and in staying to hear these Causes thus multiplied and increased which he confesseth before to be just considerations it was thought fitter to refer the hearing of Complaints and Appeals to Metropolitans and such like Ecclesiastical Judges limited and directed by Canons and Imperial Laws than to trouble the Pastors of whole Provinces and to wrong the people by the absence of their Pastors and Guides Thus Dr. Field And the Protestant-Primates saith Bishop Bramhal †Vind. c. 1. p. 257. use the same customs of judging Church-Causes without calling Synods Now what is in this kind conceded to Metropolitans much more ought to be to Patriarchs whose Councils are not so easily collected as Provincial nor ever was a set time appointed for these as for the other This said concerning the Calling of General Councils its belonging of right to the Church and in it to the Supremest Prelate § 49 3ly It is not denied but that the Emperor had and since the dissolution of the Empire other Princes joined 3. still have a lawful power of convocating a General Assembly of the same Prelates as being their Subjects of calling these both in assistance to the Church in her necessities and also in order to their own Civil affairs when any way disturbed by contentions in the Church Provided this be with the Prime Patriarch's consent consent either before or at least after the Indiction of them Of which thus Bellarmine ‖ De Concil l. 1. c. 12. Catholici munus convocandi Concilia Generalia ad Romanum Pontificem propriè pertinere volunt fic tainen ut possit etiam alius Pontifice consentiente Conciliâ—m indicere quinetiam satis sit si indictionem factam ipse postea ratam habeat confirmet at si nec ipse indicat Concilium nec aliquis alius de ejus mandato vel consensu nec ipse saltem approbat indicationem illud non Concilium sed Conciliabulum fore § 52 And this thing is made good by the ancient practice where As the Emperors being by their secular power much more effectual promoters thereof were prevailed with to call the first General Councils so this was not done but either from the first Motion or with the consent of the Bishop of Rome the Supreme Head of the Church as appears concerning all the first 6. General Councils in the acclamatory speech of the 6 th Council at the conclusion thereof to the Emperor Arius Divisor c. They naming 1 Sylvester 2 Damasus 3 Caelestinus 4 Leo 5 Vigilius 6 Agatho Bishops of Rome joined with the Emperor in the promoting all these Councils And to come to some particulars Concerning the Second General Council of Constantinople thus saith that Council in their Letter to Damasus and to the Council assembled with him at Rome Concurreramus Constantinopolim ad vestrae Reverentiae i. e. of Damasus singly this Council not then sitting when the Orientals met first in Council though it did when they writ literas missas Theodosio summâ pietate Imperatori Concerning the 3 d. Council thus Prosper in Chronico Synodum Ephesinam factam esse Cyrilli industriâ Coelestini authoritate Concerning the 4 th Thus the Emperor to Leo in the Epistles pertaining to that Council Superest ut si placuerit tuae Beatitudini in has partes advenire c. Synodum celebrare hoc facere Religionis affectu dignetur nostris utique desideriis vestra Sanctitas satisfaciet Sacrae Religioni quae utilia sunt decernet Si verâ— hoc onerosum est ut tu ad has partes advenias hoc ipsum nobis prâ—priis Literis tua Sanctitas manifestet quatenus in omnem Orientem in ipsam Thraciam Illyricum sacrae nostrae Literae dirigantur ut ad quendam definitum locum ubi nobis placuerit omues sanctissimi Episcopi debeant convenire quae Christianorum Religioni atque Catholicae Fidei prosint sicut Sanctitas tua secundum Eccesiasticas Regulas definiverit suâ dispositione declarent To which add * that of Pulcherta the Emperor's Sister to the same Pope Propterea tua Reverentia quocunque modo prospexerit significare dignetur ut omnes etiam totius Orientis Episcopi Thraciae atque Illyrici sicut etian nostro Domin piâ—ssimo Imperatori placuit in unani Civitatem velociter ab Orientalibus partibus valeant convenire illic facto Concilio de Catholicâ confessione c. te authore decernant And * the Accusation of Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria in the first Act of that Council Quòd Synodum ausus est facere fine authoritate Sedis Apostolicae quod nunquam factum est nec fieri licuit The like to which see in the Epistle of Pope Pelagius 2. to the Oriental Bishops against John Bishop of Constantinople And that of Gelasius who lived about some 40. years after in his Epistle ad Episcopos Dardaniae Sedes Apostolicae impiam Synodum i. e. the second Ephesin non consentiendo sola summovit authoritate ut Synodus Chalcedonensis fieret sola decrevit Lastly If the ancient Canon that in such Councils Sine Romano Pontifice nihil finiendum stand good the calling such Councils by Emperors without the Mandate or confent also of this Bishop will be to no purpose because nothing can be established therein without his concurrence Thus much of the power of Calling General Councils CHAP. IV. I. Head Of the Generality and just Authority of the Council of Trent 1. That the Western Churches and particularly that of England are not freed from subjection to this Council though it were not General if Patriarchal § 53. 2. Or if only so General as those times were capable of § 65. 3. That it is not hindred from being General by reason of the absence of the Greek Churches § 66. 4. Nor by reason of the absence of the Protestant Clergy § 67. § 53 THese things touching Church-Government from § â—9 being premised in general a closer application of which shall be made to this famous Council of Trent as occasion requires I proceed to a more particular consideration of the first Head proposed before ‖ §. 8. concerning the Generality and just Authority of this Council to oblige all the Churches Subjects especially those of the West 1. Where in the first place it is to be noted That supposing this Council of Trent no legal and free General yet if it be a free and legal Patriarchal Council thus it will stand obligatory at least for the obedience of non-contrad ction to the Reformed and particularly to the English Church For 1 st It hath been formerly cleared both by the Church-Canons ‖ See before §. 11 12. c. and the Concessions of Protestants †§. 16. n. 4. c. That as a Diocesan Synod is subject to that composed of many Diocesses or to a Provincial where the Metropolitan presides and again a Provincial or Metropolitan Synod to a National or that composed of many Provinces
now you may see the reason of what Soave said above and the great point the Protestants had gained if the Safe-conduct had run in the Form of Basil though that Form names with the Scriptures Concilia Doctores praxin Apostolicam primitivae Ecclesiae for the judge of Controversies But why is the Tridentine Council so averse you will say that Scripture only should be the Judge or the ground of their judgment in matters of Religion For this reason because when there is controversie of the meaning of Scripture as mostly it is it is fit the Councils and Fathers should terminate the dispute therein or else what end can be of such Controversie when those against whom the Councils declare shall so often say the Councils declare against the Scriptures i. e. their sense of them But here it is sufficient that though the Safe-conduct as to the way which the Protestants demanded of the trial of their Doctrines was excepted against of which more by and by yet as to the security of their persons it was unquestioned Thus much from § 82. that no deficiency in the Summons place or Safe-conduct hath rendred this Council illegal or non-obliging CHAP. VII 8. That this Council is not rendred illegal by the Oath of Bishops taken to the Pope § 105. 9. Nor yet by the Bishops or Popes being a Party and Judges in their own Cause § 113. 1. Not by the Bishops their being Judges Ib. Where Of several other waies of judging Ecclesiatical Controversies justly rejected § 118. 2. Nor by the Popes being Judge § 122. § 105 8 ly NEither doth the Oath 8. that was taken by the Bishops to the Pope hinder this Council consisting of those Bishops from being a free legal and obliging Council The sum of which Oath is Ego N. Episcopus fidelis ero Sancto Petro Sanctae Apostolicae Romanae Ecclesiae Domino meo Papae N. ejusque Successoribus Canonice intrantibus Papatum Romanae Ecclesiae Regulas Sanctorum Patrum adjutor ero ad defendendum retinendum contra omnem Hominem Regulas Sanctorum Patrum or Regalia Sancti Petri as it is in later Pontificals which Regalia I suppose relates to the Popes temporal Dominions and is more properly sitted to the Bishops living in or near them as also non ero in Consilio ut vitam perdat and several other Passages in the Oath seem to be Jura honores privilegia authoritatem Romanae Ecclesiae Domini nostri Papae successorum praedictorum conservare defendere angere promovere curabo Nec ero in Consilio in facto seu tractatu in quibus contra Dominum nostrum vel Romanam Ecclesiam aliquae sinistra sive praejudicialia personarum juris honoris status potestatis eorum machinentur § 106 1. Where note first That it is the ordinary 1 and customary Oath taken by all Bishops at their Consecration not an oath imposed on them with any particular Relation to this Council and that it is for substance the same oath as hath been usually sworn in former ages precedent to many other Councils without being complained of or conceived any way to abridge their Liberties Nor is it now a grievance save to such as deny to this Prime-Patriarch his ancient and Canonical rights § 107 2 ly That some such stipulation of obedience and fidelity to Ecclesiastical Superiours 2. is required by the Reformed themselves and every Bishop in the Church of England at his Consecration takes an oath to perform all due reverence and obedience to his Archbishop and the Metropolitan Church and their Successors And though in a thing so far as it is granted lawful it matters not how new is the practice yet such an oath particularly to this Prime Patriarch especially for the Bishops subjected to his Patriarchy hath been also anciently used See the order in Conce Tolâ—t 11. can 10. Omnes Pontifices Rectoresque Ecclesiarum tempore quo ordinandi sunt sub cautione promittant ut fidem Catholicam custodiant atque obsequii reverentiam praeeminenti sibi dependant where why omnes Pontifices praeeminenti sibi may not as lawfully be extended to the pre-eminency of the Patriarch as of the Metropolitan I see nothing to hinder And see apud Baron A. D. 722. the form of the oath of fidelity to the Pope taken by Winfrid our Countrey-man and other Bishops of those times at their Ordination Promitto Ego N. Episcopus tibi B. Petre Apostolorum Princeps vicarioque tuo B. Gregorio Papae successori ejus me omnem fidem puritatem Sanctae fidei Catholieae exhibere in unitate ejusdem fidei persistere Again Fidem puritatem meam atque concursum tibi utilitatibus Ecclesiae tuae i e. Petri cui à Domino Deo potestas ligandi solvendique data est praedicto vicario tuo atque Successoribus ejus per omnia exhibere c. And see much what the like form in Greg. Epist l. 10. ep 31. Ego Civitatis illius Episcopus sub anathematis Obligatione promitto sancto Petro Apostolorum Principi atque ejus vicario Beato Gregorio vel successoribus ipsius semper me in unitate sanctae Ecclesiae Catholicae Communione Romani Pontificis per omnia permansurum Vnde jurans dico per Deum Omnipotentem haec Sancta 4or Evangelia c. where though the occasion of the Oath is a returning from Heresie as one confines it ‖ See Stillinsl p. 490. yet the word promitto sancti Petri Apostolorum Principis vicario me in Communione Romani Pontificis per omnia permansurum in this as also me fidem atque concursum tibi utilitatibus Ecclesiae tuae per omnia exhibiturumâ— in the precedent Form include a fidelity and subjection to St. Peter's Chair and that the Bishops in those ancient dayes sware no less to continue in the Communion of the Bishop of Rome than in the unity of the Catholick Church Indeed these two were then conceived inseparable and therefore in the same Form it is called unitas sedis Apostolicae and those who desert it are said to depart à radice unitatis Now this Oath being taken lawfully in such a case why may it not be so at another time And if this Council of Trent by reason of such modern Oath taken by the Bishops to the Pope may not be thought Free to proceed against any disorders in this See neither may any of those Councils which have been celebrated since the use of the like Oaths since that Toletan Council since Gregories or Winfrids times be thought so § 108 3 ly Such Oath only obligeth to Canonical Obedience only to yield such obedience to the Bishop of Rome 3. as the Canons of former Councils do require Donec Pontifex est dum jubet ea quae secundum Deum sacros Canones jubere potest sed non jurant se non dicturos quod sentiunt in Concilio vel
if so inclin'd For religious Houses of Women * That none either receive the Habit or profess without first being examined by the Bishop concerning her willâ—ngness and free inclination thereto * That in such Houses most strict clausure be observed None to go forth on what occasion soever without the Bishop be first acquainted therewith and licence it None of what sex or age soever to enter in without the licence of the Bishop or Superioress All such Votaries enjoyned to Confess and Communicat at least once a month Vt eo salutari praesidio se muniant saith the Council †De Reform Reg. c. 10. ad omnes oppugnationes Daemonis fortiter superandas These and many other like Constitutions were passed by this Synod of Bishops for the reforming of Monasticks the effect of which Decrees since the time of this Council hath been very great both as to removing much former scandal and restoring Discipline relaxed And perhaps if some Religious Houses that now lâ—e in ashes had but stood till these Decrees of Trent might have been applied to their great distempers these severe remedies might have healed those Corruptions for which still more and more putrifying and increasing it is to be feared the hand of God's Justice cut them off To Ï„. To Ï„. Correction of the Breviary and Missal See §. 243. n. 3. Sess 25. Decret de Brev. Where the Council having committed this affair to certain Selected Fathers and being necessitated to conclude before it was finished leave the care of it to the Pope after which the some Fathers with some others joyned to them still prosecuting it in Pius the Fourth's daies Both the Missal and Breviary thus corrected and reduced to a greater uniformity were licenced and published by his Successor Pius Fifth § 244 Thus I have run through many particulars wherein the wisdom and diligence of this Council joyned in the later and Principal actions thereof with a Pope much inclined the same way and also much sweyed by his holy Nephew Carlo Borromeâ— indeavoured to repair the defects observed and scandals complained of in the former Ecclesiastical Government and Discipline By which it is clear that many things are reduced into a much better order since this Council than they were in before and the opposition of many enemies searching into the faults of those times by the Divine Providence bringing good out of evil conduced much to the rectifying of them and the pretended Reformation from the Church produced a true one in it And if after all this some blemishes do still remain 1st It must be considered * That some things the Council could have wished amended and altered which yet were too difficult to be brought about without hazarding schisme amongst the National Churches or Prelats long inured to different Customs And * That several things also had dependence on the Reformation of the Secular Governours which when the Council touched upon though very tenderly and drew up some Articles concerning it but such as were decreed both by former Church-Canons and the Imperial Laws ‖ See Soave p. 769. Pallav. l. 23. c. 4. n. 6. presently the Princes grew displeased and so for fear of alienating their minds to whose favours otherwise the Church stands much obliged and by whose sword under the Divine Providence she is upheld the Council was forced to bear with their weakness and desist from its purpose Review the Councils complaint set down before § 210. Adeo dura difficilisque est Praesentium temporum conditio c. 2ly Again It may be considered That several things that were well ordered by the Council yet are not so well executed nor ought the Council to be charged at all with this but its Ministers who as they shall happen to be more or less active or piously disposed so its constitutions in all future ages will receive vigor or languish And in this Its laws do only suffer the common Fate of all others made heretofore either in the Ecclesiastical or Civil States No Court hitherto having been able to devise a law that could infallibly promote the execution of their Laws or of It self 3 ly After this to be considered yet much more that if every thing which private judgments amongst which every one is to reckon his own do think fit to be corrected was not thought so by the Council they ought rather with an undisputing humility to submit these to that of so Reverend an Assembly than to censure it as not conformable to theirs and that too as to matters not received or rejected by this Council but after that all sides had been much disputed and weighed Especially they ought to ponder well these two things § 245 The one Concerning the Council of Trent its differing in some practices from what was observed in the antient Church That all the same Constitutions do not fit all times where the circumstances of things are much varied the former manners much relaxed the Christian Profession much inlarged the Civil Governments much altered c. Nor is one age of the world no more than of a man in every thing to be treated as the precedent Nor are the Distempers of Christianity in all times so agreeable in their nature as to be cured still with the same Medicines And several projects that seem very beneficial in the Speculation yet in the Experience and Practice by not finding such an indifferent matter to work upon as is supposed would have a quite contrary effect and instead of better order bring in Confusion in removing what good was before and being unable to establish any thing better A thing often pressed in the Council in answer to those who would have every thing restored according to the Model of Antiquity § 246 2 The other concerning that Supereminent-power in several particulars which as it was found so was left still by the Council in the hands of the Bishop of Rome That as by the Church-Canons anciently he hath possessed it so it ought if either rather to be increased than any way diminished in these later times when the Christian Churches now much more inlarged and extended and seperated under so many several Secular Heads and so both by their bulk and different temporal Interests more subject to divide and to fall a sunder one from another therefore we have much more need of a firm union in one Spiritual Head and such Jurisdictions and Priviledges to be enjoyed by him whereby He may have some influence upon the whole Body and It some necessary recourse to and dependance on Him As we see in Civil States how strictly upheld and unviolably kept are the Prerogatives Legislative Dispensative Donative Power of Princes to keep the whole Body in a due dependance on a Supreme and to secure the publick peace and happiness in the best of Governments a Monarchical Regency CHAP. XIII Solutions of the Protestant Objections Brief answers to the Protestant Objections made before § 3. c.
that Authority that is established by our Lord. Again in the next place that such a one ought to improve or to check in himself these suggestions of a change as the Religion he deliberates on is more licentious or more strict in comparison of that which for the present he professeth For strong inclinations to change to a Religion that is more rigorous and mortifying his lusts that requires much Obedience Resignation and Humility from him that captivates his understanding as well as curbs his appetites things nature much relucts against we may presume to proceed from the Spirit of God But if to a Religion that promiseth him in many things more liberty to proceed from his lusts And such a happy discovery being made by him such a freed Judgment will proceed to consider That if yet further by reason of the persecution of such a Religion in the place where he lives such a Convert hath an occasion also offered him of leaving Father or Mother Friends or Fortunes and among the rest not the least his Reputation and good Name in being esteemed a Turncoat an Apostate a Seducer to imbrace again in the Religion he turns to nothing but Crosses and Fastings Confessions and Penances Resignation of Judgment strict obedience to the Churches as well as Gods Laws and many more hardships set before him if he purposeth to arrive at perfection such a true inlightened Judgment I say will here consider that this is one of the greatest Honours that his Divine Majesty could do him upon earth and a happiness next to Martyrdom Lastly will consider that the wisdom of God hath permitted so many Sects and Factions divided from the true Church and propagating their Schisms to their children to exercise the diligence of such as have the hap to be so mis-educated to find out that holy Communion of which he hath left sufficient testimony and after this to practice their Christian Courage and Resolution to own and repair to it § 290 I find a lively description of such fetters in an Hereditary Religion and of a happy deliverance out of them by repairing into the bosom of the Church made by S. Austin in an instance of the Donatists frighted with the Emperours severe Edicts which I think may be usefully here transcribed for a pattern to such others as are detained at present in the like chaines in any other divided Sect. Quam multi saith he speaking of the Donatists quod certo scimus jam volebant esse Catholici manifestissimâ veritate commoti offensionem suorum reverendo quotidie differebant Quam multos non veritaâ— sed obduratae consuetudinis grave vinculum colligabâ—t Quam multi propterea putabant veram Ecclesiam esse partem Donati quia eos ad cognoscendam talem veritatem securitas or much more res prosperae in the continuing in their present Sect torpidos fastidiosos pigrosque faciebat Quam multis aditum intrandâ— obserabant rumores maledicorum qui nescio quid aliud nos in altari ponere jactitebant what maledicency doth the Church still suffer touching what she affirms to be on her Altars Quam multi nihil interesse credentes in quâ parte quis Christianus sit ideo permanebant in parte Donati quia ibi nati erant His omnibus hâ—rum legum terror it a profuit ut nunc alii dicant Jam hoc volebamus sed Deo Gratias qui nobis occasionem praebuit faciendique jam dilationum morulas amputavit Alii dicant Hoc esse verum jam sciebamus sed nescio quâ consuetudine tenebamur Gratias Deo qui vincula nostra dirupit nos ad pacis vinculum transtulit Alii dicant Nesciebamus hic i. e. in the Church esse veritatem nec eam discere volebamus Gratias Deo qui negligentiam nostram stimulo terroris excussit ut saltem soliciti quaereremus quod securi nunquam nosse curavimus Alii dicant nos falsis rumoribus terrebamur intrare quas falsas esse nesci remus nisi intraremus nec intraremus nisi cogeremur Gratias Deo qui expertos docuit quam vana inania de Ecclesiâ suâ mendax fama jactaverit Alij dicant putabamus quidem nihil interesse ubi fidem Christi teneremus sed Gratias Deo qui nos à divisione collegit hoc uni Deo congruere ostendit ut in unitate colatur Thus S. Austin I need not comment upon it A return into the Church upon whatever occasion is welcom and to be wished for and happy they who to preserve an estate here on earth are reduced into the true way to gain a better in heaven or to escape some punishment here become freed also from that hereafter But yet much more acceptable and praise-worthy is such a Conversion wherein fear and force have no hand and where perhaps this their securing their eternal state and happy condition must be built upon the ruine of their temporal § 291 3. This for remedying the second Deceit For the third delivered before § 277. Viz. The weighing indeed universally and impartially all the intrinsecal reasons and arguments pro and contra that relate to the subject in hand but not those extrinsecal ones also that confirm obedience and submission of judgment in all points whatsoever already determined to Church-Authority Here also a judgment set at liberty will consider That in points of Controversie some of them certainly of great consequence where both the true sence of the Scriptures and of the ancient Church is debated with many adherents to either side here all those who by reason of illiterat education and mechanick imployments are not able to compare and weight Texts of Scripture and search former Church-Records or also those who after such search especially if being of no extraordinary capacity find on all fides things either by subtile wits rendred so smooth and probable or by multiplied replies so intricated and involv'd as they know not which to hold to or also become still of his opinion whom they read last That all these I say can take no other prudent course were it no duty enjoyned than to repair and submit their judgment to Church-Authority i. e. to their spiritual Pastors and Superiors set over them by our Lord and stating these things § 292 Which Authority also if it be supposed either as to the understanding of Scriptures or examining of ancient Tradition liable to error yet this still seems more to perswade their adherence to it as implying more obscurity and difficulty in the thing defin'd And much reason have they to presume that these their spiritual Governours both by reason of their convening in a greater body and their consisting of more dignified persons probably advanced to such high places by their greater merits and by their great learning being acquainted with and weighing all the same arguments that private men do and in charity we ought to think they as dispassionat as our selves and lastly by their ampler
interrogatio est Quid rei nobis cum Patribus cum carne aut sanguine Aut quid ad nos attinet quod Episcoporum pseudo-Synodi constituunt c. In those more confident times also § 306 the Centurists freely set down in the several ages the errors of the Fathers which in the modern Controversies misled the latter Roman and Greek Churches Hospinian in the Preface to his Histor Sacrament to Antiquity urged as opposing the new reformed opinions and practices returns for answer * the command in the Prophet Jeremy In statutis Patrum vestrorum nolite ambulare And * that saying of our Lord Sine causa colunt me mandata doctrinas hominum docentes and * that of St. Cyprian Consuetudo sine veritate vetustas erroris est and of S. Austin Antiquitatem praejudicare veritati nec posse nec debere The forementioned Dudithius in his discontented Epistle to Beza †See Beza Epist 1. Si veritas est saith he quam veteres Patres mutuo consensu sunt professi ea à Pontificiis tota stabit § 337 And several later Protestants and other Dissenters from the Church of Rome there are who have been ingenuous in the same confession Grotius in the beginning of his Votum pro pace giving an account of his reading of the Fathers Collegi saith he quae essent illa quae veterum testimonio manentibus in hunc diem vestigiis semper ubique perseveranter essent tradita videbam ea manere in illa ecclesia quae Romanae connectitur Is Causabon cited by Arnauld in his late answer to Claude an Hugenot Minister with many others which you may view in his 1. Book 5. chap. in his Epistle to Witenbogard †§. 207. praestantium virorum Epistolae written 1610 a little before his coming into England when he seems to have been in some greater dissettlement speaks thus Deum toto affectu veneror ut mala ecclesiae suae qui potest solus velit Sanare Me ne quid dissimulem haec tanta diversitas in Protestants à fide veteris ecclesiae non parum turbat Ne de aliis dicam in re sacramentorum à majoribus discessit Lutherus c. Then speaking of Peter du Moulin his making as other Protestants usually do those Tracts of the Fathers †§. 297. that are urged to confirm the Roman Doctrine spurious and counterfeit As. S. Ambrose de sacramentis Cyril Herosol Cateches Mystagog Gregory Nyssens Catechetical Oration he thus goes on Jam quod idem Molinaeus omnes veterum libros suae doctrinae contrarios respuit ut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cui mediocriter docto fidem faciet Falsus illi Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus falsus Gr. Nyssenus falsus Ambrosius falsi omnes mihi liquet falli ipsum illa scripta esse verissima quae ipse pronunciat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus Causabon § 308 1. More general yet that confession of Socinus Ep. ad Radecium Legantur saith he Pontificiorum scripta adversus Lutheranos Calvinianos satis intelliget si praeter sacras literas illorum Patrum produced by the Pontificii authoritate sit standum nobis omnino causa cadendum esse And indeed the followers of Socinus despairing as to their chief points concerning God's Attributes and the Trinity to produce any just plea from ancient Church-Authority do also more candidly relinquish this interest as to those other Controversies which they in common with other reformed maintain against Catholicks In defending which points when the Fathers are urged against them their ordinary answer is 1 That Error and Antichrist came into the Church so soon as the Apostles by death went out of it And therefore they make even the Apostles themselves not the Roman Empire for that they say would keep out Antichrist too long to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thess 2. 2 That the Fathers would have the Holy Scriptures to be believed rather than any thing they say 3 That the Fathers are not to be believed in any thing they say contrary to the Scriptures and that if Antiquity be to be followed the Prophets and Apostles are the most ancient these persons impudently calling by the name of Prophets Apostles Scriptures that private sense they impose upon them See for this Volkelius de vera Relig. l. 3. c. 40. and l. 4. c. 22. and frequently elsewhere and see Beza in his first Epistle applying like plaisters to the wound of Dudithius § 309 Chillingw also more candidly than many of his followers in his new Socinian way that all necessaries to all manner of persons using their industry are clear in the Holy Scriptures seems very little solicitious in engaging the Fathers or other Antiquity on his side by reason of the evidence in Holy Scriptures of all necessaries and the needlesness of deciding any non-necessaries I for my part saith he in the latter end of his work after his declaring not the Articles of the Church of England not the harmony of Protestant Confessions but the Bible the Bible to be his Religion after a long and as I verily believe and hope imimpartial search of the true way to eternal happiness do profess plainly that I cannot finde any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only i. e. of the Bible not of the Church for as for this latter he goes on I see plainly and with my own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councils against Councils some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a consent of Fathers of one age against a consent of Fathers of another age the Church of one age against the Church of another age Traditive Interpretations of Scripture few or none found no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only not any it seems of Antiquity or of the Primitive Church yet out of which the Catholicks alwaies convinced Heresies for any considering man to build upon Thus he down-right § 310 And therefore it is considerable That in his answers to the Motives of his turning Catholick †See the conclusion of his Preface §. 41. c. that you may see the Authority of Antiquity and of Church-Tradition had a great hand in leading him to Popery but none at all in reducing him to Protestantisme he is not sollicitous at all to deny or disprove the truth of these motives but to traverse the consequence he formerly made from them So to the first Motive to the Roman Catholick Religion viz. That a perpetual visible Profession is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so far as concerns the points in contestation He answers not by denying any such visible profession to be wanting to Protestants But that any such visible Profession without any mixture of falshood is not necessary Again to the Fourth That many Points of Protestant Doctrine are the opinions of Hereticks condemned by the Primitive Church He answers not by denying the Protestant Doctrines to be condemned as Heretical by the
Primitive Church But that those in the Primitive Church condemned many doctrines as such that were not so To the Sixth That the Doctaine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the doctrine of Protestants contrary to the doctrine of the Fathers who lived in the first 600 years even by the confession of Protestants themselves He Answers not by denying this but by retortion of the like to the Roman Church That the Doctrine of Papists is confest by the Papists contrary to the Fathers in many points But here he tells not in what points And had he I suppose it would either have been in some points not controverted with Protestants As perhaps about the Millenium communicating of Infants or the like or else in some circumstances only of some point controverted To the Tenth That Protestants by denying all humane Authority either of Pope or Councils or Church to determine controversies of Faith have abolished all possible means of suppressing Heresie or restoring unity to the Church He answers not by denying Protestants to reject all humane Authority Pope Councils or Church But by maintaining that Protestants in having the Scriptures only and indeavouring to believe them in the true sence have no need of any such authority for determining matters of Faith nor can be Hereticks and do take the only way for restoring unity In all which you see Church-authority and ancient Tradition led on the man to be Catholick and the rejecting this authority and betaking himself to a private interpretation and understanding of the Scriptures and indeavouring to believe them in their true sence reduced him to Protestantism He mean-while not considering how any can be said to use a right indeavour to believe Scripture in the true sence or to secure himself from Heresie or to conserve unity * who refuseth herein to obey the direction of those spiritual Superiors past present Fathers Councils Bishops whom our Lord hath appointed to guide and instruct his Church in the true sence of Scriptures as to matter of Faith Vt non fluctuantes circumferamur omni vento doctrinae c. Eph. 4.14 Again * who refuseth to continue in the Confession of the Faith of these Guides so to escape Heresies and to continue in their Communion so to enjoy the Catholick unity And what Heresie at all is it here that Mr. Chillingw suppresseth which none can incur that is verily perswaded that sence he takes Scripture in to be the right and what Heretick is not so perswaded For professing any thing against ones Conscience or Judgment or against what he thinks is the sence of Scripture is not Heresie bu Hypocrisy And what new unity is this that Mr. Chillingw entertains that none can want who will but admit all to his communion whatever tenents they are of that to this Interrogatory whether they do indeavour to believe Scripture in a true sence Will answer affirmatively †See his Preface §. 43. parag To the 10th But this is beside my present purpose and his Principles have been already discussed at large in Disc 2. § 38. c. So much of Mr. Chillingw By these Instances the disinteressed will easily discern what way he is to take if he will commit his ignorance or dissatisfaction in Controversies to the guidance of Antiquity or Church-Authority past when he sees so many of the Reformed in the beginning but also several of late deserting as it were their Title to it excepting the times Apostolical as not defendable 5. Lstly In all this he will be the more confirm'd when he observes that these men instead of imbracing and submitting to the Doctrines and Traditions of former Church-Doctrine fly in the last place to that desperat shift of the early appearance of Antichrist in the world who also as they say must needs be comprehended within the Body of the Church and be a professor of Christianity nay must be the very chief Guides and Patriarchs thereof and these as high as the Fourth or Fifth age nay much sooner say some even upon the Exit of the Apostles A conceit which arm'd with the Texts 1 Jo. 2.18 little children as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come so are there even now many Antichrists and c. 4. v. 3. This is the spirit of Antichrist whereof you have heard that it should come and even now already is it in the world arm'd I say with these Texts misapplied to the persons whom they think fit to discredit at one blow cuts off the Head of all Church-Authority Tradition Fathers Councils how ancient soever And the main Artifice this was whereby Luther made his new Doctrine to spread abroad and take root when he had thus first taken away all reverence to former Church and its constant Doctrines and Traditions as this Church having been for so long a time the very seat of Antichrist Babylon the great Whore and I know not what And after this ground-work laid now so much in Antiquity as any Protestant dislikes presently appears to him under the shape of Antichristian Apostacy and in his resisting and opposing the Church he quiets his conscience herewith and seems to himself not a Rebel against his spiritual Governours but a Champion against Antichrist But on these terms if they would well consider it our Lords promises to the Church that it should be so firmly built to the Rock as that the Gates of Hell should never prevail against it and the Apostles Prediction that it should alwaies be a Pillar and ground of Truth are utterly defeated and have miscarried in its very infancy For how can these Gates of Hell more prevail than that the chief Guides and Governours of this Church signified by the false Prophet Apoc. 13.11 c. with great signes and miracles shall set up Satans Kingdom and Standard in the midst of it shall practice a manifold Idolatry within it and corrupt the Nations with their false Doctrines and lastly maintain this kingdom of Satan thus set up I say not without or against but within the bowels of the Church now by the ordinary computation of Protestants for above Twelve hundred years whilst the Emperor and other Roman Catholick Princes are imagined during all this time to be the Beast or Secular State that opens its mouth in Blasphemy against God and makes war with the Saints †Apoc. 13.6 7. To whose Religion this false Prophet gives life Apoc. 13.11 15. Both which this Beast and this False-Prophet for their Idolatry and Oppression at the appointed time before this expected now they say not far off shall be cast into the Lake or poole of Fire For so their doom runs Apoc. 19 20. And the Beast was taken and the False Prophet and both these were cast alive into a lake of fire § 312 And this so great and mischievous an error becomes in them much the less excusable since the latter world hath seen the appearance of the great False Prophet Mahomet upon the stage and since
error may easily be overcome yet it can hardly be silenc'd For as God for the greater tryal of our obedience hath permitced in the world not only Evil but very many allurements also and enticements to it so not only Errors but many verisimilities and appearances of Reason ever ready to support it with those that do not by Humility attain the illuminations of his Grace Evidence sufficient God hath left always to clear and manifest all necessary Truth to those who are of an obedient Spirit and willing to learn it But not sufficient to force like the Mathematicks the Understandings of the self-confident and interested to gain-say it But that they may have some fair colour or other to oppose to it and catch the credulous All which still more infers the great necessity of Church-Authority and a conformity to it and the reasonableness of Monsieur Mainbourg's Method for reducing Protestants to the true Faith †§. 321. n. 10 viz. That matters once decided by this Authority should be no longer disputed A Rule the Protestants i. e. the more potent Party of them for preserving their own peace would have to be observed in the Differences among themselves shewed in the proceedings of the Synod at Dort of which see before § 254. n. 2. but not in those between them and Roman Catholicks because here they are the weaker To whom M. Claud's answer in the Preface of his last Reply to D. Arnaud is this It is unjust saith he that he will have the Decisions of Councils to be Prescriptions against us the Protestants not remembring that nothing can prescribe against Truth especially when it concerns our Salvation And the Determinations of Councils not being with us of any Consideration but as they do conform to the Holy Scriptures and to the Principles of Christian Religion we cannot have from hence any reasonable or profitable way to end the particular differences that divide us but only this to examine the matter to the bottom to discern whether such conformity i.e. of the Councils to the Scriptures which we suppose necessary is or is not To which he adds there as also frequently elsewhere That the shortest and surest and only right way for settling the Conscience in repose which must rest its Faith immediately on Gods word Divine Revelation is for both Parties to proceed to the Trial of their cause all other Authoritie and Methods laid aside by the Holy Scriptures And when he is pressed by his Adversary That in these Controversies at least all persons doubting i e. what is the true sence of the Scriptures controverted and of Antiquity expounding them and not certain of the contrary of what the Church teacheth concerning them as all unlearned Protestants must be ought herein to conform and adhere rather to the Church than to Separatists he seeks to decline it thus That the simplest person may receive sufficient certainty from the clearness of Scripture in all matters necessary that from these Scriptures learning what he ought to believe he may easily know also whether the society he lives in be a true Church and such as will conduct him to Salvation that hence he needs not trouble himself with Controversie touching what the former Church hath believed Yet that our Lord promising to be with true Believers to the end of the word so as they shall not fall into damnable error Chariâ—y obligeth him without his reading them to believe that the Fathers are of this number and so believed as they ought and so were of his Faith To give you his own words l. 1. c. 4. The word of God saith he contains purely and clearly all that which is necessary 〈◊〉 form our Faith to regulate our Worship and Manners And God assisting us with his Grace it is easie for the most simple to judge whether the Ministery under which we live can conduct us to salvation and consequently whether our society is a true Church For for this he needs only examine It as to these two Characters One if they teach all the things clearly contain'd in God's word and the other if they teach nothing besides that is contrary to those things or doth corrupt the efficacy and force of them And afterward This Examen saith he is short easy and proportion'd to the capacity of all the world and it forms a judgment as certain as if one had discussed all the Controversies one after another Again l. 1. c. 5. There are two Questions One touching what we ought to believe on the matter of the Eucharist The other touching what hath been believed by the ancient Church The first of these cleared we need not trouble our selves about the 2d Now as for those of our Communion the first Question is cleared by the word of God And for the 2d he resolves it thus l. 1. c. 6 That the Promises of J. Christ assure us that he will be with true Believers to the end of the world Whence he concludes that there hath always been a number of true Believers whose Faith hath never been corrupted by damnable Errors Then that charity obligeth us to believe that the Fathers were of this number And then lastly We knowing from Scripture what we ought to believe in this Point we also are confirmed without studying them that the Fathers believed the same Now to reflect briefly on what he hath said in the order it lies here A Council saith he cannot prescribe against Truth True But the Council is brought in for a Judg where a dispute Question is what or on what side is the Truth The determinations of Councils are not with us of any consideration but as they do conform to the H Scroptures Right But the Council is call'd in for a Judg where a doubt and dispute is what or on what side is the true sence of such and such Scriptures Where if he meaneth that they refuse to submit to a Council unlesse conforming to Scripture as the sence of Scripture is given by the Council that is it we desire for the Council will still profess its following the sence of Script if as this sence understood by the Protestants what is this but to say they will submâ—t to the Judgment or Decision of a Council so often as it shall agree with their own The only reasonable and profitable way to end differences is this to examine the matter to the bottom i.e. whether the Decisions of the Council conform with H. Scripture But when this is done How will the Difference end Will not the Controversie as the Replies multiply swell rather still bigger as his and D. Arnaud's doth Search to the bottom Suppose a Socinian should say this against the former Church-decisions concerning the Trinity the supreme Deity of the Son and H. Ghost Gods essential Omnipresence his absolute prescience of future Contingents c. will Protestants say he makes a rational motion Then how can any Protestant rest his Faith in these Points upon the
Authority of the Councils and their Creeds will you say he doth not but on the Scriptures Have they then searched all these Points to the bottom there compared the particular Scriptures urged by the Socinian and those urged against him and weighed them in the Ballance If yet they have not ought they If they ought what a task here for young Protestant-students what an Eternal Distraction in this a search what heavenly peace in the other obedience to the judgements of former Councils and Vacancy for better imployments Again If they ought what all Protestants the most of them as of all Christians are illiterate Men not having either leisure or ability to search c. Must these adhere therefore to former Councils and their Creeds in these Points Then in others and in this of Real Presence or Transubstantiation and so they remain no longer on M. Claud's party Or will he bind them to submit their judgement to some inferior Ecclesiastical Authority or Ministry standing in opposition to a superior But this is Schism in them both and justly is such person ruin'd in his credulity to one authority usurp'd for his denying it to another to whom it is due Nor would M Claude be well pleased if any one should follow some few reformed Ministers divided from the rest of their Consistory Class or Synod As for the Tryal §. 321. n. 26. he motions to be made by H. Scriptures This is a thing that hath been by the 2. Parties already done first as it ought And the issue of it was That one Party understood these Scriptures in one sence the other in another For Example The one understood Hoc est Corpus meum literally the other in a Metaphor and so differently understood also all the other Texts of Scripture produced in this Cause Here the true sence of Scripture became the Question and their Controversie For the Judge and Decâ—der of this between them when time was they took a Council For since Scripture they could no more take the sence of that being their Question to whom should they repair but the Church and of the Church a Council is the Representative Councils several to a great number in several ages †See Guide in Controver Disc 1. §. 57 58. decided this matter declared the sence of the Scriptures but so as it liked not one Party These therefore thought fit to remove the Tryal from thence to the more Venerable Sentence of the Fathers and Primitive Church i.e. of their writings Again the sence of these writings as before that of Scriptures is understood diversly by the Contesters And now the true sence of the writings of the Fathers is the Question and Controversie Nor here will Disputes end it Witness so many Replies made on either side Former Councils as they have given their Judgement of the Sence of the writings of H Scriptures so they have of those of the Fathers but their Authority is rejected in both And a new Council were it now convened besides that M. Claud's Party being the fewer and so easily over-voted would never submit to it we may from M. Claud's Confession †l. 3. c. 〈◊〉 p. 337. That both Greeks and Latines are far departed from the Evangelical simplicity and the natural explication that the Ancients have given to the Mystery of the Eucharist rationally conjecture that Protestants in such Councils would remain the party condemn'd What then would this person have He would have the Controversy begin again and return to the Scriptures Which is in plain Language That the Question should decide the Controversie and till this can do it That so long as the Protestants are the weaker Party all should have their Liberty For when they are the stronger they do well discern the necessity of Synods for ending such Differences and though not professing themselves infallible yeâ— upon the Evangelical promise of our Lords assistance to such Councils think fit to require all the Clergy under their jurisdiction upon pain of Suspension from their Function to receive and Subscribe their Decrees for Gods Truth and to teach them to the People as such and think fit to Excommunicate those teaching the contrary till they shall recant their Errour Of which see before § 200. Witness such carriage of the Synod of Dort toward the Remonstrants who challenged the same exemption from their Tribunal as they had done from that of Trent but could not be beard As for that which follows in Answer to D. Arnaud's most ratianal challenging a Submission and Conformity of so many Protestants as have no certainty of their new Opinions rather to the Church than to Innovators to me it sounds thus That every plain and simple Protestant 1st thinks his Exposition or sence of Scripture in this Point of the Eucharist and so in others any way necessary to be clear and without dispute and the more simple he is the sooner he may think so because he is not able to compare all other Texes nor to examine the contrary sences given by others or the reasonable grounds thereof 2. Next that every one who thinks his Exposition or Sence of Scripture clear in such Point is by this sufficiently assured that he hath a right Faith or from this sence of his knows what he ought to believe and forms a Judgement herein as certain as if one had discussed all the Controversies one after another a strange proposition but I see nothing else from which such person collects his faith to be right if any doth produceit 3ly That every such simple person now easily knows whether the Society wherein he lives be a true Church or otherwise viz. as they agree with or dissent from that right Faith of his already supposed or as he finds them to teach the things clearly contained in God's word i. e. in his clear Sence thereof 4ly Knowing thus from this his clear exposition or sence of Scripture what he ought to believe he needs not trouble himself what the Ancient Church hath believed which is very true nay he knows without reading them or M. Arnaud's and Claud's discourses upon them that the Fathers if of the number of the Faithful were of his Opinion by M. Claud's arguing forementioned I desire the Reader to review his words or the 5th 6th Chapters of his 1st Book and see if he can make any better construction of them Now if there be any Sence in this he saith How can he hinder but that a simple Catholick way use the self-same Plea Church-authority being laid aside for a certainty of his Faith upon the same pretensions viz. his clear sence of Scripture quite contrary to the Protestants clear sence And in any Controversie amongst Protestants Suppose that of the Remonstrants and Anti-Remonstrants here both sides have the same Plea one against another namely the certainty of their Faith from their own Sence of the Scriptures controverted between them And why doth not this certainty void their
482. Most of these Objections you may find after Soave urged by Archbishop Lawd § 27 c. and reinforced in his Defence by Mr. Stillingfl p. 2. c. 8. By B. Bramh. Vind. c. 9. By Dr. Hammond of Her § 11. and many others whether with more force and advantage than is here set down I must desire you to consult the Authors § 7 These are the principal Exceptions occurring in later Protestant-Writers against the Council of Trent Now I desire your patience to hear on the other side what may be said for it Which Council being by reason of the subjection of the Clergy to so many supreme and independent Princes with so much difficulty conven'd not finally concluded till 18 years after its first sitting interrupted by sickness interrupted by wars managed under several Popes of several inclinations and under often-changed interests of most warlike and rival Princes according to their several advantages or disgusts who now sent now withdrew their Bishops and desired to model its Decrees to the content of their Subjects and secular Peace in their Dominions It must needs encounter great diversity of Accidents and not always retain the same face security frequency splendor and reputation nor the same purity and dis-engagement from secular affairs and national obligations Again * Sitting in the time and for the composing of the greatest and the most powerful considering the engagement of the common people as well as of Princes separation and division that ever was in the Christian Church which departed also from the former unity in so many points of Doctrine and Discipline as never did any before and * driving two main designs at once the reformation of manners in the Church and its Governors and the confutation of errors in the Sectaries It must needs be liable to many Intestine as well as External affronts and hinderances from all sides and in so many decisions seem to some to commit not a few oversights But yet notwithstanding all these Intrigues and all that is produced against it I see not but that both its Authority and Integrity may be rationally and justly vindicated § 8 The Considerations upon it for the more orderly proceeding in them I shall reduce to these Heads 1. Concerning the Generality 1. Liberty and just Authority of this Council or of the persons constituting it to oblige the Churches Subjects 2. or especially those of the West 2. Concerning the Invalidity and also probably the uneffectiveness of such a General Council as the Protestants in stead thereof demanded and as should be limited with all the conditions they proposed 3. Concerning the Legal Proceedings of this Council of Trent 3. especially as to those matters which respect the Protestants 4. 4. The many Definitions and Anathema's of this Council and its pretended-new Articles of Faith 5. 5. Concerning the many Constitutions and Acts of great consequence passed in this Council and confirmed by the Pope for the Reformation of several corrupt practices and disorders observed in the Churches Government or Discipline CHAP. II. Of Councils inferior to General The due Subordinations and other Regulations of them § 9. 1. The several Councils at least so high as the Patriarchal to be called and moderated by their respective Ecclesiastical Superiors or Presidents and nothing to be passed by them without his or by Him without their consent § 10. 2. No Introduction or Ordination of Inferior Clergy to be made without Approbation or Confirmation of the Superior § 11. 3. Differences between Inferiors upon Appeal to be decided by Superiors and those of higher persons and in greater Causes by the Bishop of the first See § 12. where concerning his contest about this with the Africans § 13. n. 2. Yet that no persons or Synods co-ordinate might usurp authority one over another Nor all Causes ascend to the Highest Courts and many without troubling the Synod in its Interval to be decided by its President § 14. 4. Obedience in any dissent happening amongst Superiors to be yielded to the Superior of them The Concessions of Learned Protestants touching the Precidents § 16. 5. No Addresses or Appeals permitted from the Superior Ecclesiastical to any secular Judge or Court § 20. Where That the Church from the beginning was constituted a distinct Body from the Civil State § 21. And what seem to be Her Rights and Priviledges as so distinct § 22. § 9 COncerning the first Head to discern more clearly the true State of this Council assembled at Trent It seems necessary that I first give you a brief account of some things more generally appertaining to these Ecclesiastical Courts Of Councils then assembled as need required for deciding Controversies enacting Laws and preserving the Peace of the Church Catholick which is but one throughout the world there have been always used in the Church these several Kinds or Compositions subordinate in Dignity and Authority one to another 1 Episcopal or Diocesan 2 Provincial 3 National 4 Patriarchal and 5 Oecumenical or General Of which Councils the first Pattern under the Gospel was that held at Jerusalem Act. 15. A. D. 51. Amongst these the lowest Synod or Ecclesiastical Council for governing the Church was Episcopal or Diocesan taking the word in its modern sence consisting of the Bishop of any particular Diocess and his Presbyters the Bishop calling them together and moderating the Assembly the Actions and Decrees of which Synod were appealable from and liable to the Judgment and Censure of an higher Council The next Council was Provincial consisting of all the Bishops of a Province in which were many Diocesses called and moderated and its Decrees executed by the Metropolitan The next Synod to whom also the Actions and Decrees of this Provincial were subject was National consisting of the Metropolitans of several Provinces with their Bishops called and moderated by the chief Primate in such a Nation such were several of the Affrican Councils and particularly that held under S. Cyprian de Baptizandis Haereticis there being of these Provinces or greater Circuits six in Affrick and so many Primates or primae Sedis Episcopi of whom the Chief was the Bishop of Carthage The next a Council Patriarchal consisting of the Metropolitans c. of divers Kingdoms and Countries which were contained under the same Patriarchy this called and moderated by the Patriarch The last and supremest is a Council Oecumenical or General to which I should proceed next to shew you of what persons it is to consist who is to call who is to preside in to regulate and ratifie it c. But this I shall defer till § 34. And because the Regulation and Government that is for the necessary preserving of the Churches firmer Peace and Unity established and observed in these lower Councils is by their being more frequently held much better known and also freely acknowledged by Learned Protestants I will first give you some further Account of this that so you may make
Clergy much less to Bishops †Epist. Celest Etsi say they de inferioribus Clericis vel Laicis videtur ibi in the Nicene Canon praecaveri quantò magis de Episcopis voluit observari c. And Dr. Field touching this matter hath these words ‖ Of the Church p. 563. The Affricans though within the Patriarchship of Rome disliked the Appeal of their Bishops to Rome because they might have right against their Metropolitans in a General Synod of Affrick wherein the Primate sate as President For otherwise Bishops wronged by their Metropolitans might by the Canons appeal to their own Patriarch Thus he For otherwise here meaneth he not when such Councils do not sit For surely he would not have a Provincial Council purposely new called upon every personal contention But this overthrows the arguments of the Affrican Bishops who also are said to have denied such Appeals not when Affrican Councils sit only but altogether Again S. Austin clearly justifies Appeals from Affrican Councils also This of the Affrican Controversie about Appeals of as little advantage to non-Appealants as it is of great noise if the matter be on both sides equally weighed Again §. 13. n. 3. Touching another ancient Contest that happened and is also urged by Protestants between the Cyprian Bishops and the Patriarch of Antioch decided in the 3d. General Council Can. 8. you may observe That whatever priviledge or exemption any Church or Province may have had from any Patriarch or his Council as to Elections or Ordinations yet no Church or Person hath been freed from a submittance thereto in point of Appeals or of Decision of Controverfies in matter of Faith Neither here can the Cyprian Bishops by vertue of any such Canon of Ephesus plead their particular exemption from the 7th Canon of Sardica or 9th of Chalcedon which Canon is also seconded by the Imperial Law in Cod. Tit. 4. c. 29. or from the 17th or 26th Canon of the 8th General Council which Canons command such submittance and allow such Appeals in which Appeals also the Inferior Patriarchs were subject to the Superior See before § 12 13 and below the Concession of Dr. Field § 16 n 5 And of the Jurisdiction of the Antiochian Patriarch over Cypras as to these matters still remaining after the Canon of Ephesus see S. Jerom ‖ Epist ad Pamachium in his controversie with John Bishop of Jerusalem Ni fallor hoc ibi i. e. in Concilio Niceno ut Palestinae Metropolis Caesarea sit totius Orientis Antiochia Aut igitur ad Caesariensem Archiepiscopum referre debueras cui spretâ communione tuâ communicare nos noveras aut si procul expetendum judicium erat Antiochiam potiùs literae dirigendae Totius Orientis and so Cypri Mean while in this necessary Subordination of the lower Clergy or their Synods to the higher § 14 1st Care was taken That Co-ordinate Churches 1. or Provinces or their Synods i. e. such whereof the one could claim no Jurisdiction over the other neither by ancient Custom nor Conciliar Constitution should usurp no authority over one another For which see Can Apostol 36. Conc Nicen. c. 6. Conc. Ephes c. 8. Conc. Constantinop c. 2 3 5. Compared with Conc. Chalced. Act 16. Which Canons and particularly the second and third of the Second General Council at Constantinop do not prove what some would infer That all Provinces are for all power absolute supreme and independent from whom might be no further appeal nor any other Person or Council as Superior take account of their Acts for the contrary known practice in antiquity shews this to be otherwise †See §. 12 13. and thus Provincial Councils would have no subjection to General but only signifie these two things 1st That neither Patriarch nor Primate or Metropolitan should meddle in the affairs of any other Patriarchy or Province co-ordinate and over which he had no Jurisdiction in such affairs i.e. over which neither by ancient custom nor constitutions of Councils he could claim any such superiority See the limitation Conc. Ephes c. 8. Quae non priùs atque ab initio c. And Can. Apostol 36. Quae illi nullo jure subjectae sunt a clause that is still retained in these Canons to preserve the prerogatives Patriarchal As for example Not the Bishops of Alexandria therefore to meddle with the affairs of Antioch Solius Aegypti curam gerant servatis honoribus Ecclesiae Antiochenae Servatis i. e. without encroaching upon them Nor the Patriarch of Alexandria or Antioch to meddle with the Ordination of the Bishops in the several Provinces subjected to them Nor those of Asia with those of Thrace to whom Thrace owed no subjection 2ly That in every Province the Provincial Synod be the Supreme and last Court above any other authority in that Province and exclusively to the judgment of the Bishops of any neighbouring Provinces which are only co-ordinate with it See them below § 28. called by Gregory Episcopi alieni Concilii For observe that some of those Diocesses that are urged in the former Canon ‖ Conc. Ephes c. 8. to be independent viz. the Diocess of Thrace Pontus and Asia are in the 16th Act of the Council Chalced. where this very Canon was recited mentioned to be subjected to the Patriarch of Constantinople subjected i. e. as to confirmation of their Metropolitans and as to Appeals see Conc. Chalced. Can. 9. 16. Though still their priviledge stood firm Vt Episcopi Thraciae gubernent quae Thraciae namely unusquisque Metropolita praefatarum Diocesium ordinet sua Regionis Episcopos sicut Divinia Canonibus i. e. the Canons of Nice and these of Constantinople est praeceptum And as these Diocesses were subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople so were others to those of Alexandria and Antioch The second necessary provision made by the Church §. 15. n. 1. was That in the Intervals of Synods the respective Presidents thereof should be authorized 2. as standing Church-Officers always extant and accessible to end controversies interpret and execute their Canons since these greater Bodies could not be so frequently as occasions might require without much trouble assembled †See below §. 16. n. 6 8. As also lesser causes were ordered to be finally terminated in some inferior Court without liberty of appeal in all Causes by whatever persons which was the chief matter stood upon by the Affricans against Pope Bonifacius in the case of a Presbyter from one superior Court to a further or also from the standing Ecclesiastical Officers to a future Council that so Contentions might not be unnecessarily prolonged nor the supreme Courts overcharged with business nor Justice deferred See Conc. Milevit c. 22. And Card. Bellarmin De Rom. Pontif. l. 2. c. 24 Quastio de Appellationibus ad Romanum Pontificem non est de appellationibus Presbyterorum minorum Clericorum sed de appellationibus Episcoporum c.
See below § 16. n. 6 8. This in the third place from § 12. of the Churches subjecting both Ecclesiastical Persons and Councils One to Another the less to the greater in point of Judicature and Authority for preventing of Schismes 4ly When the two Ecclesiastical Courts or Officers that are subordinate §. 15. n. 2. do dissent the obedience of the Subjects of both in such case being once apparent was to be rendred to the Superior So if a Diocesan or Provincial Council ought to yield to a National the Subjects of such Province or Diocess when these two Councils clash ought to conform in their Obedience to the National not to a Diocesan or Provincial Council against it Now §. 16. n. 1. for such a subordination of the several Church-Officers and Synods forenamed and for Obedience when these dissent due to the Superior the two points last mentioned I will to save the labour of further proof give you the Concessions of Learned Protestants though this be done with some limitations accomodated to the better legitimating of their Reformation of which limitations see below § 16. n. 4. n. 7. and again § 28. desiring you also to peruse those set down already to the same purpose in the second Discourse § 24. n. 1. c. Of this matter then thus Dr. Ferne. in the Case between the Church of England and Rome p. 48. The Church of Christ is a society or company under a Regiment Discipline Government and the Members constituting that Society are either Persons taught guided governed or Persons teaching guiding governing and this in order to preserve all in unity and to advance every Member of this visible Society to an effectual and real participation of Grace and Vnion with Christ the Head and therefore and upon no less account is obedience due unto them Eph. 4.11 12 13 16. and Heb. 13.17 And he that will not hear the Church is to be as a Heathen and a Publican Mat. 16. And applying this to the Presbyterians and other Sects dividing from the English Bishops and Synods ‖ p. 46. They have incurred saith he by leaving us and I wish they would sadly consider it no less than the guilt of Schisme which lies heavily on as many as have of what perswasion or Sect soever wilfully divided themselves from the communion of the Church of England whether they do this by a bare separation or by adding violence and Sacriledge unto it And thus Dr. Hammond §. 16. n. 2. somewhat more distinctly in his Book of Schism c. 8. p. 157. The way saith he provided by Christ and his Apostles for preserving the Vnity of the Faith c. in the Church is fully acknowledged by us made up of two Acts of Apostolical Providence 1st Their resolving c. 2. Their establishing an excellent subordination of all inferior Officers of the Church to the Bishops in every City of the Bishops in every Province to their Metropolitans of the Metropolitans in every Region or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Patriarchs or Primates allowing also among these such a primacy of Order or Dignity as might be proportionable to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture and greeable to what is by the ancient Canons allowed to the Bishop of Rome and this standing subordination sufficient for all ordinary uses And when there should be need of extraordinary remedies there was then a supply to be had by congregating Councils Provincial Patriarchal General Again Ib. c. 3. he declares Schism in withdrawing obedience from any of these beginning at the lowest and so ascending to the highest Those Brethren or People saith he ‖ 7. which reject the Ministry of the Deacons or Presbyters in any thing wherein they are ordained or appointed by the Bishop and as long as they continue in obedience to him and of their own accord break off and separate from them refuse to live regularly under them they are by the ancient Church of Christ adjudged and looked on as Schismaticks †8. In like manner if we ascend to the next higher Link that of the Bishop to whom both Presbyters and Deacons as well as the Brethren or People are obliged to live in obedience the withdrawing or denying this obedience in any of these will certainly fall under this guilt Next For the higher Ranks of Church-Prelates §. 16. n. 3. § 20. he goes on thus It is manifest That as the several Bishops had prefecture over their several Churches and over the Presbyters Deacons and People under them such as could not be cast off by any without the guilt and brand of Schisme so the Bishops themselves of the ordinary inferior Cities for the preserving of unity and many other good uses were subjected to the higher power of Archbishops or Metropolitans he having shewed in § 11.12 the first Institution thereof Apostolical in Titus and Timothy nay we must yet ascend saith he one degree higher from this of Archbishops or Metropolitans to that supreme of Primates or Patriarchs Concerning whose authority having produced several Canons of Councils § 25. he concludes thus All these Canons or Councils deduce this power of Primates over their own Bishops from the Apostles and first Planters of the Churches wherein that which is pertinent to this place is only this that there may be a disobedience and irregularity and so a Schism even in the Bishops in respect of their Metropolitans and of the authority which these have by Canon and Primitive Custom over them And the obedience due to these several ranks of Ecclesiastical Superiors he affirms also due on the same account to their several Synods †Answ to Catholick Gent. c. 3. p. 29. It is evident saith he That the power which severally belongs to the Bishops is united in that of a Council where these Bishops are assembled and the despising of that Council is an offence under the first sort of Schism and a despising of all ranks of our Ecclesiastical Superiors whereof it is compounded Thus Dr. Hammond ascending in these subordinations as high as Primates But Dr. Field Bishop Bramhal and others §. 16. n. 4. rise one step higher to the Proto-primates or Patriarchs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so called and their Councils And strange it is if it were not from an engagement to the present English Interest that Dr. Hammond could pass by these in his speaking of the remedies of Schism with so much silence not mentioning Patriarchs but only as taken for Primates or their Councils See * Answ to Cathol Gent. c. 3. n. 9 10 11. Where he speaks of the authority of Provincial National Oecumenical Councils but passeth by Patriarchal and * Schism p. 158 where he names Provincial Patriarchal General but useth Patriarchal there for National or the Council presided-in by the Primate to which Primate sometimes was applied the name of Patriarch Strange I say considering not only the clear evidence of ancient Constitutions and
assembled in his own Territories and with his leave To hinder their making any definitions in spiritual matters or publishing them within his Dominions without their being first evidenced to him to be in nothing repugnant to Gods Word a thing he is to learn of them and without his consent first obtained whereby he assumes to himself in the Churches Consults a negative voice * To hinder also the execution of the Churches former Canons in his Territories so long as these not admitted amongst his Laws * Again when some former Church-Doctrine seems to Him to vary from Gods Truth or some Canon of the Church to restrain the just liberty of his Subjects I mean as to spiritual matters then either Himself and Council of State against all the Clergy or joined with some smaller part of the Clergy of his own Kingdom against a much major part or joined with the whole Clergy of his own Dominions against a Superior Council to make Reformations herein as is by them thought fit * Lastly To prohibit the entrance of any Clergy save such as is Arrian into his Kingdom under a Capital punishment who sees not that such an Arrian Prince justified in the exercise of any such power and so the Church obliged to submit to it must needs within the circuit of his Command overthrow the Catholick Religion and that the necessary means of continuing there the truth of the Gospel is withdrawn from the Church And the same it would be here if the Clergy within such a Dominion should upon any pretended cause declare themselves freed from obedience to their Ecclesiastical Superiors or by I know not what priviledge translate their Superiors Authority to the Prince § 25 Many of these Jurisdictions vindicated by the Church are so clearly due to her for the subsistence of true Religion as that several passages in many Learned Protestants seem to join with Catholicks in the defence of them of which I shall give you a large view in another Discourse Mean while see that of Dr. Field quoted below § 49. and at your leisure Mr. Thorndikes Treatise of the Rights of the Church in a Christian State and B. Carleton's of Jurisdiction Regal and Episcopal In the last place then this Bar was set by the Church against any Clergies making use of the Secular Power for remitting their Subjection to the Laws and Constitutions of their Ecclesiastical Superiors or for possessing themselves of any Ecclesiastical Dignities or Jurisdictions contrary to the Churches Canons § 26 Now then to sum together all that hath been said of these Subordinations of Clergy Persons and Councils so high as the Patriarchal for preserving a perpetual unity in the Church 1 First No Introduction or Ordination of inferior Clergy could any where be made without the approbation or confirmation of the Superior § 27 2 The several Councils were to be called when need required and to be moderated by their respective Ecclesiastical Superiors and matters of more general concernment there not to be passed by the Council without his consent nor by him § 28 without theirs or the major part of them 3 All differences about Doctrine Manners or Discipline arising amongst inferior persons or Councils were to be decided by their Superiors till we come to the highest of these the Patriarchal Council And in the Intervals of Councils the respective Prelates and Presidents thereof were to take care of the Execution of their Canons as also to receive and decide appeals in such matters for which it was thought not so necessary to convene a Synod amongst which the differences with or between Primates were to be decided by the Patriarch those with or between Patriarchs by the Proto-Patriarch assisted with such a Council as might with convenience be procured § 29 4 In clashing between any Inferior and Superior Authority when these commanded several things the Subjects of both were to adhere and submit to the Judgment and Sentence of the Superior 5 All these things were to be transacted in the Church concerning causes purely Ecclesiastical and Spiritual without the controulment of or appeal to any secular Judges or Courts under penalty of excommunication to the Clergy so appealing Now in such a well and close-woven Series of dependence what entrance can there be for pretended Reformations by Inferiors against the higher Ecclesiastical Powers § 30 without incurring Schisme Whether of I know not what Independents Fanaticks and Quakers against Presbyters or of Presbyters against Bishops Reformations which the Church of England hath a long time deplored or of Bishops against the Metropolitan and so up to the Prime Patriarch the supreme Governour in the Church of Christ And next What degree of obedience can be devised less I speak as to the determinations of matters of Doctrine than a non-contradicting of these Superiors Which obedience only had it been yielded by the first Reformers whatever more perhaps might have been demanded of them by the Church yet thus had the door been shut against all entring in of Controversie in matters of Religion once defined And though some still might themselves wander out of its Pale yet in their forbearing Disputes the rest of the Churches Subjects would have slept quietly in her bosom unassaulted and so unswayed with their new Tenents And perhaps those others also in time have been made ashamed of their own singularity when they were debarred of this means of gaining Followers and making themselves Captains of a Sect. CHAP. III. Of Councils General 1. The necessary Composition of them considered with relation to the acceptation of them by Absents § 35. This Acceptation in what measure requisite § 39. 2. To whom belongs the Presidentship in these Councils § 47. 3. And Calling of them § 47. § 31 THis from § 9. said of all inferior Persons and Councils and their Presidents so high as a Patriarchal of their several Subordinations and Obedience in any dissent due still to the superior Court or Prelate Now I come to the supreme Council Oecumenical or General the Rules and Laws of which may be partly collected from the former Wherein the chief Considerables are 1 The Composition of what or what number of persons it must necessarily consist 2 The President-ship in it and the Calling of it to whom they belong § 32 1st Then for the Composition It is necessary that it be such either wherein all the Patriarchs or at least so many of them as are Catholick with many of their Bishops do meet in person or where after All called to It and the Bishops of so many Provinces as can well be convened sitting in Council headed by the Prime Patriarch or his Legates Delegates are sent by the rest or at least the Acts and Decrees thereof in their necessary absence are accepted and approved by them and by the several Provinces under them or by the major part of those Provinces § 33 For a General or Oecumenical Council such as doth consist of all the Bishops of
the Catholick Universe met together there never hath been any but in those which are generally by Protestants as well as Catholicks reputed and admitted for such sometimes we find a greater sometimes a smaller number according to the propinquity of the place the peace of the times the numerosity of Sects c. So the four first General Councils all held in the East by reason of the Heresies they opposed chiefly reigning in that Coast consisted mostly of Oriental Bishops The first General Council of Nice had present in it only 2. Presbyters the Bishop of Rome's Legates and 3. Bishops of the Occidental Churches The 2d General Council of Constantinople had in it no Occidental Bishop at all but only was confirmed by the Bishop of Rome and his Occidental Council assembled in Rome not long after it The 3d. General Council of Ephesus had only 3. Delegates sent to it from the Bishop of Rome and his Occidental Synod The 4th of Chalcedon had only 4. Legates sent thither from the Bishop of Rome after that the Western Bishops assembled in several Provincial Synods had communicated their judgment to them in the Controversie then agitated and besides these 2. Affrican Bishops and one Sicilian Where note That the 3d. also of these Councils transacted most of their business and condemned Nestorius the Bishop of Constantinople without the presence of the Antiochian Patriarch and his Bishops who retarded his journey in favour of Nestorius though afterwards he and his consented also to his Condemnation And that the 4th Council acted all things without Dioscorus the Alexandrian Patriarch whom also they deposed for his favouring the Heretical Party and for his Contumacy against the See of Rome See Conc. Chalced. Act 4. Yet all these Councils whether the Bishops personally present were fewer or more were accounted equally valid § 34 from the After-acceptation and admittance of their Decrees by the Prelates absent i. e. the acceptation of such persons as if present had had a Vote in them All which Prelates were they personally present in the Council or the much major part of them there would be no further need of any approbation of the Church Catholick or of any other Members thereof to confirm its acts nor are they any way capable thereof because the remainder of the Church diffusive I mean of those who have any decisive vote in Ecclesiastical affairs must be concluded in their Judgment and Sentence by this supposed much-major part thereof that are personally present in the Council But this wanting the other compleatsits defect And upon such Acceptation it is that the 2d. and the 5th of the Councils called General held at Constantinople without the Pope or his Legat's presence therein yet bear the name of General because the Decrees of the former of them were accepted by Damasus and his Occidental Council convened not long after it and the latter after some time accepted by Vigilius and his Successors with the Western Bishops as on the contrary for want of such Acceptation the 2 d. Ephâ—sin Council though for its meeting as entire and full as most of the other called Oecumenical yet was never esteemed such because its Decrees though passed by a major part of the present Bishops were opposed by the Popes Legates in the Council and by Him and the main Body of the Occidental Prelates out of it § 35 And upon this General Acceptation also inferior Councils may become in their Obligation equivalent to Generall since however the Churches Testimony is received whether conjunctly De Concil l. 2. c. 28. or by parts yet Ecclesia universa errare non potest in necessariis So Bellarmine observes ancient Councils less than General very frequently to have determined matters of Faith Haeresin Pauli Samosateni damnavit Concilium Antiochenum paucorum Episcoporum Euseb l. 7. c. 24. nec alii multò plures in toto mundo conquesti sunt sed ratum habuerunt Haeresin Mace donii damnavit Concilium Constantinopolitanum in quo nullus fuit Latinorum Latini probaverunt Haeresim Pelagii damnaverunt Concilia Provincialia Milevitanum Carthaginense Haeresim Nestorii damnavit Concilium Ephesinum antequà m adessent Latini Latini voluerunt cognoscere rem gestam cognitam approbaverunt All which Determinations of lesser Councils received their strength from the General Body of the Church owning them Neither did or ought such inferior Councils when necessitated by contentions and disputes define any such thing hastily or rashly but as they well knew before any such Resolution the common Sentiments of the Church Catholick herein Thus the Paucity of Church-Prelates in Councils is shewed to infer a necessity of an after-Acceptation by absents to ratifie its Acts. § 36 Next Concerning the just quality measure and proportion of this after-Acceptation several things are to be well observed 1. 1 st That it is not to be extended in a Latitude of Christianity much greater beyond the bounds of the Church Catholick Which Catholick Church is many times of a narrower compass than the Christian Profession all Heretical and Schismatical Churches I mean such as have made a former discession in Doctrine or external Communion from their lawful Ecclesiastical Superiors and being but a part have separated from the former whole standing contradistinct to it So after the Nicene Council in Constantines time the Arrians and in S. Austins time the Donatists were esteemed though Christians yet no Catholicks and the Catholick Church was named still as a part of Christianity opposite to them Of which thus S. Austin †Contra Episc Fuâ—d c. 4. Tenerme justissimè in Ecclesiae gremio ipsum Catholicae nomen quod nomen non sine causâ inter tam multas haereses sic ista Ecclesia sola obtinuit Therefore upon the growth of many Heresies after the Heathen persecutions ceased instead of these words of the Apostles Creed I believe the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints i.e. in it we read in this Creed as explained by Councils I believe One Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church 1. One to distinguish it from many varying Sects pretending also to be true Churches of Christ 2. Holy i. e. as to the external maintaining the true and holy Faith Manners Sacraments Government Discipline delivered by our Lord and his Apostles and in particular Holy as maintaining no Doctrine contrary to Holiness but not Holy so as that some external Members thereof may not be by their own default internally unholy and unsanctified and no true Members of Christ 3. Apostolick i. e Succeeding them by un-interrupted Ordinations and preserving their Traditions for Doctrine Government and Discipline And therefore here the other Clause the Communion of Saints is omitted as sufficiently included in the former Explication which is observed also by Dr. Hammond of Fundamentals p. 69 83. So in the yet more enlarged Athanasian Creed we find the Catholick Faith used in a restrained sence opposed to all those Heresies that are rejected by
that Creed And to this notion of Church Catholick See in Disc 1. § 37. 44. Learned Protestants willingly consenting § 37 2ly This Acceptation in respect of the Catholick Church i e. of those Prelates that be not formerly by any Herefie or Schisme shut out of it cannot rationally be required absolutely universal of all but only of the considerably Major part of them for in a Government not simply Monarchical whether Ecclesiastical or Civil no Laws can be promulgated nor Unity preserved if of their Governors the fewer be not regulated by a major part and it hath been shewed at large Disc 2. § 25. which I desire the Reader to review and consider well because much weight is laid upon it that the Decrees of the first 4 General Councils were none of them established with such a plenary acceptation the practice of which Councils is a sufficient Rule and Warrant to posterity Nor otherwise can any new Heresie patronized by any Bishops formerly Catholick as the most pernicious Heresies have ever been he ever legally suppressed so long as such Prelates persist in their dissent from the rest See what hath been said of this in Disc 1. § 28 38 39. Disc 3. § 11 37. That strict condition therefore which Dr. Hammond requires to authentize and ratifie the Definitions and Canons of General Councils in respect of Acceptation seems not reasonable Namely That after their promulgation at least if not before they should be accepted by each Provincial Council and acknowledged to agree with that Faith which they had originally received of Her § 6. n. 8 12. Or That such Conciliar Declarations should be universally received by all Churches Her § 14. n. 4. because such are saith he Christians and Bishops as well as the Bishop of Rome and consequently their Negatives as evident prejudices to and as utterly unreconcileable with an universal affirmative as the Popes can be c. Like to which § 12. n. 6. he argues thus concerning the absence or dissent of any Bishops from a Council That the promise of the Gates of Hell not prevailing against the Church can no way belong to a Council unless all the Members of a Church were met together in a Council I add or when met do consent for if there be any left out why may not the promise be good in them though the Gates of Hell should be affirmed to prevail against the Council And § 5. n. 3. That if the matter delivered by a Council be not testified from all places it is not qualified for our belief as Catholick in respect of place because the Faith being one and the same and by all and every of the Apostles deposited in all their Plantations what was ever really thus taught by any of them in any Church will also be found to have been taught and received in all other Apostolical Churches And § 10 n. 2 3. He concludes the Canon of the 7th General Council not obliging because the contrary Doctrine being delivered before in a Provincial Council that of Eliberis which is not true yields saith he an irrefragable proof that the Doctrine of the 2 d. Nicene Council was not testified by all the Churches of all ages to be of Tradition Apostolical I say such an universal acceptation as this of every Church or Province seems upon any such pretence unreasonably exacted 1 st Because all Conciliary Definitions are not as he saith there they are only Declarations and Testifications of such Apostolical Traditions as were left by them evident and conspicuous in all Christian Churches planted by them but are many times Determinations of points deduced from and necessarily consequential to such clear Traditionals whether written or unwritten 2ly Because if the Acts of General Councils were only such Declarations of Apostolical Tradition yet it is possible that some particular Church may in time depart from such a Tradition entrusted unto them else how can any Church become Heretical against any such Tradition and so when their acceptance is asked may refuse to acknowledge what all the rest justisie And all this clearly appears in those Bishops or Churches that made some opposition to the Decrees of the 4. first General Councils and in the opposition of S. Cyprian and his Bishops concerning Rebaptization § 41 3ly For the manner of this Approbation of such major part It is thought sufficient if it be a tacit and interpretative Approbation only and not positive or express 3. for who can shew this to most allowed Councils Namely when such Decrees being promulgated they signifie no opposition thereto Of which thus Franciscus à Sancta Clarâ System fidei c. 23. p. 262 Neque tamen dubitandum est quin statim obligare incipiant actus Conciliares si non appareat Ecclesiarum non dico hujus vel illius vel aliquorum protervorum hominum reclamatio nam praesumendum est omnes consensisse si non constet oppositum ut etiam acutè observavit Mirandula ubi post alia dicit Quoad dum universalis Ecclesia non reclamarit necessariò credendum est And thus Dr. Hammond of Heres § 6. n. 15.16 When a Doctrine is conciliarly agreed on it is then promulgated to all and the universal though but tacit approbation and reception thereof the no considerable contradiction given to it in the Church is a competent evidence that this is the judgment and concordant Tradition of the whole Church though no resolution of Provincial Synods which was used before some General Councils hath preceded But if their Acts are contradicted and protested against this evidently prejudiceth the Authority of that Council And Archbishop Lawd § 26. p. 195. saith It is a sufficient confirmation to a General Council if after it is ended the whole Church admit it though never so tacitly The whole Church admit it saith he And the whole say we or such a major part of the whole as ought to conclude the rest Which admission also is sufficiently discerned in the most general Conformity to such Decrees in mens profession and practice For it is all reason that where we cannot have Quod creditum est ubique ab omnibus semper by reason of some divisions in the Church we hold to what is nearest it quod creditum est in pluribus locis à pluribus diutius or antiquiùs For the plures pluribus locis joined in one Communion with the Ecclesiastical Head of the Church here on earth are the securest Expositors to us of quod antiquius or quod creditum semper See Disc 3. § 11. 4ly For the applying of this Acceptation to all the Decrees of a Council or only to some § 42 whilst some other Decrees are disclaimed as sometimes happens Here also 4. so far as a due Acceptation is extended so far is our Obligation nor can any reasonably argue that if some Acts of a Council are by some after-opposition rendred invalid therefore no other things pâ—ssed in that
Council and generally approved have force § 43 5ly What is said here of the non-approbation of some Prelates or Churches as frequently happens it s not invalidating a Council 5. or its Decrees must be said also of the absence of some Prelates from the Council or of their non-concurrence when sitting in it their absence 1. Either voluntary as of those who heterodox in opinion and fewer in number foresee that probably they shall be over voted by the rest as the Arrian Prelates did absent themselves from the Council of Sardica and so might also have absented themselves from that of Nice or again the Eutychian Prelats from Chalceâ—on notwithstanding whose absence or non-concurrence the Council will not cease to bear the just title of General provided that it consist of a major part of the Christian Churches and have the concurrence of the Prime Patriarch without whom nihil finiendum Otherwise an Heretical or Schismatical Church can secure themselves as they please from being condemned by any General Council which as long as they are absent will be called not General and so its force cannot extend to them Nay otherwise after any defection from the Orthodox Faith or after any considerable Schism in the Church now there can never be any more Oecumenical Councils because forsooth that party fallen away will give no meeting to the other too prevalent and thus General Councils cease to have any being when there first begins to be any need of them Of this thus a Learned Protestant ‖ Dr. Field p. 651. with intention to make the 5 th Council a General one without the presence of the Pope and his Occidental Bishops The Presidence and Presence saith he of the Bishop of Rome is not so necessary in General Councils but that in case of his wilsul refusal a Council may proceed and be holden for lawful without his consenting to it And As a Council may be holden in such a case i.e. they refusing to come without the presence and concurrence of the Roman Bishop and those that are subject to him so being present if be refuse to concur in judgment with the rest they may proceed without him and their sentence may be of force though he consent not to it What then they presume to affirm thus of the Roman they must not deny of their own Bishops This that the voluntary absence of some Prelates doth not invalidate a Council or its Acts.2. Neither yet doth the absence forced of some others if such as being formerly justly eâ—communicated or anathematized have now no right to any voting in such Councils though perhaps if admitted these might equal the Orthodox in number Thus Gelasius Bishop of Rome †Epist ad Episcopos Dardaniae concerning the Eutychians when very numerous in the East and also of the Favourers of them not to be admitted to a Council Ecclesiastici moris non est cuni his qui pollutam habent communionem permixtamque cum perfidis miscere Concilium And Meritò ab Apostolicâ sede caeterisque Catholicis non jam consulendi erant sed potiùs notandi c. 6ly What hath been here said of the necessary Constitution or Composition of a General Council § 44 and Ratification of its Acts must be said exactly on the same ground 6. concerning a Patriarchal or other inferior Council that it is not necessary that all the Bishops of such Patriarchy be assembled or absent do accept and ratifie it to make it Legal or Obligatory § 45 2. This said concerning the necessary Composition of a General Council come we next to the Presidency and Moderatorship therein 1. Where 1 st As it hath been already shewed in all the other Synods ‖ §. 9 c Protestants consenting †§. 16. that the Presidentship in them without any new election made by the Council or yet by the secular power belongâ— to him who hath the prime place and dignity the presiding in the Provincial Council to the Metropolitan in the National Council where be may Metropolitans to the Primate of them c. which President also had in these Councils a negative voice †See before §. 10. so it seems all reason that iâ— a General Council also that Prelate should preside who is the Bishop of the chief See and to whom in all ages all other Churches and Prelates have allowed the Primacy i. e. the Bishop of Rome See 2. Gen. Counc c. 5. All reason I say That the Primate of the Patriarchs Preside in a General Council as the Primate of the Metropolitans in a National And that what other Priviledges these other Presidents enjoyed in those Councils the same at least though we set aside here his universal Pastorship He should enjoy in This agreeable to that ancient Canon and Custom in the universal Church mentioned by Socrates l. 2. c. 13. And Sozamen l. 2. c. 13. And vindicated by Pope Innocent apud August Epist 91. And yet more anciently by Pope Julius against some Oriental Bishops apud Athanas Apol. 2. Sinâ— Romans Pâ—â—tifice nihil finiendum § 46 2 ly If in this Matter Prescription may be of any force de facto the Prime Patriarch the Bishop of â—ome in the ancient Councilâ— General hath always bean allowed this Presidentship As will appear to any reviewing the Church-History for the first 8. General Councils In 4. of which Councils namely the 4th 6th 7th and 8th the Protestant grant it without dispute Next For his Presidency in the 3d. General Council it seems evident enough ‖ l. 1. c. 4. Conc. Eph. pars 2. Act. 1. from the testimony of Evagrius ‖ that Cyril Bishop of Alexandria was deputed by him to execute this Office who saith That the Bishops meeting in that Council Cyrillo locum Celestini Episcopatum antiquae Romae gerentis obtinente accersunt Nestorium c. whose Deputy also Cyril was made before for the excommunication of Nestorius by the Authority of the Apostolical See as appears in the Pope's Letter to Cyril †Act. Concil Eph. Tom. 1. Nostrâ vice loco cum potestate usus ejusmodi sententiam exequêris c. For the 2 d. and 5 th General Council both held at Constantinople as it is true that the Pope presided not in them because indeed neither He nor his Legates were present in them so it is true that these Councils were not General till they were after their Session accepted by him and the other Western Churches But yet both these Councils apparently enough yield the Presidency to him in general Councils the 5 th which much courted his presence in express terms in Eutychiâ—â— the Patriarch of Constantinople his Letter to him ‖ Petinius ‖ Conc. Constan Collat. 1. presidente nobis vestrâ Beatitudine communi tractatu eadem capitula in medio proponenda quari c. And the 2 d. in that which infers his presidency whilst the Bishop of Constantinople who in the absence
wherein the Primate of the Metropolitans presides so again is this National Synod the Catholick Church in many Nations being but One subject to that composed of several Nations and their Primates called and presided-in by one of the principal Patriarchs Neither whatever Superiority such Patriarch really hath needeth he for the subjection of such Primates and their respective Churches to this Patriarchal Council any other power over these Primates save what these Primates are granted to have over the Metropolitans whose Proyincial Synods we see are subjected to a National or the Primate's Synod Neither if it could be proved that the chief Patriarchs have over National Primates no superiority of power or at least that some particular Provinces as to Ordinations or some other Jurisdictions are utterly exempt from Patriarchal authority may therefore such Provinces pretend freedom from any obedience to the Decrees of a Council Patriarchal wherein some one of these Patriarchs presides no more than they can justly pretend freedom from a Council Oecumenical on the same account in which Council Oecumenical or General though the same Primates should acknowledge no Ecclesiastical Person their Superior yet could they not deny the Council to be so Subject then are National Synods and Churches to Patriarchal and to this end every Church as Dr. Field observes p. 513. cited before § 16. n. 5. is subordinate to some one of the Patriarchal Churches and incorporated into the Vnity of it Of the necessity of which Union of Churches in Patriarchal Synods in the so much more difficult and chargeable assembling of such as are absolutely Vniversal see before § 16. n. 4. § 54 2. Next The Church of England one of those the most anciently professing Christianity 2 which it is clear it did before Tertullian's time ‖ See Tertullian Apol. ad versus Judaeos c. 7. Origen in Ezech. Hom. 4 Bede Hist Angl. l. 1. c. 4. never pretended subjection to any other Patriarch or his Council than this of the West to whom also it ascribes its Conversion without dispute as for the Saxons or English if not also as for the Britains And accordingly both in ancient and latter times if the mos antiquus obtineat in the 6 th Canon of Nice be of any force it hath always ranged it self and appeared in the Western Councils as a Member of this Patriarchy and of the Latine Church and from time to time concurred in the passing of those Canons which have established the Authority of the Roman Patriarch and of these Patriarchal Councils § 55 After several Christians suffering Martyrdom here in Dioclesian's time In the Council at Arles in France 10. years before that of Nice assembled by Constantine who being born in England and his Mother an English woman and a Christian and being after his Father's death here also first declared Emperor by his Army may be presumed to have had some particular respects for the Brittish Clergy we find the presence and subscription of several Brittish Bishops acknowledged by Dr. Hammond ‖ Schism p. 110. and B. Bramhal †Vindic. of the Church if England p. 98. and of which thus Sir Henry Spelm. A. D 314. Aderant è Britanniâ celebriores ut videtur tres Episcopi Surely in dignity much preceding and much ancienter than the Bishop of Caerleon nempe Eboracensis Londinensis de Civitate Coloniae Lodunensium quae aliàs dicitur Camelodunum una cum Sacerdote Presbytero Diacono qui Canones assensu suo approbabant in Britanniam redeuntes secum deferebant observandos The first Canon whereof setleth the matter of Easter to be kept through all the Churches on the same day and the divulgation of this through all Churches was committed to the Bishop of Rome the Western and Prime Patriarch secundum consuetudinem saith the Canon Again at the Council held at Ariminum and before this in that of Sardica assembled A. D. 347. some 20. years after that of Nice is found the presence of the Britain amongst other Western Bishops witnessed by Athanasius who was present there himself in his second Apology And therefore may the Canons of that Council be presumed among the rest to be ratified by them or at least being passed by the major part of that Occidental Council to oblige them Now what honour these Canons give to the Roman Bishop how they allow and ratifie his supreme Decision of Appeals c. Protestants are not ignorant and therefore to evade it make such exceptions as these ‖ B. Bramhal Reply to S. W p. 24. 1. That it doth not appear That the British Bishops did assent to that Canon But this matters not the major part in Councils concluding the rest and neither doth it appear on the other side but that they did approve it which also is to be presumed where appears no contradiction 2 Again urged That it was no General Council But it sufficeth for the Britains if it were at least a compleat Occidental Council 3. Pleaded That these Canons of Sardica were never incorperated into the English Laws and therefore did not bind English Subjects But Church-Canons and Decrees in matters Ecclesiastical do oblige all the Members of the Church though Princes oppose Oblige Princes also if Christian and so the Churches Subjects And the Author that requireth this incorporation of Church Canons into the Princes Laws explains himself elsewhere ‖ Schism guarded p. 160. to mean only that Church-Decrees oblige not as to the using any coactive power in his Realms for the execution of them without the Princes leave because saith he such external coactive Jurisdiction is originally Political a thing granted him so that before such leave or enrolment the Churches Decrees oblige both Prince and People if Christian in foro Conscientiae the disobedient justly incurring the Churches censures the thing we here contend for Lastly The 9 th Canon of Chalced. a subsequent General Council is pretended to contradict these of Sardica in giving the Supremacy in Appeals to the Patriarch of Constantinople But I need not tell him that this Constantinople Supremacy is not for the West but East which is for the Controversies of those Provinces there subject to that Patriarch § 56 And from the presence of the Britain Bishops in these ancient Councils if I may make here a little digression appears the ignorance of the Abbot of Bangor if the Relation be true in being such a stranger to the Popes Person Authority or Titles after A. D. 600. after all that power exercised by him for so many Ages in the Western Provinces conceded by Protestants see Dr. Field of the Church l. 5. from c. 32. to c. 40. after so many missions of several holy Bishops from the Pope of Rome either to plant and propagate Christianity in these Islands of Britain and Ireland or to reform it * Of Fugatius and Damianus very early sent by Pope Eleutherius in King Lucius his days which King
might be to suppress And judge you by these things how justifiable those proceedings of the Britain Clergy or Councils of that time mentioned by Bishop Bramhal Vindic. p. 104. were in opposition to Austin the Monk who only required of them in this thing to follow the Tradition of the Church and objected against them Quòd in multis Romanae consuetudini immo Vniversalis Ecclesiae contraria gererent quòd suas Traditiones universis quae per orbem sibi invicem concordant Ecclesiis praeferrent All which was true and the Proponent also confirmed this truth before them with a Miracle restoring sight to a blind man See Sir Hen. Spelman A. D. 601. Pardon this Digression made to abate a little the Confidence of those who would collect some extraordinary liberty of the Britannick Church from the superintendency of the Western Patriarch from this Declaration of the Abbot of Bangor and the different observation of Easter Of which matter Mr. Thorndike in maintaining the visible unity of the Church Catholick to consist in the resort of inferior Churches to superior the visible Heads of which Resort he saith were Rome Alexandria and Antiochia speaks thus more moderately †They that would except Britain out of this Rule Just weights p. 40. of subjection upon the act of the Welsh Bishop's refusing Austin the Monk for their Head should consider that S. Gregory setting him over the Saxon Church which he had founded according to Rule transgressed the Rule in setting him over the Welsh Church Setting this case aside the rest of that little remembrance that remains concerning the British Church testifies the like respect from it to the Church of Rome as appears from the Churches of Gaul Spain and Affrick of which there is no cause to doubt that they first received their Christianity from the Church of Rome § 61 To proceed and from the Council of Arles and Sardica and Ariminum spoken of before ‖ §. 55. to come to later times we find the English Bishops either concurring and presenting themselves as members with the rest in those Occidental Councils of a later Date the several Lateran Councils that of Constance Basil and Florence or in absence acquiessing in and conforming to the Votes and Acts thereof which Acts have confirmed to the Bishop of Rome those Jurisdictions over the whole Church excepting the question of his Superiority to General Councils or at least over the Western part thereof which the present Reformation denies him For which see the Council of Constance much urged by Protestants as no Flatterer of the Pope and wherein the Council voting by Nations the English were one of the 4. Sess 8. 15. condemning against Wickleff and Hus such Propositions as these Papa non est immediatus Vicarius Christi Apostolorum Summus Pontifex Ecclesiae Romanae non habet Primatum super alias Ecclesias particulares Petrus non fuit neque est Caput Ecclesiae Sanctae Catholicae Papae Praefectio Institutio à Caesaris potentiâ emanavit Papa non est manifestus verus Successor Apostolorum Principis Petri si vivit moribus contrariis Petro Non est scintilla apparentiae quòd opporteat esse unum Caput in Spiritualibus regens Ecclesiam quod Caput semper cum ipsâ militanti Ecclesiâ conservetur conservatur Now the contrary Propositions to these authorized by a Council supposed not General but Patriarchal only are obligatory at least to the members thereof and consequently to their Posterity until a Council of equal authority shall reverse them As in Civil Governments the same Laws which bind the Parents bind the Children without the Legislative power de novo asking their consent Not many years after the Council of Chalcedon in the Patriarchy of Alexandria there succeeded to Proterius a Catholick Bishop Timotheus an Eutychian since which time also the Churches of Egypt and Ethiopia remain still Eutychian or at least Dioscorists And in the Patriarchy of Antioch to Martyrius a Catholick Bishop succeeded Petrus Fullo an Eutychian And in the Empire to Leo an Orrhodox Emperor succeeded Zeno an Eutychian And all these declared their non-acceptance of the Council of Chalcedon Yet this did no way unfix with posterity the stability of its Authority or Decrees Neither can the modern Eutychians justifie their non-submission to that Council hence because they can produce some persons and those Patriarchs too that have in succeeding times but after a former more general Acceptation opposed it § 62 3 ly After the English and before them the British Bishops thus shewed § 54. to have been subject to a Patriarchal Council upon what pretence 3. or new priviledge fince the Reformation these Bishops should plead any exemption from submitting to the Decrees thereof when accepted by a much major part of the Church-Prelacy an acceptation sufficient ‖ See before §. 40. I see not For 1 st The Pope's calling it no way renders such a Council irregular for it is granted by Protestants 1. that the Calling of a Patriarchal Council though not of a General of right belongeth to Him neither may the Bishops of such Patriarchy justly disobey his Summons or secular Prince hinder their journey †See before §. 16. n. 5 2. 2ly Neither can the absence of the Eastern Bishops here be stood upon because their presence not necessary in such a Council 3ly Nor can the secular power under which such Protestant Bishops live especially whenas no Heathen 3. but himself also a Subject of the Church opposing or not-accepting such a Council's Decrees free the Churche's Subjects in his Dominions from observation thereof I mean if such Decrees be in a atters purely Ecclesiastical and spiritual and no way intrenching upon his Civil Rights of which enough hath been said formerly § 63 Bishop Bramhal's Plea That such Decrees oblige not any Prince's Subjects till by him incorporated into his Laws as if Christians were to obey no Church-Laws unless first made the King's hath been spoken to before ‖ §. 55. Dr. Hammond's grand Plea on which he lays the greatest weight for securing the Reformation See his Treatise of Schism c. 6 7 p. 115 132 137 138 142. viz. the Prince's power and right to translate Patriarchies to remove that of Rome to Canterbury helps not at least in this matter nor perhaps did he ever mean it should extend so far as to exempt any Western Nation from all subjection to a free Occidental Council For 1st He grants That the Prince can do no such thing so far as it thwarts the Canons of the Church See Answ to Schism Disarmed p. 164. A Power saith he Princes have to erect Metropoles and hence he collects new Patriarchs but if it be exercised so as to thwart known Canons and Customs of the Church this certainly is an abuse Which he hath the more reason to maintain in this particular because he is in some doubt as appears in his Answer to
S. W †Answ to Schism Disarmed p. 174. whether Princes do not hold such power of translating or erecting Patriarchs from the Churche's Grant Now surely this will be confessed contrary to the Churche's Canons for a Prince to make such a removal of the Patriarchs former Jurisdiction as thereby to null as to his Subjects the authority of a Patriarchal Council And if indeed the erecting and removing Patriarchs did originally belong to Princes yet since the Civil Governments that are contained within the Precincts of one Patriarchy are now in the hands of many several Soveraigns the repeal of any Patriarch's former authority as it relates to the convening of such Councils must be an act at least of the Major part of these Princes as being a thing which equally concerns them all Nor can the Doctor produce an instance of a former fact in this kind And if the Prince can thus free his National Clergy from a Patriarch and his Synod why not also from a General Council that neither it shall oblige his Subjects without his consent Again Doctor Heylin's Plea ‖ Reformation justified p. 84. touching the English Clergy in their Reformation their conferring all their power on the Prince which they formerly enjoyed in their own Capacity A power saith he not only of confirming their Synodical acts not to be put in execution without his consent but in effect to devolve on him all that power which formerly they enjoyed in their own capacity comparing it there to the Roman Senat 's transferring all their power on Caesar I say this Plea as it contains very strange Doctrine so it reacheth not our present matter for if a National Clergy can at pleasure transfer their own spiritual authority over others and that authority too for reforming Errors in matters of Religion to a Lay person or also to his Delegates which authority was intrusted to them by our Lord in a Personal Ordination yet can they not hence transfer to the same Lay-person their Superiors whether persons or Councils spiritual authority over them so that this superior's authority for the future shall not oblige but when such Lay-person first admits it § 64 This from § 53. of Obedience due from the Reformed and particularly from the Church of England to the Council of Trent if this were only a free and Legal Patriarchal Council The true Rights of which also it may not be thought to forfeit by its further pretensions to be a Council Oecumenical As we may not withdraw our due obedience from our Prince when he exacts some other not due or withhold a just debt where more is unjustly demanded But not to stay here § 65 2ly Our Obedience may yet further be rightly challenged to this Council 2. as General if it shall be proved though not so General as several formerly have been yet so General as now in such an alteration of States can be had and it being such the same divine assistance as to ampler formerly may be presumed to be afforded to it for such Controversies as are necessary to be decided And a submission to a Council only so comprehensive several Protestant Divines think reasonable Thus B. Bramhal in Preface to Reply to Chalced. I submit my self to the Representative Church a free General Council or so General as can be procured And Schism-guarded p. 136. There is nothing saith he that we long after more than a General Council rightly called rightly proceeding or in defect of that a free Occidental Council as General as may be And p. 351. I shall be ever ready to acquiesce in the determination of a Council so General as is possible to be had See more in Disc 1. § 35. Dr. Field freely confesseth ‖ Of the Church p. 557. That the Decrees of Popes made with the consent and joint concurrence of the other Western Bishops do bind the Western Provinces that are subject to him as Patriarch of the West Bind them so as that these have no liberty to contradict the judgment of the Patriarch and his Council as appears Ib. d. 39. p. 563. Where he quotes the Emperor's Law Novel 223. c. 22. confirming the 9 th Canon of Council Chalced. Nullâ parte ejus sententiae contradicere valente Consequently these Councils bind so the Church of England Dr. Hammond saith †Answ to Catholick Gent. p. 30. That General Councils are now morally impossible to be had the Christian world being under so many Empires and divided into so many Communions that it is not visible to the eye of man how they should be regularly assembled But mean while he saith ‖ Of Schism c. 9. p. 163. We acknowledge the due authority of our Ecclesiastical Superiors profess Canonical obedience to them submit to their Censures and Decrees and give our selves up to be ruled by them in all things secundum Deum And Answ to Cathol Gentleman p. 17. A Congregation saith he that is fallible may yet have authority to make decisions and to require Inferiors so far to acquiesce to their Determinations as not to disquiet the peace of that Church with their contrary opinions All which seems to amount to his acknowledging an external obedience of non-contradiction at least and such as Protestants contend for to their National Synods to be due to a Patriarchal or the highest Assembly of Church-Governors which the present or future times in the moral impossibility of having General Councils are capable of § 66 3ly The absence in it of the Representatives of the Eastern Patriarchs and Churches 3. the thing principally urged seems no just hinderance why this council of Trent may not be stiled General For evidencing which I desire you to consider with me these Reasons in part cleared before 1st That a Council may be stiled General without the presence in it of some considerable Churches ‖ See before §. 36 43. either 1. When these called by a lawful Authority by reason of poverty and distance of place 1. or persecution c. cannot come and afterward acquainted with the Councils proceedings express no dissent to the Acts thereof See before § 36. the four first Councils as convened for the suppressing of Heresies that chiefly afflicted the Eastern parts so mostly confisting of Oriental Bishops scarce any of the West being present in some of them Or 2. When invited and no way justly letted they refuse to come Or 3. When by some former General Council condemned of Heresie and Schism they are not invited at all to come or coming are repelled For the Church Catholick may be much narrower than Christianity †See before § 39. and Councils are General and obligatory as such if they consist of the Church Catholick though it should be reduced only to one Patriarchate 2. 2 ly Concerning the Calling of the Eastern Churches not entring here into that Controversie whether these Churches do not maintain an Heresie in the Procession of the H. Ghost and
who was now turned to the Catholick Profession †Spondan A. D. 1558. n. 4. to compose or peruse a new moderated form of Religion commonly called the Interim which was afterwards also reviewed and changed by many others some of the principal Ministers of the Protestants being also called that they might approve it †Soave p. 288. amongst whom Bucer It contained 25. heads besides other heads of Reformation prescribing what men were to believe until all should be established by a General Council If you would know the temper of this famous draught Pallavacin in l. 10. c. 17. n. 1. gives this account of it That in many of the Articles and especially in those concerning the Sacraments this writing contradicted the Lutheran errors but that in the rest it was a contexture of ambiguous forms such as each party might interpret to his own liking Whence the three supervisers of it gave in this relation that rightly understood it did in nothing oppose the Catholick doctrines excepting that Marriage of Priests and the Communion of the cup were therein permitted yet so as not there approved for lawful but tolerated till a General Council should decree what was most fit to be done therein In this Instrument chiefly was experimented §. 139. n. 2. both what Union and Peace a Confession of Faith composed in general and ambiguous terms for men of contrary perswasions was able to produce And what satisfaction a Toleration of the Cup and of Priests marriage might give to the Protestants to induce them happily to a compliance with Catholicks in other Points And it was found that nothing was promoted hereby Many Exceptions Catholicks took at several of these Articles which see collected by Soave p. 289. and Protestants more who also pleaded †Soave p. 306. That it was a matter concerning their Conscience and that therein they might not be forced Generally all sides contended to have the Profession of their Faith more clear distinct and particular And In a short time saith Soave †p. 295. there was as it were a whole Squadron of Writers against it Catholicks and Protestants amongst whom Calvin And that did follow which doth ordinarily happen to him that will reconcile contrary Opinions that he maketh them both agree to oppugn his and every one more obstinate in defending his own And the Composers thereof saith Spondanus †A.D. 1548. n. 5. Illud suis commixtionibus ac palpationibus assecuti sunt ut neque Protestantibus Lutheranis neque ullis aliis Haereticis neq Catholicis probatum fuerit ipsorum opus Only from this Interim theâ—e arose two Sects amongst the Protestants one being more under Cesar's power embracing and so justifying the use of some old Ceremonies required by him called therefore Adiaphorists which the others that were free from Cesar's power disallowed See Soave Ibid. But so it was That after the yoke of this State-composition of Religion had been for three or four years §. 139. n 3. impatiently born by both parties As upon the Emperours victory over the Protestants A. D. 1547 it was set up and imposed so by another victory of the Protestants over Him in 1552. when also the Council was dispersed †it was quite thrown off And the Emperours former prosperous fortune from this very time of his setting up the Interim more and more declining some stick not to impute it to this his usurping being a Laick such a supreme Arbitration in matters of Religion § 140 So A. D. 1552 was an agreement made after the Emperour 's ill success of a mutual Toleration in the States of the German Princes each mean while following which pleased him best of both Religions viz. the Catholick and that of the Augustan Confession or the Lutheran all other Protestant new Sects as more distant from the Catholick being excluded With which Sects Germany and other parts were now much afflicted these still removing further and further from the former Catholick Faith Some of which new Sects at least it was hoped by this means also might the easilyer be suppressed And this Concord was made till a further settlement of Religion and union of Opinions could be procured by one of these four means 1. A General Council for the sitting of that of Trent was now broken up Or 2. A National or 3. a Colloquy or 4. an Vniversal Diet of the Empire § 141 There followed after this A. D 1555. during the Suspension of the Council of Trent a renewed Attempt 1555. in another Diet at Ausburg to put some of the forementioned waies for accommodating matters of Religion in execution But saith Soave †p. 393. 389. two proposals being made One to treat of the means of Reforming Religion the other to leave every one to his Liberty not knowing how to root out the evil humors which did still move all inclined to the second proposition the continuation of a toleration Of which Toleration see the Articles set down in Pallavicin l. 13. c. 13. n. 4. § 142 A. D. 1557. During the same Suspension of the Council yet another attempt was made And of the four waies 1557. named before the third was pitched upon a Colloquy to be held at Wormes Wherein was appointed a Conference of twelve Catholick and twelve Protestant Divines on a side the Bishop of Naumburg being President The Collocutors met here first a Disputation was set on foot De Norma Judicii †Spondan A. D. 1557. n. 15. The Catholicks besides the Scriptures requiring for Decision of Controversies the Interpretation of the Fathers and Ancient Church the Protestants admitting only the Scriptures Next it was proposed That since all other Protestant Sects were excluded from a Toleration save only those of the Augustan Confession the Collocutors should first declare themselves as to the condemning and rejecting those other Sects the Zuinglians Osiandrians c. in many things and particularly in the main doctrine touching the Eucharist much more distant from the Roman Catholick Religion than those of the Augustan Confession were To this motion five of the Protestant Divines willingly agreed and gave up their Declaration herein to the President But the other seven amongst whom was Melancshton opposed it And the difference between them and the other five grew so high that these later departed from the Colloquy and so it was dissolv'd And this was the last Colloquy or Composition of Religion that was assayed in Germany I mean between the Protestant and Catholick Party The Protestant-differences among themselves which still grew more and could never since be healed hindring any further Treaties of their accord with Catholicks who expected their fall at least by their own hands And all these assayes of settling Religion by the State and not by the Ecclesiastical Authority that is the ordinary Judge thereof thus proved vain and fruitless After this A. D. 1561. a little before the renewing of the Council of Trent § 143
of Heresie yet the maintainer thereof now first by his pertinacy against the Churches Authority begins to be an Heretick †See Disc 3. §. 18. And though the ignorance of such point of faith before might bring some damage as to our salvation yet now doth it more when a contrary error begins to corrupt our practice I say such Point begins to be necessary in a new Degree of necessity to be believed or assented to or not to be dissented from or denied or not the contrary of it to be believ'd so soon as we have had a sufficient proposal of the Councils defining it And necessary it is then to be believ'd not out of an obligation or duty of belief we owe to such a Credend as that without believing it we cannot attain salvation but out of the duty of obedience we owe to the Church when defining it as that without yielding this obedience to Her we become guilty of such a sin as unrepented of ruins salvation Especially when as this our Holy Mother doth not enjoyn to us the belief of such a Divine Truth but upon some considerable Motive for the repelling and suppressing of some error that is less or more dangerous and for the preservation of some part of necessary truth or good life Concerning which Proposals the Churches pronouncing Anathema to the non-Submitters seems secur'd as by ancient practice so by our Lord's order Matt. 18 17. He that will not hear the Church let him be to us as an Heathen though otherwise the pure nescience of such a Doctrine abstracting from such Proposal harms no man as to exclusion from salvation any more after the Churches Definition than before it See what hath been said of this matter in the third Disc § 18. and § 85. n. 6. § 193 Thus to express if I can yet more clearly though with some repetitions a thing whereat so many of the Reformed and those not of the meanest sort seem to stumble and take offence an Article of Faith as to a more universal Proposal of it and general obligation to believe it so sufficiently proposed may be said new and then in respect of this new Declaration and Obligation a Divine Truth may be an Article or object of my Faith to day which was not yesterday So he who by what means so ever knows now that something is said in Scripture which he knew not yesterday may be said to have to day a new Article of his Faith or a new point no way to be opposed or condemne but assented to and believed by him 1 When therefore a thing is said to be no Dogma Fidei before and at such a time to begin to be so the meaning is either that in such express terms it is so now as it was not formerly by some fuller explication or new Deduction Or that it is now rendred necessary to be believed by all persons by whom it was not so formerly for want then of so evident a proposal 2 Again when a Point is said thus to be rendred by the Definition of a Council necessary to be believed which was not so formerly It is meant necessary to be believed not for the matter thereof Either 1st As if the actual knowledge and faith thereof were absolutely necessary to salvation at all or now more then formerly For thus a few points only some think not all those of the Apostles Creed are necessary and nothing is thus necessary at any time that is not so alwaies Or 2ly As if the actual knowledge thereof is beneficial to our salvation now and was not so at all formerly For as it is now perhaps beneficial in more respects so in some respects was it alwaies and therefore if we knew it not before so much imperfection there was then in our faith as to something revealed though not a deficiency thereof in absolutely necessaries But necessary to be believed now more than formerly ex accidenti because 1st we have a sufficient Proposal thereof by the Church-Definition now that it is a divine Truth which Proposal perhaps we had not before in so express terms and so universally discovered by the former Tradition and 2ly Because we have also a sufficient proposal or notice that such a Definition hath been made by the Church And so in not believing it we are now defective in our obedience and acceptance of some divine Truth which is made known to us by the Church as some way profitable to our salvation some way advangious to God's Glory some way conducible to Christian Edification to the peace of the Church and suppression of Heresie or to some other good end By whose Definitions from time to time the Rule of our faith is made still more compleat and conspicuous both as to the registring and solemn inrolling of her former Traditions and as to the express knowledge of several Consequences necessarily issuing from the former Principles of the Christian Belief more compleat I say to the end of the world as to several points in some respect or other beneficial to be known Though from the first the Christian Faith was ever perfect as to any knowledge simply necessary or also as to all that were fundamentally useful And therefore the chief Duty that the Church now requires to many of her Decisions made from time to time as counter-works against Hereticks and extracted alwaies out of the former Materials of Original Traditions is not so much an actual knowing of them for every Christian though this also-she desires as esteeming the knowledge of them some way contributing to Christian perfection but that they be not dissented from or opposed when made known to him and that the Contradictory of them be not believed by Him § 194 As for the profession of the Roman faith required in the Bull of Pius wherein are said to be 12. new Articles added to the Apostolical I wonder why they say not 12. score or a 1200. rather for if it adds any it adds omnia à S. Tridentinâ Synodo ab Oecumenicis Conciliis à sacris Canonibus tradita definita declarata as it runs in the same Bull though it expresseth only some few of them 1st All the order that the Council of Trent gave concerning this Profession of Faith was Sess 24. de Refor cap. 12. Provisi etiam de beneficiis teneantur Orthodoxae suae fidei publicam facere professionem in Romanae Ecclesiae Obedientià se permansuros spondeant So that Haec est Catholica fides extra quam nemo salvus is a Declaration of the Pope not of the Council not can it have any more authority than other Papal Decrees 2. And again what ever profession of faith is made in that Bull or if it oblige further therein than the Canons of the Councils do bind yet it concerneth not any persons save those who enter into religious Orders or into some Ecclesiastical Benefice as appears in the Preface 3. These persons are not
therein obliged to believe the Articles §. 195. n. 1◠or Canons of Trent or of other Councils in any other sense 3. than that which we have but now mentioned †§. 192. For that Clause in the Bull which follows the whole profession Haec vera Catholica fides extra quam-nemo salvus esse potest cannot be understood distributively in such a manner as if every Canon of every lawful Council is necessary explicitly to be known and assented to that any one may attain Salvation which few Roman Doctors will affirm of all the Articles of the Apostles Creed much less do they say it of every point whatever of their faith See Bellarmin de Ecclesiâ l. 3. c. 14. Multa sunt de fide quae non sunt absolutè necessaria ad salutem I add nor yet is the ignorance or mistaking in some of them such an error ex quo magnum aliquod malum oriatur But either * it is to be understood collectively In hac Professione continetur vera Catholica Fides c. that all the fides extra quam nemo salvus is contained in that profession which expression respects chiefly the Apostles or Nicen Creed set in the front of the profession as appears by a like expression Fundamentum firmum unicum applied to that Creed alone in Conc. Trident. 3d. Sess For if only some part of that profession of faith which is made in that Bull be absolutely necessary to attaining Salvation this phrase is sufficiently justified extra quam i. e. totam i. e. if all parts of it be disbelieved non est salus As saying that the Holy Scriptures are the word of God without believing which there is no Salvation argues not that every thing delivered in these Scriptures is necessary to be believed for Salvation but that some things are Or * It is to be understood distributively but this conditionally in such a sence as extra quam nemo salvus esse potest i. e. if such person opposeth or denieth assent to any point therein when sufficiently evidenced to him to be a Definition of the Church infallibly assisted and appointed his Guide in Divine Truths †See before For in so doing though the error should be in a smaller matter of faith § 192 he becomes therein obstinate and Heretical and disobedient to his spiritual Guide declared by the Scriptures infallible in all necessaries and so in this becomes guilty of a mortal sin which unrepented of exlcudes from Salvation Where also since the Church makes Definitions in points absolutely necessary hence though all her Definitions are not in such yet his obstinacy in not yielding assent to all matters defined runs a hazzard of failing in something necessary And well may Protestants admit such a sence of these words in Pius his Bull §. 195. n. 2 when themselves make use of a much larger upon the like words in the Athanasian Creed Haec est Fides Catholica quam nisi quisque fideliter crediderit salvus esse non poterit which words being urged by a Catholik against Archbishop Lawd to shew That some Points may become necessary for salvation to be believed when once defined by the Church that yet are not absolutely so necessary or fundamental according to the Importance of the matter All the points contained in the Creed being not held in this latter sence so fundamental or necessary ratione Medii to Salvation that none can possibly attain it without an explicit belief of them Here a late Protestant Writer †Stillingf p. 70 71. in answer to this can find out a sence of those words yet more remiss than that we have now given viz. That as to some of the Athanasian Articles Haec est fides Cathol c. neither infers that they are necessary to be believed from the matter nor yet from Church-Definition but necessary only if there be first a clear conviction i. e. not from Church-Authority but from Scripture that they are Divine Revelation Where the authority of the Church in defining these matters of the Athanasian Creed as to any obligation of her Subjects to conform to it seems quite laid aside since upon a clear conviction that those Articles are Divine Revelation from whatever Proponent one stands obliged to believe them and without such conviction neither stands he so obliged by the Church Upon which account the Socinian is freed here by his exposition from the Quam nisi quisque fideliter c. because he is not yet convinced of the Truth of this faith by Scripture Since Protestants then take such liberty in expounding the sence of this conclusion of the Athanasian Articles it is but reason that they should allow the same to the same words used by Pius § 196 4. Lastly If these words of Pius should be taken in such a sence as Protestants fetter them with Namely 4. That the Roman Church hereby obtrudes her new-coined Articles as absolutely necessary to salvation As Bishop Bramhal †Rep. to Chalced. p. 322. Which whether true or false one is to swear to as much as to his Creed As Mr. Thorndike †Epilog Conclus p. 410. That whereas the Church of England only excommunicates such as shall affirm that her Articles are in any part erroneous the saine Church never declaring that every one of her Articles are fundamental in the Faith by the Church of Rome every one of them if that Church hath once determined them is made fundamental and that in every part of it to all mens belief As Bishop Laud ‖ §. 15. p. 51. That supposing the Churches Definition one passed that thing so propounded becomes as necessary to salvation i. e. by this Proposal or Definition as what is necessary from the matter And That an equal explicit faith is required to the Definitions of the Church as to the Articles of the Creed and that there is an equal necessity in order to salvation of believing both of them As Mr. Stillingf †Rat. Account p. 48. If I say Pius his Haec est Bides Catholica must be taken in such a sence and then it be considered also that by the Bull this clause is applied not only to the Articles expresly mentioned in it but to all other Definitions also of all other former allowed Councils the Consequent is that in this Bull the Pope hath excluded from salvation and that for want of necessary faith the far greater part not only of Christians but of Roman Catholicks viz. all that do not explicitly believe and therefore that do not actually know every particular Definition of any precedent Council when as who is there among the vulgar that is not ignorant of the most of them who amongst the learned that knows them all Now the very absurdity of such a Tenent might make them suspect the integrity of their comment on those words and that they only declaim against their own Fancies When as indeed to render
before the sitting of this Council and condemning most of the points which this justifies the Sacrifice of the Mass Communion in one kind Invocation of Saints Veneration of Images Purgatory Indulgences and some others were condemned and declared to be against Gods Word by the Articles of the Church of England many years before the same were either imposed to be sworn to by Pius or defended and justified by the Articles of Trent the one done in 1549. the other in 1562. 2 ly Who leave as little liberty to their Subjects to hold the Roman tenents as the Roman Church doth to hold theirs For as the Roman Church doth Anathematize those who affirm the contrary to her Articles to be true so doth the Church of England in the Synod held under King James 1603. can 5. excommunicate those that affirm any of her Articles to be erroneous And for this Churches requiring also not only an external non-contradiction but internal assent I desire you to weight the proofs produced in the 3d. Disc c. 7. †wither §. 83. n. 1. to avoid Repetitions I remit you And if we look into the Protestant Churches abroad we find the National Synod of Dort assembled A. D. 1618. touching some differences among their Divines in those high and dark points of Divine Predestination Co-operation of Grace and Freewill c. where were present also some Divines sent from all the other Protestant-Churches following the Doctrine of Calvin except the French We find it I say in those five Points * to have passed partly in asserting Truths partly in condemning errors no less than 91. Articles or Canons What might their Canons have amounted to had they discussed so many Points of Controversie as that of Trent did And then * to enjoyn all the Pastors their Subjects the teaching to the people of these Truths and therefore the believing of them and * to excommunicate all those holding the contrary as corrupters of the Truth till they shall give satisfaction to the Church in professing the true Doctrines The words of the Synod Sess 138. are these Synodus haec Dordrechtana pro authoritate quam ex Dei verbo in omnia Ecclesiarum suarum membra obtinet in Christi nomine injungit omnibus singulis in Faederato Belgio Ecclesiarm Pastoribus c. ut banc sacram veritatis salutaris doctrinam viz. that delivered in the 91. Articles concerning the five Points in Controversie sinceram inviolatam conservent illam populo juventuti fideliter proponant explicent c. which publick teaching of them required includes assent to them Then against the Remonstrants pronounceth thus Synodus suae Authoritatis ex verbo Dei probe conscia omnium legitimarum tum veterum tum recentiorum Synodorum vestigiis insistens declarat atque judicat Pastores illos c. the Remonstrant Ministers corruptae Religionis scissae Ecclesiae unitatis reos teneri Quas ob causas Synodus praedictis omni ecclesiastico munere interdicit eisque ab officiis suis abdicat donec per seriam resipiscentiam dictis factis studiis contrariis comprobatam ecclesiae satisfaciant atque ad ejus communionem recipiantur Then orders Vt Synodi Provinciales neminem ad sacrum Ministerium admittant qui doctrinae hisce Synodicis constitutionibus declaratae subscribere eamque docere recuset § 201. Only this main difference there is between these two Churches That the one requires assent to her Articles telling her Subjects that in necessaries she cannot erre the other requires assent declaring to her followers that she may erre even in points Necessary The one requires assent in obedience to her Authority delegated to her by our Lord the other seems to require assent only from the Evidence in Scripture or otherwise of the matter proposed Therefore so many of her Subjects as see not such Evidence in equity me thinks should be freed from her exacting their assent And then such obligation to assent would fail of its end expressed before her Articles viz. the hindering diversity of Opinions and the establishing of consent touching true Religion § 202 10. Lastly to shut up all Whatever offence either this strict Profession of Faith summ'd up by Pius 10. or Anathemas multiplied by the Council of Trent may have given to the Reformed yet neither the one nor the other can justly be charged to have given occasion to their discession and rent from the former Catholick Church Which Division and as I have shewed †§. 200. their Censure also of the Roman Doctrines preceded both the times of Pius and the sitting of this Council and on the contrary their Departure and such Censure first occasioned the Churches standing upon her Defence and the setting up these new fences and Bars for preservation of her ancient Doctrine invaded by them and for hindering her sheep from stragling out of her fold and hearkning after the voice of Strangers CHAP. XII V. Head Of the Decrees of this Council concerning Reformation 1. In matters concerning the Pope and Court of Rome § 207. 1. Appeales § 212. and Dispensations § 215. 2. Collation of Benefices § 218. 3. Pensions § 218 Commenda's § 219. and uniting of Benefices 220. 4. Exemptions § 221. 5. Abuses concerning Indulgences and Charities given to Pious uses § 223. 2. In matters concerning the Clergy § 209. 1. Vnfit persons many times admitted into H. Orders and Benefices § 225. 2. Pluralities § 232. 3. Non Residence § 235. 4 Neglect of Preaching and Catechising § 236. And the Divine Service not in the vulgar tongue § 236. n. 2. 5. Their restraint from Marriage and Incontinency in Celibacy § 238 239. 6. Their with-holding from the people the Communion of the Cup § 241. 7. Too frequent use of Excommunication § 243. n. 1. 8. The many disorders in Regulars and Monasticks § 243. n. 2. 9. Several defects in the Missals and Breviaries § 243. n. 3. § 203 THus much from § 173. of the 4th Head Concerning the multitude of the Canons Definitions and Anathemas of this Council in points of Doctrine The fifth succeeds touching the Acts for Reformation of several corruptions and disorders in the Churches Government and Discipline which was so much petitioned for by Christian Princes and also from its first sitting undertaken by this Council But with such a contrary and unexpected issue saith Soave †l. 1. p. 2. That this Council being managed by Princes for Reformation of Ecclesiastical Discipline hath caused the greatest Deformation that ever was since Christianity did begin and hoped for by the Bishops to regain the Episcopal Authority usurped for the most part by the Pope hath made them lose it altogether bringing them into greater servitude on the contrary feared and avoided by the See of Rome as a potent means to moderat the exorbitant power mounted from small beginnings by divers degrees unto an unlimited excess it hath so established and confirmed the same over that part which
in the Greek and to continue the Divine Service still in the same language and words without any alteration in which their Ancestors had delivered it to them and in which it had descended to these from all former ages as for this Western Church ever since that next to the Apostles times Neither doth this or the following Ages seem imprudently to have chosen for this service the most common language in the understanding whereof all these Nations are united and concur So that however any removed their Station they might still find the Divine Service both in matter and words the same and any Priest however he changed his Residence be able to serve the people in it § 238 To ξ. To ξ The Clergies being restrained from Marriage and living continently 1st The Council retaining the antient doctrine of the Church so expounding the Scriptures †Matt. 19.11 1. Cor. 7.78 c holds That Continency is a Grace or Gift which though not actually possessed by all yet is denied by God to none who with using due means and preparations thereto seek it of him the using of which means is a thing in every ones power in such ordinary sence as other humane actions are said to be 2ly That Continency being thus by every one either possessed or attainable the vow of perpetual Celibacy is lawful which is a thing seconded by the universal practice of the Religious or Monasticks as well in the Eastern as Western Church all of them making such a vow 3ly Holds That such Celibacy attainable and observable by all may be injoyned and imposed by the Church on some viz. such as shall desire to enter into the Priestly Function for many weighty reasons and particularly for those given by the Apostle 1 Cor. 7.28 32 34 35 38. Vt non habeant tribulationem carnis ut sint sine mundanâ solicitudine ut sint sancti corpore spiritu ut faciant non bene sed melius Whilst mean while none at all are compel'd absolutely either to become Priests or in order to it to profess Celibacy but only that if they are desirous of the one they must undergo the burden of the other nor none instructed that God's law but only the Churches Constitution doth require it of them 4ly The Council had also in this matter the warrantable Precedent of former ages both in the Occidental and Oriental Churches so far as that none at all entring into the holy Order of Priesthood in either Church hath been hitherto permitted after to marry 5ly The Council injoyning this doth not deny this Celibacy of the Clergy as being only Ecclesiastical Constitution to be dispensable And though the Council it self thought not fit to give such dispensation especially since those Princes and their Prelats in the Council whose Kingdoms remained untainted with Protestanisme opposed it See Soave p. 688 and 690. Where he saith That the King of Spain and his Prelats had neither Interest i.e. out of any necessary compliance with Sects nor affection to prosecute the three Instances of the marriage of Priests communion of the Cup and use of the vulgar tongue Yet neither doth the Council prohibit any such dispensation if at any time circumstances considered it shall so seem good to the Pope And so he after the Council ended was both by the Emperour and the Duke of Bavaria much sollicited for it †See Soave p. 823 824 Pallav. l 24. c. 12. n. 9. I mean for a toleration of it in their Dominions being in hopes of reclaiming thereby some of the Sectarists But both the Emperours death following shortly after hindred the further prosecution of it and the Pope seemed very averse from gratifying any Prince with such an indulgment of which he knew not where it would stop nor how far it might draw on Petitions from other places in the same or also in other matters and those perhaps of much more prejudice to the Churches welfare In which thing Soave also †p. 690. is pleased to â—â—commend the Popes prudence therein § 239 A Dispensation therefore in this matter though lawful neither the Council nor Pope to whom such power was left thought expedient But the Parochial Clergy by reason of their Secular Imployment and converse being much more exposed than Regulars to the breach of this holy Resolution of perpetual continency in a single life and by their fall herein highly offending God and also bringing great scandal on their sacred Profession the Council Sess 25 c. 14. made the strictest laws that could well be devised against any such miscarriage prohibiting Priests to keep any women of whom might be reasonable suspicion either in their house or abroad or to have any converse with such Among which suspitious persons saith the third Canon of Conc. Nice are to be reckoned all Nisi Mater aut Soror aut Avia aut Avita vel matertera sit In his namque solis personis harum similibus omnis quae ex mulieribus est suspitio declinatur which Canon the 3d. Carthag Council thus expoundeth or inlargeth Sorores filiae fratrum aut sororum quaecunque ex familia domesticâ necessitate 〈◊〉 antequam ordinatis Parentibus uxores acceperunt aut servis non habitantibus in domo quas ducant aliunde ducere necessitas fuit § 240 Next the Council ordaineth That the faulty herein after the first admonition by the Bishop should lose the third part of the profits of their Benefice and after the second not amending it all and further should be suspended from officiating And after disobeying a third admonition should be ejected out of their Living and made incapable of another And the Bishop to proceed herein without any formal Conviction in Court so the verity of the fact were sufficiently proved to him Their Concubines also by the aide of the Secular Power to be expelled the Town or the Diocess And Sess 21. c. 6. the same power of Ejection of the Clergy when found incorrigible the Bishops have as to any other great and scandalous faults without the relief of any Exemptions or Appeales But if a Bishop were so faulty after an admonition from the Provincial Synod if no amendment he was to be suspended and still continuing so the same Synod to inform the Pope thereof and he to proceed to the Deposition of him from his Bishoprick the Council providing also that this their Constitution should not hinder the force and execution of any former Laws or Canons made for the correction of such crime § 241 To Ï€. To Ï€. With-holding the Communion of the Cup. 1st The Council Sess 21. c. 1. following the custom and judgment of former Churches declares That there is no divine Precept that obligeth all Communicants to receive in both kinds since the frequent practice of Antiquity to some persons in some places administred it only one kind when yet there was a possibility though not convenience of doing it in both and
of these though much more tedious and painful For the greater benefit both of those within and those without the Churches Communion that her children might more exactly know all those noxious Tenents they were to avoid and her adversaries those they were to reform And if in taking this second way the Council escaped not obloquy yet much more had they incurred it in taking the firsti e. in condemning so many Persons and their writings for many Corruptions of Catholick Truths and then naming none or a few and not using so much care in sifting the Novelties of Luther who drew such a train after him as their Predecessors at Coustance did in those of Jo. Wicleff or Jo Huss Neither in so particular a Discussion and Censure of the Lutheran Doctrines § 267 is this Council destitute of the Example of many former Councils very copious in their Anathemas against Heresies of a much less latitude and in some matters as considered in themselves seeming of no great Malignity For which see no less than twelve Anathemas of the third General Council passed against Nestorius according to the several Particulars whereinto his Error had brâ—â—ched it self and colours he had laid upon it though all pointing at one thing two persons in our Lord Christ a thing Soave saith ‖ p. 192. the Council of Trent took notice of and set before them as a Pattern See the 25 Anathemas of the Syrmian Council all relating to several branches of Photinianisme The eight Anathematismes of the Milevitan Council pursuing all the particular points of Pelagianisme The eleven Anathemas of the second Nâ—cen Council ‖ Act 7. †all about veneration of Images The twenty Anathematismes of that ancient Council at Gangra A. D. 319. wherein the famous Hosius was present pronounced against the Eustathians letting nothing how small soever it might seem to be in this their censure pass unbranded wherein this Sect was found to oppose the Churches common Doctrine and Practice Many of which Anathemas of former Councils if you please to compare with those of Trent you shall find several of them as to the Gravity of the matter much inferiour Lastly see the late Council at Constance condemning not only 45 propositions of John Wicliff recited there †Sess 8. but 260 more besides of the same temper All which had been formerly with much care by the Vniversity of Oxford gleaned out of his writings they bringing under their censure not only such Articles as were Blasphemi Haeretici or Sediosi but also as were temerarii scandalosi or piarum aurium offensivi and letting none escape them that might do hurt In the same Council also afterward †Sess 15. were no less than 30 propositions of John Huss condemned Now we may presume that Luther and his Followers to those who put their sickle into their books to bring to tryal what seemed faults could not but yield an harvest much more fertile Nor was the care here to be less where the danger was much greater And for this strict Inquisition and search made by Councils we owe great thanks to the providence of God For thus whilst the wantonness and curiosity of mens understanding from the Faith delivered in General still descends to things more particular and so raiseth new Disputes in the Church and spreads false opinions the contrary Determinations of Councils regulated by necessary Consequences render also the Christian Faith from time to time more particular and so more exact and less liable to the corrupted when all that in question comes to be stated that is clearly evidenced and the knowledge thereof any way useful So since the settling by Council of those particular points contained in the Athanasian Creed explicating that of the Apostles much more short and General the Church as to these points hath enjoyed a great repose and freedom from those disputes with which some ages of it before were miserably distracted And if the Decrees of the Council of Trent have had the same effect as Soave complains they have in the beginning of his History †p. 1 2. the Protestants may impute it to their precedent questioning of the Churches Doctrine and disturbance of her peace § 268 To ω. To ω See what is said before § 244. Bene facere male audire is the common fortune of Governours and to the censorious and male contents the world is still out of order though God himself Governs it and the worst times are alwaies the present Whether the Trent Decrees for Reformation which were never so numerous in any Council and design'd from the beginning of it to have an half share with points of Doctrine in all their Consultations and in the composition of which so many several Parties well seen at least in one anothers Defects concurred were so contrived as to remove motes and not beams to cure itches not feavours I must refer you to the re-consideration of the particulars set down before from § 212. Neither may we think that it was the meddling with moâ—es that offended so much either the Court of Rome or of France as Soave tells us their reformation did For any defects still seen in Church-Government Discipline c which alwaies are and will be many it ought not to be charged on these laws but the non execution of them which neglect also useth to be much more in those laws that are more exact and perfect and so more contrary to common practice But since the sitting of this Council there have not wanted those pious Bishops as S. Carlo Borremeo and others who molding their Reformations exactly according to these Decrees have manifested to the world the great perfection thereof § 269 To α α. To α α. See what hath been said in Defence of this Dispensative Power placed in the supreme Ecclesiastical Governour before § 216. 1. The Council weighing the conveniences thereof with the inconveniences yet declared †Sess 25. De Reform Gen. c. 18. Publice expedit legis vinculum quandoque relaxare ut plenius evenientibus casibus necessitatibus pro communi utilitate satissiat Else the laws may sometimes hurt where they should help 2. Again this Dispensative Power deposed in this Ecclesiastical Supreme is no new usurpation but an ancient priviledge injoyed alwaies by him Of which see before § 217. 3. Next It had here some qualifications and clogs laid upon it by the Council As †See before §. 215. that such Dispensation shall be accounted surreptitious and void when not given gratis and causâ prius cognitâ the Ordinary being constituted the Inspector and Examiner of this †Sess 25. c. 18. Now he must be very perversly wicked who will issue forth such a Dispensation where he neither receives benefit by it nor sees just cause for it 4. Lastly The same Dispensative Power as to the civil Laws is reposed in the Secular Supreme neither is the vigor of such Laws esteemed to be
charity either to our selves or to them or to some others obligeth us to the contrary And this for many good ends as to preserve our selves from all contagion and infection from their vices or partaking of their punishments or giving suspicion of our consentment with them in their errors or scandal to others who by our example may use the same converse to their hurt To produce some shame and confusion and so perhaps amendment in them Upon this we read St. Austins Holy Mother Monica forbare sitting at table or eating with her Son when addicted to the Manichean Heresie †Austin Confess l. 3. c. 11. Matt. 18.17 If any Brother i. e. in Christianity refuse to hear the Church we to carry our selves to him as to an Heathen who were Idolaters or a Publican with whom the religious Jews forbare to eat or converse Rom. 16.17 Those Christians that cause divisions contrary to the Doctrine which we have received to mark and avoid them Titus 3.10 An Heretick after admonition to be rejected 2. Thess 3.14 If any man obey not our word be a Separatist from the Church and her Doctrine note that man and have no company with him 2 Joh. 10. If there come any unto you and bring not this Apostolical Doctrine receive him not into your house nor say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God save you to him For he that saith so to him communicates with his wickedness And it seems this Apostles practice was according to his rule For Irenaeus ‖ l. 3. c. 3. saith S. Polycrap related of him That going into a Bath to wash himself he presently leaped out of it and departed when he saw Corinthus there who denied our Lords Divinity § 284 The same may be gathered from our glorified Lords own vehement expressions after his Ascension Apocal. 2d and 3d. chapter against those new Sects that indeavoured to mingle themselves with and to seduce the Catholicks by tempting them to compliance when in persecution where he calls them the Synagogue of Satan Profunda Satanae Jesebels followers of Balaam c. Praiseth the Churches of Ephesus and Philadelphia for trying them and not suffering them and not complying and denying him with them but hating their deeds as himself did See Apocalyps 2.2 6. 3.8.9 and censureth others of the Churches for doing the contrary Apoc. 2.14 15 16 20. and especially reprehendeth that of Laodicea for her lukewarmness and neither being cold nor hot and then urgeth her to be zealous Apoc. 3.15 16 19. The same also seems to appear by his severe censure upon occasion of the Samaritan Woman's consulting him about her Religion of the Samaritan Schismatical worship in a Temple built in opposition to that in Jerusalem some 250. years before our Lords coming in Mount Garisim Which one Manasses the High Priest expelled from the function of his Office in Jerusalem procured to be erected and afterward officiated there our Lord telling this woman That the Samaritans knew not what they worshipped and that salvation was of the Jews And before this the same appears * from Gods great displeasure against the Division made by Israel in setting up the Calves though 't is probably imagined worshipping still the same God in the same Representation of Cherubims only in another place And afterward * from Elias his expostulation with the people 3 King 18.21 Vsque quo claudicatis in duas partes which holds as well for separating Sects as false Religions God having so established the Oeconomy of his Church as to be worshipped therein in unity as well as verity Vnus Dominus Caput unum Corpus una fides Eph. 4.4 From all these Texts prohibiting Communication in our daily converse with particular persons so affected I argue how much more we not to communicate 1 with whole Congregations of them and 2 with such Congregations separated from the Church and 3 this in holy things lastly 4 so communicating with them in these as to forbear the same Communion with the Church Catholick § 285 Yet some of these and several other Texts See 1 Cor. 10.20 21. 1 Cor. 5.4 5 13. 2 Cor. 6.14 17 seem more chiefly to prohibit Communion with such in the Sacraments especially that of the Holy Eucharist and the publick Divine Worship and this upon some other yet higher reasons Namely the duty of the publick owning and professing our Religion and the keeping it pure from and unmixt with any unbelieving Heretical or Schismatical Societies For this Holy Sacrament of feeding at the Lords Table being instituted as for a sacred instrument of our Communion with the Deity so also for a publick tessera and mark of a strict league and amity between all those who together partake it so that as the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 10.17 by being made partakers of that one bread and Body of our Lord we though being many become one bread and one Body and so in this Body members of one another things I say standing thus in this Grand Sacrament of Union neither will the honour we owe to God the Father who dwelleth in us and adopts us for his children 2 Cor. 6.16.18 Nor to God the Son of whose Body we are members 1 Cor. 6.15 16. Nor to the holy Spirit whose Temples we are 1. Cor. 3.16 17. suffer us by such a sacred and solemn tye to link and unite our selves to any Congregations that are once estranged from him or disclaimed by him This is mingling light with darkness 2 Cor. 6.14 †joyning the members of Christ to a Spiritual Harlot by which they two become one Body 1 Cor. 6.15 16. For such a vertue hath this Sacrament as that they become one Body amongst themselves that partake it ‖ 1. Cor. 10.16 17. And by touching the unclean our selves also becoming unclean Lev. 5.2 3. For all those separations under the law of the corporally unclean from the Congregation of the Lord because they were to be a sanctified people unto the Lord and holy as he is holy Lev. 11.43 44. were only types of the separation which ought to be from such notorious sinners and such false worshippers of him as we here speak of To which the Apostle makes application of them 2 Cor. 6.17 Be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing saith the Lord taken out of Esa 52.11 And hence also taketh he strict order for the separation and ejection of such persons out of the Church especially from the communicating the Sacraments thereof as of a piece of Leaven from a lump unleavened that our Christian Passeover may not be celebrated with such a meslange See 1 Cor. 5.2 5 7 13. Ejection I say or casting them out where the Church hath the power Or her going out from them 2 Cor. 6.17 where they have the power but still a separation there must be else in consorting with them we provoke our Lord to jealousie 1 Cor. 10.22 as if we are not a true and loyal Spouse to Him and
entirely his To these may be added all those Texts requiring the glorifying of God in our publick worship of him in the Society of his true Church and in the Confession of Christ before men Confession of him with the mouth as well as believing on him with the heart Rom. 10.9 10. of all persons with one mouth as well as with one mind Rom. 15.6 Which Texts seem in a special manner to imply that Confession which is made in the publick Assemblies of the Church Which Assemblies therefore were never intermitted in its greatest persecutions from the Civil Magistrates To these again may be added those many precepts of Vnity and Charity injoyned amongst all the fellow-members of Christ Eph. 4.3 11 12. 1 Cor. 10.16 c. Phil. 1.27 28. Jo. 10.4 5. which Texts seem to extend and oblige to all the external as well as internal acts thereof especially for what concerns Gods publick service and worship And that Article of our Creed that we believe one Church Catholick and Apostolick ie One external visible Communion upon earth united in its members that alwaies is and shall be such seems not sufficiently asserted and professed by any who forbears to joyn himself openly unto it Such a denial before men of the Body of Christ his Church seems not to fall much short of the crime of denying before men the Head Christ Himself But chiefly there where this Church the Spouse of Christ happens to be under any disgrace or Persecution here our taking up the Cross with her and the Doxology of Confessing him and her seems yet more zealously to be imbraced and no such opportunity of so highly promoting our Eternal reward upon any Secular inductive whatsoever to be omitted For which consider Heb. 10.25 § 286 2. This of the remaining in any such separated Congregation prohibited in Scriptures and the contrary also there required Next It is also both prohibited by the ancient Canons of the Church and disallowed by her practice For the Canons see those early ones Can. Apost 11 12 13. 12. Si quis cum damnato Clerico veluti cum Clerico simul oraverit iste damnetur 11. Si Quis cum Excommunicato saltem in domo locutus fuerit iste communione privetur Which Canon calls to mind again 2 Jo. 10. And ‖ l. 6 c. 13. Eusebius reports of Origen when yet a youth that necessitated by reason of poverty to live in the same house with Paulus one not Orthodox in the Faith yet he forbare to be present at Prayers with him Quippe qui ab ineunte aetate Ecclesiae Canonem obnixe observasset probably those Apostolick ones before named See Concil Laodicen held by the Catholicks in the time of the reigning of Arrianisme before the Second General Council Where as it is decreed Non oportere cum Paganis festae celebrare c. 39. And Nonoportere à Judaeis azyma accipere c. 38. So Non oportere cum Haereticis vel Schismaticis orare c. 33. And non oportere Haereticorum benedictiones accipere can 32. See Concil Carthag 4. held A. D. 436. a little after S. Austins death can 72. Cum Haereticis nec orandum nec psallendum And c. 73. Qui communicaverit vel oraverit cum excommunicato sive Clericus sive Laicus excommunicetur So it is then that all Hereticks and Schismaticks such as make Congregations and celebrate the publick Divine Worship separate from the Church stand Excommunicated and Anathematized by the supreme Church-Authority in several Canons of Councils And hence all those stand so too who communicate with them in such their service For This freequenting and joyning with them in their service is an external profession of such separation which external Profession alwaies it is that the Church not knowing Hearts proceeds against in her Censures And the Church in her expelling such Congregations from being members any longer of her Communion may be imagined much more to prohibit any pretender to her Communion from being or appearing a member of theirs And though the modern Church laws in several cases may perhaps have remitted some of the ancient rigor that restrains our presence with known and declared Hereticks in the Catholick Divine Service or Sacraments and hath admitted some limitations Yet the communicating with any of a separated external communion in their Divine Service or in such Holy things or Divine Worship as are commonly understood and taken for a distinctive note of such separation from that Church which is the Catholick such a dissembling of ones Religion is at no hand lawful but is a denying before men of Christs Church and so of Christ since who thus denies conjunction with the Body denies it with the Head also that is joyn'd to this Body Nor was there in any times the least dissimulation in any thing required as an external Tessera and Touch-stone of their Religion I say not a non-professing of our Religion but a professing against it ever suffered or excused in the greatest Persecutions Though other usual ceremonies and practices of the Church not distinguishing so essentially and properly her Communion nor this communion made a necessary consequent of them but instituted and performed for other ends may amongst Separatists be dispensed with and omitted As fasting or abstinence on daies appointed for them Provided no great scandal happen thereby But whatever compliances with Separatists for our Secular conveniences may be lawful yet since all suffering for the Catholick Religion is a degree of Martyrdome it is much nobler by keeping the strictest distance to aspire to what is most perfect than by seeking inlargements to hazard the doing of some thing unlawful § 287 Next For the Churche's ancient Practice piz the Catholicks neither going to the Prayers or Sacraments of Sectarists nor admitting these to their own Their Letters Commendatory mentioned Câ—n. Apost 13. called Epistolae formatae sufficiently shew how cauâ—â—ous and strict it was Which Letters from the Churches careful avoiding all mixture with Sectaries were procured so often as any had occasion to travel from one Church to another Without which Testimony they could not be admitted to their prayers c. The same also appears from the strict separation of Catholicks from the potent division of the Arrian Sect. Which Arrians though in many of their Councils they required subscription of no positive Heresie brâ—â—only an omission in their Creeds of some Truth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet were the Catholicks even when much persecuted by the Secular Princes and by the banishment of their Pastors in some places destitute of the Sacraments strictly prohibited to come at the Arrian Assemblies though these had the same Sacraments with them and possession of the Cathedrals and other Churches and chose rather to relinquish their Temples to pray at home to live without the Sacraments nay to be without these in their sickness and at their death than to receive them from the Arrians See for these things S. Athanas Epist
too much verified in this our Nation But Dudithius the famous Bishop of Quinquecclesiae in his disconsolate Letter to Beza when Dudithius now a Protestant and married and beginning to stagger in his new Religion that had dispensed with his Celibacy much more deplores these their intestine discords and schismes in a scisme There †Apud Becaw Epist 1. Si quae aliquando saith he inter eruditos ex quodam disputationis quasi calore Controversiae extiterunt illis statim Concilii sive etiam Pontificis decreta finem imposuerunt At nostri quales tandem sunt palantes omni doctrinae vento agitati in altum sublati modo ad hanc modo ad illam partem differuntur Horum quae sit hodie de Religione sententia scire sortasse possis sed quae eras de eadem futura sit opinion neque ille neque tu certo affirmare queas Again Ecclesiae ipsae pugnant inter se capitalibus odiis horrendis quibusdam Anathematismis perhaps looking at the Dissentions then between the followers of Futher Zuinglius Oecolampadius Calvin c. not yet healed Ipsi qui summum haberi volunt Theologi à seipsis indies dissident fidem cudunt à suá ipsius quam paulo ante professi fuerant ab aliorum omnium fide abhorrentem denique menstruam fidem habent perhaps looking at the often varyings of Luther Melancthon Bucer and others from their own former opinions and doctrine Thus Dudithius For though the Churches make some particular standing Articles to bind together their own Subjects yet both the Articles of the several Churches do not accord one with another in some principal Points as appears in the Lutheran Calvinist Belgick French English reformed Churches and the Subjects of each Church do upon the reforming Principles without scruple break these Bonds upon any new greater verisimilities thinking their Christian liberty infringed by them And certainty whatever deviation from Truth and former Tradition we may suppose the first Reformers to have made yet if they could have restrained the people their Subjects from following their example and from taking that liberty of dissenting from them which they being also Subjects took of dissenting from their Superiors both the whole Body of the Reformation would have had much more unity and peace and such persons much less error § 298 2. 2 Advanced thus far learned Protestants consenting That all such persons as we here speak of are to conform to and to suffer themselves in matters of Religion to be guided by Church Authority Next a Judgment freed from the interests of the Will may easily further add That where these Ecclesiastical Governours happen to differ amongst themselves and guide a contrary way here since these are placed for avoiding schismes in a due subordination such persons in such case owe their obedience to the Superiors of them To which in all regular Governments the inferior Magistrates if they do not ought to give place Si aliquid saith St. Austin †De verbis Dom. Serm. 6. Proconsul jubeat aliud jubeat Imperator nunquid dubitatur isto contempto illi esse serviendum i. e. in things which our Ecclesiastical Guides do not instruct us to be contrary to the Divine Laws So as to spiritual matters and the sence of Scripture a Provincial and a National Synod guiding such persons several waies their obedience is due to the National again a National and a Patriarch Council of all the West or a General determining matters in a diverse manner the obedience of such persons is due to the Patriarchal or General not the National Council And the same it is in any Patriarchy or Province in the intervals of Synods as to the subordinate Pastors and Prelats See the obedience required by the Church of England from all inferior Clergie or Synods to a National Council in the Canons made 1603. Can. 139. and 140. Whosoever shall hereafter affirm that the sacred Synod of this Nation is not the true Church of England by representation Or that no manner of person either of the Clergy or Laity not being themselves particularly assembled in the said sacred Synod are to be subject to the decrees thereof c. let him be Excommunicated And as of persons so Churches That Church saith Bishop Bramhal †Schism guared p. 2 which shall not outwardly aquiesce after a legal determination i. e. of its Superiors and cease to disturb Christian unity though her judgment may be sound her practice is schismatical And elsewhere †Vindic of Church Engl. p. 12. If a Superior presume to determine contrary to the determination of the Church i. e. of his Ecclesiastical Superiors it is not rebellion but loyalty to disobey him and obey them And I acknowledge saith Dr. Hammond †Knew to Cath. Gentl. c. 8. §. 1. as much as C. G. or any man the Authority of a General Council against the dissent of a Nation much more of a particular Bishop And in his Book of Schisme p. 54. and 66. He grants it Schism for the Bishop to withdraw his obedience from the higher power of the Metropolitan or Primate as well as for Presbyters from the Bishop Now from these I collect that if these inferior Synods or Clergy are to yield such external obedience to their respective Superiors Then are the Subjects of these when ever a lower Church-Authority clasheth with an higher either in submission of their judgment or of their silence to adhere to the higher nor are the one freed from this duty because the other neglect it So some National and a Patriarchal Council dissenting or some Metropolitan and his Patriarch here the forenamed persons being the Subjects of both owe their submission of judgment only to the higher Church-Authority of the two which Authority if the forecited Protestants allow the lower to dissent from yet not to gain-say § 299 Nor is it reasonable for any to decline here the present Supreme Authority that is extant and in being and transfer such his obedience and submission to a future that hath no being as to transfer it from his Primate or Patriarch or so large and universal Councils as have been convened in his own or in former times to a future absolutely General Council For thus so many only are subject to the present supreme Powers as are content to be so if an appeale to a future Authority streight unties them from it And yet more unreasonable this if this appeale is to such a future Council as probably can never be namely where either the Assembly or the approbation of it must be absolutely Vniversal either as to the whole Body of Christian Bishops or at least as to some Bishops of every Province an usual demand of the Reformed For such Provinces as are censured or condemned by the Council which thing often happens it cannot be presumed that they will ever accept it No more than the Council of Trent supposed
against themselves A consent of Fathers of one age against a consent of Fathers of another age the Church of one age against the Church of another age saith Mr. Chillingw ‖ p. 376. * Allowing certain Tradition hardly of any thing save of the H. Scriptures And few or no Traditive interpretations thereof I have the words from Mr. Chillingw No Tradition saith he †p. 376. but only of Scripture can derive it self from the Fountain our Lord and his Apostles but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an age after Christ or that in such an age it was not in And Traditive Interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found So he * Alledging that the Fathers tranferred several conceits and customs into the Church from their new-deserted Paganism Platonick philosophy And Divinity of the Sybils or at least out of compliance with such new Heathen Converts And then that the more prudent and sober Fathers through timorousness and despair of a reformation have complied with the rest and been carried down with the stream Thus Zuinglius †De verâ fallâ Religione p. 214. of S. Austin touching Corporal Presence in which point many Protestants would have him their Patron Facile adducimur saith he Augustinum prae aliis acuto perspicacique ingenio virum suâ tempestate non fuisse ausum diserte veritatem proloqui quae jam casum magnaâ parte dederat Vidit omnino pius Homo quid hoc Sacramentum esset in quem usum esset institutum verum invaluerat opinio de Corporeâ carne And thus Chemnitius ‖ Exam. Con. Trid. 3. part p. 197. of the same Father touching Invocation of Saints Haec Augustinus sine Scripturâ temporibus consuetudini cedens And Bochart Origin de l' Invoc p. 488. St. Austin who seems to have been of a disposition wonderfully sweet and courteous suffers himself often to comply with the common errors and superstitions indeavouring rather to put a good sense upon them than to cross them c And Tantae vir authoritatis in negocio Dei libere loqui non audebat Cum praesumptionibus omnia impleri videret schismatis metu aperte damnare non audebat saith Vossius †Thes de Invocat S. Again * saying they held many things only as probabilities which later times have advanced into matters of faith and that necessary He finds them also in Appeale to this Antiquity ascending rather to the 3 first ages thereof ages wherein the Church was persecuted and few Records are left of her general Doctrines or Practices and more willingly declining the later where the Records many and the Church in her flourishing condition more fully displaying to the world all her Government and Discipline these men confessing some appearances of several of the Tenents and Customâ— they oppose in the fourth age Lastly he finds them apt to change the phrase and language of the Ancients and bogling at many of their terms such as those of Merit Satisfaction Altars Priests Sacrifices c. which novelty of words often argues a new conceit of things This the Protestants behaviour to Antiquity in relating which those who are versed in their books of Controversie especially the writings of the French know that I falsifie nothing whereas on the other side the opposite party to this he finds usually defending those works of the Fathers which the others question and not discarding Records certainly ancient because perhaps some of them mis-entitled as to the Author or somewhat antidated as to the time Again stating their Theological questions and extracting their Comments on Scripture controverted out of their writings Covering their defects and charitably interpreting what in them is any way capable thereof and reconciling their seeming Contradictions Lastly Sainting the Fathers and solemnly commemorating them in their publick service Often urging and laying much weight on ancient Tradition and so keeping stable and firm from generation to generation the Doctrine and Faith of the Church and out of this Tradition convincing Heresies Defending the legal authority of those Councils which the other oppose and gathering their Canons into certain Heads for the standing Laws and Rules of present-Church Government Not looking back with such rigor and jealousie upon their supreme Judges and examining their numbers their Commissions Elections if these free from Simony Ordinations nay Baptism nor holding them of more virtue authority or illumination as to the deciding of Controversies or enlarging Creeds in one age than another but in all ages alike necessary alike assisted § 305 4. But yet further He may discover the pretence to the Fathers that is made by this party of late not to have been so much in that beginning of the Reformation See before § 104. and 128. in the times of the Council of Trent their plain refusing to be tried by the Councils Fathers Church-Tradition but as these are first proved to have founded their Doctrine in the Scriptures See the two heads thereof Luther and Calvin their plain dealing in this matter in the many Quotations cited out of them before Disc 3. § 78. n. 3. c. Quanti errores saith Luther in omnium Patrum scriptis inventi sunt ‖ In assertiâ—â—ne Articul Quoties sibi ipsis pugnant Quis est qui non saepius scripturas torserit c. And contra Regem Angliae Non ego quaero saith he quid Ambrosius Augustinus Concilia usus saeculorum dicunt Miranda est stultitia Satanae quae iis impugnat quae ego impugno And lib. de ministris Eccl. iâ—stituend Non habent Papistae quod his apponant i. e. to his private sence and exposition of Holy Scriptures nisi Patres Concilia Consuetudinem Is not that enough Calvin De Ecclesiae reformandae ratione c. 19. to the judgement of Antiquity urged against him in the point De sacrificio Missâ returns such general answers as these not unfrequent with him also concerning many other points Veterum sententias non moror quas ad obruendam veritatem hic congerunt Moderatores Solemne est nebulonibus istis you must pardon his heat like that of Luther quicquid vitiosum in Patribus legitur corradere And below Desinant boni Moderatores veterum sententiis pugnare in malâ causâ Again Non est quod vel Ambrosium vel alium quemp iam ex totâ veterum cohorte acutius vidisse putemus quam ipsum Apostolum Again Vt millies clament Papistae oblatum olim fuisse panem veteres ita solitos facere non novam esse censuetudinem toties excipere nobis licebit Christi mandatum inviolabilem esse regulam quae nullâ hominum consuetudine nullâ praescriptione temporum convelli aut refigi debeat And Quod ad veteres spectat non est quod in eorum gratiam ab aeterna inflexibili Dei veritate i.e. his own fancies concerning God's Truth recedamus And
Eight hundred years ago and fince that by Lanfrank Guitmund c. at the appearance of Berengarius Which Primitive Tradition and judgement of Antiquity that it was if this may not be taken on the credit of so many Councils the same concerning these Scriptures with that of the present Church Authority I think any one that is well affected to the peace of the Church and not pre-ingaged in Disputes will receive sufficient satisfaction herein who will at his leisure spend a few hours in a publick Library to read entire and not by cited parcels the short Discourses on this subject of * St. Ambrose De Myster initiand chap. 9. * The Author of the Books De Sacramentis ascribed to the same Father l. 4 the 4 and 5. Chapters * Cyrill Hierosol Catechis Mystagog 4. and 5. * Chrysostom in Matt. Homil. 83. In. Act. Apost Hom. 21. In 1 Cor. Hom. 24. * Greg. Nyssen Orat. Catechet c. 36 37 * Euseb Emissen or Caesarius Arelatens De Paschate Serm. 5. * Hilarius Pictao De Trinitate the former part of the eighth book * Cyril Alexand. In Evangel Johan l. 10. c. 13. Concerning the Authenticalness of several of which pieces for the last Protestâ—ant refuge is to pronounce them spurious you may remember the fore cited passage of Casaubon †§. 307. speaking of such a subterfuge of Du Moulins Falsus illi Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus falsus Gr. Nyssenus falsus Ambrosius falsi omnes mihi liquet falli ipsum Molinaeum Not that I affirm here that every one that reads these pieces shall be so perswaded and convinced For as hath been shewed the Interests of the Will have a strange power of disguising and miscolouring things to the understanding As when perhaps the pre-design of making a Reply to an Adversary is the reason of ones reading of such a piece of a Father and when one hath first stated the Question to himself ordered his Arguments deduced his Conclusions solved Objections c. and then upon such provocation of an Antagonist is brought to examine their writings here we may presume such a one will be very loath now to pull down the whole Fabrick he hath built before and to lay down his Arms and that it will go hard if he cannot find something in them seeming favourable to his cause Either 1. for the Terms used by the Father he will contend that they are to be taken according to the mode of those times and not in a proper or modern sense Oâ— That their Rhetorick and Eloquence fitted not to state the Question or inform the Judgement but to move Affections and gain the Will doth often make use of such expressions as rigourously taken transcend the Truth Or 2. For the sense given when apparently against him he will propose some seeming-irrational consequences and absurdities that follow from it or some other Tenents of the Father that will not consist with it and the Translation alsor or the Copy shall many times be blamed Or 3. Touching the Discourse 1 He will either pronounce the whole illegitimate and spurious as pretended to be found of a different stile from the Father 's other works or some words used in it some Rites or Customs mentioned that are of a later date or age or such work not found in such Editions or not mentioned by later writers or that it is in part corrupted and interpolated and not all of a piece 2 Or at least He will find some Clauses in the same or in some other discourse of the Father whereby he may seem to confess in one place what he denies in another or which may serve at least to render him somewhat confused and obscure in the Point and so serviceable to no Party I name these defences not so but that some times they may be true but that they are much oftner made use of than there is any just cause and are apt to blind the unwary and preoccupated and such as have the infelicity to be engaged against Truth before they are well read in Antiquity So the late Censurer of Dr. Arnaulds last Book concerning the Eucharist §. 321. n. 2. Vigier after the two former Combatants Arnauld and Claude one by taking the Fathers in a plain and literal the other in a Metaphorical sense had each of them challenged Antiquity as clearly on his own side seeks to dispatch the Controversie much what like the Woman in the Book of Kings †3 Reg. 3.27 whose the childe was not Nec mihi nec Tibi sit Saying ‖ Eng. Translat p. 80. That the true belief of the ancient Church about this point of the Eucharist is very hard to be known That there are innumerable perplexities in it and that if the Fathers have believed the Reality as he seeth no reason to doubt but they did they believed it in such a manner which neither Roman Catholicks nor Protestants nor any other Christian Society would approve of And so p. 66 c. That the former Greek Church may not be found Transubstantialists he is content they should be Stercoranists i. e. holding I know not what panified corruptible corporal presence of our Lord much more gross and incredible than that of Transubstantiation For whether the Greeks fall short of or ago beyond the Latine Church herein he thinks all to his purpose so they be not just the same But then over-born with Dr. Arnaulds modern testimonies manifesting the unanimous accord herein of the present Oriental with the Western Churches here he will have them to have taken up this their opinion of late from Travellers but by no means to have derived it from their Forefathers There may have happened saith he ‖ p. 94. a change since the establishing of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Latine Church either by the mixture and commerce of the Latines and Greeks or by the Voyages of the Portugais and other Nations into the Oriental Churches mean while the present Oriental Churches thus consenting with the Roman it may well be considered what would become of the Protestant cause if the Controversie should now be referred to the Decision of a lawful General Council Much what the same course takes Monsieur Claude in his last Reply to Dr. Arnauld §. 321. n. 3. For the shewing of which a little more at large because I am speaking here of the Eucharist and what I shall say may serve for a pre-advertisement to some less experienced in this Controversie that may light on his Book and are in danger of receiving some impressions from it prejudicial to the Catholick Faith I beg leave of the Reader to make a step though somewhat out of my way yet not much beside my purpose Remitting those who think this Forreign Author less concerns them to the prosecution of the former Discourse resum'd below § 321. n. 27. 1st This Author busyes himself ‖ l. 2. c. 1. to accumulate many Testimonies concerning the miserable ignorance and decay
l. 3. c. 1. p. 157. In the Dispute concerning the Greeks our business is only about Transubstantiation and not at all about Real presence For it was to this only and Adoration that I formally limited my self in my last Answer But then as if this might do him some prejudice he as it were cautiously addeth Yet I would have none draw a Consequence from hence that I acknowledge a Real presence established in the Greek Church But here to make his words true he adds again in that sense as the Roman Church understands it And what sense is that surely by the way of Transubstantiation And so you see he pares his words till they say no more than just what he said before That he acknowledgeth no Real presence viz. by way of Transubstantiation established in the Greek Church And this is to say only that he acknowledgeth them not to hold Transubstantiation 2. Next concerning the Greeks their receiving or opposing Transubstantiation he hath one Hold more Ibid. It is not saith he our business to know whether the Greeks formally reject Transubstantiation Or whether they have made It an Article of Controversy between them and the Latines but only whether they comprehend it amongst their points of Faith or no Our Dispute is only concerning this matter One would think that he had been chaced very much and driven up to the wall that to preserve himself safe he makes so many out-works and contracts the Subject of his Disputation within so narrow a Compass But doth he not here for the Greek Church also thus decline and tacitly as it were yield up that to the Catholicks which they have always professed to be the main Controversie with Protestants on this Subject viz. The Real and Corporal presence of our Lord and the perpetuity of the Christian Faith as well East as West in the constant Belief of this for all the later times of the Church Catholick which consent found in the later times is the truest proof from which we may collect also the true sense of the former And from this Corporal presence once established whether a Transubstantiation be or be not necessarily follows also the lawfulness of a Soveraign Adoration which renders the Dispute concerning one of the two Points he contesteth needless and decideth it against him since an Adoration of the Mysteries practised among the Greeks he is content to allow but not Soveraign Now Real presence makes it out a Soveraign one 5. His way thus far made §. 321. n. 7. and his cause pretended not to be conterned in that the Greeks have a different Sentiment of the Eucharist from Protestants Nor that they take Hoc est corpus meum as also the Latines in a literal sense and hold a Real presence Nor that they do not reject the Roman Transubstantiation Or make any Controversie with the Latines about it And so all Authorities save those that press Transubstantiation being removed from giving him any trouble Next For the Greeks asserting a Transubstantiation the alledging such Testimonies as these which follow and frequently occur in their Authors will not be admitted by him as good or to the purpose That by the Consecration the Bread is changed and converted into the very the proper the True or in veritate in reipsa Body of Christ which Body also is the same with that born of the Blessed Virgin and that suffered on the Cross That the Eucharist is not a Figure or Image only of this Body but the very Body of our Lord united to his Divinity as the Body born of the Blessed Virgin was Neither are these now two but one Unum corpus unus Sanguis cum eo quod sumpfit in utero Virginis quod dedit Apostolis And Calix quem Sacerdo◠sacrificat non est alius nisi ipse quem Dominus Apostolis tradidit That the Bread that is offered in the Mysteries is the very same Flesh of Jesus Christ that was Sacrificed at the time of his Passion and buryed in the Sepulchre and which St. Thomas handled and which is at the Right Hand of the Father That after the Consecration Though it appears Bread yet in verity it is the Body of Christ Or Licet Panis nobis videatur revera Caro est Or Non manet Panis sed pro Pane factum est Corpus Christi I say such expressions as these very usual in the Greeks are not current with him for proving a Substantial change of the Bread Or That the Substance of it after Consecration doth not still remain so entire as before For as for Ipsum proprium verum c. he can produce places in the Fathers where they are applyed to a Metaphor where the Poor the Faithful the Church are said to be Ipsum or Verum Corpus Christi The Bread is changed into the Body of Christ i. e. saith he not in Substance but in Vertue The Eucharist is not a Figure or Image of this Body i. e. without all Vertue or Efficacy but the very Body it self i. e. in being such an Image or Figure as retains the supernatural Vertue of it But still I say This Supernatural Vertue is not the Body And if the Greek's arguing from our Lords Dixit Hoc est Corpus meum be good viz. That what-ever is not our Lords Body the Eucharist is not It holds as well against Virtus if taken exclusively to Substance for such Substance is Body here or else why not Imago a Body as against Imago or Figura as well against Imago cum Efficacia as sine c. For Non dixit Hoc est Virtus or continens virtutem Corporis mei but Hoc est Corpus meum And this being urged by his Adversary the best answer that I see M. Claude makes to it †l. 4. c. 7. is That the Protestanes are no engagers for the verity of the Greek's Opinions i. e. He imposeth such a sense on the Greeks as makes a Contradiction in their Opinion or arguing and then leaves them to make it good Again Though it appears Bread it is truly Flesh i. e. saith he The Greeks hold it indeed still Bread in Substance and not Flesh at all But they mean here that though it appears or seems yet it is not simple Bread but it is truly Flesh in as much as it now hath the true Vertue of Christs Flesh making them say It is in truth that which yet they hold it is not save only in Vertue or Efficacy And again that it only appears that which yet they hold that in Substance and in truth it is And to render this his Exposition more current in his 2. Answer he saith We must not press too much such manner of expressions as these †part 3. c. 2. licet appareat Panis tamen in veritate Corpus Christi est lest we make the Fathers speak many absurdities And so urgeth a place in S. Chrysostom where the Father saith That we ought not to think of
that place suffered himself and so those under his charge to be wrought upon by the ordinary commerce they had with the Latines Urge the Oriental Liturgies which though not denyed to be different in several Regions or perhaps several also used in the same as both S. Basil's and S. Chrysostom's are by the Greeks yet have a great congruity and harmony both amongst themselves and with the Greek and Roman as to the Service and Ceremonies of the Eucharist His answer is †His last Answer l. 5. c. 5.606 608. That we have not any certainty that these Pieces are sincere or faithfully translated or some of them not corrected by the Missions As for the Liturges and other witnesses produced for the Faith of the Jacobites of Syria the Armenians Cophtites or Egyptians Ethiopians or Abyssines agreeing in this Point with the Roman he thinks them all sufficiently confuted from Eutychianism being held by these Eastern and Southern Churches For saith he †l. 5. c. 6. p. 604. What can one find more directly opposite than to maintain on one side that Jesus Christ hath no true Body that there is nothing in him save only the Divine Nature that all that which hath appeared of his Conversation in the World of his Birth Death Resurrection were nothing but simple appearances without Reality and on the other side to believe that the substance of the Bread is really changed into the proper substance of his Body the same he took of the Virgin Thus He for his advantage applying the extremities of that Heresie to all these Nations contrary to the Evidence of their publick Liturgies But Entychianism taken in the lower sence as Entyches upon the mistake of some expressions of former Fathers Athanasius and Cyrill Patriarchs of Alexandria which perhaps also induced the engagement of Dioscorus their Successor on his side maintained and the Ephesin Council i. e. above 90 Bishops under Dioscorus allowed it affirms no more than that the two Natures of our Lord the one Divine the other Humane Consubstantial with us and received of the Bl. Virgin after their conjunction become one yet this without any confusion or mixture or conversion of the two Natures into one another Now that these Nations adhere to Eutychianism only in this latter sence not well distinguishing between Nature and Personality I refer him that desires further satisfaction to the Relations of Thomas à Jesu l 7. c. 13 14 17. and Brerewoods Enquiries c. 21 22 23. and Dr. Field on the Church l. 3. c. 1. p. 64. c. and of the several Authors cited by them and to the testimony of Tecla Mariae a Learned Abyssin Priest cited by M Claud. †l. 5. c. 6. who saith They hold after the Union only Vnam Naturam sine tamen mixtione sine confusione i.e. of those two Natures of which the One afterward is compounded Which Testimony may serve either to expound or to confront one or two of the other he brings that seem to say otherwise Urge to him the Confession of Protestants Grotius Bishop Forbes and others though themselves of a contrary perswâ—sion that the Modern Greek Church believes Transubstantiation for which they cite their late Writers the Reading of whom convinced them in this though it cannot M. Claude Of these two Grotius and Forbes he replies †l. 4 c. 4. That they are persons who permitted themselves to be pre-possessed with Chimerical fancies and designs upon the matter of the Differences between the two Communions Catholick and Protestant which they pretend to accommodate and reconcile So he censures Casaubon out of Spondanus †Levitatem animi Vacillantem eum perpetuò tenuisse cum his illis placere cuperet nulli satisfecisset Where indeed whose judgement ought sooner to be credited than theirs who appear more indifferent between the two contending parties So To Archbishop Lanfrank's words to Berengarius Interroga Greacos Armenios seu â—ujus libet Nationis quoscunque homines uno ore hanc fidem i. e. Transubstantiationis se testabuntur habere cited by Dr. Arnaud He answers †p. 361. That Pre occupation renders his Testimonie nothing worth Urge the Socinians because the Fathers oppose so manifestly their oÌ„wn opinions therefore more apt to speak the truth of them in their opposing also those of other Protestants and partâ—cularly in their differing from them in this point of the Eucharist He tells us they are not creditable in their Testimony because so much interested to decry the Doctrine of the Fathers in their own regard and thus they imagine Protestants will have less countenance to press them with an Authority that themselves cannot stand to Urge the Centurists confessing Transubstantiation found in some of the Fathers and in magnifying their new-begun Reformation more free plainly to acknowledge those they thought errours of former times He †l. 1. c. 5. denies them fit witnesses in this Controversie because themselves holding a Real Presence they had rather admit a Transubstantiation in the Fathers than a presence only Mystical And suppose such excuses should fail him yet how easie is it to find some other whereby a person may be represented never to stand in an exact indifferency as to whatever Subject of his Dicourse With such personal exceptions M. Claude frequently seeks to relieve his Cause where nothing else will do it Whereas indeed such a common Veracity is to be supposed amongst men especially as to these matters of Fact that where a multitude though of a party concern'd concur in their Testimony they cannot reasonably be rejected on such an account either that their being deceived or purpose to deceive and to relate a lie is possible or that what they say can be shewed a thing well pleasing and agreeable to their own inclinations For as it is true that ones own interest if as to his own particular very considerable renders a Testimony lees credible So on the other side almost no Testimony would be valid and current if it is to be decryed where can be shewed some favour or engagement of affection to the thing which the person witnesseth and so for Example in the Narration of another Countreys Religion often made by all Parties none here can be believed save in what he testifies of them against his own Such things therefore are to be decided according to the multitude and paucity and the Reputation of the witnesses rather than their only some way general interest and the Credibility of such things is to be left to the equal Readers Judgement § 321 But n. 10. 7ly Should all that is said touching the later Greek's from the 11 th or the 8 th to the present age their holding Transubstantiation be undeniably made good and al the testimonies concerning it exactly true Yet he saith †l. 2. c. 1. It will not follow that a change of the Churches former Faith in this Point is impossible or hath not actually
Accidents without a Subject The same Body at once in many places and several other Consequents thus appearing also in the Greek's Opinion would have given too much countenance to the Roman Where you may observe § 321. n. 13. that there are three things wherein his explaining of this Opinion he imputes to the Greeks to render it more remote from the Latines falls short of that which according to the Comparison and the expressions they use he is justly obliged to maintain 1. The first That the Vnion of the Divinity to the Consecrated Bread is Hypostatical or Personal For such an Union had our Lords Divinity to the Nourishment to which this is compared received by him See M. Claud 2 Answ part 2. c. 2 p. 249 and added to his natural Body born of the Blessed Virgin †And no less Union than this will serve to make the Eucharistical Bread one and the same with it a thing constantly affirmed by the Greeks at least as to the Suppositum or to make both these the Body of the same Person The difference of the Vnion saith M. Claude †l. 6. c. 10. p. 867. is discerned by the difference of the effect it produceth in the things Now what thing more is requisite to stile it an Union Hypostarical Hypostasis and Subsistentia or Persona with the Greeks importing the same thing than this effect that it renders this Body to which it unites it self and that Body born of the Blessed Virgin the same Body of one Person and this Union gives to this new Body the self-same vivicating vertue Physically inherent as it doth to the other Natural And then such an Hypostatical Union if granted will infer the same Dignity of this breaden body with the other the same Ceremonies of Honour and Adoration due Things which this Person is unwilling to hear of and that would ruine his Gause The 2 d. That there is a Substantial change of the Bread §. 321. n. 14 i. e. of the substantial form of Bread at least in that this Bread is truly made the Flesh and Blood and animated with the humane Soul of our Lord as well as united to his Divinity For so the Nourishment received by our Lord on Earth and added to his Body born of the Virgin remained not still Bread but was truly changed into his Flesh and so also is ours And the Expressions of the Greeks are suitable and cannot without an unjust force and straining be otherwise explicated To instance in one or two Such is that of Theophilact in Mats 26 Non enim dixit Haec est figura sed Hoc est Corpus meum Ineffabili enim operatione transformatur etiamsi nohis videatur Panis quoniam infirmi sumâ—â— abhorrenius crudas caâ—â—es comedere maximè hominis carnem ideo Panis quidem apparet sed reverâ Caro est And in Mart. 14. Et quomodo inquis Caro non videtur Sanguinem propositum carnem videntes non ferremus sed abhorremus Idcirco misericors Deus nostrae infirmitati condescendens speciem quidem Panis Vini servat in virtutem autem carnis sanguinis transelementat Where if Theophylact had meant by Caro verè est Caro tantùm in virtute est he would never have given this reason in his comment on Matt. Panis apparet quod verè est Caro quoniam infirmi sumus abhorremus crudas carnes but rather would have removed all difficultie here and prevented such a Question Cur Caro non videtur by telling them Vt apparet it a est Panis Caro audem est non verè aut in substantiâ sed tantùm in Virtute This had been plain dealing but then he had overthrown his Text Hoc est Corpus meum non figura Corporis mei and made it only as M. Claude doth at the most Hoc est Efficax figura Corporis mei non ipsum Corpus As for the pains M. Claude hath taken †l. 4. c. 7. p. 448. to qualifie this Panis apparet caro verè est in mingling together Theophylact's Comments on Matt. Mark and John and in taking Speciem Panis in S. Mark not for the shew or appearance but Substance of Bread by which it should run not verè Caro but verè Panis in his Comment on S. Matt. and in understanding Virtus Carnis in S. Mark with a tantùm so as this excludes verè Caro in S. Matt. I am confident that the ingenious Reader will find therein only great industry used to obsure a clear Truth For Vertue may be used as well augmentatively as diminutively in respect of Substance as including Substance and adding something to it and as opposing an outward shew only without Reality or a Substance without efficacy as D Arnaud †l. 2. c. 9. p. 186. hath judiciously observed and for clearing it instanced in that of St. Paul 2 Tim. 3.5 Habentes speciem quidem pietatis virtutem ejus abnegantes and that of S. Greg. Nyssen Orat. Catechet c. 37. Igitur unde in illo corpore of our Lord when here on Earth transmutatus Panis transit in Divinam virtutem per idem Verbum nunc fit similiter Nam illic Gratia Verbi Corpus cui expane erat substantia quodammodo ipsum erat Panis sanctum secit hic in the Eucharist similiter Panis sicut dicit Apostolus sanctificatur per Verbum Dei orationem non eo quidem quod per comestionem bibitionem in Verbi Corpus evaedat sed quod starim per Verbum in Corpus transmutetur sicut dictum est à Verbo Hoc est Corpus meum And afterwards he saith In illud â—orpus immorale Curâ—sti mentioned before transelementatâ eorum quae apparent Naturâ Which place because D. Arnaud much pressed as throughly clearing that of Theophylact our Lords Nourishment being changed as into the vertue so doubtless also into the Substance of his Bodie and because it is that place from which first Source M. Claude †l. 3. c. 13. derives the Modern Greek Opinion I was curious to search what M. Claude would say to it but I found him as to speak to that of S. Paul and other passages so prudently to pass over this the most insisted on by his Adversary in silence But who pleaseth may see in another place †2 Resp part 2. c. 2. where it is urged against Protestants for Transubstantiation how miserably this plain passage of this Father suffers under his Exposition of it Whilst this Expression dure irregulier as he cals it represents nothing else but Damascen's and the Modern Greek Opinion to any one that hath not shut his eyes and shews the modern and ancient Greek Church to be all of one Faith Here then you see in Greg Nyssen Virtus includes Substance Now see it in that place of Euthymius cited before †§. 321. n. 8. added to Substance as being indeed the main thing to be insisted on
Synods For M. Claude saith The word of God contains nettement clairement all that which is necessary to form our Faith and that the most simple are capable to judge of it c. Unless the Protestant Controversies be never about any thing necessary This is the way M. Claude thought on to leave no Doubters though never so unlearned among Protestants as to the Eucharist or other Points of their Faith But mean while if after such Speculations of his any such Doubters there be I do not find but that he leaves so many wholly to D. Arnaud's disposal viz. that they return to and remain in the bosom of the former Church so long till they become certain of its errors and not follow strangers that have not entered by the dore into Christ's Fold and I hope they will consider it As for the settling of our Conscience this person speaks of by resting our Faith immediately on Gods Word I see not where the sence of the Scriptures is supposed the thing controverted how any one rests his Faith more immediately on God's word by following his own Exposition or Sence thereof or the Exposition of a Minister c. for some person's exposition he must follow than he that follows that of the Church If we are then for a total application to the Scriptures and for searching things to the bottom Let us search there first this main Point that decides all other concerning our Lord's establishing a just Church-Authority for ending contentions Where we shall find also that he is not a God of dissention or Confusion 1 Cor. 14.33 Eph. 4.11 14 1 Cor. 12.28 in his House the Church but of Peace And That he hath given his Clergy in a certain Subordination that we should not be carryed about with every wind of Doctrine as we must be when ever these disagree in expounding Scripture to us if we have no Rule which of them to follow The truth of this once found out by our search will save many other searches of which without it I see no end In vain do we endeavour with whatever pains so discern Gods Truth without the illumination of his Holy Spirit and Grace and since revelat parvalis in vain expect this without great Humility and self-dâ—s-esteem and a reverent preference of and pious Credulity toward our just and lawful Spiritual Superiours Credendo first i. e. Ecclesiae saith S. Austin in his Tract De utilitate Credendi †c. 1. praemunimâ—r illuminaturo praeparamur Deo To resume then here the matter we were speaking of before § 321. n 27. § 321. n. 1. from which we have so long digressed For such Persons as are self-confident despisers of Superiors much pre-engaged whatever evident Testimony Truth may have on its side I can affirm nothing For Pride and thinking they see utterly puts out their eyes But I think so many as are no way thus intangled and are humble and well affected to Authority will by reading the pieces aforesaid be reduced either to a full perswasion on the Churches side in this great Point or to a Dubitancy and uncertainty of that which is maintained against it And then this later only as hath been shewed †§. 291. c. is a sufficient Ground and Inductive of their conformity to it I mean to the authority of the present Church In this point then the main Trial seems to be 1. Whether Antiquity indeed so understood and Councils declared the sense of these Scriptures as is pretended Since as Mr. Thorndike hath it in his Rule of Reformation †Forbea and Penalties c. 8. this is to be taken for granted That nothing can be the true sence of Scripture which the consent of the whole Church contradicteth 2. If this found so whether this Authority ought not to prescribe to any particular judgment especially when he perceives the new pretended Demonstrations to the contrary no way to perswade this present Church-Authority as any true Demonstration in the Protestants Definition of it necessarily must For the Second Point Invocation of Saints 1. It is granted by Protestants §. 322. n. 1. that if the Saints deceased hear or otherwise know our requests made to them it is lawful to invocate them or desire their prayers for us as we do those of Saints here and the invocation of them in any other manner Catholicks disclaim 2. It sufficiently appears from the knowledge of things done ‖ or said †2 King 6.8 9 12 31.32 in absence that several Prophets †King 5 25. Act. 5.3 Col. 2.5 and other Saints of God by Revelation or Vision have had here in this life that it is possible that the Saints glorified without imagining any their omni-presence or omni-science may know by the like Revelation Representation or Vision or by some other way as God pleaseth for the particular manner thereof is no way stated by the Church may thus know I say either all or so many of those prayers that are made to them though at the same time by several persons in the most distant places as it may concern their Petitioners touching any benefit to be received by their Intercessions that they should know them Lastly possible that the Saints Glorified may know these or some other instrument of God's mercy viz. Angels know these for them or in their stead for this clause also is put in by St. Austin proceeding most cautiously in this matter These things I say are possible And if any of these be put it is abundantly sufficient to render Invocation of Saints glorified not vain For to frustrate the benefit here of the Saints must neither know nor others for them who only upon their general Intercessions offered may be as God pleaseth made his instruments in relieving the necessities of such Supplicants They must neither know all nor any of our affairs or prayers For if they or others for them only know and relieve some it will be lawful at any time in any thing to implore their help who we know not but in that time and thing they may assist us Again suppose neither the Saints nor others for them save God only to know at all our particular prayers or wants but the Saints only in grosse to intercede for all those that implore their help or yet more generally only for all their fellow-members here that are in distress whether imploring or not imploring their help yet if God at least apply the benefit of any Saints general Intercessions more particularly to those who more particularly honour and with their addresses sollicite such a Saint Such Invocation and Honour still remains profitable and advantageous to the Supplicant Where note §. 322. n. 2. that neither those who make nor yet God who reveales their prayers to the Saints do it at all for this end that so the Saints may make known such their prayers to God a thing in which Protestants please themselves to find absurdities and
practice as well of the Iconoclasts as the Catholicks nor any Controversie in those daies concerning it Thus the Seventh General Council whose whole business was the stating of this Question And see the comparing of the Honour given to Images with that to the Name of Jesus in a Synod held at Mentz A. D. 1549. since the Reformation c. 41 in the larger Acts of it †Apud Vasquez in 3. Thom. Disp 108. c 14. Codicem oculis perlustrans cum ad venerabile tremendum nomen Jesu devenerit caput aperit suspiciens in coelum oculos attollit ob id omni reprehensione Idololatria suspicione caret siquidem non literas c. sic honorat sed cogitatione veneratione mentis suae ad eum honorandum i. e. latria rapitur cujus memoriam hae literae ei suggerunt Cur ergo superstitionis aut Idololatriae reus peragitur qui ante Imaginem crucifixi Domini caput aperit aut procumbens adorat c. And see Vasquez who cites this Synod thus entitling his c. 11. Disp 108. in 3. S. Thom. Eodem modo atque Imagines nomen Jesu alias res sacras naming Crucem vasa sacra lib. Evangeliorum esse adorandas And see Suarez Disput 54. § 6. Card. Lugo de Incarnatione Disp 36. § 6. saying the same I have the rather mentioned here the reverence given at the name of Jesus because though that to the sacred utensils and Holy Gospels is grown into desuetude among Protestants yet this other is still retained When therefore we speak of that Superior Honour latria §. 323. n. 2. or Dulia that is given or due to the Exemplar I mean either the internal honor of the soul or also external of the body for the latria Divine worship consists of both and herein the external act receives its specification from the internal and not one but both these we equally give to our Lord then also when we pray to him not-before or without an Image or if you will when in the middle of our prayers an Image is presented before us I say when this Superior Worship is spoken of though here we uncover our Heads we kneel 〈◊〉 and â—â—brace it yet is the Image neither objectum nor Ratio Adorationis but only Adjunctum as the Cardinal hath it De Imag. l. 2. c. 23. Ipsa Imago nec est suppositum quod adoratur nec ratio adorationis sed quiddam Adjunctum a Circumstantial an Inductive a Motive thereof For the mental intention here wholy directs as it can at pleasure to the Prototype these outward notes of Honour some of which as kissing or embracing are accidentally and concomitantly applied to the Image Neither is such external latrical worship conveighed to the person represented either by or through the Image as a medium to it any way so to facilitate or promote the acceptance thereof or ingratiate it with the Prototype But the Image is a meer circumstance of such Adoration as time and place are and any creature of God may be Yet a circumstance very beneficial for reminding us of such duty as also for rendring this service more fixt and steady or intense and devout This for worship due to the Ptototype Next as for the inferior relative Veneration exhibited to their Images Catholicks do not here pretend or affirm any peculiar presence of our Lord or his Saints or any vertue either natural or accessary and derivative in any such Image for which it should be worshipped or honoured or our requests to have any more access or efficacy by or through any such Image upon the Exemplar or person represented Or again the Exemplar any greater influence by or through it upon those who supplicate him before it these are Heathen fancies derided by Christians lastly pretend no advantage in the use of such Images either to render our prayers or worship more acceptable to our Lord or his Saints or more effectual to us save only as the retaining of such a grateful memory of our Lord and his Saints is conceived a thing well-pleasing to them And as the frequent beholding also such representations may excite and increase our Devotion Affection Imitation c. and these again performed obtain a greater reward Things standing thus on the Catholick side §. 323. n. 3. as most certainly they do I ask what certainty or demonstration can a Protestant here produce of any other error or fault in the Church unless he will dispute here against some subtile expressions of some School-men or some practice of rude people The first of which he is neither tyed by the Church to justifie nor the second to follow In this poâ—nt if any tryal necessary it seems to be Whether the present Church continue to teach what the former hath defin'd For which see the late Council of Trent referring to that ancient 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and sufficiently expressed in a very eminent stating of this point Whether the practice of some ignorant people in the Church be so faulty as some would make it And if it be whether the Church teaching otherwise be chargable with it or obliged to take away Images for it Lastly if here a fault in the Church Whether a Subject of hers obliged to nothing in this matter unlawful may for such her fault quarrel with her and desert her Communion For the Fourth Communion in one kind Here since it is granted by Protestants § 324 * †See Confess Wirtenberg Chamier l. 9. c. 8. Confess Protest in the Diet at Ausburg as also taken for Principle by Catholicks †Conc. Trid. Sess 21 cap. 3 Can. 3. That Christ is wholy and entirely contained and exhibited in either species taken singly and in every least Particle of either species Christs Body Blood Soul Deity suffering no more separation since his Resurrection so that none need fear the being deprived of our Lords precious Blood by receiving only the Symbole of his Body Since this I say is agreed on The Question only is Whether there be any absolute Precept in Scripture commanding alwaies to all persons the communicating in both kinds Now Catholicks think this matter that there is no such precept sufficiently cleared by the practice of Antiquity and the purest times Which on several occasions gave it in one kind only and this when there was no case of absolute necessity to give it in one kind but then alwaies indeed some inconvenience in giving it in both which is still pretended when the Church administers it in one Now such practice could be in no times lawful if there were a Divine Precept absolutely to all persons enjoyning the contrary But if such universal precept there be § 325 enjoyning a necessary Communion of the Cup As Drink ye all of this Matt. 26 27. Or Do this in remembrance of me Luk. 22.19 Or Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you Jo. 6.53 which
is equivalent to this Let all those eat my flesh and drink my blood that will have life It seems most reasonable 1. That such Precept be extended to all Communions whatever as well those private or domestick as the publick since in both possible to be observed For there occurs nothing in our Lords words distinguishing these Communions one from another or ordering a receit of the Cup in the one which shall be left at liberty in the other And so by such sence of Scripture as we have said the practice of Antiquity is condemned 2. That it be extended as to the receiving in both kinds so to the receiving them apart and to the drinking of the one as the eating of the other For the Scripture is no more express for the receiving of the blood than it is for receiving it separated by it self and for drinking of it By which the practice of the Eastern Churches is condemned who receive the Symbole of Christs Body only intinct in the Blood 3. Especially from that text in c. 6. John 53. That this precept be extended to all persons for whom we expect eternal life and so to Infants Therefore the communicating of them also in both kinds or one at least was a custom used in Antiquity Yet such a necessity by vertue of any Scripture-precept Protestants together with Catholicks deny and both desist from such a practice § 326 Again several other Texts we find in Scripture that may seem to have the force of Universal Precepts as much as any concerning communicating in both kinds As Act. 15.29 for abstaining from Blood and things strangled Luke 6.30 Of him that takes away your Goods ask them not again and Give to every one that asketh Matt. 6 17. When you fast wash your face and anoint your head c. 5.34 Swear not at all Matt. 23 9. Call no man your Father on the earth neither be ye called Masters The Quakers Precepts Salute one another with a kiss of charity or an holy kiss frequent in the Apostle Rom 16.16 1 Cor. 16 20. 2 Cor. 13.12 1 Thess 5.26 I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you Jo. 13.14 for the Clergies washing feet before the Communion Do this unlimited in St. Luke 22.19 for any Christian whatever his breaking bread or consecrating and distributing the communion If any be sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him with oyl in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up not that every sick person that the Apostles prayed over should be cured and if he be in sins they shall be forgiven him James 5.14 15. urged as enjoyning extreme unction § 327 Now notwithstanding the shew of strict and universal Precepts yet in the understanding and practising of all these save the last Protestants conform to the judgment of former and present Church And in the last though Catholicks think themselves obliged to receive it as a Precept and accordingly practice yet Protestants deny the one and forbear the other Lastly some Protectants there be and those of note that deny any peremptory precept or command in Scripture as in these so in those urged for Communion sub utraque species * Vbi jubentur in Scripturis saith Bishop Montague †Origin Eccl. p. 396. Infantes baptizari aut Caenam Domini sub utraque specie communicantes participare Sexcenta sunt ejusmodi c. de quibus possumus profiteri Nil tale docet scriptura * Bishop White on the Sabbath p. 97. Genuine Traditions derived from the Apostolical times are receiv'd and honoured by us Now such are these which follow The historical Tradition concerning the numbers and dignity of the Books of Canonical Scripture The Catholick exposition of many sentences of holy Scripture Which indeed unless received there will be no conviction or cure of Heresies and Schismes Baptism of Infants observation of the Lords day The service of the Church in a known tongue the tongues used by the Apostolical times for God's publick Service the Church still continues unchanged The delivering of the Holy Communion to the people in both kinds i. e. for publick communions For as for private ancient Tradition many times practised otherwise * Spalatens de Rep. Eccl. l. 5. c. 6. Dico non esse adeo sub praecepto ut Eucharistia in cibo in potu semper à fidelibus sumatur quin ex gravi seu privatâ privatorum causâ possit cum fructu licite etiam sub solo pane sumi c. And indeed in the omnes added to Bibite Matt. 26. it seems clear that our Lord had no particular intention thereby to prescribe what every Christian was necessarily to practice because the Manducate as necessary as the Bibite is pronounced without an omnes But only to shew what he would have to be done at that time by all the other Apostles as well as by him whom he first delivered the Cup to For whereas several portions of the bread were severally given to every one of them Yet the Cup was delivered only to one from whom it was to be handed successively to all the rest and divided amongst them all Therefore St. Luke instead of omnes hath Take this and divide it among your selves § 328 In this point then the main Trial seems to be Whether Antiquity did indeed use such a practice as on several occasions where inconveniences happened of giving it in both to communicate persons in one kind only Which if found true it would be too great a temerity and boldness in a Protestant to alledge certainly or pretend Demonstration of the sense of any Text of Scripture contrary to that wherein both the present and ancient Church hath understood and interpreted it Especially as I said when these they stile Demonstrations do not convince others or if notwithstanding this they be good and sufficient Demonstrations then must they be so too for mâ—â—y other Texts named before as well as for these touching communion to impose the same sence and universal preceptive force on them Yet against which sence Protestants are necessitated to concur in their judgment with Catholicks nay proceed further to deny some to be Precepts which Catholicks accept for such § 329 This Digression from § 320. I have made as hoping it might be beneficial to shew in some Controversies of consequence what small Foundation Protestants have to pretend Certainty and Demonstration against the former Church's Doctrine To which in the last place I may add that such pretence of Certainty against Church-Authority suffers a greaâ— prejudice from that which S. Austin hath observed that it is a plea used by all Hereticks Hoc facium saith he †Enarrat in Psal 8. Haeretici universi vetant credere Ecclesiâ proponente incognita certam scientiam pollicentur And he saith †De
utilitate Cred. c. 1. that he was enticed by the Sect of the Manichees on this account because they promised Se terribili authoritate separatâ merâ simplici rations or as afterward magna quadam praesumptione pollicitatione rationum cos qui se audire vellent introducturos ad Deum erroreomni liberaturos And Se nullum premere ad fidem nisi prius discussâ enodatâ veritate And again †Ibid c. 9. Eos Catholicam Ecclesiam eo maxime criminari quod illis qui ad eam veniunt praecipitur ut credâ—nt se autem non jugum credendi imponere sed docendi fontem aperire gloriari And therefore he saith in his Retract l. 1. c. 14. That upon this he writ against this presumption of their's his Book De utilitate Credendi Or Of the benefit of ones believing Church-Authority This from § 318. of the weak Grounds Protestants have of pretending Certainty against Church Authority § 330 2 But next Suppose a person may be infallibly certain of and can truly demonstrate something the contrary of which Church-Authority delivers as certain yet if this certainty be only of such a Truth from the knowledge of which ariseth no great benefit to Christians or to the Church or at least not so much benefit as weighed in the ballance will preponderat this other benefit of conserving the Churches peace Here again these Demonstrators Protestants also being Judges are to yield to Church-Authority the obedience of silence and non-contradiction and are to keep such Truth to themselves and not to disturb the publick peace after any thing defined to the contrary by divulging it to others § 331 In vindication of such obedience thus Dr. Potter ‑ It is true when the Church hath declared her self in any matter of opinions or of rites her Declaration obligeth all her children to peace and external obedience nor is it fit or lawful for any private man to oppose his judgment to the publick Where he saith also That by his factiously opposing this his own judgment to the publick he may become an Heretick in some degree and in foro exteriori though his opinion were true and much more if it be false After him Bishop Brambal thus †Schism guarded p. 2. That Church and much more that person which shal not outwardly acquiesce after a legal Determination and cease to disturb Christian unity though her judgment may be sound her practice is schismatical And Vindic. of Church of England p. 27. When inferior Questions saith he not fundamental are â—nce defined by a lawful General Council all Christians though they cannot assent in their judgments are obliged to passive obedience to possess their souls in patience and they who shall oppose the Authority and disturb the peace of the Church deserve to be punished as Hereticks Doctor Fern Division of Churches p. 81. requiring conformity of Sectaries to the Church of England argues thus If Sectaries shall say to us You allow us to use our reason and judgement in what you teach us True say we for your own satisfaction not to abuse it against the Church But we do not abuse it say they but have consulted our Guides and used all means we can for satisfaction We tell them You must bring evident Scripture and Demonstration against publick Authority of the Church and next having modestly propounded it attend the judgment thereof But what if after all this go against them To which if you cannot assent inwardly yet yield an external peaceable subjection so far as the matter questioned is capable of it Thus he states the point Now such an external peaceable subjection and obedience as hath been often said if it were well observed stops all Reformations as to these points that are found of less consequence the Demonstrators Truth must die with him Nor thus will any Disciples be drawn from the Church or their Pastors to follow Strangers § 232 Next To know whether the truth they are so certain of be also of so great weight as that the Churches peace and external unity is to be broken rather than such a Truth strangled or lost what less thing also can secure them for this that it is a Truth of much importance than that which secures them of their certainty that it is a Truth namely a Demonstration hereof Now the Evidences Protestants have brought either of the one or the other either that such Church-Doctrines are errors or if so errors of great consequence have been heard and considered by Church-Authority And these by it neither thought errors intollerable nor errors at all But if Church-Authority may not interpose here and every one may rely on his own particular Judgment when truths or errors are of moment when not who is there when his thoughts are wholy taken up with a thing and he totus in illo and perhaps besides troubled with an itch that that knowledge of his which he esteems extraordinary should be communicated and that se scire hoc sciat alter will not thus induce himself to think the smallest matters great Lastly concerning truths of much importance let this also be considered Whether that which is so much pretended by the Reformed that the Holy Scriptures are clear in all Divine Truths necessary doth not strongly argue against them that none of those things wherein they gain-say the Church are matters much important or necessary Because all these Scriptures clear in necessaries will surely be so to the Church as well as to them As they grant these Scriptures to be generally as to all persons perspicuous in all those common points of faith that are not at all controverted § 333 3. But let this also be allowed That the error of Church-Authority is not only manifest but that it both is and is certainly known to be in a point most important and necessary and that neither the obedience of assent nor yet of silence or non-contradiction ought to be yielded to Church-Authority therein yet all this granted will not justifie or secure any in their not yielding a third obedience meerly passive viz. a quiet submission to the Churches censures however deemed in such a particular case unjust Whereby if this censure happen to be Excommunication he is patiently to remain so as who in such case injoyes still the internal communion of the Church though he want the external till God provide for the vindication of Truth and his Innocency But by no means to proceed further to set up or joyn himself to an external communion apart and separated from that of his Superiors and such a communion as either refuseth any conjunction with them or at least is prohibited and excluded by them which must alwaies be schismatical as being that of a Part differing from the Whole or of Inferiors divided from their Canonical Superiors by which now that Party begins to lose that internal Communion of the Church also which when unjustly excommunicated and acquiescing therein he still
practice relating to these Patriarchs and their Synods but the great necessity thereof as to the Vnity of the Churches Faith and Conservation of her Peace and that much more since the division of the Empire into so many Kingdoms by reason of which secular contrary Interests the several parts and members of the Catholick Church dispersed amongst them are more subject to be disjointed and separated from one another Which unity and peace if we reflect on * the great rarity of General Councils not above 5 or 6 in the Protestant account in 1600. years and * the multiplicity of Primates that are in Christendom all left by Dr. Hammond Supreme and independent of one another or of any other person or Council when a General one not in being and * the experience of their frequent Lapses into gross Errors For almost what great Heresie or Schism hath there been in the Church whereof some Primate was not a chief Abettor and * The Rents in the Church made by these apt to be much greater as the person is higher and more powerful is not sufficiently provided for though much pretended in Dr. Hammonds Scheme Come we then to Dr. Fields Model yet more enlarged The actions saith he ‖ Of the Chur. p. 513. of the Bishop of each particular Church of a City §. 16. n. 5. and places adjoining were subject to the censure and judgment of the rest of the Bishops of the same Province amongst whom for order sake there was one Chief to whom it pertained to call them together to sit as Moderator in the midst of them being assembled and to execute what by joint consent they resolved on The actions of the Bishops of a Province and of a Provincial Synod consising of those Bishops were subject to a Synod consisting of the Metropolitans and other Bishops of divers Provinces This Synod was of two sorts For either it consisted of the Metropolitans and Bishops of one Kingdom and Nation only as did the Councils of Affrica or of the Metropolitans and Bishops of many Kingdoms If of the Metropolitans and Bishops of one Kingdom and State only the chief Primate was Moderator If of many one of the Patriarchs and chief Bishop of the whole world was Moderator every Church being subordinate to some one of of the Patriarchal Churches and incorporate into the Vnity of it Here you see that roundly confest which Dr. Hammond concea'ld Again Ib. p. 668. It is evident That there is a power in Bishops Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs to call Episcopal Provincial National and Patriarchal Synods Synods Patriarchal answering to Patriarchs National to Primates and that neither so depending of nor subject to the power of Princes but that when they are enemies to the Faith they may exercise the same without their consent and privity and subject them that refuse to obey their Summons to such punishments as the Canons of the Church do prescribe in cases of such contempt or wilful negligence And Ib. p. 557. That the Decrees of Popes made with the consent and joint concurrence of the other Western Bishops did bind the Western Provinces that were subject to him as Patriarch of the West Bind them so as that these had no liberty to contradict the judgment of the Patriarch and this Council for which see Ib. c. 39. p. 563. where he quotes the Emperors Law Novel 123. c. 22. Patriarcha Dioceseos illius huic causae praebeat finem nullâ parte ejus sententiae contradicere valente confirming the 9th Canon of Conc. Chalced. Again p. 567. 568. he saith That it is a Rule in Church-government that the lesser and inferior may not judge the greater and superior That if any Bishop have ought against his Metropolitan he must go as I shewed before to the Patriarch and his Synod to complain as to fit and competent Judges That the great Patriarchs of the Christian Church are to be judged by some other of their own rank in order before them assisted by inferior Bishops that the Bishop of Rome as first in order among the Patriarchs assisted with his own Bishops and the Bishops of him that is thought faulty though these later are not found always necessary or present at such judgments nor more of his own Bishops than those whom he can at such time conveniently assemble and consult with as appears in the Appeals of those persons named before § 13. n. 1. may judge any of the other Patriarchs That such as have complaints against them may fly to him and the Synod of Bishops subject to him and that the Patriarchs themselves in their distresses may fly to him and such Synods for relief and help See the same §. 16. n. 6. p 668 Nor doth he acknowledge such an authority of Judicature in these Church Prelates only as joined w th their Synods but also in them single and without them For since it is manifest that the constant meeting of the Provincial Synods twice as it was ordered at the first or once in the year as afterward did very early cease either by the Clergies neglect or the great trouble and charge of such Assemblies and so later Councils accordingly appointed such Synods to be held in stead of twice yearly once in 3. years nor yet are in this well obeyed Hence either all such Causes and Appeals to their Superious still multiplied as Christianity is increased must be for so long a time suspended and depending which would be intolerable and a quick dispatch though less equitable rather to be wished or the hearing of them must be devolved to these single standing Judges as directed by former Church-Canons Concerning this therefore thus the same Doctor goes on ‖ l. 5. p. 514. quoting the Canons of the 6th and 7th Council At the first saith he there was a Synod of Bishops in every Province twice in the year But for the misery and poverty of such as should travel to Synods the Fathers of the 6th Council †Can. 8. decreed it should be once in the year and then things amiss to be redressed which Canon was renewed by the 7th General Council ‖ Can. 6. But afterwards many things falling out to hinder their happy Meetings we shall find that they met not so often and very early may this be found and therefore the Council of Basil appointed Episcopal Synods to be holden once every year and Provincial at the least once in three years And so in time Causes growing many and the difficulties intolerable in coming together and in staying to hear these Causes thus multiplied and increased it was thought fitter to refer the hearing of complaints and appeals to Metropolitans and such like Ecclesiastical Judges limited and directed by Canons and Imperial Laws than to trouble the Pastors of whole Provinces and to wrong the people by the absence of their Pastors and Guides Thus He. And if this rarer meeting of Provincial Synods transferred many Causes on the
happened and consequently that all M. Arnaud 's long dispute about it is vain and unprofitable I add and then so his Replies But here since the true sence and meaning of Antiquity on what side This stands is the thing chiefly questioned and debated between the Roman Church and Protestants unless he will throw off this too and retreat only to sense of Scripture I suppose to wise men it will seem little less than the loss of the Protestant cause and too great a prejudice to it to be so slightly yielded up if that not the Roman only but the whole visible Catholick Church besides themselves from the 11 th to the present age doth defend a Corporal presence and a literal sence of Hoc est corpus meum or also Transubstantiation and so consequently doth concur and Vote against them touching the sense of former Antiquity for this each side in their present Doctrine and Practice pretend to follow And I can hardly think M Claude would spend so great a part of his Book to defend a Post the loss of which he thought no way harm'd Him Again thus it is manifest that in an Oecumenical Council if now assembled the Protestants would remain the Party Condemned 8. After all these Defences wherewith he seems sufficiently garded §. 321. n. 11. He proceeds l. 3c 13. thus to declare the true opinion of the Modern Greeks on this Subject which I will give you in his own words p. 310. They believe saith he That by the Sanctification or Consecration is made a Composition of the Bread and the Wine and of the Holy Ghost That these Symboles keeping their own Nature are joyn'd to the Divinity and That by the impression of the Holy Ghost they are changed for the Faithful alone the Body of our Lord being supposed either to be not present at all or to cease to be so in the particles of the Symbole received by the unworthy into the vertue of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ being by this means made not a Figure but the proper and true Body of Jesus Christ and this by the way of Augmentation of the same natural Body of Jesus Christ To which they apply the comparison of the nourishment which is made our own Body by Assimilation and Augmentation Again p. 237. more briefly The Doctrine of the Greek Church is That the substance of Bread conserving its proper Being is added to the Natural Body of Jesus Christ that it is rendred like unto it That it augments and by this means becomes the same Body with it By this also he saith p. 334. and see the same in his 4 l. c. 7. the Greeks would observe in some sort the literal sence of the words Hoc est Corpus meum which saith He we do not we understand them in this sence This Bread is the sacred sign or Sacrament of my Body Or which comes to the same pass The Bread signifies my Body They on the contrary taking the word is in some sort according to the letter would have that the same subject which is the Bread is also the Body of Christ From preserving this pretended literal sence it is also That they would have it That the Bread is made one with the Body by its Vnion to the Divinity by the Impression of the Holy Ghost and by a change of vertue Or as he hath it in his 6. l. c. 10. That there is an Vnion of the Bread to the Divinity of our Lord and by the Divinity to his natural Body by means of which Vnion or Conjunction the Bread becomes the Body of Christ and made the same Body with it with his natural Body Again for preserving this literal sence That they bring the comparison of Nourishment made One with our Body and that they have invented this way of Augmentation of the natural Body of Christ It seems also That the Modern Greeks understand some real or Physical impression of the Holy Ghost and of the vivificating vertue of Jesus Christ upon the Bread with some kind of inherence i. e. of the vertue Although I will not saith he ascertain positively that this is the General Belief of their Church though the expressions seem to sway on this side But however it be this is not our opinion We believe that the Grace of the Holy Ghost and vertue of Christs Body accompanies the lawful use of the Sacrament and that we partake the Body of Jesus Christ by Faith as much or more really then of we received it in the mouth of our Body But we 〈◊〉 understand this Real impression or inherence i. e. of the Supernatural Vertue of the Body of Christ See p. 338. †l. 3. c. 13. p. 315. viz. that born of the Virgin of the Greeks Whence it is that our Expressions are not so high as theirs And this Opinion of theirs he makes to be as ancient as Damascen This Opinion of the Modern Greeks faith he seems to be taken from Damascen some of whose expressions I think fit to produce For it is certain that to make a good Judgement of the Opinion of the modern Greeks we must ascend as high as him And M. Arnaud himself hath observed That John Damascen is as it were the S. Thomas of the Greeks Thus He. But § 321. n. 12. lest he should seem to fasten such a gross Opinion upon the Greek Church as they will not own nor others easily believe they maintain for he confesseth that it hath something in it that appears little reasonable and especially as to the Augmentation of Christs natural Body to be assez bizarre †and lest he should make it lyable to so many and odious absurdities as that a Transubstantiation which he endeavours to avoid may seem much the more plausible and eligible of the two perhaps I say for these considerations he undertakes to qualifie and render a credible and likely sence to it on this manner In saying 1. That they hold indeed an Vnion of the Divinity to the Bread and that in an higher manner than to any other Sacred sign or Ceremony but yet not Hypostatical 2. That they hold the Bread changed into an augmentative part of Christ's natural Body but it remaining still entire Bread as before and altered only in a Supernatural vertue added to it 3. Hold it to be joyned to Christs Body and augmenting it but so as to be not individually the same but unmerically distinct from it as also those new parts we receive by nourishment are distinct from all the former parts of our Body To be joyned to this natural Body of Christ not locally or to it as present in the Eucharist but as in Heaven How this As saith he a Mystery may be said to be an Appendix or Accessory to the thing of which it is a Mystery And to these 4 Qualifications this Author semms necessitated because otherwise Adoration and Transubstantiation in some part tho not a total Existence of the