all this The same Scripture of the New Testament speaks in divers places against Traditions without ever intimating that there were some good which were to be distinguished from the bad and in one onely place which is that whereof the Bishop of Condom makes mention Mar. 7.8 9 13. Colos 2.8 2 Thes 2.15 the Apostle exhorting the Thessalonians to hold fast the Traditions which they had received of him whether it were by mouth when he was present with them or by Epistle which he had since writ to them sayes not one word which intimates that the things which he had taught them by mouth were different from those which he had written unto them but he gives to understand all along that it was one and the same Gospel which he preached unto all to them who were present by voice and to them that were absent by writing In summe whosoever will take the pains with any attention to read St. Paul's Two Epistles to the Thessalonians where he speaks unto them of the instructions which he gave them and of the manner of his having preached the Gospel unto them shall find there nothing at all no more than in the Gospel it self which hath the least resemblance to prayer for the dead to Purgatory to the invocation of Saints to the adoration of Images nor in fine to any of the Traditions which are in question betwixt the Gentlemen of the Church of Rome and us It were an easie matter here De Doct. Christ li. 2. c. 9. li. 3. cont lit Petili c. 6. Hieron ad Hel. vi pa. 315 366. Chrysos Hono. 3. in 2. ad Cor. to strengthen our selves with the Testimony of St. Austin and of several other Fathers to prove what we have said that the Scripture doth contain all that is necessary either for the Service of God or for the rule of our actions but besides that this were to engage in a particular Controversie touching the judgment of the Fathers which is not the design of this Answer we think that amongst Christians it were in some fort to prejudice the Dignity and Divinity of this same Holy Scripture to doubt that its proper light were not sufficient to make known its perfection Onely let us see what the Bishop of Condom produces for the unwritten Word Jesus Christ saith he having founded his Church upon preaching pa. 158. the unwritten Word was the first rule of Christianity and when thereto the Scriptures of the New Testament were added this Word did not thereby lose its authority We must observe here at first that this is to speak in some sort improperly to say that Jesus Christ founded the Church upon preaching and not rather by preaching Preaching is a means and not a foundation the means may cease the foundation ought to be durable And no more is it true that the unwritten Word was the first rule of Christianity It is the Scripture it self of the Old Testament which was the first and the eldest rule and the foundation of the Faith of Christians It is the Old Testament that not onely contains the Commandments of the Law which is the permanent and unchangeable rule of our Duty as well towards God as towards men but likewise all the figures all the promises and all the prophesies touching the Messias the time and the place of his Birth and all the circumstances of his death The Gospel as all the world knows is not the abrogating but the fulfilling of the Law therefore it is that we see that Jesus Christ and the Apostles grounded their preaching upon the Scriptures of the Old Testament Jesus Christ continually refers the Jews to the Law and to the Testimony It is written saith he in your Law c. Joh. 5.39 46. Rom. 1. Search the Scriptures diligently for in them ye think ye have eternal life And the Apostle St. Paul to the Romans Paul a servant of Jesus Christ c. separated unto the Gospel c. which was promised by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son Jesus Christ c. who was made of the seed of David according to the Flesh and so he begins his very Epistle to the Hebrews God who at sundry times spake unto the Fathers by the prophets c. In fine his first Chapter and the whole Epistle is nothing else but one citation of Exodus of Chronicles of Samuel Job Psalms and the other Books of the Old Testament It is besides a very improper manner of speaking to say that when the Scriptures of the New Testament were joyned unto the unwritten Word this word for all that did not thereby lose its authority as if the Doctrine of the Gospel such as we have it now in writing were an accessary or were a thing different from that unto which they pretend it was joined or that that which was not written were more considerable than that which we have in the Sacred Books for this expression of the Bishop of Condom's that the Scriptures were joyned to the unwritten word suggests all these imaginations in stead of saying the thing properly as it is He should have said that the unwritten Word having been put into writing or the Scripture of the New Testament having succeeded preaching this Divine Word not onely not lost its authority but on the contrary was corroborated in that it doth not any longer depend on the memory nor the will of men naturally subject unto Errour For upon the main the Bishop of Condom pretends that the Holy Scripture contains onely the lesser part of Christian Religion and that on the contrary Tradition doth contain the principal part At least his pretence is that there may be some particular Doctrines which are not to be had but by Tradition which ought not for their not being in Scripture therefore to lose their authority As for any thing else the Gentlemen of the Church of Rome are so little firm to their principle of Tradition or at least they so well acknowledge that Tradition cannot go equal with Scripture though the Council hath been pleased to determine the contrary that when they are pressed touching particular Traditions which are in question betwixt them and us there is scarce one but they endeavour to support by the authority of Scripture whether it be by interpreting it in their sense or by the consequences which they draw thence When they treat of Tradition in general they maintain it with excess comparing it to Scripture as if it went through all Religion and when they treat of their Doctrines in particular they would make the World believe that there is scarce any one amongst them which is not founded on the very Scripture But if we would know nevertheless how the Bishop of Condom proves that the particular ponits of Tradition are the very Doctrine of the Apostles unwritten it may be at first we would believe that he had in hand some Authour either of the age of the
all those that have been baptised as they have said in express termes of the Sacraments of Baptism and of the Supper Goe and Baptise c. and Doe this in remembrance of me And the gift of miracles by the imposition of hands being ceased so many Ages past This is the Opinion of some French Protestants at present but as to the perpetual expediency of such imposition of hands as our English Church uses in Confirmation while not made a Sacrament See the first Reformers whom the Reformed French most follow Calvin on Hebr. 6. And in his Institut lib. 4. c. 19. Sect. 4 and 13. And Theod. Bez. on Hebr. 6. Diodat on the same it cannot be seen why nor how at this time they should make an institution of that which was onely an extraordinary practice and a practice in a word which depended upon a gift that is ceased The Church of Rome following the natural inclination of men which carries them not onely unto an imitation or emulation but a desire to surpass one another hath miscarried almost every where in this regard that of the least occasions she hath made pretexts to establish Worships or Ceremonies as if she had nothing to doe but to frame a Religion of all the usages or of all the actions ordinary or extraordinary of our Lord and of his Apostles Our Lord being tempted of the Devil did fast Fourty dayes in the Wilderness to convince the World that he was truly God-man It must be from hence that the Church of Rome also by degrees is come to make particular Fasts not onely from time to time as was practised at the beginning of Christianity but even a Lent entire of Fourty days We find that once or twice the Apostles healed the sick using a kind of anointing from hence there must be made a Sacrament of Extreme Unction of which we shall speak hereafter And here because there are found some examples of an imposition of hands which wrought miracles they have also by degrees made a grand Establishment of Ceremonies called Confirmation and when once this Establishment was atchieved the Council made a true Sacrament and a Law of this Ceremony charging perpetually Religion and mens consciences with a yoke that neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear The same is also to be said against the Sacrament of Pennance Pennance and Sacramental Confession and of Sacramental Confession On the one hand the Prophets and Apostles seeing men in Idolatry in Errour or in Sin said unto them Repent ye or doe pennance for it is the same thing Amend and be converted unto the Lord which is an-ordinary exhortation in the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament And on the other our Lord Jesus Christ sending his Disciples after the Resurrection to preach the Gospel breathing upon them said Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose sins soever ye remit Joh. 2â— 22 they are remitted and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained This Interpretaâ—â—on is â—tely the opinion Calvin and his followers This imports evidently no more but the Power and Commission which Jesus Christ gave them in general before he left them to announce pardon of sins unto those who believed the Gospel and on the contrary to announce the Judgments of God against those who rejected their Doctrine For it sufficiently appears that these words of Jesus Christs did not exclude the Apostles inspection into the manners of men but on the contrary charged them with the conduct of the Churches and it is evident by the occasions on which our Saviour spake them and by all other circumstances of time and place that on those occasions our Lord had regard principally unto the preaching of the Gospel In the mean while behold here the use which the Church of Rome hath made of this Doctrine or the consequence that she hath drawn from it We do believe saith the Bishop of Condom that it hath pleased Jesus Christ that those who have submitted themselves unto the authority of the Church by Bapptism and who have since violated the Laws of the Gospel should come to undergo the judgment of the same Church at the Tribunal of Pennance where she exercises the power which is given unto her of remitting or retaining of sins We believe that it hath pleased Jesus Christ c. but upon what ground Every one sees what resemblance there is of the repentance whereto the Prophets and Apostles exhorted the people and of the power the Apostles had to announce Remission of sins in preaching the Gospel unto this Tribunal of Pennance which is not imploid formally in preaching to the people or in bringing men to receive the Doctrine of the Gospel or to repent and be converted to God I say not formally but in subjecting every Believer in particular to go to declare all his mortal sins by name one after another with all their aggravating circumstances to crave for them pardon or absolution of the Priest and to undergo all those satisfactory pains of Prayers by number of Fasts of Pilgrimages and the like of which we have spoken before and all this under pain of cursing and eternal damnation against those who being able to make this confession Dall de Paen. Satisfact c. shall fail to make it Our Bookes are full of very solid reasons which plainly prove two things the one that this Doctrine very far from being grounded upon those words of the Scripture which have been alledged is directly contrary to the Word of God and that it is injurious to his Wisedome to his Goodness and to the merits of the Death which Jesus Christ hath suffered for us as hath been already made appear upon the matter of Justification and of Satisfactions whereof the pennance confession of the Church of Rome is only a dependent Dall de Confess Morin in his Comment Hist of Penn. 4. The other that this pretended Sacrament of Repentance of auricular Confession and Absolution are things unknown in the First ages of Christianity as the Roman Catholick Doctors accord and besides very different from the Pennance and Satisfactions spoken of in the Fathers It will be needless here to report all the reasons Beatus Rhenanus upon Tertullians Book of Repentance because they may be seen in the places where this matter is treated of expresly neither will it agree with the design we proposed to be brief and attemperate as much as might be to the desire and manner of the Bishop of Condom There shall onely be here made a short reflexion as well upon the First Canons of the Council as upon what the Bishop of Condom hath set forth whereby it may be easily judged of all the rest In the first place is it not a strange thing that the Council doth oblige all to believe as an article of Faith under pain of Excommunication and Damnation that Confession Absolution and Satisfaction as they speak are not onely a necessary
than the different manner wherein it is seen that they conceive the same things at several times They may to much purpose lay down principles and draw conclusions form Grave Debates maintained by sprightly figures of speech adapt terms imploy those at certain times that are of a suspended and indeterminate sense One word naturally escaped doth say or gainsay more than a whole Book can establish the very care taken in recalling such a word doth speak it much the more The greatest part of these differences should have been touched in the very Body of the Answer in the places to which they relate as we have touched some upon the Articles of Transubstantiation and the authority of the Pope but it fell out when we begun to examine this Treatise we had not then the first Edition in our hands to compare it with the second Howsoever though we are constrained to report these passages altered without any connexion of one with the other or with the matters whereon they depend and without making such reflection as otherwise might have been made that hinders not but that by the simple comparison of these two Editions it may be sufficiently seen how that the Romish Church hath but few of these worships and doctrines which separate us from her which do not aggrieve or create trouble unto the ablest of her communion at such time as they ingage to express a little clearly what they think of them This same thing may also work this other effect how little soever equity there be in the world that our Masters of the Roman Church must more and more acknowledge that they ought not to have a disesteem or aversion for us by reason of some difference in opinion touching things of which the most eminent amongst them have themselves so great difficulty to satisfie themselves and the rather because they well know that they are born and bred in their belief and with the principles upon which their Belief is founded whereas we are born and bred up in a Belief opposite and with principles contrary unto theirs which is the cause that we do feel the same difficulties more to the quick than they can do Page 1. of the 1. Edition In the first place at the beginning of the first Edition the Bishop of Condom doth declare that he will propose unto us simply the Doctrine of the Church of Rome separating the Questions that she hath decided from those which do not appertain to Faith c. This doth speak plainly enough that all those Questions that are not proposed in the Bishop of Condom's Treatise do not at all appertain to Faith and this being granted we are free'd from a great number of doctrines and practices of the Romish Church which the Bishop of Condom doth not propose unto us or that he doth separate from those which he doth propose In the last Edition the Bishop of Condom recals this Declaration and saith quite another thing though as to the rest he changeth nothing in this regard in the whole model nor in the continuance of his Treatise He saith that he will propose simply the opinions of the Romish Church Page 2. of the 2. Edition Page 7 8 of the 1. Edition and distinguish them from those that have been falsly imputed unto her 2. In the first speaking of the worship of Saints he saith That the honour that the Roman Church gives unto Saints is religious or that it is not religious but because she gives this honour with relation unto God He proves the same That this honour should be so far from being blamed because it is religious that on the contrary it were to be blamed if it were not religious In the last Edition he perceives that he hath said Page 13. and proved too much and not knowing how to recal all that he had said he turns the thing into a form of doubt or into a suspended sense if the honour saith he that the Church gives unto the holy Virgin and the Saints can be called religious it is because it necessarily refers unto God 3. In the first whereas we alledge P. 9. as matter of fact that there is no footstep of any worshiping of Saints in the three first Ages or Centuries or whereas the Bishop of Condom himself saith that Mr. Daillé doth confine himself within those Ages He adds The reason is because it is certain that in those three Ages the Church being more busied in suffering than writing left many things to be cleered in her doctrines and practices c. In the last he altogether expunges these words whatever fair evasion they had he thought this was to confess something too advantageous for us that not only the worshipping of Saints but also several other doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome are not at all to be found in the Writings of the three First Ages though it is known that the Bishop of Condom is not the onely person of his communion that hath not been able to restrain himself from making this confession And he is sensible also without doubt that the reason that he would give for this silence was in effect but a weak colour that is that the Church was more imploy'd in suffering than in writing because that the sufferings of the Church in those First Ages did not at all hinder but that besides the sacred Writings of Evangelists and Apostles which are infinitely above the Writings of all other Ages we have also sufficient large Volumes of many great persons of the three First Centuries as of Justin Martyr S. Iren Clement Priest of Alexandria c. of Tertullian St. Cyprian of Origen and many others before and after them for although Tertullian and Origen held some erroneous Opinions that hinders not but that one or the other might have made mention of the worship of Saints if it were true that they had seen it practised in their dayes 4. In the First having laid down the several means whereby it can be supposed that the Saints do hear our Prayers whether it be by the ministry of Angels or whether that God himself makes them know our desires by a particular revelation or that he discovers unto them this secret in his infinite essence he adds or whether that by any other way more impenetrable and yet more unknown that God makes us receive the fruit of those Prayers that we address unto those blessed Souls which doth import in that place that whether the Saints do hear our Prayers or whether they hear them not God doth not fail to recompence the devotion that men have for the Saints Annot Elucid Quaest 228 in Epist ad Rom Sanctos pro nobis interpellare non est aliud quam pro meritis eorum bonos affectus quos habemus in eos propter Deum remunerare ideo nihil interest sive nos audiant sive non audiant and this is also the Doctrine of Hugh of St.
that there is very little or scarce a jot of this usage nor of the mention thereof found in the first times of the Christian Church It is well known that the Fathers of the first three or four Centuries and some of the fifth it self had several Errours touching the state of souls after death which process of time hath taken away some having believed that the souls did abide in a place of refreshing near Heaven or under Heaven until the Day of Judgment Others that they did sleep and that they should arise the first time with their bodies to reign a thousand years upon earth with Jesus Christ and finally at the day of Judgement and of the last Resurrection all that were raised should pass as it were through a Sea of Fire which should purifie and cleanse them But never any of them did believe a place where the souls should suffer after the death of the body pains in some sort like those of Hell except for continuance as the Church of Rome teaches No more did the ancient Jews believe it neither do the Greeks yet at this day believe it though they pray for the dead after the same manner as the Fathers now mentioned did Dial. lib. 4. ca. 39 40 51 55. It may be made appear here that this Doctrine is onely an imitation of that of the Pagans and that even Pope Gregory himself who is the first that put this Doctrine in credit speakes in the same sense and the same terms as Virgil saying that the souls are purged some in the Fire others fann'd in the Air others washed and cleansed in Rivers and in Ice and lastly others in Baths and Stoves but we onely design to touch things here as in passe Indulgences If the Doctrine of Satisfactions and of Purgatory be evil that of Indulgences doth fall of it self because this as it is taught in the Church of Rome is but as consequent and dependant on the other If God hath not subjected us unto Works of Satisfaction and unto temporal punishments unto which the Church of Rome would subject us there is no need of her dispensations and we have no business to examine if she hath any power herein Few persons are ignorant of the great difference that there is betwixt the Indulgence which was formerly used unto publick penitents and the pardons which Popes give as well for the dead as for the living and we have shewed by the very confession of themselves of the Roman Church that this Doctrine is not grounded upon any authority in Scripture and that there is not found any practice nor mention of it in the five or six first Centuries Also every one knowes what interest the Court of Rome hath to maintain as well Purgatory as the power of the Keys as the Council speaks the great authority and immense riches which this Doctrine hath brought unto it and that it brings unto it daily the cases reserved unto the Holy See the Table of Sins rated Sess 25. de Indulg more or less according to the nature of Sins Lastly the crying abuses are too visible whereof the Council it self has been constrained to order a Reformation They are it may be something less in France where people have their eyes more open but they are so great in Spain beyond the Mountains and in the very place which is termed the Center of Religion that the sober persons of their Communion cannot forbear condemning of them This is what we had to say of Justification and of the Doctrines which depend upon it It may be believed that this may suffice to shew that the questions which separate us from the Roman Church upon this point are not of so small consequence as the Bishop of Condom would insinuate but that on the contrary herein is concerned the purest and if it may be spoken the most Christian part of Religion as hath been proved throughout upon this Article and that to conclude the Bishop of Condom doth not make any controversies to cease except perhaps in regard of those things which he hath suppressed and upon this particular point of Satisfactions upon which the Council of Trent Bellarmine and in a word the doctrine and general practice of the Roman Church formally take away what the Bishop of Condom would grant us THE FOVRTH PART The Process of the Bishop of Condom's Treatise IX The Sacraments in general doth call us to the matter of the Sacraments We will but little insist as neither doth he upon the name the number and the efficacy of the Sacraments in general and in like sort upon the greatest part of what he calls Sacraments in particular because the difficulties upon these points are not in reality so hotly agitated as the Bishop of Condom himself saith It may be believed that the time and patience of them who shall take the paines to read this Answer will be better imployed upon the matter of the Eucharist and upon the other articles which concern Tradition and the authority of the Pope which are more important and upon which we have most controversie In the first place as to the name of Sacraments Greg. in cap. 16. â—ib Reg. Tertul. de praesc c. Lib. 10 50. Tra. 80. 〈◊〉 Joan. Accedit verbum ad elementuÌ„ fit SacrameÌ„tum it were a thing indifferent to give them one name rather than another if we were agreed of the things or if the names would not by consequence draw in the things themselves The name of Sacrament may be taken in a double sense the one general and extensive to signifie any sacred act or ceremony as it is often taken in the Fathers the other proper less extensive as St. Augustine defines it in his Book of the City of God when he calls it a visible sign of an invisible grace the blessing of the Word being joyned as he saith elsewhere unto the matter of the outward Elements In the first sense they may if they please make not onely seven Sacraments Pierre de Damien Ser. 69. pa. 168. but twelve if they will as a Catholick Doctour did before the Council The Bishop of Condom doth in some sort accommodate himself unto this general sense when he uses this expression that in his communion there are received seven Signs or sacred Ceremonies The difficulty is that the Council being herein less equitable than the Bishop of Condom hath in this as well as in the matter of Justification made Articles of Faith of many particular Opinions which are nothing to the Essence of Sacraments which are good for nothing at all but for the Schools For the Council will have us expresly to believe not only seven Signs or sacred Ceremonies in a general sense but seven true Sacraments properly so called as it speaks and that we believe neither more nor less under pain of Anathema however it is plainly to be seen that at least in the ceremonies of Marriage of Pennance
authority of the Church of Rome which they pretend cannot err Behold therefore the Bishop of Condom's argument overthrown in all its parts seeing that the Maxime which he layes down is not true which is that all the Doctrines embraced by all the Christian Churches whereof the first beginning cannot be shewn proceed from the Apostles and that the application which he doth make is less true which is that all the Traditions of the Church of Rome are Doctrines embrac'd by all the Christian Churches without possibility of shewing their beginning and by consequence this conclusion whether it be of the Bishop of Condom or of the Council of Trent far from being true and orthodox is a very strange principle that we ought to receive the Traditions even those which do separate us from the Church of Rome with the same respect and the same submission as the Holy Scripture XIX The authority of the Church After Tradition follows the authority of the Church The Bishop of Condom doth not clearly explain wherein this authority consists nor what he understands by the Church which should have this authority whether this authority should have any bounds or whether it should have none or whether it be the Pope with the Council or without the Council or the Council alone in which this authority doth reside for we also have our Churches and our Governours and we believe that we should not onely keep order but all that doth conduce for the maintaining of unity and concord and the Question here as elsewhere is oftentimes but of the more or less What the Bishop of Condom sayes in this case is reducible to four principal propositions The first that it cannot be but by the authority of the Church that we receive the whole body of the Holy Scriptures The second that it is of the Church that we learn Tradition and by Tradition the true sense of the Scriptures The third that it is the Church and her Pastours assembled which should determine controversies that divide the Faithful and that when once they have resolved any matter we ought to submit unto their decisions without examining anew that which they have resolved The fourth and last that this authority is so necessary that after having denied it we have been forced to establish it amongst us by our discipline by the Acts of our Synods and by our practice in things pertaining to Faith it self As to the first we agree with the Bishop of Condom that the Christian Church is the Guardian of the Scriptures and that as she hath received the Law and the Prophets from the Jewish Church so it is from the Chirstian Church that the Faithful receive all the Scriptures as well of the Old as of the New Testament We even acknowledge that the authority of the Church is a lawful reason which at first makes us look upon the Scripture as a revelation from Heaven but we do deny not onely that it is meerly by the authority of the Church but that it is principally by her authority that we receive the Scripture as the Divine Word The Scripture is full of Testimonies which it self gives of its Divinity and of the efficacious power which it hath upon hearts by the operation of the Holy Ghost It is indeed somewhat injurious to this the Divinity of the Scripture and to its efficacy and somewhat contradictory when it is contended that a matter Divine should not be received but by dependance upon an humane authority It is as if one would say that it is yet at this day onely by the authority of the Jewish Church that Christians have received the whole body of the Scriptures of the Old Testament because it is by her hand that we have received them though upon the whole the authority of this peopel chosen of God may be a reasonable ground of the Divinity of the Scriptures Truth hath its proper character even in humane matters which makes us acknowledge it for its self when once it is set before our eyes and not for the authority of those who propose it to us By greater reason Heavenly truths like the Sun manifest themselves by their proper splendour 'T is a common speech upon this subject that a man asleep being told the Sun is up presently believes it is day upon what is told him but when once he sees it is day he believes it not any longer because he was told so but because he sees it and he doth not so much as dream any longer that it was told him so The Gentlemen of the Church of Rome will not agree that it is as clear that the Scripture is the Word of God as it is clear that it is day when the Sun is above our Horizon and this is it which the Bishop of Condom gives to understand in terms positive enough when he speaks of us that whatever we say he believes that it is principally the authority of the Church pag. 16. that determines us to reverence as Divine Books the Song of Songs which hath so few sensible marks of prophetical inspiration the Epistle of St. James which Luther rejected and that of St. Jude which might be suspected by reason of some Apocryphal Books which are therein alledged But how dare any man rebate or decry as I may so speak the brightness and force of the Word of God Why sayes he absolutely that the Song of Songs hath so few marks of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit And to what end here again proposes he scruples against this Song and against the two Epistles of St. James and St. Jude which we look upon both in the one and the other communion as sacred Books and that without so much as alledging the reasons which have determined as well the Church of Rome as ours to receive these Writings as Canoniâ—al For will any say that if these Writings had not had any character of Divinity the sole approbation of the Church of Rome could give them 〈◊〉 light which they had not of themselves For our parts 2 Tim. 3.16 we say with the Apostle that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and if all men do not look upon them in the same manner or with the same sentiments it is not the fault of the Scripture but it is the effect of the variety and weakness of the humane spirit and the wise and free dispensation of the Spirit of God which bloweth where it will and as it will An evident proof that it is not the authority of the Church of Rome which determines those of our communion to reverence the Scriptures and these three Books particularly as Canonical but that it is their own proper character and the grace which we believe that God gives us to acknowledge this character is that 't is well known there are some others as Tobie Judith VVisdome Ecclesiasticus and the two first Books of Maccabees c. which the Church of Rome receives as Canonical which