Scriptures And upon another occasion Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of Eternal Life And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God If those of the Church of Rome were accustomed to the reading of the Holy Scripture they would find the proofs of this Truth in a thousand places but the far greatest part of our Controversies come from the neglect they have of that Divine Book and that neglect it self is one fruit of that excessive confidence they have in their Guides The End of the First Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS 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 Prelats WE may now methinks suppose it evident and proved That our Fathers had a right and were bound to examine by themselves the matters of Religion and not to refer themselves absolutely to the Conduct and Authority of their Prelats But from thence it manifestly follows that they had a right to Reform themselves For since they could examine only in order to discern the good from the bad and the true from the false who can doubt that they having a right to make that discernment would not also have had a right to reject that which they should have found to have been contrary to or alienated from Christianity which is precisely that which is called Reformation I acknowledge that it yet remains to be inquired into whether those things which they have rejected are indeed Errors and Superstitons as they are pretended to be and whether they did not deceive themselves in the Judgment that they made But who sees it not necessary for the deciding of that Question to go to the bottom and to enter upon that discussion which our Adversaries would avoid From whence it may appear as I have said in the beginning that all that Controversy which they raise against us about the Call of our Reformers is nothing else but a vain amusement and that to make a good Judgment of that Action of our Fathers and to know whether it be just or unjust we ought always to come to the bottom of the cause and to those things themselves which are Reformed for upon that the Question doth wholly depend whether they did well or ill Notwithstanding to shew that we would forget nothing that may serve for our Justification and that after the desire to please God we have not a greater then that of approving our selves to our Country-men and in general to all men we shall not fail to make yet some particular Reflexions upon the Circumstances of the Reformation which will more and more confirm the right of our Fathers and manifest the Justice of their Conduct and at the same time we shall answer to some Objections of the Author of the Prejudices That shall be the business of this Second Part. Our first Reflexion shall be on that deplorable State of the Latin Church in the days of our Fathers in respect of its Prelats for its Condition was such that there was no more hope of ever seeing a good Reformation to spring up by their Ministry In effect what could be expected from a Body that had almost wholly abandoned the care of Religion and of the Salvation of Souls which was plunged in the intrigues and interests of the World which kept the People in the ignorance of the Mysteries of the Gospel and in the most gross Superstitions and with which the whole body it self did entertain it self and was found to be possest by Ambition by Luxury and by Covetousness and engaged in the vilest manners and living in almost a general opposition to overthrow of all Discipline They will SEE then what a German Bishop says in a Book intituled Onus Ecclesiae who lived and wrote in the year 1519. that is to say near the very time of the Reformation but one who was no ways Luthers friend as it appears by his writings I am afraid says he That the Doctrine of the Apostle touching the Qualifications of a Bishop is but very ill observed in these days or rather that we are fallen into those Times which he noted when he said I know that after my departure ravenous Wolves will come among you not sparing the flock Where may one see a good man chosen to be a Bishop one approved by his works and his Learning and any one who is not either a Child or Worldly or Ignorant of spiritual things The far greater number come to the Prelateship more by underhand canvassings and ill ways then by Election and lawful ways That Disorder which may be seen in the Ecclesiastical Dignities sets the Church in danger of perishing for Solomon says There is one evil which I have seen under the Sun as an Error which proceedeth from the Ruler when a fool is raised to high dignity It is therefore that I said that the Bishops ought to excel in Learning to the end that by their Instructions and their Preaching they might govern others profitably But alas What Bishop have we now a days that Preaches or has any care of the Souls committed to him There are besides that very few who are contented with one Spouse alone that is to say with one only Church and who seek not to appropriate to themselves more Dignities more Prebends and what is yet more to be condemned more Bishopricks Our Bishops are feasting at their own Tables then when they should be at the Altar they are unwise in the things of God but they love the wisdom of the World they are more intent on Temporal Affairs say it may be that I suffer my self to be carried away by my Passion and that all these clamourous Accusations are but the effect of that Engagement in which we all are set against the Church of Rome But to leave no ground for that Suspicion besides what I have set down in general in the second Chapters of my first Part I will further produce here more particular Testimonies of that Truth by applying them to the Ages of our Fathers I will say nothing of my own head I will make their Authors that are not suspected by them to speak whose passages I will faithfully relate which they may see in the Originals if they will take the pains And as I hope that they will not lay to my charge what may appear to be too vehement in their Expressions so also I not do pretend to impute to the Prelats of these days that which those Authors censured in those of the former Times then on the work of Jesus Christ Their Bodies are adorned with Gold and their Souls defiled with filth they are ashamed to meddle with Spiritual things and their glory lies in their Scurrilous humor and carriage Whence it was that Catherine of
in it no sooner I have heard it has been the wish of some Great Divines but their own Employments hindred them from Effecting it and it might have been expected that it should have moved somebody to have attempted it upon that very account because they desired it For since the Gift of Tongues is ceased and those Inspired Linguists have been long ago silenced Translation is none of the worst ways of supplying that absent Grace neither can it be accounted beneath any man by his Industry to retrieve a departed Miracle I could wish he had come forth in all the Ornaments of our Language as he did at first in those of his own Those Ceremonies of Speech though in themselves not absolutely necessary and add not much to the Substance yet they contribute not a little to the Decency and pleasing part of an Author for there is a Delightful Prospect arising from the Agreeable Mixture of the Colours of Language without which a Book is never the less solid but with which it is much more perswading However he appears the more in his own Dimensions the thinner his Garments are and the closer they sit about him I shall make no Apology for the Author because I know nothing in him that needs it unless some should mistake some of his expressions about Episcopacy Where if he has let fall any thing that may offend he has these two things at least for his excuse First that he lived under an external constitution of a Church that did not exercise that way of Government Secondly he himself tells us those that he mentions were only such who were of the Popish Communion and only as such he uses them I shall not detain the Reader any longer from the Book it self only I am to desire him that whatsoever faults he finds in the Preface may not be imputed any further to the Book it self For the more mistakes there are in it the more proper it is for that Perfect Piece it is set before as the Errors of the Church of Rome had no small share in the occasion of our Religion and may in some sense be stiled The Preface to the Reformation The Epistle Dedicatory of the Author To the Right Honourable The MARQUESS of RUVIGNY Lieutenant-General of His Majesties Armies AND General Deputy of the Protestants in FRANCE MY LORD MY first thoughts after I had read the Books of the Prejudices were not to write any Answer to it For besides that I saw in that Book nothing else but the same Accusations from which our Fathers and we have already been frequently justified and that moreover they were wrote there in so extreamly passionate and invenomed a stile for my own particular I did not think my self bound to follow every where those persons who seem to make it their design to load me with the number of their Volumes affecting to take me for a Party in all the Works that they daily publish and even in those that are most remote from the chief Subject of our Controversy Yet when I perceived the loud Out-cries that these Gentlemen and their followers made about their Prejudices to draw the applause of the World to themselves as if they had silenced us and our Reformation remained over thrown under the weight of their Victory I judged it necessary to enter upon this new labour and the deference that I had for those who exhorted me to undertake it has brought forth this Treatise that I now give to the publick Those who shall take the pains to read it will find that I have not meerly tied my self to the Book that I confute but that to save my self the labour of doing it at twice I have considered the matter in its first Principles and examinëd it in its just extent that I might be the better able to judge of it I acknowledg the Subject Treated on required more Learning readiness and leasure then I was master of but it may be also they will find in the plain and natural way wherein I have handled it something more easy then if I had employed more Art and Meditation in it It is this makes me hope that when I shall not fully have answered the expectations of those who have engaged me in this work yet they will not read this Defence without some satisfaction However it be My Lord I take the boldness to present it to you and to entreat the favour of you to receive it as a token of the acknowledgment that I have for so much goodness as you have testified towards me I am perswaded that those of our Communion in this Kingdom will very heartily consent that my weak pen should also express the sentiments that they all have of your person and of the cares that you take to uphold their common interests I will also affirm that your Merit is so generally acknowledged that when nothing shall be disputed but the just praises that are due to your prudence to the wisdom that appears throughout your whole Conduct to the inviolable Principles of Honour and Justice that are the perpetual Rules of your Actions and in a word to the great and solid Vertues that you practise with such exactness they can assure themselves that there will be no difference about that between those of the one and the other Communion But all those Qualities that they take notice of in You how Rich and Resplendent soever they are even in the eyes of those who are destitute of them would be nothing else but false dazling light if they were not accompanied with real Piety which only gives a value to all the Moral Virtues You are not ignorant My Lord you in whom we saw it but a few Months ago how your Soul ready to take its flight trembled and remained confounded in the view of all that humane Righteousness and that you could find no rest in your Spirit any where else then in the bosom of Religion and Piety This alone was that which gave you the Tranquillity of Soul which taught all those who had the honour to come near your Bed after what manner a good man who could rest assured of Gods Mercy and the Grace of Jesus Christ might look Death in the Face It is this that has yet prolonged your days or to speak better that has restored Life to you by an extraordinary blessing of heaven little different from that which Hezechias heretofore received as the fruit of his humiliation and prayer Continue MY LORD to lay out that life which has been given you again in the service of God and in the employments to which your calling engages you and of which you have so great an account to render Those employments are certainly difficult and if I may take the boldness to say it they are oppressing through their quality through their numbers and through the accidents that either accompany or follow them But he who has called you to them will give you ability to discharge
Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Adoration of the Host And that which is yet further considerable is That as the Essential Truths of Religion are so linked with one another that there is not any one that may not be as I may so speak the Center of all the rest that is to say which may not have references to all the rest and immediate connexions and which all the others may not serve to prove and uphold which makes out divers ways or manners of establishing them in the minds of the most simple even so those Errors that are destructive are so repugnant to those Truths that there is not any one which may not be opposed not only by all in general but even almost by each one in particular which shews that there are divers ways of overthrowing them and destroying them in the minds of the weakest and when they shall escape one of those ways they will be sufficiently overthrown by another For Example Transubstantiation which is repugnant to the sincerity of God is also repugnant to the Truth of the humane nature of Jesus Christ to the formation of his Body of the substance of the B. Virgin to the state of that Glory wherein he is at present to the Article of his Ascension and of his existence in Heaven to the manner in which he dwells in us which is by his Spirit and by our Faith to the nature of that hunger and thirst which we should have for his flesh and for his blood which is Spiritual to the Character of both the Sacraments wherein there never is any Transubstantiation made and to the perpetual Order that God observed when he wrought Miracles which was to lay them open to mens Eyes and Sences so that when a man should not be capable of perceiving any of those repugnances he would perceive the others which would produce the same effect and which would be sufficient to make him reject those Errors See here then all the Conditions that are necessary for the forming of a True Faith even in the Souls of the most simple behold them found in the Scripture and by consequence behold the Scripture remaining the Rule of Faith in spight of all the endeavours of the Author of the Prejudices It is in vain that he so strongly opposes it it will always be what God has made it that is to say the Fountain and only source of the Truth of Religion or as St. Irenaeus speaks the Foundation and Pillar of our Faith which only can give us quiet of mind and peace of Conscience The Difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices forms against the Scripture have these Three Characters The one That they may be turned against himself that is to say that as he has made them upon the subject of the Scripture We may also make them upon the subject of Tradition and the Church of Rome to which he would send us back the other That in regard of the Scripture they are null and to no purpose and the Third That in regard of Tradition and the Roman Church they are solid and unconquerable and this is what will appear if what I have said in this and in the foregoing Chapter be well Examined The End of the Second Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS 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 WE should certainly be the most ungrateful persons in the World if after the favour that God has shewn us in re-establishing the Purity of his Gospel in the midst of us we should not think our selves bound to give him everlasting Thanks So great and precious an advantage highly calls for our resentments and that in enjoying it with delight we should pay our Acknowledgements to the Author of it But what ground soever we should have to rejoyce in God we must notwithstanding avow that we should be very insensible in regard of others if we could behold without an extream affliction the misery of so many men who voluntarily deprive themselves of that good Those who are at present engaged in those Errors and Superstitions from which it has pleased the Divine Goodness to deliver us are our Brethren by the External Profession of the Christian Name and by the Consecration of one and the same Baptism and how can we intirely rejoyce while we see them in a state which we believe to be so bad and so contrary to our common Calling I know that God only who is the Lord of mens hearts and minds can dissipate that gloomy darkness which they are involved in and that it is our Duty to pour out our ardent and continual Prayers to him for his Grace for them but we ought not to neglect humane methods among which that of justifying the Conduct of our Fathers in the subject of their Separation is one of the most efficacious and as it is by that especially that they labour to render us odious so is to that that I shall allow the sequel of this Work The Separation of our Fathers ought to be distinguish'd into three Degrees the First consists in that which they have loudly pronounc'd against the Doctrines and Customs of the Church of Rome which they judg'd to be contrary to Faith and Piety and which they have formally renounced the Second consists in this that they have forsook the External Communion of that Church and those of its party and the Third in that they have made other Assemblies than hers and that they have rank't themselves under another Form of Ministry We have treated of the First already where we have shewn the Justice and Necessity of the Reformation which our Fathers made the Third shall be spoken to in the Fourth Part and this is designed to examine the Second Our Inquiry therefore at present will be to know whether our Fathers in Reforming themselves ought to have separated themselves from the other Party who were not for a Reformation or whether notwithstanding the Reformation they ought yet to have abode with them in one and the same Communion and to have liv'd in that respect as they did heretofore This is that which I pretend to make clear in this Third Part of this Work To enter upon this business I confess that if we could suppose it as a certainty That all Separation in matters of Religion is odious and Criminal we ought to be the first in condemning the Actions of our Fathers and that whatever aversion we should have for the Errors and Abuses which we see reigning in the Church of Rome we ought to labour to bear them as patiently as it could be possible for us to do in waiting till it should please God
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
called to it Jesus Christ having told them That when they should be persecuted in one place they should fly unto another besides that I say there is so great a difference between the duty of the Pastors of these last Ages which are so far behind that of the Apostles and that which those Pastors have actually done that one caunot know how to draw any consequence from the one to the other One cannot also conclude any thing from some Expressions of the Antient Prophets which seem to promise a great Temporal Prosperity to the Church no one is ignorant that the Stile of the Prophets may be full of figures and darkned with Vails that they ought not to be taken Literally unless men would be deceiv'd and imitate the Error of the Jews who take them in that manner For the Prophets are wont to represent Spiritual blessings under the borrowed Images of Temporal things and so also the Spirit of Christianity obliges us to explain that which they said of the Messiah and of his Church and not to delineate its prosperities and worldly Grandeur which have no relation at all to the nature of the Gospel Not that one cannot say that some of those Prophecies have been accomplish'd according to the Letter of them in the Times of Christian Emperours for then Kings were its nursing-Fathers and Queens its nursing-Mothers But that one ought not to draw a necessary consequence from thence either for all Times or for all Places and as men are always prone to abuse Temporal blessings such a worldly Prosperity of the Church would tend but in the end to corrupt it CHAP. VII That the Authority of the Prelats of the Latin Church had not any right to bind our Fathers to yeild a blind obedience to them or to hinder them from examining their Doctrines HItherto we have not opposed in our course the Book of Prejudices not but that the end which he proposes to himself has a great connexion with the things of which I have treated but because that Authour has not beleived it necessary to make us renounce the Reformation to justify the Latin Church from those strange disorders which moved the minds of our Fathers nor to speak of that priviledge which she pretends that God has given her by making of her Infallible We do not pretend says he to prove directly the Authority and Infallibity of the Catholick Chureh For although it would be most profitable to do it and though those among the Catholicks who have taken that method have used a most just and lawful way Yet as the prepossessions wherewith the Calvinists are full keep most of them from entring upon these Principles howsoever solid and true they are Charity obliges us to try other ways also and that which follows here seems one of the most natural It supposes for a Principle nothing but a Maxim of Common Sence to wit That a man who finds himself joyned to the Catholick Church by himself or by his Ancestors ought not to break off from her to joyn himself to any other Communion if he discover in that new Communion any signs of errour which may make him judge with reason that he ought not to follow it and that he cannot reasonably hope that God has established it to lead men into the truth So it is that he has thought himself bound to employ himself wholly in that way to rid himself of a great deal of trouble and that he may in this progress load us with a multitude of injuries Yet he must excuse me if I am not of his mind The way which he takes is neither just nor natural It is not just because it takes for granted and indisputable those things which not only are but are almost only to the matters of our Difference For it supposes that that Party which would not have a Reformation and from which our Fathers broke of was the Catholick Church but that is that very thing which is questioned and our Dispute can never be decided but by deciding the whole controversy If he will take that advantage of us that we to accommodate our selves to the custom of the World sometimes give those of the Church of Rome the Name of Roman-Catholicks he cannot be ignorant that those sorts of Condescentions which only respect words cannot infer any consequence as to things nor that they can give any ground to make those suppositions in this Dispute which may be regulated by more solid Principles Further that way which he would follow supposes that our Fathers in reforming themselves made a new Communion and that is yet that very thing that is in Question and we maintain that it cannot be reasonably called so as it will appear in the Progress of this Treatise I say also that that course is not natural For before we should come to consider whether there were not signs of errour in our Reformation the nature of things would first let us see whether our Fathers had not just reasons taken from the state of the Latin Church to Reform themselves and whether it was not possible for that Church to corrupt it self But that could not be well known but by examining what that State was in the days of our Fathers with that pretence of Infallibility as we have done But though the Author of those Prejudices has beleived that he might spare himself the trouble of proving to us the Infallibility and Authority of those whom he calls the Catholick-Church yet he fails not to require us to submit our selves to those by rendring them an absolute obedience He would have it that we being all so apt to deceive our selves in our Judgments and that the search of true Religion being so difficult that the surest way is for us to see with their Eyes says he to tread in their steps and wholly to strip our selves of our own guidance to give it unto them So also the chief Priests and the Scribes spake among the Jews This People who know not the Law are cursed But Jesus Christ said of these also Let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind and both shall fall into the Ditch If the Maxim of that Authour be good he must affirm that our Fathers were very unhappy for having had their eyes to see those disorders which reigned among the Church-men in their days and that God had highly favoured them had he made them to have been born stupid and blind for he conceivs it would be so far from causing them to fall and be deceived according to the threatning which Jesus Christ gives to those who leave themselves to be so blindly guided that it would be on the contrary the only means to go on with any certainty Howsoever it be we are not bound to be so blind that before we lose the use of our Eyes we must not examine this Question whether we ought to lose them or not Nature and Grace have given them to us they would have
us to surrender them but let them give us leave to use them at the least this one time to search whether it be just that we should deprive our selves of them Jesus Christ himself has forbid us to do it the Authour of those Prejudices has commanded it We ought at least to examine which of the two has reason on his side That then shall be the business of this Chapter wherein I propose to my self to shew That the Authority of those Prelats who governed the Latin Church in the time of the Reformation could not be high enough to oblige our Fathers blindly to believe all that they told them nor to hinder them from examining the Doctrines of those Prelats But as we find it frequently fall out that they disguise our Sentiments and that they may render them odious they urge them beyond their due bounds it will be meet before we go farther precisely to determine what is Treated of in that Right to the end that all equitable persons may the more easily judg of it We do not here treat of the use of the Ministry in General We acknowledge that God has appointed it in his Church and that it would be a rashness very criminal to go about to abolish it The Confession of our Faith our practice our Books and the very writings of our Adversaries sufficiently justifie us to make us believe that they will not lay any thing to our charge in that point We do not here also meddle with that order that ought to be observed in the Election and Ordination of Pastors we all agree that when the state of the Church is regulated it ought not to be permitted to any that will to thrust themselves into the Ministry nor to encroach upon their Function without being lawfully called and if there is any difference in this matter it only regards other questions and not that which we handle at present Nor do we further Treat of that respect or that obedience which every one ows to good and lawful Pastors Jesus Christ has said He that heareth you heareth me and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me and St. Paul exhorts the Faithful to submit themselves with all teachableness to their conduct Obey them that are set over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls The word then of good Pastors ought to be received with humility their Functions to be considered with veneration and their persons to be loved and honoured not only in respect of their charge but because they acquit themselves faithfully in it We do not yet further concern our selves to know whether one ought not to give that obedience to these Ministers of the Church who preach to us the Word of God although their lives are impure and scandalous and no ways correspond with their Doctrine We confess that it is not allowable for personal crimes to separate our selves from them nor from those who adhere to them whether they own those crimes or whether they deny them We ought to indeavour to reduce them to their duty and if they are incorrigible or if they have committed Actions which render them unworthy of their Function there are ordinary ways that one ought to take to deprive them if they amend the scandal is repaired and if they do not either because they will elude by Artifices the Ecclesiastical Discipline or because that depravation may become so general that there shall be no more punishment of vice then we may pray God that he would send more faithful Labourers into his Harvest nay we ought to do it but we ought always to own those for Pastors who are in that Charge and to receive the Word of God from their Mouths while they Preach it purely I go yet further and I say that we ought always in General to think well of those Pastors and not lightly to entertain suspicions of their goodness and faithfulness especially when we speak of the whole Body and the disorder that appears to be great and very visible therein that we are not absolutely to form a just prejudice against their Ministry This is what we acknowledge and our fathers acknowledged as well as we But if they will not be contented with that if they will have it yet farther that the faithful are bound blindly to receive the Doctrines of their Pastors without having any right to examine their Nature or their Quality and that it would be a crime but to set upon that examination if they would that the Authority of the Pastors after whatsoever manner we consider it whether separatly or conjunctly or altogether or in the greater number should be without any bounds or measures as to matters of Faith or Worship and the general Rules of Manners and that though they cease to believe the Divine Faith and to practise all that which they say without informing our selves any farther This is a Maxim we deny and which we maintain is contrary to the Word of God to right reason and the true interest of Christianity 1. To begin with the Word of God we may say That there never was any Maxim in the World against which it does more expresly declare it self For first it absolutely forbids Lordship in Pastors The Kings of the Gentiles said Jesus Christ in that passage before alledged exercise Lordship over them and those that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors But it shall not be so with you but he that is great among you let him be as the less and he that is chief as he that doth serve In the same sence Saint Peter bids them Feed the flock of Jesus Christ taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods heritage but being examples to the Flock St. Paul Preached the same Doctrine with St. Peter We have not says he to the Corinthians Dominion over your Faith but are helpers of your joy We may observe that on purpose to hinder the introducing that Dominion into the Church under the name of Instruction as they have done in these last Ages Jesus Christ goes so far as to forbid his Disciples the name of Masters Be not ye says he called Rabbi for one is your Master even Christ but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant And therefore it is that the Scripture gives the Title of chief Shepheard to none but Jesus Christ alone When the chief shepheard shall appear says St. Peter ye shall receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away God has brought again from the dead the great shepheard of the sheep says St. Paul But as to other Pastors the Scripture is so farr from giving them any Character of Dominion that on the contrary they are often called Ministers or Servants Stewards of the Mysteries of God Ambassadors Messengers Interpreters to teach us that they ought not to pretend to reign over mens
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
Ministers instead of correcting them severely and repressing them They thought of nothing but their own Interest and not to let slip any occasion that might be offered to heap up money without having any regard either of the Honour of the Christian Religion or of the Salvation of Souls They thought of nothing but how to settle more and more the Soveraign and Monarchical Power of the Pope of Rome where they should have wholly applied themselves to make Jesus Christ Reign in the hearts of men They thought of nothing else but putting a stop to the happy breakings out of those first bright Beams of the Truth which came out of Luthers Mouth and Pen where they should have received them and made use of them to obtain from God a further and greater Light They made it a Fundamental matter to get Luther to recant and not being able to compass that they thought of nothing but how to ruin him by all the ways they could use They raised a strife and process about a matter of Faith of Religion and of Conscience and a process that was unjust and that could not be defended in the very Form of it For what kind of proceeding was that openly to cite a man to appear at Rome who had done nothing but only proposed some Theses to dispute of on a matter upon which there had not yet been any thing defined What manner of proceeding was it to give him a party himself to be his Judge and to declare him a Heretick before ever he had heard him as the Pope did in his Letter to Cajetan to stir up Kings Princes and the People against him and to shew it was his mind to begin to Treat of so weighty a matter with his Imprisonment without any regard had either of the Protestations which he made or of the Reasons he alledged or of his respectful Submissions towards the Pope and his Legat Who may not see in all that an inflexible Resolution always to retain the Latin Church in that deplorable condition wherein it was found to be then and even to make its Yoak heavier if it had been possible So far were they from having any design to Reform it and to free it from those Enemies and Superstitions under which it groaned I am not ignorant that some way to excuse so violent a proceeding one has said That almost at the same time wherein Luther had wrote his first Letter to Pope Leo full of respect and submission he had caused to be Printed two little Books against the Epitome of Sylvester Prieras wherein he spake of Rome and its Bishops in terms extreamly injurious that which says one evidently discovered a wicked and deceitful Spirit that should send forth nut of the same mouth sweet and bitter But all that is nothing else but a discourse of a certain Vlemburg full of falshood and calumnies a sworn Enemy of Luther and his Doctrine For it is manifest that the first Letter of Luther to Pope Leo which is that that is treated of was wrote in the beginning of the Year 1518. when he had not as yet any other dispute then with the Questors and Preachers of Indulgences and that those little Books that Vlemburg speaks of which served for an answer to that Epitome of Sylvester were not wrote till the Year 1520. after the Pope and his whole Court had openly declared themselves against Luther after Luther had appealed from the Pope to a Council and after the Pope had made his Doctrine to be condemned as Heretical by the Divines of Lovain and Cologn which evidently appears from that very Epitome of Sylvester which makes mention of that Appeal of Luther to a Council and from the Marginal Notes that Luther made upon that which also make mention of those decisions of Lovain and Cologn It is then a false report of an Enemy of Luther who not being able to find any thing till then blameable in his Conduct has on purpose confounded those times to render him odious and to justify after some manner a proceeding that cannot be defended They know not how to deny that the violence which they used against him was not openly condemned not only by the common people but by the more wise and knowing Persons themselves He complained says Coclaeus that is to say one of his most fiery Enemies that he was unjustly oppressed by his adversaries whom he openly produced and gained to himself in a little time the favours not only of the simple people who easily believed him and who listned after all sorts of Novelties but that also of divers grave and learned men who giving credit to his words through an ingenuous simplicity thought that that Monk had no other end than defending the Truth against the Questors of Indulgences who as Luther accused them appeared to have a greater zeal for the drawing of Money to themselves then for procuring the good of Souls He adds That the Learned men Poets and Orators defended him and charged the Pretats and the Divines with Covetousness Pride Envy Barbarousness and Ignorance saying that they only persecured Luther for his Learning because he appeared to be more Learned than themselves and more free in speaking the Truth against the cheats and impostures of Hypocrites Some time after that Luther had appealed from the Pope to a Council the Emperour Maximilian dyed which obliged Leo to send Charles Miltit into Germany in the Quality of his Nuntio He presented a golden Rose to the Elector of Saxony which the Pope had sent him as a Token of his particular Friendship but that Present was accompanied with Letters which were sent both to the Prince and his Council in which the Pope all along requested them that they would give up Luther into his hands as an Heretick and a Child of the Devil Luther has wrote in some part of his works that Miliet was loaden with sixty six Apostolick Breves to cause them to be stuck up from place to place and by that means to conduct him more securely to Rome in case that Prince Frederick should give him up into his hands But all those Breves and all those Letters were to no purpose for that Prince would not leave Luther to so unjust a Passion This oblig'd Miltit to betake himself to other measures He thought that to make up that business he ought to take a course contrary to that of Violence and Authority He would then have some private conferences with Luther to reconcile him to the Pope he highly blamed the lewd conversations of the Sellers of Indulgences and perswaded Luther to write yet once more to the Pope with respect and submission and yet notwithstanding it was agreed that he should impose silence on both Parties and that the whole business should be committed unto some Bishop of Germany as to him of Treves or to him of Saltzburg Luther performed on his part in good earnest all that was agreed on he
into a inevitable Damnation and to have precipitated others by their Example to consent to the Ruin of the Christian Religion and utter extinction of the Church and that lest they should have been wanting in that respect and blind Obedience that the Court of Rome and its Prelats require of all the World This would be in Truth to set that obedience at two high a price and it would cost us very dear but they will find but few persons of good understanding who will not confess that that would be to push on things a little too far They will say it may be that we ought not also to suppose a thing so much in Question that that prodigious corruption of the Latin Church whereof we speak and those pretended Interests of the Christian Religion and Mens Salvation which according to us obliged our Fathers to Reform themselves without having any regard of the Court of Rome or its Prelats were nothing else but Chimaera's that we our selves have formed at our pleasure or specious pretences that our Fathers took for occasions to separate themselves and that we take after them to defend them with To answer to this Objection I will not say that there is no appearance that our Fathers made use of those motives as a pretence to cover their other Interests with They can scarce know how to imagin any interests interwoven in a business that evidently drew after it a Thousand persecutions and a Thousand afflictions and wherein they were necessarily to go through the most violent storms as the sequel will justify In effect let them say as much as much as they will that Luther was hurried away by his resentments it belongs to those who Treated him with so much injustice to dispute that matter with him before the Tribunal of God who will one day render to every man according to his works But as to our Fathers who had no part in those personal Quarrels they can no ways be suspected to have had an interest of Passion or Animosity I will not likewise say that if our Fathers themselves had had other interests then those which they have set before us which is contrary to all appearance that yet it cannot be said in respect of us that we do not follow them in the True Faith since we have had leasure enough to acknowledge what our Reformation has drawn along with it and what it has cost us But I will only say that I make that supposition only to let our Adversaries see that without amusing us any more with those formalities and those perplexing ways which they make use of continually which are proper for nothing but to defend Errors and to destroy the Church by the Tyranny of those who govern they ought to come to the bottom and to Determine with us those Fundamental Articles upon which we ground the right that our Fathers had to Reform themselves I do not then prejudge any thing by my supposition I explain only the sentiment of the Protestants and the perswasion that they entertain If what they say is not true it is certain that they have had Reason to Reform themselves for without any more Reasoning a man ought always to prefer God and his own Salvation before a hundred Popes and before ten Thousand Bishops We ought then to come to an Examination of those Matters This is what the Author of those Prejudices as hot as he is in his Controversy has been forced to acknowledge For to disintangle himself from an Argument to which he says the whole Book of the Apology of Mr. Daille is reducible and which he represents in these words We ought not to remain united to such a Communion as binds us to profess Fundamental Errors against the Faith and to practise an Idolatrous and Sacrilegious Worship But the Church of Rome binds us to profess divers fundamental Errors and to practise Idolatrous and Sacrilegious Worship diverse ways as in the Adoration of the Host c. Therefore we ought not to remain in her Communion c. He distinguishes between two sorts of Separation one of which he calls simple and Negative which says he consists more in the Negation of certain Acts of Communion then in Positive Acts against that Communion from which we separate The other he calls a Positive Separation which includes the Erecting of a separate Society the Establishing of a new Ministry and the positive Condemnation of the former Communion to which it had been Vnited Upon that Distinction he says That it is to no purpose that the Calvinists say That their Consciences will not any more allow them to be united with the Catholicks sheltring themselves under that Ambiguous Term of Vnion That their Consciences cannot any further hinder them from taking part in some Actions which their false Principles make them look upon as criminal but they would no ways engage them to all those excesses to which they are carri'd out That in fine if it were true that without betraying your Consciences they could not give that honour which we pay to the Saints and their Relicks they ought to content themselves not to give it But that it will in no wise follow from thence that they ought to go about to set up a body apart That it is this latter sort of Separation whereof they accuse us and that it is that kind of it that we ought to justify our selves from And a little lower If says he the Calvinists should make what suppositions they pleased upon the State of the Church of Rome if they should as much as they had a mind to do accuse it of Error and Idolatry it would be enough to Answer them in one word That if those pretended Errors should give them any right to refuse to profess them and to practise those actions which should include them yet they no ways gave them any night to set up themselves against the Church of Rome to anathematize her to set up a body a part and to take to themselves the Quality of Pastors although they had neither Authority nor Mission I do not now meddle with that positive Separation which the Author of the Prejudices makes so great a Crime in us We shall shew in the end that our Fathers did nothing in that respect but what they were bound to do in their Consciences and with the neglect of which they could not dispence without Sin But this we shall come to consider in its proper place it may be enough for us at present to know that with the consent of the Author of Prejudices we may suppose it as a thing indisputable That our Fathers obeying the Dictates of their Consciences had right to resuse to profess those Errors in which they believed the Church of Rome to be entangled and no more to take any part in certain actions that involved those Errors I profess it were desirable that the Author of Prejudices had told us a little more clearly his
refers to things As to Persons I confess there may be found lively complaints in the writings of the first Reformers against the Abuses of the Court of Rome against the ignorance and negligence of the Prelats against the Scandalous lives of the Clergy against the Tyrannical Government wherewith they ruled the Church I acknowledge also that when they looked upon that Great Body of the Roman Hierarchy its Props its Pretensions its Maxims its Interests its Occupations they could not hinder themselves from speaking of it as an Empire very opposite to that of Jesus Christ but they ought to be so far from laying it to their charge that they said it out of a hatred or an implacable aversion toward the Church of Rome as the Author of the Prejudices does that they ought on the contrary to attribute it to a real compassion which they had for the People of God to see them so ill instructed so ill guided so ill governed and to an ardent desire to procure a good Reformation throughout the whole Body of the Latin Church And the greater their compassion was the more difficult it was to manage that matter without giving some touches to persons in whom the source of all that evil resided and especially in a Time which they saw overspread on all sides with injuries and Calumnies and exposed in diverse places to Rigorous Persecutions 14. Object To that Reproach the Author of the Prejudices adds another which he begins â—o express in these words Although they should have had a right to have drawn away from the bosom of the Church of Rome its Children they had certainly no right to make use of Impostures and Frauds for that purpose and if they did it is a visible conviction that it was the Devil that acted by them and that their pretended Reformation was his work He alleadges in the close a passage of Calvin's wherein he pretends that Calvin calumniated the Church of Rome in laying it to her charge that she had a far greater care of her Traditions then of the Commandments of God and that she reckoned it a lesser sin to be defiled with the debaucheries of the Flesh then not to be confessed or not to have fasted on Friday to have broken all promises then not to have fulfilled a Vow of Pilgrimage and upon this the Author of the Prejudices makes his Exclamation with his usual heat Answ I Answer that Calvin speaks in that Passage not of that which the Roman Church Dogmatically taught but of that which might be seen in the common Practise of his Time and unless they should deny the most clear Truths they cannot deny that the Idea which the Authors themselves of the Church of Rome give us of its deplorable State in the Age of the Reformation does not fully confirm the Testimony of Calvin That which I have set down upon this sad Subject justifies the too little care that the Prelats and other of the Ecclesiasticks took to root out Vices from the midst of their Flocks and settle in their places a True Holiness when they had then a far greater ardour to make mens Traditions to be observed and if we had need to urge this proof further it could be done without doubt with a great deal of ease 15. Object Another kind of Calumny is to lay to the Charge of the Church the Opinions which she either rejects or which she never Authorised as matters of Faith Examples of this may be seen in every Page of the Books of their Ministers as when they reproach the Catholicks with setting up as Articles of Faith the Corruption of the Greek and Hebrew Text the immunity of the Clergy to be of Divine Right the certainty of the Declarations that the Popes make of the Holiness of particular men which they call Canonization the efficacy of Agnus Dei's the Infallibility of the Pope his Temporal Power over Kings his Pre-eminence over Councils the Jurisdiction of the Church over the Souls in Purgatory and many other opinions of that nature that the Church does not prescribe to its Children that she does not insert into the Confession of Faith which she requires of those that return to her and which she never defined by the Voice of her Councils Answ If the Author of the Prejudices would be satisfied about all the Points that he has noted in that Objection he ought to cite those passages of the Ministers against whom he forms his complaints and not to make as he does a Captious heap of divers things wherein he may mix the false and true together Notwithstanding I shall not omit to say by the way something of my own head upon each of those Articles Upon the first I can easily believe that there have been some Ministers who have reproached the Church of Rome with the having Canonized the Corruptions of the Greek and Hebrew Text because that in effect there are a great many such Corruptions in the Vulgar Version which the Council of Trent has Canonized not only in declaring it Authentick and forbidding any to reject upon any pretence whatsoever but also in saying that they ought to be held under the penalty of an Anathema for the Canonical Books of the Bible prout in Ecclesia Catholica legi consueverunt in veteri vulgata Latina editione habentur All the Question therefore may be reduced to this to wit whether we ought to hold under pain of Anathema some ill Translations which are to be found in the Vulgar for the Corruptions of the Greek and Hebrew Text and for us we believe that they cannot rationally contest it As for the Immunity of the Clergy it may be also that some Doctors of the Church of Rome have been reproached for holding it as a matter of Faith because there are some among them that in effect ground it upon the Scripture and every one knows that all that which they hold as out of the Scripture ought to be held as a matter of Faith But they would have said nothing against the Truth when they should have maintained that Pope Leo X. in the Council of Lateran defined That there was none either Divine or humane right that gave the Laity any power over the persons of the Clergy which implies that the Clergy are excepted by Divine right from that general Rule that subjects all the Word to the Higher Powers We all know that our Kings opposed that rash decision but in the end it was a Council that did it which had the Pope for its Head and it belongs to the Author of the Prejudices to tell us whether he believes that that Pope and that Council erred As to the Certainty of Canonizations since there is no body in the Church of Rome that makes any scruple to invocate those Saints which the Pope Canonizes and that moreover they agree in that Maxim of Saint Paul that whatsoever in the matter of Religion is not of Faith
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
are matters of fact whereof we have not any Divine Revelation about which according to the very principle of our Adversaries all the whole Church may be deceived and which by consequence are not of faith nor can serve as a foundation for an Article so much concerning the faith as this is That the Church of Rome cannot err and that it is alwayes necessary to salvation to be in her communion Secondly We must be assured that the Bishops of Rome are the True and ordinary Successors of S. Peter in the Government of every Christian Church For why should not they be his Successors in the Government of the particular Church of Rome as well as the Bishops of Antioch in the particular Government of that of Antioch When the Apostles preached in those places where they gathered Churches and setled Pastors they did not intend that those Pastors after them should receive all the rights of their Apostleship nor that they should be Universal Bishops They say that there must have been one and that that could have been in no other Church but that where S. Peter dy'd But all this is said without any ground The Church is a Kingdom that acknowledges none besides Jesus Christ for its Monarch he is our only Lord and our Soveraign Teacher and after that the Apostles had formed Churches and that the Christian Religion had been laid down in the Books of the New Testament the Pastors had in those Divine Books the exact Rule of their Preaching and their Government Those who have applyed themselves only to that have alwayes well governed their Flocks without standing in need of that pretended Universal Episcopacy which is a Chimerical Office more proper to ruine Religion than to preserve it In the Third place we must be assured that S. Peter himself had received in those passages some peculiar dignity that had raised him above the other Apostles and some rights which were not common to all of them But this is what they cannot conclude from those forecited passages for granting that Jesus Christ has built his Church upon S. Peter has he not also built it upon the other Apostles is it not elsewhere written That we are built upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone Is it not written That the New Jerusalem has twelve foundations wherein the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb are written If Jesus Christ has prayed for the perseverance of the faith of S. Peter has he not made the same Prayer for all the other Keep them sayes he in thine own name that they may be one as we are If he said to him Strengthen thy Brethren is it not a common duty not only to the Apostles but to all the Faithful Let us consider one another sayes S. Paul to provoke unto love and to good works If he said to him Feed my sheep did he not say to all in common Go and teach all Nations If he said to him I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven has he not said to all of them I appcint unto you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven In the Fourth place we must be assured that when there should be in all those passages some peculiar priviledge for S. Peter exclusive from the rest of the Apostles that it is a thing that could be transmitted down to his Successors and not some personal priviledge that resided in him alone and must have dyed with him For can we not say that the twelve Apostles being the twelve foundations of the Church the priviledge of S. Peter is to be first in order because he was the first who laboured in the conversion of the Jews at the day of Pentecost and in that of the Gentiles in the Sermon that he made to Cornelius May we not say that Jesus Christ has particularly prayed for his perseverance in the faith because that he alone had been winnowed by the Temptation that hapned to him in the Court of the High Priest That he said to him alone When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren because that he alone had given a sad experience of humane weakness That he said to him thrice Feed my sheep or my lambs because that he only having thrice denyed his Master by words full of horror and ingratitude our Lord would for his consolation and re-establishment thrice pronounce words full of love and goodness In fine when those Texts should contain a peculiar priviledge that might be communicated to the Successors of S. Peter we must be assured that that priviledge must be the perpetual infallibility of the Church of Rome and a certainty of never falling away from the quality of a True Church And this is that which they know not how to conclude from those passages for in respect of the first The Church may have been built upon S. Peter and upon his first Successors and remain firm and unshaken upon those foundations that is to say upon their Doctrine and Example although in the course of some Ages the Bishops of Rome have degenerated and changed the faith of their Predecessors and the words of Jesus Christ extended even to the Successors of S. Peter would not be less true when they should not extend themselves unto all those who bear that name S. Paul has called the Churches of Asia in the midst of which Timothy his Disciple was when he wrote his first Epistle to him he has I say called them the pillar and ground of Truth For although those Titles belong in general to every Church it is notwithstanding certain that they regard more directly and more particularly that part of the Universal Church I would say the Churches of Asia where Timothy resided when S. Paul wrote to him But the word of this Apostle does not fail to be true although in the course of many Ages those Churches have degenerated from their first purity and though the Successors of Timothy lost it very quickly after And as to the Prayer that Jesus Christ made to God that the faith of S. Peter might not fail when they would extend it down to his Successors they cannot conclude a greater Infallibility for them than that of S. Peter himself who preserving his faith concealed at the bottom of his heart outwardly denyed his Master three times and who according to the opinion of our Adversaries lost entirely his love and had fallen from a state of Grace being no more either in the Communion of God nor in that of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ Let the Church of Rome therefore call her self infallible as much as she pleases in vertue of the Prayer of Jesus Christ that Infallibility will not
of it but they would have subordinate heads humane heads on whom they might depend by an external dependance and that was necessary for them to be by that means linked to Jesus Christ after the same manner that they would have us at this day to depend on the See of Rome Wherefore did S. Paul say to them Is Christ divided Why did he not say to them that as for Paul and Apollos they had no reason to take them for their heads but that it was far otherwise as to Peter since God had set up him and his Successors for ever to be the heads of the Universal Church Why in stead of that did he conclude after this manner That no one should glory in men for 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 Is it not to let them understand that Jesus Christ is the only head of the Church that there is only his communion that is absolutely necessary and that as for other Ministers whosoever they were they were appointed for our use as all other things to serve us in as much as they lead us to Jesus Christ If the Church under the New Testament ought to be inviolably ty'd to the See of Rome how should the Scripture have been silent in so weighty a truth which could not be ignor'd without extream danger nor contested without evident damnation Notwithstanding we do not find any other head of the Church in those Sacred Books but Jesus Christ nor any other High Priest but him We do not find in the Scripture any Universal Bishop nor Ministerial head or subordinate or any particular Church the Mistress of all others We find there indeed that Jesus Christ being ascended up on high gave some to be Apostles others to be Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for the assembling of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ How came the Apostle to forget in that Enumeration the chief of all Offices to wit that of the Ministerial Head of the whole Church and the Universal Vicar of Jesus Christ in the Government and conduct of his flock If the Christian Church ought in that to resemble the Synagogue and to have as that a Soveraign High Priest upon earth who should be the head of that Religion and who should have his Successors as the ancient High Priest had whence comes it that the Scripture has alwayes regarded that Ancient High Priest as a Figure of Jesus Christ that it alwayes referred it to him and never to the Roman Bishops nor even to S. Peter who was then alive and who should by consequence have exercised that pretended charge which they would make to descend from him There is therefore no lawful foundation in all that pretension of Rome and her See We ought to pass the same judgement on all other Sees and other particular Churches with which it is just we should hold communion while they teach good and sound Doctrine and that we should even bear with them when they should fall into some errors provided they constrain no body to believe them but from which it is also just to separate our selves when they shall fall into errors contrary to the communion of Jesus Christ our only Saviour and when they would violently force all others to believe the same If in a long course of Ages Rome has usurped by little and little the rights that do not belong to her if she has found it very easie through the ignorance or complaisance of men in the diverse intrigues of the World to raise her Throne as high as our Fathers beheld it and as we do yet at this day If her flatterers have not failed alwayes to raise her pretensions as high as Heaven and if she has been lull'd asleep with the sound of those sweet charms that enchant her we do not believe that that ought to prejudice our separation We have no other aversion for her communion than that which our conscience gives us and if it shall please God to re-establish her in her ancient purity she would not have so great a joy to spread forth her arms to us as we should have an impatience to demand her peace of her But as long as we shall see her in that bad state wherein we are perswaded she is we cannot but bewail and pray for her and yet notwithstanding no body can blame us for preferring our own salvation to her communion 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 had right at the foundation BEfore we leave this matter of our Separation from the Church of Rome there yet remains two Questions for us to examine the one Whether our Fathers were not too precipitate in so great an affair whether they did not act with too much haste or Whether they had sufficient motives from the conduct of those from whom they separated to forsake in the end their communion The other Whether with all that they can say that they separated themselves from the communion of the Catholick Church spread over the whole World as the Donatists did heretofore and whether they did not fall into the same crime with those ancient Schismaticks against whom Optatus and S. Augustine so strongly disputed I will treat of this second Question in the following Chapter and this here shall be design'd to the clearing of the former To effect this methinks we need but freely to set before their eyes all that I have said in the second Part touching the necessity that lay upon our Fathers to reform themselves For since it clearly results from those matters of fact which I have set down that the Popes and those of their party were so far from applying themselves seriously to a Reformation that they studied on the contrary only how to stifle the truth from the very first moment they beheld it appear and to defend their Errors and Superstitions by all manner of wayes who sees not that that inflexible resolution which had not yielded either to the first or second admonition rendred from that time the separation of our Fathers just and exempted them from all reproach For when there are Errors capable of giving ground for a separation it ought to be defer'd only upon a hope of amendment and that hope seem'd to be sufficiently destroy'd by those Historical actions which I have already set down Notwithstanding to shew them more and more how the conduct of our Fathers was very prudent in that respect and full of circumspection it will not be besides our purpose to resume here the close of their story from the unjust condemnation of Luther and his Doctrine made by Pope Leo the Tenth
Church no one is responsible but for his own crimes and not for those of others at least if he take no part with them or do not approve them or consent to them So that while there is no obstinateness to maintain error while there is no danger of being seduced and while one is not bound to take any part in the evil nor to hide ones faith and piety under the vail of hypocrisie this Father yields that we should have communion with Hereticks as the ancient Prophets had communion with the Idolaters of their times and as Jesus Christ and his Disciples had communion with the Pharisees and Sadducees and were found among them in the same Assemblies But when there is an invincible opinionativeness and error is so deeply rooted that there is no more hope of its being healed S. Augustine would in this case that a man should separate himself from their communion This is that which he teaches in the same Book of the True Religion The Church sayes he suffers their error while they have no accusers or do not defend their false opinions with obstinacy but when they are accused and defend themselves obstinately in their opinions she separates them from her communion which is formally to acknowledge the right of active separation in an Orthodox Church And from the same we may evidently conclude that this Father does not approve that we should remain in an Heretical Communion when there is the least necessity of partaking in error wickedness or superstition whether in effect or appearance and that he would on the contrary conclude that in this case the good should separate themselves for the conservation of their own righteousness But to give a yet greater light to this matter we must note that according to the Doctrine of this Father every Society whatsoever it be that determines a false Doctrine and publishes Books of it to teach it posterity and who will have none receive its communion but those who approve that Doctrine in giving the Orthodox a just occasion to separate themselves she her self first of all breaks the bond of Unity and it is she that makes the active separation and becomes schismatical This is that which he teaches in his Treatise against Cresconius This Donatist had said to him that if he did not approve of the crime of the Traditors if on the contrary it displeased him he ought to fly from and abandon the Church of the Traditors To answer to this S. Augustine sayes first of all that though there should have been Traditors in his Church yet he ought not to forsake it while he did not communicate with their crime and that on the contrary he condemned it and laboured to correct it by preaching and discipline He proves it by the example of S. Cyprian who declaimed against the vices of the Church but who did not separate himself from it and by that of David of Samuel of Isaiah of Jeremiah of Zachary and other Saints who cryed out against the Transgressors of the Law yet without separating themselves notwithstanding Since immediately after he adds Is it that the Traditors have instituted some new Sacraments or some new Baptism Is it that they have composed Books to teach others to do or imitate the action of the Traditors or that they have recommended those Books to posterity or that we hold and follow that Doctrine If they had done so and suffered no person to have been in their communion but those who would read their Books and approve that Doctrine I say that they would have separated themselves from the Vnity of the Church and if you saw me in their Schism you would then have reason to say that I were in the Church of the Traditors These words note clearly what I have said that when a Church teaches a false Doctrine which it makes to enter into the use of the Sacraments and that it would receive into its communion none but those who approve it it is not only just to separate from her but it is she her self that breaks the bond of the Unity of the Church and casts her self into Schism But this is precisely that which the Church of Rome does in respect of us for she has not only decided as of faith the Doctrines that we do not believe to be true she has not only set forth Books to teach those Tenets to Posterity but she has cut off all those from her communion who will not believe them after the manner that she teaches them So that we have in this regard a just reason to say that it is she that has made the active separation and if it be true that we have reason in the foundation it is she that has broken the Christian Unity and to which the Schism ought to be imputed and not to us who are in a meer passive separation From whence by the way it further follows that to the deciding the Question of the Schism that is between us and to know which of the two parties is to blame we must necessarily come to the discussion of the controverted Articles For if the Church of Rome has decided nothing that is not conformable to the Gospel she has a right to reject all those from her communion who refuse to believe her Doctrine we will grant this But if she has decided Errors it is certain also that the necessity which she has imposed on others to believe and practise them in order to their being in her communion renders her guilty of Schism All depends therefore on the discussion of the foundation For there is no ground left of doubting that according to the Doctrine of S. Augustine it is not only permitted but even necessary to the Orthodox in some certain cases to be no longer joyned in the assemblies of those who teach those errors and to live separated from their communion We shall see in the close whether that multitude and visible extension can take away that right from a small party restrain'd to a few persons and places for there remains nothing but this doubt to be taken away but to effect this we must go on to the examination of the second Proposition of the Author of the Prejudices The infallible and perpetual mark sayes he to know the Church by according to S. Augustine and the other African Fathers is a visible extension throughout all Nations because that visible extension according to them agreed with the Church in all Ages and that it is a negative mark that is to say that every Society which has not that extension is not the Church so that this arguing is alwayes just your Society is shut up in a small part of the world therefore it is not the Church It is adds he by this principle that S. Augustine has disputed against the Donatists and convinc'd them to be schismaticks This Proposition is not less captious nor less ambiguous than the former For if the Author of the
Augustine had been very well able to have prov'd that they were Schismaticks but that he had not notwithstanding been able to conclude from thence that his Society was the True Church The reason of this is because they had broken the general bond of an External Call that S. Augustine would have them obliged to keep even in regard of Hereticks so that according to him they might very well have been Schismaticks although the Church which they had forsaken had not been the true Church He prov'd therefore that his Society was the true Church only because they acknowledg'd it to be Orthodox and did not lay to its charge either any Error in the Faith or depravation in Worship For in supposing that confession it manifestly appears that that time was a time of the increase of the Church since it cannot be deny'd that the Church does not then encrease when the true Doctrine is spread abroad in all places from whence would follow that the Society that taught that true Doctrine throughout the world was the true Church rather than a small party that were shut up within one only Province So that the Error of the Donatists consisted in this in that they would have restrain'd the Church in their Africa in a time wherein it manifestly increased in all Nations and this increase was manifest by the acknowledgement which they themselves made that the Society that was spread over all the world was Orthodox This is that precisely that Bellarmine would say He would have S. Augustine reason after this manner in a time wherein it manifestly appears that the Church encreases it is an error not to acknowledge that Society that is spread over all the world to be the true Church of Jesus Christ in opposition to a small party But in this time it manifestly appears that the Church increases since by your own confession it is the true Doctrine and not Heresie that multiplies it self Therefore it is an error not to acknowledge at this time the Society that is spread over the world to be the true Church This is in effect the true reasoning of S. Augustine and Bellarmine is no wayes deceiv'd in it But it clearly follows from thence that according to S. Augustine that visible extension may be sometimes a mark of the true Church in opposition to a small party to wit then when the true and pure Doctrine is spread abroad every where because that is the time of the increase of the Church But it does not follow that this mark is perpetual since the time of that increase does not last alwayes From whence it appears that the arguing of S. Augustine can have no place in the question that is between the Church of Rome and us In one word then when we contest the title of the true Church with a Society that does otherwise own us to be Orthodox then visible extension decides the question according to S. Augustine But then when we contest that title with a Society that accuses us with false Doctrine that visible extension decides nothing and the difference cannot be determined but by the discussion of the foundation it self S. Augustine alledg'd it in the former case and the Author of the Prejudices alledges it in the latter What need we to do more to set down this truth in its full evidence and to give the Author of the Prejudices entire satisfaction Do we need to let him see that if they had accused the Society of S. Augustine of false Doctrine that Father had not pretended in this case that that visible extension should have decided the contest but that he would have decided it at the foundation Need we to go yet farther and to shew him that S. Augustine has formally acknowledg'd that there have been in effect times wherein the true Church has had no visible extension If we could shew him these two things he would methinks have some reason to be contented and to leave us in peace about this business of extension Let us therefore endeavour to satisfie him about these two Articles The first will be decided if we here appeal to what I have related of that Father on the occasion of what Cresconius had said to him that he ought to withdraw himself from the Church of the Traditors Is it sayes he that the Traditors have composed Books to shew that we ought to do or imitate their action Is it because they have recommended those Books to posterity Is it because we hold and follow that Doctrine If they had done that and if they would have permitted none to remain in their communion but such as would read those Books and approve that Doctrine I say that they would have separated themselves from the Unity of the Church and if you saw me in their Schism you would then have reason to say that I am in the Church of the Traditors We need no great learning to understand by this discourse 1. That S. Augustine had acknowledg'd that if in effect his Society had determined a false Doctrine if it had framed Books about it and suffered no person its communion who had not approved it it had lost the title of the True Church although that visible extension should have been secured to it 2. That if the Donatists who were but a small party had accused it it would have admitted them to proof without a wrangling with them about that extension For he who sayes Is it because we hold and follow that Doctrine makes us sufficiently see that he would not have refused them liberty to come to a proof if his adversaries had said that they held and followed it indeed And it ought not to be said that S. Augustine makes not that supposition only in regard of the whole of his Society but only in regard of some Traditors For he makes that supposition in regard of that same Society that Cresconius had called the Church of the Traditors and these words Is it because we hold and follow this Doctrine leave no place for that evasion See here the first Article the second is yet more formal in S. Augustine for no one can doubt that he has not acknowledg'd that there have been in effect times wherein the true Church has scarce had any visible extension This is that which he has in his Letter to Hesychius wherein he treats of the state of the Church in those miserable times which Jesus Christ foretold in the four and twentieth of S. Matthew Then the Sun sayes he shall be darkned and the Moon shall not give her light the Stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken The Church shall not appear because the wicked becoming persecutors shall no more observe any bounds in their cruelties Temporal Prosperity shall accompany them every where so that seeing no occasion of fear they shall say peace and security to themselves Then the Stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens
the state of grace where the goodness of God had sent the Gospel in declaring to them that they ought to fear being cut off as the Jews from the Covenant of God he addresses himself to the whole body of the Gentiles converted to Jesus Christ Ad totum Gentium corpus adds he And certainly that horrible Apostasy of the whole world which has fallen out since manifestly shews us that this advice of S. Paul was not unprofitable For God having diffused in so great an extension of Countreys almost in a moment the waters of his Grace so that Religion flourished every where within a very little while after the truth of the Gospel was vanished and the treasure of salvation banished out of the Earth But whence could that change come unless from this that the Gentiles were fallen away from their Call and therefore it is that he clearly professes in a Letter to Melancthon that they had separated from all the world Plusquam enim absurdum est postquam discessionem à toto mundo facere coacti sumus alios ab aliis desilire The Author of the Prejudices yet further makes use of an Article of our Confession of Faith to prove the same thing which sayes That we believe that no one ought of his own authority to thrust himself into the government of the Church but that that ought to be done by election while it is possible and while God permits it Which exception we emphatically add to it because it has failed sometimes and even in our time in which the state of the Church was interrupted till God had raised up men after an extraordinary manner to order the Church a new which was in ruine and desolation Grounding himself on these two passages he insults over Monsieur Vigerius the Author of the Discourse in the Book of the Perpetuity of the Faith because he had declared That none of us had ever said that it could be possible that the Church should no longer subsist and that he defied Monsieur Arnaud to shew him one only Author among us who had thought so Before he had expressed such desires sayes the Author of the Prejudices it would have been well to the purpose that he had better informed himself about that which not only some Authors of his Sect have wrote but the Master of all their Authors which is Calvin who sayes a great deal more than that which is contained in that Book of the Perpetuity of the Faith since he looks upon the Church not only as possible to perish but as having effectually done so for many Ages so far as to say that the threatning of S. Paul which he pretends to be spoken to the whole body of the Gentiles had its effect that all the Gentiles had fell from their Call through a general Apostasy that the light of the Gospel had vanished in respect of them and that they had lost the treasure of salvation It is upon this foundation that he builds his Proposition and pretends to make us pass for worse men than the Donatists But all this is nothing else but an effect of the unjust and violent hatred that this Author has conceiv'd against us and Monsieur Vigerius had reason to deny that which he has denyed As the dispute here is only to know what our Hypothesis is upon the point of the perpetual subsistence of the Church it would be sufficient methinks to stop the mouth of the Author of the Prejudices to tell him that he troubles himself to no purpose that we do not believe that intire extinction of the Church throughout all the world which he layes to our charge and that he has mistaken the meaning of Calvin and that of our Confession of Faith for there is no likelihood that he should better know what we believe than our selves nor that he should be a more faithful Interpreter of the sense of Calvin and that of our Confession of Faith than we our selves Notwithstanding to make the Character of the Author of the Prejudices more and more known and what judgement we ought to make of that which he propounds when he speaks with the greatest confidence it will be good to relate here the testimony that Monsieur the Cardinal of Richelieu has given to the Protestant Churches concerning that that they believe and teach upon the subject of the perpetual subsistence of the Church until the end of the world For we might say that he had the Author of the Prejudices in his view and wrote about this matter only to confute him There is not sayes he any point in controversie between our Adversaries and us about which their Confessions of Faith speak so clearly and agree so uniformly as this which I may truly say ought not to be put into the number of the controverted points The Confession of Ausburg which may be said to be as well the Rule as the source and origine of all the other Confessions of Faith of our Adversaries sayes in express terms that the Church ought perpetually to remain one and holy That of Saxony sayes that the Article of the Creed which declares the Church Holy and Catholick was inserted therein only to confirm the faithful against the doubts that they might have of the stability of the Church That of the Switzers does not only affirm this truth but sets down the same reason for it that I my self have made use of here above since God sayes it would from all eternity that men should be saved we must acknowledge this truth that the Church has alwayes been for the time past that she subsists for the present and that she will do so till the end of the world The Scotch holds this Article to be so undoubtedly true that it compares the belief of it to that of the Mysterie of the Trinity saying That as the faithful believe the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost so they also constantly believe the perpetuity of the Church The Flemish professes the same truth and gives the reason altogether founded upon the Regality of Jesus Christ which being perpetual supposes in all times some subjects over whom he must reign The French Confession alone sayes nothing upon this occasion but it is so far from saying nothing of it through the difficulty that they found in this point that on the contrary the certainty which they had of it was in my opinion the cause of their silence She does not therefore it may be speak any thing because she did not think she could doubt of so evident a truth of which her founders have spoke so clearly for her Luther teaches it in terms so express that he makes perpetuity to enter into the definition of the Church as a quality that making a part of its essence is altogether inseparable from it He draws the duration of the Church from an Article of the Creed and the words of Jesus Christ which bind us to believe it saying that it is an
purity of the faith in the Church nor to have extirpated Arianism since that however corrupted and infected the Church was with that Heresie there was yet a way to work out their salvation in her communion and under her Ministry 4. If he sayes to us that our Fathers ought not at least in reforming themselves to have separated themselves from those who were not for a Reformation nor to have forsook their communion and assemblies I will also say to him that after this reckoning the Orthodox in labouring to purge the Church from Arianism ought not at least to have separated it self from those who would retain Arianism but that they ought to have remained with them in one and the same communion and in the same assemblies which nevertheless they did not 5. If he sayes to us that the Berengarians the Waldenses and Albigenses were Schismaticks since they had withdrawn themselves from a communion and a Ministry under which God yet preserves the truly faithful I will likewise say to him that those couragious men of S. Augustine were in this reckoning Schismaticks since they had not less withdrawn themselves from that communion and publick Ministry when that Ministry was in the hands of the Arians as I have shewn by express testimonies 6. If he tells us lastly that since we acknowledge that they could have worked out their salvation under the Ministry of the Roman Church before the Reformation we ought to confess that we may yet at this day be saved in it since things are in the same estate now in which they were before I shall tell him that the Arians could have raised the same objection against the Orthodox after their separation For the Arians did not pretend to have changed any thing in the state of the Ministry under which S. Augustine acknowledged that God had preserved the truly faithful So that all the Objections which he shall make against our Hypothesis will be common to those against that of S. Augustine and the Author of the Prejudices will himself be as much concerned as we to answer them But not to refer our selves wholly to him let us see whether those difficulties are of such a weight as that there is no way left rationally to satisfie us It seems to me therefore that as to the first S. Augustine has said that it is great injustice to demand the names of those particular men who kept themselves pure under an impure Ministry since we do not keep a register of every particular man nor of the state of their consciences and that it is sufficient to know in the general that the promises that Jesus Christ has made alwayes to preserve to himself a Church upon Earth are inviolable that we must not therefore doubt that there has alwayes been good seed in the midst of the Arian tares It is the same answer that we make there needs nothing but to apply it To the second he has answered that the simplicity of many among the people who went not so far as to understand the bad sense of the Arian expressions sheltred them under Heresie that many others of the more enlightned remained in silence through the fear of persecutions contenting themselves to keep their own faith pure without partaking in the wickedness of the wicked and without listing themselves up against it In effect it is a Maxim of Phoebadius That it is sufficient to an humble conscience to keep its own faith without engaging it self to refute the belief of others and it is one of S. Augustine himself That no body can be culpable for the sins of another nor by consequence for the Heresies and Superstitions that infect a Ministry provided he take no part in them and no wayes consent to them either in effect or appearance But this is yet the same answer that we make for as I have already said we do not doubt that there was among the people a very great number of persons whose light went no further than the meer knowing of the chief Articles of Christianity contained in the Creed in the Decalogue and Lords Prayer and who by consequence were hid under those capital Errors with which the publick Ministry was then loaded We no wayes doubt that in the midst of that darkness there were not a great many enlightned persons who through the fear of persecutions remained under the same corrupted Ministry with the others separating the good from the bad discerning the Errors and Superstitions taking no part in them and living as to other things in that hope that they should not be culpable for the sins of others To the third S. Augustine has answered that it is an absurd Objection For it is not more absurd to say that we ought not to take care to heal a Disease under a pretence that as great as the Disease is life yet remains than to say that we ought not to take care to purge the Church and the Ministry from a Heresie that infects it under a pretence that there is yet a way to be saved in her communion and under her Ministry That we must on the contrary labour as much as possibly we can to re-establish Christianity in its whole frame lest the evil should increase and be made incurable through a too great negligence and least that good which remains in the Church should be wholly corrupted by the contagion of the evil But this is also the very same answer that we make Our Fathers ought to have employed all their endeavours to reform the Latin Church by their Exhortations by their Books by their Sermons by their Example because that we ought alwayes as much as possibly we can and as the time and our knowledge call us to it to labour to settle Religion in a state of purity lest in the end Errors and Superstitions render themselves universal and the whole Church should perish through our negligence For although Jesus Christ has promised us that it shall never perish yet notwithstanding this would be to tempt God and to render our selves unworthy of his grace to neglect the means that he gives us for its preservation and that so much the more as according to humane judgements there was no other than that of the Reformation To the fourth S. Augustine has answered That in labouring to purge the Church from Arianism it was necessary that they should separate themselves from the communion of those who obstinately persisted in that Heresie and the fixed resolution that they testified to remain in it was a sufficient cause to make them withdraw themselves from their Assemblies But we answer with greater advantage that our Fathers in labouring for a Reformation ought to have forsaken the Assemblies of those who not only were fixed in the opinion of having nothing reformed and opposed themselves with all their might to hinder a Reformation but who went so far as to impose a new necessity on mens consciences to believe their Opinions and even to
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
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