Ch. xxii. 19. 112 Controversy between Some and Penry. BOOK V. And in this present question they also warily protest, that what they ascribe to the virtue of preaching, they still mean it of "good preaching 85." Now one of them saith that a good sermon must "expound" and " apply" a "large" portion of the text of Scripture at one time 86. Another 87 giveth us to understand, that sound preaching "is not to do as one did "at London, who spent the most of his time in invectives "against good men, and told his audience how the magistrate “should have an eye to such as troubled the peace of the "Church." The best of them hold it for no good preaching “when a man endeavoureth to make a glorious show of elo 46 66 5 T. C. lib. ii. p. 385. 86 Complaint of the Commonalty. ["Some take but one word for their text, and afterwards run into the 66 mountains, that we cannot follow "them, not knowing how they went up, or how they will come down "again: whereas if they had taken a good portion of the text, and "had naturally expounded and pithily applied the same, by occasion "of that large text, we should have "remembered a good part of the sermon long time after."] 66 66 66 66 87 Dr. Some's Painter, p. 21. [The tract here quoted is M. Some laid open in his colours: wherein the "indifferent reader may easily see, "how wretchedly and loosely he "hath handled the cause against M. "Penry. Done by an Oxford man, "to his friend in Cambridge." No date nor printer's name. Some was Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and his principles had been those of a moderate Puritan, of which party in the University Whitaker seems to have been the head. In 1588, he published, "A godly Treatise containing and deciding certain questions moved of late in Lon"don and other places, touching "the Ministry, Sacraments, and "Church ..... After the end of the "book you shall find a Defence of "such points as M. Penry hath "dealt against, and a confutation of many gross errors broached in M. Penry's last treatise." The first part of this work had been published separately, May 5, and was met 66 66 66 a certain church by the Exchange, "I think they call it Bartholomew "church, where it may be his ears "would have glowed, and if he durst "have been so bold, I do not think "but he would have condemned the preacher, and that worthily, for his babbling." (Note in margin, "This preacher, as I understood "since, was M. Some himself.") "For then he might have heard him "fetch many vagaries, and spend "the most of his time in invectives 113 The Puritans challenged to define a good Sermon. quence and learning, rather than to apply himself to the BOOK V. "capacity of the simple 88." But let them shape us out a good preacher by what pattern soever it pleaseth them best, let them exclude and inclose whom they will with their definitions, we are not desirous to enter into any contention with them about this, or to abate the conceit they have of their own ways, so that when once we are agreed what sermons shall currently pass for good, we may at the length understand from them what that is in a good sermon which doth make it the word of life unto such as hear. If substance of matter, evidence of things, strength and validity of arguments and proofs, or if any other virtue else which words and sentences may contain; of all this what is there in the best sermons being uttered, which they lose by being read? But they utterly deny that the reading either of scriptures or homilies and sermons can ever by the ordinary grace of God save any soul. So that although we had all the sermons word for word which James, Paul, Peter, and the rest of the Apostles made, some one of which sermons was of power to convert thousands of the hearers unto Christian faith; yea although we had all the instructions, exhortations, consolations, which came from the gracious lips of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and should read them ten thousand times over, to faith and salvation no man could hereby hope to attain. Whereupon it must of necessity follow, that the vigour and vital efficacy of sermons doth grow from certain accidents which are not in them but in their maker: his virtue, his gesture, his countenance, his zeal, the motion of his body, and the inflection of his voice who first uttereth them as his own, is that which giveth them the form, the nature, the very essence of instruments available to eternal life. If they like neither that nor this, what remaineth but that their final conclusion be, sermons we know are the only ordinary means to salvation, but why or how we cannot tell?" 66 66 [20.] Wherefore to end this tedious controversy, wherein the too great importunity of our over eager adversaries hath constrained us much longer to dwell, than the barrenness of so poor a cause could have seemed at the first likely either to 88 T. C. lib. ii. p. 385. Ch. xxii. 20. Ch. xxii. 20. 114 Sermons not proved the only Way to Faith. BOOK V. require or to admit, if they which without partialities and passions are accustomed to weigh all things, and accordingly to give their sentence, shall here sit down to receive our audit, and to cast up the whole reckoning on both sides; the sum which truth amounteth unto will appear to be but this, that as medicines provided of nature and applied by art for the benefit of bodily health, take effect sometimes under and sometimes above the natural proportion of their virtue, according as the mind and fancy of the patient doth more or less concur with them: so whether we barely read unto men the Scriptures of God, or by homilies concerning matter of belief and conversation seek to lay before them the duties which they owe unto God and man; whether we deliver them books to read and consider of in private at their own best leisure, or call them to the hearing of sermons publicly in the house of God; albeit every of these and the like unto these means do truly and daily effect that in the hearts of men for which they are each and all meant, yet the operation which they have in common being most sensible and most generally noted in one kind above the rest, that one hath in some men's opinions drowned altogether the rest, and injuriously brought to pass that they have been thought, not less effectual than the other, but without the other uneffectual to save souls. Whereas the cause why sermons only are observed to prevail so much while all means else seem to sleep and do nothing, is in truth nothing but that singular affection and attention which the people sheweth every where towards the one, and their cold disposition to the other; the reason hereof being partly the art which our adversaries use for the credit of their sermons to bring men out of conceit with all other teaching besides; partly a custom which men have to let those things carelessly pass by their ears, which they have oftentimes heard before, or know they may hear again whensoever it pleaseth themselves; partly the especial advantages which sermons naturally have to procure attention, both in that they come always new, and because by the hearer it is still presumed, that if they be let slip for the present, what good soever they contain is lost, and that without all hope of recovery. This is the true cause of odds between sermons and other kinds of wholesome instruction. Prayer considered as a Duty to God. 115 Ch. xxiii. As for the difference which hath been hitherto so much BOOK V. defended on the contrary side, making sermons the only ordinary means unto faith and eternal life, sith this hath neither evidence of truth nor proof sufficient to give it warrant, a cause of such quality may with far better grace and conveniency ask that pardon which common humanity doth easily grant, than claim in challenging manner that assent which is as unwilling when reason guideth it to be yielded where it is not, as withheld where it is apparently due. All which notwithstanding, as we could greatly wish that the rigour of this their opinion were allayed and mitigated, so because we hold it the part of religious ingenuity to honour virtue in whomsoever, therefore it is our most hearty desire, and shall be always our prayer unto Almighty God, that in the selfsame fervent zeal wherewith they seem to affect the good of the souls of men, and to thirst after nothing more than that all men might by all means be directed in the way of life, both they and we may constantly persist to the world's end. For in this we are not their adversaries, though they in the other hitherto have been ours. XXIII. Between the throne of God in heaven and his Of Prayer. Church upon earth here militant if it be so that Angels have their continual intercourse, where should we find the same more verified than in these two ghostly exercises, the one Doctrine, and the other Prayer? For what is the assembling of the Church to learn, but the receiving of Angels descended from above? What to pray, but the sending of Angels upward? His heavenly inspirations and our holy desires are as so many Angels of intercourse and commerce between God and us. As teaching bringeth us to know that God is our supreme truth; so prayer testifieth that we acknowledge him our sovereign good. Besides, sith on God as the most high all inferior causes in the world are dependent; and the higher any cause is, the more it coveteth to impart virtue unto things beneath it; how should any kind of service we do or can do find greater acceptance than prayer, which sheweth our concurrence with him in desiring that wherewith his very nature doth most delight? Is not the name of prayer usual to signify even all the service that ever we do unto God? And that for no other cause, Ch. xxiv. 1. 116 Prayer considered as a Duty to our Neighbour. BOOK V. as I suppose, but to shew that there is in religion no acceptable duty which devout invocation of the name of God doth not either presuppose or infer. Prayers are those "calves of men's lips 89;" those most gracious and sweet odours 90; those rich presents and gifts, which being carried up into heaven 91 do best testify our dutiful affection, and are for the purchasing of all favour at the hands of God the most undoubted means we Of public Prayer. 66 can use. On others what more easily, and yet what more fruitfully bestowed than our prayers? If we give counsel, they are the simpler only that need it; if alms, the poorer only are relieved; but by prayer we do good to all. And whereas every other duty besides is but to shew itself as time and opportunity require, for this all times are convenient 92: when we are not able to do any other thing for men's behoof, when through maliciousness or unkindness they vouchsafe not to accept any other good at our hands, prayer is that which we always have in our power to bestow, and they never in theirs to refuse. Wherefore "God forbid," saith Samuel, speaking unto a most unthankful people, a people weary of the benefit of his most virtuous government over them, "God forbid that I "should sin against the Lord, and cease to pray for you 93." It is the first thing wherewith a righteous life beginneth, and the last wherewith it doth end. And The knowledge is small which we have on earth concerning things that are done in heaven. Notwithstanding thus much we know even of Saints in heaven, that they pray 94. therefore prayer being a work common to the Church as well triumphant as militant, a work common unto men with Angels, what should we think but that so much of our lives is celestial and divine as we spend in the exercise of prayer? For which cause we see that the most comfortable visitations, which God hath sent men from above, have taken especially the times of prayer as their most natural opportunities 95. XXIV. This holy and religious duty of service towards. God concerneth us one way in that we are men, and another |