even to the opening of their mouths by force and that those to whom they offered that violence look'd upon it as the most cruel of all punishments that divers made so great a resistance to it that they could not obtain their ends and that in their rage they tore their Breasts to revenge themselves of their refusals He himself testifies that the Horror which the Orthodox had to be found in the same Assemblies with the Arians was so great that having no Churches wherein they could publickly worship God they assembled with the Novatians who had three Churches in that City because these latter were indeed Schismaticks but not Hereticks as the Arians and that if the Novatians had been willing the Catholicks would have made but one only Church with them Sozomen relates also that the Emperour Valens who was an Arian having gone to the City of Edessa and having learned there that the Orthodox that is to say those who persever'd in the faith of the Consubstantiality of the Son made all their Assemblies in a Field near the City because all the Churches were in the hands of the Arians he punished the Governour of the Province who suffered those Assemblies and commanded him to go thither the next day to hinder them with all his force from assembling themselves and to punish those who should oppose themselves that the people having heard that Order did not fail to meet there and the Governour having gone thither and finding in the way a Woman who was running thither with her little Child he asked her if she had not heard what the Emperour had commanded but that the Woman without being moved answered him that she was not ignorant of it and that it was for that very reason that she ran thither to be there with others which made such an impression upon the Spirit of the Governour that he went back to the Emperour and acquainted him with that obstinate resolution and caused him to revoke the Orders he had given I confess that there were many of the Orthodox who had not courage enough to go so far as a Separation and who contented themselves with only groaning under the Arian Tyranny in waiting for better Times But it is also certain that those who had more zeal and courage withdrew themselves from the Communion of those Hereticks and that they believed themselves bound to do it for the making sure of their salvation Therefore it was that Faustinus in his Treatise against the Arians said That if any one did not believe that the Society of the Arians could be rendered culpable under a pretence that he had the testimony of his own conscience which did not accuse him of having violated or renounced the faith there it belonged to such a one to take heed and to examine himself But as for me adds he the cause of God being concerned I judge my self bound to be more pre-cautioned and to have a greater fear than those persons have For it is written a man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition reject knowing that he who is such is perverted and that he sins being condemned in himself And as to the punishment of dissemblers it is written All flesh shall worship before my face saith the Lord God and the Saints shall come forth and they shall see those who have transgressed against me for the worm of the Hypocrites shall not dye and their fire shall not be quenched The Apostle forbids us also to enter into fellowship with unbelievers And elsewhere after having given a description of sins he condemns not only those who commit such things but those also who consent to those who commit them There are divers other passages in the Scripture which forbid our companying with Hereticks but I would only note these here briefly to the end that you should not think that it is out of a vain superstition that we avoid the Communion of those whom the Divine Justice has condemned Behold then two Actions that I have propounded in my judgement sufficiently justified and by consequence the right of separating our selves from the body of our ordinary Pastors when they teach Doctrines contrary to the true faith which they would constrain the faithful to profess established by an example against which I do not see any thing which they can rationally oppose or hinder it from being like to that of our Fathers For if they say that there were in that party of the Orthodox that separated themselves divers Bishops that authorized that Action besides that we may say the same thing of the Party of the Reformation in which they know that there was a very considerable number of Pious and Learned Prelates and even some who had the courage to suffer death in the defence of that cause Besides that I say it is certain that it is not the Episcopal Dignity that makes the Reformation lawful it is lawful as often as it has causes that are just sufficient and necessary at the foundation and wheresoever those causes are to be found the faithful people have as much right to separate themselves as the Bishops If the people had no right to separate themselves from the Body of their Pastors who should teach them false Doctrine it could not be by reason of the Authority which the Pastors have over the people for the Body of the Pastors has at least as much authority over particular Pastors as it has over the people so that if that reason were not sufficiently valid in regard of particular Bishops they may very well see that it would not be so in regard of the faithful people In effect a Separation founded upon the fear of dishonouring God and prejudicing ones own salvation is a common right and the Laity are not less bound to it than the Bishops since both the one and the other ought according to the precept of the Apostle to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling If they say that the Separation which fell out in time of the Arians was founded upon the Authority of the Nicene Council wherein Arius and his followers had been condemned whereas that of our Fathers is not established by the Authority of any Council since there is not one that has condemned the Doctrines and Customs of the Church of Rome I answer that this difference is yet null and void For not to mention that the Arians of whom we speak called themselves the Catholicks and took it as a great injury when they were called Arians or Followers of Arius and that their Councils had pronounced nothing directly against that of Nice their separation was founded upon the things themselves that is to say upon the necessity of acknowledging the Son of God to be consubstantial with the Father in order to the acknowledging him to be truly God and not upon the bare Authority of the Nicene Council to which they might have opposed that of the Church then in her
hinder but that she may externally deny the faith of Jesus Christ but that she may intirely lose her love and the communion of our Saviour and the quality of the True Church and by consequence that we should not be bound to separate from her while she should be in that state and till it should please God to re-establish her See here of what force those proofs are which they produce to ground this special priviledge of the Church of Rome upon It is not hard to see that a man of good understanding who would satisfie his mind and his conscience upon so weighty a point ought not to remain there but that he ought to pass on to the other way of clearing that doubt which I have noted which is to judge of the pretension of the Church of Rome by the examination of her Doctrines and her Worship For it is there principally that the characters of truth and infallibility ought to be found and by consequence he must come to the foundation and no further amuse himself with Prejudices As to the second Way by which I have said we might clear this Question Whether it be necessary to the salvation of Christians to be joyned to the Church of Rome it consists in examining whether it be true that God has made her the Mistress of all other Churches whether there is any particular order that binds us indispensably to her For if that be so the Separation of our Fathers must be condemned but if it be not so we must judge of that Church as of all other particular Churches and say that we cannot and ought not to separate our selves from her but when we have just and lawful causes so to do There is no person who does not judge that we cannot pass over lightly a point of so great importance which ought to serve for a general and perpetual Rule to all Christians and that if the Church of Rome would so set her self beyond a state of equality above other Churches it is necessary that she should produce some very express and indisputable Order of God for it But instead of that she does nothing but reverberate the same passages which I have mentioned She boasts her self to be the See of S. Peter and under that pretence she applyes to her self all that she can find in the Scripture in favour of that Apostle and particularly the Order that Jesus Christ gave him to feed his sheep as if the Office of the Apostleship in which Jesus Christ re-established him by those words could be communicated to his Successors or as if the foundation that Jesus Christ supposed and upon which he re-established him in saying to him feed my sheep to wit that he should love him more than the rest was not a thing purely personal in S. Peter and whereof it was not in his power to transmit any part to his Successors nor by consequence to invest them with his Office which was restored to him only upon a supposition of that love or lastly as if the office of feeding Christ's sheep included an absolute and indispensable necessity for the sheep to receive their death when they should give it them under the name of their food It must be acknowledg'd that there never was a higher pretension than this of the Church of Rome for what more could she pretend to then to make Heaven it self depend on her communion and to leave no possibility of salvation to any but those who should be in her communion and under her dependance But it must also be acknowledged that there never was any thing worse established than that pretension They alledge in its favour nothing that is clear and distinct and even the consequences which they draw for it are made after a very strange manner This is in my judgement the Reason why our Adversaries when they treat of this matter do not insist much upon Scripture but fly off presently to the Fathers and the usage of the Ancient Church For by this means they hope to prolong the dispute to eternity and that notwithstanding the Church of Rome shall be alwayes in possession of that Despotical Authority which she exercises over the Churches that remain in her communion In effect the life of a man would scarce suffice to read well and throughly examine all the Volumes which have been composed on one side and on the other upon this Question of the place that the Church of Rome and its Bishops have held among the Christian Churches during the first six Centuries and of the Authority which they had then But to say the truth there is too much artifice in that procedure for that the Church of Rome should be the Mistress of all others and that no one could be saved but in her communion that does not depend upon the order of men but only on that of God and when they should find among the Antients a thousand times more complaisance for the See of Rome than they had that may very well establish an ancient possession and make clear the fact but it can never establish the right of it To establish a right of that nature a word of God an express declaration of his will is necessary for it is a right not only above nature but even above the ordinary and common favour that God gives to other Churches and which by consequence depends only upon God And so it is but a wandring from the way to go to search for the grounds of it in the Writings of Men. It is no hard matter to conceive that those Bishops which were raised to Dignities in the Metropolis of the World and engaged in the greatest affairs might mannage matters so as to ascribe to themselves those rights which no wayes belonged to them nor to imagine that their flatterers and Courtiers might not have offered more incense to them than they ought nor that those persecuted ones who had recourse to their protection might not have helped the increase of their Authority nor that the Princes and Emperors who had need of them might not have given them those priviledges which they ought not to have had that which renders to a just title all that which they alledge in their favour suspected and to no purpose at all Notwithstanding there are moreover evident matters of fact that let us clearly see that the Ancient Church did not acknowledge that Universal Episcopacy that the Bishops of Rome pretend to nor that absolute and indispensable necessity to be joyned to their See to be saved nor that their Church should be the Mistress of all the rest 1. Every one knows that the Bishops of Rome were anciently chosen by the suffrages of the people and of the Clergy of that Church without any other Churches taking part in those Elections which is a mark manifest enough that they did not mean that those Bishops should be Universal Bishops nor that they should have a more peculiar interest in their creation than
to the Emperour with great submission praying him to mitigate his Decree and not to expose them as he had done to the violence of their Enemies They wrote also to the other Christian Princes as well to inform them of what had pass'd at Ausburg as to justifie themselves against the many false accusations wherewith they were charg'd and to have them demand a General and free Council that should be held in Germany for the Reformation of the Church The Execution of this Decree of Ausburg fill'd for some time Germany with a thousand Persecutions against the Protestants by the Authority of the Imperial Chamber Behold here what the Emperour did to satisfie the desires of the Court of Rome it seems that he could have done nothing more vehemently and yet notwithstanding the Pope was not throughly contented He very much rejoyced to see the Protestants subjected to the most rigorous punishments But that Authority that Charles had taken upon him to appoint those Conferences to labour to bring those differences to an agreement the consent that he had given to the abolition of some Ceremonies and above all the promise of a Council within the prefixed term of a year were things that he could not digest judging them to be too contrary to the Soveraignty of his See And because the Emperour had press'd him about this last Article of a Council and even his Legate wrote to him that it was the general desire of all Germany he returned this Answer That having consulted the Cardinals about it divers of them had not found that a Council was a very fit means for the rooting out of the present Heresies because that those things that had been decided by former Councils or already established by the practice of many Ages ought not to be again called in question That this was a very bad precedent and could not be done without very great scandal and a manifest violation of the Apostolick See That nevertheless if the Emperour judged a Council to be absolutely necessary he might promise the Lutherans one but with this condition that they should presently depart from all their Errors and be obedient to their Holy Mother Church that they should hold her Doctrines and her Rites until it should be otherwise ordain'd by the Council to the Decrees of which they should wholly submit themselves That besides that the calling of a Council would be very scandalous and of exceeding bad example to all posterity That as to the place where it should be held he judg'd it absolutely necessary that it should be in Italy and that he did not see any City more fit for it than Rome it self which was the Seat of the Christian Faith that if notwithstanding Rome did not please him he might chuse one either in Bolognia or Placentia or Mantua The Pope went even so far as to write to the Christian Princes a Circulary Letter by which he advised them in the general of that which had pass'd at Ausburg and that for the intire rooting out of Heresie he was resolved to call a Council Notwithstanding all these Declarations consisted only in words for at the bottom his mind was wholly remote from the holding of a Council in which as Guicciardine sayes he apprehended that they might contest his Papacy with him which he had purchased by canvasings and money and that they would take cognizance of the affairs of the Florentines whom he had subdu'd and subjected to the Family of the Medici by force of Arms or as the Author of the History of the Council of Trent sayes he feared lest they should beat down that excessive Authority which the See of Rome had usurped over all other Bishops and over all Churches However it were he would not have one but he would that they should make use of Fire and Sword And it was for this that he wrote about that same time to Ferdinand the Emperour's Brother exhorting him to go himself in person to Bohemia to root out Heresie there He solicited also the Emperour and the Christian Kings to joyn their Arms with those of the Duke of Savoy against the Switz Cantons who had embraced the Reformation and his Intrigues or those of his creatures were so powerful that they enflamed a bloody War between the Reformed Cantons and the others wherein the Reformed were beaten many times which afforded great matter of joy to the Court of Rome In the year 1532. the Emperour having called the Imperial Diet to Ratisbon for the affairs of Hungary and Germany threatned by the Arms of the Turks the Princes and the other States assembled seeing clearly already that the Pope and his Court sought only to elude the Council by divers pretences solicited the Emperour that he would be pleased to call one himself by his Authority and they represented to him that it was his right in the quality of Roman Emperour that other Emperours had so used it and that he was the Head and Protector of all Christianity especially in case of the negligence and refusal of the Pope The Emperour would not hearken to this Proposition and yet nevertheless being urged by the necessity of his affairs and having a War to maintain with the Turk he granted a Peace to the Protestants who were already seven Princes and four and twenty Imperial Cities This Peace was made at the Mediation of Albert Cardinal and Arch-Bishop of Mayence and Lewis Prince Palatine of the Rhine and the Emperour made his Decree publick bearing in it express prohibitions to trouble or disquiet any person for matters of Religion only till the holding of a General Free and Christian Council which he endeavoured to have called within the term of a year or in case that a Council could not be held till a General Assembly of the States of the Empire wherein they might provide for the affairs of Religion This Decree displeas'd the Pope and all his Court extreamly who would neither have a Peace nor a Council nor any Assembly of the States to treat of Religion as it evidently appeared afterwards For after that the Emperour had set the affairs of Hungary and Austria in order and had been freed from the force of Solyman he went into Italy and having urged the Pope many times upon that subject the Pope alwayes eluded the Proposition as well by the conditions which he required that the Protestants should submit themselves to well knowing that they would not agree to them as by the default of the consent of the Kings of France and England without whom he said it was to be feared that the calling of a Council would create a new Schism in the Church Thus the Papacy of Clement pass'd away who dyed the twenty fifth of September 1534. His Successor who was Paul III. followed the same path of Clement in regard of the Protestants The first step that he made was to let his Nuntio Paulus Vergerius delcare that he was resolved to call a Council but at the
submission and hindring them from entring upon any Examination of the Matters of Religion But blessed be God that notwithstanding all the endeavours they have hither to made on a subject that has exhausted all the subtilties of the Schools the Justice of our Cause which is the same with that of our Fathers has not receiv'd the least prejudice and we can even assure our selves that there has been nothing said the weakness and impertinency of which may not easily be display'd to the bare light of common sence For either those things which our Fathers rejected and which we reject with them are in deed Errors Superstitions and Inventions of men as we believe them to be or they are not If they are not we will be the first that shall Condemn the Reformation and when they shall let us see that on the contrary they are the Truths and right worship that belong to the Christian Religion we shall be very ready to receive them But if in deed they are Errors and Corruptions as we are perswaded they are with what Reason can any man demand by what right we rejected them since it is all one as to demand what right we have to be good men and to take care of our own Salvation We may see then from thence that all those Evasions are nothing else but vain wranglings and that we ought always to examine those Tenets that are Controverted for the Justice or Injustice of the Reformation intirely depends on their Truth or Falshood If we have right at the Foundation they ought not to raise a contention about the Form for to be willing to believe in God according to the purity of his word and to be ready to serve him sincerely are the things to which we are all obliged and which cannot be condemned in whomsoever they are found as on the contrary side to harden one's self in Errors to practise a false Worship and to expose one's self to the danger of Damnation under pretence of observing some Formalities is such a guidance of one's course as can never be Justified It will here be to no purpose that they say that in this Controversy concerning the Justice of the Reformation they do not suppose that we have any reason in the Foundation of it but that on the contrary they have a mind to let us see that we have no right at all in the Foundation since we have none at all in the Form and that they would only say that those things which we call Errors and a false Worship are not so indeed as we imagine them to be since they are the Institutions of a Church that can't Err and to whose Authority we ought absolutely to submit our selves This is in my judgment the course that not long since an Author has took in a Book Intitled Just Prejudices against the Calvinists For he pretends to conclude that our Religion is faulty in the very Foundation because there are Errors in the manner of our Reformation and that those things which we reject as Errors are the Truths that we ought to believe because we ought to acquiesce in the Authority of the Church of Rome But that can never hinder us from coming to a discussion of the Foundation it self separated from all Forms and from all prejudices for when these Gentlemen have reasoned against us after this manner You are faulty in the very Foundation because you have not had right in the Form we oppose to that this other Reasoning whose consequence is not less Valid as to the subject about which it is concerned We have not done wrong in the manner because we have right in the Foundation And when they tell us That which you call our Errors Transubstantiation Adoration of the Host Purgatory c. they are not Errors since we cannot Err we Answer them You can Err because the Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Host the Pargatory c. that you teach are Errors And when they reply You ought to believe that which we teach you because you ought to acquiesce and rest in our Authority we rejoyn again We ought not to acquiesce in your Authority because you teach us those things which we ought not to believe In these two ways of Reasoning it is certain that ours is the more equal the more just and more natural For it is by far the more just and natural that the Judgment of those Formalities should depend on the highest Interest that can be in the World which is that of the glory of God and ourown Salvation then on the contrary to make the glory of God and our own Salvation to depend upon some Formalities It is far more reasonable to judge of the Infallibility that the Church of Rome pretends to by the things that she teaches then to judge of the chings that she Teaches by a pretence of her Infallibility But although these two ways were equally Natural and equally Reasonable they can not deny that that which at first drew nearer to the Examen of the Foundation were not more sure and that all good men who ought to neglect nothing conducing to their Salvation were not bound to enter into it in Order to the avoiding of Errors They Propose on one side for a Principle the Authority of the Church of Rome against which there are a thousand things to be said on the other side we Propose the Authority of God himself speaking in those Scriptures which all Christians receive and which the very Enemies of Christianity respect who will dare to deny that in this Opposition it were not more sure to side with that part which rules all by the Authority of God You may deceive your selves say they in taking that for the word of God which is not so And are not you answer we more liable to deceive your selves in taking that for the Church of God which is not so and in taking those for Infallible who are no ways so There is far greater Reason to hope that God will then assist you with the illumination of his Spirit when with humility you search out the sence of the Scriptures which you are so often commanded to do then when you search them through humane prejudices to submit your Consciences to a certain Orde of Men whom God has never told you that they ought to be the Masters of your Faith After all if they will make use of the Authority of the Church of Rome and the pretended faults of our Reformation as an Argument sufficient to let us see that those things which we call Errors are not really so they can demand nothing more of us then to set down this proof in its order with the rest and maturely to consider it in its turn before we determine our selves But to pretend that that ought to hinder us from considering also the proofs on the contrary side by which we may see that those things that we call Errors are really so this were an injust
pretence and bordering on the greatest rashness For the Authority of the Church of Rome and the pretended faults of the Reformation whatsoever they be are not Principles so demonstrative and so evident among Christians that after them they ought to hear nothing more We ought then to yield to this proof its place in our discussion but without any prejudice as to those that may be drawn for or against the very Tenets that are contested which ought to be first examined as the more natural and most decisive That being so I hold that that which they have set before us will be to no purpose at all For if from the Examination that we shall make of those matters in themselves it results that those things are not Errors which we have rejected as such but Christian Truths we have no further need either of the Authority of the Church of Rome or of the prejudices against the Reformation The Reformation is sufficiently overthrown And if on the contrary it results that those are Errors all the Authority of the Church of Rome and all the prejudices in the World shall not be able to perswade men of good understandings that they are Truths and by consequence that the Reformation is not just for it is always just to extirpate Errors It seems to me to appear already that that debate which they have raised against us about the Justice of our Reformation and our separation from the Church of Rome is rather a field wherein they would busy themselves in subtilties and declamations to amuse the People then a just Controversy whence one might justly expect any profit Yet as those subtilties and declamations how vain and false soever they are fail not of finding applause in the World and always making some impressions on the minds of men we acknowledge the too great effect that they have produced which is that the greatest part of those of the Church of Rome look upon us as Schismaticks and think that we have disturbed the peace of the Family of God and violated the right of that Religious Society which had united us with them The Idea which they form of our Religion appears not half so odious to them After what manner they have disguised us the most equitable among them discern and fail not sometimes freely to confess the same that we have all Doctrines that are necessary to mens Salvation that our Worship as plain as it is has nothing which does not tend to nourish in their hearts a true Piety and a solid Vertue and that as to the Form of our Government it has nothing so remote either from prudence or from equity or from the Charity that Jesus Christ has recommended to us But it is a far different Idea which they Form within themselves of our Separation for it becomes insupportable to them when they compare it with the Specious name of a Church that ought to command the Veneration of all Holy men So that this is most ordinarily the matter of their reproaches which they the more exaggerate as a thing about which they imagine we have not the least shew wherewith to defend our selves I dare affirm that as to the far greater part that is the chiefest and almost the only matter that makes them appear so much Exasperated against us It is necessary then that we justify our selves and that we clear to their minds that honour which we have not only to live among them in the same civil Society but also to depend on their lawful Authority in respect of those humane affairs wherein we are engaged Our own Innocence commands it of us not to say that the inheritance which we have received from our Fathers is of a value sufficiently great to merit a defence after what manner soever they attack it We ought then to indeavour to let them see that that which they are made to believe concerning us is nothing but a false imputation that we have an infinitly greater respect for the Church then any of those who oppose themselves to hinder its Reformation that their Maxims tend to the Ruin of the Church where ours tend only to preserve it that our Separation from Rome is nothing else but an effect of that Love and Jealousy that we have for the Church and that it will be most unjust if they shall hate us upon an account that ought on the contrary to draw from them all their esteem and Love toward us It is then about this that we intreat that they would calmly hear us and judge us without passion and without interest in the fear of that God whom we all acknowledge for our Soveraign Judge Those who always act against us with a pride that hurries them away and who have resolved to condemn us and to the uttermost of their power to destroy us what ever we say will not possibly take our request to be just and in that Case we shall content our selves as to them with the Testimony of our Consciences which perswades us not only that God will not condemn us for having been Reformed but also that he certainly will if we do not in that follow the sence of our hearts But there are yet enough persons in the Church of Rome of too much equity to follow the Examples of such a sort of People these equitable persons are those of whom we demand that hearing and that same equity and moderation of which they make such profession and which the importance of the subject treated on challenges them to yield us We shall tell them nothing which shall not be founded either on matters of fact known to all or upon the inviolable principles of Religion or upon the light of Common sence To set down this matter in some order I propose to my self to make evident these four Propositions 1. That our Fathers had both right and obligation to examine the State of Religion and the Latin Church such as it was in their days 2. That the Reformation which they made was just and lawful 3. That in Reforming themselves they had right and were bound to separate themselves from the Church of Rome 4. That in Reforming and Separating themselves they had right and obligation to maintain among themselves a Christian Society by publick Assemblies and the exercise of the Ministry I do not pretend that in Treating of these four Propositions I have exhausted all my subject but yet I hope that there will be few Questions that have some Relation to it which I do not sufficiently touch upon and few Objections which I do not answer I will particularly answer to all those that are contained in that Book of Prejudices as the order of the matters that I Treat of shall present them to me none of which will begin to oppose themselves till the seventh Chapter because that Author having passed by in silence a great many things that belong to the Foundation of this Controversy it will be necessary to touch upon
against the Contentions of that Kingdom For thereby he drew upon his back the demands of a Council which was of great importance especially with a condition to Celebrate it in Germany and had given too much courage to the Princes that they dared not only to send but to print also a Book which they called the Centum Gravamina or Hundred Grievances a writing that was ignominious to all the Ecclesiasticks of Germany but more to the Court of Rome That notwithstanding having considered all things well he resolved that it was necessary to give some satisfaction to Germany yet so that his Authority might not be indangered and that the advantages and profits of the Court of Rome might not any ways be diminished In effect he sent a Legat to Nuremberg where the Princes of Germany were afresh assembled who propounded to them such a Reformation as should only respect the inferiour Clergy So that it was judged that that Reformation would not only foment the evil as light and palliating Medicines usually do but that it would serve to enhance and raise the Dominion of the Court of Rome and the greater Prelats to the Prejudice of the Secular Powers and that it would open a door to a greater Extortion of Money so that it was not received being looked upon meerly as a mockery to elude the Expectations of Germany and to reduce it to a greater Slavery CHAP. II. A Confirmation of the same thing from the History of that which passed in the First Quarrels of Luther with the Court of Rome concerning Indulgences BUt we ought to add something to all that we have said that if so many publick Proofs will not be sufficient to make that Conclusion That there could not be any Reformation hoped for on the part of Rome and its Prelats they may further see if they will something more particular Let us Examine after what manner they received the first complaints that Luther made against the Preachers of Indulgences and the Questors that Leo the Tenth had sent throughout the whole extent of his Empire and especially into Germany there to sell publickly the Pardon of sins under a pretence of the building of the Church of Saint Peter at Rome but in effect to have by that means wherewithal to Enrich his Kindred and satisfy his own profuseness The History of that which is as a Preamble to that of the Reformation of our Fathers must needs give us a great deal of light to judge rightly of their Conduct and to decide the Justice or the Injustice of their Actions See then well near how that business was managed Besides the manifest abuse that there was in the using and in the very Doctrine it self of Indulgences the Questors were constrained to set before the people every day divers Novelties upon that subject to enhance their price and value before them and they lived further and guided themselves in that affair after a very filthy and dishonest manner Luther who was then Professour of Divinity in the University of Witenberg thought himself bound by the duty of his Charge and his Conscience to oppose himself to a Traffick so Mischievous and so destructive of true Piety To effect that he proposed some Theses for the clearing of that matter and wrote them to the Arch-Bishop of Mayence who was also Bishop of Magdeburg beseeching him to make use of his Authority to put a stop to those excesses and representing to him that it was the Duty of Bishops throughly to instruct the people in the Doctrine of the Gospel and not to suffer their credulity to be so abused He wrote also almost to the same sence to the Bishop of Brandenburg under whose Diocess he was and sent him those Theses which he had framed on that Subject with a more large Explication of them which he added to them He wrote the same to Pope Leo he sent him his Writings he complained to him of the Follies that his Questors taught and of the havock that they made reposing themselves upon him and abusing his Authority he cleared himself before him of the false imputations of his Adversaries and was so far from having any ways violated that respect which as yet he believed due to his Dignity and to his See that he stooped even to excessive submissions which his Adversaries did not fail to make use of in the end Hitherto the most rigid Censurers cannot find any thing blameable in the Conduct of Luther For I pray tell me what could any one have done better He beheld a sort of men that dishonoured Religion that made a mockery of the Devotion or rather of the superstition of the People who were a scandal to the whole Church who promoted false and destructive Maxims He opposed himself to them but of the duty of his place he made his Complaints to those to whom ordinarily it belonged to repress those excesses he went even to the Pope himself he acquainted him with the Mischief that his Questors wrought He begg'd of him to give Order about them he used all the Terms of respect that the Pope could desire What can any find to blame in all that They will say it may be that his Complaints against the Preachers of Indulgences were false and ill-grounded To clear this matter we need but to see what his most fiery Enemies wrote Miltitus the Apostolick Nuntio says Ulembert one of the most fiery Enemies of Luther had sufficiently acknowledged that the Questors and Preachers of Indulgences who had first given occasion to Luther to oppose himself were not altogether blameless That therefore he had earnestly reproved Tetzel who was the Chief of the Questors that he had not hindred those abuses that were intolerable to all honest men and that grounding himself on the Authority of the Pope he had done divers things of his own head which could neither be approved of nor defended So that he had brought dishonour on the Holy See and given ground for a most dangerous complaint whereof he must one day give an account to the Pope Florimund of Raymund acknowledged the same that those Questors committed most enormous Crimes in Publishing their Indulgences and taking care for nothing else but to extort Money from the People Belcair Bishop of Mets said That the Impudence of the Popes Ministers was so great that they made amongst themselves a publick Merchandise of Indulgences sometimes debauching themselves in the Taverns they played them away and at Dice and other Games especially in Germany and it was the common talk That the Pope had given away all the Money that should be collected in some Countries of Germany to his sister Magdalen Guicchiardin goes so far as to blame the Pope himself in that following the Counsel of Cardinal Peccius he had published the largest Indulgences without any distinction of Places or Time not only for the living but to draw Souls out of Purgatory also by means of his suffrage That it was
God lose nothing either of its Truth or its Authority 3. It is a very strange thing that the Author of the Prejudices has not taken any heed in laying down a very bad Argument against us of furnishing us with a very good one against the Church of Rome in that Estate wherein it was in the days of our Fathers For if we ought to Judge of the Doctrine by the Qualities or the Actions of those who Teach it I pray consider what Judgment could our Fathers make of that Religion that the Court of Rome and its Prelats taught and whether they had not all the grounds in the World to reform themselves If there be no likelyhood that God committed the Care of Reforming his Church to persons who were guilty of Scandalous Actions there is far less that God has given Infallibility and a Soveraign Authority over mens Consciences to such persons as the Popes and Prelats in the days of our Fathers were according to the Description which the unsuspected Authors that we have quoted give us of them and divers others that we might here add to them if we so pleased And that which makes these two Arguments differ is that his concludes upon a Principle which we maintain to be false and ill where ours concludes upon a Principle which he himself admits and acknowledges to be good so that in his own Judgment we have a sufficient Fundation whereon to Establish the Justice of our Reformation Let us see nevertheless of what Nature those Actions are wherewith he reproaches our first Reformers I will not says he stay to examine the Accusations wherewith they have been charged by divers Authors I do not pretend to detain my self in any but those publick things that are so manifest and so exposed to the Eyes of all the World I confess he has Reason not to stay upon all that which his Passion has invented against them for who knows not that Calumny has no bounds especially when interest and passion stir it up Our Reformers are not the only persons who have been attacked after that manner The Jews said of John the Baptist that he had a Devil and of Jesus Christ that he was a Blasphemer a Samaritan a glutton and a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and sinners If then they have called the Father of the Family Beelzebub what will they not say of his Servants But what then are those things that are so Publick so manifest and so exposed to the Eyes of the whole World which the Author of the Prejudices has found fit to be insisted upon That new Gospel says he was Preached only out of the mouths of those Monks who had quitted their habit and their profession ouly to contract Scandalous Marriages or from the mouths of those Priests who had violated that Vow of Virginity which the Calvinists themselves confess to have been imposed on all Priests and on all Monks in the West by divers Councils and on all the Monks and all the Bishops in the East and the first fruit of this Doctrine was the setting open the Cloisters the taking off the Vails of the Nuns the abolishing of all Austerities and overthrowing of all manner of discipline in the Church This is that that forces him to say That the Reformers struck mens Eyes with a Spectacle that could not but create horrour according to the common Idea's of Piety and Vertue whech the Fathers give us The Author of the Prejudices will not take it ill that in order to our Answering him we must put him in mind what he himself exhorts us to To Transport our selves into another Time then that wherein we are at present and to represent to our selves our Separation in its first rise and during the first years wherein it was made amidst the Switzers and in France Upon his thus placing us in that State which he desires we will declare to him that The general Depravation which reign'd amidst the Monks and the Priests is to our Eyes a Spectacle worthy of horror according to the common Ideas of Piety and Vertue which the holy Scriptures and right Reason give us We will tell him that that which Scandalizes us is to see that for a respect of a purely humane Order they endured for so long a time a disorder that dishonoured the Latin Church that drew upon it God's Judgments and that laid open the Ministry of the Church to an everlasting reproach It is in the detesting of those Infamies and those Impurities that the true zeal of Christians ought to consist and it is to the searching out of a solid remedy for them that one ought to apply the Discipline of the Church and not to keep them up under a pretence of observing rash Vows and a Caelibasy that God never commanded If the Author of the Prejudices is more Scandalized to see Priests and Monks Married then to see them plunged into all the filthyness of Debauchery I cannot hinder my self from telling him that he makes Christianity a Law of Hypocrisy and it may be yet somewhat worse for Hypocrisy does not content it self with meer Names she would have fair appearances without of those things which she really rejects Whereas for him he rejects not only the things but their appearances also suffering patiently the loss of any more seeing either the things or their appearances provided we do not meddle with those empty names of Caelibacy and Virginity But true Moral Christianity inspires other Sentiments she would have us honour that Caelibacy and Virginity as gifts that come from God but she would also have a Contempt and horrour for those specious names when they shall be applyed to those beastlinesses and excesses which both God and Men condemn She would have us in that Case instead of being Scandalized to see a false Caelibacy made void and a vain shadow of Virginity abolished that we should on the contrary be edified to see them got out from those snares of sin and to have recourse to a lawful Marriage that God has allowed unto all and that he has even commanded unto those who have not received the gift of Continency It was in the View of this that our Fathers lookt upon the Marriage of those Priests and Monks as the Abolishing of an unjust Law contrary to the express words of Saint Paul if they cannot contain let them Marry and which moreover had produced such mischeivous effects as it was no longer possible for them to indure But says the Author of Prejudices we do not intend to speak of the Interests of Families of Marriage nor of base and fleshly passions in the lives of those Great Bishops and all those great men of old whom God opposed to the Heresies that rose up against his Church as Saint Cyprian Saint Athanasius Saint Basil Saint Gregory Nazianzen Saint Jerome Saint Epiphanius Saint Chrysostome and Saint Augustine They were all of them eminent in Sanctity in a disingagement
visible and Transfigured into an Angel of light and in the shape of a Preacher in the Chair of Truth and what else would he perswade the Faithful too but that the Faithful ought to take very great heed not to read the Holy Scripture and not to meditate day and night upon the words of life that the Spirit of God has dictated to the Prophets and which God the Father has given to his Son for the Instruction of his Church and to draw it from the Corruption of the world to render it Holy and without Spot to his Father who gave it to him Jesus Christ was the Word uf God and liv'd by that Word and to make his Church live he gave it his word in an Intelligible Tongue out of his own mouth and by his Disciples Search says he and examine carefully the Scriptures for they are they which Testify of me Thus it is that they speak of it sometimes Jesus Christ gave his Scripture to the Faithful with a Commandment to read it to examine it carefully and to hear it It was the Judge of the beleif of the Church and the Difficulties and Questions that arose in the Doctrine of the Faith and Manners The Parishioners made use of them against their Bishops They encountred even their Ordinances by passages out of that Scripture they maintain'd that the use of them belonged to all Christians by a natural right and that to go about to deprive them of them was to do an action of the Devil But now a days they speak no more after that manner for they tell us on the contrary that it is a Ridiculous and Impossible way to Instruct men in the Truth an Infinite way which has no Issue and which is of so excessive a length that whatsoever dilligence we should use we can never arrive to the end and they labour to heap difficulties upon difficulties to drive them back and to make a Labyrinth full of Circles and confus'd ways that so out of a fear of those Confusions the world should take heed of entring into it For my own part I freely acknowledg That I can comprehend nothing in all that For if before one can assure ones self of one only Passage of Scripture whatsoever it be we must needs go through a thousand tedious ways and overcome a thousand Obstacles that arise from the Question about the Canonical Books about the Conformity of the Translations with the Originals about the different manner of reading the Passages and about the difference of Interpretations as the Author of the Prejudices would have it according to his ordinary Exaggeration to what purpose is it to give the publick a Translation which after the manner that it was given and receiv'd in cannot but be subject to the greatest part of those difficulties and yet notwithstanding they put it into all mens hands as well the Ignorant as the Learned as well of the simple as the more Inlightned as well to women as to men The Church of Rome has not declared it Authentick Two Bishops and a Doctor have approved it but two Arch-bishops and a Cardinal have forbidden it and yet one has not failed notwithstanding those Prohibitions to maintain that all the world ought to read them and that that forbidding them is a Violence a Novelty an unexampled Enterprise a bold Attempt upon the Liberty that God has given to the Church ransomed at the price of the Blood of his own Son that it is an usurpation and the Introducing of a Tyrannical Authority that was never excercised in the Church until this day and that every one is bound not only not to obey that Ordinance but even to have an Horror for it and to resist it as much as he can What will then become of those Difficulties and those unconquerable Confufions which hinder them according to the Author of the Prejudices so that they cannot assure themselves of one only Passage of the Scripture through the uncertaitty wherein a man is of the unfaithfulness of the Translations through the Ignorance wherein we are of the different manner of reading those Passages and through the necessity of consulting Interpreters Is it because they would expresly engage the People in an Infinite way and which can come to no Issue and in a ridiculous way and which is Impossible for the Instructing of any in the Truth or is it rather because they did not propound to themselves in that Translation to Instruct men in the Truths of the Faith but only to satisfy their Curiosity and to make them read good French The Author of the Prejudices may acknowledge therefore if he pleases that the heat of Disputation has carried him beyond the bounds of Right and Reason and the respect which he ought to have for the word of God and that in endeavouring to have troubled us he has done it for himself and his Freinds for if that which he has propounded were true they would give us a ground to accuse those who have publish'd the Translation of Mons of Rashness and Imprudence And it will be nothing to the purpose to say that they Publish'd it for those persons who were already Instructed in the Truths which the Church believes that therein they might receive a Confirmation and increase of the Faith by the Conformity which they should find the Doctrines of the Church have with it and that it was necessary for that that they should go through all the difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices has worked since the Sole Conformity of it with the Doctrines of the Church would be sufficient to assure them that it was truly the word of God I say that answer will not satisfy For besides that it is an Injury to the word of God to make the Efficacy that it has in our Souls to depend upon the Conformity which it has with the Doctrine of the Church whereas on the contrary the Efficacy of the Doctrine of the Church ought to depend on its Conformity with the word of God besides that the Author of the Preface says expresly That the Souls of the simpler sort may find that in his Translation which is necessary for their Instruction He says not those who shall be already Instructed in that which the Church teaches but he says the Simpler sort he does not say that they would be Confirmed in the Instruction which they had already but that they would find that which should be necessary for their Instruction And elsewhere he says That the word of God that is to say in his Translation for it is about the Subject of that Translation that he speaks is the Light of the Blind and the Life of the Dead Which signifies that it gives by it self the first Impressions of the Spiritual Life So that it was not in the view of the knowledge that the simple might have of the Doctrine of the Roman Church that he publish'd that Translation if we believe the
without a Case of necessity but only at the Solemn Feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide of giving of Milk and Honey to the Baptized of Administring the Eucharist to little Children after Baptism of Praying standing upon the Lords day and from Easter till Whitsuntide of Celebrating the Communion on the Evening of Fast-days of every ones carrying home with him a piece of the Bread of the Communion of distributing the Cup to all the faithful Communicants of receiving the Communion not on ones Knees but standing of mutually kissing one another before the Communion and divers others which the Latins have Abrogated On the other side how many Latin Traditions are there which the use of the Church of Rome Authorises at this Day of which we cannot find the least Trace in the Primitive Church and which from thence visibly discover themselves to be New and by consequence false and not Apostolical as the Worshipping of Images Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Adoration of the Host Use of Altars that of Lights or Tapers Masses without any Communion the Divine Service in a Tongue not understood by the People the Soveraign Authority of the Church of Rome over all other Churches Auricular Confession the Number of the seven Sacraments and as many more that the Primitive Church which came nearest to the Apostles never knew as we have often Justified from whence it follows that they are not Apostolical and descending from that only and last Revelation without which there is no word of God There is therefore nothing more improper to be the Rule of Faith then that pretended Tradition which is not established upon any certain Foundation which serves for a pretence to Hereticks which is embraced pro and con which changes according as times and places do and by the favour of which they may defend the greatest absurdiries by meerly saying that they are the Traditions which the Apostles Transmitted from their own Mouths to their Successours In a word if they would have us to believe a Mystery with a Divine Faith if they would that we should practise a Worship with a perswasion that it is agreeable to God they ought to shew us that that Mystery and that Worship proceeds from the Revelation of Jesus Christ and his Apostles for without that all that is in the World is of Men's Invention since after Christ and his Apostles there has been no Revelation as we are both agreed But they can only shew us that by these two ways either by that of the Scripture in shewing us that those Mysteries and that Worship are conformable to it or by that of Transmission viva voce But as to that Transmission viva voce we are so far from being able to have a Divine certainty that we can't have so much as a humane for the Reasons which I have alleadged Which are that from the beginning of Christianity Hereticks have boasted of them and yet they were not believed for them that the Orthodox themselves were deceived in them alleadging them in false and vain things which the following Ages have rejected that the Schismatical Churches alledge them against the Latins and the Latins against the Schismaticks without one sides having any better ground then the other that the Church of Rome sets them before us for those New things which the first Ages never knew It remains therefore that the way of the Conformity to the Scripture upon which we are all agreed is that in which the Divine Revelation is contained CHAP. IX An Examination of the Objections which the Author of the Prejudices makes against the Scripture BUt this way of the Scripture according to the Author of the Prejudices is Infinite Ridiculous Impossible it has such consusions and length that we cannot come to the end of it with all our diligence The Principle of the Calvinists says he includes all these Maxims without which it cannot subsist 1. That the Church is not infallible in its decisions concerning the Faith 2. That Traditions do not make any part of the Rule of the Faith 3. That the Scripture contains in general all the points of Faith and so that whatsoever is not contained in the Scripture cannot be of Faith 4. That it contains them clearly and after a manner that is fitted to the under standing of all the World So that the certainty of that way and the hope that we can rationally conceive of it must depend upon the certainty of these Maxims Upon that we must note that it is not here Questioned whether the Scripture be Divine or not but that supposing that it is so he says only That he must demand of us those formal and decisive passages that prove those four Propositions And that when we do propose any one we must first be assured that it is taken out of a Canonical Book and to that effect we must examine the controversy of the Canonical Books and see by what Rules they may be known 2. We must be certain that that passage is conformable to the Original and to that effect we must consult the Originals 3. We must be certain that there are not different ways of Reading it that may weaken the proof 4. That we must narrowly see into the sence of the passage not to give it too great a Latitude nor to blind our selves with an appearance 5. That we must see whether there are no expressions or contrary passages which force us to take the passage in another sence 6. That we ought to consult the Interpreters of one side and of the other and to know what they say upon that passage 7. That after this we must come to the distinction of Fundamental points and those that are not Fundamental and prove it by Scripture 8. That we must examine the passages which each Sect produces in its Favour 9. That lastly after all this it is necessary that a man should trust his own Eyes and his Memory which failing to go through all the former reasons and preserving only a consused Idea of them will not further allow him to make a Just Judgment of things He concludes from thence that this way is not only interrupted with unconquerable difficulties and obstacles but that it is of a length so little proportioned to mens minds that it is evident that it cannot be that which God has chosen to instruct us in the Truths by which he would lead us to Salvation For says he if they themselves who make a profession of spending all their lives in the Study of Divinity ought to Judge that Examination to be above their abilities what will become of those who are obliged to spend the greatest part of their Time in other Occupations What will become of Judges Magistrates Tradesmen Labourers Souldiers Women Children who have as yet a very weak Judgment What will become of those who do not understand so much as any of the Languages into the which the Bible is Translated What will become of the blind who know not
how to Read What will become of those who have no understanding nor any readiness of mind How can all those People examine all those Points the Discussion of the least of which notwithstanding is evidently necessary to make them rationally determine It is easy to see that all that heap of Objections and Difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices has proposed against the way of the Scripture tends only to lead men to the Authority of the Church of Rome to the end they should subject themselves to that as a Soveraign and Infallible Rule But as the Doctrine of the Soveraign Authority of that Church is not one of those first Principles which the light of Nature dictates to all men since of Thirty parts of our known World there are at least nine and twenty who do not acknowledge it and as they cannot also say that it is one of the first and common notions of Christianity since of all those who profess themselves to be Christians there are Three parts which reject it The Author may freely give us leave if he pleases that we should first demand of him upon what Foundation he would build that Doctrine to make us receive it as a point of Divine Faith I say of Divine Faith for if we should hold it only as a matter of human Faith he himself would see well that we could not believe the things which the Church of Rome should teach in vertue of its Authority otherwise then with a humane Faith since the things which depend upon a principle cannot make an impression in us different from that which the principle has made To the end therefore that I should believe with a Divine Faith that which the Church of Rome shall teach me by its Authority it is necessary that I should also believe its Authority with a Divine Faith Thus far methinks we should not have any Controversy Let us see therefore upon what Foundations of Divine Faith he would pretend to establish this Proposition The Authority of the Church of Rome is Soveraign and Infallible He can only do it by these Three ways The first is by a new Revelation that God should have made to us of this Truth the Second in shewing that it is one of the Articles that is contained in the Revelation of the Apostles and the Third in shewing us the Characters of Divinity and Infallibility impressed upon the Church of Rome even after the same manner as every thing proves it self by the marks that distinguish it and thus it is that we pretend that the Scripture forces the acknowledgment of its own Divinity The first of these ways is nullified since they agree with us that since Jesus Christ and his Apostles there has been no new Revelation and that there must not be any expected The second would be proper and necessarily supposes a recourse either to Tradition or the Scripture for there are but these two Channels in which we can seek for the Revelation of the Apostles But that of the Scripture is forbidden us by the Author of the Prejudices by reason of the unconquerable difficulties which he discovers there It is says he a way full of obstacles and difficulties and even those who profess to spend all their days in the Study of Divinity ought to judge that Examination to be above all their abilities He must therefore content himself with the way of Tradition But before he can make use of that he must be first assured and that with a certainty of Divine Faith that that which that Tradition contains is come down from the Revelation of Jesus Christ and his Apostles or at least that this particular point of the Authority of the Roman Church in the state wherein it is at present must have proceeded from thence that the Apostles must have Transmitted it viva voce down to their Successours and that their Successours must have received it and Transmitted it down to those who descended from them in the same sence and every whit the same as the Apostles had given it to them If he cannot be assured of that Transmission all that he would build upon it will be uncertain and if he cannot be assured of it with a Divine Faith that which he would build upon it will not be more so But how can he be assur'd of that He has no more that living Voice of the Apostles to represent it to us he must rely upon Testimonyes would it therefore be the Roman Church that must assure us But her Divine and Infallible Authority is as yet in Question and while it shall be questioned it remains suspended it cannot be believed any further then with a humane Faith Shall it be the Scripture that must give Testimony to that Tradition But there are so many Difficulties in that way says the Author of the Prejudices That it is Evident that it is not that which God has chosen to Instruct us in his Truths Must we learn it from that Tradition it self But to decide that point whether that Tradition came from the Apostles or no Tradition it self can be yet no other than a humane Testimony I mean that the Successors of the Apostles declare to us that they have received such and such Doctrines from the Apostles viva voce and that they have receiv'd them in the same sence in which the Apostles gave them to them we cannot at the most have more then a humane Faith for them for they are men as well as others Hitherto therefore there cannot be had a Divine Faith concerning the point of the Sovereign and Infallible Authority of the Roman Church and nothing by Consequence that can assure the Conscience and set the mind of man at rest Let us therefore pass over to the third means which is that of examining the Characters of Divinity and Infallibility that may be seen in the Roman Church It is in my Judgment in the sight of this that they give us certain external Marks and we have already seen that the Author of the Prejudices establishes upon this that Authority about which we dispute The most eminent Authority says he that can be in the world is easily discover'd to be in the Catholick Church because though there are Sects that dispute with it the Truth of its Tenets yet there are none that can with any Colour contend with it for that eminence of Authority which arises from its External Marks But without entring here far into the Controversy touching those Marks I say that he is very far from being able to establish such a certainty upon them as we ought to have of a Principle of Religion And this will appear from these three Reasons The First is That the greatest part of those marks are common to false Societies and even to Schismatical Churches which not only are not Infallible but which are actually in Errour as I have shewn in the first part of this Treatise The Greek Church for example in
its greatest contests with the Latin was always a Catholick Church she was of as great Antiquity as the Roman she had an uninterrupted duration from many Ages ago she had her large extent and her multitude as well as the Roman she had a Personal Succession of her Bishops down from the Apostles she gloried in a Conformity to the Doctrine of the Fathers she had her members united among themselves and with her Patriarchs she did no less then the Roman affirm her Doctrine to be Holy and her word to be Efficacious and that her Authors were holy men she has yet at this day her Miracles which she boasts of she had her Prophets and Temporal Prosperity in a word she might propound all that which the Church of Rome alleadges The Aethiopian Church on her side may do it as much and yet nevertheless those Marks no ways conclude a Soveraign and Infallible Authority for them they do not therefore conclude it for the Roman Church The Second Reason is that of all those pretended marks some are disputed with the Church of Rome others are fallaciously attributed to it and others conclude nothing less then that which they pretend We dispute with her her Conformity to the Fathers the Unity of her Members between themselves and with their Head the Holiness of her Doctrine and the Efficacy of her Word It is true that she boasts of these advantages but if we should come to examine them we should find they would have nothing of Solidity in them she fallaciously ascribes to her self the name of the Catholick The Antiquity and Holiness of her Authors Miracles Prophecy and the Personal Succession of her Bishops For before they can make any advantage of those marks they ought to shew that she is a Catholick not only in name but in deed that she has chang'd nothing in the Antient Doctrine nor in the Antient worship that she has in nothing degenerated from her first Authors that she is conformable to her first Christians whose Miracles and Prophecys are beyond all question that her Bishops are the Successors of the Mind and Doctrine as well as of the Sees of the Antient Bishops and unless they do so those marks are an Illusion She produces others which conclude nothing less then that which she should conclude as the Multitude of her Children or the largeness of her extent and Temporal Prosperity which are wordly advantages more proper to denote a corruption then an Infallibility The third Reason is That there are contrary Characters in the Church of Rome which note not only that she has been and that she is yet subject to err but that she has actually err'd and we have propos'd some in the beginning of this Treatise which it may be deserve to be better consider'd No man can therefore establish any thing of certainty upon those pretended external marks and in general that principle of the Soveraign and Infallible Authority of the Church of Rome cannot be a matter of divine Faith on which side soever he takes it nor by Consequence can any of those things be so which depend upon that Authority See here then the Obligation which lies upon those in the Roman Communion to the Author of the Prejudices for having thus Abolish'd all manner of Divine Faith for those things which that Church teaches by her Authority in shutting up as he has done the way of the Scripture with his Obstacles and unconquerable Difficulties he has reduc'd all to meer Conjectures or almost all to humane Testimonies Is it therefore after that manner that he would have us believe Transubstantiation the Real presence Purgatory The Sacrifice of the Mass Is it upon the Foundations of that nature that he would have us to Invocate Saints that we should worship Images That we should adore the Host and receive the Indulgences of the Pope and Absolutions of their Confessors But he has done yet worse for it is not only the Laity and private men from whom he has taken away a divine Faith he has torn it away even from the whole Body of his Church from her Prelats her Popes and her Councils since if this Point of their Soveraign and Infallible Authority is founded upon nothing but Conjectures and humane Testimonies They can neither have a Divine Faith for those Conjectures and those humane Testimonies nor for all those other things which depend upon them Have they a Revelation an immediate Illumination that instructs them There is no more either for the Popes or Councils Should they have it from the Scripture The Author of the Prejudices has told them that it is an Infinite a Ridiculous way to Instruct men in the Truth a path which we cannot know how to find an end of whatsoever Diligence we use But it may be he says that only for the Laity and not for the Clergy Let us see his words Even those says he who profess to spend their whole Lives in the Study of Divinity ought to judge that Examination to be above all their Abilities The Church of Rome the Body of her Prelats the Councils cannot at furthest but be made up of those men who profess to spend their whole Lives in the Study of Divinity and that Examination is above all their Abilities He ought not to say that they can altogether do that which it would be impossible for each one to do in particular For when they go about to decide the matters of Faith by their Soveraign Authority as they pretend that Councils should do each particular man ought to be assured by himself of the Truth and not to refer himself to the knowledge of his Brethren With what Conscience therefore can they exercise their Authority With what Conscience can they decide the points of the Faith and propose them to be believed as points of a Divine Faith With what Conscience can they retain men in their Dependance And with what Conscience can men remain therein The Author of the Prejudices may disintangle this Business with his Church as it shall please him we have no peculiar Interest in it but only to let him see more and more the Truth of that which I have said elsewhere that he does not sufficiently consider what he has wrote Let us grant him that there is no necessity of a Divine Faith for the establishing of that Article of the Soveraign and Infallible Authority of the Roman Church let us yield if he will have it so that he may be contented with the having a humane certainty such as he may have it is clear that whether he takes the way of Tradition or that of the Examination of the External marks we shall find the same Difficulties there thes me Obstacles the same Hindrances the same length that the Author of the Prejudices pretends to have discovered in the way of the Scripture And as the External Marks themselves cannot be otherwise justified then by Tradition it shall suffice to shew what I have
said in the way of Tradition for all will be reduced to that 1. In the first place it is certain that we ought not to take all sorts of Traditions to be true indifferently since we have already seen that there are some false and Apocryphal so that we must learn plainly to distinguish it by it self the good and the Authentick from the others and to that effect to know certainly the rules by which we ought to make that distinction always remembring that the Authority of the Church of Rome is not here of any use because it is in question and that it is that Authority which we are treating of in that search See here already a no small Confusion for we must for this turn over a great many Books be well read in Histories Pass a great many Judgments which cannot be very easy to a man who will not help himself with the Authority of the Scripture 2. After we have set aside Apocryphal Tradition and it being restrained to the True we must enter upon the Examination of the question that is controverted to wit Whether the Authority of the Church of Rome as it pretends at this day be taught in that Tradition And to this effect he must see whether the Passages that are brought to prove it are faithfully related and for that he must consult the Originals and compare them with the Translations which require a great knowledge of the Tongues or at least as the Author of the Prejudices says that one should referr himself to a sufficient number of fit persons to have no occasion to doubt of the Fidelity of their Relations And as the number of Antient Books is not small that Consultation could not but be long enough 3. He must not forget also to inquire whether there be not diverse ways of reading the Passages that may weaken that proof For since the Author of the Prejudices would have us observe this Precaution to assure our selves of one only passage of Scripture why would he not have it observed to assure himself of the Passages of that Tradition It will therefore be necessary to consult the Manuscripts of Libraries or at least to read the notes which the Criticks have made upon the Books out of which those Passages shall be taken this would be yet a matter of further Labour 4. But must he not also be bound to examine narrowly the meaning of the Passages not to give them too great a Latitude and avoid being blinded with a meer Appearance For if there are in the Scripture as the Author of the Prejudices assures us that the Passages that appear clearly to Contain certain Truths and which do not in Effect contain them are an occasion of deluding those who are too easily led by that Appearance which at first sight presents it self Why must it not be so in Tradition also They ordinarily alleadge that Passage of Saint Irenaeus in Favour of the particular Church of Rome Ad haue Ecclesiam propter Potentiorem Principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est cos qui sunt undique Fideles in qua semper ab 〈◊〉 qui sunt undique Conservata est ea quae est ab his Apostolis Tradâ—tio These words seem clear to the Partisans of the Court of Rome for the establishing a necessity of being united with the particular Church of Rome and living in Dependance upon it and yet if we look a little narrowly into them we may see that they signify nothing less then that which they pretend they signify and that Irenaeus would only say thus much That the Faithfull came from all parts to the Church of Rome by reason of the Imperial power which drew all the World thither and that from thence it was that they all together preserved the Doctrine that the Apostles had left without their having any considerable difference between them That this was the meaning of Saint Irenaeus appears from the Connexion of his discourse wherein he proposes to prove that the Pretended Traditions of Hereticks could not come from the Apostles and his reason is that if they could have come from them they would have been yet found in his Time in the Churches which they had instituted and particularly in the Roman which was in a manner an Abridgment and Composition of all others by reason of the concourse of all Nations to Rome So that to shew that the Church of Rome in those times did not own any of the Tenets of those Hereticks was at once to shew that they were Traditions unknown to all the Churches and by Consequence false and not Apostolical This Example therefore shews us that one ought not to let himself be dazzled by the first Appearances of a Passage but that it ought to be narrowly examined and that as every one may see requires time and is not altogether so easy to be done 5. To carry on that Examination well in respect of the Passages of the Scripture the Author of the Prejudices would that we should carefully consider the like Expressions and contrary Passages to see whether we should not be bound by them to give another meaning to those Passages which we gather He says That Common Sense dictates this Rule and that it is full of Equity and Justice I see not therefore how he can exempt his Catechumeni from it in regard of the Passages of Tradition It is requisite that he should carefully remark the ways of speaking in the Fathers in diverse matters in order to the making them mutually give light to one another It is necessary that he should look after the contrary Passages of the Antients and that he compare them one with another to draw out clear Observations from them But this will be yet further no small Business for it is very well known that there are things enough in the Antients directly opposite to the Pretensions of the Church of Rome 6. But not to detain the Readers much longer upon so clear a matter all the Intricate Perplexity which he pretends to find in the way of the Scripture fâ—lls back again upon the way of Tradition when they would by this without the aid of the Scripture be fully satisfied concerning the Authority of the Church of Rome It is necessary to discern a true Tradition from a false one It is necessary to consult the Originals It is necessary to know the Different Ways of reading passages It is necessary to search out the meaning with great Attentiveness It is necessary to examine the like Expressions and contrary Passages It is necessary to see divers Interpretations of both sides It is necessary to know why the Roman Church distinguishes between points which every Faithful man is bound to believe with a distinct Faith and those which it is enough to believe upon the Faith of the Church It is necessary to Examine that which each Sect that does not acknowledge the Roman Church says against her And after
all that it is necessary that every one should mistrust his own Eyes and the defects of his memory and that he should be always recollecting his first thoughts to keep himself from passing a wrong Judgment In fine we will also demand of the Author of the Prejudices whether he would not give the Scripture this Honour to reckon it for one part of Tradition since it contains the first Sermons of the Apostles from whence we may draw a great deal of light for the deciding of the Question upon which we are which is that of the Authority and Infallibility of the Church of Rome For how can any man rationally determine himself upon a point of that weight without consulting the first and the most Antient piece of Tradition But that being so we see here how we are fallen back into the difficulties and perplexities which the Author of the Prejudices pretends to be unconquerable And as those Gentlemen are liable enough to be beaten with their own Weapons we will only turn against him the conclusions that he pretends to draw against us from his Principles and demand of him Whether he believes this way very proper for those who are Obliged to spend the greatest part of their time in other Employments Whether he believes it proper for Judges Magistrats Tradesmen Labourers Souldiers Women Children for those who do not understand any of the Languages into which the Fathers are Translated for the Blind who cannot Read and for those who have no quickness of understanding If I only propounded to my self to refute this Author I might content my self with what I have said and wait with patience for what he should have to propose to disintangle his Catechumeni from the Difficulties and lengths whereinto he himself has plunged them But because I desire also to satisfy mens Con Consciences I think my self bound to Answer directly to his Objections Let us therefore see those four Maxims which he says our Principle includes and without which he is certain it cannot subsist As to the first we shall tell him that it does not belong to us to lay down the proofs of this Proposition That the Church of Rome for this is that we are about is not infallible in her decisions concerning the Faith she is naturally subject to be deceived if she pretends to have a priviledge that exempts her from a weakness common to all men it belongs to her to shew it and to convince the world of it but till then we shall always have a ground to presume that she is subject to that general Law and that is sufficient without any other proof to hinder us from acknowledging her for the Rule of Faith As to the Second which is That Traditions do not make up any part of the Rule of Faith we shall tell him That it is not necessarily incumbent on us to bring a passage of Scripture to exclude Traditions that Common sence is enough for that because it dictates to all men even to the most simple if they would take heed that after sixteen hundred years or thereabouts which are gone since the Apostles days Tradition cannot but be a very confused and uncertain thing and that being so vagous as it is after its having passed through the hands of an infinite number of men naturally unsetled and changeable it is not imaginable that they should not have altered increased lessened it since that happens through a long tract of Time to all other things and by consequence that it could not at present but be out of a condition to serve for a Rule of Faith Thus far the most simple are within the limits of nature and general Experience If they pretend that Tradition ought to be exempted it does not belong to us to shew that it is not it is their part who make that pretension to produce their Reasons and yet for all that it must be presumed on the side of Nature and general Experience It appears therefore already that the Two First Propositions which our Hypothesis includes according to the Author of the Prejudices to wit That the Church of Rome is not Infallible in its decisions concerning the Faith and that Traditions do not make up any part of the Rule of Faith do not give us the least difficulty but they give an infinite one to our adversaries For they ought solidly to prove the contrary Propositions not only to the Learnned and knowing persons but to the most simple also to Tradesmen to Labourers to Souldiers to Women and generally to all or otherwise they abuse their credulity retaining them without Reason and without Justice in their Communion in which they cannot remain with a good Conscience unless they are assured of the Truth of these two Articles That the Church of Rome is Infallible in her decisions of Faith and that Traditions make up a part of the Rule of Faith But how can those people have that certainty As for what respects the Third Proposition to wit That the Scripture contains all the points of the Faith generally it has no more need then the others to be proved by passages of Scripture It is sufficient to establish it to see that we cannot be assured of the Faith either by the decisions of the Church or Tradition For that thing it self necessarily leads all Christians to the Scripture alone there being nothing besides the decisions of the Church and Tradition that can Dispute a part with it There remains therefore only the Fourth Proposition which is That the Scriptures generally contain all the points of Faith after a manner fitted to the understandings of all the World But this proposition so framed is not ours neither is it included in our Hypothesis We only say that that which the Scripture contains in a manner fitted to the understanding of all the World concerning the Faith and Manners is sufficient for Salvation provided that moreover they have not Errors that hinder that effect But there is no need of proving this proposition by Texts of Scripture It sufficiently proves it self as well by the very nature of the things that the Scripture clearly Teaches as by the light of common sence and the first notions of the Conscience For those first notions dictate to all Christians that although God be free in the dispensation of his Call he is notwithstanding in good earnest towards all those to whom his Call is addressed and that there being among those the weak as well as the strong the simple as well as the Learned it must necessarily be concluded that he would render his Salvation inaccessible or impossible to the simpler sort provided that they seriously applyed themselves to it according to their Call The Author of the Prejudices himself acknowledges this Principle and he calls it a principle of common sence He draws ill consequences from it but the True Consequence that must be drawn is Those things which the Scripture clearly Teaches and after a manner
capable of forming a true and saving Faith even in the hearts of the most simple The First is That they be sufficient for the Salvation of the most simple The Second That they be fitted to their capacity The Third That they should have a certainty great enough to form a true perswasion in their Souls and the Fourth That they should form a pure faith and free'd from all Damnable Errors But all these conditions may be found in the Object we are speaking of which are clearly propounded in the Scripture They are sufficient for Salvation For who will dare to deny that it is not sufficient for the Salvation of the most simple to know the Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost one only Eternal God wholly perfect the Creator and Preserver of the World the absolute Disposer of all events the Soveraign Lord of all things Author of all Judge of men and Angels and to form an Idea which inspires in an infinite Degree Respect Love Obedience Trust Invocation and acknowledgment of what we owe to him and which makes up the Sole Object of our Religion To know the profound misery of man his natural corruption his ignorance his sin his damnation his impotency to get out of that misery wherein he is and to form an Idea that excites humility horrour at his own state fear of Gods Judgments and those holy inquietudes of Conscience which Jesus Christ calls hunger and thirst after Righteousness To know that Jesus Christ the Son of God is our only Remedy who out of love to us was made man who dyed for our Salvation who is risen again who is ascended up into Heaven who reigns there now over all things who interceeds there before God for us and who from his high Heaven sheds abroad his Holy Spirit into the Souls of his faithful ones and to have those thoughts which make us run to him to place all our hope in him to do nothing that may displease him to do on the contrary all that he commands us to imitate him and to glorify him as he deserves as much as we are able To know the mercy of God which pardons us our Sins through Jesus Christ which gives us Heaven with all necessary graces to carry us thither and to have Sentiments that carry us out to Repentance to Confession to Prayer to Thankfulness for the Favours which he communicates to us to patience in afflictions to Trust to Charity as well towards God as toward our Neighbour to Justice to Goodness to Compassion towards those who are in misery to forgive those injuries that are done to us and to hold a Religious and brotherly Society with those who have the same Sentiments with our own Who can doubt but that these things well known and well practised as we have laid them down are not sufficient to the Salvation of the most simple But says the Author of the Prejudices It is not enough that these things should be sufficient for the Salvation of the most simple it is further necessary for the quiet of their Consciences that they should know that they are sufficient But they cannot know that without scrupulously examining the Question of the Fundamental points and the not Fundamental which requires a long and difficult discussion This Objection is vain For if those Articles which I have before set down in general are alone sufficient for the Salvation of the most simple it is impossible that a good Soul of that order should not understand their sufficiency since those Objects satisfy all the just and natural desires of the Conscience In effect They make the most simple know the God whom they ought only to serve they discover to them their own misery they mark out their Remedy and the means of their delivery they inspire into them Piety Holiness Justice Charity Repentance Consolation in their Afflictions and the hope of a life to come and they furnish them with necessary motives to the love of God and their Neighbour which is the fulfilling of the Law or as Saint Paul speaks the end of the Commandment It is not therefore necessary to the establishing the quiet of the Conscience of a man for him to enter upon the Question of the Fundamental and the not-Fundamental points nor that he should engage himself in the difficulties and distinctions that study and Meditation might furnish the Learned with on that Subject That Peace is sufficiently established by the things themselves which I have mentioned and provided that one believes and practises them well they will never fail to appease the troubles of a Soul and of setling in it a firm hope of its Salvation But says the Author of the Prejudices yet further The Roman Church and the Greek Church deny that all the Tenets necessary to Salvation should be restrained to the things that are clearly contained in the Scripture so that of necessity they must enter upon enter into the Examination of this Point for the Authority of the Church of Rome well deserves that we should not without Examination prefer the rash affirmation of a Minister before it I answer That the Sentiment of a good Conscience which contents it self with the things clearly contained in the Scripture finding it self upheld by these two Reflexions the one That God has not any more made the Souls of the meer simple then those of the most Learned to be deluded with the inventions of the humane understanding under the pretence of Tradition or of the decision of the Church and the other That God has not made his Salvation inaccessible to them well deserves to be prefered without any further Examination before all the interested pretensions of the Roman Prelates and all the Superstitious Reveries of the Greeks And after this manner it will not be necessary to enter into any dispute upon that subject They may dispute of it as much as they please in the Schools the simpler sort need not do it they are sufficiently contented to hold to all that which they find to be clearly expressed in the Scripture We must therefore pass on to the second Condition and see whether those things which I have noted are not clearly to be found in the Scripture and that in a way fitted to the capacity of the most simple But it is certain that they are to be found there and that they are laid down with sufficient Evidence not to surpass the reach of their understandings and that they are few enough for number not to exceed the force of their memories But the Author of the Prejudices demands of us what clearness we mean when we say that all the things that are necessary to Salvation are clearly contained in the Scripture For says he if Mr. Claude means such a clearness as will convince all well disposed and ill-disposed persons and that no prejudice can darken it so that he acknowledges nothing necessary to Salvation but what is expressed in the Scripture in that manner to be
Letters of Safe-conduct violated in the person of John Husse and Jerom of Prague They caused in the end a Writing to be Printed containing all these reasons and divers others too long to transcribe to justifie themselves against the calumnies of their adversaries and they published it not only in Germany but in other foreign Countries also Some time after the Pope published another Bull by which he prolonged the holding of the Council under a pretence that he could not agree with the Duke of Mantua and a little after he assign'd it at Vicenza Notwithstanding the prosecutions continued alwayes against the Protestants every where where the Pope had any Authority In Germany the Imperial Chamber committed a thousand injustices and outrages against them In France the flames were kindled in all the Provinces and although Henry the Eighth King of England had thrown off the Yoke of Rome yet he did not fail to appear a good Catholick to put to death without mercy all those who had learned the New Religion The same was done in Scotland in Flanders and in all the Countreys of the Duke of Savoy In the year 1539. the Pope published a Bull by which he suspended the Convocation of a Council indefinitely until it should be his good pleasure to have one held And moreover there was held in this same year an Imperial Diet at Franckfort whither the Emperour sent the Arch-Bishop of London as his Commissioner and decreed with him that to labour to put an end to the differences about Religion he should make a friendly Conference between the most Learned and well meaning persons both on the one side and on the other who without the intervention of the Pope should have nothing before their eyes but the glory of God and the good of the Church and that notwithstanding they should let the Protestants have peace for fifteen months under conditions that were yet harsh enough to them But this Resolution so highly offended the Pope that as soon as he had received the news of it he dispatch'd away a Nuntio to the Emperour who was then in Spain with orders to complain and to hinder by all sorts of wayes that he should not authorize it by his consent The Protestants having sent thither on their parts the Emperour would not for that time declare himself but dismiss'd that business to another season After which he went into the Low-Countreys to appease some popular Sedition there and having there put the matter into debate because he was to give some answer Cardinal Farnese who was Legate there before him opposed him with all his might remonstrating the inconveniencies that might arise from such a Conference and that he had far better referr the cause of Religion to a Council and notwithstanding to sortifie the Catholick League to make the Protestants submit by fair means or foul against whom he made a very long Invective This counsel notwithstanding did not then please the Emperour he appointed a Diet to be held in Germany for the Conference and he invited all the Princes to come in person thither promising publick safety to all which oblig'd the Cardinal Legate to retire in great discontent This Cardinal in his return went into France and obtain'd of Francis the First an Edict against those whom he call'd Hereticks and Lutherans which was afterwards publish'd and executed through his whole Kingdom with extream rigour The Conference was first assigned at Haguenaw a little after at Wormes and the Pope who feared the success thought good to send thither his Nuntio Thomas Campeius with Paulus Vergerius in whom he reposed a great deal of confidence But the Policy of the Court of Rome was too averse to an accommodation to suffer that Conference to proceed far the Emperour therefore at the urgent solicitation of the Pope broke it off by express Letters and referred it to a Diet which he would have held some time after at Ratisbon The Protestants saw clearly to what all these delayes tended and yet nevertheless they did not fail to appear at Ratisbon whither the Emperour came in person and whither the Pope had also sent Cardinal Contarenus in the quality of his Legate This was in the year 1541. Moreover the Emperour caused a Book to be presented on his part to the Assembly which chiefly treated of the Articles of Religion and particularly of those which were in controversie and he declar'd that it was his Will that that Book should be examined and that it should serve as the Theme or Subject of the Conference for which he himself named the Collocutors by the consent of both parties who deferr'd that nomination to him In this Conference the Collocutors agreed upon some Articles and could not agree upon some others as upon those of Transubstantiation of the Adoration of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the Celibacy of Priests the Communion under one kind the Sacrament of Penance And the Emperour having consulted the Legate about this to know of him what he should do on this occasion the Legate gave him his answer in writing That after having seen as well the Articles agreed upon between the Collocutors as the others which they could not come to agree about it was his judgement that he ought to ordain nothing about the rest but that he ought to refer all to the Holy See which could in a General Council or otherwise do that which it should judge necessary for the good of the Church and in particular for that of Germany The Emperour took this answer as if the Legate had consented that the Articles agreed upon between the Collocutors should immediately be received by both the Parties and he related it to the Assembly after that manner But there sprung up a kind of division between the Bishops of one side and the Roman Catholick Princes on the other For the Princes would that the Articles agreed upon should be received and that the rest should be referred either to a General or National Council or at least to a General Assembly of the States of the Empire and the Bishops on the contrary who saw that this was the beginning of a Reformation were of opinion that they should reject those Articles agreed upon wherein they said that the Catholick Collocutors had too much given way to the Protestants and that they should change nothing either in Religion or its Ceremonies but that they should refer all to a General or a National Council This dispute therefore having so hapned the Legate feared lest they should upon this meddle with the affairs of the Court of Rome so that he openly declared by another publick Writing that he did not mean that they should receive any Articles but that they should absolutely refer all as well the agreed on as the others to his Holiness for him to determine what he should think fit He published yet farther another Writing by which he very much condemned as well the Catholick Princes as the Bishops
that every Society which has not that extension is not the Church so that this reasoning is alwayes sound your Society is shut up in a little part of the world Therefore it is not the Church and that it is by this Principle that S. Augustine has disputed against the Donatists and convinced them of Schism This is the summ of his eighth Chapter In the ninth he labours to apply these general Maxims to our Separation and 1. He sayes That our Communion is not spread over all the world any more than that of the Donatists and that not having that visible extension which is the perpetual mark of the True Church it follows that it is not so and by consequence that we are all Schismaticks 2. He sayes We carry the principle of the Donatists much higher than those Schismaticks stretch'd it for as for them they did not say that there ever was a time in which the Church had wholly fell into Apostasic and that they excepted the Communion of Donatus but as for us we will have it that there has been whole Ages in which all the world had generally apostatized and lost the faith and treasure of salvation 3. He labours to shew that the Societies of the Berengarians of the Waldenses and Albigenses c. in whom he sayes we shut up the Church could not be this Catholick Church of which S. Augustine speaks And lastly He concludes from thence that we are Schismaticks and by consequence out of a state of salvation Before we enter upon the particular Examination of the Propositions whereof this Objection is made up it will be good to note that there is nothing new in all that and that it is nothing but that some mark of visible extension that the greatest part of the Controversial Writers of the Roman Communion have been wont to propound when they would give the marks of the True Church There is this only difference to be found in it that the others labour to ground this upon what they produce out of the passages of the Scripture whereas the Author of the Prejudices grounds his argument upon the sole Authority of S. Augustine and some Fathers But when it should be true that S. Augustine and the African Fathers disputing against the Donatists should have prest this visible extension of the Church too much and urged it further than they ought will the Author of the Prejudices believe that he ought to hold all those things that the Fathers have advanc'd in their disputes for infallible and all their reasonings and hypotheses to have been so Does he not know what Theodoret himself who was a Father has noted concerning some of those who were before him That the vehemence of Disputation had made them fall into excesses just as those who would rectifie a crooked Tree turn it too much on the other side from that straightness which it ought to have And is he ignorant of what S. Athanasius said concerning Dionysius of Alexandria whose Authority the Arians objected to him That Dionysius had said so not with design to make a simple exposition of his faith but occasionally having a respect to the times and persons That a Gardiner is not to be found fault with if he cultivate his Trees according to the quality of the soil sowing one planting another pruning this and plucking up that We must sayes S. Jerome distinguish between the different kinds of writing and especially of Polemical and Dogmatical For in the Polemical the dispute is vagous and when they answer to an adversary they propound sometimes one thing and sometimes another they argue as they think fit they say one thing and do another or as the Proverb sayes they offer bread and give one a stone But in the Dogmatical on the contrary they speak openly and ingenuously We may easily apprehend by that that we ought not to hold for Canonical all that the Fathers may have wrote in the heat of their disputes or to take what they have said according to the rigour of the Letter since they themselves acknowledge that having the Pen in their hands they often advance things that on other occasions ought not to be press'd So that though it should be true that S. Augustine and the African Fathers had made that visible extension an inseparable and perpetual mark of the True Church yet we should not fear to say in respect of them what S. Augustine himself has said concerning S. Cyprian whom the Donatists objected to him I do not hold the Writings of Cyprian for Canonical but I examine them by the Canonical Scriptures That which I find in them conformable to the holy Scriptures I receive with praising him and I reject with the respect that I owe to his person what I find in them disagreeing thereto We should make no scruple to apply to them what the same S. Augustine has said on the subject of S. Hilary and some other Fathers whom they alledg'd to him We must throughly distinguish these sorts of writings from the Authority of the Canonical Books For however we should read them yet we cannot draw convincing testimonies from them and it is allow'd us to depart from them when we see that they themselves have departed from the truth It is therefore certain that the Author of the Prejudices has but weakned his proof when instead of labouring to establish it on the Scripture as the rest have done he restrains it to the meer Authority of S. Augustine and some Fathers We have thought that we ought to have freely represented this to the Author of the Prejudices to oblige him a little to moderate his pretensions for he imagin'd that the sole Authority of S. Augustine and some Fathers was enough to convince us I will sayes he convince them we have frequently told him already and shall tell him here again That the Scripture is the only rule of our Faith that we do not acknowledge any other authority able to decide the disputed Points in Religion than that of the Word of God and that if we sometimes dispute by the Fathers it is but by way of condescention to those of the Church of Rome to act upon their own principle and not to submit our consciences to the word of men But because that he may also imagine under a pretence of this declaration that we have no other way to answer his argument I shall undertake to answer here and shew him if I can that he has abused the Authority of S. Augustine and that he has neither comprised or had a mind to comprehend either the true sentiments of that Father or ours This is that which I design to shew him in this Chapter and in the following But before we enter upon this matter it will be necessary to clear in a few words the History of the Donatists and to represent what was the beginning of their quarrel and what their Separation was The Author of the
the Prejudices has set before us which is that Schismaticks are out of a state of Salvation For I hold that this Proposition cannot be maintain'd after the manner that the Author of the Prejudices has propounded it that is to say absolutely and without any distinction I am not ignorant that to establish this rigorous sentiment they produce some passages of the Fathers who have in effect spoke of Schism in extreamly vehement terms as if they had a design to exclude from the communion of God and all hopes of salvation all those in general who should be found engaged in it But that very thing ought to be an example to let us see that we must not alwayes take according to the rigour of the Letter all that the Fathers have said in the heat of their disputes For unless we should be altogether unreasonable we must place a difference between three sorts of persons who are to be found in a Schismatical communion 1. The Authors of Schism who usually are the Pastors and Guides of the flock 2. Understanding persons who take part in the affairs and who very well knowing what they do give their consent to Schism and defend the Authors of it 3. The people that is to say the ignorant persons who scarce know any thing that passes or who know but very confusedly And for that which regards the Authors and other intelligent persons as it is most frequently passion interest pride and ambition that make them separate and that all those passions turn them in the end into an implacable hatred against their brethren they deserve our condemnation for those crimes are incompatible with the Spirit of Jesus Christ and it is a manifest demonstration that the world and its corruption reigns in the souls of those who are guilty of it we must therefore say of such Schismaticks as these that while they remain in this condition there is no hope of salvation for them because that the true faith the Covenant of God and the communion of Jesus Christ cannot subsist under the reign of those brutal passions But to imagine that the whole body of a people who are to be found engaged in a Schism either through the faction of the more powerful or a conscience prepossess'd by a zeal without knowledge by a Piety too scrupulous should be depriv'd of all hope of salvation this would be without doubt to fall into a very rigid Opinion To make this clear by Examples I have already mentioned elsewhere that Victor Bishop of Rome excommunicated the Churches of Asia upon the difference about the day of Easter from whence there followed a Schism between those Churches and this of Rome I do not now enquire to which of the two parties the crime of the Separation ought to be imputed either to the Asiaticks who adhered too strictly to the custom of their Ancestors and the Authority of Polycarp or to Victor who without Prudence and Charity separated him from divers great and flourishing Churches about a matter that was left self-free and indifferent in Religion I only say that this would be an horrible injustice to condemn those people to eternal flames who should be found to be engaged in that ridiculous quarrel only through the capricious humours of their Bishops In effect we have seen that notwithstanding this Schism they did not fail both the one and the other to sit together in the Council of Nice We must pass the same judgement of a Schism that fell out in the fourth Century at Antioch between the Meletians and the Eustatians both the one and the other Orthodox and separated from the Arrians but who nevertheless would not communicate together because that although Meletius had preached and defended the Council of Nice and suffered persecution for it yet he had been created Bishop by the Arians by reason of which the other Orthodox would no more communicate with those of his party which obliged them to hold their Assemblies apart It was therefore a true Schism on one side and on the other but as it proceeded only from an excess of zeal on the side of the Eustatians we ought not to pass a sentence of damnation so lightly against them I say the same thing of the Schism that fell out about the end of the Fifth Century between Acatius Bishop of Constantinople and Felix the Third Bishop of Rome who mutually excommunicated one another for the interests of John Talaia and Peter Mongus competitors for the Patriarchate of Alexandria Acacius defended the side of Peter whom Felix accused to be a Heretick and an enemy to the Council of Chalcedon and Felix on the contrary upheld Talaia whom Acacius had accused of Perjury and to be unworthy of a Bishoprick and this Schism also lasted down to their Successors thirty and five years between the East and West But although Acacius drawn in by intrigues to the side of an hypocrite had wrong at the foundation yet we ought not notwithstanding to believe that all those great Churches who kept communion with him and defended his memory after his death were absolutely cut off from the hope of Paradise In the Sixth Century there was another Schism whereof I have already spoken which was very contentious and embroiled under the Emperour Justinian Vigilius being Bishop of Rome and Mennas Patriarch of Constantinople The ground of the quarrell was taken from the Writings that had been approved in the Council of Chalcedon and which afterwards were condemned as heretical by the Emperour Justinian and the condemnation was subscribed by Mennas and the other Patriarchs and their Bishops Vigilius who was of another opinion undertook the defence of those Writings and excommunicated Mennas and the rest who had condemned them But some Months after he took off his Excommunication at the solicitation of the Empress Theodora to whom he owed his Bishoprick and which was more in the following year he himself pronounced an Anathema against those three Writings But the Bishops of Africa Illyria and Dalmatia persisted to defend them and those in Africa assembled in Council excommunicated Vigilius as a dissembler Some time after Vigilius repenting himself of that which he had done undertook a second time the defence of those Writings Justinian on the contrary made an Edict by which he renewed their condemnation and Vigilius on his side excommunicated all those who should consent to this Edict In fine the Fifth General Council assembled at Constantinople where in spight of all the Decrees of the Bishop of Rome the three Writings were condemned and all those who should approve them were excommunicated Vigilius persisting in his opinion was banished and dyed some years after But his Successors Pelagius and Gregory approved the Council and subscribed to what had been done there and it was in fine generally received by all and reckoned for a Fifth General Council We must acknowledge that if the people were to be saved or damned according to the good or
not God his Prophets and his Altars yet among them Lord said Elias they have killed thy Prophets and thrown down thy Altars And the hundred Prophets of God that Obadiah hid in two Caves to withdraw them from the persecution of the Idolatress Jezabel the Altar of God that Elias repaired in Carmel to sacrifice there by the miraculous fire that fell down from Heaven to consume the victim the calling of Elisha and Micaiah and in a word the whole History of those schismatical Ten Tribes does it not evidently note that God looked on them as his true Church in which there was yet a means to be saved We must not therefore abuse that which the Fathers have wrote against Schismaticks in intending to aggravate their crime and to draw them from it nor must we take their expressions in the whole rigour of the letter Their meaning is not that all those generally who are found engaged in a Schismatical Communion even down to Tradesmen and Labourers who remain there with an upright heart and through the prejudice of their consciences are out of the Church and eternally damned but that the Authors and Defenders of Schism who run into it through their personal interests or out of a spirit of fierceness pride and an hatred incompatible with the Spirit of Jesus Christ commit a horrible crime and that while they are in that state they remain deprived of all hopes of salvation That if the Fathers have said any thing more generally and which cannot be thus restrained it is just to understand it in a comparative sense that is to say that setting that Schismatical party of the Church in opposition to that which is not so the hope of salvation appears evidently in this which it does not in the other where it is obscured by that Schism The End of the Third Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE FOURTH PART Of the Right that our Fathers had to hold a Christian Society among themselves by Publick Assemblies and the Exercise of the Ministry CHAP. I. That our Fathers had a Right to have their Church-Assemblies separate from those of the Church of Rome on the supposition that they were right in the Foundation THE Order of the Matters of this Treatise requires that we now go on to that Separation which the Author of the Prejudices calls Positive and that after having confirmed the Right that our Fathers had to Examine the State of Religion and the Church in their days after our having shewed the indispensable necessity that lay upon them to forsake the Assemblies of the Church of Rome and to live apart from her Communion that we also establish the Right that they had to set up a Christian Society among themselves notwithstanding their going off from the other Party who were not for a Reformation and to make up alone and apart a Body of the Church or an External and visible Communion This is that which I pretend to establish in this Fourth and last Part and to that end I shall here Treat of two things The first shall respect the Right of those Publick Assemblies and the Second shall be concerning that of the Gospel Ministry wherein our Function lies Howsoever these two things have a dependance one upon another it will yet be well to Treat of them with some distinction To make the First clear I shall first lay it down as an indisputable Truth That the Right of Religious Assemblies naturally follows that of Societies I mean That as far as a Religious Society is Just and Lawful so far the Assemblies that are therein made are Just and Lawful and that on the contrary as far as a Society is unjust and wicked so far its Assemblies are so too This Principle is evident to common sence and it is for that Reason that we condemn the Assemblies of the Heathens Jews and Mahometans as Unlawful and Criminal because their Societies are impious and wicked and that having no right to be united to believe and practice those Errors which they believe and practice they have also no right to Assemble themselves together in order to make a Publick Profession It is for the same Reason that we hold on the contrary the Christian Assemblies to be not only Just and Allowable but to be necessary and commanded by Divine Right because the Christian Society that is to say the Church is it self also of Divine Right It is then True that the Right of Assemblies follows that of Societies But we must further suppose as another evident and certain Truth That our Fathers before the Reformation were Latin Christians living in the Communion of the Latin Church in which they made as considerable a party as the rest of the Latins and that from Father to Son throughout a long succession Time out of mind they enjoyed with the others the rights of that Society That they were equally in possession of it with the other common Assemblies of that Religion having a part in the Ministry in the Churches in the Sacraments in the publick Prayers in the Reading and Preaching of the Word and that as far as the communion of the Latin Church was lawful so far the part that our Fathers had in it was lawful also That it was not a company of Strangers or unknown persons come from the utmost parts of America or the Southern Lands nor a sort of People dropt down from the Clouds who were newly joyned together with them in the same Society but Persons and whole Families setled a long time ago who were joyned together with them in the Profession of the Christian Religion many Ages before and who by consequence were in possession of the Rights of that Society Although had they been Strangers Americans and Barbarians on whom God should have suddenly bestowed the Favour of Calling them to the True Faith and the True Holiness of Christanity yet we could believe that by that thing alone they would have been invested in all the Rights of that Society as much as if they had had it by a long possession time out of mind But howsoever it be they were Christians from Father to Son and neither their blood nor their birth did distinguish them from the others We are now concerned only to search out whether that which hapned to our Fathers that is to say their Reformation their Condemnation by the Popes and by their Council of Trent and their Separation from the Church of Rome can be able to spoil them of all their Rights For if it be True that they were fallen off either by their own ill Carriage or by the meer Authority of the Church of Rome we must yield that our Assemblies are Unlawful and Criminal but if on the contrary they were not so fallen off if that which hapned to them did nothing else but confirm their Right and render it more pure more just and more indisputable they ought also
been noted in the Third Part. But sometimes the ground of those Divisions is taken from Doctrine or Worship or the general Rules of Manners and consists in those things that are acknowledged by both sides to be weighty and essential and in this Rank we may place those Divisions which arose in the Antient Church by reason of the Samosatenians the Arrians the Macedonians Nestorians and Eutychians I acknowledge that when the Question is only about Divisions of the former sort we cannot rationally hinder our selves from acknowledging that Party to be the Body of the Church which has the advantages before spoken of and looking by consequence on the other Party as a Sect cut from it The one is the Tree and the other the cut-off Branch the one is the Sun and the other a separated Ray. And the Reason that makes that Prejudice Just is not that the greater party cannot have done wrong at the bottom or that it cannot erre For it frequently happens that Prejudice Passion Interest Cabals prevail among those who have the Ecclesiastical Authority in their hands which makes them give unjust Judgments and it may be the Author of the Prejudices would not maintain all the decisions and Excommunications of the Church of Rome to be Just But the Reason of that Prejudice is that though even the greater Part should have done wrong in the Foundation yet the matter treated on is not of such importance as that it can take away from a Society the Quality of the true Church of Jesus Christ while sound Doctrine intirely subsists there and Worship remains pure From whence it follows that there being there no sufficient cause of Separation the lesser Party can't be looked upon otherwise then as Schismatical because it is cut off from the Greater without necessity and supposing at the same time that it should have Reason in the Foundation yet its Separation would not cease to be criminal It is in this Case that Saint Augustin would have those whom violence or as he says carnal Sedition has driven from the Christian Assemblies to suffer patiently the injury done to them without throwing themselves either into Heresy or Schism and without setting up of Assemblies apart but that they should maintain and defend even to the death the Faith which they know Preached in the Church Sine ulla says he Conventiculorum segregatione usque ad mortem defendentes Testimonio juvantes eam fidem quam in Ecclesia Catholica praedicari sciunt But it is otherwise when the Division is about matters of the Second sort those I mean that are founded upon the weighty points of Doctrine or Worship For then the true Church ought alone to be sought for where the true Faith is where it is goes neither by extent of places nor by number nor by the Body of Pastors or Prelates nor by the Walls of Temples nor by Councils that we ought to Judge of it but by the true Doctrine and where that is to be found there without doubt is a Right to be in a Society and to gather Assemblies The Reason is evident because we cannot say in that Case that although the more numerous Party more extended and which has the Body of Pastors of its side should be wrong in the Foundation yet that it would not always keep the quality of a true Church as it may be said in the former Case For a Society that Teaches Error and practises a false Worship and that will receive none into its Communion but those who believe all that it believes and practise all that it practises cannot be a True Church whatsoever advantages it have otherwise so that finding it opposite to another pure Society there is no need to hesitate in ones Choice In the first Case the lesser Party cannot be other then Schismatical because whatsoever Reason it may have at the bottom it would be better to yield then to Separate ones self but it is not so in the Second for it would be better to separate ones self then to yield since in yielding one should fall into Fundamental Errors and Superstitions contrary to true Piety In a word in the former Case the Number Dignity Extent of place the Body of the Pastors Multitude ought to prevail over Reason in a particular Injustice because a Church may be in some respect unjust without hazarding the Salvation of its Children but in the Second Reason drawn from Injustice Error false Doctrine false Worship is a thousand times more considerable then all those advantages which I have noted because we cannot renounce the true Doctrine and the true Worship of God in things of great moment in which our Salvation would not be absolutely concerned It is this difference that causes us to take notice of two different ways in the Fathers which appear so opposite and contrary one to another that at first sight trouble our minds For when they wrote against the Novatians or against the Donatists or against the Luciferians who separated themselves out of frivolous Reasons that is to say upon points of Discipline and personal accusations but who otherwise acknowledged the Church they had quitted to be Orthodox they set before the people that Multitude Extension the Body of the Pastors Succession and other advantages of that Nature as things that shewed of what side the Church was and then they held that the lesser Party cut off from the greater was as a Member divided from the Body a Branch cut off from the Tree or as a Ray Separated from the Sun But when they were engag'd against the Arrians who taught false Doctrine they did not care to make use of those sorts of Arguments on the contrary they restrain'd themselves to look for the Church where the True Doctrine and Faith was and they had no Consideration either of the Body of the Pastors or of the Multitude or Pulpits or Councils when the Arrians made use of them to the Prejudice of the true Doctrine as I have shewn in the Third Part. But that very thing evidently discovers the Ordinary Cheat that their Missionaries are guilty of and the other petty Writers of Controversy of the Church of Rome and into which the Author of the Prejudices himself falls Which is that in stead of following with respect to us the way of Writing that the Fathers took when they wrote against the Arrians from whom they differed in points of Doctrine since the Cause is like they follow on the contrary that that the same Fathers took against the Novations the Donatists and Luciferians with whom they did not quarrel about matters of Doctrine which is a meer Sophism where they confound two altogether different Questions in referring to one Case that which cannot have any place but in the other But they will say Are not you your self guilty of Fallacy in perpetually supposing as you do in this dispute that you have Right at the Bottom For that is the thing that is most
Judges of things no otherwise then by what they tell them and by some light appearances without informing themselves any further Nevertheless it is certain that there never was a more unjust Accusation then that nor whose injustice could be more easily seen if they would but open their Eyes a little For as to that which respects that pretended Novelty of Religion which they say that we have introduced I would fain have them mark out some positive Articles of our Faith that were not always believed in the Christian Church and which they themselves to this day do not believe in the Church of Rome without any ways scrupling them I confess that they may have among them some Questions of the School about which our positive Doctrine is different from that of the Church of Rome as the Question of the Nature of Concupiscence that of the dolors of the Soul of Jesus Christ and that of the Definition of the Faith But besides that those Questions are very few in Number and that they are scarce known by the People we have the Holy Scriptures so clearly on our side upon all those points that they cannot lay any Novelty to our Charge and for the rest all our great Differences consist in respect of us in Negative Articles that is to say in those points which the Church of Rome believes and which we do not believe as the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation Oral Manducation Adoration of the Host Purgatory Invocation of Saints and Angels Religious Worship of Images that of Relicks the Divine Service in an unknown Tongue the Necessity of the Caelibacy of the Clergy the merit of good works the Authority of Traditions the Monarchy of the Pope the Infallibility of the Church of Rome her Soveraign power over mens Consciences and other such like Doctrines It is True that we have rejected those Doctrines but since it is also true that we have rejected them only because they are Novelties that men have added to God's Revelation beyond which there can be nothing in Religion that should not be new what ground have any of them to accuse us as Innovators They would have far more ground to say that we are too rigid Followers of Antiquity and that we urge our Scruples and our Aversions for these Novelties further then we ought or at least that we deceive our selves and take that for new which indeed is not so If they said no more but that we should labour to justify our selves but to charge us under that pretence with a Spirit of Novelty is the most unreasonable and groundless thing in the World That which makes the Fallacy is That the people whose sight is extream short and who Judge of the Novelty and Antiquity of things only by that which appears open to them imagine that all that which they received from their Fathers and which they found setled when they came into the World is Antient throughout so that a false Antiquity which shall be only of two or three Ages past passes in their Judgments for as good and true a one as if it had been always so Notwithstanding which it is certain that in matters of Religion nothing can be truly Antient but that which was from the beginning and nothing can be Divine but that which is from Jesus Christ and his Apostles for it is a thing very evident and acknowledged on both sides that from the Time of Jesus Christ and his Apostles There has been no immediate Revelation whence it follows That all that which is sprung up since is humane and by consequence New This is the True Idea that we ought to form of Old and New and not that popular Idea which cannot but be false and deceitful and yet notwithstanding it is upon this latter that they ground themselves when they accuse us to have been Innovators and to have made a new Religion as if Jesus Christ had been an Innovator then when he would correct the abuses that the Jews committed in their Divorces by telling them In the beginning it was not so It is after the same manner that they charge us with having made a new Church for they play upon the Equivocalness of the word New The People who imagine that all that which appears to them in another form then that which they have been wont to see is new believe that our Society is new because they see that we do not Assemble our selves any more with them as we did before that we have other places then the usual that we do not any more say Mass in our Assemblies that we hold another Order and that we have other Ministers But there needs here only a Distinction For a thing is called New either with respect to its being and its Essence in respect of its External State and its changeable Accidents When an Infant comes into the World they say a new man is born when a new House or Town is built where there none before they say it is a new Town or a new House and the same may be said when one thing is essentially changed into another thing as when God changed Moses's Rod into a Serpent or when Jesus Christ changed the water of Cana into Wine it might be said that it was a new thing because in effect it was not essentially the same thing that it was before But when it is only changed in its State or External Form as when a Man changes his countenance his Stature or his Inclination manner of acting or Cloaths or when he repairs a House or a Town if then any should say this were a new thing without doubt he would speak improperly It is not less manifest that it is no more then a sigurative Expression which ought not to be taken litterally nor in a rigorous sence So when Saint Paul calls a converted man a new Man a new Creature and the Church a new Heaven a new Earth a new World every one sees that these are ways of speaking that ought not to be taken literally but figuratively for a Believer is essentially the same man and the same Creature of God that he was before his Conversion and Heaven Earth and the World are not changed in their Essence by the manifestation of the Gospel Besides a thing that is changed in its external Form may be called new either with respect to the State wherein it was immediately before its change or with respect to the Just and lawful State wherein it should be according to its first Establishment so when one repairs a ruined House if it keeps its first proportion We may say that it is made new in respect of what it was before its Reparation but if its first and natural Fashion should be changed it would be new even in respect of what it should have been according to the Model by which it was made at first These Distinctions clear this whole Dispute and it is not difficult to apply them to the subject we
shalt worship one only God in believing the Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation they annihilated in effect the Sacrifice of the Cross and they removed as much as in them lay Jesus Christ from the Right hand of his Father But those who took things in a good sence destroyed on the contrary the evil by the good for in adoring one only God they taught others not to pay any Religious Worship to Creatures in placing their confidence in the Death of Jesus Christ for their sakes they taught Learned to reject the Sacrifice of the Mass all humane Satisfactions and in seriously believing that Jesus Christ was in Heaven they were dis-abused about his corporal presence on the Altars In fine they could each in particular very well do what our Fathers did altogether when they Reformed themselves for their Reformation wrought nothing but what the same Doctrine which they had Taught them One only God and one only Jesus Christ made them reject all that they rejected Besides it is certain that the greatest part of those things which we believe contrary to the true Faith were then Taught and received and practised in the Latin Church more by force of Custom then any publick Authority that could impose any necessity on mens Consciences even according to the principles of the Church of Rome at this day which leaves private men liberty enough to reject them And when they should come to be even publickly determined with all the necessary formalities which they have not been yet there would always remain to every private man a natural right to examine and reject them since the Authority of Men how great soever it be can never bind the Consciences of the Faithful We do not therefore Question but that God has always preserved under that Ministry a great number of persons who have made that Separation of the good from the ill and it is in those that the Church may subsist But besides those how many simple people were there whose own simplicity and ignorance hid them from those Errors that then reigned in the Ministry They knew enough to believe in one only God the Father Son and Holy Ghost their Creator and Father and in one only Jesus Christ their Redeemer Born Crucified and raised again for them and to practice without Superstition all the Actions of Christian Piety that those Doctrines inspired into them but they did not know enough to believe the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation the real presence humane Satisfactions the merit of good Works and a multitude of other things that did not enter into them Their knowledge was bounded with the Articles of the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments which they received with all the submission of their hearts and which they laboured to practise the best that they could and we ought not to doubt that that knowledge alone plain and disintangled from all Error which they had furnished them with a sufficient direction for their Salvation without their being bound to make a more express rejecting of those Doctrines they did not understand But supposing that they had a knowledge of them I say that we ought carefully to distinguish two sorts of Times the one in which the falseness of a Doctrine or Worship is not so palpable discovered and open to mens Eyes that their should be only a voluntary blindness or an ill Prejudice that should hinder us from acknowledging and understanding how that Doctrine and that Worship are contrary to the True Faith and Piety and the other in which that falseness and contrariety are so openly or publickly manifested that one cannot be ignorant of them or not see them without shutting voluntarily ones Eyes For in the second of those Times every one is bound for the integrity of his Faith and Religion and the preservation of his Soul earnestly and publickly to reject those Errors to avoid them with an aversion to withdraw from those Assemblies where they are either taught or practised and not to take part how little soever or if any do they have no excuse for their crime and this is the Time wherein we are at this day But as to the former it is enough not to be corrupted with them without any absolute necessity of testifying publickly that strong aversion In the second Time they ought to look on those kinds of things as they are in Effect because they are fully discovered and they may be seen in all that have them to be opposite to the glory of God and Salvation of men But that Obligation can never be so strong in the first Time because there one has neither the same light nor the same helps nor the same easiness to own them to be such as they are not only meer natural Light dictates this Distinction but Jesus Christ himself has very well established it in the Gospel If I had not come says he and spoken unto them they had not had Sin but now they have no Cloak for their Sin which evidently establishes those two seasons I spoke of the one wherein the Manifestation of good and evil is not yet so throughly made that one can acknowledge them in their greatest Latitude and the other wherein it is so that one cannot without a crime know it confusedly But I say that before the Reformation they were in that first Time in regard of that which we call the Errors and Superstitions of the Church of Rome they were neither so well Examined nor so clearly discovered as they have been since the Faithful then could not openly believe and practise them for that could not be done according to us in any Time without destroying the true Faith and Piety but they could look upon them with a greater indifference bear them with far less Pain nor cease for all that from frequenting their Assemblies from holding their peace and contenting themselves with keeping their own Righteousness See here after what manner we believe that the Essence of the Church was preserved before the Reformation How corrupted soever the Ministry was the Foundation of Christianity remained there and God had yet his remnant there according to the Election of Grace that is to say his Truly Faithful It was those alone in all that great mixt body who were the Church for they only were in Communion with God and his Son they alone enjoyed the benefits of the Gospel Covenant to them only how small a number soever they were pertained all the Rights and advantages of the Church of the External Society of Assemblies of the Ministry of the Holy Scriptures of the Sacraments Government and Discipline according to the inviolable Maxim of Saint Paul All things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the World or Life or Death or things present or things to come all are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods All the rest then which were without in that mixed Body which they Call the Latin Church and which had
House not only Vessels of Gold and Silver but Vessels also of Wood and Earth the one to Honour and the others to Dishonour They must wilfully shut their Eyes that will not acknowledge by these Passages that it is only to the Church of the Faithful and not to the Body of the Prelates that that Father refers all the Efficacy and Force of the Actions of the Ministry and all the Power of the Keys But further if you will he explains himself yet more expresly in the same Book out of which I have taken these last Words Hitherto says he I have methinks clearly enough demonstrated by the Holy Scriptures and by the Testimony of Saint Cyprian that the Wicked who have undergone no change in their Natural Estate may both give and receive Baptism Notwithstanding it is manifest that those men do not belong to the Church of God since they are Covetous Extortioners Vsurers Envious Malicious and Enslaved by such like Vices for the Church is the only Dove that is modest and Chast the Spouse without Spot and Wrinkle the Inclosed Garden the Sealed Fountain the Paradice full of Fruits and such other Titles that are given it can be understood of none but the Good the Saints and the Righteous that is to say those in whom not only the Operations of the Gifts of God are found that are common to the good and bad but who have also the inward and Supernatural Grace of the Holy Spirit It is to those that it is said Whosoevers Sins you shall remit they shall be remitted and whosoever Sins you retain they shall be retained I do not then see why we may not say that a wicked man may Administer Baptism since he may have it and as he has it to his ruine he may give it to others also to their ruine not because that that which he gives may be a Pernicious thing but because that he himself who receives it is a wicked man For when a wicked man gives Baptism to a good man who dwelling in the bond of Vnity is truly Converted the wickedness of him who gives it is overcome by the goodness of the Sacrament and the Faith of him who receives it and when his Sins are pardoned who is truly Converted to God they are pardoned to him by those with whom he is joyned by a true Conversion For the same Holy Spirit which was given to the Saints with whom he is united by the bond of Love is he who pardons them whether he knows that Body or whether he knows it not And so when the Sins of any are retained they are retained by those from whom they are separated by the Difference of their Lives and the Malice of their Hearts whether they know that Body or whether they do not It could not methinks be said either with greater strength or Clearness that all the Efficacy of the Actions of the Ministry that the Pastors Exercise depends not on the Body of the Pastors but on the Body of the truly Faithful and that in Effect they are those who pardon and retain Sins when the Ministers pardon or retain them From whence it necessarily follows That if the same Actions of the Ministry belong to the Society of the Faithful the Call of the Ministry does so also with a far greater Reason for if the Power of the Keys the right of Remitting and Retaining Sins belongs to the body of the Faithful only it must be every way necessary that the Pastors should hold the exercise of that Power from the body of the Faithful for if they should not hold it from thence they would have no Right to exercise it nor could have it elsewhere And if they should have it elsewhere or that it should belong properly to the body of the Pastors exclusively from the Simple Faithful it would be not only not true but it would be further absurd to say that the body of the Faithful exercised that Power by the Pastors or that they pardoned and retained Sins as Saint Augustine teaches I cannot avoid taking notice here by the by of that Ordinary Error whereinto those of the Church of Rome fall who do not believe that immediate absolute and Independent Authority that the Pope ascribes to himself over the whole Church but who would that the Power of the Keys is given to the whole Body of the Hierarchy that is to say to those Pastors who are Priests and Bishops For to prove their Opinion they do not fail to set the Sentiment of St. Augustine before us which plainly as we have seen shews us that the Keys were given to the whole Church from whence they draw two Conclusions The one against that great Authority that the Pope pretends to and the other for the Authority of the Bishops which they would have to flow immediately from Jesus Christ But of these two Conclusions it is certain that the First is just and wholly conforming with the thoughts of that Father but it is not less certain that the second is not and that at least without going about to deceive our selves willingly or to cheat the World we could not say that That Church figured by St. Peter to which God gave the Power of the Keys which is exercised by the Ministry of the Pastors should be any other according to Saint Augustine then the Body of the Truly Faithful and Righteous in opposition to the Worldly and the wicked who are mixed with them in the same External Profession and this is in my Judgment so clear and evident in the Doctrine of that Father that they must needs be ignorant of it who deny it It is therefore a manifest Illusion to go about to make use of those Passages in favour of the Bishops for that Church is not the Body of the Hierarchy but that of the Truly Faithful whether they be Laymen or Pastors and it is to those only that Saint Augustine ascribes all the Rights and all the Actions of the Ministry as it may appear by what I have related and by consequence it is to those that the lawful Call of the Pastors belongs and not to the Body or Order of the Hierarchy For it would be absurd to derive that Call from any thing else then from that very Church which has received the Power of the Keys and which is exercised in her Name and her Authority by her Ministers Tosta us Bishop of Abyla seems to have acknowledged this Truth conformably to the Principles of Saint Augustine for see after what manner he explains himself in his Commentaries upon Numbers upon the story of the man who was brought before the whole Assembly of Israel because some had found him gathering of Sticks upon the Sabbath Day and put him in Prison for it First of all he says That although the Acts of Jurisdiction cannot be exercised by the whole Community yet that Jurisdiction belongs to the whole Community in regard of its Origine and Efficacy because
the External State of that Religion it self had in the times of our Fathers Signs of its Corruption sufficient to afford them just Motives to Examine it Page 23. Chap. IV. That such a Corruption of the Latin Church as our Fathers had conceived was no ways an Impossible thing Page 37. Chap. V. More particular Reflections upon that priviledge of Infallibility which they ascribe to the Church and of its Authority Page 45. Chap. VI. An Examination of the Proofs which they produce to Establish the Infallibility of the Church-of Rome Page 54. Chap. VII That the Authority of the Prelates of the Latin Church had not any Right to bind our Fathers to yield a blind Obedience to them or to hinder them from Examining their Doctrines Page 75. Chap. VIII A further Examination of that Authority of the Prelates and that Absolute Obedience which they pretend ought to be given them Page 85. Chap. IX An Examen of those Reasons they Alledge to Establish that Soveraign Authority of the Prelates in the Latin Church Page 109. The Second Part. Of the Justice of the REFORMATION CHap. I. That our Fathers could not expect a Reformation either from the hands of the Popes or from those of the Prelates Page 125. Chap. II. A Confirmation of the same thing from the History of that which passed in the first Quarrels of Luther with the Conrt of Rome concerning Indulgences Page 142. Chap. III. That our Fathers not being able any more to hope for a Reformation on the part of the Pope or his Prelates were indispensably bound to provide for their own Salvation and to Reform themselves Page 156. Chap. IV. That our Fathers had a Lawful and sufficient Call to Reform themselves and to labour to Reform others Page 166. Chap. V. An Answer to the Objections that are made against the Persons of the Reformers Page 177. Chap. VI. A further Justification of the first Reformers against the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices contained in his Tenth and Eleventh Chapters Page 196. Chap. VII An Answer to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Chapters of the Prejudices Page 222. Chap. VIII That our Fathers in their Design of Reforming themselves were bound to take the Holy Scriptures alone for the Rule of their Faith Page 241 Chap. IX An Examination of the Objections which the Author of the Prejudices makes against the Scripture Page 260. The Third Part. Of the Obligation and Necessity that lay-upon our Fathers to separate themselves from the Church of Rome CHap. I. That our Fathers had just sufficient and necessary Causes for their Separation supposing that they had Right at the Bottom in the Controverted Points Page 1. Chap. II. That our Fathers were bound to Separate themselves from the Body of those who possess'd the Ministry in the Church and particularly in the See of Rome supposing that they had a Right at the Foundation Page 15. Chap. III. That the Conduct of the Court of Rome and those of her Party in respect of the Protestants has given them a just cause to separate themselves from them supposing that they had Right at the Foundation Page 53. Chap. IV. An Examination of the Objection of the Author of the Prejudices taken out of the Dispute of Saint Augustine against the Schism of the Donatists Page 79. Chap. V. A further Examination of the Reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices upon the Subject of our Separation Page 113. The Fourth Part. Of the Right that our Fathers had to hold a Christian Society among themselves by Publick Assemblies and the Exercise of the Ministry CHap. 1. That our Fathers had a Right to have their Church-Assemblies separate from those of the Church of Rome on the Supposition that they were right in the Foundation Page 1. Chap. II. That the Society of the Protestants is not a new Cburch Page 28. Chap. III. That the Ministry Exercised in the Communion of the Protestants is Lawful and that the Call of their Ministers is so also Page 48. Chap. IV. An Answer to the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices about the Call of the first Reformers and the Validity of our Baptism P. 84 The End of the CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS Advertisement THere is newly Published a Book Entituled ☞ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Treatise wherein you have 1. The Divine Auhtority of the Holy Scriptures proved by undeniable Demonstrations and the Cavils of Objectors confuted 2. A Continuation of the Metaphors Allegories and Express Similitudes of the Old and New Testament gradually expounded Parallel wise with short Inferences from each 3. Sacred Phylologie viz. the Schemes and Figures in Sriipture reduced under their proper Heads with a brief Explication of the most obscure 4. A Treatise of the Types Parables and Allegories in the Old and New Testament 5. Plain and Evident Demonstrations that by the Great Whore Mystery Babylon is meant the Papal Hierarchy or present Church of Rome The whole VVork being partly Compiled and partly Translated from the VVorks of many Learned and Orthodox VVriters Ancient and Modern compleating what was intended by the Undertakers in order to explain that difficult part of the Word of God It being encouraged and recommended by divers Worthy Ministers of London as useful for all Students in Sacred Writ Sold by John Hancock at the Three Bibles over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil and Benj. Alsop at the Angel and Bible in the Poultrey over-against the Compter Cassander Consult art de Eccles Luke 22. 25 26. 1 Pet. 5. Bernard in Cant. Serm. 77. Item Serm. 33. Nicol Cusan lib. 3. de Concord Cath. c. 29. 1 Tim. 6. 10 3. Col. 5. Nicolaus de Clemangis de corrupto Statit Ecclesiae Bernard de verbis Evangel Dixit Simon c. pag. 1000. Marsil de Pad Defens pacis Part 2. cap. 20. History of the Council of Trent Book 6. In the Instructions and Missives of the most Christian King for the Council of Trent In the same Instructions and Missives Distinct. 96. Canon 7. Aug. Steuchus De fals Donat. Constantini Froissard Tom. 3. Fol. 147. Angel Politian Orat. pro Sen. ad Alexand Sextum Raynald ad Ann. 1492. ss 27. Decretal Greg. lib. 1. tit 7. Can. Quanto in Glossa Itinerar Ital. Part 2. de coron Rom. Pontif. Raynald ad Ann. 1162. Baron ad Ann. 1162. Concil Lateran Sess 7. 9. in Orat. Paulus Jovius in Philippo 3. †Renvoy signifies properly a simple dismission granted to one that being appealed or called before a superiour Judg requires to be dismissed to the prosecuting of his suit already begun before the inferiour his Ordinary Judge Platina in vit Sexto Decret tit 2. cap. 1. Sext. Decret Extravag lib. 1. De major obed cap. 1. Baron ad Ann. 1076. Platin. in vit Bonif. 8. Joan. Gerson de Eccles. potest Consid 10. Decretal Gregor lib. 3. tit 8. cap. 4. Decret part 2. Caus 25. Quest 1. Canon 6. ad Gloss Bernard Epist 42.
Frederick what the Pope desired obliged the Emperour Charles who had been Elected in the Room of Maximilian and the Princes assembled at Wormes to cite Luther to appear before them The Emperour gave him to that effect his Letters of safe Conduct and Luther having compared and constantly maintained his Doctrine without any ways regarding either the threats or the sollicitations of the Partisans of the Court of Rome they were upon the point to imprison him notwithstanding the safe conduct of the Emperour and to treat him as they had heretofore done John Huss and Jerome of Prague in the Council of Constance But the Elector Palatine vehemently opposing himself to that breach of the publick Faith they were contented with proscribing him by a publick Edict In that Edict they treat him as a Lunatick as one possest by the Devil and as a Devil incarnate they banish him all the Territories of the Empire they forbid him Fire and Water Meat and Drink they order that his Books should be publickly burnt and threaten to all that contradict the most rigorous punishments in the world After all that who can say that our Fathers could yet with any shadow of Reason hope for a Reformation on the part of the Popes and the Prelats We may see in their Conduct not only a repugnance to a Reformation but a setled design and an unshaken resolution to defend their Errours Superstitions and Abuses of what nature soever they were and to hazard all rather then once to consent that the Church should be purged We may see that they made use of all that the most exact and refined policy could make them contrive of all the Authority that the splendour of their Dignities and the places which they held could give them amongst men and of all that force and violence that the Favour of Princes and the credulity of the people could afford them They went so far as loudly to declare themselves Lords of mens Faith They exclaimed they wrote they disputed they accused they condemned they terrified they excommunicated they had recourse to the secular power and could our Fathers without being blind look any further for a Reformation from such persons as those CHAP. III. That our Fathers not being able any more to hope for a Reformation on the part of the Pope or his Prelats were indispensably bound to provide for their own Salvation and to Reform themselves VVE come now to inquire what our Fathers were bound to do in so great a Confusion They were perswaded not only that it was possible for the Latin Church to have within it a great many Corruptions and Abuses but that it really had a very great Company of them that false worship Errors and Superstitions had broke in as an Inundation upon the Christian Religion and that those abuses growing more gross and growing every day more strong put Christianity into a manifest danger of Ruin Moreover there was not any hope of Remedy either on the part of the Pope or on the part of the Prelats For the Court of Rome with all its Associates had loudly declared against a Reformation maintaining that the Church of Rome could not Err that she was the Mistress of Mens Faith and not to believe as she believed was a Heresie worthy of the Flames and as to the Prelats they had all servile obedience to the wills of the Popes besides that Ignorance that Negligence that Love of the things of the World and those other Vices in which they were plunged How be it the business was not about matters of small Importance nor about the Questions of the School most commonly unknown to the People nor about some speculative notions which could not be of any Consequence to the Actions of true Holiness The Controversy was about divers things essential to Religion which not only fell within the knowledge of the People but which likewise consisted in matters of practice and which by Consequence being wicked as our Fathers could make no doubt that they were could not but be very contrary to the right Worship of God and mens Salvation For the debate was about a Religious Worship which they were to give not to God alone but to Creatures also to Angels to Saints to Images and to Relicks about certain and infallible Springs from whence they ought to draw their Salvation in building their confidence upon them for besides the mercy of God through the Merit and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ they joyned to that the merit of our good-works our own Satisfactions the over and above Satisfactions of the Saints and the Authority of the Bishop of Rome in dispencing of Indulgences They Treated of other works which they held that we ought to do through the Obligation of our Consciences and with assurance that they were good and those they made a part of our Sanctification for they added to those that God had commanded us those that the Popes and their Prelats commanded out of their meer Authority They Treated of ill actions from which we ought to abstain out of the motions of our Consciences and which one could not commit without sin for besides those that God had forbidden us they likewise placed in this Rank those which it should please the Church to forbid us They Treated about a certain and infallible Rule of Faith upon which the Minds and Consciences of Christians might stay and rest for they would have that principle consist in the Interpretations in the Traditions and Decisions of the Church of Rome or its Prelats The Controversy was about Jesus Christ himself for they said that the Sacrament of the Eucharist was the very Person of the Son of God and they adored it under that Quality the Question was about divers Customs introduced into the publick Ministry or generally establisht by the Customs of the People that our Fathers thought very contrary to the Spirit of the Gospel and true Piety In fine in all those and other such like things they Treated about the peace and just rights of the Conscience the glory of God the hope of Salvation and the Preservation of the Church of Jesus Christ upon Earth Let them tell us then precisely what our Fathers ought to have done Was there any thing in the World of greater concernment then those things which I have set down Or to speak better was there nothing that could any ways stagger them or hold the minds of all honest men in suspence for so much as one moment Were they bound to renounce their Conscience their God and their Salvation under a pretence that the Flatterers of the Church of Rome speak of her what the Holy Scripture says of the Godhead That if she pulls down there is no person that can build up if she shuts there is none can open if she retains the Waters all is dried up if she lots them out they shall overflow the Earth Do they believe that they ought to have precipitated themselves
of Faith from whom the Holy Scripture it self heretofore and now derives all its force he is a Heretick and many other Propositions of that nature Upon that Luther writes that All those things were maintained only out of a hatred of a General Council and to hinder any one from being heard who should give any succour to the afflicted Church That the Popes Creatures seeing well that they could not hinder a Council began to seek out ways to elude it by saying that the Pope was above a Council and that without his Authority none could either be called or held in a word that a Council had not any Power but that the Pope alone was the Infallible Rule of Truth That it seemed to him then that if the Fury of those men took place there would not further remain any other Remedy but this That the Emperour the Kings and Princes should make use of their Arms against those publick Posts and that those matters should not be decided by Words but by the Sword In the close of which he adjoyns those words which the Author of the Prejudices has related So that his meaning is not to Animate his Followers to Blood and Slaughter as the Author of the Prejudices interprets it but only to draw an absur'd consequence from his Adversaries Hypothesis which is That if he would also take away the only Remedy that was left to provide against the desolations of the Church in assembling a Free Council he would set the Emperour the Kings and Princes in Arms against the Popes and the Cardinals and all the Court of Rome and would reduce things to the utmost extremity I my self will not say that there may not be somewhat too violent in those kind of expressions but after all his design is not to animate his Followers to Blood and Slaughter but only to let Sylvester see the necessity of a Council that might judge above the Pope from that inconvenience that otherwise there would remain no other course to the Emperour to Kings and Princes to re-establish Order in the Church then to make use of their compelling power And that further appears to be the Sence because he adds immediately after That the Authority of the Bishop of Rome whether it were of Divine Right or whether it were of Human could not be urged but by the Precept Honour thy Father and thy Mother which in granting him to be a Father puts him under the first Table so that if he should do any thing in opposition to them he might be admonished and even accused by the least of the Faithful Which let us see that his meaning was no other than that which I have represented I confess it were to be wished that Luther had observed more of the mean than he did in his manner of writing and that with that great and invincible Courage joyned with that ardent zeal for the Truth and with that unshaken Constancy that he always shewed there might have been discernable more of stayedness and moderation But those faults which most frequently proceed from Temperament do not take away mens esteem of such when besides them they may see a good foundation of Piety in them and Vertues Heroical throughout as they may discern-to have shone in Luther For they cannot cease extolling the zeal of Lucifer Bishop of Cagliari nor admiring the eminent qualities of Saint Jerom although they do acknowledge too much sharpness and passion in their Style And it may be that there was even some particular necessity in the time of the Reformation to use vehemency of expression the more easily to rouse men out of that profound sleep wherein they had lain for so long a time However it be I had rather come to agree that Luther ought to have been more moderate in his expressions and if the Authour of the Prejudices would be coutented with complaining of the sharpness of his Style he should be also contented for every answer to be entreated that hereafter he will not himself any more imitate that which he condemns in another especially in writing against those who having lived in the last Age cannot have given him any personal occasion to be carried away against them with passion after the manner that he has been in many places of his Book If in the Judgment that he passes on them he would not hearken to Charity he ought at least to hearken to Justice and not to have charged them with foul Accusations under the pretences of having mistaken and misunderstood I place in this Rank that which he furthers forms against Luther in these words There never was any one says he but Luther who durst to boast in his Printed Works that he had had a long conference with the Devil that he had been convinced by his reasons that private Masses were an abuse and that that was the motive that had carried him out to abolish them But common Sence adds he has always made all others conclude not only that he was in an excess of extravagance to take the Devil for a Master of Truth and to give himself up to be his Disciple but that all those who had any marks that they were his Ministers and his Instruments and who had not any lawful Authority in the Church to make themselves be heard did not deserve that any should apply themselves to them or that they should so much as examine their Opinions Behold here Luther a Disciple a Minister and Instrument of the Devil if one will believe the Author of the Prejudices To refute that Calumny we need but to represent in a few words what that business was that he there speaks of Luther following the Style of the Monks of those days who were wont by a Figure of Rhetorick to fill their Books with their exploits against the Devil relates that being one time awakened in the midst of a dark night the Devil began to accuse him for having made the people of God Idolatrize and to have been guilty of Idolatry himself for the space of fifteen years wherein he had said private Masses and that the Reason of that Accusation was that he could not have any thing consecrated in those private Masses from whence it followed that he had adored and had made others adore meer Bread and meer Wine and not the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ He adds that that accusation struck him at his heart and that to defend himself he alledged that he was a Priest that he had done nothing but by the Order of his Superiors and that he had always pronounced the words of Consecration very exactly with the best intention in the World from whence he concluded that he could see no reason to have the Crime of Idolatry laid to his Charge That notwithstanding the Tempter did not fail to reply that those excuses would nothing avail him in that the Turks and the Priests of Baal obeyed also the Order of their Superiours with a very good
is Sin methinks it is not ill grounded to say either that the Church of Rome Sins when she invocates those Canonized Saints without any certainty of Faith or that she holds it as a matter of Divine Faith that the Pope cannot be deceived The Author of the Prejudices shall chuse which side he pleases if he takes the last he contradicts himself if he takes the former Saint Paul condemns him for he condemns all those who throw away the Acts of their Religion after that manner at all Adventure If the Efficacy of Agnus Dei's has not been established by the Councils that belief may be found at least heretofore so strongly and universally established in the Church of Rome that it may be very well ascribed to her without any fear of mistaking They tell us that Pope Vrban V. sent to John Palcologus the Emperour of the Greeks an Agnus folded up in fine Paper wherein there was written Fine Verses which explained all its properties Those Verses carry with them That the Agnus was made of Balmsanus and Wax with Crisom and that being Consecrated by Mystical words it drove away Thunder and scattered Storms that it gave Women an easy Birth that it prevented one from perishing on the Seas that it took away Sin that it kept back the Devil that it made a man to grow Rich that it secured one against Fire that it hindred one from dying a sudden death that it gave a man Victory over his Enemies and that in Fine a small piece of the Agnus had as much Vertue as the whole As for that which regards the Infallibility of the Popes their Temporal power over Kings and their Pre-eminence over the Councils we do not say that those were Articles of the Faith received throughout the whole Church of Rome There is not one of us that knows not that those pretensions were always opposed by the Sounder part of the French But they cannot deny that they were not at least the Pretences of Rome and that its Popes did not Determine That it was necessary to the Salvation of every Creature to be subject to them They cannot deny that Pope Gregory VII did not decide in a Council That the Church of Rome did never Err and that it would never Err according to the Testimony of the Scripture nor that the opinion of those who believe that the Pope is Infallible in his decisions of Faith is not the more common and general one in the Church of Rome and that those who hold it speak of the other only as an opinion that the Church Tolerates for the present and that they look upon it as an Errour and such a one as approaches even to Heresie for those are the express words of Bellarmine They cannot deny that they generally hold in the Church of Rome that the Pope is by Divine right the Soveraign Monarch of the Church whom all Christians are bound to obey the Soveraign and Universal Vicar of Jesus Christ his Soveraign Pastor to whom Jesus Christ has given a fulness of power which goes not far from ascribing Infalliblity to him They cannot deny that the Popes did not often define that the Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all other Churches and that the Council of Trent has not also declared it in divers places They cannot deny that the Popes did not pretend to be above the Councils that Sixtus IV. did not condemn a certain man called Peter de Osma for having taught that the Pope could not dispence with the Ordinances of the Universal Church nor that Leo X. did not declare in the Council of Lateran with the approbation of the Council That it was evident as well from the Testimony of Scripture as that of the Fathers and of other Bishops of Rome who had gone before and by the Holy Cannons and by the very Confession of the Councils themselves that the Pope alone had a right and power to call Councils together to transfer and dissolve them as having Authority over all Councils They cannot deny that the same Leo did not condemn Luther for having appealed from him the Pope to a Council against the Constitutions says he of Pius II. of Julius II. who ordained that those who made such Appeals should be punished with the same Penalties that were decided against Hereticks nor that the Council of Trent did not submit it self to its Confirmation of the Pope as it may appear by the last Act of that Council And as to the pretences of the Popes over the Temporalties of Kings they cannot deny that Clement V. has not declared in one of his Clemintines as they are called That it ought not not to be Questioned but that he had a Superiority over the Empire and that the Empire being void he sucbeeded in the power of the Emperour nor that Alexander VI. did not give out of his pure Liberality says he of his certain knowledge and fullness of power to the Kings of Castile and Leon all the Lands newly discovered in the Indies as if they had belonged to him nor that Gregory VII did not decide in his Council of Rome That the Pope could depose Emperours and dispence-with the Oaths of Allegiance to their Subjects nor that Innocent III. did not ordain in the Council of Lateran That if any Temporal Prince neglected to purge his Territories of all Heresie the Bishops should Excommunicate him and that if within a Year he gave no Satisfaction they should make it known to the Soveraign Bishop to the end that he should declare his Subjects absolved from their Duty of Fealty and that he should expose his Land to be taken by Catholicks They cannot also deny as to Practice that there are not divers Examples to be found of Popes who undertook effectually to depose Emperours and Kings and to give away their Kingdomes to others In fine as to that which regards their Jurisdiction over Souls in Purgatory no Body is ignorant that the Popes pretended to have Power to draw Souls out of Purgatory at least through the dispensation of the Treasure of the Church which is that which they say is made up of the Super-abundant Satisfactions of Jesus Christ and the Saints It is upon that also that their Indulgences in respect of the Dead are Founded and Leo in his Bull of Excommunication against Luther had wrote That Indulgences were neither necessary nor useful to the Dead Furthermore I cannot forbear taking notice here of the Fallacy that the Author of the Prejudices gives us and which is common to him with a great many other persons He would have us Judge of that Doctrine of the Roman Church but only by that which she has decided in her Councils or by that which is contained in an Act of the Profesion of the Faith which she makes those make who embraue her Communion This I say is a perfect Fallacy 1. Because we ought also to Judge of
down to the Council of Trent after which we may say that their separation was full and entire Luther therefore having been excommunicated by the Popes Bull with all those who should follow his Doctrine after the manner that we have seen he appealed to a free Council and proposed the Causes of his appeal in a publick Declaration that he caused afterwards to be Printed wherein with great humility he demanded of the Emperour the Electors the Princes of the Empire and in general of all the Powers of Germany that they would joyn themselves with him in his appeal or at least that they would defer the Execution of the Bull until having been lawfully called and heard by equitable Judges he should be condemned He protested that in case his so just a demand should be refused and that they should continue to obey the Pope rather than God the consciences of his persecutors would remain chargeable before God's Tribunal But those who had already condemn'd him for a like appeal to a Council did not leave off their prosecuting him for all that The Pope did not fail to cause his Bull to be publish'd with great Solemnity he added even in that which they call Coena Domini which is published every year a new clause bearing excommunication against Luther and those of his Sect. And because in his first condemnation he had given him threescore dayes time to recant that term being expired he pronounced a new and peremptory Excommunication against him by which he cursed him and his followers eternally and declared them guilty of Treason and Heresie he spoil'd them of all their Honours and Goods and injoyn'd all arch-Arch-Bishops Bishops Prelates Preachers c. to preach or to stir up others to preach against them in all places Notwithstanding he earnestly solicited as well by his Letters as his Nuntio's the Emperour Charles the Fifth and all the Princes of Germany to employ all their Power and Authority against Luther and his followers Those solicitations produced them the Citation of Luther to the Assembly of Wormes of which I have spoke in the second Part and in the end the Imperial Edict called the Edict of Wormes which banish'd him from all the Lands of the Empire as a mad-man possess'd with the Devil a Devil clothed in humane shape an Heretick a Schismatick This Edict forbad him Fire and Water and the commerce of all the World and ordain'd that after the term of twenty dayes he should be taken and put into a strong Prison in order to be severely punished But besides all this it carried this further in it that it extended to all his favourers followers and complices and that his Books should be publickly burn'd Luther giving way to this furious storm withdrew himself for some time into a safe place under the protection of John Frederick Elector of Saxony and Leo after having excited all that Tragedy dyed in the flower of his age the first day of December in the year 1521. But the hatred of the Reformation did not dye with him he had for his Successor as well in that hatred as in his See Adrian the Sixth who was chosen the eighth of January 1522. After this new Pope had taken possession of his Papacy he sent a Nuntio into Germany and though as we have seen in his instructions he charged him in an express Article seriously to acknowledge before the Assembly of Nuremberg the disorders both in the Court of Rome and in the whole Body of the Prelates and the rest of the Clergy he did not fail nevertheless to charge him also at the same time to denounce terrible threatnings against Luther's followers for so it was that he called those who then embraced the Reformation He wrote with the same Spirit publick and private Letters to the Princes and other States of the Empire who were assembled together and he omitted nothing to stir them up to make use of Fire and Sword and the uttermost violence on that occasion We may see those Letters in Bzovius and Raynaldus and find in them all the characters of an extream passion He uses there divers reasons to animate them taken from their honour and their own interests He sets before their eyes the example of the Council of Constance wherein John Husse and Hierom of Prague were burn'd that of S. Peter in inflicting death on Ananias and Sapphira and that of God himself who made the Earth swallow up Dathan and Abiram He complains of them and sharply censures them in that they had not severely put the Edict of Wormes in Execution and to stir them up the more he assures them that the design of the Lutherans was to overthrow every Humane Order to dethrone all the Princes and to pillage all Germany under a pretence of the Gospel He repeated the same things in his instructions to his Nuntio and after having enjoyn'd him to represent to the Princes all that might move him to extirpate those pretended Hereticks so far as to tell them that they ought to imitate the generosity of their Ancestors some of which had carried with their own hands John Husse to the Stake he concludes with the words of Jeremiah when he prophesied the ruine of the Moabitish Infidels and which this Pope applied against those Christians Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently and who keepeth back his sword from blood He wrote also to John Frederick Elector of Saxony Letters full of heat wherein after having made a bloody invective against Luther and his Doctrine and having exhorted that Prince to abandon him he fiercely threatens him that if he do not do it he should feel the effects of his anger and that of the Emperours I declare to thee sayes he in the authority of God Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ whose Vicar I am upon Earth that thou shalt not go away unpunished in this present world and that everlasting fire shall attend thee in the world to come For we live at the same time together both I Adrian Pope and the Emperour Charles whose truly Christian Edict thou hast contemned which he made against the Lutheran Perfidiousness These Letters wrought but a small effect in the mind of Frederick who was a pious Prince and one that loved the Truth but they did not also work much upon those of the rest of the Princes assembled at Nurenberg and the answer which they made deserves to be set down It contained well near these Articles That they could not execute the Sentence of the Apostolick See against Luther nor the Edict of Wormes without incurring themselves very great dangers That the far greater part of the people had been for a long time perswaded that Germany suffer'd a great many troubles on the side of the Court of Rome by reason of its abuses and that all the world was then fully instructed in it by the Writings and Tenets of the Lutherans That if they had rigorously executed the Popes
same time he made these three things to be added that he intended it should be held at Mantua and not in Germany that he did not pretend to have any of his rights released and that he would not endure that a National Council should be held in Germany upon which he demanded the answer of the Protestants A little after the Protestants answered to this substance That having already appealed to a Council they ardently wished for it but that as they had often declared they demanded a free Council that should provide against the disorders of the Church and make a good Reformation according to the Word of God and in the terms of Christian Equity and it was a Council so qualified which they had appealed to That the dispute being about matters wherein the See of Rome was visibly interested and about others which the Pope defended not in word only but by those bloody Edicts and extream Cruelties which they exercised against those who did not agree with them there was no colour of reason that the judgement ought to be in their hands nor that the Council could be free if the choice of the place and the persons who should compose it and the form of procedure which they held should depend upon their choice That the Pope having already condemned them and their Doctrine it was against all manner of reason for him to pretend to be the Master of an Assembly who should judge both them and the See of Rome In fine that the business being a common cause it was the right of the Emperour and the Princes in so important an affair to make choice of the most fit persons and those who were most capable of giving glory to God and doing good to the Christian Common-wealth and that as for themselves as they could not abandon the interests of the Truth they should do also all that should lye in their power for the re-establishing of peace and union We may guess that this answer was not very agreeable to the Court of Rome and yet notwithstanding the Pope did not fail to speak alwayes of a Council and to exhort his Cardinals to begin the Reformation by themselves He made divers Orations to them for that purpose and he went so far as to give charge to some of them to examine that which was most necessary to be reform'd in their Court which had already alarm'd them all But at the same time he assur'd them by one of his actions by which they might very well judge of the little sincerity of his words for he created two young men his Base Sons Cardinals the one of fourteen years of age and the other of sixteen and when they represented to him their small age he answered merrily That he would supply that defect by the number of his own having years enough to spare them if it was necessary The Pope's Nuntio having received the Answer of the Protestants departed from Germany and returned to Rome where after having made his relation he concluded that nothing more was to be thought on than to oppress the Protestants by force of Arms. This Nuntio who was Vergerius had had divers private Conferences with them and even with Luther himself whom he had laboured to gain by threats and promises but he could not obtain his design This forced the Pope powerfully to solicite the Emperour who at that time came to Rome openly to declare War against the Protestants and he had in this two great interests the one to busie the Emperour whose power he feared in Italy and the other to confound the Protestants with his greatest force without the confusion of holding a Council The Emperour consented to the desires of the Pope and he was resolved only to give a greater colour to the War that a Council should be first called to let them see that he had tryed fair means before he came to violence but that he should call it under such conditions as that the Authority of the See of Rome should incurr any danger A Bull therefore was drawn up dated June 12. 1536. the Convocation of it was at Mantua on the three and twentieth of May of the year following and the Emperour having solicited the Protestants to go thither they made well near the same answers that they had already done They remonstrated therefore in the first place That the calling of a Council could not of right belong to the Pope alone as well by reason that the disorders and corruptions of which they complain'd and desir'd a reformation came for the most part from the See of Rome and its creatures which for some Ages since had infected Religion with divers errors and superstitions and which moreover had been wholly overthrown in the Government of the Church as because also that that See was already the openly declared Enemy to the Reformation and those who demanded it having condemn'd them for Hereticks and persecuted them in all places by Fire and Sword So that being to give an account of all that to a Council it was against all reason to leave the calling of a Council to the Pope alone which of right ought to belong to the Emperour and the Princes Secondly They noted That the Pope by his Bull pretended to frame the Council out of his creatures who were bound to him by an Oath and to remain also himself the Judge and Master of all the difference which was a manifest fallacy and injustice the firmer to establish his Authority under the pretence of a Council and those abuses the defence of which he had undertaken In the third place they took notice That the Pope in his Bull had said nothing of the manner of proceeding which they ought to use in the Council from whence they concluded that his intent was to make those things which they should treat of there to depend upon the determinations of his See humane Traditions and the Decrees of some later Councils and not upon the Word of God alone That by this means that would be no more a free and Christian Council but a Roman Conventicle which instead of tending to a holy Reformation could on the contrary tend to nothing but the confirmation of those evils which had for so long a time infested the Church As to the place where this pretended Council was called they represented That it was not just that it should be in Italy where they could have no security for themselves nor any liberty of opinion in a good conscience and that the Imperial Assemblies who had demanded it had alwayes demanded that it should be in Germany That they therefore besought the Emperour that he would be pleased to consider their reasons and to endeavour that the Council should be lawful to the end they might happily unite to the glory of God and the peace of Christendom not forgetting what had hapned at the Council of Constance to the Emperour Sigismund who saw his Authority trampled under their feet and his
for that they had referr'd that business to a National Council in defect of a General one and he maintained that the Authority of the See of Rome was very much wounded in that reference and that a National Council could not deliberate about matters of Religion In fine after a great many disputes which only serv'd more and more to discover the obstinate resolution that the Roman party had taken up not to suffer a Reformation this Diet ended with a Decree of the Emperour which referr'd the whole affair to a General Council or a National one in Germany or to an Imperial Assembly if they could not obtain a Council and that nevertheless the Execution of the Decree of Ausburg should remain suspended All this pass'd in the year 1541. See here what the success of the Conference of Ratisbon was The year following which was 1542. the Pope assign'd the Council to be held at Trent in the Month of November he sent a Bull to the Emperour in Spain and after to the Kings exhorting them to send their Embassadors thither and he himself deputed thither three Cardinals in quality of Legates he sent thither some Bishops also But this Convocation had not then any effect by reason of the War that was carried on about the same time between King Francis the First and the Emperour And this latter seeing himself to have two Wars upon his hands that with France and the other with the Turks made a new Decree at Spire by which he gave peace to the Protestants but more than that he ordain'd that they should make choice of some Learned and well-meaning persons to draw up a Formulary of the Reformation that the Princes should do the same and that all those pieces being referred to the next Diet they should there resolve with a common consent that which they should judge fit to be kept about the matters of Religion till the meeting of a Council This Decree was made in the year 1544. But the Pope was so netled at this that he wrote to the Emperour in a very threatning style complaining above all things of this that he had not referred that which concerned Religion to the decision of the Church of Rome and that he had favoured those who were Rebels to the Apostolick See Some time after King Francis the First and the Emperour made a Peace and one of the Articles of their Agreement was that they should defend the Ancient Religion that they should employ their endeavours for the Union of the Church and the Reformation of the Court of Rome that they should jointly demand of the Pope the calling of a Council and that they should labour to subdue the Protestants This obliged the Pope to prevent them He therefore again assigned the Council to be held at Trent the fifteenth day of March 1545. and dispatched away his Legates thither but at the same time he resolv'd to use all his endeavours to oblige the Emperour to turn his Arms against the Protestants to oppose them at the same time with the Spiritual and Temporal Sword or to say better to the end that the War might serve him for a pretence to elude the Council For that purpose he made use of the Ministry of his Nuntio and afterwards of that Cardinal Farnese whom he sent to the Emperour as his Legate whose chief pretence was the refusals which the Protestants had propounded anew against his pretended Council He made therefore very powerful solicitations to the Emperour by his Legate with offers to aid him with men and money and even to cause him to be assisted by the Princes of Italy and the Emperour who on his side was very glad to take this occasion to subdue Germany to himself readily accepted of this proposition so that a War was concluded between them but the conclusion was kept very secret till the time of Execution Notwithstanding the better to cover this design the Emperour appointed a Conference of Learned Men to be held at Ratisbon upon the subject of Religion according to his last Decree but he did not fail to cite the Arch-Bishop of Cologne to appear before him who had embraced the Reformation and afterwards excommunicated him and deprived him of his Arch-bishoprick And as for the Conference at Ratisbon which gave some jealousie to the Bishops who were already assembled at Trent it was quickly after broken by the unjust conditions that some Monks who were there as the Commissioners of the Emperour would impose on the Protestant Divines The Council was opened the thirteenth of December of the same year 1545. But in fine after a great many artifices and dissimulations able to have lull'd asleep the most vigilant after a great many contrary assurances given to the Protestants the Emperour sent the Cardinal of Trent in Post to Rome to give the Pope notice that he should make his Troops march with all diligence The Treaty which they had made together was published the eight and twentieth of July 1546. bearing this among other things That the Emperour should employ his Arms and open force to make those Germans who should reject the Council return to the ancient Religion and to the obedience of the holy See and the Emperour soon after openly declared himself as well by the Letters which he wrote to divers Cities in Germany to the Elector of Cologne and the Prince of Wirtemburg as by the answers that his Ministers gave to the Embassadors of those Towns who were with him The Pope on his side presently published a Bull dated the fifteenth of July by which he commanded that they should make solemn Processions exhorting all Christians to put up prayers to God for the happy success of the War which the Emperour and himself had undertaken at their common charges against the Germans who should either profess Heresie or protect it Before this he had wrote to the Switzers Letters dated the third of June by which he gave them notice of the Emperours design praying them to send all the succours they could possibly The Emperour would at the beginning cover this War with another pretence than that of Religion but the Pope would never suffer him to do it So that the Emperour having no further way left to disguise himself began with the proscribing of the Duke of Saxony and the Lantgrave of Hessia and moreover he sent his Army into the field The Protestant Princes on their parts took up Arms also for their just defence The success of this War was not so happy for the Protestants all Germany saw it self soon enslav'd under the Arms of the Emperour and according to all humane appearance the Reformation also had been presently destroy'd if God who never utterly forsakes his Church had not provided for it by his Providence It hapned that the Pope and the Emperour quarrell'd about those temporal interests which were far more prevalent in their minds than that of Religion which fell out because the Emperour would not
they pleased First of all they took a particular care to fill it with Italian Prelates so that they alone almost alwayes were above half the number of all the other Nations joyned together By this means the Court of Rome might very well assure it self of the Council for although all the Prelates that composed it should not have been bound to the Popes by an Oath yet the Italians were more particularly of their dependance and they would not fail throughly to represent to them the interest that Italy had to preserve to it self the Ecclesiastical Government over other Nations and to maintain by consequence the Authority of Rome Secondly They kept up a stock of money in the hands of the Legates to help the poor Bishops and to gain them more and more to them and to make also Presents and Gratifications to persons who could render them most service For they judged it to be the best means to draw the most to them either by the acknowledgement of the good offices received from them or by the hopes of receiving them for the time to come In the Third place the Pope was not contented with presiding in the Council by his Legates he would farther that the propositions should be made and carried by them only And it was for this that the Legates of Pius the Fourth unjustly insinuated it into the Decree of the opening it on the eighteenth of January 1562. that they should treat of matters proponentibus Legatis and when some Spanish Prelates would have opposed that Clause saying that it was unusual in Councils and that it wholly took away all liberty from the Assembly where every one ought to have a right to propound they derided them and let them alone without giving them any answer The Pope himself having heard of that opposition commanded his Legates that they should remain obstinate in that Decree and that they should not remit so much as one point and the King of Spain having made some complaints upon the advice that his Embassadour gave him the Pope eluded them and would change nothing Behold therefore the Court of Rome well nigh already assured of two great points to wit on the one side of the greatest number of persons and on the other of the propositions that should be made in the Council There remained nothing but to make sure of their deliberations and for this they practised divers means The two more General were that of the Congregations at Trent it self in the house of the chief Legate and that of the Congregations at Rome The former consisted in this that from the beginning of the Council under Paul the Third they unjustly made this order to be establish'd that in imitation of that which had been made in the last Council of Lateran that there should be made divers particular Congregations to examine the matters there that the Legates should propound to them that afterwards the same matters so digested be brought to a General Congregation which should be held in the house of the Legate where every one should tell his opinion and that after this they should frame the Decrees to contain them and make them to pass in Council The second consisted in this in that from the first beginning the Pope had deputed some Cardinals at Rome to consult about the affairs of the Council and to have as it were the overlooking of all that should pass there so that before they came to make any Decree the Legates at Trent had discover'd the bottom of the sentiments of the Prelates and the reasons of every one since before they concluded any thing they sent all to Rome from whence they received their orders and the deliberations of the Council wholly made to their hands and this is that which they call'd the Holy Ghost coming in a Cloak-bag But besides these two wayes they had yet others which although they were not of that importance did not fail to have their profit We must place in this rank the Order that they took to examine all the speeches and all the other actions that should be done before the Prelates of the Council before they should recite them to the end that nothing should be advanced which was not agreeable to the Time and Place that is to say to the designs and interests of Rome for by this means the Council thought to make the Pulpits ring with nothing but the praises of the Holy See and imprecations against the Hereticks and that none should be so stupid as to bring in any thing free or bold into his discourse well knowing that the Censors would not suffer it and that it would be to meddle with affairs to no purpose We must here also place the Order that the Legates openly took and which they alwayes observ'd afterwards to reckon every head to an opinion whereas in the Councils of Constance and Basil they had counted their opinions by Nations which divers would fain have had done yet at Trent but the Legates oppos'd themselves to it with all their might But they drew this advantage from that Order that Italy alone had twice as many Voices as all the other Nations together and we may say that they only made the decisions We must further rank here another Order which they took to make in the first place the points of Doctrine to be agitated by particular Congregations of Monks and other Scholastick Divines which treated of them after their usual manner and afterwards to carry some extracts or abridgements of their Disputes to the Congregations of the Prelates who for the most part understood nothing of that Gibbrish of the School so that almost alwayes they made their Decrees without having examined the matters of them or hearing the reasons of one side and of the other without reading without meditation without study and sometimes even without any understanding of the terms which having oblig'd Bruce Martel Bishop of Fesola to represent of what importance it was that the General Congregation should be throughly informed of what they did and that it should take cognizance of matters it self the Legates netled at this boldness made a large field of a sharp censure upon it and wrote to the Court of Rome to have him taken notice of We ought also to place here the recourse that the Pope had to the Embassadours of the Princes to render the Bishops of their Nation favourable to the interests of the Court of Rome This is what Pius the Fourth knew very well how to practise on the subject of the residence of the Bishops when he heard that the greatest part of Voices went about to declare it of Divine Right for he spake earnestly of it to the Embassadours of Venice and Florence and he engaged them to make divers remonstrances of it to their Bishops The same things were done divers times We must add here yet farther the ordinary direction of the Legates to put off to another time the decision of the
to come to an agreement with us that our Assemblies are Holy and Lawful even in a far greater degree then they were before To begin that Disquisition with the Condemnation of the Popes and their Council I confess that if it were the Court of Rome that out of its pure Liberality should Communicate Christianity to those only whom it should please and that none could either have or preserve it but by the continual influence of its Favour after the same manner as we have the Day by the influence of the Sun it would depend on her and her Councils to take it from us whensoever she should see good with all its Rights and Priviledges We might very well say that it would be too injurious to take it away from us that we did not deserve so hard a Treatment yet we should be deprived for that very Reason when she should have taken them from us whether it should have been with Justice or against it with or without any reason But we do not believe that either the Court of Rome or its Council or that all that party who have followed them though it should have a thousand times greater strength and Authority then it has would carry their pretensions so high as to imagine that it depends on their meer good pleasure to bestow on or to take away Christianity and its Rights I do not say from an innumerable multitude of Men as that is which makes up the Body of the Protestants but even not so much as from two or three persons who should be assembled in the Name of Jesus Christ Saint Paul has said indeed Who art thou O man that repliest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Has not the Potter of the Earth power out of one and the same clay to make one Vessel to honour and another to dishonour And by these words he gives us to understand the absolute Power that God has to make us whatsoever it shall seem good to him But he has Taught us nothing of the like Power concerning the Pope and his Councils he has not said Who are you that contend against Rome Nor has he ascribed to him the power to make and destroy us as it shall please him In effect There is none but God alone on whom our Christianity depends it is his Favour that has given it to us his Spirit and his word have formed it in us and his Apostle has Taught us to say with a Holy boldness That there is no Creature either in Heaven or upon the Earth that can be able to Separate us from his Love We ought then to lay aside that Soveraign and absolute Authority and to come to the causes or reasons that could have been able to move the Court of Rome and its Council to condemn the Protestants and to deprive them of their Rights for if those causes are not only vain and frivolous but unjust and contrary to the Christian Faith and Piety as we maintain them to be a Condemnation of that Nature cannot but fall back upon those who have thrown it since they themselves have broken the Christian Unity so that their ill Carriage has made them justly lose that of which they would unjustly deprive the others And because in those kinds of Contests That which one Party loses by its injustice and its obstinacy in Error is recollected and restored in the other Party which does its Duty The Condemnation of the Council of Trent being ill done as we suppose cannot but have heightned and strengthned the Rights of the Protestants As to the Reformation it is not less True that if that should be found to be indeed Conformable to the Word of God and the inviolable Laws of Christianity as we suppose that it is I mean if the Things that our Fathers rejected were indeed Errors and Superstitions contrary to the True Faith and Piety as we maintain them to be so Holy an Action would be so far from depriving our Fathers of the Right of that Christian Society that on the contrary it could not but fortify that Right and render it more lawful then it was before For before the Reformation That Society was as I may so say a Composition of good and evil of Justice and Injustice by reason of those Errors which were mixed with the true Doctrine and those Superstitions which were to be found in conjunction with that Religion whereas the Reformation having freed it of that which it had of impurity and dross has without doubt put it into a far more Holy State and much more agreeable to God How prejudiced soever they may be they can never maintain it That Error and Superstition should establish any right of Society nor deny that as they are in their own nature more worthy of the Aversion of God and men then their Approbation they render those Societies unlawful and criminal For although all the World by a Universal Consent should be united in believing a Heresy or practising an Idolatrous Worship That consent how General soever it should be would not change the natures of things Heresy would be always Heresy and Idolatry Idolatry and in that respect the Agreement of all mankind would make up a wicked and unjust Society Whence it follows That a mixt Communion is only lawful in proportion to that which it has of good and that as its Justice is lessened when its Corruptions increase so its Justice also increases when its Corruptions are lessened We ought not then to imagine that the Reformation of the Protestants has deprived them of the Right of that Christian Society but we ought to assert on the contrary That it has put them in that respect into a far more advantageous condition then they were in before There is nothing further remaining but that Separation which was but by accident as they speak the Consequence of the Reformation if the whole Latin Church had done her Duty she would have reformed her self as well as our Fathers But the Court of Rome and its Clergy would not and that Refusal has caused that breach of Communion which is fallen out between the two Parties It concerns us to inquire Whether even upon supposition that that Reformation was Just and by consequence that that Refusal of it which they made was unjust That Separation could lawfully hinder our Fathers from holding a Christian Society among themselves But this is what they cannot maintain with the least colour of Reason For if the Reformation was Just and if the Refusal which they made was unjust how can the injustice of that Party which should have forgot its duty and which would have constrained the other Party to have forgot it too deprive the other Party of those Rights that Faith Holiness The Fear of God and the Communion of Jesus Christ have naturally given it Must Injustice needs Triumph over Justice and Error over Truth Is it that the
naturally goes before the Ministry it does not depend upon the Ministry but the Ministry on the contrary depends upon it as in the Civil Society the Magistracy depends upon the Society and not the Society upon the Magistracy In the Civil Society the first thing that must be thought on is that Nature made men afterwards we conceive that she Assembled and United them together and lastly that from that Union that could not subsist without Order Mastistracy proceeded It is the same thing in a Religious Society the first thing that Grace did was to produce Faith in the Hearts of men after having made them believe she United them and form'd a mutual Communion between them and because their Communion ought not to be without Order and without Government from thence the Ministry arose So that a Lawful Ministry is after the True Church and depending upon it It is not a Lawful Ministry that makes it to be the True Church for it is so by the Truth of its Faith and it would yet be so when it actually had not any Ministers but it is the True Church that makes the Ministry to be Lawful since it is from the Truth of a Church that the Justice of its Ministry proceeds The Argument therefore of the Author of the Prejudices involves the Dispute in a ridiculous Circle for when he would prove that we are not the True Church because we have not a Lawful Ministry we maintain on the contrary That we have a Lawful Ministry because we are the True Church And he cannot say that we are the cause of the ridiculous Circle because our way of Reasoning follows the Order of Nature and his does not follow it I omit that his first Proposition which is Where there is no Lawful Ministry there is no True Church is Equivocal For either he understands by that Lawful Ministry Ministers actually Established or else he means a Right to Establish them If the former his Proposition is false for the True Church may be without having actually any Ministers that is no ways impossible as I have already shewn And if he means the latter his Proposition is not to his purpose for it would maintain that the Society of the Protestants has a full and entire Right to set up Ministers for its Government supposing that it had the True Faith as it may appear by what I have said and as it will appear yet more clearly by the following Observation 8. I say then in the eighth place That the Body of the Church that is to say Properly and Chiefly the Society of the truly Faithful not only has the Right of the Ministry but that it is also that Body that makes a Call Lawful of persons to that Office This Truth will be confirmed by what I have already shewn without any further need of new Proofs But as the Question concerning the true Fountain whence that Call proceeds is it self alone almost all the difference that is between the Church of Rome and us about this matter and that moreover it is extreamly Important to the Subject we are upon It is necessary for us to examine it a little more carefully They cannot then take it ill that I insist a little more largely upon this Observation then I have done upon the rest To make it as clear as I can possibly I propose to Treat of three Questions The first shall be To know whether naturally a Call belongs to the Pastors only excluding the Laity or whether it belongs to the whole Body of the Church The Second Whether in case it belongs to the whole Body of the Church it can be said that the Church can of it self spoil it self of its right or whether it has lost it any way that it could be supposed to have And the Third Whether the Body of the Church may confer Calls immediately by it self or whether the Church is alwayes bound to confer them by means of its Pastors As to the first of these Questions All the Difficulty it can have comes only from the false Idea of a Call that is ordinarily formed in the Church of Rome For first They make it a Sacrament properly so called and they name it the Sacrament of Orders From whence the thought readily arises that the Body of the People cannot confer a Sacrament They Imagine next That that Sacrament impresses a certain Character which they call an Indelible Character and which they conceive of as a Physical Quality or an Absolute Accident as they speak in the School and as an Inherent Accident in the Soul of the Minister They perswade themselves further that Jesus Christ and his Apostles left that Sacrament and that Physical Quality in trust in the hands of the Bishops to be communicated by none but them With that they mix a great many Ceremonies and External Marks as Unction and the Shaving which they call the Priesty Crown They add to all that Priestly Habits the Stole the Alb the Cope the Cross the Miter the Rochet Hood Pall c. They make Mysterious Allegories upon these Ceremonies and those Ornaments they distinguish those Dignities into divers Orders they frame a Hierarchy set out by the Pompous Titles of Prelats Primates arch-Arch-Bishops Patriarchs Cardinals c. They write great Books upon all these things and the half of their Divinity is taken up in explaining their Rights Authority Priviledges Immunities Apostolick Grants Exceptions c. What ground is here that all good men should not believe that the Church-men are at least men of another kind from all others and that they are no wayes made of the same blood of which Saint Paul says that God has made all Mankind Notwithstanding when we examine well that Call what it is to form a just Idea of it we shall find that properly it is but a Relation that results from the Agreement of three Wills to wit that of God that of the Church and that of the Person called for the consent of these three make all the Essence of that Call and the other things that may be added to it as Examination Election Ordination are Preambulatory Conditions or Signs and External Ceremonies which more respect the Manner of that Call then the Call it self In Effect in a Call we can remark but three Interests that can engage one to it that of God since he that is called ought to speak and Act in his Name that of the Church that ought to be Instructed Served and Governed and that of him who is called who ought to fulfil the Functions of his Charge and to Consecrate his Watchful Diligence Cares and Labours to it from whence it follows That that Call is sufficiently formed when God the Church and the Person called come to agree and we cannot rationally conceive any thing else in it But as to the Will of the called it does not fall into the Question for we all acknowledge that no one can be forced to receive the Office of the
themselves if they should yield any obedience to their Soveraigns On the other side Clement VII who kept his seat at Avignon was not wanting to proceed against Vrban and his Followers and to Treat him and his Party with the same heat that Vrban had shew'd against him See here differences which were methinks sufficiently heightned Notwithstanding whatsoever Animosity there was there between those two parties whatsoever Wars they made one against another whatsoever Anathema's they mutually thundred out the Church of Rome has not failed to own and Canonize for Saints those person who lived and died in those two contrary Obediences and who even died in the hottest Quarrels of those two Anti-Popes For she has Canonized on the one side Saint Catherine of Siena who took part with Vrban and who Treated his competitor as Anti-Christ and a member of the Devil and his Cardinals as Devils incarnate and on the other side she has Canonized Peter of Luxemburg who died the Cardinal of Clement VII and who had received that Dignity from his hands against the express prohibition of Vrban VI. under pain of Excommunication so that here are two Saints on the one and the other side lawfully Excommunicated Mr. Daille in his Answer to the Monsieurs Adam and Cottiby intending to retort this same Objection that the Author of the Prejudices gives us has set before us the Example of Saint Jerome and Saint Cyril of Alexandria who were cruelly and passionately carried out against Saint John Chrysostom so far as to compare his fall to the fall of Babylon and to call him Traytor Judas Jechonias he has also alledged the Example of Stephen Bishop of Rome who in the Quarrel that he had with Saint Cyprian calls him a false Christ a false Apostle and deceitful worker But the Author of the Prejudices does not think that these Examples are to the purpose He says That the Difference between Saint Chrysostome and Saint Jerome and Saint Cyril respected only personal Actions in which none ever denied but that it might happen to the Saints themselves to be surprized in respect of one another But this is only a shift for if we may understand that it has hapned to the Saints to be violently carried out against another Saint after the fiercest manner in the World upon personal differences which have no other Foundations then a Surprise I see not why we may not also understand that it may happen to good men to be violently carried out against one another about the points of Religion which afford a more just pretence of Animosity when each thinks he has the Truth of his side Before I let go this Example I cannot forbear noting by the by that it is but very ill to the purpose that the Author of the Prejudices censures M. Daille for having said that Theophilus of Alexandria and Epiphanius had condemned Excommunicated and deposed Chrysostom from his Bishoprick for it is evident to those who are not ignorant of History that Theophilus condemned and deposed him and that Epiphanius being gone to Constantinople before that same condemnation refused to hold Communion with Chrysostom which is precisely that which M. Daille would have said But the Author of the Prejudices does not Answer me better upon the Quarrel of Saint Cyprian and Stephen Their difference says he was only upon a point which had not then been decided by the Church This Evasion is very pittiful The more trivial the occasion is about which one is violent that passion is both the more blameable and the prejudice against the persons who are so carried away with it is the better grounded To Answer after that manner aggravates the passion of Stephen in stead of excusing it Stephen adds he who had more reason at the bottom was carried out by the ardour of his Zealonly to some threats of Excommunication Or if you will to an Excommunication which having had no ground would have produced no real division and would not have hindred but that Saint Cyprian should still have been honoured by the Church of Rome and Saint Stephen by that of Africa It is not certain that Stephen had more reason at the bottom then Saint Cyprian on the contrary there were in their days as many Hereticks at least whose Baptism ought to have been rejected as there was whose ought to have been admitted And as for the rest whether Stephen had in effect Excommunicated Saint Cyprian or whether he had meerly threatned it what is that to our Question If he contented himself with a meer Threatning of it he remained in Communion with a man whom he called a false Christ a. false Apostle a. deceitful Worker and with a man whom on his part he accused of Stupidity of Pride of Obstinacy of Presumption of Folly of blindness of Mind and of Wickedness He abode in Communion with Firmilianus who had the same interests with Saint Cyprian and who also accused Stephen of Inhumanity Boldness of Insolence of Schism and manifest Folly who compared him to Judas and said of him that he took part with Hereticks If he actually Excommunicated them it further notes the excess of his Passion which could not in effect have been Judged to have been less then a Passion and a violent heat since according to the Author of the Prejudices himself it would have had no ground and would not have hindred but that Saint Cyprian should have been always honoured by the Church of Rome Since the Author of the Prejudices was in the way to refute the Answer of M. Daille it had possibly more conduced to the publick Edification if in stead of shallowly insisting on those remote Examples he had applied himself to that wherein M. Daille adjoyns the fierce injuries wherewith the Divines of the Roman Church may be every day seen to rend one another although they then remain and though they yet live in one and the same Communion They acknowledge one another for Brethren they assist at the same Altars they call upon the same Saints and yet nevertheless as M. Daille relates they write one against another after the most passionate and violent manner in the World One sort of them say of their Adversaries That they were infected with Heresies and were Enemies of the Apostolick See and that their Opinion was full of Heresie and Perfidiousness That it was Presumptious Injurious to the State of the Religious and that it savoured of Calvinism and to speak Plainly that it was Erroneous in the Faith that it openly stifled the word of God and the Authority of the Fathers that it was blasphemous against Jesus Christ and all the Saints plainly and evidently Heretical and contrary to the Council of Trent The others say on the contrary That the Propositions which they have laid down were false rash presumptious pernitious to all faithful People that they were Erroneous and injurious to the Bishops tending to overthrow or disturb the Hierarchy and that
some were even contrary to the word of God and the Authority of the Councils They add that a certain Book of their Adversaries was full of Propositions that were Dangerous Seditious Impious Schismatical Blasphemous with some openly Heretical See here what M. Daille has set down immediatly after the Examples of Cyril Saint Jerome Stephen and Saint Cyprian in which it had been well if the Author of the Prejudices would have satisfied us for he cannot be ignorant that we could urge this matter a great deal further then M. Daille has done and that he who would make up a Collection of all the Injuries that these Gentlemen say of one another would make a very strange Vocabulary But he has Judged that he ought to pass over this Article in silence and that it was more fit for his purpose to answer only upon Saint Cyril Saint Jerome Stephen and Saint Cyprian Howsoever it be it seems to be clear to me by what I have said a very ill prejudice in matters of Religion to make the Judgment that we ought to make of a Doctrine to depend upon that that we may make of the Persons instead of Judging it by the Doctrine it self and by the word of God and the Author of the Prejudices may suffer us if he pleases to say to him on the Part of our first Reformers what Saint Augustin said on the Part of the Orthodox to Cresconius Since you are not the Judge of the inward motions of our heart set your selves only to know whether we fight for or against the Truth For if we Teach the Truth if we refute Error when our intentions should not be good and if we should seek either for secular advantages or vain-glory those who have a love for the Truth will not avoid joyning with us since it would be the Truth that would be always declared after what manner soever it were so But besides those two Remarks which I have made I must further take notice in the Third place that the Reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices is founded upon another supposition which is not less unjust nor less rash then those other Two which I have examined For it is founded upon this Principle That we ought to Judge of Persons meerly by that ill which appears in them whereas in order to the making an equitable Judgment we ought at least to consider the good with the ill and after having made an exact discernment of the one and the other to approve of that good that may be seen and to blame that bad that may be found there It was after this manner that Zuinglius and Calvin passed their Judgments on Luther and that we Judge him also we discover a great many Excellent things in him an Heroical Courage a great Love for the Truth an ardent Zeal for the Glory of God a great Trust in his Providence Extraordinary Learning in a dark Age a profound respect of the Holy Scripture an indefatigable Spirit and a great many other high Qualities We see that he was in his Time one of the first who had their Eyes opened to consider the Errors and Abuses that were then currant in the Latin Church that he earnestly applyed himself to it that his Example excited divers others to do the same that he endured upon that Account very great Persecutions under all which his heart never failed and that by his Cares and Learned Labours he recovered divers people out of the Superstition wherein they were buried Under this prospect we cannot but give him the Just praise which we believe he merits and because we know that God is the Author of every perfect gift as Saint James says we attribute all the good that we see in Luther to his Grace and his Holy Spirit and all the happy Successes of his Preaching to the Divine Benediction looking upon him as a servant of God and an instrument which he made use of for the work of the Reformation But because there is no person in the World who has not his Excesses and his Faults amidst that which Luther had of praise worthy we see also a great many things which we know not how to approve We believe that he had not light enough about the matter of the Eucharist we find that he was very much prepossessed about the Real presence we acknowledge that his stile was too impetuous and too violent and we make no scruple to say that he has not well enough distinguished his differing opinions so as to be able to support them without breaking the bond of Communion with those who could not tolerate them which makes him fall into a great piece of injustice in respect of us Thus far methinks we may go without impugning Christian Charity if any one among us have pushed his Judgment further and would needs have Penetrated into the heart of Luther to impute his Actions to the Principles of Jealousy of Pride and Hatred as the Author of the Prejudices says that Hospinian has done it is what we do not approve of For there is nothing in the World wherein we are more easily deceived then in the Judgments which we pass upon the internal Principles of any ones Actions We may say this Action is good this Action is not good but when one Action may proceed from divers differing Principles we ought to Judge with Charity or if there be no place for a Judgment of Charity the surest way is not to Judge at all but to leave it to the knowledge of God If the Author of the Prejudices had followed this Rule he had never attributed as he has done our carriage towards Luther and the Lutherans to a piece of Human Policy he had said on the contrary that it was the effect of a Just Discernment which we could not tell how to hinder our selves from making without being culpable We blame in Luther and in the Lutherans what we Judge to be blamable there we commend that therein which we Judge to be commendable we bear with that which we believe to be tolerable without approving it and if there be any excess either in that Praise or Blame or Toleration we are ready to amend it when they shall make us to perceive it Notwithstanding we chuse rather to incline towards the side of Charity then towards that of Rigor and we would be much rather in a state wherein by the Mediation of the grace of God all sharpness animosity harsh expressions accusations complaints might be for ever banished then that we should banish our Praises and Toleration We will always preserve towards the Church of Rome the same Charity and the same Justice as much as it shall be possible for us to do but in Observing that equality we are grieved to see that we cannot but make very differing Judgments of her and of those of the Confession of Ausburg and which produce contrary effects in us These latter are in difference with us only about