Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ever perverted. 1. From the Pharisee, that piecing out the new garment with old rags of traditions (Matt. ix. 17); that adding to and eking out God's truth, with men's fancies; with the phylacteries and fringes of the Pharisees, who took upon them to observe many things beside it. (Mark vii. 4.) 2. From the philosopher, that wresting and tentering of the Scriptures (which St. Peter complaineth of, 2 Pet. iii. 16), with expositions and glosses newly coined, to make them speak that they never meant. Giving such new and strange senses to places of Scripture, as the Church of CHRIST never heard of. And what words are there or can there be, that (being helped out with the Pharisee's addition of a truth unwritten, or tuned with the philosopher's wrest of a devised sense,) may not be made to give colour to a new imagination? Therefore the ancient Fathers thought it meet, that they that would take upon them to interpret the Apostle's doctrine, should put in sureties, that their senses they gave were no other than the Church in former times hath acknowledged. It is true, the Apostles indeed spake from the SPIRIT, and every affection of theirs was an oracle: but that (I take it) was their peculiar privilege. But all that are after them, speak not by revelation, but by "labouring in the word" and learning, are not to utter their own fancies, and to desire to be believed upon their bare word: (if this be not dominari fidei, to be lords of their auditor's faith, I know not what it is:) but only on condition that the sense they now give be not a feigned sense (as St. Peter termeth it), but such a one, as hath been before given by our Fathers and forerunners in the Christian faith. "Say I this of myself (saith the Apostle), saith not the law" so too? Give I this sense of mine own head, hath not CHRIST's Church heretofore given the like? Which one course, if it were straitly holden, would rid our Church of many fond imaginations which now are stamped daily, because every man upon his own single bond, is trusted to deliver the meaning of any Scripture, which is many times nought else but his own imagination. This is the disease of our age. Not the Pharisee's addition (which is well left); but (as bad as it) the philosopher's gloss,

which too much aboundeth. And I see no way but this to Sermon on Acts ii. ver. 42.

help it.

Lond. 1631.

Sermons. Fol.

DONNE, PRIEST.

B. 1573. D. 1631.

lical consti

cond only to

ture in au

And then it [the doctrine of prayers for the dead] grew to a farther height, from a wild flower in the field, and a garden flower in private grounds, to be more generally planted, and to be not only suffered by many Fathers, but cherished and watered by some, and not above forty years after Epiphanius, to be so far advanced by St. Chrysostom, as that he assigns, though no Scripture for it, yet that An apostowhich is nearest to Scripture, that it was an apostolical con- tution is sestitution. And truly, if it did clearly appear to have been Holy Scripso a thing practised and prescribed to the Church by thority. the Apostles, the HOLY GHOST were as well to be believed in the Apostles' mouths as in their pens. An apostolical tradition, that is truly so, is good evidence. But because those things do hardly lie in proof, therefore we must apply St. Augustine's words to St. Chrysostom: "Lege ex Lege, ex Prophetis, ex Psalmis, ex Evangelio, ex Apostolicis literis, et credemus:"—"Read us any thing out of the Law, the Prophets, or Psalms, or Gospels, or Epistles, and we will believe it."-Sermon on 1 Cor. xv. 29. Sermons. Fol. 1640. Vol. i. pp. 781, 782.

little The autho

rity of the

mi- Catholic

When CHRIST says to the Church, "Fear not, flock," (Luke xii. 32,) it was not- "Quia de magno nuitur, sed quia de pusillo crescit," says Chrysologus, not because it should fall from great to little, but rise from little to great. Such care had CHRIST to the growth thereof; and then such care of the establishment and power thereof, as that the first time that ever He names the Church, He invests it with the assurance of perpetuity: "Upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt. xvi. 18.) Therein is denoted the strength and stability of

E

Church.

the Church in itself, and then the power and authority of the Church upon others, in those often directions,— "dic Ecclesiæ,"complain to the Church and consult with the Church; and then "audi Ecclesiam," hearken to the Church, be judged by the Church, hear not them that hear not the Church; and then "ejice de Ecclesia," let them that disobey the Church be cast out of the Church. In all which we are forbidden private conventicles, private spirits, private opinions. For, as St. Augustine says well, (and he cites it from another whom he names not, quidam dixit,) If a wall stand single, not joined to any other wall, he that makes a door through the wall, and passes through that door, "adhuc foris est," for all this is without still," nam domus non est." One wall makes not a house; one opinion makes not catholic doctrine, one man makes not a Church. For this knowledge of GOD the Church is our academy. There we must be bred, and there we may be bred all our lives and yet learn nothing. Therefore, as we must be there, so there we must use the means; and the means in the Church are the ordinances and institutions of the Church. The most powerful means is the Scripture; but the Scripture in the Church. Not that we are discouraged from reading the Scripture at home, At home, the HOLY GHOST is with thee in the reading of the Scriptures; but there He is with thee as a Remembrancer. "The HOLY GHOST shall bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you," (John xiv. 26,) says our SAVIOUR. Here, in the Church, He is with thee as a Doctor, to teach thee. First learn at Church, and then meditate at home: receive the seed by hearing the Scriptures interpreted here, and water it by returning to those places at home. When CHRIST bids you "search the Scriptures," He means you should go to them who have a warrant to search, a warrant in their calling. To know which are the Scriptures, to know what the HOLY GHOST says in the Scriptures, APPLY THYSELF TO THE CHURCH. Not that the Church is a judge above the Scriptures, (for the power and commission the Church hath, it hath from the Scriptures,) but the Church is a judge above thee, which

[ocr errors]

are the Scriptures, and what is the sense of the HOLY GHOST in them. Sermon on 1 Cor. xiii. 12. Sermons, vol. i. p. 228.

WHITE, BISHOP.

D. 1637.

and Tradi

The Holy Scripture is the fountain and living spring, of Scripture containing in all-sufficiency and abundance the pure water tion. of life, and whatsoever is necessary to make God's people wise unto salvation. The consentient and unanimous testimony of the true Church of CHRIST in the primitive ages thereof, is "canalis," a conduit-pipe to derive and convey to succeeding generations the celestial water contained in the Holy Scriptures. . . The ecclesiastical story reporteth of Nazianzen and Basil, that in their studying the Holy Scriptures they collected the sense of them, not from their own judgment or presumption, but from the testimony and authority of the ancients, who had received the rule of the true intelligence of Scripture from the holy Apostles by succession. . . . The Reformed Churches reject not all traditions, but such as are spurious, superstitious, and not consonant to the prime rule of faith, to wit, the holy Scripture; but genuine traditions, agreeable to the rule of faith, subservient to piety, consonant with holy Scripture, derived from the apostolical times by a successive current, and which have the uniform testimony of pious antiquity, are received and honoured by us. Now such are those which follow the historical tradition concerning the number, integrity, dignity, and perfection of the Books of Canonical Scripture, the Catholic exposition of many sentences of Scripture, the Apostles' Creed, the baptism of infants, the perpetual virginity of the blessed Virgin Mary, the righteous observation of the Lord's day, and some other festivals, as Easter, Pentecost, &c., baptizing and administration of the holy Eucharist in public assemblies and congregations, the service of the Church in a known language, the delivering of the Communion to the people in both kinds, the superiority and authority

That the

title of Catholic is proper and

of bishops over priests and deacons in jurisdiction and power of ordination, &c.- On the Sabbath, pp. 12, 14,

97.

JACKSON, PRIEST AND DOCtor.

B. 1579. D. 1640.

Whether the name Catholic were first bestowed upon the Church, or upon the faith which is the life and soul of essential to the holy, apostolic Church, shall be no part of our inquiry. It sufficeth that the name Catholic itself is univocal in Church, but respect both of Church and faith. True faith is therefore · be attri- Catholic faith, because it is the only door or way unto sal

the faith

professed by

the Anglican

cannot truly

buted to the

Church of

creed of the Vation, alike common unto all, without national or topical Rome. respect. Whosoever of any nation have been saved, have been saved by this one and the same faith; and whosoever will be saved, as Athanasius speaks, must hold the " Catholic faith," and he must hold it " pure and undefiled." The main question then is, who they be that hold this Catholic faith, and whether they hold it undefiled or no.

Were Vincentius his rules as artificial as they are orthodoxical and honest, the issue betwixt us and the Romanist would be very easy and triable. But let us take them as they are: "Id catholicum est quod ab omnibus, ubique et semper, &c., that is Catholic, which is held by all in all places, and at all times."

The three special notes of the Catholic Faith or Church, by him required, are Universality, Antiquity, and Consent. Whether these three members be different or subordinate, and ofttimes coincident, I leave it to be scanned by logicians. According to the author's limitation, all three marks agree to us, not to the Romanist.

First, concerning Universality, the question is not, whether at this present time, or in any former age for these thousand years past, there are or have been more, which profess the present Romish religion established in the Church of Rome, than the religion established in the Reformed Churches since the separation was made. If we should come to calculate voices after this manner, whether will you be a Roman Catholic or a Protestant: they might, perhaps,

« AnteriorContinuar »