thanksgivings, and were penned for that very use, as the titles show,
and those that were so used by the Jewish synagogues where Christ was
ordinarily present, may be so used by us: but such are the psalms both
as said and sung.
2. And those that we are commanded to sing as psalms, and have
Christ's example so to use, (who sung a hymn or psalm of praise at his
last supper,) we also may so use: but, &c.
3. And those that are by God's Spirit fitted for use in prayer,
praise, and thanksgiving, and never forbidden so to be used, may by us
be so used: but such are the psalms, &c. I will weary you with no
more.
[372] Psal. lxxii. 20; xc. title; lxxxvi. title; xvii. title; &c.
Quest. CXXVI. _Are our church tunes lawful, being of man's invention?_
_Answ._ Yes: they are a lawful invention, allowed us by God, and
fitted to the general rules of edification. Scripture is no particular
rule for such modes and circumstances.
_Object._ They breed a carnal pleasure by the melody, which is not fit
for spiritual devotion.
_Answ._ 1. It is a lawful sensitive pleasure, sanctified to a holy
use, not hindering, but greatly helping the soul in spiritual worship.
Either you call it carnal, because it gratifieth the sinful, corrupt
inclinations of man; or only because it is sensitive, or a pleasure in
the imagination and lower faculties. If the former, 1. There is
nothing in it which is a necessary cause of any sinful pleasure, nor
any impediment to spiritual pleasure. 2. But a lustful person will
turn all sensitive pleasure into sin; our meat, and drink, and
clothes, and houses, and friends, and health: the bread and wine in
the sacrament may be thus abused.[373]
2. But you must know, that as our bodies are here united to our souls,
so they act together, and while the sensitive part is subordinate to
the rational, it is serviceable to it, and not a hinderance: when you
come to have souls that are separated from the body, you shall use no
bodily instruments; and yet even then it is uncertain to us, whether
the sensitive powers of the soul do not accompany it, and be not used
by it. But certainly in the meantime, he that will not use sense,
shall not use reason. And he that acteth not sensibly, acteth not as a
man: it is not a sin to be a man; and therefore not to see, to hear,
to taste, to smell, &c. Nor is it a sin to taste sweetness in our meat
or drink; nor is it a sinful pleasure for the eyes to behold the
light, or the variety of the beauteous works of God, or to take
pleasure in them. "His works are great, sought out of all them that
have pleasure therein," Psal. cxi. 2.
You know not what it is to be a man, if you know not that God hath
made all the senses to be the inlets of objects, and so of holy
pleasure into the soul. Would he have given us eyes, and ears, and
appetites, and made his creatures sweet and beauteous, that all might
either be sin or useless to us? No: all things are sanctified, and
pure to the pure.[374] The sense is the natural way to the
imagination, and that to the understanding; and he that will have no
sensible and natural pleasure, shall have no spiritual pleasure: and
he that will have none but sensitive pleasure, were better have none
at all. It is therefore a foolish pretence of spirituality, to dream
of acting without our senses, or avoiding those delights, which may
and must be sanctified to us. Harmony and melody are so high a
pleasure of the sense, that they are nearest to rational delights, if
not participating of them, and exceedingly fitted to elevate the mind
and affections unto God.
And as it is the very nature of true holiness, to be so suited to holy
things, as that they may be our delight, and he is the genuine saint,
and the best of christians, who most delighteth in God and holiness;
so that is the best means to make us the best christians, which
helpeth us best to these delights; and if any thing on earth be like
to heaven, it is to have our delight in God. And therefore if any
thing may make us heavenly, it is that which raiseth us to such
delights. And therefore a choir of holy persons, melodiously singing
the praises of Jehovah, are likest to the angelical society, Psal. cl.
[373] Luke xii. 17-19; xvi. 20-22.
[374] Rom. viii. 18, 32; Tit. i. 15; Rom. xiv. 20; 1 Cor. iii. 21; 2
Cor. iv. 15.
Quest. CXXVII. _Is church music by organs or such instruments,
lawful?_[375]
_Answ._ I know that in the persecuted and poorer times of the church,
none such were used (when they had not temples, nor always a fixed
meeting place). And that the author of the Quest. et Resp. in Justin
Martyr speaketh against it (which Perkins and others cite to that
purpose). And I grant,
1. That as it is in the power of weak, diseased christians, to make
many things unlawful to their brethren lest we be hurtful to them, and
to deprive us of much, not only of our liberties but our helps; so in
abundance of congregations, church music is made unlawful by accident,
through their mistake. For it is unlawful (_cæteris paribus_) by an
unnecessary thing to occasion divisions in the churches; but where one
part judgeth church music unlawful, for another part to use it, would
occasion divisions in the churches, and drive away the other part.
Therefore I would wish church music to be no where set up, but where
the congregation can accord in the use of it; or at least where they
will not divide thereupon.
2. And I think it unlawful to use such strains of music as are light,
or as the congregation cannot easily be brought to understand; much
more on purpose to commit the whole work of singing to the choristers,
and exclude the congregation. I am not willing to join in such a
church where I shall be shut out of this noble work of praise.
3. But plain, intelligible church music, which occasioneth not
divisions, but the church agreeth in, for my part I never doubted to
be lawful. For, 1. God set it up long after Moses' ceremonial law, by
David, Solomon, &c.
2. It is not an instituted ceremony merely, but a natural help to the
mind's alacrity: and it is a duty and not a sin to use the helps of
nature and lawful art, though not to institute sacraments, &c. of our
own. As it is lawful to use the comfortable helps of spectacles in
reading the Bible, so is it of music to exhilarate the soul towards
God.[376]
3. Jesus Christ joined with the Jews that used it, and never spake a
word against it.
4. No Scripture forbiddeth it, therefore it is not unlawful.
5. Nothing can be against it, that I know of, but what is said against
tunes and melody of voice. For whereas they say that it is a human
invention; so are our tunes (and metre, and versions). Yea, it is not
a human invention; as the last psalm and many others show, which call
us to praise the Lord with instruments of music.
And whereas it is said to be a carnal mind of pleasure, they may say
as much of a melodious, harmonious concert of voices, which is more
excellent music than any instruments.
And whereas some say that they find it do them harm, so others say of
melodious singing; but as wise men say, they find it do them good. And
why should the experience of some prejudiced, self-conceited person,
or of a half-man that knoweth not what melody is, be set against the
experience of all others, and deprive them of all such helps and
mercies, as these people say they find no benefit by.
And as some deride church music by many scornful names, so others do
by singing (as some congregations near me testify, who these many
years have forsaken it, and will not endure it; but their pastor is
fain to unite them, by the constant and total omission of singing
psalms). It is a great wrong that some do to ignorant christians, by
putting such whimsies and scruples into their heads, which as soon as
they enter, turn that to a scorn, and snare, and trouble, which might
be a real help and comfort to them, as it is to others.
[375] Rev. xiv. 2, 3. "The voice of harpers harping with their harps,"
is ordinarily expounded of public worship.
[376] 1 Sam. xviii. 6; 1 Chron. xv. 16; 2 Chron. v. 13; vii. 6; xxiii.
13; xxxiv. 22; Psal. xcviii.; xcix.; cxlix.; cl.
Quest. CXXVIII. _Is the Lord's day a sabbath, and so to be called and
kept, and that of divine institution? And is the seventh-day sabbath
abrogated? &c._
_Answ._ All the cases about the Lord's day (except those practical
directions for keeping it, in the Economical part of this book) I have
put into a peculiar treatise on that subject by itself; and therefore
shall here pass them over, referring the reader to them in that
discourse.
Quest. CXXIX. _Is it lawful to appoint human holy days, and observe
them?_
_Answ._ This also I have spoke to in the foresaid treatise, and my
"Disput. of Church Government and Cer." Briefly, 1. It is not lawful
to appoint another weekly sabbath, or day wholly separated to the
commemoration of our redemption: for that is to mend (pretendedly) the
institutions of God; yea, and to contradict him who hath judged one
day only in seven to be the fittest weekly proportion.
2. As part of some days may be weekly used in holy assemblies, so may
whole days on just, extraordinary occasions, of prayer, preaching,
humiliation, and thanksgiving.
3. The holy doctrine, lives, and sufferings of the martyrs and other
holy men, hath been so great a mercy to the church, that (for any
thing I know) it is lawful to keep anniversary thanksgivings in
remembrance of them, and to encourage the weak, and provoke them to
constancy and imitation.
4. But to dedicate days or temples to them in any higher sense, as the
heathen and idolaters did to their heroes, is unlawful; or any way to
intimate an attribution of divinity to them, by word or worship.
5. And they that live among such idolaters must take heed of giving
them scandalous encouragement.
6. And they that scrupulously fear such sin more than there is cause,
should not be forced to sin against their consciences.
7. But yet no christians should causelessly refuse that which is
lawful, nor to join with the churches in holy exercises on the days of
thankful commemoration of the apostles, and martyrs, and excellent
instruments in the church; much less petulantly to work and set open
shops to the offence of others; but rather to persuade all to imitate
the holy lives of those saints to whom they give such honours.
Quest. CXXX. _How far are the holy Scriptures a law and perfect rule
to us?_
_Answ._ 1. For all thoughts, words, affections, and actions, of divine
faith and obedience (supposing still God's law of nature). For it is
no believing God to believe what he never revealed; nor any trusting
God, to trust that he will certainly give us that which he never
either directly or indirectly promised; nor any obeying God, to do
that which he never commanded.
2. The contents will best show the extent; whatever is revealed,
promised, and commanded in it, for that it is a perfect rule. For
certainly it is perfect in its kind and to its proper use.
3. It is a perfect rule for all that is of universal moral necessity;
that is, whatever it is necessary that man believe, think, or do, in
all ages and places of the world, this is of divine obligation.
Whatever the world is universally bound to, (that is, all men in it,)
it is certain that God's law in nature, or Scripture, or both, bindeth
them to it. For the world hath no universal king or lawgiver but God.
4. God's own laws in nature and Scripture are a perfect rule for all
the duties of the understanding, thoughts, affections, passions,
immediately to be exercised on God himself; for no one else is a
discerner or judge of such matters.[377]
5. It perfectly containeth all the essential and integral parts of the
christian religion; so that nothing is of itself, and directly, any
part of the christian religion which is not there.
6. It instituteth those sacraments perfectly, which are the seals of
God's covenant with man, and the delivery of the benefits, and which
are the badges or symbols of the disciples and religion of Christ in
the world.
7. It determineth what faith, prayer, and obedience shall be his
appointed means and conditions of justification, adoption, and
salvation. And so what shall be professed and preached in his name to
the world.
8. It is a perfect instrument of donation or conveyance of our right
to Christ, and of pardon, and justification, and adoption, and the
Holy Spirit's assistances, and of glory. As it is God's covenant,
promise, or deed of gift.
9. It instituteth certain ministers as his own church officers, and
perfectly describeth their office, as instituted by him.
10. It instituteth the form of his church universal, which is called
his body; and also of particular holy societies for his worship; and
prescribeth them certain duties, as the common worship there to be
performed.
11. It determineth of a weekly day, even the first, to be separated
for and used in this holy worship.
12. It is a perfect general rule for the regulating of those things,
which it doth not command or forbid in particular. As that all be done
wisely, to edification, in charity, peace, concord, season, order, &c.
13. It giveth to magistrates, pastors, parents, and other superiors,
all that power by which they are authorized to oblige us, under God,
to any undetermined particulars.
14. It is the perfect rule of Christ's judging, rewarding, and
punishing at last, according to which he will proceed.
15. It is the only law that is made by primitive power.
16. And the only law that is made by infallible wisdom.
17. And the only law which is faultless, and hath nothing in it that
will do the subject any harm.
18. And the only law which is from absolute power, the rule of all
other laws, and from which there is finally no appeal.[378]
Thus far the holy Scripture with the law of nature is our perfect
rule. But not in any of the following respects.
1. It is no particular revelation or perfect rule of natural sciences,
as physics, metaphysics, &c.
2. It is no rule for the arts, for medicine, music, arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, grammar, rhetoric, logic; nor for the mechanics,
as navigation, architecture; and all the trades and occupations of
men; no, not husbandry by which we have our food.
3. It is no particular rule for all the mutable, subordinate duties of
any societies. It will not serve instead of all the statutes of this
and all other lands, nor tell us, when the terms shall begin and end,
nor what work every parent and master shall set his children and
servants in his family, &c.
4. It is no full rule in particular for all those political principles
which are the ground of human laws; as whether each republic be
monarchical, aristocratical, or democratical; what person or of what
family shall reign; who shall be his officers and judges, and how
diversified; so of his treasury, munition, coin, &c.
5. It is no rule of propriety in particular, by which every man may
know which is his own land, or house, or goods, or cattle.
6. It is no particular rule for our natural actions; what meat we
shall eat; what clothes we shall wear; so of our rest, labour, &c.
7. It is no particular law or rule for any of all those actions and
circumstances about religion or God's own ordinances, which he hath
only commanded in general, and left in specie or particular to be
determined by man according to his general laws; but of these next.
[377] 2 Tim. iii. 16; 2 Pet. i. 10; 2 Tim. iii. 15; Rom. xv. 4; xvi.
26; John v. 39; Acts xvii. 2, 11; John xix. 24, 28, 36, 37.
[378] Psal. xii. 6; xix. 7-10; cxix.
Quest. CXXXI. _What additions or human inventions in or about
religion, not commanded in Scripture, are lawful or unlawful?_
_Answ._ 1. These following are unlawful. 1. To feign any new article
of faith or doctrine, any precept, promise, threatening, prophecy, or
revelation, falsely to father it upon God, and say, that it is of
him, or his special word.[379]
2. To say that either that is written in the Bible which is not, or
that any thing is the sense of a text which is not; and so that any
thing is a sin or a duty by Scripture which is not. Or to father
apocryphal books, or texts, or words upon the Spirit of Christ.
3. To make any law for the church universal, or as obligatory to all
christians; which is to usurp the sovereignty of Christ; for which
treasonable usurpation it is that protestants call the pope,
antichrist.
4. To add new parts to the christian religion.
5. To make any law, which it did properly belong to the universal
Sovereign to have made, if it should have been made at all: or which
implieth an accusation of ignorance, oversight, error, or omission, in
Christ and the holy Scriptures.
6. To make new laws for men's inward heart duties towards God.
7. To make new sacraments for the sealing of Christ's covenant and
collation of his benefits therein contained, and to the public
_tesseræ_, badges or symbols of christians and christianity in the
world.
8. To feign new conditions of the covenant of God, and necessary means
of our justification, adoption, and salvation.
9. To alter Christ's instituted church ministry, or add any that are
supra-ordinate, co-ordinate, or derogatory to their office, or that
stand on the like pretended ground, and for equal ends.
10. To make new spiritual societies or church forms which shall be
either supra-ordinate, co-ordinate, or derogatory to the forms of
Christ's institution.[380]
11. Any impositions upon the churches (be the thing never so lawful)
which is made by a pretended power not derived from God and the
Redeemer.[381]
12. Any thing that is contrary to the church's good and edification,
to justice, charity, piety, order, unity, or peace.[382]
13. Any unnecessary burden imposed on the consciences of christians;
especially as necessary either to their salvation, communion, liberty,
or peace.
14. And the exercise of any power, pretended to be either primitive
and underived, or infallible, or impeccable, or absolute.
15. In general, any thing that is contrary to the authority, matter,
form, obligation, honour, or ends of the laws of God, in nature or
Scripture.
16. Any thing which setteth up those judaical laws and ceremonies
which Christ hath abrogated, in that form and respect in which he
abrogated them.
17. Where there is a doubt among sober, conscionable christians, lest
in obeying man they should sin against God and disobey his laws, and
the matter doubted of is confessed unnecessary by the imposers: so
infinite is the distance between God and man, and so wholly dependent
on him are the highest, that they should be exceedingly unwilling to
vie with the authority of their Maker in men's consciences, or to do
any thing unnecessary which tendeth to compel men to tread down God's
authority in their consciences, and to prefer man's. Much more
unwilling should they be, to silence the sober preachers of Christ's
gospel upon such accounts.
[379] Deut. xii. 32; Rev. xxii. 18; Col. ii. 18, 23-26; Matt. xv. 3,
8, 9; Gal. i. 8, 9; Jer. v. 12; xiv. 14; xxiii. 25, 26, 32; Ezek.
xiii. 9, 19; xxii. 28; Zech. xiii. 2-6.
[380] Gal. ii. 5.
[381] Acts xv. 23-25.
[382] 2 Cor. x. 8; xiii. 10; 1 Cor. xiv. 5, 12, 26; 2 Cor. xii. 19;
Eph. iv. 12, 16; 1 Tim. i. 4.
Quest. CXXXII. _Is it unlawful to obey in all those cases, where it is
unlawful to impose and command? Or in what cases? And how far pastors
must be believed and obeyed?_
_Answ._ I must entreat the reader carefully to distinguish here, 1.
Between God's law forbidding rulers to do evil; and his law forbidding
subjects or private men.
2. Between obedience formally so called; which is, when we therefore
obey in conscience, because it is commanded, and the commander's
authority is the formal reason and object of our obedience: and
obedience material only, which is properly no obedience, but a doing
the thing which is commanded upon other reasons, and not at all
because it is commanded.
3. Between formal obedience to the office of the ruler in general, and
formal obedience to him, as commanding this very matter in particular.
4. Between such authority in the ruler as will warrant his impositions
before God for his own justification; and such authority as may make
it my duty to obey him. And so I answer,
1. We shall not be judged by those laws of God which made the ruler's
duty, but by that which made our own. It is not all one to say, Thou
shalt not command it, and to say, Thou shalt not do it.
2. Whatever God absolutely forbiddeth men to do, we must not do,
whoever command it.
3. There are many of the things forementioned absolutely and always
unlawful, as being evil of themselves, which no man may either command
or do; and there are some of them, which are only evil by accident,
which may not be commanded, but may be done when contrary, weightier
accidents do preponderate.
4. Many such things may be done materially on other reasons, (as for
the church's good, the furtherance of the gospel, the winning of men
to God, the avoiding of scandal, or of hurt to others or ourselves,
&c.) when they are not to be done in formal obedience, out of
conscience to the authority imposing (as if it be commanded by one
that hath no just power).
5. Our actions may participate of obedience in general, as being
actions of subjects, when they are not obedience in the full and
perfect formality as to the particular. The last leaf of Richard
Hooker's eighth book of Eccles. Polit. will show you the reason of
this. He that hath not just power to command me this one particular
act, yet may be my ruler in the general, and I am bound to honour him
in general as my ruler; and to disobey him in a thing lawful for me to
do, though not for him to command, may be dishonouring of him, and an
appearance of disobedience and denial of his power.[383] A parent is
forbidden by God to command his child to speak an idle word, or to do
a vain and useless action (much more a hurtful). Yet if a parent
should command a child to speak an idle word, or do a vain action, the
duty of obedience would make it at that time not to be vain and idle
to him; yea, if he bid him throw away a cup of wine, or a piece of
bread, which is evil when causeless, the child may be bound to do it:
not only because he knoweth not but the parents may have lawful ends
and reasons for their command, (as to try and exercise his obedience,)
but also if he were sure that it were not so; because he is a subject,
and the honouring of a parent is so great a good, and the dishonouring
him by that disobedience may have such ill consequences, as will
preponderate the evil of the loss of a cup of wine, &c. Yet in this
case, the act of obedience is but mixed: it is an act of subjection
or honour to a parent, because in general he is a governor: but it is
but materially obedience in respect of that particular matter, which
we know he had no authority to command.
6. In this respect, therefore, a ruler may have so much power as may
induce on the subject an obligation to obey, and yet not so much as
may justify his commands before God, nor save himself from divine
punishment.
I add this so distinctly, lest any should misapply Mr. Rich. Hooker's
doctrine aforesaid, Eccl. Pol. lib. viii. p. 223, 224. "As for them
that exercise power altogether against order, though the kind of power
which they have may be of God, yet is their exercise thereof against
God, and therefore not of God, otherwise than by permission, as all
injustice is.--Usurpers of power, whereby we do not mean them that by
violence have aspired unto places of highest authority, but them that
use more authority than they did ever receive in form and manner,
before mentioned.--Such usurpers thereof, as in the exercise of their
power, do more than they have been authorized to do, cannot in
conscience bind any man to obedience."
Lest any should gather hence that they are never bound in conscience
to obey their parents, their king, their pastors, in any point wherein
they exercise more power than God gave them, I thought meet to speak
more exactly to that point, which needed this distinguishing. For the
ground is sure that There is no power but of God;[384] and that God
hath given no man power against himself, his laws and service; but yet
there are many cases in which God bindeth children and subjects to
obey their superiors, in such matters as they did sinfully command.
7. It greatly concerneth all sober christians therefore to be well
studied in the law of God, that we may certainly know what those
things are which God hath absolutely forbidden us to do, whoever
command them, and to distinguish them from things that depend on
mutable accidents; that as the three witnesses and Daniel, Dan. iii.
vi. we may be true to God whatever we suffer for it; and yet may obey
men in all that is our duty to them.
Thus the apostles knew that no man had power from God to silence them,
or persecute them for the gospel. Therefore they would not obey those
that forbad them to preach; and yet they would appear before any
magistrate that commanded them, and obey their summons; and so we may
do even to a usurper, or a private man.
8. The principal and most notable case, in which we must obey when a
ruler sinfully commandeth, is, when the matter which he commandeth is
not such as is either forbidden us by God, or out of the verge of his
place and calling at all to meddle with and command, nor yet such as
is destructive of our duty to God; but such as in general belongeth to
his office to determine of according to God's general rules; but he
misseth it in the manner and goeth against those rules; yet not so far
as to destroy the duty we owe to God, or the end of it.
For instance, it is not in the ruler's power to determine whether
there shall be preaching or none, true doctrine or false, &c. But it
is in his power to regulate the circumstances of time, place, &c.
(next to be recited). Now if he do these to order, unity, and
edification, I will obey him formally and fully for conscience sake.
If he so do it as is destructive to the end, (as is aforesaid,) as to
say, You shall meet only at twenty miles' distance, or only at
midnight, &c. I will obey him no further than necessity and the common
good requireth me. If he do it only with a tolerable inconvenience,
(as to say, You shall meet no where but in the open fields, &c.) I
will obey for conscience sake, as I am in general a subject bound to
honour the magistrate; but not as he nameth an unmeet circumstance, in
that respect my obedience shall be but material.
I need not handle it as a distinct question, Whether pastors are to be
believed or obeyed any further than they show a word of God revealing
and commanding the particular thing? Divine faith and obedience is one
thing, and human is another. 1. If as a preacher he shall say, This is
God's word, believe it and obey it as such, you must believe with a
human faith that it is liker that he knoweth what he saith, than you
do, (unless, (1.) You see evidence; (2.) Or the consent of more
credible persons to be against him, and then you are not to believe
him at all). Even as a child believeth his teacher in order to learn
the things himself, so you are so far to take his word while you are
learning to know whether it be so or not. But not to rest in it as
certain, nor to take your belief of him and obedience to him, to be a
believing and obeying God formally, though a duty.
[383] Eph. v. 24; Col. iii. 20, 22; Rom. xiii. 1-6.
[384] John xix. 11; Rom. xiii. 1.
Quest. CXXXIII. _What are the additions or inventions of men which are
not forbidden by the word of God (whether by rulers or by private men
invented)?_
_Answ._ This is handled under the directions for worship; to which I
refer the reader, as also for part of the answer to the former cases.
Yet here I shall trouble you with so much repetition, as to say, that,
1. Such inventions and additions are lawful as God hath commanded men
(rulers, pastors, parents, or private persons) to make under the
regulation of his general laws.
2. All such additions are lawful as are merely subordinate and
subservient to God's laws and orders, and not forbidden by him, among
the forementioned prohibited additions.
Instances are many. 1. All such modes of a duty as are necessary _in
genere_, or one way or other to be determined of, but left to human
prudence as to particulars. As, 1. Whether I shall (this week or
month) publish the gospel by speaking, or by writing, or by printing.
2. Whether I shall use this method, or that, or another method in this
sermon. 3. Whether I shall use these phrases and words, or other
words. 4. Whether I shall use notes for my memory or not. And whether
large ones or short ones. 5. Whether I shall be an hour or two in
preaching. 6. Whether I shall preach with a loud voice or a low. 7.
Whether I shall at this time more endeavour explication or
application, comfort or terror, reprehension or direction, &c. All
which are to be varied by man's lawful invention according to God's
general rules.
2. It is also lawful and needful, that our own invention or our
superior's according to God's general laws, do determine of the
particular subjects of our office; which Scripture doth not
particularly determine of, viz. 1. Scripture telleth not ministers
what country, parish, or church they shall bestow their labours in. 2.
Nor to how many they shall be a pastor. 3. Nor what text or subject
they shall preach on. 4. Nor what singular persons they shall apply
comfort, counsel, or terror to, this or that. 5. Nor whom they shall
admit to the sacrament (but by the general rule or description). 6.
Nor whom they shall openly rebuke or excommunicate. 7. Nor whom they
shall absolve. It telleth them not whom the persons be to whom the
Scripture character doth belong, in any of these cases. 8. Nor
whether the witnesses say truly or falsely who accuse a man. 9. Nor
whether the accused be to be taken as guilty of heresy, scandal, or
schism, &c.
3. It is also a lawful invention of man, to find, choose, and use,
such natural helps, as are useful to further us in the obedience of
God's laws, and the practice of his worship, and are not forbidden by
him. Yea, _in genere_ they are commanded, and yet never particularly
determined of in the Scripture: as, 1. What will clear a preacher's
voice, to speak audibly. 2. The advantage of a pulpit to be above the
people. 3. The use of spectacles to them that need them to read the
Scripture. 4. The translating of the Scriptures into our native
language. 5. Which translation of many we shall use in the churches.
6. The printing of the Bible. 7. The dividing it into chapters and
verses. 8. The printing of good books, to expound and apply the
Scripture; commentaries, sermons, &c. 9. The forms of school
exercises, disputations, &c. to prepare students for the ministry; and
what books of divinity tutors shall read to their pupils, or every
student shall have in his library. 10. The manner and tune of singing
psalms in the churches. 11. What version or metre to use, this or
that. 12. What form of catechism, (verbal, written, or printed,) to
use among many, in the church or family. 13. Whether to pray in the
same words often, or in various. 14. Whether to use words of our own
composing or invention primarily, or of other men's; and that by
direction, persuasion, or command. 15. To use a written or printed
form, or neither; to read it on the book, or speak it by memory. 16.
To use Scripture forms only, of prayer, praise, psalms and hymns, or
those that are of later composure also. 17. To print the Bible and use
it with marginal notes, and contents, or without. 18. To baptize in a
river, well, pool, or font. 19. To have sponsors or witnesses of the
parents' trustiness, and the child's covenant, or not. 20. At how many
days old children shall be baptized. 21. Whether they shall be named
in baptism, or before, or after. 22. Whether one of the ministers
shall be a tutor or teacher to the rest that are younger. 23. How far
the rest shall submit their judgments to one that is eldest and
ablest, and be ruled by him. 24. Whether there shall be any
deaconnesses in the church. 25. Whether a church shall have one
minister, two, or more. 26. Who shall be the men. 27. What space of
ground shall be the church bounds, for the cohabitation of the
members. 28. How many neighbour churches shall make a synod; and which
be they. 29. How many members a synod shall consist of. 30. Who shall
be president. Or whether any. And who shall gather the votes. 31. Who
shall record their acts, as scribe. 32. What messenger shall carry
them to the churches. 33. What letters for correspondence and
communion shall be written to the churches. 34. When pastors shall
remove from one church to another; and to which. 35. Who shall be
ordained ministers to preach, baptize, and gather churches. 36. How
many the ordainers shall be. 37. Whether there shall be any music by
instruments in the church or house, for the praises of God; and what.
38. Who shall lead the psalm. 39. Who shall read. 40. What words the
church's profession of faith shall be expressed by. 41. By what signs
the church shall signify their consent; whether lifting up the hand,
standing up, bowing the head, or by voice, or writing. 42. By what
sign or ceremony men shall take an oath; whether lifting up the hand
towards heaven, or laying it on a book, or kissing the book, &c. 43.
Whether the people at the sacrament sit near the table, or keep
farther off. 44. Whether it be put into each person's hand, or they
take it themselves. With many more such like.
4. And it is a lawful invention to determine of mere circumstances of
time and place which God hath not determined of in Scripture: as, 1.
At how many times in the year or week, baptism shall be administered.
2. At what age persons be admitted to the Lord's supper. 3. On what
days and hours of the week there shall be lectures, or church
assemblies. 4. How oft and when ministers shall catechise and instruct
the people privately. 5. On what hour the church shall assemble on the
Lord's days, and receive the sacrament. 6. How long prayer, reading,
and sermon shall be. 7. At what hour to end the public exercises. 8.
At what hours to pray in families or in secret. 9. How often
disciplinary meetings shall be held, for the trial of accused members.
10. How often synods shall meet; and how long continue. Of holy days
before.
5. The same is to be said for the places of holy exercises. 1. What
edifices the church shall have for such uses? 2. In what places they
shall be situate? 3. Where the pulpit shall stand? 4. And where the
font? 5. And where the table? 6. Where each of the people shall sit?
7. Where synods shall meet? 8. How many temples shall be in a city?
&c.
6. The same is to be said of all accidental, subordinate officers; as
lecturers, clerks, door-keepers, churchwardens, and many before
mentioned.
7. The same is to be said of church utensils; as table, cups, linen,
pulpits, fonts, clock, hour-glass, bells, seats, decent habit of
clothes, &c.
8. The same may be said of decent gestures, not particularly
commanded; as what gesture to preach in, standing or sitting? What
gesture to read in? What gesture to hear in? What gesture to sing
psalms in? Whether to be covered or bare-headed? In what gesture to
receive the Lord's supper? (In which Scripture no more regulateth us,
than of the room, the hour of communicating, the number of
communicants, the place; in all which Christ's example was not a
particular law.)
9. The same may be said of order. 1. Whether the pastor shall begin
with prayer, reading, or exhortation? 2. Whether the people shall
begin with prayer or ejaculations privately? 3. Whether we shall make
but one or two long continued prayers, or many short ones? 4. Whether
we shall pray before sermon immediately, and after, in the pulpit or
in the reading place? 5. When the psalms shall be said or sung, and
how many? 6. How many chapters shall be read? and which and in what
order? 7. Whether baptism shall be before, or after, or when? 8. When
the catechumens and learners shall be dismissed, and the proper
eucharistical church exercises begin? 9. When collections made? &c.
But, O Lord, have compassion on thy scattered flock, who are afflicted
and divided by the imperiousness of those pastors, who think it not
enough for the exercise of their domination, to promote all thine own
holy laws and doctrines, and to make their own canons in all these
cases, or such like; but they must needs make more work than all this
cometh to, for themselves and for their flocks, even unto those
distractions, and dissipations, and fierce persecutions and
contentions, which many hundred years have exercised the Greek and
Latin churches, and many more throughout the world.
Quest. CXXXIV. _What are the mischiefs of unlawful additions in
religion?_
_Answ._ Alas! many and great. 1. They tend to dethrone Christ from his
sovereignty, and legislative prerogative. 2. And to advance man, blind
and sinful man, into his place. 3. And thereby to debase religion,
making it but a human or a mixed thing (and it can be no more noble
than its author is). 4. And thereby they debase also the church of
God, and the government of it, while they make it to be but a human
policy, and not divine. 5. They tend to depose God from his authority
in men's consciences, and to level or join him there but with man. 6.
They tend to men's doubtfulness and uncertainty of their religion;
seeing man is fallible, and so may his constitutions be. 7. They tend
to drive out all true religion from the world, while man that is so
bad is the maker of it; and it may be suspected to be bad, that is
made by so bad an author. 8. And it taketh off the fear of God, and
his judgment: for it is man that must be feared, so far as man is the
maker of the law. And it destroyeth the consolation of believers,
which consisteth in the hopes of a reward from God; for he that
serveth man, must be rewarded by man; and though they do not exclude
God, but join him with themselves, yet this mixture debaseth and
destroyeth religion, as the mixture of God and mammon in men's love,
and as mixed and debased metals do the sovereign's coin. 9. It
hardeneth infidels and hindereth their conversion; for they will
reverence no more of our religion than we can prove to be divine: and
when they find one part of it to be human, they suspect the rest to be
so too, and contemn it all; even as protestants do popery, for the
abundance of human trinkets and toys with which we see them exercise
and delude their silly followers. 10. It is the great engine of
dividing all the churches, and breeding and feeding contentions in the
christian world. 11. And because men that will command, will be
obeyed, and they that are absolutely subjected to God, will obey none
against him, whatever it cost them, (as Dan. iii.; vi.; Heb. xi.; Luke
xiv. 26, 33; Matt. v. 10-12,) therefore it hath proved the occasion of
bloody persecutions in the churches, by which professed christians
draw the guilt of christian blood upon themselves. 12. And hereby it
hath dolefully hindered the gospel, while the persecutors have
silenced many worthy, conscionable preachers of it. 13. And by this it
hath quenched charity in the hearts of both sides, and taught the
sufferers and the afflicters to be equally bitter in censuring if not
detesting one another. 14. And the infidels seeing these dissensions
and bitter passions among christians, deride, and scorn, and hate them
all.[385] 15. Yea, such causes as these in the Latin and Greek
churches have engaged not only emperors and princes against their own
subjects, so that chronicles and books of martyrs perpetuate their
dishonour, as Pilate's name is in the creed; but also have set them in
bloody wars among themselves. These have been the fruits, and this is
the tendency of usurping Christ's prerogative over his religion and
worship in his church.
And the greatness of the sin appeareth in these aggravations. 1. It is
a mark of pitiful ignorance and pride when dust shall thus (like
Nebuchadnezzar) exalt itself against God, to its certain infamy and
abasement.
2. It showeth that men little know themselves, that think themselves
fit to be the makers of a religion for so many others: and that they
have base thoughts of all other men, while they think them unfit to
worship God any other way, than that of their making; and think that
they will all so far deny God as to take up a religion that is made
by man.
3. It shows that they are much void of love to others, that can thus
use them on so small occasion.
4. And it showeth how little true sense or reverence of christian
religion they have themselves who can thus debase it, and equal their
own inventions with it.
5. And it leaveth men utterly unexcusable, that will not take warning
by so many hundred years' experiences of most of the churches through
the world? Even when we see the yet continued divisions of the eastern
and western churches, and all about a human religion (in the parts
most contended about); when they read of the rivers of blood that have
been shed in Piedmont, France, Germany, Belgia, Poland, Ireland, and
the flames in England, and many other nations, and all for the human
parts of men's religion? He that will yet go on and take no warning,
may go read the eighteenth and nineteenth of the Revelation, and see
what joy will be in heaven and earth, when God shall do justice upon
such.
But remember that I speak all this of no other, than those expressly
here described.
[385] Rom. xiv. xv.
Quest. CXXXV. _What are the mischiefs of men's error on the other
extreme, who pretend that Scripture is a rule where it is not, and
deny the foresaid lawful things, on pretence that Scripture is a
perfect rule (say some, for all things)?_
_Answ._ 1. They fill their own minds with a multitude of causeless
scruples, which on their principles can never be resolved, and so will
give themselves no rest.
2. They make themselves a religion of their own, and superstition is
their daily devotion; which being erroneous, will not hang together,
but is full of contradictions in itself; and which being human and
bad, can never give true stability to the soul.
3. Hereby they spend their days much in melancholy troubles, and
unsettled distracting doubts and fears; instead of the joys of solid
faith, and hope, and love.
4. And if they escape, this their religion is contentious, wrangling,
censorious, and factious, and their zeal flieth out against those that
differ from their peculiar superstitions and conceits.
5. And hereupon they are usually mutable and unsettled in their
religion; this year for one, and the next for another; because there
is no certainty in their own inventions and conceits.
6. And hereupon they still fall into manifold parties, because each
man maketh a religion to himself, by his misinterpretation of God's
word; so that there is no end of their divisions.
7. And they do a great deal of hurt in the church, by putting the same
distracting and dividing conceits into the heads of others. And young
christians, and women, and ignorant, well meaning people, that are not
able to know who is in the right, do often turn to that party which
they think most strict and godly (though it be such as our quakers).
And the very good conceit of the people whom they take it from, doth
settle so strong a prejudice in their mind, as no argument or evidence
scarcely can work out; and so education, converse, and human
estimation breedeth a succession of dividers, and troublers of the
churches.
8. They sin against God by calling good evil, and light darkness, and
honouring superstition, which is the work of Satan, with holy
names.[386]
9. They sin by adding to the word of God; while they say of abundance
of lawful things, This is unlawful, and that is against the word of
God, and pretend that their Touch not, taste not, handle not, is in
the Scriptures.[387] For while they make it a rule for every
circumstance in particular, they must squeeze, and force, and wrest
it, to find out all those circumstances in it which were never there;
and so by false expositions make the Scriptures another thing.
10. And how great a sin is it to father Satan's works on God, and to
say that all these and these things are forbidden or commanded in the
Scripture, and so to belie the Lord and the word of truth.
11. It engageth all subjects against their rulers' laws and
government, and involveth them in the sin of denying them just
obedience; while all the statute book must be found in the Scriptures,
or else condemned as unlawful.
12. It maintaineth disobedience in churches, and causeth schisms and
confusions unavoidably; for they that will neither obey the pastors,
nor join with the churches, till they can show scriptures particularly
for every translation, method, metre, tune, and all that is done, must
join with no churches in the world.
13. It bringeth rebellion and confusion into families, while children
and servants must learn no catechism, hear no minister, give no
account, observe no hours of prayer, nay, nor do any work, but what
there is a particular scripture for.
14. It sets men on enthusiastical expectations, and irrational,
scandalous worshipping of God, while all men must avoid all those
methods, phrases, books, helps, which are not expressly or
particularly in Scripture, and men must not use their own inventions,
or prudence, in the right ordering of the works of religion.
15. It destroyeth christian love and concord, while men are taught to
censure all others, that use any thing in God's worship which is not
particularly in Scripture, and so to censure all true worshippers in
the world.
16. Yea, it will tempt men at last to be weary of their own religion,
because they will find it an unsatisfactory, uncomfortable, tiresome
thing, to do their own superstitious work.
17. And they will tempt all that they draw into this opinion, to be
weary of religion also. And truly had not God's part, which is wise,
and good, and pleasant, prevailed against the hurtfulness of men's
superstition, which is foolish, bad, and unpleasant, religion had ere
this been cast off as a wearisome, distracting thing; or, which is as
bad, been used but to delude men.
18. Yea, it will tempt men at last to infidelity; for Satan will
quickly teach them to argue, that if Scripture be a perfect,
particular rule, for forty things that were never there, then it is
defective, and is not of God, but an undertaking of that which is not
performed, and therefore is but a deceit.
19. And the notoriousness and ridiculousness of this error, will tempt
the profane to make religious people a scorn.
20. Lastly, and rulers will be tempted in church and state, to take
such persons for intolerable in all societies, and such whose
principles are inconsistent with government. And no thanks to this
opinion, if they be not tempted to dislike the Scripture itself, and
instead of it to fly to the papists' traditions, and the church's
legislative sovereignty, or worse.
But here also remember that I charge none with all this, but those
before described.
[386] Isa. v. 20, 21.
[387] Col. ii 21-23.
Quest. CXXXVI. _How shall we know what parts of Scripture precept or
example were intended for universal, constant obligations, and what
were but for the time and persons that they were then directed to?_
_Answ._ It is not to be denied, but some things in Scripture, even in
the New Testament, are not laws, much less universal and perpetual.
And the difference is to be found in the Scripture itself.
1. All that is certainly of universal and perpetual obligation, which
is but a transcript of the universal and perpetual law of nature.
2. And all that which hath the express characters of universality and
perpetuity upon it; and such are all the substantial parts of the
gospel; as, "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish," Luke xiii. 3, 5.
"Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
heaven," John iii. 3, 5. "He that believeth in him, shall not perish,
but have everlasting life," John iii. 16. "He that believeth and is
baptized, shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned,"
Mark xvi. 16. "Without holiness none shall see God," Heb. xii. 14.
"Go, preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing them, &c. teaching
them to observe all things that I have commanded you," Matt, xxviii.
19, 20. Abundance such texts have the express characters of
universality and perpetuity (which many call morality).
3. And with these we may number those which were given to all the
churches, with commands to keep them, and propagate them to posterity.
4. And those that have a plain and necessary connexion to these before
mentioned.
5. And those which plainly have a full parity of reason with them; and
where it is evident that the command was given to those particular
times and persons, upon no reasons proper to them alone, but such as
were common to all others. I deny not but (as Amesius noteth after
others) many ceremonial and temporary laws are urged (when they are
made) with natural and perpetual motives: but the reasons of making
them were narrower, whatever the reasons of obeying them may be.
On the other side, narrow and temporary precepts and examples, 1. Are
void of all these foresaid characters. 2. They are about materials of
temporary use. 3. Or they are but the ordering of such customs as were
there before, and were proper to those countries. 4. And many speeches
are plainly appropriate to the time and persons. 5. And many actions
were manifestly occasional, without any intimation of reason or
purpose of obliging others to imitation.
For instance, 1. Christ's preaching sometimes on a mountain, sometimes
in a ship, sometimes in a house, and sometimes in the synagogues, doth
show that all these are lawful in season on the like occasion: but he
purposed not to oblige men to any one of them alone.
2. So Christ's giving the sacrament of his body and blood, in an upper
room, in a private house after supper, to none but ministers, and none
but his family, and but to twelve, and on the fifth day of the week
only, and in the gesture of a recumbent, leaning, sitting; all these
are plainly occasional, and not intended as obliging to imitation: for
that which he made a law of, he separated in his speeches, and
commanded them to do it in remembrance of him till his coming. And
Paul expoundeth the distinction, 1 Cor. xi. in his practice.
So the promise of the spirit of revelation and miracles is expounded
by the event, as the seal of the gospel and Scripture, proper to those
times in the main.
So the primitive christians selling their estates, and distributing to
the poor, or laying it down at the apostles' feet, was plainly
appropriated to that time, or the like occasions, by the reason of it;
which was suddenly to show the world what the belief of heaven through
the promises of Christ, could make them all, and how much their love
was to Christ and one another, and how little to the world; and also
by the cessation of it, when the persecutions abated, and the churches
came to any settlement; yea, and at first it was not a thing commanded
to all, but only voluntarily done.
So the women's veil, and the custom of kissing each other as a token
of love, and men's not wearing long hair, were the customs of the
country there ordered and improved by the apostles about sacred
things; but not introduced into other countries that had no such
custom.
So also anointing was in those countries taken for salubrious, and
refreshing to the body, and a ceremony of initiation into places of
great honour; whereupon it was used about the sick, and God's giving
the gift of healing in those times was frequently conjunct with this
means. So that hence the anointing of the sick came up; and the
ancient christians turned it into an initiating ceremony, because we
are kings and priests to God. Now these occasions extend not to those
countries where anointing neither was of such use, or value, or
signification.
So also Paul's becoming a Jew to the Jews, and being shaved, and
purifying himself, and circumcising Timothy, are evidently temporary
compliances in a thing then lawful, for the avoiding of offence, and
for the furtherance of the gospel, and no obligatory, perpetual laws
to us. And so most divines think the eating of things strangled, and
blood, were forbidden for a time to them only that conversed with the
Jews, Acts xv. Though Beckman have many reasons for the perpetuity,
not contemptible.
So the office of deaconesses (and some think of deacons) seemeth to be
fitted to that time, and state, and condition of christians. And where
the reasons and case are the same, the obligations will be the same.
In a word, the text itself will one way or other show us, when a
command or example is universally and durably obligatory, and when
not.
Quest. CXXXVII. _How much of the Scripture is necessary to salvation,
to be believed, and understood?_
_Answ._ This question is the more worthy consideration, that we may
withal understand the use of catechisms, confessions, and creeds, (of
which after,) and the great and tender mercies of God to the weak, and
may be able to answer the cavils of the papists against the
Scriptures, as insufficient to be the rule of faith and life, because
much of it is hard to be understood.
1. He that believeth God to be true, and the Scripture to be his word,
must needs believe all to be true which he believeth to be his word.
2. All the Scripture is profitable to our knowledge, love, and
practice; and none of it to be neglected, but all to be loved,
reverenced, and studied, in due time and order, by them that have time
and capacity to do it.
3. All the holy Scriptures, either as to matter or words, are not so
necessary, as that no man can be saved, who doth not either believe or
understand them; but some parts of it are more necessary than others.
4. It is not of necessity to salvation to believe every book or verse
in Scripture, to be canonical, or written by the Spirit of God. For as
the papists' canon is larger than that which the protestants own; so
if our canon should prove defective of any one book, it would not
follow that we could not be saved for want of a sufficient faith. The
churches immediately after the apostles' time, had not each one all
their writings, but they were brought together in time, and received
by degrees, as they had proof of their being written by authorized,
inspired persons. The second of Peter, James, Jude, Hebrews, and
Revelation, were received in many churches since the rest. And if some
book be lost, (as Enoch's prophecy, or Paul's epistle to the
Laodiceans, or any other of his epistles not named in the rest,) or if
any hereafter should be lost or doubted of, as the Canticles, or the
second or third epistles of John, the epistle of Jude, &c. it would
not follow, that all true faith and hope of salvation were lost with
it.
It is a controversy whether 1 John v. 7, and some other particular
verses, be canonical or not, because some Greek copies have them, and
some are without them; but whoever erreth in that only, may be saved.
5. There are many hundred or thousand texts of Scripture, which a man
may possibly be ignorant of the meaning of, and yet have a saving
faith, and be in a state of salvation. For no man living understandeth
it all.
6. The holy Scripture is an entire, comely body, which containeth not
only the essential parts of the true religion, but also the integral
parts, and the ornaments and many accidents; which must be
distinguished, and not all taken to be equal.[388]
7. So much as containeth the essentials of true religion, must be
understood and believed of necessity to salvation; and so much as
containeth the integrals of religion doth greatly conduce to our
salvation, both that we may be the surer and the better christians, as
having greater helps to both.
The very adjuncts also have their use to make us the more adorned
christians, and to promote our knowledge of greater things.
[388] Rom. xiv. 17, 18; xiii. 8-10; 1 Cor. xv. 2-6; Mark xvi. 16.
Quest. CXXXVIII. _How may we know the fundamentals, essentials, or
what parts are necessary to salvation? And is the papists' way
allowable that (some of them) deny that distinction, and make the
difference to be only in the degrees of men's opportunities of
knowledge?_
_Answ._ 1. Those papists' perverseness can mean no better than that
Christianity itself is not necessary to salvation, to those that have
not opportunity to know it (as Johnson's Rejoinder to me, and Sancta
Clara, and many others, plainly intimate); and were that never so true
and certain, it were nothing to the question between them and us,
which is, What are the essentials of christianity? And what is
necessary to salvation, where christianity is necessary? or where the
christian religion is made known, and men may come to the knowledge of
it, if they will do their best? This is the true state of our
controversy with them. And whereas they would make all the parts of
christian faith and practice equally necessary, where men have a
capacity and ability to know, believe, and practise them, it is a
gross deceit, unworthy of men pretending to a mediocrity of knowledge
in the nature of religion; and thereby they make all sins and errors
as equal as all duties and truths. Whereas, 1. There is no man that
hath not some error and some sin.[389] 2. There is no man that doth
all that ever he was able to do, to understand all the truth. 3.
Therefore there is no man whose errors themselves are not (many of
them at least) culpable or sinful. 4. And they that distinguish
between mortal and venial sins, and yet will not distinguish between
mortal and venial errors, are either blind, or would keep others
blind. As it is not so damning a sin for a man to think a vain
thought, or to speak a vain word, as not to love God, or holiness;
(no, though he was more able to have forborne that idle word, than to
have loved God;) so it is not so mortal a sin, (that is, inconsistent
with a justified state,) to mistake in a small matter, (as who was the
father of Arphaxad, or what year the world was drowned in, &c.) as to
blaspheme the Holy Ghost, or deny Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of
the world, or to deny that there is a God, or everlasting life, or a
difference between good and evil. All sins are not equal in magnitude
or danger. Therefore all errors are not equal in magnitude,
sinfulness, or danger.
2. And what priest is able to know whom to take for a christian, and
baptizable upon such terms as these? Who knoweth just what
opportunities of knowledge other men have had, and what impediments?
And will they indeed baptize a man that is a heathen, because he had
not opportunity to come to the knowledge of christianity? I think they
will not. Or will they deny baptism to one that knoweth and believeth
only all the articles of the creed, and the chief points of religion,
because he knoweth not as much more, as he had opportunity to know? I
think not. Do not these men perceive how they condemn themselves? For
do they not say themselves, that baptism to the due receiver washeth
away sin, and puts the person in a state of life? O when will God
deliver his poor church from factious deceivers?
3. Either christianity is something and discernible, or nothing and
undiscernible. If the latter, then christians are not to be
distinguished from heathens and infidels. If the former, then
christianity hath its constitutive parts, by which it is what it is.
And then it hath essential parts distinguishable from the rest.
4. The word fundamentals being but a metaphor, hath given room to
deceivers and contenders to make a controversy, and raise a dust about
it. Therefore I purposely use the word essentials, which is not so
liable to men's cavils.
5. Those are the essentials of christianity, which are necessary to
the baptism of the adult. Know but that, and you answer all the
pratings of the papists, that bawl out for a list of fundamentals. And
sure it is not this day unknown in the christian world, either what a
christian is, or who is to be baptized: do not the priests know it,
who baptize all that are christened in the world? And why is baptism
called our christening, if it make us not christians? And why hath
Christ promised, that "he that believeth and is baptized, shall be
saved," Mark xvi. 16, if that so much faith as is necessary to
baptism, will not also serve to a man's state of salvation?
6. The baptismal covenant of grace therefore is the essential part of
the gospel, and of the christian religion; and all the rest are the
integrals, and accidents or adjuncts.
7. This covenant containeth,
I. Objectively, 1. Things true as such; 2. Things good as such; 3.
Things practicable or to be done, as such: the _credenda, diligenda,
(et eligenda,) et agenda_; as the objects of man's intellect, will,
and practical power.
The _credenda_, or things to be known and believed, are, 1. God as
God, and our God and Father. 2. Christ as the Saviour, and our
Saviour. 3. The Holy Ghost as such, and as the Sanctifier, and our
Sanctifier (as to the offer of these relations in the covenant).
The _diligenda_ are the same three Persons in these three relations as
good in themselves and unto us, which includeth the grand benefits of
reconciliation and adoption, justification, and sanctification, and
salvation.
The _agenda_ in the time of baptism that make us christians, are, 1.
The actual dedition, resignation, or dedication of ourselves, to God
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in these relations. 2. A promise or
vow to endeavour faithfully to live according to our undertaken
relations (though not in perfection); that is, as creatures to their
Creator, and their reconciled God and Father; as christians to their
Redeemer, their Teacher, their Ruler, and their Saviour; and as
willing receivers of the sanctifying and comforting operations of the
Holy Spirit.
II. The objects tell you what the acts must be on our part; 1. With
the understanding, to know and believe; 2. With the will to love,
choose, desire, and resolve; and, 3. Practically to deliver up
ourselves for the present, and to promise for the time to come. These
are the essentials of the christian religion.
8. The creed is a larger explication of the _credenda_, and the Lord's
prayer of the _diligenda_, or things to be willed, desired, and hoped
for; and the decalogue of the natural part of the _agenda_.
9. Suffer not your own ignorance, or the papists' cheats, to confound
the question about fundamentals, as to the matter, and as to the
expressing words. It is one thing to ask, What is the matter essential
to christianity? And another, What words, symbols, or sentences are
essential to it? To the first, I have now answered you. To the second
I say, 1. Taking the christian religion as it is, an extrinsic
doctrine _in signis_, so the essence of it is, words and signs
expressive or significant of the material essence. That they be such
in specie is all that is essential. And if they say, But which be
those words? I answer, 2. That no particular words in the world are
essential to the christian religion. For, (1.) No one language is
essential to it. It is not necessary to salvation that you be
baptized, or learn the creed or Scriptures, in Hebrew, or Greek, or
Latin, or English, so you learn it in any language understood. (2.) It
is not necessary to salvation that you use the same words in the same
language, as long as it hath more words than one to express the same
thing by. (3.) It is not necessary to salvation, that we use the same
(or any one single) form, method, or order of words, as they are in
the creeds, without alteration. And therefore while the ancients did
tenaciously cleave to the same symbol or creed, yet they used various
words to express it by. (As may be seen in Irenæus, Tertullian,
Origen, and Ruffin, elsewhere cited by me; so that it is plain, that
by the same symbol they meant the same matter, though expressed in
some variety of words.) Though they avoided such variety as might
introduce variety of sense and matter.
10. Words being needful, 1. To make a learner understand; 2. To tell
another what he understandeth: it followeth that the great variety of
men's capacities maketh a great variation in the necessity of words or
forms. An Englishman must have them in English, and a Frenchman in
French. An understanding man may receive all the essentials in a few
words; but an ignorant man must have many words to make him understand
the matter. To him that understandeth them, the words of the baptismal
covenant express all the essentials of christianity: but to him that
understands them not, the creed is necessary for the explication: and
to him that understandeth not that, a catechism, or larger exposition,
is necessary. This is the plain explication of this question, which
many papists seem loth to understand.
[389] James iii. 2; 1 John i. 10.
Quest. CXXXIX. _What is the use and authority of the creed? And is it
of the apostles' framing or not? And is it the word of God or not?_
_Answ._ 1. The use of the creed is, to be a plain explication of the
faith professed in the baptismal covenant. 1. For the fuller
instruction of the duller sort, and those that had not preparatory
knowledge, and could not sufficiently understand the meaning of the
three articles of the covenant, what it is to believe in God the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, without more words. 2. And for the
satisfaction of the church, that indeed men understood what they did
in baptism, and professed to believe.
2. The creed is the word of God, as to all the doctrine or matter of
it, whatever it be as to the order and composition of words.
3. That is oft by the ancients called the apostles', which containeth
the matter delivered by the apostles, though not in a form of words
compiled by them.
4. It is certain that all the words now in our creed, were not put in
by the apostles, 1. Because some of them were not in till long after
their days. 2. Because the ancient _formulæ_ agree not in words among
themselves.[390]
5. It is not to be doubted of, but the apostles did appoint and use a
creed commonly in their days. And that it is the same with that which
is now called the apostles' and the Nicene in the main; but not just
the same composure of words, nor had they any such precise composure
as can be proved. But this much is easily provable:--
(1.) That Christ composed a creed when he made his covenant, and
instituted baptism, Matt, xxviii. 19.
(2.) That in the Jewish church, where men were educated in the
knowledge of the Scriptures, and expectation of the Messiah, it was
supposed that the people had so much preparatory knowledge, as made
them the more capable of baptism, as soon as they did but seriously
profess to believe, and consent to the terms of the covenant; and
therefore they were presently baptized, Acts ii. 38-40.
(3.) That this could not be rationally supposed among the gentiles,
and common, ignorant people of the world. And _ignorantis non est
consensus_. He doth not covenant who understandeth not the covenant,
as to what is promised him, and what he promiseth.
(4.) That the apostles baptized, and caused others to baptize many
thousands, and settle many churches, before any part of the New
Testament was written, even many and many years.
(5.) That the apostles did their work as well and better than any that
succeeded them.
(6.) That their successors in the common ministry, did, as far as any
church history leadeth us up, instruct and catechise men in the
meaning of the baptismal covenant, (which is the christian faith,)
before they baptized them: yea, they kept them long in the state of
catechumens usually, before they would baptize them. And after
baptized but twice a year, at Easter and Whitsuntide (as our liturgy
noteth). And they received an account of their tolerable understanding
of religion, before they would receive them into the church.
(7.) No doubt then but the apostles did cause the baptizable to
understand the three articles of Christ's own creed and covenant, and
to give some account of it before they baptized them, ordinarily among
the gentiles.
(8.) No doubt therefore but they used many more explicatory words, to
cause them to understand those few.
(9.) There is neither proof nor probability, that they used a
composure of just the same words, and no more or less: because they
had to do with persons of several capacities, some knowing, who needed
fewer words, and some ignorant and dull, who needed more: nor is any
such composure come down to our hands.
(10.) But it is more than probable, that the matter opened by them to
all the catechumens was still the same, when the words were not the
same. For God's promises and man's conditions are still the same
(where the gospel cometh). Though since by the occasion of heresies,
some few material clauses are inserted. For all christians had one
christianity, and must go one way to heaven.
(11.) It is also more than probable, that they did not needlessly vary
the words, lest it should teach men to vary the matter: but that all
christians before baptism, did make the same profession of faith as
the sense, and very much the same as to the very words; using
necessary caution, and yet avoiding unnecessary preciseness of
formality; but so as to obviate damnable heresies, that the christian
profession might attain its ends.
(12.) Lastly, no doubt but this practice of the apostles was
exemplary, and imitated by the churches, and that thus the essentials
of religion were, by the tradition of the creed and baptism, delivered
by themselves, as far as christianity went, long before any book of
the New Testament was written: and every christian was an impress, or
transcript, or specimen of it.[392] And that the following churches
using the same creed, (wholly in sense, and mostly in words,) might so
far well call it the apostles' creed; as they did both the Western and
the Nicene.
[390] Vid. Usher and Vossium de Symbolis.
[391] Heb. v. 11, 12; vi. 1-3.
[392] 2 Tim. i. 13; 2 Cor. iii. 2, 3, 7; Heb. viii. 10; x. 16.
Quest. CXL. _What is the use of catechisms?_
_Answ._ To be a more familiar explication of the essentials of
christianity, and the principal integrals, in a larger manner than the
creed, Lord's prayer, and decalogue do; that the ignorant may the more
easily understand it. Every man cannot gather out of the Scripture the
greatest matters in the true method, as distinct from all the rest:
and therefore it is part of the work of the church's teachers, to do
it to the hands and use of the ignorant.
Quest. CXLI. _Could any of us have known by the Scriptures alone the
essentials of religion from the rest, if tradition had not given them
to us in the creed, as from apostolical collection?_
_Answ._ Yes: for the Scripture itself telleth us what is necessary to
salvation; it describeth to us the covenant of grace, both promises
and conditions; and it were strange if so large a volume should not as
plainly tell us what is necessary to salvation, as fewer words! The
Scripture hath not less than the creed, but more.
Quest. CXLII. _What is the best method of a true catechism or sum of
theology?_
_Answ._ God willing, I shall tell the church my opinion of that at
large, in a peculiar Latin treatise, called "Methodus Theologiæ,"
which here I cannot do. Only I shall say, that among all the great
variety of methods used in these times, I think none cometh nearer the
order of the matter, (which is the true commendation of a method,)
than those which open theology, 1. In the breviate of the baptismal
covenant. 2. In the three explicatory sums, the creed, Lord's prayer,
and decalogue, with the added gospel precepts. 3. In the largest form,
which is the whole Scripture. And that our common English catechism,
and Paræus or Ursine, and many such who use that common easy method,
are more truly methodical, than most that pretend to greater
accurateness (though I much commend the great industry of such as
Dudley, Fenner, Gomarus, and especially George Sohnius).
Quest. CXLIII. _What is the use of various church confessions or
articles of faith?_
_Answ._ I will pass by the very ill use that is made of them in too
many countries, where unnecessary opinions or uncertain are put in,
and they that can get into favour with the secular power, take
advantage under pretence of orthodoxness and uniformity, truth and
peace, to set up their opinions and judgments to be the common rule
for all to bow to, though wiser than themselves: and to silence all
ministers, and scatter and divide the flocks that will not say or
swear as they do, that is, that they are wise men, and are in the
right.
The true and commendable use of various church professions, or
confessions of faith, is, 1. To be an instruction to the more ignorant
how to understand the Scriptures in most of the most weighty points.
2. To be an enumeration of those doctrines, against which no minister
shall be allowed to preach, and according to which he is to instruct
the people. 3. To be a testimony to all neighbour or foreign churches
in a heterodox, contentious, and suspicious age, how we understand the
Scriptures, for the confuting of scandals and unjust suspicions, and
the maintaining communion in faith, and charity, and doctrine.
Quest. CXLIV. _May not the subscribing of the whole Scriptures serve
turn for all the aforesaid ends without creeds, catechisms, or
confessions?_
_Answ._ 1. By subscribing to the Scriptures you mean either, generally
and implicitly, that all in them is true and good (though perhaps you
know not what is in it). Or else particularly and explicitly, that
every point in it is by you both understood and believed to be true.
In the first sense, it is not sufficient to salvation: for this
implicit faith hath really no act in it, but a belief that all that
God saith is true; which is only the formal object of faith, and is no
more than to believe that there is a God (for a liar is not a God).
And this he may do, who never believed in Christ, or a word of
Scripture, as not taking it to be God's word; yea, that will not
believe that God forbiddeth his beastly life. Infidels ordinarily go
thus far.
In the second sense, (of an explicit, or particular actual belief,)
the belief of the whole Scripture is enough indeed, and more than any
man living can attain to. No man understandeth all the Scripture.
Therefore that which no man hath, is to be exacted of all men, or any
man, in order to ministration or communion. While, 1. No man can
subscribe to any one translation of the Bible, that it is not faulty,
being the work of defectible man. 2. And few have such acquaintance
with the Hebrew, and Chaldee, and Greek, as to be able to say that
they understand the original languages perfectly. 3. And no man that
understands the words, doth perfectly understand the matter. It
followeth that no man is to be forced or urged to subscribe to all
things in the Scriptures, as particularly understood by him, with an
explicit faith. And an implicit is not half enough.
2. The true mean therefore is the ancient way, 1. To select the
essentials for all christians, to be believed particularly and
explicitly. 2. To collect certain of the most needful integrals, which
teachers shall not preach against. 3. And for all men moreover to
profess in general that they implicitly believe all which they can
discern to be the holy canonical Scripture, and that all is true which
is the word of God; forbearing each other even about the number of
canonical books and texts.
And it is the great wisdom and mercy of God, which hath so ordered it,
that the Scripture shall have enough to exercise the strongest, and
yet that the weakest may be ignorant of the meaning of a thousand
sentences, without danger of damnation, so they do but understand the
marrow or essentials, and labour faithfully to increase in the
knowledge of the rest.[393]
[393] 1 Cor. viii. 1-3; xiii. 1-4; Rom. viii. 28.
Quest. CXLV. _May not a man be saved that believeth all the essentials
of religion, as coming to him by verbal tradition, and not as
contained in the holy Scriptures, which perhaps he never knew?_
_Answ._ 1. He that believeth shall be saved, which way ever he cometh
by his belief; so be it it be sound as to the object and act; that is,
if it contain all the essentials, and they be predominantly believed,
loved, and practised.
2. The Scriptures being the records of Christ's doctrine delivered by
himself, his Spirit, and his apostles, it is the office of ministers,
and the duty of all instructors, to open these Scriptures to those
they teach, and to deliver particulars upon the authority of these
inspired, sealed records which contain them.
3. They that thus receive particular truths, from a teacher explaining
the Scripture to them, do receive them in a subordination to the
Scripture, materially, and as to the teacher's part; though not
formally, and as to their own part; and though the Scripture authority
being not understood by them, be not the formal object of their faith,
but only God's authority in general.
4. They that are ignorant of the being of the Scripture, have a great
disadvantage to their faith.
5. Yet we cannot say, but it may be the case of thousands to be saved
by the gospel delivered by tradition, without resolving their faith
into the authority of the Scriptures. For,
1. This was the case of all the christians (as to the New Testament)
who lived before it was written; and there are several articles of the
creed now necessary, which the Old Testament doth not reveal.[394]
2. This may be the case of thousands in ignorant countries, where the
Bible being rare, is to most unknown.[395]
3. This may be the case of thousands of children who are taught their
creed and catechism, before they understand what the Bible is.
4. This may be the case of thousands among the papists, where some
perverse priests do keep not only the reading, but the knowledge of
the Scriptures from the people, for fear lest they should be taught
to resolve their faith into it; and do teach them only the articles of
faith and catechism, as known by the church's tradition alone.
[394] Matt. xvi. 16.
[395] Rom. x. 9, 10, 13-15.
Quest. CXLVI. _Is the Scripture fit for all christians to read, being
so obscure?_
_Answ._ 1. The essentials and points necessary to salvation are plain.
2. We are frequently and vehemently commanded to delight in it, and
meditate in it day and night; to search it; to teach it our very
children, speaking of it at home and abroad, lying down and rising up,
and to write it on the posts of our houses, and on our doors, &c.
3. It is suited to the necessity and understanding of the meanest, to
give light to the simple, and to make the very foolish wise.[396]
4. The ancient fathers and christians were all of this mind.
5. All the christian churches of the world have been used to read it
openly to all, even to the simplest; and if they may hear it, they may
read the same words which they hear.
6. God blessed the ignorant Ethiopian eunuch when he found him reading
the Scriptures, though he knew not the sense of what he read, and sent
him Philip to instruct him and convert him.
7. Timothy was educated in the knowledge of the Scriptures in his
childhood.
8. That which is written to and for all men, may be read by all that
can; but the Scripture was written to and for all,[397]----&c.
_Object._ But there are many things in it hard to be understood.
_Answ._ 1. And there are many things easy to be understood. 2. We
never said that men should not use the help of their teachers, and all
that they can to understand it. 3. Were not those teachers once
ignorant? And yet they did read it by the help of teachers; and so may
others. 4. As the king for concord commandeth all the schoolmasters to
teach one grammar; so God maketh it the minister's office to instruct
people in the Scriptures. And were it not a question unworthy of a
schoolmaster, to dispute, Whether the scholars must learn by their
book, or by their master? Yea, to conclude that it must be by their
master, and not by their book: or that they must never open their
book, but when their master is just at hand to teach them. The
doctrine of the papists, who tell us that the Scriptures should not be
read by the vulgar, it being the rise of all heresies, is so inhuman
and impious, as savouring of gross enmity to Scriptures, and to
knowledge, that were there no other, it would make the lovers of
religion and men's souls to pray earnestly to Christ to save his
flocks from such seducers, who so Jewishly use the key of knowledge.
_Object._ But many wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction, and
what heresy is not defended as by their authority?
_Answ._ 1. And many thousands receive saving knowledge and grace by
them. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. All
Scripture is profitable to instruction, &c. to make the man of God
perfect. It is the incorruptible seed by which we are born again, and
the sincere milk, by which we are nourished.[398]
2. And is it not as true, 1. That the law of the land is abused by
every false pretender, lawyer, and corrupt judge? What title so bad,
that is not defended in Westminster Hall sometimes, under pretence of
law? And what action so bad, that some pretend not law for? What then?
Must the law be forbidden the common people for this?
2. Nay, what is so much abused to unrighteousness and sin as reason
itself? What heresy or crime do not men plead reason for? Must reason
therefore be forbidden the vulgar?
3. Yea, contrarily, this signifieth that law and reason are so far
from being things to be forbidden men, that they are indeed those
things by which nature and necessity have taught all the world to try
and discern right from wrong, good from bad; otherwise good and bad
men would not all thus agree in pretending to them, and appealing to
their decisions.
4. If many men are poisoned or killed in eating or drinking, if many
men's eye-sight is abused to mislead them unto sin, &c. the way is
not, to eat nothing but what is put into our mouths; nor to put out
our eyes, or wink, and be led only by a priest; but to use both the
more cautiously, with the best advice and help that we can get.
5. And do not these deceivers see, that their reason pleadeth as
strongly that priests and prelates themselves should never read the
Scripture (and consequently that it should be banished out of the
world)? For who that is awake in the world can be ignorant, that it is
priests and prelates, who have been the leaders of almost all heresies
and sects; who differ in their expositions and opinions, and lead the
vulgar into all the heresies which they fall into? Who then should be
forbidden to read the Scripture, but priests and prelates, who wrest
them to their own and other men's destruction?
[396] John v. 39; Psal. i. 2; Deut. vi.; xi.; Psal. xix. 7-11; 2 Tim.
iii. 15; Psal. cxix. 98, 105, 133, 148; Acts xvii. 11; viii.
[397] 2 Tim. iii. 15; Rom. xv. 4; Matt. xii. 24.
[398] 2 Pet. iii. 16; Psal. xix. 3, 8-10; 3 Tim. iii. 16; 1 Pet. i.
23.
Quest. CXLVII. _How far is tradition and men's words and ministry to
be used or trusted in, in the exercise of faith?_
_Answ._ 1. The churches and ministers received the gospel in Scripture
from the apostles, and the creed as the summary of faith: and they
delivered it down to others, and they to us.
2. The ministers by office are the instructors of the people in the
meaning of it; and the keepers of the Scriptures, as lawyers are of
the laws of the land.[399]
[399] Heb. ii. 3, 4; 2 Pet. i. 17-21; 2 John i. 1-5; iv. 6; 2 Tim. ii.
2; Tit. i. 5.
Quest. CXLVIII. _How know we the true canon of Scripture from
apocrypha?_
_Answ._ By these means set together: 1. There is, for the most part, a
special venerable excellency in the books themselves, which helpeth us
in the distinct reception of them.
2. The tradition of infallible church history telleth us, which books
they are which were written by men inspired by the Holy Ghost, and who
sealed their doctrine with miracles in those times; it being but
matter of fact, (which books such men wrote whom God bare witness to,)
infallible church history (such as we have to know which are the
statutes of the land, and which are counterfeit) is a sufficient
notification and proof.
3. The sanctifying Spirit still in all ages and christians, attested
the divinity and truth of the doctrine of the main body of the Bible,
especially the gospel; and then if we should err about the authority
of a particular book, it would not overthrow our faith. It is not
necessary to salvation to believe this particular text to be divine,
but it is sin and folly to doubt causelessly of the parts, when the
Spirit attesteth the doctrine and the body of the book. I pass these
things briefly, because I have largelier handled them elsewhere.
Quest. CXLIX. _Is the public reading of the Scripture the proper work
of a minister? or may a layman ordinarily do it? or another officer?_
_Answ._ In such cases as I before showed that a layman may preach, he
may also read the Scriptures. Of which look back.
2. No doubt but it is a work well beseeming the ordained ministers or
pastors, and an integral part of their office; and should not be put
off by them when they can do it.
3. When they need help the deacons are ordained ministers, authorized
to help them in such work, and fittest to do it.
4. Whether in a case of necessity a layman may not ordinarily read the
Scripture to the congregation, is a case that I am loth to determine,
being loth to suppose such a necessity. But if the minister cannot,
and there be no deacon, I cannot prove it unlawful for a layman to do
it under the direction of the pastor. I lived some time under an old
minister of about eighty years of age, (who never preached himself,)
whose eye-sight failing him, and having not maintenance to keep an
assistant, he did by memory say the Common-prayer himself, and got a
tailor one year, and a thresher or poor day-labourer another year, to
read all the Scriptures. Whether that were not better than nothing, I
leave to consideration.
And I think it is commonly agreed on, that where there is no minister,
it is better for the people to meet and hear a layman read the
Scriptures and some good books, than to have no public helps and
worship.
Quest. CL. _Is it lawful to read the apocrypha, or any good books
besides the Scriptures, to the church? As homilies, &c.?_
_Answ._ 1. It is not lawful to read them as God's word, or to pretend
them to be the holy Scriptures, for that is a falsehood, and an
addition to God's word.
2. It is not lawful to read them scandalously, in a title and manner
tending to draw the people to believe that they are God's word, or
without a sufficient distinguishing of them from the holy Scriptures.
3. If any one of the apocryphal books, (as Judith, Tobit, Bel and the
Dragon, &c.) be as fabulous, false, and bad as our protestant writers
(Reignoldus, Amesius, Whitakers, Chamier, and abundance more) affirm
them to be, it is not lawful ordinarily to read them, in that
honourable way as chapters called lessons are usually read in the
assemblies. Nor is it lawful so to read heretical, fabulous, or
erroneous books.
But it is lawful to read publicly, apocryphal and human writings,
homilies, or edifying sermons, on these conditions following.
1. So be it they be indeed sound doctrine, holy, and fitted to the
people's edification.
2. So be it they be not read scandalously without sufficient
differencing them from God's book.
3. So they be not read to exclude or hinder the reading of the
Scriptures, or any other necessary church duty.
4. So they be not read to keep up an ignorant, lazy ministry that can
or will do no better; nor to exercise the minister's sloth, and hinder
him from preaching.
5. And especially if authority command it, and the church's agreement
require it, as a signification what doctrine it is which they profess.
6. Or if the church's necessities require it; as if they have no
minister, or no one that can do so much to their edification any other
way.
7. Therefore the use of catechisms is confessed lawful in the church,
by almost all.
Quest. CLI. _May church assemblies be held where there is no minister?
Or what public worship may be so performed by laymen? (As among
infidels, or papists, where persecution hath killed, imprisoned, or
expelled the ministers.)_
_Answ._ 1. Such an assembly as hath no pastor, or minister of Christ,
is not a church, in a political sense, as the word signifieth a
society consisting of pastor and flock; but it may be a church in a
larger sense, as the word signifieth only a community or association
of private christians for mutual help in holy things.
2. Such an assembly ought on the Lord's days, and at other fit times,
to meet together for mutual help, and the public worshipping of God,
as they may, rather than not to meet at all.
3. In those meetings they may do all that followeth. 1. They may pray
together; a layman being the speaker. 2. They may sing psalms. 3. They
may read the Scriptures. 4. They may read some holy, edifying writings
of divines, or repeat some minister's sermons. 5. Some that are ablest
may speak to the instruction and exhortation of the rest, as a master
may do in his family, or neighbours to stir up God's graces in each
other, as was opened before. 6. And some such may catechise the
younger and more ignorant. 7. They may by mutual conference open their
cases to each other, and communicate what knowledge or experience they
have, to the praise of God and each other's edification. 8. They may
make a solemn profession of their faith, covenant, and subjection to
God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and all this is better than
nothing at all.
But, 1. None of them may do any of this as a pastor, ruler, priest, or
office teacher of the church. 2. Nor may they baptize. 3. Nor
administer the Lord's supper. 4. Nor excommunicate by sentence (but
only executively agree to avoid the notoriously impenitent). 5. Nor
absolve ministerially, or as by authority; nor exercise any of the
power of the keys, that is, of government. 6. And they must do their
best to get a pastor as soon as they are able.
Quest. CLII. _Is it lawful to subscribe or profess full assent and
consent to any religious books besides the Scripture, seeing all are
fallible?_
_Answ._ 1. It is not lawful to profess or subscribe that any book is
truer or better than it is; or that there is no fault in any that is
faulty; or to profess that we believe any mortal man to be totally
infallible in all that he shall write or say, or impeccable in all
that he shall do.
2. Because all men are fallible, and so are we in judging, it is not
lawful to say of any large and dubious books, in which we know no
fault, that there is no fault or error in them: we being uncertain,
and it being usual for the best men even in their best writings,
prayers, or works to be faulty, as the consequent or effect of our
common culpable imperfection. But we may say, that we know no fault or
error in it, if indeed we do not know of any.
3. It is lawful to profess or subscribe our assent and consent to any
human writing which we judge to be true and good, according to the
measure of its truth and goodness; as if church confessions that are
sound be offered us for our consent, we may say or subscribe, I hold
all the doctrine in this book to be true and good. And by so doing I
do not assert the infallibility of the authors, but only the verity of
the writing. I do not say that he cannot err, or that he never erreth;
but that he erreth not in this, as far as I am able to discern.
Quest. CLIII. _May we lawfully swear obedience in all things lawful
and honest, either to usurpers, or to our lawful pastors?_
_Answ._ 1. If the question were of imposing such oaths, I would say,
that it was many a hundred years before the churches of Christ (either
under persecution, or in their prosperity and glory) did ever know of
any such practice, as the people or the presbyters swearing obedience
to the bishops. And when it came up, the magistracy, princes, and
emperors fell under the feet of the pope; and the clergy grew to what
we see it in the Roman kingdom, called a church. And far should I be
from desiring such oaths to be imposed.
2. But the question being only of the taking such oaths, and not the
imposing of them, I say, that, (1.) It is not lawful to swear
obedience to a usurper, civil or ecclesiastical, _in licitis et
honestis_; because it is a subjecting ourselves to him, and an
acknowledging that authority which he hath not; for we can swear no
further to obey the king himself but in things lawful and honest; and
to do so by a usurper is an injury to the king, and unto Christ.
(2.) But if the king himself shall command us to swear obedience to a
subordinate civil usurper, he thereby ceaseth to be a usurper, and
receiveth authority, and it becometh our duty. And if he that was an
ecclesiastical usurper, _quoad personam_, that had no true call to a
lawful office, shall after have a call, or if any thing fall out,
which shall make it our duty to consent and call him, then the
impediment from his usurpation is removed.
(3.) It is not lawful, though the civil magistrate command us to swear
obedience even _in licitis et honestis_, to such a usurper, whose
office itself is unlawful, or forbidden by Christ, as he is such an
officer. No protestant thinketh it lawful to swear obedience to the
pope as pope; nor do any that take lay-elders to be an unlawful
office, think it lawful to swear obedience to them as such.
(4.) If one that is in an unlawful ecclesiastical office, be also at
once in another that is lawful, we may swear obedience to him in
respect of the lawful office. So it is lawful to swear obedience to
the pope in Italy, as a temporal prince in his own dominions; and to a
cardinal, (as Richelieu, Mazarine, Ximenes, &c.) as the king's
ministers, exercising a power derived from him: so it is lawful for a
tenant, where law and custom requireth it, to swear fidelity to a
lay-elder, as his landlord or temporal lord and master. And so the old
nonconformists, who thought the English prelacy an unlawful office,
yet maintained that it is lawful to take the oath of canonical
obedience, because they thought it was imposed by the king and laws,
and that we swear to them not as officers claiming a divine right in
the spiritual government, but as ordinaries, or officers made by the
king to exercise so much of ecclesiastical jurisdiction under him, as
he can delegate; according to the oath of supremacy, in which we all
acknowledge the king to be supreme in all ecclesiastical causes; that
is, not the supreme pastor, bishop, or spiritual key-bearer or ruler,
but the supreme civil ruler of the church, who hath the power of the
sword, and of determining all things extrinsic to the pastoral office;
and so of the coercive government of all pastors and churches, as well
as of other subjects. And if prelacy were proved never so unlawful, no
doubt but by the king's command we may swear or perform formal
obedience to a prelate, as he is the king's officer. Of the
nonconformists' judgment in this, read Bradshaw against Canne, &c.
(5.) But in such a case no oath to inferiors is lawful without the
consent of the sovereign power, or at least against his will.
(6.) Though it be a duty for the flock to obey every presbyter, yet if
they would make all the people swear obedience to them, all wise and
conscionable christians should dissent from the introduction of such a
custom, and deny such oaths as far as lawfully they may: that is,
1. If the king be against it, we must refuse it.
2. If he be neutral or merely passive in it, we must refuse, unless
some apparent necessity for the church's good require it.
1. Because it savoureth of pride in such presbyters.
2. Because it is a new custom in the church, and contrary to the
ancient practice.
3. It is not only without any authority given them by Christ, that
they exact such oaths, but also contrary to the great humility,
lowliness, and condescension, in which he describeth his ministers,
who must be great, by being the servants of all.[4001]
4. And it tendeth to corrupt the clergy for the future.
5. And such new impositions give just reason to princes and to the
people to suspect that the presbyters are aspiring after some
inordinate exaltation, or have some ill project for the advancement of
themselves.
(7.) But yet if it be not only their own ambition which imposeth it,
but either the king and laws command it, or necessity require it for
the avoidance of a greater evil, it may be lawful and a duty to take
an oath of obedience to a lawful presbyter or bishop; because, 1. It
is a duty to obey them. 2. And it is not forbidden us by Christ to
promise or swear to do our duty (even when they may sin in demanding
such an oath).
(8.) If an office be lawful in the essential parts, and yet have
unlawful integrals, or adjuncts, or be abused in exercise, it will not
by such additions or abuses be made unlawful to swear obedience to the
officer as such.
(9.) If one presbyter or bishop would make another presbyter or bishop
to swear obedience to him without authority, the case is the same as
of the usurpers before mentioned.
[400] Matt. xxii. 4, 10; Luke xxii. 27, &c.; Mark ix. 35; 1 Pet. v. 2,
3; 1 Cor. ix. 19; iv. 1; 2 Cor. iv. 5.
Quest. CLIV. _Must all our preaching be upon a text of Scripture?_
_Answ._ 1. In many cases it may be lawful to preach without a
text;[401] to make sacred orations like Gregory Nazianzen's, and
homilies like Macarius's, Ephrem Syrus's, and many other ancients, and
like our own church homilies.
2. But ordinarily it is the fittest way to preach upon a text of
Scripture.[402] 1. Because it is our very office to teach the people
the Scripture. The prophets brought a new word or message from God;
but the priests did but keep, interpret, and preach the law already
received: and we are not successors of the inspired prophets, but as
the priests were, teachers of God's received word. And this practice
will help the people to understand our office. 2. And it will preserve
the due esteem and reverence of the holy Scriptures, which the
contrary practice may diminish.
[401] Acts ii.; iii.; Luke iv. 18.
[402] Mal. ii. 7.
Quest. CLV. _Is not the law of Moses abrogated, and the whole Old
Testament out of date, and therefore not to be read publicly and
preached on?_
_Answ._ 1. The covenant of innocency is ceased _cessante subditorum
capacitate_, as a covenant or promise. And so are the positive laws
proper to Adam, in that state, and to many particular persons since.
2. The covenant mixed of grace and works, proper to the Jews, with all
the Jewish law as such, was never made to us, or to the rest of the
world; and to the Jews it is ceased by the coming and perfecter laws
and covenant of Christ.
3. The prophecies and types of Christ, and the promises made to Adam,
Abraham, and others, of his coming in the flesh, are all fulfilled,
and therefore not useful to all the ends of their first making: and
the many prophecies of particular things and persons past and gone are
accomplished.
4. But the law of nature is still Christ's law; and that law is much
expounded to us in the Old Testament: and if God once, for another
use, did say, This is the law of nature, the truth of these words as a
divine doctrine and exposition of the law of nature is still the same.
5. The covenant of grace made with Adam and Noah for all mankind, is
still in force as to the great benefits and main condition, that is,
as to pardon given by it to true penitent believers, with a right to
everlasting life, and as to the obligation to sincere obedience for
salvation: though not as to the yet future coming of Christ in the
flesh. And this law of grace was never yet repealed any further than
Christ's coming did fulfil it and perfect it: therefore to the rest of
the world, who never can have the gospel or perfecter testament, as
christians have, the former law of grace is yet in force. And that is
the law, conjoined with the law of nature, which now the world without
the church is under: under, I say, as to the force of the law, and a
former promulgation made to Adam and Noah, and some common intimations
of it in merciful forbearances, pardons, and benefits; though how many
are under it as to the knowledge, reception, belief, and obedience of
it, and consequently are saved by it, is more than I or any man
knoweth.
6. There are many prophecies of Christ and the christian church in the
Old Testament yet to be fulfilled, and therefore are still God's word
for us.
7. There are many precepts of God to the Jews and to particular
persons, given them on reasons common to them with us; where parity of
reason will help thence to gather our own duty now.
8. There are many holy expressions, (as in the Psalms,) which are
fitted to persons in our condition, and came from the Spirit of God;
and therefore as such are fit for us now.
9. Even the fulfilled promises, types, and prophecies, are still God's
words, that is, his word given to their several proper uses: and
though much of their use be changed or ceased, so is not all: they are
yet useful to us, to confirm our faith, while we see their
accomplishment, and see how much God still led his church to happiness
in one and the same way.
10. On all these accounts therefore we may still read the Old
Testament, and preach upon it in the public churches.[403]
[403] 2 Tim. iii. 15; Rom. xv. 4; xvi. 26; Matt. xxii. 29; Luke xxiv.
27, 32, 45; John v. 39; Acts xvii. 2, 11; xviii. 24, 25; John xx. 9;
vii. 38, 42; x. 35; xiii. 18; xix. 24, 28; Luke iv. 18, 21; 2 Tim.
iii. 16; 2 Pet. i. 19, 20; Acts viii. 32, 33, 35; Rom. i. 2.
Quest. CLVI. _Must we believe that Moses's law did ever bind other
nations; or that any other parts of the Scripture bound them, or
belong to them? or that the Jews were all God's visible church on
earth?_
_Answ._ I conjoin these three questions for despatch.
I. 1. Some of the matter of Moses's law did bind all nations; that is,
the law of nature as such.
2. Those that had the knowledge of the Jewish law, were bound
collaterally to believe and obey all the expositions of the law of
nature in it, and all the laws which were given upon reasons common to
all the world; (as about degrees of marriage, particular rules of
justice, &c.) As if I heard God from heaven tell another that standeth
by me, Thou shalt not marry thy father's widow; for it is abominable,
I ought to apply that to me, being his subject, which is spoken to
another on a common reason.[404]
3. All those gentiles that would be proselytes, and join with the Jews
in their policy, and dwelt among them, were bound to be observers of
their laws. But, 1. The law of nature as mosaical, did not formally
and directly bind other nations. 2. Nor were they bound to the laws of
their peculiar policy, civil or ecclesiastical, which were positives.
The reason is, (1.) Because they were all one body of political laws,
given peculiarly to one political body. Even the decalogue itself was
to them a political law. (2.) Because Moses was not authorized or sent
to be the mediator or deliverer of that law to any nation but the
Jews. And being never in the enacting or promulgation sent or directed
to the rest of the world, it could not bind them.
II. As to the second question, Though the Scripture as a writing bound
not all the world, yet, 1. The law of nature as such which is recorded
in Scripture did bind all. 2. The covenant of grace was made with all
mankind in Adam and Noah; and they were bound to promulgate it by
tradition to all their offspring. And no doubt so they did; whether by
word, (as all did,) or by writing also, (as it is like some did, as
Enoch's prophecies were it is like delivered, or else they had not in
terms been preserved till Jude's time). 3. And God himself as
aforesaid by actual providences, pardoning, and benefits given to them
that deserved hell, did in part promulgate it himself. 4. The
neighbour nations might learn much by God's doctrine and dealing with
the Jews.[405]
III. To the third question, I answer, 1. The Jews were a people chosen
by God out of all the nations of the earth, to be a holy nation, and
his peculiar treasure, having a peculiar divine law and covenant, and
many great privileges, to which the rest of the world were strangers;
so that they were advanced above all other kingdoms of the world,
though not in wealth, nor worldly power, nor largeness of dominion,
yet in a special dearness unto God.[406]
2. But they were not the only people to whom God made a covenant of
grace in Adam and Noah, as distinct from the law or covenant of
innocency.
3. Nor were they the only people that professed to worship the true
God; neither was holiness and salvation confined to them; but were
found in other nations. Therefore though we have but little notice of
the state of other kingdoms in their times, and scarcely know what
national churches (that is, whole nations professing saving faith)
there were, yet we may conclude that there were other visible churches
besides the Jews. For, 1. No Scripture denieth it; and charity then
must hope the best. 2. The Scriptures of the Old Testament give us
small account of other countries, but of the Jews alone, with some of
their neighbours. 3. Shem was alive in Abraham's days (yea, about 34
years after Abraham's death, and within 12 years of Ishmael's death,
viz. till about An. Mundi 2158). And so great and blessed a man as
Shem, cannot be thought to be less than a king, and to have a kingdom
governed according to his holiness; and so that there was with him not
only a church, but a national church, or holy kingdom. 4. And
Melchizedec was a holy king and priest; and therefore had a kingdom
holily governed; and therefore not only a visible but also a national
church (supposing that he was not Shem, as the Jews and Broughton, &c.
think; for the situation of his country doth make many desert that
opinion). 5. And Job and his friends show that there were churches
then besides the Jews. 6. And it is not to be thought that all
Ishmael's posterity suddenly apostatized. 7. Nor that Esau's posterity
had no church state (for both retained circumcision). 8. Nor is it
like that Abraham's offspring by Keturah were all apostates, being
once inchurched. For though the special promise was made to Isaac's
seed, as the peculiar holy nation, &c. yet not as the only children of
God, or persons in a state of salvation. 9. And the passages in Jonah
about Nineveh give us some such intimations also. 10. And Japheth and
his seed being under a special blessing, it is not like that they all
proved apostates. And what was in all other kingdoms of the world is
little known to us.
We must therefore take heed of concluding, (as the proud Jews were at
last apt to do of themselves,) that because they were a chosen nation
privileged above all others, that therefore the Redeemer under the law
of grace made to Adam, had no other churches in the world, and that
there were none saved but the Jews and proselytes.[407]
[404] Rom. ii.; i. 20, 21; Exod. xii. 19, 43, 48, 49; xx. 10; Lev.
xvii. 12, 15; xviii. 26; xxiv. 16, 22; Numb. ix. 14; xv. 14-16, 29,
30; xix. 10; Deut. i. 16.
[405] Psal. cxlv. 9; ciii. 19; c. 1; Rom. xiv. 11; Judg. xiv. 15.
[406] Deut. xiv. 2, 3; vii. 2, 6, 7; Exod. xix. 5; vi. 7, 8; Lev. xx.
24, 26; Deut. iv. 20, 33; xxix. 13; xxxiii. 29; Rom. iii. 1-3.
[407] It is this Jewish pride of their own prerogatives which Paul so
much laboureth in all his epistles to pull down.
Quest. CLVII. _Must we think accordingly of the christian churches
now, that they are only advanced above the rest of the world as the
Jews were, but not the only people that are saved?_
_Answ._ This question being fitter for another place, what hope there
is of the salvation of the people that are not christians, I have
purposely handled in another treatise, (in my "Method. Theologiæ,")
and shall only say now, 1. That those that receive not Christ and the
gospel revealed and offered to them cannot be saved.[408] 2. That all
those shall be saved (if such there be) who never had sufficient means
to know Christ incarnate, and yet do faithfully perform the common
conditions of the covenant of grace as it was made with Adam and Noah;
and particularly all that are truly sanctified, who truly hate all
known sin, and love God as God above all, as their merciful,
reconciled, pardoning Father, and lay up all their hopes in heaven, in
the everlasting fruition of him in glory, and set their hearts there,
and for those hopes deny the interest of the flesh, and all things of
this world.[409]
3. But how many or who doth this abroad in all the kingdoms of the
world, who have not the distinct knowledge of the articles of the
christian faith, it is not possible for us to know.
4. But (as Aquinas and the schoolmen ordinarily conclude this
question) we are sure that the church hath this prerogative above all
others, that salvation is incomparably more common to christians, than
to any others, as their light, and helps, and means are more. The
opinions of Justin, and Clem. Alexandr. Origen, and many other
ancients, of the heathens' salvation, I suppose is known. In short:
1. It seems plain to me, that all the world that are no christians,
and have not the gospel, are not by Christ's incarnation put into a
worse condition than they were in before; but may be saved on the same
terms that they might have been saved on before.[410]
2. That Christ's apostles were in a state of salvation before they
believed the articles of Christ's dying for sin, his resurrection,
ascension, the giving of the Holy Ghost, and Christ's coming to
judgment, as they are now to be believed.[411]
3. That all the faithful before Christ's coming were saved by a more
general faith than the apostles had, as not being terminated in this
person, Jesus, as the Messiah, but only expected the Messiah to
come.[412]
4. That as more articles are necessary to those that have the gospel,
than to those that have it not, and to those since Christ's
incarnation that hear of him, than to the Jews before, so before,
there were more things necessary even to those Jews, (that had a
shorter creed than that which the apostles believed before the
resurrection,) than was to the rest of the world that had not
promises, prophecies, types, and laws, so particular, distinct, and
full as they had.[413]
5. That the promises, covenant, or law of grace, was made to all
lapsed mankind in Adam and Noah.[414]
6. That this law or covenant is still of the same tenor, and not
repealed.[415]
7. That this covenant giveth pardoning mercy, and salvation, and
promiseth victory over Satan, to and by the holy seed.[416]