man once contradict himself he is to be looked on as a perjured person and whatever he saith his word is not to be taken This he not only begins with but very triumphantly concludes with it in these words and this alone may suffice to annul whatever he has hitherto or shall hereafter object against us for a witness who has been once palpably conuinced to have forsworn or contradicted himself in matters of moment besides the condign punishment he is lyable unto he does vacate all evidences produced by him against his Adversary and deserves never more to be heard against him in any Tribunal I see now what it is they would be at no less than perpetual silence and being set in the Pillory with that Pamphlet on my forehead Dr. Still against Dr. Still for being guilty of contradicting my self would satisfie I. W. and his Friends This I suppose was the meaning of stopping my mouth for ever when this Answer was to come out But now I perceive it is so dangerous a thing I had best stand upon my defence and utterly deny that I have contradicted my self in any thing in which I. W. hath charged me 2. To make it then out that this is a groundless charge I must go through the several particulars insisted on The first is in the charge of Idolatry but how do I contradict my self about this had I vindicated the Church of Rome from Idolatry in my Defence of Arch-bishop Laud this had been indeed to contradict my self but this is not so much as pretended and if it were nothing could be more easily confuted for in that very Book as it falls out very happily there is a discourse to the same purpose proving the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry in Invocation of Saints and the worship of Images and that the Heathen in the worship of inferiour Deities and Images might be excused on the same grounds that those of the Church of Rome do excuse themselves Here is then no appearance of a contradiction in terms and it is only pretended to be by consequence viz. from yielding that the Church of Rome and we do not differ in Fundamental points and that the Church of Rome is therefore a true Church from whence he inferrs that it cannot be guilty of Idolatry because to teach that would be a Fundamental errour and inconsistent with the Being of a true Church and therefore to charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry and to allow it to be a true Church is a contradiction This is the substance of what he saith upon this head to which I shall answer by shewing 1. That this way of answering is very disingenuous 2. That it is Sophistical and proves not the thing which he intends 1. That it is a disingenuous way because he barely opposes a judgement of charity concerning their Church to a judgement of reason concerning the nature of actions without at all examining the force of those reasons which are produced in the Book he pretends to answer Can I. W. imagine that any one who enquires into the safest way for his salvation and hears the Church of Rome charged with Idolatry in her worship by arguments drawn from the plain Law of God the common sense of mankind the repugnancy of their way of worship to the conceptions we ought to have of the divine nature the consent of the ancient Christian Church the parity of the case in many respects with the Heathen Idolaters should presently conclude that all these arguments are of no force meerly because the person who made use of them had upon another occasion judged so charitably of that Church as to suppose it still to retain the essentials of a true Church I will put a case paralled to this suppose one of the Church of Iudah should have call'd the Church of Israel in the time of Ieroboam a true Church because they acknowledged the true God and did believe an agreement in that common acknowledgement to be sufficient to preserve the essentials of a Church among them and afterwards the same person should go about to convince the ten Tribes of their Idolatry in worshipping God by the Calves of Dan and Bethel would this be thought a sufficient way of answering him to say that he contradicted himself by granting them a true Church and yet charging them with Idolatry whereas the only true consequence would be that he thought some kind of Idolatry consistent with the Being of a Church Might not such a person justly say that they made a very ill use of his charity when he supposed only that kind of Idolatry which implyes more Gods than one to unchurch a people but however those persons were more concerned to vindicate themselves from Idolatry of any kind than he was to defend his charitable opinion of them and if they could prove to him that this inferiour sort of Idolatry does unchurch them as well as the grosser the consequence of it would be that his charity must be so much the less but their danger would be the same This is just our case with the Church of Rome we acknowledge that they still retain the Fundamental articles of the Christian faith that there is no dispute between them and us about the true God and his Son Iesus Christ as to his death resurrection glory and being the proper object of divine worship we yield that they have true Baptism among them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and we looking upon these as the essentials of a true Church do upon that account own that Church to be so but then we charge the Roman Church with gross corrupting that Worship which is proper to the divine nature by her worship of Images adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints which being done not in express terms against the worship of the true God but by consequence we do not think this doth destroy the Being of a Church among them although it makes the salvation of persons in her communion extreamly hazardous and after we have gone about to prove this by many and weighty arguments is it reasonable for any one to tell us that we contradict our selves and therefore our arguments do signifie nothing whereas in truth here is no appearance of a contradiction to that which is our own sense in this matter For what shadow of a contradiction is it to say that the Roman Church is a true Church and yet is guilty of Idolatry supposing that we believe some sort of Idolatry which is very sinful not to be yet of so high a nature as to unchurch those who practise it And we choose the Instance of the ten Tribes for the ground of this charity If they can prove that all sorts of Idolatry do necessarily destroy the essentials of a Church the consequence is we must have less charity for them than we had before And such a concession from us doth not shew their guilt to
of against the Scriptures was never so much as thought of in those days or if it were was not thought worth answering for they diâ— not in the least desert the proofs of Scripture because their Adversaries made use of it too But they endeavouâ—ed to shew that their Adversaries Doctrine had no solid Foundation in Scripture but theirs had i.e. that the Arians perverted it because they did not examine and compare places as they ought to do but run away with a few words without considering the scope and design of them or comparing them with places plainer than those were which they brought Thus when the Arians objected that place My Father is greater than I Athanasius bids them compare that with other places such as My Father and I are one and who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equâ—â— with God and by him all things were made c. When Arius objected to us there is but one God of whom are all things he telâ—s him he ought to consider the following words and one Lord Iesus Christ by whom are all things from whence when Arius argued that Christ was only Gods instrument in creating things Athanasius then bids him compare this place with another where it is said of whom the whole body c. Not barely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When the Arians objected Christs saying all things are delivered to me from my Father Athanasius opposes that place of St. Iohn to it By him all things were made Thus when they objected several other places he constantly hath recourse to Iohn 1. 1 2 3. to Phil. 2. 7. 1 Iohn 5. 20. and others which he thought the plainest places for Christs eternal Divinity and by these he proves that the other were to be interpreted with a respect to his humane nature and the State he was in upon Earth So that the greatest Defender of the Doctrine of the Trinity against the Arians saw no necessity at all of calling in the Assistance of any infalâ—ible Guides to give the certain sense of Scripture in these doubtful places but he thought the Scripture plain enough to all those who would impartially examine it and for others who wilfully shut their eyes no light could be great enough for them Indeed when the Arians called in the help of any of the Ancient Writers to justify their Doctrine then Athanasius thought himself concerneâ— to vindâ—cate them as particularly Dionysius of Alexandria But as he saith if they can produce Scripture or Reason for what they say let them do it but if not let them hold their peace Thereby implying that these were the only considerable things to be regarded yet he shews at large that they abused the Testimony of Dionysius who although in his letters against Sabellius he spake too much the other way yet in other of his writings he sufficiently cleared himself from being a savouâ—er of the Arian Heresie And although Athanasius doth else where say that the Faith which the Catholick Church then held was the faith of their Fore-fathers and descended from the Apostles yet he no where saith that without the help of that Tradition it had been impossible to have known the certain sense of Scripture much less without the infallible interpretation of the Guides of the present Church S. Hilary in his disputes against the same Hereticks professes in the beginning that his intention was to confound their rage and ignorance out of writings of the Prophets and Apostles and to that end desires of his Readers that they would conceive of God not according to the Laws of their own beings but according to the greatness of what he had declared of himself For he is the best Reader of Scripture who doth not bring his sense to the Scripture but takes it from it and doth not resolve before hand to find that there which he concluded must be the sence before he reads In things therefore which concern God we must allow him to know himself best and give due Reverence to his word For he is the best witness to himself who cannot be known but by himself In which words he plainly asserts that the Foundation of our Faith must be in the Scriptures and that a free and impartial mind is necessary to find out the true sense of Scripture And after he had said in the second Book that Heresies arise from misunderstanding the Scripture and charged in his fourth Book the Arians particularly with it he proceeds to answer all the places produced by them out of the old and new Testament by comparing several places together and the antecedents and consequents and by these means proving that they mistook the meaning of Scripture So in the beginning of his ninth Book rehearsing the Common places which were made use of by the Arians he saith they repeated the words alone without enquiring into the meaning or Contexture of them whereas the true sense of Scripture is to be taken from the antecedents and consequents their fundamental mistake being the applying those things to his Divine nature which were spoken of his humane which he makes good by a particular examination of the several places in Controversie The same course is taken by Epiphanius Phaebadius and others of the ancient Writers of the Church who asserted the Eternal Divinity of Christ against the Arians Epiphanius therefore charges them which mangling and perverting the sense of Scripture understanding figurative expressions literâ—â—ly and those which are intended in a plain sense figuratively So that it is observable in that great Controversie which disturbed the Church so many years which exercised the wits of all men in that time to find out a way to put an end to it after the Guides of the Church had in the Council of Nice declared what was the Catholick faith yet still the Controversie was managed about the sense of Scripture and no other ways made use of for finding it than such as we plead for at this day It is a most incredible thing that in a time of so violent contention so horrible confusion so scandalous divisions in the Christian Church none of the Catholick Bishops should once suggest this admirable Expedient of Infallibility But this Palladium was not then fallen down from heaven or if it were it was kept so secret that not one of the Writers of the Christian Church in that busie and disputing Age discovered the least knowledge of it Unless it be said that of all times it was then least fit to talk of Infallibility in the Guides of the Church when they so frequently in Councils contrâ—dicted each other The Synodical Book in the new Tomes of the Councils reckons up 31. several Councils of Bishops in the time of the Arian Controversie whereof near 20. were for the Arians and the rest against them If the sense of Scripture were in this time to be taken from the Guides of the
Testimonies of Scripture it must be made manifest to be the sense by clear Evidence of Reason But he rather approves the way of proving the sense of Scripture by other places of Scripture where the interpretation is doubtful So that the way in doubtful places which he prescribes is this either to draw such a sense from them as hath no dispute concerning its being a true Proposition or if it have that it be confirmed by other places of Scripture Besides these he lays down the 7. rules of Ticonius the Donatist which are not of that consequence to be here repeated that which I take notice of is that St. Augustin thought the rules he gave sufficient for understanding the meaning of Scripture in doubtful places but he doth not in the least mention the Infallibility of the Guides of the Church as a necessary means for that end But he doth assert in as plain terms as I have done that Scripture is plain in all necessaries to Salvation to any sober enquirer and what ever consequences are charged upon me for making that a Fundamental principle must reflect as much upon St. Augustin as me and I do not fear all the objections can be made against a principle so evident to reason and so agreeable not only to St. Augustin but the Doctrine of the Catholick Church both before and after him The next after St. Augustin who hath purposely writ of this argument about the sense of Scripture is Vincentius Lerinensis about 4. years after St. Augustins death and 3. after the Council of Ephesus who seems to attribute more to the Guides of the Church than St. Augustin doth yet far enough short of Infallibility He saith that every man ought to strengthen his faith against Heresie by two things first by the Authoriry of the divine Law and then by the Tradition of the Catholick Church which tradition he makes necessary not by way of addition to the Scripture for he allows the perfection and sufficiency of that for all things but only to interpret Scripture by giving a certain sense of it there being such different opinions among men about it For all the Hereticks whom he there names had different senses of Scripture as Novatianus Sabellius Donatus Arius Macedonius Photinus c. But then he bounds this tradition within the compass of the universal consent of Antiquity as well as the present Church or as he expresseth it within those things which were believed every where always and by all persons That we may therefore consider how far these rules of Vincentius will serve for explaining the sense of Scripture we are to take notice of the restrictions he lays upon them 1. That they are to be taken together and not one of them separate from the rest As for instance that of Vniversality in any one Age of the Church being taken without the consent of Antiquity is no sufficient rule to interpret Scripture by For Vincentius doth suppose that any one Age of the Church may be so overrun with Heresie that there is no way to confute it but by recourse to Antiquity For in the case of the Arian heresie he grants that almost the whole Church was overspread with it and there was then no way left but to prefer the consent of Antiquity before a prevailing novelty In some cases the Universal consent of the present Church is to be relyed upon against the attempts of particular persons as in that of the Donatists but then we are to consider that Antiquity was still pleaded on the same side that Vniversality was and supposing that all the Ancient Church from the Apostles times had been of the same mind with the Donatists the greater number of the same Age opposing them would have been no more cogent against them than it was afterwards for the Arians It is unreasonable to believe that in a thing universally believed by all Christians from the Apostles times the Christian Church should be deceived but it is quite another thing to say that the Church in any one or more Ages since the Apostles times may be deceived especially if the Church be confined to one certain Communion excluding all others and the persons in that Church have not liberty to deliver their opinions for then it is impossible to know what the Judgement of the whole Church is And so universality is not thought by Vincentius himself to be alone sufficient to determine the sense of Scripture supposing that universality to be understood according to the honesty of the Primitive times for a free and general consent of the Christians of that Age in which a man lives but since the great divisions of the Christian world it is both a very hard matter to know the consent of Christendom in most of the Controverted places of Scripture and withal the notion of Vniversality is debauched and corrupted and made only to signifie the consent of one great Faction which is called by the name of the Catholick Church but truly known by the name of Roman 2. That great care and Judgement must be used in the applying those Rules for 1. The consent of Antiquity is not equally evident in all matters in dispute and therefore cannot be of equal use 1. There are some things wherein we may be certain of such a consent and that was in the Rule of Faith as Vincentius and most of the ancient Writers call it i.e. the summary comprehension of a Christians duty as to matters of faith which was not so often called the Symbol as the Rule of Faith that I mean which was delivered to persons who were to be baptized and received into the Church this the ancient Church Universally agreed in as to the substance of it And as to this Vincentius tells us his Rule is especially to be understood For saith he this consent of Antiquity is not to be sought for in all questions that may arise about the sense of Scripture but only or at least chiefly in the Rule of Faith or as he elsewhere explains himself alone or chiefly in those Questions which concern the Fundamentals of the Catholick Doctrine which were those contained in the Rule of Faith delivered to all that were to be baptized Suppose men now should stretch this Rule beyond the limits assigned it by Vincentius what security can there be from him that it shall be a certain rule who confined it within such narrow bounds Not that I think his Rules of no use at all now no I think them to be of admirable use and great importance to Christianity if truly understood and applyed i.e. When any Persons take upon them to impose any thing upon others as a necessary matter of faith to be believed by them we can have no better rules of Judgement in this case than those of Vincentius are viz. Antiquity Vniversality and Consent and whatsoever cannot be proved by these Rules ought to be rejected by all Christians To make this plain the
will suffer the people to try nothing but do teach them wholly to depend on them and to that purpose they have indeed three notable sleights First they forbid them the reading of the Scriptures And the better to be obeyed therein they will not permit the Scriptures to be Translated into the Vulgar Tongue Whereof it came to pass that the people were so easily seduced and drawn from Christ to the Pope from his merits to the Saints and their own merits from his bloody sacrifice whereby only sins are remitted to their most dry and fruitless sacrifice from the spiritual food of his Body and Blood unto a carnal and Capernaitical Transubstantiation from the calling upon his name to an Invocation of Saints and from their sure trust and confidence in his death to a vain imagination of the vertue of their Masses Pilgrimages Pardons and I know not what intolerable Superstition and Idolatry I hope Arch-Bishop Bancroft may for once pass for no Puritan with T. G. But what will he say if the only persons he produces as most partial of his side do give in evidence against him Bishop Mountague is the first whose words are these in the Book cited by him Our predecessors and Fathers coming late out of Popery living near unto Papists and Popish times conversing with them having been nuzzled and brought up amongst them and knowing that Images used to be crept unto incensed worshipped and adored among them c. What thinks he is not this all one as to charge them with Idolatry And more plainly in his former Book But whatsoever you say however you qualify the thing with gentle words we say in your practice you far exceed and give them that honour which is Latria a part of Divine respect and worship And afterwards saith the people go to it with downright adoration and your new Schools defend that the same respect is due to the representer as must be given to the representee So that the Crucifix is to be reverenced with the the self-same honour that Christ Jesus is Ablasphemy not heard of till Thomas Aquinas set it on foot Clear these enormities and others like these then come and we may talk and soon agree concerning honour and respect unto Reliques or Images of Saints or Christ till then we cannot answer it unto our Maker to give his honour unto a Creature His next is Pet. Heylin And now I hope we have at last hit upon a man far enough from being a Puritan yet this very Person gives plain evidence against him For i◠his 4th Sermon on the Tares preached a◠White-Hall Ianuary 27. 1638. H◠hath these words So it is also in the point of Images first introduced into the Church for ornament History and imitation Had they staid there it had been well and no faul◠found with them But when the Schools began to State it that the same Veneration was to be afforded to the Type and Prototype then came the Doctrine to the growth When and by whom and where it was first so stated is not easie to determine and indeed not necessary It is enough that we behold it in the fruits And what fruits think you could it bear but most gross Idolatry greater than which was never known among the Gentils Witness their praying not before but to the Crucifix and calling on the very Cross the wooden and material Cross both to increase their righteousness and remit their sins And for the Images of the Saints they that observe with what laborious Pilgrimages magnificent processions solemn offerings and in a word with what affections prayers and humble bendings of the body they have been and are worshipped in the Church of Rome might very easily conceive that She was once again relapsed into her ancient Paganism With much more to the same purpose His only person remaining is Mr. Thorndike a man of excellent Learning and great piety but if we should grant that he held some thing singular in this matter what is that to the constant opinion of our Church and yet even Mr. Thorndike himself in a paper sent by him 〈◊〉 some whom T. G. know's not long before his death saith That to pray to Saints for those things which only God can give as all Papist do is by the proper sense of the word◠down-right Idolatry If they say their meaning is by a figure only to desire them to procure their requests of God How dare any Christian trust his soul with that Church which teaches that which must needs be Idolatry in all that understand not the figure So that upon the whole matter T. G. cannot produce any on◠Person of our Church that hath clearly an◠wholly acquitted the Church of Rome from the charge of Idolatry It seems then 〈◊〉 Church hath been made up of Puritans i◠T. G's sense of them But if these do no◠satisfy him what doth he think of the Arch-Bishop and Bishops and Clergy of the Convocation A. D. 1640. Were 〈◊〉 these Puritans too And yet in the sevent◠Canon they have these words And albeit at the time or Reforming this Church from that gross Superstition of Popery it was carefully provided that all means should be used to root out of the minds of the people both the inclination thereto and memory thereof especially of the Idolatry committed in the Mass for which cause all Popish Altars were demolished c. What can more express the sense of our Church than the concurrent opinion of Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy of both Provinces met in Convocation When we see they so lately charged the Church of Rome with Idolatry Let us now consider what exceptions he takes against the other witnesses produced by me Jewel Bilson Davenant all eminent Bishops of our Church and of great learning are cast away at once as incompetent Persons But why so Why saith T. G. they were all excepted against by our late Soveraign K. Charcles I. in his third paper to Henderson That is a shrewd prejudice indeed to their Authority to be rejected by a Prince of so excellent a judgement and so Cordial a friend to the Church of England But it is good to be sure whether it be so or no. All that he saith of Bishop Iewel is this and though I much reverence Bishop Iewel ' s memory I never thought him infallible So then he must he Puritanically inclined but whence does that follow not surely from the Kings reverencing his memory for that were to reflect upon the King himself not from his not thinking him Infallible For I dare say the King never thought the Pope infallible must be needs therefore think him a Puritan Surely never man was such a Friend to the Puritans as this T. G. who without any ground gives them away some of the greatest honours of our Church and if the Testimony last cited be of any force to prove one a Puritan all mankind and himself too for I plainly perceive by this
of Trent make Orders a Sacrament and one of those which doth imprint an indelible character and doth not that Council pronounce an Anathema against those that denyed the validity of the Sacrament administred by one in mortal sin in case he observes the essentials of it How then can T. G â—scape excommunication from his own Church that denies the validity of the Sacrament of Orders in case of the sin of the Givers of it If the validity of the Sacrament doth not dâ—pend on the worth or quality of the Ministers of it but upon the essentials and the institution of Christ how can the fault of the persons hinder the conveyance of that Authority which they are only the bare instruments to convey Doth T. G. think so in all other Sacraments as in case of Baptism that supposing the Ministers of it have been guilty of Heresie or Idolatry the Sacrament loses its effect Well fare then the Donatists whose opinion this was and in whom it hath been condemned by the Church If it be not so in other Sacraments how comes it to be thus in Orders which he must acknowledge to be as much a Sacrament as Baptism or else he must renounce the Council of Trent And it is observable that the very argument used by the Donatists and others was the same which T. G. here produces viz. his common maxim of Reason and not denyable by any man of common sense that no man can give to another that which he hath not himself to which this answer was given that the Instrument was not the giver but the first Institutor and in case the Minister keep to the Institution the Grace of the Sacrament may be conveyed by him though he hath it not himself But methinks if T. G. had forgotten the Doctrine of the Council of Trent he might have looked into some one or other of their own Authors to have informed himself better of their Doctrine in this matter Vasquez hath a Chapter on purpose to prove that an Heretical excommunicated suspended Bishop is a sufficient Minister of Ordination and saith that all the Schoolmen and Summists are agreed in it and that there can be no doubt at all made of it And did none of these men understand the principle that is undenyable by any man of common sense what a back-blow is this to those of his own Church for Vasquez saith this is determined as a matter of faith among them that the validity of a Sacrament doth not depend on the probity or faith of the Minister And he denies it to be in the power of the Church to hinder the effect of ordination in an excommunicated Bishop because it cannot blot out his Character or take away his power Estius saith that no Crime how great soever whether haeresie Schism or Apostasie no censure how heavy soever as excommunication can hinder the validity of ordination by a Bishop although it be of those who are not subject to his jurisdiction in case he observes the lawful rites of ordination as to the essence of the Sacrament for this reason because ordination belongs to the power of Order which being once received can never be lost but those things which belong to Jurisdiction as absolution and excommunication have no effect where that Jurisdiction is taken away And this Doctrine they all ground upon St Augustins discourse against the Donatists and upon the practice of the Church at that time which did receive those who were ordained among the Donatists without scrupling their Orders as not only appears by the testimony of St. Augustin but by the decree of an African Council to that purpose and that not only at first but when the Schism was Grown inveterate And yet Francis Hallier a late Doctor of the Sorbon tells us that the Donatists were not barely Schismaticks but they were adjudged hereticks for asserting that the efficacy of Sacraments did depend upon the quality of the persons and not upon the merits of Christ. The same Author vehemently disputes against those who assert that the power of Order can be lost by the sin of the person and shews that Doctrine hath been condemned by several Councils before that of Trent as of Arles of Orleans and Constance and undertakes to answer all the instances brought from Antiquity to the contrary as either understood of such hereticks which did not retain the essentials of the Sacrament or only implying the fault committed in giving or receiving them at the hands of such persons but not any invalidity in the Sacrament it self And afterwards he proves that Hereticks are capable of ordination But if these and many others of their later Writers will not satisfy him I desire him to consult their more ancient Authors Thom. Aquinas determins that Hereticks and those who are cut off from the Church may give orders as well as administer other Sacraments the reason he gives is that a power in Consecration is given to a Bishop which can never be taken from him although he will not allow it to be called a Character For several especially of the ancient Schoolmen would not have consecration to imprint a new Character but they were never able to give an intelligible account of what they meant by the Character as distinct from that Sacramental power which was conveyed by consecration and they granted to be indelible as the other was some making it an extension of the Character of Priesthood others a bare extrinsecal denomination added to it but however they held it such as could no more be taken away than the Character of Priesthood Cardinal Bonaventure saith that the validity of Sacraments among Hereticks was a Question much in dispute among the ancient Doctors but that it hath been determined by St. Augustin that they are valid if they preserve the essentials of them and in the matter of ordination he saith that the power of Orders although it be not a distinct Character yet because it is built upon it can no more be taken away than the Character it self but whatever is founded upon Jurisdiction as the power of excommunication and absolution may be taken away But I need not mention any more particular Writers since Morinus acknowledges that for 400. years the opinion of the validity of Orders conferred by Hereticks hath only obtained in the Roman Church Before that time he proves at large that it was more disputable as appears by the Master of the Sentences who accounts it a perplexed and almost insoluble difficulty because of the different opinions of Doctors about it but afterwards St. Augustins opinion was generally received both among the Schoolmen and Canonists and is now become a matter of faith in the Roman Church at least by consequence since the Decrees of Councils And although Morinus will not allow that any decree of their Church hath passed in this matter yet he saith there hath been so long and so universal a
consent of Doctors in this point that it ought to be instead of a Law which they ought not to violate By this we may judge of the learning and skill of T. G. in the Doctrine of his own Church But if he would not look into the Controversal Writers of their Church yet if he had but searched into the practice of the Church either in ancient or modern times he would have been ashamed to have made use of such an Argument to overthrow all Ecclesiastical Authority among us I grant that in some tumultuous Ages of the Church Ordinations have been adjudged null through the defaults of the Persons but then it was meerly for breaking the Canons of the Church so it was in the case of Formosus for breaking the Canons against the Translations of Bishops in the case of Ebbo Arch-Bishop of Rhemes whose ordinations were nulled by Hincmarus and the Council of Soissons for not being Canonically restored after deposition but upon appeal to the Pope they were pronounced valid in the Case of Pope Constantine for precepitating Orders to secure the Popedom in the famous case of Photius whose ordination was declared Null by the opposite faction on the same grounds but all these things were done in troublesome times when one party sought a pretence against the other But if we regard the more general practice of the Church we shall find when far greater objections than these were made yet Ordinations have been allowed although made by Hereticks I shall offer him the fairest terms he can desire and for the practice of the Church referr him to his own dear second Council of Nice and the modern practice of the Roman Church The Question of the validity of Ordination by Hereticks was at large debated in the first action of the second Council of Nice upon the submission of Basilius Theodorus and Theodosius Hypatius and others who had been Bishops of the opposite party which John the Vicar of the Orient there declared to be worse than any former heresie upon which the Question was proposed whether upon renouncing their heresie they might be received as Bishops and the orders be allowed of those who were ordained by them during their Heresie Hypatius appealed to the custom of the Church then the Canons of Councils and writings of the Fathers were brought into Council Tarasius produced the Canon of the Council of Nice allowing the Ordinations of the Cathari and the imposition of hands there mentioned he understands only for benediction and not for ordination and the Council of Ephesus making no distinction between those ordained by Nestorians and others for therein the force of that third Canon must lye which Tarasius thought so plain from St. Basil allowing those Bishops which communicated with Isoes or Zoius and Saturninus from the Council of Ephesus allowing the Orders of the Messaliani or Euchitae from the Council of Chalcedon allowing the Bishops upon their repentance which had joyned with Dioscorus and more particularly for those which had been ordained by Heretical Bishops it was there shewed that Anatolius the President of the fourth Council was ordained by Dioscorus in the presence of Eutyches that John Bishop of Hierusalem after he had renounced the Acephalists by whom he was ordained was received and submitted to as Bishop by the Orthodox that many of those who sat in the sixth Council were ordained by Sergius Pyrrhus Paulus and Petrus who were in that Council declared to be Hereticks and for 50. years together Tarasius saith they had no other ordinations upon these evidences of the practice of the Church this Council of Nice declared likewise that the ordination of Heretical Bishops was valid For the modern practice of the Church of Rome I appeal to the allowance therein given to the Ordinations of the Greek Church although the Greek Church be charged with Heresie and that ever since the notorious Schism in the time of Michael Cerularius A. D. 1053. In the time of Innocent the third some Greek Clergy-men living in the Dioceses of Latin Bishops yet received ordination from Greek Bishops which made the Latin Bishops suspend them from the execution of their Office the Pope hearing of it sends to his Legat wherein he consents to the suspension in case it were done without leave from the Latin Bishop but if leave were obtained he takes off the suspension because this custom is allowed in the Church I need not produce more particular instances in this kind which may be seen at large in Morinus because in all the attempts of reconciliation in the several Councils held to that purpose as at Lyons and Florence where all the matters in difference were most fully handed there was never any objection made to the Greek Ordinations But most remarkable to this purpose is the Bull of Clement the seventh containing in it a former Bull of Leo the tenth published by Leo Allatius by Isaacius Habertus and by Morinus wherein their Ordinations and other rites and customs are expresly allowed And to this day saith Morinus they are allowed in Rome not only to perform other parts of divine service according to their customs in the Church of St. Athanasius but to ordain Priests after their own manner for which they had a Bull of Urban the eighth And now I desire T. G. to consider a little his undeniable maxim that no man can give to another that which he hath not himself whether he doth in earnest think that his own Church is so bereft of all common sense as not to understand the force of this Maxim and if it thought it of any weight in this matter how it could ever approve the Ordinations of Hereticks or decree that the Sacraments retain their efficacy where the essentials of them are observed whatever the faith or manners of the Instruments be And this was all I intended in this Preface of the rest of his Book the Reader may expect an account as God gives health and opportunity The Contents PReface to the two first Answers p. 1. A particular examination of the Pamphlet entitled Doct. Stillingfleet against Doct. Stillingfleet Of the insufficiency of J. W.'s way of answering p. 13. No contradiction about the charge of Idolatry p. 18. A distinct answer to his propositions p. 26. In what sense the Church of Rome is owned by us as a true Church p. 29. His Appendix about Idolatry considered p. 34. The second contradiction examined p. 39. The charge of Fanaticism defended p. 50. No contradiction in the charge of divisions p. 65. The conclusion p. 71. An Answer to the Book entitled Doct. Stillingfleets Principles considered The occasion of annexing those principles p. 75. Of the notion of Infallibility p. 79. N. O's concessions p. 85. His principles laid down p. 95. His exceptions answered p. 98. His proofs of Infallibility examined p. 110. Of the Arguments from Scripture for Infallibility p. 116. Of the argument from Tradition for it p. 123. Of
it self true is captiously set down and with an intention only to deceive unwary readers as will appear by the next proposition 2. To teach Idolatry is to err against the formentioned article of faith and Fundamental point of Religion i. e. to teach Idolatry is to teach that the honour which is due only to God is to be given to a meer creature That this is to teach Idolatry no one questions but our question is Whether they who do not teach this Proposition may not teach men to do those things whereby the worship due only to God will be given to a meer creature If he can prove that they who do not in terms declare that they do not dishonour God cannot dishonour him if he can demonstrate that those who do not teach that the honour which is due only to God is to be given to a creature cannot possibly by any actions of theirs rob him of that honour which is due to him this will be much more to his purpose than any thing he hath yet said And this proposition if he had proceeded as he ought to have done should not have been a particular affirmative but an Universal Negative For it is not enough to say that to teach Idolatry is to teach that the honour which is due only to God is to be given to a creature but that No Church which doth not teach this can be guilty of Idolatry for his design being to clear the Roman Church his Proposition ought to be so framed that all particulars may be comprehended under it But because he may say his immediate intention was not to clear their Church from Idolatry but to accuse me of a contradiction I proceed to the next Proposition 3. A Church that does not err against any article of faith nor against any Fundamental point of Religion does not teach Idolatry This proposition is likewise very Sophistical and captious for by article of faith and fundamental point of Religion is either understood the main fundamental points of doctrine contained in the Apostles Creed and then I affirm that a Church which doth own all the Fundamentals of doctrine may be guilty of Idolatry and teach those things wherein it lyes but if by not erring against any article of faith be meant that a Church which doth not err at all in matters of Religion cannot teach Idolatry the Proposition is true but impertinent 4. That the Church of Rome doth teach Veneration of Images adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints is agreed on both sides 5. That the Roman Church does not err against any article of faith or Fundamental point of Religion This being that concession of ours from whence all the force of his argument is taken must be explained according to our own sense of it and not according to that which he puts upon it which that it may be better understood I shall both shew in what sense this concession is made by us as to the Church of Rome and of what force it is in this present debate For the clearer understanding in what sense it is made by us we are to consider the occasion of the Controversie about Fundamentals between us and the Church of Rome which ought to be taken from that Book to which he referrs There we find the occasion of it to be the Romanists contending that all points defined by the Church are Fundamental or necessary to salvation on the account of such a Definition upon this the controversie about Fundamentals was managed against them with a design to prove that all things defined by the Church of Rome are not Fundamental or necessary to be believed by all persons in order to their salvation because they were so defined To this purpose I enquired 1. What the grounds are on which any thing doth become necessary to salvation 2. Whether any thing whose matter is not necessary and is not required by an absolute command in Scripture can by any means whatsoever afterwards become necessary 3. Whether the Church hath power by any proposition or definition to make anything become necessary to salvation and to be believed as such which was not so before For the first I proposed two things 1. What things are necessary to the salvation of men as such or considered in their single or private capacities 2. What things are necessary to be owned in order to salvation by Christian Societies or as the bonds and conditions of Ecclesiastical communion For the resolving of this I laid down these three Propositions 1. That the very being of a Church doth suppose the necessity of what is required to be believed in order to salvation 2. Whatever Church owns those things which are antecedently necessary to the Being of a Church cannot so long cease to be a true Church And here I expresly distinguished between the essentials of a Church and those things which were required to the Integrity or soundness of it among which latter I reckoned the worship of God in the way prescribed by him 3. That the Union of the Catholick Church depended upon the agreement of it in things antecedently necessary to its being From hence I proceeded to shew that nothing ought to be owned as necessary to Salvation by Christian Societies but such things which by all those Societies are acknowledged antecedently necessary to the Being of the Catholick Church And here I distinguished between necessary articles of faith and particular agreements for the Churches peace I did not therefore deny but that it was in the power of particular Churches to require a Subscription to articles of Religion opposite to the errours and abuses which they reformed but I denyed it to be in the power of any Church to make those things necessary articles of faith which were not so before And here it was I shewed the moderation of the Church of England above that of Rome in that our Church makes no articles of faith but such as have the testimony and approbation of the whole Christian world of all Ages and are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self but the Church of Rome imposeth new articles of faith to be believed as necessary to salvation as appears by the Bull of Pius 4. This is my plain meaning which half-witted men have stretched and abused to several ill purposes but not to wander from my present subject what is it that I. W. can hence infer to his purpose viz. that from hence it follows that the Church of Rome does not erre against any article of faith or any point necessary to salvation which if it be only meant of those essential points of faith which I suppose antecedently necessary to the Being of a Church I deny it not but do not see of what use this concession can be to them in the present debate since in the following Discourse I made the ancient Creeds of the Catholick Church the best measure of those things which were believed to be necessary to
Governâ—uâ—s of a Christian society the Priviledge of Commanding in things which God hath nâ—t alâ— ready determined by his own Law We plead for the respect and reverence which is due to the Lawful constitutiâ—ns oâ— the Church whereof we are members and 〈◊〉 the just Authority of the Guides it in the exercise of that power which is committed to the Governours of it as the successours of the Apostles in their care of the Christian Church although not in their Infallibility 6. We allow a very great Authority to the Guides of the Catholick Church in the best times of Christianity and look upon the concurrent sense of Antiquity as an excellent means to understand the mind of Scripture in places otherwise doubtful and obscure We prosess a great Reverence to the Ancient Fathers of the Church but Especially when assembled in free and General Councils We reject the ancient heresies condemned in them which we the rather believe to be against the Scripture because so ancient so wise and so great persons did deliver the contrary doctrine not only to be the sense of the Church in their own time but ever since the Apostles Nay we reject nothing that can be proved by an universal Tradition from the Apostolical times downwards but we have so great an opinion of the Wisdom and Piety of those excellent Guides of the Church in the Primitive times that we see no reason to have those things forced upon us now which we offer to prove to be contrary to their doctrine and practice So that the controversy between us is not about the Authority of the Guides of the Church but whether the Guides of the Apostolical and Primitive times ought not to have greater Authority over us than those of the present Church in things wherein they contradict each other This is the true State of the Controversy between us and all the clamours of rejecting the Authority of Church Guides are vain and impertinent But we profess to yield greater reverence and submission of mind to Christ and his Apostles than to any Guides of the Church ever since we are sure they spake by an Infallible Spirit and where they have determined matters of Faith or practice we look upon it as arrogance and presumption in any others to alter what they have declared And for the Ages since we have a much gâ—eater esteem for those neaâ—est the Apostolical times and so downwards till Ignorance Ambition and private Interests sway'd too much among those who were called the Guides of the Church And that by the confession of those who were members of it at the same time which makes us not to wonder that such corruptions of doctrine and practice should then come in but we do justly wonder at the sincerity of those who would not have them reformed and taken away 7. In matters imposed upon us to believe or practise which are repugnant to plain commands of Scripture or the Evidence offense or the grounds of Christian Religion we assert that no Authority of the present Guides of a Church is to overrule our faith or practice For there are some things so plain that no Man will be guided by anothers opinion in them If any Philosopher did think his Authority ought to overrule an Ignorant Mans opinion in saying the snow which he saw to be white was not so I would fain know whether that Man did better to believe his eyes or the prudent experienc'd Philosopher I am certain if I destroy the Evidence of sense I must overthrow the grounds of Christian Religion and I am as certain if I believe that not to be bread which my senses tell me is so I must destroy the greatest Evidence of sense and which is fitter for me to reject that Evidence which assures my Christianity to me or that Authority which by its impositions on my faith overthrows the certainty of sense We do not say that we are to reject any doctrine delivered in Scripture which concerns a Being infinitely above our understanding because we cannot comprehend all things contained in it but in matters lyable to sense and the proper objects of it we must beg pardon if we prefer the grounds of our common Christianity before a novel and monstrous figment hatched in the times of Ignorance and Barbarism foster'd by faction and imposed by Tyranny We find no command so plain in Scripture that we must believe the Guides of the Church in all they deliver as there is that we must not worship Images that we must pray with understanding that we must keep to our Saviours Institution of the Lords supper but if any Guides of a Church pretend to an Authority to evacuate the force of these Laws we do not so much reject their Authority as prefer Gods above them Doth that Man destroy the authority of Parents that refuses to obey them when they Command him to commit Treason That is our case in this matter supposing such Guides of a Church which otherwise we are bound to obey if they require things contrary to a direct Command of God must we prefer their Guidance before Gods If they can prove us mistaken we yield but till then the Question is not whether the Guides of the Church must be submitted to rather than our own reason but whether Gods authority or theirs must be obeyed And I would gladly know whether there be not some Points of faith and some parts of our duty so plain that no Church-Authority determining the contrary ought to be obey'd 8. No absolute submission can be due to those Guides of a Church who have opposed and contradicted each other and condemned one anâ—ther for errour and hereâ—y For then in case of absolute submission a Man must yield his assent to contradictions and for the same reason that he is to be a Catholick at one time he must be a heretick at another I hope the Guides of the present Church pretend to no more infallibility and Authority than their predecessours in the same Capacity with themselves have had and we say they have contradicted the sense of those before them in the matters in dispute between us Yet that is not the thing I now insist upon but that these Guides of the Church have declared each other to be fallible by condemning their opinions and practices and by that means have made it necessary for men to believe those not to be infallible unless both parts of a contradiction may be infallibly true Suppose a Man living in the times of the prevalency of Arrianism when almost all the Guides of the Church declared in favour of it when several great Councils opposed and contradicted that of Nice when Pope Liberius did subscribe the Sirmian confession and Communicated with the Arrians what advice would N. O. give such a one if he must not exercise his own Judgement and compare both the doctrines by the rule of Scriptures must he follow the present Guides even the Pope himself Then he must
Ancient Creeds we allow on both sides to have been universally received by the Catholick Church but now the Church of Rome adds new Articles to be believed we desire to put the whole matter upon this issue Let the Popes Supremacy the Roman Churches Infallibility the Doctrines of Transubstantiation Purgatory c. be proved by as Universal Consent of Antiquity as the Articles of the Creed are and then let them charge us with Heresie if we reject them But we say the measure of Heresie in the Ancient Church was the rejecting the Rule of Faith universally received among Christians this Rule of Faith we stand to and say no other can be made upon any pretence whatsoever as Vincentius at large proves but what ever things are obtruded on the belief of Christians which want that Vniversal consent of Antiquity which the Rule of Faith had we are bound by Vincentius from plain Scripture to shun them as prophane novelties and corruptions of the Christian Faith These Rules therefore are not barely allowed but pleaded for by us in the test of Articles of Faith as to which Vincentius tells us if not the only yet the chief use of them is 2. But suppose the Question be not concerning the express Articles of this Rule of Faith but concerning the sense and meaning of them how then are we to find out the consent of Antiquity For they might all agree in the words and yet have a different notion of the things As Petavius at large proves that there was an ancient Tradition for the substance of the Doctrine of the Trinity and yet he confesses that most of the Writers of the ancient Church did differ in their explication of it from that which was only allowed by the Council of Nice And he grants that Arius did follow the opinion of many of the Ancients in the main of his Doctrine who were guilty of the same error that he was before the matter was throughly discussed Here now arises the greatest difficulty to me in this point of Tradition the usefulness of it I am told is for explaining the sense of Scripture but there begins a great Controversie in the Church about the explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity I desire to know whether Vincentius his Rules will help us here It is pleaded by St. Hierome and others that the Writers of the Church might err in this matter or speak unwarily in it before the matter came to be throughly discussed if so how comes the Testimony of erroneous or unwary Writers to be the certain means of giving the sense of Scripture And in most of the Controversies of the Church this way hath been used to take off the Testimony of persons who writ before the Controversie began and spake differently of the matter in debate I do not deny the truth of the allegation in behalf of those persons but to my understanding it plainly shews the incompetency of Tradition for giving a certain sense of Scripture when that Tradition is to be taken from the Writers of the foregoing Ages and if this had been the only way of confuting Arius it is a great Question how he could ever have been condemned if Petavius or St. Hierome say true But since a General Council hath determined the contrary to the opinion of these Writers before which Council hath been received by the Universal Church I will not deny that they had better opportunities of knowing what the sense of the Ancient Church was when so many writings were extant which are now lost than we can have at this distance and therefore we yield all submission to a Council of that nature and proceeding in that manner which that of Nice did who did not meerly determine that Controversie by the number of Writers on their side before them but by comparing the opinions afterwards with the Rule of Scriptures and in this regard we acknowledge a great Reverence due to the decrees of such General Councils as that was Therefore next to the Rule of Faith we allow a great veneration to the determinations of lawful General Councils Universally received which Vincentius himself pleads for But supposing no general Councils or such which are not allowed or received for such we are yet to enquire into the ways of finding out Catholick tradition which may interpret Scripture For this end he proposes another means which is The gathering together the opinions of those Fathers alone who living holily wisely and constantly in the faith and communion of the Catholick Church have died in that faith or else for it But still with this reserve that what either all or many of them manifestly frequently and constantly as it were by a Council of them have confirmed by their receiving holding and delivering of it that ought to be held for undoubted certain and firm but whatsoever any one though holy and learned though a Bishop confessour or Martyr hath held against the opinion of others that ought not to be looked on as the judgement of the Church but as his own private opinion and therefore not to be followed Which words I shall not examine with all the severity that some have done for then the proving these conditions to have been observed by any one person would require more pains and be less capable of resolution than the matter it self is but I say that in most of the Controversies this day in the Christian world it may be much more satisfactory to examine the merits of the cause than the integrity of the witnesses these conditions being supposed And yet after all this we must not misunderstand him as though this way would serve to confute all heresies For he tells us yet farther 2. This course can only hold in some new and upstart heresies i.e. in case of the pretence of some new revelation when men pretend to some special grace without humane industry to discover some divine truth not known before but in case of ancient and inveterate heresies he saith we have no way to deal with them but either only by Scripture or else by plain decrees of General Councils for when heresies have been of long continuance then saith he we may have ground to suspect they have not dealt fairly with the Testimonies of ancient times And thus we see what Vincentius hath offered towards the resolution of this great Question how we may be sure of the certain sense of Scripture in controverted places wherein is nothing contained but what we are willing to stand to and very far from the least supposition of any infallibility in the present Guides of the Church for that end Thus far I have taken the pains to search into the opinion of the Primitive Church in this important Controversie which I might carry yet farther if it were at all needful The substance of what is delivered by them is this that if any Controversie arise in the Church concerning the sense of Scripture if the
their Guides only upon the opinion of their skill and integrity and when they see reason to Question these they know of no obligation to follow their conduct over rocks and precipices if they are so careless of their own welfare others are not bound to follow them therein But we are not to presume persons so wholly Ignorant but they have some general Rules by which to Judge of the skill and fidelity of their Guides If a Person commits himself to the care of a Pilot to carry him to Constantinople because of his ignorance of the Sea should this man still rely upon his Authority if he carried him to find out the North West passage No though he may not know the particular Coasts so well yet he knows the East and West the North and South from each other If a stranger should take a Guide to conduct him from London to York although he may not think fit to dispute with him at every doubtful turning yet is he bound to follow him when he travels all day with the Sun in his face for although he doth not know the direct road yet he knows that he is to go Northward The meaning of all this is that the supposition of Guides in Religion doth depend upon some common principles of Religion that are or may be known to all and some precepts so plain that every Christian without any help may know them to be his duty within the compass of these plain and known duties lyes the capacity of persons judging of their Guides if they carry them out of this beaten way they have no reason to rely upon them in other things if they keep themselves carefully within those bounds and shew great integrity therein then in doubtful and obscure things they may with more safety rely upon them But if they tell them they must put out their eyes to follow them the better or if they kindly allow them to keep their eyes in their heads yet they must believe them against their eye-sight if they perswade them to break plain Commands of God and to alter the Institutions of Christ what reason can there be that any should commit themselves to the absolute Conduct of such unfaithful Guides And this is not to destroy all Authority of faithful Guides for they may be of great use for the direction of unskilful persons in matters that are doubtful and require skill to resolve them but it is only to suppose that their Authority is not absolute nor their direction infallible But if we take away this Infallible direction from the Guides of the Church what Authority is there left them As much as ever God gave them and if they will not be contented with that we cannot help it and that it may appear how vain and frivolous these exceptions are I shall now shew what real Authority is still left in the Governours of the Church though Infallibility be taken away And that lyes in three things 1. An Authority of inflicting censures upon offenders which is commonly called the Power of the keys or of receiving into and excluding out of the Communion of the Church This the Church was invested with by Christ himself and is the necessary consequence of the being and institution of a Christian Society which cannot be preserved in its purity and peace without it Which Authority belongs to the Governours of the Church and however the Church in some respects be incorporated with the Common-wealth in a Christian State yet its Fundamental Rights remain distinct from it of which this is one of the chief to receive into and exclude out of the Church such persons which according to the Laws of a Christian Society are fit to be taken in or shut out 2. An Authority of making Rules and Canons about matters of order and decency in the Church Not meerly in the necessary circumstances of time and place and such things the contrary to which imply a natural indecency but in continuing and establishing those ancient rites of the Christian Church which were practised in the early times of Christianity and are in themselves of an indifferent nature Which Authority of the Church hath been not only asserted in the Articles of our Church but strenuously defended against the trifling objections of her Enemies from Scripture Antiquity and Reason And I freely grant not only that such an Authority is in it self reasonable and just but that in such matters required by a Lawful Authority such as that of our Church is there is an advantage on the side of Authority against a scrupulous Conscience which ought to over-rule the practice of such who are the members of that Church 3. An Authority of proposing matters of faith and directing men in Religion Which is the proper Authority of Teachers and Guides and Instructers of others which may be done several ways as by particular instruction of doubtful persons who are bound to make use of the best helps they can among which that of their Guides is the most ready and useful and who are obliged to take care of their Souls and therefore to give the most faithful advice and Counsel to them Besides this there is a publick way of instructing by discourses grounded upon Scripture to particular congregations assembled together for the worship of God in places set apart for that end and therefore called Churches And those who are duly appointed for this work and ordained by those whose office is to ordain viz. the Bishops have an Authority to declare what the mind and Will of God is contained in Scripture in order to the Salvation and edification of the Souls of men But besides this we may consider the Bishops and representative Clergy of a Church as met together for reforming any abuses crept into the practice of Religion or errours in Doctrine and in this case we assert that such a Synod or Convocation hath the power and Authority within it self especially having all the ancient rights of a Patriarchal Church when a more general consent cannot be obtained to publish and declare what those errours abuses are to do as much as in them lyes to reform them viz. by requiring a consent to such propositions as are agreed upon for that end of those who are to enjoy the publick offices of teaching and instructing others Not to the end that all those propositions should be believed as Articles of Faith but because no Reformation can be effected if persons may be allowed to preach and officiate in the Church in a way contrary to the design of such a Reformation And this is now that Authority we attribute to the Governours of our Church although we allow no Infallibility to them And herein we proceed in a due mean between the extremes of robbing the Church of all Authority of one side and advancing it to Infallibility on the other But we cannot help the weakness of those mens understanding who cannot apprehend that any such thing as Authority
of our Church But saith T. C. the subscribing the Book of Homilies as containing a godly and wholesome Doctrine doth not evince that every particular Doctrine contained in it is such Be it so but I hope it doth evince that the Subscribers did not think the main Doctrine of any one Homily to be false Surely there is a great deal of difference between some particular passages and expressions in these Homilies and that which is the main design and Foundation of any one of them But in this case we are to observe that they who deny the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry do not only look on the Charge as false but as of dangerous Consequence and therefore although men may subscribe to a Book in general as containing wholesome and godly Doctrine though they be not so certain of the Truth of every passage in it yet they can never do it with a good conscience if they believe any great and considerable part of the Doctrine therein contained to be false and dangerous Such a subscription would be as apparently shuffling and dishonest as is the evasion of this Testimony which T. G. makes use of for want of a better I shall in the next place shew the current Doctrine of the Church ever since the Reformation to have been agreeable to this Homily of the Peril of Idolatry In the Injunctions published by K. Edward VI. A. D. 1547. the extirpation of Popery is called the suppression of Idolatry and Superstition In the second year of Edward VI. Arch-bishop Cranmer published his Articles of Visitation whereof the 6. and the last are about the taking away Images Pictures and all other Monuments of feigned miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition In the second Liturgy by Edward VI. after the Communion was a Rubrick annexed in which the Adoration of the Host is expresly called Idolatry This is that very Rubrick of which T. G. according to his excellent skill in the offices of our Church saith it is not yet more then a dozen years since it was inserted into the Communion Book which he might have found above a 100. years before in the Book of Edward VI. In the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth A. D. 1559. Art 2. and 23. all Shrines Tables Pictures c. are commanded to be taken away and destroyed and all other Monuments of feigned miracles Idolatry and Superstition And that 〈◊〉 may not think it was only a sudden heaâ— at the first Reformation which made theâ— charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry long after in A form of Thanksgiving in the 37. of Queen Elizabeth A. D. 1594. Popery is called that Idolatrous Religion as it was in the Beginning of her Reign in the excellenâ— Apology for the Church of England And I desire him or any one else 〈◊〉 produce any one Bishop or Divine of notâ— in the Church of England who during all hâ—r Reign did deny the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry But why then was it not inserted in the 39. Articles in which T. G. observes the Adoration of Images is not rejected as Idolatry but only as a fond thing vainly invented nor as repugnant to the plain words of Scripture but as being rather repugnant to the word of God which plainly gives us to understand that they had done their endeavours to find a command but could not A most ingenious Criticism when himself and all others of their Divines yield that adoration of images which our Church charges them with Art 22. viz. not barely worshipping but adoration of images to be Idolatry and plainly repugnant to Scripture Were the composers of our Articles so sensless as not to think Idolatry repugnant to Scripture or not to think adoration of images to be Idolatry or not to think the Church of Rome guilty of it when the Article saith The Romish Doctrine concerning worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Reliques c It is not meerly the practice used in the Church of Rome but their very Doctrine concerning adoration of images which is here charged and can any Church teach adoration of images and not be guilty of Idolatry And for his Criticism about being rather repugnant it had been utterly lost if he had looked into the Latin Articles where the words are immo verbo Dei contradicit whereby it appears that rather is not used as a term of diminution but of a more vehement affirmation I now come to the exceptions he takes to the particular Testimonies I produced of the most eminent Bishops and Divines of our Church ever since the Reformation who have all concurred in this charge of Idolatry Two parts in three he excepts against as incompetent witnesses in the case how few of the Iury would any Malefactor allow if such frivolous exceptions might serve his turn The two first he excepts against are the two Arch-Bishops Whitgift and Abbot as Puritanically inclined But as it unhappily falls out one of them was never mentioned by me and the other never till now suspected for a Puritan The Abbot I mentioned was not George Abbot Arch-Bishop of Canterbury but Robert Abbot Bishop of Salisbury and it is the first time we ever heard that a Bishop of Salisbury was suspended from his Metropolitical jurisdiction But they of the Church of Rome have a faculty of doing greater wonders with five words than Changing a Bishop into an Arch-Bishop I hope he understands the Church he is of better than that he hath left or else we are like to have a sad account of History from him But why I beseech you after all his zeal and indefatigable pains for the Church of England must Arch-Bishop Whitgift be thrown away to the Puritans If he had proved T. C. at the same time Arch-Bishop of Canterbury there might have been some reason to suspect Whitgift to have been of the Puritan side for all the world know they were greaâ— adversaries on that very account of thâ— Puritan cause But was not Whitgiâ—â— for the Lambeth Articles And whâ— then Are the Dominicans Puritans and no Papists If your Church may havâ— liberty not to determin those nice points why may not ours and so both parties remain of our Church as long as they contradict no received Articles among us But the Lambeth-Articles were neveâ— intended for any more than as Responsâ— Prudentum to silence disputes in the university And I believe none of the Puritan party after that took Arch-Bishop Whitgift to be a Patron of theiâ— cause But if these will not serve his turn 〈◊〉 have others ready whom for meer shamâ— he will not say were Puritans or Puritanically inclined And the first of these is an Arch-Bishop too and that is Arch-Bishop Bancroft and if he be cast out for a Puritan surely there never was any Bishop of the Church of England In his Sermon preached at Pauls Cross on 1 John 4. 1. he hath these words speaking of the Papists The Popish false Prophets
Preface that he is not infallible Yet for all this we will not let go Jewel no nor Bilson Davenant White Usher Downam what ever T. G. saith against them Indeed K. Charles excepts against Bilson for his Principles of civil Government but not a word of his disaffection to the Church of England For Bishop Davenant the King saith he is none of those to whom he appealed or would submit unto and with very good reason for the King had appealed to the practice of the primitive Church and the Universal consent of Fathers therefore Bishop Davenant was a Puritan It seems they have been all Puritans since the Primitive times and I hope the Church of Rome then hath good store of them for that is far enough from the Fathers or the Primitive Church But how comes Bishop White in for a Puritan being so great a Friend of Arch-Bishop Laud why forsooth Heylin reports that for licensing Bishop Mountagu's Appello Caesarem it was said that White was turned Black And canst thou for thy heart good Reader expect a more pregnant proof It was a notable saying and it is great pity the Historian did not preserve the memory of the Author of it but by whom was it said that must be supposed by the Puritans and could none but they be the Authors of so witty a saying But suppose they were the Puritans that said it it is plain then they thought him no sound Puritan for they hold no falling from Grace All then that can be inferred from this witty saying is that White sunk in his esteem among them by this Act. And is it not possible for them to have an esteem for those who are not of their own Party Concerning Arch-Bishop Usher Dr. Heylin was known to be too much his enemy to be allowed to give a Character of him and his name will not want a due veneration as long as Learning and piety have any esteem among us But he is most troubled what to do with six that remain viz. King James Bishop Andrews Arch-Bishop Laud Isaac Casaubon Doct. Field and Doct. Jackson these he could not for shame fasten the name of Puritans upon as he doth with scorn on Bishop Downam Reynolds Whitaker and Fulk whose testimonies I said to prevent cavils I need not to produce although they are all capable of sufficient vindication For King James he saith that in the place cited by me he saith expresly that what he condemns is adoring of Images praying to them and imagining a kind of Sanctity in them all which are detested by Catholicks Was ever man put to such miserable shifts Are not these King James his words But for worshipping either them Reliques or Images I must account it damnable Idolatry And doth not King James a little after take off their distinctions and evasions in these words and they worship forsooth the Images of things in Being and the Image of the true God But Scripture forbiddeth to worship the Image of any thing that God created Yea the Image of God himself is not only expresly forbidden to be worshipped but even to be made Let them therefore that maintain this doctrine answer it to Christ at the latter day when he shall accuse them of Idolatry And then I doubt if he will be paid with such nice Sophistical distinctions Is all this nothing but to charge them with such practices which they detest Doth he not mention their Doctrine and their distinctions Did not King James understand what he said and what they did It is plain he charges them with Idolatry in what they did which was that I brought his Testimony for The like answer he gives to the rest of them viz. that they charged them with what they thought they did but the Papists deny that they do any such thing i. e. in plain Terms they charge them with Idolatry but the Papists deny they commit it And so they do when I charge them with it so that T. G. by the very same reason might have acquitted me from charging them with it and have spared his Book Is not this now an Admirable way of proving that they do not charge them with Idolatry because the Papists deny they commit it Who meddles with what they profess they do or do not I was to shew what these Persons charged them with And do any of these excuse them by saying any doctrine of theirs was contrary to these particulars do they not expresly set themselves to disprove their distinctions upon which their doctrine is founded and shew the vanity of them because their open and allowed practices do plainly contradict them and shew that they do give divine honour to Images however in words they deny it But this way of defending them is as if those whom St. Paul charges that they professed that they knew God but in works they denied him should reply to him how can we deny him in our Works since we profess him in our Words Iust so saith T. G. how can they be charged with Idolatry since they profess to do no such thing Aâ—though such persons as those I mentioned did not understand both what the Papists said for themselves and what they did notwithstanding And now I joyâ— with T. G. in desiring the Reader may be judge between us whether I have betrayed my trust in pretending to defend the Church of England and whether in charging the Church of Rome with Idolatry I have contradicted the sense of it since I have made it appear that her most true and Genuin sons the most remote from all suspicion of disaffection to her or inclination to Puritanism have concurred in the same charge which I undertook to make good But there is one blow yet remaining in his Preface which I must endeavour to ward off otherwise it will be a terrible one to the Church of England for by this charge of Idolatry he makes me to subvert the very foundation of Ecclesiastical Authority in it This it is to charge home For saith he it being a received Maxime and not being denyable by any man of common sense that no man can give to another that which he hath not himself it lies open to the Conscience of every man that if the Church of Rome be guilty of Heresie much more if guilty of Idolatry it falls under the Apostles excommunication Gal. 1. 8. and so remains deprived of the Lawful Authority to use and exercise the power of Orders and consequently the Authority of Governing preaching and Administring the Sacraments which those of the Church of England challenge to themselves as deriv'd from the Church of Rome can be no true and lawful Jurisdiction but usurped and Anti-Christian And so farewel to the Church of England if the Church of Rome were not more kind in this case than T. G. is Hitherto we have seen his skill in the affairs of our Church and now we shall see just as much in the Doctrine of his own For doth not the Council
the argument from parity of Reason p. 137. Of the Authority of the Guides of the Church in ten Propositions p. 142. The case of Vigilius and Honorius at large discussed p. 154 159. The different case of the separation of dissenters from our Church and our separation from the Church of Rome p. 180. Of the means to attain the sense of Scripture without an infallible Guide p. 186. Of the necessity of a Iudge in controversies p. 191. The way used in the Primitive Church for finding the sense of Scripture through several Ages of the Christian Church from the most authentick Writers of them p. 198. Church Authority not destroyed by my principles p. 260. What Authority we allow to Governors of the Church p. 267. The Roman Churches way of suppressing Sects compared with ours p. 286. ERRATA PAge 20. line 13. read the Church p. 26. l. 14 for and r. that p. 49. l. â— for here r. whâ—re p 176 l 23. r. Eutychianism p. 177. l. 8. r. followed p. 17. l. 5. r. Patriarchal p. 182. l. 14. for by r. â—e p. 189. l. 22. r. Apocalypticâ— p. 209. l. 30. for Boo r. Book p. 225. marg r. Vales. not ad Eusch. p. 273. 〈◊〉 r. Euclid p. 271. l. 7. for he makes this r. this is made p. 280. l. 5. blot â— one the. The Preface WHen I Published the late Book which hath so much enraged those of the Church of Rome against me I thought I had reason to expect that a just Answer should be made to it but they have taken an effectual course to undeceive me for by this new way I perceive their utmost ambition is to have something abroad which among themselves may pass for an Answer Which put me in mind of what I have heard a great Person said when he had undertaken to manage an ill cause before a publick Audience and one of his Friends asked him what he meant by it trouble not your self said he our own side will be sure to believe me It was surely some such presumption as this which made the learned Authors of these two elaborate Pamphlets to appear in such a manner in Print as if it were no great matter what they said so their people might have this to say and if they can believe it too that my book is answered If this be all their cause will afford it deserves rather to be pittied than confuted if it will bear more they are as bad managers of it as their enemies could wish For however I was threatned before hand that such answers were coming abroad every line of which would fetch blood yet as cruel as they are when we are under their lash I found that which they designed for my punishment to give me no small pleasure and I never had so good an opinion of the mercifulness of their Church as when I saw with what feeble hands they chastised me I had heard so much of their rage that I expected their greatest strength would be employ'd upon me and I could not tell what Zamzummims they might hitherto keep in the dark whose arms were not to be made use of but upon some special occasion when an Adversary was to be dispatch'd all at once and so perfectly subdued as never to appear more While I was preparing my self for this kind of Martyrdome out come these mighty men of valour who have beaten nothing that I know of but the air and themselves for they have neither tyed my tongue nor broke my heart nor fetched one drop of blood that I can yet find all which were things I was told would be done when these answers came abroad which threatnings made so loud a noise that I heard the report of them not only nearer home but from very distant persons and places But lest I should be thought only to despise my Adversaries which I confess they have given me no small occasion to do I shall bestow a particular examination upon what they have offered by way of Answer to my Book Only I think it reasonable in the first place to take notice of their present way and method of Answering wherein they make use of as many artifices as they do in gaining Proselytes When we set our selves to Answer their Books we endeavour to state the Controversie plainly to examine their proofs to apply distinct Answers to their Arguments fairly represented in their own words and to render the whole Discourse as clear and perspicuous as may be that all persons may be capable of judging on which side the greatest strength and evidence lyes This is the mighty advantage which a good cause gives us we make use of no tricks to deceive men nor Sophistical cavils to confound and perplex things we dare appeal to the judgement of any impartial person who will take the pains to examin the matters in difference between us But in their late dealings with us they seek to avoid the main things in dispute and abhor any methodical proceeding one man picks out a sentence here and there to answer another a page or two together a third leaps from one thing to another as if resolv'd to pass by the greatest difficulties but he is a man of courage indeed that dares fall upon the reer and begin to confute a Book at the end of it so that if he lives long enough and get heart he may in time come to the beginning And if we observe them all they look for nothing so much as some cleanly way of escape and if they can but raise such a dust as to fly away without being openly discerned to do so this they hope those of their own side will be so kind and partial as to call a Victory These are no general accusations but such as are easie to observe in their dealings with me as to my former Book and that lately published But to judicious men all these little arts and shifts are either plain acknowledgements of a baffled Cause or an Argument of a weak and unskilful management If the Book it self be a little too troublesome to be medled with it is best to fall upon the Author and it is a hard case if by false and ridiculous stories or open calumnies or at least base and ugly insinuations they cannot diminish his reputation and then they hope the Book will sink with its Author But we are not Ignorant whose cause is wont to be managed by such devices as these are and from whom they have learnt this method of confuting Adversaries As for all their railing accusations against me I shall not so much as desire God to rebuke them but only pray that he would pardon them and if I must thank them for any thing it is for giving me the occasion for exercising so great a charity I have learnt of him who when he was reviled reviled not again not only to forbear reproaching them in the same manner but to return them good for evil
than the cleansing of the Augean Stable This is not to make sport and recreation for the Atheist and debauched nor to give occasion to such persons to turn the Inspirations of Holy-Scripture into matter of Drollery and Buffonry as the author of the second Pamphlet tragically declaims any more than our Saviours unmasking the hypocrisie of the Scribes and Pharisees was the destroying the Law of Moses or the discovery of cheats and impostors doth give occasion to suspect the honesty of all mankind Nay so far is it from that that we think the separating of Fanaticism from true inspiration to be one of the best Services that can be done to the Christian Religion which otherwise is in danger of being despised or rejected by the considerate part of mankind But I would fain know of these men whether they do in earnest make no difference between the Writings of such as Mother Iuliana and the Books of Scripture between the Revelations of S. Brigitt S. Catharine c. and those of the Prophets between the actions of S. Francis and Ignatius Loyola and those of the Apostles if they do not I know who they are that expose our Religion to purpose if they do make a difference how can the representing their visions and practices reflect dishonour upon the other so infinitely above them so much more certainly conveyed down to us with the consent of the whole Christian World Thus much may here suffice to represent the arts our Adversaries are driven to to defend themselves I cannot blame them that they would engage Religion on their side but so have all Fanaticks in the World as well as they and I cannot for my heart see but this heavy charge of Blasphemy and undermining Religion does as justly lye on them who deride the Fanaticks among us as on those who have discovered the Fanaticism of the Church of Rome AN EXAMINATION OF THE PAMPHLET Entituled Dr. Stillingfleet against Dr. Stillingfleet HAving thus far laid open their present way of dealing with their Adversaries I now come to a particular consideration of these two Pamphlets and begin with that called Dr. Stillingfleet against Dr. Stillingfleet c. The Author of which is to be commended for so noble an enterprise which few of the Champions of former Ages could accomplish viz. to make his Adversary fall by his own sword But the mischief of it is these Romantick Knights do hurt no where but in Paper and their own imagination But I forget his grave admonition that I would treat these matters seriously and lay aside drollery To be then as grave as he can desire there are these two things which I design to provâ—â— against him 1. That on supposition I diâ—â— contradict my self in the way he insists upoâ—n it that were no sufficient answer to my Book 2. That I am far enough from contradicting my self in any one of the things which 〈◊〉 insists upon 1. Supposing what he contends for were true yet my Book remains unanswered the design of which was to shew that no man can joyn in the Communion of the Roman Church without great hazard of his salvation If I had any where said the contrary this indeed would have made it evident that I had contradicted my self But what then doth the force of all the arguments used by me in this last Discourse fall to the ground because I was formerly of another opinion Let me ask these revolters from the Church of England one question whether they do not now more plainly contradict themselves as to their former opinions than they can pretend that I have ever done I desire to know whether this makes all their present arguments for the Roman Church of no force If they think their present reasons ought to be answered whatever contrary opinion they had before why on supposition I had contradicted in a a former Book what I say in this must this render all that I have said or can hereafter say in this matter invalid Doth the strength of all lye upon my bare affirming or denying was it ever true because I said it if not how comes it to be untrue now because I deny it I do not remember I was ever so vain to make use of my own authority to prove a thing to be true because I believed it and if I had the world is not so vain to believe a man one jot the sooner for it If my authority in saying or denying be of no importance to the truth of the thing then he may prove that I contradict my self and yet all the arguments of my Book be as strong as ever I do not desire any one to follow my opinion because it is mine but I offer reason and authority for the proof of what I say if those be good in themselves they do not therefore cease to be so because they are or seem to he inconsistent with what I have said elsewhere So that self-contradiction being proved overthrows not the reason of the thing but the authority of the person and where things depend meerly upon authority it is a good argument and no where else If a witness in a Court contradicts himself his testimony signifies nothing because there is nothing else but his authority that makes his testimony valid but if a Lawyer at the Bar chance to speak inconsistently if afterwards he speaks plain and evident reason does that take off the force of it because he said something before which contradicted that plain reason If the Pope or those who pretend to be infallible contradict themselves that sufficiently overthrows their pretence of infallibility for he that changeth his mind must be deceived once but for us fallible mortals if we once hit upon reason and truth and manage the evidence of it clearly that reason doth not lose its former evidence because the same persons may afterwards oppose it Suppose I should be able to prove that Bellarmine in his Recognitions contradicts what he had said in his former Books doth this presently make all his arguments useless and him uncapable of ever appearing in controversie more Doth this make all his authorities false and his reasons unconcluding doth it hence follow that he spake no where consistently because once or twice or perhaps as often as his neighbours he contradicted himself But my grave Adversary I. W. imagines that we Writers of Controversies are like Witnesses in Chancery and are bound to make Affidavits before the Masters of this Court of Controversie and that whatever we say is to be taken as upon our oath this indeed would be an excellent way of bringing Controversies to an issue if we were to be sworn whether such a thing as Transubstantiation were true or false and I cannot tell whether this or laying wagers or the Popes infallibility be the best way to end such Controversies for any one of them would do it if people could but agree about it But now my Adversary says that if a
salvation so that the force of the argument comes to this whatsoever Church does embrace the ancient Creeds cannot be guilty of Idolatry but the Church of Rome doth embrace all the ancient Creeds by my own concession therefore it is a contradiction for me to grant that they hold the ancient Creeds and yet to charge them with Idolatry And these matters being thus made plain there is no great difficulty to answer by denying the major Proposition and asserting that a Church which does own all the articles of faith which are contained in them may yet teach and practise those things which take away from that worship which is proper only to God and give it to meer creatures as I have proved the Church of Rome doth in the worship of Images adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints But to make this yet more plain there are two things we consider in a Church the essence and the soundness of it as in a man we consider his being a man and his health when we discourse of his meer Being we enquire into no more than those things which make him a man whether he be sound or not so in a Church when we enquire into the essentials of it we think it not necessary to go any farther than the doctrinal points of faith the reason is because Baptism admits men into the Church upon the profession of the true faith in the Father Son and Holy Ghost and whatever is sufficient to make a member of the Church that is in it self sufficient being embraced to make a Church but when we enquire farther into the moral integrity or soundness of a Church then we think our selves bound not barely to know what is acknowledged and received but how far it is so and whether that Church which owns the Fundamentals of Christian faith doth not by gross and damnable errours corrupt the Worship of God and debauch those very Principles which they profess to own And in this respect none of us ever said That the Church of Rome did not err nay we do say and have manifestly proved that she hath erred against the Christian faith by introducing palpable errours in doctrine and manifold Superstitions and Idolatries in practice From hence it plainly appears that the concession I. W. urges me with of the Church of Rome being a true Church signifies nothing in the sense by me intended which contradicts the charge of Idolatry unless they can prove that none who own the Apostles Creed or their Baptism can so long as they so do teach Idolatry or be guilty of giving the honour due only to God to meer creatures These things being thus explained I hope the Sophistry of this way of arguing is made so evident that no man of understanding that resolves not before hand what to believe is capable of being deceived by it Before I come to the next contradiction charged upon me I shall for the diversion of the Reader and the suitableness of the matter take notice of his Appendix wherein I. W. goes about so pleasantly to prove me an Idolater by a notable trick which it seems came into his head a little too late after he had finisht this worthy Treatise I should have suspected it had been intended only for a piece of Drollery but that the man so severely rebukes me for it and withall talks of nothing less than demonstration in the case What thought I is it come to this at last and am I become an Idolater too who was never apt to think my self enclined so much as to superstition but what can not the controverting Wit of man do upon second and serious thoughts All the comfort I found left was towards the conclusion wherein he confesses that the same argument proves the Prophets Evangelists and Holy Ghost himself to be Idolaters Nay then I hoped there was no great harm to be feared in so good company and by that consideration armed my self against this terrible assault But at last as he made nearer approaches to me I found no mischief was like to come but what I brought upon my self for he charged me with nothing but my own Artillery and the train that was laid to blow me up was fetched from my own stores only he had disposed it in a way fittest for this deep design But the best of it was his plot went no farther than my Idolatry and both lay only in Imagination For there he makes the seat of my Idolatry which he demonstratively proves must be so by my own argument I shall therefore consideâ— what that was and with what great art he imploys it against me Among other arguments to shew that the prohibition of worshipping Images was not peculiar to the Iews but of an unalterable nature I insisted upon Gods declaring the unsuitableness of it to his own infinite and incomprehensible nature which could not be represented to men but in a way which must be an infinite disparagement to it To whom will ye liken God or what likeness will ye compare to him It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth c. and the reason given of the Law it self was because they saw no sâ—militude of God from hence I shewed that the wisest Nations and Persons among the Heathen looked on the Worship of God by Images as unsuitable to a Divine and Infinite Being and that the Gospel still more discovered Gods Spiritual nature and the agreeableness of Spiritual Worship to him that the Apostles urged this Argument against the Heathen Idolatry and the Fathers of the Church thought the reason of this Law did equally oblige us with the Iews now by what art doth he from hence prove me necessarily to be an Idolater as well as they of the Church of Rome who Worship God by Images against the very words and reason of this Law The argument is briefly summed up by himself thus Whoever Worships God represented in a way far inferiour to his greatness is an Idolater but whosoever Worships God represented to him without the Beatifical vision either by words or by imaginations as well as Images he Worships God in a way far inferiour to his greatness ergo whoever worships God represented unto him without the Beatifical vision is an Idolater but Dr. St. Worships God without the Beatifical vision no doubt of it ergo Dr. St. is an Idolater there is no help for it Nay from hence he proves that I cannot so much as think of God without Idolatry my self nor Preach of him without provoking others to it O the insuperable force of reason and the dint of demonstration but the mischief is all this subtilty is used against the Law-maker and not against me Did I not cite the words of God himself who therefore did forbid the making any likeness of him because nothing could be like him Is there no difference between having imperfect conceptions of God in our minds and making unworthy
as Christ and his Apostles if they be not than whatever they pretend they are not looked on as divine revelations by them as manifestly appears because they are wholly rejected by some of the wisest of them doubted of and disputed by others as it were easie to prove were it not too large a subject for this discourse but by none received as writings of divine authority and equal with the Scriptures which they must be if they came from the same Spirit And since they are not it is evident that they are no otherwise esteemed among themselves than as the Fanatick heats of some devout persons of disturbed and deluded Fancies whom notwithstanding they are willing to cherish partly because they are loth to discountenance any pretence to an infallible Spirit in their Church and partly that there may never be wanting matter to make Saints of when the Pope thinks fit and good consideration is offered This may suffice to make good this charge of Fanaticism against the Roman Church and to shew that I am as far from the appearance of any contradiction therein although their Revelations are not from a real one as I. W's vain and Sophistical talk is from any appearance of reason The last contradiction charged upon me is about the Divisions of the Roman Church The occasion of which discourse was that divisions were objected to me as another consequent of the Reformation upon which I thought my self obliged to enquire into the Vnity of their Church and I have at large proved from undenyable Instances attested by their own Authors that they have no reason to insult over other Churches on account of their divisions nor to boast of their own Unity and Peace For I have there proved that there have never been greater disturbances in the Christian World than what they call the means of Unity viz. the Popes Authority hath procured no where greater or more lasting Schisms no where fiercer disputes about matters of order and doctrine than among them I considered all their salvo's and from them shew'd that if they have no divisions among themselves neither have we nay the same arguments which prove they do not differ in matters of faith from each other do likewise prove that they and we do not differ from each other in those things And what saith I. W. to all this Instead of healing their own divisions he only designs to prove me to be divided against my self that he might make up the full Tale of his contradictions But I. W. had so much forgot himself as to make good the very thing I designed and by that very argument he uses to prove that I contradict my self he manifestly proves that there are no more divisions in matters of faith between the Roman Church and us than there are among themselves This I shall make very evident but I must proceed as he doth with his Propositions 1. No divisions from the Roman Church are divisions of the Roman Church This is a very subtle principle of unity among them and by this rule there would be an admirable Unity in the Roman Church if the Pope himself were left alone in it For all others would only be divided from it and I would allow the Pope to be at a very good Agreement with himself which is more than I. W. will allow me In this case indeed there would be Vnity but where would be their Church Suppose a shepherd should boast of the excellent Government of a great Flock he had under his command and the Unity and peace they lived in and a by-stander should tell him that he saw others pretend to the same authority over that flock that he did and part followed one and part another he saw some of the chief of the Leaders set themselves against him disputing his authority he saw many of the sheep continually fighting with each other and some had wholly forsaken him would it not be a pleasant thing for this shepherd to say that notwithstanding all this they had great peace and Unity because as many as did not quarrel were very quiet and those that were divided from his Government were not under it But our question is whether such authority be the means to preserve the whole flock under Government when we see it prevents no divisions but causes many He might have spoken more to the purpose if he had framed his Proposition thus there can be no divisions in the Roman Church but such as divide men from it and in that case the Roman Church would have been reduced to a very small number But if there may be such divisions which are as contrary to Unity and peace as divisions in matters of faith are to what purpose is it to shew that they have none in one kind if they have very great in all others But although this be not sufficient to demonstrate their Vnity yet it is enough for his purpose if it doth shew that I contradict my self But where lyes the contradiction The force of it lyes here I charge them with divisions in matters of faith when divisions in matters of faith make them not to be members of the Roman Church therefore there can be no divisions in the Roman Church in matters of faith Again for in these two arguments the substance of his own propositions is couched by himself All those who assent unto the ancient Creeds are undivided in matters of faith but all Roman Catholicks assent unto the ancient Creeds ergo all Roman Catholicks are undivided in matters of faith and consequently it is a calumny in me to say they are divided in these matters Now what an easie matter is it to disposses me of this Spirit of contradiction which he imagines me possessed with I need no holy water or sacred charms and exorcisms to do it with There needs no more but understanding what is meant by matters of faith when matters of faith are spoken of by me in the place he refers to it is evident to every one that reads it and by his own words I speak only of the Fundamental and necessary articles of faith which are necessary to the salvation of all and to the very being of a Church of which kind I say none ought to be esteemed that were not admitted into the ancient Creeds But when I charge them with divisions in matters of faith I do not mean that they reject the ancient Creeds but I take matters of faith in their own sense for things defined by the Church and if I. W. had sought for any thing but words to raise cavils upon he might have found it so explained in the very place where I speak of this For that discourse is to answer an objection of theirs that they do not differ in those things which they esteem matters of faith and particularly I insisted upon that that they cannot be sure whether they differ in matters of faith or no because they are not agreed what
makes things to become matters of faith Can this be understood any other way than of their own sense of matters of faith And is not this fair dealing to make me contradict my self because where I argue against them I take matters of faith in their sense and where I deliver my own opinion I take them in another sense And this being the sense of matters of faith the trifling of his arguing appears for do all these cease to be members of their Church who dispute any thing which others account matter of faith among them Are the Iesuits all out of the Church of Rome because they deny the efficacy of Grace which the Dominiâ—ans account a matter of faith Are the Iansenists and oral Traditionists divided from the Church of Rome because they deny the Popes Infallibility which the Iesuits account a matter of faith If not then all divisions in matters and articles of faith are not divisions from the true Church and from all her members and so his second Proposition comes to nothing and so likewise the third that all divisions in matters of faith so esteemed by them are divisions from the Roman Church But the fourth and fifth Propositions are the most healing Principles that have yet been thought on Fie for shame why should we and they of the Church of Rome quarrel thus long we are very well agreed in all matters of faith and I shall demonstratively prove it from the argument of I. W. drawn from his two last Propositions All who assent unto the ancient Creeds are undivided in matters of faith by Prop. 4. but both Papists and Protestants do assent unto the ancient Creeds ergo they are undivided in matters of faith And hath not I. W. now done his business and very substantially proved the thing he intended But I hope we may enjoy the benefit of it as well as those of the Church of Rome and that they will not hence forward charge us with dividing from their Church in any matters of faith since we are all agreed in owning the ancient Creeds and seeing we cannot be divided from the Church but by differing in matters of faith according to his Propos. it follows that we are still members of the true Church and therefore neither guilty of heresie nor Schism But if those who do own and assent to the ancient Creeds may yet be divided in matters of faith as they charge us by rejecting the definitions of the Roman Church then there is no shadow of a contradiction left in my charging them with differences in matters of faith among themselves though I say they own the ancient Creeds And now Reader thou seest what all these pitiful cavils are come to and what ground there hath been for them to glory in this Pusionello that with a sheet and a half hath compelled me as he saith to be my own Executioner But these great Heroes must be allowed to relate their famous adventures with some advantage to themselves it might have been enough to have rescued the Lady but not only to destroy the Giant as any man must be accounted whom such Knights encounter but to leave him grovelling in the ground and gasping for breath and that by wounds he forced him to give himself this is beyond measure glorious Go thy way then for the eighth Champion of Christendom enjoy the benefit of thy illustrious fame sit down at ease and relate to thy immortal honour thy mighty exploits only when thou hast done remember thou hast encountred nothing but the Wind-mills of thy own imagination and the man whom thou thought'st to have executed by his own hands stands by and laughs at thy ridiculous attempts But I forget that I am so near his Conclusion wherein he doth so gravely advise me that I would be pleased for once to write Controvesies not Play-Books his meaning I suppose is that I would return to the old beaten road where they know how to find a man and have something to say because others have said something before them and not represent the ridiculous passages of their Fanaticks for the defence of which they are furnisht with no Distinctions out of their usual Magazines their present Manuals of Controversie I shall be contented to wait their leisure if they have any thing material to say as I. W. gives me some hopes when he saith that other more learned pens I shall be glad to see them will give me a more particular and compleat answer I hope not in the way of cavilling if they do I shall hereafter only contemn them but I am afraid of their good intentions by the Books he mentions as such considerable things in answer to my Vindication of Arch-bishop Laud viz. the Guide in Controversies and Protestancy without Principles if others write as they have done I shall take as little notice of them as I have done of those Cannot a dull Book come out with my name in the Title but I must be obliged to answer it no I assure them I know better how to spend my time I say still let a just answer come forth that deals by me as I did by the Book I answered and then let them blame me if I neglect it But at last he gives one general reason why no great matter is to be expected to come abroad in Print not but that they have men of learning among them No doubt of it but alas for them they are so persecuted in the Printing Houses that nothing of theirs is suffered to come abroad only by great good fortune this complaint is in Print and comes abroad openly enough How long I pray have these days of persecution been For whatever you imagine I was so far from having any hand in it that the first time I ever heard of it was from your complaints Have you not formerly complained thus when Books too many have been Printed and published in England And what assurance can you give us that you do not still complain without cause But not to suffer you to deceive the people any longer in this kind by pretending that this is the reason why you do not answer our Books because you have no liberty of the Press I have at this time a Catalogue by me of above two hundred Popish Books Printed in our own language which I shall produce on a just occasion a considerable part whereof have been published within the compass of not many years And yet all possible efforts are used by us saith I. W. to hinder their Doctors from shewing their learning this of late we must needs say they have very sparingly done but all the arts we have cannot hinder some of them from shewing their weakness as this I. W. hath very prodigally done in this Pamphlet Finis AN ANSWER TO THE BOOK Entituled Dr. Stillingfleet's Principles Considered ALthough I write no Plays yet I hope I may have leave to say the scene is changed for instead of the former
infallible assistance to the Guides of the Church in all Ages for the conduct of those who live in it For if he hath not my Adversary cannot deny but the Principles laid down by me must hold For in case there be no infallibility in the Guides of the Church every one must be left to the use of his own understanding proceeding in the best manner to find out what the Will of God is in order to salvation We do not now dispute concerning the best helps for a person to make use of in a matter of this nature but the Qâ—estion is whether a man ought to resign his own judgement to that of the Church which pretends to be infallible as to all necessaries for salvation or supposing no such infallibility whether a person using his Faculties in the best manner about the sense of Scriptures with the helps of divine Grace may not have sufficient certainty thereby what things are required of him in order to happiness Hereby I exclude nothing that may tend to the right use of a mans understanding in these things whether it be the direction of Pastors the decrees of Councils the sense of the Primitive Church or the care industry and sincerity of the Enquirer but supposing all these whether by not believing the Guides of the Church to be infallible the foundation of this persons faith can be nothing else but a trembling Quicks and as N. O. speaks in his Preface only from the supposing an errability in the Guides of Gods Church And a little after he lays down that as his fundamental Principle that the only certain way not to be misled will be the submitting our internal assent and belief to Church Authority or as he elsewhere speaks to the infallible Guideship of Church Goverâ—ors Here then two Questions necessarily arise 1. Whether there can be no certainty of Faith without this infallibility 2. What certainty there is of this infallibility 1. Whether there can be no certainty of Faith without Infallibility in the Guides of the Church and submitting our internal assent and belief to them For the clearing of this we must consider what things are agreed upon between us that by them we may proceed to the resolution of this Question 1. It is I suppose agreed That every man hath in him a faculty of discerning of truth and falshood 2. That this Faculty must be used at least in the choice of infallible Guide for otherwise a man must be abused with every pretence of Infallibility and George Fox may as well be followed as the Pope of Rome and to what purpose are all prudential motives and arguments for Infallibility if a man must not judge whether they be good or no i. e. sufficient to prove the thing 3. That God is not wanting in necessaries to the salvation of mankind 4. That the Books of Scripture received on both sides do contain in them the Will of God in order to salvation 5. That all things simply necessary to salvation are contained therein which is a concession mentioned before These things being supposed the Question now is Whether a person not relying on the infallibility of a Church may not be certain of those things which are contained in those Books in order to Salvation For of those ouâ— present enquiry is and not about the sense of the more difficult and controverted places and if we can make it appear that men may be certain as to matters of salvation without infallibility let them prove if they can the necessity of infallibility for things which are not necessary to salvation But of the sense of Scripture in those things afterwards I now enquire into the certainty men may attain to of the necessaries to salvation in Scripture and concerning this I laid down this Proposition Although we cannot argue against any particular way of Revelation from the necessary Attributes of God yet such a way as writing being made choice of by him we may justly say that it is repugnant to the nature of the design and the Wisdom and Goodness of God to give infallible assistance to persons in writing his Will for the benefit of Mankind if those Writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation This Principle he saith is unsound which if he can prove I may have more reason to question it than I yet have And I assure him I expect no mean proofs to shake my belief of a principle of so great importance to the Christian Religion For it being granted by him that all things simply necessary to salvation are contained in the Books of Scripture I desire to know whether things simply necessary ought not to be delivered with greater plainness than things which are not so Whether God appointing the Evangelists and Apostles to write these things did not intend that they should be so expressed as they might most easily be understood Whether our Saviours own Sermons vere capable of being understood by those who heard them without some infallible Interpreter Whether the Evangelists did not faithfully deliver our Saviours Doctrine If they did how that comes to be obscure now which was plain then so that either Christ himself must be charged with not speaking the Will of God plainly or the Evangelists cannot be charged with not expressing it so There are no other Books in the World that I know of that need an infallible Interpreter and we can tell certainly enough what any other Religion requires supposing it to be written in the same way that the Christian is Is it not possible for a man to be certain what the Law of Moses required of the People of Israel by reading the Books of that Law without some infallible Guides Do the ten Commandments need an Infallible Comment Or can we have now no certainty of the meaning of the Levitical Law because there is no High-priest or Sanhedrin to explain it And if it be possible to understand the necessaries of that dark dispensation in comparison with the Gospel are oâ—r eyes now blinded with too much light Is not Christianity therefore highly recommended to us in the New Testament because of the clearness and perspicuity wherein the Doctrines and Precepts thereof are delivered And yet after all this cannot the most necessary parts of it he understood by those who sincerely endeavour to understand them By which sincere endeavour we are so far from excluding any useful helps that we always suppose them The sâ—m then of what he is to confute is this that although the Apostles and Evangelists did deliver the Mind of God to the World in their Writings in order to the salvation of Mankind although they were inspired by an infinite Wisdom for this end although all things simply necessary to Salvation are contained in their Writings although a Person useth his sincere endeavour by all Moral helps and the
Divine Grace assisting him to find out in these Writings the things necessary to Salvation yet after all he cannot certainly understand the meaning of them Which to me appears so absurd and monstrous a Doctrine so contrary to the honour of the Scriptures and the design of Christianity that if I had a mind to disparage it I would begin with this and end with Transubstantiation For in earnest Sir did not our Saviour speak intelligibly in matteâ—s of so great importance to the Salvation of Mankind Did he not declare all that was necessary for that end in his many admirable discourses Did not the Evangelists record his words and actions in writing and that as one of them saith expresly That we might believe that Iesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing we might have life through his name And after all this cannot we understand so much as the common necessaries to salvation by the greatest and most sincere endeavour for that end But it is time now to consider his exceptions against this Principle which are these 1. That God may reveal his mind so in Scripture as that in many things it may be clear only to some persons more versed in the Scriptures and in the Churches Traditional sense of them and more assisted from above according to their imployment which persons he hath appointed to instruct the rest But what is all this to our purpose our Question is not about may be 's and possibilities of things but it is taken for granted on both sides that God hath revealed his mind in writing therefore he need not make the supposition of no writings at all as he doth afterwards the Question is Whether these Writings being allowed for divine revelations of the Will of God he hath expressed the necessaries to salvation clearly therein or not That God may delivers his mind obscurely in many things is no question nor that he may inspire persons to unfold his mind where it is obscure but our question is whether or no these Writings being acknowledged to contain the Will of God it be agreeable with the nature of the design and the Wisdom and Goodness of God for such Writings not to be capable of being understood in all things necessary to salvation by those who sincerely endeavour to understand them But when I had expresly said things necessary for salvation why doth he avoid that which the dispute was about and only say many things in stead of it I do not doubt but there are many difficult places of Scripture as there must be in any ancient Writings penned in an Idiom so very different from ours But I never yet saw one difficulty removed by the pretended Infallible Guides of the Church all the help we have had hath been from meer fallible men of excellent skill in Languages History and Chronology and of a clear understanding and we should be very unthankful not to acknowledge the great helps we have had from them for understanding the difficult places of Scripture But for the Infallible Guides they have dealt by the obscurities of Scripture as the Priest and the Leviâ—e in our Saviours Parable did by the wounded man they have fairly passed them by and taken no care of them If these Guides did believe themselves infallible they have made the least use of their Talent that ever men did they have laid it up in a Napkin and buried it in the earth for nothing of it ever appeared above ground How could they have obliged the World more nay it had been necessary to have done it for the use of their Gift than to have given an Infallible sense of all controverted Places and then there had been but one dispute left whether they were infallible or not but now supposing we believe their Infallibility we are still as far to seek for the meaning of many difficult places And supposing God had once bestowed this Gift of Infallibility upon the Guides of the Church he might most justly deprive them of it because of the no use they have made of it and we might have great reason to believe so from our Saviours words To him that hath shall be given but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath So that not making use of this Talent of Infallibility gives us just reason to question whether God continues it supposing he had once given it to the Guides of the Church since the Apostles days which I see no reason to believe 2. His next exception is from a saying of Dr. Fields who he saith seems to advance a contrary Principle in his Preface to his Books of the Church But O the mischief of Common-place-Books which make men write what they find and not what is to their purpose For after all Dr. Field doth but seem to advance another Principle in his opinion and doth not so much as seem to do it in mine For that learned and judicious Writer sets himself purposely to disprove the Infallibility of the Church in the beginning of his fourth Book and is it probable that any man of common understanding would assert that in his Preface which he had disproved in his Book It is a known distinction in the Church of Rome of the Church Virtual representative and essential by the two first are meant Popes and Councils and of these two Dr. Field saith that they may erre in matters of greatest Consequence yet these are N. O's infallible Guides whose conduct he supposeth men obliged to follow and to yield their internal assent to Concerning the essential Church he saith That it either comprehends all the faithful that are and have been since Christ appeared in the flesh and then he saith it is absolutely free from all errour and ignorance of divine things that are to be known by Revelations or as it comprehends only all those Believers that are and have been since the Apostles times and in this sense he saith the whole Church may be ignorant in sundry things which are not necessary to salvation but he thinks it impossible for the whole Church to erre in anything of this nature But in things that cannot be clearly deduced from the Rule of Faith and word of divine and heavenly Truth we think it possible that all that have written of such things might erre and be deceived But if the Church be taken only as it comprehends the Believers that now are and presently live in the world he saith it is certain and agreed upon that in things necessary to be known and believed expresly and distinctly it never is ignorant much less doth erre Yea in things that are not absolutely necessary to be known and believed expresly and distinctly we constantly believe that this Church can never erre nor doubt pertinaciously but that there shall ever be some found ready to embrace the truth if it be manifested to them and such as shall not wholly neglect the
is that it is a foolish thing to make use of a medium as uncertain as the thing which is to be proved by it and therefore if the Infallibility of the the Church be as liable to doubts and disputes as that of the Scriptures it is against all just Laws of reasoning to make use of the Churches Infallibility to prove the Scriptures by And to this no answer can be proper but either by saying that there is no absurdity in such a way of proving or else that the Infallibility of the Church is more certain and evident than that of the Scriptures Which I should be glad to see undertaken by any man who pretends to sense which N. O. doth too much to meddle with it and therefore fairly shuffles it off and turns my words quite to another meaning as though they had been spoken of the doubtful sense of the Decrees of Councils which although elsewhere I had sufficient reason to speak of yet that was not pertinent to this place But this was a way to escape by saying something though not at all to the purpose and yet he gives no sufficient answer to that sense he puts upon my words by bringing a Commentary upon them out of words used by me in another Discourse Wherein I did at large argue against the Infallibility of General Councils and after disproving it in general I undertook to prove that no man can have any certainty of Faith as to the Decrees of any Council because men can have no certainty of Faith that this was a General Council that it passed such Decrees that it proceeded lawfully in passing them and that this is the certain meaning of them all which are necessary in order to the believing those Decrees to be infallible with such a Faith as they call divine The words produced by him do speak of the doubtful sense and meaning of the Decrees of Councils by which I shew that men can have no more certainty of the meaning of them than of doubtful places of Scripture not as though I supposed it impossible for Councils to give a clear decision in matters of controversie so as that men might understand their meaning but I expresly mention such Decrees as are purposely framed in general terms and with ambiguous expressions pressions to give satisfaction to the several dissenting Parties for which I instanced in some of the Council of Trent whose ambiguity is most manifest by the disputes about their meaning raised by some who were present at the making of them I am far enough from denying that a Commentary may make a Text plainer or that a Iudges sentence can be clearer than the Law or that any Council can or hath decided any thing clearer than the thing that is in controversie which are his exceptions but I say if Councils pretend to do more than the Scriptures and to decide controversies for the satisfaction of the World and that men ought to have that certainty of Faith by them which they cannot have by the Scriptures they ought never to be liable to the same ambiguity and obscurity upon the account of which the Scripture is rejected from being a certain rule of Faith For as he saith well Infallibility alone ends not Controversies but clearness clearness in the point controverted which if Councils want they are as unfit to end Controversies as the Scriptures can be pretended to be But this is not the thing intended by me in this Proposition and therefore it needs no farther answer for the only subject of that Proposition is the Infallibility of the Church and not the clearness of the Decrees of Councils But I cannot admire the ingenuity of this way of answering me by putting another sense upon my words than they will bear and by drawing words out of another Discourse without shewing the purpose for which they are there used and leaving out the most material passages which tended to the clearing of them If N. O. thinks fit to oppose that whole Discourse against the Infallibility of General Councils and set down fairly the several Arguments I should be then too blame not to return a just answer but I am not bound to follow him in such strange excursions from the 17. Proposition of this Book to a single passage in a larger Book and from that back to another at a mighty distance in the same Book which being dismembred from the Body of the Discourse must needs lose much of their strength Yet with all the disadvantage he takes them which is such that the best Book in the World may be confuted in that manner he hath no great cause to glory in the execution he hath done upon them In answer to my Lord of Canterburies Adversary who boasted of the Unity of the Roman Church because whatever the private opinions of men are they are ready to submit their judgments to the censure and determination of the Church I had said that this will hold as well or better for our Unity as theirs because all men are willing to submit their judgments to Scripture which is agreed on all sides to be infallible Against these words thus taken alone N. O. spends two or three Pages which might have been spared if he had but fairly expressed what immediately follows them in these words If you say it cannot be known what Scripture determines but it may be easily what the Church defines it is easily answered that the event shews it to be far otherwise for how many disputes are there concerning the power of determining matters of Faith to whom it belongs in what way it must be managed whether Parties ought to be heard in matters of Doctrine what the meaning of the Decrees are when they are made which raise as many divisions as were before them as appears by the Decrees of the Council of Trent and the later of Pope Innocent relating to the five Propositions so that upon the whole it appears setting aside force and fraud which are excellent Principles of Christian Unity we are upon as fair terms of Union as they are among themselves I do not therefore say that the Church of Rome hath no advantage at all in point of Unity but that all the advantage it hath comes from force and fraud and setting these aside we are upon as good terms of Union as they and we do not envy them the effects of Tyranny and Deceit It is the Union of Christians we contend for and not of Slaves or Fools we leave the Turk and the Pope to vie with each other in this kind of Unity although I believe the Turk hath much the advantage in it and I freely yield to N. O. that they have a juster pretence to Vnity without Truth than we Which is agreeable to what he pleads for that they are more united in opinion than we united in opinion I say true or false saith he here matters not we speak here of Vnion not of Truth This and
the following of Tyranny which we complain of are the two fairest Pleas for their Vnion I ever met with But this is not a place to examine the pretences to Unity on both sides that I have at large done in a whole Chapter in the late Book and if N. O. had intended any thing to purpose against me on this subject he ought much rather to have fallen on a just Discourse than two such lame Clauses as he makes these to be by his citation of them And when he doth that he may hear more of this Subject in the mean time Infallibility is our business And therefore I proceed to the third Argument made use of by N. O. for the proof of Infallibility in the Guides of the Church which is from parity of Reason Because I say that it is repugnant to the nature of the design and the wisdom and goodness of God to give infallible assurance to persons in writing his Will for the benefit of mankind if those Writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary to their salvation from hence he inferrs That if every Christian may become thus infallible in necessaries from 1. a clear rule 2. a due Industry used 3. and a certainty that it is so used may not the Church-Governours still much rather be allowed Infallible and so retain still their infallible Guideship and the people also the more clear the rule of Faith is proved to be the more securely be referred to their direction and have we not all reason to presume that the chief Guides of the Church even a General Council of them or if it be but a major part of this Council 't is sufficient in their consults concerning a point necessary to salvation delivered in Scripture use at least so much endeavour for more needs not as a plain Rustick doth to understand the meaning of it and also the like sincerity For what they define for others they define for themselves also and their salvation is as much concerned as any other mans is in their mistakes And next why may not these Governours upon such certainty of a sincere endeavour and clearness of the rule take upon them to define these points and enjoyn an assent to and belief of them to their subjects especially since it is affirmed that all those from whom they require such obedience if they please to use a sincere endeavour may be certain thereof as well as they And are we not here again arrived at Church-infallibility if not from extraordinary divine assistance only sincere endeavour being supposed And thus doe not his conditional Infallibility of particular persons in necessaries the condition being so easie necessarily inferr a moral impossibility of the Churches erring in them especially those necessaries being contracted to the Apostles Creed as it is by some To lay open the weakness of this Discourse which appears fair and plausible at first view I shall give an account of these two things 1. What Infallibility I attribute to private persons 2. How far the parity of reason will extend to the Infallibility of the Guides of the Church 1. As to the Infallibility by me attributed to private persons no such thing can be inferred from my words and I wish N. O. would have kept to my own expressions and not foisted in that term of Infallibility without which all his Discourse would have betrayed its own weakness For take the terms which I laid down and apply them to the Guides of the Church and see what a mighty Infallibility springs from them For if it be repugnant to the nature of the design and to the wisdom and goodness of God to give infallible assurance to persons in writing his Will for the benefit of mankind if those Writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation how doth it hence follow that the Guides of the Church must be infallible in teaching matters of Faith If I had asserted that particular persons were infallible in determining what was true and what not then I grant the Argument would have much more held for those whose office it is to guide and direct others But what he means by mens being infallible in necessaries I do not well understand for it is capable of three several meanings 1. That either men are infallible in judging of necessaries to salvation 2. or That men are infallible in teaching others what art necessaries to salvation Or 3. That men are infallible in believing such things as are necessary to salvation i. e. that such is the goodness of God and the clearness of Scriptures that no man who sincerely desires to know what is necessary to salvation shall be deceived therein and what is this any more than to assert that God will not be wanting in necessaries to mankind and although I know no reason for using the term of Infallibility thus applied yet the thing it self I assert in that sense but in neither of the other and what now can be inferred from hence by a parity of reason but that the Guides of the Church supposing the same sincerity shall enjoy the same priviledge which I know none ever denied them but what is this to their infallibility in teaching all matters of Faith which is the only thing to be proved by him If he can prove this as necessary for the salvation of mankind as the other is then he would do something to his purpose but not otherwise So that all this discourse proceeds upon a very false way of reasoning from believing to teaching and from necessaries to salvation to all matters of Faith which the Guides of the Church shall propose to men 2. But may we not inferr that if God will not be wanting to particular persons in matters necessary to their salvation much less will he be wanting to the Guides of the Church in all matters of Faith No certainly unless it be proved that their Guidance is the only means whereby men can understand what is necessary to salvation which is utterly denied by us God having otherwise provided for that by giving so clear a Rule in matters necessary that no man who sincerely endeavours to know such things shall fail therein But will not the same sincerity in the Guides of the Church extend to their knowing and declaring all matters of Faith This is a thing possible and supposing God had entrusted them with the infallible delivery of all matters of Faith were not to be questioned but that is the thing still in dispute and is not to be supposed without proving it by plain evidence from those Books which are agreed on both sides to contain the Will of God Besides that no man that is acquainted with the proceedings of the Council of Trent will see reason to be over-confident of the
who hold the contrary or which is the most common when they denounce Anatâ—ema and exclude from the Church those who hold otherwise all which agree to this as will appear by the last collation of that Council And Pope Vigilius in the Greek Epistle now published in the Tomes of the Councils wherein he approves the 5 th Council not only condemns the three Chapters as contrary to saith but Anathematizes all those who should defend them and like an Infallible Judge very solemnly recants his former Apostolical decree though delivered by him upon great deliberation anâ— with an intention to teach the whole Church I wonder who there could be in that Age that believed the Pope to be an infallible Guide not the Eastern Bishops who excommunicated him and decreed directly contrary to him not the Western for they likewise excommunicated him and not only forsook his Communion but that of the Roman Church but did he believe himself infallible when he so often changed his mind and contradicted himself in Cathedra If he did he was without doubt a brave man and did as much as man can do This Controversy was scarce at an end for the Bishops of Istria continued in their separation from the Roman Church for 70. years w ch was till the time of Honorius A. D. 626. when another was started which gives us yet a more ample discovery of the more than fallibility of the Guides of the Church in that Age when a Pope was condemned for a Heretick by a General Council in which case I would fain know whether of them was infallible and to which of the Guides of the Church a man owed his internal assent and external obedience This being an Instance of so high a nature that the truth of it being supposed the pretence of absolute Authority and Infallibility in the Guides of the Roman Church must fall to the ground no wonder that all imaginable arts have been used by those of the Church of Rome to take away the force of it among whom Pighius Baronius Bellarmin Petavius and Petrus de Marcâ have laboured hardest in acquitting Honorius but have proceeded in different ways and the two last are content the Pope should be condemned for simplilicity and negligence the better to excuse him from heresy but one would think these two were as contrary to the office of a trusty Guide as heresy to one that pretends to be infallible But the better to understand the force of this Instance I shall give a brief account of the matter of fact as it is agreed on all sides and the representing the divisions among the Guides of the Church at that time will plainly shew how unreasonable it had been to have required absolute submission to such who so vehemently contradicted each other We are therefore to understand that the late Council at Constantinople being found unsuccessful for bringing the Eutychians and their off-spring to a submission to the Council of Chalcedon another expedient was found out for that end viz. that acknowledging two natures in Christ they should agree in owning that there was but one will and operation in him after the Union of both natures because will and operation were supposed to flow from the Person and not barely from the nature and the asserting two wills would imply two contrary principles in Christ which were not to be supposed This Expedient was first proposed to Heraclius the Emperour by Athanasius the Patriarch of the Iacobites or Paulus the Sâ—verian and approved by Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople and by Cyrus of Alexandria and Theodorus Bishop of Pharan near Aegypt Cyrus proceeded so far in it as by that means to reconcile the Theodosiani a sort of Eutychians in Alexandria to the Church of which he gives an account to Sergius of Constantinople and sends him the Anathema's which he published among which the 7 th was against those who asserted more than one operation in Christ. Sergius approves what Cyrus had done but Sophronius a learned Monk coming to Alexandria vehemently opposed Cyrus in this business but Cyrus persisting he makes his address to Sergius at Constantantinople and tells him of the dangerous heresy that was broaching under the pretence of Union after some heats Sergius yielded that nothing should be farther said of either side But Sophronius being made Bishop of Ierusalem he publishes an Encyclical Epistle wherein he asserts two operations and Anathematizes those who held the contrary and were for the Union and writes to Honorius then Pope giving him an account of this new heresy of the Monothelites the same year Sergius writes to him likewise of all transactions that had hitherto been in this matter and desires to know his judgement in such an affair wherein the Peace of the Church was so much concerned Honorius writes a very solemn letter to Sergius wherein he condemns the contentious humour of Sophronius and makes as good a confession of his faith as he could in which he expresly asserts that there was but one Will in Christ and agrees with Sergius that there should be no more disputing about one or two operations in Christ. Accordingly Heraclius by the advice of Sergius publishes his Ecthesis or declaration to the same purpose which was approved by a Synod under Sergius but opposed by Iohn 4. Bishop of Rome yet still maintained at Constinople not only by Sergius but by Pyrrhus and Paulus his successours who were both excommunicated by Theodorus succeeding Iohn after him Pope Martin calls a Council wherein he condemns all the Eastern Bishops who favoured this new heresy and the two Edicts of silence published by Heraclius and Constans but was for his pains sent for to Constantinople and there dyed These contentions daily increasing after the death of Constans Constantinus Pogonatus resolves to try all ways for the peace of the Church and therefore calls a General Council at Constantinople A. D. 680. wherâ— the Heresy of the Monothelites was condemned and the Writings of Sergius Cyrus Theodorus and Honorius in this matter as repugnant to the doctrine of the Apostles and decrees of Councils and the judgement of the Fathers and agreeable to the false doctrine of Hereticks and destructive to souls and not content meerly to condemn their doctrine they further proceed to Anathamatize and expunge out of the Church the names of Sergius Cyrus Pyrrhus Petrus Paulus and Theodorus and after these Honorius as agreeing in all things with Sergius and confirming his wicked doctrines Here we are now come to the main point we see a Pope delivering his judgement in a matter of faith concerning the whâ—le Church condemned for a Heretick by a General Council for so doing either he was rightly condemned or not if rightly what becomes of the infallibility of the Pope when he pretends to teach the whole Church in a matter of faith If not rightly what becomes of the authority and sincerity of General Councils if a Council so solemnly proceeding shoâ—ld condemn one
here is a contest of Right in the case antecedent to any duty of submission which must be better proved than ever it hath yet been before we can allow any dispute how far we are to submit to the Guides of the Roman Church 2. Not to submit to those who are Lawful Guides in all things they may require For our dispute is now about Guides supposed to be fallible and they being owned to be such may be supposed to require things to which we are bound not to yield But the great difficulty now is so to state these things as to shew that we had reason not to submit to the Guides of the Roman Church and that those of the Separation have no reason not to submit to the Guides of our Church For that is the obvious objection in this case that the same pretence which was used by our Church against the Church of Rome will serve to justify all the Separations that have been or can be made from our Church So my Adversary N. O. in his preface saith that by the principles we hold we excuse and justify all Sects which have or shall separate from our Church In answer to which calumny I shall not fix upon the perswasion of conscience for that may equally serve for all parties but upon a great difference in the very nature of the case as will appear in these particulars 1. We appeal to the Doctrine and practice of the truly Catholick Church in the matters of difference between us and the Church of Rome we are as ready as they to stand to the unanimous consent of Fathers and to Vincentius Lerinensis his Rules of Antiquity universality and consent we declare let the things in dispute be proved to have been the practice of the Christian Church in all Ages we are ready to submit to them but those who separate from the Church of England make this their Fundamental principle as to worship wherein the difference lyes that nothing is Lawful in the worship of God but what he hath expresly commanded we say all things are Lawful which are not forbidden and upon this single point stands the whole Controversy of separation as to the Constitution of our Church We challenge those that separate from us to produce one person for 1500. years together that held Forms of prayer to be unlawful or the ceremonies which are used in our Church We defend the Government of the Church by Bishops to be the most ancient and Apostolical Government and that no persons can have sufficient reason to cast that off which hath been so universally received in all Ages since the Apostles times if there have been disputes among us about the nature of the difference between the two orders and the necessity of it in order to the Being of a Church such there have been in the Church of Rome too Here then lyes a very considerable difference we appeal and are ready to stand to the judgement of the Primitive Church for interpreting the letter of Scripture in any difference between us and the Church of Rome but those who separate from our Church will allow nothing to be lawful but what hath an express command in Scripture 2. The Guides of our Church never challenged any Infallibility to themselves which those of the Church of Rome do and have done ever since the Controversy began Which challenge of Infallibility makes the Breach irreconcileable while that pretence continues for there can be no other way but absolute submission where men still pretend to be infallible It is to no purpose to propose terms of Accommodation between those who contend for a Reformation and such who contend that they can never be deceived on the one side errours are supposed and on the other that it is impossible there should by any Until therefore this pretence be quitted to talk of Accomodation is folly and to design it madness If the Church of Rome will allow nothing to be amiss how can she Reform any thing and how can they allow any thing to be amiss who believe they can never be deceived So that while this Arrogant pretence of Infallibility in the Roman Church continues it is impossible there should be any Reconciliation But there is no such thing in the least pretended by our Church that declares in her Articles that General Councils may err and sometimes have erred even in things partaining to God and that all the proof of things to be believed is to be taken from Holy Scripture So that as to the Ground of Faith there is no difference between our Church and those who dissent from her and none of them charge our Church with any errour in doctrine nor plead that as the reason of their separation 3. The Church of Rome not only requires the belief of her errours but makes the belief of them necessary to Salvation which is plain by the often objected Creed of Pius 4. Wherein the same necessity is expressed of believing the additional Articles which are proper to the Roman Church as of the most Fundamental Articles of Christian Faith And no Man who reads that Bull can discern the least difference therein made between the necessity of believing one and the other but that all together make up that Faith without which no man can be saved which though only required of some persons to make profession of yet that profession is to be esteemed the Faith of their Church But nothing of this nature can be objected against our Church by dissenters that excludes none from a possibility of Salvation meerly because not in her Communion as the Church of Rome expresly doth for it was not only Boniface 8. who determined as solemnly as he could that it was necessary to Salvation to be in subjection to the Bishop of Rome but the Council of Lateran under Leo 10. decreed the same thing 4. The Guides of the Roman Church pretend to as immediate authority of obliging the Consciences of men as Christ or his Apostles had but ours challenge no more than teaching men to do what Christ had Commanded them and in other things not commanded or forbidden to give rules which on the account of the General Commands of Scripture they look on the members of our Church as obliged to observe So that the Authority challenged in the Roman Church encroaches on the Prerogative of Christ being of the same nature with his but that which our Governours plead for is only that which belongs to them as Governours over a Christian Society Hence in the Church of Rome it is accounted as much a mortal sin to disobey their Guides in the most indifferent things as to disobey God in the plain Commands of Scripture but that is not all they challenge to themselves but a power likewise to dispence with the Law 's of God as in matter of marriages and with the Institution of Christ as in Communion in one kind and promise the same spiritual effects to
peace if Controversies were referred to an infallible Judge we must therefore allow every one that pretends to it to be such an infallible Guide And we must on the same ground allow every one if we must not first be satisfied of the grounds on which it is challenged by any one And withal since Christ is the best Judge of what is fittest for his Church we must see by his Laws whether he hath made it necessary for all Controversies to be ended by a standing Judge that should arise about the sense of Scripture If he hath not done it it is to no puâ—pose to say it is fit he should have done it for that is to upbraid Christ with weakness and not to end differences in his Church 2. Supposing it necessary that Controversies should be ended it may as well be done without an infallible Judge of the sense of Scripture as with one for all that is pretended to be done by an infallible Judge is to give a certain sense of controverted places so that men are either bound to look on that which they give as the certain sense on the account of the infallibility of the Interpreter or that such an infallible interpretation being set aside there is no way to know the certain sense of Scripture If the first then no man can be more certain of the sense of any doubtful place than he is of the infallibility of his Interpreter I desire therefore to be resolved in this case I am told I can arrive at no certainty of the sense of doubtful places of Scripture without an infallible Interpreter I say the places of Scripture which are alledged for such an infallible Judge are the most doubtful and controverted of any I would fain understand by what means I may come to be certain of the meaning of these places and to find out the sense of them Must I do it only by an infallible Guide but that is the thing I am now seeking for and I must not suppose that which I am to prove If I may be certain without supposing such an infallible Guide of the meaning of these very doubtful and controverted places than why may I not by the same way of proceeding arrive at the certainty of any other less doubtful and obscure places unless there be some private way to come at the sense of those places which will hold for none else besides them which is not so easy to understand 2. I come theâ—efore to the second enquiry which is about the means of attaining the certain sense of Scripture in doubtful places without the supposition of an infallible Guide It will not I hope be denyed that the Primitive Christian Church had a certain way of understanding the sense of doubtful places as far as it was necessary to be understood and that they wanted no means which Christ had appointed for the ending of Controversies But I shall now shew that they proceeded by no other means than what we use so that if they had any means to come to a certain sense of Scripture we have the same and it would be a veâ—y hard case if by the use of the same means we cannot attain the same end I shall therefore give an account of the proceeding of the Primitive Church in this weighty Controversy concerning the sense of Scripture in doubtful places and if no such thing was then heard off as an infallible Judge it is a plain demonstration they thought there was none appointed because the disputes that happened then required as much the Authority of such a Judge as any that are at this day in the Christian Church In the first Ages of Christianity there were two sorts of Controversies which disturbed the Church one was concerning the Authority of the Books of the new Testament and the other concerning the sense of them For there was no one Book of the New Testament whose Authority was not called in Question by some Hereticks in those first Ages The Gnosticks by whom I understand the followers of Simon Magus Menander Saturninus and Basilides haâ— framed a new Religion of their own under the name of Christian and had no regard to the Writings either of the old or new Testament but had a Book of their own which they called the Gospel of Perfection But as Epiphanius well observes no man that hath understanding needs Scripture to refute such a Religion as theirs was for right reason alone was sufficient to discover the folly and filthyness of it The followers of Cerinthus and Ebion acknowledged no other Gospel but that of St. Matthew and that not entire but with diverse corruptions and interpolations according to their several fancies Cerdon and Marcion allowed no Gospel but that of St. Luke which they altered according to their pleasure cutting off the Genealogy and other places and inserting many things as it served most to their purpose as may be seen at large in Epiphanius Some say the Valentinians received no other Gospel but that of St. Iohn as the Alogi in Epiphanius rejected that alone but I do not find that Valentinus did reject any but added more for Irenaeus chargeth the Valentinians only with adding another Gospel which they called the Gospel of Truth and Tertullian expresly saith that Valentinus therein differed from Marcion that Marcion cut off what he pleased with his sword but Valentinus corrupted it with his pen for although he allowed all the Books of the New Testament yet he perverted the meaning of them Eusebius tells us that the followers of Severus rejected the Epistles of S. Paul and the Acts of the Apostles and interpreted the Law and the Prophets and the Gospels after a peculiar sense of their own So that we see those who undertook to confute these Hereticks were not only to vindicate the true sense of Scripture but to dispute with such who did not own the same Books which they did and therefore were forced to use such ways of arguing as were proper to them as may be seen at large by the proceedings of Irenaeus and Tertullian against them But because the Valentinians and Marcionites did endeavour to suit their extravagant fancies to the Scriptures allowed by them it will be necessary for us to enquire by what means they went about to clear the true sense of Scripture from their false Glosses and Interpretations Irenaeus in the beginning of his Book relating at large the Doctrines of the Valâ—ntinians saith that by the perverse interpretations and corrupt expositions of the Scripture they drew away unstable minds from the true faith for they pretended to find out deeper and more mysterious things in the Scripture than others were acquainted with viz. That Christ intimated the 30. Aeöns by not appearing till the 30. year of his Age. That the parable of men called at the first the third the sixth the ninth the eleventh hour referred to the same thing for those hours make up
very next Chapter urges this as the Consequence of it that having truth for our Rule and so plain Testimony of God men ought not to perplex themselves with doubtful Questions concerning God but grow in the love of him who hath done and doth so great things for us and never fall off from that knowledge which is most clearly revealed And we ought to be content with what is clearly made known in the Scriptures because they are perfect as coming from the wâ—rd and Spirit of God And we need 〈◊〉 â—onder if there be many things in Religion above our understandings since there are so in natural things which are daily seen by us as in the nature of Birds Water Air Meteors c. of which we may talk much but only God knows what the truth is Therefore why should we think much if it be so in Religion too wherein are some things we may understand and others we must leave to God and if we do so we shall keep our faith without danger And all Scripture being agreeable to it self the dark places must be understood in a way most suitable to the sense of the plain 3. The sense they gave of Scripture was contrary to the Doctrine of faith received by all true Christians from the beginning which he calls the unmoveable rule of faith received in Baptism and which the Church dispersed over the Earth did equally receive in all places with a wonderful consent For although the places and languages be never so distant or different from each other yet the faith is the very same as there is one Sun which inlightens the whole World which faith none did enlarge or diminish And after having shewn the great absurdities of the Doctrines of the Enemies of this faith in his first and second Books in the beginning of the third he shews that the Apostles did fully understand the mind of Christ that they preached the same Doctrine which the Church received and which after their preaching it was committed to writing by the Will of God in the Scriptures to be the pillar and ground of Faith Which was the true reason why the Hereticks did go about to disparage the Scriptures because they were condemned by them therefore they would not allow them sufficient Authority and charged them with contradictions and so great obscurity that the truth could not be found in them without the help of Tradition which they accounted the key to unlock all the difficulties of Scripture And was not to be sought for in Writings but was delivered down from hand to hand for which cause St. Paul said we speak wisdom among them that are perfect Which wisdom they pretended to be among themselves On this account the matter of Tradition came first into dispute in the Christian Church And Irenaeus appeals to the most eminent Churches and Especially that of Rome because of the great resort of Christians thither whether any such tradition was ever received among them and all the Churches of Asia received the same faith from the Apostles and knew of no such Tradition as the Valentinians pretended to and there was no reason to think that so many Churches founded by the Apostles or Christ should be ignorant of such a tradition and supposing no Scriptures at all had been written by the Apostles we must then have followed the Tradition of the most ancient and Apostolical Churches and even the most Barbarous nations that had embraced Christianity without any Writings yet fully agreed with other Churches in the Doctrine of Faith for that is it he means by the rule of faith viz. a summary comprehension of the Doctrine received among Christians such as the Creed is mentioned by Irenaeus and afterwards he speaks of the Rule of the Valentinians in opposition to that of the sound Christians From hence Irenaeus proceeds to confute the Doctrine of the Valentinians by Scripture and Reason in the third fourth and fifth Books All which ways of finding out the sense of Scripture in doubtful places we allow of and approve and are always ready to appeal to them in any of the matters controverted between us and the Church of Rome But Irenaeus knew nothing of any Infallible Judge to determine the sense of Scripture for if he had it would have been very strange he should have gone so much the farthest way about when he might so easily have told the Valentinians that God had entrusted the Guides of his Church especially at Rome with the faculty of interpreting Scripture and that all men were bound to believe that to be the sense of it which they declared and no other But men must be pardoned if they do not write that which never entred into their Heads After Irenaeus Tertullian sets himself the most to dispute against those who opposed the Faith of the Church and the method he takes in his Boo of Praescription of Hereticks is this 1. That there must be a certain unalterable Rule of Faith For he that believes doth not only suppose sufficient grounds for his faith but bounds that are set to it and therefore there is no need of further search since the Gospel is revealed This he speaks to take away the pretence of the Seekers of those days who were always crying seek and ye shall find to which he replys that we are to consider not the bare words but the reason of them And in the first place we are to suppose this that there is one certain and fixed Doctrine delivered by Christ which all nations are bound to believe and therefore to seek that when they have found they may believe it Therefore all our enquiries are to be confined within that compass what that Doctrine was which Christ delivered for otherwise there will be no end of seeking 2. He shews what this Rule of Faith is by repeating the Articles of the Ancient Creed which he saith was universally received among true Christians and disputed by none but Hereticks Which Rule of Faith being embraced then he saith a liberty is allowed for other enquiries in doubtful or obscure matters For faith lyes in the Rule but other things were matters of skill and curiosity and it is faith which saves men and not their skill in expounding Scriptures and while men keep themselves within that Rule they are safe enough for to know nothing beyond it is to know all 3. But they pretend Scripture for what they deliver and by that means unsettle the minds of many To this he answers several ways 1. That such persons as those were ought not to be admitted to a dispute concerning the sense of Scripture because they rather deserved to be censured than disputed for bringing such new heresies into the Church but chiefly because it was to no purpose to dispute with them about the sense of Scripture who received what Scriptures they pleased themselves and added and took away as they
thought fit And what can the most skilful men in the Scripture do with such men who deny or affirm what they please therefore such kind of disputes tended to no good at all where either side charged the other with forging and perverting the Scriptures and so the Controversy with them was not to be managed by the Scriptures by which either none or an uncertain Victory was to be obtained 2. In this dispute about the sense of Scripture the true Ancient faith is first to be enquired after for among whom that was there would appear to be the true meaning of Scripture And for finding out the true faith we are to remember that Christ sent abroad his Apostles to plant Churches in every City from whence other Churches did derive the faith which are called Apostolical from their agreement in this common faith at first delivered by the Apostles that the way to understand this Apostolical faith is to have recourse to the Apostolical Churches for it is unreasonable to suppose that the Apostles should not know the Doctrine of Christ which he at large proves or that they did not deliver to the Churches planted by them the things which they knew or that the Churches misunderstood their Doctrine because all the Christian Churches were agreed in one Common faith and therefore there is all the reason to believe that so universal consent must arise from some common cause which can be supposed to be no other than the common delivery of it by all the Apostles But the Doctrines of the Hereticks were novel and upstart and we must say all the former Christians were baptized into a false faith as not knowing the true God or the true Christ if Marcion and Valentinus did deliver the true Doctrine but that which is first is true and from God that which comes after is foraign and false If Marcion and Valentinus Nigidius or Hermogenes broach new opinions and set up other expositions of Scripture than the Christian Church hath received from the Apostles times that without any farther proof discovers their imposture 3. Two senses directly contrary to each other cannot proceed from the same Apostolical persons This Tertullian likewise insists upon to shew that although they might pretend Antiquity and that as far as the Apostolical times yet the contrariety of their Doctrine to that of the Apostles would sufficiently manifest the falshood of it For saith he the Apostles would never contradict each other or themselves and if the Apostolical persons had contradicted them they had not been joyned together in the Communion of the same faith which all the Apostolical Churches were But the Doctrines broached by these men were in their seeds condemned by the Apostles themselves so Marcion Apelles and Valentinus were confuted in the Sadducees and first corrupters of Christianity But the true Christians could not be charged by their Adversaries with holding any thing contrary to what the Church received from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God For the succession of the Churches was so evident and the Chairs of the Apostles so well known that any one might satisfy his curiosity about their Doctrine especially since their authentick Epistles are still preserved therein But where a diversity of Doctrine was found from the Apostles that was sufficient evidence of a false sense that was put upon the Scriptures Thus Tertullian lays down the rules of finding out the sense of controverted places of Scripture without the least insinuation of any infallibility placed in the Guides of the Church for determining the certain sense of them But lest by this way of Prescribing against Hereticks he should seem to decline the merits of the cause out of distrust of being able to manage it against them he tells us therefore elsewhere he would set aside the ground of prescription or just exception against their pleading for so prescription signifies in him as against Marcion and Hermogenes and Praxeas and refute their opinions upon other grounds In his Books against Marcion he first lays down Marcions rule as he calls it i.e. the sum of his opinion which was making the Creator of the World and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ two distinct Gods the one nothing but goodness and the other the Author of evil which opinion he overthrows from principles of reason because there cannot be two infinitely great and on the same grounds he makes two he may make many more and because God must be known by his works and he could not be God that did not create the World and so continues arguing against Marcion to the end of the first Book In the second he vindicates God the Creator from all the objections which Marcion had mustered against his goodness In the third he proves that Christ was the Son of God the Creator first by reason and then by Scripture and lays down two rules for understanding the Prophetical predictions relating to the manner of expressing future things as past and the aenigmatical way of representing plain things afterwards he proves in the same manner from Scripture and Reason that Christ did truly assume our nature and not meerly in appearance which he demonstrates from the death and resurrection of Christ and from the evidence of sense and makes that sufficient evidence of the truth of a body that it is the object of three senses of sight and touch and hearing Which is the same way of arguing we make use of against Transubstantiation and if Marcion had been so subtle to have used the Evasions those do in the Roman Church he might have defended the putative body of Christ in the very same manner that they do the being of accidents without a substance In the fourth Book he asserts against Marcion the Authority of the Gospel received in the Christian Church above that which Marcion allowed by the greater Antiquity and the universal reception of the true Gospels and after refutes the supposition of a twofold Christ one for the Jews and another for the Gentiles from the comparing of Scriptures together which he doth with great diligence and answers all the arguments from thence brought by Marcion to prove that Christ was an enemy to the Law of Moses In his fifth and last Book he proves out of the Epistles of St. Paul allowed by Marcion that he preached no other God than the Creator and that Christ was the Son of God the Creator which he doth from the scope and circumstances of the places without apprehending the least necessity of calling in any Infallible Guides to give the certain sense and meaning of them Against Hermogenes he disputes about the eternity of matter the Controversy between them he tells us was concerning the sense of some places of Scripture which relate to the Creation of things Tertullian proves that all things were made of nothing
because it is not mentioned out of what they were made Hermogenes proves they were made out of matter because it is not said they were made of nothing To determine therefore the sense of these places Tertullian shews from reason the repugnancy of the eternity of matter to the attributes of God he compares several places of Scripture together he reasons from the manner of the expressions and the Idiom of Scripture I adore saith he the fulness of the Scripture which shews me both the maker and the thing made but the Gospel likewise discovers by whom all things were made But the Scripture no where saith that all things were made out of matter Let the shop of Hermogenes shew where it is written and if it be not written let him fear the wo denounced to those who add or take from what is written He examins the several places in dispute and by proving that sense which Hermogenes put upon them to be repugnant to reason as he shews to the end of that Book he concludes his sense of Scripture to be false and erroneous Against Praxeas he disputes whether God the Father took our nature upon him and the arguments on both sides are drawn from the Scriptures but Tertullian well observes that they insisted upon two or three places of Scripture and would make all the rest though far more to yield to them Whereas the fewer places ought to be understood according to the sense of the greater number But this saith he is the property of all Hereticks because they can find but few places for them they defend the smaller number against the greater which is against the nature of a rule wherein the first and the most ought to oversway the latter and the fewer And therefore he sets himself throughout that Book to produce the far greater number of places of Scripture which do assert the distinction between the Father and the Son and consequently that it could not be the Father who suffered for us Hitherto we find nothing said of an infallible Guide to give the certain sense of Scripture when the fairest occasion was offered by those who disputed the most concerning the sense of Scripture in the Age wherein they lived viz. by Irenaeus and Tertullian I now proceed to Clemens of Alexandria who in his learned Collections proposes that objection against Christianity that there were many Heresies among Christians and therefore men could believe nothing To which he answers That there were Heresies among the Jews and Philosophers and that objection was not thought sufficient against Iudaism or Philosophy and therefore ought not to be against Christianity Besides the coming of Heresies was foretold and what ever is foretold must come to pass The Physitians saith he differ in their opinions yet men do not neglect to make use of them when they are sick Heresies should only make men more careful what they choose Men ought thereby to endeavour the more to find out truth from falshood as if two sorts of fruit be offered to a man real and waxen will a man abstain from both because one is Counterfeit or rather find out the true from the apparent When several ways offer themselves for a man to go in he ought not therefore to sit down and not stir a step further but he uses the best means to find out the true way and then walks in it So that they are justly condemned who do not discern the true from the false for they who will saith he may find out the truth For either there is demonstration or not all grant demonstration or evidence who do not destroy our senses If there be demonstration there must be search and enquiry made and by the Scriptures we may demonstratively learn how Heresies fell of and that the exactest knowledge was to be found in the truth and the ancient Church Now the true searchers will not leave till they find Evidence from the Scriptures To this end he commends the exercise of mens reason and understanding impartiality or laying aside opinion a right disposition of Soul for when men are given over to their lusts they endeavour to wrest the Scriptures to them But he establishes the Scripture as the only principle of certainty to Christians and more credible than any demonstration which who so have tasted are called faithful but those who are versed in them are the truly knowing men The great objection now is that Hereticks make use of Scripture too I but they saith he reject what they please and do not follow the Body and Contexture of Prophecy but take ambiguous expressions and apply them to their own opinions and a few scattered phrases without regarding the sense and importance of them For in the Scriptures produced by them you may find them either making use of meer names and changing the significations of them never attending to the scope and intention of them But truth saith he doth not lye in the change of the signification of words for by that means all Truth may be overthrown but in considering what is proper and perfectly agreeable to our Lord and Almighty God and in confirming every thing which is demonstrated by the Scripture out of the same Scriptures Wherein Clemens Alexandrinus lays down such rules as he thought necessary to find out the certain sense of Scripture viz. by considering the scope and coherence of the words the proper sense and importance of them the comparing of Scripture with Scripture and the Doctrine drawn from it with the nature and properties of God all which are excellent Rules without the least intimation of the necessity of any Infallible Interpreter to give the certain sense of doubtful places After this time a great dispute arose in the Church about the rebaptizing Hereticks managed by the Eastern and African Bishops against Stephen Bishop of Rome Here the Question was about the sense of several places of Scripture and the practice of the Apostles as appears by the Epistles of Cyprian and Firmilian both parties pleading Scripture and Tradition for themselves But no such thing as an infallibility in judgement was pleaded by the Pope nor any thing like it in the least acknowledged by his Adversaries who charge him without any respect to his Infallible guideship with pride error rashness impertinency and contradicting himself Which makes Baronius very Tragically exclaim and although he makes use of this as a great argument of the prevalency of Tradition because the opinion of Stephen obtained in the Church yet there is no Evidence at all that any Churches did submit to the opinion of Stephen when he declared himself but as appears by Dionystus of Alexandria's Epistles the Controversy continued after his time and if we look into the judgement of the Church in following Ages we shall find that neither Stephens opinion nor his Adversaries were followed for Stephen was against rebaptizing any Hereticks and the others were for rebaptizing all because one
Baptism was only in the true Church For in the 19. Canon of the Council of Nice the Samosatenian Baptism is pronounced null and the persons who received it are to be new Baptized and the first Council of Arles decrees that in case of Heresy men are to receive new Baptism but not otherwise The second Council of Arles puts a distinction between Hereticks decreeing that the Photinians and Samosatenians should be Baptized again but not the Bonofiaci noâ— the Arians but they were to be received upon renouncing their Heresy without Baptism Which seems the harder to understand since the Bonosiaci were no other than Photinians The most probable way of solving it is that these two latter sorts did preserve the form of Baptism entire but the Photinians and Samosatenians altered it which St. Augustin saith is a thing to be believed So Gennadius reports it that those who were Baptized without invocation of the B. Trinity were to he Baptized upon their reception into the Church not rebaptized because the former was accounted null of these he reckons not only the Paulianists and Photinians but the Bonâ—sâ—â—ci too and many others But St. Basil determines the case of Baptism not from the form but from the faith which they professed a Schismatical Baptism he faith was allowed but not Heretical by which he means such as denyed the Trinity and therein he saith S. Cyprian and Firmilian were to blame because they would allow no Baptism among persons separated from the Communion of the Church The Council of Laodicea decreed that the Novatians Photinians and Quarto-decimans were to be received without new Baptism but not the Montanists or Cataphryges but Binius saith there was one Copy wherein the Photinians were left out and then these Canons may agree with the rest and Baronius asserts that the greater number of M. S. Copies leave out Photinians And withal he proves that the Church did never allow the Baptism of the Photinians though it did of the Arians by which we see that the Church afterwards did not follow that which Stephen pretended to be an Apostolical tradition viz. that no Hereticks should be rebaptized and from hence we may conclude that the Pope was far from being thought an infallible Guide or Interpreter of Scripture either by that or succeeding Ages when not only single persons that were eminent Guides of the Church such as the African and Eastern Bishops were opposed his Doctrine and slighted his excommunications but several Councils called both in the East and Africa and the most eminent Councils of the Church afterwards such as the first of Arles and Nice decreed contrary to what he declared to be an Apostolical Tradition In the same Age we meet with another great Controversy about the sense of Scripture for Paulus Samosatenus openly denyed the Divinity of Christ and asserted the Doctrine of it to be repugnant to Scripture and the ancient Apostolical tradition For this Paulus revived the heresie of Artemon whose followers as appears by the fragment of an ancient Writer against them in Eusebius supposed to be Caius pleaded that the Apostles were of their mind and that their Doctrine continued in the Church till the time of Victor and then it began to be corrupted Which saith that Writer would seem probable if the holy Scriptures did not first contradict them and the Books of several Christians before Victors time So that we see the main of the Controversie did depend upon the sense of Scripture which was pleaded on both sides But what course was taken in this important Controversie to find out the certain sense of Scripture Do they appeal to any infallible Guides Nothing like it But in the Councils of Antioch in the Writings of Dionysius of Alexandria and others since they who opposed the Samosatenian Doctrine endeavoured with all their strength to prove that to be the true sense of Scripture which asserted the Divinity of Christ. It is great pity the dispute of Malchion with Paulus is now lost which was extant in Eusebius his time but in the Questions and Answers between Paulus and Dionysius which Valesius without reason suspects since St. Hierome mentions his Epistle against Paulus the dispute was about the true sense of Scripture which both pleaded for themselves Paulus insists on those places which speak of the humane infirmities of Christ which he saith prove that he was meer Man and not God the other answers that these things were not inconsistent with the Being of the Divine nature since expressions implying humane passions are attributed to God in Scripture But he proves from multitude of Scriptures and reasons drawn from them that the divine nature is attributed to Christ and therefore the other places which seem repugnant to it are to be interpreted in a sense agreeable thereto The same course is likewise taken by Epiphanius against this heresie who saith the Christians way of answering difficulties was not from their own reasons but from the scope and consequence of Scripture and particularly adds that the Doctrine of the Trinity was carefully delivered in the Scriptures because God foresaw the many heresies which would arise about it But never any Controveâ—sie about the sense of Scripture disturbed the Church more than that which the Arians raised and if ever any had reason to think of some certain and infallible way of finding out the sense of Scripture the Catholick Christians of that Age had I shall therefore give an account of what way the best Writers of the Church in that time took to find out the sense of Scripture in the Controverted places Of all the Writers against them Athanasius hath justly the greatest esteem and Petavius saith that God inspired him with greater skill in this Controversie than any others before him The principle he goes upon in all his disputes against the Arians is this that our true faith is built upon the Scriptures so in several places of his conference with the Arian and in the beginning of his Epistle to Iovianus and elsewhere Therefore in the entrance of his Disputations against the Arians he adviseth all that would secure themselves from the impostures of Hereticks to study the Scriptures because those who are versed therein stand firm against all their assaults but they who look only at the words without understanding the meaning of them are easily seduced by them And this Counsel he gives after the Council of Nice had decreed the Arian Doctrine to be Heresie and although he saith other ways may be used to confute it yet because the Holy Scripture is more sufficient than all of them therefore those who would be better instructed in these things I would advise them to be conversant in the divine Oracles But did not the Arians plead Scripture as well as they how then could the Scripture end this Controversie which did arise about the sense of Scripture This objection which is now made so much
Persons do not allow the Scripture then we are to proceed by the best means we can have without it viz. The tradition of Apostolical Churches from the beginning if they do allow the Scripture then we are to examine and compare places of Scripture with all the care and judgement that may be If after all this the dispute still continues then if it be against the ancient Rule of Faith universally received that is a sufficient prescription against any opinion if not against the Rule of Faith in express words but about the sense of it then if ancient General Councils have determined it which had greater opportunities of knowing the sense of the Apostolical Church than we it is reasonable we should yield to them but if there have been none such then the unanimous consent of Fathers is to be taken so it be in some late and upstart heresies which men pretend to have by Revelation or some special Grace of God Now either all these means were sufficient or not to find out the sense of Scripture if not then the ancient Church was wholly defective and wanted any certain way of finding out the sense of Scripture if these were sufficient then there is no necessity of infallibility in the Guides of the Church to give us a certain sense of Scripture which was the thing to be proved But N. O. towards the conclusion of his Book produces St. Augustin for the Churches Infallibility in delivering the sense of Scripture in obscure places which being contrary to what I have already said concerning him must be examined before I conclude this discourse about the sense of Scripture The place is out of his Answer to Cresconius concerning the obscure point of Rebaptization in these words since the holy Scripture cannot deceive let whosoever is in fear of being deceived by the obscurity of this Question consult the same Church about it which Church the holy Scripture doth without all ambiguity demonstrate And before the truth of the Holy Scriptures is held by us in this matter when we do that which hath pleased the Vniversal Church which the Authority of the Scripture does commend c. All which is false and said to no purpose saith N. O. if the Scripture be not clear in this that this Church can determine nothing in such important contests contrary to the verity of the Scriptures and that we ought to give credit to what she decides for then it would not be true what he says the truth of the same Scripture in this matter is held by us and he who is in fear of being deceived by the obscurity of this Question is no way relieved in following the sentence of the Churth To which I answer That St. Augustin doth not suppose that men cannot attain to any certainty of the the sense of Scripture in this matter without the Churches Infallibility for he saith in the Chapter preceding that in this matter we follow the most certain Authority of Canonical Scriptures but he puts the case that no certain example could be produced out of Scripture then he saith they had the truth of the Scriptures when they do that which pleased the Vniversal Church c. For the explaining St. Augustins meaning we are to consider that there were two Controversies then on foot in the Church with the Donatists the one concerning Rebaptization the other concerning the Church the former he looks upon as more intricate and obscure by reason not only of the doubtfulness of Scripture but the Authority of about seventy Bishops of Africa who had determined for it among whom St. Cyprian was chief which we see in all his disputes with the Donatisis on this subject he is very much perplexed with therefore St. Augustin finding that Controversie very troublesome was willing to bring it to that issue that what the Catholick Church after so much discussing the point had agreed upon should be received as the truth By this means the dispute would be brought to that other Question which he thought much more easie viz. Which was the true Church the Catholick or the Donatists but by no means doth St. Augustin hereby intend to make the Churches Authority to resolve all doubts concernig Scriptures but he thought it much easier to prove by Scripture which was the true Church than whether rebaptization were lawful or not And accordingly his very next words are but if you doubt whether the Vniversal Church be that which the Scripture commends I will load you with many and most manifest Testimonies of Scripture to that end Which is the design of his Book of the Vnity of the Church wherein he shews That those Testimonies of Scripture which speak of the Universality of the Church are very plain and clear and needed no interpretation at all that in this case we are not to regard what Donatus or Parmenianus or Pontius hath said for neither saith he are we to yield to Catholick Bishops themselves if they be at any time so much deceived as to hold what is contrary to Canonical Scriptures By which it is evident that he supposed no infallibility in the Guides of the Church And in terms he asserts that the Church is to be proved by nothing but plain Scriptures neither by the Authority of Optatus or St. Ambrose or innumerable Bishops nor Councils nor Miracles nor visions and Revelations whatever N. O. thinks of them now St. Augustin supposing there was much less ambiguity in Scripture in the Controversie of the Church than in that of Rebaptization he endeavours to bring them to a resolution in the other point for the clearing of this and so he only pursues the method laid down in the Books of Christian Doctrine to make use of plainer places of Scripture to give light to the darker And when they were convinced by Scripture that the Catholick Church was the true Church of Christ he doth not question but they would follow that which was the sentence of the Catholick Church But here lyes the main difficulty on what account the sentence of the Church was to be followed In order to the resolution of it we must take notice of these things 1. That all the proofs which St. Augustin brings for the Church do relate only to the extent and Vniversality of it and not to any Infallibility that is promised to it as will easily appear to any one that will read his discourses on that subject against the Donatists 2. That he asserts no infallibility in the highest Authority of the Church which in many places of his Books of Baptism against the Donatists he makes to be a Plenary or General Council whose Authority he saith was to be preferred before that of St. Cyprian or any particular Councils either in his time or before it which he calls the Authority and decrees of the Vniversal Church So that we see he resolves all the Authority of the Church in this matter into that of a General
fob us off with the consent of the Roman Faction for the Vniversal Church nor of some latter ages for a Tradition from Apostolical times nor of a packed Company of Bishops for a truly General Council And thus much may now serve to clear that important Controversie about the sense of Scripture in doubtful places The last thing to be considered is whether the same arguments which overthrow infallibility do likewise destroy all Church-Authority For this is by N. O. frequently objected against me for he saith thus it happens more than once in these Principles laid down by me that in 100 forward a zeal in demolishing the one viz. Church Infallibility the other is also dangerously undermined viz. Church-Authority And therefore out of his singular regard to the good of our Church he saith it concerns my Superior to look to it whether their Churches and their own Authority suffers no detriment from my Principles and again he saith my Principles against Infallibility conclude the uselessness of any Ecclesiastical Authority to teach men as of an Infallible to assure men of the truth of those things which by using only their own sincere endeavour they may know without them And lastly he saith my Principles afford no effectual way or means of suppressing or convicting any Schism Sect or Heresie or reducing them either to submission of judgement or silence And therefore he desires the prudent to consider whether the Authority of the Church of England is not much debilitated and brought into contempt and daily like to wane more and more by this new taken up way of its Defence My Answer is that I have carefully examined and searched my Principles and find no such Gunpowder in them for blowing up Authority either of Church or State For all that I can discover they are very innocent and harmless and if all other mens had been so we had never heard so much talk of this way of undermining and blowing up But is it not a pleasant thing to see all of a sudden what zeal these men discover for the preservation of our Churches Authority Alas good men It grieves them at the very heart to see the Authority of our Church weakned and that by its own members What would not they do for the strengthening and upholding of it What pity it is such a Church should not stand whose very enemies take such care for its preservation And are so ready to discover the plâ—ts of its own children against it Bâ—t to be â—ure there is mischief intended when enemies discover it not by those whom they accuse but by the honest Informers who would be content to hold their peace if they thought they could not sow mischief by pretending to discover it It is a pretty plot to make those who design to defend our Church to be the underminers of it and the most professed Enemies its surest Friends But such plots are too fine to hold and too thin not to be seen through How is it I beseech N. O. that my principles undermine all Church Authority Have I any where made the Church a meer shadow and an insignificant Cypher a Society depending only on the pleasure of men for its subsistence and Authority This had been indeed to the purpose but not the least word tending that way can be drawn out of any Principles of mine For I verily believe that the Church is a Society instituted by Christ himself and invested with Authority necessary for its Government and preservation But though I cannot deny such an Authority I may render it wholly useless I cannot conceive any such malignant influence in any Principles of mine but if there be it must be from one of these things 1. Either because I deny Infallibility in the Guides of the Church Or 2. Because I say that the Scriptures are plain in things necessary to salvation Or 3. Because I deny the Authority of the Church of Rome Or 4. Because I am not for such an effectual way of suppressing Sects and Heresies as is in use in the Roman Church But I hope to make it appear that none of these do in the least tend to weaken or bring into contempt the Church of Englâ—nds authority nor the just Authority of any Church in the World 1. Not the denial of Infallibility This N. O. seems to suppose to be the very Faux in the Gunpowder Plot the instrument of setting all on Fire But is there any thing peculiar to my Principles herein Have not all who have written against the Church of Rome opposed the pretence of Infallibility how then come my principles to be of so mischievous a nature above others But I pray Sir are Authority and Infallibility all one in your account We suppose that Magistrates and Parents and Masters have all of them an unquestionable Authority but I never heard yet of any man that said they wre infallible or that there was no ground to obey them if they were not Why may we not then allow any Authority belonging to the Governours of the Church and yet think it possible for them to be deceived Is this a sufficient reason for any man to cast off his subjection to his Prince because it 's possible he may require something unlawful or to disobey his Parents because they do not sit in an infallible chair or to slight his Master because he is not Pope These are strange ways of arguing about matters of Religion which are ridiculous in any other case If the possibility of being deceived destroys no other Authority in the world why should it do that of the Church The Magistrate does not lose his Authority though we say we are to obey God rather than men and consequently to examine whether the Laws of men are not repugnant to the Laws of God which implys that he may require what it is our duty not to do The Authority of Parents is not destroyed because in some cases we are bound to disobey them when they command men to destroy or rise up in arms against their Soveraign How comes it then to pass that all Church-Authority is immediately gone if we do but suppose a possibility of errour in those which have it But it may be said it is their office to be Guides and if we do not follow them absolutely we renounce them from being our Guides To which I answer there are two sorts of persons that stand in need of Guides the blind and the Ignorant the blind must follow their Guides because of an incapacity of seeing their way the Ignorant for want of Instruction Yet neither of these are bound to believe their Guides Infallible and to follow them at all adventures For even the blind by their own sad experience of frequent falling into ditches or knocking their heads against Posts may have reason to question if not the skill yet the sincerity of their Guides and though they must have some may seek new ones The ignorant follow
Government that those who adhered to the Religion of the Roman Church yet agreed to the rejecting that Authority which he challenged in England Which is sufficiently known to have been the beginning of the Breach between the two Churches Afterwards when it was thus agreed that the Bishop of Rome had no such Authority as he challenged what should hinder our Church from proceeding in the best way it could for the Reformation of it self For the Popes Supremacy being cast out as an usurpation our Church was thereby declared to be a Free Church having the Power of Government within it self And what method of proceeding could be more reasonable in this case than by the advice of the Governours of the Church and by the concurrence of civil Authority to publish such Rules and Articles according to which Religion was to be professed and the worship of God setled in England And this is that which N. O. calls refusing submission to all the Authority then extant in the world was all the Authority then extant shut up in the Popes Breast was there no due power of Governing left because his unjust power was cast off and that first by Bishops who in other things adhered to the Roman Church But they proceeded farther and altered many things in Religion against the Consent of the more Vniversal Church It is plain since our Church was declared to be Free they had a Liberty of enquiring and determining things fittest to be believed and practised this then could not be her fault But in those things they decreed they went contrary to the consent of the Vniversal Church Here we are now come to the merits of the cause and we have from the beginning of the Reformation defended that we rejected nothing but innovations and Reformed nothing but Abuses But the Church thought otherwise of them What Church I pray The Primitive and Apostolical that we have always appealed to and offered to be tryed by The truly Catholick Church of all Ages That we utterly deny to have agreed in any one thing against the Church of England But the plain English of all is the Church of Rome was against the Church of England and no wonder for the Church of England was against the Church of Rome but we know of no Fault we are guilty of therein nor any obligation of submission to the Commands of that Church And N. O. doth not say that we opposed the whole Church but the more Vniversal Church i. e. I suppose the greater number of Persons at that time But doth he undertake to make this good that the greater number of Christians then in the world did oppose the Church of England How doth he know that the Eastern Armenian Abyssin and Greek Churches did agree with the Church of Rome against us No that is not his meaning but by the more Vniversal Church he fairly understands no more but the Church of Rome And that we did oppose the Doctrine and practices of the Church of Rome we deny not but we utterly deny that to be the Catholick Church or that we opposed any lawful Authority in denying submission to it But according to the Canons of the Church we are to obey in any dissent or division of the Clergy the Superior and more comprehensive Body of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy What he means by this I do not well understand either it must be the Authority of the Pope and Councils of the Roman Church or a General Council of all the Catholick Church For the first we owe no obedience to them for the second there was no such thing then in the world and therefore could not be opposed And for the Canons of the Catholick Councils before the breaches of Christendom no Church hath been more guilty of a violation of them than the Church of Rome since the Rules of the Fathers have been turned into the Royalties of S. Peter We are no Enemies to the ancient Patriarchal Government of the Christian Church and are far more for preserving the Dignity of it than the Roman Church can be For we should think it a happy State of the Christian Church if all the Patriarchs did enjoy their ancient power and priviledges and all Christendom would consent to a truly Free and General Council which we look on as the best expedient on earth for composing the differences of the Christian World if it might be had But we cannot endure to be abused by meer names of titular Patriarchs but real Servants and Pensionaries of the Popes with combinations of interested parties instead of General Councils with the pleasure of Popes instead of ancient Canons Let them reduce the ancient Government of the Church within its due bounds let the Bishop of Rome content himself with the priviledges he then enâ—oyed let debates be free and Bishops assemble with an equal proportion out of all Churches of Christendom and if we then oppose so generâ—l a consent of the Christian Church let them charge us with not submitting to all the Authority extant of the world But since the State of Christendom hath been so much divided that a truly General Council is next to an impossible thing the Church must be Reformed by its parts and every Free Church enjoying the Rights of a Patriarchal See hath according to the Canons of the Church a sufficient power to Reform all abuses within it self when a more general consent cannot be obtained By this we may see how very feeble this charge is of destroying all Church-Authority by refusing submission to the Roman Hierarchy and how very pityful an advantage can from hence be made by the dissenting parties among us who decry that Patriarchal and ancient Government as Anti-christian which we allow as Prudent and Christian. But of the difference of these two case I have spoken already 4. But yet N. O. saith my principles afford no effectual way or means in this Church of suppressing or convicting any Schism Sect or Heresie or reducing them either to submission of judgement or silence Therefore my Principles are destâ—â—ctive to all Church-Authority To which I answer 1. That the design of my Principles was to lay down the Foundations of Faith and not the means of suppressing heresies If I had laid down the Foundations of Peace and left all Persons to their own judgements without any regard to Authority this might have been justly objected against me but according to this way it might have been objected to Aristotle that he was an Enemy to civil Government because he doth not lay down the Rules of it in his Logick or that Hippocrates favoured the Chymists and Mountebanks because he saith not a word of the Colledge of Physitians If I had said any thing about the Authority of particular Churches or the ways of suppressing Sects then how insultingly had I been asked What is all this to the Foundations of Faith Excellent Protestant principles of Faith They begin now to resolve faith into the Authority of
their own Church or else to what end is this mentioned where nothing is pretended to but laying down the Foundations on which Protestants do build their faith But although there be no way of escaping impertinent objections yet it is some satisfaction to ones self to have given no occasion for them 2. I would know what he understands by his effectual means of suppressing Sects or Heresies We are sure the meer Authority of their Church hath been no more effectual means than that of ours hath been but there is another means they use which is far more effectual viz. the Inquisition This in truth is all the effectual means they have above us but God keep us from so Barbarous and Diabolical a means of suppressing Schisms The Sanbenits have not more pictures of Devils upon them than the Inquisition it self hath of their Spirit in it however that Gracious Pope Paul 4. attributed the settling of it in Spain to the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost not that Holy Ghost certainly that came down from Heaven upon the Apostles but that which was conveyed in a Portmantue from Rome to the Council of Trent But if this be the effectual means he understands I hope he doth not think it any credit to the Authority of their Church that all who dispute it must endure a most miserable life or a most cruel death All the other means they have are but probable but this this is the most effectual How admirably do Fire and Faggots end Controversies No general Council signifies half so much as a Court of Inquisition and the Pope himself is not near so good a Judge of Controversies as the Executioner and Dic Ecclesiae is nothing to take him Gaoler These have been the kind the tender the primitive the Christian means of suppressing Sects and Heresies in the Roman Church O how compassionate a Mother is that Church that takes her froward Children in her hands to dash their brains against the stones O how pleasant a thing it is for Brethren to be destroyed for lack of Vnity How beautiful upon the 7. Mountains are the Feet of those who shed the Blood of Hereticks Never were there two men had a more Catholick Spirit than Dioclesian and Bishop Bonner Men may talk to the worlds end of Councils and Fathers and Authority of the Church and I know not what insignificant nothings come come there is but one effectual means which the good Cardinal Baronius suggested to his Holiness Arise Peter kill and eat Let the Hereticks talk of the kind and merciful Spirit of our Saviour who rebuked his Disciples so sharply for calling for fire from Heaven upon the Samaritans and told them they did not know what Spirit they are of let them dispute never so much against the cruelty and unreasonableness of such a way of confuting them let them muster up never so many sayings of Fathers against it yet when all is done what ever becomes of Christianity it was truly said of Paul 4. that the Authority of the Roman See depends only upon the office of the Inquisition And that we may think he was in good earnest when he said it Onuphrius tells us it was part of the speech he made to the Cardinals before his death Was not this think we a true Vicar of Christ a man of an Apostolical Spirit that knew the most effectual means of suppressing heresies and Schisms and advancing the Authority of the Roman See And that we may not think their opinion is altered in this matter one of the late Consulters of the Inquisition hath determined that the practice of the Roman Church in the office of the Inquisition is reasonable pious useful and necessary Which he proves by the Testimony of their greatest Doctors And by which we may easily judge what N. O. and his Brethren think to be the most effectual means of suppressing Sects and Heresies with the want of which we are contented to be upbraided But setting this aside we have as many reasonable means and I think many more of convicting dissenters than they can pretend to in the Roman Church 3. It is very well known that we do endeavour as much as lyes in us to reclaim all Dissenters but God never wrought Miracles to cure incorrigible persons and would not have us to go out of the way of our duty to suppress Sects and Heresies The greatest severities have not effected it which made one of the Inquisitors in Italy complain that after 40. years experience wherein they had destroyed above 100000. Persons for heresie as they call it it was so far from being suppressed or weakned that it was extremly strengthened and increased What wonder is it then if dissenters should yet continue among us who do not use such Barbarous ways of stopping the mouths of Hereticks with burning lead or silencing them by a rope and flames But we recommend as much as they can do to the people the vertues of Humility Obedience due submission to their Spiritual Pastors and Governours and that they ought not to usurp their office and become their own Guides which N. O. in his conclusion blames us for not doing Yet we do not exact of them a blind obedience we allow them to understand the nature and Doctrine of Christianity which the more they do we are sure they will be so much the better Christians and the more easily Governed So that we have no kind of Controversie about Church-Authority it self but what it is and in what manner and by whom to be exercised but surely N. O. had little to say when from laying down the Principles of Faith he charges me with this most absurd consequence of destroying all Church-Authority I have thus far considered the main Foundations upon which N. O. proceeds in opposition to my Principles there is now very little remaining which deserves any Notice and that which seems to do it as about Negative Articles of Faith and the marks of the True Church I shall have occasion to handle them at large in the following discourse FINIS Haâ—â—â—mull hist Iesuit ordin c. 8. S. C. p. 79. S. C. p. 46. Roman Doctrine of Repentance c. vindicated p. 19. P. 44. P. 47. P. â—9 Et quamvis sine Sacramento Poenitentiae per se ad justificationem perducere peccatorem nequeat attritio tamen cum ad Dei gratiam in Sacramento Poeâ—iteâ—tiae impetrandam disponit Concil Trident. sess 14. c. 4. * Si quis dixerit Sacramenta novae Legis non continere Gratiam quam significant aut gratiam ipsam non ponentibus obicem non confâ—rre Anathema sit Sess. 7. Can. 6. Si quis dixâ—rit non dari gratiam per hujus modi Sacramenta semper omnibus quaâ—tum est ex parte Dei etiamsi ritè ea suscipiant sed aliquando aliquibus Aâ—athemae sit Can. 7. Sess. 14. c. 4. P. 45. Melch. Cano Relect. de Poenit. part 6. p. 932. Morinus de Poenit. Sacramento