in it no sooner I have heard it has been the wish of some Great Divines but their own Employments hindred them from Effecting it and it might have been expected that it should have moved somebody to have attempted it upon that very account because they desired it For since the Gift of Tongues is ceased and those Inspired Linguists have been long ago silenced Translation is none of the worst ways of supplying that absent Grace neither can it be accounted beneath any man by his Industry to retrieve a departed Miracle I could wish he had come forth in all the Ornaments of our Language as he did at first in those of his own Those Ceremonies of Speech though in themselves not absolutely necessary and add not much to the Substance yet they contribute not a little to the Decency and pleasing part of an Author for there is a Delightful Prospect arising from the Agreeable Mixture of the Colours of Language without which a Book is never the less solid but with which it is much more perswading However he appears the more in his own Dimensions the thinner his Garments are and the closer they sit about him I shall make no Apology for the Author because I know nothing in him that needs it unless some should mistake some of his expressions about Episcopacy Where if he has let fall any thing that may offend he has these two things at least for his excuse First that he lived under an external constitution of a Church that did not exercise that way of Government Secondly he himself tells us those that he mentions were only such who were of the Popish Communion and only as such he uses them I shall not detain the Reader any longer from the Book it self only I am to desire him that whatsoever faults he finds in the Preface may not be imputed any further to the Book it self For the more mistakes there are in it the more proper it is for that Perfect Piece it is set before as the Errors of the Church of Rome had no small share in the occasion of our Religion and may in some sense be stiled The Preface to the Reformation The Epistle Dedicatory of the Author To the Right Honourable The MARQUESS of RUVIGNY Lieutenant-General of His Majesties Armies AND General Deputy of the Protestants in FRANCE MY LORD MY first thoughts after I had read the Books of the Prejudices were not to write any Answer to it For besides that I saw in that Book nothing else but the same Accusations from which our Fathers and we have already been frequently justified and that moreover they were wrote there in so extreamly passionate and invenomed a stile for my own particular I did not think my self bound to follow every where those persons who seem to make it their design to load me with the number of their Volumes affecting to take me for a Party in all the Works that they daily publish and even in those that are most remote from the chief Subject of our Controversy Yet when I perceived the loud Out-cries that these Gentlemen and their followers made about their Prejudices to draw the applause of the World to themselves as if they had silenced us and our Reformation remained over thrown under the weight of their Victory I judged it necessary to enter upon this new labour and the deference that I had for those who exhorted me to undertake it has brought forth this Treatise that I now give to the publick Those who shall take the pains to read it will find that I have not meerly tied my self to the Book that I confute but that to save my self the labour of doing it at twice I have considered the matter in its first Principles and examinëd it in its just extent that I might be the better able to judge of it I acknowledg the Subject Treated on required more Learning readiness and leasure then I was master of but it may be also they will find in the plain and natural way wherein I have handled it something more easy then if I had employed more Art and Meditation in it It is this makes me hope that when I shall not fully have answered the expectations of those who have engaged me in this work yet they will not read this Defence without some satisfaction However it be My Lord I take the boldness to present it to you and to entreat the favour of you to receive it as a token of the acknowledgment that I have for so much goodness as you have testified towards me I am perswaded that those of our Communion in this Kingdom will very heartily consent that my weak pen should also express the sentiments that they all have of your person and of the cares that you take to uphold their common interests I will also affirm that your Merit is so generally acknowledged that when nothing shall be disputed but the just praises that are due to your prudence to the wisdom that appears throughout your whole Conduct to the inviolable Principles of Honour and Justice that are the perpetual Rules of your Actions and in a word to the great and solid Vertues that you practise with such exactness they can assure themselves that there will be no difference about that between those of the one and the other Communion But all those Qualities that they take notice of in You how Rich and Resplendent soever they are even in the eyes of those who are destitute of them would be nothing else but false dazling light if they were not accompanied with real Piety which only gives a value to all the Moral Virtues You are not ignorant My Lord you in whom we saw it but a few Months ago how your Soul ready to take its flight trembled and remained confounded in the view of all that humane Righteousness and that you could find no rest in your Spirit any where else then in the bosom of Religion and Piety This alone was that which gave you the Tranquillity of Soul which taught all those who had the honour to come near your Bed after what manner a good man who could rest assured of Gods Mercy and the Grace of Jesus Christ might look Death in the Face It is this that has yet prolonged your days or to speak better that has restored Life to you by an extraordinary blessing of heaven little different from that which Hezechias heretofore received as the fruit of his humiliation and prayer Continue MY LORD to lay out that life which has been given you again in the service of God and in the employments to which your calling engages you and of which you have so great an account to render Those employments are certainly difficult and if I may take the boldness to say it they are oppressing through their quality through their numbers and through the accidents that either accompany or follow them But he who has called you to them will give you ability to discharge
Scriptures And upon another occasion Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of Eternal Life And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God If those of the Church of Rome were accustomed to the reading of the Holy Scripture they would find the proofs of this Truth in a thousand places but the far greatest part of our Controversies come from the neglect they have of that Divine Book and that neglect it self is one fruit of that excessive confidence they have in their Guides The End of the First Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE SECOND PART Of the Justice of the Reformation CHAP. I. That our Fathers could not expect a Reformation either from the hands of the Popes or from those of the Prelats WE may now methinks suppose it evident and proved That our Fathers had a right and were bound to examine by themselves the matters of Religion and not to refer themselves absolutely to the Conduct and Authority of their Prelats But from thence it manifestly follows that they had a right to Reform themselves For since they could examine only in order to discern the good from the bad and the true from the false who can doubt that they having a right to make that discernment would not also have had a right to reject that which they should have found to have been contrary to or alienated from Christianity which is precisely that which is called Reformation I acknowledge that it yet remains to be inquired into whether those things which they have rejected are indeed Errors and Superstitons as they are pretended to be and whether they did not deceive themselves in the Judgment that they made But who sees it not necessary for the deciding of that Question to go to the bottom and to enter upon that discussion which our Adversaries would avoid From whence it may appear as I have said in the beginning that all that Controversy which they raise against us about the Call of our Reformers is nothing else but a vain amusement and that to make a good Judgment of that Action of our Fathers and to know whether it be just or unjust we ought always to come to the bottom of the cause and to those things themselves which are Reformed for upon that the Question doth wholly depend whether they did well or ill Notwithstanding to shew that we would forget nothing that may serve for our Justification and that after the desire to please God we have not a greater then that of approving our selves to our Country-men and in general to all men we shall not fail to make yet some particular Reflexions upon the Circumstances of the Reformation which will more and more confirm the right of our Fathers and manifest the Justice of their Conduct and at the same time we shall answer to some Objections of the Author of the Prejudices That shall be the business of this Second Part. Our first Reflexion shall be on that deplorable State of the Latin Church in the days of our Fathers in respect of its Prelats for its Condition was such that there was no more hope of ever seeing a good Reformation to spring up by their Ministry In effect what could be expected from a Body that had almost wholly abandoned the care of Religion and of the Salvation of Souls which was plunged in the intrigues and interests of the World which kept the People in the ignorance of the Mysteries of the Gospel and in the most gross Superstitions and with which the whole body it self did entertain it self and was found to be possest by Ambition by Luxury and by Covetousness and engaged in the vilest manners and living in almost a general opposition to overthrow of all Discipline They will SEE then what a German Bishop says in a Book intituled Onus Ecclesiae who lived and wrote in the year 1519. that is to say near the very time of the Reformation but one who was no ways Luthers friend as it appears by his writings I am afraid says he That the Doctrine of the Apostle touching the Qualifications of a Bishop is but very ill observed in these days or rather that we are fallen into those Times which he noted when he said I know that after my departure ravenous Wolves will come among you not sparing the flock Where may one see a good man chosen to be a Bishop one approved by his works and his Learning and any one who is not either a Child or Worldly or Ignorant of spiritual things The far greater number come to the Prelateship more by underhand canvassings and ill ways then by Election and lawful ways That Disorder which may be seen in the Ecclesiastical Dignities sets the Church in danger of perishing for Solomon says There is one evil which I have seen under the Sun as an Error which proceedeth from the Ruler when a fool is raised to high dignity It is therefore that I said that the Bishops ought to excel in Learning to the end that by their Instructions and their Preaching they might govern others profitably But alas What Bishop have we now a days that Preaches or has any care of the Souls committed to him There are besides that very few who are contented with one Spouse alone that is to say with one only Church and who seek not to appropriate to themselves more Dignities more Prebends and what is yet more to be condemned more Bishopricks Our Bishops are feasting at their own Tables then when they should be at the Altar they are unwise in the things of God but they love the wisdom of the World they are more intent on Temporal Affairs say it may be that I suffer my self to be carried away by my Passion and that all these clamourous Accusations are but the effect of that Engagement in which we all are set against the Church of Rome But to leave no ground for that Suspicion besides what I have set down in general in the second Chapters of my first Part I will further produce here more particular Testimonies of that Truth by applying them to the Ages of our Fathers I will say nothing of my own head I will make their Authors that are not suspected by them to speak whose passages I will faithfully relate which they may see in the Originals if they will take the pains And as I hope that they will not lay to my charge what may appear to be too vehement in their Expressions so also I not do pretend to impute to the Prelats of these days that which those Authors censured in those of the former Times then on the work of Jesus Christ Their Bodies are adorned with Gold and their Souls defiled with filth they are ashamed to meddle with Spiritual things and their glory lies in their Scurrilous humor and carriage Whence it was that Catherine of
Ministers instead of correcting them severely and repressing them They thought of nothing but their own Interest and not to let slip any occasion that might be offered to heap up money without having any regard either of the Honour of the Christian Religion or of the Salvation of Souls They thought of nothing but how to settle more and more the Soveraign and Monarchical Power of the Pope of Rome where they should have wholly applied themselves to make Jesus Christ Reign in the hearts of men They thought of nothing else but putting a stop to the happy breakings out of those first bright Beams of the Truth which came out of Luthers Mouth and Pen where they should have received them and made use of them to obtain from God a further and greater Light They made it a Fundamental matter to get Luther to recant and not being able to compass that they thought of nothing but how to ruin him by all the ways they could use They raised a strife and process about a matter of Faith of Religion and of Conscience and a process that was unjust and that could not be defended in the very Form of it For what kind of proceeding was that openly to cite a man to appear at Rome who had done nothing but only proposed some Theses to dispute of on a matter upon which there had not yet been any thing defined What manner of proceeding was it to give him a party himself to be his Judge and to declare him a Heretick before ever he had heard him as the Pope did in his Letter to Cajetan to stir up Kings Princes and the People against him and to shew it was his mind to begin to Treat of so weighty a matter with his Imprisonment without any regard had either of the Protestations which he made or of the Reasons he alledged or of his respectful Submissions towards the Pope and his Legat Who may not see in all that an inflexible Resolution always to retain the Latin Church in that deplorable condition wherein it was found to be then and even to make its Yoak heavier if it had been possible So far were they from having any design to Reform it and to free it from those Enemies and Superstitions under which it groaned I am not ignorant that some way to excuse so violent a proceeding one has said That almost at the same time wherein Luther had wrote his first Letter to Pope Leo full of respect and submission he had caused to be Printed two little Books against the Epitome of Sylvester Prieras wherein he spake of Rome and its Bishops in terms extreamly injurious that which says one evidently discovered a wicked and deceitful Spirit that should send forth nut of the same mouth sweet and bitter But all that is nothing else but a discourse of a certain Vlemburg full of falshood and calumnies a sworn Enemy of Luther and his Doctrine For it is manifest that the first Letter of Luther to Pope Leo which is that that is treated of was wrote in the beginning of the Year 1518. when he had not as yet any other dispute then with the Questors and Preachers of Indulgences and that those little Books that Vlemburg speaks of which served for an answer to that Epitome of Sylvester were not wrote till the Year 1520. after the Pope and his whole Court had openly declared themselves against Luther after Luther had appealed from the Pope to a Council and after the Pope had made his Doctrine to be condemned as Heretical by the Divines of Lovain and Cologn which evidently appears from that very Epitome of Sylvester which makes mention of that Appeal of Luther to a Council and from the Marginal Notes that Luther made upon that which also make mention of those decisions of Lovain and Cologn It is then a false report of an Enemy of Luther who not being able to find any thing till then blameable in his Conduct has on purpose confounded those times to render him odious and to justify after some manner a proceeding that cannot be defended They know not how to deny that the violence which they used against him was not openly condemned not only by the common people but by the more wise and knowing Persons themselves He complained says Coclaeus that is to say one of his most fiery Enemies that he was unjustly oppressed by his adversaries whom he openly produced and gained to himself in a little time the favours not only of the simple people who easily believed him and who listned after all sorts of Novelties but that also of divers grave and learned men who giving credit to his words through an ingenuous simplicity thought that that Monk had no other end than defending the Truth against the Questors of Indulgences who as Luther accused them appeared to have a greater zeal for the drawing of Money to themselves then for procuring the good of Souls He adds That the Learned men Poets and Orators defended him and charged the Pretats and the Divines with Covetousness Pride Envy Barbarousness and Ignorance saying that they only persecured Luther for his Learning because he appeared to be more Learned than themselves and more free in speaking the Truth against the cheats and impostures of Hypocrites Some time after that Luther had appealed from the Pope to a Council the Emperour Maximilian dyed which obliged Leo to send Charles Miltit into Germany in the Quality of his Nuntio He presented a golden Rose to the Elector of Saxony which the Pope had sent him as a Token of his particular Friendship but that Present was accompanied with Letters which were sent both to the Prince and his Council in which the Pope all along requested them that they would give up Luther into his hands as an Heretick and a Child of the Devil Luther has wrote in some part of his works that Miliet was loaden with sixty six Apostolick Breves to cause them to be stuck up from place to place and by that means to conduct him more securely to Rome in case that Prince Frederick should give him up into his hands But all those Breves and all those Letters were to no purpose for that Prince would not leave Luther to so unjust a Passion This oblig'd Miltit to betake himself to other measures He thought that to make up that business he ought to take a course contrary to that of Violence and Authority He would then have some private conferences with Luther to reconcile him to the Pope he highly blamed the lewd conversations of the Sellers of Indulgences and perswaded Luther to write yet once more to the Pope with respect and submission and yet notwithstanding it was agreed that he should impose silence on both Parties and that the whole business should be committed unto some Bishop of Germany as to him of Treves or to him of Saltzburg Luther performed on his part in good earnest all that was agreed on he
of Faith from whom the Holy Scripture it self heretofore and now derives all its force he is a Heretick and many other Propositions of that nature Upon that Luther writes that All those things were maintained only out of a hatred of a General Council and to hinder any one from being heard who should give any succour to the afflicted Church That the Popes Creatures seeing well that they could not hinder a Council began to seek out ways to elude it by saying that the Pope was above a Council and that without his Authority none could either be called or held in a word that a Council had not any Power but that the Pope alone was the Infallible Rule of Truth That it seemed to him then that if the Fury of those men took place there would not further remain any other Remedy but this That the Emperour the Kings and Princes should make use of their Arms against those publick Posts and that those matters should not be decided by Words but by the Sword In the close of which he adjoyns those words which the Author of the Prejudices has related So that his meaning is not to Animate his Followers to Blood and Slaughter as the Author of the Prejudices interprets it but only to draw an absur'd consequence from his Adversaries Hypothesis which is That if he would also take away the only Remedy that was left to provide against the desolations of the Church in assembling a Free Council he would set the Emperour the Kings and Princes in Arms against the Popes and the Cardinals and all the Court of Rome and would reduce things to the utmost extremity I my self will not say that there may not be somewhat too violent in those kind of expressions but after all his design is not to animate his Followers to Blood and Slaughter but only to let Sylvester see the necessity of a Council that might judge above the Pope from that inconvenience that otherwise there would remain no other course to the Emperour to Kings and Princes to re-establish Order in the Church then to make use of their compelling power And that further appears to be the Sence because he adds immediately after That the Authority of the Bishop of Rome whether it were of Divine Right or whether it were of Human could not be urged but by the Precept Honour thy Father and thy Mother which in granting him to be a Father puts him under the first Table so that if he should do any thing in opposition to them he might be admonished and even accused by the least of the Faithful Which let us see that his meaning was no other than that which I have represented I confess it were to be wished that Luther had observed more of the mean than he did in his manner of writing and that with that great and invincible Courage joyned with that ardent zeal for the Truth and with that unshaken Constancy that he always shewed there might have been discernable more of stayedness and moderation But those faults which most frequently proceed from Temperament do not take away mens esteem of such when besides them they may see a good foundation of Piety in them and Vertues Heroical throughout as they may discern-to have shone in Luther For they cannot cease extolling the zeal of Lucifer Bishop of Cagliari nor admiring the eminent qualities of Saint Jerom although they do acknowledge too much sharpness and passion in their Style And it may be that there was even some particular necessity in the time of the Reformation to use vehemency of expression the more easily to rouse men out of that profound sleep wherein they had lain for so long a time However it be I had rather come to agree that Luther ought to have been more moderate in his expressions and if the Authour of the Prejudices would be coutented with complaining of the sharpness of his Style he should be also contented for every answer to be entreated that hereafter he will not himself any more imitate that which he condemns in another especially in writing against those who having lived in the last Age cannot have given him any personal occasion to be carried away against them with passion after the manner that he has been in many places of his Book If in the Judgment that he passes on them he would not hearken to Charity he ought at least to hearken to Justice and not to have charged them with foul Accusations under the pretences of having mistaken and misunderstood I place in this Rank that which he furthers forms against Luther in these words There never was any one says he but Luther who durst to boast in his Printed Works that he had had a long conference with the Devil that he had been convinced by his reasons that private Masses were an abuse and that that was the motive that had carried him out to abolish them But common Sence adds he has always made all others conclude not only that he was in an excess of extravagance to take the Devil for a Master of Truth and to give himself up to be his Disciple but that all those who had any marks that they were his Ministers and his Instruments and who had not any lawful Authority in the Church to make themselves be heard did not deserve that any should apply themselves to them or that they should so much as examine their Opinions Behold here Luther a Disciple a Minister and Instrument of the Devil if one will believe the Author of the Prejudices To refute that Calumny we need but to represent in a few words what that business was that he there speaks of Luther following the Style of the Monks of those days who were wont by a Figure of Rhetorick to fill their Books with their exploits against the Devil relates that being one time awakened in the midst of a dark night the Devil began to accuse him for having made the people of God Idolatrize and to have been guilty of Idolatry himself for the space of fifteen years wherein he had said private Masses and that the Reason of that Accusation was that he could not have any thing consecrated in those private Masses from whence it followed that he had adored and had made others adore meer Bread and meer Wine and not the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ He adds that that accusation struck him at his heart and that to defend himself he alledged that he was a Priest that he had done nothing but by the Order of his Superiors and that he had always pronounced the words of Consecration very exactly with the best intention in the World from whence he concluded that he could see no reason to have the Crime of Idolatry laid to his Charge That notwithstanding the Tempter did not fail to reply that those excuses would nothing avail him in that the Turks and the Priests of Baal obeyed also the Order of their Superiours with a very good
the state of grace where the goodness of God had sent the Gospel in declaring to them that they ought to fear being cut off as the Jews from the Covenant of God he addresses himself to the whole body of the Gentiles converted to Jesus Christ Ad totum Gentium corpus adds he And certainly that horrible Apostasy of the whole world which has fallen out since manifestly shews us that this advice of S. Paul was not unprofitable For God having diffused in so great an extension of Countreys almost in a moment the waters of his Grace so that Religion flourished every where within a very little while after the truth of the Gospel was vanished and the treasure of salvation banished out of the Earth But whence could that change come unless from this that the Gentiles were fallen away from their Call and therefore it is that he clearly professes in a Letter to Melancthon that they had separated from all the world Plusquam enim absurdum est postquam discessionem à toto mundo facere coacti sumus alios ab aliis desilire The Author of the Prejudices yet further makes use of an Article of our Confession of Faith to prove the same thing which sayes That we believe that no one ought of his own authority to thrust himself into the government of the Church but that that ought to be done by election while it is possible and while God permits it Which exception we emphatically add to it because it has failed sometimes and even in our time in which the state of the Church was interrupted till God had raised up men after an extraordinary manner to order the Church a new which was in ruine and desolation Grounding himself on these two passages he insults over Monsieur Vigerius the Author of the Discourse in the Book of the Perpetuity of the Faith because he had declared That none of us had ever said that it could be possible that the Church should no longer subsist and that he defied Monsieur Arnaud to shew him one only Author among us who had thought so Before he had expressed such desires sayes the Author of the Prejudices it would have been well to the purpose that he had better informed himself about that which not only some Authors of his Sect have wrote but the Master of all their Authors which is Calvin who sayes a great deal more than that which is contained in that Book of the Perpetuity of the Faith since he looks upon the Church not only as possible to perish but as having effectually done so for many Ages so far as to say that the threatning of S. Paul which he pretends to be spoken to the whole body of the Gentiles had its effect that all the Gentiles had fell from their Call through a general Apostasy that the light of the Gospel had vanished in respect of them and that they had lost the treasure of salvation It is upon this foundation that he builds his Proposition and pretends to make us pass for worse men than the Donatists But all this is nothing else but an effect of the unjust and violent hatred that this Author has conceiv'd against us and Monsieur Vigerius had reason to deny that which he has denyed As the dispute here is only to know what our Hypothesis is upon the point of the perpetual subsistence of the Church it would be sufficient methinks to stop the mouth of the Author of the Prejudices to tell him that he troubles himself to no purpose that we do not believe that intire extinction of the Church throughout all the world which he layes to our charge and that he has mistaken the meaning of Calvin and that of our Confession of Faith for there is no likelihood that he should better know what we believe than our selves nor that he should be a more faithful Interpreter of the sense of Calvin and that of our Confession of Faith than we our selves Notwithstanding to make the Character of the Author of the Prejudices more and more known and what judgement we ought to make of that which he propounds when he speaks with the greatest confidence it will be good to relate here the testimony that Monsieur the Cardinal of Richelieu has given to the Protestant Churches concerning that that they believe and teach upon the subject of the perpetual subsistence of the Church until the end of the world For we might say that he had the Author of the Prejudices in his view and wrote about this matter only to confute him There is not sayes he any point in controversie between our Adversaries and us about which their Confessions of Faith speak so clearly and agree so uniformly as this which I may truly say ought not to be put into the number of the controverted points The Confession of Ausburg which may be said to be as well the Rule as the source and origine of all the other Confessions of Faith of our Adversaries sayes in express terms that the Church ought perpetually to remain one and holy That of Saxony sayes that the Article of the Creed which declares the Church Holy and Catholick was inserted therein only to confirm the faithful against the doubts that they might have of the stability of the Church That of the Switzers does not only affirm this truth but sets down the same reason for it that I my self have made use of here above since God sayes it would from all eternity that men should be saved we must acknowledge this truth that the Church has alwayes been for the time past that she subsists for the present and that she will do so till the end of the world The Scotch holds this Article to be so undoubtedly true that it compares the belief of it to that of the Mysterie of the Trinity saying That as the faithful believe the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost so they also constantly believe the perpetuity of the Church The Flemish professes the same truth and gives the reason altogether founded upon the Regality of Jesus Christ which being perpetual supposes in all times some subjects over whom he must reign The French Confession alone sayes nothing upon this occasion but it is so far from saying nothing of it through the difficulty that they found in this point that on the contrary the certainty which they had of it was in my opinion the cause of their silence She does not therefore it may be speak any thing because she did not think she could doubt of so evident a truth of which her founders have spoke so clearly for her Luther teaches it in terms so express that he makes perpetuity to enter into the definition of the Church as a quality that making a part of its essence is altogether inseparable from it He draws the duration of the Church from an Article of the Creed and the words of Jesus Christ which bind us to believe it saying that it is an
submission and hindring them from entring upon any Examination of the Matters of Religion But blessed be God that notwithstanding all the endeavours they have hither to made on a subject that has exhausted all the subtilties of the Schools the Justice of our Cause which is the same with that of our Fathers has not receiv'd the least prejudice and we can even assure our selves that there has been nothing said the weakness and impertinency of which may not easily be display'd to the bare light of common sence For either those things which our Fathers rejected and which we reject with them are in deed Errors Superstitions and Inventions of men as we believe them to be or they are not If they are not we will be the first that shall Condemn the Reformation and when they shall let us see that on the contrary they are the Truths and right worship that belong to the Christian Religion we shall be very ready to receive them But if in deed they are Errors and Corruptions as we are perswaded they are with what Reason can any man demand by what right we rejected them since it is all one as to demand what right we have to be good men and to take care of our own Salvation We may see then from thence that all those Evasions are nothing else but vain wranglings and that we ought always to examine those Tenets that are Controverted for the Justice or Injustice of the Reformation intirely depends on their Truth or Falshood If we have right at the Foundation they ought not to raise a contention about the Form for to be willing to believe in God according to the purity of his word and to be ready to serve him sincerely are the things to which we are all obliged and which cannot be condemned in whomsoever they are found as on the contrary side to harden one's self in Errors to practise a false Worship and to expose one's self to the danger of Damnation under pretence of observing some Formalities is such a guidance of one's course as can never be Justified It will here be to no purpose that they say that in this Controversy concerning the Justice of the Reformation they do not suppose that we have any reason in the Foundation of it but that on the contrary they have a mind to let us see that we have no right at all in the Foundation since we have none at all in the Form and that they would only say that those things which we call Errors and a false Worship are not so indeed as we imagine them to be since they are the Institutions of a Church that can't Err and to whose Authority we ought absolutely to submit our selves This is in my judgment the course that not long since an Author has took in a Book Intitled Just Prejudices against the Calvinists For he pretends to conclude that our Religion is faulty in the very Foundation because there are Errors in the manner of our Reformation and that those things which we reject as Errors are the Truths that we ought to believe because we ought to acquiesce in the Authority of the Church of Rome But that can never hinder us from coming to a discussion of the Foundation it self separated from all Forms and from all prejudices for when these Gentlemen have reasoned against us after this manner You are faulty in the very Foundation because you have not had right in the Form we oppose to that this other Reasoning whose consequence is not less Valid as to the subject about which it is concerned We have not done wrong in the manner because we have right in the Foundation And when they tell us That which you call our Errors Transubstantiation Adoration of the Host Purgatory c. they are not Errors since we cannot Err we Answer them You can Err because the Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Host the Pargatory c. that you teach are Errors And when they reply You ought to believe that which we teach you because you ought to acquiesce and rest in our Authority we rejoyn again We ought not to acquiesce in your Authority because you teach us those things which we ought not to believe In these two ways of Reasoning it is certain that ours is the more equal the more just and more natural For it is by far the more just and natural that the Judgment of those Formalities should depend on the highest Interest that can be in the World which is that of the glory of God and ourown Salvation then on the contrary to make the glory of God and our own Salvation to depend upon some Formalities It is far more reasonable to judge of the Infallibility that the Church of Rome pretends to by the things that she teaches then to judge of the chings that she Teaches by a pretence of her Infallibility But although these two ways were equally Natural and equally Reasonable they can not deny that that which at first drew nearer to the Examen of the Foundation were not more sure and that all good men who ought to neglect nothing conducing to their Salvation were not bound to enter into it in Order to the avoiding of Errors They Propose on one side for a Principle the Authority of the Church of Rome against which there are a thousand things to be said on the other side we Propose the Authority of God himself speaking in those Scriptures which all Christians receive and which the very Enemies of Christianity respect who will dare to deny that in this Opposition it were not more sure to side with that part which rules all by the Authority of God You may deceive your selves say they in taking that for the word of God which is not so And are not you answer we more liable to deceive your selves in taking that for the Church of God which is not so and in taking those for Infallible who are no ways so There is far greater Reason to hope that God will then assist you with the illumination of his Spirit when with humility you search out the sence of the Scriptures which you are so often commanded to do then when you search them through humane prejudices to submit your Consciences to a certain Orde of Men whom God has never told you that they ought to be the Masters of your Faith After all if they will make use of the Authority of the Church of Rome and the pretended faults of our Reformation as an Argument sufficient to let us see that those things which we call Errors are not really so they can demand nothing more of us then to set down this proof in its order with the rest and maturely to consider it in its turn before we determine our selves But to pretend that that ought to hinder us from considering also the proofs on the contrary side by which we may see that those things that we call Errors are really so this were an injust
of their Alms and he may be seen far oftner in the field with the Souldiers then in his Cloister He ought to be the Father and the Instructer of his Brethren but he is their Seducer and their Tyrant For while he enjoys himself and lives in Pomp and Delights those poor miserable Religious pass away all their days in murmurings and afflictions That Author describes in the same Stile the Lives of the Canons Monks and other Ecclesiasticks and that which he has said does not leave us any more room to doubt that there was in the Church in those days as great and as general a disorder as can be conceived He does not spare the Court of Rome but on the contrary he sets forth livelily enough their excess even to say that that Court is the Seat of the Beast that is to say the Church of the wicked that is the Kingdom of darkness That it is a loathsome pit that devours Riches and is filled by Covetousness That the Law is far from the Priest the Visions of the Prophet and the Councel of the old men That the heads of the Church serve themselves by Simony and Ambition and that in a word the sins of those people are such that they cannot be either concealed or denyed since Rome is become a Gulph of Crimes Where the Pope ought to cry with Jesus Christ Come and you shall find rest for your Souls he cries Come and see me in a far greater Pomp and Pride then ever Solomon was in come to my Court empty your purses there and you shall find destruction for your Souls The disorder of that Court and that of the whole Clergy of those times was a thing so little to be contested that Adrian the sixth did not scruple to acknowledge it in the Memoirs that he gave his Nuntio for the Diet of Nuremberg and which Raynaldus Relates For he gave him an express charge to confess That the Troubles of Germany about the matters of Religion had fallen out by Reason of the sins of Men and particularly of the Priests and Prelats of the Church That the Scripture shewed that the sins of the people came from those of their Priests for which Reason it was as Chrysostome says that when our Saviour would heal Jerusalem he entered first into the Temple to correct the sins of the Priests doing like a wise Physitian who goes to the root of the evil That for many years past abominable things had been committed in the holy See that spiritual things had been abused through the excess of its Injunctions and that all things had been perverted there That the evil had spread it self from the Head to the Members from the Popes to the Inferiour Prelats and that as many as they all were that is to say Prelats and Ecclesiasticks they were come to that pass that for a long Time there had not been any that were good no not so much as one We could produce a multitude of other such Testimonies if we did not hope that unbyass'd persons would agree upon it as not long since an Author in these Times has done in a Book Intituled Motives to a Re-union to the Catholick Church The cause of the Separation says he was the open abuse of Indulgences and the Ignorance Covetousness and the Scandalous lives of the Church-men The Superstition of the meaner sort of people who had not been well instructed the immense riches and riotous profuseness of the Prelats their too great care in Externals in their Magnificence Ornaments and increasing of Ceremonies and little Devotion in the Chief-worship of God the indiscreat zeal of some Brethren who seemed to have cast off all honour for the Master to give it to his Servants The Tyranny that Parents exercised over their Children to imprison them in Cloisters the wickedness of those who contrived false Miracles to draw to themselves the concourse of the People Add to that Politick humane Considerations of some Princes and Kings who had not received from the Pope all possible Satisfaction or who took occasion from thence to cast themselves among a Party of persecuted men the better to Establish their affairs in brief all that which Ignorance Superstition and Covetousness could Contribute served for a pretence to those who would separate themselves to Reform those Disorders The Ground was not only specious but it had been in a manner accompanied with Truth if the Church in those days had been throughout in that miserable condition which we have described and principally so in those places wherein that detestable Separation began Those who separated were aided indirectly by the zeal of some good men who cried out loudly against those disorders abuses and corruptions of manners The people who judged no otherwise then by the appearance suffered themselves to be easily carried away with that Torrent seeing that they did not complain but of those things which they knew were but too true and which the better sort of Catholicks granted Behold then in what a condition the Church was in those days and we may from thence methinks ask all rational persons whither they believe in good earnest that our Fathers ought to have expected a Reformation from the hands of a Clergy which on the one side had so many worldly interests that bound them to oppose it and which on the other found it self so deeply sunk into Ignorance Superstition and Corruption But to urge that matter yet further we need but to set down those just complaints which they had made for a long time touching those disorders and the continual demand that all the World made for a good Reformation at least in respect of manners of Discipline and those most gross abuses without ever being able to obtain it I pass by the complaints of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries which would be but too great if they were compared with those just grounds that all honest men in those days had for them For those two Centuries were famous for wickedness grievous crimes and those who know any thing of History cannot deny it But not to go so far not to say any thing either of the Scandalous Lives of the Popes of that Time or the Wars wherewith they filled all the West or of the Abuses they committed in their Excommunications or of the Baptizing of Bells Wherewith they increased the Ecclesiastical Ceremonies or of the vices which reigned then throughout all the Clergy can they tell us what good effect those smart Censures of Saint Bernard wrought and those of Petrus Cluniensis of Abbot Joachim of Petrus Blesensis of Conrard Abbot of Vrspurg of Honorius of Autun of Bernard Monk of Cluny of Arnoul an English Monk of John Bishop of Salisbury of Matthew Paris of William Durandus Bishop of Mande of Robert Bishop of Lincolne of Francis Petrarch Archdeacon of Parma of John Vitoduram of Dante of Marsilius of Padua and I know not how many others who cried out as loudly
into a inevitable Damnation and to have precipitated others by their Example to consent to the Ruin of the Christian Religion and utter extinction of the Church and that lest they should have been wanting in that respect and blind Obedience that the Court of Rome and its Prelats require of all the World This would be in Truth to set that obedience at two high a price and it would cost us very dear but they will find but few persons of good understanding who will not confess that that would be to push on things a little too far They will say it may be that we ought not also to suppose a thing so much in Question that that prodigious corruption of the Latin Church whereof we speak and those pretended Interests of the Christian Religion and Mens Salvation which according to us obliged our Fathers to Reform themselves without having any regard of the Court of Rome or its Prelats were nothing else but Chimaera's that we our selves have formed at our pleasure or specious pretences that our Fathers took for occasions to separate themselves and that we take after them to defend them with To answer to this Objection I will not say that there is no appearance that our Fathers made use of those motives as a pretence to cover their other Interests with They can scarce know how to imagin any interests interwoven in a business that evidently drew after it a Thousand persecutions and a Thousand afflictions and wherein they were necessarily to go through the most violent storms as the sequel will justify In effect let them say as much as much as they will that Luther was hurried away by his resentments it belongs to those who Treated him with so much injustice to dispute that matter with him before the Tribunal of God who will one day render to every man according to his works But as to our Fathers who had no part in those personal Quarrels they can no ways be suspected to have had an interest of Passion or Animosity I will not likewise say that if our Fathers themselves had had other interests then those which they have set before us which is contrary to all appearance that yet it cannot be said in respect of us that we do not follow them in the True Faith since we have had leasure enough to acknowledge what our Reformation has drawn along with it and what it has cost us But I will only say that I make that supposition only to let our Adversaries see that without amusing us any more with those formalities and those perplexing ways which they make use of continually which are proper for nothing but to defend Errors and to destroy the Church by the Tyranny of those who govern they ought to come to the bottom and to Determine with us those Fundamental Articles upon which we ground the right that our Fathers had to Reform themselves I do not then prejudge any thing by my supposition I explain only the sentiment of the Protestants and the perswasion that they entertain If what they say is not true it is certain that they have had Reason to Reform themselves for without any more Reasoning a man ought always to prefer God and his own Salvation before a hundred Popes and before ten Thousand Bishops We ought then to come to an Examination of those Matters This is what the Author of those Prejudices as hot as he is in his Controversy has been forced to acknowledge For to disintangle himself from an Argument to which he says the whole Book of the Apology of Mr. Daille is reducible and which he represents in these words We ought not to remain united to such a Communion as binds us to profess Fundamental Errors against the Faith and to practise an Idolatrous and Sacrilegious Worship But the Church of Rome binds us to profess divers fundamental Errors and to practise Idolatrous and Sacrilegious Worship diverse ways as in the Adoration of the Host c. Therefore we ought not to remain in her Communion c. He distinguishes between two sorts of Separation one of which he calls simple and Negative which says he consists more in the Negation of certain Acts of Communion then in Positive Acts against that Communion from which we separate The other he calls a Positive Separation which includes the Erecting of a separate Society the Establishing of a new Ministry and the positive Condemnation of the former Communion to which it had been Vnited Upon that Distinction he says That it is to no purpose that the Calvinists say That their Consciences will not any more allow them to be united with the Catholicks sheltring themselves under that Ambiguous Term of Vnion That their Consciences cannot any further hinder them from taking part in some Actions which their false Principles make them look upon as criminal but they would no ways engage them to all those excesses to which they are carri'd out That in fine if it were true that without betraying your Consciences they could not give that honour which we pay to the Saints and their Relicks they ought to content themselves not to give it But that it will in no wise follow from thence that they ought to go about to set up a body apart That it is this latter sort of Separation whereof they accuse us and that it is that kind of it that we ought to justify our selves from And a little lower If says he the Calvinists should make what suppositions they pleased upon the State of the Church of Rome if they should as much as they had a mind to do accuse it of Error and Idolatry it would be enough to Answer them in one word That if those pretended Errors should give them any right to refuse to profess them and to practise those actions which should include them yet they no ways gave them any night to set up themselves against the Church of Rome to anathematize her to set up a body a part and to take to themselves the Quality of Pastors although they had neither Authority nor Mission I do not now meddle with that positive Separation which the Author of the Prejudices makes so great a Crime in us We shall shew in the end that our Fathers did nothing in that respect but what they were bound to do in their Consciences and with the neglect of which they could not dispence without Sin But this we shall come to consider in its proper place it may be enough for us at present to know that with the consent of the Author of Prejudices we may suppose it as a thing indisputable That our Fathers obeying the Dictates of their Consciences had right to resuse to profess those Errors in which they believed the Church of Rome to be entangled and no more to take any part in certain actions that involved those Errors I profess it were desirable that the Author of Prejudices had told us a little more clearly his
lightly to believe the Calumnies wherewith they have laboured to darken our first Reformers and to cease to give himself over to a passionate Spirit that suggests those odious accusations against persons whose lives have appeared pure and intire to a great people who having known and followed them can give a better Testimony of their Conduct then their interested Enemies do Let him Remember what Monsieur Arnaud has wrote to justify some of the Religious of our time whom he accuses to have been Uncommunicants Asacramentarians and foolish Virgins who in all matters affected an Extravagant and Schismatical Singularity That there was a Time in the life of Saint Teresia her self who was the Ornament of these last Times wherein she was decried not only concerning the Faith but concerning manners also That moreover divers have thought her possessed with a Devil and would have her Conjure That after that and toward the end of her life she was Treated as one possessed with a Devil as a Hypocrite and Dissembler and one that had lost all Honour They publickly defamed her in the Pulpits in the Churches and they compared her with one Magdalen de la Craix a Woman filled with a lying Spirit and Famous throughout all Spain for her Forgeries and her Communication with the Devil That they witnessed against her and her Religious things of so foul a nature that they were accused in the Sacred Office and charged with having committed a Thousand Forgeries That the Inquisition was forced to inform against her and her Nuns and that they expected every day when they should be made Prisoners That her Books were seized by the same Inquisition to be censured That her General markt out one of her Monasteries to be a Prison for her That the Popes Nuntio Treated her as a turbulent Woman and a common Whore That he thought to have overturned from top to bottom a new Edifice of the Dechaussez That he used them with the greatest rigour banishing some imprisoning others and generally condemning them as if they had been a People of a new Sect infected with Errors or such an ill life as it was necessary to cut off that course that they might not infect and destroy the whole World This is well nigh the Treatment that they give the first Reformers they have laboured to cover them with reproaches to weaken the efficacy of their Preaching and those very persons themselves that so loudly complain that we load them with Calumnies by so unjust a proceeding are now a days the first that make use of it themselves against us CHAP. VI. A Further Justification of the first Reformers against the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices contained in his Tenth and Eleventh Chapters AS the Book of the Prejudices is nothing else but a confused heap of Objections and unjust Accusations that the Author of that Book has piled up one upon another without Connexion and without Order So I find my self constrained that I may not break off the Connexion of my Subject to break off that of his Chapters Therefore after having answered his third where his Invectives begin against the manners and conduct of the first Reformers I shall dismiss the Examination of his 4th 5th and 6th Chapters where he Treats about the Call of the Ministers of our Communion to my Fourth Part and where he Treats of the Right that we have to a Gospel Ministry and that which he afterwards says in the 7th 8th and 9th Chapters concerning our pretended Schism to my Third Part wherein we shall Treat of our Separation from the Church of Rome and I shall now pass on to the Examination of his 10th 11th 12th and 13th wherein he renews the same personal Invectives against the first Reformers But as those Chapters are composed of almost nothing else but frivolous matters swelled up with Declamatory Exaggerations by Injuries and Passion We shall not think it unfit if setting aside all that in them which is to no purpose or too passionate we set down in a few Words all that that is more Essential in those Objections and that we Answer them also in a few Words 1. Objection is That Andrew Carolostadius Arch-Deacon of Wittenburg whom Melanchton runs down as a brutish Fellow without wit and without Learning who embraced the Fanatical Doctrine of the Anabaptists was the first who had the boldness to assault the Doctrine of the Real presence and to that effect he invented an Extravagant Explication of those words This is my Body saying that by the word This Jesus Christ did not mean that which he held in his hand but that he pointed to his own true Body Answer It is not True that Carolostadius was the first that opposed the Doctrine of the Real presence Bertram Erigenes Rabanus opposed it in the ninth Century when Paschasius spread it abroad Berengarius opposed it in the Eleventh and in the Age of the Reformation it self the Bohemians called Taborites and those of the Valleys of Piemont and Province called Waldenses openly rejected it So that although all they have said of Carolostadius were true yet we have not any particular interest in him and we shall say in respect of him that which Saint Augustine said in respect of Caecilianus Caecilianus is not my Father for Jesus Christ has said call no man Father upon Earth for one is your Father even God but I call Caecelianus my Brother my good Brother if he be a good man but my bad Brother if he be not good Notwithstanding I know not whether that pretended Anabaptism of Carolostadius is not an ill-grounded Accusation into which Mclancthon and Luther himself who did not love Carolostadius might have been surprized as it frequently happens among persons divided in their Opinions at least it is certain that Carolostadius defended himself by publick Writings and that he protested that he was innocent And as to that Explication that he gave of the word This in the words of Jesus Christ it is an Error from the Truth and a false gloss on the Signification of that Word but it is an Error notwithstanding that does not hinder that the ground of his sentiment concerning the Eucharist should not be true and right and how many different interpretations are there of the same word upon which they refute one another amongst the Doctors of the Church of Rome and who almost all say things very remote from common sence 2. Object Zuinglius had already began his Reformation before ever he spoke a word of the Real Presence and Adoration of the Host although he notes in his Works that from that very Time he was perswaded in his heart that Jesus Christ was not really present in the Eucharist But as it is very hard to believe that during all that Time he never said Mass that he never assisted at it and that he never administred the Sacrament that he should not all the while be discovered by those who
have us that we should be with her For in respect of the Lutherans the business is only about a meer Toleration which we give to those among them who desire it with a Spirit of Charity waiting till it shall please God to dissipate their Error But the Church of Rome that calls it self infallible would have us not only to have a meer Toleration for her but that we should make a profession of believing all that she believes for when she separated her self from us she Anathematised all those who did not believe all that she had decided in her Council of Trent The Matters therefore are not equal between the Roman and the Lutheran Communion in respect of us To put them into an Equality it is necessary that the Roman Church should openly put her self into the state wherein the Lutherans are that she renounce the Invocation of Saints Religious worship of Images humane Satisfactions Indulgences Purgatory the worshipping of Relliques the publick Service in an unknown Tongue the merit of good Works Transubstantiation Adoration of the Sacrament the Sacrifice of the Mess the Papal Monarchy the pretension of Infallibility the blind Obedience that she would have us give to her decisions It is necessary that she should acknowledge the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith and manners that she should carefully recommend the Reading of them to the People that she should confess their sufficiency without the help of tradition that she should believe the Authority of that Scripture independent even in respect of us on that of the Church that she should distinctly lay down the Doctrine of Justification and that of the distinction of the Law and the Gospel that she should form a Just Idea of the Faith and of good works and that she should take care to abolish all the popular Superstitions which we behold among them When she shall have done all that with some other things which the Lutherans have done also although she do retain the point of the Real presence after the same manner that they do we shall not fail to offer her the same Toleration which we yield to the Lutherans and the same conditions which we give to them which is that we should not engage our selves to believe that presence that we should always protest against it as an Error and that they shall do nothing to force us to embrace it When the Church of Rome shall be in that condition which I have set down if we do not make her these offers if we do not even make them with all the ardour imaginable we will be very well contented in that Case that they should accuse us of humane Policy and that they should tell us that we are a sort of men without any Conscience Justice and Charity But 'till then we will take God and men to witness that there is not the least equity in those invectives and that it is to oppress our innocency to ascribe that as the Author of the Prejudices has done to an interested Policy or a capricious humour which is but too well founded upon the things themselves See here what I had to say upon the Twelfth Chapter of the Author of the Prejudices It may now be Judged of what force his Accusations are We should after that pass on to his Thirteenth Chapter But as that Chapter is but a sending us to a Book of Monsieur Arnaud's Intituled The Overthrow of the Morals of Jesus Christ by the Calvinists I shall also content my self with referring my Readers to the Answer which I hope to make him It shall suffice for the present to say That the Doctrine of the Saints Perseverance as the Synod of Dort has laid it down is a Doctrine of the Scripture and that all the pretended Consequences which Monsieur Arnaud would draw from it are of the same nature of those which profane Persons draw from all the Doctrines of Religion when they would abuse them to their Ruin CHAP. VIII That our Fathers in their Design of Reforming themselves were bound to take the Holy Scripture alone for the Rule of their Faith IT it now necessary to Examine by what Principle or upon what Rule our Fathers proceeded in their Reformation But before we go any further we shall do well to weigh what the Author of the Prejudices says who has made an express Chapter upon this matter The Argument of that Chapter is framed in these words That the way which the Calvinists propound to instruct men in the Truth is ridiculous and impossible After having entred upon his subject As the matter is saith he about the promise which they make of discovering divers Truths of the Faith to the Catholicks which are in their Judgments obscured and quite altered in the Church of Rome there will be nothing more Just or more natural then in the first place to inquire into the way which they would take to perform it to the end that we may Judge by the very nature of that way what we may justly expect For if it be found that they would engage us in an infinite way and which could not come to an issue there could not be a more lawful excuse to hinder us from hearkening to them nor a more evident conviction of the rashness of their enterprise Behold here methinks Two Declarations of that Author sufficiently express concerning the means which we propound to instruct men in the Truth the one That it is a ridiculous and impossible way and the other That it is an infinite way c. and which can come to no issue for we may well perceive that that Periphrasis of expression If it be found that they would engage us in an infinite way c. made use of in the beginning of a Disputation means that it will be so found in effect and that it is as much as if it had been positively said they would engage us in an infinite way and which has no end there being no other difference between those two expressions unless that this latter is the more plain and that the other has more of the Air of the Philosophical Method of those Gentlemen After that preamble the Author goes on It is true says he that if we will hear them speak upon this subject without any more deep searehing into that which they say we shall have reason enough to be satisfied For they baldly promise to lead us to the Faith by a short an easy and a clear way without confusion without danger of wandring aside and this way say they is the Examination of the Articles of the Faith by the Scripture which is the only Rule that God has given us for the deciding of the differences of Religion and assuring us of what we ought to believe all others being subject to Error This is the Explication of the way which we propose which is to take the Holy Scripture for the only Rule of our Faith He adds But because in a
said in the way of Tradition for all will be reduced to that 1. In the first place it is certain that we ought not to take all sorts of Traditions to be true indifferently since we have already seen that there are some false and Apocryphal so that we must learn plainly to distinguish it by it self the good and the Authentick from the others and to that effect to know certainly the rules by which we ought to make that distinction always remembring that the Authority of the Church of Rome is not here of any use because it is in question and that it is that Authority which we are treating of in that search See here already a no small Confusion for we must for this turn over a great many Books be well read in Histories Pass a great many Judgments which cannot be very easy to a man who will not help himself with the Authority of the Scripture 2. After we have set aside Apocryphal Tradition and it being restrained to the True we must enter upon the Examination of the question that is controverted to wit Whether the Authority of the Church of Rome as it pretends at this day be taught in that Tradition And to this effect he must see whether the Passages that are brought to prove it are faithfully related and for that he must consult the Originals and compare them with the Translations which require a great knowledge of the Tongues or at least as the Author of the Prejudices says that one should referr himself to a sufficient number of fit persons to have no occasion to doubt of the Fidelity of their Relations And as the number of Antient Books is not small that Consultation could not but be long enough 3. He must not forget also to inquire whether there be not diverse ways of reading the Passages that may weaken that proof For since the Author of the Prejudices would have us observe this Precaution to assure our selves of one only passage of Scripture why would he not have it observed to assure himself of the Passages of that Tradition It will therefore be necessary to consult the Manuscripts of Libraries or at least to read the notes which the Criticks have made upon the Books out of which those Passages shall be taken this would be yet a matter of further Labour 4. But must he not also be bound to examine narrowly the meaning of the Passages not to give them too great a Latitude and avoid being blinded with a meer Appearance For if there are in the Scripture as the Author of the Prejudices assures us that the Passages that appear clearly to Contain certain Truths and which do not in Effect contain them are an occasion of deluding those who are too easily led by that Appearance which at first sight presents it self Why must it not be so in Tradition also They ordinarily alleadge that Passage of Saint Irenaeus in Favour of the particular Church of Rome Ad haue Ecclesiam propter Potentiorem Principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est cos qui sunt undique Fideles in qua semper ab 〈◊〉 qui sunt undique Conservata est ea quae est ab his Apostolis Tradâ—tio These words seem clear to the Partisans of the Court of Rome for the establishing a necessity of being united with the particular Church of Rome and living in Dependance upon it and yet if we look a little narrowly into them we may see that they signify nothing less then that which they pretend they signify and that Irenaeus would only say thus much That the Faithfull came from all parts to the Church of Rome by reason of the Imperial power which drew all the World thither and that from thence it was that they all together preserved the Doctrine that the Apostles had left without their having any considerable difference between them That this was the meaning of Saint Irenaeus appears from the Connexion of his discourse wherein he proposes to prove that the Pretended Traditions of Hereticks could not come from the Apostles and his reason is that if they could have come from them they would have been yet found in his Time in the Churches which they had instituted and particularly in the Roman which was in a manner an Abridgment and Composition of all others by reason of the concourse of all Nations to Rome So that to shew that the Church of Rome in those times did not own any of the Tenets of those Hereticks was at once to shew that they were Traditions unknown to all the Churches and by Consequence false and not Apostolical This Example therefore shews us that one ought not to let himself be dazzled by the first Appearances of a Passage but that it ought to be narrowly examined and that as every one may see requires time and is not altogether so easy to be done 5. To carry on that Examination well in respect of the Passages of the Scripture the Author of the Prejudices would that we should carefully consider the like Expressions and contrary Passages to see whether we should not be bound by them to give another meaning to those Passages which we gather He says That Common Sense dictates this Rule and that it is full of Equity and Justice I see not therefore how he can exempt his Catechumeni from it in regard of the Passages of Tradition It is requisite that he should carefully remark the ways of speaking in the Fathers in diverse matters in order to the making them mutually give light to one another It is necessary that he should look after the contrary Passages of the Antients and that he compare them one with another to draw out clear Observations from them But this will be yet further no small Business for it is very well known that there are things enough in the Antients directly opposite to the Pretensions of the Church of Rome 6. But not to detain the Readers much longer upon so clear a matter all the Intricate Perplexity which he pretends to find in the way of the Scripture fâ—lls back again upon the way of Tradition when they would by this without the aid of the Scripture be fully satisfied concerning the Authority of the Church of Rome It is necessary to discern a true Tradition from a false one It is necessary to consult the Originals It is necessary to know the Different Ways of reading passages It is necessary to search out the meaning with great Attentiveness It is necessary to examine the like Expressions and contrary Passages It is necessary to see divers Interpretations of both sides It is necessary to know why the Roman Church distinguishes between points which every Faithful man is bound to believe with a distinct Faith and those which it is enough to believe upon the Faith of the Church It is necessary to Examine that which each Sect that does not acknowledge the Roman Church says against her And after
down to the Council of Trent after which we may say that their separation was full and entire Luther therefore having been excommunicated by the Popes Bull with all those who should follow his Doctrine after the manner that we have seen he appealed to a free Council and proposed the Causes of his appeal in a publick Declaration that he caused afterwards to be Printed wherein with great humility he demanded of the Emperour the Electors the Princes of the Empire and in general of all the Powers of Germany that they would joyn themselves with him in his appeal or at least that they would defer the Execution of the Bull until having been lawfully called and heard by equitable Judges he should be condemned He protested that in case his so just a demand should be refused and that they should continue to obey the Pope rather than God the consciences of his persecutors would remain chargeable before God's Tribunal But those who had already condemn'd him for a like appeal to a Council did not leave off their prosecuting him for all that The Pope did not fail to cause his Bull to be publish'd with great Solemnity he added even in that which they call Coena Domini which is published every year a new clause bearing excommunication against Luther and those of his Sect. And because in his first condemnation he had given him threescore dayes time to recant that term being expired he pronounced a new and peremptory Excommunication against him by which he cursed him and his followers eternally and declared them guilty of Treason and Heresie he spoil'd them of all their Honours and Goods and injoyn'd all Arch-Bishops Bishops Prelates Preachers c. to preach or to stir up others to preach against them in all places Notwithstanding he earnestly solicited as well by his Letters as his Nuntio's the Emperour Charles the Fifth and all the Princes of Germany to employ all their Power and Authority against Luther and his followers Those solicitations produced them the Citation of Luther to the Assembly of Wormes of which I have spoke in the second Part and in the end the Imperial Edict called the Edict of Wormes which banish'd him from all the Lands of the Empire as a mad-man possess'd with the Devil a Devil clothed in humane shape an Heretick a Schismatick This Edict forbad him Fire and Water and the commerce of all the World and ordain'd that after the term of twenty dayes he should be taken and put into a strong Prison in order to be severely punished But besides all this it carried this further in it that it extended to all his favourers followers and complices and that his Books should be publickly burn'd Luther giving way to this furious storm withdrew himself for some time into a safe place under the protection of John Frederick Elector of Saxony and Leo after having excited all that Tragedy dyed in the flower of his age the first day of December in the year 1521. But the hatred of the Reformation did not dye with him he had for his Successor as well in that hatred as in his See Adrian the Sixth who was chosen the eighth of January 1522. After this new Pope had taken possession of his Papacy he sent a Nuntio into Germany and though as we have seen in his instructions he charged him in an express Article seriously to acknowledge before the Assembly of Nuremberg the disorders both in the Court of Rome and in the whole Body of the Prelates and the rest of the Clergy he did not fail nevertheless to charge him also at the same time to denounce terrible threatnings against Luther's followers for so it was that he called those who then embraced the Reformation He wrote with the same Spirit publick and private Letters to the Princes and other States of the Empire who were assembled together and he omitted nothing to stir them up to make use of Fire and Sword and the uttermost violence on that occasion We may see those Letters in Bzovius and Raynaldus and find in them all the characters of an extream passion He uses there divers reasons to animate them taken from their honour and their own interests He sets before their eyes the example of the Council of Constance wherein John Husse and Hierom of Prague were burn'd that of S. Peter in inflicting death on Ananias and Sapphira and that of God himself who made the Earth swallow up Dathan and Abiram He complains of them and sharply censures them in that they had not severely put the Edict of Wormes in Execution and to stir them up the more he assures them that the design of the Lutherans was to overthrow every Humane Order to dethrone all the Princes and to pillage all Germany under a pretence of the Gospel He repeated the same things in his instructions to his Nuntio and after having enjoyn'd him to represent to the Princes all that might move him to extirpate those pretended Hereticks so far as to tell them that they ought to imitate the generosity of their Ancestors some of which had carried with their own hands John Husse to the Stake he concludes with the words of Jeremiah when he prophesied the ruine of the Moabitish Infidels and which this Pope applied against those Christians Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently and who keepeth back his sword from blood He wrote also to John Frederick Elector of Saxony Letters full of heat wherein after having made a bloody invective against Luther and his Doctrine and having exhorted that Prince to abandon him he fiercely threatens him that if he do not do it he should feel the effects of his anger and that of the Emperours I declare to thee sayes he in the authority of God Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ whose Vicar I am upon Earth that thou shalt not go away unpunished in this present world and that everlasting fire shall attend thee in the world to come For we live at the same time together both I Adrian Pope and the Emperour Charles whose truly Christian Edict thou hast contemned which he made against the Lutheran Perfidiousness These Letters wrought but a small effect in the mind of Frederick who was a pious Prince and one that loved the Truth but they did not also work much upon those of the rest of the Princes assembled at Nurenberg and the answer which they made deserves to be set down It contained well near these Articles That they could not execute the Sentence of the Apostolick See against Luther nor the Edict of Wormes without incurring themselves very great dangers That the far greater part of the people had been for a long time perswaded that Germany suffer'd a great many troubles on the side of the Court of Rome by reason of its abuses and that all the world was then fully instructed in it by the Writings and Tenets of the Lutherans That if they had rigorously executed the Popes
Observation on their Story This Distinction that I have of these two sorts of separation is clearly to be found in the Doctrine of S. Augustine He notes both the one and the other in his third Book against Parmenio where he treats of this matter very largely When any brother sayes he that is to say any Christian among those who are in the Society of the Church falls into so great sins that they judge worthy of an Anathema I would have them proceed to his Excommunication if that may be done without any danger of Schism but yet it ought to be done with that charity that S. Paul recommends to us to wit that we should not treat him as an Enemy but as a Brother for you are not called to pluck up but to correct If he does not acknowledge nor correct his fault by repentance he wilfully goes out of himself from the Church and it will be his own will that separates him from the Christian Vnity Our Lord himself said to his servants when they would pluck up the Tares mixed with the Wheat leave them to grow up together until harvest and he gives the reason to wit lest sayes he that in plucking up the Tares you pluck up the Wheat also See here precisely these two separations whereof I speak the one that deprives one of the communion of the Sacraments and the other which breaks of Christian Unity one which is but to correct and the other which goes as far as to pluck up This Father alledges for the same thing the Example of S. Paul who in the Excommunication of the Incestuous person in Corinth did indeed deliver that miserable person to Satan but only for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus that is to say that he depriv'd him of the communion of the Sacraments but that he did not wholly pluck him up out of the field of the Church He alledges yet further what the same Apostle wrote to the Thessalonians If any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother He alledges lastly that which S. Paul wrote to the Corinthians touching the same incestuous penitent that they ought to pardon him Lest Satan should get an advantage over us for we are not ignorant of his devices What means the Apostle sayes he by these words lest Satan should get an advantage over us for we are not ignorant of his devices It is that under the appearance of a just severity he sometimes perswades to a violent cruelty desiring nothing more than to break the bond of peace and charity well knowing that while that bond shall be preserved among Christians he cannot hurt them and that his devices and designs would vanish There cannot be a more perfect example of that first separation given than that of the Donatists in respect of the Church for as I have said already they so absolutely separated themselves from it that they did not own it to be any longer Christian in any manner and therefore it was that they re-baptiz'd all those who came over to their party But we cannot also give a better example of the second than that of the Church it self in regard of the Donatists for although they would separate themselves from the Church yet the Church did not fail to look upon them as Christians and in some manner as Brethren The Donatists sayes S. Augustine are impious in going about to re-baptize all the world but as for us who have better sentiments we dare not even disapprove of the Sacraments of God in a Schismatical Communion In respect of the things about which we agree they are yet with us and in respect of the things about which we differ they are separated from us This approach to us and this separation are not ordered by the motions of the body but by those of the mind and as the union of bodies is made by the continuity of the places they fill up so the union of spirits also is made by the consent of wills If those who have forsaken the Vnity of the Church do other things than those that are done in the Church they are in that regard separated from her but if they do that which is done in the Church they remain as yet in that regard in a common union The Donatists are therefore with us in some things and they are separated from us in some others I cannot here avoid taking notice of the Error into which the Author of the Prejudices seems to have fallen about the meaning of these words of S. Augustine in the second Book against Parmenianus praecidendae unitatis nulla est justa necessitas There is no just necessity to break off Vnion For it seems that he thought that this Maxim regarded all manner of separation not considering that it only respects that of the Donatists which consisted in the breaking the general bond of Christianity and not that which consists in refusing our communion to those who corrupt Religion by their pernicious Superstitions and Errors If he had taken the pains to have read ten or twelve lines higher he had found that S. Augustine had strongly establish'd the necessity of separating our selves from Hereticks S. Paul sayes that Father writing to the Galatians manifestly forbids them to hear those who did not preach Iesus Christ but a falshood and a lye If any one should preach another Gospel to you than what you have received let him be Anathema He would that we should pronounce an Anathema against those who preach to us any thing beyond what we have received He would elsewhere that there can be no just necessity of breaking of unity Who sees not that he must make a distinction and that according to him there is a separation that is good just and necessary and another unjust unlawful and schismatical Although this Distinction is unquestionable yet I shall not fail to produce here a Canon that establishes it out of the very Doctrine of S. Augustine as clearly as we can desire it It is in the Decree of Gratian under the name of Pope Vrban in these terms Some men say that when we excommunicate persons who have deserv'd to be excommunicated we go against the Parable of the Gospel where our Lord forbids us to pluck up the tares out of his field They say also that this contrary to S. Augustine who assures us that we ought not to divide its unity and that we must tolerate the wicked and not reject them But first of all we answer that if we ought not to excommunicate the Hereticks and the wicked S. Augustine would have done ill to have joyn'd himself to the Legates of the Holy Church of Rome and to the other Holy Bishops to excommunicate Pelagius and Celestinus and to separate
Contested and when we alleadge to you the Body of the Pastors Extension Multitude and the other advantages of the Church of Rome we do not pretend to own that the Doctrine of that Church is false or that its Worship is corrupted or to conclude that those Advantages alone would give it the Quality of a True Church though it should not be Orthodox but we pretend only that setting aside the Discussion of Doctrines we can Convince you of Schism by those Prejudices alone which without any further Examination mark out which of the two Communions is the True Church and by Consequence which is false and Schismatical I have already answered Divers Times this Objection but that it may be reviv'd here further in the Minds of the Readers I shall not fail to shew yet farther the Vanity of it and to discover more and more on which side the Fallacy lies I say then that when I suppose in this Dispute that we have Right at the Bottom my Supposition is just and within the Rules of good Reason for I do not Suppose it either as a thing that I have already proved nor as a thing granted to me but as a Matter which ought to be Examin'd and on the Examination of which that Question of Schism and the True Church ought necessarily to depend We would say they shew you without entring into the Discussion of the Doctrine by meer Prejudices that you are guilty of Schism and that you have no Right to be in a Society nor to gather Assemblies And as for me I pretend to shew that that way is Illusory and Sophistical and that one ought to examine the Doctrines in order to know which of the two Communions is Schismatical and which is the True Church To this effect I prove that though the Protestant Party should be despoiled of all those Advantages treated on Provided it have on its side the True Doctrine and Worship and the Church of Rome have it not it has all the Rights of a Christian Society that its Assemblies are Lawful and that its Separation from the Church of Rome is just from whence it evidently follows that all those Prejudices are to no purpose in the deciding of our Question and that all depends on the Discussion of those Points that are in Controversy between us See here the use of my Supposition The Business at present is not to know whether we have Right in the Foundation or not if that were all the Business I would not suppose it at all I would prove it but the Business is to know whether they can by those meer Prejudices prove that our Separate Assemblies from those of the Church of Rome are unlawful But I shew that they cannot because if we have Reason on our side in the Matters that are Controverted our Assemblies are Lawfull notwithstanding those Prejudices In a word we pretend to maintain our Assemblies no otherwise then by the Right that the Foundation gives us but by that Right alone we pretend to maintain them so that when they Contest it with us we run back to the Foundation and we shew them that the Foundation is sufficient to render our Assemblies Lawfull from whence it necessarily follows that they can't treat us as unjust and Schismaticks otherwise then in coming to the Discussion of the Foundation it self When therefore they tell us that to Convince us of Schism they need but to set aside the Discussion of Doctrines it is as much as if they should say that to shew us that we have no Reason they need but to lay aside that Reason upon which we ground our selves The Author of the Prejudices has found this shift to be so Fine and Ingenuous that he has Judged it worthy to be Consecrated to Posterity by one of his Books In Fine if we were to clear this Truth by Examples we need but to repeat here two things which we have justified in the Third Part and which are clear and certain out of the History of the Antient Church The one That in the Time of the Arrians the Body of the Pastors followed Heresy and the other That a small Number of the Orthodox a small Party separated from the Body of its Pastors and spoiled of all those kinds of Advantages did not fail to set up its Assemblies apart and to hold the best Christian Society that it was possible for them to do Those that were Hereticks filled the Churches and as for the Orthodox they met as they could sometimes in the Fields and sometimes even in the Churches of the Novatians As these Matters of Fact are Indisputable and Justified by History we have nothing else to do but to demand of the Author of the Prejudices Whether he believes that those Orthodox were Schismaticks for having so Separated themselves from the Body of their Pastors not only by a Negative Separation but even by a Positive one Whether he believes that their Assemblies were Unlawfull Whether he believes that they had done better to have remained in the same Communion with Hereticks then in withdrawing from them Whether he thinks that the Arrians could have said to them with any Reason That without Entring upon any Examination of their Doctrine they could Convince them of Schism by that Separation alone Whether he believes that those Orthodox had given a very ill answer in saying That since their Separation was only founded on their Doctrine it was by that that they ought to judge and not by those vain and deceitfull Advantages which sometimes follow the Church but which oftentimes Abandon it also and upon which nothing of Certainty can be established The Author of the Prejudices may answer what he pleases but we are at least assured that he can neither condemn the Arrians without Justifying us nor justify the Orthodox without Condemning himself It is Necessary then that we come to agree in this Truth That the Right to be in an External Society and by Consequence to raise Assemblies belong to the truly Faithful only and that if it falls out that the Body of the Pastors teaches false Doctrine and corrupts the Ministry to that degree that it cannot be allowed to the Faithfull to live in Communion with them The True Faithfull remain yet united among themselves by that External Union out of which their Assemblies proceed and that by Consequence they have a Right to meet together and to make up a Body in a visible Communion But they will say If it falls out that generally all the Pastors forsake those pretended True Faithfull whereof you speak Who is there that shall Assemble them they are all but so many meer private men and what Right have those private men to gather Assemblies besides Religious Assemblies are chiefly Instituted for the Preaching of the Word and Administration of the Sarraments and can any ascribe the Right of Preaching and Administring the Sacraments to meer private men Separated from their Pastors When therefore
the External State of that Religion it self had in the times of our Fathers Signs of its Corruption sufficient to afford them just Motives to Examine it Page 23. Chap. IV. That such a Corruption of the Latin Church as our Fathers had conceived was no ways an Impossible thing Page 37. Chap. V. More particular Reflections upon that priviledge of Infallibility which they ascribe to the Church and of its Authority Page 45. Chap. VI. An Examination of the Proofs which they produce to Establish the Infallibility of the Church-of Rome Page 54. Chap. VII That the Authority of the Prelates of the Latin Church had not any Right to bind our Fathers to yield a blind Obedience to them or to hinder them from Examining their Doctrines Page 75. Chap. VIII A further Examination of that Authority of the Prelates and that Absolute Obedience which they pretend ought to be given them Page 85. Chap. IX An Examen of those Reasons they Alledge to Establish that Soveraign Authority of the Prelates in the Latin Church Page 109. The Second Part. Of the Justice of the REFORMATION CHap. I. That our Fathers could not expect a Reformation either from the hands of the Popes or from those of the Prelates Page 125. Chap. II. A Confirmation of the same thing from the History of that which passed in the first Quarrels of Luther with the Conrt of Rome concerning Indulgences Page 142. Chap. III. That our Fathers not being able any more to hope for a Reformation on the part of the Pope or his Prelates were indispensably bound to provide for their own Salvation and to Reform themselves Page 156. Chap. IV. That our Fathers had a Lawful and sufficient Call to Reform themselves and to labour to Reform others Page 166. Chap. V. An Answer to the Objections that are made against the Persons of the Reformers Page 177. Chap. VI. A further Justification of the first Reformers against the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices contained in his Tenth and Eleventh Chapters Page 196. Chap. VII An Answer to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Chapters of the Prejudices Page 222. Chap. VIII That our Fathers in their Design of Reforming themselves were bound to take the Holy Scriptures alone for the Rule of their Faith Page 241 Chap. IX An Examination of the Objections which the Author of the Prejudices makes against the Scripture Page 260. The Third Part. Of the Obligation and Necessity that lay-upon our Fathers to separate themselves from the Church of Rome CHap. I. That our Fathers had just sufficient and necessary Causes for their Separation supposing that they had Right at the Bottom in the Controverted Points Page 1. Chap. II. That our Fathers were bound to Separate themselves from the Body of those who possess'd the Ministry in the Church and particularly in the See of Rome supposing that they had a Right at the Foundation Page 15. Chap. III. That the Conduct of the Court of Rome and those of her Party in respect of the Protestants has given them a just cause to separate themselves from them supposing that they had Right at the Foundation Page 53. Chap. IV. An Examination of the Objection of the Author of the Prejudices taken out of the Dispute of Saint Augustine against the Schism of the Donatists Page 79. Chap. V. A further Examination of the Reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices upon the Subject of our Separation Page 113. The Fourth Part. Of the Right that our Fathers had to hold a Christian Society among themselves by Publick Assemblies and the Exercise of the Ministry CHap. 1. That our Fathers had a Right to have their Church-Assemblies separate from those of the Church of Rome on the Supposition that they were right in the Foundation Page 1. Chap. II. That the Society of the Protestants is not a new Cburch Page 28. Chap. III. That the Ministry Exercised in the Communion of the Protestants is Lawful and that the Call of their Ministers is so also Page 48. Chap. IV. An Answer to the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices about the Call of the first Reformers and the Validity of our Baptism P. 84 The End of the CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS Advertisement THere is newly Published a Book Entituled ☞ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Treatise wherein you have 1. The Divine Auhtority of the Holy Scriptures proved by undeniable Demonstrations and the Cavils of Objectors confuted 2. A Continuation of the Metaphors Allegories and Express Similitudes of the Old and New Testament gradually expounded Parallel wise with short Inferences from each 3. Sacred Phylologie viz. the Schemes and Figures in Sriipture reduced under their proper Heads with a brief Explication of the most obscure 4. A Treatise of the Types Parables and Allegories in the Old and New Testament 5. Plain and Evident Demonstrations that by the Great Whore Mystery Babylon is meant the Papal Hierarchy or present Church of Rome The whole VVork being partly Compiled and partly Translated from the VVorks of many Learned and Orthodox VVriters Ancient and Modern compleating what was intended by the Undertakers in order to explain that difficult part of the Word of God It being encouraged and recommended by divers Worthy Ministers of London as useful for all Students in Sacred Writ Sold by John Hancock at the Three Bibles over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil and Benj. Alsop at the Angel and Bible in the Poultrey over-against the Compter Cassander Consult art de Eccles Luke 22. 25 26. 1 Pet. 5. Bernard in Cant. Serm. 77. Item Serm. 33. Nicol Cusan lib. 3. de Concord Cath. c. 29. 1 Tim. 6. 10 3. Col. 5. Nicolaus de Clemangis de corrupto Statit Ecclesiae Bernard de verbis Evangel Dixit Simon c. pag. 1000. Marsil de Pad Defens pacis Part 2. cap. 20. History of the Council of Trent Book 6. In the Instructions and Missives of the most Christian King for the Council of Trent In the same Instructions and Missives Distinct. 96. Canon 7. Aug. Steuchus De fals Donat. Constantini Froissard Tom. 3. Fol. 147. Angel Politian Orat. pro Sen. ad Alexand Sextum Raynald ad Ann. 1492. ss 27. Decretal Greg. lib. 1. tit 7. Can. Quanto in Glossa Itinerar Ital. Part 2. de coron Rom. Pontif. Raynald ad Ann. 1162. Baron ad Ann. 1162. Concil Lateran Sess 7. 9. in Orat. Paulus Jovius in Philippo 3. †Renvoy signifies properly a simple dismission granted to one that being appealed or called before a superiour Judg requires to be dismissed to the prosecuting of his suit already begun before the inferiour his Ordinary Judge Platina in vit Sexto Decret tit 2. cap. 1. Sext. Decret Extravag lib. 1. De major obed cap. 1. Baron ad Ann. 1076. Platin. in vit Bonif. 8. Joan. Gerson de Eccles. potest Consid 10. Decretal Gregor lib. 3. tit 8. cap. 4. Decret part 2. Caus 25. Quest 1. Canon 6. ad Gloss Bernard Epist 42.