be believed for necessity of Salvation After this manner the Church of England asserteth her own Authority and she runs not into any extream about the Authority of Councils or the Catholick Church We make Confession of the Ancient Faith expressed in the Apostolical Nicene or Constantinopolitan and Athanasian Creeds The Canons of forty reject the Heresie of Socinus as contrary to the first four general Councils Our very statute-Statute-Book hath respect to them in the adjudging of Heresie Yet our Church still teacheth concerning them that things by them ordained have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture When Controversies arise especially when the doubts concern not so much the Article of Faith it self as the Modes of it we grant to such venerable Assemblies a Potiority of Judgment Or if we assent not yet for Peace sake we are humbly silent We do not altogether refuse their Umpirage We think their Definitions good Arguments against unquiet Men who are chiefly moved by Authority We believe them very useful in the Controversies betwixt us and the Church of Rome and as often as they appeal to Primitive Fathers and Councils to Fathers and Councils we are willing to go with them and to be tryed by those who were nigher to the Apostles in the Quality of Witnesses rather than Judges We believe that in matters of Truth of which we are already well perswaded there may be added by the Suffrages of Councils and Fathers a degree of Corroboration to our Assent In sum we say with S. Austâ—ne that there is of Councils in the Church of God a most wholesome though not an infallible Authority And if S. Gregory Nazâ—anzen never saw as he saith a happy effect of any Synod this came not to pass from the Nature of the means as not conducive to that end but from the looseness of Government and the depraved manners of the Age in which he lived For such were the times of Valens the Emperour It is true there are some among us though not of us who with disdainful insolence contemn all Authority even that of the Sacred Scripture it self These pretend to an infallible Light of immediate and personal Revelation It hath hapned according to the Proverb every Man of them hath a Pope within him Henry Nicholas puffed up many vain ignorant people with this Proud Imagination Hetherington a Mechanick about the end of the Reign of King James advanced this notion of Personal Infallibility His followers believed they could not err in giving deliberate Sentence in Religion And this was the principle of Wynstanley and the first Quakers though the Leaders since they were embodied have in part forsaken it But these Enthusiasts have intituled the Holy Spirit of God to their own Dreams They have pretended to Revelations which are contrary to one another They can be Guides to themselves only because they cannot by any supernatural sign prove to others that they are inspired And such Enthusiasm is not otherwise favoured in the Church of England then by Christian pity in consideration of the infirmity of Humane Nature but in the Church of Rome it hath been favoured to that Degree that it hath founded many Orders and Religious Houses and given Reputation to some Doctrines and canoniz'd not a few Saints amongst them The Inspiration of S. Hildegardis S. Catharine of Siena S. Teresa and many others seemeth to have been vapour making impression on a devout fancy Yet the Church of Rome in a Council under Leo the Tenth hath too much encouraged such distemper as prophesie For private Reason it is the handmaid of Faith we use it and not seperately from the Authority of the Church but as a help in distinguishing true from false Authority And in so plain a case as Heresie if our Church thinketh a private Man may without an infallible Guide on Earth judge aright of it it does but believe as Pope Adrian believed as he professed in a Synod at Rome of which profession report is made in the second Synod of Nice For speaking of the Sentence against Pope Honorius he excuseth it in point of good behaviour because it was given in the case of Heresie For in that case and in that case alone he allowed Inferiors so he was pleased to call the Oriental Bishops to reject the corrupt sense of those who are superior to them I will hasten to the next Proposition after I have added one thing more which relates to the guidance of Ecclesiastical Authority And it is this Those of the Unlearned Laity who are Members of the Church of England have much more of the just guidance of Ecclesiastical Authority than the like order of Men in the Church of Rome For the Authentick Books of that Church being all written in the Latin Tongue the illiterate People resolve their Faith into the ability and honesty of their Confessor or Parish Priest They take it upon his word that this is the Doctrine this the Discipline this the Worship of their Church Whereas each Minister in our Church can direct the People to the Holy Bible to the Books of Homilies Articles Canons Common-Prayer Ordination as set forth in their native Tongue by publick Authority Of this they may be assured by their own Eyes as many as can but competently read They do not only take this from the mouth of a Priest but from the Church it self Where the Laws of the Church and the Statutes of the Civil Government are written in an unknown Tongue there the Unlearned depend more upon private than publick Authority for they receive the Law from particular Priests or Judges Though Ecclesiastical Authority be a help to our Faith yet the Holy Scripture is the only infallible Rule of it and by this Rule and the Ministerial Aids of the Christian Church we have sufficient means without Submission to papal Infallibility to attain to certainty in that Faith which is generally necessary to Salvation I do not mean that by believing the whole Canon of the Scripture in the gross we thereby believe all the necessary Articles of the Faith because they are therein contained That looks too like a fallacy and it giveth countenance to an useless Faith For he that believes on this manner hath as it were swallow'd a Creed in the lump only whereas it is necessary for a Christian to know each particular Article and the general Nature and Tendency of it Otherwise his Faith will not have a distinct influence upon his Christian behaviour to which if it were not useful it were not necessary To believe in general as the Scripture believes is with the Blind and Flexible Faith of a Romanist to believe at adventure He believes as his Church believes but he knows not what is the belief of his Church and therefore is not instructed by that Faith to behave himself as a Member of it The Scripture is
The same course was taken with the Remonstrants in the Synod of Dorâ— Wherefore Protestants ought not to detract from the Authority of general Councils whilst they assume to themselves so great a Power in their particular Synods The force of this Objection is thus removed Every Church hath Power of admitting or excluding Members else it hath not means sufficient to its end the order and concord of its Body Every particular Church ought to believe that it does not err in its definitions for it ought not to impose any known error upon its Members But though it believes it does not err it does not believe it upon this reason because God hath made it an infallible Guide but rather for this because it hath sincerely and with Gods assistance followed a rule which is infallible And upon this supposition it imposeth Doctrines and excludeth such as with contumacy dissent from them 4. This Guide is not the present Church declaring to particular Christians the sense of the Church of former Ages How can this declaration be made seeing Churches differ and each Church calls it self the true one and pretendeth to the Primitive pattern The Church of Rome hath on her side the suffrages of all the Councils and Fathers the first the middle the last if Campian the Jesuite may be believed On the other hand Monsieur Larroque hath Written a Book of the Conformity of the Protestant Churches in France with the Discipline of the Christian Ancient Church taking it for granted that their Doctrine was Catholick And we likewise pretend both to the Doctrine and Discipline of it All of us cannot be in the right The Roman Church without any proof calleth her self the Church Catholick and she pretendeth to conveigh to us the sense of the Ancient Fathers and Councils which sense was that they understood formerly by the word Tradition And in this sense a Romanist said of Pope Honorius that he had broken the rule of Tradition But how can we esteem that Church a faithful representer of the sense of the Ancients whilst the Reformed consult the Ancients with equal ability and find a contrary sense in them Whilst the Church of Rome by a kind of Ecclesiastical Coinage stampeth Divine Authority upon Books esteemed by the Councils and Fathers to be Apochryphal Whilst it hath forged decrees of Popes and like a deceitful Gibeonite rendred that which was really new in appearance old and mouldy on purpose to promote imposture How doth it give us the sense of the Ancients when it owneth what it formerly disowned as Canonical the Epistle to the Hebrews When it taketh away the Cup which Pope Gelasius called a grand Sacrilege When it now rejecteth the Communicating of Infants which in former times was esteemed by many a very necessary point When a former Pope Gregory condemns the Title of Universal pastor as Anti-Christian and a latter insists upon it as the choicest flour in the papal Prerogative When St. Austin and from him the very Breviary shall expound Christs promise of being always with his Church of the presence of his Divinity and of his Spirit and not of his Body And Pope Innocent the third shall interpret them as meant also of his corporal presence And if the Roman Church falsifyeth written Tradition how shall we trust her for Oral And how and at what time did that Oral Tradition remove from Greece to Rome where the Greek Church which it alloweth to have been once possessed of the true Tradition is accused of Heresie At the same time I suppose that the Chappel of the Virgin removed from Nazareth to Loretto This principle of Oral Tradition is most uncertain to their Judges and to those to whom they offer it it is most obscure It is a principle on which they can serve a purpose in justifying novel Doctrines as Oral Traditions not known to any but the Roman Church which pretendeth to the custody of them 5. God hath not set up any one Person in the Catholick Church in the Quality of an unerring Guide in the Christian Faith The Bishops of Rome who pretend to this Prerogative do but pretend It is a tender point and the Pope's Legates in the Council of Trent were enjoyned to give forth this Advertisement that the Fathers upon no account whatsoever should touch it or dispute about it They who examine it will soon reject it as false and useless And 1. Whether the Pope be or be not the Guide the Men of the Roman Communion are exposed to dangerous uncertainty For it is not yet determined amongst them whether they are to follow the Pope with or without or against a Council Yet a Pope hath owned a Council which deposed other Popes and by decree set it self above them or rather vindicated the superiority due to it Thus Martin the fifth received the Papal Mitre from the Council of Constance after it had deposed Gregory the twelfth Benedict the thirteenth and John the twenty third Again there have been by the account given us in their own Historians more than twenty formed Schisms in that Church two or more Popes pretending at the same time to the infallible Chair and each of them not being without their followers and giving Holy Orders And at this time there is risen an Apologist for Mauritius Burdin or Gregory the eighth though he was ejected by the Roman Church which received Gelasius into his place Burdin being disliked by them as a Creature of Henry the Emperour This Schism saith St. Bernard distracted that Church and gave it a wound only not incurable And Baluzius professeth that it was then difficult to understand which of the two Gregory or Gelasius was the Legitimate successour of Pope Paschal Now how useless to them is the pretence of a Guide when they want some other Guide who should tell them which of the pretenders they may securely follow Secondly the Popes themselves in their Solemn Profession suppose themselves liable to the misleading of the People even in Matters of Faith For having owned the Faith of the Six general Councils They further profess themselves and others to be subject to an Anatâ—ema if they advance novelty contrary to the aforesaid Evangelical Tradition and the integrity of the Orthodox and Christian Faith Thirdly If the Pope challengeth this Power of infallible Guidance he must lay claim to it by his succeeding of St. Peter in the Chair Apostolical But then by equal reason the successors of each Apostle may challenge the office of an infallible Guide For the Power which Christ gave to St. Peter he gave to the rest It was not special And for the Bishops of Antioch who first succeeded St. Peter they have a much fairer pretence than those of Rome The Truth is Hierusalem was properly the Mother-Church Though Rome was the Imperial City and if by this means the Popes had not
was hortatory and not compulsive It is true he erred not as Head of the Church for such he was not neither as such was he owned But he erred as a publick person and with Heretical obstinacy For Pope Leo as he noteth said concerning him that he had made it his business to betray and subvert the Holy Faith Now this matter of Fact sufficeth for the refuting all the fallacious reasonings of the patrons of Papal infallibility For all must agree that they are not unerring Guides who actually err The Sieur de Balzac mocks at the weakness of one of the Romish Fathers who offered four reasons to prove that the Duke D' Espernon was not returned out of England And offered them to a Gentleman who had seen him since his return There seemeth no sitness in the constituting of such a Guide nor any necessity for it Had it been agreeable to Gods Wisdom his Wisdom would not have been wanting to it self God having made Man a Reasonable Creature would not make void the use of deliberation and the freedom of his judgment There is no vertue in the Assent where the Eye is forced open and the Light held directly to it It is enough that God the rewarder of them who believe hath given Men sufficient faculties and sufficient means And seeing Holiness is as necessary to the pleasing of God and to the peace of the World as Union in Doctrine to which there is too frequently given a lifeless Assent seeing there must be Christian Obedience as long as there is a Church seeing as the Guide in Controversy himself urgeth the Catholick Church and all the parts of it are believed in the Creed to be Holy as well as Orthodox We ask not the Romanists an impertinent Question when we desire them to tell us why a means to infallibility in the judgment rather than irresistibleness in the pious choice of the Will is to be by Heaven provided in the Church Both seem a kind of Destination of equal necessity But though the Reformed especially those of the Church of England see no necessity for an infallible Guide nor believe there is one on the face of the Earth yet they do not reject all Ecclesiastical Guidance but allow it great place in matters of Discipline and Order and some place also though not that of an unerring Judge in Matters of Faith At the beginning of the Reformation the Protestants though they refused the judgment of the Pope their Enemy yet they declined not the determination of a Council And in the Assembly at Ausburgh the Romanists and Protestants agreed in a Council as the Umpire of their publick difference At this the Pope was so alarumed saith the Sieur de Mezeray that he wrote to the Kings of France and England that he would do all they would desire provided they hindred the calling of a Council In the Reformation of the Church of England great regard was had to the Primitive Fathers and Councils And the aforesaid French Historian was as much mistaken in the affairs of Our Church when he said of our Religion that it was a medly of the Opinions of Calvin and Luther as he was afterwards in the affairs of our State when he said King James was elected at the Guild-hall King of England The Romannists represent us very falsly whilst they fix upon us a private Spirit as it stands in opposition to the Authority of the Catholick Church Mr. Alabaster expresseth one motive to his conversion to the Roman Church in these Words Weigh together the Spouse of Christ with Luther Calvin Melancthon Oecumenical Councils with private opinions The Reverend and Learned Fathers with Arius Aetius Vigilantius Men always in their time Burned for Hereticks of which words the former are false reasoning the latter are false History The Bishop of Meaux reasons after the same fallacious manner Supposing a Protestant to be of this perswasion that he can understand the Scriptures better than all the rest of the Church together of which perswasion he saith very truly that it exalteth Pride and removeth Docility The Guide in Controversies puts the Question wrong in these terms Whether a Protestant in refusing the submission of his judgment to the Authority or Infallibility of the Catholick Church in her Councils can have in several Articles of necessary Faith wherein the sense of Scripture is controverted as sure a Foundation of his Faith as he who submits his judgment to the foresaid Authority or also Infallibility Here the Catholick Church is put in place of the Roman Authority and Infallibility are joyned together and it is suggested dishonestly concerning the Reformed that they lay aside the Authority of the Catholick Church in her general Councils Authority may be owned where there is no infallibility for it is not in Parents Natural or Civil Yet both teach and govern us If others reject Church-Authority let them who are guilty of such disorderly irreverence see to it The Christians of the Church of England are of another Spirit Of that Church this is one of the Articles The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith There is a Question saith Mr. Selden about that Article concerning the power of the Church whether these words of having power in Controversies of Faith were not stolen in But it 's most certain they were in the Book of Articles that was confirmed though in some Editions they have been left out They were so in Dr. Mocket's but he is to be considered in that Edition as a private Man Now this Article does not make the Church an infallible Guide in the Articles of Faith but a Moderator in the Controversies about Faith The Church doth not assume that Authority to it self in this Article which in the foregoing it denied to the Churches of Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch and Rome When perverse Men will raise such Controversies who is so fit for Peace sake to interpose as that Church where the Flame is kindled There can be no Church without a Creed and each particular Church ought to believe her Creed to be true and by consequence must exercise her Authority in the defence of presumed Truth Otherwise she is not true to her own constitution But still she acts under the caution given by St. Augustine You bind a Man on Earth Take heed they be just bonds in which you retain him For Justice will break such as are unjust in sunder And whilest the Church of England challengeth this Authority she doth not pretend to it from any supernatural gift of infallibility but so far only as she believes she hath sincerely followed an infallible Rule For of this importance are the next words of the Article before remembred It is not Lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to Gods word written And besides the same it ought not to enforce any thing to
BOOKS Printed for Fincham Gardiner 1. A Perswasive to Communion with the Church of England 2. A Resolution of some Cases of Conscience which respect Church-Communion 3. The Case of Indifferent things used in the Worship of God proposed and Stated by considering these Questions c. 4. A Discourse about Edification 5. The Resolution of this Case of Conscience Whether the Church of Englands Symbolizing so far as it doth with the Church of Rome makes it unlawful to hold Communion with the Church of England 6. A Letter to Anonymus in answer to his three Letters to Dr. Sherlock about Church-Communion 7. Certain Cases of Conscience resolved concerning the Lawfulness of joyning with Forms of Prayer in Publick Worship In two Parts 8. The Case of mixt Communion Whether it be Lawful to Separate from a Church upon the account of promiscuous Congregations and mixt Communions 9. An Answer to Dissenters Objections against the Common Prayers and some other parts of Divine Service prescribed in the Liturgy of the Church of England 10. The Case of Kneeling at the Holy Sacrament stated and resolved c. In two Parts 11. A Discourse of Profiting by Sermons and of going to hear where Men think they can profit most 12. A serious Exhortation with some important Advices relating to the late Cases about Conformity recommended to the present Dissenters from the Church of England 13. An Argument to Union taken from the true interest of those Dissenters in England who profess and call themselves Protestants 14. Some Considerations about the Case of Scandal or giving Offence to the Weak Brethren 15. The Case of Infant-Baptism in Five Questions c. 16. The Charge of Scandal and giving Offence by Conformity Refelled and Reflected back upon Separation c. 1. A Discourse about the charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking of us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 2. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is meant by it and what Tradition is to be received and what Tradition is to be rejected 3. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England 4. The Protestant Resolution of Faith c. A DISCOURSE Concerning a GUIDE IN Matters of Faith With respect especially to the ROMISH pretence of the necessity of such a one as is infallible LONDON Printed for Ben. Tooke at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-yard and F. Gardiner at the White-horse in Ludgate-street 1683. THE CONTENTS THE Question Whether a Man without submitting his judgment to an infallible Guide on Earth may arrive at certainty in Matters of Faith p. 1. The Moment of this Question p. 2. The Temptations to a belief of the negative part of it Sloth and vitious Humility p. 2. The Resolution of the Question in six Propositions p. 3. Propos. 1. The True Faith and the Profession of it never failed yet nor shall it ever fail in all places 3 4 5. Propos. 2. Wheresoever God requires Faith he gives means sufficient for the obtaining of it 5 6. Propos. 3. Whatsoever those means are the Act of Assent is ultimately resolved into each Mans reason 6 7 8. Propos. 4. No true reason directeth to an infallible Guide on Earth 8. This is proved by several Considerations Consid. 1. God did not set up such a Guide amongst the Israelites 8 9. Consid. 2. God hath no where promised such a Guide to Christians 9 10. Either directly 10 11 12. Or by consequence 12 13. Consid. 3. God hath not given direction for the finding of such a Guide which he would have done had he designed the setting of him up 13 14. Consid. 4. We cannot find out such a one by the strictest enumeration 14. For 1. This Guide is not the Church diffusive of the first Ages 14. Nor 2. The Faith of all the Governours of all the Primitive Churches 14. Nor 3. An Universal or General Council 14 15 16 17. Which whilst the Reformed deny they do not assume to themselves such Authority in their Synods 17 18. Nor 4. Is this Guide any present Church pretending to declare the sense of the Churches of former Ages 18 19. Nor 5. Is this Guide the Bishop of Rome 20. This is shewed by the following Arguments Arg. 1. The Romanists themselves are not at agreement about his Authority 20. Arg. 2. The infallible Guidance of it is denied in the publick form of the Popes Profession 21. Arg. 3. His Plea for this Guidance as Successor of St. Peter is insufficient 21. Arg. 4. The Writings of the Popes manifest their Ignorance and Fallibility 21. Both in lesser matters 22 23. And in Matters of Faith 23. Particularly Pope Vigilius erred in a Matter of Faith 23 24. And Pope Honorius 24 25 26. Arg. 5. There seems not in the constituting such a Guide either necessity or fitness 26. Propos. 5. The Reformed especially those of the Church of England refuse not all Ecclesiastical Guidance though they submit not to any pretended infallible Guide 26 27 28 29 30. Nor doth our Church pretend to immediate illumination in Matters of necessary Faith 30 31. Nor doth it exalt private reason to the prejudice of just Authority 31 32. But the Vnlearned have more of the just Guidance of Authority in it then in the Church of Rome it self 32. Propos. 6. Though Ecclesiastical Authority is a help of our Faith yet the Scripture is the only infallible rule of it 32 33. This Proposition is handled in three Assertions Assert 1. A Man without a Papal Guide may know which are the true Canonical Books 33 34. Assert 2. He may also find out the necessary Articles of Faith contained in those Books 35. The necessary Doctrines are therein contained 35 36. The sense of the words in which they are delivered may be found out without submission to such a Guide 36 37 38 39 40 c. Assert 3. A submission of our unprejudiced Assent to the Holy Scripture as the Rule of Faith is the true means to Vnion in Faith in the Christian Church p. 42. ERRATA PAge 2. marg l. 5. for affirmative r. negative p. 16. l. 13. for Abots r. Abbots p. 17. l. 10. for doubts r. doubles p. 18. l. 21. for Christian Ancient r. Ancient Christian. p. 19. l. 19. for them r. it p. 20. l. 27. blot out the Comma betwixt Mauritius and Burdin p. 22. l. 13. for Salvations r. Salutations p. 23. l. 2. after this add refuse matter It. l. 12. for nomina r. nomine p. 24. l. 3. after of add an l. 25. for rigour r. vigour p. 26. marg l. 3. for Consid. 5. r. Arg. 5. p. 36. marg put p. 583. after Critique p. 38. l. 1. for Council r. Counsel p. 40. l. 6. for relectance r. reluctance A DISCOURSE Concerning a GUIDE IN Matters of Faith THE design of this Discourse is the Resolution of the following Query Whether a