do not believe all things to be contained in the Scriptures; and it falls also upon them, who do not believe all persons to be intended in the Scriptures, who seem to be concerned therein. The first sort dishonour God in his Scriptures, in that kind, that there is not enough in the Scriptures for any man's salvation; and the other in this kind, that that that is, is not intended, as it is pretended, not in that largeness and generality, as it is proposed, but that God hath set a little diamond in a great deal of gold, a narrow purpose in large promises; and thereupon they impute to God (in their manner of expressing themselves) dolos bonos, and fraudes pias, holy deceits, holy falsehood, holy illusions, and circumventions, and over-good husbands of God's large and bountiful grace, contract his general promises. I dispute not, but I am glad to hear the apostle say, that as all were dead, so one died for all; and to put the force of his argument there, in that, that except we can say, that one died for all, we cannot say, that all were dead. I I argue not, but I am glad to hear another apostle say, That Christ is the propitiation for the sins of all the world'; for if any man had been left out, how should I have come in? I am not exercised, nor would I exercise these auditories with curiosities, but I hear the apostle say, Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died; and I hear him say, Through thy knowledge may thy weak brother perish, for whom Christ died": and, methinks, he means, that though they might be destroyed, though they might perish, yet Christ died for them. Only to deliver God from all aspersions, and to defend particular consciences from being scandalized with dangerous phrases, and in a pious detestation of those impious doli, and fraudes, holy deceits, holy falsehoods, I only say, God forbid, that when our Saviour Christ called the Pharisee hypocrite, that Pharisee should have been able to recriminate that upon Christ, and to have said, So are you, for you pretend to offer salvation where you mean it not: God forbid, that when Christ had made that the mark of a true Israelite in the person of Nathaniel, In quo non est dolus, In whom there is no deceit, any man should have been able to have said to Christ, Then Nathaniel is a better Israelite than you, for 0 Rom. xiv. 11. Rom. v. 14. 1 John i. 47. you pretend to offer salvation, where you mean it not. David hath joined those two words together, The words of their mouth, are iniquity and deceit; if there be deceit, there is iniquity too. Our Saviour hath joined all these together, adulteries, murders, blasphemies, and deceit1; where there is deceit, all mischief is justly presumed. The apostle St. Paul discharges nimself of nothing with more earnestness than that, Hare I deceived you? Have I circumvented you with fraud? Neither doth he charge him, whom he calls, the child of the devil, Elymas the sorcerer, farther than so, O plene omni dolo, That he was full of all deceit. And therefore they that think to gild and enamel deceit, and falsehood, with the additions of good deceit, good falsehood, before they will make deceit good, will make God bad: for, even in the law, an action de dolo, will not lie against a father, nor against a master, and shall we implead God de dolo? In the last foreign synod, which our divines assisted, with what a blessed sobriety they delivered their sentence", that all men are truly, and in earnest called to eternal life, by God's minister; and that whatsoever is promised or offered out of the Gospel by the minister, is to the same men, and in the same manner promised and offered by the author of the Gospel, by God himself. They knew whose breasts they had sucked; and that that church, our church had declared, That we must receive God's promises so, as they be generally set forth to us in the Scriptures; and that for our actions and manners, for our life and conversation, we follow that will of God, which is expressly declared to us in his word: and that is, that conditional salvation is so far offered to every man, as that no man may preclude himself from a possibility of such a performance of those conditions which God requires at his hands, as God will accept at his hands, if either he do sincerely endeavour the performing, or sincerely repent the not performing of them. For all this is fairly implied in this proposition, Si quo minus, If it were not so, I would have told you; that all that is necessary to salvation, is comprehended in the Scriptures, which was our first branch; and then, that all that is in the Scriptures, is intended so as it is proposed, which 13 Psalm xxxv. 3. 14 Mark vii. 22. 15 2 Cor. xii. 16. 18 Art. xvii. was our second; and these two constitute our first part, the general rule of doctrines, and farther we enlarge not that part, but descend to the other, the particular doctrine, which Christ gives to his disciples, in the other proposition, In domo patris, In my Father's house there are many mansions. This second part, you may also be pleased to remember, derives itself into two branches; first to inquire, whether this proposition assist that doctrine of disparity and degrees of glory in the saints in heaven; and then the right use which is to be made of the right sense of these words, In domo patris, In my Father's house there are many mansions. The occasion of the words will be the foundation of all; our Saviour Christ had said to his disciples in the chapter before, that he was to stay with them but a little while; that when he was gone, they should seek him, and not find him; and that whither he went, they could not follow and when, upon that, Peter, who was always forwardest, and soonest scandalized, had pressed him with that question, Lord, whither goest thou? and received that answer, Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but hereafter thou shalt follow me, lest the rest of the disciples, who were troubled with that which was formerly said, should be more affected with this, to hear that Peter should come, whither none of them might, to establish them all, as well as Peter, he says to them all, in the first verse of this chapter, Let not your hearts be troubled, for, (and here enters this proposition of our text, for their general establishment) in my Father's house are many mansions. So that, that these are words of consolation, is certain, but whether the consolation be placed in the disparity, and difference of degrees of glory in heaven, or no, is not so certain. That there are degrees of glory in the saints in heaven, scarce any ever denied. Heaven is a kingdom, and Christ a king, and a popular parity agrees not with that state, with a monarchy. Heaven is a church, and Christ a high-priest, and such a parity agrees as ill with the Triumphant, as with the Militant church. In the Primitive church Jovinian denied this difference, and degrees of glory; and St. Hierome was so incensed, so inflamed for this, as if foundations had been shaken, and the common cause endangered. Indeed it was thus far the common cause, that all the fathers followed this chase, (if we may use that metaphor) and were never at a default: no one of the fathers, whom I have observed to touch upon this point, did ever deny this difference of degrees of glory. And therefore, as in the Primitive church, when that one man Jovinian, came to deny it, St. Hierome was vehement upon him, so when in the Reformation, one man (for I never found more than that one, one Schoufeldius) denies it too, I wonder the less, that another" (of the Reformation also) grows somewhat sharp towards him. We deny not then this difference of degrees of glory in heaven; but that frame, and that scale of these degrees, which they have set up in the Roman church, we do deny. We must continue, and return often to that complaint against them, That they shake and endanger things near foundations, by their enor mous super-edifications, by their incommodious upper-buildings: that many things, which might be well enough accepted, and would be agreed by all, become justly suspicious, and really dangerous to the church, by their manifold consequences which they super-induce upon them: that many things, which in the sincerity of their beginning, and institution, were pious, and conduced to the exaltation of devotion, by their additions are become impious, and destroy devotion so far, as to divert it upon a wrong object. In this point which we have in hand, it is so; in these degrees of glory in heaven, that church, which treads all sovereign crowns in this world, under her feet, pretends to impart, and distribute crowns in heaven also of her own making: We find coronam auream, a crown of gold upon the head of that Son of man, who is also the Son of God, Christ Jesus, in the Revelation. And we find coronas aureas, particular crowns of gold, upon the heads of all the saints that stand about the throne, in the same book". And these crowns upon the saints are the emanations, and effluences of that crown which is upon Christ; the glory of the saints is the communication of his glory. But then, because in their translation, in the Vulgate edition of the Roman church, they find in Exodus that word aureolam, Facies coronam aureolam, Thou shalt make a lesser crown of gold; out 10 Gerard. 22 20 Rev. xiv. 14. of this diminutive, and mistaken word, they have established a doctrine, that besides those coronæ aureæ, those crowns of gold, which are communicated to all the saints from the crown of Christ, some saints have made to themselves, and produced out of their own extraordinary merits certain aureolas, certain lesser crowns of their own, whereas indeed the word in the original in that place of Exodus is zer zehab, which is a crown of gold, without any intimation of any such lesser crowns growing out of themselves. This then is their new alchymy; that whereas old alchymists pretend to make gold of coarser metals, these will make it of nothing; out of a suppositious word, which is not in the text, they have hammered and beat out these aureolas, thesc lesser crowns. And these aureolas they ascribe only to three sorts of persons, to virgins, to martyrs, to doctors. Are then all the other saints without crowns? they must make shift with that beam which they have from the crown of Christ; for, for these additional crowns proceeding from themselves, they have none. And yet, say they, there are saints which have some additions growing out of themselves, though not aureolas, little crowns, and those they call fructus, peculiar fruits growing out of themselves; and for these fruits they distrain upon that place of Matthew, where Christ saith, That some brought forth fruit a hundred fold, some sixty, and some thirty; and the greater measure they ascribe to virgins, the sixty to widows, and the thirty to married persons, but only such married persons, as have lived continently in marriage. So then, to make this riddle of theirs as plain as the matter will admit, they place salvation itself, blessedness itself, (if a man will be content with that) in that union with God, which is common to all the saints: but then they conceive certain Dotes, as they call them, certain dispositions in this life, by which some have made themselves fitter to be united to God, in a nearer distance than an ordinary saint; and these dotes, these endowments, and dispositions here, produce those aureolas, and those fructus, those lesser crowns, and those measures of fruits, which are a particular joy, not that they are united to God, (for so every saint is) but that they had those dotes, those dispositions to take that particular way of being united to 23 Matt. xiii. 6. |
