308 teach us to drive at the most sure and universal good: which shall undoubtedly be best attained by these safe and needful groundworks. From these tender pastures, let me lead you, (and you, others) to the Still Waters. Zeal in the soul, is as natural heat in the body. There is no life of religion without it. But, as the kindliest heat, if it be not tempered with a due equality of moisture, wastes itself and the body: so doth zeal; if it be not moderated with discretion, and charitable care of the common good. It is hard to be too vehement, in contending for main and evident truths but litigious and immaterial verities may soon be overstriven for. In the prosecution whereof, I have oft lamented to see how heedless too many have been of the public welfare; while, in seeking for one scruple of truth, they have not cared to spend a whole pound weight of precious peace. The Church of England, in whose Motherhood we have all just cause to pride ourselves, hath, in much wisdom and piety, delivered her judgment concerning all necessary points of religion, in so complete a Body of Divinity, as all hearts may rest in. These we read: these we write under: as professing, not their truth only, but their sufficiency also. The voice of God our Father, in his Scriptures; and, out of these, the voice of the Church our Mother, in her Articles; is that, which must both guide and settle our resolutions. Whatsoever is besides these, is but either private, or unnecessary and uncertain. Oh, that, while we sweat and bleed for the maintenance of these oracular truths, we could be persuaded to remit of our heat in the pursuit of opinions! These, these are they, that distract the Church, violate our peace, scandalize the weak, advantage our enemies. Fire upon the hearth warms the body; but, if it be misplaced, burns the house. My Brethren, let us be zealous for our God; every hearty Christian will pour oil, and not water upon this holy flame. But, let us take heed, lest a blind self-love, stiff prejudice, and factious partiality impose upon us, instead of the causes of God. Let us be suspicious of all new verities, and careless of all unprofitable. And let us hate to think ourselves, either wiser than the Church, or better than our Superiors. And, if any man think that he sees farther than his fellows, in these theological prospects; let his tongue keep the counsel of his eyes: lest, while he affects the fame of deeper learning, he embroil the Church, and raise his glory upon the public ruins. : And ye, Worthy Christians, whose souls God hath entrusted with our spiritual guardianship, be ye alike minded with your teachers. The motion of their tongues lies much in your ears: your modest desires of receiving needful and wholesome truths, shall avoid their labour after frivolous and quarrelsome curiosities. God hath blessed you with the reputation of a wise and knowing people: in these divine matters, let a meek sobriety set bounds to your enquiries. Take up your time and hearts with Christ, and Him crucified; with those essential truths, which are necessary to salvation. Leave all curious disquisitions to the Schools; and say of those problems, as the philosopher did of the Athenian shops, "How many things are here, that we have no need of!" Take the nearest cut ye can, ye shall find it a side-way to heaven ye need not lengthen it, with undue circuitions. I am deceived, if, as the times are, ye shall not find work enough, to bear up against the oppositions of professed hostility. It is not for us, to squander our thoughts and hours upon useless janglings: wherewith if we suffer ourselves to be still taken up, Satan shall deal with us like some crafty cheater, who, while he holds us at gaze with tricks of juggling, picks our pockets. Dear Brethren, whatever become of these worthless dribblets, be sure to look well to the freehold of your salvation. Error is not more busy than subtle. Superstition never wanted sweet insinuations. Make sure work against these plausible dangers suffer not yourselves to be drawn into the net, by the common stale of the Church. Know, that outward visibility may too well stand, with an utter exclusion from salvation. Salvation consists not in a formality of profession, but in a soundness of belief. A true body may be full of mortal : diseases. So is the Roman Church of this day: whom we have long pitied, and laboured to cure in vain. If she will not be healed by us, let not us be infected by her. Let us be no less jealous of her contagion, than she is of our remedies. Hold fast that precious truth, which hath been long taught you, by faithful pastors; confirmed, by clear evidences of Scriptures; evinced, by sound reasons; sealed up, by the blood of our blessed martyrs. So, while no man takes away the crown of your constancy, ye shall be our crown and rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus. To whose all-sufficient grace I commend you all; and vow myself, Your common servant, in Him, whom we all rejoice to serve, JOS. EXON. THE OLD RELIGION. INTRODUCTION. SECT. 1. The Extent of the Differences betwixt the Churches. : THE first blessing, that I daily beg of my God for his Church, is, our Saviour's legacy, Peace; John xiv. 27: that sweet peace, which, in the very name of it, comprehends all happiness, both of estate and disposition. As that mountain, whereon Christ ascended, though it abounded with palms, and pines, and myrtles ", yet it carried only the name of Olives, which have been an ancient emblem of peace: other graces are for the beauty of the Church; this, for the health and life of it for, howsoever even wasps have their combs, and heretics their assemblies (as Tertullian) so as all are not of the Church that have peace; yet, so essential is it to the Church, in St. Chrysostom's opinion, that the very name of the Church implies a consent and concord. No marvel, then, if the Church, labouring here below, make it her daily suit to her Glorious Bridegroom in Heaven, Da Pacem, "Give Peace in our time, O Lord." The means of which happiness are soon seen; not so soon attained; even that, which Jerome hath to his Ruffinus, Una Fides: "Let our belief be but one, and our hearts will be one." But since, as Erasmus hath too truly observed, there is nothing so happy in these human things, wherein there is not some intermixtures of distemper; and St. Paul hath told us, there must be heresies; 1 Cor. xi. 19. and the Spouse, in Solomon's Song, compares her Blessed Husband to a young a Adrichoni. Descr. Hieros. fol. fig. 192. b Faciunt favos et vespa ; faciunt Ecclesias et Marcionita. Tert. adv. Marcion. 1. iv. c. 5. Ecclesiæ nomen consensus concordiaque est. Chrys. Com. in Ep. ad Gal. d Sit inter nos una fides, et illico par sequetur. Hier. adv. Ruff. Eras. Ep. 1. xx. Paulo Decimario. hart upon the mountain of Bether; that is, division; Cant. ii. 17. yea, rather, as under Gensericus and his Vandals, the Christian temples flamed higher than the towns; so, for the space of these last hundred years, there hath been more combustion in the Church than in the Civil State: my next wish is, that, if differences in religion cannot be avoided; yet that they might be rightly judged of, and be but taken as they are. Neither can I but mourn and bleed, to see how miserably the world is abused, on all hands, with prejudice, in this kind: while the adverse part brands us with unjust censures, and with loud clamours cries us down for heretics. On the other side, some of ours do so slight the errors of the Roman Church, as if they were not worth our contentions; as if our martyrs had been rash, and our quarrels trifling. Others, again, do so aggravate them, as if we could never be at enough defiance with their opinions, nor at enough distance from their communion. All these three are dangerous extremities. The two former whereof shall, if my hopes fail me not, in this whole discourse be sufficiently convinced. Wherein, as we shall fully clear ourselves from that hateful slander of heresy or schism; so, we shall leave upon the Church of Rome an unavoidable imputation of many, no less foul and enormous, than novel errors: to the stopping of the mouths of those Adiaphorists, whereof Melancthon seems to have long ago prophesied; Metuendum est &c.: "It is to be feared," saith he "," that, in the last age of the world, this error will reign amongst men, that either religions are nothing, or differ only in words." The third comes now in our way. That which Laertius i speaks of Menedemus, that, in disputing, his very eyes would sparkle, is true of many of ours; whose zeal transports them to such a detestation of the Roman Church, as if it were all error, no Church; affecting nothing more than an utter opposition to their doctrine and ceremony, because theirs like as Maldonate professeth' to mislike and avoid many fair interpretations, not as false, but as Calvin's. These men have not learned this in St. Austin's school; who tells us, that it was the rule of the Fathers, as well before Cyprian and Agrippinus as since, whatsoever they found in any schism or heresy, warrantable and holy, that they allowed for its own worth, and did not refuse it for the abettorsTM Victor. Pers. Afric. 1. v. Melanct. Postill. de Bapt. Christ. k Hooker. Eccl. Pol. 1. iv. sect. 3. Spalat. de Hist. Eccl. tom. ult. 1. vii. 1 Comment. in Evang. sæpe. m Patres nostri et saluberrimam consuetudinem tenuerunt, ut quicquid divinum ac legitimum, &c. Aug. "Neither, for the chaff, do we leave the floor of God: neither, for the bad fishes, do we break his nets "." Rather, as the priests of Mercury had wont to say, when they ate their figs and honey, yuxù, &c. all truth is sweet. It is indeed God's, not ours, wheresover it is found; as the king's coin is current, though it be found in any impure channel. For this particular, they have not well heeded that charitable profession of zealous Luther, Nos fatemur &c.: "We profess," saith he°, "that, under the Papacy, there is much Christian good; yea, all; &c. I say moreover, that, under the Papacy is true Christianity, yea the very kernel of Christianity, &c." No man, I trust, will fear that fervent spirit's too much excess of indulgence. Under the Papacy may be as much good, as itself is evil : neither do we censure that Church, for what it hath not; but, for what it hath. Fundamental truth is like Maronæan wine, which, if it be wixed with twenty times so much water, holds its strength. The Sepulchre of Christ was overwhelmed by the Pagans, with earth and rubbish: and, more than so, over it they built a temple to their impure Venus; yet, still, in spite of malice, there was the Sepulchre of Christ. And it is a ruled case of Papinian, that a sacred place loseth not the holiness, with the demolished walls': no more doth the Roman lose the claim of a True Visible Church, by her manifold and deplorable corruptions. Her unsoundness is not less apparent than her being. If she were once the Spouse of Christ, and her adulteries are known; yet the divorce is not sued out. SECT. 2. The Original of the Differences betwixt the Churches. IT is too true, that those two main elements of evil, as Timon called them, Ambition and Covetousness, which Bernard professes were the great masters of that Clergy in his times, having palpably corrupted the Christian world both Neque propter paleam, relinquimus aream Domini: neque, propter pisces malos, rumpimus retia Domini. Aug. Ep. 48.-Sic Anabaptista accusant pædo-baptismum Papismi. Clifton contra Smith.-Sic Neariani Trinitatem arguunt et articulum Papæ. Prolæus Fascic. c. 1. • Nos fatemur sub Papatu plurimum esse boni Christiani; imò, omne bonum Christianum: dico, insuper, et imo vero verum nucleum Christianitatis. Luther in Ep. ad 2. pleb. de Anabapt. cit. à Cromero de Falsâ Relig. Lutheran. P Aliud est credere, quod Papa credit; aliud credere quod est Papæ. ubi supr. 4 Euseb. de Vità Const. 1. iii. c. 25. r Justin. Tit. 1. §. 4. Annot. in Leg. xii. Tab. Prolæus ibid. • Magistris utentes Ambitione et Avaritia. Bern. ad Henr. Senonensem. |