viduiâ—aâ— cap. 1. The Scripture is the consummation or utmost bounded rule of our doctrine that we may not dare to be wiser than we ought And that not only in the Question of widdow-hood but in all questions which belong unto life and manners of living as himself in the same place declares And it is not only for Laics and vulgar persons but for all men and not only for what is merely necessary 2. Tim. 3. but to make us wise to make us perfect Salmeron in hunâ— locum tom 15. p. 607. vide plura apud eandem p. 606. saith the Apostle And how can this man say that the Scriptures makes a man perfect in justice And he that is perfect in justice needs no more revelation which words are well enlarged by S. Cyril The Divine Scripture is sufficient to make them who are educated in it wise and most approv'd Cyril Alex. l. 7. contr Julian and having a most sufficient understanding And to this we need not any forraign teachers But lastly if in the plain words of Scripture be contained all that is simply necessary to all then it is clear by Bellarmine's confession that S. Austin affirm'd that the plain places of Scripture are sufficient to all Laics and all Ideots or private persons and then as it is very ill done to keep them from the knowledge and use of the Scriptures which contain all their duty both of faith and good life so it is very unnecessary to trouble them with any thing else there being in the world no such treasure and repository of faith and manners and that so plain that it was intended for all men and for all such men is sufficient S. August ser. 38. ad fratres in eremâ— Read the holy Scriptures wherein you shall find some things to be holden and some to be avoided This was spoken to the Monks and Brethren in the Desert and to them that were to be guides of others the pastors of the reasonable flock and in that whole Sermon he enumerates the admirable advantages fulness and perfection of the Holy Scriptures out of which themselves are to be taught and by the fulness of which they are to teach others in all things I shall not be troublesome by adding those many clear testimonies from other of the Fathers But I cannot omit that of Anastasius of Antioch It is manifest that these things are not to be inquir'd into Lib. 8. anagogicâ— contempt in Hexameron which the Scripture hath pass'd over in silence For the Holy Spirit hath dispensed and administred to us all things which conduce to our profit De vocaâ— gentium in 2. tem operum S. Ambros l. 2. c. 3. If the Scriptures be silent who will speak said S. Prosper what things we are ignorant of from them we learn said Theodoret a In 2. tâ—m 3. in illud ad docenduâ— and there is nothing which the Scriptures deny to dissolve said Theophylact b Ibidem And the former of these brings in the Christian saying to Eranistes c Dial. 1. Tell not me of your Logisms and Syllogisms I rely upon Scripture only But Rupertus Tuitiensis d Commenâ— in â—ib Regum lib. 3. c. 12. his words are a fit conclusion to this heap of testimonies Whatsoever is of the word of God whatsoever ought to be known and preach'd of the Incarnation of the true Divinity and humanity of the Son of God is so contain'd in the two Testaments that besides these there is nothing ought to be declar'd or believ'd The whole coelestial Oracle is comprehended in these which we ought so firmly to know that besides these it is not lawful to hear either Man or Angel And all these are nothing else but a full subscription to and an excellent commentary upon those words of S. Paul Let no man pretend to be wise above what is written By the concourse of these testimonies of so many Learned Orthodox and Ancient Fathers we are abundantly confirm'd in that rule and principle upon which the whole Protestant and Christian Religion is established From hence we learn all things and by these we prove all things and by these we confute Heresies and prove every Article of our Faith according to this we live and on these we ground our hope and whatsoever is not in these we reject from our Canon And indeed that the Canonical Scriptures should be our only and intire Rule we are sufficiently convinc'd by the title which the Catholick Church gives and always hath given to the holy Scriptures for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Rule of Christians for their whole Religion The word it self ends this Enquiry for it cannot be a Canon if any thing be put to it or taken from it said a lib. 1. contr Eunom S. Basil b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Chrysost. Hom. 12. In 3. Philip. Idem dixit Theophyl S. Chrysostome and c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Varinus Varinus I hope I have competently prov'd the tradition I undertook and by it that the holy Scriptures contain all things that are necessary to salvation The sum is this If tradition be not regardable then the Scriptures alone are but if it be regarded then here is a full Tradition That the Scriptures are a perfect rule for that the Scriptures are the word of God and contain in them all the word of God in which we are concern'd is deliver'd by a full consent of all these and many other Fathers and no one Father denies it which consent therefore is so great that if it may not prevail the topick of Tradition will be of no use at all to them who would fain adopt it into a part of the Canon But this I shall consider more particularly Onely one thing more I am to adde Concerning the interpretation and finding out the sense and meaning of the Scriptures For though the Scriptures be allowed to be a sufficient repository of all that is necessary to salvation yet we may mistake our way if we have not some infallible Judge of their sense To him therefore that shall ask How we shall interpret and understand the Scriptures I shall give that answer which I have learned from those Fathers whose testimony I have alleged to prove the fulness and sufficiency of Scripture For if they were never so full yet if it be fons signatus and the waters of salvation do not issue forth to refresh the souls of the weary full they may be in themselves but they are not sufficient for us nor for the work of God in the salvation of man But that it may appear that the Scriptures are indeed written by the hand of God and therefore no way deficient from the end of their design God hath made them plain and easie to all people that are willing and obedient So S. Cyril Lib. 9. contr Julian Nihil in Scripturis difficile est iis qui in illis
The Second Part OF THE DISSUASIVE FROM POPERY In Vindication of THE FIRST PART And further REPROOF and CONVICTION OF THE ROMAN ERRORS By Jer. Taylor Chaplain in Ordinary to King CHARLES the First and late Lord Bishop of Downe and Conner Curavimus Babylonem non est Sanata LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to the Kings most Excellent Majesty at the Angel in S. Bartholomew's Hospital MDCLXVII DIEV ET MON DROIT SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PEâ—â—â—â— A Table of the SECTIONS The Introduction in Answer to J. S. The first Book contains Eleven Sections SECTION I. OF the Church shewing That the Church of Rome relies upon no certain foundation for their faith Page 1 Sect. II. Of the sufficiency of Scriptures to Salvation 63 Sect. III. Of Traditions 102 Sect. IV. That there is nothing of necessity to be believ'd which the Apostolical Churches did not believe 144 Sect. V. That the Church of Rome pretends to a power of introducing into the Confessions of the Church new Articles of Faith and endeavors to alter and suppress the old Catholick Doctrine 171 Sect. VI. Of the Expurgatory Indices in the Roman Church 192 Sect. VII The uncharitableness of the Church of Rome in her judging of others 205 Sect. VIII The insecurity of the Roman Religion 222 Sect. IX That the Church of Rome does teach for Doctrines the Commandments of Men 236 Sect. X. Of the Seal of Confession 239 Sect. XI Of the imposing Anricular Confession upon Consciences without authority from God 249 The Second Book contains Seven Sections SECTION I. OF Indulgences Page 1 Sect. II. Of Purgatory 13 Sect. III. Of Transubstantiation 56 Sect. IV. Of the half Communion 86 Sect. V. Of Service in an unknown Tongue 98 Sect. VI. Of the worshipping of Images 106 Sect. VII Of Picturing God the Father and the Holy Trinity 145 IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKINS R. R mo in Christo Patri ac Domino Dno GILBERTO Divinâ Providentià Archi-Episcopo Cantuariensi à Sacris Domesticis Junii 29 0 1667. Ex Aedibus Lambethanis THE INTRODUCTION BEING An Answer to the fourth Appendix to J. S. his Sure Footing intended against the General way of procedure in the Dissuasive from Popery WHen our Blessed Saviour was casting out the evil spirit from the poor Daemoniac in the Gospel he asked his name and he answered My name is legion for we are many Legion is a Roman word and signifies an Army as Roman signifies Catholic that is a great body of men which though in true speaking they are but a part of an Imperial Army yet when they march alone they can do mischief enough and call themselves an Army Royal. A Squadron of this legion hath attempted to break a little Fort or Outwork of mine they came in the dark their names concealed their qualities unknown whether Clergy or Laity not to me discovered only there is one pert man amongst them one that is discovered by his sure footing The others I know not but this man is a man famous in the new science of controversie as he is pleased to call it I mean in the most beauteous and amiable part of it railing and calumny The man I mean is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Confident the man of principles and the son of demonstration Dr. H. H. and though he had so reviled a great Champion in the Armies of the living God that it was reasonable to think he had cast forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the fiery darts of the wicked one yet I find that an evil fountain is not soon drawn dry and he hath indignation enough and reviling left for others amongst whom I have the honour not to be the least sufferer and sharer in the persecution He thought not fit to take any further notice of me but in an Appendix The fourth appendix to sure footing the Viper is but little but it is a Viper still though it hath more tongue than teeth I am the more willing to quit my self of it by way of introduction because he intends it as an Organum Catholicum against the General way of the procedure which I have us'd in the Dissuasive and therefore I suppose the removing this might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make my way smoother in the following discourses I will take no other notice of his evil language his scorn and reproach his undervaluing and slighting the person and book of the Dissuader as he is pleased sometimes to call me but I shall answer to these things as S. Bernard did to the tempation of the Devil endeavouring to hinder his preaching by tempting to vanity I neither began for you nor for you will I make an end but I shall look on those Rhetorical flowers of his own but as a fermentum his spirit was troubled and he breathed forth the froth as of an enraged Sea and when he hath done it may be he will be quiet if not let him know God will observe that which is to come and require that which is past But I will search and see what I can find of matter that is to be considered and give such accounts of them as is necessary and may be useful for the defence of my Book and the justification of my self against all ruder charges And after I have done so I shall proceed to other things which I shall esteem more useful The first thing I shall take notice of is his scornful and slight speaking of Scripture affirming that he is soonest beaten at this weapon that it is Sampsons hair it is the weakest part in the man And yet if it be the weakest it is that which S. Paul calls the weakness and foolishness of preaching more strong and more wise than all the wisdom of man When the Devil tempted our Blessed Saviour he us'd Scripture but Christ did not reprove his way of arguing but in the same way discovered his fraud Scriptum est said the Tempter yea but scriptum est said Christ to other purposes than you intend and so would I. S. have proceeded if he had been at all in love with the way But he thinks he hath a better and the wonder is the less that the Gentleman does not love the Scriptures or at least gives too much suspicion that he does not for he hath not yet proved himself by his writings to be so good a Christian as to love his enemies or his reprovers But however he is pleased to put a scorn on Scripture expressions it were much better if he and his Church too would use them more and express their articles they contend for and impose them on the Christian world in the words and expressions of Scripture which we are sure express the minde of God with more truth and simplicity than is done by their words of art and expressions of the Schools If this had been observed Christendom at this day had had fewer controversies and more truth and more charity we should not
words of Scripture and the Apostles Creed for a sufficient rule of their faith but are threatned with damnation if they do not believe whatever their Church hath determin'd and yet they neither do nor can know it but by the word of their Parish Priest or Confessor it lies in the hand of every Parish Priest to make the People believe any thing and be of any religion and trust to any Article as they shall choose and find to their purpose The Council of Trent requires Traditions to be added and received equal with Scriptures they both not singly but in conjunction making up the full object of faith and so the most learned and indeed generally their whole Church understands one to be incomplete without the other and yet Master White who I suppose tells the same thing to his Neighbours affirms that it is not the Catholick position That all its doctrines are not contain'd in Scripture which proposition being tied with the decree of the Council of Trent gives a very good account of it and makes it excellent sense Thus Traditions must be receiv'd with equal authority to the Scripture saith the Council and wonder not for saith Master White all the Traditions of the Church are in Scripture You may believe so if you please for the contrary is not a Catholick doctrine But if these two things do not agree better then it will be hard to tell what regard will be had to what the Council says the People know not that but as their Priest teaches them And though they are bound under greatest pains to believe the whole Catholick Religion yet that the Priests themselves do not know it or wilfully mis-report it and therefore that the people cannot tell it it is too evident in this instance and in the multitude of disputes which are amongst themselves about many considerable Articles in their Catholick religion Vide Wadding of Immac oncept p. 282. p. 334. alibi Pius Quintus speaking of Thomas Aquinas calls his doctrine the most certain rule of Christian religion And divers particulars of the religion of the Romanists are prov'd out of the revelations of S. Briget which are contradicted by those of S. Katherine of Siena Now they not relying on the way of God fall into the hands of men who teach them according to the interest of their order or private fancy and expound their rules by measures of their own but yet such which they make to be the measures of salvation and damnation They are taught to rely for their faith upon the Church and this when it comes to practise is nothing but their private Priest and he does not always tell them the sense of their Church and is not infallible in declaring the sense of it and is not always as appears in the instance now set down faithful in relating of it but first consens himself by his subtilty and then others by his confidence and therefore in is impossible there can be any certainty to them that proceed this way when God hath so plainly given them a better and requires of them nothing but to live a holy life as a superstructure of Christian Faith describ'd by the Apostles in plain places of Scripture and in the Apostolical Creed in which they can suffer no illusion and where there is no Uncertainty in the matters to be believ'd IV. The next thing I observe is that they all talking of the Church as of a charm and sacred Amulet yet they cannot by all their arts make us certain where or how infallibly to find this Church I have already in this Section prov'd this in the main Inquiry by shewing that the Church is that body which they do not rely upon but now I shall shew that the Church which they would point out can never be certainly known to be the true Church by those indications and signs which they offer to the world as her characteristick notes S. Austin in his excellent Book De Vnitate Ecclesiae Lib. de Vnit. Eccles. cap. cap. 17. Ergo in Scripturis Canonicis eam Ecclesiam requiramus cap. 3. affirms that the Church is no whereto be found but in Praescripto legis in prophetarum praedictis in Psalmorum cantibus in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Sanctorum canonicis authoritatibus in the Scriptures only And he gives but one great note of it and that is adhering to the head Jesus Christ for the Church is Christ's body who by charity are united to one another and to Christ their Head and he that is not a member of Christ cannot obtain salvation And he adds no other mark but that Christ's Church is not this or that viz. not of one denomination but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dispersed over the face of the earth The Church of Rome makes adhesion to the head Bellarm. de Eccles Militant lib. 3. cap. Sect. Nostra autem Sententia not Jesus Christ but the Bishop of Rome to be of the essential constitution of the Church Now this being the great Question between the Church of Rome and the Greek Church and indeed of all other Churches of the world is so far from being a sign to know the Church by that it is apparent they have no ground of their Faith but the great Question of Christendom and that which is condemn'd by all the Christian world but themselves is their foundation And this is so much the more considerable because concerning very many Heads of their Church it was too apparent that they were not so much as members of Christ but the basest of Criminals and Enemies of all godliness And concerning others that were not so notoriously wicked they could not be certain that they were members of Christ or that they were not of their Father the Devil The spirit of truth was promis'd to the Apostles upon condition and Judas fell from it by transgression But the uncertainties are yetgreater Adhering to the Pope cannot be a certain note of the Church because no man can be certain who is true Pope For the Pope if he be a Simoniac is ipso facto no Pope as appears in the Bull of Julius the 2d And yet besides that he himself was called a most notorious Simoniac Sixtus Quintus gave an obligation under his hand upon condition that the Cardinal d'Este would bring over his voices to him and make him Pope that he would never make Hierom Matthew a Cardinal which when he broke the Cardinal sent his Obligation to the King of Spain who intended to accuse him of Simony but it broke the Pope's heart and so he escaped here and was reserved to be heard before a more Unerring Judicatory And when Pius Quartus used all the secret arts to dissolve the Council of Trent and yet not to be seen in it and to that purpose dispatch'd away the Bishops from Rome he forbad the Archbishop of
devesting the Church from the simplicity of her Faith is like removing the ancient Land-mark you cannot tell by the mark in what Countrey you are in whether in your own or in the Enemies And in the world nothing is more unnecessary For if that faith be sufficient if in that faith the Church went to Heaven if in that she preserv'd unity and begat Children to Christ and nurs'd them up to be perfect men in Christ and kept her self pure from Heresie and unbroken by Schism whatsoever is added to it is either contain'd in the Article virtually or it is not If not then it is no part of the Faith and by the laws of Faith there is no obligation pass'd upon any man to believe it But if it be then he that believes the Article does virtually believe all that is virtually contain'd in it but no man is to be press'd with the consequents drawn from thence unless the Transcript be drawn by the same hand that wrote the Original for we are sure it came in the simplicity of it from an infallible Spirit but he that bids me believe his Deductions under pain of damnation bids me under pain of damnation believe that he is an Unerring Logician for which because God hath given me no command and himself can give me no security if I can defend my self from that man's pride God will defend me from Damnation But let us see a little further with what constancy That and The following Ages of the Church did adhere to the Apostles Creed as the sufficient and perfect Rule of Faith There was an Imperial Edict of Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius Cunctos populos quos clementiae nostrae regit imperium in eâ volumus religione versari quam Divinum Petrum Apostolum tradidisse Romanis religio usque nunc ab ipso insi nuata declarat quámque pontificem Damasum sequi claret Petrum Alexandriae Episcopum virum Apostolicae sanctitatis hoc est ut secundum Apostolicam disciplinam Evangelicamque doctrinam Patris Filii Spiritus sancti Vnam Deitatem sub pari majestate sub piâ Trinitate credamus Hanc legem sequentes Christianorum Catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti reliquos verò dementes vesanósque judicantes Haeretici dogmatis infamiam sustinere divina primùm vindictâ pòst etiam motu animi nostri quem ex coelesti arbitrio sumpserimus ultione plectendos Part of this being cited in the Dissuasive to prove that in the early Ages of the Church the Christian Faith was much more simple than it is now in the Roman Church The Letter to a friend p. 4. and that upon easier terms men might then be Catholick It was replied by some one of the Opponents That by this law was not meant that all who believ'd the Trinity were Catholicks absolutely but only as to those points and the Reason given is this Because after this law the Novatians Donatists Nestorians Eutychians c. were proceeded against as Hereticks and Schismaticks notwithstanding their belief of the Trinity and Vnity of the God-head But this thing was spoken without all care whether it were to the purpose or no. For when this law was made that was the Rule of Catholicism as appears by the words of the law and if afterward it became alter'd and the Bishops became too opinionative or thought themselves forc'd into further declarations must therefore the precedent law be judged ex post facto by what they did afterwards It might as well have been said the Church was never content with the Apostles Creed because afterwards the Lutherans and Calvinists and Zuinglians c. were proceeded against as Hereticks and Schismaticks notwithstanding their belief of all that is in the Apostles Creed Ex post facto nunquam crescit praeteriti aestimatio says the law But for the true understanding of this Imperial law we must know that the confession of the Holy Trinity and Unity was not set down there as a single Article but as a Summary of the Apostles Creed the three parts of which have for their heads The three Persons of the holy and undivided Trinity And this appears by the relation the law makes to the faith Saint Peter taught the Church of Rome and to the Creed of Damasus which may be seen in Saint Hierom who rejects the Creed of that worthy Prelate in the second Tome of his Works in which the Apostolical Creed is explicated that what relates to the Trinity and Unity spoken of in the Imperial Law or Rule of Catholicks and Christians is set down in it's full purpose and design And this thing may better be understood by an instance in the Catechism of the Church of England for when the Catechumen hath at large recited the Apostles Creed he is taught to summe it up in this manner First I learn to believe in God the Father who hath made me and all the world Secondly In God the Son who hath redeemed me and all mankind Thirdly In God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth me and all the elect people of God This is the Summary of the Creed and these things are not to be considered as Articles distinct and complete and integrating the Christian Faith but as a breviary of that Faith to which in the same place it is made to relate just as the Imperial Law does relate to the Faith of S. Peter and the Creed of Damasus and Peter of Alexandria Concerning which he that says much says no more and he that says little says no less for the Faith is the same as I have already cited the words of S. Irenaeus Since then the Emperours made the summary of the Apostles Creed to be the rule of discerning Catholicks from Hereticks it follows that the Roman Church Catholick signifies something else than it did in the primitive Church S. Ambrose says Faith is conceiv'd by the Apostles Creed all Faith lies in that as the Child in the Mother's Womb and he compares it to a Key because by it the darknesses of the Devil are unlock'd that the light of Christ might come upon us and the hidden sins of conscience are opened that the manifest works of righteousness may shine This Key is to be shown to our Brethren that by this as Scholars of S. Peter they may shut the gates of Hell and open the doors of Heaven He also calls it The Seal of our Heart and the Sacrament of our Warfare S. Hierom speaking of it Epist. ad Pammach contra â—rro es Johan Hierosolymit Exp siâ— Symbol c. 2 3. l. 6. Orig. c. 9. says The Symbol of our Faith and Hope which was deliver'd by the Apostles is not written in Paper and Ink but in the fleshy tables of our hearts After the confession of the Trinity and Vnity of the Church the whole or every Sacrament of the Christian Religion is concluded with the resurrection of the flesh Which words are intimated and in part transcribed by Isidore of Sevil.
all the Apostles constituted very many Bishops in divers places if the Apostles were not made Bishops by Peter certainly the greatest part of Bishops will not deduce their original from Peter This is Bellarmine's argument by which he hath perfectly overthrown that clause of Pius quartus his Creed that the Roman Church is the Mother of all Churches He confesses she is not unless S. Peter did consecrate all the Apostles he might have added No nor then neither unless Peter had made the Apostles to be Bishops after himself was Bishop of Rome for what is that to the Roman Church if he did this before he was the Roman Bishop But then that Peter made all the Apostles Bishops is so ridiculous a dream that in the world nothing is more unwarrantable For besides that S. Paul was consecrated by none but Christ himself it is certain that he ordain'd Timothy and Titus and that the succession in those Churches ran from the same Original in the same Line and there is no Record in Scripture that ever S. Peter ordain'd any not any one of the Apostles who receiv'd their authority from Christ and the Holy Spirit in the same times altogether which thing is also affirm'd by a Institut moral part 2 l. 4. c. 11. Sect. Altera opinio Azorius and b De tripl virt Theolog. disp 10. Sect. 1. n. 5. 7. Suarez who also quotes for it the Authority of S. c Quaest. Vet. N. Test. q. 97. Austin and the Gloss. So that from first to last it appears that the Roman Church is not the Mother-Church and yet every Priest is sworn to live and die in the belief of it that she is However it is plain that this assumentum and shred of the Roman Creed is such a declaration of the old Article of believing the Catholick Church that it is not onely a direct new Article of faith but destroys the old By thus handling the Creed of the Catholick Church we shall best understand what they mean when they affirm that the Pope can interpret Scripture authoritativè and he can make Scripture Ad quem pertinet sacram Scripturam authoritativè interpretari Ejus enim est interpretari cujus est condere He that can make Scripture can make new Articles of faith surely Much to the same Purpose are the words of Pope Innocent the fourth Innocent 4. in cap. super eo de Bigamis He cannot onely interpret the Gospel but adde to it Indeed if he have power to expound it authoritativè that is as good as making it for by that means he can adde to it or take from the sense of it But that the Pope can do this that is can interpret the Scriptures authoritativè sententialitèr obligatoriè so as it is not lawful to hold the contrary is affirm'd by Augustinus Triumphus a Qu. 67. a. 2. Turrecremata b Lib. 2. c. 107. and Hervey c De potestate Papae And Cardinal Hosius d De expresso Dei verbo in Epilogo goes beyond this saying That although the words of the Scripture be not open yet being uttered in the sense of the Church they are the express words of God but uttered in any other sense are not the express word of God but rather of the Devil To these I only adde what we are taught by another Cardinal who perswading the Bohemians to accept the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in one kind tells them and it is that I said before If the Church Card. Cusan Epâ—st 2. ad Bâ—hâ—mâ—s de usu Communionis p. 833. viz. of Rome for that is with them the Catholick Church or if the Pope that is the Virtual Church do expound any Evangelical sense contrary to what the current sense and practice of the Catholick Primitive Church did not that but this present interpretation must be taken for the way of Salvation For God changes his judgement as the Church does Epist. 3. p. 838. So that it is no wonder that the Pope can make new Articles or new Scriptures or new Gospel it seems the Church of Rome can make contrary Gospel that if in the primitive Church to receive in both kindes was via salutis because it was understood then to be a precept Evangelical afterwards the way of Salvation shall be changed and the precept Evangelical must be understood To take it in one kind But this is denyed by Balduinus In 1. Decret de summa Trinitate fide Cathol n. 44. 15. dist Canones who to the Question Whether can the Pope find out new Articles of Faith say's I answer Yes But not contrary It seems the Doctors differ upon that point but that which the Cardinal of Cusa the Legat of P. Nicolas the fifth taught the Bohemians was how they should answer their objection for they said if Christ commanded one thing and the Council or the Pope or the Prelates commanded contrary they would not obey the Church but Christ. But how greatly they were mistaken the Cardinal Legat told them Epist 2. ad Bohemos p. 834. edit Basil. A. D. 1565. Possible non est Scripturam quamcunque sive ipsa praeceptum sive consilium contineat in eos qui apud Ecclesiam existunt plus auctoritatis ligandi haebere aut solvendi fideles quà m ipsa Ecclesia voluerit aut verbo aut opere expresserit and in the third Epistle he tells them The authority of the Church is to be preferr'd before the Scriptures In piorum Clypeo qu 29. artit 5. The same also is taught by Elysius Nepolitanus It matters not what the primitive Church did no nor much what the Apostolical did Pighius Hierarch l. 1. c. 2. For the Apostles indeed wrote some certain things not that they should rule our Faith and our Religion but that they should be under it that is they submit the Scriptures to the Faith nay even to the Practice of the Church For the Pope can change the Gospel said Henry the Master of the Roman Palace Ad legatos â—ohemicos sub Felice Papa A. D. 1447. vide Polan in Dan. 11. 371. and according to place and time give it another sense insomuch that if any man should not believe Christ to be the true God and man if the Pope thought so too he should not be damn'd said the Cardinal of S. Angelo And Silvester Prierias * Sylvest Prierias cont Lutherum Conclu 56. expressly affirmed that the authority of the Church of Rome and the Pope's is greater than the authority of the Scriptures These things being so notorious I wonder with what confidence Bellarmine can say That the Catholicks meaning his own parties do not subject the Scripture but preferre it before Councils and that there is no controversie in this when the contrary is so plain in the pre-alledged testimonies but because his conscience check'd him in the particular he thinks to escape with a distinction
their religion by this and so great a scandal to Jews and Turks that they hate Christianity it self for that very reason it is a strange pertinacy in the Church of Rome to retain this practice for so little pretensions of good and with so evident a mischief To which if this be added that many of the ruder people do down-right worship the image without a distinction or scruple or difference and that for ought we know many souls perish by such practices which might be secur'd by the taking away the images and forbidding the superstition I for my part cannot imagine how the Guides of souls can answer it to God or satisfie their consciences in their so vilely and cheaply regarding Souls and permitting them to live in danger and die in sin for no spiritual good which can accrue to the Church which can countervail the danger much less the loss of one Soul However it will be very hard from any principle of Christian Religion to prove it is a damnable sin not to worship Images but every man that can read hath very much to say that to worship them is a provocation of God to anger and to jealousie 6. Thus also it must needs be confessed that it is more safe for the Church of God to give the Holy Communion in both kinds then but in one and Bellarmine's foolish reason of the Wine sticking to lay mens Beards is as ridiculous as the doctrine it self is unreasonable and if they would shave Lay-mens Beards as they do the Clergy it would be less inconvenience than what they now feel and if there be no help for it they had better lose their Beards than lose their share of the Bloud of Christ. And what need is there to dispute such uncertain and unreasonable propositions as that Christ's Bloud is with the Body by way of Concomitancy as if the Sacrament were not of Christ's Body broken and the Bloud poured out and as if in case it be so Christ did not know or not consider it but for all that instituted the Supper in both kinds And what more is gotten by the Host alone than by that and the Chalice too And what can be answered to the pious desires of so many Nations to have the Chalice restored when they ask for nothing but their part of the Legacy which Christ left them in his Testament And the Church of Rome which takes upon her to be sole Executrix or at least Overseer of it tells them that the Legacy will do them no good and keeps it from them by telling them It is not necessary nay it is worse than so for when in the time of the Council of Trent instance was made that leave might be given to such as desire it the Oracle was utter'd by the Cardinal of Alexandria Concil Trident. lib. 5. A. D. 1561. Sub Pio Quaâ—â—â— but was given after the old manner so that no man was the better For no man was capable of receiving the favour but he that profess'd he did not believe it necessary and then there could be no great reason to desire it He that thought he needed it could not receive it and he that found no want of it in all reason would not be importunate for it and then he should be sure not to have it So that in effect there were two sorts of persons denyed it Those that required it and those that did not require it And to what Christian grace to referre the wisdom and piety of this answer I cannot yet learn Neither can I yet imagine why the Cardinal S. Angelo should call Giving the Cup to the Laity Ibid. a giving them a Cup of deadly poyson since certain it is that the Bloud of Christ is a savour of life and not of death and as the French Embassadour replied The Apostles who did give it were not impoysoners and the many ages of the primitive Church did receive it with very great emolument and spiritual comfort To this I know it will be said by some who cannot much defend their Church in the thing it self That it is no great matter and if all things else were accorded this might be dispens'd withall and the Pope could give leave to the respective Churches to have according as it might be expedient and fit for edification But this will not serve the turn For first the thing it self is no small matter but of greatest concernment It is the Sacramental Bloud of Christ. The Holy Bread cannot be the Sacrament of the Bloud and if Christ did not esteem it as necessary to leave a Sacrament of his Bloud as of his Body he would not have done it and if he did think it as necessary certainly it was so But 2. Suppose the matter be small why then shall a Schism be made by him that would be thought the Great Father of Christians and all Christendom almost displeas'd and offended rather than he will comply with their desires of having nothing but what Christ left them If the thing be but little why do they take a course to make it as they suppose damnation to desire it And if it be said Because it is Heresie to think the Church hath erred all this while in denying it to this the answer will be easie that themselves who did deny it have given the occasion and not they who do desire it neither have all the Christian Churches denyed it for I think none but the Roman Church does and if the Roman Church by granting it now to her own Children will be suppos'd to have erred in denying it to continue this denial will not cure that inconvenience for that which at first was but an Error will now become Heresie if they be pertinacious in the refusal But if it were not for political and humane considerations and secular interests there will be little question but that it will be safer and more agreeable to Christ's institution and the Apostolical doctrine and the primitive practice to grant it lovingly than to detain it sacrilegiously For at least the detention will look like Sacrilege and the granting it cannot but be a Fatherly and pious ministration especially since when it is granted all parties are pleased and no man's authority real or pretended is questioned But whatever become of this consideration which is nothing but a charitable desire and way of peace with our adversaries and a desire to win them by our not intermedling with their unalterable and pertinacious interest yet as to the thing it self it is certain that to communicate in both kinds is justifiable by the institution of Christ and the perpetual practice of the Church for many ages which thing certainly is or ought to be the greatest Rule for the Churches imitation And if the Church of Rome had this advantage against us in any Article as I hope there would not be found so much pertinacy amongst us as to resist the power of such an argument so it is certain there
times visiting the Altar aforesaid fourteen or fifteen plenary pardons Certainly the Popes suppose these persons to be mighty Criminals that they need so many pardons so many plenaries But two All 's of the same thing is as much as two Nothings But if there were not infinite causes of fear that very many of them were nullities and that none of them were of any certain avail there could be no pretence of reasonableness in dispensing these Jewels with so loose a hand and useless a freedom as if a man did shovel Mustard or pour Hogsheads of Vinegar into his friends mouth to make him swallow a mouthful of Herbs 7. What is the secret meaning of it that in divers clauses in their Bulls of Indulgences Bull. Julii 3. de an Jubilii they put in this clause A pardon of all their sins be they never so heinous The extraordinary cases reserved to the Pope and the consequent difficulty of getting pardon of such great sins because it would cost much more mony was or might be some little restraint to some persons from running easily into the most horrible impieties but to give such a loose to this little and this last rein and curb and by an easie Indulgence to take off all even the most heinous sins what is it but to give the Devil an argument to tempt persons that have any conscience or fear left to throw off all fear and to stick at nothing 8. It seems hard to give a reasonable account what is meant by giving a plenary pardon of all their sins and yet at the same time an Indulgence of 12000. years and as many Quarentaines it seems the bounty of the Church runs out of a Conduit though the Vessels be full yet the water still continues running and goes into wast 9. In this great heap of Indulgences and so it is in very many other power is given to a Lay Sister or Brother to free a soul from Purgatory But if this be so easily granted the necessity of Masses will be very little what need is there to give greater fees to a Physician when a sick person may be cur'd with a Posset and Pepper The remedy of the way of Indulgences is cheap and easie a servant with a Candle a Pater and an Ave a going to visit an Altar wearing the Scapular of the Carmelites or the Chord of S. Francis but Masses for souls are a dear commodity five pence or six pence is the least a Mass will cost in some places nay it will stand in nine pence in other places But then if the Pope can do this trick certainly then what can be said to John Gersons question Arbitrio Papa proprio si clavibus uti Possit cur sinit ut poena pios cruciet Cur non evacuat loca purgandis animabus Tradita The answer makes up the Tetrastic sed servus esse fidelis amat The Pope may be kind but he must be wise too a faithful and wise Steward he must not destroy the whole state of the purging Church if he takes away all the fuel from the fire who shall make the Pot boyl This may not be done Ut possint superesse quos peccasse poeniteat Sinners must pay for it in their bodies or their purses SECTION II. Of Purgatory THat the doctrine of Purgatory as it is taught in the Roman Church is a Novelty and a part of their New Religion is sufficiently attested by the words of the Cardinal of Rochester and Alphonsus a Castro whose words I now add that he who pleases may see how these new men would fain impose their new fancies upon the Church under pretence and title of Ancient and Catholic verities The words of Roffensis in his eighteenth article against Luther are these * A letter to a friend touching Dr. Taylor Sect. 4. n. 26. p. 10. which if the Reader please for his curiosity or his recreation to see he shall find this pleasant passage of deep learning and subtle observation Dr. Tay. had said that Roffensis and P. V. affirm that who so searcheth the Writings of the Greek Fathers shall find that none or very rarely any one of them ever makes mention of Purgatory Whereas Pol. Virgil affirms no such thing nor doth Roffensis say That very rarely any one of them mentiâ—ns it but only that in thâ—se Ancient Writers he shall find none or but very rare mention of it If this man were in his wits when he made this answer an answer which no man can unriddle or tell how it opposes the objection then it is very certain that if this can pass among the answers to the Protestants objections the Papists are in a very great strait and have very little to say for themselves and the letter to a friend was written by compulsion and by the shame of confutation not of conscience or ingenuous persuasion No man can be so foolish as to suppose this fit to be given in answer to any sober discourse or if there be such pittiful people in the Church of Rome and trusted to write Books in defence of their Religion it seems they care not what any man says or proves against them if the people be but coâ—â—n'd with a pretended answer for that serves the turn as well as a wiser Legat qui velit Graecorum veterum commentarios nullum quantum opinor aut quam rarissimum de purgatorio sermonem inveniet Sed neque latini simul omnes at sensim hujus rei veritatem conceperunt He that pleases let him read the Commentaries of the Old Greeks and as I suppose he shall find none or very rare mention or speech of Purgatory But neither did all the Latins at one time but by little and little conceive the truth of this thing And again Aliquandiu incognitum fuit sero cognitum Universae Ecclesiae Deinde quibusdam pedetentim partim ex Scripturis partim ex revelationibus creditum fuit For somewhile it was unknown it was but lately known to the Catholic Church Then it was believ'd by some by little and little partly from Scripture partly from revelations And this is the goodly ground of the doctrine of Purgatory founded no question upon tradition Apostolical delivered some hundreds of years indeed after they were dead but the truth is because it was forgotten by the Apostles and they having so many things in their heads when they were alive wrote and said nothing of it therefore they took care to send some from the dead who by new revelations should teach this old doctrine This we may conjecture to be the aequivalent sense of the plain words of Roffensis But the plain words are sufficient without a Commentary Lib. 8. cap. 1. de inven rerum Now for Polydore Virgil his own words can best tell what he says Ego vero Originem quod mei est muneris quaeritans non reperio ante fuisse quod sciam quum D. Gregorius ad suas stationes id praemii
remaining miracle and intail of infallibility in the Church to go on in the delivery of this for by that time that all the Apostles were dead and the infallible spirit was departed the Scriptures of the Gospels were believed in all the world and then it was not ordinarily possible ever any more to detract faith from that book and then for the transmitting this book to after ages the Divine providence needed no other course but the ordinaary ways of man that is right reason common faithfulness the interest of souls believing a good thing which there was and could be no cause to disbelieve and an Uniuersal consent of all men that were any ways concern'd for it or against it and this not only preach'd upon the house tops but set down also in very many writings This actually was the way of transmitting this book and the authority of it to after ages respectively These things are of themselves evident yet because I. S. still demands we should set down some first and self evident principle on which to found the whole procedure I shall once more satisfie him And this is a first and self evident principle whatsoever can be spoken can be written and if it he plain spoken it may be as plain written I hope I need not go about to demonstrate this for it is of it self evident that God can write all that he is pleased to speak and all good scribes can set down in writing whatsoever another tells them and in his very words too if he please he can as well transcribe a word spoken as a word written And upon this principle it is that the Protestants believe that the words of Scripture can be as easily understood after they are written in a book as when they were spoken in the Churches of the first Christians and the Apostles and Evangelists did write the life of Christ his doctrines the doctrines of faith as plain as they did speak them at least as plain as was necessary to the end for which they were written which is the salvation of our souls And what necessity now can there be that there should be a perpetual miracle still current in the Church and a spirit of infallibility descendant to remember the Church of all those things which are at once set down in a book the truth and authority of which was at first prov'd by infallible testimony the memory and certainty of which is preserved amongst Christians by many unquestionable records and testimonies of several natures 2. As there was no necessity that an infallible Oral tradition should do any more but consign the books of Scripture so it could not do any more without a continual miracle That there was no continued miracle is sufficiently prov'd by proving it was not necessary it should for that also is another first and self-evident principle that the All wise God does not do any thing much less such things as miracles to no purpose and for no need But now if there be not a continued miracle then Oral tradition was not fit to be trusted in relating the particulars of the Christian Religion For if in a succession of Bishops and Priests from S. Peter down to P. Alexander the seventh it is impossible for any man to be assured that there was no nullity in the ordinations but insensibly there might intervene something to make a breach in the long line which must in that case be made up as well as they can by tying a knot on it It will be infinitely more hard to suppose but that in the series and successive talkings of the Christian religion there must needs be infinite variety and many things told otherwise and somethings spoken with evil purposes by such as preach'd Christ out of envy and many odd things said and doctrines strangely represented by such as creep into houses and lead captive silly women It may be the Bishops of the Apostolical Churches did preach right doctrines for divers ages but yet in Jerusalem where fifteen Bishops in succession were circumcis'd who can tell how many things might be spoken in justification of that practice which might secretly undervalue the Apostolical doctrine And where was the Oral tradition then of this proposition If ye be circumcis'd Christ shall profit you nothing But however though the Bishops did preach all the doctrine of Christ yet these Sermons were told to them that were absent by others who it may be might mistake something and understand them to other senses than was intended And though infallibility of testifying might be given to the Church that is to the chief Rulers of it for I hope I. S. does not suppose it subjected in every single Christian man or woman yet when this testimony of theirs is carried abroad the reporters are not always infallible And let it be considered that even now since Christianity hath been transmitted so many ages and there are so many thousands that teach it yet how many hundreds of these thousands understand but very little of it and therefore tell it to others but pitifully and imperfectly so that if God in his Goodness had not preserv'd to us the surer word of the prophetical and Evangelical Scriptures Christianity would by this time have been a most strange thing litera scripta manet As to the Apostles while they lived it was so easie to have recourse that error durst not appear with an open face but the cure was at hand so have the Apostles when they took care to leave something left to the Churches to put them in minde of the precious doctrine they put a sure standard and fixt a rule in the Church to which all doubts might be brought to trial and against which all heresies might be dashed in pieces But we have liv'd to see the Apostolical Churches rent from one another and teaching contrary things and pretending contrary traditions and abounding in several senses and excommunicating one another and it is impossible for example that we should see the Greeks going any whither but to their own superiour and their own Churches to be taught Christian Religion and the Latins did always go to their own Patriarch and to their own Bishops and Churches and it is not likely it should be otherwise now than it hath been hitherto that is that they follow the religion that is taught them there and the tradition that is delivered by their immediate superiours Now there being so vast a difference not only in the Great Churches but in several ages and in several Dioceses and in single Priests every one understanding as he can and speaking as he please and remembring as he may and expressing it accordingly and the people also understanding it by halves and telling it to their Children sometimes ill sometimes not at all and seldom as they should and they who are taught neglecting it too grosely and attending to it very carelesly and forgeting it too quickly and which is worse yet men expounding it according to
Religion when he weakly forsook it Protestants are not renouncers of tradition for we allow all Catholic traditions that can prove themselves to be such but we finding little or nothing excepting this that the Bible is the word of God and that the Bible contains all the will of God for our salvation all doctrines of faith and life little or nothing else I say descending to us by an Universal tradition therefore we have reason to adhere to Scripture and renounce as I. S. is pleased to call it all pretence of tradition of any matters of faith not plainly set down in the Bible But now since we renounce no tradition but such as is not and cannot be prov'd to be competent and Catholic I hope with the leave of I. S. we may discourse out of Scriptures and Councils Fathers and reason history and instances For we believe tradition when it is credible and we believe what two or three honest men say upon their knowledge and we make no scruple to believe that there is an English Plantation in the Barbadoes because many tell us so who have no reason to deceive us so that we are in a very good capacity of making use of Scriptures and Councils c. But I must deal freely with Mr. S. though we do believe these things upon credible testimony yet we do not think the testimony infallible and we do believe many men who yet pretend not to infallibility And if nothing were Credible but what is infallible then no man had reason to believe his Priest or his Father We are taught by Aristotle that that is credible Quod pluribus quod sapientibus quod omnibus videtur and yet these are but degrees of probability and yet are sufficient to warrant the transaction of all humane affairs which unless where God is pleased to interpose are not capable of greater assurance Even the miracles wrought by our Blessed Saviour though they were the best arguments in the world to prove the Divinity of his person and his mission yet they were but the best argument we needed and understood but although they were infinitely sufficient to convince all but the malicious yet there were some so malicious who did not allow them to be demonstrations but said that he did cast out Devils by Beelzebub Here we live by faith and not by knowledge and therefore it is an infinite goodness of God to give proofs sufficient for us and fitted to our natures and proportion'd to our understanding but yet such as may neither extinguish faith nor destroy the nature of hope which although it may be so certain and sure as to be a stedfast anchor of the soul yet it may have in it something of Natural uncertainty and yet fill us with all comfort and hope in believing So that we allow tradition to be certain if it be universal and to be credible according to the degrees of its Universality and disinterested simplicity and therefore we have as much right to use the Scriptures and Fathers as I. S. and all his party and all his following talk in the sequel of this second way relying upon a ground which I have discovered to be false must needs fall of it self and signifie nothing But although this point be soon washt off yet I suppose the charge which will recoyle upon himself will not so easily be put by For though it appears that Protestants have right to use Fathers and Councils Scriptures and reason yet I. S. and his little convention of four or five Brothers of the tradition have clearly disintitled themselves to any use of these For if the oral tradition of the present Church be the infallible and only rule of faith then there is no Oracle but this one and the decrees of Councils did bind only in that age they were made as being part of the tradition of that age but the next age needed it not as giving testimony to it self and being it 's own rule And therefore when a question is to be disputed you can go no whither to be tried but to the tradition of the present Church and this is not to be proved by a series and order of records and succession but if you will know what was formerly believed you must only ask what is believed now for now rivers run back to their springs and the Lamb was to blame for troubling the Wolf by drinking in the descending river for the lower is now higher and you are not to prove by what is past that the present is right but by the present you prove what was past and Harry the seventh is before Harry the sixth and Children must teach their Parents and therefore it is to be hop'd in time may be their Elders But by this means Fathers and Councils are made of no use to these Gentlemen who have greatly obliged the world by telling us a short way to Science and though our life be short yet art is shorter especially in our way in Theology Concerning which there needs no labour no study no reading but to know of the present Church what was always believed and taught and what ought to be so Nay what was done or what was said or what was written is to be told by the present Church which without further trouble can infallibly assure us And upon this account the Jesuits have got the better of the Jansenists for though these men weakly and fondly deny such words to be in Jansenius yet the virtual Church can tell better whether they be or no in Jansenius or rather it matters not whether they be or no for it being the present sense of the Pope he may proceed to condemnation But I. S. offers at some reason for this For saith he Fathers being eminent witnesses to immediate posterity or children of the Churches doctrine received and Councils representatives of the Church their strengths as proofs nay their very existence is not known till the notion of the Church be known which is part of their definition and to which they relate This is but part of his argument which I yet must consider apart because every proposition of his argument hath in it something very untrue which when I have remark'd I shall consider the whole of it altogether And here first I consider that it is a strange proposition to say that the existence of the Fathers is not known till the notion or definition of the Church be known For who is there of any knowledge in any thing of this nature that hath not heard of S. Austin S. Jerom S. Ambrose or S. Gregory The Spaniards have a proverb There was never good Oglio without Bacon nor good Sermon without S. Austin and yet I suppose all the people of Spain that hear the name of S. Austin it may be five hundred times every Lent make no question of the Existence of S. Austin or that there was such a man as he and yet I believe not very many of them can tell
the definition of the Church Thousands of the people and the very boys see the pictures of S. Austin sold in Fairs and Markets and yet are not so wise as to know the notion or nature of the Church and indeed many wiser people both among them and us will be very much to seek in the definition when your learned men amongst your selves dispute what that nature or definition is But it may be though I. S. put Fathers and Councils into the same proposition yet he means it of Councils only and that it is the existence of Councils which is not to be had without the notion or definition of Church and this is as false as the other for what tradesman in Germany Italy France or Spain is not well enough assur'd that there was such a thing as the Council of Trent and yet to the knowing of this it was not necessary that they should be told how Church is to be defin'd Indeed they can not know what it is to be Church-Councils unless they know as much of Church as they do of Councils But what think we Could not men know there was a Council at Ariminum more numerous than that at Nice unless they had the notion of Church Certainly the Church was no part of the definition of that Council nor did it relate save only as enemies are relatives to each other and if they be yet it is hard to say they are parts of each others definition But it may be I. S. means this saying of good and Catholic Councils yet they also may be known to have been without skill in definitions Definitions do not tell An sit but quid sit the first is to be supposed before any definition is to be inquir'd after Well! but how shall the being or nature of Church be known that 's his second proposition and tells us a pretty thing Nor is the being or nature of Church known till it be certainly known who are faithful or have true faith who not which must be manifested by their having or not having the true Rule of faith Why but does the having the true rule of faith make a man faithful Cannot a man have the true rule of faith and yet forsake it or not make use of it or hide the truth in unrighteousness Does the having the best antidote in the world make a man healthful though he live disorderly and make no use of it But to let that pass among the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is more remarkable is That the being or Nature of Church is not known till it be certainly known who are faithful or have true faith I had thought that the way in the Church of Rome of pronouncing men faithful or to have true faith had been their being in the Church and that adhering to the Church whose being and truth they must therefore be presupposed to believe had been the only way of pronouncing them faithful which I suppos'd so certain amongst them that though they have no faith at all but to believe as the Church believes had been a sufficient declaration of the faith of ignorant men But it seems the Tables are turned It is not enough to go to the Church but first they must be assured that they are faithful and have true faith before they know any thing of the Church But if the testimony of the present Church be the only rule of faith as I. S. would fain make us believe then it had been truer said a man can not know the being or nature of faith till he be well acquainted with the Church And must the Rule of faith be tried by the Church and must the Church be tried by the rule of faith Is the testimony of the Church the measure and touchstone of faith and yet must we have the faith before we have any knowledge whether there be a Church or no Are they both first and both prove one another and is there here no circle But however I am glad that the evidence of truth hath brought this Gentleman to acknowledge that our way is the better way and that we must first chuse our religion and then our Church and not first chuse our Church and then blindly follow the religion of it whatsoever it be But then also it will follow that I. S. hath destroyed his main hypothesis and the oral tradition of the present Church is not the Rule of faith for that must first be known before we can know whether there be such a thing as the Church or no whose rule that is pretended to be And now follows his conclusion which is nought upon other accounts Wherefore saith he since the properties of the Rule of Faith do all agree to Tradition our Rule and none of them to theirs it follows the Protestant or Renouncer of Tradition knows not what is either right Scripture Father or Council and so ought not to meddle with either of them To this I have already answered and what I. S. may do hereafter when he happens to fall into another fit of demonstration I know not but as yet he hath been very far from doing what he says he hath done that is evidently prov'd what he undertook in this question And I suppose I have in a following Section of this book evidently prov'd that Tradition such I mean as the Church of Rome uses in this inquiry leads into error or may do as often as into truth and therefore though we may and do use tradition as a probable argument in many things and some as certain in one or two things to which in the nature of the thing it is apt to minister yet it is infinitely far from being the rule of faith the whole Christian faith But I wonder why I. S. saith that for want of Tradition we cannot know either right Scripture Fathers or Councils I do not think that by tradition they do know all the books of Scriptures Do they know by Universal or Apostolical Tradition that the Epistle to the Hebrews is Canonical Scripture The Church of Rome had no tradition for it for above four hundred years and they receiv'd it at last from the tradition of the Greek Church and then they not the Roman Church are the great conservers of tradition and they will get nothing by that And what universal tradition can they pretend for those books which are rejected by some Councils as particularly that of Laodicea which is in the Code of the Universal Church and some of the Fathers which yet they now receive certainly in that age which rejected them there was no Catholic tradition for them and those Fathers which as I. S. expresses it were eminent witnesses to their immediate posterity or children of the Churches doctrine received in all likelyhood did teach their posterity what themselves professed and therefore it is possible the Fathers in that Council and some others of the same sentiment might joyn in saying something which might deceive their
together that indeed they are inke varied in divers figures and unsensed characters they are nothing else For 1. It is false that all reason for so he must mean if he would speak to any purpose is fetch'd from the natures of things some rely upon Concessions and presuppositions only some upon the state of exterior affairs and introduced Oeconomies or accidental mesnage of things some upon presumptions and some even upon the weaknesses of men upon contingencies and some which pretend to be reasons rely upon false grounds and such are I. S. his demonstrations But suppose they did as indeed the best reasons do what then Why then the best nature that is I suppose he means the humane unalterable abstracting from disease and madness is the ground of the humane part of Christian tradition This proposition hath in it something that is false and something that is to no purpose That which is false is that the nature of man unless he be mad or diseas'd in his brain is Unalterable As if men could not be chang'd by interest or ambition pride or prejudice by weakness and false Apostles mistake or negligence And by any of these a man that naturally hath faculties to understand and capacity of learning and speaking truth may be so changed that he is very alterable from good to bad from wise to foolish from the knowledge of the truth to believe a lie and be transported by illusions of the Devil Every man naturally loves knowledge that 's his nature and it is the best nature but yet it is so alterable that some men who from the principles of this best nature are willing to learn and they are ever learning yet they are so altered that they never come to the knowledge of truth But supposing that this best nature is the ground of the humane part of tradition yet it is not the ground of the humane part of tradition as it is unalterable but as it hath a defectible understanding and a free and a changeable will and innumerable weaknesses for these are so in this best nature that it can never be without them And therefore because this ground may be slippery there will be no sure footing here Especially since it is but the ground of the humane part of tradition for which cause it can be no more ground of truth in religion than the Roman story than Plutarch or Livy is of infallible indefectible truth in history and therefore I. S. does very wisely add to this the incomparable strengths of the supernatural assistances of the Holy Ghost But these alone can be sufficient if they could be proved to be given infallibly absolutely and without the altering condition of our making right use of them without grieving the Holy Spirit of which because there is no promise and no experience it is no wild Conceit to think tradition may be uncertain and yet our discourses in Religion by other principles be certain enough But now I perceive that I. S. is no such implacable man for all the seeming fierceness of his persuasion in his new mode of Oral tradition but that in time he may be reduc'd to the old way of this Church and ground as he does mainly here her infallibility not upon new demonstrations taken from the nature of things but upon the continual assistances and helpes of the only infallible spirit of God That indeed is a way possible if it were to be had but this new way hath neither sense nor reason And therefore in this place he wisely puts the greatest stress upon the other I should have proceeded a little further if I could have understood what I. S. means by any piece of nature built on Tradition and if he had not here put in the phrase of a wild Conceit I should have wanted a name for it but because it is no other I shall now let it alone and dig into the other mines and see if they be more dangerous than these Bugbears The third Way THe third Way I must needs say is a fine one He offers to prove my Dissuasive to be no Dissuasive no nor can it be a Dissuasive And why because to Dissuade is to unfix the understanding from what it held before which includes to make it hold or assent that what it held before certain is false or at least uncertain And here before I proceed further it is fit we acknowledge that we owe to I. S. the notice of these two mysteries 1. What is meant by Dissuading and that it is making a man to change his opinion an unfixing of his mind And the second That this unfixing the minde makes the minde to shake or to be chang'd to be uncertain or to think the proposition fit to be held we being thus instructed in these grounds of some new design'd demonstration may the surer proceed For wisely he adds a conjecture that surely by my Dissuasive from Popery I intend to oblige men to assent to the contrary I do believe indeed I did but my first aim was to dissuade that is to unfixe them and afterwards to establish them in the contrary Well! thus far we are agreed but for all this The thing I intend cannot be done by me I cannot dissuade because I have no peculiar method of my own but I use those means which others use to prove errors by and if the way I take be common to truth and error It is good for nothing error shall pretend to it as well as truth I must have a particularity of method above what is in others Now this is strange that I should be so severely dealt with why is more requir'd of me than of others I take the same way that the writers of books of controversie us'd to take I quote Scriptures and Fathers and Histories and instances and I use reason as well as I can I finde that Bellarmine and Baronius Card. Perron and Gregory de Valentia Stapleton and Hart Champian and Reynolds use the same Dull way as I do and yet they hope to persuade and Dissuade according to the subject matter and why my penny should not be as good silver as theirs I know not but I hope I shall know by and by why the true reason why I cannot Dissuade and that I miscall my book a Dissuasive is because the method which I take is common to those discourses which have in them power to satisfie the understanding and those who have no such power But herein is a wonderful thing my book cannot dissuade because I take a way which is taken in discourses which can satisfie the understanding For if some discourses proceeding my way can satisfie the Understanding as I. S. here confesses then it is to be hop'd so may mine at least there is nothing in my method to hinder it but it may yea but this method is also us'd in Discourses which have no such power well and what then Is not therefore my method as good a method as can be
poenitentiam fuerint expurgati do return to God Here then are two senses of the word Church God's sense and Man's sense The sense of Religion and the sense of Government common rites and spiritual union II. Having now laid this foundation that none but the true servants of Christ make the true Church of Christ and have title to the promises of Christ and particularly of the Spirit of truth and having observ'd that the Roman Church relies upon the Church under another notion and definition the next inquiry is to be What certainty there is of finding truth in this Church and in what sense and meaning it is that in the Church of God we shall be sure to find it Of the Church in the first sense 1 Tim. 3. 15 â—6 S. Paul affirms it is the pillar and ground of truth He spake it of the Church of Ephesus or the Holy Catholick Church over the world for there is the same reason of one and all if it be as S. Paul calls it Ecclesia Dei vivi if it be united to the head Christ Jesus every Church is as much the pillar and ground of truth as all the Church which that we may understand rightly we are to consider that what is commonly called the Church is but Domus Ecclesiae verae as the Ecclesia vera is Domus Dei it is the School of Piety the place of institution and discipline Good and bad dwell here but God onely and his Spirit dwells with the good They are all taught in the Church but the good onely are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taught by God by an infallible Spirit that is by a Spirit which neither can deceive nor be deceived and therefore by him the good and they onely are lead into all saving truth and these are the men that preserve the truth in holiness without this society the truth would be hidden and held in Unrighteousness so that all good men all particular Congregations of good men who upon the foundation Christ Jesus build the superstructure of a holy life are the pillar and ground of truth that is they support and defend the truth they follow and adorn the truth which truth would in a little time be suppress'd or obscur'd or varied or conceal'd and mis-interpreted if the wicked onely had it in their conduct That is Amongst good men we are most like to find the ways of peace and truth all saving truth and the proper spiritual advantages and loveliness of truth Now then this does no more relate to all Churches then to every Church God will no more leave or forsake any one of his faithful servants then he will forsake all the world And therefore here the Notion of Catholick is of no use for the Church is the Communion of Saints where-ever it be or may be and that this Church is Catholick it does not mean by any distinct existence but by comprehension and actual and potential inclosure of all Communions of holy people in the unity of the spirit and in the band of peace that is both externally and internally Externally means the common use of the Symbol and Sacraments for they are the band of peace but the unity of the Spirit is the peculiar of the Saints and is the internal confederation and conjunction of the members of Christs body in themselves and to their head And by the Energy of this state where-ever it happens to be all the blessings of the Spirit are entail'd every man hath his share in it he shall never be left or forsaken and the Spirit of God will never depart from him as long as he remains in and is of the Communion of Saints But this promise is made to him onely as he is part of this Communion that is of the body of Christ Membrum divulsum if a limb be cut off from the union of the body it dies No man belongs to God but he that is of this Communion but therefore the greater the Communion is the more abundance of the Spirit they shall receive as there is more wisdom in many wise men than in a few and since every single Church or Convention receives it in the vertue of the whole Church that is in conjunction with the body of Christ it is the whole body to whom this appellative belongs that she is the pillar and ground of truth But as every member receives life and nourishment and is alive and is defended and provided for by the head and stomach as truly and really as the whole body so it is in the Church every member preserves the saving truth and every member lives unto God and so long as they do so they shall never be forsaken by the Spirit of God and this is to every man as really as to every Church and therefore every good man hath his share in this appellative Apud Euseb. Eccles. hist. lib. 5. c. 1. and the Saints of Vienna and Lyons called Attalus the Martyr a pillar and ground of the Churches and truly he seems to have been a man that was fully grounded in the truth one that hath built his house upon a rock one with whom truth dwels to whom Christ the fountain of truth will come and dwell with him for he hath built upon the foundation Christ Jesus being the chief corner-stone and thus Attalus was a pillar one upon whose strength others were made more confident bold and firm in their perswasion he was one of the Pillars that helped to * Puâ—o quod convenienter hi qui Episcopaâ—um benè administrant in Ecclesiâ Trabes dici possunt quibus sustentatur tegitur omne aedificiâ—m Origen homil in Cantica support the Christian faith and Church and yet no man supposes that Attalus was infallible but so it is in the case of every particular Church as really as of the Catholick that is as to all Churches for that is the meaning of the word Catholick not that it signifies a distinct being from a particular Church and if taken abstractly nothing is effected by the word but if taken distributively then it is useful and material for it signifies that in every Congregation where two or three are gathered in the name of Christ God is in the midst of them with his blessing and with his Spirit it is so in all the Churches of the Saints and in all of them as long as they remain such the truth and faith is certainly preserv'd But then that in the Apostolical Creed the Church is recommended under the notion of Catholick it is of great use and excellent mysterie for by it we understand that in all ages there is and in all places there may be a Church or Collection of true Christians and this Catholick Church cannot fail that is all particular Churches shall not fail for still it is to be observed there is no Church Catholick really distinct from all particular Churches and therefore there is no promise made to a Church in the
capacitie of being Catholick or Universal for that which hath no distinct Being can have no distinct Promises no distinct capacities but the promises are made to all Churches and to every Church onely there is this in it if any Church of one denomination shall be cut off other branches shall stand by faith and still be in the vine The Church of God cannot be without Christ their head and the head will not suffer his body to perish Thus I understand the meaning of the Churches being the pillar and ground of truth Just as we may say Humane understanding and the experience of mankind is the pillar and ground of true Philosophy but there is no such abstracted Being as Humane understanding distinct from the understanding of all individual men Every Universal is but an intentional or notional Being so is the word Catholick relating to the Church if it be understood as something separated from all particular Churches and I do not find that it is any other ways us'd in Scripture than in the distributive sense So S. Paul The care of all the Churches is upon me that is he was the Apostle of the Catholick Church of the Gentiles And so I teach in all the Churches of the Saints And in this sense it is that I say the Apostles have in the Creed comprehended all the Christian world all the the congregations of Christ's servants in the word Catholick But then 2. It is to be considered that this Epithet of the Church to be the pillar and ground of truth is to be understood to signifie in opposition to all Religions that were not Christian. The implied Antithesis is not of the whole to its parts but of kind to kind it is not so called to distinguish it from conventions of those who disagree in the house of God but from those that are out of the house meaning that whatever pretences of Religion the Gentile Temples or the Jewish Synagogues could make truth could not be found among them but only in those who are assembled in the name of Christ who profess his faith and are of the Christian Religion for they alone can truly pretend to be the conservers of truth to them only now are committed the Oracles of God and if these should fail Truth would be at a loss and not be found in any other Assemblies In this sense S. Paul spake usefully and intelligibly for if the several conventions of separated and disagreeing Christians should call themselves as they do and always did the Church the question would be which were the Church of God and by this rule you were never the nearer to know where truh is to be found for if you say In the Church of God several pretend to it who yet do not teach the truth and then you must find out what is truth before you find the Church But when the Churches of Christians are distinguish'd from the Assemblies of Jews and Turks and Heathens she is visible and distinguishable and notorious and therefore they that love the truth of God the saving truth that makes us wise unto salvation must become Christians and in the Assemblies of Christians they must look for it as in the proper repository and there they shall find it 3. But then it is also considerable What truth that is of which the Church of the living God is the pillar and ground It is only of the saving truths of the Gospel that whereby they are made members of Christ the house of God the temples of the Holy Spirit For the Spirit of God being the Churches teacher he will teach us to avoid evil and to do good to be wise and simple to be careful and profitable to know God and whom he hath sent Jesus Christ to increase in the knowledge and love of them to be peaceable and charitable but not to entertain our selves and our weak Brethren with doubtful disputations but to keep close to the foundation and to superstruct upon that a holy life that is God teaches his Church the way of salvation that which is necessary and that which is useful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which will make us wise unto salvation But in this School we are not taught curious questions Unedifying notions to unty knots which interest and vanity which pride and covetousness have introduc'd these are taught by the Devil to divide the Church and by busying them in that which profits not to make them neglect the wisdom of God and the holiness of the Spirit And we see this truth by the experience of above 1500 years The Churches have troubled themselves with infinite variety of questions divided their precious unity destroyed charity and instead of contending against the Devil and all his crafty methods they have contended against one another and excommunicated one another and anathematiz'd and damn'd one another and no man is the better after all but most men are very much the worse and the Churches are in the world still divided about questions that commenc'd twelve or thirteen ages since and they are like to be so for ever till Elias come which shows plainly that God hath not interested himself in the revelations of such things and that he hath given us no means of ending them but Charity and a return to the simple ways of Faith And this is yet the more considerable because men are so far from finding out a way to end the questions they have made that the very ways of ending them which they propounded to themselves are now become the greatest questions and consequently themselves and all their other unnecessary questions are indeterminable their very remedies have increased the disease And yet we may observe that God's ways are not like ours and that his ways are the ways of truth and Everlasting he hath by his wise providence preserv'd the plain places of Scripture and the Apostles Creed in all Churches to be the rule and measure of that faith by which the Churches are sav'd and which is only that means of the unity of Spirit which is the band of peace in matters of belief And what have the Churches done since To what necessary truths are they after all their clampers advanc'd since the Apostles left to them that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that sound form of words and doctrine What one great thing is there beyond this in which they all agree or in which they can be brought to agree He that wisely observes the ways of God and the ways of man will easily perceive that God's goodness prevails over all the malice and all the follies of mankind and that nothing is to be relied upon as a rule of truth and the wayes of peace but what Christ hath plainly taught and the Apostles from him for he alone is the Author and Finisher of our Faith he began it and he perfected it and unless God had mightily preserved it we had spoil'd it Now to bring all this home to the
Turris to go Hist. Concil Trid. lib. 7 ◠D. 156◠because he had been too free in declaring his opinion for the Jus Divinum of the Residence of Bishops he at the same time durst not trust the Bishop of Cesena for a more secret reason but it was known enough to many He was a familiar friend of the Cardinal of Naples whose Father the Count of Montebello had in his hand an Obligation which that Pope had given to the Cardinal for a sum of money for his Voice in the Election of him to the Papacy And all the world have been full of noises and Pasquils sober and grave Comical and Tragical accusations of the Simony of the Popes for divers ages together and since no man can certainly know that the Pope is not Simoniacal no man can safely rely on him as a true Pope or the true Pope for an infallible Judge 2. If the Pope be a Heretick he is ipso facto no Pope now that this is very possible Bellarmine supposes because he makes that one of the necessary cases in which a General Council is to be called as I have shewed above And this uncertainty is manifest in an instance that can never be wip'd off for when Liberius had subscrib'd Arianism and the condemnation of S. Athasius and the Roman Clergy had depriv'd Liberius of his Papacy S. Felix was made Pope and then either Liberius was no Pope or S. Felix was not and one was a Heretick or the other a Schismatick and then as it was hard to tell who was their Churches head so it was impossible that by adherence to either of them their subjects could be prov'd to be Catholicks 3. There have been many Schisms in the Church of Rome and many Anti-popes which were acknowledged for true and legitimate by several Churches and Kingdoms respectively and some that were chosen into the places of the depos'd even by Councils were a while after disown'd and others chosen which was a known case in the times of the Councils of Constance and Basil. And when a Council was sitting and it became a Question who had power to chuse the Council or the Cardinals What man could cast his hopes of Eternity upon the adherence to one the certainty of whose legitimation was determin'd by power and interest and could not by all the learning and wisdom of Christendom 4. There was one Pope who was made head of the Church before he was a Priest It was Constantine the second who certainly succeeded not in S. Peter's Privileges when he was not capable of his Chair and yet he was their head of the Church for a year but how adherence to the Pope should then be a note of the Church I desire to know from some of the Roman Lawyers for the Divines know it not I will not trouble this account with any questions about the Female-head of their Church I need not seek for matter I am press'd with too much and therefore I shall omit very many other considerations about the nullities and insufficiencies and impieties and irregularities of many Popes and consider their other notes of the Church to try if they can fix this inquiry upon any certainty Bellarmine reckons fifteen notes of the Church It is a mighty hue and cry after a thing that he pretends is visible to all the world 1. The very name Catholick is his first note he might as well have said the word Church is a note of the Church for he cannot be ignorant but that all Christians who esteem themselves members of the Church think and call themselves members of the Catholick Church and the Greeks give the same title to their Churches Nay all Conventions of Hereticks anciently did so and therefore I shall quit Bellarmine of this note by the words of Lactantius which himself * Bellarm. l. 4. de Notis Eccles. cap. 1. Lact. lib. 3. Divinar institut cap. ult also a little forgetting himself quotes Sed tamen singuli quique Haereticorum coetus se potissimum Christianos suam esse Catholicam Ecclesiam putant 2. Antiquity indeed is a note of the Church and Salmeron proves it to be so from the Example of Adam and Eve most learnedly But it is certain that God had a Church in Paradise is as good an argument for the Church of England and Ireland as for Rome for we derive from them as certainly as do the Italians and have as much of Adam's religion as they have But a Church might have been very ancient and yet become no Church and without separating from a greater Church The Church of the Jews is the great example and the Church of Rome unless she takes better heed may be another Rom. 11. 20 21. S. Paul hath plainly threatned it to the Church of Rome 3. Duration is made a note now this respects the time past or the time to come If the time past then the Church of Britain was Christian before Rome was and blessed be God are so at this day If Duration means the time to come for so Bellarmine says Denotis Eccles. lib. 4. cap. 6. Ecclesia dicitur Catholica non solùm quia semper fuit sed etiam quia semper erit so we have a rare note for us who are alive to discern the Church of Rome to be the Catholick Church and we may possibly come to know it by this sign many ages after we are dead because she will last always But this sign is not yet come to pass and when it shall come to pass it will prove our Church to be the Catholick Church as well as that of Rome and the Greek Church as well as both of us for these Churches at least some of them have begun sooner and for ought they or we know they all may so continue longer 4. Amplitude was no note of the Church when the world was Arian and is as little now because that a great part of Europe is Papal 5. Succession of Bishops is an excellent conservatory of Christian doctrine but it is as notorious in the Greek Church as in the Roman and therefore cannot signifie which is the true Church unless they be both true and then the Church of England can claim by this tenure as having since her being Christian a succession of Bishops never interrupted but as all others have been in persecution 6. Consent in doctrine with the Ancient Church may be a good sign or a bad as it happens but the Church of Rome hath not and never can prove the pure and prime Antiquity to be of her side 7. Vnion of members among themselves and with their head is very good if the members be united in truth for else it may be a Conspiracy and if by head be meant Jesus Christ and indeed this is the onely true sign of the Church but if by head be meant the Roman Pope it may be Ecclesia Malignantium and Antichrist may sit in the chair But the uncertainty
of this note as it relates to this question I have already manifested and what excellent concord there is in the Church of Rome we are taught by the Question of supremacy of Councils or Popes and now also by the strict and loving concord between the Jansenists and Molinists and the abetters of the immaculate conception of the B. Virgin-Mother with their Antagonists 8. Sanctity of doctrine is an excellent note of the Church but that is the question amongst all the pretenders and is not any advantage to the Church of Rome unless it be a holy thing to worship images to trample upon Kings to reconcile a wicked life with the hopes of heaven at the last minute by the charm of external ministeries to domineer over Consciences to impose useless and intolerable burdens to damn all the world that are not their slaves to shut up the fountains of salvation from the people to be easier in dispensing with the laws of God than the laws of the Church to give leave to Princes to break their Oaths as Pope Clement the 7 th did to Francis the first of France to cosen the Emperor Vid. The Legend of Flamens Revieu de Concile de Trent l. ◠◠7. and as P. Julius the second did to Ferdinand of Arragon sending him an absolution for his treachery against the King of France not to keep faith with hereticks to find out tricks to entrap them that trusted to their letters of safe conduct to declare that Popes cannot be bound by their promises for Pope Paul the 4 th in a Conclave A. D. 1555. complained of them that said he could make but four Cardinals Hist. Concil Trident. lib. 5. because forsooth he had sworn so in the Conclave saying This was to bind the Pope whose authority is absolute that it is an Article of faith that the Pope cannot be bound much less can he bind himself that to say otherwise was a manifest heresie and against them that should obstinately persevere in saying so he threatned the Inquisition These indeed are holy doctrines taught and practis'd respectively by their Holinesses at Rome and indeed are the notes of their Church if by the doctrine of the head to whom they are bound to adhere we may guess at the doctrine of their body 9. The prevalency of their doctrine is produc'd for a good note and yet this is a greater note of Mahumetanism than of Christianity and was once of Arianism and yet the Argument is not now so good at Rome as it was before Luther's time 10. That the chiefs of the Pope's religion liv'd more holy lives than others gives some light that their Church is the true one But I had thought that their Popes had been the chiefs of their religion till now and if so then this was a good note while they did live well but that was before Popery Since that time we will guess at their Church by the holiness of the lives of those that rule and teach all and then if we have none to follow amongst us yet we know whom we are to fly amongst them 11. Miracles were in the beginning of Christianity a note of true believers Marc. 16. 17. Christ told us so And he also taught us that Antichrist should be revealed in lying signs and wonders and commanded us by that token to take heed of them And the Church of Rome would take it ill if we should call them as S. Austin did the Donatists Mirabiliarios Miracle-mongers concerning which he that pleases to read that excellent Tract of S. Austin De Vnitate Ecclesiae cap. 14. will be sufficiently satisfied in this particular and in the main ground and foundation of the Protestant Religion In the mean time Tom. 13. p. 193. it may suffice that Bellarmine says Miracles are a sign of the true Church and Salmeron says that they are no certain signs of the true Church but may be done by the false 12. The Spirit of Prophecy is also a prety sure note of the true Church and yet in the dispute between Israel and Judah Samaria and Jerusalem it was of no force but was really in both And at the day of Judgment Christ shall reject some who will alledge that they prophesied in his name I deny that not but there have been some Prophets in the Church of Rome Johannes de Rupe seissâ Anselmus Marsicanus Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincoln S. Hildegardis Abbot Joachim whose prophecies and pictures prophetical were published by Theophrastus Paracelsus and John Adrasder and by Paschalinus Rigeselmus at Venice 1589 but as Ahab said concerning Micaiah these do not prophesy good concerning Rome but evil and that Rome should be reformed in ore gladii cruentandi was one of the Prophesies and Vniversa Sanctorum Ecclesia abscondetur that the whole Church of the Saints shall be hidden viz. in the days of Anti-christ and that in the days of darkness the elect of God shall have that faith or wisdom to themselves which they have and shall not dare to preach it publickly was another prophecy and carries its meaning upon the forehead and many more I could tell but whether such prophesies as these be good signs that the Church of Rome is the true Church I desire to be informed by the Roman Doctors before I trouble my self any further to consider the particulars 13. Towards the latter end of this Catalogue of wonderful signs the confession of adversaries is brought in for a note and no question they intended it so But did ever any Protestant remaining so confess the Church of Rome to be the true Catholick Church Let the man be nam'd and a sufficient testimony brought that he was mentis compos and I will grant to the Church of Rome this to be the best note they have 14. But since the enemies of the Church have all had tragical ends it is no question but this signifies the Church of Rome to be the only Church Indeed if all the Protestants had died unnatural deaths and all the Papists nay if all the Popes had died quietly in their Beds we had reason to deplore our sad calamity and inquir'd after the cause but we could never have told by this for by all that is before him a man cannot tell whether he deserves love or hatred And all the world finds that As dies the Papist so dies the Protestant and the like event happens to them all excepting only some Popes have been remark'd by their own Histories for funest and direful deaths 15. And lately Temporal Prosperity is brought for a note of the true Church and for this there is great reason because the Cross is the high-way to Heaven and Christ promised to his Disciples for their Lot in this world great and lasting persecutions and the Church felt this blessing for 300 years together But this had been a better argument in the mouth of a Turkish Mufty than a Roman Cardinal And now if by all these
things we cannot certainly know that the Church of Rome is the true Catholick Church how shall the poor Roman Catholick be at rest in his inquiry Here is in all this nothing but uncertainty of truth or certainty of error And what is needful to be added more I might tire my self and my Reader if I should enumerate all that were very considerable in this inquiry I shall not therefore insist upon their uncertainties in their great and considerable Questions about the number of the Sacraments which to be Seven is with them an Article of Faith and yet since there is not amongst them any authentick definition of a Sacrament and it is not nor cannot be a matter of Faith to tell what is the form of a Sacrament therefore it is impossible it should be a matter of Faith to tell how many they are for in this case they cannot tell the number unless they know for what reason they are to be accounted so The Fathers and School-men differ greatly in the definition of a Sacrament and consequently in the numbring of them S. Cyprian and S. Bernard reckon washing the Disciples feet to be a Sacrament and S. Austin called omnem ritunt cultus Divini a Sacrament and otherwhile he says there are but two and the Schoolmen dispute whether or no a Sacrament can be defin'd And by the Council of Trent Clandestine Marriages are said to be a Sacrament and yet that the Church always detested them which indeed might very well be for the blessed Eucharist is a Sacrament but yet private Masses and Communions the Ancient Church always did detest except in the cases of necessity But then when at Trent they declar'd them to be Nullities it would be very hard to prove them to be Sacraments All the whole affair in their Sacrament of Order is a body of contingent propositions They cannot agree where the Apostles receiv'd their several Orders by what form of words and whether at one time or by parts and in the Institution of the Lord's Supper the same words by which some of them say they were made Priests they generally expound them to signifie a duty of the Laity as well as the Clergy Hoc facite which signifies one thing to the Priest and another to the People and yet there is no mark of difference They cannot agree where or by whom extreme Unction was instituted They cannot tell whether any Wafer be actually transubstantiated because they never can know by Divine Faith whether the supposed Priest be a real Priest or had right intention and yet they certainly do worship it in the midst of all Uncertainties But I will add nothing more but this what Wonder is it if all things in the Church of Rome be Uncertain when they cannot dare not trust their reason or their senses in the wonderful invention of Transubstantiation and when many of their wisest Doctors profess that their pretended infallibility does finally rely upon prudential motives I conclude this therefore with the words of S. Austin Remotis ergo omnibus talibus De Vnit. Eccles cap. 16. c. All things therefore being remov'd let them demonstrate their Church if they can not in the Sermons and Rumors of the Africans Romans not in the Councils of their Bishops not in the Letters of any disputers not in signs and deceitful Miracles because against these things we are warned and prepar'd by the word of the Lord But in the praescript of the Law of the Prophets of the Psalms of the Evangelists and all the Canonical authorities of the Holy Books And that 's my next undertaking to show the firmness of the foundation and the Great Principle of the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland even the Holy Scriptures SECTION II. Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures to Salvation which is the great foundation and ground of the Protestant Religion THis question is between the Church of Rome and the Church of England and therefore it supposes that it is amongst them who believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God The Old and New Testament are agreed upon to be the word of God and that they are so is deliver'd to us by the current descending testimony of all ages of Christianity and they who thus are first lead into this belief find upon trial great after-proofs by arguments both external and internal and such as cause a perfect adhesion to this truth that they are Gods Word an adhesion I say so perfect as excludes all manner of practical doubting Now then amongst us so perswaded the Question is Whether or no the Scriptures be a sufficient rule of our faith and contain in them all things necessary to salvation or Is there any other word of God besides the Scriptures which delivers any points of faith or doctrines of life necessary to salvation This was the state of the Question till yesterday And although the Church of Rome affirm'd Tradition to be a part of the object of faith and that without the addition of doctrine and practises deliver'd by tradition the Scriptures were not a perfect rule but together with tradition they are yet now two or three Gentlemen have got upon the Coach-wheel and have raised a cloud of dust enough to put out the eyes even of their own party Vid. hist. â—oncil Trident. sub Paul 3. A. D. 1546. making them not to see what till now all their Seers told them and Tradition is not onely a suppletory to the deficiencies of Scripture but it is now the onely record of faith But because this is too bold and impossible an attempt and hath lately been sufficiently reprov'd by some learned persons of our Church I shall therefore not trouble my self with such a frontless errour and illusion but speak that truth which by justifying the Scripture's fulness and perfection will overthrow the doctrine of the Roman Church denying it and ex abundanti cast down this new mud-wall thrown into a dirty heap by M. W. and his under-dawber M. S. who with great pleasure behold and wonder at their own work and call it a Marble Building 1. That the Scripture is a full and sufficient rule to Christians in faith and manners a full and perfect Declaration of the will of God is therefore certain because we have no other For if we consider the grounds upon which all Christians believe the Scriptures to be the word of God the same grounds prove that nothing else is These indeed have a Testimony that is credible as any thing that makes faith to men The universal testimony of all Christians In respect of which S. Austin said Evangelio non crederem c. I should not believe the Gospel if the Authority of the Church that is of the universal Church did not move me The Apostles at first own'd these Writings the Churches receiv'd them they transmitted them to their posterity they grounded their faith upon them they proved their propositions by them by them
show love and faithfulness to our equals to our inferiours counsel and help favour and good will bounty and kindness a good word and a good deed The Scripture hath given us Commandments concerning our very thoughts to be thankful and hospitable to be humble and complying what ever good thing was taught by any or all the Philosophers in the world all that and much more is in the Scriptures and that in a much better manner And that it might appear that nothing could be wanting the very degrees and the order of vertues is there provided for And if all this be not the high way to salvation and sufficient to all intents of God and the souls of men let any man come forth and say as Christ said to the young man Restat adhuc unum there is one thing wanting yet and let him shew it But let us consider a little further 5. What is or what can be wanting to the fulness of Scripture Is not all that we know of the life and death of Jesus set down in the writings of the New Testament Is there any one Miracle that ever Christ did the notice of which is conveyed to us by tradition Do we know any thing that Christ did or said but what is in Scripture Some things were reported to have been said by Christ secretly to the Apostles and by the Apostles secretly to some favourite Disciples but some of these things are not believed and none of the other is known so that either we must conclude that the Scripture contains fully all things of Faith and Obedience or else we have no Gospel at all for except what is in Scripture we have not a sufficient record of almost one saying or one miracle S. Paul quotes one saying of Christ which is not in any of the four Gospels but it is in the Scriptures It is better to give then to receive and S. Hierom records another Be never very glad but when you see your Brother live in charity If S. Paul had not written the first and transmitted it in Scripture we had not known it any more than those many other which are lost for not being written and for the quotation of S. Hierom it is true it is a good saying but whether they were Christ's words or no we have but a single testimony Now then how is it possible that the Scriptures should not contain all things necessary to salvation when of all the words of Christ in which certainly all necessary things to salvation must needs be contain'd or else they were never revealed there is not any one saying or miracle or story of Christ in any thing that is material preserv'd in any indubitable record but in Scripture alone 6. That the Scriptures do not contain in them all things necessary to salvation is the fountain of many great and Capital errours I instance in the whole doctrine of the Libertines Familists Quakers and other Enthusiasts which issue from this corrupted fountain For this that the Scriptures do need a Suppletory that they are not perfect and sufficient to salvation of themselves is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Fundamental both of the Roman religion and that of the Libertines and Quakers and those whom in Germany they call Spirituales such as David George Harry Nicholas Swenckfeld Sebastian Franc and others These are the men that call the Scriptures The letter of the Scripture the dead letter insufficient inefficacious This is but the sheath and the scabberd the bark and the shadow a carcase void of the internal light not apt to imprint a perfect knowledge in us of what is necessary to salvation But the Roman Doctors say the same things We know who they are that call the Scriptures the Outward letter Ink thus figur'd in a book J. S. in Sure scoting and in 4. Append. Unsensed characters waxen-natur'd words not yet sensed apt to blunder and confound but to clear little or nothing these are as bad words as the other and some of them the same and all draw a long tail of evil consequents behind them 1. From this Principle as it is promoted by the Fanaticks they derive a wandring unsetled and a dissolute religion For they supplying the insufficiency of Scripture by an inward word which being onely within it is subject to no discipline reducible into no order not submitted to the spirits of the Prophets and hath no rule by which it can be directed examin'd or judged Hence comes the infinite variety and contradictions of religion commenc'd by men of this perswasion A religion that wanders from day to day from fancy to fancy and alterable by every new illusion A religion in which some man shall be esteem'd an infallible Judge to day and next week another but it may happen that any man may have his turn and any mischief may be believ'd and acted if the Devil get into the chair 2. From this very same Principle as it is promoted by the Papists they derive a religion imperious interested and tyrannical For as the Fanaticks supply the insufficiency of Scripture by the word internal so do the Roman Doctors by the authority of the Church but when it comes to practice as the Fanatick give the supreme power of teaching and defining to the chief Elder in the love so do the Papists especially the Jesuits give it to the Pope and the difference is not that the Fanaticks give the supreme judgement to some one and the Papists give it to the whole Church for these also give it but to one man to the Pope whose judgement voice and definition must make up the deficiencies of Scripture But because the Fanaticks as it happens change their Judge every moneth therefore they have an ambulatory religion but that of the Roman way establishes Tyranny because their Judge being one not in person but in succession and having always the same interest and having already resolved upon their way and can when they list go further upon the stock of the same Principles and being established by humane power will unalterably persist in their right and their wrong and will never confess an Error and are impatient of contradiction and therefore they impose irremediably and what they please upon Consciences of which they have made themselves Judges Now for these things there is no remedy but from Scripture which if it be allowed full perfect and sufficient unto all the things of God then whatsoever either of these parties say must be tried by Scripture it must be shewed to be there or be rejected But to avoid the trial there they tell you the Scripture is but a dead letter Unsensed Characters words without sense or unsensed and therefore this must be supplied by the inward word says one by the Pope's word in Cathedrâ says the other and then both the Inward word and the Pope's word shall rule and determine every thing and the Scriptures will signifie nothing but as under pretence of
the word Internal every new thing shall pass for the word of God so it shall do also under the Roman pretence For not he that makes a Law but he that expounds the Law gives the final measures of Good or Evil. It follows from hence that nothing but the Scripture's sufficiencie can be a sufficient limit to the inundation of evils which may enter from these parties relying upon the same false Principle My Last argugument is from Tradition it self For 7. If we enquire upon what grounds the primitive Church did rely for their whole Religion we shall find they knew none else but the Scriptures Vbi Scriptum was their first inquiry Do the Prophets and the Apostles the Evangelists or the Epistles say so Read it there and then teach it else reject it they call upon their Charges in the words of Christ Search the Scriptures they affirm that the Scriptures are full that they are a perfect Rule that they contain all things necessary to salvation and from hence they confuted all Heresies This I shall clearly prove by abundant testimonies Of which though many of them have been already observ'd by very many learned persons yet because I have added others not so noted and have collected with diligence and care and have rescued them from Elusory answers I have therefore chosen to represent them together hoping they may be of more usefulness than trouble because I have here made a trial whether the Church of Rome be in good earnest or no when she pretends to follow Tradition or how it is that she expects a tradition shall be prov'd For this Doctrine of the Scripture's sufficiency I now shall prove by a full tradition therefore if she believes Tradition let her acknowledge this tradition which is so fully prov'd and if this do not amount to a full probation then it is but reasonable to expect from them that they never obtrude upon us any thing for tradition or any tradition for necessary to be believed till they have proved it such by proofs more and more clear than this Essay concerning the sufficiency and perfection of the Divine Scriptures I begin with S. Irenaeus * Rectissimè quidem scientes quia Scripturae quidem perfectae sunt quippe à verbo Dei Spiritu ejus dictae lib. 2. cap. 47. We know that the Scriptures are perfect for they are spoken by the word of God and by his Spirit Therefore * Lib. 4. c. 66. Legite diligentius id quod ab Apostolis est Evangelium nobis datum legite diligentius Prophetas invenietis Vniversam actionem omnem doctrinam Domini nostri praedicatam in ipsis read diligently the Gospel given unto us by the Apostles and read diligently the Prophets and you shall find every action and the whole doctrine and the whole passion of our Lord preached in them And indeed we have receiv'd the Oeconomy of our salvation by no other but by those by whom the Gospel came to us which truly they then preached but afterwards by the will of God delivered to us in the Scriptures which was to be the pillar and ground to our Faith These are the words of this Saint who was one of the most ancient Fathers of the Church a Greek by birth by his dignity and imployment a Bishop in France and so most likely to know the sense and rule of the Eastern and Western Churches Next to S. Irenaeus Strom. lib. 7. P. 757 edit Parâ—s 1629. we have the Doctrine of S. Clemens of Alexandria in these words He hath lost the being a man of God and of being faithful to the Lord who hath kicked against Tradition Ecclesiastical and hath turned to the opinions of humane Heresies What is this Tradition Ecclesiastical and where is it to be found That follows But he who returning out of Error obeys the Scriptures and hath permitted his life to truth he is of a Man in a manner made a God For the Lord is the principle of our Doctrine who by the Prophets and the Gospel and the blessed Apostles at sundry times and in divers manners leads us from the beginning to the end He that is faithful of himself is worthy of faith in the Voice and Scripture of the Lord which is usually exercis'd through the Lord to the benefit of men for this Scripture we use for the finding out of things this we use as the rule of judging But if it be not enough to speak our opinions absolutely but that we must prove what we say we expect no testimony that is given by men but by the voice of the Lord we prove the Question and this is more worthy of belief than any demonstration or rather it is the only demonstration by which knowledge they who have tasted of the Scriptures alone are faithful Afterwards he tells how the Scriptures are a perfect demonstration of the Faith Perfectly demonstrating out of the Scriptures themselves concerning themselves we speak or perswade demonstratively of the Faith Although even they that go after Heresies do dare to use the Scriptures of the Prophets But first they use not all neither them that are perfect nor as the whole body and contexture of the Prophecy does dictate but choosing out those things which are spoken ambiguously they draw them to their own opinion Then he tells how we shall best use and understand the Scriptures Let every one consider what is agreeable to the Almighty Lord God and what becomes him and in that let him confirm every thing from those things which are demonstrated from the Scriptures out of those and the like Scriptures And he adds that It is the guise of Hereticks when they are overcome by shewing that they oppose Scriptures Yet still they chuse to follow that which to them seems evident rather than that which is spoken of the Lord by the Prophets and by the Gospel and what is prov'd and confirm'd by the testimony of the Apostles and at last concludes a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 755. they become impious because they believe not the Scriptures and a little before this he asks the Hereticks Will they deny or will they grant there is any demonstration I suppose they will all grant there is except those who also deny that there are senses But if there be any demonstration it is necessary to descend to Questions and b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the Scriptures themselves to learn demonstratively how the Heresies are fallen and on the contrary how the most perfect knowledge is in the truth and the ancient Church But again they that are ready to spend their time in the best things will not give over seeking for truth c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 untill they have found the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves And after this adds his advice to Christians To wax old in the Scriptures and thence to seek for demonstrations These things he spoke not only by way of
Caution to the Christians but also of Opposition to the Gnosticks who were very busie in pretending ancient traditions This is the discourse of that great Christian Philosopher S. Clement from which besides the direct testimony given to the fulness and sufficiency of Scripture in all matters of Faith or Questions in Religion we find him affirming that the Scriptures are a certain and the only demonstration of these things they are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rule of judging the controversies of faith that the tradition Ecclesiastical that is the whole doctrine taught by the Church of God and preach'd to all men is in the Scripture and therefore that it is the plenary and perfect repository of tradition that is of the doctrine deliver'd by Christ and his Apostles and they who believe not these are Impious And lest any man should say that suppose Scripture do contain all things necessary to Salvation yet it is necessary that tradition or some infallible Church do expound them and then it is as long as it is broad and comes to the same issue S. Clement tells us how the Scriptures are to be expounded saying that they who rely upon them must expound Scriptures by Scriptures and by the analogy of faith Comparing spiritual things with spiritual one place with another a part with the whole and all by the proportion to the Divine Attributes This was the way of the Church in S. Clement ' s time and this is the way of our Churches But let us see how this affair went in other Churches and times and whether there be a succession and an Universality of this doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture in all the affairs of God The next is Tertullian Contr. Hermog cap. 22. who writing against Hermogenes that affirm'd God made the world not out of nothing but of I know not what praeexistent matter appeals to Scripture in the Question whose fulness Tertullian adores Let the shop of Hermogenes show that this thing is written If it be not written let him fear the Wo pronounc'd against them that adde to or take from Scripture Against this testimony it is objected that here Tertullian speaks but of one question De verb. Dei lib 4. c. 11. Sect. So Bellarmine answers and from him E. W. and A. L. To which the reply is easie Profert undecimo For when Tertullian challenges Hermogenes to show his proposition in Scripture he must mean that the fulness of the Scripture was sufficient not onely for this but for all Questions of religion or else it had been an ill way of arguing to bring a negative argument from Scripture against this alone For why was Hermogenes tied to prove this proposition from Scripture more than any other Either Scripture was the rule for all or not for that For suppose the heretick had said It is true it is not in Scripture but I have it from tradition or it was taught by my forefathers there had been nothing to have replied to this but that It may be he had no tradition for it Now if Hermogenes had no tradition then indeed he was tied to shew it in Scripture but then Tertullian should have said let Hermogenes shew where it is written or that it is a tradition for if the pretending and proving tradition in case there were any such pretense in this Question had been a sufficient answer then Tertullian had no sufficient argument against Hermogenes by calling for authority from Scripture but he should have said If it be not scriptum or traditum written or delivered let Hermogenes fear the wo to the adders or detracters But if we will suppose Tertullian spoke wisely and sufficiently he must mean that the Scripture must be the Rule in all Questions and no doctrine is to be taught that is not taught there But to put this thing past dispute Tertullian himself extends this rule to an universal comprehension And by this instrument declares that hereticks are to be confuted Take from the hereticks that which they have in common with the heathens viz. their Ethnick learning and let them dispute their questions by Scripture alone and they can never stand By which it is plain that the Scripture is sufficient for all faith because it is sufficient to convince all heresies and deviations from the faith For which very reason the hereticks also as he observes attempted to prove their propositions by arguments from Scripture for indeed there was no other way because the Articles of faith are to be prov'd by the writings of faith De Praescript that is the Scripture that was the Rule How contrary this is to the practice and doctrine of Rome at this day we easily find by their Doctors charging all heresies upon the Scriptures as occasion'd by them and forbidding the people to read them for fear of corrupting their weak heads nay it hath been prohibited to certain Bishops to read the Scriptures lest they become hereticks And this folly hath proceeded so far that Erasmus tells us of a Dominican In Epist. who being urg'd in a Scholastical disputation with an argument from Scripture cried out It was a Lutheran way of disputation and protested against the answering it which besides that it is more than a vehement suspicion that these men find the Scriptures not to look like a friend to their propositions it is also a manifest procedure contrary to the wisdom religion and Oeconomy of the primitive Church The next I note Tract 5. in Matth. versus finem is Origen who when he propounded a Question concerning the Angels Guardians of little children viz. When the Angels were appointed to them at their Birth or at their Baptism He addes You see Vide etiam Origen bomil 25. in Matth. homil 7. in Ezek. hom l. â— in Jerem. Quos locos citat Bellarm. ubi supra Sect. Secundò profert he that will discuss both of them warily it is his part to produce Scripture for testimony agreeing to one of them both That was the way of the Doctors then And Scripture is so full and perfect to all intents and purposes that for the confirmation of our discourses Scripture is to be brought saith Origen * Jesum Christum scimus Deum quaeriâ—us verba quae dicta sunt juxta personae exponere dignitatem Quapropter necesse nobis est Scripturas sanctas in testimonium vocare sensus quippe nostri enarrationes sine his testibus non habent fidem We know Jesus Christ is God and we seek to expound the words which are spoken according to the dignity of the person Wherefore it is necessary for us to call the Scriptures into testimony for our meanings and enarrations without these witnesses have no belief To these words Bellarmine answers most childishly saying that Origen speaks of the hardest questions such as for the most part traditions are not about But it is evident that therefore Origen requires testimony of
did mean so But then if there be any obscure places that cannot be so enlightned what is to be done with them S. Austin says Lib. de Vnit. Ecclesiae c. 16. that in such places let every one abound in his own sense and expound as well as he can quae obscurè vel ambiguè vel figuratè dicta sunt quae quisque sicut voluerit interpretetur secundum sensum suum But yet still he calls us to the rule of plain places Talia autem rectè intelligi exponique non possunt nisi priùs ea quae apertissimè dicta sunt firma fide teneantur The plain places of Scripture are the way of expounding the more obscure and there is no other viz. so apt and certain And after all this I deny not but there are many other external helps God hath set Bishops and Priests Preachers and Guides of our Souls over us and they are appointed to teach others as far as they can and it is to be suppos'd they can do it best but then the way for them to find out the meaning of obscure places is that which I have now describ'd out of the Fathers and by the use of that means they will be best enabled to teach others If any man can find a better way than the Fathers have taught us he will very much oblige the world by declaring it and giving a solid experiment that he can do what he undertakes But because no man and no company of men hath yet expounded all hard places with certaintie and without error it is an intolerable vanitie to pretend to a power of doing that which no charitie hath ever obliged them to do for the good of the Church and the glory of God and the rest of inquiring Souls I end this tedious discourse with the words of S. Austin De Vnit. Eccles. cap. 3. Nolo humanis documentis sed Divinis oraculis Ecclesiam demonstrari If you enquire where or which is the Church from humane teachings you can never find her she is only demonstrated in the Divine Oracles 1 Pet. 4. 1. Therefore if any man speak let him speak as the Oracles of God SECTION III. Of Traditions TRadition is any way of delivering a thing or word to another and so every doctrine of Christianity is by Tradition 1 Thes. 2. 15. I have deliver'd unto you saith S. Paul that Christ died for our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic S. Pasilius lib. 3. contr Eunomium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Grammarians and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Jude the faith deliver'd is the same which S. Paul explicates by saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the traditions that is the doctrines ye were taught And S. * Lib. 3. c. 4. Irenaeus calls it a tradition Apostolical that Christ took the Cup and said it was his bloud and to believe in one God and in Christ who was born of a Virgin was the old tradition that is the thing deliver'd not at first written which the Barbarians kept diligently But Tradition signified either Preaching or Writing as it hapned When it signified Preaching it was only the first way of communicating the Religion of Jesus Christ and untill the Scriptures were written and consign'd by the full testimony of the Apostles and Apostolical Churches respectively they in the Questions of Religion usually appeal'd to the tradition or the constant retention of such a doctrine in those Churches where the Apostles first preach'd and by the succession of Bishops in those Churches who without variety or change had still remembred and kept the same doctrine which at first was deliver'd by the Apostles So Irenaeus If the Apostles had not left the Scriptures to us Ibid. must not we viz. in this case have followed the order of tradition which they deliver'd to them to whom they intrusted the Church to which ordination many Nations of Barbarians do assent And that which was true then is also true now for if the Apostles had never written at all we must have followed tradition unless God had provided for us some better thing But it is observable that Irenaeus says That this way is only in the destitution of Scripture But since God hath supplied not only the principal Churches with the Scriptures but even all the Nations which the Greeks and Romans call'd Barbarous now to run to Tradition is to make use of a staff or a wooden Leg when we have a good Leg of our own The traditions at the first publication of Scriptures were clear evident recent remembred talk'd of by all Christians in all their meetings publick and private and the mistaking of them by those who carefully endeavour'd to remember them was not easie and if there had been a mistake there was an Apostle living or one of their immediate Disciples to set all things right And therefore untill the Apostles were all dead Hegâ—sip apud Eccles. liâ— 38. c. 32. Grec 26. Latin there was no dispute considerable amongst Christians but what was instantly determin'd or suppress'd and the Heresies that were did creep and sting clancularly but made no great show But when the Apostles were all dead then that Apostasie foretold began to appear and Heresies of which the Church was warned began to arise But it is greatly to be remark'd There was then no Heresie that pretended any foundation from Scripture Acts 20. 29. 30. but from tradition many 1 Tim. 4. 1. c. for it was accounted so glorious a thing to have been taught by an Apostle 2 Tim 3. â— c. 4. 3. that even good men were willing to believe any thing which their Scholars pretended to have heard their Masters preach 2 Thes. 2. 3. and too many were forward to say 2 Pet. 2. â— c. they heard them teach what they never taught 1 Joh. 2. 18. 19. and the pretence was very easie to be made by the Contemporaries or Immediate descendants after the Apostles Jude 4. v. c. and now that they were dead it was so difficult to confute them that the Hereticks found it an easie game to play to say They heard it deliver'd by an Apostle Many did so and some were at first believed and yet were afterwards discovered some were cried down at first and some expir'd of themselves and some were violently thrust away But how many of those which did descend and pass on to custome were of a true and Apostolical original and how many were not so it will be impossible to find now only because we are sure there was some false dealing in this matter and we know there might be much more than we have discover'd we have no reason to rely upon any tradition for any part of our faith any more than we could do upon Scripture if one
the next best had been to have suppress'd and forgotten it instantly for as it came in by zeal and partiality in the hands of the Cappadocian Bishops so it was fed by pride and faction in the hands of the Donatists and it could have no determination but the mere nature of the thing it self all the Apostles and Ministers of Religion were commanded to baptize in water in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and this was an admission to Christianity not to any sect of it and if this had been consider'd wisely so it had been done by a Christian Minister in matter and form there could be no more in it And therefore the whole thing was to no purpose so far was it from being an Article of Faith 4. The next pretence is that the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son is an Article of our Faith and yet no where told in Scripture and consequently tradition must help to make up the object of our Faith To this some very excellent persons have oppos'd this Consideration that the Greeks and Latins differ but in modo loquendi and therefore both speaking the same thing in differing words show that the Controversie it self is trifling or mistaken But though I wish them agreed yet when I consider that in all the endeavours for Union at the Council of Florence they never understood one another to purposes of peace I am apt to believe that those who would reconcile them shew their piety more than the truth of the thing and that the Greeks and Latins differ'd intirely in this point But then that on the Latin side there should be a tradition Apostolical can upon no other account be pretended but that they could not prove it by Scripture or shew any Ecclesiastical law or authority for it Now if we consider that the Greeks pretend their doctrine not only from Scripture but also from immemorial tradition that is that they have not innovated the doctrine which their Fathers taught them and on the other side that the Latins have contrary to the Canon of the Council of Ephesus superadded the clause of Filióque to the Constantinopolitan-Creed and that by authority of a little Convention of Bishops at Gentilly neer to Paris without the consent of the Catholick Church and that by the Confession of Cardinal Perron Contr. le Râ—y Jaques p. 709. not only the Scripture favours the Greeks but Reason also because it is unimaginable that the same particular effect should proceed from two principles in the same kind and although the three Persons created the world yet that production was from the Divine essence which is but one principle but the opinion of the Latius is that the Holy Ghost proceeds from two Persons as Persons and therefore from two principles it will be very hard to suppose that because all this is against them therefore it is certain that they had this from Apostolical tradition The more natural consequence is that their proposition is either mistaken or uncertain or not an article of Faith which is rather to be hop'd lest we condemn all the Greek Churches as Infidels or perverse Hereticks or else that it can be deriv'd from Scripture which last is indeed the most probable and pursuant to the doctrine of those wiser Latins who examin'd things by reason and not by prejudice But Cardinal Perron's argument is no better than this Titius was accus'd to have deserted his station in the Battel and carried false Orders to the Legion of Spurinna He answers I must either have received Orders from the General or else you must suppose me to be a Coward or a Traytor for I had no warrant for what I did from the Book of Military Discipline Well what if you be suppos'd to be a Coward or Traytor what hurt is in that supposition But must I conclude that you had Order from the General for fear I should think you did it on your own head or that you are a Traytor That 's the case Either this proposition is deriv'd to us by Apostolical tradition or we have nothing else to say for our selves well Nempe hoc Ithacus velit The Greeks allow the argument and will say thus You had nothing to say for your selves unless we grant that to you which is the Question and which you can never prove viz. that there is for this Article an Apostolical tradition but because both sides pretend that let us try this thing by Scripture And indeed that 's the only way And Cardinal Perron's argument may by any Greek be inverted and turned upon himself For he saying It is not in Scripture therefore it is a tradition of the Church it is as good an argument It is not deliver'd to us by universal Tradition therefore either it is not at all or it is deriv'd to us from Scripture and upon the account of this for my part I do believe it 5. The last instance of Cardinal Perron is the observation of the Lord's Day but this is matter of discipline and external rite and because it cannot pretend to be an article of faith or essentially necessary doctrine the consideration is differnt from the rest And it is soon at an end but that the Cardinal would fain make some thing of nothing by telling that the Jews complain of the Christians for changing Circumcision into Baptism and the Saturday-sabbath into the Dominical or Lord's-day He might as well have added They cry out against the Christians for changing Moses into Christ the Law into the Gospel the Covenant of works into the Covenant of faith Ceremonies into substances and rituals into spiritualities And we need no further inquiry into this Question but to consider Perron ibid. 710. what the Cardinal says that God did the Sabbath a special honour by writing this ceremonial alone into the summary of the moral law Now I demand Whether there be not clear and plain Scripture for the abolishing of the law of Ceremonies If there be then the law of the Sabbath is abolished It is part of the hand-writing of ordinances which Christ nail'd to his Cross. Now when the Sabbath ceases to be obligatory the Church is at liberty but that there should be a time sanctified or set apart for the proper service of God I hope is also very clear from Scripture and that the circumstances of religion are in the power of the presidents of religion and then it will follow from Scripture that the Apostles or their Successors or whoever did appoint the Sunday-festival had not onely great reason but full authority to appoint that day and that this was done early and continued constantly for the same reason and by an equal authority is no question But as to the Sabbath S. Paul gave express order that no man should be judged by any part of the ceremonial law and particularly name 's the Sabbath-days Colos. 2. 16. saying They all were a shadow of things
who having this warning from the very persons whence the mistake comes will yet swallow the hook deserve to live upon air and fancy and to chew deceit But this Topick of pretended Tradition is the most fallible thing in the world for it is discover'd of some things that are called Apostolical tradition that they had their original of being so esteemed upon the authority and reputation of one man Some I say have been so discover'd Papias was the Author of the Millenary opinion which prevailed for about three whole ages and that so Universally that Justin Martyr said it was believ'd by all that were perfectly Orthodox and yet it recurres to him onely as the fountain of the Tradition But of this I shall say no more because this instance hath been by others examin'd and clear'd The assumption of the Virgin Mary is esteem'd a Tradition Apostolical but it can derive no higher then S. Austin In serm de Assumptione whose doctrine alone brought into the Church the veneration of the Assumption which S. Hierom yet durst not be confident of But the Tradition of keeping Easter the fourteen day of the Moon deriv'd onely from S. John Salmeron tract 51. in Rom. 5. p. 468 in marg and the Asâ—atick Bishops but the other from S. Peter and S. Paul prevail'd though it had no greater authority But the Communicating of Infants prevail'd for many ages in the West S. Hierom. dial adv Lucifer and to this day in the East and went for an Apostolical Tradition but the fortune of it is chang'd and it now passes for an errour and S. Hierom said It was an Apostolical Tradition that a Priest should never baptize without Chrism but of this we have scarce any testimony but his own But besides this there was in the beginning of Christianity some Apocryphal books of these Origen gave great caution Tract 26. in Matth. and because the falsity of these every good man could not discover therefore he charges them that they should offer to prove no Opinion from any books but from the Canonical Scriptures as I have already quoted him but these were very busie in reporting traditions The book of Hermes seduc'd S. Clemens of Alexandria into a belief that the Apopostles preach'd to them that died Infidels and then rais'd them to life and the Apocryphal books under the title of Peter and Paul make him believe that the Greeks were sav'd by their Philosophy and the Gospel of Nicodemus so far as yet appears was author of the pretended tradition of the signing with the Sign of the Cross at every motion of the body and led Tertullian and S. Basil and in consequence the Churches of succeeding ages into the practise of it A little thing will draw on a willing mind and nothing is so credulous as piety and timerous Religion and nothing was more fearful to displease God and curious to please him than the Primitive Christians and every thing that would invite them to what they thought pious was sure to prevail and how many such pretences might enter in at this wide door every man can easily observe Add to this that the world is not agreed about the competency of the testimony or what is sufficient to prove tradition to be Apostolical Some require and allow only the testimony of the present Catholick Church to prove a Tradition which way if it were sufficient then it is certain that many things which the primitive Fathers and Churches esteem'd tradition would be found not to be such because as appears in divers instances above reckon'd they admitted many traditions which the present Church rejects 2. If this were the way then truth were as variable as time and there could be no degrees of credibility in testimony but still the present were to carry it that is every age were to believe themselves and no body else And the reason of these things is this because some things have in some ages been universally receiv'd in others universally rejected I instance in the state of Saints departed which once was the opinion of some whole ages and now we know in what ages it is esteemed an error 3. The Communicating Infants before instanc'd in was the practise of the Church for 600 years together Maldonat in 6. Joh. 53. videetiam Espéncaeuâ— de adorat Eucharist l. 2. c. 12. Now all that while there was no Apostolical tradition against this doctrine and practice or at least none known for if there had these Ages would not have admitted this doctrine But if there were no tradition against it at that time there is none now And indeed the Testimony of the present Church cannot be useful in the Question of Tradition if ever there was any age or number of orthodox and learned men that were against it only in a negative way it can be pretended that is if there was no doctrine or practice or report ever to the contrary then they that have a mind to it may suppose or hope it was Apostolical or at least they cannot be sure that it was not But this way can never be useful in the Questions of Christendom because in them there is Father against Son and Son against Father Greeks against Latin and their minds differ as far as East and West and therefore it cannot be in our late Questions that there was never any thing said to the contrary but if there was then the testimony of the present Church is not sufficient to prove the tradition to be Catholick and Apostolick 4. If the testimony of the present Church were a sure record of Tradition Apostolical then it is because the present Church is infallible but for that there is neither Scripture nor Tradition or if there were for its infallibility in matter of faith yet there is none for its infallibility in matter of fact and such is the Tradition concerning which the Question only is Whether such a thing was actually taught by an Apostle and transmitted down by the hand of uninterrupted succession of Sees and Churches Antiquissimum quodque verissimum We know the fountains were pure and the current by how much the nearer it is to the spring it is the less likely to be corrupted And therefore it is a beginning at the wrong end to say The present Church believes this therefore so did the primitive but let it be shewed that the primitive did believe this for else it is Out-facing of an Opponent as if he ought to be aasham'd to question whether you have done well or no. For if that question may be ask'd it must be submitted to trial and it must be answer'd and the holding the opinion will not justifie the holding it that must be done by something else therefore the sampler and the sampled must be compar'd together and it will be an ill excuse if a servant who delivers a spotted garment to his Lord and tells him Thus it was deliver'd to me for thus you see
wills some are scarce worth the remembring and are of an obsolete and worn-out authority Now if these men say true then they prove a tradition or else nothing will prove it but a consent absolutely Universal which is not to be had For on the other side They that speak against the immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin particularly Cardinal Cajetan bring as he says the irrefragable testimony of fifteen Fathers against it others bring no less then two hundred and Bandellus brings in almost three hundred and that will go a great way to prove a Tradition But that this also is not sufficient see what the other side say to this They say that Scotus and Holcot and Vbertinusde Casalis and the old Definition of the University of Paris and S. Ambrose and S. Augustine are brought in falsely or violently and if they were not yet they say it is an illiteral disputation and not far from Sophistry to proceed in this way of arguing For it happens sometimes that a multitude of Opiners proceeds onely from one famous Doctor and that when the Donatists did glory in the multitude of Authors S. Austin answer'd that it was a sign the cause wanted truth when it endeavour'd to relie alone upon the authority of many and that it was not fit to relate the sentiment of S. Bernard Bonaventure Thomas and other Devotes of the Blessed Virgin as if they were most likely to know her priviledges and therefore would not have denied this of Immaculate Conception if it had been her due For she hath many devout servants the world knows not of and Elisha though he had the spirit of Elias doubled upon him yet said Dominus celavit à me non indicavit mihi and when Elias complain'd he was left alone God said he had 7000 more And the Apostles did not know all things and S. Peter walk'd not according to the truth of the Gospel and S. Cyprian err'd in the point of rebaptizing hereticks For God hath not given all things unto all persons that every age may have proper truths of its own which the former age knew not Thus Salmeron discourses and this is the way of many others more eminent who make use of authority and antiquity when it serves their turn and when it does not it is of no use and of no value But if these things be thus then how shall Tradition be prov'd if the little remnant of the Dominican party which are against the Immaculate Conception should chance to be brought off from their opinion as if all the rest of the other Orders and many of this be already it is no hard thing to conjecture that the rest may and that the whole Church as they will then call it be of one mind shall it then be reasonable to conclude that then this doctrine was and is an Apostolical Tradition when as yet we know and dare say it is not That 's the case and that 's the new doctrine but how impossible it is to be true and how little reason there is in it is now too apparent I see that Vowing to Saints is now at Rome accounted an Apostolical doctrine but with what confidence can any Jesuite tell me that it is so when by the Confession of their chief parties it came in later than the fountains of Apostolical Doctrines De cultu S S. lib. 3. c. 9. Sect. Praetereà When the Scriptures were written the use of vowing to Saints was not begun saith Bellarmine and Cardinal * Contre le Roy Jaques Perron confesses that in the Authors more neer to the Apostolical age no footsteps of this custom can be found Where then is the Tradition Apostolical or can the affirmation of the present Church make it so To make a new thing is easie but no man can make an old thing The consequence of these things is this All the doctrines of faith and good life are contain'd and express'd in the plain places of Scripture and besides it there are and there can be no Articles of faith and therefore they who introduce other articles and upon other principles introduce a faith unknown to the Apostles and the Fathers of the Primitive Church And that the Church of Rome does this I shall manifest in the following discourses SECTION IV. There is nothing of necessity to be believ'd which the Apostolical Churches did not believe IN the first Part of the Dissuasive it was said that the two Testaments are the Fountains of Faith and whatsoever viz. as belonging to the faith came in after these foris est is to be cast out it belongs not to Christ and now I suppose what was then said is fully verified And the Church of Rome obtruding many propositions upon the belief of the Church which are not in Scripture and of which they can never shew any Universal or Apostolical Tradition urging those upon pain of Damnation imposing an absolute necessity of believing such points which were either denyed by the Primitive Church or were counted but indifferent and matters of opinion hath disordered the Christian Religion and made it to day a new thing and unlike the great and glorious Founder of it who is the same yesterday and to day and for ever The charge here then is double they have made new Necessities and they have made new Articles I chuse to speak first of their tyrannical Manner of imposing their Articles viz. every thing under pain of damnation The other of the new Matter is the subject of the following Sections First then I alledge that the primitive Church being taught by Scripture and the examples Apostolical affirm'd but few things to be necessary to salvation They believed the whole Scriptures every thing they had learn'd there they equally believ'd but because every thing was not of equal necessity to be believ'd they did not equally learn and teach all that was in Scripture But the Apostles say some othes say that immediately after them the Church did agree upon a Creed a Symbol of Articles which were in the whole the foundation of Faith the ground of the Christian hope and that upon which charity or good life was to be built There were in Scripture many Creeds the Gentiles Creed Matth. 16. 16. Martha's Creed the Eunuch's Creed S. Peter's Creed 1 Joh. 4. 2. 15. S. Paul's Creed To believe that God is and that he is the rewarder of them that seek him diligently To believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God Joh. 20. 31. 11. 27. that Jesus is come in the flesh Hebr. 11. 6. 69. that he rose again from the dead these Confessions were the occasions of admirable effects by the first the Gentiles come to God by the following Matth. 16. 17. blessedness is declar'd salvation is promis'd to him that believes and to him that confesses this God will come and dwell in him and he shall dwell in God and this belief
bound to believe truths which are not matters of Faith This obliges upon supposition of a manifest discovery which may or may not happen but in the other case we are bound to inquire and all of us must be instructed and evere man must assent and without this we cannot be Christ's Disciples we are rebels if we oppose the other and no good man can or does For if he be satisfied that it is the word and mind of God he must and will believe it he cannot chuse and if he will not confess it when he thinks God bids him or if he opposes it when he thinks God speaks it he is malicious and a villain but if he does not believe God said it then he must answer for more than he knows or than he ought to believe that is the Articles of Faith but we are not Subjects or Children unless we consent to these The other cannot come into the common accounts of mankind but as a man may become a law unto himself by a confident an unnecessary and even a false perswasion because even an erring conscience can bind so much more can God become a law unto us when we by any accident come into the knowledge of any Revelation from God but these are not the Christian Faith in the strict and proper sense that is these are not the foundation of our Religion many a man is a good Christian without them and goes to Heaven though he know nothing of them but without these no Christian can be sav'd Now then the Apostles the founders of Christianity knowing the nature design efficacy and purpose of the Articles of Faith selected such propositions which in conjunction did integrate our Faith and were therefore necessary to be believ'd unto salvation not because these Articles were for themselves commanded to be believ'd but because without the belief of them we could not obtain the purposes and designs of faith that is we could not be enabled to serve God to destroy the whole body of sin to be partakers of the Divine Nature This Collect or Symbol of propositions is that which we call the Apostles Creed which I shall endeavour to prove to have been always in the Primitive Church esteemed a full and perfect Digest of all the necessary and fundamental Articles of Christian Religion and that beyond this the Christian faith or the foundation was not to be extended but this as it was in the whole Complexion necessary so it was sufficient for all men unto Salvation S. Paul gave us the first formal intimation of this measure 2 Tim. 1. 13. in his advises to S. Timothy Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us This was the depositum that S. Paul left with Timothy the hypotyposis or summary of Christian Belief the Christian Creed which S. Paul opposes to the prophane new talkings 1 Tim. 6. 20. and the disputations of pretended learning meaning that this Symbol of faith is the thing on which all Christians are to relie and this is the measure of their faith other things it is ods but they are bablings and prophane quarrelling and unedifying argumentations S. Ignatius recites the substance of this Creed in four of the Epistles usually attributed to him Epist 3. ad Magnes 5. ad Philipp 7. ad Smyrnens 11. ad Ephâ—sio some of which are witnessed by Eusebius and S. Hierom and adds at the end of it this Epiphonema Haee qui planè cognôrit crediderit beatus est And S. Irenaeus reciting the same Creed or form of words differing onely in order of placing them S. Irenaeus lib. 1. ca â— 2. but justly the same Articles and Foundation of faith affirms that this is the faith which the Catholick Church to the very ends of the Earth hath received from the Apostles and their disciples And this is that Tradition Apostolical of which the Churches of old did so much glory and to which with so much confidence they appealed and by which they provoked the hereticks to trial Et. cap. 3. This Preaching and this Faith when the Church scattered over the face of the world had receiv'd she keeps diligently as dwelling in one house and believes as having one soul and one heart and preaches and teaches and delivers these things as possessing one mouth For although there are divers speeches in the world yet the force of the Tradition is one and the same Neither do the Churches founded in Germany believe otherwise aut aliter tradunt or have any other tradition nor the Iberian Churches or those among the Celtae nor the Churches in the East in Egypt or in Lybia nor those which are in the midst of the world But he adds that this is not onely for the ignorant the idiots or Catechumeni but neither he who is most eloquent among the Bishops can say any other things than these for no man is above his Master neither hath he that is the lowest in speaking lessened the tradition For the faith is one and the same he that can speak much can speak no more and he that speaks little says no less This Creed also he recites again affirming that even those Nations who had not yet received the books of the Apostles and Evangelists yet by this Confession and this Creed Lib 3 cap. 4. Propter fidem per quam sapientissimi sunt did please God and were most wise through faith for this is that which he calls the tradition of the truth that is of that truth which the Apostles taught the Church and by the actual retention of which truth it is that the Church is rightly called the pillar and ground of truth by S. Paul Lib. 4. cap. 62. and in relation to this S. Irenaeus reckon'd it to be all one extra veritatem id est extra Ecclesiam Upon this Collect of truths the Church was founded and upon this it was built up and in this all the Apostolical Churches did hope for life eternal and by this they oppos'd all schisms and heresies as knowing what their and our great Master himself said in his last Sermon John 17. 3. This is life eternal to know thee the onely true God and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ. This also is most largely taught by Tertullian Tertul de praescript adv haerâ—t c. 13. 14. who when he had recited the Apostolical Creed in the words and form the Church then used it calls it the Rule of faith he affirms this Rule to have been instituted by Christ he affirms that it admits of no questions and hath none but those which the heresies brought in and which indeed makes hereticks But this form remaining in its order you may seek and handle and pour out all the desires of Curiositie if any thing seems
Ruffinus says The Apostles being to separate and go to their several charges appointed Normam futurae praedicationis regulam dandam credentibus unanimitatis fidei suae indicium the Rule of what they were to preach to all the world the measure for believers the Index of Faith and Unity Not any speech not so much as one even of them that went before them in the faith was admitted or heard by the Church By this Creed the foldings of infidelity are loosed by this the gate of life is set open by this the glory of Confession is shewn It is short in words but great in Sacraments It confirms all men with the perfection of believing with the desire of confessing with the confidence of the Resurrection Whatsoever was prefigured in the Patriarchs whatsoever is declar'd in the Scriptures whatsoever was foretold in the Prophets of God who was not begotten Serm. 131. de tempore sive Serm. 2. de exposit Symboli ad Competenteâ— of the Son of God who is the onely begotten of God or the Holy Spirit c. Totum hoc breviter juxta oraculum propheticum Symbolum in se continet confitendo So S. Austin who also cals it The fulness of them that believe It is the rule of faith the short the certain rule which the Apostles comprehended in twelve Sentences that the believers might hold the Catholick Vnity and convince the heretical pravity The comprehension and perfection of our faith Serm. 181. de tempore Hom. 115. The short and perfect Confession of the Catholick Symbol is consigned with so many Sentences of the twelve Apostles Epist. 13. ad Pulcher. Augustum is so furnished with celestial ammunition that all the opinions of Hereticks may be cut off with that sword alone said Pope Leo. I could adde many more testimonies declaring the simplicity of the Christian faith and the fulness and sufficiency of the Apostolical Creed But I summe them up in the words of Rabanus Maurus In the Apostles Creed there are but few words Lib. 2. de institut Clericorum cap. 56. but it contains all Religion Omnia in eo continentur Sacramenta for they were summarily gathered together from the whole Scriptures by the Apostles that because many Believers cannot read or if they can yet by their secular affairs are hindred that they do not read the Scriptures retaining these in their hearts they may have enough of saving knowledge Now then since the whole Catholick Church of God in the primitive ages having not only declar'd that all things necessary to salvation are sufficiently contain'd in the plain places of Scripture but that all which the Apostles knew necessary they gathered together in a Symbol or form of Confession and esteem'd the belief of this sufficient unto salvation and that they requir'd no more in credendis as of necessity to Eternal life but the simple belief of these articles these things ought to remain in their own form and order For what is and what is not necessary is either such by the Nature of the Articles themselves or by the Oeconomy of Gods Commandment and what God did command and what necessary effect every Article had the Apostles onely could tell and others from them They that pretend to a power of doing so as the Apostles did have shown their want of skill and by that confess their want of power of doing that which to do is beyond their skill For which sins are venial and which are mortal all the Doctors of the Church of Rome cannot tell and how then can they tell this of Errors when they cannot tell it of Actions But if any man will search into the harder things or any more secret Sacrament of Religion by that means to raise up his mind to the contemplation of heavenly things and to a contempt of things below he may do it if he please so that he do not impose the belief of his own speculations upon others or compel them to confess what they know not and what they cannot find in Scriptures or did not receive from the Apostles We find by experience that a long act of Parliament or an Indenture and Covenant that is of great length ends none but causes many contentions and when many things are defin'd and definitions spun out into declarations men believe less and know nothing more And what is Man that he who knows so little of his own body of the things done privately in his own house of the nature of the meat he eates nay that knows so little of his own Heart and is so great a stranger to the secret courses of Nature I say what is man that in the things of God he should be asham'd to say This is a secret This God onely knows S. Athanas. ep ad Serapion This he hath not reveal'd This I admire but I understand not I believe but I understand it to be a mystery And cannot a man enjoy the gift which God gives and do what he commands but he must dispute the Philosophy of the gift or the Metaphysicks of a Command Cannot a man eat Oysters unless he wrangle about the number of the senses which that poor animal hath and will not condited Mushromes be swallowed down unless you first tell whether they differ specifically from a spunge S. Basil. de Spir. S. c. 13. Is it not enough for me to believe the words of Christ saying This is my body and cannot I take it thankfully and believe it heartily and confess it joyfully but I must pry into the secret and examine it by the rules of Aristotle and Porphyry and find out the nature and the undiscernable philosophy of the manner of its change and torment my own brains and distract my heart and torment my Brethren and lose my charity and hazard the loss of all the benefits intended to me by the Holy Body because I break those few words into more questions than the holy bread is into particles to be eaten Is it not enough that I believe that whether we live or die we are the Lord's in case we serve him faithfully but we must descend into hell and inquire after the secrets of the dead and dream of the circumstances of the state of separation and damn our Brethren if they will not allow us and themselves to be half damn'd in Purgatory Is it not enough that we are Christians that is that we put all our hope in God who freely giveth us all things by his Son Jesus Christ that we are redeemed by his death that he rose again for our justification that we are made members of his body in Baptism that he gives us of his Spirit that being dead to the lusts of this world we should live according to his doctrine and example that is that we do no evil that we do what good we can that we love God and love our Brother that we suffer patiently and do good things in expectation of better even of
If the Catholicks sometimes say That the Scriptures depend upon the Church or a Council they do not understand it in respect of authority or in themselves but by explication and in relation to us * Bellarm. de Concil author lib. 2. cap. 12. Sect. Diximus Which is too crude an affirmative to be believ'd for besides that Pighius in his Epistle to Paul III. before his Books of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy affirms that the whole authority of the Scripture depends upon the Church and the Testimonies above cited doe in terms confute this saying of his the distinction it self helps not all for if the Scriptures have quoad nos no authority but what the Pope or the Church is pleas'd to give them then they have in themselves none at all For the Scriptures were written for our learning not to instruct the Angels but to conserve the truths of God for the use of the Church and they have no other use or design And if a man shall say the Scriptures have in themselves great authority he must mean that in themselves they are highly credible quoad nos that is that we are bound to believe them for their own truth and excellency And if a man shall say They have no authority quoad nos but what the Church gives them he says They are not credible in themselves and in se have no authority so that this distinction is a Metaphysical Nothing and is brought only to amuse men that have not leisure to consider And he that says one says the other or as bad under a thin and transparent cover The Church gives testimony external to the Scripture but the internal authority is inherent and derives only from God But let the witness of the Church be of as perfect force as can be desir'd I meddle not with it here but that which I charge on the Roman Doctors is that they give to their Church a power of introducing and imposing new Articles of Belief and pretending that they have power so to do and their definitions are of authority equal if not superiour to the Scriptures And this I have now prov'd by many testimonies to all which I add that of the Canon Law it self Dist. 19. Can. in Canonicis In which Gratian most falsly alledges pretended words of Saint Austin which Bellarmine * De Concil authorit lib. 2. cap. 12. Sect. Respondâ—o ad Graâ—ianum calls a being deceiv'd by a false Copy and among the Canonical Scriptures reckons the decretal Epistles of the Popes inter quas sanè illae sunt quas Apostolica Sedes habere ab eâ alii meruerunt accipere Epistolas Now who can tell of any Copy of S. Austin or heard of any in which these words were seen Certainly no man alive but if Gratian was deceiv'd the deceivers were among themselves and yet they lov'd the deception or else they might have expung'd those words when Gregory the 13th appointed a Committee of learned men to purge that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it yet remains and if they do not pass for Saint Austin's words yet they are good Law at Rome 10â— Com. tit 1. de Ecclesiâ ejus authorit And Hereticks indeed talk otherwise said Eckius Objiciunt Haeretioi Major est authoritas Scripturae quam Ecclesiae but he hath confuted them with an excellent Argument The Church using bloud and strangled hath by authority chang'd a thing defin'd by the Scripture Behold says he the power of the Church over Scripture I love not to take in such polluted channels he that is pleased with it may find enough to entertain his wonder and his indignation if he please to read a fol. 126. 1. b. 104. b. 133. b. Capistrano b pag. 42. n. 15. p. 11. n. 18. 124. n. 9. Cupers c defens Trid. l. 1. l. 2. explic orthod l. 2. Andradius d pag. 3. l. 22. cap. 3. Sect. 3. Antonius e de fide justif 74. 6. hierarch Eccl. l. 1. c. 2. 3. 4. in praefatione ad Paulum terâ—ium Pighius f Contr. Luthâ— Concl. 56. Sylvester Prierias g dis contr Luther 8. de Eccl. Concl. 1. l. edit 1554. Johannes Maria Verratus h Encherid cap. 1. Coster i in 3. l. decâ—etal de convers conjug c. ex publico n. 16. Zabarel and k de verb. Dei l. 3. c. 10. Sect. Ad decimum quintum Bellarmine himself who yet with some more modesty of expression affirms the same thing in substance which according as it hath been is and is still likely to be made use of is enough to undo the Church The word of the Pope teaching out of his Chair is non omnino not altogether or not at all the word of man that is a word liable to error but in some sort the word of God c. Agreeable to which is that which the Lawyers say that the Canon Law is the Divine Law so said * Super. 2. decret de jurejur c. Nimis n. 1. Hostiensis I hope I shall not be esteemed to slander her when these writers think they so much honour the Church of Rome in these sayings In pursuance of this power and authority Pope Pius the 4th made a new Creed and putting his power into act did multiply new Articles one upon another And in the Council of Trent amongst many other new and fine Doctrines this was one That it is Heresie to say That Matrimonial Causes do not pertain to Ecclesiastical Judges and yet we in England owe this priviledge to the favour and bounty of the King and so did the Ancient Churches to the kindness and Religion of the Emperour and if it were so or not so it is but matter of Discipline and cannot by a simple denial of it become an Heresie So that what I have alledged is not the opinion of some private Doctors but the publick practise of the Roman Church Lib. Benedicti de Benedict Bon niae excusus A. D. 1600. Commissum ei Papae munus non modò articulos indeterminatos determinandi sed etiam fidei Symbolum condendi atque hoc ipsum Orthodoxos omnes omnium saeculorum agnovisse palam confessos esse it was said to Paulus Quintus in an address to him And how good a Catholick Baronius was in this particular An. Dom. 373. n. 22. we may guess by what himself says concerning the business of the Apollinarists in which the Pope did and undid Vt planè appareat says Baronius ex arbitrio pependisse Romani Pontificis Decreta sancire sancita mutare 2. That which I am next to represent is that the Church of Rome hath reason and necessity to pretend to this power of making new Articles for they having in the body of their Articles and in the publick Doctrines allowed by them and in the profession and practises of their Church so many new things
are apt to be earnest in their perswasion and over-act the proposition and from being true as he supposes he will think it profitable and if you warm him either with confidence or opposition he quickly tells you It is necessary and as he loves those that think as he does so he is ready to hate them that do not and then secretly from wishing evil to him he is apt to believe evil will come to him and that it is just it should and by this time the Opinion is troublesome and puts other men upon their guard against it and then while passion reigns and reason is modest and patient and talks not loud like a storm Victory is more regarded than Truth and men call God into the party and his judgments are us'd for arguments and the threatnings of the Scripture are snatched up in haste and men throw arrows fire-brands and death and by this time all the world is in an uproar All this and a thousand things more the English Protestants considering deny not their Communion to any Christian who desires it and believes the Apostles Creed and is of the Religion of the four first General Councils they hope well of all that live well they receive into their bosome all true believers of what Church soever and for them that erre they instruct them and then leave them to their liberty to stand or fall before their own Master It was a famous saying of Stephen the Great King of Poland that God had reserved to himself three things 1. To make something out of nothing 2. To know future things and all that shall be hereafter 3. To have the rule over Consciences It is this last we say the Church of Rome does arrogate and invade 1. By imposing Articles as necessary to salvation which God never made so Where hath God said That it is necessary to salvation that every humane Creature should be subject to the Roman Bishop Extrav de Majorit obedien Dicimus definimus pronunciamus absolutè necessarium ad salutem omni humanae Creaturae subesse Romano Pontifici But the Church of Rome says it and by that at one blow cuts off from Heaven all the other Churches of the world Greek Armenian Ethiopian Russian Protestants which is an Act so contrary to charity to the hope and piety of Christians so dishonourable to the Kingdom of Christ so disparaging to the justice to the wisdom and the goodness of God as any thing which can be said Where hath it been said That it shall be a part of Christian Faith To believe that though the Fathers of the Church did Communicate Infants yet they did it without any opinion of necesty And yet the Church of Rome hath determin'd it in one of her General Councils Sess. 1. cap. 4 as a thing Sine Controversiâ Credendum to be believ'd without doubt or dispute It was indeed the first time that this was made a part of the Christian Religion but then let all wise men take heed how they ask the Church of Rome Where was this part of her Religion before the Council of Trent for that 's a secret and that this is a part of their Religion I suppose will not be denied when a General Council hath determin'd it to be a truth without controversie and to be held accordingly Where hath God said that those Churches that differ from the Roman Church in some propositions cannot conferre true Orders nor appoint Ministers of the Gospel of Christ and yet Super totam materiam the Church of Rome is so implacably angry and imperious with the Churches of the Protestants that if any English Priest turn to them they re-ordain him which yet themselves call sacrilegious in case his former Ordination was valid as it is impossible to prove it was not there being neither in Scripture nor Catholick tradition any Laws Order or Rule touching our case in this particular Where hath God said that Penance is a Sacrament or that without confession to a Priest no man can be sav'd If Christ did not institute it how can it be necessary and if he did institute it yet the Church of Rome ought not to say it is therefore necessary for with them an Institution is not a Command though Christ be the Institutor and if Institution be equal to a Commandment how then comes the Sacrament not to be administred in both kinds when it is confessed that in both kinds it was instituted 2. The Church of Rome does so multiply Articles that few of the Laity know the half of them and yet imposes them all under the same necessity and if in any one of them a man make a doubt he hath lost all Faith and had as good be an Infidel for the Churche's Authority being the formal object of Faith that is the only reason why any Article is to be believ'd the reason is the same in all things else and therefore you may no more deny any thing she says than all she says and an Infidel is as sure of Heaven as any Christian is that calls in question any of the innumerable propositions which with her are esteem'd de fide Now if it be considered that some of the Roman doctrines are a state of temptation to all the reason of mankind as the doctrine of Transubstantiation that some are at least of a supicious improbity as worship of Images and of the consecrated Elements and many others some are of a nice and curious nature as the doctrine of Merit of Condignity and Congruity some are perfectly of humane inventions without ground of Scripture or Tradition as the formes of Ordination Absolution c. When men see that some things can never be believ'd heartily and many not understood fully and more not remembred or consider'd perfectly and yet all impos'd upon the same necessity and as good believe nothing as not every thing this way is apt to make men despise all Religion or despair of their own Salvation The Church of Rome hath a remedy for this and by a distinction undertakes to save you harmless you are not tied to believe all with an explicite Faith it suffices that your Faith be implicite or involved in the Faith of the Church that is if you believe that she says true in all things you need inquire no further So that by this means the authority of their Church is made authentick for that is the first and last of the design and you are taught to be sav'd by the Faith of others and a Faith is preached that you have no need ever to look after it a Faith of which you know nothing but it matters not as long as others do but then it is also a Faith which can never be the foundation of a good life for upon ignorance nothing that is good can be built no not so much as a blind obedience for even blindly to obey is built upon something that you are bidden explicitely to believe viz.
our censure of their doctrines are not so fierce and in our fears of their final condition not so decretory and rash then this doctrine of theirs against us is both the more uncharitable and the more unreasonable 1. That the Church of Rome is infinitely confident they are in the right I easily believe because they say they are and they have causes but too many to create or to occasion that confidence in them for they never will consider concerning any of their Articles their unlearned men not at all their learned men only to confirm their own and to confute their adversaries whose arguments though never so convincing they are bound to look upon as temptations and to use them accordingly which thing in case they can be in an error may prove so like the sin against the Holy Ghost as Milk is to Milk if at least all conviction of error and demonstrations of truth be the effect and grace of the Spirit of God which ought very warily to be consider'd But this confidence is no argument of truth for they telling their people that they are bound to believe all that they teach with an assent not equal to their proof of it but much greater even the greatest that can be they tie them to believe it without reason or proof for to believe more strongly than the argument inferrs is to believe something without the argument or at least to have some portions of Faith which relies upon no argument which if it be not effected by a supreme and more infallible principle can never be reasonable but this they supply with telling them that they cannot erre and this very proposition it self needing another supply for why shall they believe this more than any thing else with an assent greater than can be effected by their argument they supply this also with affrighting Homilies and noises of damnation So that it is no wonder that the Roman people are so confident since it is not upon the strength of their argument or cause for they are taught to be confident beyond that but it is upon the strength of passion credulity interest and fear education and pretended authority all which As we hope God will consider in passing his unerring sentence upon the poor mis-led people of the Roman Communion So we also considering their infirmity and our own dare not enter into the secret of God's judgement concerning all or any of their persons but pray for them and offer to instruct them we reprove their false doctrines and use means to recall them from darkness into some more light than there they see but we pass no further and we hope that this charity and modesty will not we are sure it ought not be turned to our reproach for this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that toleration of our erring Brethren Rom. 2. 4. and long sufferance which we have learn'd from God and it ought to procure Repentance in them and yet if it does not we do but our duty always remembring the words of the Great Apostle which he spake to the Church of Rome Thou art inexcusable v. 1. O man whosoever thou art that judgest another for in what thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self and we fear and every man is bound to do so too lest the same measure of judgment we make to the errors of our Brother be heap d up against our own in case we fall into any And the Church of Rome should do well to consider this for she is not the less likely to erre but much more for thinking she cannot erre her very thinking and saying this thing being her most Capital error as I shall afterwards endeavour to make apparent I remember that Paganinus Gaudentius a Roman Gentleman tells that Theódore Beza being old and coming into the Camp of Henry the 4th of France was ask'd by some Whether he were sure that he followed the true Religion He modestly answer'd That he did daily pray to God to direct him with his holy Spirit and to give him a light from Heaven to guide him Upon which answer because they expounded it to be in Beza uncertainty and irresolution he says that may who heard him took that hint and became Roman Catholicks It is strange it should be so that one man's modesty should make another man bold and that the looking upon a sound eye should make another sore But so it is that in the Church of Rome very ill use is made of our charity and modesty However I shall give a true account of the whole affair as it stands and then leave it to be consider'd SECTION VIII The Insecurity of the Roman Religion 1. AS to the security which is pretended in the Church of Rome it is confidence rather than safety as I have already said but if we look upon the propositions themselves we find that there is more danger in them than we wish there were I have already in the preface to the First Part instanc'd in some particulars in which the Church of Rome hath suffer'd infirmity and fallen into error and the errors are such which the Fathers of the Church for we meddle not with any such judgment call damnable As for example to add any thing to Scriptures or to introduce into the Faith any thing that is not written or to call any thing Divine that is not in the authority of the Holy Scriptures which Tertullian says whosoever does may fear the woe pronounc'd in Scripture against adders and detracters and S. Basil says is a manifest note of infidelity and a most certain sign of pride and others add it is an evil heart of immodesty and most vehemently forbidden by the Apostles Against the testimonies then brought some little cavils were made and many evil words of railing publish'd which I have not only washt off in the second Section of this Second part but have to my thinking clearly prov'd them guilty of doing ill in this question and receding from the rule of the primitive Church and have added many other testimonies concerning the main Inquiry to which the weak answers offer'd can no way be applied and to which the more learned answers of Bellarmine and Perron are found insufficient as it there is made to appear So that I know nothing remains to them to be considered but Whether or no the primitive and holy Fathers were too zealous in condemning this doctrine and practice of the Roman Church too severely We are sure the thing which the Fathers so condemn is done without warrant and contrary to all authentick precedents of the purest and holiest Ages of the Church and greatly derogatory to the dignity and fulness of Scripture and infinitely dangerous to the Church for the intromitting the doctrines of men into the Canon of Faith and a great diminution to the reputation of that providence by which it is certain the Church was to be secur'd in the Records of Salvation which could not be done by
and of this the Doctors give this reason Vide Suarez 〈◊〉 Paz. in practica Criminal Eccles cap. 10â— because a thing so odious and that would bring so certain ruine to souls might not be permitted with so great scandal and so great mischief 2. And that Confession may be revealed for the regulating a doubtful case of marriage is the opinion of many great Canonists 3. That it may be revealed in the case of Heresie confess'd I think there was no doubt of it at any time 4. And that every Confessor may reveal the Confession by the Penitent's leave is taught by Durandus Almain Medina and Navar and generally by all the ancient Scholars of S. Thomas Now if a law be made that in certain cases the Confessor shall publish the Confession then every mans consent is involved in it as his private right is in the publick interest of which it is a part and to which it is subordinate and must yield But who pleases to see how this affair once did stand in the Church of Rome and more especially in the Catholick Church if he be not yet may be satisfied by the proofs which Altisiodorensis gives of the lawfulness of publishing Confessions in certain cases 5. Lastly if a sinful intention of committing a grievous Crime be revealed in Confession and the person confessing cannot desist from or will not alter his purpose then that the Seal of Confession may be broken open is affirmed by a Part. 4. Q. 28. memb 2. art 2. in resp ns Alexander of Ales by the b Confessio ult num 7. Summa Angelica which also reckons five cases more in which it is lawful to reveal Confessions The same also is taught by c Cap. Omnis de poenit remis num 24. Panormitan d Super 5. cap. Omnis Hostiensis the e In Confess 3. num 2. Summa Sylvestrina and by Pope f In Cap. Omnis verb. prodit Innocent himself But now if we consider how it is in the Church of Rome at this day and hath been this last age for the most part we shall find that this humane constitution relying upon prudent and pious considerations is urged as a Sacramental Obligation and a great part of the Religion and is not accounted obliging onely for the reasons of its first Sanction nor as an act of obedience to the positive law but as a Natural Essential Divine and unalterable Obligation And from thence these doctrines are derived 1. That what a Priest knows in Confession he knows it not as a man but as God which proposition as it is foolish and too neer to blasphemy and may as well inferr that the Priest may be then ador'd by the penitent with the distinction viz. not as man but as God so is expressly confuted by the Gloss above-cited In quartum librum sent dist 21. and by Scotus but taught by the Modern Casuists and is the ground of a strange practice For 2. as a consequent of the former it is taught in the Church of Rome by their greatest Guides that if a Priest having heard a thing onely in Confession a Vide Richard in lâ—b 4. sent dâ—st eâd. art 4. q. â— If being asked and sworn he shall say he never heard that thing he neither lies nor forswears So Emanuel b Aphâ—r v. Confessor n. 23. Sa teaches and adds that in the same manner the penitent may also swear that he said nothing or no such thing in Confession But how this should be excus'd or whether they think the Penitent to have spoken to none but God I am not yet satisfied 3. It is not lawful to reveal any thing that is told onely in Confession though it be to avoid the greatest evil that can happen so said c Apolog. adv Reg. M. Brit. Bellarmine to save a whole Commonwealth from damage temporal or spiritual so d Disp 33. in 3. part â— Thom. Sect. 1. n. â— Suarez to save the lives of all the Kings in Christendom so e Praestaret Reges omnes peâ—ire quam si vel semel Confessionis sigillum violaretur Epist. ad Fontonem Ducaeum p. 140. Binet told Isaac Causabon in the Kings Library at Paris The same is openly avowed by Eudaemon Johannes f Apolog. pro Garnettâ— c. 13. That there is no evil so great for the avoiding of which it can be lawful to reveal Confession and that this may appear to be a Catholick doctrine the same Author reckons up so many Moderns teaching the same that the very names of the Authors and Books fills up several pages and that it is the Catholick doctrine is expressly taught by the Author of the famous Apology made for the Jesuites after the horrid parricide of Henry the fourth of France They adde even beyond this all the Curiosity of the very circumstances of silence That this silence does not onely oblige in the case of perfect Confession but if it be begun not onely in case of Confession clear and express but if it be so much as in relation to Confession not onely the Confessor but the Messenger the Interpreter the Counsellour he that hears it by chance or by stealth and he that was told of it by him that should but did not conceal it the Seal is to be kept by all means directly and indirectly by words and signs judicially and extrajudicially unless the penitent give leave but that leave is to be express and is not to be ask'd but in the case of a compelling necessity neither can the Confessor impose a publick penance upon him who hath confessed privately Which things especially the last are most diametrically opposed to the doctrine and discipline of the Primitive Church as I have already proved but these things are expressly taught as the doctrine of the most famous Casuists of the Church of Rome Moral Theol. 1 act 7. Examâ—n 4. de poeâ—it Sect. 6. n. 63 64 65 c. by Escobar who comparing his Book in method to the seven Seals of the Revelations which the four living Creatures read Suarez the Ox Molina the Man Vasques the Eagle and Valentia the Lion and 24. Elders that is 24. Jesuites also read these seven Seals though when they come to be reckon'd they prove 25. so fatal is that Antichristian number to the Church of Rome that it occurs in every accident but his meaning is that the doctrines he teaches are the doctrines of all those 25. famous leading men Penes quos Imperium Iâ—terarum Conscientiarum If now it be not the Catholick doctrine then is it heretical and then why is it not disown'd why are not they that say so censur'd why is not the doctrine condemned why is it publickly maintain'd and allowed by authority why is it pleaded in bar against execution of justice in the case of treason as it was by F. Garnet himself and all his Apologists But if this be the Catholick doctrine then let it be
doctrine of the necessity of Confession to a Priest is a new doctrine even in the Church of Rome and was not esteemed any part of the Catholick Religion before the Council of Trent For first the Gloss de poenit dist 5. c. in poenitentiâ inquiring where or when Oral Confession was institued says Some say it was instituted in Paradise others say it was instituted when Joshuah called upon Achan to confess his sin others say it was instituted in the new Testament by S. James It is better said that it was instituted by a certain universal tradition of the Church and the tradition of the Church is obligatory as a praecept Therefore confession of deadly sins is necessary with us viz. Latins but not with the Greeks because no such tradition hath come to them This is the full state of this affair in the age when Semeca who was the Glossator liv'd and it is briefly this 1. There was no resolution or agreement whence it came 2. The Glossator's opinion was it came from the Universal tradition of the Church 3. It was but a kind of Universal tradition not absolute clear and certain 4. It was only a tradition in the Latin Church 5. The Greeks had no such tradition 6. The Greeks were not oblig'd to it it was not necessary to them Concerning the Greek Church I shall afterwards consider it in a more opportune place here only I consider it as it was in the Latin Church and of this I suppose there needs no better Record than the Canon Law it self and the authentick Glosses upon it which Glosses although they be not Law but as far as they please yet they are perfect testimony as to matter of fact and what the opinions of the Doctors were at that time And therefore to the former I add this that in cap. Convertimini Gratian hath these words Vnde datur intelligi quod etiam ore tacente veniam consequi possumus Without confession of the mouth we may obtain pardon of our sins and this point he pursues in all that long Chapter and in the chapter Resuscitatus out of S. Austin's doctrine and in the Chapter Qui natus out of the doctrine of S. John's Epistle the conclusion of which Chapter is Cum ergo ante Confessionem ut probatum est sumus resuscitati per gratiam filii lucis facti evidentissimè apparet quod solâ cordis contritione sine Confessione oris peccatum remittitur and in the Chapter Omnis qui non diligit he expressly concludes out of S. John's words Non ergo in confessione peccatum remittitur quod jam remissum esse probatur fit itaque confessio ad ostensionem poenitentiae non ad impetrationem veniâ— And at the end of this Chapter according to his custom in such disputable things when he says Alii è contrario testantur others witness to the contrary that without confession Oral and works of satisfaction no man is cleansed from his sin the Gloss upon the place says thus Ab hoc loco usque ad Sed his authoritatibus pro aliâ parte allegat quod scil adulto peccatum non dimittitur sine oris Confessione quod tamen falsum est Only he says that Confession doth cleanse and Satisfaction doth cleanse so that though by contrition of the heart the sin is pardon'd yet these still cleanse more and more as a man is more innovated or amended But these authorities brought in viz. that sin is not pardon'd without confession if they be diligently expounded prove but little But Frier Maurique who by Pius Quintus made and publish'd a censure upon the Glosses appointed these words quod tamen falsum est to be left out but the Roman Correctors under Greg. 13th let them alone but put in the Margent a mark of contradiction upon it saying Imò verissimum est But that was new doctrine and although Semeca the Author of the Gloss affirm'd it expressly to be false yet Gratian himself was more reserv'd but yet not of the new opinion but left the matter indifferent for after he had alledged Scripture and authorities of Fathers on one side and authority of Fathers on the other De poeâ—it â— â— cap. Quamvis plentitudo he concludes Quibus authoritatibus vel quibuslibet rationum firmamentis utraque sententia Satisfactionis Confessionis innitatur in medium breviter exposuimus Cui autem harum potius adhaerendum sit lectoris judicio reservatur Vtraque enim fautores habet sapientes religiosos viros Now how well this agrees with the determination of the Council of Trent Lib. de 5. decret de poeniâ— rem in cap. Omnis utriusque sexus every man by comparing can easily judge only it is certain this doctrine cannot pretend to be deriv'd by tradition from the Apostles Of the same opinion was the Abbot of Panormo saying That opinion viz. of the Gloss does much please me because there is no manifest authority that does intimate that either God or Christ instituted Confession to be made to a Priest But it were endless to name the Sentences of the Canonists in this question once for all the testimony of Maldonat may secure us Disp. de Sacr. tom 2. de Confess Orig. c. 2. Juris Pontificii periti secuti suum primum interpretem omnes dicunt Confessionem tantum esse introductam jure Ecclesiastico But to clear the whole Question I shall first prove that the necessity of confessing our sins to a Priest is not found in Scripture but very much to disprove it 2. That there is no reason enforcing this necessity but very much against it 3. That there is no Ecclesiastical Tradition of any such necessity but apparently the contrary and the consequent of these things will be that the Church of Rome hath introduced a new doctrine false and burdensome dangerous and superstitious 1. If we consider how this Article is managed in Scripture we shall find that our Blessed Saviour said nothing at all concerning it the Council of Trent indeed makes their new doctrine to relie upon the words of Christ recited by S. John John 20. 21. Whose sins â—e remit they are remitted c. But see with what success for besides that all the Canonists allow not that Confession was instituted by Christ Aquinas Scotus Gabriel Clavasinus the Author of the Summa Angelica Hugo de S. Victore Bonaventure Alensis Tho. Waldensis Ferus Cajetan Erasmus B. Rhenanus and Jansenius though differing much in the particulars of this question yet all consent that precisely from the words of Christ no necessity of Confession to a Priest can be concluded 2. Amongst those of the Roman Church who did endeavour to found the necessity of Confession upon those words None do agree about the way of drawing their argument In lib. 4. sent dist 17. as may be seen in Scotus Aureolus Johannes Maior Thomas de Argentina Richardus Durandus Almain Dominicus à Soto Alphonsus Ã
sive Homil. 59. saying Against thee onely have I sinned and done evil in thy sight and thy sin is forgiven thee Homil. 2. in Psal. 50. I do not say tell to thy fellow-servant who upbraids thee but tell them to God who heals thy sins And Homil. Quod peccata non sint evulganda vid. tom 57. that after the abolition of the Penitentiary-Priest nothing was surrogated in his stead but pious Homilies and publick Exhortations we learn from those words of his We do not bring the sinners into the midst and publish their sins but having propounded the common doctrine to all we leave it to the Conscience of the Auditors that out of those things which are spoken every one may find a medicine fitted for his wound Homil. de Poenit Confessione tom 58. tom 5. Let the discussion of thy sins be in the accounts of thy Conscience let the judgement be pass'd without a witness Homil. 68. tom 5. let God alone see thee confessing God who upbraids not thy sins but out of this Confession blots them out Hast thou sinned enter into the Church say unto God I have sinned I exact nothing of thee but that alone Homil. 31. in Ep. ad Hebr. Homil. 2o in Matth. The same he says in many other places Now against so many so clear and dogmatical testimonies it will be to no purpose to say that S. Chrysostom onely spake against the Penitentiary-Priest set over the publick penitents Homil. 28. in 1 Cor. and this he did Homil. 21. ad Pop. Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Homil. 4. de Lazaro in pursuance of his predecessors act For besides that some of these Homilies were written before S. Chrysostom was Bishop viz. his one and twenty Homilies to the people of Antioch and the fourth Homily of Lazarus which was preach'd at Antioch before he came to Constantinople when he was but a Priest under Flavianus his Bishop and his Homilies on S. Matthew besides this it is plain that he not onely speaks against the publick judicial Penance and Confession but against all except that alone which is made to God allowing the sufficiency of this for pardon and disallowing the necessity of all other To these things Bellarmine Perron Petrus de Soto Vasquez Valentia and others strive to find out answers but they neither agree together neither do their answers fit the testimonies as is evident to them that compare the one and the other the chief of which I have remark'd in passing by The best Answers that can be given are those which Latinus Latinius and Petavius give The first affirming that these homilies 1. are not S. Chrysostom's Or 2. that they are corrupted by hereticks and the latter confessing they are his but blames S. Chrysostom for preaching such things And to these answers I hope I shall not need to make any reply In 3. part Th◠tom 4 q. 90. a. 1. dub 3. n. 31. To the two first of Latinus Vasquez hath answered perfectly and to that of Petavius there needs none Petavius in stead of answering making himself a Judge of S. Chrysostom I suppose if we had done so in any question against them they would have taken it in great scorn and indignation and therefore we choose to follow S. Chrysostom rather than Master Petavius I do not deny but the Roman Doctors do bring many sayings of the Greek and Latine Fathers shewing the usefulness of Confession to a Priest and exhorting and pressing men to it But their arts are notorious and evident and what according to the discipline of the Church at that time they spake in behalf of the Exomologesis or publick discipline that these Doctors translate to the private Confession and yet what ever we bring out of Antiquity against the necessity of confession to a Priest that they will resolvedly understand onely of the publick But besides what hath been said to every of the particulars I shall conclude this point with the sayings of some eminent men of their own who have made the same observation In hoc labuntur Theologi quidam parùm attenti quòd quae veteres illi de hu jusmodi publicâ generali confessione quae nihil aliud erat quà m signis quibusdam piaminibus ab Episcopo indictis se peccatorem bonorum communione indignum agnoscere In. S. Hierom. Epist. ad Oceanum sive Epitaph Fabiolae trahunt ad hanc occultam longè diversi generis So Erasmus And B. Rhenanus says Let no man wonder that Tertullian speaks nothing of the secret or clancular confession of sins Praefat. in l. Tertul. de Poeni◠which so far as we conjecture was bred out of the old Exomologesis by the unconstrained piety of men For we do not find it at all commanded of old The Conclusion of these Premises is this That the old Ecclesiastick discipline being pass'd into desuetude and indevotion the Latine Church especially kept up some little broken planks of it which so long as charity and devotion were warm and secular interest had not turn'd religion into arts did in some good measure supply the want of the old better discipline but when it had degenerated into little forms and yet was found to serve great ends of power wealth and ambition it pass'd into new doctrines and is now bold to pretend to divine institution though it be nothing but the Commandment of men a snare of Consciences and a ministery of humane policy false in the Proposition and intolerable in the Conclusion There are divers other instances reducible to this charge and especially the Prohibition of Priests marriage and the abstinence from flesh at certain times which are grown up from humane-Ordinances to be established Doctrines that is to be urged with greater severity than the Laws of God insomuch that the Church of Rome permits Concubinate and Stews at the same time when she will not permit chaste Marriages to her Clergy And for abstinence from flesh at times appointed Veluti parricida penè dixerim rapitur ad supplicium qui pro piscium carnibus gustârit carnes suillas Rule of Conscience lib. 3. cap. 4. But I shall not now insist upon these having so many other things to say and especially having already in another place verified this Charge against them in these Instances Rule 13. and Rule 19. and 20. I shall onely name one testimony of their own which is a pregnant Mother of many instances Caus. 25. qu. 1. c. Violatores Canonum and it is in their own Canon Law They that voluntarily violate the Canons are heavily judged by the Holy Fathers and are damned by the holy Ghost by whose instinct they were dictated * Dicati prodictati For they do not incongruously seem to blaspheme the holy Ghost And a little after Such a presumption is manifestly one of the kinds of them that blaspheme against the holy Ghost Now if the laws of their
shines In the Liturgy of S. Basil Basilii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ab Andrea Masio ex Syriaco conversa which he is said to have made for the Churches of Syria is this prayer Be mindful O Lord of them which are dead and departed out of this life and of the Orthodox Bishops which from Peter and James the Apostles unto this day have clearly professed the right word of faith and namely of Ignatius Dionysius Julius and the rest of the Saints of worthy memory Nay not only for these but they pray for the very Martyrs O Lord remember them who have resisted or stood unto blood for religion and have fed thy holy flock with righteousness and holiness Certainly this is not giving of thanks for them or praying to them but a direct praying for them even for holy Bishops Confessors Martyrs that God meaning in much mercy would remember them that is make them to rest in the bosom of Abraham in the region of the living as S. James expresses it And in the Liturgies of the Churches of Egypt attributed to S. Basil Greg. Naz. and S. Cyril the Churches pray Be mindful O Lord of thy Saints vouchsafe to receive all thy Saints which have pleas'd thee from the beginning our Holy Fathers the Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors Preachers Evangelists and all the Souls of the just which have died in the faith but chiefly of the holy glorious and perpetual Virgin Mary the Mother of God of S. John Baptist the forerunner and Martyr S. Stephen the first Deacon and first Martyr S. Mark Apostle Evangelist and Martyr Of the same spirit were all the Ancient Liturgies or Missals and particularly that under the name of Saint Chrysostom is most full to this purpose Let us pray to the Lord for all that before time have laboured and performed the holy offices of Priesthood For the memory and remission of sins of them that built this holy house and of all them that have slept in hope of the resurrection and eternal life in thy society of the Orthodox Fathers and our Brethren 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O thou lover of men pardon them And again moreover we offer unto thee this reasonable service for all that rest in faith our Ancestors Fathers Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles Preachers Evangelists Martyrs c. especially the most holy and unspotted Virgin Mary and after concludes with this prayer Remember them all who have slept in hope of Resurrection to Eternal life and make them to rest where the light of thy countenance looks over them Add to these if you please the Greek Mass of S. Peter To them O Lord and to all that rest in Christ we pray that thou indulge a place of refreshing light and peace So that nothing is clearer than that in the Greek Canon they prayed for the souls of the best of all the Saints whom yet because no man believes they ever were in Purgatory it follows that prayer for the dead us'd by the Ancients does not prove the Roman Purgatory To these add the doctrine and practice of the Greek Fathers Eccles. hier Cap. 7. in theoria Dionysius speaking of a person deceased whom the Ministers of the Church had publickly pronounced to be a happy man and verily admitted into the society of the Saints that have been from the beginning of the world yet the Bishop prayed for him that God would forgive him all the sins which he had committed through humane infirmity and bring him into the light and region of the living into the bosoms of Abraham Isaac and Jacob where pain and sorrow and sighing have no place To the same purpose is that of S. Gregory Naz. Naz. in fuâ—â—s Caesarii orat 10. in his funeral Oration upon his Brother Caesarius of whom he had expresly declar'd his belief that he was rewarded with those honours which did befit a new â—reated soul yet he presently prays for his soul Now O Lord receive Caesarius I hope I have said enough concerning the Greek Church their doctrine and practice in this particular and I desire it may be observed that there is no greater testimony of the doctrine of a Church than their Liturgy Their Doctors may have private opinions which are not against the doctrine of the Church but what is put into their publick devotions and consign'd in their Liturgies no man scruples it but it is the confession and religion of the Church But now that I may make my Reader some amends for his trouble in reading the trifling objections of these Roman adversaries and my defences I shall also for the greater conviction of my Adversaries shew that they would not have oppos'd my affirmation in this particular if they had understood their own Mass-book for it was not only thus from the beginning until now in the Greek Church but it is so to this very day in the Latin Church In the old Latin Missal we have this prayer Missa latina Antiqua edit Argentinae 1557. pag. 52. Suscipe sancta Trinitas hanc oblationem quam tibi offerimus pro omnibus in tui nominis confessione defunctis ut te dextram auxilii tui porrigente vitae perennis requiem habeant à poenis impiorum segregati semper in tuae laudis laetitia perseverent And in the very Canon of the Mass which these Gentlemen I suppose if they be Priests cannot be ignorant in any part of they pray Memento Domine famulorum famularumque tuarum qui nos praecesserunt cum signo fidei dormiunt in somno pacis Ipsis Domine omnibus in Christo quiescentibus locum refrigerii lucis pacis ut indulgeas deprecamur Unless all that are at rest in Christ go to Purgatory it is plain that the Church of Rome prays for Saints who by the confession of all sides never were in Purgatory I could bring many more testimonies if they were needful but I summ up this particular with the words of S. Austin De curapto mortuis cap. 4. Non sunt praetermittendae supplicationes pro spiritibus mortuorum quas faciendas pro omnibus in Christiana Catholica societate defunctis etiam tacitis nominibus quorumque sub generali commemoratione suscepit Ecclesia The Church prays for all persons that died in the Christian and Catholic faith And therefore I wonder how it should drop from S. Austins pen De verbis Apostoli Serm. 17. Injuriam facit Martyri qui orat pro Martyre But I suppose he meant it only in case the prayer was made for them as if they were in an uncertain state and so it is probable enough but else his words were not only against himself in other places but against the whole practice of the ancient Catholic Church I remember that when it was ask'd of Pope Innocent by the Archbishop of Lyons Sacramentarium Gregor antiquum why the prayer that was in the old Missal for the soul of Pope Leo
understand and discern with a serene heart To the same purpose are the words of Lyra and * Tho. Aquin. in 1 Cor. 14. Ille qui intelligit reficitur quantum ad intellectum quantum ad affectum sed mens ejus qui non intelligit est sine fructu refectionis And again quantum ad fructum devotionis spiritualis privatur qui non atendit ad ea quae orat seu non intelligit Lyra. Caeterum hic consequenter idem ostendit in oratione publicâ quia si populus intelligat orationem seu benedictionem facerdnis mâ—lius reducitur in Deum devotius Amen And again propter quod in Ecclesiâ primitivâ benedictiones coeterae omnia lege communia * fiebant in vulgari * For of common things that is things in public the Dissâ—asive speaks Common prayers common preachings Common Eucharists and thanksgivings common blessings All these and all other public and common things being us'd in the vulgar tongue in the Primitive Communia and omnia are equivalent but Communia is Lyra ' s word Aquinas which I shall not trouble the Reader withall here but have set them down in the Margent that the strange confidence of these Romanists out-facing notorious and evident words may be made if possible yet more conspicuous In pursuance of this doctrine of S. Paul and the Fathers the Primitive Christians in their several ages and Countries were careful that the Bible should be translated into all languages where Christianity was planted That the Bibles were in Greek is notorious and that they were us'd among the people S. Chrysostom homil 1. in Joh. 8. is witness that it was so or that it ought to be so For he exhorts Vacemus ergo scripturis dilectissimi c. Let us set time apart to be conversant in the Scripture at least in the Gospels let us frequently handle them to imprint them in our minds which because the Jews neglected they were commanded to have their books in their hands but let us not have them in our hands but in our houses and in our hearts by which words we may easily understand that all the Churches of the Greek communion had the Bible in their vulgar tongue and were called upon to use them as Christians ought to do that is to imprint them in their hearts Homil. 1. in 8. Johan Videat lector s. Basil. in Ascert in 278. resp in regul brevior Cassidore and speaking of S. John and his Gospel he says that the Syrians Indians Persians and Ethiopians and infinite other nations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they grew wise by translating his S. Johns doctrines into their several languages De doctrin Christianâ lib. 2. c. 5. Ex quo factum est ut etiam scriptura divina quâ tantis morbis humanarum voluntatum subvenitur ab unâ linguâ profecta quae opportunè potuit per â—rbem terrarum disseminari per varias interpretum linguas longè latéque diffusainnotesceret gentibus ad salutem Theodoret. lib. 5. de curand Graec. affect Nos autem verbis Apostolicae propheticaeque doctrinae inexhaustum robur manifestè ostendimus Vniversa enim facies terrae quantacunque soly subiicitur ejusmodi verborum plena jam est Hebraei verò libri non modo in Graecum idioma conversi sunt sed in Romanam quoque linguam Egyptiam Persicam Indicam Armenicamque Scythicam atque adeò Sauromaticam semelque ut dicam in linguas omnes quibus ad hunc diem nationes utuntur But it is more that S. Austin says The divine Scripture by which help is supplied to so great diseases proceeded from one language which opportunely might be carried over the whole world that being by the various tongues of interpreters scattered far and wide it might be made known to the Nations for their salvation And Theodoret speaks yet more plainly we have manifestly shown to you the inexhausted strength of the Apostolic and prophetic doctrine for the Universal face of the earth whatsoever is under the sun is now full of those words For the Hebrew books are not only translated into the Greek idiom but into the Roman tongue the Egyptian Persian Indian Armenian Scythian Sauromatic languages and that I may speak once for all into all tongues which at this day the Nations use By these authorities of these Fathers we may plainly see how different the Roman doctrine and practice is from the sentiment and usages of the Primitive Church and with what false confidence the Roman adversaries deny so evident truth having no other way to make their doctrine seem tolerable but by out-facing the known sayings of so many excellent persons and especially of S. Paul who could not speak his minde in apt and intelligible words if he did not in his Epistle to the Corinthians exhort the Church to pray * Quamvis per se bonum sit ut officia divina celebrentur eâ linguâ quam plebs intelligat id enim per se confert ad aedificationem ut bene probat hic locus Estius in 1. ep Corin. cap. 14. and prophecy so as to be understood by the Catechumens and by all the people that is to do otherwise than they do in the Roman Church Christianity is a simple wise intelligible and easie Religion and yet if a man will resolve against any proposition he may wrangle himself into a puzzle and make himself not to understand it so though it be never so plain what is plainer than the testimony of their own Cajetan that it were more for the edification of the Church that the prayers were in the vulgar tongue Respon ad artic pacis magis fore ad aedificationem Ecclesiae ut preces vulgari linguâ conciperentur Ex hâc doctrinâ Pauli habetur quod melius ad aedificationem Ecclesiae est orationes publicas quae audiente populo dicuntur dici linguâ communi Clericis populo quam dici latina Idem in 1 Cor. 14. He says no more than S. Paul says and he could not speak it plainer And indeed no man of sense can deny it unless he affirms at the same time that it is better to speak what we understand not than what we do or that it were better to serve God without that noble faculty than with it that is that the way of a Parrot and a Jackdaw were better than the way of a man and that in the service of God the Priests and the people are to differ as a man and a bird But besides all this was not Latin it self when it was first us'd in Divine service the common tongue and generally understood by many Nations and very many Colonies and if it was then the use of the Church to pray with the understanding why shall it not be so now however that it was so then and is not so now demonstrates that the Church of Rome hath in this material point greatly innovated Let but the Roman Pontifical be
consulted and there will be yet found a form of ordination of Readers Studete verba Dei viz. Lectiones sacras distinctè apertè ad intelligentiam aedicationem fidelium absque omni mendacio falsitatis proferre c. in which it is said that they must study to read distinctly and plainly that the people may understand But now it seems that labour is sav'd And when a notorious change was made in this affair we can tell by calling to mind the following story The Moravians did say Mass in the Slavonian tongue for which Pope John the eighth severely reprov'd them and commanded them to do so no more but being better inform'd he wrote a letter to their Prince Sfentoputero in which he affirms that it is not contrary to faith and found doctrine to say Mass and other prayers in the Slavonian tongue and adds this reason because he that Hebrew Greek and Latin hath made the others also for his glory and this also he confirms with the authority of S. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians and some other Scriptures only he commanded for the decorum of the business the Gospel should first be said in Latin and then in the Slavonian tongue But just two hundred years after this the Tables were turned and though formerly these things were permitted yet so were many things in the Primitive Church but upon better examination they have been corrected And therefore P. Gregory the seventh wrote to Vratislaus of Bohemia that he could not permit the celebration of the divine offices in the Slavonian tongue and he commanded the Prince to oppose the people herein with all his forces Here the world was strangely altered and yet S. Pauls Epistle was not condemned of heresie and no Council had decreed that all vulgar languages were prophane and no reason can yet be imagined why the change was made unless it were to separate the Priest from the people by a wall of Latin and to nurse stupendious ignorance in them by not permitting to them learning enough to understand their public prayers in which every man was greatly concerned Neither may this be called a slight matter for besides that Gregory the seventh thought it so considerable that it was a just cause of a war or persecution for he commanded the Prince of Bohemia to oppose the people in it with all his forces besides this I say to pray to God with the understanding is much better than praying with the tongue that alone can be a good prayer this alone can never and then the loss of all those advantages which are in prayers truly understood the excellency of devotion the passion of desires the ascent of the minde to God the adherence to and acts of confidence in him the intellectual conversation with God most agreeable to a rational being the melting affections the pulses of the heart to from God to and from our selves the promoting and exercising of our hopes all these and very many more which can never be intire but in the prayers and devotions of the hearts and can never be in any degree but in the same in which the prayers are acts of love and wisdom of the will and the understanding will be lost to the greatest part of the Catholic Church if the mouth be set open and the soul be gag'd so that it shall be the word of the mouth but not the word of the mind All these things being added to what was said in this article by the Dissuasive will more than make it clear that in this article the consequents of which are very great the Church of Rome hath causelesly troubled Christendom and innovated against the Primitive Church and against her own ancient doctrines and practices and even against the Apostle But they care for none of these things Some of their own Bigots profess the thing in the very worst of all these expressions for so Reynolds and Gifford in their Calvino Turcismus complain that such horrid and stupendious evils have followed the translation of Scriptures into vulgar languages that they are of force enough ad istas translationes penitus supprimendas etiamsi Divina vel Apostolica authoritate niterentur Although they did rely upon the authority Apostolical or Divine yet they ought to be taken away So that it is to no purpose to urge Scripture or any argument in the world against the Roman Church in this article for if God himself command it to be translated yet it is not sufficient and therefore these men must be left to their own way of understanding for beyond the law of God we have no argument I will only remind them that it is a curse which God threatens to his rebellious people I will speak to this people with men of another tongue Isa. 25. 11. and by strange lips and they shall not understand This is the curse which the Church of Rome contends earnestly for in behalf of their people SECTION VI. Of the Worship of Images THat society of Christians will not easily be reformed that think themselves oblig'd to dispute for the worship of Images the prohibition of which was so great a part of the Mosaic Religion and is so infinitely against the nature and spirituality of the Christian a thing which every understanding can see condemned in the Decalogue no man can excuse but witty persons that can be bound by no words which they can interpret to a sense contradictory to the design of the common a thing for the hating of and abstaining from which the Jews were so remark'd by all the world and by which as by a distinctive cognisance they were separated from all other Nations and which with perfect resolution they keep to this very day and for the not observing of which they are intolerably scandaliz'd at those societies of Christians who without any necessity in the thing without any pretence of any Law of God for no good and for no wise end and not without infinite danger at least of idolatry retain a worship and veneration to some stocks and stones Such men as these are too hard for all laws and for all arguments so certain it is that faith is an obedience of the will in a conviction of the understanding that if in the will and interests of men there be a perverseness and a non-compliance and that it is not bent by prudent and wise flexures and obedience to God and the plain words of God in Scripture nothing can ever prevail neither David nor his Sling nor all the worthies of his army In this question I have said enough in the Dissuasive and also in the Ductor dubitantium but to the arguments and fulness of the perswasion they neither have nor can they say any thing that is material but according to their usual method like flies they search up and down and light upon any place which they suppose to be sore or would make their proselytes believe so I shall therefore first
now adays done at Rome S. Irenaeus made an outcry and reckoned them in the black Catalogue of heretics not for joyning Christs image with that of Homer and Aristotle Pythagoras and Plato but even for crowning Christs image with flowers and coronets as they also did those of the Philosophers for though this may be innocent yet the other was a thing not known in the religion of any that were called Christians till Simon and Carpocrates began to teach the world 2. We find the wisest and the most sober of the Heathens speaking against the use of images in their religious rites So Varro when he had said that the old Romans had for 170. years worshipped the Gods without picture or image adds quod si adhuc mansissent castius Dii observarentur and gives this reason for it qui primi simulachra Deorum populis posuerunt civitatibus suis metum dempsisse errorem addidisse The making images of the Gods took away fear from men and brought in error Prudenter existimavit Deos facile posse in simulachrorum stoliditate contemni which place S. Austin quoting commends and explicates it saying he wisely thought that the Gods might easily be despised in the blockishness of images The same also was observed by Plutarch Plut. in Numâ and he gives this reason nefas putantes augustiora exprimere humilioribus neque aliter aspirari ad Deum quam mente posse They accounted it impiety to express the Great Beings with low matter and they believed there was no aspiring up to God but by the mind This is a Philosophy which the Church of Rome need not be ashamed to learn 3. It was so known a thing that Christians did abominate the use of images in religion and in their Churches that Adrian the Emperor was supposed to build Temples to Christ Aelius Lamprid in Alexandro Severo edit Salmat p. 120. and to account him as God because he commanded that Churches without images should be made in all Cities as is related by Lampridius 4. In all the disputations of the Jews against the Christians of the Primitive Church although they were impatient of having any image and had detested all use of them especially ever since their return from Babylon and still retained the hatred of them even after the dissolution of their Temple even unto superstition says Bellarmine De imag c. 7. Sect. Ad primum yet they never objected against Christians their having images in their Churches much less their worshipping them And let it be considered that in all that long disputation between Iustin Martyr and Tryphon the Iew in which the subtle Iew moves every stone lays all the load he can at the Christians door makes all objections raises all the envy gives all the matter of reproach he can against the Christians yet he opens not his mouth against them concerning images The like is to be observed in Tertullians book against the Iews no mention of images for there was no such thing amongst the Christians they hated them as the Iews did but it is not imaginable they would have omitted so great a cause of quarrel On the other side when in length of time images were brought into Churches the Iews forbore not to upbraid the Christians with it There was a dialogue written a little before the time of the seventh Synod in which a Iew is brought in saying to the Christians I have believed all ye say and I do believe in the crucified Jesus Christ that he is the son of the living God Synod 7. Act. 5. Scandalizor autem in vos Christiani quia imagines adoratis I am offended at you Christians that ye worship images for the Scripture forbids us every where to make any similitude or graven image And it is very observable that in the first and best part of the Talmud of Babylon called the Misna published about the end of the second Century the Christians are not blam'd about images which shews they gave no occasion but in the third part of the Talmud about the 10. and 11. age after Christ the Christians are sufficiently upbraided and reproached in this matter In the Gemara which was finished about the end of the fifth Century I find that learned men say the Iews call'd the Christian Church the house of Idolatry which though it may be expounded in relation to images which about that time began in some Churches to be placed and honoured yet I rather incline to believe that they meant it of our worshipping Jesus for the true God and the true Messias for at this day they call all Christians Idolaters even those that have none and can endure no images in their Religion or their Churches But now since these periods it is plain that the case is altered and when the learned Christians of the Roman communion write against the Jews they are forced to make apologies for the scandal they give to the Iews in their worshipping of images as is to be seen besides Leontius Neopolitanus of Cyprus his apology which he published for the Christians against the Iews in Ludovicus Carretus his Epistle in Sepher Amana and Fabianus Fioghus his Catechetical Dialogues But I suppose this case is very plain and is a great conviction of the innovation in this matter made by the Church of Rome 5. The matter of worshipping images looks so ill so like Idolatry so like the forbidden practices of the Heathens that it was infinitely reasonable that if it were the practice and doctrine of the Primitive Church the Primitive Priests and Bishops should at least have considered and stated the question how far and in what sense it was lawful and with what intention and in what degrees and with what caution and distinctions this might lawfully be done particularly when they preach'd and wrote Commentaries and explications upon the Decalogue especially since there was at least so great a semblance of opposition and contradiction between the commandment and any such practice God forbidding any image similitude to be made of himself or any thing else in Heaven or in Earth or in the Sea and that with such threatnings and interminations of his severe judgments against them that did make them for worship and this thing being so constantly objected by all those many that opposed their admission and veneration it is certainly very strange that none of the Fathers should take notice of any difficulty in this affair They objected the Commandment against the Heathens for doing it and yet that they should make no account or take notice how their worshipping Saints and God himself by images should differ from the Heathen superstition that was the same thing to look upon This indeed is very Unlikely But so it is Iustin Martyr Clemens Alexandrinus speak plainly enough of this matter and speak plain down-right words against making and worshipping images and so careless they were of any future chance or the present concern of
with some little variety if the kinds be differing Now by these easie ready clear and necessary distinctions and rules and cases the people being fully and perfectly instructed there is no possibility that the worship of images should be against the second Commandment because the Commandment does not forbid any worship that is transitive reduct accidental consequential analogical and hyperdulical and this is all that the Church of Rome does by her wisest Doctors teach now adays But now after all this the easiest way of all certainly is to worship no images and no manner of way and trouble the peoples heads with no distinction for by these no man can ever be at peace or Understand the Commandment which without these laborious devices by which they confess the guilt of the Commandment does lie a little too heavy upon them would most easily by every man and every woman be plainly and properly understood And therefore I know not whether there be more impiety or more fearful caution in the Church of Rome in being so curious that the second Commandment be not expos'd to the eyes and ears of the people leaving it out of their manuals breviaries and Catechisms as if when they teach the people to serve God they had a mind they should not be tempted to keep all the Commandments And when at any time they do set it down they only say thus Non facies tibi Idolum which is a word not us'd in the second Commandment at all and if the word which is there us'd be sometimes translated Idolum yet it means no more than similitude or if the words be of distinct signification yet because both are expresly forbidden in that Commandment it is very ill to represent the Commandment so as if it were observ'd according to the intention of that word yet the Commandment might be broken by the not observing it according to the intention of the other word which they conceal But of this more by and by 7. I consider that there is very great scandal and offence given to Enemies and strangers to Christianity the very Turks and Jews with whom the worship of images is of very ill report and that upon at least the most probable grounds in the world Now the Apostle having commanded all Christians to pursue those things which are of good report and to walk circumspectly charitably towards them that are without and that we give no offence neither to the Jew nor to the Gentile Now if we consider that if the Christian Church were wholly without images there would nothing perish to the faith or to the charity of the Church or to any grace which is in order to Heaven and that the spiritual state of the Christian Church may as well want such Baby ceremonies as the Synagogue did and yet on the other side that the Jews and Turks are the more much more estranged from the religion of Christ Jesus by the image-worship done by his pretended servants 1 Cor. 8. 13. the consequent will be that to retain the worship of images is both against the faith and the charity of Christians and puts limits and retrenches the borders of the Christian pale 8. It is also very scandalous to Christians that is it makes many and endangers more to fall into the direct sin of idolatry * De invent rerum l. 6. c. 13. Eâ— insaniae deventum est ut haec pietatis pars parum differat ab impietate Sunt enim benè multi rudiores stupidioresque qui saxeas vel ligneas seu in parietibus pictas imagines colant non ut figuras sed perinde acsi ipsae sensum aliquem habeant eis magis fidant quam Christe Polyd. Virg. lib. 6 c. 13. de invent rerum Lilius Giraldus in Syntag. de Diis Gentium loquens de excessu Romanae Ecclesiae in negotio imaginum praefatur Satius esse ea Harpocrati Angeronae consignare Illud certè non praetermittam nos dico Christianos ut aliquando Romanos fuisse sine imaginibus in primitivâ quae vocatur Ecclesia Erasmus in Catechesi ait usque ad aetatem Hieronymi erant probatae religionis viri qui in Templis nullam ferebant imaginem nec pictam nec sculptam nec textam ac ne Christi quidem Polydore Virgil observes out of S. Jerome that almost all the holy Fathers damned the worship of Images for this very reason for fear of idolatry and Cassander says that all the ancients did abhor all adoration of images Et ibid Vt imagines sint in Templis nulla praecepit vel humana coâ—sâ—itutio ut facilius est ita lutius quoque omnes imagines è Templis submavere Videatur etiam Cassandri consultatio sub hoc titulâ— Masius in Jesuah cap. 8. Sic autem queritur Ludovicus Vives Comment in lib. 8. c. ult de civit Dei Divos Divasque non alitèr venerantur quà m Deum ipsum Non video in multis quid discrimen sit inter eorum opinionem de saâ—ctis id quod Gentiles putabant de Diis suis. Diodorus Siculus dixit de Mose imaginem statuit nullam ideo quod non erederet Deum homini similem esse Dion lib. 36 Nullam effigiâ—m in Hierosoâ—ymis habuere quod Deum crederent ut ineffabilem ita inaspicuum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he cites * Consul de imagin ex Origene contr Celsum lib. 7. versus finem Origen as an instance great enough to verifie the whole affirmative Nos vero ideo non honoramus simulachra quia quantum possumus cavemus ne quo modo incidamus in eam credulitatem ut his tribuantus divinitatis aliquid This authority E. W. page 55. is not ashamed to bring in behalf of himself in this question saying that Origen hath nothing against the use of images and declares our Christian doctrine thus then he recites the words above quoted than which Origen could not speak plainer against the practice of the Roman Church and E. W. might as well have disputed for the Manichees with this argument The Scripture doth not say that God made the world it only declares the Christian doctrine thus In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth c. But this Gentleman thinks any thing will pass for argument amongst his own people And of this danger S. Austin * Epist. 49. q. 3. gives a rational account No man doubts but idols want all sense But when they are plac'd in their seats in an honourable sublimity that they may be attended by them that pray and offer sacrifice by the very likeness of living members and senses although they be senseless and without life they affect weak minds that they seem to live and feel especially when the veneration of a multitude is added to it by which so great a worship is bestowed upon them Here is the danger and how much is contributed to it in the Church of Rome by clothing their
Alexander honour you should picture him like a Bear tearing and trampling every thing or to exalt Caesar you should hang upon a table the pictures of a Fox and a Cock and a Lion and write under it This is Cajus Julius Caesar. But I am ashamed of these prodigious follies But at last why should it be esteemed madness and impiety to picture the nature of God which is invisible and not also be as great a madness to picture any shape of him which no man ever saw But he that is invested with a thick cloud and encircled with an inaccessible glory and never drew aside the Curtains to be seen under any representment will not suffer himself to be expos'd to vulgar eyes by phantastical shapes and ridiculous forms But it may be the Church of Rome does not use any such impious practice much less own so mad a doctrine for one of my adversaries says that the picturing the forms or appearances of God is all that some in their Church allow that is some do and some do not So that it may be only a private opinion of some Doctors and then I am to blame to charge Popery with it Lib 2. de reliq imagin S. To this I answer that Bellarmine indeed says S. cap 8. Sect. Non esse tam certum in Ecclesia an sint faciendae imagines Dei sive Trinitatis Ego dico tria quam Christi Sanctorum It is not so certain viz. as to be an article of faith But yet besides that Bellarmine allows it and cites Cajetan Catharinus Payva Sanders and Thomas Waldensis for it this is a practice and doctrine brought in by an unproved custom of the Church Constat quod haec consuetudo depingendi Angelos Deum modo sub specie Columbae modo sub Figura Trinitatis sit ubique inter Catholicos recepta The picturing Angels and God sometimes under the shape of a Dove and sometimes under the figure of the Trinity is every where received among the Catholicks Pujol de adorat disp 3. said a great Man amongst them Sect. 4. And to what purpose they do this we are told by Cajetan speaking of images of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost saying In 3. part Tom. q. 25. a. 3. Haec non solum pinguntur ut ostendantur sicut cherubim olim in Templo sed ut adorentur They are painted that they may be worshipped ut frequens usus Ecclesiae testatur This is witnessed by the frequent use of the Church So that this is received every where among the Catholicks and these images are worshipped and of this there is an Ecclesiastical custom and I add In their Mass-book lately printed these pictures are not infrequently seen So that now it is necessary to shew that this besides the impiety of it is against the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church and is an innovation in religion a propriety of the Roman doctrine and of infinite danger and unsufferable impiety To some of these purposes the Dissuasive alledged Tertullian Pag. 28. Eusebius and S. Hierom but A. L. says these Fathers have nothing to this purpose This is now to be tried These men were only nam'd in the Dissuasive Their words are these which follow 1. For Tertullian De coronâ milit A man would think it could not be necessary to prove that Tertullian thought it unlawful to picture God the Father when he thought the whole art of painting and making images to be unlawful as I have already proved But however let us see He is very curious that nothing should be us'd by Christians or in the service of God which is us'd on or by or towards idols and because they did paint and picture their idols cast or carve them therefore nothing of that kind ought to be in rebus Dei as Tertullian's phrase is But the summ of his discourse is this The Heathens use to picture their false Gods that indeed befits them De Cor. Milit. Johannes Filioli inquit Custodite vos ab idolis non jam ab idololatria quasi ab officio sed ab idolis id est ab ipsâ effigie eorum Indignum enim est ut imago Divini imagoidoli mortui fiat Si enim verbo nudo conditio polluitur ut Apostolus docet si quis dixerit idolothytum est non contigeris multo magis cum habitu ritu apparatu c. Quid enim tam dignum Deo quà m quod indignum idolo but therefore is unfit for God and therefore we are to flee not only from idolatry but from idols in which affair a word does change the case and that which before it was said to appertain to idols was lawful by that very word was made Unlawful and therefore much more by a shape or figure and therefore flee from the shape of them for it is an Unworthy thing that the image of the living God should be made the image of an idol or a dead thing For the idols of the Heathens are silver and gold and have eyes without sight and noses without smell and hands without feeling So far Tertullian argues And what can more plainly give his sense and meaning in this Article If the very image of an idol be Unlawful much more is it unlawful to make an image or idol of the living God or represent him by the image of a dead man But this argument is further and more plainly set down by Athanasius whose book against the Gentiles is spent in reproving the images of God real or imaginary insomuch that he affirms that the Gentiles dishonour even their false Gods by making images of them and that they might better have pass'd for Gods if they had not represented them by visible images And therefore that the religion of making images of their Gods Nam si ut dicitis literarum instar Dei praesentiam signant atque adeò acsi Deum significantia Divinis dignae censentur honoribus cerrè qui ea sculpâ—it eisque effigiem dedit multo magis hos promerebatur honores Et paulò post Quocircae hujusmodi religio Deorumque fictio non pietatis esse sed iniquitatis invectio Veritatis via ad eum qui veruâ— Deus est diriget Ad eum verò â—ognoscendum exactissimè intelligendum nullius extrà nos positae rei opem necessariam haebemus Quod si quis interrogat quanam ista sit Vâ—iuscujusque animam esse dixerim atque insitam illam intelligentiam per ipsam enim solam Deus inspiciet intelligi potest Orat. contr â—entiles is not piety but impious For to know God we need no outward thing the way of truth will direct us to him And if any man ask which is that way viz. to know God I shall say it is the soul of a man and that understanding which is planted in us for by that alone God can be seen and Understood The same Father does