DISCOURSE, 326 Course of theological study recommended. PREFAT. such as Episcopius, Limborch, or any of our transcribers from SECT. XXIII. them, but to study the apostolical learning in a diligent perusal of the Greek Testament, which ought to be carefully read two or three times over, and then to proceed to the diligent reading of the apostolic fathers, and after reading them to read all the fathers and provincial councils to the first general council of Nice, and the ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius, Socrates, and Sozomen. Did students of divinity take this method in their studies, the Church would not suffer by so many latitudinarians among her divines, nor should we have so many strange and dangerous assertions preached and printed, as, were it not to reflect, I could shew in great plenty have been published by divines of great parts, and otherwise learned, I mean in learning external to their profession, but not in the ancient ecclesiastical learning, which should be first studied by all clergymen, that being well versed in their own originals, they may not take such liberties of thinking and writing, or become such indifferents as some are, and run into many mistakes. But then if fatal want of books in the learned languages, or any other hard circumstances, will not allow students in divinity to peruse those early and ancient originals, then the next best thing they can do will be to read such orthodox divines of our own Church as fetched their divinity from those fountains: I mean such as Jewell, Poinet, Mede, Downam, Laud, Montague, Hammond, Pearson, Thorndike, Bull, Beveridgef, &c., whose writings will instruct and fix them in true principles, and preserve them from that latitude, otherwise called largeness of mind, which hath corrupted divinity to such a deplorable degree, and set men free from 66 Care had recommended Limborch; his sterdam. His "Institutiones Theologicæ, in quatuor libros distinctæ," was much read by the early latitudinarians. See note m, p. 65, and p. 234. Philip Limborch was minister, and in 1668 professor of divinity, at Amsterdam. The work referred to is his "Theologia Christiana ad praxim pietatis ac promotionem Christianæ unice directa." Amsterdam, 1686.] [In the first edition the names given were "Hammond, Pearson, and Sanderson;" in the second, "Laud, Montague, Hammond, Pearson, Sanderson, Thorndike."] Of the testimonies alleged in the Two Discourses. 327 the chief doctrines and principles of Christianity, which relate coNCLUto the Church, as a society or as a sect. Before I conclude, to acquit myself from the seeming imputation of tautology in my Discourse of the Christian Priesthood, I must advertise my reader that I have been forced to produce some testimonies and authorities out of the fathers several times, just as the same witnesses are usually examined again and again in judicial trials, not to the same, but several different points. Thus he will find the same testimony cited in one place barely to prove the Christian sacrifice, and, it may be, in another to shew that the oblation of the elements was such a special part of the Eucharistical worship; thatπpóσ popa and oblatio were singly used to signify the holy communion, and πрoopéρew and offerre to celebrate the same; and perhaps in a third to shew in what sense the fathers understood such or such a text. So he may find the same authorities produced in one place to prove the oblation of the sacramental bread and cup to God the Father, and in another to prove the eπikλnow, or prayer unto Him to send down His Holy Spirit upon the oblations, and perhaps in a third to shew that tradition of the ancients, who taught that Christ Himself, in the institution of that holy Sacrament, offered the bread and wine to His Father, and thereby taught His disciples to do the same. I must also intreat the learned reader not to omit the testimonies I have in this answer to the Rights, or in the following Discourses, cited in the margin, which generally are as considerable as any in the text, and had been put there, could it have been conveniently done without wearying the greater part of readers, and clogging it too much. I must also ask my readers' leave to take notice of a reflection, in which I have reason to think I am particularly pointed at for my way of writing this answer to the Rights. The words of the reflection are these which follow, divided into several paragraphs with as many replies. "I do not make it my business to cry out of the times"." Nor have I made it mine in this answer or elsewhere: to note the crying sins of the times is not to cry out of them, especially to note them Bishop Trimnell's Address to his Clergy before his Charge delivered to them at the Visitation of his Diocese DING REMARKS. PREFAT. SECT. XXIII. 328 Charge of crying out against the times answered. with all the seriousness that becomes a Christian, and soberDISCOURSE, ness and gravity that becomes a Christian priest. What [1 Tim. 5. the Apostle saith of men is justly applicable to times. The 24.] sins of some times are so open as well as great, and so notorious and glaring, as well as grievous, as precedently to any proof to bring them under the just censure and animadversion of every good Christian; and to every good Christian and Christian priest, even to as many of his own clergy as desired his lordship to print his charge, I dare appeal against him, whether in this answer to the Rights I have taken notice of these licentious times in any other manner than they deserve, or what becomes my character as a priest, or what deserves the name of exclamation in the sense his lordship means by crying out. "His lordship confesses h, that the design of the writer of the Rights was apparently wicked, levelled against all the Christian religion, and not at all framed to promote any thing that was honest and good." In another place1, "that his book destroys even the name and notion of the Church, and deserves to be mentioned with the utmost abhorrence, and that this age hath produced several such;" and could it then deserve censure to tax liberties allowed in such an age to print such books, which no other Christian nation, reformed or unreformed, would allow? "Which (times) will sooner mend by a quiet doing our duty, than by inveighing against them." Here the phrase is only varied, "inveighing" instead of "crying out;" and I would pray his lordship to consider, if St. Ignatius, Cyprian, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, or to name but one presbyter, Tertullian, were now living among us, whether their zeal for Christ and His Church, and to preserve their flocks from the wolves, would not have obliged them to cry out O tempora! and even inveigh against the Gallionism of the age: nay in all humility I pray his lordship seriously to consider, whether the Apostles, had any of them lived in our nation and times, would not have cried out against the spiritual governors in particular, and in a very severe manner, for not censuring these devoted enemies of Christ and His Church; or which is next to nothing, for censuring of them only as Eli did his sons, those sons of Belial, which though h Charge, p. 4. i Ibid., p. 3. k [Ibid., p. 4.] Necessity for active opposition to evil. 329 DING he might call it a quiet doing of his duty, yet God accounted CONCLUit no better than not doing it at all. And I would also REMARKS. beseech his lordship to consider what the Spirit said unto [Rev. 2. 12, the Churches of Pergamus and Thyatira, and by them to the 18, sqq.] Church of England, for suffering antichristian men who fill the world with worse doctrines than those of Balaam or the Nicolaitans, and to seduce her sons and daughters from believing any revealed religion to scepticism or utter unbelief. "When men are so affected at the iniquities they at any time see, as to take the most proper course to have them removed, they give proof of their being religious and wise, and can hardly fail of curing some at least of the evils they find'." Here I agree with his lordship. But then I must say, to take no course at all, or to take one that is no better than none, to remove any evils, is not to take the most proper course, nor of giving proofs of being religious or wise. And as to the evils his lordship means, I dare be bold to say, had Grindal, or Whitgift, or Bancroft, or Laud been now living, they would not have taken the course which I suppose his lordship thinks most proper, but some other to silence those enemies of all revealed religion: they would have exercised their own spiritual authority against them, by the highest censures in and out of convocation; and with prayers, and had it been needful, with tears also, supplicated the secular powers for God's and His Christ's sake, and every thing that was sacred in the Christian religion, to curb their insolence, and put some stop to their blasphemies, by doing of which, with or without success, they had, I conceive, taken the most proper course, at least to deliver their own souls. "But when such things, which are more or less the infelicity of all times, are aggravated to blacken the present, and when that is done, to reproach those who govern no better, there is as little justice as there is piety or wisdom in such kind of complaints, and they are not like to mend the condition of thingsm." This way of apology will serve to excuse any man, as well as any times: but when such things (may the worst of men say) which more or less are the infirmities of all men, are aggravated to blacken us, and when that is done to re[Charge, p. 4.] [Ibid.] m SECT. XXIII. 330 Hickes has not misrepresented the evils of his times. PREFAT. proach us for living no better, there is as little justice as DISCOURSE, there is piety or wisdom in such kind of complaints, and they are not like to mend us. Thus hath his lordship made an apology for the worst of men or people, as well as for the worst of times, which can be supposed to happen; and according to this way of apologizing for times, there can be none so bad wherein the ministers of Christ, those watchmen of Israel, ought to lift up their voices like trumpets, or complain and cry out against the sins of any times, be they never so great. This apology would have served for the times of the Great Rebellion, and even to have extenuated the iniquities of those times of which both a Prophet and an [Ps. 14. 1, Apostle said, "there is none righteous, no not one. There is sqq.] [Rom. 3. 10, none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. sqq.] They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not one." I might challenge his lordship to shew, that in my complaints of the times I have used any such hyperboles, or other figures of aggravation; though if I had, I could justify myself by authorities both human and Divine. Might it justly be said of Livy, for his complaint in the margin", that he blackened the times in which he lived, and reproached those who governed no better? Or will his lordship say, that Salvian blackened the times he lived in, when he described the grievous sins of them, one of which was not to punish, but tolerate piacular crimes? To blacken, by a metaphor in our language, signifies to defame men or times unjustly, Labente deinde paulatim disciplina, velut desidentes primo mores sequatur animo; deinde ut magis magisque lapsi sunt, tum ire cœperint præcipites, donec ad hæc tempora, quibus nec vitia nostra, nec remedia pati possumus, perventum est.-[Tit. Livii Hist., lib. i. præfat.] [Salvian was a priest of the Church of Marseilles. He wrote about the middle of the fifth century. The work referred to is his treatise, "De Gubernatione Dei, et de justo Dei præsentique judicio;" composed when the Goths were invading the west; and shewing that the sins of Christians were the cause of the judgments which fell on them. The following probably is the passage which Hickes had in his mind; in which, after dwelling on the crimes |