what is the true sense of those passages that are in dispute but by that same Church which conveys it to you This is S. Austin's method in many places but above all in his Book De utilitate Credendi and in his Book Contra Epistolam fundamenti In which he says I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Church did not oblige me to it This Method is handsomely managed in the Treatise of the true Word of God joyned to the Peaceable Method Remarks 1. GReat difference is to be made between the conveyance of Books and an Oral Tradition of Doctrine It is very easie to carry down the one in a way that is Morally Infallible An exact copying being all that is necessary for that Whereas it is morally impossible to prevent frauds and impostures in the other in a course of some Ages especially in times of Ignorance and Corruption in which the Credulity of unthinking people has made an easie game to the Craft and Industry of covetous and aspiring Priests Few were then at the pains to examine any thing but took all upon Trust and became so ready of belief that the more incredible a thing seemed to be they swallowed it down the more willingly 2. If this way of reasoning will hold good it was as strong in the mouths of the Iews in our Saviours time for the High Priest and Sanhedrim might have as reasonably pretended that since they had conveyed down the Books in which the Prophecies of the Messiah were contained they hâ—d likewise the right to expound those Prophecies 3. A Witness that hands a thing down without Additions is very different from a Judge that delivers things on his own Authority We freely own the Church to be such a Witness that there is no colour of reason to disbelieve the Tradition of the Books but we see great cause to question the credit of her decisions 4. In this Tradition of Books we have not barely the Tradition of the Church for it We find in all ages since the Books of the New Testament were written several Authors have cited many and large passages out of them We find they were very quickly translated into many other Languages and diverse of those are conveyed down to us There were also so many Copies of these Books every where that though one had resolved on so Sacrilegious an attempt as the corrupting them had been he could not have succeeded in it to any great degree Some additions might have been made in some Copies and so from those they might have been derived to others but these could not have bâ—en considerable otherwise they had been discovered and complained of and when we find the Church engaged in contests with Hereticks and Schismaticks we see both sides appealed to the Scriptures and neither of them reproached the other for violating that Sacred Trust. And the noise we find of the small change of a Letter in the Aâ—ian Controversie shews us how exact they were in preserving these Records As for the Errours of Transcribers that is incident to the Nature of Man and though some Errours have crept into some Copies yet all these put together do not alter any one point of our Religion so that they are not of great consequence Thus it appears how much reason we have to receive the Scriptures upon the credit of such a Tradition But for Oral Tradition it is visible how it might have been so managed as quickly to change the whole Nature of Religion Natural Religion was soon corrupted when it passed down in this Conveyance even during the long lives of the Ancient Patriarchs who had thereby an advantage to keep this pure that after ages in which the life of Man is so shortned cannot pretend to We also see to what a degree the Iewish Tradition became corrupted in our Saviours time particularly in one point which may be called the most essential part of their Religion to wit concerning their Messias what the nature of his Person and Kingdome were to be So that they all expected a Great Conquerour a second Moses or a David so ineffectual a mean is Oral Tradition for conveying down any Doctrine pure or uncorrupted The Ninth Method IS to tell them the Church in which they were before they made the Separation was the true Church because it was the only Church so that they could not Reform the Doctrine without making another Church For then she must have fallen into Errour and by consequence the Gates of Hell must have prevailed against her which is directly contrary to the Promise of Iesus Christ that cannot fail The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her Remarks 1. A Church may be a True Church and yet be corrupted by many Errours for a â—rue Church is a Society of men among whom are the certain means of Salvation and such was the Iewish Church in our Saviours time For their Sacrifices had still an Expiatory Vertue and the Covenant made with that people stood still and yet they were over-run with many Errours chiefly in their notions of the Messias And thus as long as the Church of Rome acknowledges the Expiation made by the Death of Christ and applied to all that truly believe and amend their lives so long she is a True Church So that those of that Communion who adhere truly to that which is the great fundamental of the Christian Religion may be saved But when so many things were added to this that it was very hard to preserve this fundamental truth pure and entire then it was necessary for those who were better enlightned to call on others to correct the abuses that had crept in 2. It is hard to build a great super-structure on a figurative expression of which it is not easie to find out the true and full sense And in this that is cited there are but three terms and about every one of them great and just grounds of doubting do appear 1. It is not certain what is meant by the Gates of Hell which is an odd figure for an assailant If by Gates we mean Councils because the Magistrates and Courts among the Iews sate in the Gates then the meaning will be that the Craft of Hell shall not prevail against the Church that is shall not root out Christianity or if by Gates of Hell or the Grave according to a common Greek Phrase Death be to be understood it being the Gate through which we pass to the Grave then the meaning is this that the Church shall never die or be extinguished Nor is there less difficulty to be made about the signification of the word Church Whether it is to be meant in general of the body of Christians or of the Pastors of the Church and of the majority of them The Context seems to carry it for the Body of Christians and then the meaning will be only this That there shall still be a Body of Christians in the World And
are not succeeded by men of their own tempers yet it is to be hoped that these seeds so sown do still grow where they find a soil disposed for them For though such Notions are not very grateful to some whose Interests biass them another way or to others whose ill lives make them look on all Books of a severe Piety and that design a strict Discipline as so many Satyrs writ against themselves yet to such as are not prepossessed nor corrupted nothing does so easily enter and continue so fixed as those Maximes which they infuse particularly those of the necessity of a Vocation of the Holy Ghost before one enters into Holy Orders and a strict application to the care of Souls after one has engaged in them Truth and Goodness are in their Natures so Congenial that there is no way so certain to lead men to the knowledge of the Truth as to form their minds inwardly to such a sense of Piety and Goodness as may make them fit receptacles of Truth Thus did the Heathen Philosophers begin at the purging their Auditors minds by their cleansing Doctrines before they communicated to them their sublimer Precepts Among the Jews the Sons of the Prophets were long prepared in a course of Mortification and Devotion that so they might become capable of Divine illapses and our Saviour began his Instructions with the correcting the ill Morals of his Followers and Hearers and did not communicate the higher Mysteries of his Doctrine to them till they were well prepared for it since as he said himself the way to know his Doctrine whether it was of God or not was to do his will which makes the sense of the Soul become as exact in judging of its object as a sound state of Health makes the Organs of our Bodily Senses fit to represent their objects distinctly to us And therefore that Church that has advanced so far in the reforming the Morals of the People and the Conduct of the Clergy may be very justly esteemed the best as well as the most learned part of the Roman Communion Though it is not to be denied but the Iealousie that those men of better Notions have fallen under what by the Interest the Jesuites have gained both at Court and in the Sorbonne what by the willingness that is in the greatest part of Men particularly of corrupt Ecclesiasticks to love looser Principles and what by the odious names of Innovators of Men enclined to Heresie Schism or Faction is such that as on the one hand they are lookt at with an ill Eye as a sort of men that are neither good Subjects to the King nor to the Pope So they on the other hand to free themselves from these imputations have perhaps departed too much from these sincere principles which they had at first laid down and have betaken themselves to some Arts and Policies that do not become men so enlightned as they are But I will not enlarge more on this because I honour them so much and have learned so much from them that I will rather bewail than insult over their failings But though they themselves are thus suspected yet such is the force of Truth and the Evidence of those Maximes which they hold and the World is so possessed with them that even their greatest Enemies are forced to yield to them rather perhaps because they dare not scandalize the World by keeping up abuses of which all people are convinced than out of any inward affection they bear to a severe or Primitive Discipline By this means it is that there is now nothing more common in all the parts of France than to talk of a Reformation of abuses even in those places where the Prelates Example is perhaps one of the most conspicuous of all the Abuses To what has been said this may be added That their Glorious and Conquering Monarch being now possessed with this Maxime That he will have but one Religion in his Dominions every one there looks on the reducing many of those they call Hereticks as a sure way to obtain his favour and so to attain to great Dignities in the Church It is certain the most refined Wits there are now set on work to bring out the strength of their cause with the greatest advantage that is possible Therefore the Assembly General of their Clergy being called together and being so much the more engaged to shew their Zeal against Heresie that they might cover themselves from the Reproaches of some that are more bigotted for their compliance with the King in the matter of the Regale hath now made an Address to all the Calvinists of France inviting them to return to their Communion to which they have added Directions to those that shall labour in these Conversions which they call Methods by which their minds are in general to be wrought upon without entring into the detail of these Arguments by which the Controversies have been hitherto managed I confess when I read these first I was astonished at most things in them and could have almost thought that a Veron or a Maimbourg had published their Visions in the name of that August Body but I know the Press there is so regulated and the Constitution of that Kingdom is such that so gross an abuse could not be put upon the World Besides when I had over and over again laid all these methods together I found that indeed all the strength of their Cause lay divided among them So that if there is no extraordinary force in them it is because the Cause can bear nothing that is more solid or more convincing I doubt not but the Letter and these Methods will be examined in France with that clearness and exactness that may be expected from the many extraordinary Pens that are there But I being earnestly desired to write somewhat concerning it have adventured on it I have first begun at home and since here we have the concurring voice of so great and so learned a Church concerning the methods of converting Protestants I hope it will be no unacceptable thing to this Nation to put these in English together with such Reflections on them as may be more easily apprehended by every Reader that has but a due measure of Application and Iudgement though â—e has not amused himself much with deep studies of Divinity I shall hold in the general and to the Rational part as they do without going further in any particular Enquiry than shall seem in some sort necessary I ought to make great Apologies for so hardy an Enterprize but I cannot do that without giving the Reasons that determined me to it which is not at present convenient Therefore I must only in general beg the Readers Charity and that he will not impute this attempt to any forwardness of mine or to any extravagant opinion I may have of my self as if I were fit to enter the Lists with such great persons to whom I pay all that Reverend esteem which
to which the Council of Chalcedon assented is an entire contexture of authorities drawn from Scripture without so much as any one citation of any Father It is true there is added to the end of that Letter a Collection of some sayings of six Fathers Hilary Ambrose Nazianzene Chrysostome Austin and Cyril who had all except one lived within sixty years or a little more of that time So it is certain they founded their Faith only on the Scripture and not on Tradition otherwise they had taken more pains to have made it out and had not been so easily satisfied with what a few late Writers had said And thus it may be presumed that all the end for which they cited them was only to shew that they did not broach new and unheard of opinions And S. Austin could noâ— think that S. Cyprian's opinion alâ—ne was a sufficient proof of the Doctrine of the first three Centuries for Original Sin and yet he citeâ— no other that lived in those Ages Noâ— could S. Ambrose and Nazianzene that had lived in his own time be cited tâ— prove the Tradition of former Ages And whereas it is insinuated that he cited others one would expect to finâ— a Catalogue of many other Fatherâ— wrapt up in this plural whereas alâ— resolves into Hilary alone And we have a more evident Indication of S. Austin's sense as to the laâ—t resort in matters of Controversie than this they offer in that celebrated saying of his when he was writing against Maximinus the Arian Bishop But neither may I make use of the Nicene Council nor you that of Arimini as that which ought to pre-judge us in this matter for neither am I held by the authority of the one nor you by the authority of the other Let the one side and cause and their reasons be brought against the other from the authorities of the Scriptures that do not belong to either side but are Witnesses common to both The Fourth Method IS to tell them that their Ministers can never do this nor shew in the Scriptures any of their Articles that are controverted and this is very true For example they can never bring any formal Text to prove that Original Sin remains as to the guilt of it after Baptism that we receive the Body of Iesus Christ only by Faith that after the Consecration the Sacrament is still Bread that there is no Purgatory and that we do not merit any thing by our good works And to this it may be added that among all those passages that are on the Margent of their Confession there is not one that says that which they cite it for either in express or equivalent terms or in the same sense This is the Method of Mr. Veron which he took from S. Austin who says to the Manichaeans Shew me that that is in the Scripture and in another place Let him shew me that that is to be found in the Holy Scripture We must then boldly tell them That they cannot prove any of their Articles that are in dispute nor dispute against any of ours by any passages of Scripture neither in express terms nor by sufficient consequences so as to make their Doctrine be received as the Faith and ours pass for Errour Remarks THe first part of this Article proceeds upon Veron's Method of putting us to prove our Doctrines by express words of Scripture but some more cautious person has added in the conclusion a Salvo for good consequences drawn from them upon which we yield that this is a very good Method and are ready to joyn issue upon it If they intend still to build upon that notion of express words we desire it may be considered that the true meaning of all passages is not to be taken only from the bare words but from the contexture of the Discourse and the design upon which they are made use of and that Rule of Logick being infallibly true That what things soever agree in any third thing they do also agree among themselves it is certain that a true consequence is as good a proof as a formal passage Thus did our Saviour prove the Resurrection from the Scriptures by a very remote consequence since God was said to be the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and was the God of the Living and not of the Dead So did the Apostles prove Christ's being the promised Messias and the obligation to observe the Mosaical Ceremonies to have ceased upon his coming by many consequences but not by the express words of Scripture All the arguings of the Fathers against the Heretiâ—ks run on Consequences drawn from Scripture as may appear in all their Synodical Letters more particularly in that formerly cited of Pope Leo to Flavian to which the Fourth General Council assented This Plea does very ill become men that pretend such reverence to Antiquity since it was that upon which all the Ancient Hereticks set up their strength as the most plausible pretence by which they thought they could cover themselves So the Arians at Arimini give this reason for rejecting the word Consubstantial because it was not in the Scriptures The Macedonians laid hold of the same pretence Nestorâ—us gives this as his chief reason for denying the Virgin to be the Mother of God And Eutyches covered himself also with this question In what Scripture were the two Natures of Christ to be found And his followers did afterwards insist so much on this Plea that Theodoret wrote two large Discourses on purpose to shew the weakness of this pretence So that after all the noise they make about the Primitive Church they follow the same tract in which the Hereticks that were condemned by the first four General Councils went and they put us to do the same thing that the Hereticks then put on the Orthodox But we make the same answer to it which the Fathers did That the sense of the Scriptures is to be considered more than the words So that what is according to the true sense is as much proved by Scripture as if it were contained in it in so many express words And yet this Plea had a much greater strength in it as it was managed by those Hereticks for those contests being concerning mysteries which exceed our apprehensions it was not an unreasonable thing at first view to say that in such things which we cannot perfectly comprehend it is not safe to proceed by deductions or consequences and therefore it seemed safer to hold strictly to Scripture Phrases but in other points into which our understandings can carry us further it is much more absurd to exact of us express words of Scripture 2. Most of the points about which we dispute with the Church of Româ— are additions made by them to the simplicity of the Christian Religion So much as we own of the Christian Religion they own likewise In the other particulars our Doctrine with relation to them is made up of Negatives