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
that rule of Faith which giveth us all the particular Articles which are necessary to eternal Life By this rule the Primitive Fathers govern'd themselves and this they commended to the Churches And Clemens Alexandrinus does in terms call the Consent of the Old and New Testament the Ecclesiastical Canon and the Touchstone of true and false I will not multiply Testimonies enough of them are already collected I will rather pursue the Argument before me in these three Assertions First a Protestant without the submission of his Judgment to the Roman Church may be certainly directed to the Canonical Books of Holy Scripture Secondly He may without such submission sufficiently understand the Rule of Faith and find out the Sense of such places in those Canonical Books as is necessary to the belief of a true Christian. Thirdly This rule of Faith is the principal means of Union in Faith in the Christian Church First a Protestant without the submission of his Judgment to the Roman Church may be certainly directed to the Holy Scriptures It is commonly said by Men of the Roman perswasion but injudiciously enough that we may as well receive our Creed from them as we do our Bible The Scribes and Pharisees might have said the like to the People of the Jews But with the good Text they conveighed down to them a very false gloss and misinterpreted the Prophesies as meant of a pompous temporal Messiah But for the Reformed they have received neither Creed nor Bible from the Church of Rome The first enumeration of those Books they find in the Apostolical Canons and in those of the Council of Laodicea no Western writings They have received the Scriptures from the Universal Church of all Ages and Places the Copies of them having been as widely dispersed as the Christians themselves And they receive them not from the infallibility of any particular Church but upon the validity of this sure principle that all the Christian World so widely dispersed could not possibly conspire in the imposing of false Books upon them For particular Churches we may of all others suspect the Roman in reference to the Scriptures For what sincerity of dealing may we hope for from such a Cabal of Men as has forged decrees of Councils and Popes obtruded upon the World Apocryphal Books as Books Canonical purged out of the writings of the Fathers such places as were contrary to their Innovations depressed the Originals under an imperfect Latin Copy and left on purpose in that Copy some places uncorrected for the serving of turns For example sake they have not either in the Bible of Sixtus or in that of Clement both which though in War against each other are made their Canon changed the word She in the third of Genesis for That or He. But contrary to the Hebrew Text to the Translation of the Seventy to the Readings of the Fathers they persist in rendring of it after this manner She shall break thy Head They believe this Reading tendeth most to the Honor of the blessed Virgin whom they are too much inclined to exalt in the Quality of a Mother above her Son The English Translation of Doway hath followed this plain and partial corruption Secondly A Protestant may without Submission of his judgment to the Roman Church find out in the Books of Holy Scripture the necessary Articles of Christian Faith Two things are here supposed and both of them are true First That the Scriptures contain in them all the necessary Articles of our Faith Secondly That the sense of the Words in which these Articles are expressed in Scripture may be found out by a Protestant without the Submission of his judgment to the Papacy First The Scriptures contain in them all the necessary Articles of the Faith This is true if the Scriptures themselves be so For this they Witness St. Paul saith of the Old Testament as expounded of Christ that it was able to make a Man wise unto Salvation Much more may this be affirmed of the entire Canon The Apostles preached the necessaries to Salvation and what they had preached they wrote down concerning the manner of it Eusebius may be consulted For the Primitive Fathers they allowed the Scriptures to be a sufficient Rule Irenaeus said of them they were perfect and of the words of St. Austine this is the sense Among those things which are plainly set down in Scrpture all those things are to be found which comprehend Faith and Good Manners Nay the Romanists themselves attempt to prove their very additional Articles out of the Bible That there are in it the Articles of the Apostolical Creed is evident enough to a common Reader But how the Romish Articles should be found in that Bible which was written some hundreds of years before they were invented is a riddle beyond the skill of Apollo Secondly the sense of the Scriptures in matters necessary to Salvation may be found out by Men of the Reformed Religion without Submission to Roman Infallibility The Learned know the Originals and the true ways of Interpretation And amongst us those of the Episcopal Clergy have obliged the World with such an Edition of the Bible in many Languages as was not before extant in the Roman Church And a Romanist who writes with great mastery in such matters prefers it before the great Bible of Paris For those of the Laity who are Unlearned they have before them a Translation which errs not in the Faith And the phrases are not so obscure but that by study and Ministerial helps they may understand them They have before them a Translation which errs not in the Faith Of this the Italians and French may be convinced by comparing the Translations of James de Voragine and the Divines of Lovain with those of Signior Diodati and Olivetan or Calvin And the English may receive satisfaction in this matter by comparing their Translation with that of Doway In all of them they will find the same Fundamental Doctrines of Faith And were there any such material alteration made in our Bible it would appear by the notorious inconsistence of one part of the Canon with another It would have been long ago detected and exposed to publick shame both by the Romanists and the other Dissenters from our Communion But the former are not able to produce one instance and the latter agree with us in the use and excellence of the Translation though in other things they extreamly differ from us And where they do but dream we err they forbear not to proclaim it In so much that a difference in the Translations of the Psalter which concerns not Faith or Manners and a supposed defect in the Table for keeping Easter have been made by them publick Objections and stumbling blocks in the way to their Conformity It is true there is a Romanist who hath raved against the Bible of the Reformed in these extravagant words The
Church And as they like so they interpret Had not they governed themselves by this art we should not have found in the writings of their Popes and in the very Canon Law it self those words which were spoken to Jeremiah expounded of the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome I have set thee over Kings to root out to pluck up and to destroy The Donatists found their Church in these words of the Canticles Tell me thou whom my Soul loveth where thou feedest where thou makest thy Flock to rest at noon For they expounded this as it liked them best of the Flock of their party in the Southern Country of Africa Such Expounders of Scripture are those Popish Writers who interpret Feed my Sheep of the Universal Monarchy of the Bishop of Rome and conclude that a Pastor must drive away Wolves or depose Princes hurtful to the Church But the straining of such Metaphorical expressions as an excellent Person saith proves only that they want better proofs And by a like way of interpretation from the same Text it might be concluded that all Christians are Fools because Sheep are silly Creatures No expositions are more besides the sense of the Text or more ridiculous then some of those which may be found in the Authentick Books of the Roman Church And those who composed them appear to have looked asquint on the Scriptures For whilst they looked on them they seem to have looked another way I will instance only in a few of those many absurd expositions with which the Roman Breviary abounds The words of the Angel to the Holy Virgin a Sword shall go through thine own Soul also are interpreted of that word of God which is quick and powerful and sharper then any two-edged Sword And this sense is designed as an evasion of their reasoning who from that Text conclude concerning the blessed Virgin that she died and was not miraculously assumed The Ascension of Elias is thus expounded He was taken up into the aerial not the aetherial Heavens from whence he was dropped in an obscure place on Earth there to remain to the end of the World and then to expire with it They say of Job That when he spake of a Bird and of her path in the Air he by a figure called Christ a Bird and by the motion of it in the Air figured also our Lords Ascension We may perceive by these few Instances what an entrance into the sense of Scripture is like to be given whilst a Pope has the Key of Knowledge in his keeping Thirdly If Men would use the Church as their Ministerial Guide and admit of the Scripture as the only Rule by which all Matters of Faith are to be measured they would agree in the proper means to the blessed end of Unity in the Faith This was the perswasion of St. Austin who thus applieth himself to Maximinus Neither ought I at this time to alledge the Council of Nice nor you that of Ariminum For neither am I bound to the Authority of the one nor you to that of the other Let us both dispute with the Authorities of Scripture which are Witnesses common to both of us Whilst the Romanists ascribe the differences which arise amongst the Reformed to their want of an infallible Guide and to their different interpretations of the Scriptures they unskilfully derive effects from causes which are not the natural Parents of them There is saith St. Austine one Mother of all strifes and she is Pride Neither doth the Scripture divide us nor does the infallibility of their judge unite them Their Union such as it is ariseth from the mighty force of their External Polity and they speak not differently because they dare not and the strength of that Polity arose at first from Rome not as the Chair of St. Peter but as the Seat of the Empire Our divisions like theirs arise as all Wars do be they Ecclesiastical or Civil from the unruly Lusts and Passions of Men. And from these likewise arise generally the misinterpretations of plain Laws and Rules the sense of which must be made to chime according to the Interest of prejudiced Men or else they will not give attention to them If the Lusts and Passions of Men were mortified all Christians agreeing in the certainty of the Scriptures though not of any Living Guide and the words of the one being as intelligible as those of the other All might agree in one Creed and put an end to those unnecessary Controversies which entangle Truth and extinguish Charity FINIS The Question The moment of â—his Question The Temptations to believe the Affirmative part of this Question The true Resolution of the Query Prop. I. * Nisi una est Fides non est L. M.Ser 23. †See Ferrand l. 1. c. 1. Sect. 4. disquis Relig. * Acts 4.19 20. * S. Mat. 28.20 Prop. II. * Joâ— 15.22 24. Prop. III. * To the Reader of the Dis. of Govern of Churchâ—s * R. H. Guide in Controv. in Pref. p. 3. Prop. IV. Consid. I. * Isai. 56.10 Jez 2.8 Ez. 7.26 C. 22.26 †Mâ—l 2.7 8. * Deut. 17.8 to 12. See Levit. 4.13 Consid. II. * S. Mat. 16.18 †S. Mat. 28.20 Revel 3.1 2 3. * S. Luke 10.16 †S. Luke 10.1 9. * Ver. 12. 1 Tim. 3.15 †Ryc of the Greek Ch. p. 44. * Revel 3.12 †In 1 Cor. 9.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. * S. Mat. 18.15 16 17. See Deut. 17.6 * Launoy in Epist ad Carol. magistrum ad Jacob. Bevil ad Guil. Voell ad Raim Formentinum in 5. par Epist. Consid. III. * Joh. 20.21 †S. Mat. 9.36 C. 10.6 2. Pet. 5.2 * S. Mat. 28.16 17 18 19. †S. Chrys. in 1 Cor. 9.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. †See R. H. Guide in Controv Dis. 1. p. 5. and Socin in Loc. * S. Hil. de Trin. l. 6. dixit Petrus Tu es filius Dei c. super hanc igitur Confessionis Petram Ecclesiae edificatio est v. Launoy in Epist ad Voellum †Revel 21.14 Ephes. 2.20 * Act. 2.14 41 47. IV. Consid. †Euseb. l. 3. vit Const. c. 7. 8. p. 487. Socrat. E. H. l. c. 8. p. 19. * V. Concil Labâ— Tom. 2. p. 50 c. †Socr. Eccl. Hist. l. 1. c. 6. p. 9. * From A. 1545. to A. 1563. †V. Council Const. sess 39. * V. Greg. magn Ep. 6.31 Leo. 1. Ep. 53. Gelas 1. Ep. 13. †Concil Labb Tom. 10. p. 23 379. Pontific Roman (a) A. D. 1542. in Coll. Sorb See Richer H. Conc. general vol. 4. p. 162 163 c. Object * R.H. Annot. on D. Still Answer p. 82 83. †Art 31. Ch. 5. du consistoire si un ou plusieurs c. * Syn. Dord sess 138. Answer (a) See Artic. 20 21 22. (b) Camp Rat. 3. p. 180. Rat. 5. p. 185. * Lib. diurn Pontif. p. 35. etenim hujus Apostolicae
prevail against the Church Which Promise concerneth the Church in general and the necessary Faith of it and not any particular persons or places or successions of persons in them And Christ doth here assure us that the Gates of the Grave shall not swallow up the Church that it shall not enter in at them that it shall not die or perrish But he doth not say he will preserve it by the means of any Earthly Infallible Guide He can by other ways continue it till time it self shall fail The other place of Scripture is the promise of Christ a little while before his Ascension into the Heavens Lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the World As long as this Age of the Messiah shall last and that is the last time or Age. This promise is indeed made to the Apostles and to their successors also But it is a promise of general assistance and it is made upon condition that they go forth and make Disciples of all Men of all Nations and Baptize them and give them further instruction in the things which Christ gave in charge to them And some of the successors of the Apostles have not performed these conditions and the Governour of the Church of Sardis had not held fast what he had received and heard As God hath not promised an unerring Guide so neither hath he said he hath set up such an one in any Church on Earth He hath not said it either directly or by consequence The places which are supposed directly to affirm this are two and both mistaken One of them is that of Christ to his Disciples after he had given Commission to them to preach the Gospel He that heareth you heareth me me the infallible way and the Truth This Speech if it be extended to all Ministers it makes them all infallible Guides And it is certain they are so as long as they deliver to the People what they received from Christ. But the words are especially directed to the seventy Disciples who were taught to preach a plain Fundamental Truth that the Kingdom of God was come nigh to the Jews And these Disciples were able to give to the Jews a demonstration of the Truth of that Doctrine which they taught by miraculous signs By healing the Sick and doing among them mighty works Another place used as an express Testimony is that in the first to Timothy to whom St. Paul saith that the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth But this place also is misapplied It seemeth to be spoken of that Church of Ephesus in which St. Paul advised Timothy to behave himself with singular care Which place hath so far failed that the lofty Building called St. John's Church is now become a Turkish Mosch But if it were spoken in a general sense it would amount only to this meaning A Christian Church is like a Pillar sustained by a Pedestal on which a writing is so fixed that all who pass by may see it It is as Jerusalem once was to the Heathen-World a City on a Hill It is a visible Society which giveth notice to Jews and Gentiles of Christianity and is instrumental to awaken their observation and by their sense to prepare the way to their belief For this advertisement being so publickly given to them they have fair occasion of examining the grounds of Christian Truth which when they find they will be induced to build upon them In this sense likewise though not in this alone Apostolical Men were called Lights and Pillars In the Book of the Revelation this promise is made to him who persevereth in his Christianity notwithstanding the cross which it brings upon him Him will I make a Pillar in the Temple of my God and I will write my name upon him and the name of his God and the name of the City of his God which is new Jerusalem or the Christian Church And S. Chrysostom gives S. Paul the Titles of the Light of the Churches the Foundation of the Faith the Pillar and Ground of Truth The Governours of the Church do ministerially exhibit Christian Truth they do not by mere Authority impose it Among the Places which are said to prove by good consequence that there is a Living Guide of Faith that in the eighteenth of St. Matthews Gospel is the Principal There our Saviour requireth his Followers if their Brethren persisted in their offences to tell it to the Church and to esteem them no longer Members of their Society if they despised the Sentence of it From whence they conclude with strange Inadvertence that such a Decree is therefore infallible But our Lord speaks of their Brothers Trespasses against them and not of his Heresie And of the Discipline and not of the Doctrine either of the Synagogue or the Church In which case if we submit even where there is error in the Sentence for Peace sake and because we are come to the last Appeal we worthily sacrifice private Good to publick Order And such Submission is safe in point of property though not in point of Doctrine for we may without Sin depart from our property but not from our Faith Now much of this that has been said in order to the explication of the foregoing places might have been well omitted if I had designed this little Discourse for the use only of such Romanists as had been conversant with the writings of the Fathers For then I should have needed only to have cited those Ancients and shewed that their sense of these several places was plainly different from the modern interpretations of the Church Men of Rome And by this way of arguing they are self-condemned For they fall according to their own Rule of expounding Scripture by the unanimous consent of the Primitive Fathers who with one voice speak another sense Those who doubt of this may receive satisfaction from the Learned Letters of Monsieur Launoy If God had promised an infallible Guide or told us he had given one to his Church he would doubtless have added some directions for the finding of him For to say in general you shall have a Star which will always Guide you without all dangerous error and not to inform us in what part of the Firmament it is to be seen is to amuse rather than to promise Now God hath no where given us such direction He hath no where pointed us to this Church or that Council to this Person or that Local succession of Men. He hath not said the Guide is at Antioch or Hierusalem at Nice or Constantinople at Rome or Avignon You will say he hath directed us to St. Peter I answer no more than to the rest of the Apostles to whom he gave equal power in their Ordination All of whom he made equally Shepherds of the Flock to all of whom he gave equal Commission to make Proselytes of all Nations And in this sense
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
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-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