the man that laboureth at the plough, to him that sitteth in the Vatican; to all partakers in the sins of Babylon; to our Fathers, though they did but erroneously practise that which the Guide heretically taught; to all without exception, plagues were due. The pit is ordinarily the end, as well of the guide, as of the guided in blindness. But wo worth the hour wherein we were born, except we might promise ourselves better things; things which accompany man's salvation, even where we know that worse and such as accompany condemnation are due. Then must we shew some way how possibly they might escape. What way is there that sinners can find to escape the judgment of God, but only by appealing to the seat of his saving mercy? which mercy, with Origen, we do not extend to devils and damned spirits. God hath mercy upon thousands, but there be thousands also which he hardeneth. Christ hath therefore set the bounds, he hath fixed the limits of his John saving mercy within the compass of these terms: "God sent not his own Son to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." In the third of St. John's Gospel, mercy is restrained to believers: "He that believeth shall not be condemned: he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he believeth not in the Son of God." In the second of the Revelation, mercy is restrained to the penitent. For of Jezebel and her sectaries thus he speaketh: "I gave her space to repent, and she 21-23. repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit fornications with her into great affliction, except they repent them of their works; and I will kill her children with death." Our hope therefore of the Fathers is, if they were not altogether faithless and impenitent, that they are saved. iii. 17. John iii. 18. Rev. ii. 14. They are not faithless that are weak in assenting to the truth, or stiff in maintaining things opposite to the truth of Christian doctrine. But as many as hold the foundation which is precious, though they hold it but weakly, and as it were with a slender thread, although they frame many base and unsuitable things upon it, things that cannot abide the trial of the fire; yet shall they pass the fiery trial and be saved, which indeed have builded themselves upon the Rock, which is the foundation of the Church. If then our Fathers did not hold the foundation of Faith, there is no doubt but they were faithless. If many of them held it, then is therein no impediment but many of them might be saved. Then let us see what the foundation of Faith is, and whether we may think that thousands of our Fathers being in Popish Superstitions, did notwithstanding hold the foundation. 15. If the foundation of Faith do import the general ground whereupon we rest when we do believe, the writings of the Evangelists and the Apostles are the foundation of Christian Faith: "Credimus quia legimus," saith St. Jerome. O that the Church of Rome did as* soundly interpret these fundamental writings whereupon we build our Faith, as she doth willingly hold and embrace them! iii. 16. i. 49. 16. But if the name of foundation do note the principal thing which is believed, then is that the foundation of our Faith which St. Paul hath to Timothy: "God manifested 1 Tim. in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, &c:" that of Nathanael, "Thou art the Son of the living God; thou art the King John of Israel" that of the inhabitants of Samaria, "This is iv, 42. Christ the Saviour of the world:" he that directly denieth this, doth utterly raze the foundation of our Faith. I have proved heretofore, that although the Church of Rome hath played the harlot worse than ever did Israel, yet are they not, as now the Synagogue of the Jews, which plainly deny Christ Jesus, quite and clean excluded from the new Covenant. But as Samaria compared with Jerusalem is termed Aholath, a Church or Tabernacle of her own; contrariwise, Jerusalem Aholibath, the resting place of the Lord: so, whatsoever we term the Church of Rome, when we compare her with reformed Churches, still we put a difference, as then between Babylon and Samaria, so now between Rome and the Heathenish assemblies. Which opinion I must and will recall; I must grant and will, that the Church of Rome, together with all her children, is clean excluded; there is no difference in the world between our Fathers and Saracens, Turks and Painims, if they did directly deny Christ crucified for the salvation of the world. 17. But how many millions of them were known so to They misinterpret, not only by making false and corrupt glosses upon the Scripture, but also by forcing the old vulgar Translation as the only authentical: howbeit, they refuse no Book which is Canonical, though they admit sundry which are not. v. 2. have ended their lives, that the drawing of their breath hath ceased with the uttering of this Faith, "Christ my Saviour, my Redeemer Jesus?" Answer is made, that this they might unfeignedly confess, and yet be far enough Gal from salvation. For behold, saith the Apostle, "I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." Christ, in the work of man's salvation, is alone: the Galatians were cast away by joining Circumcision and the other Rites of the Law with Christ: the Church of Rome doth teach her children to join other things likewise with him; therefore their Faith, their Belief, doth not profit them any thing at all. It is true, that they do indeed join other things with Christ; but how? Not in the work of redemption itself, which they grant that Christ alone hath performed sufficiently for the salvation of the whole world; but in the application of this inestimable treasure, that it may be effectual to their salvation: how demurely soever they confess that they seek remission of sins no otherwise than by the blood of Christ, using humbly the means appointed by him to apply the benefit of his holy blood; they teach, indeed, so many things pernicious in Christian Faith, in setting down the means whereof they speak, that the very foundation of Faith which they hold, is thereby plainly overthrown,* and the force of the blood of Jesus Christ extinguished. We may therefore, disputing with them, urge them even with as dangerous sequels, as the Apostle doth the Galatians. But I demand, if some of those Galatians, heartily embracing the Gospel of Christ, sincere and sound in Faith (this one only error excepted), had ended their lives before they were ever taught how perilous an opinion they held; shall we think that the danger of this error did so overweigh the benefit of their Faith, that the mercy of God might not save them? I grant they overthrew the foundation of Faith by consequent: doth not that so likewise which the+ Lutheran Plainly in all men's sight whose eyes God hath enlightened to behold his truth. For they which are in error are in darkness, and see not that which in light is plain. In that which they teach concerning the natures of Christ, they hold the same with Nestorius fully, the same with Eutyches about the proprieties of his nature. + The opinion of the Lutherans, though it be no direct denial of the foundation may notwithstanding be damnable unto some; and I do not think but that in many respects it is less damnable, as at this day some maintain it, than it was in them which held it at first; as Luther and others whom I had an eye unto in this Churches do at this day so stiffly and so firmly maintain? For mine own part, I dare not here deny the possibility of their salvation, which have been the chiefest instruments of ours, albeit they carried to their graves a persuasion so greatly repugnant to the truth. Forasmuch therefore, as it may be said of the Church of Rome, she hath yet a little strength, she doth not directly deny the foundation of Christianity: I may, I trust without offence, persuade myself that thousands of our Fathers, in former times, living and dying within her walls, have found mercy at the hands of God. 18. What although they repented not of their errors? God forbid that I should open my mouth to gainsay that which Christ himself hath spoken: "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish." And if they did not repent, they perished. But withal note, that we have the benefit of a double repentance: the least sin which we commit in deed, thought, or word, is death, without repentance. Yet how many things do escape us in every of these, which we do not know? how many, which we do not observe, to be sins? and without the knowledge, without the observation of sin, there is no actual repentance. It cannot then be chosen, but that for as many as hold the foundation, and have holden all sins and errors in hatred, the blessing of repentance for unknown sins and errors is obtained at the hands of God, through the gracious médiation of Jesus Christ, for such suitors as cry with the Prophet David, "Purge me, O Lord, from my secret sins." 19. But we wash a wall of loam; we labour in vain; all this is nothing; it doth not prove, it cannot justify, that which we go about to maintain. Infidels and Heathen men are not so godless, but that they may, no doubt, cry God mercy, and desire in general to have their sins forgiven. To such as deny the foundation of Faith, there can be no salvation (according to the ordinary course which God doth use in saving men) without a particular repentance of that error. The Galatians, thinking that unless they were circumcised, they could not be saved, overthrew the foundation of Faith directly: therefore if any of them did speech. The question is not, whether an error with such and such circumstances; but simply, whether an error overthrowing the foundation, do exclude all possibility of salvation, if it be not recanted, and expressly repented of. 2 L VOL. II. 1 2.4. die so persuaded, whether before or after they were told of their errors, their end is dreadful; there is no way with them but one, death and condemnation. For the Apostle speaketh nothing of men departed, but saith generally of Gal. v. all," If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. Ye are abolished from Christ, whosoever are justified by the Law; ye are fallen from grace." Of them in the Church of Rome the reason is the same. For whom Antichrist hath seduced, concerning them did not St. Paul 2 Thess. speak long before, "They received not the word of truth, ii. 10-12. that they might be saved; therefore God would send them strong delusions to believe lies, that all they might be damned which believe not the truth, but had pleasure Apoc. in unrighteousness?" And St. John," All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life?" Indeed many in former times, as their books and writings do yet shew, held the foundation, to wit, salvation by Christ alone, and therefore might be saved. God hath always had a Church among them, which firmly kept his saving truth. As for such as hold with the Church of Rome, that we cannot be saved by Christ alone without Works; they do not only by a circle of consequence, but directly, deny the foundation of Faith; they hold it not, no not so much as by a thread. xiii. 8. 20. This, to my remembrance, being all that hath been opposed with any countenance or show of reason, I hope, if this be answered, the cause in question is at an end. Concerning general repentance, therefore: what? a murderer, a blasphemer, an unclean person, a Turk, a Jew, any sinner to escape the wrath of God by a general repentance, "God forgive me?" Truly, it never came within my heart, that a general repentance doth serve for all sins it serveth only for the common oversights of our sinful life, and for the faults which either we do not mark, or do not know that they are faults. Our Fathers were actually penitent for sins, wherein they knew they displeased God: or else they fall not within the compass of my first speech. Again, that otherwise they could not be saved, than holding the foundation of Christian Faith, we have not only affirmed, but proved. Why is it not then confessed, that thousands of our Fathers which lived in Popish Superstitions, might yet, by the mercy of God, be |