes tatem potest habere, nee honorem, &c. Ibid. p. 97. The Unity of the Church. 133 pel ; to be good soldiers of Christ ; warring the good warfare ; striving for the faith once delivered to the saints 1." Hence if any where any heresy or bad doctrine should arise, all Christians should be ready to declare against it ; that it may not infect or spread a doubt arising, as in the case of celebrating Easter : " They all, with one consent, declared by letters the decree of the Church to all every where 2." Especially the pastors of the Churches are obliged with con sent to oppose it 3. " While we laboured here, and withstood the force of envy with the whole strength of our faith, your speech assisted us very much4." Thus did the bishops of several Churches meet to suppress the heresy of P. Samosatenus. This was the ground of most synods. " So they who afterward in all places and several ways were gathered together against the innovations of heretics, gave their common opinion in behalf of the faith, as being of one mind: what they had approved among themselves in a brotherly way, that they clearly transferred to those who were absent : and they who at the Council of Sardis had earnestly contended against the remainders of Arius, sent their judgment to those of the eastern Churches: and they who had then discovered the infection of Apolinarius, made their opinions known to the western 5." If any dissention or faction does arise in any Church, other Churches, upon notice thereof, should yield their aid to quench and suppress it; countenancing the peaceable, checking and disavowing the factious. Thus did St. Cyprian help to discountenance and quash the Novatian schism 6. 1 Phil. i. 17. 1 Tim. i. 18. vi. 12. 2 Tim. iv. 7. Jude 3. 2 Tlavng Tt flia yviapy Si IkhttoXuiv 'EKKXrjoiaanKbv Aoy/ia roig iravraxoot Sutvttovvto. Euseb. v. 23. 3 Cypr. Ep. 67. 4 Laborantes hie nos et contra invidise impetum totis fidei viribus resist- entes, multum sermo vester adjuvit, &c. Cypr. Ep. 23. 5 Ovnag oi ptTd ravra vavraxn voiKiXwg iirl roXg tSjv AiptTiK&v dBpoiaeevreg Kaividjiaoi KOivfiv ug ire/^tix0' T,)v i7"P "JS ™viav airoSiSpdoKiav pi) XavQavkni vjjSiv rrjv dicpi- fitiav ¦Kaang iavrbv rfjg 'EKKXnoiag aTroppijyvvg. Bas. Ep. 75. 4 Elra rrjg uiydXr\g Kai 8toi\ovg KuvoTavTivovwoXewg iwij3dg ovk tig 'EkkXi/- ffiav i%rjXSr£ Kard rb eiwQbg, Kai rbv aviodev Kparr)aavTa Oeo'^bv ovx vpiv ffvvt- y'evero, oil Aoyov /lerkSaKiv, o&K Eixrjg, oi Koivoiviag, dXX' dirojidg roil irXoiov, &c. Chrys. ad Innoc. P. (Ep. 122.) 5 'Ev ry 'EKKXnaia irapexdipi^fv b 'AvUnrog rr)v Evxapiariav ny IIoX«Kop7r. Can. 20. Ilpbg rovTOtg KaKiivo irdptan avvopq.v, dig iv rnXiKOVTif) irpdyfiaTi, Kai roiavry StprjaKuag iopry Siaipioviav apxtiv iarlv ddkfiirov. Const. M. in Epist. ad Eccles. Euseb. Vita Const., iii. 18. a See Baxter's Catechism, chap, xviii, Quest. 9, &c. above, vol. i. p. 313, &c. with 318, &c. 140 DR. ISAAC BARROW. whether the Church is also necessarily, by the design and ap pointment of God, to be in way of external policy under one sin gular government or jurisdiction of any kind ; so as a kingdom or commonwealth are united under the command of one monarch or one senate ? That the Church is capable of such an union, is not the con troversy ; that it is possible it should be so united, (supposing it may happen that all Christians may be reduced to one nation, or one civil regiment ; or that several nations spontaneously may confederate and combine themselves into one ecclesiastical com monwealth, administered by the same spiritual rulers and judges according to the same laws,) I do not question ; that when in a manner all Christendom did consist of subjects to the Roman empire, the Church then did arrive near such an unity, I do not at present contest ; but that such an union of all Christians is necessary, or that it was ever instituted by Christ, I cannot grant; and, for my refusal of that opinion, I shall assign divers rea sons. 1. This being a point of great consideration, and trenching upon practice, which every one were concerned to know ; and there being frequent occasions to declare it ; yet the holy Scrip ture does no where express or intimate such a kind of unity; which is a sufficient proof, that it has no firm ground. We may say of it as St. Austin says of the Church itself, " I will not that the holy Church be demonstrated from human reasonings, but the divine oracles 1." St. Paul particularly, in divers epistles 2, designedly treating about the unity of the Church, (together with other points of doctrine neighbouring thereon,) and amply describing it, does not yet imply any such unity then extant, or designed to be. He does mention and urge the unity of spirit, of faith, of cha rity, of peace, of relation to our Lord, of communion in devotions and offices of piety ; but concerning any union under one singu lar visible government or polity he is silent : he says, " One Lord, one faith, one baptism ; one God and Father of all :" not one monarch, or one senate, or one sanhedrin — which is a preg nant sign, that none such was then instituted; otherwise he could 1 Nolo humanis documentis, sed divinis oraculis sanctam ecclesiam de- monstrari. Aug. de Unit, c 3. 2 Eph. iv. 1 Cor. xii. Rom xii. Gal. iii. 28. The Unity of the Church. 141 not have slipped over a point so very material and pertinent to his discourse. 2. By the apostolical history it may appear, that the Apostles, in the propagation of Christianity, and founding of Christian so cieties, had no meaning, did take no care to establish any such polity. They did resort to several places (whither divine instinct, on reasonable occasion, did carry them) where, by their preaching, having convinced and converted a competent number ' of persons to the embracing Christian doctrine, they did appoint pastors to instruct and edify them, to administer God's worship and service among them, to contain them in good order and peace, exhorting them to maintain good correspondence of charity and peace with all good Christians otherwhere 2 ; this is all we can see done by them. 3. The Fathers, in their set Treatises, and in their incidental Discourses, about the unity of the Church, (which was de facto, which should be dejure in the Church,) do make it to consist only in those unions of faith, charity, peace, which we have described, not in this political union. The Roman Church gave this reason why they could not admit Marcion into their communion, they would not do it with out his father's consent, between whom and them " there was one faith and one agreement of mind 3." TertuUian, in his Apologetic, describing the unity of the Church in his time, says, " We are one body by our agreement in reLigion, our unity of discipline, and our being in the same covenant of hope *." And more exactly or largely in his Prescriptions against Here tics, the breakers of unity. " Therefore such and so many Churches are but the same with the first apostolical one, from which all are derived : thus they become all first, all aposto lical; whilst they maintain the same unity; whilst there are a communion of peace, names of brotherhood, and contributions of hospitality among them ; the rights of which are kept up 1 "Ox^o" ucavov. Acts xi. 26. 2 XeipoTOvfaavng avrolg Upta^vTspovg Kar 'EKKXr\o-iav. Acts xiv. 23. 3 — nia yap lonv t) irlang Kai pia ri bpovoia. Epiph. hser. 42. 4 Corpus sumus de conscientia, religionis et disciplinse unitate, et spei fcedere. Apol. 39. 142 DR. ISAAC BARROW. by no other means, but the one tradition of the same mys tery V " They and we have one faith, one God, the same Christ, the same hope, the same baptism; in a word, we are but one Church2." And Constantine the Great, in his Epistle to the Churches : (Our Saviour) " would have His catholic Church to be one : the members of which, though they be divided into many and dif ferent places, are yet cherished by one Spirit, that is, by the will of God3." And Gregory the Great : — " Our Head, which is Christ, would therefore have us be His members, that by the joints of charity and faith He might make us one body in Himself 4." Clemens Alexandrinus defines the Church, — " A people gathered together out of Jews and Gentiles into one faith, by the giving of the Testaments fitted into unity of faith6." " This one Church, therefore, partakes of the nature of unity, which heresies violently endeavour to divide into many ; and therefore we affirm the ancient and catholic Church, whether we respect its constitution, or our conception of it, its beginning or its excellency, to be but one ; which into the belief of that one creed which is agreeable to its own peculiar Testaments, or rather 1 Itaque tot ac tantse Ecclesia? una est ilia ab apostolis prima, ex qua omnes ; sic omnes prima?, et omnes apostolicse ; dum unam omnes probant unitatem; communicatio pacis, et appellatio fraternitatis et contesseratio hospitalitatis ; quse jura non alia ratio regit, quam ejusdem sacramenti una traditio. Tert. Prsescript. cap. 20. 2 Una nobis et illis fides, unus Deus, idem Christus, eadem spes, eadem lavacri sacramenta; semel dixerim, una Ecclesia sumus. Tert. de Virg. vel. 2. 3 Kai piav ilvai ti)v Ka96XiKi)v airov 'EKKXriaiav /SejSouXjjrai" fig ei Kai rd pdXurra tig 7roXXoti£ Kai Siatpopovg roirovg rd p'spr) Siypnrai, dXX' '6/j.iag ivl Hvti- pan, Tovr'tan T(j> Qtiip f3ovXi]uaTi BaXirtrai. Const. M. in Ep. ad Eccles. Euseb. Vit. Const, iii. 18. 4 Caput nostrum, quod Christus est, ad hoc sua esse membra nos voluit, ut per compagem charitatis et fidei unum nos in se corpus efficeret. Greg. M. Ep. 7. 111. 6 'O sk vofiov Kai ii, 19vS>v tig ti)v piav irianv avvayo/itvog Xaog. Strom 6. rnit. ry Kara rag &ia9r]Kag Soon o-KtvaZopevov tig ivornra rijg TriuTtutg. Str. 7- (p. 516.) The Unity of the Church. 143 to that one and the same Testament, in times however different, by the will of one and the same God, through one and the same Lord, does unite and combine together all those who are before ordained, whom God has predestinated, as knowing that they would be just persons, before the foundation of the world \" Many passages in the Fathers, applicable to this point, we have alleged in the foregoing Discourses a '. 4. The constitution of such an unity does involve the vesting of some person, or some number of persons, with a sovereign authority (subordinate to our Lord), to be managed in a certain manner, either absolutely, according to pleasure, or limitedly, ac cording to certain rules prescribed to it. But that there was ever any such authority constituted, or any rules prescribed to it by our Lord or His apostles, does not ap pear ; and there are divers reasonable presumptions against it. It is reasonable that whoever claims such authority, should, for assuring his title, show patents of his commission, manifestly expressing it ; how otherwise can he justly demand obedience, or any with satisfaction yield thereto ? It was just that the institution of so great authority should be fortified with an undoubted charter, that its right might be appa rent, and the duty of subjection might be certain. If any such authority had been granted by God, in all likeli hood it would have been clearly mentioned in Scripture ; it being a matter of high importance among the establishments of Chris tianity, conducing to great effects, and grounding much duty. Especially considering that, — There is in Scripture frequent occasion of mentioning it ; in way of history, touching the use of it (the acts of sovereign 1 Ty youv rov ivbg voti avyKXnipovrai 'ERicXijo-ia i) p.ia, tfv tig iroXXdg /cara- rkuvuv fiiaZovrai alpiaug' Kara rt oiv vitbaraaiv, Kara rt iirivoiav, Kara re dpxvv (principium), Kara rt iZoxvv, \J.ovi\v tlvai faptv ri)v dpxaiav Kai Ka9o- XiKrjv 'EKKXtjo-iav tig 'Evorjjra Jliartiog /xiag rijc Kara rag oiKtiag Aia9i]Kag, paXXov Se Bard t,)v Aia9riKnv rr\v uiav Siaipopoig roig xpovoig, 'Evbg row 6tov r$ (SovXripaTi Si 'Evbg row Kvpiov avvdyovaav Toig rjSr) KaTartraynkvovg, ovg irpoibpto-tv, SiKaiovg iuofikvovg wpb Karaj3oXrjg Koapov iyvwKuig. Strom. 7. (p. 549) a Namely, in the Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy. 2 Catholicam facit simplex et verus intellectus, intelligere singulare, ac verissimum Sacramentum, et unitas animorum. Opt. I. (p. 14.) Ecclesia non parietibus consistit, sed in dogmatum veritate, &c. Hier. Ps. 133. 144 DR. ISAAC BARROW. power affording chief matter to the history of any society) in way of direction to those governors how to manage it; in way of exhortation to inferiors how to behave themselves in regard to it ; in way of commending the advantages which attend it; it is therefore strange that its mention is so baulked. The apostles do often speak concerning ecclesiastical affairs of all natures, concerning the decent administration of things, con cerning preservation of order and peace, concerning the further ance of edification, concerning the prevention and removal of heresies, schisms, factions, disorders; upon any of which occa sions it is marvellous that they should not touch that constitution, which was the proper means appointed for the maintenance of truth, order, peace, decency, edification, and all such purposes, for remedy of all contrary mischiefs. There are mentioned divers schisms and dissensions, the which the apostles did strive by instruction and persuasion to remove ; in which cases, supposing such an authority in being, it is a won der that they do not mind the parties dissenting of having recourse thereto for decision of their causes ; that they do not exhort them to a submission thereto ; that they do not reprove them for de clining such a remedy. It is also strange, that no mention is made of any appeal made by any of the dissenting parties to the judgment of such authority. Indeed, if such an authority had then been avowed by the Christian Churches, it is hardly conceivable that any schisms could subsist, there being so powerful a remedy against them ; then notably visible and most effectual, because of its fresh insti tution, before it was darkened or weakened by age. Whereas the apostolical writings do inculcate our subjection to one Lord in heaven, it is much they should never consider His vicegerent, or vicegerents, upon earth; notifying and pressing the duties of obedience and reverence toward them. There are, indeed, exhortations to honour the elders, and to obey the guides of particular Churches; but the honour and obedience due to those paramount authorities, or universal gover nors, is passed over in dead silence, as if no such thing had been thought of. They do expressly avow the secular pre-eminence, and press submission to the emperor as supreme : why do they not likewise mention this no less considerable ecclesiastical supremacy, or en- The Unity of the Church. 145 join obedience thereto? Why, "Honour the king," and be " subject to principalities 1," so often, but, Honour the spiritual prince or senate does never occur ? If there had been any such authority, there would probably have been some intimation concerning the persons in whom it was settled, concerning the place of their residence, concerning the manner of its being conveyed (by election, succession, or otherwise). Probably the persons would have some proper name, title, or character, to distinguish them from inferior governors ; that to the place some mark of pre-eminence would have been affixed. It is not unlikely, that somewhere some rules or directions would have been prescribed for the management of so high a trust ; for preventing miscarriages and abuses, to which it is noto riously liable. It would have been declared absolute, or the limits of it would have been determined to prevent its enslaving God's heritage. But of these things in the apostolical writings, or in any near those times, there does not appear any footstep, or pregnant inti mation. There has never, to this day, been any place but one (namely Rome) which has pretended to be the seat of such an authority ; the plea whereof we largely have examined a. At present we shall only observe, that before the Roman Church was founded, there were Churches otherwhere; there was a great Church at Jerusalem (which indeed was the " Mo ther of all Churches2," and was by the Fathers so styled, however Rome now does arrogate to herself that title). There were issuing from that mother a fair offspring of Churches (those of Judea, of Galilea, of Samaria, of Syria, and Cilicia, of divers other places), before there was any Church at Rome, or that St. Peter did come thither 3 ; which was at least divers years after our Lord's ascension. St. Paul was converted; after five years he went to Jerusalem, then St. Peter was there : after fourteen 1 Rom. xiii. i. Tit. iii. 1. 1 Pet. ii. 13. 17. 1 Tim. i. 2. a I. e. in the Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy. 2 Actsii. 41. 47- iv. 4. vi. 1. viii. i. 'EvXnBivtTO dpi9fibg tojv p,a9i\rG>v iv '\ipovaaXi)p, oQnSpa. Acts vi. 7 '• Mj/rjjp aTraawv tSiv 'EKKXnai&v i) iv 'ItpoooXvuoig. Cone. Const, in Synod. Ep. Theod. v. 9. 3 Acts ix. 31. xv. 41. xi. 19- viii. 1. VOL. III. L 146 DR. ISAAC BARROW. years thence he went to Jerusalem again, and then St. Peter was there : after that, he met with St. Peter at Antioch '. Where then was this authority seated? How then did the political unity of the Church subsist? Was the seat of the sovereign authority first resident at Jerusalem, when St. Peter preached there ? Did it walk thence to Antioch, fixing itself there for seven years ? Was it thence translated to Rome, and settled there ever since ? Did this roving and inconstancy become it ? 5. The primitive state of the Church did not well comport with such an unity. For Christian Churches were founded in distant places, as the apostles did find opportunity, or received direction to found them ; which therefore could not, without extreme inconvenience, have resort or reference to one authority, any where fixed. Each Church, therefore, separately did order its own affairs a, without recourse to others, except for charitable advice or relief in cases of extraordinary difficulty or urgent need. Each Church was endowed with a perfect liberty and a full authority, without dependance or subordination to others, to govern its own members, to manage its own affairs, to decide controversies and causes incident among themselves, without allowing appeals, or rendering accompts to others. This appears by the apostolical writings of St. Paul and St. John to single Churches ; wherein they are supposed able to exercise spiritual power for establishing decency, removing dis orders, correcting offences, deciding causes '; &c. 6. This Avrovofila, and liberty of Churches b, does appear to have long continued in practice inviolate ; although tempered and modelled in accommodation to the circumstances of place and time. ' It is true, that if any Church did notoriously forsake the truth, or commit disorder in any kind, other Churches did some times take upon them (as the case did move) to warn, advise, reprove it, and to declare against its proceedings, as prejudicial 1 1 Cor. xvi. 1. 19. Rom. xvi. 4. Vales: in Euseb. ii. 16. Gal. i. 18, 19. ii. 1.9. 11. a See Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy, Works, vi. 211 — 213. 2 Apoc. ii. iii. 1 Cor. xiv. 40. 1 Thess. v. 14. 1 Cor. v. 12. vi. 1. b See The Ancient Liberty of the Britannic Church, and the Legitimate Exemption thereof from the Roman Patriarchate, by Isaac Basire, D.D. 1661. 12mo. The Unity of the Church. 147 not only to the welfare of that Church, but to the common inter ests of truth and peace. But this was not in way of commanding authority, but of fraternal solicitude ; or of that liberty which equity and prudence do allow to equals in regard to common good 1 : so did the Roman Church interpose in reclaiming the Church of Corinth from its disorders and seditions : so did St. Cyprian and St. Denys of Alexandria meddle in the affairs of the Roman Church, exhorting Novatian and his adherents to re turn to the peace of their Church. It is also true, that the Bishops of several adjacent Churches did use to meet upon emergencies (concerning the maintenance of truth, order, and peace ; concerning settlement and approba tion of pastors, &c.) ; to consult and conclude upon expedients for attaining such ends. This probably they did at first in a free way, without rule, according to occasion, as prudence suggested ; but afterwards, by confederation and consent, those conventions were formed into method, and regulated by certain orders esta blished by consent, whence did arise an ecclesiastical unity of government, within certain precincts ; much like that of the United States in the Netherlands; the which course was very prudential, and useful for preserving the truth of religion and unity of faith against heretical devices springing up in that free age; for maintaining concord and good correspondence among Christians, together with a harmony in manners and discipline; for that otherwise Christendom would have been shattered and crumbled into numberless parties, discordant in opinion and prac tice; and consequently alienated in affection, which inevitably among most men does follow difference of opinion and manners, so that in short time it would not have appeared what ChristianT ity was, and consequently the religion, being overgrown with differences and discords, must have perished. Thus in the case about admitting the Lapsi to communion, St. Cyprian relates, " When the persecution [of Decius] ceased, so that leave was now given us to meet in one place together, a considerable number of bishops, whom their own faith and God's protection had preserved sound and entire [from the late apostacy and persecution] being assembled, we deliberated of the compo sition of the matter with wholesome moderation 2," &c. 1 Iren. 3. c. 2. 2 Persecutione sopita, cum data esset facultas in unum conveniendi, copi- 148 DR. ISAAC BARROW. " Which thing also Agrippinus of blessed memory, with his other fellow-bishops who then governed the Church of Christ in the African province and in Numidia, did establish ; and by the well-weighed examination of the common advice of them all together, confirmed it \" Thus it was the custom in the Churches of Asia, as Firmilian tells us in those words: — " Upon which occasion it necessarily happens, that every year we the elders and rulers do come together to regulate those things which are committed to our care; that if there should be any things of greater moment, by common advice they be deter mined 2." Yet while things went thus, in order to common truth and peace ; every Church in more private matters, touching its own particular state, did retain its liberty and authority, without being subject or accountable to any but the common Lord ; in such cases even synods of bishops did not think it proper or just for them to interpose, to the prejudice of that liberty and power which derived from a higher source \ These things are very apparent, as by the course of ecclesi astical history, so particularly in that most precious monument of antiquity, St. Cyprian's Epistles ; by which it is most evident, that in those times every bishop or pastor was conceived to have a double relation or capacity, one toward his own flock, another toward the whole flock. One toward his own flock; by virtue of which, he taking ad vice of his presbyters 4, together with " the conscience of his osus episcoporum numerus, quos integros et incolumes fides sua ac Domini tutela protexit; in unum convenimus, et scripturis diu ex utraque parte pro- latis, temperamentum salubri moderatione libravimus, &c. Cypr. Ep. 52. (ad Antonian.) 1 Quod quidem et Agrippinus bonse memoriae vir cum cseteris co-episcopis suis qui illo tempore in provincia Africa et Numidui Ecclesiam Domini gubernabant, statuit et librato consilii communis examine firmavit. Cypr. Ep. 71. (ad Quint.) 2 Qua ex causa necessarid apud nos fit, ut per singulos annos seniores et prsepositi in unum conveniamus, ad disponenda ea qua? curse nostrse com- missa sunt; ut si qua graviora sunt communi consilio dirigantur. Cypr. Ep. 75. a Superest ut de hac ipsa re singuli quid sentiamus, proferamus, neminem judicantes aut a jure communionis aliquem si diversum senserit amoventes, &c. Vid. Cone. Carthag. apud Cypr. p. 399. Vid. Syn. Ant. Can. 9. 4 Vide Epist. xxviii. 39 ; xiv. 18. The Unity of the Church. 149 people assisting \" did order all things tending to particular edifi cation, order, peace, reformation, censure, &c. without fear of being troubled by appeals, or being liable to give any account but to his own Lord, whose vicegerent he was 2. Another toward the whole Church, in behalf of his people ; upon account whereof he did (according to occasion or order) apply himself to confer with other bishops for preservation of the common truth and peace, when they could not otherwise be well upheld, than by the joint conspiring of the pastors of divers Churches. So that the case of bishops was like to that of princes ; each of whom has a free superintendance in his own territory, but for to uphold justice and peace in the world, or between adjacent na tions the intercourse of several princes is needful a. The peace of the Church was preserved by communion of all parts together, not by the subjection of the rest to one part. 7. This political unity does not well accord with the nature and genius of the evangelical dispensation. Our Saviour affirmed, that " his kingdom is not of this world3;" and St. Paul tells us, that it consists in a spiritual influence upon the souls of men ; producing in them virtue, spiritual joy, and peace 4. It disavows and discountenances " the elements of the world 5," by which worldly designs are carried on, and worldly frames sustained. It requires not to be managed by politic artifices or " fleshly wisdom 6," but by simplicity, sincerity, plain-dealing : as every subject of it must lay aside all "guile and dissimulation," so 1 Sub populi assistentis conscientia. Cypr. Ep. 78 . 2 Actum suum disponit, et dirigit unusquisque episcopus, rationem pro positi sui Domino redditurus. Cypr. Ep. 52. Cum statutum sit omnibus nobis ac sequum sit pariter ac justum, ut unius- cujusque causa illic audiatur, ubi est crimen admissum ; et singulis pastoribus portio gregis sit adscripta, quam regat unusquisque prsepositus rationem actus sui Domino redditurus. Cypr. Ep. 55. ad . Qua, in re nee nos vim cuiquam facimus, nee legem damus, cum habeat in ecclesia? administratione voluntatis suss liberum arbitrium unusquisque prse positus, rationem actus sui Domino redditurus. Cypr. Ep. 72. ad Steph. P. Vide Ep. 73. p. 1 86. Ep. 76. p. 212. a See Hooker, book i. chap. x. § 12 — 14, above, vol. i. p. 140 — 53. 3 John xviii. 36. 4 Rom. xiv. 17. 5 Gal.iv. 3. 9. Col. ii. 20. 6 1 Pet. ii. 1. 150 DR. ISAAC BARROW. especially the officers of it must do so, in conformity to the apos tles, who " had their conversation in the world" (and prosecuted their design) " in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God; not walking in craftiness, or handling the word of God deceitfully 1," &c. It needs not to be supported or enlarged by wealth and pomp, or by compulsive force and violence ; for " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and base, despicable things, &c. that no flesh should glory in his presence 2." And, " The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God 3," &c. It discountenances the imposition of new laws and precepts, beside those which God has enjoined4, or which are necessary for order and edification ; derogating from the liberty of Christians and from the simplicity of our religion. The government of the Christian state is represented purely spiritual; administered by meek persuasion, not by imperious awe ; as an humble ministry, not as stately domination ; for the apostles themselves did not " Lord it over men's faith, but did co operate to their joy : they did not preach themselves, but Christ Jesus to be the Lord ; and themselves their servants for Jesus 5." It is expressly forbidden to them, "to domineer over God's people V They are to be qualified with gentleness and patience; they are forbidden " to strive," and enjoined to be " gentle toward all, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves 7." They are " to convince, to rebuke, to exhort with all long-suf fering and doctrine 8." They are furnished with no arms beside the " divine panoply ;" they bear no sword, but that " of the Spirit ; which is the word of God 9 :" they may teach, reprove, — they cannot compel. 1 2 Cor. i. 12. iv. 2. ii. 17. (leaTnjX.) 1 Thess. ii. 3, 5. 2 1 Cor. i. 27. James ii. 5. 3 2 Cor. x. 4. 4 Matt. xv. 9. Colos. ii. 8. 20, 21. Gal. iv. 10. 5 2 Cor. i. 24. iv. 5. 6 1 Pet. v. 3. Matt. xx. 25, 26. 7 2 Cor. vi. 4. 1 Tim. iii. 3. Tit. ii. 2. 2 Tim. ii. 24, 25. 8 Chrys. Isid. 2 Tim. iv. 2. Episcopus prseest volentibus non nolentibus. Hier. Ep 3. (ad Nepot.) 9 'AvaXa(3tre ty\v iravoTrXiav %tov. Eph. vi. 13. 17. 7 The Unity of the Church. 151 They are not to be entangled in the cares of this life 1. But supposing the Church was designed to be one in this manner of political regiment, it must be quite another thing ; nearly resembLing a worldly state a, yea, in effect soon resolving itself into such an one " ; supposing, as is now pretended, that its management is committed to an ecclesiastical monarch, it must become a worldly kingdom ; for such a polity could not be upheld without applying the same means and engines, without practising the same methods and arts, whereby secular governments are maintained. Its majesty must be supported by conspicuous pomp and phan- tastry. Its dignity and power must be supported by wealth ; which it must corrade and accumulate by large incomes, by exaction of tributes and taxes. It must exert authority in enacting of laws for keeping its state in order, and securing its interests, backed with rewards and pains ; especially considering, its title being so dark and grounded on no clear warrant, many always will contest it. It must apply constraint and force for procuring obedience, and correcting transgression. It must have guards to preserve its safety and authority. It must be engaged in wars to defend itself and make good its interests. It must use subtilty and artifice for promoting its interests, and countermine the policies of adversaries. It must erect judicatories, and must decide causes with for mality of legal: process ; whence tedious suits, crafty pleadings, quirks of law and pettifoggeries, fees and charges, extortion and barretry, &c. will necessarily creep in 3. All which things do much disagree from the original constitu- i 2 Tim. ii. 4. MaXtora yap airdvrwv x9l' irkpiav pr) irpooitoBai. Cone. Nic. Can. 5. 5 MnSi roiig trap' r)uwv drroKoiviavriTovg tig Koivwviav tov Xonroi; 9kXnTi SkiaaBai, iiruSdv tovto Kai ry iv NtBai'a ovvoSip bpioBiv tvxtp&g tvpoi r) or) at- [Sao-pioTrig. Syn. Afr. Epist. ad P. Celest. I. Ei ng iirb tov iSiov 'EirmKorcov aKoivilivnTog ykyovtv, fir) irportpov airbv Trap' hkpoiv StxBfjvai, ti pr) vir' airov 7rapaSex9tirj rov iSiov 'EmoKowov Cone. Ant. Can. 6. Idem in Concil. Sard. Can. 13, 14. (Grasc.) 6 "EXeyE, ri pr) IBtXriaaTt pt viroSklao9ai ; tuiv Si Xtyovrwv, brt ou Svvdpt9a The Unity of the Church. 167 Saint Cyprian refused to admit Maximus (sent from the Nova- tian party) to communion \ So did P. Cornelius reject Felicissimus, condemned by S. Cyprian, without farther inquiry 2. It was charged upon Dioscorus as a heinous misdemeanour, that "he had, against the holy canons, by his proper authority, received into communion persons excommunicated by others 3." The African synod (at the suggestion of St. Austin) decreed, that " if it happened that any for their evil deeds were deservedly expelled out of the Church, and taken again into communion by any bishop or priest whosoever, that he also who received him, should incur the same penalty of excommunication V The same is by latter papal synods decreed 5. The words of Synesius are remarkable. He, having excom municated some cruel oppressors, does thus recommend the case to all Christians : " 'E7ri tovtolq 17 flToXEjuaYooc 'EicicAijoIa toSe 7rp6c rag airavra^ov yrjc; tavrrjc aStA^ac SiararrErat. Ei Si tiq c fiiKpoiroXiTiv cnroo-KvfiaXio-Ei rrjv 'EkkAt)f Episcopacy, derived from the New Testa ment." b Rather we must put this as Hooker does, book i. c. xv. " Although no laws but positive, be mutable ; yet all are not mutable, which be positive. Positive laws are either permanent, or else changeable, according as the matter itself is concerning which they were first made. Whether God or man be the maker of them, alteration they so far admit, as the matter doth exact." Where see more on the same subject. See again book iii. c. x. " If the rea son why things were instituted may be known, and being known, do appear manifestly to be of perpetual necessity ; then are those things also perpe- Authority of a Threefold Ministry. 189 equal to that by which they were enacted. Christians of all per suasions seem to agree in these sentiments ; for they either profess to form their Church government on what they conceive to be the primitive model, or attempt to support, by the authority of Scripture, that order which they have adopted from accidental circumstances. 2. The commands relative to Church government, like those which relate to many other duties, are partly positive, and partly discretional. In this case we are as much bound by the positive declarations, as if nothing had been left to our discretion. — General directions are also given for the regulation of those circumstances which are committed to our discretion. We stand in the same predicament with relation to other duties. Alms-deeds, for instance, are po sitively enjoined, but no specific proportion of our wealth is directed to be set apart for this purpose. Yet we have general directions to guide our conduct in this discretional circumstance. It is our duty to collect those particulars which the apostles clearly enjoined, by precept or example, in the formation of the Christ ian Church, as far as they are applicable to a settled state of the Church. Such injunctions we are bound to follow. No private opinions of what is best, can authorise us to depart from them. In all matters left to our discretion, we must conduct ourselves by those general rules which the Scriptures afford for the guid ance of that discretion. If it should appear, for instance, that the apostles appointed different orders of ministers in the Church, but did not appoint a particular mode of conducting public wor ship ; the Christian Church is bound to retain those orders of ministers, but may exercise its discretion with respect to the mode of worship, provided the general rules given for the guidance of that discretion are observed. Or, if the apostles have marked out with precision the duties of an officer of great consequence in the Christian Church, whose continuance in the Church was necessary for the execution of that plan of Church government which they, by divine inspiration, had appointed; and yet have left no directions how this officer should be elected tual, unless they cease to be effectual unto that purpose for which they were at the first instituted. Because when a thing does cease to be available unto the end which gave it being, the continuance of it must then of necessity appear superfluous." 190 MR. WILLIAM HEY. in future ages ; we are bound to consider the office as perpetual, but the mode of election to that office as discretional. 3. Some persons have imagined, that if matters relative to Church government had been of importance, they would have been more clearly revealed. Such imaginations are highly im proper, if divine revelation has given any directions relative to this subject. We must not pretend to dictate to the allwise God, how He shall reveal His will to us. If He has revealed it in any way, this ought to be considered as sufficient to command our obedience. That excellent writer, Bishop Butler a, has observed, that a preponderance of argument in favour of any duty requires our obedience, as well as a more clear and explicit revelation. Let it be granted, for the sake of argument, that no particular form of Church government is commanded in Scripture ; yet, we cannot thence conclude, that all Christian Churches have equally the support of divine authority. For the inspired Apostles formed the first Christian Church after a particular model ; and if any modern Church has the example of the Apostles on its side, all other things, being by the supposition equal, this Church has a preponderance of argument in its favour. 4. But the example of persons acting by divine authority, not only affords a preponderance of argument in favour of any branch of conduct, in which they may be imitated ; but it is expressly proposed in holy Scripture, as a model of our conduct. The Apostle Paul says, " Walk so as ye have us for an example ;" and no good reason can be given why his example should be fol lowed only in things pertaining to private life. His example, as a In the " Introduction to the Analogy," p. 4. edit. 1807, as follows : " To us, probability is the very guide of life. From these things it follows that in questions of difficulty, or such as are thought so, where more satis factory evidence cannot be had, or is not seen, if the result of examination be, that there appear upon the whole any the lowest' presumption, on one side, and none on the other; or a greater presumption on one side, though in the lowest degree greater; this determines the question, even in matters of speculation : and in matters of practice, will lay us under an absolute and formal obligation, in point of prudence and of interest, to act upon that presumption, or low probability, though it be so low as to leave the mind in very great doubt which is the truth. For surely a man is as really bound in prudence to do what upon the whole appears, according to the best of his judgment, to be for his happiness, as what he certainly knows to be so." 12 Authority of a Three- fold Ministry. 191 a superintendent of the Christian Church, calls for imitation. We may, therefore, rank among the number of divine precepts, such rules as he prescribed for the formation and government of the Christian Church, as far as they relate to it in a settled state, in which no miraculous powers were to exist, nor special inspira tion to direct its governors. 5. Though the Scriptures are ouf only sure guide with respect to Christian doctrines and practice, yet, if it should appear, that the Scriptures are silent with respect to a matter of fact, well known to those whom the Apostles addressed in their Epistles ; we seem to be directed in this particular to the first writers in the Christian Church, who have mentioned the fact concerning which we are inquiring. If, for instance, an officer of some con sequence in the Christian Church is frequently mentioned in the New Testament, in the choice of whom great care was to be observed, and yet the Sacred Writings are silent with respect to the duties of his office ; we are evidently led to inquire of the first Christian writers what these duties were, and to acknowledge them to be the proper duties of the office. 6. It has been considered by many as a sufficient proof of the rectitude of the government subsisting in any Church, that the labours of its ministers have been beneficial to mankind. If these have turned sinners unto righteousness, they are regarded as possessing a sure testimony of the divine approbation of their conduct. The conversion of sinners has perhaps never been effected by any who have opposed, or neglected, the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel; but success in this important concern will not prove that a minister is altogether right in his sentiments or conduct. The differences which subsist among pious and suc cessful ministers of different persuasions must convince us, that errors to a certain degree are not inconsistent with success. Yet we should always keep in mind, that a wilful neglect of any divine command can admit no apology. We must not argue, that, because our obedience is strict in matters of great concern, we may aUow ourselves to depart from the Gospel rule in matters of inferior moment. We should always keep in mind the declara tion of our Saviour when comparing the tithing of mint, anise, and cummin, with the weightier matters of the law; " These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others undone." We may not be aware of the injury which religion, in a course of ' time, may sustain, by a departure from that order in the Church, 192 MR. WILLIAM HEY. which divine authority has established: nor are we allowed to weigh the consequences of disobedience, with the view to satisfy ourselves in the neglect of any divine command. One general command respecting Church government is, " Let all things be done decently and in order ;" and if success is to be considered universally as a proof of right conduct, then no one was ever instrumental in turning a sinner from the error of his way, who, in that part of his conduct which proved beneficial, was guilty of a breach of this command. I will not at present consider what decency and order require, but will, in this argu ment, leave every one to his own judgment. I wiU only appeal to the conscience of every reader, whether he is persuaded, that the spiritual good above-mentioned was ever effected by any one, while departing from such conduct as decency and order required. Again, the same conduct may do good in one respect, and mischief in another. If we are to regulate ourselves by events, and not by divine commands, we must first know whether the conduct in question will do more good or harm. This rule is very uncertain, and must always be superseded by the authority of a divine command. It can only be called in aid in matters of which the consequences are doubtful, and of such as are left entirely to our own discretion. If even greater good should appear to be done, for a time, by following our own plans; yet a conduct not regulated by divine authority, may bring on a course of events attended with irreparable mischief, far outweighing the present temporary ad vantage. Further, when we allow ourselves to break through the order of divine appointment, with the prospect of doing a greater good; we depart from that subordinate station in which Divine Provi dence has placed us. We take upon ourselves to direct, where we ought to obey. We disregard that express divine prohibition of " doing evil that good may come ;"" and forget that sentence which the Apostle has pronounced upon all who conduct them selves by such a principle, " whose damnation is just." 7. The charge of uncharitableness seems to deter many from entering upon the inquiry, whether any mode of Church govern ment has exclusively the stamp of divine authority. They see good men of all persuasions, and therefore think it needless to inquire, which form of Church government is most conformable Authority of a Three-fold Ministry. 193 to the plan laid down in holy Scripture. They are also deterred from this investigation by the idea, that a claim to divine authority in an affair concerning which good people are so much divided, would imply an uncharitable censure upon all who differ from ourselves. True Christian charity wiU never deter us from the most strict inquiry into our duty. We are not to guide ourselves by the conduct of others, who have no greater claim to inspiration than ourselves. The unerring word of God, the Bible, is our rule of faith and practice. " Let God be true, and every man a liar." It is our duty to examine the word of God carefully, that we may regulate our conduct aright in every particular. We shall not be excused in any neglect or error, concerning which divine authority would set us right, by pleading the example of others. Nor does it necessarily follow, that we must condemn others3, who profess to foUow the same guide as ourselves, because we may differ in our interpretation of some things contained in divine revelation. I. On the Orders of Ministers in the Christian Church, and the Manner of their Appointment. When our blessed Redeemer took leave of " the eleven dis ciples, He commanded them to teach all nations, and promised to be with them " always, even to the end of the world * :" but He gave no instructions respecting the different orders of ministers in His Church, nor the manner of their appointment. This pro mise, however, impUed that there should be a succession of mi nisters in the Christian Church to the end of the world. And as our Saviour also promised to instruct His Apostles by His Holy Spirit, and to guide them into all truth ; we must look into the Acts of the Apostles, and their Epistles, to discover the will of our Lord on this subject. The question to be investigated in these observations is this, — What instructions have the Apostles given, either by example or precept, respecting the different orders of ministers, in a settled *¦ See, below, No. xii. in this vol., Bishop Andrews's Correspondence with Peter Du Moulin, and the notes upon it. 1 Matt, xxviii. 20. VOL. III. O 194 MR. WILLIAM HEY. state of the Church, after their departure? I say in & settled state of the Church, after the departure of the Apostles : because its first state was so extraordinary, and so fraught with miraculous powers, that a perfect imitation of it cannot be adopted. This original state of the Church is thus described by the Apostle St. Paul. " God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles, se condarily prophets, thirdly teachers; after that miracles, then gifts of heaUng, helps, governments, diversities of tongues '." Apostles and prophets are gone : gifts of healing, and diversities of tongues have ceased. We must be content with teachers and governors. Let us inquire what the Scripture has said concern ing these. This list is a little varied in the Epistle to the Ephesians, where it is said, " He gave, some, apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers 2." What the word evangelist means, if it implied a distinct order, cannot be collected from Scripture. It is but mentioned in two other places, viz. Acts xxi. 28. " We entered into the house of Philip the evangelist." And 2 Timothy iv. 5. " Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." The word literally means a preacher of the Gospel. The use of it in any other sense must be con jectural. The titles appropriated to ordinary teachers in the Church of Christ, are bishops, presbyters or elders, and deacons. Perhaps we shaU discover another order to which the Scriptures have given no exclusive title, except in the book of the Revelations. It may be proper to remark, for the sake of those readers who are not acquainted with the original language of the New Testament, that the terms oi presbyter and elder are strictly synonymous; the former being only a Greek word with an English termination, and the latter, a translation of that Greek word into pure English. To avoid confusion, I shall only use the word presbyter, as having less ambiguity. It seems that presbyters were the ordinary ministers of the Church. Paul and Barnabas, in their first tour from Antioch, 1 1 Cor. xii. 28. 2 Eph. iv. 11.— Prophets are so clearly distinguished, in both these pas sages, from pastors and teachers, that we cannot by any just reasoning, consider the conduct of the former as conveying a direction for that of the latter. 7 Authority of a Three-fold Ministry. 195 ordained them presbyters in every church '. Paul being in haste to be at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, determined to sail by Ephesus, and called the " presbyters of the Church 2," giving them his parting advice, as to ordinary ministers of the Church. Paul left Titus in Crete, to " ordain presbyters in every city 3." The business of ruling and teaching the flock belongs to them : " Let the presbyters that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine 4." The terms, bishop and presbyter, are used in the New Testa ment for the same kind of minister. There are five passages from which this appears to be the case. When St. Paul sent from Miletus for the presbyters of Ephesus, he commanded them " to take heed to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers" (it is the same word in the original, which is elsewhere translated bishops,) " to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchasad with his own blood V St. Paul says to Titus, " For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest ordain presbyters in every city, as I had appointed thee. If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly; for a bishop must be blameless6," &c. In these two passages, the terms are clearly synonymous. The same apostle addressed his Epistle to the Philippians, " To aU the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at PhiUppi, with the bishops and deacons a." Can we suppose, that there were 1 Acts xiv. 23. ' Acts xx. 17. 3 Titus i. 5. 4 1 Tim. v. 17. 5 Acts xx. 28. 6 Titus i. 5—7. a But we must not neglect what has here been remarked by Bishop Pear son. — "Theodoretus igitur aliam rationem addit, quod eo loci presbyteri nulli nominentur inter episcopos et diaconos : cum igitur presbyteri diaconis proximi sint, necesse est ut episcopi pro presbyteris accipiantur, sed nondum probari potuit ullos secundi ordinis sacerdotes, seu presbyteros, tunc Philip- pis extitisse ; nulla enim eorum extat memoria. Epiphanius autem ex anti- quissimis ecclesiae monumentis docet Apostolos in aliquibus civitatibus epis copos ordinasse cum suis diaconis, nullis omnino presbyteris ibidem consti- tutis. Denique certum non est hsec vel ad episcopos, vel ad presbyteros Philippenses scripta esse ; nam Apostolus nunquam in epistolis vel episcopos, vel presbyteros, vel diaconos fidelibus subjunxit ; nunquam ad alicujus eccle siae presbyteros scripsit ; quod & veteribus annotatum est . . . Nulla enim- vero causa est satis justa cur hie Apostolum ad cleram scripsisse necessario statuamus, cum hoc ab eo nunquam alias factum sit ; nam verba ilia ovv kmoKoiroig Kai SiaKovoig non necessario cum Sanctis qui erant Philippis con- junguntur, sed cum Paulo et Timotheo conjungi possunt. Atque in eum o 2 196 MR. WILLIAM HEY. many bishops, and no presbyters at PhUippi; or that St. Paul would omit mentioning these, while he addresses the deacons ? These suppositions are so improbable, that I can entertain no doubt of the term bishop being here used for presbyter. Again ; the apostle, in his first Epistle to Timothy, chapter iii., gives particular directions respecting the character of those who were to be admitted to the offices of bishop and deacon, but does not, in that chapter, make mention of presbyters. The passage is natural and void of difficulty, if, by the term bishop, we under stand presbyter ¦ in any other sense, the omission of the term presbyter is unaccountable; since Timothy was left at Ephesus, as Titus was in Crete, for this purpose, among others, of ordain ing presbyters. Lastly ; St. Peter in his first Epistle, chapter v., says, " The presbyters, who are among you, I exhort, who am also a presby ter," (for though the apostles were superintendents of other minis ters, they still fulfiUed the office of ordinary preachers of the gospel,) " feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof," (or, as it might be rendered, " executing the office of a bishop,") " not by constraint, but willingly '," &c. From these passages it is plain, that the terms bishop and presby ter were used as synonymous by the writers of the New Testa ment 2. modum hsec verba accipit Ambrosiaster, scriptor satis acutus." Vindicise Epistolarum Ignatii. Pars 2da, p. 187. Whether, however, Mr. Hey be right or wrong in considering the terms "bishop" and "presbyter" as synonymous in the New Testament, is not very material to his argument. Rather, indeed, his case, with respect to its main object, the proof of " a threefold ministry," will be stronger, more easily proved, if we suppose them not to be synonymous, but to denote two distinct and separate orders. I have purposely made use of the doubtful expression, " Whether Mr. Hey be right or wrong ;" for though the concession of the ambiguity in the terms " bishop" and " presbyter" in the New Testament be a very common one, even among the advocates for episcopacy, yet the learned and excellent Bishop Pearson, (See Vindic. Ignat. part ii. chap, xiii.) who had considered the whole argument respecting episcopacy with a care and judgment demand ing the highest respect, does not acquiesce in the concession, but has adduced very cogent arguments against it. 1 1 Peter v. 1, 2. 2 No difficulty can arise from the application of the term bishop to ordi nary presbyters, if. we take into consideration the original meaning of the word, and the manner in which it is applied in the Scriptures. The word in Authority of a Three-fold Ministry. 197 Before I proceed to enquire whether the Scriptures have given us any intimation of a church officer, superior in rank to that of a presbyter, let us hear what is said respecting deacons. No instructions are given to Titus respecting this office ; but in the first Epistle to Timothy, the same character for piety and good conduct is required in deacons as in presbyters. Nay, it is added, " Let these also first be proved, then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless 1." Yet this office seems to have been probationary with respect to a higher office, for it is said, " They that use the office of a deacon well, purchase to them selves a good degree 2." But wherein did the office of a deacon consist ? The Scriptures have not informed us. Some readers may be surprised at this assertion, and ask, Were not seven dea cons appointed to take care of the public stock in the Church 3 ? It is true, that " seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom," were chosen by the people, and appointed by the apostles to take care that no partiality should be shown in favour of the Hebrew women, in distributing the daily portion of food provided by the Church; but these men are not called deacons, except in the running title of our Bibles. The text does not give them that name. Indeed, if it did, we should gain but little information as to the perpetual office of a deacon ; for the employment imposed upon them was local and temporary, and has long since ceased to exist. In no part of the New Testa ment, that I recollect, is the office of a deacon described. Though the office of a deacon is not described in the New Tes tament, it must have been perfectly understood, not only by Timothy, to whom minute directions were given for the choice of proper persons to fill that office ; but also by the Christians of that period, among whom the duties of the office were daUy exercised. The Christian Church of modern times ought, there- the original signifies an overlooker or overseer, and is thus properly translated in the English Testament. Acts xx. 28. For the presbyters were the over seers of the flock of Christ ; and it is with relation to the flock, and not to other ministers, that the presbyters are called bishops : as in the passage last quoted; " Take heed to the flock, over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers," or bishops. So also in 1 Peter v. "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof," &c. Whereas, superin tendents, as the apostles, and by delegation from them, Timothy and Titus, were overseers or bishops of other pastors, as the Epistles to Timothy and' Titus abundantly prove. 1 1 Tim. iii. x. 2 1 Tim. iii. 13. 3 Acts vi. 198 MR. WILLIAM HEY. fore, to search out the nature of the office in those ecclesiastical writings which approach the nearest to the times of the apostles: Two properties of the office may be collected from the Scrip tures. First, that it was an office, which, in point of importance, was similar to that of presbyter ; for the same marks are laid down for the guidance of Timothy in the choice of deacons, as in the choice of presbyters. They were to be men of similar piety and gopd conduct in every relation of Ufe. And, secondly, the office is described as probationary. It was designed to be a step to something higher. The rest must be supplied from the stores of ecclesiastical history. We proceed, then, to enquire, whether the apostles did appoint any officer in the Church, of a degree superior to that of presby ter ; such an officer as would now be caUed a bishop '. That we may, with greater certainty, discover the truth in this investiga tion, let us first state what is the peculiar office of a bishop, con sidered as superior to a presbyter ; and then enquire, whether the apostles appointed any such officer in the Church. The pecidiar office of a bishop consists in these four particulars. 1. In ordaining presbyters and deacons. 2. In superintending the doctrine of these ministers. 3. In superintending their conduct. 4. In regulating those matters in the Church, which are not settled by Divine authority. Now these duties of a superintendent, or bishop, were com mitted by the apostle St. Paul to Timothy and Titus. 1. They were appointed to ordain other ministers, as the apos tles had done before them. " For this cause," says the apostle to Titus, " left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest ordain pres byters in every city, as I had appointed thee ;" chapter i. 5. So, Likewise, special directions were given to Timothy respecting the choice of those whom he should ordain presbyters or deacons 2. Of these directions I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. 1 The reader must not understand me as hinting, that this appropriate use of the word bishop is of modern date. By consulting ecclesiastical history he will find, that it was used in this appropriate sense by those who had been contemporary with the apostle St. John, and that the Christian Church con tinued to use it in this sense after the death of the apostles. But my obser vations are confined to the account which is given of the Christian Church in the New Testament. 2 1 Tim. iii. Authority of a Threefold Ministry. 199 2. They were appointed to superintend the doctrine of these ministers. So says the apostle to Timothy : " I besought thee to abide stiU at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine V 3. They were appointed to superintend the conduct of other ministers. " Against a presbyter receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses V He who is authorized to receive accusations, and hear witnesses against any person, is authorized to be the judge of that person. 4. They were appointed to regulate such matters in the Church, as were not settled by express divine command. " For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting ;" that are left undone, as the margin expresses it3. This was a branch of apostolic authority which is here delegated to Titus, as appears from 1 Cor. ii. 34. For, when the apostle St. Paul had rectified the erroneous manner of receiving the Lord's Supper, into which the Corinthians had fallen, by stating to them the nature of that ordinance according to its original institution, he adds, that he would regulate inferior matters when he should be present with them. " And the rest will I set in order when I come." Some other peculiarities of the office of superintendent might perhaps be coUected from the New Testament ; but these will suffice to show, that there i Was an office in the Church, superior to that of presbyter (but including it), though no name is given in the New Testament, except in the Revelations, to the persons who were to fiU that office by delegation from the apostles. The office itself, however, is described with great clearness ; and two persons are mentioned to whom that office was delegated by the apostle Paul. We wiU now consider- what was, the mode of appointing pres byters and deacons ; and to whom was the choice of persons, to fiU those offices, committed. The persons chosen were solemnly set apart by prayer and imposition of hands, in which (if we may form a judgment from one instance) the presbytery joined with the apostle. In the first epistle to Timothy, the apostle St. Paul says, " Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying 1 1 Tim. i. 3. 2 1 Tim, v. 19. 3 Titus i. 5. 200 MR. WILLIAM HEY. on of the hands of the presbytery 1." In the second Epistle, speaking, as it seems, of the same transaction, the apostle says, " I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee, by the putting on of my hands 2." These pas sages are of equal authority, and therefore prove, that the preshy- tery joined with the apostle in the imposition of hands, when Timothy received the gift of God, whatever that gift implied. Supposing, then, the expression to refer to the ordination of Timothy, and supposing this ordination to be a specimen of all other ordinations, it will then follow, that the presbytery joined with the apostle, or some delegated superintendent, in the impo sition of hands; but no mention is made in the New Testament of any ordination to the ministry by presbyters, without the presence of an apostle, or some superintendent delegated by an apostle. But to whom was the choice committed of persons who were to fill the office of presbyter or deacon ? — To the persons who were delegated by the apostles to execute the office of superin tendent, or bishop ; for thus runs the apostoUc injunction respect ing ordination : " The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shaU be able to teach others also 3." When the " daily ministration" of the food provided for the widows, was conducted with partiality, the apostles desired the people "• to look out among themselves, seven men of honest report, whom they appointed to serve the tables." Or when the charitable contributions of the Corinthians were to be carried to Jerusalem, St. Paul tells them, " that whomsoever they should appoint, them would he send to bring their liberality to Jeru salem4." But I recollect no instance of the people choosing either presbyter or deacon. The seven men chosen to serve the' widows, as I have already observed, are not caUed deacons in the Acts of the Apostles-. After the traitor Judas had destroyed himself, the disciples, by the direction of Peter, appointed two persons out of the number of those who had accompanied our Lord through the whole of His ministry, that one might " be ordained to be a witness," with the other apostles, " of his resurrection," The choice of this \ 1 Tim. iv. 14. 2 2 Tim. i. 6. J 2 Tim. ii. 2. * 1 Cor. xvi. 3. Authority of a Threefold Ministry. 201 person was submitted to the Almighty, by the intervention of the lot. "They prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men,' show whether of these two thou hast chosen." This was a singular case, and was not considered by the apostles, or their delegates, as a precedent for future ordinations. Some persons have been of opinion, that the original word, used to express the ordination of presbyters by Paul and Barna bas ', implies, that it was done with the suffrage, or voting of the people. As this word has been thus paraphrased by an excellent writer on the New Testament 2, I shall subjoin a remark or two on this paraphrase. The word in this passage, translated ordained, does undoubtedly imply a choice or election, and did in its pri mary sense, I believe, express the election by lifting up of hands. But every person conversant in the original language of the New Testament must know, that it often signifies choice or election, simply, without voting3. Now since this is the case, as is allowed by the author to whom I allude, it is impossible to prove that the votes of the people had any thing to do with these ordinations, merely from the use of that Greek word, unless the context had given some intimation, that the votes of the people directed the choice of the apostles. But no such hint is given in the context. The most fair method of discovering the meaning of an author in any doubtful word, is to examine how he uses that word in other parts of his writings. Now the word here supposed to imply the votes of the people, is used but once besides, I think, by St. Luke ; and there it could not imply any voting, or other interference of the people, for it is used to express the choice of God himself. " God showed him openly ; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God 4." St. Paul does not use this Greek word when he commands Titus to ordain presbyters % but another word, which has no relation to the suffrage, or other interference of the people ; and which is properly translated ordain (i. e. constitute or appoint) presbyters. There is abundant proof, that the election of the presbyters and deacons was to be made by the superintendents who were 1 XtipoTovr)o'avTtg Si airoig irptafivrkpovg. Acts xiv. 23. 2 Dr. Doddridge, Family Expositor, vol. iii. p. 228. 3 The reader may see many instances of this collected by Dr. Hammond, in his note on the text in question. * TlpoKtxtipoTovripkvoig biro tov Qtov. Acts X. 41. 0 KaraoTtjoyg Kara iroXiv TrptafivTkpovg. Titus i. 5. 202 MR. WILLIAM HEY. appointed to ordain them. For what end does the apostle St. Paul give Timothy and Titus such minute directions respecting the character of persons to be ordained by them, if these directions were not to guide their choice ? After aU these directions, Timothy is commanded to use great caution in his choice; in scriptural language, to " lay hands suddenly on no .man." If the choice was not committed to him, and his business was only to lay hands upon those whom the votes of the people presented to him, it was no matter how suddenly he laid his hands upon them. Though these considerations seem quite sufficient to produce conviction, yet the evidence is not exhausted ; for the apostle expressly says, that the directions which he gave to Timothy concerning the character of the persons to be ordained, were designed to guide his conduct. " These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly ; but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God V The persons who filled the office of superintendent or bishop, were chosen by the apostles themselves ; and allowing that no delegation of their power to choose successors is positively men tioned in the New Testament; yet the office having been es tablished without any limit as to its continuance, the Church of Christ can only be supposed to be left to its own discretion with respect to the manner of continuing it. Now the superintendent was clearly the next in station to the apostle, as far as related to the ordinary and permanent state of the Church. And, with respect to the ordination of presbyters and deacons, and the re gulation of inferior matters in the Church, he was manifestly endowed with apostolic power. The Christian Church will, therefore, make the nearest approach to the primitive model, by continuing a succession of superintendents through the interven tion of their predecessors of the same order. At any rate, a suc cession of these officers must be continued, if the primitive model of Church government is to be pursued : for there is no instance in the New Testament of any ordination of presbyter or deacon, either by the people, or by the presbytery alone. The importance of the episcopal office will more clearly appear, if we sum up and reduce into one view, those passages in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, which exhibit its peculiar duties ; 1 1 Tim. iii. 14. 15. Authority of a Threefold Ministry. 203 at least, those which relate to the four branches of the office which 1 have already mentioned. Let us then suppose the apostle Paul to have given the follow ing commission to one who was already a presbyter 1. " My dear son ; " As my affairs have called me out of Asia into Greece, and I have ' besought thee to abide at Ephesus when I went into Mace donia ;' I think it proper to give thee in writing such instructions as are necessary for the guidance of thy conduct. There are many presbyters at Ephesus, and these require some one to superintend them, as they superintend ' the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made them overseers V I have observed with sorrow, that there are some of them in danger of ' giving heed to fables ;' nay, who have already ' turned aside unto vain jangling : desiring to be teachers of the law ; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.' Now, I beseech thee, look well to the doctrine of these ministers. If it be possible, prevent error from spreading in the Church. Remember, that for this purpose I left thee at Ephesus, ' that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine' than that which they have received from me. ' Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.' Be diligent both in government and instruction ; and what thou hast learned from me, ' these things command and teach.' Exert the authority with which I have invested thee, and put to silence improper teachers. ' For there are many unruly and vain talkers, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not.' And as heresy is destructive to the purity of the Church, suffer not a person tainted with this contagious disease to remain in the communion of the faithful, when repeated advice and counsel have faUed to reclaim him. ' A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject.' " I also command thee, that thou look well to the conduct of the ministers over whom I have placed thee. But execute this 1 To prevent interruption by quoting the chapter and verse of each text as it occurs, I shall only give the text between inverted commas. The reader may easily find the passages, as they are all contained in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, unless where it is otherwise noted. 2 Acts xx. 28. 204 MR. WILLIAM HEY. delicate business with discretion. The character of ministers is of great consequence. And, although I have appointed thee to be the judge of their conduct, yet be not hasty to condemn any one without a fair hearing. ' Against a presbyter do not even receive an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.' " See that the ordinances appointed by Christ are observed in the Church according to His appointment. Yet there are many inferior matters which thou must regulate as decency and ' good order shall require V ' For this cause left I thee, at Ephesus, { that thou shouldst set in order the things that are wanting, and that have hitherto been left undone.' " Use the utmost caution in the choice of persons who are to execute the office of ministers. I do not consider all as forward, who seek to be overseers of the flock of Christ ; for, ' if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.' But accept no candidate for this office, unless he ' be blameless, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour,' and ' have a good report of them that are without ' the Christian Church, ' lest he fall into reproach.' Do not ordain ' a novice, lest, being Ufted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil.' Be not hasty in forming thy judgment of men's characters, however fair they may appear : ' lay hands suddenly on no man. Stir up the gift of God which is in thee, by the putting on of my hands, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.' And in the solemn act of ordina tion, let the presbytery join with thee in the imposition of hands, seeing thou canst not foUow a better example than that which was shown at thine own ordination *.' " FinaUy, my son, ' be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shaU be able to teach others also.' " — These passages of Scripture, (which, I hope, have not been in any degree perverted by my paraphrase,) with others of the same import, have satisfied my mind, that in the primitive Church there were superintendents, answering to the officers now called bishops. By what name these should be distinguished in after ages, is of no consequence. Whether they should be itinerant or sta- 1 1 Cor. xiv. 40. 2 This is the method enjoined by the Church of England in her ordination service for presbyters. Authority of a Tfireefold Ministry. 205 tionary ; whether they should exercise their functions over a small or a large district ; whether they should stand totally unconnected with the government under which they might live, or be called to give their advice in matters of public concern, would depend on a variety of circumstances which we are not at all concerned to inquire after and enumerate. II. Observations on the Government of the Christian Church, during the last period of the Sacred History contained in the New Tes tament. If we are desirous of knowing what kind of government was established by Divine authority in the primitive Church of Christ, we must not look for it in those passages of Scripture which re present the apostles and other ministers as engaged in the exer cise of the miraculous powers with which they were endowed; nor in those passages which describe the disturbed state of the Church, through the violence of persecution. We must look for it in those appointments which have an evident respect to futu rity; and fix our regard on those passages of Scripture which describe the Church in its most settled and ordinary state. My inquiries have hitherto been confined to the formation of the Christian Church during the life of the apostle St. Paul. But the sacred history carries us somewhat further, and exhibits the government of the Church at a later period. The epistles which St. John was commanded to write to the seven Churches in Asia, wiU throw further light on this subject. St. John is supposed to have outlived the rest of the apostles ', and the Churches to which he wrote seem to have been for some time in a settled state. We have therefore a good opportunity of learning from these Epistles what was the true apostolic form of Church government. Our information wiU chiefly arise from considering what kind of minister was designed by the term, " angels of the Churches." I take for granted, that the term implies a minister of some 1 " Domitian banished him into the solitary Isle of Patmos, where he was favoured with the visions of the Apocalypse. After Domitian's death he returned from Patmos, and governed the Asiatic Churches. There he re mained till the time of Trajan." — Miher's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. edit. 2. p. 138. 206 MR. WILLIAM HEY. description. The strain of the Epistles, and the distinction made between the angel and the people of which the Church consisted, point out this so clearly, that no doubt can arise in the mind of any one who is content to take the Scriptures in their most obvious meaning. It seems also sufficiently plain, that the angel was an individual person. He is always addressed as such by the inspired writers. And as it is expressly said, that there were seven angels, and one in each Church, there can be no ground for contest on this sub ject. I shall not dwell, therefore, on the absurdity of a contrary supposition, though that is manifest from the minute description which is given of each of the angels. By the term angel must then be meant, either the sole pres byter presiding over the congregation of Christians at Ephesus, Smyrna, &c. respectively; or a superintendent in each Church, presiding over the presbyters as well as over the flock. In order that we may form our ideas on this subject in exact conformity to the Scripture history, let us consider the state of the first of these Churches addressed by the apostle St. John, con cerning which we have the most ample information, and apply our conclusions to the rest of the Churches ; in doing which, we shall find ourselves supported by the instructions addressed to the angels of the other Churches. The labours of St. Paul had been abundant in the Lesser Asia. He had at one time preached in the Jewish synagogue at Ephesus " for the space of three months ;" and, " when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. And this continued by the space of two years ; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. So that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul" (in the language of Demetrius) had " per suaded and turned away much people V It is probable, therefore, that by the " Church of Ephesus" was meant, not only the Christians in that city, but those also in the adjacent country ; a great number of whom must have been converted to the truth during this long residence of the apostle. If this was the meaning of the term used by St. John, the << angel 1 Acts xix. 8 — 10. 26. Authority of a Threefold Ministry. 207 of the Church of Ephesus," must have been a minister presiding over a considerable district. But omitting this reasonable sup position, it is clear, that the number of Christians residing in the city of Ephesus was so great, as to require the care of several presbyters. For, when St. Paul passed by this city in his way from Greece to Jerusalem, he summoned these presbyters to meet him at Miletus. " From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the presbyters of the Church 1." It is certain, therefore, by the term " angel of the Church of Ephesus," could not be meant the sole presbyter, or minister of the congregation of Christians at Ephesus. The angel of the Church must, of consequence, have been the superintendent presiding over the presbyters, as well as over the flock. This estabUshment was not new. It had subsisted for some time in the Church of Ephesus, as I have already shown, when describing from the Scriptures the authority which St. Paul had delegated to Timothy. He had been left by the apostle at Ephesus, to superintend the teaching and the conduct of the pres byters in that part; and to ordain others, as the state of the Church might require. The Epistle of St. John to the Church of Ephesus shows, that the same authority which St. Paul had delegated to Timothy, was possessed by the angel of the Church who resided at Ephesus when the Apocalypse was written. When St. Paul appointed Timothy and Titus to be superin tendents, or bishops, over other presbyters, he gave them minute directions for the regulation of their conduct in that important office. It was not necessary that such directions should be given to the angels of the seven Churches in Asia, as they were already settled officers in the Christian Church, and were in the actual exercise of those powers which St. Paul committed to Timothy and Titus. We must not, therefore, expect to find the duties of a superintendent amply displayed in these short Epistles to the angels of the seven Churches, as this had been already executed in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. St. John was led to men tion the duties of the office only incidentally, as the persons who now held it required praise or reproof, according to their respec tive conduct in the execution of that office. But the incidental 1 Acts xx. 17. 208 MR. WILLIAM HEY. mention of the peculiar functions of the office, affords as clear a proof that it was held by the persons addressed, as is afforded by the more minute description contained in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. Nothing can prove more clearly that, the angel of the Church of Ephesus was the superintendent of other ministers, than the notice which is taken of his authority to try the pretensions of those who laid a claim to the highest office in the Christian Church. " Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not ; and hast found them liars V The angel of this Church had exercised his superintending authority with zeal and discretion, and now receives the approbation of his conduct from the great Head of the Church, through the hands of the apostle. The same authority is recognized with respect to the angel of the Church at Thyatira, but in a way of reproof, instead of com mendation. For, after the apostle had expressed our Lord's approbation of his faith and patience, &c, it is added, " Notwith standing, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess, to teach," &c. Now it could not have been the subject of blame in the angel of the Church in Thyatira, that he suffered this pretended prophetess to exercise her talents among the Christians in that city, or district, unless he had possessed the authority of examin ing the pretensions of those who laid claim to the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, and of sflencing improper teachers; which, as has been already shown, were the functions of a super intendent ; that is, of a minister in the Christian Church, who, ever since the apostolic age, has exclusively received the title of bishop. From these passages of Scripture I am convinced that Diocesan Episcopacy 2 was established by divine authority in the Christian Churches in Asia, before the death of the apostle St. John ; and I can find no reason from Scripture to think that the government of the Churches in Asia differed from that of other Christian Churches. They were all under the care of the same persons 3 ; 1 Rev. ii. 2. 2 By Diocesan Episcopacy, I mean the government of the Church by su perintendents or bishops, each presiding over his own district, though subject to a general synod of bishops and presbyters. Acts xv. 6. xvi. 4. 3 " That which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the Churches." 2 Cor. xi. 28. Authority of a Threefold Ministry. 209 matters of great concern, respecting them universally, were deter mined by a synod of the apostles and presbyters at Jerusalem ' ; and the decrees made for the government of the Churches were distributed by Paul and Silas, as they went about preaching the Gospel 2. My duty to the great Head of the Church compels me to respect that authority which appears to me so clearly to have been established by His direction ; and I pray God that this au thority may always be exercised for the benefit of His " Church, which he hath purchased with his own blood ;" that it may be presented to Him at length, " a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but holy and without blemish3." 1 Acts xv. 6. 2 "And as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and presbyters which were at Jerusalem." Acts xvi. 4. 3 Ephes. v. 27. VOL. III. X. THE APOSTOLICAL INSTITUTION OF EPISCO PACY DEMONSTRATED3. I. If we abstract from episcopal government all accidentals, and consider only what is essential b and necessary to it, we shaU find in it no more but this ; an appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the churches within a certain precinct or diocese ; and furnishing him with authority (not absolute or arbitrary, but regulated and bounded by laws, and moderated by joining to him a convenient number of assist ants,) to the intent that all the churches under him may be pro vided of good and able pastors ; and that both of pastors and people conformity with laws, and performance of their duties may be required, under penalties, not left to discretion, but by law appointed. II. To this kind of government I am not by any particular interest so devoted as to think it ought to be maintained, either in opposition to apostolic institution, or to the much desired reformation of men's lives, and restoration of primitive discipline ; or to any law or precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end ; for obedi ence to our Saviour is the end for which Church government is appointed. But if it may be demonstrated, (or made much more probable than the contrary) as I verily think it may — ¦ 1. That it is not repugnant to the government settled in and for the Church by the apostles. a From the Works of William Chillingworth, M.A. p. 298 — 300. edit 1719 fol. b Compare Hooker, book vii. chap. 2. p, 113—7. edit. 1793. 7 The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy demonstrated. 211 2. That it is as compilable with the reformation of any evil which we desire to reform either in Church or State, or the intro duction of any good which we desire to introduce, as any other kind of government : and, 3. That there is no law, no record of our Saviour against it. Then, I hope, it will not be thought an unreasonable motion, if we humbly desire those that are in authority, especially the High Court of Parliament3, that it may not be sacrificed to clamour, or overborne by violence; and though (which God forbid) the greater part of the multitude should cry " crucify, crucify," yet our governors would be so fuU of justice and courage as not to give it up until they perfectly understand concerning episco pacy itself, " quid mail fecit." III. I shaU speak at this time only of the first of these three points ; That episcopacy is not repugnant to the government set tled in the Church for perpetuity by the apostles. Whereof I conceive this which foUows is as clear a demonstration as any thing of this nature is capable of. " That this government was received universaUy in the Church, either in the apostles' time, or presently after, is so evident and unquestionable, that the most learned adversaries of this govern ment do themselves confess it." IV. Petrus Molinseus, in his book, De munere pastorali b, pur posely written in defence of the Presbyterial government, ac knowledges, " that presently after the apostles' times, or even in their time, (as ecclesiastical story witnesseth) it was ordained, that in every city one of the presbytery should be called a bishop, who should have pre-eminence over his coUeagues, to avoid con fusion which ofttimes ariseth out of equaUty. And truly this form of government aU churches every where received." V. Theodoras c in his tract De triplici Episcopates' genere, con- fesseth in effect the same thing. For, having distinguished epis copacy into three kinds, divine, human, and satanical, and attri- » This tract was written in or about the year 1641, at which time petitions to Parliament were set on foot against episcopacy, and promoted by means, of which an instructive account is given by Lord Clarendon and others. See History of the Rebellion, book iii. b Viz. p. 20, 21. Of Molinaeus's sentiments at large, see the interesting correspondence between him and Bishop Andrews, given immediately below in this collection. c Theodoras ; i. e. Theodore Beza. p2 212 WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH. buting to the second (which he calls human, but we maintain and conceive to be apostolical) not only a priority of order, but a su periority of power and authority over other presbyters, bounded yet by laws and canons provided against tyranny ; he clearly pro fesses that of this kind of episcopacy is to be understood whatso ever we read concerning the authority of bishops or presidents (as Justin Martyr calls them) in Ignatius, and other more ancient writers. VI. Certainly, from a these two great defenders of the presby tery, we should never have had this free acknowledgment, (so prejudicial to their own pretence, and so advantageous to their adversaries' purpose) had not the evidence of clear and undeni able truth enforced them to it. It will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that ingenuous assertion of the anonymous author of the catalogue of testimonies for the equaUty of bishops and presbyters, who affirms, " that their disparity began long after, the apostles' times." But we may safely take for granted that which these two learned adversaries have con fessed, and see, whether upon this foundation laid by them, we may not by an answerable reason raise this superstructure : " That seeing episcopal government is confessedly so ancient and so catholic, it cannot with reason be denied to be apostolic." VII. For so great a change, as between presbyterial govern ment and episcopal, could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a Uttle time. Had episcopal government been an aberration from (or a corruption of) the government left in the Churches by the apostles, it had been very strange that it should have been received in any one Church so suddenly, or that it should have prevailed in all for many ages after. " Variasse debuerat error ecclesiarum : quod autem apud omnes unum est, non est erratum, sed traditum." Had the Churches erred they would have varied : what, therefore, is one and the same amongst all came not sure by error, but tradition. Thus TertuUian a argues very probably from the consent of the Churches of his time, not 1 To whom two others also from Geneva may be added : Daniel Chamierus (in Panstratia, torn. ii. lib. 10. cap. 6. sect. 24.) and Nicol: Vedelius (Exerci- tat. 3. in Epist. Ignatii ad Philadelph. cap. 24. et Exercit. 8. in Epist. ad Mariam, cap. 3.) which is fully demonstrated in Dr. Hammond's Disserta tions against Blondel, (which never were answered, and never will) by the testimonies of those who wrote in the very next ages after the apostles. a Viz. De Prsescript. Heereticor. c. 28. vol. ii. Semler's edition. The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy demonstrated. 213 long after the apostles,' and that in matter of opinion much more subject to unobserved alteration. But that in the frame and substance of the necessary government of the Church, a thing always in use and practice, there should be so sudden a change as presently after the apostles' times ; and so universal as received in aU Churches ; this is clearly impossible. VIII. For, what universal cause can be assigned or feigned of this universal apostasy ? You wiU not imagine that the apostles, all or any of them, made any decree for this change when they were hving, or left order for it in any will or testament, when they were dying. This were to grant the question ; to wit, that the apostles, being to leave the government of the Churches themselves, and either seeing by experience, or foreseeing by the Spirit of God, the distractions and disorders which would arise from a multitude of equals, substituted episcopal government instead of their own. — General councils to make a law for a general change, for many ages there was none. There was no Christian emperor, no coercive power over the Church to enforce it. Or, if there had been any, we know no force was equal to the courage of the Christians of those times. Their lives were then at command, (for they had not then learnt to fight for Christ a) but their obedience to any thing against His law was not to be commanded (for they had perfectly learnt to die for Him.) Therefore there was no power then tov command this change ; or if there had been any, it had been in vain. IX. What device, then, shall we study, or to what fountain shall we reduce this strange pretended alteration ? Can it enter into our hearts to think that all the presbyters and other Chris tians then, being the apostles' scholars, could be generally igno rant of the will of Christ, touching the necessity of a presbyterial government ? Or, dare we adventure to think them so strangely wicked all the world over, as against knowledge and conscience to conspire against it? Imagine the spirit of Diotrephes had entered into some, or a great many of the Presbyters, and pos sessed them with an ambitious desire of a forbidden superiority, was it possible they should attempt and achieve it at once without any opposition or contradiction ? And besides, — that the conta- a The allusion is to the professions of the parliament forces in the civil war against King Charles I. Compare Baxter's Holy Commonwealth, p. 440 — 50. 1659. — " How far we may fight for preservation of our religion ?" 214 WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH. gion of this- ambition should spread itself and prevail without stop or controul ; nay, without any noise or notice taken of it, through all the Churches in the world ; aU the watchmen in the mean time being so fast asleep, and aU the dogs so dumb, that not so much as one should open his mouth against it. X. But let us suppose (though it be a horrible untruth) that the Presbyters and people then were not so good Christians as the Presbyterians are now; that they were generaUy so negli gent to retain the government of Christ's Church commanded by Christ, which we are now so zealous to restore .- yet certainly we must not forget nor deny, that they were men as we are. And if we look upon them but as mere natural men ; yet, knowing by experience, how hard a thing it is even for poUcy armed with power, by many attempts and contrivances, and in a long time, to gain upon the liberty of any one people ; undoubtedly we shall never entertain so wild an imagination, as that, among all the Christian Presbyteries in the world, neither conscience of duty, nor love of liberty, nor averseness from pride and usurpation of others over them, should prevail so much with any one as to oppose this pretended universal invasion of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the liberty of Christians. XI. When I shall see, therefore, all the fables in the metamor phosis acted and prove stories ; when I shaU see all the democra cies and aristocracies in the world Ue down and sleep, and awake into monarchies, then will I begin to believe that Presbyterial government, having continued in the Church during the apos tles' times, should presently after (against the apostles' doctrine and the will of Christ) be whirled about Uke a scene in a mask, and transformed into Episcopacy. — In the mean time, while these things remain thus incredible, and, in human reason, impossible, I hope I shall have leave to conclude thus : Episcopal government is acknowledged to have been univer sally received in the Church, presently after the apostles' times. Between the apostles' times and this presently after, there was not time enough for, nor possibility of, so great an alteration. And therefore there was no such alteration as is pretended. And therefore Episcopacy being confessed to be so ancient and catholic, must be granted also to be apostolic, " Quod erat de monstrandum." XL BISHOP SANDERSON'S JUDGMENT CONCERNING THE DIVINE RIGHT OF EPISCOPACY a- Whereas in my answer to the former of the two objections in the foregoing Treatise, I have not anywhere made any clear dis covery what my own particular judgment is concerning the jus divinum of episcopacy in the stricter sense b, either in the affirma- a From the Postscript of his " Episcopacy not Prejudicial to Regal Power," p. 136—9. edit. 1673. 8vo. b The student will do well carefully to bear in mind the distinctions in the use of this term, which are here adverted to. " The truth is, all this ado about jus divinum, is in the last result no more than a mere verbal nicety : that'term being not always taken in one and the same latitude of signification. Sometimes it imports a divine precept, (which is indeed the primary and most proper signification,) when it appears by some clear, express, and peremptory command of God in His word, to be the will of God, that the thing so commanded should be perpetually and uni versally observed. Of which sort, setting aside the articles Of the Creed, and the moral duties of the law, (which are not much pertinent to the pre sent enquiry,) there are, as I take it, very few things that can be said to be of divine positive right under the New Testament. The preaching of the Gospel, and the administration of the sacraments, are two ; which when I have named, I think I have named all. " But there is a secondary and more extended signification of that term, which is also of frequent use among divines. In which sense, such things as having no express command in the word, yet are found to have authority and warrant from the institution, example, and approbation either of Christ him self, or his Apostles ; and have (in regard of the importance and usefulness of the things themselves) been held by the consentient judgment of all the Churches of Christ in the primitive and succeeding ages, needful to be con- 216 BISHOP SANDERSON. tive or negative : and for want of so doing, may perhaps be censured by some to have walked but haltingly, or at leastwise with more caution and mincing, than became me to do, in a business of that nature ; I do hereby declare : — 1. That, to avoid the starting of more questions than needs musta, I then thought it fitter, and am of the same opinion still, to tinued : such things, I say, are (though not so properly as the former, yet) usually and interpretative, said to be of divine right. Of which sort I take the observation of the Lord's Day, the ordering the keys, the distinction of pres byters and deacons, and some other things (not all perhaps of equal conse quence) to be. Unto jus divinum in the former acception, is required a divine precept .¦ in this latter, it suffices thereunto, that a thing be of aposto lical institution or practice. Which ambiguity is the more to be heeded, for that the observation thereof is of great use for the avoiding of sundry mis takes, that through the ignorance thereof, daily happen to the engaging of men in endless disputes, and entangling their consciences in unnecessary scruples." Sanderson's Episcopacy not Prejudicial to Regal Power, p. 14—7, Again, with respect to any usage of the term divine right at all. " This expression (jus divinum), for that it is, (by reason of the ambiguity thereof,) subject to be mistaken, and that captious men are so willing to mistake it for their own advantage, might, peradventure, without loss of truth, or pre judice to the cause, be with as much prudence laid aside as used, as in this, so in sundry other disputes and controversies of these times." Ibid. 12. See also another very high authority : " Fourthly, for the claim to a jus divinum, his majesty was willing both to decline the term, (as being by reason of the different acception of it subject to misconstruction,) and the dispute, whether by Christ, or His Apostles. Nevertheless, although his majesty sees no cause to dislike their opinion, who derive the episcopal power originally from Christ Himself, without whose warrant the Apostles would not either have exercised it them selves, or derived it to others : yet, for that the practice in them is so clear and evident, and the warrant from Him but expressed in general terms, (As my Father hath sent me, so send I you, and the like ;) he (the king) chose rather (as others have done) to fix the claim of the power upon that practice, as the more evidential way, than upon the warrant, which, by reason of the generality of expression, would bear more dispute." His Majesty's Final Answer'to the Divines at Newport, Nov. 1, 1648. Works of King Charles I. vol. ii. p. 709, 10. Fol. 1662. a " Now that the government of the Churches of Christ, by bishops, is of divine right in that first and stricter sense, is an opinion at least of great probability, and such as may more easily, and upon better grounds, be defended than confuted ; especially if in expounding those texts that are alleged for it, we give such deference to the authority of the ancient Fathers, and their expositions thereof, as wise and sober men have always thought it fit we should do. Yet, because it is both inexpedient to maintain a dispute where it needs not, and needless to contend for more, where less will serve the Judgment concerning the Divine Right of Episcopacy. 217 decline that question, than to determine it either way ; such de termination being clearly of no moment at all to my purpose, and for the solving of that objection : turn ; I find that our divines that have travailed most in this argument, where they purposely treat of it, do rather choose to stand to the tenure of episcopacy ex apostolicd designatione, than to hold a contest upon the title of jus divinum, no necessity requiring the same to be done. They therefore that so speak of this government as established by divine right, are not all of them necessarily so to be understood, as if they meant it in that first and stricter sense. Sufficient it is for the justification of the Church of England in the constitution and government thereof, that it is (as certainly it is) of divine right in the latter and larger signification ; that is to say, of apostolical institution and approbation ; exercised by the Apostles themselves, and by other persons in their times, appointed and enabled thereunto by them, ac cording to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of the commis sion they had received from Him. " Which besides that it is clear, from evident texts of Scripture, and from the testimony of as ancient and authentic records as the world has any to show for the attesting of any other part of ecclesiastical story; it is also in truth a part of the established doctrine of the Church of England ; evidently deduced out of sundry passages in the Book of Consecration, (which book is approved in the Articles of Religion, (Art. XXXVI.) confirmed by Act of Parliament, and subscribed unto by all persons that have heretofore taken orders in the Church, or degrees in the University ;) and has been con stantly and uniformly maintained by our best writers, and by all the sober, orderly, and orthodox sons of this Church. The point has been so abun dantly proved by sundry learned men, and cleared from the exceptions of novelists, that more need not be said for the satisfaction of any intelligent man, that will but first take the pains to read the books, and then suffer himself to be master of his own reason." Sanderson's Episcopacy not Pre judicial to Regal Power, p. 17 — 20. We shall take the liberty of borrowing here from this excellent writer (in justice to the Church of England, and to the truth,) some observations in further connexion with this important subject, which we beg to recommend to the due consideration of the reader. " If episcopacy must be, therefore, concluded to be repugnant to monarchy, because it claims to be of divine right, then must monarchs either suffer within their dominions no form of Church government at all, (and then will the Church, and with it religion, soon fall to the ground,) or else they must devise some new model of government, such as was never yet used or chal lenged in any part of the Christian world ; since no form of government ever yet used or challenged, but has claimed to a. jus divinum as well as episcopacy: yea, I may say truly, every one of them, with far more noise, though with far less reason, than episcopacy has done. And, therefore, of what party soever the objectors are, (Papists, Presbyterians, or Independents,) they show themselves extremely partial against the honest, regular Protestant, in condemning him as an enemy to regal power, for holding that in his way, 218 BISHOP SANDERSON. 2. That nevertheless, leaving other men to the liberty of their own judgments, my opinion is, that episcopal government is not to which (if it be justly chargeable with such a crime,) themselves holding the very same in their several ways, are every whit as deeply guilty of as he. " Which of the four pretenders has the best title, is no part of the busi ness we are now about. The trial of that will rest upon the strength of the arguments that are brought to maintain it. But let the right be where it will be, we will for the present suppose them all to have equal title ; and it shall suffice to show, that the jus divinum is pleaded by the episcopal party with more calmness and moderation, and with less derogation from regal dignity, than by any other of the three. " For, first, the rest when they speak of jus divinum in reference to their several ways of Church government, take it in the highest elevation, in the first and strictest sense. The Papist grounds the Pope's oecumenical su premacy upon Christ's command to Peter to execute it ; and to all the flock of Christ, (princes also as well as others,) to submit to him as their universal pastor. The Presbyterian crieth up his model of government and discipline, (though minted in the last by-gone century,) as " the very sceptre of Christ's kingdom," whereunto all kings are bound to submit theirs ; making it as unalterable, and inevitably necessary to the being of a Church, as the word and sacraments are. The Independent separatist also, upon that grand principle of puritanism, common to him with the Presbyterian, (the very root of almost all the sects in the world,) viz. that nothing is to be ordered in church-matters, other, or otherwise than Christ had appointed in His word; holds that any company of people gathered together by mutual consent in a church-way, is, jure divino, free and absolute within itself, to govern itself by such rules as it shall judge agreeable to God's word, without dependence upon any but Christ Jesus alone, or subjection to any prince, prelate, or other human person or consistory whatsoever. All those, you see, do not only lay claim to a jus divinum, and that of a very high nature ; but in set ting down their opinions, weave in some expresses, tending to the diminu tion of the ecclesiastical supremacy of princes. Whereas the episcopal party neither meddle with the power of princes, nor are ordinarily very forward to press th.ejus divinum, but rather purposely decline the mentioning of it, as a term subject to misconstruction, (as hath been said ;) or else so interpret it as not of necessity to import any more than an apostolical institution. Yet the Apostles' authority in that institution, being warranted by the example, and (as they doubt not) the direction of their master Jesus Christ, they worthily esteem to be so reverend and obligatory, as that they would not for a world have any hand in, or willingly and deliberately contribute the least assistance towards (much less bind themselves by solemn league and covenant to en deavour) the extirpation of that government ; but rather, on the contrary, hold themselves in their consciences obliged, to the uttermost of their power, to endeavour the preservation and continuance of it in these Churches ; and do heartily wish the restitution and establishment of the same, wheresoever it is not ; or wheresoever it has been heretofore (under any whatsoever pre tence) unhappily laid aside, or abolished." Ibid. p. 35—41. Judgment concerning the Divine Right of Episcopacy. 219 be derived merely from apostolical practice or institution : but that it is originally founded in the person and office of the Messiah, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ : who, being sent by His heavenly Father to be the great " Apostle \" " bishop and pastor 2," of His Church ; and anointed to that office immediately after His baptism by John, " with power and the Holy Ghost 3," descending then upon Him in " a bodily shape 4," did afterwards, before His ascension into heaven, send and empower His holy Apostles, giving them the Holy Ghost Ukewise, as His Father had given Him5, to execute the same apostolical, episcopal, and pastoral office, for the ordering and governing of His Church, until His coming again : and so the same office to continue in them and their successors, " unto the end of the world \" This I take to be so clear, from these and other like texts of Scripture, that if they shall be diligently compared together, both between them selves, and with the following practice of all the Churches of Christ, as weU in the Apostles' times as in the purest and primi tive times nearest thereto, there wiU be left Uttle cause why any man should doubt thereof a- 1 Heb. iii. 1. 2 1 Pet. ii. 25. 3 Acts x. 37, 8. 4 Luke iii. 22. 5 John xx. 21. 6 Matt, xxviii. 18 — 20. a It would be unpardonable to omit subjoining here, in illustration of the above, two passages from the Works of King Charles I. The reader will easily discern to what school the pious monarch was indebted for instruction and support at this critical moment. " His Majesty is not satisfied with your answer concerning the Apostles' exercise of episcopal government, which you would put off, by referring it to their extraordinary calling. Our Saviour Himself was the first and chief apostle and bishop of our souls; sent by the Father, and anointed by the Holy Ghost, to be both the teacher and the governor of His Church. By that mission He received authority, and by His unction ability for those works which He performed in His own person whilst He lived upon the earth. Before He left the world, that the Church might not want teaching and governing to the world's end, He chose certain persons, upon whom He conferred both these powers ; whereby they became also apostles and bishops, by making them partakers both of His mission before His ascension ; (As my Father sent me, so send I you;) and of His unction shortly after His ascension, when He poured upon them the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. The mission both for teaching and governing, (at least for the substance of it,) was ordinary, and to continue to the end of the world, (Matt, xxviii. 18 — 20.) ; and therefore necessarily to descend, and be by them transmitted to others, as their substitutes and successors. But the unction, whereby they were enabled to both offices or functions, by the effusion of the Holy Ghost in such a plenteous measure of knowledge, tongues, miracles, prophesyings, 220 BISHOP SANDERSON. healing, infallibility of doctrine, discerning of spirits, and such like, was, indeed, extraordinary in them, and in some few others, though in an inferior measure, as God saw it needful for the planting of the churches and propaga tion of the gospel in those primitive times ; and in this (which was indeed extraordinary in them) they were not necessarily to have successors. But it seems very unreasonable to attribute the exercise of that power, whether of teaching or governing to an extraordinary calling, which, being of necessary and continual use in the Church, must therefore, of necessity, be the work of a function of ordinary and perpetual use. Therefore the acts of govern ing of the Church were no more nor otherwise extraordinary in the apostles than the acts of teaching the Church were ; that is to say, both extraordinary for the manner of performance, in respect of their more than ordinary abili ties for the same : and yet both ordinary for the substance of the offices them selves, and the works to be performed therein ; and in these two ordinary offices their ordinary successors are presbyters and bishops ; presbyters qua presbyters immediately succeeding them in the office of teaching, and bishops qua bishops in the office of governing." His Majesty's Reply to the Answer of the Divines concerning Church government. § 3. Works, vol. ii. 684, 5. edit. 1662. fol. Again, in further illustration of the same views let us borrow from another paper, viz., His Majesty's Final Answer concerning Episcopacy, Nov. 1, 1C48. § 6. Works, p. 716—8. " Now the ground of what His Majesty has said concerning the manner of succession to the apostles, that it may appear not to have been said gratis, is this,— the things which the Scriptures record to have been done by Christ, or His apostles, or by others at their appointment, are of three sorts : some, acts of power merely extraordinary ; others, acts of an ordinary power, but of necessary and perpetual use ; other some, lastly, and those not a few, occa sional and prudential, fitted to the present condition of the Church in several times. To the apostles in matters of the first sort none pretends succession ; nor are either the.examples of what the apostles themselves did, or the direc tions that they gave to others what they should do, in matters of the third sort, to be drawn into consequence, so far as to be made necessary rules, binding all succeeding church-officers in all times to perpetual observation : so that there remain the things of the middle sort only, which we may call substantial, into which the apostles are to have ordinary and standing suc cessors. " But then the difference will be by what certain marks, extraordinaries, substantiates, and prudentials, may be known and distinguished each from other. Evident it is, the Scriptures do not afford any particular discriminat ing characters whereby to discern them, the acts of all the three sorts being related in the like narrative forms, and the directions of all the three sorts expressed in the like preceptive forms. Recourse, therefore, must of necessity be had to those two more general criterions, (the laws of all human actions,) reason and common usage. Our own reason tells us, that instructing the people of God in the Christian faith, exhorting them to piety and good works, administering the sacraments, &c, which belong to the office of teaching ; that ordaining of ministers, inspection over their lives and doctrines, and other administrations of ecclesiastical affairs belonging to the office of govern- Judgment concerning the Divine Right of Episcopacy. 221 ing, are matters of great importance and necessary concernment to the Churches in all ages and times ; and therefore were to be concredited to standing officers in a line of succession ; and accordingly were judged, and the constant usage of them preserved in the Churches of Christ. But that, on the other side, the decrees concerning abstinence from blood, and things strangled (Acts xv ) ; the directions given for the ordering some things in the Church Assemblies (1 Cor. xiv.) ; for making provisions for the poor (1 Cor. xvi. 1.) ; for the choice and maintenance of widows (1 Tim. v.) ; for the anointing of the sick (James v. 14.), and other like, were but occasional, prudential, and temporary, and were so esteemed by the Churches, and the practice of them accordingly laid aside. So for the succession into the apos tolical office, we find in the Scriptures evidence clear enough, that the apostles committed to others, as namely to Timothy and Titus, the power both of teaching and governing the Churches. And common reason and prudence dictating to us, that it is good for the edifying of the Church that there should be many Teachers within a competent precinct, but not so that there should be many Governors ; and the difference of bishops and presbyters to the purposes aforesaid, having been by continual usage received and preserved in the Christian Church, down from the apostles to the present times ; His Majesty conceives the succession of bishops to the apostles, into so much of their office as was ordinary and perpetual, and such a distinction of bishops and presbyters as His Majesty has formerly expressed, needs no further con firmation from Scripture, to such as are willing to make use of their reason also ; which, in interpreting Scripture, upon all other occasions, they are enforced to do." , Hooker's judgment, too, as he himself has told us, became much more confident on this subject, with riper years and more extensive investigation. " Now, although we should leave the general received persuasion, held from the first beginning, that the apostles themselves left bishops invested with power above other pastors ; although, I say, we would give over this opinion, and embrace that other conjecture which so many have thought good to follow, ano\ which myself did sometime judge a great deal more probable than now I do ; merely that after the apostles were deceased, Churches did agree amongst themselves, for preservation of peace and order, to make one presbyter, in each city, chief over the rest ; and to translate into him that power, by force and virtue whereof the apostles, while they were alive, did preserve and uphold order in the Church, exercising spiritual jurisdiction," &c. Book vii. p. 175, edit. 1793. Again : " Wherefore let us not fear to be herein bold and peremptory, that if any thing in the Church's government, surely the first institution of bishops, was from heaven ; was even of God ; the Holy Ghost was the Author of it." Ibid. p. 136. XII. DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS ON EPISCOPACY a. To the most Reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Winchester, Peter Moulin wishes all health and happiness. That honourable man, your predecessor b, was taken hence, not without great damage both to the Church and commonwealth. The king lost a most wise counsellor, and the Church a faithful pastor ; but I a patron and a friend ; who, though he was most careful and desirous of my good, yet obliged me more by his virtues, than his benefits. I have his letters by me, which he wrote to me when he was sick, and his recovery was almost desperate ; the very sight whereof does exceedingly afflict me. But yet my grief was not a little eased, when I heard that you succeeded in his room, whose learning I long since admired, and • This correspondence, which occurred in the years 1618 and 1 619, was first pubhshed in the original Latin in 1629, in " Reverendi in Christo Patris Lanceloti, Episcopi Wintoniensis, Opuscula quaedam Posthuma,"4to. It is here given entire from an English translation, anonymous, but executed with a very creditable degree of care and fidelity, and printed, but without any name or place, in the year 1647, in 4to. pp. 63, and under the following title : " Of Episcopacy : Three Epistles of Peter Moulin, Doctor and Professor of Divinity, answered by the Right Rev. Father in God, Lancelot Andrews, late Lord Bishop of Winchester." b This was Bishop James Mountagu. On Episcopacy. 223 of whose good affection I had great experience, when I was with you. Indeed, His most judicious Majesty did not stick long upon his choice. You were even then designed his successor, in the judgment of aU who knew the wisdom of the king. May it, I beseech God, prove happy and fortunate to yourself, to the Church, and kingdom. May He grant you, with increase of honour, increase of virtue, and a fresh and Uvely old age : that His most Gracious Majesty may long enjoy you for his coun sellor, and the Church daily reap more and more fruits of your industry and vigilance. I wrote a book touching the CaUing of Pastors, wherein some passages grieved the soul of your most wise king, as if they were averse to the office of episcopacy. But, indeed, on the other side, our countrymen complain not a Uttle, that I undertook the cause of bishops; and condemned Aerius, who, in a matter anciently, and universally received, durst oppose himself against the practice of the CathoUc Church. And they take it in ill part, that I said, that it was generaUy received in the Church, even from the first successors of the apostles, that, among the presbyters of a city, some one should have the pre-eminence and be called the bishop. But, though there be many things in my book, which the king set a dash of his dislike upon, which, as all things else, he observed wisely and with an incredible sharpness of wit, yet, three things there are, which specially offend him. I. The first is, that I said that the names of bishop and pres byter are promiscuously taken a, in the New Testament, for one and the same. II. The second, that I affirmed that there is but one and the same order of presbyter, and bishop. III. The third, and that the greatest, is, that I think the irpocTraaiav, the priority or superiority of bishops, not to be of divine right, nor a point of faith, but to be a thing wherein the primitive Church used her liberty and prudence, when she judged the pre-eminence of one to be fitter for the maintaining of order and conserving of peace, and that unity may well be kept whole and entire between Churches, though they differ upon that point. I confess, these things were wrote by me : which, lest they be drawn to a wrong sense, or be taken in the worser part, take, I pray, briefly my meaning in them. a But see above the note on Hey, p. 195, from Bishop Pearson. 224 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. I. I said, indeed, that the names of bishop and presbyter were taken for aU one in the New Testament : but I thought not that the dignity of the bishop was lessened thereby, since I spoke only of the name, not of the office : and I have (beside clear places of Scripture) the consent not only of Hierom the presbyter, but also of the most famous bishops of the ancient Church, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theodoret, who took it not as a wrong to them, or that any thing was abated of their honour, if it were believed that the names of bishop and presbyter were at first used in the same sense. II. That the order, indeed, of bishop and presbyter was one and the same, that I said ; for so did the ancient Church ever think ; and the Church of Rome thinks so to this day : although there be in that Church an incredible difference betwixt the pomp of the bishops and the meanness of the priests. Thence it is that in the Roman pontifical there is set down the consecration of bishops, but not the ordination of them. Indeed, order is one thing, a degree another ; for men of one and the same order may differ in degree and dignity ; even as among bishops the degree of archbishops is the more eminent. III. Howbeit, that this episcopal degree and prerogative is by ecclesiastical, and not by divine right, I confess it was said by me. For beside that to speak otherwise than I thought, had not been the part of an upright honest man, you, according to your wonted goodness, will easily judge, that a Frenchman, Uving under the polity of the French Church, could not' speak otherwise, but he must incur the censure of our synods, and under the danger (Ka6aipeo-EO)g) of degrading, be forced to a recantation. For to think that our Churches do err in points of faith, and in that which is of divine right, were, questionless, to brand them with the note of heresy, and to shake the conscience of many weak ones. Truly, I came very unwillingly to the writing of this book, but our Church requiring it, and lately enforcing me, for to stop the insolency of our adversaries, who in this point insult over us out of all temper, and speak of us as of so many doltish mush rooms, newly sprung out of the earth, and as of a company of base fellows who by force and tumult had got the pulpit. But, howsoever, I think, I have kept such a temper, that, in defending our own, I have not struck at your government; nor by immo derate affection to a part have inclined, more than was meet, to Of Episcopacy. 225 either side. Nor did I ever mention the bishops of England without due honour. These things I thought fit to write to you, great sir, by whom I chiefly desire my papers may be approved. I had sent my book to you before now, but that I was told by divers you understood not French. Now I send it, because, since you enjoy a more frequent and nearer presence of His Majesty, I doubt not but he may have some speech with you about it, and use you as an umpire in the cause. And I shall most wiUingly stand to your judgment ; well knowing that the most learned are ever the most candid ; and hoping that you will not lance too deep whatever may be salved with a fair interpretation. So think of me, as of a man with whom the authority of antiquity shall be ever in great esteem ; and who shaU think myself sufficiently armed against all opposite judgments, if you shall not utterly disapprove what I have written. God preserve you, great prelate. Farewell. Your honour's most devoted, Peter Moulin. Paris, Nones of Sept., 1618. The Bishop's Answer. I had wrote these in the beginning of March, and was about to send them presently ; when lo, the indisposition of the king, in point of health, made me lay them by, and hindered my sending of them. This sickness, contracted first by grief for the death of his most dear consort a, our most gracious queen, and the neglect of all care of his body upon that grief, ended at last in a disease ; a Among other particulars detailed by Sir Henry Ellis, from what he describes as " a very curious volume, preserved in the British Museum, containing the Physician, Sir Theodore Mayerne's, Memoranda of his profes sional attendance upon King James, from 1611 to the time of his death," Sir Theodore, we are told, " dwells particularly upon his grief for the death of Prince Henry, and of his queen. The latter was followed by a severe ill ness at Royston." Ellis's Original Letters illustrative of English History. Second Series, vol. iii. p. 200. The queen died March 1, 1618-9. There is some mistake in a part of the dates, both in the Latin and English copies of this correspondence : of which the translator probably had a suspicion ; for he omits one date entirely. VOL. III. 0 226 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. a disease, indeed, so intricate and doubtful, that the physicians themselves were at a stand what the event would be. Whereby I forgot that I wrote, and so omitted to send to you. For all I had to do was to fall to my prayers, with many more, who were. sore perplexed, as then in jeopardy, for a most gracious king; but God looked upon us and restored him to us, and in him us to ourselves. And now, being returned to myself, I return to you, what I confess I have been too long indebted to you in ; so that, as a bad debtor, I was fain to be called upon, by Mr. Beaulieua, in your name. You will accept of this, my too just excuse, kindly, as you are wont ; and promise yourself, from me, what good offices one friend can do another. Now concerning your book. You write that some passages therein grieved the king's soul. And no wonder, for his soul is tender, and very sensible of any thing in that kind that bites or stings. For out of his piety to God, he makes it not the least of his cares to tender the peace and order of His Church here. And therefore, in his great wisdom, he presently discerned whither these three points tended. I. The name of bishop is not distinct from that of presbyter. II. The order is not distinct, that is, not the thing itself. III. And so the whole [matter] is not any thing of divine right. What could they, who lately made all the stirs among us, mut ter more, possibly, than, that, 1, the name is taken confusedly ; that, 2, the -thing is not distinct ; 3, finally, that it is a human invention : being settled by man may be unsettled, and so stands or falls at the pleasure of the commonwealth. These- dicta are too well known to the king: he has long been used to them: they have long since on all hands been rounded in his ears. He knows that there are still among us such, as will from your writings presently take a new occasion, perhaps, not to pluck up this order of ours, that for so many ages has taken root, but, surely, to de fame and calumniate it. And this so much the rather, because, at one and the same time, not by agreement, I beUeve, but yet as though upon a corn s' Mr. Beaulieu was at this time secretary to- the English embassy at Paris. Many of his letters are preserved in the third volume of Sir Ralph Win- wood's " Memorials of State," 1725. fol. Of Episcopacy . 227 pact, lo, one Bucer, a feUow not hurt, nor meddled with by any, in a very unseasonable time set forth a book in Latin, as it were, of the same argument. What king, that studies the peace, not only of his own Church, but which he desires, and would purchase at a dear rate, even of the whole Christian world, would not these things trouble ? Wherefore, if the king set a dash of dislike upon those passages, take it not ill : I dare say, he had rather set many asterisks of commendation, than one dash of dis like, especially upon what is yours. This, surely, is the king's mind ; and is (as it ought to be) the mind and sense of us all. Wherein I appeal to your own equity. — You were for maintaining of your Church's government, and the repressing of your adversaries' insolency : should you not do it, you should incur the censure of your synod, and be forced either to recant, or fear to be degraded. In this we pardon you, and demand the like pardon from you ; that it may be lawful for us also to defend our government, as becomes upright honest men. For we likewise have froward adversaries; and there are consciences, too, among us, which we may not suffer to be shaken or undermined, as though they lived under another form of Church government than was from the beginning, even from the very times of the apostles. And we are ready, if need be, and occasion shall serve, to make this good to the whole Church. How I wish therefore, that you had not so much as touched upon our Church government ! For who put you upon it ? You might have turned your weapons against those enemies you speak of, and never have jerked at us. There is no such com plication of ours with yours, but that you might easily have passed by ours with sUence, and " A faithful silence hath its sure reward." Or, if you were so set upon it, that you must needs be inter meddling with ours, how I wish you had first imparted your mind to the king: and, whilst the coast was clear, had seasonably taken his advice in that you had to say of his affairs: (for ours he ac- , counts his.) You yourself know (and, indeed, who knows not since he has wrote so much, so admirably ?) that, as he is most able in respect of his other endowments of wit and learning, so also in respect of his acuteness and solidity of judgment, he is equal a to a Isaac Casaubon, who had the best possible opportunities of forming a correct judgment, has borne, in several places, very honourable testimony to 22 228 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. the best, or rather goes before them. No man living has in our Church's affairs a clearer insight, a readier dispatch, than he. He himself, in any point, but especially in what concerns his own Church, could have answered you best : and have set you the bounds, so far to go, but not beyond. Wherefore, if here after you shall go about any thing in the like kind, pray remem ber this my advice, which proceeds from a very good will to you ; I knowing that the king is weU affected to you ; that he has deserved well of you, (nor will you deny it,) and, I hope, will for the future deserve better. I. Concerning those three points, if you demand (as you do) what I think, I shall give you here this ingenuous answer; that the names of bishop and presbyter are taken promiscuously in Holy Scriptures : that at first, there was not so great force in the words, I shall easily grant you. Nor did his majesty regard so much what you said, as to what purpose ; as what others would catch from thence ; who, both in other parts, and here among us too, are not rightly affected to this our order : that these things were spoke to this purpose, as if the names being promiscuous, the things themselves were so also. For to what end is it, of what concernment, to speak of words taken confusedly, when the things are distinct ? No man, lightly, carps at the name, but he that wishes not very well to the thing also. 1. And yet nothing here has befallen bishops, which has not befallen those other orders also. For, in those very places, in those very authors whom you name, it is said in like manner also of deacons 1. Even a bishop is called a deacon : whereupon, St. Paul, writing to Timothy, said to him, though a bishop, " fulfil thy deaconry." From thence you may gather, that the names of bishop and deacon are taken for the same. Nay, the very apostles themselves call themselves sometimes presbyters, sometimes dea cons, and so their whole office a deaconry, and yet is not deacon or presbyter the same as apostle. Why therefore did you not add that too, that it might appear that the other suffered as much as bishops : and that, in the beginning, not only the names of the learning and intellectual abilities of King James. Thus, in a Letter to Thuanus. " Si quis putat Magna; Britannia? Regem in ejus generis scrip- tis aliena industriS, opus habere, fallitur : ipse harum controversiarum peritis- Bimus est, et in Sacris Literis versatissimus." Epistolae, p. 368, 9. See also p. 446. 505, &c. ' St. Chrysost. in ad Philip c. 1. Of Episcopacy. 220 bishops, but of other orders also were taken, in like manner, pro miscuously ; whereas the things, the offices themselves, were dis tinct ? 2. Whereas, then, in those very places where the Fathers speak so, [that then they communicated in names'] they presently apply a remedy, and give this item, that the things themselves are otherwise : and instantly add [afterward, the proper name was given to each ; of bishop to a bishop, of presbyter to a presbyter.] By the rule of speech then, who would urge the common name, when the proper had taken place ? For nobody would now call a king, a tyrant ; or a soldier, [latronern] as of old they were wont, a robber : neither sure, would they call a presbyter a bishop : as when St. Hierom wrote, had he called himself bishop, and St. Augustine presbyter, you know he would have been laughed at- for his pains. 3. Add further, that in those very places wherein the Fathers speak so, before they speak, they are forced \_avdvrro2 iii. 35. 13 De Script. 2. 14 In 2 ad Gal. a See the extract from Sanderson, above, p. 215-6. '? Acts vi. 234 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. Scripture does no where call them a : that is only a word of the Church. I hope what the apostles did, they did by divine right : and that it cannot be denied, but their deeds (of which we are certain), not only their words, or writings, are of divine right. And not only those things of which St. Paul wrote to the Corin thians, but " those other also which he set in order at his being at Corinth 1," (if they were known to usb what they were,) were by the same right, to wit, by divine, all of them ; both these and they, from the Holy Spirit, all. And yet, though they be by divine right, we do not say these things belong to faith c. They belong to the agenda, or practice of the Church ; to the credenda, or points of faith, it is but improper to refer them. It is very strange, therefore, which you say, " That your coun trymen openly complain of you, both that you undertook the cause of bishops,'' (belike, your countrymen are enemies to bishops, would not have their cause pleaded, but are desirous it should be lost,) as also, " that you condemned Aerius," who was anciently condemned in Asia by Epiphanius, in Europe by Phi- lastrius, in Africa by St. Augustine ; whose name, all the world over, is in the black-book of heretics, nor undeservedly, seeing, "He durst oppose himself, (as you yourself confess,) to the con sent and practice of the cathoUc Church." You should rather complain of them, who for this complain of you. As for that where " you would not have your papers to be ripped up to the quick," I know nobody here that does it. Should any, he would have somewhat to stick upon in the very title, take which word you will, that of " Pastor," or that of " CalUng." They are both novelties; the word Pastor, (I am sure, in this sense,) and Calling too ; and not of any age, but this last, nor of all that. For, I pray, who of the ancients ever spake so? Among whom you shaU scarce find the word pastor usedd, but a See Hey, above, p. 197- ' 1 Cor. xiv. b " Traditions we reject ; not only because they are not in the Scripture, but because they are neither in Scripture, nor can otherwise sufficiently by any reason be proved to be of God." See Hooker, book i. chap. xiv. § 5. above, vol. i. p. 172. c He alludes to Molinaus's expressions, p. 224. Compare Hooker, book iii. chap. 3. a Hence Laud writes a bantering remonstrance to his friend Strafford : " Yet, in this sober discourse, I pray what means this Johnism" (Strafford had been educated at St. John's, Cambridge, as Laud himself was at St 12 Of Episcopacy. 235 when they speak of bishops; which form of speech St. Peter taught them *, when he joined pastor and bishop in our Saviour. Nor shall you ever read that they, by that word, pointed out such as, either in city or country, had the care of some few per sons, distinguished by parishes, for that the presbyters (urban or rural) were by the bishop designed to that employment. Who, indeed, at the beginning, were of the bishop's family, and did live, as you very well know, of the " sportula," (i. e. of the oblations of the Church) before the distinction of parishes came up. And the word " CaUing," (in the sense you take it) is alto gether as unknown. Instead whereof they used the words Ordination or Constitution. And the very name of " Minister a" is of the same stamp, which they would never have understood to be spoken of any but a deacon : as it is derived, indeed, from no other fountain but the Greek SiaKOvog. But we must pardon you; you must speak the language of your Church, which has no bishops, another kind of presbyters, [" Elders" they caU them,] another kind of deacons; and, I add, another kind of " CaUing," than ever the ancient Church acknowledged. I, for my part, in my best wishes for your Church, and so for all the Reformed do wish this, that you may keep constant in the other points of faith, but for govern ment and order that God would vouchsafe to you no other but that which He hath vouchsafed us, i. e. by bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Such as those we read of in the histories of the Church, and in the Councils, and the ancient Fathers : unto whom (or self-conceit shrewdly deceives me, or) most like are ours : most Uke, I say, in their order, not in their worth ; but would to God in their worth also ! And that no policy, no form of government John's, Oxford) " of yours, — 'till the rights of the pastors be a little more settled?' You learned. this from old Alvey, or Billy Nelson; for where, I pray, in all the ancient Fathers, do you find Pastor applied to any but a Bishop ? Well! I see the errors of your breeding will stick by you : Pastors and Elders, and all will come in, if I let you alone." 1 Strafford's Letters, &c. p. 254. The same point is enforced very seriously, and supported by numerous citations from the Fathers, by Bishop Taylor, in his Sacred Order and Offices of the Episcopacy, sect. 25. Works, vol. vii. 106 — 108. 8vo. i 1 Pet. ii. 25. a See below, near the end of the concluding Letter. 236 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. in any Church whatsoever, cometh nearer the sense of Scripture, or the manner and usage of the ancient Church, than this which flourishes among us. These remarks I entrust to you, that, if you please, they may be with you. But know withal, that I have ever been, both by nature and choice, addicted to peace ; and my age now requires it of me, who ere long must be packing : but chiefly living under a king, whose word is that of our Saviour ; " Blessed are the peacemakers." And, I assure you, I shall never incline to any immoderate or harsh counsels : but shall qualify, as much as I may, your writings, with a fair interpretation. For neither can we brag of our happiness, more than anciently St. Augustine did, whose saying it was, " What, we teach is one thing ; what we are fain to tolerate, another." To the most Reverend Father, the Lord Bishop of Winchester. Most Reverend Prelate : I sent unto you my book concerning the Calling of Pastors : and with it a letter, wherein I endeavoured to satisfy you touching some points, wherein I seemed to your most gra cious king too ill affected to the order of Episcopacy. Which letter if you have received, I doubt not but you will judge of me as of a man who both thinks and speaks honourably of your order. I am not so proudly arrogant as to oppose myself to all antiquity ; and to reject that as a thing faulty and wicked, which has been received in the Church from the very next age to the apostles. I was ever of this mind, that concord might be kept whole and entire between Churches, living however under a dif ferent form of ecclesiastical government: so that Christ be preached as He is set forth in the Gospel, and the Christian faith remain safe and sound. But, among the rest of your order, I ever highliest esteemed you, for many causes, which I had rather acquaint others, than yourself withal. As a witness of which my affection I send you this new book, which the command of the Church whom I serve, and the impudent insulting of a court Jesuit forced from me. I desire that you would be a means to Of Episcopacy. 237 pacify the king's anger against me : that he would consider with himself, and weigh it in an equal balance, that there can be no place, in the French Church, for a pastor that should teach the primacy of bishops to be of divine right; without which there could be no salvation; without which the Church could not stand. To affirm this, were nothing else but to damn all our Churches to the pit of hell, and to pronounce the sentence of condemnation upon my own flock ; which should I do, you your self would account me a senseless, ungracious fellow, and worthy to be spit upon by all. But enough of this : for an over-laboured defence, specially to an understanding man, and in a clear and manifest point, is altogether needless. God preserve you, and prosper your endeavours, that they may redound to the edification of the Church. Farewell. Your Honour's most devoted, Peter Moulin. Paris, 16 Calends of Decemb. 1618. The Bishop's Answer to the Second Epistle. The post was not yet gone, he stayed here a day or two, but he had this letter here inclosed, sealed up as it is ; when, lo, I received your second, by the hands of Sir WiUiam Beecher, agent for the king, lately come from you. I presently recalled my former, yet opened it not, but, as it was, inclosed it in this. For I would not so trespass as to commit the same fault again ; but rather make amends for my former tardiness with the quick ness of this answer. You shall therefore with my first receive this second, together with my thanks for both : but, [StvTEpoTrpii)- rovg,~] the first second, as it were ; to wit, in this second letter my first thanks now, and in the first my second (as it faUs out). Thanks, I say, both for that your book formerly sent, and this later, shortly as I hope to be sent. For Sir William Beecher will deny either that it was bound (when he came thence) or else brought to him; and in that consideration he came the later to me : but he bade me look for it, for that I should not look in vain. 238 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. " As for pacifying the king's anger against you," believe me, you need not much trouble yourself. There is nothing in him, which needs pacifying : there are ways whereby you may more and more gain him, and make him yours : and it would be worth your labour, if you do it. And do it you may, if you take that course, which you cannot learn better of any man Uving, than of himself. As for me, I gladly acknowledge that you are more moderate toward us, than most of your men commonly are : and, the more you converse with antiquity, will be daily more and more : nay, I add, and much more would be, if your Church would give you leave; and I would to God, it would. It should seem that she has transferred the faults of persons upon things ; and, for some abuse, has taken away the lawful use : a fault which you should by little and Uttle unlearn her. You, while you follow and sway with it, follow not the bent of your own mind and judgment ; for I judge of your affection by your pen ; which was so well inclined toward us, that it had wrote (and, I think, not against your mind) that " our order of bishops was a thing received in the Church even from the time of the apostles." And indeed your pen had wrote very right : marry, you blotted out " of the apostles," and, in lieu of it, put in " next to the apos tles." But this, I beUeve, you did in favour of your Church. And, indeed, that was very true, which you put in ("next to the apostles"); but that not a whit less true, which you blotted out. For that order was not only from the age next to the apostles, but even from the very age of the apostles ; or else all antiquity deceives us, and there is not a Church history left worth credit. That all antiquity is for us, you yourself deny not ; and whether we must yield more to any present Church, than to all antiquity, judge you. If I know you well, the more free and ingenuous I am in writing thus to you, you will love me the better : and so shall I you, if you deal as freely with me in it. Hear me then, I pray. This is not enough for us, if a man do not reject our Church government, as a thing faulty or sinful : for this is it we stand upon, that it may be clear, and confessed by all, that the government of our Church is such, as comes most near to the form and manner of the ancient Church, or (as you grant) " that, next to the apostles ;" or (as you had once wrote, and we contend for it,) "of the apostoUc Church." And, that you are of the same judgment with us, I doubt not. If then, by your Church's leave, you would once speak out, you should do us a Of Episcopacy. 239 courtesy ; if you may not, no discourtesy, if for the future you would let our affairs alone. For, that way you are in, it will scarce be possible for you, both to please your own, and not to displease us. — And yet, though our government be by divine right, it follows not, either that there is " no salvation a," or that " a Church cannot stand without it." He must needs be stone blind, that sees not Churches standing without it : he must needs be made of iron, and hard hearted, that denies them salvation. We are not made of that metal, we are none of those ironsides ; we put a wide difference betwixt them. Somewhat may be wan ting, that is of divine right, (at least in the external government) and yet salvation may be had. So that you shall not need to " damn them to the pit of hell, or pronounce the sentence of con demnation upon your flock." This is not to damn any thing, to prefer a better thing before it : this is not to damn your Church, to recaU it to another form, that all antiquity was better pleased with, i. e. to ours: and this, when God shall grant the oppor tunity, and your estate may bear it. If we do but agree upon this point, in all the rest we shaU not fall out. But yet we wish not a concord, that is but pieced and patched up, but an entire, absolute agreement, without any piecing and patching: which, we doubt not but, you Ukewise wish with us. If any thing remain, I remit you to my former : (for we are here, now, fuU of business.) These I recommend to your fa vourable acceptance : and so I commend you in mine, and desire you to recommend me in your prayers to God. Farewell. London, December 12, 1618. To the most Reverend and most worthy Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Winchester. Great Sir, I received your letters, full both of choice stuff, and of the testimony of your good affection to me. For although you seem to be a little more moved than ordinary, yet that great sweetness, which you temper your reproofs with, puts me in hope « This is in reference to Molinseus's tragical expressions, p. 237, above. The bishop returns to the topic in his third letter, and there answers the impu tations fully. 240 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. that your goodwill is not lessened toward me, and that you will readily accept of this my satisfaction. It is to my great profit and honour to be taught by you ; nor am I so senseless as to contend with a man of so great learning and worth. Neither indeed did I write to that end, that you should write to me again : for it is abundantly sufficient for me, if you take my letters in good part. Nor are my writings of any such value, that they should beget you any trouble, or take you off from your more weighty affairs. If therefore any thing was written by me amiss, I am much indebted to that my error, which has drawn from you so learned and accurate letters, that no gold can value, and weigh against them ; which I shall keep by me, while I Uve, as a most precious KEtfiriXiov and treasure. Nevertheless, because you seem to me not to have reached my meaning in some passages of my former letters, you wUl pardon me, if I endeavour in these to explain my mind a little more fuUy. I. I said that the names of presbyter and bishop are taken in the New Testament for one and the same. II. That the order of bishop and presbyter is the same. III. That the difference between bishop and presbyter is but of ecclesiastical, not of divine right. These things you wish had not been said by me. And you bring many arguments to the contrary, indeed, learnedly and accurately, but whereof a good part touches not me. Briefly of each. I. You deny not but the names of presbyter and bishop are promiscuously taken in the New Testament. But, you say, to what purpose this ? Forsooth, you think that I tacitly insinuate thereby, that " the things likewise are promiscuous. For no man, likely, carps at the name, but he that is ill affected to the thing." And you add, that the Fathers, in those very places, wherein they teach that the names are taken in the same sense, do presently apply a remedy, and add, that this afterward was otherwise, and that the names, as weU as the offices, were and are distinct. Here it is easy for me to prove to you that I had no purpose to abuse the passivity of the names, thereby to confound the func tions. For there I presently apply the same remedy, which, you truly say, was applied by the Fathers. For I subjoin : : " pre- 1 Libri de Munere Pastorali, p. 20 and 21. Of Episcopacy. 241 sently after the times of the apostles, or even in their times, as the ecclesiastical history bears witness, it was decreed, that in one city, one of the other presbyters should be called the bishop, who for avoiding of confusion, which grows ofttimes by equality, should have pre-eminence among his colleagues. And this form of government was everywhere received by all Churches." These very words were added by me there, which do abundantly wipe off that suspicion. Could I possibly wish ill to your order, whereof I never spoke without honour? as very well knowing that the reformation of the Church of England, and the ejection of popery, next to God and your princes, is chiefly to be ascribed to the learning and industry of your bishops : some of whom, being crowned with martyrdom, sealed the Gospel with their blood. Whose writings we keep by us, whose acts and zeal we remember, as no way inferior to the zeal of the most eminent servants of God, whom either France or Germany brought forth. Whosoever shall deny this, must needs be either senselessly wicked, or (as envying God's glory, or foolishly besotted) not see at high noon. I desire therefore this suspicion may be wiped off from me : especially, when I take notice that even Calvin and Beza, whom some among you usuaUy pretend to, as abettors of their peevishness, wrote many letters to the prelates of England, and entreated them as the faithful servants of God, as men that de served weU of the Church. Nor am I such a boldface, as to pass sentence upon those Ughts of the ancient Church, Ignatius, Poly carp, Cyprian, Augustine, Chrysostom, Basil, the two Gregories Nyssen and Nazianzen, aU of them bishops ; as upon men wrong fully made, or usurpers of an unlawful office. The reverend antiquity of those first ages shall ever be in greater esteem with me, than the novel device of any whomsoever. II. I come to the second part of your censure. I said that there is but one order of bishop and presbyter. You contrariwise are of opinion that the order of bishops is another and diverse from that of presbyters : and to that purpose bring many testi monies from the Fathers, who speak of the ordination of bishops : neither do I oppose; for the ancients speak so, indeed. And although the Roman pontifical abstains from that word, yet the ancient bishops of Rome did use it. Leo I. in his eighty-seventh epistle, which is to the bishops of the province of Vienna, com- mandeth, that a bishop, who is not rightly ordained, be displaced : and, in the same epistle, he often uses the same word. — Now vol. III. R 242 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. between an order and a degree you make this difference ; that a degree denotes only a superiority ; but an order is a power to a special act : that therefore every order is a degree ; but not every degree an order. Very well. For though many do not observe this difference of words, yet it is best to use proper terms, that things which differ in substance, be distinguished in names, too. But these do not prejudice me at all. For you should have con sidered with yourself, whom I have to deal with. I dispute against the pontificians, who make seven orders; door-keepers, readers, exorcists, acolyths, subdeacons, deacons, presbyters : but the order or character of bishops they will by no means have to be diverse from that of presbyters. Could I, disputing with them, use other words than such as are received by them ? Could I deal with them about the order of bishops, which they acknow ledge not? Should I have inveighed against them for not making the order of bishops distinct from that of presbyters, when our own Churches make it not ? He that should do this, should not so much contest with the Church of Rome, as with our own. Then to what purpose is it to insist so much upon the distinction of words, since every order is, by St. Paul, called a degree l ? Nor can a bishop be deprived of his orders, but he must be degraded, and faU from his degree. I pray, weigh my words well : " every bishop is a presbyter, and a priest of the body of Christ; and of these the Church of Rome makes but one order a." It plainly appears that I do not in these words affirm what ought to be believed, but what is the sense of the Church of Rome. But here somewhat falls in, which may beget a doubt. It is confessed by all, that every bishop is a presbyter ; but a presby ter is not a deacon. Hence it comes to pass, that there is another manner of difference betwixt a bishop and a presbyter, than be twixt a presbyter and a deacon. Since therefore a presbyter differs in order from a deacon, it seems to foUow that a bishop differs not in order from a presbyter. Nor is that without some doubt which you say, that " Order is a power to a special act." For a power to a special act is given to many without order; as to them who are extraordinarily dele gated to the performance of some special actions. Then you deny that archbishops are another order from bishops : and yet 1 Tim. iii. 13. 2 Lib. de Munere Pastorum, p. 144. Of Episcopacy. 243 an archbishop has a power to some special actions ; as namely, to call a synod, and to do other offices, which are not lawful for bishops ; and which are not permitted to archbishops themselves under the Papacy, but when they have received the archiepiscopal pall from the Pope. You, out of your great wisdom, will con sider, whether it be not apparent by these, that the power to a special action may be conferred, even by a degree, without a diversity of order. III. The third point is still behind : to wit, that I said, that episcopacy is by the most ancient ecclesiastical, but yet not by divine right. You, on the other side, resolve and maintain that it is by divine right ; and to that purpose produce many examples of bishops, St. Mark, Timothy, Titus, Clemens, Polycarp, St. James, Bishop of Jerusalem ; aU who received the order of epis copacy from the Apostles themselves. And you quote a great number of Fathers, who affirm as much. (Learnedly all, and ac cording to the truth of the primitive histories.) But what then? Why, say you, if bishops were constituted by the Apostles, plain it is that the order of episcopacy is by apostolical, and so conse quently by divine right. This indeed is to make yourself master of the whole strength of the cause. But that axiom of yours (" All things that are of apostolical right are likewise of divine") seems to me (by your good leave) to be liable to some exceptions. Many things" were ordered about ecclesiastical policy, which even the Church of England acknowledges not to be of divine right, by not observing the same. St. Paul, in 1 Tim. v., would have deaconesses appointed in the church : but this fashion was long ago out of date. The same St. Paul (1 Cor. xiv.) would that, at the same hour, in the same assembly, three or four should pro phesy, i. e. as St. Ambrose understands it, " interpret the Word of God;" and that the others should judge of what was spoken : which custom is long since ceased. The Apostle's command touching abstinence from things strangled and blood, was for many ages observed by the ancient Church : witness the Apolo getic of TertuUian, chap, ix., the Council of Gangra, canon ii., and the TruUan, canon lxvn. ; and there is frequent mention of the same point in the Councils of Worms and Orleans : yet St. a But, see the very valuable and pertinent observations from the Works of King Charles, given above in the notes on Bishop Sanderson's Judgment, &c. p. 220—1. r2 244 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. Augustine, in his xxxii. book against Faustus, chap. xiii. says that " Observing hereof was generally neglected by the Christ ians ;" and that they who were possessed with that scruple were laughed at by others. You have, not the Apostles alone, but even that precept of Christ himself, touching " shaking off the dust of the feet, against the refusers of the Gospel." If any should now go about to lay the foundation of the Christian re ligion among the Tartars or Sinenses, were he bound to observe that rite against the refractory? Such things as appertain to salvation and to faith were ordered by the Apostles, by a divine inspiration ; but in the rest they did often use their own prudence, as St. Paul intimates L. Nor are you ignorant, so oft as examples are brought of bishops placed by the Apostles in a higher degree above presby ters, what is commonly answered : viz. that they had not that pre eminence as bishops, but as evangeUsts ; of whose superiority above pastors somewhat you may have in St. Chrysostom, on the iv. to the Ephesians. Which reply, of what strength it is, I had rather stand to your judgment than any man's. Indeed St. Am brose, on that same place, makes evangelists inferior to bishops, and without sees. Yet, however you shall call Titus, Timothy, and St. Mark, whether bishops or evangeUsts, it is clear they had bishops their successors and heirs of their pre-eminence. You determine, therefore, that our Churches do offend against the divine right ; yet so, as you exclude them not from hope of salvation; but do think, that, in our Church government, men may attain to salvation : for this you brought in, in your second letter, that you might deal the kindlier with us. But in your larger, you liken us, in this point, to Aerius; who, you say, was de servedly, upon this ground, by the ancients put in the black book of heretics. Herein, great sir, I appeal to your equity. Think with yourself, what straits you drive me to. For, if I should have spoke, as you conceive it, I could not but necessarUy accuse our Church of heresy; and so doing, be forced o-uo-iceua£eiv, to be packing, to leave my station here, and to provide for myself as I could. Nor could I say that the primacy of bishops is by divine right but I should brand our Churches (which have spUled so much blood for Christ) with heresy. For, questionless, to be obstinately set against such things as are of divine right, and pe- ' J Cor. vii. 25. Of Episcopacy. 245 remptorily to gainsay what God commands, is downright heresy, whether it concern faith or discipline. Besides, that I should have overthrown that principle, wherewith chiefly our religion defends herself against Popery, viz. " That what things are by divine right, are sufficiently and evidently contained in the Holy Scriptures." I hear what you will reply. That it had been safer and better for me to have been silent in these points, than itch to be writing so unseasonably. Because thereby it comes to pass that I must necessarily offend our own Church, or yours ; nay, haply, both. And to tell you truth, I had rather have been silent; for very unwillingly I set my mind to write ; nor did I write but upon command. Arnoldus, the Jesuit, the king's confessor, publicly and in the pulpit, before His Majesty, inveighed against the con fession of our Church, and further, in a pestilent book reviled it, wherein he mightily insults over us, in this question, and odiously seeks to overthrow our Church's government. This book coming to be sold all over France, through the highways and streets, at the voice of a crier, did greatly scandaUze many. Nay, before this, the pulpits, the markets, the court, the streets, and the very barbers' shops, rang with this question. This is the field wherein wanton wits sport themselves daily. How earnestly my book was looked for, which should stop that insolency, it does thence appear, that, in four months' space, it was nine times printed. I could not therefore shun this task. Nor was it possi ble to write exactly of that argument, but I must begin with the signification of the words bishop and presbyter ; and treat of the original of the office. But here I took occasion to speak ho nourably of the bishops of England. I derived the dignity of bishops from the very infancy of the Church. I condemned Aerius. I said that St. James himself was bishop of Jerusalem ; from whom in a long course, the succession of bishops of that city is deduced. Only this one thing was wanting, viz. that I did not say that our Church was heretical, and did trample the divine right under her feet; which, indeed, I neither could nor ought to do ; yea, had I done it, you yourself would have noted that want of prudence in me. This may serve for the three chief points : to which you further add this ct-i'juetoov, or coroUary ; namely, your judgment touching the title of my book, (which I expressed in French,) " Of the Calling of Pastors." These words, you say, are novel, and never 246 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. used by any of the ancients in this sense. I acknowledge, in deed, that the word " calUng" is unusual among the ancients, nor taken in that sense. But we Frenchmen speak otherwise : for as many as have wrote of that argument, either ours, or Pa pists, use this word; which, with us, signifies somewhat more than ordination; for it is taken for the office itself. If I had wrote in Latin, I should have given this title, of " The Office and Ordination of Pastors." Neither would you have all presbyters and ministers of the Word of God, to be called by the name of "pastors." For this word, you say, belongs only to bishops, (and that the ancients spoke so.) If this be true, worthy sir, the Churches in France, Germany, Lowcountries, and Helvetia, are flocks without a pastor. But St. Paul, Acts xx. commands the presbyters of Ephesus, "pascere," i. e. to be pastors of the Church, ver. 17 and 28. And St. Peter, in his first epistle, v. 1, 2. " The pres byters, who are among you, I exhort, — Pascite, feed the flock of God, which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint but willingly ; not for filthy lucre :" which exhortation to diligence, and shunning filthy lucre, no doubt, belongs also to the inferior presbyters. Now to think that they ought not to be called pastors, whom God commands "pascere," to feed the flock, I cannot persuade myself. But, if the Word of God be "pabu lum," the food of souls, I see not why he should not be called a pastor, who does administer this food. St. Paul in the fourth to the Ephesians, verse 11, makes an enumeration of eccle siastical offices : " God gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers." If presbyters who labour in the Word, whom we Frenchmen call ministers, be not under stood under the name of pastors, I see not what place they can have in this enumeration of the apostle. St. Augustine, in his fifty- ninth epistle, says, that pastors and doctors, here, are the same. The same thought St. Hierom, upon this place of St. Paul. Vincentius Lirinensis, expounding this place, makes no mention of pastors, but comprehends them under doctors, whom he calls treatisers, who certainly were a different thing from bishops. But that bishops only are doctors, I never yet read anywhere. St. Ambrose is so far from thinking the name of pas tors to belong only to bishops, that he even calls readers, pastors. "Readers,"says he, "are, and may be pastors, who fatten the souls of their auditors with reading." The term pastor is usual among Of Episcopacy. 247 the prophets: prophet Isaiah, lvi. 11. prophet Jeremiah, x. 21, xxii. 22, and xxiii. 1. 2. prophet Ezekiel, xxxiv. 2. and prophet Zechariah, x. 3. Which places whosoever shall weigh in the even balance of judgment, he shall find, that under the name of pastors were reckoned not only the chief priests, or the heads of the Levites, but all the prophets and Levites, upon whom the office of teaching lay. But the matter as it arose, and my earnest desire to satisfy you, has carried me beyond my bounds. I have too, too much abused your leisure. Yet shall not this my pains be ill bestowed, if you shall take notice hereby, how much I esteem you, how desirous I am of peace, how glad I would be that all the reformed Churches, who are united by one faith, were also united by one and the same bond of ecclesiastical government. I beseech you, sir, accept in good part this my ingenuous liberty, which truly shall never detract from that observance and honour, which, I shall ever profess before the world, I owe unto you. God -preserve you, and grant you a fresh and Uvely old age, with the increase of all honour and happiness. Far-eWell. Your honour's most devoted in aU observance, Peter Moulin. Dated Paris. The Bishop's Answer to the Third Epistle. ~4 I never could learn this trick of Rawing, or (which is all one) of tossing replies. No, not when my years were fitter for it. But now old age, which of itself is a disease, and yet never comes without diseases attending it, plucks me by the ear, and bids me get me out of this cockpit, and rank myself with them, whose whole business is prayer. Nevertheless, because in this skirmishing, it has happened to us both alike, viz. that we have not reached one another's meaning, I shaU, not unwillingly, more fully and plainly expound my mind to you, as you did yours to me. That which I first meet withal is but a slight matter ; for I do not understand at all, how I was any whit more " moved " than ordinary. Neither do I remember ought of yours, that moved me more than ordinary ; nay that moved me at all ; but only that 248 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. you said, that some passages of yours had grieved the king's soul. That word [grieved] grieved me somewhat I confess, and moved me more than ordinary. Besides, there was nothing that I remember. His Majesty had made three dashes upon your book. Touching them you would know of me, what my mind was, what I thought. I answered, as was truth, where the king had made them, they ought to be made. I. The first place, noted by the king, was that, concerning the passivity of the words, (as you speak.) I said it was justly noted. Here you did not reach my meaning ; for you take it for all one, as if I had said " that you thereby did tacitly insinuate," I know not what. But that came not into my thoughts. I did not say, what you did thereby insinuate, but what others would snatch at from thence. For, questionless, snatch they will, as if you did insinuate, though you did not — as men are, and stand affected. I, for my part, do not deny, that those words are taken for one and the same ; and so far you are right. This I deny, that those things which are right may, all of them, safely, by any man, at any time, be committed to writing. For you must consider, not so much what you might mean there, as what others would snatch from thence. Our writings must be regulated by that of the apostle, " Not what is lawful, but what is expedient." See you, whether this controversy be seasonable at this time ; and whether it were advisedly done by you ; and whether it be not expedient, Ikkottteiv rag afopfiag, to cut off occasions from them, who earnestly snatch at all occasions of setting novelties afoot. Per haps, I fear what is safe enough, but I fear though, lest, an occasion being taken from hence, those stirs unhappily break out again, which seemed wholly to be made up among us. Nor was I ever of that opinion, I never wrote it, "that afterward it was otherwise done." That was not done otherwise afterward, which was done by the apostles themselves. It is St. Chry- sostom's : " were there many bishops in one city ? by no means." It is St. Hierom's : " for in one city there could not be many bishops." It is Theodoret's : " It could not be, that there should be many pastors in one city." Of what time are these to be understood ? When were there not ? When could there not be those many pastors in one city ? — What, when St. Chrysostom, St. Hierom, Theodoret lived ? — doubtless, when the apostle wrote that to the Philippians. I could not possibly say then, that that Of Episcopacy. 249 was done afterward, which they said was done, even when the apostle lived and wrote. I said, that the remedy was there applied by the Fathers. You say that the same was applied by you. AppUed, I grant ; but truly, neither the same, nor in the same place. For, 1. their [TrpofhvXaKTiKr>~\ their preventive caution was pre mised before they spoke. Your [fepaTreui-ticrj] yours is but a plaster laid on, after the wound is made. 2. What you say by way of disjunction, viz. " either imme diately after the time of the apostles, or even in their time," that would not they have said so ; but, as truth was, without any dis junction, without the former part: that it was done, in the very time of the apostles, and by themselves. 3. Then, nowhere do they say, that any constitution was made about it. Nor do I think you will ever read of any such [cWa£«v, or] constitution, in any history. We read, indeed, in the Acts, that the order of deacons was constituted by them ; of presbyters, of bishops, there was no constitution : for bishops were formerly instituted by Christ in the apostles ; and presbyters in the seventy- two. 4. Nor only, that any was called bishop, but that he was a bishop. For there were no titular bishops then : they had their name from their office : they were called what they were ; they were, what they were called. 5. Nor that he should be only with pre-eminence, but that he should be invested with power: power, I say, of imposition of hands, of commanding, of receiving informations, of reproving. 6. Nor only, to take away confusion, which is contrary to order, but also to take away schism, which is contrary to unity. Nor for these two only, but also for aU other ends, for which, we said, power was given them. You see that the Fathers had anothergates remedy for this disease : and that those speeches of yours, " it was constituted ;" " that should be called ;" " should have the pre-eminence ;" are too narrow ; and I add, by your leave, too weak and dilute ; nor the same with those, which are the ingredients of that medicine, which the Fathers made. But yet I have a mind here to put the question ; if " confusion commonly grows from equality," how comes it to pass, that there is no need of this remedy among you ? Again ; if it be true, " that this form of government was re- 250 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. ceived every where by all Churches;" that, which was everywhere received by all, why does not your Church receive ? why does she only run counter to all the Churches, which then were every where ? For that is a most true word, you said, and deserved an asterisk of commendation, "that all Churches everywhere re ceived this form of government." Nor were there ever, before this age, any Churches, which were governed by any other, than by bishops. Wherefore there was no cause at all, " that you should go about to wipe off that suspicion," (for I had none of you,) " that you were not well affected to our order." I shall never be induced to believe it ; for I cannot but give credit to you, affirming it in your letters, that your countrymen complain of you, for favouring and wishing so well unto it. Indeed, that you wish well, I doubt not at all ; but thereto I am more persuaded by your word, than by your arguments. For here you slip from the order to the persons of bishops : of whose learning, industry, and martyrdom, you speak much and excellently. But there were, as you know, of old, men that hated the tyrant, but not his tyranny : and why not now, men that love bishops, but not the government by bishops ? Pass by the men therefore ; it matters not for them ; speak of the order itself. For Calvin himself, and Beza, if they wrote to our prelates, know, that they wrote likewise to them, whom you call " peevish :" and that their letters, which these pretend for their peevishness, are produced by them ; and thus they oft reply, " To what purpose do I hear Calvin's words, when I see his deeds ?" For the order itself, if it be such as you would have it seem, the bishops of England cannot make it better, nor of Spain worse. I advised you not to transfer the faults of persons upon things ; and to un learn your Church that custom. As for those ancients, whom you worthily call the lights of the Church, and who themselves were bishops, though you say much, yet you say not enough. For this is not enough, " That you would not give sentence against them ; that they were not wrong fully made ; that they did not usurp an unlawful office." These are but terms of diminution, " Not give sentence against ; not wrongfully made; not usurpers of an unlawful office;" speak out, speak as the truth is, " That they were lawfully made ;" (lawfully, if ever any) and did " exercise a most lawful office :" " that ours, at this day, are to be made after their example : that Of Episcopacy. 25 1 the same office is to be exercised by all ours." These speak home to the order, are nothing to the men. But, whatever become of those passages, I cannot but com mend your conclusion there ; nor shall I stick to set an asterisk of approbation upon it : I would to God that might put an end to the whole controversy betwixt us. It is this : " the venera ble antiquity of those first ages shall be ever in greater esteem with me than the new upstart device of any whomsoever." Oh, would to God, that antiquity might be more and more in esteem with you, with all ! for if antiquity might prevail, if these new upstart devices were discarded, then, sure, the cause of this order could not be in danger. II. The second dash of dislike set by His Majesty, and very justly, was at that place, where you contend that the order of bishop and presbyter is one and the same. I have showed that it is not the same. Both, 1. Because the offices are not the same. For a presby ter does not ordain ; no, not in St. Hierom's judgment. As also, 2. Because there is not the same imposition of hands, but a new one in a bishop. Again, 3. Because, among the Fathers, Isidore clearly calls it the order of bishops. And lastly, 4. Because those two orders were distinguished by Christ in the apostles, and the seventy-two. Here you produce to us the title of the pontifical; which is concerning consecration, not ordination. I showed that the ancient bishops, even of Rome itself, spoke otherwise; other wise, the later popes. Among the ancients, that the word or dination was most usual, and most approved. You appeal to the schools. I acquainted you, in what sense the schools call them the same, or not the same. — The same in reference to the body of Christ ; upon which they terminate their seven orders: about the body of Christ a presbyter does as much as a bishop. You yourself say as much : " of these in respect of the body of Christ, the Church of Rome makes but one order." — Not the same; if you respect the power to a special act, viz., of ordination, which is peculiar to a bishop. This is not mine, as you imagined ; but the definition of orders, all the schools over. Nor yet that difference, which afterward you put upon me : both of them are from the schools ; both definition and 252 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. difference. These things, if you would speak scholastically, were not to be denied by you, who appealed to the schools. But to what purpose do you say, " that you deal with, or that you dispute against the pontificians, who will not have the order of bishops distinct from that of presbyters ?" And yet presently you subjoin, " ought I to inveigh against them, (viz. the pontifi cians) because they do not make the order of bishops distinct from that of presbyters, when our Churches do not make it neither ? He that should do this, should not so much contest with the Church of Rome as with our own." You dispute therefore against them, but yet you wiU not inveigh against them: you dispute against the pontificians, and yet you allege their pontifical. You dispute against them, yet your own Churches do the selfsame thing. Nor yet will you affirm what ought to be believed, but what the Church of Rome thinks : which thinks the very same that your Church does ; and your Church, I believe, you would have to be believed. You do not therefore contest with the pontificians ; for, I trow you have no mind to contest with your own. It were against your religion so to do. Nevertheless your Church, as you confess, does the same thing in this point, that the Ro man does. You say it is "best to use proper terms, that the things which differ in substance be distinguished in name :" and yet in the same page, afterward, as if you were somewhat angry, you ask, " To what end is it, to stick so much upon the distinction of words?" To what end then is it, to make proper words, which are made proper for no other end but for distinction ? If this be to no end, it is better, trust me, neither to use proper words, nor to make any words at all proper ; for we must use the better, both you and we. Notwithstanding this, why do you reject the distinction of words here? Because every order (you say,) is a degree. What then ? Since every degree is not an order, if we will use proper words. Deaconry, in St. Paul, is a degree ; and the same is an order with all men. But archdeaconship is a new degree, and yet no order, " Nor can a bishop be ousted of his order, but he must be degraded (say you) or fall from his order." Yea, but he may be degraded though he be not ousted of his order ; for of his order he can no way be ousted. For after that, which they call degradation, there remains a power to the acts of his order: Of Episcopacy. 253 the use of which power maybe inhibited; the power itself cannot be taken away. But here some scruples arise in your mind. The first is : that every bishop is a presbyter ; very true that, and confessed by all. But a presbyter, you say, is not a deacon. Among you, haply, he is not, according to your novel device : but with that reverend antiquity (which you speak of) he is : nay, further, a bishop himself also is a deacon : Read St. Chrysostom, " Even a bishop was called a deacon ;" whereupon, St. Paul, writing to Timothy, said, " Fulfil thy deaconry ;" to him, being a bishop. Whence also it is, that many bishops now-a-days write, " to my Fellow- Presbyter, to my Fellow-Deacon." Read St. Ambrose on the fourth to the Ephesians ; " For all orders are in a bishop ; because he is the first priest, i. e. the prince of priests." And, on the first to the Corinthians, 12. "Though apostles be pro phets too ; for the first degree hath all other under it." I may truly therefore infer the contrary ; " Seeing a bishop differs not from a presbyter, by any other way of difference, than a pres byter does from a deacon ; but a presbyter differs from a deacon in his order ; therefore it is agreeable, that a bishop differ from a presbyter in his order." This ever seemed agreeable to the con sent of antiquity. I wonder that these things escaped you : for I dare not suspect, that what are so obvious to all are unknown to you. But the deaconry, in use among you, deceived you; a mere stranger it, I speak it boldly, to aU antiquity (with whom deacons were ever one part of the clergy.) The second scruple, " That order is a power to a special act," I say not of myself ; the whole school says so; it is the defini tion of order received in the schools; speak you, if you have another; for I remember not that I have any where read of any other. Your scruple here arises from them, who (say you) are " extraordinarily delegated to the performance of certain acts." I rejoin : what have they who are delegated without order, to do with order ? The very word order requires that this be understood of ordinary power. The third scruple. " An archbishop has a power to a special act." What act ? To call a Synod. I ease you of this scruple also. This act is not special to an archbishop : for a bishop ex ercises the same act : he does as much call a synod in his dio cese, as the other does in his province. Though, if we will speak truly, " the calling of synods is a special act to neither of them, 254 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. but is by delegation3 from the prince;" by whose laws there is special provision against unlawful assemblies. You, in your wisdom, see that nothing appears here, why either by a degree any power may be conferred, or by an order may not be con ferred. III. The third dash of dislike was upon your denying epis copacy to be of divine right. You grant it to be of apostolical. But that serves not you to make it be of divine right. " No, not among us, who do not observe certain things which were ap pointed by the apostles." For, 1. Not widows. I read of no command there for the ap pointing of widows : but for Ephesus, and those Churches which had widows, there is a command touching their age. The insti tution of widows, was left free to every Church. For none were to maintain widows unless they would ; and, indeed, they could not be maintained among the poorer. Not, 2. That custom for three or four to prophesy at one hour. But that custom was, clearly extraordinary ; and the extraordi nary gifts ceasing, that ceased too. Not, 3. To abstain from things strangled, and blood. Yea, but that was temporary, not appointed by the apostles, with any other intention, than to be in force during the non-burial of the synagogue ; the synagogue once buried, to be free to observe or not. So your first instance was not necessary ; your second, not ordi nary ; your third, temporary not perpetual. These do not make a divine right. But, that the precepts of the apostles may not be of divine right, you will not have that of Christ, touching " shaking off the dust of their feet," to be so, neither. But, in truth, this is no precept ; but, if a precept, of divine right. For, I hope, you wiU not say that Christ commanded this, " using His prudence, without divine inspiration." No man ever understood that Kara prirbv, according to the letter ; and that upon this ground ; be cause it was sometime observed, sometime altered, sometime quite omitted : not according to the letter, I say, but Kara tt)v Siavoiav, according to the mind of the speaker. Whose mind was, a See this bishop's masterly sermon, " On the right and power of calliug Church Assemblies." And compare also Hooker, book viii. ; Barrow on the Pope's Supremacy, Works, vol. vi. p. 322 — 5 ; and Wake's Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods asserted, 1697, 8vo. 12 Of Episcopacy. 255 that such were to be given over for desperate, whether with or without using the ceremony. But, be more sparing, I pray, of that point, " of the apostles' ofttimes using their prudence." For it cannot be said or writ without great danger, that "the apostles in some things had divine inspiration, in the rest did often use their own prudence ;" and that in their writings which are extant. For even that very place, where Kara yv£)\ir\v is, "according to my judgment," you know, is concluded with [Aokw Se Kayui 7rv£ujua Geov exeiv]. " But I think also that I have the Spirit of God:" so that his very yvojfiii, his judgment, had the dictate thereof, from the Spirit of God. As for that place, which you quote, — if it were not written by divine inspiration, but by human prudence, we are to score it for apocryphal. How then ? are we for making an index, and for expurging the New Testament ? For separate we must the precious from the vile. What were dictated by human prudence will never stand in conjunction with those which were by divine inspiration. But, although there be weight enough to confirm this cause, from right, and the practice of the apostles, yet, you may remem ber", that I derived this distinction of orders higher, viz. from Christ our Saviour in the apostles, and seventy-two disciples; that it is every where among the Fathers, and clearly confessed by them, that bishops succeeded the apostles, and presbyters the seventy-two. I cited Cyprian b ; " But deacons must remember, how our Lord chose apostles, i. e. bishops and prelates ; but the apostles, after the ascension of our Lord, appointed to themselves deacons, as ministers of their episcopacy, and of the Church." That those seven were instituted, Acts vi. by the apostles ; but no presbyters, but after the example of the seventy-two; nor bishops, but after their own pattern. This order therefore has the strength and sinews thereof, not only from the apostles, but even from our Saviour Himself. Would you have me fetch it yet higher ° ? even out of the Old Testament, and there from the divine law itself? St. Hie rom does ; " And that we may know that the apostolical tradi- a Compare Sanderson's "Judgment," &c. above, p. 219. b The passage is in Epist. 65, ad Rogatianum. <= See Bishop Andrews's " Form of Church Government before and after Christ, as it is expressed in the Old and New Testament," in Dr. Bernard's " Clavi Trabales," p. 95, b. 1661, 4to. 256 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. tions were taken out of the Old Testament; what Aaron, and his sons, and the Levites were in the temple, that do bishops, presbyters, and deacons chaUenge to themselves in the Church." St. Ambrose does, in both those places, 1 Cor. xii. and Ephes. iv. speaking of the Jews, " whose tradition," says he, " has passed over to us." I omit Aaron, lest you should reject him, as a type of Christ. Over his sons, the priests, was there not in their seve ral famiUes N'ttfJ. i. e. a prelate ; or, as is said elsewhere 1, l>pQ i. e. a bishop. Over the Gersonites, Numb. iii. 24. Over the Kohathites, verse 30. Over the Merarites, verse 35. Was not Eleazar there, even while his father was alive, awttfJ N'ttfJ, as if you would say, "prelate of prelates," verse 32. Who is else where called -]»ps -\oi as if you would say, " archbishop." There are therefore in the law, D'Nlii'J, D'3i"0, D'l^, i. e. prelates or bishops, priests and Levites. In the gospel, the apostles, the seventy-two, and those seven, Acts 6. In the apostles' practice, which was taken from those two (the law and gospel) bishops, presbyters, deacons. But do not, do not think, that this was by apostolical right alone ; if there be in the gospel, if in the law, any divine right, this government is not without example in both, it is founded on both. Either then there is no divine right in the form of Church government, and then weU fare Amster dam a, where so many "human prudences" as there are, so many forms of government shaU be set up. Or, if there be any divine right, it is in those three, it is for us. And now to your skirmishes of Ughter consideration. " That I know what used to be answered by the vulgar concerning Timothy and Titus." Add this too, that I know, that many things are ill answered by the vulgar. But what is answered by the vulgar ? " That they were evangelists." Who affirms this ? either the vulgar, or they that, out of some man's novel * 1 Numb. iv. 16. Neh. xi. 9. Isaiah lx. 17. a The meaning here will be clear from the following extract. " I am lodged in a Frenchman's house," (says James Howell, writing to his father from Amsterdam, in a letter bearing date the same year as this correspon dence between Andrews and Du Moulin,) " who is one of the deacons of our English Brownists' Church here. It is not far from the Synagogue of the Jews, who have free and open exercise of their religion here. I believe in this street, where I lodge, there be well near as many religions as there be houses And let this country call itself as long as it will the United Provinces one way, I am persuaded, in this point, there is no place so dis united." — Epistoke Hoelianae, vol. i. epist. 7. Of Episcopacy. 257 device, have spread these doubtful speeches, among the vulgar. For none of the ancients ever spoke so ; no history can witness it. But history does witness, that Timothy and Titus were bishops. Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Hierom, Theo doret say it. That they were evangelists no man ever said, wrote, or dreamed, before our age. This vulgar answer is a vulgar forgery. Therefore, whether evangeUsts were superior or inferior to bishops it is nothing to us, since these, by no means, were evan geUsts. Who says so? — St. Chrysostom. — But I am to mind you that he corrects what he had spoken with some diffidence there concerning evangeUsts. For that nothing can be collected out of that place, Ephes. iv. concerning the priority of any. But we may fetch it from another epistle1 , where we have, trpdrov, dlvTEpov, rpi'rov, first, second, third : but evangelists appear not there. Besides that they, whom you, with the vulgar, would have to be counted evangeUsts (Timothy and Titus) are from thence placed among the pastors, oXonXnpov E/nrETriaTEvpEvovg Wvog, " entrusted with the care of their several provinces, and in general of aU," but not among evangeUsts. Aquila and Priscilla are to him evangeUsts; so that I cannot but wonder what you meant to mention that place : for, from that place of St. Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 5, if you wiU hear St. Chrysostom, you shall as soon make Timothy but a deacon, from the fulfilling [SiaKoviav] of the deaconship, as an evangelist, from the work of an evangelist. Do not you therefore make such a disjunction, either bishop or evangelist. EvangeUsts they were never reputed by any, but some, I know not who, two or three days ago, whom any upstart device pleases better than reverend antiquity. — Do we give cre dit to antiquity? They were bishops, they had bishops their successors, their heirs both in superiority and power. You demand, then, whether your Churches sin against the divine right? I did not say ita; this only I said, that your 1 1 Cor. xii. 28. a No, indeed, very far from it. We have seen how the Bishop had ex pressed himself in his second letter. It is a common charge against the divines of the Church of England that, in maintaining episcopacy, they un church the other principal Churches of the reformed religion which have it not. Du Moulin's own tragical lamentations to this effect are before us. We see, from the disclaimers in this correspondence, that those principles were followed by no such consequence in the mind of Bishop Andrews.— VOL. III. S 258 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. Churches wanted somewhat that is of divine right ; wanted, but not by your fault, but by the iniquity of the times : for that your But let us take other examples. " Although I see," says Hooker, book iii. chap 11. "that certain reformed Churches, the Scottish especially, and the French, have not that which best agreeth with the sacred Scripture, I mean the government that is by bishops ; inasmuch as both those Churches are fallen under a different kind of regiment ; which to remedy it is for the one altogether too late, and too soon for the other during their present affliction and trouble ; this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in such a case than exagitate, considering that men oftentimes, without any fault of their own, may be driven to want that kind of polity or regiment which is best, and to content themselves with that which either the irremediable error of former times, or the necessity of the present, has cast upon them." Again, in another place, he has formally given his judgment that there are cases in which ordination may be valid without a bishop. See above, vol. i. p. 480, 1, Baxter's Catechism, note (a). We have a testimony to the like effect, of a peculiarly interesting kind, in the case of King Charles I. from his admirable letter to his son describing his debates with the commissioners in the crisis of his fate at the treaty of Newport. " We were not insensible," (says he, Clarendon Papers, vol. ii. p. 433,) "of the objection made unto us, that our opinion of a necessity of continu ing bishops in the Church condemned the reformed Churches that had not retained them. We may reply, we are loath to give offence to any good Christians, but think they whom it concerns will sooner admit our answer, than others whom it should less concern, when we say that we are not bound to offend our own conscience (by forbearing) to maintain an opinion that may reflect on others ; that we believe the reformed Churches would be so charitable to think this was necessary to justify ourself, but could not be inferred to censure them ; and that their practice was warranted by their own belief and reason, and not to be overthrown because we were not of their opinion . . . Many other things might be said as obstacles to them, in respect of the Civil government, for retaining or reviving it." (Episcopacy.) We may observe, by the way, that, in the word " obstacles" here he refers to what he had elsewhere described as " a necessity of times and affairs which rather excused than commended them for their inconformity to all antiquity." See Icon Basilike, chap. xvii. Again : " Although our Church of England has had the peculiar happi ness of a monarchical reformation, and retains the blessing of episcopal government, yet such is the moderation of our Church she imputes the want of the same in other reformed Churches, not so much to any fault of those Churches themselves, but rather attributes it to the injury of the times : Eos coegit dura necessitas. (Saravia.)" Puller, On the Moderation of the Church of England, p. 419. And, to content ourselves with one citation more : " Although the Church of England holds subordination of ministers in the Christian Church to be of apostolical, nay of divine institution, having, as she conceives, for grounds Of Episcopacy. 259 France had not your kings so propitious at the reforming of your Church as our England had. In the interim, when God shall of this her judgment, besides Scripture, the practice of the holy apostles in their time, of the universal Church ever since, until this later age, and which s more, of Christ himself, who ordained the apostles and the seventy disci ples, in an imparity, as two distinct orders of ministers in His Church ; yet, notwithstanding she does but simply assert the lawfulness of her own govern ment without meddling with the government of other Churches which do not meddle with hers, leaving them to fall or stand to their own master, to whom they ought to give an account of their actions, and not to her. For this is all that she says on this matter in the articles of her faith, ftiat " the book of consecration of archbishops and bishops, (Art. XXXVI.) and ordering of priests and deacons set forth in the time of Edward the sixth, and confirmed, at the same time, by the authority of Parliament, does contain all things necessary to such consecration and ordering ; and has not any thing that of itself is super stitious and ungodly ; so that all such as are consecrated or ordered according to the same rites are held by her to be rightly and lawfully consecrated and ordered." Durel's View of the Government and Public Worship of God in the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas, p. 103, 4to. 1662. Still, it must never be forgotten that the case of our dissenters in England is very different from that of the reformed Churches. " It will be objected," says Dr. Thomas Bennet, " that this principle does unchurch some Protestant Churches beyond the seas, and make all their ordinations null and void, because they have no bishops, and consequently no true pastors amongst them. To this I answer, that there is a vastly great difference between the case of those foreign reformed Churches, and that of those English pastors who want episcopal ordination. " You know, that at the time of the Reformation, the lay- Protestants in France, and some few other countries, could not possibly join with the clergy of those countries in the public worship of God, without being guilty of idolatry and other crimes. . . . "But in England the case is vastly different. You yourselves cannot deny ; and I shall afterwards prove it out of your own writers, and by the daily practice of your own party, both pastors and people ; I say, you cannot deny, but that it is possible for the laity here in England to join with the episcopal clergy without any sin at all. We have not so much as one unlaw ful term of lay-communion with us ; and therefore there is not the least rea son to expect that God will allow of ordination without bishops here in England, though He will, we hope, in some other protestant countries'. . . . " I shall only beg leave to add some words of Dr. Maurice, who well observes, ' That the ordination of our dissenters' (Defence of Diocesan Episcopacy. London, 1700. p. 452, 3.) ' is peculiar ; and they do foreign Churches great wrong, when they concern them in their quarrel : for first, your Independents have no root of orders, but their pastors are of lay original extraction. The Presbyterians have ordination from Presbyters, not only without, but in oppo sition to, bishops, against the established rules of this Church, against the laws of the country, as well as practice of ancient Churches. And if upon s 2 260 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. vouchsafe you better times, even this, which now you want, will, by His grace, be supplied. But, in the meanwhile, the name of bishop, which we find so frequent in the Scriptures, ought not to have been abolished by you; though to what purpose is it to abolish the name, and to retain the thing ? (for even you retain the thing without the title; and they twoa, whom you named, while they Uved, what were they but bishops in deed, though not in name) seeing, as he in the poet says excellently, there is scarce any man that would wish Tvpavvog Eivai pdXXov i) rvpavva Spav. To be a tyrant, and not to tyrannize. That Aerius was put in the black book of heretics (and wor- thUy) whosoever shall believe Epiphanius, Philastrius, or St. Augustine, must needs confess. And you that condemn Aerius, upon what consideration do you condemn him ? Is it not " be cause he opposed himself to the consent of the Catholic Church ?" He that is of the same opinion does not he also oppose himself ? and is to be condemned upon the same consideration ? But, if there be any error, so it be not with obstinacy of mind, though he think as Aerius did, his cause will be far from what the cause of Aerius was. Do not you therefore betake yourself to those tragical expressions of " damning to the pit of hell, of giving sentence of damnation against your Church, as against her that this account we pronounce them void, we do no more than what all the Pro testant Churches abroad would do in the like case. If some deacons or lay men would take upon them to ordain pastors in the French Churches, for separate congregations, in opposition to the received discipline professed in their general synods, I would appeal to any minister of those Churches, whe ther he held such an ordination valid . . . Nay, though a presbyter deposed by their synod should take upon him to ordain, I still appeal to the ministers of those Churches, whether they would account such an ordination valid. If we, therefore, do judge such ordinations here to be nullities because adminis tered by subordinate officers against the laws of the Church, in opposition to their superiors, and against the practice and discipline of the primitive Chris tians, we cannot be thought singular in this judgment; since all ancient Churches would have done the same thing, and all the Protestant Churches in Europe in the like case would follow our example. " Those persons, therefore, who plead for ordination by presbyters without bishops here in England, are desired to show that their case is the same with that of the foreign Churches." Discourse of Schism, p. 35 — 41. 8vo. 1704. a He means Calvin and Beza. Of Episcopacy. 261 treads under foot the divine right." There is no necessity of that. Weigh only calmly what is spoken. To vote that a thing a were so, is not to devote, if it be not. A wish is no sentence of damnation. To want somewhat that is of divine right is not to tread under foot the divine right. Let but obstinacy and per- verseness be wanting it wiU be no heresy ; and if it be heresy, (being about a point of discipline) it wUl not be among those which St. Peter caUs alpio-Eig airwXEtag, damnable heresies. But far be it from me that I should drive you to any straits ; for neither would I have you hold your peace, being so provoked by the Jesuit : nay, but write, by aU means write ; but fvt, when you write, so maintain your own, that you pinch not upon, I say not, other men's matters which belong not to you ; yes, which somewhat concern you : (for our affairs are not mere strangers to you.) And, see, here is a large field for you, wherein you may show the sharpness of your wit, (which, indeed, is excellent.) But do not, do not hope that you can araju^orEpi'^Etv, play on a So we may remark in connexion with this passage, and with the long note immediately preceding, that these same divines never concealed the nature of their wishes towards the reformed Churches. We saw something of Andrews's sentiments to this purpose in his second letter, and have more below again in this present. Laud also, speaking of the attempts to intro duce into Scotland a liturgy and book of canons nearly conformed to the English : " For my letters of joy for the success of the work let them be exhibited when you please. I will never deny that joy, while I live, that I conceived of the Church of Scotland's coming nearer both in the canons and the liturgy to the Church of England. But our gross unthankfulness both to our God and king, and our other many and great sins, have hindered this great blessing ; and I pray God, that the loss of this, which was now almost effected, do not in short time prove one of the greatest mischiefs which ever befell this kingdom, and that too." Troubles and Trial of Archbishop Laud, p. 100. 1695. fol. And again, in reference to the reformed Churches in general. "But, my intentions (they say) were deep and large against all the reformed kirks. Surely, the deeper the worse, if they were so ill. But as I cannot be so vain to assume to myself any such depth, so, I humbly thank God for it, I am free from all such wickedness. The worst thought I had of any reformed Church in Christendom was to wish it like the Church of England, and so much better as it should please God to make it ; and the deepest intention I had concerning all or any of them was how they might not only be wished, but made so." Ibid. p. 134. So likewise, to the same effect, the excellent Sanderson at the close of the long extract given above, p. 216, note. 262 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. both sides. "Your own will complain of you;" ours need no such defence ; so you will lose the thanks of either side. But, although " these things be evidently enough contained in Holy Scriptures," to any whose eye is single ; yet is not that principle so, as you have laid it : for, not what belong to divine right, but what belong to faith and good manners are evidently enough contained. But these are not adequate to divine right. Howbeit, you might well, you might have wrote (as you speak) exactly, had you begun, not where the words were promiscuous, but where the things being always distinct, the signification of the worAs began likewise to be distinct. It was possible for you to have abstained from words equivocal, confused, and promiscu ously taken ; nor did any necessity enforce you to begin there. You might also have balked all occasion of diverting to us. Your design was touching bishops : you were to treat of them, and of the office itself. Of the bishops of England to what pur pose ? Does England make that lawful which out of England is unlawful? The abuses of men, wherever they are, must be taxed : the office itself, in what country soever, is the same ; of itself, in itself, by itself lawful. Nor, if the bishops be not good, is the office of bishops not good : yea, let but the office of bishops be, let them be no bishops, unless they make good their name. But here, I know, the king would set an asterisk of approba tion. " When you derive episcopacy from the very infancy of the Church." " When you acknowledge St. James to be bishop of Jerusalem, and a long succession of bishops there derived from him." " When now again you condemn Aerius." See, you have three asterisks for the three dashes. For these things are most true ; and according to the judgment of the ancients, even of Irenseus, who leads the train of the ancients : " The true pro fession is the doctrine of the apostles ; and the ancient state of the Church, through the whole world, is according to the succes sion of bishops, to whom they delivered that Church, which is in every place, which has reached even unto us." Somewhat I added, afterward, concerning the novel, upstart name of " calling," and so of li pastors," (as they are now in use with you.) Touching that of caUing, you do not deny but that it is unusual : you used, I suppose, a p.Eiwo-ig, the figure of extenua tion ; for it is so unusual, that it is not at all. Calling, indeed, is sometimes used for the office ; for ordination never. But neither Of Episcopacy. 263 do you deny what I observed touching that word, pastors. Nor do you produce any, either among those ancients, or the later writers, before our age, that was so called, viz. a pastor, who was not, indeed, a bishop. Only, I know not how, you heap up many things together, but all beside the matter; so that you seem not in them neither to have reached my meaning; for, what if I grant all that you aUege ? " that your flocks are not without a pastor ;" (as it seemeth good to you to style him ;) that all you say out of St. Paul, St. Peter, the prophets, is true. What are these to me, who only say that the ancients spake thus ? that that other name is not from antiquity. I recall you, there fore to this ; that, among the ancient Christians in former ages, you show me out of their writings, where the word pastor was ever used, and they spake not of the bishop ; or, that it was used (as with you it is) of a parish priest. Prevail thus far with your self, as to show this ; for unless you do this you do nothing to the purpose. But yet see of what force those things are that you brought there; for St. Paul does not say there that presbyters [did "pascere"] were pastors. This he says, "wherein the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops [' pascere'] to feed [to be pastors over] the Church of God." St. Paul's pastor, therefore, is a bishop. And, lest you should think that the name bishop is to be taken there appellatively (as if you would say, such as have the cure of) not properly, behold the Syriac interpreter himself retains the Greek word ', when the Syriac wants not a word of her own by which to express, [" such as have the cure of."] And so also St. Peter's pastor, first epistle, v. 2. For I wholly doubt, whether that place of St. Peter belong to inferior presby ters ; for he adds there (as you know) Eirio-KOTrovvTEg, being bishops over them; so that he also conjoins [t6 Evio-noirEiv'] being bishops, with [rt[> iroi/iaivEiv] being pastors. That word, indeed, I stand not upon; that which follows there ["not lording it over the clergy"] does plainly evince that they, to whom St. Peter wrote this, had Kiipog, power and authority over the clergy : otherwise, that naraKvpiEVEiv, that domineering and lording over them could not possibly be applied to them : wherefore, St. Peter's pastor must needs be a bishop. And who indeed can doubt of this, see ing the conjunction of those two words took the first rise from St. Peter ? 1 KStVD "1SN 264 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. For, whereas you infer that the word of God is ["pabulum"] food; that therefore they who administer this food do ["pascere"] feed. I shall easily grant you that feed they do, that is, /3oo-ke/.v, but not therefore iroifialvEiv, whence comes iroififjv, as you know, i. e. pastor, who, over and above the food of the word, adminis ters somewhat else beside. But what you bring from that place to the Ephesians, chap. iv. are either uncertain ; for, 1. One will have pastors and doctors to be all one. 2. Another makes no mention of pastors. 3. A third thinks that readers are pastors. I shaU speak of them all. I. To St. Augustine, pastor and doctor are no otherwise the same, than order and degree were to us a little before. Every order a degree, but not every degree an order ; so every pastor is a doctor, but not every doctor a pastor. Who says this ? St. Hierom. 2. Of him who makes no mention there of pastors, nor will I make mention. The monks are better inclined, commonly, to treatisers than to bishops. 3. For St. Ambrose, who understood bishops in apostles, pres byters in prophets, deacons in evangelists ; no wonder, if at last he fell upon readers, when he had none beside them to whom, after those three, he might refer them. Thus, say I, either uncertain they are ; or, when they are cer tain they make against you. By name, St. Chrysostom, who defines pastors to be they to whom was committed (r6 Wvog) the generality of the people? Are yours so? And^he adds, who were such as Timothy, says he, and Titus, who were both bishops in St. Chrysostom's account; and, I beUeve, in your account, they were more than presbyters, labouring in the word. There yet remains what you glanced at out of the prophets : " Which places if any do accurately consider he shaU find, that not only the high Priests, but also the prophets and Levites, upon whom the office of teaching lay, were called by the name of pastors." Doubtless he shall. Add, moreover, he shall find princes in the state, and magistrates often, nay, oftener a great deal, to be called by the name of pastors, than all them put toge ther, whom you set down ; and yet we do not call princes by the name of pastors ; nor do I think that at Geneva he is called a pastor who is the chief magistrate. The pastors, therefore, in Of Episcopacy. 265 the Prophets reach not home to this. Tell me, who of the ancients ever spake so ; otherwise we are beside the cushion. Lastly, that seemed to me a wondrous strange opposition; " Indeed it is not by the ancients, but we Frenchmen speak so." For must the ancients speak as the French, or the French as the ancient Christians? And you run upon the same rock again afterward. The " Presbyters who labour in the word, whom we Frenchmen call ministers." For it is strange, how it became lawful for Frenchmen to put upon a presbyter that name, which never any among the ancients used, but for a deacon. I speak not this otherwise, but that even among us too that bad fashion is taken up, of calling them ministers and pastors too. But these words were brought in by them who best relish any upstart fashion, but against their mind who reverence antiquity, and, as they may, disclaim these usages ; for we suffer, as I said, many things, which we teach not, and bear with that which we cannot take away. But he that but bears with a thing loves it not, though he loves to bear with it. And now you have an answer to your letters, so far as my occasions give me leave ; for I have not the happiness of much leisure. But although I read none of yours unwillingly, yet I read no passage more willingly than that last, wherein you pro fess, " How desirous you are of peace, how glad you should be that all the reformed Churches, who are united by one faith, were united by one and the same bond of ecclesiastical government." Which is Ukewise my earnest and hearty prayer ; and I daily beg it humbly of God, that they may be united in " the same form of Church policy by the bond of ecclesiastical government; but that same which derives its pedigree from the very infancy of the Church, from the reverend antiquity of the first ages, which whosoever opposes, opposes himself to all antiquity; which St. James the apostle began in the Church of Jerusalem, from whom the succession of bishops in a long course descended; which condemned Aerius, for daring to oppose himself against the con sent and practice of the Catholic Church; which all Churches every where received." I come at last to give you thanks. For, the book you pro mised me, shortly after I had sent you my former letters was delivered to me. I do here both acknowledge and thank you, that you were pleased to enlarge and enrich my library with your two books. And I entreat you, beg of God for me, that the remain- 266 DU MOULIN AND BISHOP ANDREWS. der of my life, which is to come, may be rather good than long. For as a play, so our life ; it skills not how long, but how good, how well acted. In like manner I, wishing all happiness to you, (and in that I put this, that " the reverend antiquity of the first ages may be in higher esteem with you than the upstart novel device of any whomsoever,") do freely promise you my help and assistance in any thing that may, here, concern your interest. — You wiU pardon me if I have spoken somewhat more freely; assuring yourself, that, though I am of a quite different judg ment in some points, yet my charity and brotherly affection toward you is not changed a whit ; nor (by the grace of God) shall ever be. XIII. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SYNODS ; AND OF METROPOLITAN, PRIMATICAL, AND PATRIARCHAL JURISDICTIONS k At first each Church was settled apart, under its own bishop --and— presbyters ; _so as independently and separately to manage its own concernments ; each was avroid^aXog, and avrovofiog, governed by its own head, and had its own laws. Every bishop as a prince in his own Church, did act freely, according to his wiU and discretion, with the advice of his ecclesiastical senate, and with the consent of his people ', (the which he did use to con sult,) without being controllable by any other, or accountable to any, further than his obUgation to uphold the verity of Christian a From Dr. Isaac Barrow's Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy, Works, vol. vi. p. 273 — 280. 1 Cypr. Ep. 52. 55. 72, 73. 76. " Omnis hie actus populo erat insinuandus." P. Corn, apud Cypr. Ep. 46. All this business was to have been imparted to the people. " Secundum arbitrium quoque vestrum, et omnium nostrum commune, consilium — ea quae agenda sunt disponere." Cypr. Ep. 40. (Plebi Univ.) To order what was to be done according to your judgment, and the com mon advice of us all. " Et limanda plenius ratio non solum cum Collegis meis, sed et cum plebe ipsa universa." Cypr. Ep. 28. And the reason is more thoroughly to be examined, not only with my col leagues, but with the whole people. " Praejudicare ego et soli mihi rem communem vindicare non audeo." Ep. 18. I dare not therefore prejudge, nor assume to myself alone a matter which is common to all. 268 DR. ISAAC BARROW. profession, and to maintain fraternal communion in charity and peace with neighbouring Churches did require ; in which regard, if he were notably peccant, he was Uable to be disclaimed by them, as no good Christian, and rejected from communion, toge ther with his Church, if it did adhere to him in his misdemeanors. This may be collected from the remainders of state in the times of St. Cyprian. But because little, disjointed, and incoherent bodies were, like dust, apt to be dissipated by every wind of external assault, or intestine faction ; and peaceable union could hardly be retained without some ligature of discipline; and Churches could not mutually support and defend each other, without some method of intercourse and rule of confederacy engaging them 1 : therefore, for many good purposes (for upholding and advancing the com mon interests of Christianity, for protection and support of each Church from inbred disorders and dissensions; for preserving the integrity of the faith ; for securing the concord of divers Churches ; for providing fit pastors to each Church, and cor recting such as were scandalously bad 2 or unfaithful) it was soon found needful that divers Churches should be combined and linked together in some regular form of discipline ; that if any Church did want a bishop, the neighbour bishops might step in to approve and ordain a fit one 3. That if any bishop did noto- 1 " Hoc enim et verecundiae et disciplina? et vitas ipsi omnium nostrum convenit, ut episcopi plures in unum convenientes, prsesente et stantium plebe, (quibus et ipsis pro fide et timore suo honor habendus est,) disponere omnia consilii communis religione possimus." Cypr. Ep. 14. For it becomes the modesty, the discipline, and the manner of our living, that many bishops meeting together, the people being also present, (to whom respect ought to be had for their faith and fear,) we may order all things with the common advice. " quoniam non paucorum, nee Ecclesiae unius aut unius provinciae, sed totius orbis haec causa est." Cypr. Ep. 14. because this is the concern not of a few men, or of one Church, or one province, but of the whole world. " Idcirco copiosum corpus est sacerdotum — ut si quis ex collegio nostro haeresin facere, et gregem Christi lacerare et vastare tentaverit, subveniant caeteri." Cypr. Ep. 76. Therefore the clergy is a large body — that if any one of our own society should vent an heresy, and attempt to rent and waste the flock of Christ, the rest might come in to their help. a Particularly in the dispensation of Church goods. Cone. Ant. Can. 25. 3 Nov. 137. cap. 4. et 123. cap. 10. Of Ecclesiastical Synods, Sfc. 269 riously swerve from the Christian rule, the others might inter pose to correct or void him ' ; that if any error or schism did peep up in any Church, the joint concurrence of divers bishops might avail to stop its progress, and to quench it ; by convenient means of instruction, reprehension, and censure ; that if any Church were oppressed by persecution, by indigency, by faction ; the others might be engaged to afford effectual succour and relief: — for such ends it was needful, that bishops in certain precincts should convene, with intent to deliberate and resolve about the best expedients to compass them ; and that the manner of such proceeding (to avoid uncertain distraction, confusion, arbitrariness, dissatisfaction, and mutinous opposition) should be settled in an ordinary course a ; according to rules known and allowed by all. In defining such precincts, it was most natural, most easy, most commodious, to follow the divisions of territory, or juris diction, already established in the civil state; that the spiritual administrations being in such circumstances aptly conformed to the secular, might go on more smoothly and expeditely, the wheels of one not clashing with the other; according to the judgment of the two great synods, that of Chalcedon and the Trullane; which did ordain, that, "if by royal authority any city be, or should hereafter be, re-established, the order of the Churches shaU be according to the civil and public form V Whereas, therefore, in each nation or province subject to one poUtical jurisdiction, there was a Metropolis, or Head-city4, to which the greatest resort was for dispensation of justice, and dispatch of principal affairs emergent in that province ; it was also most convenient, that also the determination of ecclesiastical matters should be affixed thereto; especially considering that usually those places were opportunely seated ; that many persons npon other occasions did meet there ; that the Churches in those cities did exceed the rest in number, in opulency, in ability and opportunity to promote the common interest in all kinds of advantages. 1 Vid. Can. Apost. 38. (al. 30.) de Synodis. 2 oiKovopiai'EKKXrimao-TiKai. Syn. Const. Can. 2. 3 Ei Si Kai rig Ik /3aoiXiKrjg i^ovo-iag iKaivioBn iroXig, r) avBig KaiviaBiiy, roic iroXiriicoif Kai Sripoaioig rviroig Kai twv iKKXnoiao-TiKuiv irapoiKiSiv r) rails AkoXov- Buna. Cone. Chalced. Can. 17- et Cone. Trull. Can. 38. * P. Anacl. dist. 99- cap. i. P. Greg. VII. Ep. 6. 35. 270 DR. ISAAC BARROW. 1 Moreover because in aU societies and confederacies of men for ordering public affairs, (for the setting things in motion, for effectual dispatch, for preventing endless dissensions and con fusions both in resolving upon and executing things,) it is needful that one person should be authorised to preside among the rest, unto whom the power and care should be entrusted to convoke assembUes in fit season, to propose matters for consultation, to moderate the debates and proceedings, to declare the result, and to see that what is agreed upon may be duly executed ; such a charge then naturally would devolve itself upon the prelate of the metropolis, as being supposed constantly present on the place ; as being at home in his own seat of presidence, and receiving the rest under his wing; as incontestably surpassing others in all ad vantages answerable to the secular advantages of his city; for that it was unseemly and hard, if he at home should be postponed in dignity to others repairing thither ; for that also commonly he was in a manner the spiritual father of the rest, (religion being first planted in great cities and thence propagated to others,) so that the reverence and dependence on colonies to the mother city was due from other Churches to his see. Wherefore by consent of all Churches, grounded on such ob vious reason of things, the presidency in each province was assigned to the bishop of the metropolis, who was called the first bishop, the metropolitane, (in some places the primate s, the arch bishop, the patriarch, the pope,) of the province. The apostolical canons call him the first bishop 3 (which shows the antiquity of this institution:) the African synods did appoint that name to him as most modest, and called him primate in that sense ; other 1 Ad hoc divinae dispensationis provisio gradus et diversos constituit or- dines in se distinctos, ut dum reverentiam minores potioribus exhiberent, et potiores minoribus diligentiam impenderent, una concordiae fieret a diversi- tate contentio et recte officiorum gereretur administratio singulorum. Joh. viii. Ep. 95. " To this end Divine Providence has appointed degrees and divers orders distinct from one another, that while the less reverence the greater, and the greater take care of the less, from this diversity there might arise one frame of concord, and all offices be duly administered." 2 Primas Provinciae. Cod. Afr. Can. 19. 3 Tobg iiritSKOirovg tKaarov iBvovg tiSkvai x?4 tov iv avrotg irpSiTOV. Can. Apost. 27- " The bishops of each nation ought to know who is chief among them." Can. Afr. Can. 39. Dist 99. cap. 3. 7 Of Ecclesiastical Synods, fyc. 271 ancient synods style him the metropolite ; and to the metropolites of the principal cities they gave the title of archbishop. The bishops of Rome and Alexandria pecuUarly were called popes ; although that name was sometimes deferred to any other bishop. During this state of things the whole Church did consist of so many provinces, being avTOKtyaXoi, independent on each other in ecclesiastical administrations ; each reserving to itself the constiT tution of bishops, the convocation of synods, the enacting of canons, the decision of causes, the definition of questions ; yet so that each province did hold peaceful and amicable correspondence with others; upon ^he like terms as before each vapoiKia, or episcopal precinct did hold intercourse with its neighbours. And whoever in any province did not comply with or submit to the orders and determinations resolved upon in those assem- bUes, was deemed a schismatical 1, contentious, and contumacious person; with good reason, because he did thwart a discipline plainly conducible to public good; because declining such judg ments he plainly showed that he would admit none, (there not being any fairer way of determining things than by common ad vice and agreement of pastors,) because he did in effect refuse all good terms of communion and peace. Thus I conceive the metropoUtical governance was introduced by human prudence, following considerations of public necessity or utility. There are indeed some, who think it was instituted by the Apostles ; but" their arguments do not seem convincing a, and such a constitution does not (as I take it) well suit to the state of their times, and the course they took in founding Churches. Into such a channel, through aU parts of Christendom (though with some petty differences in the methods and measures of acting,) had ecclesiastical administrations fallen of themselves; plain community of reason, and imitation insensibly propagating that course ; and therein it ran for a good time, before it was by general consent and solemn sanction established. The whole Church then was a body consisting of several con federations of bishops, acting in behalf of their Churches under their respective metropoUtans 2, who did manage the common affairs in each province; convoking synods at stated times and 1 vapdralig. Sin Nic. Can. 18. a But see Usher, Hammond, Sec. as adduced by Archdeacon Pott, in his Rights of Sovereignty in Christian States, p. 277—90. 8vo. 1821. 2 Can. Apost. 38. Tertull. de Jej. cap. 13. Syn. Nic. Can. 5. 272 DR. ISAAC BARROW. upon emergent occasions l ; in them deciding causes and contro versies incident, relating to faith or practice ; framing rules ser viceable to common edification, and decent uniformity in God's service; quashing heresies and schisms; declaring truths im pugned or questioned; maintaining the harmony of communion and concord with other provinces adjacent or remote; Such was the state of the Church, unto which the apostolical canons and constitutions do refer, answerable to the times in which they were framed ; and which we may discern in the prac tice of ancient synods. Such it did continue, when the great synod of Nice was cele brated 2 ; which by its authority, (presumed to represent the authority of all bishops in the world, who were summoned thereto,) backed by the imperial authority and power, did confirm those orders, as they found them standing by more general cus tom, and received rules in most provinces : reducing them into more uniform 3 practice ; so that what before stood upon reason, customary usage, particular consent, by so august sanction did become universal law ; and did obtain so great veneration, as by some to be conceived everlastingly and immutably obligatory; according to those maxims of Pope Leo. It is here farther observable, that whereas divers provinces did hold communion and intercourse ; so that upon occasion they did (by their formed letters) render to one another an account of their proceedings, being of great moment, especially of those which concerned the general state of Christianity, and common faith ; calling, when need was, for assistance one of other to re solve points of faith, or to settle order and peace ; there was in so doing a special respect given to the metropolites of great cities : and to prevent dissensions, which naturaUy ambition does prompt men to, grounded upon degrees of respect, an order was fixed among them, according to which in subscriptions of letters, in accidental congresses, and the like occasions, some should pre cede others; (that distinction being chiefly and commonly grounded on the greatness, splendour, opulency of cities; or following the secular dignity of them:) whence Rome had the 1 Aid rag iKKXnoiaonKdg XP««£ «al rdg tSiv dp$io-$r\Tavp.kvuv SiaXvaag. Syn. Ant. Can. 20. 2 IlaXaiog rt dig lore Stopbg KiKparnKt, Kai tSiv dy'uov iv TtiKaia Tlarkpiav opoc. Syn. Constant. Theod. 5. 9. 'Ywip roii iravra iv rrdag irapowia bpoiug fvX&TTtaBai. Can. 20. Of Ecclesiastical Synods, 8fc. 273 first place, Alexandria the second, Antioch the third, Jerusalem the fourth, &c. Afterward, Constantine having introduced a new partition of the empire ', whereby divers provinces were combined together into one territory, under the regimen of a vicar, or a lieutenant of a prsefectus-prsetorio, which territory was called a diocese ; the ecclesiastical state was adapted in conformity thereto ; new eccle siastical systems, and a new sort of spiritual heads thence spring ing up ; so that in each diocese, consisting of divers provinces, an ecclesiastical exarch a (otherwise sometimes called a primate, sometimes a diocesan3, sometimes a patriarch4) was constituted, answerable to the civU exarch of a diocese ; who by such consti tution did obtain a Uke authority over the metropolitans of pro vinces, as they had in their province over the bishops of cities ; so that it appertained to them to caU together the synods of the whole diocese, to preside in them, and in them to dispatch the principal affairs concerning that precinct, to ordain metropoli tans, to confirm the ordinations of bishops, to decide causes and controversies between bishops upon appeal from provincial synods. 1 Zos. lib. ii. p. 63. Sextus Rufus, Brev. 3 ' EiriKoXoi$r)Ba rip Uapxv pov. Syn. Chalc. Act. 10. p. 388. 3 Aioucnrrig. Epist. Orient, ad Rufum. in Syn. Eph. p. 396. Dist. 99. cap. 1, 2. 4 Oi boiiiraTOi Ttarpidpxai SioiKr)atu>g EKaorije. Syn. Chalc. Act. 2. (p. 211.) Ephesi S'tKaiov HarpiapxiKov. Evag. 3. 6. - Twee piv i%dpxovg t&v SwiKr)atiav rovg Qarpidpxag (jiaai. Zon. ad 28. Can. Chalc. Novell. 137. cap. 5. et 123. cap. 10. P. Greg. I. Ep. 11. 56. Ordo episcoporum quadripartitus est, id est in patriarchis, archiepiscopis, metropolitanis, atque episcopis. hid. dist. 21. cap. 1. Diony sixes Ex. translates i£apxov, primatem, in Syn. Chalc. Can. 9. et 17. VOL. III. XIV. OF OBEDIENCE TO OUR SPIRITUAL GUIDES AND GOVERNORS a. *' Obey them that have the rule over you." — Heb. xiii. 17. Obedience unto spiritual guides and governors is a duty of great importance ; the which to declare and press is very season able for these times, wherein so little regard is had thereto : I have therefore pitched on this text, being an apostolical precept, briefly and clearly enjoining that duty ; and in it we shall consi der and explain these two particulars: 1. The persons to whom obedience is to be paid. 2. What that obedience does import, or wherein it consists : and, together with explication of the duty, we shall apply it, and urge its practice. I. As to the persons unto whom obedience is to be performed, they are, generally speaking, aU spiritual guides, or governors of the Church, (those "who speak to us the word of God, and who watch for our souls1," as they are described in the context,) ex pressed here by a term very significant and apposite, as implying fuUy the nature of their charge, the quaUfication of their per sons, their rank and privileges in the Church, together conse quently with the grounds of obligation to the correspondent duties toward them. There are in holy Scripture divers names a From Dr. Isaac Barrow's Sermons, lvi. and lix. Works, vol. iii. p. 106 —169. 1 Heb. xiii. 7. 17- Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 275 and phrases appropriate to them, each of them denoting some eminent part of their office, or some appurtenance thereto ; but this seems of all most comprehensive ; so that unto it all the rest are weU reducible : the term is riyov/xEvoi, that is, leaders, or guides, or captains ; which properly may denote the subsequent particulars in way of duty, or privilege, appertaining to them. 1. It may denote eminence of dignity, or superiority to others : that they are, as it is said of Judas and Silas in the Acts, avSpsg iiyovfiEvoi iv a§£A0oIc, " principal men among the brethren1: " for to lead implieth precedence, which is a note of superiority and pre eminence. Hence are they styled wooec-tutec, " presidents " or prelates; oi wpQroi, " the first 2," or " prime " men ; oi /xEiZovg, " the greater 3," majors, or grandees among us. " He," says our Lord, " that will be the first among you, let him be your ser vant 4;" and, " He that is greater among you, let him be as the younger 5 ;" " and he that is chief, as he that doth serve 6 ;" where 6 jUEt&ov and 6 f)yovp.Evog (the "greater" and the " leader ") are terms equivalent, or interpretative the one of the other ; and our Lord in those places, as He prescribes humility of mind and de meanour, so He impUes difference of rank among His disciples 7 ; whence to render especial respect and honour to them s, as to our betters, is a duty often enjoined. 2. It doth imply power and authority : their superiority is not barely grounded on personal worth or fortune; it serves not merely for order and pomp ; but it stands upon the nature of their office, and tends to use. They are by God's appointment enabled to exercise acts of power; to command, to judge, to check, control, and chastise in a spiritual way, in order to spiritual ends, (the regulation of God's worship and service, the preser vation of order and peace, the promoting of edification in divine knowledge and holiness of life;) so are they riyovfiEvoi, as that word in common use (as the word riysfiiov, of kin to it) does sig nify captains and princes, importing authority to command and rule ; (whence the Hebrew word >NtM, a " prince 9," is usually rendered by it ; and 6 fiyoiiftEvOg, is the title attributed to our Lord, to express His kingly function, being the same with apxi" 1 Acts xv. 22. 2 1 Tim. v. 17- 3 Rom. xii. 8. 4 1 Thess. v. 12. 5 Matt. xx. 27. c Luke xxii- 26- 7 Phil. ii. 29. 1 Thess. v. 13. " 1 Tim. v. 17. » Matt. ii. 6. T 2 276 DR. ISAAC BARROW. yog, the "prince," or "captain1:") hence are they otherwise styled Kvfispvi)(TEig ("governors2,") ettIo-kottoi ("overseers," or "super intendents," as St. Hierome renders it), " pastors," (a word often signifying rule, and attributed to civil governors,) irpEafivrEpoi (" elders," or " senators 3;" the word denotes not merely age, but office and authority), oi iirifiEXovvTEg, " such as take care for 4," the " curators, or supervisors of the Church 5 :" hence also they are signally and specially in relation unto God styled SouXot ("the servants "), Siolkovoi ("the ministers6"), iirripETai (" the officers"), XsiTovpyol ("the public agents"), oikovo/ioi ("the stewards7"), avvEpyol ("the coadjutors, or assistants8"), irpio-^Eig (" the legates"), a-yyEAoi ("the angels, or messengers"), of God9; which titles imply, that God by them, as His substitutes and in struments, does administer the affairs of His spiritual kingdom 10 : that as by secular a magistrates (His viceregents and officers) He manages His universal temporal kingdom11, or governs all men in order to their worldly peace and prosperity ; so by these spiritual magistrates He rules His Church, toward its spiritual welfare and felicity. 3. The word also does imply direction, or instruction ; that is, guidance of people in the way of truth and duty, reclaiming them from error and sin. This, as it is a means hugely conducing to the design of their office, so it is a principal member thereof: whence BiSaoicaXoi, " doctors 12," or masters in doctrine, is a com mon name of them; and to be StSaKTt/coi, "able and apt to teach 13," ((Kavol StSa^at, and irpoSvfioi,) is a chief qualification of their persons; and to "attend on teaching14," to "be instant in preaching," to " labour in the word and doctrine 15," are their most commendable performances : hence also they are called " shepherds 16," because they feed the souls of God's people with the food of wholesome instruction ; " watchmen "," because they observe men's ways, and warn them when they decline from 1 Acts v. 31. 2 1 Cor. xii. 28. 3 Acts xx. 28. Matt. ii. 6. Psalm lxxviii. 71. * 1 Pet. v. 2. s 2 Sam. v. 2. vii. 7- 6 1 Tim. iii. 5. » 2 Tim. ii. 24. 8 Rom. xv. 16. » 1 Cor. iv. 1, 2. iii. 9. vi. 1 . xvi. 16. 10 2 Cor. vi. 4. Tit. i. 2. a See Barrow on the Power of the Keys, above p. 169—70. 11 Gal. iv. 14. Apoc. i. 29. '2 Eph. iv. 11. 1 Cor. xii. 28. " Rom. xii. 7. 1 Tim. iii. 2. » 2 Tim. ii. 28. ii. 2. 16 1 Tim. iv. 13. 16. v. 17. >« 2 Tim. iv. 2. » Col. i. 28 Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 277 right, or run into danger; the "messengers" of God, because they declare God's mind and will unto them for the regulation of their practice. 4. The word farther may denote exemplary practice ; for to lead implieth so to go before, that he who is conducted may fol low ; as a captain marches before his troop ; as a shepherd walks before his flock, as a guide goes before the traveller, whom he directs ; — hence they are said to be, and enjoined to behave them selves " as patterns of the flock J ;" and the people are charged to imitate and follow them. Such in general does the word here used imply the persons to be, unto whom obedience is prescribed : but there is farther some distinction to be made among them ; there are degrees and subor dinations in these guidances ; some are in regard to different persons both empowered to guide, and obliged to follow, or obey. The Church is acies ordinata, a well marshalled army ; wherein under the Captain-general of our faith and salvation 2, (the Head of the body, the sovereign Prince and Priest, the Arch-pastor, the chief Apostle of our profession, and Bishop of our souls,) there are divers captains serving in fit degrees of subordination ; bishops commanding larger regiments, presbyters ordering less numerous companies; all which, by the bands of common faith, of mutual charity, of holy communion and peace, being combined together, do in their respective stations govern and guide, are governed and guided : the bishops, each in his precincts, guiding more immediately the priests subjects to them ; the priests, each guiding the people committed to his charge: all bishops and priests being guided by synods established, or congregated, upon emergent occasion ; many of them ordinarily by those principal bishops, who are regularly settled in a presidency over them ; according to the distinctions constituted by God and His apostles, or introduced by human prudence, as the preservation of order and peace (in various times and circumstances of things) has seemed to require : to which subordination the two great apostles may seem to have regard, when they bid us virorao-o-Eo-Sai aXXij- Xoig, "to be subject to one another3;" their injunction at least > 1 Pet. v. 3. 1 Tim.iv. 12. Phil. iii. 17. Tit. ii. 7. 2 Thess. iii. 9. 7. Heb. iii. 7. 1 Thess. i. 6. 1 Cor. xi. 1. iv. 16. 2 1 Pet. v. 4. Heb. iii. 1. 3 1 Pet. v. 5. Eph. v. 21. Phil. ii. 3. 'Yworaoo-koSii) tKaarog rip irXriaiov avrov kaSihig Kai irkSiri iv rip xapiainan avroii. Clem, ad Corinth, p. 49' 278 DR. ISAAC BARROW. may, according to their general intent, (which aims at the preser vation of order and peace,) be well extended so far. Of this distinction there was never in ancient times made any question, nor did it seem disputable in the Church, except to one malcontent1 (Aerius,) who did indeed get a name in story, but never made much noise, or obtained any vogue in the world; very few followers he found in his heterodoxy ; no great body even of heretics z could find cause to dissent from the Church in this point; but all Arians, Macedonians, Novatians, Donatists, &c. maintained the distinction of ecclesiastical orders among themselves, and acknowledged the duty of the inferior clergy to their bishops : and no wonder, seeing it stands upon so very firm and clear grounds ; upon the reason of the case, upon the testi mony of Holy Scripture, upon general tradition and unquestionable monuments of antiquity, upon the common judgment and practice of the greatest saints, persons most renowned for wisdom and piety in the Church. Reason plainly does require such subordinations ; for that with out them it is scarce possible to preserve any durable concord or charity in Christian societies, to establish any decent harmony in the worship and service of God, to check odious scandals, to pre vent or repress baneful factions, to guard our religion from being overspread with pernicious heresies, to keep the Church from being shattered into numberless sects, and thence from being crumbled into nothing ; in fine, for any good time to uphold the profession and practice of Christianity itself : for how, if there be not settled corporations of Christian people, having bulk and strength sufficient by joint endeavour to maintain the truth, hor nour, and interest of their religion ; if the Church should only consist of independent and incoherent particles, (like dust or sand,) easily scattered by any wind of opposition from without, or by any commotion within ; if Christendom should be merely a Babel of confused opinions and practices ; how, I say, then could Christianity subsist ? how could the simple, among so discordant apprehensions, be able to ascertain the truth of it ? how would the wise be tempted to dislike it, being so mangled and disfigured ? what an object of contempt and scorn would it be to the profaner world, in such a case ! It needs therefore considerable societies to uphold it. But no society (especially of any large extent) can ' Cyp. Ep. 10. 12. ' Ep. 27. 65. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 279 abide in order and peace, under the management of equal and co-ordinate powers ; without a single undivided authority, enabled to moderate affairs, and reduce them to a point, to arbitrate emer gent cases of difference, to put good orders in execution, to curb the adversaries of order and peace : these things cannot be well performed, where there is a parity of many concurrents, apt to dissent, and able to check each other ' ; no democracy can be sup ported without borrowing somewhat from monarchy ; no body can live without a head; an army cannot be without a general, a senate without a president, a corporation without a supreme ma gistrate2: this all experience attests; this even the chief impugners of episcopal presidency do by their practice confess ; who for pre vention of disorder have been fain of their own heads to devise ecclesiastical subordinations of classes, provinces, and nations ; and to appoint moderators (or temporary bishops) in their assem blies ; so that reason has forced the dissenters from the Church to imitate it. If there be not inspectors over the doctrine and manners of the common clergy, there will be many who wiU say and do any thing; they will in teaching please their own humour, or soothe the people, or serve their own interests ; they will indulge themselves in a licentious manner of life ; they will clash in their doctrines, and scatter the people, and draw them into factions. It is also very necessary for preserving the unity and commu nion of the parts of the Catholic Church ; seeing single persons are much fitter to maintain correspondence, than headless bodies. The very credit of religion does require, that there should be persons raised above the common level, and endued with eminent authority, to whose care the promoting it should be committed ; for such as the persons are, who manage any profession, such will be the respect yielded thereto : if the ministers of religion be men of honour and authority, religion itself will be venerable ; ii those be mean, that will become contemptible. 1 Ecclesiae salus in summi sacerdotis dignitate eonsistit, cui si non exsors quaedam, et ab omnibus eminens detur potestas tot in ecclesia efficientur schismata, quot sacerdotes. Hier. in Lucif. Nee presbyterorum coetus rite constitutus dici potest, in quo nullus sit r/yoiptvog. Bez. de Grad. Min. cap. xxii. 2 Essentiale fuit, quod ex Dei ordinatione perpetual necesse fuit, est, et erit, ut presbyterio quispiam et loco et dignitate primus actioni gubernandae praesit cum eo, quod ipsi divinitus attributum est jure. Bez. de Min. Evang. Grad. cap. xxiii. p. 153. 280 DR. ISAAC BARROW. The Holy Scripture also does plainly enough countenance this distinction ; for therein we have represented ¦ one angel presiding over principal Churches, which contained several presbyters; therein we find episcopal ordination and jurisdiction exercised; we have one bishop constituting presbyters in divers cities of his diocese2; ordering all things therein concerning ecclesiastical discipline ; judging presbyters, rebuking p,ETa iraor)g ItriTayrig, "with all authority 3," (or imperiousness, as it were ;) and recon ciling offenders, secluding heretics and scandalous persons. In the Jewish Church there were an high-priest, chief-priest, a sanhedrim, or senate, or synod. The government of congregations among God's ancient people (which it is probable was the pattern that the apostles, no affecters of needless innovation, did follow in establishing ecclesiastical discipline among Christians) does hereto agree ; for in their synagogues, answering to our Christian Churches, they had, as their elders and doctors, so over them an a.pxiavvay Tit. ii. 15. l Slpn t£Wl * Compare Chillingworth, above, p. 210. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 281 and how could all the holy Fathers (persons of so renowned, so approved wisdom and integrity) be so blind as not to discern such a corruption, or so bad as to abet it ? How indeed could all God's Church be so weak as to consent in judgment, so base as to com ply in practice with it? In fine, how can we conceive that all the best monuments of antiquity down from the beginning (the acts, the epistles, the histories, the commentaries, the writings of all sorts coming from the blessed martyrs, and most holy con fessors of our faith) should conspire to abuse us; the which do speak nothing but bishops ; long catalogues and rows of bishops succeeding in this and that city ; bishops contesting for the faith against Pagan idolaters, and heretical corrupters of Christian doctrine ; bishops here teaching and planting our religion by their labours, their suffering, and watering it with their blood ? I could not but touch this point ; but I cannot insist thereon ; the fuU discussion of it, and vindication of the truth from the cavils advanced against the truth by modern dissenters from the Church, having employed voluminous treatises : I shall only far ther add, that if any man be so duUy or so affectedly ignorant as not to see the reason of the case, and the dangerous consequences of rejecting this ancient form of discipUne; if any be so over- weeningly presumptuous, as to question the faith of all history, or to disavow those monuments and that tradition, upon the testi mony whereof even the truth and certainty of our reUgion, and aU its sacred oracles do rely1; if any be so perversely contentious, as to oppose the custom and current practice of the Churches through aU ages down to the last age ; so self-conceitedly arro gant, as to condemn or slight the judgment and practice of all the Fathers, (together also with the opinion of the later most grave divines, who have judged episcopal presidency needful, or expedient, where practicable;) so peevishly refractory as to thwart the settled order of that Church, in which he was bap tized, together with the law of the country, in which he was born ; upon such a person we may look as one utterly invincible and intractable : so weak a judgment, and so strong a will, who can hope by reason to convert ? — I shall say no more to that point. The riyovfievoi then (the guides and governors) in our text are primarily the bishops, as the superior and chief guides, each 1 1 Cor. xi. 16. 282 DR. ISAAC BARROW. in his place, according to order peaceably established; then secondarily the presbyters, in their station as guides inferior, together with the deacons as their assistants : such the Church always has had, and such, by God's blessing, our Church now has, toward whom the duty of obedience is to be performed. To the consideration of that I should now proceed : but first it seems expedient to remove a main obstruction to that perform ance; which is this: a misprision, or doubt concerning the persons of our guides and governors ; for in vain it would be to teach or persuade us to obey them, if we do not know who they are, or will not acknowledge them : for as in reUgion it is primus Deorum cultus Deos credere \ " the first worship of God to believe God," as Seneca says ; so it is the first part of our obedience to our governors to avow them ; it is at least absolutely prerequisite thereto. It was of old a precept of St. Paul to the Thessalonians ; " We beseech you, brethren, to know those who labour among you, and preside over you 2 :" and another to the Corinthians ; " Submit yourselves," says he, " to such, and to every one that helpeth with us, and laboureth 3 :" then he subjoins, EiriyivdjaKETE roiig roiovrovg, " acknowledge such." There were, it seems, those in the apostolical times, who would not know or acknowledge their guides; there were even those who would not admit the Apostles themselves, as St. John says of Diotrephes, who " re sisted their words 4," as St. Paul says 5 of Alexander, to whom the Apostles were not Apostles, as St. Paul intimates concerning some, in regard to himself; there were then pseud-apostles, who excluded the true Apostles 6, intruding themselves into that high office : no wonder then, it may be, that now, in these dregs of time, there should be many, who disavow and desert their true guides, transferring the observance due to them upon bold pre tenders ; who are not indeed guides, but seducers; not governors, but usurpers, and sacrilegious invaders of this holy office. The duty we speak of cannot be secured without preventing or cor recting this grand mistake; and this we hope to compass by representing a double character, or description, one of the true guides, another of the counterfeits ; by comparing which we may easily distinguish them, and consequently be induced dutifully to 1 Sen. Ep. 95. 2 1 Thess. v. 12. 3 l Cor. xvi. 16. 18. 4 3 John 10. 5 2 Tim. iv. 15. 6 2 Cor. ix. 2. 2 Cor. xi. 13. Phil. iii. 2. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 283 avow and follow the one sort, wisely to disclaim and decline the other. Those, I say, then, who constantly do profess and teach that sound and wholesome doctrine, which was delivered by our Lord and His Apostles in word and writing, was received by their dis ciples in the primitive Churches, was transmitted and confirmed by general tradition, was sealed by the blood of the blessed martyrs, and propagated by the labours of the holy Fathers ; the which also manifestly recommends and promotes true reverence and piety toward God, justice and charity toward men, order and quiet in human societies, purity and sobriety in each man's private conversation : Those who celebrate the true worship of God, and administer the holy mysteries of our religion in a serious, grave, decent manner, purely and without any notorious corruption, either by hurtful error, or superstitious foppery, or irreverent rudeness, to the advancement of God's honour, and edification of the partici pants in virtue and piety : Those who derive their authority by a continued succession from the Apostles; who are called unto, and constituted in their office in a regular and peaceable way, agreeable to the institution of God, and the constant practice of His Church ; according to rules approved in the best and purest ages : who are prepared to the exercise of their function by the best education that ordinarily can be provided, under sober discipline, in the schools of the prophets; who thence by competent endowments of mind, and useful furniture of good learning, acquired by painful study, be come qualified to guide and instruct the people : who, after pre vious examination of their abilities, and probable testimonies concerning their manners, (with regard to the qualifications of incorrupt doctrine, and sober conversation prescribed by the Apostles,) are adjudged fit for the office; who also in a pious, grave, solemn manner, with invocation of God's blessing, by " laying on the hands of the presbytery \" are admitted there unto: Those whose practice in guiding and governing the people of God is not managed by arbitrary, uncertain, fickle, private fancies or humours, but regulated by standing laws ; framed (ac- 1 1 Tim. iii. 7- 10. 284 DR. ISAAC BARROW. cording to general directions extant in Holy Scripture) by pious and wise persons, with mature advice, in accommodation to the seasons and circumstances of things for common edification, order, and peace : Those who, by virtue of their good principles, in their dispo sition and demeanour appear sober, orderly, peaceable, yielding meek submission to government, tendering the Church's peace, upholding the communion of the saints, abstaining from all schismatical, turbulent, and factious practices : Those also, who are acknowledged by the laws of our country, an obligation to obey whom is part of that " human constitution J," unto which we are in all things (not evidently repugnant to God's law) indispensably bound to submit; whom our sovereign, God's vicegerent and the nursing father of His Church among us, (unto whom in all things high respect, in all lawful things entire obe dience is due,) does command and encourage us to obey: Those, I say, to whom this character plainly does agree, we may reasonably be assured, that they are our true guides and governors, whom we are obliged to follow and obey : for what better assurance can we in reason desire? what more proper marks can be assigned to discern them by? what methods of constituting such needful officers can be settled more answer able to their design and use? how can it be evil or unsafe to follow guides authorized by such warrants, conformed to such patterns, endowed with such dispositions, acting by such prin ciples and rules? can we mistake or miscarry by complying with the great body of God's Church through all ages, and par ticularly with those great lights of the primitive Church, who by the excellency of their knowledge, and the integrity of their virtue, have so illustrated our holy religion ? There are, on the other hand, sufficiently plain characters, by which we may descry seducers, and false pretenders to guide us. Those who do ErEpoStoWicaXEiv, " teach otherwise2," or discost from the good ancient wholesome doctrine, revealed in the holy Scripture, attested by universal tradition, professed, taught, main tained to death by the primitive saints and martyrs ; who affect 1 1 Pet. ii. 13. 2 1 Tim. vi. 3. i. 3, 4. Gal. i. 9. 1 Tim. i. 4. vi. 4. 20. 2 Tim. ii. 14. 16. 23. Tit. iii. 9. 2 Pet. ii. 18. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 285 novelties, uncouth notions, big words and dark phrases; who dote on curious empty speculations, and idle questions, which engen der strife, and yield no good fruit : Those who ground their opinions and warrant their proceed ings not by clear testimonies of divine revelation, by the dictates of sound reason, by the current authority of wise and good men, but by the suggestions of their own fancy, by the impulses of their passion and zeal, by pretences to special inspiration, by imaginary necessities, and such Uke fallacious rules ] : Those who, by counterfeit shows of mighty zeal and extraor dinary affection, by affected forms of speech, by pleasing notions, by prophesying smooth things, daubing and glozing, by various artifices of flattery and fraud, attract and abuse weak and heedless people : Those who, without any apparent commission from God, or aUowable call from men, or extraordinary necessity of the case, in no legal or regular way, according to no custom received in God's Church, do intrude themselves into the office, or are only assumed thereto by ignorant, unstable, giddy, factious people 2, such as those of whom St. Paul says, that " according to their own lusts they heap up teachers to themselves, having itching ears3:" Those who are not in reasonable ways fitly prepared, not duly approved, not competently authorized, not orderly admitted to the office, according to the prescriptions of God's word, and the prac tice of His Church ; not entering into the fold by the door, but breaking through, or clambering over the fences of sober dis- cipUne : Those who in their mind, their principles, their designs, and all their practice, appear void of that charity, that meekness, that calmness, that gravity, that sincerity, that stability, which quaUfy worthy and true guides : who in the disposition of their mind are froward, fierce, and stubborn ; in their principles loose and slip pery ; in their designs and behaviour turbulent, disorderly, vio lent, deceitful : who regard not order or peace, but wantonly raise 1 Ipsorum ordinationes temerariae, inconstantes, leves. Tertull. 2 Hi sunt qui se ultro apud temerarios convenas sine divina dispositione praeficiunt, qui se praepositos sine ulla ordinationis lege constituunt, qui ne- mine episcopatum dante episcopi sibi nomen assumunt. Cypr. de Un. Eccl. p. 256. ' 2 Tim. iv. 3. 286 DR. ISAAC BARROW. scandals, create dissensions, abet and foment disturbances in the Church : who under religious appearances indulge their passions, and serve their interests, using a guise of devotion, and talk about holy things as instruments to vent wrath, envy, and spleen ; to drive forward designs of ambition and avarice : who will not sub mit to any certain judgment or rule, will like nothing but what their fancy suggests, wiU acknowledge no law but their own will; who for no just cause, and upon any slender pretence, withdraw themselves, and seduce others from the Church in which they were brought up, deserting its communion, impugning its laws, de faming its governors, endeavouring to subvert its establishment : who manage their discipUne (such as it is of their own framing) unadvisedly and unsteadily, in no stable method, according te no settled rule, but as present conceit, or humour, or advantage prompts; so that not being fixed in any certain judgment or practice, they soon clash with themselves, and divide from one another, incessantly roving from one sect to another; "being carried about with divers and strange doctrines; like children, tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine 1 :" Those, the fruits of whose doctrine and managery amount at best only to empty "form of godliness, void of real virtue;'' while in truth they fill the minds of men with iU passions, ill surmises, iU wiU; they produce impious, unjust, and uncharitable dealing of all kinds; particularly, discon tentful murmurings, diso bedience to magistrates, schisms, and factions in the Church, combustions and seditions in the state: In fine, those who in their temper and their deportment resem ble those ancient seducers, branded in the Scripture, those " evil men, who did seduce, and were seduced 2 :" Whose dispositions are represented in these epithets: they were awiroraKToi, " unruly 3," or persons indisposed and unwil ling to submit to government; roXjuijral, av9a.?>Eig, "presump tuous, and self- willed4," or self-pleasing darers ; yoyyvarai, p.Ep.\pt- poipoi, " murmurers, complainers," or conjunctly discontented mutineers ; avTOKaraicpiToi, " self-condemned s," namely, by con tradictious shuffling and shifting, or by excommunicating them selves from the Church : yoriTEg, " bewitchers," inveigling and deluding credulous people by dissimulation and specious appear- 1 Heb. xiii. 9. Eph. iv. 14. 2 2 Tim. iii. 13. 3 Tit. i. 10. 4 2 Pet. ii. 10. ! Tit. iii. 10, 11. 2 Tim. iii. 13. 4. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 287 ances ; " having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; being wolves in sheep's clothing, grievous wolves, not sparing the flock1 ;" "deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the servants of Christ, and ministers of righteousness2;" " lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, revilers, truce- breakers, false accusers, traitors, heady, high-minded, vain talkers, deceivers, ignorant, unlearned, unstable3:" Whose practices were ; " to cause divisions and offences con trary to received doctrine ; by good words and fair speeches to deceive the hearts of the simple4;" — " to swerve from charity — having turned aside to vain jangUng, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm6:" "tobeguUe unstable souls; to lie in wait to deceive6;" to speak perverse things that they may draw disciples after them ; creep into houses, captivating silly women ; to dote about ques tions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings ' ;" " to speak swelling words of vanity 8;" " to admire persons because of advantage 9," (or out of private design, for self-interest;) "to subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake10;" "to speak lies in hypocrisy11 ;" "to preach Christ out of envy and strife, not out of good- will, or pure intention, (oix ayvtog,) not purely 12;" "to promise liberty" to their followers; "to walk disorderly13;" (that is, in repugnance to order 'settled in the Church;) "to despise dominion, and without fear to re proach dignities; to speak evil (rashly) of those things which they know not," (which are beside their skill and cognizance14:) " to separate themselves 15" from the Church. Such persons as these, arrogating to themselves the office ot guides, and pretending to lead us, we must not foUow or regard ; but are in reason and conscience obUged to reject and shun them, as the ministers of Satan, the pests of Christendom, the enemies and murderers of souls 16. It can indeed nowise be safe to foUow any such leaders, 1 Matt. vii. 15. Acts xx. 29. 2 2 Cor. xi. 13. 15. 1 Tim. vi. 4. 3 2 Pet. iii. 16. l Rom. xvi. 17, 18. s (1 Tim. i. 6, 7.) 6 Eph. iv. 14. Acts xx. 19. 2 Tim. iii. 5. 7 1 Tim. vi. 4. s 2 Pet. ii. 18. ' Jude 16. 10 Tit. i. 11. " 1 Tim. iv. 2. 12 Phil. i. 15, 16. 13 2 Pet ii. 19. 2 Thess. iii. 6. ] 1 2 Pet. ii. 10. 14 Jude 8. 10. 9. 1S 2 John 9- 16 Tit. iii. 10. 2 Thess. iii. 6. Rom. xvi. 17- 1 Tim. vi. 5. 288 DR. ISAAC BARROW. (whatever pretences to special illumination they hold forth, what ever specious guises of sanctity they bear,) who in their doctrine or practice deflect from the great beaten roads of holy Scripture, primitive tradition, and CathoUc practice, roving in by paths sug gested to them by their private fancies and humours, their passions and lusts, their interests and advantages. There have in aU ages such counterfeit guides started up, having debauched some few heedless persons, having erected some 7rapa Heb. v. 11. (1 Cor. iii. 2.) 4 Isaiah xxix. 10. 5 Rom. xi. 8. 6 Isaiah vi. 9. Acts xxviii. 26. 7 John xii. 40. s James i. 21. 7 312 DR. ISAAC BARROW. every man, and teach every man in all wisdom, that they may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus '." As they are obliged in such manner to do these things, so there must be cor respondent duties lying upon us, to receive their doctrine readily, carefully, patiently, sincerely, and fairly ; as they must be faith ful dispensers of God's heavenly truth and holy mysteries, so we must be obsequious entertainers of them 2. Imposing such com mands on them does imply reciprocal obligations in their hearers and scholars ; otherwise their office would be vain, and their en deavours fruitless ; God no less would be frustrated in His design, than we should be deprived of the advantages of their in stitution. But farther, it is a more immediate ingredient of this duty, that 4. We should effectually be enlightened by their doctrine, be convinced by their arguments persuading truth and duty, be moved by their admonitions and exhortations to good practice ; we should open our eyes to the light which they shed forth upon us, we should surrender our judgment to the proofs which they allege, we should yield our hearts and affections pliable to their mollifying and warming discourses. It is their part to subdue our minds to the obedience of faith, and to subject our wills to the observance of God's commandments, (" casting down imagi nations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ s ;" ) it must therefore answerably be our duty not to resist, not to hold out, not to persist obstinate in our errors or prejudices ! to submit our minds to the power of truth, being wiUingly and gladly conquered by it ; it must be our duty to subjugate our wills, to bend our inclinations, to form our affections, to a free compliance of heart with the duties urged upon us ; we should not be like those disciples, of whom our Lord complains thus : " O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken 4 :" nor like the Jews, with whom St. Stephen thus expostulates ; " Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost 6." , They should speak with power and efficacy ; we therefore should not 1 1 Cor. ix. 16. 2 Cor. v. 14. 1 Pet. v. 2. Rom. xii. 3. 1 Tim. v. 17. 1 Tim. iv. 13. 16. 2 Tim. iv. 2. Col. i. 28. 2 1 Cor. iv 2. 3 2 Cor. x. 5. * Luke xxiv. 25. ! Acts vii. 51.1 Cor. iv. 20. ii. 4. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 313 by our indispositions (by obstinacy of conceit or hardness of heart) obstruct their endeavours : they should be " co-workers of your joy1," (that is, working in us that faith ,and those virtues, which are productive of true joy and comfort to us;) we therefore should co-work with them toward the same end : they should edify us in knowledge and- holiness : we should therefore yield ourselves to be fashioned and polished by them. 5. We should, in fine, obey their doctrine by conforming our practice thereto ; this our Lord prescribed in regard even to the Jewish guides and doctors ; " The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses's seat ; all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do2:" the same we may well conceive that He requires in respect to His own ministers, the teachers of a better law, au thorized to direct us by His own commission, and thereto more specially qualified by His grace. This is indeed the crown and completion of aU ; to hear signifies nothing : to be convinced in our mind, and to be affected in our heart, will but aggravate our guilt, if we neglect practice : every sermon we hear, that shows us our duty, wiU in effect be an enditement upon us, will ground a sentence of condemnation, if we transgress it ; for, as " the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, re- ceiveth blessing from God, — so that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, and its end is to be burned 3 :" and, " Not the hearers of the law are just with God, but the doers of the law shall be justified4." And it is a good advice, that of St. James ; " be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your ownselves 5 ;" it is, he intimateth, a fallacy some are apt to put upon themselves, to conceit they have done sufficiently when they have lent an ear to the word ; this is the least part to be done in regard to it, practice is all in all; what is it to be showed the way, and to know it exactly, if we do not walk in it, if we do not by it arrive to our journey's end, the salvation of our souls ? To have waited upon our Lord Himself, and hung upon His discourse, was not available ; for when in the day of account some should begin to allege, " We have eaten and drunk before thee, and thou hast taught in our streets ; our Lord i 2 Cor. i. 24. 1 Cor. iii. 5. 2 Matt, xxiii 2, 3. 3 Heb. vi. 7, 8. x. 26. 4 Rom. ii. 13. 5 James i. 22. 314 DR. ISAAC BARROW. will say, I know you not, whence are ye ; depart from me, aU ye workers of iniquity1. " And it is our Lord's declaration in the case, " Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock2;" — "but everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which buUt his house upon the sand3." Many are very earnest to hear, they "hear gladly4," as Herod did St. John the Baptist's homiUes ; they " receive the word with joy5," as the temporary believers in the parable did ; they do, as those men did in the Prophet, " deUght to know God's ways, do ask of God the ordinances of justice, do take delight in approaching God 6 ;" or as those in another prophet, " who speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord : and they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but will not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness : and, lo, thou art to them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument ; for they hear thy words, but they do them not 7 :" they for a time " rejoice in the light of God's" messengers, as those Jews did in the Ught of that " burn ing and shining lamp 8," St. John the Baptist ; but all comes to nothing ; but they are backward and careless to perform, at least more than they please themselves, or what suits to their fancy, their humour, their appetite, their interest. Many hearers will believe only what they like, or what suits to their prejudices and passions ; many, of what they believe, will practise that only which sorts with their temper, or wilL serve their designs ; they cannot conform to unpleasant and unprofitable doctrines : sometimes care chokes the word; sometimes temptation of pleasure, of profit, of honour allures ; sometimes difficulties, hazards, persecutions, dis courage from obedience to it. These particulars are obvious, and by most will be consented to: there is one point which perhaps will more hardly be ad- 1 Luke xiii. 26, 27- 2 Matt. vii. 24. 3 (John xiv. 21.) 4 Mark vi. 20. 5 Matt. xiii. 20. 6 Isaiah lviii. 2. 1 Ezek. xxxiii. 30, 31, 32. 8 John v. 35. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 315 mitted, which therefore I shall more largely insist upon; it is this : 6. That as in all cases it is our duty to defer much regard to the opinion of our guides, so in some cases it behoves us to rely barely upon their judgment and advice; those especially among them who excel in dignity and worth, who are approved for wisdom and integrity; their definitions, or the declarations of their opinion, (especially such as are exhibited upon mature de liberation and debate, in a solemn manner,) are ever very pro bable arguments of truth and expediency; they are commonly the best arguments which can be had in some matters, especially to the meaner and simpler sort of people. — This upon many accounts wiU appear reasonable. It is evident to experience, that every man is not capable to judge, or able to guide himself in matters of this nature, (con cerning divine truth and conscience.) There are " children in understanding;" there are men "weak in faith1," (or knowledge concerning the faith;) there are "idiots," anaicoi, (men not bad, but simple,) persons " occupying the room of the unlearned, un skilful in the word of righteousness "," who, as the Apostle says, " need that one should teach them which be the first principles - of the oracles of God 3." The vulgar sort of men * are, as undiscerning and injudicious in all things, so pecuUarly in matters of this nature, so much ab stracted from common sense and experience; whence we see them easUy seduced into the fondest conceits and wildest courses by any slender artifice or fair pretence ; " like children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive 5." There are also some particular cases, a competent information and skill in which must depend upon improvements of mind ac quired by more than ordinary study and experience ; so that in them most people do want sufficient means of attaining know ledge requisite to guide their judgment or their practice : and for such persons in such cases it is plainly the best, the wisest, and the safest way, to rely upon the direction of their guides, assenting 1 Rom. xiv. 1. xv. 1, &c. xvi. 18. 2 1 Cor. xiv. 16. iii. 2. viii. 10. 3 Heb. v. 12. 4 Vulgo non judicium, non Veritas. Tac. "AKpirov b Sijuog. M, Ant. 5 Eph. iv. 14. 316 DR. ISAAC BARROW. to what they declare, acting what they prescribe, going whither they conduct \ The very notion of guides, and the design of their office, does import a difference of knowledge, and a need of reUance upon them in such cases ; it signifies, that we are in some measure ignorant of the way, and that they better know it; and if so, plain reason dictates it fit that we should foUow them : and indeed what need were there of guides, to what purpose should we have them, if we can sufficiently ken the way, and judge what we should do, without them ? In the state of learning, (in which the assigning us teachers supposes us placed,) whatever our capacity may be, yet our judgment at least (for want of a fuU comprehension of things, which must be discovered in order and by degrees) is imperfect : in that state therefore it becomes us not to pretend exercise of judgment, but rather easily to yield assent to what our teachers, who see farther into the thing, do assert ; " The learner," as Seneca says, " is bound to be ruled, whUe he beginneth to be able to rule himself 2." Aei fiavOdvovra ttio-teveiv, " A learner should in some measure be credulous;" otherwise, as he wiU often fail in his judgment, so he will make little progress in learning; for if he will admit nothing on his master's word, if he wiU question all things, if he will continually be doubting and disputing, or contradicting and opposing his teacher, how can instruction proceed ? He that pre sently will be his own master is a bad scholar, and will be a worse master. He that wiU fly before he is fledged, no wonder if he tumble down. There are divers obvious and very considerable cases in which persons most contemptuous of authority, and refractory toward their guides, are constrained to rely upon the judgment of others, and are contented to do it, their conscience showing them unable to judge for themselves : in admitting the Uteral sense of Scrip ture, according to translations; in the interpretation of difficult places, depending upon the skill of languages, grammar, and criticism, upon the knowledge of human arts and sciences, upon 1 'AAA' tiSortg irkpoig (3kXnov tlvai rdg tavrSiv r)viag ivSiSbvai TtxviKiOTtpoig, r) aXXuv r)vioxovg ilvat dvfKUSTr\aovag, Kai aKotjv vironBkvai pdXXov tiiyviipova, ri yX&ooav Kivtiv diraiStVTov. Naz. Or. 1. ¦ fide calidus, et virtute robustus, &c. Cypr. Ep. 23. de Luciano. 2 Regi debet, dum incipit se posse regere. Sen. Ep. 94. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 317 histories and ancient customs : — in such cases, all illiterate per sons (however otherwise diffident and disregardful of authority) are forced to see with the eyes of other men, to submit their judgment to the skill and fidelity of their learned guides, taking the very principles and foundations of their religion upon trust : and why then consonantly may they not do it in other cases; especiaUy in the resolution of difficult, sublime, obscure, and subtil points, the comprehension whereof transcends their capacity ? PART IV. But farther, The more to engage and incline us to the performing this part of our duty, (the regarding, prizing, confiding in the judgment of our guides,) we may consider the great advantages, both natural and supernatural, which they have to qualify them in order to such purposes. 1. They may reasonably be presumed more intelligent and skilful in divine matters than others ; for as they have the same natural capacities and endowments with others, (or rather com monly somewhat better than others, as being designed and se lected to this sort of employment,) so their natural abiUties are by all possible means improved : it is their trade and faculty, unto which their education is directed; in acquiring ability toward which they spend their time, their care, their pains ; in which they are continually versed and exercised, (" having," as the Apostle speaks, " by reason of use their senses exercised to discern both go6d and evil1;") for which also they employ their suppUcations and devotions to God. Many special advantages they hence procure, needful or very conducible to a more perfect knowledge of such matters, and to security from errors ; such as are conversing with studies, which enlarge a man's mind, and improve his judgment ; a skill of dis quisition about things ; of sifting and canvassing points coming under debate ; of weighing the force of arguments, and distin guishing the colours of things ; the knowledge of languages, in which the divine oracles are expressed ; of sciences, of histories, of practices serving to the discovery and iUustration of the truth ; 1 Heb. v. 14. 318 DR. ISAAC BARROW. exercise in meditation, reading, writing, speaking, disputing, and conference, whereby the mind is greatly enlightened, and the reason strengthened; acquaintance with variety of learned authors, who with great diligence have expounded the Holy Scriptures, and with most accuracy discussed points of doctrine ; especially with ancient writers, who, living near the apostolical times, and being immediately (or within few degrees mediately) their disci ples, may justly be supposed most helpful toward informing us what was their genuine doctrine, what the true sense of their writings : by such means as in other faculties, so in this of the ology, a competent skill may be obtained; there is no other ordinary or probable way; and no extraordinary way can be trusted, now that men appear not to grow learned or wise by special inspiration or miracle; after that all pretences to such by-ways have been detected of imposture, and do smeU too rank of hypocrisy.Since then our guides are so advantageously qualified to direct us, it is in matters difficult and doubtful (the which require good measure of skill and judgment to determine about them) most reasonable that we should rely upon their authority, preferring it in such cases to our private discretion; taking it for more probable that they should comprehend the truth than we (unassisted by them, and judging merely by our own glimmering light) can do; deeming it good odds on the side of their doctrine against our opinion or conjecture. They have also another peculiar advantage toward judging sincerely of things, by their greater retirement from the world and disengagement from secular interests ; the which ordinarily do deprave the understandings and pervert the judgments of men, disposing them to accommodate their conceits to the maxims of worldly policy, or to the vulgar apprehensions of men, many of which are false and base ' : by such abstraction of mind from worldly affairs, together with fastening their meditation on the best things (which their calling necessarily does put them upon) more than is usual to other men, they commonly get principles and habits of simplicity and integrity, which qualify men both to discern truth better, and more faithfully to declare it. Seeing then in every faculty the advice of the skilful is to be regarded, and is usually relied upon; and in other affairs of 1 2 Tim.ii.4. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 319 greatest importance we scruple not to proceed so ; seeing we com mit our life and health (which are most precious to us) to the physician, observing his prescriptions commonly without any reason, sometimes against our own sense; we intrust our estate, which is so dear, with the lawyer, not contesting his advice ; we put our goods and safety into the hands of a pilot, sleeping se curely whilst he steers us as he thinks fit ; — seeing in many such occasions of common life we advisedly do renounce or waive our own opinions, absolutely yielding to the direction of others, taking their authority for a better argument or ground of action than any which our conceit or a bare consideration of the matter can suggest to us ; admitting this maxim for good, that it is a more advisable and safe course in matters of consequence to follow the judgment of wiser men than to adhere to our own apprehensions ] : seeing it is not wisdom (as every man thinks) in a doubtful case to act upon disadvantage, or to venture upon odds against himself, and it is plainly doing thus to act upon our own opinion against the judgment of those who are more improved in the way, or better studied in the point than ourselves ; seeing in other cases these are the common approved apprehensions and practices ; and seeing in this case there is plainly the same reason, for that there are difficulties and intricacies in this no less than in other faculties, which need good skill to resolve them; for that in these matters we may easily sUp, and by error may incur huge danger and damage : why then should we not here take the same course, fol lowing (when no other clearer light, or prevalent reason occurs) the conduct and advice of our more skilful guides ? especially considering, that, beside ordinary, natural, and acquired advan tages, they have other supernatural both obligations to the well discharging this duty, and assistances toward it ; For, 2. We may consider, that they are by God appointed and em powered to instruct and guide us: it is their special office, not assumed by themselves, or constituted by human prudence, but ordained and settled by divine wisdom for our edification in know ledge, and direction in practice2: they are God's messengers, 1 "Ov civ r)yr)aiuvTai Trspi rd ovpipkpovTa eavrolg Qpovipilirtpov iavT&v ilvai, tovtui avSrpanroi virtpnSkujg irtiSiovTai. Xen. Pasd. 1 . 'Ev piv Tip TrXtiv TTtiStaSrai Stt Tip KvfStpvriTy, iv Si Tip Z,r)v Tip XoyiZtaS/at Svvapkvift pkXnov. Aristonymus apud Stob. torn. ii. tit. 3. 2 Jer. iii. 15. I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. Cypr. Ep. 55. 320 DR. ISAAC BARROW. purposely sent by Him, selected and separated by His instinct " for this work 1 :" they are by Him " given for the perfecting of the saints, and edifying the body of Christ :" it is by God's warrant, and in His name that they speak ; which gives especial weight to their words, and no mean ground of assurance to us in relying upon them : for who is more likely to know God's mind and will, who may be presumed more faithful in declaring them, than God's own officers and agents? those whose great duty, whose main concernment it is to speak not their own sense, but the word of God ? They are God's mouth, by whom alone ordi narily He expresses His mind and pleasure ; by whom " He entreateth us to be reconciled 2 " in heart and practice to Him : what they say therefore is to be received as God's word, except plain reason upon due examination do forbid. If they by office are teachers, or masters in doctrine, then we answerably must in obligation be disciples, which implies admit ting their doctrine and proficiency in knowledge thereby : if they are appointed shepherds, then must we be their sheep, to be led and fed by them ; if they are God's messengers, we must yield some credence, and embrace the message uttered by them. So the prophet tells us : " The priest's lips a should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts " :" so the law of old enjoined ; — " According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall teU thee, thou shalt do; thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee, to the right hand nor to the left * :" so our Lord also, in regard to the Scribes and Pharisees, says, " The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses's chair : all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do 5 ;" upon account of their office, whatever they direct to (not repugnant to the divine law) was to be observed by the people 6 ; and surely in doubtful cases, when upon competent enquiry no clear light offers itself, it cannot be very dangerous to follow their guidance whom God has ap pointed and authorized to lead us; if we err doing so, we err 'Rom. x. 15. Acts xiii. 2. Eph. iv. 11, 12. 1 Cor. xii. 28. 1 Tim. i. 11, 12. ii. 7- Tit. i. 3. 1 Thess. ii. 4. 2 2 Cor. v. 20. a See Hooker's preface, chap. iii. § 2. given below in this collection. " Mai. ii. 7. 4 Deut. xvii. 11. 5 Matt, xxiii. 2, 3. ' (Ezek. xxxiv. 16.) Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 32.1 wisely in the way of our duty, and so no great blame will attend our error. 3. We may consider that our guides as such have special as sistance from God. To every vocation God's aid is congruously afforded; but to this (the principal of all others, the most im portant, most nearly related to God, and most peculiarly tending to His service) it is in a special manner most assuredly and plentifuUy imparted. They are " stewards of God's various grace 1 ;" and they who dispense grace to others cannot want it themselves : they are "co- operators with God2," and God consequently does co-operate with them; it is God who does licavovv, " render them sufficient to be ministers of the New Testament 3 ;" and they " minister of the ability which God supplieth 4 ;" every spiritual labourer is obliged to say with St. Paul, " By the grace of God I am what I am — I have laboured, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me 5." God's having " given them," as St. Paul says ", to the Church, does imply that God has endowed them with special abiUty, and furthereth them (in their conscionable discharge of their ministry) with aid requisite to the designs of " perfecting the saints, and edifying the body 7 " in knowledge, in virtue, in piety. As the Holy Ghost does constitute them in their charge (ac cording to that of St. Paul in the Acts, " Take heed unto your selves, and to aU the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers 8,") so questionless He does enable and assist them in administering their function. There is " a gift 9 " (of spiritual ability and divine succour) imparted by their consecration to this office, with " the laying on the hands of the presbytery l0," joined with humble supplications for them, and solemn benedictions in God's name upon them. The Divine Spirit, which "distributeth, as he seeth good, unto every member of the Church" needful sup plies of grace, does bestow on them in competent measure " the word of wisdom" and the " word of knowledge" requisite for their employment ". God of old did in extraordinary ways visibly communicate His 1 1 Pet. iv. 10. 2 1 Cor. iii. 9. 3 2 Cor. iii. 5. Phil. ii. 13. 4 ] Pet. iv. 11. 5 I Cor. xv. 10. 6 Eph. iv. 11, 12. 7 1 Cor. xii. 28. s Acts xx. 28. » 1 Tim. iv. 14. 10 2 Tim. i. 6. " 1 Cor. xii. 7, &c. Eph. iv. 16. Rom. xii. 5, 6. VOL. in. Y 322 DR. ISAAC BARROW. Spirit unto His prophets and agents ; the same He did liberally pour out upon the Apostles, and first planters of the Gospel ; the same questionless He has not withdrawn from those, who under the evangeUcal dispensation (which is peculiarly the " ministra tion of the Spirit 1," unto which the aid of God's Spirit is most proper and most needful) do still by a settled ministry supply the room of those extraordinary ministers ; but imparts it to them in a way although more ordinary and occult, yet no less real and effectual, according to proportions answerable to the exigencies of need and occasion; and by the influence hereof upon the pastors of His Church it is that our Lord accomplishes His pro mise to be " with it until the end of the world 2." Clavis scientia;a, " the key of knowledge 3 " spiritual, is one of those keys which He has given to them, whereby they are enabled to open the kingdom of heaven. Great reason therefore we have to place an especial confidence in their direction ; for whom can we more safely follow than those whom (upon such grounds of divine declarations and promises) we may hope that God does guide ; so that consequently in fol lowing them we do in effect follow God Himself? " He that heareth you heareth me," might be said, not only because of their relation unto Christ ; but because their word proceeds from His inspiration, being no other than His mind conveyed through their mouth. 4. We may also, for our encouragement to confide in our guides, consider, that they are themselves deeply concerned in our being rightly guided ; their present comfort, their salvation hereafter depending upon the faithful and careful discharge of their duty herein : they must render an account for it ; so that if by their wilful or negligent miscarriage we do fall into dangerous error or sin, they do thence not only forfeit rich and glorious re wards, (assigned to those " who turn many unto righteousness,") but incur woful punishment. This doth assure their integrity, and render our confidence in them very reasonable : for as we may safely trust a pilot who has no less interest than ourselves in the safe conveyance of the vessel to port ; so may we reasonably confide in their advice whose salvation is adventured with ours in ' 2 Cor. iii. 8. 2 Matt, xxviii. 20. a See Barrow On the Power of the Keys, above p. 169. 3 Luke xi. 52. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 323 the same bottom, or rather is wrapped up and carried in ours : it is not probable they will (at least designedly) misguide us to their own extreme damage, to their utter ruin : " if they do not warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, God hath said that he wiU require his blood at their hands 1 ;" and is it likely they wittingly should run such a hazard, that they should purposely cast away the souls for which they are so certainly accountable ? It is our Apostle's enforcement of the precept in our text ; " Obey them that guide you ; for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account :" which argumentation is not only grounded upon the obUgations of ingenuity and grati tude, but also upon considerations of discretion and interest ; we should obey our guides in equity and honesty; we may do it advisedly, because they, in regard to their own accounts at the final judgment, are obliged to be careful for the good of our souls. Upon these considerations, it is plainly reasonable to foUow our guides in aU matters wherein we have no other very clear and certain light of reason or revelation to conduct us. The doing so is indeed (which is farther observable) not only wise in itself, but safe in way of prevention, that we be not seduced by other treacherous guides ; it will not only secure us from our own weak judgments, but from the frauds of those " who lie in wait to deceive 2." The simpler sort of men wiU in effect be always led, not by their own judgment, but by the authority of others ; and if they be not fairly guided by those whom God has con stituted and assigned to that end, they will be led by the nose by those who are concerned to seduce them. So reason dictates that it must be, so experience shows it ever to have been ; that the people, whenever they have deserted their true guides, have soon been hurried by impostors into most dangerous errors and extravagant folUes ; being " carried about with divers and strange doctrines 3 ;" being " Uke children, tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine 4." It is therefore a great advantage to us, and a great mercy of God, that there are (by God's care) provided for us such helps, upon which we may commonly for our guidance in the way to happiness more safely rely, than upon our own judgments, liable ' Ezek. iii. 18. xxxiii. 2. 8. 2 Eph. iv. 14. 3 Heb. xiii. 9. " Eph. iv. 14. y2 324 DR. ISAAC BARROW. to mistake, and than upon the counsel of others, who may be interested to abuse us. Very foolish and very ungrateful we are, if we do not highly prize, if we do not willingly embrace this advantage. I farther add, that as wisdom may induce, so modesty and humility should dispose us to follow the direction of our guides : " Ye younger," says St. Peter, " submit yourselves unto the elder1," (that is, ye inferiors to your superiors, ye that are the flock to your pastors,) " and," subjoins he immediately, " be clothed with humility ;" signifying, that it is a point of humility to yield that submission. Every modest and humble person is apt to distrust his own, and to submit to better judgments ; and, " Not to lean to our understanding, not to be wise in our own eyes, not to seem to know any thing, not to seem any body to oneself, in humility to prefer others before ourselves 2," are divine injunctions, chiefly applicable to this case, in reference to our spiritual guides ; for if it be pride or culpable immodesty to pre sume ourselves wiser than any man, what is it then to prefer ourselves in that respect before our teachers ; as indeed we do, when without evident reason, we disregard, or dissent from their opinion ? It is then a duty tery reasonable, and a very commendable practice, to rely upon the guidance of our pastors in such cases, wherein surer direction faileth, and we cannot otherwise fuUy satisfy ourselves. Neither in doing so (against some appearances of reason, or with some violence to our private conceits) do we act against our conscience, but rather truly according to it; for conscience (as the word in this case is used) is nothing else but an opinion in practical matters, grounded upon the best reason we can discern : if therefore in any case the authority of our guides be a reason outweighing all other reasons apparent, he that in such a case, notwithstanding other arguments less forcible, does conform his judgment and practice thereto, therein exactly follows a con. 1 1 Pet. v. 5. s Prov. iii. 5. 7- Rom. xii. 3. 10. Gal. vi. 3. Phil. ii. 3. 1 Cor. viii. 2. 1 Tim. vi. 4. a See Hooker's Preface, chap. vi. § 3. "This persuasion ought to be fully settled in their hearts, that in litigious and controversed causes of such quality, the will of God is to have them do whatsoever the sentence of judicial and final decision shall determine, yea, though it seem in their jjri- Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 325 science ; yea, in doing otherwise, he would thwart and violence his own conscience, and be self-condemned, adhering to a less probable reason in opposition to one more probable. I do not hereby mean to assert, that we are obliged indif ferently (with an implicit faith, or blind obedience) to believe all that our teachers say, or to practise all they bid us : for they are men, and therefore subject to error and sin ; they may neglect or abuse the advantages they have of knowing better than others ; they may sometimes, by infirmity, by negligence,, by pravity, fail in performing faithfully their duty toward us ; they may be swayed by temper, be led by passion, be corrupted by ambition or avarice, so as thence to embrace and vent bad doctrines : we do see our pastors often dissenting and clashing among them selves, sometimes with themselves, so as to change and retract their own opinions \ We find the prophets of old complaining of priests, of pastors, of elders and prophets, who " handled the law, yet were ignorant of God ;" who " erred in vision and stumbled in judgment ;" who " were profane, brutish, light, and treacherous persons ; who polluted the sanctuary, and did violence to the law, and profaned holy things ;" who " handled the law, yet knew not God ;" from " whom the law and counsel did perish ; who taught for hire, and divined for money ; who themselves departed out of the way, and caused many to stumble, and corrupted the covenant of Levi ; who destroyed and scattered the sheep of God's pasture 2." There were in our Saviour's time guides, " of the ferment of whose doctrine" good people were " bid to beware ;" who " trans gressed and defeated the commandment of God by their tradi tions ;" who " did take away the key of knowledge, so that they would not enter themselves into the kingdom of heaven, nor would suffer others to enter ; blind guides 3," who both themselves vate opinion to swerve utterly from that which is right. . ... This was ground sufficient for any reasonable man's conscience to build the duty of obedience upon, whatsoever his own opinion were as touching the matter before in question." 1 Isa. iii. 12. " O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." 2 (Jer. ii. 8.) Isa. xxviii. 7- Jer. x. 21. xii. 10. xxiii. 11. (Jer. xviii. 18. v. 31. vi. 13.) Zeph. iii. 4. Ezek. xxii. 26. Mai. i. 6. Ezek. vii. 26. Mic. iii. 11. Mai. ii. 8, 9. Jer. xxiii. II. xii. 10. 3 Matt. xvi. 6. 12. Luke xii. 1. Matt. xv. 2. 6 Luke xi. 52. Matt. xv. 14. 326 DR. ISAAC BARROW. did fall, and drew others into the ditch of noxious error and wicked practice : the followers of which guides did " in vain wor ship God, observing for doctrine the precepts of men 1." There have not since the primitive times of the Gospel wanted those who (indulging to ambition, avarice, curiosity, faction, and other bad affections) have depraved and debased reUgion with noxious errors and idle superstitions; such as St. Bernard des cribes2, &c. We are, in matters of such infinite cqncernment to our eternal welfare, in wisdom and duty obhged not whoUy without farther heed or care to trust the diUgence and integrity of others, but to consider and look about us, using our own reason, judgment, and discretion, so far as we are capable ; we cannot in such a case be blamed for too much circumspection and caution : We are not wholly blind, not void of reason, not destitute of fit helps ; in many cases we have competent abUity to judge, and means sufficient to attain knowledge : we are therefore concerned to use our eyes, to employ our reason, to embrace and improve the advantages vouchsafed us : We are accountable personally for aU our actions, as agreeable or cross to reason; if we are mistaken by our own default, or misled by the ill guidance of others, we shaU however deeply suf fer for it, and " die in our iniquity 3 ;" the ignorance or error of our guides will not wholly excuse us from guilt, or exempt us from punishment : — it is fit therefore that we should be aUowed, as to the sum of the matter, to judge and choose for ourselves; for if our salvation were wholly placed in the hands of others, so that we could not but in case of their error or default miscarry, our ruin would be inevitable, and consequently not just : we should perish without blame, if we were bound, as a blind and brutish herd, to follow others : We, in order to our practice, (which must be regulated by faith and knowledge,) and toward preparing ourselves for our grand account, are obUged to get a knowledge and persuasion concerning our duty ; " to prove (or search and examine) what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God 4;" for igno rance, if anywise by our endeavour vincible, will not secure us : " He that," says our Lord and Judge, " knew not, and did com mit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes 5 ;" 1 Matt. xv. 9. 2 Vid. Apol. Eccl. Ang. 3 Ezek. iii. 18. 4 Rom. xii. 2. Eph, v. 10. 5 Luke xii. 48. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 327 (few ; not in themselves, but comparatively to those which shall be inflicted on them who transgress against knowledge and con science :) We are bound to study truth, to improve our minds in the knowledge and love of it, to be firmly persuaded of it in a rational way ; so that we be not easily shaken, or seduced from it : The apostles do charge it upon us as our duty and concern ment, that we " abound in faith and knowledge ;" that we " be rooted and built up in Christ, and stablished in the faith, so as to be stedfast, and immovable," not to " be soon shaken in mind, or troubled ; to grow up and increase in all divine knowledge ;" that " the word of God should dwell richly in us in all wisdom ;" that we " should be filled with all knowledge, so as to be able to teach and admonish one another ;" that " our love should abound more and more in knowledge and all judgment, that we may approve things excellent 1," (or scan things different ;) that we " be en riched in all the word," (that is, in all the doctrine of the gos pel,) " and in all knowledge ;" that we " be filled in the know ledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding " ;" that we should not be " unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is 3 ;" that we should " be perfect and complete in all the will of God 4," (that is, first in the knowledge of it, then in compliance with it;) that "in understanding we should not be children, but perfect men " :" We are likewise by them commanded to " take heed of false prophets ;" to " try the spirits whether they are of God ;" to " see that no man deceive us {' to " look that no man spoil us by vain deceit ;" to " try aU things, and hold fast that which is good 6 ;" which precepts imply, that we should be furnished with a good faculty of judgment, and competent knowledge in the principal matters of Christian doctrine, concerning both the mys teries of faith and rules of practice. Our Lord Himself and His apostles did not upon other terms than of rational considera tion and discussion, exact credit and obedience to their words ; 1 2 Cor. viii. 7. Col. ii. 7. 1 Cor. xv. 58. 2 Thess. ii. 2. Col. i. 10. 2 Pet. iii. 18. ii. 2. Eph. iv. 15. Col. iii. 16. Rom. xv. 14. Heb. v. 12. Phil. i. 9, 10. 2 1 Cor. i. 5. Col. i. 9- 3 Eph. v. 17. 4 Col. iv. 12. s 1 Cor. xiv. 20. Heb. v. 12. 6 Matt. vii. 15. 1 John iv. I. Matt. xxiv. 4. Eph. v. 6. Col. ii. 8. 18. 1 Thess. v. 21. 328 DR. ISAAC BARROW. they did not insist barely upon their own authority, but exhorted their disciples to examine strietly, and judge faithfully concern ing the truth and reasonableness of their doctrine : " Search the Scriptures, for they testify of me ; If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not ; but if I do, though ye believe not me, beUeve the works ' ;" so our Lord appealed to their reason, pro ceeding upon grounds of Scripture and common sense : and, " I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say2;" so St. Paul addressed his discourse to his disciples ; otherwise we should be uncapable to observe them : We are also bound to defer the principal regard to God's wis dom and will, so as, without reservation or exception, to embrace whatever He does say, to obey what He positively does command, whatever authority does contradict His word, or cross His com mand. In such cases we may remonstrate with the apostles, " If it be just before God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye ;'' and " We ought to obey God rather than men ° ;" we may denounce with St. Paul ; " If an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be accursed 4 :" We are obliged always to act " with faith," (that is, with a persuasion concerning the lawfulness of what we do;) for, " what ever is not of faith, is sin ° :" we should never condemn ourselves in what we try or embrace : — These things considered, we may, and it much behoves us, reserving due respect to our guides, with humility and modesty to weigh and scan their dictates and their orders, lest by them unawares we be drawn into error or sin; like the ingenuous Bereans, who did dvaicpivEiv rag ypaag "search and examine the Scriptures, if those things were so 6." Our guides are but the "helpers7," they are not lords of our faith; — the apostles themselves were not. We may, and are bound, if they tell us things evidently repug nant to God's word, or to sound reason and common sense, to dissent from them ; if they impose on us things evidently con trary to God's law 8, to forbear compliance with them ; we may in 1 John v. 39. John x. 37, 38. xv. 22. 24. xii. 48. 2 1 Cor. x. 15. 3 Acts iv. 19. Acts v. 29. 4 Gal. i. 8. 5 Rom. xiv. 23. « Acts xvii. 11. 7 2 Cor. i. 24. 8 Isaiah viii. 20. Plebs timens Dominum separare se debet a peccatore praeposito. Cypr. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 329 such cases appeal ad legem et testimonium ; we must not admit a non obstante to God's law. If other arguments, weighed in the balance of honest and impartial reason, with cautious and industrious consideration, do overpoise the authority of our guides, let us in God's name adhere to them, and follow our own judgments ; it would be a violation of our conscience, a prevarication toward our own souls, and a rebellion against God to do otherwise. When against out own mind, so carefuUy informed, we foUow the dictates of others, we like fools rashly adventure and prostitute our souls. This proceeding is nowise inconsistent with what we delivered before ; for this due wariness in examining, this reservation in assenting, this exception in practice, in some cases, wherein the matter has evidence, and we a faculty to judge, does nowise hin der but that we should defer much regard to the judgment of our guides ; that we should in those cases, wherein no light discovers itself outshining their authority, rely upon it; that where our eyes wUl not serve clearly to direct us, we should use theirs ; where our reason faUs to satisfy us, we should acquiesce in theirs ; that we should regard their judgments so far, that no petty scruple emerging, no faint semblance of reason should prevail upon us to dissent from their doctrine, to reject their advice, to disobey their injunctions. In fine, let us remember, that the mouth of truth, which bids us to beware of the bad doctrine of those who "sat in Moses's chair1, did also charge us " to observe aU they taught and enjoined ; that is, all not certainly repugnant to the divine law. In effect, if we discost from the advices of our sober teachers, appointed for us by God, we shall in the end have occasion to bewail with him in the Proverbs : " How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me 2 !" To these things I shall only add one rule, which we may well suppose comprised in the precept we treat upon ; which is, that at least we forbear openly to dissent from our guides, or to con tradict their doctrine ; except only, if it be so false (which never, or rarely can happen among us) as to subvert the foundations of faith, or practice of holiness. If we cannot be internally convin ced by their discourses, if their authority cannot sway with us 1 Matt. xv. 14. xxiii. 3. 2 Prov. v. 12, 13. l ;j 330 DR. ISAAC BARROW. against the prevalence of other reasons, yet may we spare out wardly to oppose them, or to slight their judgment ; for doing thus does tend, as to the disgrace of their persons, so to the disparagement of their office, to an obstructing the efficacy of their ministry, to the infringement of order and peace in the Church. For when the inconsiderate people shall see their teach ers distrusted and disrespected ; when they perceive their doctrine may be challenged and opposed by plausible discourses ; then will they hardly trust them, or comply with them in matters most certain and necessary ; than which disposition in the people there cannot happen any thing more prejudicial or baneful to the Church. But let thus much serve for the obedience due to the doctrine of our guides ; — let us — III. Consider that which we owe to them in reference to their conversation and practice. The following their practice may well be referred to this precept ; for that their practice is a kind of living doctrine, a visible law, or rule of action ; and because indeed the notion of a guide primarily does imply example ; that he which is guided should respect the guide as a precedent, being concerned to walk after his footsteps. Most of the reasons, which urge deference to their judgment in teaching, do in proportion infer obligation to follow their example; (which indeed is the most easy and clear way of instruction to vulgar capacity ; carrying with it also most efficacious encourage ment and excitement to practice:) — they are obliged, and it is expected from them, to live with especial regularity, circum spection, and strictness of conversation ; they are by God's grace especiaUy disposed and enabled to do so; and many common advantages they have of doing so ; (a more perfect knowledge of things, firmness of principles, and clearness of notions ; a deeper tincture, and more savoury relish of truth, attained by continual meditation thereon ; consequently a purity of mind and affection, a retirement from the world and its temptations, freedom from distractions of worldly care and the encumbrances of business, with the like.) They are often charged to be exemplary in conversation, as we before showed, and that involves a correspondent obligation to follow them. They must, like St. John Baptist, " be burning and shining lights ; stars in God's right hand ; lights of the world ; Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governors. 331 whose Ught should shine before men, that men may see their good works 1 ;" and by their light direct their steps. They are proposed as copies, which signifies that we must in our practice transcribe them. We are often directly commanded to imitate them ; wv fii/uEto-St ti)v iriariv, " whose faith imitate ye," (that is, their faithful per severance in the doctrine and practice of Christianity,) says the apostle in this chapter. Their conversation is safely imitable in all cases wherein no better rule appears, and when it does not appear discordant from God's law and the dictates of sound reason ; for supposing that discordance, we cease to be obUged to follow them ; as when our Lord prescribes in respect to the Pharisees ; " Whatever they bid you observe, that observe and do ; but do not after their works ; for they say and do not 2." It is indeed easier for them to speak well than to do well ; their doctrine therefore is more commonly a sure guide than their practice; yet when there wants a clearer guidance of doctrine, their practice may pass for instructive, and a probable argument or warrant of action. i John v. 35. Rev. xvi. 20. Matt. v. 14. 16. 2 Matt, xxiii. 3. XV. THE TEMPORAL CONDITION OF THE CLERGY \ " I wish to see the Established Church of England great and powerful. I wish to see her foundations laid low and deep. I would have her head raised up towards that heaven to which she conducts us. I would have her open wide her hospitable gates by a liberal comprehension ; but I would have no breaches in her wall. I would have her cherish all those who are within, and pity all those who are without. I would have her a common blessing to the world ; an example, if not an instructor, to those who have not the happiness to belong to her. I would have her give a lesson of peace to mankind, that a vexed and wandering generation might be taught to seek for repose and toleration in the maternal bosom of Christian charity, and not in the harlot lap of infidelity and indifference. Long may we enjoy our Church under a learned and edifying episcopacy !" — Burke. " I will also clothe her priests with salvation." — Psalm cxxxii. 16. The context runs thus : " The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David ; he will not turn from it ; of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore. For the Lord hath chosen Zion ; he a From Dr. Isaac Barrow, Sermon xii., Works, vol. i. p. 251 — 282; preached in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, July 4, 1663, at the Bishop of Man's Consecration. The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 333 hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever : here wiU I dwell ; for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy. There wiU I make the horn of David to bud," &c. If all, not only inaugurations of persons, but dedications even of inanimate things to some extraordinary use, have been usually attended with especial significations of joy and festival solemnity; with great reason the consecration of a person to so high and sacred a function, as that of a Christian Bishop, (that is, of a prince, or principal pastor in God's Church, ) requires most pecu liar testimonies of our gratulation and content : the face of things ought then to be serene and cheerful; the thoughts of men benign and favourable ; the words comfortable and auspicious, that are uttered upon such occasion. — And that ours at present should be such, the subject as weU as the season of our discourse does re quire. — Words few, these are, but pregnant, and affording ample matter for our best affections to work upon : and which more particularly will engage us, both to a hearty thankfulness for past benefits, and to a confident expectation of future blessings ; whUe they acquaint us with the ancient exhibition of a gracious promise, remind us of the faithful performance thereof hitherto, and assure us of its certain accomplishment for the future. The occasion whereof was this : King David, moved by a devout inclination to promote God's honour, and benefit the Church, had vowed to build a magnificent temple, imploring God's propitious concurrence with, and appro bation of, his design. Whereupon Almighty God not only declares His acceptance of that pious resolution, but rewards it with a bountiful promise, consisting of two parts ; one conditional, relating to David's chUdren and posterity, that they in an un interrupted succession should for ever enjoy the royal dignity, in case they did constantly persist in observing His covenant, and the testimonies that He should teach them ; the other more abso lute, that however, what he chiefly intended, — concerning God's established worship and the perpetual welfare of the Church, — that God would have an especial care that it should fully and cer tainly be accomplished : that he would for ever fix his residence in Sion ; that he would protect and prosper it, and all that did be long thereto ; especially those that did most need his favour and 334 DR. ISAAC BARROW. assistance, the poor, the priests, and the saints 1, (or gentle ones.) — This is briefly the importance of the general promise, wherein is comprehended that particular one whereon we are to treat : and in which we may observe, 1. The promiser, I. 2. The persons who are especiaUy concerned in the promise, her priests. 3. The thing promised, clothing with salvation. I. I say, the promiser, I : that is, the Lord ; the most true, the most constant, the most powerful God ; most true and sincere in the declaration of His purpose, most constant and immutable in the prosecution, most powerful and uncontrollable in the perfect execution thereof: whose " words are right, and aU whose works are done in truth 2 :" who " will not break his covenant, nor alter the thing that is gone out of his Ups :" whose " counsel shaU stand, and who will do aU his pleasure 3." These glorious attri butes and perfections of His, so often celebrated in Holy Writ, do ground our reliance upon all God's promises, and do oblige us, notwithstanding the greatest improbabilities or difficulties ob jected, to believe the infallible performance of this. II. The persons whom the promise mainly regards, her priests. Priests, that is, persons peculiarly devoted to, and employed in, sacred matters ; distinguished expressly from the poor, (that is, other meek and humble persons;) and from the saints, (that is, all other good and religious men.) And, her priests; that is, the priests of Sion ; of that Sion which the Lord has chosen : which " he hath desired for his permanent habitation 4 ;" which He hath resolved to rest and reside in for ever. Whence it plainly enough foUows, that the priests and pastors of the Christ ian Church are hereby, if not solely, yet principaUy designed. Which interpretation, because it is in a manner the foundation of our subsequent discourse, and by some it may perhaps not be readily admitted, I shall endeavour farther to confirm by these few arguments. 1. Because the covenant here mentioned is not, as to the main parts thereof, of a conditional or temporary nature, but absolute and perpetual ; and must therefore be understood to respect the Christian Church : (that of the Jews being long since rejected5, 1 TDn 2 Psalm xxxiii. 4. lxxxix. 34. a Isaiah lxvi. 10. * Contra, 2 Chron. vii. 21. 5 Vide 2 Chron. vii. 16. 7 The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 335 their temple demoUshed, their Sion utterly forsaken.) For al though one particular contained therein, concerning the continual succession of David's posterity in the regal authority over Israel, has a condition explicitly annexed; (and, consequently, the effects depending upon the performance of that condition were contingent and mutable ;) yet all the rest of this covenant (or promise) is conceived in terms peremptory and expressly import ing perpetuity. " This is my rest for ever," iy ny, that is, as the Greek translators render it, Eig alwva tov aiwvoc, (in seculum seculi,) that is to the end of this world ; as Eig aiiovag twv alwvwv denotes the end of all worlds, or the most perfect sempiternity. And that it does really in this case denote a proper and unli mited perpetuity, is also evident by those expUcations thereof in the eighty-ninth Psalm, where the very same covenant is, as to some parts thereof, more largely recorded. " Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David : his seed shall en dure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me : it shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in hea ven V No words can express more fully a perpetual duration, or at least one co-extended with the duration of the world, than those do. And the Prophet Jeremy, referring also to this very covenant, and particularly to this very clause thereof, thus ex presses the matter : " Thus saith the Lord ; If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night, in their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne ; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers2." But farther, 2. The completion of this individual promise is both by the prophets foretold, and expressed by the evangeUsts, to apper tain to the times of the Gospel. — Ye heard even now the words of Jeremy, which are by him appUed to those times, when God would cause the " the Branch of righteousness " (that is, Jesus of Nazareth, our blessed Saviour) " to grow up unto David, who should execute judgment and righteousness in the land3." "In those days," says he farther, " shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely : and this is the name wherewith she shall be called*," (or rather, which " he " shall be called, as not only the 1 2 Chron. vii. 35—37- 2 Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21. Vide 2 Chron. vii. 16. 3 Jer. xxxiii. 15. * Verse 16. 336 DR. ISAAC BARROW. vulgar Latin and the Greek interpreters, but the Chaldee also read it, the lord our righteousness. Likewise in the fifty-fifth of Isaiah, God thus invites the Gentiles : " IncUne your ear, and come unto me ; hear, and your soul shaU live : and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of Da vid ' :" that is, I will ratify that everlasting covenant, which, in your behalf, I once made with David, and will confer on you those favours which I faithfuUy promised him ; relating to this very promise also. For both in Solomon's prayer, (2 Chron. vi.) which in all probability was indited about the same time, and upon the same occasion with this Psalm, and in the eighty- ninth Psalm, the benefits of the same covenant are called " the mercies of David." " O Lord God, turn not away the face of thine anointed, remember the mercies of David thy ser vant2," says Solomon : and, "My mercy," says God, "will I keep with him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him3:" and, "My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him';" that is, my faithful (or sure) mercy; ra 8ma irio-ra, as the LXX. and St. Paul with them in the Acts s, render this place of Isaiah. And in the song of Zachary we have one passage of this promise cited, and applied to the times of the Gospel : " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who hath visited and redeemed his people ; and hath raised up a horn of salvation in the house of his servant David ; as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets 6 :" viz. by the mouth of this prophetical Psalmist here, where it is said, " There will I make the horn of David to bud ;" and in the pa rallel Psalm lxxxix. " In my name shall his horn be exalted7." — To omit those many places where our Saviour, in correspondence to this promise, is affirmed to " possess the throne of his father David, and to rule over the house of Jacob for ever 8." More over, 3. That by the Sion here mentioned is not chiefly meant that material mountain in Judea, but rather that mystical rock of divine grace and evangelical truth, upon which the Christian Church, the only everlasting temple of God, is unmovably seated, is very probable, (or rather manifestly certain,) by the Prophets' constant acception thereof in this sense, when they assign the 1 Isaiah Iv. 3. 2 2 Chron. vi. 42. 3 Psalm lxxxix. 28. 4 Verse 24. 5 Acts xiii. 34. 6 Luke i. 68—70. 7 Verse 24. 8 Vide Luke i. 32. edit. Curcel. The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 337 character of perpetual durability thereto. As in Isaiah lx. where he thus prophesies of the Christian Church : " The sons also of them that afflicted thee shaU come bending unto thee, and all they that despised thee shaU bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet ; and they shall call thee The City of the Lord, The Sion of the Holy One of Israel. Whereas thou hast been for saken and hated, so that no man went through thee ; I will make thee an eternal exceUency, a joy of many generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breasts of kings '," &c. And the Prophet Micah, speaking of " the last days," (that is, of the evangelical times, " when the mountain of the house of the Lord should be established in the top of the mountains2,") says thus: "And I will make her that halted, a remnant ; and her that was cast far off, a strong nation : and the Lord shall reign over them in mount Sion from henceforth even for ever3." And the Prophet Joel, speaking of the same times, (when God " would pour out his spirit upon all flesh,") has these words : " So shaU ye, know, that I am the Lord your God, dwell ing in Sion, my holy mountain : then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shaU no strangers pass through her any more 4." All which places no man can reasonably doubt, and all Christians do firmly consent, to respect the Christian Church. To which we may add that passage of the author to the Hebrews, (ch. xii. ver. 22.) " But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem ;" that is, to the Christ ian Church. 4. The manner of this covenant's delivery, and confirmation by the divine oath, argues the inconditionate, irreversible and perpetual constitution thereof: for to God's most absolute and immutable decrees this most august and solemn confirmation does peculiarly agree. So the Apostle to the Hebrews seems to inti mate: " Wherein," says he, " God, wiUing more abundantly to de monstrate the immutability of his counsel, E7nS£t£ai to ajuETaflsrov rijc (3ovXi)g, interposed an oath 5." We may therefore, I suppose, upon these grounds, solidly and safely conclude, that this promise does principally belong, and shall therefore infallibly be made good, to the Christian priesthood ; to those who, in the Christian Church, by offering spiritual sacrifices 1 Isaiah lx. 14—16. 2 Micah iv. i. 3 Verse 7. 4 Joel ii. 28. iii. 16. 5 Heb. vi. 17. VOL. III. Z 338 DR. ISAAC BARROW. of praise and thanksgiving, by directing and instructing the peo ple in the knowledge of the evangelical law, by implormg for and pronouncing upon them the divine benedictions, do bear analogy with, and supply the room of, the Jewish priesthood. From which discourse we may, by the way, deduce this corol lary : that the title of " priest," although it did (as most certainly it does not) properly and primarily signify a Jewish sacrificer, (or slaughterer of beasts,) doth yet nowise deserve that reproach, which is by some, inconsiderately, (not to say profanely,) upon that mistaken ground, commonly cast upon it ; since the Holy Scripture itself, we see, does here, even in that sense (most ob noxious to exception) ascribe it to the Christian pastors. And so likewise does the prophet Isaiah; "And I wiU also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord a :" speaking (as the context plainly declares) of the Gentiles, which should be converted and aggregated to God's Church. And the prophet Jeremiah : " Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt-offerings, and to do sacrifice continu ally 2." Which prophecy also evidently concerns the same time and state of things, of which the prophet Malachi thus foreteUs : " For, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, my name shaU be great among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense shaU be offered to my name, and a pure offering 3." It were desirable, therefore, that men would better consider a, before they entertain such groundless offences, or pass so uncharitable censures upon either words, or persons, or things. But I pro ceed to the — III. Particular, which is the matter of the promise, " clothing with salvation." Where we may observe, First, that the usual metaphor of being " clothed" does in the sacred dialect denote a complete endowment with, a plentiful enjoyment of, or an entire application to, that thing, or quaUty, with which a person is said to be clothed. So is God Himself said to be " clothed with majesty and strength4." And David prays, that they might be " clothed with shame and dishonour, that did magnify themselves against Him5." And in Ezekiel, " the princes of the isles," being amazed by the ruin of Tyre, 1 Isaiahlxvi. 21. 2 Jer. xxxiii. 18. s Mai. i. 11. a Compare Baxter's Catechizing, chap. xlvi. quest. 13, and note, above, vol. i., p. 504. 4 Psalm xciii. 1. 5 Psalm xxxv. 26. cix. 29. T/ie Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 339 are said " to clothe themselves with trembling V And that bitter adversary of David (in Psalm cix. 18.) did " clothe himself with cursing, as with a garment." And Job avouches of himself, " I put on righteousness, and it clothed me ; my judgment was a robe and a diadem 2." And St. Peter advises us to " put on," or to "be clothed with, humility3." Finally, Isaiah introduces our Saviour speaking thus : " I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shaU be joyful in my God : for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righ teousness ; as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels 4." So that (as by these instances we may discern,) " to be clothed with salvation," is to be perfectly endowed therewith ; to be invested with it as with a garment, which wholly encloses and covers the body, so that no part is left unguarded and unadorned thereby. Secondly : But now what is that salvation with which the priests of Sion shaU be thus clothed ? I answer : Salvation, when it is put absolutely, and not conjoined with any particular object, (or term from which,) does in the Hebrew language pro perly signify a deliverance from, or remotion of, all sorts of incon venience; and, consequently, an affluence of all good things; and, in effect, the same which other languages call felicity and prosperity, or design by terms equivalent to those : the Hebrews having hardly any other word so properly correspondent to those, as this word, salvation. Whence that title of " Saviour 5," and " the God of salvation," so often attributed to Almighty God, imports as much as, the Dispenser of all good gifts ; the great Benefactor, Assister, and Protector of men: and to save is promiscuously used for, to relieve the needy, to comfort the sor rowful; to restore the sick to his health, the prisoner to his liberty, the captive to his country; to defend the weak from injury, and the humble from contempt ; to deliver the distressed from imminent danger, the innocent from unjust condemnation, the slandered from undeserved reproach: — in a word, all the effects of God's goodness and power, the whole work of the divine providence and beneficence, are hereby expressed. We wiU recite one or two of those many places which confirm this notion. Psalm lxxxv. 9. " Surely his salvation is nigh them 1 Ezek.xxvi. 16. 2 Job xxix. 14. 3 1 Pet. v. 5. 4 Isaiah lxi. 10. lix. 17- 5 Deus, Swnjp saepe Platoni. z2 340 DR. ISAAC BARROW. that fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. His salvation is nigh ;" that is, His loving care attends upon them, to assist and preserve them; which, in Psalm cxlv. 19. is thus otherwise ex pressed : " He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him ; he wiU hear their cry, and will save them." And again, Psalm cxlix. 4. " The Lord taketh pleasure in his people ; he will beau tify the meek with salvation:" that is, He will, by His good providence, dispose them into a convenient and decent condition of life. And again, Psalm cxliv. 10. " It is he that giveth salva tion unto kings ;" that is, by whose gracious disposal they prosper, and are preserved in dignity, plenty, and safety. I will not, by citation of places, labour to confirm so obvious a notion : it may suffice for that purpose, that the supreme accom plishment of all happiness, the enjoyment of perfect bliss in, heaven, is, in agreement with this Jewish acception of the word, most commonly styled salvation. — But I must add, that, whereas salvation may relate either to the outward estate of a man's body, life and fortunes, or to the internal dispositions of the mind ; to our present condition in this world, or to our future and eternal estate : it does seem here (I say not, to exclude the latter altoge ther, yet) more directly and principally to respect the former, viz. that external and temporal welfare, which is conspicuous and visible in this world. — My reason is, because the other parts of this prophetical promise do, in their most natural acception, sig nify, that outward prosperity wherewith God would vouchsafe to bless his Church : that abundant " benediction of her store," that " satisfying her poor with bread," that "joyful exultation of her saints," that " clothing her enemies with shame," being expressions properly denoting a state of external good weal and comfort ; and, in consonance to them, require that we thus Uke- wise understand this phrase ; the priests being also questionless designed to partake in this glorious felicity of the Church. Which is also confirmed by other prophecies of the same tenor and intention : as particularly that in Jer. xxxi. concerning the recollection of Israel, and redemption of the spiritual Sion, it is said, " I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness V &c. Now, although we may adventure safely to interpret the decla rations of the Divine favour according to the most comprehensive 1 Verse 14. The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 341 sense of which the words are capable, wherein they are conceived : (it being the manner of the immensely-good God, to exceed, rather than to be deficient, in the performance of His word ; and to surpass the expectations He has raised in us, than anywise to disappoint them :) yet, however, the least we can imagine here promised to the " priests of Sion," will comprehend these three things. 1 . A free and safe condition of life : that they be not exposed to continual dangers of ruin ; of miserable sufferance, or remediless injury : that the benefits of peace, and law, and public protection, shall particularly appertain to them ; so that their adversaries (if any they happen to have,) shall not be incited, by hope of reward or impunity, to hurt their persons, rifle their goods, disturb their quiet ; but that they shall enjoy good degrees of security, liberty, and tranquillity in this world. 2. A provision of competent subsistence for them : that their condition of life be not wholly necessitous, or very penurious, destitute of convenient accommodations, or depending altogether for them upon the arbitrary benevolences of men, which is, at best, but a more plausible kind of beggary ; but that they shall be furnished with such reasonable supplies, as are requisite to encourage them in the cheerful performance of their duty. 3. A suitable degree of respect, and so high a station among men, as may commend them to general esteem, and vindicate them from contempt ; that they be not reputed among the dregs and refuse of the people ; that their persons be not base and des picable, their names made the objects of vulgar obloquy, their functions become prostitute to profane irrision; but that some considerable authority, some more than ordinary regard and vene ration accrue unto them from the high relations which they beaj, and from the sacred business which they manage. All this at least (according to the most moderate interpretation of the phrase) that abundant salvation does imply, wherewith God has promised to invest the priests of Sion. We may therefore presume, or rather not presume, but con fidently rely upon, and comfort ourselves in the expectation of God's faithful continuance to fulfil this promise. We may assure ourselves, that neither .the secret envya of them who repine at those encouragements which God's providence has conferred on a See Burke, above, vol. iii. p. 1 13, and note. 342 DR. ISAAC BARROW. priests, nor the open malice of those that furiously oppugn their welfare, shall ever prevail to overwhelm them with extreme misery, penury, or disgrace ; since no endeavour of earth or hell can ever be able to reverse this everlasting decree of heaven, or to defeat that irresistible power which is engaged to its execu tion. No inferior force can strip them naked of that salvation, wherewith the Supreme Truth has promised to clothe them. Which confidence of ours may be improved, by considering the reasons that might induce Almighty God to resolve, and promise thus favourably in behalf of His priests. (For though we cannot penetrate the incomprehensible depths of the Divine counsel, nor should ever peremptorily conclude concerning the determinate reasons of His actions : yet, when the wisdom of His proceedings does clearly approve itself to our understandings, we ought readily to acknowledge it, and humbly to praise Him for it.) — Now the reasons why Divine Providence should undertake to preserve the priesthood in safety, to procure for them Uberal maintenance, and to raise them above a state of scorn and infamy, may be especially these three. 1. It concerns God's honour. 2. The good of the Church requires so. 3. Equity and the reason of the case exacts it. In prosecuting which heads of discourse, I shall not seem to you, I hope, to transgress the rules of modesty or decency. There be certain seasons, wherein confessedly it is not only excusable, but expedient also, to commend one's self; as when a man is falsely accused, or unjustly afflicted. And with greater reason sometime men are allowed to praise the country where they were born and bred, the family to which they are alUed, the society to which they are more especiaUy related. And if at this time I assume the like liberty, the occasion, I hope, will apologize for me. It becomes not me to be an adviser, much less a reprover, in this audience: may I therefore, with your favourable per mission, presume to be a commender, or, if you please, a pleader for the welfare of this sacred order, although myself an unworthy and inconsiderable member thereof. I say therefore, I. God's honour is concerned in the safe, comfortable, and honourable estate of His priests; and that upon account of those manifold relations, whereby they stand alUed, appropriated, and devoted to Himself. They are in a peculiar manner His servants. " The servant of The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 343 the Lord," says St. Paul, " must not strive, but be gentle unto aU men, apt to teach 1." " The servant of the Lord ;" who is that ? are not all men God's servants ? is not He Lord of all ? Yes ; but a Christian priest, such as Timothy was, is by way of excellency so styled. All men owe subjection, obedience, and homage to God2: but the priests are (His vtrripETai, His Xei- rovpyoi) His ministers, His officers, His immediate attendants, His domestics, as it were, and menial servants ; that approach His person, that tread the courts of His house, that wear His proper badges, that are employed in His particular business. — And is it then for God's honour, to suffer them to be abused, to want convenient sustenance, to live in a mean and disgraceful con dition? Would it not redound to the discredit of an earthly prince, to permit, that the attendants on his person, the officers of his court, the executors of his edicts, should have the least injury offered them, should fare scantily or coarsely, should appear in a sordid garb ? Are they not therefore by especial privileges guarded from such inconveniences ? And shall the great King and Lord of aU the world be deemed less provident for, less indul gent (not to 'say less just) unto His servants ? servants, I say, and those not of the lowest rank, nor appointed to the vilest drudg eries ; but such as are employed in the most honourable charges, and are entrusted with His most especial concernments. They are His stewards. " A bishop," says St. Paul, "must be blameless, as the steward of God \" If the Church be olicog Qeov, " God's house, or family 4," as it is called, and the priests the oikovojuoi, the stewards of that house, the comptrollers of that family; it is surely no mean station they obtain therein. The distribution of His bread, (the bread of life3, His holy word,) and the dispensation of His most precious goods, (the holy mysteries,) are committed to their care and prudence. " Who then," says our Saviour, " is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over His household, to give them their portion of meat in due season 6 ?" Who but the priests ? who are there fore styled both irposo-TwTEg, riyovfiEvoi, KvfiEpvijo-Eig, (presidents, guides, rulers,) and TtoifiivEg, (feeders or pastors) of the Church. Yea, they are oikooojuoi also, the builders of that house, founding 1 Joel ii. 17. 2 Tim. ii. 24. 2 1 Cor. iv. 1. Rom. xv. 16. 3 Tit. i. 7. 4 1 Tim. iii. 15. s Vide Matt.xxiv. 45. 1 Cor. iv. 1. 6 Luke xii. 42. 7 344 DR. ISAAC BARROW. it by initial conversion, rearing it by continued instruction, co vering and finishing it by sacramental obsignation of divine grace. " As a wise architect," says St. Paul, " I have laid the founda tion, and another builds upon it '." They are o-vvspyol Qeov, " co-operators with God2;" that manage His business, and drive on His designs : the solicitors of His affairs ; the masters of His requests 3 : His heralds, that publish His decrees, denounce His judgments, proclaim His pardons and acts of grace unto His subjects ; that blazon His titles, and defend His rightful authority in the world : yea, His ministers of state ; the ministers (I say, absit invidia,) of His most glorious spiritual kingdom ; (which is peculiarly denominated " the kingdom of God;") the orderly administration of which, its advancement, its preservation, and its enlargement, are especially commended to their diUgence and fidelity. They are, lastly, God's ambassadors*, delegated by Him to treat of peace, and solicit a fair correspondence between heaven and earth. " Now then," says St. Paul, " we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us ; we pray you in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God. — As though God did beseech you by us 5 :" — see, they manage God's concernments, and in a manner represent His person. At least, if the apostles were more properly God's ambassadors, the present ministers of religion are His agents, and residents here among men, designed to pursue the same negociations commenced by them. Now you know by the law of nations, and common consent of all men, all manner of security, good entertainment, and civil respect bas been ever acknowledged due to ambassadors, and public ministers : their employment has been esteemed honourable, their persons held sacred and inviolable ; and whatsoever discourtesy has been showed unto, or outrage committed upon them, has been inter preted done to him from whom they derive their commission 6, whose person they represent. And so truly the bad usage of God's priests, if not directly and immediately, does yet really and 1 1 Cor. iii. 10. » 1 Cor. iii. 9, s KijpuKts. 4 Vide Mai. ii. 7- " For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth : for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts." 5 2 Cor. v. 20. 6 John xiii. 20. "What you have done to these," &c. Matt. x. 40. xxv. 40. " He that receiveth you, receiveth him that sent you." TJie Temporal Condition of. the Clergy. 345 truly, according to moral estimation, terminate on God Himself, and reflect on His honour, prejudice His religion ; a due regard to which cannot be maintained, without proportionable respect to the ministers thereof. The basest of the people may serve to be priests to Jeroboam's calves, but not become the ministry of the God of Israel. Do we not see the reverence of civil government upheld more by the specious circumstances, than by the real necessity thereof; by the magnificent retinue, and splendid ornaments of princely dignity, than by the eminent benefits of peace and justice spring ing thence ? Shall not (not only the greatest inward worth, but) the highest nobility, if basely attired, badly attended, slenderly ac commodated, pass unregarded, yea disregarded by us? men being generally either unable to discern, or unwilling to acknowledge excellency divested of sensible lustre. Ileligion therefore must be weU habited, or it will be ill respected : the priests must wear a comely (if not a costly) Uvery, or God their master's reputation will be impaired in popular fancy. Consider David's reasoning; " Lo, I dwell in a house of cedars, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord remaineth under curtains ] ;" and compare such discourse therewith as this ; and judge candidly, whether they have not some parity : " Lo, my attendants are clad with the finest purple, God's ministers are covered with the coarsest sackcloth; my people surfeit with dainties, His servants pine away for scarcity ; my courtiers are respectfully saluted, His priests scornfully derided; no man dare offend mine, every one may trample on His officers." And lest we should imagine God himself altogether void of such resentments, or such comparisons impertinent, consider that disdainful expression of His ; " If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil ? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil ? Offer it now to thy governor ; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person ? saith the Lord of hosts 2." The same testi monies of respect that we show our governors, God, it seems, ex pects from us in all kinds, and may reasonably much greater. Nor is it a matter of slight consideration, how plentiful provi sion, in the policy devised and constituted by God Himself, was made for the priests; how God assumes the immediate patronage of them, and appropriates the matter of their sustenance unto 1 1 Chron. xvii. 1. 2 Mai. i. 8. 346 DR. ISAAC BARROW. Himself. " The priests," says the Law, " the Levites, and aU the tribe of Levi shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel ; they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and his in heritance. Therefore they shaU have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance1." So that then, it seems, no man could withhold any part of the priests' mainte nance, without sacrilegious encroachment on God's own right, and robbing him of His due : (which is the greatest security of an estate imaginable.) How Ukewise (next to the prince) the highest dignity and authority was then conferred on the priests : — to them the interpretation of law, to them the decision of doubt ful cases did appertain ; with severe injunctions to comply with their determinations. See how the business is inculcated : " If there arise a matter too hard for thee, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates ; then shalt thou arise and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shaU choose : and thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire ; and they shaU show thee the sentence of judgment. And thou shalt do according to the sentence which they of that place, which the Lord shall choose, shall show thee ; and ¦ thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee. According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do : thou shalt not decline from the sentence, which they shall show thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. And the man that will do presumptuously, and wiU not hearken to the priest, that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, even that man shall die, and thou shalt put away evil from Israel2." Observe with how eminent a power God then thought fit to endow his priests 3. And though we are not in all cases obUged punctually to follow those political prescriptions; yet is the reason of them perpetual, and the example venerable : especially since the cus tom of all times, and the reason of all the world, does in a sort conspire to back it. 1 Deut. xviii. 1, 2. 2 Deut. xvii. 8 — 12. 3 Kai yap iwoTrrai TtdvTiov, Kai SiKaaral tSiv djj,fto^riTOvpkvav, Kai KoXaoral t&v Kartyvwajikviav oi itpiig hrdxBnaav, says Josephus. The priests were constituted supervisors of all things, and judges of controversies, and pu- nishers of offences. 2. in Apionem. The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 347 The first priest we meet with in Scripture 1 is Melchizedek ; a king also ; and such a one, as the patriarch Abraham, (a prince also himself, and, what is somewhat more, just then a conqueror,) in the midst of his triumphal heights, was not ashamed to ac knowledge his superior, to honour him with a tribute of his spoils, and to receive a benediction from him. The next (if I mistake not) is Potipherah, priest of On2, whose daughter was not thought by the king of Egypt an unequal match for Joseph, his chief favourite, and the next in dignity to himself in that flourishing kingdom. (Though such an alliance would perhaps be thought derogatory to the worships of our days.) The third is Revel, or Jethro, priest of Midian, the father-in-law likewise of the illus trious Moses; a man as of approved wisdom, so doubtless of considerable dignity too. And the next to him (in order of story) is the venerable Aaron, no meaner a man, than the brother of him who was " king in Jeshurun 3." Thus all nations, wise and ignorant, civil and barbarous, were by one common instinct (as it were) of natural reason prompted, by conferring extraordinary privileges of honour and convenience on their priests, to express their reverence of the Deity, and their affection to religion 4. I wiU not ransack the closets of antiquity, nor with needless ostentation produce the Egyptian Hierophantse 5, the Persian Magi, the Gaulish Druids, the Caliphs, and Muftis of other na tions, to show what pre-eminences of respect they enjoyed, what powerful sway they bore in their respective countries ; how the most weighty affairs, both of peace and war, were commonly directed by their oracular dictates. It shaU suffice to observe, that the gallant Romans, (whose devout zeal to religion Poly- bius 6 himself, no especial friend of theirs, could not forbear to admire and applaud,) I say, that the most wise and valiant Ro mans did set so high a value upon the priestly order, that if their principal magistrates (the praetors and consuls themselves) did casually meet with one of Vesta's priests, they caused imme diately those dreadful rods, the ensigns of their authority, to sub mit; and they themselves respectfully gave place, as if they 1 Gen. xiv. 2 Gen. xii. 45. 3 Deut. xxxiii. 5. * Vid. Aristot. Pol. vii. 9- Oip.a, Kav KaK&g Xkyy, rb gov IlEtffct- Aoyog yap ix t dSo%ov vriav iuiv, KaK tSiv Sokovvtwv avrbg, oil ravrbv oBkvti. Eurip. in Hecuba. 2 KdXXioTa Movoiov ipBkyytrai ixXovtwv dvi)p. 3 Ecclus. xiii. 22, 23. 4 Eccles. ix. 16. 5 Job xxix. 9—11. 21, 22. The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 353 cept it were to despise and scorn both. " But now," says he, " they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. I am their song, yea, I am their by-word. They abhor me, they fly far from me, and spare not to spit in my face : because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me1." If Job, a person who so equally and moderately, yea, so humbly, and courteously, and bountifully used his prosperity3, as we find he did, was notwith standing in his adversity so generally slighted and abhorred; what shall their lot be who never enjoyed those advantages ? what regard shall their wholesome advice find? what efficacy their most pathetical exhortations obtain ? what passion their faint breath raise in men's benumbed hearts ? No more, certainly, than their mean condition shall procure among men either of friend ship or esteem. We see therefore how Almighty God, that He might conciliate credit unto, and infuse a persuasive energy into the words of His prophets and apostles, was pleased to dignify them with extraor dinary gifts of foreteUing future events and doing miraculous works : their doctrine, it seems, (though of itself most reasonable and plausible,) being not sufficient to convince the hearers, with out some remarkable excellency in the teachers, challenging the people's awful regard, and exciting their attention. Otherwise how pitifully scant a draught those poor fishers of men had caught by the common allurements only of innocent life and ratio nal discourse, I leave you to imagine. And where such extra ordinary commendations are wanting, is it not reasonable that the need of them should be supplied by ordinary and probable expe dients ? I might farther add, how a necessitous and despicable estate does commonly not only disturb the minds and deject the spirits of men, but distempers also their souls, and vitiates their man ners ; rendering them not only sad and anxious, slavish and timo rous, but greedy also and covetous, peevish and mutinous, rude and ignorant ; engages them in sordid company, and tempts them to unworthy courses a. From which one cause how scandalous 1 Job xxx. 1. 9 — 11. Prov. xiv. 20. " The poor is hated even of his own neighbour : but the rich hath many friends." 2 Job xxx. 25. a " My lord, the bishop" (of Gloucester) " informs me, that that county is very full of impropriations, which makes the ministers poor ; and their vol. iii. a a 354 DR. ISAAC BARROW. effects3, and how prejudicial to the Church's both honour and poverty makes them fall upon popular and factious courses. I doubt this is too true, but it is a mischief hard to cure in this kingdom. Yet I have taken all the care I can, and shall continue so to do." Archbishop Laud's Account of his Province to the King, for the year 1635. Troubles, &c. I. p. 538. a Some of the features of this leading " cause" of the miseries on which Barrow here reflects, and under which he suffered, are thus depicted by Lord Clarendon : " I must not forget, though it cannot be remembered without much horror, that this strange wildfire among the people was not so much and so furi ously kindled by the breath of the Parliament, as of their clergy, who both administered fuel, and blowed the coals in the Houses too. These men having crept into, and at last driven all learned and orthodox men, from the pulpits, had, as is before remembered, from the beginning of this Parlia ment, under the notion of reformation and extirpating of popery, infused seditious inclinations into the hearts of men against the present government of the Church, with many libellous invectives against the State too. But, since the raising an army, and rejecting the king's last overture of a treaty, they contained themselves within no bounds ; and as freely and without control inveighed against the person of the king, as they had before against the worst malignant ; profanely and blasphemously applying whatsoever had been spoken and declared by God Himself, or the prophets, against the most wicked and impious kings, to incense and stir up the people against their most gracious sovereign. "There are monuments enough in the seditious sermons at that time printed, and in the memories of men, of others not printed, of such wresting and perverting of Scripture to the odious purposes of the preacher, that pious men will not look upon without trembling. One takes his text out of Moses's words in the thirty-second chapter of Exodus, and the twenty-ninth verse, ' Consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day :' and from thence incites his auditory to the utmost prosecution of those under what relation soever of blood, neighbourhood, dependence, who concurred not in the reformation proposed by the Parliament. Another makes as bold with David's words (1 Chron. xxii. 16.), ' Arise therefore, and be doing :' and from thence assures them, it was not enough to wish well to the Parliament ; if they brought not their purse, as well as their prayers, and their hands, as well as their hearts, the duty in the text was not per formed. There were more than Mr. Marshall who, from (Judges v. 23.), 'Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord; curse ye bitterly the inhabi tants thereof, because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty ;' presumed to inveigh against, and in plain terms to pronounce God's own curse against all those who came not, with their utmost power and strength, to destroy and root out all malignants, who in any degree opposed the Parliament. " There was one, who from (Jerem. xlviii. 10.), ' Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood,' reproved those who gave any quarter to the The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 355 safety, have proceeded, I need not say, since woful experience too loudly proclaims it. I might add, moreover, that the priests do confer to the good of the state ; which is secured and advanced by the sincere in struction of men in duties of obedience, justice, and fidelity : and by maintenance of good conscience among men. So that, if things be rightly considered, it wiU be hard to find a better com monwealth's man, than a good minister. Seeing therefore the good of the Church, upon various ac counts, is so much concerned in the priests' encouragement, wel fare, and respect, it is very fitting they should have them. Which consideration I conclude with that serious admonition of the Apostle to the Hebrews3, wherein the substance of what has been spoken on this point is contained: "Obey your rulers, (or guides,) and submit to them: for they watch for your souls, as they that are to give an account ; that they may do it with joy, and not with complaint : for this is unprofitable for you 1." 'AXuotteAec yap rouro '' that is, for this pays no taxes, quits no scores ; turns to no account, is nowise advantageous for you ; but rather (for there is a jueiwo-jc in those words) is hurtful and detri mental to you. But farther, III. Common equity, and the reason of the case exacts that safety, competent subsistence, and fitting respect be allowed to the priests. — If you consider their personal qualities; who, I pray, do [commonly] better deserve those advantages than they? those qualities, I say, which result from a liberal, a sober, a modest education in the schools of wisdom, and under the influences of good discipUne. If birth (that is, at best, an imaginary relation to the gaUantry of an ancestor) entitle men to honour ; if the cheap favours of fortune be so highly prized and admired ; if riches (that is, the happy results of industry in trivial matters) do king's soldiers. And another out of (Proverbs xxv. 5.), 'Take away the wicked from before the king and his throne shall be established in righteous ness,' made it no less a case of conscience by force to remove the civil coun sellors from the king, (with bold intimation what might be done to the king himself if he would not suffer them to be removed,) than to perform any Christian duty that is enjoined. — It would fill a volume to insert all the im pious madness of this kind." Hist, of the Rebellion, book vi. vol. iii. p. 230. edit. 1826. » See the sermons on this text, in the preceding article of this collection. 1 Heb. xiii. 17. 2 M/} arivaXfivrtg. a a 2 356 DR. ISAAC BARROW. easily purchase respect : what may they not pretend to, whose constant (and not always unsuccessful) endeavour it has been to deserve weU, to cultivate their minds, and regulate their man ners ? True worth, indeed, is not confined to any particular order of men ; yet I should wrong none, by saying it is no where more plentifully to be found than in this. What is it that does ad vance men's nature, that adorns their minds, that commends their persons to especial regard 1 ? Is it knowledge ? The priest's lips preserve it; their discourse does diffuse it. Is it virtue? Whence have more or greater examples thereof proceeded than from them ? Is it piety ? It is their proper business ; it has been always, in some measure, their care to promote it : that ig norance and barbarity, dissoluteness and irreligion, have not long since, like a deluge, overspread the face of the world, none, I suppose, wiU be so unjust as to deny, in greatest part, due to their vigilant endeavours. Even those improvements of wit and elo quence, which are employed to their disgrace and disadvantage, must be acknowledged originally derived from them. Faults they have had, and will always have ; for they are men, and subject to the common imperfections of mortal nature: but that, perhaps, less and fewer than any other distinct sort of men ; — that as it is their duty, so it has been their practice, to excel in virtue ; and that they have commonly, in effect, made good St. Ambrose's words, " Debet praponderare vita sacerdotis, sicut pra\- ponderat gratia 2 ;" — were not difficult to demonstrate, if seemly to make comparisons, or to insist upon so invidious a subject. Nor, were they greater than ever really they have been, or than ever malice could misrepresent them, should it be therefore equal, that the miscarriages of some should derogate from the reputation, or prejudice the welfare of the whole order. But to wave this plea ; consider their employment. Is there any office more laborious, more vexatious than theirs ; accompa nied with more wearisome toil, more solicitous care, more tedious attendance ? They are deservedly caUed " watchmen 3," being constrained to stand always on the guard, to be always wakeful, attentive, and ready to warn the people of approaching dangers : and " shepherds" likewise, being forced to endure the various hard- 1 Vide Orig. contra Cels. 1. iii. p. 129. Mai. ii. 7. 2 Epist. 82. 2 Heb. xiii. 17. The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 357 ships of that uneasy life, the inconveniences of all weathers, the nipping frosts and sweltry heats, and aU diversities of irksome travail; they must feed, they must guide, they must defend; they must seek the lost, and reduce the straying sheep. What assiduity of study, what earnest contention of soul are they obliged to use, in the continual instruction, exhortation, and re prehension of the people ; in rectifying their judgments, satisfy ing their scruples, removing their prejudices, bearing their infir mities, and sympathizing with their afflictions ! It is they that are engaged, with all their might, to withstand the prevailing encroachments of iniquity, to stop the progress of pernicious errors, to detect the false pretences of impostors, to confute the fallacies of sophisters, to repel the assaults of all adversaries to the truth; yea, if need be, to expose, not only their dearest contents of life, but even their lives themselves, in the defence thereof. Eusebius reports thus of Maximinus : Toiig rwv ekkXtictiwv ap- Xovrag fiovovg, u>g alrlovg rr)g Kara to EvayysXiov BiSao-icaXiag, avaipEiaOai TrpocrraTTEi. " He commanded that only the governors of the Church (that is, the bishops) should be slaughtered, as the authors of the growth and prevalence of evangeUcal doctrine \" Neither was it a singular practice of that bloody tyrant; — but, as a thing of course, it constantly follows, that wherever righteous ness and truth are violently impugned, the priests are sure to taste deepest of that bitter cup ; that their goods be, in the first place, sequestered and spoiled, their reputation stained, their persons misused, their Uves sacrificed to the persecutor's outrageous malice. Is it not reasonable, then, and equal, that they, who for the service of God and benefit of the Church, undergo such difficul ties, and are objected to so great hazards, should be sustained, should be refreshed by proportionable encouragements ? Is it not barbarous usage to expect so hard duties from them, to im pose such heavy burthens on them, and yet to grudge any suit able comforts, any satisfactory rewards to them? Good king Hezekiah surely was not so minded, of whom it is said, " He commanded the people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the por tion of the Priests and Levites, that they might be encouraged in the law of the Lord 2 ;" that is, they might be heartened to 1 Lib. vi. ' 2 Chron. xxxi. 4. 358 DR. ISAAC BARROW. study, to teach, to perform the duties required of them by the divine law. And St. Paul thus rationally expostulates in the priests' behalf: " Who ever goeth to war at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the mUk of the flock 1 ? If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things ? Is it a great thing 2 ?" Do you think much of it ? If you do, you are unreasonable, you are unjust, you are ingrateful. And otherwhere he thus very em phatically admonishes : " We beseech you, brethren, to mind 3 them which labour among you, and preside4 over you in the Lord, and that admonish you ; and to esteem them more than exceedingly (virEpEKTTEpio-aov) in love, for their work, (or, for their office) sake 5 :" (so Epyov frequently signifies in such cases.) And again: "Let the elders (or priests ol irpEo-fiiiTEpoi,) which rule well, be counted worthy of double honour6," (or of double recompense; so rifvr) also imports.) Priests, as so, for their office sake, have honour and reward due to them ; which, accord ing to the good management of that office, are proportionably to be augmented and multiplied. But farther yet, abstracting from both their personal worth and the merit of their service, — consider their condition in this world, and see whether it does not in equity chaUenge some reasonable provision to be made for them. Are they not, by the nature of their profession, secluded from all ordinary means of temporal advancement? Be not those usual inlets of wealth, the court, the camp, and the exchange, shut upon them, yea, barred against them, by those insuperable obstacles of law and custom ? Can they grow rich by trade, or famous by feats of arms ? May they plead for others ? It is well if they be allowed to do it for them selves before equal judges. Yet are they not men, endued with human passions and resentments ? Are they not citizens, partak ing in the common interests of the weal public ? Are they not sensible of the inconveniences, and capable of enjoying the bene fits of this life ? Are they not equally obliged, and would they not be glad, as well as others, to be in a capacity to requite cour tesies, to help relations, to gratify friends, to relieve the poor, to express respectively their humanity and their gratitude ? SkiU 1 1 Cor. ix. 7. 11. 2 Vide Rom. xv. 27. 3 tiSkvai. 4 Kai irpoiorapsvovg. 5 1 Thess. v. 12, 13. 6 1 Tim. V. 17. The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 359 they not to use the goods of fortune (or rather the gifts of Pro vidence) with as much discretion, as much sobriety, as much honour as others ? Compare things righteously, and let reason judge; let experience be examined; let those eternal monuments of their piety, their charity, their hospitality, declare and testify. Shall, lastly, the fruits of painful study, the improvement of hopeful parts, the flower of vigorous age and strength spent in the public service, tend only hither to put a man into a state of struggUng with extreme contempt and penury ? If this be not, what, I pray you, is monstrous iniquity ? Since, therefore, it appears (upon so many several scores) rea sonable, that Almighty God should undertake the protection and assert the honour of his priests, we may not only praise the good ness, bu't approve also the wisdom of this promise, and by the contemplation thereof strengthen our faith in reliance thereon. To which purpose one consideration more may very much con duce, and withal may provoke our gratitude to celebrate His truth and faithfulness in making good, as well as His goodness and wisdom in making, this promise; viz. the considering how continually hitherto God has been pleased effectuaUy to " clothe his priests with salvation," to provide abundantly for their safety, their accommodation, their respect in this world, and to deliver them from the opposite inconveniences. If we reflect our thoughts on the first ages of Christianity, (not more dismal for suffering than glorious for piety,) it is admi rable to see how sincerely and passionately the Christian people did then love their priests and pastors ; how liberally, out of their slender stock and the shipwrecks of their spoUed fortunes, they contributed to their maintenance; what exceeding veneration they bore them ; with what incredible alacrity they submitted to the most severe disciplines enjoined by them; how willingly they foUowed them, though leading into the jaws of death and cruel torture : — so that, although it was then necessary for the Christian priests to undergo the greatest hardships, according to the design of Christian reUgion, (which was to be propagated, not by terror of power, nor by politic artifice, but by the invincible faith, reso lution, and patience, of the professors and teachers thereof;) yet never more may they have seemed to thrive and prosper, than in that juncture of time, — when they enjoyed the universal good will and applause of good people, when they unconstrainedly 7 360 DR. ISAAC BARROW. embraced affliction for righteousness sake, and acquired thereby the certain fruition of a more excellent salvation. But in the succeeding times, when Christianity, breaking out of the clouds of persecution, began to shine over all with bright est lustre ; of the glorious and happy fruits of that illustrious tri umph none did partake more fully than they who had sustained the hardest brunts of the foregoing conflict, and had been the princi pal causes of the success. Then the joyful acclamations of the faithful people resounded in the praise of their victorious cham pions : then did the emperors themselves, with arms outstretched and hearts enlarged with affection, embrace the authors of their happy conversion : then all laws prejudicial to their welfare were rescinded, and new ones were substituted, abundantly providing for their security, honest livelihood, and due reverence ; which in progress of time, not in the Roman empire only, but in aU other nations, (that afterwards did entertain Christianity,) were nowise impaired, but were rather ampliated and fortified by the pious favour of princes : the barbarous Goths, and Vandals, and Lombards, being no sooner endued with any degree of civility, or any sense of religion, than possessed with a hearty reverence of their bishops and priests. And ever since, (which is not to be imputed, as some rashly, if not impiously aver, to the prevalence of Antichristian iniquity, but rather to the providence of Divine benignity ; ever since, I say,) till the late commotions and alterations in Christendom, they have been the guardians of others' safety, not themselves deprived of protection ; have abounded with wealth, rather than wanted sustenance ; have been the objects of envy more than of contempt. Princes have loved and cherished them, have relied upon their advice, and entrusted them with their highest concern ments. Nobles have not been ashamed to yield them place. The sacerdotal robe has been often dyed with purple ; and the sons of mighty monarchs have not thought themselves degraded by en tering into their order. And if in some particular places (before or since those changes) their condition has not been so high and plentiful, yet has it been (almost ever) tolerable ; the counte nance of authority and the respect of the people being in good degree vouchsafed them. Even in those Churches, which till this day groan under the oppression of infidel princes, the priests (by the free permission of those princes) retain their jurisdiction The Temporal Condition of the Clergy. 361 in a manner as great as ever ; and withal enjoy a maintenance not altogether inconsiderable. So favourable hitherto has God been unto His priests, so faith ful to His promise ; which does oblige us to thank Him ; which may encourage us to hope in Him ; which may arm us with con fidence against the present iU-wUl of those that wish, and against the practices of those that design our ruin. It is true, this promise is not affixed to aU parts of time, to all particularities of place, to all determinate circumstances of things. The priests may J now and then, here and there, in this or that, suffer highly ; they may be ejected, be plundered, be degraded, as experience has shown us. — But they may be also soon restored, repossessed, readvanced, and (I had almost said) revenged too, as the like experience doth assure us. — It is not impossible, I con fess, we may relapse into the same, or into a more calamitous estate. The obstinate disaffections of men threaten it, and our own miscarriages more dangerously; yet the most offensive of these (which many honest men disUke, and most men exclaim against) have been in as bitter terms complained of in almost the first ages. " Inhiant possessionibus, prsedia excolunt, auro incu- bant, qua^stui per omnia student V said a devout writer of eccle siastical history about 1300 years ago. And so much no man (without extreme un charitableness and falsehood) can in so general terms impute to the present clergy : notwithstanding which, God did continue to vouchsafe His protection to them. They were sometimes, (by the inundations of barbarous people,) and we may again, (by national concussions,) be severely chastised for our faults : yet were not they, nor shaU we be (at least every where and for ever) utterly rejected. God may " visit our transgressions with the rod, and our iniquity with stripes : nevertheless his loving kindness will he not utterly take from us, nor suffer his faithful ness to fail. His covenant he will not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of his lips 2." God may for a time hide His face from us ; but He will not for ever turn His back upon us. The honour of the priesthood may for a while be overclouded in some part of the world ; but shall never totaUy be ecUpsed, nor swal lowed up in a perpetual night. While God continues His resi dence in Sion, and defends His Church against " the gates of hell," and " powers of darkness ;" while religion retains any sway ' Sulp. Sev. lib. i. c. 43. 2 Psalm lxxxix. 32— 34. 362 DR. ISAAC BARROW. in the hearts of men, and truth possesses any room upon earth ; the priests shall not be left destitute and naked, but everlastingly " be clothed with salvation." Which that it may (to the glory of God and good of His Church) more surely come to pass, let us convert this promise into a prayer, and say with Solomon, " Now therefore arise, O Lord God, thou and the ark of thy strength : let thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness 1." Amen. 1 2 Chron. vi.41. XVI. THE HONOURS AND THE PROPERTY OF THE SUPERIOR CLERGY ASSERTED AND JUSTIFIED3. We shall exult, if they who rule the land Be men who hold its many blessings dear, Wise, upright, valiant ; not a servile band, Who are to judge of danger which they fear, And honour, which they do not understand. W. Wordsworth. XVII. Honour is no where due, saving only unto such as have in them that whereby they are found, or at the least pre sumed, voluntarUy beneficial unto them of whom they are honoured. Wheresoever nature sees the countenance of a man, it stiU presumes that there is in him a mind willing to do good, if need require, inasmuch as by nature so it should be ; for which cause men unto men do honour, even for very humanity's sake : and unto whom we deny all honour, we seem plainly to take from them aU opinion of human dignity, to make no account or reckoning of them, to think them so utterly without virtue, as if no good thing in the world could be looked for at their hands. Seeing therefore it seems hard, that we should so hardly think of any man, the precept of St. Peter is, " Honour all men 1." Which duty of every man towards all, does vary according to the several degrees whereby they are more or less beneficial, whom we do a From Hooker, book vii. chap, xvii — xxiv. 1 1 Pet. ii. 17. 364 RICHARD HOOKER. honour. " Honour the physician ¦," says the Wise Man : — the reason why, because for necessity's sake, God created him. Again, " Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the person of the aged 2 :" — the reason why, because the younger sort have great benefit by their gravity, experience, and wisdom, for which cause, these things the Wise Man terms the crown or diadem of the aged. " Honour is due to parents :" the reason why, because we have our beginning from them ; " Obey the father that hath begotten thee, the mother that bare thee despise thou not 3." Honour due unto kings and governors : — the reason why, because God has set them " for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well V Thus we see by every of these particulars, that there is always some kind of virtue beneficial, wherein they excel who receive honour ; and that degrees of honour are distinguished according to the value of those effects which the same beneficial virtue does produce. Nor is honour only an inward estimation, whereby they are reverenced and well thought of in the minds of men ; but honour, wherepf we now speak, is defined to be an external sign, by which we give a sensible testification that we acknowledge the beneficial virtue of others. Sarah honoured her husband Abra ham; this appears by the title she gave him. The brethren of Joseph did him honour in the land of Egypt; their lowly and humble gesture shows it. Parents will hardly persuade them selves that this intentional honour, which reacheth no farther than the inward conception only, is the honour which their children owe them. Touching that honour which, mystically agreeing unto Christ, was yielded literally and really unto Solomon, the words of the Psalmist concerning it are, " Unto him they shaU give of the gold of Sheba, they shall pray for him continually, and daily bless him \" — Weigh these things in themselves, titles, gestures, presents, other the like external signs wherein honour does con sist, and they are matters of no great moment. Howbeit, take them away, let them cease to be required, and they are not things of small importance which that surcease were likely to draw after it. Let the Lord Mayor of London, or any other unto whose office honour belongs, be deprived but of that title, which 1 Ecclus. xxxviii. 1. 2 Levit. xix. 32. 3 Ecclus. xxv. 6. Prov, xxiii. 22. i 1 Pet. ii. 14. '- Ps. lxxiii. 15. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 365 in itself is a matter of nothing ; and suppose we that it would be a small maim unto the credit, force, and countenance of his office? It has not without the singular wisdom of God been provided, that the ordinary outward tokens of honour should for the most part be in themselves things of mean account ; for to the end they might easily follow as faithful testimonies of that beneficial virtue whereunto they are due, it behoves them to be of such nature, that to himself no man might over-eagerly chal lenge them, without blushing; nor any man where they are due withhold them, but with manifest appearance of too great malice or pride. Now, forasmuch as, according to the ancient orders and customs of this land, as of the kingdom of Israel, and of aU Christian kingdoms through the world, the next in degree of honour unto the chief sovereign, are the chief prelates of God's Church ; what the reason hereof may be, it rests next to be enquired. XVIII. Other reason there is not any wherefore such honour has been judged due, saving only that public good which the pre lates of God's clergy are authors of. For I would know which of these things it is whereof we make any question,' — either that the favour of God is the chiefest pillar to bear up kingdoms and states; or, that true religion pubUcly exercised is the principal mean to retain the favour of God ; or, that the prelates of the Church are they, without whom the exercise of true religion cannot well and long continue. — If these three be granted, then cannot the public benefit of prelacy be dissembled. And of the first or second of these I look not for any professed denial. The world at this will blush, not to grant, at the least wise in word, as much as 1 heathens themselves have of old with most earnest asseveration acknowledged, concerning the force of Divine Grace in upholding kingdoms. Again, though His mercy does so far strive with men's ingratitude, that all kind of public iniquities deserving His indignation, their safety is through His gracious providence many times nevertheless continued, to the end that amendment might, if it were possible, avert their envy ; 1 Quis est tam vecors, qui aut cum suspexerit in coelum, Deos esse non sentiat, et ea quse tantS, mente fiunt, ut vix quisquam arte ulla ordinem rerum ac vicissitudinem persequi possit, casu fieri putet ; aut, cum Deos esse intel- lexerit, non inteUigat eorum numine hoc tantum imperium esse natum et auctum et retentum ? Cic. Orat. de Harus. resp. 366 RICHARD HOOKER. so that as well commonweals as particular persons both may and do endure much longer when they are careful, as they should be to use the most effectual means of procuring His favour on whom their continuance principally depends; yet this point no man wiU stand to argue, no man will openly arm himself to enter into set disputation against the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, for making unto their laws concerning religion this preface; " Decere arbitramur nostrum imperium, subditos nostros de reli- gione commonefacere. Ita enim et pleniorem acquiri Dei ac Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi benignitatem possibile esse existi- mamus, si quando et nos pro viribus ipsi placere studuerimusy et nostros subditos ad eam rem instituerimus 1 :" or against the em peror Justinian, for that he also makes the like profession ; " Per sanctissimas Ecclesias et nostrum imperium sustineri, et com munes res clementissimi Dei gratia muniri, credimus 2." And in another place, " Certissime credimus, quia sacerdotum puritas et decus, et ad Dominum Deum ac Salvatorem nostrum Jesum Christum fervor, et ab ipsis missa? perpetuse preces, multum favo- rem nostra? reipubUca? et incrementum prajbent 3." Wherefore only the last point is that which men will boldly require us to prove ; for no man fears now to make it a question, " Whether the prelacy of the Church be any thing available or no, to effect the good and long continuance of true reUgion ?" — Amongst the principal blessings wherewith God enriched Israel, the prophet in the Psalm acknowledges especially this for one ; " Thou didst lead thy people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron *." That which sheep are, if pastors be wanting, the same are the people of God, if so be they want governors : and that which the principal ciyil governors are, in comparison of regents under them, the same are the prelates of the Church, being compared with the rest of God's clergy. Wherefore inasmuch as amongst the Jews the benefit of civil government grew principaUy from Moses, he being their princi pal civil governor,,-— even so the benefit of spiritual regiment grew from Aaron principally, he being in the other kind their principal rector, although even herein subject to the sovereign dominion of Moses. For which cause, these two alone are named as the heads and well-springs of all. As for the good which 1 Tit. i. lib. iii. C. de summa Trinit. 2 Lib. iii. C. de Episc. et Cler. 3 Lib. xxxiv. C. de Episc. audiend. 4 Psalm lxxvii. 20. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 367 others did in service either of the commonwealth or of the sanc tuary, the chiefest glory thereof did belong to the chiefest governors of the one sort and of the other, whose vigilant care and oversight kept them in their due order. Bishops are now as high-priests were then, in regard of power over other priests. And in respect of subjection unto high-priests *, what priests were then, the same now presbyters are by way of their place under bishops. The one's authority therefore being so profit able, how should the others' be thought unnecessary ? Is there any man professing Christian reUgion, which holds it not as a maxim, that the Church of Jesus Christ did reap a singular benefit by apostoUcal regiment, not only for other respects, but even in regard of that prelacy whereby they had and exercised power of jurisdiction over lower guides of the Church ? Prelates are herein the apostles' successors, as hath been proved a. Thus we see, that prelacy must needs be acknowledged ex ceedingly beneficial in the Church; and yet for more perspicuity's sake, it shall not be pains superfluously taken, if the manner how be also declared at large. For this one thing not understood by the vulgar sort, causes all contempt to be offered unto higher powers, not only ecclesiastical, but civil ; whom when proud men have disgraced, and are therefore reproved by such as carry some dutiful affection of mind, the usual apologies which they make for themselves, are these ; " What more virtue in these great ones, than in others? We see no such eminent good which they do above other men." We grant indeed, that the good which higher governors do, is not so immediate and near unto every of us, as many times the meaner labours of others under them, and this does make it to be less esteemed. But we must note, that it is in this case as in a ship ; he that sits at the stern is quiet, he moves not, he seems in a manner to do Uttle or nothing in comparison of them that sweat about other toil, yet that which he does is in value and force more than all the labours of the residue laid together. The influence of the heavens above worketh infinitely more to our good, and yet appears not half so sensible as the force 1 Qui sacerdotes in veteri testamento vocabantur, hi sunt qui nunc presby teri appellantur ; et qui tunc princeps sacerdotum, nunc episcopus vocatur. Raba. Maur. de Instit. Cler. lib. iii. c. 6. a Namely, in this 7th book, chap. iv. &c. ; and for our proof of the same, the reader will turn to Chillingworth, Sanderson, and Andrews, above, in this collection. 368 RICHARD HOOKER. does of things below. We consider not what it is which we reap by the authority of our chiefest spiritual governors, nor are likely to enter into any consideration thereof, tiU we want them ; and that is the cause why they are at our hands so unthankfully rewarded. Authority is a constraining power; which power were needless if we were all such as we should be, wiUing to do the things we ought to do without constraint. But, because generaUy we are otherwise, therefore we all reap singular benefit by that authority which permits no men, though they would, to slack their duty. It does not suffice, that the lord of an household appoint labourers what they should do, unless he set over them some chief workman to see 'they do it. Constitutions and canons made for the ordering of Church affairs are dead task-masters. The due execution of laws spiritual depends most upon the vigilant care of the chiefest spiritual governors, whose charge is to see that such laws be kept by the clergy and people under them. With those duties which the law bf God and the ecclesiastical canons require in the clergy, lay-governors are neither for the most part so well acquainted, nor so deeply and nearly touched ; requisite therefore it is, that ecclesiastical persons have authority in such things ; which kind of authority makes them that have it prelates. If then it be a thing confessed, as by all good men it needs must be, — to have prayers read in all Churches, to have the sacraments of God administered, to have the mysteries of salvation painfully taught, to have God everywhere devoutly worshipped, and all this perpetuaUy, and with quietness, brings unto the whole Church, and unto every member thereof, inestimable good; how can that authority, which has been proved a the ordinance of God for preservation of these duties in the Church, how can it choose but deserve to be held a thing pubUcly most beneficial ? It were to be wished, and is to be laboured for, as much as can be, that they who are set in such rooms may be furnished with honourable qualities and graces every way fit for their calling. But, be they otherwise, how soever, so long as they are in authority, all men reap some good by them, albeit not so much good as if they were abler men. There is not any amongst us all, but is a great deal more apt to exact another man's duty, than the best of us is to discharge exactly his own ; and therefore prelates, although neglecting a Book vii. chap. ii. &c. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 369 many ways tbeir duty unto God and men, do notwithstanding by their authority great good, in that they keep others at the least wise in some awe under them. It is our duty therefore in this consideration, to honour them that rule as prelates, which office if they discharge well, the apos tle's own verdict is, that the honour they have they be worthy of, yea, though it were double l. And if their government be other wise, the judgment of sage men has ever been this, that albeit the deaUngs of governors be culpable, yet honourable they must be, in respect of that authority by which they govern. Great caution must be used that we neither be emboldened to follow them in evil, whom for authority's sake we honour, nor induced in au thority to dishonour them, whom as examples we may not follow. In a word, not to disUke sin, though it should be in the highest, were unrighteous meekness, and proud righteousness it is to contemn or dishonour highness, though it should be in the sin- fullest men that Uve. But so hard it is to obtain at our hands, especiaUy as now things stand, the yielding of honour to whom honour in this case belongs, that by a brief declaration only what the duties of men are towards the principal guides and pastors of their souls 2, we cannot greatly hope to prevail, partly for the malice of their open adversaries, and partly for the cunning of such as in a sacrilegious intent work their dishonour under covert, by more mystical and secret means. — Wherefore requisite, and in a manner necessary it is, that by particular instances we make it even palpably manifest what singular benefit and public use the nature of prelates is apt to yield. First, no man doubts, but that unto the happy condition of commonweals it is a principal help and furtherance, when in the eye of foreign states their estimation and credit is great. In which respect, the Lord himself commending His own laws unto His peo ple, mentions this as a thing not meanly to be accounted of, that their careful obedience yielded thereunto should purchase them a great good opinion abroad, and make them every where famous for wisdom 3. Fame and reputation grow especially by the virtue, not of common ordinary persons, but of them which are in each estate most eminent by occasion of their higher place and cal ling. The mean man's actions, be they good or evil, they reach not far, they are not greatly enquired into, except perhaps by 1 1 Tim. v. 17. 2 Rom. xiii. 7- 3 Deut. iv. 6. VOL. III. B b 370 RICHARD HOOKER. such as dwell at the next door ; whereas men of more ample dignity are as cities on the tops of hills \ their lives are viewed afar off; so that the more there are which observe aloof what they do, the greater glory by their well-doing they purchase both unto God whom they serve, and to the state wherein they live. — Wherefore if the clergy be a beautifying unto the body of this commonweal in the eyes of foreign beholders, and if in the clergy the prelacy be most exposed unto the world's eye, what public benefit does grow from that order in regard of reputation thereby gotten to the land from abroad, we may soon conjecture. Amongst the Jews (their kings excepted) who so renowned throughout the world as their high-priest ? who so much or so often spoke of as their prelates ? 2. Which order is not for the present only the most in sight, but for that very cause also the most commended unto posterity. — For if we search those records wherein there, has descended from age to age whatsoever notice and intelligence we have of those things which were before us, is there any thing almost else, surely not any thing so much kept in memory as the successions, doings, sufferings, and affairs of prelates ? So that either there is not any public use of that light which the Church does, receive from antiquity, or if this be absurd to think, then must we neces sarily acknowledge ourselves beholden more unto prelates than unto others their inferiors, for that good of direction which eccle siastical actions recorded do always bring. 3. But to caU home our cogitations, and more inwardly to weigh with ourselves, what principal commodity that order yields, or at leastwise is of its own disposition and nature apt to yield ; kings and princes, partly for information of their own consciences, partly for instruction what they have to do in a number of most weighty affairs, entangled with the cause of reUgion, having, as all men know, so usual occasion of often consultations and con ferences with their clergy ; suppose we, that no pubUc detriment would follow upon the want of honourable personages ecclesiasti cal to be used in those cases ? It will be haply said, " That the highest might learn to stoop, and not to disdain the advice of some circumspect, wise, and virtuous minister of God, albeit the ministry were not by such degrees distinguished." What princes in that case might or should do, it is not material. Such differ- 1 Matt. v. 14. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 371 ence being presupposed therefore, as we have proved already to have been the ordinance of God, there is no judicious man will ever make any question or doubt, but that fit and direct it is for the highest and chiefest order in God's clergy to be employed before others about so near and necessary offices as the sacred estate of the greatest on earth does require. For this cause Joshua had Eliazer ; David, Abiathar ; Constantine, Hosius, Bishop of Corduba ; other emperors and kings their prelates, by whom in private (for with princes this is the most effectual way of doing good) to be admonished, counselled, comforted, and, if need were, reproved. Whensoever sovereign rulers are willing to admit these so necessary private conferences for their spiritual and ghostly good, inasmuch as they do for the time, while they take advice, grant a kind of superiority unto them of whom they receive it, albeit haply they can be contented even so far to bend to the gravest and chiefest persons in the order of God's clergy, yet this of the very best being rarely and hardly obtained, now that there are whose greater and higher callings do somewhat more proportion them unto that ample conceit and spirit where with the minds of so powerable persons are possessed; what should we look for in case God Himself not authorizing any by miraculous means, as of old He did His prophets, the equal mean ness of all did leave, in respect of calling, no more place of de cency for one than for another to be admitted ? Let unexpe rienced wits imagine what pleases them, in having to deal with so great personages these personal differences are so necessary that there must be regard had of them. 4. Kingdoms being principally (next unto God's Almightiness, and the sovereignty of the highest under God) upheld by wisdom and by valour, as by the chiefest human means to cause continu ance in safety with honour (for the labours of them who attend the service of God, we reckon as means divine, to procure our pro tection from heaven) ; from hence it rises, that men excelling in either of these, or descending from such, as for excellency either way have been ennobled, or possessing howsoever the rooms of such as should be in politic wisdom, or in martial prowess eminent, are had in singular recommendation. Notwithstanding, because they are by the state of nobility great, but not thereby made in- cUnable to good things, such they oftentimes prove even under the best princes, as under David certain of the Jewish nobility were. In polity and council the world had not Achitophel's ub2 372 RICHARD HOOKER. equal, nor hell his equal in deadly malice. Joab, the General of the host of Israel, valiant, industrious, fortunate in war, but withal headstrong, cruel, treacherous, void of piety towards God ; in a word, so conditioned, that easy it is not to define, whether it were for David harder to miss the benefit of his warlike abiUty, or to bear the enormity of his other crimes. — As well for the che rishing of those virtues therefore, wherein if nobility do chance to flourish, they are both an ornament and a stay to the common wealth wherein they live ; as also for the bridling of those disor ders,' which if they loosely run into, they are by reason of their greatness dangerous ; what help could there ever have been in vented more divine, than the sorting of the clergy into such de grees, that the chiefest of the prelacy being matched in a kind of equal yoke, as it were, with the higher, the next with the lower degree of nobility, — the reverend authority of the one might be to the other as a courteous bridle, a mean to keep them lovingly in awe that are exorbitant, and to correct such excesses in them, as whereunto their courage, state, and dignity make them over prone ? O that there were for encouragement of prelates herein, that inclination of all Christian kings and princes towards them, which sometime a famous king of this land either had or pre tended to have, for the countenancing of a principal prelate under him in the actions of spiritual authority ! — " Let my Lord Arch bishop know," (says he) " that if a bishop or earl, or any other great person, yea, if my own chosen son, shall presume to with stand, or to hinder his will and disposition, whereby he may be withheld from performing the work of the embassage committed unto him ;' such a one shall find, that of his contempt I wiU show myself no less a persecutor and revenger, than if treason were committed against mine own very crown and dignity V — Since, therefore, by the fathers and first founders of this commonweal, it has, upon great experience and forecast, been judged most for the good of all sorts, that as the whole body politic wherein we live, should be for strength's sake a threefold cable, consisting of the king as a supreme head over all, of peers and nobles under him, and of the people under them ; so likewise, that, in this conjunc tion of states, the second wreath of that cable should, for important respects, consist as well of lords spiritual as temporal. Nobility and prelacy being by this mean twined together, how can it pos- 1 Petr. Blesens. Ep. 5. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 373 sibly be avoided, but that the tearing away of the one, must needs exceedingly weaken the other, and by consequent impair greatly the good of all ? 5. The force of which detriment there is no doubt, but that the common sort of men would feel to their helpless woe, how goodly a thing soever they now surmise it to be, that themselves and their godly teachers did all alone without controlment of their prelate. For if the manifold jeopardies whereto a people desti tute of pastors is subject, be unavoidable without government, and if the benefit of government, whether it be ecclesiastical or civil, do grow principally from them who are principal therein, as has been proved out of the prophet, who albeit the people of Israel had sundry inferior governors, ascribes not unto them the public benefit of government, but makes mention of Moses and Aaron only, the chief prince and chief prelate, because they were the well-spring of all the good which others under them did; — may we not boldly conclude, that to take from the people their prelate, is to leave them in effect without guides : at leastwise, without those guides which are the strongest hands that God does direct them by ? " Thou didst lead thy people like sheep," says the prophet, "by the hand of Moses and Aaron V If now there arise any matter of grievance between the pastor and the people that are under him, they have their ordinary, a judge indifferent to determine their causes, and to end their strife. But in case there were no such appointed to sit, and to hear both, what would then be the end of their quarrels ? They will answer perhaps, " That for such purposes, their synods shall serve." Which is, as if in the commonwealth, the higher magistrates being removed, every township should be a state, altogether free and independent ; and the controversies which they cannot end speedily within themselves, to the contentment of both parties, should be all determined by solemn parliaments. Merciful God! where is the light of wit and judgment, which this age does so much vaunt of and glory in, when unto these such odd imagina tions, so great, not only assent, but also applause, is yielded? 6. As for those in the clergy, whose place and calling is lower; were it not that their eyes are blinded, lest they should see the thing that of all others is for their good most effectual, somewhat they might consider the benefit which they enjoy by having such 1 Psalm lxxvii. 20. 374 RICHARD HOOKER. in authority over them as are of the selfsame profession, society, and body with them ; such as have trodden the same steps before ; such as know by their own experience, the manifold intolerable contempts and indignities which faithful pastors, intermingled with the multitude, are constrained every day to suffer in the exercise of their spiritual charge and function ; unless their supe riors, taking their causes even to heart, be, by a kind of sympathy, drawn to relieve and aid them in their virtuous proceedings no less effectuaUy, than loving parents their dear children. Thus therefore prelacy being unto all sorts so beneficial, ought accordingly to receive honour at the hands of all. — But we have just cause exceedingly to fear that those miserable times of con fusion are drawing on, wherein " the people shall be oppressed one of another 1 ;" inasmuch as already that which prepares the way thereunto is come to pass, " Children presume against the ancient, and the vile against the honourable." Prelacy, the temperature of excesses in all estates, the glue and solder of the public-weal, the ligament which ties and connects the limbs of this body politic each to other, has, instead of deserved honour, all extremity of disgrace; the foolish everywhere plead, that unto the wise in heart they owe neither service, subjection,, nor honour, XIX. Now that we have laid open the causes for which honour is due unto prelates, the next thing we are to consider is, what kinds of honour be due. — The good government either of the Church or the commonwealth depends scarcely on any one ex ternal thing so much as on the pubUc marks and tokens whereby the estimation that governors are in, is made manifest to the eyes of men. True it is, that governors are to be esteemed according to the excellency of their virtues; the more virtuous they are, the more they ought to be honoured, if respect be had unto that which every man should voluntarily perform unto his superiors. But the question is now of that honour which public order does appoint unto Church-governors, in that they are governors ; the end whereof is, to give open sensible testimony, that the place which they hold is judged publicly in such degree beneficial, as the marks of their excellency, the honours appointed to be done unto them do import. Wherefore this honour we are to do them, 1 Isa. iii. 5. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 375 without presuming ourselves to examine how worthy they are; and withdrawing it, if by us they be thought unworthy. It is a note of that public judgment which is given of them ; and there fore not tolerable, that men in private should, by refusal to do them such honour, reverse as much as in them lies the public judgment. If it deserve such grievous punishment, when any particular person adventures to deface those marks whereby is signified what value some small piece of coin is publicly esteemed at; is it sufferable that honours, the character of that estimation which publicly is had of public estates and callings in the Church or commonwealth, should at every man's pleasure be cancelled ? Let us not think that, without most necessary cause, the same have been thought expedient. The first authors thereof were wise and judicious men; they knew it a thing altogether im possible for each particular in the multitude to judge what benefit doth grow unto them from their prelates, and thereupon uniformly to yield them convenient honour. Wherefore that all sorts might be kept in obedience and awe, doing that unto their superiors of every degree, not which every man's special fancy should think meet, but which being beforehand agreed upon as meet, by pubUc sentence and decision, might afterwards stand as a rule for each in particular to follow ; they found that nothing was more necessary than to allot unto all degrees their certain honour, as marks of public judgment concerning the dignity of their places ; which mark when the multitude should', behold, they might be thereby given to know, that of such or such estimation their governors are, and in token thereof do carry those notes of ex cellency. Hence it grows, that the different notes and signs of honour do leave a correspondent impression in the minds of com mon beholders. Let the people be asked, who are the chiefest in any kind of calling ? who most to be Ustened unto ? who of greatest account and reputation ? — and see if the very discourse of their minds lead them not unto those sensible marks, according to the difference whereof they give their suitable judgment, esteeming them the worthiest persons who carry the principal note and public mark of worthiness. If therefore they see in other estates a number of tokens sensible, whereby testimony is given what account there is publicly made of them, but no such thing in the clergy ; what will they hereby, or what can they else conclude, but that where they behold this, surely in that com monwealth, religion, and they that are conversant about it, are 7 376 RICHARD HOOKER. not esteemed greatly beneficial ? Whereupon in time, the open contempt of God and Godliness must needs ensue : " Qui bona fide Deos colit, amat et sacerdotes 1," says Papinius. In vain does that kingdom or commonwealth, pretend zeal to the honour of God, which does not provide that His clergy also may have honour. — Now if all that are employed in the service of God should have one kind of honour, what more confused, absurd, and unseemly? Wherefore in the honour which has been allotted unto God's clergy, we are to observe, how not only the kinds thereof, but also in every particular kind, the degrees do differ. — The honour which the clergy of God has hitherto enjoyed, con sists especially in the pre-eminence of title, place, ornament, at tendance, privilege, endowment. In every of which it has been evermore judged meet, that there should be no small odds between prelates and the inferior clergy. XX. Concerning title 2, albeit even as under the law, all they whom God had severed to offer him sacrifice were generally termed priests, so likewise the name of pastor or presbyter be now common unto all that serve Him in the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; yet both then and now, the higher orders as well of the one sort as of the other have by one and the same con- gruity of reason their different titles of honour, wherewith we find them in the phrase of ordinary speech exalted above others. Thus the heads of the twenty-four companies of priests are in Scripture termed arch-priests3; Aaron, and the successors of Aaron, being above those arch-priests, themselves are in that respect further intitled " high" and " great." After what sort antiquity has used to style Christian bishops, and to yield them in that kind honour more than was meet for inferior pastors, I may the better omit to declare, both because others have suf ficiently done it already ; and in so slight a thing, it were but a loss of time to bestow further travel. The allegation of Christ's prerogative to be named an arch-pastor simply, in regard of His absolute excellency over all, is no impediment but that the like title in an unlike signification may be granted unto others besides Him, to note a more limited superiority, whereof men are capable 1 Prasf. 1. v. Silv. 2 Honour in title, place, ornaments, attendancy, and privilege. 3 'ApxtiptXg. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 377 enough without derogation from His glory, than which nothing is more sovereign. To quarrel at syllables, and to take so poor exceptions at the first four letters in the name of an archbishop, as if they were manifestly stolen goods, whereof restitution ought to be made to the civU magistrate, touches no more the prelates that now are, than it does the very blessed Apostle, who gives unto himself the title of an arch-builder. As for our Saviour's words alleged against the style of " Lord ship" and " Grace," we have before sufficiently opened how far they are drawn from their natural meaning to bolster up a cause which they nothing at all concern. Bishops Theodoret entitules, "most honourable :" emperors writing unto bishops have not dis dained to give them their appeUations of honour ; " Your Holi ness, your Blessedness, your Amplitude, your Highness \," and the like : such as purposely have done otherwise are noted of insolent singularity and pride. Honour done by giving pre-eminence of place unto one sort before another is for decency, order, and quietness sake so need ful, that both imperial laws and canons ecclesiastical have made their special provisions for it. Our Saviour's invective against the vain affectation of superiority, whether in title or in place 2 , may not hinder these seemly differences usual in giving and tak ing honour, either according to the one or the other. Something there is even in the ornaments of honour also : otherwise idle it had been for the Wise Man, speaking of Aaron, to stand so much upon the circumstance of his priestly attire, and to urge it as an argument of such dignity and greatness in him : " An everlasting covenant God made with Aaron, and gave him the priesthood among the people, and made him blessed through his comely ornament, and clothed him with the garment of honour 3 ." The robes of a judge do not add to his virtue ; the chiefest ornament of kings is justice ; holiness and purity of con versation does much more adorn a bishop, than his peculiar form of clothing. Notwithstanding, both judges, through the gar ments of judicial authority, and through the ornaments of sove reignty, princes, yea, bishops, through the very attire of bishops 1 Lib. v. c. 8. Hist. Eccles. L. vii. C. de summa Trinit. L. xxxiii. C. de Episc. et Cler. et L. xvi. C. de Sacros. Eccles. 2 Matt, xxiii. 6, 7- They love to have the chief seats in the assemblies, and to be called of men, Rabbi. 3 Ecclus. xiv. 378 RICHARD HOOKER. are made blessed, that is to say, marked and manifested they are to be such as God has poured His blessing upon by advancing them above others, and placing them where they may do Him principal good service. Thus to be called is to be blessed, and therefore to be honoured with the signs of such a caUing must needs be in part a blessing also; for of good things even the signs are good. Of honour, another part is attendancy ; and therefore in the visions of the glory of God angels are spoken of as His attend ants. In setting out the honour of that mystical queen, the pro phet mentions the virgin ladies which waited on her. Amongst the tokens of Solomon's honourable condition, his servants and waiters the sacred history omits not. This does prove attendants a part of honour ; but this as yet does not show with what attendancy prelates are to be honoured. Of the High Priest's retinue amongst the Jews somewhat the Gospel itself does inti mate. And, albeit our Saviour came to minister, and not, as the Jews did imagine their Messias should, to be ministered unto, into in this world, yet attended on He was by His blessed apos tles, who followed Him not only as scholars, but even as servants about Him. After that He had sent them, as Himself was sent of God, in the midst of that hatred and extreme contempt which they sustained at the world's hands, by saints and believers this part of honour was most plentifully done unto them. Attendants they had provided in all places where they went ; which custom of the Church was still continued in bishops, their successors, as by Ignatius it is plain to be seen. And from hence no doubt those acolythes took their beginning, of whom so frequent men tion is made ; the bishop's attendants, his followers they were ; in regard of which service the name of acolythes seems plainly to have been given. The custom for bishops to be attended upon by many is, as Justinian does show, ancient '. The affairs of regimen, wherein prelates are employed, make it necessary that they always have many about them whom they may command, although no such thing did by way of honour belong unto them. Some men's judgment is, that if clerks, students, and religious persons were more, common serving-men and lay-retainers fewer than they are in bishops' palaces, the use and the honour thereof would be much more suitable than now. But these things con- ' Novel 6. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 379 cerning the number and quality of persons fit to attend on pre lates, either for necessity, or for honour's sake, are rather in particular discretion to be ordered than to be argued of by dis putes. As for the vain imagination of some who teach the original hereof to have been a preposterous imagination of Maxi- minius the emperor, who, being addicted unto idolatry, chose of the choicest magistrates to be priests, and, to the end they might be in great estimation, gave unto each of them a train of fol lowers J ; and that Christian emperors thinking the same would promote Christianity which promoted superstition, endeavoured to make their bishops encounter and match with those idolatrous priests; such frivolous conceits having no other ground than conceit, we weigh not so much as to frame any answer unto them, our declaration of the true original of ancient attendancy on bishops being sufficient. — Now, if that which the light of sound reason does teach to be fit have, upon like inducements reasonable, aUowable, and good, approved itself in such wise as to be accepted, not only of us but of Pagans and Infidels also, — does conformity with them that are evil in that which is good, make that thing which is good evil ? We have not herein fol lowed the Heathens, nor the Heathens us, but both we and they one and the selfsame divine rule, the light of a true and sound understanding ; which shows what honour is fit for prelates, and what attendancy convenient to be a part of their honour. Touching privileges granted for honour's sake, partly in gene ral unto the clergy, and partly unto prelates, the chiefest persons ecclesiastical, in particular 2 ; of such quality and number they are, that to make but rehearsal of them we scarce think it safe, lest the very entraUs of some of our " godly" brethren, as they term themselves, should thereat haply burst in sunder. XXI. And yet, of aU these things rehearsed 3, it may be there never would have grown any question, had bishops been honoured only thus far forth. But the honouring of the clergy with wealth", this is in the eyes of them which pretend to seek 1 T. C. 1. iii. p. 126. out of Jus. 1. viii. c. 15. 2 L. xii. C. de sacr. Eccles. 1. v. C. de sacr. Eccles. 1. ii. C. de Episc. et Cler. 1. x. C. de Episc. et Cler. 3 Honour by endowment with lands and livings. * " What, then, is the cause that bishops and preachers have in these days 380 RICHARD HOOKER. nothing but mere reformation of abuses, a sin that can never be remitted. How soon, oh, how soon might the Church be perfect, even without any spot or wrinkle, if public authority would 'at the length say Amen unto the holy and devout requests of those godly brethren, who as yet with outstretched necks groan in the pangs of their zeal to see the houses of bishops rifled, and their so long-desired livings gloriously divided amongst the righteous ! But there is an impediment, a lett, which somewhat hinders those good men's prayers from taking effect : they, in whose hands the sovereignty of power and dominion over this Church does rest, are persuaded there is a God ; for undoubtedly, either the name of Godhead is but a feigned thing, or, if in heaven there be a God, the sacrilegious intention of Church robbers, which lurks under this plausible name of Reformation, is in His sight a thou sand times more hateful than the plain professed malice of those very miscreants who threw their vomit in the open face of our blessed Saviour. They are not words of persuasion by which true men can hold their own when they are over-beset with thieves. And therefore to speak in this cause at all, were but labour lost, saving only in respect of them, who being as yet unjoined unto this conspiracy, may be haply somewhat stayed, when they shall know betimes what it is to see thieves, and to run on with them, as the prophet in the psalm speaks ; " When thou sawest a thief, then thou con- sentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers 1." For the better information therefore of men which carry true, honest, and indifferent minds, these things we will endeavour to make most clearly manifest. so great fault found with them ? Forsooth, it followeth in the next branch of a certain accusation penned against them. " Objection. They have temporal lands ; they have great livings ; they are in the state of lords, &c. The prince ought therefore to take away the same from them, and set them to mean pensions, that in poverty they may be answerable to the apostles and other holy preachers in the primitive Church : whereby the queen may bring forty thousand marks yearly to her crown, beside the pleasuring of a great many her faithful subjects and servants. " Answer. This is the end why bishops and other chiefs of the clergy are so defaced, why their doings are so depraved, why such common obloquy is raised." An Admonition by T. C. i. e. Bishop Thomas Cooper, to the People of England. 1589. 4to. p. 154. 1 Psalm 1. 18. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 381 First, that in goods and livings of the Church none has property but God Himself. Secondly, that the honour which the clergy therein has, is to be, as it were, God's receivers ; — the honour of prelates, to be His chief and principal receivers. Thirdly, that from Him they have right, not only to receive, but also to use such goods, the lower sort in smaller, and the higher in larger measure. Fourthly, that in case they be thought, yea, or found to abuse the same, yet may not such honour be therefore lawfully taken from them, and be given away unto persons of other calling. XXII. First, possessions, lands, and livings spiritual, the wealth of the clergy, the goods of the Church, are in such sort the Lord's own, that man can challenge no property in them. His they are, and not ours. — AU things are His, in that from Him they have their being: "My corn, and my wine, arid mine oil1," says the Lord. AU things His, in that He has absolute power to dispose of them at His pleasure: "Mine," says He, " are the sheep and oxen of a thousand hills2?" All things His, in that when we have them we may say with Job, " God hath given," and when we are deprived of them, " The Lord," whose they are, has likewise " taken them away 3 " again. — But, these sacred pos sessions are His by another tenure : His, because those men who first received them from Him have unto Him returned them again by way of religious gift, or oblation : and in this respect it is that the Lord does term those houses wherein such gifts and oblations are laid, " His treasuries 4." The ground whereupon men have resigned their own interest in things temporal, and given over the same unto God, is that precept which Solomon borrows from the law of nature ; " Honour the Lord out of thy substance, and of the chiefest of all thy revenue ; so shaU thy barns be filled with plenty, and with new wine the fat of thy press shall overflow \" For although it be by one most fitly spoken against those superstitious persons, who only are scrupulous in external rites ; " Wilt thou win the favour of God ? Be virtuous. They best worship Him that are His followers6;" it is not the bowing of your knees, but of your hearts ; it is not the number of your oblations, but the integrity 1 Hos. ii. 5. 2 Psalm 1. 10. 3 Job i. 21. 4 Mai. iii. 10. s Prov. iii. 9. 6 Seneca. 382 RICHARD HOOKER. of your Uves ; not your incense, but your obedience, which God is delighted to be honoured by : — nevertheless, we must beware, lest simply understanding this, which comparatively is meant; that is to say, whereas the meaning is, that God does chiefly respect the inward disposition of the heart; we must take heed we do not hereupon so worship Him in spirit, that outwardly we take all worship, reverence, and honour from Him. Our God will be glorified both of us for Himself, and for us by others. To others because our hearts are unknown, and yet our example is required for their good; therefore it is not sufficient to carry religion in our hearts, as fire is carried in flint-stones, but we are outwardly, visibly, apparently to serve and honour the living God ; yea, to employ that way, as not only our souls, but our bodies ; so not only our bodies, but our goods ; yea, the choice, the flower, the chiefest of aU thy revenue, says Solomon. If thou hast any thing in all thy possessions of more value and price than other, to what use shouldest thou convert it, rather than to this? Samuel was dear unto Hannah his mother; the child that Hannah did so much esteem, she could not choose but greatly wish to advance ; and her religious conceit was, that the honouring of God with it, was the advancing of it unto honour. The chiefest of the offspring of men, are the males which be first born ; and, for this cause, in the ancient world they aU were by right of their birth priests of the Most High. By these and the like precedents, it plainly enough appears, that in what heart soever does dwell unfeigned religion, in the same there rests also a willingness to bestow upon God that soonest, which is most dear. Amongst us the law is, that sith gold is the chiefest of metals, if it be anywhere found in the bowels of the earth, it belongs in right of honour, as all men know, to the king. Whence has this custom grown, but only from a natural persuasion, whereby men judge it decent, for the highest persons always to be honoured with the choicest things? "If ye offer unto God the blind," says the prophet Malachi, " is it not evil ? if the lame and sick, is it good enough? Present it unto thy prince, and see if he will content himself, or accept thy person, saith the Lord of hosts V When Abel presented God with an offering, it was the fattest of all the lambs in his whole flock ; he honoured God not only out of his substance, but out of the very chiefest therein; whereby we 1 Mai. i. 8. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 383 may somewhat judge how religiously they stand affected towards God, who grudge that any thing worth the having should be His. Long it were to reckon up particularly ", what God was owner of under the law ; for of this sort was all which they spent in legal sacrifices ; of this sort, their usual oblations and offerings ; of this sort, tithes and first fruits ; of this sort, that which by extraordi nary occasions they vowed unto God ; of this sort, all that they gave to the building of the tabernacle; of this sort, all that which was gathered amongst them for erecting of the temple, and the adorning 1 of it erected ; of this sort, whatsoever their corban con tained, wherein that blessed widow's deodate was laid up. Now either this kind of honour was prefiguratively altogether cere monial, and then our Saviour accepts it not ; or, if we find that to Him also it has been done, and that with divine approbation given for encouragement of the world, to show, by such kind of service, their dutiful hearts towards Christ ; there will be no place left for men to make any question at all whether herein they do well or no. Wherefore to descend from the synagogue, unto the Church of Christ : albeit sacrifices, wherewith sometimes God was highly honoured, be not accepted as heretofore at the hands of men, yet, forasmuch as " Honour God with thy riches 2 " is an edict of the inseparable law of nature, so far forth as men are therein required by such kind of homage to testify their thankful minds 3, this sacrifice God does accept still. Wherefore as it was said of Christ, " That aU kings should worship Him, and all nations do Him service 4 ;" so this very kind of worship or service was like wise mentioned, lest we should think that our Lord and Saviour would aUow of no such thing : " The kings of Tarshish, and of the Isles, shall bring presents, the kings of Sheba and Seba shall bring gifts." And, as it maketh not a Uttle to the praise of those sages mentioned in the gospel, that the first amongst men which did solemly honour our Saviour on earth were they ; so it sounds no less to the dignity of this particular kind, that the rest by it were prevented; "They fell down and worshipped him and a See Prideaux's Original and Right of Tithes in England, p. 47 — 53, edit. ii. 1736. 1 " Because " (says David) " I have a delight in the house of my God, therefore I have given thereunto of my own both gold and silver, to adorn it with." 2 Chron. ii. 5. 2 Psalm 1. 13, 14. 3 Phil. iv. 18. * Psalm lxxii. 11. 384 RICHARD HOOKER. opened their treasures, and presented unto him gifts ; gold, in cense, and myrrh V Of all those things which were done to the honour of Christ in His lifetime, there is not one whereof He spoke in such sort, as when Mary, to testify the largeness of her affection, seemed to waste away a gift upon Him, the price of which gift might, as they thought who saw it, much better have been spent in works of mercy towards the poor : " Verily, I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout all the world, there shall also this that she hath done be spoken of, for memorial of her 2." Of service to God, the best works are they which continue longest 3 : and, for permanency, what like donation, whereby things are unto 'Rim for ever dedicated? That the ancient lands and livings of the Church were aU in such sort given into the hands of God by the just lords and owners of them, that unto Him they passed over their whole interest and right therein, the form of sundry the said donations21 as yet extant, most plainly shows. And where time has left no such evidence as now remaining to be seen, yet the same intention is presumed in aU donors, unless the contrary be apparent. But to the end it may yet more plainly appear unto all men under what title the several kinds of eccle siastical possessions are held, " Our Lord Himself" (says St. Augustine) " had coffers to keep those things which the faithful offered unto Him. Then was the form of the Church-treasury first instituted, to the end, that withal we might understand, that in forbidding to be careful for to-morrow, his purpose was not to bar his saints from keeping money, but to withdraw them from doing God service for wealth's sake, and from forsaking righte ousness through fear of losing their wealth *." Theirs* gifts consecrated6 unto Christ after His departure out of the world were sums of money; in process of time other move ables were added, and at length goods unmoveable ; Churches and oratories hallowed to the honour of His glorious name ; houses and lands for perpetuity conveyed unto Him; inheritance given to remain His as long as the world should endure. " The apostles," (says Melchiades) " they foresaw that God would have 1 Matt. ii. 11. 2 Matt. xxvi. 13. 3 John xv. 16. a See Bishop Kennett on Impropriations p. 81, 2. Comber's Historical Vindication, Part II. chap. viii. p. 159—84. Selden's History of Tithes, &c. 4 Aug. cap. 15. de Menda. b Compare Hooker, book v, chap. 79- The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 385 His Church amongst the Gentiles, and for that cause in Judea they took no lands, but price of lands sold1." This he conjec tures to have been the cause why the apostles did that which the history reports of them. The truth is, that so the state of those times did require, as well otherwhere as in Judea. Wherefore when afterwards it did appear much more commodious for the Church to dedicate such inheritances, than the value and price of them being sold, the former custom was changed for this, as for the better. The devotion of Constantine herein, all the world, even till this very day, admires. They that lived in the prime of the Christian world thought no testament Christianly made, nor any thing therein well bequeathed, unless something were thereby added unto Christ's patrimony. Touching which men, what judgment the world does now give, I know not; perhaps we deem them to have been herein but blind and superstitious persons. — Nay, we in these cogitations are blind; they contrariwise did with Solomon2 plainly know and persuade themselves, that thus to diminish their wealth was, not to diminish but to augment it ; according to that which God does promise to His own people by the Prophet Malachi3, and which they by their own particular experience found true. If Wickliff therefore were of that opinion which his adversaries ascribe unto him (whether truly, or of purpose to make him odious, I cannot tell, for in his writings I do not find it), namely, " That Con stantine, and others following his steps, did evil, as having no sufficient ground whereby they might gather, that such dona tions are acceptable to Jesus Christ 4 ;" it was in Wickliff a pal pable error. I will use but one only argument to stand in the stead of many. Jacob taking his journey unto Haran, made in this sort his solemn vow ; " If God will be with me, and will keep me in this journey which I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothes to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in safety; then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set up a pillar shall be the house of God, and of all that thou shalt give me wUl I give the tenth unto thee 5." May a Christian man desire as great things as Jacob did at the hands of God? may he desire them in as earnest a manner? may he pro mise as great thankfulness in acknowledging the goodness of 1 C. 12. p. 1. cap. 15 & 16. 2 Prov. iii. 10. 3 Mai. iii. 10. 2 Chron. xxxi. 10. 4 Th. Wald. torn. i. lib. iv. c. 39. 5 Gen. xxviii. 20. VOL. III. C c 386 RICHARD HOOKER. God? may he vow any certain kind of public acknowledgment beforehand ? or, though he vow it not, perform it after, in such sort that men may see he is persuaded how the Lord has been his God ? are these particular kinds of testifying thankfulness to God, the erecting of oratories, the dedicating of lands and goods to maintain them, forbidden any where ? Let any mortal man living show but one reason wherefore in this point to foUow Jacob's example should not be a thing both acceptable unto God, and in the eyes of the world for ever most highly com mendable. — Concerning goods of this nature, goods whereof when we speak we term them ra ra» &£$ aqiispwOivTa, the goods that are consecrated unto God, and as TertuUian speaks, " Depo- sita Pietatis," things which piety and devotion has laid up as it were in the bosom of God; touching such goods, the law civil following mere Ught of nature, defines them to be no man's a, be cause no mortal man or community of men has right of property in them. XXIII. Secondly ; persons ecclesiastical are God's stewards, not only for that He hath set them over His family, as the minis ters of ghostly food, but even for this very cause also that they are to receive and dispose His temporal revenues, the gifts and oblations which men bring Him \ — Of the Jews it is plain that their tithes they offered unto the Lord, and those offerings the Lord bestowed upon the Levites. When the Levites gave the tenth of their tithes, this their gift the law does term the Lord's heave- offering, and appoint that the high priest should receive the same. Of spoils taken in war, that part which they were ac customed to separate unto God they brought it before the priest of the Lord, by whom it was laid up in the tabernacle of the congregation for a memorial of their thankfulness towards God, and His goodness towards them in fighting for them against their enemies. As therefore the apostle magnifies the honour of Mel- chisedech, in that he being a high priest did receive at the hands of Abraham the tithes which Abraham did honour God with ; so a Justin Instit. ii. N. ] . 7- Nullius autem sunt res sacra? et religiosse, et sanctse : quod enim divini juris est, id nullius in donis est. 1 That ecclesiastical persons are receivers of God's rents ; and that the honour of prelates is, to be thereof his chief receivers ; not without liberty from him granted, of converting the same unto their own use, even in large manner. Num. xviii. 24. 28. xxxi. Heb. vii. 3. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 387 it argues in the apostles themselves great honour, that at their feet the price of those possessions was laid1, which men thought good to bestow on Christ. St. Paul, commending the Churches which were in Macedonia for their exceeding liberality this way, says of them, that he himself would bear record, they had de clared their forward minds according to their power, yea, beyond their power; and had so much exceeded his expectation of them, " that they seemed as it were even to give away themselves first to the Lord," says the apostle, " and then by the will of God unto us 2 :"> to Him, as the owner of such gifts ; to us, as His ap pointed receivers and dispensers. The gift of the Church of Antioch, bestowed unto the use of distressed brethren which were in Judea, Paul and Barnabas did deUver unto the presbyters of Jerusalem; and the Head of those presbyters was James, he there fore the chiefest disposer thereof3. Thirdly, Amongst those canons which are entitled apostolical, one is this : " We appoint that the bishop have care of those things which belong to the Church 4 ;" the meaning is, of Church goods, as the reason following shows : " For if the precious souls of men must be committed unto him of trust, much more it be- hoveth the charge of money to be given him, that by his authority the presbyters and deacons may administer all things to them that stand in need." So that He which has done them the honour to be, as it were, his treasurers, has left them also authority and power to use these treasures, both otherwise, and for the mainte nance even of their own estate; the lower sort of the clergy, according unto a meaner ; the higher, after a larger proportion. The use of spiritual goods and possessions has been a matter much disputed of; grievous complaints there are usually made against the evil and unlawful usage of them, but with no certain determination hitherto on what things and persons, with what proportion and measure they being bestowed, do retain their law ful use. Some men condemn it as idle, superfluous, and alto gether vain, that any part of the treasure of God should be spent upon costly ornaments appertaining unto His service : who being best worshipped, when He is served in spirit and truth 5, has not 1 Acts iv. 34. 2 2 Cor. viii. 5. 3 Acts xi. 30. xxi. 18. & xii. 17. 4 Can. 41. et Concil. Antioch. c. 25. 'Eirio-Koirov ixuv T&v TVQ iwXrieiag irpayiiartijv i^ovaiav, HxsTt SioiKtiv tig irdvrag Stopkvovg ptrd irdong tvXapiiag Kai tpo(3ov Qeov. 5 John iv. 24. cc2 388 RICHARD HOOKER. for want of pomp and magnificence rejected at any time those who with faithful hearts have adored Him. Whereupon the heretics, termed Henriciani and Petrobusiani, threw down tem ples and houses of prayer, erected with marvellous great charge, as being in that respect not fit for Christ by us to be honoured in. We deny not, but that they who sometime wandered as pU- grims on earth, and had no temples, but made caves and dens to pray in, did God such honour as was most acceptable in His sight : God did not reject them for their poverty and nakedness' sake : ; their sacraments were not abhorred for want of vessels of gold. Howbeit, let them who thus delight to plead answer me : when Moses first, and afterwards David exhorted the people of Israel unto matter of charge about the service of God ; suppose we it had been allowable in them to have thus pleaded : " Our fathers in Egypt served God devoutly ; God was with them in aU their afflictions, he heard their prayers, pitied their case, and de livered them from the tyranny of their oppressors ; what house, tabernacle, or temple had they?" Such argumentations are childish and fond; God does not refuse to be honoured at all where there lacks wealth ; but where abundance and store is, He there requires the flower thereof being bestowed on Him, to be employed even unto the ornament of His service. In Egypt3 the state of the people was servitude, and therefore His sendee was accordingly. In the desart they had no sooner aught of their own, but a tabernacle is required ; and in the land of Canaan, a temple. In the eyes of David it seemed a thing not fit, a thing not decent, that himself should be more richly seated than God. But concerning the use of ecclesiastical goods bestowed this way, there is not so much contention amongst us, as what mea sure of allowance is fit for ecclesiastical persons to be maintained with. A better rule in this case to judge things by we cannot possibly have, than the wisdom of God Himself: — by considering what he thought meet for each degree of the clergy to enjoy in time of the law, what for Levites, what for priests, and what for high-priests, somewhat we shall be the more able to discern rightly what may be fit, convenient, and right for the Christian clergy likewise Against the wealth of the clergy they allege how meanly Christ ' Heb. xi. 38. ,l Compare Hooker, book iv. chap. ii. and book v. chap. xv. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 389 Himself was provided for ; against bishops' palaces, His want of a hole to hide His head in ; against the service done unto them, that " He came to minister, not to be ministered unto in the world." Which things, as they are not unfit to control covetous, proud, or ambitious desires of the ministers of Christ, and even of all Christians a, whatsoever they be ; and to teach men con tentment of mind, how mean soever their estate is, considering that they are but servants to Him, whose condition was far more abased than theirs is, or can be ; so to prove such difference in state between us and Him unlawful, they are of no force or strength at all. If one convented before their consistories, when he stands to make his answer, should break out into invectives against their authority, and tell them that Christ, when he was on earth, did not sit to judge, but stand to be judged; would they hereupon think it requisite to dissolve their eldership, and to permit no tribunals, no judges at all, for fear of swerving from our Saviour's example ? If those men, who have nothing in their mouths more usual than the poverty of Jesus Christ and His Apostles, allege not this as Julian sometime did, " Beati Pau- peres," unto Christians, when his meaning was to spoil them of that they had ; our hope is then, that as they seriously and sin cerely wish, that our Saviour Christ in this point may be foUowed, and to that end only propose His blessed example ; so, at our hands again, they will be content to hear with Uke wilUngness the holy Apostle's exhortation made unto them of the laity also : " Be ye followers of us, even as we are of Christ ; let us be your example, even as the Lord Jesus Christ is ours, that we may all proceed by one and same rule V' XXIV. Fourthly, But beware we of following Christ as thieves follow true men, to take their goods by violence from them 2. Be it that bishops were all unworthy, not only of livings, but even of Ufe, yet what has our Lord Jesus Christ deserved, for which men should judge Him worthy to have the things that are His given away from Him unto others that have no right unto a Compare Hooker's Preface, chap. iv. § 3. given below in this collection ; and the note there from Bishop Cooper. 1 1 Cor. xi. 1. Phil. iii. 16. 2 That for their unworthiness to deprive both them and their successors of such goods, and to convey the same unto men of secular calling, were ex treme sacrilegious injustice. 390 RICHARD HOOKER. them ? For at this mark it is that the head lay-reformers do aU aim. — Must these unworthy prelates give place? what then? shall better succeed in their rooms ? is this desired, to the end that others may enjoy their honours which shall do Christ more faithful service than they have done ? Bishops are the worst men living upon earth ; therefore let their sanctified possessions be divided : amongst whom ? O blessed reformation ! O happy men, that put to their helping hands for the furtherance of so good and glorious a work ! Wherefore, albeit the whole world at this day do already per ceive, and posterity be Uke hereafter a great deal more plainly to discern, not that the clergy of God is thus heaved at because they are wicked, but that means are used to put it into the heads of the simple multitude that they are such indeed, to the end that those who thirst for the spoil of spiritual possessions may, till such time as they have their purpose, be thought to covet nothing but only the just extinguishment of unreformable persons ; so that in regard of such men's intentions, practices, and machinations against them, the part that suffers these things may most fitly pray with David, " Judge thou me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according unto mine innocency: O let the malice of the wicked come to an end, and be thou the guide of the just 1 ;" notwithstanding, forasmuch as it doth not stand with Christian humility otherwise to think, than that this violent out rage of men is a rod in the ireful hands of the Lord our God, the smart whereof we deserve to feel ; let it not seem grievous in the eyes of my reverend lords the bishops, if to their good considera tion I offer a view of those sores which are in the kind of their heavenly function most apt to breed, and which, being not in time cured, may procure at the length that which God of His infinite mercy avert a. Devotion, and the feeling sense of reUgion, are not usual in the noblest, wisest, and chiefest personages of state, by reason their wits are so much employed another way, and their minds so seldom conversant in heavenly things. If therefore wherein themselves are defective, they see that bishops do blessedly excel, it frames secretly their hearts to a stooping kind of disposition, 1 Psalm vii. 8. a Some paragraphs are here omitted, as not applicable to the Church of England, in its modern improved condition. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 391 clean opposite to contempt. The very countenance of Moses was glorious after that God had conferred with him : and where bishops are, the powers and faculties of whose souls God has possessed, those very actions, the kind whereof is common unto them with other men, have notwithstanding in them a more high and heavenly form, which draws correspondent estimation unto it, by virtue of that celestial impression which deep meditation of holy things, and as it were conversation with God, does leave in their minds. So that bishops which will be esteemed of as they ought, must frame themselves to that very pattern from whence those Asian bishops unto whom St. John writes were denomi nated, even so far forth as this our frailty will permit ; shine they must as angels of God in the midst of perverse men. They are not to look that the world should always carry the affection of Constantine, to bury that which might derogate from them, and to cover their imbecUities. More than high time it is that they bethink themselves of the apostle's admonition, Attende tibi, " Have a vigilant eye to thyself." They err if they do not per suade themselves, that wheresoever they walk or sit, be it in their churches or in their consistories, abroad or at home, at their tables or in their closets, they are in the midst of snares laid for them. Wherefore as they are, with the prophet, every one of them to make it their hourly prayer unto God, " Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of enemies ;" so it is not safe for them, no not for a moment, to slacken their industry in seek ing every way that estimation which may further their labours unto the Church's good; Absurdity, though but in words, must needs be this way a maim, where nothing but wisdom, gravity, and judgment is looked for. That which the son of Sirach hath concerning the writings of the old sages, " Wise sentences are found in them," should be the proper mark and character of bishops' speeches, whose Ups, as doors, are not to be opened, hut for egress of instruction and sound knowledge. If base servility and dejection of mind be ever espied in them, how should men esteem them as worthy the rooms of the great ambassadors of God? A wretched desire to gain, by bad and unseemly means, stands not with a mean man's credit, much less with that reputa tion which fathers of the Church should be in. But if besides all this there be also coldness in works of piety and charity, utter contempt even of learning itself, no care to further it by any such helps as they easily might and ought to afford, no not as 392 RICHARD HOOKER. much as that due respect unto their very families about them, which all men that are of account do order as near as they can in such sort that no grievous offensive deformity be therein noted ; if there still continue in that most reverend order such, who, as by so many engines, work day and night to puU down the whole frame of their own estimation amongst men, — some of the rest secretly also permitting others, their industrious opposites, every day more to seduce the multitude, — how should the Church of God hope for great good at their hands ? What we have spoken concerning these things, let not malicious accusers think themselves therewith justified, no more than Shimei was by his sovereign's most humble and meek acknowledgment even of that very crime which so impudent a caitiff's tongue up braided him withal ; the one in the virulent rancour of a cankered affection took that delight for the present which in the end did turn to his own more tormenting woe ; the other, in the contrite patience even of deserved malediction, had yet this comfort, " It may be the Lord will look on mine affliction, and do me good for his cursing this day '." As for us over whom Christ has placed them to be the chiefest guides and pastors of our souls, our com mon fault is, that we look for much more in our governors than a tolerable sufficiency can yield, and bear much less than humanity and reason do require we should. Too much perfection over- rigorously exacted in them, cannot but breed in us perpetual dis contentment, and on both parts cause all things to be unpleasant. It is exceedingly worth the noting, which Plato has about the means whereby men fall into an utter dislike of all men with whom they converse. " This sourness of mind which makes every man's dealings unsavoury in our taste, enters by an unskil ful overweening, which at the first we have of one, and so of another, in whom we afterwards find ourselves to have been de ceived, they declaring themselves in the end to be frail men, whom we judged demi-gods : when we have oftentimes been thus beguiled, and that far besides expectation, we grow at the length to this plain conclusion, that there is nothing at all sound in any man. Which bitter conceit is unseemly, and plain to have risen from lack of mature judgment in human affairs; which if so be we did handle with art, we would not enter into dealings with men, otherwise than being beforehand grounded in this persua- 1 2 Sam. xvi. 12. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 393 sion, that the number of persons notably good or bad is but very small; that the most part of good have some evil, and of evil men some good in them1." So true our experience does find those aphorisms of Mercurius Trismegistus, 'Aouvarov to dyaObv ev96.^e KaOapsvEiv Tr)g KaKiag 2, " To purge goodness quite and clean from all mixture of evil here, is a thing impossible." Again, To prj Xiav kokov ivOads to dyaBov eot(, " When in this world we term a thing good, we cannot by exact construction have any other true meaning than that the said thing so termed is not noted to be a thing exceeding evil." And again, Movov, w ' Ao-kXtiitie, to ovojua tov dyadov ev dvSpdimoig, to cJe Epyov ovSa/xov, " Amongst men, O Asclepius, the name of that which is good we find, but no where the very true thing itself." When we censure the deeds and deaUngs of our superiors, to bring with us a fore conceit thus qualified, shall be, as well on our part as theirs, a thing available unto quietness. But howsoever the case does stand with men's either good or bad quality, the verdict which our Lord and Saviour has given should continue for ever sure ; Quce Dei sunt, Deo ; let men bear the burthen of their own iniquity ; as for those things which are God's, let not God be deprived of them. For if only to with hold that which should be given, be no better than to rob God 3 ; if to withdraw any mite of that which is but in purpose only bequeathed, though as yet undelivered into the sacred treasure of God, be a sin for which Ananias and Sapphira felt so heavily the dreadful hand of divine revenge * ; quite and clean to take that away which we never gave, and that after God has for so many ages therewith been possessed, and that without any other show of cause, saving only that it seems in their eyes who seek it, too much for them which have it in their hands, — can we term it or think it less than most impious injustice, most heinous sacri lege ? Such was the religious affection of Joseph, that it suffered him not to take that advantage, no not against the very idolatrous priests of Egypt, which he took for the purchasing of other men's lands to the king 5 ; but he considered, that albeit their idolatry deserved hatred, yet for the honour's sake due unto priesthood, better it was the king himself should yield them relief in public extremity, than permit that the same necessity should constrain 1 Plat, in Phasd. ' M. Tris. in Poemandro. dial. vi. 3 Mai. iii, 8. * Acts v. 2. 5 Gen. xlvii. 22. 394 RICHARD HOOKER. also them to do as the rest of the people did. But it may be men have now found out, that God has proposed the Christian clergy as a prey for aU men freely to seize upon ; that God has left them as the fishes of the sea, which every man that listeth to gather into his net may ; or that there is no God in heaven to pity them, and to regard the injuries which man does lay upon them. Yet the public good of this Church and commonwealth does, I hope, weigh somewhat in the hearts of all honestly disposed men. Unto the pubUc good no one thing is more directly avail able, than that such as are in place, whether it be of civil or of ecclesiastical authority, be so much the more largely furnished even with external helps and ornaments of this life, how much the more highly they are in power and calling advanced above others. For nature is not contented with bare sufficiency unto the sustenance of man, but does evermore covet a decency pro portionable unto the place which man has in the body or society of others. For according unto the greatness of men's calling, the measure of all their actions does grow in every man's secret expectation ; so that great men do always know that great things are at their hands expected. In a bishop great liberality, great hospitality, actions in every kind great are looked for : and for actions which must be great, mean instruments wUl not serve. Men are but men, what room soever amongst men they hold. If therefore the measure of their worldly abiUties be beneath that proportion which their calling does make to be looked for at their hands, a stronger inducement it is than perhaps men are aware of unto evil and corrupt dealings for supply of that defect. For which cause we must needs think it a thing necessary unto the common good of the Church, that, great jurisdiction being granted unto bishops over others, a state of wealth proportionable should likewise be provided for them. Where wealth is had in so great admiration, as generally in this golden age it is, that without it angelical perfections are not able to deliver from extreme con tempt, surely to make bishops poorer than they are, were to make them of less account and estimation than they should be. Where fore if detriment and dishonour do grow to religion, to God, to His Church, when the public account which is made of the chief of the clergy decays, how should it be, but in this respect, for the good of religion, of God, of His Church, that the wealth of bishops be carefully preserved from further diminution ? The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 395 The travels and crosses wherewith prelacy is never unaccom panied, they which feel them know how heavy and how great they are. Unless such difficulties, therefore, annexed unto that estate be tempered, by co-annexing thereunto things esteemed of in this world, how should we hope that the minds of men, shunning naturaUy the burthens of each function, wiU be drawn to under take the burthen of episcopal care and labour in the Church of Christ ? Wherefore if long we desire to enjoy the peace, quiet ness, order and stability of religion, which prelacy (as has been declared) causes, then must we necessarily, even in favour of the public good, uphold those things, the hope whereof being taken away, it is not the mere goodness of the charge, and the divine acceptation thereof, that will be able to invite many thereunto. What shaU become of that commonwealth or Church in the end, which hath not the eye of learning a to beautify, guide, and direct it? At the length, what shaU become of that learning, which has not wherewith any more to encourage her industrious followers? And finally, what shall become of that courage to foUow learning, which has already so much failed through the only diminution of her chiefest rewards, bishopricks? Surely, wheresoever this wicked intendment of overthrowing cathedral churches, or of taking away those livings, lands, and possessions, which bishops hitherto have enjoyed, shall once prevail, the hand maids attending thereupon wiU be paganism and extreme bar barity. In the law of Moses, how careful provision is made that goods of this kind might remain to the Church for ever ! " Ye shall not make common the holy things of the children of Israel, lest ye die, saith the Lord V Touching the fields annexed unto Levitical cities, the law was plain, they might not be sold ; and the reason of the law this, " for it was their possession for ever 2." He which was Lord and owner of it, His will and pleasure was, that from the Levites it should never pass to be enjoyed by any other. The Lord's own portion, without His own commission and grant, how should any man justly hold ? They which hold it by His appointment, had it plainly with this condition, " They shall not seU of it, neither change it, nor aUenate the first-fruits of the land, for it is holy unto the Lord 3." It falls sometimes out, a See Bentley against Collins, Remark xl. 1 Num. xviii. 32. 2 Levit. xxv. 3 Ezek. xlviii. 14, 396 RICHARD HOOKER. as the prophet Habakkuk notes, that the very " prey of savage beasts becometh dreadful unto themselves1." It did so in Judas, Achan, Nebuchadnezzar; their evil purchased goods were their snare, and their prey their own terror ; a thing no where so likely to follow, as in those goods and possessions, which being laid where they should not rest, have, by the Lord's own testimony, his most bitter curse *, their undividable companion. These persuasions we use for other men's cause, not for theirs with whom God and religion are parts of the abrogated Law of Ceremonies. Wherefore not to continue longer in the cure of a sore desperate, — there was a time when the clergy had almost as little as these good people wish ; but the kings of this realm and others, whom God had blest, considered devoutly with themselves, as David in like case sometimes had done, " Is it meet that we at the hands of God should enjoy all kinds of abundance, and God's clergy suffer want?" They considered that of Solomon, " Honour God with thy substance, and the chiefest of all thy revenue ; so shall thy barns be filled with corn, and thy vessels shall run over with new wine 3." They considered how the care which Jehosaphat had4, in providing that the Levites might have encouragement to do the work of the Lord cheerfully, was left of God as a fit pattern to be followed in the Church for ever. They considered what promise our Lord and Saviour had made unto them, at whose hands His prophets should receive but the least part of the meanest kind of friendUness, though it were but a draught of water : which promise seems not to be taken, as if Christ had made them of any higher courtesy uncapable, and had promised reward not unto such as give them but that, but unto such as leave them but that. They considered how earnest the apostle is, that if the ministers of the law were so amply provided for, less care then ought not to be had of them, who, under the gospel of Jesus Christ possessed correspondent rooms in the Church. They considered how needful it is, that they who pro voke all others unto works of mercy and charity, should espe cially have wherewith to be examples of such things, and by such, means to win them with whom other means, without those, do commonly take very small effect. In these and the like conside rations the Church revenues were in ancient times augmented, 1 Habak.ii. If. 2 Mai. iii. 9. 3 Prov. iii. 9. ' 2 Chron. xix. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 397 our Lord thereby performing manifestly the promise made to His servants, that they which did " leave either father, or mother, or lands, or goods, for his sake, should receive even in this world an hundred fold." For some hundreds of years together, they which joined themselves to the Church were fain to relinquish all worldly emoluments, and to endure the hardness of an afflicted estate. Afterward the Lord gave rest to his Church ; kings and princes became as fathers thereunto ; the hearts of all men in clined towards it, and by His providence there grew unto it every day earthly possessions in more and more abundance, till the greatness thereof bred envy, which no diminutions are able to satisfy. For, as those ancient nursing-fathers thought they did never bestow enough, even so in the eye of this present age, as long as any thing remains it seems to be too much. Our fathers we imitate " in perversum," as TertuUian speaks ; like them we are, by being in equal degree the contrary unto that which they were. Unto those earthly blessings which God as then did with so great abundance pour down upon the ecclesiastical state, we may in regard of most near resemblance apply the selfsame words which the Prophet has, " God blessed them exceedingly, and by this very mean turned the hearts of their own brethren to hate them, and to deal poUticly with his servants * ." Computations are made, and there are huge sums set down for princes, to see how much they may amplify and enlarge their own treasure; how many pubUc burthens they may ease ; what present means they have to reward their servants about them, if they please but to grant their assent, and to accept of the spoil of bishops, by whom Church-goods are but abused unto pomp and vanity. Thus albeit they deal with one, whose princely virtue gives them small hope to prevaU in impious and sacrilegious motions ; yet shame they not to move her royal Majesty even with a suit not much unlike unto that wherewith the Jewish High Priest tried Judas, whom they solicited unto treason against his Master, and pro posed unto him a number of silver pence in lieu of so virtuous and honest a service. But her sacred Majesty disposed to be always Uke herself, her heart so far estranged from willingness to gain by piUage of that estate, the only awe whereof under God she has been unto this present hour, as of all other parts of this 1 Psalm cv. 24, 25. 398 RICHARD HOOKER. noble commonwealth, whereof she has vowed herself a protector till the end of her days on earth, which, if Nature could permit, we wish, as good cause we have, endless : this her gracious incli nation is more than a seven times sealed warrant, upon the same assurance whereof touching time and action, so dishonourable as this, we are on her part most secure, not doubting but that unto all posterity it shall for ever appear, that from the first to the very last of her sovereign proceedings there has not been one autho rized deed other than consonant with that Symmachus says, " Fiscus honor um Principum non Sacerdotum damnis sed hostium spoliis augeatur ;" consonant with the imperial law ; " Ea qua ad beatissima Ecclesia jura pertinent, tanquam ipsam sacrosanctam et religiosam Ecclesiam intacta convenit venerabiliter custodiri ; ut sicut ipsa religionis et fidei mater perpetua est, ita ejus patrimo- nium jugiter servetur ilbxsum V As for the case of public burthens, let any politician living make it appear that by confiscation of bishops' livings, and their utter dissolution at once, the commonwealth shaU ever have half that relief and ease which it receives by their continuance as now they are, and it shall give us some cause to think that albeit we see they are impiously and irreUgiously minded, yet we may esteem them at least to be tolerable commonwealth's-men. But the case is too clear and manifest, the world does but too plainly see it, that no one order of subjects whatsoever within this land does bear the seventh part of that proportion which the clergy bears in the burthens of the commonwealth : no revenue of the crown like unto it, either for certainty or for greatness. Let the good which this way has grown a to the commonwealth by the dissolution of 1 Lib. i. Ep. 54. DDD. Valent. Theodos. et Arcad. L. xiv. C. de sacros. Eccles. a Lord Coke furnishes us with one pertinent example of the kind of per formance which may be invariably expected from the promises of Church plunderers. *' On the king's behalf," (Henry VIII.) says he, fourth Instit. chap. 3. p. 44, " the members of both houses were informed in parliament, that no king or kingdom was safe, but where the king had three abilities : "1. To live of his own, and able to defend his kingdom upon any sudden invasion or insurrection. 2. To aid his confederates, otherwise they would never assist him. 3. To reward his well-deserving servants. Now the pro ject was, that if the parliament would give unto him all the abbeys, priories, friaries, nunneries, and other monasteries, that forever in time then to come he would take order that the same should not be converted to private use ; but The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 399 religious houses teach men what ease unto public burthens there is like to grow by the overthrow of the clergy. My meaning is first, that his exchequer for the purposes aforesaid should be enriched; secondly, the kingdom strengthened by a continual maintenance of forty thousand well-trained soldiers, with skilful captains and commanders ; thirdly, for the benefit and ease of the subjects, who never afterwards (as was projected) in any time to come, should be charged with subsidies, fifteenths, loans, or other common aids. . . . The said monasteries were given to the king by authority of divers acts of parliament, but no provision was therein made for the said project, or any part thereof ; only ad faciendum populum, these possessions were given to the king, his heirs, and successors, to do and use therewith after his and their own wills, to the pleasure of Almighty God, and the honour and profit of the realm. " Now observe the catastrophe. In the same parliament of 32 Hen. VIII. when the great and opulent priory of St. John's of Jerusalem was given to the king, he demanded and had a subsidy, both of the clergy and laity ; and the like he had in 34 Hen. VIII., and in 37 Hen. VIII. he had another sub sidy ; and since the dissolution of the said monasteries he exacted divers loans, and against law he received the same." " A blunt writer of that age made bold thus to address himself to the members of both houses : ' Ye that be lords and burgesses of the parliament- house . . . your pretence of putting down abbeys was to amend that which was amiss in them. It was far amiss, that a great part of the lands of the abbeys should be spent upon a few superstitious monks, which gave not forty pounds in alms when they should have given two hundred. It was amiss that monks should have parsonages in their hands. . . It was amiss that they scarcely among twenty set one sufficient vicar to preach,' &c. " But see now, how that which was amiss is amended, for all the godly pretence. It is amended, even * as the devil amended his dame's leg,' (as it is in the proverb,) when he should have set it right, he brake it quite in pieces. The monks gave too little alms, and set unable persons many times in their benefices. But now, where twenty pounds were given yearly to the poor, is not one meal's meat given ; — this is a fair amendment ! — where they had always one or other vicar, that either preached or hired some to preach ; now there is no vicar at all, but the farmer is vicar and parson altogether ; and only an old cast-away monk or friar, which can scarcely say his matins is hired for twenty or thirty shillings, with meat and drink ; yea, in some places for meat and drink alone, without any wages. 1 know, and not I alone, but twenty thousand men know, more than five hundred vicarages thus well and gospelly served, after the new gospel of England." Kennett's Case of Impropriations, 1 28 — 3 1 . In the next great crisis of the national condition of England, the harvest which the country had to reap, from giving ear to the counsels of faction, impiety, and sacrilege, was of a kindred description. " Notwithstanding the parliament," (says Lord Clarendon) " raised incre dible sums of money upon the sale of the Church and crown lands, for which they found purchasers enough amongst their own party; notwith- 7 400 RICHARD HOOKER. not hereby to make the state of bishopricks and of those dissolved companies alike, the one no less unlawful to be removed than the other. For those religious persons a were men which followed standing these vast receipts, which they ever pretended should ease the peo ple of their burthen, and should suffice to pay the army their expenses at sea and land, their debts were so great that they raised the public taxes ; and besides all customs and excise, they levied a monthly contribution of above a hundred thousand pounds by a land-tax throughout the kingdom, which was more than had been ever done before ; and it being at a time when they had no enemy who contended with them, was an evidence that it would have no end ; and that the army was still to be kept up to make good the resolution they had taken, to have no more to do with the king ; and that made the resolution generally the more odious. All this grew the more insupportable by reason that upon the publishing this last monstrous Declaration most of the persons of condition, who, as hath been said before, had been seduced to do them service throughout the kingdom, declined to appear longer in so de testable an employment ; and now a more inferior sort of the common people succeeded in those employments, who thereby exercised so great insolence over those who were in quality above them, that it was very grievous ; and for this, let the circumstances be what they would, no redress could be ever obtained. They who were not above the condition of ordinary inferior con stables six or seven years before were now the Justices of Peace, Sequestra tors, and Commissioners, who executed the commands of the parliament, in all the counties of the kingdom, with such rigour and tyranny as was natural for such persons to use over and towards those upon whom they had for merly looked at such a distance. But let their sufferings be never so great, and the murmur and discontent never so general, there was no shadow of hope by which they might discern any possible relief ; so that they who had struggled as long as they were able submitted patiently to the yoke ; with the more satisfaction, in that they saw many of those who had been the principal contrivers of all the mischiefs to satisfy their own ambition and that they might govern others, reduced to almost as ill a condition as them selves ; at least to as little power, authority, and security ; whilst the whole government of the nation remained upon the matter, wholly in their hands, who in the beginning of the parliament were scarce ever heard of." History of the Rebellion, book x. a " Certainly the monastic state was different from the state of the clergy, and their offices very distinct and separate; the monks for a private, the clergy for a public function ; the one to retire for their own souls, the other to watch for the souls of the people, in baptizing, preaching, visiting the sick, which offices the monks were forbidden to meddle with by the canons of the Church. Hence, St. Bernard, the most pious man of this (the Cis- tertian) order, declared himself to be troubled and grieved, that the monks should rob the parochial clergy of their maintenance, which was allotted them on purpose to attend the cure of souls. Indeed, Petrus Cluniacensis undertook to defend the monks. All he could say is, ' We pray for men's souls ;' but, alas, barely to pray for souls is by no means to take the charge The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 401 only a special kind of contemplative life in the commonwealth, they were properly no portion of God's clergy, (only such amongst them excepted, as were also priests) their goods (that excepted, which they unjustly held through the pope's usurped power of appropriating ecclesiastical livings unto them) may in part seem to be of the nature of civil possessions, held by other kinds of corporations, such as the City of London has divers. Wherefore, as their institution was human, and their end for the most part superstitious, they had not therein merely that holy and divine interest which belongs unto bishops, who being em ployed by Christ in the principal service of His Church, are receivers and disposers of His patrimony, as has been showed, which whosoever shaU withhold or withdraw at any time from them, he undoubtedly robs God Himself. If they abuse the goods of the Church unto pomp and vanity, such faults we do not excuse in them. Only we wish it to be considered whether such faults be verily in them, or else but objected against them by such as gape after spoU, and therefore are no competent judges what is moderate^ and what excessive in them, whom under this pretence they would spoil. But the accu sation may be just. In plenty and fulness it may be we are of God more forgetful than were requisite. Notwithstanding, men should remember how not to the clergy alone it was said by Moses in Deuteronomy, " Ne cum manducaveris et biberis et do- mos optimas cedificaveris." If the remedy prescribed for this dis ease be good, let it unpartially be applied a : " Interest Reipublicae ut re sua QUisguE bene utatur." Let all states be put to their moderate pensions, let their livings and lands be taken away from them whosoever they be, in whom such ample possessions are found to have been matters of grievous abuse : were this just ? would noble families think this reasonable ? The title which bishops have to their livings is as good as the title of any sort of men unto whatsoever we account to be most justly held by them; yea, in this one thing the claim of bishops has pre-eminence above all secular titles of right, in that God's own interest is the tenure whereby they hold, even as also it was to the priests of of them, nor to deserve the reward that is due to that great charge." Ken nett's Case of Impropriations, p. 86. Compare Bishop Stillingfleet's Ecclesi astical Cases, I. 205. a Compare above, p. 114, Burke, and note (a). vol. ill. D d 402 RICHARD HOOKER. the Law an assurance of their spiritual goods and possessions, whereupon though they many times abused greatly the goods of the Church, yet was not God's patrimony therefore taken away from them, and made saleable unto other tribes. To rob God, to ransack the Church, to overthrow the whole order of Christian bishops, and to turn them out of land and Uving, out of house and home, what man of common honesty can think it for any manner of abuse to be a remedy lawful or just ? We must con fess that God is righteous in taking away that which men abuse ; but does that excuse the violence of thieves and robbers ? Complain we wiU not with St. Jerome x, " that the hands of men are so straitly tied, and their liberal minds so much bridled and held back from doing good by augmentation of the Church patrimony." For we confess that herein mediocrity may be and has been sometimes exceeded. There did want heretofore a Moses to temper men's liberality, to say unto them who enriched the Church, " sufficit," stay your hands, lest fervour of zeal do cause you to empty yourselves too far. It may be the largeness of men's hearts being then more moderate, had been after more durable ; and one state by too much overgrowing the rest, had not given occasion unto the rest to undermine it. That evil is now sufficiently cured : the Church-treasury, if then it were over full, has since been reasonably weU emptied. That which Moses spake unto givers, we must now inculcate unto takers away from the Church, " Let there be some stay, some stint in spoiling." If " grape gatherers came unto them," says the prophet, " would they not leave some remnant behind 2 ?" But it has fared with the wealth of the Church as with a tower, which being buUt at the first with the highest, overthrows itself after by its own great ness ; neither does the ruin thereof cease with the only fall of that which has exceeded mediocrity, but one part bears down another, till the whole be laid prostrate. For although the state ecclesiastical, both others and even bishops themselves, be now fallen to so low an ebb, as all the world at this day does see ; yet because there remains still somewhat which unsatiable minds can thirst for, therefore we seem not to have been hitherto sufficiently 1 Pudet dicere, sacerdotes idolorum ; aurigse, mimi et scorta hasreditates capiunt, solis clericis et monachis, id lege prohibetur, et prohibetur non a persecutoribus sed principibus Christianis. Nee de lege conqueror, sed doleo quod meruerimus hanc legem. Ad Nepot. 7. 2 Obad. ver. 5. The Honours and the Property of the Prelates. 403 wronged. Touching that which has been taken from the Church in appropriations known to amount to the value of one hundred and twenty-six thousand pounds yearly, we rest contentedly and quietly without it, till it shall please God to touch the hearts of men, of their own voluntary accord to restore it to Him again ; judging thereof no otherwise than some others did of those goods which were by Sylla taken away from the citizens of Rome, that albeit they were in truth male capta, unconscionably taken away from the right owners at the first, nevertheless seeing that such as were after possessed of them held them not without some title, which law did after a sort make good, "repetitio eorum proculdubio labefactabat compositam civitatem \" What has been taken away as dedicated unto uses superstitious, and consequently not given unto God, or at the leastwise not so rightly given, we repine not thereat. That which has gone by means secret and indirect, through corrupt compositions or compacts, we cannot help. What the hardness of men's hearts does make them loath to have ex acted, though being due by law, even thereof the want we do also bear. Out of that which after aU these deductions comes clearly unto our hands, I hope it wiU not be said that towards the public charge we disburse nothing. — And does the residue seem yet excessive ? — The ways whereby temporal men provide for them selves and their famUies are fore-closed unto us. All that we have to sustain our miserable life with is but a remnant of God's own treasure, so far already diminished and , dipt, that if there were any sense of common humanity left in this hard-hearted world, the impoverished estate of the clergy of God would at the length even of very commiseration be spared. The mean gentleman that has but an hundred pound land to Uve on, would not be hasty to change his worldly estate and condition with many of these so overabounding prelates ; a common artisan or tradesman of the city with ordinary pastors of the Church. It is our hard and heavy lot that no other sort of men being grudged at, how little benefit soever the public weal reap by them, no state complained of for holding that which has grown unto them by lawful means; only the governors of our souls, they that study day and night so to guide us, that both in this world we may have comfort, and in the world to come endless feUcity and joy, (for even such is the very scope of aU their endeavours ; this they wish, for this they ' Flor. lib. iii. c. 13. Dd2 404 RICHARD HOOKER. labour, how hardly soever we use to construe of their intents) hard, that only they should be thus continuaUy lifted at for pos sessing but that whereunto they have by law both of God and man most just title. If there should be no other remedy but that the violence of men in the end must needs bereave them of aU succour, further than the incUnations of others shall vouchsafe to cast upon them as it were by way of alms for their relief but from hour to hour ; better they are not than their fathers, who have been contented with as hard a portion at the world's hands. Let the Ught of the sun and moon, the common benefit of heaven and earth be taken away from bishops if the question were, whether God should lose His glory, and the safety of His Church be hazarded, or they reUnquish the right and interest which they have in the things of this world : — but sith the question in truth is, whether Levi shall be deprived of the portion of God or no, to the end that Simeon or Reuben may devour it as their spoil, — the comfort of the one in sustaining the injuries which the other would offer, must be that prayer poured out by Moses the prince of prophets in most tender affection to Levi, " Bless, O Lord, his substance, accept thou the work of his hands ; smite through the loins of them that rise up against him, and of them which hate him, that they rise no more 1." 1 Deut. xxxiii. 10, 11. XVII. OF SACRILEGE a. On a Fast-day at Jersey, 1647. The original and ground of the first institution of fasts and solemn days of humiliation a, was to deprecate God's judgment, and to remove some heavy afflictions either actually brought upon, or immediately threatened by Him upon, that people ; and in order thereunto to make a faithful inquisition into aU sins, and to enter into a covenant against those which seem to be most cordialLy embraced by us, and consequently the most Likely causes of the present calamities we groan under : so that though every act of devotion should raise in us a detestation of all sins whatsoever, yet as a particular fast is commonly for the removal of a particular judgment, so the devotion of that day will not be too much circumscribed and Umited, if it be intent upon the inquisition into the nature and mischief of one particular sin, and in the endeavour to raise up some fence and fortification that that sin may not break in upon us ; especially if it be such a one, as either our own incUnations, or the iniquity and temper of the time in which we Uve, is like to invite us to. If the business of our fasts be only to inveigh and pray against the sins we are least incUned to, we make them indeed days of triumph over other men's wickedness, not of humiliation for our * From Tracts by the Earl of Clarendon. b See Hooker, book v. chap. 72. 406 LORD CLARENDON. own ; and arraign them, not prostrate ourselves before God. If the Parliament's fast-days had been celebrated with a due and ingenuous disquisition of the nature and odiousness of hypocrisy, rebellion, and profaneness, instead of discourses against popery, tyranny, and superstition ; which, though they are grievous sins, were not yet the sins of those congregations ; and if the fast-days observed by the King's party had been spent in prayer for, and sincere study of, temperance, justice, and patience in adversity, of the practical duties of a Christian, of the obUgations of conscience to constancy and perseverance in our duty, and of the shame, and dishonesty, and impiety of redeeming our fortunes or Uves with the breach of our conscience, instead of arguments against taking up arms against lawful authority, sedition, and schism; which, though they are enormous crimes, were not yet the crimes of those congregations ; — both parties, without doubt, would not have been as constant to their own sins as to their fasts ; — as if all their devotions had been to confirm them in what they had done amiss, and in the end to shake hands in the same sins, and determine all further dispute of oaths, by an union in perjury, a general taking the covenant, and to extinguish rebelUon by an universal submission, and guilt in sacrUege a. I have not yet met with any man so hardy as to deny that sacrilege is a sin ; or to aver that, being a sin, a man may be guilty of it for any worldly consideration or advantage whatso ever ; and yet, as if there were no such thing in nature, or as if it were only a term of art to perplex men in debates, men of all tempers, and scarce reconcileable in any other conclusion or de sign, are very frankly and lovingly united in this mystery of iniquity : which I cannot be so uncharitable as to believe proceeds from a vicious habit of the mind, but an inadvertency and inco- j a To enter into the special force and import, of the close of this paragraph and the opening of the next, we must advert to the date, (which is wrong in all the printed editions, viz. 1641.) This Essay was written when the Par liament had been triumphant, and the war might be considered as over. The King was a prisoner, and his party almost entirely broken up. Hence, many of them, as individuals, were yielding to make the best terms they could with their conquerors ; and, other hopes being over, to save, out of the universal wreck and havoc, such provision as they could for themselves, in a mere worldly view. This course of proceeding was witnessed with much pain and concern by Sir Edward Hyde. Of Sacrilege. 407 gitancy of the nature and consequence of the sin itself. It would not otherwise be, that a thing that hath been so odious from the beginning of the world amongst aU brave nations, who have been endued but with the light of nature, and have made any pretence to virtue, that they could not fix a brand of more infamy upon the most exorbitant person in the practice of all vice, than to call him a " sacrilegious" person, should be now held of so Uttle moment amongst Christians ; and that when all things dedicated and separated for holy uses have been always accounted and reputed so sacred by men of all religions, or pre tenders to religion, that where any violation has been offered to the temples of any gods, — when a country hath been pronounced to be destroyed with fire and sword, and all cruelty practised by order against aU ages and' sexes, — the general of those armies has, by his sacrilege, lost the reward of his other conquests, and been punished with infamy and dishonour by those who have enjoyed the benefit of his victory, though they served not those gods, or accounted them such, whom he had spoiled: — as we find frequent examples in the Roman story ; — who besides that justice upon those accidents, celebrated some devotions to absolve their state from the guUt, and ordered reparation and restitution to be made to those deities which had been robbed and profaned ; — yet after sixteen hundred years study and profession of Christianity, those horrible crimes should pass by us, and we pass through them, not only without the least compunction of conscience, but without the least blush or apprehension of a fault. " WU1 a man rob God?" says the prophet Malachi, ch. iii. 8. None will be so impudently wicked to say he will; " Yet ye have robbed me : — but ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee ?" " In tithes and offerings," says the same spirit. Pretend what you wiU to reverence, and fear of God, if you take away what is consecrated, what is dedicated to Him, you do no better than rob God Himself; and rob Him with aU those circumstances which most offend and grieve Him. Tremellius renders it "spoliatis me," but the vulgar has it " configitis me," which is worse : spoiling a man, supposes some great act of violence in the cir cumstance ; but a man that is spoUed may be yet left at Uberty to shift for himself, and may find relief again by others ; but " configitis me" you have not been content to rob and to spoil me, but you have nailed me, you have bound me fast, that I can not stir to keep myself, nor to go to others to help me. He that 7 408 LORD CLARENDON. commits sacrilege, has done the best he can to bind God so fast, to put Him in that condition, that nobody should serve Him ; and therefore amongst the Jews, he that was guUty of it was thought to offend God "primario" and to sin against the first table; whereas, as other thefts or robberies were but offences 'against the second table, they spoiled not God Himself : — and we cannot think reasonably that this was a sin only under the law, and is none under the gospel. If there had been no such thing in nature, St. Paul sure would never have reproached the Romans with their hypocrisy, in pretending to abhor idolatry, and yet committing sacrilege. And that argumentation by interrogating is very observable, as if idolatry and sacrilege were one and the same sin ; " Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal ? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery ? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?" "Non multum distat," says the learned Gro- tius, "falsos Deos colere, et verum spoliare ;" there is very little difference between adoring false gods, and robbing the true God. And that the robbing and defrauding the Church is this very sacrilege condemned, appears evidently by that saying of the town-clerk in the Acts, " Ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess," Acts xix. 37, where the same word is used in the original (hpoavXovg), which St. Paul uses to the Romans, which is no where applied to any other robbers throughout the Scripture. If it were possible that men who have no piety should have any justice, even that alone, without the other, would give a rule in this point. With what justice can that, which the goodness and bounty of our ancestors have directed to one use, be taken away, and appUed to another, nay, to such a one as we are mo rally sure is a use the founders or donors would never have given the same ? I doubt not, but there may be a supposition of such uses as may not be agreeable to the policy and peace of the state, but then the act itself is void, and no such grant can be made ; or if the poUcy of succeeding times find that use (being a civil use) inconvenient to the present temper, and so abrogate it, it will be still as if there were no donation, and the thing given must revert to his use, whose it would naturaUy have been if there had been none such. Neither can law in those cases alter the matter of right and justice ; it may render me more potent to do hurt and injury, by making that damage and injury unpenal to Of Sacrilege. 409 me ; it cannot make the thing I do just, or lessen my guilt before God. I speak of things evil in themselves, as all things are which God Himself has expressly inhibited to be done; and therefore, if there were an act of Parliament, which authorized the stronger to rob or kiU the weaker, I do not think any man will say, that is less murder or theft before God, than if there were no such act; and, I confess, I cannot apprehend how spoil ing or defrauding the Church can be less sacrilege, by what au thority soever men are qualified to commit it. But if we examine this a little farther, we shaU find, that though no man (as I said before) denied sacrilege to be a sin, yet very many deny that to be sacrilege which has been commonly accounted sacrilege. They do not, or seem not to beUeve, that it is the same sin in the gospel that it was in the law ; at least, that things do not become dedicated in the same manner to God under the gospel, as they did under the law; because, as to a gift there is always to be a receiver as well as a giver, so there is not evidence under the gospel, that God does accept and receive what is given, as there was under the law, and therefore that it cannot be sacrilege. They are contented that there shall be sa crilege as it is ecclesiastical robbery ; and that as it is felony to steal a pot out of a common house, so it shall be sacrilege to steal the chalice out of the church, and are wiUing that they shall be equaUy punished for it ; but they are not at all satisfied to allow a distinction, or that there is any difference of places now. And these are in truth the more ingenuous of the two, and they will best decline the committing of sacrilege, who do reject aU differ ence and distinction of persons and places ; and so neither leave God Himself a capacity of being robbed, nor suffer those who claim under Him, by serving at His altar, or His Church, to have a property in any thing, of which they may not be deprived for the conveniency of a great man, or of the state in which they live. — But these men may remember, that they give no better, or in deed other reasons for this their bold assertion, than their proge nitors the heathens did, when they were possessed with their spirit, to contradict a definition of sacrilege, current in all times, as agreeable to the law of nature : " Quisquis id quod Deorum est sustulit et consumpsit, atque in usum suum vertit, sacrilegus est :" They thought they refelled this proposition very substantially when they denied this to be sacrilege, because of the universal power and dominion the gods had over all things and places, 410 LORD CLARENDON. •' Quia quicquid sublatum est ex eo loco, qui Deorum erat, in eum transfertur locum qui Deorum est." Nor need there be an other answer given to them than the philosopher, who I doubt was a better divine than many of their teachers, then gave, " Omnia quidem Deorum esse, sed non omnia Diis dicata ;" and he convinced them by an argument very like their own, that aU the world was the temple of the immortal gods, ("Solum quidem amplitudine illorum ac magnificentid dignum ;) et tamen a sacris profana discerni, et non omnia licere in angido, cui nomen fani im- positum est, quo? sub cado et conspectu siderum licent;" many things may be done in other places which are neither fit nor lawful to be done in churches, or places dedicated to God's service. — The most sacrilegious person cannot do any injury to God, " Quem extra ictum sua divinitas posuit ; sed tamen punitur quia tanquam Deo fecit'' If this were not known to be Seneca's, it might be well owned by those casuists who are to dispute with these men; who yet, it may be, will rather choose to be converted by the philosopher, as it is the dictate of natural reason, without the au thority of the Church. And it can never be enough lamented, that after places have been set aside in all nations, from the time of which we have any records, and assigned for the peculiar ser vice and worship of that divinity that was there acknowledged ; and after so much pious care for the buUding of churches to that end, from the time that Christianity has had any authority in the world: and after that the Christian clergy have been owned and acknowledged under that appellation, and who, according to the judgment of as learned a man, I think, as any age has brought (Mr. Mede) can derive their descent from the apostles themselves ; that is, from those for whom their Lord and Master prayed unto His Father, " Sanctify them (Father) unto or for thy truth : thy word is truth x ;" that is, says He, separate them unto the ministry of Thy truth : — I say, it is matter of great la mentation, that these places and these persons should now be esteemed so common, and of so little regard ; and be looked upon as the only places and persons to which an injury cannot be done, or to whom an affront or indignity cannot be committed. And it is a very weighty observation by the said Mr. Mede (who never received tithes or offerings, and was too little known in the church whilst he lived,) that they are in a great error, who rank 1 John xvii. 7. Of Sacrilege. 411 sacrilege as a sin against the eighth commandment ; for though he that commits sacrUege, indirectly and by consequence robs men too, namely, those who should Uve upon God's provision, yet, as sacrilege, it is a sin of the first table, and not of the second, a breach of the loyalty we immediately owe to God, and not of the duty we owe to our neighbour ; and then he cites the text mentioned before in Malachi, " Will a man rob God," &c. And truly, methinks, there is too much said in the New Testament against this sin, to leave it in the power of any man to imagine, that what is said in the Old is abrogated. No man must imagine that this monstrous sin is contracted to, or in any one climate or region, and affected only by those of any one religion ; it is equally spread amongst all nations, and more practised and countenanced amongst those of the Catholic, than of the reformed reUgion ; at least was first introduced and practised by them before it was by these. Emperors and kings contrive and permit it ; and popes themselves no otherwise con tradict it, than that they would not have it committed without their special license and dispensation ; by which it was first planted in England, and as warrantably propagated afterwards by him % who had as much authority to do it himself, as with the consent of the pope. They who know how many abbeys, and other ecclesiastical promotions, are at present possessed by lay men, and what pensions are daily granted upon bishoprics, and other revenues of the church, to laymen and other secular uses, throughout the CathoUc dominions of Germany, Italy, France, and Spain, will rather wonder that there are so fair revenues yet left to the Church in Protestant countries, than that so much has been taken away ; which for the most part was done in Catholic times, and by CathoUc authority. And it is a wonderful thing how little has been said in the one Church or the other, in justi fication or excuse of what has been so much practised in both j and they who have attempted it have done it so obscurely, upon such suppositions, and with such reservations and distinctions, as if they endeavoured to find out or contrive a more warrantable and decent way to do that which ought not to be done at all ; and what they allow proves to be as unlawful by their own rules, as what they condemn ; which falls out very often to be the case in a Henry VIII. 412 LORD CLARENDON. the writings of the schoolmen, and amongst the modern casuists. And it may be, they who are most conscientiously troubled and afflicted with the sense of the sin, and the punishment that must reasonably attend it, and to see so many noble and great families involved insensibly under a guilt, that is already in some degree punished, in their posterities degenerating from the virtue of their ancestors, and their noble blood corrupted with the most abject and vulgar affections and condescensions ; I say, these good men are not enough affected, to search and find out expedients and cures, to redeem these transgressions, and to wipe out the guilt from those who do heartily desire to expiate for the errors and faults of their forefathers. Many men are involved in sacrilege without their privity or consent, by inheritances and descents; and it may be, have made purchases very innocently of lands which they never knew had been dedicated to the Church: and it cannot reasonably be imagined that either of these, especially if they have no other estates, or very little, but what are marked with the same brand, will, out of the conscience of their great-grandfather's im piety, ransom themselves from a leprosy which is not discernible, by giving away aU they have; and which by established laws are as unquestionably their own, as any thing can be made to belong to any man : — but they will rather leave their ancestors to pay their own forfeitures, and be very indulgent to those arguments which would persuade them, that what was sacrilege a hundred years since, is so purged away in so many descents that it ceases to be so in the present possessor : however, he will never file away the stain that may yet remain in his skin, with an instrument that will open aU his veins, till his very heart's blood issue and be drawn out. Nor can it be expected that he who has innocently and lawfully purchased what was innocently and lawfuUy to be sold, because he finds afterwards that those lands had so many years since belonged to some religious house , which if he had known he would not have bought, — will therefore lose his money, and leave the land to him whose conscience will give him leave to take it ; for though he might innocently, because igno- rantly, buy it, he cannot after his discovery seU it with the same innocence ; — but he will choose a lawyer rather than a bishop for his confessor, and satisfy himself with that title which he is sure can be defended. In a word, he must depart too much from his Of Sacrilege. 413 natural understanding, who believes it probable, that all that has been taken from the Church in former ages, will be restored to it in this or those which shaU succeed, to the ruin of those many thousand famines which enjoy the alienations, though they do not think that it was at first with justice and piety aliened; but wiU satisfy themselves with the possession, and by degrees believe, that since it must not be restored to those uses and ends, to which it was at first dedicated and devoted, it may be as justly enjoyed by them with their other title, as by any other persons to whom it may be assigned. Whereas, if learned, prudent, and conscientious men, upon a serious deliberation and reflection of the great mercy of God, and that under the law he both permitted and prescribed expedients to expiate for trespasses and offences, which, by inadvertency and without malice, men frequently run into, and therefore that it may be piously hoped, that in a transgression of this nature, he wiU not be rigorously disposed to exact the utmost farthing from the heirs of the transgressors, who, with the authority of the government under which they lived, and in many cases with the consent a and resignation of those in whom the interest was fully invested, became unwarily owners of what in truth, in a manner, was taken from God Himself; I say, if such men, upon such and other recoUections which might occur to them, would advise a reasonable method, in which they who are possessed of estates and fortunes of that kind, may well assign a proportion of what they enjoy to such pious and charitable uses, as may probably do as much good as those estates did when they were in their possession from whom they were taken, and yet not deprive the owners of more than they may without great damage part with ; — it is very possible b, that very many out of the ob- a " At the time of the dissolution, they were tender in taking from the abbots and priors their lands and their houses, till they surrendered them, as most of them did." Selden's Table Talk, art. Abbeys, § 3. b On the whole of this most important subject very much valuable infor mation will be found in Bishop Kennett's Case of Impropriations, and of the Augmentation of Vicarages and other insufficient Cures, stated by History and Law. 1704. 8vo. " In my own opinion and sense," (says Lord Bacon,) " I must confess that all the parUaments since the 27th and 31st of Hen. VIII., (who gave away impropriations from the Church,) seem to me to stand in a sort ob noxious, and obliged to God in conscience, to do somewhat for the Church, to reduce the patrimony thereof to a competency. ... It were to be wished, 414 LORD CLARENDON. servation of the misfortunes which have often befallen the pos terity of those who have been eminently enriched by those sacred spoils, and it may be out of some casual reflections and reluctancy that impropriations were returned to the Church, as the most proper and natural endowments thereof." Considerations touching the Edification and Pacification of the Church of England. Works, vol. ii. 8vo. The Editor having had occasion recently to deliver his sentiments at some length, in connexion with this matter, hopes he may be excused, if in con sideration of the infinite importance of the subject, he puts upon record a part of those sentiments and statements here. He had been mentioning the great advantages which may be derived from a bill brought in by the present Archbishop of Canterbury, and which was passed in the year 1831, (1 and 2 Will. IV. cap. 45.) the object of which is to grant enabling powers for the augmentation of such small benefices as are in the gift of bishops, deans and chapters, and other ecclesiastical corporations, aggregate or sole, and to colleges and hospitals, out of their own funds. Then, turning to the case of lay patrons, he thus proceeds : — " Why the archbishop contented himself, in his bill, with providing these enabling powers of self-sacrifice only for incumbents and patrons of a clerical character, and did not think the introduction of similar measures for the owners of lay impropriations, a task proper to be undertaken by himself, or any of his episcopal brethren, but would leave the grace and honour of that part of the good work to the laity themselves, is apparent enough : and such delicacy must not fail of being duly appreciated. I consider it perfectly certain, in the increasing conviction of the benefits conferred on the country by the Church of England, and the growing knowledge and perception of the obli gation to acts of piety and charity of the kind to which we are now adverting, connected not only with this particular species of property, but with every other, — that very many lay patrons would most gladly avail themselves of such enabling powers, if put into their hands. Why, therefore, is there any delay ? That lay-man who shall introduce, and shall succeed in carrying such a design through parliament, would entitle himself to a permanent name among the greatest benefactors of his country. " And thus, by the combined powers of these two great schemes of operation, (lay and clerical) running side by side a race of generous and friendly co-operation and rivalry, so much might be expected to take place in no very long time, (and that upon the safest and soundest, the most be nignant and efficacious, the most pious and charitable principles — " it is twice blessed ! it blesseth him that gives and him that takes,") as, when aided by other subsidiary expedients of the same tendency, some already in existence, and others which would readily suggest themselves to those who are happily conversant in these subjects, would go a great way to remedy this by far the greatest and most injm-ious insufficiency and defect in the economy of the Church of England, — a calamity first inflicted upon it by the cupidity of the monastic orders, under the thraldom of the Church of Rome; and afterwards left stamped upon it as the grand opprobrium of the Protestant Of Sacrilege. 415 which now and then may interrupt the most cheerful divertise- ments, would dedicate somewhat of what they enjoy, towards the reparation of what charity has for a long time suffered ; and by this means the poor bishoprics, which cannot support the dignity of the function, may be better endowed, poor vicarages comforta bly supplied, and other charitable works performed in the educa tion of poor children, and the like. And they who thus contribute, out of the freedom and bounty of their natures, will find a serenity of mind that will please them, and make them believe that the rest wiU prosper the better, and that they have more left than they enjoyed before; and when the matter has been well and dis creetly weighed, and good mediums instiUed into the minds of men, by conference and conversation, the method and prescription wiU be most powerfuUy given by the liberality and example of those who are wrought upon by others, or by their own con templation. It is observable, that in these violent and furious attempts against the Church, albeit His Majesty has always publicly de clared, his not complying with them in that particular, (the doing whereof many have supposed would have procured him his desires in aU other particulars a) proceeds purely from matter of con science, and principally from the conclusion, that what they desire is sacrilege ; there has been no application to his person, nor any sober animadversion in writing, to inform his judgment that it is not sacrUege, but only some allegations of former times, it may be too faulty in that particular, and the authority of that council which think they have power to compel him to consent to it, whether it be sacrilege or not; nor has that Assembly of name, through the spirit of rapine and sacrilege at the Reformation." Sacred Edifices, a Sermon, preached at the Consecration, by his Grace the Arch bishop of Canterbury, of St. Mark's Chapel, in the parish of Buxted with Uckfield, Sussex, p. 16. n. a This agrees with the King's own account of the quarter on which he was pressed with the greatest degree of importunity and vehemence. " Had I gratified their anti-episcopal faction at first in this point, with my consent, and sacrificed the ecclesiastical government and revenues to the fury of their covetousness, ambition, and revenge, I believe they would then have found no colourable necessity of raising an army, to fetch in, and punish delin quents." Icon Basilike, chap. ix. And again, chap. xvii. " Yet upon this rack chiefly have I been held so long, by some men's ambitious covetousness, and sacrilegious cruelty, torturing, with me, both Church and State in civil dissensions." 416 LORD CLARENDON. Divines, who have so frankly given their consent to the destruc tion of that Church to which they had formerly subscribed a, and who are so ready to apply satisfaction to the consciences of men in many things which are enjoined against the light of their own, a The correspondence between the topics and feelings in the meditations of the sovereign and his illustrious minister, in their respective " Solitudes and Sufferings," is well deserving our notice. While Sir Edward Hyde was expressing himself, as we have seen, in his seclusion on a day of fasting and humiliation at Jersey, the King recorded his own reflections as follows. The circumstances of co- incidence are the Assembly of Divines — their apo- stacy — and the point of sacrilege. " What dissolutions of all order and government ; what novelties of schisms and corrupt opinions; what indecencies and confusions in sacred ministrations ; what sacrilegious invasions upon the rights and revenues of the Church; what contempt and oppression of the clergy — have followed the talk of reformation, all sober men are witnesses, and, with myself, sad spectators hitherto. " The Assembly of Divines, whom the two houses have applied, in an un wonted way, to advise of Church affairs, I dislike not further, than that they are not legally convened and chosen ; nor act in the name of all the clergy of England ; nor with freedom and impartiality can do any thing, being limited and confined, if not over-awed, to do and declare what they do. " For I cannot think so many men cried up for learning and piety, who formerly allowed the liturgy and government of the Church of England as to the main, would have so suddenly agreed quite to abolish both of them, (the last of which they knew to be of apostolical institution at least, as of primi tive and universal practice,) — if they had been left to the liberty of their own suffrages ; and if the influence of contrary factions had not, by secret encroachments of hopes and fears, prevailed upon them to comply with so great and dangerous innovations in the Church, without any regard to their own former judgment and practice ; or to the common interest and honour of all the clergy, and in them of order, learning, and religion." Ic6n Basi- like, chap. xx. Again, chap. xvii. " I cannot in charity so far doubt of their learning or integrity, as if they understood not what heretofore they did, or that they did conform contrary to their consciences: so that their facility and levity is never to be excused, who, before ever the point of Church government had any free and impartial debate, contrary to their former oaths and practice, against their obedience to the laws in force, and against my consent, have not only quite cried down the government by bishops, but have approved and en couraged the violent and most illegal stripping all the bishops, and many other churchmen, of all their due authority and revenues, even to the selling away and utter alienation of those Church lands from any ecclesiastical uses ; so great a power has the steam of times, and the prevalency of parties over some men's judgments : of whose so sudden and so total change little reason can be given, besides the Scotch army coming into England." Of Sacrilege. 417 yet presumed to publish any thing to inform the minds of men in this argument. So that there being so little said for it, how much soever is done, a man cannot so easily enlarge his thoughts in a disquisition against it; but had best enlarge his heart by prayer, that the torrent of worldly power, or temptation of profit, may neither overwhelm nor corrupt him, to what his conscience, reason, or understanding, can never otherwise be invited. VOL. III. E e XVIII. GOD'S PECULIAR REGARD TO PLACES SET APART FOR DIVINE WORSHIP a. After the happy expiration of those times which had reformed so many churches to the ground, and in which men used to ex press their honour to God, and their allegiance to their prince, the same way, — demolishing the palaces of the one, and the tem ples of the other ; — it is now our glory and felicity, that God has changed men's tempers with the times, and made a spirit of bund ing succeed a spirit of puUing down : by a miraculous revolution reducing many from the head of a triumphant rebeUion to their old condition of masons, smiths, and carpenters, that, in this capacity, they might repair what, as colonels and captains, they had ruined and defaced. But still it is strange to see any ecclesiastical pile, not by ecclesiastical cost and influence, rising above ground ; especiaUy in an age in which men's mouths are open against the Church, but their hands shut towards it ; an age in which, respecting the generality of men, we might as soon expect stones to be made bread as to be made churches. But the more epidemical and prevailing this evil is, the more honourable are those who stand and shine as exceptions from the common practice ; and may such places built for the divine worship, derive an honour and a blessing upon the head of the builders, as great and lasting as the curse and infamy that never fails to rest upon the sacrilegious a From Dr. Robert South. Sermons, vol. i. p. 173—200. Preached at the consecration of a chapel, 1667. Places for Divine Worship. 419 violators of them ; and a greater I am sure I need not, I cannot wish. Now the foundation of what I shaU discourse, upon the present subject and occasion, shall be laid in that place in Psalm lxxxvii. 2. " God hath loved the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob." The comparison here exhibited between the love God bore to Sion, the great place of his solemn worship, and that which He bore to the other dwellings of Israel, imports, as all other comparisons do in the superior part of them, two things, differ ence and pre-eminence ; and, accordingly, I cannot more com- modiously and naturally contrive the prosecution of these words than by casting the sense of them into these two propositions. I. That God bears a different respect to places set apart and consecrated to His worship, from what He bears to all other places designed to the uses of common Ufe. II. That God prefers the worship paid Him in such places above that which is offered Him in any other places whatsoever. I. As to the former of these, this difference of respect borne by God to such places from what He bears to others, may be evinced these three several ways. 1. By those eminent interposals of providence for the erecting and preserving of such places. 2. By those notable judgments shown by God upon the vio lators of them. 3. Lastly, by declaring the ground and reason why God shows such a different respect to those places from what He manifests to others. Of aU which in their order. 1. First of all, then, those eminent interposals of the Divine Providence for the erecting and preserving such places, will be one pregnant and strong argument to prove the difference of God's respect to them and to others of common use. That Providence which universally casts its eye over all the parts of the creation is yet pleased more particularly to fasten it upon some. God made all the world that He might be wor shipped in some parts of the world; and therefore in the first and most early times of the Church, what care did He manifest e e2 420 DR. ROBERT SOUTH. to have such places erected to His honour ! Jacob He admo nished by a vision, as by a messenger from heaven, to build Him an altar ; and then, what awe did Jacob express to it ! " How dreadful," says He, " is this place ! for surely it is no other than the house of God." What particular inspirations were there upon Aholiab to fit him to work about the sanctuary ! The Spirit of God was the surveyor, director, and manager of the whole busi ness. But above all, how exact and (as we may say with rever ence) how nice was God about the building of the temple ! David, though a man of most intimate converse and acquaintance with God, and one who bore a kingly pre-eminence over others, no less in point of piety than of majesty, after he had made such rich, such vast, and almost incredible provision of materials for the building of the temple ; yet because he had dipped his hands in blood, though but the blood of God's enemies, had the glory of that work taken out of them, and was not permitted to lay a stone in that sacred pile ; but the whole work was entirely re served for Solomon, a prince adorned with those parts of mind, and exalted by such a concurrence of all prosperous events to make him glorious and magnificent, as if God had made it His business to build a Solomon, that Solomon might build Him a house ; to which, had not God bore a very different respect from what He bore to all other places, why might not David have been permitted to build God a temple as weU as to rear himself a palace ? Why might not he, who was so pious as to design, be also so prosperous as to finish it ? God must needs have set a more than ordinary esteem upon that which David, the man after His own heart, the darling of heaven, and the most flaming example of a vigorous love to God that ever was, was not thought fit to have a hand in. And to proceed ; when after a long tract of time, the sins of Israel had even unconsecrated and profaned that sacred edifice, andrfhereby robbed it of its only defence, the palladium of God's presence, so that the Assyrians laid it even with the ground; yet after that a long captivity and affliction had made the Jews fit again for so great a privilege as a pubUc place to worship God in, how did God put it into the heart, even of a heathen prince, to promote the building of a second temple ! How was the work undertaken and carried on amidst all the unlikelihoods and dis couraging circumstances imaginable ! The builders holding the sword in one hand to defend the trowel working with the other ; Places for Divine Worship. 421 yet finished and completed it was under the conduct and protec tion of a pecuUar providence, which made the instruments of that great design prevalent and victorious, and all those moun tains of opposition to become plains before Zorobabel. And lastly, when Herod the great, whose magnificence served him instead of piety to prompt him to an action, if not in him religious ", yet heroic at least, thought fit to puU down that temple, and to build one much more glorious, and fit for the Saviour of the world to appear and preach in, Josephus, in his fifteenth book of the Jewish Antiquities, and the fourteenth chapter, says, that during all the time of its building there fell not so much as a shower to interrupt the work, but the rain still fell by night that it might not retard the business of the day. If this were so, I am not of the number of those who can ascribe such great and strange passages to chance, or satisfy my reason in assigning any other cause of this but the kindness of God Himself to the place of His worship, making the common influences of heaven to stop their course, and pay a kind of homage to the rearing of so sacred a structure ; though I must confess, that David's being prohibited and Herod permitted to build God a temple, might seem strange, did not the absoluteness of God's good pleasure satisfy all sober minds of the reasonableness of God's proceedings, though never so strange and unaccountable. Add to all this, that the extraordinary manifestations of God's presence were stiU in the sanctuary; the cloud, the Urim, and Thumrnim, and the oracular answers of God, were graces and prerogatives proper and peculiar to the sacredness of this place. These were the dignities that made it (as it were) the presence- chamber of the Almighty, the room of audience, where He declared that He would receive and answer petitions from all places under heaven, and where He displayed His royalty and glory. There was no parlour or dining-room in all the dwellings of Jacob, that He vouchsafed the like privileges to. And, more over, how full are God's expressions to this purpose ! " Here have I placed my name, and here will I dwell, for I have a deUght therein." a The allusion is to a passage in Hooker, book v. chap. xv. " The charge of Herod about the temple of God was ambitious ; yet Solomon's virtuous, Constantine's holy." 422 DR. ROBERT SOUTH. But to evidence how different a respect God bears to. things consecrated to His own worship from what He bears to all other things, let that one eminent passage of Corah, Dathan, and Abi- ram, be proof beyond all exception ; in which, the censers of those wretches who, I am sure, could derive no sanctity to them from their own persons, yet upon this account, that they had been consecrated by the offering incense in them, were, by God's spe cial command sequestered from all common use, and appointed to be beaten into broad plates, and fastened as a covering upon the altar : " The censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them make broad plates for a covering of the altar; for they offered them before the Lord, therefore they are hallowed x." It seems this one single use left such an indeUble sacredness upon them that neither the villany of the persons, nor the impiety of the design, could be a sufficient reason to unhaUow and degrade them to the same common use that other vessels may be appUed to. And the argument holds equally good for the consecration of places. The apostle would have no revelling or junketting upon the altar which had been used, and by that use consecrated to the celebration of a more spiritual and divine repast. " Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in ? or despise ye the Church of God 2 ?" says St. Paul. It would have been no answer to have told the apostle, " What ! is not the Church stone and wood as weU as other buildings ? And is there any such pecuUar sanctity in this parcel of brick and mortar ? And must God, who has declared Himself no respecter of persons be now made a respecter of places ?" No ; this is the language of a more spiritualized and refined piety than the apostles and primitive Christians were acquainted with. — And thus much for the first argument, brought to prove the different respect that God bears to things and places consecrated and set apart to His own worship from what He bears to others. 2. The second argument for the proof of the same assertion, shall be taken from those remarkable judgments shown by God, upon the violators of things consecrated and set apart to holy uses. A coal we know, snatched from the altar, once fired the nest of the eagle, the royal and commanding bird ; and so has sacrilege 1 Numb. xvi. 38. 2 l Cor. xi. 12. Places for Divine Worship. 423 consumed a the families of princes, broken sceptres, and destroyed kingdoms. We read how the victorious Philistines were worsted by the captivated ark, which foraged their country more than a conquering army ; they were not able to cohabit with that holy thing ; it was like a plague in their bowels, and a curse in the midst of them; so that they were forced to restore their prey, and to turn their triumphs into supplications. Poor Uzzah b for but touching the ark, though out of care and zeal for its preservation, was struck dead with a blow from heaven. He had no right to touch it, and therefore his very zeal was a sin, and his care an usurpation ; nor could the purpose of his heart excuse the error of his hand. Nay, in the promulgation of the Mosaic law, if so much as a brute beast touched the mountain, the bow of vengeance was ready, and it was to be struck through with a dart, and to die a sacrifice for a fault it could Hot understand. But to give some higher and clearer instances of the divine judgments upon sacrilegious persons, in 1 Kings xiv. 26, we find Shishak, king of Egypt, spoiUng and robbing Solomon's temple ; and that we may know what became of him, we must take notice that Josephus calls him Susac, and tells us that Herodotus calls him Sesostris, and withal reports, that immediately after his return from this very expedition, such disastrous calamities befel his family, that he burnt two of his children himself; that his brother conspired against him ; and lastly, that his son, who succeeded him, was struck blind ; yet not so blind, (in his under standing at least,) but that he saw the cause of aU these mischiefs, and therefore, to redeem his father's sacrilege, gave more and richer things to temples, than his father had stolen from them ; though (by the way) it may seem to be a strange method of re pairing an injury done to the true God, by adorning the temples of the false. — See the same sad effect of sacrilege in the great Nebuchadnezzar : he plunders the temple of God, and we find . the fatal doom that afterwards befel him ; he lost his kingdom, and by a new unheard of judgment, was driven from the society and converse of men, to table with the beasts, and to graze with a See History and Fate of Sacrilege, discovered by examples of Scripture, of Heathens and of Christians, by Sir Henry Spelman, 1698, 8vo. See also his tract, " De non temerandis Ecclesiis," with a preface by Clement Spelman, p. 19-49, 1704 ; and Hooker, book v. § 79, and book vii. § 21-4. b Compare Sanderson, De Obligatione Conscientise, praelect. ii. § 13, and his twelfth Serm. ad Aulam, § 10. 7 424 DR. ROBERT SOUTH. oxen ; the impiety and inhumanity of his sin making him a fitter companion for them, than for those to whom reUgion is more natural than reason itself. And since it was his unhappiness to transmit his sin, together with his kingdom, to his son, while Belshazzar was quaffing in the sacred vessels of the temple, which in his pride he sent for to abuse with his impious sensuality, he sees his fatal sentence, writ by the finger of God, in the very midst of his profane mirth. And he stays not long for the execu tion of it, that very night losing his kingdom, and his life too. And that which makes the story direct for our purpose is, that all this comes upon him for profaning those sacred vessels. God Himself tells us so much by the mouth of His prophet, in Dan. v. 23, where this only sin is charged upon him, and particularly made the cause of his sudden and utter ruin. These were violators of the first temple ; and those that pro^ faned and abused the second, sped no better. And for this, take for instance that first-born of sin and sacrilege, Antiochus ; the story of whose profaning God's house, you may read in the first book of Maccabees, chap, i.; and you may read also at large what success he found after it, in the sixth chapter, where the author tells us, that he never prospered afterwards in any thing, but all his designs were frustrated, his captains slain, his armies defeated; and lastly, himself falls sick, and dies a miserable death. And (which is most considerable as to the present busi ness) when all these evUs befel him, his own conscience tells him, that it was even for this, that he had most sacrilegiously pUlaged and invaded God's house; "Now I remember, (says he,) the evils I did at Jerusalem, how I took the vessels of gold and silver ; I perceive, therefore, that for this cause these evils are come upon me ; and behold, I perish for grief in a strange land V The sin ner's conscience is, for the most part, the best expositor of the mind of God, under any judgment or affliction. Take another notable instance in Nicanor, who purposed and threatened to burn the temple 2, and a curse lights upon him pre sently after; his great army is utterly ruined, he. himself slain in it, and his head and right hand cut off, and hung up before Jeru salem. Where two things are remarkable in the text — 1. That he himself was first slain, a thing that does not usually befal a general of an army : 2. That the Jews prayed against him to God, 1 1 Maccab. vi. 12, 13. 2 l Maccab. vii. 35. Places for Divine Worship. 425 and desired God to destroy Nicanor, for the injury done to His sanctuary only, naming no sin else; and God ratified their prayers, by the judgment they brought down upon the head of him whom they prayed against. God stopped his blasphemous mouth, and cut off his sacrilegious hand, and made them teach the world what it was for the most potent sinner under heaven to threaten the Almighty God, especially in His own house, — for so was the temple. But now, lest some should puff at these instances, as being such as were under a different economy of religion, in which God was more tender of the state and ceremonious part of His worship, and consequently not directly pertinent to ours; therefore to show that all profanation, and invasion of things sacred, is an offence against the eternal law of nature, and not against any positive institution after a time to expire, we need not go many nations off, nor many ages back, to see the vengeance of God upon some famiUes, raised upon the ruins of Churches, and enriched with the spoils of sacrilege, gilded with the name of reformation. And, for the most part, so unhappy have been the purchasers of Church lands, that the world is not now to seek for an argument, from a long experience, to convince it, that though in such purchases men have usually the cheapest penny-worths, yet they have not always the best bargains. For the holy thing has stuck fast to their sides Uke a fatal shaft, and the stone has cried out of the consecrated waUs they have lived within, for a judgment upon the head of the sacrilegious intruder ; and heaven has heard the cry, and made good the curse, so that when the heir of a blasted family has rose up and promised fair, and perhaps flourished for some time upon the stock of excellent parts and great favour, yet at length a cross event has certainly met and stopped him in the career of his fortune, so that he has ever after withered and de clined, and in the end come to nothing, or to that which is worse. So certainly does that, which some caU bUnd superstition, take aim when it shoots a curse at the sacrilegious person. — But I shall not engage in the odious task of recounting the families which this sin has blasted with a curse ; only I shall give one eminent instance, in some persons who had sacrilegiously procured the demolishing of some places consecrated to holy uses. And for this (to show the world that Papists a can commit a Seethe preceding article, No, XVII, Lord Clarendon ; also, Twisden's Historical Vindication, p. 144, 426 DR. ROBERT SOUTH. sacrUege as freely as they can object it to Protestants,) it shall be in that great cardinal and minister of state, Wolsey a, who ob tained leave of Pope Clement the seventh, to demoUsh forty reli gious houses ; which he did by the service of five men, to whose conduct he committed the effecting of that business ; every one of which came to a sad and fatal end. For the pope himself was ever after an unfortunate prince, Rome being twice taken and sacked in his reign, himself taken prisoner, and at length dying a miserable death. Wolsey (as is known) incurred a premunire, forfeited his honour, estate, and life, which he ended, some say, by poison; but certainly, in great calamity. And for the five men employed by him, two of them quarrelled, one of which was slain, and the other hanged for it ; the third drowned himself in a well; the fourth (though rich) came at length to beg his bread; and the fifth was miserably stabbed to death at Dublin, in Ireland. This was the tragical end of a knot of sacrilegious persons;,- from highest to lowest. The consideration of which, and the like passages, one would think should make men keep their fingers off from the Church's patrimony, though not out of love to the Church, (which few men have,) yet at least out of love to them selves, which, I suppose, few want. Nor is that instance in one of another religion to be passed over, (so near it is to the former passage of Nicanor,) of a com mander b in the Parliament's rebel army, who, coming to rifle and deface the cathedral at Lichfield, solemnly, at the head of his troops begged of God to show some remarkable token of his ap probation or dislike of the work they were going about. Imme diately after which, looking out of a window, he was shot in the forehead by a deaf and dumb man. And this was on St. Chadd's day, the name of which saint that church bore, being dedicated to God in memory of the same. Where we see, that as he asked of God a sign, so God gave him one, signing him in the fore head, and that with such a mark as he is like to be known by to all posterity. There is nothing that the united voice of aU history proclaims so loud, as the certain unfailing curse that has pursued and over- a See Spelman' s History and Fate of Sacrilege, p. 171, 2. b Robert Greville, second Lord Brook. See 3 Clarendon, 454—55, Ban- dinel's edit. Places for Divine Worship. 427 taken sacrilege. Make a catalogue of all the prosperous sacri legious persons that have been from the beginning of the world to this day, and I believe they wiU come within a very narrow compass, and be repeated much sooner than the alphabet. ReUgion claims a great interest in the world, even as great as its object, God, and the souls of men. And since God has resolved not to alter the course of nature, and upon principles of nature religion will scarce be supported without the encourage ment of the ministers of it, — Providence, where it loves a nation, concerns itself to own and assert the interest of religion, by blasting the spoilers of religious persons and places. Many have gaped at the Church revenues, but, before they could swaUow them, have had their mouths stopped in the church-yard. — And thus much for the second argument, to prove the different respect that God bears to things consecrated to holy uses ; namely, His signal judgments upon the sacrilegious violators of them. 3. I descend now to the third and last thing proposed for the proof of the first proposition, which is, to assign the ground and reason why God shows such a concern for these things. Touch ing which we are to observe, — 1. Negatively, that it is no worth or sanctity naturally inherent in the things themselves, that either does or can procure them this esteem from God ; for by nature all things have an equally common use. Nature freely and indifferently opens the bosom of the universe to all mankind ; and the very sanctum sanctorum had originaUy no more sacredness in it than the valley of the son of Hinnom, or any other place in Judea. 2. Positively, therefore, the sole ground and reason of this different esteem vouchsafed by God to consecrated things and places, is this, that he has the sole property of them. It is a known maxim, that "in Deo sunt jura omnia;" and consequently, that He is the proprietor of all things, by that grand and transcendent right founded upon creation. Yet, not withstanding, He may be said to have a greater, because a sole property in some things, for that He permits not the use of them to men, to whom yet He has granted the free use of all other things. Now this property may be founded upon a double ground : — First, God's own fixing upon, and institution of, a place or things to His peculiar use. When He shall say to the sons of 428 DR. ROBERT SOUTH. men, as He spake to Adam concerning the forbidden fruit, " Of all things and places that I have enriched the universe with, you may freely make use for your own occasions ; but as for this spot of ground, this person, this thing, I' have selected and appropri ated, I have enclosed it to myself and my own use, and I will endure no sharer, no rival, or companion in it : he that invades them, usurps, and shaU bear the guUt of his usurpation." Now, upon this account, the gates of Sion, and the tribe of Levi, be came God's property. He laid His hand upon them, and said, " These are mine." Secondly, The other ground of God's sole property in any thing or place, is the gift, or, rather, the return of it, made by man to God ; by which act he reUnquishes and delivers back to God all his right to the use of that thing, which before had been freely granted him by God. After which donation, there is an absolute change and alienation made of the property of the thing given, and that as to the use of it too ; which being so alienated, a man has no more to do with it than with a thing bought with another's money, or got with the sweat of another's brow. And this is the ground a of God's sole property in things, per sons and places, now under the Gospel. Men by free gift consign over a place to the divine worship, and thereby have no more right to apply it to another use, than they have to make use of another man's goods. He that has devoted himself to the service of God in the Christian priesthood, has given himself to God, and so can no more dispose of himself to another employment, than he can dispose of a thing that he has sold or freely given away. Now in passing a thing away to another, two things are required : — (1.) A surrender, on the giver's part, of all the property and right he has in the thing given. And to the making of a thing or, place sacred, this surrender of it, by its right owner, is so necessary, that all the rites of consecration used upon a place against the owner's will, and without his giving up his property, make not that place sacred, forasmuch as the property of it is not hereby altered ; and therefore, says the Canonist, " Qui sine voluntate Domini consecrat, revera desecrat." The like judg- a See Hooker, book v. chap, lxxix., and book vii. § 22, above, in this vol. p. 381. Places for Divine Worship. 429 ment passed that learned bishop Synesius upon a place so conse crated : Oio" jeoov oiSs juev '6aiov riyovp.ai, " I account it not," says he, " for any holy thing." For we must know, that consecration makes not a place sacred, any more than coronation makes a king, but only solemnly declares it so. It is the gift of the owner of it to God, which makes it to be solely God's, and consequently sacred: after which, every violation of it is as really sacrilege, as to conspire against the king is treason, before the solemnity of his coronation. And more over, as consecration makes not a thing sacred without the owner's gift, so the owner's gift of itself alone makes a thing sacred, without the ceremonies of consecration ; for we know that tithes and lands given to God are never, and plate, vestments, and other sacred utensils are seldom, consecrated : yet certain it is, that after the donation of them to the Church, it is as really sacrUege to steal or alienate them from those sacred uses to which they were dedicated by the donors, as it is to pull down a church, or turn it into a stable. (2.) As in order to the passing away a thing by gift, there is required a surrender of all right to it on his part that gives, so there is required also an acceptation of it on his part to whom it is given. For giving being a relative action, and so requiring a correlative to answer it, giving on one part transfers no property, unless there be an accepting on the other : for as " volenti non fit injuria," so in this case, " nolenti non fit beneficium." And if it be now asked, how God can be said to accept what we give, since we are not able to transact with Him in person ? To this I answer, — (1.) That we may and do converse with God in person really, and to all the purposes of giving and receiving, though not visibly ! for natural reason will evince, that God will receive testimonies of honour from His creatures; amongst which the homage of offerings, and the parting with a right, is a very great one. And where a gift is suitable to the person to whom it is offered, and no refusal of it testified, — silence, in that case, even amongst those who transact visibly and corporally with one another, is, by the general voice of reason, reputed an acceptance. And therefore much more ought we to conclude that God accepts of a thing suitable for Him to receive, and for us to give, where he does not declare His refusal and disallow ance of it. But, — 430 DR. ROBERT SOUTH. (2.) I add further, that we may transact with God in the per son of His and Christ's substitute, the bishop, to whom the deed of gift ought and uses to be delivered by the owner of the thing given, in a formal instrument, signed, sealed, and legaUy attested by witnesses, wherein he resigns up aU his right and property in the thing to be consecrated. And the bishop is as reaUy " Vica- rius Christi," to receive this from us in Christ's behalf, as the Levitical priest was " Vicarius Dei" to the Jews, to manage aU transactions between God and them. These two things, therefore, concerning the gift of the owner, and God's acceptance of it, either immediately by Himself, which we rationally presume, or mediately by the hands of the bishop, which is visibly done before us, are that which vests the sole pro perty of a thing or place in God. If it be now asked, Of what use, then, is consecration, if a thing were sacred before it? I answer, Of very much; even as much as coronation to a king, which confers no royal autho rity upon him, but by so solemn a declaration of it imprints a deeper awe and reverence of it in the people's minds, a thing surely of no smaU moment. And, secondly, the bishop's solemn benediction and prayers to God for a blessing upon those who shaU seek Him in such sacred places, cannot but be supposed a direct and most effectual means to procure a blessing from God upon those persons who shall address themselves to Him there, as they ought to do. And surely this also vouches the great reason of the episcopal consecration. Add to this, in the third place, that all who ever had any awful sense of religion and religious matters, whether Jews or Christians, or even heathens themselves, have ever used solemn dedications and consecrations of things set apart and designed for divine worship; which, surely, should never have been so universaUy practised, had not right reason dictated the high expediency and great use of such practices. Eusebius, the earliest Church-historian, in the tenth book of his Ecclesiastical History, as also in the Life of Constantine, speaks of these consecrations of churches, as of things generally in use ; and withal sets down those actions particularly of which they consisted, styling them 0£O7rpE7rEic kicArio-iac OEo-fiovg, — " Laws or customs of the Church becoming God." What the Greek and Latin Churches used to do, may be seen in their pon tificals, containing the set forms for these consecrations ; though, Places for Divine Worship. 431 indeed, for these six or seven last centuries, full of many tedious, superfluous, and ridiculous fopperies ; setting aside all which, if also our liturgy had a set form for the consecration oi places, as it has of persons, perhaps it would be never the less perfect a. Now from what has been above discoursed of the ground of God's sole property in things set apart for His service, we come at length to see how aU things given to the Church, whether houses, or lands, or tithes, belong to Churchmen. They are but " usufructuarii," and have only the use b of these things, the property and fee remaining wholly in God, and consequently the alienating of them is a robbing of God. " Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation, in tithes and offerings 1." If it was God that was robbed, it was God also that was the owner of what was taken away in the robbery. Even our own Common Law speaks so much; for so says our Magna Charta, in the first chapter, — " Concessimus Deo, — quod Ecclesia Anglicana, libera sit," &c. : upon which words, that great lawyer, in his Institutes, comments thus : — " When any thing is grantedyor God, it is deemed in law to be granted to God : and whatsoever is granted to the Church for His honour, and the maintenance of His service, is granted for and to God." The same also appears from those forms of expression in which the donation of sacred things usually ran. As " Deo omnipotenti hac prasente charta donavimus," with the like. But most unde niably is this proved by this one argument ; that in case a bishop a A Form was drawn up in Convocation, in the year 1661, but was not authorized, nor published. Again, in the year 1712, a Form of Consecrating Churches, &c. and Church-yards, was sent down from the bishops to the Lower House of Convocation, April 2nd, and was agreed to with some alterations. This form, as it did not receive the royal assent, was not en joined to be observed ,- but it is the form now generally used. See Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, art. Church. b See Hooker, book vii. chap, xxiii. above, p. 381, in this volume. Also chap. xxiv. " All the endowments of churches, whether in tithes or glebes, were by the original grant devoted * Deo et Ecclesia,' i. e. to God and His Church : and therefore the property of them, (in the same manner as was that of tithes and offerings among the Jews,) is immediately vested in God Him self ; and the Ministers are only the ' Usufructuaries, ' to receive the annual income, as their hire from Him, for the service they do Him in His Church." Prideaux's Reasons for a Bill, p. 228, edit. 1736. 1 Malachi iii. 8, 9. 432 DR. ROBERT SOUTH. should commit treason or felony, and thereby forfeit his estate with his life, yet the lands of his bishopric become not forfeited, but remain still in the Church, and pass entire to his successor ; which sufficiently shows that they were none of his. It being therefore thus proved that God is the sole proprietor of aU sacred things or places, I suppose His peculiar property in them is an abundantly pregnant reason of that different respect that He bears to them. For is not the " meum," and the separate property of a thing, the great cause of its endearment amongst aU mankind? Does any one respect a common as much as He does his garden? or the gold that Ues in the bowels of a mine, as much as that which he has in his purse ? I have now finished the first proposition drawn from the words; namely, that God bears a different respect to places set apart and consecrated to His worship, from what He bears to aU other places designed to the uses of common life : and also shown the reason why He does so. I proceed now to the other proposition, which is, that God prefers the worship paid Him in such places, above that which is offered Him in any other places whatsoever. And that for these reasons : 1. Because such places are naturally apt to excite a greater reverence and devotion in the discharge of divine service than places of common use. The place properly reminds a man of the business of the place, and strikes a kind of awe into the thoughts, when they reflect upon that great and sacred Majesty, they use to treaty and converse with there. They find the same holy consternation upon themselves that Jacob did at his conse crated Bethel, which he called " the gate of heaven ;" and if such places are so, then surely a daily expectation at the gate is the readiest way to gain admittance into the house. It has been the advice of some spiritual persons that such as were able should set apart some certain place in their dwellings for private devotions only, which if they constantly performed there, and nothing else, their very entrance into it would tell them what they were to do in it, and quickly make their chamber thoughts, their table thoughts, and their joUy, worldly, but much more their sinful thoughts and purposes, fly out of their hearts. For is there any man, whose heart has not shaken off all sense of what is sacred, who finds himself no otherwise affected when he enters into a church, than when he enters into his parlour or Places of Divine Worship. 433 or chamber ? If he does, for aught I know, he is fitter to be there always than in a church. The mind of man, even in spirituals, acts with a corporeal de pendence, and so is helped or hindered in its operations, accord ing to the different quality of external objects that incur into the senses. And, perhaps, sometimes the sight of the altar, and those decent preparations for the work of devotion, may compose and recover the wandering mind much more effectually than a sermon, or' a rational discourse. For these things in a manner preach to the eye, when the ear is duU and will not hear, and the eye dictates to the imagination, and that at last most moves the affections. And if these Uttle impulses set the great wheels of devotion on work, the largeness and height of that shall not be at aU prejudiced by the smallness of its occasion. If the fire burns bright and vigorously, it is no matter by what means it was at first kindled : there is the same force, and the same refreshing virtue in it, kindled by a spark from a flint, as if it were kindled by a beam from the sun. I am far from thinking that these external things are either parts of our devotion, or by any strength in themselves, direct causes of it : but the grace of God is pleased to move us by ways suitable to our nature, and to sanctify these sensible inferior helps to greater and higher purposes. And since God has placed the soul in a body, where it receives all things by the ministry of the outward senses, He would have us secure these cinque ports, as I may so caU them, against the invasion of vain thoughts, by sug gesting to them such objects as may prepossess them with the contrary. For God knows, how hard a lesson devotion is, if the senses prompt one thing when the heart is to utter another. And, therefore, let no man presume to think that he may present God with as acceptable a prayer in his shop, and much less in an alehouse or a tavern, as he may in a church, or in his closet : unless he can promise himself, which is impossible, that he shall find the same devout motions and impresses upon his spirit there, that he may here. What says David in Psalm lxxvii. 13. ? " Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary." It is no doubt but that holy person con tinued a strict and most pious communion with God, during his wanderings upon the mountains and in the wilderness ; but still he found in himself, that he had not those kindly, warm melt ings upon his heart, those raptures and ravishing transports of vol. in. f f 434 DR. ROBERT SOUTH. affection, which he used to have in the fixed and solemn place of God's worship. See the two first verses of the sixty-third Psalm, entitled, " A Psalm of David when he was in the wUderness of Judah." How emphatically and divinely does every word pro claim the truth that I have been speaking of ! " O God," says he, " Thou art my God ; early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty- land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, as I have seen thee in the sanctuary." In aU our worshippings of God, we return Him but what He first gives us ; and therefore He prefers the service offered Him in the sanctuary, because there He usually vouchsafes more helps to the piously disposed person, for the discharge of it. As we value the same kind of fruit growing under one climate more than under another ; because under one it has a director and a warmer influence from the sun, than under the other, which gives it both a better savour and a greater worth ! And perhaps I should not want a further argument for the confirmation of the truth discoursed of, if I should appeal to the experience of many in this nation, who, having been long bred to the decent way of divine service in the cathedrals of the Church, of England, were afterwards driven into foreign coun tries, where, though they brought with them the same sincerity to church, yet, perhaps, they could not find the same enlargements and Sowings out of spirit, which they were wont to find here. Especially in some countries, where their very religion smelt of the shop ; and their ruder and coarser methods of divine service seemed only adapted to the genius of trade and the designs of parsimony; though one would think that parsimony in God's worship were the worst husbandry in the world, for fear God should proportion His blessings to such devotions. 2. The other reason why God prefers a worship paid Him in places solemnly dedicated and set apart for that purpose, is, be cause in such places it is a more direct service and testification of our homage to Him. For surely, if I should have something to ask of a great person, it were greater respect to wait upon him with my petition at his own house, than to desire him to come and receive it at mine. Set places and set hours for divine worship, as much as the laws of necessity and charity permit us to observe them, are but parts of that due reverence that we owe it ; for he that is strict in ob- Places of Divine Worship. 435 serving these, declares to the world, that he accounts his attend ance upon God his greatest and most important business : and, surely, it is infinitely more reasonable that we should wait upon God, than God upon us. We shaU stiU find, that when God was pleased to vouchsafe His people a meeting, He Himself would prescribe the place. When He commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only and beloved Isaac, the place of the offering was not left undetermined and to the offerer's discretion : but in Gen. xxii. 2. " Get thee into the land of Moriah," says God, " and offer Him for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains that I shall teU thee of." It was part of his sacrifice, not only what he should offer, but where. When we serve God in His own house, His service, as I may so say, leads all our other secular affairs in triumph after it. They are aU made to stoop and bend the knee to prayer, as that does to the throne of grace. Thrice a-year were the Israelites from all, even the remotest parts of Palestine, to go up to Jerusalem, there to worship and pay their offerings at the temple. The great distance of some places from thence could not excuse the inhabitants from making their appearance there, which the Mosaic law exacted as indis pensable. Whether or no they had coaches, to the temple they must go ; nor could it excuse them to plead God's omniscience, that He could equally see and hear them in every place : nor yet their own good wiU and intentions ; as if the readiness of their mind to go, might, forsooth, warrant their bodies to stay at home. Nor, lastly, could the real danger of leaving their dwelUngs to go up to the temple, excuse their journey : for they might very plausibly and very rationaUy have alleged, that, during their absence, their enemies round about them might take that advantage to invade their land. And therefore to obviate this fear and exception, which indeed was built upon so good ground, God makes them a promise, which certainly is as remarkable as any in the whole book of God. Exod. xxxiv. 24. " I wiU .cast out the nations before thee ; nei ther shaU any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in a year." While they were appearing in God's house, God Himself engages to keep and defend theirs, and that by little less than a miracle, putting forth an overpowering work and influence upon the very hearts Ff 2 436 DR. ROBERT SOUTH. and wills of men, that when their opportunities should induce, their hearts should not serve them to annoy their neighbours. For, surely, a rich land, guardless and undefended, must needs have been a double incitement, and such an one as might not only admit, but even invite the enemy. It was like a fruitful garden or a fair vineyard without a hedge, that quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting, and withal so easy a prize. But the great God, by ruling men's hearts, could by consequence hold their hands and turn the very desires of interest and nature out of their common channel, to comply with the designs of His wor ship. But now, had not God set a very pecuUar value upon the ser vice paid Him in His temple, surely He would not have thus, as it were, made Himself His people's convoy, and exerted a su pernatural work to secure them in their passage to it. And there fore that eminent hero in reUgion, Daniel, when in the land of his captivity he used to pay his daily devotions to God, not being able to go to the temple, would at least look towards it, advance to it in wishes and desire ; and so, in a manner, bring the temple to his prayers, when he could not bring his prayers to that. And now, what have I to do more, but to wish that aU this dis course may have that blessed effect upon us, as to send us both to this and to all other solemn places of divine worship, with those three excellent ingredients of devotion, desire, reverence, and confidence ? 1. And, first, for desire. — We should come hither, as to meet God in a place where He loves to meet us ; and where, as Isaac did to his sons, He gives us blessings with embraces. Many fre quent the gates of Sion, but is it because they love them; and not rather because their interest forces them, much against their inclination, to endure them? Do they hasten to their devotions with that ardour and quick ness of mind that they would to a lewd play or a masquerade ? — Or do they not rather come hither slowly, sit here uneasily, and depart desirously? All which is but too evident a sign, that men repair to the house of God, not as to a place of fruition, but of task and trouble ; not to enjoy, but to afflict themselves. 2. We should come full of reverence to such sacred places; and where there are affections of devotion, there will be postures of - Places of Divine Worship. 437 reverence too. Within consecrated wans we are more directly under God's eye, who looks through and through every one that appears before Him, and is too jealous a God to be affronted to His face. 3. And lastly; God's pecuUar property in such places should give us a confidence in our addresses to Him there. Reverence and confidence are so far from being inconsistent, that they are the most direct and proper quaUfications of a devout and filial approach to God. For where should we be so confident of a blessing, as in the place and element of blessings ; the place where God both promises and delights to dispense larger propor tions of His favour, even for this purpose, that He may fix a mark of honour upon His sanctuary ; and so recommend and en dear it to the sons of men, upon the stock of their own interest as weU as His glory ; who has declared Himself " the high and the lofty One that inhabits eternity, and dwells not in houses made with hands, yet is pleased to be present in the assemblies of His saints." To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. XIX. THE RELIGION OF CEREMONIES3. It is impossible for me, my brethren, upon our first meeting of this kind, to forbear lamenting with you the general decay of re ligion in this nation ; which is now observed by every one, and has been for some time the complaint of all serious persons. The influence of it is more and more wearing out of the minds of men, even of those who do not pretend to enter into speculations upon the subject : but the number of those who do, and who pro fess themselves unbeUevers, increases,, and with their numbers their zeal. Zeal, it is natural to ask — for what ? Why truly for nothing, but against every thing that is good and sacred amongst us. Indeed, whatever efforts are made against our reUgion, no Christian can possibly despair of it. For He, who has "all power in heaven and earth," has promised, that " he will be with us to the end of the world." Nor can the present decUne of it be any stumbUng-block to such as are considerate : since He Himself has so strongly expressed what is as remarkably predicted in other passages of Scripture, the great defection from his reUgion which should be in the latter days, by that prophetic question, " When the Son of man comes, shaU he find faith upon the earth ?" How near this time is, God only knows ; but this kind of Scripture signs of it is too apparent. For as different ages have been dis tinguished by different sorts of particular errors and vices, the a From Bishop Butler ; being a Charge delivered to the clergy at the Pri mary Visitation of the Diocese of Durham in the year, 1751. The Religion of Ceremonies. 439 deplorable distinction of ours is an avowed scorn of religion in some, and a growing disregard to it in the generality. As to the professed enemies of reUgion, I know not how often they may come in your way ; but often enough, I fear, in the way of some at least amongst you, to require consideration, what is the proper behaviour towards them. One would, to be sure, avoid great famiUarities with these persons; especially if they affect to be Ucentious and profane in their common talk. Yet if you fall into their company, treat them with the regards which belong to their rank ; for so we must people who are vicious in any other respect. We should study what St. James, with won derful elegance and expressiveness, caUs meekness of wisdom, ia our behaviour towards aU men ; but more especially towards these men ; not so much as being what we owe to them, but to ourselves and our religion ; that we may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour, in our carriage towards those who labour to vilify it. For discourse with them ; the caution commonly given, not to attempt answering objections which we have not considered, is certainly just. Nor need any one in a particular case be ashamed frankly to acknowledge his ignorance, provided it be not general. And though it were, to talk of what he is not acquainted with, is a dangerous method of endeavouring to conceal it. — But a considerate person, however qualified he be to defend his religion, and answer the objections he hears made against it, may sometimes see cause to decUne that office. Sceptical and profane men are extremely apt to bring up this subject at meetings of entertainment, and such as are of the freer sort : innocent ones I mean, otherwise I should not suppose you would be present at them. Now reUgion is by far too serious a matter to be the hackney subject upon these occasions. And by preventing its being made so, you will better secure the reverence which is due to it, than by entering into its defence. Every one observes, that men's having examples of vice often before their eyes, fa miliarizes it to the mind, and has a tendency to take off that just abhorrence of it which the innocent at first felt, even though it should not alter their judgment of vice, or make them reaUy be- Ueve it to be less evil or dangerous. In Uke manner, the hearing religion often disputed about in Ught famiUar conversation has a tendency to lessen that sacred regard to it, which a good man would endeavour always to keep up, both in himself and others. 440 BISHOP BUTLER. -^-But this is not all : people are too apt inconsiderately to take for granted, that things are really questionable, because they hear them often disputed. This indeed is so far from being a conse quence, that we know demonstrated truths have been disputed, and even matters of fact, the objects of our senses. But were it a consequence, were the evidence of religion no more than doubt ful, then it ought not to be concluded false any more than true, nor denied any more than affirmed ; for suspense would be the reasonable state of mind with regard to it. And then it ought in all reason, considering its infinite importance, to have nearly the same influence upon practice, as if it were thoroughly believed. For would it not be madness for a man to forsake a safe road, and prefer to it one in which he acknowledges there is an even chance he should lose his life, though there were an even chance likewise of his getting safe through it ? Yet there are people absurd enough, to take the supposed doubtfulness of reUgion for the same thing as a proof of its falsehood, after they have concluded it doubtful from hearing it often caUed in question. This shows how infinitely unreasonable sceptical men are, with regard to religion, and that they really lay aside their reason upon this sub ject as much as the most extravagant enthusiasts. But further, — cavilling and objecting upon any subject is much easier than clearing up difficulties : and this last part wiU always be put upon the defenders of religion. Now a man may be fully convinced of the truth of a matter, and upon the strongest reasons, and yet not be able to answer all the difficulties which may be raised upon it. Then again, the general evidence of religion is complex and various. It consists of a long series of things, one preparatory to and confirming another, from the very beginning of the world to the present time. And it is easy to see how impossible it must be, in a cursory conversation, to unite all this into one a argument, and represent it as it ought; and, could it be done, how utterly indisposed people would be to attend to it — I say in a cursory conversation : whereas unconnected objections are thrown out in a few words, and are easily apprehended, without more attention than is usual in common talk. So that, notwithstanding we have the best cause in the world, and though a man were very capable of defending it, yet I know not why he should be forward to un- * See Butler's Analogy, part ii. chap. 7. parag. 2. and other parts of that chapter. The Religion of Ceremonies. 441 dertake it upon so great a disadvantage, and to so little good effect, as it must be done amidst the gaiety and carelessness of common conversation. But then it wiU be necessary to be very particularly upon your guard, that you may not seem, by way of compUance, to join in with any levity of discourse respecting religion. Nor would one let any pretended argument against it pass entirely without notice; nor any gross ribaldry upon it, without expressing our thorough disapprobation. This last may sometimes be done by silence : for silence sometimes is very expressive ; as was that of our blessed Saviour before the Sanhedrim and before Pilate. Or it may be done by observing mndly, that religion deserves another sort of treatment, or a more thorough consideration, than such a time, or such circumstances admit. However, as it is absolutely neces sary, that we take care, by diligent reading and study, to be always prepared, to be " ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in us ;" so there may be occasions when it wiU highly become us to do it. And then we must take care to do it in the spirit which the apostle requires, " with meekness and fear x :" meekness towards those who give occasions for entering into the defence of our religion ; and with fear, not of them, but of God ; with that reverential fear, which the nature of reUgion requires, and which is so far from being inconsistent with, that it will inspire proper courage towards men. Now this reverential fear wUl lead us to insist strongly upon the infinite greatness of God's scheme of Government, both in extent and duration, together with the wise connection of its parts, and the impossibility of accounting fully for the several parts, without seeing the whole plan of Providence to which they relate ; which is beyond the utmost stretch of our understanding. And to all this must be added the necessary deficiency of human language, when things divine are the subject of it. — These observations are a proper fuU answer to many objections, and very material with regard to all. But your standing business, and which requires constant atten tion, is with the body of the people; to revive in them the spirit of religion, which is so much declining. And it may seem, that whatever reason there be for caution as to entering into an argu mentative defence of religion in common conversation, yet that it 1 1 Pet. iii. 15. 442 BISHOP BUTLER. is necessary to do this from the pulpit, in order to guard the peo ple against being corrupted, — however, in some places. But then surely it should be done in a manner as Uttle controversial as possible. For though such as are capable of seeing the force of objections are capable also of seeing the force of the answers which are given to them ; yet the truth is, the people wiU not competently attend to either. But it is easy to see which they will attend to most. And to hear reUgion treated of as what many deny, and which has much said against it as weU as for it ; this cannot but have a tendency to give them ill impressions at any time ; and seems particularly improper for all persons at a time of devotion ; even for such as are arrived at the most settled state of piety : I say at a time of devotion, when we are assem bled to yield ourselves up to the fuU influence of the Divine Presence, and to call forth into actual exercise every pious affec tion of heart. For it is to be repeated, that the heart and course of affections may be disturbed when there is no alteration of judgment. — Now the evidence of religion may be laid before men without any air of controversy. The proof of the being of God, from final causes, or the design and wisdom which appears in every part of nature, together with the law of virtue written upon our hearts ; the proof of Christianity from miracles, and the accomplishment of prophecies ; and the confirmation which the natural and civil history of the world give to the Scripture ac count of things ; these evidences of religion might properly be insisted on, in a way to affect and influence the heart, though there were no professed unbeUevers in the world ; and therefore may be insisted on, without taking much notice that there are such. And even their particular objections may be obviated without a formal mention of them. — Besides, as to reUgion in general, it is a practical thing, and no otherwise a matter of spe culation, than common prudence in the management of our worldly affairs is so. And if one were endeavouring to bring a plain man to be more careful with regard to this last, it would be thought a strange method of doing it, to perplex him with stating formally the several objections which men of gaiety or speculation have made against prudence, and the advantages which they pleasantly tell us foUy has over it ; though one could answer those objections ever so fully. Nor does the want of religion in the generaUty of the common people appear owing to a speculative disbelief or denial of it, but The Religion of Ceremonies. 443 chiefly to thoughtlessness and the common temptations of life. Your chief business, therefore, is to endeavour to beget a prac tical sense of it upon their hearts, as what they acknowledge their beUef of, and profess they ought to conform themselves to. And this is to be done by keeping up, as we are able, the form and face of religion with decency and reverence, and in such a degree as to bring the thoughts of religion often to their minds ; and then endeavouring to make this form more and more subser vient to promote the reality and power of it. The form of reli gion may indeed -be where there is little of the thing itself3; but the thing itself cannot be preserved amongst mankind without the form. And this form frequently occurring in some instance or other of it wiU be a frequent admonition to bad men to repent, and to good men to grow better ; and also be the means of their doing so. That which men have accounted reUgion in the several coun tries of the world, generaUy speaking, has had a great and con spicuous part in aU public appearances, and the face of it been kept up with great reverence throughout aU ranks, from the highest to the lowest ; not only upon occasional solemnities, but also in the daily course of behaviour. — In the heathen world their superstition was the chief subject of statuary, sculpture, painting, and poetry. It mixed itself with business, civil forms, diversions, domestic entertainments, and every part of common life. — The Mahometans are obliged to short devotions five times between morning and evening. — In Roman Catholic countries a In the same spirit of true wisdom Bishop Taylor counsels his clergy as follows : " External forms of worship too many refuse, because they pretend that many who use them rest in them, and pass no further. No sect of men teaches their people so to do ; and you cannot without uncharitableness sup pose it true of very many. But if others do ill, do not you do so too; and leave not out the external forms for fear of formality, but join the inward power of godliness, and then they are reproved best and instructed wisely, and you are secured. But remember, that profaneness is commonly some thing that is external ; and he is a profane person who neglects the exterior part of reUgion ; and this is so vile a crime, that hypocrisy, while it is undis covered, is not so much mischievous as open profaneness, or a neglect and contempt of external religion. Do not despise external religion, — because it may be sincere ; and do not rely upon it wholly, — because it may be counter feit ; but do you preach both and practise both ; both what may glorify God in public, and what may please Him in private." Ministers' Duty in Hope and Doctrine, Sermon x. 444 BISHOP BUTLER. people cannot pass a day without having reUgion recaUed to their thoughts by some or other memorial of it, by some ceremony or public reUgious form occurring in their way ; besides their fre quent holidays, the short prayers they are daily caUed to, and the occasional devotions enjoined by confessors. By these means their superstition sinks deep into the minds of the people, and their religion also into the minds of such among them as are seri ous and weU-disposed. Our reformers, considering that some of these observances were in themselves wrong and superstitious, and others of them made subservient to the purposes of supersti tion, abolished them, reduced the form of reUgion to great sim plicity, and enjoined no more particular rules, nor left any thing more of what was external in religion, than was in a manner necessary to preserve a sense of religion itself upon the minds of the people. — But a great part of this is neglected by the gene- raUty amongst us ; for instance, the service of the Church, not only upon common days, but also upon saints' days ; and several other things might be mentioned. Thus they have no customary admonition, no public call to recollect the thoughts of God and religion from one Sunday to another. It was far otherwise under the Law. " These words," says Moses to the children of Israel, " which I command thee, shall be in thine heart : and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy chUdren, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up 1." And as they were commanded this, so it is obvious how much the constitution of that law was adapted to effect it, and keep religion ever in view. And without some what of this nature, piety wiU grow languid even among the better sort of men, and the worst will go on quietly in an aban doned course, with fewer interruptions from within than they would have, were reUgious reflections forced oftener upon their minds, and consequently with less probability of their amend ment. — Indeed, in most ages of the Church, the care of reason able men has been, as there has been for the most part occasion;, to draw the people off from laying too great weight upon exter nal things, upon formal acts of piety. But the state of matters is quite changed now with us. These things are neglected to a degree, which is, and cannot but be attended with a decay of all 1 Deut. vi. 6, 7. The Religion of Ceremonies. 445 that is good. It is highly seasonable now to instruct the people in the importance of external reUgion *. a Archbishop Laud, in reply to one of the charges alleged against him in his impeachment by the House of Commons, vindicates himself and his own line of policy, as follows : " I have neither urged nor enjoined any Popish or superstitious ceremo nies without warrant of law ; nor have I cruelly persecuted any opposers of them. But all that I laboured for in this particular was, that the external worship of God in this Church might be kept up in uniformity and decency, and in some beauty of holiness. And this the rather, because, first, I found that with the contempt of the outward worship of God, the inward fell away apace, and profaneness began boldly to show itself. And, secondly, because I could speak with no conscientious persons almost, that were wavering in religion, but the great motive which wrought upon them to disaffect, or think meanly of the Church of England, was that the external worship of God was so lost in the Church (as they conceived it), and the Churches themselves, and all things in them, suffered to lie in such a base and slovenly fashion, in most places of the kingdom. These, and no other considerations, moved me to take so much care as I did of it ; which was with a single eye, and most free from any Romish superstition in any thing. As for ceremo nies, all that I enjoined were according to law. And if any were supersti tious, I enjoined them not." 1 Troubles and Trial, p. 156. Again ; in another place, in a truly philosophical and magnanimous spirit, worthy of the cause. " As for religion, I was born and bred up, in, and under the Church of England, as it yet stands established by law. I have, by God's blessing, and the favour of my prince, grown up in it to the years which are now upon me, and to the place of preferment which I yet bear ; and in this Church, by the grace and goodness of God, I resolve to die. I have, ever since I under stood aught in divinity, kept one constant tenour in this my profession, without variation or shifting from one opinion to another for any worldly ends ; and if my conscience would have suffered me to shift tenets in religion with time and occasion, I could easily have slid through all the difficulties which have pressed upon me in this kind. But, of all diseases, I have ever hated a palsy in religion ; well-knowing that too often a dead palsy ends that disease, in the fearful forgetfulness of God and His judgments. Ever since I came in place I laboured nothing more, than that the external public wor ship of God, too much slighted in most parts of this kingdom, might be pre served, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be ; being still of opinion that unity cannot long continue in the Church where uni formity is shut out at the Church-door. And I evidently saw that the public neglect of God's service in the outward face of it, and the nasty lying of many places dedicated to that service, had almost cast a damp upon the true and inward worship of God ; which, while we live in the body, needs exter nal helps, and all little enough to keep it in any vigour. And this I did to the uttermost of my knowledge, according both to law and canon, and with 446 BISHOP BUTLER. And doubtless under this head must come into consideration a proper regard to the structures which are consecrated to the ser vice of God. In the present turn of the age one may observe a wonderful frugality in every thing which has respect to reUgion, and extravagance in every thing else. But amidst the appear ances of opulence and improvement in aU common things, which are now seen in most places, it would be hard to find a reason why these monuments of ancient piety should not be preserved in their original beauty and magnificence. But in the least opu lent places they must be preserved in becoming repair, and every thing relating to the divine service be, however, decent and clean, otherwise we shaU viUfy the face of reUgion whilst we keep it up. All this is indeed principally the duty of others. Yours is to press strongly upon them what is their duty in this respect, and admonish them of it often, if they are negUgent. But then you must be sure to take care and not neglect that part of the sacred fabric which belongs to you to maintain in repair and decency. Such neglect would be great impiety in you, and of most pernicious example to others. Nor could you, with any success, or any propriety, urge upon them their duty in a regard in which you yourselves should be openly neglectful of it. Bishop Fleetwood has observed 1, that " unless the good public spirit of building, repairing, and adorning churches prevails a great deal more amongst us, and be more encouraged, a hundred years wiU bring to the ground a huge number of our churches." This exceUent prelate made this observation forty years ago : and no one, I beUeve, will imagine, that the good spirit he has recommended prevails more at present than it did then. But if these appendages of the divine service are to be re garded, doubtless the divine service itself is more to be regarded ; and the conscientious attendance upon it ought often to be incul cated upon the people, as a plain precept of the gospel, as the means of grace, and what has peculiar promises annexed to it. But external acts of piety and devotion, and the frequent returns of them, are, moreover, necessary to keep up a sense of religion, the consent and liking of the people ; nor did any command issue out from me against the one, or without the other, that I know of. " Further, my Lords, give me leave, I beseech you," &c. 1 Troubles and Trial, p. 224. 1 Charge to the Clergy of St, Asaph, 1710, The Religion of Ceremonies. 447 which the affairs of the world will otherwise wear out of men's hearts. And the frequent returns, whether of public devotions, or of any thing else, to introduce religion into men's serious thoughts, will have an influence upon them, in proportion as they are susceptible of religion, and not given over to a reprobate mind. For this reason, besides others, the service of the Church ought to be celebrated as often as you can have a congregation to attend it. But since the body of the people, especiaUy in country places, cannot be brought to attend it oftener than one day in a week ; and since this is in no sort enough to keep up in them a due sense of reUgion ; it were greatly to be wished they could be per suaded to any thing which might, in some measure, supply the want of more frequent public devotions, or serve the like purposes. Family prayers, regularly kept up in every house, would have a great and good effect. Secret prayer, as expressly as it is commanded by our Saviour, and as evidently as it is impUed in the notion of piety, will yet, I fear, be grievously forgotten by the generality, till they can be brought to fix for themselves certain times of the day for it; since this is not done to their hands, as it was in the Jewish Church, by custom or authority. Indeed custom, as well as the manifest propriety of the thing, and examples of good men in Scripture, justify us in insisting, that none omit their prayers morning or evening, who have not thrown off all regards to piety. But secret prayer comprehends not only devotions before men begin and after they have ended the business of the day, but such also as may be performed whUe they are employed in it, or even in company. And truly, if, besides our more set devotions, morning and evening, aU of us would fix upon certain times of the day, so that the return of the hour should remind us to say short prayers, or exercise our thoughts * in a way equivalent to this; perhaps there are few persons in so high and habitual a state of piety, as not to find the benefit of it. If it took up no more than a minute or two, or even less time than that, it would serve the end I am proposing ; it would be a recoUection that we are in the Divine presence, and contribute to our being in the fear of the Lord all the day long. A duty of the like kind, and serving to the same purpose, is the particular acknowledgment of God when we are partaking of a See An Exhortation to, with some Forms of, Ejaculatory Prayer, by the Rev. Robert Cooke, late Vicar of Boxted, Essex. Rivingtons, 1797. 7 448 BISHOP BUTLER. His bounty at our meals. The neglect of this is said to have been scandalous to a proverb in the heathen world a ; but it is without shame laid aside at the tables of the highest and the lowest rank among us. And as parents should be admonished, and it should be pressed upon their consciences, to teach their children their prayers and catechism, it being what they are obliged to upon all accounts ; so it is proper to be mentioned here, as a means by which they will bring the principles of Christianity often to their own minds, instead of laying aside all thoughts of it from week's end to week's end. General exhortations to piety, abstracted from the particular circumstances of it, are of great use to such as are already got into a religious course of Ufe ; but, such as are not, though they be touched with them, yet when they go away from Church, they scarce know where to begin, or how to set about what they are exhorted to. And it is with respect to reUgion, as in the common affairs of life, in which many things of great consequence in tended, are yet never done at all, because they may be done at any time, and in any manner ; which would not be, were some de terminate time and manner voluntarily fixed upon for the doing of them. Particular rules and directions then concerning the times and circumstances of performing acknowledged duties, bring religion nearer to practice ; and such as are reaUy proper, and cannot well be mistaken, and are easily observed, — such particular rules in religion, prudently recommended, would have an influence upon the people. All this indeed may be called form ; as every thing external in reUgion may be merely so. And therefore whilst we endeavour, in these and other like instances, to keep up the " form of godli ness " amongst those who are our care, and over whom we have any influence, we must endeavour also that this form be made more and more subservient to promote the "power" of it2. Admonish them to take heed that they mean what they say in their prayers, that their thoughts and intentions go along with their words, that they really in their hearts exert and exercise before God the affections they express with their mouth. Teach them, not that external religion is nothing, for this is not true in 1 Cudworth, On the Lord's Supper, p. 8. Casaub. in Athenaeum, 1. i. c. xi. p. 22. Duport. Prael. in Theophrastum, ed. Needham, c. ix. p. 335, &c. 2 2 Tim. iii. 5. The Religion of Ceremonies. 449 any sense ; it being scarce possible, but that it will lay some sort of restraint upon a man's morals; and it is moreover of good effect with respect to the world about him. But teach them that regard to one duty will in no sort atone for the neglect of the other. Endeavour to raise in their hearts such a sense of God as shall be an habitual, ready principle of reverence, love, gratitude, hope, trust, resignation, and obedience. Exhort them to make use of every circumstance, which brings the subject of religion at all before them ; to turn their hearts habitually to him ; to recol lect seriously the thoughts of his presence " in whom they live and move and have their being," and by a short act of their mind devote themselves to his service. — If, for instance, persons would accustom themselves to be thus admonished by the very sight of a church, could it be caUed superstition ? Enforce upon them the necessity of making religion their principal concern, as what is the express condition of the gospel covenant, and what the very nature of the thing requires. Explain to them the terms of that covenant of mercy, founded in the incarnation, sacrifice, and intercession of Christ, together with the promised assistance of the Holy Ghost, not to supersede our own endeavours, but to render them effectual. The greater festivals of the Church, being instituted for commemorating the several parts of the Gospel history, of course lead you to explain these its several doctrines, and show the Christian practice which arises out of them. And the more occasional solemnities of reUgion, as well as these festivals, wiU often afford you the fairest opportunities of enforcing all these things in familiar conversation. Indeed all affectation of talking piously is quite nauseous : and though there be nothing of this, yet men will easily be disgusted at the too great frequency or length of these occasional admonitions. But a word of God and religion dropped sometimes in conversation, gently, and without any thing severe or forbidding in the manner of it, this is not unacceptable. It leaves an impression, is re peated again by the hearers, and often remembered by plain well-disposed persons longer than one would think. — Particular circumstances too, which render men more apt to receive instruc tion, should be laid hold of to talk seriously to their consciences. For instance, after a man's recovery from a dangerous sickness, how proper is it to advise him to recoUect and ever bear in mind, what were his hopes or fears, his wishes and resolutions, when under the apprehension of death ; in. order to bring him to re- VOL. III. g g 450 BISHOP BUTLER. pentance, or confirm him in a course of piety, according as his life and character has been. So likewise the terrible accidents which often happen from riot and debauchery, and indeed almost every vice, are occasions providentially thrown in your way, to discourse against these vices in common conversation, as weU as from the pulpit, upon any such accidents happening in your parish, or in a neighbouring one. Occasions and circumstances of a like kind to some or other of these occur often, and ought, if I may so speak, to be catched at, as opportunities of conveying instruc tion, both public and private, with great force and advantage. Public instruction is absolutely necessary, and can in no sort be dispensed with. But as it is common to all who are present, many persons strangely neglect to appropriate what they hear to themselves, to their own heart and life. Now the only remedy for this in our power is a particular personal appUcation. And a personal application makes a very different impression from a common, general one. It were therefore greatly to be wished, that every man should have the principles of Christianity, and his own particular duty enforced upon his conscience, in a manner suited to his capacity, in private. And besides the occasional oppor tunities of doing this, some of which have been intimated, there are stated opportunities of doing it. Such, for instance, as con firmation : and the usual age for confirmation is that time of life, from which youth must become more and more their own masters, when they are often leaving their father's house, going out into the wide world and all its numerous temptations ; against which they particularly want to be fortified, by having strong and lively impressions of religion made upon their minds. Now the 61st canon expressly requires, that every minister that has care of souls, shall use his best endeavour to prepare and make able as many as he can to be confirmed ; which cannot be done as it ought without such personal application to each candidate in par ticular as I am recommending. Another opportunity for doing this is, when any one of your parishioners signifies his name, as intending for the first time to be partaker of the communion. The rubric requires, that all persons whenever they intend to receive, shall signify their names beforehand to the minister; which, if it be not insisted upon in all cases, ought absolutely to be insisted upon for the first time. Now this even lays it in your way to discourse with them in private upon the nature and benefits of this sacrament, and enforce upon them the importance and ne- 7 The Religion of Ceremonies. 451 cessity of religion. However, I do not mean to put this upon the same foot with catechising youth, and preparing them for confirmation ; these being indispensable obligations, and ex pressly commanded by our canons. This private intercourse with your parishioners preparatory to their first communion, let it, if you please, be considered as a voluntary service to reUgion on your part, and a voluntary instance of docility on theirs. I will only add as to this practice, that it is regularly kept up by some persons, and particularly by one, whose exemplary behaviour in every part of the pastoral office is enforced upon you by his station of authority and influence in (this part l especially of) the diocese. I am very sensible, my brethren, that some of these things in places where they are greatly wanted are impracticable, from the largeness of parishes, suppose. And where there is no impedi ment of this sort, yet the performance of them will depend upon others, as well as upon you. People cannot be admonished or instructed in private, unless they will permit it. And little will you be able to do in forming the minds of children to a sense of religion, if their parents will not assist you in it ; and yet much less, if they wUl frustrate your endeavours by their bad example, and giving encouragement to their children to be dissolute. The like is to be said also of your influence in reforming the common people in general, in proportion as their superiors act in Uke manner to such parents; and whilst they, the lower people I mean, must have such numerous temptations to drunkenness and riot every where placed in their way. And it is cruel usage we often meet with, in being censured for not doing what we cannot do, without, what we cannot have, the concurrence of our censurers. Doubtless very much reproach which now Ughts upon the clergy would be found to fall elsewhere, if due allowances were made for things of this kind. But then we, my brethren, must take care and not make more than due allowances for them. If others deal uncharitably with us, we must deal impartially with our selves, as in a matter of conscience, in determining what good is in our power to do : and not let indolence keep us from setting about what really is in our power ; nor any heat of temper create obstacles in the prosecution of it, or render insuperable such as 1 The archdeaconry of Northumberland. Gg2 452 BISHOP BUTLER. we find, when perhaps gentleness and patience would prevent or overcome them. Indeed all this diligence to which I have been exhorting you and myself, for God forbid I should not consider myself as included in aU the general admonitions you receive from me ; all this diligence in these things does indeed suppose, that we give ourselves wholly to them. It supposes, not only that we have a real sense of religion upon our own minds, but also, that to pro mote the practice of it in others is habitually uppermost in our thought and intention, as the business of our lives. And this, my brethren, is the business of our lives, in every sense, and upon every account. It is the general business of all Christians as they have opportunity : it is our particular business. It is so, as we have devoted ourselves to it by the most solemn engagements; as, according to our " Lord's appointment we live of the gos pel * ;" and as the preservation and advancement of religion, in such and such districts, are, in some respects, our appropriated trust. By being faithful in the discharge of this our trust, by thus " taking heed to the ministry we have received in the Lord that we fulfil it 2," we shall do our part towards reviving a practical sense of religion amongst the people committed to our care. And this will be the securest barrier against the efforts of infidelity ; a great source of which plainly is, the endeavour to get rid of reli gious restraints. But whatever be our success with regard to others, we shall have the approbation of our consciences, and may rest assured, that, as to ourselves at least, " our labour is not in vain in the Lord 3." 1 1 Cor. ix. 14. 2 Col. iv. 17- 3 1 Cor. xv. 58. XX. A DISSUASIVE FROM SEPARATION ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIF FERENCE OF OPINION ABOUT THE AGE OR TIME OF RECEIV ING BAPTISM a. § I. What I have to say in this last chapter, I have kept as a reserve ; that in case people cannot be brought to be of one opinion in this question b, yet they may avoid that which is now- a-days made a common consequence of the difference in sentiments about it, and is far more dangerous to their souls' health, than the mistake itself is ; I mean, the renouncing of one another's com munion in aU other parts of the Christian worship. Whosoever could prevail on them to relinquish this humour of dividing, would do a most acceptable piece of service to the Christian religion and the salvation of their souls. For our blessed Saviour, who does easily pardon involuntary errors and mistakes, and forbids His members to despise or reject one another for them, does impute a heavy guilt to those that go about to break or divide the unity of His body. I had thought once to insert here a discourse of the great sin and mischief of schism: but having been too long already; and that being a subject which requires, and has had, just tracts writ ten on it ; I shall content myself with reciting briefly a few plain proofs of the stress which God, in Scripture, lays upon our " en- a From " The History of Infant Baptism, by W. Wall, Vicar of Shoreham in Kent." Part ii. chap. xi. b Namely, of the lawfulness and expediency of the practice of Infant Bap tism ; the establishing this conclusion being the object of the work from which this chapter is taken. 454 WILLIAM WALL. deavouring to keep the unity of the spirit," (i. e. a spiritual or religious unity, and not only living quietly near one another) "in the bond of peace," notwithstanding differences in opinions. 1. There is no one thing that is oftener, nor so often, com manded, inculcated, entreated, and prayed for, by our Saviour and His apostles, than that all Christians should be one, and as members of the same body. And on the other side, no sin that is more severely forbidden, represented as more mischievous, nor more terribly threatened, than divisions, schisms, separations, and whatsoever breaks the said unity. St. Paul does not only reckon such things as undoubted signs of a carnal mind l, but also when he gives a roll or catalogue of the sins which are certainly damning, which they that practise " shall not inherit the kingdom of God2," such as adultery, drunkenness, &c. he reckons among the rest orao-Eig Kai alpio-Eig, which we render " seditions, here sies," which are the names which he commonly gives to divisions. Since his time indeed the latter of these words has been used to denote false doctrines in the fundamentals of faith; but he never means any thing else by it, but parties, factions, sects, or divi sions. One plain instance in what sense he takes it, is in 1 Cor. xi. 18, 19, where what are called "divisions" in one verse, are called " heresies " in the other. Let any one read this text for the meaning of the word ; and then let him turn back again to Gal. v. 19, where adultery, murder, and heresies, are declared subject to the same condemnation, or exclusion from God's kingdom. The sinfulness of schism is so plainly, fully, and frequently set forth by our Saviour and His apostles, that there are no Christian writers or teachers of any Church whatever, but what do, if they are required to speak, own that it is in its nature a mortal sin : even the leaders of schismatical congregations dare not deny it ; if they did, they would be convicted of denying plain Scripture. — But as Archbishop TUlotson does somewhere observe of the Popish preachers, that though they do own in their writings and disputes with the Protestants, that repentance and amendment of life is necessary to the forgiveness of sins ; yet in their discourses to their people they say so much of confession to a priest, &c. and so little of amendment of life, that the people think all of the one, and little of the other :— so there are several teachers who among ' 1 Cor. iii. 3, 4. 2 Gal. v. 19, &c. A Dissuasive from Schism. 455 all the sins that they forewarn their people of, do so seldom preach against schism and division, so seldom quote those places of Scripture that set forth the guilt of it ; and when they do, do touch that point so tenderly ; that the people, if they do not trust their own eyes in reading God's word, and taking it aU together, — are apt to forget that schism is any sin at all : or at most, they conceive of it as of a little one. All the Christians near our Saviour's time had a quite contrary sentiment. They, when they gathered up into one short draught or creed the most fundamental and necessary truths that they were to hold, put in this for one ; "I believe the holy Catholic Church, and the 'communion of Saints," i. e. I own the Universal Church, and that all Christians in it ought to hold communion one with another. For the word, " saints," is in Scripture and all other old Christian books used as another word for " Christians :" and the " communion of saints " means nothing else in the creed but the communion of Christians. He then that beUeves other things to be duties, and this to be none, ought, when he repeats the creed, to say ; I believe all the rest of it, but I do not own the " communion of saints " as any article of Christian faith. § 2. 2. Whereas the sinfulness of schism in general will not bear a dispute ; but all people that separate, do, if they be forced to speak, own, as I said, schism to be a great sin ; but do say withal that their separation is not schism in the Scripture sense, because the Church from which they have separated is such as from which one ought to separate : and whereas the reason that is usually given of the necessity of a separation of one from another, is, that one party holds tenets and opinions which the other cannot assent to ; or administers some of the divine offices in such ways as the other does not approve ; but takes the opinions to be errors, and the said administrations to be grounded on those errors: — the thing to be enquired is, whether these opinions, which are judged to be errors, be such as do overthrow the foun dation of Christian faith. For if they be such, the plea must be allowed. False doctrines in the fundamentals of religion do put a bar to our communion with those that teach them. But if they be not such, we have a plain direction and order from St. Paul to bear with one another, to receive one another to communion notwithstanding differences in them, and not to judge or despise one another for them. He has a discourse purposely on this subject. It begins Rom. xiv. 1. He continues it through 456 WILLIAM WALL. all that chapter, and to verse 8 of the next. He instances in men holding contrary sides in the disputes which troubled the Church at that time. He both begins and ends that discourse with a positive command that they "receive one another" notwithstanding them ; and he plainly means (as whoever reads the whole place will observe) " to communion as brethren ;" and not only to live in peace and quietness with one another : which last they were to do with the Heathens their neighbours. He orders those of them that were positive, and sure that their opinion was the right, to content themselves with that "full per suasion of their own mind," and to take it for granted that they are not bound to bring all the rest over to their opinion ; nor yet to forsake their communion if they will not so be brought. Verse 22. " Hast thou faith ? " (faith here signifies that full persuasion of mind mentioned before at verse 5.) "have it to thyself before God." He would have them be so modest as to think at the same time, that others as good as they might yet continue of the other opinion. He shows, chap. xv. verses 5, 6, that they may notwithstanding these differences " with one mind and one mouth glorify God." And whereas he prays there that they may be (as we translate it in English) " like-minded one toward another ;" those phrases of like-minded, and one mind, do not import that they that thus join in glorifying God, must of necessity be aU of one opinion in dis putable matters : for it has been all along his scope to show that they might weU enough do that, though each did keep his several opinion in those things. But those phrases denote only that they should do it unanimously (which is the proper rendering of the word 6/xoOvfiaBbv, and that which St. Paul generaUy means by the word avrb povsiv, as Bishop Stillingfleet has shown x by instances.) And they might be unanimous in glorifying God, though they were not aU of a mind as to meats, days, &c. since in the main matters they were all of a mind. And though St. Paul there do instance only in the disputes about meats, and drinks, and days, &c. yet the tenor of his dis course, and the reasons he gives against separating for them, do reach to all differences that are not fundamental. For that which he says, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness," &c. is applicable to any opinions that are not of 1 Unreasonableness of Separation, part ii. sect. 19. A Dissuasive from Schism. 457 the foundation : the kingdom of God, or substance of religion, does not consist in such things. And as he says, " For meats de stroy not the work of God ;" we may say of such opinions, do not for such things destroy that unity which Christ has made so essential to His Church. But it is otherwise of the fundamental articles of our faith : for in them the kingdom of God does con sist. If any one do hold or practise idolatry or the worship of any but the true God ; or do deny the divinity of Christ or His death for our sins, or the necessity of repentance and a good life, or the belief of the resurrection and judgment to come; the apostle would never have bid us receive such, or hold communion with them. But there are, besides those that hold such doctrines pernicious to the foundation, abundance of Christians that hold the same faith in aU fundamental points, who do yet live in divisions and separation, disowning and renouncing one another's communion. It is pity but these should be reduced to the unity which Christ's body requires. Now there is no other way in the world to effect this, but only that which the apostle here prescribes, viz. that they receive one another notwithstanding the different opinions they may hold about lesser matters. There have other ways been tried, ways of human poUcy: but all with wretched success. They have been tried with so much obstinacy, as almost to ruin the Church. The Church of Rome has tried to reduce aU men to unity, by forcing them to be aU of one opinion, and to submit their judgments to her dictates ; some of which are things which the Scripture teaches not, and some directly contrary to it. They use to this purpose, first, disputations ; and when that will not do, then fire and fagot, or other cruelties. We have lived to see what tyrannous, unchristian, and bloody work a neighbour prince3 has made to bring all his subjects to be of one religion (as he calls it), that is, all of one opinion in all things delivered by that Church, which has been far from limiting herself to funda mental articles. And we have seen the event: he has made some hypocrites and apostates, who do upon all occasions show the regret of their conscience ; some refugees, and some martyrs. This way therefore of bringing people to glorifying God unani- a Louis XIV. 458 WILLIAM WALL. mously, by drawing, up a set of particular opinions, and forcing all men to subscribe to them, is no successful way. It requires of men what God in Scripture never requires. It has filled the world with blood and enmity, and has made Christendom a shambles. St. Paul, with all his apostoUcal authority, does not, we see, require it; but says, in such things let each be fully persuaded in his own mind, (meaning, till one by reason do con vince the other, or be convinced by him) and in the mean time receive and own one another as brethren. Another way that has been tried, is quite on the contrary, and runs to the other extreme. It is this. They that are of different opinions in these lesser matters, say thus; we will not receive each other at aU, i. e. not to any Christian communion : and yet we will obtain the end that St. Paul would have, viz. the setting forth the glory of God by another way as good. Since we are of this opinion, and you of that, do you make one Church of Christ, and we will make another : we will own no Church communion with you, nor you with us : we will neither receive you, nor de sire to be received by you. And yet we will Uve in peace, and try which shall come to heaven soonest. Now this is on the other side the most contrary to the nature and design of Christianity of any thing that could be devised. For Christ, as He is but one head, never designed to have any more but one body. Here we see already two, totally distinct : for they receive not one another. And, observe the consequence of such a principle. They continue but a very little while before that in each of these Churches some members differing from the rest in opinion about some new-started matter, make a subdivi sion, as necessary as the first division was. Then the Church which out of one became two, out of two is propagated to four : and by the same reason, and by following on the same prin ciple, there will quickly be forty. Nay, it is certain, and will be plain to any one that considers, that by driving that principle home of making separate Churches of all different opinions, it will come to pass at last that there will not be any two men of one Church. For if all things relating to religion were to be canvassed, there are not any two men in the world of the same mind in all things. The fault therefore of this way is evident. They are in the right in supposing that there wiU always be variety of opinions, and that it is in vain to think by any force to prevent it. But A Dissuasive from Schism. 459 to think that the number of churches must hold place with the number of opinions, is a mistake of wretched consequence. It makes Christ's Church, which should be a compacted body, a rope of sand. It perpetuates for ever those strifes and jang- lings about opinions, which in one communion would quickly cease : for each party when they have thus taken sides, will al ways strive to justify their own side. It is that which the ancient Christians caU, "the setting up altar against altar." It gives so advantageous a handle to the common enemy, that he desires no other, to ruin any Church that is so divided into par ties. St. Paul well apprehended the consequence of such divid- ings, when he besought the Corinthians1 by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they would not admit of any such method : and when he entreated the Christians at Rome 2, that if any one among them did go about such a practice, the effect should be, that every one of them should avoid him. In a word, where Christianity is in this state, it is in the next degree to disso lution. And whereas the proposers or defenders of this course do say ; we may Uve in peace, though we do renounce one another's com munion in religion ; — this is neither practicable for any long time, nor is it sufficient for a Christian's purpose. Not practicable : for as our Saviour has said, a house so divided cannot stand ; so we see by experience the heart burnings, and hatred, and emula tions, and bitter zeal which the separate parties do always show one against another. Not sufficient : because Christ requires that all His disciples should be as brethren, and as limbs of the same body, which is more than outward peace and quietness. The heathen neighbour cities that worshipped several Gods, would sometimes make a league of peace, and say, " Do you worship your God and we wiU worship ours, without meddUng with one another's reUgion:" but it is horrible so to divide Christ. It remains therefore, that there is no other way to answer the design of Christ, than that Christians of the same faith do hold communion and receive one another, notwithstanding their vari ous opinions. And if any one object against his joining with the Established Church where he Uves ; that he is of one opinion, and 1 Cor. i. 10. 2 Rom. xvi. 17- 460 WILLIAM WALL. they of another in many things : he needs only to mind, that this is the very case that St. Paul was here speaking of, when he bids them " receive one another." They that he speaks to were like wise of different opinions : and it was on occasion of such differ ence that he gives them this command of not separating for them. Before I go any farther, I shall observe two corollaries that do naturally foUow from what has been said. One is, that in far the greatest number of the divided Churches and parties that are in Christendom; the sin, the mischief, and the danger to their souls does not consist so much in the tenets and opinions for which they differ ; as in the divisions which they make for them, the separations, the mutual excommunications, or renouncing of one another's communion. This I conceive to be so clear a truth, that whereas, if I had a friend or brother, or any one for whose eternal good I were most concerned, that differed in some such opinions from the Church where he lived, and as I thought, from the truth ; and yet did resolve and declare (as the old English Puritans did a) that he would make no disturb- * See this point largely proved by Bishop Stillingfleet, in his " Unreason ableness of Separation," p. 27 — 92. 4to. 1681. Still, it may very reasonably be doubted whether the course of action of many of these men was in any degree more warrantable than that of the Separatists. They continued indeed in the Church, but not without assert ing the privilege of totally misunderstanding and misrepresenting it. In the Church's own bosom, they preached against and disobeyed its laws; outraged its discipline and ordinances, and reviled and calumniated their brethren ; so they made " disturbance" enough, without " separation." They continued indeed in the Church ; but it was as a party seeking for ascen dancy and mastery : and in the end, by the help of many untoward circum stances from without, they succeeded in getting it. It was through the instrumentality of these men principally, that in the next age the Church was overthrown. A shrewd observer has remarked : ' If it had not been for the lecturers, the Church of England might have stood and flourished at this day.' " {Selden's Table Talk, art. Friars.) In our own age we have some spirits of kin to these men (as well as some bad spirits of other kinds) : and happy would it be for the Church, if we were well rid of them : and happy indeed is it for us, (whatever it may be for themselves) when any of them take their departure, and leave us. When once gone, they are soon reduced to their proper insignificance. — Yes, depend upon it the worst and most dangerous enemies are those of a man's own household. The main dangers of the Church of England never have been from those that are without. These, (if only we ourselves understood their real nature and A Dissuasive from Schism. 461 ance or separation; I should think it a thing of no great conse quence whether ever his opinions were rectified or not : yet if I found that he were inclined to separate, I should think labour ought to be taken, as for his life, to hinder that. The other is ; that those Churches which do impose, as terms of communion, (I mean of lay-communion) the fewest subscrip tions, or indeed none at all, to any doctrines, beside the funda mental doctrines of Christian faith ; have in that respect the best and most excellent constitution. It is fitted for the fulfilling of this command of the apostle. To do otherwise, is to refuse what he here prescribes, of " receiving one that is weak in the faith." For supposing those doctrines to be true, yet he may think other wise : and then he cannot be received without affirming what is in his conscience a falsehood. He is therefore rejected : and as far as the Church can go, lost. Whereas if he had been received without such a condition, he might either have learned better in time ; or if he had not, that error would not finally have much hurt him : for it is supposed to be no fundamental one. Nor would it have hurt the Church : for he is supposed to be one that desired to be received, and that would not have made any schism for it. I do not pretend to know the history of the constitutions of the many Churches that now are : but of all that I do know, the Church of England is in this respect the best constituted. That Church requires of a layman no declaration, subscription, or profession, but only of the baptismal covenant. Any person when he is baptised, must by himself if he be of age, by his spon sors if an infant, profess to renounce the devil and all wickedness, to beUeve the Creed, and to keep God's commandments. There is nothing required after this to his full communion, save that he learn and answer to the questions of a very short catechism ; of one clause whereof I must by and by say something. No body can in other matters compel him to subscribe the opinions which the Church thinks truest, nor to recant those which he thinks truest. § 3. 3. The same that has been said of different opinions in doctrinal points not fundamental, may be applied to the several ways of ordering the public worship, prayers, administration of value, and our own), would always have enough to do to take care of them selves. If ever the Church of England shall be destroyed, it will be (or if ever it suffers materially it is,) from the ignorance, and the ill principles of its own children. 462 WILLIAM WALL. the sacraments, &c. Of which ways it does as naturally fall out that some do like one best, and some another ; as it does of the aforesaid different opinions, that some think one true, and some the other. The same rule for avoiding of schism must therefore be applied here, as there : only with this difference ; of those opinions, there was no necessity that the man I spoke of should be required to assent to such as the generality thought the truest: but here the nature of the thing requires that if he hold commu nion, he must join in the prayers and other service. I must divide the difficulties that may arise upon this into two case's. One man does not apprehend any thing sinful, unlawful, or erroneous, in any of the prayers or service : but yet he Ukes some other ceremonies, orders, and ways of worship that are used in some other nations or Churches, better than he does those of his own. And therefore he holds it lawful and useful for spiritual advancement, to gather together a number of men of a Uke taste and feUsh with himself, and make a separate body by them selves. * ' This man has but a very little and slight sense of the sin of schism: scandalously little. Either he has not read what the Scripture says of it : or else dulness or prejudice has taken off the edge of his apprehension, so as that he felt nothing at the reading of those earnest and moving passages of our Saviour and the Apostles on that subject. To confess the orders and service of a Church to be lawful, and to join in them perhaps sometimes; and yet to foment the mischief of schism, under which all Christen dom, especially the Protestant religion, and particularly the state of religion in England and Holland, does now groan and gasp ! and all this for a gust, a flavour, a humour, an itching ear, pleased with this or that mode of preaching, praying, &c. To divide the body of Christ out of mere wantonness ! What answer will such a one make at the last day for having made so Ught of that on which the Word of God has laid such a stress ? St. Paul intreats by " the consolation in Christ, by the comfort of love, by the fellowship of the Spirit, by all bowels and mercies '," that Christ ians should be unanimous : is it then a matter of small moment to divide them into sides, parties, and several bodies ? That among various ceremonies, forms, and methods of order ing Church matters, one should like one best, and one another, is 1 Phil. ii. 1. A Dissuasive from Schism. 463 no new or strange thing at aU: but ever was and ever will be. But yet in the primitive times, if any man or number of men went about upon that pretence to set up a separate party from the established Church of that place ; it made the Christians tremble to hear of such a thing. And all the neighbouring Churches (for they then all kept a correspondence and communion with one another) did use to send notice of their abhorrence of such separatists, and renounce any communion with them during their schism ; and never were at ease till they had restored unity. A practice, which the pastors of the Church of Geneva have lately in a generous and laudable way imitated in respect of our English separatists; though using in most things the same ceremonies that those of Geneva do. They had indeed various usages in the Churches of several countries: but a Christian of Africa, if he came to Greece, complied with the Grecian ceremonies, though he might Uke his own better. Or if it happened otherwise, that he Uked those of Greece better than his own ; yet upon his return home he submitted to the rules and customs of his own Church, and did not set up a new sect out of a pride that he had learned a better way. If he thought it was better, or if it really were so, yet to make a separation for it, did ten times more mischief than that amendment could recompense. If there be any usage or order in a Church which may be altered for the better, for any man in his station to do his endeavour that this may be done by common vote and consent, was ever accounted laudable. And where the corruption is got into the vitals of religion, it is true that it must be done by a separation rather than not at all. But in other cases, where it is not a gangrene, he that goes about to cure the body by tearing it limb from limb, is himself the most dangerously infected member, and ought to be first cut off, by St. Paul's direction *, if he had any skill. As we say of sermons, that must be an excellent one indeed in which there is nothing that might have been said better ; and yet that must be a sorry one indeed out of which one may not receive some wholesome direction : or of cities, there is hardly any whose laws and go vernment are not capable of amendment in some things, and yet very few so ill governed, where an industrious and peaceable man may not enjoy so much quiet as to get a livelihood by his diligence : so that must be a pure Church indeed whose orders 1 Rom. xvi. 17- 464 WILLIAM WALL. and rules have no fault or imperfection at all : and yet that must be a woful Church with which a good Christian may not com municate, or under whose doctrine and discipUne he may not by a godly diligence work out his salvation. Of the first sort there is none in the world. And, as I hope, no Protestant national Church of the latter sort: none, I mean, with which a good Christian may not communicate, provided they wiU admit him without requiring his declared assent to all their tenets. For errors they may have, and some of them hold some opinions contrary to what others do. Yet since none of these do over throw the foundation of Christian faith, neither do they mix any idolatry in their worship ; if any party of the members of any of these Churches (the Church of Denmark for example) should in opposition to the general body of the Church there, say, " We like the ways and methods of some other Church (the Church of England for example) better:" and should thereupon make a schism from their fellow-members; it would be a sinful one. And it is no other in ours here that do the like. The Church of England do declare thus ' concerning the rites and ceremonies which they have ordered ; " In these our doings we condemn no other nations, nor prescribe any thing but to our own people only. For we think it convenient that every country should use such ceremonies as they shaU think best to the setting forth of God's honour and glory, and to the reducing the people to godly living, &c. and that they should put away other things which from time to time they perceive to be most abused; as in men's ordinances it often chances diversely in different countries." They say, moreover, "The keeping or omitting of a ceremony in itself considered is but a small thing; but the wilful and con temptuous transgression and breaking of a common order and discipline is no small offence before God." This plainly shows that they would not approve of a schism that should be set up in any other Church, though it were for the introducing of those ways of worship which they have prescribed. And many of the chiefest men of other Protestant Churches have made the Uke de claration on their side. This is the ancient way of a catholic correspondence and unity between the Churches. They do all judge thus, that in those various ways of managing the public worship, though one may think one the best, and another an- 1 Preface to the Book of Common Prayer. A Dissuasive from Schism. 465 other ; yet that the worst of them with unity is better than the best without it. This may be explained by a comparison taken from temporal affairs. There are in several nations several forms of state government: one is ruled by monarchy, another by a senate, others by more popular ways. It is common for men of reading, or travel, or conversation, to discourse of these ways. One likes one best, and another another. And so far there is no harm done ; because each of them resolves as yet, that which soever he likes best, he will live quietly under that where he is placed. But if one of these who lives under either of these forms do go about to draw a party after him, and says, " We will live no longer under this form of government ; we know a better way, and we wiU set up that :" he is now turned a traitor, and must be suppressed by the policy of any government whatsoever. Or in an army ; if the question be, whether it be best to march this way against the enemy, or that way, or lie still ; each one in the councU is free to give his opinion. And it may be, that he whose counsel is not approved by the majority, gives advice which is reaUy the better. Yet if the resolution be once taken : and the general lead out accordingly one way ; if any officers go about to draw a part of the army after them, and say, " We wiU march the other way," they are now mutineers and public enemies, how good soever their advice were. Because either of the ways with the union of the army is better than the dividing of it. That brings certain ruin and confusion. The Scripture, and experience too, do show, that the case is the same in reference to a Church. Only, as in the army, if the soldiers do understand by any plain and certain discovery that the general officers are traitors, and have agreed to betray their prince's cause, a revolt from them is in such case fidelity to their sovereign. So if a Church do bring into their worship plain idolatry, or into their doctrines such positions as destroy the foundations of Christian faith or godUness, this is treason against our chief Lord, and justifies separation from such a Church. But in the case now put, of a man that allows the established way of worship to be lawful, but pretends to set up a better, and thinks a separation justifiable on that account; such a man is so far from being fit to be a leader or amender of a Church, that he needs a catechism to teach him the first Christian princi ples of humility and modesty. Modesty would teach him to VOL. III. h h 466 WILLIAM WALL. think, that if he judge one way the best, another as wise as he will be for another way, and a third party for another, &c. But God is a God of order, and not of such confusions. What I quoted just now of the declaration of the Church of England in respect to foreign Churches, does visibly show the mistake of those that argue, that we cannot count those among us that separate schismatics ; but that we shall, by so doing, con demn those foreign Protestant Churches, which differ from us in some of the same ceremonies as the Dissenters at home do, of schism likewise. God forbid we should do that. It is not the use or disuse of this or that ceremony, order, &c. but it is the renouncing of communion for such use or disuse that constitutes a schismatic. Now we and the foreign Protestant Churches do not do that. For one of us, whom Providence should bring into their nation, would communicate with them, though their cere monies and ways of worship are not altogether the same as ours : and they, when they come hither, do the same with us. And such Churches, or such Christians, that are always ready to do so, have always a communion one with another in heart, in pur pose, in inclination, and acknowledgment ; which they are ready to bring into act by corporal presence and joining, when Provi dence makes it practicable. And this is, or ought to be, the temper between all Churches that differ not in essentials. Now this is the only sense in which that saying is true ; " That there is no schism where the differences are not in the fundamentals of religion ;" i. e. any two Churches of different nations are always supposed to be in communion, and not in a schism, so long as they differ not in fundamentals ; because it is supposed that the members of one of these would (in case they were to travel into the other nation) for unity's sake communicate with those other. But when people of the same place, city, parish, &c. do actually separate, and renounce communion with the Church when they are on the spot ; this plea cannot be used in their case. To say, these are not "schismatics," because they differ not in funda mentals, is to put a new meaning on the word schism. They are not heretics indeed (as the Church-use has now distinguished the use of those words). But the Donatists, Novatians, &c. have been always counted schismatics, though they differed not in essentials. Those that differ from any true Church in essentials, and do separate or are excommunicated for such difference, are, in re- A Dissuasive from Schism. 467 spect of their opinions, more faulty than those we have been speaking of. But those that separate for smaller matters, are, in respect of the mere schism or separation, (if we could abstract that from the fault of the opinion) the more faulty of the two ; for the smaller the difference is, the greater fault and shame it is to make a breach for it : and though the other be, in the main, the greater sin, yet these are more plainly self-condemned. § 4. The other difficulty that I proposed to speak of is some thing greater. There is a man that thinks the Church holds some errors ; not fundamental ones indeed ; but she has brought these errors into her pubUc service, in which he should join. He would not renounce a Church for holding those errors in disput able points ; but he cannot join in prayers to God which are grounded on, and do suppose a doctrine which he judges to be a false or mistaken one. But, 1. The man acknowledges that this is not in matters fun damental. 2. He acknowledges that the main body of the prayers and service is such as all Christians agree to be necessary, and in which he may join with his mouth and understanding also. Suppose, then, that there be some particular collects or prayers, or clauses of prayers, which he thinks to contain a mistake in them. May he not join with his brethren in the main, and omit the adding of his Amen to those particular clauses? especially since no man requires of him to declare his approbation of the whole and every part ? Is not this more Christian-Uke, than to fly to that dreadful extremity of separation and total disowning for a disputable point, which may possibly be his own mistake ? And if the truth of the matter be that it is his own mistake, is there any Ukelier way to come to the knowledge of the truth than by continuing in the body of the Church, where the members, the faithful Christians, do by mutual edification help one another ? Is not this the very counsel of St. Paul : " And if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shaU reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless [or, however that be] whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing V This last clause [let us mind the same thing] is in the sense of the original, " let us be unanimous ;" as Bishop Stilling- 1 PhiL iii. 15, 16. Hh 2 468 WILLIAM WALL. fleet has shown * ; and he has at the same place largely shown, that this advice of the apostle is intended for this very purpose to which I nave here applied it ; namely, that such a man as we are here speaking of should continue in communion, and conform to all that he can, and omit the saying Amen to what he judges a mistake. He confirms this interpretation with so good reasons, and his antagonist there opposes it with so weak ones, that it tempts one to think that he would not have opposed it at all, had it not been for fear that by this course the world would in a short time have lost the happiness of having any separate sects. If the reader will please to consult that book, he will have no farther need of any arguments against separation. Some learned Protestants (Melancthon, Calvin, Bucer, Peter Martyr, and others of the first Reformers) have thought that in cases of necessity a Protestant might join even in Popish assem blies in those prayers that are sound ; provided he did, to avoid scandal, protest against their superstitious ones. But I wiU not meddle with that. The argument that some make for separation, because there are many ill men in the Church, has been so plainly answered, that nothing more need be said. Whoever reads St. Paul's epis tles wiU find there were many scandalous members in aU those Churches, especially at Corinth 2 ; and yet he wiU find that St. Paul, so far from advising the purer sort to separate from the Church, does earnestly forbid any such practice 3. § 5. 4. When a lawgiver names some particular exceptions of cases in which the law shall not obUge, that law binds the stronger in all other cases not excepted ; for it is supposed if there had been any more he would have named them too. The Scripture gives a very positive law against separations. It excepts some cases. It is a very presumptuous thing to add any more to them of our own heads. They are these. 1. If a Church do practise idolatry. St. Paul, warning the Corinthians of the heathen idolaters says, " Come out from among them, and be ye separate * ;" though the Popish idolatry be not so rank as that of those heathens, yet the general words 1 Unreasonableness of Separation, Part ii. sect. 19. 2 1 Cor. v. 2 Cor. xii. 20, 21. 3 1 Cor. i. 10. xi. 18, &c. 4 2 Cor. vi. 17. A Dissuasive from Schism. 469 do seem to reach their case. But the ignorant people among many sects of separatists, finding here the word, separate, do indiscriminately apply it to justify separation from Christians against whom they do not in the least pretend any accusation of idolatry. 2. If a Church teach doctrines encouraging any wickedness, as fornication, &c, or destructive of the fundamentals of the Chris tian faith. St. Paul mentions some ' that denied the resurrection and judgment to come. He commands Timothy " to shun them ; for their word will eat as a canker." 3. The Scripture commands that no sin be committed to obtain any purpose never so good. Therefore a Church that wiU not admit us without our doing a thing that is wicked, or declaring and subscribing something that is false, does thereby thrust us out of her communion. And the guUt of- the sin of separation Ues at her door. 4. If a Church be schismatical, i. e. in a state of unjustifiable division or separation from another Church from which she has withdrawn herself. St. Paul commands, " Mark those that cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine you have learned, and avoid them 2." These exceptions I find in Scripture ; and I know of no more that reach to Churches (particular men that Uve wickedly are to be avoided in our conversation, we know). He that separates from any Church upon any ground except one of these four ought to take heed and be weU assured that he find his ground in the Scripture. § 6. Now to apply what has been said to the Psedobaptists and Antipffidobaptists ; the main inquiry is, whether the point in debate between them be a fundamental article of the Christian faith. For if it be, they must indeed separate in their commu nion, and the guilt wiU lie on those that are in the error. But if it be not, there is not by the rules laid down any sufficient reason for their separating or renouncing one another, which party soever be in the wrong. Now I think that such a question about the age or time of one's receiving baptism does not look Uke a fundamental, nor is so re puted in the general sense of Christians. And there are these reasons why it should not be so accounted. ' 2 Tim. ii. 18. 2 Rom. xvi. 17. 470 WILLIAM WALL. 1. It is a general rule, that aU fundamental points are in Scrip ture so plainly and clearly delivered, that any man of tolerable sincerity cannot but perceive the meaning of the holy writers to be, that we should believe them. Now baptism itself, viz. that aU that enter into Christ's Church should be baptized, is indeed plainly delivered in Scripture ; so that we are amazed at the Quakers and Socinians : the one for refusing it, the other for counting it indifferent. But at what age the children of Chris tians should be baptized ; whether in infancy, or to stay till the age of reason, is not so clearly delivered, but that it admits of a dispute that has considerable perplexities in it : I mean with those that know not the history of the Scripture times, nor the force of some of the original words in Scripture used. There is, as I have said, no plain example or instance of the baptism of any one that had been born of Christian parents set down at all either as received by him at fuU age, or received in infancy ; which would have been the surest guide to us : none, I mean, that is plain to vulgar readers of the English translation of Scripture ; for that many of the Fathers did take 2 for a plain instance I showed before. And for the commission 2, and our Saviour's rule 3, whe ther they are to be understood to include infants and aU, or only adult persons, is not so plain to the said readers as fundamental points use to be. God's providence does not suffer that the un derstanding of those places, upon the belief of which the salvation of all, even the meanest and most ignorant Christian does depend, (and such are the fundamental articles) should require much skill, learning, or sagacity : but only an honest purpose and desire to learn. This therefore being not set down so very plain, does not seem by Scripture to be such a fundamental, as that we should be bound to renounce communion with every one that is not of the same opinion as we are about it. The epistle to the Hebrews, chap. vi. verses 1, 2, speaking of some things which are styled " principles of the oracles of God," reckons amongst them the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands. Now whether the meaning of that place be to reckon both these, as things that must be beUeved and owned by all that shall be saved ; is a question that needs not be discussed here. For suppose it be, both these parties do own baptism : they differ only about the time or manner of receiving it. 1 1 Cor. vii. 14. 2 Matt, xxviii. 19. ' John iii. 5. A Dissuasive from Schism. 471 2. The ancient and primitive Christians for certain did not reckon this point among the fundamental ones. For they drew up short draughts and summaries of the faith, which we caU creeds : and into these they put all those articles, which they thought fundamental or absolutely necessary. Now though some Churches had their creeds a Uttle larger than others ; and some councUs or meetings of Christians did overdo, in putting some opinions, which they valued more than need was, into their creeds ; yet there never was any creed at all that had this article in it ; either " that infants are to be baptized ;" or, " that only adult persons are to be baptized." Baptism itself does indeed make an article in several old creeds. As for example, in the Constantinopolitan, which is now received in aU Christendom ; " I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins." But the determination of the age or manner of receiving it, was never thought fit to make an article of faith. 3. As for particular men among the ancients, there is, I know, none whom the Antipajdo-baptists would so willingly hear speak as TertuUian. He has. a book about baptism, wherein he first speaks of the matter, water ; and of the form of baptism : and then says, chap. x. " Having now discoursed of aU things that make up the religion " [or, essence] " of baptism, I wilL proceed to speak de quastiunculis quibusdam, of some questions of small moment," and it is among those quaestiunculo? that he treats con cerning the age of receiving it. I recited the place at large, part i. chap. iv. § 2, &c. 4. As TertuUian thought it a question of lesser moment, so it seems the Christians of that time and place did not reckon it of so great moment as to break communion. For when he expressed his opinion to be against the practice then used of baptizing in fants ordinarily ; yet we do not find that he was excommunicated for that : not at all, tiU he excommunicated himself by running away to the sect of the Montanists, who were indeed for their impious opinions abhorred of aU Christians. Whereas if it had been accounted a fundamental article of faith, he could not have been borne with in his denial of it. 5. This is yet more clear in the case of Gregory, the father of Gregory Nazianzen, who, if I computed right at part i. chap. xi. § 6, of which I do since that time make a question, for the reasons given in this third edition, had some children born to him 7 472 , WILLIAM WALL. after he was in priest's orders, whom he brought up with him in the house without baptizing them : and they were not baptized till their adult age. And, yet the man continued priest, and afterward bishop of that place till he died, being nigh one hundred years old. This for the sense of the ancient Church. 6. For the sense of modern Christians : first the Papists of late times do confidently maintain, that there is no proof at all (direct or consequential) from the Scripture for infant baptism. And it is certain, they do not pretend that there is any against it; for their Church as weU as others does practise it : and though their Church can do weU enough without Scripture, yet they would not have her convicted of going contrary to it. It follows then from their pretence, that the Scripture is silent in the case. If so, then it is a thing that no Protestant will account a funda mental : and consequently will not divide for it. So these men's arguments will make us all friends ; at least so far as to live in communion with one another. The worse would be, that if we did so, we should lose all those fine arguments against infant baptism that come out in Popish books every year. For they seeing us united, would not count it worth , their while ; and they would then be as well content that there should be proof in Scripture for infant baptism, as not. But to leave these men, and to speak of such as are serious in religion : the most serious and judicious, both of the Psedo- baptists and Antipsedobaptists (even those of them that have been most engaged against each other in polemical writings, which do commonly abate people's charity) do agree that this difference is not in the essentials of religion. Here I might (if I had not been too long already) recite the words of Bishop Taylor, Dr. Hammond, Mr. Baxter, Mr. WUls, &c. on the one side; and of Mr. Tombs, Mr. Stennet, &c. on the other. Mr. Stennet in a book come out but the other day ' says, " If he [Mr. Russen] mean that they [the Antipsedobaptists] cannot look upon those that differ from them, as Christians the contrary is well known." And again, " Enough has been said before, to take off the second reproach which he [Mr. Russen] casts on them [the Antipsedobaptists], viz. that they judge none of the true Church, but those of their own way." But it is better to quote their confessions. In the first year of 1 Answer to Mr. Russen, chap. ii. p. 23. chap. x. p. 215. A Dissuasive from Schism. 473 King William, one party of the Antipsedobaptists [the particular men a] published a confession of their faith : they say, it is the same for substance with that published 1643, in the name of seven Churches, which I suppose were the first in England. Now they say, " they are concerned for above a hundred." They declare in the preface the design both of that and this confession to be, " to manifest their consent with both [the Presbyterians and Independents] in all the fundamental articles of the Christian reUgion." " And," as they add afterwards, " with other Pro testants." It is plain then, that they count not the age or manner of receiving baptism to be a fundamental. And here, forasmuch as this confession is but lately come to my hands, I ought to do that justice to these men, as to own that they do for their part disclaim several of those opinions which I at chap. viii. ¦§ 6, said were held by some of the EngUsh Anti psedobaptists. For besides that they give a full and Catholic confession of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, chap. 2. of Christ's divinity and consubstantiality, chap. 8. and of his satis faction, chap. 8. it. 11. the denial of which points is not charged on any Church of AntipEedobaptists : but only that some Soci- nians intrude among them, as they do everywhere. Besides these, they own original sin, chap. 6. Oaths imposed by autho rity to be lawful, chap. 23. The Lord's day to be the day for Christian worship, and the Saturday Sabbath to be abolished, chap. 22. That every Church has from Christ aU that power that is needful for carrying on order in worship and discipline, chap. 26. All bishops or elders, and deacons to be ordained by imposition of hands, ibid. All pastors to have a comfortable supply from the Church, so as they need not be entangled in secular affairs ; but may live of the gospel, the people communi cating to them of all their good things, ibid. No member of a Church ought to separate upon account of any offence [or scandal] taken at any of their fellow-members, but to wait upon Christ in the farther proceeding of the Church, ibid. In the Lord's supper the minister to give the bread and wine to the communicants, chap. 30. So it seems these do not hand it about among themselves, as is said of some of them. Worthy receivers b The Anabaptists are divided among themselves into two classes, parti cular and general ; the latter holding the doctrine of universal redemption, the former denying it. See Wall, part ii. chap. viii. § 16. 474 WILLIAM WALL. do by faith really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporeally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, ibid. Souls do not die nor sleep: but at a man's death are either received into glory, or cast into hell, reserved to the judgment, chap. 31. Civil magistrates to be obeyed for conscience sake, chap. 24. But I cannot see how they reconcUe this with what they say, chap. 21. that to obey out of conscience any human commands not contained in God's word, is to betray true liberty of conscience. This needs a little explication. Moreover, what is to our present purpose, they say ; that aU persons throughout the world, professing the faith of the Gospel, and obedience to God by Christ according unto it, not destroying their own profession by any errors everting the foundation, or unholiness of conversation, are and may be called, visible saints, chap. 26. And they say afterward, chap. 27. that all these saints are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and commu nion in the worship of God. Of which communion they say a little after, that as God offers opportunity, it is to be extended to aU the household of faith ; even all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. This laid together makes full to the purpose I am speaking of: every one ought to continue in the communion of a Church that has no errors which do evert the foundation. And an error, or supposed error, about the age or manner of receiving baptism does not do that, by their own confession. And now in the first year of her present Majesty, is published a draught of articles by some Antipaedobaptists, (the same I guess) to manifest their nearness in union with other of. her Majesty's Protestant subjects. There are thirty-six of them. They are verbatim (except two or three clauses of no moment) the same with thirty-six of the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England : save that in the article of baptism they leave out the last clause about infants' baptism. They come near to that subscription that is required to capacitate one for orders in that Church: one would think then it should not be difficult to accom modate the matter of lay-communion. What has been said does in the whole amount to this; that putting the case that there were in any nation a number of be lievers in Christ, who were not yet settled in any form of Church- government, and did besides differ in some opinions not funda mental; and among the rest, in this question about infants' A Dissuasive from Schism. 475 baptism ; their duty would be to unite themselves into one body or Church, and not separate into parties and several Churches for that difference. And if it be asked, how they should regulate the order for public worship in which they were aU to join ; and particularly whether they should aUow an infant brought by his parents to the Church for baptism, to be there baptized, or not allow it : there is no other way in such a case, than after a de bate by arguments from Scripture and reason, to suffer them selves to be all determined by the major vote ; which major vote must fix the rules of the national Church there to be settled : and the minor part, who would have had some things to have been otherwise ordered, must comply with their brethren, and join in aU things that they can, and by no means make a division. If the premises that have been laid down, be looked upon as proved; they do certainly enforce this conclusion. For any man to say in this case ; the Scripture, and not the major vote should determine, is frivolous. Because it is presup posed in the case, that it is about the meaning of Scripture, and about the force of the consequences and arguments drawn from Scripture, that they differ : and the Scripture itself directs them, that in such differences not fundamental, they should close and unite as well as they can, and bear with one another. Now to apply this to the state of religion as it is now, when there are in aU places national Churches already settled, one ought, in order to lay the balance even between the Peedobaptists and Antipaedobaptists, to suppose or imagine a thing that is not, but may easUy be supposed : and that is, that there were some national Church or Churches of Antipaedobaptists in the world. And suppose a number of Christians, Paedobaptists in their opi nion, were by providence brought to live in one of those places. The question is, whether they ought to join in communion with the Church of Antipaedobaptists there established, or make a se parate body renouncing communion with them. I think it foUows from the rules of Scripture that have been laid down, that they ought to join with them. And I do not stick to declare, that if I were one of those new-comers, I would do it for one. So that I advise them to nothing in respect to their joining the Church here, but what I think were to be done by us if we were in their case. I mean, I would do thus ; since my opinion is, that infants ought to be baptized, I would get my own children baptized by all means possible : but when that were done, I would neverthe- 476 WILLIAM WALL. less continue to join in public prayers, hearing, receiving the communion, &c. with them, if they would admit me : if they re jected me for my opinion, the guilt of that breach would Ue on them, and not on me. It is not an Antipaedobaptist or other dissenter in opinion that one is not to communicate with : it is a schismatic or divider that one is not to communicate with. And whereas some Psedobaptist wUl say to me ; " You seem by this putting of the case to make the opinions equal : theirs to be as good as ours ; and it is only by the majority that we have the advantage." I do not so : but this I say ; the difference is not in fundamentals. And therefore, if thou be strong, and they be weak ; thou wise, and they foolish ; thy opinion rational, theirs silly; yet we are still (or ought to be for all the difference of opinions) members of the same body, and brethren. Men are not to be cut off for mistaken opinions that are consistent with true faith. Indeed, if they will cut off themselves, there is no help for that. When a Church loses its members, and they part from her as limbs from a body ; there is that to be said which is commonly said of a husband and wife parting : there is certainly a great fault somewhere ; but there is commonly some fault on both sides. Now to lay aside supposals, and to take the state of reUgion as it is now in the world; there is no national Church in the world (and I think never was) but what are Paedobaptists. All that are of the other way, are such as have within the two last centuries made a separation from the established Churches of the places where they are : as I made appear chap. vin. The rea sons that I have laid down from Scripture, do require that they should return to unity of communion in those things wherein all Christians are agreed : and they may continue to argue in a charitable way about the opinion till one side be satisfied, or tUl they are weary. This is the best way to save their souls, what ever become of the opinion. To speak of the case of England in particular. They know themselves, that it is a separation begun less than eighty years ago ; as I show at chap. viii. § 6. Any very ancient man may remember when there were no Englishmen, or at least no society or Church of them, of that persuasion. They at first held the opinion without separating for it. Their eldest separate Churches are not yet of the age of a man, viz. seventy years. I mean the ancient men or men of reading among them know this; the young A Dissuasive from Schism. 477 and vidgar, who will talk right or wrong for a side, do not own it : but the others own it, and they justify it by pleading that their opinion is the truest: which plea, supposing it to be true, will not in a conscience that is guided by God's word, justify a separation. Let us put the case of an Antipaedobaptist, or other dissenter, that is never so sure that he is in the right ; and that the Church's opinion is absurd, inconvenient, fooUsh, &c. or any thing that he pleases to call it, so he do not call it idolatry, or heresy, or an error which does avert the foundation, — and yet by their own principles before laid down, communion is to be continued. Let the man, when he is got into one of his severest fits of judging his brethren of the Church, imagine them speaking to him, in the words of St. Paul to some Christians at Corinth ', who were the most conceited and dividing people he ever had to do with ; " You are full, you are rich. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ : we are weak, but you are strong : you are honorable, but we are despised. Yet receive us ;" do not re ject our communion in all things, because we err in some things. Or, as he says in another place ; " If you think me a fool, yet as a fool receive me." There are several good books written purposely on this subject, and directed to the Antipaedobaptists, to show, that supposing their opinion to be true, yet their schism is a sin : and that by men of both the opinions. One that is not rash, but desires to guide his conscience warily, wUl at least read and weigh what they say. Mr. Tombs, who continued an Antipaedobaptist to his dying day, yet as I am told 2, wrote against separation for it ; and for communion with the parish churches. I have not seen that book: but this I have seen3, that where he defends his opinion against Marshal, and where Marshal had said; "The teachers of this opinion, wherever they prevail, take their prose lytes wholly off from the ministry of the word, sacraments, and aU other acts of Christian communion both public and private, with any but those of their own opinions." To this, Tombs answers ; " This is indeed a wicked practice, justly to be abhorred. The making of sects upon difference of opinions, reviling, separating from their teachers and brethren otherwise faithful, because there is not the same opinion in disputable points, or in clear truths not fundamental, is a thing too frequent in all sorts of dogmatists, 1 1 Cor. iv. 8. 10. 2 Cor. vii. 2. xi. 17. 2 Baxter, Reply to Hutchinson, p. 30. 3 Tombs against Marshal, p. 31. 478 WILLIAM WALL. &c. I look upon it as one of the greatest plagues of Christianity. You shaU have me join with you in showing my detestation of it. Yet nevertheless it is to be considered that this is not the evU of Antipaedobaptism (you confess some are otherwise minded) ; and therefore must be charged on the persons, not on the assertion itself. And about this, what they hold, you may have now the best satisfaction from the confession of faith in the name of seven Churches of them, Art. 33, &c." And accordingly Mr. Tombs himself continued in communion with the Church till he died. Mr. Baxter, who has wrote more books than any man in England against the opinion, yet has also wrote more against the dividing for it; and has made many wishes and proposals for accommodations of both sides joining in public communion; especially in his latter books, and in the History of his own Life, when he had lived to seea the great mischief that schisms do to religion and all piety. I will mention only one passage, wherein he recommends to the Antipaedobaptists two books useful to give them a true state of the question about the unlawfulness of se paration. " I am," says he x, " not half so zealous to turn men from the opinion of Anabaptistry, as I am to persuade both them and others, that it is a duty to live together with mutual for bearance, in love and Church-communion, notwithstanding such differences : for which they may see more reasons given, by one that was once of their mind and way (Mr. William AUen in his Retractation of Separation, and his persuasive to unity), than any of them can soundly refel, though they may too easily re ject them." But then Mr. Baxter gives there a marginal note, telling the Antipaedobaptists, " Satan will not consent that you should soberly read the books." Now methinks an Antipaedo baptist that is desirous to direct his conscience aright in so weighty a matter as separation is, should not let Satan have his will altogether ; but should read such books, and consider them at least, whether Satan wiU consent or not. This I will own, in excuse of the English Antipaedobaptists that do so divide ; that it is a harder thing to repent of the sin of schism in England, than it is any where else. For the common ness of any sin does, in unthinking minds, wonderfuUy abate the sense of the guilt of it. When drunkenness is grown common, and almost universal, one can hardly persuade an ordinary man a See 5 Ecclesiastical Biography, p. 576. 1 Confutation of Forgeries of H. D. Sect. 2. chap. 2. § 13. A Dissuasive from Schism. 479 that it is a thing that will bring damnation on his soul ; because he sees almost all the neighbourhood, and among them such a gentleman, or such a lord, as much concerned in that as he. So an Antipaedobaptist thinks ; whatever my opinion be, the separa tion for it can be no great fault ; for the Presbyterians, and other parties of men, do that as well as we, and for lesser differences. If we have taken those opinions which our ancestors held without separating, and have made a separate reUgion out of them, it is but what the others did before us : for they have taken the opi nions which the old Puritans had; and (though the Puritans could not) yet they have made good Brownism a out of them. And so for other parties. Now this humour of dividing is no where in the world so common as it is in England, (at least if we except the country I spoke of before b,) nor the sin of schism so Uttle feared, I mean of late years. The reason why the same texts of Scripture against schism, division, heresy, &c. being read by the Protestants of other nations, do create in their minds a horror of it, but being read by an Englishman, do lose their force with him, is, because he has been born and bred in a nation where that is so common, and practised by men that are, in other things, so conscientious ; that he is apt to put any forced sense on the words, rather than think that that text of St. Paul, for example, Rom. xvi. 17. is to be taken as the words sound : though there is (if a man desire plain Scripture) not a plainer text in the whole Bible. But the Word of God and his Law is not Like human laws, that it should lose its edge by the multi tude of offenders. God will not punish any sin less, I doubt He wiU punish it more, for having been a common or reigning one. Some people also have so sUghtly considered the commands of God, that they think nothing to be a sin, but what they see punished by the secular laws. And so because some Chris tian nations (whereof England does of late make one) have thought fit to grant an impunity c to schismatics for some reasons of state, and to tolerate (though not approve of) Churches or societies renouncing communion with the estabUshed Church of the place ; they are apt to think that God also does aUow of the * See Hooker's Preface, chap. viii. § 1. The Expostulations of the Brown ists against the Puritans. b Holland. e See above in this volume, p. 274, Barrow's Sena. Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides, and note. 480 WILLIAM WALL. same ; which will be true when God in His judgment will think fit to regulate Himself by statute laws. But till that be, it is certain by God's Word that either such a Church, or else those that renounce her communion, are schismatics : either the one for giving just causes to the others to separate from her ; or else the others for separating without just cause. It is certain also, that if any Church should so far comply with reasons of state, or human laws, as to teach, that schism (however by them tolerated) is not sin before God, — this very doctrine would indeed be a good reason for any pious Christian to separate from her ; and that by the second of the exceptions I gave just now. So gross is that notion, to think that separation is therefore no sin, because men's laws may at sometimes forbear to inflict any temporal punishment on it. But yet, as gross as it is, it is made to serve for an excuse to the consciences of many ignorant people. Partly this reason, and partly the commonness of the sin, have made, that many men's consciences do no longer accuse them for it. § 7. There may need a few words also concerning the difficul ties that do lie in the way of the union that I have here proposed. They are none of them such but what may, I hope, be accom modated, if the parties be willing. Some of them do lie on the part of the Church in receiving these men; and some on the part of the men themselves, in respect of their acceptance of the communion offered them. I know of but two on each part. On the Church's part, one concerns the bishop of the diocese chiefly ; the other, both the bishop and the curate of the parish. In speaking of which, the nature of the thing shows, that I ought to submit what I shall say to the judgment of the parties concerned ; which I declare that I do unfeignedly, I wiU only propose the question, leaving the determination to them. 1. Suppose a man do understand the nature and necessity of the Church-union I have been speaking of; and accordingly does desire to continue, or to be, a member of the Established Church; but he is not satisfied of the vaUdity or sufficiency of baptism given in infancy, or of baptism given by sprinkling or pouring of water on the face only; and therefore he (though perhaps baptized in infancy, yet) has procured himself to be baptized anew : and besides he cannot consent to bring his children, if he have any, to be baptized in infancy, but reserves them to adult baptism; but in other things he is wiUing to be conformable to the rules of the Church, and very desirous of the communion A Dissuasive from Schism. 481 thereof. This man is, I suppose, by the rules of the Church of England, liable to be presented for his fault, both in receiving a second baptism, (for so it is in the esteem of the Church,) and in not bringing his children to baptism. Here is one evasion, or salvo, which I scorn to make use of, as being not satisfactory to myself, — viz. that the Church's hands are tied up from any proceedings in any cases of that nature, by the Act of Toleration. Because I think there is nothing more certain than what Bishop StiUingfleet says ; " However the Church, in some respects, be incorporated with the common wealth in a Christian state, yet its fundamental rights remain distinct from it ; of which this is one of the chief, to receive into, and exclude out of, the Church, such persons which, according to the laws of a Christian Society, are fit to be taken in, or shut out1." It is temporal punishments only, which those temporal laws design to set aside. Yet this I will say, that by the general forbearance that is now used, it is ten to one whether such a per son would be presented. But we will put the hardest of the case, and suppose him to be presented. He is then warned to appear before the bishop at the Church- court. He pleads, we will suppose, conscience, for his doing or refusing the things mentioned. The bishop exhorts him, shows him reasons, endeavours to satisfy his. doubts, &c, or perhaps deputes some persons to discourse at leisure more largely with him concerning them. If by these means the man be satisfied, aU is well. But we must put the case that he be not. Here the question is, whether the bishop in such a case will proceed to excommunication, or use a forbearance. I suppose he will make a difference of the tempers of men. If such a man do show a temper heady, fierce, obstinate, self-opiniated and self-willed, and a contempt of the court, and of all that is said to him ; he is hardly a fit member of any Church. But if there appear the signs of a meek, humble, and Christian disposition, willing to hear and consider the- reasons and advices given ; such a case deserves the greater forbearance. And though the law requires three several admonitions, yet it does not, I suppose, limit the bishop to three, nor to any number. And if this forbearance continue long, the man's children will be grown up, so as to be i Answer to N. O. § 15, p. 267. vol. iii. i i 482 WILLIAM WALL. baptized, as he would have them, upon their own profession. And if he desire, or be but willing, that it be done by dipping, the Church does comply with his desire, and does advise it in the first place. And so the dispute will be over. If the bishop do excommunicate him before he be convinced, or this be done, then indeed I have no more to say on this head : there is a fuU stop put to the proposal. But there are these reasons to think that it would not be so : l. I never heard of that done, but several times the contrary. All the antipaedobaptists, or indeed other dissenters, that I have known excommunicated, have been excommunicated, not for their opinion, but their refusal of communion, or for contempt in refusing to come at all to the bishop's court. 2. Mr. Tombs (and several others, but I wiU name only him, because his case is generally known) continued in communion in the Church of Salisbury all the latter part of his life. And though he, during that time, owned his opinion, and wrote for it, yet because he desired to make no schism of it, he was not dis turbed in his communicating with the Church. Nor has that Church ever been blamed for receiving him. On the contrary, the example has been spoken of, with commendation, in a very public way. This shows it to be practicable : and if it be so, then, — 3. There is a great and manifest advantage in it ; for it pre vents a schism, which otherwise would be. The man continuing in communion, all things will tend to an accommodation : whereas in a separation every thing is aggravated to the widening of the gap, as we see by constant and woful experience. A separate party never thinks itself far enough off from any terms of recon ciliation. The second difficulty, which concerns, as I said, both the bishop and the curate, is this : By the order of the Church of England, no person is to be admitted to partake of the Holy communion tiU he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed. And a qualification required of every person before he be brought to the bishop to be confirmed is, that he have learned (or, as it is expressed in another place, can answer to the questions of) the catechism. Now in that catechism there hap pens to be a mention of infants being baptized. For after that it has declared that baptism is to be given upon a covenant of A Dissuasive from Schism. 483 faith and repentance ; it follows : Quest. " Why then are infants baptized, when by reason of their tender age they cannot perform them?" — Answ. " Because they promise them both by their sureties; which promise, when they come to age themselves are bound to perform." Now this man being asked that question would not make that answer ; but would say, they ought not to be baptized till they can perform them. But besides, that one may answer here (much as in the other case) that the practice is such, that not half the people that come to the communion are asked whether they have been confirmed or not ; and also, that those who come to be confirmed when they are of the age of a man, are seldom or never examined in the questions of the catechism, provided it does by other ways suf ficiently appear that they do understand the principles of reli gion ; the questions as they stand in the catechism, being seldom put but only to chUdren, — besides this, I say, it appears to have been the meaning of the Church in that question and answer, not to determine this point, whether infants are to be baptized (of which no EngUshman at that time made any doubt) ; but to de termine this point, whether infants that are baptized, are baptized upon any other covenant than that upon which grown persons are baptized, viz. of repentance and faith. And it determines that they are not baptized on any other, but the very same : only with this difference ; that an adult person is baptized into the hopes of the kingdom of Heaven, inasmuch as he does believe; and an infant is baptized into the same, on condition that he do, " when he comes to age," believe. And this indeed is a principle very necessary to be rightly understood. For a mistake herein might hinder those who are baptized in infancy from understanding the obligation that Ues on them to faith and obedience, as ever they hope to partake of the kingdom of Heaven; to prevent which mistake this clause of the catechism seems to have been inserted. So that though the Church do here suppose, indeed, or take it for granted, that infants are generally baptized ; yet that is not the thing which she here defines ; not that they are to be bap tized; but why (or upon what terms) they are baptized. And this is a thing which an Antipaedobaptist holds as firmly as any man ; that all baptism is to be upon this covenant. And he will readily assent to this ; that supposing, or taking it for granted that infants were to be baptized, they must be understood to be i i2 484 WILLIAM WALL. baptized on that covenant, viz. to enjoy the kingdom of Heaven, on condition they do, when they come to age, perform the duties of faith and repentance. And since this is the substance of what the catechism there teaches, and the 'catechism was intended, not to determine con troversies, but to teach fundamental principles; I believe that the bishops would not refuse to confirm such a person (otherwise sound in the faith and conformable, and desirous of communion} though he should own his sense in his answer to that question of the catechism. This I think; but I end this discourse wherein the authority of the Church is concerned, as I began it, viz. in submitting my opinion to theirs, and leaving it to themselves to determine whether they would or not, or ought or not. There are on the Antipaedobaptist's part, concerning his ac ceptance of communion with the Church, these two difficulties. Some men of that way do think, that all such as have no other baptism but what was given in infancy and by affusion, are no Christians ; and that to bid them hold communion with such, is as much as to bid them hold it with heathens. I hope there are not many such : and Mr. Stennet reckons it a slander on the Antipaedobaptists. And I am glad to find by his discourse that he is cordial in the abhorrence of so unchristian a notion. And therefore I shaU say the less of it; having a natural antipathy against talking with any one whose principles are so desperately uncharitable as this comes to. What I said before, § 6, to show that this difference about the age or manner of receiving baptism is not a fundamental one, is applicable here. Let a man that has this thought first read that, and then let him consider farther, what becomes of the Church of Christ at this rate. Will he think that Christ has had no Church but in those few times and places where this opinion has prevailed? Peter of Clugny (whom I quoted, part ii. chap. vii. § 5.) urges the Petrobrusians with this dreadful consequence five or six hundred years ago, that if infant baptism be not valid, there had been never a Christian in Europe for three or five hundred years before : and that account is much increased now. The sophisters in logic have a way by which, if a man do hold any the least error in philosophy, they will, by a long train of consequences, prove that he denies the first maxims of common sense. And some would bring that spiteful art into religion; A Dissuasive from Schism. 485 whereby they will prove him that is mistaken in any the least point, to be that Antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. If the Paedobaptist be mistaken, or the Antipaedobaptist be mis taken, yet let them not make heathens of one another. The de nial of the Quakers to be Christians, those of them I mean that do believe the Scriptures, has such a dreadful consequence with it, that one would not willingly admit it, (though they do deny all baptism,) because they do, however, profess that which is the chief thing signified and intended by baptism. But since both the parties we speak of now, do own the religion professed in baptism, and do also both use the outward sign ; supposing that one side do err in the mode of it, or the age of receiving it, to conclude thence that they are no Christians, is the property of one that knows not what spirit he is of. To receive baptism oneself in that way which one thinks the fittest, is one case : but it is another, and very different case, to judge all those to con demnation that have received it another way. " Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" I know that the Antipaedo baptists do not admit to the Lord's Supper, when it is administered by themselves, any but what are baptized in their way. But I speak now of one that is to receive it, not to administer it ; he that receives it has no charge on his soul of the way in which those that receive with him have been baptized. But I have said more than is, I hope, needful on this head. The Confession, which I mentioned before, of one hundred Churches of Antipaedo baptists, does not say that only the adult are capable of baptism. It says but thus; they " are the only proper subjects of this ordinance * ;" and they do not say that immersion is necessary to the administration; but that " it is necessary to the due ad ministration of it." I mentioned at chap. v. § 6. how the Christ ians of Africa and of Europe differed as much as this comes to, in their opinion of the vaUdity of baptism given by schismatics ; insomuch that the Africans baptized anew any schismatic that came over to the Church; the Europeans did not so. But yet these Churches did not break communion for this difference. A presbyter or bishop of Africa, coming to Rome, joined in com munion ; though there must needs be, in the congregations there, several who, according to his notion of the due way of baptizing, 1 Chap. 29. 486 WILLIAM WALL. were not duly baptized ; and whom he, if had had the admitting of them into his own Church in Africa, would have baptized anew. But he left this matter to the conscience and determina tion of the Church of the place. And by this means of both parties continuing communion, the whole matter in which they differed, was at last amicably adjusted, as I there show. And whereas the conduct of Stephen of Rome, who would have made a breach of this, has been since blamed by all the Christians, as well of Rome as of other places: the conduct of Cyprian of Africa, who gave his determination of the question with this ad ditional clause ', [Neminem judicantes, aut a, jure communionis, si diversum senserit, amoventes. " Not judging any one, nor re fusing communion with him, though he be of the other opinion,"] has been since applauded by all Christians in the world, as a saying worthy of so excellent a martyr of Jesus Christ, and a pre cedent fit to be observed in the determination of aU questions that are not fundamental. The other difficulty is, that if such a man do come to join in the prayers of the Church of England: if there be an infant brought to be baptized in the time of the public service, he cannot join in the prayers used in that office : or, at least, not in all of them. This must be confessed, while he holds that opinion. But I showed before, at § 4, that this ought not to hinder his joining in the other prayers: so that paragraph may serve for answer to this. He may, when the people are kneeling at those prayers, stand up or sit, and read in his Bible. There were in King William's time some that, not being satisfied about his title, thought they ought not join in or say Amen to some of those prayers wherein he was named. However they were blamed by the state for not agreeing in those, they were never blamed by the Church for continuing to join in the rest. What I have said of the Antipaedobaptists, does plainly reach to the case of several other Dissenters. And that with greater force of the argument, because they differ less from the Church in opinions. One thing I am persuaded of concerning the Antipaedobap tists ; and that is, that if they were convinced that this joining in 1 Proloquium St. Cypriani in Concil. Carthag. A Dissuasive from Schism. 487 the public service of the Church were lawful and practicable for them, they would join at another rate than some shifting people1 do now-a-days. I take them generally to be cordial, open, and frank expressers of their sentiments. If they thought that St. Paul's command of "receiving one another" did reach to this case that I have been speaking of (as I think it does) they would not interpret it trickishly as some lawyers do a statute in which they seek a flaw and an evasion, to lurk behind the words of it, while they defeat the true meaning. They would conclude that what God commands us to do, He means we should do cordially, sin cerely, and bond fide, and not to deal with His word as a Jesuit does with an oath. And therefore that if His word do bid us receive one another, He means we should do it entirely. There is one entreaty that I would use to them, which is, that if they be at aU moved to consider of such joining, and to delibe rate whether it be lawful, or be a duty, or not ; they would make a good and prudent choice of the men, whose advice they ask about it. There are some men jamong aU parties (I hope it is not many) that do promote divisions out of interest. These, as St. Paul says, " serve not oiir Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly." They consider if the schism should drop, what would become of that esteem, credit, applause, admiration, gain, &c, which they get by heading and leading of parties : they must then be but as common Christians, walking even with the rest in a beaten road, and aU the glory of setting up new ways would be lost. These are not fit for any pious and sincere man to trust with the direction of his conscience ; nor likely to give a true verdict. On the contrary, they are the cause of most of the divi sions which Christ has forbidden. He says that offences [or scandals] must come : and St. Paul says, there must be heresies [or divisions]. We may say of both ; " Woe be to the men by whom they come." The civil law has, I think, a rule, that when any great mischief appears to be spread among the people, and it is not known who were the authors that first set it on foot, it should be inquired ; Cui bono fuit ? Who are the men that are likely to get any advantage by it ? and to suspect them. These that promote division for interest, keep their consciences, as beg gars do their sores, raw and open on purpose, and would not have them healed for any money. Let not any honest man trust them 1 The allusion is to the practice of occasional conformity. 488 WILLIAM WALL. with the keeping of his; but apply to a man who (of which opinion soever he be) is cordial, sincere, and has no interest in the advice he gives. I shall conclude with the words of St. Paul, which I have made as it were the text of this sermon, " Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us." Christ received us when we were not only silly, mistaken, erroneous, but sinful too. He received us that He might make us wiser and better. St. Paul adds, " to the glory of God;" meaning, that God is no way more disho noured than by our divisions, nor any way more glorified than by our unity and receiving one another. XXI. ESSAYS BY LORD BACON. I. Of Truth. II. Of Death. III. Of Unity in Religion. IV. Of Adversity. V. Of Great Place. VI. Of Goodness of Nature. VII. Of a King. VIII. Of Nobility. IX. Of Atheism. X. Of Superstition. XI. Of Wisdom for a Man's Self. XII. Of Innovations. XIII. Of Studies. I. OF truth. What is truth ? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a beUef ; affecting free will in thinking, as weU as in acting : and though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth ; nor again, that, when it is found, it imposes upon men's thoughts, that doth bring Ues in favour; but a natural, though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the Grecians examines the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love Ues, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; — but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell : this same truth is a naked and 490 LORD BACON. open day-light, that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that shows best by day ; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that shows best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie does ever add pleasure. Does any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's mind vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves ? One of the Fathers, in great severity, called poesy, " vinum dce- monum," because it fills the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passes through the mind, but the lie that sinks in and settles in it, that does the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judg ments and affections, yet truth, which only does judge itself, teaches that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-mak,ing or wooing of it ; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it ; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it ; is the sove reign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense ; the last was the light of reason ; and His sabbath-work, ever since, is the illumi nation of His Spirit. First He breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then He breathed light into the face of man ; and still He breathes and inspires light into the face of His chosen. The poet that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the rest, says yet excellently well, " It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea ; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below ; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below ;" so always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business, it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honour of Of Death. 491 man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embases it ; for these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goes basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. There is no vice that does so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious ; and therefore Mon taigne says prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge, " If it be weU weighed, — to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men ; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man." Surely the wicked ness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men ; it being fore told that when " Christ cometh," He shall not " find faith upon earth." II. OF DEATH. Men fear death as children fear to go into the dark ; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin and passage to another world, is holy and religious ; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of super stition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortifica tion, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed, or tortured, and thereby ima gine what the pains of death are when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passes with less pain than the torture of a limb ; for the most vital parts are not the quick est of sense : and by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was weU said, " Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa." Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the Uke, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death ; and 492 LORD BACON. therefore death is no such terrible enemy when a man has so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death ; love slights it ; honour aspires to it; grief flies to it; fear pre-occupies it; nay, we read, after Otho.the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety : " Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris ; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest." A man would die, though he were neither vaUant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration in good spi rits the approaches of death make ; for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Caesar died in a com- pUment : " Livia conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale." Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacitus says of him, "Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant :" Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon the stool, " Ut puto Deus fio ." Galba with a sentence, " Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani," holding forth his neck : Sep timus Severus in dispatch, " Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum" and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better, says he, " qui finem vita extremum inter munera ponat natural." It is as natural to die as to be born ; and to a little infant, per haps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood, who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt ; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good does avert the dolours of death ; but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, " Nunc dimittis," when a man has obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death has this also, that it opens the gate to good fame, and extinguishes envy : " Exstinctus amabitur idem." III. OF UNITY IN RELIGION. Religion being the chief bond of human society, it is a happy thing when itself is well contained within the true bond of unity. Of Unity in Religion. 493 The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was, because the religion of the hea then consisted rather in rites and ceremonies, than in any con stant beUef ; for you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and fathers of their Church were the poets. But the true God has this attribute, that He is a jealous God; and therefore His worship and religion will endure no mixture nor partner. We shall therefore speak a few words con cerning the unity of the Church ; what are the fruits thereof; what the bonds ; and what the means. The fruits of unity (next unto the well-pleasing of God, which is all in all) are two ; the one toward those that are with out the Church, the other towards those that are within. — For the former, it is certain, that heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest scandals; yea, more than corruption of manners; for, as in the natural body a wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt humour, so in the spiritual ; so that nothing does so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity ; and, therefore, whensoever it comes to that pass that one says, " ecce in deserto," another says, " ecce in penetralibus ;" that is, when some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heretics, and others in an outward face of a Church, that voice had need continually to sound in men's ears, "nolite exire,"— "go not out." The doctor of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a special care of those without) says, " If a heathen come in, and hear you speak with several tongues, will he not say that you are mad ?" and, certainly, it is Uttle better. When atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it does avert them from the Church, and makes them " to sit down in the chair of the scorners." It is but a light thing to be vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it expresses well the deformity. There is a master of scoffing, that in his catalogue of books of a feigned library, sets down this title of a book, " The Morris-Dance of Heretics :" for, indeed, every sect of them has a diverse posture, or cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldUngs and depraved politics, who are apt to contemn holy things. As for the fruit towards those that are within, it is peace, which contains infinite blessings ; it establishes faith ; it kindles charity ; the outward peace of the Church distils into peace of conscience, 494 LORD BACON. and it turns the labours of writing and reading controversies into treatises of mortification and devotion. Concerning the bonds of unity, the true placing of them imports exceedingly. There appear to be two extremes : for to certain zealots all speech of pacification is odious. " Is it peace, Jehu ?" — " What hast thou to do with peace ? turn thee behind me." Peace is not the matter, but foUowing and party. Con trariwise, certain Laodiceans and lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements, as if they would make an arbitrement between God and man. Both these extremes are to be avoided, which wUl be done if the league of Christians, penned by our Saviour Himself, were in the two cross clauses thereof soundly and plainly expounded : " He that is not with us is against us ;" and again, " He that is not against us is with us ;" that is, if the points fundamental, and of substance in religion, were truly discerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention. This is a thing may seem to many a matter trivial, and done already ; but if it were done less partially, it would be embraced more generaUy. Of this I may give only this advice, according to my small model. Men ought to take heed of rending God's Church by two kinds of controversies ; the one is, when the matter of the point controverted is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradiction ; for, as it is noted by one of the Fathers, Christ's coat indeed had no seam, but the Church's vesture was of divers colours ; whereupon He says, " in veste varietas sit, scissura non sit," they be two things, unity and uniformity ; — the other is, when the matter of the point con troverted is great, but it is driven to an over great subtilty and obscurity, so that it becomes a thing rather ingenious than sub stantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within him self that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet they them selves would never agree ; and if it come so to pass in that dis tance of judgment, which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows the heart, does not discern that frail men, in some of their contradictions, intend the same thing, and accepts of both ? — The nature of such controversies is excel lently expressed by St. Paul, in the warning and precept that he gives concerning the same, " devita profanas vocum novitates, et Of Unity in Religion. 495 oppositiones falsi nominis sciential" Men create oppositions which are not, and put them into new terms so fixed, as whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect governs the meaning. — There be also two false peaces, or unities: the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an implicit ignorance ; for all colours will agree in the dark : the other, when it is pieced up upon a direct admission of contraries in fundamental points : for truth and falsehood, in such things, are like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image ; they may cleave, but they wiU not incorporate. Concerning the means of procuring unity, men must beware, that, in the procuring or muniting of religious unity, they do not dissolve and deface the laws of charity and of human society. There be two swords amongst Christians, the spiritual and tem poral ; and both have their due office and place in the maintenance of reUgion : but we may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword, or Uke unto it : that is, to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state ; much less to nourish seditions ; to authorize conspiracies and rebellions; to put the sword into the people's hands, and the like, tending to the subversion of all government, which is the ordinance of God; for this is but to dash the first table against the second ; and so to consider men as Christians, as we forget that they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon, that could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed : ' Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum." What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in France, or the powder treason of England? He would have been seven times more epicure and atheist than he was ; for as the tem poral sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion, so it is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people ; let that be left unto the Anabaptists, and other furies. It was great blasphemy, when the devil said, " I will ascend and be like the Highest;" but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring Him in saying, " I will descend, and be like the prince of darkness ;" and what is it better, to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes, butchery of people, and subversion of states 7 496 LORD BACON. and governments? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven ; and to set out of the bark of a Christian Church a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins, therefore it is most necessary for the Church by doctrine and degree; princes by their sword; and aU learnings, both Christian and moral, as by their mercury rod to damn, and send to heU for ever, those facts and opinions tending to the support of the same, as has been already in good part done. Surely in councils concerning religion, that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed, " Ira hominis non implet justitiam Dei :" and it was a notable observation of a wise Father, and no less ingenuously confessed, that those which held and persuaded pressure of consciences, were commonly interested therein them selves for their own ends. IV. OF ADVERSITY. It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired: "Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mira- bilia." Certainly, if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for an heathen), " It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God :" — " Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei." This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more allowed ; and the poets, indeed, have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seems not to be without mystery ; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian, " that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher, lively describing Christian resolution, that sails in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world." But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, Of Great Place. 497 adversity is the blessing of the New, which carries the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost has laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes ; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn • ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground : judge, therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant where they are incensed, or crushed : for prosperity does best dis cover vice, but adversity does best discover virtue. V. OF GREAT PLACE. Men in great place are thrice servants ; servants of the sove-r reign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business ; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty ; or to seek power over others, -and to lose power over a man's self. , The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains ; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slip pery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing: " Cum non sis qui fueris, non esse cur velis vivere ?" Nay, retire men cannot when they would, neither wiU they when it were reason ; but are impatient of pri- vateness even in age and sickness, which require the shadow ; like old townsmen, that wUl be stiU sitting at their street door, though thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly great persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy ; for if they judge by their own feeling, that cannot find it : but if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find the contrary within : for they are the first that find their own griefs, though they be VOL. 111. K k 498 LORD BACON. the last that find their own faults. Certainly, men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and whUe they are in the puzzle of business they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind : " Illi mors gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omni bus, ignotus moritur sibi." In place there is license to do good and evil ; whereof the latter is a curse : for an evil the best condition is not to will; the second not to can. But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts, (though God accept them,) yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act ; and that cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit and good works is the end of man's motion ; and conscience of the same is the accom plishment of man's rest : for if a man can be partaker of God's theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest : " Et con- versus Deus, ut aspiceret opera, qua fecerunt manus sua, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis;" and then the sabbath. In the dis charge of thy place set before thee the best examples ; for imita tion is a globe of precepts ; and after a time set before thee thine own example; and examine thyself strictly whether thou didst not best at first. Neglect not also the examples of those that have carried themselves iU in the same place ; not to set off thy self by taxing their memory, but to direct thyself what to avoid. Reform, therefore, without bravery or scandal of former times and persons ; but yet set it down to thyself, as well to create good precedents as to follow them. Reduce things to the first institu tion, and observe wherein and how they have degenerated ; but yet ask counsel of both times ; of the ancient time what is best ; and of the latter time what is fittest. Seek to make thy course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect ; but be not too positive and peremptory ; and express thyself well when thou digressest from thy rule. Preserve the right of thy place, but stir not questions of jurisdiction ; and rather assume thy right in silence, and " de facto," than voice it with claims and challenges. Preserve likewise the rights of inferior places ; and think it more honour to direct in chief, than to be busy in all. Embrace and invite helps and advices touching the execution of thy place ; and do not drive away such as bring thee information as meddlers, but accept of them in good part. The vices of authority are chiefly four; delays, corruption, roughness, and facility. For delays, — give easy access; keep Of Great Place. 499 times appointed ; go through with that which is in hand, and in terlace not business but of necessity. For corruption, — do not only bind thine own hands or thy servant's hands from taking, but bind the hands of suitors also from offering; for integrity used doth the one ; but integrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other; and avoid not only the fault, but the suspicion. Whosoever is found variable, and changes manifestly without manifest cause, gives suspicion of corruption: therefore, always, when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, together with the reasons that move thee to change, and do not think to steal it. A servant or a favourite, if he be inward, and no other apparent cause of esteem, is commonly thought but a by-way to close corruption. For roughness, — it is a needless cause of discontent: severity breeds fear, but roughness breeds hate. Even reproofs from authority ought to be grave, and not taunting. As for facility, — it is worse than bribery ; for bribes come but now and then ; but if importunity or idle respects lead a man, he shall never be with out ; as Solomon saith, " To respect persons it is not good, for such a man will transgress for a piece of bread." It is most true that was anciently spoken, " A place showeth the man; and it showeth some to the better, and some to the worse :" " omnium consensu, capax imperii, nisi imperdsset," saith Tacitus of Galba ; but of Vespasian he saith, " solus imperantium, Vespasianus mutatus in melius;" though the one was meant of sufficiency, the other of manners and affection. It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit, whom honour amends ; for honour is, or should be, the place of virtue; and as in nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm. All rising to great place is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, it is good to side a man's self whilst he is in the rising, and to balance himself when he is placed. Use the memory of thy predecessor fairly and tenderly; for if thou dost not, it is a debt will sure be paid when thou art gone. If thou have colleagues, respect them ; and rather call them when they look not for it, than exclude them when they have reason to look to be called. Be not too sensible or too remembering of thy place in conversa tion and private answers to suitors; but let it rather be said, " When he sits in place he is another man." k k2 500 LORD BACON. VI. OF GOODNESS, AND GOODNESS OF NATURE. I take goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, which is that the Grecians caU philanthropia ; and the word humanity (as it is used) is a Uttle too light to express it. Good ness I call the habit, and goodness of nature the inclination. This, of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of the Deity ; and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin. Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused the an gels to faU; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall : but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it. The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man ; insomuch, that if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other Uving creatures ; as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds ; insomuch, as Busbechius reporteth, a Christian boy in Constantinople had like to have been stoned for gagging in a waggishness a long-biUed fowl. Errors indeed, in this virtue, in goodness or charity, may be committed. The Italians have an ungracious proverb, " Tanto buon che val niente;" " So good, that he is good for nothing:" and one of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Machiavel, had the confidence to put in writing, almost in plain terms, "That the Christian faith had given up good men in prey to those that are tyrannical and unjust ;" which he spake, because, indeed, there was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness as the Christian reUgion does: therefore, to avoid the scandal, and the danger both, it is good to take knowledge of the errors of an habit so excellent. Seek the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their faces or fancies ; for that is but faciUty or softness, which takes an honest mind prisoner. Neither give thou iEsop's cock a gem, who would be better pleased and happier if he had a barley corn. — The example of God teaches the lesson truly ; " He sendeth his rain, and maketh his sun to shine upon the just and the unjust;" but he does not rain wealth, nor shine honour and virtues upon men equally : common benefits are to be communi- Of Goodness of Nature. 501 cated with all, but pecuUar benefits with choice. And beware how in making the portraiture thou breakest the pattern: for divinity makes the love of ourselves the pattern ; the love of our neighbours but the portraiture. " Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, and follow me :" but sell not all thou hast, except thou come and follow me ; that is, except thou have a vocation wherein thou mayest do as much good with little means as with great; for otherwise, in feeding the streams, thou driest the fountain. Neither is there only a habit of goodness directed by right reason ; but there is in some men, even in nature a disposition towards it; as, on the other side, there is a natural malignity: for there be that in their nature do not affect the good of others. The Ughter sort of maUgnity turns but to a crossness, or fro- wardness, or aptness to oppose, or difficileness, or the like ; but the deeper sort to envy, and mere mischief. Such men in other men's calamities, are, as it were, in season, and are ever on the loading parts : not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus' sores, but like flies that are still buzzing upon any thing that is raw ; misanthropi, that make it their practice to bring men to the bough, and yet have never a tree for the purpose in their gardens, as Timon had. Such dispositions are the very errors of human nature, and yet they are the fittest timber to make great politics of; like to knee timber, that is good for ships that are ordained to be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand firm. The parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man be gra cious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut from other lands, but a continent that joins to them : if he be compassionate towards the afflictions of others, it shows that his heart is like the noble tree that is wounded itself when it gives the balm : if he easily pardons and remits offences, it shows that his mind is planted above in juries, so that he cannot be shot: if he be thankful for small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds, and not their trash ; but, above aU, if he have St. Paul's perfection, that he would wish to be an anathema from Christ, for the salvation of his bre thren, it shows much of a divine nature, and a kind of conformity with Christ himself. 502 LORD BACON. VII. OF A KING. 1. A king is a mortal god on earth, unto whom the living God , has lent His own name as a great honour ; but withal told him, he should die like a man, lest he should be proud, and flatter him self that God has with His name imparted unto him His nature also. 2. Of aU kind of men, God is the least beholding unto them ; for He does most for them, and they do ordinarily least for Him. 3. A king that would not feel his crown too heavy for him, must wear it every day ; but if he think it too Ught, he knows not of what metal it is made. 4. He must make religion the rule of government, and not to balance the scale ; for he that casts in religion only to make the scales even, his own weight is contained in those characters, " Mene mene, tekel upharsin," " He is found too light, his king dom shall be taken from him." 5. And that king that holds not religion the best reason of state, is void of all piety and justice, the supporters of a king. 6. He must be able to give counsel himself, but not rely there upon ; for though happy events justify their counsels, yet it is better that the evil event of good advice be rather imputed to a subject than a sovereign. 7. He is the fountain of honour, which should not run with a waste pipe, lest the courtiers sell the water, and then (as papists say of their holy wells) it loses the virtue. 8. He is the life of the law, not only as he is " lex loquens" himself, but because he animates the dead letter, making it active towards all his subjects, "pramio et poena." 9. A wise king must do less in altering his laws than he may ; for new government is ever dangerous; it being true in the body politic, as in the corporal, that " omnis subita immutatio est peri- culosa :" and though it be for the better, yet it is not without a fearful apprehension ; for he that changes the fundamental laws of a kingdom thinks there is no good title to a crown but by con quest. 10. A king that^sets to sale seats of justice, oppresses the peo- Of a King. 503 pie; for he teaches his judges to sell justice; and " pretio parata pretio venditur justitia." 11. Bounty and magnificence are virtues very regal, but a prodigal king is nearer a tyrant than a parsimonious ; for store at home draws not his contemplations abroad ; but want supplies it self of what is next, and many times the next way: a king herein must be wise, and know what he may justly do. 12. That king which is not feared is not loved ; and he that is weU seen in his craft must as well study to be feared as loved ; yet not loved for fear, but feared for love. 13. Therefore, he must always resemble Him whose great name he bears, and that as in manifesting the sweet influence of his mercy on the severe stroke of his justice sometimes, so in this not to suffer a man of death to live ; for, besides that the land does mourn, the restraint of justice towards sin does more retard the affection of love than the extent of mercy does inflame it ; and sure where love is [ill] bestowed fear is quite lost. 14. His greatest enemies are his flatterers ; for though they ever speak on his side yet. their words still make against him. 15. The love which' asking owes to a weal public should not be restrained to any one particular; yet that his more special favour do reflect upon some worthy ones is somewhat necessary, because there are few of that capacity. 16. He must have a special care of five things, if he would not have his crown to be but to him " infelix felicitas ." First, that "simulata sanctitas" be not in the Church; for that is, "duplex iniquitas" Secondly, that " inutilis aequitas" sit not in the chancery : for that is, " inepta misericordia :" Thirdly, that " utilis iniquitas" keep not the exchequer : for that is " crudele latrocinium :" Fourthly, that "fidelis temeritas" be not his general; for that will bring but " seram pcenitentiam .-" Fifthly, that "infidelis prudentia" be not his secretary: for that is, " anguis sub viridi herbd." To conclude; as he is of the greatest power, so he is subject to the greatest cares, made the servant to his people, or else he were without a calUng at all. He then that honours him not is next an atheist, wanting the. fear of God in his heart. 504 LORD BACON. VIII. OF NOBILITY. We wiU speak of nobility first as a portion of an estate, then as a condition of particular persons. A monarchy, where there is no nobility at all, is ever a pure and absolute tyranny, as that of the Turks ; for nobility attem pers sovereignty, and draws the eyes of the people somewhat aside from the Une royal : but for democracies they need it not ; and they are commonly more quiet, and less subject to sedition, than where there are stirps of nobles ; for men's eyes are upon the business, and not upon the persons ; or if upon the persons, it is for the business-sake, as fittest, and not for flags and pedigree. We see the Switzers last well, notwithstanding their diversity of reUgion and of cantons ; for utility is their bond, and not re spects. The united provinces of the Low Countries in their go vernment excel; for where there is an equaUty the consultations are more indifferent, and the payments and tributes more cheer ful. A great and potent nobility adds majesty to a monarch, but diminishes power ; and puts life and spirit into the people, but presses their fortune. It is weU when nobles are not too great for sovereignty nor for justice ; and yet maintained in that height, as the insolency of inferiors may be broken upon them before it come on too fast upon the majesty of kings. A numerous nobi lity causes poverty and inconvenience in a state, for it is a sur charge of expense ; and besides, it being of necessity that many of the nobUity faU in time to be weak in fortune, it makes a kind of disproportion between honour and means. As for nobiUty in particular persons, it is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay, or to see a fair timber tree sound and perfect; how much more to behold an ancient noble family, which has stood against the waves and weathers of time ? for new nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time. Those that are first raised to nobiUty, are commonly more virtuous, but less innocent, than their descendants ; for there is rarely any rising but by a commixture of good and evil arts : but it is reason the memory of their virtues remain to their posterity, and their faults die with themselves. Nobility of birth commonly abates industry ; and he that is not Of Atheism. 505 industrious, envies him that is : besides, noble persons cannot go much higher : and he that stands at a stay when others rise, can hardly avoid motions of envy. On the other side, nobility ex tinguishes the passive envy from others towards them, because they are in possession of honour. Certainly, kings that have able men of their nobility shall find ease in employing them, and a better sUde into their business; for people naturally bend to them as born in some sort to command. IX. OF ATHEISM. I had rather beUeve all the fables in the legend, and the Tal mud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind ; and, therefore, God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true, that a little philosophy inclines man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy brings men's minds about to religion ; for while the mind of man looks upon second causes scattered, it may some times rest in them, and go no farther ; but when it beholds the chain of them confederate, and linked together, it must needs fly to providence and Deity : nay, even that school which is most accused of atheism does most demonstrate religion ; that is, the school of Leucippus, and Democritus, and Epicurus : for it is a thousand times more credible, that four mutable elements and one immutable fifth essence, duly and eternally placed, need no God, than that an army of infinite smaU portions, or seeds unplaced, should have produced this order and beauty without a divine marshal. The Scripture says, " The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God ;" it is not said, " The fool hath thought in his heart ;" so as he rather says it by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it ; for none deny there is a God, but those for whom it makes that there were no God. It appears in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this, that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened by the opinion of others : nay more, you shall have atheists strive to get 506 LORD BACON. disciples, as it fares with other sects ; and, which is most of all, you shall have of them that wiU suffer for atheism, and not recant ; whereas, if they did truly think that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves ? Epicurus is charged, that he did but dissemble for his credit's sake, when he affirmed there were blessed natures, but such as enjoyed themselves with out having respect to the government of the world; wherein they say he did temporize, though in secret he thought there was no God : but certainly he is traduced, for his words are noble and divine : " Non Deos vulgi negare profanum ; sed vulgi opiniones Diis applicare profanum." Plato could have said no more ; and although he had the confidence to deny the administration, he had not the power to deny the nature. The Indians of the west have names for their particular gods, though they have no name for God; as if the heathens should have had the names Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, &c, but not the word Deus, which shows, that even those barbarous people have the notion, though they have not the latitude and extent of it : so that against atheists the very savages take part with the very subtUest philosophers. The con templative atheist is rare, a Diagoras, a Bion, a Lucian perhaps, and some others ; and yet they seem to be more than they are ; for that all that impugn a received reUgion, or superstition, are, by the adverse part, branded with the name of atheists; but the great atheists indeed are hypocrites, which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling ; so as they must needs be caute rized in the end. The causes of atheism are, divisions in religion, if there be many; for any one main division adds zeal to both sides, but many divisions introduce atheism ; another is, scandal of priests, when it is come to that which St. Bernard says, " non est jam dicere, ut populus, sic sacerdos ; quia nee sic populus, ut sacerdos :" a third is, a custom of profane scoffing in holy matters, which does by little and little deface the reverence of religion; and, lastly, learned times, especially with peace and prosperity ; for troubles and adversities do more bow men's minds to reUgion. They that deny a God destroy a man's nobility : for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body ; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys likewise magnanimity, and the raising human nature ; for take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a 7 Of Superstition. 507 man, who to him is instead of a God, or " melior natura ;" which courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that confi dence of a better nature than his own, could never attain. So man, when he rests and assures himself upon divine protection and favour, gathers a force and faith, which human nature in itself could not obtain ; therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, so in this, that it deprives human nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty. As it is in particular persons, so it is in nations : never was there such a state for magnanimity as Rome ; of this state hear what Cicero says, " Quam volumus, licet, Patres conscripti, ipsi nos amemus ; tamen nee numero Hispa- nos, nee robore Gallos, nee calliditate Pcenos, nee artibus Gracos, nee denique hoc ipso hujus gentis et terra domestico nativoque sensu Italos ipsos et Latinos; sed pietate, ac religione, atque hac und sapientid, quod Deorum immortalium numine omnia regi, guberna- rique perspeximus, omnes gentes nationesque superavimus" X. OF SUPERSTITION. It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him ; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch says well to that purpose : " Surely," says he, " I had rather a great deal men should say there was no such a man at aU as Plutarch, than that they should say there was one Plutarch, that would eat his children as soon as they were born ;" as the poets speak of Saturn : and, as the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger is greater towards men. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation ; aU which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men ; therefore atheism did never perturb states ; for it makes men wary of them selves, as looking no farther, and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Caesar) were civil times ; but superstition has been the confusion of many states, and brings in a new "primum mobile" that ravishes all the spheres of govern ment. The matter of superstition is the people, and in all superr 508 LORD BACON. stition wise men foUow fools ; and arguments are fitted to prac tice in a reversed order. It was gravely said, by some of the prelates in the council of Trent, where the doctrine of the school men bare great sway, that the schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics and epicycles, and such engines of orbs, to save the phenomena, though they knew there were no such things ; and, in like manner, that the schoolmen had framed a number of subtile and intricate axioms and theorems, to save the practice of the Church. The causes of superstition are pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies; excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; over great reverence of traditions, which cannot but load the Church ; the stratagems of prelates for their own ambition and lucre ; the favouring too much of good intentions, which opens the gate to conceits and novelties ; the taking an aim at divine matters by human, which cannot but breed mixture of imaginations ; and, lastly, barbarous times, especially joined with calamities and dis asters. Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing ; for as it adds deformity to an ape to be so like a man, so the simiUtude of superstition to religion makes it the more deformed ; and, as wholesome meat corrupts to Uttle worms, so good forms and orders corrupt into a number of petty observances. — There is a superstition in avoiding superstition a, when men think to do best if they go farthest from the superstition formerly received ; there fore care should be had that (as it fares in ill purgings) the good be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when the people is the reformer. XL OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF. An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden ; and certainly men that are great lovers of themselves waste the public. Divide with reason between self- love and society ; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others, especially to thy king and country. It is a poor centre a " They that are against superstition, oftentimes run into it on the wrong side. If I will wear all colour but black, then am I superstitious in not wearing black." Selden's Table Talk. art. " Superstition." Of Wisdom for a Man's self. 509 of a man's actions, himself. It is right earth; for that only stands fast upon his own centre ; whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens, move upon the centre of another, which they benefit. The referring of aU to a man's self, is more tolerable in a sovereign prince, because themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the peril of the public fortune : but it is a desperate evU in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a republic; for whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooks them to his own ends, which must needs be often eccentric to the ends of his master or state : therefore let princes, or states, choose such servants as have not this mark ; except they mean their service should be made but the accessary. That which makes the effect more pernicious is, that all proportion is lost; it were disproportion enough, for the servant's good to be preferred before the master's ; but yet is a greater extreme, when a little good of the servant shaU carry things against the great good of the masters : and yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which set a bias upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, to the overthrow of their master's great and important affairs : and, for the most part, the good such servants receive is after the model of their own fortune ; but the hurt they sell for that good is after the model of their master's fortune : and cer tainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they wiU set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs ; and yet these men many times hold credit with their masters, because their study is but to please them, and profit themselves ; and for either respect they will abandon the good of their affairs. Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depra ved thing: it is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house sometime before it faU : it is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him : it is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is speciaUy to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are, "sui amantes, sine rivali," are many times unfortunate; and. whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they thought by their self- wisdom to have pinioned. 510 LORD BACON. XII. OF INNOVATIONS. As the births of living creatures at first are illshapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time; yet notwithstanding, as those that first bring honour into their family are commonly more worthy than most that succeed, so the first precedent (if it be good) is seldom attained by imitation; for iU to man's nature as it stands perverted, has a natural motion strongest in continuance; but good, as a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils ; for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end ? It is true, that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit ; and those things which have long gone together, are, as it were, confederate within themselves; whereas new things piece not so well; but, though they help by their utility, yet they trouble by their inconformity : besides, they are like strangers, more admired, and less favoured. All this is true, if time stood still ; which, contrary wise, moves so round, that a froward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as an inno vation ; and they that reverence too much old times, are but a scorn to the new. It were good, therefore, that men, in their innovations, would follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovates greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be per ceived; for otherwise, whatsoever is new is unlooked for; and ever it mends some, and impairs others ; and he that is holpen takes it for a fortune, and thanks the time ; and he that is hurt for a wrong, and imputes it to the author. It is good also not to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draws on the change, and not the desire of change that pretends the reformation : and lastly, that the novelty, though it be not rejected, yet be held for a suspect ; and, as the Scripture says, " That we make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us, and discover what is the straight and right way, and so to walk in it." Of Studies. 51] XIII. OF STUDIES. Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring ; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particuLars, one by one : but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar : they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study ; and studies them selves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use ; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, Uke common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading makes a fuU man; conference a ready man ; and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory : if he confer little, he had need have a present wit : and if he read Uttle, he had need have much cun ning, to seem to know that he does not. Histories make men wise ; poets witty ; the mathematics subtile ; natural philosophy deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend ; "Abeunt studia in mores ;" nay, there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies : like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises; bowling is good for the 512 LORD BACON. stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walk ing for the stomach, riding for the head, and the like ; so, if a man's wits be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so Uttle, he must begin again ; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen, for they are " Cumini sectores ;" if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call upon one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases : so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. XXII. ESSAYS BY THE EARL OF CLARENDON. I. Of Life. II. Reflections on Happiness. III. Of Patience in Adversity, IV. Of Contempt of Death. V. Of Liberty. VI. Of Industry. VII. Of Repentance. VIII. Of Conscience. IX. Of War. X. Of Peace. I. OF LIFE. Jersey, 1647. " So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," was the ejaculation of Moses, when he was in fuU contemplation of the providence and power of God, and of the frailty and brevity of the life of man : and though, from the consideration of our own time, the days allotted for our life, we cannot make any proportionable prospect toward the providence and power of God, no more than we can make an estimate of the largeness and extent of the heavens by the view of the smallest cottage or molehill upon the earth ; yet there cannot be a better expedient, at the least an easier, a thing we beUeve we can more easily practise, to bring, ourselves to a due reverence of that pro vidence, to a due apprehension of that power, and thereupon to a useful disposition of our time in this world, how frail and short soever it is, than by applying ourselves to this advice of Moses, to " learn to number our days." There is not a man that reads, or hears this read, but thinks the lesson may be learned with little VOL. III. l 1 514 LORD CLARENDON. pains ; nay, that he has it so perfect, that he needs not learn it : and yet if the best of us would but fix our minds upon it, sadly " number our days," the days which we have or shall have in this world, we could not but, out of that one single notion, make our selves much the fitter for the next; and if the worst of us would but exercise ourselves in it, but " number our days," we should even in spite of the worst cozen ourselves into some amendment of life, into some improvement of knowledge, into some reforma tion of understanding : it would not be in our power, nor in His who is ready to assist us in any evil, to continue so weak, so wilful, so wicked as we are; but we should insensibly find such an alteration, as, how much soever we contemn now, we shall thank ourselves for obtaining. They who understand the original, tell us, that the Hebrew verb, which our interpreters translate into number, has a very large signification, (as that language which is contracted into fewest words extends many words to a marveUous latitude of sense), and that as well as to number, it signifies to weigh, and to ponder, and, thirdly, to order, and appoint ; so that to number, or any other single word, I believe, in any other tongue, is far from expressing to the full the sense of that Hebrew verb ; except we could find a word that might signify to reckon, to examine, and consider the nature and the use of every unit in that reckoning, and then to order and appoint it accordingly. And no doubt it was such a numbering, with that circumstance of deliberation, and the other of direction and determination, which Moses here prescribed ; and so the duty may seem larger, and at first more full of difficulty, than it did ; and that we are not to rest merely in the arithmetical sense of it. But as the setting out is often times more troublesome than the whole journey, and the first disposal of the mind to sobriety and virtue, is more difficult than any progress after in it ; so if we but really and severely execute this injunction in the usual and vulgar acceptation of the word, no more but "number our days" by the rules of arithmetic, we should make a progress in the other acceptances too ; and we should find evident comfort and benefit from the fruit we should gather from each of those branches. Without diminishing or lessening the value of a long life, with the meditation that a thousand years are but as yesterday in His sight who made the years and the days ; or that not only the longest life that ever any man has lived, but even the life that On Life. 515 the world has lived since the creation, is but a moment in com parison of that eternity which must be either the reward or punishment of the actions of our life, how short soever it is : if we did but so " number our days " as to consider that we expe rimentally find the shortness of them ; if we did but number the days we have lived, and by that pregnant evidence of our memory, how soon they are gone, and how insensibly, — conclude how very soon so much more time, which possibly would bring us to the utmost of Moses's account of eighty years, will likewise pass away; we could not think the most sure and infallible purchase of twenty or thirty years of life, and the unquestionable fruition of the most heightened pleasures the appetite or fancy can imagine during that term, without any abatement by the interposition of the infirmities and weakness of nature, or the interruption of accidents, so near worth the consenting to any thing that may impair the conscience, or disturb the peace or quiet of the mind, that it were a valuable consideration for the interruption of a night's rest, for the parting with six hours of our sleep ; which, though any man could spare, is so much time of our least faultiness : I say, it were not possible seriously to make this estimate in our thoughts, to revolve the uncertainty and brevity of our life, but we should also take an account of ourselves, weigh and ponder the expense of every article of this short precious time, for which we must make so large and exact an account to Him that has trusted us with it ; we should not but (which is no more than the original verb for which we read num ber signifies) do, what one, who we are not willing to believe as good a Christian as ourselves long since advised us, "pretium tempori ponere, diem astimare" consider that every hour is worth at least a good thought, a good wish, a good endeavour ; that it is the talent we are trusted with to use, employ, and to improve. If we hide this talent in the dark, that the world cannot see any fruit of it, or such fruit as we ourselves are afraid to see ; if we bury it in the earth, spend it in worldly and sensual designs and attempts; we are those ungrateful and unthrifty stewards, who must expiate this breach of trust in endless torments. And if we were gotten thus far, we could not but, in spite of the most depraved faculty of our understanding, of the most perverse inclination of our appetite, or act of our will, order and dispose of this time right ; which is the full extent of the word. So that in truth, if we do not weigh and consider to what end this life Ll2 516 LORD CLARENDON. is given to us, and thereupon order and dispose it right, pretend what we will to the arithmetic, we do not, we cannot so much as number our days in the narrowest and most Umited signification. It is a sharp meditation and animadversion of one, whose writings are an honour to our nation, that the incessant and Sab bathless pursuit of a man's fortune and interest (although therein we could refrain from doing injuries or using evil arts) leaves not the tribute of our time which we owe to God, who demands, we see, a tenth of our substance, and a seventh (which is more strict) of our time ; and (says he) it is to small purpose to have an erected face toward heaven, and a grovelling spirit upon earth. If they who please themselves with believing that they spend their time the least amiss; who have so far the negative practice of conscience, that they abstain from acts of inhumanity and injustice, and avoid doing harm to any body; nay, if they make such a progress into the active part of conscience, as to deUght in the civil acts of humanity, and the diffusive acts of charity : I say, if this handful of the world that is thus innocent (and what dismal account must the other part take of themselves then) would seriously examine and revolve the expense of their own time, they would even wonder at the little good they find in themselves, and not be able to tell to the well-spending of what part of their time those good inclinations are to be imputed. We think it a com mendable thing (and value ourselves much upon it) to take great pains, to use much industry, to make ourselves fine gentlemen, to get languages, to learn arts ; it may be some for which we are the worse : and we acknowledge, that that is not to be done, nay, any exercise of the body to be learned, or the most mechanical trade, without great pains and industry ; but to make ourselves Chris tians, to know God, and what He expects from us, and what will be acceptable to Him, we take not the least pains, use not the least industry. I am persuaded, if many of us, who have lived to good years, did faithfully compute in what particular meditations and actions we have spent our time, we should not be able, amongst the years we have spent in pursuing our pleasures, our profits, our ambition, the days and nights we have dedicated to our lusts, our excesses, the importunities and solicitations we have used to mend our fortunes ; we should not be able to set down one hour for every year of our life, I fear not one hour for our whole life, which we have solemnly spent to mend our Chris- Of Life. 517 tianity ; in which we have devoutly considered the majesty and providence and goodness of God, the reason and the end of our own creation; that there is such a place as heaven for the reward of those who do well, or hell for the punishment of the wicked : — for if we had spent but one hour in the contem plating those particulars, which are the first and most general notions of Christianity, it were not possible but we should be startled out of our lethargic laziness, and should make some pro gress in the practice of Christianity, as well as in those paths and roads that lead to our pleasure or profit. What is this inadvertency and incogitancy, but to believe that, as we received this badge of Christianity in our infancy when we knew not of it, so it will grow and increase upon us in our sleep and times of leisure, without taking notice of it ? that the little water that was thrown upon our face in baptism, was enough to preserve the beauty of God's image in us, without any addition of moisture from ourselves, either by tears in our repentance, or so much as by sweat in our industry and labour ? and to declare to all the world, that we hold the life of a Christian to be no thing else, but spending so many days as nature allows us, in a climate where the gospel of Christ is suffered to be preached, how little soever desired to be practised? If we would so " number our days," that is, so consider of them, as to order and dispose some part of our time, one hour in a day, one day in ten, but to think of God, and what He has done for us ; to re member that we are Christians, and the obligation that thereby lies upon us ; that there wiU be a day of judgment, and that we must appear at that day: though it may be it would be a diffi cult thing at the first, in that set time, to apply our unexercised and uninformed thoughts to so devout and religious an exercise as we should ; yet, I say, if we would but so set apart a time for that purpose, as to resolve at that time constantly to do nothing else, how perfunctorily soever we did that, we should by degrees bring ourselves from sober and humble thoughts, to pious and godly thoughts, till we found ourselves growing to so perfect Christians, as to confess we were not worthy of that title before. Next to the sadness of reviewing the expense of our time, in order to our service of God, and the health and prosperity of our souls ; it is a melancholy consideration how we spend our time with reference to ourselves, to the obtaining that which we most desire, to consider how our time goes from us ; for we are hardly 518 LORD CLARENDON. active enough to be thought to spend it. We live rather the life of vegetatives or sensatives, suffer ourselves to grow, and please and satisfy our appetites, than the lives of reasonable men, en dued with faculties to discern the natures and differences of things, and to use and govern both. There is not a man in the world, but desires to be, or to be thought to be, a wise man ; and yet, if he considered how Uttle he contributes himself thereunto, he might wonder to find himself in any tolerable degree of under standing. How many men are there, nay, in comparison of man kind, how few there are but such, who since they were able to think, and could choose whether they would or no, never seriously spent two hours by themselves in so much as thinking what would make them wiser ; but sleep and eat and play, which makes the whole circle of their lives, and are not in seven years together (except asleep) one hour by themselves. It is a strange thing, to see the care and solicitude that is used to strengthen and cherish the body ; the study and industry and skill to form and shape every member and limb to beauty and comeliness ; to teach the hands and feet and eyes the order and gracefulness of motion ; to cure any defects of nature or accident, with any hazard and pain, insomuch as we oftentimes see even those of the weaker sex, and less incUned to suffering, wiUingly endure the breaking of a bone that cannot otherwise be made straight ; and all this ado but to make a handsome and beautiful person, which at best is but the pic ture of a man or woman, without a wise soul : when to the informa tion and improvement of that jewel, which is the essence of man; and which unconsidered, even that which we so labour for and are proud of, our beauty and handsomeness, is by many degrees inferior to that of a thousand beasts and other creatures ; to the cultivating and shaping and directing of the mind, we give scarce a thought, not an hour of our life; never suppress a passion, never reform an affection ; insomuch as (though never age had fewer wise men to show to the world) we may justly wonder we are not all fools and idiots, when we consider how little we have contributed to make ourselves other : and doubtless if na ture (whom we are ready to accuse of aU our weaknesses and perversenesses) had not out of her store bountifully supplied us, our own art and industry would never have kept up our faculties to that Uttle vile height they are at. Neither in truth do many believe or understand that there needs any other diligence or art to be applied to the health of the mind, than the sober ordering Of Life. 519 and disposing of the body; and it is well if we can bring ourselves to that reasonable conclusion. Whereas when we prescribe our selves a wholesome and orderly course of diet, for the strength ening of our natures, and confirming our healths; if we would consider what diet to give our minds, what books to read for the informing and strengthening our understandings, and conclude that it is as impossible for the mind to be improved without those supplies, as for the body to subsist without its natural food : if, when we aUow ourselves recreations and exercises, to cherish and refresh our spirits, and to waste and dispel humours, without which a well-tempered constitution cannot be preserved, we would allow some exercises to our minds, by a sober and frank conversation with learned, honest, and prudent men, whose in formations, animadversions, and experience might remove and expel the vanities and levities which infect our understandings : if, when an indisposition or distemper of body, an ill habit of health, calls upon us to take a rougher course with ourselves, to vomit up or purge away those choleric and phlegmatic and me lancholic humours, which burn and cloy and suffocate the vital parts and passages ; to let out that blood which is too rank, too corrupted for our veins, and to expel . those fumes and vapours which hurt our stomachs and ascend to our brains : if we would, I say, as diligently examine the distemper of our minds, revolve the rage and fury of our choler, the dulness and laziness of our phlegm, the suUenness and pride of our melancholy ; if we would correct this affection, and draw out that passion; expel those fumes and vapours of ambition which disturb and corrupt our rea son and judgment, by sober and serious meditation of the excel lency and benefit of patience, alacrity, and contentedness : that this affection and this passion is not consistent with sobriety and justice, and that the satisfying them with the utmost licence brings neither ease nor quiet to the mind, which is not capable of any happiness but in, at least not without, its own innocence ; that ambition always carries an insatiableness with it, which is a torment to the mind, and no less a disease than that is to the stomach : in a word, if we would consider, there is scarce a disease, an indisposition, a distemper, by which the body is dis turbed, to which, or some influence like it, the mind is not Uable likewise; and that the remedies for the latter are much more natural, more in our power, than for the former ; if we would use but half the diligence and industry to apply to them which we do 520 LORD CLARENDON. to the other, we should find ourselves another kind of people, our understandings more vigorous, and our lives more innocent, use ful, and beneficial, to God, to ourselves, and to our country ; and we should think we had learned nothing, till we had learned " so to number our days that we might apply our hearts unto wisdom ;" that wisdom, of which the fear of the Lord is the be ginning, and of which the eternal blessing of God is the end and the reward. II. REFLECTIONS .ON THE HAPPINESS WHICH WE MAY ENJOY, IN AND FROM OURSELVES. Montpellier, 1669. It was a very just reproach that Seneca charged the world with so many hundred years ago, and yet was not more the disease of that than of this age, that we wonder and complain of the pride and superciliousness of those who are in place and authority above us ; that we cannot get an admittance to them ; that they are never at leisure that we may speak to them ; when (says he) we are never vacant, never at leisure to speak to ourselves ; " Audet quispiam de alterius superbid queri, qui sibi ipse nunquam vacat ?" and after aU complaints and murmurs, the greatest and the proudest of them will be sometimes at leisure, may be sometimes spoken with ; " aliquando respexit, tu non inspicere te unquam, non audire dignatus es ;" we can never get an audience of ourselves, never vouchsafe to confer together. We are diligent and curious enough to know other men ; and it may be charitable enough to assist them, to inform their weakness by our instruction, and to reform their errors by our experience : and all this without giving one moment to look into our own, never make an inspection into ourselves, nor ask one of those questions of ourselves which we are ready to administer to others, and thereby imagine that we have a perfect knowledge of them. We live with other men, and to other men ; neither with nor to ourselves. We may some times be at home left to ourselves, when others are weary of us, and we are weary of being with them ; but we do not dweU at home, have no commerce, no conversation with ourselves, nay, we keep spies about us that we may not have ; and if we feel a Reflections on Happiness. 521 suggestion, hear an importunate caU from within, we divert it by company or quiet it with sleep; and when we wake, no man runs faster from an enemy than we do from ourselves; — get to our friends that we may not be with ourselves. This is not only an epidemical disease that spreads everywhere, but effected and purchased at as great a price as most other of our diseases, — with the expense of all our precious time ; one moment of which we are not willing to bestow upon ourselves, though it would make the remainder of it more useful to us, and to others upon whom we prodigally consume it, without doing good to them or ourselves : whereas, if we would be conversant with ourselves, and as ingenuous and impartial in that conversa tion as we pretend to be with other men, we should find that we have very much of that at home by us, which we take wonderful unnecessary pains to get abroad ; and that we have much of that in our own disposal, which we endeavour to obtain from others ; and may possess ourselves of that happiness from ourselves, whe ther it concerns our ambition or any other of our most exorbitant passions or affections, which more provoke and less satisfy by resorting to other men, who are either not willing to gratify us, or not able to comply with our desires; and the trouble and agony, which for the most part accompanies those disappoint ments, proceeds merely from our not beginning with ourselves before we repair to others. It is not the purpose and end of this discourse, to raise such seraphical notions of the vanity and pleasures of this world, as if they were not worthy to be considered, or could have no relish with virtuous and pious men. They take very unprofitable pains, who endeavour to persuade men that they are obliged whoUy to despise this world and all that is in it, even whilst they themselves live here. God has not taken all that pains in forming, and framing, and furnishing, and adorning this world, that they who were made by Him to live in it should despise it. It will be enough if they do not love it so immoderately, to prefer it before Him who made it. Nor shall we endeavour to extend the notions of the Stoic philosophers, and to stretch them farther by the help of Christian precepts, to the extinguishing all those affections and passions, which are and will always be inseparable from human nature ; and which it were to be wished that many Chris tians could govern, and suppress, and regulate, as well as many of those heathen philosophers used to do. As long as the world 522 LORD CLARENDON. lasts, and honour, and virtue, and industry, have reputation in the world, there will be ambition, and emulation, and appetite, in the best and most accomplished men who live in it; if there should, not be, more barbarity, and vice, and wickedness, would cover every nation of the world than it yet suffers under. If wise, and honest, and virtuously-disposed men quit the field, and leave the world to the pillage, and the manners of it to the defor mation of persons dedicated to rapine, luxury, and injustice, how savage must it grow in half an age ! nor will the best princes be able to govern and preserve their subjects, if the best men be without ambition, and desire to be employed and trusted by them. The end, therefore, of this speculation into ourselves, and conversation with ourselves, is, that we may make our journey towards that which we do propose with the more success ; that we may be discreet in proposing reasonable designs, and then pursue them by reasonable ways ; foresee aU the difficulties which are probable to fall out, that so we may prevent or avoid them ; since we may be sure to master and avoid them to a great degree by foreseeing them, and as sure to be confounded by them, if they fall upon us without foresight. In a word, it is not so to consult with ourselves, as to consult with nobody else ; or to dispose us to prefer our own judgment before any other man's ; but that, by an impartial conference with ourselves, we may understand first our own mind, what it is we would have, and why we would have it, before we consult with others which way to compass it, that we may set both the matter we desire and the manner of obtaining it before our own eyes, and spend our passions upon ourselves in the disquisition. It is no wonder that when we are prodigal of nothing else, when we are over-thrifty of many things which we may well spare, we are very prodigal of our time, which is the only pre cious jewel of which we cannot be too thrifty, because we look upon it as nothing worth, and that makes us not care how we spend it. The labouring man and the artificer knows what every hour of his time is worth, what it will yield him, and parts not with it but for the full value : they are only noblemen and gen tlemen, who should know best how to use it, that think it only fit to be cast away ; and their not knowing how to set a true value upon this, is the true cause of the wrong estimate they make of all other things ; and their ignorance of that proceeds from their holding no correspondence with themselves, or thinking at all Reflections on Happiness. 523 before they begin their journey, before they violently set their affections upon this or that object, until they find they are out of the way, and meet with false guides to carry them farther out. — We should find much ease in our pursuits, and probably much better success in our attempts and enterprises in the world, if, before we are too solicitous and set our heart upon any design, we would well weigh and consider the true value of the thing we desire, whether it be indeed worth all that trouble we shall be put to, and aU the time we are Uke to spend in the obtaining it, and upon it after we have obtained it. If this inquisition does not divert us, as it need not to do, it will the better prepare and dis pose us to be satisfied after we have it ; whereas nothing is more usual than for men who succeed in their most impatient pretences, to be more unsatisfied with their success than they were before ; it is not worth what they thought or were persuaded it would be, so that their appetite is not at all allayed, nor their gratitude pro voked by the obligation ; a little previous consideration would have better fitted the mind to contentedness upon the issue, or diverted it from affecting what would not be acceptable when obtained. — In the next place, we should do well prudently to consider, whether it be probable that we shall obtain what we desire, before we engage our affections and our passions too deeply in the prosecution of it; not that we may not lawfully affect and prosecute an interest in which it is very probable we may not succeed. Men who always succeed in what they go about, are often the worse for their success; however, we are not naturally delighted with repulses, and are commonly angry and sottishly offended with those who obtain that for themselves which we would fain have, and as unreasonably with those who favour them, though their merit be above our own ; and therefore, be sides the consideration of the probability that we may be disap pointed of our end, we shall do well to consider likewise the opposition we are like to meet in the way, the power of those persons who are like to disfavour our pretences, and whether our exposing ourselves to their displeasure may not be a greater damage than the obtaining all that we desire will recompense. These and the like reflections will cost us very little time, but infinitely advance and improve our understanding ; and if we then conclude it fit to proceed, we shall do it with confidence, and be, disturbed with no accident which encounters us, and be prepared to behave ourselves decently upon the repulse, which oftentimes 524 LORD CLARENDON. prefers men better than they wished ; a virtuous mind appearing with more lustre in the rejection than in the reception of good turns, and consequently reconciling him to those who knew him not enough before. These considerations will be most impartially and sincerely debated with ourselves, yet they may be properly enough and usefully consulted with very true and faithful friends, if indeed we abound with such treasure. But there is another considera tion so proper and peculiar for ourselves, and to be exactly weighed by ourselves, that the most faithful friend is rarely faith ful enough to be trusted enough in the disquisition, and, which is worst of aU, we do not wish or desire that he should be faithful; that is, — whether we are in truth fit and worthy of the thing we do affect ; if it be an honour, whether it be not too great for us ; if it be an office, whether we are equal to it ; that is, fit and capable to discharge and execute it, or can make ourselves so by the industry and diligence we are like to contribute towards it : this is the examination we come with least ingenuity to, and friends are ingenuous in assisting us in ; and yet is of that impor tance, that much of the happiness of our life consists in it, many having been made unhappy and even very miserable by prefer ment, who were in good reputation without it. Tully makes it a necessary ingredient in, or a necessary concomitant of friendship itself, " Tantum cuique tribuendum est, primum, quantum ipse efficere possis, deinde etiam quantum quem diligas atque adjuves, possit sustinere ;" it is a very imprudent and unjust thing to oblige a friend to do that out of his friendship to thee, which either he cannot do, or not without great prejudice to himself; but it is an impudent violation of friendship, to importune him to procure a favour to be conferred on thee which thou canst not sustain ; to put the command of a ship into thy hand, when thou knowest neither the compass nor the rudder. There are as great incon gruities and incapacities towards the execution of many offices, which do not appear so gross to the first discovery. This scru tiny cannot be so rigidly and effectually made without well weighing, in the first place, the infinite prejudice that befals our selves, if we are incompetent for that place or office which we have by much solicitation obtained, and the unspeakable and irreparable prejudice we have brought upon our friends who obtained it for us. — How many men have we known, who, from a reservedness in their nature, have been thought to observe much, and by saying Reflections on Happiness. 525 little have been believed to know much ; - but when they have got themselves into an office, and so been compeUed to speak and direct, have appeared weak and ignorant, and incapable of per forming their duty ; and so must either be removed, to their own shame and reproach, or be continued to the public detriment and dishonour ! How much better had it been for such men to have remained unknown and secure under the shadow of their friends' good opinion, than to have been exposed to the light, and made known only by the discovery of their incredible ignorance ! — We have known many men who, in a place to which they have been unhappily promoted, have appeared scandalously insuffi cient; but being removed to another have discharged it with notable abilities : yet there was nothing new in himself; if he had asked advice of himself, he would have known all that had fallen out since so much to his prejudice. He who hath credit with his prince, or with his friend, to prefer or recommend a man to his near and entire trust, hath a great trust himself reposed in him, which he is obliged to discharge with the utmost circumspection and fidelity; and if he be swayed by thy confidence and impor tunity, or corrupted by his own affection, and recommends thee to an employment, which when thou art possessed of thou canst not discharge, with what confusion must he look upon him whom he had deceived and betrayed, or can he ever look again to be depended upon or advised with upon the like affair? Doing good offices and good turns (as men call it) looks like the natural effect of a noble and a generous nature. Indeed the inclination to it is an argument of generosity ; but a precipitate entering upon the work itself, and embracing all opportunities to gratify the pre tences of unwary men, is an evidence of a light and easy nature, disposed, at other men's charges, to get himself well spoken of. They who revolve these particulars, cannot but think them worthy a very serious examination; and must discern, that by entering into this strict consultation with themselves in or before the beginning of any business, they shall prevent much trouble and labour which they shaU not be able afterwards to avoid : nor can they prudently or so successfully consult with others, before they first deliberate with themselves the very method and manner of communicating with another, liow much a friend soever, what concerns one's self requiring as much consideration as the matter itself. But there is another benefit and advantage that results from 526 LORD CLARENDON. this intercourse and acquaintance with ourselves, more consider able than any thing which hath been said, which is, that from this communication he takes more care to cultivate and improve himself, that he may be equal and worthy of that trust which he reposes in himself, and fit to consult with and govern himself by; he gets as much information from books and wise men, as may enable him to answer and determine those doubtful questions which may arise ; he extinguishes that choler and prejudice which would interrupt him in hearing, and corrupt him in judging what he hears. It is a notable injunction that Seneca imposes, who knew as well as any man what man could bring himself to, " Dum te efficis eum, coram quo peccare non audeas ;" the truth is, he hath too little reverence for himself, who dares do that in his own presence, which he would be ashamed, or not dare to do before another man ; and it is for want of acquaintance with our selves, and revolving the dignity of our creation, that we are without that reverence. Who, that doth consider how near he is of kin to God Himself, and how excellently he is quaUfied by Him to judge arighf of all the delusions and appearances of the world, if he will employ those faculties He hath adorned him with ; that nobody is able to deceive him, if he doth not concur and contribute to the deceiving himself: — I say, who can consider and weigh this, and at the same time bury all those faculties of the discerning soul in sensual pleasures, laziness, and senseless inactivity, and as much as in his power, and God knows there is too much in his power, to level himself with the beasts that pe rish ? It is a fooUsh excuse we make upon all occasions for our selves and other men, in our laboured and exalted acts of folly and madness, that we can be no wiser than God hath made us, as if the defects in our will were defects in His providence ; when in truth God hath given us all that we will make ourselves capable of, that we wUl receive from Him. He hath given us life, that is time, to make ourselves learned, to make ourselves wise, to make us discern and judge of all the mysteries of the world : if we will bestow this time, which would supply us with wisdom and knowledge, in wine and women, which corrupt the little understanding that nature hath given us ; if we wUl barter it away for skill in horses, dogs, and hawks ; and if we will throw it away in play and gaming ; — it is from our own vUlainy that we are fools, and have rejected the effects of His providence. It is no wiser an allegation, that our time is our own, and we may Reflections on Happiness. 527 use it as we please : there is nothing so much our own that we may use it as we please ; we cannot use our money, which is as much, if not more, our own than any thing we have, to raise re bellion against our prince, or to hire men to do mischief to our neighbours ; we cannot use our bodies, which, if any thing, are our own, in duels or any unlawful enterprise : and why should we then believe that we have so absolute and sovereign a disposal of our time, that we may choose whether we will dispose it to any thing or no ? It were to be wished that all men did believej which they have all great reason to do, that the consumption and spending of our time will be the great inquisition of the last and terrible day ; when there shall be a more strict enquiry how the most dissolute person, the most debauched bankrupt, spent his time, than how he spent his estate ; no doubt it will then mani festly appear, that our precious time was not lent us to do nothing with, or to be spent upon that which is worse than nothing; and we shall not be more confounded with any thing, than to find that there is a perfect register kept of aU that we did in that time ; and that when we have scarce remembered the morrow what we did yesterday, there is a diary in which nothing we did is left out, and as much notice taken of when we did nothing at all. This will be a sad animadversion when it is too late, and when probably it may appear that the very idle man, he who has never employed himself, may be in a very Uttle better condition than he who has been worst employed ; when idleness shall be declared to be a species of wickedness, and doing nothing to be the activity of a beast. There cannot therefore be too serious or too early a reflection upon the good husbandry of this precious talent, which we are entrusted with, not to be laid out in vain pleasures whereof we are ashamed as soon as we have enjoyed them, but in such profitable exchanges that there may be some record of our in dustry, if there be none of our getting. The truth is, if incogitance and inadvertence, not thinking at all, not considering any thing (which is degrading ourselves as much as is in our power from being men, by renouncing the faculties of a reasonable soul), were not our mortal disease, it might be believed that the consumption of our time proceeds only from the contempt we have of wisdom and virtue ; for in order to any thing else we employ it well enough. How can we pretend that we desire to be wise, when we do no one thing that is in order to it ; or that we love virtue, when we do not cultivate any 528 LORD CLARENDON. one affection that would advance it, nor subdue any one passion that destroys it ? We see that skiU and perfection in the meanest and lowest trade is obtained by industry, and instruction, and ob servation, and that with all that appUcation very much time is necessary to it; and can we believe that wisdom, which is the greatest perfection and highest operation of the soul, can be got without industry and labour ? Can we hope to find gold upon the surface of the earth, when we dig almost to the centre of it to find lead and tin and the coarser metals ? It is very wonder ful, if it be not very ridiculous, to see a man take great pains to learn to dance, and not to be at leisure to learn to read; that man should set a very high esteem upon the decent motion and handsome figure of the body, and undervalue the mind so much as not to think it worth any pains or consideration to improve the faculties thereof, or to contribute to its endowments ; and yet all men's experience supplies them with evidence enough, that the ex cellent symmetry of the body, a very handsome outside of a man, does too frequently expose men to derision and notorious contempt, when so gross defects of the mind are discovered, as to make the other beauty less agreeable by being more remarkable : whereas, on the contrary, the beauty of the mind does very frequently re concile the eyes and ears of all men to the most unpromising countenances, and to persons nothing beholden to nature for any comeliness : yet the wisdom and gravity of their words in per suading and convincing, and the sincerity and virtue of their actions, extort an esteem and reverence from all kind of men, that no comely and graceful outside of a man could ever attain to. It is not to be wished, that men took less care of their bodies than they do; they cannot be too solicitous to preserve their health, and to confirm it, by preventing those diseases which the excess and corruption of humours are naturally the causes of, with timely physic and seasonable application of remedies, and, above all, by strict and wholesome diet ; health is so inestimable a blessing and benefit, that we cannot take too much pains, nor study too much, to obtain and preserve it : but the grief is, that the whole care is laid out for the body, and none at aU for the mind ; that we are so jealous of every alteration in our constitution, of every light indisposition of our body, that we too commonly apply cures when there are no diseases, and cause the sickness we would prevent : when, at the same time, there are twenty visible diseases and distempers of our mind, which we never look Reflections on Happiness. 529 after nor take care of, though they would be more easily cured than the other, and being cured, would yield that infinite plea sure and satisfaction to the body, that sickness itself could not deprive it of. Dost thou find laziness and excess of sleep affect thy body ? And dost thou find exercise and moderate labour re vive thy spirits, and increase thy appetite ? Examine thy mind, whether it has not too much emptiness, whether it can " cogitandi ferre laborem," whether it can bear the fatigue of thinking, and produce any conclusion from thence ; and then administer a fit diet of books to it, and let it take air and exercise in honest and cheerful conversation, with men that can descend and bow their natures and their understandings to the capacity and to the in disposition and weakness of other men. A sour and morose companion is as unnatural a prescription to such a patient, as the exercise of tennis is to a man who has broken a vein, when any violent motion may be mortal. If thy mind be loose, and most delighted with vain and unclean discourses and unchaste desires, prescribe it a diet of contemplation upon the purity of the nature of God, and the injunctions He has given us to live by, and the frequent conquests men have made thereby upon their own most corrupt and depraved affections ; and let it have its exercise and recreation with men of that severity, that restrain all ill dis course by the gravity of their presence, and yet of that candour as may make them agreeable to those who must by degrees be brought to love them, and to find another kind of pleasure, yet pleasure that has a greater relish in their company, than in those they have been most accustomed to. Men give over the diseases of the mind as incurable ; call them infirmities of nature, which cannot be subdued, hardly corrected ; or substantial parts of nature, that cannot be cut off, or divided from our humanity ; that anger is the result of a generous nature, that will not, ought not to submit to injuries and affronts ; that lust is so inseparable from our nature, that nothing but want of health can allay it ; that there is no other way to cure the disease but to kill the patient ; that it proceeds not from any virtuous habit of the mind, where these natural affections and appetites do not prevail, but from some depraved constitution of the body, which stifles and suppresses those desires, for want of that moisture and heat that should nourish them ; and that conscience has no more to do in the conquest, than courage has an operation in him who takes an enemy prisoner who lies prostrate at his feet :— whereas vol. in. m m 530 LORD CLARENDON. all those, and other diseases of the mind, for diseases they are, are much more curable than those of the body, and so much the more as they are most subject to our own administration ; when we must resort to the skill and. abiUty of other men to devise and com pound proper remedies for the other cure. Many accidents of heat or cold or diet, or the very remedies prescribed, very often make the diseases of the body incurable, and the recovery impossible ; whereas the application to the mind, though unskilfully and un seasonably made, does no harm if it does no good, and the mind remains still as capable of the same or other medicines as it was before. Nor is there any enormous or unruly infirmity so an nexed to or rooted in our nature, but that the like has been fre quently severed from or eradicated out of it, by virtuous and conscientious precepts and practice ; and every man's observation and experience supplies him with examples enough, of men far from sobriety, who, to comply with some infirmity, have forborne all wine and intemperance for some months ; and of others of no restrained appetites, who, upon the obligation of a promise or virtuous resolution, have abstained a longer time from any acts of uncleanness ; and whosoever can impose such a law upon him self for so many months, can do the same for so many years ; a firm and magnanimous resolution can exercise that discipline upon the mind, that it shall never make any excursions from rea son and good behaviour. If they can be brought but " laborem ferre cogitandi," the worst is over, and their recovery is not des perate. Since then it is and may be made evident enough, that the greatest infirmities and deformities of the mind may be reformed and rectified by industry and seasonable applications, there can be but one reason why there is so little used in those cases, since all men desire to be wise, or to be reputed wise ; and that is, that there is no need of it : nature's store and provision is sufficient ; conversation with witty men, and an ordinary observation of the current and conduct of business, will make men as wise as they need to be ; and the affectation of books does but introduce pe dantry into the manners of men, and make them impertinent and troublesome ; that men of great learning in books are frequently found to be the most incompetent judges or advisers in the most important transactions of the affairs of the world, and of the in terest of states. And by this unreasonable joUy discourse, and contempt of the learned languages, there seems to be a combina- Reflections on Happiness. 531 tion entered into against learning, and against any such education as may dispose them to it ; as if the excellent endowments of nature would be eclipsed by reading books, and would hinder them from learning more in the company they might keep than they can obtain from other, and that the other method makes them men much sooner : and upon this ground, which has gotten too much countenance in the world, the universities and inns of court, which have been the seminaries out of which our ancestors have grown to be able to serve their country with great reputa tion and success, are now declined as places which keep hopeful youth too long boys, and infect them with formalities and im pertinent knowledge, of which they shall have little use, and send them out late and less prepared for and inclined to those generous qualifications, which are most like to raise their fortunes and their reputations. Which sure is a very great error, and has been the source from whence many mischiefs have flowed. And to speak first of this extoUed breeding in good company, and travel into foreign parts before they know any thing of their own country; and getting the vice and the language of that, before they can secure themselves from the one, or understand their own native tongue ; we have the knowledge and experience of many, who have indeed the confidence and presumption of men, but re tain the levity and folly of children : and if they are able to dis guise those weaknesses, and appear in their behaviour and dis course earUer men than others of their age seem to be (as it many times faUs out, especiaUy in men endowed with any principles of modesty,) yet those very early men decay apace, for want of nou rishment at the roots ; and we too frequently see those who seem men at twenty years of age, when the gaiety of their youth de cays, and themselves grow weary of those exercises and vanities which then became them, become boys at thirty : having no supply of parts for business, or grave and sober conversation, they then grow out of love with themselves, and too soon la ment those defects and impotency in themselves, which nothing but some degree of learning and acquaintance with books could have prevented. And to say that they can fall to it afterwards, and recover the time they have lost when they will, is no more reasonable (though there have been some very rare examples of such industry) than to imagine that a man, after he is forty years of age, may learn to dance as well as if he had begun it sooner. m m 2 532 LORD CLARENDON. He who loves not books before he conies to thirty years of age, will hardly love them enough afterwards to understand them. The conversation with wise and good men cannot be overvalued; it forms the mind and understanding for noble and heroical un dertakings, and is much to be preferred before the mere learn ing of books, in order to • be wise ; but where a good foundation of the knowledge and understanding of books is first laid, to sup port the excellent superstructure of such conversation, the ad vance must be made much more advantageously, than when nothing but the ordinary endowments of nature are brought to be cultivated by conversation ; which is commonly chosen with men of the same talents, who gratify one another with believing that they want not any extraordinary improvement, and so join together in censuring and condemning what they do not under stand, and think that men have only better fortune than they, who have got credit, without being in any degree wiser than themselves. It is very true, there have been very extraordinary men in all nations, who, by their great experience, and a notable vivacity of spirit, have not only attained to eminent promotion, but have been exceedingly worthy of it ; albeit they have been upon the matter ilUterate, as to the learning of books and the learned lan guages; but then they have been eminently industrious; who, having had the good fortune to be educated in constant labour, under wise and experienced men, have, by indefatigable pains and observation, gotten the learning of business without the learning of books, and cannot properly be accounted illiterate, though they know little Latin or Greek. We speak of books and learning, not of the language in which they are writ. The French and the Italian and the Spanish have many excellent books of all kinds; and they who are well versed in those languages, may be very learned, though they know no others : and the truth is, the French, whether by the fertility of their language, or the happy industry of many excellent persons, have translated most good authors both of the Greek and Latin, with that admirable facility that little of the spirit and vigour even of the style of the best writers is diminished; an advantage the English industry and curiosity has not yet brought home to that nation : they who have performed that office hitherto, for the most part, having done it for profit, and to live, without any delight in the pains they take ; and though they may have had some competent knowledge of the Reflections on Happiness. 533 language out of which they have translated, have been very far from understanding their own mother-tongue, and being versed in the fruitful productions of the English language. But though learning may be thus attained by many nations in their own pro per dialect, and the language of their own country, yet few men who take the pains to search for it in their own, but have the curiosity to look into the original, and are conversant in those which are still, and still will be, caUed the learned languages ; nor is yet any man eminent for knowledge and learning, that was not conversant in other tongues besides his own ; and it may be those two necessary sciences, that is, the principles of them, grammar and logic, can very hardly be so well and conveniently taught and understood as by Latin. It shall serve my turn, and I shall willingly comply with and gratify our beloved modern education, if they take the pains to read good books in that lan guage they understand best and like most ; I had almost said, if they will read any books, be so much alone as reading implies ; if they will take as much pains to be wise and polish their minds, as they do to order and dispose their clothes and their hair; if they wiU put that constraint upon themselves in order to be learned, as they do to attain to a perfection in any bodily exer cise; and, lastly, which is worth all the rest, if they will as heartily endeavour to please God, as they do those for whom they have no great affection, every great man whose favour they solicit, and affect being good Christians, as much as they do to be fine gentlemen, — they shall find their labour as much less as their reward and recompense will be greater. If they will not do this, they must not take it ill if it be beUeved that they are without knowledge that their souls are to outlive their bodies ; and that they do not so much wish to go to heaven as to get the next bet at play, or to win the next horse-race they are to run. To conclude : if books and industry will not contribute to their being wise, and to their salvation, they will receive from it (which they value more) pleasure and refreshment in this world; they will have less melancholy in the distress of their fortune, less anxiety in the mortification of sickness ; they will not so much complain for want of company, when all their companions for sake them ; their age will be less grievous unto them ; and God may so bless it, without any intention of their own, that such thoughts may insensibly insinuate themselves into them, that they may go out of the world with less dismal apprehensions, and 534 LORD CLARENDON. conclude their neglected lives with more tranquillity of spirit, at least not be so much terrified with the approach of death, as men who have never entertained any sober thoughts of Ufe have used to be, and naturally must be. III. OF PATIENCE IN ADVERSITY. Montpellier a, 1669. If we considered seriously (and our observation and experience supplies every man abundantly with matter for those considera tions) the folly, and madness, and inconvenience, and mischief of passion and impatience, the pain and agony that is begotten by it within ourselves, and the damage and disreputation abroad with other men, we should not need many arguments to persuade us of the benefit and ease of patience ; and if we considered patience only as a moral virtue, as a natural sobriety and temper in subdu ing and regulating our affections and passions, as an absence of that anger, and rage, and fury, which usually transports us upon ordinary and trivial provocations, we could not but acknowledge the great advantage men have by it. Solomon seems to require nothing else to make a wise man ; " He that is slow to anger is of great understanding V And indeed, there is nothing so much corrupts, and destroys, and infatuates the understanding as anger and passion ; insomuch as men of very indifferent parts, by the advantage of temper and composure, are much wiser, and fitter for great actions, and are usually more prosperous, than men of more subtle and sublime parts, of more quickness and fancy, with the warmth and choler that many times attends those compositions : " He that is hasty of spirit exalteth foUy," says Solomon '' ; that is, so improves his folly, that he seems more fool ish than in truth he is ; he says things he does not intend to say, and does things he does not intend to do, and refreshes his ene mies with the folly of his anger ; whereas the temperate, unrash, a There is much in this essay which convinces me that this date, both as respects time and place, is totally wrong ; the time, by at least twenty years ; and the place of writing, if it had any connexion with France (as probably it had), should be Jersey, and not Montpellier. ' Prov. xiv. 29. 2 Prov. xiv. 29. Of Patience in Adversity. 535 and dispassionate man is always at home, and, by being unmoved himself, discerns aU advantages whilst he gives none. " He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city 1." One translation renders it, " qui dominatur animo suo, expugnator est urbium ;" he that can suppress his passions is even the master of aU cities, no strength can resist him. So that if we intended nothing but our own ease, and benefit, and advantage, we have reason to apply our selves to and study this temper, in which the precepts of the phUosophers give us ample instructions, and the practice of mere heathen men have left us notable and envious examples. But the obligations of Christianity carry us much farther; we must add to temperance patience, which is a Christian virtue of so high a quaUfication, that TertuUian translates that direction of our Saviour in the twenty-first- chapter of St. Luke's gospel, verse nineteen, "In your patience possess your souls," "per tole- rantiam salvos facietis vosmetipsos," you shall save your souls by your patience ; which, if we could be persuaded in any degree to give credit to, we would not so much indulge to that licence of our impatient humour, as we do upon the least accidental crosses. The exercise of this necessary Christian duty depends princi pally upon the attending and waiting God's own time and leisure for the receiving those blessings, which, upon the conscience of having according to our weak abilities endeavoured to please Him, we may confidently pray for and expect, and our humble and dutiful submissions to such afflictions and calamities as He has or shaU lay upon us ; for we must provide a stock of patience for the crosses that may befal us : and from these two branches of patience we may gather fruit enough to refresh us throughout our whole journey in this world. Toward the attaining the first, if we would ingenuously and faithfully consult our own practice in matters of this world, our own rules of good husbandry, we could not think this waiting and expecting God's leisure, in the conferring His blessings and benefits, so grievous as it appears to us. How willing are we to lay out our estates in the purchase of reversions, many times for somewhat that younger men than ourselves must die before we enjoy it ; and if they outlive us, our money is lost ? And yet with the unreasonable confidence that we shall hereafter enjoy it, 1 Prov. xvi. 32. 536 LORD CLARENDON. and with the comfort of that expectation, we cheerfully endure the present wants and delay. If we make any suit to the king, or our superiors, how weU are we satisfied and contented, if we have the promise of the thing we ask a year hence, when it is more than an even lay that we live not till that time, and there are in our view a thousand contingencies which may disappoint us, if we do live so long ! Nay, we choose rather, and we think there is a merit in that modesty, to ask somewhat that is to come, rather than any thing for the present. But we are not willing to lay out one prayer, to disburse one innocent act of our life to God upon a reversion. If we receive His promise, we reckon every day's delay an injury, though it be only a promise for the future. So that, pretend what we will, and magnify what we can our religion towards God, and our con fidence in Him, we do in truth less believe and credit Him, than any friend or companion we have. If we did otherwise, we should better observe His precepts of patience, and reliance upon Him ; and believe, that as they, who can bear the present want, in the end gain most who deal in reversions ; so if we would forbear our present murmurings and importunities, and stay the full time, till the interruptions (our own sins or His providence) cast in the way, are worn out, we should in the end receive a large interest for all our expectation, and have cause to magnify our purchase ; we should rather conclude, when we are disappointed, that the conditions are broken on our part, which we are so unapt to per form, than that God has broken His promise, which He was never known to do ; we should call to our memory, that most of the ca lamities which befel His own chosen people, proceeded from their own murmurings and impatience, and that the least impatience towards Him, grows by degrees to an infidelity in Him, which we cannot endure to be thought guilty of. We should remember with what disdain we look upon those who will not take our word, which many times is not in our power to keep, seldom in our will ; and yet we make no scruple to doubt the accompUshment of God's word, though we know all things to be in His power, and what soever is good for us in His purpose : whereas patience is so much and so essentially of the character of a Christian, that no per formance of our duty, and of His commands on our part, can be a security and an assurance of His blessing upon us without it; which was very evident to St. Paul, when in the 10th chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews, at the 36th verse, he says, " For ye Of Patience in Adversity. 537 have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise ;" as if God had made no promise to those who are not patient to expect His performance. The truth is, God cannot so well know, that is, we do not so well and clearly manifest, that we have done His will out of piety and devotion to Him, as by our patience to wait His pleasure when we have done it. There may be design in the practice of all external duties of Christianity for our advantage in this world : the formal outward profession of religion may be, and we see too often is, to get so much reputation, and interest, and dependance with men, as may enable us to destroy religion ; our exercise of charity may have pride and vanity to be recommended and mag nified, and even covetousness in it, that we may get credit enough to oppress other men, and upon the stock of that one public vir tue, be able to practise twenty secret wickednesses. But our patience (I speak of that Christian patience of waiting God's own time for the receiving those blessings we pray for, and is an inter nal submission of the mind to Him) can have no stratagem upon this world, nor do us credit and advantage with ill men,. being all that time subjected to their insolence, reproach, and tyranny ; and therefore St. James makes it the end and complement and crown of aU that we do : " Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing1," which though Tremellius renders, " et in nulla re sitis destituti," as if patience so supplied all wants and defects, that we are not over sensible or grieved with those wants, yet the Vulgar (and with that Beza concurs) has it, " ut sitis integri, in nullo deficientes," that you may be entire, wanting in nothing ; which seems most agreeable with the original : as if it were impossible we could be defective in any thing, if we were endowed with patience, which can proceed only from the conscience of having done our duty, or the reasonable confidence that God has accepted us as if we had; for the bold habitual wicked man, pretend what he wiU to temper and sobriety, never had, never can have patience. Though this incomparable sovereign virtue is of great use and comfort to us in the whole course of our life, be it never so pleasant and prosperous, without any interruptions of nature, by infirmities, sickness, or diseases, or accidents of fortune in the casual interruptions in our very conversation and commerce with 1 James i. 4. 538 LORD CLARENDON. men, yet the most signal and glorious use of it is in our adversity and calamity, when the hand of God is heavy upon us, by the perfidiousness of friends, the treachery of servants, the power, injustice, and oppression of those men with whom we are to live ; and in those afflictions, which deprive us of the comfort of our families, the supply of our estates, the joy of our liberty, and all those particulars which render life pleasant to us ; and in Ueu thereof expose us to want and poverty, and to the insolence and contempt which usually attends that miserable condition. And truly, in this case, if we could give ourselves no other argument for patience, methinks it should be enough that never any man found ease, benefit, or relief, by impatience, but improves, and extends, and multipUes the agony, and pain, and misery of what soever calamity he undergoes by it ; whereas patience lessens and softens the burden, and by degrees raises the constitution and strength to that pitch, that it is hardly sensible of it. — And if we would but deal faithfully with ourselves and the world, and report and acknowledge how much we have found ourselves the better for our adversity; how by it we have corrected the follies and infirmities of our nature, improved the faculties of our mind and understanding, mended ourselves towards God and man; we should be so far from needing patience to bear it, that we should even thirst, and long and desire to undergo it: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted" (says the man after God's own heart) " that I might learn Thy statutes V He that had been brought up from his cradle in the knowledge of God, and lived suitable to that education, learned more from his affliction than he had done all his life before: that presented aU his in firmities to him in a true mirror ; he discerned his pride and his passion in their own colours, which appeared before to him only in the dress of majesty and power. The greater and the higher we are in place, the more we want this sovereign remembrancer. Mean and inferior people have their faults as often objected to them as they commit them, it may be oftener ; the counsels of friends, the emulation, envy, and opposition, of equals, the malice of their enemies, and the authority and prejudice in their supe riors, will often present their defects to them, and interrupt any career of their passion and vanity : but princes and great men, who can have few friends (because friendship presupposes some 1 Psalm cxix. 7 1 . 15 Of Patience in Adversity. 539 kind of equality), whose counsellors are commonly compliers with their humours, and flatterers of their infirmities, who are seldom checked by want of success in what they propose to themselves, have little help but their own observation and experience to cure their foUies and defects ; and that observation and experience is never so pregnant and convincing, as under adversity, which refreshes the memory, makes it revolve that which was purposely laid aside that it might never be remembered; reforms and sharpens the understanding, and faithfully collects all that has been left undone, or has been done amiss, and presents it to the judgment; which, now the clouds and fumes and mists of pride, ambition, and flattery, that used to transport and intoxicate and mislead it, are dispersed, discerns what misfortunes attended those faults, what ruin that wickedness, the gradation and progress each error has made, and how close the punishment had attended the transgression : every faculty of the mind does its office exactly, so that how disturbed and disquieted soever the body is, without doubt the mind was never in better health than under this ex amination. Besides, if there were no other good to be expected from it, than what keeps it company ; if we were not sure by well bearing it to be freed from it, and rewarded for it; the very pre sent benefit and advantages it gives us, and gives us title to, renders it most ambitiously to be desired ; it entitles us to the compassion and pity of all good men : " To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend," says Job vi. 1 4. Nay, it gives us a title to salvation itself: " For thou wilt save the afflicted people," says holy David, Psalm xviii. 27. Yet not withstanding aU these invitations and promises, aU the examples of good men, and the blessings which have crowned those ex amples, all our own experience of ourselves, that we have really gained more understanding and more piety in one year's affliction than in the whole course of our prosperous fortunes, we are so far from a habit of patience, and so weary of our sufferings, that we are even ready to exchange our innocence to change our condition. There was never an age, in which men underwent greater trials by adversity, and I fear scarce an age in which there was a less stock of patience to bear it ; never more tribulation, never less glorying in tribulation. We are aU ready enough to magnify our sufferings, and our merit in those sufferings, to make the world believe we have undergone them out of our 540 LORD CLARENDON. piety to God, and devotion to His worship ; out of our allegiance to our sovereign lord the king, and because we would not con sent to the violation of that, and the wresting his rights from him by violence ; out of our tender affection to our native coun try, and because we would not consent that should be subject to the exorbitant lawless power of ambitious wicked men; the suffering for either of which causes (and we would have it be lieved we suffer jointly for them all) entitles us justly to the merit of martyrdom ; yet we are so far from comforting and de lighting ourselves with the conscience of having performed our duty, and from the enjoying that ease and quiet which naturally results from innocence, that we rather murmur, and censure, and reproach God Almighty, for giving the trophies we have deserved to those who have oppressed us ; and study nothing more, than stratagems to impose upon that conscience we are weary of, and to barter away our innocence, that we may be capable of over taking those in their prosperous wickedness, from whom we would be thought to have fled for conscience sake; and instead of a confident attending and waiting God's time to vindicate himself and us (for if our sufferings proceeded from those grounds and principles we pretend, it were so much his own cause that we should be sure of his vindication) we make excuses for the little good we have done, and even renounce it by professing to be sorry for it ; and that we may be sure to find no check from our reason, when we have prevailed with our conscience, we corrupt and bribe our understandings with fallacious argumentations, and argue ourselves into a liking of our stupidity, as if we did nothing but what God required at our hands ; we say, God expects we should help ourselves, and by natural means endeavoured to re move us from those afflictions and calamities which the power of ill men has brought upon us ; that God doth assist and bless those endeavours : on the other hand, if we sit still, and without any industry of our own look for supernatural deliverance, we pre sume to put God to a miracle, which He will work for us, and that He will countenance our lethargic laziness. Having by this argumentation brought ourselves to an ac tivity, we must then guide ourselves by what is possible, and what is practicable, that is, by such rules and mediums as they have set down, with whom our transactions must be admitted. When we are then in any straits, which before our setting out we would not foresee, we have a maxim at hand to carry us on. Of Of Patience in Adversity. 541 two evils the least is to be chosen. If we can prevent this mis chief, which seems to us greater, though we are guilty of another which seems less, all is well : especially if our formal and tempo rary and dissembled consent to this or that ill act, enables us or gives us a probable hope (which is a flattery we much delight our selves, and are always furnished with) of undoing or reversing those mischiefs, which for the present we are not, or think our selves not able to prevent. And having thus speciously reduced the practice of Christianity to the notions of civil prudence and worldly policy, we insensibly run into all the guilt we have hitherto with damage and loss avoided, and renounce all the ob ligations of piety and reUgion by our odious apostacy. It is true, God expects we should perform all on our parts that is lawful to be done for our own behoof; but when we have done that, he will have us rely on Him for our deliverance, how distant soever it seems from us, rather than attempt to deliver ourselves by any means not agreeable to His precise pleasure. Neither can there be so stupid a reliance upon a miracle, as that God should suffer us to preserve or redeem ourselves by ill and crooked arts, and contribute His blessings upon such a preservation ;„ this would be more miraculous, than what seems to be most won derful. There cannot be a more mischievous position than that we should be always doing, always endeavouring to help our selves. He that has lost his way in a dark night, and all the marks by which he should guide himself, and know whether he be in the way or not, cannot do so wisely as to sit still till the morning; especially if he travel upon such uneven ground and precipices, that the least mistake in footing may prove fatal to him : and it will be the same in our other journey. If we are benighted in our understandings, and so no path to tread in but where thorns and briars and snakes are in our way, and where the least deviation from the right track wiU lead us into labyrinths, from whence we cannot be safely disentangled, it will become us, how bleak and stormy soever the night is, how grievous and pressing soever our adversity is, to have patience tiU the light appears, that we may have a full prospect of our way, and of all that lies in our way. If the malice and power of enemies oppress us, and drive us to those exigents, that there appears to us no expedient to avoid utter ruin, but submitting and concurring with their wickedness, we ought to believe that either God will convert their hearts, or find some other as extraordinary way to 542 LORD CLARENDON. deliver us ; and if He does not, that then our ruin is necessary, and that He will make it more happy to us than our deUverance would be. We have no such liberty left us to choose one evil, under pretence that we avoid a greater by so doing. It may be a good rule a in matter of damage .and inconvenience ; but that which in itself is simply evil, must not be consented to under any extenuation or excuse; and the project of doing good, or re deeming the ill we have done, by such concessions, is more vain, more unjustifiable. We are so far from any warrant for those undertakings, that we have an infallible text, " That we are not to do evil that good may come of it ;" we ought not to presume that God will give us time and opportunity to do it, and then the intention of doing well will be no good excuse for the ill we have actually committed; neither have we reason to be confident that we shall have the will to do it, if we have the opportunity ; since every transgression, so deliberated and resolved on, leaves the mind vitiated and less inclined to good ; and there is such a bashfulness naturally attends on guilt, that we have not after wards the same alacrity to do well, and grow ashamed and afraid of that conversation, without which it will not be possible for us to do that good. It will be said, our not concurring in this particular act, may ruin us, but not hinder the act from being done ; and therefore that it is too vain an affectation of our ruin to oppose that so fruitlessly: and this consideration and objection, I fear, has pre vailed over too many to submit to that which they have long opposed, as not agreeable to their understandings and conscience; " that they have done their parts, opposed it as long as they were able ; that it shaU be done whether they will or no ; and that it is only in their power to perish with what they would preserve, but not to preserve it by perishing; and therefore, that they may for their own preservation join in the doing that, or consenting to it, which will be done in spite of any resistance they can make." This is said in the business of the Church: it is actually op pressed ; the government of it actually and remedilessly altered ; nothing that I can say or do can preserve it ; and that the question is not, whether I would desire to preserve both Church and king dom, but whether, when there can be one, and but one preserved, I will lose that because I cannot keep both. But these argu- a See Hooker, book v. chap. ix. Of Patience in Adversity. 543 ments cannot prevail with a. conscience informed and guided aright. If my religion oblige me to do my duty no longer than conveniently I might, and that when wants and necessities and dangers pressed upon me, I might recede and yield to what I believe wicked or unlawful, I had no more to do, but to make that necessity and danger evident to the world for my excuse. But no union and consent in wickedness can make my guilt the less; and if nothing I can do can preserve the Church, it is in my power to preserve my own innocence, and to have no hand in its destruction ; and I ought to value that innocence above all the conveniences and benefits my submission can bring to me. And I must confess, I want logic to prove to myself, that it may be lawful for me to do that to recover or redeem my fortune, which was not lawful for me to do to preserve it ; or that after I have borne great afflictions and calamities, I may conscientiously consent to that, which, if I could have done, I might have pre vented aU those calamities. No man is so insignificant as that he can be sure his example can do no hurt. There is naturally such a submission of the understanding, as many do in truth think that lawful to be done which they see another do, of whose judg ment and integrity they have a great opinion ; so that my example may work upon others to do what no other temptation or suffering could induce them to; nay, it may not only increase the number of the guilty, but confirm those, who, out of their reverence to my carriage and constancy, began to repent the ill they had done ; and whosoever is truly repenting, thinks at the same time of repairing. I doubt many men in these ill times have found themselves unhappily engaged in a partnership of mischief, before they apprehended they were out of the right way, by seriously beUeving what this man said (whose learning and knowledge was confessedly eminent) to be law, and implicitly concluding what another did (whose reputation for honesty and wisdom was as general) to be just and prudent; and I pray God, the faults of those misled men may not be imputed to the other, who have weight enough of their own, and their very knowledge and ho nesty increase their damnation. " If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small 1," says Solomon. " Si despera- veris lassus," says the vulgar Latin ; if being weary or faint, thou despair, thy strength is small : it shows thou hast done well out 1 Prov. xxiv. 10. 544 LORD CLARENDON. of design, and in expectation of prospering by it ; and being dis appointed, thou even repentest the having done thy duty: for thy strength and courage being grounded only on policy, it must needs be small ; whereas, if it had been grounded on conscience and piety towards God, thou couldest never despair of His assistance and protection. Tremellius renders that text more severely, " Si remisse te geras tempore angustia, angusta erit virtus tua ;" If thou art less vigorous in the time of trouble, thy virtue is not virtue, but a narrow slight disposition to good, never grown into a habit. " In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider," says the preacher. Tremellius renders it, " Tempore autem mali utere." Use the time of trouble, employ it so that thou mayest be the better for it, and that others may be the bet ter by thy deportment. It was observed in the primitive time, that there were more men converted to Christianity by the death of every martyr, than by all their sermons and actions of their life; and thence it was said, " Sanguis martyrum est semen ecclesia." Not only that the confirmation of their doctrine with their blood persuaded many that it was the truth for which many were so ready to pour out their blood, but that their demeanour at their death, their great courage and patience, and contempt of tortures and pain, made many believe that there was a satisfaction, and pleasure, and joy in those opinions, which was so much superior and above the agony and pain of death, that a mind refreshed with the one, preserved the body from the sense and feeling of the other; insomuch, as the prosecutors themselves, who could not be moved with the orations, and sermons, and disputations of the prisoners, were converted by beholding them at the stake. And we oftentimes see passionate and violent men, whose ani mosities and revenge no charity or Christian precepts could sup press and extinguish, so astonished with the brave and constant carriage of their adversaries in their afflictions, which have been unjustly brought upon them by the other, that their very rever ence to their sufferings have begot a remorse in them, and a reparation of their wrongs : nay, we often see ill men, who have justly fallen under heavy calamities, behave themselves so well under them, that all prejudice has been thereby reconciled toward them. To conclude : wouldst thou convert thy adversary to an admiration, and value, and affection to thee, to a true sense of the wrong he hath done thee, there is no such way, as by letting him see by thy firm and cheerful submitting to adversity, that thou Of Contempt of Death. 545 hast a peace about thee of which thou canst not be robbed by him, and of which in aU his power he is not possessed. If his heart be so hardened, and his conscience seared, that thou canst this way make no impression on him toward his conversion, thou shalt however more perplex, and grieve, and torment his mind with envy of thy virtue, than he can thine with all his insolence and oppression. IV. OF CONTEMPT OF DEATH, AND THE BEST PROVIDING FOR IT. Montpellier, 1669. " O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his possessions, and to the man that hath nothing to vex him, and that hath prosperity in all things; yea, unto him that is yet able to receive meat : O Death, acceptable is thy sentence to the needy, and unto him whose strength faileth, that is now in the last age, and is vexed with all things, and to him that despaireth, and hath lost patience ;" was the reflection of the son of Sirach, upon the several affections, and humours, and contingencies in the life of man. (xii. 1, 2.) But without doubt the very prosperous man, who seems to be most at ease, and without any visible outward vexation, is as weary very fre quently of Ufe (for satiety of all things naturally produces a satiety of life itself,) as the most miserable man, whose appetite of life seems even by this observation to continue as long as his appetite of meat ; for as long as he is able to receive meat, the remembrance of death is bitter to him. The philosophers who most undervalued life and most contemned death, thought it wor thy a serious meditation and recollection, " Utrum commodius sit, vel mortem transire ad nos, vel nos ad eam," whether we should stay tiU death calls upon us, or we call upon it ; and beUeved that it was the greatest obligation that Providence had laid upon mankind, " Quod unum introitum nobis ad vitam dedit, exitus mul- tos ;" and that it was therefore a very foolish thing to complain of life, when they may determine it when they will : " Hoc est unum, cur quod de vita non possimus queri ; neminem tenet ;" they may choose whether they will live or no : and though men were obliged to make their lives conformable to the good examples of other men, in the manner of their death they were only to please themselves, " Optima est qua placet ;" yet there was a great dif- VOL. III. n n 546 LORD CLARENDON. ference in this point between the philosophers themselves ; and many of them held it very unlawful, and a great wickedness, for any man to offer violence to himself, and to deprive himself of his own life, and " Exspectandum esse exitum quem natura decre- vit .•" and surely, excluding all other considerations, there seems to be more fortitude and courage in daring to live miserably, and to undergo those assaults which that life is liable to, than in pre venting and redeeming himself from it by a sudden voluntary death ; and the other party, which most disUked and professed against this restraint, as the contradiction of that liberty in which man was born, as very few of them in their practice parted volun tarily with their lives, so in their discourses they kept the balance equal ; and as they would not have their disciples too much in love with life, to set too high and too great a value upon it, so they would by no means suffer them to contemn, much less hate, it; "ne nimis amemus vitam, et ne nimis oderimus :" they had so many cautions, and hesitations, and distinctions about the aban doning of life, that a man may see that death was no pleasant prospect to them. He who would kiU himself ought to do it with deUberation and decency, " Non fugere debet £ vita, sed exire ;" and above all, that " libido moriendi" was abominable. It must not be a dislike of life, but a satiety in it, that disposed them to part with it. The truth is, though they could have no farther reflections in this disquisition than were suggested to them by a full consideration of the law of nature, and the obliga tions thereof, and could not consider it as a thing impious in itself as it related to heaven and hell, yet the difference that was in their view was very great between being and not being, and their little or no comprehension what was done after death, or whether any thing succeeded or no, so that many of them from thence valued life the more, and some of them the less. The best Christians need not be ashamed to sharpen, to raise their own contemplations and devotions, by their reflection upon the discourse of the heathen philosophers ; but they may be ashamed if from those reflections their piety be not indeed both instructed and exalted : and if their mere reason could raise and incite them to so great a reverence for virtue, and so solicitous a pursuit of it, we may well blush if our very reason, so much informed by them, be not at least equal to theirs ; and being en dowed and strengthened with clear notions of religion, it does not carry us higher than they were able to mount, and to a per- Of Contempt of Death. 547 fection they were not able to ascend to. We may learn from them to undervalue life so much, as not to affect it above the in nocence of living, or living innocently ; we may so far learn from them to contemn death, as not to avoid it with the guilt or infamy of Uving. But then the consideration of heaven and hell, the reward and punishment which will inevitably attend our living and dying well or ill, wUl both raise and fix our thoughts of Ufe and death in another light than they were accustomed to ; neither of those Lands of Promise having been contained in their map, or in any degree been exposed to their prospect; and nothing but the view of those landmarks can infuse into us a just esteem of Ufe, and a just apprehension of death. Christianity, then, does neither oblige us not to love life, or not to fear death, but to love life so Uttle that we may fear death the less. Nothing can so well prepare us for it as a continual thinking upon it ; and our very reason methinks should keep us thinking of that which we know must come, and cannot know when; and therefore the being much surprised with the approach of it is as well a discre dit to our reason as to our religion ; and beyond an humble and contented expectation of it religion requires not from us; it being impossible for any man who is bound to pay money upon demand, not to think of having the money ready against it is demanded; nor does any man resolve to make a journey without providing a viaticum for that journey ; and this preparation will serve our turn ; that " libido moriendi" is no injunction of Chris tianity : and we know in the primitive times, that as great pains were taken to remove those fears and apprehensions out of the hearts of Christians, which terrified them out of their religion, by presenting to them the great reward, and joy, and pleasure which they were sure to be possessed of who died for their reUgion ; so there was no less to restrain them from being transported with such a zeal as made them, out of the affectation of martyrdom, to call for it, by finding out and reproaching the judges, and — cLi ring their faith unasked, that they might be put to death; to be contented to die when they could not honestly avoid it, was the true martyrdom. We need not seek death out, it will come in its due time : and if we then conform decently to its summons we have done what is expected from us. - There are so many commendable and worthy ends for which we may desire to live, that we may very lawfully desire that our death may be deferred. St. Paul himsetf, who had been so near n n 2 548 LORD CLARENDON. heaven that he was not sure that he had not been there, was put to a stand, and corrected his impatience to be there again, with the consideration of the good he might do by living and con tinuing in this world ; " I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better : nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you V He knew well his own place there which was reserved for him, but he knew as well that the longer his journey thither was de ferred, he should have the more company there ; and this made his choice of life, even upon the comparison, very warrantable. Men may very piously desire to live, to comply with the very obliga tion of nature in cherishing their wives and bringing up their children, and to enjoy the blessings of both : and that he may contribute to the peace and happiness and prosperity of his country, he may heartily pray not to die. Length of days is a particular blessing God vouchsafes to those He favours most, as giving them thereby both a task and opportunity to do the more good. They who are most weary of life, and yet are most un willing to die, are such who have lived to no purpose ; who have rather breathed than lived. They who pretend to the apostle's ecstasy, and to desire a dissolution a from a religious nauseating the folly and wickedness of this world, and out of a devout con templation of the joys of heaven, administer too much cause of doubting, that they seem to triumph over nature more than they have cause, and that they had rather live till the next year than die in this. He who believes the world not worthy of him, may in truth be thought not worthy of the world. If men are not willing to be deprived of their fortunes and preferments and liberty, which are but the ordinary perquisites of life, they may very justifiably be unwilling to be deprived of life itself, upon which those conveniences depend ; and death is accompanied with many things, which we are not obliged solicitously to covet. We are well prepared for it, when by continual thinking upon it we are so prepared, as not to be in any degree terrified with the 1 Phil. i. 23, 24. a " If a king should give you the keeping of a castle with all things be longing to it, orchards, gardens, &c. and bid you use them ; and withal pro mise you, after twenty years, to remove you to Court and to make you a privy-counsellor :— if you shall neglect your castle, and refuse to eat of those fruits, and sit down and whine, and wish you were a privy-counsellor, — do you think the king would be pleased with you?" Selden's Table Talk, art. "Pleasure," § 4. Of Liberty. 549 approach of it, and at the resigning our life into His hands who gave it; and a temper beyond this is rather to be imagined than attained by any of those rules of understanding which accompany a man that is in good health of body and mind ; and the sick ness and infirmity of either is more like to amaze and corrupt the judgment, than to elevate and inspire it with any rational, trans cendent and practical speculations. The best counsel is to pre pare the mind by still thinking of it, " Illis gravis est, quibus est repentina, facile eam sustinet qui semper exspectat." No doubt it must exceedingly disorder all their faculties, who cannot endure the mention of it, and do sottishly believe (for many such sots there are) that they shall die the sooner, if they do any of those things which dying people used to do, and which nobody ought to defer till that season : and there cannot be a better expedient to enable men to pass that time with courage and moderate cheerfulness, than so to have dispatched and settled all the business of the world when a man is in health, that he may be vacant, when sickness comes, from all other thoughts but such as are fit to be the companions of death, and from all other business but dying; which, as it puts an end in a moment to all that is mortal, so it requires the operation of more than is mortal to make that last moment agreeable and happy. V. OF LIBERTY. Montpellier, 1670. Liberty is the charm, which mutinous and seditious persons use, to pervert and corrupt the affections of weak and wilful peo ple and to lead them into rebellion against their princes and law ful superiors : "En ilia, quam sape optdstis, libertas," said Catiline, when he would draw the poor people into a conspiracy against the commonwealth. And in that transportation, men are com monly so weak and wilful, that they insensibly submit to condi tions of more restraint and compulsion, and in truth to more and heavier penalties for the vindication of their liberty, than they were ever Uable to in the highest violation of their liberty of which they complain, by how much the articles of war are more severe and hard to be observed, than the strictest injunctions under any peaceable government. However, no age has been without dismal and bloody examples of this fury, when the very sound of liberty (which may well be called a charm) has hurried those who would 550 LORD CLARENDON. sacrifice to it, to do and to suffer all the acts oftyranny imagin able, and to make themselves slaves that they may be free. There is no one thing that the mind of man may lawfully desire and take delight in, that is less understood and more fataUy mistaken than the word liberty ; which though no man is so mad as to say it consists in being absolved from all obligations of law, which would give every man liberty to destroy him, yet they do in truth think it to be nothing else than not to be subject to those laws which restrain them from doing somewhat they have a mind to do ; so that whoever is carried away upon that sedi tious invitation, has set his heart upon some liberty that he affects, a liberty for revenge, a liberty for rapine, or the like : which, if owned and avowed, would seduce very few ; but being concealed, every man gratifies himself with such an image of li berty as he worships, and so they concur together to overthrow that government that is inconvenient to them all, though disUked by very few in one and the same respect ; and therefore strength of rebellion consists in the private gloss which every man makes to himself upon the declared argument of it, not upon the reasons pub lished and avowed, how specious and popular soever ; and thence it comes to pass, that most rebellions expire in a general detes tation of the first promoters of them, by those who kept them company in the prosecution, and discover their ends to be very different from their profession. True and precious liberty, that is only to be valued, is nothing else but that we may not be compelled to do any thing that the law has left in our choice whether we will do or no ; nor hindered from doing any thing we have a mind to do, and which the law has given us liberty to do, if we have a mind to it : and com pulsion and force in either of these cases, is an act of violence and injustice against our right, and ought to be repeUed by the sovereign power, and may be resisted so far by ourselves as the law permits. The law is the standard and the guardian of our liberty; it circumscribes and defends it: but to imagine Uberty without a law, is to imagine every man with his sword in his hand, to destroy him who is weaker than himself; and that would be no pleasant prospect to those who cry out most for liberty. Those men, of how great name and authority soever3, who first a Compare Hooker, book i. chap. 10, and notes, above, vol. i. of this col lection. Also Principles of Civil Government, above, in this volume, and Clarendon against Hobbes. Of Liberty. 551 introduced that opinion, that nature produced us in a state of war, and that order and government was the effect of experience and contract, by which man surrendered the right he had by nature, to avoid that violence which every man might exercise upon an other, have been the authors of much mischief in the world, by infusing into the hearts of mankind a wrong opinion of the insti tution of government, and that they may lawfully vindicate themselves from the ill bargains that their ancestors made for that liberty which nature gave them ; and that they ought only to have released their own interest and what concerned them selves, but that it is most unreasonable and unjust that their pos terity should be bound by their ill-made and unskilful contracts : and from this, resentment and murmur, war and rebellion have arisen, which commonly leave men under much worse condition than their forefathers had subjected them to. Nor is it strange that philosophers, who coufd imagine no other way for the world to be made, but by a lucky convention and conjunction of atoms, nor could satisfy their own curiosity in any rational conjecture of the structure of man, or from what omnipotency he could be formed or created ; I say, it is no wonder, that men so much in the dark as to matter of fact, should conceive by the light of their reason, that government did arise in that method, and by those argumen tations, which they could best comprehend capable to produce such a conformity1. But that men, who are acquainted with the Scriptures, and profess; to beUeve them ; who thereby know the whole history of the creation, and have therein the most lively representations of all the excesses and defects of nature ; who see the order and discipline and subjection prescribed to mankind from his creation, by Him who created him ; and that that disci pline and subjection Was complied with till the world was grown very numerous ; that we after so clear information of what was really and in truth done and commanded, should resort to the fancy and supposition of heathen philosophers for the invention of government, is very unreasonable, and has exposed the peace and quiet of kingdoms, the preservation whereof is the obligation of conscience and reUgion, to the wild imaginations of men, upon the ungrounded conceptions of the primitive foundation of sub jection and obedience, and to their Ucence to enervate both, by their bold definitions and distinctions. Because very much of the benefit of Christianity consisted in a Compare above, p. 34-8, Bishop Horsley, and the notes. 552 LORD CLARENDON. the Uberty it gave mankind from that thraldom which it suffered under the Law, and in the manumission and deliverance from those observations and ceremonies, the apostles took not more care in the institution of any part of it, than that men might not be intoxicated with the pleasant taste of that Uberty, or imagine that it extended to a lawlessness in their actions, well foreseeing, and being jealous lest their opinions of liberty might degenerate into licentiousness ; and therefore they circumscribed it with aU possible caution, that they might have the whole benefit to them selves in abstaining from what was grievous and burthensome to them, not the presumption to disturb other men ; " But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumb ling-block to them that are weak," saith St. Paul, (1 Cor. viii. 9.) Do not dissemble and give men cause to believe, by ac companying them in what they do, that thou dost intend as they do, and hast the same thoughts with the"m. " Use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh '," is an injunction of the same apostle. How good a title soever you have to liberty, be not exalted by it to anger, and provoke a man, who (though by want of under standing, ) does not think himself as free as thou art : no proportion of liberty will permit thee to be uncharitable, much less to apply it to satisfy thy ambition, or any other unlawful affection. Of all kind of affectation of liberty, to which the soul of man lets itself loose, there is none ought to be more carefully watched, and more strictly examined, than that which is so pas sionately pretended to, and so furiously embraced, liberty of conscience. Other liberties which nature inclines and disposes us unto, how unwarrantable soever, may with more excuse, if not with more innocence, be indulged to, than that liberty which seems to take its rise from conscience : which, in truth, if it be legiti mate, is the dictate of God Himself; and therefore men ought to tremble in imputing any thing to result from Him, that leads them to the direct breach of any of His commandments, indeed that does not restrain them from it. It is a very severe Umitation by St. James, " So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of Uberty V That liberty that will not be judged by the law, is an unlawful liberty; and men will find, if they are diligent in seeking, that the law of Christ, which is the judge of Christian liberty, does oblige all His followers to submit to the laws of their lawful sovereigns which are not directly, and to 1 Gal. v. 13. ' James ii. 12. Of Industry. 553 their knowledge, contradictory to His own. Conscience is so pure a fountain, that no polluted water can be drawn from thence; and therefore St. Peter pronounces a judgment upon those, who, upon their being free, use their liberty for a cloak of malicious ness, cover their wicked designs under the liberty of conscience, and so make God accessary to the iniquity He abhors. VI. OF INDUSTRY. Montpellier, 1670. Industry is the cordial that nature has provided to cure all its own infirmities and diseases, and to supply aU its defects ; the weapon to,preserve and defend us against all the strokes and assaults of fortune ; it is that only that conducts us through any noble enterprise to a noble end: what we obtain without it is by chance ; what we obtain with it is by virtue. It is very great pity that so powerful an instrument should be put into the hands of wicked men, who thereby gain such infinite advantages ; yet it cannot be denied but that it is a virtue which ill men make use of to very ill purposes. It was the first foundation of Jeroboam's greatness : " And Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph '," by which he got credit and authority to deprive his son of the greatest part of his dominions. There is no art or science that is too difficult for industry to attain to ; it is the gift of tongues, and makes a man understood and valued in all countries, and by all nations ; it is the philosopher's stone, that turns all metals, and even stones, into gold, and suffers no want to break into its dwellings; it is the north-west passage, that brings the merchant's ships as soon to him as he can desire : in a word, it conquers all enemies, and makes fortune itself pay con tribution. If this omnipotent engine were applied to all virtuous and wor thy purposes, it would root out aU vice from the world ; for the industry of honest men is much more powerful than the industry of the wicked, which prevails not so much by its own activity, as by the remissness and supine laziness of their unwary enemies. 1 1 Kings xi. 28. 554 LORD CLARENDON. The beauty and the brightness of it appear most powerfully to our observation, by the view of the contempt and deformity of that which is most opposite to it, idleness ; which enfeebles and enervates the strength of the soundest constitutions, shrinks and stupifies the faculties of the most vigorous mind, and gives all the destroying diseases to body and mind, without the contribution from any other vice. Idleness is the sin and the punishment of beggars, and should be detested by all noble persons, as a disease pestilential to their fortune and their honour. I know not how it comes to pass, but the world pays dear for the folly of it, that this transcendent qualification of industry is looked upon only as an assistant fit for vulgar spirits, to which nature has not been bountiful in the distribution of her store ; as the refuge for dull and heavy men, who have neither their conceptions nor apprehensions within any distance, nor can arrive at any ordinary design without much labour and toil, and many unnecessary revolvings, which men of sharp and pregnant parts stand in no need of, whose rich fancy presents to them in a moment the view of all contingencies, and all that occurs to formal and elaborate men after all their sweat ; that they view and survey, and judge and execute, whilst the others are tormenting themselves with imaginations of difficulty, tiU all opportunities are lost ; that it is an affront to the liberality of nature, and to the excellent qualities she has bestowed upon them, to take pains to find what they have about them, and to doubt that which is most evident to them, because men who have more dim sights cannot discern so far as they : and by this haughty childishness they quickly deprive themselves of the plentiful supplies which nature has given them, for want of nourishment and recruits. If diligent and industrious men raise themselves, with very ordinary assistance from nature, to a great and deserved height of repu tation and honour, by their solid acquired wisdom and confessed judgment, what noble flights would such men make with equal industry who are Ukewise liberally endowed with the advantages of nature ! And without that assistance, experience makes it manifest unto us, that those early buddings, how vigorous soever they appear, if they are neglected and uncultivated by serious labour, they wither and fade away without producing any thing that is notable. Tully's rule to his orator is as true in all con ditions of life, " Quantum detraxit ex studio, tantum amisit ex gloria." Of Repentance. 555 VII. OF REPENTANCE; Sept. 8, 1669. Repentance is the greatest business we have to do in this world, and the only harbinger we can send before us to provide for our accommodation in the next ; it is the only token we can carry with us thither of our being Christians, — which is the only title and claim we can make to be admitted into heaven. It was the only doctrine the prophets preached to prepare the world for the reception of our Saviour ; and we may justly believe that His coming was the longer deferred, by the little growth that doc trine had in the hearts of men ; and it was the principal doctrine He chose to preach Himself after He was come, to make His coming effectual, and to make way for Christianity, of which they were otherwise incapable. There is not, it may be, a consideration in the whole history of the life and death of our Saviour, upon the ground and end of His being born, and aU the circumstances of His living and dying, which ought to affect us more with sorrow and amaze ment, than that this precious antidote, which can only expel that poison which must otherwise destroy us, that this sovereign repentance is so little thought of, so little considered, so lit tle understood, what it is, and what it is not. It is wonderful with some horror, that there is not one Christian in the world, how different soever in other opinions, who does profess to have any hope of salvation without repentance, and yet that there are so few who take any pains to be informed of it, or know how to practise it. It is almost the only point of faith upon which there is no controversy ; as if there were a gene ral conspiracy to make no words of it, lest it should suppress all other discords and contentions. It were to be wished there fore that all particular persons, who have any sense of con science, or so much as a desire to live innocently for the future, that they may die comfortably, would seriously apply themselves to weigh well what that repentance in truth is, which they themselves think to be necessary to their salvation, and without which they even know that they cannot be saved ; that they may neither be imposed upon by others, nor impose upon 15 556 LORD CLARENDON. themselves, by imagining it to be a perfunctory duty, to be taken up and performed when they have a mind to it, and to be re peated as often as they have need of it. And it may be king doms and states cannot find a better expedient for their own peace and security, and for the composing the minds and affec tions of their subjects, than for some time to silence all disputes in religion, and to enjoin all preachers in their pulpits and their conversation only to inculcate the doctrine of repentance; that as all people confess the necessity and profess the practice of it, so they may be so well instructed and informed of the true nature and obUgations of it, that they may know themselves whether they do practise it, and whether they are so well prepared for their last journey as they believe or imagine themselves to be. Repentance, then, is a godly sorrow for having done or com mitted somewhat that God has forbidden men to do, or for having omitted to do somewhat that He has commanded us to do, and which was in our power to have done. Where there is no sorrow there can be no repentance ; and where the sorrow is not godly there can be no true repentance. The conscience must be troubled and afflicted for having offended God, and principally for that, before it can produce repentance. Too many are sorry, very sorry, for having lost their time in pursuing a sin without effect, without compassing their desire ; but this is far from re pentance, and they are as ready for the like new engagement upon any new opportunity : whereas a godly sorrow exempts a man from such temptation, and so fortifies him against it, that all the advantages of the world could not again prevail with him to commit the same sin of which he repents, because he so griev ously offended God in the commitment. The son of Sirach could not think of anything so contrary and ridiculous, as of a man that fasts for his sins, and goes again and does the same : — who will hear his prayer ? or what does his humbling profit him ? God only knows how far the most serious and unfeigned repentance will enable and strengthen us to resist future temptation ; but we may all know that it is no repentance at all, that is not attended first with a resolution never to fall into the same sin again, whereof he makes a true repentance; and we may piously believe that God will support that hearty repentance to that degree, that we shall never fall into the same again ; and if we do find our selves prone to it hereafter, we have much more reason to con clude that our repentance was not sincere, than that repentance Of Repentance. 557 has not strength enough to secure us against such assaults. With out doubt we ought not to flatter ourselves with an opinion or imagination that we do repent, if we do not sensibly feel such a resolution. That declaration in the Epistle to the Hebrews ' has very much of horror in it : " It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance ; since they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." How far soever it may please God to exercise His mercy even to those who are so miserably fallen — of which no man can presume — sure it ought to terrify all men from that impudent impiety, as to gratify their lust, or their intemperance, or their rapine, with a resolution to repent when they have done, and so make that presumption a stalking-horse to the worst wickedness and viUany. Such deliberation and contemplation upon God's mercy is more profaneness and blasphemy than re jecting Him out of our thoughts, or concluding that He cares not what we do. And yet there is too much reason to fear, that in so frequent confessions and as frequent absolutions there would not stiU remain the commission of the same sins in the same person, if they did not play with repentance, and believe they might have it whenever they call for it. St. Paul tells us2, " that the goodness of God leadeth us to repentance ;" and men may as reasonably believe that they may be • saved without re pentance, as that He will lead those to repentance, who, upon the confidence of it, have given their hands to the devil, to be led by him out of all the roads which lead to repentance. There are a sort of cordials which are purposely made to be adminis tered only in extremity, when nature is ready to expire, and not able to perform its functions ; but as those cordials do not often work the wished effect, so they are very often forgotten to be applied, or applied too late, when nature is spent and not able to receive them. If this sovereign cordial of repentance be laid aside to the last extremity, till nature is so far decayed that no vice has strength enough to contend, or be importunate for any further compliance, it is no wonder if it be then forgotten, and faith be not strong enough to call for it, or to look for any benefit 1 Chap. vi. 4—6. * Rom. ii. 4. 558 LORD CLARENDON. from it ; and though it can never come unseasonably or unprofit- ably, or too late, yet it may be deferred so long that it may not come at all; which they have great reason to apprehend, who find by experience that the longer they defer it the less mind and inclination they have to finish it — as bankrupts have least mind to look over and examine their own accounts. It is a common error, and the greater and more mischievous for being so common, to believe that repentance best becomes and most concerns dying men. Indeed, what is necessary every hour of our life is necessary in the hour of death too, and as long as he Uves he will have need of repentance, — and therefore it is necessary in the hour of death too ; but he who has constantly exercised himself in it in his health and vigour, will do it with less pain in his sickness and weakness ; and he who has practised it all his life, will do it with more ease and less perplexity in the hour of his death, — as he who has diligently cast up every page of a large account will better be able to state the whole sum upon a little warning in the last leaf, than he can do which must look over every one of them. Repentance is as necessary to living as to dying well; and being carefully and constantly practised makes our lives as profitable as our deaths comfortable ; and the world receives more benefit by our living well than by our dying well. The frequent revolving our own errors, follies, and defects — the correcting and subduing our passions and our appetites, all which is repentance, makes us wiser and honester, and so more prosperous in the eyes of men ; and a serious recollection of what we have done amiss towards other men and towards ourselves, is not out of the way to a repentance for having offended the Divine Providence. They who do believe (as the best men surely do) that there is no day of their life (from the time that they knew the difference between good and bad) in which they have not thought, or said, or done somewhat, for which they need foroive- ness from God and man, cannot doubt but that they have argu ment for repentance every day ; and the oftener they make those recollections, the more cheerfully they live, and the more cheer fully they die : and the laying those troublesome matters aside and forgetting them, will not serve their turn, and gives very short ease ; no man can presume so much upon an ill memory, but that many things will occur to him which he had rather forget, and in seasons in which he is most troubled to remember them; and, therefore, it was no ill answer that he gave to one Of Repentance. 559 who offered to teach him the art of memory, that he rather desired the art of forgetfulness ; " meminerat enim qua nollet." The only way to keep the conscience in a posture of confidence, and that it may not be oppressed (and no tyranny is so insup portable as the oppression of conscience — I mean the oppression it suffers from its own guilt), is frequently to represent to its naked view all its deformities, which insensibly produces sadness and remorse, and caution against future assaults ; and we have it only in our choice, whether we wiU then call them before us and take a prospect of them, muster them in all their colours, when we can upon the matter disarm them, by extracting all their venom and poison with an unfeigned repentance, or let them caU and break in upon us when we are weak and in pain, and not able to bear the surprise. The philosopher thought.it an unanswerable reason why he should take an exact scrutiny of his own faults and foUies, and not endeavour to hide them from him self by forgetting them, because upon the view of them he could say imto himself (for he knew not whether to rejoice else) " vide ne istud amplius facias ; nunc tibi ignosco." Though his own pardon will not serve his turn, if he be sincere in the discovery, he is like to find a pardon more easily from God, than it may be he can obtain from himself. Since then there is so frequent occasion and so constant a benefit in the reiterating and repeating our repentance, and so manifest danger in the delaying it, methinks all men should think it mere madness to put it off an hour ; and when they are not wiUing that any benefit they affect in this world should be deferred or kept back from them an hour, they should yet defer that which must make their passage to, and their station in, the other world miserable above or beyond the most fertile imagina tion ; and as men who are to travel through an enemy's country cannot be too solicitous and scrupulous in examining every clause and expression in their pass, and that no word be left out which may endanger their security in their journey, nor too punctual in observing the Umits, and restraints, and conditions included therein, so they cannot intently and industriously enough con sider this more important pass of their repentance, which must conduct them through more dangerous and intricate ways ; that it be sincere, and not liable to any tergiversations, nor without any of those marks and tokens which may manifest the veracity of it to others, as well as raise a confidence in themselves of its 560 LORD CLARENDON. security : nor can they use too much diligence to raise this con fidence which concerns them so much, and which, above all the indulgence and encouragement they can receive from others, can only make their journey comfortable to themselves. Acknowledgment is not a circumstance, but a necessary found ation of repentance : he that does not believe he has done amiss, cannot entertain a true sorrow, and has less reason to repent; and- if he does believe it, he must acknowledge it before he can truly repent. This Christian duty, this essential and inseparable part of repentance must be seriously thought upon and studied : it is the scarecrow that frights men from repentance, sets up honour to contest with conscience, and makes shame so impudent as to contradict confession. He who stoops to the lowest and the basest arts and actions to commit a wickedness, would be ex empted by honour from acknowledging it ; and he that cannot be restrained by modesty from the most impudent transgressions, would be absolved by shame from making any confession of it ; and yet will not have it doubted but that he is truly penitent. What is this but mocking God Almighty, and hoping to get into heaven by a counterfeit and forged pass, which will not get admittance into honourable company, which never remits an injury without a full acknowledgment and entreaty of forgive ness ? It is a bare-faced assertion, owned and urged commonly by those, who, being by ill success brought to the brink of despair, carry themselves only to the brink of repentance; that repentance is an act of the heart towards God alone, for some sin committed against His divine Majesty, and a begging of His pardon ; and, therefore, the acknowledging that sin to Him alone, and re nouncing it with all the resolution imaginable never to fall into the like again, is sufficient, and need not be attended with any public acknowledgment, which would only expose them to the scorn and reproach of other men. It may be so, there may be such sins as thoughts and purposes of the heart, which can be known only to God ; and it may be, some sinful actions too, the acknowledgment whereof, particularly to God Himself, may be sufficient ; and the acknowledgment of them in public, how inno cently soever intended, may be little less sinful than the enter taining and committing them. There are thoughts, and inclina tions, and argumentations of the heart, which, though subdued and repented, may, being communicated to others, propagate Of Repentance. 561 vice in them, with the exclusion of all thoughts of repentance; and the very commission of some sins which the world can take no notice of, would be much aggravated (though piously repented of) by a pubUc acknowledgment, which, in many respects — and justly — would be accompanied with shame and reproach ; and in such cases, secret and hearty repentance and acknowledgment to God alone may be sufficient to procure His pardon and abso lution. But when the case is not of this nature, nor made up of these circumstances ; when the sins and transgressions are public and notorious; when many men have received the injury, and undergone the damage and reproach; when my neighbour has been defrauded by my rapine and injustice, or traduced by my slanders and calumny ; the acknowledgment ought to be as public as the offence : nor can a secret confession to God alone consti tute his repentance, when others are injured, though He be most dishonoured ; and we may, without breach of charity, doubt that it is a very faint repentance, that has not strength enough to come into the air, and to beg pardon and reconcilement of those whom the penitent has offended. True repentance is a very severe magistrate, and will strip off aU that shelter and covering which would make the stripes to be less sensibly felt, and reckons shame an essential part of the punishment. It is a rough physician, that draws out the blood that inflames, and purges out the humours which corrupt or annoy the vitals ; leaves no phlegm to cherish envy, nor no choler and melancholy to engender pride ; and will rather reduce the body to a skeleton, than suffer those pernicious humours to have a source, from whence they may abound again to infest the body or the mind. True repentance is inspired with so much humility, that it fears nothing so much as to receive too much respect or countenance ; and is glad to meet with men as proud and cruel as those sins were which are repented, and receives reproach and shame as bracelets and gar lands which become it. They, who will not willingly acknow ledge to those persons who have been injured by them, that they have done them wrong, have made but a half acknowledgment, and half repentance to God Himself; have not put in that secu rity which can only give them credit, that they will not do the same again ; nor laid that obligation upon themselves, which would startle them when they shall be about to do it again. Men are not so easily tempted to commit the same offence again, and to the same man, which they have before committed and acknowledged VOL. III. o o 562 LORD CLARENDON. to the same person ; and men may reasonably doubt, that they will not only be inclined to do the same when they have the same opportunity, but that they resolve to do it, when they pretend to repent, and refuse to acknowledge it : nor is it possible for any man who is penitent in truth, to give any reasons against this acknowledgment, which will not bring a great blemish upon his repentance, and make the sincerity thereof to be justly doubted. Besides the discredit which this want of particular acknowledg ment exposes their repentance to, and the just ground it admi nisters to suspect the truth and reality thereof, it deprives the penitent (if we may so call him) of very great benefit and advan tage he might receive thereby : how far lie can reconcile himself to heaven without it, is worth at least a very serious doubt ; but it is plain enough, that without it, a reconciliation with men, which is very desirable by all good Christians, is absolutely im possible. Acknowledgment makes all accounts even, often satis fies them, and stops all farther demands; infallibly it prevents the asperity in demanding ; without it the debt remains still, with the anger and indignation of the creditor : the debt, how despe rate soever, is due ; and if it can never be recovered, it will always be objected; nor is there any other way to raze out the memory of it, but a free remitting it, which is often due to the acknowledgment. Acts of state and indemnity may extinguish all penalties and punishments to be inflicted by law, for faults committed and injuries received ; and acts of oblivion may so far oblige men to forget the injuries they have received, as neither to reproach or upbraid those who did them, or to require satis faction for the damage ; but no such acts, nor any authority under heaven, can take away the obligation of repentance, or inhibit acknowledgment, which is a branch of repentance, though it cannot be exacted by any earthly tribunal. He that performs this acknowledgment, and has therewith made his repentance per fect, has made his peace with God, and has done his part towards doing it with men; and if it be refused by them, he has made himself superior, or at least so equal to them, that his former injustice has not so evil an aspect as to fright him, and they who were injured have only gotten an argument of repentance. If acknowledgment bore no other fruit but this, that it disburthens the breast of a weight that would sink it, and makes men stand upon the same level with those who were before superior to them; that it makes the reproaches which were before due to them Of Repentance. 563 turn afterwards to be guilt in the reproacher ; it would be a full recompence for any pains in the performance, and would pay a great debt with a Uttle money ; but when the thoughts of the heart can only be known to the Searcher of the heart, and there is an evidence due to men of the integrity of the heart, especiaUy when the malice and corruption of it has been too notorious ; men owe it to themselves, to their reputation, to their peace of mind, to make their sorrow for what they have done amiss as manifest as the worst of their actions have been : and the more they are delighted with their repentance (as a greater joy and delight there cannot be in this world than in repentance), the more delight they take in full and frequent acknowledgment to those whom they have offended. Repentance is not a barren tree, that bears only leaves for shadow and repose ; but a tree that " brings forth fruit meet for repentance :" without such fruit it must " be hewn down 'and cast into the fire '," and acknow ledgment is the least precious fruit it can bear. Nothing so common amongst persons of the highest quality and degree, when death approaches, whose very aspect files off all those rough and unsmooth appearances, and mortifies all haughty imagination of a faculty and qualification to do wrong, as for great men to acknow ledge and ask pardon of their meanest servants, whom they have treated unkindly ; and for princes themselves to confess injuries they have done, and to desire forgiveness of their poorest subjects. And without doubt, what becomes a man upon his death-bed, would become him better in his full and perfect health ; it may possibly do himself good then, but undoubtedly it would not have done him less before, and his example would have been much more beneficial to others. As acknowledgment is necessary with reference to persons, so it is no less with reference to places ; they who have taught and published any doctrine which they then thought to be true, and have since been convinced of the error and falsehood of it, are bound to declare in the same places, or as publicly, such their conviction ; and to take as much pains to convince their auditory of the error, as they did before to lead them into it. And this is an ingenuity becoming an honest man, and inseparable from repentance ; and the greatest charity that can be showed towards those who renounce such publication, is, to believe that they are 1 Matt. iii. 7, 8. o o 2 564 LORD CLARENDON. not sorry, nor repent what they have done ; and there can be no obligation in conscience upon any man to say he is sorry when he is not sorry ; but to believe that he does repent, and yet not think fit to acknowledge that he does so, is impossible. They who have preached sedition, and thereby led men into unwar rantable actions by their authority ; and they who have printed books, and by arguments from Scripture or other authority, have imposed upon men's understandings, and persuaded men to believe what is contrary to Scripture, and to that authority which they have alleged, and are in their consciences now satisfied that they were then in the wrong; cannot reasonably believe that the asking God forgiveness in private, and acknowledging their error to Him, is enough to constitute a Christian repentance that works-nnto salvation. If it be reasonable to believe that the ill which we learn from corrupt masters, or in evil conversation, shall, though not excuse us, in a great part be put upon their account who have so corrupted us, it must needs concern those instructors and seducers, to do the best they can to undo the mischief they have done, by giving timely notice to their pro selytes, that it is not safe for them to follow that advice they have given them. The examples of great men, and the dis courses of men eminent for learning and piety, have in all ages drawn many into the same actions and the same opinions, upon no other account, than their submission to their authority and discourse ; nor in truth can the major part of mankind propose a more perfect rule to walk by, than by following the examples of men reputed for persons of honour and integrity in their actions, and submitting their understandings, in matters of opinion, to the direction of those who are eminent for learning, judgment, and sanctity ; and reason (which is the goddess all men now sacrifice to) has done its full office, when it has convinced them that it is most reasonable so to do. They therefore, who find themselves possessed of this sovereign authority, though they do not affect it, and have it only by the voluntary resignation of those who will be so governed, had need to take the more care what they say and what they do ; and as soon as they know they have said or done amiss, they are obliged in conscience to make it known to those, who they have reason to believe were led by them. A man who has heard a doctrine preached by a man whose learn ing he believed to be very great, and his integrity equal to his learning, or has seen a sermon printed, and retains his reverence Of Repentance. 565 for him, which he has reason to do after he is dead, and is as much swayed by his authority as if he were still alive ; such a man is plainly betrayed, if this preacher changed his opinion, repented that he ever preached that doctrine, and kept his re pentance to himself, and concealed it from any of those who were misled and seduced by him. Methinks, after St. Austin's example, men should not be ashamed of retractions ; nor could his example operate so Uttle, if they were endued with his pre cious spirit of recollection and repentance. There is another branch of repentance, which it may be is more grievous than that of acknowledgment, which is reparation ; an inseparable ingredient and effect of repentance : which needs startle men the less, because conscience never obUges men to im- possibiUties. He that has stolen more than he is worth, is in the same condition with him who has borrowed more than he can pay; a true and hearty desire to restore is and ought to be received as satisfaction : " If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live, he shall not die V Robbery and violence would be too gainful a trade, if a man might quit all scores by repentance, and detain all he has gotten; or if the father's repentance might serve the turn, and the benefit of the transgression be transmitted as an inheritance to the son. If the pledge remain, it must be restored; the retaining it is committing a new iniquity, and forfeits any benefit of the promise. If he has it not, nor is able to procure it, his hearty repentance is enough without reparation : but to enjoy and to look every day upon the spoil, and yet to profess repentance, is an affront to God Almighty, and a greater sin than the first act of violence, when he did not pretend to think of Him, and so did not think of displeasing Him : whereas now he pretends to reconcile himself to God, and mocks Him with repentance, whilst he retains the fruit of his wickedness with the same pleasure he committed it. He who is truly penitent, restores what he has left to the person that was deprived of it, and pays the rest in devout sorrow for his trespass. It is a weak and a vain imagination, to think that a man who has been in rebellion, and thereby robbed any man of his goods of what kind soever, and is sorry for it, can pacify God for his rebelUon, and keep those goods still to himself, without ' Ezek. xxxiii. 15. 566 LORD CLARENDON. the true owner's consent : he ought to restore them, though the other does not ask them, or know where they are. — -Nor is his case better, who enjoys them by purchase or gift, or exchange from another man, without having himself any share in the rapine : — if he knows that they were unjustly taken, and do of right belong to another; he is bound to restore them. — Nor is a third excuse better than the other two ; I was myself robbed by others, and am no gainer by what I have taken, but have only repaired what was one way or another taken from me: which would not be just, if I had robbed the same person who robbed me, except I could rescue my own goods again out of his hands ; and justice will not allow that, by any act of violence, because I cannot be judge in my own interest : but to take what belongs to another man, because I know not who has done the like to me, is so con trary to all the elements of equity, that no man can pretend to repent and to believe it together. Instead of restoring the pledge, to hug it every day in my arms and take delight in it, whilst it may be the true owner wants it, or dares not demand it, is a manifest evidence that I think I do not stand in need of the pardon the prophet pronounces ; or that I beUeve I can obtain it another way, and upon easier conditions. And, indeed, if it could fall into a man's natural conception or imagination, how a man can think it possible to be absolved from the payment of a debt which he does not acknowledge to be due, nor pretend to be willing to pay if he were able ; or how a man can hope to pro cure a release for a trespass, when he is able to pay the damage, or some part thereof, yet obstinately refuses to do it at the time he desires the release ; the condition and obstinacy would be the less admirable. It is natural enough for powerful and proud oppressors not to ask pardon for an injury, which they to whom it is done cannot call to justice for; and for a desperate bankrupt not to ask a release from a man, who has no evidence of the debt which he claims, or means to recover it, if it were confessed : but to confess so much weakness as to beg and sue for a pardon, and to have so much impudence and folly as not to perform the condition, without which the pardon is void and of no effect ; to ride upon the same horse to the man from whom he stole it, and desire his release without so much as offering to restore it, is such a circle of brutish madness, that it cannot fall into the mind of man endowed with reason though void of reli gion. Therefore it cannot be a breach of charity to beUeve that Of Repentance. 567 men of that temper, who pretend to be sorry and to repent the having done that which they find not safe to justify, and yet re tain to themselves the full benefit of their unrighteousness, do not in truth believe that they did amiss ; and so are no otherwise sorry than men who have lost their labour, and repent only that they ventured so much for so little profit : whereas if they felt any compunction of conscience, which is but a preparation to repent ance, they would remember any success they had in their wicked ness, as a bitter judgment of God upon them, and would run from what they have got by it, as from a strong enemy that encloses and shuts them up, that repentance may not enter in their hearts. There is another kind of reparation and restitution, that is a child of repentance; a fruit that repentance cannot choose but bear; which is, repairing a man's reputation, restoring his good name, which he has taken or endeavoured to take from him by calumnies and slanders : which is a greater robbery than plunder ing a man's house, or robbing him of his goods. If the tongue be sharp enough to give wounds, it must be at the charge of bal sam to put into them ; not only such as will heal the wound, but such as will wipe out the scar, and leave no mark behind it. Nor will private acknowledgment to the person injured, be any mani festation or evidence of repentance; fear may produce that, out of apprehension of chastisement ; or good husbandry may dispose a man to it, to avoid the payment of great damages by the direc tion of justice and the law : but true repentance issues out of a higher court, and is not satisfied with submitting to the censures of public authority : but inflicts greater penalties than a common judge can do, because it has a clearer view and prospect into the nature of the offence, discerns the malice of the heart, and every circumstance in the committing, and applies a plaister propor tionable to the wound and to the scar. If the calumny has been raised in a whisper, and been afterwards divulged without the advice or privity of the calumniator, it sends him in pursuit of that whisper, and awards him to vindicate the injured person in all places, and to all persons who have been infected by it ; if it has befen vented originally in defamatory writings, which have wrought upon and perverted more men, than can be better in formed by any particular applications how ingenuously soever made, it obliges men to write volumes, till the recognition be as public and notorious as the defamation; and it uses the same 568 LORD CLARENDON. rigour, awards the same satisfaction, upon any other violation of truth, by which men have been seduced or misled: whilst the poor penitent is so far from murmuring or repining at the se verity of his penance, that he still fears it is not enough, that it is too light a punishment to expiate his transgression, and would gladly undergo even more than he can bear, out of the aversion he has to the deformity of his guUt, and the glimmering prospect he has of that happiness, which only the sincerity of his repent ance can bring him to: he abhors and detests that heraldry, which for honour sake would divert or obstruct his most humble acknowledgment to the poorest person he has offended; and would gladly exchange all his titles and his trappings, for the rags and innocence of the poorest beggar. Repentance is a magistrate that exacts the strictest duty and humility, because the reward it gives is inestimable and everlasting; and the pain and punish ment it redeems men from, is of the same continuance, and yet intolerable. There are two imaginations or fancies (for opinions they cannot be) which insinuate themselves into the minds of men, who do not love to think of their own desperate condition. One is, that a general asking God forgiveness for all the sins he has commit ted, without charging his memory with mentioning the particulars, is a sufficient repentance to procure God's pardon for them all : the other, that a man may heartily repent the having committed one particular sin, and thereupon obtain God's favour and for giveness, though he practises other sins, which he believes are not so grievous, and so defers the present repentance of: — that if he had committed a murder, he can repent that, and resolve never to do the like again, and thereupon obtain His pardon, and yet retain his inclination to other excesses. Which two kinds of suggestion are so gross and ridiculous (if any thing can be called ridiculous that has relation to repentance), that no man is so im pudent as to own them, though in truth some modern casuists are not far from teaching the former : — yet if we descend into ourselves, make that strict scrutiny and inquisition into every corner of our hearts, as true repentance does exact from us, and will see performed by us, we shall find and must confess, that they are these and such Uke trivial and lamentable imaginations, which make us so unwary in all our actions, so uncircumspect throughout the course of our lives, and are the cause that in a whole nation of transcendent offenders, there are so very few who Of Repentance. 569 become true penitents, or manifest their repentance by those signs and marks with which it is always and cannot but be attended. God forbid, that death-bed repentance should not do us good, or that death should approach towards any man who is without repentance ; he who recoUects himself best before, will have work enough for repentance in the last minute ; and it is possible, and but possible, that he who hath never recollected himself before, may have the grace to repent so cordially then, and make such a saving reflection upon all the sins of his life, though he has nei ther time nor memory to number them, that he may obtain a full remission of them. Repentance, indeed, is so strong a balsam, that one drop of it put into the most noisome wound perfectly cures it. But that men, who cannot but observe how a little pain or sickness indisposes and makes. them unfit for any transaction; who know how often the torment of the gout in the least joint, or a sudden pang of the stone, has distracted them even in the most solemn and premeditated exercise of devotion, that they have retained no gesture or word fit for that sacrifice; I say it is very strange that any such man, who has himseU undergone, or seen others undergo, such visitations, should believe it possible that upon his death-bed, in that agony of pain, in those inward con vulsions, struggUngs, and torments of dissolution, which are the usual forerunners and messengers of death, or can presume upon, or hope for such a composure of mind and memory in that melan choly season, as to recoUect and reflect upon all those particulars of his mis-spent Ufe, as his departing soul must within a few minutes give an account, a very exact account of : — and therefore it cannot be otherwise, and how much soever we disclaim the assertion, we are in truth so foolish as to be imposed upon by that pleasant imagination, that there goes much less to repentance than severe men would persuade us, and that a very short time, and as short an ejaculation, which shall be very hearty, and which we stiU think so much of in our intentions that we are sure we cannot forget them, will serve our turn, and will carry us fairly out of this world, and leave a very good report of our Christianity with the standers-by, who will give a fair testimony. — If we did not think this, or did not think at aU, which yet it may be is bet ter than thinking this, we should not spend our time as we do, commit so many follies and wickednesses, and give no cause to the most charitable man to believe that we are in any degree 570 LORD CLARENDON. sorry for either, when he sees us so constantly practise both, and live as we did really think that we are only to account for the last moment of our life, and therefore that it is enough if we provide that that shall be commendable and full of devotion. The other as extravagant imagination, that a man may repent so heartily one particular sin, that he may be well satisfied that God has accepted his humiliation and sealed his pardon, and yet retain and practise some other sins, of whose iniquity he is not yet thoroughly convinced, or of which he takes farther time to repent, has gotten so much credit with many of us, who are wil ling to persuade other men, and it may be ourselves, that we do heartily detest and abominate some sin we have formerly prac tised, and have cordially repented it, though we do too much indulge some other natural infirmity, which leads us into great transgressions of another kind. If nothing of this argumenta tion did prevail upon us, we could not at the same time pretend to have, with a grievous sense of our guilt, repented our rebel lion, or any such act of outrage, and have washed our souls clean from that sin with our tears, when yet we retain our ambition, and have the same impatient appetite for preferment that we had before, and which, it may be, led us into that rebellion ; that we have thoroughly repented every act of oppression that we have committed, though we have still avarice and desire to be rich, that hath not left us. — It may be, the practice of repentance has not been more obstructed by any thing than by the customary discourse, and the senseless distinction, of true and false, perfect and imperfect repentance ; whereas, if it be not true and perfect, it is not repentance ; if it be not as it should be, it is not at all. There are, indeed, many preparations, many approaches towards it, which, well entered upon, and pursued, will come to repentance at last ; there must be recollection, and there must be sorrow, and sorrow stretched to the utmost extent, before it can arrive at repentance ; and it must be repentance itself, none of those pre paratives, that must carry us to heaven ; and that repentance is no more capable of enlargement and diminution, than the joys of heaven are, which are still the same, neither more nor less. If we do repent any one sin we have committed, we can have no more inclination to commit any other, of how different a kind soever from the other, than we could desire, if we were in heaven, to return to the earth again ; it is sin itself, in all the several species of it, in all the masks and disguises that it has ever 15 Of Repentance. 571 presented itself to us in, which we detest, if we are arrived at repentance. And because, as has been said before, we cannot make too strict a scrutiny into our own actions, nor take too much care in the compounding this precious cordial that must revive us and make us live after we are dead, we shall do well frequently to confer with pious men upon the most proper expedients to ad vance this duty in us ; and because examples are more powerful motives towards any perfection than precepts, we cannot do better than recollect as many of those as our own experience, or histories of uncontroverted veracity, or the observation of other men, can suggest to us ; that by observing the steps they made towards it, and the manifestation they gave of it, we may the better comport ourselves towards the attaining our end, and the assurance that we have attained it : and having for some years lived in a coun try, where there is as great evidence of sins committed, and as little of repentance as in any other country ; and having met with there a rare example of this kind, and so much the more rare as it is in a person of the most illustrious family in France, the house of the king himself, and a thing so known that there is no room to doubt the truth thereof; I think it very pertinent to the design of this short discourse to insert so much of it as to my understanding may exceedingly work upon the minds of other men. The person is the prince of Conti, younger brother to the prince of Conde, next prince of the blood to the children of the crown, and to the king's own brother, who died in the year 1664, in Paris. This prince having great endowments of mind, but educated in aU the licence of that nation, and corrupted with the greatest Ucence of it, some years before his death had the bless ing to make severe reflections upon the past actions of his life ; and thereupon imposed upon himself great strictness and rigour, in a notorious retirement from the court, in the conversation of the most pious and devout men, and in the exercise of all those actions of devotion which become a Christian resolution, in the faith in which he had been educated ; and being in perfect health, but weU knowing by the ill structure of his body that he could not live, the crookedness and stooping of his head and shoulders making his respiration very difficult, and increasing, suffocated him, he made his last will, beginning in these words : " This day, the 24th of May, 1664, I, Armand de Bourbon, 572 LORD CLARENDON. prince of Conti, being in my house in Paris, sound in body and mind, and not wilUng to be surprised by death without making my will, do make this my present testament." And then making that profession of his religion, and disposing his soul in that manner as becomes a pious man in that church, whereof he was a very zealous member, he enters upon the disposal of his estate, and used these words : " I am extremely sorry to have been so unhappy as to find myself in my younger age engaged in a war contrary to my duty; during which I permitted, ordered, and authorized violences and disorders without number ; and although the king has had the goodness to forget this failing, I remain nevertheless justly accountable before God to those corporations and particular persons, who then suffered, be it in Guienne, Xan- toigne, Berry, la Marche, be it in Champaigne, and about Dam- villiers; upon which account I have caused certain sums to be restored, of which the Sieur Jasse, my treasurer, has a particular knowledge ; and I have passionately desired that it were in my power to seU all my estate, that I might give a more full satisfac tion. But having upon this occasion submitted myself to the judgment of many prelates and learned and pious persons, they have judged that I was not obliged to reduce myself altogether to the condition of a private man, but that I ought to serve God in my rank and quality; in which, nevertheless, I have with drawn as much as was possible from my household expenses, to the end that, during my life, I may restore every year as much as I can save of my revenues. And I charge my heirs, who shall hereafter be named in this my will, to do the same thing, until the damages that I have caused be fully repaired, according to the instructions which shall be found in the hands of the Sieur Jasse, or in my papers. To this end, I desire the executors of my will, and her who shall be entrusted with the education of my children, to reduce and moderate, as much as may be, their expenses, that the foresaid restitutions may be continued every year, according to my orders. And if it happen that my heirs and their issue have, either from the bounty of the king, or by any other way, riches enough to maintain them handsomely, I will and order that they sell all the estate which they enjoy as being my successors ; and that they distribute the price of it amongst those provinces, and in those places, which have suffered on the account of the said wars, following the orders contained in the said instructions, if the said places or persons have not Of Repentance. 573 been already sufficiently repaid by me, or by some other. And if it fall out that my children die without issue, so that my line be extinct, I intend likewise that my estate be sold, for to be wholly employed in the said restitutions, my coUateral friends having enough elsewhere. " I desire that those papers which shall be found, writ or signed with my hand, concerning affairs where I have doubted, if in point of conscience I were obliged to a restitution or not, be very carefully and rigorously examined ; the which I pray my executors moreover, if it be found by notes written or signed with my hand, that I have verified or acknowledged myself to be obUged to any restitution or satisfaction whatever, I desire that they may be executed, as if every particular thing contained in them was expressly ordered by this present will." Then he commits the education of his children (whom he makes his heirs) to his wife, and desires the parliament of Paris to confirm her in the tuition of his children ; and then names his executors, who upon his decease are to become possessed of all his estate to the purposes aforesaid, and so signs the will with his hand the 4th of May, 1664, Armande de Bourbon. His paper of instructions was likewise published with his will, that so the persons concerned might know to whom to repair. The words are these : " The order which I desire may be ob served in the restitution which I am obliged to make in Guienne, Xantoigne, la Marche, Berry, Champaigne, and Damvilliers, &c. In the first place, those losses and damages which have been caused by my orders or my troops ought to be repaired be fore all others, as being of my own doing. In the second place, I am responsible, very justly, for aU the mischiefs which the ge neral disorders of the war have produced, although they have been done without my having any part in them, provided that I have satisfied for the first. I owe no reparation to those who have been of our party, except they can make it appear that I have sought and invited them to it ; and in this case, it will be just to restore first of all to those innocent persons who have had no part in my faUings, before that any thing can be given to those who have been our confederates : the better to observe this distributive justice, I desire that my restitutions may be made in such a manner, that they may be spread every where ; to the end that it fall not out, that amongst many that have suffered, some be satisfied and others have nothing. But since I have not 574 LORD CLARENDON. riches enough for to repay at one time all those corporations and particular persons who have suffered, I desire, &c." and so de creed the method and order the payments should be made in ; the whole of which, by his computation, would be discharged in twenty years ; but if it so fell out, that the estate should be en tirely sold, the whole payment was to be made at once ; and it was a marvellous recollection of particular oppressions, which he conceived might have been put upon his tenants by his officers, some whereof were not remediable by law, by reason of prescrip tion, which he declared that he would not be defended by, but appointed that the original right should be strictly examined; and if his possession was founded in wrong, he disclaimed the prescription, and commanded that satisfaction should be made to those who had been injured, even by his ancestors, and before his own time ; and required, that any doubts which might arise upon any of his instructions, or in the cases in which he intended sa tisfaction should be given, might and should be examined and judged by men of the strictest and most rigid justice, and not by men of loose principles. I do not naturally, in discourses of this nature, delight in so large excursions in the mention of particular actions performed by men, how godly and exemplary soever, because the persons who do them are always without any desire that what they do should be made public, and because repentance has various ope rations in minds equally virtuous : yet meeting very accidentally with this record, without having scarce ever heard it mentioned by any man in the country, where there is room enough for pro selytes of the same nature, and cause enough to celebrate the example, as I took great delight in examining and re-examining every particular, and not being an absolute stranger to the sub ject reflected upon, having been present in the same country at that time, I could not conclude this discourse more pertinently, than with such an instance at large ; presuming that it may make the same impression upon others that it has upon me, and make us the more solicitous to call ourselves to an account for aU commissions, and to pray to God to give us the grace to repent in such a way, and to such a degree, as may be most for His glory, and our own salvation, and the edification of others towards the attaining the same. Of Conscience. hlb VIII. OF CONSCIENCE. Montpellier, March 9, 1670. There is not throughout the whole bible of the Old Testa ment, that term or word conscience to be found; nor is it used in Scripture till the eighth chapter of the gospel written by St. John, when the Jews brought the woman that had been taken in adultery before our Saviour, whom they importuned to do justice upon her ; and He, who knew their malice was more against Him than the woman, said, " He that is without sin amongst you, let him first cast a stone at her : and they which heard it, being con victed by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even to the last," (ver. 7. 9.) Nor is the Greek o-uveiStjo-ic, which throughout the New Testament signifies con science, ever used by the Septuagint, (as some learned men affirm) except only in the 10th chapter of Ecclesiastes, ver. 20. which is thus translated, " Curse not the king, no not in thy thought." So that conscience seems to be the proper and natu ral issue of the Gospel, which introduced a stricter survey of the heart of man, and a more severe inquisition into the thoughts thereof, than the Law had done. He who could not be accused by sufficient witnesses to have violated the Law, was thought to be innocent enough ; but the Gospel erected another judicatory, and another kind of examination, and brought men who could not be charged by the Law, to be convicted by their own con science ; and therefore St. Paul, in his justification before Felix, after he had denied all that the Jews had charged him with, and affirmed that he had broken no law, added, " And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence to ward God and toward men 1." His behaviour was so exact that he did not only abstain from doing any man wrong, but from giving any man a just occasion to be offended with him. It is a calamity never enough to be lamented, that this legiti mate daughter of the gospel of peace should grow so prodigiously unnatural and impetuous, as to attempt to tear out the bowels of her mother, to tread all charity under foot, and to destroy all 1 Acts xxiv. 16. 576 LORD CLARENDON. peace upon the earth ; that conscience should stir men up to re bellion, introduce murder and devastation, Ucense the breach of all God's commandments, and pervert the nature of man from all Christian charity, humility, and compassion, to a brutish inhuma nity, and deUght in those acts of injustice and oppression that nature itself abhors and detests ; that conscience, that is infused to keep the breast of every man clean from encroaching vices, which lurk so close that the eye of the body cannot discern them, to correct and suppress those unruly affections and appetites, which might otherwise undiscerned corrupt the soul to an irreco verable guilt, and has no jurisdiction to exercise upon other men, but it is confined within its own natural sphere ; that this en closed conscience should break its bounds and limits, neglect the looking to any thing at home, and straggle abroad and exercise a tyrannical power over the actions and the thoughts of other men, condemn princes and magistrates, infringe all laws and order of government, assume to itself to appoint what all other shall do, and out of tenderness to itself exercise all manner of cruelty to wards other men: I say that this extravagant presumption should take or claim any warrant from conscience, is worthy of the anger and indignation of all Christians, and of a general combination to reclaim and bind up this unruly, destroying, ravenous undermi- ner and devourer of souls. The apostle, when he prescribed this light to walk by, in the dark times of infidelity, ignorance, and persecution, knew weU enough how unlimited the fancy and pride and covertures of the heart of man were ; and therefore he takes all possible care to establish the power and jurisdiction of kings and magistrates, and obedience to laws under the obligation of conscience, and required subjection to all those, not only for wrath (for fear of punish ment) but for conscience sake : and the same apostle thought it a very necessary prescription to Timothy, that he should keep his diocese to the " holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith had made shipwreck ;" that is, some men, by departing from the rules of conscience, by the sug gestions of faith and religion, they made shipwreck of that faith and religion which they meant to advance. Conscience is the best bit and bridle to restrain the licence and excess which faith itself may introduce and give countenance to. Conscience can never lead us into any unwarrantable and unjust action ; but that is not enough, he whose conscience does not check and restrain Of Conscience. bll him from entering into actions contrary to God's commandments, may reasonably conclude that he has no conscience, but that he lies under temptation which cannot prevail without laying the conscience waste, and rooting out aU that God has planted there ; and a man may as reasonably pretend to commit adultery out of conscience, as to rebel or resist lawful authority by the obliga tion of conscience ; and they who think themselves qualified for the latter by that impulsion, can never find reason to subdue a strong temptation to the other. Conscience may very reasonably restrain and hinder a man from doing that which would be con sistent enough with conscience to be done ; nay, it may oblige him to suffer and undergo punishment, rather than to do that which might be lawful for him. It is not necessary, though it were to be wished, that every man's conscience should be so sharp-sighted, as to discern the inside of every doubt that shall arise ; it may be too hard for me, when another man may be as much too hard for it a, and then I ought not to do what he law fully and justly may do ; but this is only the restrictive negative power of conscience, the affirmative power has not that force. Conscience can never oblige a man to do, or excuse him for doing, what is evil in itself, as treason, murder, or rebellion, under what specious pretences soever, which want of under standing and want of honesty suggest where there is want of conscience ; and it is a very hard thing to assert, that any thing can proceed from the conscience of that man who is void of knowledge, since there is some science necessary to be supposed, where there is a pretence to conscience. He who obstinately refuses, upon the obligation of conscience, to do what the law under which he lives, and to which he owes subjection and obedience, requires him positively to do, had need to be sure that his doing of that which he is enjoined, and denies to do, is in itself sinful, and expressly forbid by the word of God. Doubting in this point is not excuse or warrant enough ; the reverence he ought to have to the government and governors of his country, the modest believing that a Christian kingdom or commonwealth cannot combine together to damn themselves, and all who Uve under them, should have power and authority enough a " A knowing man will do that which a tender-conscience-man dares not do, by reason of his ignorance. The other knows there is no hurt : — as a child is afraid to go into the dark, when a man is not, because he knows there is no danger." — Selden's Table Talk, art. " Conscience." VOL. III. p p 578 LORD CLARENDON. to suppress and over-rule all doubts to the contrary. But if in truth the matter be so clear to him, that by obeying this law he becomes a rebel to God, I know not how his conscience can excuse him for staying and living under that government, and from making haste away to be under the protection of another government, where no such sinful action is required or enjoined ; for no man can satisfy his own conscience, that though his cou rage, for the present, will support him to undergo the judgment and penalty that his disobedience is liable to, he may not in the end be weary of that submission ; and since the duty is stiU incumbent upon him, and may stiU be required of him, he may not at last purchase his peace and quiet with complying in doing that which he knows is sinful and must offend God Almighty ; and therefore methinks he should, at the same time he resolves to disobey a law that is fixed, and not very probable to be altered, quit the country where so much tyranny is exercised, and repair to another climate, where it is lawful to give unto Caesar what belongs unto Caesar, and to give unto God what belongs unto God. And if his affection to his country will not suffer him to take that resolution, it is probable that his conscience is not so fully convinced of the impiety of the laws thereof; and the same affection should labour to receive that satisfaction, that he may be reconciled to give the obedience the laws require. The submitting to any present inconvenience or loss or da mage, rather than do somewhat that is enjoined by public authority to be done; the preferring reproach and disgrace, before honour that must be attended with compliance and sub mission to what is required of us, is no argument that such refusal is an effect of conscience ; pride, ambition, or revenge, will do the same, to raise a party that will enable him to compass and bring that to pass which he most desires. We see nothing more com mon, than for men of much wit and no conscience, to impose upon those who have no wit and pretend to much conscience, and lead them into ways which are too rough for their consciences to tread in, and to ends that they do not desire: and yet every step they make is an impulsion of their conscience. Their conscience will not suffer them to take an oath, by which the wrong they have done may be discovered and repaired, yet that conscience will not compel them to do justice, nor restrain them from doing injury to their neighbours ; it will neither oblige them to speak truth, that may prejudice a man they favour, nor to discover a fraud, by Of Conscience. 579 which they may be bound to reparation. Conscience is made the refuge of all perverse and refractory men, when they will not observe the law, and the warrant and incitement to any wicked ness when they are inclined to break it : whereas conscience is a natural restraint within us, to keep us from doing what our foul affections and passions may tempt us to ; it may be too scrupulous, but it can never be presumptuous ; it may hinder us from using the liberty we have, but it is too modest to lead us into any excess; it is Uable to fear, but never to rashness and impudent undertakings : " For this is thank-worthy, if a man for conscience towards God, endure grief, suffering wrongfuUy1," says St. Peter. But conscience never carried a man into actions for which he is justly to suffer : that is true tenderness of conscience, which is tender of other men's reputation, shy and wary what they think of others, and not that which, out of tenderness to itself, cares not how it wrongs and violates its neighbours. Conscience is the meekest, humblest thing that can be conceived of; and when we find any proud thoughts to arise within us, such as. exalt and magnify ourselves, and depress the reputation of our neighbour ; when we have any unpeaceable inclination to disturb the quiet of the state, or the repose of those who live about us ; we may be as sure that those suggestions do not proceed from conscience, as that the lusts of the flesh do not proceed from the warmth of the spirit. " The tree is known by the fruit ; a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit ;" and conscience is best known by the effects ; if the product be wrath, malice, pride, and contention, we may swear that conscience is not the mother of those children, which can produce nothing but love, humility, and peace ; and men have taken too much pains to entitle her to the other unnatural issue. I know not how it comes to pass, except it be from a wanton affectation of the impropriety of speech, that men find out epi thets for conscience, which may entitle it to as many reproaches as men think fit to charge it with : they will have an erroneous conscience, which no doubt will contribute to as many evil actions as the heart or hand of man can be guilty of; and they might as well have called it an impious conscience ; when in truth, if it be either impious or erroneous, it ceases to be con science ; it is not consistent with any of those destructive epithets, 1 1 Peter ii. 19. pp2 580 LORD CLARENDON. nor receives any ornament from the best which can be annexed to it. Conscience implies goodness and piety, as much as if you call it good and pious. The luxuriant wit of the school-men, and the confident fancy of ignorant preachers has so disguised it, that all the extravagancies of a light or sick brain, and the results of the most corrupt heart, are called the effects of conscience : and to make it the better understood, the conscience shall be called erroneous, or corrupt, or tender, as they have a mind to support or condemn those effects. So that, in truth, they have made con science a disease fit to be entrusted to the care of the physician every spring and fall, and he is most like to reform and regulate the operation of it. And if the madness and folly of men be not in a short time reformed, it will be fitter to be confined as a term in physic and in law, than to be used or applied to reUgion or salvation. Let apothecaries be guided by it in their bills, and merchants in their bargains, and lawyers in managing their causes ; in aU which cases it may be waited upon by the epithets they think fit to annex to it ; it is in great danger to be robbed of the integrity in which it was created, and will not have purity enough to carry men to heaven, or to choose the way thither. It were to be wished, that some pains were taken to purge away that dross, which want of understanding, or want of honesty, have annexed to it, that so it may prove a good guide ; or that that varnish may be taken from it, which the artifices of ill men have disfigured it with, that it be no longer the most desperate and dangerous seducer : lest conscience of gratitude, for civilities and obligations received, dispose women to be unchaste ; and con science of discourtesies and injuries done, or intended to be done, provoke men to revenge ; and no villany that ever entered into the heart of man, but will pretend to be ushered thither by conscience. If it cannot be vindicated from these impure and impious claims, it is pity but it should be expunged out of all discourses of religion and honesty, and never mentioned as re lating to Christianity : let it be assigned and appropriated to the politicians, to cover their reason of state with, and to disguise all treaties between princes with such expressions, that they be no longer bound by these obligations than they find the observation of them to be for their benefit or convenience ; let it be applied only to the cheats and cozenings of this world ; to the deceiving of women in marriages ; to the overreaching heirs in mortgages and purchases; but let it never be mentioned in order to our Of Conscience. 581 salvation in the next world, or as if it could advance our claim to the kingdom of heaven. Solomon was the more inexcusable for departing from it, by his knowing what the calm and ease and tranquillity of it was ; and he could not express it better than when he says, that " a good conscience is a continual feast." Now there can be no feast where there is not amity and peace and quiet ; a froward, wayward, proud, and quarreUing conscience can never be a feast, nor a good guest at a feast; therefore it cannot be a good conscience: anger and ill words break up any feast; for mirth, that is of the essence of a feast, and a great part of the good cheer, is banished by any ill humour that appears. It is not the quantity of the meat, but the cheerfulness of the guests which makes the feast : it was only at the feast of the Centaurs, where they ate with one hand and had their drawn swords in the other ; where there is no peace, there can be no feast. Charity and ten derness is a principal ingredient in this feast : the conscience cannot be too tender, too apprehensive of angrying any man, of grieving any man ; the feast is the more decently carried on, never interrupted, by this tenderness. But if it be tender at some times, scrupulous to some purposes, is startled to do somewhat against which it has no objection, but that it is not absolutely necessary to be done, and at other times is so rough and bois terous, that it leaps over all bounds, and rushes into actions dis honest and unwarrantable, neither the tenderness nor the pre sumption has the least derivation from conscience ; and a man in a deep consumption of the lungs can as well run a race, as a tender conscience can lead any man into an action contrary to virtue and piety. It is possible that the frequent appeals that are made upon several occasions to the consciences of iU men, do, in truth, increase their love of wickedness ; that when they are told that their own consciences cannot but accuse them of the ill they do, and they feel no such check or control in themselves, they believe from thence that they do nothing amiss, and so take new courage to prosecute the career they are in. It is a very hard thing to beUeve that the worst men can do the worst things without some sense and inward compunction, which is the voice of their conscience; but it is easy to think that they may stiU and drown that voice, and that by a custom of sinning they may grow so deaf as not to hear that weak voice ; that wine may drive away that heaviness that indisposed them to mirth, and ill company 582 LORD CLARENDON. may shut out those thoughts which would interrupt it : and yet, alas ! conscience is not by this subdued ; — they have only made an unlucky truce, that it shall not beat up their quarters for some time, tUl they have surfeited upon the pleasure and the plenty of men ; it will disturb and terrify them the more for the repose it has suffered them to take. If the strength of nature and the custom of excesses has given the debauched person the privilege of not finding any sickness or indisposition from his daily surfeits, after a few years he wonders to find the faculties of his mind and understanding so decayed that he is become a fool, and so much more a fool if he does not find it before he comes to that age that usually resists aU decay ; and then every body sees, if he does not, the unhappiness of his constitution, that it was no sooner dis turbed by those excesses. If the lustful and voluptuous person who sacrifices the strength and vigour of his body to the rage and temptation of his blood, and spends his nights in unchaste em braces, does not in the instant discover how much his health is impaired by those caresses, he will in a short time, by weakness and diseases, have good cause to remember those distempers; and so that conscience that is laid asleep by a long licentious life, and reprehends not the foulest transgressions, does at last start up in sickness or in age, and plays the tyrant in those seasons when men most need comfort, and makes them pay dear interest for their hours of riot, and for the charms they used, to keep it in that lethargy that it might not awaken them. And since it can not be a feast, because it is not a good conscience, being an evil one it must be famine, and torment, and hell itself. In a word, no man has a good conscience, but he who leads a good life. IX. OF WAR. Montpellier, 1670. As the plague in the body drives all persons away but such who live by it, searchers, and those who are to bury the corpse, who are as ready to strangle those who do not die soon enough, as to bury them ; and they who recover are very long tried with the malignity, and remain longer deserted by their neighbours Of War. 583 and friends out of fear of infection ; so war in a state makes all men abandon it but those who are to live by the blood of it, and who have the pillaging of the Uving as well as of the dead ; and if it recover, and the war be extinguished, there remains such a weakness and paleness, so many ghastly marks of the distemper, that men remain long frighted from their old familiarity, from the confidence they formerly had of their own security, and of the justice of that state, — the war leaving stiU an ill odour behind it, and much infection in the nature and manners of those who are deUghted with it. Of aU the punishments and judgments that the provoked anger of the Divine Providence can pour out upon a nation fuU of transgressions, there is none so terrible and destroying as that of war. David knew he did wisely when he preferred and chose the plague before either of the other judgments that he was to undergo for numbering the people, though it cost him no less than seventy thousand subjects, — so vast a number, that three months' progress of the most victorious and triumphant enemy could hardly have consumed ; and the one had been as much the hand of the Lord as the other, and could as easily have been restrained, or bound by His power. The arrow of pestilence was shot out of His own bow, and did all its execution without making the pride or malice of man instrumental in it ; the inso lence whereof is a great aggravation of any judgment that is laid upon us, and health is restored in the same moment the con tagion ceases ; whereas in' war, the confidence and the courage which a victorious ,army contracts by notable successes, and the dejection of spirit and the consternation which a subdued party undergoes by frequent defeats, is not at an end when the war is determined, but has its effects very long after ; and the tender ness of nature, and the integrity of manners which are driven away, or powerfully discountenanced by the corruption of war, are not quickly recovered; but instead thereof, a roughness, jealousy, and distrust introduced, that makes conversation un pleasant and uneasy ; and the weeds which grow up in the shortest war can hardly be pulled up and extirpated without a long and unsuspected peace. When God pleases to send this heavy calamity upon us, we cannot avoid it ; but why we should be solicitous to embark ourselves in this leaky vessel, why our own anger, and ambition, and emulation, should engage us in unreasonable and unjust wars; nay, why, without any of these 584 LORD CLARENDON. provocations, we should be disposed to run to war, and periclitari periculi causa, will require better reason to justify us than most that are concerned in it are furnished with. " Jugulantur homines ne nihil agatur," was the complaint and amazement of a philo sopher, who knew of none of those restraints which Christianity has laid upon mankind. That men should kill one another for want of somewhat else to do (which is the case of all volunteers in war) seems to be so horrible to humanity, that there needs no divinity to control it. It was a divine contemplation of the same philosopher, that when Providence had so well provided for, and secured the peace between nations, by putting the sea between, that it might not be in their power to be ill neighbours, mankind should be so mad as to devise shipping, to affect death so much sine spe sepultura ; and when they are safe on land, to commit themselves to the waves and the fierce winds, quorum felicitas est ad bella perferri ; and that those winds which God had created, ad custodiendam cadi terrarumque temperiem, and to cherish the fruits and the trees of the earth, should be made use of so con trary to His intentions, ut legiones, equitemque gestarent, and bring people (whom He had placed at that distance) together, to imbrue their hands in each other's blood ; indeed it must be a very savage appetite that engages men to take so much pains, and to run so many and great hazards, only to be cruel to those whom they are able to oppress. They who allow no war at all to be lawful, have consulted both nature and religion much better than they who think it may be entered into to comply with the ambition, covetousness, or re venge of the greatest princes and monarchs upon earth; as if God had only inhibited single murders, and left mankind to be mas sacred according to the humour and appetite of unjust and unrea sonable men, of what degree or quaUty soever. They who think it most unlawful, know well that force may be repelled with force, and that no man makes war who does only defend what is his own from an attempt of violence ; he who kills another that he may not be killed himself by him who attempts it, is not guilty of murder by the law of God or man. And truly, they who are the cause and authors of any war that can justly and safely be avoided, have great reason to fear that they shall be accountable before the supreme Judge for all the rapine and devastation, all the ruin and damage, as well as the blood, that is the consequence of that war. War is a licence to kill and slay all those who inhabit that land, Of War. 585 which is therefore called the enemy's, because he who makes the war has a mind to possess it ; and must there not many of the laws of God, as well as of man, be cancelled and abolished before a man can honestly execute or take such a licence ? What have the poor inhabitants of that land done that they must be destroyed for cultivating their own land, in the country where they were born? And can any king believe that the names of those are left out of the records of God's creation, and that the injuries done to them shall not be considered ? War is a depopulation, defaces aU that art and industry has produced, destroys all plan tations, burns churches and palaces, and mingles them in the same ashes with the cottages of the peasant and the labourer ; it distinguishes not of age, or sex, or dignity, but exposes all things and persons, sacred and profane, to the same contempt and con fusion; and reduces all that blessed order and harmony, which has been the product of peace and religion, into the chaos it was first in ; as if it would contend with the Almighty in uncreating what He so wonderfuUy created, and since polished. And is it not a most detestable thing to open a gap to let this wild boar enter into the garden of Christians, and to make all this havoc and devastation in countries planted and watered by the equal Redeemer of mankind, and whose ears are open to the complaints of the meanest person who is oppressed ? It is no answer to say that this universal suffering, and even the desolation that attends it, are the inevitable consequences and events of war, how war- rantably soever entered into, but rather an argument, that no war can be warrantably entered into that may produce such intolerable mischiefs ; at least, "if the ground be not notoriously just and necessary, and Like to introduce as much benefit to the world as damage and inconvenience to a part of it ; and as much care taken as is possible to suppress that rage and licence which is the wanton cause of half the destruction. It may be, upon a strict survey and disquisition into the ele ments and injunctions of Christian religion, no war will be found justifiable, but as it is the process that the law of nature aUows and prescribes for justice sake, to compel those to abstain from doing wrong, or to repair the wrong they have done, who can by no other way be induced to do either ; as when one sovereign prince does an injury to another, or suffers his subjects to do it ' without control or punishment; in either of which cases^the injured prince, in his own right, or the rights of his subjects, is to 586 LORD CLARENDON. demand justice from the other, and to endeavour to obtain it by all the peaceable means that can be used ; and then if there be an absolute refusal to give satisfaction, or such a delay, as in the inconvenience amounts to a refusal, there is no remedy left but the last process, which is force ; since nothing can be in itself more odious, or more against the nature and institution of sove reign power, than to do wrong, and to refuse to administer jus tice ; and, therefore, the mischiefs which attend, and which cannot but fall upon the persons and fortunes of those who are least guilty of the injury and injustice, because the damage can very hardly reach the prince, but in his subjects, will be by the Su preme Judge cast upon his account who is the original cause and author of the first transgression. And if it be very difficult to find any other just cause to warrant so savage a proceeding as all war produces, what can we think of most of that war which for some hundred of years has infested the Christian world, so much to the dishonour of Christianity, and in which the Uves of more men have been lost than might have served to have driven infidelity out of the world, and to have peopled all those parts which yet remain without inhabitants ? Can we believe that aU those lives are forgotten, and that no account shall be rendered of them? If the saving the life of any single person who is in danger to perish has much of merit in it, though it be a duty incumbent to humanity, with what detestation and horror must we look upon those who, upon deliberation, are solicitous to bring millions of men together to no other purpose than to kiU and destroy ; and they who survive are conducted as soon as may be to another butchery, to another opportunity to kill more men, whom they know not, and with whom they are not so much as angry. The grammarians have too much reason to derive bellum, a belluis ; all war has much of the beast in it ; immane quiddam et belluarum simile ; very much of the man must be put off that there may be enough of the beast. Princes must be obeyed, and because they may have just cause of war, their subjects must obey and serve them in it, without taking upon them to examine whether it be just or no, Servi tua est conditio; ratio ad te nihil; they have no liberty to doubt when their duty is clear, to obey ; but where there is none of that obli gation, it is wonderful, and an unnatural appetite that disposes men to be soldiers, that they may know how to live, as if the understanding the advantage how to kill most men together were 15 Of War. 587 a commendable science to raise their fortune ; and what reputa tion soever it may have in politics, it can have none in religion, to say, that the art and conduct of a soldier is not infused by nature, but by study, experience, and observation ; and therefore that men are to learn it, in order to serve their own prince and country, which may be assaulted and invaded by a sknful enemy, and hardly defended by ignorant and unskilful officers ; when, in truth, the man who conscientiously weighs this common argument, will find that it is made by appetite to excuse, and not by reason to support, an ill custom ; since the guilt contracted by shedding the blood of one single innocent man is too dear a price to pay for all the skill that is to be learned in that devouring profession ; and that all the science that is necessary for a just defence may be attained without contracting a guilt, which is like to make the defence the more difficult. And we have instances enough of the most brave and effectual defences made upon the advantage of innocence, against the boldest, skilful, and injurious aggressor, whose guilt often makes his understanding too weak to go through an unjust attempt, against a resolute though less experienced defender. It must seem strange to any one who considers that Christian religion, that is founded upon love, and charity, and humility, should not only not extinguish this unruly appetite to war, but make the prosecution of it the more fierce and cruel ; there having scarce been so much rage and inhumanity practised in any war as in that between Christians. The ancient Romans, who for some ages arrived to the greatest perfection in the observation of the obUgations of honour, justice, and humanity, of aU men who had no light from reUgion, instituted a particular triumph for those their generals who returned with victory without the slaughter of men. It were to be wished, that the modern Chris tian Romans were endued with the same blessed spirit, and that they beUeved that the voice of blood is loud and importunate ; they would not then think it their office and duty so far to kindle this fire-brand war, and to nourish aU occasions to inflame it, as to obstruct and divert all overtures of extinguishing it ; and to curse and excommunicate all those who shall consent or submit to such overtures, when they are wearied, tired, and even consumed with weltering in' each other's blood, and have scarce blood enough left to give them strength to enjoy the blessings of peace. What can be more unmerciful, more unworthy of the title of 588 LORD CLARENDON. Christians, than such an aversion from stopping those issues of blood, and from binding up those wounds which have been bleed ing so long ? and yet we have seen those inhuman bulls let loose by two popes, who would be thought to have the sole power com mitted to them by Christ, to inform the world of His will and pleasure ; the one against the peace of Germany, and the other against that with the Low Countries ; by both which these His vicars general absolve all men from observing it, though they are bound by their oaths never to swerve from it. We may piously believe, that aU the princes of the world who have wantonly, or without just and manifest provocation, obliged their subjects to serve them in a war, by which millions of men have been exposed to slaughter, fire, and famine, will sooner find remission of all the other sins they have committed, than for that obstinate outrage against the life of man, and the murders which have been com mitted by their authority. X. OF PEACE. Montpellier, 1670. It was a very proper answer to him who asked, why any man should be delighted with beauty ? that it was a question that none but a blind man could ask; since any beautiful object does so much attract the sight of all men, that it is in no man's power not to be pleased with it. Nor can any aversion or malignity towards the object irreconcile the eyes from looking upon it : as a man who has an envenomed and mortal hatred against another, who has a most graceful and beautiful person, cannot hinder his eye from being deUghted to behold that person; though that deUght is far from going to the heart ; as no man's malice towards an excellent musician can keep his ear from being pleased with his music. No man can ask how or why men come to be de lighted with peace, but he who is without natural bowels, who is deprived of all those affections, which can only make life pleasant to him. Peace is that harmony in the state, that health is in the body. No honour, no profit, no plenty can make him happy, who is sick with a fever in his blood, and with defluxions and aches in his joints and bones ; but health restored gives a relish Of Peace. 589 to the other blessings, and is very merry without them: no kingdom can flourish or be at ease, in which there is no peace ; which only makes men dwell at home, and enjoy the labour of their own hands, and improve aU the advantages which the air, and the climate, and the soil administers to them ; and all which yield no comfort where there is no peace. God Himself reckons health the greatest blessing He can bestow upon mankind, and peace the greatest comfort and ornament He can confer upon states ; which are a multitude of men gathered together. They who delight most in war, are so much ashamed of it, that they pretend, Pads gerere negotium ; to have no other end, to desire nothing but peace, that their heart is set upon nothing else. When Caesar was engaging all the world in war, he wrote to TuUy, " Neque tutius, neque honestius reperies quid- quam, quam ab omni contentione abesse;" there was nothing worthier of an honest man than to have contention with nobody. It was the highest aggravation that the prophet could find out in the description of the greatest wickedness, that " the way of peace they knew not;" and the greatest punishment of all their crooked ness and perverseness was, that " they should not know peace.'' A greater curse cannot befall the most wicked nation, than to be deprived of peace. There is nothing of real and substantial com fort in this world, but what is the product of peace ; and whatso ever we may lawfully and innocently take delight in, is the fruit and effect of peace. The solemn service of God, and performing our duty to Him in the exercise of regular devotion, which is the greatest business of our life, and in which we ought to take most delight, is the issue of peace. War breaks all that order, inter rupts all that devotion, and even extinguishes all that zeal, which peace had kindled in us, lays waste the dwelling-place of God as well as of man; and introduces and propagates opinions and practice, as much against heaven as against earth, and erects a deity that delights in nothing but cruelty and blood. Are we pleased with the enlarged commerce and society of large and opulent cities, or with the retired pleasures of the country ? do we love stately palaces and noble houses, or take delight in plea sant groves and woods, or fruitful gardens, which teach and in struct nature to produce and bring forth more fruits, and flowers, and plants, than her own store can supply her with ? — all this we owe to peace ; and the dissolution of this peace disfigures all this beauty, and in a short time covers and buries all this order and 590 LORD CLARENDON. delight in ruin and rubbish. Finally, have we any content, satis faction, and joy, in the conversation of each other, in the know ledge and understanding of those arts and sciences, which more adorn mankind, than all those buildings and plantations do the fields and grounds on which they stand ? — even this is the blessed effect and legacy of peace ; and war lays our natures and manners as waste as our gardens and our habitations ; and we can as easily preserve the beauty of the one, as the integrity of the other, under the cursed jurisdiction of drums and trumpets. " If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with aU men '," was one of the primitive injunctions of Christ ianity, and comprehends not only particular and private men (though no doubt all gentle and peaceable natures are most capa ble of Christian precepts, and most affected with them) but kings and princes themselves. St. Paul knew well, that the peaceable inclinations and dispositions of subjects could do Uttle good, if the sovereign princes were disposed to war ; but if they desire to Uve peaceably with their neighbours, their subjects cannot but be happy. And the pleasure that God Himself takes in that temper, needs no other manifestation, than the promise our Saviour makes to those who contribute towards it, in His sermon upon the mount, " Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God V Peace must needs be very acceptable to Him, when the instruments towards it are crowned with such a full measure of blessing ; and it is no hard matter to guess whose children they are, who take all the pains they can to deprive the world of peace, and to subject it to the rage, and fury, and deso lation of war. If we had not the woful experience of so many hundred years, we should hardly think it possible, that men who pretend to embrace the gospel of peace, should be so unconcerned in the obligation and effects of it ; and when God looks upon it as the greatest blessing He can pour down upon the heads of those who please Him best, and observe His commands, " I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid3," that men study nothing more than how to throw off and deprive themselves and others of this His precious bounty ; as if we were void of natural reason, as well as without the elements of religion : for nature itself disposes us to a love of society, which cannot be preserved without peace. A whole city ' Rom. xii. 18. 2 Matt. v. 9. 3 Lev. xxvi. 6. Of Peace. 591 on fire is a spectacle full of horror, but a whole kingdom on fire must be a prospect much more terrible : and such is every king dom in war, where nothing flourishes but rapine, blood, and murder, and the faces of all men are pale and ghastly, out of the sense of what they have done, or of what they have suffered, or are to endure. The reverse of all this is peace, which in a mo ment extinguishes aU that fire, binds up all the wounds, and restores to aU faces their natural vivacity and beauty. We cannot make a more Uvely representation and emblem to ourselves of hell, than by the view of a kingdom in war; where there is nothing to be seen but destruction and fire, and the discord itself is a great part of the torment: nor a more sensible reflection upon the joys of heaven, than as it is all quiet and peace, and where nothing is to be discerned but consent and harmony, and what is amiable in all the circumstances of it. And as far as we may warrantably judge of the inhabitants of either climate, they who love and cherish discord among men, and take delight in war, have large mansions provided for them, in that region of faction and disagreement ; as we may presume, that they who set their hearts upon peace in this world, and labour to promote it in their several stations amongst all men, and who are instruments to prevent the breach of it amongst princes and states, or to renew it when it is broken, have infallible title to a place and mansion in heaven ; where there is only peace in that perfection, that aU other blessings are comprehended in it, and a part of it. XXIII. THE DOCTRINE OF UNIVERSAL REDEMPTION ASSERTED AND EXPLAINEDa. " The living God ; who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe."— 1 Tim. iv. 10. There are two points of doctrine here plainly asserted by St. Paul, which I shall endeavour to explain and to apply : one, that God is the Saviour of all men; another, that He is peculiarly the Saviour of the faithful \ — For the first, God in many respects may truly be conceived and called the Saviour of all men ; for the word save does in a large acceptation denote the conferring any kind of good; as implying a removal of need, or indigence. Whence God " is the Saviour of all men2," as the universal preserver and upholder of all things in their being and natural state, as it is in the Psalm: "Thou, Lord, savest man and beast3 ;" or as the general benefactor, who " is good to all, and whose mercies are over all his works ; who maketh his sun to rise upon the good and bad, rains upon the just and unjust, is kind" and benign "even to the ungrateful and evil i :" or, as the common assistant, protector, and deliverer of all men, who in need or distress have recourse unto Him for suc cour and relief, according to what is said in the Psalms ; " The a From Dr. Isaac Barrow. Sermon lxxi. and Works, vol. iii. p. 350— 426. 1 Qtov ydp iroXXZv ovtoiv, if' olc BavadZtrai, oi/Siv ovTUg, uig rb ixavrag tv- epyiTtiv iSiuiTarov. Naz. Orat. 26. 2 Psalm xxxvi. 6. Old translation, and the LXX. aiiotig or x dirXSig iiroiijotv dvBpiairov, dXX' tig to Kvpitvoai iravTwv avrbv, Kai dyidZ,tiv iravrag Sid tov xpi iravTwv ytvofiivty' ooiTrjp yap lariv, oi»Y_i roiv (iev, twv 8' ou. " He taketh care of all, which doth become him that is Lord of all ; for that he is indifferently the Saviour of all 5," says Clemens Alexandrinus. 6. We are commanded to " pray, intercede, and give thanks (indifferently) for all men °," even for heathens and persecutors ; as for the objects of God's benevolent affection; whom " he would have to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of his truth ;" expressing our charity in conformity to the unconfined goodness of God. — Very good reason (argues St. Chrysostom) there is why we should pray for all men ; for if God does will the salvation of 1 Rom. xiv. 9. a 1 Cor. vi. 20. 3 Heb. ii. 9. 4 Phil. ii. 8, 9. Rev. v. 9- 12. 5 Clem. Strom, vii. p. 505. 6 lTim. ii. 1. 4. Universal Redemption. 603 all men, we, in imitation of him, should will the same ; and if we desire it, we should pray for it \ Upon which score the Catho lic Church has constantly and carefully observed this precept ; so the learned writer de Vocatione Gentium assures us : " Which law of supplication," says he, " the devotion of all priests and of all the faithful people doth so observe, that there is no part of the world in which such prayers are not solemnized by the Chris tian people. The Church of God doth therefore supplicate, not only for the Saints, and the regenerate in Christ, but also for aU infidels, and enemies of the cross of Christ ; for all idolaters, all persecutors, all Jews, heretics, and schismatics 2." And Prosper himself: "Setting aside," says he, "that distinction which the divine knowledge contains within the secret of his justice, it is most sincerely to be beUeved and professed that God wills that all men shall be saved ; since the apostle, whose sentence that is, doth most soUcitously enjoin, that which is in all the Churches most piously observed, that God should be implored for all men 3." So does he attest the common practice, and declare the ground thereof. 7. For which practice, and for the confirmation of its ground, (God's serious wilUngness and desire that men should be saved,) we have the pattern of our Lord Himself praying to His Father for the pardon of the worst of men, His murderers ; which as it demonstrated His charity toward them, so it argues that He was their Saviour, for that otherwise He knew they could not be in any capacity of having pardon. His praying for them impUes the possibility of their receiving forgiveness ; and such a possi bility does presuppose a disposition in God to grant it, and con sequently a satisfaction provided, such as God requires and 1 Mipov tov Qtov ti irdvrag QkXei ainBrjvai, lixoTujg virip iravnov Sti t\>xta- Bai' ti irdvrag avrbg iBtXrjot ouiBijvai, BkXt Kai oi' ti Si SkXttg, tvxov. Chrysost. 2 Quam legem supplicationis ita omnium sacerdotum, et omnium fidelium devotio, concorditer tenet, ut nulla pars mundi sit, in qua hujusmodi ora- tiones non celebrentur a, populis Christianis. Supplicat ergo ubique Ecclesia Dei non solum pro Sanctis et in Christo jam regeneratis, sed etiam pro om nibus infidelibus, et inimicis cruris Christi, &c. 3 Remota ergo discretione, quam divina scientia intra secretum justitias suae continet, sincerissime credendum atque profitendum est Deum velle, ut omnes homines salvi fiant ; siquidem Apostolus, cujus ista sententia est, solicitissime praecipit quod in omnibus Ecclesiis piissime custoditur, ut Deo pro omnibus hominibus supplicetur. Pros, ad Obj. Vincent. 2. 604 DR. ISAAC BARROW. accepts, and which shall avail to their benefit, if toward the appli cation thereof they perform their parts. 8. Indeed it is not easy to conceive, how we can heartily pray for pardon, or for any other blessing, either for ourselves or for others, without supposing Christ to be our Saviour and theirs ; without supposing God placable and well affected towards us and them in Christ, upon the account of His performances and suffer ings in our and their behalf. We are to offer up all our devo tions in the name of Christ, and for His sake must implore all mercies and blessings from God ; which how can we do seriously and with faith, if we may reasonably question whether Christ's merits do respect us, and consequently whether they can be available in our behalf ? "I will," says St. Paul, "that men should pray in every place, lifting up pure hands, without wrath or doubting ' :" which precept how can any man observe ; how can any man pray with calmness and confidence of mind, who is not assured that Christ is his Saviour, or that God for Christ's sake is disposed to grant his requests ? — But this point we may be obliged to prosecute somewhat farther in the application. 9. Either our Saviour's performances do respect all men, — or some men (the far greatest part of men) do stand upon no other terms than those of the first creation, or rather of the subsequent lapse and condemnation ; being subject to an extremely rigorous law, and an infallibly certain guilt, and consequently to inevitable punishment ; being utterly secluded from aU capacity of mercy, and having no place of repentance left unto them, (the place of repentance being a most signal part of Christ's purchase 2 ;) so that if any such man should, according to the proportion of his light and ability, perform what is agreeable to God's law, doing what is possible to him (this may be supposed, for what is possi ble to a man he may do, what is possible is possible) in order to his salvation, he notwithstanding should be incapable of any mercy, favour, or acceptance. — But, beside that it is expressly said, that " God did shut up all men under sin, that he might have mercy upon all 3 ;" and that we are plainly enough informed that our Lord did reverse the first fatal sentence, and has, as the mediator between God and man, evacuated all former covenants by establishing a new one, (for if any former " covenant had been good, there had been no place sought for a new one *," as 1 1 Tim. ii. 8. 2 Acts v. 31. Luke xxiv. 47. 3 Rom. xi. 32. 4 Heb. viii. 7. Universal Redemption. 605 the Apostle to the Hebrews discourses) — besides these conside rations, I say, and beside that such suppositions do not well suit to the nature of God, and do not well consist with the tenor of His providence, God positively and vehemently disclaims this rigour of proceeding '. He, both under law and gospel, declares Himself ready to admit any man's repentance ; yea, earnestly invites all men thereto ; yea, grievously complains and expostu lates with men for not repenting 2 ; yea, not only says it, but swears it by His own life, that He desires any wicked man should do it ; He strongly asserts, He earnestly inculcates, He loudly proclaims to all His readiness to pardon, and His delight in show ing mercy s ; the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering. He declares that He will exact an account of men, according to proportion, answerable to their willingness to do what they could ; and to the improvements of those talents (those measures of Ught and strength) which they had, or might have had ; that whoever is ev iXaxio-Tty 7nv, " He did not leave Himself without testimony, doing good to all 1," as St. Paul tells us ; althougli He does not dispense His favours in the same method, or discover His meaning by the same light, or call all men to Him with the same voice and language. Neither was mankind ever left destitute of that divine grace, which, as the good writer "de Vocatione Gentium" says, "never denied itself to any ages, with the same virtue, in different mea sure, with an unchangeable counsel, and multiform operation 2." So in one place ; and in another, " There was always," says he, "dispensed to all men a certain measure of instruction from above, which, although it came from a more occult and sparing grace, did yet suffice to some for remedy, to all for testimony 3." Comparing the different states of men, we may substitute with St. Paul4, for the law of revelation engraved upon tables, the law of nature written in men's hearts; for prophetical in structions, the dictates of reason; for audible admonitions and reproofs, secret whispers of grace, and checks of conscience ; for extraordinary instances of divine power, the ordinary works of the creation5, (by which God's eternal divinity and power are discernible;) for the special and occasional influences of provi dence, the common and continual expressions of divine benefi cence ; then aUowing for the disparity (as to measure of evidence and efficacy) in these things ; and as to the rest, the case is the same. If one part has means more clear and forcible, yet those which are granted to the other are not void of use or virtue ; by them all men in all places " may seek God,, if haply they may feel Him and find Him 6;" yea may, as St. Paul implies, be able to know God, and induced to serve Him ; to thank Him, and to glorify Him in some measure; in a measure answerable to such light and strength ; no more does God require, for no more will 1 Acts xiv. it. 2 Gratia Dei nullis seculis se negavit, virtute una,, quantitate.diversa, con- cilio incommutabili, opere multiformi. ii. 5. 3 Adhibita est semper universis hominibus qusedam supernse mensura doc- trinss, quse etsi occultioris parciorisque gratia? fuit, suffecit tamen quibusdam ad remedium, omnibus ad testimonium, ii. 15. 4 Rom. ii. 14, 1 5. — Nulli nationi homiuum bonitatis suae dona subtraxit, ut propheticas voces et prsecepta legalia convincerentur in elementorum obsequiis, et testimoniis aceepisse. De Voc. G. i. 5. Rom. i. 19. 5 Acts xiv. 17. 6 Acts xvii. 27. Rom. i. 18, 20. ii. 15, 26. i. 21. vol. in. R r 610 DR. ISAAC BARROW. He reckon with them. If their helps be deemed more low and scanty, their duty in proportion is less high, and their account will be more easy. Enough certainly they have to excuse God from misprision of not having provided competently for them, to render them, if they do not well use and improve it, inexcusable1'; and what they have is an effect of God's mercy procured and purchased by their Saviour. — But of this point we may have occa sion afterward to say more ; I shall now only add, that this sug gestion, well considered, may afford another argument to confirm our doctrine ; which is this. 10. If our Lord be the Saviour of all those to whom God's truth is declared, and His mercy offered; or if He be the Saviour of all the members of the visible Church, — particularly if He be the Saviour of those, who among these, rejecting the overtures and means of grace, or by disobedience abusing them, shall in the event fail of being saved, then is He the Saviour of all men. But our Lord is the Saviour of those persons ; and therefore He is the Saviour of all men. — The assumption we assayed to show in the last argument ; and many express testimonies of Scripture before mentioned establish it : the common style of Scripture does imply it, when in the apostoUcal writings to all the visibly faithful indifferently the relation to Christ as their Saviour is assigned, an interest in all His saving performances is supposed, the title of gu>Z,6\xevoi and 0-Eo-ojap.Evoi (with others equivalent, of justified, sanctified, regenerated, quickened, 8fc.) are attributed. And in our text, God is said to be " the Saviour", chiefly tQv ttustwv, " of the faithful ;" which word, in its common accepta tion, denotes all visible members of the Christian communion. And for its confirmation we adjoin ; the Apostles at first, and the Church ever since after them (except some heterodox people of late) have professed readily to confer holy baptism, and therein to dispense remission of sins, together with other evangelical graces and privileges, to every man professing his faith in Christ, and resolution to observe Christ's law, upon this supposition, that Christ is the Saviour of all such persons, and by His salutary passion has purchased that remission for them ; although the dis pensers of these graces could not discern what decrees God in His secret providence had passed upon them, or what the event should be as to their final state ; yea, although according to the 1 Rom. i. 20. Universal Redemption. 611 judgment of prudence they could not but conceive that all such should not be saved, but that many of them should be of those who (as the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks) would " draw back unto perdition 1," who (as St. Peter implies some might and would do) Would forget the purgation which they had received of their sins. — That in thus doing, the Church proceeds upon a persuasion that Christ is truly the Saviour of all its visible mem bers, duly admitted and incorporated thereinto, the thing itself plainly signifies ; the tenor of its practice makes palpable ; the forms of speech used in its holy administrations (of prayers, of sacraments, of exhortations) do suppose or express. For how can each member singly be asserted in holy baptism to be washed from his sins, and sanctified to God, and made regenerate or adopted into the number of God's children, and made partaker of Christ's death ? How can thanksgiving in the common name, in most general terms, be offered up for Christ?s saving perform ances ? or the holy bread and cup be imparted to each commu nicant as symbols and pledges of Christ's charity and mercy toward him ? How can every Christian be instigated to obedience in gratitude to Christ; and those who transgress Christ's laws upbraided for their ingratitude toward Him, their rejecting, or renouncing, despising, or abusing Him and His salvation ? How can such things be said and done with any truth or consistency — yea, without forgery and mockery, if every baptized Christian has not an interest in our Lord's performances ; if Christ be the Saviour only of an uncertain and unknown part in the Church ? This consideration of the Church's practice has made even the most vehement assertors of St. Austin's doctrine (strained to the highest pitch), in the more ancient and modest times, fully to acknowledge this position, that Christ is the Redeemer of every member of the visible Church, as appears by this remarkable decree of the Council of Valentia in France 2 (consisting of the bishops of three provinces, favourers of Godscalcus's opinions). " We also do believe it most firmly to be held, that all the multitude of the faithful, being regenerated by water and the Holy Spirit, and hereby truly incorporated into the Church, and, according to the apostolical doctrine, baptized into the death of Christ, is by His blood washed from their sins3." Because there 1 Heb. x. 39. 2 Pet. i. 9. 2 Anno 855. 3 Item firmissime tenendum credimus, &c. supra. R r 2 012 DR. ISAAC BARROW. could be no true regeneration, unless there were made also a true redemption, since in the sacraments of the Church there is nothing empty (or vain), nothing ludificatory ; but all thoroughly true, and supported by its own very truth and sincerity. Yet that out of the very company of believers and the redeemed, some are eternally saved, because by God's grace they faithfully abide in their redemption, bearing the Lord's speech in their hearts, " He that perseveres to the end shall be saved ;" and that others, because they would not abide in the salvation of the faith, which they at first received, and did rather choose to frustrate the grace of redemption by evil doctrine or life, than to keep it, do nowise arrive to the plenitude of salvation, and to the perception of eternal beatitude. It is, then, a catholic and true doctrine, that at least Christ is a Saviour of all appearing Christians ; and supposing the truth thereof, I say that by consequence He is also the Saviour of all men. For it appears thence, that the design of our Saviour's performances did not flow from, or w'as not grounded upon any special love, or any absolute decree con cerning those persons who in event shall be saved, since, accord ing to that supposition, it extends to many others ; wherefore it proceeded from God's natural goodness, and common kind affec tion toward mankind ; from the compassion of a gracious Creator toward His miserable creature, whence all men are concerned and interested therein. Why God's merciful intentions were not explicitly declared and propounded to Socrates and Epictetus, as they were to Judas Iscariot and Simon Magus, is another ques tion, which we may afterward in some manner assoil ; at present, it suffices to say, that the overture of mercy made to such wretches does argue God's kind disposition and good intention toward all men : so it did in St. Ambrose's opinion ; who says, that our Lord ought not to pass by the man who should betray Him, that all men might take notice, that in the choice even of His traitor, He did hold forth a pledge or mark of all men's being to be saved '. But the truth of this doctrine will farther appear by the decla ration and surveyal of those respects, according to which Christ is represented the Saviour of men, — as also by considering how 1 Et ideo nee proditurum debuit prseterire, ut adverterent omnes, quod in electione etiam proditoris sui servandorum omnium insigne prastendit. — Ambr. de Parad. viii. Universal Redemption. 613 useful and conducible to piety this doctrine is, as ministering grounds and obligations, encouragements and motives to the practice of most considerable duties required from all men. — But these things must be reserved to another occasion. PART II. That our Lord Jesus is the Saviour of all men, we have before from plain testimonies of holy Scripture, and from some argu ments grounded there, assayed to show. The same will be made further apparent by considering the respects according to which He is such ; and those we may first consider generally and in the gross, then survey them more particularly and distinctly. In general we may say, that our Lord is the Saviour of all men, for that He has rendered all men salvabil.es, capable of salvation ; and salvandos, designed to salvation : — for that He has removed all obstacles peremptorily debarring men from access to salvation, and has procured competent furtherances to their attainment of it ; for that He has rescued mankind out of that dead and desperate condition, wherein it lay involved ; being " the bread of God, who has descended from heaven, that he might give Ufe to the world 1," as, He says of Himself: for that He has performed whatever on His part is necessary or fit in order to salvation, antecedently to the acceptance and compliance with those reasonable conditions, whieh by God's wisdom are required toward the instating men into a full and immediate right to salvation, or to a complete and actual fruition thereof. — He made the way to happiness plain and passable, levelling the insuperable cUffs, and filling up the chasms, and rectifying the obliquities, and smoothing the asperities thereof, as the Prophet foretold2; so that all men, who would, might conveniently walk therein. He set the doors of Paradise wide open 3, so that who pleased might enter in 4; all the bonds and restraints under which men lay, He so far loosed, that any man might be free, who would concur to His own liberty and enlargement. All the pro- 1 John vi. 33. 2 Luke iii. 5. 3 'H yr) dvri Kardpag tvXoyriTai, b irapdStiaog rjvoiyn, &C. Athan. in pass. 4 Luke iv. 18. AixpaXmroig atjtimv — . 614 DR. ISAAC BARROW. tection, aid, and encouragement which was needful toward ob taining salvation, He afforded and exhibited to every one that would embrace and make use of them. In respect to which per formances, He might be justly esteemed and truly called a Saviour, although all men do not in effect become saved. For the estimation and denomination of performances are to be grounded upon their own nature and design, not upon events depending upon the contingent and arbitrary behaviour of men. As he that freely offers a rich boon is no less to be accounted a benefactor and liberal, although his gift be refused, than if it were accepted; as he that opens the prison is to be styled a deliverer, although the captive will not go forth; as he that ministers an effectual remedy, although the patient will not use it, deserves the honour and thanks due to a physician, so is our Lord in regard to what He has performed for men, and offered to them (being sufficient to prevent their misery, and promote their happiness), to be worthily deemed, and thankfully acknow ledged their Saviour ; although not all men, yea, although not one man should receive the designed benefit. Accordingly we may observe, that in the Scripture-style, those persons are said to be saved who are only in a way toward salvation ', although they do not arrive thither ; and the means conducing to salvation are said to save, although their effect may be defeated ; awZ,6p.Evoi and o-Eawo-fxivoi are terms appUed to all Christians, and Christ is 6 aiiaag, " he that hath saved them 2 ;" and faith is said to have saved them, although some of them eIkt) Eir'ioTEvo~av, have " beUeved in vain '," or to no effect, forsaking and renouncing their faith ; and baptism saves them who partake it, although being washed, they return to their waUowing in the mire. And as our Lord is so termed a Saviour in respect to them, who are, by faith and admission into the Church, put into a more near capacity of sal vation, as St. Paul speaks : Eyyvrepov rifiiov 17 obyrripia, ij ore Eirio-TEvcrafiEv, (" Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed4;") so is He in respect of aU those, who are in any capacity thereof, although a more remote one. But let us now view more nearly and distinctly the respects 1 Acts xvi. 17. KarayykXXovoiv bSbv o-uiTtipiag. — 1 Cor. i. 18. Acts ii. 47. Rev. xxi. 24. Eph. ii. 5. 2 2 Tim. i. 9. 3 1 Cor. xv. 2. Tit. iii. 8. 1 Pet. iii. 21. 2 Pet. ii. 22. 4 Rom. xiii. 11. Universal Redemption. 615 in which He is " a Saviour of all men," or the particular benefits and advantages conducing to salvation, which by His performances accrue to mankind ; for irafiwoXv rrjv o-wrripiav airao-Q yap^rai rrj avOpioirorriTi, " In very many ways He bestoweth salvation upon all mankind 1," as Clemens Alexandrinus speaks. 1. Our Lord is " the Saviour of all men," as having effected that Almighty God (who upon great provocations was justly dis pleased and angry with man, who had averted His face, and with drawn His favour from mankind, whom our apostasy and rebellion had rendered a stranger and an enemy to us) has deposed His wrath toward mankind, has conceived a kind affection to it, does cast a favourable aspect upon it ; being thoroughly reconciled and made a friend thereto by our Saviour's mediation. " This is my beloved Son, (Iv qj EvSoKiio-a,) in whom I have been well pleased2," was the attestation given from God to our Lord ; the meaning whereof in regard to men, the holy choir of angels did interpret, when after the gladsome report of His birth, (that " great joy, which should be to all people,") they sang, " glory be to God on high, on earth peace, good-will toward men 3." Which St. Paul farther declares, when he says, that by Him evSoktio-e *, God pleased to reconcile unto Himself all things, upon earth, and in heaven ; and when he says, " That God was in Christ, recon- ciUng the world unto himself, not imputing their sins 5." And, " When we were enemies," says he again, " we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son V " When we were enemies," that impUes God antecedently to any man's conversion to have been appeased, and become favourably disposed toward aU men, or toward those whom St. Paul speaks unto, as men; so the reason of the case does import and so the analogy which St. Paul immediately after propounds between the results of Adam's transgression and our Saviour's obedience (as to provocation and reconciliation, to condemnation and absolution, to the intents of bringing death and Ufe upon all men) does enforce. Whence it is, that God declares Himself now to bear an universal goodwill to mankind, that He does earnestly desire the welfare of all men, and is displeased with the ruin of any man; that He "would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the 1 Clem. Alex. Psedag. ] 1. 2 Matt. iii. 17. xii. 18. 3 Luke ii. 10. 14. 4 Col. i. 20. Eph. i. 10. 5 2 Cor. v. 19- 6 Rom. v. 10. 616 DR. ISAAC BARROW. truth 1," because " there is one Mediator between God and man ; that he would not have any perish, but that all should come to repentance 2 ;" this He affirms, yea (for the confirmation of our faith and our consolation therein) He in the Evangelical Prophet swears it, " As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live 3." — So far toward our salvation is done, God meets us half way ; He is reconciled unto us, it remains only that we be recon ciled to Him ; that we hearken to the embassy from Him : — " Be reconciled to God 4." 2. Jesus is " the Saviour of all men," by satisfying the divine justice, and repairing God's honour in their behalf. — The disloyal and ingrateful behaviour of man had so wronged, so endamaged, so dishonoured God, (had so abused the goodness, disparaged the wisdom, sUghted the power, impeached and slurred the authority of His Creator, had so prejudiced aU the rights and interests of God,) that by the divine wisdom it was thought fit, that he should not be restored into a capacity of mercy and favour, without a signal compensation made, and an exemplary punishment under gone, whereby the right of God should conspicuously be asserted, his love of goodness and dislike of wickedness should be remark ably demonstrated5, and every creature in heaven and earth should be solemnly admonished of its duty ; of the reverence and obedience it owes to the great Creator, of the heinous guUt and horrible mischief it incurs by offending Him. Such a compen sation man was nowise able to make, or fit to undergo such a punishment: our Saviour therefore, out of infinite pity and cha rity V did undertake both 7 ; by a voluntary condescension putting Himself into the low and weak state of man ; subjecting HimseU unto that law which man was obUged unto, and suffering the pains which man had deserved. This He was pleased to do in man's behalf, and in our stead ; and God was pleased to accept it 1 1 Tim. ii. 4. 2 Pet. iii. 9. 2 Heb. vi. 16. 18. 3 Ezek. xxxiii. 11. * 2 Cor. v. 20. s Aoiirbv Si oi avBphiiroi ovKtn Kard rd iSia irdBn fikvovaiv, apaprioXoi Kai vtKpoi. dXXd Kard rr)v tov Xoyov Sivapiv dvaoravrtg dBavaroi Kai aipBapToi dei Sia. pkvovaiv. Athan. in Arian. Orat. iv. 485. 6 Phil. ii. 7. 7 ToYe yap Kai Srdvarog, Kai Kardpa iXvtro, Kai Saipovtg KaryaxvvovTO Kai iSeiyuariZovTo Spiapfkvoptvoi, Kai rb x"poypa0o»> tSiv dpapnibv to} oravpiji irpoor/Xovro, &c. Chrys. in Johan. i. 14. Universal Redemption. 617 as so done. J His incarnation (or exinanition of Himself, as St. Paul calls it) was an act of that high duty and goodness, that it in virtue surpassed all the obedience, which all creatures were able to render,; that it yielded God more satisfaction and more honour than the joint endeavours of aU the world could confer. His with so intense charity and cheerfulness fulfilling all righteousness, did far more please God, than all our most exact obedience could have done 2 ; His enduring bitter pains and dis graces (considering the infinite dignity of His person, His near relation and dearness to God, His perfect innocence and recti tude, yea His immense charity, contentedness, and patience) more than countervailed the punishment due to the sins of all men. Such a payment more than served to discharge all our debts, (it served to purchase an overplus of graces and bless ings 3 ;) so rich a price was more than sufficient to ransom all the world from captivity * ; so goodly, so pure, so sweet, so precious a sacrifice might worthily expiate and atone all the guilts of men5. Now if we inquire what our Saviour did redeem, the considera tion of what He paid may, as St. Austin teUs d, help to inform us ; " Quaritis quid emerit ? Videte quid dederit, et invenite quid emerit V " Do ye seek," says he, " what He bought ? See what He gave, and find what He bought." However, that as the value and sufficiency of our Lord's performances, so the design and effect thereof did reach so far in regard to man ; that His charity was no less extensive than His performance was complete, for our good, the holy Scripture teaches us. For, " He is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world 8," says the Baptist. And, " The bread," says He, " which I give is my flesh, which I will give for the Ufe of the world V And, " He is a propitia tion," says St. John, " for our sins ; and not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world 10." And, " He is the mediator of God and man, who gave himself (avriXyrpov iirkp iravrwv) a 1 "H ivaapKog irapovaia tov ou>rr)pog Savdrov Xirpov Kai Kriatiog irdong awrtipia ykyovtv. Athan. ad Adelph. Ep. 2 Vide Cyrill. in Eph. Cone. p. 133. AiKaiiatrr) rr)v dvBpiiirov ipvoiv, &c. 3 Eph. v. 2. * Heb. x. 10. ix. 12. s 1 Pet. i. 19. 6 Mr) SavfidZyg ti Koapog oXog iXvTp&Brj' ov ydp rjv avBpiairog ipiXbg, dXX' v'tbg Qtov povoytvr)g, b virtpairoBvi)aKiov, &c. Cyrill. Cat. 13. 1 Aug. in Psalm, xcv. 8 John i. 29. ' John vi. 51. 10 l John ii. 2. 618 DR. ISAAC BARROW. ransom," in the stead, and " for all men \" says St. Paul. And, " He tasted death for every one 2," says the author to the Hebrews. And, He was " that one Man," who, as it was " expe dient," did " die for the whole nation 3 " of men. And, " God was in him, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their sins 4." And, " He came into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might by him be saved 5," (or freed from condemnation.) And, "As by the offence of one man judgment came upon all men to condemnation, so by the righte ousness of one, mercy came upon all to justification of life 6." The end we see of our Saviour's performances was, that He might wipe off the guilt of sin from all mankind 7, that He might reverse the condemnation passed thereupon, and that He might remove the punishment due thereto ; or, that, absolving the first man's sin, He might take it away from the whole race, as St. Athanasius speaks. " All men have sinned, and come short (or are destitute) of the glory of God ; being justified freely by his grace, by the re demption that is in Christ Jesus 8." " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. He was born under the law, that he might redeem those which were under the law 9." " He that knew no sin was made sin (was punished and dealt with as a sinner,) that we might be made the righte ousness of God in him10," (that we might be capable of being esteemed and dealt with as righteous by God upon His account.) So that the result is, divine justice being fully satisfied, and the honour of God fully repaired, (in regard to all sins past and future,) the mouth of vengeance being stopped, the claims of death and hell being evacuated, that general sentence of con demnation (passed upon all the sons of Adam) is suspended, death ceases to reign by any just power, or inevitable necessity; (it is, as St. Paul says, " abolished or abrogated as to any law ful right or necessary force it hath " ;") the rigour and severity of that law, which upon pain of death exacts most punctual obe- 1 1 Tim. ii. 5. 2 Heb. ii. 9. 3 John xi. 50. xviii. 14. iii. 17. 4 2 Cor. v. 19. 5 John iii. 17. 6 Rom. v. 18. 7 "Iva iKtivov Ximv rr)v dpupriav, dirb iravrbg avTr)v apy tov yivovg. Athan. in pass. 8 Rom. iii. 23, 24. 9 Gal. iii. 13. iv. 5. 10 2 Cor. v. 21. " 2 Tim. i. 10. Gal. iii. 10. 12. Rom. x. 5. Universal Redemption. 619 dience, (and which consequently does expose all men to una voidable condemnation,) is tempered and abated, a foundation is laid for the showing mercy, and granting pardon. In respect whereto, 3. Our Lord is the Saviour of all men, as having in the be half of mankind transacted and ratified a new covenant, very ne cessary for, and very conducible to, the salvation of mankind; whereby salvation is made attainable, and is really tendered unto aU, upon feasible and equal conditions. According to the pur port whereof, upon any man's (however stained or loaded with the guUt of most heinous transgressions) embracing the overtures thereof, consenting to and complying with the terms propounded therein, that is, sincerely believing, and seriously repenting ; re^ turning to God with hearty desires and earnest resolutions to serve Him ; God is ready to dispense mercy and pardon, and im mediately receives the person into grace and favour with Him ; yea, the man continuing to perform a faithful, though imperfect, obedience, an obedience suitable to man's natural infirmity and frailty, and proportionable to the assistances afforded him ; God farther promises to bestow inestimable blessings and rewards of joy and happiness. That covenant which the prophets implied of old, when (beside and beyond what the Jewish law did import) they preached thus: "Wash you, make you clean, put away the evU of your doings, cease to do evil1" — "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ;" " though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool 2 :" and, " Let the wicked man forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he wUl abundantly pardon3:" and, " If the wicked man wiU turn from aU his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shaU surely live, he shaU not die4," (so God in Isaiah and Ezekiel declares his intention to proceed with men, avowing that way of His to be most equal and fair.) This is that covenant which our Lord commanded His apostles to declare and propound to all mankind ; " Go ye," said He to them, " into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature5;" that gospel according to which, as it is expressed in St. Luke, " re- 1 Isaiah i. 16. 2 Isaiah i. 18. 3 Isaiah Iv. 7. 4 Ezekiel xviii. 21. Mark xvi. 15. 620 DR. ISAAC BARROW. pentance and remission of sins ought to be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem 1 ;" in respect to which, St. Peter says, that " God hath exalted our Lord to be a Prince and a Saviour, to grant repentance to Israel, and remission of sins2; (to grant repentance," that is, as the Apostle to the He brews and Clemens Romanus speak, fisravoiag tottov, room for repentance, or capacity to receive pardon upon repentance3 ;) con cerning which covenant that Clemens, (the fellow-labourer of St. Paul, and whom Clemens Alexandrinus calls an apostle 4,) in that excellent, admirable, and almost canonical epistle to the Co rinthians, which, as Eusebius and Jerome tell us, was anciently publicly read in most churches5, has these remarkably full and clear expressions ; " Let us," says he, " look steadfastly upon the blood of Christ, and let us see how precious to God His blood is, which being shed for our salvation, did bring the grace of re pentance to the whole world, Let us attentively regard all ages, and observe that in every generation the Lord granted place of repentance to them who would turn unto Him 6." This is that new and better covenant, established upon better promises, (can celling all former, exceptionable, imperfect, and ineffectual com pacts, referring to man's interest and duty,) about which the apostle to the Hebrews discourses, and whereof he calls "our Lord, the Mediator and Sponsor7;" in regard to which St. Paul calls Him the " Mediator between God and man 8 ;" plainly de claring aU men to have a concernment and interest therein; for this supposition he uses as an argument proving God's uni versal desire of man's conversion and salvation : " Who would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus V By virtue of which covenant 1 Luke xxiv. 47. 2 Acts v. 31. 3 Phil. iv. 3. 4 Qavpaaia. Euseb. 5 'Ev irXtioraig iKKXriaiaig. Euseb. 0 ' ATtviauutv tig rb alpa roi) XpwroS, Kai ISuptv &g ion ripiov Tip Qtip alpa avrov, '6n Sid ti)v rjatrkpav ffiaTrjpiav iKxvBiv, iravrl Tip Koautp ptravoiag x<*pw iiirr)vtyKtv. ' Artviaoiptv tig ytvtdg irdoag, Kai KaraudBioptv 8n iv ytve$ Kai ytvtq^ atravoiag tottov tSuKtv b Stairorng roig (SovXopkvoig iiriGTpafyrivai iir avrov. Clem, ad Corinth. 7 Heb. viii. 6. ix. 15. xii. 24. vii. 22. s 2 Cor. iii. 6. 3 1 Tim. ii. 4, 5. Quo dicto ostenditur nullum hominem secundum naturam esse pollutum, sed sequaliter omnes ad Christi Evangelium provocari. Hier. ad Aug. Epist. 11. 15 Universal Redemption. 621 it is, that any such degrees of love or fear toward God, such as men are capable of, are available, any righteous performances, such as our weakness can produce, are acceptable, any honest endeavours do receive countenance and encouragement; and that, as St. Peter observed, " in every nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted by him1;" although his fear of God be not so intense, or pure ; his righteousness not so exact and unblameable, as according to extremity of law and duty, they should be. From which covenant so far is any man, ac cording to God's intention and desire, from being excluded, that all men are seriously invited, vehemently exhorted, earnestly entreated to enter into it, and to partake the benefits exhibited thereby. Every man who feels himself to want those benefits, and is desirous of mercy and ease from the guilt and burden of his sins, may come and welcome. " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters2;" so the Evangelical Prophet pro claims ; and, " If any man thirsteth, let him come to me and drink3," cries our Lord; and, "Come to me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I wiU give you rest4." (Aeute TTavTEg, Come all to me : aU men therefore, says Origen, who from the nature of sin do labour and are burdened, are called to that rest; which is with the Word of God5.) And, "In Christ's name," saith St. Paul, " we are ambassadors, as though God by us entreateth : we pray you for Christ's sake, be ye re conciled to God6;" the purport of which embassy, together with its extent, he otherwhere thus expresses, ravvv TrapayylXXit rolg avOpunroig Ttaoi travraxov fiETavoilv, " He now proclaimeth to all men every where that they should repent7 ;" he consequently holds forth to all the benefits annexed to repentance. But of this we spake formerly. 4. Our Lord Jesus is the Saviour of all men, as having pur chased and procured for them competent aids, whereby they are enabled to perform the conditions required of them in order to their salvation ; to acquire a sufficient knowledge of their duty, to subdue their bad inclinations and lusts, to withstand tempta- 1 Actsx. 35. 2 Isaiah lv. 1. 3 John vii. 37. 4 Matt. xi. 28. 5 Ildvrtg oZv oi dvBpiairoi Sid rr)v Tr)g apapriag fvaiv Komuivrtg Kai irtfopncr- pkvoi KaXovvrai iiri ti)v irapd Tip Xoyqi tov Btov avdiravoiv. Orig. in Cels. 3. 0 2 Cor. v. 20. 7 Acts xvii. 30. 622 DR. ISAAC BARROW. tions J ; or briefly, whereby they are enabled sincerely to repent of their sins, and acceptably to perform their due obedience. — The truth of this point, taking in the consideration of man's natural state, may by good consequence be inferred from the truth of the points foregoing. If men are naturally so dead in trespasses and sins, so enslaved and sold under sin ; so very prone to evU, and averse to good ; so dark and blind, that they cannot well discern what they should do2; so corrupt and weak, that they cannot perform what they know and confess to be good, (as St. Paul affirms men to be,) and consequently are of themselves indisposed to perform the duties acceptable to God3, and requisite by his appointment toward their salvation, then either our Lord has provided for them a communication of grace sufficient to countervail or surmount that natural impotency, or all his designs for their good are imperfect or inconsistent, (aiming at an end, without providing requisite means, or removing necessary ob structions,) and his performances, whereby the forementioned benefits were procured, do prove ineffectual and fruitless. For God being appeased, and become weU-affected to man's salvation, divine justice being satisfied, the rigour of law being mitigated, repentance being made available, and an obedience, agreeable to man's frailty, becoming acceptable, with all other the immediate results of our Saviour's transactions for man, would signify no thing in regard to Him, who still lieth under a necessity of sinning, or an inability of performing that which is indispensably exacted from him toward a complete enjoyment of those benefits and favours. In vain is the debt paid, and the bond cancelled, and the prison set open, and Uberty proclaimed, and the prisoner called forth, if he be not himself able to knock off the fetters which detain him, and there is no help afforded, by which he may do it. But our Lord has surely laid His designs more advisedly, and has prosecuted His work more perfectly. Wherefore we may suppose that a competency of grace and spiritual assistance is by virtue of our Saviour's performances really imparted to every man, qualifying him to do what God requires, and is ready to 1 Eph. ii. 1. Colos. ii. 13. Rom. vii. 14, 15. Eph. v. 8. 2 Cor. iv. 6. 2 Pet. i. 19, &c. 2 'O iiri rd aioxpd bXioBog airoipvovg doBtvtiag tpyov. Max. Tyr. Diss. 22. 3 Si Deus non operatur in nobis, nullius possumus esse participes virtutis ; sine hoc quippe bono nihil est bonum, sine hac luce nihil est lucidum, sine hac sapientia nihil sanum, sine hac justitia nihil rectum. De Voc. Gent. i. 8. Universal Redemption. 623 accept from Him in order to his welfare ; that our Saviour has sent abroad His Holy Spirit, (that fountain of aU true goodness, of all spiritual light, strength, and comfort,) like the sun, to shine, to warm, to dispense benign influences over the world; although it shines not so brightly and vigorously, and its presence is not so' visible and sensible in one place as another; which Holy Spirit, as it is in its essence omnipresent', so it is Ukewise in its energy incessantly working (in reasonable measure, right manner, and fit season, as wisdom orders) upon the minds and affections of men, infusing good thoughts and motions, impressing argu ments and motives to good practice, cherishing and promoting good purposes, checking bad designs, restraining and reclaiming from bad courses. Our reason, however aided by exterior in struction and excitement, being unable to deal with those mighty temptations, oppositions, and discouragements we are to encounter with, He has given us a wise and powerful Spirit, to guide and advise us, to excite and encourage us, to relieve and succour us in aU our religious practice and spiritual warfare. So that all deUverance from the prevalency of temptation and sin we owe to His grace and assistance. That to these purposes the Holy Spirit is plentifully conferred upon aU the visible members of the Christian Church, we have plainly declared in Scripture 2 ; it was a promise concerning the evangelical times, that God would pour forth His Spirit upon all flesh ; the coUation thereof is a main part of the evangelical cove nant, (into a participation of which every Christian is admitted,) it being the finger of God, whereby God's law is impressed upon their inward parts, and engraven in their hearts, (as the prophets de scribe the effects of this covenant 3.) And the end of our Saviour's passion is by St. Paul declared to be, " that the blessing of Abra ham might come unto the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit by faith 4 ;" that is, that becoming Christians we might partake thereof. And the apostoUcal ministry (that is, preaching the Gospel, and dispensing the privileges thereof) is therefore styled, Siaicov'ta irvEvp.aTog, " the ministry of the Spirit 5." And the " tasting of the heavenly 1 Toic tv (Swvv iiravripriiikvoig ioxvv irpbg rr)v Xonrr)v aiarripiav iuirvti. Clem. Alex. Strom, vii. p. 523. 2 Joel ii. 28. Acts ii. 17. 3 Jer. xxxi. 33. Ezek. xi. 19. Heb. viii. 11. 2 Cor. iii. 3. 4 Gal. iii. 14. 5 2 Cor. iii. 8. 624 DR. ISAAC BARROW. gift, and partaking the Holy Ghost 1," is, according to the Apostle to the Hebrews, part of the character of a visible Christian, (such a Christian, who might TtapairEo-Eiv, " fall away," as he supposes, and " recrucify the Lord, and expose him to shame 2 :") and St. Peter makes reception of the Holy Ghost to be a concomitant or consequent of baptism; " Repent," says he, "and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost ; for the promise (or that promise of the Spirit, which is called ' the Spirit of promise 3 ' peculiar to the Gospel) is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call * :" (that is, the Holy Spirit is promised to all, how far distant soever in time or place, who shall be invited unto and shall embrace Christianity;) and accordingly, St. Paul says of Christians, that " God according to His mercy hath saved us, by the laver of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost 5." And, " Know ye not," says he to the Corinthians, " that ye are the temple of God; and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you6?" (that is, do ye not understand this to be a common pro perty and privilege of Christians, such as ye profess yourselves to be?) And the union of all Christians into "one body7" does, according to St. Paul, result from this " one Spirit," as a common soul imparted to them all, inanimating and actuating the whole body, and every member thereof. For " by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free, and have been all made to drink of one Spirit." And it has been the doctrine constantly with general consent delivered in and by the CathoUc Church, that to all persons, by the holy mystery of baptism duly initiated into Christianity, and admitted into the communion of Christ's body, the grace of the Holy Spirit is communicated, enabling them to perform the conditions of piety and virtue which they undertake ; and continually watching over them for accomplishment of those purposes; which Spirit they are admonished not to resist, to abuse, to grieve, to quench, but to use it well, and improve its grace to the working out their salvation \ Thus much concerning the result of our Saviour's perform- 1 Heb. vi. 4, 5. 2 2 Thess. ii. 3. 3 Acts ii. 38, 39. 4 Eph. i. 13. ' Tit. iii. 5. 6 1 Cor. iii. 16. 7 1 Cor. xii. 13. s Eph. iv. 30. 1 Cor. xii. 7. Phil. ii. 13. Universal Redemption. 625 ances, in this kind, in respect to the community of Christians, we learn from the holy Scripture and ecclesiastical tradition inter preting it ; whence we may discern, that the communications of grace do not always flow from any special love or absolute decree concerning men, but do commonly proceed from the general kindness and mercy of God, by our Lord procured for mankind ; and consequently we may thence collect, that somewhat of this nature is to the same purpose, from the same source, and upon the same account, also granted and dispensed to others. Unto Christians indeed this great benefit (for the reward, the en couragement, the support of their faith ; and for promoting their obedience, who are in a nearer capacity and more immediate tendency to salvation) is in a more plentiful measure, and a more conspicuous manner dispensed; but that, besides that dispensa tion, there have been other (not so plainly signified, or expressly promised, yet really imparted) communications of grace, in virtue of our Saviour's merits, there are (beside the main reason alleged, inferring it from our Lord's being the Saviour of all men) divers good inducements to believe1. For even those Christians, to whom upon their faith the Holy Spirit is promised and bestowed, are by previous operations of God's grace (opening their minds, inclining their heart, and tempering their affections) induced to embrace Christianity, faith itself being a gift of God, and a fruit of the Holy Spirit. And before our Saviour's coming all good men have thereby been instructed and enabled to do well. And before any special revelation made, or any particular covenant enacted 2, (before the inclosure of a particular people or Church, the confinement of God's extraordinary presence and providence to one place,) divine grace appears diffused over several nations, being watchful in guiding and moving men to good, and with drawing them from evil; neither is there reason why such an appropriation of special graces and blessings (upon special rea sons) unto some should be conceived to Umit or contract God's general favour, or to withdraw his ordinary graces from others. 1 Eph. ii. 8. Gal. v. 22. Luke xxiv. 45. Matt. xvi. 17- John xvi. 12. 1 Cor. xii. 3. 2 Ex quo perspicuum fit natura omnibus inesse Dei notitiam, nee quem- quam sine Christo nasci, et non habere semina in se sapientiae, justitise, reliquarumque virtutum. Unde multi absque fide, et Evangelio Christi vel sapienter faciunt aliqua vel sancte, &c. Hier. in Galat. i. VOL. III. S s 626 DR. ISAAC BARROW. God surely ("who is 7rXouo-ioe Iv IXeei, rich in mercy1;" yea, has virspfiaXXovra ttXovtov ^a/woe, " excessive riches of grace") is not so poor or parsimonious, that being liberal to some should render Him sparing toward others2; His grace is not like the sea, which if it overflow upon one shore, must therefore retire from another ; if it grow deep in one place, must become shaUower in another. " Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened 3 ?" it is a ques tion in Micah ; and, " Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem 4 ?" is another question in Isaiah : " No ; the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save ; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear ;" at any time, in any place ; He is no less able, no less ready than He ever was, to afford help to His poor creatures, wherever it is needful or opportune. As there was of old an Abimelech among the Philistines *, whom God by special warning deterred from commission of sin ; a divine Melchisedeck among the Canaanites ; a discreet and honest Jethro in Midian ; a very religious and virtuous Job in Arabia 6 ; who by complying with God's grace, did evidence the communication thereof in several nations ; so it is not unreasonable to suppose the like cause now, although we cannot by like attestation certify concerning the particular effects thereof. We may at least discern and show very conspicuous footsteps of divine grace, working in part, and producing no despicable fruits of moral virtue 7, (of justice and honesty, temperance and sobriety, benignity and bounty, courage and constancy in worthy enterprises, meekness, patience, mo desty, prudence, and discretion, yea, of piety and devotion in some manner,) even among Pagans, which if we do not allow to have been in all respects so complete, as to instate the persons endued with them, or practisers of them, in God's favour, or to bring them to salvation s ; yet those qualities and actions (in 1 Eph. ii. 4. 7. 2 Secundum Scripturam credimus et piissime confiteinur, quod nunquam universitati hominum divinas providentia; cura defuerit. Quem licet excep- tum sibi populum specialibus ad pietatem direxerit institutis, nulli tamen nationi hominum bonitatis suae dona subtraxit. &c. De Vocat. Gent. i. 5. 3 Mic. ii. 7- 4 Isaiah 1. 2. lix. 1. 6 Gen. xx. 3. xxvi. 8. 6 Exod. xviii. 7 KaS-' kavn)v iSiKaiov irori Kai r) ijiiXoo-ofia roig 'iXXrjvag. Clem. Alex. 8 Mortalem vitam honestare possunt, eeternam conferre non possunt. Pros per in Collat. cap. xxvi. (Prodesse ad salutem. Aug. Prosper, Fulgent, &c.) Nemo Universal Redemption. 627 degree, or in matter at least, so good and so conformable to God's law) we can hardly deny to have been the gifts of God, and the effects of divine grace ; they at least themselves acknowledged so much ; for " Nulla sine Deo mens bona est, No mind is good without God V said Seneca ; and, Geia juoi'pa QaivErai Trapayty- vofiivri ri apETtj, olg -irapay'ivErai, " Virtue appears to proceed from a divine dispensation to them who partake of it2," said Socrates ; and, At apiarai vaEig, a/iipio-firiTrio-tfioi tv iinpity rijc anpag apETrjc Trpoc tj)v taxaTtiv povSr/piav KaSwppio-jUEvai, Seovrai c,vvaywvio~Tov Qeov Kai ^vXXf)TTTopog Ti)g ettI ra Srartpa to. Kp£irr&) joWije Kai Y.fipayai'y/ac. " The best natured souls being consti tuted in the middle between the highest virtue and extreme wickedness, do need God to be their succourer and assistant in the inclining and leading them to the better side ;" says Maximus Tyrius, xxn. St. Austin himself, who seems the least favourable in his judgment concerning their actions and state, who calls their virtues but images and shadows of virtue (non veras, sed veri- similes) " splendid sins ;" acknowledges those virtuous dispositions and deeds to be the gifts of God3, to be laudable, to procure some reward, to avail so far, that they, because of them, shall receive a more tolerable and mild treatment from divine justice ; — which things considered, such persons do at least, by virtue of grace imparted to them *, obtain some part of salvation, or an im perfect kind of salvation, which they owe to our Lord, and in regard whereto He may be called in a sort their Saviour. But although the torrent of natural pravity has prevailed so far, as that we cannot assign or nominate any (among those who have Uved out of the pale) who certainly or probably have ob tained salvation, yet does it not follow thence, that a sufficient grace was wanting to them. The most universal practice con trary to the intents of grace does not evince a defect of grace. For we see that the same cause has in a manner universally Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit. Cic. de Nat. Deorum ii. sub fin. ' Sen. Ep. 73. — Qua? secundum justitias regulam non solum vituperare non possumus, sed etiam merito recteque laudamus. Aug. de Spir. et Lit. cap. xxvii. 2 Plat. Menon. ad finem. 3 — Dei dona. Epist. 1 30. Aug. 4 Tolerabilius puniuntur. Minus Fabricius quam Catilina punietur, &c- — non veras virtutes habendo, sed a veris virtutibus non plurimum deviando. Aug. s s2 628 DR. ISAAC BARROW. overborne and defeated other means and methods designed and dispensed by God for the instruction and emendation of mankind. God's Spirit did long strive with the inhabitants of the " old world 1 :" yet no more than one family was bettered or saved thereby. God by His good Spirit instructed the Israelites in the wilderness 2, as Nehemiah says, yet no more than two persons did get into Canaan : that people afterward had afforded to them great advantages of knowledge and excitements to piety, (so that God intimates, that He could not have done more for them, in that regard, than He had done.) Yet, " There is none that un derstandeth, or seeketii after God3," was a complaint in the best times. The Pagans had the means of knowing God4, as St. Paul affirms, yet generally they grew vain in their imaginations, and their fooUsh heart was darkened ; from which like cases and examples we may infer, that divine grace might be really im parted, although no effect correspondent to its main design were produced. Neither, because we cannot allege any evident in stances of persons converted or saved by virtue of this grace, (this "parcior occultiorque gratia" " more sparing and secret grace," as the good writer " de Vocatione Gentium " calls it,) are we forced to grant there were none such ; but as in Israel when Elias said, the children of Israel have "forsaken God's covenant, thrown down His altars, and slain His prophets with the sword; and I, I only am left 5 ;" there were yet in Israel, living closely, " seven thousand knees, who had not bowed to Baal:" so among the generations of men, commonly overgrown with ignorance and impiety, there might, for aU that we can know, be divers persons indiscernible to common view, who, by complying with the in fluences of God's grace, have obtained competently to know God, and to reverence Him; sincerely to love goodness, and hate wickedness ; with an honest heart, to observe the laws of reason and righteousness, in such a manner and degree which God might accept ; so that the grace afforded might not only " sufficere omni bus in testimonium," (suffice to convince all men,) but "quibusdam in remedium" (to correct and cure some,) as that writer "de Vocatione Gentium" speaks. The consideration of God's nature and providence does serve farther to persuade the truth of this assertion. If God be " rich 1 Gen. vi. 3. 1 Pet. iii. 20. 2 Neh. ix. 20. 3 Isaiah v. 4. Psalm xiv. 4 Rom. i. 21. s 1 Kings xix. 14. 18. Universal Redemption. 629 in mercy 1 " and bounty toward all His creatures, as such (and such He frequently asserts Himself to be,) if He be all-present and all-provident, as He certainly is, how can we conceive Him to stand as an unconcerned spectator of what men do, in affairs of this consequence ? — that He should be present beholding men to run precipitantly into desperate mischiefs and miscarriages, with out offering to stay or obstruct them ; struggling with their vices and follies, without affording them any relief or furtherance ; assaulted by strong temptations, without yielding any support or succour ; panting after rest and ease, without vouchsafing some guidance and assistance toward the obtaining them? How can He see men invincibly erring and inevitably sinning, without making good what the psalmist says of Him : " Good and upright is the Lord, therefore will He teach sinners in the way 2 ?" To withhold His grace in such cases, seems inconsistent with the kind and compassionate nature of God, especially such as now it stands, being reconciled to mankind, by the Mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus. He also, that is so bountiful and indulgent toward all men in regard to their bodies and temporal state ; " who preserveth their life from destruction 3," who protects them continually from danger and mischief; " who openeth His hand, and satisfieth the desires of every living thing i ;" "who satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness 5 ;" who, as St. Paul speaks, "filleth men's hearts with food and gladness 6 ;" is it likely that He should altogether neglect their spiritual welfare, and leave their souls utterly destitute of all sus tenance or comfort; that He should suffer them to lie fatally exposed to eternal death and ruin, without offering any means of t edress or recovery ? To conceive so of God, seemed very un reasonable even to a Pagan phUosopher : " Do you think," says Maximus Tyrius7, " that divination, poetry, and such like things, are by divine inspiration insinuated into men's souls, and that virtue " (so much better, and so much rarer a thing) "is the work of moral art? You have forsooth a worthy conceit of God, who take Him to be liberal in bestowing mean things, and sparing of better things 8." " He that," as St. Paul says, " giveth to all 1 Psalm cxlv. 9. 2 Psalm xxv. 8. 3 Psalm ciii. 4. 4 Psalm cxlv. 16. « Psalm cvii. 9. 6 Acts xiv. 17. 7 Max. Tyr. Diff. 22. _ * 'H iroXXov aliov voi>.it.tig to Stiiov, irpbg piv rd ipavXa KaXHg Kai dtjiBivtag iraptoKtvao-/j,kvov, irpbg Si rd Kptirriit diropov. 630 DR. ISAAC BARROW. men life, breath, and all things 1," will He withhold from any that best of gifts, and most worthy of Him to give, that grace whereby he may be able to serve Him, to praise Him, to glorify Him, yea, to please and gratify Him; to save a creature and subject of His ; the thing wherein He so much delights ? — From hence also, that God has vouchsafed general testimonies of His goodness, inducements to seek Him, footsteps whereby He may be disco vered and known, a light of reason and law of nature written upon men's hearts ; attended with satisfactions, and checks of conscience ; so many dispositions to knowledge and obedience 2, as St. Paul teaches us ; we may coUect that He is not deficient in communicating interior assistances, promoting the good use and improvement of those talents ; for that otherwise the bestow ing them is frustraneous and useless ; being able to produce no good effect ; yea, it rather is an argument of unkindness, being apt only to produce an ill effect in those upon whom it is con ferred; an aggravation of sin, an accumulation of guilt and wrath upon them. If it be said, that having such grace is inconsistent with the want of an expUcit knowledge of Christ, and of faith in Him ; why may not we say, that as probably (so St. Chrysostom, vid. Mont. App. I.) most good people before our Lord's coming received grace without any such knowledge or faith ; that as to idiots and infants our Saviour's meritorious performances are applied (in a manner unknowable by us) without so much as a capacity to know or believe any thing; that so we (to whom God's judgments are inscrutable, and His ways uninvestigable 3) know not how grace may be communicated unto, and Christ's merits may avail for other ignorant persons ? in respect to whoril we may apply that of St. John ; " The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not 4." However, that such persons may have a grace capacifying them to arrive to that knowledge and faith, to which fuller communications of grace are promised; so that in reasonable esteem (as we shall presently show) the revelation of evangelical truth, and the gift of faith, may be supposed to be conferred upon all men — so that we may apply to them that in the Revelation ; " Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; if any man will hear my voice, and open the 1 Acts xvii. 25. 2 Acts xiv. 17. xvii. 27. Rom. i. 19. ii. 15. 3 Rom. xi. 33. 4 John i. 5. Universal Redemption. 631 door, I will come in unto him, and sup with him, and he with me * ;" (that is, Behold, I allure every man to the knowledge and embracing of Christianity ; if any man will open his mind and heart, so as to comply with my solicitations, I am ready to bestow upon him the participation of evangelical mercies and blessings :) and to such persons those promises and rules in the Gospel may appertain ; " He that asketh receiveth ; he that seeketh findeth ; to him that knocketh it shaU be opened : The heavenly Father wiU give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. He that is kv EXaxio-Tty mo-rbg, (faithful in the use of the least grace 2") shall be rewarded. And " To him that hath (or that diligently keep- eth and husbandeth what he hath) shall more be given 3." And how God sometimes deals with such persons the eminent instances of St. Paul and Cornelius do show. — But concerning this point I spake somewhat before, and have perhaps been too large now; I shall only add that saying of the wise writer de Vocatione Gentium. " A pious mind," says he, " should not, I think, be troubled at that question, which is made concerning the conversion of aU, or not aU men ; if we wiU not obscure those things which are clear by those things which are secret; and whUe we wantonly insist upon things shut up, we be not excluded from those which are open and plain 4." Which in effect is the same with this ; that since we are plainly taught that our Lord is the Saviour of aU men ; and it is consequent thence, that He has procured grace sufficiently capacifying all men to obtain salva tion ; we need not perplex the business, or obscure so apparent a truth, by debating how that grace is imparted; or by labouring overmuch in reconciling the dispensation thereof with other dis pensations of Providence. PART III. 5. Jesus is " the Saviour of all men," as the conductor of all men into and through the way of salvation. — It is a very proper 1 Rev. iii. 20. EirvfXoi $rt, ovk av tixlTt apapriav. John ix. 41. xv. 22. 2 Luke xi. 10. 13. Luke xix. 17. 3 Luke xix. 26. * Puto quod pius sensus non debeat in ea qusestione turbari, qua? de om nium et non omnium hominum conversione generator ; si ea quae clara sunt non de his quae occulta sunt obscuremus, et dum procaciter insistimus clausis excludaimir ab apertis, &c. Lib. i. cap. 8. 632 DR. ISAAC BARROW. title, and most due to those brave captains, who by their wisdom and valour have freed their country from straits and oppressions. So were those judges and princes, who anciently delivered Israel from their enemies, commonly styled : " In the time of their trouble," say the Levites in Nehemiah, " when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven ; and, according to thy manifold mercies, thou gavest them Saviours, who save them out of the hand of the enemy * ;" so are Othniel and Ehud particu larly called ; and Moses signally 2 : " The same," says St. Ste phen of him, " did God send to be apxovra Kai XvTpu>rr)v, a Commander and a Saviour (or Redeemer) to the children of Israel 3 ;" for that he by a worthy and happy conduct did free them from the Egyptian slavery. And thus was Demetrius by the Athenians (for, his delivering them from the Macedonian sub jection, and restoring their liberty to them) entitled, Evspy irrig koi a-wrijp, " a benefactor and saviour." Thus with greatest rea son is Jesus so called, as being apxvjbg Trig a-wrripiag, " the Cap tain of salvation 4," (so He is called by the Apostle to the He brews,) apxnybg ?wi?c, (" the Captain of Life 5," as St. Peter names Him, the chief Leader unto eternal Ufe, dpxvybg irio-TEwg, ) (" the Captain of our Faith 6 ;" He that has revealed that saving doctrine, which is the power of God to salvation :) and these titles we have conjoined by St. Peter in the Acts ; " Him hath God exalted, dpxr\ybv ndi o-wrijpa, as a Captain and a Saviour, to give repentance unto Israel, and remission of sins 7." This He is to us several ways, by direction both instructive and exemplary ; by His protection and governance ; by His mating and quelling the enemies of man's salvation; which things more specially and completely He has performed in respect to faithful Christians, yet in a manner also He has truly done them for and toward all men ; as we shall distinctly consider. 6. Jesus is " the Saviour of all men," we say, as having per fectly discovered and demonstrated the way and means of salva tion; the gracious purposes of God concerning it; the duties required by God in order to it; the great helps and encourage ments to seek it ; the mighty determents from neglecting it ; the whole wiU of God, and concernment of man in relation thereto ; briefly, aU saving truths He has revealed unto all men : " myste- 1 Neh. ix. 27. 2 Judges iii. 9. 15. 3 Acts vii. 35. 4 Heb. ii. 10. « Acts iii. 15. 8 Heb. xii. 2. Rom. i. 16. 7 Acts v. 31. Universal Redemption. 633 ries" of truth, which " were hidden from ages and generations V which no fancy of man could invent, no understanding could reach, no reason could by discussion clear, (concerning the na ture, providence, will, and purpose of God ; the nature, original, and state of man ; concerning the laws and rules of practice, the helps thereto, the rewards thereof, whatever is important for us to know in order to happiness,) He did plainly discover, and bring to light ; He did with valid sorts of demonstration assert and confirm The doing which, (as having so much efficacy toward salvation, and being ordinarily so necessary thereto,) is often called "saving;" as particularly by St. James; when he says, " He that turns a sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death 2." And by St. Paul ; " Take heed to the word and doctrine ; for so doing thou shalt save thyself, and thy hearers3." — That our Lord has thus (according to His de sign, and according to reasonable esteem) " saved all men 4," we are authorized by the holy Scripture 5 to say ; for He is there represented to be " the light of the world ; the true light that enlighteneth every man coming into the world : the day-spring from on high, which hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet in the way of peace6." By Him " the saving grace of God hath appeared unto all men7." By Him (as Isaiah prophesied, and St. John the Baptist appUed it) " all flesh did see the salvation of God." Of Him it was also foretold, as St. Paul teaches us, " I have set thee for the light of the nations, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. Coming he preached peace rote pa«pav Kai rotg iyyvg (longe lateque) to them that were far, and them that were near," that is, " to all men every where 8." " While I am in the world," said He, " I am the light of the world 9 ;" shining, like the sun, indifferently unto all ; and when He withdrew His corporal presence, He farther virtually diffused His light, for He sent His messengers with a general commission and command to teach all men concerning the benefits procured for them, and the duties required from them; "Going into the 1 Col. i. 26. Rom. xvi. 25. 2 James v. 20. 3 1 Tim. iv. 16. 4 1 Cor. ix. 22. Rom. xi. 14. * 2 Tim. iii. 15. aoipiaai tig aiorripiav. 6 John viii. 12. i. 9- Luke i. 79. ' Tit. ii. 11. iii. 4. 8 2 Tim. i. 10. Luke iii. 6. Acts xiii. 47. Eph. ii. 17- 9 John ix. 5- 634 DR. ISAAC BARROW. world, make all nations disciples, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. Going into the world, preach the Gos pel unto every creature, (or, " to the whole creation :" so it ought to be.) That in his name should be preached repentance and remission of sins unto all nations V And such was the tenor of the apostolical commission ; " Thou shalt be witness for him toward all men2," said Ananias to St. Paul. Accordingly, in compliance with those orders, did the Apostles, in God's name, instruct and admonish all men, plainly teaching, seriously invit ing to, strongly persuading, and earnestly entreating aU men to embrace the truth, and enjoy the benefits of the Gospel, and consequently to be saved : " The times of ignorance," says St. Paul, " God having winked at, doth now invite all men every where to repent 3 :" and, " We are ambassadors for Christ ; as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God — We pray you 4," you as members of that world, which God was in Christ reconciUng to Himself; and, " We preach Christ warning every man, and teaching every man in aU wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus" (or, "render every man a good Christian5"). Thus was the Gospel, according to our Saviour's intent and order, preached, as St. Paul says of it, kv trao-in ry kt'io-ei rrj virb rbv ovpavbv, " in the whole creation under heaven 6" thus did God show that He would " have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth 7 ;" whence our Lord (in regard to the nature and design of His performance in this kind) is the common Saviour, as the common master of truth, and enlightener of the world, and proclaimer of God's will to man kind8. If now it be inquired or objected; why then is not the Gospel revealed unto all men ? How comes it to pass, that no sound of this saving word, no glimpse of this heavenly light does arrive to many nations ? How can so general and large intention consist with so particular and sparing execution ? What benefit can we imagine them capable to receive from this performance of our Saviour 9, who still do sit in total ignorance of the Gospel, in 1 Matt, xxviii 19, 20. Mark xvi. 15. Luke xxiv. 47. 2 Acts xxii. 15. xxvi. 17. 3 Acts xvii. 30. * 2 Cor. v. 20. 5 Colos. i. 28. Acts ii. 40. 6 Col. i. 23. i i Tim. ii. 4; 8 John i- 18- 9 Luke i. 74. Matt. iv. 16. ' Universal Redemption. 635 darkness, and the shadow of death ? " How can they call upon him in whom they believe not ? and how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard 1 ?" To this suggestion I answer, 1. That God's intentions are not to be interpreted, nor His performances estimated by events depending on the contingency of human actions, but by His own declarations and precepts, together with the ordinary provision of competent means, in their own nature sufficient to produce those effects which He declares Himself to intend or to perform. What He reveals Himself to design, He does really design it ; what He says, that He performs; He (according to moral esteem, that is, so far as to ground duties of gratitude and honour, proceedings of justice and reward) does perform, although the thing upon other ac counts be not effected. Thus, for instance, God would have all men to live together here in peace, in order, in health, conveniently, comfortably, cheerfully ; according to reason, with virtue and justice ; and in the best state toward happiness. For these purposes He has endued them with reasonable faculties, He has engraven on their minds a natural law, He has furnished them with all sorts of instruments and helps conducible to those ends, He promotes them by dispensations of providence, and, probably, by internal influences of grace ; yet often all those means, by the perverse- ness and stupidity of men, do prove ineffectual, so that wars, disorders, diseases, vices, iniquities and oppressions, troubles and miseries, do commonly abound in the world. Likewise God desires, that in His Church, knowledge and piety, peace and charity, and good order should grow and flourish ; to which pur poses He has appointed teachers to instruct, and governors to watch over His people : He has obliged each man to advise and admonish his brother; He has declared holy precepts and rules of practice ; He has propounded vast encouragements and rewards, and threatened dreadful punishments ; He has promised and does afford requisite assistances, being Himself always present and ready to promote those ends by His grace ; — yet, notwithstand ing, by the voluntary neglect or abuse of these means (the guides being blind, negUgent, unfaithful ; or the people being indocile, sluggish, refractory ; or both perverted with bad affections), often 1 Rom. x. 14. 636 DR. ISAAC BARROW. ignorance, error, and impiety prevail, love is cool and dead, schisms and factions are rife in the Church. Which events are not to be conceived derogatory to God's good- wiU and good intentions, or to His kind and careful providence toward men; but we are, notwithstanding, to esteem and acknowledge Him the author and donor of those good things ; in respect to them no less blessing and praising Him, than if they were really accom plished by man's concurrence and compUance, he having done his part in that due measure and manner which wisdom prompts ; having indeed done the same as when they are effected. So God having expressly declared, that He would have all men to know and embrace the Gospel, having made a universal promulgation thereof; having sent forth apostles to disseminate it every where; having obliged every man to confer his best endeavour toward the propagation thereof; if by the want of fidelity, zeal, or industry in them, to whom this care is intrusted, or upon whom this duty is incumbent ; or if by the carelessness and stupidity of those who do not regard what is done in the world ; or if by men's voluntary shutting their eyes, or stopping their ears (as the Jews did of old to the prophetical instructions and admo nitions), God's heavenly truth becomes not universally known, it is not reasonable to impute this defaUance to God, or to conceive Him therefore not universaUy to desire and design men's instruc tion and salvation consequent thereon. Let me, for the illus tration of this matter, put a case, or propound a simiUtude. Suppose a great kingdom, consisting of several provinces, should have revolted from their sovereign, disclaiming his au thority, neglecting and disobeying his laws; that the good prince, out of his goodness and pity toward them (and upon other good considerations moving him thereto, suppose the mediation of his own son), instead of prosecuting them with deserved vengeance, should grant a general pardon and amnesty, in these terms, or upon these conditions ; — that whoever of those rebels wilUngly should come in, acknowledge his fault, and promise future loyalty or obedience to his laws declared to them, should be received into favour, have impunity, enjoy protection, and obtain rewards from him. Farther, for the effectuating this gracious intent, sup pose that he should appoint and commissionate messengers, em powering and charging them to divulge the purport of this act of grace to all the people of that kingdom. Admit now, that these messengers should go forth and seat themselves only in some Universal Redemption. 637 provinces of that kingdom, proclaiming this universal pardon (universal as to the design, and as to the tenor thereof) only in those, neglecting others ; or that striving to propagate it farther, they should be rejected and repelled; or that from any the like cause the knowledge thereof should not reach to some remoter provinces; — it is plain, that indeed the effect of that pardon would be obstructed by such a carriage of the affair; but the tenor of that act would not thereby be altered, nor would the failure in execution (consequent upon the ministers' or the people's misbehaviour) detract from the real amplitude of the prince's intent, no more than the wilful incredulity, refusal, or non-compUance of some persons, where the business is pro- mulged and notified, would prejudice the same. It is plain the prince meant favourably toward all, and provided carefully for them ; although by accident (not imputable to him) the designed favours and benefits do not reach all. The case so plainly suits our purpose, that I need not make any application. The holy Fathers do by several like similitudes endeavour to illustrate this matter, and somewhat to assoil the difficulty. They compare our Saviour to the sun \ who shines indifferently to all the world, although there be some private corners and secret caves to which his Ught does not come ; although some shut their windows or their eyes, and exclude it ; although some are blind, and do not see it. That mystical Sun of Righteousness 2, says St. Ambrose, is risen to all, came to all, did suffer and rose again for aU; — but if any one does not believe in Christ, he defrauds himself of the general benefit. As if one shutting the windows should exclude the beams of the sun, the sun is not, therefore, not risen to all. They compare our Lord to a physician, who 1 ' Akovo art oJiv oi paKpdv' aKovaart oi iyyvg' ovk dirtRpifin nvdg b Xoyog' ipiog ion KOivbv, iiriXdpirtt irdaiv dvBp&iroig' obStlg "Kipukpiog iv Xoyqj. Clem. Alex. Protrep. " Hear ye that are far ; hear ye that are near : the word is not hid to any ; it is a common light ; it shineth to all men j there is no Cimmerian in the Word." 2 Mysticus Sol ille justitiae omnibus ortus est, omnibus venit, omnibus passus est, et omnibus resurrexit. Si quis autem non credit in Christum, generali beneficio se fraudat, ut si quis clausis fenestris radios solis excludat non ideo sol non ortus est omnibus, &c. Amb. in Psal. cxviii. Ser. viii. Si dies omnibus sequaliter nascitur, et si sol super omnes pari et aequali luce diffunditur, quanto magis Christus Sol et dies verus, in Ecclesia sua lumen vita? aeternae pari aequalitate largitur. Cypr. Epist. 76. 638 DR. ISAAC BARROW. professes to reUeve and cure all that shall have recourse to his help '; but does cure only those who seek for remedy, and are willing to take the medicine; because all, says St. Ambrose again, do not desire cure, but most do shun it, lest the ulcer should smart by medicaments ; therefore volentes curat, non astrin- git invitos ; he cures only the willing, does not compel those that are unwilUng ; they only receive health, who desire medicine 2. Evangelical grace, say they, is like a fountain standing openly, to which all men have free access ; at which all men may quench their thirst, if they will inquire after it, and go thereto. " The fountain of life," says Arnobius, " is open to all ; nor is any man hindered or driven from the right of drinking it 3." The covenant of grace is, say they, a door standing open to all, whereinto all have liberty to enter — " When an entrance," says St. Chrysos tom, " being opened to all, and there being nothing that hinders, some being wilfully naught abide without, they have no other but their own wickedness to impute their destruction unto4." And again he puts the question, " If Christ enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world, how is it that so many remain unen lightened ?" &c. To which he answers, That " if some, wUfully shutting the eyes of their minds, will not receive the beams of this light, it is not from the nature of light that those remain still in darkness, but from the wickedness of those who wilfully deprive themselves of the gift of it 5," &c. > Nunquid non medicus idcirco proponit in publico, ut omnes se ostendat velle salvare si velint. Ambr. i. torn. 2. 2 Venit — ut vulnera nostra curaret, sed quia non omnes medicinam expe- tunt, sed plerique refugiunt, ne medicamentis compungatur vis ulceris, ideo volentes, &c. Ambr. de David, iii. 11. 3 Patet omnibus fons vitas, neque ab jure potandi quisquam prohibetur, aut pellitur. Arnob. lib. 2. 4 "Orav Tr)g tiooSov irdaiv dvtipyukvng, Kai pnStvbg tov KiuXvovTog bvrog, i8tXoKaKr)oavrkg nvtg K,i>> pkvoiai, irap' ovSkva irtpov, dXX fj 7rapd tt)v oixtiav irovnpiav diroXXvvrai. Chrys. in Joh. i. Homil. 7 • 5 Ei QoitIZu wdvra dvBpioirov ipxoptvov tig rbv Koapov, irS>g d^ionirroi ptpt- vi,Kaai roaovroi ; oil ydp Sr) irdvrsg iirkyvioaav roE Xpiarov to ok/Sag' irSig ovv ipiaTiZu irdvra dvBpoiirov ; royt tig aiirbv i)kov ti St nvtg 'tKovrtg rovg rijg Siavoiag bipBaXpoig fivaavTig, oi)K iBkXnaav irapaSk%ao8ai tov Qtorbg tovtov rag aKnvag, oil irapd rr)v tov tptiirbg ipvoiv r) crKorwmg imivoig, dXXd irapd rr)v Ka- Kovpyiav tSiv tKovri diroortpoivTuiv tavrovg rijc Suiptag' r) piv ydp %api£ tig irdvrag iKKSxvrai — iravriiig Si buoiuig irpoaituivr) Kai ptrd rijc itnjf KaXovaa Ti/irjg' ol Si fir) SkXovrtg diroXavoai rijg Saiptag Tavrrig, iavroig SUaiot ravTr/v av iltv XoyioaaBai rr]v irripuxriv. Chrys. in Joh. i. Homil. 7 ¦ Universal Redemption. 639 St. Gregory Nazianzen resembles the grace of baptism (as to its community and freedom of use) to the breathing of the air, to the spreading of light, to the vicissitude of seasons, to the aspect of the creation J ; things most obvious and common to all. If this answer do not fully satisfy, I adjoin farther, 2. That God, beside that ordinary provision, is ready to inter pose extraordinarily in disclosing His truth to them who are worthy of such favour, and fit to receive it ; and that God's ge neral desire and design of revealing His truth to aU men is very weU consistent with His providential (not only negative and per missive, but even positive and active) withholding the discovery thereof from some persons, yea some nations; for that neither His wisdom, goodness, or justice might permit Him, that He should impart that revelation to such persons whom He sees alto gether indisposed to comply therewith, and unfit to profit thereby; who have extremely abused the lesser graces, and not improved or misimproved the lesser talents afforded them ; detained inferior truths in unrighteousness, and " have not liked to retain God in their knowledge2," have therefore justly been delivered up to a re probate sense ; who have so depraved their minds with wicked pre judices and affections, that the truth being offered to them, they would certainly either stupidly neglect it, or scornfully reject it; or if admitting it in show, would unworthily abuse it; so that from the imparting the means of knowing it, no glory to God, no benefit to man would accrue, but rather contempt of God and prejudice to men would ensue upon it: there are some persons of that wicked and gigantic disposition3, (contracted by evil prac tice,) that, should one offer to instruct them in truth, or move them to piety, would be ready to say with Polyphemus in Homer4, Njjmoc tig, ui %iiv', i) rrjXoBtv tiXrjXovBag, "Oe pt Stovg KtXtai i) StiSiutv, r) dXkaoBai. Friend, you are a fool, or a great stranger to me, Who advisest me to fear or regard the Deity. Or (which is the same) with Pharaoh : " Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice ? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go 5," (or neither will I do as you in God's name admonish 1 iig dkpog irvtvaiv, dig ipuirbg %««»", Kai uip&v dXXaydg, Kai KTiotiag Skav . Naz. Orat. 40. 2 Rom. i. 18. 28. 3 Isa. xxx. 10. 4 Odyss. ix. 273, 4. 5 Exod. v. 2. 15 640 DR. ISAAC BARROW. me;) who, like that unhappy prince1, by no efficacy of argu ments, no wonders of power are to be convinced of their folly, or converted from their wickedness : some, like those of Chorazin and Bethsaida2, whom not all the powerful discourses spoken to them, all the mighty works done in them, sufficient to have brought Tyre and Sidon to repentance, can induce to mind or obey the truth : unto which sort of people (except upon some particular occasions, and for special reasons) it is not expedient that divine truth should be exposed. We may also observe how our Lord being asked by St. Jude a question Uke to ours: " Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not to the world 3 ?" thus resolves it : " If a man love me, he will keep my words ; and my Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make our abode with him :" implying the ordinary reason of God's making a difference in the discoveries of Himself to be the previous disposition and behaviours of men toward God ; and interpretatively toward our Lord Himself. That God does commonly observe this method (plainly suitable to divine justice, wisdom, and goodness) to dispense the revela tion of His truth according to men's disposition to receive it, and aptness to make a fruitful and worthy use of it, " to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance 4," as St. John Baptist spake ; and to withhold it from those who are indisposed to admit it, or unfit to profit by it ; we may from divers express passages and notable instances (beside many probable intimations) of Scripture learn. We may on the one hand observe, that those whom our Saviour did choose to call, were persons disposed easily upon His call to comply; to forsake their fathers and their nets; to leave their receipts of custom; to relinquish all, (relations, occupations, estates,) and to follow Him6; faithful Israelites, without guile, like Nathanael, (that is, as is probably conjectured, St. Bartholo mew;) men honestly devout, and charitable, like Zaccheus; that He chose to converse with publicans and sinners, men apt to be convinced of their errors, and touched with the sense of their sins ; apt to see their need of mercy and grace, and therefore ready to entertain the overtures of them ; that he blesses God for revealing His mysteries to babes, (to innocent and well meaning, impre- 1 Prov. i. 24. 2 Luke x. 13. 3 John xiv. 22. 4 Matt. iii. 8. 1 Cor. xii. 7. 6 Matt. iv. 18. John i. 24. 37. Matt. xix. 27. John i. 47. Luke xix. 8, 9. Matt. xxi. 31. Luke v. 31. Universal Redemption. 641 judicate and uncorrupted persons,) such as if men were not, they could in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven, or become Christians ; those " poor in spirit, of whom is the kingdom of heaven 1 ;" those " foolish things 2 " which God chooses as most fit objects of His mercy and grace ; that He enjoined His disciples, in their travels for the promulgation and propagation of the Gospel, to inquire concerning the worthiness or fitness of per sons, and accordingly to make more close applications to them : " Into what city or village ye enter, inquire who therein is worthy 3 ;" and entering in abide there. Of this proceeding we have a notable instance in Cornelius, who for his honest piety (correspondent to the proportion of knowledge vouchsafed him) was so acceptable to God, that in regard thereto He obtained from him the revelation of truth in a peculiar and extraordinary manner. And St. Paul was another most remarkable example thereof; who for the Uke reason was so wonderfully called, as himself intimates, describing himself to have been ^i)Xwrr)e Qeov, " zealously affected toward God, according to the righteousness in the law, blameless ;" one that had " continually behaved him self with all good conscience toward God4;" who even in the per secution of God's truth did proceed with an honest meaning, and according to his conscience, for which cause he says, that God had mercy on him; foreseeing how wUlingly he would embrace the truth, and how earnestly promote it. We may also observe, how in the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit commonly directed the Apostles to such places, where a competent number of people were weU disposed to receive the truth 5 ; who were evBetoi Eig rfjv ^ao-iXsiav tov Qeov, " well disposed to the kingdom of hea ven 6," and consequently by God's foresight (TErayp.ivoi Eig £o>}jv aldjviov) " ordained to have the word of eternal life 7 " (the to o-wr7jptov Qeov, as it is in a parallel place called) discovered to them ; such people as the Bereans, men ingenuous and tractable ; who consequently entertained the word, fiEra. iraat]g irpoStv/iiag, with all promptitude and alacrity. To such persons God some times by extraordinary revelation directed the apostles to preach; as to the Corinthians, in respect to whom the Lord spake to St. Paul in a vision, saying " Fear not, but speak, and be not silent ; 1 Matt, xviii. 3. xix. 14. v. 3. 2 1 Cor. i. 27. 3 Matt. x. 11. 4 Acts xxii. 3. xxiii. 1. UtiroXiTtvpai. Phil. iii. 6. Acts xxvi. 9. Gal. i. 14. 5 Acts x-xvi. 1 Tim. i. 3. ° Luke ix. 62. 7 Acts xiii. 48. xvii. 11. xxviii. 28. VOL. III. T t 642 DR. ISAAC BARROW. for I am with thee, because iroXtic hart p.01 Xabg, there is for me much people in this city * ;" much people whom I see disposed to comply with my truth. So in behalf of the Macedonians, avi)p ng MaK£§wv, " a certain man of Macedonia 2," was in a vision seen to St. Paul, " exhorting him and saying, Passing into Ma cedonia, help us." Thus on that hand does God take special care that His truth be manifested to such as are fitly qualified to embrace it and use it well : thus is God ready to make good that answer of Pothinus (Bishop of Lyons, and immediate successor to St. Irenaeus) to be perfect, who asking him " who was the Chris tians' God," was answered, 'Eav yg a%iog yvojay, " If thou be worthy, thou shalt know 3 ;" thus, as the Wise Man divinely says, the divine wisdom, a^ioue airije irEpiipx^rai Zvrovo-a, " goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her; sheweth herself fa vourable unto them in their ways, and meeteth them in every thought4." And on the other hand, that God withholds the special dis coveries of His truth, upon account of men's indispositions and demerits, may likewise very plainly appear. We may suppose our Lord to have observed Himself, what He ordered to His disciples ; " Not to give that which is holy to dogs, nor to cast their pearls before swine 5," (not to expose the holy and precious truth to very lewd and fierce people, who would snarl at it and trample upon it:) we may allow God in His dispensation of His truth and grace to do what He bids the apostles to do : before he enters into any house, or applies himself to any person, to examine whether the house or person be worthy 6, that is, willing to receive him, and apt to treat him well ; if not, to decline them. Our Lord, we see, did leave even His own country 7, seeing men there were not disposed to use Him with due honour and regard ; seeing they were possessed with vain prejudices, apt to obstruct the efficacy of His divine instructions and miraculous perform ances ; so that He was not likely (according to the ordinary way of divine providence) to produce any considerable effect towards their conversion. " He could not," it is said, " do many miracles there; because of their unbelief;" He could not, that is, according to the most just and wise rules He did observe, He would not do 1 Acts xviii. 9, 10. 2 Acts xvi. 9. s Euseb. v. 1. 4 Wisd. vi. 16. 5 Matt. vii. 6. 6 '^Itrdltrt. Matt. x. 11. 7 Matt. xiii. 57, 58. Universal Redemption. 643 them ; because He perceived the doing them would not conduce to any good purpose ; that they were not apt to look upon those works as the effects of divine power and goodness, performed for their benefit, (for inducing them to faith and repentance,) but rather that the doing them would expose God's mercy to con tempt or reproach, at least to neglect or disregard. Hence our Saviour declined conversing with persons indisposed to (those xpvxinol, who cannot o^Eo-Sai fa rov TrvEvparog) receive benefit by His instruction and example 1 ; to grow wiser or better by His conversation; as the Pharisees and Scribes2; men prepos sessed with corrupt opinions and vicious affections, obstructive to the beUef of His doctrine and observance of His laws; and worldly persons ; proud and selfconceited, crafty and deceitful, covetous, ambitious, and worldly men, incorrigibly tinctured with that (ppovrifia Trig aapicbg, "carnal wisdom and affection3;" which " is enmity to God ; so that it is not subject to the law of God, nor can be 4 ;" inextricably engaged in the friendship of the world, which is enmity to God : to such men the Gospel would certainly be a scandal or a folly : they would never be able to relish or digest the doctrine of purity, self-denial, patience, and the like doctrines opposite to carnal sense and conceit which it teaches5. From such wise and prudent men 6 (conceited of their little wisdoms, and doting upon their own fancies) God did con ceal those heavenly mysteries, which they would have despised and derided : those " many wise according to the flesh, many powerful, many noble 7," God did not choose to call into His Church. Accordingly we may observe in the history of the apostles, that God's Spirit did prohibit the apostles passing through some places, it discerning how unsuccessful (at those seasons, in those circumstances, according to those dispositions of men) their preaching would be : " Passing through Phrygia and Galatia, being hindered by the Spirit to speak the word in Asia ; coming to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spi rit suffered them not 8." Moreover there is plainly the like reason, why God should withhold His saving truth from some people, as why he should withdraw it from others ; when it is abused, or proves fruitless : 1 1 Cor. ii. 14. 2 Matt. xxi. 31. 3 Rom. viii. 7- 4 James iv. 4. 1 John ii. 15. 5 1 Cor. i. 23. 6 Matt. xi. 25. 7 1 Cor. i. 26. James ii. 5. 8 Acts xvi. 6, 7- T t2 644 DR. ISAAC BARROW. but of such withdrawing we have many plain instances, attended with the declaration of the reasons of them. Our Lord pro phesied thus concerning the Jews ; " I say unto you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation doing the fruits thereof1;" they, when our Saviour would have gathered them under His wings, wilfully refusing. Our Lord charged His disciples 2, when by any they were repulsed or neglected in their preaching, to leave those persons and places, " shaking off the dust from their feet 3," in token of an utter (slg fiaprvpiov ejt avrovg) detestation and desertion of them : and ac cordingly we see them practising in their acts ; when they per ceived men perversely contradictious, or desperately senseless and stupid, so that they clamoured against the Gospel, and thrust it from them, they abstained from farther dealing with them, turning their endeavours otherwhere, toward persons of a more docile and ingenuous temper ; thence more susceptive of faith and repen tance : " To you," say Paul and Barnabas to the contradicting and reproachful Jews, " it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken ; but seeing you put it from you, (or thrust it away from you, oVwSeio-Se ai)Tov,) and judge your selves unworthy of everlasting life, we turn to the Gentiles 4." So when the Church of Ephesus ° was grown cold in charity, and deficient in good works, God threatens to remove her candle stick ; or to withdraw from her that light of truth, which shone with so little beneficial influence. It seems evident that God for the like reasons may withhold the discovery of His truth, or for bear to interpose His providence 6, so as to transmit light thither, where men's deeds are so evil, that they will love darkness rather than Ught ; where their eyes are so dim and weak, that the light will but offend, and by the having it, hurt them ; where they, by the having it declared to them, will only incur farther mischief and misery: it would prove to them but do~p.rj Savarov, a "deadly scent 7," as the most comfortable perfumes are offensive sometimes and noxious to distempered bodies. Wherefore as where the light does shine most clearly, it is men's voluntary pravity, that by it many are not effectually brought to salvation ; so it is men's voluntary depraving and corrupting themselves, (misusing their 1 Matt. xxi. 43. 2 Matt. x. 14. 3 Luke ix. 5. Acts xiii. 51. xviii. 6. 4 Acts xiii. 46. xxviii. 26. 5 Rev- ii. 5. 6 Kai yap Tag «5f (ipaai) rb pvpov irviyti. Chrys. John iii. 19. 7 2 Cor. ii. 16. Universal Redemption. 645 natural light, choking the seeds of natural ingenuity, thwarting God's secret whispers and motions, complying with the sug gestions of the Wicked One,) so as to be rendered unmeet for the susception of God's heavenly truth and grace, which hinders God (who proceeds ordinarily with men, in sweet and reasonable me thods, not in way of impetuous violence and coaction) from dis pensing them. We may say of such in the words of the prophet, " They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations l." " Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you 2." TrJ kavTOii ayaSroTtin irciaiv 6 Kvpiog EyyiZ,Ei' paKpiivopEv Se kavTovg ijpsic Bid Ti)g apaprfac, " God doth by His goodness approach to all, but we set ourselves at distance by sin3," says St. Basil ; and tiirov ai>ro7rpoaipEToe irovr\pia, ekeI koX airoxi) rrig x&pirog, "where there is self-chosen or affected wickedness, there is a withholding of grace," says another Fa ther, (apud Cyrill. Hier.) The " Gospel, if it be hidden," it is, as St. Paul says, "hidden Iv toic cnroXXvpEvoig, in viris perditis, among lost men4," that is, men desperately gone in wickedness, incorrigible, unreclaimable people, " in whom the God of this world" (that is, as St. Chrysostom expounds it", not the devil, but the good God Himself) " hath blinded the minds of them which believe not," so that the light of the glo rious Gospel has not shined to them, (nru>g ovv etu^Xwo-ev; "how then did God blind them?" says St. Chrysostom,) ovk IvEpyrio-ag Eig tovto, airayE' " not by any efficacy of His upon them toward that ; fie on that ; a'XX' dfelg Kai o-vyx«»prio-ag, but by permission and concession ;" for so the Scripture is wont to speak; 'E?r£t8av yap avro). riiriorrio-av Trpwroi, Kai dva%iovg havrovg KaTEOKEvaaav tov iSeXv tci pvarripia, Kai avrbg Xomtov Eiao-EV" dXXa ti eSei Troirjo-at; 7rpoe |3iav eXkeiv, Kai EKKaXu7rr£iv pi) /3ouXoptvoie iSeiv ; dXXa. fiaXXov av KaTEp6vr)aav, Kai oiik av tiSov. " Seeing," says he, " they disbelieved first, and consti tuted themselves unworthy to see the mysteries, even God at last let them alone ; for what should He have done ? Should He have drawn them violently, and discovered it to them being unwiUing to see ? They would then have more despised it, and i Isaiah lxvi. 3. 2 Jer. v. 25. 3 Bas. in Psalm xxxiii. 4 2 Cor. iv. 3. 5 Eig rb pr) aiydaai avroig. Chrys. in 2 Cor. iv. 4. 646 DR. ISAAC BARROW. not have seen it. God is ever willing and ready to dispense His mercies and favours, but He is not wont to do it extraordinarily ', (or beside the course of his ordinary provision,) but in a proper and fit season, (in that naipbg £wpoo-§£Kroc, "acceptable time and day of salvation," when He sees men capable of receiving them;) which season commonly depends upon man's will and choice, or the results of them. KadoXov yap b Qsbg oIBev rovg te a^iovg rwn dyadwv Kai pri' o8ev to. TTporrfiKOVTa EKaaTOig cloioo-iv. Sai7r)p yap eotiv' oiiy_i tujv piv, twv §' oh' irpbg 01) oo-ov ettittioeio- Tt\Tog EKao-rog e?y.ev, rrjv kavrov BiIvei/iev evEpyEoiav' J for (says Clemens Alexandrinus in his 7th of the Stromata, where he clearly and fully affirms our present doctrine), " Our Lord is not the Sa viour of some and not of others : but, according as men are fitly disposed, He has distributed His beneficence to all." St. Augustine himself somewhere speaks no less ; or rather more : " Pracedit aliquid in peccatoribus," says he, " quo, quamvis nondum sint jus- tificati, digni efficiantur justificatione : et idem pracedit in aliis peccatoribus quo digni sint obtusione 3." But, 3. If all these considerations do not thoroughly satisfy us con cerning the reason of God's proceedings in this case, we may consider that God's providence is inscrutable and impenetrable to us ; that, according to the Psalmist, as " God's mercy is in the heavens, and his faithfulness reaches to the clouds 4 ;" so, " his righteousness is like the great mountains, (too high for our reason to climb,) and his judgments," iroXXrj d(3vo-o-og, a great abyss, too deep for our feeble understanding to fathom ; that His ways are more subtile and spiritual than to be traced by our dim and gross sight. So upon contemplation of a like case, although, as it seems, hardly so obscure or unaccountable as this, the case con cerning God's conditional rejection of that people, whom He in a special manner had so much and so long favoured, St. Paul himself does profess 5. That therefore, although we cannot fully resolve the difficulty, we notwithstanding without distrust should adhere to those positive and plain declarations, whereby God represents Himself seriously designing and earnestly desiring, " That all men should come to the knowledge of the truth ; that 1 Luke xix. 44. 2 Cor. vi. 2. Rom. xiii. 11. 2 Clem. Strom, vii. p. 105. 3 Quaest. 68. e Qusest. 83. Tom. iv. part i. Venit. de occultissimis meritis, &c. Ibid. 4 Psalm xxxvi. 6. 5 Rom. xi. 33. Universal Redemption. 647 none should perish, but that all should come to repentance l ;" not doubting but His declared mind, and His secret providence, although we cannot thoroughly discern or explain their consis tency, do yet really and fully conspire. — But no farther at this time. PART IV. 8. As our Saviour was such to all men by His doctrine, or the general discovery of all saving truth ; so may He be esteemed such in regard to His exemplary practice ; whereby upon the open stage of the world, and in the common view of all that would attend unto Him, He did represent a living pattern of all goodness; by imitating which, we may certainly attain salvation. — -He that wiU consider His practice, shall find it admirably fitted for general instruction and imitation ; calculated for all places and all sorts of people ; suited to the complexions, to the capacities, to the degrees, to the calUngs of all men ; so that every sort of men may from it draw profitable direction, may in it find a copy, even of his particular behaviour : for He was a great Prince, illustrious in birth, excellent in glory, and abounding in aU wealth ; yet was born in obscurity, lived without pomp, and seemed to possess nothing; so teaching men of high rank to be sober, mUd, and humble ; riot to rest in, not to regard much, not to hug and cling to the accommodations and shows of worldly state; teaching those of mean degree to be patient, content, and cheerful in their station. He was exceedingly wise and knowing, without bound or measure ; yet made no ostentation of extraor-. dinary knowledge, of sharp wit, of deep subtilty ; did not vent high, dark, or intricate notions ; had in His practice no reaches and windings of craft or policy; but was in His doctrine very plain and intelligible, in His practice very open and clear ; so that what He commonly said or did, * not only philosophers and statesmen, but almost the simplest idiots might easily compre hend ; so that those might thence learn not to be conceited of their superfluous wisdom ; these not to be discouraged in their harmless ignorance; both having thence an equally sufficient 1 2 Pet. iii. 9. 648 DR. ISAAC BARROW. instruction 'in all true righteousness, a complete direction in the paths to happiness, being thereby o~oiZ6pEvoi slg awrripiav, made wise and learned to salvation \ He did not immerse Himself in the cares, nor engage Himself into the businesses of this world ; yet did not withdraw Himself from the company and conversa tion of men : He retired often from the crowd, that He might converse with God and heavenly things ; He put Himself into it, that He might impart good to men, and benefit the world ; de clining no sort of society, but indifferently conversing with aU ; disputing with the doctors, and eating with the publicans; whence thereby both men of contemplative and quiet dispositions or vocations, and men of busy spirits, or of active lives, may be guided respectively ; those not to be morose, supercilious, rigid, contemptuous toward other men ; these not to be so possessed or entangled with the world, as not to reserve some leisure for the culture of their minds, not to employ some care upon the duty of piety and devotion ; both may learn, whether in private retire ments, or in public conversation and employment, especially to regard the service of God and the benefit of men. Thus was the example of our Lord accommodated for all men ; especially conducting them in the hardest and roughest parts of the way leading to bliss, the acclivities and asperities of duty ; self-denial, or neglect of worldly glory and fleshly pleasure, patience, humi lity, general charity; showing us the possibility of performing such duties, and encouraging us thereto. Through these difficult and dangerous passages (as a resolute chieftain of life) He un dauntedly marched before us, charging, beating back, and break ing through all opposite forces, all enemies, all temptations, all obstacles 2 ; enduring painfully the most furious assaults of the world; boldly withstanding and happily conquering the most malicious rage of heU ; so that victory and salvation we shaU be certain of, if we pursue His steps, and do not basely (out of faint- ness or falsehood) desert so good a leader 3 ; we shall not fail of the unfading crown, if " with patience we run the race that is set before us, looking unto the Captain and Perfecter of our faith, Jesus, who, for the joy proposed unto him, endured the cross, despised the shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God *." Would it not raise and inflame any courage 1 2 Tim. iii. 15. 2 'Apxnybg Zuiijg. Acts iii. 15. 3 1 Pet. ii. 21. 4 Heb. xii. 2. 1 Pet. v. 4. ' Apapavnvov rrjg Sotyg UTtipavov — ortyavog '£air)g. Rev. ii. 10. Jam. i. 12. Universal Redemption. 649 to see his commander to adventure so boldly upon all hazards, to endure so willingly all hardships ? Whom would not the sight of such a forerunner animate and quicken in his course 1 ; who, by running in the straight way of righteousness with alacrity and constancy, has obtained himself a most glorious crown, and holds forth another like thereto, for the reward of those who follow him ? Thus as our Lord's doctrine, so did His example, in the nature and design thereof, respect and appertain to all men, it being also like the light of heaven, a common spectacle, a public guide, " to guide our steps in the way of peace :" if it do not appear so, if it do not effectually direct all, it is by accident and beside God's intention : it is by the fault of them who should pro pound it, or of them who have not eyes fit or worthy to behold it; — briefly, what was said concerning the universal revelation of Christian doctrine may be appUed to Christ's practice. 9. Jesus is " the Saviour of all men," as having combated and vanquished all the enemies of man's welfare and happiness ; dis possessing them of all their pretences and usurpations over man, disarming them of all their power and force against him ; enabling us to withstand and overcome them. — Man's salvation has many adversaries of different nature and kind ; some directly oppugning it, some formally prejudicing it, some accidentaUy hindering it ; some alluring, some forcing, some discouraging from it, or from the means conducing to it : the chief of them we may from the Scripture (with consent of experience) reckon to be the devil, with all his envy and maUce, his usurpations, his delusions, and his temptations to sin ; the world, with its snares and baits, its violences, persecutions, and menaces ; the flesh, or natural con cupiscence, with its bad inclinations and propensities to evil, its lusts and pleasures; sin, with its guilt, and mischievous conse quences ; the law, with its rigorous exactions, hard measure, and harsh boding ; conscience, with its accusations and complaints, its terrors and anguishes; divine anger, with its effects, death and hell. AU these our Lord has in several and suitable ways de feated ; as to their malignity, contrariety, or enmity in respect of man's salvation 2 ; He has, as Zachariah prophesies in his Bene- dictus, " saved us from our enemies, and from the hands of all that hate us : so that being delivered out of the hands of our 1 UpoSpopog. Heb. vi. 20. 2 — o Xpiarbg ovSiv rijg iSiag iroirjotuig irpooKarkXurt Tip dpxovn roii xoapov tovtov. Athan. contra Apoll. p. 628. 650 DR. ISAAC BARROW. enemies, we might (aif>6(3wg) safely and securely, without danger or fear, serve him, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life 1." The " devil," (that enemy, that adversary, that accuser, that slanderer, that murderer, that greedy lion, that crafty serpent, the strong one, the mischievous one, the destroyer,) who usurped an authority, and exercised a domination over mankind, as " the prince of this world 2;" who made prize of them, " captivated them at his pleasure 3 ;" who detained them under the power (or authority) of darkness and wickedness ; who had the power of death ; him our Saviour has destroyed or defeated, (Karripytio-Evi as the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks ; that is, abolished him as to any farther pretence of empire or power over us;) him He has dejected from heaven, (" I saw Satan like lightning faUing down from heaven;") him "he has cast out: Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out : all his works he has dissolved 4." " For this cause," says St. John, " the Son of God did appear, that he might dissolve the works of the devil5." He combated " this strong one," (this mighty and dreadful foe of ours,) and baffled him, and bound him, and dis armed him, (taking away 7ravo7rXiav avrov, " the whole armour" in which he trusted,) and " spoiled him," (ra o-keu'tj Bifipirao-E, " rifled all his baggage 6," bare away all his instruments of mis chief,) and plundered all his house; leaving him unable (without our fault, our baseness, our negligence) to do us mischief, (as is intimated in the 12th of St. Matthew, and 11th of St. Luke;) yea, " he triumphed over "' all those infernal principalities and powers, and exposed them, as St. Paul says : He imparted to His disciples ability to " trample upon aU his power," by Him all His followers are so fortified as " to conquer the wicked one," as St. John says : He affords light to discover " all his wiles and snares," strength and courage " to withstand all his assaults, to repel all his fiery darts, to put him to flight." 1 Luke i. 71. 74. 2 Matt. xiii. 28. Luke xi. 19. 1 Pet. v. 8. 3 Dragon, Rev. xii. 3, &c. Acts x. 38. 1 John ii. 14. " Rev. xii. 9- John xii. 31. xiv. 30. xvi. 11. Ephes. ii. 2. vi. 12. 2 Cor. iv. 4. Coloss. i. 13. Acts xxvi. 18. x. 38. 2 Tim ii. 26 Heb. ii. 14. Luke x. 18. John xii. 31. xvi 11. 5 1 John iii. 8. Matt. xii. 29. 6 Luke xi. 21, 22. 7 Coloss. ii. 15. iStiyadno-tv, Luke x. 19. 1 John ii. 14. Eph. vi. 11. 2 Cor. ii. 11. Eph. vi. 16. 1 Pet. v. 9. Eph. iv. 27. Jam. iv. 7. Universal Redemption. 651 The "world" also (that is, the wicked principles, the bad customs, the naughty conversation and example which commonly prevail here among men ; alluring to evil and deterring from good ; the cares also, the riches, the pleasures, the glories of the world, which possess or distract the minds, satiate and cloy the desires, employ all the affections and endeavours, take up the time of men ; all in the world which fastens our hearts to earth, and to these low transitory things ; or which sink them down toward hell ; and which detain them from soaring toward heaven) is an enemy, an irreconcileable enemy to our salvation ; the friendship thereof being inconsistent with a friendship in us toward the God of our salvation ; or in Him toward us : for " the friendship of the world is enmity with God1;" and, "If any man love the world, the friendship of the Father is not in him 2." And this enemy our Lord has vanquished, and enabled us to overcome. " Be of courage," says He, " I have overcome the world 3 :" He, by a constant self-denial and temperance, defeated the bewitching pleasures and flattering glories of it; He, by an immoveable patience, baffled the terrible frowns and outrageous violences of it; He, by a resolute and invincible maintenance of truth, in great measure routed and dissipated the errors and oppositions thereof; He, by a general and intense charity, surmounted the provocations, envies, and enmities thereof; He did it Himself for us, and He also enabled us to do it ; furnishing us with sufficient strength, and fit weapons, whereby we may combat and conquer it ; may sustain and repel its force ; may shun and elude its baits ; for, " every one that (by faith in Him) is born of God, doth overcome the world : and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith : Who is he that overcomes the world, but he who beUeves that Jesus is the Son of God l ?" In all these things, (that is, in whatever concerns the world and its enmity ; " tribu lation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword) we are," says St. Paul, " more than conquerors through him that loves us; thanks be to God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ \" Our Lord has procured for us hopes that wUl raise our minds and affections above the world ; objects employing our care and endeavour far beyond it ; satis factions that will cheer our hearts, and satiate our desires without 1 Jam. iv. 4. 2 1 John. ii. 1 5. 3 John xvi. 33. 4 1 John v. 4, 5. 5 Rom. viii. 38. 2 Cor. ii. 14. Phil. i. 28. 652 DR. ISAAC BARROW. it; comforts that will support and sustain our spirits against all the terrors, all the assaults, all the evils thereof; by His means it is, that we have no reason either to love it, or to fear it, or to value it, or to be concerned about it ; but to contemn it as a thing unworthy of us and below us. The " flesh1 " also (that is, all that within us of bodily temper, or natural constitution, which inclines and sways us to vicious excess in sensual enjoyments ; which disposes us to the inordinate love of ourselves, and of other creatures ; which " lusts against the spirit," and is adversary thereto ; which blinds and darkens our minds in the apprehension of our judgment concerning divine things2; which perverts and disables (enfeebles) our wills in the choice and prosecution of what is good ; which discomposes and disorders the affections and passions of our soul; which con tinually entices and seduces us to sin) is also an enemy ; a very powerful, very treacherous, very dangerous, and very mischievous enemy to us and our welfare; rendering us -enemies to God, (for «' the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be,) being another law in our members, warring against the law of our mind, and captivating us to the law of sin 3 ;" engendering and fostering those " fleshly lusts which war against the soul 4 ;" whose works and fruits are all sorts of intemperance, impurity, pride, envy, contentiousness : — this capital enemy of ours our Lord did in His own person first subdue, rejecting all the suggestions and thwarting the impulses thereof; entirely submitting to and performing the will of God ; even in willingly drinking that cup, which was so distasteful, so grievous to natural will and fleshly desire. He so conquered the flesh in Himself for us ; He also conquers it in us, by the guid ance and assistance of His grace enabling us to withstand it, and to overcome it 5. " The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus," says St. Paul, " hath freed me from the law of sin and death 6." He infuses a Ught discussing those fogs which stream from carnal sense and appetite ; so that we may clearly discern divine truths, the will of God, the way to happiness : He inserts principles of ' Gal. v. 24. ' 1 Cor. ii. 14. Matt. xxvi. 41. Gal. v. 17. Rom. vii. 18, 19. Jam. i. 14. 3 Rom. viii. 7- Rom. vii. 23. 1 Pet. ii. 11. Gal. v. 19. 1 Cor. iii. 3. « Col. iii. 5. '¦> Luke xxii. 42. Matt. xxvi. 39. John xvii. 19. Heb. ii. 10. 6 Rom. viii. 2. Universal Redemption. 653 spiritual life and strength, counterpoising and overswaying corpo real and sensual propensions ' ; so that we can restrain sensual desires, and compose irregular passions, and submit readUy to God's will, and observe cheerfully God's law, and freely comply with the dictates of the -Spirit, or of right reason ; He so continu ally aids, encourages, and upholds us, that we " can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth2" us; so that by His power and help " the flesh with its affections and lusts are crucified ; the earthly members are mortified; the old man (which was cor rupted according to deceitful lusts) is put off; the body of sin is so destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin ; sin doth not reign in our mortal bodies, so that we (must) obey it in the lusts . thereof; we are renewed in the spirit of our minds; and do put on the new man, which is created according to God in righteous ness and true hoUness 3." Our " sins" also are very grievous enemies of ours, loading us with heavy guilt, stinging us with bitter remorse and anxious fear, keeping us under miserable bondage, exposing us to extreme mischief and misery 4 ; them our Lord has also routed and van quished. — In regard to this performance was the name Jesus assigned to Him; as the angel told Joseph: " She shall bear a Son, and thou shalt caU his name Jesus, for he shall save his peo ple from their sins s :" [" From their sins ;" taking in all the causes and the consequences of them ; from all those spiritual enemies which draw us, or drive us into them ; from the guilt and obnoxiousness to punishment, the terror and anguish of con science, the wrath and displeasure of God following upon them, the slavery under their dominion, the final condemnation and suf ferance of grievous pains for them 6 ;] the guilt of sin He par ticularly freed us from ; for " he loved us, and washed us from 1 2 Cor. iv. 6. 1 Cor. ii. 15. 1 John ii. 27. Eph. v. 8. Rom. xii. 2. 1 John v. 3. Phil. ii. 13. 2 Phil. iv. 13. 3 2 Cor. iii. 5. Heb. xiii. 21. Gal. v. 24. Coloss. iii. 5. ii. 11. Eph. iv. 22. Rom. vi. 6. 12. viii. 13. Heb. xii. 1. Eph. iv. 23. ii. 10. Coloss. iii. 10. 4 Heb. xii. 4. ITpoc rr)v dpapriav dvTayuiviZofitvoi. 5 Matt. i. 21. 1 Tim. i. 15. 6 'O Xpiarbg b vibg tov Otov b Kvpiog nprnv Tip ykvu rHv dvBpiliiruiv Sid rov iSiov irdBovg irXripioraTriv dirkSoiKt t>)v aiarnpiav, "iva '6Xov rbv dvBpuiirov raig auapriaig ivixoptvov irdarig auapriag iXtvBtpiboy. Damasus Epist. apud Theod. v. 9. 654 DR. ISAAC BARROW. our sins in his own blood V Christ died for sinners, (for us then being sinners,) that is, that He might deliver us from our sins, with all their causes, adjuncts, and consequences. " He bare our sins in his own body on the tree ; the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin ; he is the propitiation for our sins, and for the sins of the whole world ; he was manifested to take away our sins ; once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin (eig aOiTrio-iv apaprlag, to the abolition of sin) by the sacrifice of himself2;" we are "justified freely by God's grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ; by his obedience many are constituted righteous3, (or free from the guilt and imputation of sin;) he justifies the ungodly; covering their sins, and not im puting them unto them 4." So does He wipe away the guilt of sin ; and He voids the condemnation passed for them ; for " there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus; who is there that can condemn, since Christ hath died, or rather hath risen again 5 ?" He has also appeased God's wrath for sin, and removed the effects of it, (the punishment and vengeance due to sin and threatened for it:) so that "being enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son ; being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ ;" Jesus is the 6 pvopevog, " who delivers us from the wrath to come ; being justified by his blood, we shall be saved by him from wrath6." The strength and dominion of sin He has also broken, by the grace afforded us, whereby we are able to resist and avoid it; so that " sin henceforth shall not domineer over us, or reign in our mortal body : Being freed from sin, we are enslaved to righteous ness, and made servants to God. The body of sin is destroyed, so that we no longer serve sin 7." Whence, consequently, He has subdued, utterly weakened, or quite destroyed (as to any force or mischievous influence upon us) those other adversaries, which depend upon sin, and by its power oppose and afflict us. Our " conscience" is such an enemy accusing us, condemning 1 Rev. i. 5. 1 Pet. i. 19. 2 1 Pet. ii. 24. iii. 18. 1 John i. 7. ii. 2. iii. 5. iv. 10. Heb. i. 3. ix. 26. 28. 3 Rom. iii. 24. v. 19 * Rom. iv. 5 — 7- 5 Rom. viii. 1. 34. 6 Rom. v. 10. 1. 1 Thess. i. 10. Rom. v. 9. 7 Rom. vi. 14. 12. 18. 22. 6. 15 Universal Redemption. 655 us, vexing us with the memory and sense of sin ; suggesting to us the depth of our guilt, and the danger of our state, terrifying us with the expectation of punishment and vengeance: — but our Lord (by securing us of mercy and favour upon repentance and sincere obedience) has silenced and stilled this adversary; has, " by his blood," as the Apostle to the Hebrews says, " purged our conscience from dead works; hath delivered them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bond age ' ;" so that thence we obtain a steady peace of mind, a joyful satisfaction in the service of God, a comfortable hope of future bliss : " peace, comfort, and joy 2," are the adjuncts of that state He shaU put us into, and the fruits of that Spirit He bestows on us. The law also (in its rigour, as requiring exact obedience, and as denouncing vengeance to them who in any point violate it) is, by reason of our weakness and inability so perfectly to observe it, an enemy to us; justifying no man, perfecting no man, caus ing, increasing, aggravating 3, " quickening, declaring sin ; yield ing occasion to sin of killing us, working wrath, ministering death and condemnation, subjecting us to a curse 4," as St. Paul teaches us : but our Lord, by mitigating and abating the extreme rigour thereof, by procuring an acceptance of sincere (though not accurate) obedience, by purchasing and dispensing pardon for transgression thereof upon repentance, by conferring competent strength and abiUty to perform it in an acceptable degree, has brought under this adversary ; has " redeemed us from the curse of the law ; hath justified and imputed righteousness to us with out the works of the law "," (without such punctual performances as the law exacts:) we are "delivered from the law, (as to those effects of it; the condemning, discouraging, enslaving us,) we cease to be under the law, (in those respects,) being under grace, being led by the Spirit," as St. Paul tells us. The law indeed is still our rule, our guide, our governor ; we are obliged to follow and obey it ; but it ceases to be a tyrant over us, a tormenter of us. Death is also an enemy, ("The last enemy," says St. Paul, 1 Heb. ix. 14. ii. 15. 2 Rom. xv. 13. xiv. 17. Gal. v. 22. 3 Gal. ii. 16. iii. 11. Heb. vii. 19. Rom. x. 5. viii. 3. Gal. iii. 12. v. 3. 4 Rom. vii. 13. iv. 15. iii. 20. v. 20. vii. 7, 8. 10, 11. 1 Cor. xv. 56. 2 Cor. iii. 7- 9. 5 Gal. iii. 13. Rom. iii. 21. 28. iv. 6. vii. 6. 4. vi. 14. Gal. v. 18. 656 DR. ISAAC BARROW. " which shall be destroyed is death1,") the enemy, which natu rally we most fear and abominate ; that which would utterly destroy us. This enemy our Lord has vanquished and destroyed : by His death and resurrection He opened the way to a happy immor tality ; " he abolished death, and brought life and immortaUty to light by the Gospel : He by his death defeated him that had the power of death ; and delivered them, who by fear of death were through their whole life subject to bondage2;" He pulled out sin, which is the sting of death, and reversed the sentence of con demnation, to which we all stood obnoxious. " The wages of sin (that which we had deserved, and was by law due to us for it) was death ; but the gift of God is everlasting Ufe, by Jesus Christ our Lord 3." Lastly, hell, (that is, utter darkness, extreme discomfort, intol erable and endless misery,) the most dismal of all enemies, our Lord has, by the virtue of His merits, and the power of His grace, put us into a capacity of avoiding : " He hath," as St. Paul before told us, " delivered us from the wrath to come. O Hell, where is thy victory ? Death and hell shall be cast into the lake of fire4." Thus has our Lord in our behalf vanquished and defeated every thing that is opposite or prejudicial to our salvation and welfare. — Many indeed of these things do in a more immediate, more peculiar, and more signal manner concern the faithful mem bers of the Christian Church, and are directly applied to them ; yet all of them in some sort, according to God's design, and in respect to a remote capacity, may be referred to all men. They are benefits which God intended for all men, and which all men (if they be not faulty and wanting to themselves) may obtain. — How they more especiaUy appertain to the faithful, we may show afterward. ' 1 Cor. xv. 26. 2 Acts ii. 24. 1 Cor. xv. 20. Acts xxvi. 23. Col. i. 18. Rev. i. 5. Acts iii. 15. 'Apxijyde Zioijg. 2 Tim. i. 10. Heb. ii. 14. 3 Rom. vi. 23. 4 1 Thess. i. 10. 1 Cor. xv. 55. Rev. xx. 14. Universal Redemption. 657 APPLICATION. 1. Hence arises great matter and cause of glorifying God, — both from the thing itself and its extent ; for the magnitude of beneficence is to be estimated, not only according to the degree of quality, but according to its amplitude of object : to redeem any does signify goodness, to redeem many does increase it, to redeem all does advance it to the highest pitch; the more are obliged, the greater is the glory due to the benefactor. Hence the " earth being full of the goodness of the Lord, the Lord being gracious unto aU, and his mercy being over all his works," all creatures partaking of God's bounty is so often in sisted upon in those divine hymns, as a ground of praise to God. Some do indeed speak of glorifying God for His discriminating grace, as if grace the narrower it were the better it were : but is not selfishness and envy at the bottom of this ? Is not this the disposition of those in the Gospel, who murmured, " is thine eye evil because mine is good ?" It is dangerous to restrain God's benevolence and beneficence within bounds narrower than they really are; thereby diminishing His glory. 2. Hereby is discovered the general obligation of men to love God ; to praise Him, to serve Him in sense of His goodness, in regard to His beneficence, out of gratitude toward Him. If God has been so kindly affected toward men, and so careful of their welfare, as for procuring and promoting their salvation to provide a Saviour for them, to design His own beloved Son to that per formance, in prosecution thereof depressing Him into so low a state, exposing Him to such inconveniences and indignities, such crosses and afflictions, — how much are then all men obliged to love Him, as their gracious friend and benefactor ; to praise and celebrate Him for His favour and mercy ; to render all blessings and thanks, unto Him 1 ? This certainly is the duty of all, if the redemption in God's design reach to all ; otherwise in reality it lies on few, in practice it could scarce touch any. They cannot be obliged to thank God for their redemption, who are not obliged to Him for the thing itself; they cannot heartily resent 1 Rev. v. 9. Eph. i. 6. Col. i. 12. vol. in. u u 658 DR. ISAAC BARROW. the kindness, who are not assured that it extends to them ; and to such assurance (according to the doctrine of particular redemp tion) it is certain that very few men, especially of the best men, can arrive; — it is a question whether any men arrive thereto. According to the sense of aU men, it is also no easy thing to know certainly, whether a man at present be in the state of grace ; and he that does not know that cannot (except upon the score of general redemption) be assured that he is redeemed; and therefore cannot thank God. It has been the common doctrine of Christendom for fifteen hundred years together, that no man (without a special revela tion) can in this life be assured of his perseverance, and, conse quently, not of his salvation; and consequently not of his election or redemption, in case only they who are saved are in the design of God redeemed : no man, therefore, without that special revela tion, can thank God heartily for his redemption, as being uncer tain thereof, it being a secret reserved in God's breast. It is yet a farther difficulty, supposing a man to have a good assurance of his present state, to be assured of his final perse verance in it ; which he that has not, cannot (except upon the said score) thank God for it. The best men especially, who, out of modesty and humility, are apt to doubt of their present state; who, studying their hearts, and discovering many imperfections in themselves; who, reflect ing on their lives, and observing in them many defects, are apt to question whether they are qualified for God's favour, or fitted for the future account and enjoyment of heaven ; who, consider ing the treachery of their hearts, the feebleness of their reason, that unsteadiness of their resolution, will be apt to fear they may fall away, will be rendered hence uncapable to give God thanks for their redemption : only the bold and blind bayards (who usually out of self-conceit are so exceedingly confident of their election and salvation) will be able to praise God for it. Hence the assurance of salvation happening to few, and of them to much fewer upon good grounds ; it being necessary to none, it being perhaps (yet far more probably, according to the general sense of Christendom) groundless to any ; few or none are capable to render God praise and thanks for it ; so shall He lose in effect all thanks for the greatest benefit He did ever confer on mankind. Universal Redemption. 659 It is, therefore, a dangerous opinion, which checks their grati tude, which stops their mouths from praising God, which so de prives God of His due praise. It is much more safe to praise God for the benefits we conceive we have, but have not, than to neglect to praise Him for that we have. 3. This doctrine does afford great matter of comfort. If a man reflecting on his own heart and ways (observing in them many blemishes and defects) is apt to be discouraged, yet it will raise him to consider that he is not thereby excluded from a possibility of salvation, seeing he is assured of God's favourable inclination, and who has expressed so much good-will and favour toward him in his redemption; seeing he is persuaded that he has a Saviour so kindly and pitifully affected toward him ; who wishes him well ; who is concerned in his salvation, that he might not be crossed or defeated in his designs, that he might not lose the effects of his endeavours, the price of His blood. But he that sees himself in so doubtful a condition, as to his own qualifica tions, and withal has no assurance that God was ever graciously disposed toward him, cannot but thereby be much discouraged. This doctrine, therefore, is safe and useful; it can do no man harm — it may do him great good, by giving him hopes of being assisted and accepted by his Redeemer. But the other is dan gerous, as tending to discourage and deject men. 4. This doctrine is a great incitement to the performance of duty, both as working upon men's ingenuity, and disposing them in gratitude to serve God, from the resentment of their obliga tion for so great a favour, and as assuring them of acceptance in case of endeavour to obey. How can he but be moved will ingly to serve God, who has an apprehension of God's such merciful design to save him? of His having done so much in order thereto ? But how can he be moved to serve God in consideration of such a benefit, who is ignorant of its being intended him ? How can any man apply himself cheerfully to serve that master, whose favourable inclination toward him, whose readiness to accept his service, he doubts of? The apostles propound it as a ground of gratitude, and an obligation to the performance of duty, that they are redeemed by Christ 1, which supposes they do all know and believe it. 1 1 Cor. vi. 20. 1 Pet. i. 17. 660 DR. ISAAC BARROW. Supposing Christ is not the Redeemer of all, but of those only who shall be finally saved, these grounds of thankfulness and enforcements of duty cannot properly or pertinently respect all Christians, and indeed only those who are sure of their sal vation. My thanking Christ for His redeeming me, my diligently serving Him as my Redeemer, supposes my opinion, and is grounded upon the truth of His being reaUy so: — I cannot heartily, confidently, or comfortably do it, except I know it, and am assured thereof; which I cannot do, except Christ died for all men, or that I am assured of my particular election. So that either Christ is an universal Saviour, or the greatest part of Christians are disobliged and incapacitated reasonably to thank Him, to praise Him, to serve Him, as they are enjoined to do. 5. It is a great aggravation of infidelity, of apostasy, of all disobedience, that they that are guilty of them, do frustrate the designs and undertakings of Christ, do reject the overtures of His grace, do abuse the goodness and mercy of their Redeemer; it consequently deters from those things. " The Pharisees and Lawyers rejected the counsel of God toward them 1 ;" (God therefore designed their good.) " How shall we escape that neglect so great salvation 2 ?" A salvation which they were capable of, which was designed for them, which was offered to them; otherwise there would have been no danger in neglecting it, no fault in doing it. It is said of the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, that " they did a7ru>0£io-0ai, thrust away the Gospel, (the "word of salvation, that was sent them,) judging themselves unworthy of eternal life3 :" God did think fit out of goodness seriously to offer it to them, but they did not think fit to embrace it. " Despisest thou the riches of God's goodness 4 ?" How can any man despise that which does not concern him, which never was offered him, which at least he has no ground of confidence, that it extends to him ? " These things I speak that ye may be saved5 :" so our Lord says to those> " who did not believe in him." 1 Luke vii. 30. 2 Heb. ii. 3. 3 Acts xiii. 26. 46. 4 2 Pet. iii. 9. Rom. ii. 4. 5 John v. 34. 38. Universal Redemption. 661 " How often have I willed '," &c. " Denying the Lord that bought them '." 6. It is a great encouragement and excitement to devotion. Who can be backward of having recourse to his Redeemer; or of using his mediation ? Whom wUl not such an experiment of goodness invite and encourage ? But the contrary apprehension must needs damp devotion, and discourage from it. He can apply himself to God but faintly and distrustfuUy, who distrusts whether he has any Redeemer or Mediator, or no; who must thus conceive and say to himself; " perhaps God has loved me, and perhaps he never had nor will ' have any regard to my welfare. Perhaps Christ died with in tention to do me good; perhaps he never did mean any such thing. Perhaps those expressions of kindness sounding so gene rally do not include me ; perhaps I am excluded, and only de luded by them." When a man cannot say to Christ, O my Sa viour ! — O my Mediator ! &c. nor use His intercession with God for the procurement of faith, of grace, of any good thing. 7. It is a ground and motive of charity ; there arising thence a more considerable relation between all men ; being all the ob jects of Christ's love and mercy should endear men to one another; it renders every man valuable in our eyes, as dear and precious in God's sight. It should make his salvation desirable to us. " Pray for aU men," says Paul. The contrary opinion removes this ground of charity ; and so cools it. 8. It should consequently render us careful to promote the salvation of others, and fearful to hinder it by iU example, by ill doctrine, by any misbehaviour. So does St. Paul argue, when he says, " Destroyest thou him for whom Christ died ?" 9. It is a piece of justice to acknowledge the right and interest of every man in his Saviour. A wrong to exclude any ; to confine and appropriate this great blessing; to engross, to inclose a common; to restrain that by forging distinctions, which is so unlimitedly expressed. The undertakings and performances of our Saviour did respect all men, as the common works of nature do; as the air we breathe in, as the sun which shines on us ; the which are not given to any man particularly, but to all generally ; not as a proper inclo- 1 Matt, xxiii. 37- 2 2 Pet. ii. 1. 15 662 DR. ISAAC BARROW. sure, but as a common — they are indeed mine, but not otherwise than as they do belong to all men. A gift they are to all equally, though they do not prove to all a blessing ; there being no common gift, which by the refusal, neglect, or ill use of it may not prove a curse — a savour of death. END OF VOL. III. UILBEUT 8r RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, st. John's square, London, 3 9002