A Christian Directory
§. 13. Quest. But will every change disoblige us? If not, what change must it be? seeing Casuists use to put it as a condition in general, Rebus sic stantibus. Answ. No: it is not every change of things that disobligeth us from the bonds of a Vow. For then Vows were of no considerable signification. But, 1. If the very Matter that was Vowed, or about which the Vow was, do cease, Cessante materiâ cessat obligatio: As if I promise to teach a pupil, I am disobliged when he is dead. If I promise to pay so much money in Gold, and the King should • orbid Gold and change his coin, I am not obliged to it. 2. Cessante termino vel correlato cessat obligatio: If the party die to whom I am bound, my personal obligation ceaseth. And so the conjugal bond ceaseth at death, and civil bonds by civil death. 3. Cessante fine, cessat obligatio. If the use and end wholly cease my obligation which was only to that use and end ceaseth. As if a Physician promise to give Physic for nothing for the cure of the Plague, to all the poor of the City; when the Plague ceaseth, his end, and so his obligation ceaseth. 4. Cessante personâ naturali rela • â cessat obligatio personalis. When the natural person dieth, the obligation ceaseth. I cannot be • bliged to do that when I am dead which is proper to the living. The subject of the obligation ceasing, the Accidents must cease. 5. Cessante relatione vel personâ civili, cessat obligatio talis, quâ t • lis: The obligation which lay on a person in any Relation merely as such, doth cease when that Relation ceaseth. A King is not bound to Govern or protect his subjects if they traitorously depose him, or if he cast them off and take anothor Kingdom (as when H. 3. of France left the Kingdom of P • land ); nor are subjects bound to Allegiance and obedience to him that is not indeed their King: A Judge, or Justice, or Constable, or Tutor, is no longer bound by his oath to do the offices of these Relations, than he continueth in the Relation: A divorced Wife is not bound by her conjugal vow to her Husband as before: nor masters and servants when their relations cease: nor a Soldier to his General by his military Sacrament when the Army is disbanded, or he is cashiered or dismissed.
§. 14. Rule 3. No Vows or promises of our own can dissolve the obligation, laid upon us by the Law of God. For we have no co-ordinate, much less superior authority over ourselves; Our self-obligations are but for the furthering of our obedience.
§. 15. Rule 4. Therefore no Vows can disoblige a man from any present duty, nor justify him in the committing of any sin. Vows are to engage us to God, and not against him: If the matter which we vow be evil, it is a sin to Vow it, and a sin to do it upon pretence of a Vow. Sin is no acceptable sacrifice to God.
§. 16. Rule 5. If I vow that I will do some duty better, I am not thereby disobliged from doing it at all, when I am disabled from doing it better. Suppose a Magistrate seeing much amiss in Church and Commonwealth, doth Vow a Reformation, and Vow against the abuses which he findeth; If now the people's obstinacy and rebellion disable him to perform that Vow, it doth not follow that he must lay down his Scepter, and cease to Govern them at all, because he cannot do it as he ought, if he were free. So if the Pastors of any Church do Vow the Reformation of Church abuses, in their places, if they be hindered by their Rulers, or by the people, it doth not follow that they must lay down their callings, and not Worship God publicly at all, because they cannot do it as they would, and ought if they were free; as long as they may worship him without committing any sin. God's first obligation on me is, to Worship him, and the second for the manner, to do it as near his order as I can: Now if I cannot avoid the imperfections of Worship, though I vowed it, I must not therefore avoid the worship itself (as long as corruptions destroy not the very nature of it, and I am put myself upon no actual sin) For I was bound to Worship God before my Vows, and in order of nature before my obligation de modo: And my Vow was made with an implied condition, that the thing were possible and lawful: And when that ceaseth to be possible or lawful which I vowed, I must nevertheless do that which still remaineth possible and lawful. To give over God's solemn Worship with the Church, is no Reformation. To pre • er no-worship, before Imperfect-worship, is a greater Deformation and corruption, than to prefer Imperfect-worship before that which is more perfect. And to prefer a worship imperfect in the manner, before no-church worship at all, is a greater Reformation than to prefer a more perfect manner of worship before a more imperfect and defective. To Worship God Decently and in order, supposeth that he must be worshipped: And he that doth not worship at all, doth not worship him decently. If a Physician Vow that he will administer a certain effectual Antidote to all his Patients that have the Plague, and that he will not administer a certain less-effectual preparation, which some Apothecaries through Covetousness or Carelessness had brought into common use, to the injury of the sick: His Vow is to be interpreted with these exceptions [ I will do it if I can, without dishonesty or a greater mischief: I will not administer the sophisticated antidote when I can have better: I Vow this for my Patients benefit, and not for their destruction. ] Therefore if the Sophisticated antidote is much better than none, and may save men's lives, and the Patients grow willful, and will take no other, or Authority forbid the use of any other, the Physician is neither bound to forsake his Calling rather than use it, nor to neglect the life of his Patients: (If their lives indeed lie upon his care, and they may not be in some good hopes without him, and the good of many require him not to neglect a few ): But he must do what he can, when he cannot do what he would, and only show that he consenteth not to the sophistication.
§. 17. Rule 6. Though he that voweth a lawful thing, must be understood to mean, If it continue possible and lawful; yet if he himself be the culpable cause that afterwards it becometh unpossible or unlawful, he violateth his Vow. He that voweth to give so much to the poor, and after prodigally wasteth it, and hath it not to give, doth break his Vow; which he doth not if fire or thieves deprive him of it against his will. He that Voweth to Preach the Gospel, if he cut out his own tongue, or culpably procure another to imprison, silence or hinder him, doth break his Vow; which he did not if the hindrance were involuntary (and insuperable;) Consent doth make the impedition his own act.
§. 18. Rule 7. In the taking and keeping of Oaths and Vows we must deal simply and openly without equivocations and deceit. Psal. 84. 3, 4. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lift up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully: He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
§. 19. Rule 8. He that jugleth or stretcheth his Conscience by fraudulent shifts and interpretations afterward, is as bad as he that dissembleth in the taking of the oath. To break it by deceit, is as bad as to take it in deceit. Psal. 15 1, 4. Lord who shall abide in thy Tabernacle—He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not. Saith Dr. Sanderson [ Ista mihi aut non cogitare, &c. [
§. 20. Rule 9. An Oath is to be taken and interpreted strictly. Sandersoa saith, Iuramenti obligatio est stricti juris; that is, non ut excludat juris interpretationem aequitate temperatam; sed ut excludat juris interpretationem gratia corruptam: not as excluding an equitable interpretation, but as excluding an interpretation corrupted by partiality: that it be a Just interpretation, between the extremes of Rigid, and favorable or partial; and in doubtful cases it is safer to follow the strict than the benign or favorable sense. It is dangerous stretching and venturing too far in matters of so sacred a nature, and of such great importance as Vows and Oaths.
§. 21. Rule 10. In the exposition of such doubtful oaths and Vows, 1. We must specially watch against self-interest or commodity that it corrupt not our understandings. 2. And we must not take our oaths or any part of them in such a sense, as a pious prudent stander-by that is impartial and no whit interested in the business, cannot easily find in the words themselves,
§. 22. Rule 11. In doubtful cases the greatest danger must be most carefully avoided, and the safer side preferred: But the danger of the soul by perjury is the greatest, and therefore no bodily danger should so carefully be avoided: And therefore an oath that in the common and obvious sense seemeth unlawful should not be taken, unless there be very full evidence that it hath another sense. Sand. p. 46. Nititur autem, &c. This reason leaneth on that general and most useful rule, that in doubtful cases we must follow the safer side: But it is safer not to swear, where the words of the oath proposed, do seem according to the common and obvious sense of the words to contain in them something unlawful; than by a loose interpretation so to lenifie them for our own ends, that we may the more securely swear them. For it is plain that such an oath may be refused without the peril of perjury; but not that it can be taken without some danger or fear. The same Rule must guide us also in keeping Vews.
§. 23. Rule 12. It is ordinarily resolved that imposed Oaths must be kept according to the sense of the imposer. See Sanders. p. 191, 192. But I conceive that assertion must be more exactly opened and bounded. 1. Where justice requireth that we have respect to the will or right of the imposer, there the oath imposed must be taken in his sense. But whether it must be kept in his sense is further to be considered. 2. When I have done my best to understand the sense of the imposer in taking the Oath, and yet mistake it, and so take it (without fraud) in another sense, the Question then is somewhat hard, whether I must keep it in the sense I took it in, or in his sense, which then I understood not. If I must not keep it in my own sense, which I took it in, then it would follow that I must keep another oath, and not that which I took: For it is the sense that is the oath. And I never obliged myself to anything, but according to my own sense: And yet on the other side, if every man may take Oaths in their private sense, then oaths will not attain their ends, nor be any security to the imposers.
§. 24. In this case you must carefully distinguish between the formal obligation of the Oath or Vow as such, and the obligation of justice to my neighbor which is a consequent of my Vow. And for the former, I conceive (with submission) that an Oath or Vow cannot bind me, formally as such, in any sense but my own in which bonâ fide I took it. Because formally an oath cannot bind me which I never took: But I never took that which I never meant, nor thought of; if you so define an oath as to take in the sense which is the soul of it.
§. 25. But then in regard of the consequential obligation in point of Justice unto man, the question I think must be thus resolved. 1. We must distinguish between a lawful imposer or contracter, and a violent usurper or robber that injuriously compelleth us to swear. 2. Between the obvious usual sense of the words and an unusual forced sense. 3. Between a sincere, involuntary misunderstanding the imposer, and a voluntary fraudulent reservation or private sense. 4. Between one, that I owe something to antecedently, and one that I owe nothing to but by the mere self-obligation of my Vow. 5. Between an Imposer that is himself the culpable cause of my misunderstanding him, and one that is not the cause, but my own weakness or negligence is the cause. 6. Between a case where both senses may be kept, and a case where they cannot, being inconsistent. Upon these Distinctions, I thus resolve the question.
§. 26. Prop. 1. If I fraudulently and willfully take an oath in a sense of my own, contrary to the sense of the Imposer and the common and just sense of the words themselves, I am guilty of perfidiousness and profaneness in the very taking of it.
Prop. 2. If it be long of my own culpable ignorance or negligence that I misunderstood the Imposer, I am not thereby disobliged from the public sense.
Prop. 3. When the Imposer openly putteth a sense on the words imposed contrary to the usual obvious sense, I am to understand him according to his own expression, and not to take the oath, as imposed, in any other sense.
Prop. 4. If the Imposer refuse or neglect to tell me his sense any otherwise than in the imposed words, I am to take and keep them according to the obvious sense of the words, as they are commonly used in the time and place which I live in.
Prop. 5. If it be long of the Imposers obscurity, or refusing to explain himself, or other culpable cause, that I mistook him, I am not bound to keep my oath in his sense, as different from my own (unless there be some other reason for it).
Prop. 6. If the Imposer be a robber or usurper, or one that I owe nothing to in justice, but what I oblige myself to by my oath, I am not then bound at all to keep my oath in his sense, if my own sense was according to the common use of the words.
Prop. 7. Though I may not lie to a robber or tyrant that unjustly imposeth promises or oaths upon me, yet if he put an oath or promise on me which is good and lawful in the proper usual sense of the words, though bad in his sense, (which is contrary to the plain words ), whether I may take this to save my liberty or life, I leave to the consideration of the judicious: that which may be said against it is, that Oaths must not be used indirectly and dissemblingly: that which may be said for it is: 1. That I have no obligation to fit my words to his personal private sense: 2. That I deceive him not, but only permit him to deceive himself, as long as it is he and not I that misuseth the words. 3. That I am to have chief respect to the public sense: and it is not his sense, but mine that is the public sense. 4. That the saving of a man's life or liberty is cause enough for the taking a lawful oath.
Prop. 8. In case I misunderstood the imposed Oath through my own default, I am bound to keep it in both senses (my own and the imposers) if both be consistent and lawful to be done. For I am bound to it in my own sense, because it was formally my oath or Vow which I intended. And I am bound to it in his sense, because I have in Justice made the thing his due. As if the King command me to Vow that I will serve him in wars against the Turk: And I misunderstand him as if he meant only to serve him in wars against the Turk: And I misunderstand him as if he meant only to serve him with my purse: And so I make a Vow with this intent, to expend part of my estate to maintain that War: whereas the true sense was that I should serve him with my Person: In this case, I see not but I am bound to both.
Indeed if it were a promise that obliged me only to the King, then I am obliged no further, and no longer than he will: For he can remit his own right: But if by a Vow I become obliged directly to God himself as a party, then no man can remit his right, and I must perform my Vow as made to him.
§. 27. Rule 13. If any impose an ambiguous oath, and refuse to explain it, and require you only to swear in those words, and leave you to your own sense, Dr. Sanderson thinketh that an honest man should suspect some fraud in such an oath and not take it at all, till all parties are agreed of the sense, pag. 193, 194. And I think he should not take it at all, unless there be some other cause that maketh it his duty. But if a Lawful Magistrate command it, or the interest of the Church or State require it, I see not but he may take it, on condition that in the plain and proper sense of the words the oath be lawful, and that he openly profess to take it only in that sense.
§. 28. Rule 14. If any power should impose an Oath or Vow or promise which in the proper usual sense were downright impious or blaspheamous or sinful, and yet bid me take it in what sense I pleased, though I could take it in such a sense as might make it no real consent to the impiety, yet it would be impious in the sense of the would, and of such heinous consequence as will make it to be unlawful. As if I must subscribe or say or swear those words [ There is no God; or Scripture is untrue ] though it's easy to use these or any words in a good sense, if I may put what sense I will upon them, yet the public sense of them is Blaspheamy; and I may not publicly blaspheme, on pretence of a private right sense and intention.
§. 29. Rule 15. If the Oath imposed be true in the strict and pr • per sense, yet if that sense be not vulgarly known, nor sufficiently manifest to be the imposers sense, and if the words are false or blaspheamous in the vulgar sense of those that I have to do with, and that must observe and make use of my example, I must not take such an oath, without leave to make my sense as public as my oath. As if I were commanded to swear that [ God hath no fore-knowledge, no knowledge, no will, &c.] It were easy to prove that these terms are spoken primarily of man, and that they are attributed to God but analogically or metaphorically, and that God hath no such human acts formaliter, but eminenter and that forma dat nomen, and so that strictly it is not knowledge and will in the primary proper notion, that God hath at all, but something infinitely higher, for which man hath no other name. But though thus the words are true and justifiable in the strictest proper sense, yet are they unlawful, because they are blaspheamy in the vulgar sense: And he that speaks to the Vulgar is supposed to speak with the Vulgar: Unless he as publicly explain them.
§. 30. Rule 16. If the supreme power should impose an oath or promise which in the ordinary obvious sense were sinful, and an inferior officer would bid me take it in what sense I pleased, I might not therefore take it: because that such an officer hath no power to interpret it himself; much less to allow me to take it in a private sense. But if the Law giver that Imposeth it bid me take it in what sense I will, and give me leave to make my sense as public as my oath, I may take it, if the words be but dubious▪ and not apparently false or sinful: (so there be no reason against it, aliunde, as from ill consequents, &c. )
§▪ 31. Rule 17. If any man will say in such a case, (when he thinketh that the imposers sense is bad) I take not the same Oath or Engagement which is imposed, but another in the same words, and I suppose not inferior officers authorized to admit any interpretation, but I look at them only as men that can actually execute or not execute the Laws upon me; and so I take a Vow of my own according to my own sense, though in their words, as a means of my avoiding their severities: As this is a collusion in a very high and tender business; so that person (if the public sense of the oath be sinful) must make his professed sense as public as his Oath or promise; It being no small thing to do that which in the public sense is impious, and so to be an example of perfidiousness to many.
§. 32. Rule 18. Though an Oath imposed by an Usurper or by violence is not to be taken in formal obedience, nor at all, unless the greatness of the benefit require it, yet being taken it is nevertheless obligatory (supposing nothing else do make it void). Man is a free Agent and cannot be forced though he may be frightened: If he swear to a thief for the saving of his life, he voluntarily doth choose the inconveniences of the oath, as a means to save his life. Therefore being a voluntary act it is obligatory. Else there should be no obligation on us to suffer for Christ, but anything might be sworn or done to escape suffering: See of this Dr. Sanderson largely Praelect 4. sect. 14, 15, 16. The Imposition and the Oath are different things. In the Imposition, a thief or Tyrant is the party commanding, and I am the party commanded: And his having no authority to command me, doth nullify only his command, and maketh me not obliged to obey him, nor to take it in any obedience to him: But yet if I do take it without any authority obliging me (as private oaths are taken) it is still an Oath or Vow, in which the Parties are God and man: Man Vowing and making himself a Debtor to God: And God hath Authority to require me to Keep my Vows, when men have no authority to require me to make them. All men confess that private Vows bind: And the nullity of the Imposers authority, maketh them but private Vows. This case is easy and commonly agreed on.
§. 33. Rule 19. If in a complex Vow or promise there be many things which prove materially unlawful, and one or more that are lawful, the conjunction of the things unlawful doth not disoblige me from the Vow of doing the Lawful part. Otherwise a man might make void all his Vows to God, and Oaths and Covenants with men, by putting in something that is Evil with the good: And so God and the King and our Neighbors would all have their debts paid by our sin and injury done them on the by.
§. 34. Rule 20. If some part of that which you Vowed become Impossible, that doth not disoblige you from so much as remaineth possible. As if you vow Allegiance to the King; and Tyrants or disability hinder you from serving him as Subjects in someone particular way, you remain still obliged to serve him by those other ways in which you are yet capable to serve him. So if you had taken an Oath against Popery, to Preach against it, and reject the practice of it, and forever renounce it; this would not bind you from the common truths and duties of Christianity which Papists hold in common with all other Christians: nor could you Preach against Popery, if you were hindered by imprisonment, banishment or restraint: But you have still power to forbear Approving, consenting, subscribing, or practicing their errors: And this you are still bound to do.
§. 35. Rule 21. Though you are not bound to do that of your Vow which changes have made impossible or unlawful, yet if another change make them possible and lawful again, your obligation doth return afresh (unless you made it with such limitation ). It is not a temporary cessation of the matter or end or correlate that will perpetually discharge you from your Vow. If your Wife be taken Captive many years, when she returneth, you are bound to the duties of a Husband. If the King be expelled by Usurpers, you are bound at present to so much duty as is possible, and to obey him as your actual Governor when he returneth. But in the case of servants and Soldiers and other temporary Relations it is otherwise; For a removal may end the Relation itself. If you promise to Preach the Gospel, to medicate the sick, to relieve the poor, to reform your families, &c. you are not hereby obliged to do it, while any unresistible impediment maketh it impossible: But when the hindrance ceaseth, you are obliged to do it again; the matter and your capacity being restored.
§. 36. Rule 22. Therefore many a Vow and promise may be lawfully unperformed, which may not be renounced or disclaimed. When you are taken Captives you must forbear your duty to your King, your father, your husband or wife: but you may not therefore renounce them, and say I have no obligation to them: no not to the death: because they are Relations for life: And how improbable soever it may seem that you should be returned to them, ye God can do it, and you must wait on him.
§. 37. Rule 23. A former Vow or promise is not nullified by a later that contradicteth it. Otherwise a m • n might disoblige himself at his pleasure. Yet he that maketh contrary Vows▪ obligeth himself to contraries and impossibles: and bringeth a necessity of perjury on himself, for not doing the things impossible which he vowed. And in some cases a later promise to men may null a former, when we made the former with the reserve of such a power or liberty, or are justly supposed to have power, to recall a former promise: or when it is the duty of a mutable Relation which we Vow (as of a Physician, a Schoolmaster, &c. ); and by a later Vow we change the Relation itself: (which we may still lawfully change).
§. 38. Rule 24. The Actus jurandi must still be distinguished from the materia juramenti: And it very often cometh to pass that the Act of swearing (or the oath as our act) is unlawfully done, and was a sin from the beginning, and yet it is nevertheless obligatory, as long as the res jurata, the matter sworn is lawful or necessary. Dr. Sanderson instanceth in Joshua 's oath to the Gibeonites. The nature of the thing is proof enough: For many a thing is sinfully done, for want of a due call, or manner or end, that yet is done, and is no nullity. A man may sinfully enter upon the Ministry that yet is bound to do the duty of a Minister: And many marriages are sinful that are no null ties.
§. 39. Rule 25. The nullity of an oath ab initio is quando realiter vel reputative non juravimus: when really or reputatively we did not swear: The sinfulness of an oath is when we did swear really but unlawfully as to the ground or end or matter or manner or circumstances. Really that man did not swear, 1. Who spake not (mentally nor orally) the words of an oath: 2. Who thought those words had signified no such thing, and so had no intent to swear either mentally or verbally. As if an Englishman be taught to use the words of an oath in French, and made believe that they have a contrary sense. 3. Who only narratively recited the words of an oath, as a reporter or historian, without a real or professed intent of swearing. 2. Reputatively he did not swear, 1. Who spake the words of an Oath in his sleep, or in a deliration, distraction, madness, or such prevalent melancholy as mastereth Reason: When a man is not compos mentis his act is not actus humanus: 2. When a man's hand is forcibly moved by another against his will to subscribe the words of an Oath or Covenant. For if it be totally involuntary it is not a moral act. But Words cannot be forced. For he that sweareth to save his life, doth do it voluntarily to save his life. The will may be moved by fear, but not forced. Yet the person that wrongfully frighteneth another into consent, or to swear, hath no right to any benefit which he thought to get by force or fraud, and so in foro civili such Promises, or Covenants or oaths may quoad effectum be reputatively null: And he that by putting his sword to another man's breast doth compel him to swear or subscribe and seal a deed of Gift, may be judged to have no right to it, but to be punishable for the force: But though this Covenant or promise be Null in foro humano because the person cannot acquire a right by violence, yet the Oath is not a Nullity before God: For when God is made a party, he hath a right which is inviolable: and when he is appealed to, or made a witness, his name must not be taken in vain. 3. It is a nullity reputatively when the person is Naturally uncapable of self-obligation: as in infancy when Reason is not come to so much maturity as to be naturally capable of such a work: I say [ Naturally uncapable ] for the Reasons following.
§. 40. Rule 26. We must distinguish between a Natural incapacity of Vowing or Swearing at all, and an incapacity of doing it lawfully: And between a true Nullity, and when the Oath is only quasi nullum, or as Null quoad effectum; or such as I must not keep. There are many real Oaths and Vows which must not be kept, and so far are quasi nulla as to the effecting of the thing Vowed: but they are not simply Null. For they have the effect of making the man a sinner and perjured. They are sinful Vows▪ and therefore Vows. A Natural incapacity proveth it no Vow at all. But if I am naturally capable, and only forbidden (by God or man), this maketh it not No Vow, but a sinful Vow, of which •• me must be kept, and some must not.
§. 41. In these following cases a real Vow is quasi nullum, or must not be kept.
1. In case the thing Vowed (all things considered) be a thing which God hath forbidden to be done: that is, in case it be a thing in itself evil: But if the thing in itself be a duty, though there be some inseparable sins which we shall be guilty of in the performance, we must not therefore leave the duty itself undone which we have vowed: As if I vow to Praise God, and yet am sure that I cannot praise him without a sinful defect of that Love and Delight in him which is due, I must not therefore forbear to praise him: Else we must cast off all other duty, because we cannot do it without some sin. But yet, though in case of unwilling infirmity, we must thus do the duty though we are sure to sin in it, yet in case of any chosen voluntary sin, which we have an immediate power to avoid, we must rather forbear the duty itself (Vowed or not Vowed) than commit such a sin. As i • I vow to preach the Gospel, and am forcibly hindered unless I would voluntarily tell one Lye, or commit one sin willfully for this liberty; I ought rather never to preach the Gospel: nor is it then a duty, but become morally impossible to me: As if in France or Spain I may not preach unless I would take Pope Pius his Trent Confession or Oath. Nay, if those very defects of Love, and wandering thoughts, which now inseparably cleave to my best performances, were morally and immediately in my power, and I could avoid them, I ought not Electively and by Consent to commit them, for any liberty of duty, but rather to forbear the Duty itself, as no Duty to me when it cometh upon such conditions: For then it is supposed that I could serve God better without that Duty, because I could Love him more, &c.
Yet here is observable a great deal of difference between Omissions and Commissions. A man may never commit a sin that good may come by it, though he vowed the good: But a man may oft times omit that which else would have been his duty, to do some good which he hath vowed: For Negative commands bind semper & ad semper: but the Affirmative do not (at least as to outward duty): Therefore in case of necessity a man may himself Consent to the present omission of some good, for the escaping of greater unavoidable omissions another time, or for the performing of a Vow or greater duty which is to be preferred.
§. 42. 2. A Vow is not to be kept, when the matter of it is unjust and injurious to another (unless you have his consent): As if you Vow to give away another man's lands or goods, or to do him wrong by word or deed! Or if you vow to forbear to pay him his due, or to do that which you owe him: As if a servant vow to forbear his Masters work (unless it be so small an injury as he can other ways repair); or a Husband, or Wife, or Parents, or Children, or Prince, or Subjects should Vow to deny their necessary duties to each other. Here man's right together with God's Law doth make it unjust to perform such Vows.
§. 43. 3. A Vow is as Null or not to be kept, when the matter is something that is morally or civilly out of our power to do: As if a Servant, or Child, or Subject vow to do a thing, which he cannot do lawfully without the consent of his superior: This Vow is not simply Null: for it is a sinful Vow! (unless it was conditional): Every rational creature is so far sui juris as that his soul being immediately subject to God, he is capable of obliging himself to God; and so his Vow is a real sinful Vow; when he is not so far sui juris as to be capable of a Lawful Vowing, or doing the thing which he voweth. Such a one is bound to endeavor to get his superiors consent, but not without it to perform his Vow: no though the thing in itself be lawful. For God having antecedently bound me to obey my superiors in all lawful things, I cannot disoblige myself by my own Vows.
§. 44. Yet here are very great difficulties in this case, which causeth difference among the learnedst pious Casuists, 1. If a Governor have before hand made a Law for that which I vow against, it is supposed by many that my Vow is not to be kept (the thing being not against the Law of God): Because the first obligation holdeth: 2. Yet some think that Magistrates Poenal Laws binding but aut ad obedientiam aut ad poenam, to obedience or punishment, I am therefore obliged in indifferent things to bear his penalty, and to keep my Vow. 3. But if I first make an Absolute Vow in a thing indifferent, (as to drink no Wine, or to wear no Silks, &c. ) and the Magistrate afterwards command it me, some think I am bound to keep my Vow; because though I must obey the Magistrate in all things lawful, yet my Vow hath made this particular thing to be to me unlawful before the Magistrate made it a duty: 4. Though others think that even in this case the general obligation to obey my superiors preventeth my obliging myself to any particular which they may forbid in case I had not vowed it, or against any particular which they may command. 5. Others distinguish of things lawful or indifferent, and say that some of them are such as become accidentally so useful or needful to the common good the end of Government, that it is fit the Magistrate make a Law for it, and the breaking of that Law will be so hurtful, that my Vow cannot bind me to it, as being now no indifferent thing: But other indifferent things, they say, belong not to the Magistrate to determine of (as what I shall eat or drink, whether I shall marry or not, what Trade I shall be of, how each Artificer, Tradesman, or Professor of Arts and Sciences shall do the business of his profession, &c. ) And here the Magistrate they think cannot bind them against their Vows, because their power of themselves in such private cases is greater than his power over them in those cases. All these I leave as so many Questions unfit for me to resolve in the midst of the contentions of the Learned. The great Reasons that move on both sides you may easily discern, 1. Those that think an Oath in lawful things, obligeth not contrary to the Magistrates antecedent or subsequent command, are moved by this reason, that else subjects and children might by their Vows exempt themselves from obedience, and null God's command of obeying our superiors. 2. Those that think a Vow is obligatory against a Magistrates command, are moved by this reason, because else, say they, a Magistrate may at his pleasure dispense with all Vows, except in things commanded before by God: For he may come after and cross our Vows by his commands, which, against the Popes pretensions, Protestants have denied to be in the power of any mortal man: And, God, say they, hath the first right, which none can take away. I must not be forward in determining where Rulers are concerned: only to those that may and must determine it, I add these further materials to be considered of.
§. 45. 1. It is most necessary to the decision of this case, to understand how far the Inferior that voweth was sui juris, and had the power of himself when he made the Vow, as to the making of it, and how far he is sui juris as to the act which he hath vowed: and to that end to know, in a case where there is some power over his act, both in his superior and in himself, whether his own power, or his superiors as to that act be the greater.
2. It is therefore needful to distinguish much between those acts that are of Private use and signification only, and those that (antecedently to the Rulers command) are of public use and nature, or such as the Ruler is as much concerned in as the inferior.
3. It is needful to understand the true intent and sense of the command of our superior; whether it be really his intent to bind inferiors to break their Vows, or whether they intend only to bind those that are not so entangled and pre-engaged by a Vow, with a tacit exception of those that are. And what is most just must be presumed, unless the contrary be plain.
4. It must be discerned whether the commands of superiors intend any further penalty than that which is affixed in their Laws: As in our Poenal Laws about using Bow and Arrows; and about fishing, hunting, &c. whether it be intended that the offender be guilty of damnation, or only that the threatened temporal penalty do satisfy the Law: And whether God bind us to any further penalty than the superior intendeth.
5. The End of the Laws of men must be distinguished from the words: And a great difference must be put between those forbidden acts that do no further harm than barely to cross the Letter of the Law, or Will of a Superior, and those that cross the just end of the Command or Law; and that either more or less; as it is more or less hurtful to others, or against the common good: For then the matter will become sinful in itself.
6. Whether Perjury, or the unwilling violation of human Laws, be the greater sin, and which in a doubtful case should be most feared and avoided, it is easy to discern.
§. 46. Rule 27. A Vow may be consequently made Null or Void, 1. By cessation of the matter, or anything essential to it, (of which before §. 13.) or by a Dispensation or dissolution of it by God to whom we are obliged. No doubt, it is in God's power to disoblige a man from his Vow: But how he ever doth such a thing, is all the doubt: extraordinary revelations being ceased, there is this way yet ordinary, viz. by bringing the matter which I vowed to do, under some prohibition of a General Law, by the Changes of his Providence.
§. 47. Rule 28. As to the power of man to dispense with Oaths and Vows, there is a great and most remarkable difference between those Oaths and Vows where Man is the only party that we are primarily bound to, and God is only appealed to as witness or judge, as to the keeping of my word to man; and those Oaths or Vows where God is also made (either only or conjunct with man) the party to whom I primarily oblige myself. For in the first case man can dispense with my Oath or Vow, by remitting his own right, and releasing me from my promise; but in the second case no created power can do it. As e. g. if I promise to pay a man a sum of money, or to do him service, and swear that I will perform it faithfully; if upon some after bargain or consideration he release me of that promise, God releaseth me also; as the Witnesses and Judge have nothing against a man, whom the Creditor hath discharged. But if I Swear or Vow that I will amend my life, or reform my family of some great abuse, or that I will give so much to the poor, or that I will give up myself to the work of the Gospel, or that I will never marry, or never drink Wine, or never consent to Popery or Error, &c. No man can dispense with my Vow, nor directly disoblige me in any such case; because no man can give away God's right: All that man can do in any such case is, to become an occasion of God's disobliging me: If he can so change the case, or my condition, as to bring me under some Law of God, which commandeth me the contrary to my Vow, then God disobligeth me (or maketh it unlawful to keep that Vow). And here because a Vow is commonly taken for such a Promise to God, in which we directly bind ourselves to him, therefore we say, that a Vow (thus strictly taken) cannot be dispensed with by man; though in the sense aforesaid, an Oath sometimes may.
§. 48. The Papists deal most perversely in this point of Dispensing with Caths and Vows: For they give that Power to the Pope over all the Christian world, who is an Usurper, and none of our Governor, which they deny to Princes and Parents that are our undoubted Governors: The Pope may disoblige Vassals from their Oaths of Allegiance to their Princes (as the Council of Lateran before cited), but no King or Parent may disoblige a man from his Oath to the Pope: nay, it a Child vow a Monastical life, and depart from▪ his Parents, they allow not the Parents to disoblige him.
§. 49. Rule 29. In the determining of controversies about the Obligation of Oaths and Vows, it is safest to mark what Scripture saith, and not to presume, upon uncertain pretences of Reason, to release ourselves, where we are not sure that God releaseth us.
§. 50. Rule 30. That observable Chapter, Numb. 30. about dispensations, hath many things in it that are plain for the decision of divers great and usual doubts: But many things which some do collect and conclude as consequential or implied, are doubtful and controverted among the most judicious Expositors and Casuists.
§. 51. 1. It is certain that this Chapter speaketh not of a total Nullity of Vows ab initio, but of a Relaxation, or disannulling of them by superiors. For, 1. Bare silence (which is no efficient cause) doth prove them to be in force. 2. It is not said, [ She is bound, or not bound ]: but [ Her Vow and bond shall stand, v. 4. 7, 9, 11. or shall not stand, v. 5. 12. and He shall make it of none effect: v. 8. The Hebrew verse. 5. signifieth Quia annihilavit pater ejus illud. And v. 8. Et si in die audire virum ejus, annihilaverit illud, & infregerit votum ejus —] 3. It is expressly said, that she had [ bound her soul ] before the dissolution. 4. It is said, The Lord shall forgive her, v. 5, 8, 12. which signifieth a Relaxation of a former bond. Or at the most, the Parents silence is a confirmation, and his disowning it hindereth only the confirmation: So the Chaldee Paraphrase, the Samaritan and Arabic [ Non erunt confirmata. ] The Syriac [ Rata vel irrita erunt ].
2. It is certain that a Father hath the Power of relaxation here mentioned as to an unmarried daughter in her youth living in his house, and a Husband over his Wife: For it is the express words of the Text.
3. It is certain that this power extendeth to Vows about all things in which the inferior is not sui juris, but is under the superiors care and oversight, and cannot perform it (in case there had been no Vow) without the superiors consent.
4. It is certain that it extendeth not only to matters concerning the Governors themselves, but concerning Vows to God, as they are good or hurtful to the inferiors.
5. It is certain that there are some Vows so necessary and clearly for the inferiors good, that in them he is sui juris, and no superior can suspend his Vows: As to have the Lord for his God: and not to commit Idolatry, Murder, Theft, &c. No superior can disoblige us here: For the power of superiors is only for the Inferiors indemnity and good.
6. It is certain that the superiors recall must be speedy or in time, before silence can signify a consent, and make a confirmation of the Vow.
7. It is certain that if the superior have once ratified it by silence or consent, he cannot afterwards disannul it.
8. It is agreed, that if he a while dissent and disannul it, and afterward both inferior and superior consent again, that it remaineth ratified.
9. It is agreed that the superior that can discharge the Vow of the inferior cannot release himself from his own Vows (If the Pope could release all men, who shall release him?)
§. 52. 2. But in these points following there is no such Certainty or Agreement of judgments, because the Text seemeth silent about them, and men conjecture variously as they are prepared. 1. It is uncertain whether any but Women may be released by virtue of this Text: 1. Because the Text expressly distinguishing between a man and a woman doth first say, [ Si Vir—If a man Vow a Vow unto the Lord, or swear an Oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. ] And 2. Because women are only instanced in; when Scripture usually speaketh of them in the Masculine Gender, when it includeth both Sexes, or extendeth it to both. 3. And in the recapitulation in the end, it is said by way of recital of the contents, v. 16. [ These are the Statutes which the Lord commanded Moses between a Man and his Wife; between the Father and his daughter—in her youth in her Fathers house: ] As it he would caution us against extending it any further: And though many good Expositors think that it extendeth equally to Sons as to Daughters▪ in their minority, because there is a parity of reason, yet this is an uncertain conjecture, 1. Because God seemeth by the expression to bound the sense. 2. Because God acquainteth not man with all the reasons of his Laws. 3. Because there may be special reasons for an indulgence to the weaker Sex in such a weighty case. And though still there is a probability it may extend to Sons, it is good keeping to Certainties in matters of such dreadful importance as Oaths and Vows to God.
2. It is uncertain, whether this power of disannulling Vows do belong also to other Superiors, to Princes, to inferior Magistrates, to Pastors, to Masters, to Commanders as to their Soldiers, as well as to Parents and Husbands: some think it doth, because there is, say they, a parity of reason. Others think it is dangerous disannulling Oaths and Vows upon pretences of parity of reason, when it is uncertain whether we know all God's reasons: and they think there is not a parity, and that it extendeth not to others. 1. Because Parents and Husbands are so emphatically named in the Contents in the end, v. 16. 2. Because it had been as easy to God to name the rest. 3. Because there is no instance in Scripture of the exercise of such a power, when there was much occasion for it. 4. Because else Vows signify no more in a Kingdom than the King please, and in an Army than the General and officers please: and among servants than the master please, which is thought a dangerous doctrine. 5 Because there will be an utter uncertainty when a Vow bindeth and when it doth not, to almost all people in the world: For one superior may contradict it, and another or an hundred may be silent: The King and most of the Magistrates through distance will be silent, when a Master or a Justice or a Captain that is at hand may disannul it: one officer may be for it and another against it: A master or a Pastor may be for it, and the Magistrate against it: and so Perjury will become the most controverted sin, and a matter of jest. 6. Because Public Magistrates and Commanders and Pastors have not the near and natural interest in their Inferiors as Parents and Husbands have in their Children and Wives: And therefore Parents have not only a restraining power (as Husbands here also have) but also a disposing power of the Relation of their infant Children, and may enter them in Baptism into the Vow and Covenant of Christianity, the will and act of the Parents standing for the Childs till he come to age: But if you say that upon a Parity of Reason, all Princes and Rulers and Pastors may do so with all that are their inferiors, it will seem incredible to most Christians. 7. Because public Magistrates are justly supposed to be so distant from almost all their individual subjects, as not to be capable of so speedy a disowning their personal Vows. Whatever this Text doth, it is certain that other Texts enough forbid Covenants and Combinations against the Persons or power or rights of our Governors, and not only against them but without them, in cases where our place and calling alloweth us not to act without them. But it is certain that God who commanded all Israel to be entered sucessively into the Covenant of Circumcision with him, would not have held them guiltless for refusing that Covenant, if the Prince had been against it. And few Divines think that a subject or Soldier or servant that hath vowed to forbear wine or feasting or marriage is discharged, if his Prince or Captain or Masters be against it. Jonathan and David were under an Oath of friendship; (called the Lord's oath, 2 Sam. 21. 7.) Saul as a Parent could not discharge Jonathan as being a man at full age. Quaere, whether Saul as a King being against it, did null the oath to David and Jonathan? No, the Scripture showeth the contrary. 8. Because else that benefit which God extendeth only to a weaker sort, would extend to any, the wisest and most learned persons through the world, whose Vows to God even for the afflicting of their own souls, may be nulled by the King or other superiors. Many such reasons are urged in this case.
3. It is uncertain whether this Chapter extend to assertory or testimonial oaths, (if not certain that it doth not: ) It speaketh but of binding their souls in vows to God, which is to offer or do something which by error may prove prejudicial to them. But if a Parent or Husband (much more a King or General) might nullify all the testimonial Oaths of their inferiors that are given in judgment, or discharge all their Subjects from the guilt of all the Lyes or false oaths which they shall take, it would make a great change in the morality of the World.
4. It is not past all Controversy how far this Law is yet in for force: seeing the Mosaical Law as such is abrogated; this can be now no further in force than as it is the Law of nature, or some way confirmed or revived by Christ. The equity seemeth to be natural.
§. 53. Rule 31. It is certain that whoever this power of disannulling Vows belongeth to, and to whomsoever it may be given, that it extendeth not to discharge us from the promise or Vow of that which is antecedently our necessary duty by the Law of God. Else they should dispense with the Law of God, when none but the Law-giver can relax or dispense with his Laws, (unless it be one Superior to the Law-giver): Therefore none can dispense with the Laws of God. But I speak this but of a Duty necessary also as a means to our salvation or the good of others, or the honoring of God: For otherwise as to some smaller things, the Duty may be such as man cannot dispense with, and yet a Vow to do that duty may be unnecessary and sinful. As if I swear to keep all the Law of God, and never to sin, or never to think a sinful thought: To do this is good, but to Vow it is bad, because I may foreknow that I shall break it.
§. 54. Rule 32. In some cases a Vow may oblige you against that which would have been your duty if you had not Vowed, and to do that which would else have been your sin: viz. If it be such a thing as is sin or duty but by some lesser accident, which the accident of a Vow may preponderate or prevail against. As if you swear to give a penny to a wandering beggar, or to one that needeth it, which by all circumstances would have been an unlawful mis-employing of that which should have been better used; yet it seemeth to me your duty to do it when you have vowed it. To cast away a cup of drink is a sin, if it be causelessly: But if you vow to do it, it is hard to say that a man should rather be perjured than cast away a cup of drink, or a penny or a pin: The Jesuits think it lawful to exercise the Obedience of their Novices by bidding them sometime cast a cup of wine into the sink, or do some such action which causelessly done were sin: And shall not a Vow require it more strongly? Suppose it would be your duty to pray or read at such or such an hour of the day (as being fittest to your body and occasions): yet if you have (foolishly) vowed against it, it seemeth to me to be your duty to put it off till another time. For perjury is too great a thing to be yielded to on every such small occasion. Dr. Sanderson (ubi supra ) giveth this instance. If there be a Law that no Citizen elected to it, shall refuse the office of a Praetor: and he that doth refuse it shall be fined: Cajus sweareth that he will not bear the office: His oath is unlawful (and disobedience would have been his sin if he were free) yet it seems he is bound to pay his fine, and disobey the precept of the Law, rather than break his Vow.
§. 55. Rule 33. There are so great a number of sins and duties that are such by accidents and circumstantial alterations, and some of these greater and some less, that it is a matter of exceeding great difficulty in morality to discern when they are indeed sins and duties and when not, which must be by discerning the preponderancy of accidents; and therefore it must be exceeding difficult to discern when a Vow shall weigh down any of these accidents and when not.
§. 56. Rule 34. The exceeding difficulty and frequency of such cases maketh it necessary to those that have such entanglements of vows, to have a very wise and faithful Counselor to help them better to resolve their particular cases, upon the knowledge of every circumstance, than any book or general rules can do, or any that are not so perfectly acquainted with the case. And O what great ability is necessary in Divines that are employed in such works!
§. 57. Rule 35. Thus also the case must be resolved whether an oath bind that hindereth a greater Good which I might do if I had not taken it. In some cases it may bind: As if I swear to acquaint none with some excellent medicine which I could not have known myself unless I had so sworn: or in case that the breaking of the oath, will do more hurt to me or others than the good comes to which I omit: or in case all things considered, the doing of that good hic & nunc is not my duty: See Dr. Sanders. of the difficulties here also, pag. 78, 79.
§. 58. Rule 36. No personal hurt or temporal loss is any sufficient cause for the violation of an oath. He that taketh a false oath, or breaketh a promissory oath for the saving of his life or a thousand men's lives, or for lands or riches or Crowns and Kingdoms, hath no considerable excuse for his perfidiousness and perjury, all temporal things being such inconsiderable trifles in comparison of the will and pleasure of God, and life everlasting: That which will not justify a Lye, will much less justify perjury.
§. 59. Rule 37. If the matter of an oath prove only a Temptation to sin, and not sin itself, it must be kept: But with the greater vigilancy and resolution! As if a man have married a froward Wife that will be a Temptation to him all his life, he is not disobliged from her.
§. 60. Rule 38. If the matter of an Oath be such as maketh me directly the Tempter of myself or others, it is a sin, and not to be kept, unless some greater good preponderate that evil. For though it be no sin to be Tempted, yet it is a sin to Tempt: Though it be no sin to Tempt by a necessary trial (as a Master may lay money before a suspected servant to try whether he be a thief), nor no sin to Tempt accidentally by the performance of a duty (as a holy life doth accidentally Tempt a malignant person to hatred and persecution); yet it is a sin to be Directly and needlessly a Tempter of ourselves or others unto sin; and therefore he that Voweth it must not perform it. As if you had Vowed to persuade any to unchastity, intemperance, error, rebellion, &c.
§. 61. Rule 39. If the matter of an oath be such as accidentally layeth so strong a temptation before men (especially before a multitude), as that we may foresee it's exceeding likely to draw them into sin, when there is no greater good to preponderate the evil of such a temptation, it is a sin to do that thing, though in performance of a Vow. When actions are good or evil only by accident, then Accidents must be put in the balance against each other, and the weightyest must preponderate. As in matter of temporal commodity or discommodity, it is lawful to do that action which accidentally bringeth a smaller hurt to one man, if it bring a greater good to many; or which hurteth a private person to the great good of the Common-wealth: But it is not lawful to do that which clearly tendeth (though but by accident) to do more hurt than good. As to sell powder and arms, when we foresee it will be used against the King and Kingdom; or to sell Ratsbane when you foresee it is like to be used to poison men. Much more should the salvation of many or one be preferred before our temporal commodity; and therefore for a lesser good, we may not tempt men to evil, though but accidentally: As he that liveth where there is but little need of Taverns or Alehouses, and the common use of them is for drunkenness, it is unlawful for him there to sell Ale or Wine, unless he can keep men from being drunk with it: (As if they take it home with them, or be unruly, he cannot.) For thus to be a foreknowing tempter and occasion, unnecessarily, is to be a Moral cause. Two things will warrant a man to do that which by accident tempteth or occasioneth other men to sin: One is a command of God: when it is a duty which we do: The other is a greater good to be attained by the action, which cannot be attained in a less dangerous way. As in a Country where there is so great a necessity of Alehouses and Taverns that the good that is done by them is greater than the hurt is like to be, though some will be drunk; it is lawful to use these trades though some be hurt by it: It is lawful to • ell flesh though some will be gluttonous: It is lawful to use moderate decent ornaments though some vain minds will be tempted by the sight to lust. As it is lawful to go to Sea though some be drowned. To act a Comedy, or play at a lawful game, with all those cautions, which may secure you that the good of it is like to be greater than the hurt, is not unlawful: But to set up a common Play-house or gaming house, where we may foresee that the mischief will be far greater than the good (though the acts were lawful in themselves), this is but to play the Devils part, in laying snares for souls: Men are not thus to be tised to Hell and damned in sport, though but accidentally, and though you Vowed the act.
§. 62. Rule 40. Thus also must the case of scandal be resolved: As scandal signifieth an action that occasioneth another to sin, or a stumbling block at which we foresee he is like to fall to the hurt of his soul, (which is the sense that Christ and the Apostles usually take it in) so it is the same case with this last handled, and needs no other resolution: But as scandal signifieth (in the late abusive sense) the mere displeasing of another, or occasioning him to censure you for a sinner, so you must not break a Vow to escape the censures or displeasure of all the world. Otherwise Pride would be still producing Perjury, and so two of the greatest sins would be maintained.
§. 63. Rule 41. Though in the Question about the obligation of an oath that is taken ignorantly, or by deceit, there be great difficulties, yet this much seemeth clear, 1. That he that is culpably ignorant is more obliged by his vow or contract while he useth all the outward form, than he that is inculpably ignorant. 2. That though the deceit (as the force) of him that I swear to, do forfeit his right to what I promise him, yet my Oath or Vow obligeth me to do or give the thing, having interested God himself in the cause. 3. That all such error of the essentials of an Oath or Vow as Nullifieth it (of which I spake before) or make the matter sinful, do infer a nullity in the obligation (or that it must not be kept) But no smaller error (though caused by Deceit doth disoblige.)
The commonest doubt is, Whether an error about the very person that I swear to, and this caused by his own deceit do disoblige me? All grant that I am obliged notwithstanding any circumstantial error, (as if I think a Woman rich whom I marry, and she prove poor, or wise and godly and she prove foolish or ungodly: yea if the error be about any integral part: as if I think she had two eyes or legs, and she have but one:) And all grant that an error about an essential part, that is, which is essential to the Relation or thing Vowed, (if inculpable at least) disobligeth: As if I took a man in marriage thinking he had been a woman! Or if I took a person for a Pastor, a Physician, a Counselor, a Pilot, that hath no tolerable ability or skill in the essentials of any of those professions. But whether I am bound if I swear to Thomas thinking it was John, or if I marry Leah thinking she is Rachel, is the great doubt. And most Casuists say I am not: And therefore I dare not be bold to contradict them. But I much suspect that they fetched their decision from the Lawyers▪ who truly say, that in foro civili it inferreth no obligation: But whether it do not oblige me Ethically and in foro conscientiae & coeli I much doubt, 1. Because it seemeth the very case of Joshua and the Israelites, who by the guile of the Gibeonites were deceived into an error personarum, taking them to be other persons than they were: And yet that this oath was Obligatory saith Dr. Sanderson is apparent, 1. In the text itself, Josh. 9. 19. 2. In the miracle wrought for that victory which Joshua obtained in defending the Gibeonites, when the Sun stood still, Josh. 10. 8, 13. 3. In the severe revenge that was taken on the lives of Saul's posterity for offering to violate it, 2 Sam. 21. 2. And this seemeth to be the very case of Jacob who took not himself disobliged from Leah notwithstanding the mistake of the person through deceit. And though the Concubitus was added to the contract, that obliged most as it was the perfecting of the Contract, which an Oath doth as strongly. 3. And the nature of the thing doth confirm my doubt; because when I see the person before me there is the individuum determinatum, in the haec hom • , and so all that is essential to my Vow is included in it: If I mistake the name or the quality, or birth or relations of the person, yet my Covenant is with this determinate person that is present, though I be induced to it be a false supposition that she is another. But this I leave to the discussion of the judicious.
§. 64. Rule 42. The question also is weighty and of frequent use, If a man Vow a thing as a duty in obedience to God and Conscience, which he would not have done if he had taken it to be no duty, and if he afterward find that it was no duty, is he obliged to keep this Vow? And the true answer is, that the discovery of his error doth only discover the nullity of his obligation to make that Vow, and to do the thing antecedently to the Vow: But if the thing be lawful he is bound to it by his Vow notwithstanding the mistake which induced him to make it.
§. 65. Rule 43. Vows about trifles (not unlawful) must be kept though they are sinfully made. As if you vow to take up a straw, or to forbear such a bit or sort of meat, or garment, &c. But to make such is a great profanation of God's name, and a taking it in vain as common swearers do.
§. 66. Rule 44. A General Oath though taken upon a particular occasion must be generally or strictly interpreted ( unless there be special reasons for a restraint, from the Matter, End, or other evidence. ) As if you are afraid that your Son should marry such a Woman, and therefore swear him not to marry without your Consent: He is bound thereby neither to marry that Woman not any other. Or if your servant haunt one particular Alehouse, and you make him forswear All Houses in General, he must avoid all other. So Dr. Sanderson instanceth in the Oath of Supremacy, p. 195.
§. 67. Rule 45. He that Voweth absolutely or implicitly to obey another in all things, is bound to obey him in all lawful things, where neither God, nor other superior or other person is injured; unless the nature of the relation, or the ends or reasons of the oath, or something else infer a limitation as implied.
§. 68. Rule 46. Still distinguish between the falsehood in the words as disagreeing to the Thing sworn, and the falsehood of them as disagreeing from the swearers mind. The former is sometime excusable, but the later never.
There are many other Questions about Oaths that belong more to the Chapter of Contracts and Justice between man and man; and thither I refer them.
CHAP. VI. Directions to the People concerning their Internal and Private Duty to their Pastors, and the improvement of their Ministerial Office and Gifts.
THe Peoples Internal and Private duty to their Pastors (which I may treat of without an appearance of • ncroachment upon the work of the Canons, Rubrics and Diocesans) I shall open to you in these Directions following.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Understand first the true Ground, and Nature, and Reasons of the Ministerial Office, or else you will not understand the Grounds, and Nature, and Reasons of your duty to them. The Nature and Works of the Ministerial Office I have so pl • inly opened already that I shall refer you to it to avoid repetition. H • re are two sorts of Reasons to be given you: 1. The Reasons of the necessity of the Ministerial work: 2. Why certain persons must be separated to this work, and it must not be left to all in common.
§. 2. 1. The Necessity of the work itself appeareth in the very Nature of it, and enumeration of the parts of it. Two sorts of Ministers Christ hath made use of for his Church: The first s • rt was for the Revelation of some New Law or Doctrine, to be the Churches Rule of Faith or Life: And these were to prove their authority and credibility by some Divine attestation; which was especially by Miracles; and so Moses revealed the Law to the Jews, and (Christ and) the Apostles revealed the Gospel. The second sort of Ministers are appointed to Guide the Church to salvation by opening and applying the Rule thus already sealed and delivered: And these as they are to bring no new Revelations or Doctrines of faith, or Rule of life▪ so they need not bring any Miracle to prove their call or authority to the Church: For they have no power to deliver any new Doctrine or Gospel to the Church, but only that which is confirmed by Miracles already. And it is impudency to demand that the same Gospel be proved by new Miracles by every Minister that shall expound or preach it: That would make Miracles to be no Miracles.
§. 3. The work of the ordinary Ministry (such as the Priests and Teachers were under the Law, and ordinary Pastors and Teachers are under the Gospel) being only to Gather and Govern the Churches, their work lay in Explaining and Applying the Word of God, and delivering his Sacraments, and now containeth th • se particulars following: 1. To Preach the Gospel for the Conversion of the unbelieving and ungodly world. And that is done, partly by expounding the words by a Translation into a tongue which the hearers or readers understand; and partly by opening the sense and matter. 2. In this they are not only Teachers, but Messengers sent from God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to charge, and command, and entreat men in his N • me to Repent, and believe, and be reconciled to God; and in his Name to offer them a s • all • d pardon of all their sins, and title to eternal life. 3. Those that become the Disciples of Christ, they are (as his Stewards) to receive into his house, as fellow Citizens of the Saints, and of the Household of God; and as his Commissioned Officers, to solemnize by Baptism their entrance into the holy Covenant, and to receive their engagement to God, and to be the Messengers of God's Engagement unto them, and by Investiture to deliver them by that Sacrament, the pardon of all their sin, and their title by Adoption to • ternal life: As a house is delivered by the delivery of a Key, or Land, by a Twig and Turfe, or Knighthood by a Sword or Garter, &c. 4. These Ministers are to gather these Converts into solemn Assemblies, and ordered Churches for their solemn worshipping of God, and mutual edification, communion and safe proceeding in their Christian course. 5. They are to be the stated Teachers of the Assemblies, by expounding and applying that Word which is fit to build them up. 6. They are to be the Guides of the Congregation in public▪ Worship, and to stand between them and Christ in things pertaining to God, as subservient to Christ in his Priestly Office: And so both for the people, and also in their names, to put up the public Prayers and Praises of the Church to God. 7. It is their duty to Administer to them as in the Name and stead of Christ, his Body and Blood as broken and shed for them, and so in the frequent renewals of the holy Covenants to subserve Christ especially in his Priestly Office, to offer and deliver Christ and his benefits to them, and to be their Agent in offering themselves to God. 8. They are appointed to Overs • e and Govern the Church, in the public Ordering of the solemn Worship of God, and in r • buking any that are there disorderly, and seeing that all things be done to edification. 9. They are appointed as Teachers for every particular Member of the Church to have private and personal recourse to (as far as may be), for the resolving of their weighty doubts, and instruction in cases of difficulty and necessity, and for the settling of their peace and comfort. 10. They are appointed, as Physicians under Christ, to watch over all the individual Members of their charge, and take care that they be not infected with Heresy, or corrupted by vice; and to admonish the offenders, and reduce them unto the way of Truth and Holiness, and if they continue impenitent after public admonition, to reject them from the Communion of the Church, and command the Church to avoid them. 11. They are as to bind over the impenitent to answer their contumacy at the Barr of Christ, so to Absolve the penitent, and comfort them, and require the Church to re-admit them to their Communion. 12. They are appointed, as Stewards in the household of Christ, to have a tender care of the very bodily welfare of their flocks, so as to endeavor the supplying of their wants, and stirring up the rich to relieve the poor, and faithfully (by themselves or the Deacons) to distribute what is entrusted with them for that use. 13. They are especially to visit the sick, and when they are sent for, to pray for them and with them, and to instruct them in their special preparations for Death, and confirm them against those last assaults. 14. They are appointed to be the public Champions of the Truth, to defend it against all Heretical and profane opposers, and thereby to preserve the flock from being seduced. 15. They are appointed to be (under Christ the Head) the Nerves and Ligaments of the several Churches, by which they are kept not only in vigor by communication of nutriment, but also in Concord, and such Communion as they are capable of, by the correspondencies and consultations, and councils of their Pastors. All these are the distinct and special uses to which Christ hath appointed the Office of the Sacred Ministry: which having but named to you, I need to say no more to show you the Excellency, and Necessity, and Benefits of it.
§. 4. Herein also the Reasons are apparent, why Christ did institute this Sacred Office. 1. Because it was meet his Kingdom should have Officers, suited to his work in the Administration of it: 2. It was meet that they be Men, like ourselves, that we can familiarly converse with. 3. The great necessity of his Church required it, where the most are weak▪ and insufficient to perform all these Offices for themselves; and cannot well subsist without the support of others. It was meet therefore that the Pastors were selected persons, wiser, and holier, and stronger than the people, and fit for so great and necessary a work. 4. It was requisite also to the Order of the Church: For if it were like an Army without Officers, there would be nothing but confusion, and neither order nor edification.
§. 5 By this you may also see the Nature and Reasons of your Obedience to your Pastors: As they are not appointed to Govern you by force, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, not as being Lord's over God's Heritage, but as ensamples to the flock, so you must willingly and cheerfully obey them in their work. As their Government is not by and bodily penalties or mulcts (for that is the Magistrates work and not theirs) but a Government by the force of TRUTH and LOVE; so your Obedience of them consisteth in the Loving and Thankful reception of the Truth which they teach you, and the mercies which they offer you from Christ.
§. 6. You see then that the Reasons of your obedience are manifold: 1. Some of them from God: He hath sent his Messengers to you, and set his Officers over you; and Christ hath told you that he that heareth them heareth him, and he that despiseth them despiseth him, and him that sent him: He commandeth you to hear and obey them as his Officers. 2. From themselves: They have Authority by their Commission, and they have Ability in their qualifications, which require your obedience and improvement. 3 From yourselves: Have you reason to obey your natural Parents on whom your livelihood in the world dependeth? Have you reason to obey him that tendereth you a Pardon from the King when you are condemned? o • that offereth you Gold or Riches in your want? or that inviteth you to a feast in a time of famine? or that offereth to defend and save you from your enemies? Much more have you reason to obey Christ's Ministers when they call you to Repentance, and offer you pardon of sin, and peace, and salvation, and eternal life. Did you ever hear a man so mad or churlish, as to say to one that offered him Riches, or Liberty, or Life, I am not bound to obey you: Offer them to those that you have authority over! When the Office of the Ministry is as well subservient to Christ as a Savior and Benefactor, as to Christ as your Teacher and your King, the very nature of their work engageth you to obey them as you Love yourselves. If you were in Hell and Christ should send for you out, you would not refuse to go, till the Messenger had proved his authority: And when you are the Heirs of Hell, condemned by the Law, and going thither, will you refuse to turn back, and yield to the offers and commands of Grace, till you have skill enough to read the Ministers Commission?
§. 7. By this also you see, that the power of your Pastors is not absolute, nor coercive and Lordly but Ministerial: And though the Papists make a scorn of the word [ Minister ] it is but in that pride, and p • ssion, and malice which maketh them speak against their knowledge: For their Pope himself calleth himself the Servant of God's Servants; and Paul saith, 1 Cor. 4. 1. Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ, and Stewards of the Mysteries of God, 1 Cor. 3. 5. Who then is Paul, and who is Apollo, but Ministers by whom ye believed, 2 Cor. 3. 6. Who made us able Ministers of the New Testament. 2 Cor. 6. 4. In all things approving ourselves as the Ministers of God: Even Magistrates, yea, and Angels are not too good to be called (and used as) the Ministers of God for the good of his servants, Rom. 13. 3, 6. Heb. 1. 7. and to minister for them shall be heirs of salvation, Heb. 1. 14. Yea, Christ himself is so called, Rom. 15. 8. And therefore you have no more excuse for your disobedience, than for refusing his help that would pull you out of fire or water when you are perishing. You see here that your Pastors cannot command you what they list; nor how they list: They have nothing to do with the Magistrates work; nor can they usurp the Power of a Master over his Servants, nor command you how to do your work and worldly business (except in the Morality of it). In the fifteen particulars before mentioned their work and office doth consist, and in those it is that you owe them a rational obedience.
§. 8. Direct. 2. Know your own Pastors in particular: and know both what you owe to a Minister as a Minister of Christ in common, and what you owe him moreover as your Pastor by special relation and charge. When any Minister of Christ delivereth his Word to you, he must be heard as a Minister of Christ, and not as a Private man: But to your own Pastor you are bound in a peculiar relation, to an ordinary and regular attendance upon his Ministry in all the particulars before mentioned that concern you: Your own Bishop must in a special manner be obeyed:
1. As one that laboreth among you, and is over you in the Lord, and admonisheth you, and preacheth to you the Word of God, watching for your souls as one that must give account, 1 Thess. 5. 12. Heb. 13. 7. 17. and as one that Ruleth well, and especially that laboreth in the Word and Doctrine, 1 Tim. 5. 17. teaching you publicly and from house to house, taking heed to himself, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made him an Overseer, not ceasing to warn everyone night and day with tears. Acts 20. 19, 20, 24, 28, 31, 33. Preaching Christ, and warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that he may present every man perfect in Christ, Col. 1. 28.
2. He is to be obeyed as the Guide of the Congregation in the management of God's public worship: you must seriously and reverently join with him every Lord's Day at least in the public Prayers and Praises of the Church, and not ordinarily go from him to another.
3. You must receive from him or with him, the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ: which of old was administered every Lord's Day, and that only in the Church where the Bishop was, that is, in every Church of the faithful: for as Ignatius most observably saith [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] UNUM ALTARE OMNI ECCLESIAE, ET UNUS EPISCOPUS CUM PRESBITERIO ET DIACONIS —IN EVERY CHURCH there is ONE ALTAR, and ONE BISHOP, WITH THE PRESBYTERY and DEACONS—] So in his Epist. ad Magnes. [ Come all as one, to the Temple of God, as to one Altar, as to one Jesus Christ: ] And saith Tertullian, [ Eucharistae Sacramentum—nec de aliorum manu quam praesidentium sumimus ] We take not the Sacrament of the Eucharist from the hand of any but the President.
4. You must have recourse to him especially for the resolution of your weighty doubts, in private.
5. You must hear your Bishops and Repent, when in Meekness and Love they convince and admonish you against your sins, and not resist the Word of God which they powerfully and patiently lay home to your Consciences, nor put them with grief to cut you off, as impentient in scandalous sins, from the Communion of the Church.
6. You must after any scandalous sin which hath brought you under the censure of the Church, go humble yourselves by penitent confession, and crave absolution and restoration to the Communion of the Church.
7. Your public Church-alms should ordinarily be deposited into the Bishops hands, who relieveth the Orphans and Widows, and is the Curator or Guardian to all absolutely that are in want, saith Ignatius to Poly • . cited by Dr. Hammond on 1 Cor. 12. 28.
8. You must send for him in your sickness to pray with you and advise you: See Dr. Hammond on James 5. 14. And on 1 Cor. 12. 28. he saith, [Polycarp himself speaking of the Elders or Bishops saith, They visit and take care of all that are sick, not neglecting the Widows, the Orphans or the poor: ] And Dr. Hammond on I am. 5. 14. showeth out of Antiquity, that [ One part of the Bishops Office is set down that they are those that Visit all the sick: ] Not but that a stranger may be made use of also; but ordinarily and especially your own Bishop must be sent for: Because as you are his special charge, and he watcheth for your souls as one that must give account, Heb. 13. 17. So it is supposed that he is better acquainted with your spiritual state and life than others are, and therefore in less danger of wronging you by mistake and misapplications: For its supposed that you have acquainted him with your personal condition in your health, having taken him as your ordinary Counselor for your souls, and that he hath acquainted himself with your condition, and confirmed you, and watched over you by name, as Ignatius to Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna saith [ Saepe Congregationes fiant: ex nomine omnes quaere: servos & ancillas ne despicias ] (as Bishop Ushers old Latin Transl. hath it) [Let Congregations be often held: Enquire after all by name: Despise not Servants and Maids. ] The Bishop took notice of every Servant and Maid by name; and he had opportunity to see whether they were in the Congregation.
9. You must use him as your Leader or Champion against all Heretics, Infidels and subtle adversaries of the truth, with whom you are unable to contend yourselves, that your Bishop may clear up and defend the cause of Christ and righteousness, and by irresistible evidence, stop the mouths of all gain-sayers. It is for your own benefit, and not for theirs, that you are required in all these works of their office to use them and readily obey them. And what hurt can it do you to obey them in any of these?
§. 9. Direct. 3. Understand how it is that Christ doth authorize and send forth his Ministers, lest Wolves and deceivers should either obtrude themselves upon you as your lawful Pastors, or should alienate you from th • se that God hath set over you, by puzzling you in subtle questioring or disputing against their call. Not only Paul's warnings, Act. 20. 30. and 2 Tim. 3. 6. but lamentable experience, telleth us what an eager desire there is in Proud and Self-conceited men, to obtrude themselves as Teachers and Pastors on the Churches, to creep into houses and lead people captive, and draw away Disciples after them, and say (and perhaps think) that others are deceivers, and none are the true Teachers indeed but they. And the first part of the art and work of wolves, is to separate you from your Pastors, and catch up the stragglers that are thus separated: The malice, and slanders and lies, and railing of hirelings and deceivers and all the powers of Hell, are principally poured out on the faithful Pastors and leaders of the flocks: The principal work of the Jesuits against you, is to make you believe that your Pastors are no true Pastors, but uncalled private persons, and mere usurpers: and the reason must be, because they have not an Ordination of Bishops successively from the Apostles without interruption. I confess if our interruptions had been half as lamentable as theirs (by their Schisms, and variety of Popes at once; and Popes accused, or condemned by General Councils, for Heretics; and their variety of ways of electing Popes, and their incapacities by Simony, Usurpation, &c. ) I should think at least that our Ancestors had cause to have questioned the calling of some that were then over them. But I will help you in a few words to discern the juggling of these deceivers, by showing you the truth concerning the way of Christ's giving his commission to the Ministers that are truly called, and the needlesness of the proof of an uninterrupted succession of regular ordination, to your reception of your Pastors and their Ministrations.
§. 10. The ministerial commission is contained in, and conveyed by the Law of Christ, which is the Charter of the Church, and every true Bishop or Pastor hath his Power from Christ, and not at all from the efficient conveyance of any mortal man: Even as Kings have their power not from man, but from God himself, but with this difference, that in the Church Christ hath immediately determined of the species of Church offices, but in the Civil Government, only of the Genus (absolutely and immediately.) You cannot have a plainer illustration, than by considering how Mayors and Bailiffs and Constables are annually made in Corporations: The King by his Charter saith that [ every year at a certain time the freemen or Burgesses shall meet, and choose one to be their Mayor, and the Steward or Town Clerk shall give him his oath, and thus or he shall be invested in his place, and this shall be his power and work and no other: ] So the King by his Law appointeth that Constables and Church-wardens shall be chosen in every Parish. Now let our two questions be here decided: 1. Who it is that giveth these Officers their Power? 2. Whether an uninterrupted succession of such officers through all generations since the enacting of that Law be necessary to the validity of the present officers authority? To the first, It is certain that it is the King by his Law or Charter that giveth the officers their power; and that the Corporations and Parishes do not give it them by electing, or investing them: yea though the King hath made such election and Investiture to be in a sort his instrument in the conveying it, it is but, as the opening of the door, to let them in, sine quo non; but it doth not make the Instruments to be at all the Givers of the Power, nor were they the receiving, or containing mediate causes of it. The King never gave them the Power which the officers receive, either to Use, or to Give: but only makes the Electors his Instruments to determine of the person that shall receive the Power immediately from the Law or Charter; and the Investers he ma keth his Instruments of solemnizing the Tradition and admission: which if the Law or Charter make absolutely Necessary ad esse officii, it will be so: but if it make it necessary only ad melius esse, or but for order and regular admittance when no necessity hindereth it, the necessity will be no more. And to the second question, It is plain that the Law which is the Fundamentum juris remaining still the same, if a Parish omit for divers years to choose any Constable or Church-warden, yet the next time they do choose one according to Law, the Law doth authorize him, nevertheless, though there was an interruption or vacancy so long: And so in Corporations, (unless the Law or Charter say the contrary): so is it in the present case. 1. It is the established Law of Christ, which describeth the office, determineth of the degree and kind of power, and Granteth or Conveyeth it, when the person is determined of by the Electors and Ordainers, though by Ordination the Delivery and Admission is regularly to be solemnized; which actions are of just so much necessity as that Law hath made them, and no more. 2. And if there were never so long an interruption or vacancy, he that afterward entereth lawfully, so as to want nothing which the Law of Christ hath made necessary to the Being of the office, doth receive his power nevertheless immediately from the Law of Christ. And Bellarmine himself saith that it is not necessary to the people, and to the validity of Sacraments and offices to them, to know that their Pastors be truly called or ordained: And if it be not necessary to the validity of Sacraments, it is not necessary to the validity of Ordination. And W. Johnson confesseth to me that Consecration is not absolutely necessary ad esse officii to the Pope himself: no nor any one sort of Electors in his Election ( p. 333.) And in his Repl. Term. Expl. pag. 45. he saith [ Neither Papal nor Episcopal jurisdiction (as all the Learned know) depends of Episcopal or Papal ordination: nor was there ever interruptions of successions in Episcopal jurisdiction in any see, for want of that alone, that is necessary for consecrating others validly, and not for jurisdiction over them. ] You see then how little sincerity is in these men's disputations, when they would persuade you to reject your lawful Pastors as no true Ministers of Christ, for want of their Ordination or Succession.
§. 11. Direct. 4. Though the Sacraments and other ministerial offices are valid, when a Minister is qualified ( in his abilities and call ) but with so much as is essential to the office, though he be defective in degree of parts and faithfulness, and have personal faults which prove his own destruction; yet so great is the difference between a holy, heavenly, learned, judicious, experienced, skillful, zealous, laborious, faithful Minister, and an ignorant, ungodly, idle, unskillful one; and so highly should every wise man value the best means and advantages to his eternal happiness, that he should use all lawful means in his power to enjoy and live under such an able, godly, powerful ministry, though he part with his worldly wealth and pleasure to attain it. I know no evil must be done for the attainment of the greatest helps: (For we cannot expect that God should bless a sinful course, or that our sin should tend to the saving of our souls.) And I know God can bless the weakest means, when they are such as he appointeth us to use; and can teach us by Angels when he denieth us the help of men: But Scripture, reason and experience telleth us, that ordinarily he worketh morally by means, and fitteth the means to the work which he will do by them: And as he doth not use to light men by a cold or stone, but by a Candle, nor by a rotten post or Glow-worm so much as by a Torch or Luminary; so he doth not use to work as much, by an ignorant, drunken, idle person; who despiseth the God, the Heaven, the Christ, the Spirit, the Grace, the sacred Word which he Preacheth, and vilifieth both his own, and other men's souls; as he doth by an able and compassionate Minister. And the soul is of so much more worth than the Body, and Eternal things than temporal, that a little commodity to the soul in order to the securing of our salvation, must be prefer • before a great deal of worldly riches. He that knoweth what his soul, hi • S • viour, and Heaven is worth, will not easily sit down contented, under such a dark and dull and st • rving Minister 〈…〉 feeleth he can but little profit by, if better may be had on lawful terms. H • that feeleth no difference between the Ministry of these two sorts of men, it is because he is a stranger to the work of the Gospel on the soul: And if the Gospel (in its truth or worth or use ) be • id, it is • id to them that • re lost, the God of this world having blinded their minds. It must be no small matter that must satis • ie a serious Christian to cast his soul upon any hurtful or dangerous disadvantage. Though Daniel and his company may live well on pulse, yea and Ezekiel upon bread baked with dung, when God will have it so, yet no wise man will choose such a diet, especially if his diseases require the exactest diet, or his weakness the most restorative, and all to • little; which, alas, is the common case. Yet this caution you must here take with you, 1. That you pretend not your own Benefit, to the common loss or hurt of others. 2. And that you consider as well where you may do most good, as where you may get most: For the way of greatest service, is the way of Greatest gain.
§. 12. Direct. 5. Understand what sort and measure of Belief it is that you owe to your Teachers, that so your incredulity hinder not your faith in Christ, nor your overmuch credulity betray you not to heresy, nor make you the servants of men, contrary to Matth. 23. 8, 9, 10. Ephes. 4. 13. 2 Cor. 1. 24. Act. 20. 30. We see on one side how many poor souls are cheated into Schism and dangerous • rrours, by forsaking their • eachers and refusing their necessary help, and all upon this pretence, that [they must not make men the Lord's of their faith, nor pin their faith on the Ministers sleeve, nor take their Religion upon trust]. And on the other side we see among the Papists, and in every Sect, what lamentable work is made by an overmuch credulity and belief of ambitious, worldly, factious, proud and erroneous Guides. That you may escape both these extremes you must observe the truth of these conclusions following, which show you what it is that your Teachers have to Reveal unto you, and in what Order, and how far the several particulars are, or are not to be taken upon their words.
§. 13. And first, as a preparative, it is presupposed, 1. That you find yourself ignorant, and one that needeth a Teacher: For i • you think you know all that you need to know already, you are like a full bottle that will hold no more. 2. It is presupposed that you take the man that you learn of to be wiser than yourself and fit to teach you: either because fame or other men's reports have told you so (as the Woman John. 4. drew the Samaritans to Christ), or because his own Profession of skill doth make you think so (as you will hearken to him that professeth to be able to Teach you any Art or Science): Or else because your present hearing his discourse doth convince you of his Wisdom: By one of these means you are brought to think that he is one that you may learn of, and is fit for you to hear: (so that here is no need that first you take him to be infallible, or that you know which is the true Church, as the Papists say) These are presupposed.
§. 14. The Doctrines which he is to teach you are these, and in this method to be taught. 1. He will teach you the natural knowledge of yourself; that being a man▪ you are a Rational free ag • nt, made by another for his will and use, and by him to be Ruled in order to your ultimate end, being wholly his, and at his dispose.
§. 15. 2. He will next teach you that there is a God that made you, and what he is, and what relation he standeth in to you, and you to him, as your Creator, your Owner, your Ruler and your Benefactor and your End: And what duty you owe him in these Relations, to submit to him and resign yourselves to him as his own, to be obedient to all his Laws, and to Love him and delight in him: and this with all your heart and soul and might; even to serve him with all the Powers of your soul and Body and with your estates and all his blessings.
§. 16. 3. He will next teach you that this God hath made your souls immortal, and that there is a lite after this where everlasting Happiness or M • sery will be your part, and where the Great Rewards and Punishments are executed by the Judge o • all the World as men have behaved themselves in this present life. That your End and happiness is not here, but in the life to come, and that this Life is th • way and time of preparation, in which everlasting Happiness is won or lost.
§. 17. Thus far he needeth no supernatural proof of what he saith; but can prove it all to you from the light of nature: And these things you are not primarily to receive of him as a Testifier by m • er Believing him; but as a Teacher by Learning of him the Evidences by which you may by degrees come to know these things yourselves.
§. 18. Yet it is supposed that all along you give him so much credit as the difference between his Knowledge and yours doth require, so far as it appeareth to you: As you will hear a Physician, a Lawyer, a Philosopher, or any man with reverence, while he discourseth of the matters of his own profession; as confessing his judgment to be better than yours, and therefore more suspecting your own apprehensions than his. Not but that the Truth may compel you to discern it, though you should come with no such reverence or respect to him; but then you cast yourself upon much disadvantage irrationally: And this human belief of him is but a medium to your Learning, and so to the knowledge of the matter: so that you do not stop and rest in his authority or credibility, but only use it in order to your discovery of that evidence which you rest in, which as a Teacher he acquaints you with.
§. 19. These things being thus far revealed by natural light are (usually) at first apprehended by natural reason, not so as presently to put or prove the soul in a state of saving grace; but so as to awaken it to make further enquiry, and so when the soul is come so far as to see the same truths by supernatural Grace in the supernatural revelation of the Holy Scriptures, then they become more effectual and sa • ing, which before were known but preparatorily: And so the same Truths are then both the objects of Knowledge and of faith.
§. 20. 4. Having acquainted you with man's ultimate End and Happiness in the life to come, the next thing to be taught you by the Ministers of Christ is, that [ Christ as our Savior, and faith and repentance and sincere obedience to be performed by us through his grace, is the way to Heaven, or the means by which we must attain this end ]. Though the Knowledge of the Preachers wisdom, piety and credibility remove some impediments which would make the receiving of this the more difficult to you, yet you are not to take it barely on his word, as a point of human faith; but you are to call for his proof of it, that you may see better reasons than his affirmations for the entertainment of it.
§. 21. 5. The proof that he will give you is in these two Propositions, 1. God's Revelations are all true: 2. This is one of God's Revelations: This is an argument [ Whatsoever God saith is true: But this God saith, Therefore this is true. ] The first Proposition you • re not to take upon the trust of his word, but to learn of him as a Teacher to know it in its proper Evidence: For it is the formal object of your faith: The veracity of God is first known to you, by the same Evidence and means as you know that there is a God: And then it is by the force of this that you believe the particular truths which are the material object of faith. 2. And the second Proposition [ that God hath revealed this ] is orderly to be first proved, and so received upon its proper evidence; and not taken merely upon your Teachers word: Yet if you do believe him by a human faith as a man that is likely to know what he saith, and this in order to a Divine faith, it will not hinder, but help your Divine faith and salvation; and is indeed no more than is your duty.
§. 22. Here not, 1. That primarily these two Great Principles of faith, [ God is True, and this is God's revelation ] are not themselves Credenda, the Material objects of Divine faith, but of Knowledge. 2. That yet the result of both is de fide, matter of faith. 3. And the same principles are secondarily de fide, as it is that there is a God. For though they are first to be known by natural evidence, yet when the Scripture is opened to us, we shall find them there revealed: And so the same thing may be the object both of knowledge and of faith. 4. And Faith itself is a sort of Knowledge: For though human faith have that uncertainty in its premises (for the most part), as forbiddeth us to say (properly) I know this to be true, because such a man said it: Yet Divine faith hath that certainty which may make it an excellent sort of Knowledge: (as I have proved copiously elsewhere.) In believing man we argue thus [ Whatsoever so wise and honest a man saith, is credible, that is, most likely to be true: But this he saith: Therefore, &c. But in believing God we argue thus: Whatever God saith is credible, that is, as infallible truth: But this God saith, Therefore, &c.] So that the word Credible, signifieth not the same thing in the two arguments; nor is Divine Faith, and Human faith the same.
§. 23. 6. The next thing that the Preacher hath to teach you is the proof of the foresaid Minor Proposition (for the Major was proved in the proof of a Deity ) And that is thus: The Gospel which Christ and his Apostles first Preached, and is now delivered in the Sacred Scriptures is the Word (or infallible revelation of God: ) But this doctrine, that Christ, with faith and Repentance and obedience on our parts, are the way to life Eternal, is the Gospel which Christ and his Apostles first Preached, &c. Therefore it is the Word of God. For the Minor you need not take your Teachers word, if you can read; for you may see it in the Books: (of which more anon): But the Major is that which all men will desire to be assured of (that the Gospel is God's word ) And for that, though a Belief of your Teacher is a help and good preparatory yet you are not there to stop, but to use him as a Teacher to show you the Truth of it in the proofs: (else you must take anything for God's Word, which your Teacher affirmeth to be such). And the proof which he will give you, must be some Divine attestation which may be shown to those whom we would convince.
§. 24. 7. This Divine attestation, which he is next to show you, hath many parts (that it may be complete and satisfactory) 1. God's antecedent Testimony. 2. His inherent or impressed testimony. 3. His adherent concomitant Testimony. 4. His subsequent Testimony. 1. God's Antecedent Testimony by which he attesteth the Gospel, is the train of Promises, Prophesies, Types, and the preparing Ministry of John, which all foretold Christ, and were fulfilled in him. 2. God's impressed testimony, is that Image and superscription of God (in his Governing-wisdom, Holiness and Love) which is unimmitably engraven on the Gospel; as an Image upon a seal, which is thereby made the Instrument to imprint the same on other things. Thus as the Sun, the Gospel shineth, and proveth itself by its proper light. 3. The con • omitant attestation of God is that of [ multitudes of certain uncontrolled miracles; ] done by Christ and his Apostles, which proved the approving hand of God, and oblige all rational creatures to believe a testimony so confirmed to them. Among these Christ's own Resurrection and Ascension, and the Gifts of his Apostles are the chief. 4. The subsequent attestation of God is, the power and efficacy of the Gospel, in calling and sanctifying unto Christ a peculiar people zealous of good works, and directing and confirming them against all temptations and torments to the end: Producing that same Image of God on the souls of his Elect, which is (more perfectly engraven on the word itself:) making such changes, and gathering such a people unto God, as no other doctrine ever did. And all these four attestations are but one, even the Holy Spirit, who is become the great witness of Christ and his Gospel in the World: viz. 1. The spirit of Prophesy is the antecedent attestation: 2. The Holy Image which the spirit hath Printed on the Gospel itself, is the inherent evidence. 3. The miracles of the spirit, is the concomitant attestation or evidence. 4. And the sanctifying work of the spirit is the subsequent attestation, renewed and accompanying it to the end of the World. So that the Argument runs thus [ That doctrine which hath this witness of the Holy Ghost, antecedently in such prophecies, inherently bearing his image so unimitably, accompanied by so many certain uncontrolled miracles, and followed and attended with such matchless success in the sanctification of the body of Christ, is fully attested by God to be his own: But such is the doctrine of the Gospel? ] Therefore, &c. The Major you are not to take upon trust from your Teachers (though your esteem of their judgment may the better dispose you to learn); But you are to discern the evidences of truth which is apparent in it. For he that denieth this must by force of argument be driven to deny, 1. Either that God is the Governor of the World; or that he is the supreme; but say he is controlled by another: 3. Or that he is Good and True; and must affirm that he either Governeth the world by mere deceits, and undiscernable lies, or that he hath given up the power to someone that so governeth it: All which is but to affirm that there is no God (which is supposed to be proved before.)
§. 25. 8. There now remaineth nothing to be taught you, as to prove the truth of the Gospel but only those matters of fact which are contained and supposed in the Minor of the two last arguments: And they are these particulars. 1. That there were such persons as Christ and his Apostles, and such a Gospel Preached by them. 2. That such Miracles were done by them, as are supposed. 3. That both Doctrine and Miracles were committed to writing by them, in the Scriptures, for the certainer preserving them to the Churches use. 4. That Churches were planted, and souls converted and confirmed by them in the first ages, many of whom did seal them with their blood. 5. That there have been a succession of such Churches as have adhered to this Christ and Gospel. 6. That this which we call the Bible is that very Book containing those sacred Writings fore-mentioned. 7. That it hath been still copyed out, and preserved without any such depravation or corruption as might frustrate its ends. 8. That the Copies are such out of which we have them Translated, and which we show. 9. That they are so truly translated as to have no such corruptions or mistakes, as to frustrate their ends, or make them unapt for the work they were appointed to. 10. That these particular words are indeed here written which we read; and these particular Doctrines containing the Essentials of Christianity, together with the rest of the material objects of faith.
§. 26. All these ten particulars are matters of fact that are merely subservient to the constitutingprinciples of our faith; but yet very needful to be known. Now the question is, How these must be known, and received by us, so as not to invalidate our faith? And how far our Teachers must be here believed? And first it is very useful to us to inquire, How so many of these matters of fact as were then existent were known to the first Christians? As How knew they in those days that there were such persons as Christ and his Apostles? that they preached such Doctrines, and spake such Languages, and did such Works, and that they wrote such Books, and sent such Epistles to the Churches, and that Churches were hereby converted and confirmed, and Martyrs sealed this with their blood; &c. Its easy to tell how they were certain of all these: Even by their own eyes, and ears, and sensible observation, as we know that there are Englishmen live in England: And those that were remoter from some of the matters of fact, knew them by such report of those that did see them, as those among us that never saw the King, or Court, or his Restoration, do know that such a thing there was, and such a person there is. Thus they knew it then.
§▪ 27. From whence I note, 1. That in those days it was not necessary to the being of true faith, that any supernatural testimony of the Spirit, or any other sort of proof, than their very senses and reason, should acquaint them with those matters of fact which they were eye-witnesses of. 2. That credible report or history was then the means for any one that saw not a matter of fact to know as much as they that saw it. 3. That therefore this is now the way also of producing faith: Some things we have yet sight and sense for: as that such Bibles, and such Churches are existent; that such holy effects this Doctrine hath upon the soul (which we see in others by the fruits; and after feel in ourselves:) The rest we must know by History, Tradition, or Report.
§. 28. And in the reception of these historical passages note further, 1. That human belief is here a naturally necessary means to acquaint us with the matter of our Divine belief: 2. That there are various degrees of this belief, and some need more of it by far than others, according to the various degrees of their ignorance: As he that cannot read himself, must know by human belief (in great part) that the Preacher readeth truly, or that such words indeed are in the Gospel as he saith are there: But a literate person may know this by his eye▪ sight, and not take it upon trust. So he that understandeth not Hebrew and Greek, must take it upon trust that the Scripture is truly translated: But another that understandeth those Tongues, may see it with his eyes. 3. History being the proper means to know matters of fact that are done in times past, and out of our sight, the same industry that is necessary to a thorough acquaintance with other History, is necessary to the same acquaintance with this: 4. That the common beginning of receiving all such historical truths, is first by Believing our Teachers so far as becometh Learners, and in the mean time going on to Learn till we come to know as much as they, and upon the same historical Evidence as they. 5. That if any man be here necessitated to take more than others upon the trust or belief of their Teachers, it is long of their Ignorance: and therefore if such cry out against their taking things on trust, it is like a mad man's raving against them that would order him: or as if one should reproach a Nurse for feeding Infants, and not letting them feed themselves. Oportet discentem credere: He that will not believe his Teacher will never learn. If a Child will not believe his Master, that tells him which are the Letters, the Vowels and Consonants, and what is their power, and what they spell, and what every word signifieth in the Language which he is teaching him, will he be ever the better for his teaching? 6. That he that knoweth these historical matters no otherwise than by the belief of his particular Teacher, may nevertheless have a Divine and saving faith: For though he believe by a human faith that these things were done, that this is the same Book, &c. yet he believeth the Gospel itself (thus brought to his knowledge) because God is true that hath attested it. Even as it was a saving faith in Mary and Martha that knew by their eyes and ears, and not only by Belief, that Lazarus was raised, and that Christ preached thus and thus to them: but believed his Doctrine to be true, because of God's Veracity who attested it. 7. That it is the great wisdom and mercy of God to his weak and ignorant people, to provide them Teachers to acquaint them with these things, and to • ou chsafe them such a help to their salvation; as to make it a standing Office in his Church to the end of the world, that the Infants and ignorant might not be cast off, but have Fathers, and Nurses, and Teachers to take care of them. 8. But specially mark, that yet these Infants have much disadvantage in comparison of others, that know all these matters of fact by the same convincing evidence as their Teachers: And that he that followeth on to learn it as he ought, may come to prove these subservient matters of fact, by such a concurrence of evidences, as amounteth to an infalibility or moral certainty, beyond mere human faith as such: As e. g. an illiterate person that hath it but from others, may be certain that it is indeed a Bible which is ordinarily read and preached to him; and that it is so truly translated as to be a sufficient Rule of faith and life, having no mistake which must hazard a man's salvation: Because the Bible in the Original tongues is so commonly to be had, and so many among us understand it, and there is among them so great a contrariety of judgments and interests, that it is not possible but many would detect such a public lie, if any should deal falsely in so weighty and evident a case. There is a Moral certainty (equal to a Natural) that some actions will not be done by whole Countries which every individual person hath power and natural liberty to do: As e. g. there is no man in the Kingdom but may possibly kill himself, or may fast tomorrow, or may lie in bed many days together. And yet it is certain, that all the people in England will do none of these: So it is possible that any single person may lie even in a palpable public case, as to pretend that this is a Bible when it is some other Book, or that this is the same Book that was received from the Apostles by the Churches of that age, when it is not it, &c. But for all the Country, and all the world that are competent witnesses, to agree to do this, is a mere impossibility, I mean such a thing as cannot be done without a Miracle, yea, an universal Miracle. And more than so, it is impossible that God should do a Miracle to accomplish such an universal wickedness and deceit; whereas it is possible that natural causes by a Miracle may be turned out of course, where there is nothing in the nature of God against it (as that the Son should stand still, &c. ) We have a certainty that there was a Julius Caesar, a William the Conqueror, an Aristotle, a Cicero, an Augustine, a Chrysostom, and that the Laws and Statures of the Land were really enacted by the Kings and Parliaments whose names they bear; because the Natural and Civil interest • of so many thousands that are able to detect it, could never be reconciled here to a deceit. When Judges and Counselors, Kings and Nobles, and Plaintiffs and Defendants utter enemies are all agreed in it, it is more certain to a single person than if he had seen the passing of them with his eyes. So in our case, when an Office was stablished in the Church, to read and preach this Gospel in the Assemblies; and when all the Congregations took it as the Charter of their salvation, and the Rule of their faith and life, and when these Pastors and Churches were dispersed over all the Christian world, who thus worshipped God from day today; and all Sects and enemies were ready to have detected a falsification or deceit, it is here as impossible for such a Kind of History, or Tradition, or testimony to be false, in such material points of fact, as for one man's senses to deceive him, and much more.
§. 29. Thus I have at once shown you the true order of the Preaching, and proofs, and receiving of the several matters of Religion, and how and into what our Faith must be resolved; and how far your Teachers are to be Believed? And here you must specially observe two things: 1. That there can be no danger in this Resolution of faith, of derogating either from the work of the Holy Ghost, or the Scriptures self-evidence, or any other cause what ever: Because we ascribe nothing to History or Tradition which was ascribed to any of these causes by the first Christians; but only put our Reception by Tradition instead of their Reception immediately by sense: Our receiving by infallible history, is but in the place of their receiving by sight; and not in the place of the self-evidence of Scripture, or any testimony or teaching of the Spirit. The method is exactly laid down, Heb. 2. 3, 4. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by them that heard him: God also • earing them witness both with signs and wonders and divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will. Here is the sum of what I have been saying.
§. 30. 2. Observe also the great difference between us and the Papists in this controversy of using Tradition in the resolution of our Faith. 1. They decide the main question in gross by Tradition, viz. Whether the Scripture be the Word of God? But we only decide the questions about history or matters of fact by it, which are subservient to the other. 2. The Tradition which most of them plead is nothing but the Authoritative judgment of the successive Pastors of the Church in a General Council confirmed by the Pope, and as another faction among them saith, The reception of the whole Church both Laity and Clergy; and this Church must be only the Roman faction: But the Tradition which we plead is the concurrent Testimony of friends and foes, Orthodox and Heretics; and of all the Churches throughout the world, both Greek and Latin, Ethiopian, Armenian, Protestants, &c. And this Testimony we plead, not merely as a human testimony (much less as such as is credible chiefly for the mere Power (real or pretended) of the Testifiers: but as such as by a concurrence of testimonies and circumstances hath (besides the Teachers authority) the evidences of infallible moral certainty, in the very History; as we have of the Statutes of the Realm.
§. 31. Direct. 6. Understand what kind and measure of Obedience it is that you owe your lawful Pastors, that you neither prove Schismatical and unruly, nor yet have a hand in setting up Idols and usurpations in the Church. This you may learn from the foregoing description of the Pastors work. The kind of your obedience is commensurate to the kind of his Office and Work. You are not to obey your Pastors, as Civil Magistrates that bear the Sword; nor as Physicians to tell you what you must do for your health, nor as Artificers to command you how to plow, and sow, and trade, &c. (except in the Morality of these): But it is as your Teachers and Guides in the matters of salvation that you must obey them. And that not as Prophets or Law-givers to the Church; but as the stated Officers of Christ to open and apply the Laws that he hath given, and determine of such circumstances as are subservient thereunto. Not as those that have dominion of your faith, or may preach another Gospel, or contradict any truth of God, which by Scripture or Nature he hath revealed, or can dispence with any duty which he hath commanded: But as those that have all their power from God, and for God and your salvation, and the good of other men's souls; to edification only, and not to destruction: Particular cases I here purposely forbear.
§. 32. Direct. 7. Be sure that you look on them as the Officers of Christ in all that they do as such; and see not only their natural, but their Ecclesiastical Persons, that through them you may have to do with God. Especially in Preaching and Administring the Sacraments, and binding the impenitent, and absolving the penitent, and comforting the sad and humbled souls. All the holiness, and life, and power of your spiritual converse with them consisteth in your seeing and conversing with God in them, and using them as his Messengers or Officers, that deliver his message and do his work, and not their own. If you disobey them in his work, it is God that you disobey: And if they Teach you his Word, or deliver you Christ and his benefits in the Sacraments, it is Christ himself that doth it by them as by his instruments, so far as they do it according to his Commission and his Will. This observing Christ in their Teaching will possess you with due reverence and care, and cause you to do it as a holy work: And to see Christ in them, delivering and sealing his Covenant to you, will very much increase your joy: when Man as Man is but a shadow.
§. 33. Direct. 8. Make use of their help in private, and not in public only: As the use of a Physician is not only to read a Lecture of Physic to his Patients, but to be ready to direct every person according to their particular case (there being such variety of temperatures, diseases and accidents, that in dangerous cases the direction of the judicious is needful in the application): So here, it is not the least of the Pastoral work, to oversee the individuals, and to give them personally such particular advice as their case requireth. Never expect that all thy Books, or Sermons, or Prayers, or Meditations should serve thy turn without the counsel of thy Pastors, in greater cases: for that were but to devise how to prove God's Officers needless to his Church. If thou be an ignorant or unconverted sinner, go to the Minister, and ask him, what thou must do to be saved? And resolve to follow his sound advice. If thou be in doubt of any weighty point of faith or godliness, or assaulted perillously by any adversary, or need his advice for thy settled Peace, thy assurance of Pardon and Salvation, and thy preparation for death; go ask counsel of thy Pastors, and receive their help with readiness and thankfulness: Or if thou live where there is none that is able and willing thus to help thee, remove to them that are such, if lawfully thou canst.
§. 34. Direct. 9. Assist your Pastors in the work of God, by the duties of your places which tend thereto: Labor by your holy serious conference, to instruct the ignorant, and convince the unbelieving, and convert the ungodly, and strengthen the weak, with whom you have fit opportunity for such work. Labor by your holy examples, by Love and Concord, and Meekness, and Sobriety, and contempt of the world, and a heavenly life, to shine as lights in the midst of a dark and crooked Generation. Preach all of you, by the examples of your blameless, humble holy lives: O how abundantly would this course promote the success of the public preaching of the Gospel? If you would cause those men to see the glory and power of the Gospel in your holy and heavenly lives, who cannot see it in itself: Then many that would not be won by the Word, might be won without it (to seek after it at least) by your conversations. Thus all must preach and be helpers of the Ministers of Christ.
§. 35. Direct. 10. Forsake not your faithful Pastors to follow deceivers; but adhere to them who spend and are spent for you: Defend their innocence against false accusers; and refuse them not such maintenance as is needful to their entire giving up themselves to that holy work to which they are devoted: Read and study well Ephes. 4. 13, 14, 15. Acts 20. 30. It is for your sakes that your faithful Pastors are singled out in the world to bear the slanders and contradictions of the wicked; and to lead the way in the fiery trial. If they would forsake you, and that sacred truth and duty that is needful to your salvation, and sell you up into the hands of cruel and deceitful men, it were as easy for them to have the applause of men, and the prosperity of the world as others: It is perfidious ingratitude to forsake them in every trial, that must lose their lives and all the world, rather then forsake you or betray your souls: Or to grudge them food and raiment that lay by the gainful employments of the world, that they may attend continually on the service of your souls.
CHAP. VII. Directions for the discovery of the Truth among Contenders, and the escape of Heresy and Deceit.
§. 1. THough Truth be naturally the Object of man's Understanding, to which it hath a certain inclination, and though it be a delightful thing to know the truth: yet that which is saving meeteth with so much opposition in the flesh, and in the world, that while it is applauded in the general, it is resisted and rejected in particulars: And yet while the Use of holy truth is hated and obstinately cast away, the name and the barren profession of it is made the matter of the glorying of hypocrites, and the occasion of reproaching dissenters as Heretics, and the world is filled with bloody persecutions, and inhumane implacable enmities and divisions, by a wonderful zeal for the Name of Truth, even by those men that will rather venture on damnation, than they will obey the Truth which they so contend for: Multitudes of men have tormented or murdered others as Heretics, who themselves must be tormented in Hell, for not being Christians. It concerneth us therefore to deal very wisely, and cautelously in this business.
§. 2. Direct. 1. Take heed lest there be any carnal interest or lust which maketh you unwilling to receive the truth, or inclineth you to error that it may serve that interest or lust. It is no small number of men that are strangers or enemies to the truth, not because they cannot attain the knowledge of it, but because they would not have it to be truth. And men of great learning and natural parts are frequently thus deceived and led into error by a naughty carnal biased heart: Either because that error is the vulgar opinion, and necessary to maintain their popular reputation, and avoid reproach; or because it is the way of men in power, and necessary to their preferment and greatness in the world; or because the Truth is contrary to their fleshly lusts and pleasures, or contrary to their honor and worldly interest; and would hazard their reputations or their lives. How loath is a sensual ungodly man to believe, that without Holiness none shall see God, and that he that is in Christ is a new creature, and that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his, and that if they live after the flesh they shall die? How loath is the ambitious Minister to believe that the way of Christ's service lieth not in worldly pomp, or ease, or pleasures, but in taking up the Cross, and following Christ in self-denial, and in being as the servant of all, in the unwearied performance of careful oversight, and compassionate exhortations unto all the flock. Let a controversy be raised about any of these points, and the mind of lazy ambitious men doth presently fall in with that part which gratifieth their fleshly lusts, and excuseth them from that toilsome way of duty, which they already hate. The secret lusts and vices of a false hypocritical heart, are the commonest and the powerfullest arguments for error: And such men are glad, that Great men, or Learned men will give so much ease to their consciences, and shelter to their reputations, as to countenance, or make a Controversy at least of that which their lusts desire to be true. Above all, therefore see that you come not to inquire after Truth with an unsanctified heart, and unmortified lusts; which are a bias to your minds, and make you warp from the truth which you inquire after: For if the carnal mind neither is nor can be subject to the Law of God, you may easily perceive that it will be loath to believe it; when in so doing they believe their own condemnation. An honest sanctified heart is fittest to entertain the truth.
§. 3. Direct. 2. Seek after the truth for the love of truth, and love it especially for its special use, as it formeth the heart and life to the Image and Will of God; and not for the fanciful delight of knowing; much less for carnal worldly ends. No means are used at all as means, where the End is not first determined of. And to do the same thing materially to another end, is not indeed to do the same: For thereby its made another thing. Your Physician will come to you if you you seek to him as a Physician; but not if you send to him to mend your Shoos. So if you seek knowledge for the true ends of knowledge, to fill your hearts with the Love of God, and guide your lives in holiness and righteousness, God is engaged to help you in the search: But if you seek it only for to please your pride or fancy, no wonder if you miss of it; and it is no great matter whether you find it or not, for any good its like to do you: Every Truth of God is appointed to be his Instrument, to do some holy work upon your heart: Let the Love of Holiness be it that maketh you search after Truth, and then you may expect that God should be your teacher.
§. 4. Direct. 3. Seek after Truth without too great or too small regard to the judgment of others: neither contemn them, nor be captivated to them: Use the help of the wise; but give not up your Reason absolutely to any. Engage not yourselves in a Party, so as to espouse their errors, or implicitly to believe whatever they say: For this breedeth in you a secret desire to please your party, and interesseth you in their dividing interest, and maketh you betray the Truth to be accounted Orthodox by those you value.
§. 5. Direct. 4. Take heed of Pride, which will make you dote upon your own conceits, and cause you to slight the weightiest reasons that are brought by others, for your conviction. And if once you have espoused an error it will engage all your wit, and zeal, and diligence to maintain it: It will make you uncharitable and furious against all that cross you in your way: and so make you either Persecutors (if you stand on the higher ground) or Sect-leaders, or Church-dividers and turbulent and censorious if you are on the lower ground. There is very great reason in Paul's advice for the choice of a Bishop, 1 Tim. 3. 6. Not a Novice; lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil. It is no more wonder to see a Proud man erroneous, and in the confidence of his own understanding, to rage against all that tell him he is mistaken, than to hear a drunken man boasting of his wit, to the increase of his shame.
§. 6. Direct. 5. Take heed of slothfulness and impatience in searching after Truth, and think not to find it in difficult cases, without both hard and patient studies, and ripeness of understanding to enable you therein: And suspect all opinions which are the offspring of idleness and ease, what ever Divine illumination they may pretend (except as you take them from others upon trust (in a slothful way, who attained them by diligent studies) For God that hath called men to labor, doth use to give his blessing to the laborious: And he that hath said by his Spirit, 1 Tim. 4. 15. Meditate upon these things: give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all doth accordingly cause those men to profit, who seek it in this laborious way of his appointment: And he that hath said, The desire of the slothful killeth him, doth not use to bless the slothful with his teachings. He that will say to him in judgment, Thou wicked and slothful servant, will not encourage the slothfulness which he condemneth. My Son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; so that thou incline thine ear to wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding. Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding: If thou seekest her as Silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God: For the Lord giveth Wisdom: Prov. 2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Mark here to whom God giveth wisdom: All the godly are taught of God: But mark here how it is that he teacheth them. Not while they scorn at Studies and Universities, and look that their knowledge should cost them nothing, or that the Spirit should be instead of serious studies, or that their understandings should discern whats true or false at the first appearance: But while they think no pains or patience too great to learn the truth in the School of Christ.
§. 7. Direct 6. Keep out Passion from your Disputes, and in the management of all your controversies in Religion. For though Passion be useful both antecedently to the the Resolution of the Will, and consequently to the effectual execution of its Resolutions, yet it is commonly a very great seducer of the understanding, and strangely blindeth and perverteth judgment: so that a Passionate man is seldom so far from the truth, as when he is most confident he is defending it. When Passion hath done boiling, and the heart is cooled, and leaveth the judgment to do its work without any clamour and disturbance, its strange to see how things will appear to you, to be quite of another tendency and reason, than in your Passion you esteemed them.
§. 8. Direct. 7. Keep up a sense of the evil and danger of both extremes; and be not so wholly intent upon the avoiding of one extreme, as to be fearless of the other. The narrow minds of inexperienced men are hardly brought to look on both sides them, and to be duly sensible of the danger of both extremes: But while they are taken up only with the hating and opposing one sort of errors, they forget those on the other side: And usually the sin or error which we observe not, is more dangerous to us than that which we do observe (if the wind of temptation sit that way).
§ 9. Direct. 8. When you detect any ancient error or corruption, inquire into its original; and see whether Reformation consist not rather in a restitution of the primitive state, than in an extirpation of the whole. Even in Popery itself there are many errors and ill customs, which are but the corruption of some weighty truth, and the degenerating of some duty of God's appointment: And to reduce all in such cases, to the primitive verity, is the way of wise and true reformation; and not to throw away that which is God's, because it is fallen into the dirt of human depravation. But in cases where all is bad, there all must be rejected.
§. 10. Direct. 9. Pretend not Truth and Orthodoxness against Christian Love and Peace: and so follow Truth, as that you lose not Love and Peace by it; (As much as in you lieth live peaceably with all men). Charity is the End of Truth: And it is a mad use of Means, to use them against the End. Make sure of the sincerity of your Charity, and hold it fast; and then no error that you hold will be destructive to you: But if you know more than others, and use your knowledge to the weakening of your Love, you are but (as our first Parents) deceived and destroyed by a d • sire of fleshly ineffectual knowledge. Such knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth, 1 Cor. 8. 1. To contend for Truth, to the l • ss of Love, in yourselves, and the destruction of it among others, is but to choke yourselves with excellent food, and to imitate that Orthodox Catholic Physician, that gloried that he killed his Patients secundum artem, by the most accurate method, and excellent Rules of Art that men could die by.
§. 11. Direct. 10. Pretend no Truth against the power and practice of Godliness. For this also is its pr • p •• End: I • •• be not Truth that is acc • rding to Godliness, it is no truth worthy our seeking or c • ntending • or. And if it be contrary to Godliness in itself, it is no truth at all: Therefore if it be used agai • st Godliness, it is used contrary to the Ends of Truth. Those men that suppress or hinder t • e 〈◊〉 Knowledge, and Holiness, and Concord, and Edification, under pretence of securing, d •••• nding or prop • gating the Orth • d • x belief, will find one day, that God will give them as little thanks for their bl •• d pr • posterous zeal • o • truth, as a tender Father would do to a Physician, that killed his Children, b • c • us • they distasted or spit out his Medicines. It is usually a pitiful defense of Truth, that is made by the Enemies of Godliness.
More near and particular Directions against Error.
§. 12. Direct. 1. Begin at the Greatest, most Evident, Certain and Necessary Truths, and so proceed orderly to the knowledge of the less, by the help of these. As you climb by the Body of the Tree unto the branches. If you begin at those truths, which spring out of greater common truths, and know not the premises, while yo • plead for the conclusion, you abuse your Reason and lose the Truth and your labor both: For th • re is no way to the branches but by ascending from the stock. The Principles w • ll laid, must b • your help to all your following knowledge.
§. 13. Direct. 2. The two first Things which you are to learn are, what man is, and what God is: the N • ture and Rel • tion of the two Parties is the first thing to be known in order to the knowledge of the C • venant itself, and all following trans • ctions between God and man: One error here will introduce abundance. A thousand other points in Natural Philosophy you may safely be ignorant of; b • t if you know not what Man is, what Reason is, what Natural Free-will is, and what the inferi • ur sensitive faculti • s are, as to their Uses, it will lay you open to innumerable errors. In the Nature of man, you must see the foundation of his relations unto God: And if you know not those Great Rel •• i • ns the duties of which must take up all our lives, you may easily foresee the cons • quents of such ignorance or error. So if you know not what God is, and what his Relations to us are, so far as is necessary to our living in the duties of those Relations, the consequents of your ignorance will b • sad. If learned men be but perverted in their apprehensions of some on • Attribu • e of God (as those that think his Go • dness is nothing but his Benignity, or proneness to do good, or that he is a N •••• s •• ry ag •• t d • ing good ad ultimum posse, &c. ) what abundance of ho • rid and impious consequ • nts will follow?
§. 14. Direct. 3. H • ving s • undly understood both these and other Principles of Religion, try all the subsequent truths • er •• y, and receive nothing as truth that is certainly inconsistent with any of these principles. Even Principles, that are not of sense, may be disputed till they are w • ll r • ceived; and with those that have •• t received them: But afterward they are not to be called i • question; for then you w • uld never proceed • or build higher, if you still stand questioning all your grounds. Indeed no truth is inconsistent with any other truth: But yet when two dark or doub • full points are compared together, it is hard to know which of them to reject. But here it is easy: Nothing that contradicteth the tr • e Nature of G • d or man, or any Principle must be h • ld.
§▪ 15. Direct. 4. B • lieve not • ing which certainly contradicteth the End of all Religion. If it be of a na •• r • l or necessary tendency to ungodliness, against the Love of God, or against a holy and heavenly mind and conversation, it cannot b • truth what ever it pre • end.
§. 16. Direct. 5. Be sure to distinguish well betwixt revealed and unrevealed things: And before you dispute any question, search first whet • er th • •• solution be Revealed o • not: And if it be not, lay it by; and take it as part of your necessary submission, to be ignorant of what God would have you ignorant, as it is part of your obedience to labor to know what God would have you know. And when some things unr • ve • l • d are mixed in the controversy, take out those and lay them by, before you go any further, and see that the resolution of the r • st be not laid upon them, nor twisted with them, to • ntangle the whole in uncertainty or confusion Thus God instructed Job, by convincing him of his ignorance, and sh • wing him how many things were past his knowledge. Thus Christ instructed Nic d • mus about the work of Regeneration, so as to let him know, that though the Necessity of it must be known, y • t the manner of the Spirits acc • sses to the soul cannot be known, John 3. 7, 8. And Paul in his disc • urse of Election, takes notice of the unsearchable depths, and the creatures unfitness to dispute with God, Rom. 9. When you find any dispu • es about Predetermination or Predestination resolved into such points as th • se: Whether God do by physical premoving influx, or by concourse, or by moral operation ut fini • , determine or sp • cifie moral acts of man? Whether a Positive Dec • ee quoad actum be necessary to the N • gation of effects, (as that such a one shall not have grace given him, or be c •• verted or saved; that all the millions of possible persons names and things shall not be future: ) What Understanding, Will or Power ar • formally in God? How he knoweth future contingents? with a hundred such like; Then remember that you make use of this rule, and say with M • ses, D • u • . 29. 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things that are revealed, unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of his Law. There are many rare profound discoveries much glory • d of by the Masters of several Sects, of which you may know the sentence of the Holy Ghost, by that instance, Col. 2. 18. Let no man beguile you of your reward, in a v • luntary humility and worshipping of Angels, intruding into th • se things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. Reverently withdraw from things that are unrevealed, and dispute them not.
§. 17. Direct. 6. Be a careful and accurate (though not a vain) Distinguisher: and suffer not ambiguity and confusion to dec • ive you: Suspect every word in your Question, and anatomize it, and agree upon the sense of all your common terms, before you dispute with any adversary: It is not only in many words, but in one word or syllable that so much ambiguity and confusion may be contained, as may make a long dispute to be but a vain and ridiculous wrangling. Is it not a ridiculous business to hear men dispute many hours about the Cur credis, and Into what faith is to be resolved? and in the end come to understand, that by [ Cur ] one of them, speaks of the Principium or Causa Veritatis, and the other of the Principium pat • factionis, or the Evidentia Veritatis, or some other cause? And when one speaks of the Resolution of his faith as into the formal Object, and another into the subservient testimony or means, or into the proofs of Divine attestation, or many other causes. Or to hear men dispute Whether Christ died for all: when by [ for ] one man meaneth [ for the benefit of all, ] and another means [ in the place or stead of all, or for the sins of all as the procuring cause, &c. ] Yet here is but a syllable to contain this confusion? What a tedious thing it is to read long disputes between many Papists and Protestants, about Justification, while by Justification one meaneth one thing, and another meaneth quite another thing? He that cannot force every word to make a plain confession of its proper signification, that the Thing intended may be truly discerned in the Word, he will but deceive himself and others, with a wordy insignificant dispute.
§. 18. Direct. 7. Therefore be specially suspicious of Metaphors; as being all but ambiguities till an explication hath fixed or determined the sense. It is a noisome thing to hear some dispute upon an unexplained Metaphorical word, when neither of them have enucleated the sense, and when there are proper words enow.
§. 19. Direct. 8. Take special notice of what kind of beings your enquiry or disputation is, and let all your terms be adapted and interpreted according to the kinds of beings you dispute of. As if you be enquiring into the nature of any Grace, as Faith, Repentance, Obedience, &c. remember that it is in genere moris, a moral act: And therefore the terms are not to be understood as if you disputed about mere Physical acts, which are considered but in genere entis. For that Object which must essentiate one Moral act, containeth many Physical particles, which will make up many Physical acts. If you take such a man for your King, your Commander, your Master, your Physician, &c. if you should at the Barr when you are questioned for unfaithfulness, dispute upon the word [ take ] whether it be an act of the fantasy, or sense, or intellect, or will, &c. would you not be justly laughed at? So when you asked, What act Faith or Repentance is? which contain many particular Physical acts. When you dispute of Divinity, Policy, Law, Warr, &c. you must not use the same terms in the same sense, as when you dispute of Physicks or Metaphysics.
§. 20. Direct. 9. Be sure in all your disputes that you still keep distinguished before your eyes, the Order of Being, and the Order of Knowing: that the questions de esse lying undetermined in your way, do not frustrate all your dispute about the question de cognoscere. As in the question, Whether a man should do such or such a thing when he thinketh that it is God's Command? How far Conscience must be obeyed? It must first be determined de esse, whether indeed the thing be commanded, or lawful, or not? Before the case can be determined about the obligation that followeth my apprehension. For, what ever my Conscience or Opinion say of it, the Thing either is Lawful, or it is not: If it be Lawful, or a duty, the case is soon decided: But if it be not Lawful, the error of my Conscience altereth not God's Law, nor will it make it lawful unto me. I am bound first to know and then to do what God revealeth and commandeth: and this I shall be bound to, what ever I imagine to the contrary; and to lay by the error which is against it.
§. 21. Direct. 10. Be sure when you first enter upon an enquiry or dispute, that you well discover how much of the controversy is verbal de nomine, and • ow much is material de re: And that you suffer not your adversary to go on upon a false supposition, that the Controversy is de re, when it is but de nomine. The difference between names and things is so wide, that you would think no reasonable man should confound them: And yet so heedless in this point are ordinary disputers, that it is a usual thing to make a great deal of stir about a controversy before they discern whether it be de nomine or de r • . Many a hot and long dispute I have heard, which was managed as about the very heart of some material cause (as about man's Power to do good, or about the sufficiency of Grace, or about Justification, &c. ) when the whole contest between the Disputers was only or principally de nomine, and neither of them seemed to take notice of it. Be sure as soon as you peruse the terms of your question, to sift this thoroughly, and dispute verbal controversies, but as verbal, and not as real and material. We have real differences enow: we need not make them seem more by such a blind or heedless manner of Disputing.
§. 22. Direct. 11. Suffer not a rambling mind in study, nor a rambling talker in Disputes, to interrupt your orderly procedure, and divert you from your argument before you bring it to the natural issue. Both deceiving Sophisters, and giddy headed praters, will be violent to start another game, and spoil the chase of the point before you: But hold them to it, or take them to be unworthy to be disputed with, and let them go (except it be where the weakness of the Auditors requireth you to follow them in their Wild-goose Chase. ) You do but lose time in such rambling studies or disputes.
§. 23. Direct. 12. Be ca • telous of admitting false suppositions: or at least of admitting any inference that dependeth upon them. In some cases a supposition of that which is false may be made, while it no way tends to infer the truth of it: But nothing must be built upon that falsehood, as intimating it to be a truth. False suppositions cunningly and secretly worked into arguments, are very ordinary instruments of deceit.
§. 24. Direct. 13. Plead not uncertainties against certainties: But make certain points the measure to try the uncertain by. Reduce not things proved and sure to those that are doubtful and justly controverted: But reduce points disputable to those that are past doubt.
§. 25. Direct. 14. Plead not the darker Texts of Scripture against those that are more plain and clear, nor a few texts against many that are as plain: For that which is interpreted against the most plain and frequent expressions of the same Scripture is certainly mis-interpreted.
§▪ 26. Direct. 15. Take not obscure Prophecies for Precepts: The obscurity is enough to make you cautelous how you venture yourself in the Practice of that which you understand not; But if there were no obscurity, yet Prophecies are no warrant to you to fulfill them; no though they be for the Churches good. Predictions tell you but de eventu what will come to pass, but warrant not you to bring it to pass: God's Prophesies are ofttimes fulfilled by the wickedest men, and the wickedest means. As by the Jews in killing Christ, and Pharaoh in refusing to let Israel go, and Jehu in punishing the house of Ahab. Yet many self-conceited persons think that they can fetch that out of the Revelations or the Prophecies of Daniel, that will justify very horrid crimes, while they use wicked means to fulfil God's Prophecies.
§. 27. Direct. 16. Be very cautelous in what cases you take men's practice or example to be instead of precept, in the sacred Scriptures. In one case a Practice or example is obligatory to us as a Precept: and that is when God doth give men a commission to establish the form or orders of his Church and Worship (as he did to Moses and to the Apostles), and promiseth them his Spirit to lead them into all truth in the matters which he employeth them in, here God is engaged to keep them from miscarrying; for if they should, his work would be ill done, his Church would be ill constituted and framed, and his servants unavoidably deceived: The Apostles were authorized to constitute Church officers, and orders for continuance, and the Scripture which is written for a great part, historically, acquaints us what they did (as well as what they said and wrote ) in the building of the Church in obedience to their commission (at least in declaring to the World what Christ had first appointed). And thus if their practice were not obligatory to us, their words also might be avoided by the same pretenses. And on this ground (at least) the Lord's day is easily proved to be of Divine appointment and obligation. Only we must see that we carefully distinguish between both the Words and Practices of the Apostles which were upon a particular and temporary occasion (and obligation) from those that were upon an universal or permanent ground.
§. 28. Direct. 17. Be very cautelous what Conclusions you raise from any mere works of Providence. For the bold and blind exposition of these, hath lead abundance into most heinous sins: No providence is instead of a Law to us: But sometimes and ofttimes providence changeth the Matter of our duty, and so occasioneth the change of our obligations: (As when the husband dieth, the Wise is disobliged, &c. ) But men of worldly dispositions, do so over-value worldly things, that from them they venture to take the measure of God's Love and hatred, and of the causes which he approveth or disapproveth in the World. And the wisdom of God doth seem on purpose, to cause such wonderful unexpected mutations in the affairs of men, as shall shame the principles or spirits of these men, and manifest their giddiness and mutability to their confusion. One year they say, This is sure the cause of God, or else be would never own as he doth: Another year they say, If this had been God's cause he would never have so disowned it: Just as the Barbarians judged of Paul when the Viper seized on his hand. And thus God is judged by them to own or disown by his prospering or afflicting, more than by his Word.
§. 29. Direct. 18. In controversies which much depend on the sincerity or experience of Godly men, take heed that you affect not singularity, and depart not from the common sense of the Godly. For the workings of God's spirit are better judged of, by the ordinary tenor of them, than by some (real or supposed) case that is extraordinary.
§. 30. Direct. 19. In Controversies which most depend on the testimony of Antiquity, depart not from the judgment of the ancients. They that stood within View of the days of the Apostles could better tell what they did, and what a condition they left the Churches in, than we can do. To appeal to the Ancients in every cause, even in those where the later Christians do excel them, is but to be fools in reverence of our forefathers wisdom. But in points of History, or anything in which they had the advantage of their posterity, their testimony is to be preferred.
§. 31. Direct. 20. In Controversies which depend on the Experience of particular Christians or of the Church, regard most the judgment of the most experienced, and prefer the judgment of the later ages of the Church before the judgment of less experienced ages: (except the Apostolical age that had the greater help of the spirit). An ancient experienced Christian or Divine is more to be regarded in many points, which require experience, than many of the younger sort, that are yet more zealous and of quicker understanding and expression than the elder. So those that we call the Fathers or Ancients were indeed in the younger ages of the Church, and we that are fallen into the later and more exprienced age, have all the helps of the wisdom and experience of the Ages that were before us: And therefore God will require at our hands an account of these greater talents which we have received! As it were inexcusable now in a Physician, that hath the help of such Voluminous institutions, observations and experiments of former ages, to know no more than those former times that had no such helps; so would it be as inexcusable for this present age of the Church to be no wiser than those former ages. When Aquinas, Scotus, Ariminensis and other Schoolmen, delivered the Doctrine of Christianity to the Church in a dress so far different from Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, or any of those former ages, they certainly thought that they had attained to a far greater excellency and accurateness in the Knowledge of Divinity than those their Ancestors had attained: And whatever they swear in the Trent O • th▪ of not expounding any Scripture otherwise than the Fathers do, I doubt not but Suarez, and Vasquez and others of their modern Schoolmen thought so too, and would have been loath to be accounted wise in the measure only of those ancients. The later and elder ages of the Church have had abundant experience, e. g. of the tend • ncy of Ambition and Papal aspirings and usurpations; of the mischiefs of composing and imposing the Popish Missals and numerous ceremonies, and of their implicit faith, and their concealment of the Scriptures from the Vulgar, and many such points; And if we are never the wiser for all this experience, we are the more inexcusable; and may be judged as the negl • cters of our greater helps.
§. 32. Direct. 21. In Controversies which depend most upon skill in the Languages Philosophy or other parts of common learning, prefer the judgment of a few that are the most Learned in those matters, before the judgment of the most ancient, or the most Godly, or of the greatest numbers, even whole Churches, that are unlearned: In this case neither Numbers, nor Antiquity, nor Godliness will serve turn: but as one clear eye will see further then ten thousand that are purblind, so one Jerome or Origen may judge better of a translation, or the Grammatical sense of a Text than a hundred of the other Fathers could. One man that understandeth a Language is fitter to judge of it, than a whole Nation that understand it not. One Philosopher is fitter to judge of a philosophical question, than a thousand illiterate persons. Every man is most to be regarded in the matters which he is best acquainted with.
§. 33. Direct. 22. In Controversies of great difficulty where Divines themselves are disagreed and a clear and piercing wit is necessary, regard more the judgment of a few acute, judicious, well▪studied Divines that are well verst in those Controversies, than of a multitude of dull and common wits that think to carry it by the reputation of their number. It is too certainly attested by experience, that Judicious men are very few, and that the multitude of the injudicious that have not wit enough to underderstand them, nor humility enough to confess it, and to learn of them, have yet pride and arrogoncy enough to contradict them, and often malice enough to vilify them. In such differences it is not only a sign of a wise man to be content with the approbation of a few, but also to have but few approvers: (except where the injudicious do implicitly believe those few that are judicious.) Commonly a very few that are wiser than the multitude, are fain to stand by, and compassionate not only the World but the Church, and see the disease, and the easy remedy, and all in vain; while they are but neglected or despised by the rest, that will not be made wiser by them.
§. 34. Direct. 23. In all contentions hold close to that which all sides are agreed in: There is so much agreed on, even between the