naturally goes before the Ministry it does not depend upon the Ministry but the Ministry on the contrary depends upon it as in the Civil Society the Magistracy depends upon the Society and not the Society upon the Magistracy In the Civil Society the first thing that must be thought on is that Nature made men afterwards we conceive that she Assembled and United them together and lastly that from that Union that could not subsist without Order Mastistracy proceeded It is the same thing in a Religious Society the first thing that Grace did was to produce Faith in the Hearts of men after having made them believe she United them and form'd a mutual Communion between them and because their Communion ought not to be without Order and without Government from thence the Ministry arose So that a Lawful Ministry is after the True Church and depending upon it It is not a Lawful Ministry that makes it to be the True Church for it is so by the Truth of its Faith and it would yet be so when it actually had not any Ministers but it is the True Church that makes the Ministry to be Lawful since it is from the Truth of a Church that the Justice of its Ministry proceeds The Argument therefore of the Author of the Prejudices involves the Dispute in a ridiculous Circle for when he would prove that we are not the True Church because we have not a Lawful Ministry we maintain on the contrary That we have a Lawful Ministry because we are the True Church And he cannot say that we are the cause of the ridiculous Circle because our way of Reasoning follows the Order of Nature and his does not follow it I omit that his first Proposition which is Where there is no Lawful Ministry there is no True Church is Equivocal For either he understands by that Lawful Ministry Ministers actually Established or else he means a Right to Establish them If the former his Proposition is false for the True Church may be without having actually any Ministers that is no ways impossible as I have already shewn And if he means the latter his Proposition is not to his purpose for it would maintain that the Society of the Protestants has a full and entire Right to set up Ministers for its Government supposing that it had the True Faith as it may appear by what I have said and as it will appear yet more clearly by the following Observation 8. I say then in the eighth place That the Body of the Church that is to say Properly and Chiefly the Society of the truly Faithful not only has the Right of the Ministry but that it is also that Body that makes a Call Lawful of persons to that Office This Truth will be confirmed by what I have already shewn without any further need of new Proofs But as the Question concerning the true Fountain whence that Call proceeds is it self alone almost all the difference that is between the Church of Rome and us about this matter and that moreover it is extreamly Important to the Subject we are upon It is necessary for us to examine it a little more carefully They cannot then take it ill that I insist a little more largely upon this Observation then I have done upon the rest To make it as clear as I can possibly I propose to Treat of three Questions The first shall be To know whether naturally a Call belongs to the Pastors only excluding the Laity or whether it belongs to the whole Body of the Church The Second Whether in case it belongs to the whole Body of the Church it can be said that the Church can of it self spoil it self of its right or whether it has lost it any way that it could be supposed to have And the Third Whether the Body of the Church may confer Calls immediately by it self or whether the Church is alwayes bound to confer them by means of its Pastors As to the first of these Questions All the Difficulty it can have comes only from the false Idea of a Call that is ordinarily formed in the Church of Rome For first They make it a Sacrament properly so called and they name it the Sacrament of Orders From whence the thought readily arises that the Body of the People cannot confer a Sacrament They Imagine next That that Sacrament impresses a certain Character which they call an Indelible Character and which they conceive of as a Physical Quality or an Absolute Accident as they speak in the School and as an Inherent Accident in the Soul of the Minister They perswade themselves further that Jesus Christ and his Apostles left that Sacrament and that Physical Quality in trust in the hands of the Bishops to be communicated by none but them With that they mix a great many Ceremonies and External Marks as Unction and the Shaving which they call the Priesty Crown They add to all that Priestly Habits the Stole the Alb the Cope the Cross the Miter the Rochet Hood Pall c. They make Mysterious Allegories upon these Ceremonies and those Ornaments they distinguish those Dignities into divers Orders they frame a Hierarchy set out by the Pompous Titles of Prelats Primates Arch-Bishops Patriarchs Cardinals c. They write great Books upon all these things and the half of their Divinity is taken up in explaining their Rights Authority Priviledges Immunities Apostolick Grants Exceptions c. What ground is here that all good men should not believe that the Church-men are at least men of another kind from all others and that they are no wayes made of the same blood of which Saint Paul says that God has made all Mankind Notwithstanding when we examine well that Call what it is to form a just Idea of it we shall find that properly it is but a Relation that results from the Agreement of three Wills to wit that of God that of the Church and that of the Person called for the consent of these three make all the Essence of that Call and the other things that may be added to it as Examination Election Ordination are Preambulatory Conditions or Signs and External Ceremonies which more respect the Manner of that Call then the Call it self In Effect in a Call we can remark but three Interests that can engage one to it that of God since he that is called ought to speak and Act in his Name that of the Church that ought to be Instructed Served and Governed and that of him who is called who ought to fulfil the Functions of his Charge and to Consecrate his Watchful Diligence Cares and Labours to it from whence it follows That that Call is sufficiently formed when God the Church and the Person called come to agree and we cannot rationally conceive any thing else in it But as to the Will of the called it does not fall into the Question for we all acknowledge that no one can be forced to receive the Office of the
in it no sooner I have heard it has been the wish of some Great Divines but their own Employments hindred them from Effecting it and it might have been expected that it should have moved somebody to have attempted it upon that very account because they desired it For since the Gift of Tongues is ceased and those Inspired Linguists have been long ago silenced Translation is none of the worst ways of supplying that absent Grace neither can it be accounted beneath any man by his Industry to retrieve a departed Miracle I could wish he had come forth in all the Ornaments of our Language as he did at first in those of his own Those Ceremonies of Speech though in themselves not absolutely necessary and add not much to the Substance yet they contribute not a little to the Decency and pleasing part of an Author for there is a Delightful Prospect arising from the Agreeable Mixture of the Colours of Language without which a Book is never the less solid but with which it is much more perswading However he appears the more in his own Dimensions the thinner his Garments are and the closer they sit about him I shall make no Apology for the Author because I know nothing in him that needs it unless some should mistake some of his expressions about Episcopacy Where if he has let fall any thing that may offend he has these two things at least for his excuse First that he lived under an external constitution of a Church that did not exercise that way of Government Secondly he himself tells us those that he mentions were only such who were of the Popish Communion and only as such he uses them I shall not detain the Reader any longer from the Book it self only I am to desire him that whatsoever faults he finds in the Preface may not be imputed any further to the Book it self For the more mistakes there are in it the more proper it is for that Perfect Piece it is set before as the Errors of the Church of Rome had no small share in the occasion of our Religion and may in some sense be stiled The Preface to the Reformation The Epistle Dedicatory of the Author To the Right Honourable The MARQUESS of RUVIGNY Lieutenant-General of His Majesties Armies AND General Deputy of the Protestants in FRANCE MY LORD MY first thoughts after I had read the Books of the Prejudices were not to write any Answer to it For besides that I saw in that Book nothing else but the same Accusations from which our Fathers and we have already been frequently justified and that moreover they were wrote there in so extreamly passionate and invenomed a stile for my own particular I did not think my self bound to follow every where those persons who seem to make it their design to load me with the number of their Volumes affecting to take me for a Party in all the Works that they daily publish and even in those that are most remote from the chief Subject of our Controversy Yet when I perceived the loud Out-cries that these Gentlemen and their followers made about their Prejudices to draw the applause of the World to themselves as if they had silenced us and our Reformation remained over thrown under the weight of their Victory I judged it necessary to enter upon this new labour and the deference that I had for those who exhorted me to undertake it has brought forth this Treatise that I now give to the publick Those who shall take the pains to read it will find that I have not meerly tied my self to the Book that I confute but that to save my self the labour of doing it at twice I have considered the matter in its first Principles and examinëd it in its just extent that I might be the better able to judge of it I acknowledg the Subject Treated on required more Learning readiness and leasure then I was master of but it may be also they will find in the plain and natural way wherein I have handled it something more easy then if I had employed more Art and Meditation in it It is this makes me hope that when I shall not fully have answered the expectations of those who have engaged me in this work yet they will not read this Defence without some satisfaction However it be My Lord I take the boldness to present it to you and to entreat the favour of you to receive it as a token of the acknowledgment that I have for so much goodness as you have testified towards me I am perswaded that those of our Communion in this Kingdom will very heartily consent that my weak pen should also express the sentiments that they all have of your person and of the cares that you take to uphold their common interests I will also affirm that your Merit is so generally acknowledged that when nothing shall be disputed but the just praises that are due to your prudence to the wisdom that appears throughout your whole Conduct to the inviolable Principles of Honour and Justice that are the perpetual Rules of your Actions and in a word to the great and solid Vertues that you practise with such exactness they can assure themselves that there will be no difference about that between those of the one and the other Communion But all those Qualities that they take notice of in You how Rich and Resplendent soever they are even in the eyes of those who are destitute of them would be nothing else but false dazling light if they were not accompanied with real Piety which only gives a value to all the Moral Virtues You are not ignorant My Lord you in whom we saw it but a few Months ago how your Soul ready to take its flight trembled and remained confounded in the view of all that humane Righteousness and that you could find no rest in your Spirit any where else then in the bosom of Religion and Piety This alone was that which gave you the Tranquillity of Soul which taught all those who had the honour to come near your Bed after what manner a good man who could rest assured of Gods Mercy and the Grace of Jesus Christ might look Death in the Face It is this that has yet prolonged your days or to speak better that has restored Life to you by an extraordinary blessing of heaven little different from that which Hezechias heretofore received as the fruit of his humiliation and prayer Continue MY LORD to lay out that life which has been given you again in the service of God and in the employments to which your calling engages you and of which you have so great an account to render Those employments are certainly difficult and if I may take the boldness to say it they are oppressing through their quality through their numbers and through the accidents that either accompany or follow them But he who has called you to them will give you ability to discharge
Scriptures And upon another occasion Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of Eternal Life And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God If those of the Church of Rome were accustomed to the reading of the Holy Scripture they would find the proofs of this Truth in a thousand places but the far greatest part of our Controversies come from the neglect they have of that Divine Book and that neglect it self is one fruit of that excessive confidence they have in their Guides The End of the First Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE SECOND PART Of the Justice of the Reformation CHAP. I. That our Fathers could not expect a Reformation either from the hands of the Popes or from those of the Prelats WE may now methinks suppose it evident and proved That our Fathers had a right and were bound to examine by themselves the matters of Religion and not to refer themselves absolutely to the Conduct and Authority of their Prelats But from thence it manifestly follows that they had a right to Reform themselves For since they could examine only in order to discern the good from the bad and the true from the false who can doubt that they having a right to make that discernment would not also have had a right to reject that which they should have found to have been contrary to or alienated from Christianity which is precisely that which is called Reformation I acknowledge that it yet remains to be inquired into whether those things which they have rejected are indeed Errors and Superstitons as they are pretended to be and whether they did not deceive themselves in the Judgment that they made But who sees it not necessary for the deciding of that Question to go to the bottom and to enter upon that discussion which our Adversaries would avoid From whence it may appear as I have said in the beginning that all that Controversy which they raise against us about the Call of our Reformers is nothing else but a vain amusement and that to make a good Judgment of that Action of our Fathers and to know whether it be just or unjust we ought always to come to the bottom of the cause and to those things themselves which are Reformed for upon that the Question doth wholly depend whether they did well or ill Notwithstanding to shew that we would forget nothing that may serve for our Justification and that after the desire to please God we have not a greater then that of approving our selves to our Country-men and in general to all men we shall not fail to make yet some particular Reflexions upon the Circumstances of the Reformation which will more and more confirm the right of our Fathers and manifest the Justice of their Conduct and at the same time we shall answer to some Objections of the Author of the Prejudices That shall be the business of this Second Part. Our first Reflexion shall be on that deplorable State of the Latin Church in the days of our Fathers in respect of its Prelats for its Condition was such that there was no more hope of ever seeing a good Reformation to spring up by their Ministry In effect what could be expected from a Body that had almost wholly abandoned the care of Religion and of the Salvation of Souls which was plunged in the intrigues and interests of the World which kept the People in the ignorance of the Mysteries of the Gospel and in the most gross Superstitions and with which the whole body it self did entertain it self and was found to be possest by Ambition by Luxury and by Covetousness and engaged in the vilest manners and living in almost a general opposition to overthrow of all Discipline They will SEE then what a German Bishop says in a Book intituled Onus Ecclesiae who lived and wrote in the year 1519. that is to say near the very time of the Reformation but one who was no ways Luthers friend as it appears by his writings I am afraid says he That the Doctrine of the Apostle touching the Qualifications of a Bishop is but very ill observed in these days or rather that we are fallen into those Times which he noted when he said I know that after my departure ravenous Wolves will come among you not sparing the flock Where may one see a good man chosen to be a Bishop one approved by his works and his Learning and any one who is not either a Child or Worldly or Ignorant of spiritual things The far greater number come to the Prelateship more by underhand canvassings and ill ways then by Election and lawful ways That Disorder which may be seen in the Ecclesiastical Dignities sets the Church in danger of perishing for Solomon says There is one evil which I have seen under the Sun as an Error which proceedeth from the Ruler when a fool is raised to high dignity It is therefore that I said that the Bishops ought to excel in Learning to the end that by their Instructions and their Preaching they might govern others profitably But alas What Bishop have we now a days that Preaches or has any care of the Souls committed to him There are besides that very few who are contented with one Spouse alone that is to say with one only Church and who seek not to appropriate to themselves more Dignities more Prebends and what is yet more to be condemned more Bishopricks Our Bishops are feasting at their own Tables then when they should be at the Altar they are unwise in the things of God but they love the wisdom of the World they are more intent on Temporal Affairs say it may be that I suffer my self to be carried away by my Passion and that all these clamourous Accusations are but the effect of that Engagement in which we all are set against the Church of Rome But to leave no ground for that Suspicion besides what I have set down in general in the second Chapters of my first Part I will further produce here more particular Testimonies of that Truth by applying them to the Ages of our Fathers I will say nothing of my own head I will make their Authors that are not suspected by them to speak whose passages I will faithfully relate which they may see in the Originals if they will take the pains And as I hope that they will not lay to my charge what may appear to be too vehement in their Expressions so also I not do pretend to impute to the Prelats of these days that which those Authors censured in those of the former Times then on the work of Jesus Christ Their Bodies are adorned with Gold and their Souls defiled with filth they are ashamed to meddle with Spiritual things and their glory lies in their Scurrilous humor and carriage Whence it was that Catherine of
is Sin methinks it is not ill grounded to say either that the Church of Rome Sins when she invocates those Canonized Saints without any certainty of Faith or that she holds it as a matter of Divine Faith that the Pope cannot be deceived The Author of the Prejudices shall chuse which side he pleases if he takes the last he contradicts himself if he takes the former Saint Paul condemns him for he condemns all those who throw away the Acts of their Religion after that manner at all Adventure If the Efficacy of Agnus Dei's has not been established by the Councils that belief may be found at least heretofore so strongly and universally established in the Church of Rome that it may be very well ascribed to her without any fear of mistaking They tell us that Pope Vrban V. sent to John Palcologus the Emperour of the Greeks an Agnus folded up in fine Paper wherein there was written Fine Verses which explained all its properties Those Verses carry with them That the Agnus was made of Balmsanus and Wax with Crisom and that being Consecrated by Mystical words it drove away Thunder and scattered Storms that it gave Women an easy Birth that it prevented one from perishing on the Seas that it took away Sin that it kept back the Devil that it made a man to grow Rich that it secured one against Fire that it hindred one from dying a sudden death that it gave a man Victory over his Enemies and that in Fine a small piece of the Agnus had as much Vertue as the whole As for that which regards the Infallibility of the Popes their Temporal power over Kings and their Pre-eminence over the Councils we do not say that those were Articles of the Faith received throughout the whole Church of Rome There is not one of us that knows not that those pretensions were always opposed by the Sounder part of the French But they cannot deny that they were not at least the Pretences of Rome and that its Popes did not Determine That it was necessary to the Salvation of every Creature to be subject to them They cannot deny that Pope Gregory VII did not decide in a Council That the Church of Rome did never Err and that it would never Err according to the Testimony of the Scripture nor that the opinion of those who believe that the Pope is Infallible in his decisions of Faith is not the more common and general one in the Church of Rome and that those who hold it speak of the other only as an opinion that the Church Tolerates for the present and that they look upon it as an Errour and such a one as approaches even to Heresie for those are the express words of Bellarmine They cannot deny that they generally hold in the Church of Rome that the Pope is by Divine right the Soveraign Monarch of the Church whom all Christians are bound to obey the Soveraign and Universal Vicar of Jesus Christ his Soveraign Pastor to whom Jesus Christ has given a fulness of power which goes not far from ascribing Infalliblity to him They cannot deny that the Popes did not often define that the Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all other Churches and that the Council of Trent has not also declared it in divers places They cannot deny that the Popes did not pretend to be above the Councils that Sixtus IV. did not condemn a certain man called Peter de Osma for having taught that the Pope could not dispence with the Ordinances of the Universal Church nor that Leo X. did not declare in the Council of Lateran with the approbation of the Council That it was evident as well from the Testimony of Scripture as that of the Fathers and of other Bishops of Rome who had gone before and by the Holy Cannons and by the very Confession of the Councils themselves that the Pope alone had a right and power to call Councils together to transfer and dissolve them as having Authority over all Councils They cannot deny that the same Leo did not condemn Luther for having appealed from him the Pope to a Council against the Constitutions says he of Pius II. of Julius II. who ordained that those who made such Appeals should be punished with the same Penalties that were decided against Hereticks nor that the Council of Trent did not submit it self to its Confirmation of the Pope as it may appear by the last Act of that Council And as to the pretences of the Popes over the Temporalties of Kings they cannot deny that Clement V. has not declared in one of his Clemintines as they are called That it ought not not to be Questioned but that he had a Superiority over the Empire and that the Empire being void he sucbeeded in the power of the Emperour nor that Alexander VI. did not give out of his pure Liberality says he of his certain knowledge and fullness of power to the Kings of Castile and Leon all the Lands newly discovered in the Indies as if they had belonged to him nor that Gregory VII did not decide in his Council of Rome That the Pope could depose Emperours and dispence-with the Oaths of Allegiance to their Subjects nor that Innocent III. did not ordain in the Council of Lateran That if any Temporal Prince neglected to purge his Territories of all Heresie the Bishops should Excommunicate him and that if within a Year he gave no Satisfaction they should make it known to the Soveraign Bishop to the end that he should declare his Subjects absolved from their Duty of Fealty and that he should expose his Land to be taken by Catholicks They cannot also deny as to Practice that there are not divers Examples to be found of Popes who undertook effectually to depose Emperours and Kings and to give away their Kingdomes to others In fine as to that which regards their Jurisdiction over Souls in Purgatory no Body is ignorant that the Popes pretended to have Power to draw Souls out of Purgatory at least through the dispensation of the Treasure of the Church which is that which they say is made up of the Super-abundant Satisfactions of Jesus Christ and the Saints It is upon that also that their Indulgences in respect of the Dead are Founded and Leo in his Bull of Excommunication against Luther had wrote That Indulgences were neither necessary nor useful to the Dead Furthermore I cannot forbear taking notice here of the Fallacy that the Author of the Prejudices gives us and which is common to him with a great many other persons He would have us Judge of that Doctrine of the Roman Church but only by that which she has decided in her Councils or by that which is contained in an Act of the Profesion of the Faith which she makes those make who embraue her Communion This I say is a perfect Fallacy 1. Because we ought also to Judge of
learned The one extends its use unto all that is Necessary for Instruction and the Conduct of life and the other in heaping up of general difficulties makes it unprofitable to Instruct us in the least Truths What Judgment can we make of this diversity unless this that the language of these Gentlemen changes according to the difference of Times and Interests as one has said of them elsewhere When the case is about gaining credit to their Translation of the New Testament they speak as advantagiously of the Scripture as it is possible for them to speak and when the business is to oppose a Reformation made according to the Rule of the Scripture but which notwithstanding has not the happiness of their Agreement you see what they say of that same Scripture The Scripture shall then to speak properly be only to be commended by the Intrest of their Translation and as long as that Interest shall remain shall be the Collection of the divine Teachings of our Lord The Testament that assures us of the Inheritance of our Father The mouth of Jesus Christ who although he is in Heaven speaks continually upon earth not only the nourishment of sound Souls and those who are establish'd in grace as the Body of the Son of God but even the Consolation of Sinners the light of the blind the remedy of the Sick and the life of the dead For these are the Titles that the Preface gives it but whenever that Interest shall cease those praises shall do so too and it shall be nothing but a Ridiculous way and impossible for the Instructing of men in the Truth I would therefore very fain know of these Gentlemen whether it were only upon the sight of their Translation that S. Cyprian S. Augustine and S. Gregory wrote that which the Preface relates or whether those Fathers did not consider the Scripture in it self For if it be the first they forgot to tell us that they only spake out of a Prophetick Spirit of that Translation and if it be the Second why have they entertained us with that admirable proportion of the Scripture to great and small to the strong and weak and that easy and intelligible manner wherewith it propounds to us all that is necessary for the Conduct of our life since that without the Translation of Mons it is an Infinite way which has no end a ridiculous way and Impossible to Instruct men in the Truth What can the Author of the Prejudices say to defend himself from this Manifest Contradiction which he discovers between him and his Colleague Will he say that the Scripture is in truth a good means for the Instruction of men but that it is so only with the Interpretations of the Fathers But the Author of that Preface speaks for Scripture alone separated from the Interpretation of the Fathers such as its Translation is for he excuses himself in that he had not made a collection of notes and explanations drawn out of the writings of the holy Fathers and he does not fail to say that in his Translation as plain as it is not only the Souls of the more learned but of the more simple also and unlearned may find that which will be necessary for their Instruction Will he say that he does not mean to exclude the learned from the use of the Scripture but only the more simple for the Instruction of which former he does not deny but that it would be a most proper means But besides that his Brother speaks formally of the Instruction of the more simple why has the Author of the Prejudices made it a ridiculous and Impossible way an infinite way which has no Issue a way which is of so excessive a length that one can never rationally hope to come to the end of it whatsoever diligence one should make Will he say that the Scripture ought to be joined with Tradition and that without Tradition it cannot give a perfect Instruction But the Preface says expresly that they will find in that Translation all that will be necessary for Instruction Will he say that in order to the Scriptures Instructing one the Sence of the Church ought to be added to it But the Preface says that according to Saint Augustine the Scripture lays down all that is necessary for the Conduct of our lives after a most easy and Intelligible manner and that she explains and makes clear her self Will he say that in order to the Scriptures being capable to Instruct us we ought at least to read it with Dependance upon the Church and to take it from her hand But wherefore then would these Gentlemen have the People to read their Translation since they are only private Doctors and not the Church Wherefore when the Prelats rais'd to the highest dignities have forbid the reading of it by their Ordinances have we seen Printed writings maintain on the contrary there was in those Ordinances a Threatning of the Will and Commandment of God who would that we should hear his Son and not that we should suppress his Gospel a Contradiction to the Holy Scripture which was set down in writing for no other end but to be heard and practis'd by all Nations of the world a Contradiction of all the Councils which have always taken the Scripture for the Judge of the belief of the Church and of all the Difficulties and Questions that can arise in the Doctrine of Faith or Manners a Contradiction of all the Holy Fathers who advis'd the Faithful above all things continually to read the word of God Why has one Introduc'd two Lay-men Parishoners Saint Hilary Montanus saying one to another The Bishops cannot take away from us the Gospel that Jesus Christ has given us that God spoke to all his People when he said To day if you will hear my voice harden not your Hearts a Bishop cannot take away our Eyes from us to hinder us from seeing and considering our way we should not see Jesus Christ our Saviour our Pastor and our great Bishop who goes before us in his Gospel That if a Bishop would turn us away from if an Apostle if an Angel from Heaven would stop up this way and would go about to lead and guide us in another we ought not to believe him Why has he made us see those Parishoners holding That there is nothing more contrary to the Gospel then a prohibition to read and have it that bread and nourishment is not more necessary to preserve the life of the Body then the word of God is to maintain Life in our Souls That all Christians have a natural right that cannot be taken from them of Instructing themselves by the word of God and labouring to understand it and that the Holy Scriptures were given to the whole Church and not only to the Bishops who have no right to deprive the Faithful of them That this is say they what the Divel would preach up if he were
it should be True that the Right of being in an External Society That of making Assemblies that of Preaching That of Administring the Sacraments that of Binding and Loosing and the whole Ministerial Power should reside in the Faithfull only yet it must be Confess'd notwithstanding That all those Rights are to no purpose while they are Separated from their Pastors because that each person among them being but a meer private man they could not reduce those Rights into Act as they say that is to say They could not tell how to make any Actual Function They have none who could join them together into a visible Body none among them can Lawfully Assemble them none can Exercise the Functions of the Ministry among them none can either Preach or Administer the Sacraments or Exercise the Power of the Keys Whence it follows that whatsoever Right they have ascribed to them yet they do not cease to be in that Condition in a True Dispersion according to what is said in the Scripture I will smite the Shepherd and the Sheep shall be scattered abroad And therefore Saint Paul says That God has given some to be Apostles others to be Prophets others Evangelists and others Pastors and Teachers for the Assembling of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the Edifying of the Body of Christ The Church in as much as she is an External Society is as an Organical Body which has its noble parts necessary for Life without which it could not subsist for a moment and those parts are her Pastors who are not it may be absolutely necessary for the Subsistence of Faith and Piety in the Souls of particular men but who are at least absolutely so for the Subsistance of that External Society and the Publick Exercise of Religion If they overthrow this Order they change the Church into a rash Assembly made by Chance and Licentiousness and of whose Convocation there can be no Reason given Even the very name alone of the Church which signifies a called Assembly denotes that to assemble in a Body there ought to be a Lawful Call which can be in none but the Pastors The Pastors are then necessary to Bind an External Society but they are yet further so for the setting it in any Order for otherwise it will depend on the Capricious humour of each private man to usurp the Publick Functions each man will Imagine himself to have a Right to Preach the word of the Gospell to Administer the Sacraments and to do the other Functions of the Ministry which would turn the Church into an Anarchy These are to me the most specious Objections that they can make against what I have said concerning the Right that the Faithfull have to be in a Society even then when they are Separated from the Body of their Pastors and they cannot Complain that I have weakned them for they will not find any thing either in that Book of the Prejudices or it may be in all their other Controversial Writings that will appear to have as much Force and Likelihood of Truth as that which I have gathered together in these few words To Answer in some Order I shall in the first place affirm That that Objection does not any way touch the Body of the Protestants since it is evident not only that all their Pastors were not contrary to the Reformation but also that in the greatest part of those places wherein it was made those who were most ardently engaged in it were persons high in Office and Dignity in the Latin Church Who had as much a Call as they can reasonably desire to preserve the Bond of Society intire and to call Assemblies together It is as certain that in divers places the Reformation was made by the consent of the greatest part of their Pastors as in England in Scotland in Swedland in Denmark in Saxony in the Palatinate in Hessia in Switzerland and in many more Cities and Countrys in Germany So that we may say with certainty That the Reformed People Separated from the Roman Communion did not assemble of themselves but that they kept up an External Society under the lawful Ministry of a Considerable number of their Pastors who called them together into a Body or to speak better who hindred their dispersion and preserved the Bond of their Unity They had in that Number their Monks their Preachers Priests Curates Canons Doctors Professours in Divinity whole Universities and Abbies Bishops Arch-Bishops Cardinals and if the light of the Gospel had not been then inaccessible to the See of Rome they had had it may be Popes themselves for some of them were sensible enough of the Necessity of a Reformation Howsoever it be we may say That there was yet in the Body of the Pastors a Remnant according to the Election of Grace as there was in the Time of the Arrians according to the Remark of St. Gregory Nazianzen I confess that in some places the People of themselves Assembled to Chuse their Pastors but when they should have been guilty of any irregularity in that besides that they cannot impute it to all the Body it would have been rectified by the approbation that all the other Pastors made of that Election and by the right hand of Fellowship which they gave them finding themselves to be in the same Ecclesiastical Assemblies with them and acknowledging them for their Brethren and Companions in the Work of Jesus Christ And by so much the more as the Times of Persecution wherein the Faithful were then often forced them to pass over those Formalities which it was impossible for them to observe and as God himself seemed to have ratified the choice of those persons by the blessing which he spread upon their Labours as he did particularly upon the Ministry of John le Mason la Riviere whom the people chose at Paris in the Year 1555. But howsoever we are but a very little concerned in the Principles upon which that Objection is grounded yet we shall not fail notwithstanding to Examine them to know a little more distinctly of what necessity Pastors are for the subsistence of the Society or External Communion of the Church I say then in the first place it must not be thought that the Bond of the External Society of the Faithful absolutely depend on their Union or as Cardinal du Perron speaks on their Adherence to the Body of their Pastors It may fall out sometimes that the Body of the Pastors that is to say the greater number of them fall into Heresy and corrupt the Ministry in such a manner as the Faithful would be bound to Separate themselves from them If there yet remain some few Pastors who maintain the True Doctrine and oppose Error in that Case I say that the Faithful may most lawfully hold a Christian Society with them in the using of all their Functions assemble themselves under their Ministry hear the word of the Gospel from their Mouths and