not excuse the Censured Person for continuing out of her Communion when the Communion may be recovered by any Submission how inconvenient and harsh soever if it be not sinful yet that is the very Case here that we are not only wrongfully Excommunicated but the terms proposed for our restitution to Communion would be directly sinful as has been shewn before Whence it will follow that we are excusable not only in suffering our Selves to be cast out of their Communion but also in continuing out of it But because this is not our whole Case who do not only abstein from their Communion but set up a Communion of our own and maintain an Ecclesiastical Body Politick distinct from theirs our defence herein will depend on the Justice of the Ecclesiastical power of those Persons who govern our Ecclesiastical Assemblies And therefore 2. All our concernment for Antiquity here will be that our Bishops derived their power from such as derived theirs with a power of communicating it in a continual Succession from the Apostles And this we do acknowledge true concerning the Popish Bishops themselves and do derive the validity of our Orders from the Antiquity of theirs without any more prejudice to our Cause than the Primitive Catholicks did suffer by acknowledging the validity of Baptism administred by Hereticks For the Succession of their Pastors is very reconcilable with a supposed Innovation in their Doctrines and certainly themselves cannot deny that it is so whilst they charge the Orientals with Heresie whom yet they cannot deny to have alwaies maintained as uninterrupted a Succession of Bishops as themselves especially considering that the Innovations we charge them with of adding false and new Articles of Faith not of denying the old ones do not in the least interrupt or invalidate their Succession This therefore being supposed that the first Bishops of our English Reformation received their power from such as had derived theirs by an uninterrupted succession from the Apostles it will follow that they were valid Bishops and if so had the power of keeping Church-Assemblies and exercising Jurisdiction in them both for the Government of their present Charges and communicating their power to succeeding Generations For nothing of this is pretended to exceed the power of a valid Bishop The charge of Heresy it self cannot hinder the validity of their Orders either received or communicated though it may indeed in the Judgment of them who believe them so render them obnoxious to Canonical Incapacities of executing them and to Legal Degradations not from the Character but from the actual Jurisdiction properly belonging to their Office But to such Canonical Incapacities and Degradations they will not deny even validly-Ordeined Persons themselves to be obnoxious and therefore cannot make that an Argument against the validity of our Orders And yet when this Charge of Heresy against our Bishops is not here to be Judged by the pretences of our Adversaries but by the merit of the Cause and therefore is not to be taken fâ—r granted till it be proved That therefore which is indeed new in the Church of England is That though her Positive Doctrines and Orders be Ancient yet the Profession of her Negatives and the open Assertion of her Liberty from the Encroachments of the Roman Court and all her other Practices grounded on these Principles were not avowed by her Ecclesiastical Governors for several Centuries before the Reformation And in Answer hereunto I shall insist on the heads already intimated Therefore 1. There was no reason to expect that her opposition to these Errors should have been Ancienter though we should suppose the Errors themselves to have been so For there was no reason to expect that Errors should have been discovered for some Ages before the Reformation when there was so great a want of that kind of Grammatical and Historical Learning which is only fit to qualifie a Person to Judge of Ecclesiastical Tradition at least they were not likely to have been discovered by such a number as had been requisite to maintain an open opposition And if the Errors had been discovered yet it was not easie to expect success in holding out against the Court of Rome which was then so very powerful and there was no reason to expect such attempts from Prudent Persons where there was no probability of success And there was yet least reason of all to expect this opposition from Bishops then when no Bishops were made without the Popes consent which he was not likely to give to such as were likely to oppose him when after they were made they were obliged to be true to Him by express Oaths as well as by their Interests of peaceable continuance or hopes of future preferment when at least it was impossible to resist their Fellow-Bishops the generality of whom were in all likelyhood swayed by these Prejudices when they had seen mighty Princes themselves worsted in those Contests and the extreme Severity of that Court against Dissenters when lastly differing from the Church of Rome in any thing was counted Heresy and Heresy was prosecuted with the extremest Infamy which must needs weaken the Authority of those Opposers with others as well as other Penalties of the Canon-Law Nor 2. Does the Justice of our Cause require a greater Antiquity for our Negatives For 1. Our Negatives are not pretended to be of perpetual obligation but only for preventing the malignity of the contrary Affirmative Articles to which they are opposed And therefore there is no reason to expect Formal Negatives opposed to Additional Articles from the beginning before the Additional Articles themselves were thought of nor to expect a Reformation of Abuses before there were Abuses to be Reformed seeing that in course of Nature these Negatives presuppose the contrary Affirmatives as a pretence of Reformation must also presuppose Abuses And therefore the pretence of the greater Antiquity of our Adversaries Errors and Abuses is so far from prejudicing the reputation of our Negatives and Reformation as that it is indeed the best Argument of their Justice and Seasonableness For such Negatives as these and such a Reformation must needs have been unwarrantable if there had not been before Errors fit to be denyed and Abuses fit to be reformed Nor 2. Is it any Prejudice to the Justice of our Cause that these Errors were not opposed with formal Negatives as soon as they appeared For such Errors as these were usually first received as the Opinions of private Persons before they were countenanced by Authority and whilst they proceeded no further there was not that mischief in them nor consequently that obligation to oppose them as when at length they came to be so countenanced For the Errors of Private Persons whilst they are no more are not conceived so to oblige us to be of their mind as that our silence should in any Prudence be expounded as an Argument of our consent and consequently cannot be such a provocation to us to oppose them
their direction be such as may not only excuse their mistakes but secure them of the Truth itself I say these things being considered there will be reason to believe that however fallible such general Presumptions may be in their own nature yet that God in his Goodness has so ordered the matter in affairs of this nature as that those who are guided by these Presumptions may by the use of them be secured of the Truth it self in these particulars As for the Method observed in this Discourse it is such as I conceived most clear and comprehensive in few words and yet withal most accurate and satisfactory to a doubting Person For any one may be much more secure of a Consequence when he is first secured of all its Principles and he can much better judge of them when he has an intire prospect of them in the natural order wherein they lye and wherein they are necessary for the deduction of such a Consequence Yet I have neither deduced my Principles too remotely but as near as I could find them clear and indisputable nor have insisted on the proof of those that were clear any further than I conceived it necessary to do so from the actual Disputes concerning the Consequence And I have been careful rather to prove than to confute which I conceived to be a course as less Invidious to Adversaries who should find themselves no further concerned than as the consequences of positive Truths might make them concern'd so also more satisfactory to a Person in the Gentlewomans condition And in the whole I am so little conscious of any design of displeasing any to whom Truth it self might not prove displeasing as that if any Adversary shall think it worth his time to Answer what I have said I am not my self affraid of provocation from any thing which he can say in following my Precedent AN ANSWER TO Six Queries c. Q. 1 Whether any one going from the Church of England and dying a Roman Catholick can be saved I. IF by the words can be saved be meant a possibility in regard of the means we then deny it For we hold that such Errors are maintained in that Communion as are in their own nature destructive of Salvation Such are 1. The Doctrines even of their Church which oblige them to do mischief as those concerning the Popes Supremacy over Princes in Temporals and concerning their Duty of prosecuting Hereticks The loosness of their Casuistical Divinity countenanced by such Authorities of Casuists as must needs influence such Persons as act conformably to the Principles of that Communion and their generally allowing a greater Liberty to such persons as are desirous to reconcile their Vices with their hopes of Eternity by their licentious applications of those two Distinctions of Precepts and Counsels and of Mortal and Venial Sins whereby they make most Duties Counsels and most Sins only Venial Which danger is the more considerable to an Ignorant Person who for want of skill of her own must in Prudence and by the Principles of that Communion be obliged to trust such un-secure Guides 2. Not to mention the ill influence of several of their Doctrines on the Lives of such as own them the very imposing them as matters of Faith the Excommunicating and Anathematizing all that deny them the condemning Dissenters as guilty of Heresy and Schism at least what they call Material the inserting several of their controverted Doctrines into their Liturgies so that they who cannot believe them cannot veraciously joyn with them in their Devotions are Innovations from the liberty allowed in the Primitive Church wherein many whom all own for excellent Persons and good Catholicks never owned nay some of them doubted of or contradied such Conditions of Communion in sum their unreasonable grounds of dividing Catholick Communion and their Uncharitableness to Dissenters are Errors dangerous to the Salvation of the Person owning and abetting them For all will own even the Romanists themselves that the Crime of breaking Catholick Communion where it is justly imputed is destructive of Salvation 3. Several Abuses of that Church I say of the Church not only of particular Persons in it are so gross as that several of the most eminent and candid men of their own Communion have owned them for such such as Prayer in an unknown Tongue denying the Chalice to the Laity Fabulous Saints and Stories still continued in the best approved Ecclesiastical Offices Martyrs canonized for bad Causes conducing to the greatness of the Roman See as Beckes for Example Yet by the Principles of that Communion pretending to Infallibility it is impossible that any Abuse in defence of which their Church is engaged as She is here should ever be reformed because it is impossible that a Church so pretending to be Infallible should ever grant any such thing to be an Abuse And many more Abuses are by the moderate Persons of their Communion owned in the Court of Rome which yet by the power allowed to the Court over their Church by the general consent of the Church it self cannot possibly be reformed Seeing therefore that the Church of Rome does thus oppose all possible Reformation of Abuses of this nature and seeing that whilst these Abuses are not reformed many of them may justifie a Separation and most of them may do it when all hopes of Reformation are professedly opposed Catholick Peace on such terms as may not only lawfully but commendably be yielded will be impossible And the abetting of such a Party as makes Catholick Peace on just terms impossible must needs be an Error destructive of Salvation This is a mischief unavoidably consequent to mistakes in a Society pretending to be Infallible As these Errors are thus of their own nature destructive of Salvation so going over to that Communion from another does naturally involve the Person doing so in the actual guilt of the Errors themselves 1. Because Communicating according to all does involve the Persons Communicating in the guilt of such Errors at least as are imposed as conditions of the Communion as these are in the Church of Rome This needs not to be proved against the Romanists who insist on it against Us as much as We do against them 2. This must especially hold in such as revolt from our Church to theirs both because such an embracing of their Communion is more an Argument of choice and designed preference in such as leave others to come to it than in such as are born in it and consequently must signifie a more express approbation of the terms of it and because more explicite recantations of our Doctrines are required even from Laick Revolters than from such as are born in it 3. Because the Resignation of Judgment is expected more intire from Women and Laicks than from skilful Persons who may in some Cases be allowed the liberty of their own Judgments even by the Principles of that Communion so that Persons in the Gentlewomans condition may
it were impartially Enquired into there would not be greater and better attested Miracles for Invocation of Saints among the Romanists than for the Invocation of Daemons among the Pagans 4. That the same Arguments used by the Scriptures and Primitive Christians against the Heathen Idolatries are applyed by the Protestants to the Image-worship among the Papists now and the same Answers given by the Papists now were then also insisted on by the Pagans 5. That as these are very shrew'd Suspicions of the dangerousness of this Worship so this danger is ventured on without the least necessity there being undeniable Security from the Primitive Records and Revelations of Christianity that God is pleased to accept such Prayers as are addressed to him through the Intercession of Christ alone so that there can be no necessity of having also recourse unto the Saints 6. That Image-worship is not countenanced by as much as any Venerable Authority of truly Primitive Christianity and that the Second Nicaene Council that introduced it was put to very disingenuous Shifts of counterfeit Authorities for it 7. That whatever may be thought of the Worship designed by the Roman Church yet even Mr. Thorndike himself with whose Authority our Adversaries principally urge us in this Dispute does not deny that Idolatry is practiced by the Ignoranter Persons of that Communion which the Gentlewoman may justly fear lest it should prove her own Case 8. That the Roman Church her self cannot be altogether excused from the Idolatry of her Ignorant Communicants seeing she puts unnecessary Scandals in Ignorant Persons way and is guilty of encouraging their Ignorance and Carelessness of Judging in matters of Religion 9. That the Practice of that Communion is generaâ—ly worse and grosser than their Principles as the Gentlewoman may inform her self of in that impartial account which is given of them by Sir Edwyn Sandys in his Speculum Europae which yet is observed and countenanced by their most Eminent Guides so that such as She cannot secure themselves from the danger of it 10. That the Romish Church is by so much the more culpable in this Particular because She has not been content only to countenance and encourage a Practice in so great danger of proving Idolatrous so needless in it self so destitute of all Authority either of Scripture or the Primitive Catholick Church which yet does so extremely stand in need of Authority but She has also imposed it as a Condition of her own Communion which She calls Catholick so that they who are willing to Believe and Practice all that was Believed and Practised in the Primitive Church must now be Anathematized and condemned for Hereticks for refusing to Believe or Practice any more or to condemn those as Hereticks who do refuse it Q. 3. Where was the Church of England before Luthers time THE design of asking this Question is certainly to make our Confession of Novelty in such Cases wherein our Adversaries presume our Novelty so notorious as that we our Selves cannot deny it an Argument against Us yet they themselves are concerned in some Cases to deny its cogency For even they cannot deny that the deprivation of the Laity of the use of the Cup for Example has been lately introduced into their Church by a publick Law If therefore it may appear that our Church is Antient as to all intents and purposes wherein Antiquity may be available but that the Church of Rome is not so and that in the sense wherein the Church of England has begun since Luther there is no reason to expect that She should have been Antienter and that the Justice of her Cause does not require it and that the Antiquity upon these Suppositions confessedly allowed to the Church of Rome is no Argument for the Justice of her Cause these things I think will contain a fully satisfactory Answer to the Gentlewomans Question I shall not at present engage on an accurate Discussion of these Heads but shall only suggest such short Observations as may let her see how unreasonable our Adversaries confidence is in this Argument wherein they do so usually triumph Therefore 1. Antiquity is indeed necessary to be pleaded for Doctrines such especially as are pretended to belong to the Catholick Faith and which are urged as Conditions of Communion This is the Case wherein it is urged by Tertullian and Vincentius Lirinensis in their very rational Discourses on this Argument And for this I think we may challenge the Church of Rome her self to instance in one positive Doctrine imposed by us which She her self thinks not Ancient I am sure the Controversie is so stated commonly that we are blamed not for Believing any thing antient or necessary which is not but for not believing some things which She believes to be so And if She her self believe all our Positives and withal believes that nothing is so to be believed but what is Antient it will clearly follow that She cannot in consistency with her own interests deny the Antiquity of our Positive Doctrines But for the other Doctrines superadded by them and denied by us which are indeed the true occasion of the present Divisions of Communion we charge them with Innovation and are very confident that they will never be able to prove them to the satisfaction of any Impartial Person either from clear Scripture or from genuine Antiquity of the first and purest Ages which are the way wherein we are willing to undertake the proof of our positive Doctrines Nay their greatest Champions decline the tryal and complain of the defectiveness and obscurity of the Primitive Christian Writers which they would not have reason to do if they thought them clear on their side These things therefore being thus supposed That no Doctrines ought to be imposed but what are Ancient That ours are so by our Adversaries own Confession and that our Adversaries Doctrines are not so and that in Judging this the private Judgments of particular Persons are to be trusted as the measures of their own private Practice as it is plain that those Discourses of Tertullian and Vincentius Lirinensis are principally designed for the satisfaction of particular Persons which had been impertinent if the Churches Judgment had been thought Credible in her own Case as a Judge of Controversies besides that even now this Argument from Antiquity is made use of for convincing such as are supposed unsatisfied with her Authority and therefore to whom that Authority can be no Argument which Liberty of private Judgment is then especially most fit to be indulged when the distance is so remote as it is now when no Church has now those Advantages for conveying down Apostolical Tradition in a Historical way as She had then These things I say being thus supposed it will follow that we are wrongfully Excommunicated and therefore that we have no reason to fear that their Censures should be confirmed by God And though I confess every Error in the Cause of the Churches Censures will
sufficient to Justifie their Cause For 1. This Antiquity is not Primitive but only of some later Ignorant Ages And the Unreasonableness of presuming Doctrines to have been Primitive only because they were actually found embraced by the Church in later Ages and of Prescribing on that account against a new Examination of them by immediate recourse to the Originals might have been shewn from the Fathers as well as from the Protestants 2. The Antiquity of those Notions of theirs whereby they confine the Catholick Church to that part of it in the Roman Communion which might have been proved Fundamental to all their other Doctrines as they are made Articles of Faith and Conditions of Communion is contradicted by the Oriental Churches generally who are as ancient and of as Unquestionable a Succession as the Church of Rome her self and as ancient in teaching the contrary 3. The utmost Antiquity which we allow for their unwarrantable Doctrines is not so great as must be acknowledged by all that will Judge candidly for several which on all sides are acknowledged to be Heretical I do not only mean those of the Arians but also of those great Bodies of the Oriental Historians and Euâ—ychians continuing to this day divided from the Roman Church especially if they be really guilty of those Heresies which are charged on them and they must by Romanists be held guilty of some for Justifying their own Practice of condemning them 4. Some of their present Decrees particularly those concerning the admission of the Apocryphal Books into the Canon and receiving Unwritten Traditions with Equal Reverence with the Written Word of God I doubt are not more anciently imposed as Conditions of Catholick Communion than the Council of Trent it self which was since Luther And both of these are very considerable and especially the later is very Fundamental to many of their other Decrees Q. 4. Why all the Reformed Churches are not Vnited in One I Presume the design of this Question is not so much a Curiosity to be Informed either of the Politick Reasons which in the Course of Second Causes might have an Influence on those Divisions which were occasioned by the Reformation or of those that might move God to permit Second Causes to act according to their Natural Inclination without the Interposition of any Extraordinary restraint but only to lay hold on that Advantage from our acknowledged Divisions which they may seem to afford to the Prejudice of our common Cause I shall therefore at present onâ—y propose such things to the Gentlewomans Consideration as may let her understand the weakness of this Argument how Popular soever when they conclude us either mistaken our Selves or at least unfit to Guide others in the General Reformation because we are not all agreed in all the Particulars To this purpose it will be at present sufficient to insist on two things 1. That there is no reason why the Romanists should upbraid Us with this Argument and that it is their Interest as well as ours to Answer it 2. That the Argument it self is of no force as it is used by them against us 1. There is no Reason why the Romanists should upbraid Us with this Argument and they as well as we are obliged to Answer it For 1. This very Argument was by the Primitive Heathens made use of against Christianity in General as it is now against Us and our Adversaries would do well to consider whether the same Answers pleadable by themselves now in behalf of those Christians and actually pleaded by the Apologists then be not as pleadable for Us now Nay this multitude of Sects in Christianity is even now the great Argument of Irreligious Persons against the Truth of Religion and I cannot believe that any Piously disposed Person among them can be pleased to allow the Argument to be of any force in either Case rather than want an Argument against Us. Yet I believe they will never be able to shew any Disparity 2. If they speak not of Dividing Principles but of actual Divisions they as well as we have such among themselves They have Divisions betwixt the Irish Remonstrants and Anti-Remonstrants Molinists and Jansenists as well as Thomists and Scotists and Jesuites some of which Parties are Divided as well in Communion as in Opinions If they say that these Divisions are not the faults of their Opinions but the particular perversity of Persons who will not stick to those Principles which might keep them United when their Interest inclines them otherwise the same will be pretended by every Dividing Party If they think it Injurious that their whole Communion should be charged with the misdemeanors of Persons condemned by it We all of Us plead the same for there is no Party that does not condemn all others in those things wherein they Divide from themselves 3. If they think our Differences concerning the Particulars we would have Reformed an Argument that the whole design of a Reformation is in it self Suspicious and Uncertain let them consider what themselves do or can say when they are in the like way of Arguing urged by Us with the several Opinions concerning the Seat of Infallibility whence our Authors conclude the Uncertainty of the thing it self It might easily have been shewn upon this and the like Occasions how they do and are obliged to acknowledge the Unreasonableness of this way of Arguing But the designed Brevity of my present Employment only permits me to point at the Heads of what might be said not to enlarge on the Particulars 4. It might have been shewn that these Differences among them concerning the Judge of Controversies tend Naturally and by due Rational Consequence to the dissolution of their Communion a Charge which we think cannot be proved against that which we believe the Right Communion 2. Therefore to shew directly the weakness of this Argument Let it be considered 1. That whatever Differences they upbraid us with yet they can never prove that they follow by any Natural and Rational Consequence from the General Principles of the Reformation though possibly they may indeed have been occasioned by that Liberty of Spirit which was absolutely requisite for undertaking a design of such a Nature as it must on all sides be acknowledged possible that things really good may notwithstanding prove occasions of Evil. And how very Unjust and Unreasonable it is to charge Personal Faults upon Designs that is in this Case the faults of Reformers upon the Reformation all even the Romanists themselves will acknowledge in Cases wherein they are dis-interessed 2. That this being Supposed all that they can conclude from these Divisions of the Reformers is only that no one Communion of the Reformers has that advantage over the rest as that Antecedently to all Enquiry into the merit of the Cause its Word is fit to be trusted as a Guide in Controversies to assure any of its own Truth and of the Error of all differing from it This if the Gentlewoman