could they offer at it in a plain contradiction to such Principles as are consistent with the Christian Religion if the Doctrine of the Roman Church is true Here then we have not only the Scripture but Tradition fully of our side Some pretended Christians it is true did very early Worship Images but those were the Gnosticks held in detestation by all the Orthodox Irenaeus Epiphanius and St. Austin tell us Iren. l. 1. c. 24. Epiph. Haeres 27. August de Haeres cap. 7. that they Worshipped the Images of Christ together with Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle Nor are they only blamed for Worshipping the Images of Christ together with these of the Philosophers but they are particularly blamed for having several sorts of Images and Worshipping these as the Heathens did and that among these there was an Image of Christ which they pretended to have had from Pilate Besides these Corrupters of Christianity there were no others among the Christians of the first Ages that Worshipped Images This was so well known to the Heathens that they bring this among other things as a reproach against the Christians that they had no Images Which the first Apologists are so far from denying that they answered them That it was impossible for him who knew God to Worship Images But as human Nature is inclined to visible Objects of Worship so it seems some began to Paint the Walls of their Churches with Pictures or at least moved for it In the beginning of the Fourth Century this was condemned by the Council of Eliberis Can. 36. It pleases us to have no Pictures in Churches lest that which is Worshipped should be Painted upon the Walls Towards the end of that Century we have an account given us by Epiphanius Epiph. ep ad Joan. Hieros of his Indignation occasioned by a Picture that he saw upon a Veil at Anablatha He did not much consider whose Picture it was whether a Picture of Christ or of some Saint he positively affirms it was against the Authority of the Scriptures and the Christian Religion and therefore he tore it but supplied that Church with another Veil It seems private Persons had Statues of Christ and the Apostles Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. 7. c. 18. Aug. in Psal. 113. de Moribus Eccl. Cath. c. 34. which Eusebius censures where he reports it as a remnant of Heathenism It is plain enough from some passages in St. Austin that he knew of no Images in Churches in the beginning of the Fifth Century It is true they began to be brought before that time into some of the Churches of Pontus and Cappadocia which was done very probably to draw the Heathens by this piece of conformity to them to like the Christian Worship the better For that humour began to work and appeared in many Instances of other kinds as well as in this It was not possible that People could see Pictures in their Churches long without paying some marks of respect to them which grew in a little time to the downright worship of them A famous instance we have of this in the Sixth Century Serenus Bishop of Marseilles finding that he could not restrain his People from the Worship of Images broke them in pieces upon which Pope Gregory writ to him blaming him indeed for breaking the Images Greg. Epist. l. 9. Ep. 9. but commending him for not allowing them to be worshipped This he prosecutes in a variety of very plain Expressions It is one thing to worship an Image and another thing to learn by it what is to be worshipped He says they were set up not to be worshipped but to instruct the Ignorant and cites our Saviour's Words Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve to prove that it was not lawful to worship the work of mens hands We see by a fragment cited in the Second Nicene Council that both Iews and Gentiles took advantages from the Worship of Images to reproach the Christians soon after that time The Iews were scandalized at their Worshipping Images as being expresly against the Command of God The Gentiles had also by it great advantages of turning back upon the Christians all that had been written against their Images in the former Ages At last in the beginning of the Eighth Century the famous Controversy about the having or breaking of Images grew hot The Churches of Italy were so set on the worshipping of them This is owned by all the Historians of that Age Anastasius Zonaras Câ—drenus Glycâ—s Theophanes Sigebert Otho Pris. Urspergensis Sigonius Rubens and Ciaâ—â—nius that Pope Gregory the Second gives this for the reason of their Rebelling against the Emperor because of his opposition to Images And here in little more than an Hundred Years the See of Rome changed its Doctrine Pope Gregory the Second being as positive for the worshipping them as the first of that Name had been against it Violent Contentions arose upon this Head The breakers of Images were charged with Iudaism Samaritanism and Manicheism and the worshippers of them were charged with Gentilism and Idolatry One General Council at Constantinople consisting of about Three hundred and thirty eight Bishops condemned the Worshipping them as Idolatrous but another at Nice of Three hundred and fifty Bishops though others say they were only Three hundred asserted the Worship of them Yet as soon as this was known in the West how active soever the See of Rome was for establishing their Worship a Council of about Three hundred Bishops met at Francfort under Charles the Great which condemned the Nicene Council together with the Worship of Images The Gallican Church insisted long upon this matter Books were published in the Name of Charles the Great against them A Council held at Paris under his Son did also condemn Image-worship as contrary to the Honour that is due to God only and to the Commands that he has given us in Scripture The Nicene Council was rejected here in England as our Historians tell us because it asserted the Adoration of Images which the Church of God abhors Agobard Bishop of Lions and Claud of Turin writ against it the former writ with great vehemence The Learned Men of that Communion do now acknowledge that what he writ was according to the sense of the Gallican Church in that Age And even Ionas of Orleans who studied to moderate the matter and to reconcile the Gallican Bishops to the See of Rome yet does himself declare against the Worship of Images We are not concerned to examine how it came that all this vigorous opposition to Image-worship went off so soon It is enough to us that it was once made so resolutely let those who think it so incredible a thing that Churches should depart from the received Traditions answer this as they can As for the Methods then used and the Arguments that were then brought to infuse this Doctrine into the World Acta Con. Nic. 2. Action 4 5 6
of them Yet after all these Approbations and many repeated Desires to me to publish it I do not pretend to impose this upon the Reader as the Work of Authority For even our Most Reverend Metropolitans read it only as private Divines without so severe a canvassing of all Particulars as must have been expected if this had been intended to pass for an Authorised Work under a Publick Stamp Therefore my design in giving this Relation of the Motives that led me first to Compose and now to Publish this is only to justify my self both in the one and in the other and to shew that I was not led by any Presumption of my own or with any design to dictate to others In the next place I will give an account of the method in which I executed this Design When I was a Professor of Divinity Thirty Years ago I was then obliged to run over a great many of the Systems and Bodies of Divinity that were writ by the Chief men of the several Divisions of Christendom I found many things among them that I could not like The stiffness of Method the many dark Terms the Niceties of Logick the Artificial Definitions the heaviness as well as the sharpness of Stile and the diffusive length of them disgusted me I thought the whole might well be brought into less compass and be made shorter and more clear less laboured and more simple I thought many Controversies might be cut off some being only disputes about Words and founded on Mistakes and others being about matters of little consequence in which Errors are less criminal and so they may be more easily born with This set me then on composing a great Work in Divinity But I stayed not long enough in that Station to go through above the half of it I enter'd upon the same Design again but in another method during my stay at London in the privacy that I then enjoyed after I had finished the History of our Reformation These were advantages which made this Performance much the easier to me And perhaps the Late Archbishop might from what he knew of the Progress I had made in them judge me the more proper for this Undertaking For after I have said so much to justify my own engaging in such a Work I think I ought to say all I can to justify or at least to excuse his making choice of me for it When I had resolved to try what I could do in this method of following the Thread of our Articles I considered that as I was to explain the Articles of this Church so I ought to examine the Writings of the chief Divines that lived either at the time in which they were prepared or soon after it When I was about the History of our Reformation I had laid out for all the Books that had been writ within the time comprehended in that Period And I was confirmed in my having succeeded well in that Collection by a Printed Catalogue that was put out by one Mansel in the end of Q. Elizabeth's Reign of all the Books that had been Printed from the time that Printing-Presses were first set up in England to that Year This I had from the present Lord Archbishop of York and I saw by it that very few Books had escaped my search Those that I had not fallen on were not writ by men of Name nor upon Important Subjects I resolved in order to this Work to bring my Enquiry further down The first and indeed the much best Writer of Q. Elizabeth's time was Bishop Iuel the lasting honour of the See in which the Providence of God has put me as well as of the Age in which he lived who had so great share in all that was done then particularly in compiling the Second Book of Homilies that I had great reason to look on his Works as a very sure Commentary on our Articles as far as they led me From him I carried down my search through Reynolds Humphreys Whitaker and the other great men of that time Our Divines were much diverted in the end of that Reign from better Enquiries by the Disciplinarian Controversies and though what Whitgift and Hooker writ on those Heads was much better than all that came after them yet they neither satisfied those against whom they writ nor stopt the Writings of their own side But as Waters gush in when the Banks are once broken so the breach that these had made proved fruitful Parties were formed Secular Interests were grafted upon them and new Quarrels followed those that first begun the Dispute The Contests in Holland concerning Predestination drew on another Scene of Contention among us as well as them which was managed with great heat Here was matter for angry men to fight it out till they themselves and the whole Nation grew weary of it The Question about the Morality of the Fourth Commandment was an unhappy Incident that raised a new strife The Controversies with the Church of Rome were for a long while much laid down The Archbishop of Spalata's Works had appeared with great Pomp in King Iames's Time and they drew the Observation of the Learned World much after them though his unhappy Relapse and fatal Catastrophe made them to be less read afterwards than they well deserved to have been When the Progress of the House of Austria began to give their Neighbours great Apprehensions so that the Protestant Religion seemed to come under a very thick Cloud and upon that Jealousies began to rise at home in King Charles's Reign this gave occasion to two of the best Books that we yet have The one set out by Archbishop Laud writ with great Learning Judgment and Exactness The other by Chillingworth writ with so clear a Thread of Reason and in so lively a Stile that it was justly reckoned the best Book that had been writ in our Language It was about the nicest Point in Popery that by which they had made the most Proselytes and that had once imposed on himself Concerning the Infallibility of the Church and the Motives of Credibility Soon after that we fell into the Confusions of Civil War in which our Divines suffered so much that while they were put on their own defence against those that had broke the Peace of the Church and State few Books were written but on those Subjects that were then in Debate among our selves Concerning the Government of the Church and our Liturgy and Ceremonies The Disputes about the Decrees of God were again managed with a new heat There were also great Abstractions set on foot in those times concerning Iustification by Faith and these were both so subtile and did seem to have such a tendency not only to Antinomianism but to a Libertine course of Life that many Books were writ on those Subjects That Noble Work of the Poliglot Bible together with the Collection of the Criticks set our Divines much on the study of the Scriptures and the Oriental Tongues
Sacraments  MS. the Injunctions also lately set forth  Pr. the Injunctions also set forth  MS. and serve in the Wars  Pr. and serve in lawful Wars Art 38. MS. every man oughteth of such things  Pr. every man ought of such things Art 39. Edw. 6. qui sequuntur non sunt in MS. WE Th' archbishops and Bishops of either Province of this Realm of England lawfully gathered together in this Provincial Synod holden at London with Continuations and Prorogations of the same do receive profess and acknowledge the xxxviii Articles before written in xix Pages going before to contain true and sound doctrine and do approve and ratify the same by the subscription of our hands the xi â—h day of May in the year of our Lord 1571. and in the year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth by the Grace of God of England France and Ireland Queen Defender of the Faith c. the thirteenth Matthue Cantuar. Rob. Winton Jo. Heref. Richarde Ely Nic. Wigorn. Jo. Sarisburien Edm. Roffen N. Bangor Ri. Cicestren Thom. Lincoln Willhelmus Exon. From these Diversities a great difficulty will naturally arise about this whole Matter The Manuscripts of Corpus Christi are without doubt Originals The hands of the Subscribers are well known they belonged to Archbishop Parker and were left by him to that College and they are Signed with a particular care for at the end of them there is not only a Sum of the number of the Pages but of the Lines in every Page And though this was the Work only of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury yet the Archbishop of York with the Bishops of Duresme and Chester Subscribed them likewise and they were also Subscribed by the whole Lower House But we are not sure that the like care was used in the Convocation Anno 1571. for the Articles are only Subscribed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Ten Bishops of his Province nor does the Subscription of the Lower House appear These Articles were first Printed in the Year 1563. conform to the present Impressions which are still in use among us So the Alterations were then made while the thing was fresh and well known therefore no Fraud nor Artifice is to be suspected since some Objections would have been then made especially by the great Party of the Complying Papists who then continued in the Church They would not have failed to have made much use of this and to have taken great advantages from it if there had been any occasion or colour for it and yet nothing of this kind was then done One Alteration of more Importance was made in the Year 1571. Those words of the 20 th Article The Church hath power to Decree Rites or Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith were left out both in the Manuscripts and in the Printed Editions but were afterwards restored according to the Articles Printed Anno 1563. I cannot find out in what Year they were again put in the Printed Copies They appear in two several Impressions in Queen Elizabeth's Time which are in my hands It passes commonly that it was done by Archbishop Laud and his Enemies laid this upon him among other things That he had corrupted the Doctrine of this Church by this addition but he cleared himself of that as well he might and in a Speech in the Star-Chamber appealed to the Original and affirmed these words were in it The true account of this difficulty is this When the Articles were first setled they were Subscribed by Both Houses upon Paper but that being done they were afterward Ingrossed in Parchment and made up in Form to remain as Records Now in all such Bodies many Alterations are often made after a minute or first Draught is agreed on before the matter is brought to full Perfection so these Alterations as most of them are small and inconsiderable were made between the time that they were first Subscribed and the last Voting of them But the Original Records which if extant would have cleared the whole matter having been burnt in the Fire of London it is not possible to Appeal to them yet what has been proposed may serve I hope fully to clear the difficulty I now go to consider the Articles themselves ARTICLE I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity There is but one living and true God everlasting without bodie parts or passions of infinite power wisdom and goodness the maker and preserver of all things both visible and invisible and in the unity of this godhead there be three persons of one substance power and eternity the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost THE Natural Order of Things required That the First of all Articles in Religion should be concerning the Being and Attributes of God For all other Doctrines arise out of this But the Title appropriates this to the Holy Trinity because that is the only part of the Article which peculiarly belongs to the Christian Religion since the rest is Founded on the Principles of Natural Religion There are Six Heads to be Treated of in order to the full opening of all that is contained in this Article 1. That there is a God 2. That there is but One God 3. Negatively That this God hath neither Body Parts nor Passions 4. Positively That he is of Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness 5. That he at first Created and does still Preserve all things not only what is Material and Visible but also what is Spiritual and Invisible 6. The Trinity is here Asserted These being all Points of the highest consequence it is very necessary to state them as clearly and to prove them as fully as may be The First is That there is a God This is a Proposition which in all Ages has been so universally received and believed some very few Instances being only assigned of such as either have denied or doubted of it that the very consent of so many Ages and Nations of such different Tempers and Languages so vastly remote from one another has been long esteemed a good Argument to prove that either there is somewhat in the Nature of Man that by a secret sort of Instinct does dictate this to him or that all Mankind has descended from one common Stock and that this belief has passed down from the first Man to all his Posterity If the more Polite Nations had only received this some might suggest that wise men had introduced it as a mean to govern human Society and to keep it in order Or if only the more barbarous had received this it might be thought to be the effeâ—t of their Fear and their Ignorance but since all Sorts as well as all Ages of men have received it this alone goes a great way to assure us of the Being of a God To this Two things are Objected 1 st That some Nations such as Sâ—ldania Formosa and some in America have been discovered in these last Ages that seem to acknowledge no
Reflections upon that Doctrine It was at first received by the whole Iesuit Order so that Bellarmine formed himself upon it and still adhered to it But soon after that Order changed their Mind and left their whole Body to a full liberty in those Points and went all quickly over to the other Hypothesis that differed from the Semi-pelagians only in this that they allowed a Preventing-Grace but such as were subject to the Freedom of the Will Molina and Fonseca invented a new way of explaining God's foreseeing future Contingents which they called a Middle or Mean Science by which they taught That as God sees all things as possible in his knowledge of simple Apprehension and all things that are certainly future as present in his knowledge of Vision so by this knowledge he also sees the Chain of all Conditionate Futurities and all the Connexions of them that is whatsoever would follow upon such or such conditions Great Jealousies arising upon the Progress that the Order of the Jesuits was making these Opinions were laid hold on to mortify them so they were complained of at Rome for departing from St. Austin's Doctrine which in these Points was generally received as the Doctrine of the Latin Church and many Conferences were held before Pope Clement the Eighth and the Cardinals where the Point in debate was chiefly What was the Doctrine andTradition of theChurch The Advantages that St. Austin's Followers had were such that before fair Judges they must have triumphed over the other Pope Clement had so resolved but he dying though Pope Paul the Fifth had the same Intentions yet he happening then to be engaged in a Quarrel with the Venetians about the Ecclesiastical Immunities and having put that Republick under an Interdict the Jesuits who were there chose to be banished rather than to break the Interdict And their adhering so firmly to the Papal Authority when most of the other Orders forsook it was thought so meritorious at Rome that it saved them the Censure So instead of a Decision all sides were commanded to be silent and to quarrel no more upon those Heads About Forty years after that Iansenius a Doctor of Louvain being a zealous Disciple of S. Austin's and seeing the Progress that the contrary Doctrines were making did with great Industry and an equal Fidelity publish a Voluminous Systâ—m of St. Austin's Doctrine in all the several Branches of the Controversy And he set forth the Pelagians and the Semipelagians in that Work under very black Characters and not content with that he compared the Doctrines of the Modern Innovators with theirs This Book was received by the whole Party with great Applause as a Work that had decided the Controversy But the Author having writ with an extraordinary Force against the French Pretensions on Flanders which recommended him so much to the Spanish Court that he was made a Bishop upon it all those in France who followed St. Austin's Doctrine and applauded this Book were represented by their Enemies as being in the same Interests with him and by consequence as Enemies to the French Greatness so that the Court of France prosecuted the whole Party This Book was at first only prohibited at Rome as a Violation of that Silence that the Pope had enjoined afterwards Articles were pickt out of it and condemned and all the Clergy of France were required to sign the Condemnation of them These Articles were certainly in his Book and were manifest Consequences of St. Austin's Doctrine which was chiefly driven at though it was still declared at Rome That nothing was intended to be done in prejudice of St. Austin's Doctrine Upon this pretence his Party have said That those Articles being capable of two Senses the one of which was strained and was Heretical the other of which was clear and according to St. Austin's Doctrine it must be presumed it was not in that second but in the other sense that they were condemned at Rome and so they signed the Condemnation of them But then they said that they were not in Iansenius's Book in the sense in which they condemned them Upon that followed a most extravagant Question concerning the Pope's Infallibility in Matters of Fact It being said on the one side That the Pope heving condemned them as Iansenius's Opinions the belief of his Infallibity obliged them to conclude that they must be in his Book Whereas the others with great Truth affirmed That it had never been thought that in Matters of Fact either Popes or Councils were Infallible At last a new Cessation of Hostilities upon these Points was resolved on yet the Hatred continues and the War goes on though more covertly and more indirctely than before Nor are the Reformed more of a piece than the Church of Rome upon these Points Luther went on long as he at first set out with so little disguise that whereas all Parties had always pretended that they asserted the Freedom of the Will he plainly spoke out and said the Will was not Free but Enslaved Yet before he died he is reported to have changed his Mind for tho he never owned that yet Melancthon who had been of the same Opinion did freely retract it for which he was never blamed by Luther Since that time all the Lutherans have gone into the Semipelagian Opinions so entirely and so eagerly that they will neither tolerate nor hold Communion with any of the other Persuasion Calvin not only taught St. Austin's Doctrine but seemed to go on to the Supralapsarian way which was more openly taught by Beza and was generally followed by the Reformed only the difference between the Supralapsarians and the Sublapsarians was never brought to a decision Divines being in all the Calvinists Churches left to their freedom as to that Point In England the first Reformers were generally in the Sublapsarian Hypothesis But Perkins and others have asserted the Supralapsarian way Arminius a Professor in Leyden writ against him Upon this Gomarus and he had many disputes and these Opinions bred a great distraction over all the Vnited Provinces At the same time another Political matter occasioning a division of Opinion Whether the War should be carried on with Spain or if Propositions for a Peace or Truce should be entertained It happened that Arminius's followers were all for a Peace and the others were generally for carrying on theWar which being promoted by the Prince of Orange he joyned to them And the Arminians were represented as Men whose Opinions and Affections leaned to Popery So that this from being a Doctrinal Point became the distinction of a Party and by that means the differences were inflamed A great Synod met at Dort to which Divines were sent from hence as well as from other Churches The Arminian Tenets were condemned but the difference between the Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians was not medled with The Divines of this Church though very moderate in the way of proposing their Opinions yet upon the main adhered to St.