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V.22. What they attribute to sermons only, and what we to reading also.

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XXII. So worthy a part of divine service we should greatly wrong, if we did not esteem Preaching as the blessed ordinance of God, sermons as keys to the kingdom of heaven, as wings to the soul, as spurs to the good affections of man, unto the sound and healthy as food, as physic unto diseased minds. Wherefore how highly soever it may please them with words of truth to extol sermons, they shall not herein offend us. We seek not to derogate from any thing which they can justly esteem, but our desire is to uphold the just estimation of that from which it seemeth unto us they derogate more than becometh them1. That which offendeth us is first the great disgrace which they offer unto our custom of bare reading the word of God, and to his gracious Spirit, the principal virtue whereof thereby manifesting itself for the endless good of men’s souls, even the virtue which it hath to convert, to edify, to save souls, this they mightily strive to obscure; and secondly the shifts wherewith they maintain their opinion of sermons, whereunto while they labour to appropriate the saving power of the Holy Ghost, they separate from all apparent hope of life and salvation thousands whom the goodness of Almighty God doth not exclude.

Touching therefore the use of Scripture, even in that it is openly read, and the inestimable good which the Church of God by that very mean hath reaped; there was, we may very well think, some cause, which moved the Apostle St. Paul to require, that those things which any one church’s affairs gave particular occasion to write, might for the instruction of all be published, and that by reading2.

1. When the very having of the books of God was a matter of no small charge and difficulty, inasmuch as they could not be had otherwise than only in written copies, it was the necessity not of preaching things agreeable with the word, but of reading the word itself at large to the people, which caused churches throughout the world to have public care, that the sacred oracles of God being procured by common charge, might with great sedulity be kept both entire and sincere. If then we admire the providence of God in the same continuance of Scripture, notwithstanding the violent endeavours of infidels to abolish, and the fraudulent of heretics always to deprave the same, shall we set light by that custom of reading, from whence so precious a benefit hath grown?

2. The voice and testimony of the Church acknowledging Scripture to be the law of the living God, is for the truth and certainty thereof no mean evidence. For if with reason we may presume upon things which a few men’s depositions do testify, suppose we that the minds of men are not both at their first access to the school of Christ exceedingly moved, yea and for ever afterwards also confirmed much, when they consider the main consent of all the churches in the whole world witnessing the sacred authority of scriptures, ever sithence the first publication thereof, even till this present day and hour? And that they all have always so testified, I see not how we should possibly wish a proof more palpable, than this manifest received and every where continued custom of reading them publicly as the Scriptures. The reading therefore of the word of God, as the use hath ever been, in open audience, is the plainest evidence we have of the Church’s Assent and Acknowledgment that it is his word.

3. A further commodity this custom hath, which is to furnish the very simplest and rudest sort with such infallible Axioms and Precepts of sacred truth, delivered even in the very Letter of the Law of God, as may serve them for3 Rules whereby to judge the better all other doctrines and instructions which they hear. For which end and purpose I see not how the Scripture could be possibly made familiar unto all, unless far more should be read in the people’s hearing, than by a sermon can be opened. For whereas in a manner the whole book of God is by reading every year published, a small part thereof in comparison of the whole may hold very well the readiest interpreter of Scripture occupied many years.

4. Besides, wherefore should any man think, but that reading itself is one of the “ordinary” means, whereby it pleaseth God of his gracious goodness to instil that celestial verity, which being but so received, is nevertheless effectual to save souls? Thus much therefore we ascribe to the reading of the word of God as the manner is in our churches.

And because it were odious if they on their part should altogether despise the same, they yield4 that reading may “set forward,” but not begin the work of salvation; that 5faith may be “nourished” therewith, but not bred; that6 herein men’s attention to the Scriptures, and their speculation of the creatures of God have like efficacy, both being of power to “augment,” but neither to effect belief without sermons; that if7 any believe by reading alone, we are to account it a miracle, an “extraordinary” work of God. Wherein that which they grant we gladly accept at their hands, and wish that patiently they would examine how little cause they have to deny that which as yet they grant not.

The Scripture witnesseth that when the book of the Law of God had been sometime missing, and was after found, the king, which heard it but only read, tare his clothes, and with tears confessed, “Great is the wrath of the Lord upon us, because our fathers have not kept his word to do after all things which are written in this book8.” This doth argue, that by bare reading (for of sermons at that time there is no mention) true repentance may be wrought in the hearts of such as fear God, and yet incur his displeasure, the deserved effect whereof is eternal death. So that their repentance (although it be not their first entrance) is notwithstanding the first step of their reentrance into life, and may be in them wrought by the word only read unto them.

Besides, it seemeth that God would have no man stand in doubt but that the reading of Scripture is effectual, as well to lay even the first foundation, as to add degrees of farther perfection in the fear of God. And therefore the Law saith, “Thou shalt read this Law before all Israel, that men, women, and children may hear, yea even that their children which as yet have not known it may hear it, and by hearing it so read, may learn to fear the Lord9.”

Our Lord and Saviour was himself of opinion, that they which would not be drawn to amendment of life by the testimony which Moses and the Prophets have given concerning the miseries that follow sinners after death, were not likely to be persuaded by other means10, although God from the very dead should have raised them up preachers.

Many hear the books of God and believe them not. Howbeit their unbelief in that case we may not impute unto any weakness or unsufficiency in the mean which is used towards them, but to the wilful bent of their obstinate hearts against it. With minds obdurate nothing prevaileth. As well they that preach, as they that read unto such, shall still have cause to complain with the Prophets which were of old, “Who will give credit unto our teaching11?” But with whom ordinary means will prevail, surely the power of the word of God, even without the help of interpreters in God’s Church worketh mightily, not unto their confirmation alone which are converted, but also to their conversion which are not.

It shall not boot them who derogate from reading to excuse it, when they see no other remedy, as if their intent were only to deny that aliens and strangers from the family of God are won, or that belief doth use to be wrought at the first in them, without sermons. For they know it is our custom of simple reading not for conversion of infidels estranged from the house of God, but for instruction of men baptized, bred and brought up in the bosom of the Church, which they despise as a thing uneffectual to save such souls. In such they imagine that God hath no ordinary mean to work faith without sermons.

The reason, why no man can attain belief by the bare contemplation of heaven and earth, is for that they neither are sufficient to give us as much as the least spark of light concerning the very principal mysteries of our faith; and whatsoever we may learn by them, the same we can only attain to know according to the manner of natural sciences, which mere discourse of wit and reason findeth out, whereas the things which we properly believe be only such as are received upon the credit of divine testimony12. Seeing therefore that he which considereth the creatures of God findeth therein both these defects, and neither the one nor the other in Scriptures, because he that readeth unto us the Scriptures delivereth all the mysteries of faith, and not any thing amongst them all more than the mouth of the Lord doth warrant: it followeth in those two respects that our consideration of creatures and attention unto Scriptures are not in themselves, and without sermons, things of like disability to breed or beget faith.

Small cause also there is, why any man should greatly wonder as at an extraordinary work, if without sermons reading be found to effect thus much. For I would know by some special instance, what one article of Christian faith, or what duty required necessarily unto all men’s salvation there is, which the very reading of the word of God is not apt to notify. Effects are miraculous and strange when they grow by unlikely means. But did we ever hear it accounted for a wonder, that he which doth read, should believe and live according to the will of Almighty God13? Reading doth convey to the mind that truth without addition or diminution, which Scripture hath derived from the Holy Ghost. And the end of all Scripture is the same which St. John proposeth in the writing of that most divine Gospel, namely Faith, and through faith Salvation14. Yea all Scripture is to this effect in itself available, as they which wrote it were persuaded15; unless we suppose that the Evangelist or others in speaking of their own intent to instruct and to save by writing, had a secret conceit which they never opened unto any, a conceit that no man in the world should ever be that way the better for any sentence by them written, till such time as the same might chance to be preached upon or alleged at the least in a sermon. Otherwise if he which writeth do that which is forcible in itself, how should he which readeth be thought to do that which in itself is of no force to work belief and to save believers?

Now although we have very just cause to stand in some jealousy and fear, lest by thus overvaluing their sermons, they make the price and estimation of Scripture otherwise notified to fall; nevertheless so impatient they are, that being but requested to let us know what causes they leave for men’s encouragement to attend to the reading of the Scripture, if sermons only be the power of God to save every one which believeth; that which we move for our better learning and instruction’s sake, turneth unto anger and choler in them, they grow altogether out of quietness with it, they answer fumingly that they are “ashamed to defile their pens with making answer to such idle questions16:” yet in this their mood they cast forth somewhat, wherewith under pain of greater displeasure we must rest contented. They tell us the profit of reading is singular, in that it serveth for a preparative unto sermons; it helpeth prettily towards the nourishment of faith which sermons have once engendered; it is some stay to his mind which readeth the Scripture, when he findeth the same things there which are taught in sermons, and thereby perceiveth how God doth concur in opinion with the preacher; besides it keepeth sermons in memory, and doth in that respect, although not feed the soul of man, yet help the retentive force of that stomach of the mind which receiveth ghostly food at the preacher’s hand. But the principal cause of writing the Gospel was, that it might be preached upon or interpreted by public ministers apt and authorized thereunto17. Is it credible that a superstitious conceit (for it is no better) concerning sermons should in such sort both darken their eyes and yet sharpen their wits withal, that the only true and weighty cause why Scripture was written, the cause which in Scripture is so often mentioned, the cause which all men have ever till this present day acknowledged, this they should clean exclude as being no cause at all, and load us with so great store of strange concealed causes which did never see light till now? In which number the rest must needs be of moment, when the very chiefest cause of committing the sacred Word of God unto books, is surmised to have been, lest the preacher should want a text whereupon to scholy.

Men of learning hold it for a slip in judgment, when offer is made to demonstrate that as proper to one thing which reason findeth common unto moe. Whereas therefore they take from all kinds of teaching that which they attribute to sermons, it had been their part to yield directly some strong reason why between sermons alone and faith there should be ordinarily that coherence which causes have with their usual effects, why a Christian man’s belief should so naturally grow from sermons, and not possibly from any other kind of teaching.

In belief there being but these two operations, apprehension and assent, do only sermons cause belief, in that no other way is able to explain the mysteries of God, that the mind may rightly apprehend or conceive them as behoveth? We all know that many things are believed, although they be intricate, obscure, and dark, although they exceed the reach and capacity of our wits, yea although in this world they be no way possible to be understood. Many things believed are likewise so plain, that every common person may therein be unto himself a sufficient expounder. Finally, to explain even those things which need and admit explication, many other usual ways there are besides sermons. Therefore sermons are not the only ordinary means whereby we first come to apprehend the mysteries of God.

Is it in regard then of sermons only, that apprehending the Gospel of Christ we yield thereunto our unfeigned assent as to a thing infallibly true? They which rightly consider after what sort the heart of man hereunto is framed, must of necessity acknowledge, that whoso assenteth to the words of eternal life, doth it in regard of his authority whose words they are. This is in man’s conversion unto God τὸ ὅθεν ἡ ἀρχὴ τη̑ς κινήσεως, the first step whereat his race towards heaven beginneth. Unless therefore, clean contrary to our own experience, we shall think it a miracle if any man acknowledge the divine authority of the Scripture, till some sermon have persuaded him thereunto, and that otherwise neither conversation in the bosom of the Church, nor religious education, nor the reading of learned men’s books, nor information received by conference, nor whatsoever pain and diligence in hearing, studying, meditating day and night on the Law, is so far blest of God as to work this effect in any man; how would they have us to grant that faith doth not come but only by hearing sermons?

Fain they would have us to believe the Apostle St. Paul himself to be the author of this their paradox, only because he hath said that “it pleaseth God by the foolishness of preaching to save them which believe18;” and again, “How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? how shall they hear without a preacher? how shall men preach except they be sent19?”

To answer therefore both allegations20 at once; the very substance of that they contain is in few but this. Life and salvation God will have offered unto all; his will is that Gentiles should be saved as well as Jews. Salvation belongeth unto none but such “as call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ21.” Which nations as yet unconverted neither do nor possibly can do till they believe. What they are to believe, impossible it is they should know till they hear it. Their hearing requireth our preaching unto them.

Tertullian22, to draw even Paynims themselves unto Christian belief, willeth the books of the Old Testament to be searched, which were at that time in Ptolemy’s library. And if men did not list to travel so far though it were for their endless good, he addeth that in Rome and other places the Jews had synagogues whereunto every one which would might resort, that this kind of liberty they purchased by payment of a standing tribute, that there they did openly 23read the Scriptures; and whosoever “will hear” saith Tertullian, “he shall find God; whosoever will study to know, shall be also fain to believe.” But sith there is no likelihood that ever voluntarily they will seek instruction at our hands, it remaineth that unless we will suffer them to perish, salvation itself must seek them, it behoveth God to send them preachers, as he did his elect Apostles throughout the world.

There is a knowledge which God hath always revealed unto them in the works of nature. This they honour and esteem highly as profound wisdom; howbeit this wisdom saveth them not. That which must save believers is the knowledge of the cross of Christ, the only subject of all our preaching. And in their eyes what doth this seem as yet but folly? It pleaseth God by “the foolishness of preaching” to save. These words declare how admirable force those mysteries have which the world doth deride as follies; they shew that the foolishness of the cross of Christ is the wisdom of true believers; they concern the object of our faith, the matter preached of and believed in by Christian men24. This we know that the Grecians or Gentiles did account foolishness; but that they ever did think it a fond or unlikely way to seek men’s conversion by sermons we have not heard. Manifest therefore it is that the Apostle applying the name of foolishness in such sort as they did must needs by “the foolishness of preaching” mean the doctrine of Christ, which we learn that we may be saved; but that sermons are the only manner of teaching whereby it pleaseth our Lord to save he could not mean.

In like sort where the same Apostle proveth that as well the sending of the Apostles as their preaching to the Gentiles was necessary, dare we affirm it was ever his meaning, that unto their salvation who even from their tender infancy never knew any other faith or religion than only Christian, no kind of teaching can be available saving that which was so needful for the first universal conversion of Gentiles hating Christianity; neither the sending of any sort allowable in the one case, except only of such as had been in the other also most fit and worthy instruments?

Belief in all sorts doth come by hearkening and attending to the word of life. Which word sometime proposeth and preacheth itself to the hearer; sometime they deliver it whom privately zeal and piety moveth to be instructors of others by conference; sometime of them it is taught whom the Church hath called to the public either reading thereof or interpreting. All these tend unto one effect; neither doth that which St. Paul or other Apostles teach, concerning the necessity of such teaching as theirs was, or of sending such as they were for that purpose unto the Gentiles, prejudice the efficacy of any other way of public instruction, or enforce the utter disability of any other men’s vocation thought requisite in this Church, for the saving of souls, where means more effectual are wanting.

Their only proper and direct proof of the thing in question had been to shew, in what sort and how far man’s salvation doth necessarily depend upon the knowledge of the word of God; what conditions, properties, and qualities there are, whereby sermons are distinguished from other kinds of administering the word unto that purpose; and what special property or quality that is, which being no where found but in sermons, maketh them effectual to save souls, and leaveth all other doctrinal means besides destitute of vital efficacy. These pertinent instructions, whereby they might satisfy us and obtain the cause itself for which they contend, these things which only would serve they leave, and (which needeth not) sometime they trouble themselves with fretting at the ignorance of such as withstand them in their opinion; sometime they25 fall upon their poor brethren which can but read, and against them they are bitterly eloquent.

If we allege what the Scriptures themselves do usually speak for the saving force of the word of God, not with restraint to any one certain kind of delivery, but howsoever the same shall chance to be made known, yet by one trick or other they always restrain it unto sermons. Our Lord and Saviour hath said26, “Search the Scriptures, in them ye think to have eternal life.” But they tell us, he spake to the Jews, which Jews before had heard his Sermons27; and that peradventure it was his mind they should search, not by reading, nor by hearing them read, but by “attending” whensoever the Scriptures should happen to be alleged “in Sermons.”

Furthermore, having received apostolic doctrine, the Apostle St. Paul hath taught us to esteem the same as the supreme rule whereby all other doctrines must for ever be examined28. Yea, but inasmuch as the Apostle doth there speak of that he had preached, he “flatly maketh” (as they strangely affirm) “his Preachings or Sermons the rule whereby to examine all.” And then I beseech you what rule have we whereby to judge or examine any? For if sermons must be our rule, because the Apostles’ sermons were so to their hearers; then, sith we are not as they were hearers of the Apostles’ sermons, it resteth that either the sermons which we hear should be our rule, or (that being absurd) there will (which yet hath greater absurdity) no rule at all be remaining for trial, what doctrines now are corrupt, what consonant with heavenly truth.

Again, let the same Apostle acknowledge “all Scripture profitable to teach, to improve, to correct, to instruct in righteousness29.” Still notwithstanding we err, if hereby we presume to gather, that Scripture read will avail unto any one of all these uses; they teach us the meaning of the words to be, that so much the Scripture can do if the minister that way apply it in his sermons, otherwise not.

Finally, they never hear sentence which mentioneth the Word or Scripture, but forthwith their glosses30 upon it are, the Word “preached,” the Scripture “explained or delivered unto us in sermons.” Sermons they evermore understand to be that Word of God, which alone hath vital operation; the dangerous sequel of which construction I wish they did more attentively weigh. For sith speech is the very image whereby the mind and soul of the speaker conveyeth itself into the bosom of him which heareth, we cannot choose but see great reason, wherefore the word that proceedeth from God, who is himself very truth and life, should be (as the Apostle to the Hebrews noteth) lively and mighty in operation, “sharper than any two-edged sword31.” Now if in this and the like places we did conceive that our own sermons are that strong and forcible word32, should we not hereby impart even the most peculiar glory of the word of God unto that which is not his word? For touching our sermons, that which giveth them their very being is the wit of man33, and therefore they oftentimes accordingly taste too much of that over corrupt fountain from which they come. In our speech of most holy things, our most frail affections many times are bewrayed.

Wherefore when we read or recite the Scripture, we then deliver to the people properly the word of God. As for our sermons, be they never so sound and perfect, his word they are not as the sermons of the prophets were; no, they are but ambiguously termed his word, because his word is commonly the subject whereof they treat, and must be the rule whereby they are framed. Notwithstanding by these and the like shifts they derive unto sermons alone whatsoever is generally spoken concerning the word.

Again, what seemeth to have been uttered concerning sermons and their efficacy or necessity, in regard of divine Matter, and must consequently be verified in sundry other kinds of teaching, if the Matter be the same in all; their use is to fasten every such speech unto that one only Manner of teaching which is by sermons, that still sermons may be all in all. Thus34 because Salomon declareth that the people decay or “perish” for want of knowledge, where35 no “prophesying” at all is, they gather that the hope of life and salvation is cut off, where preachers are not which prophesy by sermons, how many soever they be in number that read daily the word of God, and deliver, though in other sort, the selfsame matter which sermons do. The people which have no way to come to the knowledge of God, no prophesying, no teaching, perish. But that they should of necessity perish, where any one way of knowledge lacketh, is more than the words of Salomon import.

Another usual point of their art in this present question, is to make very large and plentiful discourses36 how Christ is by sermons lifted up higher and made more apparent to the eye of faith; how the savour of the word37 is more sweet being brayed, and more able to nourish being divided by preaching38, than by only reading proposed; how sermons are the keys of the kingdom of heaven39, and do open the Scriptures, which being but read, remain in comparison still clasped; how God40 giveth richer increase of grace to the ground that is planted and watered by preaching, than by bare and simple reading. Out of which premises declaring how attainment unto life is easier where sermons are, they conclude an impossibility41 thereof where sermons are not.

Alcidamas the sophister42 hath many arguments, to prove that voluntary and extemporal far excelleth premeditated speech. The like whereunto and in part the same are brought by them, who commend sermons, as having (which all men I think will acknowledge) sundry43 peculiar and proper virtues, such as no other way of teaching besides hath. Aptness to follow particular occasions presently growing, to put life into words by countenance, voice, and gesture, to prevail mightily in the sudden affections of men, this sermons may challenge. Wherein notwithstanding so eminent properties whereof lessons are haply destitute, yet lessons being free from some inconveniences whereunto sermons are more subject, they may in this respect no less take, than in other they must give the hand which betokeneth preeminence. For there is nothing which is not someway excelled even by that which it doth excel. Sermons therefore and Lessons may each excel other in some respects, without any prejudice unto either as touching that vital force which they both have in the work of our salvation.

[13.] To which effect when we have endeavoured as much as in us doth lie to find out the strongest causes wherefore they should imagine that reading is itself so unavailable, the most we can learn at their hand is, that 44sermons are “the ordinance of God,” the Scriptures “dark,” and the labour of reading “easy.”

First therefore as we know that God doth aid with his grace, and by his special providence evermore bless with happy success those things which himself appointeth, so his Church we persuade ourselves he hath not in such sort given over to a reprobate sense, that whatsoever it deviseth for the good of the souls of men, the same he doth still accurse and make frustrate.

Or if he always did defeat the ordinances of his Church, is not reading the ordinance of God45? Wherefore then should we think that the force of his secret grace is accustomed to bless the labour of dividing his word according unto each man’s private discretion in public sermons, and to withdraw itself from concurring with the public delivery thereof by such selected portions of Scripture, as the whole Church hath solemnly appointed to be read for the people’s good, either by ordinary course, or otherwise, according to the exigence of special occasions? Reading (saith Isidore46) is to the hearers no small edifying. To them whose delight and meditation is in the law seeing that happiness and bliss belongeth47, it is not in us to deny them the benefit of heavenly grace. And I hope we may presume, that a rare thing it is not in the Church of God, even for that very word which is read to be both presently their 48joy, and afterwards their study that hear it. St. Augustine49 speaking of devout men, noteth how they daily frequented the church, how attentive ear they gave unto the lessons and chapters read, how careful they were to remember the same, and to muse thereupon by themselves. St. Cyprian50 observeth that reading was not without effect in the hearts of men. Their joy and alacrity were to him an argument, that there is in this ordinance a blessing, such as ordinarily doth accompany the administration of the word of life.

It were much if there should be such a difference between the hearing of sermons preached and of lessons read in the church, that he which presenteth himself at the one, and maketh his prayer with the Prophet David, “Teach me O Lord the way of thy statutes, direct me in the path of thy commandments51,” might have the ground of usual experience, whereupon to build his hope of prevailing with God, and obtaining the grace he seeketh; they contrariwise not so, who crave the like assistance of his Spirit, when they give ear to the reading of the other. In this therefore preaching and reading are equal, that both are approved as his ordinances, both assisted with his grace. And if his grace do assist them both to the nourishment of faith already bred, we cannot, without some very manifest cause yielded, imagine that in breeding or begetting faith, his grace doth cleave to the one and utterly forsake the other.

[14.] Touching hardness which is the second pretended impediment52, as against Homilies being plain and popular instructions it is no bar, so neither doth it infringe the efficacy no not of Scriptures although but read. The force of reading, how small soever they would have it, must of necessity be granted sufficient to notify that which is plain or easy to be understood. And of things necessary to all men’s salvation we have been hitherto accustomed to hold (especially sithence the publishing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, whereby the simplest having now a key unto knowledge which the 53Eunuch in the Acts did want54, our children may of themselves by reading understand that, which he without an interpreter could not) they are in Scripture plain and easy to be understood. As for those things which at the first are obscure and dark, when memory hath laid them up for a time, judgment afterwards growing explaineth them. Scripture therefore is not so hard, but that the only reading thereof may give life unto willing hearers.

The “easy55” performance of which holy labour is in like sort a very cold objection to prejudice the virtue thereof. For what though an infidel, yea though a child may be able to read? There is no doubt, but the meanest and worst amongst the people under the Law had been as able as the priests themselves were to offer sacrifice. Did this make sacrifice of no effect unto that purpose for which it was instituted? In religion some duties are not commended so much by the hardness of their execution, as by the worthiness and dignity of that acceptation wherein they are held with God.

We admire the goodness of God in nature, when we consider how he hath provided that things most needful to preserve this life should be most prompt and easy for all living creatures to come by. Is it not as evident a sign of his wonderful providence over us, when that food of eternal life, upon the utter want whereof our endless death and destruction necessarily ensueth, is prepared and always set in such a readiness, that those very means than which nothing is more easy may suffice to procure the same? Surely if we perish it is not the lack of scribes and learned expounders that can be our just excuse. The word which saveth our souls is near us; we need for knowledge but56 to read and live. The man which readeth the word of God the word itself doth pronounce blessed, if he also observe the same.

Now all these things being well considered, it shall be no intricate matter for any man to judge with indifferency, on which part the good of the Church is most conveniently sought; whether on ours whose opinion is such as hath been shewed, or else on theirs, who leaving no ordinary way of salvation for them unto whom the word of God is but only read, do seldom name them but with great disdain and contempt who execute that service in the Church of Christ57. By means whereof it hath come to pass, that churches, which cannot enjoy the benefit of usual preaching, are judged as it were even forsaken of God, forlorn, and without either hope or comfort: contrariwise those places which every day for the most part are at sermons as the flowing sea, do both by their emptiness at times of reading, and by other apparent tokens, shew to the voice of the living God this way sounding in the ears of men a great deal less reverence than were meet.

But if no other evil were known to grow thereby, who can choose but think them cruel which doth hear them so boldly teach58, that if God (as to Him there is nothing impossible) do haply save any such as continue where they have all other means of instruction, but are not taught by continual preaching, yet this is miraculous, and more than the fitness of so poor instruments can give any man cause to hope for; that sacraments are not effectual to salvation, except men be instructed by preaching before they be made partakers of them59; yea, that both sacraments and prayers also, where sermons are not, “do not only not feed, but are ordinarily to further condemnation60?” What man’s heart doth not rise at the mention of these things?

It is true that the weakness of our wits and the dulness of our affections do make us for the most part, even as our Lord’s own disciples were for a certain time, hard and slow to believe what is written. For help whereof expositions and exhortations are needful, and that in the most effectual manner. The principal churches throughout the land, and no small part of the rest, being in this respect by the goodness of God so abundantly provided for, they which want the like furtherance unto knowledge, wherewith it were greatly to be desired that they also did abound, are yet we hope not left in so extreme destitution, that justly any man should think the ordinary means of eternal life taken from them, because their teaching is in public for the most part but by reading. For which cause amongst whom there are not those helps that others have to set them forward in the way of life, such to dishearten with fearful sentences, as though their salvation could hardly be hoped for, is not in our understanding so consonant with Christian charity61. We hold it safer a great deal and better to give them encouragement62; to put them in mind that it is not the deepness of their knowledge, but the singleness of their belief, which God accepteth63; that they which “hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be satisfied64;” that no imbecility of means can prejudice the truth of the promise of God herein65; that the weaker their helps are, the more their need is to sharpen the edge of their own industry66; and that painfulness by feeble means shall be able to gain that, which in the plenty of more forcible instruments is through sloth and negligence lost67.

As for the men, with whom we have thus far taken pains to confer about the force of the word of God, either read by itself, or opened in sermons; their speeches concerning both the one and the other are in truth such, as might give us very just cause to think, that the reckoning is not great which they make of either. For howsoever they have been driven to devise some odd kinds of blind uses, whereunto they may answer that reading doth serve, yet the reading of the word of God in public more than their preachers’ bare text, who will not judge that they deem needless; when if we chance at any time to term it necessary68, as being a thing which God himself did institute amongst the Jews for purposes that touch as well us as them; a thing which the Apostles commend under the Old, and ordain under the New Testament; a thing whereof the Church of God hath ever sithence the first beginning reaped singular commodity; a thing which without exceeding great detriment no Church can omit: they only are the men that ever we heard of by whom this hath been crossed and gainsaid, they only the men which have given their peremptory sentence to the contrary, “It is untrue that simple reading is necessary in the Church69.” And why untrue? Because “although it be very convenient which is used in some churches, where before preaching-time the church assembled hath the Scriptures read in such order that the whole canon thereof is oftentimes in one year run through; yet a number of churches which have no such order of simple reading cannot be in this point charged with breach of God’s commandment, which they might be if simple reading were necessary.” A poor, a cold, and an hungry cavil70! Shall we therefore to please them change the word “necessary,” and say that it hath been a commendable order, a custom very expedient, or an ordinance most profitable (whereby they know right well that we mean exceedingly behoveful) to read the word of God at large in the church, whether it be as our manner is, or as theirs is whom they prefer before us? It is not this that will content or satisfy their minds. They have against it a marvellous deep and profound axiom, that “Two things to one and the same end cannot but very improperly be said most profitable71.” And therefore if preaching be most profitable” to man’s salvation, then is not reading; if reading be, then preaching is not.

Are they resolved then at the leastwise, if preaching be the only ordinary mean whereby it pleaseth God to save our souls, what kind of preaching it is which doth save? Understand they how or in what respect there is that force and virtue in preaching? We have reason wherefore to make these demands, for that although their pens run all upon preaching and sermons, yet when themselves do practise that whereof they write, they change their dialect, and those words they shun as if there were in them some secret sting. It is not their phrase to say they “preach,” or to give to their own instructions and exhortations the name of sermons; the pain they take themselves in this kind is either “opening,” or “lecturing,” or “reading,” or “exercising,” but in no case “preaching.” And in this present question they also warily protest, that what they ascribe to the virtue of preaching, they still mean it of “good preaching72.” Now one of them saith that a good sermon must “expound” and “apply” a “large” portion of the text of Scripture at one time73. Another74 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 eloquence and learning, rather than to apply himself to the capacity of the simple75.”

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?”

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 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.

As for the difference which hath been hitherto so much 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.

← Of preaching by Sermons, and whether Sermons · Contents · Of Prayer. →

Footnotes

  1. [Adm. 7. Ans. 130-134, 208, 211, 212. T. C. i. 119. al. 158-161. Def. 568-582. T. C. ii. 374-392.] ↩

  2. 1 Thess. v. 27; Coloss. iv. 16. ↩

  3. John v. 39; Isa. viii. 20. ↩

  4. [T. C. i. 126. al. 159. “Although reading do help to nourish the faith which cometh by preaching, yet this is given to the preaching κατ’ ἐξοχὴν, i. e. by excellency, and for that it is the excellentest and most ordinary means to work by in the hearts of the hearers. The beholding of the creatures, and the consideration of the making of the world, and of God’s wisdom and wonderful love appearing in them, doth nourish and strengthen faith: and yet may it not therefore in efficacy be compared with the preaching of the word of God.”] ↩

  5. T. C. ii. 375. [“It helpeth to nourish faith engendered.”] 376. [“If private reading only cannot ordinarily engender faith, I would know how public reading only can do it.”] 396. [“The Lord’s authorized embassador, … . without whose ministry … . faith cannot be engendered.”] ↩

  6. T. C. ii. 378. [“I compared them” (the consideration of the creatures with the reading of the Scriptures) “in that, both nourishing faith, neither could ordinarily breed it.”] ↩

  7. T. C. ii. 383. [“Of many brought to the light of the Gospel by reading only, he” (Whitgift) “maketh not, nor, as I am persuaded, could make it appear. Although it be confessed that that may be done by the Lord’s extraordinary working; which feedeth sometime with quails in the wilderness.”] ↩

  8. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 18, 19, 21. ↩

  9. Deut. xxxi. 11-13. ↩

  10. Luke xvi. 31. ↩

  11. [Is. liii. 1.] ↩

  12. [“Divine Faith is an Assent unto something as Credible upon the Testimony of God.” Pearson on the Creed, p. 5. ed. 1692.] ↩

  13. Exod. xxiv. 7. ↩

  14. John xx. 31. ↩

  15. Prov. i. 2-4; Rom. i. 16; 2 Tim. iii. 15. ↩

  16. T. C. lib. ii. p. 375. ↩

  17. [The following are the words referred to:“That he” (Dr. Whitgift) “addeth, of taking away by this means from the majesty of the Scriptures, and making them dumb, &c. (amplified in the next division by asking why the Scriptures were then written? with other such too too idle questions, which I am ashamed to defile my pen with) is unworthy the name of a reason. As if in that reading maketh men fitter to hear the word preached, and to seek after it, in that it helpeth to nourish faith engendered, in that it confirmeth a man in the doctrine preached, when by reading he perceiveth it to be as the preacher taught, in that it reneweth the memory of that was preached, which otherwise would decay; I say, as if in these respects, and such like, the profit of reading, and committing the word to writing, were not singular and inestimable. Besides that it is not denied but the Lord may extraordinarily give faith by reading only: although the order which God hath put is to save by foolishness (as it is esteemed) of preaching. Beside also that it is absurd, that the Doctor asketh, why else the Gospel should be written? as if there were no other cause of writing of it, than that it should be simply read: or as though the principal cause was not that it should be preached.” T. C. ii. 375.] ↩

  18. T. C. lib. ii. 375; 1 Cor. i. 21. ↩

  19. Rom. x. 14, 15. ↩

  20. [View, &c. p. 4. T. C. i. 126. al. 159. “St. Paul saith that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing of the word preached; so that the ordinary and especial means to work faith by is preaching and not reading.” Whitg. Def. 569; T. C. ii. 375; Sampson in Strype, An. iii. 1. 327.] ↩

  21. [1 Cor. i. 2.] ↩

  22. Apologet. c. 18. [in fine. “Quos diximus Prædicatores, Prophetæ de officio præfandi vocantur. Voces eorum itemque virtutes quas ad fidem divinitatis edebant, in thesauris literarum manent: nec istæ nunc latent. Ptolemæorum eruditissimus … libros a Judæis quoque postulavit … Hodie apud Serapæum Ptolemæi bibliothecæ cum ipsis Hebraicis literis exhibentur. Sed et Judæi palam lectitant, vectigalis libertas vulgo aditur, sabbatis omnibus qui audierit, inveniet Deum; qui etiam studuerit intelligere, cogetur et credere.”] ↩

  23. This they did in a tongue which to all learned men amongst the heathens and to a great part of the simplest was familiarly known: as appeareth by a supplication offered unto the emperor Justinian, wherein the Jews make request that it might be lawful for them to read the Greek translation of the LXX interpreters in their synagogues, as their custom before had been. Authent. cxlvi. coll. 10. incipit, Æquum sane. [“De Hebræis, Quomodo oporteat eos scripturas legere.” “Per interpellationes quæ ad nos referuntur didicimus, quod ex ipsis quidam sola lingua tenentur Hebraica, eaque utendum esse in sacrorum librorum lectione volunt: quidam etiam Græcam assumendam contendunt … Nos igitur de hac re edocti, meliores esse judicavimus eos qui Græcam etiam linguam in sacrorum librorum lectione voluerunt assumere, et (uno verbo) omnem denique linguam, quam locus accommodatiorem et magis familiarem reddat auditoribus.” p. 624. ed. Plantin. 1575. The copy in Godefroi’s edition is very different.] ↩

  24. The Apostle useth the word κήρυγμα, and not κήρυξις. ↩

  25. T. C. lib. ii. p. 373. “This tail of Readers.” “The Bishops’ more than beggerly presents.” “Those rascal ministers.” [The whole passage is, “So I trust appeareth that this tail of reading ministers ought to be cut off; and that they are none of those princely gifts which our Saviour Christ ascended into heaven sendeth unto his Church, but the bishops’ (to speak no grievouslier of them) more than beggerly presents.” And a little before, “The Prophet calleth the rascal ministers of his time, dumb dogs.”] ↩

  26. John v. 39. ↩

  27. T. C. lib. ii. p. 377. [“When our Saviour biddeth the Jews search the Scriptures, he referreth them by that search to judge of the doctrine he had preached before; which proveth no fruit of reading when there is no preaching. Beside that, it will be hard for him to refer the word search unto reading only; as if one could not search the Scriptures, when he attendeth to them alleged in sermons.”] ↩

  28. Gal. i. 8, 9. [The words of T. C. are, “He doth flatly make his preaching the rule to examine other preachings by.” ii. 377.] ↩

  29. 2 Tim. iii. 16. [T. C. ubi supr. “The place of Timothy being, as I have shewed, of the proper duties of the minister of the word in preaching, making no manner of mention of reading, is alleged without all judgment.”] ↩

  30. [Written gloses, A. C.: v. lxii. 14.] 1886. ↩

  31. Heb. iv. 12. ↩

  32. [Chr. Letter, p. 22. “We beseech you … to teach us by sounde demonstration, that a man can preach the pure word of God by his owne naturall witt, without a gift supernaturall of the spirit to give him utterance, and to speak the worde as he ought to speake? If all that a man preache be the pure worde of God, what derogation is it to call such a man’s sermons or preachings the strong and forcible worde?”Hooker, MS. note. “If sermons be the word of God in the same sense that Scriptures are his word, if there be no difference between preaching and prophecying, noe ods between thapostles of Christ and the preaching ministers of every congregation, as touching that forme of delivering doctrine wch did exempt both the speaches and writings of thapostles from possibility of error, then must we hold that Calvin’s sermons are holie Scripture. You would not have homilies read in the Church, because nothing should be there read but the word of God. How shall this stand with your doctrine that sermons are God’s word no lesse than Scriptures? You taught before, that the Church and all men’s doctrine must be tried by the word of God. Whereby if you understand sermons, it were good you told us whose sermons. Calvin’s homilies read in churches. This epistle not like St. Paule’s.” Again, in p. 21. “Have you so long magnified the word of God to bring the matter unto this issue that your own sermons are that word? Are you not contented to have them taken for his word in regard of conformity therewith, unlesse they be honoured and held of as great authoritie as if they had come from the very mouth of Christ himself or of Christ’s Apostles? If this be your meaning, let the people applaude unto you, and when you speake, cry mainly out, The voice of God and not of man.”] ↩

  33. [Chr. Letter, p. 21. “Here, Mai. Hoo. we are hampered with your words, because they seeme to us contrarie to the judgment of our Church. We therefore desire you hartilie to resolve us, what you meane in this place by … the being of a sermon, whether the logical and dialecticall frame by which men contrive their matter in such and such a forme: or, &c… . If you meane the former, then everie declamation and formall oration in the schooles may be called sermons: for these are framed of the meere wit of man.” Hooker, MS. note. “Sermons are framed by the witt of man: therefore all things framed by man’s witt are sermons. If this be your skill in reasoning, let a whelebarrow be a sermon. For it is a thing made by man’s witt.”] ↩

  34. [T. C. i. 126. al. 159. “It may be that God doth sometimes work faith by reading only, especially where preaching cannot be; and so he doth sometimes without reading, by a wonderful work of his spirit: but the ordinary ways whereby God regenerateth his children is by the word of God which is preached. And therefore Salomon saith, that where prophecy (which is not a bare reading, but an exposition and application of the Scriptures) faileth, there the people perish.” Comp. Whitg. Def. 572.] T. C. ii. 381. ↩

  35. Prov. xxix. 18. ↩

  36. T. C. [i. 126. al. 159. “To know that the word of God preached hath more force, and is more effectual than when it is read, it is to be observed whereunto the preaching is compared. It is called a lifting or heaving up of our Saviour Christ. Like unto the displaying of a banner, as the serpent was lift up in the wilderness.” Comp. Def. 571.] T. C. ii. 378, 9. ↩

  37. 2 Cor. ii. 14-16. [T. C. i. 126. ap. Whitg. Def. 571. “It is called also a sweet savour, and therefore as the spices being brayed and punned, smell sweeter and stronger than when they be whole and unbroken; so the word by interpretation being broken and bruised carrieth a sweeter savour unto the understanding, &c.” Comp. T. C. ii. 379, by which it appears that in his second edition, p. 159, he substituted another figure, that of opening a door, for this of aromatic spices.] ↩

  38. 2 Tim. ii. 15. [T. C. i. 126. al. 159. “The same also may be said in that the preaching is called a ‘cutting’ of the word of God: for as when the meat is cut and shred, it nourisheth more than when it is not so: so likewise it is in preaching and reading.” Def. 571; T. C. ii. 379.] ↩

  39. Matt. xvi. 19. [T. C. i. 159. “To this also may be well referred that the preaching is called of St. Luke (xxiv. 32.) an opening of the Scriptures; whereby it is declared that they be as it were shut, or clasped, or sealed up, until such time as they be by exposition or declaration opened.” ii. 380. “For this cause are the ministers of the word said to have the keys of the kingdom of heaven: for that without their ministry of preaching the kingdom of heaven is as it were locked.”] ↩

  40. 1 Cor. iii. 6. [Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 580. “By this book bare reading is good tilling, and single service saying is excellent building,” with a reference to 1 Cor. iii. 5; Whitgift (Answer, ap. Def. 581.) remarks on this, “Belike because there is mention made of tilling in the next verse of that chapter, therefore you quote it in the margent, missing only the line: for this is your usual manner: if you have but one word in a text which you use in your book, you quote the place, as though it made for your purpose.” T. C. i. 126. al. 159. “That which is brought for the authors of the Admonition, and so scornfully hurled away of M. Doctor, that S. Paul compareth the preaching unto planting and watering, is a very notable place to prove that there is no salvation without preaching.” Def. 572. “S. Paul saith, ‘I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.’ Ergo ‘there is no salvation without preaching:’ is not this good stuff, and a strong argument to build a matter of salvation upon?” See also T. C. ii. 380.] ↩

  41. “No salvation to be looked for, where no preaching is.” T. C. lib. ii. p. 380. [and i. 126. al. 159. and i. 173. “Unless the Lord work miraculously and extraordinarily, (which is not to be looked for of us,) the bare reading of the Scriptures without the preaching cannot deliver so much as one poor sheep from destruction.” And Petition of the Communaltie to Q. Eliz. (1588.) “We pray your Highness most humbly upon our knees, that for the redress of this our woeful case, you would not send us to the Bishops of this land; … because by the space of this nine and twenty years their unfaithfulness hath manifestly appeared, in that they … either said we were already sufficiently provided for, or that it were an impossible thing to establish a preaching ministry; as if they should say, It were not possible for us to be saved.” And the same in the leading topic of the “Complaint of the Commonalty by way of Supplication to the High Court of Parliament,” which follows in the same pamphlet.] ↩

  42. [Ad calcem Isocratis; ed. Aldin. p. 98-101; ed. Bekker. vii. 42.] ↩

  43. T. C. lib. ii. p. 395. ↩

  44. [Whitg. Def. 717, 18. “I make this only difference betwixt homilies and sermons, that the one is pronounced within the book, the other not so. If you object and say that the preacher is directed by the Spirit of God, I will answer that the writers of homilies be so likewise. And what can you allege in this point for the one that I cannot allege for the other? The promise of the assistance of God’s Spirit is as well given to him that writeth homilies, and to those that hear them, as it is to such as study for their sermons, and such as hear them.”] T. C. ii. 396. [“As if he had said, the Lord will give testimony to his word, as well by the means which men have devised, as that himself hath ordained.”] ↩

  45. Deut. xxxi. 11-13. [See Def. 577.] ↩

  46. De Eccles. Offic. lib. i. c. 10. [“Est autem lectio non parva audientium ædificatio. Unde oportet ut quando psallitur, ab omnibus psallatur; cum oratur, oretur ab omnibus; quando lectio legitur, facto silentio, æque audiatur a cunctis. Nam et si tunc superveniat quisque cum lectio celebratur, adoret tantum Deum, et præsignata fronte aurem solicite accommodet. Patet tempus orandi cum omnes orant, et patet tempus cum volueris orare privatim. Obtentu orationis, ne perdideris lectionem.” p. 583. ed. Du Breul. Paris, 1601.] ↩

  47. Psalm i. 2. ↩

  48. Psalm cxix. 16. ↩

  49. Aug. in Psal. lxvi. [t. iv. 657. “Vide formicam Dei: surgit quotidie, currit ad ecclesiam Dei, orat, audit lectionem, hymnum cantat, ruminat quod audivit, apud se cogitat, recondit intus grana collecta de area. Hæc ipsa quæ modo dicuntur qui prudenter audiunt hoc agunt, et ab omnibus videntur procedere ad ecclesiam, redire de ecclesia, audire sermonem, audire lectionem, invenire librum, aperire et legere: omnia ista videntur cum fiunt. Formica illa est conterens iter, portans et recondens in conspectu cernentium.”] ↩

  50. Cyprian. lib. ii. Epist. 5. [t. ii. p. 75. ed. Fell.] “Lector personat verba sublimia, evangelium Christi legit, a fratribus conspicitur, cum gaudio fraternitatis auditur.” ↩

  51. Psal. cxix. 33, 35. ↩

  52. T. C. lib. ii. p. 383. [“Where confessing the word preached and read all one, I shew notwithstanding that as the fire stirred giveth more heat, so the word as it were blown by preaching flameth more in the hearers then when it is read; he answereth that this is to join with the Papists in condemning the Scriptures of obscurity: but reason he can shew none; and it is all one as if one should be charged to have said that the sun is dark, for that he affirmeth it lighter at noonday than at the sunrising. Then he must understand that we place not this difference of lightsomeness in the word, which is always in itself most lightsome, read and preached; but partly in the ordinance of God … making that the special means; partly in the darkness of our understanding, which without the aid of preaching cannot come to sufficient knowledge of it.”] 384. [“The cause why the eunuch” (in Acts viii.) “could not understand, is assigned: for that he had no teacher to shew him the way. Whereby followeth … . that a man cannot ordinarily not only come to salvation, but not so much as to a sufficient knowledge of it without preaching.”] 392. [“That he saith of dissent with myself” (Def. 784.) “for that saying somewhere” (T. C. i. 173. al. 216.) “ ‘that bare reading without a miracle cannot save from famishment,’ I say in another place, (i. 158. al. 197.) ‘that the word of God is easy, giving understanding to idiots,’ is frivolous. If it be easy and give understanding by preaching and reading together, although not so by reading only, that standeth which I have set down.”] ↩

  53. Acts viii. 31. ↩

  54. [Referring to T. C. i. 126. “Of infinite examples take one, of the eunuch, which … was reading of the Prophet Esay, yet he believed not until Philip came and preached unto him.” See also Sampson’s Preface to a Supplication, &c. (1584) in Strype, An. iii. 1. 327. “We do now complain of the danger of the loss of our souls, and of salvation, through this want of teaching which we now do suffer. There are whole thousands of us left untaught: yea by trial it will be found, that there are in England whole thousands of parishes destitute of this necessary help to salvation; that is, of diligent preaching and teaching. Salvation is promised to them only which do believe; but we cannot believe on him of whom we do not hear; we cannot hear without a preacher, as the Apostle doth say. It is preaching, and not simply reading, which is required for having of faith. The reader may himself read without understanding, as the eunuch did; and likewise may the hearer hear the thing read, and not understand it. That eunuch had not full faith wrought in him, but by hearing Philip’s preaching to him, and opening to him the meaning of the Scripture, which he had read before: for then the Holy Ghost did work faith in his heart.”] ↩

  55. [See hereafter, ch. xxxi. § 2. 3.] ↩

  56. Apoc. i. 3. ↩

  57. T. C. lib. ii. p. 363. [“These wofull readers … . Non-residence would bring little either to filling of coffers, or bathing of them in the delights of the world, or to what other thing soever they in their absence propound, unless there were such hungry knights, as would for a crust of bread supply their absence. Now for removing of these sweepings out of the church ministry,” &c.] ibid. 373. [see above, § 10.] ↩

  58. Pag. 364. [“Bare reading is not able, without God’s extraordinary work, to deliver one soul.” “Prayers and sacraments, forasmuch as they take effect by the preaching of the word, where that is not these do not only not feed, but are ordinarily to further condemnation.”] 375. [“It is not denied but the Lord may extraordinarily give faith by reading only.”] 380. [“Some of these” (planting, watering, &c.) “in some degree, or all extraordinarily, may be done by bare reading.”] 383. [see above, § 3, p. 90, note 4.] 384. [see above, § 14, p. 106, note 1.] ↩

  59. Page 392. [Whitg. Def. 784. “You say that there is not enough in the reading of the Scriptures to keep the people from famishment… . . It is a popish and an ungodly opinion, contrary to the worthiness and profitableness of the Scriptures.” T. C. ii. 392. “It is well with us, and the Scriptures keep their honour, if they bring to the elect salvation, used and applied as the order which the Lord hath set requireth. Unless peradventure he will say that the holy Sacraments lose their honour, when it is said they are not effectual to salvation, without men be instructed by preaching before they be partakers of them.”] ↩

  60. Page 364. [See above, p. 108, note 2. See also Penry’s “Exhortation unto the governors and people of her Majesty’s country of Wales, to labour earnestly to have the preaching of the Gospel planted among them;” 1588; p. 5. “If you will embrace Christ, and have pardon of your sins by his passion, you must have that brought to pass by preaching. Christ, I grant, may be otherwise taught, but, as the Apostle saith, not as the truth is in Jesus: and therefore without comfort, and without salvation.” And p. 12. “Enquire now of the days of heaven, which are past, which were before you, since the day that Adam fell from his integrity; demand from the one end of heaven unto the other, and all with one consent will answer, that from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Moses, from Moses unto Jesus Christ, from his blessed appearing in the flesh unto the present hour, no face of a true Church apparent without preaching; no ordinary salvation without preaching: and this decree shall never be changed. I do not say but that the Lord may if he will save those, who never heard nor shall hear a sermon in all their lives. But, wretches as we are, what is that to us? We have no warrant to hope for any such salvation.”And p. 14. “Verily, the Devil himself may as well hope to be saved as you can, who never saw the beauty of their feet that bring salvation.”And p. 60. “The people living under our readers, though they faithfully execute their ministry, cannot hope for eternal life.” ↩

  61. [“If ever we mind such a reformation, as God shall thereby be glorified, and his Church edified, we must utterly renounce all the unlearned pastors, as men by no means to be tolerated to have any charge over the Lord’s flock.” Learned Discourse of Eccl. Government, quoted in Bridges’ Defence, p. 478; who produces also the following passage from Harrison (the Brownist) against Cartwright; “I would say, there were holiness in the dumb ministry, if all the dumb ministers were hanged up in the churches and public assemblies, for a warning and terror to the rest, that are ready to enter such a function: then indeed there were a holy sign and remembrance of judgment against such wretches: but other holiness have they none in them.” “Well fare these our brethren the Learned Discoursers, that are somewhat more pitiful to the poor unlearned pastors, not to hang them up by the neck, as thieves and robbers, but to turn them out to beg their bread, with their wives and children, like wretches, rogues, and vagabonds. And this is the milder sort of these our brethren.” Bridges, Def. 480.] ↩

  62. Ecclus. li. 26, 27; Matt. xii. 20. ↩

  63. 1 Tim. i. 5; Romans xiv. 1; 1 Thess. iii. 10. ↩

  64. Matt. v. 6. ↩

  65. Phil. i. 6; 1 Pet. v. 10; Matt. iii. 9. ↩

  66. 1 Thess. iv. 18; Heb. x. 24; Jude 20, 21; 1 Pet. iv. 10. ↩

  67. Luke xi. 31. ↩

  68. [Whitg. Def. 572. “Both reading and preaching be necessary in the Church, and most profitable.”] ↩

  69. T. C. lib. ii. p. 381. ↩

  70. [Cicero pro A. Cæcina, 21, “Cave in ista tam frigida, tam jejuna calumnia delitescas.”] ↩

  71. T. C. lib. ii. p. 382. ↩

  72. T. C. lib. ii. p. 385. ↩

  73. Complaint of the Commonalty. [“Some take but one word for their text, and afterwards run into the 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.”] ↩

  74. 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 London 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 by “A Defence of that which hath been written in the questions of the ignorant ministry and the communicating with them. By John Penri.” Some rejoined in September by the Defence abovementioned: which rejoinder called forth the pamphlet quoted in the text. The place referred to is p. 21. “I speak here of sound preaching, i. e. of dividing the word aright, which the Apostle called ὀρθοτομει̑ν: I speak not of babbling, nor of handling a text with a currycomb: in that I join with M. Some with all my heart, and therefore I wish he had been with me the 10th of November last, at 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 against good men; telling th’ audience to this effect: that for the Papists, thanks be to God, we need not so greatly fear them … . but now the magistrate was only to cast his eye on the phantastical crew, such as troubled the peace of the church; otherwise there might fall out many mischiefs.”] ↩

  75. T. C. lib. ii. p. 385. ↩

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