In Book 5

It has been set down as an axiom of good experience, that all things religiously taken in hand, are prosperously ended (Psalm 1:3); because whether men in the end have that which religion did allow them to desire, or that which it teaches them contentedly to suffer, they are, in neither event, unfortunate.

David was a man after God's own heart, so termed, because his affection was hearty towards God (1 Chronicles 29:17). Beholding the like disposition in them which lived under him, it was his prayer to Almighty God, O keep this forever in the purpose and thoughts of this people. For, to forsake the true God of heaven, is to fall into all such evils upon the face of the earth, as men either destitute of divine grace may commit, or unprotected from above, endure.

In zeal to the glory of God Babylon has excelled Zion (Daniel 3:29). We want that Decree of Nebuchadnezzar: the fury of this wicked brood has the reins too much at liberty, their tongues walk at large, they spit venom, and the poison of their poisoned hearts breaks out to the annoyance of others; what their untamed lust suggests, the same their licentious mouths do everywhere set abroach. With our contentions their irreligious humor also is much strengthened.

Signs must resemble the things they signify (2 Chronicles 2:5). If religion bears the greatest sway in our hearts, our outward religious duties must show it as far as the Church has outward ability. Duties of religion performed by whole societies of men, ought to have in them according to our power a sensible excellency correspondent to the majesty of him whom we worship.

Because wisdom and youth are seldom joined in one, and the ordinary course of this world is according to Job's observation (Job 10:12), who gives men advice to seek wisdom among the ancient, and in the length of days understanding; therefore if the comparison do stand between man and man, which shall hearken to the other, since the aged for the most part are best experienced, least subject to rash and unadvised passions, it has been ever judged reasonable, that their sentence in matter of counsel should be better trusted, and more relied upon than other men's.

That which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think, and define to be true and good, must in congruity of reason overrule all other inferior judgments whatever (Ecclesiastes 4:9). To them which ask why we thus hang our judgments on the Church's sleeves, I answer with Solomon, because two are better than one. The bare consent of the whole Church should in itself in these things stop their mouths, who living under it, dare presume to bark against it.

The casting away of things profitable for the sustenance of man's life, is an unthankful abuse of the fruits of God's good providence towards mankind (Acts 27:38). Which consideration for all that did not hinder Saint Paul from throwing corn into the sea, when care of saving men's lives made it necessary, to lose that which else had been better saved. Neither was this to do evil, to the end that good might come of it. For of two such evils, being both not evitable, the choice of the less is not evil. And evils must be in our construction judged inevitable, if there be no apparent ordinary way to avoid them; because where counsel and advice bear rule, of God's extraordinary power, without extraordinary warrant, we cannot presume.

The argument which our Savior uses against profaners of the Temple, he takes from the use to which it was with solemnity consecrated (Matthew 21:13). And as the prophet Jeremiah forbids the carrying of burdens on the Sabbath, because that was a sanctified day: so because the Temple was a place sanctified, our Lord would not suffer, no not the carriage of a vessel through the Temple (Mark 11). These two commandments therefore are in the Law conjoined, You shall keep my Sabbath, and reverence my Sanctuary (Leviticus 26).

Out of the Apostle's words, Have you not houses to eat and to drink in (1 Corinthians 11:22): albeit temples such as now were not then erected for the exercise of Christian religion, it has been nevertheless not absurdly conceived, that he teaches what difference should be made between house and house; that what is fit for the dwelling place of God, and what for man's habitation he shows. He requires that Christian men at their own home take common food, and in the house of the Lord none but that food which is heavenly. He instructs them, that as in the one place they use to refresh their bodies, so they may in the other learn to seek the nourishment of their souls; and as there they sustain temporal life, so here they would learn to make provision for eternal. Christ could not suffer that the Temple should serve for a place of mart, nor the Apostle of Christ, that the Church should be made an inn.

In the use of those names by which we distinguish both days and months, are we culpable of superstition, because they were who first invented them (Acts 28:11)? The sign of Castor and Pollux superstitiously given to that ship wherein the Apostle sailed, pollutes not the Evangelist's pen, who thereby does but distinguish that ship from others.

In our bounteous expenses on God's house, we give to God a testimony of our cheerful affection, which thinks nothing too dear to be bestowed about the furniture of his service (1 Chronicles 29:14); and it serves to the world for a witness of his almightiness, whom we outwardly honor with the chiefest of outward things, as being of all things himself incomparably the greatest.

The Church as a witness, preaches God's pure revealed truth, by reading publicly the sacred Scripture (Acts 15:21). Thus we may the more boldly speak, being strengthened with the example of so reverend a prelate as says, that Moses from the time of ancient generations, and ages long since past, had among the cities of the very Gentiles [reconstructed: those] that preached him, in that he was [reconstructed: read] every Sabbath day. For so of necessity must be meant, in as much as we know that the Jews have always had their weekly readings of the Law of Moses; but that they always had in like manner their weekly sermons upon some part of the Law of Moses, we [reconstructed: nowhere] find.

12. (Psalm 105:28) Whereas the Prophet David says concerning Moses and Aaron that they were obedient to the word of God, and in the self-same place our allowed translation says, they were not obedient; what contradiction is there, if he understanding Moses and Aaron, do say, they were not disobedient, we applying our speech to Pharaoh, and the Egyptians do say of them, they were not obedient? Or (which the matter itself will easily enough likewise suffer) if the Egyptians being meant by both, it be said, that they in regard of their offer to let go the people, when they saw the fearful darkness, disobeyed not the word of the Lord and yet that they did not obey his word, inasmuch as the sheep and the cattle, at the self-same time they withheld? ib.

13. (John 20:31) The end of all scripture is the same which St. John proposes in the writing of that most divine Gospel, namely faith, and through faith salvation. Indeed all scripture is to this effect in itself available, as they which wrote it were persuaded; unless we suppose that the Evangelist or others in speaking of their own intent to instruct and to save by writing, had a secret conceit which they never opened to any, a conceit that no man in the world should ever be that way the better for any sentence by them written, till such time as the same might chance to be preached upon, or alleged at the least in a sermon. S. 22.

14. (1 Corinthians 1:21) That which must save believers, is the knowledge of the Cross of Christ, the only subject of all our preaching; and in the Gentiles' eyes what does this seem as yet but folly? It pleases God by the foolishness of preaching to save. These words declare how admirable force those mysteries have which the world does deride as follies; they show that the foolishness of the Cross of Christ, is the wisdom of true believers; they concern the object of our faith, the matter preached of, and believed in by Christian men. This we know that the Greeks or Gentiles did account foolishness; but that they ever did think it a fond or unlikely way to seek men's salvation by sermons, we have not heard. ib.

15. (1 Thessalonians 5:17) Whereas every other duty besides is but to show itself as time and opportunity require, for prayer all times are convenient: when we are not able to do any other thing for men's benefit, when through maliciousness or unkindness they vouchsafe not to accept any other good at our hands, prayer is that which we always have in our power to bestow, and they never in theirs to refuse. S. 23.

16. (Matthew 21:13) The place of assembly, although it serves for other uses as well as prayer, yet seeing that our Lord himself has to this as to the chiefest of all other plainly sanctified his own Temple, by entitling it the house of prayer, whatever preeminence of dignity has been either by the ordinance, or through the special favor and providence of God annexed to his sanctuary, the principal cause thereof must needs be in regard of common prayer. S. 23.

16. (1 Corinthians 11:10) If (as the gravest of the ancient Fathers teach) that the house of prayer is a court beautified with the presence of celestial powers, that there we stand, we pray, we sound forth hymns to God, having his angels intermingled as our associates, and that with reference to this the Apostle does require so great care to be had of decency for the angels' sake; how can we come to the house of prayer, and not be moved with the very glory of the place itself, so to frame our affections praying as does best befit them whose suits the Almighty does there sit to hear, and his angels attend to further? When this was engrafted in the mind of men, there needed no penal statutes to draw them to public prayer; the warning sound was no sooner heard but the churches were presently filled, the pavements covered with bodies prostrate, and washed with their tears of devout joy.

17. (Luke 11:1) That our Savior did but set men a bare example how to contrive or devise prayers of their own, and no way bind them to use this, is no doubt an error. John the Baptist's disciples which had been always brought up in the bosom of God's Church from the time of their first infancy till they came to the school of John, were not so brutish that they could be ignorant how to call upon the name of God, but of their master they had received a form of prayer among themselves, which form none did use saving his disciples, so that by it as by a mark of special difference they were known from others. And of this the Apostles having taken notice, they request that as John had taught his, so Christ would likewise teach them to pray. S. 35.

18. (Ephesians 5:9) The greatest part of our daily service consists, according to the blessed Apostle's own precise rule, in much variety of Psalms and Hymns, for no other purpose, but only that out of so plentiful a treasure there might be for every man's heart to choose out his own sacrifice, and to offer to God by particular secret instinct what fitteth best the often occasions which any several either party or congregation may seem to have. S. 43.

19. (Psalm 39:5) In reference to other creatures of this inferior world man's worth and excellency is admired: compared with God, the truest inscription with which we can circle so base a coin is that of David, Universa vanitas est omnis homo: whoever has the name of a mortal man, there is in him whatever the name of vanity does comprehend. S. 47.

20. (1 Timothy 2:3) By entreating for mercy towards all, we discharge that duty which the Apostle himself does impose on the Church of Christ as a commendable office, a sacrifice acceptable in God's sight, a service according to his heart, whose desire is to have all men saved, a work most suitable with his purpose, who gave himself to be the price of redemption for all, and a forcible means to procure the conversion of all such, as are not yet acquainted with the mysteries of that truth, which must save their souls. S. 49.

21. (1 Corinthians 13:7) Concerning the state of all men with whom we live, the safest axioms for charity to rest itself upon, are these, He which believes already is, and He which believes not as yet, may be the child of God. It does not become us during life altogether to condemn any man, seeing that (for anything we know) there is hope of every man's forgiveness, the possibility of whose repentance is not yet cut off by death. And therefore charity which hopes all things, prays also for all men. ib.

22. (Romans 9:3) Our prayers for all men's good, no less than for our own, the Apostle with very apt terms commends, as being [in non-Latin alphabet], a work commendable for the largeness of the affection from where it springs; even as theirs, which have requested at God's hands the salvation of many, with the loss of their own souls, drowning as it were, and overwhelming themselves in the abundance of their love towards others, is proposed as being in regard of the rareness of such affections, [in non-Latin alphabet], more than excellent. Ibid.

23. (1 Timothy 2:1) Our prayers for all men God accepts, in that they are conformable to his general inclination, which is, that all men might be saved; yet always he grants them not, for as much as there is in God sometimes a more private occasioned will, which determines the contrary. So that the other being the rule of our actions, and not this, our requests for things opposite to this will of God, are not therefore the less gracious in his sight. Ibid.

24. (John 1:14) The Word, says St. John, was made flesh, and dwelt in us. The Evangelist uses the plural number, men for manhood, us for the nature of which we consist; even as the Apostle denying the Assumption of Angelical nature, says likewise in the plural number, he took not angels, but the seed of Abraham (Hebrews 2, S. 52).

25. (Psalm 139:7) Impossible it is that God should withdraw his presence from any thing, because the very substance of God is infinite. He fills heaven and earth (Jeremiah 23:24) although he takes up no room in either, because his substance is immaterial, pure, and of us in this world so incomprehensible, that albeit, no part of us be ever absent from him, who is present whole to every particular thing, yet his presence with us we no way discern, further than only that God is present, which partly by reason, and more perfectly by faith, we know to be firm and certain. S. 55.

26. (Philippians 2:9) The Son of God which did first humble himself, by taking our flesh upon him, descended afterwards much lower, and became according to the flesh obedient, so far as to suffer death, even the death of the cross for all men, because such was his Father's will. The former was a humiliation of deity, the latter, a humiliation of manhood; for which cause there followed upon the latter an exaltation of that which was humbled; for with power he created the world, but restored it by obedience. In which obedience, as according to his manhood, he had glorified God on earth, so God has glorified in heaven that nature which yielded him obedience, and has given to Christ even in that he is man such fullness of power, etc. S. 55.

27. (1 Corinthians 15:24) The scepter of Christ's spiritual regiment over us in this present world, is at the length to be yielded up into the hands of the Father which gave it; that is to say, the use and exercise thereof shall cease, there being no longer any militant church to govern. This government he now exercises both as God and as man; as God by essential presence with all things, as man by cooperation with that which especially is present. S. 55.

28. (Acts 17:28) All things which God has made, are in that respect the offspring of God, they are in him as effects in their highest cause; he likewise actually is in them, the assistance and influence of the Deity in their life. Let hereunto saving efficacy be added, and it brings forth a special offspring among men, containing them to whom God has himself given the gracious and amiable name of sons. S. 56.

29. (1 Corinthians 15:47) We are by nature the sons of Adam. When God created Adam, he created us, and as many as are descended from Adam have in themselves the root out of which they spring. The sons of God we neither are all, nor any one of us, otherwise than only by grace and favor. The sons of God have God's own natural Son, as a second Adam from heaven, whose race and progeny they are by spiritual and heavenly birth. Ibid.

30. (Ephesians 1:4) God therefore loving eternally his Son, he must needs eternally in him have loved and preferred before all others them which are spiritually since descended and sprung out of him. These were in God as in their Savior, and not as in their Creator only. It was the purpose of his saving goodness, his saving wisdom, and his saving power, which inclined itself towards them. They which thus were in God eternally by their intended admission to life, have by vocation or adoption God actually now in them, as the artificer is in the work which his hand does presently frame. Ibid.

31. (1 Corinthians 12:27) They which belong to the mystical body of our Savior Christ, and be in number as the stars of heaven, divided successively by reason of their mortal condition into many generations, are notwithstanding coupled every one to Christ their head, and all to every particular person among themselves; in as much as the same spirit, which anointed the blessed soul of our Savior Christ, does so formalize, unite and actuate his whole race, as if both he and they were so many limbs compacted into one body, by being quickened all with one and the same soul. Ibid.

32. (Exodus 4:24) God which did not afflict that innocent, whose circumcision Moses had ere long deferred, took revenge upon Moses himself for the injury which was done through so great neglect, giving us thereby to understand, that they whom God's own mercy saves without us, are on our parts notwithstanding and as much as in us lies even destroyed, when under insufficient pretenses we defraud them of such ordinary outward helps, as we should exhibit. S. 59.

33. (Matthew 9:13) He which requires both mercy and sacrifice, rejects his own institution of sacrifice, where the offering of sacrifice would hinder mercy from being shown. S. 61.

34. (1 Timothy 2:12) The Apostle's ordinance was necessary against women's public admission to teach, because those extraordinary gifts of speaking with tongues and prophesying, which God at that time did not only bestow upon men but on women also, made it the harder to hold them confined with private bounds. S. 62.

35. Ephesians 4:5. Iteration of baptism once given has been always thought a manifest contempt of that ancient Apostolic Aphorism, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, baptism not only one insomuch as it has everywhere the same substance and offers to all then the same grace, but one also for that it ought not to be received by any one man above once. We serve the Lord which is but one, because no other can be joined with him; we embrace that faith which is but one, because it admits no innovation; that baptism we receive which is but one, because it cannot be received often. S. 62.

36. 1 Peter 3:21. The declaration of Justin Martyr concerning baptism shows how such as the Church in those days did baptize made profession of Christian belief, and undertook to live accordingly. Neither do I think it a matter easy for any man to prove that ever baptism did use to be administered without interrogatories of these two kinds. To which S. Peter (as it may be thought) alluding, has said, that the baptism which saves us is (not as legal purifications were) a cleansing of the flesh from outward impurity, but [in non-Latin alphabet], an interrogative trial of a good conscience towards God. S. 63.

[reconstructed: 37]. Revelation 7:3. In the forehead nothing more plain to be seen than the fear of contumely and disgrace. For which cause the scripture (as with great probability it may be thought) describes them marked of God in the forehead, whom his mercy has undertaken to keep from final confusion and shame. Not that God sets any corporal mark on his chosen, but to note that he gives his elect security of preservation from reproach, the fear of which usually shows itself in that part. S. 65.

38. Mark 14:22. Let our Lord's Apostle be his interpreter, my body, the communion of my body, my blood, the communion of my blood (1 Corinthians 10:16). Is there anything more expedite, clear and easy than that as Christ is termed our life because through him we obtain life, so the parts of this sacrament are his body and blood, for that they are so to us, who receiving them receive that by them which they are termed? S. 67.

39. John 6:63. When some did conceive amiss of eating his flesh, our Savior to abate that error in them gave them directly to understand, how his flesh so eaten would profit them nothing, because the words which he spoke were spirit, that is to say, they had a reference to a mystical participation, which mystical participation gives life. Ib.

40. Philippians 3:11. Our general consolation departing this life is the hope of that glorious and blessed resurrection which the Apostle St. Paul names [in non-Latin alphabet], to note that as all men shall have their [in non-Latin alphabet], and be raised again from the dead; so the just shall be taken up and exalted above the rest, whom the power of God only raises and does not exalt. S. 68.

41. Exodus 3:5. If all either places or times were in respect of God alike, therefore was it said to Moses by particular designation, This very place wherein you stand is holy ground? Why does the prophet David choose out of all the days of the year but one of which he speaks by way of principal admiration, This is the day which the Lord has made? (Psalm 118:24). No doubt as God's extraordinary presence has hallowed and sanctified certain places, so they are his extraordinary works that have truly and worthily advanced certain times, for which cause they ought to be with all men that honor God more holy than other days. S. 69.

42. Isaiah 1:13. Forasmuch as the Jews, who alone knew the way how to magnify God aright, did commonly (as appeared by their wicked lives) more of custom and for fashion's sake execute the services of their religion, than with hearty and true devotion (which God especially requires) he therefore protests against their Sabbaths and solemn days as being much offended by it. S. 70.

43. Galatians 4:10. St. Paul, although it were not his purpose to favor invectives against the special sanctification of days and times to the service of God and the honor of Jesus Christ, does notwithstanding bend his forces against that opinion which imposed on the Gentiles the yoke of Jewish legal observations, as if the whole world ought for ever and that upon pain of condemnation to keep and observe the same. Such as in this persuasion hallowed those Jewish Sabbaths, the Apostle sharply reproves saying, You observe days and months, and times and years, I am in fear of you lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Ib.

44. Romans 14:17. Although concerning Jewish abstinence from certain kinds of meats as being unclean, the Apostle teaches that the kingdom of heaven is not meat nor drink; he derogates not from that abstinence, whereby we either interrupt or otherwise abridge the care of our bodily sustenance, to show by this kind of outward exercise the serious intention of our minds fixed on heavenlier and better desires, the earnest hunger and thirst of which deprives the body of those usual contentments, which otherwise are not denied to it. S. 72.

45. Daniel 10:2-3. When men fasted it was not always after one and the same sort, but either by depriving themselves wholly of all food during the time that their fasts continued, or by abating both the quantity and kind of diet. We have of the one a plain example in the Ninevites fasting, and as plain a precedent for the other in the prophet Daniel, I was (says he) in heaviness for three weeks of days, I ate no pleasant bread neither tasted flesh nor wine. Ib.

46. Matthew 6:4. Our corrupt inclination well considered, there is cause why our Savior should account them happiest that do most mourn; and why Solomon might judge it better to frequent mourning than feasting houses (Ecclesiastes 7:4), not better simply and in itself (for then would nature that way incline) but in regard of us and our common weakness better. Ib.

47. Proverbs 30:8. By reason of man's imbecility and proneness to elation of mind, too high a flow of prosperity is dangerous; too low an ebb again as dangerous; for that the virtue of patience is rare, and the hand of necessity stronger than ordinary virtue is able to withstand. Solomon's discreet and moderate desire we all know, give me O Lord neither riches nor poverty.

48. John 20:22. The Holy Ghost may be used to signify not the person alone, but the gifts of the Holy Ghost; and we know that spiritual gifts are not only abilities to do things miraculous, as to speak with tongues which never were taught us, to cure diseases without art, and such like. But also that the very authority and power which is given men in the Church to be ministers of holy things, this is contained within the number of those gifts of which the Holy Ghost is author: and therefore he which gives this power may say without absurdity or folly, receive the Holy Ghost, such power as the Spirit of Christ has endued his Church with, such power as neither prince nor potentate, King nor Caesar on earth can give. S. 77.

49. Isaiah 8:6. The Prophet Isaiah receiving his message at the hands of God and his charge by heavenly vision, heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? Who shall go for us? To which he records his own answer, then I said, here Lord I am, send me. Which in effect is the rule and canon whereby touching this point the very order of the Church is framed. The appointment of times for solemn ordination is but the public demand of the Church in the name of the Lord himself, whom shall I send, who shall go for us? The confluence of men whose inclinations are bent that way is but the answer to it; whereby the labors of many being offered, the Church has freedom to take whom her agents in such case think meet and requisite. S. 77.

50. Towards the ministry, what does the blessed Apostle else but encourage saying, he which desires it is desirous of a good work? What does he else by such sentences but stir, kindle and inflame ambition, if I may term that desire ambition, which covets more to testify love by painfulness in God's service, than to reap any other benefit? Although of the very honor itself, and of other emoluments annexed to such labors, for more encouragement of man's industry, we are not so to conceive neither, as if no affection could be cast towards them without offence. Ib.

51. Revelation 4:4. A Presbyter, according to the proper meaning of the New Testament, is he to whom our Savior Christ has communicated the power of spiritual procreation. Out of twelve patriarchs issued the whole multitude of Israel according to the flesh. And according to the mystery of heavenly birth our Lord's Apostles we all acknowledge to be the patriarchs of his whole Church. St. John therefore beheld sitting about the throne of God in heaven four and twenty presbyters, the one half fathers of the Old, the other of the New Testament. S. 78.

52. Acts 5:4. It seems in these days a question altogether vain and superfluous, whether tithes be a matter of divine right: because however at the first it might have been thought doubtful, our case is clearly the same now with theirs to whom St. Peter once spoke saying, [reconstructed: While it remained, was it not your own?] When our tithes might have probably seemed our own, we had color of liberty to use them as we ourselves saw good: but having made them his whose they are, let us be warned by other men's example what it is [illegible], to wash or clip that coin which has on it the mark of God. S. 79.

The style of ancient grants and charters is, We have given to God both for us and our heirs for ever. Ib.

53. Titus 1:5; Acts 14:23. Other distinction of Churches there does not appear any in the Apostles' writings, save only according to those cities in which they planted the Gospel of Christ and erected ecclesiastical colleges. Therefore to ordain [illegible] throughout every city, and [illegible] throughout every church, do in them signify the same thing. S. 80.

54. 2 Timothy 2:15. [illegible] to divide aright [reconstructed: denotes] in the Apostle's writings soundness of doctrine only, and in meaning stands opposite to [illegible] the broaching of new opinions against that which is received. For unquestionably the first things delivered to the Church of Christ were pure and sincere truth. Which whoever did afterwards oppugn could not choose but divide the Church into two moieties; in which division, such as taught what was first believed held the truer part, the contrary side in that they were teachers of novelty erred. S. 81.