Fifty Sermons, Sermons · Sermon 25
SERMON XXV.
Preached at White-Hall.
The second Sermon on EZEK. 34. 19.
And as for my flock, they eate that, which yee have troden with your feet, and they drink that which yee have fouled with your feet.
AS by way of accommodation, we have considered these words, as they concern the iniquity and oppression of the shepheards, (that is, the chief rulers amongst the Iews) in the Chaldean Babylon, and as they are appliable to the condition of our Fathers in the Italian Babylon, Rome, so now in this exercise are we to consider, the behaviour of the sheep, their nature, and their demeanour under all these pressures; in which we have many steps to goe; All these; first, Manebant, that for all this ill usage there they did stay, they did not breake out, not scatter themselves, manebant; And then Edebant, though their grasse were troden, and their water troubled, yet they did eat that grasse, and they did drink that water, Edebant; And doing so, Manebant Oves, they continued sheep, they lost not the nature, nor property of sheep, Manebant Oves, and Oves Dei, they continued Gods sheep; (for the Devill hath his sheep too) my sheep, says God; not those which bad been mine, when they eat fresh grasse, and drunke pure water, but then, when they eat troden grasse, and drunke troubled water, they were Gods sheep; And more then that, they were Grex Dei, Gods flock; for those whom our former translation calls my sheep, the latter calls my flock; God hath single sheep in many corners of the heathen, but these, though thus fed, were his flock, his Church. But then, though they staid Gods leasure, and lived long upon this ill diet, yet when God was pleased to call them out of Babylon, out of Babylon they went, when God was pleased to lead our Fathers out of Rome, they left it. And justly, howsoever our Adversaries load us with contumelious names for that departure; in which branch, we shall see the vanity of their criminations, and imputations to us for that secession from them. And then lastly, by way of condoling and of instructing, we shall make it appear to our weak brethren, that our departing from Rome, can be no example, no justification of their departing from us. Our branches then, from whence we are to gather our fruit, being thus many, it is time to lay hold upon the first, which is Manebant, Though these sheep were thus ill fed, yet they did stay.
Optimis ovibus pedes breves; Manebant. Plinie. Prov. 19. 2. Chrysost.The best sheep have-shortest leggs; Their commendation is, not to make hast in straying away. He that hasteth with his feet sinneth; that is, from the station in which God hath placed him. Si innumera bona fecerimus, If we have abounded in good works, and done God never so good service, Non minores Poenas dabimus, quàm qui Christi corpus proscindebant, si integritatem Ecclesiarum discerpserimus, we are as guilty in the eies of God, as they that crucifyed the Lord of life himselfe, if we violate his spouse, or rent the intirenesse of his Church. Vir quidam sanctus dixit, (says the same father of another, Chrysostome of Cyprian) A certaine holy man hath ventured to say, Quod audaciùs sapere videtur, attamen dixit, That which perchance may seem bodily sayd, but yet he sayd it; what was it? This, peccatum istud nec martyrio deleri; That this sin of schisme, of renting the unity of the Church, cannot be expiated no not by Martyrdome it self. When God had made but a hedge about Iob, Iob 1. 10.yet that hedge was such a …ence as the Devill could not break in:Ier. 1. 18. when God hath carryed Murum aeneum a wall of brasse, nay Murum igneum, a wall of fire about his Church, wilt thou break out through that wall,Zech. 2. 5. that brasse, that fire? Paradise was not walled, nor hedged; and there were serpents in Paradise too;Gen. 3. 24. yet Adam offered not to goe out of Paradise, till God drove him out; and God saw that he would have come in againe, if the Cherubims and the flaming sword had not been placed by God to hinder him. Charme the Charmer never so wisely,Psal. 58. 5. (as David speaks) he cannot utter a sweeter, nor a more powerfull charme, …hen that, Ego te baptizo, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Sonne, and of the Holy Ghost; And, Nos admittimus, we receive this child, into the congregation of Christs slock; There is a sweet and a powerfull charm, in the Ego te absolvo, I absolve thee from all thy sins; But this blessed charm I may heare from another, if I stray into another Church. But the Ego te baptizo I can heare but once; and to depart from that Church, in which I have received my baptism, and in which I have made my Contracts and my stipulations with God, and pledged and engaged my sureties there, deserve a mature consideration; for I may mistake the reasons upon which I goe, and I may finde after, that there are more true errours in the Church I goe to, then there were imaginary in that that I left. Truly I have been sorry to see some persons converted from the Roman Church, to ours; because I have known, that onelyonly temporall respects have moved them, and they have lived after rather in a nullity, or indifferency to either religion, then in a true, and established zeale. Of which kinde, I cannot forbeare to report to you so much of the story of a French gentleman,P…le…er. who though he were of good parts, and learned, yet were not worthy to be mentioned in this place, but that he soar'd so high, as to write against the learnedst King, that any age hath produc'd, our incomparable King Iames. This man, who was turned from the Reformed to the Roman religion, being asked, halfe in jest; Sir, which is the best religion, you must needs know, that have been of both? answered, Certainely, the religion I left, the reformed religion, must needs be the best religion, for when I changed, I had this religion, the Romans religion, for it, and three hundred Crowns a year to boot; which was a pension given him, upon his conversion. Neither truely doth any thing more loosen a mans footing, nor slacken his hold upon that Church in which he was baptized, nor open him more to an undervaluation of all Churches, then when he gives himselfe leave, to thinke irreverently, slightly, negligently of the Sacraments, as of things, at best, indifferent, and, many times, impertinent. I should thinke I had no bowels, if they had not earn'd and melted, when I heard a Lady, whose child of five or sixe daies, being ready to die every minute, she being mov'd often that the child might be christened, answered, That, if it were Gods will, that the child should live to the Sabbath, that it might be baptized in the Congregation, she should be content, otherwise, Gods will be done upon it, for God needs no Sacrament. With what sorrow; with what holy indignation did I heare the Sonne of my friend, who brought me to that place, to minister the Sacrament to him, then upon his death-bed, and almost at his last gaspe, when my service was offered him in that kinde, answer his Father, Father, I thanke God, I have not lived so in the sight of my God, as that I need a Sacrament. I name a few of these, because our times abound with such persons as undervalue, not onelyonly all rituall, and ceremoniall assistances of devotion, which the wisdome, and the piety of the Church hath induced, but even the Sacraments themselves, of Christs owne immediate institution, and are alwaies open to solicitations to passe to another Church, upon their own surmises of errours in their own. Whereas there belongs much consideration, and a well grounded assurance, of fundamentall errours in one Church, and that those errours are repayred, and no other, as great as those, admitted, in the other Church, before, upon any collaterall pretences, we abandon that Church, in which God hath sealed us to himselfe in Baptisme. Our Fathers stayd in Rome; Manebant, They stayd, and Edebant, they eat that grasse, and they drunke that water, which was troden and troubled.
Alasse,Edebant. what should they have eaten, what should they have drunke? should a man strangle himselse rather then take in an ill ayre? Or forbear a good table, because his stomach cannot digest every dish? We doe not call money, base money, till the Allay exceed the pure metall; and if it doe so, yet it may be currant, and serve to many offices; Those that are skilfull in that art, know how to sever the base from the pure, the good parts of the religion from the bad; and those that are not, will not cast it away, for all the corrupt mixture. It is true, they had been better to have stayd at home and served God in private, then to have communicated in a superstitious service. Domum vestram Christi Ecclesian deputamus, I shall never doubt to call your House the Church of Christ.Aug. Iuli…ae viduae. cp. 242. But this was not permitted to our Fathers; to serve God at home; to Church they must come, and there, all their grasse was troden, and all their water troubled. What should they doe? God never brings us to a perplexity, so as that we must necessarily do one sinne to avoyd another. Never… It seemes that the Apostles had been traduced, and insimulated of teaching this Doctrine, That in some cases evill might be done that good might follow;Rom. 3. 8. and therefore doth S. Paul with so much diligence discharge himself of it. And yet, long after this, when those men, who attempted the Reformation, whom they called Pauperes de Lugduno, taught that Doctrine, That no lesse sinne might he done, to escape a greater, this was imputed to them, then, by the Roman Church, for an Heresie;Pra…eolus Art. 23. That that was Orthodox in Saint Paul, was Heresie in them that …studyed a Reformation. But the Doctrine stands like a rocke against all waves, That nothing that is naturally ill, intrinsecally sinne, may upon any pretence be done, not though our lifes, nor the lifes of all the Princes in the world, though the frame, and beeing of the whole world, though the salvation of our souls lay upon it; no sinne, naturally, intrinsecally sinne might be done, for any respect. Christus peccatum factus est,August. sed non fesit peccatum, Though Christ pursued our redemption with hunger, and thirst, yet he would have left us unredeemed, rather then have committed any sinne. Of this kinde therefore, naturally, intrinsecally sinne, and so known to be to them that did it, certainely our Fathers coming to the superstitious service in the Church of Rome, was not: for had it been, naturally sinne, and so known to them, when they did it, they could not have been saved, otherwise then by repentance after, which we cannot presume in their behalfe, for there are not testimonies of it. If any of them had invested at any time a scruple, a doubt whether they did well or no, alasse how should they devest and overcome that scruple? To whom durst they communicate that doubt? They were under an invincible ignorance, and sometimes under an indevestible scruple. They had heard that Christ commanded to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, Mat. 16. 6.and Sadduces, and so of the Herodians; that is, of the doctrines of those particular sects;Ma…. 8. 15. of affirming Fate, and Destiny, and Stoicall necessity, with the Pharisees; of denying Spirits, and Resurrection with the Sadduces; of mis-applying the prophesies concerning the Messias, to the person of Herod, or any earthly King;Mat. 23. 1. But yet, after all this, he commands them to observe, and performe the doctrine of the Pharisees, because they sate in Moses chaire; Though with much vehemence and bitternesse, he call them Hypocrites, though with many ingeminations upon every occasion, he reiterate that name, though he aggravate that name with other names of equall reproach, Fools, blinde guides, painted tombes, and the like, yet he commands to obey them; and, which is most remarkable, this is sayd, not onelyonly to the common sort, but even to his own disciples too; Christ had begunne his work of establishing a Church, which should empty their Synagogues; but because that worke was not yet perfected, he would not withdraw the people from their Synagogues; for there wrought Gods Ordinance, (though corrupted by the workmen) which Ordinance was, that the law should be publiquely expounded to the people; and so it was there; There God was present; And though the Devill (by their corruption) were there too, yet, the Devill came in at the window, God at the dore; the Devill by stealth, God by his declared Ordinance, and Covenant. And this was the case of our Fathers in the Roman Church; They must know that all that hath passed between God and man hath passed Ex pacto, by way of contact and covenant.
The best works of the best man have no proportion with the kingdome of heaven,The best. for I give God but his own: But I have it Ex pacto, God hath covenanted so, Fac, hoc & vives, Doe this and thou shalt live; and at the last judgement, Christ shall ground his Venite benedicti, Come ye blessed, and his Ite maledicti, Goe ye accursed, upon the Quia, and upon the Quia non, Because you have, and Because you have not done this and this. Faith, that is of infinite value above works, hath yet no proportion to the kingdome of heaven; Faith saves mee, as my hand feeds mee; It reaches the food, but it is not the food; but faith saves Ex pacto, Mar. 5. 36.by vertue of that Covenant; which Christ hath made, Tantummodo crede, OnelyOnly beleeve. To carry it to the highest, the merit of Christ Iesus himselfe, though it bee infinite so, as that it might have redeemed infinite worlds, yet the working thereof is safeliest considered in the School to be Ex pacto, by vertue of that contract which had passed between the Father and him, that all things should thus and thus be transacted by Christ, and so man should be saved; for, if we shall place it meerely, onelyonly in the infinitenesse of the merit, Christs death would not have needed; for his first drops of bloud in his Circumcision, nay his very Incarnation (that God was made man) and every act of his humiliation after, being taken singly, yet, in that person, God and man, were of infinite merit; and also, if it wrought meerly by the infinitnesse of the merit, it must have wrought, not onelyonly upon all men, but to the salvation of the Devill; for, certainely there is more merit in Christ then there is sinne in the Devill. But the proceeding was Ex pacto, according to the contract made, and to the conditions given; Ipse conteret caput tuum, That the Messias should bruise the Serpents head for us, included our redemption, That the Serpents head should be bruised, excluded the Serpent himselfe. This contract, then between God and man, as it was able to put the nature of a great fault, in a small offence, if we consider onelyonly the eating of an apple, and so to make even a Trespass High-Treason, (because it was so contracted) so does this contract, the Ordinance of God, infuse a great vertue & efficacie, in the instruments of our reconciliation, how mean in gifts, or how corrupt in manners soever they be. Circumcision in it self a low thing, yea obscene, & subject to mis-interpretation, yet by reason of the covenant, He that is not circumcised, Gen. 17. 14.that person shall be cut off from my people. So also Baptism, considered in it selfe,Iohn 3. 3. a vulgar, and a familiar thing; yet, except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven. The Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, a domestique, a dayly thing; if we consider onelyonly the breaking of the bread and participation of the Cup, but if we ascend up to the contract in the institution, it is to every worthy receiver, the seale, and the Conduit of all the merits of Christ,Ios. 6. 4. to his soule. God threw down the walls of Jericho, with the sound of Horns, not of Trumpets. A homely sound; yet it did the worke; so neither is the weaknesse, no, nor the corruptnesse of the instruments always to be considered in the Church of God. Our Fathers knew there had passed a contract between God and man, A Church there should be Ad consummationem, to the end of the world, therefore they might safely make their recourse thither; and Porta Inferi, Mat. 16. 18.the gates of hell should not prevaile against it, therefore they might confidently dwell there;Mat. 18. 17. They knew there was a Dic Ecclesiae a bill to be exhibited to the Church, upon any disorder, and a Si noluerit, an excommunication upon disobedience, If he neglect to heare the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man, and as a Publican. This Church they saw, and Gods contract upon them sealed in Baptism, they knew, God had revealed no other Church, nor contract to them. And therefore, though they did not eat their troden grasse, with that ridiculous tentation, as the Fryar is boasted to have eaten a Toad which was set upon the Table, because he had read,1 Cor. 10. 27. whatsoever is set before you eat; Nor, as their Dorotheus, who when his man had reachd him rats-bane, in stead of honey, which he called for, refused it not, because sayd he, If Gods will had been, that I should have had honey, he would have directed thy hand to the honey, but being under an invi ciblenignorance, and indevestible scruples, and having this contract, and this Church, to give them some satisfaction and acquiescence, they were partakers of that blessing, That though Serpents and Scorpions lurked in their grasse,Luke 10. 19. they had power to tread on scorpions and on serpents, and nothing could hurt them, and That if they drinke any deadly thing, it shall doe them no harme. Mar. 16. 18.And so our Fathers with a good conscience, Manebant, stayd there, and Edebant, they eat troden grasse, and drunke troubled water, and yet Manebantoves, they continued sheep still.
Sheep, Oves.that is, without Barking, or biting. Some faint and humble bleatings there were alwaies in the daies of our Fathers; In every age there arose some men, who did modestly, and devoutly, but yet couragiously and confidently appear, and complaine against those treadings, and those troublings. Every age, every nation had some such bleatings, some men who by writing or preaching against those abuses, interrupted the tyrannicall prescriptions of that Church, and made their continuall claime, to their Christian liberty; But still they continued sheep, without denying either their fleece or their throats to those Pastors. We read in Naturall story of divers pastures, and divers waters, which will change the colour of cattell, or sheep, but none that changes the forme, and makes them no such cattell, or no sheep. Some waters change sheep of any colour to white. And these troubled waters, temporall or spirituall afflictions, may bring Gods children to a faint and leane,1. 15. and languishing palenesse. If it doe, as Daniel and his fellows, appeared fairer, and fatter in flesh, with their pults and water, which they desired rather then the Kings polluted delicates, then others that sed voluptuously: so the hearts of Gods children shall be filled,Psalm 63. 5. as with marrow and with fatnesse, when others shall have all their hearts desire, but leannesse in their soules. There are waters that change all coloured sheep to black. Ioel 2. 6.So may these troubled waters, afflictions, effect that upon Gods children, The enemy shall come, and before him all faces shall gather blacknesse; Lam. 4. 8.as Jerusalem complains, That their faces were blacker then coals. If it doe, yet as long as they stay, and continue sheep, members of the body, as long as they partake of the body, they shall partake of the complexion of the Church, who saies of her selfe, I am black, O daughters of Ierusalem, but comely, (acceptable in the sight of my Christ) and that shall be verifyed in them,Eccles. 7. 5. which Salomon says, By the sadnesse of the countenance, the heart is made better; that is, by the occasion of the sadnesse, Gods correction. But the strangest change is, that some waters change sheep into red, the most unlikely, most extraordinary, most unproper colour for sheep, of any other. Yet there is one rednesse naturall to our sheep in the Text, the rednesse of blushing, and modesty, and selfe-accusing; And there is another rednesse, which is not improper, the rednesse of zeale and godly anger. The worst rednesse that can befall them, is the rednesse of sinne, and yet, lest that should deject them,Esai. 1. 18. God proceeds familiarly with them, Come now, and let us reason together, Though your sinnes be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like Crimson, they shall be as wooll. Rom. 5. 20.Yea, to shew, that where sinne abounds, grace also may abound, to shew that that whitenesse of Gods mercy doth pursue and overtake this rednesse of sinne, it pleases the Holy Ghost to use such a phrase as expresses a rednesse in whitenesse it self; He says, that the religious men of the Jewes before that time,Lam. 4. 7. were whiter then milke, and redder then pearle: Mippeninim is the originall word, which the Rabbins translate pearle; And the Vulgate Edition hath it, Rubicundiores ebore antiquo, redder then the oldest yvory, which is the whitest thing, that can be presented. Perchance to intimate thus much, that there is neither in the holiest actions, of the holiest man, any such degree of whitenesse, but that it is always accompanied with some rednes, some tincture, some aspersion of sin, nor any such deep rednesse in sin, any sin so often, and deeply died in grain, but that it is capable of whitenesse, in the application of the candor, and purenesse, and innocency of Christ Jesus: Therefore may the Holy Ghost have wrapped up this whitenesse in rednesse, redder then Pearl. Our Fathers were not discouraged, when they were discolored; what palenesse, what blacknesse, what rednesse soever, these troubled waters induced upon them, still they were sheep; They become not Foxes, to delude the State with equivocations; nor Wolves, to join with the State to the oppression of the rest; nor Horses, to suffer themselves to be ridden by others, and so made instruments of their passions; no nor Vnicorns, to think to purge and purifie the waters for all the forest, to think to reforme all abuses in State, and Church at once; but they continued sheep; opened not their mouthes in biting, nor barking, in murmuring, or reproaching the present government. So our Fathers staid, Manebant, so they eat that grasse, so they continued sheep, and, as it followes next, Oves Dei, Gods sheep, my sheep have eaten, my sheep have drunken.
Gods sheep; Oves Dei.for nature hath her sheep; some men by naturall constitution, are lazy, drowsie, frivolous, unactive, sheepish men. And States have their sheep; timorous men, following men, speechlesse men, men, who because they abound in a plentifull State, are loth to stire. Nay the Devill hath his sheep too; Men whom he possesses so entirely, that, as the Law says, Domintum est potestas, tum utendi, tum abutendi, OnelyOnly he is truly Lord of any thing, who may doe what he will with it, he does what he will with those men, even to their own ruine. And from these folds and flocks did the Devill always serve his shambles, in his false Martyrdomes in the Primitive Church; when (as Eusebius notes) envying the honour which the Orthodox Christians had in their thousands of Martyrs, the Heretiques studied ways of equalling them in that. And though within four hundred years after Christ, the Church, (who could not possibly take knowledge of all) was come to celebrate, by name, five thousand Martyrs (as some books have the account) for every day in the year, yet the Heretiques went so far towards equalling them, as that they had some whole sects, (particularly the Euphemitae) which called themselves Martyrians, men exposed to the slaughter. One limbe of the Donatists, the Circumcelliones, might have furnished their shambles; They would provoke others to kill them; and if they fail'd in that, they would kill themselves. And this was, as Saint Augustine says, Ludus quotidianus, their daily sport, they plaid at no other game. And left all these meanes should not have provided Martyrs enow, Petilian, against whom Saint Augustine writes, invented a new way of Martyrdome, when he taught, that if a man were guilty in his Conscience of any great offence to God, and onelyonly to punish that fault, did kill himselfe, he was by that act of Justice a Martyr. The Devill had his sheep then; He hath so still; Those Emissarii papae, those whom the Bishop of Rome sends hither into this kingdome; whom Baronius calls Candidates Martyrii, pretenders to Martyrdome, suters for Martyrdome; Men, who (as he adds there) do sacramento spondere sanguinem, take an oath at Rome that they will be hanged in England; and, in whose behalfe he complaines de sterilitate Martyrii, that there is such a dearth of Martyrdome, that they finde it hard to be hanged; and therefore, (perchance) they finde it necessary to enter into Powder plots, and actuall Treasons, because they see that for Religion meerly, this State would never draw drop of bloud, & sacramento sanguinem, they have taken an oath to be hanged, and are loth to be forsworne. But the sheep of our text, were not Natures sheep, men naturally lazy, and unactive, nor State sheep, men loth to adventure, by stirring, nor the Devills sheep, men headlong to their own ruine, even by way of provocation; But they were Gods sheep, men, who, out of a rectified conscience, would not prevaricate, not betray nor forsake God, if his glory required the expense of their lives, and yet would not exasperate nor provoke their superiours, how corrupt soever, by unseasonable, and unprofitable complaints: so our Fathers staied in Rome, so they eat troden grasse, and drunke troubled waters, so they continued harmlesse sheep towards others, and the sheep of God, such as though they staid there and fed upon an ill diet, God had distinguished from Goats, and reserved for his right hand, at the day of separation. And they were more then so; they were not onelyonly his sheep, but his flock; for so, this translation reads it, my flock hath eaten, my flock hath drunk.
God had single sheep in many nations;Grex. Iobs, and Naamans, and such; servants, and yet not in the Covenants, sheep, and yet not brought into his flock. For though God have revealed no other way of salvation to us, but by breeding us in his Church, yet we must be so far, from straitning salvation, to any particular Christian Church, of any subdivided name, Papist or Protestant, as that we may not straiten it to the whole Christian Church, as though God could not, in the largenesse of his power, or did not, in the largenesse of his mercy, afford salvation to some, whom he never gathered into the Christian Church. But these sheep in our text, were his flock, that is, his Church. Though they durst not communicate their sense of their miseries, and their desires to one another, yet they were a flock. When Elias complained, I, even I onelyonly am left, 1 King. 19. 14.and God told him, that he had seven thousand besides him, perchance Elias knew none of this seven thousand, perchance none of this seven thousand and knew one another, and yet, they were his flock, though they never met. That timber that is in the forest, that stone that is in the quarry, that Iron, that Lead that is in the mine, though distant miles, Counties, Nations, from one another, meet in the building of a materiall Church; So doth God bring together, living stones, men that had no relation, no correspondence, no intelligence together, to the making of his Mysticall body, his visible Church. Who ever would have thought, that we of Europe, and they of the Eastern, or Western Indies, should have met to the making of Christ a Church? And yet, before we knew, on either side, that there was such a people, God knew there was such a Church. He that lies buried, in the consecrated dust under your feet, knowes not who lies next him; but one Trumpet at last shall raise them both together, and show them to one another, and joyn them, (by Gods grace) in the Triumphant Church. These that knew not one another, that knew not of one another, were yet Gods flock, the Church in his eye; for there, (and onelyonly there) the Church is always visible. So were our Fathers in Rome, though they durst not meet, and communicate their sorrows, nor fold themselves so in the fold of Christ Jesus, that is in open, and free Confessions. They therefore that aske now, Where was your Church before Luther, would then have asked of the Iews in Babylon, Where was your Church before Esdras; that was in Babylon, ours was in Rome.
Now,Secessio. beloved, when our Adversaries cannot deny us this truth, that our Church was enwrapped, (though smothered) in theirs, that as that Balsamum naturale, which Paracelsus speaks of, that naturall Balme which is in every body, and would cure any wound, if that wound were kept clean, and recover any body, if that body were purged, as that naturall balme is in that body, how diseased soever that body be, so was our Church in theirs, they vexe us now, with that question, Why, if the case stood so, if your Fathers, when they eat our troden grasse, and drunk our troubled waters, were sound and in health, and continued sheep, and Gods sheep, and Gods flock, his Church with us, why went they from us? They ought us their residence, because they had received their Baptisme from us. And truly, it is not an impertinent, a frivolous reason, that of Baptisme, where there is nothing but conveniency, and no necessity in the case. But, if I be content to stay with my friend in an aguish aire, will he take it ill, if I go when the plague comes? Or if I stay in town till 20 die of the plague, shall it be lookd that I should stay when there die 1000? The infection grew hotter and hotter in Rome; & their may, came to a must, those things which were done before de facto, came at last to be articles of Faith, and de jure, must be beleeved and practised upon salvation. They chide us for going away, and they drove us away; If we abstained from communicating with their poysons, (being now growen to that height) they excommunicated us; They gave us no room amongst them but the fire, and they were so forward to burne Heretiques, that they called it heresie, not to stay to be burnt.
Yet we went not upon their driving,Vox Dei. but upon Gods calling. As the whole prophecy of the deliverance of Israel, from Babylon, belongs to the Christian Church, both to the Primitive Church, at first, and to the Reformed since, so doth that voice, spoken to them, reach unto us, Egredimini de Babylone, Goe ye out of Babylon with a voice of singing, Esay 48. 20.declare, show to the ends of the earth, that the Lord hath redeemed his servant Iacob. Lud. Vives.For, that Rome is not Babylon, they have but that one half-comfort, that one of their own authors hath ministred, that Romae regulariter male agitur; that Babylon is Confusion, disorder, but at Rome all sinnes are committed in order, by the book, and they know the price, and therefore Rome is not Babylon. And since that many of their authors confesse,1 Pet. 5. 13. that Rome was Babylon, in the time of the persecuting Emperours, and that Rome shall be Babylon againe, in the time of Antichrist, how they will hedge in a Ierusalem, a holy City, between these two Babylons, is a cunning peece of Architecture. From this Babylon then were our Fathers called by God; not onelyonly by that whispering sibilation of the holy Ghost,Zech. 10. 8. sibilab… populum, I will hisse for my people, and so gather them, for I have redeemed them, and they shall increase, not onelyonly by private inspirations, but by generall acclamations; every where principall writers, and preachers, and Princes too, (as much as could stand with their safety) crying out against them before Luther, howsoever they will needs doe him that honour, to have been the first mover, in this blessed revolution.
They reproach to us our going from them,Curia. when they drove us, and God drew us, and they discharge themselves for all, by this one evasion; That all that we complain of, is the fault of the Court of Rome, and not of the Church; of the extortion in the practise of their Officers, not of error in the doctrine of their Teachers. Let that be true, (as in a great part it is) for, almost all their errors proceed from their covetousness and love of money) this is that that we complain most of, and in this especially lies the conformity of the Iewish Priests in the Chaldean Babylon, and these Prelates in the Roman Babylon, that the Court, and the Church, joined in the oppression. But since the Court of Rome, and the Church of Rome are united in one head, I see no use of this distinction, Court and Church. If the Church of Rome be above the Court, the Church is able to amend these corruptions in the Court. If the Court be got above the Church, the Church hath lost, or sold away, her supremacy.
To oppresse us,Miracula. and ease themselves, now, when we are gone from them, they require Miracles at out hands; when indeed it was miracle enough, how we got from them. But,Chrysost. magnum charitatis argumentum, credere absque pignoribus miraculorum, He loves God but a little that will not beleeve him without a miracle. Miracles are for the establishing of new religions; All the miracles of, and from Christ and his Apostles, are ours, because their Religion is ours. Indeed it behooves our adversaries to provide new miracles every day, because they make new articles of Faith every day. As Esop therefore answered in the Market, when he that sold him was asked what he could do, that he could do nothing, because his fellow had said, that he could do all, so we say, we can do no miracles, because they do all; all ordinary cures of Agues, and toothach being done by miracle amongst them. We confesse that we have no such tye upon the Triumphant Church, to make the Saints there do those anniversary miracles, which they do by their reliques here, upon their own holy days, ten days sooner every year, then they did before the new computation. We pretend not to raise the dead, but to cure the sick; and that but by the ordinary Physique, the Word, and Sacraments, and therefore need no miracles.Ios. Acosta. And we remember them of their own authors, who do not onelyonly say, that themselves do no miracles, in these latter times, but assigne diligently strong reasons, why it is that they doe none. If all this will not serve, we must tell them, that we have a greater miracle, then any that they produce; that is, that in so few years, they that forsook Rome, were become equall, even in number, to them that adhered to her. We say, with Saint Augustine, That if we had no other miracle, hoc unum stupendum & potentissimum miraculum esse, that this alone were the most powerfull, and most a mazing miracle, ad hanc religionem, totius orbis amplitudinem, sine miraculis subjugatam, that so great a part of the Christian world, should become Protestants of Papists, without any miracles.
They pursue us still,Dissensiones. being departed from them, and they aske us, How can ye pretend to have left Babylon confusion, Dissention, when you have such dissentions, & confusions amongst your selves? But neither are our differences in so fundamental points, as theirs are, (for a principall author of their own, who was employed by Clement the eight, to reconcile the differences between the Iesuits and the Dominicans, Beni…s.about the concurrence of the grace of God, and the free will of man, confesses that the principall articles, and foundations of faith were shaken between them, between the Iesuits, and Dominicans) neither shall we finde such heat, and animosity, and passion between any persons amongst us, as between the greatest amongst them; The succeeding Pope mangling the body of his predecessor, casting them into the river for buriall, disannulling all their decrees, and ordinations; their Ordinations; so that no man could be sure who was a Priest, nor whether he had truely received any Sacrament, or no. Howsoever, as in the narrowest way there is most justling, the Roman Church going that broad way, to beleeve as the Church beleeves, may scape some particular differences, which we that goe the narrower way, to try every thing by the exact word of God,De doctri. Christia. may fall into. Saint Augustine tells us of a City in Mauritania Caesarea, in which they had a custome, that in one day in the year, not onelyonly Citizens of other parishes, but even neighbours, yea brethren, yea Fathers, did fling stones dangerously, and furiously at one another in the streets, and this they so solemnized, as a custome received from their ancestors; which was a licentious kind of Carnavall. If any amongst us have fallen into that disease, to cast stones, or dirt at his friends, it is an infection from his own distemper,1 Cor. 11. 16. not from our doctrine; for, if any man list to be contentious, we have no such custome, neither the Church of God. We departed not from them then, till it was come to a hot plague, in a necessity of professing old opinions to be new articles of Faith; not till we were driven by them, and drawn by the voice of God, in the learnedest men of all nations; when they could not discharge themselves by the distinction of the Court of Rome, and the Church of Rome, because, if the abuses had been but in the Court, it was the greatest abuse of all, for that Church, which is so much above that Court, not to mend it. Nor can they require Miracles at our hands, who doe none themselves, and yet need them, because they induce new articles of Religion; neither can they reproach to us our Dissentions amongst our selves; because they are neither in so fundamentall points, nor pursued with so much uncharitablenesse, as theirs. So we justifie our secession from them; but all this justifies in no part, the secession of those distempered men, who have separated themselves from us, which is our next, and our last consideration.
When the Apostle says,Separatistae. study to be quiet, (1 Thes. 4. 11. me thinks he intimates something towards this, that the lesse we study for our Sermons, the more danger is there to disquiet the auditory; extemporall, unpremeditated Sermons, that serve the popular care, vent, for the most part, doctrines that disquiet the Church. Study for them, and they will be quiet; consider ancient and fundamentall doctrines, and this will quiet and settle the understanding, and the Conscience. Many of these extemporall men have gone away from us, and vainly said, that they have as good cause to separate from us, as we from Rome. But can they call our Church, a Babylon; Confusion, disorder? All that offends them, is, that we have too much order, too much regularity, too much binding to the orderly, and uniforme service of God in Church. It affects all the body,Ambros. when any member is cut off; Cum dolore amputatur, etiam quae putruit, pars corporis; and they cut off themselves, and feel it not; when we lose but a mysticall limbe, and they lose a spirituall life, we feel it and they doe not. When that is pronounced sit tibi sicut ethnicus, if he hear not the Church, let him be to thee as a Heathen,August. gravius est quàm si gladio feriretur, flammis absumeretur, feris subigeretur, it is a heavier sentence, then to be beheaded, to be burnt, or devoured with wild beasts; and yet these men, before any such sentence pronounced by us, excommunicate themselves. Of all distempers, Calvin falls oftenest upon the reproof of that which he calls Morositatem, a certain peevish frowardnesse, which, as he calls in one place, deterrimam pestem, the most infectious pestilence, that can fall upon a man, so, in another, he gives the reason, why it is so, semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa, that this peevish frowardnesse, is always accompanied with a pride, and a singularity, and an ambition to have his opinions preferred before all other men, and to condemn all that differ from him. A civill man will depart with his opinion at a Table, at a Councell table, rather then hold up an argument to the vexation of the Company; so will a peaceable man doe, in the Church, in questions that are not fundamentall. That reverend man whom we mentioned before, who did so much in the establishing of Geneva, professes, that it was his own opinion, that the Sacrament might be administred in prisons, and in private houses; but because he found the Church of Geneva, of another opinion, and another practise before he came, he applied himself to them and departed, (in practise) from his own opinion, even in so important a point, as the ministration of the Sacrament. Which I present to consideration the rather, both because thereby it appears, that greater matters then are now thought fundamentall, were then thought but indifferent, and arbitrary, (for, surely, if Calvin had thought this a fundamentall thing, he would never have suffered any custome to have prevailed against his conscience) and also, because divers of those men, who trouble the Church now, about things of lesse importance, and this of private Sacraments in particular) will needs make themselves beleeve, that they are his Disciples, and always conclude that whatsoever is practised at Geneva was Calvins opinion. Saint Augustine saith excellently,Ep. 209. Feliciae virgini. and appliably, to a holy Virgin, who was ready to leave the Church, for the ill life of Church-men, Christus nobis imperavit Congregationem, sibi servavit separationem; Christ Jesus hath commanded us to gather together, and recommended to us the Congregation; as for the separation, he hath reserved it to himself, to declare at the last day, who are Sheep and who are Goats. And hee wrought that separation which our Fathers made from Rome, by his expresse written Word, and by that which is one word of God too, Vox populi, The invitation and acclamation of Doctors, and People, and Princes; but have our Separatists any such publique, and concurrent authorising of that which they doe, since of all that part from us, scarse a dozen meet together in one confession? When you have heard the Prophet say,Amos. Can two walke toge…her, except they be agreed, when you have heard the Apostle say,1. Cor. 1. 10. I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Iesus Christ, that ye all speake the same things, and that there be no divisions among you, (for, if preachers speake one one way, another another, there will be divisions among the people) And then, it is not onelyonly, that in obedience to authority, they speake the same things; But, Be perfectly joyned in the same mind, and in the same judgement, you had need make haste to this union, this pacification; for when we are come thither, to agree among our selves, we are not come to our journeys end.
Our life is a warfare;Conclusio. other wars, in a great part, end in mariages: Ours in a divorce, in a divorce of body and soule in death. Till then, though God have brought us, from the First Babylon, the darknesse of the Gentiles, and from the Second Babylon, the superstitions of Rome, and from the third Babylon, the confusion of tongues, in bitter speaking against one another, after all this, every man shall finde a fourth Babylon, enough to exercise all his forces, The civill warre, the rebellious disorder, the intestine confusion of his own Concupiscencies. This is a transmigration, a transportation layd upon us all, by Adams rebellion, from Jerusalem to Babylon, from our innocent State in our Creation, to this confusion of our corrupt nature. God would have his children first brought to Babylon, before he would be glorifyed in their deliverance,Mich. 4. 10. Venies usque ad Babylonem; Ibi liberaberis; To Babylon thou shalt come; there I will deliver thee; but not till then; that is, till you come to a holy sense of the miseries you are in, and what hath brought you to them.
Though then you have suffred the calamities of all these Babylons in some proportions, though you be not Incolae but Indigenae, not naturalized but borne Babylonians, (Originall sinne makes you so) yet since you are within the Covenant, heare him,Gen. 12. 1. that sayd to you in Abrahams ears, Egredere de terrâ tuâ, Get thee out of thy Country, and from thy kindred, unto the land I will shew thee; Come out of Babylon to Jerusalem; since ye are within his Adoption, and may cry Abba father, hear that voice,Cant. 3. 11. Egredimini filiae Sion, Come forth ye daughters of Sion, come to Jerusalem. Though ye be dead, and buryed, and putrefyed in this corrupted, and corrupting flesh, yet since he cries with a loud voice, (as it is said in that Text) Lazare veni for as, Ioh. 11. 43.Lazarus come forth, come forth of your Tombs in Babylon, to this Jerusalem, come from your troubled waters, your waters of contention, of anxiety, of envy, of solicitude, and vexation for worldly encumbrances, and come Ad aquas quietudinum, Psal. 23.to the waters of rest, the application of the merits of Christ, in a true Church: Vinum non habetis? have ye no wine to refresh your hearts; no merits of your own to take comfort in?Ioh. 2. 4. Implete Hydrias aquâ, fill all your vessels with water, that water of life, remorsefull teares, perchance he will change your water into wine, as he did in that place; perchance he will give you abundance of temporall blessings; perchance he will change that water into blood, as in Egypt; that is, into persecutions, into afflictions, into Martyrdome, for his sake, for hee will accept our water for blood, our tears of repentance and contrition for Martyrdome, ut cum desit Martyrium sanguinis, habeamus Martyrium aquae, that we may be Martyrs in his sight, and shed no blood; Martyrs of a new die, white Martyrs. That our waters of sorrow for sinne may answer our Saviours tears over Lazarus and over Ierusalem; and the sweat of our brows in a lawfull calling may answer our Saviours sweat of water and blood in his agony; and that our reverent and profitable receiving of the Sacrament, may answer the water and blood that issued from his side, which represented omnia Sacramenta, all the Sacraments; That, as we do, we may still feed upon grace that is not troden, and drink water, that is not troubled, with the feet of others, or our own; that we be never shaked in the sinceritie nor in the integritie of Religion with their power, nor our own distempers of fears or hopes. But that our meat may be, to do the will of him that sent us, and to finish his work, Joh. 4. 2.