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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30411	A relation of a conference held about religion at London, the third of April, 1676 by Edw. Stillingfleet ... and Gilbert Burnet, with some gentlemen of the Church of Rome.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1676 (1676)	Wing B5861; ESTC R14666	108,738	278

the other Prophecies in the Old Testament from which we find the Apostles arguing to prove this foundation of their Faith which every one may see do not contain in so many words that which was proved by them But these being so obvious we choose only to name this all the rest being of a like nature with it The next Controversy debated in that time was the obligation of the Mosaical Law The Apostles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost made a formal Decision in this matter yet there being great opposition made to that St. Paul sets himself to prove it at full length in his Epistle to the Galatians where besides other Arguments he brings these two from the Old Testament one was that Abraham was justified by Faith before the giving the Law for which he cites these words Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness From which by a very just consequence he infers that as Abraham was blessed so all that believe are blessed with him and that the Law of Moses that was 430 years after could not disannul it or make the promise of none effect therefore we might now be justified by Faith without the Law as well as he was Another place he cites is The just shall live by Faith and he subsumes the Law was not of Faith from which the Conclusion naturally follows Therefore the just lives not by the Law He must be very blind that sees not a succession of many consequences in that Epistle of St. Paul's all which had been utterly impertinent if this new method had any ground for its pretension and they might at one dash have overthrown all that he had said But men had not then arrived at such devices as must at once overturn all the sense and reason of mankind We hope what we premised will be remembred to shew that the Apostles being infallibly directed by the Holy Ghost will not at all prove that though this way of Arguing might have passed with them yet it must not be allowed us For their being infallibly directed proves their Arguments and way of proceeding was rational and convincing otherwise they had not pitched on it And the persons to whom these Arguments were offered not acquiescing in their Authority their Reasonings must have been good otherwise they had exposed themselves and their cause to the just scorn of their enemies Having therefore evinced that both our Saviour and his Apostles did prove by consequences drawn from Scripture the greatest and most important Articles of Faith we judg that we may with very great assurance follow their example But this whole matter will receive a further confirmation If we find it was the method of the Church of God in all ages to found her decisions of the most important Controversies on consequences from Scriptures There were very few Hereticks that had face and brow enough to set up against express words of Scripture for such as did so rejected these Books that were so directly opposite to their errors as the Maniche●s did the Gospel of St. Matthew But if we examine the method either of Councils in condemning Hereticks or of the Fathers writing against them we shall always find them proceeding upon deductions and consequences from Scripture as a sufficient ground to go upon Let the Epistle both of the Council of Antioch to Samosatenus and Denis of Alexandria's Letter to him be considered and it shall be found how they drew their Definitions out of deductions from Scripture So also Alexander Patriarch of Alexandria in his Epistle in which he condemned AErius proceeds upon deductions from Scripture and when the Council of Nice came to judg of the whole matter if we give credit to Ge●●sius they canvassed many places of Scripture that they might come to a decision and that whole dispute as he represents it was all about Interences and Deductions from Scripture It is true F. Maimbourg in his Romantick History of Arrianism would perswade us that in that Counsel the Orthodox and chiefly the great Saints of the Council were for adhering closely to what they had received by Tradition without attempting to give new Expositions of Scripture to interpret it any other way than as they had learned from these Fathers that had been taught them by the Apostles But the Arrians who could not find among these that which they intended to establish maintained on the contrary that we must not confine our selves to that which hath been held by Antiqui●y since none could be sure about that Therefore they thought that one must search the truth of the Doctrine only in the Scriptures which they could turn to their own meaning by their false subtitles And to make this formal account pass easily with his Reader he vouches on the margin Sozom. cap. 16. When I first read this it amazed me to find a thing of so great consequence not so much as observed by the Writers of Controversies but turning to Sozomen I found in him these words speaking of the Dispute about Arrius his opinions the Disputation being as is usual carried out into different Enquiries some were of opinion that nothing should be innovated beyond the Faith that was originally delivered and these were chiefly those whom the simplicity of their manners had brought to Divine Faith without nice curiosity Others did strongly or earnestly contend that it was not fit to follow the ancienter opinions without a strict trial of them Now in these words we find not a word either of Orthodox or Arrian so of which side either one or other were we are left to conjecture That Jesuite has been sufficiently exposed by the Writers of the Port-Royal for his foul dealing on other occasions and we shall have great cause to mistruth him in all his accounts if it be found that he was quite mistaken in this and that the party which he calls the Orthodox were really some holy good men but simple ignorant and ●asily abused And that the other party which he calls the Arrian was the Orthodox and more judicious who readily forseeing the inconvenience which the simplicity of others would have involved them in did vehemently oppose it and pressed the Testimonies of the Fathers might not be blindly followed For proof of this we need but consider that they anathematized these who say that the Son was the work of the Father as Athanasius tells us which were the very words of Denis of Alexandria of whom the Arrians boasted much and cited these words from him and both Athanasius and Hilary acknowledg that those Bishops that condemned S●●nos●tenus did also reject the Consubstantial and St. B●sil says Denis sometimes denied sometimes acknowledged the Consubstantial Yet I shall not be so easy as Petavius and others of the Roman Church are in this matter who acknowledg that most of the Fathers before the Council of Nice said many things that did not agree with the Rule of the Orthodox ●aith but

which to some degree will again encourage the Reader and so I leave him to the perusal of what follows THE RELATION OF THE Conference Monday Afternoon the third of April 1676. D. S. and M. B. went to M. L. T 's as they had been desired by L. T. to confer with some Persons upon the Grounds of the Church of Englands separating from Rome and to shew how unreasonable it was to go from our Church to theirs About half an hour after them came in S.P.T. Mr. W. and three more There were present seven or eight Ladies three other Church-men and one or two more When we were all set D. S. said to S.P.T. that we were come to wait on them for justifying our Church that he was glad to see we had Gentlemen to deal with from whom he expected fair dealing as on the other hand he hoped they should meet with nothing from us but what became our profession S. P. said they had Protestants to their Wives and there were other Reasons too to make them with they might turn Protestants therefore he desired to be satisfyed in one thing And so took out the Articles of the Church and read these words of the Sixth Article of the Holy Scriptures So that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation Then he turned to the Twenty Eighth Article of the Lords Supper and read these words And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith and added he desired to know whether that was read in Scripture or not and in what place it was to be found D. S. said he must first explain that Article of the Scripture for this method of proceeding was already sufficiently known and exposed he clearly saw the Snare they thought to bring him in and the advantages they would draw from it But it was the cause of the Church he was to defend which he hoped he was ready to seal with his Blood and was not to be given up for a Trick The meaning of the Sixth Article was That nothing must be Received or Imposed as an Article of Faith but what was either expresly contained in Scripture or to be deduced and proved from it by a clear consequence so that if in any Article of our Church which they rejected he should either shew it in the express words of Scripture or prove it by a clear consequence he performed all required in this Article If they would receive this and fix upon it as the meaning of the Article which certainly it was then he would go on to the proof of that other Article he had called in question M. W. said They must see the Article in express Scripture or at least in some places of Scripture which had been so interpreted by the Church the Councils or Fathers or any one Council or Father And he the rather pitched on this Article because he judged it the only Article in which all Protestants except the Lutherans were agreed D. S. said It had been the art of all the Hereticks from the Marcionites days to call for express words of Scripture It was well known the Arrians set up their rest on this that their Doctrine was not condemned by express words of Scripture but that this was still rejected by the Catholick Church and that Theodoret had written a Book on purpose to prove the unreasonableness of this Challenge therefore he desired they would not insist on that which every body must see was not fair dealing and that they would take the Sixth Article entirely and so go to see if the other Article could not be proved from Scripture though it were not contained in express words M. B. Added that all the Fathers writing against the Arrians brought their proofs of the Consubstantiality of the Son from the Scriptures though it was not contained in the express words of any place And the Arrian Council that rejected the words Equisubstantial and Consubstantial gives that for the reason that they were not in the Scripture And that in the Council of Ephesus S. Cyril brought in many propositions against the Nestorians with a vast collection of places of Scripture to prove them by and though the quotations from Scripture contained not those propositions in express words yet the Council was satisfied from them and condemned the Nestorians Therefore it was most unreasonable and against the practice of the Catholick Church to require express words of Scripture and that the Article was manifestly a disjunctive where we were to chuse whether of the two we would chuse either one or other S. P. T. said Or was not in the Article M. B. said Nor was a negative in a disjunctive proposition as Or was an affirmative and both came to the same meaning M. W. said That S. Austin charged the Heretick to read what he said in the Scripture M. B. said S. Austin could not make that a constant rule otherwise he must reject the Consubstantiality which he did so zealously assert though he might in disputing urge an Heretick with it on some other account D. S. said The Scripture was to deliver to us the revelation of God in matters necessary to Salvation but it was an unreasonable thing to demand proofs for a negative in it for if the Roman Church have set up many Doctrines as Articles of Faith without proof from the Scriptures we had cause enough to reject these if there was no clear proofs of them from Scripture but to require express words of Scripture for a negative was as unjust as if Mahomet had said the Christians had no reason to reject him because there was no place in Scripture that called him an Impostor Since then the Roman Church had set up the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass without either express Scripture or good proofs from it their Church had good cause to reject these M. W. said The Article they desired to be satisfied in was if he understood any thing a positive Article and not a negative M. B. said The positive Article was that Christ was received in the Holy Sacrament but because they had as our Church judged brought in the Doctrine of the corporal presence without all reason the Church made that explanation to cast out the other so that upon the matter it was a negative He added that it was also unreasonable to ask any one place to prove a Doctrine by for the Fathers in their proceedings with the Arrians brought a great collection of places which gave light to one another and all concurred to prove the Article of Faith that was in controversy so if we brought such a consent of many places of Scripture as proved our Doctrine all being joined together we perform all that the Fathers thought themselves bound to do in the like case D.

esteem both with the Emperor and our great King Alfred He was accounted a Saint and a Martyr his memory was celebrated by an Anniversary on the tenth of November He was also very learned in the Greek and other Oriental Tongu●s which was a rare thing in that Age. This Erigena did formally refute Paschase's Opinion assert ours It is true his Book is now lost being 200 years after burned by the C. of Vercel but though the Church of Lyons does treat him very severely in their Book against him and fastens many strange opinions upon him in which there are good grounds to think they did him wrong yet they no where chalenge him for what he wrote about the Sacrament which shews they did not condemn him for that though they speak of him with great animosity because he had written against Predestination and Grace efficacious of it self which they defended It seems most probable that it was from his Writings that the Homily read at Easter by the Saxons here in England does so formally contradict the Doctrine of Transubstantiation And now let the Reader judge if it be not clear that Paschase did innovate the Doctrine of the Church in this point but was vigorously opposed by all the great men of that Age. For the following Age all Historians agree it was an Age of most prodigious Ignorance and Debauchery and that amongst all sorts of people none being more signally vicious than the Clergy and of all the Clergy none so much as the Popes who were such a succession of Monsters that Baronius cannot forbear making the saddest exclamations possible concerning their cruelties debaucheries and other vices So that then if at any time we may conclude all were asleep and no wonder if the tares Paschase had sown did grow up and yet of the very few writings of the Age that remain the far greater number seem to favour the Doctrine of Bertram But till Berengarius his time we hear nothing of any contest about the Eucharist So here were two hundred years spent in an absolute ignorance and forgetfulness of all divine things About the middle of the 11th Cent. Bruno Bishop of Angiers and Berengarius who was born in Towrs but was Arch-Deacon and Treasurer of the Church of Angiers did openly teach that Christ was in the Sacrament only in a Figure We hear little more of Bruno but Berengarius is spoken of by many Historians as a man of great Learning and Piety and that when he was cited to the Council at Rome before Nicolaus the second none could resist him that he had an excellent faculty of speaking and was a man of great Gravity that he was held a Saint by many He did abound in Charity Humility and good Works and was so chast that he would not look at a beautiful woman And Hildebert Bishop of Mans whom S. Bernard commends highly made such an Epitaph on him that notwithstanding all the abatements we must make for Poetry yet no man could write so of an ordinary person This Berengarius wrote against the corporal Presence calling it a stupidity of Paschase's and Lanfrank's who denied that the substance of Bread and Wine remained after Consecration He had many followers as Sigebert tells us And William of Malmesbury and Matthew Paris tell us his Doctrine had overspred all France It were too long to shew with what impudent corrupting of Antiquity those who wrote against him did stuff up their Books Divers Councils were held against him and he through fear did frequently waver for when other Arguments proved too weak to convince him then the Faggot which is the sure and beloved Argument of that Church prevailed on his fears so that he burnt his own Book and signed the condemnation of his own Opinion at Rome this he did as Lanfranke upbraids him not for love of the Truth but for fear of Death which shewes he had not that love of the Truth and constancy of mind he ought to have had But it is no prejudice against the Doctrine he taught that he was a man not only subject to but overcome by so great a temptation for the fear of death is natural to all men And thus we see that in the ninth Century our Doctrine was taught by the greatest writers of that time so that it was then generally received and not at all condemned either by Pope or Council But in the eleventh Century upon its being defended it was condemned Can there be therefore any thing more plain than that there was a change made and that what in the one Age was taught by a grea number of writers without any censure upon it was in another Age anathematized Is there not then here a clear change And what has been done was certainly possible from whence we conclude with all the justice and reason in the world that a change was not only possible but was indeed made And yet the many repeated condemnations of Berengarius shew his Doctrine was too deeply rooted in the minds of that Age to be very easily suppressed for to the end of the eleventh Century the Popes continued to condemn his Opinions even after his death In the beginning of the twelfth Century Honorius of Autun who was a considerable man in that Age did clearly assert the Doctrine of the Sacraments nourishing our Bodies and is acknowledged by Thomas Waldensis to have been a follower of Berengarius his Heresie And about the eighteenth year of that Age that Doctrine was embraced by great numbers in the South of France who were from their several Teachers called Petrobrusians Henricians Waldenses and from the Countrey where their numbers were greatest Albigenses whose Confession dated the year 1120 bears That the eating of the Sacramental Bread was the eating of Iesus Christ in a figure Jesus Christ having said as oft as ye do this do it in remembrance of me It were needless to engage in any long account of these people the Writers of those times have studied to represent them in as hateful and odious Characters as it was possible for them to devise and we have very little remaining that they wrote Yet as the false Witnesses that were suborned to lay heavy things to our Blessed Saviour's Charge could not agree among themselves so for all the spite with which these Writers prosecute those poor Innocents there are such noble Characters given even by these enemies of their piety their simplicity their patience constancy and other virtues that as the Apologists for Christianity do justly glory in the testimonies Pliny Lucian Tacitus Iosephus and other declared Enemies give so any that would study to redeem the memory of those multitudes from the black aspersions of their foul-mouthed Enemies would find many passages among them to glory much in on their behalf which are much more to be considered than those virulent Calumnies with which they labour to blot their Memories But neither the death of Peter de Bruis who was burnt nor