* The more we know of the corruptions and hindrances of piety in the church of Rome, the more we should rejoice, that in every age so many eminent saints, have appeared in it, whom we should thankfully behold as so many great lights hung out by God, to shew the true way to heaven, as so many joyful proofs that Christ is still present, even in that church, and that the gates of hell have not quite prevailed against it. Who that has the least spark of heaven in his soul, can help rejoicing in this manner at the appearance of St. Bernard, a Teresa, a Francis de Sales, in that church? Who can help praising God, that her invented devotions, superstitious use of images, and invocation of saints, have not so suppressed the graces of an evangelical life, but that amongst cardinals, jesuits, priests, friars, monks and nuns, some have been found, who seemed to live for no other end, but to give glory to God and edification to men, and whose writings have every thing in them, that can guide the soul out of the corruption of this life into union with God? And he who through a partial orthodoxy is diverted from feeding in these green pastures of life, whose abhorrence of jesuitical craft, keeps him from reading the works of an Alvares du Pas, a Rodrigues, a Pere Surin, and such like jesuits, has a greater loss than he can easily imagine: and if any clergyman can read the life of Bartholomeus a Martyribus a Spanish archbishop, who sat with great influence at the very council of Trent, without being edified by it, and desiring to read it again and again, I know not why he should like the lives of the apostolical fathers: and if any Protestant bishop should read the Stimulus Pastorum wrote by this Popish prelate, he must confess it to be a book, that would have done honour to the best archbishop, that the reformation has to boast of. O my God, how shall I unlock this mystery? In the land of darkness, over-run with superstition, where divine worship seems to be all shew and ceremony, thou hast those, who are fired with the pure love of thee, who renounce every thing for thee, who are devoted wholly to thee, who think of nothing, write of nothing, desire nothing but the honour, and praise, and adoration that is due to thee, and who call all the world to the maxims of the gospel, the perfection of the life of Christ. But in the regions where light is sprung up, whence superstition is fled, where all that is outward in religion seems to be pruned, dressed, and put in its true order; there a cleansed shell, a whited sepulchre, seems too generally to cover a dead Christianity.
The error of all errors, and that which makes the blackest charge against the Romish church, is persecution, a religious sword drawn against the liberty of serving God according to our best light. Now, tho’ this is the frightful monster of that church, yet, even here, who, except it be the church of England, can throw the first stone at her? Where must we look for a church that has so renounced this persecuting beast, as they have renounced the use of incense, the sprinklings of holy water, or extreme unction? What part of the reformation abroad has not practised and defended persecution? What sect of dissenters at home have not, in their day of power dreadfully condemned toleration?
When it shall please God to dispose the hearts of all Christian princes, entirely to destroy this anti-christian beast, and leave all their subjects in that religious freedom which they have from God; then the light of the gospel, the power of its ministers, the usefulness of its rites, the benediction of its sacraments will have proper time and place to shew themselves; and that religion which has the most of a divine power in it, whose offices and services do most good to the heart, whose ministers are most devoted to God, and have the most proof of the presence of Christ with them, will become, as it ought, the most universal. All that I have said on this matter, has been occasioned by the Doctor’s appeal to vulgar prejudice; and is only to intimate, that the greatest evil which the division of the church brings forth, is a sectarian, selfish spirit, which with the orthodoxy of the old Jews, would have God to be only their God, and themselves only, his chosen people. If therefore we would be true Christians of the Catholic church, we must put off this partiality of the carnal Jew; we must enter into a Catholic affection for all men, love the spirit of the gospel wherever we see it; not work ourselves up into an abhorrence of a George Fox, or an Ignatius Loyola; but be equally glad of the light of the gospel wherever it shines, or from whatever quarter it comes; and give the same praise to God for an eminent example of piety, wherever it appears, either in Papist or Protestant.
To return. Dr. [♦]Trapp supposing the world running into a charity that would ruin wife and family, asks his charitable half-thinker, “Did you never hear that charity begins at home? Did you never read that of St. Paul, If any provide not for his own, and especially those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an Infidel?” The Doctor’s proverb I meddled not with, but the text of St. Paul I rescued from his gross misapplication. That text has no more relation to an excessive charity, than to an excessive fasting. The apostle neither thought of this sin in this place, nor in any other part of his writings; nor does he ever give the smallest hint of the danger of falling into it. The only question was, whether poor widows, who had near relations, that could supply their wants, should be maintained by the church? The apostle determines the matter thus; that if such persons, who were thus able, did not thus provide for, that is, supply the wants of their poor kindred, they were so far from having the faith of Christians, that they wanted a goodness that was to be found amongst Infidels: this is the whole of the apostle’s doctrine in this text. He speaks of providing for those of our own house or family, in no other sense, than as it signifies our charity to them, when they fall into distress; but the Doctor, trusting to the sound of the English word provide, grafts all these errors upon this plain text. When it is said, a person has provided well for his family, every one supposes that he has laid up well in store, or got an estate to be divided amongst them for their future subsistance. From this use of the English word, provide; the Doctor would have it believed, that the apostle teaches every head of a family to be carefully and continually laying up in store for his kindred. But the apostle is as infinitely distant from this thought, as from teaching them to get their cellars filled with strong liquors: when he here says, provide, he says only this, shut not your eyes to the wants of your poor kindred, but provide them with what they have need of, and don’t let them fall to the charge of the church. The Doctor’s second error is this; according to this text, a Christian ought not to hinder himself from thus laying up in store for his family, or leave them to live by their labour and industry, thro’ an excess of charity to his poor neighbours. But the apostle has not one single syllable about this; and is as far from saying any thing like it, as from saying, that a Christian, when he makes a feast, should only invite his rich kindred and acquaintance. The one has as much of the apostle and the gospel for it, as the other. The Doctor’s third error is this; that, according to this text, he, who by a daily, continual charity, has incapacitated himself to lay up in store, a fixed provision for the future maintenance of his family, is condemned by the apostle as denying the faith, and worse than an Infidel: tho’ the apostle speaks no more here against such a person, than he speaks in the praise of Ananias and Sapphira.
[♦] “Trap” replaced with “Trapp”
The person here condemned, is not he who thro’ a continual charity, is hindered from laying up in store; not he, who, thro’ a Christian love of relieving the distressed members of Christ, is content with helping his own family to food and raiment; but it is that Christian, who being able, is yet unwilling to support his near relations, that are fallen into poverty, and leaves them to be maintained by the church: this is the only Christian the apostle here condemns, as having put off the piety of the gospel, and wanting even the virtue of good-natured Infidels.
I said further, Had the apostle known a parent in his days, who, thro’ his great charity for others, had reduced his own family to want of relief, he would have been so far from rebuking him as an half-thinking fool, or exposing him to others, as guilty of madness, that he would have told them, such a one had consecrated himself and family to the church, as the proper objects of their care. To which the Doctor gives this answer, “This he affirms, and this I deny; and as he produces no other proof, so I give no other answer,” p. 69. What I said, has its proof from the common voice of Christianity in the apostles days; as may sufficiently appear from the following passage of St. Clement, fellow-labourer of the apostle, and bishop of no less a church than that of Rome. “We have known many amongst us, who have delivered themselves into bonds and slavery, that they might restore others to their liberty; many who have hired out themselves servants unto others, that by their wages they might feed and sustain them that wanted.”[¹]
[¹] 1 Epistle to the Corinthians
Will the Doctor now say, that this is no proof of that which I affirmed of the apostle, that he would have had a love for those who were become sufferers by their own charity to others? Does not this apostolical bishop make it his boast, and the glory of Christianity; not that they had some, but many such among them?
It was not only in the first church at Jerusalem, that the Christians had all things common. For St. Barnabas writing to some converted Jews, teaches them to call nothing their own in this world, because they were called to the common enjoyment of the things of eternity. Communicabis in omnibus rebus proximo tuo; nihil dices quicquam tibi proprium; si enim communicatis invicem, in bonis, incorruptibilibus, quanto magis in corruptibilibus.[¹]