near the Age of the Apostles contrary Traditions touching the Observation of Easter from which we must conclude that either the Matter of Fact of one side or the other as it was handed down was not true or at least that it was not rightly understood A Tradition concerning the Use of the Sacraments being a visible thing is more likely to be exact than a Speculation concerning their Nature and yet we find a Tradition of giving Infants the Communion grounded on the indispensible necessity of the Sacrament continued a thousand years in the Church A Tradition on which the Christians founded their Joy and Hope is less like to be changed than a more remote Speculation and yet the first Writers of the Christian Religion had a Tradition handed down to them by those who saw the Apostles of the Reign of Christ for a thousand year upon Earth and if those who had Matters at the second hand from the Apostles could be thus mistaken it is more reasonable to apprehend greater Errors at such a distance A Tradition concerning the Book of the Scriptures is more like to be exact than the Exposition of some Passages in it and yet we find the Church did unanimously believe the Translation of the 70. Interpreters to have been the effect of a miraculous Inspiration till St. Jerome examined this Matter better and made a New Translation from the Hebrew Copies But which is more than all the rest it seems plain That the Fathers before the Council of Nice believed the Divinity of the Son of God to be in some sort Inferior to that of the Father and for some Ages after the Council of Nice they believed them indeed both equal but they consider these as two different Beings and only one in Essence as three Men have the same humane Nature in common among them and that as one Candle lights another so the one flowed from another and after the fifth Century the Doctrine of one individual Essence was received If you will be farther informed concerning this Father Petua will satisfy you as to the first Period before the Council of Nice and the Learned Dr. Cudworth as to the second In all which particulars it appears how variable a thing Tradition is And upon the whole Matter the examining Tradition thus is still a searching among Books and here is no living Judg. XII If then the Authority that must decide Controversies lies in the Body of the Pastors scattered over the World which is the last Retrenchment here as many and as great Scruples will arise as we found in any of the former Heads Two difficulties appear at first View the one is How can we be assured that the present Pastors of the Church are derived in a just Succession from the Apostles there are no Registers extant that prove this So that we have nothing for it but some Histories that are so carelesly writ that we find many mistakes in them in other Matters and they are so different in the very first links of that Chain that immediately succeded the Apostles that the utmost can be made of this is that here is a Historical Relation somewhat doubtful but here is nothing to found our Faith on So that if a Succession from the Apostles times is necessary to the Constitution of that Church to which we must submit our selves we know not where to find it besides that the Doctrine of the necessity of the Intention of the Minister to the Validity of a Sacrament throws us into inextricable difficulties I know they generally say That by the Intention they do not mean the inward Acts of the Minister of the Sacrament but only that it must appear by his outward Deportment that he is in earnest going about a Sacrament and not doing a thing in jest and this appeared so reasonable to me that I was sorry to find our Divines urge it too much till turning over the Rubricks that are at the beginning of the Missal I found upon the head of the Intention of the Minister that if a Priest has a number of Hosties before him to be consecrated and intends to Consecrate them all except one in that case that vagrant Exception falls upon them all it not being affixed to any one and it is defined that he Consecrates none at all Here it is plain that the secret Acts of a Priest can defeat the Sacrament so that this overthrows all certainty concerning a Succession But besides all this we are sure that the Greek Churches have a much more uncontested Succession than the Latins so that a Succession cannot direct us And if it is necessary to seek out the Doctrines that are universally received this is not possible for a private Man to know So that in ignorant Countries where there is little Study the People have no other certainty concerning their Religion but what they take from their Curate and Confessor since they cannot examine what is generally received So that it must be confessed that all the Arguments that are brought for the necessity of a constant Infallible Judg turn against all those of the Church of Rome that do not acknowledg the Infallibility of the Pope for if he is not Infallible they have no other Judg that can pretend to it It were also easy to shew That some Doctrines have been as universally received in some Ages as they have been rejected in others which shews that the Doctrine of the present Church is not always a sure measure For five Ages together the Doctrine of the Popes Power to depose Heretical Princes was received without the least Opposition and this cannot be doubted by any that knows what has been the State of the Church since the end of the Eleventh Century and yet I believe few Princes would allow this notwithstanding all the concurring Authority of so many Ages to fortify it I could carry this into a great many other Instances but I single out this because it is a Point in which Princes are naturally extream sensible Upon the whole Matter it can never enter into my mind that God who has made Man a Creature that naturally enquires and reasons and that feels as sensible a pleasure when he can give himself a good account of his Actions as one that sees does perceive in Comparison to a blind Man that is led about and that this God that has also made Religion on design to perfect this humane Nature and to raise it to the utmost height to which it can arrive has contrived it to be dark and to be so much beyond the Penetration of our Faculties that we cannot find out his mind in those things that are necessary for our Salvation and that the Scriptures that were writ by plain Men in a very familiar Stile and addrest without any Discrimination to the Vulgar should become such an unintelligible Book in these Ages that we must have an Infallible Judg to expound it and when I see not only Popes but even
high had more Heat than Decency in it And indeed all this was so very extraordinary that if She was not acted by a Principle of Conscience She could make no Excuse for her Conduct There appeared such peculiar Marks of Affection and Heartiness at every time that the Duke was named whether in drinking his Health or upon graver Occasions that it seemed affected And when the late King himself whose Word they took that he was a Protestant was spoke of but coldly the very Name of the Duke set her Children all on fire this made many conclude that they were ready to sacrifice all to him for indeed their Behaviour was inflamed with so much Heat that the greater part of the Nation believed they waited for a fit opportunity to declare themselves Faith in Jesus Christ was not a more frequent Subject of the Sermons of many than Loyalty and the Right of the Succession to the Crown the Heat that appeared in the Pulpit and the Learning that was in their Books on these Subjects and the Eloquent Strains that were in their Addresses were all Originals and made the World conclude That whatever might be laid to their charge they should never be accused of any want of Loyalty at least in this King's time while the remembrance of so signal a Service was so fresh When His Majesty came to the Crown these men did so entirely depend on the Promise that he made to maintain the Church of England that the doubting of the performance appeared to them the worst sort of Infidelity They believed that in His Majesty the Hero and the King would be too strong for the Papist and when any one told them How weak a tie the Faith of a Catholick to Hereticks must needs be they could not hearken to this with any patience but looked on his Majesties Promise as a thing so Sacred that they imploy'd their Interest to carry all Elections of Parliament-men for those that were recommended by the Court with so much Vigour that it laid them open to much Censure In Parliament they moved for no Laws to secure their Religion but assuring themselves that Honour was the King's Idol they laid hold on it and fancied that a publick reliance on his Word would give them an Interest in His Majesty that was Generous and more sutable to the Nobleness of a Princely Nature than any new Laws could be so that they acquiesced in it and gave the King a vast Revenue for life In the Rebellion that followed they shewed with what Zeal they adhered to His Majesty even against a Pretender that declared for them And in the Session of Parliament which came after that they shewed their disposition to assist the King with new Supplies and were willing to excuse and indemnifie all that was past only they desired with all possible Modesty that the Laws which His Majesty had both Promised and at his Coronation had Sworn to maintain might be executed Here is their Crime which has raised all this Out cry they did not move for the Execution of Severe or Penal Laws but were willing to let those sleep till it might appear by the behaviour of the Papists whether they might deserve that there should be any Mitigation made of them in their Favour Since that time our Church men have been constant in mixing their Zeal for their Religion against Popery with a Zeal for Loyalty against Rebellion because they think these two are very well consistent one with another It is true they have generally expressed an unwillingness to part with the two Tests because they have no mind to trust the keeping of their Throats to those who they believe will cut them And they have seen nothing in the Conduct of the Papists either within or without the Kingdom to make them grow weary of the Laws for their sakes and the same Principle of common Sense which makes it so hard for them to believe Transubstantiation makes them conclude That the Author of this Paper and his Friends are no other than what they hear and see and know them to be II. One Instance in which the Church of England shewed her Submission to the Court was that as soon as the Nonconformists had drawn a new Storm upon themselves by their medling in the matter of the Exclusion many of her zealous Members went into that Prosecution of them which the Court set on foot with more Heat than was perhaps either justifiable in it self or reasonable in those Circumstances but how censurable soever some angry men may be it is somewhat strange to see those of the Church of Rome blame us for it which has decreed such unrelenting Severities against all that differ from her and has enacted that not only in Parliaments but even in General Councils It must needs sound odly to hear the Sons of a Church that must destroy all others as soon as it can compass it yet complain of the Excesses of Fines and Imprisonments that have been of late among us But if this Reproach seems a little strange when it is in the Mouth of a Papist it is yet much more provoking when it comes from any of the Court. Were not all the Orders for the late Severity sent from thence Did not the Judges in every Circuit and the Favourite Justices of Peace in every Sessions imploy all their Eloquence on this Subject The Directions that were given to the Justices and the Grand Juries were all repeated Aggravations of this Matter and a little Ordinary Lawyer without any other visible Merit but an outragious Fury in those Matters on which he has chiefly valued himself was of a sudden taken into His Majesties special Favour and raised up to the Highest Posts of the Law. All these things led some of our Obedient Clergy to look on it as a piece of their Duty to the King to encourage that Severity of which the Court seemed so fond that almost all People thought they had set it up for a Maxim from which they would never depart I will not pretend to excuse all that has been done of late years but it is certain that the most crying Severities have been acted by Persons that were raised up to be Judges and Magistrates for that very end they were Instructed Trusted and Rewarded for it both in the last and under the present Reign Church Preferments were distributed rather as Recompences of this devouring Zeal than of a real Merit and men of more moderate Tempers were not only ill lookt at but ill used So that it is in it self very unreasonable to throw the load of the late Rigour on the Church of England without distinction but it is worse than in good manners it is fit to call it if this Reproach comes from the Court. And it is somewhat unbecoming to see that which was set on at one time disowned at another while yet he that was the Chief Instrument in it is still in so high a Post and begins
Transubstantiation in spite of the Evidence of Sense to the contrary yet those that feel themselves at ease will hardly be brought to think that they are persecuted because they are told so in an ill-writ Pamphlet And for their Rebellion the Prince that is only concerned in that finds them now to be his best Allies and chief Supports as his Predecessors acknowledged them a Free State almost an Age ago And it being confessed by the Historians of all sides That there was an express Proviso in the Constitution of their Government That if their Prince broke such and such Limits they were no more bound to obey him but might resist him and it being no less certain that King Philip the Second authorised the the Duke of Alva to seise upon all their Priviledges their resisting him and maintaining their Priviledges was without all Dispute a justifiabble Action and was so esteemed by all the States of Europe and in particular here in England as appears by the Preambles of several Acts of Subsidy that were given the Queen in order to the assisting the States and as for their not dealing fairly with Princes when our Author can find such an Instance in their History as our Attempt upon their Smyrna Fleet was he may employ his Eloquence in setting it out and if notwithstanding all the Failures that they have felt from others they have still maintained the Publick Faith our Author's Rhetorick will hardly blemish them The Peace of Nimmegen and the abandoning of Luxemburgh are perhaps the single Instances in their History that need to be a little excused But as the vast Expence of the late War brought them into a Necessity that either knows no Law or at least will hearken to none so we who forced them to both and first sold the Triple Alliance and then let go Luxemburgh do with a very ill grace reproach the Dutch for these unhappy steps to which our Conduct drove them VIII If a strain of pert bolness runs thro this whole Pamphlet it appears no where more eminently than in the Reflections the Author makes on Mr. Fagel's Letter He calls it pag. 62. a pretended Piece and a Presumption not to be soon pardoned in prefixing to a surreptitious and unauthorised Pamphlet the Reverend Name of the Princess of Orange which in another place Page 72. he had reason to imagine was but a Counterfeit Coin and that those Venerable Characters were but politically feigned and a Sacred Title given to it without their Authority All this coming out with so solemn a License has made me take some pains to be rightly informed in this matter those whom I consulted tell me they have discoursed the Pensioner himself on this Subject who will very shortly take a sure Method to clear himself of those Imputations and to do that right to the Prince and Princess as to shew the World that in this matter he acted only by their Order For as Mr. Stewart's Letter drew the Pensioner's Answer from him so this Paper licensed as it is will now draw from him a particular Recital of the whole Progress of this Matter Mr. Albeville knows that the Princess explained her self so fully to him in the Month of May and June 1687. upon the Repeal of the Test that he himself has acknowledged to several Persons that though both the Prince and Princess were very stiff in that matter yet of the two he found the Princess more inflexible Afterwards when Mr. Stewart by many repeated Letters pressed his Friend to renew his Importunities to the Pensioner for an Answer he having also said in his Letters That he writ by the King's Order and Direction Upon this the Pensioner having consulted the Prince and Princess drew his Letter first in Dutch and communicated it to them and it being approved by them he turned it into Latine but because it was to be shewed to the King he thought it was fit to get it to be put in English that so their Highnesses might see that Translation of his Letter which was to be offered to His Majesty and they having approved of it he sent it with his own in Latine and it was delivered to the King. This Account was given me by my Friend who added that it would appear e're long in a more Authentical manner And by this I suppose the Impudence of those men does sufficiently appear who have the Brow to pubtish such Stuff of the Falshood of which they themselves are well assured And therefore I may well conclude that my Lord President 's License was granted by him with that Carelessness with which most Books are read and licensed Our Author pretends that he cannot believe that this Letter could flow from a Princess of so sweet a Temper pag. 62. and yet others find so much of the Sweetness of her Temper in it that for that very reason they believe it the more easily to have come from her No Passion or indiscreet Zeal appears in it and it expresses such an extended Charity and Nobleness of Temper that these Characters shew it comes from one that has neither a narrowness of Soul nor a sourness of Spirit In short She proposes nothing in it but to preserve that Religion which she believes the true one and that being secured she is willing that all others enjoy all the Liberties of Subjects and the Freedoms of Christians Here is Sweetness of Temper and Christian Charity in their fullest extent The other Reason is so mysteriously expressed that I will not wrong our Author by putting it in any other words than his own pag. 62. She is certainly as little pleased to promote any thing to the Disturbance of a State to which she still seems so nearly related She seems still are two significant Words and not set here for nothing She seems in his Opinion only related to the Crown that is She is not really so but there is something that these Gentlemen have in reserve to blow up this seeming Relation And She seems still imports that though this apparent Relation is suffered to pass at present yet it must have its Period for this seems still can have no other meaning But in what does She promote the Disturbance of the State or Patronise the Opposers of her Parents as he says afterwards ibid. Did She officiously interpose in this matter or was not her Sense asked And when it was asked must She not give it according to her Conscience She is too perfect a Pattern in all other things not to know well how great a Respect and Submission She owes her Father but She is too good a Christian not to know that her Duty to God must go first And therefore in matters of Religion when Her Mind was asked She could not avoid the giving it according to her Conscience and all the invidious Expressions which he fastens on this Letter and which he makes so many Arguments to shew that it could not flow from Her are all the
a Generous and Christian Temper can desire In short unhappy Counsels were followed and severe Laws were made But after all it was the Court Party that carried it for rougher Methods Some considerable Accidents not necessary to be here mentioned as they stopped the Mouths of some that had formed a wiser Project so they gave a fatal Advantage to angry and crafty Men that to our misfortune had too great a stroak in the conduct of our Affairs at that Time. This Spirit of Severity was heightned by the Practices of the Papists who engaged the late King in December 1662 to give a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience Those who knew the Secret of his Religion as they saw that it aimed at the Introduction of Popery so they thought there was no way so effectual for the keeping out of Popery as the maintaining the Uniformity and the suppressing of all Designs for a Toleration But while those who managed this used a due reserve in not discovering the secret Motive that led them to it others flew into Severity as the Principle in vogue And thus all the slacknings of the rigour of the Laws during the first Dutch War that were set on upon the pretence of quieting the Nation and of encouraging Trade were resisted by the Instruments of an honest Minister of State who knew as well then as we do now what lay still at bottom when Liberty of Conscience was pretended VI. Upon that Minister's Disgrace some that saw but the half of the Secret perceiving in the Court a great inclination to Toleration and being willing to take Measures quite different from those of the former Ministry they entred into a Treaty for a Comprehension of some Dissenters and the tolerating of others And some Bishops and Clergy-men that were inferior to none of the Age in which they lived for true Worth and a right Judgment of Things engaged so far and with so much success into this Project that the Matter seemed done all things being concerted among some of the most considerable Men of the different Parties But the dislike of that Ministry and the Jealousy of the ill Designs of the Court gave so strong a Prejudice against this that the Proposition could not be so much as hearkned to by the House of Commons And then it appeared how much the whole Popish Party was allarmed at the Project It is well known with how much Detestation they speak of it to this day though we are now so fully satisfied of their Intentions to destroy us that the Zeal which they pretended for us in opposing that Design can no more pass upon us VII At last in the Year 1672. the Design for Popery discovering it self the End that the Court had in favouring a Toleration became more visible And when the Parliament met that condemned the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience the Members of the House of Commons that either were Dissenters or that favoured them behaved themselves so worthily in concurring with those of the Church of England for stifling that Toleration chusing rather to lose the benefit of it than to open a Breach at which Popery should come in that many of the Members that were of the Church of England promised to procure them a Bill of Ease for Protestant Dissenters But the Session was not long enough for bringing that to Perfection and all the Sessions of that Parliament after that were spent in such a continual struggle between the Court and Country-Party that there was never room given for calm and wise Consultations yet though the Party of the Church of England did not perform what had been promised by some leading Men to the Dissenters there was little or nothing done against them after that till the Year 1681 so that for about nine Years together they had their Meetings almost as publickly and as regularly as the Church of England had their Churches and in all that time whatsoover particular Hardships any of them might have met with in some corners of England it cannot be denied but they had the free Exercise of their Religion at least in most parts VIII In the Year 1678 things began to change their face it is known that upon the breaking out of the Popish Plot the Clergy did universally express a great desire for coming to some temper in the Points of Conformity all sorts and ranks of the Clergy seemed to be so well disposed towards it that if it had met with a sutable Entertainment matters might probably have been in a great measure composed But the Jealousy that those who managed the Civil Concerns of the Nation in the House of Commons took off all that was done at Court or proposed by it occasioned a fatal Breach in our Publick Councils in which division the Clergy by their Principles and Interests and their Disposition to believe well of the Court were determined to be of the King's side They thought it was a Sin to mistrust the late King's Word who assured them of his steadiness to the Protestant Religion so often that they firmly depended on it and his present Majesty gave them so many Assurances of his maintaining still the Church of England that they believed him likewise and so thought that the Exclusion of him from the Crown was a degree of Rigor to which they in Conscience could not consent upon which they were generally cried out on as the Betrayers of the Nation and of the Protestant Religion Those who demanded the Exclusion and some other Securities to which the Bishops would not consent in Parliament looked on them as the chief hinderance that was in their way and the License of the Press at that time was such that many Libels and some severe Discourses were published against them Nor can it be denied that many Church-men who understood not the Principles of Human Society and the Rules of our Government so well as other Points of Divinity writ several Treatises concerning the measures of Submission that were then as much censured as their Performances since against Popery have been deservedly admired All this gave such a Jealousy of them to the Nation that it must be confessed that the Spirit which was then in fermentation went very high against the Church of England as a Confederate at least to Popery and Tyranny Nor were several of the Nonconformists wanting to inflame this dislike all secret Propositions for accommodating our Differences were so coldly entertained that they were scarce hearkned to The Propositions which an Eminent Divine made even in his Books writ against Separation shewed that while we maintained the War in the way of Dispute yet we were still willing to treat for that great Man made not those Advances towards them without consulting with his Superiors Yet we were then fatally given up to a Spirit of Dissention and tho the Parliament in 1680 entred upon a project for healing our Differences in which great steps were made to the removing of all the occasions of
the Bp. they do not renounce in it any Article of Faith but only a bold curiosity of the Schoolmen Yet after all it seems they know that this is contrary to their Doctrine otherwise they would not venture so much upon a point of an old and decried Philosophy II. In order to the stating this matter aright it is necessary to give the true notion of the Real Presence as it is acknowledged by the Reformed We all know in what sense the Church of Rome understands it that in the Sacrament there is no Real Bread and Wine but that under the appearance of them we have the true substance of Christ's glorified Body On the other hand the Reformed when they found the world generally fond of this phrase they by the same Spirit of Compliance which our Saviour and his Apostles had for the Jews and that the Primitive Church had perhaps to excess for the Heathens retained the phrase of Real Presence but as they gave it such a sense as did fully demonstrate that tho they retained a term that had for it a long Prescription yet they quite changed its meaning for they always shewed that the Body and Blood of Christ which they believed present was his Body broken and his Blood shed that is to say his Body not in its glorified state but as it was crucified So that the presence belonging to Christ's dead Body which is not now actually in being it is only his Death that is to be conceived to be presented to us and this being the sense that they always give of the Real Presence the reality falls only on that conveyance that is made to us in the Sacrament by a federal rite of Christ's Death as our Sacrifice The learned Answerer to the Oxford Discourses has so fully demonstrated this from the copious explanations which all the Reformed give of that phrase that one would think it were not possible either to mistake or cavil in so clear a point The Papists had generally objected to the Reformers that they made the Sacrament no more than a bare Commemoratory Feast and some few had carried their aversion to that gross Presence which the Church of Rome had set up to another extream to which the People by a principle of Libertinism might have been too easily carried if the true Dignity of the Sacrament had not been maintained by expressions of great Majesty so finding that the world was possessed of the phrase of the Real Presence they thought fit to preserve it but with an Explanation that was liable to no Ambiguity Yet it seems our Reformers in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign had found that the phrase had more power to carry men to Superstition than the explanations given to it had to retire them from it and therefore the Convocation ordered it to be laid aside tho that order was suppressed out of prudence and the phrase has been ever since in use among us of which Dr. Burnet has given us a copious account Hist Reform 2. Vol. 3. Book III. The Difference between the notion of the Sacrament's being a meer Commemoratory Feast and the Real Presence is an great as the value of the Kings head stamped upon a Medal differs from the currant coyn or the Impression made by the Great Seal upon Wax differs from that which any Carver or Graver may make The one is a meer Memorial but the other has a sacred badge of Authority in it The Paschal Lamb was not only a Remembrance of the Deliverance of the People of Israel out of Egypt but a continuance of the Covenant that Moses made between God and them which distinguished them from all the Nations round about them as well as the first Passover had distinguished them from the Egyptians Now it were a strange Inference because the Lamb was called the Lords Passeover that is the Sacrifice upon the sprinkling of whose Blood the Angel passed over or passed by the Houses of the Israelites when he smote the first-born of the Egyptians to say that there was a change of the substance of the Lamb or because the Real saith of a Prince is given by his Great Seal printed on Wax and affixed to a Parchment that therefore the substance of the Wax is changed so it is no less absurd to imagine that because the Bread and the Wine are said to be the Body and Blood of Christ as broken and shed that is his death Really and effectually offered to us as our Sacrifice that therefore the substance of the Bread and Wine are changed And thus upon the whole matter that which is present in the Sacrament is Christ Dead and since his death was transacted above 1600. years ago the reality of his presence can be no other than a Real offer of his death made to us in an instituted and federal symbole I have explained this the more fully because with this all the ambiguity in the use of that commonly received phrase falls off IV. As for the Doctrine of the Ancient Church there has been so much said in this Enquiry that a Man cannot hope to add any new discoveries to what has been already found out therefore I shall only endeavour to bring some of the most Important Observations into a narrow compass and to set them in a good light and shall first offer some general Presumptions to shew that it is not like that this was the Doctrine of the Primitive times and then some Positive proof of it 1. It is no slight Presumption against it that we do not find the Fathers take any pains to answer the Objections that do naturally arise out of the present Doctrine of the Church of Rome these Objections do not arise out of profound study or great learning but from the plain dictates of common sense which make it hard to say no more for us to believe that a Body can be in more places than one at once and that it can be in a place after the manner of a spirit that Accidents can be without their subject or that our senses can deceive us in the plainest cases We find the Fathers explain some abstruse difficulties that arise out of other Mysteries that were less known and were more Speculative and while they are thought perhaps to over-do the one it is a little strange that they should never touch the other but on the contrary when they treat of Philosophical matters they express themselves roundly in opposition to those consequences of this Doctrine whereas since this Doctrine has been received we see all the speculations of Philosophy have been so managed as to keep a reserve for this Doctrine So that the uncautious way in which the Father 's handled them in proof of which Volumes of quotations can be made shews they had not then received that Doctrine which must of necessity give them occasion to write otherwise than they did 2. We find the Heathens studied to load the Christian Religion with all the