§ 14. Church-Governm 2. part § 36. c. It remains then that I go on to shew That where we have not this infallible certainty God hath obliged men to submit their own opinion to and to acquiesce in the judgment tho fallible of those Superiors whom he hath appointed to guide them and so per accidens hath obliged them to believe a falsity so it be not certainly known to them to be false or as you say to obey another in any thing right or wrong so long as it is not certainly known to them to be wrong and so long they know not but that it is right and that under pain of sinning against their duty Obliged them I say not only for opinions but actions which depend on their opinions For note that if we owe no obedience of assent to any judgment fallible lest they teach us something untrue neither owe we to them any obedience of our actions lest they command us something unlawful or also lest we act something contrary to our conscience which we never may Again To their Superiors I say if so be that they have no other higher Superiors in respect of whom the authority of the inferior is always voided whom in their doubtings they can repair-to and consult as in respect of General Councils tho they should be fallible we have not a superior Director 1. First for such obedience due not only to the supreme Synods or Courts but also to inferior Spiritual Governors fallible see the express divine command in many Scriptures Heb. 13. 7 9 17. whose faith follow Eph. 4. 11. c. Pastors and Teachers sent that we might not be carried away with other doctrines than those which they deliver Matt. 18. 15. c. We appointed to hear the Church upon penalty of being treated like Heathens and of being bound as on Earth so in Heaven Acts. 20. 28 29. The clergy appointed Episcopi to feed the flock that must be amongst other things surely with their Doctrine which is the Spiritual nourishment of the Flock not to be refused Luk. 10. 16. He that hears them hears Christ and the despiser of them despiseth Christ. To which may be added all those texts which authorize Ghurch-Governors to judge controversies and inflict their censures upon false teachers and spreaders of errors 1 Tim. 4. 11 -6 3 5. Tit. 1. 11 -3 10 11. Acts 15. 2. c. 1 Tim. 1. 20. compared with 2 Tim. 2. 17 18 -4 14 15. Rev. 2. 2 14 15 20. 1 Cor. 14. 29 32. Again all those texts wherein Christians are exhorted to note and avoid those that cause divisions Rom. 16. 17. 2 Thes. 3. 14. 2 Jo. 10. Again those texts also wherein Christians are charged to be all of one judgment which cannot be but by adhering to the judgment of some one person or assembly to speak the same thing Not to be wise in their own conceit 1 Cor. 1. 10. Rom. 12. 16 -15 5 6. Phil. 1. 27 -3 16. Again those texts which require Christians to acquiesce in the doctrine of their Spiritual Superior who is not only the Apostle but the Apostles Successors to the world's end 1 Cor. 4. 16 17. 11. 1 2. Phil. 3. 17. Rom. 16. 17. 2 Thes. 3. 14. With which Successors is left the charge of continuing to the world the doctrine of their predecessors 1 Tim. 1. 3. 2 Tim. 1. 13 14. 2. 2. which texts see more largely explained and the extent of obedience that is required in them vindicated in Success of Clergy 2. Secondly after these Texts commanding obedience and submission of judgment to the authority but not to the Universal infallibility for who will maintain this of all those Spiritual Superiors who are thus to be obey'd let us consider also the common practice in our Secular converse Doth not there lie upon children an obligation of duty especially in their minority to yeild the obedience of assent for else they may not the obedience of their actions to the rules and injunctions of their parents That saying Col. 3. 20. doth it not either argue all parents infallible in what they teach or command or that God hath bound children not capable of repairing to an higher Director to submit their judgment and actions to those who may guide them amiss Again whether no obligation of Scholars to their Masters and those experienced in the Science they learn I say whether it is not a duty in these to yeild their assent to them not only for the charge they have of obedience but also for the great disproportion of their judgments tho the other are not infallible and may possibly teach them wrong for there is no infallible Judge at all in the Sciences The like instances may be made in the People to their Pastor the Penitent to his Confessor the Christians to any Synod less than General for these are all fallible What mean those rules Oportet discentem credere Unicuique credendum est in sua arte To which I may add That right reason binds any to yeild faith to another not only if infallible but if all circumstances considered less fallible than himself If these be dictates of right reason what difference between this and the law of Nature And again what difference between that and the law of God Many Scruples I know and demurs and difficulties usually arise in our minds endeavoring to defeat such obedience and resignation of our selves to anothers authority when any way fallible You will give me leave therefore before I go further to take notice of some of them and to see whether they may not be rationally silenced 1. First then to this you may say that where-ever we doubt once upon reasons no way satisfied of any thing which such Governors enjoyn whether it be true whether it be lawful here we are quit from our obedience to them R. True if you have any other higher Judgment appointed to repair to and accordingly deciding such doubt in which case theirs is voided But mark here that thus you decline not their judgment because fallible but because you have another Director or Guide appointed less liable to error than they But where-ever this cannot be had duty obligeth you not to follow your own but your former Directors judgment whose Faith follow Heb. 13. 7. Will you restrain such Scripture-rules of obedience only to General Councils But if not their judgment whom we have named in case you can attain to no higher Tribunal whose doth your duty oblige you to follow your own But thus also then is it not your duty to follow a fallible judgment which may guide you right or wrong Tell me hath not God obliged every one to follow his * own conscience right or wrong Conscientia erronea obligat From what law but God's Obligat because he doth not know that it is erroneous how much more an * erring Council whose mistakes he hath many times less means to find out
than those of his own conscience One therefore that in a doubt cannot have the solution of a Superior court infallible aswho can have it in every matter of faith or practice he scruples at it either not sitting or too remote or not at leisure to satisfie all Queries ought to acquiesce in the judgment of an inferior guide Doth not a child offend against his duty if he should say to his Father or a plebeian to his learned Pastor Since you are fallible I will not follow yours but my own judgment Doth not natural prudence guide him in two liable to error to follow him who all circumstances considered is likely to be the less fallible or is He further from fallibility if he guide himself But if you will acknowledge a submission and obedience to their judgment in some only not in all things since they may in something guide you amiss I ask then in what things it is that you think fit to obey them In what you approve and like of But this is primarily not obeying their but your own judgment Therefore in things also which you do not approve But this for any thing I know is obeying in all things But if you say that you would have men also yeild in some things not altogether approved by them yet not in things whereof they have much doubt or wherein they think themselves as it were sure of the contrary for if they be absolutely sure I yeild to you Still thus you open a gap large enough to let all out of the fence of obedience and the more ignorant soonest for they knowing little or nothing to the contrary think themselves sure of every thing they say 2. But secondly you will ask if I ought to obey in things I approve not Am not I thus obliged to go against my conscience which was said but now tho erroneous to oblige me This is answered I think sufficiently in a discours concerning what obligation we have to follow our own judgment § 2. n. 3. to which I I refer you and is spoken to below § 46. Again you will say Do not we thus take away all use of our own judgment in things wherein our Superiors lay their injunctions upon us R. Yes the use of our judgment against the Supreme Again all use of our judgment not for reasoning or proposing difficulties perhaps in some things to that supreme Judgment to be further confirmed in truth but at least all judgment from such difficulties pronouncing and defining against such Authority But neither is this restraint of our judgments which see more fully discoursed of in Church-Govern 3. part § 39. by the Determinations of Councils if these observed to the uttermost so great as to some it seems if they well consider how few and cautelous and sparing their decisions are in comparison of the voluminous Theological questions agitated amongst Christians even before the sitting of such Councils For how few and how laxe and general do we find the decisions of the last Council of Trent not thought to be the most impartial in comparison of the many questions proposed in the Schools and hotly agitated in those times about Grace and Free-will Justification Merit without mention at all of such terms as de congruo or de condigno about Purgatory Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation c not to name here the present point of Infallibility Therefore are those even accused by Protestants to swarm with opposition and diversity of opinions all whom they yet do grant to yeild a captiv'd judgment and undisputing obedience to all the Canons of Councils But if as when Councils define nothing in points controverted we argue their ignorance and want of divine assistance to discern the truth so when they define any thing we complain of their tyranny in restraining our judgments How shall they please us Our judgment hath a field of matter large enough to exercise it self-in without practising and trying its skill upon the determinations of Councils and if it were yet more directed and regulated by them had no reason to complain since those who have bin more prone by it to call all things into question and to examin both the foundations and superstructures of the received Christian faith have shew'd us sad examples of the most miserable failings thereof and frequent falls from most evident truths Qui amat periculum peribit in illo But as here is objected the taking away of our judgment so consider whether something worse follows not on the other side namely the taking away of all obedience to Superiors not only in submission of our judgment but actions which must follow the judgment For as I said before and have shewed more fully elsewhere that can be no obedience or submission to them when we yeild to their judgments because they agree with ours or because they have with clear arguments convinced ours for so we yeild to a Counsellor a companion and cannot do otherwise As long as this proposition stands firm That General Councils have greater light and evidence of truth than particular men how can it be less than duty to submit to them tho not altogether infallible But since in the necessary and chief points infallible and these points no way perfectly distinguishable by us from the rest how much more reason yet have we The same thing as dictated by common prudence we see practised in temporal courts where in controversies arising to know what is the law of the Kingdom or the intent thereof or what is not the people are referred to submit to the judgment of some others experienced in those laws tho not infallible and sometimes contradicting one another Why should the children of this world be wiser than the children of light But 3ly you will reply to this that in such a busines at least concerning your eternal salvation you dare not rely upon others nor trust any but your self and that it is safest for you to depend on God's word and not on any human authority R. I answer first that the breach of God's express command such is that of your obedience in these things to your Spiritual Superiors see § 37. can be no good way to secure your Salvation 2ly This is just as if in a difficult passage wherein mistaking you may incur some danger of your life such are the Scriptures in several things 2 Pet. 3. 16. having Guides appointed well experienced in the way to direct you and of whom you are assured that they cannot misguide you into any dangerous precipice you should say I do not think fit to make use of a Guide save in a way where there is no danger But why so because you are more faithful to your self than others may be But then so much reason as you have to trust to your self as the most faithful so little have you to trust to your self as not being the most able guide As for your not depending on human authority
consider whether a Church be not in such profitable helps of an holy life deficient For example If a Church should impose no affirmative credends nor enjoyn no practices but what all the Christian world will subscribe to and yet should hold That to abstain from any thing which it is lawful by God's word to enjoy is fruitless will-worship and superstition should disallow professedly or tacitly i. e. by suffering any such good custom to be diswonted for want of being recommended the confessing of sin to the Priest whether it be for more shame and humiliation of our selves for it or for their advice against it or their ministerial absolution from it or for their prayers and intercession against it c. should affirm confession to God or the Priest sufficient for remission without reformation of life or being sorry for them sufficient repentance without any further penances humiliations or punishing of our selves for them or without those of the body at least yet which still pampered no way consists with a soul afflicted or that these are necessary only when they are imposed to satisfie the scandal of the Church not to appease the wrath of God or that they are remitted by money or indulgence which is not preceded by penitence should not teach her children * the distinction of greater and lesser sins that so they may be more extraordinarily cautious of those which more provoke the wrath of God and * the several degrees of penitence required according to the several measure of their faults that so they may practise greater humiliations upon the commission of more grievous offences should hold that good works are not necessary to salvation or necessary only out of gratitude or as fruits that will necessarily spring out of true faith or that promises of reward are not made to good works but only to faith should require for our salvation faith only in our Saviour's merits i. e. his good works so as to avoid inherent righteousnes or faith in Christ's satisfaction i. e. his sufferings so as to avoid all our self-afflictions mortifications and conformity to his death should teach our inability tho we be in the state of grace to keep all God's commandements and fulfil his law as touching all greater sins and offences against any part thereof and to please him in our works should hold no degrees of perfection in obedience nor any latitude of goodnes beyond that of being void only of sin making none better than him that sins not or him whoever is not most good an offender and the falling-short of the highest degree of prayer charity c guilty of sin to the taking away of all confidence in God from our good deeds and emulation of being perfect and pre-eminence of Saints should make the heavenly reward equal to all so that who is more holy than the least that enters in thither suppose S. Paul than the Publican in the over-plus of his mortifications c serves God for nought should extol predestination election grace certainty of salvation c i. e. the mercies of God so far as to remit and weaken all humane endeavors should deny the continuance of God's miraculous works now as hath bin in former times to holy men to the great weakening of prayer and faith and making use of the intercessions of holy men should make an equal facility of attaining heaven to all conditions of life not noting to the people those which have more temptations or hindrances in them than some others as marriage wealth honors should disallow or discourage Vows and other prefortifications against those things which have bin former-occasions of sinning should not exact of her children frequent hours of prayer in the day but discommend rather frequent repetitions i. e. importunity of prayers not exact frequent days of solemn worship in the year frequent celebrations of the Eucharist frequent fasts and macerations of the body or should not require some of these more especially from her Clergy at least Should use no publick or at least private Sacerdotal censures and penitences upon greater sins and should remit the reins of the obedience that is due unto her authority making her self uncapable to restrain except where her children are first perswaded she judgeth right i. e. according to Scripture as they understand it Should by her doctrines That such and such christian duties are not required with such and such a quatenus in such and such a sence or respect as not good works i. e. to justifie or to merit or to obtain remission of sin by them not penance i. e. to satisfie God's justice not confession i. e. as jure divino not such and such ceremonies set times of fast hours of prayer c i. e. as divine commands or essential parts of worship not poverty celibacy c i. e. as counsels to all but only contend that they are necessary duties to some whilst none know to whom in particular they are so which thing quite voids the duty Should I say by teaching much more vehemently how such duties are not required than how they are to be understood especially to one considering both the peoples and the teachers practice as if they argued that they were not required at all or by teaching that such and such practices are not absolutely necessary should be conceived to say they are no way beneficial or no way useful at all because they are not useful alone as is true of all manner of mortifications and castigations of the body If any Church I say should hold or is ordinarily by the people understood to hold such tenets as these who sees not that in such a Church tho commanding nothing unlawful yet omitting only the contrary doctrines to these before-named the people must needs desert many good duties grow cold in devotion and left to their most grateful liberty use it to their destruction But were it not so and that such a Church were free from blame yet were that Ecclesiastical Economy more to be preferred and would have a reward and something to glory of beyond the rest as S. Paul beyond other teachers 1 Cor. 9. that should thro these restraints of lawful liberty aspire to the more perfection That Church therefore seems more safely to be preferred and adhered unto which is more accused of excesses in religion than which is blamed of defects as that which is said to attribute too much to good works to extoll too much the vertue of self-mortifications and penances to superadd to God's commands a great deal of spontaneous and free-will-worship to abound too much in religious rites and ceremonies too much in corporal bowings and gestures too much in fasting-days to use too many vain repetitions in their prayers to reverence holy places and things and persons in excess to give too much authority and require too strict a submission to the governors and laws of the Church excessively to practise and recommend religious vows to make too great a
plus perturbat infirmos bonos quam corrigit animosos malos 3ly When such Separation may offend against some duty to which we are obliged either by the Divine or Civil laws As the children may not abandon their parents or the wife her husband on such pretence neither is it required where necessary commerce or natural or religious relations will not permit it This is clear from the Apostle's permission of the Christians commerce with the heathen and idolaters 1 Cor. 5. 10. yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world with idolaters c. for then must ye needs go out of the world So likewise when we cannot communicate in the publick or also private worship of God in the Sacraments c with the orthodox and godly with whom we ought without such a mixture of the impious and profane as is not in our power to prevent here no necessity of Separation from those impious and profane lies upon us for so must we needs go out of the Church or relinquish those from whom we receive much benefit The same it is for relinquishing near relations for so we must abandon our habitations But note always that at such times when such necessities theirs or ours do not force or exact from us such converse t is a far better practice if not a necessary duty to separate even for diet cohabitation discours c from the Schismatical in opinions or notoriously wicked in manners tho by their great numbers we are confined to much solitude Now to come closer to our matter in hand tho in some pretences which may be made here as of our selves being sufficiently grounded in truth and out of danger of seducement or infection and of our good purpose in our association with the Schismatical only for converting some of them for which our Saviour allows converse with publicans some of the reasons for separation contained in these Scriptures seem to be removed as that of avoiding infection and partaking of their sin tho give me leave to interpose here that in such conversation t is very hard to be so innocent that some compliances must not be made by one who would by no means be discovered what he is both in discours and actions some way prejudicial to the truth neither can there scarce be any Schismatical Church wherein some of their public practices prayers discipline will not be contrary to the conscience of one that is orthodox Tho thus I say some of the reasons for Separation be removed yet are there some other of those reasons remaining still of force As that we may not seem to countenance them in evil and that by our deserting them some of them at least may be ashamed when especially if it be in such a conjuncture of time wherein the foundations of a Schism are shaken our open profession of truth may startle those whom our discours cannot work on and our example in going before them perhaps be more effectual than our reasons in only directing them the way But in our continuing still in their Society tho our private instructions and reproofs may manifest to some that we countenance them not yet to most these cannot do so nor to any perhaps so much as we ought For whilst we pretend our fellowship with them to be only to reprove them how can we do this so fully and so far as duty obligeth when we are to reprove them chiefly in that also wherein we continue fellowship with them namely in their separated communion from the Church In which separation yet we bid or seem to bid them God speed so long as we also abide with them in it But besides these reasons of Separation the preserving our selves from infection from their judgments the discouraging of the offenders c touched in some of these texts yet some other of those Scriptures as 1 Cor. 10. 20 21. 1 Cor. 5. 5 13. 2 Cor. 6. 14 17. seem to lay yet a more special injunction upon us especially not to communicate with them in their Sacraments and publick Divine worship and this upon some other yet higher reasons namely the duty of the publick owning and professing our religion and the keeping it pure and unmixed with any unbelieving schismatical or heretical assemblies For the Sacrament being instituted as for a sacred instrument of our communion with the Deity so also for a publick testimony and mark of a strict league and amity between all those who together partake it neither will the honor we owe to God the Father who dwelleth in us and adopts us for his children 2 Cor. 6. 16 18. nor to God the Son whose members we are 1 Cor. 6. 15 16. nor to the Holy Spirit whose Temples we are 1 Cor. 3. 16 17. suffer us by such a sacred and solemn ty to link and unite our selves to any congregations that are estranged from him or disclaimed by him This is making fellowship between righteousnes and unrighteousnes mingling light and darknes 2 Cor. 6. 14. joyning the members of Christ to a Spiritual harlot by which they two become one body 1 Cor. 6. 15 16. For the Sacrament hath this vertue that those become one body amongst themselves that partake it See 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. and by touching the unclean we also become unclean Lev. 5. 2 3. and all those separations under the law of the corporally unclean from the congregation of the Lord because they were to be a sanctified people unto the Lord and holy as he is holy see Lev. 11. 43 44. were only types of the Separation which ought to be from notorious sinners which we here speak of to which the Apostle makes application of them 2 Cor. 6. 17. Be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing saith the Lord taken out of Esai 52. 11. And hence also taketh he strict order for the sudden separation and ejection of such persons out of the Church especially from communicating the Sacraments thereof as of Leaven from a lump unleavened that the Passeover may not be celebrated with such a meslange see 1 Cor. 5. 2 5 7 13 ejection or casting them out where the Church hath the power or her going out from them 2 Cor. 6. 17. where they have the power but still a separation there must be Else in consorting with them we provoke the Lord to jealousie 1 Cor. 10. 22. as if we are not true and loyal to him and entirely his Now tho some of the texts urged by us speak only concerning non-communicating with idolaters who worship not the same God with us nor use the same Sacraments which I grant is a much greater crime in any Yet 1. first they may be enlarged upon the same grounds namely the publick signification of the Sacraments that the partakers thereof are co-united in the same faith and charity to those congregations who worship the same God but not in that way he requires and who are any way opposite by a division of themselves