consequence and admirably serving the turn of the rankest Sectaries Who not being able to keep up their Congregations any longer or to keep their Disciples from ours by trivially declaiming against our Ceremonies They ferment them now by instilling into them new fears and jealousies of our Doctrines Warning them away from our Churches as if there was some strange Fury working or some Innovations contriving in the Church of England and as if we were allowed to preach and maintain even in our City-Pulpits new Articles of Faith Socinian or Pelagian in opposition to the Catholick and truly Primitive How unsufferably J. O. for one has reflected not only upon some particular Persons but upon the whole Church of England and its Governers upon this account any one may read that does but run over his Survey of a discourse concerning Ecclesiastical Polity No wonder then if now they are transported with joy when an Author appears as one dropt down from heaven to plead their Cause vouching himself a Son of the Church of England teaching as one having Authority like a Father venturing at first dash upon the tenderest Point in the World concerning Articles of Faith implying and supposing all along that some are extremely to blame for improving the Faith not by confirming but enlarging it asking whether the state of Salvation be alter'd ' and what need any other Articles In what Church does he ask these Questions and how monstrous impertinent are they here if we do nothing like it Well! to begin with him and follow him step by step through his many turnings and windings and sometimes nothing but a rope of Sand to guide me He makes a discovery to us in the first place that That which we commonly call the Apostles Creed is the sum of Christian Faith And again that the Primitive Church received this as the sum total of Faith necessary to salvation Why not now I answer it is so now and all true Sons of our Church hold it so now Then why this Question Why that which follows Is the state of Salvation alter'd No doubt the terms of Belief on which Salvation is ordinarily attainable are never changeable but like God himself who establisht them fixt and immoveable But still he follows his blow though he fights with the Air If it be compleat saies he what need any other Articles There may have been needful heretofore not only other Articles but other Creeds for the farther explication of those Articles in the Apostles Creed and yet in those new Creeds not one new Article The Apostles Creed is the sum of Christian Faith True yet I hope he will not think the Nicene the Constantinopolitan and the Athanasian Creeds were superfluous and unnecessary And in his Chapter about preaching he seems concerned for this last the Athanasian and yet his censure is so bold upon Constantine the Emperour and some godly Bishops he conceives more zealous than discreet and so do some godly Bishops conceive of this Author and his pique at the new word Homoousios carries such an ugly reflection upon that Creed that I scarce dare understand him But we shall have more of this hereafter He would have men improve in Faith but rather Intensivè than Extensivè to Confirm it rather than Enlarge it And yet 't is certain that all formal and mortal Hereticks that are not Atheists are justly condemn'd for want of due extension in their Faith He prays us to remember the Treasurer to Candace Queen of Aethiopia whom Philip instructed in the Faith His time of Catechizing was very short and soon proceeded to Baptism This is soon pronounc'd as he uses to do but not prov'd It does not appear how long or how short was the time of his Catechizing or how many Leagues they travelled together before they proceeded to Baptism 'T is true there needs no great length of time to propose and demonstrate Christianity as St. Peter and the Apostles did it in few words and especially out of the Prophesies of the Old Testament which the Eunuch was then reading But then a great deal must and may be learnt in a little time as the prime Articles of Faith are so strongly and rationally knit together that 't is indeed impossible to teach or learn any one of them without teaching or learning them all Whereas then our Author proceeds thus But Philip first required a confession of his Faith and the Eunuch made it and I beseech you observe it I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and straightway he was baptized How no more than this no more What! nothing of the Holy Ghost till he heard of him in the Baptismal form What does he mean then by that which immediately follows This little grain of Faith being sound believed with all his heart purchased the kingdom of Heaven Had he believed the whole Gospel with half his heart it had been of less value in the sight of God 'T is not the quantity but the quality of our Faith God requireth I answer the true and full notion of Saving Faith is embracing from the whole heart the whole Fundamental truth of the Gospel Why does he talk then of the whole Heart and yet supposes but half or a part of this Fundamental truth Does he dream that St. Philip the Evangelist Christen'd the Eunuch after Christ's Ascension into Heaven only as St. John the Baptist brought men to his Baptism before Christ appeared in his Ministry upon earth and made him such a Disciple as those whom St. Paul found in Ephesus that had not so much as heard whether there were any Holy Ghost to whom thereupon St. Paul proved Christianity from their Master the Baptist's Testimony and to make them perfect Christians which they were not before but only a sort of Disciples Baptized them in the Name of the Lord Jesus Acts 19. Yet this Author will not let go his hold and will needs be thus objecting against himself But sure the Eunuch was more fully instructed It may be you are sure of it but I could never yet meet with any assurance of it nor any great probability of it Yes I am sure of it if he means by more fully instructed taught other Fundamental Articles beside this one that Jesus Christ is the Son of God And I will give him one demonstration of what I say which is more than a Probability out of the story it self and he might have met with this demonstration in it himself if he could have seen but an inch before him for we find in the story that the Eunuch himself made the motion to the Evangelist and reminded him of baptizing him Therefore 't is evident they had discourst before even of this particular though we are told no more in express words but that St. Philip preacht to him Jesus the Faith of Jesus Yet he had brancht out this Faith into all its Fundamental Articles and had declar'd to him even the necessity of Baptism which he understood
a corner no more that is be always Visible even when the Lord gave them the bread of affliction that is even in times of Persecution as the lawful Catholick Bishops were never more Visible than when the intruding Arrians that were far enough from being Lawful Bishops persecuted them away from their Bishopricks and drove their Persons indeed into Corners yet they held intelligence and kept exact correspondence with one another still and with all their Flock's that persever'd in the Faith and disowned the uncanonical Arrian Bishops This they did by their Literae Formatae by this method the Church preserv'd in her Communion her own Members amidst their Dispersions and before any General Councils except at Jerusalem held by the Apostles themselves though the greatest Heresies arose early by this means they proclaim'd their Faith loudest of all then when they were silenc'd and excluded by the Arrians from their own Pulpits as the Sufferings which happen'd to St. Paul fell out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel So that his bonds in Christ were manifest in all the palace and in all other places and many of the Brethren in the Lord waxing confident by his bonds were much more bold to speak the word without fear Phil. 1. 12 13 14. And if the Church has a power of Condemning in judgment every tongue that rises up against her I think this amounts to a promise a glorious promise and there are many such that all or near all the Bishops in the Christian world shall never apparently fall from an Outward Profession at least of the Catholick Faith in Fundamentals and profess the quite contrary Heresies instead of them And he that will not allow thus much at least to the Church must run into wild aery suppositions of sheep without any shepherds People without any Priests a Church without any Orders and as invisible as the Leviathan makes it in his parallel between the Church of Rome and the Kingdom of Fayries Thus sar methinks this Author should go along with me for all his asking What 's this to a General Council for the promise was made to the whole Body of the Church since even he acknowledges that the Gates of Hell would prevail against Her if the Devil could so wound the whole Body of the Church as to destroy the Vitals the Fundamentals And if this be not a mortal wound to the Body to lose all its Pastors and Teachers by their falling into formal and mortal Heresie then nothing at all can wound it deadly but a total Dissolution of all and every one of its members and at this rate this Author may fancy as a certain great Enthusiast did before him that Himself alone might be the Catholick Church and that it might wholly subsist in his Single Person But he would fain avoid this inconvenience though a General Council should fall into such Fundamental Errour and persist in it because Secondly says he 'T is not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Church which in the Scripture is always put for the whole Body of the Faithful though of late it be translated into quite another notion and taken for the Clergy only I answer if the Church be always put for the whole Body yet the Clergy sure are the voice or the mouth of that Body and God has promised Isa 59 20. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion to put it out of doubt that all this Chapter is Gospel and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever Farther I add out of the Author 's own confession in his Chap. concerning Bishops and Priests The Church was always governed by Bishops that is by one whatsoever you please to call him set over the rest of the Clergy with Authority to ordain to exhort to rebuke to judge and censure as he found cause no other form of Government is mentioned by any Author for fifteen hundred years from the Apostles downwards I make account then that a General Council of Bishops is as Tertullian styles it Representatio totius nominis Christiani a Representative of all that are called Christians Inferiour Clergy as well as Laity And what then if they are not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Laity nay to strengthen his Argument what if there is not actually met in Council the twentieth part of the Bishops that are in the Christian World Suppose that all are invited with assurance of safe conduct to a place of security and time enough allow'd for their convening all which can never be effected without the consent of Kings and Princes and without that it never must be attempted nevertheless because very many cannot possibly take such a voyage and must needs be absent it was never pretended to have the force of a General Council till it was manifestly accepted by those absent Bishops of the Church Universal wheresoever dispersed or at least by the visibly Major part of them so that it might appear to any one at first glympse as they say and without any scrupulous enquiry which way their much greater number had declared themselves If there be still a few Dissenters 't is inconsiderable as what were seventeen Arrian Bishops for there were no more Arrians that were lawful Bishops in the Council of Nice where there were three hundred and eighteen Catholique Pastors equal almost to the number of Servants bred up in the House of Abraham I know not then what they mean that would evacuate and annihilate almost the whole authority of general Councils by sending us to Ortelius's Mapps or Geographical Tables bidding us take a survey of all the great Cathedrals or Metropolitical Churches and then demand of us whether there were ever any Councils so Oecumenical from which above half the Bishops of these Sees were not absent True but if they were present upon their own Charges and did but what would be certainly required and exacted of them there or wherever they were they must needs accept subscribe recite publish and preach and cause to be preacht over all their Dioceses the Decrees concerning the Faith such as the Nicene Creed or the Constantinopolitan Nay the Bishops did many times summon Provincial and National Councils to sit a little before and at the same time with the General on purpose to ratifie and spread their Decrees And if any Council was pretended to be General and Free when it was not so as was the second of Nice which being overaw'd by an Imperious woman Irene decreed Image-worship Immediately two or three other great Western Councils as that of Francfort in Germany
that will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen and a Publican spoken of private differences between man and man to be referr'd to the Determination of the Church that is the Congregation of the Faithful which they usually and by order should assemble in and refer this to the Church in General in matters of Faith not in the least pointed at there He will have much ado to make us believe that a man is not bound to tell his Brother of Heresie a matter of so great Consequence and to tell it to the Church if his Brother will not hear him and yet prove that he is bound to do this in matter of private difference or petty quarrel between them Wherefore to borrow his own Conclusion of this matter I pass this over as very Impertinent And so is that which follows I do not believe nor am I bound by Scripture to believe such Expositions as the Popish Church makes of this place That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church Who bids him believe the Popish Expositions But if that place be not spoken of the Roman Church therefore does it signifie nothing to prove the Visibility or Indefectibility of the Catholique Church But 't is plain he advances the notion of a Church Invisible a Church that shall be driven into the Wilderness where her Ninety nine Ceremonies are to be left to attend her scarce visible in the World whereas the Learned understand that place of the Churche's Persecutions the first three hundred years which made it the more illustriously visible and our nineteenth Article calls it the visible Church of Christ Now he proceeds to the business of General Councils whether they may Err in some points of Faith The Church of England acknowledges they may Err and have Err'd in things pertaining to God No doubt of it But this Author immediately flies higher with a why not in some points of Faith All the Evangelical Doctors grant says he that the later General Councils have Err'd if so why not the former what promise had the former from Christ more than the later True there is no more promise to a Council of the fourth Age or to that of Nice than to one that should be held in the seventeenth if it were as General and as free He asks concerning this promise The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church what 's this to a general Council which is not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Church We shall find him mistaken in this Account at long running Lastly he shews his charitable Divination in foretelling how much more mischief General Councils would have done if more of them had been conven'd But say you says he No General Council determin'd those errors Why because none was call'd about them had any been call'd who can doubt but they would have avow'd that in the Council which they all taught in their Churches This he says but his Yea's and Nay 's are no Oracles with us For why should they be when a General Council is not so with him Then presently he humbly craves pardon for his bold presumption viz. of these hard sayings against General Councils And I as humbly beg leave to speak for them in behalf of the Church of England and the Law of the Land both which I 'me sure I have on my side and both give much deference to General Councils The twentieth Article of our Church has these words The Church has Authority in matters of Faith And the Statute of the Land runs thus Eliz. 1. c. 1. That none however commissioned shall in any wise have authority or power to order or determine or adjudge any Matter or Cause to be Heresie but only such as heretofore have been determined ordered or adjudged to be Heresie by the authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four General Councils or any of them or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures or such as hereafter shall be ordered judged or determined to be Heresie by the Court of Parliament of this Realm with the Clergy in their Convocation But for all this we do not confess or acknowledge all or many of those for General Councils which they at Trent or which Bellarmine is pleas'd to account for such a parcel of eighteen of them But those very few we count for General which the Church Universal before the unhappy breach between East and West receiv'd for General But now to unravel the skein which is much entangled and ruffled in his confused way the diminutions he puts upon general Councils may be reduc'd to these three Heads 1. That General Councils may err in points of Faith because they have no promise to the contrary 2. Because they want Numbers even of the Clergy being not the thousandth part of them and therefore to put this Argument as far as ever it will go are not truly General 3. Because of the prejudices they that should sit in Council would bring along with them then who can doubt but they would avow that in the Council which they all taught in their Churches 1. In answer to his first Exception I premise these limitations If by erring in some points of Faith he means some points belonging to the Piety of Faith as Divines use to speak or to the Perfection of Faith or remotely belonging even to the essence or necessity of Faith and wounding it by far-fetcht Consequences I will not deny but even great Councils may possibly be circumvented for a time yet I may safely venture with our Learned Pious Dr. Hammond in his Paraenesis to reckon it among the pio credibilia or a thing piously credible as we say that God will not permit a Council truly General and Free to err in Fundamentals which thus far only I presume to explain that God will never permit them to deny and declare against any Fundamental Truth and much less to affirm and declare any Fundamental Errour to be a Truth and least of all to declare it a Fundamental Truth And if this Author asks which of God's Promises give us encouragement to hope and believe this I refer him to the Prophet Isaiah ch 30. v. 20. And though the Lord give you the bread of Adversity and the water of Affliction yet shall not thy Teachers be removed into a Corner any more but thine eye shall see thy Teachers That this Chap. is Evangelical will not I suppose be denied and so is that Isai 54. 17. and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment shalt thou condemn If this be denied to be spoken of the Christian Church I prove it undeniably from our Saviour's application of the Context And all thy Children shall be taught of God It was then a Prerogative of the Christian Church that her Teachers should be driven into