discussed in the ancient so may and have some others in latter times and since there is Controversy also not unfrequently concerning what hath been the unanimous Consent of Fathers in particular points or the results of lawful ancient Councils there will yet be wanting a present Judge for determining these and since the Church of all times former or latter hath equal authority any present modern Determinations seem as authentick and obliging as the Ancient § 9. 4. That since the Scriptures are affirmed clear in Necessaries only upon the condition of a sincere endeavour one not assured first of this sincere endeavour yet of which there seems no certain means cannot be secure of his not erring in Necessaries For exampple the Socinian And this especially when a major part of Christianity understands the sense of such Scriptures against him And the same uncertainty holds of one's having sufficiently used other helps if these also be required § 11. Or if here such a lower degree of endeavour be affirmed only necessary and required as sutes with Christians of the meanest emploiments and capacities that such endeavour seems not sufficient for understanding all necessary points Or if it be that by such an Endeavour the Church-Governours may as well be presumed not to err in points necessary and so the other people way safely acquiesce in their Judgment § 12. CHAP. II. Concerning a Necessity of Church-Guides for instructing of Christians in Points Necessary THat the Clearness of Scripture in all necessaries upon a right endeavour to understand them if meant without the help of the Church-Guides renders their instructing of the people as to these points not necessary But if understood with the use of their help implies the Scriptures in such points not clear without their Exposition and inferrs a necessity of the not erring of such Guides in these points that the people by them may be rightly directed § 13. Where That such Answers as these in this matter seem not pertinent * That a manifold necessity of Church-Authority is still maintained i.e. as to other arts of it not this * That these Church-Guides are of great use also for instructing unskilful persons in Scripture doubtful and obscure but not said to be obscure and doubtful in necessaries which would overthrow the Supposition that they are herein clear § 14. CHAP. III. Concerning Obedience and Submission of Judgment due from the Church's Subjects to their Governours in Divine matters and in these the more the more they are necessary 1. THat the Church's Subjects have an obligation of Obedience and Submission of Judgment to their Ecclesiastical Superiours and this as to points necessary § 19. Proved by Scriptures Where the Texts Deut. 17.8 and 2. Chron. 19.6 are vindicated form Dr St's Exceptions § 22. And his other Objections of the erring of the Highest Ecclesiastical Courts under Moses's Law in Ration Account p. 241. answered § 25. 2. That such Obedience and Submission of Judgment if granted due to these Governours is in any Division of them to be yielded to the Superiour Persons or Councils § 26. Where Dr St's Pleas in behalf of the Church of England in order to this are considered Viz. * That there was no obliging authority extant at the Reformation Superiour to that of this Church § 27.32 * That It was then free from the Authority of the Pope and Church of Rome § 29. * That It submitteth to or consenteth with the Church Primitive and Apostolical or the truly Catholick Church of all Ages § 31. * That It hath not been so guilty of violating the Church-Canons as that of Rome § 33. * That Particular Churches may reform abuses and errours within themselves when a more General Consent cannot be obtained But not therefore when a more general Dissent is formerly declared § 34. 3. That Learned Protestants grant a Submission of Judgment due to church-Church-Authority from all such Persons as have no demonstrable Certainty that It commands them any thing contrary to God's Word § 35. 4. That setting aside any duty of Obedience the plebeian and unlearned ought for the understanding of Scriptures to acquiesce in the judgment of those more skilful and studied in them without distinguishing those Necessaries wherein is supposed any difference in mens Judgments § 37. And that what is to them using a due industry clear in Scriptures may be presumed will be so to their Guides Ibid. Where The Answer That Christians cannot be secure that their Guides though they do not mistake in necessary matters of Faith yet do not mis-teach others in them and the transferring Infallibility thus from the Vsual Notion of these Guides their not erring or being deceived in these matters to an Infallibility of their not deceiving others seems very unsatisfactory § 38. 5. That to whatever liability to mistakes and errours the Church-Guides are subject yet there is less hazard to the Vulgar in adhering to their's than to their own opinions Where Such Exceptions and Answers as these that follow against the former Obedience asserted in this Chapter seem not solid and pertinent Viz * That God hath entrusted every man with a Faculty of Discerning Truth and Falshood But this rightly used will discerne this truth that submission of judgment is due to our Spiritual Superiours § 40. * That Guides transgressing their Ride are not to be followed True when these Guides are certainly and demonstrably known to any to do so but who shall judge of such certainty and were any so certain or rather conceited that they are so yet all the rest will remain still obliged to Obedience * That the concurrent Sense of Antiquity is an excellent Means to understand the minde of Scripture in places otherwise doubtful and obscure But here not a Means which may be beneficially used but a Superiour that must be obeyed and submitted-to is demanded for ending Controversies § 44. * That no absolute submission can be due to two church-Church-Authorities contradicting one another But it is denied that the Supreme have done so and in those Subordinate contradicting submission is due to the Superiours § 46. * That in the present divided state of the Church a man must make use of his judgment in the choice of his Church But this judgment rightly used shews obedience and subjection due in any division to the Superiour Persons or Councils as the Communion we ought to live in and make choice of § 47. * That we may not submit to all those who challenge the authority of Guides nor to lawful Guides in all things they may require Which as thus spoken in general so will be willingly granted CHAP. IV. Concerning the Infallibility of these Governours in Necessaries THat the Church is infallible as to Necessaries in her Lawfull General Councils § 49. Proved * by the Practice of such Councils accepted and submitted to by the Church Catholick diffusive § 50. * From the Necessity thereof for the preserving the stability and certainty of the Christian Faith
demonstrably certain of the contrary he ought to submit to the judgment of this Authority for the knowing what things are revealed in this Word and what are contrary to or not founded in it and to use the Dr's expression ‖ Rat. Acc. p. 375.59 to be guided by the sense of Scripture as it is interpreted by this Authority And Dr. St. himself also Rat. Account p. 539. for preventing the exorbitancies and capricious humours of any fantastical Spirits for the knowledge of ones errors when these manifest intolerable what sober enquiry soever their sincere endeavours may pretend to cals for their conformity in interpreting of Scripture to the concurrent sense of the Primitive Church the Common Reason of Mankind that supposeth Scripture the Rule of Faith the consent of Wise and Learned Men Or on the side of these sincere endeavourers who shall disbelieve this authority he requires no less with the Archbishop and others than Demonstration for that wherein they dissent And this Demonstration not some improbable argument so miscalled but which being proposed to any man and understood the minde cannot chuse but inwardly assent thereto that is that which every reasonable man understanding the terms assents to § 36 Where Protestants may do well as to this duty of Obedience seriously to consider these things 1. Whether all those do not stand still obliged to obey the general Doctrines of the Church before Luthers's Reformation who can bring no demonstration of the contrary and Whether it is upon such a demonstrative certainty as this in the points controverted that they themselves oppose this church-Church-authority teaching them otherwise 2ly Whether since it is to be judged no Demonstration as Protestants define it that doth not convince all rational persons to whom it is proposed which the Protestants Demonstrations manifestly do not therefore the Demonstrations pretended by them be not even in their own judgment fallacious 3ly Whether the Common Reason of Christian Mankind Consid p. 74 and the common Consent of Learned and Wise Men named but now by the Dr for regulating a private man's belief ought not to be taken where all men are not united in the same judgment for the most common suffrage and testimony of the present Universal Church And then Whether we ought not to credit this present Vniversal Church sooner than any other touching what is the concurrent testimony of the Primitive Church in case this suffers any debate And then if particular Persons are not to depart from this judgment of Authority till they have Demonstration that is their own certainty as to such point to shew against it then Whether in stead of their calling for Church Infallibility that they may believe her the Church may not rather demand their Demonstrations why they believe her not See such things agitated by N. O. p. 74 75. passed over by the Dr in silence § 37 Next That setting here aside any Command or duty of Obedience in this matter Yet that in all prudence the Plebeian and unlearned for the understanding of Scriptures ought to acquiesce in the judgment of some that are more skilful and studied in them and this the more as the points are more necessary wherein is supposed any difference in Judgments for that argues some difficulty in the thing and that the Dr's Principle seems to afford a very good Reason of the Submission of Judgment to the Church which submission it opposeth Consid p. 17 For if Scriptures be maintained so clear in Necessaries that every one using a right endeavour cannot mistake in them then shall the Church-Governours much rather by reason of this clearness obvious to every rustick not err in them and so shall the people the more clear the Rule of faith is proved to be the more securely rely on and be referred in them to their direction and that we have all reason to presume that the chief Guides of the Church even a General Council of them or if it be but a major part of this Council it is sufficient in their Consults concerning a point necessary to Salvation delivered in Scripture use at least so much endeavour for more needs not as a plain rustick doth to understand the meaning of it Or here whatever other thing is supposed necessary besides a sincere endeavour or is understood to be included in it as Freedome from Passion and Secular Interest or also a freely professing the truths which their sincere endeavour discovers to them none can rationally imagine but that these Supreme Church-Governours should be as much or more disengaged herein than private men as having in their already possessed Dignity and Preferment less ambitions or compliances and more freedom and less dependence on or subordination to others in their actions or fortunes Then concerning their integrity and sincerity in their Judicature it is said by N. O. that what they define for others they define for themselves also and that their own salvation is as much concerned as any other man's is in their mistakes I add or in their purposely falsifying Truth in their Decrees and deceiving others in what they are not mistaken or deceived themselves so as that their subjects satisfyed of their skil yet cannot trust their fidelity If any can be so uncharitable as to credit of them so great a wickedness that the Supreme Councils of the Church should with designe decree an errour contrary to their faith and that in matters necessary and then enjoin all their Subjects under Anathema to believe it wherein they most certainly do devote themselves if not believing such their Decree to Eternal Perdition § 38 To such things argued by N. O. D. St's answer p. 141. is this Granting that the Guides of the Church supposing the same sincerity shall enjoy the same priviledge as any private man hath of believing rightly in necessaries which saith he I know none ever denied them Yet what is this to their Infallibility in teaching all matters of faith supposing them to believe aright yet what is this to their teaching right matters of faith which is the only thing to be proved by N. O. So that all this discourse saith he afterward proceeds upon a very false way of reasoning from believing to teaching and from necessaries to salvation to all matters of faith which the Guides of the Church shall propose to men Thus he Where first he corrupts N. O's express words and sense who argues from particular men's not erring in Necessaries by using a sincere endeavour the Church's not erring in Necessaries if using the like See Consid p. 17.18.19 The Church-Governour's not-erring saith N.O. not their not mis-teaching But indeed the first being granted N. O. thought the other also must be believed in the Church's General Councils Again in Necessaries saith N.O. not in all matters of faith which word All is put in by the Dr. several times perhaps to relieve himself for framing some Answer ' Next the Dr. denies not that
justified all the Sects which have or shall separate from their Church Prefa p. 7. which N.O. speaks not of their justifying these Sects universally in whatever they hold or do or what being practised in the Church of England they take offence at but only of justifying the liberty they take in disceding in their Opinions as they see fit from the Doctrines and Principles of this Church so limited by N.O. both in the precedent and following words whilst these Late men also tell them that they may safely follow their own judgment at least as to all necessaries for their salvation wherein they cannot erre if using a sincere endeavour to understand the Holy Scripture which is in all such points clear In answer to this this Author from p. 180. c. to p. 186. undertakes to shew That there is a different case of the separation of Dissenters from the Church of England and of Her separation from the Church of Rome shewing several Reasons or Motives of the Church of Englands departing from the Roman Church which the sects being of the same opinion in them have not of departing from her But this thing is willingly granted him before-hand that differences herein he may shew many that no way concern N. O's discourse who chargeth him and others only with this that from their teaching that none do owe a submission of judgment to that of their Ecclesiastical Superiors every one may rightly collect that he may follow his own Or that if You may depart from your Superiours Persons or Councils upon a just cause of which cause you say it is all reason that you not your Superiours judge then so may They from you upon any cause also they think just Or that if there be no decisive Judge for differences between you and your Superiours to whose sentence you can be obliged so neither is there for differences between them and you and that as you appeal from your Ecclesiastical Superiours to Evidence of Scripture so seeming to you in your cause so may they from you in their's For I suppose here the Dr will both acknowledge 1 Some Councils to be superiour to a National one and some Ecclesiastical Persons to a Primate And 2 that these Ecclesiastical Superiours fallible when proceeding against Evidence of Scriptures may be therein relinquished And This is the thing wherein N.O. affirms you to countenance and warrant the proceedings of all these Sects § 88 1. Frist then to shew these Differences he saith p. 181. Here lies a very considerable difference that we appeal and are ready to stand to the judgment of the Primitive Church for interpreting the letter of Scripture in any difference between us and the Church of Rome but those who separate from our Church will allow nothing to be lawful but what hath an express command in Scripture To which I say That this difference supposed or granted here of which see more in the Annotations ‖ On p. 181. notwithstanding he will be found still to justify the Sectarists in their departure from the present Church of England as she did the present Church that was before Luther which as the Dr maintains she might do upon a just cause that is appearing so to Her from the evidence of the Scripture so say the Sectarists they may and do from her upon a just cause but I need not say the same Cause And as he holdeth that this Church owed no submission of judgment to the definitions of that Church's former Councils being fallible so neither say the Sects do they to the National Synods of this But if the judgment of such matters be removed from these latter to the Primitive times to Antiquity This as taken ad libitum in a several latitude is a Precedent all Parties pretend to and is a Judge the sense of whose sentence all parties may cispute as they do that of Scripture without matters coming hereby to any strict Decision Neither will the Presbyterians I believe abandon this Hold to the Dr and his Irenicum perhaps will help them to maintain it And for some such reason it may be that he here in comparing the Church of England and the Sects declines the direct Antithesis of their deserting or renouncing contrary to Her Owning or adhering to these Primitive Times As the ingenuous Reader may observe § 89 2ly P. 182. He saith The Guides of our Church never challenged any infallibility to themselves which those of the Church of Rome do He should have said Which the Catholick Church in her lawful General Councils doth Now from this may well be gathered that the Dissenters from the Church of England depart in their judgment from a pretended not infallible but fallible Church And I ask What advantage hence for confuting what is said by N. O Doth not this fallibility of the Church of England in her Doctrines confessed secure any to depart from them and her as they shall think fit without being justly for this called to an account by her And are not all Sects hereby justified in following the perswasion of their own judgment against hers as she also following hers against her Superiours because fallible He saith also there That the Church of England declares in her Articles that all the proof of things to be believed is to be taken from Holy Scripture She may declare so yet the Sectarists not therefore admit that all that Holy Scriptures are alledged-for by the Church of England is to be believed since these differ in the sense of several places of Scripture from this Church and so as to these may depart from her Judgment § 90 3ly He saith P. 183. That the Church of Rome makes the belief of her doctrines necessary to salvation But nothing of this nature can be objected against the Church of England by dissenters that excludes none from a possibility of salvation meerly because not in her Communion To this I say as I did to the last The lesson cessary the Church of England makes the belief of her Doctrines the more liberty still the Sects will think they have of dissenting from them But changing here the Dr's Roman of which N. O. said nothing into the Catholick Church headed by her General Councils she freely tells those who dare depart from her that there is no Salvation to those out of her Communion and that their Conscience mis-perswaded doth oblige indeed but not therefore excuse them And this causeth those who are careful of their salvation and believe her in this to secure themselves in her Communion § 91 4ly P. 184. He saith The Guides of the Roman Church pretend to an immediate authority of obliging the consciences of men i. e as I understand him affirm that their Subjects are obliged in conscience to yield an assent and submission of judgment to their definitions and decrees which is true changing Roman into Catholick But saith he ours challenge no more than Teaching men to do what Christ
I find p. 267. mentioned An authority of inflicting censures upon offenders or of receiving into and excluding out of the Communion of the Church And That a Christian Society cannot be preserved in its purity and peace without it But looking further whether this Authority was extended to excluding from her Communion persons dissenting in their opinions from the received doctrines of such Church in matters of Faith which only serves the turn for curing Heresies and Sects of this I sind nothing but only this Power couched in these general terms To receive into and exclude out of the Church such-persons which according to the Law of a Christian Society are fit to be taken in or shut out § 101 I find him 2ly p. 268 allowing an Authority in the Church Of making Rules and Canons about matters of order and decency in the Church Not meerly in the necessary circumstances of time and place and such things the contrary to which inply a natural indecency but in continuing establishing those ancient Rites of the Christian Church which were practised in the early times of Christianity and are in themselves of an indifferent nature But when these Sects deny those things to be of an indifferent nature which this Church declares such as he knows the Sects in England ordinarily do may the Church here lawfully require their assent acknowledgment that they are of an indifferent nature and so their practice of them upon penalty if non-conforming of ejecting them out of her Communion Nothing less than which can purge her communion of such Sects and preserve her in purity Vniformity and peace I do not find him adventuring thus far as to tell us whether the Church may require assent or submission of judgment which must necessarily precede that of practice from those perswaded that the matter by the Church declared indifferent is not so and may upon the disobedient inflict her censures when perhaps she as fallible not they is mistaken in it and it seems contrary to his Principles But here he seems to tread suspensopede and manage the Church's Authority somwhat timorously as we may see by those words of his that follow that in such matters required by a lawful authority there is an advantage on the side of authority I understand him that authority hath the advantage for challenging obedience against a conscience scrupulous or doubting but what for a conscience not doubting but fully perswaded otherwise As men may be free from doubting in a thing whereof they are not certain which authority ought to overrule the practice of such who are the members of that Church over-rule the Practice but what saith he of such Authority its over-ruling the Judgment Which standing contrary it is certain none may practise though that which is right against their judgment This wary Conclusion in the 2d Proposition concerning Church Authority is somwhat like to those general words in the first A power of excluding out of the Church such persons as are fit to be shut out according to the laws of a Christian Society I suppose he means such laws as are or else ought to be in a Christian Society Of which ought to be who must judge § 102 Again he affirms p. 261. an Authority in the Church of proposing matters of faith and directing men in Religion directing several ways by particular instruction of doubtful persons to whom the help of their Guides he saith is the most ready and useful by a publick way of instructing viz. in Sermons by the representative Clergy meeting together to reform any abuses in practice or errours in doctrine and when a more General consent cannot be obtained to publish and declare what those errours are and to do as much as in them lies to reform them viz. by requiring a consent to such propositions as are agreed upon for that end of thâ—se who are to enjoy the publick offices of teaching and instructing others Not to the end that all those propositions should be believed as Articles of Faith but because no Reformation can be effected if persons may be allowed to preach and officiate in the Church in a way contrary to the designe of such a Reformation Here then we have an Authority allowed to propose matters of faith which proposal any Heresy or Sect can well comply with to instruct doubtful persons but in points necessary wherein Scriptures are clear according to him no such doubâ— needs to be in which doubting the help of their Guides is said to be the most ready and useful but for some reason or other this Author declines to say Necessary an Authority of Synods to declare what errours there are in doctrine or abuses in practice and in general he saith to do as much as in them lies to reform them by requiring a consent of its Clergy to such propositions as the Synod agrees upon § But meanwhile here occurrs nothing that such as said hold the errours in dâ—ctrine against which this Church declareth may not yet peaâ—â—ably enjoy her Communion He saith these â—ynods as much as in them lies may reform such errours but he saith 〈◊〉 this lies in their power to require any one to assent to the contrary truths upon penalty of being expelled from this Church's communion By which means only this Church can be purged and cured of the mixture of Sects and Heresies and be preserved in its purity and peace and consent of judgment in matters of Religion which the Title prefixed saith is the design of the Church of England's 39. Articles I say Whereas the Church hath no way for her preservation in unity of saith and worship but that of our Lord's and his Apostle's post unam aut alteram correptionem to shut such out of her Communion the Read er may observe here is no word of this I do not say of shutting any at all out of the Church's Communion this he allows in his first Proposition but not shutting any out on this account viz. their dissent and non-conformity to the Church's Articles of Faith and Religion § 104 For as for consent said to be required from the Clergy to such propositions as such Synods shall agree upon supposing here he means by this Consent a profession of the belief of the truth of them 1. This consent is required of the Clergy only hypothetically if they desire to officiate in the Ministry not absolutely that they may enjoy her Communion Nor will this remedy any Sect or Heresy as to such who for this cause decline the Ministry 2ly By the Church's requiring their consent he seems not to mean an assent to the truth of such Articles but either with Mr Chillingworth ‖ Pref. § 39. a consent to them or to the doctrine of this Church that who believes and lives according to them undoubtedly shall be saved and that there is no errour in them which may necessitate or warrant any man to disturb the peace or renounce the communion of this
infallible assistance to the Guides of the Church in all ages of it for the direction of those who live in it Add here as to all Necessaries For it is thus frequently limited by N. O but such limitation every where omitted by Dr St. Pag. 96. l. 1.2 That without this infallible assistance there can be no certainty of the sense of Scripture No certainty add as to all Christians many of whom are unlearned yong or of small capacity Of the sense of Scripture add as to several points of faith Necessary not as to all For N.O. doth not deny the sense of Scripture as to several points of faith clear enough and amongst rational men not disputed Adde I say these and N.O. will own the Proposition Ibid l. 3.3 That all the arguments which overthrow the Church's Infallibility do destroy the Church's Authority There is no such thing said by N.O. Nay the contrary is often said by him that Church-Infallibility being destroyed yet the Church's Authority though fallible may upon many reasons justly challenge submission of judgement to her Decrees from her Subjects See N.O. p. 18. 26. 48. 50. and in the former Discourse § 35.37.39 But this is said by N.O. and must be still till the Dr better clears himself That some Arguments used by the Dr against Church Infallibility are as strong and stronger against church-Church-Authority as namely that made in his 19th Principle if any one please to read there Authority instead of Infallibility Ib. l. 16. If God hath not given an infallible assistance to the Guides of the Church the Principles laid down by me must hold No. For private judgments ought to submit to church-Church-Authority though fallible in all such points wherein such private persons have not demonstration against it much more if commanded to obey this authority and to follow its faith So where no infallible assistance yet we prudently submit our judgment to the advice of a more knowing friend and Children to the precepts and injunctions of their Parents though these fallible and that by the Divine command not enjoining them hereby to believe a lye or practise things unlawful but only to believe that to be most credibly true or just which their Parents and Superiours much wiser than themselves inform them to be so And where if there be some incertainty in following their Judgments this is not lesse but more in following their own Men rightly submit their Judgments to persons and things most credible as well as to the absolutely infallible Ib. l. 9 We do not dispute concerning the best helps for a person to make use of in a matter of this nature Whereas our Author here calls for the best helps a man can get naming these the directions of his Pastor the decrees of Councils the sense of the Primitive Church for the right understanding the Scriptures if he means in necessaries I appeal to the candid Reader whether the Reason given by him in his Principles for which he saith the sober enquirer cannot mistake in Necessaries doth not argue such helps needless namely this Princip 15. Because the whole will of God is in the Scriptures so plainly revealed that no sober enquirer can â—iss of what is necessary to salvation so that there can be no necessity supposed of any infallible I add much less of any fallible society of men either to attest or explain these writings So he then Which argues either no need of such Helps or if these usefull such Scriptures without them not clear And therefore if 1 such Helps are to be repaired-to for the true meaning of such Scriptures in Necessaries they ought to have been included in his Principle 2 But then the Quality or Profession and Condition of the farr greater part of Christians seems no way capable of using all such Helps 3 Or if they were yet all these helps being held by him fallible they will still after these be liable to errour in necessary faith All Christians then as to all necessaries to salvation are not free from erring without an infallibility in these points of their Guides neither the Scriptures being clear in these without Helps nor the Helps in them unliable to mistakes Pag. 97. l. 6. The decrees of Councils the sense of the primitive Church Surely such are not only helps for instruction of Christians but laws for Obedience Ib. l. 11. The foundation of this person's faith can be nothing else but a trembling quicksand The Foundation laid by the Dr thus expressed in his preface by N.O. viz. An Errability in Necessaries of the Guides of God's Church an Inerrability in the same by him attributed indefinitly to all sober Christians who without any necessary consulting and depending on their Teachers instituted for thâ—â— by God shall use their sincere endeavors to find out such Truths is rightly affirmed by N.O. Pref. p. 4. to be but a tottering and trembling foundation of their Faith N. O's words Ib. l. 17. The only certain way not to be mis-led I add where the sense of Scripture or Tradition is to any ambiguous will be the submitting our internal assent and belief to Church-Authority This is asserted Ib. l. 9 Here then two Questions necessarily arise 1. Whether there can be no certainty of faith i. e in several points of Faith where the sense of Scripture or Tradition is to any ambiguous and disputed without this Church-Infallibility 2. What certainty there is of this Church Infallibility The 1st is affirmed The 2d is spoken to below in Annot. on p. 113. l. 14. Pag. 89. l. 3. Every man hath in him a faculty of discerning truth and falshood What in all things of faith by his own sole ability No. Some helps I hope he must have in several things as Directions of his Pastor the sense of the Primitive Church Decrees of Councils as our Author saith p. 96. Annotations on his §. 5. N. O's Exceptions answered PAg. 98. l. 6 The Question now is whether a person not relying on the Infallibility of a Church may not be certain of those things which are contained in the Scriptures in order to Salvation Of some of these he may because there contained plainly enough of others not where rational Judgments dispute the sense Ib. l. 3 Our enquiry is not about the sense of the more difficult c But N. O's is Several points Necessary are difficult to many and controverted witness those contained in the Athanasian Creed Pag. 99. l. ult I desire to know whether things simply necessary ought not to be delivered with greater plainness than things which are not so No. But so as God pleaseth so he provide other ways for the explaining of what is obscure Pag. 100. l. 6. Whether our Saviours own Sermons were capable of being understood by those who heard them How capable soever of being understood they were not understood he said by all his Auditors in every thing nor by his own Diciples Ib. l. 5 Or can we have now
malitiâ Ib. l. 13. All saith He opposing Infallibility in it In the Church of Rome but not in the Church Catholick which or whereever it be He proceeds Ib. l. 15. What reason can he have supposing that he is to submit to any Guides that he must submit only to those of the Roman Church Why not as well to those of the Eastern Greek or Protestant-Churches Persons and Churches are to submit only to their lawful Canonical Superiours Persons or Councils And so are to avoid such Persons or Churches as these do declare Heretical or Schismatical whom they come to know or are to believe to be so from such Declaration without a necessity of studying the particular Controversies the Supreme Court of which Superiours a General Council of these Church-Guides cannot misguide them in any thing necessary to be known and the Decrees also of others inferiour though fallible yet in all prudence are to be obeyed and believed wherever themselves have no Certainty of the contrary It follows Ib. l. 11. If any one goes about to assign a reason by charging them with Heresy or Schisme He unavoidably makes him Judge of some of the greatest difficulties in Religion before he can submit to his infallible Guides No. For by other ways forementioned ‖ See Note on p. 173. l. 5 a private person comes to know his true Guides and Superiours and from them learns what is and what persons are guilty of Heresy and Schisme Else all men must turn Students in Divinity or know nothing of Heresy or Schisme He proceeds Ib. l. 7 He must know what Nestorianisme Eutychianisme Monothelisme mean This being supposed that all Heresies and Schisms are to be avoided by all good Christians I see not without dependence on our Guides for knowing these but that all Protestants are obliged by this Author to take the course he here sets down through two or three pages Let him consider better on it Unless he will make all Heresy and Schisme manifest to all men learned or unlearned upon the vertue of his 13th Principle Pag. 177. l. 6. All these things a man must fully be satisfied in before he can pronounce those Churches guilty of Heresy and so not to be followed See Note on p. 175. l. 10 Ib. l. 10. Why must the Greek Church which embraces all the Councils which determined those subtle controversies be rejected The Greeks embracing these Councils may lawfully be rejected for Heresy if opposing what other like Councils have defined and so may the Protestants or yet either of these if guilty of Schisme Ib. l. 12 Here a man must examine the notes of the Church c. i.e. Examine some Indications and marks of it sufficient to sway and determine his judgment Which examination is easy and obvious See before Note on p. 173. l. 5. without his studying that particular Note of its Consent with Primitive Church Of which thus N.O. had spoken before p. 89. after having recited S. Austins common Marks Where also saith he according to the disparity of several mens capacities I suppose nothing more to be necessary than that this evidence received either from all or only some of these Notes to those who have not ability to examine others be such as that it outweigh any arguments moving him to the contrary and such as the like evidence is thought sufficient to determine us in other Elections And then this Church thus being found he may be resolved by it concerning the sense of other Divine Revelations more dubious and generally touching all other difficulties to him in Religion to wit so far as this Church from time to time seeth a necessity of such Resolution and the Divine Revelation therein is to her sufficiently clear only if such person not spending so much of his own Judgment will afford in stead of it a little more of his Obedience And thus p. 81. In case these Guides Persons or Churches for both have a subordination shall disagree yet every Christian may easily know whose judgments among them he ought to follow namely always of that church-Church-authority that is the Superiour which in most cases is indisputable this Ecclesiastical Body being placed by the Divine Providence in an exact Subordination As here in England it is not doubted whether we are to pay our Obedience rather to a National Synod than to a Diocesan to the Arch-Bishop or Primate than to an ordinary Bishop or Presbyter And then he who hath some experience in Church-affairs if willing to take such a course cannot but discerne what way the major part of Christendome and its higher and more comprehensive Councils that have hitherto been do guide him And the more simple and ignorant who so can come know nothing better ought to follow the example of the more experienced See below Note on p. 251. l. 8 n. 6. Pag. 178. l. 10 He must think me a very easy man to yield a submission of my understanding till I be satisfied first that God hath appointed such to be may Guides and in the next place that he hath promised Infallibility to them If I am satisfied of the first that God hath appointed such to be my Guides I may safely commit my self to their guideship in all things where I want it i.e. in all my uncertainties without enquiring after the next their Infallibility Ib. l. 2 We desire to know whom they mean by these Guides and at last we understand them to be the Biship of Rome and his Clergy No. They are the universal Clergy Persons and Synods that are set over us by Christ ranked in a due subordination in Persons ascending here in these Occidental Churches to the Patriarch of the West in Synods to a Patriarchal or General Council And in any dissension among these the Superiour Persons or Synods are our true Guides Pag. 179. l. 2. Here we demurr and own no authority the Bishop of Rome hath over us Then we do not what we ought He being justly the Patriarch of the West and the Prime Patriarch of the Catholick Church and the President in General Councils Ib. l. 4. We have all the rights of a Patriarchal Church I suppose He means of a Primate and Metropolitan Church Primats having somtimes had the title of Patriarchs But these rights are such as are subordinate to other higher Persons and Councils and this of England is but one of the Western Provinces the Bishops whereof constitute a Patriarchal Council And what remedy would there be of suppressing the Heresies or Schisms that may and often have infected such Provincial or National Churches if there were no superiour Church-Authority above them Ib. l. 12. To these viz. the Bishops of our own Church who are our lawful Guides we promise a due obedience But neither are they our lawful Guides nor our obedience to them due should any or all of them be Heretical Schismatical or opposing their Superiours In such case those not they are our right Guides Ib. l. 15.
the Roman Church No But because you are not for any effectual way at all Ib. l. 10 But I pray Sir are Authority and Infallibility all one in your account No. N.O. his affirming some of this Authors Principles to take away the Church's Authority as to some part of it as well as its Infallibility makes not these two one And therefore the pains here to prove these different and that one takes not away the other is lost Ib. l. 8 We suppose that Magistrates and Parents and Masters have all of them an unquestionable authority but I never heard yet of any man that said they were infallible Some part of the Church's authority is greater than that of Civil Magistrases Masters or Parents viz. the deciding of Truth and Errour lawful and unlawful in Divine matters or the defining of points Controverted in Gods Word and in matters of necessary faith and the power of obliging Subjects to belief and assent thereto and this part of their authority must also be joined with Infallibility as to Necessaries that their Subjects therein may not err For other our Superiours Civil magistrats Parents Masters c as they have no Infallibility so they are deficient in one branch of Authority whose proposals we only admit when we believe them to be truth and practise their commands when we believe them first to be lawful lawful I mean by the Divinc law but where there is any doubt herein we repair to the Ecclesiastical Count for the resolution of them and so proceed to obey or disobey the other 's commands and for this reason see before in Note on p. 116. l. 11. Mr Chillingworth candidly granting infallibility necessary to an Ecclesiastical Judge though not so to a Civil but still to save his phanomena denying such an Ecclesiastical Judge necessary Lastly I ask will this Author yield no more submission at all to the Authority of the Church defining Controversies in Religion than to his Prince or Parents defining them Ib. l. 3 Why may we not allow any Authority belonging to the Governours of the Church and yet think it possible for them to be deceived Some Authority which they I mean General Councils have claimed we cannot allow if they may be deceived viz not that of enjoining a certain Assent to their definitions in matters of necessary Faith For a Church fallible in necessaries can in nothing at all which she proposeth justly oblige her subjects to any absolute and certain belief Pag. 264. l. 7. These are strange ways of arguing c. Strange indeed but not these or any like ways of arguing to be shewed in N.O. Ib. l. 6 But it may be said c. But no such thing is said by N.O. Pag. 266. l. 6. The meaning of all this is c. I willingly grant to our Author without the demonstration of his many instances that if one using a Guide afterward by experience finds he hath guided him wrong as he may find this when he misseth of his end he hath reason for the future to desert him And thus upon this supposition may any reject N. O's Guide a lawful General Council But I hope this Author is a man of more modesty than to say * that such Councils or universal consent of the Church any other way known do misguide men in the Principles of Religion or common precepts which are so plain that every Christian may know their misguiding and meanwhile the Councils themselves either not know it or knowing yet impose such falsities and that in the profession of their own faith as well as others Or say * that they command them to believe against their eye-sight in any thing but what themselves also do believe upon the Divine Revelation more infallible than sense or to break the plain Commands of God c. Or if he will say they do so I know N.O. will say the contrary Ib. l. 2 And this is not to destroy all authority c. That a church-Church-Authority fallible may be of great use for its direction as it is said here by Dr St so it is granted by N.O. who also requires submission of judgment to it though fallible especially from the illiterate for many good reasons ‖ See the former Difâ—â—â— course §. 37 c but will He allow as much Pag. 267. l. 1. For they may be of great use for the direction of unskilful persons in matters that are doubtful But he will not say here in any necessaries doubtful since he contends that these are plain also to the unskilful Ibâ—l 12. I shall now shew what real authority is still left in the Governours of the Church though Infallibility be taken away That a reall authority is still left in the Governours of the Church though Infallibility be taken away is granted to him without his proof but this is also maintained as well consistent with it that these Governours united in Council have an Infallibility in all their Definitions concerning Necessaries and this given them from our Lord and that this by any other Authority he can shew given them is not taken away Ibl. 12 An authority left in the Church-Governours of receiving into and excluding out of the Communion of the Church I add and an Authority the Church hath of excluding amongst other things for Heresy against the infallible definitions of the Church Ib. l. 7 Which authority viz. of inflicting Censures upon offenders and of receiving into and excluding out of the Communion of the Church belongs to the Governours of the Church and however the Church in some respects be incorporated with the Common-Wealth in a Christian State yet its fundamental rights remain distinct from it 1 Here means he that the Church as this being a fundamental right of it may inflict such Censures and exclude from its communion such persons as justly incurr them to which I may add its declarative power of what is God's will or truth in particular doctrines of faith mentioned by him below p. 269. without or against the consent of the Civil State or the Supreme Governour thereof viz. when he prohibites the Exercise of such Censures or Declaration of such a particular Doctrine to his Subjects Which Power if our Lord hath given his Church and then hath given also to the Civil Magistrate if Christian another power of prohibiting to the Church the Exercise of this Power will not this be to use the Dr's expression ‖ Irenicum Disc of Excommunication §. 9. p. 423. to give it a power with one hand and take it away with the other And since the Church exercised this power given by our Lord before it was incorporated into the Civil State and then when the Civil State also prohibited exercise of such a power it seems most reasonable as the Dr saith elswhere †p. 446. that no accession to the Church of the Civil State can invalidate its former Title or Right But then how will all this consist with the Oath
of any other Judge infallible and much less fallible save Scripture only for deciding Controversies in any points necessary which seems to engage the Assertors to the maintaining also of one of these two very harsh Propositions either 1 That all such points as are in controversy among Christians are no Necessaries but that it must pass for a matter of less moment as any thing becomes disputed and particularly No necessity of believing or practising on the Protestants side for his attaining of salvation any of the points agitated between them and the Roman-Catholicks Which Proposition seems of a very hard digestion to be allowed abetted by those Reformers especially who make such Declamations against the hainousness of the Roman corruptions of the sense of Scripture even in the highest matters of God's Worship and Mysteries of our Redemption As in giving the Divine Worship to a Creature in the doctrine of Justification Merit of mens good Works c. Or 2 engageth them else to the maintaining of this other proposition that though the Scriptures are so clear in some of those points in controversy for so they say they are in all Necessaries as that no illiterate person using a convenient endeavour can mistake in them yet de facto that the much Major part of the Christian world having and perusing the same Scriptures is and hath been mistaken in them for many ages and hath thought the Scriptures clear to the contrary which seems on the other side a thing as hard and incredible viz. to deny to so many Men and Ages for understanding the Scriptures the using of such a just endeavour as any unlearned Protestant doth or may employ § 5 Lastly from this Principle seems naturally to proceed in such a Church as holds it a Toleration of all Opinions that pretend Scriptures for themselves however it comes about that those of Roman-Catholicks find little favour by it because there is no just reason of suppressing the assertions of any party where is no competent Judge of deciding the truth in them save the same Scriptures which read by both sides yet do not end the Debate A Toleration of all Opinions I say save perhaps such as invade and disturbe the Civil Peace and Government Among which opinions tolerated also some will be Heresies ‖ 1 Cor. 11.19 unless these men tell us by what Judge these shall be declared such and so excluded That Toleration of opinions was a Consequence of this Principle Mr Chillingworth †See ch 4. clearly saw and so pleaded much for it as only well consistent with Protestant Grounds Of which see more below §. 38. c. 96. § 6 Vpon such Consequences as these then N.O. was moved to write some brief Considerations and Reflections on these Principles observing herein the Method that they prescribed to him But now since Dr Stilling fleet hath not at all followed the same though his own order in his Reply whereby would more clearly have appeared the many things therein that have received no answer I also in this Rejoinder shall take the liberty to change the former method of the Considerations and briefly to repeat N. O's Conceptions especially such as relate to the forementioned Principles reduced into such an order as they may be more applicable thereto and then consider how far the Dr's Replies have rebated their force or confirmed his own Positions And after this done lest a considerable part of the Dr's Book expatiating to other subjects which if nothing pertinent to N. O's Considerations yet may appear to some very important to the Protestant Cause may seem unspoken to I shall accompany the Reader through his whole Book with Annotations following his Discourse whither it leads me on the passages that appear to me more remarkable and so I shall leave all to the judgment of the prudent and piously disposed of what present perswasion soever who not zealous for a party seeks after Truth § 7 Only I am first to acquaint him with this in general That the two main Pleas of the Dr and N. O as to a Christian's attaining a right belief in all necessaries to salvation are Obedience and submission of Judgment to the Church's Determinations on the one side and every Christian's Liberty of Judgment in their perusing the Scriptures on the other Where he will easily discover that the interest of those who contend for Liberty engageth such persons to deny and evacuate the Infallibility and non-mistaking of any Ecclesiastical Guides even as to the same Necessaries wherein yet they affirm the Clearness of Scripture to every Christian using a right endeavour so that none can safely herein adhere to their sentence and judgment wherein yet he may to his own Again their interest to set forth to the uttermost the defects and failings of these Guides their oppositions and contradictions and of every one so much the more as he claims a greater Authority and therefore no wonder if the Pope is no better treated by them To charge them whether Prelates or Synods with passion ambition covetousness or the like in their proceedings To rip up and publish any their infirmities or vices whereby they may be thought less fit to be Guides of other mens Ignorance or Conscience or Judges of their Differences as if inferior and private persons were free from such passions and self interests and not born in a state where some opinions better served their profit preferment than others where such engagements clouded their Judgments § 8 To press a non-necessity of Deciding Controversies For this thing would call for some publick Judge And To diminish and abridge points of necessary Faith as much as may be Because all such points must be affirmed so clear that no honest endeavour can mistake in them and because thus the Liberty of Opinion in all other points may the better be justifyed upon the account of their not being necessary and to inveigh much against the Multiplicity of the Articles of Faith that have been imposed by the Church's Councils To extend the Title of Catholick to all Churches professing Christianity Because these men allow no certain Judge to determine Heresy or Schisme which may exclude any Church from being Catholick and because they hold only those points to be necessary to salvation that are so cleare in Scripture as that all Churches agree in them § 9 To plead much the Liberty and just authority of Particular Churches and of Civil States to correct and reform within their Dominions whatsoever Errours and Corruptions in Religion As indeed it is most necessary they should those which first by a Lawful Ecclesiastical Authority are stated to be so But how such Errours and corruptions shall first be certainly known and distinguished from what are certain Truths and lawful-practices which ought to precede a proceeding to reform them This useth to be passed over by them in silence So To speak much of the lawful liberty and power of particular Churches
States to change alter improve abolish according to several Constitutions of the Civil Government things that are not essential to Christian Religion nor expresly prescribed by our Lord or his Apostles but to say nothing meanwhile how what are or are not such Essentials or so commanded shall certainly be known and decided Yet which acting the other necessarily presupposeth the stating of this But wisely little talk they have of this because such thing would inferr a Judge in these matters beside Scripture § 10 To limit the Authority of such Spiritual Guides that it obligeth not when any thing is repugnant to plain Commands of Scripture which it seems either these Governours cannot see or will dissemble or when any other way found not agreeable to Gods Word and then judging themselves when it is or is not so Or if their own judgment may seem too partial making an appeale to the judgment of Common Reason against these Guides as if both they and the Major part of the Christian World that follow them had no such faculty or that this Common Reason were only in a few Again that such authority obligeth not in any thing repugnant to the Evidence of Sense as if either such evidence were not considered by these Persons in Authority or that they had not their senses so perfect as other men To distinguish between the several Ages of the Church and allow more Authority to the Governours of the past as thinking themselves more out of their reach than of the present To annul as much as in them is the Subordinations of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy or render them arbitrary and dependent on Civil States and to level as much as may be their authority and Jurisdiction introducing such a Polyarchy into the Catholick Church as would not be endured in a Temporal Government nor is indeed suffered by wise Princes in a National Church within their own Dominions I will have one Doctrine and one Discipline one Religion in substance and in Ceremony said King sames ‖ Conference at Hampt Court § 11 To inveigh against the Immunityes and priviledges of the Church either given at first by our Lord or added by the favour of Princes when become her sons and subjects and to suggest to them an invasion of their Rights To mingle and confound the Jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical and Civil state and borrow aids from the one as need is to relieve their subjection to the other To require a joint concurrence in the Secular Power for the ratification of all Clergy-Acts though in purely Spiritual Matters whereby neither any Church-Doctrine nor Government can be established in such State which It prohibits and contrary Constitutions and Laws and Reformations are introduced into the Church as the secular Magistrate is variously inclined or informed and Ecclesiastical Controversies transferr'd into the Civil Courts they not so well observing the Consequences hereof when a Julian or a Constantius appears and that if the secular Magistrate should be of a Religion or Sect disliked by them suppose a Presbyterian or a Roman-Catholick such his Spiritual Authority turns to their disadvantage and that the same Ecclesiastical Rights of the Civil Power will destroy Protestancy elsewhere as here support it And that as S. Austin ‖ Epist 48. minded the Donatists preferring a Secular judgment in their Cause before the Church's Judicium Illius scil Principis quem Vestri elegerunt quem Judicibus Episcopis praetulerunt justissime contra vos custodictur § 12 To press much the Scriptures that may seem to relate the Corruptions and fallings away of the Clergy Matt. 24.4 5 23 24. Act. 20.29 30. 2 Thes 2.3 1 Tim. 4.1 1 Joh. 4.1 Gal. 1.8 that bid us to beware of false Prophets and to try the Spirits and to adhere to the Gospel by which they can only mean to that which in their own judgment is the sense of it though an Angel from heaven should teach the contrary to take heed of Seducers and false Guides that should appeare in Christs name applying such things to the Canonical Judicature of the Church and not to themselves rather and to tell the people of Antichrists that are to come and store of false Miracles that are to be done That they are bid to prove all things and hold that which is good i.e. what they judge so That if the blind lead the blind both must fall into the ditch That the Apostles claimed no dominion over mens Faith c. All these for a Dirumpamus vincula eorum projiciamus a nobis jugum ipsorum I mean that Yoke of church-Church-Authority committed to these our Ecclesiastical Superiours by our Lord Christ Jesus and for the gaining freedome of judgment and liberty of opinion and declining of Obedience All which things any way vilifying Superiours and having somthing Satyrical in them are ordinarily received with much applause by our corrupt Nature uncorrected by Grace which loves to have a Soveraignty placed in it self and to be made Judge of its Judges and relucts against nothing so much as a captivating of the Understanding § 13 But indeed the effects of such yoke thrown off and of such a Liberty established in stead thereof seem to be very sad For besides * the Sin of Disobedience to those our Lord Christ hath set ever us if indeed they be such Spiritual Guides to whom we owe Submission of Judgment * the heaviness of the Church's Censures and Anathemas if these should be justly incurred by us * the liability of the more illiterate and ignorant sort of Christians which are the most of falling into farr more and more gross and fundamental errours than can possibly come from Obedience and Submission to the Church-Governours though supposed also fallible and * the great sins both in a Christian's Practice and in the Divine Service which such errours may bring along with them Besides a continual unsettledness in a belief that is founded on our own judgment very mutable as things are differently represented to it and hastily resolving many times only because seeing few doubts and not because there are not but because we perceive not the difficulties Besides the solicitude and jealousy that such persons ought to have concerning their not having sufficiently studied the grounds of their Faith or used a competent diligence to inform themselves of the truth without which they may still miss of it Besides all these I say it happens that several judgments reading the Scripture and understanding it in a several way all assured of its Clearness in Necessaries and confident of their own Sincerity which they cannot be of another's hence Sects and variety of Opinions according to men's different capacities become infinitely multiplied Hence Censuring also and vilifying of their Spiritual Superiours whose errours they think they clearly discover which Spiritual Pride and conceitedness in Religion and Contradiction to Superiours saith Dr St. ‖ Serm. on Act. 24.14 are to be reckoned among the worst
more prone when swayed by Interest or passionately addicted to a party to embrace and believe the most absurd opinions because they can discover and are furnished with more plausible arguments and Verisimilities to maintain them They press the necessity of an Unity both in Faith and Communion and of the latter its including also the first a varying of faith varying also the publick Divine Worship and Service They defend and urge a necessity also of the Church's many Definitions in the Faith from time to time as any dangerous opinions invade it and so the Faith also by the Divine Providence is continually made more distinct clear and illustrious and the Adherents to it more united from such oppositions and they maintain the Authority of the Church in all ages the same and equall and equally assisted from Heaven to crush the one and defend the other else that the giving way to diversity of Opinions would at last leave no Fundamental of the Christian Faith unshaken and unquestioned Atheism stealing in by certain degrees from indulging too great a latitude in the Faith Rom. 12.16 2 Cor. 2.9 Heb. 13.7 17. 1 Cor. 1.10 Rom. 16.17 Phi 3.16 They press the Scriptures that recommend Humility captivating the Intellect not being wise in our own conceit and that command in all things Obedience that they should all say one thing and that there should be no Schismes among them but that they should be perfect in one sense and one knowledg That they should continue in the same Canon or Rule And Mark those that make dissensions and scandals contrary to the doctrines which they had learned and avoid them Which precepts cannot be observed unless there be in the Church some Persons whose judgment doctrine faith spirit all the rest are to follow and conform to § 19 The effects also of which Obedience to those Guides seem to be quite different from those former ones of Liberty and as happy as the other unfortunate Great unanimity peace and concord in the Members of such a Church where in stead of continual consultations concerning his Religion and that made by every laick from Generation to generation without any settlement in those matters the consideration of which belongs to the Councils of the Church is a stable Vnion in Faith and Doctrine with such a well grounded confidence of these Guides their not erring herein as there remains no expectation of having something amended nor fears of having it altered Where the main business is to believe and practise as these teach him and a great readiness to part with any opinion which may perhaps be different so soon as the Church is known by him to teach the contrary And in any storm that happens to arise in the Church and divide these Governours He suffers no distraction to whom to pay this his obedience in any opposition of Inferiours giving it always to the Superiour Ecclesiastical Persons or Councils Again in any Controversy concerning the judgment or sentiment of Antiquity or former Church acquiescing in the Sentence of the present whose authority he esteems no whit inferiour to that of past Ages and both to be guided by the same Holy Spirit § 20 Thus the humble Christian by an happy resignation of his Judgment where our Lord seems to him to demand it enjoyes a perpetual peace and rest from dispute together with all his fellow-members of the same Body as to all those matters of greater moment wherein these his Spiritual Superiours have published their judgment with much less trouble to himself and more truth not by studying the Controversies but assenting to the Church's Decisions of them and so remaining safe in his Faith without being Learned And lastly this Unity of Faith and Doctrine in such a resolved Obedience is accompanied also with a much firmer league union of Charity the latter being hardly to be attained or long continued without the former and with a blessed Vniformity also of God's Publick Service and Worship and of the External Communion of the members of such a Church entirely the same in all Nations though no one Society Communion of Christians is so universally extended and diffused as it In which Communion and Worship the Faith being once changed presently makes some alterations as it did in Luther's days and none can continue long together in their Communion who are divided in their Faith By all these effects the security of such an Obedience seems much preferrable to the perpetual instability of private men's liberty and the plea for it much more preservative of church-Church-Authority the Authentick Conservator and Expositor of Holy Scripture and more becoming a Clergy man But as it seems much more to be desired so whether it be also sufficiently maintained I leave to the equal Reader 's judgment in the perusal of the following Concertations from which therefore I shall no longer detaine him Domine illumina tenebras nostras THE CONTENTS OF THE DISCOURSE CHAP. I. Concerning Points Necessary and a Right Vnderstanding of the Scriptures in them A Pre-Concession 1 That the Holy Scriptures contain all points generally necessary for attaining Salvation and 2 That some of these Necessaries are clear therein to all or most Capacities 1. Proposition That either a Writing so clearly delivering all points necessary as that no sober Enquirer can err in them Or an Infallible Directer where such Writing is not to all in all such points clear well consists with the Wisdome and Goodness of God in manifesting his Will to Men. § 1. 2. That the Clearness of the Scripture affirmed in Necessaries to Salvation cannot rationally be restrained only to the points expresly mentioned in the Apostle's or other ancient Creeds or to those only wherein all Christian Churches are agreed § 2. Where That believing the Ancient Creeds and Leading a Good Life abstracting from one duty of it viz. yielding a due Obedience to our Spiritual Superiours is not sufficient for attaining Salvation § 3. 3. That a Controversy supposed in a necessary matter of Faith cannot be decided when two contrary parties plead Clearness of Scripture on their own side without some other Judge beside the Scriptures § 4. As the Controversy concerning the Sense of the Text Hoc est Corpus meum § 5. Where That such Answers as these maintaining the contrary seem defective and unsatisfactory viz. * That there is no necessity that some Controversies in matters of Religion be decided § 7. Or * That there are other Means of attaining the certain Sense of Scripture i.e. in some things without such a Judge For the Question is made When after the using all such means or When to Persons whose condition permits not to use such means the Sense of Scriptures remains still doubtful as to many such it doth § 8. * Or That the Sense of Scripture may be certainly learnt from the Determinations of Ancient Councils or Vnanimous Consent of Fathers For as some Controversies in some Necssaries arose and were
cannot judge of their Judgment whether right by the Rule concerning the sense whereof they consulted them i.e. they cannot learn the sense of the Rule from their Guides and then know the truth of their sentence from the Rule p. 140. How or by what Marks the true Church is to be discerned from Sects from which Church first known the Enquirer may learn the true Faith p. 106. 152. 155. 209. And that In any difference or contrariety of Church-Governours the Superiour Authority is to be obeyed That Christians both prudently may and in Duty ought to subject their Judgment in Divine matters to Church-Authority though supposed fallible whereever they are not certain of the contrary to its Decisions p. 99 223. That all other Magistrates and Superiours are deficient and come short as to one branch of Authority belonging to the Church viz. the Deciding of what is Truth and errour Lawful and Vnlawful in Divine Matters for which Infallibility is necessary to them when not so to the others p. 222. That Church-Infallibility is clearly enough evidenced to Christians both from the Scriptures and from Tradition p. 109. And that Catholicks place this Infallibility in a lawful General Council p. 96 Where Concerning the Decrees of General Councils their being put in the Creeds And an Vniversal Assent required to them under Anathema p. 127. Concerning the Anathemas passed by inferiour and fallible Councils p. 127 129. Some Quotations out of Dr Field and the Text Gal. 1.8 considered p. 130 131. That Dr Field clearly maintains some Visible Church or other consisting of Prelates and Subjects and giving Laws to be infallible as to Necessaries in all Ages which Church the unlearned at least are advised by him to search out and so to follow her Directions and rest in her Judgment p. 103. The Deficiencies in his Tenent p. 105. That Miracles are not necessary in all Ages to attest the Church's Infallibility p. 116. That true Miracles for many good ends advancing the Glory of God and the Catholick Faith have been continued in the Catholick Church but not so elsewhere ever since the Apostles times p. Ibid. How Miracles signify the Infallibility of those by whom God worketh them p. 118. The Latter Times of the Church doing Miracles in all the same kinds as the Former and both as our Lord and his Apostles did p. 119. Several Controversies in Religion necessary to be decided and those respecting Manners as well as Faith p. 175. c. By what Authority General Councils assemble and decide Controversies p. 174. In what manner General Councils and the Church-Guides are an Infallible standing Judge of Controversies p. 132 238. Lawful General Councils of any Age since the Apostles times of equal Authority and Obligation p. 151 160 205. That we want a Judge for the necessary Decision of many Controversies As for instance Whether Latter Times have altered what Christ or his Apostles delivered or Have imposed things contrary to the plain Commands of Scripture Or Latter lawful General Councils contradicted former or What former Councils are to be accounted General Legal and Obligatory Whether what is pretended to be the concordant sense of Antiquity or to be contrary to it really is so Whether some things repugnant to Gods Word are not commanded by our Superiours as things Indifferent c. I say that the Christian World is destitute of a Judge to end such differences unless the Present Church be It and is in such Contests to be appealed and stood to p. 140. 141. That the present unanimous Agreement of the Apostolical Churches and especially the consent of the Prime Apostolick See joined with them was by the Ancients esteemed and urged as Infallible and to which all owed Submission of Judgment p. 180 181. Held so by those Ancient Writers cited by Dr St. By S. Jrenaeus p. 182. By Tertullian p. 185. By Clemens Alexandrinus p. 188. By S. Athanasius p. 190. 203. By S. Austin p. 194 206 By Vincentius Lerinensis p. 197. The place * in S. Gregory Nazianzen Ep. 55. concerning Councils considered p. 194. * In S. Austin Contra Maximin l. 3. c. 14. p. 194. De Vnitate Eccl. c. 19. p. 212. De Baptismo l. 2. c. 3. p. 213. Arguments used by the Fathers against Hereticks both from infallible Church-Tradition and from the Scriptures and that those from the latter notwithstanding the evidence of the former are necessary against persons not submitting to the other p. 190 191. The Places out of Petavius and S. Hierome concerning the Tradition of the Doctrine of the Trinity before the Council of Nice considered p. 201. c. Vnanimous Consent of the Fathers Primitive Times Catholick-Church in her Councils in order to Our Obedience how to be understood 159 200. And Vincentius Lerinensis his Rule Quod ubique quod semper c. Ibid not necessarily comprehending all particular Persons or Churches Vniversality understood of the Catholick Church distinct from Heretical never as to Necssaries dissenting from Antiquity p. 199. How the believing of the Determinations of General Councils is necessary to salvation p. 164. That Heretical and Schismatical Churches are no Members of the Catholick p. 154. That a Church committing and teaching Idolatry is no true Member of the Catholick Church p. 80. c. The Nicene Council to be obeyed suppose the Arian Councils more numerous as to the Bishops present in them because the Nicene more universally accepted and the Arian how numerous soever formerly declared Hereticks p. 146. 193. Of Pope Liberius and Honorius accused of Heresy p. 146. 149. That no Certainty from Sense or Reason can rationally be pleaded for any Doctrine against a General Council or Major part of Christianity having all the same means of Certainty from Reason and Sense and they maintaining the contrary Doctrine certain p. 143 145. Where Concerning Veneration of Images Communicating in One Kind p. 144. That our Senses are not to be credited where is the certainty of a Divine Revelation contrary Nor doth the Disbelieving them in such things prejudice the Certainty of their Evidence as to all other matters where no Divine Revelation opposeth p. 142. c. No Reformation lawful against the Definitions of a Superiour Church-Authority p. 236. In a Controversy Whether a National Church hath departed from the truly Catholick Church of former Ages who is to be the Judge p. 237. That National Churches and Councils are subject to Patriarchal and Generall p. 152. 226. That any particular Church may require Assent from all her Subjects to her Doctrines of Religion so far as such Church accords therein with the Church Catholick Because in these she infallible if the Catholick be so p. 222. Whether a fallible Church may require assent to her doctrines or to some of them at least as to matter of Faith where she as fallible confesseth she may err in such matters Or she not requiring such submission to them as to matters of faith Whether her Subjects are not left
to their liberty to believe in such matters what seems to them truest p. 228 230. Whether a Church fallible can justly require of all her Clergy the assenting to and maintaining of all her Articles of Religion And then How Errours can be rectified in such a Church where all the Clergy stand obliged to teach nothing contrary to the publick doctrines thereof And 2ly Whether if this be justly done by the Church of England it be not so by the Roman and by Councils as to the Clergy subject to them p. 228. Whether the Church of England doth not require Assent from all her Subjects to her Articles of Religion Or leaves all men at least saving the Clergy to their liberty of opinion p. 82. 227. Whether a Superiour Authority was not opposed by the Church of England in the Reformation p. 235. 238. How she Principles of some later English Divines are said to justify Sects p. 157. That private Men's relying on their own judgment in the Sense of Scripture believed clear to any sober Reader in all Necessaries against that of their Ecclesiastical Governours occasions a multiplication of Sects p. 221. 241. That the only effectual means in the Catholick Church for preserving her Communion from Heresies and Sects is requiring Submission of Judgment from her Subjects to her Definitions in matters of Faith and removing Dissenters from her Communion p. 241. Justified by the Apostolical Practice p. 242. And in any particular Church is its Adhering to and Vnion in Faith with the Catholick Of the Inquisition used in some parts of the Roman Church not used in others p. 242. Errata PAg. 29. line 26. reade assert p. 39. l. 6. after us so adde where also we are to believe our senses that it tells us so p. 53. l. 23. r. to Scripture p. 59. l. 10. r. did from p. 73. l. 4 r. to beare p. 87. l. 6 r. faith is Ib. l. 5 r. nor without p. 96. l. 20. r. n. 3. p. 105. l. 8. r. sorry p. 163. l. 8 r. praxi p. 164. l. 24. r. Patron p. 183. l. 6 r. thither from p. 207. l. 6 Salvator p. 258. l. 12. r. till that Contents p. 3. l. 13. r. parts of CHURCH-GUIDES Necessary for Directing Christians in Necessary Faith CHAP. I. Câ—ncerning Points necessary and a right understanding of the Scriptures in them AFter N.O. In his Considerations hath conceded to Dr. Stilling fleet 1. That the Holy Scriptures do contain all points of faith that are necessary to be of all persons believed for attaining Salvation § 1 2. And again See Consid p. 22. That in several necessaries the Scriptures also are so clear that a very mean understanding in his reading them needs no further Instructer therin Yet He there denies such an universal clearness of them in all necessary matters of faith as that they may be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation And whereas the Dr. saith ‖ Princip 13 That it is repugnant to the nature of the design the wisdom goodness of God to give an infallible assurance to persons in writing his will for the benefit of mankind if those writings may not be understood by all persons sincerely endeavouring to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation N. O. there answers Consid p. 13 that this may as well consist with the Design and the Wisdom and Goodness of God if in those things wherin these Divine Writings are clear only to some persons more versed in the Scriptures and in the Church's Traditional Sense of them and more assisted from above according to their Mission and Employment he hath commissioned and appointed these persons continued in a perpetual Succession to guide and instruct the rest of Christians many of whom are of a mean Capacity and no learning and hath appointed these others also to learn of them the true sense of those places or points of Gods written Will wherin to these it happens to be obscure As also it would had he left no Writings at all but only Teachers to deliver his will perpetually to his Church Either way I say sutes well with Gods Wisdom Goodness the writing his Will in all parts of it so clear as none sincerely perusing this writing can have in any necessaries to his salvation any doubt For this Will if supposed so written would render any further Ecclesiasticall Guide I say not as to many other parts of the Pastorall Office but yet as to the expounding of such Scriptures to such a person useless 2 Or the leaving a Standing Ministry to explicate this his Written Will the course taken also in giving the Law of Moses in any necessary matters wherin the sense of it is to some disputable and ambiguous Which of these two God hath done is the Question N. O. denies the former as the Dr. asserts it and for his disallowing it gives many Reasons and Evidences dispersed here and there in the Considerationâ—â—â— as the Doctors Principles ministred occasion which I shall endeavour here to recollect in some better Order and shall consider where I find any his Replyes Reducing the Considerations as relating to those Principles forementioned to these chief Heads or Chapters 1. Concerning Points Necessary and a right understanding of the Scriptures in them 2. Concerning a Necessity of Church-Guides for instruction of the people in points Necessary 3. Touching Obedience and submission of Judgment due from the Church's subjects to the Definitions of these spirituall Governors in Divine matters and this more in those matters which are more necessary 4. Concerning the Infallibility of these Governors herein 5. And the Impossibility of suppressing Sects Heresies and Schisms without admitting such an Ecclesiastical Judge § 2 1. First then N.O. observes here that in the Dr's mentioning Necessaries for Salvation Necessaries cannot rationally be taken so strictly as to include only those doctrines delivered in Scripture wherin all persons that bear the name of Christians do agree for this would be to say that whatever is any way controverted is not necessary which would conclude all controversies heretofore defined in General Councils to be of non-necessaries even those definitions of theirs put into the common Creeds and so it would become not necessary if any thing now generally consented-to shall happen to be disputed hereafter But that by the same reason as we do not bound necessaries with the Apostles Creed so neither can we with the latter common Creeds I mean in such a sense as some of the Articles of those Creeds are accounted necessary For some Heresies may arise in latter times as pernicious as the ancient were and as the four first Councils lawfully thereupon enlarged the former Creeds so may other Councils in latter ages enlarge those of these first Councils to preserve the Church's subjects from any such new corruption of such
be both an act of prudence and of duty to submit our judgment to our Superiours in whatever they shall define and especially in matters of Necessary Faith § 42 Again p. 144. That the exercise of this Faculty was not to cease as soon as men had embraced the Christian Doctrine Granted as the former and yet our submission of this our Judgment to what doctrines our Superiours shall define be both our duty and a most rational act of this our Judgment and any perswasion of our judgment not rightly used to the contrary no way excuse our non-submission from guilt I say as the exercise of this faculty doth not cease so it must be rightly used which it never is when used it at any time dissents from the doctrine of our Lord or his Apostles or of lawful General Councils whereto is required its assent § 43 Again he saith p. 146. That the Authority of Guides in the Church i.e. for their determining truths in necessaries is not absolute and unlimited but confined within certain bounds and afterward he saith confined to a Rule which if they transgress they are no longer to be followed Be it so when they transgress against their Rule if this be certainly and demonstratively known by any such person is not to follow them this is confessed already by N. O. But Consid p. 73 who is appointed Judge of these Supreme Judges when they transgress against this Rule or when their Subjects have Demonstration for this Their Subjects who are from them to learn the sense of the Rule where difficult and disputed and who are bidden to follow their faith The right exercise of our judgment will not judge so but will judge that if Demonstration were on his side these Supreme Judges having all the same Evidences would have discovered it sooner than he or at least have discovered it when related to them by him and also the Protestants Definition of it concludes it none if these Judges do not discern it such Who then since he is not excused from sin and disobedience by using his judgment if he judge amiss will not think it the safest way still to continue his submission The Socinian in judging the Council of Nice in their Definition of Consubstantiality to have transgressed the Rule they are confined to and so not to be followed is not hereby released at all from his obedience to this Council or secured in his discession from it That authority is none that is only to be obeyed where the Subjects are to approve first of its sentence § 44 Again p. 148. he saith He allows a very great authority to the Guides of the Catholick Church in the best times of Christianity and looks upon the concurrent sense of Antiquity as an excellent means to understand the mind of Scripture in places otherwise doubtful and obscure First for the limitation of places doubtful and obscure This seems to render such Authority useless as to Necessaries in which this Author will have the Scriptures clear and perspicuous Next a right judgment cannot but account all those places so in the sense whereof either the ancient or present major part of Christianity are of a contrary judgment from himself Lastly the looking on such a concurrent sense as an excellent means c. is short and will not serve the turn for the unity of faith it must be looking on it as a Rule requiring our obedience when such sense is declared by their Councils § 45 He proceeds p. 149. That in matters imposed to be believed or practised which are repugnant to plain commands of Scripture or the evidence of sense or the grounds of Christian Religion we assent that no authority of the present Guides of a Church is to overrule our faith or practice But the same thing is here replied as before § 43. in answer to that in his p. 146. concerning the Guides transgressing the Rule § 46 P. 151. He goes on That no absolute submission can be due to those Guides of a Church who have opposed and contradicted each other and condemned one another for errour and heresy True not to both but to one part It is and N. O. hath told him that it is to the Superiour Or in the Supreme Court where a party dissents to the major part joined with the President Lawful Supreme Councils contradicting one another in matters of necessary faith are not by this Author nor cannot be produced § 47 P. 172. He saith That in the present divided state of the Christian Church a man that would satisfy his own mind must make use of his judgment in the choice of his Church and those Guides he is to submit to True now and in all former times wherein also have been Divisions and Anti-Communions in the Clergy and Guides against Guides that we are to make use of our judgment in the choice of a Church But our Judgment there must be used rightly and being so tells us both that we are to obey those who are found by this judgment to be our lawful Spiritual Superiours and which in such divisions be so And whenever in this our judgment is not used rightly but mistakes we are never a whit the more by this so used released from our Obedience Generally in these Answers here is the exercise of our Judgment or liberty to Judge pleaded against absolute Obedience or Submission of it as if the proving of the one annulled the other when as himself urgeth a ‖ p. 144. liberty of Judging may be used also concerning the Apostles Authority and their Doctrines and yet this liberty well consistent with an obligation of absolute Obedience to such their Doctrins Authority as infallible So then is it well consistent also with that to the Supreme Guides of the Church in their defining necessaries if they be in these infallible or if fallible yet with an obligation still of submission of Judgement to them where any are not demonstratively certain of the contrary Which demonstrative certainty of convincing all those to whom proposed no Protestants have in matters debated with Catholicks § 48 Again for qualifications of Obedience p. 178. he brings That we are not to submit to all those who challenge the authority of Guides over us though pretending to never so much power and infallibility And p. 179 not to submit to those who are lawful Guides in all things they may require Both which are most true and yet well consistent with this that we are to submit to our lawful Guides in all their Determinations in matters of necessary faith if they Supreme and Infallible herein and if they fallible in all things of which we are not demonstratively certain to the contrary Thus you see the Dr's Responsory Propositions are admitted and N. O's Obedience no whit lesse established CHAP. IV. Concerning Church-Infallibility as to Necessaries § 49 4ly AGainst such Principle and for submission of private mens judgements to that of the Church N.O.
their external disobedience or contradiction but their wicked errour The 39. Articles being declared in the same 5th Canon To have been by this Church agreed upon for the avoiding Diversities of Opinions and the establishing of Consent touching true Religion To which I add that Consent touching true Religion is Consent surely touching matters of Faith and again that establishing of Consent is to be understood amongst all the Members of the said Church all whom it concerns to be united and established in the true Religion as well as amongst the Clergy Therefore the Stile of the two Canons runs generally Whoso shall hereafter affirm the Articles c in any thing erroneous And the excommunicating of those who will not abjure their holding Popery or Socinianisme see Synod 1640. Can. 3. and 4. is not of the Clergy but any whatever Which may be confirmed also by the practice of the Synods of other Reformed Churches abroad proceeding to the excommunication of Dissenters from their Doctrine To this purpose in the Ecclesiastical Discipline of the Reformed Churches of France the 31. Article of the 5th Chapter Du Consistoire runs thus Si un ou plusieurs c. If any one or more of the people shall raise any debate to the breach of the Church's Vnity concerning any point of Doctrine the Form of the Catechism Sacraments Publick Service c. if matters cannot be otherwise composed in the last place a National Synod is to be assembled which shall give them an hearing with all holy liberty and in it shall be made a full and final Resolution by the Word of God to which resolution if they refuse to acquiesce in every particular point and with an express disavowing their errours recorded now surely this disavowing their errours is assenting to the contrary truths they shall be cut off from the Church Here then is required a punctual assent to what the sentence of the Synod not the persons convented shall judge to be the sense of God's Word as it is also there cautioned before sans que la decision en appartienne a autrez qu' au Synode And the same course is taken against the Remonstrants by the Synod of Dort See Acta Synod Dordrecht Sess 138. Synodus haec Dordrechtana pro authoritate quam ex Dei verbo in omnia Ecclesiarum suarum membra obtinet in Christi nomine injungit omnibus singulis in Foederato Belgio Ecclesiarum Pastoribus c ut hanc sacram veritatis salutaris doctrinam viz. that delivered in the 91. Articles concerning the five points in controversy sinceram inviolatam conservent illam populo juventuti fideliter proponant explicent c. which surely includes the requiring their assent to and belief of thesh Articles excommunicating the disobedient donec per seriam resipiscentiam dictis factis studiis contrariis comprobatam Ecclesia satisfaciant atque ad ejus communionem recipiantur This I have added to shew the same proceedings of other forreign Synods of the Reformed with these of England To which now to return Either in the forementioned expressions these English National Synods do excommunicate all those whoever affirm any thing in the former Common-Prayer-Book to be repugnant to the Scriptures as all those must do who affirm the imposing something there to be done or used in God's worship which he hath not commanded to be a thing repugnant to the Scriptures or who do affirm any thing in the 39 Articles to be erroneous and then what a number of persons are there at this present in this Kingdom of England that are excommunicated by the Church of England Or if no consent to her Articles is required in general of all her Subjects what an indulgence is here for variety of Sects every one being left in matters touching true Religion to Liberty of Opinion Yet for the avoiding of which this Church saith she composed these Articles This of the Doctors Passings-by in the Preface Pag. 76. l. 3. The Controversy in short is this Whether Protestants who reject the Roman Church's Authority and Infallibility can have any sufficient Foundation to build their faith upon There is no such Question proposed by N. O. And if there had it would have been proposed on this manner in order especially to the Doctors 13th and 15th Principles Whether a Protestant in refusing the submission of his judgment to the Authority or Infallibility of the Catholick Church in her Councils can have in several Articles of Necessary Faith wherein the sense of Scriptures is controverted as sure a foundation of his Faith as he who submits his judgment to the foresaid Authority or also Infallibility Ibid. l 11. Those of the Church of Rome charge us That we can have no certainty of our faith as Christians without their Infallibility The Certainty pretended by this Author in his Principles and opposed by N. O. is such a Certainty from the Clearness of the Sense of Scriptures in all points of necessary Faith to every person as that no person whatsoever what useth his best endeavour I suppose he means such endeavour as consists with his Vocation to understand them can mistake therein And this is denied by Catholicks and sufficiently confuted by Experience Ib. l. 9. The occasion was my Adversaries calling for Grounds and Principles c. This account that follows nor concerning N. O and those worthy Persons whom the Doctor opposeth being much better able to return an answer for themselves if perhaps they think this worth their pains I shall pass on to p. 79. Annotations on § 2. Of the Notion of Infallibility PAge 79. l. ult Sometimes they apply Infallibility to the Object that is believed And hath not our Author used this language of an Objective Infallibility himself in his 20th Principle where he saith Assent doth not depend upon the objective infallibility of any thing without us Whereby it appears himself hath a share in the Jargon And what thinks he of that of his Archbishop Lawd ‖ p. 125. We must distinguish of Infallibility For first a thing may be presented as an infallible object of belief when it is true and remains so c. Doth not this make the Arch-bishop also one of the Jugglers he talks of P. 80. l. 10. Infallible is that which cannot be deceived Now if no one will say that a Proposition cannot be deceived it is absurd to say That it is infallibly true Infallible is that which cannot be deceived I add or as applyed to things is that wherein we cannot be deceived and so may Propositions be infallible And is it then such a great absurdity to say This proposition Homo est anâ—mal is infallibly true Doth not himself say the Scriptures are writings infallible See his Princ. 12. And is not this â—re infallibly true N. 1 P. 84. l. ult And being deceived In these two or three leaves the Dr hath been â—aâ—ing and fixing as he saith the Notion of Infallibility where leaving the
judgement of an expert Lawyer though not infallible Ibid. l. 6 A man convinced that the Church of England is a sound and good Church ought to rest in her judgment so as not to forsake her communion for any cavils that are raised about particular controversies of which he is not a capable Judge Vpon being convinced that the Church of England is a sound or orthodox Church to rest in her judgment is only to rest in her judgment where such person first knows it right or true but how then rests he thus in Controversies wherein he is no capable Judge and so doth not foreknow her soundness in them The same may be said to that he mentions afterward concerning a man's foreknowing the Church's integrity honesty skill all which sincere and good in one matter may fail in another Again where the Dr mentions resting in this Church's judgment for people who have not either leisure or capacity to understand particular controversies means he in Necessaries Then how will his 13. and 15th Principles stand good that from the clear delivery of such points in the Scriptures the diligent cannot mistake nor need for their guidance therein any infallible society of men and much less then need they a fallible But if he makes this Society Dr Field speaks of only useful for private men to submit their judgment to in non-necessaries it is clear Dr Field intends it otherwise who saith such a Society in non-necessaries may err but in Necessaries doth not and therefore in these not the other may safely be relied upon But lastly if thus private men unseen in Controversies may and ought to rest in the judgment of a particular Church so qualified why are not such much more obliged to rest in the judgment of N. O's Church contended to be infallible in all Necessaries viz. in the Definitions of a lawful General Council Or in matters not so defined to rest in the judgment of the supremest Courts of the Church Catholick that can be had which Church Catholick is but One and subordinate in its members see-before § 26 In stead therefore of some particular Church Orthodox let this be sought out and perpetually adhered to when found Pag. 109. l. 7. Do make all men impeccable if they will So far as God gives any man grace not to sin every one may be impeccable or may not sin if he will i. e if he uses his best endeavours That all are sinners I speak as to Actual Sin is from all failing in their will and endeavours Ibid. l. 14. Who can believe the Goodness of God and yet think that he will suffer those who sincerely endeavour to know what is necessary to their salvation not to understand it They are not to be supposed sincerely to endeavour to know things Necessary as they ought who do not repair to the Church to learn of her Gods Truth where this is obscure to them in the letter of Scripture Ib. l. 17. How often doth the Scripture promise a greater degree of knowledg to the meek and humble and diligent God teacheth the humble and diligent as well by his Church as by his Scriptures and one and a great duty of such persons is their seeking instructions from and the submission of their judgment to those Spiritual Guides and Pastors whom God hath set over them on purpose that they may not be carried away with every wind of doctrines Eph. 4.11 13. in matters that are otherwise to them obscure Pag. 110. l. 2. His word so clear in necessary things that no one who sincerely endeavours to know them shall ever miss of salvation Here notwithstanding what was said before by our Author p. 96 97. and 107 108. of using others directions resting in the judgment of a Church trusting the learned so and so qualifyed we are relapsed again into the 13th and 15th Principles and all the weight laid on the Clearness of Scripture as to all persons in all Necessaries for in some none deny it Annotations on his §. 6. N. O's Proofs of Infallibility examined PAg. 112. l. 12 I come to his particular Arguments which ly scattered up and down but to give them the greater strength I shall bring them nearer together N.O. writing no set Discourse on a chosen or single subject but Considerations on 30 several Principles of the Dr's and some Consequences also drawn from them his Considerations varying so as the Principles expected the Dr should in the same order have vindicated his 30 Principles as he laid them down and have discovered the Considerer's mistakes Instead of this as if loth to come to such a trial close and perspicuous to the Reader he finds the Dr adorning a new Discourse as an Answer to a former Treatise that had pitched on the same subject casting new Methods gathering together here and there his Adversary's Concessions extracting his Principles and with what fidelity the Reflections on them have shewn contracting and giving the summ and sense of what N. O. thought he had writ most compendiously and not after the manner of an Harangue or Sermon that needed to be epitomized and telling his Reader here p. 112. that he will bring nearer together N. O's arguments which ly in him scattered up and down that is are there fitted to the particular Principle that is discoursed of to give them the greater strength a kindness Controvertists use to do to one another for their own advantage and so after much pains taken in altering and transforming and transplacing N. O's Conceptions and drawing them off from the Principles they were fixed and applied to and omitting them also where he thinks fit and where they will not come within his Methods and so leaving his Principles also together with them abandoned and unguarded for of the Thirty Six the Reader will find in all this Book a very few re-confidered he in fine confutes a thing of his own making not N. O's Pag. 113. l. 14. Is it then to be imagined that if Christ had intended such an infallibility as the foundation of the faith and peace of his Church he would not have delivered his minde more plainly and clearly in this matter N. 1 Our Lord hath delivered his mind by his Apostles plainly and clearly enough concerning this matter in the Scriptures and to his Apostles before them The knowledg of which Promise of our Lord concerning such an infallible Assistance to be for ever continued to his Church and its Guides should alwaies have descended to Posterity by Tradition had there been no Scriptures Delivered this so plainly as that upon all Controversies concerning the dubious sense of Scriptures thought necessary to be decided the Church's subjects de facto have repaired to these Guides as believed infallible in all Necessaries upon the account * of our Lords assisting them with his Holy Spirit promised in and before these Scriptures * of their being left by our Lord behind him for this end amongst others to keep the
seek to pervert the Catholick doctrine and to wrest the plain places of Scripture which deliver it so far from their proper meaning that very few ordinary capacities may be able to clear themselves of such mists as are cast before their eyes the sense of the Catholick Church in succeeding ages may be a very useful way for us to embrace the true sense of Scriptures especially in the great Articles of the Christian Faith As for instance in the doctrine of the Deity of Christ or the Trinity After which N.O. adds there that the Dr instead of saying the sense of the Catholick Church in succeeding ages may be a very useful way for us might have said is very necessary for us if his cause would permit him and that the Socinian would thank him for this his mitigation Ib. l. 11. The fraud and imposture of the confident pretenders to infallibility Viz. Of lawful General Councils Ib. l. 12. Which is the reason c. They speak evil of Dignities Jude v. 8. Ib. l. 5 I confess I have seen nothing like the first evidence yet It is set down in the precedent page in these words ‖ Princ. Consid p. 38 We may learn first this supernatural divine assistance and Infallibility of these Governours which is made known by Divine Revelation to those first persons who communicate it to posterity from Tradition descending from age to age in such manner at the Protestant saith he learns his Canon of Scripture from Tradition To which Tradition also may be committed by our Lord or his Apostles whatever is to Scripture Perhaps His falling into a Fit of drollery here made him oversee it Pag. 127. l. 5. What are its weapons See before Note on p. 113. l. 14. n. 4. Pag. 128. l. 3. It is I suppose agreed on both sides that the Tradition on which we receive and believe the Scriptures to be the word of God was universal as to all ages and times No. Not so universal as to all parts of the Canon Ib. l. 14. Let any thing like this be produced for the infallibility of the Guides of their Church i.e. for the Infallibility of lawful General Councils for N.O. the Considerator treats of no other and often mentions this and we will yield up the cause to them See then what is produced concerning this before Note on p. 113. l. 14. N. 1 Ib.l. 7 The only argument c. That which our Author alledgeth here the Councils anathematizing dissenters and the Church's stiling them Hereticks upon it is only a piece divided from the rest of what N.O. pressed N. O's words are these urged by him with application to the Dr's 17. Principle and without designing any set Discourse on Church-Infallibility ‖ Prineip Consid p. 39 That the Governours of the Church who having an apparent succession from our Lord and his Commission known by Tradition their testimony must have been unquestionably believed by Christians in what they taught in case there had been no Scripture always reputed and held themselves divinely assisted and infallible for all necessaries and that this was the traditive faith of the Church grounded on our Lord's Promise in all ages sufficiently appears by their inserting from time to time as they thought fit their Decisions in the Creeds and by their anathematizing dissenters and the Church's stiling them Hereticks ever after upon it For that no authority if we believe the Dr but that which proves it self infallible and therefore which is infallible can justly require our internal assent or submission of judgment And that the Protestants their allowing only an external obedience or silence due to Councils fallible inferrs that Councils fallible can justly require no more and consequently that such Councils are infallible as do justly require more as did the four first Councils with the voluntary acknowledgment also and submission of their subjects to such an authority assumed by them N. 2 After which it follows to prevent this reply here of the Dr's We find indeed subordinate Councils also stating somtimes matteâ—s of Faith censuring Hereticks and requiring assent to their Decrees but still with relation to the same Infallibility residing in the General Body of Church-Governours and their concurrence therein They not passing such Acts without consulting the Tradition and Judgment of other Churches and especially of the Apostolick See and a general acceptation rendring such their Decisions authentick and valid To which may be added what N.O. said before Consid p. 32. where the words of the Dr mentioned here are quoted more at large We see saith N.O. what kind of Obedience it was that the first four General Councils exacted in the Athanasian Creed which contains the sum of their Decrees viz. no less than assent and belief and submission of judgment and all this upon penalty of damnation And this if justly required by them inferrs upon the Dr's arguing their Infallibility For saith he ‖ Rat. Account p. 506 where Councils challenge an internal assent by vertue of their Decrees or because their decrees are in themselves infallible there must be first proved an impossibility of errour in them before any can look on themselves as obliged to give it Here the Dr passeth by several things urged by N.O. of which see the former Disc § 69. and invades only this part General Councils their anathematizing dissenters and pronouncing them Hereticks as he expresseth it though N.O. spoke of the Church always afterwards stiling such Dissenters from the Councils Decrees Hereticks The Doctors words here are The only argument he insists upon is so weak that I wonder he had not considered how often it had been answered by their own Writers For it is certain that Provincial Councils as well as General have anathematized dissenters and pronounced them Hereticks which is his only argument to prove this Tradition of the Church's Infallibility and they the Catholicks had no way to answer it but by saying this doth not imply their Infallibility Where he quotes in the margin Bellarm de Coucil l. 2. c. 10. N. 3 To which I have replyed in the former Disc § 65. c. and I think fit here to repeat at least some part thereof to give the Reader the lesse trouble by making frequent References First in general that I do not understand what it is that our Authour would maintain here against N.O. Is it this that neither anathematizing Dissenters nor the Councils putting their Decrees in the Churches Creeds nor the Church Catholick's afterward esteeming those Hereticks that dissented from these Councils are a sufficient evidence or proof that these Councils at least and also the Church accounted themselves Infallible in these their Decrees What could the most Infallible Judge do or exact more Doth not he below †See p. 113. blame the Roman Church for assuming such an Infallibility to her self in requiring such a belief of her Additional Articles defined in Trent as of the most fundamental Articles
to any Guides of the Church ever since we are sure they spake by an infallible Spirit and where they have determined matters of faith practice we look upon it as arrogance presumption in any others to alter what they have declared Where they have determined matters of faith or practice But who 's Judge of this what Christ and his Apostles have determined the Church's Councils or private men each for himself Ib. l. 13 Til ignorance ambition private interests swayed too much among those who were called the Guides These vices in all ages are found in some and are justly by others reproved But doth He charge these on the Church's Supremest Guides or its General Councils Then if we declining their judgment on this account to what other Courts or Persons will He direct us to apply our selves that are more free what private Person or inferior Court Ib. l. 3 In matters imposed upon us to believe or practise which are repugnant to plain commands of Scripture or the evidence of sense or the Grounds of Christian Religion no Authority of the present Guides of a Church is to overrule our faith or practice In things contrary to the plain commands of Scripture or grounds of Religion we join with him No Church-authority is to overrule our faith or practice But the former Question still returns Who shall judge among us what is or is not so contrary As for the other thing he mentions contrary to the evidence of sense If a Divine Revelation be contrary to such evidence I hope our Faith is to be over-ruled by the Revelation and for this I think I have the Dr's consent in these words in his Rational Account Where discoursing of Transubstantiation whether consistent with the grounds of Christian Religion he saith ‖ p. 567 That which I am now upon is not how far reason I suppose he will allow me to say or sense is to be submitted to Divine authority in case of certainty that there is a Divine Revelation for what I am to believe but how far it is to be renounced that is Reason or Sense when all evidence that is brought i.e. for such a Divine Revelation is from the authority of the Fathers So that that Question in short is Whether there be greater evidence that I am bound to believe the Fathers in a matter contrary to Sense and Reason or else to adhere to the judgment of them though in opposition to the Father's authority Where I understand him to say that he is to believe a Divine Revelation that is certainly such made known to him by one Sense the Hearing though against the perceptions of another Sense the Seeing but notwithstanding this that he is still rather to adhere to the judgment of his Senses than credit the Fathers concerning the truth of such a Divine Revelation as contradicts his Senses So The certainty of the Divine Revelation is here the only thing in question which once any way proved the evidence Sense gives-in against it is to be neglected Now of the certainty of the Divine Revelation or of the true sense of Scripture we reckon the unanimous consent of the Fathers or Primitive Church if such can be shewn so expounding it a sufficient proof And I think sometimes so doth Dr St. in these words Rat. Account p. 375. We profess to be guided by the sense of Scripture at interpreted by the unanimous consent of the Fathers and the four first General Councils And p. 56. It is a sufficient prescription against any thing that can be alledged out of Scripture that it ought not to be looked on as the true meaning of the Scripture if it appears contrary to the sense of the Catholick Church from the beginning And so laying the evidence of Sense here aside what their consent is is the first thing to be discussed Pag. 150. l. 4. For there are some things so plain that no man wil be guided by anothers opinion in them Catholicks willingly allow withdrawing obedience where you have Certainty But how vainly doth any one pretend or promise himself a certainty of any thing wherein a General Council or a much major part of the Church having all the same means of certainty as he judgeth contrary or fancy that such a matter carrieth the like evidence to persons as doth the Whiteness of Snow Ib. l. 12. I am certain if I destroy the evidence of Sense I must overthrow the grounds of Christian Religion What if I disbelieve Sense only in such a particular thing where Divine Revelation declares the contrary Though indeed the Sense in Transubstantiation is not deceived at all its Object still remaining there out the Person if from it He collect the Substance of Bread to be under it Ib. l. 19. To reject that authority which overthrows the certainty of Sense He must meane with his Exception unless it be Divine Ib. l. 3 We preferr the grounds of our common Christianity before a novel and monstrous figment Good reason but not before a Divine Revelation This Controversy therefore must first be decided before any argument from Sense can be used He goes on Ib. l. 2 Hutched in the times of ignorance and barbarisme fostered by faction and imposed by tyranny Speaking evil of Dignities Jud. 8. Concerning the evidence of Sense N.O. †Consid p. 92. had this Discourse on Dr St's 4th Consequence charging the Church of Rome as maintaining opinions repugnant to the principles of Sense and Reason 1. That the judgment of our Senses appointed by God the Instruments by hearing or reading them of conveying Faith and his Divine Revelations to us affords a sufficient natural certainty or infallibility whereon to ground our belief in all those things subject to our senses wherein the Divine Power doth not interpose But 2ly That where the Divine Power worketh any thing supernaturally that is contrary to our sense as it may no doubt here we are not to believe them And 3ly That we are to believe this divine power doth so so often as certain Divine Revelation tells us so though by the same senses it tells us so We believing our Senses as our Hearing or Reading for this as we ought where we have no Divine Revelation or other evidence concerning their deception when at the same time we do not believe the same Senses for some other thing as that that which we see is Bread when a Divine Revelation tells us the contrary The truth of which Divine Revelation in any non-evidence and questioning of the Sense of Scripture we are to learn from Gods Church infallibly assisted in necessary Faith c. For which I referr the Reader to what hath been said more at large in § 60.61.62 of the preceding Discourse Thus N.O. in his Considerations ‖ which the Dr passeth over in silence For it is better not to debate or acquaint a Reader with those Scruples we cannot easily satisfy Cosa ragionata via và P. 151. l. 1. We
different from his his fault seems hereby much extenuated as that of some Catholick Bishops doing the like after the Council of Ariminum was by S. Jerome See his Dialog adversus Luciferianos But however Liberius might miscarry no prudent Catholicks could then deliberate Whether they were to follow the judgment of him a single Pope rather than of a preceding Pope and a lawful General Council I mean that of Nice N. 2 Meanwhile by the following discourse in this Author here for twenty pages together we see notwithstanding what he had said before p. 148. That Protestants profess a great reverence c. to General Councils and reject the ancient heresies condemned in them And that the controversy between us is not about the authority of the Guides of the Church but whether the Guides of the Apostolical and Primitive times ought not to have greater authority over us than those of the present Church in things wherein these contradict them we see I say what way his Interest chiefly carries him in raking into the same Antiquity he so commends with great diligence even in the times of the first four or five General Councils to expose any Contradictions he can find in these times so to the common view as to reduce men drawn off from obedience to their Guides to the use and direction of their own Judgments perusing the Scriptures as the Socinians do for what tenent they shall rather hold in our Lords Consubstantiality with the Father after the Decision of Nice and. in the Two Natures and One Person of our Lord after the Definitions of Ephesus and Chalcedon telling us that neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was settled by the one nor the Two Natures and One Person by the other so but that the Guides of the Church after these Councils contradicted one another And meanwhile What advice saith he speaking of the times after the Council of Nice †p. 152. would N.O. give to a private man if he must not exercise his own judgment and compare both the doctrines by the Rule of Scriptures And ‖ p. 153. What remedy saith he can be supposed in such a case but that every person must search and examine the several doctrines according to his best ability and judge what is best for him to believe and practise Thus he after the setling of such doctrines by these General Councils Which if he speaks of persons suspending their judgments only during such time till there is a sufficient evidence of the supremacy and Legality of such a Council is not denied him But if he speaks of all times after the legal authority of such a Council is cleared as that of Nice immediatly was which only makes to his purpose all then are to yield submission of judgment to its decrees See Note on page 144. l. 9. and 11. And this eager agitating and pressing the differences and contradictions in Antiquity disclosing their infirmities and oppositions whilst Catholicks endeavour to unite and to reconcile them doth it not argue a party that is much pinched if I say not the Decrees and sanctions of the present but of the Ancient Church-Authority be maintained N. 3 An exact Review hereof our Authors Stories wherein he knows several Roman Writers much differ from him freeing both Liberius and Honorius from Heresy and wherein it is very difficult for any from his or my relations without examining many other Authors to discern the truth sutes not well with these short Notes and would be in discussing so many particularities very tedious to the Reader and lastly seems a needless task For 1 for the Infallibility of Popes the great Common place of Protestants and which he brings here into the dispute as one would think but that more may be expected from his Ingenuity that so in the great dust he raiseth about it he might run away from the direct matter of the Considerations it is a thing wholy declined by N. O nor is there a word of it in all his Considerations nor is he necessitated by any Position of his to defend it and I think Bellarmine in the discussion of it grants that if no Pope ever yet hath been a Pope possibly may be an Heretick N. 4 2 Next for the Question When Councils and Popes oppose and contradict one another which of these Guides Christians are to obey It is answered That submission of judgment is only required to such Decrees when these two are first united and agreed and I think our Author will not be offended at it if till such time Christians as to those points that are in debate between these two are lest to their liberty if Protestants will submit to the Decisions of such former Councils wherein there hath been no such opposition more is not required And in any contradiction that may happen between a General Council already confirmed by the See Apostolick and any succeeding Pope if any such difference should be the former Decree of a Pope joined with a General Council will doubtless prescribe to any contrary one of a Pope single Lastly If the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon were not generally submitted to and so as to some Party were ineffectual for the suppression of the heresies they condemned yet ought they to have been so admitted and obeyed by all after that their Decrees have received a sufficient validity from their being accepted by a much major part of the Church and confirmed by the Bishop of Rome and I hope our Author will not deny this lest Christians totter still in some of the Articles of the Athanasian Crâ—ied This said here I hope may save me some labour in respect of that which follows trusting the ingenuous Reader with the application P. 156. l. 6 I now desire to know what a person in that time should do who was bound to yield an internal assent to the Guides of the Church He is obliged to follow the judgment of the Church-Guides in such a Council after a sufficient Acceptation of it by the Church Catholick diffusive and confirmation of the See Apostolick As this Fifth Council had after some time by Vigilius and his Successors and by the Sixth Council Act. 17. and 18. and in after times both by the Greek and Latin Church in the Council of Florence Sess 5. at Ferrara And till such Confirmation or Acceptation appeared a private man might suspend his judgment or hold what to him might seem most probable concerning the Tria-Capitula their agreeing or disagreeing with the Doctrine and faith of the Council of Calcedon to the Definition of which both the differing Parties willingly consented whilst one endeavoured that the errour of such particular persons here concerned might no way prejudice the doctrine of that Council the other that the persons whom after some former errours this Council had approved might not be afterward condemned Pag. 163. l. 12. And after these to anathematize Honorius as agreeing in all things with Sergius and confirming his
differing about Rebaptization from other Christian Churches were observing their subordination to submit to the judgment of a Council Oecumenical A private man then where are many different Churches and Communions ought to consider under what particular Governours he liveth and in what manner they are subordinate to others and accordingly in any differences happening about points which he is not at leisure to study or hath not capacity to understand or after study is not certain on any side to yield his obedience and submit his judgment to the Superiours As in England a division happening in the Clergy thereof I suppose our Author would advise one that thus doubts in a point controverted in case the Parson of his Parish opposeth the Bishop of the Diocese or this Bishop all the other Bishops of the Province or of the Nation to submit to the judgment of the Bishop or of the Provincial or National Synod rather than to his Parson And that He would not enjoin such private person or tell him he is obliged for the settling of his judgment to study the whole Controversy debated between such Parson and his Bishop to collate their arguments and then make himself Judge at least for himself which of them is in the right wherein also should it be done the incapacity of the man or also his passion or interest on one side may easily misguide him and he fare much worse by his liberty than his obedience And this thing seems also intended by the National Synod of England in their drawing up the 39. Articles they say for taking away Diversity of Opinion which thing they do not there pretend to effect * by their confuting with arguments satisfactory to their subjects all those opinions they there disallow for no such satisfaction is offered no such thing is done by them but * by the submitting of their subjects not skilled in such matters nor certain of the contrary to their Judgment as the Supreme of this National Church N. 2 The same then let any doubting person do in any higher division and opposition of Metropolitan Churches suppose in the Western Patriarchy wherein he lives Let him examine which is the most Vniversal Body of them which the most dignified Persons and submit to their Guidance which as it is more safely relyed on may be easilier examined than the Controversies and indeed is a case clear and obvious enough to the most of men And as for others their invincible ignorance it is hoped may excuse their errour Where also let such a person consider whether such Councils as are assembled of most of the National Churches in the West joined with the Patriarch of it and deciding the many points disputed in these Western parts are not to be submitted-to by all private persons not certain of the contrary to their Decisions as how should they be so before a National only of the English Bishops especially if these opposing them in those things wherein for the most part the Eastern Churches also agree with them And if any here for standing out against this major authority should plead Certainty on his side as Archbishop Lawd and others do then let him consider how few there are among Christians so well seen in all these Controversies themselves as to withdraw their obedience on this account whilst it seems agreed that all others ought leaving these Certainists by themselves to conform to the Decrees of the Superiour Courts Ib. l. 10 What then makes those Churches the Eastern to be left out in our enquiries after the Guides of the Catholick Church How orthodox and Catholick soever the Eastern Churches may be one living in the Western Church owes no Canonical subjection or obedience to them whose whole care it ought to be to pay it where it is due according to the forementioned subordination which done he cannot miscarry as to all necessary Faith But however I think Dr St. might have spared the Description and proposal of these to a Protestants choice by reason of their many tenents in the Points controverted and particularly in those of Transubstantiation and the Idolatry of Images and Invocation of Saints agreeing with or also some of them more disliked than the Roman Pag. 174. l. 9 Now of these five parts four of them Nestorians Eutychians Greeks and Protestant Churches are all agreed that there is no necessity of living in subjection to the Guides of the Roman Church As they are agreed so it is granted For Example that the Metropolitan Church of England owes no subjection to the Metropolitan Church of Rome nor to the Pope as the Metropolitan thereof And the other three owe him no subjection neither as he is Patriarch of the West but the fourth doth and yielded it together with other Occidental Churches till of late But meanwhile the Eastern Churches are agreed that they owe all subjection and submission of judgment to the Definitions of lawful General Councils and on this account render it to the 2d Nicene and that these Councils are infallible in them for which see what is cited in the precedent Discourse § 56. And from the determination of these Councils do the same Churches entertain several Opinions rejected by Protestants Ib. l. 3. Only those of the Church of Rome take upon themselves against all sense and reason to be the Catholick Church and so exclude four parts of five out of a capacity of salvation The Roman Church confesseth it self a particular Church and only a part of the Catholick Nor doth it exclude any other Churches from being true parts thereof save those which are Heretical or Schismatical both which Hereticks and Schismaticks I think learned Protestants exclude also from being members of the Catholick Church See Dr Field l. 4. c. 2. That the Visible Church he means Catholick never falleth into Heresy we most willingly grant And l. 1. c. 7. The name of Orthodox Church is applied to distinguish right-believing Christians from Hereticks the name of the Catholick Church men holding the Faith in unity from Schismaticks Nor doth the Roman Church deny in such Heretical or Schismatical Churches a capacity or possibility of salvation to all generally but only as I think Protestants also do to those among them that are formerly guilty of the crimes of Heresy or Schisme because indeed either of these is a mortal sin and so unrepented of excluding from salvation Lastly Heretical the Roman Church with all Antiquity takes those to be that maintain the contrary to any known Definition in a matter of faith of a lawful General Council and Schismatical those that upon any cause whatever do separate from the Communion of the present Church Catholick and their true Superiour Ecclesiastical Guides Pag. 175. l. 11. When he finds so many Churches and those not inferiour to the Roman Church in any thing save only in pomp pride and uncharitableness Eph. 4.31 And evil-speaking be put away from you Et blasphemia tollatur a vobis cum omni
Civil as Ecclesiastical Governours So that if the Catholicks seem to apply some Consciential obedience to the Ecclesiastical Judge disliked and denyed to him by Protestants so do they also to the Civil Ib. l. 10 They challenge likewise to themselves a power to dispense with the laws of God as in matter of Mariages The Church only dispenseth where antecedently no Divine Law but only a Church-law obligeth those about Marriages being many of them Levitical Judicial Laws obligatory only to the ancient Commonwealth of the Jews and not now to Christians But in impedimentis jure Divino naturali conjugium dirimentibus the Church pretends no dispensative power Ib. l. 8 And with the Institution of Christ as in Communion in one kind See this spoken to before in Note on p. 151. l. 6. Ib. l. 5 As in the five Sacraments they have added to the two of Christ As the Roman Church reckons Seven Sacraments so the Greek Sacramenta verò ritusque in hâc ipsâ Catholicâ rectè sentientium Christianorum Ecclesiâ sunt Septem saith Jeremias Patriarch of Constantinople against the Lutherans ‖ Resp. 1. c. 7. and so the Catholick Church before Luther appeared And this Author cannot be ignorant that Protestants also since that time as the Word Sacrament is taken in a more general sense have willingly admitted more than two and acknowledged this conformable to the language of Antiquity And in the short English Catechisme the Answer to the Question How many Sacraments Two only is made as Bishop Mountague observes ‖ Appeal c. 33. with this Limitation as generally necessary to salvation And on the other side the Council of Trent †Sess 7. c. 3. pronounces Anathema to those who shall make them all of an equal dignity And Baptisme and the Eucharist shall have the preeminency that Protestants desire Ib. l. 2 Setting aside these considerations we dare appeal c. For the extravagancy of the next page I referr the Reader to the Note on p. 180. l. 9. Pag. 185. l. 6. Whether our Church's Imposing of three Ceremonies declared to be indifferent by those who required them But denied to be so by those they are imposed-on who therefore complain of tyranny and of forcing the Conscience the enjoining the practice of them involving an assent also that they are lawful which they that cannot yield must sin if they practise them And in such a case who must decide this matter between these two I find him in his Irenicum c. 2. p. 63. nominating for this Judge the sense of the Primitive Church in the first four Centuries and the judgment of the other Reformed Churches There he proposeth That nothing be required nor determined by Church-Governours but what is sufficiently known to be indifferent in its own nature The only difficulty saith he is hâ—w a thing may be sufficiently known to be indifferent because one man looks upon that as indifferent which another doth not The most equal way to decide this Controversy is to make choice of such Judges as are not interested in the quarrel and those are the sense of the Primitive Church in the first four Centuries who were best able to judge whether they looked upon themselves as bound by any Command of Scripture or no and withal the judgment of the Reformed Churches So that what shal be made appear to be lefâ— indifferent by both the sense of the Primitive Church and the Churches of the Reformation may be a matter determinable by Law and which all may be required to conform in Obedience to But here 1st What if when this Judge the sense of the Primitive Church is admitted by both parties yet there happen dispute What or on which side this sense is Is it not so disputed and will not the deciding of this need another Judge 2ly For the Judgment of the Reformed Churches I suppose he means those abroad concerning the Controversies about Indifferents here in England they no way seem such as he here supposeth i.e. persons not interested in the quarrel some of them as to these things intertaining the opinion of the Prclaticks others of the Presbyterian party But were it not so their judgment being fallible It is contrary I think to this Author's Principles for others to be enjoined or constrained to conform to them either in their practice where their judgment relucts or in their judgment where their 's also may err 3ly The Judge in Ecclesiastical matters is not left to any ones arbitrary nomination but is alwaies the Superiour Prelates or Councils in respect of all others subordinate to them He goes on Can be thought so great a Burden to their Consciences as all the Load of superstitious fopperies in the Roman Church Supposing here not granting the Roman Ceremonies such yet some of which at least I hope this Author will protect because borrowed from her by the Reformed Church of England to the great grief of these Sects I ask to what end is it here to compare the Degrees of Burdens imposed where the Least if imposed against conscience is unsupportable Ib. l. 17. Whether Transubstantiation Image-worship c. be not somwhat harder things to swallow Some of these at least how hard soever they seem to you are the Definitions either of the Supreme Councils or those Superiour to a Provincial or National one of England And to these Councils therefore you owe obedience either of assent or silence and cannot separate from their Communion without Schisme Ib. l. 11 Be not somwhat harder things to swallow than the Church's power to appoint matters of Order and decency Is then the appointing matters of Order and Decency all the power the Church of England doth or may assume I mean hath this Church no power in Matters and Controversies of Faith Pag. 186. l. 1. Not for any difficulty objected by N.O. Which whatever it is is omitted here by the Dr. See Note on p. 180. l. 9. Annotations on §. 11. Of the means to attaine the sense of Scripture without an infallible Guide PAg. 186. l. 11. That is the second main Principle in N.O. that without this infallible assistance of the Guides of the Church there can be no certainty of the sense of Scripture There are no such words in N.O. N.O. denies a sufficient certainty of the sense of Scripture in several points of necessary saith ‖ See the former Discourse §. 2. but not in all especially as to some persons and capacities without the Church's exposition of them Ib. l. 17. He yields that the Church's infallibility is not necessary to the foundation of faith for mens faith he saith may begin at the infallible authority of Scriptures No such words are in N. O neither doth he call that a Foundation of Faith where Faith begins Which Faith begins at that particular Article thereof which is first taught to any by their Inâ—tructer Parents or Pastor and this happens to be somtimes one Article somtimes another N. O's
in the plainness of Scripture to all well endeavouring capacities and conditions he will make an amends for now in the restraining of Necessaries On whose Judgment I pray is it fit a particular person should rely in this Question which seems of great concernment What or how many points are to be called Necessary On Mr Chilling worth's or the Dr's Or on that of the Supreme Guides of the Church assembled in her General Councils who from time to time declare to Christians by their Decrees as the Apostles did in the first General Council Act. 15. what is Necessary for them to believe what to practise against all such erroneous Tenents as shall arise in the Church that may any way pervert their Faith or Manners Ib. l. 7 If a person then by reading and considering those things which are plain may do what Christ requires all that which Christ requires for his salvation what necessity hath such a one to trouble himself about an infallible Guide I add or Any Guide at all as to those For either he may go to heaven without him without having any such Guide fallible or infallible or not If he may let him the Dr shew the necessity such Guide is of to that end which may be attained without him if not then the things necessary to salvation cannot be known without him as the Dr saith before they may by ones reading and considering those things which are plain and doing all those things Christ requires for his salvation So easily may his arguing against an infallible serve as well against any Guide at all Meanwhile N.O. affirms some Persons cannot Know all Necessaries without a Judge Pag. 190. l. 12. But doth S. Peter say 2. Epist c. 3.16 that the Scriptures are so hard to be understood that sober and devout minds cannot learn therein what is necessary to their salvation Yes if the sober and devout be unlearned as they may be Cannot learn therein all that is necessary for surely where the erring therein works their destruction the right sense is necessary for their salvation Ib. l. 11 Which men that wanted-judgment were ready to pervert to their own mischief c. As some may want that are sober devout and diligent and which want of Judgment as to some no care or diligence can remove Ib. l. 9 But if there be such difficulties in S. Paul's Epistles is there nothing plain and easy Yes many things But if many things plain and easy are there no such difficulties Ib. l. 7 If bad men may pervert them may not good men make a good use of them And if learned men make good use of them may not yet the unlearned mistake them Or must all these get learning that they may not Pag. 191. l. 15. If on so fair and just an occasion offered S. Peter himself whom they believe to have been Head of the Church at that time and at Rome at the writing of this Epistle doth wholly omit referring men in the sense of obscure places to infallible Guides what can we else inferr but that S. Peter thought no such thing of necessity for his Church A Negative argument is often invalid Every thing is not every where said If we find not in S. Peter 't is sufficient if in S. Paul Whose Faith follow ‖ Heb. 13.7 1 Tim. 3.15 And The Church i.e. in its Governours is the Pillar and Ground of Truth But we read in S. Peter such things as these That they should submit it themselves to their Presbyters such Presbyters as he was that fed the flâ—ck of God i.e. with their doctrine and so that they should submit to It. 1. Pet. 5.5 compared with 1 2. We read in him 2.10 15. That God will surely punish those that are self-willed and despise Government and speak evil of Dignities which I apply in the first place to Spiritual Gevernours and Ecclesiastical Dignities And chap. 3.2 that he writ his second Epistle to them that they might be mindful of the Commandements of the or the. Apostles of our Lord and Saviour and so of their Suecessours And here in the next verse after these unstable wresters we find S. Peter advising them to take heed of being led away with the errour of these wicked ones and of falling from their stedfastness i.e. in their adhering constantly to the doctrine learnt from their Spiritual Superiours N. 2 Here then the Reader hath an account from the Dr how right let him judge of the place in S. Peter urged by N. O but what answer returns he to Eph. 4.11 13 14. and to the rest mentioned before in Note on p. 189. l. 1. that are cited by N.O. and what to his own words to make himself at least agree with himself I find none I find him often delivering the state of the Question between him and his adversary in indefinite and so ambiguous propositions and then dividing of his discourse upon it into several heads each copiously prosecuted But mean while N. O's Considerations unconsidered slip through his fingers and out of the memory also of any save a very watchful Reader thus amused with other things Annotations on his §. 12. Of the Necessity of a Judge in Controversies PAg. 192. l. 2. Is it that without this an infallible determination of doubtful places in necessaries the Church's peace cannot be preserved Add nor an Vnity of Faith which is requisite in Necessaries Eph. 4.5 11 13. One Lord one Faith one Baptism into this Faith Ib. l. 6. Vnless there be an infallible Judge to determine which is the true sense of Scripture He should say in Necessaries But then his following Answer would not sute with the Question Ib. l. 16. The strength of this argument depends upon the supposition of the necessity of determining controversies Add necessary to be determined because in Necessaries Ib. l. 8 The weakness of humane understanding the power of interest and passion and the ambiguity of words are as apt to beget disputes in Religion as in any other thing More need still of deciding some of these disputes since so many things even in the most necessary Credends beget them Pag. 193. l. 8. This Question is plainly about a matter of fact i. e whether Christ hath appointed such judges in all ages who are to determine all emergent controversies about the difficult places of his Law Here doth not He question Whether the sitting and authority of lawful General Councils is held from Christ or by his appointment By what authority these Supreme Ecclesiastical Courts make their Definitions and Decrees Upon what ground Christianity appeals to them This is the influence and fruit of his 13th Principle But if he allows here these Supreme Judges to hold their Authority and Commission from Christ for determining all emergent Controversies about the difficult places of his Law But denies their infallibility as to all necessaries to which N.O. confines it then I would know whether they are constituted such Judges as
in the places controverted between thâ—◠〈…〉 Story in brief is this Maximinus an Arian in the beginning of their dispute hath these words Si quid de divinis Scripturis protuleris quod commune est cum omnibus necesse est ut audiamus Hae verò voces quae extra Scripturam sunt homousion nullo casu a nobis suscipiuntur alluding to the definition of homousion by the Nicene Council S. Augustine takes his challenge and as he waved the Council of Nice so did S. Augustine that of Ariminum Upon which here lib. 3. c. 14. after he had said Hoc est illud Homousion quod in Concilio Nicaeno adversus Haereticos Arrianos a Catholicis Patribus veritatis i. e of the Scriptures authoritate authoritatis i.e. by the just authority of a lawfull free General Counci veritate firmatum est quod postea in Concilio Ariminensi c. multis paucorum fraude deceptis Haeretica impietas labefâ—ctare tentavit He condescends thus I say after this uttered in Justification of Nice Sed nunc nec ego Nicaenum nec tu debes Ariminense tanquam praejudicaturus proferre Concilium Nec ego hujus authoritate nec tu illius detineris he saith not tu non teneris but nunc non detineris Scripturarum authoritatibus non quorumque propriis as the two Councils were sed utrisque communibus testibus res cum re causa cum causâ— ratio cum ratione concenset That is this our conference or dispute shall only be as you desire from Authorities of Scripture Of the sense of which Scripture it is willingly granted that in many things many persons may be sufficiently certain without the directions of a Guide but not therefore all persons in all points necessary See before Note on p. 230. l. 15. Mean while none more than S. Austin pleads or vindicates the Authority of the Council of Nice needless to be further proved one would think to Dr St. Pag. 236. l. 1. This is in terms asserted by him ‖ De Doctrin Christian l. 2. c. 9 as a fuundamental principle that in those things which are plainly set down in Scripture all things are to be found which concern our faith and rule of life S. Austin doth not meane that all things containing our faith or manners are so plainly set down in Scripture as to all capacities that many do not need the direction of an infallible Church-authority for settling a certainty of their faith in them a thing affirmed by the Dr To which infallible Authority that this Father referrs such persons for learning the true Faith see that excellent Treatise of his De Vtilitate Credendi i.e. of believing Church-authority Where he saith Cûm res tanta sit ut Dens tibi ratione cognoscendus sit omnes ne putas idoneos c. And Tu in cos libros qui Sancti divinarumque rerum pleni c. sine duce irruis And Omnesne putas idoneos esse percipiendis rationibus quibus ad divinam intelligentiam mens ducitur humana an plures an pnucos paucos ais existimo Quid caeteris ergò hominibus qui ingenio tam screno praediti non sunt negandum Religionem putas Whom therefore he refers to this security of believing Church authority For In religione quid iniquius fieri potest saith he ‖ Ibid quà m ut Dei Antistites nebis non fictum animum pollicentibus credant nos eis praecipientibus nolimus credere And c. 16. that for such persons non esse desperandum ab eodem ipso Deo authoritatem aliquam constitutam quâ velut gradu certo innitetes aâ—â—ollamur in Deum Hanc autem authoritatem seposu â rationc quam sinceram intelligere ut diximus difficillimum stultis est dupliciter nos movere parâ—â—â— miraculis partim sequentium multitudine And ‖ Ib. c. 17. Quid est aliud ingratum esse opi atque auxilio divino quà m tanto labâ—re nost praedictae authoritati velle resistere And De Baptismo l. 3. c. 14. Fieri potest ut integra teneat verba Symboli I may say or of Scripture tamen non rectè credat sive de ipsâ Trinitate sive de Resurrectione vel aliquid aliud Neque enim parva res in ipsâ intus Catholicâ tenere integram fidem ita ut omnino non de aliquà creaturâ sed de ipso Deo nihil aliud credat quà m veritas hâ—bâ—t And in this book de Doctrinâ Christianâ l. 3. c. 2. he joines these two the clearer places of Scripture and the authority of the Church for our learning the Rule of Faith Cùm adhibita imentio saith he incertum esse providerit quomâ—do distinguendum aut pronunciâ—ndum sit consulat Regulam fiaci quam 1 de Scripturarum planioribus locis 2 Ecclesiae authoritate percepit More of this needs not Many excellent Rules this Father gives by which to understand the Scriptures i.e. for the more prudent and learned but not this exclusively to those person 's submitting their Judgments to the Church's authority who have no leisure or parts by these Rules to study the Scriptures or else to other's repairing to it where any thing in the Scriptures after their study still seems to them obscure Pag. 238. l. 12. ‖ S. Austin de Doctrin Christian l. 3. c. 16. Which words ‖ Jo. 6.53 seeming to command somthing evil must be figuratively understood of communicating in the Passion of Christ and calling to mind that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us And not imagining as the words strictly taken sound that our Lords Body and Bloud in a carnal or natural and sensible manner as other flesh is to be eaten and drunk by us as some of our Lords Auditors grossly mis-understood him and so forsook him in which sense Dominus flagitium videtur jubere saith S. Austin Not imagining thus I say but yet believing that his flesh and bloud is there really exhibited to us and fed on by us This Real so as also ineffable Presence of Christs Body and Blood though not to the Symbols yet in the Eucharist and so a reall participation thereof the Church of England and her learnedst Writers have much spoken of and contended for heretofore as well as Catholicks before that the Rubrick or Declaration about kneeling in receiving the Communion was by the importunity of some later Sects admitted a second time into the Common-Prayer Book A.D. 1660. Which Rubrick contrary to the Real Presence in that it denies that Christs substance can be both in Heaven where certainly it is and on earth at the same time was first contrived and published in the 5th year of the Reign of King Edward 6. in the new-moulding and correcting of the former Common Prayer Book published in the first yeare upon the Exceptions and complaints of some forraign Reformed Divines made against it and was then backed also with the 28th Article of Religion under the same King in
Church-Tradition Quod ab omnibus I mean in any one age understood of the Catholick Church and in matters of faith is always quod semper too All Hereticks also at first are only a smal number and their innovation easily discerned Therefore the universality of the present age was pleaded by S. Austin in his age against the Donatists from Scriptures that prove the same as much in any age whatâ—ver Nor is this present Church's consent with Antiquity mentioned in S. Austins arguing as if it were not to be credited without this consent also of Antiquity first proved by it for the one as is said in matter of faith always involves the other Pag 242. l. 1. That the Church in any one or more ages since the Apâ—stles times may be deceived The Church means he the universality of the Catholick Church may be deceived means he in points of necessary faith or in the Tradition of them This is denied Ib. l. 1.5 But since the great divisions of the Christian world it is both a very hard matter to know the consent c 1. The name of Catholick Church now is not as he saith that of one great faction but contains in it now as always all Christian Churches that are united in obedience to all their lawful and Canonical Ecclesiastical Superiours Persons or Councils i.e. all that are not Heretical or Schismatical 2. The Notion also of Vuiversaluy is not as he saith now debauched and corrupted but taken now as anciently in the first 4. General Councils for the much major part to whom the rest ought to conform Turpis omnis pars non consentiens toti And as it is also taken in Vincentius whether applyed to the present or ancient times see c. 38. Si quando unius vel paucorum errantium dissensio contra omnium vel certe multo plurium Catholicorum consensionem rebellaverit c. And c. 4. Quod si in ipsâ vetustate duorum vel trium hominum vel certè Civitatis unius aut etiam Provinciae error deprehendatur c. For there must be no Hereticks if no dissenters The universal consent of Christendome Universality thus qualified is easily known concerning most of the modern Controversies suppose Transubstantiation Invocation of Saints Veneration of Images Prayer for the Dead c. And to them only the knowledge of this seems difficult whom it favours not Ib. l. 2 There are some things wherein we may be certain of such a consent viz. of Antiquity and that was in the Rule of Faith Vincentius restrains not that application of his Rule only to the Symbole or Rule of Faith formerly delivered in Baptisme So it would not extend to the Decrees of the Ephesine Council which he instanceth in to have followed this Rule and little use would there be of this Rule against Hereticks if extended no further But enlargeth it to all the Faith wherein General Councils have or shall make any Decrees And the evidence of Tradition may be equal in matters as of an unequal so all of some consequence Pag. 243. l. 11. For saith he this consent of Antiquity is not to be sought for in all questions It may be sought for where-ever it can be found but in many Quaestinoulâ—e as he cals them it is not to be found Pag. 244. l. 12. Let the Pope's Supremacy the Roman he should say Catholick Church's Infallibility the doctrines of Transubstantiation Purgatory c. be proved by as universal consent of Antiquity as the Articles of the Creed are and then let them charge us with Heresy if we reject them 1st The former Councils that have defined these points can also prove them by Antiquity Vniversality Consent taken in such a latitude as is necessary and sufficient Consent c either in the Tradition of the thing defined or of the Principles from which it is deduced But here it is not necessary that the same extent or latitude of Consent c should be shewed for all points of faith Not necessary that there be no more Bishops found dissenting in the Council of Chalcedon establishing Two Natures of our Lord than were in the Council of Nice establishing his Divinity And of the Ancient Creeds some points have had a more universal consent than some others 2. And next this Query when there is a sufficient universality of such Consent or such Tradition I know not whose judgment the most of Christians who are unlearned can better trust and rely on than that of the Supreme Guides of the present Church so informing them 3ly That these Councils should first prove or evidence such an universal Attestation to every one before they can require a submission of their judgment to their definitions as it is an unreasonable demand so it is rejected by several learned Protestant Divines when obedience hath been offered by other Sects to the Canons and Articles of the Church of England upon these terms of proving them to them first who think it enough if such submission be then released when private men demonstrate the contrary 4. Lastly What judgment can illiterate persons make of what is thus proved or not proved to them And if Obedience must pass only upon such proof to their subjects these also judging when this rightly made what confusion and licentiousness of Opinions and Practice must this introduce necessarily in such Churches as maintain it Ib. l. 18. We say the measure of Heresy in the ancient Church was the rejecting the Rule of faith vniversally received And such it is still all persons learning from General Councils not only from the definitions of the ancient but latter Councils what is this Rule universally received And the same Plea our Author can make against any latter definitions of Councils in matters of faith upon their not being expressed in the former Creeds Arius Nestorius or Eutyches might make as justly against those of the 4. first Councils not expressed in the former Creed or Rule of faith delivered at Baptisme Which first Rule only Vincentius therefore did not relate to since he contends this Rule is extended to the Deerees also of these Councils Pag. 245. l. 14. And yet he Petavius confesseth that most of the writers of the ancient Church did differ in their explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity from that which was only allowed by the Council of Nice and he grants that Arius did follow the Opinion of many of the Ancients in the main of his Doctrine Petavius after the words cited by this Author mulium a nobis diversa scripserunt expounds this diversa to be only in modo loquendi And the next words in him are Paucissimi illi sunt speaking of the ancient Writets before Nice qui in re dissentiunt a communi fide Dogm Theel l. 2. si sinceros purosque Catholicos quaerimus omnino nulli There among those qui in omnibus re consentientes loquendi duntaxat modo dissident he numbers Irenaeus Clemens Arexandrinus Gregory Neocaesariensis
N.O. layes upon him of justly incurring the displeasure of his Ecclesiastical Saperiours as indeed all Chillingworths followers seeme to do corrupting somthing which formerly remained good in the Church of England and which being good all good men have reason to wish well to and that it may be preserved there for that which is good still preparing the way to something better may end at last in an happy reunion of the divided Church hes and this may serve to answer this Author 's Ironical descant here p. 261.262 but finds him omitting here to take any notice of N. O's Reason for it immediatly preceding viz. Here i.e. in his 29th Principle first observe That what no Christian is obliged to believe under any pretence of Church-Infallibility he is much rather not obliged to believe under any pretence of Church-Authority and that the Dr's freeing the Church's subjects here i.e. as to their believing what these Governours teach them from the former doth so from the latter Thus N.O. Neither replies he any thing to this The 3d Quotation out of p. 84. is applied to one particular Consequence of the Dr's ‖ Conseq 1. In which he saith There is no necessity at all or use of an Infallible Society of men to assure men of the truth of those things of which they may be certain without and cannot have any greater assurance supposing such Infallibility to be in them Which Consequence of his N.O. saith concludes the uselesness as well of any Ecclesiastical Authority to teach men as of an Infallible to assure men of the truth of those things which by using only their own sincere endeavour according to the Dr's pretence Principle 13. they may know without them To this likewise the Dr answers nothing And here also Whereas N.O. speaks in particular This Consequence concludes he puts instead thereof that N.O. saith his Principles against Infallibility conclude c. In the 4th quoted out of p. 98. where N.O. after the words cited by the Dr viz. That the Principles laid down by him do not afford any effectual way or means in this Church of suppressing or convicting any Schism Sect or Heresy or reducing them either to submission of judgment or silence proceeds to give the reason of this Fâ—r where both sides contend Scripture clear from then selves the clearness of such Scripture how great soever it be on one side can be made no instrument of conviction to the other the Dr mentions not this Reason nor speaks he to it In the 5th Quotation out of p. 99. where after the words quoted by the Dr that the Authority of the Church of England is much debilitated c by this new way taken up of its defence N.O. thus gives the Reason of them in what follows viz. where he thinks himself its best Advocate and defender of its cause who doth most endeavour to set forth the defects and failiâ—gs of all such Ecclesiastical Societies Prelates and Councils and best proves no Scripture-Promises made to them Neither from this doth he clear himself or others But instead of taking notice of these particulars urged against him he extracts from the foresaid Assertions in N. O stript of the particular Reasons and Arguments annexed this Universal Proposition that N.O. maintains that the same Arguments i.e. all the same arguments for I suppose he would here have his indefinite terme understood universally by his Reader which overthrow Infallibility do likewise destroy all Church-Authority all Church-authority saith he i.e. all parts of it not that only of their Office as they are the Preachers and Expounders of Christs Gospel to the People of which only N.O. speaks and then on this he frames a new Discourse first divided into Heads But any such proposition N.O. disclaimes Yet this He affirms that some of the Dr's arguings in his Principles which he brings for destroying Church-Infallibility do also destroy Church-Authority as to one part of it and also names those arguings of his and wisheth that this Author in pretending an Answer had cleared them from this charge Pag. 262. l. 8. If they thought they could not sow mischief c A rent already too wide is by our Author 's new Principles still made wider and so less hopes of quite closing it And this is justly resented by N.O. as contrary to his chiefest Interest Ib. l. 10. It is a pretty plot c. True designes of defending may possibly undermine and those may be the truest Friends who are taken for professed Enemies This the Future Judgment will shew Ib. l. 15. 3. Vndermine all Church-Authority and authority wholly useless All and wholly are none of N. O's expressions his words must be added-to that they may be refuted Pag. 263. l. 1. Such malignant influence must be from one of these things Either because I deny infallibility in the Guides of the Church You deny Infallibility as to necessaries whereby none can securely yield assent to any thing that the Church defines Ib. l. 2. Or because I say that the Scriptures are plain in things necessary to salvation You say Plain to all so far as that none using his own endeavour i.e. according to his condition can mistake in them which makes men being confident of the plainness of Scripture and of their own diligence and judgment neglect repairing ro the Church's direction and guidance in matters that most concern them And hence grow such an infinite number of Sects after the direction of their Spiritual Guides cast off Independants Quakers Presbyterians Anabaptists Antinomians Solifidians Socinians and I know not what But note here that N.O. no where saith which our Author here seems to impose that One to make use of another's guidance or direction must have him infallible But saith only this which no way infers the other that where all things necessary are affirmed plain to a man only using his own endeavour to understand them One wherin he thinks he useth his own just endeavour may justly think also therein anothers guidance whether this fallible or infallible to be unnecessary Unless the Dr will here relieve himself by one of these two ways Either that though a sufficient self-endeavour sufficeth yet none can know certainly when he hath used it Or that in mentioning a mans using his endeavour this Author involves principally the repairing to his Guides for their instruction But then this latter argues the Scriptures wherein he consults them not plain but obscure rather as hath been often said and so defeats what he would chiefly maintain Ibid. l. 4. Or Because I deny the Authority of the Church of Rome You deny not only the authority of the Church of Rome as contradistinct to other Catholick Churches but the Authority of the Church Catholick as to its justly requiring submission of private mens judgments to its Definitions in matters of Necessary Faith Ib. l. 6. Or because I am not for such an effectual way of suppressing Sects and Heresies as is in use in
and Doctors met in Oecumenical Councils in all ages I would you could prove a truly Oecumenical Council in any age He proceeds Ib. l. 17. But we cannot endure to be abused by meer names of Titular Prtriarchs with Combinations of interested Parties instead of General Councils You do well in this But not so if you charge any such things on those former Councils whereof the more universal judgment of other Metropolitan Churches cleareth them in their accepting them for lawful and obliging and conforming in their belief and practice to their Decrees which general acknowledgment of them supplies also any defect that might have been in the management of them Ib. l. 3 If we then oppose so general a consent of the Christian Church let them charge us with not submitting to all the Authority extant of the world And what then when you are so charged Then you will say as you have said ‖ p. 241 242 That the Church in any one or more ages since the Apostles times may be deceived And That universality in any one age without the Consent of Antiquity which Consent you not It shall judge of is no sufficient Rule to interpret Scripture by nor consequently to decide the Controversies arising therein Pag. 285. l. 6. And every free Church c. See Note on p. 281. l. 1. It follows Ib. l. 9. Hath a sufficient power to reform all abuses within it self when a more general consent cannot be obtained But not to reform any thing contrary to such doctrines c to which a more general consent hath already been obtained in several Councils that before the Church was divided were generally received A Metropolitan Church may have a sufficient power to reform somthing without but nothing contrary to the Decisions or Canons of a Superiour Authority Ib. l. 14. How very pitiful an advantage can from hence be made by the dissenting parties among us For the advantages dissenting parties make hence see before Note on p. 180. l. 9. p. 263. l. 2. p. 271. l. 2 It follows Ib. l. 12 Who decry that Patriarchal and ancient Government as Antichristian which we allow as prudent and Christian But doth this Author allow it as of Divine Institution and necessary I mean the Government of the Church by Bishops Ib. l. 9 N. O. saith my Principles afford no effectual way or means in this Church of suppressing or convicting any Schisme Sect or Heresy or reducing them either to submission of judgment or silâ—nce Therefore my Principles are destructive to all Church-Authority Destructive to all authority N. O. makes no such Consequence But the immediate words following those cited by our Author are these ‖ Princip Consid p. 98. For where both sides contend Scripture clear for themselves the clearness of such Scripture how great soever on one side can be made no instrument of conviction to the other Here therefore things must be prosecuted further than Scripture to a Dic Ecclesiae And then for the convicting and suppressing such Heresies and Schismes this Church appealed and complained to must have authority and infallibility at least as to necessaries to decide truly such contests about the sense of Scripture which may happen to be in them and justly to punish with her censures as the useth to do those that are Hereticks i. e. dissenters from her definitions and so preserve the Church in the unity of the true Faith things denied to it by the Dr. Ib. l. 2 The design of my Principles was to lay down the Foundations of faith and not the means of suppressing heresies But his Principles laying down the foundations of Faith if good must be such as consist with the foundations of Peace also and with the means of suppressing Heresies And to his Instances I say Aristotle may be justly blamed for his Logick or Hippocrates for his Aphorismes if the one be found to contain any thing contrary to Civil Government or the other to the Colledge of Physicians Pag. 286. l. 2 We are sure the meer authority of their Church hath been no more effectual means of suppressing sects than that of ours hath been N. 1 I think He hath yielded the contrary before p. 136. where being pressed that the subjects of the Roman Church however their other private opinions may differ do all submit their judgments to the determinations of her Councils which takes away all Divisions in her as to such matters this being not so in the Church of England he hath these words I do not say that the Church of Rome hath no advantage at all in point of Vnity but that all the advantage it hath comes from force and fraud viz. such force as the Council of Niee used to its subjects viz. Anathemas to Dissenters And We do not envy them the effects of tyranny and deceit It is the Vnion of Christians we contend for not of Slaves or Fools And I freely yield that they have a juster pretence to Vnity without Truth than we Where this effect a greater Vnity is granted by him but that this is without Truth is denied by us But N. 2 setting this aside we contend that where it is affirmed 1. That Scriptures are so cleare in all necessaries that none of what condition soever using their right endeavour to understand them can mistake 2. And again that there is no other Infallible Judge to determine certainly any sense of Scripture in such necessaries where it is controverted nor which may require submission of judgment from their subjects to their sentence and so the people left to their own judgment one man upon using as he thinks a just endeavour being confident of one sense of Scripture plain to him another of the contrary which judgment of particulars the Church fallible hath no power to sway or correct Nor on the other hand the Scripture doth decide to them at all on which side it is clear Here we say is left no effectual way which yet always the Church must have one or other for clearing and purging itself of Heresies and Schisms by which the opinion of either of these and so of any Sect of them erring in some necessary points or by which any Heresy may be suppressed or the persons so perswaded severed from the Church's Communion and so the Principles must be unsound that inferr such Consequences N. 3 But there is such an effectual way in the Church which is maintained to have power as it is by Catholicks to determine in all Controversies about necessaries and in this amongst others concerning the Apostolicalness of a former Tradition or the legitimacy of a former Council what doctrine is true and Apostolical and to Anathematize all Dissenters whereby she either reduceth Sectarists if submitting to her judgment or separateth them from the Church if opposing it And such way accords very well with our Lords Sit tibi sicut Ethnicus Publicanus Mat. 18.17 2 Cor. 10.6 Tit. 3.10 and with S. Paul's In
§ 51. * From the Promises in Scripture § 52. Where That Dr St. holds the Roman Church hitherto never to have erred in Necessaries § 53. * From the Testimony of S. Austin in his proceedings against the Donatists § 54. And of the Greek Church § 56. * From Archbishop Lawd's and sometimes Dr St's holding the Catholick Church not only in its Being but as to its Teaching and Determinations Infallible § 57. Dr St's Replies considered * Concerning the Practice of Councils § 64. c. * Concerning the Certainty of the Christian Faith without Infallible Church-Governours § 63. * Concerning S. Austin § 71. * That the Argument from the Evidence of our Senses urged by Dr St. and others disproves not the Infallibility of the Roman-Catholick Church CHAP. V. No Supressing of Sects and Heresies without admitting an Ecclesiastical Judge THat all Sects for their Tenents equally appeal to the Clearness of the Scripture § 81. That the leaving all men for knowing Necessaries to the clearness of Scripture therein without requiring their submission to the Judgment of the Church can afford no effectual remedy of Heresies and Schismes § 83. That the Constitutions of the Church of England seem contrary to this and to require Submission of Judgment § 84. Dr St's Replies contending that his Principles no way justify Sects considered § 86. viz * That there is a great difference between the Church of England's separation from Rome and that of the Sects from Her § 87. * That no Infallibility is challenged by her in respect of her Subjects as is by Rome § 89. * That her Doctrines are not made necessary to salvation nor any excluded from it meerly because not being in her Communion § 90. Nor any immediate authâ—rity challenged by her of obliging the Consciâ—nces of Men. § 91. Where That though none of these things could be charged on her by the Sects that have left her as they are by Her on the Church of Rome left by Her yet still by her example as also by these Tenents of hers the Sects though agreeing with her in these may think themselves at liberty to depart from her for other things wherein to them she seems faulty or defective as She for this cause did depart from her Superiours His Replies contending that his Principles afford a just and sufficient Means of remedying Sects considered § 93. Where That the Recommending of Humility Obedience and a due Submission to our Spiritual Pastors and the not usurping of their Office c understood exclusively to submission of private mens judgment to them and to restraint of Liberty of Opinion or of contradiction as to any of the Church's Definitions and Doctrines in matters of Faith are no sufficient means of suppressing Heresies and Sects Yet That if Protestants would only admit this latter of not contradicting there could have been or can be no Reformations at any time against any such Doctrines of the former Church § 94. And That the Church's Authority of making Rules and Canons of Reforming any abuses in Practice or errours in Doctrine of inflicting Censures upon Offenders of Receiving into and Excluding out of the Church such persons which according to the laws of a Christian Society are to be taken in or shut out c. if not extending to Excluding Dissenters from her Doctrines and Definitions in matters of Faith is still deficient as to the same purpose § 100. c. Concerning the Consent said to be required from all her Clergy by the Church of England to her Articles of Religion § 104. Mr Chillingworths Proposal in this matter for procuring a general Vnity in Communion and Peace in the Church considered § 96. The vanity and uneffectiveness of it as to the End aimed at § 97. A Table of the Principall CONTENTS of the ANNOTATIONS THat Tradition qualified with the other Motives is a sufficiently certain Evidence Of the Infallibility of the Church as Divinely assisted Or Of the Canon of Scripture Or Of any other Divine Revelations testified by it to be such p. 85 94 97. That either Infallibility of the Church or of Scriptures may be the first thing believed from Tradition And either of these proved from the other as either is first known p. 123 133 169. The expression of a Moral Infallibility vindicated p. 94. And that as Moral Infallibility is applied to Tradition so not to Church-Infallibility as Divinely assisted Ib. That an Assent built only on a morally-infallible Evidence never comes to be more than morally infallible Or that an Assent never riseth higher than the Evidence p. 96. The several ways How in a Divine Faith an Infallible Assent is said to be yielded to Divine Revelation p. 87. On what account Church-Infallibility necessary notwithstanding the Certainty and self-evidence of Tradition And that Christians without this Church-Infallibility are no way certain or secure as to several necessary points of their Faith because not so clearly delivered or manifested as to all persons by Tradition p. 89 93 97 98 125. That all Necessary Points of Faith are not clear in Scripture to all capacities without the assistance of their Guides p. 98. 170. The Text 2 Pet. 3.16 considered p. 173. The Testimony * of S. Austin De Doctrina Christiana l. 2. c. 9. p. 195. And * of S. Chrysostome in 2 Thess Hom. 3. concerning Clearness of Scripture considered p. 233. That several other Means of understanding Scripture void not the Directions and Decisions herein of Church-Guides where either the other means cannot be used by Secular Persons of manual emploiments or used leave the sense of Scripture still ambiguous to meaner Capacities And that the more certain such other means are the more they assure us of the Church-Guides their not erring herein p. 179. That the Canons of Councils do clearlier decide some necessary points controverted than the Text of Scripture and so effect a greater union of Doctrine in a Society submitting to them than is among those submitting only to Scripture p. 133. That Positive Laws besides the Law of Nature were from the Beginning in Gods Church and the Church-Guides then as to necessaries infallible p. 91 124. That under Moses's Law the people were enjoined Submission of Judgment to the Decisions of an Ecclesiastical Judge p. 113. That from Private Men's when using a right endeavour the Argument holds to the Church-Guides if using the like their not erring or being deceived in Necessaries but is not extended so far as that therefore they are infallible in another sense also viz so as that they cannot deceive others in mis-teaching them in Necessaries p. 136. That the Exercise of private men's judgments in all things is allowed but its erring or the non-submittance of it to another where due not therefore excused And that the charging Christians to beware of false Prophets seducers false Guides c. still fixeth them more closely to the true p. 138. That Persons consulting their Guides concerning the Sense of the Rule
without their using such help and not that they are in all these clear CHAP. III. Concerning the Duty of Obedience and submission of Judgment from the Church's Subjects to the Definitions of the Church-Governors in Divine matters and in these the more the more they are Necessary § 19 III. N. O. advanceth yet further against the former Principle That the Church's Subjects have an Obligation of Obedience and submission of Judgment in matters of necessary Faith to their Ecclesiastical Superiors and that considering both the special Ordination and Commission of these persons from Christ for teaching to the World the Truths necessary to Salvation and his charging others to obey them and also their own ignorance and their Superiours study and Learning in such things divine they therefore ought to depend upon and adhere to their directions so much the more in any point of Faith by how much it is esteemed more necessary as wherein there is a much greater hazard if they should err § 20 To this purpose N.O. urgeth Eph. 4.11 c. ‖ See 1 Con. 12.28 That our Lord hath given as Apostles and Prophets so Pastours and Doctors for the consummation of the Saints for the Work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ surely this in necessaries to their Salvation untill all meet into the unity of faith into a perfect man That henceforth they may not be as children waved and carried about with every wind of Doctrine in the wickednes and craftines of men to the circumvention of Errour Where the Apostle naming the Designe of this Divine Constitution of these Persons to be perfecting of men in the unity of the Faith it would be too much violence Used upon the Text to limit such an Institution only to a Guidance in non-Necessaries to Salvation upon the account of Necessaries sufficiently clear to all men i.e. using a right endeavour to understand them in the Scriptures § 21 Again N.O. urgeth 2 Pet. 3.16 Where S. Peter observes that in his time some persons for any thing we know diligent enough yet through want of learning and the instability of not adhering to their Guides being unlearned saith he and unstable depraved some places of Scripture hard to be understood to their own destruction which shews also these Scriptures hard to be understood in points necessary else how their destruction follow their erring and shews their erring in these also not to be only for want of diligence or Devotion or from their proverseness or folly where the Dr. in his Answer ‖ p. 190. to this Text for the rest he passeth by would chiefly place the reason thereof but for their want of learning saith the Apostle and of stability i.e. in adhering to their true Guides and as the Dr. grants for want of Judgment which care and diligence cannot alwaies supply Urgeth also the Apostles Precept Heb. 13.17 of obeying our Prelates and submitting to them as those who watch over and must render an account of our souls and ver 7 9. of following their faith and not being carried about with diverse and strange doctrines which obedience and following their faith surely is not intended only as to non-necessaries and urgeth our Lords Command also fi non audierit Ecclesiam that he who in matters of controversy did not stand to the determination and sentence of the Church should be held as an Heathen and a Publican § 22 N. O. adds That under the Law also were appointed Judges beside the letter of it Consid p. 25 which was not penned with such clarity but that doubts and controversies might arise concerning the sense doubts saith the Text not only between blood and blood stroke and stroke c. but also between law and commandement statute and judgment ‖ 2 Chron. 19.6 seeming to gain-say one another which doubts arising their addresses were to be made to these Judges and whatever their sentence was according to the sentence of the law that these should teach them and according to the judgment that they should tel and inform them they were to do and that upon pain of death To do according to such sentence not only to acquiesce in and yield some kind of external submission to their determination and sentence so as men do to these of secular Courts as to non-resistance and the undergoing such mulcts or punishments as were imposed on them without being obliged meanwhile at all to assent to or believe the truth of that which they determine or consequently act alwaies according to it as thought iust and lawful an answer the Dr. gives in his Rational Account ‖ p. 239. and to which in his late Reply he refers †p. 116. N.O. who had before perused and remained unsatisfied with it made as by him so by Chillingworth and other Protestants but as N.O. expresly cautioned ‖ p. 25. against any such answer to do according to such sentence when they were enjoined the observance of some law that was formerly misunderstood by them and so broken and disobeyed Where none can can be obliged to do a thing as the Jews were by those Judges but is by the same decree obliged to assent and believe the doing it lawful And that this seemed clear enough from the words of the Text for who can reasonably interpret them thus Thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee to the right hand or to the left ver 11. that is Thou shalt not decline in not paying the mulct in which they shall fine thee or not undergoing the corporal punishment they shall inflict on thee Thou shalt observe to do according to all that they shall inform thee and according to the sentence of the law that they shall teach thee ver 10. that is thou shalt suffer what they impose but not obey what they enjoin Again that they were to do according to such sentence upon pain of death not then only when the Litigants do acknowledge their sentence to be juxta legem Dei conformable to God's law for then what sentence of the Judge would stand good but so often as the Judge should declare it to be conformable to God's law And when will a Judge declare his sentence to be otherwise Lastly that if such an obedience as this were now performed to supreme Ecclesiastical Governours and Judges under the Gospel more would not be desired § 23 Thus the Considerations And the Reader may here seriously consider Whether If out of the Gospel were produced in expresse words the like command concerning our Ecclesiastical Governors in Relation to it Namely If there arise a matter too hard for thee c. in the Scriptures of the Gospel thou shalt come to them and they shall shew thee the sentence of Judgment And thou shalt do according to the sentence which they shall shew thee Thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee Thou shalt not decline from
these Church-Governours may rightly understand all necessaries upon a sincere endeavour nor that a sincere endeavour is used by them How can he since that endeavour which may be used by any Mechanick he holds sufficient But is necessitated to pitch upon this That such Fraud and malice may be used by the Church-Governours even by General Councils that they shal teach and define to and for their Subjects and exact upon Anathema their assent to the contrary errour and that in matters necessary to what themselves believe and hence contends that a private man cannot safely adhere to their sentence or Decrees So that the Church's Infallibility he now controlls is not an Infallibility in not erring or in believing aright in necessaries here granted to the Church-Governours in like manner as to mechanicks but only their Infallibility in Teaching to others the same necessary things which they themselves believe and by their Infallibility here is meant not passively their not being deceived but actively their not deceiving and N. O. is required to prove the contrary Now I had thought the Infallibility of the Church or of General Councils he had quarrel'd with had been a non possibility in them of erring or not believing aright in some necessaries as he hath expressed himself heretofore frequently in his Rat. Account part 3. ch 1. treating Of the Infallibility of General Councils and according to his Description of it passively before in this Answer p. 80. Infallible is that which cannot be deceived where also he cashiers the Notion he is glad now to take up And Now it seems N. O. in proving these Governours their believing aright in necessaries hath lost his labour his discourse proceeding as the Dr. saith from a very false way of reasoning from believing to teaching and that the Teaching of a General Council in necessaries what it doth believe for of these General Councils there N. O. speaks who for this reason requires obedience and a submission of private men to their judgment in such necessaries is the only thing to be proved by N. O. To prove which a thing that seems of it self evident it is enough to say it hath that moral certainty in it which generally Church-Tradition is said to have viz. that so many such persons cannot conspire in such a matter viz. a necessary to salvation to falsify the truth against their own belief and conscience to all their Subjects and to Posterity with an Anathema to all Dissenters when themselves also are such And had it not here been much better for him if not out of charity or reverence to so Sacred Persons yet from the irrationality of such a defence to have passed over this Objection of N. O's as he hath done many other in silence But if a further proof yet be exacted of me I say that our Lord's Promises of their not erring in necessaries and the commands of our obeying what they teach do engage to us as to Necessaries their not teaching amisse as without which their teaching us right we have no security or benefit of their not-erring And so I leave these things to the Dr's Reflections § 39 Again N. O. further affirms p. 48. in the behalf of a prudent Obedience That whatever fallibility and liability to mistakes even in necessaries the Church Guides are Subject to Yet that there is much more hazard to the most of Christians their capacities being very little abstracting from the directions of a Guide their mean condition void of learning or Leisure and a thing uncertain also when they have used a due endeavour and this a prejudice of it not rightly used if they do not discern in these Scriptures the pointing out this Guide which saith S. Augustine the Scripture without any ambiguity doth demonstrate Contra Crescon l. 1. c. 33. and which repaired-to may demonstrate to them what else is necessary That there is much more hazard he saith in adhering to their own judgment excepting only this if any shall have a demonstrative certainty of his private opinion against his Guides than to that of their Guides though these fallible for whereas in following such Guides such persons may fall into some errours and perhaps some of them great ones in this latter way of following their own Apprehensions the unlearned may fall into a thousand and some of these much greater and grosser than any such Christian Society or Body of Clergy will ever maintain That God hath made no promise to preserve in truth those who desert his Guides to direct them nor to reward their diligence in other ways who live in disobedience Witness here the unhappy Socinians and so many gross Sects of late much more absurd in their tenents than those other who remain in a constant submission to the Ministry and Religion established by Authority in the Protestant Churches Consid p. 100. And that better it is in the erring also of these Guides that all erre their errours for so at least there will be some Vnity and Peace and for Inferiours so mis-led some excuse and in probability more verisimilitude in their mistakes than that every one should err a several and his own errour both to the utter ruine of Peace and a greater deviation from Truth Nay if from such Subjects could only be obtained in a liberty of their Opinion the obedience of silence and non contradiction thus would be secured the Peace of the Church and the Propagation of such Sects which must be either by Writing or Discourse prevented But as things stand here 1 from our own being assured by the Drs Principle of our rightly understanding and not erring in all necessaries and then we 2 from it rightly collecting that others who hold the contrary to us do err so and 3 then that such errour as in a necessary being judged not tolerable neither may this obedience of Silence be therein observed from these I say must needs break out daily many new Reformations all founding themselves upon the justness of the first and this a Reforming too not of themselves only but of so many others as they can perswade as it was in the first which all of them justify § 40 The things here the Dr. returns in shew of an Answer against the former Obedience so much pleaded by N. O. are delivered by him from p. 142. to p. 180. in several Propositions Where I find him saying p. 142. That God hath entrusted every man with a faculty of discerning Truth and falshood supposing that there were no persons in the world to direct or Guide him Which is willingly granted him in confidence that this will not take away all Submission of judgment to our Superiours or to persons more prudent § 41 Again p. 143. That this faculty is not taken away nor men forbidden the exercise of it in the choice of their Religion by any principle of the Christian Religion Which is granted also and yet a Religion being chosen by us it may well
presseth as the Church's Authority so yet further its Infallibility that is the Infallibility not of the Roman Church or of Pope as this Author will needs understand him though no such thing is once named in the Considerations but of the Church Catholick of the Catholick Church in her most Vniversal Councils and Courts that can be convened for deciding Controversies and for declaring the true sense of the Scriptures especially if these Councils and their Decrees have such a general acceptation with the Church Catholick diffusive as can be thought necessary to give us Its judgment at least as to a major part thereof And again Infallibility of such Councils not as to any Questions or Controversies whatever that may be proposed to them but of all such points as are any way necessary to salvation which necessity if any need to know it we are to learn from them And Necessary not as this word includes only those Articles without the explicite belief of which none can enter into Heaven but as it includes all those points also which either as to our belief or practice are highly beneficial thereto for in these also the right guidance of our Spiritual Pastors seems necessary and as is explained before § 2 c the Church also not undertaking as N. O. saith Consid p. 34. to end all manner of differences but so many wherein she findes on any side sufficient evidence of Tradition and for the gravity of the matter a necessity of decision The same Divine providence that preserves his Church perpetually Infallible in all things necessary to be determined disposing also that for all Necessaries there shall be a sufficient evidence of Tradition either of the Conclusion it self or its Principles § 50 Now for such Infallibility N.O. first presseth That the ordinary practice of General Councils Consid p. 40. which hath been constantly allowed and submitted to by the Church Catholick Diffusive necessarily inferrs their Infallibility viz. their inserting from time to time as they thought fit their Decisions in the Creeds and their Anathematizing Dissenters and the Church Diffusive afterward stiling such Dissenters Hereticks and opposers of the Faith That such assent and belief and submission of judgment if justly required by them Consid p. 32 inferrs such persons herein not liable to errour upon the Dr's own arguing For saith he ‖ Rat. Acc. p. 506. Where Councils challenge an internal Assent by vertue of their Decrees or because their Decrees are in themselves infallible there must be first proved an impossibility of errour in them before any can look on themselves as obliged to give it That Protestant's allowing only an External Obedience or Silence due to Councils fallible shews that Councils fallible can justly require no more and consequently that such Councils are infallible as do justly require more as did the four first Councils with the voluntary acknowledgment also and submission of the rest of the Body of the Catholick Church to such an Authority assumed by them That subordinate Councils when they have also sometimes stated matters of faith censured Hereticks and required assent to their Decrees yet did this still with relation to the same Infallibility residing in the General Body of Church-Governours and to their concurrence therein whilst they did not pass such Acta without consulting the Tradition and judgment of other Churches and especially of the Apostolick See § 51 That had there been no Divine Writings there must have been such a divinely-assisted Infallibility as for necessaries left in the Church-Guides Consid p. 38 for that without this the Christian would otherwise have been no stable or certain Religion at least as to many necessary points thereof so that all persons might have a right belief in them because that Tradition carries not with it a sufficient evidence as to all points of necessary faith especially as to all sorts of people several Controversies about Necessaries having been raised which have not been decided and ended by any then generally current Tradition Or the Clearness of Scripture supplyed this deficiency of Tradition as to the capacities of all the members of the Church without the convening Consultations of Councils who have cleared to their subjects the necessary Deductions from former Traditionals without which Deductions several most pernicious Heresies would have undermined the former Christian Faith that was in precedent times couched in more general Terms § 52 That Catholicks need not in arguing against Protestants who grant the Scriptures to be Gods Word Consid p 5. 7 to use any other testimony than that of these Scriptures for a sufficiently clear proof of such Infallibility residing in the Governours of the Church Which proofs out of Scripture every where obvious in Catholick Writers were by N.O. not thought so necessary to be produced where he made only some short Reflections on the Dr's Principles and not a set Discourse of Infallibility as this Author would misname it But since the Dr. so much misseth them though I cannot but wonder why he so earnestly calls for what N.O. hath not said whenas he so easily omits to speak to what he hath said he may find several of them put together in the first Discourse Concerning the Guide in Controversies § 7. c. and there vindicated also from the glosses put on them by this Authour in his Rational Account and may finde them mentioned also here below in the Annotation on p. 113. l. 15. And since the Doctor with other Protestants grants an Infallibility in Necessaries of the Church diffusive in all ages from our Lords Promise doubtless contained in some of these Texts I appeal to any after he hath read what is there alledged Whether such Promises in many of these Texts do not relate principally to the Infallibility of the Church-Governours And again Whether if the Common Reason of Christianity i.e. the Reason that is found in the major part thereof were to be consulted concerning the true sense of these Texts the major part of Christendome doth not and hath not believed Church-Infallibility at least in her General Councils established by them A sufficiently clear proof therefore of Church-Infallibility these Scriptures afford Consid p. 57 if that proof may be called so which by the most of the Christian World is taken to be so notwithstanding that a Party engaged by their Reformation in an apparent contrary interest do contradict it Or if whilst they deny a sufficient evidence of Church-Infallibility to be found in Scripture they would allow a sufficient evidence of Church-Authority established there to decide Ecclesiastical Controversies with obligation to External Obedience so it is that by this Authority they would be cast and silenced for the former if a much major part may be admitted as it ought to give law to the whole § 53 To this I may add that de facto the Dr. holds even the Church of Rome i.e. in its Councils and in the Pope as
evidence of our Senses then is to be preferred before that of Tradition concerning the Revelation hence it follows that so often as Tradition delivers God to have done any thing contrary to the evidence of our Senses as in the former Instance God's sending Angels that appeared to Lot and the men of Sodom to be Men so often the Tradition or Revelation is not to be credited for Divine or any Text in God's Word concerning this not to be taken in its literal as that Gen. 19 1. implying them to be Angels but in some figurative sense And is not this cum ratione or sensu if you will insanire And §. 62. n. 2. here may we not use the same words as this Author doth in his Roman Idolatry p. 540 against Transubstantiation against such a sense of the 19th chapter of Gen. that these to-Sense-appearing Men should be really Angels I desire to know saith he there how the Sense he means in the Eucharist concerning the Bread suppose we of Lot and the men of Sodom here concerning the Angels comes to be deceived supposing a Revelation contrary to it Viz. that those whom they saw to be Men were indeed Angels Doth God impose upon their senses at that time then he plainly deceives them Is it by telling them they ought to believe more than they see that they deny not but they desire only to believe according to their senses in what they do see as saith he in what they see to be bread that that is Bread so I in what they see to be Men that those are Men. c. Besides if this Revelation is to be believed by them against sense then either that revelation is conveyed immediately to their minds c or mediately by their senses which we affirm as in those words This is my Body saith he and I as in those words Gen. 19.1 And there came two Angels to Sodom If so then they are to believe this revelation by their senses and believing this revelation they are not to believe their senses which is an excellent way of making faith certain Try we the same arguing again §. 62. n. 3. in his Dispute against Transubstantiation Rat. Account p. 117 by this Instance That these Persons being seen to be Men the Divine Revelation was not to be so understood as that they were Angels There he pleads thus If this Principle be true here that the judgment of the senses suppose here of the men of Sodom that those persons they saw were really Men which he speaks of the Eucharist being really Bread was not to be relied â—n in matters which sense is capable of judging of it will be impossible for any one to give any satisfactory account of the grand foundations of Christian Faith For if we carefully examine the grounds of Christianity in Christian Religion we find the great appeal made to the judgment of Sense That which we have seen and heard and handled If then the judgment of Sense must not be taken in a proper object at due distance and in such a thing whorein all mens Senses are equally judges I pray tell me what assurance the Apostles could have or any from them of any Miracles which Christ wrought c. In things which are the continual objects of Sense if men are not bound to rely on the judgment of Sense you must say that our faculties are so made that they may be imposed upon in the proper objects of them and if so farewell all certainty not only in Religion but in all things else in the world And so all the rest of his discourse there if any please to view that place will pass as currently against understanding the Text in Genesis literally that those persons were Angels whom Lot and all the inhabitants of Sodom saw to be Men as against the General sense of Hoc est Corpus meun that that is Christs Body we see to be Bread or rather collect from the Accidents we see that it is so To what is said by N. O. in this matter §. 62. n. 3. I find no answer returned by him Nor can I imagine how he can shape any but by removing the Controversy from what is the evidence of Sense concerning the thing to what is the evidence of Tradition concerning the Revelation till which cleared against the truth of any such Revelation any evidence of or from Sense or seeming-Reason must be laid aside Several of the other things that are here pressed by N.O. for Infallibility are also by the Dr in his Answer passed-over in silence whether neglected by him for the slightness of them or avoided for the difficulty is left to the Reader 's judgment and some others spoken to with what successe is now to be weighed § 63 To that mentioned before § 51. of the necessity of a perpetuall Infallibility in the Church-Governors for preserving a stability and Certainty in the Christian faith especially supposing there had been no Scriptures as for some time there was not nor in every place the presence of an infallible Apostle or supposing the sense of them in several such points doubtfull he answers p. 124. to this purpose That mens Faith and Religion may be well grounded stable and certain either without Scriptures or Church-Infallibility viz. by vertue of common and Universal Tradition instancing in the Religion of the Patriarchs received by Tradition without any such Infallibility and in Christian's receiving the Scriptures or the Roman party maintaining Church-Infallibility upon Tradition as a sufficient ground thereof But N.O. speaks of a stability and certainty of the Christian Faith not as to some one of a few parts or points thereof which as instanced in by the Dr so are here willingly granted by N. O to receive a sufficient evidence and firmness from Tradition antecedently to any Infallibility of the Church for neither doth N.O. require Church-Infallibility for the proof or assurance of Church Infallibility but as to all the necessary parts and Credends thereof to the believing of which being not all of them especially as to all sorts of Christians delivered with the same evidence of Tradition as the Canon of Scriptures or Church-Infallibility are he affirms this Infallibility necessary for the establishing a certainty in their faith when such persons are left either without Scriptures or with Scriptures in such points of an ambiguous sense in which necessary matters surely it is necessary that all men believe aright though not that they have an infallible certainty that they do so Where as N. O. observes such an Infallibility signifies much Consid p. 54. for men's having a right and saving faith in all these matters proposed by the Church then when perhaps it may signify nothing as to their infallible assurance of that which it proposeth § 64 Again to the proof of Church-Infallibility from the practice Councils allowed and submitted to by the whole Church Catholick diffusive in their requiring assent to their
to do any such thing if Plenaria Concilia taken in their highest capacity are in their stating matters of faith errable and amendable by others following Thus N. O to which the Reader may search what answer he finds returned by this Respondent in so copious a Reply § 76 Whatever the sense therefore of this place be of which see more in the Annotations on p. 255. l. 10. from the bott it cannot be understood of lawful General Councils amending one another as to any matters of necessary faith that such Councils when defining any thing to be by all Christians believed and assented-to when declaring Hereticks all that dissent and perhaps inserting such their Definition into the Creed yet may be amended afterward in this by other latter Councils For this would overthrow the old foundations of the Nicene and Athanasian Creed and whatever can be discovered of one such Council thus erring may well be applyed to any other This also would overthrow particularly S. Austins Veritas eliquata declarata And plenarium Concilium confirmavit consolidavit for Non-Rebaptization the chief if not the only Argument he useth for convincing the Donatist in this point whilst they might here plead somthing was still latens and clausum till more experience in a latter Council should open and disclose it and so must all before cited out of S. Austin be also reversed and all the former Heresies revive again which when pretending Scriptures for their Tenents have been quelled by the judgment of such Councils § 77 Whether then that by emendari is meant not as to dogmata fidei but in some other matters wherein the Highest Councils by being ignorant of some circumstances c are liable to errour Or that by Plenaria which seems the most probable are meant such Councils as were of the Arians many before S. Austin's time but these in several manners irregular and uncanorical that were amended by others following as by the 2d General Council of Constantinople and by that of Sardica as also S. Austin elsewhere particularly instanceth in that of Ariminum called a Plenary Council but wherein the Arian Party unjustly prevailed with the Emperour and falsifyed the sense of its Decrees amended afterward by the Councils and the Church's Judgment in the times following See lib. Contra Maximinum 3. c. 14. There Homousion saith he mult is paucorum fraude deceptis haeretica impietas sub Haeretico Imperatore labefactare caepit sed post non longum tempus liberate fidei Catholicae praevalente Homousion illud Catholicae fidei sanitate i.e. in the Constan inopoluan and Sardinican Council longè lateque defensum est defensum not against the Decree of a former plenary Council but the misinterpretation and tyranny of a minor but then prevalent Party in it sub Haeretico Imperatore I say in whichsoever of the forenamed wayes this passage may be understood as probably it is to be so in the latter this is certain that it cannot be understood of Lawful General Councils amending one another as to any matters of necessary Faith for the reasons but now given Besides the proving of nothing less to them than that Non-rebaptization was a truth could satisfy the Donatist or invalidate the judgment of the Affrican Council under Cyprian as to its determining the Truth The Dr also saying here that S. Austin urgeth this Plenaria priora posterioribus emendâ—ri to take off the great plea the Donatists made from the authority of S Cyprian and his Council which Council of Cyprian was not Plenariam ex universo orbe Christiano shews that S. Austin needed not for confuting them to take Plenatium in any higher-sense than that of S Cyprian's Whereas taking Plenaria in the largest sense and without any limitations will make nothing at all for the Father in his present controversy with the Donatist about Rebaptization Nay more against him For there were no two such Councils that were both General whereof the latter had amended the former concerning Rebaptization at all and had there the same uncertainty of truth would have been in the Decree of the latter as of the former and in this case the Donatist would not have failed to have taken the advantage of the former Council These things I hope the equal Reader will consider though the Dr hath not and will not admit such a sense of this place as if true contradicts what S. Austin saith so often elsewhere and quite ruines this Father's Plea and Cause § 78 Pag. 256.257 I find several places produced wherein S. Austin preferrs clear Scriptures before humane though never so learned authority varying from them but find in him no comparison or opposition between these and the Judgment of a General Council as running counter to one another How could this be when in the Controversy for which he urgeth Scripture he requireth the Donatists to submit to the exposition of the Council § 79 Ibid. He saith The utmost by a careful consideration of S. Austin's mind in this matter that I can find is that in a Question of so doubtful and obscure a nature as that of Rebaptization was it was a reasonable thing to presume that what the whole Christian world did consent in was the truth not upon the account of Infallibility but the reasonable supposition that all the Churches of the Christian World would not consent in a thing repugnant to any Apostolical doctrine or Tradition Consid p. 86 But N.O. presseth that S. Austin's mind was clearly otherwise not that it was only a reasonable thing to presume but a thing most certain that what the whole Christian world did consent in was the Truth as appears in those places cited before § 55. and. 71. else it could not be true what he saith Earundem Scripturarum etiam in hâc re i.e. in Non-rebaptization tenetur veritas cùm id facimus quod universae placuit Ecclesia if the Church may possibly decide it amiss And S. Austin's Siquis falli metuit hujus obscuritate quaestionis Ecclesiam de illâ consulat would no way relieve his being deceived still if the Church consulted might also be mistaken in it Nor especially such Article only upon a reasonable supposition that they erred not in it be inserted in the Creed Before that the Dr therefore should have concluded such to have been S. Austin's mind he should in answering these things alledged by N.O. have shewed such his mind to have agreed with his words § 80 Lastly he concludes thus p. 259 In such a case as this I agree to what S. Augustine saith and think a man very much relieved by following so evident a consent of the Vniversal Church not by vertue of any Infallibility but the unreasonableness of believing so many so wise so disinteressed persons should be deceived Though N.O. hath shewed S. Austin requiring submission of the Donatists upon the General Council's determining a most certain truth Yet this were somewhat well if this
Author or Protestants would generally stand to it that private men should follow such an evident consent of the Universal Church on this account viz the unreasonableness of the believing that so many so wise so disinteressed persons should be deceived But I am afraid the Dr if put to follow constantly such a consent will relieve himself here with a clause that lies dormant and which his Reader perhaps takes litle notice of viz. in such a case as this i.e. a case doubtful and difficult Yet one would think if we have reason to follow these wise men's judgment in things that are difficult and that have little evidence and light in Scripture as Rebaptization was much more have we reason to follow it in such things still as are more clear in Scripture since this is more incredible that so many so wise so disinteressed persons should be deceived in them Or that That is there clear to us which is not so to them but the contrary And so I take leave of the Dr's Answer to return again to the progress of N. O's Discourse CHAP. V. Concerning Sects and Heresies not suppressible without an Ecclesiastical Judge § 81 V. FIfthly N.O. much presseth against such Principle 1st that the remitting thus all manner of persons for the understanding of all points necessary to salvation Scripture as asserted clear therein only they using a due endeavour without requiring any submission of their judgment or of assent in such matters to the Definitions of the Church as pretended in these not infallible is a Plea no more justifying the Reformation and the dissent from superiors of the Church of England Consid p. 97 than that of any other Sect whatever even of those which the same Church of England most abhorrs For that all these Sects also for the Doctrines and Extravagancies they maintain and Discessions they make do equally appeal to the Clearness of the Infallible Scriptures in them sufficiently intelligible unto their sincere endeavours and decline as fallible all other Ecclesiastical Authority § 82 So Volkelius †Volkel de verâ Relig. l. 5. c. 7. pleads for the Socinians as the Dr for the Church of England Quae de fide in Christum statuenda sunt ex Sacris Literis patere And again Deus qui religionem Christianam usque ad mundi finem vigere voluit curavis etiam tale aliquid perpetuo extare unde ea quatenus omninò ad salutem est necessarium cognâ—sci indubitatè possit At nihil tale extare praeter Sacras Lateras Crell de uno Deo Patre in Praesat To the same purpose Crellius another Socinian saith Haec Sententia by which Christ's Divinity is denied plurimis ac clarissimis Sacrarum Literarum testimoniis nititur It is needless to cite more From whence is manifest That such Principles as here appear only in the defence of the Religion established in the Church of England make the same Apology also for all those other Protestant parties and for the most blasphemous Sects disclaimed by it Consid p. 98 The Dr in the mean while omitting that by which the former learned Defenders of his Church usually have justified it against them namely the Church of England's adhering to the Traditional Exposition and sense of Scripture received from the Primitive Church This I say he omitts perhaps because it may be thought to relish a little of Church-Infallibility § 83 2ly Neither doth such Principle leave any just and sufficient means in such Church as maintains it of suppressing any Sect Schism or Heresy Consid p. 98. By Sects here I do not mean any Parties that are of different opinions in matters not determined or stated on any side by the Church or those Ecclesiastical Superiors to whom they owe Obedience but such as dissent from and refuse conformity to her established Doctrines and Injunctions And by suppressing them I mean preserving the Church perpetually in its integrity and unity of faith by excluding all such if otherwise uncorrigible from her Communion and purging herself from such a leaven and contagion For which effect our Lord hath left a perpetual Authority to his Church in her General Councils equally taking upon her in all ages to judge what is Heresy or Schisme and who Sectaries and requiring a strict assent to her Definitions in matters of faith and removing such as do not so submit out of her Society by Excommunication according to our Lord's Si Ecclesiam non audicrit sit tibi sicat Ethnicus Tit. 3.10 and S. Paul's Haereticum hominem post unam fecundam correptionem devita 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Vtinam abscindantur qui vos conturbant Gal. 5.12 By which she preserves herself Vnam Sanctam Catholicam one Body and not only of one language by the silence and non-contradiction of any of her members but by assent also of one mind and one faith and without any rent or schisme all the Parts of this Body as hath been said before § 26. being placed in an exact subordination by which it is well known in any division and dissent of these Governours to whom Obedience is due By Obedience of Affâ—nt I say preserved of one mind for though a General Non Contradiction to any of the Church's professed doctrines may possibly procure the Church's peace and prevent the spreading and contagion of such Heresies and Sects where such an Obedience is strictly observed Yet 1st So long as no submission of Judgment is required Heresy is neither at all prevented in or ejected out of the Church if any of her Members be stained therwith but only silenced 2ly Where there is a dissent in Judgment it is almost impossible that none also shall appear in discourse or writings for out of the abundance of the heart the month will be speaking 3ly If the obedience of a Non-contradiction sufficiently secures the Church's Peace Yet Protestants upon their ground of Church-fallibility in Necessaries cannot Universally allow or admit such an obedience because so there could never have been any Reformation of such Church her Errours though never so grosse and fundamental where no lawful gainsaying or contradicting them either by Laicks or especially by the Clergy The Church then by requiring such submission of Judgment and removing dissenters preserves her subjects for ever not only of one Language but of one Mind in the common faith But according to this Principle of the Dr's which leaves all persons upon the securing them if using a just diligence they cannot err in necessaries to their own judgment as to their assent to or dissent from what the Church determines which Assent is maintained by him not to be justly required as to matters of Faith by any Judges save the infallible here can be no just excluding any dissenters from such Church's communion and so all Sects and opinions equally remain if they please in it Or in their separating one from another as an Vnion of Charity and
necessitated thereto for the reason given before Ibid. N. 7. Now if this Being of a true Church or a member of the Catholick be stated as it ought or as Dr Field l. 2. c. 2. and l. 4. c. 2. hath stated it it must be affirmed that these Churches being allowed members of the Catholick have hitherto never fallen into any Heresy N. 5 This Plea of N. O. I desire may be applied by the Reader to the Dr's Discourse so often as he questions such a sense of these Scriptures and Promises of our Lord or such a Tradition and that the Reader would well examine what satisfaction he finds from the Answers the Dr hath here returned to it Which former practice of Church and Councils if once allowed Chillingworâ—h ‖ p. 200. saw pressed so far for Church-Infallibility and a proportionable Obedience to it that as N. O. hath observed in his Preface he plainly declares That what warrant the Fathers of the Church in after times to the Apostles had to oblige others to receive their Declarations under pain of damnation which they did he knew not and that he that can shew either that the Câ—urch of all ages was to have this authority or that it continued in the Church for some ages and then expired this because some Protestants amongst whom this Dr would willingly submit to four or five of the first Councils for which yet Chillingworth could see no just reason why such Post-Apostolick Authority for some time admitted should not be so always he that can shew either of these things saith he let him for my part I cannot He goes on Yet I willingly confess the Judgment of a Council though not infallible yet so far directive and obliging that without apparent reasâ—n to the contrary it may be sin to reject it at least not to afford is an outward submission for publick peace sake Where the words though not infallible shew that he held the practice of former Councils disallowed by him clearly inferred Infallibility the thing N. O. urgeth Mean while whatever satisfaction he may find for either opinion here debated the Reader may observe that both from Scripture and Tradition N. O. contends for the Infallibility of General Councils in Necessaries and accordingly requires Submission of judgment to their Definitions the Dr opposeth it and the Reader hath also just cause to think there is some reason and interest in the two Religions of N. O. and of Dr St. and Mr Chillingworth for this defence made by the one and Opposition by the other and lastly any plebeian may discern what are the two necessary effects of the submission of private mens judgments to General Councils as such or withdrawing it from them as not such viz. Vnity and Division Pag. 113. l. 19. How easily might all the contentions of the Christian world have been prevented if Christ had said c. We must not prescribe to God but humbly leave to him the way how he shall be pleased to manifeâ—t his Will to us sure to be one way or other sufficiently made known by the clearness of his Scriptures 1 Cor. 11.19 or expositions of his Church For also Oportet esse haereses ut qui probati sum manifesti fiant Would not the Creed of Pius 4. or the 39. Articles of the Church of England delivered by our Lord or his Apostles have prevented many Controversies now extant See in the former Discourse § 1. Pag. 115. l. 5 If this point viz. of an infallible Judge be not clearly proved we are never the nearer an end of controversies c. Yes If such an unappealable Judge be proved as none may oppose or reform against Ib. l. 18. Let them if they can produce one clear Text c. I referr to the Texts forementioned ‖ Note on p. 113. l. 14. numb 4. interpreted by the common practice of Councils and of the Church in all ages grounded upon the traditive understanding them in such a sâ—nse Annotations on his §. 7. The Arguments from Scripture for Infallibility PAg. 116. l. 1. When I came thus prepared to find whâ—t the Considerator would produce in a matter of such consequence I soâ—n discerned how little mind he had c. N. O. â—s not obliged to say every thing in every place This Author will needs transform N. O's brief Considerations on his Principles into a set Discourse of Infallibility and then shew its Defectiveness as such One would think if he had not the reputation of a learned man done on purpose to divert his Reader from any other matters that are debated there by N. O and to release himself from prosecuting the necessary vindication of his own Principles from the several deficiencies charged on them in the Considerations Ib. l. 10. But however this Deut 17.10 is thought so considerable as to be twice produced Upon our Authors mentioning the clearness of Gods Law given to Moses N. O. mentioned these Judges also appointed to expound it and the one is twice repeated because the other twice urged Ib. l. 13. It is so unlucky as it proves the Judges in Westminster Hall to be infallible Of this Comparison of the Sanhedrim to the Judges in Westminster Hall and how the great causes between Church and Church are fit to be handled there ‖ See his Epist Dedicatory let our Author if he can give a just account These Judges were appointed by God to decide the true Sense of the Law not of Princes but of God given to Moses and all persons obliged to acquiesce in the sense they gave of it and to do and forbear to practise as they fallible or infallible stated such matter to be commanded or prohibited by it and that upon pain of death This Obedience let Protestants yield to lawful General Councils more is not desired Ib. l. 11 Doth this imply infallibility No that he dares not stand to but absolute obedience I think the Dr grants here the people yielded absolute obedience to these Judges i. e I suppose assent to their sentence deciding to them what was the true sense of Gods Law which is all N. O. presseth and indeed unless they first yielding this the people could not lawfully act whatever these Judges commanded Do the people then the same to the Judges in Westminster i.e. hold themselves obliged to do whatever these tell them is lawful or commanded I mean by God's law Let him review here what he hath said in his Rational Account if he pleaseth p. 239. to the contrary allowing an obligation to submission or acquiescence but not an obligation in conscience and if he please too that which Mr Chillingworth ‖ c. 2. §. 17. hath observed of the difference between a Civil and Ecclesiastical Judge Viz. that in civil controversies we are obliged only to external passive obedience and not to an internal and active We are bound to obey the sentence of the Judge or not to resist it but not always
dissent from which he can justly anathematize Angel or Man and none may anathematize another for his dissent not receiving or for his not believing any thing of the truth whereof he himself is not certain much lesse if he doth not so much as hold himself so which latter will make the fault the greater Unless perhaps such were the supreme and unappealable Ecclesiastical Judge and knew that none other could be in such matter certain of the contrary But this I grant that who is certain and infallible in some things may not be so in all neither do I contend for an universal Infallibility even of General Councils in all things whatsoever but in all that are any way necessary to be determined See Note on p. 104. l. 15. Pag. l. 130. l. 7. Let the Reader now judge in his Conscience c. What thing is there more publick in the Church's Tradition and of which there hath been a more remarkable Testimony in all ages than of the repairing where the Ecclesiastical affaires required or times permitted it following the precedent of Acts 15. to General Councils or those some way equivalent for deciding the more important Controversies in Religion that disturbed the Church and than of these Councils when met their requiring a belief and assent from all Christians to their Definitions and this assent accordingly yielded by the Vniversal Church which inferrs also a General belief and acknowledgment of their Infallibility And Councils are as well known for thus deciding controversies in the Church as he saith the Judges are for trying causes in Westminster-Hall Ib. l. 7 I challenge him to produce any one age wherein the infallibility of a standing Judge of Controversies appointed by Christ hath been received by as universal a consent as the authority of Scripture Review the last Note 1 This standing Infallible Judge are affirmed to be Lawful General Councils Which though as being a Court consisting of many it is not at all times actually assembled and sitting Yet the Members of this supreme Ecclesiastical Court are alwaies existent and in being and retain their Authority from Christ for judging matters of Faith equally whether conjoined or distant in place from one another And when happens no conveniency of assembling such a General Council the Consent of the Body of the Catholick Clergy manifesting a concurrence in their judgment whether by several Provincial Councils or by any one that is generally approved Or whether by Communicatory and Synodical Letters or whether appearing in a general accord in their publick Writings Catechismes and Explications of the Christian Doctrine I say such Consent is equivalent to a General Council The Decrees also and Definitions of former General Councils are always standing in force and the execution of them committed to the care of the present Church-Governours This of the standing Judge 2 As for the Infallibility thereof the Vniversal consent of the Church hath admitted as the Authority and Infallibility of Scriptures so of Councils as to their defining points of necessary faith as hath been shewed before Note on p. 113. l. 14. 3 But in the 3d place it is not necessary that every point of Faith to have a sufficient Attestation or Evidence from Tradition have it as ample and Universal as some other point hath no more than it is for a just ratifying of the Canon of Scripture that all points of it be shewed to have alwaies had as General an Acceptation as any other Or that the Definitions of Chalcedon equall in this those of Nice Pag. 131. l. 5. The Infallibility of a standing Judge is utterly denied by one side and vehemently disputed between several parties on the other Not the infallibility of General Councils in all necessaries disputed save only by some Protestants agreed in by all the rest whether Eastern or Western Church And if the Common Reason or Body of Christianity were to decide this contest between N. O and Dr St Dr St. would be cast Pag. 132. l. 15. If the Infallibility of the Church be as liable to doubts and disputes as that of the Scriptures it is against all just laws of reasoning to make use of the Church's infallibility to prove the Scripture by It is true that the Infallibility of the Scripture cannot be proved from Infallibility of the Church to any that doubts as much of this as of the other till this proof is also proved to them But then it is true too that a Neophyte may first be taught from Tradition the Infallibility of the Church and from this so made known to him have the Infallibility of the Canon of Scripture proved to him as this Church hath in her Councils declared and delivered it for which Church it were to no end to define the Canon if the Canon thereby received no more certainty as to any Christian than formerly Ib. l. 3 N.O. turns my words quite to another meaning In the meaning the Dr now explains his words the sense of the latter part of this Principle which I leave the Reader to compare seems coincident with the former and so is granted to him Princip 17 as the former is And if N.O. not imagining such a reduplication mistook the Drs sense here from what he found him to say in another place ‖ Rat. Accountâ—p 512 the discourse is still pertinent if not to this to the other place and N.O. hath not lost his labour Pag. 133. l. 13. Men can have no certainty of faith that this was a General Couneil that it pâ—ssed such decrees that it proceeded lawfully in passing them and that this is the certain meaning of them all which are necessary in order to the believing those decrees to be infallible with such a faith as they call divine Christians have a sufficient certainty as to all the former particulars that the Council of Nice for example hath delivered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the true sense of the Scriptures which Sense of Scripture we believe with a divine faith and this divine faith relies on the word of God as thus expounded by this Council The same to which therefore may be said as to other points and other Councils Ib. l. 3 But I expresly mention such decrees as are purposely framed in general terms and with ambiguous expressions His words in Rat. Account are Suppose saith he p. 510. we should grant that you might in general be certain of the Infallibility of General Councils when we come to instance in any one of them you can have no certainty of faith as to the infallibility of the decrees of it For you can have no such certainty 1 that this waâ— a lawful General Council 2 that it passed such decrees 3 that it proceeded lawfully in passing them and 4 that this is the certain meaning of them Then examining these four particulars coming to the 4th he proceeds thus 4ly Saith he Suppose men could be assured of the proceedings of the Council yet what
in not erring or in believing aright in necessaries here granted to the Church Governours in like manner as to Mechanicks but only their Infallibility in Teaching to others the same necessary things which they themselves believe and by their Infallibility here is meant not passively their not being deceived but actively their not deceiving And that N. O in proving these Church-Governours their believing aright in necessaries hath lost his labour his discourse proceeding as the Dr saith from a very false way of reasoning from believing to teaching To which that I may not be here further tedious in repeating the same things I desire the Reader to review what hath been said to this in the former Discourse § 38. p. 26. Ib. l. 9. Urged as N. O's arguing If God will not be wanting to particular persons in matters necessary to their salvation much less will he be wanting to the Guides of the Church in all matters of faith N.O. inferrs or urgeth no such thing But this is justly inferred Not wanting to the Church Guides in all Necessary matters of faith See note on p. 104. l. 15. Meanwhile from what motive thinks this Author comes that profession of Dr Hammond concerning all matters of faith ‖ Of Heresy §. 14. n. 6. We do not believe that any General Council truly such ever did or shall err in any matter of faith he means in defining it And that of Bishop Bramhal †Vindic. e. 2. p. 9. We are most ready in all our differences to stand to the judgment of a free General Council Ib. l. 5 He goes on No certainly unless it be proved that their guidance is the only means whereby men can understand what is necessary to salvation The following words infer the guidance of Church Governors need to be no means of this at all God having as he saith in the following words provided otherwise for that by giving so clear a Rule in matters necessary that no man who sincerely endeavours to know such things shall fail therein Unless he means the Rule to be clear so as that it needs an Expositor But then should not he say so obscure rather i.e. as to some things and call for a sincere endeavour in private men to learn the sense of it from their Guides and that they may have the more confidence in their guidance should not he tell them with N.O. at least that Scriptures that are so clear to them rude and unlearned cannot but be so to their Guides more versed and studied in them Pag. 142. l. 13. Besides that no man that is acquainted with the proceedings of the Council of Trent will see reason to be over-confident of the sincerity of Councils so palpably influenced by the Court of Rome The sincerity and just proceedings of the Council of Trent are ill learnt from such persons of a contrary interest If all Bishops rightly have an influence on Councils much more ought the Prime Patriarch and other Bishops that assist him Annotations on §. 10. Of the Authority of the Guides of the Church PAg. 142. l. 4 God hath entrusted every man with a faculty of discerning truth and fashood supposing that there were no persons in the world to direct or guide him The Reader may be pleased to review the brief Replyes made to what the Dr urgeth here till his page 150 in the preceding Discourse from § 40. to 47. With a faculty of discerning truth and falshood Meaneth he so as every one to be able to discerne truth from falshood in every thing without any Guide or instructer This is denied In such indefinite terms lies great ambiguity and deceit Pag. 143. l. 13 I hope no one will deny this Nor N.O. doth not In some truths and falshoods more easy ones own judgment or reason may be sufficient in others harder not as put the case in his judging of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Articles of the Trinity Pag. 144. l. 9. All which were to no purpose at all if men were not to continue the exercise of their own judgments about these matters viz matters of Religion Exercise of private mens judgments in all things General Councils Church-Governours N. O allow For this also is an act of our judgment when by it rightly used we find it our duty to submit these our judgments or the particular reasons we have for or against such a point in Religion to the judgment of our Canonical Superiours in such matters as are defined by them and not clear to us Ib. l. 11. Accordingly we find the Apostles appealing to the judgments of private and fallible persons concerning what they said to them It is true All may search all things and welcome For all Truths among right searchers bear witness one to another And after such search if rightly made they may disobey or dissent from the contrary doctrine of an Apostle Yet this also is true that whenever they shall so dissenâ— such judgment is not rightly made which the more it is used rightly the more is one confirmed in the doctrine of our Lord and his Apostles and so of General Councils And in all matters not otherwise clear to them this judgment rightly used will still direct them to obedience of their right and Canonical Pastors But by this bidding the people search and try our Lord or his Apostles secured none if after 〈◊〉 used they either dissented from their doctrine or disobeyed 〈◊〉 commands because in a right judgment made of thâ—◠〈…〉 could not do so And therefore the Apostles commanded 〈…〉 persons as supposing these two things belief of their 〈…〉 and the Vse of ones Judgment well consisting together 〈…〉 fast and firm in the doctrines delivered to them by theâ—◠〈…〉 and not to be carried away with every doctrine becauâ—◠〈…〉 Pastors appointed to guide them and to observe those 〈…〉 sed any Divisions among them contrary to the Doctrâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 and to reject any person heretical c. See Rom. 16. 〈…〉 11.2 Phil. 4.9 Heb. 13.7 1 Tim. 6.10 2 Tim. 3.10.14 Tit. 1.9 3.10 Eph. 4.11 13. Pag. 145. l. 10 They are frequently charged to beware of seducers and false Guides I add and frequently charged to follow their true and Canonical Church-Governours that they may not be misled by those false Guides See the Texts now quoted to which may be added Jude 4. here quoted by our Author Ib. l. 7 They are told that there should come a falling away c. All this more makes for a most close adherence especially of the more simple and less able to examine Controversies to their Canonical Superiours and for their rejecting the doctrines of those Spirits whom upon trial they find to oppose them Being assured from our Lords Promises of lawful General Councils the supreme Church-authority their never erring in things necessary Pag. 146. l. 9. Both shall fall into the ditch We have heard the Dr's plea hitherto Now is it any wonder that Sects so multiply in a
Church where such Pleas as these are permitted to be urged in such a sense as to set men at liberty from the submission of their judgment to the Decisions and definitions of General Councils upon pretence that there shall be many seducers and a falling away and departing from the Faith and upon pretence of Force and Fraud used in the most General Counci's that could be convened for many past Generations Which falling away and departing from the Faith c. why should they not be rather applied to these New Sects and former Heresies and from them be inferred a closer adherence and Obedience to their lawful Church Governours Ib. l. 8 The Apostles told them they had no dominion over their faith What not so far as to oblige them to obey and submit to their Apostolical Doctrine What not such dominion as S. Paul urged 1. Tim. 1.20 to the blasphemers of the Gospel and as he commanded Titus to use Tit. 3.10 Consider the Acts of the Apostolical Council Act. 15. But the Text speaks here of any unjust dominion or authority to treat the faithful as he pleased in punishing or mulcting those who walk uprightly in the faith to alter change censure any thing therein for his own profit or advantage See Dr Hammond on the place Ib. l. 4. No present Guides whatever names they go by ought to usurp such an authority over the minds of men which the Apostles themselves did not challenge although there were greater reason for men to yield up their minds wholly to their guidance If to yield up their minds be to submit their judgments were not Christians obliged in this to the very Apostles and their Doctrines See before Note on p. 144. l. 11. See we not the effects here of the Dr's 13th Principle in the people 's not needing Guides for understanding necessary Scriptures but meanwhile in the Scriptures being needful to them for trying by it their Guides Pag. 147. l. 7. Where there is a Rule for them the Church-Governours or Guides to proceed by there is a rule for others to judge of their proceedings If here He means by these others those who doubting of the true sense of the Rule repair to these Guides to learn from them the true sense of it which is only to the purpose that these are again to judge by the Rule doubted of whether the Guides have given the right sense what is this but that these are finally to determine the sense of the Rule for the determining of which they consult their Teachers As if the Consulters concerning the meaning of a Law when the Judge hath given them the sense of the Law should again by this Law examine the truth of the sense of the Judge and act finally according to their own not his sentence Ib. l. 13. Where the rule by which the Guides of the Church are to proceed hath determined nothing there we say the authority of the Guides is to be submitted unto For otherwise there would be nothing left wherein their authority could be shewn Doth not he say here the Church's Authority is to be submitted to in nothing but things left indifferent by the Scriptures Then it hath no authority in determining Controversies of faith but why then saith the 20th Article of the Church of England that the Church hath authority of expounding Scriptures in Controversies of faith and by what authority hath the Council of Nice determined Consubstantiation But so often as the sense of the Scriptures to any is doubtful may not the Scriptures here be said as to such persons to have deteâ—mined nothing and then are they not in these if in a Necessary point to repair to the determination of their Ecclesiastical Guides If so all will be well still and thus all come to submit to the sentence of the Judge but those who are certain before hand of the sense of their Rule Ib. l. 11 We plead for the Church is authority in indifferent Rites and Ceremonies But suppose the Question be whether such Rites and Ceremonies are indeed indifferent As they are taken by some not to be so because God will admit nothing into his worship but what himself hath first expresly commanded and prescribed What authority is to end this I say for such who hold some Ceremonie unlawful and repugnant to Scripture are they or the Church to judge of this unlawfulness and may the Church lawfully enjoin it and oblige them under excommunication to practise it Or will it not come at last according to these Principles that the Subjects not the Church are to decide the indifferency or non-indifferency of such Ceremonies Pag. 148. l. 7. Wee allow a very great authority to the Guides of the Catholick Church in the best times of Christianity And look upon the concurrent sense of Antiquity as an excellent means to understand the mind of Scripture in places otherwise doubtful and obscure In the best times of Christianity But do not you then in all times Or is not their authority the same in all times If various who is Judge of this their Subjects As an excellent means to understand c. This will not serve the turn it must be as an authorized Expositor of the true sense of Scriptures doubtful and obscure in Necessary matters to whose definitions all ought to submit not only to make use of their advice This Church-Tradition makes good this such Protestants as our Author oppose Ib. l. 13. We reject the ancient Heresies condemned in them But doth he acknowledge and reject all that as Heresy that hath been or shall be condemned by all lawful General Councils for such Ib. l. 11 We reject nothing that can be proved by an Vniversal Tradition from the Apostolical times downwards That can be proved But who shall judge of the proof where any thing is disputed whether it be Tradition Apostolick Our selves or the present Church-Governours Ib. l. 5 We see no reason to have those things forced upon us now which we offer to prove to be contrary to their the primitive times doctrine and practice Offer to prove To whom To any whose final judgment you will stand to Name them Shall it be to a General Council But this may err you say It erring shall it be to a Second But if one err so may all And who shall judge when It doth not err Demonstration shall decide it And who judge when it is a clear demonstration if any deny it to be so Pag. 149. l. 1. The Controversy is Whether the Guides of the Apostolical and Primitive times ought not to have greater authority over us than those of the present Church in things wherein they contradict each other Here again who shall judge this difference concerning their contradiction denied by Catholicks denied by the latter Councils of the Church that plead Tradition and their agreement with the former Ib. l. 8. But we profess to yield greater reverence and submission of mind to Christ and his Apostles than
find no command so plain in Scripture that we must believe the Guides of the Church in all they deliver as there is that we must not worship Images See the Scriptures declaring Church-Infallibility as to Necessaries and commanding obedience to it cited before in Note on p. 113. l. 14. The Scriptures that prohibit worshiping of Images do so of any Creature in heaven earth or under it but meane a Divine and Soveraign Worship of them not such a Worship as we say is lawfully given to Men or veneration as is given to Sacred Things Temples Altars Gospels c. He goes on Ib. l. 5. That we must pray with understanding Therefore are all publick Formes of Prayer that are thought necessary for the vulgar by Catholicks translated and published in the vulgar tongue and by those who can read communicated to others Ib. l. 6. That we must keep to our Saviours Institution of the Lords Supper Surely no Precept obligeth us to our Lords Institution or Practice in every thing not in communicating after Supper Sitting at table taking it into our hands washing of feet before it nor in communicating always in both kinds a thing sufficiently cleared by the practice of Antiquity and purest times which on several occasions and that where no absolute necessity gave it in one kind only believing our Lord's Body and Blood to be received in any one Species Now where a Divine Precept obligeth the contrary Practice in no time would be lawful The Eastern Churches also for the same reason as the West viz to prevent the many abuses and irreverences that have hapned since Christianity so exceedingly populous communicate the people not by their eating our Lord's Body and drinking his Blood apart but by giving them both these together taken out of the Chalice with a little Spoon and so putting it into their mouths and think herein they transgress no Precept So Jo. 6.53 is not understood as a precept extending to all for so it would to Infants Nor that Jo. 13.14 Or Jam. 5.14.15 Or Matt. 6.17 5.34 and such like Ib. l. 7. But if any Guides of a Church pretend to an authority to evacuate the force of these the Divine Laws c. Evacuate i.e. in the sense you take them in standing to no certain Judge concerning this sense Ib. l. 15. If they require things contrary to a direct command of God Contrary i.e. in your mistaken private judgment Ib. l. 18. If they the Guides can prove us mistaken we yield No surely Your own soberest Writers say you are to obey and submit your judgment to that of your Guides except you can prove and that demonstratively and that demonstration such as is allowed by all rational persons them to be mistaken Ib. l. 8 I would gladly know whether there be not some points of faith and some parts of our duty so plain that no Church authority determining the contrary ought to be obeyed And will not then those also be so plain as that no Church-Authority will determine the contrary This granted then that there are points of faith so plain yet it is contended that none wherein General Councils require our obedience are contradictory to any such plain point of faith How can that be maintained by any a plain truth to the common reason of mankind which a General Council and a major part of the Church accepting this Council denies as false And if it be said that passions and interests blind men we ought to imagine they do so private men or our selves sooner than General Councils In this 7th Proposition p. 149. what hath our Author said in defence of his Religion against Church-Authority that a Socinian or Arian may not say for his Pag. 152. l. 12. These Guides of the Church have declared each other to be fallible by condemning their opinions and practices Lawful General Councils have not condemned the opinions of one another And what former Councils have been held for lawfully General where any doubt is made it is fit private men should learne from their present supreme Ecclesiastical Guides Those Councils urged for this contradiction by Protestants are either Particular against General Councils or Councils stiled General that are not allowed to be so by the judgment of the present Church Catholick Or those definitions of them to contradict which do not in the foresaid judgment or opinions commonly-received only in some age urged for such defined Ib. l. 18. Suppose a man Living in the times of the prevalency of Arianisme when almost all the Guides of the Church declared in favour of it Arianisme at no time prevailed upon a greater part of the Church or its Governours That of S. Jerome Ingemuit totus orbis miratus est se esse Arianum only signifies that the whole Catholick world wondred that its Decree which passed in the great Council at Ariminum was interpreted by the Arian party which was favoured by the Emperour quite contrary to its meaning Doth the Dr as yet doubt of this He goes on Ib. l. ult Must he adhere to the Nicene Council but there were more numerous Councils which condemned it Yes he must Because those Arian Councils if any more numerous for the Bishops that were present in them Whereas there were but a very few of the Western Bishops present in the Council of Nice yet had not so general an acceptation especially in the Occidental Churches As for any illiterate vulgar that have not a sufficient means of distinguishing lawful General Councils from others not so that contradict them they are excused by their invincible ignorance till further light for any non-conformity to their Decrees And generally where any dispute concerning the authority of a Council is private men may so long suspend their obedience to their decrees till a sufficiently general acceptation or reprobation of such Councils by the Church-Governours and the Bishop of the Apostolick See of the same or the succeeding times have cleared such difficulty But such a general Acceptation and confirmation of this Council of Nice was manifest immediately after the sitting thereof And of this those who made any doubt ought to have informed themselves better But meanwhile by this Question doth not this Authour fairly free a Socinian from any obedience due to the decree of the Nicene Council concerning Consubstantiality Pag. 153. l. 4. Liberius went so far that Hilary denounced an Anathema against him N. 1 and all that joined with him The Relation in which this passage is found is none of S. Hilary's See thereasons given by Baronius A. D. 357. The Historians of those times differ in their Records concerning Liberius some speaking more favourable of him than others The Syrmian Confession subscribed by him may be taken in an orthodox sense and it is justified as such by S. Hilary ‖ De Synod And if he communicated only with such a party as those called Semi-Arians who joined with him in this profession though understood by them in a sense
wicked doctrines Here what should I trouble my self or the Reader in debating this controversy concerning Honorius with the Dr whose cause the Reader may see pleaded very plausibly by Cardinal Bellarmine i. 4. de Romano Pontifice c. 12. as to this freedome from Heresy being condemned hereof after his death before any Council had defined this matter upon some words of his which compared with others are capable of a sound meaning as arguing not against two but two contrary or repugnant Wills of our Lord and whenas there is some matter of fact in which may be mistakes contained in the Council's thus declaring him an heretick which thing occurs not in the declaring of Heresy I say what need I review this debate wherein the Dr only contends that is which the common opinion among Catholicks grants may be See Bellarm. de Rom. Pont. l. 2. c. 30. § Resp Sunt Pighius contendit Papam non posse esse Haereticum proinde nec deponi in ullo casu qua sententia probabilis est facilè defendi potest tamen non est certa communis opinio est in contrarium Where he quotes also the Canon Si Papa Distinct 40. Papa a nemine judicandus nisi deprehendatur a fide devius Pag. 167. l. 4. Pope Agatho did himself consent to the condemnation of Honorius Suppose this be granted why may not a Pope and a General Council judge a Pope See for this again Bellarm. de Concil l. 2. c. 19. Potest Concilium discutere causam Pontificis si inveniat reverâ esse infidelem potest declarare eum esse extra Ecclesiam sic damnare And the same he saith If the Council should discover him an Heretick De Conc. l. 1. c. 9. Quarta causa celebrandi Generalis Concilii est suspicio Haresis in Romano Pontifice c. Pag. 168. l. 19. The greatest strength he adds to Baronius is only saying without doubt it is so Let the Reader view Bellarmin de Rom. Pont. l. 4. c. 11. whether this hath not more drollery in it than Truth Pag. 170. l. 18. I desire therefore again to know whether he was rightly condemned or not Suppose I answer rightly what then Then the Pope is not infallible And what then What is this to N. O or his Considerations Ib. l. 8 In either case there was no Infallibility in the Guides Yes in one case if Honorius rightly condemned there was Infallibility in the Pope and Council Pag. 171. l. 8. The ingenuous concession of Mr White A great friend to Popes But by this he sees there are that confess Popes liable to Heresy Ib. l. 6. Councils against Councils Not lawful General Councils one against another Ib. l. 4 Church again Church especially after the Breach between the Greek and the Roman Not one of these Churches against the other in most of those things for which the Reformation hath left the Roman But supposing in some points they be so the Infallibility we contend for here as requiring our Obedience is only that of a General Council joined with and confirmed by the Bishop of the See Apostolick In the intervals of which Councils to matters clearly determined formerly by them the present Church Governours if no way supposed infallible may exact from the Church's subjects such an assent as the Councils have required Or in new Controversies arising and not formerly determined by any such Councils yet may justly impose silence till such Controversy shal be so decided Ib. l. 2 But a man who is bound to rely only on the authority of his Guides must suppose them to be agreed and in case of difference among them he must first chuse his Religion and by that his Guide bound to rely only Who saith it He may rely on the Holy Scripture very safely in all points whereever it is clear but in his application to it when he meets with Scriptures the sense whereof is ambiguous to him as surely either it is or should be in case he sees a major part of the Church or of Christianity to differ from him in the sense of it he is to rely on his Guides And next in any difference among them he is not presently left to our Author's way to chuse his Religion or his opinion first and by that his Guides as they sit it for so in some places that our Author knows there is scarce any opinion so gross but some Guides may be found complying with it But in these Guide's differing and their just authority consisting in a most exact Subordination he is to rely on the Superiour as in England on a Provincial or National Synod rather than on the Rector of his Parish or a single Bishop and whereever its judgment can be had on the Supreme a lawful General Council confirmed by the Bishop of the See Apostolick Pag. 172. l. 8. Now the Question proposed is whether it be not fitter for me to submit to the Guides of the Catholick Church than to trust my own judgment I should make no scruple in all doubtful matters to resolve the affirmative supposing that all the Guides of the Catholick Church were agreed Will he submit his judgment then to lawful General Councils and the matters they have or shall agree in Since he hath great reason to doubt in all things where they judge contrary to his tenent He goes on Ib. l. ult For I should think it arrogance and presumptiâ—n in me to set up my own private opinion in opposition to the unanimous consent of all the Guides of the Catholick Church in such a case To the unanimous consent of all the Guides But will he submit to such a consent as hath been had in former lawful General Councils I mean such as in the four first for deciding Controversies viz. to that of a much major part For else if but one Bishop in the world shall oppose all the rest He is released from such his submission And 2ly Will he yield this for all matters whatever such Councils shall define For to repeat his words ought he not to think it arrogance and presumption in him to set up his own private opinion in opposition to such Councils in any thing for which they have the same evidence as himself And here observe also that in whatever times these Councils be held whether in the present or past ancient or latter times so as not contradicting one another in their definitions their Authority is exactly the same and so ought his Obedience to be and their Definitions also to be in all times after obliging those of Nice obliging now N. 1 Pag. 173. l. 5. We find the Christian world divided into very different Communions It is so But the forementioned ‖ Note on p. 172. l. 2. subordination of Church-Governours is still to be observed And our obedience in any clashing of these Church-Governours in several parts to be performed to the Superiours As for example The African Bishops and their Councils
For the Bishop and Clergy of Rome we owe none to them Nor none is required save to the Roman Bishop as S. Peter's Successour and Supreme Pastor of the Church and Patriarch of the Weâ—â— more as to any submission of the Metropolitan English to the Metropolitan Roman Church these being co-ordinate 〈◊〉 not desired Ib. l. 7 We are not to submit to those who are lawful Guides in alâ— things they may require Yes To submit to all their Definitions if they Supreme Yes though they fallible yet to submit in all things where we not certain say learned Protestants Pag. 180. l. 9. So my adversary N. O. in his Preface saith that by the principles we hold we excuse and justify all Sects which have or shall separate from our Church By the Principles we hold i.e. by the Dr's and some other's Principles the followers of Chillingworth Excuse and justify Sects N. O. saith not that you excuse or justify them in every thing but in this one thing that every one of them may undertake to be his own Guide in Necessaries upon such a Principle as the Dr's 13th since the sense of Scripture in all these points is said to be so plain as none well endeavouring can mistake it and then for non-necessaries what need they seek for a Guide * Or that Since none owe submission of their judgment to * their Ecclesiastical Superiours every one may follow their own Or that if you may depart from your Superiours Persons or Councils upon just cause of which cause you say it is all reason that you not your Superiours judge then so may they from you upon any cause they also think just * Or that if there be no decisive Judge for differences between you and your Superiours to whom you can be obliged so neither is there for differences between them and you * and that as you appeale from your Ecclesiastical Superiours to Evidence of Scripture so seeming to you in your cause so may they from you in theirs Exemplified at large in the Socinian's Plea in the 4th Discourse concerning the Guide in Controversies Hence I say Sects take liberty in this Church I think contrary to the intention of the 4th and 5th Canon of the Synod 1603. to hold and believe what opinions they please though different from the Church of England's Articles since they think she cannot justly require an Assent from her Subjects which she denies to her Superiours In this thing it is that N. O. saith you seem to justify these Sects that daily fall from you upon such a mistaken Christian liberty from Obedience to their Guides who also observes ‖ p. 98. that Dr St's Principles that appear in the defence of the Religion established in the Church of England for any thing he sees make the same A pology also for all those other Protestant parties and Sects disclaimed by it But N. O. is far from saying that you excuse and justify these Sects in every thing they do or differ-in from you or that you do not dissent from them in many things very just on your side culpable on theirs which may be granted and the other thing still be true viz that Dr St's Principles make an equal Apology for all dividing Partyes as to several other their practices And therefore much of that He saith in the Consequents here to that purpose seems no way pertinent to N. O's Observation Ib. l. 12 We appeale to the doctrine and practice of the truly Catholick Church in the matters of difference between us and the Church of Rome Compare p. 182. l. 7. we are as ready as they to stand to the unanimous consent of Fathers and to Vincentius Lerinensis his Rules of Antiquity Vniversality and Consent we declare let the things in despute be proved to have been the practice of the Christian Church in all Ages we are ready to submit to them N. 1 1. First here by appealing and standing to the doctrine and practice of the Catholick Church doth He mean submission of his private judgment to the doctrines taught by it But what if the Catholick Church be fallible in such its doctrine as I think he saith it is see before § 7. p. 118. When I speak of Infallibility i.e. of the Catholick Church in fundamentals I there declare that I mean no more by it than that there shall be always a number of true Christians in the world And Protestants ordinarily affirm that in non-necessaries the whole Catholick Church of any age and consequently the unanimous consent of the Fatherâ— or Primitive times may err nor will they here allow the Church-Governours of any Age to be the Judges of the necessity or non-necessity of the doctrines they teach I say then what if the Catholick Church be fallible in such its Doctrine And next what if he should be Certain of the contrary as possibly he may How therefore he can rightly engage thus I see not Again in this truly Catholick Church to whose doctrine and practice he will submit doth he include all particular Christian at least Metropolitan Churches and so his own which there is no reason for if Heretical or Schismatical Churches be extra-Catholick And by the consent of these Churches doth he require an unanimous and universal consent of them all so that if any suppose his own do dissent he shall be disobliged But thus he makes sure work and may safely venture his submission upon these terms for if his own Church be but true to him or he to himself he shall not be cast And an Arian an Eutychian a Quaker and Heretick or Schismatick may safely make such an appeal Again by the doctrine of the true Catholick Church means he the Catholick Church of the present age which is the only now living Judge to be appealed-to and to decide any thing concerning former times if question be made about it Or means he not this but the Church of all ages past taken together and next means he the universal and unanimous consent of this Catholick Church also nemine contradicente As Bishop Tailour also elsewhere ‖ Dissuasive c. 1. p. 7. saith That it is impossible for the Roman Doctours to conclude from the sayings of Fathars their Doctrines to be the Catholick doctrin of the ancient Church Because saith he any number that is lesse than all doth not prove a Catholick Consent If the Dr then mean thus Here he is as safe or safer from being refuted than before and whereas he requires this consent also to be proved to him he that undertakes it would have a fine task For it is to be proved universally as to Persons Times Places none of any age left out well suting with Vincentius his Rule which therefore he saith he is content to follow and stand to Quod ab omnibus quod ubique qùod semper if it is to be so rigidly understood But as Dr Hammond notes upon this Rule ‖ Of Heresy §. 5. n. 8.
words there †are As all Articles of Faith are not by all persons learnt at once so neither by all exactly in the same order as is frequently observed by Catholick Writers A Christians faith therefore may begin i.e. in the order of his learning it either at the infallible authority of Scriptures or of the Church and this infallible authority of either of these be learnt from Tradition and that of the other from it Thus N.O. Concerning the Foundation of Faith I referr the Reader to the former Note on p. 84. l. ult Ib. l. 3 He often pleads for necessity of an external infallible Guide because God hath referred all in the dubious sense of Scripture to the direction of his Ministers their Spiritual Guides This is by N.O. given for the reason of another thing not infallibility where N.O. in answer to the Dr's 18th Principle saith in the immediate words preceding ‖ p. 46. Neither can such Promise viz. that whoso useth his best endeavour for understanding Scripture if meant exclusively to his consulting and embracing the Exposition of the Church either shall not err or not be damned for it be pretended necessary since God hath referred all men c. And here the Dr omits the vindicating of his Principle and applyes N. O's words to the proving of Infallibility Pag. 187. l. 9 Whilst the Scriptures are ambiguous c. N. O's words are whilst the Scriptures in such points at least to persons unlearned or of weaker judgments which are the greatest part of Christians are ambiguous which words are here left out by our Author Ib. l. 6 The force of all which comes to this that we can arrive at no certainty of the sense of Scripture in controverted places without an external infallible Guide and therefore we are bound to submit to him Nay comes to this that persons unlearned and of weaker judgments can arrive to no certainty of the sense of Scripture in some matters of necessary faith without an external Infallible Guide and therefore such a Guide is necessary Pag. 188. l. 1. Point to be Discussed What necessity there is for the Salvation of persons to have an infallible interpretation of controverted places of Scripture Salvation of persons he should add persons unlearned and of weaker capacitie and doubting of the sense of such places Of controverted places of Scripture He should add in points necessary of which N.O. every where speaks see his words but now quoted by himself whose Words one would think but that the Dr surely is a man of more integrity that he on purpose to make his Answers more plausible almost every where as to both these omitteth Now the necessity of such an infallible interpretation is this that such person may not err in such Necessaries Ib. l. 8. Men may attain a certain sense without an infallible Guide Here again want words Men all men the vnlearned those of weakest judgment employed in a secular vocation c. attain to a certain sense in all places of Scripture concerning Necessaries Ib. l. 13 1st We are to enquire into the necessity of such an infallible interpretation of doubtful places of Scripture Add in necessaries Pag. 189. l. 1. N.O. Must prove not that there are doubtful and controverted places which no one denies N. 1 but that the sense of Scripture is so doubtful and obscure in the things which are necessary to mens salvation that persons without an infallible Guide cannot know the meaning of them 1 Why it lies more upon N.O. to prove that the sense of Scripture is not clear as to some persons in some points necessary than on the Dr to prove that the Scripture is clear to them in all points necessary I see not since he affirms these plain to all N.O. denies it and Affirmers as he saith ‖ p. 193. ought to prove 2 Here what thinks He of several of the points of the Athanasian Creed urged by N. O much controverted in Antiquity and by the first Councils inserted in this Creed as thought necessary for mens salvation to be known Are the Scriptures so clear in all these as all capacities using an endeavour sutable to their vocations cannot mistake in them Then what thinks he of his own words Ration Account p. 58. urged by N.O. p. 63. and cited before in Note on p. 126. l. 2. The Deity of Christ and the Trinity are they not points necessary to be rightly believed for attaining Salvation And Doth not the guidance of the Church-Governours set over the Church by God Eph. 4.11.13 relate to Necessaries Or where the erring of the unlearned which always many Christians must be 2. Pet. 3.16 tends to mens destruction is not the knowing of the right sense necessary to their salvation What thinks he of the sense of Hoc est Corpus meum urged by N.O. p. 20 Is it clear on the Protestants side to all using a just endeavour when the much major part of Christianity and before Luther's time the whâ—le understands it in the contrary And if none of this world of men hath used a right endeavour how shall any be secure of such a right endeavour used by him that he may be confident in such clear Scripture he is not deceived Or is the true sense of this Text not necessary to be known where such a gross Idolatry is affirmed by our Author to be the necessary consequent of an erroneous sense But if he will restrain Necessaries to the Apostles Creed or perhaps only to three or four principal Articles thereof the pure nescience of which excludes from salvation then as he contends these are clear in Scripture so why will he not allow that General Councils are in these infallible and so the Church in Necessaries an Infallible Guide But then let him consider in any such restraint of necessaries yet whether there are not many other points at least so highly beneficial to salvation as that the Divine Providence is engaged to leave the truth of them also either clear to all sober enquirers in Scripture or to Guides that shall not err in expounding such Scriptures to the people Indeed after so much clamour against the pernicious doctrine of the Church of Rome our Author seems to have a hard task of it and also very unsutable to so much choler to maintain that none of the points agitated between it and Protestants is so necessary for attaining salvation at least with less difficulty to be believed on the Protestant side that God should either leave Scripture for it clear enough to the sober enquirer or else in the sense of Scripture doubtful some living Guide unerrably to determine it Or if he shall say God hath left Scriptures clear to all capacities well-endeavouring in all such points he seems to have as hard a task again to maintain this when the major part of Christianity reading these Scriptures do think against him the contrary to be clear in them But lastly if what He over-lavisheth
comprehension amended by the 2d General Council of Constantinople and that at Sardica For as is said if we understand saepè here of legal plenary Councils we find none at all before his times either as to Rebaptization or any other points of faith amending one another These things then being left to the Reader 's consideration which may best fit the place I add N. 4 4. Lastly That whatever the sense be this place can never be understood of Lawful General Councils amending one another as to any matters of necessary faith that such Councils when defining any thing to be by all Christians believed and assented to when declaring Hereticks all that dissent and perhaps inserting such their Definitions into the Creed yet may be amended after this by latter For this would overthrow the old foundations of the Nicene and Athanasian Creed and whatever could be shewn of one such Council thus erring Hereticks at their pleasure would apply to any other This also would overthrow particularly S. Austin's Veritas eliquaata declarata And plenarium Concilium confirmavit consolidavit for Non-rebaptization the chief if not the only argument he useth for convincing the Donatists whilst they might here plead this was still latens and clausum till more experience in a latter Council should open and disclose it and so must all before cited out of S. Austin be also reversed and all the former Heresies revive again which pretending Scriptures for their Tenents have been quelled by the judgment of such Councils Pag. 256. l. 4. Would he assert that all Councils how General soever may be amended by following Councils and yet bind men to believe that the decrees of the former Councils do contain the unalterable will of God i.e. Supposing S. Austin here to speak of absolutely General and Legal Conncils would he assert that in some things as in matters of fact a Council may possibly erre and so may be amended by others following which Council in some other things its Definitions of faith delivers the unalterable will of God cannot be amended Yes This may well be But I conceive this Father not to speak here of absolutely General and legal Councils their being amended by others The Council of Nice preceded the Arian Councils which pretended to amend it Did not S. Austin bind men to believe the Decree of Nice which Decree he saith ‖ Contra Maximin l. 3. c. 13. In Concilio Nicaeno adversus Haereticos Arianos a Catholicis Patribus veritatis authoritate authoritatis veritate firmatum est How is that so confirmed that is still liable to amendment Or if all decrees are not how know we when they are so Or are those Decrees that are so liable universally to be believed Dissenters anathematized the Creeds enlarged with them till such time as they be amended Ib. l. 11. Which words of his cannot be understood of unlawful Councils of matters of fact or practice but do refer to the great Question then in debate about rebaptizing Hereticks If S. Austins words touching former General Councils erring and being amended by latter do reser as our Author here saith to the point of Rebaptization the Father hath destroyed his great Argument of the Donatists their certainly erring in it because a General Council had defined the contrary to it the Decree of which Council might err and be repeal'd by another And this after that his former words namely that Provincial Councils are to yield without dispute to those which are General if he had stopped there had clearly confuted them 2ly S. Austins words also as applied to this point would be false for never was any former General Council concerning this point of Rebaptization corrected by a latter the first decreeing for it the latter against it Ib. l. 11 He S. Austin grants that the arguments drawn from the Church's authority are but humane Humane authority saith Archbishop Lawd ‖ p. 124. may be infallible enough and an argument drawn from it convincing Especially from that of General Councils which are divinely assisted not to err in necessaries But this Authority meanwhile is no hindrance that S. Austin may not also urge with and rather than it but he never doth as contrary to it the Divine Authority in Scriptures where he thinks them to all Rational men cleare and manifest Pag. 257. l. 6. And elswhere he appeals not to the judgment of men but to the Lords ballance None of these instances imply any comparison or opposition made by S. Austin between the Scriptures and the judgment of a General Council as if these Scriptures might be cleare where the Judgment of the Council contrary but imply that these Scriptures where cleare may be disceded from by some private though learned mens judgments and in any such case are doubtless to be preferred before them But whither tend these quotations To the liberty of private men to judge of the definitions of General Councils That is of Donatists to judge of that of Nice made against them in Rebaptization This destroys S. Austins whole designe which was to have them to acquiesce in the Decree of a General Council Ib. l. 12 The utmost by a careful consideration of his mind in this matter that I can find is that in a question of so doubtful and obscure a nature as that was which had been so long bandied in the Churches of Africa and from thence spred over all the Churches of the Christian world it was a reasonable thing to presume that what the whole Christian world did consent in was the truth not upon the account of an infallibility but the reasonable supposition that all the Churches of the Christian world would not consent in a thing repugnant to any Apostolical doctrine or tradition Here our Author saith that in a Question of so doubtful obscure a nature and that had been first so much discussed it is a reasonable thing to presume a reasonable supposition not then a certain Position that all the Churches in the world will not consent in a thing repugnant to any Apostolical Doctrine or Tradition so Non-rebaptization put in the Creed may be a presumed Truth and the Donatist's a presumed Heresy Where I think he will not say we do presume things that we are certain of Is then S. Austin's In hac re tenetur à nobis veritas Scripturarum and Christus perhibet testimonium Ecclesiae suae Columna firmamentum veritatis And veritas eliquata consolidata come to this a reasonable supposition and a fair presumption of Truth But yet will He stand to this that whatever the Church in her General Councils shall consent to it is a reasonable supposition that she consents to nothing repugnant to any Apostolical Doctrine or Tradition and that such may be presumed a Truth If so will not this inferr a duty of Assent also to all her Decrees at least as presumed truths And if in a Question of so