be obeyed Now what answer would a man give to this Certainly That the Laws of God are to be obeyed before those of men that the Christian Religion though it obliges to obey God is not destructive of Government because it commands Obedience to the Higher Powers that therefore no good Christian can or will make a pretence of Conscience to the prejudice of the Peace where there is not an absolute necessity and that he will submit even where he cannot obey If this be all the answer that can be given as it is all that ever I understood to be given in this case yet still there is a possibility left for ill men to use a pretence of Religion to disturb the Peace and still the like possibility will be left and consequently the Objection remain in as much force as that Possibility gives it so long as there is a difference possible between the Laws of God and those of our Superiors and no man will have us I hope to avoid this inconvenience to acknowledge no other God than our Superiours I say therefore thirdly That as every man has a judgment of discretion to chuse his own Religion so every Christian has the like judgment to consider whether what he submits to the belief of be consistent with his Christianity That having undertaken to be a Christian he is thereby obliged to the Authority of the Church in all cases wherein Christianity requires submission to that Authority that this having appointed means by which and set her bounds within which and established ends for which she is to determine things concerning Christian Truth he is obliged to give her Obedience whilst she provides in all things for that Christianity that she ought to maintain But if he shall perceive her in any thing to have acted beyond her Power or against the interest of Christian Religion he will consider also how necessary it is that a man mistake not in a thing wherein Christianity is so greatly concerned as it is in the Churches Peace and will thereupon seek all due and possible means of Information and if it still appear that the Church requires his Obedience where his Conscience will not give him leave to pay it he will endeavour by all the ways of Peace and Meekness to prevail with his Governours to remove the burthen and will not make a breach but where he cannot comply and hold his Christianity And whilst both Governours and Governed shall thus both regard the Laws of him that is the God of all the one taking faithful care to provide in all things for the maintenance and encrease of the Christianity the Church is entrusted to preserve the other studying in all things the Will of God and giving thanks to him for so great a help as is the Ministry of his Church and gladly entertaining what is by her shewn to be his Will from those Holy Writings wherein he has revealed it What can be more conducing to the establishment of all Christian Truth and Peace 'T is true there still lies a possibility for men upon pretence of Conscience to disturb all our Peace but the same there is of abusing the greatest grace of God And no man that will not set up his own wisdom above that of God can hope or presume though every man be bound to wish and endeavour a final end of all Controversies in Religion the Apostle having told us 1 1 Cor. 11. 19. that there must be Heresies and our blessed Lord 2 Luke 17. that Offences will come though he denounces a woe to them through whom they come Nor ought this any more to be cast as a Reflection upon those who as much as is possible and as much as in them lies labour after peace only resolving to hold the Truth that through the wickedness of some they cannot accomplish what they so earnestly pray for and endeavour after than it ought upon our Christian Religion that it is destructive of Civil Government because some have abused it as a pretence to subvert and disturb it No man certainly dares think our Saviour to be ever less the Prince of Peace or ever the less sincerely desirous of it when he left it as his peculiar Legacy to his Disciples for that out of a foresight of the unhappy Divisions of the Christian World he tells us 3 Matth. 10. 34. That he came not to send Peace on earth but a sword to set the father against the son and the son against the father All that M. Condom objects from the Actions of the Gallican Synods falls within these two Objections which I have answered I shall not therefore lengthen this Tract by a particular application there being nothing of moment but what may without difficulty be solved by one or both of these answers which I have given to that therein which seemed to be of force against the Doctrine of the Church of England in this point whose cause it is that I have undertaken SECT XX. Of the Authority of the Pope WHereas M. Condom asserts the Popes Authority from the Primacy invested by our Lord in St. Peter and the acknowledgment of this Primacy by the Holy Councils and Fathers in the Pope as St. Peter's Successor I need only deny that which he asserts without proof and am not obliged to evidence by any proofs that he has no such Authority 'till I am shewn what obedience is claimed by or given to him and his title and right thereto Their Profession of Faith is thus I acknowledg the Holy Profess Fidei Pii Quarti Catholick and Apostolick Church of Rome to be the Mother and Mistriss of all Churches And I vow and swear true Obedience to the Bishop of Rome the Successor of Peter Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ This Supremacy the Church of England denies him to have any title to a Hom. for Whitsunday Part 2. as touching that they will be termed Universal Bishops and Heads of all Christian Churches through the World we have the Judgment of Gregory expresly against them who writing to Mauritius the Emperor condemned John Bishop of Constantinople in that behalf calling him The Prince of Pride Lucifer ' s Successor c. and again b Hom. against Rebellion Part 5. The Bishop of Rome being by the order of God's Word none other than the Bishop of that one See and Diocess and never yet well able to govern the same did by intolerable ambition challenge not only to be Head of all the Church dispersed through the World but also to be Lord over all Kingdoms of the World Although he is pleased to wave those things that are disputed in the Schools concerning this extravagant Power and Authority of the Pope as not being Articles of the Catholick Faith I must tell him it would have removed great jealousies if as he has declared them not Articles of the Catholick Faith so he had owned them to be false For as the
Doctrine the explicit Belief whereof is absolutely necessary For first in respect of Knowledge the Schoolmen hold That much less is needful to be explicitly believed than what is contained in our Doctrines For whereas we entertain and embrace not only the Doctrine of the three Creeds but also sundry other Truths as appears by our Homilies and Articles they declare it needful to believe some but the whole Creed others the Nicene and Athanasian joyned with the Apostolical to make a man a compleat Believer and this although we go no further than the proper Sense of the words and have no great distinct knowledge of the Matters whereof however there is none will deny but the Church of England has a perfect understanding as also a right apprehension of them according to their true Christian Sense in which the whole Christian Catholick Church ever understood them Secondly For Practice they grant That we may obtain Salvation without undergoing such Duties as we refuse For if one worships God without an Image they do not deny this worship to be acceptable If a man pray immediately to God through Christ they will not say this Devotion is fruitless If one perform the best works he can Bellar. de Justif l. 5. c. 7. which we also require and stand not upon their Merit but only upon the Mercy of God as we do they judge it to be not only profitable but also commend it as most secure They deny not but sometimes true Contrition does obtain Pardon without Penance or the Priest's Absolution They cannot deny but Concil Trid. Sèss 13. cap. 8 that to receive Christ spiritually in the holy Sacrament is sufficient to all the Effects of it for the Council places the difference between those that receive it worthily and those that receive it to their own destruction in this that the former receive him both sacramentally and spiritually the other only sacramentally Nor I suppose will they deny that he that relies only on Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross has a sufficient expiation for Sins whilst he confides only in him whom God hath set forth to be our Propitiation Nor that we receive the Sacrament aright when we communicate in both kinds Likewise if a man believes no more than is contained in the Scriptures they confess him to believe as much as is necessary and profitable to all men And if a man submits to the Authority of the Church in all things which she acts for the maintenance of that Christianity she ought to preserve whilst she acts according to God's Word and her own Commission both given and limited by it they cannot say I presume that such aman disowns her Authority or voids Gods Ordinance or that the Church which professes herself to have no other Authority but acts according to this which is given her of and limited by the Scriptures does not do what she ought for the maintenance of Chrstianity and discharge of her Trust Again Thirdly The Doctrines which we disown were not received as Articles of Faith nor the contrary judged heretical by the Church of Rome for many hundred years after Christ For a Bellarm. l. 4 de Verbo Dei c. 11. that Church held at first by our Adversaries own confessions all things which the Apostles used to preach openly and which were necessary and profitable for all men to be contained in the Scriptures b Greg. Patriarch Alexan. Even the Popes themselves disowned the Title of Vniversal Bishop neither has that Church as yet decreed itself infallible though pretended by her Champions so to be c Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. c. 9. Neither did they anciently worship Images or approve the Image of God to be made nor does any worship of Saints appear therein for 300 years after Christ and it grew therein by degrees and came in by custom says Bellarmine d Bellar. de Sanct. Beat. l. 1. c. 8. Wherein Purgatory for a time was not known nor for a long time after resolved which way it concerned Salvation e Bell. lib. 2. de Purgat c. 1. either in regard of the Persons thereby to be purged whether the damned justest or middle sort or in regard of the Ends and Effects which it hath whether to satisfie God's Justice by punishing Sin or to diminish and take away the Affections of Sin yet remaining by corrections and chastisements Wherein f Bell. l. 2. de Indu c. 17. Indulgences as now practised were not known nor any instance of them till a thousand years after Christ wherein Transubstantiation was not heard of till the Council of Lateran Wherein a thousand years after Christ and more the Sacrifice in the Eucharist was said g Aquin. par 3. quaest 83. art 1. to be only a Memorial and Representation of our Saviour's Sacrifice upon the Cross wherein the Cup was administred to the Laity and the Priests received not the Eutharist alone but together with the People Further It 's evident that we run no hazard neither do we venture upon any dangerous practice but walk in the safe way to salvation There is no danger in offering our Devotions to God through Christ and to him only as there is in the worship of Saints which is not only without warrant and most likely to be offensive to God but is even Idolatry if a right distinction be not always preserved which is very difficult to be preserved at all times nor in omitting the use of Images nor in having recourse to God's Providence only leaving the Reliques of Saints as is confessed to be if the use of Images seduce us to believe any divinity or vertue in them to place any trust in them or hope any thing from them Nor is there any danger in relying on Christs Merits and God's Mercy for the Remission of our sins not depending upon our own works but doing what we are able in obedience to God and after all saying we are unprofitable servants vilifying ourselves but magnifying the grace of God as there may be in trusting to our own Righteousness Nor in requiring Contrition as absolutely necessary to the Remission of sins as there is if we content our selves with less Nor whilst we reject the Adoration of the Sacrament so we offer up our souls to Christ in Heaven as may be in worshipping the Sacrament which themselves confess to be Idolatry if the opinion of Transubstantion be false Nor in not relying on the Sacrifice of the Eucharist but frequenting it as a Sacrament with due preparation nor in receiving it in both kinds according to Christ's institution as may be in supposing it beneficial when we use it not according to Christ's institution which obliges us to partake of it as a Sacrament and in withholding part of it when it does not appear that he has left any such power in the Church to minister but a part of what he commanded Nor in chusing the Scriptures for a Guide so we sincerely follow
Roman Doctrine obliges to worship the Sacrament not only Christ in the Sacrament as M. Meaux would here insinuate has been evidenced already from the Words of the Trent-Council and that so the generality of their Authors understand it we are sure from hence That they confess this their Adoration would be Idolatry if Transubstantiation were not true There is one peculiar Notion which M. Meaux has concerning the manner of the Efficacy of this Sacrament to wit That Jesus Christ by uniting himself to our bodies makes his Grace and his Vertue pass into our souls supposing that his flesh taken in the Sacrament becomes incorporated with ours which does both certainly vacate the necessity of our receiving this Sacrament more than once unless it can be shewn how that flesh of his which is once united to us should become disunited and also makes it impossible to give a reason why the body of Christ which according to their Doctrine is received by all alike should not be alike effectual to all His Harangue about their being content to Communicate in one kind may be easily turned upon him by demanding Ought you not to let us communicate according to our Saviour's Institution as our Saviour communicated his Disciples as the Apostles communicated the first Christians as pious Antiquity communicated for several hundred years But in that we own the Church of Rome to have been a true Church and Salvation to be had in it he presumes we are thereby obliged to own that this Sacrament is administred to its full effect in that Church tho' given only in one kind however tho' we should allow it to be the mark of a true Church that it rightly Administers the Sacraments yet there is no necessity that a defect herein must presently cause it to cease to be a Church tho' it will be indeed a corrupt one when the Ministry shall deprive the People of part of that Food that is necessary to Spiritual Life perhaps therefore it may be allowed that this Sacrament may be effectual in one kind to those that cannot obtain any more from the Church and yet the Church herself by thus depriving her Children of a part of this Sacrament may lye under the guilt of withholding the necessary means of Salvation and of voiding Christ's Institution and it will be no thanks to the Church if God may out of the greatness of his mercy supply the want by some extraordinary way of those means which the Curch unjustly withholds from her Children But says he You content your selves upon the Faith of the Church as to your Baptism in that you are not then plunged and dipt under Water which the Word Baptized doth properly signifie Whereas the Case is very different for in that of Baptism there is nothing thereby of the Essence of the Sacrament diminished which depends only upon the washing with Water not upon the quantity wherewith we are washed however the Rubrick of the Church of England requires that where the Child is able to bear it it be dipt under the Water whereas in the other a part that essentially constitutes the Sacrament is wholly taken away for as to the quantity of Wine there would certainly be no Contention These as near as I could collect them are all the material things in his Letter the rest of it either concerns not us or is only a Noise of Words made to amuse the Understandings and work on the Fancies of weaker men It is the usual way 't is true for the Romanists having neither Scripture nor Reason to alledge to cant and make a great Stir with high Words such as Catholick Church Successor of Peter Apostolick See Principal Church c. urging these as undeniable Proofs of their Churches Authority and Infallibility whereas indeed they signifie nothing though they have been prevalent with some beyond their true force But since after so perfect a view of the utmost of all they can with any colourable pretence say for themselves their Errors and Corruptions appear so great none I hope will suffer themselves to be frighted into a Subjection to them by those high Words which without the least reason they have the confidence to use and appropriate to themselves FINIS ERRATA PAg. 10. Lin. 30. dele of p. 14 l. 13. r. work p. 21. l. 12. r. England p. 24. l. 9. dele to p. 75. l. 29. r. joyned to p. 76. l. 3. r. Bond. l. 20. r. discerns p. 78. l. 32. r. determine p. 81. l. 2. r. reason of p. 86. l. 1. dele in l. 35. r. do not p. 87. l. 16. r. according to p. 98. l. 25. r. Who ever BOOKS lately Printed for Robert Kettlewell and Robert Wells at the Hand and Scepter in Fleet-street 1. THe Measures of Christian Obedience Or A Discourse shewing what Obedience is indispensably necessary to a Regenerate State and what Defects are consistent with it for the Promotion of Piety and the Peace of Troubled Consciences By John Kettlewell Vicar of Coles-Hill in Warwickshire the second Edition In Quarto Price bound 8 s. 2. 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but he does not in all this say that it is the true and only Sense of the Council And further That for these Reasons he does not only think it worthy his Commendation but to be read and esteemed by all He does not say nor mean esteemed for the only Sense of the Council as is plain by the Latine Copy And further We hope this Work by the Grace of God will bring forth much Fruit and will not a little help to propagate the Orthodox Faith In all which he neither declares it for the Sense of the Council nor confirms it as such nor does any thing to make it authentick if that be to authorize it as a Truth throughout the whole Church which yet is the least that could be lookt for in this Case for the Reasons given The utmost therefore that can be made of it is only that it has the commendation of his private Judgment for a prudent useful good Book likely to work no small Effects for the propagation of the Catholick Faith So that this will be no great prejudice to any Proofs that shall be made against M. Condom where I may attempt in opposition to him to shew that he has not fully given the Doctrine of his Church But the Advertizer raising himself on this Foundation that this Exposition is as true and as authentick as he pretends it and laying on this Presumption further that it has most effectually served the Ends it aims at insults over the Reformed as if the Day was clearly gained boasting the pretended Victory not over the Answerers only but all Reformers What particular Advantages he pretends over the Answerers I meddle not with wanting both opportunity to procure and capacity to understand their Books if French nor will I be obliged to concern my self with any pretended to be gotten over any Numbers of the Reformed either for their false Opinions Doctrines or Concessions in any Cases but where the like may seem pretended from like Doctrines or Concessions of the Church of England Whether he has such real Cause to Boast will not appear till the End But what of his is added to back M. Condom shall be considered under their particular Heads in the Exposition Pag. 18. He goes on to vindicate M. Condom First That he has done well to propose the true Tenets of the Council and their Church and distinguish them from those that are falsly imputed to her No body will blame his Aim in this God forbid that any should refuse to hear what may inform them and remove their Prejudices Secondly That he has done but just in taking the Doctrine of the Church from the Council of Trent Nor will any blame him for this or require him to justifie the Council from the great suspitions that are justly had of it for be the Council what it will it 's sufficient for the Exposition that the Doctrine of it is universally received throughout their Church Nor shall Father Pont's History because he here is said to be a profess'd enemy to the Council of Trent either prejudice me against its Doctrines or make me call its Decisions ambiguous without apparent grounds for it Thirdly That his choice was not amiss in pitching upon those Points from which the subject of the Reformation was taken But however if new Matters have been added by themselves since which make the distance wider those may well be added as Obstacles to a present Union and without reflecting on the Bishops sincerity or accusing him to have on purpose left out the greatest difficulties it may be allowed me to produce others so far as they are material to shew that some great Objections are yet in force and many great Disputes untouched But whether he has been so faithful to his promise as to affirm nothing to make the Council better understood which is not approved of in the Church and manifestly conformable to it will appear when the particulars are examined There is one thing more that will greatly affect me as well as the other Answers against whom it 's urged p. 23. That it 's to no purpose to object against this Exposition the Bull of Pius the Fourth for that the design of this Book says the Advertiser has nothing of those Glosses and Commentaries which with great reason that Pope condemned some of which usually fill'd the Margins with their own Imaginations and gave them for the Text it self and such for the conservation of Unity the Pope was obliged not to permit nothing of which nature is in this Exposition But he need not have taken all this pains if himself durst have relied on his former proof of its authentickness yet to make this of any strength to back what he had said before he should have told us by what authority he declares what sort of Comments and Glosses the Pope forbids in that Bull or the Reasons upon which he did it Let this be one reason yet what shall hinder but Father Paul's may be another that it was to withstand the checks which the Council might be said to give to the Papal power and disable all from using it to the prejudice of the Court of Rome To believe which we have greater grounds than Father Paul's bare assertion but much less to believe the Advertiser since the Bull in express words forbids not only such Interpretations as Comments and Glosses but all Annotations Scholia's and every kind of interpretation whatsoever decreeing likewise all such as any should attempt to make wittingly or ignorantly with or by whatsoever authority void and null Whereas in the conclusion p. 24. he says That suppose we call for the Reformation of Abuses it is one way of suppressing them to shew the Truth in purity not excluding other means I shall here take occasion to remember out of M. Verone in his Epitome of his Methods part of whose method M. Condom exactly follows how little we can propose to our selves from these fair pretences of representing the truth in purity towards this effect which will also shew in part upon what grounds this Doctrine of the Exposition may find that approbation which it has amongst them and yet be far from being so truly and universally received as is pretended This M. Vernone is most eminent for the use of this Method to separate the Decrees of the Council from the Opinions of all particular persons whatsoever and the Doctrine he would perswade as the Churches sense seems in all things as moderate as this of M. Condom He says they do no further honor Images than as they use outward respect to the Bible and other sacred Utensils and speaks of Transubstantiation Merits c. much after the same moderation and will not have the Infallibility of the Pope to be matter of the Catholick Faith And yet this Person though he Verone's Epit. 〈…〉 Convin â—…et declares the Doctrine of their Church in a way fair to appearance tells us nevertheless that what other Doctors
and Redeemer After which it condemns those who teach a contrary Doctrine I shall find it necessary for my purpose to set down the particulars how it declares it to be impiety to say Sess 26. Dâ—… de 〈◊〉 that Saints ought not to be invocated or that they do not pray for us or that it is folly to pray unto them Hence he again concludes That to Invocate the Saints in the sense of this Council is to have recourse to their Prayers for obtaining benefits from God through Jesus Christ so that in reality they are obtained no otherwise than by Jesus Christ since through and in his Name And here M. Condom not taking notice that aid and protection are mentioned by the Council as distinct from the Prayers of the Saints the Advertiser has p. 13. and tells us That it is a kind of aid succour and protection to recommend the miserable to him who alone can comfort them Such protection he says we may receive from Saints but yet he does not say it 's the only protection to be received or expected from them though for my own part I am as desirous that this should be the only sense of their Conceit as themselves pretend to be so they will grant for the future what I desire that those who have or do place any further reliance on them or seek them for greater purposes are hereby declared to be condemned as Idolaters which if they refuse to grant they argue both to little purpose From the premises thus laid he presumes they shall be no more accused of forsaking Jesus Christ when they beseech his members who are also ours his children who are our brethren and his Saints who are our first fruits to pray with us and for us to our common Master in the Name of our common Mediatour Plansibly said I confess but not so well considered on by one that should have known that the hope of our acceptance with God depends upon his promise which promise is made to those that ask of God immediately in his Son's Name and again that the honour due to Christ as our Mediator is not given him in that acceptable manner when we pretend to give it him by means of our own chusing as by those applications which he has taught us to make unto God through and in his Name and Merits upon which ground the Church of England well argues That we are to make our application to God Homily of Prayer through Christ alone for that the promise is made to them that pray in his Name and the Apostles tell us that he is our Advocate and only Mediator He further informs us That the Church of Rome when she offers to God the dreadful sacrifice to honour the memory of his Saints does not sacrifice to them but God in memory of them rendring thanks to him for their victories and demanding their assistance to the end those whose memory they celebrate upon earth would vouchsafe to pray for them in heaven Suppose it and yet hereby is confest by their demanding the assistance of these persons by vertue of this sacrifice that they do it in expectation of something from their intercession as well as from Christ's merits which seems to me a gross absurdity that they say the benefits they seek from the Saints are sought through Christ's merits and yet when they offer the sacrifice of Christ which pleads all his merits to God they should not so totally depend on that but expect another assistance from the Saints From the Doctrine thus proposed he infers That they neither rob God of the perfections of his essence nor attribute to the Creature any of those qualities which are peculiar to him only in that they do not as he says ascribe immensity or the knowledge of the secrets of our hearts to the Saints as having any such of themselves but to say a creature may have some knowledge communicated to it by God is not to elevate a creature above his condition God himself by making known future things to his Prophets having shewn that he can when he pleases communicate such things unto a creature whereas none of them hold the Saints to have any such knowledge by their own power But if this should not be to elevate the creature above the condition it is capable of if God please to communicate such knowledge to him yet it is raising him to such a condition which we are not sure he has and whereas he says they do not hereby rob God of any perfections peculiar to him because a creature is capable of having such as they give to Saints communicated to it it is worth considering whether to give perfections peculiar to God till he does communicate them to such as we are not assured he has given them will not be looked on by God as a Dishonour to him if he has really not communicated them for otherwise how can it ever be a Dishonour to him to ascribe the peculiar Properties of his Nature to any other there being none but he can when it pleases him possess with them in great part After which he concludes They cannot in respect of this Doctrine be Idolaters which he endeavors to prove by an Induction of several Arguments the strength of all which depends on these Suppositions That the Saints in Heaven do know our Deâ—ires and have certainly the Knowledge of humane Affairs communicated to them by God that they do and have a power of assisting us by their Prayers which Power proceeds from their Acceptableness in God's sight for their Virtues which are the gifts of his Grace But if these Suppositions fail of Truth as they are altogether without ground all there said avails nothing to exempt them from Idolatry Whereas he infers at last That the exterior Veneration which they give to Saints ought to be judged of from their interior Sentiments This is a thing that must be left in Dispute for the Reason given by me Sect. 3. Now after our View and Remarks upon M. Condom's Explication of this Particular it is sit we should collect the Points in difference which are these First Whether the Saints have such a certain Knowledge of humane Affairs as can be sufficient Ground for us to request their Help Secondly Whether supposing the Intention of their Prayers to the Saints be quite different from what they have in those they make to God this can justifie them in the Use of Forms couched in the same Terms Thirdly Whether as the Church of Rome grounds in part these Prayers to Saints upon the Fellowship of Christ's Members one with another so the Invocation of these which it requires be nothing but a bare desire of them to pray for us or be not taught to be an humble supplicatory Desire and a Religious Worship as that signifies an Act of Devotion and piece of Gods Service Fourthly Whether this ought to be made a part of Faith that the Saints do know our Necessities and
Angel such as Worship as he refused to receive and there can be no Reason to think but that if the Extasie of a Vision carried this Apostle so much beyond himself wise as well as ignorant through a blind Zeal acted by a carnal Spirit may be carried to the like excess in respect of the Saints or any other Object of Religious Worship Now how far the Church of Rome may be vindicated in the first of these Respects which render her liable to the Idolatries of her Members must be left to the Jugdment of those who without all prejudice will consider what is said by the Roman Church for the profitableness of this Practice to Salvation from Grounds only proper to Christianity Matters of Christian Religion being determinable only from them And what is said on the other side of the unprofitableness and danger of it and of its inconsistency with Christianity How far she is excusable in the second by considering whether the Means if she has provided any be sufficient to preserve in all a just and constant apprehension of the infinite distance between God and his Creatures whilst they have recourse to those in their Necessities as well as unto him In the third by conparing the Limits if she has set any to this Worship of Saints with what has been done on the other side by Bulls and Indulgences from the Head of the Church that I may not mention any things of particular persons tending to this purpose who have published many things of the same Nature with that fulsom Book of Contemplations on Holy Mary lately sent out among us to raise the Devotions of Christians to so far above all grounds from our common Faith My further Business is only to consider what of these things in difference are taken off either in part or in the whole by this Explication which M. Condom has given us of his Churches Sense in this Point Concerning the first of them he only intimates a possibility of God's giving them such a Knowledg though he supposes it certain that they have it yet whilst he tells us the several Methods by which God can make such Desires known to them but dares not six upon any by which he does it it shews they have no Assurance from their Christianity that God has given them any such Knowledge nor indeed has M. Condom offered any Grounds for it from thence To the Second he says That we ought to understand them to reduce all such Forms to the Sense by them declared But let that go as far as it will to excuse them from Idolatry it will never justifie them in the Use of such Forms to the Scandal of their Christian Brethren and to the Reproach even of Christianity it self whilst they give Religious Worship to the Saints as well as God fly to them in their Necessities with the same Expressions of their Desires as to God himself The Third he is altogether silent in neither telling us what that Invocation is nor how far the Desires of our Hearts are to be enlarged in those Prayers to them As to the Fourth he has shewed us that their Church teaches that the Saints do pray for us and that we are to invocate them and to fly to their Prayers Aid and Protection and condemns those who teach a contrary Doctrine but says nothing here to justifie it but something in the End of the next Section Of which in its Order The Fifth he mentions not neither will any of his Reasons given to free those from Idolatry who maintain such a distinct Intention as he argues upon ever justifie or clear those who have not always maintained it In the sixth he only vindicates his Church in part in that she has let her people know by her Catechism a difference between their prayers to God and to the Saints but he does not shew us wherein the Church has declared what manner of desires which are required to be humble our prayers to them for these purposes are to be made with nor any bounds that she has set to them nor wherefore such methods have been taken by the Head of the Church as well as particular members to advance the Reverence of Christians to Saints above the grounds taught by our Christianity nor does he shew us the least warrant from Scripture upon which their Church teaches this and commands it as a practice beneficial to salvation which in it self is so dangerous and destructive SECT V. Of Images and Reliques AS for Images he says the Council of Trent forbids the believing any virtue or divinity in them and the demanding any favour from them or putting any trust in them and ordains the honour given to them to be referred to what they represent Yet it commands an honour to be given to them tho' with a further reference and thereby either decrees an honour to be given to the Images themselves if not for their own sakes yet for the sake of them they represent or at least first to be given to them though not terminated or stayed there but directed further to what they represent All these words of the Council are as so many Characters he says to distinguish them from Idolaters in that they ascribe no other virtue to their Images than that of exciting the remembrance of those they represent If these are the only Characters that distinguish them we may from themselves conclude that those who give them any other virtue are Idolaters But then to confirm this the only ground on which they honour Images he endeavours to shew us by examples First he says the figure of Christ crucified excites in us a more lively remembrance of him who died for us upon which remembrance they are moved to testifie by some exteriour signs how far their gratitude bears them and by humbling themselves before the Image they shew their submission to their Saviour so that in the Ecclesiastical style their intention is not so much to honour the Image as the person whom it represents in presence of it for which he cites the Council of Trent which says the honour we render to Images has such a reference to those they represent that by the means of those Images which we kiss and before which we kneel we adore Jesus Christ and honour the Saints whose Types they are But under favour if he only humbles himself before the Image to shew what respect he has for his Saviour and does not withal give some respect to the Image it self he does not answer the Sess 25. Decret de 〈◊〉 Council of Trent which first decrees that honour be given to the Images themselves and then adds this which he has cited as the reason of that Decree not as an explication of it And thus the Catechism commands the teaching that it is not only Româ—… Câ—… lawful to have Images in Churches but also to give honour and worship to them when the honour which is established or given to them is
referred to what they represent So that in this M. Condom seems to use a little extenuation or at least ambiguity for his instance tells us only that he humbles himself before the Image and from thence he pretends to infer a direct conclusion which dares not conclude positively his intention to be only to honour the Apostle or Martyr before an Image but not so much to honour the Image as the Apostle whose it is and then cites the Trent Council as making for both this instance and the conclusion from it when he does not positively infer that which his instance intended to infer and which the following instances seem to infer The Pontisical might something favour his purpose if it did Pont. de 〈…〉 Imaginam not at the same time pray that God would bless and sanctifie that Image for the purpose of obtaining the prayers and help of the Apostle or Martyr which implies a supposition that they shall be rather heard for this honour given to their Images But the intention of the Church when she honours Images he says may be seen by that honour which she renders to the Cross and to the Bible In the first he appeals to all the world whether they do not see that before the Cross she adores him who bore our Iniquities upon the wood What the world sees of their adoring Christ who suffered on the Cross is not material so long as it sees they give a distinct worship to the Cross it self as well as unto Christ Witness their Missa de 〈◊〉 Rom. exâ—… Concil Triâ—… Mâ—… Sancta Cruce Sancta Cruce where in the Gradual we read thus We adore thee O Christ for that by thy Cross thou hact redeemed the world and then We adore thy Cross O Lord. So that M. Condom has chosen an ill instance to make us believe they give no worship to the Image but only to those represented by them nay if they put the same trust and reliance on other Images as on their honour of the Cross we may conclude they do not think them so void of virtue as is pretended for in respect of their honour given to the Cross they pray thus God who by the blood of thy Son Ibid. didst intend to sanctifie the sign of the quickning Cross grant that they who rejoice in honouring the same holy Cross may ever joy in the protection The instance of the Bible is wide from the purpose for their Church has no where decreed any Religious Worship to be given to that and though some of them may use it with a foolish or perhaps superstitious respect does that give excuse to their extravagant use of other things But M. Condom presuming upon the strength of what he has said concludes It would be very great injustice to accuse these practices as idolatrous there being an excessive difference between such as put their trust in Images and those who declare they use Images only to excite and raise their memories and minds towards heaven All which does enable me to conclude that where this difference is not maintained this use of Images in Religious Worship shall be absolute Idolatry There is another sort of Images not mentioned by M. Condom though I suppose not designedly omitted because he is treating about Images commanded to be worshipped which those are not but I am obliged to take notice of them because mentioned by the Advertisement p. 14. and also because the Church of England charges the making them as a Crime upon the Roman Church Images of God made for an Historical use to express the Histories of the Old Testament in Forms which God sometimes appeared under to his Prophets such Images says the Church of England ought not to made because God cannot be represented and Moses forbid the Jews to make any Representation of him because when he gave them the Law they saw no shape The Advertizer endeavours to defend the Church of Rome by saying That it does no more pretend to derogate from God's invisible and spiritual nature than God himself when he exhibited himself under that form And possibly it may not pretend to it but yet it may derogate from the glory of his nature nevertheless But he tells us The Council does not pretend thereby to represent or express the Divinity or give it any colours But 't is not what they pretend to do but what they do that can vindicate them in this matter now their Catechism says The Pastor shall teach the people that Cat. Rom. de Cultu Venerat certain properties and actions which are attributed to God are signified thereby as for instance when the antient of days in Daniel is painted sitting on a Throne with the Books opened before him they are to understand that thereby is signified the eternity and infinite wisdom of God whereby he sees both the thoughts and actions of men that he may pass judgment on them And is not this evidently to do the things they pretend not to do No Man can say certainly the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks of which kind were the Statues of their Gods and to which the prohibition of Moses may reasonably be thought to relate were used by them to give a full and perfect expression of the things they designed them to represent but rather for some seeming Analogy which those Natures had with what they intended But to return to the Controversie before us and to collect the points in difference that we may see how much of it M. Condom's explication has put an end to The First dispute is Whether Images ought to be set up in Churches and used in Religious Worship The Second What sort of Image-Worship is commanded by the Church of Rome The Third Whether that practised in the Roman Church be not Idolatrous or does not necessarily tend to Idolatry The Fourth Whether the Idolatrous practises of particular Persons are not in a great measure chargable justly on the Church itself whilst it commands the use of Images without warrant from the Word of God Touching the first of these the Church of England declares that in part she would not stick to grant them that Images may be Hom. against Idol 3d. p. made but with this limitation that it be such as are not used in Religion such as are not in danger to be Worshipped nor of any Worship'd but that Images cannot be set up in Temples without danger of Idolatry arguing that so the Jews understood their Law which made them so zealously oppose the Roman Emperors who endeavoured to introduce Images into their Temple that the Cherubs over the Altar cannot justifie the use of them for that we must obey God's general Law and not run to particular dispensations That such Images as have been so set up have been and were at that time Worshipped and that they cannot be set up long without Idolatry since there can be no sufficient means to prevent it so long as they are suffered there
being so great a proneness in Man's nature to Idolatry and so great strength in an Image to draw carnal minds to it Concerning the second it takes notice only of what Naclantus has said upon it whose Doctrine it sticks not to call Idolatry That we are not only to Worship before the Image as some too cautiously speak but to Worship the Image and that with the same Worship that is to be given to the Prototype But what the Church decrees in this point we have seen that though it be not what Naclantus professes yet it 's more than M. Condom is willing to confess and is altogether without any warrant from our Christianity As to the third our Church says not any where that I have observed that to Worship before an Image is Idolatry nor does it say that sort which the Council has decreed is Idolatry but it says in general that the use of Images in Religious Worship necessarily leads to Idolatry and let me add that which the Council decrees does lead somewhat more to it than the other in that it 's more difficult to give a Worship to the Image and at the same instant direct it to the object it represents naâ— this creates so great a difficulty that it shall be very hard for a Man to preserve himself from it in his Devotions to the Saints by their Images as it 's no easie matter for a Man to preserve so many distinct intentions as are necessary to the directing a Reverence to and yet not fixing it on the Image but directing it with his Devotions to the object it represents which must not stay there neither if that object be any other than God or Christ so as to fix any trust upon it but must go further to God in whom alone their trust is to be reposed But then as to the practises of particular Persons she sticks not to call them Idolatrous and fears not to determine it from what she relates of their Pilgrimages to Images their repairing to them to be healed of Diseases their hanging up Crutches before them to shew the vertue they had found by and from them Wherein if she relates true matter of Fact as that we have great reason to believe we need not fear that she can be justly taxed by any as fixing Calumnies upon the Roman Church when she speaks of so many Idolatries practised in it To the last our Church has said that for Bishops whose is the care of Souls to maintain or set up Images in Churches is to shew themselves to be careless Pastors that have no respect to the Souls for which they are to be accountable And undoubtedly the Idolatries or other Crimes of particular Persons in this practice are highly chargeable on the Church of Rome which commands that as a practice beneficial to salvation and condemns those who reject it which creates such difficulties in the Worship of God as make Idolatry almost unavoidable especially in the simple sort for whom Who will or can undertake that they shall preserve the Devotions of their hearts so entire as they ought for God alone among such diversity of Objects and Relations It will be to little purpose to say the Council has taken care to prevent abuses when it has enjoyned a practice so liable to them unless the necessity of using them were as evident as the danger Besides those remedies as they have taken but little effect so neither are they likely whilst the Church is so far from Cat. Rom. de Cultu Venerat seeing or owning any such abuses that she commands her Pastors to teach the People not only that it is lawful to have Images in Churches and to give Honour and Worship to them when the Honour is referred to the Prototype but that it has been done with exceeding good and benefit to the People unto this very day Now what satisfactory defence has M. Condom made for his Church in all or in part of these points when first he presumes it lawful to use Images and that in Churches and Religious Worship and acknowledges the Church of Rome to command Honour to be given to them for the sake of their Prototypes this at least it does command though he is not willing to own so much but yet shews us not the least warrant from Holy Scripture upon which this command is founded When also those very reasons which he has used to vindicate his Church from commanding direct Idolatry do necessarily involve all those in it who ever have conceived any vertue in Images or terminated any Worship on them and likewise shew it extreamly difficult to avoid Idolatry and almost impossible but that the vulgar should be ensnared thereby But M. Condom goes on and says That after the same manner we ought to understand that Honour which they pay to Relicks but this he says without citing the Council which Concil Trid. Sess 25. had he look'd into it would have taught him that it ought to be after a quite different manner It s decree indeed is only general that they are to be venerated by the faithful but when it comes to its Anathema it not only condemns them that say veneration ought not to be given to the Relicks of Saints or that these and other their Monuments are unprofitably Honoured but those likewise that shall say their Memories or Relicks are in vain frequented for imploring of their help So that if this be allowed to interpret the veneration it enjoyns to be given to Relicks it is far different from the Honour given to Images not only in M. Condom's sense but even in the sense of the Council for it declared no vertue to be in no trust to be reposed nothing to be hoped for from Images But in these it supposes some vertue something that may contribute help and encourages Recourse yea Pilgrimages to them for that purpose And this the Catechisms confirms so perfectly that the only argument it brings upon this Subject is to confirm the People in a confidence of help by them for it says If the Vestments Towels yea the Shadow of Cat. Rom. de Cultu Venerat the Saints when living did drive away Diseases and restore Health Who dares deny that God by the sacred Ashes Bones and other Relicks of his Saints does miraculously work the same effects with more to the same purpose And having shewn this I need not say any thing to what reasons are brought by M. Condom to justifie that which is not the declared sense of the Council yet so far as they may seem to relate to it I shall consider them in short after a necessary reflection on what is said by the Catechism to build up the People in a vain and pernitious confidence of help from them To this I say therefore it is not for them to ask us Who can deny but God may do this or that but to shew us that he does No Man will pretend to limit
could Pardon no Punishments 95. Theses Lut. Anno 1517. but what himself in the Church imposed and pleads against his Adversary that he designed to Pardon no other So that had the Pope then declared their grant to no further purpose we might have had some reason to have credited M. Condom's exposition But when the Council coming to the decision of this which being the first occasion of the breach ought if any thing to have been particularly discussed has only declared That there is a Power of granting them in the Church and commended their use but not determined to what effect whether to that which Luther owned or that which his Adversaries pretended what can we conclude less than that it allows them to the effects pretended by those Agents that dispersed them Wherein Bellarm. fully confirms us saying Those Catholicks are not in the right who think Bellar. Lib. de Indulg c. 7. Indulgences to be no other than Remissions of Ecclesiastical Discipline Whose Authority I use not here only as great upon the reasons he gives for his Opinion as First That if they were to no other effect than this there would be no need of a stock of merits Secondly That the Church would herein greatly deceive her Children whilst freeing them from pains in this life it sends them to those of Purgatory That Thirdly They could not be granted for the dead that are not under nor in need of the Churches Discipline But chiefly upon the matter of fact that he relates How many when they receive Indulgences confess and perform their satisfactions that sometimes the Popes in their Briefs of Indulgence require the Priests to impose Penitential satisfactions that therefore in the Judgment both of the Popes and People they are principally and chiefly beneficial to remit the pains of Purgatory But possibly they may tell us however this Council did something considerable in abolishing those unlawful gains that were made by the markets of them This indeed might have been something had they designed it to abolish the Penitential Tax issued out of the Apostolick Chamber sometime before which rates sins at certain sums or had it taken effect to that end but instead thereof we know those faculties to have been since renewed and still confirmed Concerning Purgatory the pretended foundation of it is this That those who depart this life indebted to the Divine Justice some pains which it reserved are to suffer them in another life that hereupon they offer Prayers for such by these kind of satisfactions to win God to be more mild to them in those Chastisements In opposition to this our Church has delivered herself thus That the Scripture doth acknowledg but two places after Hom. of Prayer Part. 3. this life the one proper to the Elect and Blessed of God the other proper to the Damned Souls That a Art 22. therefore the Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory and Pardons relating to it 〈◊〉 a â—ond thing vainly invented without warrant from Holy Scripture and rather repugnant to it It 's vain in that it wants a warrant from Scripture and is likewise very repugnant to it in that we are encouraged in our Christian course by the Scripture from the shortness of our afflictions to all which an eâ—…s put by death after which all that die in the Lord are blâ—… in this that they rest from their labours I must therefore deny this to be the ground of those Prayers which were made for the â—…d in the Primitive Church and am by this alone sufficiently warranted to deny it that those Prayers were made for the Patriarchs and Prophets the Apostles and Martyrs as well as for all others that departed in the Communion of the Church and therefore could not relate to any intent of easing them from any pains they were believed to suffer but rather to the Resurrection that time of refreshment Acts 3. 19. that shall come from the presence of the Lord. Whereas M. Condom pretends to argue from that which is done by God's Servants many of whom afflict themselves for the sins of all the People as well as for their own out of a zeal to God and charity to their Brethren affections that all ought to express That God out of a delight to gratifie these his friends accepts of their Mortifications in abatement of the Punishments he has prepareed for others I cannot but admire to see a Man write so much without Book as to infer from hence a power in the Church to apply these services to particular Persons in Indulgences and that these shall be available to ease men of those Punishments they suffer for their sins after death for to these ends he must say this or else he says nothing for it 's nothing to his purpose what respect God may have to the Prayers Fastings and Humiliations of the faithful to with-hold his Judgments from a sinful Nation And if said upon those other accounts it 's altogether without warrant from his Christianity We see then apparently the differences that are unresolved by any thing said in this explication of M. Condom viz. 1. That the Church of Rome has advanced a new Article of Faith upon which it grounds these Doctrines and Practices 2. That it abuses the Penances used in the Church to ends not warranted from Christianity neglecting that upon which they take place in it 3. That in pretending to do things in satisfaction to the Divine Justice they have not cleared themselves from the scandal given to their Christian Brethren by such a bold pretence 4. That by setting up a stock of merits out of the supererogatory works of others they are manifestly injurious to Christ whose merits are proposed by God for our only trust they even void in my judgment the terms of the Covenant of Grace which requires That every man prove his own work in that as to God Gal. 5. v. 6. every man shall bear his own burthen 5. That it pretends to grant Indulgences to purposes which they never served in the Christian Church of the first Ages and to an effect even beyond the present life 6. That it teaches an unknown state after the present life wherein we are to lie under the severity of God's Wrath for an uncertain time to the manifest discouragement of us in our Christian course notwithstanding their pretence to the contrary to the destruction of our confidence in God's mercy and our Saviours merits and to the apparent prejudice of that Christianity they pretend to advance of which hereafter 7. And lastly That as if these things were not enough they Concil Trid. Sess 14. â— have decreed Anathemas 1 Can. 12 Against him that shall say When God remits the sin he always remits the punishment 2 Can. 13 Or that we do not satisfie for our sins in abatement of the Tempoporal punishment by works voluntarily undertaken or enjoyned for that end but the best Penance is a new life 3
3 Cap. 4. That Contrition is a grief of mind joyned with the hatred of sin and a purpose of sinning no more which although sometimes it may reconcile to God yet that effect is not to be ascribed to it alone without a desire of the other parts of this Sacrament That Attrition nevertheless or sorrow arising from the fear of punishment and filthiness of sin which is not perfect Contrition so it exclude an intention of sinning again with hope of pardon is the gift of God and though without the Sacrament of itself it cannot justifie us yet in the Sacrament it disposes a man for receiving the grace of God 4 Cap. 5. That by the Institution of this Sacrament an entire confession of sins is by Divine Law necessary to all that fall after Baptism God having made his Ministers Judges to whom all mortal sins are to be laid open that they may pronounce the sentence of their Remission or Non-remission 5 Cap. 6. That although their Absolution be but the Dispensation of another's gift yet they are not barely Ministers to pronounce or declare to the Church forgiveness of sins but their sentence is a Judicial act and to be look'd upon ratified as the sentence of a Judge and being of this nature is not to be esteemed valid unless the Priest has a serious intention of pronouncing the sentence of Absolution 6 Cap. 8. That when God remits the sin he does not always remit the punishment altogether that so the order of his Justice requires him to proceed that therefore there is a necessity of those satisfactory Punishments or Penances which are imposed after Absolution to appease the Divine Justice Now by this view of their Doctrine we may discern how far the practice of Penance in this Church differs from the use it ought to have in the Church of Christ The satisfactions or penitential works which by the Church should be first imposed and enjoyned the sinner to work in him a true humiliation that thereby being satisfied of his true repentance it may with authority pronounce him absolved from those sins whereof the cure is presumed are in this Church imposed after it has warranted the Absolution to an unheard of end the satisfaction of Divine Justice Then again it exceeds its authority in warranting Absolution before it has procured the only condition to which the Gospel tenders it Repentance The Church of Rome does indeed acknowledge Contrition or the sorrow that worketh true Repentance to be a part of this Sacrament but yet she does not make it absolutely necessary but allows it to be supplied by something that is not perfect Contrition even the Council you see declares Attrition to be not only the gift of God but that which does dispose a man for God's pardon in this Sacrament which is in effect to say that what is wanting to true Repentance is supplied by submitting our sins to the Church in Confession and the sentence or acquittal of the Priest thereupon That this is indeed their meaning is more plain from their Catechism which first its true sets forth Cat. Trid. de Confess Sac. Poenit. the great benefit and advantage of Contrition yet afterwards as if that were not the only condition of pardon tendred in the Gospel it requires that the people be further taught That although it must be confess'd that our sins are blotted out by Contrition yet inasmuch as few arrive to so great a degree of sorrow for them as that requires they are therefore but very few that can place their hope of pardon in that way wherefore it was necessary that our most merciful Lord should provide for the common salvation of mankind by an easier way which out of his wise counsel he did when he delivered the Keys of his heavenly Kingdom to his Church For according to the Doctrin of the Catholick Faith it must be believed and constantly affirmed by all that if a man be but so affected in his mind as to be sorry for the sins he has committed intending withal not to sin for the time to come although he have not that sorrow which is sufficient to obtain forgiveness yet when he shall have duly confess'd his sins unto the Priest all his sins shall be remitted and forgiven to him by the power of the Keys so that it was deservedly said by our forefathers that by the Keys of the Church an entrance is opened into the Kingdom of Heaven of which it is not lawful for anyman to doubt since it is decreed by the Council of Florence That the effect of the Sacrament of Penance is Absolution from our sins Joyn then but this to their Doctrine of Satisfactions Indulgences and Purgatory and we shall see how full of Poysons all this Composition of their Discipline is while the people are first taught and perswaded that their sins are cured by the sentence of Absolution once pronounced that this supplies the defects of their Repentance and opens them an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven that the Penances after imposed are not enjoyned as though their sins were not wholly pardoned but to extinguish a debt of temporal punishment that there is a stock of satisfactions remaining in the Church performed by others which they may procure by Indulgences to be applied to themselves that having this Absolution at their death they are not to doubt but that their sins are absolved and so there is no more to be feared than some pains in Purgatory and those to be ransomed too if any friends after their death will but purchase certain Services to give them ease or if themselves leave but enough to purchase these endeavours for their acquittal Who sees not that this destroys our common Christianity of which I suppose M. Condom so sensible that he durst not propose any thing of his Churches Doctrine in this point knowing that all his extenuations could not secure it from being prejudicial to the truth Extream Vnction Extream Unction being pretended to derive its Institution from St. James if we consider his words we shall better apprehend whether the Church of England be in the right in excluding it from the Sacraments Cap. 5. v. 14. Is any sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him and anoint him with oyl in the Name of the Lord and the Prayer of Faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him Here the Apostle directs the sick to call for the Elders of the Church whom we allow to be the Ministers and this questionless for their assistance to those effects which the Apostle orders them to assist them in The means to which he directs are two to pray over them and anoint them with oyl in the Name of the Lord and this in order to two ends the recovery of the sick and the remission of sins Now to both these
effects I suppose the Church of England does allow the help of the Elders of the Church useful to the sick and therefore has provided that none lack this assistance but inasmuch as the Promises relating to these effects are different the Promise to one effect being perpetual and common to the Church in all ages to the other temporary whilst God empowered it to work such effects the Church which thinks she can only ground her Faith upon God's promises does still retain and declare her power in the cure of sin having a continued promise of God's grace to go along with its Ministry in effecting of it but not being assured nor having any promise to assure it that its Ministry shall be effectual to the recovery of bodily health it dares not warrant it to her children and therefore does not think fit to use the Ceremony of anointing the sick with oyl which was then used as a sign effective of their recovery Not that she is not ready to pray for this on their behalf grounding herself upon the general promise God has pride to hear the Prayers of his Church but not having any sure word of promise to ground a firm Faith upon as to the absolute recovery of the sick and it being the Prayer of Faith to which the Apostle here attributes this recovery as Faith indeed and that special and extraordinary was always necessary to all miraculous effects she therefore thinks she cannot use that sign which was then applied to the sick to assure him of his recovery by that power which God was then pleased to give for the working such cures That this Reason is not inconsiderable the Church of Rome herself is forced to allow and thereupon is greatly perplexed to find out a Reason why the first of these effects the Forgiveness Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Extrem Vnct. qua praep of Sins being provided for by the Sacrament of Penance there should be another Sacrament provided for this purpose To solve which she has invented a Distinction not to be found in the Apostles words I am sure that the Grace of this Sacrament is to extinguish our Venial Sins the other being chiefly provided for the forgiveness of Deadly Sins No less is she perplexed as to the other for seeing de facto that the Ministry of the Church does not take effect to the bodily recovery and withal knowing it necessary that all who come to a Sacrament ought to come with a Faith that they shall receive the Benefit tendred by it she orders that the Priest shall labour to perswade Ibid. the Sick to offer himself to this Unction with no less a Faith than those tendred themselves who were miraculously cured by the Apostles That if the Sick reap not so much Benefit Ibid. by it at this time as of old this must not be ascribed to any defect in the Sacrament but we are to believe it so happens for this cause rather that Faith is weaker in the greatest part of those that are anointed with this sacred Oyl or in those that administer it the Gospel telling us that our Lord did not many mighty works in his own Country because of their Vnbelief And yet for all this at last she is forced to confess the true Reason That Miracles do not seem so necessary now since Christianity has taken so wide and deep a root as they were in the beginning of the Church Which Reason as it shews that we ought not to expect the like effects now as then does likewise fully justifie the practice of the Church of England in not using Vnction to warrant the recovery of the Sick tho' she be ready to assist them with her Prayers which may be hoped effectual in an ordinary way to all that is consistent with the Divine Will Marriage Whereas our Blessed Saviour was pleased to reduce this State of Marriage to its first Institution and to make the Bond of it insoluble we do believe it the Concern yea the Duty of the Church to see that its Members joyned together in this holy State do preserve this Bond inviolable And the preserving it thus requiring as all other Christian Duties the assistance of God's Grace our Church thinks herself obliged as to see to the Marriages that shall be contracted between its Members so to implore a Blessing on them at their entrance into that State begging the Assistance of the Divine Grace to enable them to live as Christians ought in the State of Wedlock And whereas the Apostle has thought fit to represent to us the near Conjunction and inseparable Union of Christ with his Church by that near and inseparable Union which this State supposes we forget not the Thanks we owe our blessed Lord who is thus pleased to unite himself to his Church nor the Concern that lies on us the Members of it to preserve an Vnion with him inviolable But we cannot think that because the State of Matrimony is a Sign of that Mystical Union between Christ and his Church having some analogy with it that therefore the entrance into this State has the promise of any Grace to joyn or preserve us in that Union with Christ and his Church and for that reason we exclude it from the Sacraments of Christ's Church as these are Signs effective of Grace Order We allow the Necessity of ordaining Ministers for the Service of Christ's Church and acknowledge not only the Ceremony of Imposition of hands in that Action to be of Apostolical Institution but also that there is a Promise of Grace annex'd to enable persons so ordain'd to act according to their several Functions and that with effect to those Ends which their Ministries serve in the Church of Christ But we admit it not properly a Sacrament as I said before because the Grace promised does peculiarly relate to their Office and the Benefit of the Church not particularly to the Salvation of him that receives it Neither do we allow the Grace here promised to belong to any but those Orders that we find from the Beginning in the Church of Christ viz. Bishops Priests and Deacons SECT X. Of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist NOW we are come to the great Points that are in dispute about the Eucharist wherein M. Condom has greatly enlarged himself as confident of the Victory Here in the first place he tells us The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of our Saviour is established by the Words of the Institution which they understand literally and therefore are not to give Reasons for so doing but expect Reasons why they should not We should take this Gentleman off a great Advantage which he presumes himself to have if we should deny theirs to be the Literal Sense and plead ours to be it and oblige them to give Reasons for their imposing a new construction upon them However leaving that in question for a time I must at present examine the Reasons he gives to
measure of it to another and consequently we must still labour and pray to him 3 1 Thess 3. 10. to encrease our faith As we have therefore received Christ so we must walk in him 4 Eph. 4. 15. growing up unto him in all things which is our Head from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh encrease of the body unto the edifying of itself in love and for this end hath God ordained Publick Officers in his Church 6 Eph. 4. 12. for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ wherefore God hath made them able Ministers of the New Testament 7 2 Cor. 3. 6. even Ministers of the spirit that giveth life 8 1 Cor. 3. 5. Ministers by whom we believe even as the Lord gives to every man When we have therefore received the spirit and faith we must desire 9 1 Pet. 2. 2. to grow thereby and as grown men too we must desire this food of the Lord's Table to continue our strength of which being made partakers the Lord doth grant us 10 Eph. 3. 16 19. to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith and being rooted and grounded in love may comprehend and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge and be filled with all the fulness of God Hereby therefore all that M. Condom argues from the Doctrines of the Reformed in this point falls to nothing that which he urges against those who say the Sacraments are bare signs proves nothing to the prejudice of the Church of England which I have shewn accounts them to be Seals exhibitive of the body and blood of Christ So for the advantage that he builds upon from the Gallican Catechism which he tells us teaches That though Christ be truly communicated to us both by Baptism and the Gospel yet nevertheless it is only in part and not fully I for my own part should not stick to say as much and I presume the reason given above for the necessity of this Sacrament will abundantly justifie me in it and that I need not upon this account be forced to hold any other participation of Christ in the holy Sacrament than that by spiritual faith Nor should I stick to say what the Gallican Confession does concerning our partaking of Christ's substance namely Although Christ be in Heaven there to remain till he come to judge the World yet we believe that through the secret and incomprehensible power of his spirit he nourisbeth and quickneth us by the substance of his body and blood apprehended or received by faith Nor need I by this be obliged to allow the substance of Christ to be otherwise than spiritually eaten or that our union is any other than the participation of his quickning spirit As little is the advantage he pretends from another thing in their Catechism That the body of our Lord Jesus offered to reconcile us to God is now given to assure us of that reconciliation it having been shewn how our blessed Saviour is truly tendred to that effect in this holy Sacrament and yet that Christ is to be received spiritually and by faith to that effect also that with this Doctrine there may be and is an apparent distinction maintained between the participation of Christ and that of his benefits Having thus shewn his Objections all invalid I need not enter into a particular discussion of the large Harangue he makes upon them which is no other than an illusion But to shew him that is so good at finding out difficulties for us that we need not seek far to find some for them Let him resolve us according to their Principles First How Christ being as they say bodily and wholly received by them into their bowels there should be any need of receiving this Sacrament more than once They cannot use the answer insisted on by us for that they plead they receive him not by faith spiritually and to find a way of solving it they must shew how Christ that is once truly received into their bodies goes out again Again Let them shew us how the body and blood of Christ which being bodily present is also bodily received and eaten both by good and bad should turn to the salvation of one and damnation of the other when our Saviour saith whoso eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood hath eternal life Joh. 6. 54. They cannot say the one eats him spiritually the other not since they make the sacramental eating not to be spiritual both therefore eating him sacramentally we are to look for a reason of its different effects Nay let them shew us how when Christ tells us his flesh profiteth nothing which must necessarily be understood if carnally received according to the gross conception of those that questioned how he would give them his flesh to eat their eating it which is no other than taking the substance of his flesh into their bodies should be at all profitable to eternal life SECT XIII Of Transubstantiation and Adoration c. TO return then with M. Condom to consider their Doctrine of Transubstantiation and Adoration consequent upon it I shall not dispute with him whether those species or accidents that remain supposing according to their Doctrine the substance of the Elements changed be a sign or not But having shewn from the plain words of our Lord and evident testimonies of the Apostles that the sense of our Lord's words infer no such corporal presence of Christ as they suppose nor any such change of the Elements as they call Transubstantiation and likewise shewn all that this Gentleman seeks to prove it by insignificant I may well conclude the Church of Rome has in this point set up a new Doctrine of Faith even destructive of the Faith inasmuch as it decrees and commands Adoration even the honour due to God himself to be given to this Sacrament Which Concil Trid. Sess 13. c. 5. many of themselves confess to be Idolatry supposing this first Doctrine of Transubstantiation false Nor will it signifie any thing to say as M. Condom That some of the most learned and intelligent of the Reformed have granted those who are perswaded of the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament ought to pay him in it their adorations who they are that have said so much I am not concerned to search possibly some may have said that if he was indeed really present as they say Adoration ought to be given to him but none I believe that all who are perswaded of its being so ought to pay it him there so as to imply that men ought upon a perswasion that may be false to venture
a thing very greatly to be feared whilst the substance under it is the blood of Christ. Thirdly Many men cannot abide the taste nor smell of wine wherefore that that which was ordained for spiritual health might not prejudice the health of the Body it was very wisely enacted by the Church that all her faithhful Children should receive one kind alone To this may be added other reasons That in some Countries wine is scarce and cannot be gotten without long and tedious Journeys But that which is most of all to the purpose the Heresie of such was to be rooted out as declared whole Christ to be under both Species and said the Body only was contained in the bread and the blood in the wine But he further tells us That the Church has reserved to her self the re-establishment of both kinds according as it should become more advantagious to Peace and Unity 'T is well she has kept to herself a Power of re-establishing that which she never had Power to dis-establish but how forward she has been to do any thing towards Peace and Unity all the World sees by her sirst occasioning so great a breach by this very thing And to me her last reason that she gives makes it evident that she still maintains and justifies her Sacriledg which robs Christians of their Birthright to the apparent prejudice of Peace yea to the rendring Unity impossible unless men will part with their Christianity But it 's most ridiculous when he comes to conclude from the concession of some Protestants That bread alone might be administred in case a man made protestation of a natural aversion to wine that therefore according to the Principles of the Reformed the matter in question regards not Faith and so is altogether in the Power of the Church For without determining whether their decision be right or wrong can it be argued from them that allow the Church may administer it only in one Species in case of such necessity that therefore the Church has authority to refuse administring it in both wheresoever she pleases to refuse it Can it be said that those who allow her a Power to dispense with some in case of absolute necessity do thereby allow her any Power to prohibit all People who are not comprehended in the case and being not comprehended look upon themselves greatly injured by being thus deprived of it And whereas he infers from hence that it regards not Faith his argument is as strong as if because the Jews were not circumcised in the Wilderness it should be said the Synagogue might have dispensed afterwards with that Law and said that Circumcision was not essentially necessary to a Jew because in a case of necessity where it could not be used Jews had lived without it SECT XVII Of the written and unwritten Word WHereas he says That the unwritten Word was the first Rule of Christianity and when the Writings of the New Testament were added this did not lose its Authority so that whatever was taught by the Apostles by Writing or Word of Mouth is to be received with equal veneration and that it is a sign that a Doctrine comes from the Apostles when it is universally received by all Christian Churches without any possibility of shewing its beginning I must not admit it but with these limitations First That nothing shall be imposed on us as a Doctrine coming from the Apostles but what shall evidently appear to have been universally received by all Christian Churches without beginning and that as fully to in all the parts of it that shall now be pleaded for For it is in vain to tell us that some things were delivered by the Apostles by Word of Mouth and those that have been from the beginning so received in the Christian Church universally throughout all Ages and Places ought to be looked upon as such unless what ever they would have us submit to as such be made appear so to be Secondly That these Traditions be not acknowledged of themselves sufficient to build any matter of Faith upon and this for two Reasons one because we cannot have that certainty of these as ought to be had to ground any thing as necessary to salvation of this all the Scriptures are an evident proof for undoubtedly the Apostles wrote not any thing to their Churches which they had not by preceding instructions gave them ability to understand notwithstanding which we see those instructions are now in great part lost though the Scriptures are preserved and they were so soon gone out of the Church that in a few Ages after the Apostles we find men giving them divers interpretations The other because we are told The Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3. 15. which though spoken of the Writings of the Old Testament yet since none can deny the Divine Providence to have had the same end in ordering and inspiring the Writers of both namely that the Scriptures should be written for our Learning is as undeniable a Truth with reference to the New as Old Testament so that whatsoever is necessary to salvation must be either contained in or deducible from them Whereupon the Church of England professes That Holy Scripture containeth Art 6. all things necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be requiredof any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation These exceptions which were necessary in respect of the premises laid down are altogether needless if we look to the Conclusion inferred viz. That we ought not to wonder if they being careful to gather all their Fathers left them should conserve the Deposition of Tradition as well as that of the Scriptures Certainly no man ever blamed the Church of Rome for keeping the Tradition she received from the Apostles but for setting up Traditions that were never deposited with her much less with the whole Church The Council of Trent indeed in its first Decree is very reserved concerning Traditions and speaks cautiously thus The Holy Synod finding Christ's Truth and Holy Discipline partly in Scriptures and partly in unwritten Traditions which either were taken from Christ's Mouth by the Apostles or were Sess 4. delivered by the Apostles themselves inspired by the Holy Ghost and have passed as it were from hand to hand to us and following the example of the Orthodox Fathers doth with the like Religious affection receive all the Books of the New and Old Testament as also the Traditions themseves pertaining to Faith and Manners But under this fair pretence of receiving Traditions either taken from Christ's Mouth or delivered by the Apostles themselves and passed from hand to hand unto them they make their Decrees by Traditions of a quite different nature Traditions of yesterday such as appear neither always nor universally received abusing likewise their more ancient to justifie all the abuses time
and superstition brought in Thus they pretend their Decree for the Worship of Saints and Relicks and the use of Images according to the Tradition or received Practice of the Catholick Church in the first times and consent of Fathers and Decrees of Councils when yet M. Condom contents himself with Tradition but from the fourth Century if we would allow it him And so the Gentlemen do well to plead that we should receive a Doctrine as coming from the Apostles when it is universally received without possibility of shewing its beginning by all Christian Churches thereby to obtrude that which had no beginning in it for three hundred years Thus they Decree Indulgences to have been in use in the Church in the most ancient times when yet they could not but be sensible that the use of them was perverted to a quite different purpose from its antient end and notwithstanding their desire that they might be restored to ancient Custom yet we know the Novel is still the modern practice Thus for Purgatory the Council commands that sound Doctrine be taught concerning it from the ancient Fathers when no such thing appears either anciently or universally in the Church And yet at another time that which Christ himself hath taught and was delivered both to and from the Apostles shall not serve to make it necessary Thereupon it Decrees Sess 21. cap. 1. That though Christ instituted the Sacrament under both kinds and delivered it in both to his Apostles yet this does not bind all men to receive it in both Now then for these men to press Traditions on us when they will neither let us know what nor how many they are nor prescribe any bounds to them nor six any certain Rules to discern them by nor be obliged themselves to stand by them and under that pretence to come now fifteen hundred years after the Apostles and impose on us the single Tradition of one Church nay not only her ancient and original Traditions but Novelties foisted in to maintain her corruptions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and ancient Tradition And all this to decline an indifferent Tryal by Scripture under pretence that all necessary Truths cannot be found therein without recourse to Tradition if putting on I say so fair a disguise to so fraudulent a purpose they urge this Argument that the Apostles delivered things by word of mouth which ought to be received as of any force to oblige us to receive all which they have the confidence to tell us comes from them What is it but a vain endeavour to impose on the World as if all men had lost common sense and understanding SECT XVIII Of the Authority of the Church UPon this subject M. Condom writes after so rambling and confused a manner that I must first be at the trouble to pick out what he designs to prove before the solidity of his Arguments can be examined His aim then I take to be couched in those words pag. 45. wherein he concludes from the Article of our Creed concerning the Holy Catholick Church That they oblige themselves to acknowledge an infallible and perpetual verity in the Universal Church Now herein he has neither expresly told us what this Universal Church is whether the Church of Rome alone or all other Christian Churches with it nor whether he means the Church collective the whole body of Christians or representative the Bishops in Council or the Pope where some fix this Infallibility But whereas he afterwards confounds the Catholick Church with the Trent Council which by her Decrees if we believe him has tied herself up that she cannot make herself Mistress of our Faith I conceive I may without offence determine that the verity he intends to prove is that there is an Infallibility resting somewhere in the Catholick Church of Rome To which if he would oblige us to consent it had been but reasonable to have sixt this Infallibility in something certain though at present I will not stand upon it but consider his Discourse which begins thus The Church being established by God to be the Guardian of Scripture and Tradition we receive the Canonical Scripture from her and let our Adversaries say what they will we doubt not but it is her Authority that principally determines them to Reverence as Divine Books Which first sentence is a manifest contradiction it being absolutely impossible that that which is established by God to be the Guardian of Scripture and the Traditor of it to others should be the Authority that makes it Scripture which it is before it is put into its Guardianship and certainly its being Scripture or a Writing of Divine Inspiration is that which makes them principally reverenced as Divine Books not that which tells us that they are so But then he gives us instances of Three Books especially which he conceives received upon that authority The Canticle of Canticles St. James and St. Jude Where in the first place the Gentleman does ill to joyn these together as believed or to be believed upon the same grounds the Canticle of Cantiles being long before the Christian Church the others since Therefore I must answer him distinctly Supposing then that which common sence is able to inform us that this Book called The Song of Songs is more antient than the Church of Christ and that the Church never had as she has never pretended to have any express Revelation whether this Book was written by inspiration from God as we believe the Law and the Prophets beside the credit upon which it received it from the Synagogue it 's certain that the only thing questionable is whether it was received by the Synagogue as divinely inspired if it appears to have been so received it is not any authority of the Christian Church that has made it Scripture and if the Church had pretended it Scripture without evidence of its being received from them or particular Revelation shewn in the case it would have been never the more a Divine Book nor any man obliged to receive it as such And I marvel the Gentleman should be carried so far by the spirit of Contradiction and desire to bear down his Christian brethren as to set up a Principle that betrays our common Christianity by giving notice to the World that those Scriptures of the Old Testament whereby the Church pretends to convince the Jews of the necessity of becoming Christians are not to be received for the Word of God but upon the authority of her own Decrees Then for the Epistle of James rejected by Luther and St. Jude by others nothing can be more manifest to any that will but take the pains to consider it that the Writings of the Apostles were first kept by and entrusted in the hands of those Churches to which they were sent as the Epistles to Corinth Rome Ephesus c. It is therefore reasonable to conceive those Writings so dispersed when collected into one body and submitted to by
to be received for the Word of God if not confirmed by the Scripture because the Motives upon which they were received cannot be as evident as those of the Scriptures Questionless no man can deny the Traditions of the Jews to be as useful for the understanding the Old Testament as any now for that of the New but then it was they perverted the Use of Traditions when they taught them for God's Commandments But that which he infers from this that has given us both so much trouble is just nothing Upon this account the Church professes she tells us nothing from herself and that she invents nothing new in her Doctrine Whoever thought that their Church ever professed the contrary or can conceive that any Church will profess otherwise the question then is not what she professes but what she has done and let me tell him that his own words are as great an argument against the Church's absolute and Infallible Authority as any can be given For if upon the account of her being established by God to be the Guardian of the Scripture and Tradition and the deliverer of them to her Children she be obliged to profess suppose what may reasonably be supposed that she be but obliged to act as she does profess that she delivers nothing new nothing from herself nothing but by the interior direction of the Holy Ghost Shall not her Authority be confined within these limits Shall she have any power to act beyond them or if she be accused as having acted against that Christianity that she ought to have maintained Shall it not be shewn de facto that she has not or if that seem too apparent Shall it be pleaded that she is infallible and cannot have acted against it though it 's visible to all but them that plead so that she has But he further tells us That there being a dispute raised in the times of the Apostles the Holy Ghost put an end to it by the Church and the method then taken by the Apostles to decide it has taught succeeding Ages by what authority all other differences are to be ended so that as often as any divisions shall happen the Church will interpose her Authority and her Pastors assembled will say after the Apostles It seemeth good unto the Holy Ghost and to us What they will say I know not I am sure this gives them no warrant to say the like It 's true this practice of the Apostles has directed the Church upon differences that have hapned to assemble its Pastors for the ending them but I see no promise here that they shall have the like assistance with the Apostles who not only had the Spirit of God at all times in a measure which no man can pretend to have now at any time but had likewise frequently immediate inspirations And if a man should think they had an immediate inspiration upon the place signifying how they should order the matter he might have grounds for his opinion very considerable inspirations being then so frequent even at the common Assemblies of Christians and St. Paul being so cautions as to difference things of his own from the Commands of the Lord although he thought himself at the same time to have the Spirit of God But whether so or not no Councils can from hence presume that the Holy Ghost will lead them into all Truth in whatsoever they take a humour to determine because Christ promised to send his Spirit to his Apostles to lead them into all Truth for the teaching and establishing our common Christianity Father Paul tells us of a Proverb which perhaps this Gentleman may have known to pass in France That the modern Council had more Authority than that of the Apostles because their own pleasure only was sufficient ground for the Decrees without admitting the Holy Ghost whether verified in this of Trent I shall not say but the ground of it is certainly possible and God that has promised to lead men by his Spirit into all Truth has not said he will lead them whether they will or no. Whereas then he says further That when the Church has spoken her Children will be taught that they ought not to examine again the Articles so resolved on but are bound humbly to receive her decisions and that they are resolved to follow the example of Paul and Silas not permitting them to be again discussed but teaching all to observe the ordinances of the Apostles He would have done well to have shewn us that the Decrees of the Trent Council are as much the acts of the Holy Ghost as that of the Apostles before he had required us to think them act as justifiably in teaching them as Paul and Silas did But by the way if he speaks this as the fix'd resolution of all their Church not to admit a new discussion of what has been decided but to require all to observe it he lets us know an excellent Resolution of his Church and how much it is for her turn that differences in Religion be everlasting But thus it is he tells us the Children of God acquiesce in the Judgment of the Church believing that from her mouth they hear the Oracle of the holy Ghost This he should have forborn to have said till he had shewn by something more than he has hitherto that God has bid his children to hear his Word from the mouth of any Church speaking without the Scripture that contains it but especially methinks he should not have presumed to say this is the ground why in our Creed having said I believe in the Holy Ghost we add immediately The holy Catholick Church if we had no other ground to believe the Holy Catholick Church than he has hitherto shewn I am sure we should have but very little for so great an Article of Faith But no wonder he builds his faith on no better grounds since he has framed a new sense of the Article of which if I convince him by the Catechism of his own Church I suppose he may be inclinable to hear it even that then teaches him That the word Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Ecclesia quibus siguris Church in this Article does chiefly denote the whole number of Believers including both good and bad not the Rulers only but those likewise who are to obey and if so I know not how a man is obliged by believing this Article to acknowledge any Infallibility in the governours of any Church or to think that if they err this Article of our Creed should become false or that he has ever the less faith in God if he apprehend or fear least the Rulers of the Church should abuse their power Whereas after this he endeavours to perswade us That the Catholick Church meaning that of Rome is so far from making herself Mistress of our Faith as she is accused that on the contrary she has done what she could to limit and deprive herself of all the means of
pleases to reform herself need not fear this Crime she may remove those Laws that prejudice the salvation of the Members of her Communion establish those for herself that tend to the exceeding benefit of Christianity as well as the Peace of Christ's Church and thereby provide for the Purity of Faith and Unity of the Church withal And I see no reason why the Church of England being a part of the Church Catholick but no way subject to the Church of Rome may not adventure to desire them to consider the things that belong to their own Salvation as well as the Peace of Christ's Church and how much they are concerned and obliged by all the commands and bonds of Unity that are obligatory upon Christians as to lay aside their claim to an Authority over all the Churches of Christ which is not given them of God and which they chiefly challenge to maintain what they cannot otherwise defend so especially to reform all those Customs Laws and Practices that have been experienced prejudicial to the Faith and establish such as may advance and promote it since by doing this which is otherwise their duty they may procure that which themselves pretend so earnestly to seek and which we acknowledg and pray for as the greatest blessing next to Purity of Faith the Peace and Union of the Church of Christ Reflections upon his Pastoral Letter THere can be but two aims as I apprehend in dispersing this Letter among us one to persuade us that there is no such Persecution of Protestants in France as is pretended the other that the Reasons upon which such multitudes are Proselyted to the Church of Rome or those at least which M. Meaux gives in this Letter are so convincing as to oblige the rest of the World to follow their example What he affirms in relation to the first that not one among them had suffered violence either in Person or Goods is so notorious a falshood that I may leave all those to believe him that can For none certainly can admit the belief of it but such as can force themselves to believe against all the evidence of their senses and reason Waving this therefore I shall content my self to examine the main thing that concerns us Whether there be any thing of solidity in the motives he gives to confirm his Proselytes Though herein I shall not concern myself with what particularly relates to the French Protestants or with any advantages that he may seem to have over them but only with such as may be supposed of equal force against the Reformed Church of England my business being only to oppose the design that seems aimed at in their dispersing this Letter among us The first thing considerable is what he says pag. 4. That himself and his other Colleagues have this glory which they will not suffer to be taken from them that they have never condemned their Predecessors and Preached no other Doctrine than what they received from them Whereas the Bishops of England c. at their going off from the Church of Rome manifestly renounced the Doctrin of their Predecessors Now no man will envy them this glory that they have obstinately retained those Errors and Corruptions which their Predecessors had admitted The glory of the Bishops of England is this that having purged themselves from those corruptions which time and superstition and base intrests had brought into the Church of God they now retain the Doctrine of the Apostles and Primitive Christians from which the Romanists pretending to follow their Predecessors are greatly deviated For though M. Meaux has the face to say That we cannot produce any one instance of a change in Doctrine and that those changes we pretend are rightly called Insensible because we cannot make them out Yet the pitiful defence he has made for his Church in those particulars wherein we charge them with Innovations does sufficiently shew them to be such and the inconsistency of those Doctrines with Christianity does likewise evidence that though they may have been called insensible changes because insensibly introduced yet now they are visibly and palpably destructive of the Faith It 's true indeed as he says The succession of Pastors and Doctrine ought not to be separated and blessed be God our Church of England as it now holds the Christian truth in the Purity of it has also enjoyed as uninterrupted a succession of Pastors as any Church whatever But the Romanists pretences to a succession of Pastors is vain so long as the Christian Doctrine is not preserved entire which an uninterrupted succession of Pastors proves not to be so preserved whilst there is a possibility for those Pastors to admit Innovations agreeable to their own Opinions or Interests The next considerable thing that he urges is the Authority of St. Cyprian from whom he cites several passages pretended to conclude us under a necessity of holding Communion with the Church of Rome and to render all that separate from it guilty of Schism Wherein since he blames others for not taking his Doctrine entire he ought to have been sincere himself and not have caught up fragments of him here and there to adorn his deceitful discourse In the first place cited St. Cyprian does indeed say That to manifest the unity of his Church our Saviour said to Peter single Thou art Peter c. but he says likewise That he gave to all his Apostles equal power but this M. Meaux thought best to leave out His words are The Lord said unto Peter Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church c. and I give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and Loquitur Dominus ad Petrum Ego tibi dico quia tu es Petrus super istam Petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam portae inferorum non vincent eam Et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum c. Et iterum eidem post Resurrectionem dicit Pasce oves â—â—as Super unum aedificat Ecclesiam Et quamvis Apostolis omnibus parem potestaâ—… triona dicat sicut misit me Pater Ego mitto vos c. tamen ut unitatem manifestaret unitatis ejuâ—…m originem ab aâ—o incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit Hoc erat utique ceteri Apostoli quod fuit Petrus pari consortio pra diti honoris potestatis sed Exordium ab unitate proficiscitur ut Ecclesia una monstretur Cyp. Lib. de unitate Ecclesie also after his Resurrection feed my sheep He builds his Church upon Vnity And though he gave to all his Apostles equal power saying As my Father sent me so send I you c. yet that he might manifest the Vnity he dispenses his Authority to one as the original of Vnity That therefore which Peter was the same were the rest of the Apostles joyned in the same fellowship of Honour and Authority but the beginning of it proceeds from Vnity that it might evidence the Church
to be one It 's evident therefore that St Cyprian did not hereby intend to acknowledg St. Peter to be the Head of the rest of the Apostles or that they derived their Authority from him since he says That they had an equal Power and Authority given them by Christ His meaning then can be only this that to evidence the necessity of Unity in the Church our Saviour gave that Authority first to Peter single which he afterwards gave to all together to shew them that they ought in their several functions to aim all at the same thing the Vnity of his Church He says indeed that Episcopacy is one but he adds what M. Meaux thought best for his Cujus à singulis in solidum Pars tenetur Ibid. purpose to leave out Whereof every one holds a part with full and ample Power He says likewise Adulterari non potest sponsa Christi incorrupta est Pudica but he does not say it for any such reason as this Gentleman pretends lest we should imagine some cases might happen in which it might be lawful to separate from the Church or reform her Doctrine as thought it were impossible for a Church to fall into error or to have need of being reformed The coherence of the Discourse makes them bear a different meaning viz. That the true Spouse of Christ cannot admit this Vnity to be interrupted will not be corrupted to division This Father further says That he that separates himself from the Church has no part in Christs promises c. We readily affirm the same of such as do it without a cause But no advantage can be hence taken against us 'till M. Meaux has first proved that the Church of Rome is this only true Church of Christ He would have gained a great point indeed if we were obliged to take it for granted that the Roman is this only true Church of Christ and if the true Church was not to be sought and known by an examination of her Doctrines and their consistency with the Faith But he grosly abuses this good Father when he would persuade us that St. Cyprian would not suffer men to enquire after the true Church by examining her Doctrine but to know her first and then believe we cannot have salvation out of her For so far as I can observe he does not give the least intimation of any such thing in his Book De unitate Ecclesiae And if he should I see no reason that any have to subscribe to him when indeed the Church being a Society professing the Faith of Christ and subsisting for the maintenance of it there can be no means of knowing which is that Church but by knowing first the Faith of Christ and also that this Church professes and holds the same But I need not dispute about that for which he falsly pretends this Authority It 's true in this Book De Vnitate St. Cyprian only urges the Unity of the Church and the Crime of those that break it but there would be no reason to look upon his Arguments so strong if the Church he defends had done any thing to the prejudice of the Faith and therefore in other places he defends the cause of the Church in this case by the righteousness of it by proofs from Scripture of the innocency and lawfulness of that which was imputed to her as a Crime And therefore I most of all admire that he could have the face to abuse those other words of St. Cyprian in his Epistle to Antonian to so false an intent as if he had used them to forbid an enquiry after mens Doctrine and to oblige us to submit to that which the Church holds without enquiry Whereas not only the case St. Cyprian writes upon is utterly different but even the method he takes in this very Epistle to satisfie Antonian and the connection of his Discourse shew his sense to be as different from what M. Meaux would impose on us as possibly can be For in the beginning of the Epistle he tells him That his careful and Epist 51. ad Anton. solicitous enquiry after the truth was not to be blamed tho' he was in part blamable in that he wavered in the Resolution he had first taken and certified him and Cornelius of that he would not communicate with Novatian After which he proceeds to give him an account of the cause of the Church upon what account they admitted lapsed persons to the Communion which was charged as a crime on the Church by Novatian relating the matter of fact the reasons of it and its consistency with Christian Discipline proving it out of the holy Scriptures Then he further gives account of the Election of Cornelius to the Bishoprick of Rome of his Manners and Life and purges him from the scandal his Adversaries had thrown upon him And then indeed he says As for that which concerns the person of Novatian since you desire to be informed what Heresie he has introduced you must know before all things that we need not curiously enquire what he has taught since he hath taught out of the Church who or what soever he be he can be no Christian being out of the Church of Christ. But in the following words he gives the reason of it because he had broke the Vnity of the Church by ambitiously aspiring to the Bishoprick and getting himself made Bishop by some deserters and to make a greater party setting up several other salse Bishops in those Provinces and Cities wherein were already seated Bishops of an approved Faith and tried Constancy Whereupon he indeed says It was no matter whether Novatian introduced any Heresie or not solong as he was the Author of so great a Schism Whereby it appears that he is far from supposing what M. Meaux pretends he only telling Antonian That it was no matter what Doctrine Novatian taught because he had shewn himself unchristian by breaking the Vnity of the Church and making a Schism without cause So that the case supposed is that of man breaking the Unity of the Church be his Doctrine what it will tho' the same which the Church teaches not a case wherein the Church needs a Reformation and the adverse party has Truth and Scripture of his side as it must have been to be applicable to the Church of Rome and the Reformed It 's true St. Cyprian likewise says The promise of our blessed Saviour to be in the midst where two or three are gathered together supposes them assembled in Christ which he thinks they cannot be whilst they are seperate from the Church of Christ But this is begging the Question to use this against us till it appears that the Church of Rome is the only True Church of Christ But M. Meanx says The Church of which this holy Martyr speaks is that which acknowledges at Rome the head of her Communion and in the Place of Peter the eminent degree of the Sacerdotal Chair which there acknowledges the Chair