the next best had been to have suppress'd and forgotten it instantly for as it came in by zeal and partiality in the hands of the Cappadocian Bishops so it was fed by pride and faction in the hands of the Donatists and it could have no determination but the mere nature of the thing it self all the Apostles and Ministers of Religion were commanded to baptize in water in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and this was an admission to Christianity not to any sect of it and if this had been consider'd wisely so it had been done by a Christian Minister in matter and form there could be no more in it And therefore the whole thing was to no purpose so far was it from being an Article of Faith 4. The next pretence is that the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son is an Article of our Faith and yet no where told in Scripture and consequently tradition must help to make up the object of our Faith To this some very excellent persons have oppos'd this Consideration that the Greeks and Latins differ but in modo loquendi and therefore both speaking the same thing in differing words show that the Controversie it self is trifling or mistaken But though I wish them agreed yet when I consider that in all the endeavours for Union at the Council of Florence they never understood one another to purposes of peace I am apt to believe that those who would reconcile them shew their piety more than the truth of the thing and that the Greeks and Latins differ'd intirely in this point But then that on the Latin side there should be a tradition Apostolical can upon no other account be pretended but that they could not prove it by Scripture or shew any Ecclesiastical law or authority for it Now if we consider that the Greeks pretend their doctrine not only from Scripture but also from immemorial tradition that is that they have not innovated the doctrine which their Fathers taught them and on the other side that the Latins have contrary to the Canon of the Council of Ephesus superadded the clause of Filióque to the Constantinopolitan-Creed and that by authority of a little Convention of Bishops at Gentilly neer to Paris without the consent of the Catholick Church and that by the Confession of Cardinal Perron Contr. le Râ—y Jaques p. 709. not only the Scripture favours the Greeks but Reason also because it is unimaginable that the same particular effect should proceed from two principles in the same kind and although the three Persons created the world yet that production was from the Divine essence which is but one principle but the opinion of the Latius is that the Holy Ghost proceeds from two Persons as Persons and therefore from two principles it will be very hard to suppose that because all this is against them therefore it is certain that they had this from Apostolical tradition The more natural consequence is that their proposition is either mistaken or uncertain or not an article of Faith which is rather to be hop'd lest we condemn all the Greek Churches as Infidels or perverse Hereticks or else that it can be deriv'd from Scripture which last is indeed the most probable and pursuant to the doctrine of those wiser Latins who examin'd things by reason and not by prejudice But Cardinal Perron's argument is no better than this Titius was accus'd to have deserted his station in the Battel and carried false Orders to the Legion of Spurinna He answers I must either have received Orders from the General or else you must suppose me to be a Coward or a Traytor for I had no warrant for what I did from the Book of Military Discipline Well what if you be suppos'd to be a Coward or Traytor what hurt is in that supposition But must I conclude that you had Order from the General for fear I should think you did it on your own head or that you are a Traytor That 's the case Either this proposition is deriv'd to us by Apostolical tradition or we have nothing else to say for our selves well Nempe hoc Ithacus velit The Greeks allow the argument and will say thus You had nothing to say for your selves unless we grant that to you which is the Question and which you can never prove viz. that there is for this Article an Apostolical tradition but because both sides pretend that let us try this thing by Scripture And indeed that 's the only way And Cardinal Perron's argument may by any Greek be inverted and turned upon himself For he saying It is not in Scripture therefore it is a tradition of the Church it is as good an argument It is not deliver'd to us by universal Tradition therefore either it is not at all or it is deriv'd to us from Scripture and upon the account of this for my part I do believe it 5. The last instance of Cardinal Perron is the observation of the Lord's Day but this is matter of discipline and external rite and because it cannot pretend to be an article of faith or essentially necessary doctrine the consideration is differnt from the rest And it is soon at an end but that the Cardinal would fain make some thing of nothing by telling that the Jews complain of the Christians for changing Circumcision into Baptism and the Saturday-sabbath into the Dominical or Lord's-day He might as well have added They cry out against the Christians for changing Moses into Christ the Law into the Gospel the Covenant of works into the Covenant of faith Ceremonies into substances and rituals into spiritualities And we need no further inquiry into this Question but to consider Perron ibid. 710. what the Cardinal says that God did the Sabbath a special honour by writing this ceremonial alone into the summary of the moral law Now I demand Whether there be not clear and plain Scripture for the abolishing of the law of Ceremonies If there be then the law of the Sabbath is abolished It is part of the hand-writing of ordinances which Christ nail'd to his Cross. Now when the Sabbath ceases to be obligatory the Church is at liberty but that there should be a time sanctified or set apart for the proper service of God I hope is also very clear from Scripture and that the circumstances of religion are in the power of the presidents of religion and then it will follow from Scripture that the Apostles or their Successors or whoever did appoint the Sunday-festival had not onely great reason but full authority to appoint that day and that this was done early and continued constantly for the same reason and by an equal authority is no question But as to the Sabbath S. Paul gave express order that no man should be judged by any part of the ceremonial law and particularly name 's the Sabbath-days Colos. 2. 16. saying They all were a shadow of things
not fully observed others according to the quality of the matter and time being obliterated or abrogated by the Magistery of the whole Church De Coron milit cap. 3. â— Tertullian speaks of divers unwritten Customs of which tradition is the author custom is the confirmer and faith is the observer Such are the renunciations in the office of Baptism trine Immersion tasting milk and honey abstinence from the Bath for a week after the receiving the Eucharist before day or in the time of their meal from the hand of the presisidents of Religion anniversary oblations on birth-days and for the dead not to fast not to kneel on Sundays perpetual festivities from Easter to Whitsuntide not to endure without great trouble bread or drink to fall upon the ground and at every motion to sign the forehead with the sign of the Cross. Some of these are rituals and some are still observed and some are superstitious and observ'd by no body and some that are not may be if the Church please these indeed were traditions or customes before his time but not so much as pretended to be Apostolical but if they were are yet of the same consideration with the rest If they be customs of the Church they are not without great reason and just authority to be laid aside But are of no other argument against Scripture than if all the particular customs of all Churches were urg'd For if they had come from the Apostles as these did not yet if the Apostles say dicit Dominus they must be obeyed for ever but if the word be dico ego non Dominus the Church hath her liberty to do what in the changing times is most for edification And therefore in these things let the Church of Rome pretend what traditions Apostolical she please of this nature the Church may keep them or lay them aside according to what they judge is best For if those Canons and traditions of the Apostles of which there is no question and which are recorded in Scripture yet are worn out and laid aside those certainly which are pretended to be such and cannot be proved cannot pass into perpetual obligation whether the Churches will or no. I shall not need upon this head to consider any more instances because all the points of Popery are pretended to rely upon Tradition The novelty of which because I shall demonstrate in their proper places proving them to be so far from being traditions Apostolical that they are mere Innovations in Religion I shall now represent the uncertainty and fallibility of the pretence of Traditions in ordinary and the certain deceptions of those who trust them the impossibility of ending many questions by them I shall not bring the usual arguments which are brought from Scriptures against traditions because although those which Christ condemns in the Pharisees and the Apostles in Heretical persons are not reprov'd for being Traditions but for being without Divine authority that is they are either against the Commandment of God or without any warrant from God yet if there be any traditions real and true that is words of God not written they if they could be shown would be very good But then I desire the same ingenuity on the other side and that the Roman Writers would not trouble the Question or abuse their Readers by bringing Scriptures to prove their traditions not by shewing they are recorded in Scripture 2. Thes. 2. but by bringing Scriptures where the word tradition is nam'd 2. Tim. 2. For besides that such places cannot be with any modesty pretended as proofs of the particular traditions it is also certain that they cannot prove that in General there are or can be any unrecorded Scripture when the whole Canon should be written consign'd and entertain'd For it may be necessary that traditions should be call'd on to be kept before Scriptures were written and yet afterwards not necessary and those things which were deliver'd and are not in Scripture may be lost because they were not written and then that may be impossible for us to do which at first might have been done But this being laid aside I proceed to Considerations proper to the Question 1. Tertullian S. Hierom and S. Austin are pretended the Great Patrons of Tradition and they have given rules by which we shall know Apostolical Traditions and it is well they do so for sand ought to be put into a glass and water into a vessel something to limit the running element that when you have receiv'd it you may keep it A nuncupative record is like figures in the air or diagrams in sand the air and the wind will soon disorder the lines And God knowing this and all things else would not trust so much as the Ten words of Moses to oral tradition but twice wrote them in Tables of Stone with his own singer Clem. Alexan. Strom. lib. 1. pag. 276. I know said S. Clement that many things are lost by length of time for want of writing and therefore I of necessity make use of memorials and collection of Chapters to supply the weakness of my memory And when S. Ignatius in his journey towards Martyrdom confirm'd the Churches through which he passed by private exhortations as well as he was permitted he exhorted them all to adhere to the tradition of the Apostles meaning that doctrine which was preach'd by them in their Churches and added this advice or caution Eusib lib. 3. That he esteem'd it was necessary that this Tradition should be committed to writing Eccles. hist. c. 35. Graec. that it might be preserv'd to posterity and Reports by word of mouth are uncertain that for want of good Records we cannot tell who was S. Peter's Successor immediately whether Clemens Theo loret l. r. c. 8. Eccles. hipâ— Linus or Anacletus and the subscriptions of S. Paul's Epistles having no record but the Uncertain voice of Tradition are in some things evidently mistaken and in some others very uncertain And upon the same account we cannot tell how many Bishops were conven'd at Nice Eusebius says they were 250. S. Athanasius says they were just 300. Eustratius in Theodoret Bellar. de Concil Eccles. l. 1. c. 5. Sect. De numerâ— says they were above 270. Sozomen says they were about 310. Epiphanius and others say they were 318. And when we consider how many pretences have been and are daily made of Traditions Apostolical which yet are not so a wise man will take heed lest his credulity and good nature make him to become a fool S. Clemens Alexandrinus says that the Apostles preach'd to dead Infidels and then rais'd them to life and that the Greeks were justified by their Philosophy and accounts these among the Ancient Traditions Epist. ad Episc. Antioch Pope Marcellus was bold to say that it was an Apostolical Tradition or Canon that a Council could not be called but by the authority of the Bishop of Rome
but the Churches in the first ages practis'd otherwise and the Greeks never believ'd it nor are all the Latin Churches of that opinion as shall be shown in the sequel The second Canon of the Council in Trullo commands observation of no less than fourscore and five Canons Apostolical deliver'd to the Church but besides that no Church keeps them there are not many who believe that they came from the Apostles S. Austin said that the Communicating of Infants was an Apostolical Tradition but neither the Protestants nor the Papists believe him in that particular Stromat lib. 1. lib. 2. c. 39. Clemens Alexandrinus said that Christ preach'd but one year S. Irenaeus confutes that Tradition vehemently and said it was an Apostolical Tradition That Christ was about 50 years of age when he died and therefore it must be that he preach'd almost 20 years for the Scripture says Matth. 4. 17. Jesus began to be about 30 years old Marc. 1. 14. when he was baptiz'd and presently after he began to preach Luc. 3. 23. Now this story of the great age of Christ Irenaeus says That all the old men that were with Saint John the Disciple of our Lord say that S. John did deliver unto them Nay not only so but some of them heard the same from others also of the Apostles There were many more of such traditions the day would fail to reckon all the Vnwritten Mysteries of the Church Cap. 29. said the Author of the last Chapters of the Book de Spiritu Sancto falsly imputed to S. Basil and yet he could reckon but a few all the rest are lost and of those that remain some are not at all observ'd in any Church But there cannot be a greater instance of the vanity of pretending Traditions than the collection of the Canons Apostolical by Clement Lib. 1. c. 18. Câ—â—h fide which Damascen reckons as parts of the New Testament that is equal to Canonical Writings of the Apostles but Isidore Hispalensis says they were Apocryphal made by hereticks and publish'd in the name of the Apostles Apud Gratian. dist 16. c. Canonâ—s but neither the Fathers nor the Church of Rome did give assent to them and yet their authority is receiv'd by many in the Church of Rome even at this day But it is to be observ'd that men accept them or refuse them not according to their authority which in all the first fifty at least is equal But if they be for their interest then they are Apostolical if against them then they are interpolated and Apocryphal and spurious and heretical as it hath happened in the fifth Canon and the 8â…˜ But this is yet more manifest if we consider what * Tract 26. in Matth. Oportet causè considerare ut nec omnia secreta quae feruntur nomine Sanctorum suscipiamus propter Judaeâ—s qui fortè ad destructionem veritatis Scripturarum nostrarum quaedam finxerunt confirmantes dogmata falsa nec omnia abjiciamus quae pertinent ad demonstrationem Scripturarum nostrarum magni ergo viri est audire adimplere quod dictum est Omni probate quod bonum est tenere Tamen propter eos qui non possunt quasi Trapezitae inter verba discernere vera hobeantur an falsa non possunt semetipsos cautè◠servare ut verum quidem teneant apud se ab omni autem specie malâ abstineant nemo uti dâ—bâ—t ad confirmationem dogmatum libris qui sunt extra Canonizatas Scripturas Origen says No man ought for the confirmation of doctrines or opinions to use books which are not Canoniz'd Scriptures Now for ought appears to the contrary many Traditions were two or three hundred years old the first day they were born and it is not easie to reckon by what means the Fathers came or might come to admit many things to be Tradition and themselves were not sure therefore they made rules of their conjecture presumptions and sometimes weak arguings It will be much more hard for us to tell which are right and which are wrong who have nothing but their rules which were then but conjectural and are since prov'd in many instances to be improbable 1. Such is that rule of S. Austin Lib. 4. de baptis contr Donat. c. 24. c. 6. Whatsoever was anciently receiv'd and not instituted so far as men looking back may observe by posterity that is not decreed by Councils may most rightly be believ'd to descend from Apostolical Tradition That is if we do not know the beginning of an universal custom we may safely conclude it to be Primitive and Apostolick Which kind of rule is something like what a witty Gentleman said of an old man and an old woman in Ireland that if they should agree to say that they were Adam and Eve no man living could disprove them But though these persons are so old that no man remembers their beginning and though a custom be immemorial and hath prevail'd far and long yet to reduce this to the beginning of things may be presum'd by him that a mind to it but can never convince him that hath not And it is certain this rule is but a precarious pitiful Presumption since every ancient custom that any succeeding age hath a mind to continue may for the credit of it and the ignorance of the original like new upstart Gentlemen be entituled to an Honourable House Every one believes the Commandments of his Ancestors to be Traditions Apostolical said S. Hierom And that these came in by private authority and yet obtain'd a publick name we have competent warranty from Tertullian De Coronâ Milit. c. 4. who justifies it thus far Do you not think it lawful for every faithful man to appoint what ever he thinks may please God unto discipline and salvation And From whomsoever the Tradition comes regard not the Author but the Authority And S. Irenaeus tells Apud Euseb. l. 5. c. 26. Gr. 24. Lâ—t that the variety of keeping Lent which puts in strongly also to be an Apostolical Tradition began among his Ancestors who did not accurately observe their customs who by a certain simplicity or private authority appointed any thing for their posterity So that here it is apparent that every private man that was of an ancient standing in the Church might introduce customs and usages which himself thought pious And next it is also evident that when these customs deriv'd from their Ancestors hapned to continue in a lasting use their posterity was very apt to call them Traditions Apostolical according to * Lib. de Coronâ Militis Si legem nusquam reperio sequitur ut Traditio consuetudini morem hunc dederit habitu um quandóque Apostoli authoritatem ex interpretatione rationis Tertullian who confessed this very thing Thus things indifferent being esteem'd useful or pious became customary and then came for reverence into a putative and usurp'd authority But they
it is now If he can prove it was so at first he may be justified but else at no hand And I and all the world will be strangely to seek what the Church of Rome means by making conformity to the Primitive Church a note of the true Church if being now as it is be the rule for what it ought to be For if so then well may we examine the primitive Church by the present but not the present by the primitive 5. 5. If the present Catholick Church were infallible yet we were not much the nearer unless this Catholick Church could be consulted with and heard to speak not then neither unless we know which were indeed the Catholick Church There is no word in Scripture that the testimony of the present Church is the infallible way of proving the unwritten word of God and there is no tradition that it is so that I ever yet heard of and it is impossible it should be so because the present Church of several ages have had contrary traditions And if neither be why shall we believe it if there be let it be shewed In the mean time it is something strange that the infallibility of a Church should be brought to prove every particular tradition and yet it self be one of those particular traditions which proves it self But there is a better way Vincentius Lerinensis his way of judging a traditional doctrine to be Apostolical and Divine is The consent of all Churches and all Ages It is something less that S. Austin requires Lib. 2. de doct Christiana c. 8. Ecclesiarum Catholicarum quamplurimùm sequatur authoritatem inter quas sane illae sunt quae Apostolicas sedes habere Epistolas accipere meruerunt He speaks it of the particular of judging what Books are Canonical In which as tradition is the way to judge so the rule of tradition is the consent of most of the Catholick Churches particularly those places where the Apostles did sit and to which the Apostles did write But this fancy of S. Austin's is to be understood so as not to be measur'd by the practise but by the doctrine of the Apostolical Churches For that any or more of these Churches did or did not do so is no argument that such a Custom came from the Apostles or if it did that it did oblige succeeding ages unless this Custom began by a doctrine and that the tradition came from the Apostles with a declaration of it's perpetual obligation And therefore this is only of use in matters of necessary doctrine But because there is in this question many differing degrees of authority he says that our assent is to be given accordingly Those which are receiv'd of all the Catholick Churches are to be preferr'd before those which are not receiv'd by all and of these those are to be preferr'd which have the more and the graver testimony but if it should happen which yet is not that some are witnessed by the more and others by the graver let the assent be equal This indeed is a good way to know nothing for if one Apostolical Church differ from another in a doctrinal tradition no man can tell whom to follow for they are of equal authority and nothing can be thence proved but that Oral tradition is an uncertain way of conveying a Doctrine But yet this way of S. Austin is of great and approved use in the knowing what Books are Canonical and in these things it can be had in some more in some less in all more than can be said against it and there is nothing in succeeding times to give a check to our assents in their degrees because the longer the Succession runs still the more the Church was established in it But yet concerning those Books of Scripture of which it was long doubted in the Church whether they were part of the Apostolical Canon of Scripture there ought to be no pretence that they were deliver'd for such by the Apostles at least not by those Churches who doubted of them unless they will confess that either their Churches were not founded by an Apostle or that the Apostle who founded them was not faithful in his Office in transmitting all that was necessary or else that those Books particularly the Epistle to the Hebrews c. were no necessary part of the Canon of Scripture or else lastly that that Church was no faithful keeper of the Tradition which came from the Apostle All which things because they will be deny'd by the Church of Rome concerning themselves the consequent will be that Tradition is an Uncertain thing if it cannot be intire and full in assigning the Canon of Scripture it is hardly to be trusted for any thing else which consists of words subject to divers interpretations But in other things it may be the case is not so For we find that in divers particulars to prove a point to be a Tradition Apostolical use is made of the testimony of the three first Ages Indeed these are the likest to know but yet they have told us of some things to be Traditions which we have no reason to believe to be such Onely thus far they are useful If they never reported a doctrine it is the less likely to descend from the Apostles and if the order of succession be broken any where the succeeding ages can never be surer If they speak against a doctrine as for example against the half-Communion we are sure it was no Tradition Apostolical if they speak not at all of it we can never prove the Tradition for it may have come in since that time and yet come to be thought or call'd Tradition Apostolical from other causes of which I have given account And indeed there is no security sufficient but that which can never be had and that is the Universal positive testimony of all the Church of Christ which he that looks for in the disputed Traditions pretended by the Church of Rome may look as long as the Jews do for their wrong Messias So much as this is can never be had and less than this will never do it I will give one considerable instance of this affair The Patrons of the opinion of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin-mother Salmeron disp 51. in Rom. 5. allege that they have the consent of almost the Universal Church and the agreeing sentence of all Universities especially of the chief that is of Paris where no man is admitted to be Master in Theology unless he binds himself by oath to maintain that doctrine They allege that since this question began to be disputed almost all the Masters in Theology all the Preachers of the Word of God all Kings and Princes republiques and peoples all Popes and Pastors and Religions except a part of one consent in this doctrine They say that of those Authors which are by the other side pretended against it some are falsly cited others are wrested and brought in against their
all the Apostles constituted very many Bishops in divers places if the Apostles were not made Bishops by Peter certainly the greatest part of Bishops will not deduce their original from Peter This is Bellarmine's argument by which he hath perfectly overthrown that clause of Pius quartus his Creed that the Roman Church is the Mother of all Churches He confesses she is not unless S. Peter did consecrate all the Apostles he might have added No nor then neither unless Peter had made the Apostles to be Bishops after himself was Bishop of Rome for what is that to the Roman Church if he did this before he was the Roman Bishop But then that Peter made all the Apostles Bishops is so ridiculous a dream that in the world nothing is more unwarrantable For besides that S. Paul was consecrated by none but Christ himself it is certain that he ordain'd Timothy and Titus and that the succession in those Churches ran from the same Original in the same Line and there is no Record in Scripture that ever S. Peter ordain'd any not any one of the Apostles who receiv'd their authority from Christ and the Holy Spirit in the same times altogether which thing is also affirm'd by a Institut moral part 2 l. 4. c. 11. Sect. Altera opinio Azorius and b De tripl virt Theolog. disp 10. Sect. 1. n. 5. 7. Suarez who also quotes for it the Authority of S. c Quaest. Vet. N. Test. q. 97. Austin and the Gloss. So that from first to last it appears that the Roman Church is not the Mother-Church and yet every Priest is sworn to live and die in the belief of it that she is However it is plain that this assumentum and shred of the Roman Creed is such a declaration of the old Article of believing the Catholick Church that it is not onely a direct new Article of faith but destroys the old By thus handling the Creed of the Catholick Church we shall best understand what they mean when they affirm that the Pope can interpret Scripture authoritativè and he can make Scripture Ad quem pertinet sacram Scripturam authoritativè interpretari Ejus enim est interpretari cujus est condere He that can make Scripture can make new Articles of faith surely Much to the same Purpose are the words of Pope Innocent the fourth Innocent 4. in cap. super eo de Bigamis He cannot onely interpret the Gospel but adde to it Indeed if he have power to expound it authoritativè that is as good as making it for by that means he can adde to it or take from the sense of it But that the Pope can do this that is can interpret the Scriptures authoritativè sententialitèr obligatoriè so as it is not lawful to hold the contrary is affirm'd by Augustinus Triumphus a Qu. 67. a. 2. Turrecremata b Lib. 2. c. 107. and Hervey c De potestate Papae And Cardinal Hosius d De expresso Dei verbo in Epilogo goes beyond this saying That although the words of the Scripture be not open yet being uttered in the sense of the Church they are the express words of God but uttered in any other sense are not the express word of God but rather of the Devil To these I only adde what we are taught by another Cardinal who perswading the Bohemians to accept the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in one kind tells them and it is that I said before If the Church Card. Cusan Epâ—st 2. ad Bâ—hâ—mâ—s de usu Communionis p. 833. viz. of Rome for that is with them the Catholick Church or if the Pope that is the Virtual Church do expound any Evangelical sense contrary to what the current sense and practice of the Catholick Primitive Church did not that but this present interpretation must be taken for the way of Salvation For God changes his judgement as the Church does Epist. 3. p. 838. So that it is no wonder that the Pope can make new Articles or new Scriptures or new Gospel it seems the Church of Rome can make contrary Gospel that if in the primitive Church to receive in both kindes was via salutis because it was understood then to be a precept Evangelical afterwards the way of Salvation shall be changed and the precept Evangelical must be understood To take it in one kind But this is denyed by Balduinus In 1. Decret de summa Trinitate fide Cathol n. 44. 15. dist Canones who to the Question Whether can the Pope find out new Articles of Faith say's I answer Yes But not contrary It seems the Doctors differ upon that point but that which the Cardinal of Cusa the Legat of P. Nicolas the fifth taught the Bohemians was how they should answer their objection for they said if Christ commanded one thing and the Council or the Pope or the Prelates commanded contrary they would not obey the Church but Christ. But how greatly they were mistaken the Cardinal Legat told them Epist 2. ad Bohemos p. 834. edit Basil. A. D. 1565. Possible non est Scripturam quamcunque sive ipsa praeceptum sive consilium contineat in eos qui apud Ecclesiam existunt plus auctoritatis ligandi haebere aut solvendi fideles quà m ipsa Ecclesia voluerit aut verbo aut opere expresserit and in the third Epistle he tells them The authority of the Church is to be preferr'd before the Scriptures In piorum Clypeo qu 29. artit 5. The same also is taught by Elysius Nepolitanus It matters not what the primitive Church did no nor much what the Apostolical did Pighius Hierarch l. 1. c. 2. For the Apostles indeed wrote some certain things not that they should rule our Faith and our Religion but that they should be under it that is they submit the Scriptures to the Faith nay even to the Practice of the Church For the Pope can change the Gospel said Henry the Master of the Roman Palace Ad legatos â—ohemicos sub Felice Papa A. D. 1447. vide Polan in Dan. 11. 371. and according to place and time give it another sense insomuch that if any man should not believe Christ to be the true God and man if the Pope thought so too he should not be damn'd said the Cardinal of S. Angelo And Silvester Prierias * Sylvest Prierias cont Lutherum Conclu 56. expressly affirmed that the authority of the Church of Rome and the Pope's is greater than the authority of the Scriptures These things being so notorious I wonder with what confidence Bellarmine can say That the Catholicks meaning his own parties do not subject the Scripture but preferre it before Councils and that there is no controversie in this when the contrary is so plain in the pre-alledged testimonies but because his conscience check'd him in the particular he thinks to escape with a distinction
partly and shall in the sequel largely make good In the mean time whether it be principle or conclusion let us see what is objected against it or what use is made of it For I. S. says it is an improv'd and a main position But then he tells us the reason of it is because No heretic had arisen in those days denying those points and so the Fathers set not themselves to write expresly for them but occasionally only Let us consider what this is no heretic had arisen in those days denying these points True but many Catholics did and the reason why no heretics did deny those things was because neither Catholic nor heretic ever affirm'd them Well! but however the Roman controvertists are frequent for citing them for divers points Certainly not for making vows to Saints not for the worship of images nor for the half Communion for these they do not frequently cite the Fathers of the first 300. years It may be not but for the ground of our faith the Churches voice or tradition they do to the utter overthrow of the Protestant cause They do indeed sometimes cite something from them for tradition and where ever the word tradition is in Scripture or the Primitive Fathers they think it is an argument for them just as the Covenanters in the late wars thought all Scripture was their plea where ever the word Covenant was nam'd But to how little purpose they pretend to take advantage of any of the primitive Fathers speaking of tradition I shall endeavour to make apparent in an inquiry made on purpose Sect. 3. In the mean time it appears that this conclusion of mine was to very good purpose and in a manner confess'd to be true in most instances and that it was so in all was not intended by me Well! but however it might be in the first three ages yet he observes that I said that in the succeeding ages secular interest did more prevail and the writings of the Fathers were vast and voluminous and many things more that both sides eternally and inconfutably shall bring sayings for themselves respectively And is not all this very true He cannot deny it but what then why then he says I may speak out and say all the Fathers after the first three hundred years are not worth a straw in order to decision or controversie and the Fathers of the first three hundred years spoke not of our points in difference and so there is a fair end of all the Fathers and of my own Dissuasive too for that part which relies on them which looks like the most authoritative piece of it There is no great hurt in this If the Fathers be gone my Dissuasive may go too it cannot easily go in better company and I shall take the less care of it because I have I. S. his word that there is a part of it which relies upon the Fathers But if the Fathers be going it is fit we look after them and see which way they go For if they go together as in many things they do they are of very good use in order to decision of controversie if they go several ways and consequently that Controvertists may eternally and irrefutably bring sayings out of them against one another who can help it No man can follow them all and then it must be tried by some other topic which is best to follow but then that topic by it self would have been sufficient to have ended the Question Secondly If a disputer of this world pretends to rely upon the authority of the Fathers he may by them be confuted or determin'd The Church of Rome pretends to this and therefore if we perceive the Fathers have condemned doctrines which they approve of or approve what they condemn which we say in many articles is the case of that Church then the Dissuasive might be very useful and so might the Fathers too for the condemnation of such doctrines in which the Roman Church are by that touchstone found too blame And where as I. S. says that the first three ages of Christianity medled not with the present controversies it is but partly true for although many things are now adays taught of which they never thought yet some of the errors which we condemn were condemn'd then very few indeed by disputation but not a few by positive sentence and in explications of Scripture and rational discourses and by parity of case and by Catechetical doctrines For rectum est Index sui obliqui they have without thinking of future controversies and new emergent heresies said enough to confute many of them when they shall arise The great use of the Fathers especially of the first three hundred years is to tell us what was first to consign Scripture to us to convey the Creed with simplicity and purity to preach Christs Gospel to declare what is necessary and what not And whether they be fallible or infallible yet if we find them telling and accounting the integrity of the Christian faith and treading out the paths of life because they are persons whose conversation whose manner and time of living whose fame and Martyrdom and the venerable testimony of after-ages have represented to be very credible we have great reason to believe that alone to be the faith which they have describ'd and consequently that whatever comes in afterwards and is obtruded upon the world as it was not their way of going to heaven so it ought not to be ours So that here is great use of the Fathers writings though they be not infallible and therefore I wonder at the prodigious confidence to say no worse of I. S. to dare to say that as appears by the Dissuader the Protestants neither acknowledge them infallible nor useful Nay that this is my fourth Principle He that believes Transubstantiation can believe any thing and he that says this dares say every thing for as that is infinitely impossible to sense and reason so this is infinitely false in his own Conscience and experience And the words which in a few lines of his bold assertion he hath quoted out of my book confute him but too plainly He tells us so saith I. S. the Fathers are a good testimony of the doctrine deliver'd from their Forefathers down to them of what the Church esteemed the way of salvation Do not I also though he is pleas'd to take no notice of it say that although we acknowledge not the Fathers as the Authors and finishers of our faith yet we owne them as helpers of our faith and heirs of the doctrine Apostolical That we make use of their testimonies as being as things now stand to the sober and the moderate the peaceable and the wise the best the most certain visible and tangible most humble and satisfactory to them that know well how to use it Can he that says this not acknowledge the Fathers useful I know not whether I. S. may have any credit as he is one of the
Glossator falsly applies to all the works of the Fathers against the mind of the Fathers themselves quoted by Gratian in the ninth distinction and against the sense of Gelasius himself in that very chapter which he refers to in the fifteenth distinction It may be I. S. had not so much to say for his bold proposition as this it self comes to which if he had ever seen he must needs have seen in the same place very much to the contrary But that not only the Fathers themselves have taught him to speak more modestly of them than he does and that divers leading men of his Church have reprov'd this foolish affirmative of his he may be satisfied if he please to read Aquinas Authoritatibus Canonicae Scripturae utitur sacra doctrina ex necessitate argumentando Primâ parte q. 1. part 8. ad 2. arg authoritatibus autem aliorum Doctorum Ecclesiae quasi arguendo ex propriis sed probabiliter Now I know not what hopes of escaping I. S. can have by his restrictive terms the testimony of Fathers speaking of them properly as such for besides that the words mean nothing and the testimony of Fathers is the testimony of Fathers as such or it is just nothing at all Besides this I say that Aquinas affirms that their whole authority and therefore of Fathers as such is only probable and therefore certainly not infallible But this is so fond a proposition of I. S. that I am asham'd to speak any more of it and if he were not very ignorant of what his Church holds Lib. 1. adv haeres c. 7. he would never have said it Lib. 7. loc Theol c. 3. n. 4. c. But for his better information I desire the Gentleman to read Alphonsus a Castro Melehior Canus and Bellarmine De verb. Dei lib. 3. c. 10. Sect. Dices It is not therefore the constant doctrine of the Romanists that the Fathers are infallible for I never read or heard any man say it but I. S. and neither is it the avowed doctrine of that Church unless he will condemn all them for heretics that deny it some of which I have already nam'd and more will be added upon this occasion Well! but how shall we know that the Fathers testimony is a testimony of Fathers speaking properly as such for this doughty Question we are to inquire after in the pursuit of I. S. his mines and crackers He says in two cases they speak as Fathers 1. When they declare it the doctrine of the present Church of their time 2. When they write against any man as an heretic or his Tenet as heresie It seems then in these the Fathers testimony is infallible Let us try this 1. All or any thing of this may be done by Fathers supposed such but really not so and if it be not infallibly certain which are and which are not the writings of the Fathers we are nothing the neerer though it were agreed that the true Fathers testimony is infallible Or 2. If the book alledged was the book of the Father pretended and not of an obscure or heretical person yet it may be the words are interpolated or the testimony some way or other corrupted and then the testimony is not infallible when there is no absolute certainty of the witnesses themselves or the records and what causes there are of rejecting very many and doubting more and therefore in matters of present interest and Question of Uncertainty and fallibility in too many is known to every learned man and confessed by writers of both sides 2. It is very seldom that any of the Fathers do use that expression of saying This or this is the doctrine of the Church and therefore if they speak as Fathers never but when these two cases happen the writings of the Fathers will be of very little use in I. S.'s way 3. And yet after all this if we shall descend to instances I. S. will not dare to justifie what he says Was Justin Martyr infallible when he said that all Christians who were pure believers did believe the Millenary doctrine Certainly they were the Church for the others he says were such as denied the resurrection But was Gennadius or else S. Austin fathers and they infallible in the book de dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis in which he intends to give an account of the doctrine of the Church I. S. Seems to acknowledge it by affirming a saying out of that book to have been then de fide which because it had been oppos'd by very many of the fathers he had no reason to affirm but upon the witness of Gennadius putting it into his book of Ecclesiastical doctrines and he afterwards calls it the testimony of Gennadius delivering the doctrine of the Catholic Church Pag. 315. It is there said that all men shall die Christ only excepted that death might reign from Adam upon all Hanc rationem maxima Patrum turba tradente suscepimus This account we have receiv'd from the tradition of the greatest company of the Fathers If this be a tradition delivered by the greatest number of the fathers then 1. Tradition is not a sure rule of saith for this tradition is false and expresly against Scripture and 2. It follows that Tradition was not then esteemed a sure rule of faith for although this was a tradition from so great a troop of fathers at he says it was yet there were in his time alii aeque Catholici eruditi viri others as good Catholics and as learned that believ'd as S. Paul believ'd that we shall not all dye but we shall all be chang'd and however it be yet all that troop of fathers he speaks of from whence the tradition came were not infallible for they were actually deceiv'd Now this instance is of great consideration and force against I. S. his first and self evident principle concerning oral tradition For all that number of fathers if the rule of faith had been only oral tradition would horribly have disturbed the pure current of tradition and of necessity must have prevailed in I. S. his way or at least the contrary which is the truth and expresly affirm'd in Scripture could never have had the irrefragable testimony of oral tradition But thanks be to God in this the Church adher'd to the surer word of Prophecy the Scripture prov'd the surer rule of faith But again S. Austin or Gennadius says That after Christs resurrection the souls of all the Saints are with Christ and that going forth from the body they go to Christ expecting the resurrection of their bodies This he delivers as the Ecclesiastical doctrine and do the Patrons of Purgatory believe him in this to be infallible for my part I think S. Austin is in the right but I think I. S. will not grant this to be the avowed and constant doctrine of his Church The second case in which they speak as Fathers is when they write against any man as an
or the authority of plain Scriptures but this will be nothing to I. S. his hypothesis for if a part of the Catholic Fathers did deliver the contrary there was no irrefragable Catholic Oral tradition of the Church when so considerable a part of the Church delivered the contrary as their own doctrine which is not to be imagin'd they would have done if the consent of the Church of that age was against it And if we can suppose this case that one part of the Fathers should say this is the doctrine of the Church when another part of the Fathers are of a contrary judgment either they did not say true and then the Fathers testimony speaking as witnesses of the doctrine of the Church of their age is not infallible or if they did say true yet their testimony was not esteemed sufficient because the other Fathers who must needs know it if it was the Catholic doctrine of the Church then do not take it for truth or sufficient And that Maxime which was received in the Council of Trent that a Major part of voices was sufficient for decreeing in a matter of reformation but that a decree of faith could not be made if a considerable part did contradict relies upon the same reason faith is every mans duty and every mans concern and every mans learning and therefore it is not to be supposed that any thing can be an article of faith in which a number of wise and good men are at difference either as Doctors or as witnesses And of this we have a great testimony from Vincentius Lirinensis Common c. 3. In ipsa item Ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus creditum est hoc est enim verè propriéque Catholicum Not that which a part of the Fathers but that which is said every where always and by all that is truly and properly Chatholic and this says he is greatly to be taken care of in the Catholic Church From all these premisses it will follow that the Dissuasive did or might to very good purpose make use of the Fathers and if I did there or shall in the following Sections make it appear that in such an age of the Ancient Church the doctrines which the Church of Rome at this day imposes on the world as articles of faith were not then accounted articles of faith but either were spoken against or not reckoned in their Canon and Confessions it will follow that either they can make new articles of faith or at least cannot pretend these to be articles of faith upon the stock of Oral Catholic tradition for this cannot be at all if the Catholic Fathers were though Unequally divided in their testimony The rest of I. S. his last Way or Mine is but bragging and indeed this whole Appendix of his is but the dregs of his sure-footing and gives but very little occasion of useful and material discourse But he had formerly promised that he would give an account of My relying on Scripture and here was the place reserved for it but when he comes to it it is nothing at all but a reviling of it calling of it a bare letter Unsens't outward characters Ink thus figur'd in a book but whatsoever it is he calls it my main most fundamental and in a manner my only principle though he according to his usual method of saying what comes next had said before that I had no Principle and that I had many Principles All that he adds afterwards is nothing but the same talk over again concerning the Fathers of which I have given an account I hope full enough and I shall add something more when I come to speak concerning the justification of the grounds of the Protestant and Christian religion Only that I may be out of I. S. his debt I shall make it appear that he and his party are the men that go upon no grounds that in the Church of Rome there is no sure-footing no certain acknowledged rule of faith but while they call for an assent above the nature and necessity of the thing they have no warrant beyond the greatest Uncertainty and cause their people to wander that I may borrow I. S. his expression in the very sphere of contingency THE SECOND PART OF The Dissuasive from Popery The first Book SECTION I. Of the Church shewing that The Church of Rome relies upon no certain foundation for their faith THat the Scriptures are infallibly true though it be acknowledged by the Roman Church yet this is not an infallible rule to them for several reasons 1. Because it is imperfect and insufficient as they say to determine all matters of Faith 2. Because it is not sufficient to determine any that shall be questioned not onely because its authority and truth is to be determin'd by something else that must be before it but also because its sense and meaning must be found out by something after it And not he that writes or speaks but he that expounds it gives the Rule so that Scripture no more is to rule us then matter made the world until something else gives it form and life and motion and operative powers it is but iners massa not so much as a clod of earth And they who speak so much of the obscurity of Scripture of the seeming contradictions in it of the variety of readings and the mysteriousness of its manner of delivery can but little trust that obscure dark intricate and at last imperfect book for a perfect clear Rule But I shall not need to drive them out of this Fort which they so willingly of themselves quit If they did acknowledge Scripture for their Rule all Controversies about this would be at an end and we should all be agreed but because they do not they can claim no title here That which they pretend to be the infallible Judge and the measure of our faith and is to give us our Rule is the Church and she is a rock the pillar and ground of truth and therefore here they fix Now how little assurance they have by this Confidence will appear by many considerations 1. It ought to be known and agreed upon what is meant by this word Church or Ecclesia For it is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Church cannot be a Rule or Guide if it be not known what you mean when you speak the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Suidas His body viz. mystical Christ calls his Church Among the Greeks it signifies a Convention or Assembly met together for publick imployment and affairs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Aristophanes understands it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is there not a Convocation or an Assembly called for this Plutus Now by Translation this word is us'd amongst Christians to signifie all them who out of the whole mass of mankind are called and come and are gathered together by the voice and call of God to
was Acts 15. 4. that I mean of Jerusalem where the Apostles were presidents and the Presbyters were assistants but the Church was the body of the Council When they were come to Jerusalem they were receiv'd of the Church 22. and of the Apostles and Elders And again Then it pleased the Apostles and Elders with the Church to send chosen men 23. and they did so they sent a Decretal with this style The Apostles and Elders and Brethren send greeting to the Brethren which are of the Gentiles Now no man doubts but the Spirit of Infallibility was in the Apostles and yet they had the consent of the Church in the Decree which Church was the company of the converted Brethren and by this it became a Rule certainly it was the first precedent and therefore ought to be the measure of the rest and this the rather because from hence the succeeding Councils have deriv'd their sacramental sanction of Visum est Spiritui sancto nobis now as it was the first so it was the only precedent in Scripture and it was manag'd by the Apostles and therefore we can have no other warrant of an Authentick Council but this and to think that a few of the Rulers of Churches should be a just representation of the Church for infallible determination of all questions of Faith is no way warranted in Scripture and there is neither here nor any where else any word or commission that the Church ever did or could delegate the Spirit to any representatives or pass Infallibility by a Commission or Letter of Attorney and therefore to call a General Council the Church or to think that all the priviledges and graces given by Christ to his Church is there in a part of the Church is wholly without warrant or authority But this is made manifest by matter of fact and the Church never did intend to delegate any such power but always kept it in her own hand I mean the supreme Judicature both in faith and discipline I shall not go far for instances but observe some in the Roman Church it self which are therefore the more remarkable because in the time of her Reign General Councils were arrived to great heights and the highest pretensions Clement the 7th calls the Council of Ferrara Vide edit Roman Actorum Generalis octavae Synâ—di per Anton. Bladrum 1516. the Eighth General Synod in his Bull of the 22th of April 1527. directed to the Bishop of Fernaesia who it seems had translated it out of Greek into Latin yet this General Council is not accepted in France but was expresly rejected by King Charles the 7th and the instance of the Cardinals who came from P. Eugenius to desire the acceptation of it was denied This Council A. D. 1431. was it seems begun at Basil and though the King did then and his Great Council and Parliament and the Church of France then assembled at Bruges accept it yet it was but in part for of 45 Sessions of that Council France hath receiv'd only the first 32. and those not intirely as they lie but with certain qualifications Aliqua simpliciter ut jacent alia verò cum certis modificationibus formis as is to be seen in the pragmatick Sanction To the same purpose is that which hapned to the last Council of Lateran which was called to be a countermine to the second Council of Pisa and to frustrate the intended Reformation of the Church in head and members This Council excommunicated Lewis the XII th of France repealed the Pragmatical Sanction and condemned the second Council of Pisa. So that here was an end of the Council of Pisa by the Decree of the Lateran and on the other side the Lateran Council had as bad a Fate for besides that it was accounted in Germany and so called by Paulus Langius a Monk of Germany In Chron. Sitizensi A. D. 1513. A pack of Cardinals it is wholly rejected in France and an appeal to the next Council put in against it by the University of Paris And as ill success hath hapned to the Council of Trent which it seems could not oblige the Roman Catholick countries without their own consent But therefore there were many pressing instances messages petitions and artifices to get it to be published in France First to Charles the IX th by Pius Quartus An. Dom. 1563. than by Cardinal Aldobrandino the Pope's Nephew 1572 then by the French Clergy 1576 in an Assembly of the States at Blois Peter Espinac Arch Bishop of Lyons being Speaker for the Clergy after this by the French Clergy at Melun 1579. the Bishop of Bazas making the Oration to the King and after him the same year they pressed it again Nicolas Angelier the Bishop of Brien being Speaker After this by Renald of Beaune Arch-Bishop of Bruges 1582. Vide Thuan. hist. lib. 105. revieu du Concile de Trent lib. 1. and the very next year by the Pope's Nuncio to Henry the 3d. And in An. Dom. 1583. and 88. and 93. it was press'd again and again but all would not do By which it appears that even in the Church of Rome the Authority of General Councils is but precarious and that the last resort is to the respective Churches who did or did not send their delegates to consider and consent Here then is but little ground of confidence in General Councils whom surely the Churches would absolutely trust if they had reason to believe them to be infallible But there are many more things to be considered For there being many sorts of Councils General Provincial Gratian dist 3. caâ— Pâ—rrè National Diocesan the first inquiry will be which of all these or whether all of these will be an infallible guide and of necessity to be obeyed I doubt not but it will be roundly answered that only the General Councils are the last and supreme Judicatory and that alone which is infallible But yet how Uncertain this Rule will be Vbi supra act 3. appears in this that the gloss of the Canon Law * says Non videtur Metropolitanos posse condere Canones in suis Conciliis at least not in great matters imò non licet yet the VII th Synod allows the Decrees Decistones localium Conciliorum the definitions of local Councils But I suppose it is in these as it is in the General they that will accept them may and if they will approve the Decrees of Provincial Councils they become a Law unto themselves and without this acceptation General Councils cannot give Laws to others 2. It will be hard to tell which are General Councils Lib. 1. c. 4. de Concil Eccles Sect. Vocuntur enim and which are not for the Roman Councils under Symmachus all the world knows can but pretend to be local or provincial consisting only of Italians and yet they bear Vniversal in their Style and it is always said as Bellarmine * confesses Symmachus
Concilio Generali praesidens and the 3d. Council of Toledo in the 18th Chapter uses this mandatory form Praecipit haec sancta Vniversalis Synodus 3 But if we will suppose a Catachrêsis in this style and that this title of Vniversal means but a Particular that is an Universal of that place though this be a hard expression because the most particular or local Councils are or may be universal to that place yet this may be pardon'd since it is like the Catholick Roman style that is the manner of speaking in the Universal particular Church but after all this it will be very hard in good Earnest to tell which Councils are indeed Universal or General Councils Bellarmine reckons eighteen from Nicene to Trent inclusively so that the Council of Florence is the sixteenth and yet Pope Clement the seventh calls it the eighth General and is reproved for it by Surius who for all the Pope's infallibility pretended to know more than the Pope would allow The last Lateran Council viz. the fifth is at Rome esteem'd a General Council In Germany and France it passes for none at all but a faction and pack of Cardinals 4. There are divers General Councils that though they were such yet they are rejected by almost all the christian world It ought not to be said that these are not General Councils because they were conventions of heretical persons for if a Council can consist of heretical persons as by this instance it appears it may then a General Council is no sure rule or ground of faith And all those Councils which Bellarmin calls reprobate are as so many proofs of this For what ever can be said against the Council of Ariminum yet they cannot say but it consisted of DC Bishops and therefore it was as general as any ever was before it but the faults that are found with it prove indeed that it is not to be accepted but then they prove two things more First That a General Council binds not till it be accepted by the Churches and therefore that all its authority depends on them and they do not depend upon it And secondly that there are some General Councils which are so far from being infallible that they are directly false schismatical and heretical And if when the Churches are divided in a question and the communion like the Question is in flux and reflux when one side prevails greatly they get a General Council on their side and prevail by it but lose as much when the other side play the same game in the day of their advantages And it will be to no purpose to tell me of any Collateral advantages that this Council hath more than another Council for though I believe so yet others do not and their Council is as much a General Council to them as our Council is to us And therefore if General Councils are the rule and law of faith in those things they determine then all that is to be considered in this affair is Whether they be General Councils Whether they say true or no is not now the question but is to be determin'd by this viz. whether are they General Councils or no for relying upon their authority for the truth if they be satisfied that they are General Councils that they speak and determine truth will be consequent and allowed Now then if this be the question then since divers General Councils are reprobated the consequent is that although they be General Councils yet they may be reprov'd And if a Catholick producing the Nicene Council be r'encontred by an Arian producing the Council of Ariminum which was farre more numerous here are aquilis aquilae pila minantia pilis but who shall prevail If a General Council be the rule and guide they will both prevail that is neither And it ought not to be said by the Catholick Yea but our Council determin'd for the truth but yours for errour for the Arian will say so too But whether they do or no yet it is plain that they may both say so and if they do then we do not find the truth out by the conduct and decision of a General Council but we approve this General because upon other accounts we believe that what is there defin'd is true And therefore S. Austin's way here is best Neque ego Nicenum Concilium neque tu Ariminense c. both sides pretend to General Councils that which both equally pretend to will help neither therefore let us go to Scripture But there are amongst many others two very considerable instances by which we may see plainly at what rate Councils are declar'd General A. D. 755. There was a Council held at C. P. under Constantinus Copronymus of 338 Bishops It was in that unhappy time when the question of worshipping or breaking images was disputed A D. 786. aut 789. This Council commanded images to be destroyed out of Churches and this was a General Council and yet 26 or as some say 31 years after this was condemned by another General Council viz. the second at Nice which decreed images to be worshipped not long after about five years this General Council of Nice for that very reason was condemned by a General Council of Francford and generally by the Western Churches Now of what value is a General Council to the determination of questions of faith when one General Council condemns another General Council with great liberty and without scruple And it is to no purpose to allege reasons or excuses why this or that Council is condemn'd for if they be General and yet may without reason be condemn'd then they have no authority but if they be condemned with reason then they are not infallible The other instance is in those Councils which were held when the dispute began between the Council and the Pope The Council of Constance consisting of almost a thousand Fathers first and last defin'd the Council to be above the Pope the Council of Florence and the fift Council in the Lateran have condemn'd this Council so far as to that article The Council of Basil all the world knows how greatly they asserted their own Authority over the Pope but therefore though in France it is accepted yet in Italy and Spain it is not But what is the meaning that some Councils are partly approv'd and partly condemned the Council of Sardis that in Trullo those of Francfort Constance and Basil but that every man and every Church accepts the General Councils as far as they please and no further The Greeks receive but seven General Councils the Lutherans receive six the Eutychians in Asia receive but the first three the Nestorians in the East receive but the first two the Anti-trinitarians in Hungary and Poland receive none The Church of England receives the four first Generals as of highest regard not that they are infallible but that they have determin'd wisely and holily Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata It
is as every one likes for the Church of Rome that receives sixteen are divided and some take-in others and reject some of these as I have shown 5. How can it be known which is a General Council and how many conditions are requir'd for the building such a great House The question is worth the asking not only because the Church of Rome teaches us to rely upon a General Council as the supreme Judge and final determiner of questions but because I perceive that the Church of Rome is at a loss concerning General Councils A. D. 1409. deâ—â—oâ—cil Eccles. l. â— c. 8. The Council of Pisa Bellarmine says is neither approv'd nor reprov'd for Pope Alexander the 6th approv'd it because he acknowledg'd the Election of Alexander the 5th who was created Pope by that Council and yet Antoninus called it Conciliabulum illegitimum an unlawful Conventicle But here Bellarmine was a little forgetful for the fift Lateran Council which they in Rome will call a General hath condemn'd this Pisan with great interest and fancie and therefore it was both approv'd and reprov'd But it is fit that it be inquir'd How we shall know which or what is a General Council and which is not 1. If we inquire into the number of the Bishops there present we cannot find any certain Rule for that but be they many or few the parties interested will if they please call it a General Council And they will not dare not I suppose at Rome make a quarrel upon that point when in the sixth Session of Trent as some printed Catalogues * 1546. inform us they may remember there were but 38 persons in all at their first sitting down of which number some were not Bishops and at last there were but 57 Archbishops and Bishops in all In the first Session were but three Archbishops and twenty three Bishops and in all the rest about sixty Archbishops and Bishops was the usual number till the last and yet there are some Councils of far greater antiquity who are rejected although their number of Bishops very far surpass the numbers of Trent In Nice were 318 Bishops in that of Chalcedon were 600 and in that of Basil were above 400 Bishops and in that of Constance were 300 besides the other Fathers as they call them But this is but one thing of many though it will be very hard to think that all the power and energy the virtual faith and potential infallibility of the whole Christian Church should be in 80 or 90 Bishops taken out of the neighbour-Countreys 6. But then if we consider upon what pitiful pretences the Roman Doctors do evacuate the Authority of Councils we shall find them to be such that by the like which can never be wanting to a witty person the authority of every one of them may be vilified and consequently they can be infallible security to no man's faith Charles the 7th of France and the French Church assembled at Bruges rejected the latter Sessions of the Council of Basil because they depriv'd P. Eugenius and created Felix the 5th and because it was doubtful whether that Assembly did sufficiently represent the Catholick Church But Bellarmine says that the former Sessions of the Council of Basil are invalid and null because certain Bishops fell off there and were faulty Now if this be a sufficient cause of nullity then if ever there be a schism or but a division of opinions the other party may deny the Authority of the Council and especially if any of them change their opinion and go to the prevailing side the other hath the same cause of complaint but this ought not at all to prevail till it be agreed how many Bishops must be present for if some fail if enough remain there is no harm done to the Authority But because any thing is made use of for an excuse it is a sure sign they are but pretended more than regarded but just when they serve mens turns The Council of C. P. under Leo Isaurus is rejected by the Romanists because there was no Patriarch present but S. German though all the world knows the reason is because they decreed against images But if the other were a good Reason then it is necessary that all the old Patriarchs should be present and if this be true then the General Council of Ephesus is null because all the Patriarchs were not present at it and particularly the Patriarch of Antioch and in that of Chalcedon there wanted the Patriarch of Alexandria And the first of C. P. could not have all the Patriarchs nether could it be Representative of the whole Church because at the same time there was another Council at Rome and which is worse to the Romanists than all that the Council of Trent upon this and a 1000 more is invalid because themselves reckon but three Patriarchs there present one was of Venice another of Aquileia and the third was only a titular of Jerusalem none of which were really any of the old Patriarchs whose Authority was so great in the Ancient Councils 7. It is impossible as things are now that a General Council should be a sure Rule or Judge of Faith Bellarm. lib. 1. de Concil Eccles. cap. 15. since it can never be agreed who of necessity are to be called and who have decisive voices in Councils Sect. At athâ—licorum At Rome they allow none but Bishops to give sentence and to subscribe and yet anciently not only the Emperours and their Embassadours did subscribe but lately at Florence Lateran and Trent Cardinals and Bishops Abbots and Generals of Orders did subscribe and in the Council of Basil Priests had decisive voices and it is notorious that the ancient Councils were subscribed by the Archimandrites who were but Abbots not Bishops L â—b 2. de Concil act 6. and Cardinal Jacobatius affirms that sometimes Lay-men were admitted to Councils to be Judges between those that disputed some deep Questions Nay Gerson says that Controversies of Faith were sometimes referred to Pagan Philosophers who though they believ'd it not yet supposing it such they determin'd what was the proper consequent of such Principles which the Christians consented in and he says Socrat. l. â— c 5. Eccles. hist. it was so in the Council of Nice as is left unto us upon record * And Eutropius a Pagan was chosen Judge between Origen and the Marcionites and against these he gave sentence and in behalf of Origen Certain it is that the States of Germany in their Diet at Noremberg propounded to Pope Adrian the VI th that Lay-men might be admitted as well as the Clergy and freely to declare their judgments without hindrance And this was no new matter for it was practis'd in all Nations in Germany France England and Spain it self as who please may see in the 6th 8th and 12th Councils of Toledo So that it is apparent that the Romanists though now they do not yet formerly
in the second the sixteenth and eighteenth and 33 d Sessions by the Council of Bruges under Charles the VII th and by the pragmatick Sanction all which have declar'd that A General Council hath its authority immediately from Christ and consequently not depending on the Pope and that it is necessary that every person in what dignity soever though Papal should be obedient to it in things that concern faith the extirpation of schism and the reformation of the Church of God both in head and members This is the decree of the Council of Constance which also addes further That whosoever shall neglect to obey the commands statutes ordinances and decrees of this or any other General Council lawfully assembled in the things aforesaid or thereunto pertaining viz. in matters of faith or manners made or to be made if he do not repent of it he shall undergo a condign penance yea and with recourse to other remedies of law against him of what condition estate or dignity soever he be though he be the Pope The same was confirm'd in the Council of Lausanna and the second Pisan in the third Session so that here are six General Councils all declaring the Pope to be inferior and submitted to a Council They created Popes in some of them they decreed when Councils should be called they Judged Popes they deposed them they commanded their obedience they threatned to impose penances if they obeyed not and to proceed to further remedies in law and the second Pisan beside the former particulars declared that the Synod neither could nor should be dissolved without their universal consent nevertheless by the common consent it might be removed to a place of safety especially with the Pope if he could be got to consent thereunto always provided it be not at Rome And yet this very Council was approv'd and commended by Pope Alexander the 5th Platina in Alex. Quinto Naucl. tom 2. generat 47. as both Platina and Nauclerus witness and the Council of Constance was called by Pope John the 23. He presided in it and was for his wicked life deposed by it and yet Platina in his life says he approv'd it and after him so did Pope Martin the 5th as is to be seen in the last Session of that Council and Eugenius the 4th Vide 16. c. 18. Session and the Council of Basil and Lausanna was confirm'd by Pope Nicolas the 5th as is to be seen in his Bull and not only Pope Martin the 5th but Pope Eugenius the 4th approv'd the Council of Basil. It were a needless trouble to reckon the consenting testimonies of many learned Divines and Lawyers bearing witness to the Council's superiority over Popes More material it is that many famous Universities particularly that of Paris Erford Colein Vienna Cracovia all unanimously did affirm the power of General Councils over Popes and principally for this thing relied upon the Authority of the General Councils of Constance and Basil. Now if a General Council confirmed by a Pope be a Rule or Judge of Faith and Manners then this is an Article of Faith that the Authority of a General Council does not depend upon the Pope but on Christ immediately and then the Pope's confirmation does not make it valid any more than the confirmation or consent of the other Patriarchs for their respective Provinces For here are many Councils and they confirmed by divers Popes But that it may appear how Uncertain all De comparatione authoritatis Papae Conci ii even the Greatest things are at Rome Cardinal Cajetan wrote a Book against this doctrine and against the Councils of Constance Basil and Pisa and Gerson the Chancellor of Paris which book King Lewis the XII th of France required the University of Paris to examine which they did to very good purpose And the latter Popes of Rome have us'd their utmost diligence to disgrace and nullifie all these Councils and to stifle the voice and consciences of all men and to trample General Councils under their feet Now how can the Souls of Christian people put their questions and differences to their determination who themselves are biting and scratching one another He was likely to prove but an ill Physician who gave advices to a woman that had gotten a cold when himself could scarce speak for coughing I am not concern'd here to say what I think of the question or whether the Council or the Pope be in the right for I think as to the power of determining matters of Faith infallibly they are both in the wrong But that which I observe is That the Church of Rome is greatly divided about their Judge of Controversies and are never like to make an end of it unless one Party be beaten into a good compliant belief with the other I shall only add a conclusion to these premisses in the words of Bellarmine De Concil cuthor l. 2. c. 24. Sect. Accedit Si Concilia Generalia possent errare nullum esset in Ecclesia firmum judicium quo Controversiae componi Vnitas in Ecclesiâ servari possit If a General Council can erre there is no sure judgement in Church for the composing Controversies and preserving Unity I shall not need to take advantage of these words by observing that Bellarmine hath by them evacuated all the Authority of the Pope's defining questions in Cathedrâ for if a General Council can fail nothing amongst them can be certain This is that which I observe that since this thing is rendred so Uncertain upon the stock of their own wranglings and not agreeing upon which are General Councils one part condemning some which very many others among them acknowledge for such it is impossible by their own Doctrine that they can have any place where to set their foot and say Here I fix upon a Rock and cannot be moved And there being so many conditions requir'd and so many ways of failing laid to their charge and many more that may be found out and it being impossible that we can be infallibly assured that none of them hath hapned in any General Council that comes to be question'd How can any man rely upon the decision of a Council as infallible of which he cannot ever be infallibly assured that it hath proceeded Concilialiter as Bellarmine's new word is or that it hath in it nothing that does evacuate or lessen its authority And after all this suppose we are all agreed about any Convention and allow it to be a General Council yet they do not always end the questions when they have defin'd them and the Decrees themselves make a new harvest of Uncertainties Of this we have too many witnesses even all the Questions which in the world are made concerning the sense and meaning of the Decrees and Canons in the respective Councils And when Andreas Vega and Dominicus à Soto and Soto A. D. 1546. and Catarinus who were all present at the Council of Trent
words of Scripture and the Apostles Creed for a sufficient rule of their faith but are threatned with damnation if they do not believe whatever their Church hath determin'd and yet they neither do nor can know it but by the word of their Parish Priest or Confessor it lies in the hand of every Parish Priest to make the People believe any thing and be of any religion and trust to any Article as they shall choose and find to their purpose The Council of Trent requires Traditions to be added and received equal with Scriptures they both not singly but in conjunction making up the full object of faith and so the most learned and indeed generally their whole Church understands one to be incomplete without the other and yet Master White who I suppose tells the same thing to his Neighbours affirms that it is not the Catholick position That all its doctrines are not contain'd in Scripture which proposition being tied with the decree of the Council of Trent gives a very good account of it and makes it excellent sense Thus Traditions must be receiv'd with equal authority to the Scripture saith the Council and wonder not for saith Master White all the Traditions of the Church are in Scripture You may believe so if you please for the contrary is not a Catholick doctrine But if these two things do not agree better then it will be hard to tell what regard will be had to what the Council says the People know not that but as their Priest teaches them And though they are bound under greatest pains to believe the whole Catholick Religion yet that the Priests themselves do not know it or wilfully mis-report it and therefore that the people cannot tell it it is too evident in this instance and in the multitude of disputes which are amongst themselves about many considerable Articles in their Catholick religion Vide Wadding of Immac oncept p. 282. p. 334. alibi Pius Quintus speaking of Thomas Aquinas calls his doctrine the most certain rule of Christian religion And divers particulars of the religion of the Romanists are prov'd out of the revelations of S. Briget which are contradicted by those of S. Katherine of Siena Now they not relying on the way of God fall into the hands of men who teach them according to the interest of their order or private fancy and expound their rules by measures of their own but yet such which they make to be the measures of salvation and damnation They are taught to rely for their faith upon the Church and this when it comes to practise is nothing but their private Priest and he does not always tell them the sense of their Church and is not infallible in declaring the sense of it and is not always as appears in the instance now set down faithful in relating of it but first consens himself by his subtilty and then others by his confidence and therefore in is impossible there can be any certainty to them that proceed this way when God hath so plainly given them a better and requires of them nothing but to live a holy life as a superstructure of Christian Faith describ'd by the Apostles in plain places of Scripture and in the Apostolical Creed in which they can suffer no illusion and where there is no Uncertainty in the matters to be believ'd IV. The next thing I observe is that they all talking of the Church as of a charm and sacred Amulet yet they cannot by all their arts make us certain where or how infallibly to find this Church I have already in this Section prov'd this in the main Inquiry by shewing that the Church is that body which they do not rely upon but now I shall shew that the Church which they would point out can never be certainly known to be the true Church by those indications and signs which they offer to the world as her characteristick notes S. Austin in his excellent Book De Vnitate Ecclesiae Lib. de Vnit. Eccles. cap. cap. 17. Ergo in Scripturis Canonicis eam Ecclesiam requiramus cap. 3. affirms that the Church is no whereto be found but in Praescripto legis in prophetarum praedictis in Psalmorum cantibus in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Sanctorum canonicis authoritatibus in the Scriptures only And he gives but one great note of it and that is adhering to the head Jesus Christ for the Church is Christ's body who by charity are united to one another and to Christ their Head and he that is not a member of Christ cannot obtain salvation And he adds no other mark but that Christ's Church is not this or that viz. not of one denomination but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dispersed over the face of the earth The Church of Rome makes adhesion to the head Bellarm. de Eccles Militant lib. 3. cap. Sect. Nostra autem Sententia not Jesus Christ but the Bishop of Rome to be of the essential constitution of the Church Now this being the great Question between the Church of Rome and the Greek Church and indeed of all other Churches of the world is so far from being a sign to know the Church by that it is apparent they have no ground of their Faith but the great Question of Christendom and that which is condemn'd by all the Christian world but themselves is their foundation And this is so much the more considerable because concerning very many Heads of their Church it was too apparent that they were not so much as members of Christ but the basest of Criminals and Enemies of all godliness And concerning others that were not so notoriously wicked they could not be certain that they were members of Christ or that they were not of their Father the Devil The spirit of truth was promis'd to the Apostles upon condition and Judas fell from it by transgression But the uncertainties are yetgreater Adhering to the Pope cannot be a certain note of the Church because no man can be certain who is true Pope For the Pope if he be a Simoniac is ipso facto no Pope as appears in the Bull of Julius the 2d And yet besides that he himself was called a most notorious Simoniac Sixtus Quintus gave an obligation under his hand upon condition that the Cardinal d'Este would bring over his voices to him and make him Pope that he would never make Hierom Matthew a Cardinal which when he broke the Cardinal sent his Obligation to the King of Spain who intended to accuse him of Simony but it broke the Pope's heart and so he escaped here and was reserved to be heard before a more Unerring Judicatory And when Pius Quartus used all the secret arts to dissolve the Council of Trent and yet not to be seen in it and to that purpose dispatch'd away the Bishops from Rome he forbad the Archbishop of
things we cannot certainly know that the Church of Rome is the true Catholick Church how shall the poor Roman Catholick be at rest in his inquiry Here is in all this nothing but uncertainty of truth or certainty of error And what is needful to be added more I might tire my self and my Reader if I should enumerate all that were very considerable in this inquiry I shall not therefore insist upon their uncertainties in their great and considerable Questions about the number of the Sacraments which to be Seven is with them an Article of Faith and yet since there is not amongst them any authentick definition of a Sacrament and it is not nor cannot be a matter of Faith to tell what is the form of a Sacrament therefore it is impossible it should be a matter of Faith to tell how many they are for in this case they cannot tell the number unless they know for what reason they are to be accounted so The Fathers and School-men differ greatly in the definition of a Sacrament and consequently in the numbring of them S. Cyprian and S. Bernard reckon washing the Disciples feet to be a Sacrament and S. Austin called omnem ritunt cultus Divini a Sacrament and otherwhile he says there are but two and the Schoolmen dispute whether or no a Sacrament can be defin'd And by the Council of Trent Clandestine Marriages are said to be a Sacrament and yet that the Church always detested them which indeed might very well be for the blessed Eucharist is a Sacrament but yet private Masses and Communions the Ancient Church always did detest except in the cases of necessity But then when at Trent they declar'd them to be Nullities it would be very hard to prove them to be Sacraments All the whole affair in their Sacrament of Order is a body of contingent propositions They cannot agree where the Apostles receiv'd their several Orders by what form of words and whether at one time or by parts and in the Institution of the Lord's Supper the same words by which some of them say they were made Priests they generally expound them to signifie a duty of the Laity as well as the Clergy Hoc facite which signifies one thing to the Priest and another to the People and yet there is no mark of difference They cannot agree where or by whom extreme Unction was instituted They cannot tell whether any Wafer be actually transubstantiated because they never can know by Divine Faith whether the supposed Priest be a real Priest or had right intention and yet they certainly do worship it in the midst of all Uncertainties But I will add nothing more but this what Wonder is it if all things in the Church of Rome be Uncertain when they cannot dare not trust their reason or their senses in the wonderful invention of Transubstantiation and when many of their wisest Doctors profess that their pretended infallibility does finally rely upon prudential motives I conclude this therefore with the words of S. Austin Remotis ergo omnibus talibus De Vnit. Eccles cap. 16. c. All things therefore being remov'd let them demonstrate their Church if they can not in the Sermons and Rumors of the Africans Romans not in the Councils of their Bishops not in the Letters of any disputers not in signs and deceitful Miracles because against these things we are warned and prepar'd by the word of the Lord But in the praescript of the Law of the Prophets of the Psalms of the Evangelists and all the Canonical authorities of the Holy Books And that 's my next undertaking to show the firmness of the foundation and the Great Principle of the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland even the Holy Scriptures SECTION II. Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures to Salvation which is the great foundation and ground of the Protestant Religion THis question is between the Church of Rome and the Church of England and therefore it supposes that it is amongst them who believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God The Old and New Testament are agreed upon to be the word of God and that they are so is deliver'd to us by the current descending testimony of all ages of Christianity and they who thus are first lead into this belief find upon trial great after-proofs by arguments both external and internal and such as cause a perfect adhesion to this truth that they are Gods Word an adhesion I say so perfect as excludes all manner of practical doubting Now then amongst us so perswaded the Question is Whether or no the Scriptures be a sufficient rule of our faith and contain in them all things necessary to salvation or Is there any other word of God besides the Scriptures which delivers any points of faith or doctrines of life necessary to salvation This was the state of the Question till yesterday And although the Church of Rome affirm'd Tradition to be a part of the object of faith and that without the addition of doctrine and practises deliver'd by tradition the Scriptures were not a perfect rule but together with tradition they are yet now two or three Gentlemen have got upon the Coach-wheel and have raised a cloud of dust enough to put out the eyes even of their own party Vid. hist. â—oncil Trident. sub Paul 3. A. D. 1546. making them not to see what till now all their Seers told them and Tradition is not onely a suppletory to the deficiencies of Scripture but it is now the onely record of faith But because this is too bold and impossible an attempt and hath lately been sufficiently reprov'd by some learned persons of our Church I shall therefore not trouble my self with such a frontless errour and illusion but speak that truth which by justifying the Scripture's fulness and perfection will overthrow the doctrine of the Roman Church denying it and ex abundanti cast down this new mud-wall thrown into a dirty heap by M. W. and his under-dawber M. S. who with great pleasure behold and wonder at their own work and call it a Marble Building 1. That the Scripture is a full and sufficient rule to Christians in faith and manners a full and perfect Declaration of the will of God is therefore certain because we have no other For if we consider the grounds upon which all Christians believe the Scriptures to be the word of God the same grounds prove that nothing else is These indeed have a Testimony that is credible as any thing that makes faith to men The universal testimony of all Christians In respect of which S. Austin said Evangelio non crederem c. I should not believe the Gospel if the Authority of the Church that is of the universal Church did not move me The Apostles at first own'd these Writings the Churches receiv'd them they transmitted them to their posterity they grounded their faith upon them they proved their propositions by them by them
they confuted hereticks and they made them the measures of right and wrong all that collective body of doctrines of which all Christians consentingly made publick confessions and on which all their hopes of salvation did relye were all contain'd in them and they agreed in no point of faith which is not plainly set down in Scripture And all this is so certain that we all profess our selves ready to believe any other Article which can pretend and prove it self thus prov'd thus descended For we know a doctrine is neither more nor less the word of God for being written or unwritten that 's but accidental and extrinsecal to it for it was first unwritten and then the same thing was written onely when it was written it was better conserv'd and surer transmitted and not easily altered and more fitted to be a rule And indeed onely can be so not but that every word of God is as much a rule as any word of God but we are sure that what is so written and so transmitted is Gods Word whereas concerning other things which were not written we have no certain records no evident proof no sufficient conviction and therefore it is not capable of being own'd as the rule of faith or life because we do not know it to be the Word of God If any doctrine which is offer'd to us by the Church of Rome and which is not in Scripture be prov'd as Scripture is we receive it equally but if it be not it is to be received according to the degree of its probation and if it once comes to be disputed by wise and good men if it came in after the Apostles if it rely but upon a few Testimonies or is to be laboriously argued into a precarious perswasion it cannot be the true ground of faith and salvation can never rely upon it The truth of the assumption in this argument will rely upon an Induction of which all Churches have a sufficient experience there being in no Church any one instance of doctrine of faith or life that can pretend to a clear universal Tradition and Testimony of the first and of all ages and Churches but onely the doctrine contain'd in the undoubted Books of the Old and New Testament And in the matter of good life the case is evident and certain which makes the other also to be like it for there is no original or primary Commandement concerning good life but it is plainly and notoriously found in Scripture Now faith being the foundation of good life upon which it is most rationally and permanently built it is strange that Scripture should be sufficient to teach us all the whole superstructure and yet be defective in the foundation Neither do we doubt but that there were many things spoken by Christ and his Apostles which were never written and yet those few onely that were written are by the Divine Providence and the care of the Catholick Church of the first and all descending ages preserv'd to us and made our Gospel So that as we do not dispute whether the words which Christ spake and the Miracles he did and are not written be as holy and as true as those which are written but onely say they are not our rule and measures because they are unknown So there is no dispute whether they be to be preferr'd or relied upon as the written or unwritten Word of God for both are to be relied upon and both equally always provided that they be equally known to be so But that which we say is That there are many which are called Traditions which are not the unwritten Word of God at least not known so to be and the doctrines of men are pretended and obtruded as the Commandments of God and the Testimonie of a few men is made to support a weight as great as that which relies upon universal Testimony and particular traditions are equall'd to universal the uncertain to the certain and traditions are said to be Apostolical if they be but ancient and if they come from we know not whom they are said to come from the Apostles and if postnate they are call'd primitive and they are argued and laboriously disputed into the title of Apostolical traditions by not onely fallible but fallacious arguments as will appear in the following numbers This is the state of the Question and therefore 1. It proves it self because there can be no proof to the contrary since the elder the tradition is the more likely it can be prov'd as being nearer the fountain and not having had a long current which as a long line is always the weakest so in long descent is most likely to be corrupted and therefore a late tradition is one of the worst arguments in the world it follows that nothing can now because nothing of Faith yet hath been sufficiently prov'd 2. But besides this consideration the Scripture it self is the best testimony of it's own fulness and sufficiencie I have already in the Introduction against I. S. prov'd from Scripture that all necessary things of salvation are there abundantly contain'd that is I have prov'd that Scripture says so Neither ought it to be replyed here that no man's testimony concerning himself is to be accepted For here we suppose that we are agreed that the Scripture says true that it is the word of God and cannot be deceived and if this be allow'd the Scripture then can give testimony concerning it self and so can any Man if you allow him to be infallible and all that he says to be true which is the case of Scripture in the present Controversie And if you will not allow Scripture to give testimony to it self who shall give testimony to it Shall the Church or the Pope suppose which we will But who shall give testimony to them Shall they give credit to Scripture before it be known how they come themselves to be Credible If they be not credible of themselves we are not the neerer for their giving their testimony to the Scriptures But if it be said that the Church is of it self credible upon it's own authority this must be prov'd before it can be adâ—itted and then how shall this be proved And at least the Scripture will be pretended to be of it self credible as the Church And since it is evident that all the dignity power authority office and sanctity it hath or pretends to have can no other way be prov'd but by the Scriptures a conformity to them in all Doctrines Laws and Manners being the only Charter by which she claims it must needs be that Scripture hath the prior right and can better be primely credible than the Church or any thing else that claims from Scripture Nay therefore quoad nos it is to be allowed to be primely credible because there is no Creature besides it that is so Indeed God was pleas'd to find out ways to prove the Scriptures to be his Word his immediate Word by miraculous consignations and
show love and faithfulness to our equals to our inferiours counsel and help favour and good will bounty and kindness a good word and a good deed The Scripture hath given us Commandments concerning our very thoughts to be thankful and hospitable to be humble and complying what ever good thing was taught by any or all the Philosophers in the world all that and much more is in the Scriptures and that in a much better manner And that it might appear that nothing could be wanting the very degrees and the order of vertues is there provided for And if all this be not the high way to salvation and sufficient to all intents of God and the souls of men let any man come forth and say as Christ said to the young man Restat adhuc unum there is one thing wanting yet and let him shew it But let us consider a little further 5. What is or what can be wanting to the fulness of Scripture Is not all that we know of the life and death of Jesus set down in the writings of the New Testament Is there any one Miracle that ever Christ did the notice of which is conveyed to us by tradition Do we know any thing that Christ did or said but what is in Scripture Some things were reported to have been said by Christ secretly to the Apostles and by the Apostles secretly to some favourite Disciples but some of these things are not believed and none of the other is known so that either we must conclude that the Scripture contains fully all things of Faith and Obedience or else we have no Gospel at all for except what is in Scripture we have not a sufficient record of almost one saying or one miracle S. Paul quotes one saying of Christ which is not in any of the four Gospels but it is in the Scriptures It is better to give then to receive and S. Hierom records another Be never very glad but when you see your Brother live in charity If S. Paul had not written the first and transmitted it in Scripture we had not known it any more than those many other which are lost for not being written and for the quotation of S. Hierom it is true it is a good saying but whether they were Christ's words or no we have but a single testimony Now then how is it possible that the Scriptures should not contain all things necessary to salvation when of all the words of Christ in which certainly all necessary things to salvation must needs be contain'd or else they were never revealed there is not any one saying or miracle or story of Christ in any thing that is material preserv'd in any indubitable record but in Scripture alone 6. That the Scriptures do not contain in them all things necessary to salvation is the fountain of many great and Capital errours I instance in the whole doctrine of the Libertines Familists Quakers and other Enthusiasts which issue from this corrupted fountain For this that the Scriptures do need a Suppletory that they are not perfect and sufficient to salvation of themselves is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Fundamental both of the Roman religion and that of the Libertines and Quakers and those whom in Germany they call Spirituales such as David George Harry Nicholas Swenckfeld Sebastian Franc and others These are the men that call the Scriptures The letter of the Scripture the dead letter insufficient inefficacious This is but the sheath and the scabberd the bark and the shadow a carcase void of the internal light not apt to imprint a perfect knowledge in us of what is necessary to salvation But the Roman Doctors say the same things We know who they are that call the Scriptures the Outward letter Ink thus figur'd in a book J. S. in Sure scoting and in 4. Append. Unsensed characters waxen-natur'd words not yet sensed apt to blunder and confound but to clear little or nothing these are as bad words as the other and some of them the same and all draw a long tail of evil consequents behind them 1. From this Principle as it is promoted by the Fanaticks they derive a wandring unsetled and a dissolute religion For they supplying the insufficiency of Scripture by an inward word which being onely within it is subject to no discipline reducible into no order not submitted to the spirits of the Prophets and hath no rule by which it can be directed examin'd or judged Hence comes the infinite variety and contradictions of religion commenc'd by men of this perswasion A religion that wanders from day to day from fancy to fancy and alterable by every new illusion A religion in which some man shall be esteem'd an infallible Judge to day and next week another but it may happen that any man may have his turn and any mischief may be believ'd and acted if the Devil get into the chair 2. From this very same Principle as it is promoted by the Papists they derive a religion imperious interested and tyrannical For as the Fanaticks supply the insufficiency of Scripture by the word internal so do the Roman Doctors by the authority of the Church but when it comes to practice as the Fanatick give the supreme power of teaching and defining to the chief Elder in the love so do the Papists especially the Jesuits give it to the Pope and the difference is not that the Fanaticks give the supreme judgement to some one and the Papists give it to the whole Church for these also give it but to one man to the Pope whose judgement voice and definition must make up the deficiencies of Scripture But because the Fanaticks as it happens change their Judge every moneth therefore they have an ambulatory religion but that of the Roman way establishes Tyranny because their Judge being one not in person but in succession and having always the same interest and having already resolved upon their way and can when they list go further upon the stock of the same Principles and being established by humane power will unalterably persist in their right and their wrong and will never confess an Error and are impatient of contradiction and therefore they impose irremediably and what they please upon Consciences of which they have made themselves Judges Now for these things there is no remedy but from Scripture which if it be allowed full perfect and sufficient unto all the things of God then whatsoever either of these parties say must be tried by Scripture it must be shewed to be there or be rejected But to avoid the trial there they tell you the Scripture is but a dead letter Unsensed Characters words without sense or unsensed and therefore this must be supplied by the inward word says one by the Pope's word in Cathedrâ says the other and then both the Inward word and the Pope's word shall rule and determine every thing and the Scriptures will signifie nothing but as under pretence of
Scriptures not because of the difficulty of things to be inquir'd but because without such testimony they are not to be believ'd For so are his very words and therefore whether they be easie or hard if they be not in Scripture the Questions will be indeterminable That is the sense of Origen ' s argument In Epist. ad Rom. lib 3. But more plainly yet After these things as his custom is he will affirm or prove from the holy Scriptures what he had said and also gives an example to the Doctors of the Church that those things which they speak to the people they should prove them not as produc'd by their own sentences but defended by divine testimonies for if he so great and such an Apostle believes not that the authority of his saying can be sufficient unless he teaches that those things which he says are written in the Law and the Prophets how much rather ought we who are the least observe this thing that we do not when we teach produce our own but the sentences of the Holy Ghost Add to this what he says in another place Tract 23. in Matth. As our Saviour impos'd silence upon the Sadduces by the word of his Doctrine and faithfully convinc'd that false opinion which they thought to be truth so also shall the followers of Christ do by the examples of Scripture by which according to sound Doctrine every voice of Pharaoh ought to be silent The next in order is S. Cyprian who indeed speaks for tradition not meaning the modus tradendi but the doctrina tradita for it is such a tradition as is in Scripture the doctrine deliver'd first by word of mouth and then consigned in Scripture Epist. ad Pompeium Let nothing be innovated but that is deliver'd Whence is that tradition whether descending from the Lord's and from the Evangelical authority or coming from the Commandments and Epistles of the Apostles For that those things are to be done which are written God witnesses and propounds to Jesus Nave saying The Book of this Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate in it day and night that thou maist observe to do all things which are written Our Lord also sending his Apostles commands the nations to be baptized and taught that they may observe all things whatsoever he hath commanded If therefore it be either commanded in the Gospel or in the Epistles of the Apostles that they that come from any Heresie should not be baptiz'd but that hands should be imposed upon them unto repentance then let even this holy tradition be observ'd This Doctrine and Counsel of S. Cyprian lib. 4. de Bapt. contra Donatist cap. 3. c. 5. Bellarmine says was one of the Errors of S. Cyprian but S. Austin commends it as the best way And this procedure is also the same that the Church in the descending ages always followed of which there can in the world be no plainer testimony given than in the words of S. Cyril of Jerusalem and it was in the High Questions of the Holy and mysterious Trinity Catech. â— 5. 12. 16. 18. Illuminat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catech. 4. Illuminat concerning which he advises them to retain that zeal in their minds which by heads and summaries is expounded to you but if God grant shall according to my strength be demonstrated to you by Scripture a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it behooveth us not to deliver no not so much as the least thing of the holy mysteries of Faith without the holy Scriptures Neither give credit to me speaking unless what is spoken be demonstrated by the Holy Scriptures For that is the security of our Faith not which is from our inventions but from the demonstration of the Holy Scriptures To the same purpose in the Dissuasive was produced the Testimony of S. Basil S. Basil. moral but the words which were not there set down at large Reg. 8. c. 12. edit Paris 1547. ex officinâ Carol â—uillard are these What 's proper for the faithful man That with a certain fulness of mind he believes the force of those things to be true which are spoken in the Scripture and that he rejects nothing and that he dares not to decree any thing that is new For whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin but Faith is by hearing Vide etiam Epist. 80. Stemus itaque arbitratui à Deo inspiratae Scripturae Questio erat an dicendum in Deo tres hypostases vnam naturam apud Bellar. de verbo Dei non scripio lib. 4. cap. 11. Sect. Alium locum and hearing by the word of God without doubt since whatsoever is without the Scripture is not of Faith Vide etiam Reg. 72. c. 1. cum tiâ—ulo praefixo capiti it is a Sin These words are so plain as no Paraphrase is needful to illustrate them to which may be added those fiercer words of the same Saint It is a manifest defection from the Faith and a conviction of Pride Homil. de vera fide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. either to reject any thing of what is written or to introduce any thing that is not since our Lord Jesus Christ hath said My sheep hear my voice and a little before he said the same thing A stranger they will not follow but will fly from him because they know not the voice of strangers By which words S. Basil plainly declares that the whole voice and words of Christ are set down in Scripture and that all things else is the voice of strangers And therefore the Apostle does most vehemently forbid by an example taken from men lest any thing of those which are in Scripture be taken away or which God forbid any thing be added To these words Bellarmine and his followers that write against the Dissuasive answer that S. Basil speaks against adding to the Scripture things contrary to it and things so strange from it as to be invented out of their own head and that he also speaks of certain particular Heresies 〈◊〉 in the Prâ—face 2. Which endeavour to escape from the pressure of these words is therefore very vain because S. Basil was not then disputing against any particular Heresies as teaching any thing against Scripture or of their own head but he was about to describe the whole Christian Faith And that he may do this with faithfulness and simplicity and without reproof he declares he will do it from the holy Scriptures for it is infidelity and pride to do otherwise and therefore what is not in the Scriptures if it be added to the faith it is contrary to it as contrary as unfaithfulness or infidelity and what soever is not deliver'd by the Spirit of God is an invention of man if offer'd as a part of the Christian Faith And therefore Bellarmine and and his followers make here a distinction where there is no
at Nice they procur'd great authority to the Nicene faith which was not onely the truth but a truth deliver'd and confirm'd by the most famous and excellent Prelates that ever the Christian Church could glory in since the death of the Apostles But yet that the inconvenience might be cut off which came in upon the occasion of the Nicene addition for it produc'd thirty explicative Creeds more in a short time as Marcus Ephesius openly affirm'd in the Council of Florence in the Council of Ephesus which was the third general it was forbidden that ever there should be any addition to the Nicene faith Concil Ephes. Can. 7. That it should not be lawful from thence forward for any one to produce to write or to compose any other faith or Creed besides that which was defin'd by the Holy Fathers meeting at Nice in the Holy Spirit Here the supreme power of the Church a General Council hath declar'd that it never should be lawful to adde any thing to the former confession of faith explicated at Nice and this Canon was renewed in the next General Council that of Chalcedon That the faith formerly determin'd should at no hand in no manner be shaken or moved any more The Author of the Letter p. 7. meaning by addition or diminution There are some so impertinently weak as to expound these Canons to mean onely the adding any thing contrary to the Nicene faith which is an answer against reason and experience for it is not imaginable that any man admitting the Nicene Creed can by an addition intend expressly to contradict it and if he does not admit and believe it he would lay that Confession aside and not meddle with it but if he should design the inserting of a clause that should secretly undermine it he must suppose all men that see it to be very fools not to understand it or infinitely careless of what they believe and profess but if it should happen so then this were a very good reason of the prohibition of any thing whatsoever to be added lest secretly and undiscernably the first truth be confuted by the new article And therefore it was a wise caution to forbid all addition lest some may prove to be contrary And then secondly it is against the experience of things for first the Canon was made upon the occasion of a Creed brought into the Council by Charisius but all Creeds thereupon were rejected and the Nicene adhered to and commanded to be so for ever In Can. 7. vide Balsam in â—unâ— For as Balsamon observes there were three things done in this Canon 1. There was an Edict made in behalf of the things decreed at Ephesus 2. In like manner the holy Creed being made in the first Synod this Creed was read aloud and caution was given that no man should make any other Creed upon pain of deposition if he were an Ecclesiastick of excommunication if he were a Laick 3. The third thing he also thus expresses The same thing also is to be done to them who receive and teach the decrees of Nestorius So that the Creed that Charisius brought in was rejected because it was contrary to the Nicene faith but all Symbols were for ever after forbidden to be made not onely lest any thing contrary be admitted but because they would admit of no other and this very reason S. Athanasius assign'd why the Fathers of the Council of Sardis denyed the importunity of some Epist ad Epict. who would have something added to the Nicene confession they would not do it lest the other should seem defective And next to this it was carefully observed by the following Councils 4. 5. 6. and 7. and by it self in a great Affair for 1. though this Council determin'd the Blessed Virgin Mary to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of God against Nestorius yet 2. the Fathers would not put the Article into the Creed of the Church but esteemed it sufficient to determine the point and condemn Nestorius And 3. the Greek Church hath ever since most religiously observ'd this Ephesine Canon And 4. upon this account have vehemently spoken against the Latines for adding a clause at Gentilly in France Epist ad Epict. 5. S. Athanasius speaking of the Nicene Faith or Creed says It is sufficient for the destruction of all impiety and for the confirmation of all the Holy Faith in Christ and therefore there could be no necessity of adding any thing to so full so perfect an Instrument and consequently no reasonable cause pretended why it should be attempted especially since there had been so many so intolerable inconveniencies already introduc'd by adding to the Symbols their unnecessary Expositions 6. The purpose of the Fathers is fully declar'd by the Epistle of S. Cyril Cyril Alex. ad Johan Antioch Sess. 5. in which he recites the Decree of the Council and adds as a full explication of the Council's meaning We permit neither our selves nor others to change one word or syllable of what is there The case is here as it was in Scripture to which no addition is to be made nothing to be diminished from it But yet every Doctor is permitted to expound to inlarge the expressions to deliver the sense and to declare as well as they can the meaning of it And much more might the Doctors of the Church do to the Creed To which although something was added at Nice and Constantinople yet from thence forward they might in private or in publick declare what they thought was the meaning and what were the consequents and what was virtually contain'd in the Articles but nothing of this by any authority whatsoever was to be put into the Creed For in Articles of Belief simplicity is part of it's excellency and sacredness and those mysteriousnesses and life-giving Articles which are fit to be put into Creeds are as Philistion said of Hellebore medicinal when it in great pieces but dangerous or deadly when it is in powder And I remember what a Heathen aid of the Emperour Constantius who troubled himself too much in curiosities and nice arguings about things Unintelligible and Unnecessary Christianam religionem absolutam simplicem anili superstitione confudit In qua scrutandâ perplexiùs quà m in componendâ graviùs excitavit dissidia quae progressa fusiùs aluit concertatione verborum dum ritum omnem ad suum trahere conatur arbitrium Christian Religion is absolute and simple and they that conduct it should compose all the parts of it with gravity not perplex it with curious scrutinies not draw away any word or Article to the sense of his own interest For if it once pass the bounds set by the first Masters of the Assemblies and lose that simplicity with which it was invested there is no term or limit which can be any more set down Exempla non consistunt sed quamvis in tenuem recepta tramitem latissimè evagandi sibi faciunt potestatem The
If the Catholicks sometimes say That the Scriptures depend upon the Church or a Council they do not understand it in respect of authority or in themselves but by explication and in relation to us * Bellarm. de Concil author lib. 2. cap. 12. Sect. Diximus Which is too crude an affirmative to be believ'd for besides that Pighius in his Epistle to Paul III. before his Books of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy affirms that the whole authority of the Scripture depends upon the Church and the Testimonies above cited doe in terms confute this saying of his the distinction it self helps not all for if the Scriptures have quoad nos no authority but what the Pope or the Church is pleas'd to give them then they have in themselves none at all For the Scriptures were written for our learning not to instruct the Angels but to conserve the truths of God for the use of the Church and they have no other use or design And if a man shall say the Scriptures have in themselves great authority he must mean that in themselves they are highly credible quoad nos that is that we are bound to believe them for their own truth and excellency And if a man shall say They have no authority quoad nos but what the Church gives them he says They are not credible in themselves and in se have no authority so that this distinction is a Metaphysical Nothing and is brought only to amuse men that have not leisure to consider And he that says one says the other or as bad under a thin and transparent cover The Church gives testimony external to the Scripture but the internal authority is inherent and derives only from God But let the witness of the Church be of as perfect force as can be desir'd I meddle not with it here but that which I charge on the Roman Doctors is that they give to their Church a power of introducing and imposing new Articles of Belief and pretending that they have power so to do and their definitions are of authority equal if not superiour to the Scriptures And this I have now prov'd by many testimonies to all which I add that of the Canon Law it self Dist. 19. Can. in Canonicis In which Gratian most falsly alledges pretended words of Saint Austin which Bellarmine * De Concil authorit lib. 2. cap. 12. Sect. Respondâ—o ad Graâ—ianum calls a being deceiv'd by a false Copy and among the Canonical Scriptures reckons the decretal Epistles of the Popes inter quas sanè illae sunt quas Apostolica Sedes habere ab eâ alii meruerunt accipere Epistolas Now who can tell of any Copy of S. Austin or heard of any in which these words were seen Certainly no man alive but if Gratian was deceiv'd the deceivers were among themselves and yet they lov'd the deception or else they might have expung'd those words when Gregory the 13th appointed a Committee of learned men to purge that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it yet remains and if they do not pass for Saint Austin's words yet they are good Law at Rome 10â— Com. tit 1. de Ecclesiâ ejus authorit And Hereticks indeed talk otherwise said Eckius Objiciunt Haeretioi Major est authoritas Scripturae quam Ecclesiae but he hath confuted them with an excellent Argument The Church using bloud and strangled hath by authority chang'd a thing defin'd by the Scripture Behold says he the power of the Church over Scripture I love not to take in such polluted channels he that is pleased with it may find enough to entertain his wonder and his indignation if he please to read a fol. 126. 1. b. 104. b. 133. b. Capistrano b pag. 42. n. 15. p. 11. n. 18. 124. n. 9. Cupers c defens Trid. l. 1. l. 2. explic orthod l. 2. Andradius d pag. 3. l. 22. cap. 3. Sect. 3. Antonius e de fide justif 74. 6. hierarch Eccl. l. 1. c. 2. 3. 4. in praefatione ad Paulum terâ—ium Pighius f Contr. Luthâ— Concl. 56. Sylvester Prierias g dis contr Luther 8. de Eccl. Concl. 1. l. edit 1554. Johannes Maria Verratus h Encherid cap. 1. Coster i in 3. l. decâ—etal de convers conjug c. ex publico n. 16. Zabarel and k de verb. Dei l. 3. c. 10. Sect. Ad decimum quintum Bellarmine himself who yet with some more modesty of expression affirms the same thing in substance which according as it hath been is and is still likely to be made use of is enough to undo the Church The word of the Pope teaching out of his Chair is non omnino not altogether or not at all the word of man that is a word liable to error but in some sort the word of God c. Agreeable to which is that which the Lawyers say that the Canon Law is the Divine Law so said * Super. 2. decret de jurejur c. Nimis n. 1. Hostiensis I hope I shall not be esteemed to slander her when these writers think they so much honour the Church of Rome in these sayings In pursuance of this power and authority Pope Pius the 4th made a new Creed and putting his power into act did multiply new Articles one upon another And in the Council of Trent amongst many other new and fine Doctrines this was one That it is Heresie to say That Matrimonial Causes do not pertain to Ecclesiastical Judges and yet we in England owe this priviledge to the favour and bounty of the King and so did the Ancient Churches to the kindness and Religion of the Emperour and if it were so or not so it is but matter of Discipline and cannot by a simple denial of it become an Heresie So that what I have alledged is not the opinion of some private Doctors but the publick practise of the Roman Church Lib. Benedicti de Benedict Bon niae excusus A. D. 1600. Commissum ei Papae munus non modò articulos indeterminatos determinandi sed etiam fidei Symbolum condendi atque hoc ipsum Orthodoxos omnes omnium saeculorum agnovisse palam confessos esse it was said to Paulus Quintus in an address to him And how good a Catholick Baronius was in this particular An. Dom. 373. n. 22. we may guess by what himself says concerning the business of the Apollinarists in which the Pope did and undid Vt planè appareat says Baronius ex arbitrio pependisse Romani Pontificis Decreta sancire sancita mutare 2. That which I am next to represent is that the Church of Rome hath reason and necessity to pretend to this power of making new Articles for they having in the body of their Articles and in the publick Doctrines allowed by them and in the profession and practises of their Church so many new things
which he tells of the fellow's beast Bellar. lib. 3. de Euchar. c. 8. who left his barley at the Command of S. Anthony of Padua and went to worship the Sacrament Such things as these it is no wonder that they are either acted or believ'd in the Church of Rome since so many Popes and Priests are Magicians and since that villain of a man Pope Hildebrand as Cardinal Beno relates in his life could by shaking of his Sleeve make sparks of fire fly from it I end this and make no other use of it then what is made by Aventinus Lib. 5. l. 7. saying That this Pope under shew of Religion is said to have laid the foundation of the Empire of Antichrist Multi falsi prophetae nebulas offundunt fabulis miraculis Exempla vocant à veritate Christi plebem avertunt Falsi tum prophetae falsi Apostoli falsi sacerdotes emersêre qui simulatâ religione populum deceperunt magna signa atque prodigia ediderunt in templo Dei sedere atque extolli super id quod colitur coeperunt Dumque suam potentiam dominationémque stabilire conantur charitatem simplicitatem Christianam extinxerunt And they continue to do so to this day where they have any hopes to prevail without discovery Secondly themselves acknowledge That there are many things of which was no inquiry in the Primitive Church which yet upon doubts arising are now become perspicuous by the diligence of after-times it is the acknowledgement of the Cardinal of Rochester Lib. 3. De cultu sanctorum c. 9. And Bellarmine helps to make this good with a considerable instance Sect. Praetered Cum scriberentur Scripturae nondum coeperat usus vovendi sanctis Contre le Roy de la Grand Bretaigne and Cardinal Perron addes Et quant aux autheurs plus proche du siccle Apostolique encore qu'il ne se trouve pas de vestiges de ceste coustume c. Neither in the age of the Apostles that is when the Scriptures were written nor in the age next to it are there any footsteps of Vowing to Saints for then the custom was not begun The Pope's infallibility goes amongst very many for a Catholick doctrine In Spain and Italy in Austria and Poland it is so Lib. 4. De Pontâ—fiâ—◠〈◊〉 cap. 2. Sect. Secunda 〈◊〉 Sect. Ex 〈…〉 and every where else where the Jesuits prevail but when Bellarmine had affirm'd that Nilus Gerson Almain Alphonsus à Castro and Pope Adrian the VI. had taught that the Pope might be a heretick if he defines without a General Council and in his censure of them affirm'd that this opinion is not propriè haeretica he plainly by certain and immediate consequence confesses that for 1400 or 1500 years the Judgement of the Pope was not esteem'd infallible Now if this be true it is impossible that it can ever be determin'd as a Catholick truth for there is no Catholick Tradition for it There was not for many ages and therefore either there is no Tradition in the present Church for it or if there be it is contrary to the old Tradition and therefore either the Tradition of the present Church is no rule or if it be it is a very new one and several ages are bound to believe contradictory propositions That the Pope is above a Council is held by some Roman Catholicks and it is held so by all the Popes and hath without scruple been determin'd in the chair and contended for earnestly for about two hundred years past and yet all the world knows it was not so of old Lib. 2. de Concil author c. 14. For we know when the Question began Sect. Vltima sententia ca. 17. Sect. Tertia propositiâ— even in the time of the first Council of Pisa a little before the Council of Constance and now that the Pope is above the Council is sententia ferè communis nay it is ferè de fide saith Bellarmine Which expression of his shows plainly that Articles of faith grow in the womb of the Roman Church as an Embryo to be perfected when the Pope shall see his time Nay if the Pope's definition in Cathedrâ be infallible or if it can be known where the Popes does define in Cathedrâ this proposition that the Pope is above a Council is more than ferè de Fide for that the Council is superior is an heretical opinion and the favourers of it Hereticks Pius quartus affirm'd in his Complaint against Lansack the French Embassadour in the Council of Trent A D. 1562. and he threatned to persecute and chastise them And the like is to be said concerning that fine new Article of faith made by Pope Paul the fourth of which I have spoken in the first Section that a Pope cannot be bound much less can be bind himself viz. by any Oath for that was the Subject matter of the discourse The number of the seven Sacraments is now an Article of the Roman faith taught in their Catechisms determin'd in their Councils preach'd in their Pulpits disputed for against their adversaries and yet the Council of Florence was the first Council and Peter Lombard was the first man we find ever to have precisely fixt upon that number as Bellarmine a Lib. 2. De effect Sacr. c. 25. Sect. Secunda probatio and Valentia b In Thom. tom 4. disp 3. q. 6. punct 2. Sect. Tertiò objiciunt c. sufficiently acknowledge even when they would fain deny it Here I might instance in the Seal of Confession which as they have at Rome passed it under a Sacramental lock and key and founded upon a Divine law for so they pretend is one of the new Articles of Faith which wholly depends upon the authority of the Church of Rome who for the sake of this and many other Articles is compell'd to challenge a strange power even of making and imposing new Creeds or of quitting her new Articles But the whole order of Sections in this Chapter will be one continued argument of this particular SECTION VI. Of the Expurgatory Indices in the Roman Church THey use indirect and unworthy arts that they may do it without reproach and discovery and for this I instance in the whole affair and annexes of their Expurgatory Indices Concerning which three things are said in the first part of this Dissuasive 1. That the King of Spain gave a Commission to the Inquisitors to purge all Catholick Authors but with a clause of secresie 2. That they purg'd the Indices of the Fathers works 3. That they did also purge the works of the Fathers themselves The first and the last are denied by them that wrote against the Dissuasive The second they confess and endeavour to justifie But how well will appear when I have first made good the first and the last 1. That the King of Spain gave a clancular Commission to the Inquisitors can be denyed by
are apt to be earnest in their perswasion and over-act the proposition and from being true as he supposes he will think it profitable and if you warm him either with confidence or opposition he quickly tells you It is necessary and as he loves those that think as he does so he is ready to hate them that do not and then secretly from wishing evil to him he is apt to believe evil will come to him and that it is just it should and by this time the Opinion is troublesome and puts other men upon their guard against it and then while passion reigns and reason is modest and patient and talks not loud like a storm Victory is more regarded than Truth and men call God into the party and his judgments are us'd for arguments and the threatnings of the Scripture are snatched up in haste and men throw arrows fire-brands and death and by this time all the world is in an uproar All this and a thousand things more the English Protestants considering deny not their Communion to any Christian who desires it and believes the Apostles Creed and is of the Religion of the four first General Councils they hope well of all that live well they receive into their bosome all true believers of what Church soever and for them that erre they instruct them and then leave them to their liberty to stand or fall before their own Master It was a famous saying of Stephen the Great King of Poland that God had reserved to himself three things 1. To make something out of nothing 2. To know future things and all that shall be hereafter 3. To have the rule over Consciences It is this last we say the Church of Rome does arrogate and invade 1. By imposing Articles as necessary to salvation which God never made so Where hath God said That it is necessary to salvation that every humane Creature should be subject to the Roman Bishop Extrav de Majorit obedien Dicimus definimus pronunciamus absolutè necessarium ad salutem omni humanae Creaturae subesse Romano Pontifici But the Church of Rome says it and by that at one blow cuts off from Heaven all the other Churches of the world Greek Armenian Ethiopian Russian Protestants which is an Act so contrary to charity to the hope and piety of Christians so dishonourable to the Kingdom of Christ so disparaging to the justice to the wisdom and the goodness of God as any thing which can be said Where hath it been said That it shall be a part of Christian Faith To believe that though the Fathers of the Church did Communicate Infants yet they did it without any opinion of necesty And yet the Church of Rome hath determin'd it in one of her General Councils Sess. 1. cap. 4 as a thing Sine Controversiâ Credendum to be believ'd without doubt or dispute It was indeed the first time that this was made a part of the Christian Religion but then let all wise men take heed how they ask the Church of Rome Where was this part of her Religion before the Council of Trent for that 's a secret and that this is a part of their Religion I suppose will not be denied when a General Council hath determin'd it to be a truth without controversie and to be held accordingly Where hath God said that those Churches that differ from the Roman Church in some propositions cannot conferre true Orders nor appoint Ministers of the Gospel of Christ and yet Super totam materiam the Church of Rome is so implacably angry and imperious with the Churches of the Protestants that if any English Priest turn to them they re-ordain him which yet themselves call sacrilegious in case his former Ordination was valid as it is impossible to prove it was not there being neither in Scripture nor Catholick tradition any Laws Order or Rule touching our case in this particular Where hath God said that Penance is a Sacrament or that without confession to a Priest no man can be sav'd If Christ did not institute it how can it be necessary and if he did institute it yet the Church of Rome ought not to say it is therefore necessary for with them an Institution is not a Command though Christ be the Institutor and if Institution be equal to a Commandment how then comes the Sacrament not to be administred in both kinds when it is confessed that in both kinds it was instituted 2. The Church of Rome does so multiply Articles that few of the Laity know the half of them and yet imposes them all under the same necessity and if in any one of them a man make a doubt he hath lost all Faith and had as good be an Infidel for the Churche's Authority being the formal object of Faith that is the only reason why any Article is to be believ'd the reason is the same in all things else and therefore you may no more deny any thing she says than all she says and an Infidel is as sure of Heaven as any Christian is that calls in question any of the innumerable propositions which with her are esteem'd de fide Now if it be considered that some of the Roman doctrines are a state of temptation to all the reason of mankind as the doctrine of Transubstantiation that some are at least of a supicious improbity as worship of Images and of the consecrated Elements and many others some are of a nice and curious nature as the doctrine of Merit of Condignity and Congruity some are perfectly of humane inventions without ground of Scripture or Tradition as the formes of Ordination Absolution c. When men see that some things can never be believ'd heartily and many not understood fully and more not remembred or consider'd perfectly and yet all impos'd upon the same necessity and as good believe nothing as not every thing this way is apt to make men despise all Religion or despair of their own Salvation The Church of Rome hath a remedy for this and by a distinction undertakes to save you harmless you are not tied to believe all with an explicite Faith it suffices that your Faith be implicite or involved in the Faith of the Church that is if you believe that she says true in all things you need inquire no further So that by this means the authority of their Church is made authentick for that is the first and last of the design and you are taught to be sav'd by the Faith of others and a Faith is preached that you have no need ever to look after it a Faith of which you know nothing but it matters not as long as others do but then it is also a Faith which can never be the foundation of a good life for upon ignorance nothing that is good can be built no not so much as a blind obedience for even blindly to obey is built upon something that you are bidden explicitely to believe viz.
the infallibility or the authority of the Church but upon an implicite Faith you can no more establish a building than you can number that which is not Besides this an implicite Faith in the Articles of the Church of Rome is not sense it is not Faith at all that is not explicite Faith comes by hearing and not by not hearing and the people of the Roman Church believe one proposition explicitely that is that their Church cannot erre and then indeed they are ready to believe any thing they tell them but as yet they believe nothing but the infallibility of their Guides and to call that Faith which is but a readiness or disposition to have it is like filling a man's belly with the meat he shall eat to morow night an act of Understanding antedated But when it is consider'd in it's own intrinsick nature and meaning it effects this proposition that these things are indeed no objects of that Faith by which we are to be sav'd for it is strange that men having the use of reason should hope to be sav'd by the merit of a Faith that believes nothing that knows nothing that understands nothing but that our Faith is completed in the essential notices of the Evangelical Covenant in the propositions which every Christian man and woman is bound to know and that the other propositions are but arts of Empire and devices of Government or the Scholastick confidence of Opinions something to amuse consciences and such by which the mystick persons may become more knowing and rever'd than their poor Parishioners 3. The Church of Rome determines trifles and inconsiderable propositions and adopts them into the family of faith Of this nature are many things which the Popes determine in their chairs and send them into the world as oracles What a dangerous thing would it be esteem'd to any Roman Catholick if he should dare to question Whether the Consecration of the Bread and Wine be to be done by the prayer of the Priest or by the mystick words of Hoc est corpus meum said ove the Elements For that by the force of those words said with right intention the bread is transsubstantiated Lib. 1. de Sacr. Euchar. cap. 12. Sect. Est igitur and made the body of Christ Ecclesia Catholica magno consensu docet said Bellarmine so it is also in the Council of Florence in the Instruction of the Armenians Lib. 1. Sent. dist 8. so it is taught in the Catechism of the Council of Trent so it is agreed by the Master of the Sentences and his Scholars by Gratian and the Lawyers and so it is determin'd in the law it self Cap. Cum Martha extr de celebratione Missarum And yet this is no certain thing and not so agreeable to the spirituality of the Gospel to suppose such a change made by the saying so many words And therefore although the Church does well in using all the words of Institution at the Consecration for so they are carefully recited in the Liturgies of S. James S. Clement S. Basil S. Chrysostom S. Ambrose the Anaphora of the Syrians Inter Evangelistas quae omittuntur ab uno supplentur ab alio Innocentius de offic in the Universal Canon of the Ethiopians only they do not do this so carefully in the Roman Missal but leave out words very considerable words which S. Luke and S. Paul recite viz. which is broken for you Missae l. 3. c. 17. or which is given for you and to the words of Consecration of the Chalice they add words which Christ did not speak in the Institution and Benediction yet besides this generally the Greek Fathers and divers of the Latine do expressly teach that the Consecration of the elements is made by the prayers of the Church recited by the Bishop or Priest For the Scripture tells us that Christ took the bread he blessed it and brake it and gave it to them saying Take eat It is to be supposed that Christ consecrated it before he gave it to them and yet if he did all the Consecration was effected by his Benediction of it And if as the Romanists contend Christ gave the Sacrament of the Eucharist to the two Disciples at Emmaus it is certain there is no record of any other Consecration but by Christs blessing or praying over the elements It is indeed possible that something more might be done than was set down but nothing less and therefore this Consecration was not done without the Benediction and therefore Hoc est corpus meum alone cannot do it at least there is no warrant for it in Christs Example And when S. Peter in his Ministery did found and establish Churches Orationum ordinem quibus oblata Deo sacrificia consecrantur à S. Petro primò fuisse institutum said Isidore Remigius Hugo de S. Victore and Alphonsus à Castro S. Peter first instituted the order of Prayers by which the sacrifices offer'd to God were consecrated and in the Liturgy of S. James after the words of Institution are recited over the Elements there is a Prayer of Consecration O Lord make this Bread to be the body of thy Christ c. Which words although Bellarmine troubles himself to answer as Cardinal Bessarion did before him yet we shall find his answers to no purpose expounding the prayer to be onely a Confirmation or an Amen to what was done before for if that Consecration was made before that Prayer how comes S. James to call it Bread after Consecration And as weak are his other answers saying The Prayer means that God would make it so to us not in it self which although S. James hath nothing to warrant that Exposition yet it is true upon another account that is because the Bread becomes Christs body onely to us to them who communicate worthily but never to the wicked and it is not Christs body but in the using it and that worthily too And therefore his third Answer which he uses first is certainly the best and that is the answer which Bessarion makes That for ought they know the order of the words is chang'd and that the Prayer should be set before not after the words of Consecration Against which although it is sufficient to oppose that for ought they or we know the order is not chang'd for to this day and always so far as any record remains the Greeks kept the same order of the words and the Greek Fathers had their sentiment and doctrine agreeable to it And as in S. James his Liturgy so in the Missal said to be of S. Clement the same order is observed and after the words of the Institution or Declaration God is invocated to send his Holy Spirit to make the oblation to become the body and bloud of Christ. And in pursuance of this Justin Martyr calls it Apol. 2. lib. 8. cont Celsum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ad quorum preces
would not be amongst them so much modesty as to abstain from the most absolute triumph and the fiercest declamations In the mean time our safety in this Article also is visible and notorious Against the saying of Saint Ambrose which in the Preface to the first part I brought to reprove this practice those who thought themselves oblig'd to object will find the quotation justified in the Section of the Half-Communion to which I referre the Reader 7. What a strange Uncharitableness is it to believe and teach that poor babes descending from Christian Parents if they die unbaptized shall never see the face of God and that of such is not the Kingdom of Heaven The Church of England enjoyns the Parents to bring them and her Priests to baptize them and punishes the neglect where it is criminal and yet teaches no such fierce and uncharitable proposition which can serve no end but what may with less damage and affrightment be very well secur'd and to distrust God's goodness to the poor Infants whose fault it could not be that they were not baptized and to amerce their no-fault with so great a fine even the loss of all the good which they could receive from him that created them and loves them is such a playing with Heads and a regardless treatment of Souls that for charity sake and common humanity we dare not mingle in their Counsels But if we erre it is on the safer side it is on the one side of mercy and charity These seven particulars are not trifling considerations but as they have great influence into the event of Souls so they are great parts of the Roman Religion as they have pleased to order Religion at this day I might instance in many more if I thought it necessary or did not fear they would think me inquisitive for objections therefore I shall add no more only I profess my self to wonder at the obstinacy of the Roman Prelates that will not consent that the Liturgy of their Church should be understood by the people They have some pretence of politick reason why they forbid the translation of the Scriptures though all wise men know they have other reasons than what they pretend yet this also would be considered that if the people did read the Scriptures and would use that liberty well they might receive infinite benefit by them and that if they did abuse that liberty it were the Peoples fault and not the Rulers but that they are forbidden that is the Rulers fault and not the Peoples But for prohibiting the understanding of their publick and sometimes of many of their private devotions there can be no plausible pretence no excuse of policy no end of piety and if the Church of England be not in this also of the surer side then we know nothing but all the reason of all man-kind is faln asleep Well however these things have at least very much probability in them yet for professing these things according to the Scriptures and Catholick tradition and right Reason as will be further demonstrated in the following paragraphs they call us Hereticks and sentence us with damnation Suarezius and Bellarmine confesse that to believe Transubstantiation is not absolutely necessary to salvation with damnation I say for not worshipping of Images for not calling the Sacramental Bread our God Saviour for not teaching for doctrines the Commandements of men for not equalling the sayings of men to the sayings of God for not worshipping Angels for not putting trust in Saints and speaking to dead persons who are not present for offering to desire to receive the Communion as Christ gave it to his Disciples they to all to whom they preach'd If these be causes of damnation what shall become of them that do worship Images and that do take away half of the Sacrament from the people to whom Christ left it and keep knowledge from them and will not suffer the most of them to pray with the Understanding and worship Angels and make dead men their Guardians and erect Altars and make Vows and give consumptive Offerings to Saints real or imaginary Now truly we know not what shall become of them but we pray for them as men not without hope only as long as we can we repeat the words of our Blessed Saviour He that breaks one of the least Commandments Matth. 5. 19. and teaches men so shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven SECTION IX That the Church of Rome does teach for Doctrines the Commandements of Men. THe former Charge hath occasion'd this which is but an instance of their adding to the Christian Faith new Articles upon their own authority And here first I shall represent what is intended in the reproof which our Blessed Saviour made of the Pharisees saying They taught for doctrines the Commandements of men And 2. I shall prove that the Church of Rome is guilty of it and the Church of England is not 1. The words of our Blessed Saviour are to be understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Conjunctively that is In vain do ye worship me Matth. 15. 9. teaching doctrines and Commandements of men that is things which men only have deliver'd and if these once be esteemed to be a worshipping of God it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a vain worship Now this express'd it self in two degrees The first was in over-valuing humane ordinances that is equalling them to Divine Commandments exacting them by the same measures by which they require obedience to God's laws and this with a pretended zeal for God's honour and service Thus the Pharisees were noted and reproved by our Blessed Saviour 1. The things of decency or indifferent practices were counselled by their Forefathers in process of time they became approved by use and Custom and then their Doctors denied their Communion to them that omitted them found out new reasons for them were severe in their censures concerning the causes of their omission would approve none no not the cases and exceptions of charity or piety And this is instanc'd in their washings of cups and platters and the outside of dishes which either was at first instituted for cleanliness and decency or else as being symbolical to the Purifications in the Law but they chang'd the Scene enjoyn'd it as necessity were scandalized at them that us'd it not practis'd it with a frequency passing into an intolerable burden insomuch that at the marriage of Cana in Galilee there were six water-Pots set after the manner of the Purification of the Jews because they washed often in the time of their meals and then they put new reasons and did it for other causes than were in the first institution And although these washings might have been used without violation of any Commandment of God yet even by this Tradition they made Gods Commandment void by making this necessary and imposing these useless and unnecessary burdens on their brethren by making snares for Consciences
Origen Homil. 2. in Psal. 37. Tantum modo circumspice diligentius cui debeas confiteri peccatum tuum Si intellexerit praeviderit talem esse languorem tuum qui in conventu totius Ecclesiae exponi debeat curari ex quo fortassis caeteri aedificari poterunt tu ipse facilè sanari multâ hoc deliberatione satis perito medici illius consilio procurandum est By which words he affirms 1. That it was in the power of the Confessor to command the publication of certain crimes 2. That though it was not lightly to be done yet upon great reason it might 3. That the spiritual good of the penitent and the edification of others were causes sufficient for the publication 4. That of these the Confessor was judge 5. That this was no otherwise done by the consent of the party but because he was bound to consent when the Confessor enjoyn'd it And the matter is evident in the case of the incestuous Corinthian who either was restor'd without private Confession or if he was not S. Paul caus'd it to be publish'd in the Church and submitted the man to the severest discipline and yet publick that was then or since in the world The like to this we find in a decretal Epistle of Pope Leo Epist. 80. ad Epist◠Companiae for when some Confessors exceeding the ancient Ecclesiastical Rule were not so prudent and deliberate in conducting their Penitents as formerly they were but commanded that all their whole Confessions should be written down and publickly read he says Though the plentitude of Faith might be landable that is not afraid to blush in publick yet the Confession is sufficient if it be made in secret first to God and then to the Priest and adds Non omnium hujusmodi sunt peccata ut ea quae poenitentiam poscunt non timeant publicare All sins are not of that nature that are fit to be publish'd and therefore removeatur tam improbabilis consuetudo let such a reprovable custome be taken away In which words of S. Leo we find 1. That the Seal of Confession as at this day it is understood at Rome was no such inviolable and religious secret for by a contrary custom it was too much broken 2. That he blames not the publication of some sins but that they indiscriminately did publish all 3. That the nature of some sins did not permit it for as he adds afterwards men by this means were betrayed to the malice of their Enemies who would bring them before tribunals in some cases 4. That this was not spoken in case of publick Crimes delated and brought into publick notice but such as were spoken in private Confession And here I cannot but desire there had been some more ingenuity in Bellarmine who relating to this Epistle of S. De poenitentiâ lib. 3. cap. 14. Sect. Denique cum secreta Leo affirms that S. Leo says It is against the Apostolical Rule to reveal secret sins declar'd in Confession when it is plain that S. Leo only blames the Custom of revealing all saying that all sins are not of that nature as to be fit to be reveal'd And by these precedent authorities we shall the easier understand that famous fact of Nectarius who abolished the Custom of having sins published in the Church and therefore took away the penitentiary Priest whose Office was as I prov'd out of Origen Sozomen and Burchard to enjoyn the publication of some sins according to his discretion It hapned in Constantinople that a foul fact was committed and it was published in the ears of the people and a tumult was rais'd about it and the Remedy was that Nectarius took away the Office and the Custom together Consulentibus quibusdam ut Vnicuique liberum permitteret prout sibi ipse conscius esset consideret ad mysteriorum Communionem accedere poenitentiarium illum presbyterum exauthoravit Every man was thenceforth left to his liberty according to the dictate and confidence of his own conscience to come to the Communion and this afterwards pass'd into a Rite for the manners of men growing degenerate and worse sins being now confess'd than as he supposes formerly they had been the judges having been more severe and the people more modest it was fit enough that this Custom upon the occasion of such a scandal and so much mischief like to follow it should be laid aside wholly and so it was Here is a plain story truly told by Sozomen and the matter is easie to be understood But Bellarmine seeing the practice and doctrine of the Church of Rome pinch'd by it makes a distinction deriv'd from the present Custom of his Church of publick Confession and private saying That Nectarius took away the publick and not the private This I shall have occasion to discuss in the next Section I am now onely to speak concerning the Seal of Confession which from this authority is apparent was not such a sacred thing but that it was made wholly to minister to the publick and private edification of the penitent and the whole Church Thus this Affair stood in the Primitive Church In descending ages when private Confessions grew frequent and were converted into a Sacrament the Seal also was made more tenacious and yet by the discipline of the Church there were divers Cases in which the Seal might be broken up 1. There is a famous Gloss in Cap. Tua nos lib. 4. Decretal tit 1. De Sponsalibus Matrimonio where the Pope answering to a question concerning a pretended contract of marriage says that the marriage is good unless the Inquiring Bishop of Brescia could have assur'd him that the man did never consent or intend the marriage Quod qualiter tibi constiterit non videmus The Gloss upon these words says Imò benè potuit constare quia vir ille hoc ei confitebatur The Bishop might well know it because the man had confessed it to him or because he had revealed it to him in penitential confession For though in Judicial confession before a tribunal no man is to be believed to the prejudice of a third person yet in penitential Confession he is to be believ'd because it is not to be supposed that he then is unmindful of his salvation Where the Gloss observing that he did or might have received it in Confession and yet make use of it in Consultation with his superiors and upon that answer was to pronounce it to be or not to be a marriage and to treat the persons accordingly it follows that the thing it self might be revealed for the good of the penitents soul and this was done by the Cardinal of S. Laurence in the case of a woman introducing a supposititious Child to the inheritance of her husband Lib. 5. decret tit 38. and this revelation of the Confession produc'd a decretal Epistle from the Pope in that particular case Cap. officii de poenit remiss
consider'd how cheap are the lives of Kings in their eyes who consult more with the safety of a Villain whom they dare not absolve * Script Garnetti apud Is. Casaub ni Epist. ad Fron. Du caeum p. 13â— than of a King who is worthy ten thousands of his people and let it be also considered that by using all the ways in the world to make Confession easie to Traitors and Homicides they make it odious to Kings and Princes and to all that love the safety of their Sovereigns and of the publick We find that the laws of God yield to charity and necessity and Christ followed the act of David who when he was hungry eat the Shew-bread which was unlawful to be eaten but by the Priest alone and he that commanded us to go and learn what that means I will have mercy and not sacrifice intended not that the Seal of Confession should upon pretence of Religion be us'd to the most uncharitable ends in the world no though it had been made sacred by a Divine Commandment which it is not but is wholly introduc'd by Custom and Canons Ecclesiastical And when we see that things dedicated to God and made sacred by Religion and the laws of God confirming such Religion can be alien'd and made common in cases of extreme necessity or great charity it is a strange superstition that shall hold that fast with teeth and nails and never let it go no not to save a soul not to preserve the life of Kings not to prevent the greatest mâ—schief in the world This is certainly a making the Commandments of men greater and more sacred than the Commandments of God and a passing them into a doctrine great necessary and unalterable as a Fundamental Article SECTION XI Of the imposing Auricular Confession upon Consciences without authority from God THat Confession to a Priest is a Doctrine taught as necessary in the Church of Rome is without all question and yet that it is but the Commandment of men I shall I hope clearly enough evince and if I do I suppose the Charge laid against the Church of Rome which is the same Christ laid against the Pharisees will be fully made good as to this instance For this is one of the sorts of that Crime to say Dixit Dominus Dominus autem non dixit to pretend a Rite to be of Divine institution when it is not so but humanum inventum a device of man's brain The other which is still supposing an institution to be humane and positive yet to urge it with the same severe Religion as they do a Divine Commandment I shall consider in other instances For the present the inquiry is concerning Auricular Confession and it's pretended necessity The first Decree concerning it was in the Lateran Council Can. 21. in which every person of years of discretion is commanded to confess all his sins to his own Priest at least once in the year or to another Priest with the leave of his own otherwise while he is living he must be driven from entrance into the Church and when he is dead he must have no Christian Burial This is very severe but yet here is no damnation to them that neglect it and the duty is not pretended to be by Divine Commandment and therefore lest that severity might seem too much to be laid upon humane Law they made it up in the new forge at Trent and there it was decreed that To confess all and every mortal sin which after diligent inquiry we remember and every evil thought or desire Sess. 14. Capp 6. 7. and the circumstances that change the nature of the sin is necessary for the remission of sins and of Divine institution and he that denies this is to be Anathema Whether to confess to a Priest be an adviseable discipline and a good instance instrument and ministery of Repentance and may serve many good ends in the Church and to the souls of needing persons is is no part of the Question We find that in the Acts of the Apostles divers converted persons came to S. Paul either publickly or privately and confess'd their deeds * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. magicas incantationes simile illud ibidem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nimirum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and burnt their books of Exorcism that is did what became severe and hearty penitents who needed Counsel and Comfort and that their Repentance should be conducted by wise Guides And when S. James exhorts all Christians to confess their sins to one another certainly it is more agreeable to all spiritual ends that this be done rather to the Curates of Souls than to the ordinary Brethren The Church of England is no way engag'd against it but advises it and practises it The Calvinist-Churches do not practise it much because they know not well how to devest it from it's evil appendages which are put to it by the customs of the world and to which it is too much expos'd by the interests weaknesses and partialities of men But they commending it show they would use it willingly if they could order it unto edification a Calvin Instit. lib. 3. cap. 4. Sect. 12. 13. Interim quin sistant se Pastori oves quoties sacram Coenam participare volunt adeò non reclamo ut maximè velim hoc ubique observari And for the Lutheran Churches that it is their practice we may see it in b 2. Part. Exam. Concil Trid. cap. 5. de poenit Chemnitius who was one of greatest fame amongst them and he is noted to this purpose by * Lib. 3. de poenit cap. 1. Sect. Martinus Kemnitius Bellarmin only they all consent that it is not necessary nor of Divine institution and being but of man's invention it ought not to pass into a doctrine and as the Apostles said in the matter of Circumcision a burden ought not to be put upon the necks of the Disciples and that in lege gratiae In â— dist 17. q. 2. ex Scoto longè difficilimum too as Maior observes truly by far greater than any burden in the Law of Grace the time of the Gospel Let it be commanded to all to whom it is needful or profitable but let it be free as to the Conscience precisely and bound but by the cords of a man and as other Ecclesiastical Laws are which are capable of exceptions restrictions cautions dispensations rescindings and abolitions by the same authority or upon greater reasons The Question then is Whether to confess all our greater sins to a Priest all that upon strict enquiry we can remember be necessary to salvation This the Church of Rome now affirms and this the Church of England and all Protestant Churches deny and complain sadly that the Commandments of men are chang'd into the doctrines of God by a Pharisaical empire and superstition Here then we joyn issue 1. And in the first place I shall represent that the
doctrine of the necessity of Confession to a Priest is a new doctrine even in the Church of Rome and was not esteemed any part of the Catholick Religion before the Council of Trent For first the Gloss de poenit dist 5. c. in poenitentiâ inquiring where or when Oral Confession was institued says Some say it was instituted in Paradise others say it was instituted when Joshuah called upon Achan to confess his sin others say it was instituted in the new Testament by S. James It is better said that it was instituted by a certain universal tradition of the Church and the tradition of the Church is obligatory as a praecept Therefore confession of deadly sins is necessary with us viz. Latins but not with the Greeks because no such tradition hath come to them This is the full state of this affair in the age when Semeca who was the Glossator liv'd and it is briefly this 1. There was no resolution or agreement whence it came 2. The Glossator's opinion was it came from the Universal tradition of the Church 3. It was but a kind of Universal tradition not absolute clear and certain 4. It was only a tradition in the Latin Church 5. The Greeks had no such tradition 6. The Greeks were not oblig'd to it it was not necessary to them Concerning the Greek Church I shall afterwards consider it in a more opportune place here only I consider it as it was in the Latin Church and of this I suppose there needs no better Record than the Canon Law it self and the authentick Glosses upon it which Glosses although they be not Law but as far as they please yet they are perfect testimony as to matter of fact and what the opinions of the Doctors were at that time And therefore to the former I add this that in cap. Convertimini Gratian hath these words Vnde datur intelligi quod etiam ore tacente veniam consequi possumus Without confession of the mouth we may obtain pardon of our sins and this point he pursues in all that long Chapter and in the chapter Resuscitatus out of S. Austin's doctrine and in the Chapter Qui natus out of the doctrine of S. John's Epistle the conclusion of which Chapter is Cum ergo ante Confessionem ut probatum est sumus resuscitati per gratiam filii lucis facti evidentissimè apparet quod solâ cordis contritione sine Confessione oris peccatum remittitur and in the Chapter Omnis qui non diligit he expressly concludes out of S. John's words Non ergo in confessione peccatum remittitur quod jam remissum esse probatur fit itaque confessio ad ostensionem poenitentiae non ad impetrationem veniâ— And at the end of this Chapter according to his custom in such disputable things when he says Alii è contrario testantur others witness to the contrary that without confession Oral and works of satisfaction no man is cleansed from his sin the Gloss upon the place says thus Ab hoc loco usque ad Sed his authoritatibus pro aliâ parte allegat quod scil adulto peccatum non dimittitur sine oris Confessione quod tamen falsum est Only he says that Confession doth cleanse and Satisfaction doth cleanse so that though by contrition of the heart the sin is pardon'd yet these still cleanse more and more as a man is more innovated or amended But these authorities brought in viz. that sin is not pardon'd without confession if they be diligently expounded prove but little But Frier Maurique who by Pius Quintus made and publish'd a censure upon the Glosses appointed these words quod tamen falsum est to be left out but the Roman Correctors under Greg. 13th let them alone but put in the Margent a mark of contradiction upon it saying Imò verissimum est But that was new doctrine and although Semeca the Author of the Gloss affirm'd it expressly to be false yet Gratian himself was more reserv'd but yet not of the new opinion but left the matter indifferent for after he had alledged Scripture and authorities of Fathers on one side and authority of Fathers on the other De poeâ—it â— â— cap. Quamvis plentitudo he concludes Quibus authoritatibus vel quibuslibet rationum firmamentis utraque sententia Satisfactionis Confessionis innitatur in medium breviter exposuimus Cui autem harum potius adhaerendum sit lectoris judicio reservatur Vtraque enim fautores habet sapientes religiosos viros Now how well this agrees with the determination of the Council of Trent Lib. de 5. decret de poeniâ— rem in cap. Omnis utriusque sexus every man by comparing can easily judge only it is certain this doctrine cannot pretend to be deriv'd by tradition from the Apostles Of the same opinion was the Abbot of Panormo saying That opinion viz. of the Gloss does much please me because there is no manifest authority that does intimate that either God or Christ instituted Confession to be made to a Priest But it were endless to name the Sentences of the Canonists in this question once for all the testimony of Maldonat may secure us Disp. de Sacr. tom 2. de Confess Orig. c. 2. Juris Pontificii periti secuti suum primum interpretem omnes dicunt Confessionem tantum esse introductam jure Ecclesiastico But to clear the whole Question I shall first prove that the necessity of confessing our sins to a Priest is not found in Scripture but very much to disprove it 2. That there is no reason enforcing this necessity but very much against it 3. That there is no Ecclesiastical Tradition of any such necessity but apparently the contrary and the consequent of these things will be that the Church of Rome hath introduced a new doctrine false and burdensome dangerous and superstitious 1. If we consider how this Article is managed in Scripture we shall find that our Blessed Saviour said nothing at all concerning it the Council of Trent indeed makes their new doctrine to relie upon the words of Christ recited by S. John John 20. 21. Whose sins â—e remit they are remitted c. But see with what success for besides that all the Canonists allow not that Confession was instituted by Christ Aquinas Scotus Gabriel Clavasinus the Author of the Summa Angelica Hugo de S. Victore Bonaventure Alensis Tho. Waldensis Ferus Cajetan Erasmus B. Rhenanus and Jansenius though differing much in the particulars of this question yet all consent that precisely from the words of Christ no necessity of Confession to a Priest can be concluded 2. Amongst those of the Roman Church who did endeavour to found the necessity of Confession upon those words None do agree about the way of drawing their argument In lib. 4. sent dist 17. as may be seen in Scotus Aureolus Johannes Maior Thomas de Argentina Richardus Durandus Almain Dominicus à Soto Alphonsus Ã
the Churches declaration to compel us to admit of it Now then for the quotations themselves I hope I shall give a fair account 1. The words quoted Lect. 40. in Can. Missae are the words of Biel when he had first affirmed that Christs body is contained truly under the bread and that it is taken by the faithful all which we believe and teach in the Church of England he adds Tamen quomodo ibi sit Christi corpus an per conversionem alicujus in ipsum that is the way of Transubstantiation an sine conversione incipiat esse Corpus Christi cum pane manentibus substantia accidentibus panis non invenitur expressum in Canone Biblii and that 's the way of Consubstantiation so that here is expressely taught what I affirm'd was taught that the Scriptures did not express the doctrine of Transubstantiation and he adds that concerning this there were Anciently divers opinions Thus far the quotation is right But of this man there is no notice taken But what of Scotus He saith no such thing well suppose that yet I hope this Gentleman will excuse me for Bellarmines sake who says the same thing of Scotus as I do and he might have found it in the Margent against the quotation of Scotus if he had pleas'd Lib. 3. de Euchar c. 23. His words are these Secondly he saith viz. Sect. Secundò dicit Scotus that there is not extant any place of Scripture so express without the declaration of the Church that it can compel us to admit of Transubstantiation And this is not altogether improbable For though the Scriptures which we brought above seem so clear to us that it may compel a man that is not wilful yet whether it be so or no it may worthily be doubted since most learned and acute men such as Scotus eminently was believe the contrary Well! But the Gentleman can find no such thing in Ocham I hope he did not look far for OCham is not the man I mean however the printer might have mistaken but it is easily pardonable because from O. Cam. meaning Odo Cameracensis it was easie for the printer or transcriber to write Ocam as being of more public name But the Bishop of Cambray is the man that followed Scotus in this opinion Vbi suprae and is acknowledged by Bellarmine to have said the same that Scotus did he being one of his docti acutissimi viri there mentioned Contra. Captiv Now if Roffensis have the same thing too Babyl c. 1. this Author of the letter will have cause enough to be a little ashamed And for this I shall bring his words speaking of the whole institution of the Blessed Sacrament by our Blessed Saviour he says Neque ullum hic verbum positum est quo probetur in nostra Missa veram fieri carnis sanguinis Christi praesentiam I suppose I need to say no more to verifie these citations but yet I have another very good witness to prove that I have said true and that is Salmeron who says that Scotus out of Innocentius reckons three opinions not of heretics Tom. 9. tract 16. p. 108. p. â—10 but of such men who all agreed in that which is the main but he adds Some men and writers believe that this article cannot be proved against a heretic by Scripture alone or reasons alone Lib. 1. de Euchar c. 34. And so Cajetan is affirm'd by Suarez and Alanus to have said and Melchior Canus perpetuam Mariae virginitatem conversionem panis vini in corpus sanguinem Christi non ita expressa in libris Canonicis invenies Page 37. vide Letter p. 18. sed adeo tamen certa in fide sunt ut contrariorum dogmatum authores Ecclesia haereticos judicarit So that the Scripture is given up for no sure friend in this Q. the article wholy relies upon the authority of the Church viz. of Rome who makes faith and makes heresies as she please But to the same purpose is that also which Chedzy said in his disputation at Oxford In what manner Christ is there whether with the bread Transelemented or Transubstantiation the Scripture in open words tells not But I am not likely so to escape Pag. 38. for E. W. See also the letter to a friend p. 19. talkes of a famous or rather infamous quotation out of Peter Lombard and adds foul and uncivil words which I pass by but the thing is this that I said Petrus Lombardus could not tell whether there was a substantial change or no. I did say so and I brought the very words of Lombard to prove it and these very words E. W. himself acknowledges Si autem quaeritur qualis fit ista conversio an formalis an substantialis vel alterius generis definire non sufficio I am not able to define or determine whether that change be formal or substantial So far E. W. quotes him but leaves out one thing very material viz. whether besides formal or substantial it be of another kinde Now E. W. not being able to deny that Lombard said this takes a great deal of useless pains not one word of all that he says being to the purpose or able to make it probable that Peter Lombard did not say so or that he did not think so But the thing is this Biel reckon'd three opinions which in Lombards time were in the Church the first of Consubstantiation which was the way which long since then Luther followed The second that the substance of bread is made the flesh of Christ but ceases not to be what it was But this is not the doctrine of Transubstantiation for that makes a third opinion which is that the substance of bread ceases to be and nothing remains but the accident Quartam opinionem addit Magister that is Peter Lombard adds a fourth opinion that the substance of bread is not converted but is annihilated this is made by Scotus to be the second opinion Now of these four opinions all which were then permitted and disputed Vbi supra Peter Lombard seems to follow the second but if this was his opinion it was no more for he could not determine whether that were the truth or no. But whether he does or no truly I think it is very hard for any man to tell for this question was but in the forge not polished not made bright with long handling And this was all that I affirm'd out of the Master of Sentences I told of no opinion of his at all but that in his time they did not know whether it viz. the doctrine of Transubstantiation were true or no that is the generality of the Roman Catholics did not know and he himself could not define it And this appears unanswerably by Peter Lombards bringing their several sentiments in this article and they that differ in their judgements about an article and yet esteem the others Catholic may think what
decreed as the other For if we admit the acts of the Council that of giving aid to the Holy Land was decreed in the 69. Canon Ad liberandum terram sanctam de manibus impiorum Extrav de Judaeis Saracenis Cum sit alias 71. So that this answer is not true But the truth is neither the one nor the other was decreed in that Council For that I may inform this Gentleman in a thing which possibly he never heard of this Council of Lateran was never published nor any acts of it till Cochlaeus published them A. D. 1538. For three years before this John Martin published the Councils and then there was no such thing as the acts of the Lateran Council to be found But you will say how came Cochlaeus by them Vide praefat Later Concil secundum p. Crab. To this the answer is easie There were read in the Council sixty Chapters which to some did seem easie to others burdensome but these were never approved but the Council ended in scorn and mockery and nothing was concluded neither of faith nor manners nor war nor aid for the Holy Land but only the Pope got mony of the Prelates to give them leave to depart But afterwards Pope Gregory IX put these Chapters or some of them into the Decretals but doth not intitle any of these to the Council of Lateran but only to Pope Innocent in the Council which Cardinal Perron ignorantly or wilfully mistaking affirms the contrary But so it is that Platina affirms of the Pope plurima decreta retulit improbavit Joachimi libellum damnavit errores Almerici The Pope recited 60. heads of decrees in the Council but no man says the Council decreed those heads Now these heads Cochlaeus says he found in an old book in Germany And it is no ways probable that if the Council had decred those heads that Gregory IX who published his Uncles decretal Epistles which make up so great a part of the Canon Law should omit to publish the decrees of this Council or that there should be no acts of this great Council in the Vatican and that there should be no publication of them till about 300. years after the Council and that out of a blind corner and an old unknown Manuscript But the book shews its original it was taken from the Decretals for it contains just so many heads viz. LXXII and is not any thing of the Council in which only were recited L. X. heads and they have the same beginnings and endings and the same notes and observations in the middle of the Chapters which shews plainly they were a meer force of the Decretals The consequent of all which is plainly this that there was no decree made in the Council but every thing was left unfinished and the Council was affrighted by the warlike preparations of them of Genoa and Pisa and all retir'd Concerning which affair the Reader that desires it may receive further satisfaction if he read the Antiquitates Britannicae in the life of Stephen Langton out of the lesser History of Matthew Paris Vide Matth. Paris ad A. D. 1215. Naâ—cteri generat 41. ad eundem annum Et Sabellicum Eâ—â—ead 9. lib. 6. Godfridum Monachum ad A. D. 1215. as also Sabellicus and Godfride the Monk But since it is become a question what was or was not determin'd in this Lateran Council I am content to tell them that the same authority whether of Pope or Council which made Transubstantiation an article of faith made Rebellion and Treason to be a duty of Subjects for in the same collection of Canons they are both decreed and warranted under the same signature the one being the first Canon and the other the third The use I shall make of all is this Scotus was observed above to say that in Scripture there is nothing so express as to compel us to believe Transubstantiation meaning that without the decree and authority of the Church the Scripture was of it self insufficient And some others as Salmeron notes Tract 16. tom 9. p. 110. affirm that Scripture and Reason are both insufficient to convince a heretic in this article this is to be prov'd ex Conciliorum definitione Patrum traditione c. by the definition of Councils and tradition of the Fathers for it were easie to answer the places of Scripture which are cited and the reasons Now then since Scripture alone is not thought sufficient nor reasons alone if the definitions of Councils also shall fail them they will be strangely to seek for their new article Now for this their only Castle of defence is the Lateran Council Indeed Bellarmine produces the Roman Council under Pope Nicholas the second in which Berengarius was forc'd to recant his error about the Sacrament but he recanted it into a worse error and such which the Church of Rome disavows at this day And therefore ought not to pretend it as a patron of that doctrine which she approves not And for the little Council under Greg. 7. it is just so a general Council as the Church of Rome is the Catholic Church or a particular is an Universal But suppose it so for this once yet this Council medled not with the modus viz. Transubstantiation or the ceasing of its being bread but of the Real Presence of Christ under the Elements which is no part of our question Berengarius denied it but we do not when it is rightly understood Pope Nicholaus himself did not understand the new article for it was not fitted for publication until the time of the Lateran Council how nothing of this was in that Council determin'd I have already made appear and therefore as Scotus said the Scripture alone could not evict this article so he also said in his argument made for the Doctors that held the first opinion mentioned before out of Innocentius Nec invenitur ubi Ecclesia istam veritatem determinet solenniter Neither is it found where the Church hath solemnly determin'd it And for his own particular though he was carried into captivity by the symbol of Pope Innocent 3. for which by that time was pretended the Lateran Council Lib. 3. de Euchar c. 23. Sect. Vnum tamen yet he himself said that before that Council it was no article of faith and for this thing Bellarmine reproves him and imputes ignorance to him saying that it was because he had not read the Roman Council under Greg. 7. Scotus negat doctrinam de conversione transubst esse antiquam Henriquez lib. 8. c. 23. in Marg. ad liter h. nor the consent of the Fathers And to this purpose I quoted Henriquez saying that Scotus saith the doctrine of Transubstantiation is not ancient the Author of the Letter denies that he saith any such thing of Scotus But I desire him to look once more and my Margent will better direct him What the opinion of Durandus was in this Question if
these Gentlemen will not believe me let them believe their own friends But first let it be consider'd what I said viz. that he maintain'd viz. in disputation that even after consecration the very matter of bread remain'd 2. That by reason of the Authority of the Church it is not to be held 3. That nevertheless it is possible it should be so 4. That it is no contradiction that the matter of bread should remain and yet it be Christs body too 5. That this were the easier way of solving the difficulties That all this is true I have no better argument than his own words which are in his first question of the eleventh distinction in quartum numb 11. n. 15. For indeed the case was very hard with these learned men who being pressed by authority did bite the file and submitted their doctrine but kept their reason to themselves and what some in the Council of Trent observed of Scotus was true also of Durandus and divers other Schoolmen with whom it was usual to deny things with a kind of courtesie And therefore Durandus in the places cited though he disputes well for his opinion yet he says the contrary is modus tenendus de facto But besides that his words are as I understand them plain and clear to manifest his own hearty perswasion yet I shall not desire to be believed upon my own account for fear I be mistaken but that I had reason to say it Summa l. 8. c. 23. p. 448. lit C in Marg. Henriquez shall be my warrant Durandus dist qu. 3. ait esse probabile sed absque assertione c. He saith it is probable but without assertion that in the Eucharist the same matter of bread remains without quantity And a little after he adds out of Cajetan Paludanus and Soto that this opinion of Durandus is erroneous but after the Council of Trent it seems to be heretical And yet he says it was held by Aegidius and Euthymius who had the good luck it seems to live and die before the Council of Trent otherwise they had been in danger of the inquisition for heretical pravity But I shall not trouble my self further in this particular Lib. 3. de Euchar cap. 13. I am fully vindicated by Bellarmine himself who spends a whole Chapter in the confutation of this error of Durandus viz. that the matter of bread remains he endeavours to answer his arguments and gives this censure of him Itaque sententia Durandi haeretica est Therefore the sentence of Durandus is heretical although he be not to be called a heretic because he was ready to acquiesce in the judgment of the Church So Bellarmine who if he say true that Durandus was ready to submit to the judgement of the Church then he does not say true when he says the Church before his time had determined against him but however that I said true of him when I imputed this opinion to him Bellarmine is my witness Thus you see I had reason for what I said and by these instances it appears how hardly and how long the doctrine of Transubstantiation was before it could be swallowed But I remember that Salmeron tells of divers who distrusting of Scripture and reason had rather in this point rely upon the tradition of the Fathers and therefore I descended to take from them this armour in which they trusted And first to ease a more curious inquiry which in a short dissuasive was not convenient I us'd the abbreviature of an adversaries confession For Alphonsus à Castro confess'd that in ancient writers there is seldom any mention made of Transubstantiation Letter p. 21. one of my adversaries says this is not spoken of the thing but of the name of Transubstantiation but if a Castro meant this only of the word he spake weakly when he said that the name or word was seldom mention'd by the Ancients 1. Because it is false that it was seldom mention'd by the Ancients for the word was by the Ancient Fathers never mention'd 2. Because there was not any question of the word where the thing was agreed and therefore as this saying so understood had been false so also if it had been true it would have been impertinent 3. It is but a trifling artifice to confess the name to be unknown and by that means to insinuate that the thing was then under other names It is a secret cosenage of an unweary Reader to bribe him into peace and contentedness for the main part of the Question by pleasing him in that part which it may be makes the biggest noise though it be less material 4. If the thing had been mention'd by the Ancients they need not would not ought not to have troubled themselves and others by a new word to have still retained the old proposition under the old words would have been less suspicious more prudent and ingenious but to bring in a new name is but the cover for a new doctrine and therefore S. Paul left an excellent precept to the Church to avoid prophanas vocum novitates the prophane newness of words that is it is fit that the mysteries revealed in Scripture should be preached and taught in the words of the Scripture and with that simplicity openness easiness and candor and not with new and unhallowed words such as is that of Transubstantiation 5. A Castro did not speak of the name alone but of the thing also de transubstantiatione panis in Corpus Christi of the Transubstantiation of bread into Christs body of this manner of conversion that is of this doctrine now doctrines consist not in words but things however his last words are faint and weak and guilty for being convinc'd of the weakness of his defence of the thing he left to himself a subterfuge of words But let it be how it will with a Castro whom I can very well spare if he will not be allowed to speak sober sense and as a wise man should we have better and fuller testimonies in this affair That the Fathers did not so much as touch the matter or thing of Transubstantiation said the Jesuits in prison as is reported by the Author of the modest discourse And the great Erasmus who liv'd and died in the Communion of the Church of Rome and was as likely as any man of his age to know what he said gave this testimony in the present Question In synaxi transubstantiationem sero definivit Ecclesia In priorem Epist ad Corinthios citante etiam Salmeron tom 9. tract 16. p. 108. re nomine veteribus ignotam In the Communion the Church hath but lately defin'd Transubstantiation which both in the thing and in the name was unknown to the Ancients Now this was a fair and friendly inducement to the Reader to take from him all prejudice Videat lector Picherellum exposit verborum institutionis coenae Domini ejusdem dissertationem de Missâ
have been written against by so learned an adversary But to let them agree as well as they can the words of Eusebius Demonstr Evang. l. 1. c. ult 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Apostle received a command according to the constitution of the N. T. to make a memory of this sacrifice upon the table by the symbols of his body and healthful bloud So the words are translated in the Dissuasive But the letter translates them thus Seeing therefore we have received the memory of this sacrifice to be celebrated in certain signs on the Table and the memory of that body and healthful bloud as is the institute of the new Testament out of his last chapter I translated as well as I could the Greek words I have set in the Margent that every one that understands may see I did him right and indeed to do my Adversary right when he goes about to change not to mend the translation he only changes the order of the words but in nothing does he mend his own matter by it for he acknowledges the main Question viz. that the memory of Christs sacrifice is to be celebrated in certain figns on the Table but then that I may do my self right and the question too whosoever translated these words for this Gentleman hath abused him and made him to render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hath made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be governed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is so far off it and hath no relation to it and not to be governed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with which it is joyn'd and hath made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be governed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it hath a substantive of its own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he repeats 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once more than it is in the words of Eusebius only because he would not have the Reader suppose that Eusebius call'd the consecrated Elements the symbols of the body and bloud But this fraud was too much studied to be excusable upon the stock of humane infirmity or an innocent perswasion But that I may satisfie the Reader in this Question so far as the testimony and doctrine of Eusebius can extend he hath these words fully to our purpose Lib. 5. c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First our Lord and Saviour and then after him his Priests of all Nations celebrating the spiritual sacrifice according to the Ecclesiastick Laws by the bread and the wine signifie the mysteries of his body and healing bloud Et lib. 8. c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et Paulo post 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again By the wine which is the symbol of his bloud he purges the old sins of them who were baptized into his death and believe in his bloud Again he gave to his Disciples the symbols of the divine Oeconomy commanding them to make the image figure or representation of his own body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again He received not the sacrifices of bloud nor the slaying of divers beasts instituted in the Law of Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but ordained we should use bread the symbol of his own body So far I thought fit to set down the words of Eusebius to convince my Adversary that Eusebius is none of theirs but he is wholly ours in the doctrine of the Sacrament S. Macarius is cited in the Dissuasive in these words Macarius homil 27. In the Church is offered bread and wine the Antitype of his flesh and bloud and they that partake of the bread that appears do spiritually eat the flesh of Christ. * Pag. 22. A. L. saith Macarius saith not so but rather the contrary viz. bread and wine exhibiting the Exemplar or an antitype his flesh and bloud Now although I do not suppose many learned or good men will concern themselves with what this little man says yet I cannot but note that they who gave him this answer may be asham'd for here is a double satisfaction in this little answer First he puts in the word exhibiting of his own head there being no such word in S. Macarius in the words quoted 2. He makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be put with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of apposition expresly against the mind of S. Macarius and against the very Grammar of his words And after all he studies to abuse his Author and yet gets no good by it himself for if it were in the words as he hath invented it or some body else for him yet it makes against him as much saying bread and wine exhibite Christs body which is indeed true though not here said by the Saint but is directly against the Roman article because it confesses that to be bread and wine by which Christs body is exhibited to us but much more is the whole testimony of S. Macarius which in the Dissuasive are translated exactly as the Reader may see by the Greek words cited in the Margent There now only remains the authority of S. Austin Pag. ibid. which this Gentleman would fain snatch from the Church of England and assert to his own party I cited five places out of S. Austin to the last of which but one he gives this answer that S. Austin hath no such words in that book that is in the 10. book against Faustus the Manichee Concerning which I am to inform the Gentleman a little better These words that which by all men is called a sacrifice is the sign of the true sacrifice are in the 10. book of S. Austin de C. D. cap. 5. and make a distinct quotation and ought by the Printer to have been divided by a colume as the other But the following words in which the flesh of Christ after his assumption is celebrated by the sacrament of remembrance are in the 20. book cap. 21. against Faustus the Manichee * Hujus sacrificii caro sanguis ante adventum Christi per victimas similitudinum promittebatur in passione Christi per ipsa◠veritatem reddebatur po◠ascensum Christi per sacramentum memoriae celebratur lib. 20. c. 21. contr Faustum Manich. All these words and divers others of S. Austin I knit together into a close order like a continued discourse but all of them are S. Austins words as appears in the places set down in the Margent But this Gentleman car'd not for what was said by S. Austin he was as well pleased that a figure was false Printed but to the words he hath nothing to say To the first of the other four only he makes this crude answer that S. Austin denied not the real eating of Christs body in the Eucharist but only the eating it in that gross carnal and sensible manner as the Capharnaites conceiv'd To which I reply that it is true that upon occasion of this error S. Austin did speak those words and although the Roman error
understand and discern with a serene heart To the same purpose are the words of Lyra and * Tho. Aquin. in 1 Cor. 14. Ille qui intelligit reficitur quantum ad intellectum quantum ad affectum sed mens ejus qui non intelligit est sine fructu refectionis And again quantum ad fructum devotionis spiritualis privatur qui non atendit ad ea quae orat seu non intelligit Lyra. Caeterum hic consequenter idem ostendit in oratione publicâ quia si populus intelligat orationem seu benedictionem facerdnis mâ—lius reducitur in Deum devotius Amen And again propter quod in Ecclesiâ primitivâ benedictiones coeterae omnia lege communia * fiebant in vulgari * For of common things that is things in public the Dissâ—asive speaks Common prayers common preachings Common Eucharists and thanksgivings common blessings All these and all other public and common things being us'd in the vulgar tongue in the Primitive Communia and omnia are equivalent but Communia is Lyra ' s word Aquinas which I shall not trouble the Reader withall here but have set them down in the Margent that the strange confidence of these Romanists out-facing notorious and evident words may be made if possible yet more conspicuous In pursuance of this doctrine of S. Paul and the Fathers the Primitive Christians in their several ages and Countries were careful that the Bible should be translated into all languages where Christianity was planted That the Bibles were in Greek is notorious and that they were us'd among the people S. Chrysostom homil 1. in Joh. 8. is witness that it was so or that it ought to be so For he exhorts Vacemus ergo scripturis dilectissimi c. Let us set time apart to be conversant in the Scripture at least in the Gospels let us frequently handle them to imprint them in our minds which because the Jews neglected they were commanded to have their books in their hands but let us not have them in our hands but in our houses and in our hearts by which words we may easily understand that all the Churches of the Greek communion had the Bible in their vulgar tongue and were called upon to use them as Christians ought to do that is to imprint them in their hearts Homil. 1. in 8. Johan Videat lector s. Basil. in Ascert in 278. resp in regul brevior Cassidore and speaking of S. John and his Gospel he says that the Syrians Indians Persians and Ethiopians and infinite other nations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they grew wise by translating his S. Johns doctrines into their several languages De doctrin Christianâ lib. 2. c. 5. Ex quo factum est ut etiam scriptura divina quâ tantis morbis humanarum voluntatum subvenitur ab unâ linguâ profecta quae opportunè potuit per â—rbem terrarum disseminari per varias interpretum linguas longè latéque diffusainnotesceret gentibus ad salutem Theodoret. lib. 5. de curand Graec. affect Nos autem verbis Apostolicae propheticaeque doctrinae inexhaustum robur manifestè ostendimus Vniversa enim facies terrae quantacunque soly subiicitur ejusmodi verborum plena jam est Hebraei verò libri non modo in Graecum idioma conversi sunt sed in Romanam quoque linguam Egyptiam Persicam Indicam Armenicamque Scythicam atque adeò Sauromaticam semelque ut dicam in linguas omnes quibus ad hunc diem nationes utuntur But it is more that S. Austin says The divine Scripture by which help is supplied to so great diseases proceeded from one language which opportunely might be carried over the whole world that being by the various tongues of interpreters scattered far and wide it might be made known to the Nations for their salvation And Theodoret speaks yet more plainly we have manifestly shown to you the inexhausted strength of the Apostolic and prophetic doctrine for the Universal face of the earth whatsoever is under the sun is now full of those words For the Hebrew books are not only translated into the Greek idiom but into the Roman tongue the Egyptian Persian Indian Armenian Scythian Sauromatic languages and that I may speak once for all into all tongues which at this day the Nations use By these authorities of these Fathers we may plainly see how different the Roman doctrine and practice is from the sentiment and usages of the Primitive Church and with what false confidence the Roman adversaries deny so evident truth having no other way to make their doctrine seem tolerable but by out-facing the known sayings of so many excellent persons and especially of S. Paul who could not speak his minde in apt and intelligible words if he did not in his Epistle to the Corinthians exhort the Church to pray * Quamvis per se bonum sit ut officia divina celebrentur eâ linguâ quam plebs intelligat id enim per se confert ad aedificationem ut bene probat hic locus Estius in 1. ep Corin. cap. 14. and prophecy so as to be understood by the Catechumens and by all the people that is to do otherwise than they do in the Roman Church Christianity is a simple wise intelligible and easie Religion and yet if a man will resolve against any proposition he may wrangle himself into a puzzle and make himself not to understand it so though it be never so plain what is plainer than the testimony of their own Cajetan that it were more for the edification of the Church that the prayers were in the vulgar tongue Respon ad artic pacis magis fore ad aedificationem Ecclesiae ut preces vulgari linguâ conciperentur Ex hâc doctrinâ Pauli habetur quod melius ad aedificationem Ecclesiae est orationes publicas quae audiente populo dicuntur dici linguâ communi Clericis populo quam dici latina Idem in 1 Cor. 14. He says no more than S. Paul says and he could not speak it plainer And indeed no man of sense can deny it unless he affirms at the same time that it is better to speak what we understand not than what we do or that it were better to serve God without that noble faculty than with it that is that the way of a Parrot and a Jackdaw were better than the way of a man and that in the service of God the Priests and the people are to differ as a man and a bird But besides all this was not Latin it self when it was first us'd in Divine service the common tongue and generally understood by many Nations and very many Colonies and if it was then the use of the Church to pray with the understanding why shall it not be so now however that it was so then and is not so now demonstrates that the Church of Rome hath in this material point greatly innovated Let but the Roman Pontifical be
consulted and there will be yet found a form of ordination of Readers Studete verba Dei viz. Lectiones sacras distinctè apertè ad intelligentiam aedicationem fidelium absque omni mendacio falsitatis proferre c. in which it is said that they must study to read distinctly and plainly that the people may understand But now it seems that labour is sav'd And when a notorious change was made in this affair we can tell by calling to mind the following story The Moravians did say Mass in the Slavonian tongue for which Pope John the eighth severely reprov'd them and commanded them to do so no more but being better inform'd he wrote a letter to their Prince Sfentoputero in which he affirms that it is not contrary to faith and found doctrine to say Mass and other prayers in the Slavonian tongue and adds this reason because he that Hebrew Greek and Latin hath made the others also for his glory and this also he confirms with the authority of S. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians and some other Scriptures only he commanded for the decorum of the business the Gospel should first be said in Latin and then in the Slavonian tongue But just two hundred years after this the Tables were turned and though formerly these things were permitted yet so were many things in the Primitive Church but upon better examination they have been corrected And therefore P. Gregory the seventh wrote to Vratislaus of Bohemia that he could not permit the celebration of the divine offices in the Slavonian tongue and he commanded the Prince to oppose the people herein with all his forces Here the world was strangely altered and yet S. Pauls Epistle was not condemned of heresie and no Council had decreed that all vulgar languages were prophane and no reason can yet be imagined why the change was made unless it were to separate the Priest from the people by a wall of Latin and to nurse stupendious ignorance in them by not permitting to them learning enough to understand their public prayers in which every man was greatly concerned Neither may this be called a slight matter for besides that Gregory the seventh thought it so considerable that it was a just cause of a war or persecution for he commanded the Prince of Bohemia to oppose the people in it with all his forces besides this I say to pray to God with the understanding is much better than praying with the tongue that alone can be a good prayer this alone can never and then the loss of all those advantages which are in prayers truly understood the excellency of devotion the passion of desires the ascent of the minde to God the adherence to and acts of confidence in him the intellectual conversation with God most agreeable to a rational being the melting affections the pulses of the heart to from God to and from our selves the promoting and exercising of our hopes all these and very many more which can never be intire but in the prayers and devotions of the hearts and can never be in any degree but in the same in which the prayers are acts of love and wisdom of the will and the understanding will be lost to the greatest part of the Catholic Church if the mouth be set open and the soul be gag'd so that it shall be the word of the mouth but not the word of the mind All these things being added to what was said in this article by the Dissuasive will more than make it clear that in this article the consequents of which are very great the Church of Rome hath causelesly troubled Christendom and innovated against the Primitive Church and against her own ancient doctrines and practices and even against the Apostle But they care for none of these things Some of their own Bigots profess the thing in the very worst of all these expressions for so Reynolds and Gifford in their Calvino Turcismus complain that such horrid and stupendious evils have followed the translation of Scriptures into vulgar languages that they are of force enough ad istas translationes penitus supprimendas etiamsi Divina vel Apostolica authoritate niterentur Although they did rely upon the authority Apostolical or Divine yet they ought to be taken away So that it is to no purpose to urge Scripture or any argument in the world against the Roman Church in this article for if God himself command it to be translated yet it is not sufficient and therefore these men must be left to their own way of understanding for beyond the law of God we have no argument I will only remind them that it is a curse which God threatens to his rebellious people I will speak to this people with men of another tongue Isa. 25. 11. and by strange lips and they shall not understand This is the curse which the Church of Rome contends earnestly for in behalf of their people SECTION VI. Of the Worship of Images THat society of Christians will not easily be reformed that think themselves oblig'd to dispute for the worship of Images the prohibition of which was so great a part of the Mosaic Religion and is so infinitely against the nature and spirituality of the Christian a thing which every understanding can see condemned in the Decalogue no man can excuse but witty persons that can be bound by no words which they can interpret to a sense contradictory to the design of the common a thing for the hating of and abstaining from which the Jews were so remark'd by all the world and by which as by a distinctive cognisance they were separated from all other Nations and which with perfect resolution they keep to this very day and for the not observing of which they are intolerably scandaliz'd at those societies of Christians who without any necessity in the thing without any pretence of any Law of God for no good and for no wise end and not without infinite danger at least of idolatry retain a worship and veneration to some stocks and stones Such men as these are too hard for all laws and for all arguments so certain it is that faith is an obedience of the will in a conviction of the understanding that if in the will and interests of men there be a perverseness and a non-compliance and that it is not bent by prudent and wise flexures and obedience to God and the plain words of God in Scripture nothing can ever prevail neither David nor his Sling nor all the worthies of his army In this question I have said enough in the Dissuasive and also in the Ductor dubitantium but to the arguments and fulness of the perswasion they neither have nor can they say any thing that is material but according to their usual method like flies they search up and down and light upon any place which they suppose to be sore or would make their proselytes believe so I shall therefore first
add the concurrent words of the prudent and learned Cassander * Consult de imagin simulachris Quantum autem veteres initio Ecclesiae ab omni veneratione imaginum abhorruerunt declarat unus Origines adversus Celsum but of this I shall have occasion to speak yet once more And so at last all the quotations are found to be exact and this Gentleman to be greatly mistaken From the premisses I infer if in the Primitive Church it was accounted unlawful to make images certainly it is unimaginable they should worship them and the argument is the stronger if we understand their opinion rightly for neither the second Commandment nor yet the Ancient Fathers in their Commentaries on them did absolutely prohibit all making of images but all that was made for religious worship and in order to adoration according as it is expressed in him who among the Jews collected the negative precepts which Arias Montanus translated into Latin Lib. 4. de generat regeneratione Adam the second of which is signum cultus causa ne facito the third simulachrum Divinum nullo pacto conflato the fourth signa religiosa nulla ex materia facito The authorities of these Fathers being rescued from slander and prov'd very pungent and material I am concerned in the next place to take notice of some authorities which my adversaries urge from antiquity E. W. pag. 49. to prove that in the Primitive Church they did worship images Concerning their general Council viz. the second Nicene I have already made account in the preceding periods The great S. Basil is with great solemnity brought into the Circus and made to speak for images as apertly plainly and confidently as Bellarmine or the Council of Trent it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His words are these I admit the holy Apostles and Prophets and Martyrs and in my prayer made to God call upon them that by their intercession God may be propitious unto me Whereupon I honour and adore the characters of their images and especially those things being delivered from the holy Apostles and not prohibited but are manifested or seen in all our Churches Now I confess these words are home enough and do their business at the first sight and if they prove right S. Basil is on their side and therefore E. W. with great noise and preface insults and calls them Unanswerable The words he says are found in S. Basils 205. Epistle ad Julianum I presently consulted S. Basils works such as I had with me in the Country of the Paris Edition by Guillard 1547. and there I found that S. Basil had not 205. Epistles in all the number of all written by him and to him being but 180. of which that to Julianus is one viz. Epistle 166. and in that there is not one word to any such purpose as is here pretended I was then put to a melius inquirendum Bellarmine though both he and Lindan and Harding cry up this authority as irrefragable quotes this authority not upon his own credit Appendix ad Tract de cultu imaginum in prooem ante Cap. 1. in Cap. 4. but as taking it from the report of a book published 1596 called Synodus Parisiensis which Bellarmine calls Unworthy to see the light From hence arises this great noise and the fountain being confessedly corrupt what wholsome thing can be expected thence But in all the first and voluminous disputations of Bellarmine upon this Question he made no use of this authority he never saw any such thing in S. Basils works or it is not to be imagined that he would have omitted it But the words are in no ancient Edition of S. Basil nor in any Manuscript that is known in the world 2. Iohn Damascen and Germanus Bishop of C. P. who wrote for the worship of images and are the most learned of all the Greeks that were abus'd in this Question yet they never urg'd this authority of S. Basil which would have been more to their purpose than all that they said beside 3. The first mention of this is in an Epistle of Pope Adrian to the Emperors in the seventh Synod and that makes the business more suspicious that when the Greek writers knew nothing of it a Latin Bishop a stranger not very well skill'd in Antiquity should find this out which no man ever saw before him nor since in any Copy of S. Basils works But in the second Nicene Council such forgeries as these were many and notorious S. Gregory the Great is there quoted as Author of an Epistle de veneratione imaginum when it is notorious it was writ by Gregory III. and there were many Basils and any one of that name would serve to give countenance to the error of the second Nicene Synod but in S. Basil the Great there is not one word like it And therefore they who set forth S. Basils works at Paris 1618. who either could not or ought not to have been ignorant of so vile a cheat were infinitely to blame to publish this as the issue of the right S. Basil without any mark of difference or note of inquiry There is also another saying of S. Basil of which the Roman writers make much and the words are by Damascen imputed to the Great S. Basil Imaginis honor exemplum transit which indeed S. Basil speaks only of the statues of the Emperors and of that civil honour which by consent and custom of the world did pass to the Emperor and he accepted it so but this is no argument for religious images put up to the honour of God he says not the honour of any such images passes to God for God hath declar'd against it as will appear in the following periods and therefore from hence the Church of Rome can have no argument no fair pretence and yet upon this very account and the too much complying with the Heathen rites and manners and the secular customs of the Empire the veneration of images came into Churches But suppose it be admitted to be true yet although this may do some countenance to Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventures way of worshipping the image and the sampler with the same worship yet this can never be urg'd by all those more moderate Papists who make the worship to an image of a lower kind For if it be not the same worship then they that worship images worship God and his Saints by the image not as they deserve but give to them no more than the image it self deserves let them take which part they please so that they will but publickly own it But let this be as it will and let it be granted true that the honour done to the image can pass to the sampler yet this is but an arbitrary thing and a King may esteem it so if he please but if the King forbids any image to be made of him and counts it a dishonour to him then I hope it is and that 's
in the ancient Apostolical Creeds expounded by Marcellus Ruffinus Chrysologus Maximus Taurinensis Venantius Fortunatus Etherius and Beatus Lib. 1. contra Elipand Tolet. yet because it is so plain in the Article of the Church as the omission is no prejudice to the integrity of the Christian Faith so the inserting it is no addition of an Article or Innovation So these Copies now reckon'd omit in the beginning of the Creed Maker of Heaven and Earth but out of the Constantinopolitan Creed it is now inserted into all the Copies of the Apostolical Symbol Now as these omissions or additions respectively that is this variety is no prejudice to these being the Apostles Creed So neither is the addition made at Nice any other but a setting down what was plainly included in the Filiation of the Son of God and therefore was no addition of an Article nor properly an explication but a saying in more words what the Apostles and the Apostolical Churches did mean in all the Copies and what was deliver'd before that Convention at Nice But there was ill use made of it and wise men if they had pleased might easily have foreseen it But whether it was so or no for I can no otherwise affirm it than as I have said yet to add any new thing to the Creed or to appoint a new Creed was at that time so strange a thing so unknown to the Church that though what they did was done with pious intention and great advantage in the Article it self yet it did not produce that effect which from such a concurrence of sentiments might have been expected For first even some of the Fathers then present refus'd to subscribe the Additions some did it as they said against their will some were afraid to use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Consubstantial and most men were still so unsatisfied that presently after Council upon Council was again called at Sirmium Ariminum Seleucia Sardis to appease the new stirrs rising upon the old account and instead of making things quiet they quench'd the fire with oyle and the Principal persons in the Nicene Council Casu Hosii planè miserabâ—li Cathulicus Orbis contremâ—it concussaeque sunt solidissimae petrae Baron A. C. 347. 17. 18. chang'd their minds and gave themselves over to the contrary temptation Even Hosius himself who presided at Nice and confirm'd the former Decrees at Sardis yet he left that Faith and by that desertion affrighted and shook the fabrick of the Christian Church in the Article added or explained at Nice In the same sad condition was Marcellus of Ancyra Vide Epist. Marcellinorum ad Episcipos in Dio-Caesarea exulantes a great friend of S. Athanasius and an earnest opposer of Arius so were the two Photinus's Eustathius Elpidius Heracides Hygin Sigerius the President Cyriacus and the Emperour Constantine himself who by banishing Athanasius into France by becoming Arian and being baptiz'd by an Arian Bishop secur'd the Empire to his sons as themselves did say as it is reported by Lucifer Calaritanus * Pro S. Athanas l. 1. apud Baron A. â— 336. 13. and that he was vehemently suspected by the Catholicks is affirmed by Eusebius Hierom Ambrose Theodoret Sozomen and Socrates But Liberius Bishop of Rome was more than suspected to have become an Arian Idem aiunt Martinus Polâ—nus Alphonsus de Castro Volaterranus as Athanasius himself S. Hierom Damasus and S. Hilary report So did Pope Felix the second and Leo his successor It should seem by all this that the definitions of General Councils were not accounted the last determination of truths or rather that what propositions General Councils say are true are not therefore part of the body of faith though they be true or else that all these persons did go against an establish'd rule of faith and conscience which if they had done they might easily have been oppress'd by their adversaries urging the plain authority of the Council against them But Neither am I to urge against thee the Nicene Council nor thou the Council of Ariminum against me was the saying of S. Austin even long after the Council of Nice had by Concession obtain'd more authority than it had at first Now the reason of these things can be no other than this not that the Nicene Council was not the best that ever was since the day that a Council was held at Jerusalem by all the Apostles but that the Council's adding something to the Creed of the Church which had been the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Christian faith for 300 years together was so strange a thing that they would not easily bear that yoke And that this was the matter appears by what the Fathers of the Church after the Council did complain Dum in verbis pugna est dum de novitatibus quaestio est dum de ambiguis dum de Authoribus querelae est dum de studiis certamen est dum in consensu difficultas est dumque alter alteri anathema esse coepit prope jam nemo est Christi S. Hilar. After the Nicene Synod we write nothing but Faiths viz. new Creeds while there is contention about Words while there is question about Novelties while there is complaint of ambiguities and of Authors while there is contention of parties and difficulty in consenting and while one is become an Anathema to another scarce any man now is of Christ. And again We decree yearly and monethly faiths of God we repent when we have decreed them we defend them that repent we anathematize them that are defended we either condemn foreign things in our own or condemn our own in forein things and biting one another we are devour'd of one another This was the product of leaving the simplicity and perfection of the first rule by which the Church for so many ages of Martyrdom was preserv'd and defended and consummated their religious lives and their holy baptism of bloud and which they oppos'd as a sufficient shield against all heresies arising in the Church And yet the Nicene Fathers did adde no new Article Quid unquam aliud Ecclesia Conciliorum decretis enisa est nisi ut quod antea simpliciter credebatur hâ—c idem posteà diligentiùs crederetur Vincent Lirin contr haeres cap. 32. of new matter but explicated the Filiation of Jesus Christ saying in what sense he was the Son of God which was in proper speaking an interpretation of a word in the Apostles Creed and yet this occasion'd such stirs and gave so little satisfaction at first and so great disturbances afterward that S. Hilary * Lib. de Synodis call'd them happy who neither made nor knew nor receiv'd any other Symbol besides that most simple Creed us'd in all Churches ever since the Apostles days However it pleas'd the Divine Providence so to conduct the spirits of the Catholick Prelates that by their wise and holy adhering to the Creed as explicated