come to age that they own their baptismal covenant, and that they have
that due understanding of the sacrament and the sacramental work, and
such a christian profession as is necessary to a due participation.
2. But this is fitliest done at their solemn transition out of their
infant church state into their adult: and it is not necessarily to be
done every time they come to the Lord's table (unless the person
desire help for his own benefit); but only once, before their first
communicating: if it be the satisfaction of the pastor or church that
is intended by it.
Quest. XCVI. _Is the sacrament of the Lord's supper a converting
ordinance?_
_Answ._ You must distinguish, 1. Between the conversion of infidels
without the church, and of hypocrites within it. 2. Between the
primary and the secondary intention of the institutor. 3. Between the
primary duty of the receiver, and the event. And so I conclude,
1. That God did not command ministers to give infidels the Lord's
supper to convert them to christianity.
2. He requireth us to give it to none but those that profess
themselves converted from infidelity and a state of wickedness, and to
none that profess not true saving faith and repentance.
3. God never commanded or allowed any infidel to demand or receive it
to his conversion.
4. God commandeth the pastors of the church to deliver it to
hypocrites, (who at the heart are infidels, or impenitent and
ungodly,) if they profess faith and repentance, and desire or require
it.[335]
5. There is much in the nature of the sacrament, which tendeth to the
conversion of a hypocrite.
6. And God often blesseth it to the conversion of hypocrites; so that
it may thence be said to be his secondary intention.
7. But yet he that knoweth himself to be a mere hypocrite, or void of
saving faith and repentance, should not come first and immediately to
the sacrament, to be converted by it; but should first so long hear,
read, meditate, and pray, till he repent and believe, and his heart
consent to the covenant of God; and then he should come with penitent
contrition, and solemnly renew his covenant in this sacrament, and
there receive a sealed pardon.
[335] Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. xi. 24; Acts ii. 37, 38; Matt. xxviii. 19,
20; 1 Cor. x. 16; 2 Cor. vi. 14; Acts viii. 13, 37, 38; 1 Cor. xi.
27-30.
Quest. XCVII. _Must no man come to the sacrament, that is uncertain or
doubtful of the sincerity of his faith and repentance?_
_Answ._ 1. He that is sure of his unsoundness and hypocrisy should not
come.[336]
2. He that upon trial is not sure, but yet as far as he can understand
his own heart and life, doth judge himself an impenitent hypocrite,
should use other means to know himself certainly, and fullier to
repent before he cometh. And though some melancholy and timorous
persons be falsely persuaded that they are impenitent, yet it is
better that such forbear the sacrament, while they use other means for
their better acquaintance with themselves, than that all the
hypocrites, and wicked, impenitent people be told that it is their
duty to come, if they can but make themselves uncertain whether they
be impenitent or not.
3. But he that after the best endeavours he can use to know himself,
can say, I am not certain that I truly repent, but as far as I can
know my heart I do; is not to be hindered from the sacrament by that
uncertainty. 1. For few of the best attain to a full certainty of
their own sincerity. 2. And all that can be expected from us is, that
we proceed according to the best of our understandings, and the best
acquaintance with ourselves that we can get. 3. And otherwise it would
keep us from all other duties proper to true christians; as from
thanksgiving for our justification, sanctification, adoption, &c.
4. He that only erreth about the nature of true faith and repentance,
and not about the reality of it in himself, should not be kept away by
that error; as if he can say, As far as I know my heart, I am willing
to part with every known sin, and to know every sin that I may part
with it; but I am afraid this is not true repentance; or he that
saith, I believe the gospel to be true, and I am willing to have
Christ upon his covenant terms, and wholly to resign myself unto him;
but I am afraid yet that I am not a true believer. This person is
truly penitent, and is a true believer, and therefore ought to come.
5. The case _de esse_, whether a man be a true christian or not, is in
order before the case _de scire_, whether he be certain of it, or
not.[337] He that is a hypocrite is bound by God first to know that he
is so, and then to repent, and then to communicate. He that is
sincere, is bound by God to know that he is sincere, and to be
thankful, and to communicate; and man's neglect of one duty will not
make God change his laws, which still bind them to all this at once.
[336] 1 Cor. xi. 28, 29, 31.
[337] 2 Cor. xiii. 5, 6.
Quest. XCVIII._ Is it lawful or a duty to join oblations to the
sacrament, and how?_
_Answ._ 1. There is no question but a christian must give up himself,
soul and body, with all that he hath, to God for his service; and
this oblation is christianity itself.[338]
2. It is undoubted that the Lord's day is a fit time for our
depositing what we have to spare for charitable and pious uses, and
this is partly of divine appointment, 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2.
3. No doubt but what we give to the poor, should be for God's sake,
and from our love to God; and therefore must first be devoted or given
up to God, and but secondarily to the poor.[339]
4. It is certain that the Lord's supper is as fit a season as any part
of that day, for such oblations and collections. The ancient
christians did therefore call it the communion, because in it they
showed their love and communion, and feasted in common to that end.
There are two several sorts of oblations which may lawfully be made
(and fitly) at the communion. 1. The creatures of bread and wine
should be offered or presented before God, as acknowledging him to be
the Creator and Giver of all, and to desire his acceptance and
benediction of them for that holy use. 2. Our alms or charitable
contribution may be then fitly offered to God, that he may first
accept it, and so it may be communicated to the church and poor. When
we receive from God the most obliging benefits, when we return our
greatest thanks, when we resign ourselves and all to God, it is then
sure a seasonable time, to express all by the oblation of our
benevolence: that hypocrites may not pretend that they are charitable
in secret, but the church may have due notice of it, and the pastors
be duly intrusted with it.[340]
[338] Rom. xii. 1; 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9.
[339] Matt. x. 42; xxv. 40, &c.
[340] 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2.
Quest. XCIX. _How many sacraments are there appointed by Christ?_
_Answ._ The word sacrament hath so many significations, that it is not
fit for the question till it be explained.[341] Passing all others
now, we must take notice, 1. That our use of it is not so large as the
Latin interpreter who putteth it for Mystery, but for A solemn
dedication of man to God by a vow expressed by some sacred ceremony,
signifying mutually our covenant to God, and God's reception of us and
his covenant with us. And it is brought into the church from the Roman
military oath called a sacrament, in which, as Tertul. "de Cor. Mil."
showeth, the soldier sware fidelity and obedience to Cæsar, renouncing
father, mother, &c. for his service, and swearing to prefer it, and
its safety, before them all: see Martinius's reciting the oath out of
divers authors. This is our sense of the word; let no man now that
taketh it in other sense, pretend therefore that we differ in
doctrine.
2. Seeing it is no Scripture word, it is not of necessity to the faith
or peace of the church; but when disputers agree not of the sense of
the word, they had best lay it by, and use such terms whose sense they
can agree on.
3. The name sacrament is either taken from the covenant sworn to, or
from the sign or ceremony of consent, by which we oblige ourselves, or
from both together.
4. The covenant of christianity is different from a particular
covenant of some office; and accordingly the sacrament is to be
distinguished.
5. As civil, economical, and ecclesiastical offices are distinct, so
are their several sacraments.
6. The solemn renewing of the sacred vow or covenant, without any
instituted, obliging sign, is to be distinguished from the renewing
it by such a sign of God's institution: and now I conclude,
1. As the word sacrament is taken improperly _secundum quid_, from the
nobler part only, that is, the covenant, (as a man's soul is called
the man,) so there are as many sacraments as covenants; and there is
in specie but one covenant of christianity, and so but one sacrament
of christianity, variously expressed.
2. As the word sacrament is taken properly and fully according to the
aforesaid description; so there are properly two sacraments of
christianity, or of the covenant of grace; that is, baptism, the
sacrament of initiation, (most fully so called,) and the Lord's
supper, or the sacrament of confirmation, exercise, and progress.
3. As the word sacrament is taken less properly, defectively,
_secundum quid_, for the same covenant of grace or christianity
renewed by any arbitrary sign of our own, without a solemn ceremony of
divine institution, so there are divers sacraments of christianity or
the covenant of grace, that is, divers solemn renewals of our covenant
with God. As, 1. At our solemn transition from the state of infant
membership unto that of the adult, when we solemnly own our baptismal
covenant, which Calvin and many protestants (and the English rubric)
call confirmation. 2. The solemn owning the christian faith and
covenant, in our constant church assemblies, when we stand up at the
creed or profession of our faith, and all renew our covenant with God,
and dedication to him. 3. At solemn days of fasting or humiliation,
and of thanksgiving when this should be solemnly done. Especially upon
some public defection. 4. Upon the public repentance of a particular
sinner before his absolution. 5. When a man is going out of the world,
and recommending his soul to God by Christ; all these are solemn
renewings of our covenant with God, in which we may use any lawful,
natural, or arbitrary signs or expressions, to signify our own minds
by, as speaking, subscribing, standing up, lifting up the hand, laying
it upon a book, kissing the book, &c. These sacraments are improperly
so called; and are divine as to the covenant renewed, but human as to
the expressing signs.
4. Ordination is not improperly or unfitly called a sacrament, because
it is the solemnizing of a mutual covenant between God and man, for
our dedication to his special service, and his reception of us and
blessing on us, though imposition of hands be not so solemn a ceremony
by mere institution, as baptism and the Lord's supper. But then it
must be noted, that this is not _sacramentum christianitatis_, a
sacrament of the christian covenant; but _sacramentum ordinis vel
officii particularis_, a sacrament of orders, or a particular office;
but of divine institution.
5. The solemn celebration of marriage, is an economical sacrament;
that is, a solemn obligation of man and woman by vow to one another,
and of both to God in that relation, which may be arbitrarily
expressed by lawful signs or ceremonies.
6. The solemn covenant of a master with his servant, is on the same
account an economical sacrament.
7. The inauguration of a king, in which he is sworn to his subjects,
and dedicated to God in that office, and his subjects sworn or consent
to him, is a civil sacrament, whether unction be added or not. And so
is a judge's entrance on his office, when it is done so solemnly by an
obliging vow or covenant.
8. Confirmation in the papists' sense, as conferred by chrism on
infants for giving them the Holy Ghost, is but an unwarrantable
imitation of the old miraculous operation by the apostles, and neither
a christian sacrament, nor a warrantable practice, but a presumption.
9. The same may be said of their sacrament of extreme unction.
10. Their sacrament of marriage is no otherwise a sacrament, than the
inauguration of a king is; which is approved by God as well as
marriage, and signifieth also an honourable collation of power from
the universal King.
11. Their sacrament of penance is no otherwise a sacrament than many
other forementioned renewings of our covenant are.
12. Therefore the papists' seven sacraments, or septenary
distribution, is confused, partly redundant, partly defective, and
unworthy to be made a part of their faith or religion, or the matter
of their peevish and ignorant contendings. And they that peremptorily
say, without distinguishing, that there are but two sacraments in all,
do but harden them by the unwarrantable narrowing of the word.
[341] Of which see Martinius fully in "Onom. de Sacram." Bellarmin
himself reckoneth five.
Quest. C. _How far is it lawful, needful, or unlawful for a man to
afflict himself by external penances for sin?_
_Answ._ 1. Not to the destroying of his body, life, or health, or the
disabling or unfitting body or mind, for the service of God.
2. Not to be the expression of any sinful, inordinate dejection,
despondency, sorrow, or despair.
3. Not so as may be an outward appearance of such inordinate passions,
or as may be a scandal to others, and deter them from religion as a
melancholy, hurtful thing.
4. Nor as if God would accept the mere external self-afflicting for
itself, or as if he loved our hurt, or as if we merited of him by our
unprofitable, voluntary troubles.
But, 1. It is a duty to express true godly sorrow by its proper
exercise and signs, so far as either the acting of it, or the increase
or continuance by the means of those expressions is profitable to
ourselves.
2. And also so far as is needful to the profiting of others, by
showing them the evil of sin, and drawing them to repentance.[342]
3. And so far as is necessary to the satisfying of the church of the
truth of our repentance, in order to our absolution and communion.
4. Especially so far as is necessary to subdue our fleshly lusts, and
tame our bodies, and bring them into a due subjection to our faith,
and to avoid our sin for the time to come. And also by the exercise of
sober mortification, prudently, to keep under all our worldly
phantasies, and love of this present world, without unfitting
ourselves for duty.
5. And so far as is needful by such mortification, to fit us for
fervent prayer, especially by fasting on days of humiliation; and to
help us in our meditations of death and judgment, and to further our
heavenly contemplations and conversation.
6. The greatest difficulty is, Whether any self-revenge be lawful or
due; which is answered by what is said already; none such as disableth
us for God's service is lawful. But true repentance is an anger or
great displeasure with ourselves for sin, and a hatred of sin, and
loathing of ourselves for it; and to judge, condemn, and afflict our
own souls by a voluntary self-punishing, is but that exercise of
justice on ourselves, which is fit for pardoned sinners that are not
to be condemned by the Lord, and indeed the just exercise of
repentance and displeasure against ourselves.[343] On which accounts
of sober self-revenge we may cherish such degrees of godly sorrow,
fasting, coarse clothing, (as sackcloth,) and denying ourselves the
pleasures of this world, as shall not be hurtful but helpful to our
duty. And if great and heinous sinners have of old on these terms,
exceeded other men in their austerities, and self-afflictings, we
cannot condemn them of superstition, unless we more particularly knew
more cause for it. But popishly to think that self-afflicting without
respect to such causes or necessities is a meritorious perfection, fit
for others, is superstition indeed.[344] And to think, as many of the
melancholy do, that self-murder is a lawful self-revenge, is a heinous
sin, and leadeth to that which is more heinous and dangerous.
[342] Isa. lviii. 3, 5-8, &c.; Mark ix. 13; xii. 7; Matt. vi. 1, 3, 5,
6, 17; Zech. viii. 19; 2 Cor. ii. 7; Col. ii. 22-24; Joel i. 14; ii.
15; Dan. ix. 3; Acts x. 13; 1 Cor. vii. 5; Luke ii. 37; Matt. iv. 2; 2
Sam. xii. 22; Luke xviii. 12; 2 Cor. vii. 9-11; 1 Cor. ix. 27; Col. i.
5, 6; Rom. xiii. 13, 14.
[343] Psal. lxix. 10; Lev. xvi. 29, 31; xxiii. 27, 32; Numb. xxix. 7;
xxx. 13; Ezra viii. 21.
[344] Isa. lviii. 5.
Quest. CI. _Is it lawful to observe stated times of fasting imposed by
others, without extraordinary occasions? And particularly Lent?_
_Answ._ Remember that I here meddle not with the question, how far is
it lawful for rulers to impose such fasts on others? save only to say,
1. That it is undoubtedly fit for kings to do it by precepts, and
churches by consent, in extraordinary cases of defection, sin, or
judgments.[345] 2. That it is undoubtedly sinful usurpation, for
either pope or any pretended ecclesiastical, universal rulers, to
impose such on the universal church (because there are no universal
rulers). Or for a neighbour bishop by usurpation to impose it on a
neighbour church. 3. And that it is sinful in all or many churches, to
make by their agreements such things to be necessary to their union or
communion with their neighbour churches, so that they will take all
those for schismatics that differ from them in such indifferent
things. But as to the using of such fasts (omitting the imposing) I
say,
I. 1. That so great and extraordinary a duty as holy fasting, must not
be turned into a mere formality or ceremony.[346]
2. No particular man must be so observant of a public, commanded,
anniversary fast, as for it to neglect any duty commanded him by God
which is inconsistent with it. As to rejoice or keep a thanksgiving in
Lent, upon an extraordinary obliging cause; to keep the Lord's day in
Lent, as a day of thanksgiving and rejoicing; to preserve our own
health, &c. It is not lawful in obedience to man, to fast so much, or
use such diet, as is like to destroy our lives or health; these being
not so far put into the power of man; nor can man dispense with us as
to the duty of self-preservation. If God himself require us not to
offer him our lives and health needlessly, as an acceptable sacrifice,
nor ever maketh self-destruction our duty, no nor any thing that is
not for man's own good; then we are not to believe without very clear
proof that either prince or prelates have more power than ever God
doth use himself.
3. Such an anniversary fast as is meet for the remembrance of some
great sin or judgment, if commanded, is to be kept, both for the
reason of it, and for the authority of the commander. For, 1. It is
not unlawful as anniversary. (For, (1.) It is not forbidden, and, (2.)
There may be just occasion. Some arbitrarily keep an anniversary fast
on the day of their nativity (as I have long done); and some on the
day that they fell into some great sin; and some on the day of the
death of a friend, or of some personal, domestic, or national
calamity; and none of this is forbidden.) 2. And that which is not
unlawful in itself, is not therefore unlawful to be done because it is
commanded; seeing obedience to superiors is our duty and not our sin,
unless in sinful things.
4. Whether it be lawful or meet to commemorate Christ's sufferings by
anniversary fasts, is next to be considered.
II. As for Lent in particular, we must distinguish, 1. Between the
ancient Lent, and the later Lent. 2. Between keeping it on a civil
account, and on a religious. 3. Between true fasting, and change of
diet. 4. Between the imitation of Christ's forty days' fasting, and
the mere commemoration of it. Which premised I conclude,
1. The keeping a true fast or abstinence from food, for forty days, on
what account soever, being impossible, or self-murder, is not to be
attempted.
2. The imitation of Christ in his forty days' fasting is not to be
attempted or pretended to; because his miraculous works were not done
for our imitation. And it is presumption for us to pretend to such a
power as is necessary to miracles; or yet to make any essays at such
an imitation, any more than at the raising of the dead.
3. The pretending of a fast when men do but change their diet, flesh
for fish, fruit, sweetmeats, &c. is but hypocritical and ridiculous;
most poor labourers, and temperate ministers, do live all the year on
a more flesh-denying diet, and in greater abstinence, than many
papists do in Lent, or on their fasting days. And what a ridiculous
dispute is it to hear, e. g. a Calvin that never eateth but one small
meal a day for many years, to plead against the keeping of the popish
fasts, and their clergy call him voracious, and carnal, and an
epicure, and plead for fasting as holy mortification, who eat as many
meals and as much meat on a Lent day or fasting day, as Calvin did in
three feasting days; and drink as much wine in a Lent, as he in twenty
years! Sure I am I know many such on both sides; some that eat but a
small meal a day, and never drink wine at all, and others that drink
wine daily, and eat of many dishes at a meal, and that to the full,
and of the sweetest, as fish, fruits, &c. yet rail at the former for
not fasting as they do. So delusory are the outward appearances, and
so false the pretensions of the carnal sort!
4. The ancient Lent consisted first of one day (Good Friday) alone;
and after that of three days, and then of six, and at last it came up
to forty. (Of which read Dallæus _ubi supra_ at large.)
5. None can question the lawfulness of and obedient keeping of such a
civil Lent fast as our statutes command, for the vending of fish, and
for the breed of cattle; so be it no bodily necessity or greater duty
be against it.
6. It is not unlawful for those that cannot totally fast, yet to use
more abstinence and a more mortifying sort of diet than ordinary, for
the exercises of repentance and mortification, in due time.
7. If authority shall appoint such a mortifying, abstemious course
upon lawful or tolerable grounds and ends, I will obey them, if they
peremptorily require it, when my health or some greater duty
forbiddeth it not.
8. As for the commanding such an abstinence, as in Lent, not in
imitation, but bare commemoration of Christ's forty days' fast, I
would not command it if it were in my power; but being peremptorily
commanded, I cannot prove it unlawful to obey, with the
afore-mentioned exceptions.
9. It was anciently held a crime to fast on the Lord's day, even in
Lent; and I take that day to be separated by Christ and the Holy Ghost
for a church festival or day of thanksgiving; therefore I will not
keep it as a fast, though I were commanded, unless in such an
extraordinary necessity, as aforesaid.
Of pilgrimages, saints, relics, and shrines, temples, of their
miracles, of praying to angels, to saints, for the dead, purgatory, of
the pope's pardons, indulgences, dispensations; of the power of true
pastors to forgive sins, with a multitude of such cases, which are
commonly handled in our controversial writers against the papists, I
must thither refer the reader for a solution, because the handling of
all such particular cases would swell my book to a magnitude beyond my
intention, and make this part unsuitable to the rest.
[345] 2 Chron. xx. 3; Ezra viii. 21; Jonah iii. 5; Zech. viii. 19;
Joel ii. 15. Read Dallæus's "Treatise de Jejuniis."
[346] Isa. lviii. 3, 5-8.
Quest. CII. _May we continue in a church, where some one ordinance of
Christ is wanting, as discipline, prayer, preaching, or sacraments,
though we have all the rest?_
_Answ._ Distinguish, 1. Of ordinances. 2. Of a stated want, and a
temporary want. 3. Of one that may have better, and one that cannot.
1. Teaching, prayer, and praise, are ordinances of such necessity that
church assemblies have not their proper use without them.
2. The Lord's supper is of a secondary need, and must be used when it
may, but a church assembly may attain its ends sometimes without it,
in a good degree.
3. Discipline is implicitly exercised when none but the baptized are
communicants, and when professed christians voluntarily assemble, and
the preaching of the word doth distinguish the precious from the vile;
much more when notorious, scandalous sinners are by the laws kept from
the sacrament (as our rubric and canons do require).
4. But for the fuller, explicit, and exacter exercise of discipline,
it is very desirable for the well-being of the churches; but it is but
a stronger fence or hedge, and preservative of sacred order; and both
the being of a church, and the profitable use of holy assemblies, may
subsist without it; as in Helvetia and other countries it is found.
I conclude then, 1. That he that, _consideratis considerandis_, is a
free man, should choose that place where he hath the fullest
opportunities of worshipping God, and edifying his soul.
2. He is not to be accounted a free man that cannot remove, without a
greater hurt than the good, either to the church or country, or to his
family, his neighbours, or himself.
3. Without teaching, prayer, and divine praises we are not to reckon
that we have proper church assemblies and communion.
4. We must do all that is in our power to procure the right use of
sacraments and discipline.
5. When we cannot procure it, it is lawful and a duty to join in those
assemblies that are without it, and rather to enjoy the rest than
none. Few churches have the Lord's supper above once a month, which in
the primitive church was used every Lord's day and ofter; and yet they
meet on other days.[347]
6. It is possible that preaching, prayer, and praise, may be so
excellently performed in some churches that want both discipline and
the Lord's supper, and all so coldly and ignorantly managed in another
church that hath all the ordinances, that men's souls may much more
flourish and prosper under the former than the latter.
7. If forbearing or wanting some ordinances for a time, be but in
order to a probable procurement of them, we may the better
forbear.[348]
8. The time is not to be judged of only by length, but by the
probability of success. For sometimes God's providence, and the
disturbances of the times, or the craft of men in power, may keep men
so long in the dark, that a long expectation or waiting may become our
duty.
[347] Acts xxviii. 31; xi. 26; xx. 7, 20, &c.; 1 Cor. xiv.; Acts ii.
42; 1 Tim. iv. 13, 14; 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2; 2 Tim. iii. 16; Heb. x. 25,
26; Col. iv. 16; Acts xiii. 27; xv. 21; 1 Thess. v. 27; 1 Cor. v. 34,
&c.
[348] Matt. xxvi. 31; Acts viii. 1.
Quest. CIII. _Must the pastors remove from one church to another
whenever the magistrate commandeth us, though the bishop contradict
it, and the church consent not to dismiss us; and so of other cases of
disagreement?_
_Answ._ As in man's soul, the intellectual guidance, the will, and the
executive power do concur, so in church cases of this nature, the
potestative government of the magistrate, the directive guidance of
the senior pastors, and the attractive love of the people (who are the
chief inferior, final cause) should all concur; and when they do not,
it is confusion: and when God's order is broken which commandeth their
concurrence, it is hard to know what to do, in such a division which
God alloweth not; as it is to know whether I should take part with the
heart against the head, or with the head against the stomach and
liver, on suppositions of cross inclinations or interests; whenas
nature supposeth either a concord of inclination and interest, or else
the ruin, sickness, or death of the person; and the cure must be by
reconciling them, rather than by knowing which to side with against
the rest.
But seeing we must suppose such diseases frequently to happen, they
that cannot cure them must know how to behave themselves, and to do
their own duty. For my own part, in such cases I would do thus:
1. I would look at my ultimate end, God's glory, and at the next end,
the good of souls and welfare of the church; and so at the people's
interest as it is the end of the order of magistracy and ministry: and
I would take myself to be so obliged to that end, as that no point of
mere order could disoblige me, the end being better than the means as
such; therefore I would do all things to edification, supposing that
all power of man is as Paul's was, for edification and not for
destruction.[349]
2. But in judging of what is best for the church, I must take in every
accident and circumstance, and look to many, more than to a few, and
to distant parts as well as to those near me, and to the time and ages
to come, as well as to the present, and not go upon mistaken
suppositions of the church's good; he that doth not see all things
that are to be weighed in such a case, may err by leaving out some
one.
3. I would obey the magistrate formally for conscience sake in all
things which belong to his office; and particularly in this case, if
it were but a removal from place to place, in respect to the temple,
or tithes, or for the civil peace, or for the preservation of church
order in cases where it is not grossly injurious to the church and
gospel.
4. In cases which by God's appointment belong to the conduct of
bishops, or pastors, or the concord of consociate churches, I would
_formaliter_ follow them. And in particular, if they satisfy me that
the removal of me is an apparent injury to the church, (as in the
Arian's times, when the emperors removed the orthodox from all the
great churches to put in Arians,) I would not obedientially and
voluntarily remove.
5. If magistrates and bishops should concur in commanding my remove in
a case notoriously injurious and pernicious to the church, (as in the
aforesaid case, to bring in an Arian,) I would not obey formally for
conscience sake; supposing that God never gave them such a power
against men's souls and the gospel of Christ; and there is no power
but of God.
6. But I would prefer both the command of the magistrate, and the
direction of the pastors, before the mere will and humour of the
people, when their safety and welfare were not concerned in the case.
7. And when the magistrate is peremptory, usually I must obey him
materially, when I do it not formally (in conscience to his mere
command). Because though in some cases he may do that which belongeth
not to his office, but to the pastor's, yet his violence may make it
become the church's interest, that I yield and give place to his
wrath; for as I must not resist him by force, so if I depart not at
his command, it may bring a greater suffering on the churches: and so
for preventing a greater evil he is to be submitted to in many cases,
where he goeth against God and without authority; though not to be
formally obeyed.
8. Particular churches have no such interest in their ministers or
pastors, as to keep them against their wills and the magistrate's, and
against the interest of the universal church, as shall be next
asserted.
I have spoken to this instance as it taketh in all other cases of
difference between the power of the magistrate, the pastor's and the
people's interest, when they disagree, and not as to this case alone.
[349] Eph. iv. 12, 14; 2 Cor. x. 8; xiii. 10; Rom. xiv. 19; Rom. xv.
2; 1 Cor. x. 23; 1 Cor. xiv. 5, 12, 26; 2 Cor. xii. 19.
Quest. CIV. _Is a pastor obliged to his flock for life? Or is it
lawful so to oblige himself? And may he remove without their consent?
And so also of a church member, the same questions are put._
These four questions I put together for brevity, and shall answer them
distinctly.
I. 1. A minister is obliged to Christ and the universal church for
life, (_durante vita_,) with this exception, if God disable him not.
2. But as a pastor he is not obliged to this or that flock for life.
There is no such command or example in God's word.
II. To the second: 1. It is lawful to oblige ourselves to a people for
life in some cases, conditionally; that is, if God do not apparently
call us away. 2. But it is never lawful to do it absolutely: 1.
Because we shall engage ourselves against God; against his power over
us, and interest in us, and his wisdom that must guide us. God may
call us whither he please; and though now he speak not by supernatural
revelation, yet he may do it by providential alterations. 2. And we
shall else oblige ourselves against the universal church, to which we
are more strictly bound, than to any particular church, and whose good
may oblige us to remove. 3. Yea, we may bind ourselves to the hurt of
that church itself; seeing it may become its interest to part with us.
4. And we should so oblige ourselves against our duty to authority,
which may remove us.
III. To the third question I answer, 1. A pastor may not causelessly
remove, nor for his own worldly commodity when it is to the hurt of
the church and hinderance of the gospel. 2. When he hath just cause,
he must acquaint the people with it, and seek their satisfaction and
consent. 3. But if he cannot procure it, he may remove without it: as,
1. When he is sure that the interest of the gospel and universal
church require it: 2. Or that just authority doth oblige him to it.
The reasons are plain from what is said; and also, 1. He is no more
bound to the people, than they are to him; but they are not so bound
to him, but they may remove on just occasion. 2. If he may not remove,
it is either because God forbids it, or because his own contract with
them hath obliged him against it. But, 1. God no where forbids it: 2.
Such a contract is supposed not made, nor lawful to be made.
IV. As to the people's case, it needs no other answer; 1. No member
may remove without cause. 2. Nor abruptly and uncharitably to the
church's dissatisfaction, when he may avoid it. But, 3. He may remove
upon many just causes, (private or public,) whether the church and
pastors consent or not, so the manner be as becometh a christian.
Quest. CV. _When many men pretend at once to be the true pastors of a
particular church against each other's title, through differences
between the magistrates, the ordainers, and the flocks, what should
the people do, and whom should they adhere to?_
[Sidenote: What pastor to adhere to.]
_Answ._ This case is mostly answered before in Quest. LXXXII. &c. I
need only to add these rules of caution. 1. Do not upon any pretence
accept of a heretic, or one that is utterly unfit for the office.
2. Do not easily take a dividing course or person, but keep as much as
may be in a way of concord with the united, faithful pastors and
churches in your proximity or country.
3. Look to the public good and interest of religion, more than to your
particular congregation.
4. Neglect not the greatest advantages for your own edification; but
rather take them by a removal of your dwelling, though you suffer by
it in your estates, than by any division, disturbance of the church's
peace, or common detriment.
5. Do not easily go against the magistrate's commands; unless they be
apparently unlawful, and to the church's detriment or ruin, in the
reception of your pastors.
6. Do not easily forsake him that hath been justly received by the
church, and hath possession, that is, till necessity require it.
Quest. CVI. _To whom doth it belong to reform a corrupted church? to
the magistrates, pastors, or people?_
_Answ._ A church is reformed three several ways: 1. By the personal
reformation of every member: 2. By doctrinal direction: and, 3. By
public, forcible execution, and constraint of others.
1. Every member, whether magistrates, pastors, or people, must reform
themselves, by forsaking all their own sins, and doing their own
duties. If a ruler command a private person to go to mass, to own any
falsehood, or to do any sin, he is not to be obeyed, because God is to
be first obeyed.
2. The bishops or pastors are to reform the church by doctrine,
reproof, and just exhortations, and nunciative commands in the name of
Christ to rulers and people to do their several duties; and by the
actual doing of his own.[350]
3. The king and magistrates under him, only, must reform by the sword,
that is, by outward force, and civil laws and corporal penalties: as
forcibly to break down images, to cast out idolaters, or the
instruments of idolatry from the temples, to put true ministers in
possession of the temples, or the legal public maintenance; to
destroy, punish, or hurt idolaters, &c. Supposing still the power of
parents and masters in their several families.
[350] 1 Cor. xi. 28, 29, 31, 33, 34; 1 Cor. v. 11; Dan. iii.; vi. 1
Cor. v. 3-5; 1 Pet. v. 2, 3; Luke xxii. 24-27.
Quest. CVII. _Who is to call synods? princes, pastors, or people?_
[Sidenote: The question of the power of synods is sufficiently
answered before.]
_Answ._ 1. There are several ways of calling synods: 1. By force and
civil mandates; 2. By pastoral persuasion and counsel; and, 3. By
humble entreaty and petition.
1. Magistrates only (that is, the supreme by his own power, and the
inferior by power derived from him) may call synods by laws and
mandates, enforced by the sword or corporal penalties, or mulcts.
2. Bishops or pastors in due circumstances may call synods by counsel
and persuasive invitation.
3. The people in due circumstances and necessity, may call synods by
way of petition and entreaty.
But what are the due circumstances?
_Answ._ 1. The magistrate may call them by command at his discretion,
for his own counsel, or for the civil peace, or the church's good.
2. The pastors and people may not call them, nor meet when the
magistrate forbiddeth it, except when the necessity of the church
requireth it: synods may profitably be stated for order, when it may
be lawfully obtained (both as to limits of place, numbers, and time).
But these prudential orders are not of stated necessity, but must give
place to weightier reasons on the contrary.
3. Synods themselves are not ordinarily necessary, by nature or
institution; (let him that affirmeth it, prove it;) but that which is
statedly necessary is, The concord of the churches as the end, and a
necessary correspondency of the churches as the means, and synods when
they may well be had, as a convenient sort of means.
4. When synods cannot be had, or are needless, messengers and letters
from church to church may keep up the correspondency and concord.
5. In cases of real necessity, (which are very rare, though usefulness
be more frequent,) the bishops and people should first petition the
king for his consent: and if that cannot be had, they may meet
secretly and in small numbers, for mutual consultation and advice
about the work of God; and not by keeping up the formality of their
set numbers, times, places, and orders, provoke the king against them.
6. The contempt of synods by the separatists, and the placing more
power in synods than ever God gave them by others, yea, and the
insisting on their circumstantial orders, making them like a civil
senate or court, have been the two extremes which have greatly injured
and divided the churches, throughout the world.
Quest. CVIII. _To whom doth it belong to appoint days and assemblies
for public humiliation and thanksgiving?_
_Answ._ The answer of the last question may serve for this. 1. The
magistrate only may do it by way of laws, or civil mandate enforced by
the sword.
2. The pastors may do it in case of necessity, by pastoral advice and
exhortation, and nunciative command in the name of Christ.
3. The people may do it by petition.
4. As ordinary church assemblies must be held if the magistrate forbid
them, (of which next,) so must extraordinary ones, when extraordinary
causes make it a duty.
5. When the magistrate forcibly hindereth them, natural impossibility
resolveth the question about our duty.
Quest. CIX. _May we omit church assemblies on the Lord's day, if the
magistrate forbid them?_
[Sidenote: May we omit church assemblies on the Lord's day, if
forbidden by magistrates.]
_Answ._ 1. It is one thing to forbid them for a time, upon some
special cause, (as infection by pestilence, fire, war, &c.) and
another to forbid them statedly or profanely.
2. It is one thing to omit them for a time, and another to do it
ordinarily.
3. It is one thing to omit them in formal obedience to the law; and
another thing to omit them in prudence, or for necessity, because we
cannot keep them.
4. The assembly and the circumstances of the assembly must be
distinguished.
(1.) If the magistrate for a greater good, (as the common safety,)
forbid church assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies,
or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him. 1. Because
positive duties give place to those great natural duties which are
their end: so Christ justified himself and his disciples' violation of
the external rest of the sabbath. "For the sabbath was made for man,
and not man for the sabbath." 2. Because affirmatives bind not _ad
semper_, and out-of-season duties become sins. 3. Because one Lord's
day or assembly is not to be preferred before many, which by the
omission of that one are like to be obtained.
(2.) If princes profanely forbid holy assemblies and public worship,
either statedly, or as a renunciation of Christ and our religion; it
is not lawful formally to obey them.
(3.) But it is lawful prudently to do that secretly for the present
necessity, which we cannot do publicly, and to do that with smaller
numbers, which we cannot do with greater assemblies, yea, and to omit
some assemblies for a time, that we may thereby have opportunity for
more: which is not formal but only material obedience.
(4.) But if it be only some circumstances of assembling that are
forbidden us, that is the next case to be resolved.
Quest. CX. _Must we obey the magistrate if he only forbid us
worshipping God in such a place, or country, or in such numbers, or
the like?_
[Sidenote: What if we be forbidden only place, numbers, &c.]
_Answ._ We must distinguish between such a determination of
circumstances, modes, or accidents, as plainly destroy the worship or
the end, and such as do not. For instance, 1. He that saith, You shall
never assemble but once a year, or never but at midnight, or never
above six or seven minutes at once, &c. doth but determine the
circumstance of time: but he doth it so as to destroy the worship,
which cannot so be done, in consistency with its ends. But he that
shall say, You shall not meet till nine o'clock, nor stay in the
night, &c. doth no such thing.
So, 2. He that saith, You shall not assemble but at forty miles'
distance one from another; or you shall meet only in a room, that will
hold but the twentieth part of the church; or you shall never preach
in any city or populous place, but in a wilderness far from the
inhabitants, &c. doth but determine the circumstance of place: but he
so doth it, as tends to destroy or frustrate the work which God
commandeth us. But so doth not he that only boundeth churches by
parish bounds, or forbiddeth inconvenient places.
3. So he that saith, You shall never meet under a hundred thousand
together, or never above five or six, doth but determine the accident
of number: but he so doth it as to destroy the work and end. For the
first will be impossible; and in the second way they must keep church
assemblies without ministers, when there is not so many as for every
such little number to have one. But so doth not he that only saith,
You shall not meet above ten thousand, nor under ten.
4. So he that saith, You shall not hear a Trinitarian, but an Arian;
or you shall hear only one that cannot preach the essentials of
religion, or that cries down godliness itself; or you shall hear none
but such as were ordained at Jerusalem or Rome, or none but such as
subscribe the council of Trent, &c. doth but determine what person we
shall hear: but he so doth it as to destroy the work and end. But so
doth not he that only saith, You shall hear only this able minister,
rather than that.
I need not stand on the application. In the latter case we owe formal
obedience. In the former we must suffer, and not obey.
For if it be meet so to obey, it is meet in obedience to give over
God's worship. Christ said, "When they persecute you in one city, flee
to another;" but he never said, If they forbid you preaching in any
city, or populous place, obey them. He that said, "Preach the gospel
to every creature, and to all nations, and all the world," and that
"would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth,"[351] doth not allow us to forsake the souls of all that dwell
in cities and populous places, and preach only to some few cottagers
elsewhere; no more than he will allow us to love, pity, and relieve
the bodies only of those few, and take none for our neighbours that
dwell in cities, but with priest and Levite to pass them by.
[351] Matt. x. 30; Mark xvi. 15; Matt. xxviii. 19; 1 Tim. ii. 4; 2
Tim. ii. 25, 26; iv. 1-3.
Quest. CXI. _Must subjects or servants forbear weekly lectures,
reading, or such helps, above the Lord's day's worship, if princes or
masters do command it?_
_Answ._ 1. There is great difference between a mere subject, or person
governed, and a servant, slave, or child.
2. There is great difference between such as are hindered by just
cause and real necessities, and such as are hindered only through
profane malignity.
(1.) Poor people have not so much leisure from their callings, as the
rich; and so providing for their families may, at that time, by
necessity become the greater and the present duty.
(2.) So may it be with soldiers, judges, and others, that have present
urgent work of public consequence; when others have no such
impediment.
(3.) He that is the child or slave of another, or is his own by
propriety, is more at his power, than he that is only a subject, and
so is but to be governed in order to his own and the common good.
(4.) A servant that hath absolutely hired himself to another, is for
that time near the condition of a slave; but he that is hired but with
limitations, and exceptions of liberty, (expressed or understood,)
hath right to the excepted liberty.
(5.) If the king forbid judges, soldiers, or others, whose labours are
due to the public, to hear sermons at that time when they should do
their work, or if parents or masters so forbid children and servants,
they must be obeyed, while they exclude not the public worship of the
Lord's own day, nor necessary prayer and duty in our private daily
cases.
(6.) But he that is under such bondage as hindereth the needful helps
of his soul, should be gone to a freer place, if lawfully he can. But
a child, wife, or such as are not free, must trust on God's help in
the use of such means as he alloweth them.
(7.) A prince, or tutor, or schoolmaster, who is not a proprietor of
the person, but only a governor, is not to be obeyed formally and for
conscience sake, if he forbid his subjects or scholars such daily or
weekly helps for their salvation as they have great need of, and have
no necessity to forbear; such as are hearing or assembling with the
church on the week days at convenient time, reading the Scriptures
daily, or good books, accompanying with men fearing God, praying, &c.;
because God hath commanded these when we can perform them.
Quest. CXII. _Whether religious worship may be given to a creature?
and what?_
_Answ._ While the terms of the question remain ambiguous, it is
uncapable of an answer.
1. By worship is meant either _cultus in genere_, any honour expressed
to another; or some special act of honour. We must understand the
question in the first general sense, or else we cannot answer it, till
men tell us, what acts of honouring they mean.
2. By religious is meant, either in general, that which we are bound
to by God, or is done by virtue of a religious, that is, a divine
obligation, and so is made part of our religion; that is, of our
obedience to God: or else by religious is meant divine, or that which
is properly due to God. The question must be taken in the first
general sense; or else it is no question, but ridiculous (to ask
whether we may give God's proper worship to a creature).
And so I answer, 1. By way of distinction. 2. Of solution.
(1.) We must distinguish between the honour of worshipping acts of the
mind, and of the body. (2.) Between idolatry as against the first
commandment, and idolatry or scandal as against the second.
_Af. Prop._ 1. There is due to every creature, a true estimation of it
according to the degree of its dignity or goodness; and a love
proportionable: as also a belief, a trust, a fear, proportionable to
every man's credibility, fidelity, power, &c.
2. There is an eminent degree therefore of estimation, reverence, and
love, and trust, due to good men above bad, and to those in heaven
above those on earth; and a peculiar honour to rulers as such, which
is not due to their inferiors.[352]
3. This is to be expressed by the body, by convenient actions.
4. The highest honour which we owe to any, is for the image of God in
them; viz. 1. His natural image, as men. 2. His moral image, as
saints. 3. His relative image of supereminency, as superiors. And so
it is God in them first, and they next as the images of God, who are
to be honoured.
5. There is no honour to be given to any creature, but that of which
God himself is the end; viz. as it referreth to his glory.
6. Therefore all honour given to men must be thus far religious honour
(or worship); for as all things are sanctified to and by saints, so
all things that religious men do, must be religiously done.[353]
7. As persons, so places, books, words, utensils, times, &c. must be
honoured for God's sake, as they are related to God, with such
estimations and expressions as are suitable to their relations.
_Neg._ 1. No creature must be esteemed to be a god; nor any of God's
proper attributes or honour given to any creature whatsoever.
2. No creature must be esteemed better, or greater, or wiser, than it
is (as far as we have means to know it).
3. Whatsoever outward expressions of honour (by word or deed) are
appropriated to the true God, 1. By divine institution; 2. Or by
nature; 3. Or by received usage, that expression of honour ought not
to be used to a creature, were the heart never so free from honouring
it. (1.) Because it is bodily idolatry: (2.) And scandal as being
idolatry interpretatively, in the just sense of others.[354]
4. Whatsoever outward expressions of honour idolaters have used, and
do use, to signify their inward idolatry, or taking a creature or a
fiction to be God, and so make it a _tessera_, or symbol, or
professing sign of that their idolatry, if those actions are so used
or esteemed among us, or within the notice of our actions, it is
unlawful for us to use the like to any creature. Because the use of
their expression maketh it to be a profession of idolatry by us, and
so to be interpretative idolatry and scandal; for to use professing
symbols is to profess.
Except when there is some notorious reason to use the same words or
actions to another lawful signification, which is of greater weight
than the scandal; and we make it as public to obviate the scandal,
that we do it not to the idolater's intents.
For example, If the Mahometans make it a symbol of their religion, to
say, God is but one, upon a false supposition that the christians make
more gods than one; yet it is lawful for us to use that symbolical
word to a better end. But if they add to their symbol, and Mahomet is
his prophet, we may not use that, because it is, 1. Symbolical of a
false religion; 2. And a falsehood of itself.
So if they make it a distinctive note of their religious meetings, to
congregate the people by voice and not by bells, when it will be taken
for a professing their religion to do the same, we must avoid it; but
not when there is great cause for it, (as if we have no other means,)
and the reason against it or scandal may be well avoided.
5. Image worship, (or bowing or otherwise worshipping towards an image
as an object,) in the time of divine worship, or when we otherwise
pretend to be worshipping God, is so gross an appearance of inward
idolatry, (either as visibly describing God to be like a creature, or
else as seeming to mean what idolaters did by that action,) that God
hath thought meet to forbid it to all mankind by a special law.
(Command. 2.)
6. The scandal of seeming idolatry is a heinous sin, and not to be
excused by the contrary meaning of the heart, no more than lying,
idolatrous professions are. Because to blaspheme God as if he were
like a creature, or to tell the world by our actions that a creature
is God, are both very heinous. And so is it to murder our brethren's
souls, by tempting them to the like.[355]
7. It is no appearance of idolatry to kneel to a king, or a father, or
superior, when we are professing nothing but to honour them with due
honour. But when the church assembleth professedly to worship God, if
then they mix expressions of veneration to angels, and saints in
heaven, or to a king, or any creature, in their worshipping of God,
without a very notorious signification of sufficient difference, it
will seem a joining them in part of the same divine honour.[356]
8. So we may put off our hats to the chair of state, or king's image,
yea and kneel towards it as to him, if the command is in due time and
place, when it is human worship only which we profess. But to kneel or
bow as an act of honour towards the image of king, saints, or angels,
in the time of our professed worshipping of God, is scandalous, and an
appearance that we give them a part of that which we are giving to
God.
9. Yet it is not unlawful even in the sacred assemblies, to bow to our
superior at our entrance, or going out, or in the intervals of God's
worship; because the time, and custom, and manner may sufficiently
notify the distinction, and prevent the scandal.
10. If any presumptuous clergyman on pretence of their authority, will
bring images into the churches, and set them before us in divine
worship, as objects only of remembrance, and means of exciting our
affections to God, that they may show _quam proxime se accedere posse
ad peccatum sine peccato_, how near they can come to sin without sin,
it is not meet for any good christians to follow them in their
presumption, nor by obeying them to invite them to proceed in their
church tyranny.[357] Though I now determine not, whether in case of
necessity, a man may not be present with such a church, if their
worship of God himself be sound, supposing him sufficiently to notify
his dissent, and that he do not himself scandalously direct his
worship toward such images. (As in the Lutheran churches we may
suppose they do not.)
[352] Psal. xv 4.
[353] 1 Tim. iv. 5; Tit. i. 15; 1 Cor. x. 14; 1 Pet. iv. 3.
[354] 1 Cor. vi. 9; x. 17; Rev. xxi. 8; xxii. 15; Acts xvii. 16; Gal.
v. 20; Second commandment; Rev. xxii. 8, 9; ii. 14, 20; 1 Cor. viii.;
x. 19, 28; 1 John v. 21; Dan. iii.
[355] Rom. xi. 4; 1 Kings xix. 18; Rev. xxii. 8, 9; Josh. xxiii. 7; 2
Kings xvii. 35; Exod. xx. 5.
[356] Gen. xxvii. 29; xxxii. 10; xliv. 8; Exod. xi. 8; 2 Kings v. 18;
Gen. xli. 43; Ruth ii. 10; 1 Sam. xxv. 23, 41.
[357] Lev. xxvi. 1; Gal. ii. 4, 5; v. 1; 1 Cor. vii. 23.
Quest. CXIII. _What images, and what use of images, is lawful or
unlawful?_
_Answ._ 1. It is unlawful to make any image of God. Because it would
be a blaspheming of him, as pretending him to be like to that which he
is not like to, that is, a creature.[358]
_Object._ Man is God's image: it is lawful to make an image of man;
and so an image of God's image, and that may be a secondary image of
God.
_Answ._ 1. It is the soul of man, of which no image can be drawn or
made, which is the image of God, and not the body. 2. The image of him
who _secundum quid_ as to the soul is God's image, is not God's
image, but man's _quoad corpus_ as to another part. We need not
contend much about the name, whether this may be called a remote image
of God (though undoubtedly unfit). But we must not really take it to
be like him, or use it for his image.
_Object._ God hath imprinted his image on the whole creation; e. g. he
is called a consuming fire; therefore fire may be pictured as his
image.
_Answ._ The same answer serveth as to the former objection. And it is
not all the impressions and _vestigia_ of God's power, wisdom, and
goodness, which are called his image; as the house is not the image of
the builder, or a clock of a clock-maker, &c. And if God be
metaphorically called fire, as he is called a lion, &c. because of the
similitude of some operation or effect, it followeth not that these
are his image; much less that the image of these is his image.
2. No image may be made to be a teacher of lies; as we may not lie by
words, so neither by images. Therefore false stories, or false images
of realities, when made as true, and pretended to be true images or
representations, are unlawful.
3. Therefore it is unlawful to make an image of a spirit, pretending
it to be a true image. Because it will be a lie.
4. It is unlawful so to make, place, or use any image, as is like to
do more harm than good.
5. Therefore it is unlawful so to make, place, or use them, as that
they are like to tempt a man to any sin, unless necessity for some
greater good require it. (Of which more anon.)
6. Therefore all images of such idols or feigned deities are unlawful,
as are like to be any temptation to any to believe in them, or worship
them.
7. Therefore also all images of such creatures as others use to give
unlawful worship or honour to, are unlawful when they are like to be a
temptation to us or others to do the like. As among papists the image
of the crucifix, the virgin Mary, and angels may not be made, placed,
or used so as may tempt any to worship them sinfully as they use to
do.
8. The image of an over-honoured or falsely honoured person, (though
not adored,) may not be so made, placed, or used, as tendeth to tempt
others also to such honour. As of Mahomet, or Apollonius (as Alexander
Severus placed him and others, with Abraham and Christ, in his
_lararium_ or chapel). And many give too much honour by images to
Alexander, Cæsar, and such other great thieves and murderers of
mankind.
9. It is unlawful to make lascivious images of naked persons, and
place or use them so, as tendeth to be a temptation to lust or
immodesty. A common sin of persons of unclean imaginations.
10. It is also unlawful so to represent plays, pompous honours,
splendid clothing or buildings, as tendeth more to tempt the beholders
to sinful desires, than to any good.
11. It is unlawful to place images in churches or in secret before our
eyes when we are worshipping God, when it tendeth to corrupt the
imagination, or by possessing it, to hinder the spiritual exercise of
the mind. Which is the ordinary effect of images.
12. It is unlawful to use images scandalously, as any of the aforesaid
sinners use them, though we do it not with the same intent. That is,
so to use them, as is interpretatively or in outward appearance the
same with their use; because by so doing we shall dishonour God as
they do, and harden them in sin. Therefore images in churches or
oratories, in those countries where others use them sinfully, or near
such countries where the same may harden men in their sin, is evil.
13. It is unlawful to make talismans or shapes, upon false
suppositions that the very shape naturally disposeth the matter to
receive such influences of the stars, by which it shall preserve men
from plagues, fire, wild beasts, serpents, diseases, or shall
otherwise work wonders; for which Gaffarel vainly pleadeth at large;
such as they call naturally magical and charming shapes.
14. Much more unlawful is it purposely to make shapes to be symbols or
instruments by which the devil shall operate, whether it be for good
or evil; it being unlawful so far to use him.
15. So is it to make such shapes, on conceit that God or good angels
will operate in or by them. As some use the cross or other images, to
defend them from devils, to cure the tooth-ache or other diseases, or
such like use; when God hath neither appointed any such means to be
used, for such ends, nor promised any such blessing or operation by
them.
16. It is unlawful to place the image of a tutelary saint or angel in
house, church, or town, on supposition that we shall be the safer
while that image is there placed; or else to profess our trust in that
particular guardian. Because no man knoweth what angel God doth make
his guardian, nor can we distinguish them; much less that he maketh
such or such a saint our guardian. And men's own (foolish) choosing
such a one to be their guardian, will not make them so. Nor hath God
appointed or promised to bless any such imagery.
17. It is sinful to use such amorous images of the persons towards
whom your lust is kindled, as tendeth to increase or keep up that
lust, or to make profession or ostentation of it. As lustful persons
use to carry or keep the pictures of those on whom they dote.
18. It is unlawful to make such use of the pictures of our deceased
friends, as tendeth to increase our inordinate sorrow for them.
19. It is unlawful to make such images, monuments, or memorials of the
best and holiest persons or martyrs, as may endanger or tempt men to
any inordinate veneration of, or confidence in the persons honoured.
20. Inward images of God imprinted on the fantasy are sinful: and so
are other such false and sinful images as afore-mentioned, though they
be not made externally for the use of the eye.
21. I think it is unlawful to make an image, or any equal instituted
sign, to be the public common symbol of the christian religion (though
it be but a professing sign); because God having already instituted
the symbols or public _tesseræ_ of our christian profession or
religion, it is usurpation to do the like without his commission. As
the king having made the wearing of a George and star the badge of the
order of the garter, would take it ill, if any shall make another
badge of the order, much more if they impose it on all of the order:
though I presume not to condemn it.
1. All images painted or engraven are not unlawful; for God himself
commanded and allowed the use of many in the Old Testament. And Christ
reprehendeth not Cæsar's image on his coin.[359]
2. The civil use of images in coins, sign-posts, banners, ornaments of
buildings, or of books, or chambers, or gardens, is not unlawful.
3. As the word image is taken in general for signs, there is no
question but they are frequently to be used; as all a man's words are
the images, that is, the signifiers of his mind; and all a man's
writings are the same made visible. It is therefore a blind,
confounding error of some now among us (otherwise very sober, good
men) who accuse all forms of prayer and of preaching as sinful,
because (say they) they are idols, or images of prayer and of
preaching; they are neither engraven nor painted images of any
creature; but all words are or should be signs of the speaker's mind.
And if you will _secundum quid_ call only the inward desires by the
name of prayer, then the words are the signs of such prayer. But
because prayer in the full sense is desire expressed, therefore the
expressions are not the signs of such prayer, but part of the prayer
itself, as the body is of the man: nor is a form, that is
fore-conceived or premeditated words, (whether in mind or writing,)
any more an image of prayer, than extemporate prayer is. All words are
signs, but never the more for being premeditated or written. And
according to this opinion, all books are sinful images, and all sermon
notes, and the printing of the Bible itself, and all pious letters of
one friend to another, and all catechisms: strangers will hardly
believe, that so monstrous an opinion as this, should in these very
instances be maintained, by men otherwise so understanding and truly
godly, and every way blameless, as have and do maintain it at this
day.
4. The making and using of the image of Christ, as born, living,
preaching, walking, dying, (a crucifix,) rising, ascending, is not
unlawful in itself, though any of the forementioned accidents may make
it so in such cases. As Christ was man like one of us, so he may be
pictured as a man.
_Object._ His divine nature and human soul are Christ, and these
cannot be pictured; therefore an image of Christ cannot be made.
_Answ._ It is not the name, but the thing which I speak of: choose
whether you will call it an image of Christ _secundum corpus_, or an
image of Christ's body. You cannot picture the soul of a man, and yet
you may draw the picture of a man's body.
5. It is a great part of a believer's work, to have Christ's image
very much upon his imagination, and so upon his mind.[360] As if he
saw him in the manger, in his temptations, in his preaching, in his
praying, watching, fasting, weeping, doing good, as crowned with
thorns, as crucified, &c.; that a crucified Saviour being still as it
were before our eyes, we may remember the price of our redemption, and
the example which we have to imitate; and that we are not to live like
a Dives or a Cæsar, but like the servants of a crucified Christ. A
crucifix well befitteth the imagination and mind of a believer.
6. It is a great part of true godliness, to see God's image in the
glass of the creation; to love and honour his image on his saints, and
all the impressions of his power, wisdom, and goodness on all his
works; and to love and honour him as appearing in them.[361]
7. It is lawful on just occasion, to make the image of fire or light
as signifying the inaccessible light in which God is said to dwell,
and the glory in which he will appear to the blessed in heaven.[362]
For by many such resemblances the Scripture setteth these forth, in
Rev. i. xxi. xxii. &c. And Moses saw God's back parts, viz. a created
glory.
8. It is lawful to represent an angel on just occasions, in such a
likeness as angels have assumed in apparitions; or as they are
described in Ezekiel or elsewhere in Scripture; so be it we take it
not for an image of their true spiritual nature, but an improper
representation of them, like a metaphor in speech.[363]
9. It is lawful (seasonably and in fit circumstances) to use images,
1. For memory, 2. For clearer apprehension, 3. For more passionate
affection, even in religious cases; which is commonly called the
historical use of them. For these ends the Geneva Bible, and some
other, have the Scripture histories in printed images; to show the
papists that it is not all images, or all use of them, that they were
against. And so men were wont to picture Dives in his feasting, with
Lazarus in rags, over their tables, to mind them of the sinfulness of
sensuality. And so the sacred histories are ordinarily painted, as
useful ornaments of rooms, which may profit the spectators.
10. Thus it is lawful to honour the memory of learned, great, and
virtuous persons, saints and martyrs, by keeping their images; and by
the beholding of them to be remembered of our duty, and excited to
imitation of them.[364]
11. It is lawful to use hieroglyphics, or images expressing virtues
and vices, as men commonly make images to decipher prudence,
temperance, charity, fortitude, justice, &c. and envy, sloth, pride,
lust, &c. As they do of the five senses, and the four seasons of the
year, and the several parts of man's age, and the several ranks and
qualities of persons, &c.
12. Thus it is lawful to represent the devil, and idols, when it
tendeth but to make them odious. For as we must not take their names
into our mouths, Psal. xvi. 4; Exod. xxiii. 13; Eph. v. 3; that is,
when it tendeth to honour them, or tempt men to it; and yet may name
them as Elias did in scorn, or as the prophets did by reproof of sin;
so is it also in making representations of them. Even as a drunkard
may be painted in his filth and folly to bring shame and odium on the
sin.
13. It is lawful to use hieroglyphics instead of letters, in teaching
children, or in letters to friends; or to make images to stand as
characters instead of words, and so to use them even about sacred
things.
14. As it is lawful to use arbitrary professing signs even about holy
things, which signify no more than words, and have by nature or custom
an aptitude to such a use; while it is extended no further, than to
open our own minds; so it may be lawful to use such a characteristical
or hieroglyphical image to that end, when it hath the same aptitude,
but not otherwise. As a circular figure or ring being a hieroglyphic
of perpetuity, and so of constancy, is used as a significant
profession of constancy in marriage; and so the receiving of each
other's picture might be used. And so in covenanting, or taking an
oath, the professing sign is left to the custom of the country;
whether we signify our consent by gesture, words, action, writing. And
as it is lawful to make an image on a seal which hath a sacred
signification, (as a flaming heart on an altar, a Bible, a praying
saint, &c.) as well as to write a religious motto on a seal; so it is
lawful to put this seal to a subscribed covenant with God and his
church, or our king and country, when we have a lawful call to seal
such a covenant.[365] But if law or custom would make such a seal to
be the common public badge or symbol of the christian religion, I
think it would become unlawful.
As the crucifix for aught I know might thus have been arbitrarily used
as a seal, or as a transient, arbitrary professing sign, as the cross
was by the ancients at the beginning. If any man had scorned me for
believing in a crucified Christ, I know not but I might have made a
crucifix by art, act, or gesture, to tell him that I am not ashamed of
Christ; as well as I may tell him so by word of mouth. But if men's
institution or custom shall make this a symbol or badge of a
christian, and twist it in baptism, or adjoin it, as a dedicating
sign, and as the common professing symbol that every baptized person
must use, to signify and declare that he is not ashamed of Christ
crucified, but believeth in him, and will manfully fight under his
banner against the flesh, the world, and the devil to the death:
though he call it but a professing sign, and say, he doth but signify
his own mind, and not God's act and grace; I should wish to
distinguish between a private or arbitrary act of profession, and a
common public badge and professing symbol of our religion; and tell
him that I think the instituting of the latter belongs to God alone;
and that he hath made two sacraments to that end; which sacraments are
essentially such symbols and badges of our profession, and are
dedicating signs on the receiver's part; and that Christ crucified is
the chief grace or mercy given to the church, and his sacrifice is his
own act: and therefore objectively, the grace, and act of God also, is
here signified; and therefore on two accounts set together, I fear
this use of the crucifix is a sin: 1. As it is an image, (though it
should be transient,) used as a medium in God's worship, and so
forbidden in the second commandment (for it is not a mere circumstance
of worship, but an outward act of worship). 2. Because it is a new
human sacrament, or hath too much of the essence of a sacrament, and
so is a usurpation of his prerogative that made the sacraments: for as
I said, it belongeth to the king to make the common badge or symbol of
his own subjects, or any order honoured by him. And the general giveth
out his own colours; and though one may arbitrarily wear another
colour, yet if any shall give out common colours to his army,
regiment, or troop beside his own, to be the symbol or badge of his
soldiers, I think he would take it for too much boldness. Yet if only
an inferior captain gave but subordinate colours, not to notify a
soldier of the army as such, but to distinguish his troop from the
rest, it were not so much as the other: so if a bishop or ruler did
but make such a symbol by which the christians of his charge might be
discerned from all others, and not as a badge of christianity itself,
though I know no reason for such distinction, and it may be faulty
otherwise, yet would it not be this usurping of sacramental
institution, which now I speak of. All professing signs are not
symbols of christianity. Christ hath done his own work well already;
his colours, sacraments, or symbols are sufficient; we need not devise
more, and accuse his institutions of insufficiency; nor make more work
for ourselves in religion, when we leave undone so much that he hath
made us.
15. All abuse of images will not warrant us to separate from the
church which abuseth them; nor is all such abuse, idolatry. If the
church or our rulers will against our will place images inconveniently
in churches, we may lawfully be there, so that they be not symbols of
idol worship, or of a religion or worship so sinful in the substance,
as that God will not accept it; and so be it we make no sinful use of
those inconvenient images ourselves. Though mere temptation and
scandal make them sinful in those that so abuse them, and set them up;
yet he that is not the author of that temptation or scandal, may not
forsake God's worship, because that such things are present, nor is to
be interpreted a consenter to them, while he cometh only about lawful
worship (and perhaps hath fit opportunity at other times to profess
his dissent).
16. It is lawful to preserve the honest and sober love to our friends,
by keeping their pictures; or to show our love by decent monuments.
17. Where we may use creatures themselves to profit us by the sight,
we may (ordinarily) use the images of those creatures. As the sight of
trees, fruits, cities, &c. may delight us, and mind us of the power,
wisdom, and goodness of God (or the sight of the sun, moon, stars,
&c.); so may the pictures of the same things. And as a dead body,
skeleton, or skull, may profitably mind us of our latter end; so may
the picture of any of these, which we may more conveniently keep.
18. It is not unlawful to pray before or towards an image, in a room
where images are placed only for ornament, and we have no respect to
them as a medium or object of our worship (except by accident as
aforesaid).
19. It is not unlawful to make an image (out of the cases of
accidental evil before named) to be _objectum vel medium excitans ad
cultum Dei_, an object or medium of our consideration, exciting our
minds to worship God. (As a death's-head, or a crucifix, or an
historical image of Christ or some holy man, yea, the sight of any of
God's creatures, may be so holily used, as to stir up in us a
worshipping affection, and so is _medium cultus excitans vel
efficienter_.) But no creature, or image, (I think,) may lawfully be
made the _medium cultum vel terminus, in genere causæ finalis_, a
worshipped medium, or the _terminus_, or the thing which we worship
mediately, on pretence of representing God, and that we worship him in
it ultimately. And this I take to be the thing forbidden directly in
the second commandment; viz. To worship a creature (with mind or body)
in the act of divine worship, as representing God, or as the mediate
term of our worship, by which we send it unto God, as if it were the
more acceptable to him. So that it is lawful by the sight of a
crucifix to be provoked to worship God; but it is unlawful to offer
him that worship, by offering it to the crucifix first, as the sign,
way, or means of our sending it to God.
20. Yet a creature may be honoured or worshipped with such worship as
is due to him, by the means of such a representing _terminus_ or
image. If the king command his subjects to bow towards his image or
throne when he is absent, as an act of honour, or human worship to
himself, it is lawful so to do, God having not forbid it. But God hath
forbid us to do so by himself, because he hath no image, and is
confined to no place, and to avoid the danger and appearance of
idolatry.
21. Yet is it lawful to lift up our hand and eyes towards heaven, as
the place of God's glory; and I condemn not the ancient churches that
worshipped towards the east. But it was not heaven, or the sun, or
east that they worshipped, or to which they sent their worship, as any
_terminus medius_, or thing mediately worshipped; but only to God
himself, whose glory is in the heavens.
[358] Isa. xl. 18, 25; xlvi. 5; Exod. xx. 4; Gen. i. 26; v. 1; Deut.
iv. 16-18, 23, 25; v. 8; xvi. 22; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7; Ezek. viii. 3,
5; Dan. iii.; Rom. i. 23; Heb. xii. 29; Col. iii. 10; Deut. ix; Exod.
xxiii. 24; xxxiv. 13; Deut. vii. 5; 1 Kings xiv. 9, 23; 2 Kings xvii.
19; 2 Chron. xiv. 3, 5; Hab. ii. 18; Jer. x. 8; Deut. xxvii. 15; Isa.
xvii. 8; xli. 29; 2 Chron. xxviii. 2; xxiv. 3, 4; Hos. xiii. 2; Ezek.
xvi. 17; xxiii. 14; xxx. 13; Hos. x. 1, 2; 2 Kings xxi. 7; Jer. viii.
19; li. 47.
[359] 2 Chron. iii. 10; Matt. xxii. 10; Numb. xxi. 9; 2 Kings xvi. 17;
1 Kings vii. 18, 19, 25, 26, 29, 30.
[360] Rom. viii. 29; Rev. i. 12, &c.; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15; Phil.
iii. 8-10, &c.
[361] 1 Cor. xi. 7; 2 Cor. iii. 18; Col. iii. 10.
[362] Exod. xxv. 18, 19; xxxvii. 8, 9.
[363] 1 Kings vi. 24-27; Ezek. x. 2, 4, 7, 9, 14; 1 Kings vii. 29, 36;
viii. 6, 7; 1 Sam. iv. 4; 2 Kings xix. 15; Psal. lxxx. 1; xcix. 1;
Isa. vi. 2, 6.
[364] Ut Beza Icones Viror. Illustrium.
[365] Neh. ix. 48; Esth. viii. 8.
Quest. CXIV. _Whether stage-plays, where the virtuous and vicious are
personated, be lawful?_
Because this is a kind of imagery, the question may be here fitly
handled. But I have said so much before of stage-plays, and the sin
that is used in them, part i. chap. 18, that I have nothing more to
say here, but only to decide this particular case of conscience
concerning them.
As I am not willing to thrust any man into extremes, nor to trouble
men with calling those sins, which God hath not forbidden; so I have
reason to advise men to go, in doubtful cases, on the safer side, much
more to dissuade them from undoubted sin, and especially from great
and multiplied sins; and therefore I must thus decide the question.
1. It is not absolutely unlawful to personate another man, nor doth
the second commandment forbid such living images in this extent. I
pass by the instance of the woman of Tekoah, 2 Sam. xiv.; because the
bare history proveth not the lawfulness. But Paul's speaking as of
himself and Apollos the things which concerned others, was approvable;
and as Christ frequently taught by parables, so his parables were a
description of good and evil, by the way of feigned history, as if
such and such things had been done by such persons as never were. And
this fiction is no falsehood; for the hearer knoweth that it is not
meant as an historical narrative, but a parable; and it is but an
image in words, or a painted doctrine. And if a person and action may
be feigned by words, I know not where it is forbidden to feign them by
personal representation. Therefore to personate another is not simply
a sin.
2. To personate good men in good actions, is not simply unlawful;
because, 1. It is not unlawful as it is personating, as is showed. 2.
Nor as lying; because it is not an asserting, but a representing; nor
so taken.
3. To personate a bad man, in a bad action, is more dubious; but
seemeth not in all cases to be unlawful. To pass by David's feigning
himself mad, (as of uncertain quality,) it is common with preachers,
to speak oft the words of wicked men, as in their names or persons, to
disgrace them: and Prov. v. 11, 12, &c. cometh near it. And whether
Job be a history, or a dialogue personating such speakers, is doubted
by the most learned expositors.
4. I think it possible to devise and act a comedy or tragedy, which
should be lawful, and very edifying. It might be so ordered by wise
men.
5. I think I never knew or heard of a lawful stage-play, comedy, or
tragedy, in the age that I have lived in; and that those now commonly
used, are not only sins, but heinous, aggravated sins; for these
reasons.
1. They personate odious vices commonly viciously; that is, 1. Without
need, reciting sinful words, and representing sinful actions; which as
they were evil in the first committing, so are they in the needless
repetition. Eph. v. 3, 4, 12, "But fornication, and all uncleanness,
or covetousness, (or lust,) let it not be once named among you as
becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting,
which are not convenient; but rather giving of thanks.--For it is a
shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret."
2. Because they are spoken and acted commonly without that shame, and
hatred, and grief which should rightly affect the hearers with an
abhorrence of them; and therefore tend to reconcile men to sin, and to
tempt them to take it but for a matter of sport.
2. There are usually so many words materially false (though not proper
lies) used in such actings of good and evil, as is unsavoury, and
tendeth to tempt men to fiction and false speaking.
3. There are usually such multitudes of vain words poured out on the
circumstantials, as are a sin themselves, and tempt the hearers to the
like.
4. They usually mix such amorous or other such insnaring expressions
or actions, as are fitted to kindle men's sinful lusts, and to be
temptations to the evils which they pretend to cure.
5. A great deal of precious time is wasted in them, which might have
been much better spent; to all the lawful ends which they can intend.
6. It is the preferring of an unmeet and dangerous recreation, before
many fitter; God having allowed us so great choice of better, it
cannot be lawful to choose a worse. The body which most needeth
exercise, with most of the spectators, hath no exercise at all; and
the mind might be much more fruitfully recreated many ways, by variety
of books, of converse, by contemplating God and his works, by the
fore-thoughts of the heavenly glory, &c. So that it is unlawful, as
unfitted to its pretended ends.
7. It usually best suiteth with the most carnal minds, and more
corrupteth the affections and passions, as full experience proveth:
those that most love and use them are not reformed by them, but
commonly are the most loose, ungodly, sensual people.
8. The best and wisest persons least relish them, and are commonly
most against them. And they are best able to make experiment, what
doth most help or hurt the soul. Therefore when the sensual say, We
profit by them, as much as by sermons, they do but speak according to
their sense and lust. As one that hath the green-sickness may say,
coals and clay and ashes do more good than meat; because they are not
so fit to judge, as those that have a healthful state and appetite.
And it seldom pleaseth the conscience of a dying man, to remember the
time he spent at stage-plays.
9. Usually there is much cost bestowed on them, which might be better
employed, and therefore is unlawful.
10. God hath appointed a stated means of instructing souls, by
parents, ministers, &c. which is much more fit and powerful; therefore
that time were better spent.[367] And it is doubtful whether
play-houses be not a stated means of man's institution, set up to the
same pretended use as the church and ministry of Christ, and so be not
against the second commandment. For my part I cannot defend them, if
any shall say that the devil hath apishly made these his churches, in
competition with the churches of Christ.
11. It seemeth to me a heinous sin for players to live upon this as a
trade and function, and to be educated for it, and maintained in it.
That which might be used as a recreation, may not always be made a
trade of.
12. There is no mention that ever such plays were used in Scripture
times by any godly persons.
13. The primitive christians and churches were commonly against them;
many canons are yet to be seen, by which they did condemn them. Read
but Dr. J. Reignolds against Albericus Gentilis, and you shall see
unanswerable testimonies, from councils, fathers, emperors, kings, and
all sober antiquity against them.
14. Thousands of young people in our time have been undone by them;
some at the gallows, and many apprentices who run out in their
accounts, neglect their masters' business, and turn to drunkenness,
and whoredom, and debauchery, do confess that stage-plays were not the
last or least of the temptations which did overthrow them.
15. The best that can be said of these plays is, that they are
controverted and of doubtful lawfulness; but there are other means
enough of undoubted and uncontroverted lawfulness, for the same
honest ends; and therefore it is a sin to do that which is doubtful
without need.
Upon all these reasons, I advise all that love their time, their
souls, their God and happiness, to turn away from these nurseries of
vice, and to delight themselves in the law and ordinances of their
Saviour, Psal. i. 2, 3.
[366] Psal. xxvi. 4; cxix. 113; 1 Tim. vi. 20; Matt. xii. 36, 37; 1
Pet. i. 18; Eccl. vii. 3-7; Eph. iv. 29, 30; v. 15, 16; Luke xii.
17-19; Rom. xiii. 13, 14.
[367] John vi. 12; 1 Pet. iv. 10; Matt. xviii. 23; Rom. xiv. 12; Phil.
iv. 17; Psal. i. 2; 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2.
Quest. CXV. _Is it ever unlawful to use the known symbols and badges
of idolatry?_
_Answ._ 1. Ordinarily it is unlawful, as being the thing forbidden in
the second commandment. For he that useth them, 1. Is corporally
idolatrous, whatever his secret thoughts may be. 2. And he is
interpretatively an idolater, and actually persuadeth others to be so.
2. But yet though no man may ever use such symbols of idolatry
_formaliter, qua tales_, as such; yet materially he may use them in
some cases.
As, 1. When an idolater will take an ordinance of God, and an
appointed duty, and turn it into a symbol of his idolatry (as in the
foregoing instance of the Mahometans). We may not therefore forsake
that duty; but we must do it in such a manner, as may sufficiently
disclaim the idolater's use of it. As if any idolaters will make a
symbol of some Scripture texts, or of the Lord's day, or of the
sacramental bread and wine, &c. we must not therefore disuse them.
2. When a thing indifferent is made an idolatrous symbol or badge,
though I must not use it as idolaters do, yet if any act of Divine
Providence make it become necessary as a moral duty, I may be obliged
to use it, disclaiming the idolater's manner and end: and then it will
be known that I use it not as their symbol. As if a man, by famine or
a swoon, were dying in an idol's temple, I might give him meat and
drink there to save his life, though such as was a badge of their
idolatry, while I disclaim their ends and use. The reason is, 1.
Because at such a time it is a natural duty, and therefore may not be
omitted for fear of scandal, or seeming sin, which at that time is no
sin. 2. Because Christ hath taught us in the instance of himself and
his disciples, that positive commands give place to natural, _cæteris
paribus_. And that the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
sabbath; and that we must learn what this meaneth, "I will have mercy
and not sacrifice." And if we must break the rest of the sabbath for
the life, yea, the feeding of an ox or ass, much more of a man:[368]
and the positives of the second commandment must be regulated as the
positives of the fourth. 3. And the scandal in such a case may be
avoided, by declaring that I do disclaim their use and ends.
In a country where kneeling or being uncovered to the prince is a
civil, honouring custom, if the prince should be a Caligula, and
command the subjects to worship him and his image as a god, and make
bowing, kneeling, or being uncovered the badge or symbol of it; here I
would ordinarily avoid even that which before was a duty, because it
was but by accident a duty, and now interpreted a heinous sin. But in
case that the life of any man lay on it, or that the scandal on
religion for my denying civil honour to the prince, would be greater
and of more perilous consequence, than the scandal of seeming
idolatry, I would perform that civil honour which I did before, and
which God enjoineth me to perform to my prince. But I would avoid the
scandal, by open protesting (seasonably) against the idolatry.
[368] Mark ix. 13; xii. 7; ii. 17.
Quest. CXVI. _Is it unlawful to use the badge or symbol of any error
or sect in the worship of God?_
_Answ._ 1. It is unlawful to use it formally as such.
2. But not materially, when, 1. There are just and weighty reasons for
it. 2. And I may disown the error.
[Sidenote: Every sect of erring christians accordingly useth to err in
worship, and have some badge and symbol of their sect and error.]
For, 1. All sects and erroneous persons may turn holy words and duties
into symbols of their errors. 2. All christians in the world being
imperfect, do sometimes err in matter or manner in their worship. And
he that will materially avoid all the badges or symbols of their
errors, shall have no communion with any church or christian. 3. As we
must do our best so to avoid all their errors, that we choose them
not, and make them not formally our own practice; (as tautologies,
vain repetitions, disorders, unfit phrases, &c. We must ourselves when
we are the speakers do as much better as we can;) so we must not
therefore separate from them that do use them, nor deny them our
communion when they use them; else we must separate from all others,
and all others from us. 4. But when we are present with them, our
minds must disown all the faults of the holiest prayer in the world
which we join in: we may be bound to stay with them, and join in all
that is good and warrantable, and yet as we go along, to disown in our
minds all that we know to be amiss.
Quest. CXVII. _Are all indifferent things made unlawful to us, which
shall be abused to idolatrous worship?_
_Answ._ You must distinguish, 1. Of the symbol of idolatry before
spoken of, and other by-abuses. 2. Of an abuse done in former ages or
remote countries, and in our own age and country. 3. Of the reasons
inviting us to use them, whether necessary or not.
1. The case of symbols or badges is not here spoken of, but other
abuses.
2. An abuse committed in the age and place we live in, or any other,
which will by the scandal imbolden others to the like, may not be
complied in, without so great reason, as will notably preponderate the
evil consequents.
3. But yet in many cases such abused, indifferent things, may after be
lawfully used by believers. For instance:
1. Names may be things indifferent, abused to idolatry, and yet
lawfully used by us: as the name God, _Deus_, Lord, holy, just, good,
temple, altar, sacrifice, priest, heaven, sun, moon, Jupiter, Saturn,
and a hundred such; I mean these letters and syllables in these
languages. That these names are all in themselves indifferent
appeareth in that they are neither naturally necessary, nor by God's
institution, but arbitrary signs of human invention and choice: for we
may easily and lawfully make new words to signify all the same things
that these do: and that they are abused to idolatry is notoriously
known: and that yet they are lawfully used, the practice of all
christians, English and Latin, even the most scrupulous themselves,
doth judge.
2. And the use of temples (these individuals which have been used to
idolatry) is lawful.
3. So also of bells, pulpits, cups, tables, and fonts, and other
utensils.
4. The Bible itself, as it is this individual book rather than
another, is a thing indifferent, yet it may be read in after it hath
been abused to idolatry.
5. If the king would not only give the garments, but the money, lands,
lordships, houses, which have been consecrated or otherwise abused to
idolatry, to any poor people, or most of the scrupulous, they would
think it lawful to receive and use them; yea, it is lawful to dedicate
the same lands and money afterwards to holy uses, and to maintain
religious worship.
6. Otherwise it were in the power of any idolater whenever he pleased,
to deprive all the christian world of their christian liberty, and to
make nothing indifferent to us, seeing they can abuse them all.
7. Yea, almost nothing is then already indifferent, there being few
things that some person in some time and place hath not abused to
idolatry.
8. If the question be only of all individual things abused to
idolatry, the decision now given will hold good; but if it be also of
all species of such things, it will be a dishonour to a man's reason
to make a question of it.
Quest. CXVIII. _May we use the names of week days which idolatry
honoured their idols with; as Sunday, Monday, Saturday, and the rest?
And so the months?_
_Answ._ 1. It were to be wished that the custom were changed; 1.
Because the names have been so grossly abused; 2. And we have no need
of them; 3. And as the papists say, Our monuments, temple names, and
other relics among you prove ours to be the old religion, and keep
possession for us till it be restored; so the heathens say to all the
christians, Your very names of your days and months prove our religion
to be elder than yours, and keep possession for us till it be
restored.
2. It is meet that we wisely do our duty toward the reformation of
this abuse.
3. But yet long custom and sound doctrine hath so far taken away the
scandal and ill effects, that rather than be an offence to any by
seeming singularity, it is as lawful still to use these names, as it
was to Luke to use the names of Castor and Pollux, Jupiter and
Mercury, historically.
4. In such cases the true solution of the question must be by weighing
accidents and foreseen consequents together wisely and impartially;
and he that can foresee which way is likely to do most good or hurt,
may satisfactorily know his duty.
Quest. CXIX. _Is it lawful to pray secretly when we come first into
the church, especially when the church is otherwise employed?_
_Answ._ 1. This is a thing which God hath given us no particular law
about; but the general laws must regulate us, "Let all be done
decently, in order, and to edification."
2. Our great and principal business in coming to the church assembly
is to join with them in the public worship; and this is it that
accordingly, as our great business, we must intend and do.
3. In a place where superstition makes ignorant people think it a
matter of necessity, so to begin with secret prayer, when the church
is otherwise employed, the use of it is the more scandalous, as
encouraging them in their error.
4. It is the best way to come before the public worship begin, and
then they that think it most decent may do it without scruple or just
offence.
5. But as a man's heart may put up a short ejaculation as he walketh
up the church, without losing what else he might hear, so a man may
on his knees be so brief, as that his loss shall be but small; and
whether his profit preponderate that little time's loss, he can judge
better than another. Therefore though I like best keeping to concord
with the assembly in our devotion, yet these are things in which it
ill beseemeth christians to judge or despise each other; and I shall
take on either side the judging and despising of those that differ
from us, to be a far greater sin, than the doing or not doing of the
thing.
_Object._ Is it not called in Eccles. v. 1, 2, "The sacrifice of fools
who know not that they do evil?"
_Answ._ No: I have wondered to hear that text so ordinarily thus
perverted. The text is, "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of
God, and be more ready to hear, than to offer the sacrifice of
fools.----" Which is no more, than that it is the imagination and
custom of fools to think to please God by their sacrifices, and
bringing somewhat to him, while they refuse or neglect to hear his
commands and obey him. Whereas obedience is better than sacrifice; and
the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord: and he that
turneth away his ear from hearing the law, his prayer is abominable:
and because they hate instruction--they shall cry and God will not
hear them. Therefore be first careful to hear what God saith to thee,
and to learn his will and do it, and then bring thy sacrifice to him:
leave thy gift at the altar, and go and be reconciled to thy brother:
obey first, and then come and offer thy gift. This is all the meaning
of the text. See also Psal. l. 8, and compare these cited texts, 1
Sam. xv. 22; Prov. xv. 8; xxi. 17; Matt. v. &c. But whether we should
begin with prayer or hearing when we enter into the church, God hath
left to prudence to be decided by the general rules.
Quest. CXX. _May a preacher kneel down in the pulpit, and use his
private prayers when he is in the assembly?_
_Answ._ This will have the same answer with the former; and therefore
I shall trouble the reader with no more.
Quest. CXXI. _May a minister pray publicly in his own name singly, for
himself or others? or only in the church's name, as their mouth to
God?_
_Answ._ It is good to be as exact in order and decency as we can; but
they that would not have other men's ceremonies brought in on that
pretence, should not bring in their own made doctrines.
1. It is certain that all the assembly come thither, not only to hear
a prayer, but to pray as well as the minister; and therefore the
practice of all churches in the world (as is seen in all the
liturgies) is for the minister to speak in the plural number, and
usually to pray in the church's name. And so he is both their guide
and mouth in prayer. Therefore even when he prayeth for himself, it is
usually fittest (or very fit) for him rather to say, We beseech thee,
give the speaker thy assistance, &c. than I beseech thee.
2. And even subjectively it is not inconvenient to speak of himself in
the third person, Give him, or Give the speaker thy help, instead of
Give me.
3. But they that will place a necessity in either of these, and make
the contrary a sin, must have more knowledge than I have to be able to
prove it.
For, 1. In the latter case the minister doth not pray in his own
person, but only for his own person, when he saith, We beseech thee,
give me thy help, &c.
2. And I know no word of God that saith, either that the minister is
only the mouth of the people, or that he is to speak only in their
names, or that he may not pray for himself or them in his ministerial
capacity in the first person.[369]
For, 1. He is a minister of Christ for the church, and not the
minister of the church properly. And he is subordinate to Christ in
his priestly office, as well as in his teaching and ruling office: and
the priests did always take it for their office, not only to speak as
the people's mouth, but as sub-mediators or intercessors for them to
God; and as then they were types of Christ by standing between God and
the people, so they were his officers as well as types; and so they
are his officers to this day: and as they teach and rule in his name
by office, so do they intercede in his name: all men confess that they
may do this in private; and where is it forbidden to be done in
public?
2. And there are some cases in which it is fittest that it should be
so. That is, when it is supposed that the congregation doth not join
with him. As, 1. When the whole church is fallen into some error of
judgment, (as who hath not many,) and he knoweth that they differ from
him, it is fitter for him to pray as a sub-intercessor for them in his
own person, than to speak as in their persons, who he knoweth join not
with him. For that hath a plain untruth in it. 2. If the whole church
be fallen into some little sin, which seduction yet hindereth them
from repenting of, he were better confess it, and profess sorrow for
it, in his own person, than in theirs that join not with him in it. 3.
When he prayeth for somewhat for himself and them, that is above their
understanding, (as for direction in some difficult controversies, &c.)
I know not that he is bound to speak in their names that understand
him not.
Therefore this is no business for christians that are not possessed
with a proud, peevish, self-conceited, quarrelsome humour, to censure
or despise a minister for; nor should any introduce that false
doctrine of man's invention into the church, that the minister is only
to pray in public as the people's mouth. But the power of prejudice is
great.
[369] 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2; Isa. lix. 16; Jer. xxvii. 18; vii. 16; xxix. 7;
xxxvii. 3; xlii. 2, 4, 20; 1 Sam. vii. 5; xii. 19, 23; 2 Cor. xiii. 7;
Phil. i. 9; Col. i. 9, 3; 1 Thess. v. 23; 2 Thess. i. 11; 1 Thess.
iii. 10.
Quest. CXXII. _May the name, priests, sacrifice, and altars, be
lawfully now used instead of, Christ's ministers, worship, and the
holy table?_
_Answ._ 1. He that useth them in design to bring in the popish
transubstantiation and real sacrifice of the mass, doth heinously sin
in such a design and use.
2. In a time and place where they may not be used without scandal, or
tempting or encouraging any to their errors, the scandal will be a
grievous sin.
3. The New Testament useth all the Greek names which we translate,
priests, sacrifice, and altars, therefore we may use the same in
Greek; and our translation and English names are not intolerable. If
priest come from presbyter I need not prove that; if it do not, yet
all ministers are subordinate to Christ in his priestly office as
essentially as in the rest. And Rev. i. 6; v. 10; xx. 6, it is said,
that we are or shall be made priests of God, and unto God. And 1 Pet.
ii. 5, we are "an holy priesthood," and ver. 9, a "royal priesthood:"
if this be said of all, then especially of ministers.
And the word sacrifice is used of us and our offered worship, 1 Pet.
ii. 5; Heb. xiii. 15, 16; Phil. iv. 18; Eph. v. 2; Rom. xii. 1.
And Heb. xiii. 10, saith, "We have an altar whereof they partake not,"
&c. And the word is frequently used in the Revelation, chap. vi. 9;
viii. 3, 5; xvi. 7, &c. in relation to gospel times. We must not
therefore be quarrelsome against the bare names, unless they be abused
to some ill use.
4. The ancient fathers and churches did ever use all these words so
familiarly without any question or scruple raised about them, either
by the orthodox or any heretics, that at present I can remember to
have ever read of, that we should be the more wary how we condemn the
bare words, lest thence we give advantage to the papists to make them
tell their followers, that all antiquity was on their side; which were
very easy for them to prove, if the controversy were about the names
alone. Extremes and passionate imprudence do give the adversaries
great advantages.
5. The names of sacrifice and altar, were used by the ancient
churches, not properly, but merely in allusion to the Jewish and
heathen sacrifices and altars, together with a tropical use from the
christian reasons of the names.
As the Lord's supper is truly the commemoration of Christ's sacrifice;
and therefore called by protestants, a commemorative sacrifice; so
that our controversy with the papists is not, whether it may be called
a sacrifice, but whether it be only the sacrament of a sacrifice, or a
sacramental, commemorative sacrifice, or also a real, proper sacrifice
of the very body and blood itself of Christ. For we acknowledge, that
This is a sacrifice, is no more tropical a speech, than This is my
body and blood.
6. Yet it must be noted, that the Scripture useth the word sacrifice
about ourselves, and our thanksgivings, and praises, and works of
charity, rather than of the Lord's supper; and the word priests, of
all men, lay or clergy, that offer these foresaid sacrifices to God.
Though the ancient doctors used them familiarly, by way of allusion,
of the sacrament and its administrators.
7. In a word, as no christian must use these or any words to false
ends or senses, or deceiving purposes, nor yet to scandal; so out of
these cases, the words are lawful: and as the fathers are not to be
any further condemned for using them, than as the words (which they
foresaw not) have given advantage to the papists, to bring in an ill
sense and doctrine; so those that now live in churches and countries,
where the public professed doctrine doth free them from the suspicion
of a popish ill sense, should not be judged nor quarrelled with for
the terms; but all sober christians should allow each other the
liberty of such phrases without censoriousness, or breach of charity
or peace.
Quest. CXXIII. _May the communion table be turned altar-wise, and
railed in? And is it lawful to come up to the rails to communicate?_
_Answ._ The answer to this is mostly the same with that to the
foregoing question. 1. God hath given us no particular command or
prohibition about these circumstances; but the general rules, for
unity, edification, order, and decency; whether the table shall stand
this way or that way, here or there, &c. he hath not particularly
determined.
2. They that turn the table altar-wise and rail it in, out of a design
to draw men to popery, or in a scandalous way which will encourage men
to or in popery, do sin.
3. So do they that rail in the table to signify that the vulgar or
lay christians must not come to it, but be kept at a distance; when
Christ in his personal presence admitted his disciples to communicate
at the table with himself.
4. But where there are no such ends, but only to imitate the ancients
that did thus, and to show reverence to the table on the account of
the sacrament, by keeping away dogs, keeping boys from sitting on it;
and the professed doctrine of the church condemneth transubstantiation,
the real corporal presence, &c. (as ours doth;) in this case
christians should take these for such as they are, indifferent things,
and not censure or condemn each other for them; nor should any force
them upon those that think them unlawful.
5. And to communicate is not only lawful in this case, where we cannot
prove that the minister sinneth, but even when we suspect an ill
design in him, which we cannot prove; yea, or when we can prove that
his personal interpretation of the place, name, situation, and rails
is unsound; for we assemble there to communicate in and according to
the professed doctrine of christianity and the churches, and our own
open profession, and not after every private opinion and error of the
minister. As I may receive from an anabaptist or separatist
notwithstanding his personal errors; so may I from another man, whose
error destroyeth not his ministry, nor the ordinance, as long as I
consent not to it, yea, and with the church profess my dissent.
6. Yet, _cæteris paribus_, every free man that hath his choice, should
choose to communicate rather where there is most purity and least
error, than with those that swerve more from regular exactness.
Quest. CXXIV. _Is it lawful to use David's psalms in our assemblies?_
_Answ._ Yes: 1. Christ used them at his last supper, as is most
probable; and he ordinarily joined with the Jews that used them; and
so did the apostles.
2. It is confessed lawful to read or say them; therefore also to sing
them. For saying and singing difference not the main end.
3. They are suitable to our use, and were the liturgy of the Jewish
church, not on a ceremonial account, but for that fitness which is
common to us with them.
4. We are commanded in the New Testament to sing psalms; and we are
not commanded to compose new ones; nor can every one make psalms, who
is commanded to sing psalms. And if it be lawful to sing psalms of our
own or our neighbour's making, much more of God's making by his Spirit
in his prophets.[370]
_Object._ They are not suitable to all our cases, nor to all in the
assembly.
_Answ._ 1. We may use them in that measure of suitableness to our
cases which they have. You may join with a man in prayer who
expresseth part of your wants, though he express not all. Else you
must join with no man in the world.
2. If ungodly men are present when the faithful speak to God, must we
not speak our proper case, because they are present? The minister in
church administrations speaketh principally in the name of the
faithful, and not of hypocrites. Must he leave out of his prayers all
that is proper to the godly, merely because some wicked men are there?
No more must the church do in singing unto God.
3. They that cannot speak every word in a psalm just as their own
case, may yet speak it as instructive; otherwise they might not read
or say it.
But the sectarian objections against singing David's psalms are so
frivolous, that I will not tire the reader with any more.[371]
[370] Matt. xxvi. 30; Mark xiv. 26; Luke iv. 16; vi. 6; John vi. 59;
xviii. 20; Mark i. 21, 23, 29; iii. 1; vi. 2; 1 Chron. xvi. 7; Psal.
xcv. 2; cv. 2; James v. 13; 1 Chron. xvi. 9.
[371] James v. 13; Eph. v. 19; Col. iii. 16.
Quest. CXXV. _May psalms be used as prayers, and praises, and
thanksgivings, or only as instructive? even the reading as well as the
singing of them?_
_Answ._ The sober reader who knoweth not what errors others hold, will
marvel that I trouble men with such questions. But I have oft been
troubled with those that (having no other shift to deny the lawfulness
of written and set forms of prayer) do affirm that psalms are neither
to be read or sung at all as prayers, but only as doctrinal scriptures
for instruction.[372] But that this is false appeareth,