it may be said in some regard that the Church was before the Scriptures when as in order of reason it is evident that the truth of Christianity is supposed to the being of it inasmuch as no man can be or be known to be of the Church but as hee is or is known to be a Christian And truly those that dispute the authority of the Church to be the the reason to believe the sentence of it in mater of Faith to be true are to consider what they will say to that opinion which utterly denies any such authority any such thing as a Church Understanding the Church to be a Society founded by Gods appointment giving publick authority to some persons so or so qualified by that appointment in behalf of the whole For this all must deny that admit Erastus his opinion of Excommunication to be true if they will admit the consequence of their own doctrine Which opinion I have therefore premised in staring this Question that it may appear to require such an answer as may not suppose the being of the Church in that nature but may be a means to demonstrate it But as it is not my intent to begg so great a thing in question by proceeding upon supposition of any authority in the Church before I can prove it to be a Corporation founded with such authority as the foundation of it requireth So is it as farre from my meaning to deny that authority which I do not suppose For hee that denieth the authority of the Church to be the reason why any thing is to be taken for truth or for the meaning of the Scripture may take the due and true authority of the Church to be a part of that truth which is more ancient than the authority of the Church Inasmuch as it must be believed that God hath founded a Society of them which professe Christianity by the name of the Church giving such authority to some members of it in behalf of the whole as hee pleased before it can be believed that this or that is within the authority of the Church For that there is a Church and a publick authority in it and for it and what things they are that fall under that authority if it be true is part of that truth which our Lord and his Apostles whose authority is more ancient than the Church have declared Indeed if it were true that the first truth which all Christians are to believe and for the reason of it to believe every thing else is the saying of persons so and so qualified in the Church then were it evident that the belief of that which is questioned in religion could not be resolved into any other principle But if it be manifest by the motives of Christianity that the authority of the Apostles is antecedent to it that all Scripture and the meaning of Scripture which signifies nothing beside it own meaning and Tradition of the Apostles if any such Tradition over and above Scripture may appear is true not supposing it as appeares by the premises then is the authority of the Church no ground of Faith and so not Infallible There are indeed sundry Objections made both out of Scripture and the Fathers to weaken and to shake such an evident truth which are not here to be related till wee have resolved as well what is the reason of believing in Controversies of Faith as what is not In the mean time if wee demand by what means any person that can pretend to give sentence in Controversies of Faith knowes his own sentence to be infallible or upon what ground hee gives sentence Hee that answers by Scripture or authority of Writers that professe to have learned from the Scriptures or reasons depending on the authority of our Lord and his Apostles acknowledges the authority of the Church not to be the reason of believing For what need wee all this if it were If hee say by the same means for which these are receivable that is by revelation from God It will be presently demanded to make evidence of such revelation the same evidence as wee have for the truth of the Scriptures Which because it cannot be done therefore is this plea laid aside even by them who neverthelesse professe to imbrace the Communion of the Church of Rome because they believe the Church to be Infallible But if it be destructive to all use of reason to deny the conclusion admitting the premises then let him never hope to prevaile in any dispute that holds the conclusion denying the premises For to hold the sentence of the Church Infallible when the means that depend upon the authority of our Lord and his Apostles proves whatsoever is to be believed without supposing any such thing when revelation independent upon their authority there is acknowledged to be none averreth Infallibility in the sentence of the Church denying the onely principle that can inferre it And therefore those that speak things so inconsequent so inconsistent I shall not grant that they speake those things which themselves think and believe but rather that like men upon the rack they speak things which themselves may and in some sort do know not to be true For whosoever holds an opinion which hee sees an argument against that hee cannot resolve is really and truly upon the rack and of necessity seeks to escape by contradicting what himself confesseth otherwise Which every man of necessity doth who acknowledging the reason of believing Christianity to lye in the authority of our Lord and his Apostles challengeth neverthelesse that Infallability which is the reason of believing to all sentences of the Church the mater of which sentence if it be true the reason of it must depend immediately upon the same authority upon which the authority of the Church which sentenceth dependeth But the consequence of this assertion deserves further consideration because all that followes depends upon it Suppose that the Scriptures prove themselves to be the Word of God by the reasons of believing contained in them witnessed by the common sense of all Christians For this admits no dispute If the same consent can evidence any thing belonging to the mater of Faith that will appear to oblige the Faith of all Christians upon the same reason as the Scriptures do whether contained in the Scriptures or not For who will undertake that God could not have preserved Christianity without either Scriptures or new revelations And therefore hee chose the way of writing not as of absolute necessity but as of incomparable advantage If therefore God might have obliged man to believe any thing not delivered by writing whether hee hath or not will remain questionable supposing the Scriptures to be the Word of God upon the ground aforesaid Besides there are many things so manifest in the Scriptures that they can indure no dispute supposing the Scriptures to be the Word of God Many things are every day cleared more and more by applying the knowledg
The Word shines upon all and is hid to none saith Clemens to the Gentiles But it is enough for his purpose that they may be convinced of Christianity whether the Scriptures contain it clearly to all understandings or not Tertullian prescribeth that when once wee believe wee are to believe that wee have nothing else to believe because the Gnosticks pretended secrets which our common Christianity they confessed contained not Claudius Apollinaris is afraid that our common Christianity might be thought unperfit if hee should write against Montanus And does not Christians writing one against another cast a mark of imperfection upon it in the opinion of unbelievers though Christians ought to know that God is not tyed to prevent offenses Assuredly the Gospel of which hee speaks is neither any one Gospel nor all four Nor can the word Gospel signifie either the New Testament alone or the Old and New both Nor could hee be thought to adde to them by expounding them and thereby maintaining the Church Therefore hee inferrs a good consequence that because it is forbidden to adde to or take from the Law therefore our common Christianity is not unperfit nor ought wee to do that whereby it may seem unperfit Now as for the sayings alleged out of S. Austine that import as much as the words which wee had afore Ego Evangelio non crederem having showed what is the effect and intent of them I shall not be very solicitous to show how all that is said to the same effect is answered For as there is no head so hard that cannot distinguish between the authority of the Church as it is a visible Body of men that could never have been cozened into the beliefe of Christianity upon pretended motives whether sufficient or not and as it is supposed by Christians to be a Body founded by God So is there no heart so hardned with prejudice as to refuse this demand That the authority of the Church as the Church presupposes the truth of Christianity and therefore proves it not And by consequence no truth that Christianity either containeth or inferreth Which being admitted if any thing be ascribed to the Church which seems not to suppose any part of Christian truth it must be referred to the authority and credit of the Church as a visible Body of men moving others to imbrace the Christian Faith For though this credit contribute to the making of those men Christians which are won to the Church already setled and so the Church is the Church before they are Christians Yet is the ground and reason which makes the Church a Body founded by God to wit the profession of Christianity more ancient in order of reason and nature than the being of the Church And upon supposition of this ground that is that the Church hath true reasons as well as sufficient to believe proceeds all that authority of the Church which S. Austine allegeth to the Manichees upon so high terms that hee would not believe were hee not moved by it to believe Neither was it the authority of the Church vested in the rest of the Apostles that gave S. Paul the authority of an Apostle over the Church though I have said afore that all the authority which the Church can ever have was in the Apostles and disciples of our Lord for the time And though it is manifest that S. Paul could not have had the Authority of an Apostle over the Church had he not been owned by the rest of the Apostles but the Authority of our Lord Christ in the Apostles of the same effect in obliging the Church to receive S. Paul for an Apostle as to receive that which they preached for the Faith Nor is the mater much otherwise in the receiving of any Scripture for Canonital For neither can any mans writing be owned for Canonical Scripture not supposing his person owned by the Apostles And his authority being so owned is necessarily before any authority of the Church and the very being of it That some Scriptures may be received in some Churches and not in others is not because any Church can have authority to reject that which another is bound to receive but because some Church may not know that some Scripture comes from a man so owned by the Apostles though another may know it and yet be a Church and salvation be had in the communion of it such knowledg depending meerly upon evidence in point of fact And therefore the act of the Church in listing the Scripture hath no authority but that which the presumption of such evidence createth As for the rest of that which is alleged for the authority of the Church if S. Jerome resolve to stand to the Church of Rome it is not because hee takes the sentence thereof to be infallible but because hee had reason to presume that it were in vain for an Angel in heaven to preach any other Faith to it than that which once had been received Nor doth S. Cyprian make the not believing the Popes infallibility the sourse of all Heresie and Schism but the neglect of authority derived from the Apostles upon the Heads of particular Churches in the consent of whom the visibility of the true Faith and Church both consisteth For it is meer slight of hand to take the Rock which the Gates of Hell vanquish not in S. Austine for the Church of Rome because hee spoke of it in the words next afore Being meant of the Vine which hee had speech of a little afore that to wit the Christianity which our Lord Christ preacheth For in S. Bernards time I grant the stile was changed and it might passe for good doctrine to say That the Faith cannot suffer any failleur in the Church of Rome As for all those passages of the Fathers which are alleged in recommendation whether of Tradition for the Rule of Faith or of Traditions which are the Lawes of the Church they are all mine own They cannot serve the turn of any opinion but that which I pretend That the Tradition of the Church witnessed and evidenced by the continual exercice and practice of the Church extant in the records of the Church not constituted and created by any expresse act of those that have authority in behalf of the Church as it giveth bounds to the interpretation of the Scripture in such things as concern the Rule of Faith So it discovereth what Lawes the Church received from the Apostles and by consequence what is agreeable and consequent to the intent of the same in future times according to the difference between that and the present state of the Church Let those things therefore which have been produced here be added to that which I alleged in the beginning to make evidence for the Corporation of the Church from the Lawes given it by the Apostles Irenaus shall serve both for the authority of the Scripture antecedent to the authority of the Church and for the Tradition of the Church bounding
the sense of it For if the same Faith which first was preached was afterwards committed to writing by the Apostles and how should those Christians which had not the use of leters be saved otherwise then was it the authority of the Apostles acknowledged by them that found themselves tyed to be Christians which made the Faith to oblige whether delivered by writing or without it The consent of all Churches in the same Rule of Faith serving for evidence of the Apostles act in delivering the same to the Churches Nor can any further reason be demanded why that knowledg which the Gnosticks prerended to have received by secret wayes should be refuted than the want of this And therefore it is in vain to allege that as they scorned the Scripture so they alleged Tradition for this secret knowledge The Tradition which they alleged being secret and such as could not be made to appear But no lesse contradictory to the Tradition of the Church than to the Scriptures both infallibly witnessed by the consent of all Churches And hereupon I leave the sayings of S. Austine setting aside the authority of the Council of Nicaea and affirming that former General Councils may be corrected by later without answer As also the sayings of them who affirm the Faith which our Lord hath taught to be the rock upon which the Church is built For if no building can lay that foundation upon which it standeth then cannot the Church make mater of Faith being founded upon it And that authority which may be set aside or corrected can be no infallible ground of Faith It is true it is pleaded that though in the Church of Rome there be some that do believe that the Church is able to make new Articles of Faith that is to make such determinations in maters of Faith as shall oblige all men to believe them as much as they are obliged to believe all that which comes from our Lord by his Apostles Others that do believe onely that the Church is able to evidence what the Apostles delivered to the Church and that this evidence is the ground whereon particular persons are to rest that whatsoever is so evidenced was indeed so delivered by the Apostles yet both these agree in one and the same reason of believing both of them alleging the Tradition of the Apostles to the Church for the ground of their Faith But this is more than any man of reason can believe unlesse wee allow him that affirms contradictories to ground himself upon one part of the contradiction which the other part of it destroyes For seeing that there must be but one reason one ground upon which we believe all that we believe and that it is manifest that those Articles of Faith which the determination of the Church creates being not such by any thing which that determination supposes are believed to be such meerly in consideration of the authority of the Church that determines them By consequence the Scripture and whatsoever is held to be of Faith upon any ground which the authority of the Church createth is no mater of Faith but by the authority of the Church determining that it be held for such On the other side hee that allowes Tradition to be the reason why hee believes the Christian Faith necessarily allowes all that hee allowes to be mater of Faith not onely to be true but to be mater of Faith before ever the Church determine it So that allowing him to say that hee holds his Faith by Tradition hee must allow mee that hee contradicts himself whensoever hee takes upon him to maintain that the Church creates new Articles of Faith which were not so the instant before the determination of the Church CHAP. XXXII Answer to an Objection that choice of Religion becomes difficult upon these terms This resolution is for the Interest of the Reformation Those that make the Church Infallible cannot those that make the Scripture clear and sufficient may own Tradition for evidence to determine the meaning of the Scriptures and Controversies of Faith The Interest of the Church of England The pretense of Rushworthes Dialogues that wee have no unquestionable Scripture and that the Tradition of the Church never changes AS little shall I need to be troubled at any reason that may be framed against this resolution having answered the prejudice that seems to sway most men to apprehend that God must have been wanting to his Church if all things necessary to salvation be not clearly laid down in the Scriptures For it is very manifest that the very same presumption possesses the mindes of the adverse party that God must needs have provided a visible Judge infallible in deciding all Controversies of Faith Whether the Church or any person or persons authorized in behalf of the Church for the present all is one I shall therefore onely demand that it be considered first that God was no way tied either to send our Lord Christ or to give his Gospel which because it comes of Gods free grace is therefore called the Word of his Grace and the Covenant of Grace Then that hee hath not found himself obliged to provide effectual means to bring all mankinde to the knowledge of it resting content to have provided such as if men be not wanting to their own salvation and the salvation of the rest of mankinde may be sufficient to bring all men to the knowledg of it And when it is come to knowledg all discreet Christians notwithstanding must acknowledg that the motives thereof fully propounded though abundantly sufficient to reasonable persons yet do not constrain those that are convicted by them to proceed according to them as necessary reasons constrain all understandings that see them to judg by them For how should it be a trial of mens dispositions if there were no way to avoid the necessity of those motives that inforce it Now if any knowledg can be had of truth in maters of faith that become disputable it must all of necessity depend upon the sufficiency of those motives which convict men to imbrace the Christian Faith And if there be any such skill as that of a Divine among Christians of necessity all of it proceeds upon supposition of the said motives which not pretending to show the reason of things which they convict men to believe convict them notwithstanding to believe that they are revealed by God For what conviction can there be that this or that is true unlesse it may appear to fall under those motives as the means which God hath imployed so to recommend it Therefore can it not be reasonable to require a greater evidence to the truth of things disputable among Christians than God hath allowed Christianity it self which being supposed on all hands it remains questionable whether this or that be part of it Therefore can it not be presumed that God hath made the Scriptures clear in all points necessary to salvation to all understandings concerned or that hee hath
â—omething for the placing of every man every momâ—nâ— â—◠〈◊〉 estate which thereby hee fore-seeth And the possibility oâ— fore-seeing what will follow being something because no conâ—râ—â—iction destroyes the consistence of the terms inâ—errs by the infiâ—â—â—â— perfection of God the actual fore-sight of what will come to pâ—â—â— though not in it self which is nothing yet in God who is all things And all this involving no predetermination of mans will by God the discourse cannot be superfluous which resolveth the foresight of future contingencies into the decree which supposeth the knowledg of things conditionally future not which inferreth the fore knowledg of things absolutely future For by this means nothing that is found in the Scripture will contradict the substance of Faith which predetermination destroyeth though disclaiming all possibility of making evidence to common sense how it may come to pass And though Gods decree to permit sin can be no sufficient ground of his fore sight that what hee hindreth not shall come to pass as I have argued pag. 209. yet if wee consider withall that there is no question of Gods permitting any man to sin but onely him that is prevented with temptation to sin it may not untruly be said that God fore-sees sin in his own deccee of permitting it including the state of him that is tempted in that case wherein God decrees to permit sin In which case God fore-seeth it properly in his decree of placing the man in that estate not of suffering himto sin which the opinion that I contradict in that place absolutely refuseth And upon these terms when it is resolved Chap. XXVI that predestination to the first Grace is absolute you must not understand predestination to the act of conversioâ— but to the helps which effect it For whatsoever be the motives upon which a man actually resolves it in whatsoever circumstance hee meets them nothing but his own freedom determines his conversion though without those helps hee had not or could not have determined it And therefore if it be said that it is a barr to the prayers and indeavors of those that are moved to be Christians to tell them that their resolution depends upon something which is not in their Power To wit that congruity wherein the efficacy of Grace consisteth The answer is That absolutely whatsoever is requisite to the conversion of him who is called to be a Christian is in his Power Though upon supposition of Gods fore-knowledg that may be said to be requisite without which God fore-sees hee will not be converted when absolutely if hee would hee might have been converted and when supposing hee had been otherwise moved hee would have been converted In which case it is absolutely enough to the charging of any man with his duty that absolutely hee wanted nothing requisite to inable him for a right choice Though upon supposition of Gods fore-knowledg the doing of his duty requires whatsoever God fore-sees that it will not be done without it I have no more to say but that the Contents of the Chapters are premised instead of a Table for which they may well serve in books of this nature And that in regard to the difficulty of the Copy and the ordinary faileurs of the Press the Reader is desired to correct the faults that are marked before hee begin and to serve himself in the rest THE CONTENTS OF THE First Book CHAP. I. ALL agree that Reason is to decide controversies of Faith The objection thaâ— Faith is taught by Gods Spirit answered What Reason decideth questions of Faith The resolution of Faith ends not in the light of Reason but in that which Reason evidenceth to come from Gods messengers Page 1 CHAP. II. The question between the Scripture and the Church which of them is Judge in matters of Faith Whether opinion the Tradition of the Church stands better with Those that hold the Scripture to be clear in all things necessary to salvation have no reason to exclude the Tradition of the Church What opinions they are that deny the Church to be a Society or Corporation by Gods Law 3 CHAP. III. That neither the sentence of the Church nor the dictate of Gods Spirit can be the reason why the Scripâ—ures are to be received No man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit without knowing that he is a true Christian Which supposeth the truth of the Scriptures The motives of Faith are the reason why the Scriptures are to be believed And the consent of Gods people the reason that evidences those motives to be infallibly true How the Scriptures are believed for themselves How a circlâ— is made in rendring a reason of the Faith The Scriptures are Gods Law to all to whom they are published by Gods act of publishing them But Civil Law by the act of Soveraign Powers in acting Christianity upon their Subjects 7 CHAP. IV. Neither the Dictate of Gods Spirit nor the aâ—thority of the Church is the reason of believing any thing in Christianity Whether the Church be before the Scripture or the Scripture before the Church The Scriptures contain not the Infallibility of the Church Nor the consent of all Christians 18 CHAP. V. All things necessary to salvation are not clear in the Scriptures to all understandings Not in the old Testament Not in the Gospel Not in the Writings of the Apostles It is necessary to salvation to believe more then this that our Lord is the Christ Time causeth obscurity in the Scriptures aswell as in other Records That it is no where said in the Scriptures that all things necessary to salvation are clear in the Scriptures Neither is there any consent of all Christians to evidence the same 25 CHAP. VI. All interpretation of Scripture is to be consined within the Tradition of the Church This supposeth that the Church is a Communion instituted by God What means there is to make evidence of Gods Charter upon which the corporation of the Church subsisteth The name of the Church in the Scriptures often signifieth the Whole or Catholick Church CHAP. VII That the Apostles delivered to the Church a Summary of Christianity which all that should be baptized were to profess Evidence out of the Scriptures Evidence out of the Scriptures for Tradition regulating the Communion of the Church and the Order of it Evidence for the Rule of Faith out of the records of the Church For the Canons of the Church and the pedegree of them from the order established in the Church by the Apostles That the profession of Christianity and that by being baptized is necessary to the salvation of a Christian CHAP. VIII That the power of Governing the whole Church was in the Apostles and Disciples of Christ and those whom they tooke to assist them in the part of it The power of their Successors must needs be derived from those Why that succession which appears in one Church necessarily holdeth all Churches The holding of Councils evidenceth the Unity of the Church
is to determine controversies of Faith And what obligation that determination produceth Traditions of the Apostles oblige the present Church as the reasons of them continue or not Instances in our Lords Passeover and Eucharist Penance under the Apostles and afterwards S. Pauls vail eaâ—ing blood and things offered to Idols The power of the Church in limiting these Traditions 178 CHAP. XXV The power of the Church in limiting even the Traditions of the Apostles Not every abuse of this power a sâ—fficient warrant for particular Churches to reforme themselves Heresie consists in denying something necessary to salvation to be believed Schism in departing from the unity of the Church whether upon that or any other cause Implicite Faith no virtue but the effect of it may be the work of Christian charity p. 163 CHAP. XXVI What is to add to Gods Law What to adde to the Apocalypse S. Pauls Anathema The Beraeans S. Johns Gospel sufficient to make one believe and the Scriptures the man of God perfect How the Law giveth light and Christians are taught by God How Idolatry is said not to be commanded by God 168 CHAP. XXVII Why it was death to transgress the determinations of the Jewes Consistory and what power this argueth in the Church A difference between the authority of the Apostles and that of the Church The being of the Church to the worlds end with power of the Keyes makes it not infallible Obedience to Superiours and the Pillar of truth inferre it not 175 CHAP. XXXI The Fathers acknowledge the sufficiencie 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â—rnesse of the Scriptures as the Traditions of the Church They are to be reconciled by limiting the termes which they use The limitations of those sayings which make all Christian truth to be contained in the Scriptures Of those which make the authority of the Church the ground of Faith 181 CHAP. XXXII Answer to an Objection that choice of Religion becomes difficult upon these terms This resolution is for the Interest of the Reformation Those that make the Church Infallible cannot those that make the Scriptures â—â—ear â—nd sufficient may own Tradition for evidence to determine the meaning of the Scriptures and controversies of Faith The Interest of the Church of England The pretense of Rushworthes Dialogues that we have no unquestionable Scripture and that tâ—e Tradition of the Church never changes 192 CHAP. XXXI That the Scriptures which wee have are unquestionable That mistakes in Copying are not considerable to the sense and effect of them The meaning of the Hebrew and Greek even of the Prophets determinable to the deciding of Controversies How Religion delivered by Tradition becomes subject to be corrupted 198 CHAP. XXXIV The dispute concerning the Canon of Scripture and the translations thereof in two Questions There can be no Tradition for those books that were written since Prophesie ceased Wherein the excellence of them above other books lies The chiâ—fe objections against them are questionâ—ble In those parcels of the New Testament that have been questioned the case is not the same The sense of the Church 207 CHAP. XXXIII Onely the Originall Copy can be Authentick But the truth thereof may as well be found in the translations of the Old Testament as in the Jewes Copies The Jewes have not falsified them of malice The points come neither from Moses nor Esdras but from the Talmud Iewes 218 CHAP. XXXIV Of the ancientest Translations of the Bible into Greek first With the Authors and authority of the same Then into the Chaldee Syriack and Latine Exceptions against the Greek and the Samaritane Pentateuch They are helps never thelesse to assure the true reading of the Scriptures though with other Copies whether Jewish or Christian Though the Vulgar Latine were better than the present Greek yet must both depend upon the Original Greek of the New Testament No danger to Christianity by the differences remaining in the Bible 224 The CONTENTS of the second Book CHAP. I. TWo parts of that which remains How the dispute concerning the Holy Trinity with Socinus belongs to the first The Question of justification by Faith alone The Opinion of Socinus concerning the whole Covenant of Grace The opinion of those who make justifying Faith the knowledge of a mans Predestination opposite to it in the other extream The difference between it and that of the Antinomians That there are mean Opinions p. 1 CHAP. II. Evidence what is the condition of the Covenant of Grace The contract of Baptism The promise of the Holy Ghost annexed to Christs not to Johns Baptism Those are made Christs Disciples as Christians that take up his Cross in Baptism The effects of Baptism according to the Apostles 5 CHAP. III. The exhortations of the Apostles that are drawn from the patterns of the Old Testament suppose the same How the Sacraments of the Old and New Testament are the same how not the same How the new Testament and the New Covenant are both one The free-will of man acteth the same part in dealing about the New-Covenant as about the Old The Gospel a Law 12 CHAP. IV. The consent of the whole Church evidenced by the custome of catechising By the opinion thereof concerning the salvation of those that delayed their Baptism By the rites and Ceremonies of Baptism Why no Penance for sins before but after Baptism The doctrine of the Church of England evident in this case 17 CHAP. V. The Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles evidenceth that some act of Mans free choice is the condition which it requireth The correspondence between the Old and New Testament inferreth the same So do the errors of Socinians and Antinomians concerning the necessity of Baptism Objections deferred 23 CHAP. VI. Justifying faith sometimes consists in believing the truth Sometimes in trust in God grounded upon the truth Sometimes in Christianity that is in imbracing and professing it And that in the Fathers as well as in the Scriptures Of the informed and formed Faith of the Schools 30 CHAP. VII The last signification of Faith is properly justifying Faith The first by a Metonymy of the cause The second of the effect Those that are not justified do truly believe The trust of a Christian presupposeth him to be justified All the promises of the Gospel become due at once by the Covenant of Grace That to believe that we are Elect or justified is not justifying faith 37 CHAP. VIII The objection from S. Paul We are not justifyed by the Law nor by Works but by Grace and by Faith Not meant of the Gospel and the works that suppose it The question that S. Paul speakes to is of the Law of Moses and the workes of it He sets those workes in the same rank with the works of the Gentiles by the light of nature The civil and outward works of the Law may be done by Gentiles How the Law is a Pedagogue to Christ 43 CHAP. IX Of the Faith and Justification of Abraham and the Patriarkes according to the Apostles
nothing but sufficient evidence that they came from God could have brought to passe Here if any man should say I know I have the Writings of Homer Aristotle or Tully by the Writings themselvs he might be convicted by tendering them to one that knowes nothing of Tully or Homer or Aristotle and asking him whether hee can say by those books whether they be Homers or Aristotles or Tullies Writings Bu◠he that first understands what account the world alwaies hath had their Writings in and studying them finds the marks in them may well say that hee knows the authors by their Writings So tender the Scripture in Ebrew or Greek to a savage of the West-Indies and ask him whether they be the Word of God or not who believes not in God as yet do you believe hee can tell you the truth But convict him of that which I have said how and by what means they came to our hands how they have been and are owned for Lawes to the hearts and lives of Gods people and hee will stand convict to God if hee believe not finding that written in the Books which the men own for the rule of their conversations So by the same means that all records of Learning are conveyed us are the Scriptures evidenced to be mater of historical faith But inasmuch as the mater of them had never been received but by the work of God in that regard they become mater of supernatural faith in regard of the reason moving in the nature of an object to believe as well as in regard of Gods grace moving in the nature of an effective cause I know there have been divers answers made to assoile this difficulty by those that dispute Controversies That the Scriptures authority is better known in order of nature the Churches in that order by which wee get our knowledg as Logicians and Philosophers use to distinguish between notius naturâ and notius nobis because our knowledg rises upon experience which wee have by sense of particulars and yet the general reason being once attained by that means is in some sense better known than that which depends upon it That the authority of the Scripture is the reason why wee believe but the authority of the Church a condition requisite to the same creating in the mindes of men that discreetly consider it a kinde of inferior Faith though infallible which disposes a man to accept the mater of that Faith which God onely revealeth though the reason why we believe is only the act of God revealing that which he obligeth us to believe But all this to no purpose so long as they suppose the foundation of the Church in the nature of a Corporation for the ground of admitting the mater of Faith not the credit of all believers agreeing in witnessing the motives of Faith I remember in my yonger time in Cambridge an observation out of Averrois the Saracene his Commentaries upon Aristotle which as I finde exactly true so may it be of good use That in Geometry and the Mathematicks the same thing is notius naturâ and nobis to wit the first principles and rudiments of those sciences which being evident as soon as understood produce in time those conclusions which no stranger to those studies can imagine how they should be discovered For being offered to the understanding that comprehendsthe meaning of them they require no experience of particulars with sense time brings forth to frame a general conceit of that in which all agree or to pronounce what holds in all particulars Because it is immediately evident that the same holds in all particulars as in one which a man has before his eyes The like is to be said of the processe in hand though the reason be farre otherwise Hee that considers may see that the motives of Faith assured to the common sense and reason of all men by the consent of believers are immediately the reason why wee believe the Scriptures in which they are recorded to be the Word of God without so much as supposing any such thing as a Church in the nature of a Corporation indowed with authority over those of whom it consists The consent of Christians as particular persons obliging common reason both to believe the Scriptures and whatever that belief inferres As this must be known before wee can believe the Scriptures so being known it must be if any be the onely reason why we believe either the Scriptures or that Christianity which they convey unto us And if it be the onely reason why wee believe then is it better known in order of reason as well as of sense to be true than the authority of the Church the knowledg whereof must resolve into the reason why wee are Christians And if this be true then is not the authority of the Church as a Corporation to be obliged by the act of some members so much as a condition requisite to induce any man to believe All men by having the onely true reason why all are to believe being subject to condemnation if they believe not But not if they believe not the Corporation of the Church unlesse it may appeare to be a part of that Faith which that onely reason moves us to believe Neither doth the credit which wee give to all Christians witnessing the motives of Faith to be true by submitting to Christianity in regard of them create in us any inferior Faith of the nature of humane because the witnesse of man convayes the motives thereof to our knowledg But serves us to the same use as mens eyes and other senses served them when they saw those things done which Moses and the Prophets which our Lord and his Apostles did to induce men to believe that they came from God For as true as it is that if God have provided such signs to attest his Commission then we are bound to believe So true is it that if all Christians agree that God did procure them to be done then did hee indeed procute them to be done that men might believe For so great a part of mankinde could not be out of their wits all at once Let not therefore those miracles which God hath provided to attest the Commissions of Moses and the Prophets of our Lord and his Apostles be counted common and probable motives to believe unlesse wee will confesse that wee have none but common and probable motives For what reason can wee have to believe that shall not depend upon their credit Unlesse it be the light of natural reason which may make that which they preach more evidently credible but never evidently true If these works were provided by God to oblige us to believe then is that Faith which they create truely divine and the work of God Though had all men been blinde they had not been seen and had all men been out of their wits wee might presume that they had agreed in an imposture And now it will be easie to answer the
remains under that sin which by refusing the Gospel hee refuses to escape The man whom God showes competent reasons to convict him of the truth of Christianity does hee not thereby oblige to believe If so then is Christianity by those reasons and by out Lord and his Apostles advancing them published for Gods Law to all them to whom those reasons become known Suppose that not onely the Apostles but God himself do no more than perswade men to believe can any Secular Power do more For what can it do more in making a Law than declare the will of the Soveraign under a punishment expressed And doth not God declare when hee sends those that are furnished with means to convict the world of the truth of Christianity that it is his will that they become Christians And is it not competent punishment to inact a Law that by disobeying men become incapable of escaping their own sin and the punishment of it If Christianity be no Law because a man hath his choice whether hee will believe or not hath not a thief his choice whether hee will be hanged or not steal or is not the mischief that comes by refusing the Faith as great as that As for the point of justice is not gtatitude justice doth not God oblige them in point of justice whom hee obligeth in point of gratitude doth hee not oblige them in point of gratitude whom by his Gospel hee showes the way to come from under sin to everlasting happinesse Again is it not justice that mankinde should be subjects and not rebels to God doth not the Gospel preach that mankinde are become rebels to God and that they ought to return and become his Subjects If wee can owe a debt of justice to God or to our selves the greatest is that which the Gospel bindeth upon us But suppose not onely that which this Dogmatist granteth that hee who is bound to renounce Christ with his mouth when his Soveraign commandeth is bound to believe him with his heart at the same time let mee demand by what Law hee is bound to it if the Scriptures be not Law Or how a man can be bound to believe in heart that our Lord Jesus is the Christ and not be bound to receive either the mater or the motives to believe that which Christ teacheth which is all that the Scriptures containe Wherefore wee are by no means to admit that which this Author presumes upon as evident truth That it is one thing to demand why a man believes the Scriptures another thing to demand how a man knowes them to be the Word of God and a third by what authority they become Law Because saith hee one man believes for this reason another for that But to know the Scripture to be the Word of God is a thing that no man can do but onely hee to whom this or that Scripture was revealed For it is true that one man believes for this reason another for that if they believe not for that reason for which they ought to believe But there is but one reason for which God requires us to believe namely his will declared by the motives of Faith which hee by his messengers or deputies hath presented us with And hee that is moved to believe for any reason besides that is but called a believer for hee is not such in Gods esteem And hee that by these reasons stands convict that those messengers came from God though hee cannot know by the report of his senses nor by any evidence of the mater which they contain that the Scriptures are the Word of God yet may hee reasonably be said to know that they are so because hee knowes those reasons by which hee stands convict that they are no otherwise And I have now further showed that the publishing of Christianity that is the tendering of the Scriptures with this evidence that they contain the word and will of God bindes them for a Law upon the consciences of all that receive them so obliging them not onely to believe all that they contain to be true but to undertake and do whatsoever they require Wherefore it is true that the Scriptures or Christianity becomes the civil Law of a State because the Soveraign Power thereof inacteth it But wee are further to demand whether Secular Power is able to do this because it is Soveraign or because it is Christian For if because it is Sovetaign it will follow of necessity that those who are not subject to Christian Powers are not obliged to believe the truth of the Scriptures nor to be Christians if there be no other Law to require it at their hands but the will of their Soveraign Because the onely reason which this opinion saith obliges them to believe that is the act of Soveraigne Power is wanting If because it is Christian the question will have recourse what it was that obliged the Soveraign Power to become Christian For the act of Soverâ—igne Power hath no effect upon it self but upon those that are under it And yet the same reason why the Soveraign Power is bound to believe will convince all that are under it that they also ought to believe because concerning them as men or at least as those men whom the motives of Faith are published to not as of this or that Common-wealth But in this businesse I am most ashamed for Euclid's sake that a man so studied in Geometry should build such a vast pretense in Christianity upon such an imaginary ground Forsooth Abraham and the Patriarchs after him and then Moses had the Soveraign Power of their Families and of Gods people the Patriarchs by their birth and estate Moses by the contract of the Israelites accepting of God for their Civil Soveraign and Moses for his Lieutenant The same Patriarchs and Moses were absolute in maters of Religion because Gods people inferiors were to be ruled in it by no other Laws then those which God published to them by the hands of those Superiors Hee that will go about to draw the conclusion from these principles whether granted or onely supposed shall easily see that it followes not For half an eye will serve to distinguish two qualities in the Patriarchs and in Moses the one of Soveraignes the other of Prophets or Depuries and Commissaries or Interpreters of the will of God to his people And this distinction being made I will not be beholden to any man to say which of the two it was that could oblige their inferiors to obey as Gods Lawes those things which persons so authorized should declare in his name For if those whom God by sufficient evidence had witnessed to be his Prophets and messengers should falsify his trust the blame of that which should be done upon such deceit must needs redound upon God And therefore this author pag. 231 287. agreeth with that which I argued even now that revelations and inspirations of Gods Spirit are not granted under the Gospel but to those
who professe the true Christ Nor under the Law were granted but to those who professed the true God And for this cause they are called by S. Paul 1 Cor. XII 7. the manifestation of the Spirit because they manifest the presence of God in his Church As 1 Cor. XIV 22-25 hee saith that unbelievers seeing the secrets of their hearts revealed by those graces were moved to fall on their faces and worship God declaring that God is in his Church of a truth Those therefore who are thus witnessed by God upon his witnesse are to be received whatsoever they deliver in Gods name concerning either the Law of Moses or the Gospel of Christ For how can any man imagine that upon every new revelation declared by a Prophet upon every new letter written or act done by an Apostle a new evidence should be requisite to attest a new Commission from God Especially the presumption that God will not suffer his people to be abused by trusting him being necessary and not onely reasonable Since therefore our Lord and his Apostles carry this quality no lesse than did Moses and the Prophets it followes of necessity that their writings and what else they may have ordained are no lesse the Law of God no lesse obliging than the Law of Moses by virtue of their Commission which makes their acts in Gods name to be Gods acts Though civil Law they are not till civil Powers binde them upon their Subjects CHAP. IV. Neither the Dictate of Gods Spirit nor the authority of the Church is the reason of believing any thing in Christianity Whether the Church be before the Scripture or the Scripture before the Church The Scriptures contain not the Infallibility of the Church Nor the consent of all Christians IT is now time to proceed to the resolution of some part of those disputes and opinions which wee showed the world divided into upon occasion of the question how Controversies of Faith are to be tryed and ended That is to say so much of them as must be determined by him that will proceed in this dispute For supposing the premises to be true I shall not make any difficulty to conclude That neither the dictate of the Spirit of God to the Spirits of particular Christians that is the presumption of it nor the authority of the Church that is the presumption of the like dictate to any persons that may be thought to have power of obliging the Church is a competent reason to decide the meaning of the Scripture or any Controversie about mater of Faith obliging any man therefore to believe it And by consequence that the authority of the Church that is of persons authorized to give sentence in behalf of the Body of the Church here understood is not Infallible which if it were it must be without question admitted for a competent reason of believing all such sentences to be Infallibly true The truth of this Conclusion is demonstrated by the premises if any thing in a mater of this nature can be counted demonstrative If whatsoever the Spirit of God can be presumed to dictate to the Spirit of any Christian presupposeth the truth of Christianity as that which must try it whether onely a presumption or truth then can no mans word that professes Christianity be the reason why another man should believe For whosoever it is that gives the sentence by professing Christianity pretendeth to have a reason for what hee professeth which reason and not his judgment if it be good obligeth all Christians as well as him to believe For being once resolved that wee are obliged to believe whatsoever comes from those persons whom wee are convinced to believe that God imployed to declare his will to us Whatsoever is said to come from them must for the same reason be received and therefore by the same meanes said to come from them as it is said that they came from God On the other side whatsoever cannot by the same means be said to come from them can never by any means be said to come from God who hath given us no other means to know what hee would have us believe but those whom hee hath imployed on his message Wherefore seeing the authority of the Church supposeth the truth of Christianity of necessity it supposeth the reason for which whatsoever can be pretended to belong to Christianity is receivable Because supposing for the present though not granting that the Church is a Body which some persons by Gods appointment have authority to oblige it is manifest that no man can be vested with this authority but hee must bear the profession of a Christian and by consequence suppose the reasons upon which whatsoever belongs to the profession of a Christian is receivable For that which cannot be derived as for the evidence of it from those means by which wee stand convicted that Christianity stands upon true motives cannot be receivable as any part of it And therefore however the generality of this reason may obscure the evidence of it to them that take not the pains to consider it as it deserves yet the truth of it supposes no more than all use of reason supposes that all knowledg that is to be had proceeds upon something presupposed to be known In which case it would be very childish to consider that the Church is more ancient in time than the Scriptures at least than some part of them as the Writings of the Apostles for example in some sort then all Scriptures if wee understand the people of God and the Church to be the same thing For to passe by sor the present the Fathers before the Law as the people of Israel were Gods people by the Covenant of the Law before they received the Law written in the five Books of Moses So was the authority of Moses imployed by God to mediate that Covenant both good and sufficient before they by accepting the Law became Gods people And upon this authority alone and not upon any authority founded upon their being Gods people free and possessed of the Land of Promise to be ruled by themselves and their own Governors dependeth the credit of Moses and the Prophets Writings In like manner the being of the Church whether a Society and Corporation or not supposing the profession of Christianity and that the receiving of the Gospel which is the Covenant of Grace and that the authority of our Lord and his Apostles as sent by God to establish it Manifest it is that the credit of their Writings depends on nothing else but is supposed to the being of the Church whatsoever it is Which if it be so no lesse manifest it must be that nothing is receivable for truth in Christianity that cannot be evidenced to proceed from that authority that is more antient than the being of the Church as a truth declared by some act of that authority And therefore it would be childish to allege priority of time for the Church if perhaps
clearly all things necessary to the salvation of all Christians it will not hurt my opinion to inferre That because it is unlawful to adde any thing to Moses Law by saying that it is and ought to be part of it when it is not nor ought to be therefore it is unlawfull to adde any thing to the Bible by saying that it is necessary to the salvation of all Christians though not written there For this my opinion sayes not And truly I must here alledge that Gods Law Deut. XVII 8 -12 provideth a power in that people to resolve and determine all things which the peace and unity of that people requireth to be determined And that for the effect of this power we have to show all the constitutions and determinations whereby the precepts of Moses Law are limited how they are to be observed which we find recorded in the Jews Talmud and all the disputes and debates that have ended in those determinations In as much as we have to allegde that our Lord in the Gospell hath commanded to hear the Scribes and Pharisees as those that sit in Moses Chair For those constitutions derive their Pedigree from those that were in force in our Lords time by the authority of the Scribes and Pharisees as it appears to all that compare them with the particulars mentioned in the Scriptures in Philo and Iosephus For though the particulars be not alwaies the same because time produces continual charge in particular custome yet there is agreement enough to show that it was successively the same authority that made such orderly and moderate changes as the state of the time might require or mens fancies imagine in the practise of their Law Whereby it is evident that the power of so interpreting the Law being established by the Law cannot be against the Law as forbidden by it And this abundantly enough for the justifying of that which I have said For the interpretation and limitation of the Precepts of the Law by the tradition left with Moses and by the Authority setled in the Synagogue being established by the Law cannot be counted an addition to the Law Therefore the interpretation of the Scriptures by Tradition left the Church by the Apostles and the limitation of the circumstances which the service of God is to be regulated with by the Authority setled in the Church cannot be counted an addition to Gods new Law or to the Scriptures of the New Testament But because the satisfaction of the Reader in the true intent of these precepts of the Law requires more I shall say further That I conceive that God providing a power requisite to determine all circumstances which the practice of the Law should require repeats neverthelesse a caution of adding to or taking from the Law that it might not be thought that this Power extended to alter any thing in the worship of the one true God which all the precepts of the Law tended to limite Surely in the Text of Deut. XII 32. this caution followes immediately upon warning given not to worship God by any of those Ceremonies with which the Gentiles honoured their false Gods the reason whereof is plain least by using the like ceremonies the honour of those false Gods to whom they were tendred by those that believed in them might be admitted Whereupon when it is inferred that nothing be added to or taken from those precepts by which the Law commandeth to serve the true God it is manifest how well the limitation of circumstances questionable in the practice of the Law stands with this caution so soon as it appears that the precepts thereof cannot be practised till so limited And upon the same caution Deut. IV. 2. he inferres immediately Thine eyes have seen what the Lord did to those that served Baal-peor now they are dead and thou alive this day As supposing this consequence That if they stuck close to their own the true God nothing should seduce them from his Laws Not this That if they stuck close to their own the true God nothing should perswade them to practice the precepts of his worship in that sorm which the power appointed by him should determine So that both Texts prepress upon them the precepts of the Law as those whereby the worship of the true God is distinguished not as if of themselves they contained mater to oblige that people or to procure them happiness And surely the determinations of their Elders as they concur to the same ends so are they inforced by the same obligation which the precepts themselves produce And therefore it will not be amiss to take notice how far the Jews who acknowledge all that I say of limiting the Law are from thinking it to be contradicted by these Scriptures Solomon Jarchi upon Deut. VI. 2. Thou stalt not adde As for example to the five Sections in the Phylacteries to the five kinds in the banquet which we cary at the feast of Tabernacles to the five Thrummes in the Fringes And so when he sayes Thou shalt not take away They are commanded by the Law to wear frontlets upon them to put them in remembrance of the precepts thereof Ex. XIII 9. Deut. VI. 8. XI 18. to carry in their hands and to walk with a Bush made up of the branches of severall trees at the feast of Tabernacles Levit. XXIII 40. to put a fringe to the corners of their Garments made of a thred of Hyacinth among others Numb V. 38. 39. But that those frontlets should contain five Sections of the Law no more that those fringes should consist of four kinds besides the Hyacinth which are the determinations of their Elders these according to his opinion they are as much forbidden to adde to as to take from that which is determined by the leter of the Law Abenezra seems to be more sober upon the same place Thou shalt not adde saith he Of your own conceit as thinking the worship of God to consist in it For believing that they vow to worship one God alone and that no passive acts which the light of nature injoyneth not can be esteemed the worship of God of themselves but in the doing of them is the keeping of that Law which appoints them it is one thing to worship God as the precepts of the Law determined by that Power which it appoints do injoyn another thing to introduce rules of worshipping God not by virtue of his Law but upon a mans own conceit And therefore it is forbidden them to inquire after the fashions by which the Gentiles worshipped their Gods Deut. XII 30. as a presumption that he which should say that he would worship God as they did their Idols had a mind to worship their Idols in stead of God otherwise he would rest content with that way of worshipping God which the Law had prescribed Whereupon the Jews determine that there are four Ceremonies which who so does to any thing but to God alone must be understood to worship it
that hee hath any end but himself nor that hee doth any thing to any other end than to exercise and declare his own perfections If hee do sundry things which of their nature have necessarily such an end as they attain not it is to be said that Gods end never fails in so much as by failing of the end to which they were made they become the subject of some other part of that providence wherein his perfections are exercised and declared Seeing then that all Controversies concerning the Faith have visibly their original from some passages of Scripture which being presupposed true before the foundation of the Church ought to be acknowledged but cannot be constituted by it And seeing that no man that out of the conscience of a Christian hath imbraced all that is written can deny that which hee may have cause to believe to be the sense of the least part of the Scripture without ground to take away that belief It remains that the way to abate Controversies is to rest content with the means that God hath left us to determine the sense of the Scripture not undertaking to tye men further to it than the applying of those means will inferre And truly to imagine that the authority of the Church or the dictate of Gods Spirit should satisfie doubts of that nature without showing the means by which other records of learning are understood and so resolving those doubts which the Scriptures necessarily raise in all them that believe them to be true and the word of God is more than huge cart-loads of Commentaries upon the Scriptures have have been able to do Which being written upon supposition of certain determinations pretended by the Church or certain positions which tending to reform abuses in the Church were taken for testified by Gods Spirit have produced no effect but an utter despair of coming to resolution or at least acknowledgment of resolution in the sense of the Scriptures Whereas let men capable of understanding and managing the means heretofore mentioned think themselves free as indeed they ought to be of all prejudices which the partialities on foot in the Church may have prepossessed them with and come to determine the meaning thereof by the means so prescribed and within those bounds which the consent of the Church acknowledges They shall no sooner discern how the primitive Christianity which we have from the Apostles becomes propagated to us but they shall no less clearly discern the same in their writings And if God have so great a blessing for Christendom as the grace to look upon what hath been written with this freedom there hath been so much of the meaning of the Scripture already discovered by those that have laid aside such prejudices and so much of it is in the way to be discovered every day if the means be pursued as is well to be hoped will and may make partizans think upon the reason they have to maintain partialities in the Church If God have not this blessing in store for Christendom it remains that without or against all satisfaction of conscience concerning the truth of contrary pretenses men give themselves up to follow and professe that which the protection of secular Power shall show them means to live and thrive by In which condition whether there be more of Atheism or of Christianity I leave to him who alone sees all mens hearts to judge CHAP. XXXIV The Dispute concerning the Canon of Scripture and the translations thereof in two Questions There can be no Tradition for those books that were written since Prophesie ceased Wherein the excellence of them above other books lies The chief objections against them are questionable In those parcels of the New Testament that have been questioned the case is not the same The sense of the Church HAving thus resolved the main point in doubt it cannot be denied notwithstanding that there are some parts or appertenances of the Question that remain as yet undecided For as long as it is onely said that the Scripture interpreted by the consent of the Church is a sufficient mean to determine any thing controverted in mater of Christian truth there is nothing said till it appear what these Scriptures are and in what records they are contained And truly it is plain that there remains a controversie concerning the credit of some part of those writings which have been indifferently copied and printed for the Old Testament commonly marked in our English Bibles by the title of Apocrypha And no lesse concerning the credit of the Copies wherein they are recorded For though it is certain and evident that the Old Testament hath been derived from the Ebrew the New from the Greek in which at first they were delivered to the Church Yet seeing it appeareth not of it self impossible such changes may have succeeded in the Copies that the Copies which the Jews now use of the Old Testament are further from that which was first delivered than the Vulgar Latine as also the Copies of the Greek Testament now extant It is a very plain case that this doubt remaining it is not yet resolved what are the principles what the means to determine the truth in maters questionable concerning Christianity I must further distinguish two questions that may be made in both these points before I go further For it is evidently one thing to demand whether those writings which I said remain questionable are to be counted part of the Old Testament or not Another whether they are to be read by Christians either for particular information or for publick edification at the assemblies of the Church And likewise as concerning the other point it is one thing to demand what Copy is to be held for authentick another thing to dispute how every Copy is to be used and frequented in the Church To wit whether translations in mother languages are to be had and into what credit they are to be received For it is manifest that the one sense of both questions demands what the body of the Church either may do or ought to do in proposing or prohibiting the said writings or Copies to be used by the members thereof for their edification in Christian piety But the other what credit they have in themselves upon such grounds as are in nature and reason more ancient than the authority of the Church and which the being and constitution thereof presupposeth And as manifest as it is that these are two questions so manifest must it needs remain that the one of them to wit that which concerns the authority of the Church and the effect of it does not belong to this place nor come to be decided but upon supposition of all the means God hath given his Church to be resolved of any truth that becomes questionable As for the other part of both questions though it hath been and may be among them that will not understand the difference between principles and conclusions because it is for
Irenaeus expresly maintaineth him one and the same God with the Father and true God and his generation ineffable without beginning and from everlasting Clemens makes him God â—quall to God as his Sonne Origen not in any work now extant that may be questioned but as he is alledged by Athanasius de decretis Synodi Niceâ—ae saies of him that if there be any image of God who is invisible that image must also be invisible with a great deal more to the same purpose where he also quotes Theognostus in secundo hypopseon affirming the same at large to set aside those that are questioned And shall we not think our selves obliged so to understand their words which the importunity of Heresies have made questionable that they may consist and agree with those which remaine unquestionable Especially all of them agreeing in this That the world was made and is governed by Christ And that the whole dispensation of God tending to the salvation of mankinde whether before the Law or under the Law as well as since his appearing in the flesh was executed by him as a preface and prologue to his coming in the flesh a supposition which all seem to ground themselves upon especially against the Jewes in giving account of our common Christianity That our Faith is in the Father Sonne and holy Ghost That we are to glorifie to worship and to be baptized in the Name of the Father Sonne and holy Ghost And in counting all Hereticks that denied it For communion with the Church not communicating with those who believe it not because they believe it not is an evidence which no words of doubtfull construction can obscure in the judgement of any man that is reasonable Nay among the very heathen that have made any mention of the Christian Faith doth not Plinies Epistle concerning the Christians acknowledge that they sung hymns to Christ as to God Doth not Lucian in his Philopatris manifestly expresse the Faith of the Trinity as the cognizance of Christians at that time hath it not appeared by these inventions wherewith the Gnosticks sophisticated it that the Fulness of the Godhead consists in the Trinity according to the Christian Faith as according to the severall Sects of them in their severall inventions That the Christians honoured and worshipped the blessed Trinity as those Sects did those imaginatitions of their own which they call the Fullnesse of the Godhead When Ebion Cerinthus Artemon Theodorus and after them Sabellius Noetus Praxâ—as and Paâ—lus Samosatenus were disowned by the whole Church and excluded the communion of all Christians did not all Churches that agreed in refusing them find themselves possessed of a contrary Faith as the reason for which they were refused Were all Christians out of their simplicity cunning enough to assoile all the reasons whereby these and Arius to boot did or might argue their pretenses from texts of Scripture Or did they think themselves bound to rest in the visible consent of the whole Church whether they were able to do that or not In fine the learned Jesuite Petavius in the Preface to his books de Trinitate and the beginning of the first as he hath evidently shewed that the substance of the faith of the Trinity is acknowledged by these ancient Christians some of whose words seem to disparage the Godhead of our Lord Christ So he indeavoureth to shew that they did it out of a desire to reconcile the faith with the doctrine of Plato and his followers If his opinion be admitted there will remaine evidence enough for the Tradition of Faith even in their writings whose skill in the Scriptures goes not the right way to maintaine it The plain song will be good musick though the descant transgresse Though for my part having seen what he hath said I repent me not of that which I had conceived out of Tertullianâ— That out of a desire to reconcile the creation of wisdome in the Proverbs according to the Greek not the doctrine of Plato with the rule of Faith they conceived this a supposition fit to do it That by Gods proceeding to create the World his mind or wisdome which incarnate is our Lord Christ attained not the essence and being which it had in God from everlasting but the denomination and quality of his Word and Sonne For you shall find there that most of them concurre in the speculations of Tertulliane Whereby you may see that this learned Jesuite is not agreed with the Cardinall du Perron to deny the reason why we hold the Faith of the holy Trinity originally from the decree of the Council of Nicâ—a and from that authority of the Church which maintaineth it But from the reason whereupon that decree was grounded and made That is from the meaning of the Scriptures expressed and limited by the Tradition of the Church And therefore not burthening my self here with the expounding of all those passages of their writings before Arius which may seem to derogate from the Tradition of the Church in that point I shall referre the Reader to those things whereby he showeth that they do unanimously concurre in maintaining the same Faith For if there be amongst them that have had speculations tending to reconcile some Scriptures to it which are not onely ill grounded as I dispute not but this of Tertulliane is but also prejudiciall to the Faith as some of Origens whom I have mentioned already That this is to be imputed to the inconsequence of their severall discourses not to any difference in their common Faith I remit you to that which he hath said to judge Onely whereas he de Trinitate II. 2. hath given you a full account of those Fathers which expound the words of our Lord The Father is greater then I to be meant of his Godhead which I have onely named in gross I will advise you again hereupon that many things which are said of the Sonne as inferior to the Father as when he is said to Minister unto the Father in creating the World may be imputed not to any inequality in that Godhead which is the same in all the Trinity but unto the manner of having it the Father originally as the Fountaine the Sonne and the holy Ghost as from him wherein the difference of the persons consisteth To the same Petavius de Trinitate VIII 2. I remit them that would be satisfied of the sense of the Fathers in that which I alledged for the reason why our Lord is called the Word by S. John To wit that the intercourse between God and man after the fall was executed and managed by his Ministry Not because I think this name of the Word unfit to signifiy the originall proceeding of the Sonne from the Father much lesse his concurrence in and to the creation of all things But because believing as I do that the mystery of the Trinity is revealed by the coming of our Lord I find great reason to conceive that his Apostle intended thereby to intimate
infant should go out of the World unbaptized that is it which the great solicitude of Christians that no such thing should come to passe the provision that a Lay man might baptize in case of necessity which admitted not the solemnity of ministers of the Church the grief and astonishment which followed if at any time it came to passe will inable me not onely to affirm but to inferre both the reason of originall sinne which the baptisme of Infants cureth and the authority of the Apostles which it proclaimeth It may be sayd that Pelagius himself allowed and maintained the Baptisme of Infants to bring them to the kingdom of heaven not to everlasting life But this was but to make his own cause the more desperate For had any intimation of the Scripture any Tradition or custome of the Church justified any ground of difference between the kingdome of heaven and everlasting life he might have escaped by pleading it But being disowned in it he hath left a desperate plea for those that come after him to question the Baptisme of Infants and by consequence original sinne which if he so many hundred years agoe could have found ground for he need not have stood in the list of hereticks The visible ceremonies of Baptisme which are so resolutely pleaded by his adversaries for evidence of the same are effectual to the same purpose For if it was thought requisite on behalf of infants to renounce Satan and all his Pompe and angels and instruments of this world adhering to God Iâ— it were solemn by huffing and exorcizing to use the power which God hath given his Church over unclean Spirits for the chasing of them out of Infants that were baptized Certainly those that did it were so farre from thinking that man as he is born can be capable of that good Spirit which Baptisme promiseth that they thought him to be liable to the contrary To this argument I will adde the matter of that catechizing which the ancient Church prepared those for Baptism who pretended to it as I begun to shew you in the first book for it is in a great part repeated in divers of these ancient forms of celebrating the Eucharist which are yet extant under the names of the Liturgies of Apostles and Fathers which I have named in my book of the publick service of God The ancientest of them is that which is recorded in the Constitutions of the Apostles VIII 11. But you find also there VII 40. the order of Catechizing those that are to be baptized providing that they be instructed in the mercy of God that suffered not mankind being turned from him to perish but in all ages provided meanes to recall them from sinne and error to truth and righteousnesse by the Fathers first and by the Law and Prophets afterwards untill all this proving ineffectuall he spared not at length to send his Sonne And the same is the argument of that Thanksgiving which is premised to the consecration of the Eucharist in the place quoted as also in the same work afore II. 55. and in the Liturgies to which I referre you An evidence in my opinion very considerable to shew this point to belong to the substance of Christianity as the subject mater both of that instruction which is requisite to make a man a Christiane and of both Sacraments wherein the exercise thereof consisteth In the second place I alledge such an evidence for the grace of Christ as no point of Christianity can produce better from the practice of the Church For I alledge the prayers of the Church all over and from the beginning that they have alwaies contained three things The first is of thanksgivings for our Christianity that is for the coming of Christ the preaching of his Gospel and the effect thereof in converting us to be Christians The second of prayers that we may be able to persevere in that to which we are so converted and to perform what we undertake by professing our selves Christians notwithstanding the temptations of our ghostly enemies to depart from it The third and last in that these thanks and prayers are tendered to God in Christ for his sake signifying the acknowledgment of his grace in bringing us to be Christians and the expectation of those helps by which we must persevere from the consideration of his merits and suffering For as for Prayers and thanksgivings in generall it cannot be said that the offering of them can argue either the decay of our nature or the repairing of the same by Christ because those that acknowledge not Christ Jews and Mahumetans must and do use them if they pretend Religion and the service of God yea even Pagans according to their sense But to pray and give thanks to God to make men or because he hath made men Christians or for the helps of salvation which by being Christians that iâ— by Christ we attaine to as by him we attaine to be Christians must needs appear utterly groundlesse unlesse we suppose that there was no other way left for our salvation which cannot be understood by any meanes but by the fall of Adam and the consequences thereof to come to passe In the last place I alledge the decrees of the whole Church against Pelagius together with the consent of those parts of the Church which otherwise cannot be understood to be concluded by those decrees For it is manifest there was no decree of the whole Church against Pelagius as against Arius The Councils of Carthage and of Numidia that of Palestine and in aftertimes that of Orange being but particular Councils not containing the consent of the whole But this consideration in another regard turns to the advantage of the Churches cause For when those parts of the Church which are not obliged by the decrees do voluntarily and freely joyne in giving effect to them as it is manifest they did at that time by the concurrence of the Bishops of Constantinople and Alexandria and the great Council of Ephesus in Vossius Hist Pel. I. 38 39 47. and do since by owning the acts done against them there can be no pretense of faction to sway them to go along with those whom they are loth to offend but all must be imputed to the sense of that Christianity which hitherto they found themselves perswaded of and therefore agreed not to admit to their Communion those who acknowledged it not which is the effect of all such decrees of the Church In the mean time I forget not the records of the Church in writing that is the testimonies of those writers who going before Pelagius and giving testimonie against him cannot be thought to joyne in faction to oppresse any truth which he preached And upon this evidence I challenge both the belief of originall sinne to be necessary to the acknowledgement of the grace of Christ which Christianity professeth and also that the grace of Christ is that which inables us to begin continue and finish the good
so ballanced But chiefly because I see the subject of the dispute to be all upon the literall and mysticall sense of these Scriptures Without the knowledge whereof I am confident the Faith of a Christian is intire though the skill of a divine is nothing And for the consent of the Fathers how generall soever it be after Irenaeus I have the authority of the same Irenaeus backed by his reason in that excellent Chapter where he distinguishes between the Tradition of Faith and the skill of the Scriptures to resolve me that neither this point nor any other point which depends upon the agreement between the Old Testament and the New as this does can belong to the Faith of a Christian but onely to the skill of a divine But now this being premised and setled it will be easie for me to inferre that a state of meer nature is a thing very possible had it pleased God to appoint it by proposing no higher end then naturall happinesse no harder meanes then Originall innocence to man whom he had made The reasons premised sufficiently serving to shew that there is no contradiction in the being of that which there is so much appearance that it was indeed But I must advise you withall that I mean it upon a farre other supposition then that of the Schoole Doctors They supposing that man was created to that estate of supernaturall happinesse to which the Gospel pretendeth to regenerate Christians hold that it was Gods meer free grace that he was not created with that contradiction between the reason and appetite which the principles of his nature are of themselves apt to produce Whereupon it foloweth that concupiscence is Gods creature that is the indowment of it signifying by concupiscence that contrariety to reason which the disorder of sensuall appetite produceth A saying that hath fallen from the pen of S. Augustine and that after his businesse with Pelagius Retract I. 9. allowing what he had writ to that purpose against the Manichees in his third book de libero arbitrio which he mentioneth againe and no way disalloweth in his book de Dono perseverantiae cap. XI and XII but seemeth utterly inconsistent with the grounds which he stands upon against Pelagius For supposing contrariety and disorder in the motions of mans soul what is there in this confusion which it hath created in the doings of mankind that might not have come to passe without the fall Unlesse we suppose that a man can be reasonably madde or that concupiscence which reason boundeth not could be contained within any rule or measure not supposing any gift of God inabling reason to give bounds to it or preventing the effect of it which the supposition of pure nature alloweth us not to suppose For the very state of mortality supposing the immortality of the soul either requireth in man the conscience of integrity before God or inferreth upon him a bad expectation for the world to come And therefore though the sorrows that bring death might serve for advantage to happinesse were reasonable to govern passion in using them yet not being able they can be nothing but essayes of that displeasure of God which he is to expect in the world to come And therefore this escape of S. Augustine may seem to abate the zeale of those who would make his opinion the rule of our common Faith That which my resolution inferreth is no more then this That supposing God did not create man in an estate capable to attaine the said supernaturall happinesse he might neverthelesse had he pleased have created him in an estate of immortality without impeachment of trouble or of sorrow but not capable of further happinesse then his then life in Paradise upon earth importeth Not that I intend to say that God had been without any purpose of calling man whom he had created in this state unto the state of supernaturall grace whereby he might become capable of everlasting glory in the world to come as Christians believe themselves to be For the meaning of those that suppose this is that God purposed to exercise man first in this lower estate and having proved him and found him faithfull in it supposing Adam had not fallen to have called him afterwards to a higher condition of that immortality which we expect in the world to come upon trial of fidelity in that obedience here which is correspondent to it Whereupon it is reasonably though not necessarily consequent that this calling being to be performed by the Word of God which being afterwards incarnate is our Lord Christ and the Spirit which dwelt in him without measure our Lord Christ should have come in our flesh though Adam had not fallen to do this And this is alledged for a reason why afterwards the Law that was given to Moses covenanted expresly for no more then the happinnesse of this present life though covertly being joyned with that discipline of godlinesse which the people of God had received by tradition from their Fathers it afforded sufficient argument of the happinesse of the world to come for those who should imbrace the worship of God in spirit and truth though under the paedagogie and figures of the Law For they say it is suitable to the proceeding of God in restoring mankind that we understand him first to intend the recovering of that naturall integrity in which man was created by calling his people to that uprightnesse of civile conversation in the service of the onely true God which might be a protection to as many as under the shelter of such civile Lawes should take upon them the profession of true righteousnesse to God Intending afterwards by our Lord Christ to set on foot a treaty of the said righteousnesse upon terms of happinesse in the world to come But thesâ— things though containing nothing prejudiciall to Christianity yet not being grounded upon expresse scripture but collected by reasoning the ground and rule of Gods purpose which concerns not the truth of the Gospel whether so or not I am neither obliged to admit nor refuse So much of Gods counsel remaining alwaies visibly true That he pleased to proceed by degrees in setting his Gospel on foot by preparing his people for it by the discipline of the Law and the insufficience thereof visible by that time which he intended for the coming of our Lord Christ though we say that man was at first created in a state of supernaturall grace and capable of everlasting happinesse For still the reason of Gods proceeding by degrees will be that first there might be a time to try how great the disease was by the failing of the cure thereof by the Law before so great a Physitian as the Sonne of God came in person to visite it This onely I must adde because all this discourse proceeds upon supposition that man might have been created in an estate of meer nature if indowed with uprightnesse capable to attaine that happinesse which that estate required That
not that which is invisible by their authority in point of right For want of this authority whatsoever is done by virtue of that usurpation being voide before God I will not examine whether the forme wherein they execute the Offices of the Church which they thinke fit to exercise agree with the ground and intent of the Church or not Only I charge a peculiar nullity in their consecrating the Eucharist by neglecting the Prayer for making the elements the body and blood of Christ without which the Church never thought it could consecrate the Eucharist Whether having departed from the Church Presbyteries and Congregations scorne to learne any part of their duty from the Church least that might seeme to weaken the ground of their departure Or whether they intend that the elements remaine meere signes to strengthen mens faith that they are of the number of the elect which they are before they be consecrated as much as afterwards The want of Consecration rendering it no Sacrament that is ministred the ministring of it upon a ground destructive to Christianity renders it much more On the other side the succession of Pastors from the Apostles or those who received their authority from the Apostles is taken for a sufficient presumption on behalfe of the Church of Rome that it is Catholick But I have showed that the Tradition of Faith and the authority of the Scriptures which containe it is more ancient then the being of the Church and presupposed to the same as a condition upon which it standeth That the authority of the Apostles and the Powers left by them in and with the Church the one is originally the effective cause the other immediately the Law by which it subsisteth and in which the government thereof consisteth That the Church hath Power in Lawes of lesse consequence though given the Church by the Apostles though recorded by the Scriptures where that change which succeeds in the state of Christendome renders them uselesse to preserve the unity of the Church presupposing the Faith in order to the publick service of God But neither can the Church have power in the faith to add to take away to change any thing in that profession of Christianity wherein the salvation of all Christians consisteth and which the being of the Church presupposeth Nor in that act of the Apostles authority whereby the unity of the Church was founded and setled Nor in that service of God for which it was provided There is therefore something else requisite to evidence the Church of Rome to be the true Church exclusive to the Reformation then the visible succession of Pastors though that by the premises be one of the Laws that concurre to make every Church a Catholicke Church The Faith upon which the powers constituted by the Apostles in which the forme of government by which the service of God for which it subsisteth If these be not maintained according to the Scriptures interpreted by the originall and Catholicke Tradition of the Church it is in vaine to alledge the personall succession of Pastors though that be one ingredient in the government of it without which neither could the Faith be preserved nor the service of God maintained though with it they might possibly faile of being preserved and maintained for a mark of the true Church The Preaching of that Word and that Ministring of the Sacraments understanding by that particular all the offices of Gods publicke service in the Church which the Tradition of the Whole limiteth the Scriptures interpreted thereby to teach is the onely marke as afore to make the Church visible To come then to our case Is it therefore become warrantable to communicate with the Church of Rome because it is become unwarrantable to communicate with Presbyteries or Congregations This is indeed the rest of the difficulty which it is the whole businesse of this Book to resolve To which I must answer that absolutely the case is as it was though comparatively much otherwise For if the State of Religion be the same at Rome but in England farre worse then it was the condition upon which communion with the Church of Rome is obtained is never a whit more agreeable to Christianity then afore but it is become more pardonable for him that sees what he ought to avoide not to see what he ought to follow He that is admitted to communion with the Church of Rome by the Bull of profession of Faith inacted by Pius IV. Pope not by the Councile of Trent besides many particulars there added to the Creed which whether true or false according to the premises he sweares to as much as to his Creed at length professes to admit without doubting whatsoever else the sacred Canons and generall Councils especially the Synode of Trent hath delivered decreed and declared damning and rejecting as anathema whatsoever the Church damneth and rejecteth for heresie under anathema But whether the whole Church or the present Church the oath limiteth not Here is no formall and expresse profession that a man believes the present Church to be Infallible And therefore it was justly alledged in the first Booke that â—he Church hath never enjoyned the professing of it But here is a just ground for a reasonable Construction that it is hereby intended to be exacted because a man swears to admit the acts of Counciles as he does to admit his Creed and the holy Scriptures Nor can there be a more effectuall challenge of that priviledge then the use of it in the decree of the Councile that the Scriptures which we call Apocrypha be admitted with the like reverence as the unquestionable Canonicall Scriptures being all injoyned to be received as all of one rancke Which before the decree had never been injoyned to be received but with that difference which had alwaies been acknowledged in the Church For this act giving them the authority of prophetical Scripture inspired by God which they had not afore though it involve a nullity because that which was not inspired by God to him that writ it when he writ it can never have the authority of inspired by God because it can never become inspired by God Nor can become known that it was indeed inspired by God not having been so received from the begining without revelation anew to that purpose yet usurpeth Infallibility because it injoyneth that which no authority but that which immediate revelation createth can injoyne Further the decree of the Councile concerning justification involving a mistake in the terme and understanding by it the infusion of grace whereby the righteousnesse that dwelleth in a Christian is formally and properly that which settles him in the state of righteous before God not fundamentally and metonymically that which is required in him that is estated in the same by God in consideration of our Lord Christ Though I maintaine that this decree prejudiceth not the substance of Christianity Yet must it not be allowed to expresse the true reason by which it
is sufficient to evidence that it is the word of God which they contain This if wee can resolve in our way perhaps wee may discover ground to stand upon when wee come to the main Hee that sayes the Scriptures are to be believed for themselves exposes them to the scorn of unbelievers by tying himself to use no other reason for them least for that reason they should finde that credit which the seeking of it showes they had not of themselves Hee that sayes they are to be believed for the authority of the Church is bound to give account how wee shall know both that there is a Church which some persons may oblige And who is the Church that is who be the men whose act obliges the Church And that without alleging Scripture because hitherto wee have no reason to receive it And being but men how their Act obliges the Church which cannot be showed without showing that God hath founded a Corporation of his Church and given power to some men or some qualities or ranks of men in it to oblige the whole Which how it will be showed without means to determine the sense of the Scriptures the parties agreeing in nothing but the truth of Christianity and of the Scriptures is impossible to be said This position then induces that stop to all proceeding by reason which Logicians call a Circle When a man disputes in a round as a mill-horse grindes arguing this power to be in the Church by the Scriptures without which hee can say nothing to it and arguing the truth of the Scriptures back again by alleging the authority of the Church Which destroyes that supposition upon which all dispute of reason proceeds that nothing can be proved but by that which is better known than that which it proveth But are those that allege the spirit for the evidence upon which they receive the Scripture lesse subject to this inconvenience For is it not manifest that men may and do delude themselves with an imagination that Gods Spirit tells them that which their own Spirit without Gods Spirit conceives How then shall it discerned what comes from Gods Spirit what does not without supposing the Scriptures by which the mater thereof is discernable And is not this the same Circle to prove the truth of the Scriptures by the dictate of Gods Spirit and that by alleging the Scriptures To make the ground of this inconvenience still more evident I will here insist upon this presumption That the gift of the Holy Ghost presupposeth Christianity that is the belief and profession of the Christian Faith And therefore that no man can know that hee hath the Holy Ghost but hee must first know the truth of Christianity and of the Scriptures Not that it is my meaning either to suppose or prove in this place that whoso hath the Spirit of God doth or may know that hee hath it For that is one of those controversies which wee are seeking principles to resolve But that no man can know that hee hath the Spirit of God unlesse first hee know himself to be a true Christian That is to say that supposing for the present but not granting that a man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit and that it is Gods Spirit which moves him to believe this or that hee must first know what is true Christianity and by consequence the means to discern between true and false And this I propose for an assumption necessary to the evidencing of that which followes but not questioned by any party in the Church because it is a principle in Christianity that the Grace of the Holy Ghost is a promise peculiar to those that undertake it Who were they on whom the Holy Ghost was first bestowed Was it not the Apostles and the rest of Disciples assembled to serve God with the Offices of the Church that is to say already Christians When Philip had converted the Samaritanes came S. Peter and S. John to give them the Holy Ghost by laying on their hands till they were baptized Concerning the Disciples at Ephesus Acts XIX 1-6 there is some dispute whether they received the Holy Ghost by the imposition of S. Pauls hands by virtue of the Baptism of John which they had received before they met with S. Paul or whether they were baptized over and above with the baptisme of Christ and thereupon received the Holy Ghost by the laying on of S. Pauls hands But of this they that will have them to have been baptized only with S. Johns baptisme make no dispute that they were fully made Christians by it Can any thing be clearer than S. Pauls words Gal. II. 2-5 That by the hearing of Faith that is obeying it they had received the Holy Ghost which by the works of the Law they could not receive And 2 Cor. XI 4. If hee that cometh preach another Jesus whom wee preached not or yee receive another Spirit which yee received not or another Gospel which yee admitted not Another Jesus another Gospel inferreth another Spirit So Gal. III. 14. That the blessing of Abraham may come upon the Gentiles through Christ Jesus that yee may receive the promise of the Holy Ghost by Faith The promise of the Holy Ghost then supposeth the condition of Faith And Gal. IV. 6. Because yee are sons therefore God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father Heb. VI. 6. It is impossible for those that were once inlightened and tasted the heavenly gift and became partakers of the Holy Ghost Upon inlightening that is baptisme followes the participation of the H. Ghost And seeing the resurrection of the flesh unto glory is ascribed by S. Paul to the Spirit of God that dwelt in it while it lived upon earth Rom. VIII 10 11. as the resurrection of our Lord Christ is ascribed to the Spirit of holinesse that dwelt in him without measure Rom. I. 4. John III. 34. of necessity the Holy Ghost dwelleth in all them that shall rise to glory But Baptisme assureth resurrection to glory Therefore it assureth the Holy Ghost by which they rise Nor can it be understood how wee are the Temple of God because the Spirit of God dwelleth in us 1 Cor. III. 16. but because the promise of the Holy Ghost dependeth upon that which distinguisheth Christians from other people In fine when our Saviour promiseth John XIV 23. If any man love mee hee will keep my word and my Father will love him and wee will come to him and abide with him Seeing the Father and the Son do dwell in those that love God by the grace of the Holy Ghost the gift of the Holy Ghost of necessity supposeth the love of God in them that have it And yet his discourse is more effectual Rom. VIII 1-9 That there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit For as hee inferreth that if any man have not the
words of S. Augustine contra Epistolam fundamenti cap. V. which alwaies have a place in this dispute though I can as yet admit S. Augustine no otherwise than as a particular Christian and his saying as a presumption that hee hath said no more than any Christian would have said in the common cause of all Christians against the Manichees Ego Evangelio non crederem saith hee nisi me Ecclesiae Catholicae moveret authoritas I would not believe or have believed the Gospel had not the authority of the Catholick Church moved mee For some men have imployed a great deal of learning to show that moveret stands for movisset as in many other places both of S. Augustine and of other Africane Writers And without doubt they have showed it past contradiction and I would make no doubt to show the like in S. Hierome Sidonius and other Writers of the decaying ages of the Latine tongue as well as in the Africane Writers if it were any thing to the purpose For is not the Question manifestly what it is that obligeth that man to believe who as yet believeth not Is it not the same reason that obliges him to become and to be a Christian Therefore whether moveret or movisset all is one The Question is whether the authority of the Church as a Corporation that is of those persons who are able to oblige the Church would have moved S. Austine to believe the Gospel because they held it to be true Or the credit of the Church as of so many men of common sense attesting the truth of those reasons which the Gospel tenders why wee ought to believe What is it then that obliged S. Austine to the Church The consent of people and nations that authority which miracles had begun which hope had nourished charity increased succession of time settled from S. Peter to the present the name and title of Catholick so visible that no Heretick durst show a man the way to his Church demanding the way to the Catholick So hee expresseth it cap. 111. And what is this in English but the conversion of the Gentiles foretold by the Prophets attested by God and visibly settled in the Unity of the Church Whereupon hee may boldly affirm as hee doth afterwards that if there were any word in the Gospel manifestly witnessing Manes to be the Apostle of Christ hee would not believe the Gospel any more For if the reason for which hee had once believed the Church that the Gospel is true because hee saw it verified in the being of the Church should be supposed false there could remain no reason to oblige us to take the Gospel for true All that remaines for the Church in the nature and quality of a Corporation by this account will be this That it is more discretion for him that is in doubt of the truth of Christianity to take the reason of it from the Church that is from those whom the Church trusteth to give it than from particular Christians who can by no means be presumed to understand it so well as they may do For otherwise supposing a particular Christian sets forth the same reasons which the Church does how can any man not be bound to follow him that is bound to follow the Church So that the reasons which both allege being contained in the Scriptures the Church is no more in comparison of the Scriptures than the Samaritane in comparison of our Lord himself when her fellow-citizens tell her John IV. 12. Wee believe no more for thy saying For wee our selves have heard and know that this is of a truth the Saviour of the World the Christ For the reasons for which our Lord himself tells us that wee are to believe are contained in the Scriptures But by the premises it will be most manifest that the same Circle in discourse is committed by them who resolve the reason why they believe into the dictate of the Spirit as into the decree of the Church For the question is not now of the effective cause whether or no in that nature a man is able to imbrace the true Faith without the assistance of Gods Spirit or not Which ought here to remain questionable because it is to be tried upon the grounds upon which here wee are seeking And therefore that Faith which is grounded upon revelation from God and competent evidence of the same is to be counted divine supernatural Faith without granting whatsoever wee may suppose any supernatural operation of Gods Spirit to work it in the nature of an effective cause which must remain questionable supposing the reason why wee believe the Scriptures But in the nature of an object presenting unto the understanding the reason why we are to believe it is manifest by the premises that no man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit that knoweth not the truth of the Scriptures If therefore hee allege that hee knowes the Scriptures to be true because Gods Spirit saith so to his Spirit hee allegeth for a reason that which hee could not know but supposing that for granted which hee pretendeth to prove To wit That the dictate of his own Spirit is from Gods Spirit Indeed when the motives of Faith proceed from Gods Spirit in Moses and the Prophets in our Lord and his Apostles witnessing by the works which they do their Commission as well as their message who can deny that this is the light of Gods Spirit Again when wee govern our doings by that which wee believe and not by that which wee see who will deny that this is the light of Faith and of Gods Spirit But both these considerations take place though wee suppose the mater of Faith to remain obscure in it self though to us evidently credible for the reasons God showes us to believe that hee saith it If any man seek in the mater of Faith any evidence to assure the conscience in the nature of an object or reason why wee are to believe that is not derived from the motives of Faith outwardly attesting Gods act of revealing it hee falls into the same inconvenience with those who believe their Christianity because the Church commends it and again the Church because Christianity commends it As for that monstrous imagination that the Scripture is not Law to oblige any man in justice to believe it before the Secular Powers give it force over their subjects Supposing for the present that which I said before that it is all one question whether Christianity or whether the Scriptures oblige us as Law or not Let mee demand whether our Lord Christ and his Apostles have showed us sufficient reasons to convince us that wee are bound to believe and become Christians If not why are wee Christians If so can wee be obliged and no Law to oblige us supposing for the present though not granting because it is not true that by refusing Christianity sufficiently proposed a man comes not under sin but onely comes not from under it but
Church For it is manifest that hitherto the authorities of Church Writers cannot be considered any otherwise than as the opinions of particular persons which no wayes import the consent of the whole Church For whereas hitherto there is nothing to oblige the Faith of any Christian but that which is plaine by the Scriptures and the consent of the Church It no wayes appears as yet how the authorities of Church Writers can evidence the consent of Church I will not therefore be curious here to heap up the sayings of the Fathers commending the sufficience and clearness of the Scriptures One or two I will take notice of because they are all I can remember in which the limitation thereof to things which our salvation requires us to believe is expressed S. Augustine de doctr Christianâ— II. 9. In eis quae aperte in Scripturis posita sunt inveâ—iuntâ—r illa omnia qnae continent fideâ— moresq vivendi In those things which are plainty set down in the Scriptures is found whatsoever that Faith or maners by which wee live doth containe S. Chrysostome in II. ad Thessal Hom. III. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things are plain and plain and straight in the Scriptures all things that are necessary are mâ—nifest Whereunto wee may addâ— the words of Constantine to the Council of Nâ—â—â—a in Theodoreâ— Eâ—clef Hist l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles and the Oracles of the ancient Prophets plainly teach us what wee are to think of God But I will also take notice that the same S. Augustine de doctr Christ III. 2. saith that the Rule of Faith which hee had set forth in the first book is had from the plainer places of the Scripture and the authority of the Church And the same S. Chrysostome in the same Homily sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those things which the Apostles writ and those which they delivered by word of mouth are equally credible Therefore let us think the Tradition of the Church deserves credit It is a Tradition seek no more And Vincentius in the beginning of his Commâ—nitorium or Remembrance confessing the Canon of the Scriptures to be every way perfect and sufficient requires neverthelesse the Tradition of the Church for the steddy understanding of it And therefore I have just ground to say that all that is necessary to salvation is not clear in the Scriptures to all that can reade in the opinion of S. Chrysostome and S. Augustine But to all that reade supposing the Rule of Faith received from the Church to bound and limit the sense and exposition of the Scriptures And therefore may more justly suppose the same limitation whâ—n they speak of the perfection and sufficience and clearnesse of the Scripture at large without confining their speech to that which the necessity of salvation requires us to believe And this is already a sufficient barr to any man that shall pretend the consent of the Church which concurreth to evidence the truth of the Scripture for the perspicuity thereof in things necessary to be believed to all whom they may concerne For so long as Tradition may be requisite besides Scripture that cannot appear When it shall appear whether requisite or not then will it appear how farr the sufficience and perspicuity of the Scripture reacheth And this I come now to inquire CHAP. VI. All interpretation of Scripture is to be confined within the Tradition of the Church This supposeth that the Church is a Communion instituted by God What means there is to make evidence of Gods Charter upon which the Corporation of the Church subsisteth The name of the Church in the Scriptures often signifieth the Whole or Cathelick Church THis presumption then which is able to prejudice the truth by disparaging the means God hath given to discover it And that by possessing men that things pretended to be necessary to salvation would have been clear of themselves to all men in the Scriptures if they were true But nothing conducing to clear the doubtfull meaning of any Scripture that is never so true This presumption I say being removed and the authority of the Church as the reason of believing taken away it remaines that wee affirm whatsoever the whole Church from the beginning hath received and practised for the Rule of Faith and maners all that to be evidently true by the same reason for which wee believe the very Scriptures And therefore that the meaning of them is necessarily to be confined within those bounds so that nothing must be admitted for the truth of them which contradicteth the same Wee saw before that the Scripture consisteth of motives to Faith and mater of Faith That in the motives of Faith supposing them sufficient when admitted for true a difficulty may be made upon what evidence they are admitted for true That the conviction of this truth consisteth in the profession and conversation of all those who from the beginning receiving Christianity have transmitted it to their successors for a Law and Rule to their beliefs and conversations Wherefore there can remain no further question concerning the truth of that which stands recommended to us by those same means that evidence the truth of those 〈◊〉 for which wee receive Christianity Had there been no 〈◊〉 Christianity to have been read in the profession and practice of all that call themselves Christians it would not have been possible to convince the enemies of Christianity that wee are obliged to believe the Scriptures If the professing and practising things so contrary to the interest of flesh and bloud be an â—vidence that they are delivered and received from them who first showed reasons to believe It must first remain evident that there are certain things that were so professed and practised from the beginning before it can be evident that the motives upon which they are said to be received were indeed tendred to the world for that purpose This is that common stock of Christianity which in the first place after receiving the Scriptures is to be admitted for the next principle toward the settling of truth controverted concerning the meaning of them as flowing immediately from the reason for which they are received and immediately flowing into the evidence that can be made of any thing questionable in the same It is that sound ingredient of nature which by due application must either cure all distempers in the Church or leave them incurable and everlasting And truly if it were as easie to make evidence what those things are which have been received professed and practised from the beginning by the whole Church as it is necessary to admit all such for truth I suppose there would remain no great difficulty in admitting this principle But in regard it is so easie to show what contradiction hath been made within the pale of the Church to that which elsewhere otherwhiles hath been received I cannot tell whether men despaire to finde any thing generally received
use till the Rescripts of the Pope took place and excluded the Canons of the whole Church The succession of which Law is so visible that hee that may say that the order presently in force can no way agree with that which was established by the Apostles shall not have the face to asfirm that there never was any order established by the Apostles instead of it so visible shall the impressions be of that corruption by which it declines from the order first established by the Apostles And therefore I allege here in the last place the consent of those of the Reformation who in answering this objection when it is argued that therefore Tradition is necessary as well as Scripture do not deny that there was a Rule of Faith that there were Orders delivered the Church by the Apostles to preserve the Unity of the Church But to answer for themselves why they stand not to the present Church of Rome in them do allege That the Rule of Faith delivered the Church by word of mouth is also delivered by writing and contained in the Scriptures Tnat the Rules of good order which the Apostles delivered were never intended to be unchangeable as you may heare Tertullian say de Velandis Virginibus cap. I. For in making this answer they do acknowledge that the Church had a Rule of Faith which it had received for a Law from the Apostles and therefore delivered for a Law to all that became Christians But whether this Rule be contained in the Scriptures or not concernes not my present purpose seeing it will be as much the cognizance of Christians and foundation of the Society and Corporation of the Church tending to maintain unity in the profession and exercise of Christianity whether so or otherwise Onely no man will deny that it may be not so easie to discern by the Scriptures alone what belongs to it what not as it may appear to be by the Churches delivering of it Nor do I pretend here that the orders delivered by the Apostles are all unchangeable For who knoweth not that the Lawes of every Common-wealth do change from age to age the state of Government remaining the same because those rights in which Soveraignty consisteth remain the same And therefore it is enough for my purpose that the Church had certain orders regulating the proceeding thereof in maters wherein it is to communicate as well under the Apostles as in succeeding ages Nor requiring that they should be alwaies the same but that they should come alway from the same power which they left in the Church that so the Body may appear to continue alwaies one and the same And that I proceed to prove by showing that the power of those publick persons which did alwaies act in behalf of the Church in admitting into and excluding out of the Church whereby those Laws were in force and wherein the Unity of the Church consisteth is derived from our Lord by the act of his Apostles CHAP. VIII That the Power of Governing the whole Church was in the Apostles and Disciples of Christ and those whom they took to assist them in the parts of it The Power of their Successors must needs be derived from those Why that Succession which appeares in one Church necessarily holdeth all Churches The holding of Councils evidenceth the Vnity of the Church FOr this I must presume of in the first place That as the Church is and was to be the true spiritual Israel of God when his ancient people departed from him by refusing the Gospel So to signifie this did our Lord chuse out XII Apostles and LXX Disciples answerable to the XII Princes of Tribes and the LXX Elders which with Moses were to govern Gods ancient people Neither do I mervail that wee finde in the Scriptures no further use made of these LXX no further power exercised by them under that title The difference between Gods ancient and new people appearing straight after our Lords Ascension and making that order uselesse for the future For Israel dwelling all in one Land might easily be governed by one Soveraign Court in maters of the Law answerable in power to that of Moses and his LXX Elders But Christianity being to be dispersed all over the world those LXX with our Lord chose for his present service could not serve for the like purpose in time to come It is therefore enough that the number of them signifies unto us the foresaid purpose their office for the time to come being swallowed up in the offices of the rest of our Lords Disciples besides the XII Apostles remaining alwaies the Judges of the XII Tribes of Israel here and in the world to come I am sensible that some both of our Presbyterians and Independents have been nibbling at this point as if they had a minde if they durst to say That the Apostles had no authority in the Church but as writers of Scriptures As for the Goverment of the Church that the people or their buckram Elders were to give them checkmate in it But having met with this pretense in another place and heard no man open his mouth to maintain it I shall at present rest content to have showed afore that their authority is the ground of the authority of their writings here that their Traditions were Law to the Church and that by their writings which mention not so much as what the Traditions were Whereby it appears that they took place as acts of their perpetual authority over the Church not as revelations of Gods will sent by those Epistles wherein sometimes they are not so much as named Besides the Apostles then at such time as the Church of Jerusalem contained all Christendome as I observed afore you have mention of the Elders at Jerusalem Acts XI 30. XV. 2 4 6 22 23. And again after the propagation of Christianity XXI 18. Of leading men also among the brethren who were also Prophets Doctors and Evangelists XV. 22 32 35. These then had not their commission from the Apostles because other disciples as well as the XII received at our Lords own hands the power of remitting sins by the Holy Ghost John XX. 18-23 But there was never yet any doubt made that their authority was limitable by the Apostles because of the eminence of the XII among the Disciples And therefore hee that would say that the LXX were contained in the number of those Elders and Leaders could no more be contradicted then some of the Ancient Fathers can be contradicted in reporting that some of them were of the number of the VII that were chosen to assist the Apostles Acts VI. S. Paul further rehearsing the graces that our Lord hath granted for the edification of his Church reckoneth Apostles Evangelists Prophets Pastors and Doctors Eph. IV. 11. 1 Cor. XII 28. Now it is the whole Church that the Apostle speaks of here as I observed afore and therefore the authority here mentioned extendeth to the whole Church But
Christo Deo ad confederandam Disciplinam Homicidium Adulterium Fraudem Perfidiam caetera scelera prohibentes That hee had discovered nothing of their Sacraments or Mysteries besides obstinacy not to sacrifice but assemblies before day to sing praises to Christ and to God and to confederate their Discipline prohibiting Murther Adultery violation of Faith and other hainous deeds For the Eucharist is the Sacrament by which this discipline of Christianity is established But farr from being voluntary to those whom wee suppose Christians As for Origen in Celsum I. pag. 4. It is manifest that those private Contracts which Celsus calumniateth that the Christians made among themselves as against the State are acknowledged by him to have been those that were solemnized at their Feasts of Love That is at the Eucharist which from the beginning was a part of them whether then it were so or not And therefore the confederacy of Christians among themselves whom these Authors speak of was no otherwise voluntary than Christianity and therefore not voluntary supposing it The words of Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which I do not admit to be well corrected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As being too obscure an expression for so clear a Writer as Origen to say that it was of force to do more mischief than the Bacchanalia which for that jealousie were put down as wee understand by Livy besides that hee must have said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not have used a general word for a particular And therefore I suppose hee alludes to the Verse of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dissolving by private confederacy that publick League and Bond wherein the peace of every Commonwealth consisteth Thus then saith Origen And hee seeks to calumniate the Love so called of Christians towards one another as subsisting at the peril of the Publick and able to do the mischief of disloyalty If this will not serve the turn but it be demanded that the Communion of the Church was then frequented by voluntary agreement let mee demand whether the authority of the Apostles in the Church subsisted upon no other title For as to the credit of them in delivering the Gospel believing what God had given them to evidence it with it is not possible for any man that pretends to be a Christian to question it If then it be said that they who were tyed to believe them concerning the truth of the Gospel were not bound to receive them as chief Governors of the Church let mee demand how it came to passe that those were received all over the Church whom it was believed that they had granted their authority to or what part soever of it There being no obligation to tye them to receive such afore others and the variety of judgment which all men are subject to being such as never to agree in the same reason where nothing obliges So likewise whereas it is manifest that the Church then both had and must needs have many Rules the general importance whereof was received by all though with particular differences according to times and places I demand how any such could come in force when neither the Jewes deserved that love that all should imbrace them for their sake nor the judgments of all Christians so different in all things could concurr in any thing which their Christianity imported not Especially I demand this concerning the indowment of the Church because it is evident that as Constantine first made good by the Empire all the acts of them that had given whatsoever was ravished away by the persecution of Diocletian then gave much more of his own So all Kingdoms and Commonwealths after the example of that Empire have proceeded to indow it with the first-fruits of their goods in Houses and Glebes and Tithes and Oblations I demand then what imposture could have been then so powerfull as to seduce all the Christian world in a mater so nearly concerning their interest had they not stood convict by the constant practice of Christendom before Constantine that it was no imposture more than the Christianity brought in by the same Apostles Lastly whereas it is acknowledged what strange severity of discipline the Primitive Church was under by the Rules of Penance which then were in force though I have showed in another place that they were yet stricter under the Apostles and that the severity of them necessarily abated as the zele of Christianity under them did abate I demand what common sense can allow that all Christians should agree to make themselves fools by submitting themselves to such Rules which nothing but their own consent could oblige them to imbrace For neither can it be said that they had them from the Jews nor had they been extant among them that the Christians would have received them for their sake CHAP. XIX That Power which was in Churches under the Apostles can never be in any Christian Soveraign The difference between the Church and the Synagogue in that regard The interest of Secular Power in determining maters of Faith presupposeth the Society of the Church and the act of it No man can be bound to professe the contrary of that which hee believeth Every man is bound to professe that Christianity which hee believeth The Church is the chief Teacher of Christianity through Christendom as the Soveraign of Civil Peace thorough his Dominions Why the Church is to decide maters of Faith rather than the State neither being infallible I Shall not now need to say much to those terms which the Leviathan holds beside that which hath been already said to evidence the Society of the whole Church and the foundation thereof by the Scriptures Hee that acknowledges in the Church a Power to judge of true repentance and accordingly to binde and to loose and that upon the same score and therefore to the same effect as it baptizes together with the Power of appointing publick persons in the Church and the Church in which hee acknowledges the Power to be the Body of Christians in each City by what Title doth hee suppose the Church to hold this Power or this Right the evidence whereof hee fetches from the Scriptures whereby hee proveth it For those Scriptures do not import by what Act it is established but onely that it was in force or use at the doing of those things which they relate Can it be imagined to be any thing else than the act of the Apostles declaring the will of God in that behalf If then by divine right that is by Gods appointment and ordinance imported by those Scriptures the Church that is the Body of Christians in each City stands indowed with those rights how shall the Church that is the Soveraign Power of each State stand indowed with the same rights by the same Title that is by Gods appointment evidenced by the same Scriptures How shall Gods Law that inableth the Body of the Church to binde and to
proved that is from the Society of the Church and the unity thereof from whence it follows that what is founâ—d to be taught in the Church by men authorized by the Communion thereof and qualified to teach and that without contradiction is not contrary to the Rule of Faith but if it be taught with one consent it is part of it Without contradiction I mean here when a man is not charged to transgresse the Faith of the Church in that which hee teacheth much lesse disowned by the Church for teaching it Not when no man is found to hold a contrary opinion which alwaies falls out in things disputable For the Communion of the Church necessarily importeth that a man qualified with authority in it professe nothing contrary to that Faith the profession whereof qualifies all to be of the Church Though other things there be many wherein a man may be allowed not onely to believe but to professe contrary to that which another professes and yet qualified not onely to be of the Church but to bear that authority which the Society thereof constituteth The name therefore of Fathers importeth at least some part of that superiority which the Society of the Church giveth And therefore belongeth not properly to those that are not so qualified though they that are not so qualified may be the authors of such writings as have the lot to remain to posterity But the authority of Fathers which is grounded upon this presumption that persons qualified in the Church teach nothing contrary to the Faith of it because their quality in the Church would become questionable if they should teach that which agrees not with the Faith of the Church This authority I say cannot appear in the writings of private Christians Because the Church is no further chargable by allowing him the Communion of the Church who declareth to believe onely that which indeed contradicts the Rule of Faith then of taking no notice what a private man professes to think out of that ignorance which may beseem a capacity of being better informed Hereupon it is that I think it no exception to the due authority of the Fathers that Arnobius or Laectantius should be utterly disdained in some particulars The one known to have been a Novice in Christianity when hee writ and writing as S. Jerom testifies to declare himself a Christian by trying his stile as being Master of a School of Eloquence in defense thereof against the Gentiles had it seems the ill chance to light upon some writings of the Gnosticks according to Saturninus or Basilides and taking them for Christians because they affected to go under that name translated their monstrous opinions into his work as points of Christianity The other whether a novice or no I cannot say marked neverthelesse by S. Jerome as one more able to refure Gentilisme than to give an account of Christianity and therefore to have been converted to Christianity but not to have learned it what presumption a discreet man can make of Christianity by his Book let every discreet man judg I will not say the like of Justine the Martyr a man who hath deserved farr more of Christianity by renouncing the world and taking upon him the profession and habit of a Philosopher among the Gentiles thereby to gain opportunity of maintaining Christianity on all occasions which the Heathen Philosophers took to maintain the positions of their several sects A resolution truly generous and Christian In the mean time having in him more of a Philosopher than of a Scholar and gathering his knowledg rather from travail and conversation than from reading it is no mervail if hee hath suffered many impostures at least in maters of historical truth which hee that should demand that the Church should answer as allowing his books to be read would be very unreasonable When as bearing no rank in the Church above that of all Christians for any thing I can perceive if hee should have mistaken himself in any thing neerly concerning the substance of Christianity his eminent merits towards the Church might have been of force to have drowned all consideration of them and given his writings passeport to posterity notwithstanding I will not extend this consideration to the writings of Clemens Alexandrinus of Origen and of Tertullian The last whereof that is Tertullian belongs not to this rank having put himself out of the Communion of the Church by making a party against the Church of Carthage upon the pretenses of the Montanists The second that is Origen whatsoever opinions hee had cannot be said either to have held them so resolutely or to have professed them so publickly that those that were nearest him could be thought accessories to them And therefore as his very great merits of the Church otherwise held him in his rank in the Church during his time so his extravagancies cannot impeach that authority which others and hee also in such things as hee agrees with them in do truly purchase by the allowance of the Church The same is to be said of his Master Clemens whose writings as they are not so many so neither his extravagancies so great and considerable But even these eccentrical Writers by being marked for positions particular to them besides the credit of historical truth which in times nearest the Apostles is of great consequence to inform us of the primitive state of Christianity and therefore of incomparable value towards the settling of a right judgment in all things now questionable I say beside that which is common to them with all Writers they get by the exceptions which are made against them the advantage of a Rule of Law in the rest that is to say that setting aside those points in which they are excepted against they are according to the Rule of Faith in things not excepted against against In fine the authority of the whole Church is found to be expresly ingaged in all things that have passed into effect either from the determination of Synods which having been assembled by the free consent thereof have been received by the like free consent whether all or part were present at the Synod or from the act of any particular Church the proceeding and grounds whereof hath been approved of and received into effect by the whole Which in some measure may be said of the writings of particular Doctors In as much as it is manifest that extravagant doctrines may have been published in several parts of the Church which particular Doctors may have imployed their pens to contradict before any Church had imployed any censure to condemn As by Epiphanius in the Heresie of the Origenists it appeareth that Origen was contradicted by Methodius If therefore such extravagances so contradicted be extinguished such writings have continued cherished by the Church it is evidence enough that the Church it self is ingaged in the condemnation of those extravagances which have been suppressed by the means of such writings And all this serves to maintain and
originall practice of the Church whither in prescribing what is to be believed what is to be professed or what is to be done So manifest must it remain that nothing can be resolved by plurality of votes of Ecclesiasticall Writers as to the point of truth For then were the priviledge of infallibility in the votes of those Writers which themselves disclaim from the substance of what they write And it is to say that what had no such priviledge when it was written if it have more Authors survive that hold it shall be and must be held infallible Which consequences being ridiculous it followeth that for the tryal of truth within the bounds aforesaid recourse must be had to the means premised And the effect of those means every dayes experience witnesseth For the obligation which all men think they have firmly to hold that which by these means they have all concluded from the Scriptures is the consequence of these principles in expounding the same Which obligation though sometimes imaginary in regard that between contradictory reasons the consequence may be equally firm on both sides yet that it cannot be otherwise he that believes the truth of Christianity must needs imagine For true principles truly used necessarily produce nothing but true consequences Which if it be so why should any question be made that the Church may and sometimes ought to proceed in determining the truth of things questionable upon occasion of the Scriptures concerning the rule of Christian faith or which is all one that the exercise of this power by the Church produceth in those that are of the Church an obligation of submitting to the same Indeed here be two obligations which sometimes may contradict one another and therefore whatsoever the matter of them be the effects of them cannot be contraries The use of the means to determine the meaning of the Scriptures produceth an obligation of holding that which followeth from it which obligation no man can have or ought to imagine he hath before the due use of such meanes whither his estate in the Church oblige him to use them or not But the visible determination of the Church obliges all that are of the Church not to scandalize the unity thereof by professing contrary to the same And to both these obligations the same man may be subject as the matter may be to wit as one that hath resolved the question upon true principles not to believe the contrary and as one of the Church that believes the Church faileth in that for which he is bound not to break the unity thereof not to professe against what the Church determineth For I am bold to say again that there is no society no communion in the world whether Civill Ecclesiasticall Military or whatsoever it be that can subsist unlesse we grant that the Act of superiour Power obligeth sometimes when it is ill used In the mean time I say not that this holds alwaies and in matters of whatsoever concernment nor do take upon me generally to resolve this no more then what is the mater of the rule of Faith which he that believes may be saved he that positively believes it not all cannot It shall be enough for me if I may give an opinion whether that which we complain of be of value to disoblige us to our superiours or not As concerning what is questioned amongst us whither it be of the rule of Faith or not But this I shall say that to justifie the use of this power towards God requireth not onely a perswasion of the truth competent to the weight of the point in question in those that determine for the Church but also a probable judgement that the determination which they shall make will be the meanes to reduce contrary opinions to that sense which they see so great Authority profess and injoyn For without doubt there can be no such means to dissolve the unity of the Church as a precipitate and immature determination of something that is become questionable For effectually to proceed to exercise Ecclesiasticall Communion upon terms contrary to that which hath been received afore is actually to dissolve the unity of the Church The ingagement to make good that which men shall have once done being the most powerful Witcheraft and Ligature in the world to blind them from seeing that which all men see besides themselves or at least from confessing to see that which they cannot but see But if we speak of things which concern the communion of the Church in those offices which God is to be served with by Christians or that tend to maintain the same besides the meaning and truth of the Scriptures there remains a further question what is or ought to be law to the Church and oblige them that are of the Church seeing that whatsoever is in the Scripture obligeth not the Church for Law though obliged to beleeve it for truth the resolution whereof will require evidence of the reason for which every thing was done by the Apostles for as it holds or not so the constitution grounded upon it is to hold either alwaies or onely as it holds And this reason must be evidenced by the Authority of the Church admitting that reason into force whither by express act or by silent practice When the Israelites are commanded to eat the Passeover in haste with their loins girt and their staves in their hands there is appearance enough that the intent of it was onely concerning that Passeover which first they celebrated in Egypt not for an order alwaies to continue because then the case required haste and because then the Angell passed over their houses upon the door-posts whereof the blood was commandded to be sprinkled that by that marke he might passe over them to smite the Egyptians For though Philo would have the Passeover to be celebrated at home and not at Jerusalem though perhaps onely by those of the dispersions those that dwelt in the Land of promise being all tied to resort to Jerusalem yet all that acknowledge the Talmud think it not lawfull to celebrate it but at Jerusalem contenting themselves with the Supper and abatng the Lambe as one of those sacrifices which the Law forbiddeth every where but before the Ark. But had not the practice of the Nation and the Authority of the Elders trusted by the Law to determine such matters appeared in the businesse our Lord who according to his own doctrine was subject to their constitutions had not had a rule for his proceeding So in the infancy of Christianity it is no marvail if the Christians at Jerusalem entertained daily communion even at board also among themselves and that they gave their estates to the maintenance of it not by any law of communion of goods but as the common necessity required For what could make more towards the advancement of Christianity And when at Corinth and in other Churches the communion was in use though not so frequent nor giving up their
I. 1. Theodoret in Levit. Quaest IX Theophilus II. Paschali S. Jerome in Psal XCVIII Omne quod loquimur debemus affirmare ex Scripturis Sanctis Whatsoever wee say wee are to prove out of the Holy Scriptures To the same purpose in Mat. XXIII in Aggaei I. Origen in Mat. Tract XXIII That wee are to silence gain-sayers by the Scriptures as our Lord did the Sadduces Adoro Scripturae plenitudinem quae mihi factorem ostendit facta I adore the fulness of the Scripture which showes mee both the Maker and what hee made saith Tertulliane contra Hermog cap. XXII S. Austine de peccat meritis remiss II. 36. Credo etiam hinc divinorum eloquiorum claerissima autorit as esset si homo sine dispendio promissae salutis ignorare non posset I believe there would be found some clear authority of the Word of God for this the original of mans soul if a man could not be ignorant of it without losse of the salvation that is promised In fine seeing it is acknowledged that the Scripture is a Rule to our Faith on all hands the saying of S. Chrysostome in Phil. III. Hom. XII is not refusable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Rule is not capable of adding to or taking from it For so it looseth being a Rule For the same reason S. Basil in Esa II. and Ascet Reg. I. condemns all that is done without Scripture On the other side in the next place a greater thing cannot be said for the Church than that which Tertul. contra Marc. IV. 2. S. ser Ep. LXXXIX S. Aust cont Faust XXVIII 4. have said that S. Pauls authority depended upon the allowance of the Apostles at Jerusalem Tertul. Denique ut cum auâ—oâ—ibus contuâ—â—t convenit de regulâ Fidei dextras miscuere In a word as som as hee had conferred with men in authority and agreed about the Rule of Faith they shook hands S. Jer. Ostendens se non habuisse securitatem praedicandi Evangolii nisi Petri caeterorum Apostolorum qui cum eo erant fuisset sententia roboratum Showing that hee had not assurance to preach the Gospel had it not been confirmed by the sentence of Peter and the rest of the Apostles that were with him S. Austine That the Church would not have believed at all had not this been done Among the sentences of the Fathers which make S. Peter the rock on which the Church is built the words of S. Austine contra partem Donati are of most appearance Ipsa est Petra quam non vincunt superbae inferorum Portae This Church of Rome is the Rock which the proud gates of Hell overcome not S. Jerome is alleged hereupon consulting Damasus then Pope in maters of Faith as tied to stand to his sentence Epist LVII and Apolog. contra Rufinum Scito Romanam fidem Apostolicâ voce landatam istiusmodi praestigias non recipere Etiamsi Angelus aliter annunciet quà m semel praedicatum est Petri authoritate munitum non posse â—â—utari Know that the Faith of Rome commended by the voice of the Apostle is not liable to such tricks Though an Angel preach otherwise than once was preached that being fortified by the authority of S. Peter it cannot be changed The saying of S. Cyprian is notorious Non aliunde haereses orta sunt aut nata schismata nisi indè quòd Sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur nec unus in Ecclesiâ ad tempus Saeerdos ad tempus Judex Christi vice cogitatur cui si secundum magisteria divina fraternit as obtemperaret universa nemo adversùm Sacerdotum Collegium quicqam moveret nemo discidio unit atis Christi Ecclesiam scinderet Heresies spring and Schisms arise from no cause but this That the Priest of God is not obeyed that men think not that there is one Priest in the Church one Judg in Christs stead for the time Whom if the whole Brother-hood did obey as God teacheth no man would move any thing against the College of Priests or tear the Church with a rent in the Vnity of it The authority which the Church giveth to the Scripture is again testified by S. Austine contra Epist fundamenti cap. V. Cui libro necesse est me credere si credo Evangelio Quum utramque Scripturam similiter mihi Catholica commendet authoritas Which book of the Acts I must needs believe if I believe the Gospel Catholick authority alike commending to mee both Scriptures To the same purpose contra Faustum XI 2. XIII 5. XXII 19. XVIII 7. XXVIII 2. XXXIII ult Therefore hee warns him that reads the Scriptures to preferr those books which all Churches receive before those which onely some And of them those which more and greater Churches receive before those which fewer and lesse So that if more receive some and greater others though the case hee thinks doth not fall out the authority of them must be the same And contra Cresconium II. 31. Neque enim sine causâ tam salubri vigilantiâ Canon Ecclesiasticum constitutus est ad quem certi Prophetarum Apostoloruus libri pertineant quos omnino judicare non audoamus For neither was the Rule of the Church settled with such wholesom vigilance without cause to which certain books of the Prophets and Apostles might belong which wee should dare on any terms to censure Where manifestly hee ascribeth the difference between Canonical Scripture and that which is not to an act of the Church settling the same Of the Power of the Church to decide Controversies of Faith all the Records of the Church if that will serve the turn do bear plentifull witnesse But the evidence for the gift of Infallibility from them seems to consist in this consequence That otherwise there would be no end of Controversies neither should God have provided sufficiently for his Church S. Austine contra Cresconium I. 33. Quisquis falli met uit huyus obscuritate quaestionis Ecclesiam de illâ consulat quam sine ullâ ambiguitate Scriptura sacra demonstrat Whosoever is afraid to be deceived by the darkness of this question concerning Rebaptizing let him consult the Church about it which the Holy Scripture demonstrateth without any ambiguity S. Bernard Epist CXC ad Innoc. II. Papam Opertet ad vestrum referri Apostolatum pericula quaeque scandala emergentia in regno Dei ac praesertim quae de fide contingunt Dignum namque arbitror ibi potissimum resarciri damna Fidei ubi non possit Fides sentire defectum All dangers and scandals that appear in the kingdome of God are to be referred to your Apostleship For I conceive it sitting that the decaies of the Faith should there especially be repaired where the Faith is not subject to fail As concerning the mater of Traditions wee are not to forget Irenaeus III. 2 3 4. where hee showes that the Gnosticks scorning both Scripture and Tradition as coming from those that knew not Gods minde
destructive to their particular salvation within that compasse neither will their fall be imputable to the Church but to themselves if they do But neither shall this difficulty be so great an inconvenience in our common Christianity nor so insuperable as it seems to those that are loth to be too much troubled about the world to come For I never found that God pretendeth to give or that it is reason hee should give those means for attaining that truth by which wee must be saved which it should not lye within the malice of man to render difficult for them to compasse whom they concern I finde it abundantly enough for his unspeakable goodness and exactly agreeable with those means whereby hee convicteth the world of the truth of Christianity that hee give those whom it concerns such means to discern the truth of things in debate as being duly applyed are of themselves sufficient to create a resolution as certain as the weight of the mater in debate shall require And such I maintain the Scripture to be containing the sense of it within those bounds which the Rule of Faith and the Lawes given the Church by our Lord and his Apostles do limit For what is more obvious than to discern what the whole Body of the Church hath agreed in what not what is manifestly consequent to the same what not what is agreeable to the ground and end of those Lawes which the Church first received from our Lord and his Apostles what not Let prejudice cast what mists of difficulties it can before the light which God hath given his Church to discover the truth hee that stands out of their way shall discern much more art used to obscure than to discern it Neither is there any reason why it is so hard to make it discernable to all that are concerned but the unreasonable prejudices either of the force of humane authority in mater of Faith and the extent of Tradition beyond the Rule of Faith or that the consent of the whole Church may as well come from Antichrist as from the Apostles If the records of the Church were handled without these prejudices lesse learning than this age shows in other maters might serve to evidence the consent of â— Church in more controversies than wee have to those that would be content to rest in the Scripture expounded according to the same But if the Church that is those that uave right in behalf of the Church being perswaded of a sacrilegious privilege of Infallibility shall take upon them to determine truths in debate to limit Lawes to the Church without respect to this Rule which if they respect they manifestly renounce the privilege of their Infallibility I mervail not that God suffers his people to be tried with such difficulties whose sins I doubt deserve this tryal But then I say further that it is not the providence of God that is the means which hee hath provided to resolve men in debates of Christianity but it is the malice of man that makes that means uneffectual which God hath made sufficient I must now answer an envious objection that this resolution is not according to the positions of those that professe the Reformation with us To which I will speak as freely as to the rest having profess'd my self utterly assoiled of all faction and respect of mens persons to way against the means of finding the truth and for that reason devested even the Fathers of the Church of all authority which their merits from Christianity have purchased to hear what their testimonies argue in point of Historical truth I say then first that may saying no way prejudices the intent and interest of the Reformation whatsoever insufficience it may charge the expressions of Reformers with I know the worst that can be alleged in this point is that Luther in appealing from the Pope and Council called by him to a Council that should judg meerly by the Scriptures first framed this Controversie between the Scriptures and the Church which since hath been alwaies in debate so that hee which will not be tried by the Scriptures alone plainly seems to quit the party and give up the game Who has this imagination though never to apparent let mee desire him to go a little higher to the first commencing of the plea about Indulgences For there can be nothing more manifest than this That when those that undertook that cause against Luther found that the present practice of the Church could not be derived from any thing recorded in the Scripture they were forced to betake themselves to the authority of the Church not that which consisteth in testifying the faith once delivered but in creating that which never was of force untill the exercice of it Here let all the world judg for I am confident the case is so plain that all the world may judg in it whether Luther had any Interest to demand that the Scripture alone should be heard in opposition to the Tradition received from the beginning by the Church tending as I have said to nothing but to limit the meaning of the Scripture Or that his Interest required him to protest that the truth for which hee stood was not to be liable to the Sentence of the present Church And therefore when afterwards hee appealed to a Council which should pronounce by the Scriptures alone if this tend to exclude those means which are subordinate to the attaining of the meaning of the Scriptures I do utterly deny that it can be understood so to be meant by any man that would not defeat his own enterprize And therefore that it must be understood to exclude onely the authority of the present Church so farre as it proceeds not upon supposition of those grounds whereupon the Church is to pronounce For what hinders the sentence of the Church to be infallible not of it self alone but as it proceeds upon those means which duely applied produce a sentence that is infallible And truly were not his plea so to be understood all his Followers Melancthan Chemnitius and others who have written Volumes to show how their profession agrees with that of the Catholick Church should have taken pains to commit a very great inconsequence For as I have argued that those who maintain the Infallibility of the present Church do contradict themselves whensoever they have recourse either to the Scripture or to any Records of the Church to evidence the sense of the Scripture in that which otherwise they professe the authority of the Church alone infallibly to determine So those that will have the Scripture alone to determine all Controversies of Faith and yet take the pains to bring evidence of the meaning thereof from that which hath been received in the Church may very well be said to take pains to contradict themselves Some of our Scottish Presbyterians have observed that the Church of England was reformed by those that had more esteem of Melancthon than of Calvin and
Christianity as the corruption of it Surely he that considers not amiss will finde that it was a great ease to them that were convinced to acknowledg a God above them to imagine the name and honor of this God to rest in something of their own choice or devising which being set up by themselves reason would they should hope to please and have propitious by such obedience and service as they could allow Correspondently God having given the Jewes a Law of such precepts as might be outwardly performed without inward obedience whosoever believe the most difficult point of Gods service to be the submission of the heart will finde it a gain that hee can perswade himself of Gods peace without it whatsoever trouble whatsoever cost hee be at for that perswasion otherwise If then there be in mans nature a principle of Paganism and Judaism notwithstanding that men cannot be at quiet till by imbracing a religion they think they are at peace with God Is it a strange thing that they who have attained the truth of Christianity should entertain a perswasion of peace with God upoâ— terms really inconsequent to or inconsistent with the true intent of it Surely if wee reflect upon the motives of it and the motives of them it cannot seem strange I have said and it is manifest that the nature of Christianity though sufficient yet were purposely provided not to be constraining that the effect of them might be the trial of those dispositions that should be moved therewith And is it a mervail that means to perswade those that have received Christianity that things inconsistent with that which was first delivered are indeed consequent to the same should be left among those that professe that they ought to receive nothing but what was first delivered by our Lord and his Apostles I say nothing now of renouncing Christianity while men professe this for I confesse and insist that while men do believe that there is a society of men visible by the name of the Church it will not be possible for them to forget their whole Christianity or to imbrace the contrary of it But I say that notwithstanding the profession of receiving Christianity from our Lord and his Apostles the present Church may admit Lawes whether of belief or of Communion inconsistent with that which they received at first I allege further that so long as all parts of the Church held free intercourse and correspondence with one another it was a thing either difficult or altogether impossible to bring such things either into the perswasion or practice of all parts of it according to the difficulty of bringing so great a body to agree in any thing against which any part might protest with effect And this held not onely before the Church was ingraffed into the State of the Romano Empire but also so long after as this accessory help of Christianity did not obscure and in the end extinguish the original intercourse and correspondence of the Church For then it grew both possible and easie for them who had the Secular Power on their side to make that which the authority thereof was imployed to maintain to passe for Tradition in the Church Seeing it is manifest that in the ordinary language of Church Writers Tradition signifies no lesse that which the Church delivers to succeeding ages than that which it received from the Apostles Adde hereunto the opinion of the authority of the Church truly pretended originally within the true bounds but by neglecting the due bounds of the truth of Christianity which it supposeth infinitely extended to all States which Powermay have interest to introduce For if it be not impossible to perswade those who know they have received their Christianity upon motives provided by God to convince the judgments and consciences of all that see them to imbrace those things to which the witnesse of them may be applyed that they are to imbrace whatsoever either the expresse act or the silent practice of the Church inforces whether the motives of Faith be applicable to them or not Then is it not impossible to perswade them any thing which this Power shall think to be for their Interest to perswade For no mans Interest it can be to go about to perswade the world that expresse contradictories are both true at once And if it were not impossible that the imaginations of most of them that dispute Controversies for the Church of Rome should be so imbroyled with the equivocation of this word Church as not to distinguish the Infallible authority thereof as a multitude of men not to be deceived in testifying the truth from the authority of it as a Body constituted upon supposition of the same Shall it not be easie for those who can obtain a reputation of the World that their act is to oblige the whole Church to obtain of the same to make no difference between that which is presently decreed and that which was originally delivered by the Apostles The said difference remaining disputable not onely by any text of Scripture but by any record of historical truth testifying the contrary to have passed for truth in any other age or part of the Church Upon these premises I do appeal to the common sense of all men to judge whether the Church professing to hold nothing but by Tradition from the Apostles may not be induced to admit that as received from the Apostles which indeed never was delivered by the Apostles For when the Socinians pretend that the Faith of the Trinity of the Incarnation and Satisfaction of our Lord Christ not being delivered by the Apostles in their writings crept into the Church as soon as they were dead they still maintain that nothing is to be admitted but what comes from our Lord and his Apostles But upon their supposition that Antichrist came into the Church as soon as they were dead are obliged to renounce all that can be pretended to come by Tradition and in that very next age Which I yield and insist that whosoever shall consider the intercourse and correspondence visibly establisht by the Apostles between all parts of the Church shall easily perceive to be a contradiction to common sense But when so much difference is visible between the State of the Church in several ages and what change hath succeeded in things manifest to inferre what may have succeeded in things disputable Hee must have his minde well and thoroughly possessed with prejudice to the utter renouncing of common sense that can indure a demand so contrary to all appearance to be imposed upon his common sense The same I say to the other demands of certain and sensible distances of time which they that see the end of may be certainly assured what was received at the beginning of them and so by mean distances this age what was held by the Apostles Of the like time for blotting out the remembrance of the truth as for introducing falshood For it is evidently true that
Valerianus de Flavigny Professor of the Ebrew in the University of Paris written in opposition to an opinion vented in the Preface to the great Bible lately published there in disparagement of the Ebrew Copy of the Old Testament Where hee shall see that opinion refuted with that eagernesse and the contrary attested by the opinions of so many Divines of so great note in the Church of Rome since that Council that no man that sees them can deny that notwithstanding the decree it is free for every man to maintain the original Copies to be authentick And truly hee that should affirm the credit of the Scripture to stand upon the decree of the present Church or upon the testimony of the Spirit must by consequence have recourse to the same visible decree or to the same invisible dictate whensoever it shall be necessary to accept or refuse the reading of any text of Scripture with that faith which if it be false the whole truth of Christianity will be forfeit What Rushworth and his possession would do to evidence what reading of the Scripture is indeed authentick when as it doth not appear what is the reading which the Church is truly in possession of let him advise For in that case hee must expresly avow the consequence of his position that the Scripture is not considerable in resolving Controversies of Faith Because the Church is not in possession of the certain reading of any Scripture For if hee say hee hath made short work in that question having discharged the Scripture of being necessary to the Church and therefore acquitted himself of any necessity to show how wee may come by true Scripture and in stead thereof and all other means of deciding Controversies in the Church established the tradition presently in possession First it will be easier for mee to verifie the short Rule of Faith by the Scriptures interpreted according to that which by records may appear to have been from the beginning of force in the Church than it will be for him to show what is the Tradition which the Church is in possession of at present And that this being showed I shall not need to fear any great danger that hee may object from the variety of reading which may be found in several Copies the necessity of salvation being secured And then in the next place to say That the Scripture is not necessary though not for the salvation of every Christian yet for the salvation of the Body of Christians which is the Church Though that faction which separation ingenders will suffer no opinion to be plausible but those which are in extreams Yet I hope the malice of Satan hath not yet debauched the ears of Christians to indure And thus as afore it was settled that the whole Scripture is received for the word of God upon the credit of Tradition so of every part and parcel of it wherein the credit of several Copies consisteth it is consequently to be said that nothing can oblige the faith of a Christian to receive it unquestionably for the word of God the Tradition whereof is not unquestionable But thus mâ—ch being settled That what was originally delivered in Greek and Ebrew is to be received for the authentick Word of God What was originally delivered in Greek and Ebrew may still remain questionable That is to say this being agreed it may still remain questionable what Copies they are that do contain that which was originally delivered in Greek and Ebrew How probable it is I need not yet say but any man of common sense must say that it is possible through the changes that time is able to produce that the translations shall prove better than the originals and that the Scriptures shall be truer read among those that have received than among those that delivered them And this is indeed the true state of the question which is now come to be disputed upon due terms as it seems To wit whether the Ebrew Copies which now wee have from the Jews and the Greek Copies of the New Testament now extant contain that Scripture which all Christians are bound to receive upon their Christianity not onely in opposition to the Vulgar Latine which the Council of Trent injoyneth and to the authority of the present Church thinking that it is concluded in that decree but in opposition to that Tradition which other ancient Copies either original or translated may and do contain and evidence In which point I shall in the first place professe as concerning the Old Testament that I finde it no inconvenience but a great deal of reason to grant that at what time those books were made up into a Body and consigned unto the Synagogue the reading which wee have received from them was not delivered as unquestionable so that it should be any prejudice to the Law of God to suspect it but as the most probable and by admitting whereof no prejudiee to the said Law could follow And the safety of this position both Jews and Christians will witnesse with mee For if the Jews rruly acknowledg and insist that their Judaism is sufficiently grounded and witnessed by the leter of the Old Testament which wee have the Christians that their Christianity is as sufficiently to be evidenced by the Copies wee have as Christianity was intended to be delivered by the Scriptures of the Old Testament Is it possible that it should be a mater of jealousie for mee to admit that in that Body of the Old Testament which the Christians have received from the Jews there may be found some passages the reading whereof was not received as unquestionable when the Body of the Old Testament was consigned to the Synagogue from whence the Church receiveth it I say not when this time was nor would I have that which I affirm here to stand upon a circumstance so disputable I do believe the Jews when they tell us of the men of the Great Synagogue after the return from the Captivity from whom and by whom the Scriptures they believe were settled and delivered to their posterity I do also believe that this Assembly might and did indure whilest the Grace of Prophets had vogue and was in force among Gods people For if I believe them when they tell mee that there was such a company of men I cannot disbelieve them that the Prophets Haggai Zachary and Malachi the Scribe Esdras the same with Malachi as they tell us for any thing I know for why should I not believe Malachi being appellative and signifying my messenger to be Esdras his surname given him from that which is prophesied Mal. III. 1 Mordecai Nehemias Josue the son of Josedok and many others of that time were of it But shall I believe that their Prophetical grace was imployed to decide the true reading of the Scripture shall I believe that a new revelation was given to notifie how every leter and syllable was to be read when neither the consequence of the mater required it
forgive our brethren their offences against us Mat. VI. 14. 15. Our Lord rendring a reason why he had taught his disciples to pray Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespasse against us For if it forgive men their sinnes your heavenly Father will forgive you also But if you forgive not men their Transgressions neither will your Father forgive your Transgressions And the Apostle James II. 13. to the same purpose Judgement shall be without mercy to him that sheweth not mercy And the foote of our Saviours Parable Mat. XVIII 35. So also shall your bravenly Father do to you if from your hearts yee forgive not every one his Brother their transgressions So Mar. XI 25. 26. And Luc. VI. 37. 38. Judge not and yee shall not be judged condemn not and ye shall not be condemned pardon and ye shall be pardoned give and there shall be given to you good measure crouded and shaken and runing over shall be given into your bosome for the measure that ye mete with shall be measured to you againe And againe Luk. XI 41. But give Almes according to your power and all things shall be cleane to you So Solomen Prov. XVI 6. By mercy and truth shall inquity be expiated And Daniell to Nebuchodonosor Dan. III. 5. Redeeme thy sins by righteousnesse or Almes deeds and thy iniquity by shewing compassion upon the afflicted For the verbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can signifie nothing but Redeem in the Caldee though there is a figure of speech in the Prophets Language intending redeem thy self from thy sinnes as I shall have occasion to say in another place and therefore t is in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And from hence come those sayings Tobit IV. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And againe Tob. XII 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Almes delivereth from death and suffereth not to enter into darknesse And Almes delivereth from death and purgeth away all sinne And Ecclus. III. 33. Water quencheth flaming fire and with almes shall he make prepitiation for sinnes And XXIX 15. Shut up almes in thy store houses and they will deliver thee from all afflictions And the words of the Apostle are plainest in this sense I Pet. IV. 8. Charity shall cover a many sinnes The Prophet also to the same purpose Isa I. 17. For they that make that filth which alone justifieth not to include or presuppose that condition to which Baptisme tieth Christians must needs crucifie themselves and set the Scriptures upon the rack to finde another meaning for them then the words bear By which that which God hath made due without and before any condition may turely be said to be given in consideration of it Which reason and the common sense of all men abhors But supposing that faith which onely justifieth to include the profession of undertaking Christianity as the condition upon which the promises of the Gospel are to be expected So certaine as it is that this will not be due if the condition be not fulfilled so necessary and so proper it will be to say That whatsoever that condition includeth is the consideration upon which the promise cometh though not by virtue of the thing done but by virtue of Gods tender and the Covenant of Grace and the promise which it containeth and the free goodnesse of God which first moved him to tender that promise And therefore you shall find those that suppose it not alwayes tormenting themselves to force upon the Scriptures such a meaning as the words of them doe not beare And in the last place concerning the consent of the Church though the Fathers are free in acknowledging with S. Paul justification by faith alone yet notwithstanding they are on the other side so copious in attributing the promises of the Gospel to the good workes of Christians that it may truly be said there is never a one of them from whom sufficient authority is not to be had for evidence thereof Which will amount to a tradition of the whole Church in this point In particular S. Augustine to whom appeal is wont to be made in all parts of that dispute which relateth to the Heresie of Pelagius hath so clearly and so copiously delivered the answer which I maintaine to those texts of S. Paul where he denieth that Christians are justified by the workes of the Law that those that challenge him in other points of this dispute concerning the Covenant of Grace doe not pretend to be of his mind in this Though the ground of this answer consisting in the twofold sense of the Law deserved as I conceive to be further cleared even after S. Augustine and the rest of ancient Church-writers I would therefore have the reader here to understand that I account all the rest of this second book to be nothing else but the resolution of those difficulties the answer to those objections and demandes which arise upon the determination here advanced The chief of them is that which followes in the next place How the promises of the Gospel can be said to be the effects of Gods free grace requiring our Christianity as the condition upon which they become due and not otherwise But there are also others concerning the possibility of fulfulling Gods Law by the new obedience of Christians concerning the goodnesse and perfection of it concerning the force and effect of good workes either in making satisfaction for sinne or in meriting life everlasting Which I shall allow that consideration in due time which the model of this abridgement will bear As for the sense of the Fathers evidencing the Tradition of the Church I am yet to learn that there ever was any exception alledged to infringe the consent of the Church in the necessity of good workes to the obtaining of salvation for Christians But onely the case of those who being taken away by death upon professing Christianity have not time to bring forth the fruits of it And how good workes can be the necessary meanes to procure the salvation of Christians but by virtue of that Law or condition for obtaining salvation which the Gospel now expresly enacteth and alwaies did covertly effectuate no sense of man comprehendeth For that the ancient Church agreeth in allowing the force of satisfaction for sinne to workes of Penance of Merit for the world to come to workes done in the state of Grace none of the Reformation which either disowneth or excuseth it for so doing according to the respect they have for it can make questionable And therefore though this be not the place to justifie the ancient Church in these particulars yet this is evident that those who maintaine more then my position requires do agree in that which it containes I shall therefore content my selfe for the present with producing some speciall passages of the Fathers expressing in my opinion the markes of my position and the reasons whereupon it proceeds As limiting the position between faith and workes in the matter of justifying
that the godly of the Old Testament were reconciled to God by the meanes of his Word and Spirit howsoever they understood that which is signified by these Titles I know the Arians made their advantage of that which Justine and others had said That God imployed his Sonne to man because he was himself invisible To say thereupon that the Father onely is invisible and incomprehensible even by the Sonne And that S. Austine thereupon counts it rashnesse to say that all the intercourse between God and man was ministred by the Sonne the Father and the holy Ghost not appearing at all in any of these Revelations That Dionysius acknowledgeth that all of them Athanasius that some of them were done by the Ministery of Angels The testomonies whereof you may find collected there And truly that God the Father was not revealed by these apparitions were a thing utterly unreasonable to imagine That Gods Angels did attend upon his Sonne in those messages wherein some one of them caries the proper Name of God is a thing which the Scriptures alledged afore will necessarily require But that whereâ—oever God deales with man by the Ministry of an Angel to whom the proper name and honour of God is attributed there the Sonne of God came to do Gods Word to man for a preface to his coming in the flesh And that whosoever received this word from God was withall possessed by his Spirit as I see it is very agreeable to the Scripture so I find no reason valuable why I should repent me to have said it I know that Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria hath been alledged for an authority that interrupteth the Tradition of the Church in the matter of the Trinity And I acknowledge S. Basils judgement comparing him with one who dressing plants and finding one that growes awry bends it so without measure that he sets it as much awry on the other side For writing against Sabellius and not content to settle the difference of the persons he saies that through heat of contention he let fall words that signified also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 difference of nature inferiority of Power and diversity of glory Epist XLI Whereof though I intend not to question any part I will say neverthelesse as I have alleged this passage of Dionysius in evidence for the unity of the Church so here that I desire no better evidence for the Rule of Faith which the same presupposeth Suppose for the present the sense of Dionysius to be questionable as it was to these Bishops of Pentapolis his Suffraganes who finding themselves offended at that which he had written gave information of it to Dionysius then Bishop of Rome and to his Synode which Athanasius de Synodis Arim. Seleuciae expresly nominateth Can there be a greater argument that the communion of the Church stood grounded upon the profession of that Faith which he seemed to transgresse then the concurrence of Rome and the Churches that resorted to Rome with those which resorted to Alexandria in that Faith which he seemed to transgresse Certainly the agreement of all Christians in admitting the Scriptures at this day is not able to produce the like And therefore granting the writings of Dionysius to have been an attempt upon the Faith the opposition that was so warmly made assures us that doctrine which the authority of a Bishop of Alexandria could not give passeport to was inconsistent with the Rule in force For the Satisfaction which he tendred in the Letter recorded by Athanasius shewes what the sense of the Church was for satisfaction whereof he was forced to write And therefore I may safely and do acknowledge some of his words to be more offensive then it can be fit for me to excuse Though his own leter alledges the similitudes of a plant and the shoot of it of a well and the stream flowing from it which the Church since Arius hath always used to make it understood Which may seem to render him reconcileable to the Faith of Nicaea by understanding the difference which he signifieth to consist not in the Godhead which may be understood to be the same in the fountain as in the stream but in the rank and manner of having it necessarily rendring that which proceedeth in that regard inferior to that from whence it proceedeth I know it is said againe that the Council of LXXX Bishops that condemned Samosatenus at Antiochia in their Epistle alledged there by Athanasius do say that the Sonne is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same substance with the Father And that it is said that the two parts of a contradiction may as well be reconciled as this with the Faith of Nicaea But with what judgement let S. Hilary speake Libro de Synodis Male intelligitur homousion Quid ad me bene intelligentem Male homousion Samosateâ—s confessus est Sed nunquid melius Ariani negarunt Octagiâ—ta Episcopi olim respuerunt Sed trecenti decâ—m octo nuper receperunt The homousion is wrong understood What is that to me that understand it right Samosatenus acknowledged it wrong Were the Arians more in the right in denying it Fourscore Bishops resused it long since Three hundred and eighteen have received it of late This had been enough to make a reasonable man suspect an equivocation in the businesse But Athanasius would have told him wherein it consisted and how and in what sense Samosatenus maintained it His argument was If our Lord Christ were not made God of man which first he had been made then must he be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same substance with the Father and so there shall be three substances one principall that of the Father two proceeding from him of the Son and holy Ghost And shall not all that imbrace the Creed of Nicaea disdaine Consubstantiality in this sense Which plainly makes the Father Sonne and holy Ghost of the same substance no otherwise then three men are said to be of one substance I know Gregory of Nâ—oâ—aesarea might have been further alledged out of S. Basil Epist LXIV Where he acknowledgeth him to have called the Father and the Sonne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Sonne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But this in a discourse written to Aelian a Pagan to convert him to Christianity and at the bottom consisting of nothing but equivocation of terms He allowing himself to term the Sonne the creature and make of the Father whom the Greek Fathers commonly call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the cause of the Sonne And to call them two in notion but one for hypostasis because he takes hypostasis for substance and notion for that Character which distinguisheth between persons which in the now terms of the Schoole are said to be known and discerned by their notions But I will go no further in Origens behalf or in behalf of any Scholar of Origens If he have left that which necessarily imports an ill sense whereof his Scholars Dionysius or
Gregory of Nâ—oâ—aesarea may perhaps relish either it was not publickly taken notice of when it was published or passed over in silence for the present in respect of his merit toward the Church As it must be said of his opinion concerning souls flitting into new bodies As for Euseb of Caesarea and the author of the Constitutions which are both charged in this point Eusebius living in the time when the consent of the Church over-ruled the contrary rather evidenceth then interrupteth that Tradition which condemneth him if he agree not with it But the author of the Constitutions is not known at what time he lived to write in the name of Clemens the Apostles Scholar that which for his part he thought most likely to come from the Apostles Whether or no he might think it became him writing in that name to use such terms as he found the ancientest Church-Writers use before the businesse of Arius Whether or no he might mistake himself in doing so I will not dispute But being hard to believe that he writ till the heresie of Arius and Eâ—nâ—mâ—us was down As I can give my self no good reason why he should bring in Arius under the habit of the Apostles so I see the suspicion which he hath contracted in a manner as ancient as the credit of his book in the Church After all this if any man marvail that Alexander Bishop of Alexandria should think so slightly of Arius his opinion as in debating it sometimes to side with him sometimes with his adversaries according to Sozomenus Eccles Hist I. 15. Let him consider that the Ecclesiasticall Historians informe us that the difference of Arius was commenced at a Consistory That is at a meeting of the Clergy to debate the businesse Onely Sozomenus that there had been divers meetings about it In which Alexander had not declared himself but spoken sometimes on this side and sometimes on that Not because there is any appearance in the story that Arius himself could have construed his procedings as if he had been doubtfull which side to choose But because any wise man in his place would have thought it the way to preserve his authority over Arius by not declaring himself party against him till he appeared untractable by that reason which his authority must inforce when it self would not serve the turn As for the great Constantine who in his Leter to the Church of Alexandria declareth many times that the question concerned not the substance of Faith It must be said that being no Christian as yet nor catechized in the Faith his information failed either in matter of fact reporting the position of Arius in such terms as might bear a good construction in which what latitude there is it may appear by the premises or in point of right making that not to concern the substance of Faith which indeed doth For those terms in which all the Ecclesiastical Histories agree that the debate was stated are such as indeed do concern the substance of Faith Neither is there any mark in the writings of the Fathers before this time upon which it can be said that any of them thought that there was a time when the Word of God which being incarnate in our Lord Christ was not but was made by God of nothing after that time Which are the characters that distinguish the heresie of Arius Set aside then the Constitutions Eusebius Origen and his Scholar Dionysius as questionable in point of fact or as granted that the sense of their words is not reconcileable with the Faith in point of right the retraction of Dionysius makes as much more for the Faith then his misprision condemned by Gennadius de Dogm Eccl. Cap. IV. and Facundus X. 5. against it as the rejecting of Sabellius makes more for the same then the doubtfull words of Gregory of Nâ—ocaesarea against That which is to be said thereupon is that there can be therefore no reason to blame the Councill of Nicaea for adding to the Creed the terme of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to oblige the Arians to the sense of the Church S. Athanasius in his Treatise de Actis Conc. Nicen. hath shewed us that it was introduced to cut off those equivocations whereby they ought to cover their owne sense under those other words which were propounded as capeable of the Catholick sense He that will say that this course ought not to have been held or that having taken effect it ought not to have been retained may as well say that the faith of Christ or the Unity of Gods service in that faith is not to be preserved For being once questioned therâ— must be a Rule and a mark to discern Christians from Hereticks I observe therefoâ—e likewise that the troubles which Arius occasioned in the Church never came to an end till the word person in Latine and hypostasis in Greek was admitted in opposition to the word essence or nature included in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Council of Nicaea had introduced into the Creed that the difference between the Church and Arius might be stated upon the expresse terms of three persons and one nature For it is evident by S. Jerome Epist LVII that the terme of hypostasis for person was not then received who writes to Pope Damasus to be authorized by him whether to admit or to refuse it But as after that time we hear no further question of the term so under the Emperor Gratiane and Pope Damasus we find the dispute extinguished But I say neverthelesse that there is no cause therefore to imagine that the sense of the Church and the faith thereof hath received any change by the use of new terms which the necessity of preventing Hereticks hath obliged the Church to introduce And I say as the others said that the importance and consequence of the said new terms ought to be reduced to that force which the sense of the Church according to the Scriptures alloweth or rather prescribeth And that whosoever shall take upon him under pretense of the most unquestionable decrees that any age of the Church hath produced to prescribe against that sense which the primitive records of the Church do inforce in so doing sets up the authority of that present Church against the Tradition of the Catholick And after all this shall the Socinians be admitted to alledge that S. Hilary quittâ—th a doubt whether the holy Ghost is to be called God or not Surely the Socinians cannot be admitted to alledge this unlesse they will be content to submit to S. Hilary in the whole businesse Nay unlesse they will stand to the Church to which S. Hilary stands But for those that are not Socinians and would be satisfied I will not use that wretched answer of Erasmus in that excellent preface to S. Hilarys works That the Church hath since decreed otherwise As if there were not a reason why the Church so decreed or as if he were not bound to render that reason
in mind to adde to the evidence for this all that I said in the beginning of this book to show that the condition of the covenant of grace implyeth a resolution generally to obay all that Christianity injoyneth For whatsoever delight in the true good God may prevent and determine the will with as prevent it he may and doth so as to take most certaine effect it must have in it the force of choice upon deliberation that makes God in steade of the world the utmost end of all a mans actions And in virtue of this choice whatsoever is done in prosecution of it consisteth in the like freedome of preferring it before the difficulties that impeach it which therefore he that will may follow and faile of his purpose He that might have transgressed and did not his goods shall be firme saith Ecclesiasticus XXXI 10. 11. Christianity then supposeth free choice as well to doe rather then not to doe as to doe this rather then that But Christianity cannot suppose this freedome till it can suppose the reason why every thing is to be done to appeare For that is it which must determine the indifference of mans will to proceede And therefore if there be any thing which without Christianity a man under Original sinne stands not convinced that it is to be done though supposing Christianity his freedome may extend to it yet not supposing the same it doth not This is that which I come to in the next place CHAP. XXIII A man is able to doe things truely honest under Originall sin But not to make God the end of all his doings How all the actions of the Gentiles are sins They are accountable onely for the Law of nature How all men have or have not Grace sufficient to save NOw to the second part of my position I say that though notwithstanding the inclination of Originall concupiscnce a man is able to do any kinde of act towards himselfe towards all other men or towards God yet is he not able to doe any for that reason for which it is indeed to be don And therefore that he is by his birth slave to sin and without the grace of Christ cannot become free of that bondage The first part of this position stands upon the words of S Paul Rom. XI 14 15. For when the Gentiles that have not the Law do by nature the things of the Law these not having the Law are a Law to themselves who show the worke of the Law written in their hearts their consciences bearing witnesse with them and their thoughts afterwards interchangeable accusing or excusing I know S Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius will have this to be said of the Gentiles that had been converted to Christianity But having shewed that the interpretation of the Scripture is not subject to the authority or judgâ—ment of particular Doctors and knowing that the tradition of the Church neither went before them nor hath followed after them to make the position upon which their interpretation proceeds a point of faith I follow pâ—remptory reason from the processe of S. Pauleâ— discourse Who having conclued the Gentiles to be liable to Gods judgement in case they imbrace not Christianity comeing to doe tâ—e like for the Jewes upon a supposition which he takes to be evident upon experience as appealing to their own consciences in it that they kept not Gods Law by which they hoped to be saved Proceeâ—s to compare with them the Gentiles whom he had convicted afore that he may prove the Jewes to have as much need of the Gospell as he had proved the Gentiles to have He saith then that the Gentiles have also a law of God which is the sense of Gods will which nature workes in their hearts And that as the Jewes did many things according to Gods written Law so did the Gentiles according to the Law of nature But if they could say that the Gentiles kept not the law of nature as hitherto he had proved No lesse might the Gentiles say that they kept not the Law by which they pretended to be righteous before God This you shall easily perceive to be S. Pauls businesse if you compare that which he writes Rom. XI 12 13. 17. 24. concerning the Jewes with that which went afore from Rom. I. 18. concerning the Gentiles Indeed when the Apostle afterwards compares the circumcision of the heart which makes a spiritual Jew with the Gentile who in his uncircumcision doth the same righteous things of the Law which the said spirituall Jew doth Rom. 11. 25 29. as I acknowledge that there is no spirituall Jew by the letter of the law but by the grace of the Gospell which though covertly had course and took effect though in a lesse measure under the Law so I must acknowledg that none but the Gentiles converted to Christianity can be compared to him But it is no prejudice to the Apostels argument to say that the Gentile is capable of that by the Gospell which the Jew could not boast of by the Law but by the grace of the Gospell under the Law Whereas if the apostle do not convict the Jew to have need of the Gospell by showing the Gentile to beere the same fruits by the Law of nature which the Jew brought forth by the law of Moses be leaves him utterly unconvicted of the necessity God had to bring in the gospell for the salvation of the Jew aswell as of the Gentile And therefore when S. Paul names the things of the Law he compâ—â—â—eth as weâ—l â—hoseduties that concerne God as those which concerne our selves and our neighbours Agreeing herein with the experience of all ages and nations whâ—ch allowes religion towards God to be a Law of all Nations as well as the â—ifference between right and wrong in civill contracts between honest â—nd shâ—mefull in mens private actions to be impressed by God upon their hearts from thence expressed in their Lawes and customes And truly it can by no meanes be denied that the difference of three sorts of good things honesta utilia â— jucunda things honest usefull and pleasurable is both understood and admitted amongst heathen nations That is to say that heathen nations doe acknowledg that there are some things which of themselves agreeing with the dignity of mans nature are more worthy to be imbraced then those which present us either with profit or pleasure without consideration of what beseemes us otherwise â—o which assuming this as evident by experience of the world that the reason of that which is honest or honourable as sutable with the dignity worth of mans excellency is not alwaies contradicted in occasions of action either by profit or pleasure there will be no possible reason for any man to deny that notwithstanding Originall concupiscence a man may be led by reason of honesty to do that which it requireth Whereof we have invincible evidence not onely in the Philosophy of the Greeks and the Civility of the Romans
incursions of Satan upon such persons then visible and so I understood it afore But I must not therefore omit that sense of these words which the ancient Church frequeneth understanding this destruction to be the mortification of the flesh by works of Penance For this is that sense which Tertullian then a Moâ—tanist labours to confute but Origen in Levit. Hom. XXIV Pacianus Paraenesi ad Paenitenâ—iam S. Basil ad Aâ—philochium C. VII S. Ambrose de Paenitentià I. 12. S. Austine de fide operibus cap. XXVI suppose and use Neither is it any way inconsequent that the excommunicate believing themselves to come thereby under the power of Satan should betake themselves to those demonstrations of humiliation and mortification whereby the Church might be moved to admit them to the means of their reconcilement And in this there is more then preaching the Gospel or taking away offence There is authority obliging to use the cure and granting reconciliation upon the same Again when S. Paul saith to them again 2 Cor. XII 20. 21. I am afraid least when I come I find you not such as I would and be found of you such as you would not least there be strifes envies animosities conâ—enâ—ions back-bitings whisporings inflasions commotions Least when I come to you again God humble me in regard of you and I mourn for many that have sinned afore and have not repented of the uncleanesse and whoredome and wantonnesse which they have done How should S. Paul be humbled in regard of or mourn for many of them but in regard of the necessity which he feareth to find of putting them out of the Church or to penance in case they adhere to the Church And if by appearance and demonstration of their repentance S. Paul was to be moved not to do this is it not evident that this is the means which he imployes to procure repentance and assure pardon by discharging them of it I do here repetâ— that which I said afore to show that it is the Apostles intent Heb. VI. 4. 5 6. X. 26 27. XII 15. 16 17. to deterre them from falling away from Christianity to Judaism for fear of persecution from the Jews by puting them out of hope of being readmitted to the communion of the Church Not as pronouncing sentence of damnâ—tion against them but as demonstrating it so difficult to be presumed upon in behalfe of him that had once violated the profession of Christianity that the Church was not to become the warrant for it If this be the case of those whose interest in the promises of the Gospel the Church warrants not then the warrant of the Church either in pronouncing sentence of absolution formally or in admitting really unto the communion of the Eucharist proceeds oâ— ought to proceed upon supposition of that disposition which qualifies for pardon wrought in the penitent by the censure of the Church And that this is the case I have further inferred from the words of the Apostle 1 Joh. V. 16. 17. If a man see his Brother sinne a sin â—â—t to death he shall pray and life shall be given to them that sinne not to death There is a sinne to death I say not that ye pray for it All unrighteousnesse is sinne But there is a sinne not to death For seeing it is manifest that the Church is to pray for all sinners be they never so great enemies to the Church it cannot be understood that absolutely the Church is not to pray for the sinne to death but that as he forbiddeth not so he obligeth not the Church to pray for the sinne unto death those prayers which tend to reconcile the sinner to the Church upon supposition and for a warrant of the reconcilement thereof with God If this seem not to agree with the words because S. John seems to speak to particular persons and not to the body of the Church when he sayes If any man see lâ—t him ask Let him consider the words of anoâ—her Apostle James V. 14. 15 16 For when he promiseth forgivenesse of sinnes to him that shall call for the Priests of the Church and they pray over him Adding immediately Confessâ— your sinnes to one another and pray for one another that ye may be healed It is necessary that we make good a reason why this admonition follows upon that which went before Why the Apostle having taken order for the cure of their sinnes who are here ordered to send for the Priests of the Churâ—h proceeds to say Confesse your sinnes to one another Namely because the way of curing sinne is the â—ame when a man confesses his sinne to a Brother that is a private Christian and when hâ— submits it to the authority of the Church For as here the Apoâ—tle maketh the means of obtaining pardon to consist in the prayers of the Priests in whom the authority of the Church resteth â—o there in the prayers of one Christian for another that confesses his sinne to him And hâ—reupon it is necessarily to be presumed both that the Apostle means that the Priests of the Church impose upon him that course of câ—re which his sinne requireth in case he survive And also that a private Christian by his advice reduce his Brother to use the same means Otherwise to what purpose should the one or the other declare his sinne seeing he might be prayed for at large without declaring the same It is therefore no marvail that the words of S. John manifestly concerning particular Christians should extend to the Keyes of the Church and the publick office thereof For though in the beginning when he saith If a man see his Brother sinne a sin not to death he addresseth onely to particular Christians yet the â—nd there is a sinne unto death I say not that ye pray for it manifestly addresseth to the Body of the Church implying that it is to be acquainted therewith by him that sees this if the case require it Whereupon S. Paul thus exhorteth Gal. VI. 1. Brethren if a man be overtaken in any transgression ye that are spiritual restore such a one with the spirit of meeknesse considering your selves least ye also be tempted Here the title of spiritual may extend to particular Christians But there is a presumption concerning publick persons in the Church that they are such because it is the opinion that they are such which qualifies them to be made publick persons in the Church Now when he speaks to the brethren in generall to do this he showes that it may concern the Body of the Church as well as particular Christans But when he speaks of the spirit of meeknesse it is manifest that the intent of his speech concerns those Penances which were imposed upon sinners for trial of their convesions in which he requires that meeknesse which the consideration of a mans own meeknesse recommends And therefore the same thing is taught by S. Iames by and by after the words afore quoted James V. 19. 20.
seems to demonstrate not only the Tradition of the Apostles concerning Penance and Excommunication which it abateth and the Keyes of the Church which it manageth but also the Power which it exerciseth not to consist in pardoning sinne at large and immediately but in procuring that disposition to which the Gospel hath proclaimed forgiveness and upon knowledge thereof in assuring the pardon which it pronounceth For whoso considereth the premises can never be so madd as to imagine that men were refused reconcilement even at the point of death or reconciled with a reservation of Penance to be performed if they survived meerly for the satisfaction of the Church and the example of others But because the Church remained not satisfied that God was satisfied with their present disposition as qualifying them for pardon according to his promise Some men have mistaken themselves so farr as to imagine that when a man was admitted to absolution by imposition of hands and the Communion in danger of death by the ancâ—ient Church he could stand bound no further to any Penance But it is very evident in the practice of the ancient Church that in regard some sinnes were not admitted to reconcilement by Penance therefore it concerned the Penitent in the first place to make suit to be admitted Which being granted and he having undertaken the Penance imposed upon him in the next place he was admitted to the Prayers of the Church at all the solemn Assemblies of the Church during the time of his Penance with imposition of hands as the means to obtain pardon at Gods hands So Imposition of hands signified not Absolution but the way to it and capacity of it supposing the performance of Penance imposed And this is petere poenitentiam accipere poenitentiam propter manûs impositionem in the ancient canons by name Concil Tolet. XI can XII to demand Penance and to accept of Penance by imposition of hands As appears by that form of the publick service of the Church which you have in the Constituions II. 8. 9. where you have the form of prayer to be offered for Penitents when they were dismissed before the celebration of the Eucharist he that prayeth holding his hands over them kneeling Neither was there any other absolution then this in use according to the ancient custome of the Church He who having declared himself offended at himself for that which he had done had obtained of the Church to be admitted to Penance for the time that his Penance continued was prayed for by the Church that his sinne might be pardoned in order to communion with the Church The time of his Penance being compleated his absolution was the restoring of him to communion with the Church in the Sacrament of the Eucharist This is that absolution upon which the Church warranteth his pardon not by pronouncing him pardoned but supposing him qualified for it by that disposition which his Penance had produced And though afterwards the form of absolution changed and was pronounced by way of sentence not by way of Prayer desired yet was there still the more doubt to be made of the validity thereof the more confidence it signified because the more trust was reposed in the power of the Church the lesse provision was made for that disposition which the Gospel before the being of the Church requireth One thing more I desire may be considered in the practice of the ancient Church to evidence the same which is this The Church being necessitated to abate of the primitive strictnesse and to admit all maner of sinnes to reconcilement by Penance that they might the better answer their trust to God in not warranting the pardon of sinne without reasonable trial of repentance took a course of lengthning the time of Penance during which the conversation of the Penitent might yield assurance of it For the Canons whereby so many years Penance is prescribed upon such and such sinnes were couched in writing long after the times of Montanus or Novatians And therefore the customes whereby they came in force before they came in writing had their beginning from that obligation which the Church desired to discharge of not warranting forgiveness of sinne but upon due grounds In this case then and generally whosoever was injoyned Penance to qualifie him for communion with the Church if he did any eminent act which might evidence the sincerity and zeal of his conversion or his forwardness and eagerness in taking revenge upon himself was not onely of custome and course so much the easier readmitted by the Church but was ordered by the Canons to be so much the easier and sooner readmitted For evidence whereof as also of divers other particulars here alleadged I will remit the Reader that would be informed to Morinus his great work de administratione Poenitentiae It shall serve my turn here to point out to you the ground which these effects evidence to be this That the Catholick Church proceeded not in binding and loosing as if it had any power to give pardon at large But as supposing that those that are bound by the Church cannot be loosed but by the Church nor loosed by the Church but supposing the disposition that qualifieth for pardon produced in them by that Penance which the authority thereof constraineth to undergo And therefore that in the power of injoyning Penance fitting as well as of declaring pardon the power of forgiving sinnes in the Church is by the tradition of the Church declared to consist I will conclude with the words of Firmilianus Bishop of Casarea Cappadocia in his Leter to S. Cyprian among S. Cyprians LXXV He saith that they used in their parts to hold Synods every year Ut si qua graviora sunt communi consilio dirigantur Lapsis quoque fatribus post lavacrum salutare à Diabolo vulneratis per poenitentiam medela quaeratur Non quasi à nobis remissionem peccatorum consequantur sed ut per nos ad intelligentiam delictorum suorum convertantur domino pleniùs satisfacere cogantur This businesse of greater waight may be ordered by common advice And remedy found by Penance for brethren that have fallen away being wounded by the Devill after the laver of salvation Not as if they got pardon of sinnes from us but that being by our means converted to understand their own sinnes they may be constrained to make the fuller satisfaction to God These are the very terms upon which my opinion standeth Let us now compare the Originall and general practice of the Church with that which we have in the Apostles writings and say by the agreement whither their authority were the beginning of it or not Shall we think that all who ever questioned the reconciling of some sinnes were utterly void of common sense in imagining that the Apostle to the Hebrews and S. John writing of the sin unto death intended not to speak of that pardon which the Church may or ought to give or not give when
which they hear from those that do not profess to Preach within those bounds who can deny that they are guilty to their own death What those bounds are I shall say by and by In the mean time let them take heed whose neglect of the written word or whose zeal to preaching shuts the Scriptures out the Church that they contribute not to the bringing in of the secret and invisible Word of the Enthusiasts It is now no dainty to hear that the word which we have written in our Bibles is not the Word that saveth but that which is secretly and invisibly spoken to us within by Gods Spirit And whosoever attributeth the reverence due to Gods word to any such dictate without dependence upon the Scriptures that is deriving the same from the Scripture by those means which God hath allowed us for the understanding of them according to the premises what shall hinder him to preferre the dictate of his own Spirit under pretense of Gods before that which he admitteth to come from Gods Spirit For he who admitteth the greater contradiction of two parallel Soveraigns why should he not admit a less that the written word is not Gods word in competition with the dictate of his own Spirit when there is so easie a cloke of expounding the written word though against all reason and rule of expounding it yet so as to submit even the substance of Christianty to the dictate of a private spirit We have an example for it in the impostures of Mahomet For doth not the Alcoran acknowledge both our Lord Christ and Moses true Prophets of God besides all other attributes yet in as much as it pretendeth the Spirit given to Mahomet in such a degree as to controle them both it smoothes the way to the renouncing of Christianity when the power of the sword fell out on the side of it Simon Magus and his followers the Gnosticks might have done the like had the like power been on their side as the Manichees did in part if those things be true that we read in Cedronus of a party of them possessed of the Power of the Sword about the parts of Armenia all upon pretense of higher revelations then were granted to the Apostles The same is alleged against the Paraclete of Montanus and perhaps his followers being disowned by the Church might fall to such extremities but at the beginning it doth not appear that he pretended any more then to introduce certain strict orders into the Church as injoyned by his Spirit and those of his fellow Prophets which it was not expedient for the Church to undertake and being so it was requisite for him to conform unto the Church any pretense of the Spirit notwithstanding but otherwise were no way destructive to Christianity Suppose then the reading of the Scriptures to be one of those offices for the which the Church is to assemble the order of reading them which is that which remains is a thing to subject so common reason that there need not much dispute about it If we look upon Tertullianes or before him Justin Martyrs Apologies for the Christians there will appear no more then this that every Church that is every Body of Christians under one Bishop did prescribe themselves that order for reading the Scriptures in the Church which they found requisite And if that primitive simplicity which the Christianity under persecution was managed with had continued what fault could have been found with it But when the World was come into the Church which he that injoyes his right senses will not believe did come into it all with the like affections to the professions which they undertook it was in vain to hope that differences would not rise or might not rise about this as well as other points in which the exercise of Christianity consisted Differences arising the greater authority is that to which the ending of them obliges all men to have recourse The greater authority you have seen is that of the greatest Churches whither in Synods or not requiring Synods to oblige the less by reason of the exigence or reasonableness of the case The order of reading the Scriptures and of singing or saying the Psalms and Hymns of Gods praises being grounded upon no other reason nor tending to any other end then that of exercising and improving the Christianity of Gods people I need noâ— dispute that the Order which the power of the Church of Rome hâ—d introduced here as well in the rest of the West was such as made the Assemblies of the Church fruitlesse to that purpose For what could those shreds of Psalms and Lessonâ— which that order prescribeth contribute that might be considerable to that purpose Nor need I argue how considerable the order of the Church of England is to the same For to finish the Psalter once a year the New Testament thrice a year the Old once besides for reverence to the ancient Ordinance of the Church another Order for beginning the Prophet Esay at Advent and Genesis at Septuagesima to be prosecuted on Festival days is an Order from which the Church hath reason to expect a good effect in the instruction of Gods people And the interweaving of the Lessons with Hymns as it is agreeable to the rules and the practice of the ancient Church so it is in reason a fit mean to preserve attention and quicken devotion in them who use it In the mean time supposing there were considerable objections to be made against this or that order yet Order in generall being a thing so requisite to the preservation of Unity in the Body of the Church there is no reason to be given why any body should be admitted to dispute any Order received that cannot advance another Order which he can pretend to be more effectual to the purpose in which the parties must needs agree I am here to answer that part of the question concerning the Canon of Scripture which I said in the first book concerneth the Law not the faith of the Church whither the reading of those Scriptures which S. Jerome calls Apocryphall Ruffinus upon the Creed Ecclesiasticall for part of the Church office be for the ediâ—ication of the Church or not And a few words shall serve me to answer it with The very name of Ecclesiastical serves him that admits the Church to be one Body the unity whereof requires some uniformity in the order of those offices the communion whereof is one part of the end for which it subsisteth For it is manifest that the whole Church hath frequented the reading of them and that they are called Ecclesiastical for no other reason but because the reading of them hath been frequented by the Church in the Church And whosoever makes this any title of separation from the Church of Rome will make his Title Schismatical separating for that which is common to the present Church of Rome with the whole Church But because the repute of the Church is so slight
requiring of those who acknowledge the same absolute conformity in things altogether needlesse to the unity of the Church the true end of all due Power in the Church For were conformity in this point necessary to the unity of the Church had the Power of the Church of Rome and of the Pope in behalf of it been such by virtue of the first instituting of it as might have required it why then was it not required from the beginning that the service of God through the whole Empire should be celebrated in Latine being the language which the mother Church of the mother City did use and farr more frequented then in Greece than now in the West which is forced to use it Seeing then it appeareth that there is nothing at all to be alleged for so great an inconvenience but that which I have alleged for it and which I acknowledge to be truly alleged and justly but not justly admitted it remaineth that the Church is provided by God of other Laws the observation whereof is and would be a cure to the danger alleged from the change of the publick service of God into the vulgar languages For this danger proceedeth from nothing but from the false pretense of absolute and infallible authority in the Church which is indeed limited by the truth of that Christianity whereupon the Church is grounded and for the maintenance whereof it subsisteth For though this pretense may be a mean to contain simple people in obedience to any thing which shall be imposed so long as they know not any thing better that they ought to have yet if conscience be once awaked with reasons convincing that the authority instituted by God in his Church is abused to the prejudice and hinderance of the salvation of Gods people it is no marvail either that they should neglect all their interest of this world to seek themselves redress or that they should mistake themselves in seeking it and think the redress to be the destroying of all authority in the Church So that the preventing of danger by the necessary reformation of abuses in Church maters must not be thought to consist in pretenses as inconsistent with the common good of the Churches as with the truth of Christianity But in submitting to those bounds which the grounds of Christianity evidently establisheth And which unlesse Christianity make people more untractable then all the rudenesse which they are born and bred with makes barbarous Nations and wilde Beasts the sense of those mischiefs which difference of Religion hath brought in and maintained in Christendome must needs have disposed them to imbrace and to cherish for the future avoiding of the same In the next place supposing the Eucharist as the rest of the service to be celebrated in a language vulgarly understood we are to debate whither the Eucharist require Communion or whether the private Masses now allowed and countenanced in the Church of Rome be of the institution of our Lord and his Apostles Nor shall I need to use many words to free the term of private Masses from the exception which is sometimes made That all Masses are publick actions of the Church repeating the Sacrifice of Christ crucified to the benefit of his Church For seeing the term of a private Mass signifieth a thing visible The celebration of that Eucharist whereof no body but the Priest that consecrates it doth communicate I ask no man leave to use the term signifying no more by it but putting the rest to debate whither as de facto in the Church of Rome so de jure according to the institution of our Lord and his Apostles the sacrifice of Christ crucified is and ought to be either repeated or represented and commended by celebrating the Eucharist so as no body but the Priest that consecrates to communicate or whether the institution of our Lord require that Christians communicate in the Eucharist which they celebrate A dispute wherein nothing that is said in the Scripture concerning the order and practice of our Lord and his Apostles can leave any doubt For though there may be mention of celebrating the Eucharist where there is no mention of communicating in it which is an argument meerly negative not from the Scripture but from this or that Scripture and of no consequence to say S. Paul 1 Cor. XIV 14-17 1 Tim. II. 1-6 mentioneth the celebration of the Eucharist not mentioning any Communion therefore no body did communicate yet are we farr from the least inckling of any circumstance to show that there was this Sacrament celebrated when there was none but he that consecrated it to communicate Nay if we regard the institution Do this in remembrance of me referring as much to take eat and drinke as to the blessing or thanksgiving whereby I have showed that our Lord did consecrate If we regard S. Paul affirming that the bread which we bless and the cup which we drinke is the communion of the body and blood of Christ 1 Cor. X. 16. and reproving the Corinthians because the rich prevented the poor and suffered them not to communicate in their Oblations out of which the Eucharist was consecrated as I showed afore We shall be bold to conclude that so farr as appears by the Scripture all that did celebrate did communicate as all that assisted did celebrate if that be true which I proved afore that the Prayers of the Congregation is that which consecrates the Eucharist to wit supposing Gods Ordinance The same appears by Justine Martyr and other the ancientest Records of the Church that describe this office But I canot better express the sense of the Church in this point then by alleging the decretall Epistles of the Popes before Innocent the I. or his Predecessor Syricius which being forged by Isidore Mecater some DCC years after Christ as hath been discovered by men of much learning do notwithstanding contain this Rule that he who communicates not be not admitted to the service of the Church Which he that forged them would never have fathered upon the ancient Popes had it not been evident to all that were seen in the Canons of the Church that it was of old a mater of censure to be present at celebrating the Eucharist and not to communicate in it A thing evident enough by many Canons of Councils yet extant and foisted into those decretals to no other purpose but to make men believe in after ages that those Canons were made to prosecute and to bring to effect those things which the Popes had decreed afore as if their authority had been always the same as it was at the time of this forgery Now it is well enough known what pretenses have been made and what consequences drawn from the speculation of the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross repeted or represented by this Sacrament to perswade Christendom that the benefit thereof in remission of sinnes and infusion of grace and all the effects of Christs Passion is derived upon Gods
for poor soules that they receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist They who depart from the Church that they may minister the Sacraments on such grounds and to such effects as the Church allowes not incurre the nullities and sacriledges which departing from the Church inferreth But if beside the Faith of the Church the authority of the Church be supposed to the effect of the Sacraments how shall the Sacraments be Sacraments though ministred upon profession of the true Faith where no authority of the Church can be pretended for the ministring of them Or where it can onely be pretended but is indeed usurped and void Posterity will never forget that there are in a Land inhabited by Christians called England Country Parishes in which the Sacraments have not been ministred for so many years as the order of the Church of England hath been superseded by the late warre If the Word and Sacraments be the marks of the Church what pretense for a Church where there is indeed a pretense of the Word though no presumption that it is Gods but of Sacraments not so much as a pretense What hath the rest of England deserved of the Congregations or of the Presbyteries that they should be left destitute of the meanes of salvation because they cannot see reason to be of Congregations or Presbyteries Lay men preach and Lay men go to Church to hear them preach because they cannot preach themselves at home to their families The horror of profaning the Sacraments of the Church by Sacriledge is yet alive to make them tremble still at usurping to celebrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist But will those Lay men that preach answer for the Lay mens soules to whom they preach that they have sufficient means of salvation by hearing them preach being of no Church that might answer that it is Gods Word which they preach ministring no Sacraments for a mark of the Church Is it possible a Christian should hold himself able to preach who holds not himself able to baptize Or is it the appetite of devouring consecrated goods that insnares men to preach who when it comes to baptizing had rather let innocent soules perish then own the authority of the Church which inables every Christian to baptize in case of necessity because they know they usurp the office of preaching without authority from the Church It is I that have said that a Lay man may be authorized to preach by the Church And I believe still I said true in it But shall I therefore answer for him that preacheth without authority from the Church Should he preach by authority from the Church there were presumption for his hearers that it is the Word of God which the Church authorizeth When he preacheth without authority from the Church shall he not answer for the soules whom he warrants salvation by his preaching without Church or Word or Sacraments But these are not the Godly Those that know themselves such are thereby authorized to retire themselves into Congregations that they may injoy the purity of the Ordinances It is then mens Godlinesse that inables them to forsake the Church and betake themselves into Congregations And indeed I know an Oxford Doctor who to prove himselfe no Schismaticke for it hath alledged that he can be no Schismatick because he knowes himself to be Godly and to have Gods Spirit I deny not that he hath alledged other reasons why he is no Schismaticke the ground whereof I considered afore But what Quaker could not have alledged the Spirit of God as well as he And did not he who pretends himself Christ alledge reasons for it as well as pretend the Spirit A nice mistake it is to imagine that a Christian is to accept the Scriptures for the Word of God because the Spirit of God assures him that so they are For of a truth untill the Spirit of God move him to be a Christian he accepteth them not for such When it doth he is moved so to accept them by the Spirit of God as by the effective cause But for reasons which though contained in the Scriptures yet were they not visibly true before a man can accept the Scriptures for the Word of God he could never so accept them by Gods Spirit Unlesse we can imagine the virtue of Gods Spirit not to depend upon the preaching of his Gospel which I suppose onely Enthusiasts do imagine Nor doth the Spirit of God distinguish to any Christian the Apochrypha from Canonicall Scripture but by such meanes as may make the difference visible No more doth it assure him that he is a good Christian but upon the knowledge of such resolutions and actions wherein Christianity consisteth If it be requisite to make a man no Schismatick that it be not his own fault that he is not of the Catholicke Church If he perswade himselfe upon unsufficient reasons that there is no such thing by Gods Law as the visible body of a Catholick Church Just it is with God to leave such a one to thinke it Gods Spirit that assures him a godly man being a Schismatick It is not therefore supposition of invisible godlinesse that can priviledge men to withdraw themselves from the Church into Congregations supposing such a thing as a Catholicke Church The purity being invisible but the barre to it separation from Gods Church visible the Ordinances for which they separate will remaine their own Ordinances not Gods The Presbyterians sometimes pleade their Ordination in the Church of England for the authority by which they ordaine others against the Church of England to doe that which they received authority from the Church of England to doe provided that according to the order of it A thing so ridiculously senselesse that common reason refuseth it Can any State any society doe an act bâ— virtue whereof there shall be right and authority to destroy it Can the Ordination of the Church of England proceeding upon supposition of a solemne promise before God and his Church to execute the ministery a man receiveth according to the Order of it inable him to doe that which he was never ordained to doe Shall he by failing of his promise by the act of that power which supposed his promise receive authority to destroy it Then let a man obtaine the kingdome of heaven by transgressing that Christianity by the undertaking whereof he obtained right to it They are therefore meere Congregations voluntarily constituted by the will of those all whose acts even in the sphere of their ministery once received are become voide by theire failing of that promise in consideration whereof they were promoted to it Voide I say not of the crime of Sacrilege towards God which the usurpation of Core constituteth but of the effect of Grace towardes his people For the like voluntary combining of them into Presbyteries and Synodes createth but the same equivocation of wordes when they are called Churches to signify that which is visible by their usurpation in point of fact
knowledge as to think himselfe fit to recall the Lawes of his Country and give new Laws to the Church of God in it is not ashamed to admit that the reason why the Idolatries of Israelites were so odious to God was because he had not commanded them by the Scriptures As if God had never forbade them to worship Idols by the Scriptures For otherwise he could not have inferred by the words of the Prophet that a Christian ought to do nothing without a Text of Scripture to warrant it much lesse to admit any Law of the Church without such evidence Which had it been granted him with power to give the Church such Laws he could not have proceeded without demanding this exception that those which Cartwright should make without any such warrant might be counted godly and religious but these which the Church superstitious CHAP. XXVII Why it was death to transgress the determinations of the Jews Consistory and what power this argueth in the Church A difference between the authority of the Apostles and that of the Church The being of the Church to the worlds end with power of the Keyes makes it not infallible Obedience to Superiors and the Pillar of truth inferre it not IT will not be more difficult to show how the true sense of all those Scriptures which are alleadged towards the infallibility of the Church concurs to make good the terms upon which I have resolved the dispute in hand For having showed that the Law of Moses was given the Jews for the condition of holding the land of promise they ruling as well their civil communion as the service they tendred to God according to it I will demand but one thing more from the general experience of all civill people which is this That no form of Laws can be propounded to any community of men whatsoever so as to serve it without further determining and limiting of such things as time and the occurrences of time shall discover to be undetermined by that Law and therefore questionable So that Moses Law though given by God who foresaw whatsoever could become questionable concerning the mater of his Law yet because given for the civil Law of the people must needs be given liable to want such limitations as the occurrences of time should make requisite Neither can the truth hereof be better evidenced then by showing the course which God by the Law hath taken for the ending of all such disputes arising upon the Law I do therefore not onely grant but insist upon this that the power established by the law of Deut. XVII 8 -12 extendeth to all maner of debates arising upon occasion of any recept of Moses Law and to the determining of them by limiting those things which the leter of the Law had not expressed I do likewise grant that death is allotted for a penalty to whosoever should not conform to any such determination and the practice of the Law according to it And I do find so much reason for it that I do not understand how possibly that people should subsist and by consequence the Law which made them that people in practice of it without such a provision as this An opinion of the intent and meaning of God in the practice of any precept being sufficient to divide that people into parties not to be reconciled but by the voice of God either upon the occasion or by the Law warranting the sentence of those whom he authorizeth to declare what he requireth of his people Setting aside for the present to dispute whether it be the Priests alone or the Priests with the chiefe of the People in whom this Power is vested by the Law as for the present I dispute not who the persons are in whom the power of Church maters rests in behalf of the Church it is plainly by this Law a capitall crime to teach and do contrary to what the publick Power of that People should determine concerning the intent and practice of any Precept of that Law And therefore accordingly I grant insist that in the new Israel of God according to the Spirit which is the Church of Christ there is and ought to be a Power of putting out of the fellowship of the same any man that shall not stand to the resolution which legally is able to conclude it For without such a Power it cannot be imagined how the unity thereof should subsist seeing that there can be no community in which debates shall not arise about those things wherein they communicate I grant further and insist that he who is justly put out of the Church though meerly for violating the unity thereof by disobeying that just order which unites it is thereby condemned to the death of the world to come As he that teaches and does contrary to the sentence of that power that concludes the Synagogue is put out of this Notwithstanding as many other crimes besides this are capitall by the law of Moses so there be many other causes both of faith and of life by which a man forfeits his interest both in the world to come and in the communion of the Church But if any man argue that because a man forfeits the Communion of the Church by disobeying the determination thereof therefore all the determinations thereof are infallibly true and obliging by virtue of Gods Law I shall deny the consequence by virtue of that very Law of Deut. XVII 8 -12 upon which this Argument is grounded For whereas it makes disobedience a capital crime there are other Laws that suppose a breach of the Law even in following the determinations of that power which it establisheth At least if we admit the practice of those Jews that follow the Talmud in those precepts of Levit. VI. 13 -21 Numb XV. 21 -26 which indeed cannot reasonably be otherwise understood How should the Congregation offer sacrifices to expiate that ignorance wherein all were involved but as those that had power to make wrong determinations should expiate that ignorance which the Congregation by following had incursed Neither saith our Lord any lesse in the Gospel though in a mater of greater consequence when having condemned them that transgressed Gods commandment for the Tradition of their Predecessors Mat. XV. 5-10 Mar. VII 8-12 neverthelesse he commands them to observe and do all such things as the Scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses Chair should command Mat. XXIII 2. to wit because the authority of Moses his Chair presupposed the Law of God but extended not to nullifie any part of it In like maner the authority of the Church presupposing the truth of Christianity the profession whereof makes Christians the Body whereof is the Church It is not possible that it should reach so farre as to warrant any man to believe that which those grounds upon which the truth of Christianity stands cannot evidence to be true I say not that the Church cannot determine what shall be taught and received in such disputes as
will divide the Church unlesse an end be put But I say that the Authority of the Church can be no reason obliging or warranting to believe that for truth which cannot be reasonably deduced from the motives of our common faith onely it shall be a reason obliging and warranting to keep the peace of the Church by not scandalizing such determinations thereof as are not destructive to the common faith Much more where the faith is not concerned onely the question is of determining the circumstances of those actions wherein the Communion of the Church is exercised which neither our Lord nor his Apostles have determined shall the disobeying of such determinations be the violating of that unity which all Christians professe that God hath ordained in his Church And now we have an easie account to give how the Prophets Haggai and Malachi send the Israelites to the Priest for resolution in those things which the practice of that people determined to belong to their office to resolve Because it cannot be doubted that their resolutions depended upon upon the acts of that authority which concluded that people by the Law aforesaid of Deut. XVII 8 -12 Which if not infallible and yet authorized by God to warrant the proceedings of his people it will be no marvail if those that act in dependance on them be authorized to warrant the people though further from being infallible To come now to those things that are alleadged to be said of the Apostles and of the Church having already limited the power of the Church not to extend to the faith of Christianity which it presupposeth it will be easie to distinguish it from the power of the Apostles Which though it presuppose the truth of Christianity preached by our Lord as that which they are imployed to introduce and establishâ— yet in order of nature and reason is before the very being of the Church as serving to evidence any truth of the Gospel to them that believe being convicted that they came from God to move them to believe For how can they stand obliged to believe the truth of our common Christianity to be that which God sent our Lord Christ to preach but by standing convict that the Apostles were sent by him to move them to accept of it and thereupon inabled with means to evidence this Commission and trust whereupon the world may safely repose themselves upon the credit of them whose act God owns by the witnesse he yields them for his own The true reason and ground upon which no act of theirs whither by word or writing is refusable by the Church Upon which the truth of things determined by their writings is no more determinable by the Church because the meaning of their words which is the truth sought for is in the words from the time they are said And is it then an unreasonable demand that their Charter He that heareth you heareth me extending to all that falls under their office should not be thought to descend upon the Church indefinitely but according to such limitations as the constitution thereof determineth That is to say not to the effect of creating faith but of preserving peace and unity in the Communion of the Church Not prejudicing neverthelesse that force of evidencing the truth of Christianity and the meaning of the Apostles writings which I have showed to be in the testimony of the Church not by any authority it hath from God but from that conviction which the testimony of such a body of men inferreth I shall not therefore deny that he who heareth or refuseth their successors heareth and refuseth God if that which they would be heard in be within the bounds of that power which God hath assigned them but is not the same that he assigned the Apostles But I shall utterly deny that it is by virtue of these words which were spoken by our Lord at such time as he had not declared whither they should have successors or not For there is very great appearance that they themselves after this expected to see the worlds end and the coming of Christ When the Apostles Mat. XXVI 3. inquire of our Lord When shall these things come to passe And what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the worlds end Though our Lord by this answer distinguisheth the time of the destruction of Jerusalem from the end of the world yet by the question there is no appearance that the Apostles did so distinguish before his answer And when his answer contains That this generation shall not be over till all these things come to passe and that not only after he had declared the destruction of Jerusalem but his coming and the end of the world Mat. XXIV 14 -23-29-34 it appeareth that those things which he declares shall forerun the worlds end were to begin before that generation were out when to end being not thought sit then to be said If this interpretation of Grotius which makes good the leter best suffer contradiction yet is it evident by S. Pauls Epistles 1 Cor. XV. 51 52. 2 Cor. V. 11-44 2 Thes IV. 15. 17. that he was not certificed but that the coming of Christ to judgement should be during his time In which S. Iohn by the Apocalypse was more fully informed If these things be true the obedience due to the Apostles successors cannot stand by virtue of this command given when it was not declared whither they were to have successors or not But by those Scriptures whereby it may appear so farre as in due place it shall appear whither or no and upon what terms the Apostles left their Authority with successors which when it appears then by consequence of reason it will be inferred from these words that who hears or refuses them hears or refuses God by whom the Apostles were inabled to leave such part of their power with successors Neither will it be strange that I allow not any Councill in which never so much of the authority of the present Church is united to say in the same sense and to the same effect as the Synode of the Apostles at Jerusalem It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us Though I allow the overt act of their assembling to be a legall presumption that their acts are the acts of the Holy Ghost so farre as they appear not to transgresse those bounds upon which the assistance of the Holy Ghost is promised the Church For as for the Apostles I have showed before that they had the Holy Ghost given them not onely to preserve them in the truth of the common profession of Christians but to reveal unto them the true sense of the old Scriptures according to the Gospell which they preached though that grace was common to many more besides the Apostles not to all Christians upon which depended the resolution of the point then in debate Besides I do not intend to depart from that observation which I have made in another place that we find