II. SERM. the Christians themselves arose men "speaking perverse [Acts 20. things," whom St. Paul well calleth fratres subintroductos; who also by their imaginations mainly corrupted the Apostles' doctrine, which we heretofore divided 30.] 1. In the matter and 1. the founda- upon it. Imaginations touching the foundations. Which are twosubstance. so called by the name of foundations, first laid by our Saviour Touching Christ, and after kept by the Apostles-even "repentance" and "faith." the foun dation. Heb. 6. 1. Mark 1. 15. Imaginations touching "repentance." Nicolas, one of the Acts 6.51. seven, as Eusebius testifieth, became a man of imaginations, Rev. 2. 15, and began the sect of "the Nicolaitanes, whom God hateth." After whom arose Carpocrates in the same, of whom came [Heb. 6. the sect of the Gnostics—a sect that blew up that part of "the foundation" which is called "repentance from dead works." For, as Epiphanius testifieth, they held that all other things [Epiphan. besides "faith" were indifferent, "repentance" and all; and that sive 25; so a man knew and embraced certain dictates and positions, 7. sive 27; they would deliver him; live how he list, he could not choose 27. sive 47; but be saved. And of these high points of knowledge they Repent ance. 88. Hær. 5. 6. sive 26; 41. sive 61.] [Faith.] entitled themselves Gnostics, that is, men of knowledge. And all other Christians that could not talk like them, simplices, good simple souls.' Such is the imagination in our days of carnal Gospellers; that, so he forget not his creed, he cannot miscarry. These be the Gnostics of our age. Imaginations touching "faith." On the other side against the other part of "the foundation," "faith," Latinus a Christian and a great learned man cast his mine, of whom was the sect of the Encratites, who offended at the licentious lives of the Gnostics fell into the other extreme, that Non est curandum quid quisque credat, id tantum curandum est quid quisque faciat; that the Creed might be cancelled well enough, for an upright and straight course of life God only regarded,' and in every sect a man might be saved that lived well. These, for their sober and temperate kind of life, termed themselves Encratites, that is, strict livers; and all other Christians that lived not in like austerity Psychicos, that is, carnal men. Such is in our days the imagination of the civil Christian; who, so his conversation be blameless and honest careth not for religion and faith at all, but for the most part lives and dies in brutish ignorance. We may call these the Encratites of our age. ing the Imaginations touching the building; a secondary part of 2. Touchthe Apostles' doctrine, and not of like necessity with the Building. former. Epiphanius writeth, they were a sect, a branch of the old Cathari or Puritans, as he saith, which called themselves Apostolici, propter exactum discipline studium, &c. For an extraordinary desire they had above other men to have discipline and all things to the exact pattern of the Apostles' days; which is itself an imagination. For it were cacozelia, 'an apish imitation,' to retain all in use 1. then, seeing divers things even then were but temporaria. For beside their canon in matters of knowledge, they had Gal. 6. 16. their dogmata or decreta, not of equal importance; as was that of eating" things strangled, and blood;" which no man Acts 15.20. now thinketh himself bound to abstain from. And, besides their epitaxes, 'commandments' in matter of practice, they had 1Cor.7.10. their diataxes, ‘injunctions,' not of equal regard with the former. Such were their agape, "love-feasts" after the Sacrament; and Jude ver. their celebrating the Sacrament after supper, which no Church i Cor. 11. at this day doth imitate. Therefore to press all that was in that time, is an imagination. 12. And as to press all, so of these things that remain to press 2 all alike, or think an equal necessity of them, which was a parcel of the imagination of the Donatists. For some things the Apostles peremptorily commanded; some things they had 1 Cor.7.10. no commandment for, but only gave counsel; some things 1 Cor. 7. 25. they commanded and taught; some things they taught and 1 Tim. 4. exhorted, whereof each was to be esteemed in his own value and worthiness; neither to dispense with the commandment, nor to make a matter of necessity of the counsel. Both which have not a little harmed the Church. 11; 6. 2. Lastly, for these matters of counsel, which for the most part are things indifferent, they also fall upon two imaginations: 1. some say, Omnia mihi licent, and so it be not con- 1 Cor. 10. SERM. demned as unlawful, make no bones of it; which tendeth to Col. 2. 21. II. all profaneness. Others say, "Touch not, taste not, handle not;" which speak of things indifferent as merely unlawful, which imagination ends in superstition. A mean way would 1 Cor.7.35. be holden between them both, that neither "a snare be cast" on men's consciences, by turning Non expedit into Non licet, nor Gal. 5. 13. our "liberty" in Christ be made an "occasion to the flesh," by casting Non expedit out of doors. For the Spirit of Christ is the spirit of ingenuity, which will freely submit itself to that which is expedient, even in things of their own nature lawful. The not observing whereof with good heed and discretion, hath in old time filled the world with many a superstitious imagination; and in our days hath healed the imagination and superstition and hypocrisy with another of riot and licentious liberty, as bad as the former, yea a great deal worse. 2. Imaginations in the ceremony. 13. 40. Imaginations touching the ceremony. First, I take it to be a fancy to imagine there needs none; for without them neither comeliness nor orderly uniformity will be in the 1 Cor. 11. Church. Women will "pray uncovered" (an uncomely sight) 1 Cor. 14. unless the Apostle enjoin the contrary: therefore, "Let every thing be done decently and in order." Now, to advise what is comely and orderly in each age and place, is left in the power and discretion of the governors of each Church: Visum [Acts 15. est Spiritui Sancto et nobis. And the custom of each Church 28.] is peaceably to be observed by the members of it. In a matter ceremonial, touching the veiling of women-after some reasons alleged, which yet a troublesome body might quarrel with-thus doth St. Paul determine the matter definitively : 16. Ep. 28. nem.] Ep. 86. [ul. 36. s. 2.] 1 Cor. 11. "If any list to be contentious," Nos non habemus talem consuetudinem, nec Ecclesiæ Dei. As if he should say, In matters of that quality each Church's custom is to overrule; as from Cal. 52. ad that place St. Hierome and St. Augustine do both resolve. It hath been ever thought meet, saith St. Gregory, that 118. [al.54. there should be in unitate fidei consuetudo diversa; that is, [S. Greg. the diversity of customs should be in divers Churches, all in Epist. 43. al. 61. circ. the unity of one faith, to shew the Church's liberty in those matters. And therefore the "eating of things offered to idols," wholly restrained the Churches of Syria and Cilicia, seemeth in some sort permitted the Church of Corinth, in case no man did challenge it. s. 2.1 med.] 1 Cor. 10. 27. And as for divers Churches this hath been judged requisite, so hath it likewise been deemed no less requisite that every person should inviolably observe the rites and customs of his own Church. Therefore those former ordinances which were not urged upon the Corinthians-upon the Galatians within the compass of the regions where they took place as we see they were urged (as the Fathers interpret those places) under the pain of Anathema, which censure is Gal. 1. 9. due to all those that "trouble" the Church; as those do who for Gal. 5. 12. setting light by the customs and orders of the Church are by St. Paul concluded within the number of persons "conten- 1 Cor 11. tious" and troublesome. 16. manner of delivery. Imaginations touching the manner of delivery. For even 2. In the in it also, for failing, men must imagine something, that when they can take no exception to the matter yet they may itch after a new manner, and hear it after such and such a sort delivered, or they will not hear at all, and therefore after their own liking "get them a heap of teachers." 1. They must 2 Tim. 4.3. hear no Latin, nor Greek; no, though it be interpreted. A mere imagination. For the Apostle writing to the Corinthians which were Grecians, hath not feared to use terms as strange to them, as Latin or Greek is to us- "Maranatha," 1 Cor. 16. "Belial," "Abba." All which he might easily enough have 2Cor. 6. 15. expressed in their vulgar, but that it liked him to retain his liberty in this point. 22. Rom. 8. 15. 14. 2. Nor none of the Apocrypha cited. Another imagination; for St. Jude in his Epistle hath not feared to allege Jude ver. out of the book of Enoch, which book hath ever been reckoned Apocrypha. And by his example all the ancient writers are full of allegations from them; ever to these writings yielding the next place after the Canon of the Scriptures, and preferring them before all foreign writers whatsoever. 3. Nor any thing alleged out of the Jews' Talmud; a third imagination. For, from their records, St. Paul is judged to have set down the names of the sorcerers that "withstood Moses" to be "Jannes and Jambres;" which in Exodus, or the 2 Tim.3.8. whole canon of Scriptures, are not named. As many other things in the New Testament from them receive great light. And the Jews themselves are therein clearly confuted. 4. But especially no heathen example or authority-for SERM. with allegation of the ancient Fathers I have often dealt-a II. matter which the Primitive Church never imagined unlawful. In Strom. For Clemens Alexandrinus, by allusion to Sarah and Agar, for. teacheth the contrary. So doth Basil, in a set treatise; and De Legen- Gregory Nyssen, out of the twenty-first chapter of Deuter 5.] dis Eth nicorum De Doc. 2. 40. onomy, by the rites touching the marrying of heathen women taken captive: and last of all, St. Augustine most plainly. And these all reckoned of the contrary, as a very imagination. Which they did the rather, for that besides divers other Acts 17. places not so apparent, they find St. Paul in matter of doctrine alleging Aratus a heathen writer, in his Sermon at 1 Cor. 15. Athens. And again, in matter of life, alleging Menander, a Tit. 1.12.] Writer of Comedies, in his Epistle; and thirdly, in matter of Vid. Wet. report only, without any urgent necessity, alleging Epimenides, or, as some think, Callimachus. 23. 33. Not. in lor.] 14. And surely, if it be lawful to reason from that which "nature teacheth," as St. Paul doth against men's wearing long hair, it 1 Cor. 11. is not unlawful neither to reason from the wisest and most pithy sayings of natural men. Especially, with the Apostle, using them—as in a manner they only are used-thereby to provoke Christian men to emulation, by shewing them their own blindness in matter of knowledge, that see not so much as the heathen did by the light of nature; or their slackness in matter of conversation, that cannot be got so far forward by God's law, as the poor pagan can by his philosophy. That if grace will not move, shame may. II. "the Apo lowship." Heb. 10. Imaginations touching "the Apostles' fellowship." For this Touching doctrine received doth incorporate the receivers of it into stles' fel a fellowship or society, which is called the fellowship or corporation of the Gospel; and they that "bring not this doctrine," 2 John 10. are no ways to be received thereto. Which fellowship is not to be forsaken, "as the manner of some is"-men of imagina1 Cor. 11. tions-in our days, either because there be heresies, for oportet esse; or, for that many at communions "come together, 1 Cor 11. not for the better, but for the worse," for so did they in Phil. 3. 18. Corinth; or lastly, for that many and many "Christians walk"-which St. Paul wrote with tears-" as enemies to the cross of Christ;" for so it was in the Church of Philippi. 25. 19. 17. 1 Cor. 12. 28. Now it is plain, there can no society endure without government, and therefore God hath appointed in it governors |