A PARAENESIS.  
OR, Seasonable Exhortatory TO ALL TRUE SONS OF THE Church of England.  
Wherein is inserted a Discourse Of heresy in defence of our Church against the Romanist.  
By H. HAMMOND. D.D.  
LONDON, Printed by R. N. for Richard Royston, at the Angel in ivy-lane. M.DC.LVI.   

A Paraenesis, OR, Seasonable Exhortatory to all true Sons of the Church of England.  

CHAP. I. An Introductive reflection on our present condition.  
§. 1. IN this sad conjuncture of affairs, when those, whose Office it is to speak to the People from God, and to God from the People, are solemnly forbidden all public discharge of these, and all other Branches of that Sacred Function; so useful to make up the breach, to reconcile the enmity betwixt an angry God, and a sinful Land; It may not, I presume, and I hope it will not, be deemed by any, either impertinent, or unseasonable, to make some attempt to supply those wants, and remove those pressures, which may otherwise lye too heavily unsupportable on those our weak Brethrens souls, towards whom the example of Christs bowels, and bloodshedding may reasonably expect to be answered with our utmost compassion.  
§. 2. In obedience therefore to opportunity, which may possibly be a duty incumbent on us,( since Rom. 12.11. the Greek Copies of greatest authority red {αβγδ} serving the season, instead of {αβγδ} the Lord) I shall now, though the unworthiest of all my many Brethren, assume this venerable Office of being a Remembrancer to the people of God, even to all those who have been brought forth unto Christ by our precious dear persecuted Mother, the Church of England, and remain still constant to that faith, which from her breasts they have suck●, and are not yet scandalised in her.  
§. 3. And for the first step of my address, it cannot be more regular, than by beholding and representing a while the peculiarity of our present condition, considered only in the sad matter of it( without any unkind reflection on the inflicters) that no one of us may miss to discern the nature of that judgement, that by Gods just vengeance, and alwise Providence is permitted to fall, and lye upon us, even the saddest addition to the former weight that our unparalleled sins and provocations could solicit God to tolerate, or suggest to others to inflict, or to the patients to fear, or expect in this life.  
§. 4. Some images we have of it in Sacred Writ. As first the expulsing of our first Parents, and in them of all Gods people, at one interdict, out of the Garden of God, that lively emblem of a pure Reformed Church,& a flaming Sword, sent to back that interdict, to guard the way of the three of life, to keep those, who most desired, from tasting of it: And the sad positive penalties, which attended that, the sweat and agony of their combat with the briars and Thorns, were nothing in comparison with the vast dismal privation, and intercision of all those blessed advantages, which were designed the daily fruits and enjoyments of that Parad se.  
5.§. Add to this the captive Ark, with Ichabod inscribed on it, the departure of the Schechina, the Majestatick presence of the Lord, and with it the glory from Israel; the very news whereof was, in Gods own judgement, such, as that the ears of every one that heard it should tingle, and the effect yet more direful to old Eli, whose but mildness and want of due severity had somewhat contributed toward it: The greatness of which punishment to the discomfi●ed Israelites, is much more agreeable, and useful matter of meditation to us at this time, then the inauspicious consequen●s thereof to those who took it captive, the Emerods and the ruinous prostration of their Dagon, and the weight of Gods hand on the men of Ashdod, and Ga●h, and Ekron, who were any way guilty of taking, or accessary to the withholding it.  
§. 6. Beside these, the Prophets both of the Old and New Testament have yielded us many dismal adumbrations, their Pencils advancing as high as to the Sun's being turned into darkness, and the Moon into blood, the casting down of the Host,& of the Stars to the ground; some in calmer style to represent the deportation of the worshippers into a strange country, from the Garden of Eden into a desolate wilderness, from Sion unto Babylon; others in the sharper accent of the threefold woe in 
See Euseb. l. 3. c. 13.  Josephus and the 
Rev. 8.13.  Apocalyps, to set out the captivity of the very worship and Temple itself; destroying the Sanctuary, causing the Sacrifice and Oblation to cease, banishing even their eyes and thoughts from the wonted joy and delight of both( the {αβγδ} the holy convocation, and the beauty of that holinesse) and of this the conclusion is but equitable, this is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation.  
§. 7. Lastly, to come nearer home, to the most flourishing, once purest, Christian Assemblies, we have in vision from S. John in his exile, predictions of Churches, and their Angels, both threatened a deportation, of removing Ephesus her Candlestick out of the place, putting the Lamp thereof( fitly qualified to have enlightened the whole room) under the narrow bounds of a Bed or Bushel, of delivering up whole Assemblies to Satan, that he may cast them into prison, sentemcing them to black, and dark restreints, the sins of Professors being the Forges or Moulds of such more than iron Fetters, whereby even the Word of God is taught to bee bound, when the free use of it hath been abused by them.  
§. 8. That these are the very lines, that make up the face of sorrow, that is at present on this Church, is none of the advertisements, that we can stand in need of at this time, the matter itself speaks too loud, to be news to any of us.  
§. 9. The doubts that are more apt to exercise mens thoughts are founded in the acknowledgement of it, and every one hath borrowed his Objection or Argument from one of Jobs friends, to add some weight of sorrow to her whom God hath afflicted. A few of these it may be pertinent to examine a while, instead of farther enlarging on our {αβγδ}.   

CHAP. II. A first Objection, or Argument of our guilt, drawn from our present condition; answered in the former branch of it; The judgement apportioned to our sins.  
§. 1. IT is first made matter of Argument against our Church, and establishment, that God hath found us out, that it is because of transgressions, that an host hath been given against the daily Sacrifice, and therein hath practised and prospered, and that prosperousnesse interpnted to be Gods own decision, as signal, as any response from the Ephod, a sentence by Urim and Thummim, that it is no other then the quarrel of God, which he hath thus signally managed against us.  
§. 2. This Argument thus proposed hath somewhat which must be granted, and by no means denied by us; and for the other part, wherein it is fallacious, it brings sufficient light with it, to assist us in the discovery of the paralogism. And it may be worth the while distinctly to consider it, in these two branches of it.  
§. 3. First I say, it must not be denied, but that our sins have found us out, all the punishments we have undergone, being but the just, and withal merciful reward of our sins.  
§. 4. For although we are by our Saviours answer, S. Luke 13.3. restrained from making such inferences of other men, to conclude their guilts by their sufferings, though Jobs friends are rebuked for this kind of logic, arguing his unsincerity from the pressures that fell upon him, yet such methods are very safe to be used by ourselves toward ourselves. We are now obliged, and never more loudly called on to judge ourselves, though it be not allowed to any man else to judge us upon these premises.  
§. 5. It is, I say, true beyond all contradiction, and never more applicable to any, then to us, that all Gods punishments, especially his spiritual, and heaviest sort of them, are brought upon men by their sins. The lover of souls, the patient and long-suffering Father of all consolations and mercies, never puts on the guise, or armature of an enemy, but when our methods have suggested this, and our unreformed sins made it doubly necessary, to vindicate himself, and to chastise us. And herein how bitter so ever our portion prove, though to have our lot with Admah and Zeboim, to be thrown away as straw to the dunghill, or unprofitable servants into utter darkness, yet our hands are on our mouths, the honour of a most perfect righteousness belongeth unto our Judge, and to us confusion of face, as at this day.  
§, 6. And we shall be foully to blame, if these so generous medicaments do not, in some proportion to the wisdom and design of our great Physician, prove effectually operative, beyond all the former gentler methods, if the sins that have lain disguised in their closest concealments, kept so strictly from the eyes of men, and, in our design, of God himself, that they have even been unknown to ourselves, do not now, upon this scrutiny, give God the honour, come forth, and offer themselves to justice.  
§. 7. This is indeed but our just return to our sins finding us out, for us to find out our sins, to act this one revenge on them, to deliver those up to wrath, which have so signally delivered up us. And instead of shaking off, or taking leave of this part of the argument too hastily, I shall desire to give it its full scope, to reap as much benefit by it, as we may, and take notice of some( at least) of those guilts, which the signatures we discern in the judgement, the lines in this hand of God, do, according to the rules of the steadyest augury, point out and discover to us.  
§. 8. And 1. The deep, though most causeless d spleasure, under which the liturgy of our Church is fallen, is a shrewd indication of the great coldness and indevotion, so scandalously frequent among us, of the formal perfunctory performance of our offices, nay, of the many foul profane mixtures, which have so frequently interposed, and by a kind of fascination converted the most spotless Sacrifice into the very lame and the sick, 
Mal. 1.8.7.10.  the purest unleavened offering into bitter polluted bread upon Gods Altar, and then no marvel that God should have no pleasure, and at length refuse to accept an offering from such mystae.  
§. 9. We know the unwasht-hands that brought it, defamed the Sacrifice of Gods own ordaining, blasted the very incense and fat of fed beasts, 
Isai. 1.13.11.14.  the Sabbaths and calling of Assemblies, and turned them into mere abominations; and then what wonder that what he detests and cannot away with, he should permit to bee destroyed? lay down that weight, which he is weary to bear? suffer that to be deemed an abomination, and used accordingly, which our unsanctified usage hath made such?  
§. 10. To descend to some particulars; Our continued obstinate unreformed sins have made forms of confession and contrition unfit to be taken into our mouths; those cannot be repeated by such, without gross hypocrisy and belying ourselves before God and Men, and then what possibility is there, that the Ministerial Absolution should with any justice be applied to us?  
§. 11. And for that sacred form of words, which Christ commanded us to use in our addresses to our Father,[ When ye pray, say, Our Father—] there needs no other argument for the discountenancing of it( and Hell itself can yield no other, though search hath been made into all topics to find some) this one is sufficient for the rending it from us, our unqualifiednesse for the rehearsing the several petitions of it.  
§. 12. We that are so far from our due charity to others, that we are not at unity within ourselves, that live so unlike children, that we have not so much as the livery of the servants of God, with what face can we hourly and solemnly invoke our Father? We that do actually with horrid oaths defile, and reproach the name of God, cannot be thought to be in earnest, when we require it may be hallowed. We that like Rebels have dethroned God out of our hearts, 
John 19.3.  cannot without the same mockery that the Souldiers were guilty of in the crown of thorns and purple-robe, and ironical salutation, instile him King, or pray for that coming of his Kingdom. And as long as we mutiny, and repined at the execution of Gods will in Heaven, it is not possible we should hearty beg that honour of transcribing the Angels pattern of cheerful diligent obedience to his will on earth. Our wants may seem indeed to qualify us for an ardent address of the fourth Petition; but our surfeiting of Manna makes us of all others the least fit to go out to gather it: And the bread that came down from Heaven being so neglected by us, with what face can we ask that other, which wee mean but to consume upon our lusts? But beyond all, we are most unqualified for that Petition wherein we set our forgiving of trespassers, as the pattern for God to copy out in forgiving us. 'tis but just that they which are implacable to enemies, should be excluded from, if they will not voluntarily renounce all part in this prayer, this legacy of Christs to the merciful: Why should they be inclinable to use a form, which is so ill fitted to their constitutions, an imprecation on those whom they tender most dearly? And yet those which are most unwilling to lose their right in this donative, have not been, to that degree they ought, mindful of the condition, without which they do but call for vengeance upon their own heads, when they are most importunate for mercy and forgiveness. In a word, they that solicit and even court temptations, invade sin and Satan in his own territories, not to subdue, but to be subdued by him, how can they pray not to be led into temptation, or be reconciled to themselves for hoping deliverance from those evils, which themselves have brought down upon themselves?  
§. 13. As for the Sacraments, they also may deserve to be reflected on a while by us.  
§ 14. The baptism of Infants is well known to have of late found great opposition among us, many with some earnestness, as if it were their solid concernment, denying their tender years the enjoyment of this privilege, whereby the benefits of the death of Christ( of which the catholic Church against the Pelagians defined all that are born in sin, to stand in need) are, according to his institution, sealed unto them.  
§. 15. And for others which retaining kindness to the Directory, do in obedience thereto, maintain Infant baptism, yet have they taken away the form of abrenunciation, though such as hath been universally practised in the Church of 
Tertul. de Coron. mill. c. 3. Aquam adituri ibidem, said& aliquanto prius( viz. in the preparing the Catechumenus for baptism) in Ecclesiâ sub antistitis manu contestamur, nos renuntiare Diabolo& pompae& angels ejus, amplius aliquid respondentes quàm Dominus in Evangelio determinavit. So the Author de Eccles. Hierarch. very ancient, cap. 2. Edit. Par. ap. Morel. p. 116. {αβγδ}. So Chrysost. Edit. Eton. T. 6. p. 606. c. 31. {αβγδ}, and p. 609. l. 41. {αβγδ}; adding p. 610. l. 2. {αβγδ}( making it the covenant on our part) {αβγδ}— So Augustine de Nuptiis& Concupiscent. l. 1. c. 20.( in Basil. Froben. Ed. T. 7. p. 822.) Potestas diabolica exorcizatur in parvulis, eique renunciant, quia per sûa non possunt, per corda& ora gestantium. So Ambrose in Col. 2. and l. de iis qui mister. initiantur c. 2. Repote quid interrogatus sis, Recognosce quid responderis, Renuntiasti Diabol●& operibus ejus. And Hexaem. l. 1. c. 4. Deserit qui abluitur— Principem istius mundi dicens, Abrenuntio tibi, Diabole,& angels tuis& operibus tuis,& imperiis tuis. And jerome ad Mat. 5. Renuntio tibi& pomp● tuae& vitiis tuis,& mundo qui in maligno positus est.  all Ages, and that as delivered to them by the 
S. Basil. de Spiritu Sanct. ad Amphiloch. c 27. T. 2 p. 210. B. Giving many instances. {αβγδ}. p. 210 c. mentions his among them, {αβγδ}, saith he, {αβγδ}; And before him Origen. Hom. 5. in Num. Eorum quae geruntur in baptismo verborum— atque interrogationum& responsionum quis facilè explicet rationem? Et tamen omnia haec operta& velata portamus supper humeros nostros, cum ita implemus ea& exequimur, ut à magn● Pontifice atque ejus filiis tradita& commendata suscepimus. And so Tertullian ubi supra. Hanc si nulla scriptura determinavit, certè consuetudo roboravit quae sine dubi● de traditione manavit. Quaeramus an& traditio non Scripta non debeat recipi— ut à baptismate ingrediamur—  Apostles themselves, and in every word almost of that form which is retained in our 
So Cyril of Jerusalem in his {αβγδ}, or {αβγδ}—  liturgy, and that extended to the 
The Author de Eccl. Hierarch. c. 2. {αβγδ}. So Augustin. ubi supra.  tenderest Infants: Onely instead of this the people are appointed to be taught, 
Direct. of Bapt. p. 42.  That all that are baptized do renounce, and by their baptism are bound to fight against the Devil, the World, and the Flesh,] Which yet cannot with any truth be affirmed of those, that neither do it by themselves, nor by their proxeyes. And 'tis not sufficient to say, they do it interpretatively, for unless it have been the constant custom of the Church, that they who are baptized should use forms of abrenunciation, they that are baptized, without using them, cannot be pretended to do it interpretatively, and if it have been the constant custom, then how can they be excused, that have resolvedly omitted it. And besides, the condition of Covenants( such is abrenunciation here) ought to be expressed, and so the Church from the Apostles hath always exacted the expressing it, before the sealing of this Covenant. And yet, I say, this, though it be such an Apostolical rite, containing no unconsiderable, supervacaneous condition, and qualification in the person baptized, is by interdicting the administration of baptism according to the ancient order of our Church, or by those which have continued constant to that order, endeavoured to be superseded and removed from among us.  
§. 16. And the wisdom and justice and mercy of God is remarkable in this, thereby branding our infamous repeated innumerable breaches of this vow, our perjurious acting of all those sins, with confidence and without regrets, which we did so solemnly renounce and defy in our baptism.  
§. 17. The greatness of that crime of rescinding oaths, and renouncing abrenuntiations, was that which made the ancient discipline of the Church so severe against every presumptuous act of sin after baptism, in respect of the hightning circumstances of such, drawn from the solemnity of that vow against which they were committed, and of that presence in which that vow was made, and of 
{αβγδ}. Cyril. Hieros. {αβγδ}. a. p. 510.  that weight, which is set upon it by God,& of that judgement which attends every breach of it. And our scandalous negligence in this kind is by this interdict, signally pointed out to us; 'tis pity we should ever want any more admonitions, or venture again upon one such provocation, lest a worse thing yet happen to us, this being, if rightly considered, bad enough already.  
§. 18. In like manner and upon the same grounds of our unreformed sins, it is, that the Sacrament of Christs body and blood should be in all justice withdrawn from those, who have no way approved themselves for the eating of that bread and drinking that cup, this greatest severity being by our unprepared hearts converted into the only seasonable mercy; it being little for the advantage( or even the sensuality) of the Swine, to have the trampling of pearls under their feet, and as little for the unworthy receivers to deal after the same manner with the blood of the Covenant.  
§. 19. And why should the Sacramentals escape better, then the Sacraments? marriage we know is become so deformed among us, so extremely unlike the union betwixt Christ and his Church, by which S. Paul thought meet to resemble it, the band is so frequently and so scandalously torn asunder, the designs of it ordinarily so very unlike, what they ought to be, so more then polluted by either earthy, or sensual considerations; that the mysterious band is in danger to become {αβγδ} all flesh, nothing but luxury and bruitishnesse, and in proportion thereto the very rites of it so wholly transformed from the {αβγδ} or nuptial Feasts in Scripture( honoured by Christs presence) into the Saturnalia or Heathen Riots in Macrobius, that it were even a reproach to the Churches Service, especially to the offertory, and Sacrament of Christs body( which our rubric exacts indispensably from the married couple at the time of their espousals) to bear part in such kind of solemnities. And to these,& the like provocations we may reasonably impute it, that the binding& blessing those bands, and rendering them truly sacred, to which the Bishops or Presbyters hands were 
{αβγδ}. Ignat. ep. ad Polycarp. Quod Ecclesia conciliat,& confirmat oblatio,& obsignat benedictio, Angeli renunciant, &c. tart. ad Uxor. l. 2. c. ult. Conjunctiones non prius apud Ecclesiam professae juxta maechiam— judicari periclitantur. Idem de pudic. c. 4. Sponsus& sponsa cum benedicendi sunt à Sacerdote, council. Carthag. 4. Can. 13. Qui in tot● orb sunt Sacerdotes, Nuptiarum initia benedicentes, consecrantes, et in mysteriis sociantes. De haer. Praedestinat.  always thought necessary from the Apostles dayes, though all ages of the Church over all the World, is now solemnly laid aside, and no image of it resevred to the Church, the Presbyterian Minister, as well as the Prelatist( which in other particulars have not the like fellowship) not only the liturgy but the Directory deemed supersluous, and equally impertinent in this matter.  
§. 18. And so the office for Burial, which is now under the like proscription, may well be our seasonable admonition, and memorative of the sublime and sacred uses, to which our living bodies were by God designed, even to be the {αβγδ}, the animate walking temples of his Spirit, and to bear their parts with the soul in all the devotions it offers up( the eye, the hand, the knee, the tongue, being thus obliged, as well as the heart) but are commonly so obstinately withdrawn from all holy offices, and so profaned and polluted with our unsanctified practices, that as to so many felo's de se, so many sacrilegious, anathematized persons, the burial of an ass or Dog is but fitly apportioned, and upon that account all more decent ceremonies or regard, all offerings for the dead, though but for a joyful resurrection, withdrawn from us.  
§. 19. And even the Creeds of the catholic Church, that great depositum, which the Apostles in their several plantations left as the summary of all that was to be believed to our souls health, and foundation of all Christian practise, and reformation, together with the Nicene( or Constantinopolitan) and Athanasian enlargements of that, for the securing that depositum, and for the expulsing all Heresies, risen up against it. All these now being fallen under the same ostracism, with the other parts of the inheritance of the Church, must serve to advertise us, that a pure faith attended with impure lives, foundations of reformation laid by God, without any conformable superstructures of ours, are like the Talent laid up in a Napkin, {αβγδ}, testifications and self-confessions of an unprofitable, wicked servant, and so very fit to be taken away from them, who have made such unchristian uses of them.  
§. 20. The Solifidian that must bee saved by his Faith without works, and hath found out artifices to elude S. James's exhortation, and resolution, that such a faith will never save or justify any, well deserves to have his amulet taken away from him, to be deprived of the instrument of his destructive security, as the Jews were of the Temple of the Lord, when that was become the great Sanctuary, and reserve of safety for all their unsanctified practices.  
§. 21. As for the contempt of the persons of those that have been set apart to that venerable office of waiting on Gods Altars, and at length the interdict that is fallen upon them, there be many matters of seasonable admonition, which seem to be designed us thereby. First, It may mind us of a considerable defect.  
§. 22. For though the four Ember weeks were according to ancient custom preserved for fasting and praying, and that in order to that business of greatest weight, Praying to the Lord of the harvest that he would sand forth fit labourers into the harvest( therein transcribing the example of the apostolic Church, Acts 13.3.) yet there being no special service appointed in our liturgy for those times, 'tis too probable, that duty being left to every mans voluntary, private devotions, hath been very much neglected, which neglect was therefore thus to receive its chastisement from God.  
§. 23. Secondly, the admission of some men into that calling which were not duly qualified for it; and the negligent and unworthy performances of the offices of so sacred a function, and the many profane mixtures, the seeking our own wealth, and ease, and praise, &c. qualifying us for that contempt, and ruin, which is now fallen upon us; and lastly the unprofitableness of the people in the midst of very plentiful means of instruction, were all fit to be thus disciplined with a famine of the word, or unwholesome food in exchange for that {αβγδ}, sincere and unmixed, which began to be nauseated. And many other sad reflections this may seasonably suggest to us.  
§. 24. And so in like manner for holy times, and places, which are fallen under so great displeasure, and contempt, even those that have been consecrated not only to the honourable memory and imitation of the Apostles and Saints and Martyrs of God, but even to the commemoration of the most glorious mysteries of our redemption, the most signal mercies of Christ himself, the deprivation of these blessed seasons and advantages cannot but mind us how they have been formerly neglected, and even despised, and so either way profaned, and sacrilegiously handled by us, instead of being instrumental to the inciting and advancing( as they were sure designed) the works of holinesse in us.  
§. 25. In a word( to cut off, and omit many particulars in this large, and vast field of useful meditation, beseeching every man to examine his guilts by such reflections as these) when the characters, or discriminative marks of the English Reformation are principally two, one the comforming all our doctrines to the Primitive Antiquity, receiving all genuine Apostolical traditions for our rule both in matters of faith and government; the other in uniting that {αβγδ} fair, beautiful pair of Faith and Works, in the same degree of necessity and conditionality both to our justification, and salvation, and to all the good works of justice and mercy, which the Romanist speaks of, adjoining that other most eminent one of humility, attributing nothing to ourselves, when we have done all, but all to the glory of the mercy, and grace of God, purchased for us by Christ, 'tis but just that they which have walked unworthy of such guides and rules as these, lived so contrary to our profession, should at length be deprived of both, not only to have our two staves broken, Beauty& Bands, the symbols of order and unity, both which have now for some years taken their leaves of us, but even to have the whole fabric demolished, the house to follow the pillars fate, and so to be left; and abide without a Sacrifice, 
Hos. 3.4.  and without an Image, and without an Ephod, and without Teraphim, deprived of all our ornaments, left naked and bare, when we had so misused our beauty unto wantonness. Thus when the Devil was turned out of his habitation, and nothing followed but the sweeping and garnishing the house, and keeping it empty of any better guest; the issue is, the Devil soon returns again, from whence he came out, and brings seven spirits worse then himself, and the end of that state is worse then the beginning.  
§. 26. And so still the taking of the Ark, and the breaking the High Priests neck, and the slaying his Sons, and many more, in that discomfiture, are all far from new, or strange, being but the proper natural effects of the profanations, which not the Ark itself( that was built every pin of it according to Gods direction) but the Sacrificers, not the religion, but the worshippers were so scandalously guilty of.  
§. 27. Thus we that are taught by Christ to love our enemies, and by Nature, and natural kindness to our selves, to receive all profit we may, by their oppositions, must make our advantage of the first part of the objection, distinguishing betwixt the innocence or guiltiness( nay more then so, fruitfulness and goodness) of the land, and the barrenness and wickedness and provocations of them that dwell therein, for whose sake it is regular with God, to make that fruitful land barren, to convert the Milk and Honey of Canaan into gull and Wormwood, to leave it to imitate, and copy out the temper of the inhabitants( whom yet his own hand of transcendent special mercy had once planted there) to suffer it to petrifie and degenerate( as Geographers tell us of that once good Land) into Rock and Mine, at once to punish& reproach their obdurate impenitent hearts: And yet still discerning the blessedness of that Canaan, both in itself and to us, as long as we were thought worthy to enjoy it, and indeed judging by this one {αβγδ} if we wanted all others) that it was a most precious establishment, because such provokers could not in the justice and wisdom of God, be longer allowed the fruition of it.  
§. 28. Herein our punishment consists, that that which we are deprived of, was truly valuable: 'tis not a vengeance but a boon to have poisonous drugs snatched from us, and cast out into the sink, Ordinances that are not good, abolished and nailed to the cross; and in like manner 'tis but proportionable to our merits to have even the kingdom of heaven taken from us, that initial part, the Suburbs and Confines of it here, and bestowed on them that are more worthy, and so capable of receiving benefit by such jewels.  
§. 29. Let us therefore here stop a while to do our duty upon our knees to this first part of the Objection, by reflecting on those sins which have thus found us out.   

A Prayer. Fitted for a day of Humiliation.  
O Just and righteous Judge, who didst once for the iniquity of thy people Israel give up thy Ark into the hand of the Philistines, we sinful creatures that are now under as great a degree both of guilt and punishment, do here cast ourselves down before thee, acknowledging that we are not worthy any longer to receive the honour of Christian profession, that have so long defamed it by enormous practices; and that we who loved darkness more than light, deserve to have our Candlestick removed, and to be given up to that inundation of atheism and profaneness, which now invades the gasping Church. Yet O Lord, deal not with us after our sins, but turn thee again, thou God of hosts, look down from heaven, behold and visit this vine, do not abhor us for thy Names sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: Behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people; though a rebellious and stiff-necked generation, yet thy Name is called upon us, leave us not, neither forsake us, O God of our salvation; but though thou feed us with bread of adversity, and water of affliction, yet let not our teachers be removed into a corner, but let our eyes still see our teachers, let not Sion complain that she hath none to led her by the hand among all the sons that she hath brought up, but provide her such supports in this her declining condition, that she may still have a seed and a remnant left, and in what degree soever thou shalt permit this storm to increase upon this poor church; be pleased proportionably to fortify and confirm all those, that are members of it, that no man may be shaken or moved with these afflictions, nor pervert that glorious advantage of suffering for thee, into an occasion of apostatising from thee, but that we may all run with patience the race that is set before us, and cheerfully partake of the afflictions of the Gospel, that suffering for Christ here, we may reign with him for ever hereafter, and all this for Jesus Christ his sake our onely Lord and Saviour.  
Amen.   

Another.  
O Thou King of Nations who dost according to thy will in all the kingdoms of the Earth, who hast made us drink deep of that cup of trembling, and yet seemest to have bitter dregs behind for us, we thy wretched creatures that have highly contributed to that common weight of sin under which the land sinks, humbly prostrate ourselves at thy feet; desiring with all sincere contrition to confess that thou art righteous in all that is hitherto come upon us, all that we have yet suffered, being but the sad arrear of the sins of our peace, when we waxed fat, and kicked; and that thou shalt likewise be most just in the utmost of thy future inflictions, which whatsoever they prove cannot exceed the sins of our calamitous dayes, who in the time of our distress have sinned yet more against the Lord, who have even passed through the fire to Molech, with an undaunted obstinacy suffered all the flamings of thy wrath, rather then we would renounce any of our detestable things. Nay, as if our old were too infirm, we have made new leagues with Death, new agreements with Hell, proceeding from evil to worse, and making every new calamity thou sendest to reclaim us, the occasion of some fresh impiety. And now, O Lord, wilt thou not visit for these things, shall not thy soul be avenged on such a nation as this? We are they, O Lord, that have perverted all thy dispensations toward us, grown wanton under thy mercies, and desperate under thy judgements, and is there yet any third method left for those that have frustrated both these? Behold, O Lord, these desperate, these gasping patients at thy feet, who have lost sense and motion to all things but the rosistance of their remedy. O give us not utterly over, but continue to administer to us, what ever may remove this stupefaction; and bring us to to a feeling of our condition, and what sharpness and severity soever thou discernest necessary for that purpose, forbear not, O Lord, to give us those wounds of a friend. O say not concerning us, why should ye be smitten any more? But rather cast us into the place of Dragons, and cover us with the shadow of death, if by so doing we may be brougbt to remember the name of the Lord our God. Lord this is the one great necessary wherein we are principally concerned to solicit thee, that our eyes may be opened, that we may see every man the plague of his own heart; that so instead of those Atheistical disputes we make of thy providence, we may all join in an humble adoration of thy justice, and confessing that our destruction is of ourselves, abhor ourselves, and repent in dust and ashes. And when by this greater deliverance thou hast put us in capacity of a less, then be thou pleased to be jealous for thy land, and pity thy people, and whatever other judgement we must groan under, Lord deliver us not up to that barbarism and irreligion, which hath already made too great a breach in upon us. We cannot but confess it most just in thee to permit us, who have so long resisted the power of godliness, to proceed now to cast off even the very form, and that we who would not receive the love of the truth, should be given over to strong delusions, to believe lies: And this saddest effect of thy wrath hath already overtaken many among us, and doth universally threaten the rest. For since thou hast laid waste the wall of thy Vineyard, what can we expect, but that it should be trodden down: thou hast broken our two staves, Beauty and Bands, all order and unity, the necessary supports of a Church, at once perishing from among us. The solemn feasts are forgotten in Sion, her Elders sit upon the ground and keep silence, whilst they, whom thou hast not sent, run; whilst those to whom thou hast not spoken, prophesy. We, O Lord, who might once have gone with the multitude to the house of God, are now interdicted the more private exercises, and celebrations of thy service. This, this, O Lord, is the unsupportable part of our afflictions, the sting of all our misery; if we had been onely sold for bond-men and bond-women, we could have held our peace; but thine abhorring thine Altar, and casting off thy Sanctuary, this is for a lamentation, and must be for a lamentation. Thy servants think upon the stones of Sion, and it pitieth them to see her in the dust: O let not all those tears and prayers that are poured out for her, return empty: and because thou hast thyself recommended to us the efficacy of importunity, be thou pleased to give us that grace, to excite and stir up all that make mention of the Lord, that they may give thee no rest, till thou establish our Jerusalem again a praise in the earth. To that end, O Lord, give us Pastors after thine own heart, such Priests whose lips may preserve knowledge, and make us diligently to seek the Law at their mouths; and grant that we being by this deprivation taught the value of such precious advantages, and the sin of our former contemning them, may unanimously contend for the regaining them, by a cordial forsaking those sins, which have turned away these good things from us. Grant this gracious Lord for his sake whom thou hast set forth to be our propitiation Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.   

CHAP. III. A view of the second part of the Objection. The perishing of the righteous.  
§. 1. I Now proceed to the second and more principal part of the Answer( in reference to the latter part of the Objection) which on the grounds premised must be this, That the improsperousnesse and persecutions, and even subversion and eradication of a particular Church, is no way an evidence, nay, not so much as a probable argument, that that was nocent, which thus perisheth, but only that they were unworthy, which are thus deprived, and that too good to be enjoyed by them.  
§. 2. An indication of this the Text referred to in the proposal of the Objection doth expressly afford us; The whole verse runs thus, An Host was given him against the daily Sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it east down the truth to the ground, and it practised and prospered.  
§. 3. Here indeed transgression is the one procatarctick, external impulsive cause, moving God to give that destroying Host to the little Horn: and to continue so prodigious a success, and presperity to it, and this transgression, not that of the Horn, or Host,( which yet oft provokes God even in judgement, to give them such kind of destructive prosperities, whether to be presently out of their debt( to pay nabuchadnezzar that hire, which is due to him for being instrumental to some of Gods purposes) or to allow them, like Dives their good things in this life; but I suppose the transgression of those, against whom the Host prospers, just as in our case it is.  
§. 4. But then still it is the daily Sacrifice, and the Truth, which it is thus impowred to cast down. The Sacrifice we know of Gods own prescribing, and such as was an act of his special favour to that, above any other Nation, that he so prescribed it; and this worship so true, so acceptable to God, that as he exacted it daily, loved to have it always before him, came constantly to meet with them at the seasons of offering it, and was propitiated thereby; so 'tis there, by way of excellence, and in the abstract, styled truth, and the truth itself. And this the fittest as for that Host to cast to the ground, so for those transgressors to be deprived of, such as for whom no ill thing being too bad, any good thing was too precious to be continued to them.  
§. 5. In like manner, when the Temple was kept from being reedified, when the Sanctum Sanctorum was profaned, will any man affirm that these prosperities and great successses, whether of Tobiah and Sanballat, or of Pompey, were a decision of God's, a verdict of Heaven brought in against the Temple, and Services?  
§. 6. If there were need of more instances to evince this, the whole History of the Turki●h successses and victories over the Christians would not miss to do it, that great Volume would crowd together, and condensate into one undeniable argument; the sum whereof is this, that Christianity hath been foiled, and Mahomedisme set up in many hundred Cities and Regions; wheresoever that false epileptic Prophets Banners were displayed, the ensigns of truth and God himself {αβγδ}, were presently banished, or put to flight. And yet sure God hath not thus decided the controversy against Christian Religion( to which his promise was long ago sealed, that the gates of Hell should never prevail against it) If he have, he hath also yielded the Great Sultan the honour of his own throne; for to that he hath as just a title, that of long, peaceable possession, and prescription, having put it successfully, and as prosperously maintained it among his titles, to be King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Gods verdict was herein intelligible enough, against the factions, and divisions, and intestine broils of the Christians among themselves, too busily and ambitiously engaged in wars against one another, to attend the designs, and obviate the motions of that common Enemy. And many other sins there were that fitted them for those deprivations.  
§. 7. If this be not sufficient, I shall then ascend but one step further in this argument ab Exemplo, and demand whether Satan, that great Adversary hath not sometimes been prosperous in his attempts against the Church, and true Faith: and whether that be not the meaning of his being 
Rev. 20.  loosed a little season, after the determining of the thousand years, and his deceiving the nations before the commencing of them, and whether in both those periods of time, wherein he had his desired success in the {αβγδ}, deceiving the Nations, God have decided the question for him, and given judgement against the truth? If so, then was Simon of Samaria no longer a Magician, but a God, and all the powers of heaven itself submitted to him, when he prevailed with the Emperour to have a Statue so inscribed to him, Simoni summo Deo, To Simon the highest God: and the Strumpet Helena transformed from the stray Sheep into the Queen of Heaven, when once she obtained to be adored as his prima {αβγδ}. And then did arianism commence Orthodox( and Apostolical truth become the onely heresy) when by the favour of the Emperor Constantius it triumphed through all the East over the catholic Doctrine; it being known in story, how upon that Emperours great prosperities, and successses, particularly upon the overthrow of Magnentius, and joining the Western Empire to the Eastern, which formerly he possessed, he frequently boasted, Probatam divino calculo suam fidem, That God himself by those victories decided the controversy on the Arrians side against the Fathers of Nice, and determined 
Nisi Catholica esset fides Arii. hoc est, mea, nisi placitum esset Deo, quod illam persequar fidem quam contra me scripserunt apud Nicaeam, nunquam profectò adhuc in imperio florerem.  their belief to be the true,( which presumption Lucifer Calaritanus confuted in a Treatise for that purpose, and entitled De Regibus Apostatis) And then( in brief) prosperity is not, as the Romanist but modestly pretends, one of his many marks of the true Church, but like Aarons rod, in the midst of those of the Magicians, devours, and supplies the place of them all, neither Antiquity, nor purity shall any longer signify any thing, nor Christ himself, if he have ever been so improsperous, as to be crucified, the Jews, and Judas, and Pilate must have been in the right for three dayes, till he conquered, and so confuted them again at his resurrection.  
§. 8. These few I suppose may serve for some competent topics of reasoning, to repel all the force of this first Objection, though if there could be need of it, the whole Christian Religion itself, which bears the cross for its Standard, and hath no assurance of conquest, but by constancy in suffering, and gives us no promise of this life, but cum m●xtu● â crucis, with the excep●●●n, or mixt●●re o● the across, would abundantly demonstrate such Ob ect m as this to be perfectly unchristian   

CHAP. IV. A second Objection answered. Where is now the Protestant English Church?  
§. 1. THe next Objection is prepared and aimed against us from another cost, and will be, most for their advantage, put into this short question [ Where is now your Protestant English Church] when your Church doors and even Parlors themselves are shut up against those of you, which are the ancient remaining Bishops, and Presbyters of the Church of England, Officers regularly entred into, and continuing in that Function?  
§. 2. To this( not to examine the truth of the suggestion, which I suppose to fail in many respects) the answer will bee the same, as if the Heathens should ask, as once they are supposed to have asked the Psalmist, in a state of the like captivity,[ Where is now your God?] viz: that as our God, so our Church is now, where it was before, ere this interdict came out against us.  
§. 3. Or if it may tend to the satisfaction of any that I should a little enlarge on this theme also, I shall then as before first demand, where the Church of the Israelites was, when the people were carried into Assyria or Chaldea; were they not then removed as far from their own solemn place of worship, the Temple at jerusalem, and from all their numerous synagogues erected in Palestine, and that by the very same means, a visible force; by which wee are discharged from the public, and even more private exercise of our functions? and consequently was not the lot of that people the same with the worst, which can be suggested, or affirmed of ours, viz: to be sheep kept out of their pastures upon the interdicting of their shepherds?  
§. 4. Secondly, Whether in the most prosperous times of Arianism when the catholic Bishops were driven out of their Churches, banished out of Constantiu's dominions, and forced to fly to the West, as to a hiding place, a refuge from those sad calamities, it be by the Objecters imagined, that there was no catholic or Orthodox Church in those regions, wherein the Arrian Emperour thus persecuted the truth?  
§. 5. Thirdly, Whether in the time of Anastasius the Emperour, who was an Eutychian heretic, and a bitter enemy, and persecuter of the Orthodox, through the whole Eastern Empire, the goths and Vandals, Arian Princes, mean while domineering in Italy, Spain, and afric, and Pagan Kings bearing rule in France, England and Germany: Whether, I say, in this place, there were not yet an Orthodox Church remaining, though persecuted, in all those places: or whether there were at that time any part of the Church which enjoyed the {αβγδ}, exempt from that black persecuted condition? Much might be added of the particular state of the African Church under the Vandals, out of Victor Uticensis, but the Argument is too copious.  
§. 6. Fourthly, whether when the ottoman race of Mahometan Emperours subdued so great a part not onely of Asia but Europe also, and therein so many eminent Christian Churches, setting up Mahomedism for the public worship, yet permitting Christians to live, though but as under hews and harrows and Axes of Iron, instead of utterly depopulating their Cities, it can with truth be suggested, that these Christian Churches were all destroyed? I speak not of later times, wherein some liberty of Assemblies is at a dear rate sold to them. But before they came to purchase, or find so much mercy at their conquerors hands, whilst all exercise of Christian Religion was under close interdicts, all their Churches filled with their false worshippers; yet even then hath not this sad captivity been deemed sufficient to unchurch all the Christians under those proud Tyrants dominions.  
§. 7 Lastly, what will these Disputers pretend, as to the Romanists themselves, who have continued for some yeares in this Kingdom without public assemblies, and aclowledge willingly, I suppose, that their state hath been all this while a state of persecution, that no Priest of theirs is allowed to celebrate mass among them, that they can have no Bishop or Ordinary residing here, and( as is supposable at least) do not all receive influence either immediately or mediately from their supreme Bishop? Will not their union with the catholic Church over the world, and their sincere desire to enjoy the liberty of Assemblies, &c. preserve them within the bosom of the Church, though they do not enjoy these felicities?  
§. 8. Tis vain to pay any larger, or more solemn attendance to this Objection, to which I have 
Tr. of Schism. Ch. 11.  elsewhere spoken more punctually, and do now onely suppose, that all that hath since been added to our pressures hath infused no fresh virtue into the Arguments.  
§. 9. The truth is, these and the like ways of their demurest arguings, or suggestions at this time, are but acts of diligent observers of opportunity, which think to gain more by the seasonable applicati●… by addressing their Fumes, 〈…〉 Medicaments, tempore congr●… when the pores are open, or the bo●… in any special manner recepti●… then by the intrinsic virtue, 〈…〉 energy of them.  
§. 9. The argument I suppose, th●… very same, which threescore yeare●… since was frequently prest again●… us of this nation, that ever sinc●… our departure from the Romish yo●… we have ceased to be a Church 〈…〉 onely now the darkness of o●… present condition makes them ho●… that their Sophistry shall not be 〈…〉 easily seen through, as formerl●… it hath been, and that either w●… shall be found less diligent or less●… dextrous to defend a persecuted profession, or else more inclinable to part with it.  
§. 10. It is meet therfore we should be instructed by them, and learn wariness from their wil●ss, and as Antidotes and Prophylactick methods, which are at all times of like power and virtue, are yet most necessary to be produced, in time of a general distemper, so I suppose a more particular discourse on this matter, though it will not now have more real force, or consequently hope for better success upon those that are imperswasible, then formerly it had, may yet be more seasonable to the wants of some weak seducible members of our persecuted communion, in tenderness to whom it may not be amiss more distinctly to consider the argument itself, that was now only to be new dressed, and furbushed, and receive some aid from the condition of our present pressures, and to begin with examining, what, and how many things there are, which may by the disputers be thought sufficient to unchurch, or destroy any particular Church.  
§. 11. And I suppose them reducible to these four. 1. apostasy; 2. heresy; 3. Schism; 4. Consumption and utter vastation.  
§. 12. For the First, that of apostasy, or renouncing the whole Faith of Christ, I hope of that we shall not be deemed guilty, who are by our greatest enemies acknowledged to retain many branches of that Faith, which was once delivered to the Saints.  
§. 13. For the Pourth, that of utter consumption, it can as little be pretended, as long as so many Bishops, Presbyters, and duly baptized Christians among us remain alive, and constant to their first faith.  
§. 14. For the Third, that of Schism, the Fathers which aggravated the sin of it to the highest, do not yet allow it the force of unchurching, but call them brethren, i.e. fellow Christians, which were most obstinately guilty of it: But howsoever it be, of that I have in a discourse on that subject, and in a first and second defence of that discourse said as much as yet appears necessary to be pleaded in defence of our Church.  
§. 15. There remaines then only the Second, that of heresy, to which also some preparative matter hath been laid down in the Tract of Fundamentals, but not in so particular a relation to the present question, as will excuse the Reader from all addition of trouble at this time.  
§. 16. I shall therefore on this account, and to perfect the answer to the present objection, transgress the bounds of my first design, and enlarge while upon this inquiry. What may be defined the Formalis ratio, wherein heresy, properly so called, must necessary consist, and without which no person or Church can justly be deemed guilty of that dangerous sin, that piece of carnality.   

CHAP. V. Of the nature of heresy. Our Church secured from the guilt of it.  

Sect. I. The use of the word in Scripture.  
1. ANd first to prevent mistakes, which may arise from the ambiguity of the word {αβγδ}, even in Scripture itself; It is certain that this is sometimes used more loosely in an indifferent sense, for any considerable distinction betwixt men of the same Profession, as when the several Schools of Philosophers, and the courses they took in them are 
{αβγδ}— Phavorin p. 74. l. ●4.  called {αβγδ} their Heresies and ways of discipline, especially when any 
{αβγδ}. Phavor. Ibid.  great number of men of such or such a denomination, do hold and keep together in maintenance of such a way.  
2. Thus when the Sadduces were indeed the most eminent false teachers in the jewish Church, yet not onely their false doctrine is styled {αβγδ} their heresy, Act. 15.17. but even that of the Pharisees Act. 15.5. and that by S. Paul, even when he looks on it {αβγδ}, as the strictest, and most exact Sect of the jewish religion, Act. 26.5.  
3. And thus I suppose Christianity is called by the Iewes at Rome, Act: 28.22. This heresy, without any evil character set upon it, as into which they desired then to make inquiry, and be instructed, knowing no more of it at present, than by the partial and passionate rumors of men, by which they past no judgement of it, but onely said that it was every where spoken against.  
4. But of this notion of the word we do not now speak; If we did, it is visible that the style would belong to the way of the Romanists, were they never so purely Orthodox, as well as to any other sort of either true or erroneous Christians, the consideration of the verity or Falsity of the doctrines being no ingredient in this usage any more then in the origination of that word.  
5. But the Scripture more frequently useth the word in an ill sense, with connotation of some Fault either really inherent, or by them that use the word thought chargeable on that way, which they express by it.  
6. Thus Acts 24.5. in Tertullus's speech the {αβγδ} heresy of the Nazarenes is looked on as an erroneous, dangerous, punishable way, and so. v. 14. in Paul's resuming of the accusation, where he acknowleges himself guilty of that which they thus called heresy, i.e. deemed to be such.  
7. Thus in the Epistles it constantly signifies infusions of ill; sometimes divisions and breaches of Charity and Christian Communion, as 1 Cor. 11.19. where {αβγδ} Heresies are but the interpretation of {αβγδ} schisms or Fractures v. 18. and so Gal. 5.20. where in the midst of uncharitable breaches, hatred, variance, emulations, wraths, strifes, seditions, before,& envyings, murder after, {αβγδ} Heresies are enclosed, and so must receive their Tincture from the Society, wherein they are found, and so denote Schismatical divisions peculiarly, in a very ill sense indeed, as unquestionable works of the flesh, v. 19. yet not precisely those, that now we are to treat of, but, as heresy and schism are sometimes promiscuously used the one for the other.  
8. As for the strict, Separate notion of the word, wherein it hath from the Apostles times come to ours, and is generally understood among men, that still remains to be fetched from one singular use of it. 2 Pet. 2.1. whereof the false Teachers among the Christians, bearing, saith he, a proportion with the false Prophets among the Jews( those two words {αβγδ} and {αβγδ} Teachers and Prophets without any connotation of predicting future events, signifying in sacred dialect one and the same thing; and so likewise false Teachers and false Prophets) he foretells them {αβγδ}, that they shall bring in, either by the by, or( as {αβγδ} oft signifies) in contrariety to sound Doctrine, Heresies of destruction, or destructive ruinous Heresies, destructive of that foundation laid by the Apostles; for such the Doctrines appear to be of which he there speaks, being the denial of the great Article of our belief concerning our Redeemer, and such the gnostic heresy is confessed to be, which is evidently there spoken of by S. Peter.  
9. That all Heresies should be equally destructive with this, we have no indications from that text, nay several inhaunsing circumstances are there discernible( if now that were any part of the inquiry) which may justly make a difference gradual both in respect of turpitude and danger betwixt that there specified, and sundry other Heresies. Thus much onely must be thence concluded, that all the Heresies that can be deemed Proportionable, or parallel to that Character, which, in that singular place, the Scripture gives us of {αβγδ}, are doctrinal breaches or Separations from the faith as that signifies the true Christian doctrine, by Christ or his inspired and empowered servants, the Apostles, once or at once delivered to the Saints. {αβγδ}, heresy is an untrue or false opinion or doctrine concerning the Faith, was duly and fully resolved by Phavorinus, meaning by {αβγδ} any part of the Faith truly so called, the difference betwixt heresy on one side, and Infidelity or apostasy on the otherside, being visibly this, that the two latter are the denying or renouncing the whole Faith of Christ, but the Former of any single part of it.   

Sect. 2. Of matter of Faith.  
1. Herein then the definition of heresy( in our present notion) being completed, viz. in its opposition to the faith of Christ in any one or more branches of it, and the disposition of the person, guilty thereof, being but extrinsical to the nature of the thing itself( as whether it be caused barely by ignorance, or whether it have in it some mixture of obstinacy, pride, or any other kind of carnality, whether it be onely in the heart, contrary to believing with that, or else proceed farther to profession with the tongue, as Faith also doth, Rom. 10.10.) these I say, and the like being prescinded, and taken off from our present inquiry, as they must be from the examination of the Formalis ratio of every other sin( which being once found out what formally it is, is allowed to be capable of many aggravating or extenuating circumstances, and degrees, without varying of the Species) All that can now remain to be established in this first part of the inquiry, is, to discern how far the faith of Christ may duly be extended, to what sorts of things it can properly belong, that so by the law of Contraries, we may safely conclude, to what sorts of errors it is, that the word heresy to be extended.  
2. And 1. we must distinguish between matters of Faith and rites or practices or customs of all, or any of the Apostles, for these latter being prudentially designed to some persons at some times, for some particular, occasional, and those mutable ends, as they are not founded in any universal precept, or doctrine of Christs, so neither are they obliging to all future times, but onely so far as they that so ordered, did design them.  
3. Thus we know the Canon of the Apostles, and the Church assembled at jerusalem concerning things strangled and things offered to Idols, Act. 15. are promulgate to the Gentiles at that time of Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, from whom the occasion of that Council and Canon was taken; but when they pass farther, they promulgate them not, as appears by 1 Cor. 8.9. Where, in that of Idolothyta he acknowledges the Corinthians liberty not retrenched, save onely in case of scandal.  
4. And 
An. 51. n. 58.  Baronius extends this observation to the Thessalonians also( though the evidence be not so convincing) upon force of that Text, 1 Thess. 4.2, 3. where repeating what Commandments he had given them by the Lord Iesus, he specifies onely ut abstineatis à fornicatione, that ye abstain from fornication, without any mention of the other parts of the Canon.  
5. But without relying on such arguments as this last, of his( negative, and so unconcludent) such ordinances as these, accommodated to particular times, and places, and persons, are in the nature of them, temporary and variable, nay, not always the same at the same time. The Church stories give us little reason to doubt, but the controversy concerning the time of keeping Easter, which at last broke out into such a tempest in the Church, had its original in the different traditions of the Apostles, S. John and S. Philip produced by Polycrates for the asiatic, as S. Peter and others by Victor for the other side.  
6. And from thence as Polycarp and Anicetus, though each resolutely adhering to their several ways, did yet communicate one with another( as Irenaeus tells Victor in his Epistle to him, concerning this matter) so 'tis evident that such ritual differences disturb not the faith, nor infer heresy on either side, the words of 
Epist. ex Reg. l. 1. Indict. 9. Ep. 41.  Pope Gregory the first are express for it, In unâ fide nihil officit sanctae Ecclesiae consuetudo diversa, Difference of customs is reconcilable with the unity of Faith, and no detriment comes to holy Church by this difference. This might be much more largely evinced, if there were need of it.  
7. First then, confining our selves to the Faith only, Its granted on all hands, that by faith here is meant the Object or matter of a Christians belief; not the belief itself: so it is visibly used in that eminent place of judas 3. {αβγδ}, the faith delivered to the Saints, i.e. the particular doctrines which all together made up the Saints belief.  
8. Secondly, that this object of belief is nothing but the revealed doctrine of God, actually proposed by him, and preached to men, on purpose that they that have so much reverence to God, and confidence of his veracity, that they question not the truth of any of his affirmations, may by faith receive, and believe, and act according to them.  
9. For this belief being a duty of the first Commandment, and so as all other parts of divine worship terminated ultimately in God( or else it is not divine, but at the most but human faith) as it truly comprehends all that is, or shall ever be thus conveyed to us by divine revelation; so can it not be any farther extended, so as to comprise those things even of God, which are unrevealed.  
10 Many verities no doubt there are in God's secret Cabinet, which though most true in themselves, and most worthy of belief, in case they were revealed to us, yet are never like to come out from under that veil, and so can never be Objects of our belief.  
11. Thirdly, that even of those things that have at any time been revealed, all are not incumbent on us, so as to lay obligation on every man to comprehend, or believe them; many passages of Holy Writ, though, when they are proposed to us convincingly as such, they may not be dis-believed, may yet safely be unobserved, or not understood, or escape out of our memory. {αβγδ}, The Faith by way of emphasis and excellence, that was once delivered to the Saints, and ought by all such to be contended for, is that which was set out by Christ or his Apostles from him, 
Rom. 10.10.  to be by all men believed to their righteousness, and confessed to their salvation.   

Sect. 3. The two ways of conveying the Faith to us.  
1. THis then being the adequate object of the Christian's Faith, those verities which have been revealed to us by God to be thus believed to righteousness, 
1 Tim. 6.3.  called therefore {αβγδ}, words not onely true, but wholesome: the belief whereof is required in order to our souls health; the next inquiry is, how we that live in the same distance from Christ and his Apostles in respect of time, that we are situate from heaven, which now contains Christ, in respect of place, may come within any reach of these revelations of Christ, or to any competent undoubted assurance, that those are such indeed, which are pretended to be so.  
2. And to this also my concession shall be as liberal as any Romanist can wish, that there are 
Basil. de spir. Sanct. c. 27. {αβγδ}.  two ways of conveying such revelations to us; one in writing, the other by oral tradition, the former in the Gospels and other writings of the Apostles, &c. which makes up the sacred writ, or anon of the New Testament; the latter in the Apostles preachings to all the Churches of their plantations, which are no where set down for us in the Sacred Writ, but conserved as 
1 Tim. 6.20. 2 Tim. 1.14.  Deposita by them to whom they were entrusted.  
3. And although in sundry respects the former of these be much the more faithful, steady way of conveyance, and for want thereof many things may possibly have perished, or been changed by their passage through many hands, thus much being on these grounds confessed by Bellarmine himself, that 
S. Scrip. regulam credendi certissimam tutissimamque esse. De verbo Dei. lib. 1. cap. 2.  The Scripture is the most certain and safe rule of belief; yet there being no less veracity in the tongues, than the hands, in the preachings, than the writings of the Apostles; nay, Prior sermo quam liber, prior sensus quam stylus, saith 
De testim. an. c. 5.  Tertullian, the Apostles preached before they writ, planted Churches, before they addressed Epistles to them. On these grounds I make no scruple to grant, that Apostolical traditions, such as are truly so, as well as Apostolical writings, are 
{αβγδ}. Basil. de Spir. Sanct. c. 27.  equally the matter of that Christians belief, who is equally secured by the fidelity of the conveyance, that as one is Apostolical writing, so the other is Apostolical tradition.   

Sect. 4. The testimony from which we receive the Faith.  
1. NExt then the inquiry must proceed by examining what is this equal way of conveyance, common to both these, upon strength of which we become obliged to receive such or such a Tradition for Apostolical.  
2. And this again is acknowledged not to be any Divine testimony; for God hath no where affirmed in Divine Writ, that the Epistle, inscribed of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, consisting of so many periods as now it is in our Bibles, was ever written by that Apostle, nor are there any inward Characters or Signatures, or beams of light in the writing itself, that can be admitted, or pretended for testimonies of this, any more then the like may exact to be admitted as witnesses, that the creed called the Apostles, was indeed, in the full sense of it, delivered to the Churches.  
3. It remains then, that herein on both sides we rest content with human testimonies of undoubted authority, or such as there is not any rational motive to distrust, and of which alone the matter is capable. For as in case of question concerning the Epistle to the Romans, whether this be it, which was addressed by S. Paul to that Church, the only regular way of satisfying the question, is 1. By divolution or appeal to the authority of those Fathers and Councils, to whom it was de facto sufficiently testified, and approved( viz. by examination of the Records of that Church to whom it was written, and by whom received, through the hands of some trusty messenger of that Apostle, such as Phebe that ministered unto him, and by other creditable ways of confirmation) and Secondly, and by that consequence, to those very original records and proofs of undoubted fidelity: So the way of trial of any tradition, pretended to be Apostolical, whether it be such or no, is by devolving it to those same, or the like Fathers, and Councils, which having occasion and commodity to examine the truth of the matter by the Records or Testimonies of those Churches, to which it was delivered, found it sufficiently testified by them, that it was in truth according as is pretended.  
4. And from hence it follows, that as we of this age have no other way of judging of the Canon of Scripture, or of any Book, or Chapter, or Period contained in it, but by the affirmation and authority of those testifiers in the first ages of the Church, either by their writings, or by the unquestioned relations of others, brought down and made known to us; so are we as unable to judge of Apostolical traditions unwritten, whether this or that doctrine be such or no, unless it be thus by the undoubted affirmations of the ancients( who are presumable by their antiquity to know the truth, and by their uniform consent, neither to mistake themselves, nor to deceive us) communicated and conveyed to us.  
5. 'tis not possible for any man or men of the greatest understanding or integrity, to see or know what is not done within the reach of their faculties, unless either they be inspired by God, or otherwise informed either mediately or immediately from those, who had really knowledge of it. Stories of former times are not wont to be written by the strength of mens natural parts, invention, or judgement, but onely by consulting of those records, either dead or living by whose help such matters of fact have been preserved. Every thing else is but conjecture, and that very uncertain, the utmost probability in such matters being little worth, that being oft times done which really was( and much more to us, who know not the motives of actions far removed from us, is) of all things least probable to have been done. Onely a creditable witness, such as no prudent man hath reason to distrust either as nescient or false, is worth considering, or able to found belief in this matter.   

Sect. 5. The qualifications of such Testimonies.  
1. NOw then comes the upshot of the inquiry, what qualifications there are of a testimony, or testifier, without which, it or he may not be thus deemed creditable, or {αβγδ}, worthy to be believed by a sober Christian: and where these qualifications are to be found: which when we have once resolved, it will also be possible for us to pass some judgement of Traditions duly styled Apostolical, which as such must be allowed to be the object of our Faith.  
2. And herein I shall hope also that the resolution will be unquestionable, if it be bounded by those three terms to which 
Cont. Har. c. 3.  Vincentius Lirinensis in his defence of the catholic Faith against Heresies and innovations hath directed us, Vniversitas, Antiquitas, Consensio, Universality, Antiquitas, Consent, viz. That the testimony, we depend on be the result of All, the ancients, Consenting, or without any considerable dissent. Or, in yet fewer words, a catholic testimony, truly such, i.e. universal in all respects; 1. Of Place, 2. Of Time, 3. Of Persons.  
3 For first, If it be not testified from all places, it is not qualified for our belief, as catholic in respect of place, because the Faith being one, and the same, and by all and every of the Apostles preached, and deposited in all their plantations, what was ever really thus taught, by any of them in any Church, will also be found to have been taught, and received in all other Apostolical Churches.  
4. To which purpose the words of Irenaeus are express, lib. 1. ca. 3. 
Hanc praedicationem eum acceperit& hanc fidem Ecclesia,& quidem in universum mundum disseminata, diligenter custodit quasi unam domum inhabitants,& similiter credit, his quasi unam animam habens, et unum cor,& consonanter haec predicat& docet& tradit, quasi unum possidens as. Nam etsi in mundo loquelae dissimiles sunt, said tamen virtus traditionis una est& eadem—  The church disseminated over all the world, having received this preaching and this Faith, preserves it diligently, as the inhabitants of the same house, believe them alike, as having the same soul and heart, and teach and preach and deliver them alike, as having the same mouth, for though their languages are unlike, the virtue of Tradition is one and the same, and neither do the Churches which are founded in germany believe or deliver otherwise then those which were constituted in Spain, in France, in the Orient, in Egypt, in afric, in the middle of the world, but as one and the same Sun shines through the whole world, so doth the light and preaching of the truth in every place, where it is received, disperse itself.  
5. So 
Sinim igitur Apostoli— primum per Judaeam contestat â fide in Jesum Christum,& Ecclesiis institutis, dehinc in orbem profecti, eandem doctrinam ejusdem fidei nationibus promulgaverunt,& proindè Ecclesias apud unamquamque civitatem condiderunt, à quibus traducem fidei,& semina doctrinae caetera deinde Ecclesiae mutuatae sunt,& quotidiè mutuantur ut Ecclesia flant.  also Tertullian de Prescript: c. 20. Presently therefore the Apostles having first in judea testified the Faith and instituted Churches, and then taken their journey over all the world, made known to the nations the same doctrine of the same Faith, and so planted Churches in every City, from which the rest of the Churches afterward borrowed their seeds of Faith and doctrine, and so daily continue to do and are formed into Churches.  
6. From which premises his conclusion is just, that, which I here deduce; 
Si hac it● sint, constat proinde omnem doctrinam, quae cum illis Ecclesiis Apostolicis matricibus& originalibus fidei conspiret, veritati deputandā, id sine dubio tenentem quod Ecclesiae, ab apostles, Apostoli à Christo, Christus à Deo suscepit, reliquam autem omnem doctrinam de mendacio praejudicandam quae sapiat contra veritatem Ecclesiarum,& Apostolorum,& Christi,& Dei. Ibid.  If so, then 'tis evident that every doctrine must be deemed true which conspires with the Apostolical Churches, which are the wombs and Originals whence the Faith came out, as maintaining that without any question which the Churches received from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, and Christ from God; and that all other doctrine is under the prejudice of being false, which is contrary to the truth of the Churches of the Apostles, of Christ, and of God.  
7. 'tis true indeed that whatsoever one Church professeth to have received from the Apostle that planted it, is of itself sufficient, without the confirmation of all others, to beget and establish belief in him, to whom it thus testifies: whereupon 
Age jam qui voles curiositatem melius exercere in negotio salu●is tuae, percurre. Ecclesias Apostolicas; proxima est tibi Achaia? habes Corinthum; Si non longè es à Macedoniâ, habes Philippos, habes Thessalonicenses; si potes in Asiam tendere, habes Ephesam; si tamen Italiae adjaces, habes Romanam. D. Prescr. c●p. 36.  Tertullian refers the inquirer to that apostolic Church that is next him, be it Corinth, if he live in Achaia, Philippi or Thessalonica, if in Macedonia, Ephesus if in Asia, or if he be near italy, Rome. But this is no farther to be extended, then while we suppose without inquiry, that other Apostolical Churches have received, and are ready to testify, the same, which presumption, or supposal must then cease, when upon inquiry we find the contrary; there being then none of this first kind of universality, viz. of place, and so far no validity in the Testification.  
8. Secondly for the universality of time, that must be cautiously understood; not so as to signify it a prejudice to any doctrine, if in some one or more ages it have not been universally received; for then there could be no heretics at any time in the world, but so as to extend to the first and purest, and not only to the latter ages of the Church.  
9. That which was delivered by the Apostles was certainly received in that first age, wherein they lived; and by careful inquiry will be found from their monuments to have been then among them. And that which by this trial is discerned to be of later date, not to be descried in the first times, nor testified by sufficient authority to be derived from thence, falls short again of this second part of universality in respect of time.  
10 Thirdly, for the consent of Testifiers, that is also necessary to the rendering it a catholic and authentic testimony; any considerable number of dissenters being of necessity to weaken our belief, and infuse reasons of doubting, and a preponderancy of dissenters the other way to weigh down( at least to incline) the belief to the contrary.   

Sect. 6. Where these qualifications may be found. Of the consent of ancient Doctors, and definitions of councils truly general.  
1. THis therefore being thus established, and the conjunction of all the three sorts of universality being in all reason required to the authentic testifying of tradition; It is soon defined, where these qualifications are to be looked for, and where they may be found.  
2. Questionless not in any one Bishop, or succession of Bishops in any See for many latter ages, not including the Apostles; for whatever his pretensions may be to authority and Supremacy over all other Churches, this can never convert a particular whether Man or Church, into the Universal, nor make his Testimony authentic according to those rational and Christian Rules, which we have learned from Lirinensis.  
3. There are many apostolic Churches beside that of Rome: Great difference of Rome in these later ages from the Primitive apostolic Rome, to which the Depositum was entrusted. And there are many dissenters to be found, who have always lived and flourished in the catholic Church, which never acknowledged those doctrines to be delivered to them by the Apostles, which the Church of Rome hath of late assumed to be such. And for any privilege annexed to that Bishops Chair, or to that society of men, which live in external communion with him, that he or they can never define any thing to be ( de fide) part of the Faith, which is not so. As that is, beyond all other their pretensions, most denied by us, and least attempted to be proved by the Romanist, and not so much as consented on among themselves; so must it in no reason be supposed in this dispute, or taken for granted by them, but is rejected with the same ease that it is mentioned by them.  
4. As for other pretenders, I know not any, save onely that of the Universal consent of the Doctors of the first ages, or that of an Universal council. And both of these we are willing to admit with such cautions only as the matter exacts, and the grounds of defining already laid.  
5. The Universal consent of the Doctors of the first ages, bearing testimony that such or such a Doctrine was from the Apostles preachings delivered to all Churches by them planted, or their General comform testimony herein, without any considerable dissenters producible, is, I aclowledge, {αβγδ}, authentic or worthy of belief, and so hath been made use of by the 
{αβγδ}. Epist. Orthodox. Episc. Synodi Antioch. Paul. Samosat. Missae. Bib. Gr. Pat. Tom. 1. pag. 30. &c. {αβγδ}, &c. Dionys. Alexand. Epist. contr. Paul. Samosat. in Bibl. Pat. Gr. To. 1. p. 275. E.  Orthodox of all times, as sufficient for the rejecting of any new doctrine.  
6. So likewise is the declaration of a General council, free, and gathered from all quarters, and in such other respects, truly so called, founded in the examination of the monuments of the Several Apostolical Plantations, either produced in council, or authentically confirmed from the Letters of the several Churches, either formerly prepared in Provincial and National councils, or otherwise sufficiently confirmed to them, and this Declaration conciliarly promulgate, and after the promulgation universally received and accepted by the Church diffusive; Or else 'tis evident all this while, that it is not a catholic( truly so styled) testimony.  
7. For that any council of Bishops, the most numerous that ever was in the world( much less a but mayor part of those few, that be there present) is not yet really the universality of Christians, is too evident to be doubted of.  
8. It can onely then be pretended, that it is the universal Representative, or such an Assembly, wherein is contained the virtue and influences of the whole universal Church. And thus indeed I suppose it to be, as often as the Dostrines there established by universal consent( founded in Scripture and Tradition) have either been before discussed and resolved in each Provincial council, which have sent their Delegates thither from all the parts of the world, or else have Post factum, after the promulgation, been accepted by them, and acknowledged to agree with that Faith which they had originally received.  
9. That the former of these is a considerable ingredient in a General council, appears to be S. Augustines judgement in l. 7. de Bapt. contra Donatist. c. 53. 
Nobis tutum est in eum non progredi aliqua temeritate sententiae, quae nullo in catholicon regionali concilio coepta, nullo plenario concilio terminata sunt. Id autem sit cura securae vocis asserere, quod in Gubernatione Domini Dei nostri& salvatoris Iusu Christi universalis ecclesiae confessione roboratum est.  'tis safe for us not to proceed rashly to those things which have not been begun in any catholic Provincial council, and determined in a plenary or universal. That we must, if we will be safe in our pronouncing, take care to affirm that which in the Regiment of our God& Christ Iesus our Saviour is confirmed by the Confession of the universal Church. Where as the Confession of the universal Church( or their Testimony that such a doctrine hath been delivered to the Church by the Apostles) is that which gives validity to a doctrine, so this universal confession is then truly such, when it is the determination of a General council prepared for in the Provincial councils, of which that General is made up. And what hath not been according to this course established, or the truth whereof( as he 
Ibid. l. 2. c. 4.  else where speaks) is not first Eliquata, strained out, or extracted by Provincial councils, and so Solidated or put together by a General council, may very safely be disbelieved; for saith he, 
Ibid. Quomodo potuit istares— ad plenarii Concilii luculentam illustrationem confirmationemque perduci, nisi primo diutius per orbis terrarum regiones multis hinc atque hinc disputationibus& collationibus Episcoporum pertractata constaret?  How could that obscure controversy be brought to a clear declaration and confirmation of a general council, if it were not first thoroughly handled and cleared by the conferences and disputes of Bishops through all the regions of the world?  
10. And this seems to be acknowledged by 
Tom. 6. An. 451. n. 20.  Baronius, who speaking of the Provincial Synods called in the West, before the meeting of any universal Synod in the East; not onely affirms it to be Vsus pristinus, the ancient custom, but withall takes notice of this end or design of it, that those Bishops of the West, which could not all reasonably take such a journey, might yet by some mennes give their suffrages, 
Aliquo tamen mod● suum ferren● Suffragium.  supposing, as it was reason, that the council could not be truly universal, in which all the Regions in the world did not some way give their votes; and farther, that this was the way by which the Pope was enabled to sand his Legates à later, not onely in his own name, but of the whole Western Church, viz. by the Metropolitans in the Provincial, Synods sending Letters to the Pope, which contained their sense in that matter which was to be debated in the General council.  
11. Many evidences of this custom and reasons of the observing of it, in order to the rendering a council truly General, might be farther added, but this is I suppose, sufficient.  
12. Only by the way, I add, That by this expedient the want of General councils might in some degree be supplied, the concordant declarations of each provincial council compared and communicated, being( for the testifying of Apostolical tradition, or the catholic sense of the Church) equivalent to the voice of a General council.  
13. So we find the practise in 
Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 6. {αβγδ}.  Eusebius; whereupon the rising of Novatus a Roman Presbyter, first a Provincial council at Rome, {αβγδ}, and severals in the several Provinces in every Region, the Pastors or Bishops conciliarly considering of the matter, {αβγδ}, the resolution was made by all of them against Novatus. Then follow the Letters of Cornelius Bishop of Rome to Fabius of Alexandria, giving him the relation both of the Roman Synod, and of the determinations of all the Bishops through Italy and afric, and those Regions; and others of Cyprian, and those with him in afric, declaring {αβγδ}, the concordance of their judgement herein. But this by the way in passing.  
14. And for the latter of these there can be as little doubt, there being no possibility without it, that the voice of a council never so general, should be the testimony of the whole Church.  
15. When a doctrine is conciliarly agreed on, it is then promulgate to all, and the universal, though but tacit approbation and reception thereof, the no considerable contradiction given to it in the Church, is a competent evidence, that this is the judgement and concordant Tradition of the whole Church, though no such resolution of Provincial Synods have preceded.  
16. But if that be also wanting, if the sentence of a mayor part of Bishops in a council be not( when it comes to be declared to the world) admitted or received in the Church, as consonant to the doctrine of the Apostles, written or unwritten, if the grounds whereon it hath been by the council defined,( for so the suffrages are conciliarly to be delivered together with their grounds, and reasons of them, out of Scripture or tradition) be by others which sat not in that council, found to be false or vain, and are as such contradicted and protested against. This evidently prejudiceth the authority of that council, and shows their incompetency for the work( in hand) of Universal testification.  
17. On which grounds it is, that 
Siquid rectum atque ex doctrinis Apostolicis deprehendetur— vos an Catholica, an haeretica, sint, fidei. vestrae judicio comprobate. p. 220.  S. hilary in his tract of Synods against the Arians, setting down all the Creeds which after the Nicene council had been set out in several times and places, desires all the Bishops of France& Britain, &c. to whom he writes, to give their judgement whether they be catholic or Heretical.   

Sect. 7. The benefit from General councils. Reverence due to them. To the first four especially.  
1. FRom these premises thus briefly deduced, it now appears 1. What it is that we owe to the councils of the Church; I shall most safely express it in the words of 
C. 32. Quid unquam aliud Conciliorum decretis enisa est, nisi ut quod antea simpliciter credebatur hoc idem postea diligentius crederetur? quod antea lentius praedicabatur, hoc idem postea instantius praedicaretur, quod antea securius celebratur, hoc idem postea sollicitius excoleretur. Hoc, inquam, semper, neque quicquam praeterea haereticorum novitatibus excitata Conciliorum svorum decretis Catholica perfecit Ecclesia, ut quod prius à majoribus solâ traditione susceperat, hoc deinde posteris etiam per Scripturae chrirographum consignaret.  Vincentius, What hath the Church ever brought forth by the decrees of councils, save onely that what was before simply believed, the same should after be believed more diligently; what was before less vigorously preached, that same should after be preached more instantly; what was before more securely observed, that same should after be more solicitously dressed or cultivated? This, I say, and nothing but this hath the catholic Church stirred up by heretics new doctrines done by the decrees of councils; what before it had received from the Ancestors by tradition onely, it hath after committed to writing, and as an obligation under its own hand consigned to posterity.  
2. In a word, that which was before the constant belief of the whole Church received from the Apostles times and preaching, and by conciliar discussions and search, found to be so, is thus delivered down to us by those councils, and testified by them to be that which they found in the Church universally. This I suppose the meaning of the {αβγδ}, in the thirty seventh apostolic Canon; Let them in their councils discuss, and examine the doctrines of piety, inquire, and discern what have been delivered to them as such, and then {αβγδ}, let them answer or satisfy the incidental objections which shall happen to be made to them in the Church. And so no new doctrine ever received from their authority or power of defining, but the ancient Apostolical catholic pious doctrine testified to us.  
3. Secondly, It is hence manifest also, what is the ground of that reverence that is by all sober Christians deemed due and paid to the four first General councils, which Vincentius looks on, as the great Conservatories of tradition, wherein he might fitly instance, and which 
In Saba. Suidas in verb. {αβγδ}.  Pope Gregory the Great professeth to believe as he doth the four Gospels, and Theodosius Cenobiarcha so much commended by 
See Baron. An. 511. n. 33. Si quis quatuor sanctas Synodos non tanti esse existimat quanti quatuor Evangelia, sit anathema.  Cyril and others, anathematizeth all, who are not of that opinion, viz. because. 1. As Theodoret Hist. l. 1. c. 8. out of Athanasius declares of the Nicene, that they set down and convinced the truth of their doctrine {αβγδ}, out of the Scripture words understood with piety, i.e. So as the pious Orthodox Fathers, had always understood them {αβγδ}, not inventing words or phrases for themselves, but having testimony from the Fathers, for what they wrote( saith he) the Bishops of Rome and Alexandria for almost CXXX years had found fault with them, who affirmed the Son to be {αβγδ} a creature, {αβγδ}, & not of the same substance with the Father) so it was true of all the other three; they fetched their definitions regularly from Scripture, and that sense thereof, which the general Churches had received down from the Apostles, and so were approved and received universally in all Churches; not as those which had formed any new Articles, but which conserved the Deposita entrusted to the Churches, and in time of need brought them forth and discovered them, to the securing of the truth against heretics.  
4. Secondly, Because these being so near the Apostles times, and gathered as soon as the Heterodox opinions appeared, the sense of the Apostles might more easily be fetched from those men& Churches, to whom they had committed it, and it was not in the power of subtlety and Craft to infuse their poison undiscernibly into those Fountatnes.  
5. This account is also given by Lirinensis, where speaking of the way of confuting heretics 
C. 39. Prolatis atque collatis veterum Magistrorum concordantibus sibimet sententiis.  by producing and comparing the concordant doctrines of the old Fathers, he puts in this among other cautions. 
said neque semper neque omnes haereses hoc modo impugnandae sunt, said novitiae recentesque tantummodo, antequam infalsarint vetustae fidei regulas.  All Heresies are not always thus to be impugned, but onely those that are fresh risen, and have not yet had time to vitiate the volumes of the Fathers, or falsify the rules of the ancient Faith: Wisely foreseeing that in this case there is no course of dealing with, or convincing of heretics, 
Aut sola Scripturarum authoritate, aut jam antiquitus Universalibus Catholicorum Conciliis.  unless it be* either by the sole authority of Scriptures, or by the councils of catholics, which were long ago universal.  
6. Thirdly, Some consideration may also be had of the special matter of the definitions of those four councils, which were all spent upon the deity and incarnation of Christ, and the Trinity, the great Fundamental Doctrines of christianity; and to that also Vincentius directs us, in another caution of his, 
Ibid. Antiqua Sanctorum Patrum consensio, non in omnibus divinae legis quaestiunculis, said solum certè praecipuè, in fidei regulâ— investiganda& est sequneda.  The ancient consent of the holy Fathers is not to be sought and followed in all the little questions of the Divine law, but onely, sure principally, in the rule of Faith, those which the Apostles thought necessary to be believed, and so taught them universally.  
7. And therefore of the Scriptures, of the Creed( that Regula fidei una, sola immobilis& irreformabilis, that one, only immovable and unreformable rule of Faith, as Tertullian calls it, De vel. Virg. c. 1.) and of those four councils, as the Repositories of all true Apostolical tradition I suppose it very regular to affirm, that the entire body of the catholic Fai h, is to be established, and all Heresies convinced, or else that there is no just reason, that any doctrine should be condemned as such.  
8. This I have 
Reply to Cath. Gent. Ch. VIII. Sect. 2. n. 4, 5, 6, 7  elsewhere cleared both out of the express words of the council of Ephesus, the third of those four, that no man should produce, or offer to any convert whether from gentilism, judaism, heresy, any other belief beside that which was established by the Fathers at Nice: From the Greeks in the council of Florence, that no man, except he were mad, would charge that Faith of Imperfection. From the latins, who acknowledged there, that all difference as well as contrariety of Faith was forbidden by those Fathers, and that a bare explication of the same for the whole Church was not lawful for any to attempt, but an universal council: From the Epistle of coelestine there cited, that the faith delivered by the Apostles admits neither increase nor diminution: and Lastly from the catechism collected out of Costerus, Petrus à Soto, and others, set ut by command of the Archbishop of Triers, that there was never any heresy which might not be condemned by the Apostles Creed.   

Sect. 8. Of the subsequent General councils. The Romanists deference to them.  
1. IF after all this it be still farther demanded, what reverence is due to all other universal councils, and why not the same as to these four? I answer, First, that the reasons of a difference have been sufficiently given already, and so as is, Ad homines, to the Romanists, unreprovable, it being most evident that among them there is difference made between some of those, which yet they deem to be all ecumenical councils.  
2. For First, it is certain that they reckon above eight of these; And yet even the Bishops of Rome themselves in their exaltation to the Papacy, who would sure be supposed to undertake the maintaining of the whole catholic Faith, do profess to maintain no more than the eight first of them. The words of this profession we have set down out of their own Day-Book, in the Corpus Juris Canon. In this form, 
Decret. Par. 1. dist. 16. c. 8. Sancta ●cto universalia Concilia, i.e. Primum Nicenum— immutata servare& pari honore& veneratione digna habere,& quae praedicaverunt& statuerunt modis omnibus sequi& praedicare, quaeque condemnaverunt ore& cord condemnare profiteor.  I profess to keep whole to a tittle the eight holy universal councils, the first at Nice—& to esteem them worthy of like honour and veneration, and by all means to follow and preach all that they have promulgated and decreed, and with heart and mouth to condemn all that they have condemned.  
3. Secondly it is as evident, that all Bishops of Rome in former times, have not( at least with equal reverence) received all these eight, which these now thus receive. I shall give an instance or two.  
4. 
Ep. 7. c. 1. council. To. 6. p. 496.  Pope Nicolaus the First, in the damnation of Photius, after the authority of God and the Princes of the Apostles Peter and Paul, mentioning that also of all the holy and venerable universal councils, numbers but 
Omnium simul sanctorum atque venerandorum sex Conciliorum authoritate.  six of them; and this Anno Ch. DCCCLXII. that is, LXXX years after the holding of the seventh council.  
5. And so also doth 
Nihil audemus judicare quod posset Nicen● Concilio& quinque caeterorum conciliorum regulis— obviare. Vide council. Tom. 6. pag. 690.  Pope Adrian II. his successor Epist. 26. ad Carolum Calvum.  
6. And Binius that in his 
Ibid p. 496.  margint takes notice of these two passages, and 
Cur hic Nicolaus,& infra Hadrianus sex tantum Oecumenicas Synodos nominent, dicam infra in notis Conc. Rom. III. Sub.  promiseth to render a reason thereof afterwards, when he comes to the 
Not. in Conc. Rom. III. Tom. 6. Conc. p. 655.  due place of performing that promise, speaks not a word of that matter, unless this be it, that Anastasius Bibliothecarius saith of two Archbishops; Epistolas Pontificis ad libitum falsâsse, that they falsified at their pleasure the Epistle of Pope Nicolaus. Which if it were granted to be true, yet neither concludes it that they thus falsified this particular passage in this Epistle, which indeed nothing concerned the cause of those Archbishops, nor can be any way deemed applicable to Pope Adrian doing the same, of whom neither Anastasius nor Binius himself so much as suggest any such thing, and therefore this was certainly a most gainlesse artifice of evasion, and an indication that there was no better to be found, to salue this business.  
7. Baronius in his reciting that Epistle of Nicolaus, hath in effect the same 
To. 10. p. 275. An. Ch 863 n. 5. Cur tam Nicolaus hic quàm ejus successor Adrianus— sex tantum Oecumenicas Synodos nominet, inferius ab authore aliâ occasione dicetur.  Marginal observation, before Binius, and promiseth to render the reason of it, afterward on another occasion, not directing us where that should be looked for; yet he defers it not long, for he doth it in the very next Section, rendering this only account of it. 1. That 
In reliquis omnibus Ecclesiis Patriarchalibus Orientis, Constantinopolit anâ excepta, sex tantum Oecumenicas Synodos in publicis confessionibus nominari consuevisse.  in all the other Patriarchal Churches, but Constantinople, there were only six ecumenical councils name in their public Confessions, citing Photius's Epistle for it; and thence concluding that what Nicolas did, was done by the other Patriarchal Sees, even by his enemies confession. Secondly, that the like cause was to be rendered for both, that still Anastasius helped them to a translation of the Acts of that Synod out of pure Copies, they 
Non eodem praecento nempe titulo Oecumenico fnerunt eā prosecuti. Baro. an. 863. n. 6.  did not give it the title of an ecumenical council, and accordingly 
Nicolaus judicium suspendit suum ex dictâ causâ  Nicolas thus long also suspended his judgement.  
8. But Binius which surely saw these answers of Baronius, could not( though he were much distressed, as hath appeared) think fit to make use of either of them, or refer the reader to them, though he bids Vide Baron. An. 863. n. 20. &c. which belongs to another matter.  
9. And indeed the first part of the Cardinals account doth confess that no other Patriarchal See but Constantinople did at this time receive this council. And so Photius then Patriarch of Constantinople, which most zealously asserted it, doth aclowledge, in his 
Ep. 2. p. 60. {αβγδ}( so it should be red, not {αβγδ}; and {αβγδ}. Ibid.  Encyclical Epistle to the Archbishops of the Orient. And these Patriarchal Sees had great reason so to forbear; for they were none of them present either in person, or by Legates, or Proxyes, at that council, as may well appear by the same 
An. 785. n. 40.  Baronius in his setting down the History of it: confessing that Tarasius's Legate, could not come to them, that when they were as far as palestine, they heard of the death of Theodorus Patriarch of Jerusalem; and were advertised by some Monks, how dangerous it was to go either to the Patriarch of Antioch or. Alexandria, and consequently were persuaded to give over the attempt. As for the pretended Legates of those Sees, they were evidently but Impostors, John and Thomas the Presbyters were not sent by the patriarches of Alexandria and Antioch ( and for the See of Jerusalem, it was voided, as was said, by the death of Theodorus) but were sent only by those Monks or Hermits of palestine, as appears by the Letters, which they brought with them, beginning thus, {αβγδ}, &c. {αβγδ}. Having red your Letters, We the mean, and last or lowest of those that have desired to live in the Desert, or the hermetic life.— See 
council. Tom. 5. p. 594. E.  council. Ni●. 2. Act. 3. And so this being most true, is very far from an answer to the objection; 'tis a large addition to the force of it, as far as concerns the authority of that council.  
10. And for the other part, that the latins as yet wanted pure Copies of it, that can as little be pretended so many years after the holding of that council, especially when the Acts of it had now long since, immediately after the making them, been discussed in the council of Frankfort, and by Pope Adrian I. defended against that council.  
11. That which 
De Imag. lib. 1. cap. 22.  Bellarmine adventures on in this matter is yet more strange, and unreconcilable with the confession of Baronius; for Baronius had confessed that Anastasius had translated that council out of a pure Copy, and so brought it to Rome; and yet this other Cardinal would persuade us, that long after Anastasius, even after the time of Thomas Aquinas, and Halensis, the Acts of VII councils lay hide, and so were not produced till that last age wherein himself had lived; which if it were granted him to be true, it would sure be little for the dignity and authority of that council.  
12. Farther yet; In the Corpus Juris Canonici set out emendate by the command of Pope Gregory XIII, there is no mention of any more than six General councils, save only in that one passage out of the Lay-Book of the Popes profession to maintain the eight, which is to me an argument, that all General councils are not so revered by them, as that all their Canons are obliging among them.  
13. I shall not need to add more evidences to infer so obvious a Conclusion, that among the Romanists themselves, all General councils have not had the same reception and Veneration, when in their Corpus juris Decret. Par. 1. the 17 Distinction is thus prefaced; Generalia Concilia quorum tempore celebrata sint, vel quorum authoritas caeteris praemineat, sanctorum authoritatibus supra monstratum est, In whose time the General councils have been celebrated, or which of them hath a more eminent authority than the rest, hath been shewed by the authorities of Holy men, referring to Dist. 16. wherein yet, as I said, there is no mention of any more than the first six, save onely that the Pope professeth to maintain Eight.   

Sect. 9. Our Reverence to all General councils. The Fifth and the Sixth.  
1. THis might make any second or farther answer unnecessary; yet I shall not doubt to proceed some steps farther, and 1. allow the same credit, though not the same degree of Reverence( for the reasons premised) to all Assemblies of Christians, which have served the Church in this office of conveying apostolical Truths to us, and which are according to right reason, and by the grounds premised, qualified for a good Christians reception, or as are not under some very just prejudice: Nay 2. though I make it no matter of Faith, because delivered neither by Scripture nor apostolic Tradition, yet I shall number it among the Piè credibilia, that no General council, truly such, 1. duly assembled, 2. Freely celebrated, and 3. universally received, either hath erred, or ever shall err in matters of Faith.  
3. The expresing myself more fully in which particulars, will be a means to bring this whole matter to such an issue, as I shall hope no adversary will with any colour of reason, or truth, be able to gainsay.  
3. And 1. for the Fift General council, it being for the Doctrinal part of it, but a Corroboration of the fourth, Our Church makes no more doubt of that, than of the fourth it doth. Onely after the example of Vincentius Lirinensis, that famous propugnator of the catholic Faith against all Heresies, and by strength of the premised Ephesine Canon, we believe the four First councils to be the conservatories of all truly catholic, i.e. apostolic tradition, from whence together with the Scripture all Heresies may be oppugned, and confuted, and so have no such need of, or benefit from this fift, as from the former four councils.  
4. So 2. for the sixth, as far as that concerns the error of the Monothelites, which denied the two wills in Christ, so it is duly founded in Scripture, and the same apostolic tradition, which had asserted the two natures against Eutyches, and we willingly receive it, thinking it unnecessary to proceed to those others Acts, that go under the name of that council, but were written afterward, and which the 
See Corp. Jur. Can. Decret. 3. par. Dist. 16. c. 6. Not. Ha●e● librum. Et Ibid. c. 7.  Romanists acknowledge to be corrupt, and not to savour of Apostolical Tradition. 
Conc. Tom. 5. p. 8. Circumferentur autem nonnulli Canones nomine sextae Synodi in Trullo, veruntamen editi sine Legatis Apostolica sedis, nec ab eâ comprobati, in quibus& nonnulla sunt qua minus Apostolicam sapiunt traditionem.  There are, saith the History of that council, carried about some Canons in the name of that sixth Synod in Trullo, but they were set out without the Legates of the apostolic See, and not approved by them, wherein there be also some things which savour not of Apostolical tradition.  
5. From which words I suppose I may conclude the reason of the Legates not confirming them to be this, because they did not savour of Apostolical tradition. And then these two inferences are clear. First, that 'tis the Romanists judgement unquestionably( and that appears not only by this, but by many other instances, especially by that of Chalcedon, about the privileges of New Rome) that the Decree of a General council is not valid from itself, or any innate authority( for if it were, it would not need the authority of the Pope himself to give it that validity) but receives its force from subsequent approbation, or else is not a catholic decree.  
6. And then what reason can be rendered, why the want of the approbation of other apostolical Churches should not have the same efficacy to prejudge the Universality of a Decree: for sure they are Christians and Bishops, as well as the Bishop of Rome, and consequently their Negatives as evident exceptions and prejudices to, and as utterly unreconcilable with an Universal affirmative as the Popes can be; and the supposing that the Pope hath power for the whole Church, and that infallible, for the approving or repudiating Decrees, is still the removing all authority and Universality from the council, and placing it in the Pope, making him, and not the council the Grand Representative Church, and so is the destroying the whole doctrine of the authority of councils.  
7. Secondly, That the Reason or Rule of the Romanists judgement may certainly be drawn into example, and prove imitable to other Christians, and then it must be lawful for the Church of God, as well as for the Bishop of Rome to inquire whether the Decrees of an universal council have been agreeable to Apostolical Tradition, or no, and if they be found otherwise, to reject them out, or not to receive them into their belief.  
8. And then still it is the matter of the Decrees, and the Apostolicalness of them, and the force of the testification, whereby they are approved and acknowledged to be such, which gives the authority to the council, and nothing else is sufficient, where that is not to be found.  
9. Agreeable to which is 
To. 6. p. 733. D. Nec ego Nicenum, nec tu debes Ariminense— proffer Concilium, nec ego hujus autoritate, nec tu illius detineris, scripturam authoritatibus non querumque propriis, said utrisque commmunibus, res cum re, causa cum causa, ratio cum ratione concertet.  S. Augustines practise, Contr. Maximin. l. 3. c. 14. Neither, saith he, do I produce the Nicene council, nor should you that of Ariminum, neither am I obliged to the authority of this, nor you of that: By the authorities of Scripture, which are not proper to one but common to both, let the matter be debated, reason contending with reason— and then divolving all the authority of that most ancient truly General Nicene council, as well as of that other of Ariminum, to the Apostolical grounds of truth, and those expressly in the written word of God( I and my father are one, as the ground of {αβγδ}) from whence they framed their decrees.  
10. To which belongs that saying of 
Synod. Arimin.& Seleuc. Tom. 1. p. 873..  Athanasius himself of the manner of Subscriptions in the council of Nice, who though in the matter of Easter( being not a doctrine, but a rite) they thought good to use this form, {αβγδ}, It seemed then good to us that all should obey or observe that time, which they had defined; yet concerning the matters of Faith, {αβγδ}, They wrote, not[ It seemed good to us] but[ Thus the catholic Church Commands] presently setting down the Confession itself, that they might demonstrate that their sense was not new but Apostolical, and that what they wrote was not invented by themselves, but was the very same which the Apostles had taught. 
{αβγδ}.    

Sect. 10. Of the Seventh General council.  
1. AS for the Seventh council, that second of Nice, I have already more then intimated the Reasons, why no Romanist can blame him that allows not the authority thereof.  
2. Yet because those testimonies, though of Popes themselves, are indeed but Negative Testimonies, and being designed only Ad Hominem, to the Romanist, may still stand in need of some farther confirmation to others; That also is ready at hand, and may be deduced from two heads. 1. From the council of Eliberis, 2. From the council of Frankfort, which presently after the publishing of the Decrees of Nice for the worshipping of Images, opposed and refuted that doctrine.  
3. For the first of these, the council of Eliberis, that yields us an irrefragable proof, that the Doctrine of the second Nicene council was not testified by all the Church of all ages to be of Tradition apostolical.  
4. The 36. Canon of that council lies thus, Placuit Picturas in Ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod coletur aut adoretur in parietibus depingatur. 'tis resolved that Pictures should not be in the Church, lest that which is adored be painted on walls. Which though it be but a Canon of a Provincial council, and that in a matter of rite, and so hath no power of obliging all others beyond that Province, and might also be there after retracted again; yet being in the year of our Lord 305. twenty years before the first Nicene council, and so 482 years before the second, is a convincing argument, That what was in the second Nicene defined, was not the language of Apostolical tradition, uinversally testified to be such; for then these Fathers at Eliberis,& among them the great Hosius, which sat after in the first council of Nice, and Liberius, whose name we have in the council of Arles, would never have made this Decree so directly contrary to such pretended tradition Apostolical.  
5. In this matter 'tis worth observing how Cardinal Baronius hath behaved himself. In his first Volume Ad an. Ch. 57. n. CXIX. 
P. 626.  being troubled that 19 Bishops in a corner of the world, should decree otherwise then( as he is concerned to believe) the Universal Church of all places professed, he attempts to annul this council, rendering his reason, Pleraque enim in eo sunt quae fines Novatiani erroris visa sunt prope attigisse, There were very many Canons in it, which seemed almost to touch upon the borders of the Novatian heresy: and if they were but the borders of heresy, and these Canons did onely touch upon those borders, or indeed but seem, and that again but almost seem, then these Canons might be very catholic and Orthodox for all that.  
6. The truth is, those Canons that deny only Communion to the Lapsi, but deny them not repentance and absolution, are far enough from Novatian, and so presently after he acknowledges, Caeterum quod sciamus ejus conventus Episcopos fecisse Catholicos, de Novatianâ haeresi nulla suspicio esse debet, cum praesertim hi licèt communionem, tamen poenitentiam non negarent, ut de eo Innocentius Papa tradit: But seeing we know that the Bishops of that council were catholic, they must not be suspected of Novatianism, especially seeing though they denied communion, they did not deny repentance, as Pope Innocent affirms of that council.  
7. Here then in the same Paragraph he hath freed them from that suspicion, which he was willing to have affixed on them; and it seems Pope Innocent was to be overlooked for it, who appeared on their side, or else Hosius, &c. must have gone for Novatians, and then never have been worth heeding in any other matter. This farther appears by the same Baronius in his Second Volume Ad An. 305. n. 41. Where having the same words again, of the Propemodum visi S. Novationorum limits attigisse, that they almost seemed to touch upon the borders of the Novatians; he renders that, as the cause that there is no mention of this Synod by name among the ancients, and so that it remained almost antiquated, and therefore( saith he) he remembered he had spoken elsewhere( in the place forementioned) Paulo Liberius, a little too freely of that council; but seeing their resolutions herein were excused by Pope Innocent, Nemo sit qui accusare praesumat, No man may presume to accuse that council. And then sure this Cardinal had been too bold in thus presuming.  
8. What other arts he now betakes himself to, to deliver him from the force of that Canon against Images, I shall not now examine; there being nothing of any force to supersede my conclusion, that this Canon is sufficient prejudice to the Universality of the testification, that the Nicene Canons for Images are of Apostolical Tradition.  
9. As for the council of Frankfort, that makes it as plain, that the Decrees of these Nicene Fathers were not received, but rejected by other parts of the Christian Church in France, in Germany, and Italy, if not in Spain also.  
10. This Binius would fain conceal; and accordingly in the title of that council of Frankfort, was willing to anticipate the Readers judgement, by telling him that these 300. Bishops there convened 
Acta Nicaeni Concilii II. in causâ imaginum confirmant. council. Tom. 6. p. 163 p. 185.  Confirmed the Acts of the council of Nice in the matter of Images.  
11. For this he afterwards gives his reasons such as they are, but acknowleges that both the great Cardinals, Bellarmine and Baronius, were of the contrary mind. To them therfore, and to the evidences, whereby they were convinced, I may be allowed to appeal.  
12. And indeed 
Tom. 9 p. 539. An. Chr. 794. n. 27 Tantum abest ut negemus Nicaenam secundam Synodum candemque septimam Oecumenicam dictam damnatam dici in Francofurdiensi Concilio, ut etiam augeamus numerum testium id profitentium,& quidem haud dubiae fidei aut authoritatis.  Baronius is so far from doubting it, that he solemnly professeth by undeniable testimonies to put it beyond all question, and so he doth, out of Walafridus Strabo, Amalarius, Hincmarus, Anastasius, and many others.  
13. What he determineth concerning the invalidity of that council of Frankfort, is not now pertinent to examine; my conclusion is sufficiently evinced without that inquiry, viz. That that council of Nice was no universal testimony of Tradition Apostolical, or indeed of the whole Church of that age, when it was so far from being received and approved by all the world, that as soon as the news of the Acts thereof came to the ears of the council, then assembled at Frankfort( three hundred Bishops, of Germany, France, and Italy, saith Surius; others add, out of Spain also 124.) the council solemnly oppugned and refuted them.  
14. Of this the Reader may have the clearest prospect in several places of the works of G. Cassander, both in his 
Pag. 977.  Consultation, and especially in his 
Pag. 1103.  29. Epistle, where he gives job. Molinaeus a full account of the IV. books written by the authority, and under the name of Charles the French King, and approved by that whole council of Frankfort, and so sent to the Pope against the Decrees of the council of Nice in the matter of image-worship, pronouncing both of those books, and that Synod, and other eminent persons of that age, of the same sense with them, 
Qui libros hosce damnandos aut reprobandos putet, idem necessario& ipsam Synodum Francofordiensem,& alios insignes 〈◇〉 aetate scriptores damnandos esse fate●tur, quod neque factum est unquam; neque futurum certè à sanis hominibus puto. Ibidem pag. 1104.  that they never were condemned, nor, as he thinks, will ever be by those men that are in their wits.  
15. Some question I know there is made by others; whether this council of Frankfort rightly understood the Decrees of that council of Nice, and whether those IV. books compiled, as it is probable, by Aloninus, and approved by that council, did not confounded the two Seventh councils, the true, that at Nice, and the false, that of the Iconoclastae at Constantinople.  
16. But neither are we concerned in either of those questions. For still it remains certain, and unquestioned, that the council of Nice( whether by their mistake, or otherwise) was not by all men universally received. The CCC. Bishops at Frankfort received it not, but profestly opposed it.  
17. And if the Canons of Frankfort were not approved by the Pope( as 'tis again suggested) yet still this is a sufficient prejudice to the universality of those Nicene Canons( without the Popes being one of those that condemned them) which cannot be universal testifiers, whilst they want universal consent, and are oppugned, and disclaimed by Charles the King, and the CCC. Bishops which were there convened at Frankfort, and by as many, as adhered to the sentence of those but CCCXXX. which were assembled at Nice.  
18. And indeed we that in this matter approve of the doctrine of the Frankfort Decrees, as that is summed up in those few words, which the 
Vide Cass. p. 977. Epistolam Gregorii ad Serenum adducit Carolus l. 2. c. 23. Cujus hoe est argumentum. Imagines à B. Gregorio Romanae Urbis Antistite& adorari prohibentur& frangi. Vide Greg. Ep. ex Reg. ep. 9. Quia eas adorari vetuisses, laudamus, fregisse vero reprehendimus. And, Frangi non debuit, quod non ad adorandum.  books in Charles's name deduce from Pope gregory, in his Epistle to Serenus Bishop of Massiles, viz. That Images are neither to be broken nor worshipped, that they be lawfully used in the Church, but must not by any means be adored, can never be blamed for rejecting the doctrine of any General council. For if that of Nice, which is deemed such, define not for adoration of Images, then it is not rejected by us; and if it do define for it, then was it rejected by Frankfort, and if so, then was it no General council. The Dilemma is concludent herein without any farther inquiries, either it is not rejected by us at all, as teaching no more than we profess to acknowledge, or else it may be lawfully rejected by us, because we have this evidence on our sides from the oppositions of the ccc. Fathers at Frankfort, and of many more, as hath been said, that it was not universal.   

Sect. 10. Of the eighth General council.  
1. AS to the Eight and last of that number, to which the Popes profession extends, I desire the Reader will pass his judgement of it, by that which he will find in the 
council. Tom. 8. p. 598.  sixth Session of the council of Florence in the year of Christ, MCCCCXXXIX.  
2. There in the passages between Marcus Ephesius, and Julian the Cardinal about the ancient councils, the Cardinal desired a sight of the Acts of the VIII. council, and complains that the Book was denied him. Marcus answers that it was not easy for him to give him the Book, but if it were, there 
{αβγδ}( it should be, I suppose, {αβγδ} Ib.  was no necessity that they should number among the ecumenical councils one that was not approved, but rather reprobated, or annulled; for this Synod, said he, had Acts against Photius, in the time of Pope John and Pope Adrian▪ and after it there was another Synod 
{αβγδ}.  which restored Photius, and annulled that former Synod; that this Synod called also the eighth, was under Pope John, who wrote Epistles for Photius, and those still extant, that they( the Romans) were not ignorant( he believed) either of that Synod or of those Epistles: And seeing* the Acts of that Synod were abrogated, it was not reasonable that they should seek for it, but rather for that which was after it, which from that time to this very day( of the valentine meeting) was red in 
{αβγδ}. Ibid.  the great Church of Constantinople, in these words, Let all that hath been written or spoken against the holy patriarches, Photius, or Ignatius be anathema. Wherefore, saith he, it is not fit that 
{αβγδ}.  those Acts which were abrogated, should be produced.  
3. To this full Declaration and recognition of Marcus, appealing to the Romanists own knowledge for the truth of it, the Cardinals answer is very short, in these words, I will, saith he, free you from this fear that any thing shall be red from the VIII. council: We desire that the Book which we demanded may be brought, that we may consult some passages out of the VI. and VII. council, and of 
{αβγδ}.  the VIII, We say nothing.  
4. Here 'tis evident, 1. That the VIII. Synod was soon retracted again: and so not universally received, or approved: 2. That the Greek Church from that time to the council of Florence, i.e. for the space of almost DC. yeares, received it not, but the contrary, viz. that which abrogated it. 3. That this being vouchsafe in a council to the Romans, could not in any part be denied by them, and therefore the matter was wholly waved if not confessed. And then sure I need say no more concerning the no-authority or obligingness of that council.  
5. But then to this I shall add, that this council being convened on purpose for the censuring and depriving of Photius Patriarch of Constantinople, not for any heretical departure from the Faith, so much as pretended against him, but for some other( as they are called) excesses, of which his enemies deemed him guilty, especially because from a Senator, and so a Lay-man, he was 
Vide Anastasii Histor. VIII. Synodi, council. Tom. 6. p. 706.  immediately advanced to that Patriarchate( though very much against his will, as his Epistles sufficiently testify) the Faith of Christ is little concerned in the Decrees of this council, here being no testimony of the Church to be found either for or against any doctrine pretended to be derived from the Apostles.  
6. 
Ibid.  The arguments which Anastasius Bibliothecarius offers for the proving the universality of this council where, as he saith, he was present, will hardly prevail with any.  
7. First, saith he, 'tis universal, because the catholic Faith and Holy laws, which ought to be reverenced not onely by all Priests, but by all Christians, were in it uniformly defended against the enemies thereof: which if it had any force in it, then sure every Orthodox assembly, were it never so particular, a Provincial Synod of the Bishops of any one Province, or a Diaecesan of the one Bishop and Presbyters of that diocese, as long as they be in the right, or are by the Romanist supposed to be so, as( indeed that VIII council 
{αβγδ}. Act. 10. Can. 1. council. Tom. 7. p. 977.  professeth to retain and observe the laws delivered in the catholic and apostolic Church, not onely from the Apostles and all Orthodox councils both ecumenical and Provincial, or Topical, but even from any divinely speaking Father, Doctor of the Church) must pass for a General and ecumenical Assembly, just by the same logic, that the particular Church of Rome doth pass with them for the whole catholic Church of Christ.  
8. Secondly, saith he, 'tis an Universal council, because seeing Christ hath in the Church placed as many Patriarchal Sees, as there are senses in mans body, if all those consent, there wants no more to the Generality of the Church, than there wants to the motion of the body, when all the five senses are entire in it.  
9. To which I answer, 1. That if this were true, then the second council of Ephesus was a valid General council, for there were 
council. Tom. 3. ●. 61.  personally the patriarches of four Sees, and Julian as proxy of the fifth. 2. It must then follow that a Synod of five men( for such sure are the V. patriarches) to which no sixth person in the world was ever so much as invited or summoned, may go for an assembly of the whole world. 3. That when one of the five patriarches was here deposed, and never contented to his own deposition, 'twill be very hard to find the consent of these five patriarches to all the Acts of this council, and consequently to defend the perfection of it from the forementioned analogy with that of the body of man, unless when one of the five senses is shut out by the other four, the remaining four be either sufficient to represent the fifth also, which is cast out( and never consents to this Law of representation) or to substitute another sense in the place of that fifth. 4. That this same Author in his very next period tells us, that soon after the exaltation of this Photius, Solomon also a Lay-man was made Patriarch of Jerusalem, and then it is no way probable, that this Salomon, or whatsoever other Bishop of that See, which was another of these five senses, should ever consent to those Canons, which are so contrary to that practise, and must infer the deposing of that Solomon, as well as it did of Photius.  
10. The truth is, in the subscriptions of the seventh Act, there is no name of any of the five patriarches, save only of Pope Adrian, and the Archbishop of Perga in the name and stead of Ignatius the deposed, but now by this council restored Patriarch of Constantinople. And though in the tenth Action we now have the names of Proxies to all the rest of the Patriarchies; yet sure somewhat there was in it, that after the naming of them and the Emperours proxy, Binius 
council. Tom. 6. p. 853.  thinks necessary to insert an Annotation, lest, as he saith, the Reader observing the paucity of subscribers should be scandalised at it, and therefore by way of prevention he offers an account of it from the multitude of Photius's favourers, who, he confesseth, were all excluded from this council, and so the 
Haec paucitas gregi illi pro suâ justitiâ comparatur cvi Dominus dicit, nolite timero pusillus grex. Ibid.  Subscribers fit to be compared to Christs little flock, which sure is a competent prejudice to the universality of it.  
11. And so likewise Anastasius's sage observation by which he backs his argument in that place, viz. That of the five Senses the Bishop of Rome is proportionable to Visus the Sight, which 
Profecto cunctis sensibus praeminet, acutior illis existens,& communionem, sicut nullus eorum, cum omnibus habent.  hath, saith he, the pre-eminence of all the other Senses, being acuter than they, and having communion with all as none of the rest have] is a shrewd intimation of his sense, that it was the Single authority of the Pope, that both condemned Photius, and gave the whole universality to this council, and then we have a very fair account of a General council, rendered such by the bare virtue of one person therein, and then I doubt not good store of universal councils may be found in the world, even as may as there have ever been assemblies or Conclaves, wherein Visus, the most eminent Sense, i.e. the Pope hath had any efficacious influence by himself, or his proxy.  
12. To which purpose it may deserve here to be remembered what type or copy of celebrating a council the Learned Cardinal Baronius conceives himself to have found in the New Testament and 
An. 33. n. 17. Hic pedem sistat atque Paulum attendat diligence lect●r rem animadversione digniss●m●m.  requires the Reader of his Annals to stop and take notice of it, as of a thing most worthy of his observation.) Such as wherein 
Petrus talem fert sententiam, ut causam ipse definiat,& quid ab omnibus sentiendum esset, erudiat atque decernat, ac fider canonem perpetuo permansutum constituat, ut nihil fermè jam esset opus consulere caeteros tunc Apostolos, ac r●gare quanam essent aliorum de eâ re sententiae ac opiniones. Idcirco enim satis fuit Christo, Petrum fuisse locutum, ac quid de fide sentiendum esset, ●lavum finisse.  St. Peter( and from his example the Bishop of Rome his successor, in a cause of the greatest moment, so delivers his opinion, that he defines the matter in debate, and teaches and decrees what all must think, and constitutes a Canon or Rule of Faith which must remain forever, so that, as he saith, there is almost no need to consult the rest of the Apostles, or ask their sentiments or opinions, it being sufficient for Christ, that Peter spake, and determined what was to be resolved in point of Faith.  
13. Here indeed is a fair foundation laid of a most magnificent Structure, S. Peters privilege in a council of all the Apostles, Ut Sententium ipse definiat; that he, without consulting of any other, should give the definitive sentence.  
14. Onely it was a little unhappy, That Christ himself should be present there, and one of the interlocutors in this council( if such it were) for it is he that proposeth the question which Peter answers, and if in the one 'twere a type of celebrating a council, so 'twas in the other also, and then here were two conciliar Offices, the one of proposing doubts in councils, the other of answering them; the first belonging to Christ, the second to S. Peter, and certainly the latter a place of the more eminence.  
15. 'tis strange, what submissions Learned men are forced to, that are resolved to serve their Hypothesis. I shall onely demand why the very next parcel of discourse betwixt Christ and his Disciples, wherein again S. Peter was the onely speaker, V. 21, 22, 23. of this Chapter, Mat. 16. was not as signal a type of celebrating a council, as the former? And yet there, in two very eminent branches of the Christian Faith the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, the same S. Peter, whose successor the Pope pretends to be, differed in opinion from Christ himself, took him and began to rebuk him, and sure delivered a very uncatholick sentence, no other then the denial of both of those grand Articles, not only in words of aversion, which are not enunciative, the [ Far be it from thee Lord,] but even in plain form of definition or decree, {αβγδ}, This shall not be unto thee.  
16. What Christ there returns unto him, that he was an offence unto him, and savoured not the things of God, but those that were of men, may well serve for conclusion of this matter, that in an Assembly where Christ himself was present, S. Peter, and so his pretended successor, may, if he be not very careful to adhere to the word of Christ, fall into error also, but is not in any reason then to be deemed the representative of the whole Church.  
17. 
An. 58. n. 119. Si quis ejus rei ipsum exordium repetat, inveniet non tam ab apostles, quam ab ipso Christo duxisse principium, atque sumpsisse authoritatem, quando scilicet, &c.  This institution of councils in the Church of Christ, the great Cardinal had so fancied, that afterward he refers the original of them not to the Apostles Synod at Jerusalem; but, by all means, to this of Christ, asking his Disciples, Whom say men that I am? Onely the uhappinesse of it was, he had there forgotten the principal thing, which had recommended this pattern unto him, S. Peters peculiar privilege, Ut sententiam ipse definiat, for there he is pleased to resolve on another form, viz. 
In unum Patres coirent, ficque fimul collectis, singulorum sententia rogaretur, ac denique quod ob omnibus servandum esset, sanctè ac legitimè communibus suffragiis firmaretur. Ibid.  That every Fathers Suffrage should be asked, and the Decree made in an holy and caconical manner, by the common votes of all, and not only of S. Peter; which I should hope, concludes it his opinion, that the former course of definiat ipse] was neither legal, nor holy.  
18. His third argument for the univorsality of this council, is, because 
Cum Photius tot excessuum svorum m●rbo universalem ecclesiam maculaverit, universalis curatio adhibita est, ut totum curaretur quod totum suerat maculatum. Conci. T. 6. p. 706  Seeing Photius had by his so many excesses blotted the universal Church, an universal cure was used, that all might be cured where all was blemished. But sure there is little force in this argument, which renders a reason, why it was so; but doth not offer at any evidence, that so it was, is founded in a supposition that the cure( as the disease) was universal, which was the thing he should have proved. And even for the universality of the disease we have here no farther offer of proof, but only that soon after Photitu's ascending from the Senate to the Patriarchate, one Salomon a laic was made Bishop of Jerusalem. And some laics at Constantinople lived virtuous lives; only, as he will have it supposed, that thereby they might aspire to the Patriarchate: Both which might be allowed to be true, and yet this eighth council of CII Bishops be far from being thereby concluded to have been a General council.  
19. The short is, Anastasius Bibli●thecarius, who was, as he saith, present at this council, and so may be allowed to have kindness to it, doth also dedicate his History of it to Pope Adrian, who was the principal Actor in it, and a bitter enemy to Photius. And then his authority in this matter will be of as little weight, as his arguments have appeared to be, even no more than a testimony given to an interested person by a very partial friend, and party.  
20. If there were force in such witnesses, there would be as much credit due to Photius himself, Epist. 117. desiring Theodosius 
{αβγδ};  not to wonder that profane persons sit superciliously in judicature, and the illustrious High Priests of God are convented before them, that they judge who are themselves condemned( for so was Ignatius the deposed, but now restored Patriarch) but that 
{αβγδ}.  the innocent were judged being encompassed with Swords, lest they should dare offer to speak any thing in their own defence, giving him ancient examples of the like judicatures, that of Annas and Caiaphas and Pilate and the Sanhedrim, by whom Christ was condemned; and so also Stephen and James the Bishop of Jerusalem, and Paul. And so in many other passages of his Epistles, which demonstrate him to have been another manner of man, than Baronius, An. 871. n. 24. pretends him.  
21. But I need not such fallible testimonies as these, to confirm the point in hand, That one of Marcus in the council of Florence, contested to Cardinal Julian, and not denied by him, is sufficient.  
22. And it was but necessary wisdom in Binius( that knew it well, and could not but discern what a just prejudice it was to the universal reception of this council) that he purposely omitted to give us any story of that council, as of others he accustomend to do, discreetly designing Anastasius's Preface to Pope Adrian, to supply, as he 
Non proponitur; ut in aliis factum, historia VIII. council. quod eam Anastasii Praefatio complectatur. council. Tom. 6. pag. 602.  saith, the place of it. For as Anastasius would not probably reveal this secret, nor could fore-see what Marcus would say in the council of Florence; so Binius that published one as well as the other, could neither be ignorant, nor yet with any safety take notice of it, there being no possible way left but this of silence, to salue this Objection, or support the reputation or universality of that council, which was so nearly concerned in it.   

Sect. 11. Of the rest of the councils which the Romanists call General; particularly that of Trent.  
1. I Shall not now, as I said, need to descend to a view of the other councils by the Romanists styled ecumenical, or defend our practise in not accepting them as such. And that for these few, among many, reasons;  
2. First, Because, as we said, the Popes profession, which must in reason be supposed to extend to the whole Faith, to every part of Apostolical Tradition, duly testified; yet doth not extend to all these, or to any more than Eight of them.  
3. Secondly, Because those parts of them, which agree not with their pretensions, are freely and universally disallowed by them, as is notorious by the instances of the council of Constance, and of Basil( and even of the fourth great council, that of Chalcedon) each styled in their Collections ecumenical councils, and yet each ex parte reprobatum, in part rejected and reprobated; and then why may not the Greek Church by the same law reject the council of Florence, and both the Gallican Church, and ours, the council of Trent, if we find it not a faithful reporter of Tradition Apostolical?  
4. Thirdly, Because when ever any council hath by them been thought to fail, they have made no scruple to affirm it was not a lawful council.  
5. Thus we know it was in that at Ariminum, where, as 
Dial. cont. Lucif.  S. jerome saith, the whole world almost admired to see itself become Arrian, and yet this I hope hath no authority with them.  
6. So. likewise the II. council of Ephesus, though it were General, though honoured with the presence of all the 
Vide Act. 1. council. 1. Chalced. council. Tom. 3. p. 61.  five patriarches, four in person; the fifth by his proxy, and 
{αβγδ}( Imperatori Valentiniano) {αβγδ}. Leontius de Sect. {αβγδ}. p. 511. A.  pertinaciously maintained by the Emperour Theodosius: yet because it confirmed Eutyches's Doctrine, it is justly rejected by them.  
7. And then why may not the same reason hold for us, and authorize our questioning the Legitimacy of those Councells, whose Decrees with reason we allow not? nor discern any testimony of the truth of their Doctrine, or delivery from the Apostles.  
8. Fourthly, Because in the council of Trent the Popes themselves, as many as lived in the time thereof, would never consent; though it were earnestly desired of them, that that council should be affirmed to represent the Universal Church; foreseing prudently, that if that were granted( as in the council of Constance it was, to the Popes cost) the council, being the whole, would put off its subjection, and depend no longer on him that was but a part of it. From whence I conceive this Dilemma must have irresistible force in it, Ad Hominem, being produced to a Romanist.  
9. Either the General council before the Papal confirmation is the representative of the whole Church, or it is not: If it be the representative of the whole, then it needs not the confirmation of the Pope to render it, what it was before. And again, whensoever the Pope hath refused to confirm the Decrees of any such, I must in charity to him, suppose that those Decrees have been erroneous, and as such repudiated by him, and then the universal Church representative may err. And then who can have any security in believing or relying on it.  
10. But if it be not the representative of the whole Church, then is not the testimony of an ecumenical council the testimony of the whole Church, nor consequently qualified for any belief upon that score of universality.  
11. Having given the Romanist this account, which he hath obliged himself not to dislike, of our not obliging ourselves to the belief of all those councils, which he calls General, I shall not need add, what hath been so fully done by others, the many eminent nullities of some of them, especially of that of Trent, which is most magisterially imposed upon us.  
12. The matter is clear, There can be no colour of pretence that that was an ecumenical council. It had not sure, at the time, that integrity of the five Senses, which Anastasius  told us of, nor yet after it was promulgate, the approbation and reception of the whole Christian world, not of the Eastern Church, nor in the West, of the Gallicane and britannic, and many others. And then how can it be any universal testifier of apostolic tradition, or in any other capacity bind all to the embracing of it?  
13. This therefore is the one( but that very sufficient) prejudice to a council pretending to deliver to us apostolic traditions and matters of faith, and exacting them to be received as such, that it is not indeed what it pretends to be, an universal council;& consequently that it is not duly qualified, by Vincentius his rules, to give a valid testimony of matters of Faith or Doctrines truly Christian. To which it is but proportionable and regular that we that embrace, and uniformly accept all Apostolical tradition, sufficiently i.e. universally testified to be such, do not think ourselves obliged to receive that, which is not thus testified.  
14. If therefore, as hath hitherto appeared, heresy be to be thus defined by the opposition to the Faith of Christ, sufficiently revealed and testified to us, if universality be one qualification of the testifier, and if the Romanists ecumenical councils do evidently fail of that universality, then cannot our non-reception of all their councils, thus evidenced not to be universal, or of those their Doctrines which have no other surer Basis, than that of the Definitions of those councils, be any way competent to charge or affix the note of heresy upon us.  
15. Nay on the contrary, we that never disbelieved any word of God, written or unwritten( by any means made known to us to be such) particularly never questioned any voice or testimony of the whole Church concerning such word, but are ready to believe that to be Apostolical, which shall be to us universally testified to come from the Apostles, and persuade our selves that God will never permit any such universal testimony concerning the Faith to conspire in conveying error to us, and upon the strength of that persuasion, as we have never yet opposed any universal council, nor other voice of the whole Church, such as by the catholic Rules can be contested to be such; so for the future we profess never to do, are by our grounds thus far secured from all heretical pravity, that unless we destroy in the retail what we have built in the gross, and until we shall be proved, by the particular view of our doctrines, to have thus failed in some particulars, we cannot with any justice, or without great uncharitableness be accused of it.   

Sect. 12. Of the inerrability of a General council. That it is no matter of faith.  
1. OF the last part of this our profession, it is now meet, that I add some few words, viz. what our opinion is of the inerrability of a General council, truly so called, and qualified as hath been formerly described.  
2. And 1. we have learned to distinguish between Theological verity, and catholic Faith: some things we believe to be true, which yet pretend not to be any part of that necessary Fundamental doctrine, which was once delivered unto the Saints, but are offered to our belief upon grounds of reason, which, Suppositâ fide, carry great weight of probability with them, for which yet we neither have, nor pretend any divine revelation. And such, I conceive, this proposition to be, [ A General council, cannot or shall not err.] For that this is no where either affirmed by the word of God written, or unwritten, or regularly deduced from thence, may easily appear by a view of the very few places, which are by the Romanist pretended to conclude it.  
3. First, those words of Christ are pretended for it, Mat. 18.20. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I will be in the midst of them.] But 1. those words do not in any peculiarity belong to councils convened to define, but more generally to any Assemblies that come together to hear or pray to God, or more particularly in that place, to excommunicate an offender. 2. If they belong to councils, they would equally belong to the most particular, as to the most ecumenical council; for none can be more distant from catholic, than that where no more than two or three are met together. 3. That Text belongs onely to those Assemblies, which are truly convened in Gods Name, with hearts sincerely bent to the honouring of him; whereas many Assemblies among men have been, and still may be convened with mixtures of worldly and carnal interest, and then no part of the promised presence belongs to them. 4. Christ may by his power and illumination, and even directive grace be present, and in the midst of those, who yet through the corruption, and blindness, and obstinacy of their own hearts, do not make use of his guidance to the finding out of truth, but oft resist the conviction and light which is offered them by Christ. And so there is not the least colour of force in that Argument.  
4. Secondly, that place is produced of John 16.13. That when the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide them into all truth, and again, that he shall abide with them for ever. But neither hath that any propriety to General, or indeed to any kind of councils. Every particular Christian, since the descent of the Holy Ghost is as much rendered infallible by these Texts, as any the most numerous Assembly; for to each of those this promise made to the Apostles is as regularly appliable, as to any of these. And the matter is notorious, that before there ever was any ecumenical council in the world, the Church of God was led into all truth: The great foundations of Faith being by the Apostles preaching, from the very first plantation, long before the council of Nice, deposited in every Church.  
5. Thirdly, They produce the form of the Conciliar Decretal Epistle, Acts 15.28. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us. But that can be of no force in this matter: 1. Because the Apostles, that certainly did not err,& were so assisted by the Spirit, that they should not err in the discharge of their office Apostolical, can be no president to every, or any other human Assembly. 2. Because this Decree of theirs belonging to matters of practise, not of belief, that form of it can no farther be imitable to other councils, than that in like matters of practise, such are rites and ceremonies and usages in a Church, they assume authority of defining, and commanding, and deem that backed by the Holy Ghost, who hath given them their authority, but in matters of Faith they must have nothing from themselves. And accordingly this hath been the practise in the Church, as hath* formerly appeared from‖ Athanasius, to prefix their Canons of Order and Rites; this form [ Visu● est] It seemed good to us, or {αβγδ}, these things seemed good to us; but for matters of Faith, {αβγδ}, so the catholic Church believes; neither inserting mention of their own judgement, nor yet pretending to any other Revelation from the Holy Ghost, then what was from the beginning sound to have been in the Church. To which purpose also was, I suppose, the second Versicle in the Doxology( the Orthodoxal form of acknowledging the Trinity) Sicut erat in principio, As it was in the beginning, as it stood by original Tradition Apostolical, is now and ever shall be world without end. No new Doctrine ever to be brought into the Church by whatsoever council, but onely that which the Apostles had delivered.  
6. Fourthly, Some places they bring,& apply to councils, which the Scripture delivers onely of the Church in general, as, that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it,— which can no way belong to this matter, unless all the members of the Church were met together in that council; for if there be any left out, why may not the promise be good in them, though the gates of hell should be affirmed to prevail against the council. The first Nicene was by the acknowledgement of all an ecumenical council, yet was not the whole Church of God convened in that Assembly. In case all the cccxviii Bishops which were there assembled, had in one minute been taken up to heaven, or by any violence of the Arian party massacred; could it with any truth be said, that the whole Church of God had then been destroyed? Infallibly it could not; and no more could it be said, in case a mayor part of them had agreed in any error, that the {αβγδ}, the power or gates of Hell, or Death, or Destruction had prevailed against them; because as it is clear there were many thousands of Bishops& Presbyters, many Millions of Brethren or believing Christians, without the walls of that council, which had not been involved in that error. And indeed the very supposal, that the council assembled represents the Church diffusive, and and was never entrusted by them to define any error at their convention, is an evidence that there is without the doors of that council an universal, which those few there present were designed to represent. And those that have given their Proxies for certain uses, are not imagined so to have put their lives or souls in the hands of those Proxies, as that by the death of the Proxies they shall be supposed to die also.  
7. And as there is no evidence from the written word of God whereon this may be grounded, as a matter of Faith, that a General council cannot err, so neither is there any part of the Apostles Depositum entrusted to the Church, from which the Conclusion can with any semblance of reason be inferred, or that is by any Romanist, that I know of, made use of to that purpose.  
8. The main thing that is pretended, is the Conciliar practise and custom of annexing anathemas to their Definitions, which it were not reasonable for them to do, if they did not verily believe their Definitions were infallibly true. But to this the answer is obvious, 1. That they may think themselves infallible which are not, and so their own belief is not argumentative. 2. That they that knowing themselves fallible, do yet persuade themselves that they have successfully sought out, and found the truth in some particular, may think it useful to propagate this truth to all their flock and secure the peaceable possession of that doctrine by denunciation of Censures Ecclesiastical; and, that is the meaning of Anathemas. 3. 'tis excusable, that in this, or that doctrine, the council hath had so clear a discovery( viz. from the uniform consentient testimony of all Churches with which they have consulted) that they do find reason verily to believe, that that particular definition is tradition Apostolical. And so in that they may define dogmatically, not from any opinion of their own universal inerrablenesse, but from a duly grounded persuasion, that for this time they are in the right. Lastly, It may well be noted as an excess in many Later councils, to be thus forward with their anathemas, or to affix them to any other their definitions, but such as are undoubted branches of that Apostolical doctrine, which was preached to all those {αβγδ} in the Apostles 27 Canon, the disbelief whereof may obstruct, or hinder good life here, and Salvation hereafter.   

Sect. 13. That it is one of the Piè credibilia, That a General council shall not err.  
1. THis then of the inerrableness of General councils being thus far evidenced to be no matter of Faith, because not founded in any part of Scripture, or Tradition( nor consequently the contrary any matter of heresy) the utmost that can be said of it, is, that it is a Theological verity, which may piously be believed.  
2. And so I doubt not to pronounce of it, That if we consider Gods great, and wise, and constant providence,& care over his Church, his desire that all men should be saved, and, in order to that end; come to the knowledge of all necessary truth, his promise that he will not suffer his faithful servants to be tempted above what they are able, nor permit Scandals, and false teachers to prevail to the feducing of the very elect, his most pious, godly servants; If, I say, we consider these, and some other such like general promises of Scripture, wherein this question seems to be concerned, we shall have reason to believe, that God will never suffer all Christians to fall into such a temptation as it must be, in case the whole Church representative should err in matter of Faith, by way of Ellipsis( define against, or leave out of their Creed any Article of that body of Credenda, which the Apostles delivered to the Church) and therein find approbation, and reception among all those Bishops and Doctors of the Church diffused, which were out of the council.  
3. And though in this case the Church might remain a Church( and so the, destructive gates of Hades not prevail against it) and still retain all parts of the Apostles Depositum in the hearts of some faithful Christians, which had no power in the council to oppose the Decree, or out of it to resist the general approbation, yet still the testimony of such a General council so received and approved, would be a very strong argument, and so a very dangerous temptation to every the most meek and pious Christian, and it is piously to be believed, though not infallibly certain( for who knows what the provocations of the Christian world, of the Pastors, for the Flock, may arrive to, like the violence of the old world, that brought down the deluge upon them?) that God will not permit his Servants to fall into that temptation.   

Sect. 14. A Recapitulation and Conclusion of this matter concerning heresy.  
1. 'tis time now to draw to a conclusion of this whole matter; and from the premises to complete and abbreviate that plea, which will, I doubt not, secure the Church of England from all colourable charge of heresy: For that  
2. First, It confestly receives the whole word of Christ, the entire Canon of the New Testament.  
3. Secondly, It retains entire the symbol of the apostolic Faith, as that was delivered to the Churches in all the apostolic plantations.  
4. Thirdly, It understands both Scripture, and Creed, according to that Traditive interpretation, which the first Four, or, if you will, Six, or indeed any of the ecumenical councils, truly so called, have discovered and declared to be the sense of all the apostolic Churches in the world, and were universally received by all Churches in such their declaration.  
5. Fourthly, That we never rejected any catholic Testimony( offered in behalf of any Doctrine) nor council, but such as even our enemies grant, or evidence of the matter proclaims, not to have been ecumenical.  
6. Fifthly, That we do not believe that any General council, truly such, ever did, or shall err in any matter of Faith, nor shall we farther dispute the authority, when we shall be duly satisfied of the universality of any such.  
7. Lastly, That we are willing to proceed, and enlarge all this, from the Church collected in a council, to the Church diffused, or the principal Pastors thereof, out of council, and are ready to receive, and aclowledge as doctrine of Faith every proposition, which the Fathers that lived in any competent distance from the Apostles, do uniformly, or without any considerable dissent, deliver down to us, as the truths of God, Traditions Apostolical.  
8. Herein I may not now fitly enlarge, by proceeding to a view and defence of all, or any such particular doctrines, nor indeed can I without the spirit of divination, not knowing what one Doctrine, denied by us, any Romanist will assume to assert upon these terms( contest by these measures of universality, antiquity, and consent) to be Apostolical Tradition.  
9. As for the authority of the present Roman Church, which is by them so much insisted on, as we cannot deem that sufficient to impose upon all Christians any new book of Scripture; so neither can we by force of any catholic rules( such as Vincentius is confessed to have furnished us with sufficiently) receive from that sole testimony of theirs( which is but the testimony of one part, and of one age of the Church, and not of the universal Church of all ages) any part of Christian doctrine, though by them never so earnestly contested to be Apostolical.  
10. The sure way of judging aright in any particular debate, must be by appealing to the Fountains, Apostolical, Original Doctrine, and Tradition, and for that, to those that are competent testifiers in the matter, to councils universally received, or to such other testimony as is truly universal. And as by this one test we profess to deal with every adversary of the Faith, whom we shall dare thus to accuse, and not to deem any person an heretic, whom we cannot demonstrate to be such, by this sure {αβγδ}( and therefore are not forward to judge every Romanist to be such, who mainteines the whole Faith, and errs onely in his supper addition) so we are most willing to submit to this way of judgement ourselves, and whatsoever we shall be convinced to be disagreeable thereto, we shall most willingly and explicitly renounce, for the glory of God, and for the restoring the peace of the Church, and do so already implicitly, by binding ourselves to be judged, and concluded by these rules, by unfeigned prayer to God for his light and guidance in his path; and by exacting of all Christians in the world that fraternal debt of necessary charity to our souls, in admonishing us, either 1. What particular there is, maintained by our Church, which is not found to have truth: or 2. What disbelieved, which is able to approve itself, being judged by these rules: or 3. What is defective in these rules, in order to our judging aright, what is by a Christian to be believed, or embraced as De Fide, and so as the disbelieving thereof will be chargeable upon him.  
11. And if, after all this, and without the Charity of any such admonition, we shall still by unrelenting adversaries be censured and condemned, as heretics,( and upon that account cast out as refuse-branches, and unchurched members; and so that unity and communion, which Christ hath commanded to continue among his Disciples, become unattainable by us) herein we complain of great unkindness and injustice in the Church of Rome, and in those that join, and adhere to her in that sentence, which by Papal Bull was long since sent out against us; and upon these premised grounds we resolve still to retain that degree of charity to our most implacable enemies, as to pray for them, and to admonish them of the eminent danger of their uncharitableness, in case those hindrances be not upon due judgement removed on their part, which obstruct the union and peace of christendom. It being most unreasonable that among them which Communicate in every branch of the one Apostolical Faith, that sacred band should yet be violated, upon vain and empty pretences of diversities of opinion or usages in such matters, which are far removed from the great foundation of Apostolical doctrines, and practices, or which are not sufficiently testified to come from them, who yet are justly presumable to have delivered carefully( and appointed the Church to preserve faithfully though all ages) all those things, which are fundamentally necessary for a Christian to believe or practise to his souls health.  
12. If reason herein will not be heard, to the repairing of breaches and demolishing the {αβγδ}, that Sept or Wall of Separation, which was once in the Temple set up betwixt Iewes and gentle worshippers, but received its decretorie sentence in the death of Christ, never to be reedified among Christians, If that enmity that was nailed to his cross, must be revived, and quickened to a life immortal among his members. If whilst we faithfully retain the whole Faith of Christ, we must still be looked on, as Traditors and mutilators of it. 'twill yet be manifest to all that consider the premises, that this is to be numbered among our calamities, not our guilts, that these darts of the tongue were not directed at us, with any special aim, or judgement( we might have been called Magicians as well, and so banished out of Rome, upon the Old Edict, Contra Mathematicos, with as much propriety as upon the new, contra Haereticos) and in fine, that the objection hath received its answer according to the utmost improvement, of which it is capable, whether as the low ebb of our present persecuted estate, or as our pretended departure from the catholic Faith, is, or can, with any colour of reason, be suggested to have unchurched us.    

CHAP. VI. A third difficulty, raised from Acts 4.19. and 1 Cor. 9.16. satisfied.  
§. 1. AFter this so large a survey of those two sorts of Objections from others, there remains a third, which our own breasts are ready to suggest, by way of scruple; whether the words of S. Peter and S. John, Acts 4.19. and of S. Paul 1 Cor. 9.16. be not of some force, to lay obligation on us Ministers of the Gospel at this time, and how we shall quit ourselves of that obligation.  
§. 2. In the former Text ver. 6. and 15. When the Sanhedrim called those Apostles, and commanded them not to speak at all, nor to teach, ver. 18. their answer is in these words, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you, more than unto God, judge ye; For we cannot but speak— where sure the phrases of harkening unto God, obeying him, and, we cannot but speak,— noted an obligation lying upon them from God to speak and to teach, such as no countermand from the Sanhedrim could take off from them.  
§. 3. And so in the latter Text a necessity is acknowledged by S. Paul to lie upon him, a moral necessity( and that sure denotes an obligation) and woe is unto him, if he preach not the Gospel.  
§. 4. For the answering of this, some( of the many) differences must be observed, which at first sight offer themselves, betwixt the condition of the Apostles then, and those now, which are under this interdict. A first difference may be discerned in respect of the matter of their preaching, which was then so indispensably required of the Apostles: What that was, will appear by the Commission given to the Eleven, Matth. 28.19. Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. As for S. Paul, though he were none of this number, yet his assumption to the Office Apostolical, expressed by his being a chosen vessel unto Christ, to bear his Name before the Gentiles and Kings— Acts 9.15. And the command of the Holy Ghost to separate him to that work, Acts 13.2. did doubtless bind the same bands on him, and so this same engagement of publishing the Christian doctrine through all the world to those that were ignorant of it, of receiving Proselytes, all that should come in to that faith of Christ, and of building them up in it.  
§. 5. Here then to those as to a select number of {αβγδ} Apostles, or Proxies of Christ on earth, was a Commission given, and therein a command to publish the Gospel over all the world; and had they neglected it willingly, or by any terrors been affrighted from it, that message( which Christ came in so stupendious a manner from Heaven to publish) had consequently never been revealed to the world, and then this so precious talent deposited with them, being thus laid up unoccupied, would have brought on them regularly the guilt, and woe of wicked, as well as unprofitable servants. And this is the ground of that obligation, that lay on them, and is expressed in those two Texts in the objection.  
§. 6. But the Bishops of our Church, and the inferior Officers, the Presbyters under them, though they are in some degree the Proxies of those Proxies, the successors of those Apostles; yet the Commission to go and preach, belongs not to them, in the same extent, as it did to the Apostles, nor to all the same purposes: Our Commission is limited, and so the obligation incumbent on us is limited also.  
§. 7. The Gospel being long ago by the Apostles travels solemnly preached over all the world, and either received by Faith, or rejected by obstinacy, or cast off by apostasy, there was a period, and conclusion of those travels, their doctrine being deposited in all their plantations, and in the written word consigned for the perpetual uses of the Churches, it was no longer incumbent Ex Officio on every spiritual person, to trace all the steps of those, that thus travailed for the first planting them. 'tis sure the Indies and Chinois are none of our Province now, though they once were of some of the Apostles.  
§. 8. Nay, even in those first times we red of some, whom they fixed in settled Stations, {αβγδ} appointing them to abide, and {αβγδ} leaving them in such or such a Province. 1 Tim. 1.3. and Tit. 1.5. beyond which they were not obliged to journey, but as the same Apostles directed them upon emergent occasions.  
§. 9. Nay, the apostles themselves at length made an end of their travails, sat down, S. John at Ephesus, S. Peter at Rome— And after them in the words of the 15. and 16. Canons Apostolical it was soon forbidden, that any man should {αβγδ}, or {αβγδ}, go or meddle beyond his own line, move out of that circled, wherein he was fixed. And yet certainly obedience to those Canons, though not written by the Apostles, but by the first Bishops, Apostolical men, and so( in the words of that text, wherein the objection is founded) a hearkening unto men, will never be deemed an offending or sinning against God; If it were, all order and unity would soon be banished out of the Church, as by this {αβγδ} we see it in some Churches at this time.  
§. 10. Here then is a first difference, in respect of the matter of their preaching, and their immediate mission to that work, which brought the Vae si non; They were by Christ obliged to promulgate the gospel; we, that are come into their labours, where it is promulgate already, are not under the same causes, and so neither under the same strictness of that obligation? The engagements that now lie upon us arise from some other heads, the designations, and trusts of our superiors in the Church, the wants of the flock, over whom we are placed, or the opportunities of Charity, which offer themselves to us, but not the Preceptive Commission of Christ of going, and preaching the Faith to all nations.  
§. 11. But if this were the entire answer, some farther objection would lie against it. For the Apostles task being not onely that of witnessing the resurrection of Christ, and so the whole Christian religion, confirmed by it, but particularly that of calling unreformed sinners to repentance( as we see their sermons summed up in the Gospel, as John Baptists and Christs also were, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand) it is obvious thus to enforce the former argument, that the sins of these nations, and our impenitent continuance therein are sufficient to remove this difference, there is now as much need of Sermons, of repentance, as there was then of preaching the Faith of Christ; and why then should not the obligation lie as indispensably upon us, as it then did upon the Apostles?  
§. 12. To this Objection the answer must be, not by denying the truth of the suggestion in either of the premises, for it is certain, that was the style of the Baptists, of Christs, of the Disciples, and so afterwards of the Apostles preaching; and 'tis indeed hard to conceive how or when there should be greater need of preaching reformation, and of employing all our spiritual artillery, the keenest weapons of our warfare for the demolishing of strong holds, of bringing down obdurate hearts to the obedience of Christ, then there is most visibly in these nations at this time. But by examining the force of the consequence, which from thence infers the necessity of our withstanding the present interdict, and continuing to preach. That this consequence is most irregular, soon appears by survey of the premises, which neither severally nor jointly have power thus to infer, or to make up any regular Syllogism, of which this shall be the conclusion. The fairest Syllogism that the matter is capable of will be this, The Apostles by Christs command preached Repentance to impenitent sinners, But the people of this nation are impenitent sinners, Therefore, the Ministers here are obliged not to give over preaching, what ever interdict, or menace of violence restrain them from it. But this is far from a regular Syllogism, not capable of being reformed, or reduced, to any figure or mould of reasoning, artificial, or inartificial, nether of the premises having any influence upon the conclusion, nor indeed connexion within themselves. Christs precept of preaching repentance to impenitent sinners, even then when it did oblige, did not oblige them never to intermit, or give it over, whatsoever the consequences were. When they had preached, and were not received, but persecuted, they were allowed to leave such obstinate impenitents to shake off their dust against them, and so to denounce judgements by departing from them, to preach most loudly, by not preaching.  
§. 13. And for impenitence, sure that lays not obligation, where Christs command had said none, i.e. where it is obstinate against light, and means of reformation. It was our Saviours speech put by him into the mouth of Father Abraham, They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them: And if they hear not them, neither will they repent or bee persuaded though one should come to them from the dead.  
§. 14. When sins have been committed, and are gone on in, for want of light, there preaching of repentance, and convincing the ignorant world of Sin, is the Gospell-method, and be their sins the greatest in the world, and the most unnatural, such as the Gentiles were, yet God can {αβγδ} so far look over, or not see such rebellions, as to sand out his Heralds of peace, and command them all every where to repent, yea, and sometimes to work miracles for the opening such mens eyes, who, 
Acts 17.30.  as S. Paul saith of himself, being blasphemers, persecutors and injurious, yet are discerned by him that knows the secrets of hearts, 
1 Tim. 1.13.  to do it ignorantly in unbelief.  

John 3.19. §. 15. But when it is not thus imputable to ignorance, but resistance of the light, to loving and coveting of darkness, 
Prov. 1.22.  to the Scorners delighting in that trade, and the fools hating knowledge, it may then be seasonable with God, and not contrary to duty in man, to let them alone, no longer to importune them, who will not receive instruction.  
§. 16. And this is too visibly the present condition of this people, our sins have not the apology or extenuation of ignorance, our deeds of darkness, that have clothed themselves in the thickest cloud, and deepest secrecy, are of all others most unquestionably sins against light, and knowledge, and conscience. And our riots, and oaths, and perjuries, and profanations; in a word, all our sorts of pollutions both of flesh and spirit, are certainly such; and those are they that denominate us an impenitent people on supposal of which the enforcement of that argument was founded.  
§. 17. And to such blind people that have eyes, which {αβγδ} see very perfectly, 
Isa. 43.8. Acts 28.27.  but will not perceive, that have steeled their foreheads against reproofs, it were but regular, and that which we learn from the Apostles practise, as to shake off dust against them, so to mark and avoid, and not to have fellowship with such, much less to pursue them with the importunity of more Sermons, but rather to forsake them, without being driven from them; there being no reason, why they should hear, any more then preach Gods word, take his covenant into their ears, or mouths, who thus despise instructions, and hate to be reformed.  
§. 18. And if it be interposed, that sure all men and women among us, are not to be put into this forlorn Classis of hopeless impenitents, there being many thousands now, as in Elias's dayes, that are not ingulpht in the corruptions of the times, I reply by a most willing, joyful confession, and only require it be remembered, that then there was no strength, as far as concerns these, in that enforcement of the argument, which took rise onely from the consideration of the unreformed impenitent sinners, which exacted our Sermons of repentance.  
§. 19. As for those then, that are in a middle and more favourable estate, to whom the exercise of our functions are, or probably may be, real charity; there, I shall aclowledge the Ministers of the Word to lie under engagements, not such as arise from Christs command to his Apostles, To go and preach, wherein the objection was founded; but on other heads, especially those of charity, and ministering to the wants of souls. And though the example of Gregory Nazianzen, that great and pious Bishop, might justify some other resolution, who in such evil times, being without any pretence of crime removed out of his bishopric, 
{αβγδ}. Greg. Naz. Vit. N 3.  Resisted many importunities, took his leave of the Emperour, retired to Arianzum, and in 
{αβγδ}. Ibid. N. 5.  rest and divine poesy ended his dayes; yet I shall not lay hold on that advantage, but in compliance with the interests of charity rather than with any other of any meaner alloy, I shall deem this account most Christian, that we oblige ourselves never to be wanting to them, that are thus capable, in any duty of necessary charity, that no fear of men, or other worldly consideration, deter us from such performances, that whensoever our ministry be called, for by the real and pressing wants of the meanest of Christs little ones, like Craesus's dumb Son, in an important exigence, we stretch the string of our tongues, rush through any obstacle, and resolve with the Apostle in the objection, We cannot but speak,—  
§. 20. So that still the resolution of conscience must be by leveling the particular case according to the Rule or Square that belongs to it, the command of our great Master, incumbent on us. And though that lay not obligation to preach, Rations Officii, yet if it lay obligation of charity to minister to the necessities of any Christians soul, in whatsoever instance, our love will prove very imperfect& maimed, if it do not cast out fear, set about its work, whatsoever the dangers be. And so generally our direction must be not by that which is most safe, but most charitable; and by attending to that, we shall have advanced a good step toward the solution of the difficulty.  
§. 21. But then thirdly a farther difference there is observable betwixt the Apostles case, and ours, in respect of the occasions and circumstances of delivering the words. For the words in S. Paul, 'tis evident they looked not on persecution, but onely want of wages for his preaching, and the utmost importance of, or inference from his words is, that though he have no kind of subsistence from his auditors, no part of their offertory v. 13. yet he is( under a sad Vae si non) obliged to treach to them. And then if we by any outward discouragements, the no reward for our labours, the not reaping of carnal things, be thus cooled in discharge of our duties, and dispensing our spiritual things, then are we with some reason to apprehended the Va denounced by S. Paul on this neglect, which that it cannot by analogy be extended to this other case of forcible interdict, appears by the express words of Christ even while he requires perseverance in his Disciples, Mat. 10.23. When they persecute you in this city, flee ye to another, and is exemplified by S. Paul 2. Cor. 11.32.  
§. 22. And though still the other example of S. Peter and John seem contrary, yet certainly that must be capable of such an interpretation as shall be reconcilable with these two, the express words of Christ, and practise of their fellow Apostle.  
§. 23. For sure there is some more then show of difficulty in this, how those two Apostles should be, under a command of God, obliged not to give over preaching in jerusalem, when they were thus interdicted and threatened by the Sanhedrim, as that signifies persecuted from that city, when yet the Disciples are allowed by Christ, in that case of persecution to remove to some other city, i.e. to obey that unchristian interdict so armed with force; and when Paul upon the like occasions professeth once to have been let down by a basket, and by flight( and so preaching no longer in that city) to have escaped their hands 2. Cor. 11.33. And at another time to have been for a time with-held, or kept from the Thessalonians, 1. Thess. 2.16, 17, 18. by the violent oppositions, and interdicts, of his adversaries. And what answer soever shall be thought satisfactory to this, will, I doubt not, be applicable to our present case.  
§. 24. For First, If the account should be, that this was an Heroical act of zeal in those two Apostles( {αβγδ}. and {αβγδ}, to imitate Christ so far as to adventure the utmost dangers for his sake) yet not under divine precept, and so not part of Strict duty, then that absolves us from being under such duty, and leaves it onely an act of Christian magnanimity, when the circumstances of the action render it truly such, i.e. whensoever the great ends of Charity may best be served by our preaching and suffering, and thus much is willingly acknowledged.  
§. 25. But the truth is, this seems not to come home to S. Peters words of [ harkening to God] and [ we cannot but teach—] which seem to suppose some command of God binding on their shoulders an indispensible necessity of doing what they did.  
§. 26. Secondly then, If the answer be, that the threatening them at that time was visibly but an empty terror, being joined with a releasing them out of custody v. 3. and 21. and so but an expression of their dislikes, and their fear of them, rather than a persecuting them, and that in that case the duty of propagating the gospel, and beginning that at jerusalem, was in full force incumbent on them at this time, Non obstante the dispensation granted them Mat. 10. 23. of flying when they were persecuted. Then likewise will it be in force by analogy to us, that we should not be amated by empty terrors, but pursue the discharge of our functions, as far as violence will permit us; nor feigning Mormoes to ourselves, or making the fancy or shadow of the Lion in the way, the motive or excuse of our real sloth, or neglect of our callings.  
§. 27. Or thirdly, If it be answered, that that advice for flight in persecution was given to the disciples Mat. 10. before their receiving their Apostlolical Charge,& Commission Mat. 28. John 20. and so that these Apostles might be now under precept of not yielding to this violence, though the disciples were not. Then again, though that will not be made good by any grounds of Scripture, nor prove reconcilable with the practise of S. Paul at Damascus, who was an Apostle also( having already questionless his mission from heaven to that office) yet will that be of use also to our present difficulty, for then all officers, howsoever entrusted by Christ, are not presently under the same obligations, that S. Peter, and those other Apostles were, and so their example is not farther to be extended, than other Scriptures, and examples, and the consideration of all circumstances give reason to extend it.  
§. 28. Of one of these two Apostles, S. John, the Scriptures tells us that he was at length banished to Patmos an iceland, for the testimony of Jesus: 
Rev. 1.9.  It was not certainly any fault, or but {αβγδ} in him, that he did not resist this Edict, but yield to that force which executed it upon him. And yet when he was there, we find not that he had opportunity for any office of his Apostleship, save that of praying and communicating in the tribulations and patience of the kingdom of Christ, and receiving and writing of visions; and nothing contrary to duty in this, the violence that carried him to that iceland, was his very reasonable account, that he laboured not now in the Word and Gospel.  
§. 29. The like may be said of S. Chrysostome, twice banished from his Patriarchate of Constantinople,& of many others in all evil times, dis-seised of their chairs and Functions, for no other cause, but as John, {αβγδ} for the testimony of Jesus, and their deprivations were one way of testifying of Christ, as their preaching had( and, if they might have enjoyed that liberty, still would have) been another.  
§. 30. Some disparity there is indeed between these examples& the case, which is now before us; John was actually transported to that iceland, and we are onely interdicted under the penalty of the like transportation, which being yielded, it yet must follow, that either the whole weight of the objection must be founded in this disparity, or else that it will receive its full answer by this consideration.  
§. 31. This disparity, if it have any real weight in it, it must be on one of these two accounts; either, First, That what is now threatened, ought not to be feared, till it be present, and that this remoter fear is not Metus qui potest cadere in virum fortem, such as is incident to a valiant man; or else, Secondly, that those performances which will now actuate the threats, and bring that punishment upon us, are, or may probably be of some considerable weight, or benefit, to the glory of God, or good of souls.  
§. 32. For the former of these; 1. That is not a question of duty, but of prudence, and so lays not obligation till the question of prudence be first stated. 2. For the prudential part, there are no grounds on which to establish that. 'tis not( without the Spirit of prophecy) within our reach to comprehend, how likely, or unlikely it is, that this punishment will be really inflicted; none but God can know the hearts of the interdictors, or restrain their power, and he hath not rvealed to us, either that they will not, or shall not execute their laws, and so it is neither cowardice nor imprudence, not 
{αβγδ}. Origen. cont. cells.  pusillanimity but rational foresight, to expect, that they who have been so severe to promulgate this interdict, may not be so kind as to rescind, or suspend the execution of the penalties denounced by it. Or if any man have reason to think otherwise, he may then be obliged to act by that reason, but not to impose it Sub periculo ainae on every other man, who discerns no cause for such persuasion.  
33. For the 2. It is visible in the interdict on one side, that the first single exercise of our functions brings imprisonment; the second a second imprisonment, and the third the deportation parallel to that which was S. Iohns portion: But the advantage on the other side is not visible; For 1. There is no duty of piety in our prospect, no confession of Christ( which was wont to innoble the Primitive Sufferings) our not preaching for a while is by no kind of interpretation a denying of Christ. Nor 2. Obedience either to any command of Christs( as I suppose hath already been cleared) or yet to the trusts or commands of those that have committed any part of Gods flock unto us, for all those trusts and commands reserve place for outward accidents, for Sickness, for urgent avocations, &c. Nor 3. Obligation or motive of charity; It is not discernible what real advantage it will bring to any of our brethren, that he that hath preached a thousand Sermons already, should preach two Sermons more, which may not be equally provided for, by some other safer means.  
34. And then as the Apostles repeated exhortation hath its place, so that is expressed to be, in such {αβγδ} evil dayes, or times, viz. that we should {αβγδ}, gain or buy out the season: 
Tom. 4. p. 148. l. 12.  S. Chrysostome interprets it by the contrariety to {αβγδ}, undergoing unnecessary and gainlesse dangers, such as no obligation exacts nor charity invites, and 
Apoph. Scipion.  Plutarch paraphrases it by {αβγδ}, buying the safety of the time, i.e. avoiding the present danger, and reserving ourselves for opportunities of more profitable services.  
35. Such opportunities as these, are as gifts of God, and it cannot be either wise, or pious, or charitable to forfeit or sell them for no price: That we should set some valuation upon them we have S. Cyprians example, and that commended, as a special act of generosity and self-denial in him, that having in his prospect some service which he might perform to God by living, 
Maluit praeceptis Dei obedire, quàm vel sic coronari. Pontius Diac. in vit. Cypr.  he made choice of longer life by subducing himself in time of danger, rather than of the Martyrs Crown when it was fairly offered him.  
36. Beside these, there is also a competent number of present employments for our Christian& Ministerial talents still remaining to us notwithstanding the present interdict: I shall not need enumerate them, but only mind my Brethren, that continual prayer for all men, and particularly for our unkindest enemies, is one seasonable part of that task; and though that might be performed also in Patmos, yet others there are, of which a strange land, or wilderness is not capable; and between these wee may profitably and comfortably divide this vacancy, and busily and charitably, and to very excellent purpose, exercise ourselves, till God shall in mercy return our wonted tasks, call us back to the constant labour, and full business of his vineyard again.  
37. And if herein we be not scandalously wanting to these opportunities, which how improbably soever they look at a distance, God can convert, and hath certainly in his wisdom designed for the greater advantages of his servants, and to more abundant fruit to our account. This will be matter of full Satisfaction, and more than so, even of comfort and joy to conscience, and supersede all necessity of farther answer to this scruple.   

CHAP. VII. The beneficial uses of our present condition.  

Sect. I. First, Contempt of the world.  
1. THus far I have proceeded by way of retrospect, or reflection on the sad matter of our present condition, and endeavoured to foresee and forestall those scandals, to which it is principally liable, that no man may be ensnared, or offended, or so much as discouraged by it.  
2. 'tis now time, that I look forward on some few of the many great uses, we are to make of this state, the beneficial exercises, which seem most peculiarly apportioned to it; that so we may according to S. Pauls direction {αβγδ}, give a stretch forward to the things which are before, and so {αβγδ}, make that a latter stage in our present course toward the great {αβγδ}, the prise( of all, and so) of our present agonies.  
3. And the first step, that we advance, as it cannot miss to furnish us with an armature against all the vastest changes that this mutable world can subject us to, with an O passi graviora, giving us an assurance, that what next shall come cannot be more strange, and unexpected, less within the diviners power to foresee, or indeed much more vast and horrid at the nearest approach, than this which we already discern that God hath chosen for us; so it may be very proper to wean us, and mortify in us all fondness to that, which hath now nothing left that is lovely or desirable in it.  
4. We know David's unicum petij, Psal. 27.4. the one thing that he counted worth desiring of the Lord, and without which all the rest had no relish in it. And this hath God seen fit to rend from us at this time, that we may have never an hostage left to engage our kindness to the world.  
5. When all that deserves to be rejoiced in in this life, is most strictly warded from us( such sure are the fruits of that Paradise, from which we are now exiled) what Christian Spirit of the coursest mould, that hath most of alloy in his composition, can in earnest solicit a reprieve of the severest sentence, court this world, or dread a final parting with it, when by any farther summons he that hath cast him into these briars and thorns, shall mercifully call and invite him out of them?  
6. The Eremite or Anchoret that hath passed so great a part of his journey toward heaven, as to be come within a place of his non ultra( like Simeon Stylita in Theodoret, immured in his pillar, and become already but his own Statue and monument, as it were) and hath but the patience of one step more required of him, to conclude his travail, to lodge him in Abrahams bosom, were surely very unkind to heaven and treacherous to his own aims and interests, if he should then stop, or start, or think of a retreat.  
7. And the like contradiction were it to our own greatest concernments, when we are divested of all the vivendi causae the comforts or causes of living( the chief of which is that gladsome news in the Psalmist, when they said unto him, let us go up to the house of the Lord, whereupon he could revive himself out of any dumps with this one cordial, My feet shall stand in thy gates, O jerusalem, and jerusalem is as a city at unity within itself) when, I say, we are cast out of this presence of the Lord, this comfortable, though but ambulatorie tent of his, where for a time he hath allowed us an access unto him, to tremble at the sight of that officer, which comes but to return us to our home and joys, and to secure the firmness of our future abode, that it shall be ascertained to us for ever.  
8. Shammatha and Maranatha we know were the Significative titles of the jewish exterminations, and the interpretation of them the approach of destruction from the Lord; The Sanhedrins casting out of the assembly, was, saith Iosephus, the frequent forerunner of that other out of the land of the living. And the like abode was thought to attend the Druids censures, when they interdicted any man the liberty of sacrificing, quae poena apud eos gravissi na est, saith 
De Bell. gull. l. 6.  Caesar, the heavyest punishment that could befall the galls or Britanes. And though this of ours be no parallel, yet it may be useful thus far to mind us of our duty, to prepare us so, as not to be Surprised, whatsoever God shall next sand.  
6. Meanewhile one comfort this of ours is capable of, above any real, though meekest censures of the Church( {αβγδ} and {αβγδ} the reproofs or admonitions Ecclesiastical) that it is not Futuri judicii praejudicium, in 
Apol. c. 39.  Tertullians phrase, hath no inauspicious influence on our future weal, the binding us on earth, though it never be rescinded here, will be far from interdicting, or excluding us from heaven: there was, I hope, never more truth in 
In Levit. Hom. 14.  Origens resolution, Qui ante non exiit nihil laeditur, unde interdum fit, ut ille qui foras mittatur, intus sit, He that was not gone out before, is not harmed by this interdict, he that is cast out, is still within.  
10. Let us by the help of God, and in obedience to these, and all other his gracious chastisements, retain, or timely get our clean nuptial garments about us, and then though we be gathered up from the Lanes and Hedges, we shall have no reason to doubt of our call to, and reception at the marriage.   

Sect. 2. Secondly, Universal Reformation.  
1. BUt then Secondly, as in the Censures of the Church, those last methods of Apostolical and divine Charity, designed for the ransom and reduction of the most enthralled captive, and obstinately bent to bring him home to God, though it were by the ministry of Satan himself, there was no peace to be hoped, or obtained from this importunity, no truce from these merciful scourges, these wounds of the perfectest friend, whilst there remained one excess unhumbled, one lust unpurged, one rage unmortified, one {αβγδ}, be it high or strong hold, pride or habit of sin, unlevelled, or unsubdued; so must we reckon of it at this time, while we are under these shadows and false images of it.  
2. The rebukes of heaven that are now upon us, are as inexorable as his unwearied love of souls can make them, we must not in kindness to ourselves beg their remove, till they have finished the saving work for which they are as surely sent, as Christ came into the world upon the same errand; and then what an inauspicious symptom must it be, if the application shall increase the Paroxysms, if the sins that brought these judgements to chastise them, should make a shift to thrive under them, if the fruitful parent should become also the incestuous birth of its own progeny.  
3. The intimations which Scripture gives us of such charitative severiti●s( such certainly are Gods now unto us, designed wholly to ends of mercy) all look this way; Bishop Titus's rebukes must be whet, 
Tit. 1.13.  till they advance to the {αβγδ} to be sharp and cutting, and never lose the edge, till they have obtained their design( {αβγδ}) till they have by lancing fetched out the very core of the impostume, the dregs and sediment of the disease.  
4 The Apostle elsewhere expresses it by very comprehensive phrases, by {αβγδ}, subduing and bringing to nothing the very thoughts, 
2 Cor. 10.5, 6.  disputes, or reasonings in the breast, {αβγδ}, every elation, or unevenness in the heart, that doth but {αβγδ} lift itself up against the knowledge of God or Christian practise, {αβγδ} very conceit or notion, and in fine {αβγδ} to act revenge, to punish capitally so as it never revive again) {αβγδ} every not harkening or disobedience; and till this be done effectually, Timothy must not be too hasty to impose hands, absolve, 
1 Tim. 5.22.  or loose those censures, lest he bring upon himself the guilt of those sins which it was the duty of his censures to reform in others; the {αβγδ}, consequent sins, 
Vers. 24.  those that are still continued in after the hand of discipline is upon a man, have a fearful aggravation belonging to them, that of thundering back against heaven, the most unagreeable return to the utmost charity, the most prodigious anomalie, or irregularity in the world.  
5. We know the dress that belonged to the excommunicated person, both in the Jewish and Primitive Christian Church, the same, that of the strictest profoundest Mourners, and all the Assembly were to accompany him in the same doleful habit; S. Paul expresses it by Gods 
2 Cor. 12.21.  humbling the very Apostle that inflicts it, and his 
2 Cor. 2. 1●  coming {αβγδ} in a mournful guise unto the offender. And in this also the parallel may hold, the mourning weeds in many respects very well become us at this time. And shall he that is a mourning for himself, a celebrating as it were his own obsequies( and should in reason begin the {αβγδ} the doleful elegy to others in an accent of exemplary sorrow) forget the business in hand so prodigiously, as to mistake an oath or execration for it, to aim that shaft against Heaven, that should have been designed at his own breast, bewail his excesses in new riots, and as the deluge to the old world, overwhelm the sinner, instead of purging away the sin?  
6. Were this tolerably fit to be the return but to human discipline, to him that speaketh( though it be Oracles, so {αβγδ} signifieth) on earth; yet it were most intolerable madness thus to turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, 
Heb. 12.25.  and that is our case at this time.  
7. 'tis vain to question the instruments, when by its being fallen upon us, we know the Counsel and hand of God {αβγδ}, hath preordained it shall be done, not onely permitting it thus to fall, but also designing it charitatively to our greatest good, the mortifying every sin, that still lives among us. And if we do not now qualify ourselves for our return to this glorious kingdom of his on earth( into which there is no regular entrance for any thing that defileth, 
Rev. 21.27.  or that worketh abomination, or lie, I mean either for carnality or hypocrisy) just as we would think ourselves obliged to do for our admission into the kingdom of heaven, that vision which may not be approached without all kind of purity, we are still fitted for severer methods, and cannot without a kind of sacrilege covet, or wish a liberty of access to Gods holy things, which cannot be enjoyed without being defiled also, and profaned by us.  
8. What is here said thus generally, ought to be as distinctly and particularly applied to every leprous spot, or plague-sore in each unreformed sinners heart among us, as if I had delivered by retail the most perfect catalogue of them. Let us search and try our ways, 
Lam. 3.40.  and now if ever perfect our vows of returning to the Lord.  
9. And this must be endeavoured by all the most probable remaining means, that may any way be ordinable to it, sure not by mens taking advantage of the times, and casting off all even form of Godliness, this is the sad fruit of the reprobate soil, 
Heb. 6.8.  the forerunner of curse and burning. But the more desolate our condition is, the more solicitously to endeavour to gain God to our society and assistance, to keep close to him in constant frequent returns of converse on our knees, or on our faces( to that our closerts are much better accommodated, than our Churches, or more public assemblies, and our exclusion from them may well mind us of that posture either of Christ, Mat. 26.39. or of the {αβγδ} or how-long poenitentiaries in the Primitive times) talking with him, and receiving both aids and directions from him, handling him and seeing him in his word( and those much more faithful means of converting spiritual food into spiritual nourishment, than the ear hath been experimented to be) and so with more advantage filling ourselves out of the Ocean, without repining that the drop of the bucket is taken away from us.  
10. 'tis possible we may be found to have somewhat by us in store, that may prove food, when the famine hath cooked it for us; That Prayer which Christ gave us( as once God by Moses did Manna, from heaven) may, when 'tis better considered, then our plenty ever yet permitted it to be, prove an help to all our infirmities, that one plate of pure Gold be beaten out into a great deal of Wire, increase like the widows Oil and Meal, by a deliberate effusion( as I have heard of a pious man, that made it his whole private office) not by giving it the number of the Romanists rosary, but by impressing on his own heart first, and from thence pouring out to God, the weight and full commentary( as far as his and his brethrens known wants suggested) of every petition. And I doubt not but it may prove like Manna in that respect also, agreeable to every good Christians taste, and proper to his stomach, if he come now with a vigorous appetite to make use of it.  
11. And if but the several articles of the Creed might be used as they were meant, to enforce on us the many great engagements of sincere reformation, and to mind us of the mercy of the second Covenant, the merit, and example of his sufferings, and the power and blessed influence of his resurrection, &c. we should need no more outward aids( though there be innumerable still ready at hand for any that could have received benefit by those, which are now taken from us) but those which 'tis very hard for us to miss, the several branches of our duty, very legible in the most perspicuous parcels of Scripture, the Decalogue and the Sermon in the Mount, to direct us in that way, wherein, by Gods help, instantly implored, we may be secure from stumbling.  
12. However, if a trusty guide may add either to the comfort or safety of this journey, there are such now at leisure, that may be had without hire, 'tis pitty( if they may be employed to thy benefit) they should be suffered to be idle, being indeed never more proper and profitable in any case, than in this of overlooking thy performances of this first branch of Repentance, in the duties of mortification.   

Sect. 3. Thirdly, Fruits of Repentance. Among them, First, Perfect contentment: Discernible by two trials.  
1. BUt for the losing of sinners, and restoring them to the peace of the Church, the bare mortification is not sufficient. The rescuing from the jaws or Gates of Hell doth not presently secure us of our right to Heaven. There must be the building of Houses and planting of Ortyards( saith S. jerome on Jer. 29.5. 
Tom. 4. p. 292. D. ) taking Wives, and begetting of sons and Daughters, Cum ex Jerusalem, i.e. Ecclesia ejecti fuerimus, When we are cast out of Jerusalem, i.e. the Church. There must be the {αβγδ}, good works, in the plural( {αβγδ} the penitential Canons usually style them, 
1 Tim. 5.25.  the living in more than one single trade of goodnesses) and those manifest or discernible( there being in that case no rule given for the concealing, but rather publishing them) before it can be seasonable with God or profitable for us to have his discipline removed.  
2. Some of these that have most peculiarity of agreeablenesse to our present condition, may not unfitly be specified.  
3. First, that of a perfect contentment and unfeigned submission to the good will and choices of God, with what sharpness soever they come mixed to us: In the words of Micha, which S. jerome recommends to him particularly, 
Si de congregatione fratrum& domo Dei ejicimur— in Ezec. ca. 17. To. 4. p. 381.  on whom the censures of the Church are fallen, Mich. 7.9. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him( 'tis sure we have sins enough to own this, or whatever worse thing shall happen to us) until he pled my cause and execute judgement for me.  
4. To this plenitude of cheerful contentment, beside many others, one eminent motive suggests itself, by considering, that when we were so richly furnished with variety of infamous matter, any least of which might fitly have owned, as having most justly provoked, the fiercest of Gods revenges, and, if he had so pleased, made us doubly miserable, once under the smart of his rod, and a second turn under the reproach of the scandalous sin, which it signally was directed to point out, and visit; God hath given to us( {αβγδ}) out of his special undeserved favour vouchsafed to us to suffer for well doing, at least not for evil doing( and that 
{αβγδ}— Chrys Ep. γ Tom. 7. p. 73. l. 17. &c. {αβγδ}— l. 21.  such shall not lose its reward, the examples of Job and Lazarus will secure us) and so to bear in our bodies no other ( {αβγδ}) brands, or marks, but onely those of the Lord Jesus. This, I say, if applied, and brought home by every man to his own individual, and the foulest sins he hath at any time been guilty of, and might have been surprised in, will be found more then a contented acquiescence in Gods present choices for us, even oblige us severally( as S. Peter thought most just upon this consideration) to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts, to magnify the mercy, not repined at the severity of his methods toward us.  
5. And for the judging of this, whether it be sincerely what it ought, it must be observed, First, Whether we have any very unkind reflections on those that are the instruments of it. Abishai that would have had Davids displeasure break out against him that cast stones at him and all his servants, 
2 Sam. 16.6.  did not look through Davids optic, if he had, he would have discerned what David did, that possibly the Lord had said unto him, curse David, and who shall then say, wherefore hath he done so. It is as sure as any thing can be in the world, that God meant no real curses or mischiefs to David at this time, yet because David had sins enough, for which this, and much more might justly be permitted by God to fall upon him, and by his not withholding Shimei, 'twas evident God had thus chosen to permit it, the holy man is forward to take it as coming directly from God, and quarrels nothing but the impatience of Abishai, 
Vers. 10.  What have I to do with you ye sons of Zerviah, so let him curse, because the Lord—  
6. The pious man under Gods discipline hath impatience to none, but those that would have him impatient, as our Saviour, that expresseth not the least displeasure to the instruments of his death, to Caiaphas, to Pilate, to the Souldiers, to Iudas, to the Devil himself, doth yet rebuk Peters kindness that would have averted his suffering it: He is the onely Satan that would rob him of his cheerful, and joyful submission to the Fathers will, for the accomplishing of which Satan himself is but a kind of Disciple: Judas and he do him a very acceptable service; the former is styled friend, and called upon only to make hast, 
John 13.27.  in thus ministering unto him.  
7. Secondly, the sincerity of the contentment may be judged by the quiet and stillness and constancy in that posture, into which God hath cast us. An uncontented mind is always removing and lossing upon the bed, from one side to the other, as in a continual posture of the greatest uneasinesse: And so is he, that hath any inward regrets to the condition, that God hath placed him in, whereas the pious man can be content to wait 
{αβγδ}. Chrys. Ep. {αβγδ}. To. 7. p. 173. l. 27.  God's leisure, and with steadiness of fixed eyes to look for him, till he shall please to discover his face.  
8. Such indeed are wont to be times of temptation, 
Mat. 24.11.  wherein as false Prophets are wont to arise, so they have many advantages, by the assistance whereof to deceive many, and the greatest and most prevalent of those is the reproach of our solitude. He that is cast out will be ready to harken to any that tenders him an hospitable reception, and those that have least of reason to produce for his entering into their society, will be most forward to make use of such an advantage, which may supply the place of argument.  
9. And thus an error that hath but the luck to be gotten in fashion, may by the pomp or {αβγδ} of many followers, probably enough get his company, that finds himself left alone, and is not very well pleased with the state, and satisfied of the reasons of his solitude.  
10, This therefore is the second trial of our contentment, if being cast out by men, we can satisfy ourselves with Gods company( and the man that was born blind will yield us a good omen in this matter; when the Jews had cast him out, 
John 9. 3●.  presently Jesus heard it and found him) if being in the wilderness we be not one of those Reeds there, which our Saviour tells us are shaken with the wind.  
11. This were the way to cast ourselves out indeed, and so to have that character of real heretics or schismatics, in S. Paul, so far as to be {αβγδ}, condemned by our own sentence, which is much worse than to be more severely handled by other men; and nothing but the grace of God and a contemplation of his wisdom, and an acquiescence in his choices( which sees persecution fitter for some servants of his, than the greatest calm or grandeur of the most prosperous profession) can secure us( if temptations choose their seasons) from being thus shaken.   

Sect. 4. Secondly, Peace with all men.  
1. OUr second vital employment, very fitly apportioned to our solitude, is our ardent desires of, and Prayers for the peace of jerusalem: We know what was required of the captive Israelites, when they were carried into a strange land, 
Jer. 29.7.  to seek the peace of that City, whither they were carried away captive,& to pray to the Lord for it. And we now know, I hope, assuredly, whither it is that we are banished, even just thither, where we were before, into the bosom of the holy catholic Church of Christ.  
2. And therefore as those, that serve God in an Hermitage, have not thereby their thoughts confined to that narrow compass wherein they corporally move, but intercede hourly for the most common concernments of all others; so must our Oratories be now designed, like Daniels Chamber in Babylon, with our windows wide open toward Jerusalem, 
Dan. 6.10.  our devotions and bended knees( his three times a day at least) engaged in that one great interest of all Christians, the glory, i.e. the peace and true piety of that new jerusalem, which is come down from Heaven; that like that which remaines there, it may be at unity within itself.  
3. There cannot be a more 
{αβγδ}. Basil. Hom. xxix. Tom. 1. pag. 620.  amazing dismal prospect in the world, then that vast rapture and chasm betwixt the East and West( the effect of that wind, those tormina, of pride and ambition, and aerie speculation, gotten long since into the bowels of the great body, and causing this Ecclesiastical {αβγδ}, this Earthquake first, and thence this Hiatus or aperture, which could never have the skill to close again) and then the many Subdivisions, lesser rents and fractures, which are multiplied infinitely in this one Western part of it, a new carnificina or act of cruelty to the mystical body of Christ; first, cut asunder in the midst, and then so much life secured to each moiety, as to make it capable of the Rack and Torture in every limb of it, and of continuing for ever howling and laughing at once under those torments, till at length it cannot without fits of the most frenetic rage be besought to come out of this condition.  
4. 'tis a strange Romance, and to any that partakes but of ingenuous nature, an incredible Fable, that the one Heir of the ottoman family, having possession of so great a part of the world, far greater then any other Potentate, should therein reign a Sullen, solitary Tyrant, consecrated first in the blood of all his Brethren, and then thriving and prospering into a vast bulk by keeping himself to this one cannibal diet,( full hausts of the blood of men) receiving this tribute from his own, as well as others subjects, all his vassals living to no other design, but of killing and dying at his direction, and to secure them of the continuance of this trade, the Christians not deemed sufficient, his fellow Mahomedans( if they do but differ from him in the question of[ who is the right successor of their great Prophet] and affirm Hali to be the man) become as unsufferable enemies, as lawful prise, as necessary to be invaded and overrun with his hosts of Locusts, as any. And all this while no news of the one design, and business of power and dominion, distribution of justice to others or examples of it in himself: As if all the rest of the world, but he that hath the luck to strangle his brethren, were born to no other purposes, but those of the gladiators in the Roman Theatre, onely to fight and die, with their heart-blood, yea and their souls also, to minister to his ambitions, or rages, or frantic devotions; paid to his Sanguinarie Prophet, to pass through the fire to this Moloch, to run like mad dogges through the world, sowing death, wheresoever they come, till at last they fall themselves.  
5. And for all this there is certainly no other account to be given, but that the Dragon, the old Serpent, the devil and Satan being according to prediction let loose for a time, this their epileptic prophet was pitched on for his General, entertained, and inspired by him, to prescribe this course for the prosperous managing of those battles, which are mentioned Rev. 20.8. And accordingly it hath succeeded.  
6. But that in the polity of Christ, that real Theocratie, wherein God personally and visibly descended to settle( and to preside in) it himself, the fundamentals whereof were laid in a grand pacification betwixt earth and heaven, the Statute-lawes first and last( the Old and the New Commandment) the very same, for our loving one another, and the whole body or Codex most exactly conformable; first peace, then mercy, then patience, and long suffering, then bowels of compassion, loving and laying down the life, a tribute of that love, extending to affections, to actions, toward brethren, toward strangers, towards enemies, both our own, and Gods enemies, toward heathens, toward all mankind, never projecting other contentions or victories, but that one of abounding in goodness, and overcoming evil with good: That, I say, in a Government thus established upon such principles and by such rules as these, there should yet be so much of the contrary temper, nothing but warres and fightings among Christians, eternal feuds among children of peace, that the whole host of Angels of light should transform themselves into legions of darkness; that the Mahomedan, that is otherwise impregnable, should be onely thus conquered by the Christian, that this hath more warres a managing than he, and those warres more cruel, reaching to the Soul, anathematizing of brethren, casting out the Greek Church, the whole East, for heretics, upon no other quarrel, but the Filioque; and a great part of the West( without pretence of any word in the Old Creeds) for not accepting the Trent Articles, or differing with them about their one monarchic Successor of our great Prophet: That all Religion should be placed in the belief of those doctrines, which if they were true, are no least part of the Christian Faith: That all those things, whereon certainly our eternal state depends, Iudgment, and Mercy, and Faith, should, by consent of parties, be left out of the Scheme; little or none of our zeal laid out on them, or for them, but all mis-spent on that, which is not bread, that brings no vital nourishment to any. Lastly, That those that rebuk tyranny, and bitterness in others, under no meaner a charge than that of antichristianism, should outgo all these patterns themselves, proclaim liberty to the Captive, to get the cross off from their own shoulders; and when they have done so, enslave, and bind it fast on the shoulders of all others, and( after all these contradictions both to Religion, and reason, and but ingenuous nature, to the goodness and joyfullness of brethrens living together in unity) men that are guilty of all these, proclaim God the inspirer or favourer of all, transform the Prince of peace into the Inciter, or friend of Confusion: These are a whole Chaos of prodigies, a landscape of wild appearances, above all that the African Merchants, or Scriptores Mirabilium have ever furnished us with, and yet make up but a part of those Monsters and fish heads, which adorn our Maps of Europe at this day.  
7. And then what Armies of Votaries can be sufficient to keep off that wrath of God, that threatens no less than all christendom, for that one unchristian piece of her temper; what Floods and Rivers of tears, to slake the rage of this one sin, which is more probable, than all the powers of darkness beside, to bring it low to the {αβγδ}, which yet we have assurance shall never wholly prevail against it.  
8. How can we at such a vacancy as this, be more profitably employed, then in learning and practising our postures in this sacred Militia, in wrestling and combating with Heaven for this one blessing, this comprehensive donative, this grace beyond all other graces( 
1 Cor. 13.13.  the greatest of these is charity) this duty above all other duties( 
1 Pet. 4.8.  above all things have fervent charity among yourselves) this utmost pitch of celestial joy, this Divinity itself ( God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him) the blessing of catholic unity, universal peace; and with jacob never give over the combat, till we have prevailed with God for this blessing.  A Form of Prayer to this purpose the Reader will find at the end of the Treatise of Fundamentals. 
9. And that it may not be {αβγδ}, in Hierocles, or Muliebre supplicium, in 
sallust.  Portius Cato, an unactive prayer, or Womanish supplication, that our hearts and hands, our utmost endeavours may herein be semblable to our tongues and prayers, 'tis very much our duty first to cleanse our own hearts from every degree of this pollution, not to leave alive in us one animosity either to any Person, or Society, or portion of Christians in the world, to resolve with the Fathers in their dealing with the Donatists, that those shall be our brethren, which will not admit us to be their brethren, and according to this beginning, to set out industriously, and indefatigably, in the ways of peace, every man to contribute his Symbolum toward so good a work, and every man, as God shall enable him, to do it freely and cheerfully( for in nothing more then in this doth God love the cheerful giver.)  
10. And would we but take the Apostles counsel herein, 
● Thess. 4.11.  {αβγδ}, be as emulous and ambitious, and as zealously solicitous in our contention for quiet( i.e. never contend with any but the implacable and unreconcilable) as the most passionate broiler or boutefeu is wont to be for his {αβγδ} his beloved strife and contention, that brings him in no other reward but blows and woe, a Tophet here, and a Hell hereafter, I should not doubt but some valuable contribution might be made to this sacred treasury at this time by the poor widow Church of England, with her few mites: which if they cannot hope for thanks from men, have yet a full assurance of being not despised nor unrewarded by him, who still sits looking what is cast into the treasury.   

Sect. 5. Thirdly, Frequency of Synaxes.  
1. IT is not my purpose to Enumerate all the several parts of duty, which this Season exacts from us. Yet one must not be omitted, which in such times the Apostle very diligently warns us of, that of the {αβγδ}, not giving over the assembling ourselves together, 
Heb. 10.25.  as oft as we can gain opportunities for them, holding up the Synaxes, how thin soever they are fain to be.  
2. And this in reason now more zealously and 
{αβγδ}. Ignat. Ep. ad Ephes. {αβγδ}. Chrysost. Ep. {αβγδ}. T. 7. p. 172. l. 20. {αβγδ}. Id. Ep. {αβγδ}. p. 180. l. 15. Sic& Ep. {αβγδ}. p. 186. li. 3. There is nothing fitter for suffering Churchmens turns, then those Epistles of S. Chrysostome to Olympias and others, to be meditated on, for the fort-fying of themselves, and for their direction and consolation.  frequently then ever, for that I conceive some part of the design and importance of the Apostles addition there, {αβγδ}, but calling upon one another, minding of the necessity and benefit of this duty. And though the ensuing[ {αβγδ}, by so much the more] be there expressy founded on the approach of their expected deliverance, yet among the Primitive Christians the continual expectations of their dangers appears to have had the same effect, putting them upon their constant, 
In periculo— Grex omnis in unum congregetur— ut quos excitamus ad praelium, non inermes& nudos relinquamus, said protectione sanguinis& corporis Christi muniamus— Cypr. Ep. 54. Quotidie calicem sanguinis Christi bibere, ut possiunt et ipsi propter Christum sanguinem fundere. Id. Ep 50.  daily Synaxes, as not knowing how long they should live to enjoy them.  
3. The quality of the sin, and the judgement that is there threatened to those that voluntarily neglect such opportunities, is very considerable. It is there, First, set opposite to holding fast the profession of our hope v. 23. and so is itself a degree of renouncing the Christians Anchor, a wavering( as is implyed in the {αβγδ}, ver. 23.) and a drawing back, ver. 39. and that noted to be very dangerous and destrustive. And accordingly we see in 
Affirmabant hanc fuisse summam culpae suae, quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire— quod ipsum facere desiissent post edictum meum, quo secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram— Dilata cognitione ad consulendum te decurri. Plin. l. 10. ●p. 97.  Pliny, that they, who quitted the Hetaeriae upon the Emperours prohibitions, were by the Heathen Inquisitors thought capable of mercy, as well as they that denied Christ. Secondly, It is there included in the number of the {αβγδ}, the voluntary or wilful sins, in them( I must suppose he meant) who having the opportunities, whether more or less public, wholly withdrew from them. Thirdly, It goes for an {αβγδ}, ver. 27. a branch of secret contrariety to God and piety, a preferring the world before either. Fourthly, 'tis of the nature of those sins for which there remaines no sacrifice, and hath its part in those other aggravations, and fearful expectations that there follow in that text.  
4. The obligation that the Primitive Christians conceived themselves under, in this respect, is visible by the frequent mention of those Hetariae, and Antelucani Conventus, and Cryptae Arenariae, meetings in upper rooms, in suburbs, in prisons— in times of the Heathen persecutors. And so also when heresy, or schism prevailed, and drove the Orthodox Obedient maintainers of catholic Truth and peace, out of the Churches. For though in these cases they abstained from the public assemblies, and indeed thought it strict duty to do so; 
{αβγδ}, &c. Tom. 2. Ep 69. p. 698. See also Baronius, An. Ch. 370. n. 20. from some additions to S. Basil, Ep. 11. Malè vos parietum amor cepit, malè Ecclesiam Dei in tectis aedificiisque veneramini, malè sub his pacis nomen ingeritis— Hilar. contr. Arian.& Auxent. in fine, Edit. Basil. p. 216. ( The Epistle of S. Basil and others to the Bishops in Italy, and France, and S. Hilaries dissuasives in the former, that of prosperous heresy, and the practise of 
Vide george. Alexand●in. vit. Chrysost. Eton. Edit. Tom. viii. p. 239. l. 15. &c.& p. 241. l. 13. &c. Et Chrysost. Epist. {αβγδ}. Tom. vii p. 139 l. 1. &c. Et Ep. {αβγδ}. p. 170. li. 44. Et Ep. {αβγδ}. p. 185. li. 8.  Holy men in the case of S. Chrysostomes deposition, doth, for the latter, make that clear) yet the assembling of the Orthodox, and the more 
Montes mihi,& sylvae,& lacus,& carceres,& voragines sunt tutiores. In his enim prophetae aut manentes aut debt usi, Dei spiritu prephetabant. Hilar. Ibid. p. 217. {αβγδ}, &c. Chrysost. Ep. {αβγδ} To. 7. p. 190. li. 35. {αβγδ}. Basil. Ep. 69 Ibid.  private offices were not to be neglected. And 
Caute hoc,& non glomeratim. nec per multitudinem simul junctam puto esse faciendum, ne ex hoc ipso invidia concitetur,& intrecundi aditus denegetur,& dum insatiabiles volumus esse, totum perdamus. Consulite ergo& providete, ut cum temperamento hoc agi tutius posset. Ep. 5.  S. Cyprian, that advices the prudent and cautious managerie of such, doth it expressly on this design, that they might be more sure not to be kept from them.  
5. Ecclesiastical History is full of this kind of matter; take one for all set down by 
Eccl. Hist. l. 7. {αβγδ}.  Eusebius from the Epistles of Dionysius concerning the persecution in Valerians time, and 
{αβγδ}. Ibid. {αβγδ}.  Aemylianus's Ed ct, and the 
{αβγδ}— Iibd.  Christians constant practise.  
6. The sum of it is, That the Assemblies were never intermitted, but observed {αβγδ}, the more diligently and industriously, and God gave his blessing to it, a greater liberty than they had reason to look for, {αβγδ}, and many 
{αβγδ}. Ibid.  Advantageous opportunities to glorify God under their restraint, many alienes brought home to heaven by these means.  
7. The same Good will of him that dwelleth in the( burning but not consuming) Bush, whose power doth so presentiate itself to them that are in afflictions, that it is said 
1 Cor. 12.9.  {αβγδ} to pitch the Tent, to dwell, as 
{αβγδ}. John 1.14.  Christ did by his incarnation, upon or among such, as are thus tempted, inspire and inflame with the same pure zeal, and crown with the like successses, all that are now so nearly concerned to transcribe their copy, to receive benefit by this exhortatory.  Now the God of all grace who hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Iesus, after that ye have suffered a while, 
{αβγδ}:  himself restore you, stablish, strengthen, settle you.   Zeph. 3.28. 
I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn Assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden.  
The End.   

Errata.  
Pag. 19. lin. 13. r. {αβγδ} l. 21. r. mundi, dicens, p. 22. marg. l. 2. r. {αβγδ} p. 25. l. 4. r. through. l. 7. r. reserved. p. 35. l. 14. r. this p. 44. l. 17. r. life) p. 52. l. 20. r. this space p. 59. marg. l. 9. r. {αβγδ} p. 68. l. 20. r. fide; The p. 72. marg. l. 2. r. {αβγδ} p. 85. l. 19. r. so, as p. 88. marg. l. 2. r. in ea p. 90. l. 23. after Provincial deal, p. 91. l. 16. r. where, upon p. 94. marg. l. 4. r. colebatur p. 96. l. 17. to Pope Gr. add in marg. l. 1. Ep. 24. l. 21 to others set in marg. ●uidas, &c. to anathematizeth set in marg. See Baron. &c. p. 97. l. 8. r. wrote,( for saith he, l. 18. r. several Churches p. 99 marg. l. 9. r. & sequenda est. p. 105. l. 7. r. till marg. l. 2. r. praeconio p. 106. marg. l. 6. r. {αβγδ} p. 107. l. 7. r. {αβγδ} l. 9. r. {αβγδ} p. 108. l. 12. r. of this seventh council p. 112. marg. l. 3. r. circumferuntur p. 115. marg. l. 3. r. scripturarum p. 118. l. 6. r. colitur& adoratur p. 120. l. 5. r. fuisse p. 123. l. 25. deal 124 p. 135. marg. l. 7. r. habens l. 23. r. many p. 136. marg. l. 3. r. paulum l. 14. r. clavum fixisse p. 155. marg. l 9. add* Sect. 8. n. 10. l. 10. add‖ De Syn. p. 873 p. 162. l. 9. r. or the p. 194. l. 6. r. {αβγδ} p. 196. l. 5. r. account, p. 198. l. 1. r. agones. p. 204. l. 24. r. every p. 214. l. 8. r. will found Pag. 125. lin. 28 after the word those r. Bishops, in opposition to those.   

Books written by H. Hammond, D. D.  

A Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the Books of the New. Test. by Hammond D. D. in Fol.  
2. The Practical Catechism with all other English Treatises of H. Hammond D. D. in two volumes in 4.  
3. Dissertationes quatuor, quibus Episcopatus Jura ex S. scriptures& primaeva Antiquitate adstruuntur, contra sententiam D. Blondelli & aliorum. Authere H. Hammond, in 4.  
4. A Letter of Resosution of six Queries, in 12.  
5. Of Schism. A defence of the Church of England, against the exceptions of the Romanists, in 12.  
6. Of Fundamentals in a notion referring to practise, by H. Hammond D. D. in 12.  
7. Six books of late controversy in defence of the Church of England, in two volumes in 4. newly published.    

The names of several Treatises and Sermons written by jer. tailor D. D.  

1. {αβγδ}, Course of Sermons for all the sundays in the year, together with a Discourse of the Divine Institution, Necessity and Separation of the Office Ministerial, in Fol.  
2. Episcopacy asserted, in 4.  
3. The History of the Life and Death of the ever blessed Jesus Christ, 2. Edit. in Fol.  
4. The Liberty of Prophesying in 4.  
5. An apology for authorized and set-forms of liturgy, in 4.  
6. A discourse of Baptism, its institution and efficacy upon all believers, in 4.  
7. The Rule and Exercises of holy living, in 12.  
8. The Rule and Exercises of holy dying, in 12.  
9. A short Catechism for institution of young persons in the Christian Religion, in 12.  
10. A short institution of Grammar composed for young Scholars in 8.  
11. The Real Presence and spiritual of CHRIST in the Blessed Sacrament proved against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, in 8.  
12. The Golden Grove, or, A Manual of daily Prayers fitted to the daies of the week, together with a short Method of Peace and Holiness.  
13. The doctrine and practise of repentance rescued from Popular Errors, in a large 8. Newly published.    

London Printed for R. Royston at the Angel in ivy-lane.