Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Adoration of the Host And that which is yet further considerable is That as the Essential Truths of Religion are so linked with one another that there is not any one that may not be as I may so speak the Center of all the rest that is to say which may not have references to all the rest and immediate connexions and which all the others may not serve to prove and uphold which makes out divers ways or manners of establishing them in the minds of the most simple even so those Errors that are destructive are so repugnant to those Truths that there is not any one which may not be opposed not only by all in general but even almost by each one in particular which shews that there are divers ways of overthrowing them and destroying them in the minds of the weakest and when they shall escape one of those ways they will be sufficiently overthrown by another For Example Transubstantiation which is repugnant to the sincerity of God is also repugnant to the Truth of the humane nature of Jesus Christ to the formation of his Body of the substance of the B. Virgin to the state of that Glory wherein he is at present to the Article of his Ascension and of his existence in Heaven to the manner in which he dwells in us which is by his Spirit and by our Faith to the nature of that hunger and thirst which we should have for his flesh and for his blood which is Spiritual to the Character of both the Sacraments wherein there never is any Transubstantiation made and to the perpetual Order that God observed when he wrought Miracles which was to lay them open to mens Eyes and Sences so that when a man should not be capable of perceiving any of those repugnances he would perceive the others which would produce the same effect and which would be sufficient to make him reject those Errors See here then all the Conditions that are necessary for the forming of a True Faith even in the Souls of the most simple behold them found in the Scripture and by consequence behold the Scripture remaining the Rule of Faith in spight of all the endeavours of the Author of the Prejudices It is in vain that he so strongly opposes it it will always be what God has made it that is to say the Fountain and only source of the Truth of Religion or as St. Irenaeus speaks the Foundation and Pillar of our Faith which only can give us quiet of mind and peace of Conscience The Difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices forms against the Scripture have these Three Characters The one That they may be turned against himself that is to say that as he has made them upon the subject of the Scripture We may also make them upon the subject of Tradition and the Church of Rome to which he would send us back the other That in regard of the Scripture they are null and to no purpose and the Third That in regard of Tradition and the Roman Church they are solid and unconquerable and this is what will appear if what I have said in this and in the foregoing Chapter be well Examined The End of the Second Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE THIRD PART Of the Obligation and Necessity that lay upon our Fathers to separate themselves from the Church of Rome CHAP. I. That our Fathers had just sufficient and necessary Causes for their Separation supposing that they had right at the bottom in the controverted Points WE should certainly be the most ungrateful persons in the World if after the favour that God has shewn us in re-establishing the Purity of his Gospel in the midst of us we should not think our selves bound to give him everlasting Thanks So great and precious an advantage highly calls for our resentments and that in enjoying it with delight we should pay our Acknowledgements to the Author of it But what ground soever we should have to rejoyce in God we must notwithstanding avow that we should be very insensible in regard of others if we could behold without an extream affliction the misery of so many men who voluntarily deprive themselves of that good Those who are at present engaged in those Errors and Superstitions from which it has pleased the Divine Goodness to deliver us are our Brethren by the External Profession of the Christian Name and by the Consecration of one and the same Baptism and how can we intirely rejoyce while we see them in a state which we believe to be so bad and so contrary to our common Calling I know that God only who is the Lord of mens hearts and minds can dissipate that gloomy darkness which they are involved in and that it is our Duty to pour out our ardent and continual Prayers to him for his Grace for them but we ought not to neglect humane methods among which that of justifying the Conduct of our Fathers in the subject of their Separation is one of the most efficacious and as it is by that especially that they labour to render us odious so is to that that I shall allow the sequel of this Work The Separation of our Fathers ought to be distinguish'd into three Degrees the First consists in that which they have loudly pronounc'd against the Doctrines and Customs of the Church of Rome which they judg'd to be contrary to Faith and Piety and which they have formally renounced the Second consists in this that they have forsook the External Communion of that Church and those of its party and the Third in that they have made other Assemblies than hers and that they have rank't themselves under another Form of Ministry We have treated of the First already where we have shewn the Justice and Necessity of the Reformation which our Fathers made the Third shall be spoken to in the Fourth Part and this is designed to examine the Second Our Inquiry therefore at present will be to know whether our Fathers in Reforming themselves ought to have separated themselves from the other Party who were not for a Reformation or whether notwithstanding the Reformation they ought yet to have abode with them in one and the same Communion and to have liv'd in that respect as they did heretofore This is that which I pretend to make clear in this Third Part of this Work To enter upon this business I confess that if we could suppose it as a certainty That all Separation in matters of Religion is odious and Criminal we ought to be the first in condemning the Actions of our Fathers and that whatever aversion we should have for the Errors and Abuses which we see reigning in the Church of Rome we ought to labour to bear them as patiently as it could be possible for us to do in waiting till it should please God
but three sorts of persons only to be in its Communion the Faithful the Catechumeni and the Penitents but as for those who taught false Doctrine or practis'd a false Worship it never had any Union with them Not only the Ancients had no Communion with them but to shew how necessary and indispensable they judg'd a separation from them to be they went so far as to refuse their Communion with the Orthodox themselves when either by surprise or weakness or some other interest they had receiv'd Hereticks into their Communion altho' as to themselves they had kept their Faith in its Purity We find in the Life of Gregory Nazianzen that his Father who was also called Gregory and who was Bishop of Nazianzen before him having been deceiv'd by a fallacious Writing and having given his Communion to the Arians all the Monks of his Diocess with the greatest part of his Church separated themselves from him altho' they well knew that he had not changed his mind nor embraced Heresie And even the Orthodox of the Church of Rome refused to hold Communion with Pope Felix as Theodoret tells us altho' he intirely held the Creed of the Council of Nice because he held Communion with the Arians This I mention not absolutely to approve of that carriage but only to shew how far their aversion went heretofore which they had for holding Communion with Hereticks Those who are prepossess'd against all sorts of Separation in the Matters of Religion ought to remember that the obligation that lyes upon them to hold Communion with those with whom they are externally joyn'd is not without its bounds and measures We are joyn'd together under certain conditions which are principally the profession of a pure faith or at least such as is free from all damnable Errors a Worship freed from all that which is opposite to the essence of Piety in a word a Publick Ministry under which we may work out our own salvation While these conditions remain they make the Communion subsist but when they fail the Communion fails also and there is a just ground for a Separation provided we observe these necessary Cautions They cannot say in this case that we separate our selves from the Church nor that we forsake her Communion or that we break her Unity For the forsaken party being truly such as we suppose it ought not to be any more looked on as the Church of Jesus Christ but only as a party of the worldly who were before mingled with the Truly Faithful and who through their obstinacy in their Errors and false Worship had discover'd themselves and had themselves torn off the vail which as yet confounded them after a manner with the others The Orthodox in the first Ages did not in the least break the Unity of the Church when they would not hold Communion with the Valentinians the Marcionites the Montanists the Manichees and the other Heterodox of those times as I have noted already no more than those who with so much constancy and resolution refused to hold Communion with the Arrians We ought not therefore presently to condemn all kind of Separation and since there are such kinds of it as are necessary just and lawful as there are such as are unjust and rash it would be the extremity of folly to judge of all after the same manner without any difference or distinction The Roman Church her self which has sometimes cut off whole Nations as France and Germany from her Communion which may have been seen to have been so often divided into divers parties whereof one has excommunicated the other would not it may be freely suffer that we should treat of matters with this confusion So that disputing at present about our Separation with her we shall demand no unjust or unreasonable thing when we tell them that we ought to examine of what nature that Separation is to consider the reasons and wisely to weigh the circumstances for if our Fathers separated themselves upon light grounds and without having any sufficient cause if they were even under circumstances which ought to have bound them to have remained united with the other Party which was not for a Reformation we shall agree with all our hearts to condemn them but if on the contrary the reasons which they had were just sufficient and necessary if there was nothing in the circumstances of times places persons that could hinder them from doing that which they did it is certain that instead of condemning them we should bless them we should think our selves happy in following their footsteps and as for the reproaches and venomous accusations of the Author of the Prejudices and such like we should bear them with patience looking on them as the effect of a blind passion Let us therefore begin to make that Examination by the Causes of our Separation Every one knows what the matters that divide us are that they are not either Points of meer Discipline such as that for which Victor Bishop of Rome separated his Church from those of Asia who should keep the Feast of Easter on the fourteenth day of the Moon nor meerly Questions of the School which consist in nothing but terms remote from the knowledge of the Vulgar as that which they call trium Capitulorum which raised so many troubles in the Times of the Emperour Justinian and Pope Vigilius nor in meer personal interests such as we may see in the Schisms of Anti-Popes nor purely in personal Crimes or Accusations as in the Schism of the Donatists nor even in a general corruption of Manners altho' that was extreamly great in the time of our Fathers The Articles that separate us are points that according to us essentially disturb the Faith by which we are united to Jesus Christ points which essentially alter the Worship that we owe to God which essentially deprave the sources of our Justification and which corrupt both the external and internal means of our obtaining Grace and Glory In a word they are such Points as we believe to be wholly incompatible with salvation and which by consequence hinder us from being able to give it the Title or the Quality of a true Church of Jesus Christ to a Party which is obstinate in the profession and practice of them and which would force us to be so too I confess that we cannot say that our Controversies are all of that importance there are some undoubtedly which are of lesser weight and force which it was fitting for them to reform themselves in but which notwithstanding would not have given alone a just cause of Separation In this rank I place the Question of the Limbus of the Antient Fathers that of the Local Descent of Jesus Christ into Hell that of the distinction of Priests and Bishops to be of Divine Right that of the keeping of Lent and some others of that nature where there might have been seen Error and Superstition enough to be corrected but which would not have
gone so far as to have caused a rupture of Communion So that it is not for these kinds of things that our Fathers left the Church of Rome they had more sufficient more urgent and indispensable reasons in the other controversies among which that of Justification by Meritorious Works and by Indulgences Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass Invocation of Saints and Angels religious worshipping of Images Humane Satisfactions the Lordship of the Pope and his Clergy over mens Consciences held the chiefest place These are the true Points which caused a Separation and if the others contributed any thing to it it was only by the connexion which they had with these here or because they noted a general Spirit of Superstition contrary to true Piety or in fine by reason of their number for sometimes divers both less dangerous each to a part all together make a mortal and incurable disease However it be it appears that our Fathers had besides but too just and necessary reasons of their Separation But to come to set out this matter in its full evidence it will be requisite to see what they can say in opposition to what I have said It seems to me that they can take but one of these Three sides 1. Either to deny that the Transubstantiation Adoration of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass c. which we call Errors are so in effect Or 2. To say That even when they should suppose that they were Errors they would not nevertheless take away from the Church of Rome the quality of a true Church Neither would they be incompatible with salvation and by consequence they could not be a sufficient cause of Separation 3. Or in fine to maintain that even when these Points should be a sufficient cause of Separation they could not be so at least in regard of our Fathers because our Fathers were by right subject to their ordinary Pastors dependent upon their Hierarchical Government and chiefly upon that of the Church of Rome which they pretend is the Mother and Mistress of all others and the Center of Christian Unity from whence it follows that they could never separate themselves but that on the contrary they were bound to receive all the conditions it required to be in its Communion These are the only Three things in my judgement which they can propose with any colour I will examine the last in the following Chapter let us here consider these two others The First necessarily engages the man who will make use of it to enter into an Examination of the foundation of those matters or which comes to the same things solidly to establish the Infallibility of the Church of Rome and of that Party that adheres to it which is a general Controversie that includes all the others as I have shewn in the First Part of this Work And by consequence he must renounce all that wrangling dispute which goes only upon prejudices The justice or injustice of our Separation will depend on the Foundation For how can they assure themselves that those things which we call Errors and a false Worship are on the contrary Evangelical Truths and a right and lawful Worship without going on to that Examination which shews as I have already frequently observed that all those indirect attacks which they assault us with are nothing else but vain amusings and beatings of the Air which serve only to make a noise The second thing will not less engage them in the Examination of the foundation of those matters than the First For in supposing that those things which we call Errors are such in effect they must necessarily see of what nature they are and what opposition they have to true Piety to judge aright whether they are sufficient causes for a Separation and whether our conscience cannot accommodate it self to them I confess that this is no very hard matter to be known for how small a knowledge soever they may have of Religion and the Worship of God they may very easily perceive that if Transubstantiation for example is an Error they cannot but adore the substance of Bread in the room of Jesus Christ they may easily perceive that if the worshipping of Images is forbidden by the second Commandment of the Law they draw upon themselves the jealousie of God as he himself declares there they may easily perceive that if the Sacrifice of the Mass is not in effect a propitiatory Sacrifice by which they may apply to themselves the vertue of that on the Cross they do an injury to the only Sacrifice of Jesus Christ and that they vainly seek the vertue of it in an Act where it is not applyed They may easily perceive that if the Lordship that the Church of Rome or its Councils usurp over mens Consciences is ill-grounded that they render unto men a kind of adoration which is only due to God alone which cannot but be an unpardonable crime in regard of him who has said Thou shalt have no other Gods before me But whether it would be an easie or a difficult matter to be known that is not the business about which we dispute at present It is sufficient to shew that the Separation of our Fathers had just sufficient necessary and indisputable causes supposing that what they said of the Errors of the Church of Rome were true and that they could not be accused either of rashness or of Schism without contesting their supposition nor that they could contest their supposition without coming to an inspection into the very things themselves Whence it follows that all that dispute which they raise against us about Forms is but a meer vain wrangling unworthy of any sound persons If that which our Fathers have laid down concerning the Errors which the Church of Rome forces men to believe to be of her Communion be not true we do not any further pretend to defend their Separation but if it be true God and men will bear them witness that it was justly done and according to the dictates of an upright conscience They will say it may be That we ought not upon such light grounds to suppose that that which our Fathers said concerning the Errors of the Church of Rome is true since they are the Points in dispute wherein the Church of Rome pretends that we are in an Error as we pretend that she is But there cannot be any thing said more frivolous for the supposition that we make is in words of good sense and right reason because we make it to force our adversaries to come to a discussion of the things themselves upon which the judgement that ought to be made of our Separation depends and to make them acknowledge that all those Accusations which they form against our Fathers that they have broken the Christian Unity that they have forsook the Church that they have made a criminal Schism are rash accusations unjust and precipitate since they cannot rightly
hinder but that she may externally deny the faith of Jesus Christ but that she may intirely lose her love and the communion of our Saviour and the quality of the True Church and by consequence that we should not be bound to separate from her while she should be in that state and till it should please God to re-establish her See here of what force those proofs are which they produce to ground this special priviledge of the Church of Rome upon It is not hard to see that a man of good understanding who would satisfie his mind and his conscience upon so weighty a point ought not to remain there but that he ought to pass on to the other way of clearing that doubt which I have noted which is to judge of the pretension of the Church of Rome by the examination of her Doctrines and her Worship For it is there principally that the characters of truth and infallibility ought to be found and by consequence he must come to the foundation and no further amuse himself with Prejudices As to the second Way by which I have said we might clear this Question Whether it be necessary to the salvation of Christians to be joyned to the Church of Rome it consists in examining whether it be true that God has made her the Mistress of all other Churches whether there is any particular order that binds us indispensably to her For if that be so the Separation of our Fathers must be condemned but if it be not so we must judge of that Church as of all other particular Churches and say that we cannot and ought not to separate our selves from her but when we have just and lawful causes so to do There is no person who does not judge that we cannot pass over lightly a point of so great importance which ought to serve for a general and perpetual Rule to all Christians and that if the Church of Rome would so set her self beyond a state of equality above other Churches it is necessary that she should produce some very express and indisputable Order of God for it But instead of that she does nothing but reverberate the same passages which I have mentioned She boasts her self to be the See of S. Peter and under that pretence she applyes to her self all that she can find in the Scripture in favour of that Apostle and particularly the Order that Jesus Christ gave him to feed his sheep as if the Office of the Apostleship in which Jesus Christ re-established him by those words could be communicated to his Successors or as if the foundation that Jesus Christ supposed and upon which he re-established him in saying to him feed my sheep to wit that he should love him more than the rest was not a thing purely personal in S. Peter and whereof it was not in his power to transmit any part to his Successors nor by consequence to invest them with his Office which was restored to him only upon a supposition of that love or lastly as if the office of feeding Christ's sheep included an absolute and indispensable necessity for the sheep to receive their death when they should give it them under the name of their food It must be acknowledg'd that there never was a higher pretension than this of the Church of Rome for what more could she pretend to then to make Heaven it self depend on her communion and to leave no possibility of salvation to any but those who should be in her communion and under her dependance But it must also be acknowledged that there never was any thing worse established than that pretension They alledge in its favour nothing that is clear and distinct and even the consequences which they draw for it are made after a very strange manner This is in my judgement the Reason why our Adversaries when they treat of this matter do not insist much upon Scripture but fly off presently to the Fathers and the usage of the Ancient Church For by this means they hope to prolong the dispute to eternity and that notwithstanding the Church of Rome shall be alwayes in possession of that Despotical Authority which she exercises over the Churches that remain in her communion In effect the life of a man would scarce suffice to read well and throughly examine all the Volumes which have been composed on one side and on the other upon this Question of the place that the Church of Rome and its Bishops have held among the Christian Churches during the first six Centuries and of the Authority which they had then But to say the truth there is too much artifice in that procedure for that the Church of Rome should be the Mistress of all others and that no one could be saved but in her communion that does not depend upon the order of men but only on that of God and when they should find among the Antients a thousand times more complaisance for the See of Rome than they had that may very well establish an ancient possession and make clear the fact but it can never establish the right of it To establish a right of that nature a word of God an express declaration of his will is necessary for it is a right not only above nature but even above the ordinary and common favour that God gives to other Churches and which by consequence depends only upon God And so it is but a wandring from the way to go to search for the grounds of it in the Writings of Men. It is no hard matter to conceive that those Bishops which were raised to Dignities in the Metropolis of the World and engaged in the greatest affairs might mannage matters so as to ascribe to themselves those rights which no wayes belonged to them nor to imagine that their flatterers and Courtiers might not have offered more incense to them than they ought nor that those persecuted ones who had recourse to their protection might not have helped the increase of their Authority nor that the Princes and Emperors who had need of them might not have given them those priviledges which they ought not to have had that which renders to a just title all that which they alledge in their favour suspected and to no purpose at all Notwithstanding there are moreover evident matters of fact that let us clearly see that the Ancient Church did not acknowledge that Universal Episcopacy that the Bishops of Rome pretend to nor that absolute and indispensable necessity to be joyned to their See to be saved nor that their Church should be the Mistress of all the rest 1. Every one knows that the Bishops of Rome were anciently chosen by the suffrages of the people and of the Clergy of that Church without any other Churches taking part in those Elections which is a mark manifest enough that they did not mean that those Bishops should be Universal Bishops nor that they should have a more peculiar interest in their creation than
of it but they would have subordinate heads humane heads on whom they might depend by an external dependance and that was necessary for them to be by that means linked to Jesus Christ after the same manner that they would have us at this day to depend on the See of Rome Wherefore did S. Paul say to them Is Christ divided Why did he not say to them that as for Paul and Apollos they had no reason to take them for their heads but that it was far otherwise as to Peter since God had set up him and his Successors for ever to be the heads of the Universal Church Why in stead of that did he conclude after this manner That no one should glory in men for all things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods Is it not to let them understand that Jesus Christ is the only head of the Church that there is only his communion that is absolutely necessary and that as for other Ministers whosoever they were they were appointed for our use as all other things to serve us in as much as they lead us to Jesus Christ If the Church under the New Testament ought to be inviolably ty'd to the See of Rome how should the Scripture have been silent in so weighty a truth which could not be ignor'd without extream danger nor contested without evident damnation Notwithstanding we do not find any other head of the Church in those Sacred Books but Jesus Christ nor any other High Priest but him We do not find in the Scripture any Universal Bishop nor Ministerial head or subordinate or any particular Church the Mistress of all others We find there indeed that Jesus Christ being ascended up on high gave some to be Apostles others to be Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for the assembling of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ How came the Apostle to forget in that Enumeration the chief of all Offices to wit that of the Ministerial Head of the whole Church and the Universal Vicar of Jesus Christ in the Government and conduct of his flock If the Christian Church ought in that to resemble the Synagogue and to have as that a Soveraign High Priest upon earth who should be the head of that Religion and who should have his Successors as the ancient High Priest had whence comes it that the Scripture has alwayes regarded that Ancient High Priest as a Figure of Jesus Christ that it alwayes referred it to him and never to the Roman Bishops nor even to S. Peter who was then alive and who should by consequence have exercised that pretended charge which they would make to descend from him There is therefore no lawful foundation in all that pretension of Rome and her See We ought to pass the same judgement on all other Sees and other particular Churches with which it is just we should hold communion while they teach good and sound Doctrine and that we should even bear with them when they should fall into some errors provided they constrain no body to believe them but from which it is also just to separate our selves when they shall fall into errors contrary to the communion of Jesus Christ our only Saviour and when they would violently force all others to believe the same If in a long course of Ages Rome has usurped by little and little the rights that do not belong to her if she has found it very easie through the ignorance or complaisance of men in the diverse intrigues of the World to raise her Throne as high as our Fathers beheld it and as we do yet at this day If her flatterers have not failed alwayes to raise her pretensions as high as Heaven and if she has been lull'd asleep with the sound of those sweet charms that enchant her we do not believe that that ought to prejudice our separation We have no other aversion for her communion than that which our conscience gives us and if it shall please God to re-establish her in her ancient purity she would not have so great a joy to spread forth her arms to us as we should have an impatience to demand her peace of her But as long as we shall see her in that bad state wherein we are perswaded she is we cannot but bewail and pray for her and yet notwithstanding no body can blame us for preferring our own salvation to her communion CHAP. III. That the Conduct of the Court of Rome and those of her party in respect of the Protestants has given them a just cause to separate themselves from them supposing that they had had right at the foundation BEfore we leave this matter of our Separation from the Church of Rome there yet remains two Questions for us to examine the one Whether our Fathers were not too precipitate in so great an affair whether they did not act with too much haste or Whether they had sufficient motives from the conduct of those from whom they separated to forsake in the end their communion The other Whether with all that they can say that they separated themselves from the communion of the Catholick Church spread over the whole World as the Donatists did heretofore and whether they did not fall into the same crime with those ancient Schismaticks against whom Optatus and S. Augustine so strongly disputed I will treat of this second Question in the following Chapter and this here shall be design'd to the clearing of the former To effect this methinks we need but freely to set before their eyes all that I have said in the second Part touching the necessity that lay upon our Fathers to reform themselves For since it clearly results from those matters of fact which I have set down that the Popes and those of their party were so far from applying themselves seriously to a Reformation that they studied on the contrary only how to stifle the truth from the very first moment they beheld it appear and to defend their Errors and Superstitions by all manner of wayes who sees not that that inflexible resolution which had not yielded either to the first or second admonition rendred from that time the separation of our Fathers just and exempted them from all reproach For when there are Errors capable of giving ground for a separation it ought to be defer'd only upon a hope of amendment and that hope seem'd to be sufficiently destroy'd by those Historical actions which I have already set down Notwithstanding to shew them more and more how the conduct of our Fathers was very prudent in that respect and full of circumspection it will not be besides our purpose to resume here the close of their story from the unjust condemnation of Luther and his Doctrine made by Pope Leo the Tenth
the External State of that Religion it self had in the times of our Fathers Signs of its Corruption sufficient to afford them just Motives to Examine it Page 23. Chap. IV. That such a Corruption of the Latin Church as our Fathers had conceived was no ways an Impossible thing Page 37. Chap. V. More particular Reflections upon that priviledge of Infallibility which they ascribe to the Church and of its Authority Page 45. Chap. VI. An Examination of the Proofs which they produce to Establish the Infallibility of the Church-of Rome Page 54. Chap. VII That the Authority of the Prelates of the Latin Church had not any Right to bind our Fathers to yield a blind Obedience to them or to hinder them from Examining their Doctrines Page 75. Chap. VIII A further Examination of that Authority of the Prelates and that Absolute Obedience which they pretend ought to be given them Page 85. Chap. IX An Examen of those Reasons they Alledge to Establish that Soveraign Authority of the Prelates in the Latin Church Page 109. The Second Part. Of the Justice of the REFORMATION CHap. I. That our Fathers could not expect a Reformation either from the hands of the Popes or from those of the Prelates Page 125. Chap. II. A Confirmation of the same thing from the History of that which passed in the first Quarrels of Luther with the Conrt of Rome concerning Indulgences Page 142. Chap. III. That our Fathers not being able any more to hope for a Reformation on the part of the Pope or his Prelates were indispensably bound to provide for their own Salvation and to Reform themselves Page 156. Chap. IV. That our Fathers had a Lawful and sufficient Call to Reform themselves and to labour to Reform others Page 166. Chap. V. An Answer to the Objections that are made against the Persons of the Reformers Page 177. Chap. VI. A further Justification of the first Reformers against the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices contained in his Tenth and Eleventh Chapters Page 196. Chap. VII An Answer to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Chapters of the Prejudices Page 222. Chap. VIII That our Fathers in their Design of Reforming themselves were bound to take the Holy Scriptures alone for the Rule of their Faith Page 241 Chap. IX An Examination of the Objections which the Author of the Prejudices makes against the Scripture Page 260. The Third Part. Of the Obligation and Necessity that lay-upon our Fathers to separate themselves from the Church of Rome CHap. I. That our Fathers had just sufficient and necessary Causes for their Separation supposing that they had Right at the Bottom in the Controverted Points Page 1. Chap. II. That our Fathers were bound to Separate themselves from the Body of those who possess'd the Ministry in the Church and particularly in the See of Rome supposing that they had a Right at the Foundation Page 15. Chap. III. That the Conduct of the Court of Rome and those of her Party in respect of the Protestants has given them a just cause to separate themselves from them supposing that they had Right at the Foundation Page 53. Chap. IV. An Examination of the Objection of the Author of the Prejudices taken out of the Dispute of Saint Augustine against the Schism of the Donatists Page 79. Chap. V. A further Examination of the Reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices upon the Subject of our Separation Page 113. The Fourth Part. Of the Right that our Fathers had to hold a Christian Society among themselves by Publick Assemblies and the Exercise of the Ministry CHap. 1. That our Fathers had a Right to have their Church-Assemblies separate from those of the Church of Rome on the Supposition that they were right in the Foundation Page 1. Chap. II. That the Society of the Protestants is not a new Cburch Page 28. Chap. III. That the Ministry Exercised in the Communion of the Protestants is Lawful and that the Call of their Ministers is so also Page 48. Chap. IV. An Answer to the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices about the Call of the first Reformers and the Validity of our Baptism P. 84 The End of the CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS Advertisement THere is newly Published a Book Entituled ☞ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Treatise wherein you have 1. The Divine Auhtority of the Holy Scriptures proved by undeniable Demonstrations and the Cavils of Objectors confuted 2. A Continuation of the Metaphors Allegories and Express Similitudes of the Old and New Testament gradually expounded Parallel wise with short Inferences from each 3. Sacred Phylologie viz. the Schemes and Figures in Sriipture reduced under their proper Heads with a brief Explication of the most obscure 4. A Treatise of the Types Parables and Allegories in the Old and New Testament 5. Plain and Evident Demonstrations that by the Great Whore Mystery Babylon is meant the Papal Hierarchy or present Church of Rome The whole VVork being partly Compiled and partly Translated from the VVorks of many Learned and Orthodox VVriters Ancient and Modern compleating what was intended by the Undertakers in order to explain that difficult part of the Word of God It being encouraged and recommended by divers Worthy Ministers of London as useful for all Students in Sacred Writ Sold by John Hancock at the Three Bibles over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil and Benj. Alsop at the Angel and Bible in the Poultrey over-against the Compter Cassander Consult art de Eccles Luke 22. 25 26. 1 Pet. 5. Bernard in Cant. Serm. 77. Item Serm. 33. Nicol Cusan lib. 3. de Concord Cath. c. 29. 1 Tim. 6. 10 3. Col. 5. Nicolaus de Clemangis de corrupto Statit Ecclesiae Bernard de verbis Evangel Dixit Simon c. pag. 1000. Marsil de Pad Defens pacis Part 2. cap. 20. History of the Council of Trent Book 6. In the Instructions and Missives of the most Christian King for the Council of Trent In the same Instructions and Missives Distinct. 96. Canon 7. Aug. Steuchus De fals Donat. Constantini Froissard Tom. 3. Fol. 147. Angel Politian Orat. pro Sen. ad Alexand Sextum Raynald ad Ann. 1492. ss 27. Decretal Greg. lib. 1. tit 7. Can. Quanto in Glossa Itinerar Ital. Part 2. de coron Rom. Pontif. Raynald ad Ann. 1162. Baron ad Ann. 1162. Concil Lateran Sess 7. 9. in Orat. Paulus Jovius in Philippo 3. †Renvoy signifies properly a simple dismission granted to one that being appealed or called before a superiour Judg requires to be dismissed to the prosecuting of his suit already begun before the inferiour his Ordinary Judge Platina in vit Sexto Decret tit 2. cap. 1. Sext. Decret Extravag lib. 1. De major obed cap. 1. Baron ad Ann. 1076. Platin. in vit Bonif. 8. Joan. Gerson de Eccles. potest Consid 10. Decretal Gregor lib. 3. tit 8. cap. 4. Decret part 2. Caus 25. Quest 1. Canon 6. ad Gloss Bernard Epist 42.
of their Alms and he may be seen far oftner in the field with the Souldiers then in his Cloister He ought to be the Father and the Instructer of his Brethren but he is their Seducer and their Tyrant For while he enjoys himself and lives in Pomp and Delights those poor miserable Religious pass away all their days in murmurings and afflictions That Author describes in the same Stile the Lives of the Canons Monks and other Ecclesiasticks and that which he has said does not leave us any more room to doubt that there was in the Church in those days as great and as general a disorder as can be conceived He does not spare the Court of Rome but on the contrary he sets forth livelily enough their excess even to say that that Court is the Seat of the Beast that is to say the Church of the wicked that is the Kingdom of darkness That it is a loathsome pit that devours Riches and is filled by Covetousness That the Law is far from the Priest the Visions of the Prophet and the Councel of the old men That the heads of the Church serve themselves by Simony and Ambition and that in a word the sins of those people are such that they cannot be either concealed or denyed since Rome is become a Gulph of Crimes Where the Pope ought to cry with Jesus Christ Come and you shall find rest for your Souls he cries Come and see me in a far greater Pomp and Pride then ever Solomon was in come to my Court empty your purses there and you shall find destruction for your Souls The disorder of that Court and that of the whole Clergy of those times was a thing so little to be contested that Adrian the sixth did not scruple to acknowledge it in the Memoirs that he gave his Nuntio for the Diet of Nuremberg and which Raynaldus Relates For he gave him an express charge to confess That the Troubles of Germany about the matters of Religion had fallen out by Reason of the sins of Men and particularly of the Priests and Prelats of the Church That the Scripture shewed that the sins of the people came from those of their Priests for which Reason it was as Chrysostome says that when our Saviour would heal Jerusalem he entered first into the Temple to correct the sins of the Priests doing like a wise Physitian who goes to the root of the evil That for many years past abominable things had been committed in the holy See that spiritual things had been abused through the excess of its Injunctions and that all things had been perverted there That the evil had spread it self from the Head to the Members from the Popes to the Inferiour Prelats and that as many as they all were that is to say Prelats and Ecclesiasticks they were come to that pass that for a long Time there had not been any that were good no not so much as one We could produce a multitude of other such Testimonies if we did not hope that unbyass'd persons would agree upon it as not long since an Author in these Times has done in a Book Intituled Motives to a Re-union to the Catholick Church The cause of the Separation says he was the open abuse of Indulgences and the Ignorance Covetousness and the Scandalous lives of the Church-men The Superstition of the meaner sort of people who had not been well instructed the immense riches and riotous profuseness of the Prelats their too great care in Externals in their Magnificence Ornaments and increasing of Ceremonies and little Devotion in the Chief-worship of God the indiscreat zeal of some Brethren who seemed to have cast off all honour for the Master to give it to his Servants The Tyranny that Parents exercised over their Children to imprison them in Cloisters the wickedness of those who contrived false Miracles to draw to themselves the concourse of the People Add to that Politick humane Considerations of some Princes and Kings who had not received from the Pope all possible Satisfaction or who took occasion from thence to cast themselves among a Party of persecuted men the better to Establish their affairs in brief all that which Ignorance Superstition and Covetousness could Contribute served for a pretence to those who would separate themselves to Reform those Disorders The Ground was not only specious but it had been in a manner accompanied with Truth if the Church in those days had been throughout in that miserable condition which we have described and principally so in those places wherein that detestable Separation began Those who separated were aided indirectly by the zeal of some good men who cried out loudly against those disorders abuses and corruptions of manners The people who judged no otherwise then by the appearance suffered themselves to be easily carried away with that Torrent seeing that they did not complain but of those things which they knew were but too true and which the better sort of Catholicks granted Behold then in what a condition the Church was in those days and we may from thence methinks ask all rational persons whither they believe in good earnest that our Fathers ought to have expected a Reformation from the hands of a Clergy which on the one side had so many worldly interests that bound them to oppose it and which on the other found it self so deeply sunk into Ignorance Superstition and Corruption But to urge that matter yet further we need but to set down those just complaints which they had made for a long time touching those disorders and the continual demand that all the World made for a good Reformation at least in respect of manners of Discipline and those most gross abuses without ever being able to obtain it I pass by the complaints of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries which would be but too great if they were compared with those just grounds that all honest men in those days had for them For those two Centuries were famous for wickedness grievous crimes and those who know any thing of History cannot deny it But not to go so far not to say any thing either of the Scandalous Lives of the Popes of that Time or the Wars wherewith they filled all the West or of the Abuses they committed in their Excommunications or of the Baptizing of Bells Wherewith they increased the Ecclesiastical Ceremonies or of the vices which reigned then throughout all the Clergy can they tell us what good effect those smart Censures of Saint Bernard wrought and those of Petrus Cluniensis of Abbot Joachim of Petrus Blesensis of Conrard Abbot of Vrspurg of Honorius of Autun of Bernard Monk of Cluny of Arnoul an English Monk of John Bishop of Salisbury of Matthew Paris of William Durandus Bishop of Mande of Robert Bishop of Lincolne of Francis Petrarch Archdeacon of Parma of John Vitoduram of Dante of Marsilius of Padua and I know not how many others who cried out as loudly
purity of the faith in the Church nor to have extirpated Arianism since that however corrupted and infected the Church was with that Heresie there was yet a way to work out their salvation in her communion and under her Ministry 4. If he sayes to us that our Fathers ought not at least in reforming themselves to have separated themselves from those who were not for a Reformation nor to have forsook their communion and assemblies I will also say to him that after this reckoning the Orthodox in labouring to purge the Church from Arianism ought not at least to have separated it self from those who would retain Arianism but that they ought to have remained with them in one and the same communion and in the same assemblies which nevertheless they did not 5. If he sayes to us that the Berengarians the Waldenses and Albigenses were Schismaticks since they had withdrawn themselves from a communion and a Ministry under which God yet preserves the truly faithful I will likewise say to him that those couragious men of S. Augustine were in this reckoning Schismaticks since they had not less withdrawn themselves from that communion and publick Ministry when that Ministry was in the hands of the Arians as I have shewn by express testimonies 6. If he tells us lastly that since we acknowledge that they could have worked out their salvation under the Ministry of the Roman Church before the Reformation we ought to confess that we may yet at this day be saved in it since things are in the same estate now in which they were before I shall tell him that the Arians could have raised the same objection against the Orthodox after their separation For the Arians did not pretend to have changed any thing in the state of the Ministry under which S. Augustine acknowledged that God had preserved the truly faithful So that all the Objections which he shall make against our Hypothesis will be common to those against that of S. Augustine and the Author of the Prejudices will himself be as much concerned as we to answer them But not to refer our selves wholly to him let us see whether those difficulties are of such a weight as that there is no way left rationally to satisfie us It seems to me therefore that as to the first S. Augustine has said that it is great injustice to demand the names of those particular men who kept themselves pure under an impure Ministry since we do not keep a register of every particular man nor of the state of their consciences and that it is sufficient to know in the general that the promises that Jesus Christ has made alwayes to preserve to himself a Church upon Earth are inviolable that we must not therefore doubt that there has alwayes been good seed in the midst of the Arian tares It is the same answer that we make there needs nothing but to apply it To the second he has answered that the simplicity of many among the people who went not so far as to understand the bad sense of the Arian expressions sheltred them under Heresie that many others of the more enlightned remained in silence through the fear of persecutions contenting themselves to keep their own faith pure without partaking in the wickedness of the wicked and without listing themselves up against it In effect it is a Maxim of Phoebadius That it is sufficient to an humble conscience to keep its own faith without engaging it self to refute the belief of others and it is one of S. Augustine himself That no body can be culpable for the sins of another nor by consequence for the Heresies and Superstitions that infect a Ministry provided he take no part in them and no wayes consent to them either in effect or appearance But this is yet the same answer that we make for as I have already said we do not doubt that there was among the people a very great number of persons whose light went no further than the meer knowing of the chief Articles of Christianity contained in the Creed in the Decalogue and Lords Prayer and who by consequence were hid under those capital Errors with which the publick Ministry was then loaded We no wayes doubt that in the midst of that darkness there were not a great many enlightned persons who through the fear of persecutions remained under the same corrupted Ministry with the others separating the good from the bad discerning the Errors and Superstitions taking no part in them and living as to other things in that hope that they should not be culpable for the sins of others To the third S. Augustine has answered that it is an absurd Objection For it is not more absurd to say that we ought not to take care to heal a Disease under a pretence that as great as the Disease is life yet remains than to say that we ought not to take care to purge the Church and the Ministry from a Heresie that infects it under a pretence that there is yet a way to be saved in her communion and under her Ministry That we must on the contrary labour as much as possibly we can to re-establish Christianity in its whole frame lest the evil should increase and be made incurable through a too great negligence and least that good which remains in the Church should be wholly corrupted by the contagion of the evil But this is also the very same answer that we make Our Fathers ought to have employed all their endeavours to reform the Latin Church by their Exhortations by their Books by their Sermons by their Example because that we ought alwayes as much as possibly we can and as the time and our knowledge call us to it to labour to settle Religion in a state of purity lest in the end Errors and Superstitions render themselves universal and the whole Church should perish through our negligence For although Jesus Christ has promised us that it shall never perish yet notwithstanding this would be to tempt God and to render our selves unworthy of his grace to neglect the means that he gives us for its preservation and that so much the more as according to humane judgements there was no other than that of the Reformation To the fourth S. Augustine has answered That in labouring to purge the Church from Arianism it was necessary that they should separate themselves from the communion of those who obstinately persisted in that Heresie and the fixed resolution that they testified to remain in it was a sufficient cause to make them withdraw themselves from their Assemblies But we answer with greater advantage that our Fathers in labouring for a Reformation ought to have forsaken the Assemblies of those who not only were fixed in the opinion of having nothing reformed and opposed themselves with all their might to hinder a Reformation but who went so far as to impose a new necessity on mens consciences to believe their Opinions and even to
been noted in the Third Part. But sometimes the ground of those Divisions is taken from Doctrine or Worship or the general Rules of Manners and consists in those things that are acknowledged by both sides to be weighty and essential and in this Rank we may place those Divisions which arose in the Antient Church by reason of the Samosatenians the Arrians the Macedonians Nestorians and Eutychians I acknowledge that when the Question is only about Divisions of the former sort we cannot rationally hinder our selves from acknowledging that Party to be the Body of the Church which has the advantages before spoken of and looking by consequence on the other Party as a Sect cut from it The one is the Tree and the other the cut-off Branch the one is the Sun and the other a separated Ray. And the Reason that makes that Prejudice Just is not that the greater party cannot have done wrong at the bottom or that it cannot erre For it frequently happens that Prejudice Passion Interest Cabals prevail among those who have the Ecclesiastical Authority in their hands which makes them give unjust Judgments and it may be the Author of the Prejudices would not maintain all the decisions and Excommunications of the Church of Rome to be Just But the Reason of that Prejudice is that though even the greater Part should have done wrong in the Foundation yet the matter treated on is not of such importance as that it can take away from a Society the Quality of the true Church of Jesus Christ while sound Doctrine intirely subsists there and Worship remains pure From whence it follows that there being there no sufficient cause of Separation the lesser Party can't be looked upon otherwise then as Schismatical because it is cut off from the Greater without necessity and supposing at the same time that it should have Reason in the Foundation yet its Separation would not cease to be criminal It is in this Case that Saint Augustin would have those whom violence or as he says carnal Sedition has driven from the Christian Assemblies to suffer patiently the injury done to them without throwing themselves either into Heresy or Schism and without setting up of Assemblies apart but that they should maintain and defend even to the death the Faith which they know Preached in the Church Sine ulla says he Conventiculorum segregatione usque ad mortem defendentes Testimonio juvantes eam fidem quam in Ecclesia Catholica praedicari sciunt But it is otherwise when the Division is about matters of the Second sort those I mean that are founded upon the weighty points of Doctrine or Worship For then the true Church ought alone to be sought for where the true Faith is where it is goes neither by extent of places nor by number nor by the Body of Pastors or Prelates nor by the Walls of Temples nor by Councils that we ought to Judge of it but by the true Doctrine and where that is to be found there without doubt is a Right to be in a Society and to gather Assemblies The Reason is evident because we cannot say in that Case that although the more numerous Party more extended and which has the Body of Pastors of its side should be wrong in the Foundation yet that it would not always keep the quality of a true Church as it may be said in the former Case For a Society that Teaches Error and practises a false Worship and that will receive none into its Communion but those who believe all that it believes and practise all that it practises cannot be a True Church whatsoever advantages it have otherwise so that finding it opposite to another pure Society there is no need to hesitate in ones Choice In the first Case the lesser Party cannot be other then Schismatical because whatsoever Reason it may have at the bottom it would be better to yield then to Separate ones self but it is not so in the Second for it would be better to separate ones self then to yield since in yielding one should fall into Fundamental Errors and Superstitions contrary to true Piety In a word in the former Case the Number Dignity Extent of place the Body of the Pastors Multitude ought to prevail over Reason in a particular Injustice because a Church may be in some respect unjust without hazarding the Salvation of its Children but in the Second Reason drawn from Injustice Error false Doctrine false Worship is a thousand times more considerable then all those advantages which I have noted because we cannot renounce the true Doctrine and the true Worship of God in things of great moment in which our Salvation would not be absolutely concerned It is this difference that causes us to take notice of two different ways in the Fathers which appear so opposite and contrary one to another that at first sight trouble our minds For when they wrote against the Novatians or against the Donatists or against the Luciferians who separated themselves out of frivolous Reasons that is to say upon points of Discipline and personal accusations but who otherwise acknowledged the Church they had quitted to be Orthodox they set before the people that Multitude Extension the Body of the Pastors Succession and other advantages of that Nature as things that shewed of what side the Church was and then they held that the lesser Party cut off from the greater was as a Member divided from the Body a Branch cut off from the Tree or as a Ray Separated from the Sun But when they were engag'd against the Arrians who taught false Doctrine they did not care to make use of those sorts of Arguments on the contrary they restrain'd themselves to look for the Church where the True Doctrine and Faith was and they had no Consideration either of the Body of the Pastors or of the Multitude or Pulpits or Councils when the Arrians made use of them to the Prejudice of the true Doctrine as I have shewn in the Third Part. But that very thing evidently discovers the Ordinary Cheat that their Missionaries are guilty of and the other petty Writers of Controversy of the Church of Rome and into which the Author of the Prejudices himself falls Which is that in stead of following with respect to us the way of Writing that the Fathers took when they wrote against the Arrians from whom they differed in points of Doctrine since the Cause is like they follow on the contrary that that the same Fathers took against the Novations the Donatists and Luciferians with whom they did not quarrel about matters of Doctrine which is a meer Sophism where they confound two altogether different Questions in referring to one Case that which cannot have any place but in the other But they will say Are not you your self guilty of Fallacy in perpetually supposing as you do in this dispute that you have Right at the Bottom For that is the thing that is most
them and will shed abroad his blessing upon your cares as far as shall be necessary for his own glory and the good of the people in whose favour you labour and he himself will one day give you a reward for all those toilsome Labours Although you do not need to be excited to do good yet I take the confidence to hope that you will be some way encouraged in the Duties of your place by the reading of this Work which will more and more discover to you the Justice of it You will see therein the Conduct of our Fathers justified in regard of their Reformation and Separation from the Church of Rome and by consequence you will therein see not only the Right that we have but the Obligation and indispensable Necessity also wherein we are to live apart and divided from that Church and united among our selves in a Religious and Christian Society till it shall please God to make the Causes of that Division cease and joyn again that which men I would say what the Court of Rome and her Council of Trent have put asunder That Re-Vnion is a Happiness that wee will alwayes beg of God with the most ardent Prayers and which we will receive as one of his highest Favours if his hand should bestow it But it is also a thing which it is impossible for us to promise our selves while we shall not see the same desire of a good and holy Reformation which was almost general in our West in the daies of our Fathers to be again revived in the Church of Rome which yet they knew how to stifle with incredible skill An Authour of those Times who himself contributed as much as any other to clude the good effects of that desire has not failed to own it and which is more to own it to be just I do not deny saies he that many at the beginning were not urged by a motion of Piety earnestly to cry out against some manifest Abuses and I confess that we must attribute the chief cause of that Division that at present rends the Church to those who being puff'd up with a vain pride under a pretence of Ecclesiastical power contemned and haughtily and disdainfully rejected those who admonish'd them with reason and modesty And imediately after that same Author reasoning about the means to re-establish a holy peace between the two parties I do not believe adds he that we ought ever to hope for a firm peace in the Church if those who have been the cause of that dis-union do not begin by themselves that is to say unlesse those who have the Ecclesiastical Government in their hands relaxe a little of that great rigour and contribute something to the peace of the Church and unlesse in hearkning to the ardent prayers and exhortations of the greatest part of good men they apply themselves to reform those manifest abuses by the Rule of the holy Scriptures and of the Antient Church from which they have wandred After this manner a man engaged in the Communion and Interests of the Church of Rome spake even in the Time of the Councill of Trent He would indeed after that have us also whom he accuses to have gone too far in the other extream yield something on our side and that we should return as he speaks to our selves but it ought not to be thought strange that he being such a one as he was would lenify by that corrective the confession that he made before and it is enough for us that he has owned the force of the evil and taken notice of the true and only remedy God who holds the hearts of all in his hand kindle in them the love of the true Religion and give us all the grace to look to the Blood that has ransomed the Church and that first Spirit who consecrated it to one onely Jesus Christ her Lord and Husband For it is he only who can re-unite us without me sates he ye can do nothing and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad I pray that the same God who has given you the knowledge of his Gospell would make you persevere in it to the end that he would confirm his love and fear in the souls of my Lords your children who already so well answer the honour of their birth and the cares you have taken for their Education and lastly that he would more and more shed abroad his blessings over your person and over all your house This is that which I desire from the bottom of my heart and that you would do me the favour to believe that I am My LORD Your Lordships Most Humble and Most Obedient Servant CLAVDE The ATTESTATION WE whose names are underwritten certify that we have read the Answer of Monsieur Claude our most honoured Colleague to a Book Intituled The Prejudices c. in which we have found nothing contrary to the Sentiments of the Religion which we profess Signed at Paris the nine and twentieth of November 1672. DAILLE ' MESNARD The Reader is desired to take notice That the word Historical in the Running-Title was inserted without the Translators knowledge or Consent An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE FIRST PART Wherein it is shewn that our Ancestours were obliged to Examine by themselves the state of Religion and of the Church in their Days CHAP. I. General Considerations upon this Controversy The Division of this Treatise IT is not difficult to understand why those who were possest of the Government of the Western Church in the days of our Fathers and those who have since succeeded them in the Church of Rome have thought themselves so much concerned to oppose the Reformation It would oblige them to strip themselves of that Soveraign and and absolute Authority which they had Usurped and by which they had disposed the Consciences of men to their wills And it would force them to give an Account of that Publick management which they held in their hands and no person is ignorant that that is a thing of all others in the World most intolerable to those persons who have made a Secular Empire of the Government of the Church As those Interests have made them lay hold of all they could to defend themselves so they have raised a new Controversy touching the Right that our Fathers had to reform themselves They demand of us who our Reformers were from whence they came and what Call they had for so Great a Work They accuse them to have been Rebels and Schismaticks who lifted themselves up against the Authority of their Mother the Church and broke the sacred bond of the Christian Communion They have defamed their persons as much as ever they could and have laid to their charge the most wicked manners to the end they might render them odious In fine they have put forward all that they could believe capable of retaining the people in a blind
consequence for all than for one 9. In fine it will also follow from thence that our Fathers were bound upon that pretence of the Latin Church to examine all the Points of that Religion For firmly to assure themselves of the Truth of that Priviledge it was not enough to consider it in its Grounds and its Causes which are those Proofs that they call a Priori they ought further to look on it in its effects that is to say to see it in the Doctrines of that Church in its Maxims in its Voice and diligently to take notice whether they may see all the Characters of Infallibility resplendent in it or whether they may not discover some Error It was after this manner that the Disciples of Jesus Christ acknowledged and cleaved to him I have given unto them says he the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee To whom should we go Said they to him Thou hast the words of Eternal Life Our Fathers had so much the more reason to use theirs also when all the prejudices of Corruption which we have taken notice of in the foregoing Chapters presented themselves to their sight They observed there all the Characters of humane Weakness of Ambition Covetousness Interest Negligence of plotting Contrivances and of the Spirit of the World and all the other marks of Fallible men who can then blame them for holding so circumspect a course to come to the full and clear knowledge of the Truth So that that pretence of Infallibility was so far from driving our Fathers from the examining of those Doctrines which were taught in their days that the very same thing necessarily engaged and led them to it CHAP. VI. An Examination of the proofs which they produce to establish the Infalliblity of the Church of Rome LEt us see nevertheless upon what Foundations that pretended Prerogative of the Latin Church is built They produce on this Subject some passages of Scripture and some Arguments But as to the Passages of Scripture it is evident that there is not any one which respects more peculiarly the Latin Church then the Greek the Aegyptian the Aethiopian and others every one of which has as much reason to apply them to themselves as the Latin Yet we do not here dispute about a favour common to all Christian Societies but about a peculiar prerogative pretended to by the Latins For they are all agreed that all other Societies have err'd notwithstanding all those passages They ought then necessarily to alleadge something which belongs to the Latins peculiarly exclusively from all others or they ought to come to an acknowledgment that those passages do not at all establish the Infallibility of a visible Church since if they did so establish it being so general as they are they would have the same cogency in favour of the Greeks the Armenians and the Jacobites as well as the Latins 1. In effect one sort of those passages respect the true Church of Jesus Christ that is to say not that multitude of men who make profession of Christianity or who live in the same external Society of Religion but the truly faithful those holy men whom God has inwardly regenerated by his Spirit and whom he leads to life everlasting It is of that Church that it is said That she is the body of Jesus Christ That there is one Body and one Spirit That Jesus Christ is her head That she is his spouse It is only of the truly Faithful and no otherwise that these promises are verifi'd Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it I will be with you always unto the end of the World I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter who shall abide with you for ever The Spirit of Truth shall lead you into all Truth where two or three are gathered together in my Name I will be there in the midst of them These passages denote nothing less then an Infallibility either in the whole Body of the Visible Church or in the side that is strongest or in Councils or in the Decisions of Popes or in Traditions and Ancient Customs but they only signify that God will have always some truly Faithful upon the Earth even unto the end of the World and that he will accompany them with such a measure of the light and grace of his Spirit as shall in the end bring them to the Glory of his Kingdom 2. There are others which they yet make use of far less to the purpose because they signify only the Duty of Pastors and what they are appointed to do and not that that in effect they shall do Such as these Go Teach all Nations Baptising them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Son of man I have set thee for a Watch-man over the House of Israel The Priests lips shall keep knowledge and they shall seek the Law at his Mouth I have set watch-men upon thy walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night And he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastours and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the Body of Christ These and some other like passages shew to what the Offices of the Ministry are naturally appointed and the Obligation of those that are called to it but they are very far from giving from thence a Prerogative of Infallibility 3. They alledge also some passages that recommend to the Faithful the having a respect for and an Obedience to their Pastors Such are these He that heareth you heareth me and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do but do not ye after their works But I cannot see what this last passage should let us see but that all those Exhortations that God makes to the Faithful to have a submission to the word of their Pastours denote very truly the Duty of the people in that matter but they do not in the least settle any Infallibility in their Pastours For is this that that Jesus Christ would say That the Scribes and Pharisees as long as they sat in the Chair of Moses were Infallible he that on the contrary accus'd them of having made void the Commandments of God by their Traditions and who elsewhere gave his Disciples such a Charge to take heed of the leaven of the Pharisees that is to say of their pernicious Doctrines How many times is that Obedience that Respect and that Submission recommended to Children to give to their Fathers in the Scriptures Is it that the Scripture in that ascribes to their
difficulty to get thither and yet that belonging of right to the examination of all men the darkness of the understanding the easiness wherewith men may deceive themselves the want of necessary helps the ignorance and simplicity of the greatest part of men would not hinder it Those are then no other than frivolous Reasons which cannot take away from men that right that God and Nature have given them They ought therefore to enjoy it at least in some respect to wit for the deciding of the question whether they ought to lose it or no. 13. But it is certain they can never so enjoy it in that regard nor decide that Question without entring upon an examination of all their Doctrines which lets us see yet more and more the absurdity of our Adversaries Principle For there is not any Principle more absurd than that which destroys it self which cannot be established but by making use of a contrary Principle and which precisely can have no place but there where it cannot be of any use But all that may be said of that Principle of those Gentlemen since it is most true that to establish it one must necessarily proceed to examine their Doctrines and that they can never know whether they ought to refer themselves to the Latin Church or examine that Doctrine by themselves till they have made that examination that is to say till there shall be no farther occasion to refer themselves to that Authority of the Latin Church which makes pleasant sport enough This is that which is evidently manifest if one consider it that before one can acknowledge the Authority of the Latin Church it must be supposed that one is assured that among all the Religious Societies that are in the World the Christian is the only one in which one ought to place himself and that can never be known but by one way only which is that of examining its Doctrine and its Worship In effect there is not any one of those external marks that can make that difference The Jews had their Miracles Antiquity Succession an uninterrupted Duration the Holiness of their Patriarchs the Light of their Prophecies the Majesty of their Ceremonies we do not dispute these marks with them and as to Temporal Prosperity they had it heretofore and we are not assured that we have always had that whereof we make such boasting which nevertheless is not very great The Mahometans glory that they have the same things with the consent of the People and the admirable success of their Arms and as for Antiquity which they fail in they say that as Jesus Christ did but succeed Moses so Mahomet also has succeeded Jesus Christ As for the Heathens they had as I have said their Miracles their Saints their Prophets their Ceremonies their Succession their uninterrupted Duration their Temporal Prosperities and if we strive with them about Antiquity and Multitude the advantage will not lye on our side There is then nothing more deceitful than those external appearances separated from their Doctrines they are as proper to make a Jew remain a Jew a Heathen a Heathen and a Mahometan to remain a Mahometan as to make a Christian to remain a Christian whence it follows that to form well that difference and to be assured that the Christian Communion is the only good one one ought to examine its Worship and its Doctrines Moreover before they could acknowledge the Authority of the Latin Church they must suppose that a man is sure that among all the Christian Sects the Latin only is the true Church and that cannot be known but by the examination of its Doctrines Those external marks can be no ways proper for it The Greeks the Abyssines the Nestorians ascribe to themselves Antiquity Succession Miracles an uninterrupted Duration as well as the Latins They have their Saints their Prophets their Ceremonies and their Multitude which is not less considerable and as to worldly Prosperity the Abyssines may boast of it and the Muscovites also who make a part of the Greek Church and who knows whether that of the Latin Church shall never change It is then manifest that they can conclude nothing from those marks separated from their Doctrine they are so ambiguous and uncertain that they cannot fix any setled Judgment upon them concerning the truth of the Latin Church But supposing that they could by those external marks or by any other ways which they would take be assured that the Latin Church was the true Church I say it must necessarily be understood in this Sence to wit that in that visible Communion God brings up and preserves his truly Faithful ones For it is in those only that that name of the visible Church is verified and not in the prophane the wicked and the worldly who are mingled with them and who are none of that Body that is the Spouse of Jesus Christ They must then be assured before they can know whether they ought to refer themselves absolutely to that Body of Pastors that governs the Latin Church that the prophane and the worldly do not prevail in that Body and that they never have prevailed for if they do prevail or if they ever have prevailed they may introduce errours into the publick Ministry and false Worship or suffer them to come in through their negligence or otherwise or scatter abroad the ill Doctrines of the Schools amongst the People favour ill customs and in a word corrupt that Communion as it appears that that did come to pass in the Jewish Church and sometimes in the Christian But how can any be fully assured that it may not be so at present otherwise then by the examining of her Doctrine They ought then to give up that point of external marks our Fathers have gained their cause without going any farther by the Prejudices of Corruption which I have set down in the second and third Chapters But if you take them only as meer conjectures and if you will reckon them to be nothing it is certain that to be assured that there is nothing corrupted in a Communion where God brings up and preserves his true Faithful people that the publick Ministry is pure in all its Doctrines and in its Worship one must of necessity take that way of examination and that examination must be very exact So that before we can enter only upon that Question whether we ought to give to the Latin Church a Soveraign Authority over our Faith and Consciences the discussing of which they know not how to avoid all must be examined from whence it follows that that Principle which I have opposed is absur'd because it destroys it self and none can ever practise it till it cannot be any more of any use and more absur'd yet in that when it would hinder us from examining it constrains us to make an examination as exact as can be thought of CHAP. IX An Examen of those Reasons they alleadge to Establish that Soveraign Authority
Arms against their Brethren the Catholicks that pernitious Errors against the Orthodox Faith might be observed to increase in all places That the Church of Rome the Mother and Root of the Vniversal Church was every day more and more despised that Luxury reigned in the Clergy and that it was extream among the people That the Patrimony of Saint Peter was wasted That Christian Princes animated with a mortal hatred one against another were just ready to destroy one another and that in fine to make use of the words of Jeremy One desolation called to another which made him to weep over the Church and say to it Daughter of Sion thy Desolation is great as the stretching out of the Sea who is it that will bring thee any Remedy After having represented those things he adds That although the affliction of the Church was exceeding great yet they might notwithstanding mitigate it if laying aside their own passions their Canvassings and their Cabals they would look to nothing else in chusing a Pope but Holiness Learning and Fitness or Capacity That the Eyes of all the Church were upon them to beg of them a Pope who might by the good odor of his Name allure the Faithful people to Salvation He urged that discourse much farther in shewing them the necessity that the Church stood in of a Holy man whose life should be without reproach He added to his Exhortations threatnings on Gods part and passed by nothing that might move the minds of those Cardinals to do some good Will you not say that words so weighty and so pungent ought to have made some Impression on the minds of those Cardinals and that at least for that Time they should have done well They saw the whole Church in disorder the Conquests that the Infidels made Christian Princes in Arms one against another Church-Discipline overthrown the lives of the Clergy profuse Piety violently beat down and Christianity degenerated in all places could any one imagine that such sad representations would not have been considered But be not hasty All the effect that they produced was the Creation of Alexander the sixth That Name alone sufficiently Celebrated in the History of the Popes was enough to make men understand of what disposition those Prelats were and how little they were touched with the wounds of the Latin Church Let us hear nevertheless what Raynaldus says who in these kind of things is an Author that can no ways be suspected The greatest part of the Cardinals says he were very remote from those good Counsels for Authors complain that some corrupted with Money others gained by promises of Benefices and Places and others drawn by the Conformity of a vitious and impure life gave their Voices to Roderic Borgia So that in stead of chusing a chaste man they chose one who was infamous for his uncleannesses and fornications for which he had been reproved by Pius the Second yet was so far from amending under that reproof that he took no care to conceal his impurities For on the contrary he lived with Vacosia a Courtisan of Rome as if she had been his real Wife and he had divers Children by her upon whom he heape'd Riches and Honors as much as it was possible for him to do as if they had been his Legitimate Children Behold what the Court of Rome was then Alexander the Sixth being dead and Pius the Third who succeeded him having lived but thirty days after his Election the Cardinals met again in the Conclave And because the Life and Government of Alexander had given scandal to all the World and that the Cardinals themselves had been but very ill satisfied with it before they proceeded to an Election they drew up some Articles which every one swore to observe upon condition the Nomination should fall upon him and there was one among the rest which carried this with it That the new Pope should call at the end of two years a General Council for the Reformation of the Church in its Head and its Members Julius the Second was chosen but he did not believe himself bound to keep his Oath for seven years past away without any thing being talkt either of a Council or a Reformation And therefore it was that this Pope thought the less of it Nevertheless it fell out that having ill Treated one party of the Colledge of Cardinals and having moreover stired up the Emperor Maximilian and Lewis the Twelfth the King of France against him those two great Princes joyned with the disgraced Cardinals and called a Council at Pisa The Act of that Convocation on the part of the Princes says expresly that it was for the Extirpation of Heresies and Errors which through the negligence of Superiors had sprung up in divers parts of the World and particularly for the Reformation of the manners of the Vniversal Church in the Head and the Members and for the amendment of many great notorious long continued and almost incorrigible crimes which had scandalized the Vniversal Church The Cardinals also alleaged the Oath that the Pope had took just before his promotion in these very words I swear to observe and perform these Articles throughout and in every particular sincerely unfeignedly seriously and in good earnest and under pain of falling under perjury and an Anathema from which I cannot absolve my self nor give power to any other person to absolve me They added to that that by another Article they all and Julius himself had sworn That if he who should be chosen should not perform his promise in good earnest he should be held guilty of perjury to be a breaker of his Vow and of his Faith a disturber of the Church and the cause of Scandal to all Christianity and that then two thirds of the Sacred Colledge should have power to assemble a General Council The Council then being assembled declared openly That there was a most evident necessity of Reforming the Church in the Head and the Members and made a Decree formed in these words The Holy and sacred General Synod of Pisa lawfully called in the name of the Holy Ghost composing a General Council and representing the Catholick Church doth define and declare That that Holy Synod would not nor could not dissolve it self till the Vniversal Church should be Reformed in Faith and Manners as well in the Head as the Members and till the Heresies and Schisms that had sprung up should be Extinguished Behold hitherto the fairest hope in the World It is not necessary for us to inquire whether that Reformation was the true Cause of the Calling of that Assembly together or whether it was only a pretence and according to all appearances it was the latter But whatsoever it might be whether a pretence or not three thing result from it the one That that Reformation was generally judged to be most necessary the other That it was extreamly desired by the people for they would never have contrived to have took up
respect to the Pope to the Church of Rome and to the Legat himself in particular But Cajetan without being willing to hear him speak of his justification shut up all with this That it was his pleasure that he should revoke his Errors under pain of incurring the Censures with which he had received Orders to punish him adding That if he would not recant he had nothing to do but to withdraw himself and to come no more before him Luther withdrew from the Legats House and having been advertised some days after that they endeavoured to imprison him notwithstanding the safe Conduct of the Emperour he withdrew himself from Auspurg not being ignorant of what had befell John Hus and Jerome of Prague in the Council of Constance Before his departure he wrote to Cajetan two very submissive Letters in one of which he acknowledged that he had not in treating of that business of the Indulgences preserved all that respect which he ought to have had for the name of the Pope and that howsoever he had been urged by the carriage of his Adversaries he confest that nevertheless he ought to have handled that matter with more modesty humility and respect that if he had any ways displeased him he beg'd his pardon offering to publish it himself and to use civiller Terms for the Future He offered likewise not to speak any more from thence forward of Indulgences provided he imposed silence on the Questors also or obliged them to observe the same measures in their discourses And as to the Recantation which they required of him he protested that he had done it in good earnest if his Conscience had allowed him to have done it but that there was no command nor Counsel nor Consideration of any person in the World that could make him say or do any thing against his Conscience In the second Letter observing all along the same submissive and respectful Stile he declared to him That he had withdrawn himself from Auspurg and beg'd that he would not think the worse of him if he appealed from him to the Pope and at the same Time he sent him his Act of Appeal That Appeal was founded 1. Upon this That he had not determined any thing upon the point of Indulgences but that he had only proposed some Theses to be disputed on according to the Custom of the Schools 2. That the Opinions of the Doctors as well Canonists as Divines being very different and there being nothing defined for certain in the Church upon that subject he had had right to chuse one side to chuse one side to maintain in the dispute much more when he was urg'd to it by the indiscretion of the Questors who under a pretence of those Indulgences had dishonoured the Church of Rome and the power of the Keys by their detestable covetousness and scandalous Conduct seducing the People unto new opinions and selling Justifying Grace for Money 3. That he had not only submitted his Disputation to the Judgment of the Church but even to the Judgment of every man more Learned then himself and in particular to Pope Leo. From whence he concludes that he had had no just Cause to Cite him That nevertheless he had offered to his Legat to refer himself to the judgment of the Church of Rome and of the Universities of Basil of Friburg of Lovain and of Paris which his Legat would not accept That he would not let him see wherein his Error lay but that he had only pressed him meerly to recant threatning him if he did not or if he did not go to Rome he would Excommunicate him and all who adhered to him howsoever that he had always protested that he had not any opinion but what was founded on the Scripture on the Fathers and the Canons That therefore finding himself oppressed by that whole proceeding he appeal'd from the Legat and from all that the Pope through ill Information had done against him to the Pope himself better Informed Notwithstanding he withdrew himself from Auspurg and by his retreat rendred vain and ineffectual all the Conspiracies they had contrived against his person to make him a Prisoner Cajetan having failed of his intent Wrote to Frederick Duke of Saxony against Luther accusing him as guilty of a heinous Crime in that he would not Recant and further exhorted and required that Prince either to send him to Rome or to drive him out of his Territories Luther very solidly justified himself before his Prince and made him see the oppression and most evident Tyranny that they used against him And because that the Cardinal had formally declared in his Letter to Frederick that so weighty and Pestilentious an affair could not remain a long Time in that Condition and that the Cause should be carried on at Rome That menace obliged Luther to make an Act of Appeal from the Pope and from all his proceedings against him to a Council lawfully called At the same Time almost Leo sent a Bull into Germany confirming his Indulgences and the Doctrine upon which they were grounded That Doctrine was That by the Power of the Keys given to Saint Peter and to his Successors The Bishop of Rome had a right to pardon to the Faithful all the guilt and punishments of their Actual Sins to wit the guilt by means of the Sacrament of Penance and the temporal Punishment by means of Indulgences whether in this Life or in Purgatory and that by those Indulgences he could apply to the Living and the Dead the superabundance of the merits of Jesus Christ and the Saints either by way of Absolution or by way of Suffrage so that the Living and the Dead participating of those Indulgences were delivered from the Punishment that the Divine Justice would inslict on them for their actual sins He commanded therein all under pain of Excommunication from which they could not be absolved till the point of Death to believe it also and to the end no person might alledge ignorance he gave Order to all Arch-Bishops and Bishops by vertue of their Holy Obedience to cause his Bull to be published in all their Churches giving nevertheless power to his Legat to proceed against the disobedient and to punish them as he should think fit Behold here the true History of the first Quarrel of Rome with Luther Let them judge now whether our Fathers under whose eyes all that business past could any more hope for a Reformation either from the Popes hand or his Prelats Instead of making a Holy and Christian Reflexion upon the just complaints of this man how mean and contemptible soever he might appear to them they thought of nothing but keeping up that evil which they did then in publishing their Indulgences which they knew had not any Foundation either in the Word of God or in the Practise of the Primitive Church They thought of nothing but how to protect them and indirectly to forbid those scandalous and wicked excesses of their
difference which we have with them concerning the Opinion of the Necessity of Auricular Confession for that Opinion is partly founded upon this that Absolution of the Priests is a Judiciary Act and that in that respect the Church has a true Tribunal before which the Faithful are bound to appear and partly upon the Opinion that the penances which the Priest enjoyns are true Satisfactions to the Divine Justice which they are bound to undergo 8. Lastly it is from the same source that the difference proceeds which we have with them concerning the Super-abundant satisfactions of the Saints of which they will have it that the Faithful may partake and whereof in part they compose the Treasure of the Church Behold here Eight Controversies included in the Explication of the first Act of our Justification Upon the second we differ about the Foundation upon which the right that God gives us to life eternal is established or if you will about the proper and direct cause in consideration of which God gives us that right for we establish it alone upon the merits of Jesus Christ in Vertue of that Comunion which we have with him But the Church of Rome Establishes it upon the merit of our works also for she would have it that after God has given us his Grace by which we do good works we truly inherit not only an increase of Grace but Eternal life and even an increase of Glory and she Anathematizes those who do not believe it 2. We differ also about those to whom God gives that right for we believe that God gives it only to his Elect in whom he preserves it by his Grace and by the gift of perseverance but the Church of Rome believes that he gives it also to divers Reprobates whom his Grace abandons and who finally Perish in their Sins Upon the Third Doctrine we differ concerning the Nature and the Definition of Justifying Faith for as for us we look on it as an Act of the Soul that embraces or accepts the satisfaction and merit of Jesus Christ and which applies the promises of God's mercy made to us in the Gospel and we labour as much as we can to live according to that thought But the Doctors of the Roman Church frame an Idea of that Faith of a very great coldness and negligence for they content themselves to say that it is a consent that we yield in general to all the Truths revealed in the Word of God and there are some that go so far as to say that Faith fails not to Justify us although it should not have the least regard to the particular mercy of God towards us which is a thing that we cannot understand without horrour For the rest when I shall say that the Doctrines of the Imputation of the merit of Jesus Christ and his satisfaction are known but to a very few in the Church of Rome as that also is of the Application that we make of them to our selves by the internal Act of our Souls which receives them when I shall say that these Truths so important and so necessary to the practise of Christianity are almost stifled by that great Multitude of external Exercises with which they busy the People I shall say nothing in my Judgment that the more sincere persons will not acknowledge and of which God grant they may be able hereafter to convince me of a falshood in that respect In fine the last Doctrine that fully makes up the Idea of our Justification according to the Scripture produces of it self a considerable Controversy between the Church of Rome and us For as for us we limit our selves to the good works to which our Justification Obliges us and which God has enjoyned us without going any further But the Church of Rome extends them even to those which she her self Commands for the pretends that her Laws properly and directly bind the Conscience under pain of mortal Sin and therefore it was that Leo X. condemned Luther for having wrote that the Church had no power to make Laws concerning manners or good works All these Controversies that naturally arise from the different Explications which they give of the Tenet of Justification let us sufficiently see that the Author of the Prejudices is mistaken if he thinks that we should have no more upon this matter then differences about words and M. le Blanc is too sincere and too Learned to have pretended to deny any of those things which I have mentioned although he has Judiciously remarked that men may easily Equivocate upon the different Significations of the Terms It is therefore neither a piece of Rashness nor Impertinency that our first Reformers had such a regard to the matter of Justification as being a thing of the greatest importance in Religion and it is on the contrary most Just that having seen that Doctrine of the Salvation of Christians neglected obscured and depraved that they should have Judged it necessary to set themselves upon the re-establishing of it CHAP. VII An Answer to the Objections of the twelfth and thirteenth Chapters of the Prejudices TO understand well what is in the Twelfth Chapter of the Author of the Prejudices we must in the first place take notice of the design he propounds to himself and the means he makes use of to reach it As to his design he Explains himself in the very Title of the Chapter which bears this That the Spirit of a Politician every way Humane that appears in the differences that the Calvinists have had with the Lutherans gives a right to reject them without any further Examination as a sort of men without any Conscience He explains himself yet further in the beginning of his discourse after this manner It has been demanded says he of the Calvinists with good reason how it could come to pass that if Luther Zuinglius and Calvin had received a Mission from God and were the Instruments that he made choice of for the greatest work that ever was which is the Reformation of the Errors of sixteen Centuries they should not avoid being openly divided between themselves to dismember themselves from one another to persecute one another after so outragious a manner and to Treat one another as the declared Enemies of God and his Church He explains himself also in another place where he speaks after this manner The Innocence or the Crimes of Luther equally condemn the Calvinists either for having declaimed against an innocent person or for having given unjust praises to one of the most wicked men that ever was and that monstrous conjunction which they have made in his person of holiness with the most detestable Crimes is an evident proof that they have not the least Idea of Christian Vertue nor of the Spirit of Christianity See yet further how he speaks in the same Chapter If Luther were an instrument of the Devil a wicked person a Schismatick a violent and passionate man what will become of
judge of their Action either to condemn or absolve it until first of all they have examined the Causes of their Separation and the Reasons which they have alledged which can never be done but by a discussion of the Foundation In effect Every Accusation which has no certain Foundation and which one must be compell'd to retract is precipitate and rash But that which they form against our Fathers before their having examined the foundation is of that nature It has no certain foundation for they cannot know whether their action be just or unjust and they may be forced to retract it when they shall have examined their reasons It is therefore a condemnable rashness in them who have a right to repell till they have made that examination and it is to oblige them to do it that we suppose that our Fathers had right at the Foundation CHAP. II. That our Fathers were bound to separate themselves from the Body of those who possess'd the Ministry in the Church and particularly in the See of Rome supposing that they had a right at the Foundation BUt they will say Whatsoever we should pretend we can never do otherwise than condemn the Separation of your Fathers not for not having just grounds of Separation but because the right of separating ones self does not belong to all sorts of persons and the Church of Rome being by a special priviledge the Mother and Mistress of all others we could never lawfully separate our selves from her and because it is on the contrary indispensably necessary to the salvation of men to obey and to remain in her Communion So that your Fathers being on one side subject to their ordinary Pastors they ought never to have divided themselves from their Body for what cause soever there should have been and on the other side there being no True Church and by consequence no Salvation to be had otherwise than in the Communion of the See of Rome it is a crime for any to separate themselves from it whatsoever pretence they can urge for that purpose This Objection is founded upon these two Propositions the one That we never ought to separate our selves from the Body of her ordinary Pastors and the other That we ought never to separate from the Church of Rome in particular As to the first of these Propositions I confess as I have said elsewhere that the people owe a great respect and obedience to the Pastors that administer to them the nourishment of their souls the words of eternal life according to the Precept of St. Paul Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls This obedience ought to be accompanyed with a real esteem that should make us to presume well of them which should give us a readiness to be instructed by their word and be very remote from calumnies murmurs and rash suspicions founded upon light appearances and that obedience that esteem that good opinion ought to be without doubt greater for all the Body in general than for particular men in it for there is a greater probability that a whole body should contain more light and by consequence more authority than each private man could have I say that when even Vices are generally spread over the whole body of the Pastors the people ought to labour to bear them with patience and cover them as much as they can with charity in praying to God that it would please him to cleanse his Sanctuary and to send good Labourers into his harvest and howsoever it should be while they can work out their salvation under their Ministry they ought not to separate themselves from them But we ought not also to imagine that the Duty of a people toward their ordinary Pastors should be without all bounds or that their dependance on them should have no measure That which we have said in the first Chapter touching the bonds of Church Communion ought to be extended to the Pastors and to the people their duties are mutual and there is none but Jesus Christ alone on whom they can depend without conditions To flatter the Body of the Pastors with that priviledge is to set up men upon the Throne of God to inspire them with pride vanity negligence it is to set up a Lordship in the Church that Jesus Christ has forbid and to give Pastors the boldness to do and adventure upon all things It is certain therefore that the Tye which the Faithful have to their ordinary Pastors is limited and that it ought to endure but as far as the glory of God the Fidelity that we owe to Jesus Christ and the hope of our own salvation can subsist with their Government If it fall out so that their Government cannot be any further compatible with those things in that case they ought to separate and it would be to set up the most senseless wicked and profane proposition in the world to say the contrary The Ministry of the Pastors is establish'd in the Church only as a meer external means to preserve the True Faith and Worship there and to lead men to salvation But the Light of Nature teaches us that when meer external means shall be remote from their end and that instead of guiding us to their end they turn us away from and deprive us of it that then the love which we have for the end ought to prevail over that which we may have for the means because the means are only desirable in reference to their end and the regard which we have for them is but an effect or a production of that which we have for the end So that when those who are wont to distribute to us aliments necessary to our lives give us on the contrary poysonous meat instead of aliments and when they will force us to take them we must no longer doubt that the interest of our life ought to take us off from that Tye which we might have had to those persons A Guide is a means to conduct us to the place whither we desire to go but when we know that that Guide leads us in a false way and that instead of helping us to go to that place he makes us wander from it it is no question but that we ought to separate from him and renounce his conduct The ordinary Pastors are Guides men that ought to shew us the way to Heaven if therefore instead of shewing us they make us go a quite contrary way who can doubt that we are bound to forsake them But they will say How can they be forsaken without resisting God himself who has subjected them to them Is not their Ministry a Divine Institution and is it not Jesus Christ who by the testimony of St. Paul has given some to be Apostles some Pastors and Teachers for the assembling of the Saints I answer That we must distinguish that which there is of divine in a Ministry from that which there is
points that they could not carry on their side at one time and to pass over to other matters to busie the Prelates with and to have time notwithstanding to advertise the Court of Rome and to gain the chief to the contrary party We ought to place here also the ordinary artifice of the same Legates to put off the Sessions to make many difficulties arise about matters and after divers circuits to cause in the end the Articles to be sent to the Pope which they could not make an end of by reason of the great insisting of the Nations In one word they used in the management of this Assembly all that was most refin'd most forcible and profound in humane policy promises threats secret negotiations canvasings diversions delayes Authority and in General nothing was forborn that could turn and corrupt mens minds there The Pope and his Court had a great many difficulties to overcome and oppositions to surmount which often put them into great troubles and inquietudes and fears but in the end they were so well served and they remained Masters and saw all things succeed according to their desires See here after what manner things went at Trent and by what degrees they tended to make an entire breach of Communion between the Roman and Reformed party Let any now judge if in all this conduct our Fathers had not just and lawful causes for a Separation 1. They saw in the contrary party an invincible resolution to defend and preserve the Errors and Superstitions whose amendment they demanded 2. They saw that resolution go so high as to constrain them to fall back again into those errors against all their knowledge and the motions of their own consciences 3. They saw that this violence which they offered to them had no bounds for it went not only as far as disputes not only so far as the Ordinances and Decrees but even to Excommunications and Anathema's that is to say to a Separation and Schism with a curse 4. They saw that they joyned to all this punishments not in one or two places but in all not by popular heat but in cold blood and in the usual wayes designed for the punishment of the greatest Villains 5. They saw that those punishments came from the perpetual and general inspiration of the Court of Rome which did not cease persecuting of them in all places and which proceeded so far as to search for them in their most hidden retreats 6. They saw that they refused the most equitable and necessary conditions without which they could not proceed to a just examination of Religion nor to a holy and Christian Reformation and that in stead of that the Court of Rome would alwayes remain sole Mistress and Arbitress 7. They saw lastly that instead of returning to the purity of Christianity by taking away out of the field of the Church so many corruptions that defaced it so many false opinions that destroy'd it so many kinds of Worship contrary to true Piety that dishonour'd it and destroyed the salvation of souls these Prelates on the contrary would establish things that custom only and the tradition of some Ages had for the most part introduc'd that they would establish them I say for the future in force of a Law to be incorporated into their Religion as essential and indispensable parts of it to which they would subject the minds and consciences of men which they ordain'd the practice and belief of under penalties of Anathema cutting off and separating from the body of their Society all those who should hold a contrary opinion and practice Let any judge whether our Fathers could yet after that preserve Church Communion with a Party in which they could see nothing either of the Spirit of Truth and Christian Purity and Charity resplendent and whether all hope being taken away of ever reducing them to the right way of the Gospel or even of being able to live with them without wounding their consciences by a detestable hypocrisie in pretending to believe that which they did not believe and to practising a worship which they held unlawful there not remaining any further means for them to remain in that Communion without partaking of their Errors without exposing their Children and without rendring themselves culpable before God let any I say judge whether they did not do well to separate themselves I confess that when a man is joyned with others in one and the same Body he ought not lightly to proceed to a rupture there are measures and behaviour to be observ'd that Prudence and Christian Charity require of us and as long as we have any hope of procuring the amendment and healing of our Brethren or where there is at least any way for us to bewail and to mourn for their sins without losing our own innocency and their constraining us to partake in their crimes we ought not to forsake them But when that hope is lost and when that means of preserving our own purity is taken from us when instead of being able to reduce them we see on the contrary that their Communion does but make us to cast our selves into an unavoidable necessity of corrupting our selves it is certain that we ought to withdraw our selves from them lest in partaking with their sins we should draw the just condemnation of God upon our selves Be not partaker with other mens sins sayes S. Paul but keep thy self pure CHAP. IV. An Examination of the Objection of the Author of the Prejudices taken out of the Dispute of S. Augustine against the Schism of the Donatists IT seems to me that what I have laid down hitherto le ts us clearly enough see that the only way to decide the Question of our Separation to know whether it is just or unjust is to enter into the discussion of the foundation of our Controversies and that it would be the highest injustice to go about to condemn us without ever hearing us Notwithstanding whatsoever we may have to say and how strong soever our Reasons should be the Author of the Prejudices pretends to have found out a certain way to convince us of Schism without entring upon any other examination and for this he employes the Eighth and Ninth Chapters of his Treatise I would sayes he go farther and convince them of Schism without entring upon any discussion of either their Doctrine or their Mission by their separation alone All that he sayes upon that subject may be well near reduc'd to this That there is a Church from which one ought never to separate under any pretence whatsoever and from which all those who separate themselves are Schismaticks and out of the state of salvation That the infallible and perpetual mark to know this Church according to S. Augustine and the other African Fathers is visible extension throughout all Nations because that visible extension according to them contains the Church at all times and that it is a Negative mark that is to say
which is that which he would avoid What therefore is this Church It is sayes he the Catholick Church wheresoever it be We are now as wise as we were before for it alwayes remains to be enquir'd into What is that Catholick Church I freely confess that it seems to me that he would point it out to us by a certain mark which is the visible extension throughout all Nations but in effect he does it not for he sayes in the end that this is but a Negative mark that is to say that every Society which has not that mark is not the Church So that according to him this is a mark only proper to shew what it is not and not to shew what it is Whence therefore shall we know what this Church is Moreover his Proposition is not only ambiguous through the word Church but it is further so through that of Separation for there is more than one sort of Separation There are such as are unjust and criminal in their own nature and there are others which are only so in causes and circumstances there are also such as are permitted and those that deserve to be condemned there are necessary ones and such as are rash so that one cannot make any general proposition upon this matter which would not be captious and proper to make a Fallacy It is necessary therefore in order to his acting with sincerity that the Author of the Prejudices should openly explain his meaning which he labours to establish by the Authority of S. Augustine and the other Fathers and after having so cleared and establish'd it he should propound his conclusion that he would pretend to draw from it for then we should see whether we ought to yield or deny it But to begin a convincing argument by a principle so vagous and so confused as this that we have seen and even to affect that confusion without being willing to explain himself is in my judgement a procedure very fit to be suspected and which may justly make us doubt that instead of a convincing argument he gives us nothing but a Fallacy To clear this doubt it will be here necessary to give a clear and distinct Idea of the Doctrine of S. Augustine upon this subject about which we are disputing First Then we must know that this Father acknowledg'd that the truly Faithful only and the truly Just in opposition to the Wicked the Wordly Infidels and Hereticks were the true Church properly so called and this is what may be proved by an infinite number of passages It must not be imagin'd sayes he in his answer to Petilianus that the wicked belong to the Body of Jesus Christ which is the Church under a pretence that they corporally partake of the Sacraments The Sacraments are holy even in such persons but they serve only to increase their condemnation because they give and receive them unworthily And as for them they are not in that assembly of the Church of Jesus Christ which consisting in his members increases by being compacted and fitly joyned with the increase of God For this Church is built upon a Rock according to what our Saviour said Vpon this Rock I will build my Church and the others are only built upon the sand as the same Lord said I will liken him who heareth my words and doth not what they teach to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand And elsewhere Both the good and the wicked may baptize but there is but one only God alwayes good who can wash the conscience The wicked are therefore at present condemned by Jesus Christ because they have a wicked and defiled conscience and at present they are not of his Body which is the Church although the Church her self is ignorant that they are not for Jesus Christ cannot have any of his members condemned So that they baptize being themselves out of the Church For God is not pleased that all these Monsters should be reckon'd among the members of that only Dove nor that they should enter into his enclosed Garden the keeper whereof can never be deceiv'd And elsewhere Whether they seem to be in the Church or whether they be openly discover'd to be out of it that which is flesh is alwayes flesh That the chaff as it is unfruitful flyes in the air whether it be blown thither by the occasion of some temptation as by the wind or no it is alwayes chaff Those who being hardned by carnality are mingled in the Assembly of the Saints cease not to be separated from the Vnity of that Church which is without spot or wrinkle It is therefore certain that S. Augustine acknowledg'd none to be properly the Church but the truly Faithful and truly Righteous But because that these faithful and these righteous are mix'd with the wicked the worldly and Hereticks in the circle of the same External Call as the chaff is with the good seed in the same Floor or as the Tares are mingled with the good Wheat in the same Field We must note in the second place that S. Augustine gives another notion of the Church which he calls the mixed Church and it is to explain this notion that he sets before us all the comparisons that the Scripture makes use of to represent the mixture of the good with the bad in the same Call that of the field where the Son of Man cast his seed and where the Enemy arose in the night and sowed his Tares also so that the Wheat and the Tares must grow there together till the time of harvest that of the Net that the Fisherman cast into the Sea and which inclosed equally the good and bad Fish that of the Floor where the good Grain is mixed with the Chaff and that of the House in which there are Vessels of Gold and Silver and others of Wood and Earth It is for the same thing that he makes use of the distinction of the true body of Jesus Christ and the mixed body of Jesus Christ meaning by true the truly faithful and righteous only and by mixed the faithful and righteous joyned with those who are not so and that both together by reason of their mixture in one and the same external call make in a manner but one and the same body He makes use for the same purpose of the distinction of being of the Church and being in the Church and he would that none but the truly faithful and righteous are of the Church but that the others are in the Church and by this means he forms two Idea's of the Church the one distinct and the other confused the distinct restrains the Church precisely to those in whom she properly consists and who are her true members and these are the truly righteous and faithful but the confused includes all those who externally profess themselves to be Christians the good Wheat and the Tares the Chaff and the good Seed the good and
them from the Church because they brought in a new Heresie into it But why also did the same S. Augustine with the whole Church of God hold the Donatists to be justly excommunicated against whom these things are written and why did not they receive them into their communion but only after signs of repentance and the imposition of hands Jesus Christ who propounded the Parable of the Tares did not he clearly ordain excommunication elsewhere saying that if our brother would not obey the Church correcting him we ought to reckon him as a Heathen and a Publican That which manifestly shews us that it is one thing to excommunicate and another to pluck up the Discipline of the Church excommunicates but it does not pluck up See here precisely that which S. Augustine himself said non estis ad eradicandum sed ad corrigendum From whence the truth of that which I have said appears that according to this Father there is a bad separation and that is schismatical in its own nature and another that is not so and that although it is never permitted us to make the former yet it does not follow that we may not make the latter provided we do it upon just causes and observe the rules of Prudence and Charity in it We must therefore lay it down as a certain truth that S. Augustine thought that we might sometimes break the communion of the Sacraments and Assemblies we are only concerned to know in what case he thought that that separation should be made To make this point clear I shall say in the Sixth place that when S. Augustine considered the Church in the meer mixture with the wicked that is to say in the mixture with those whose manners are vicious and criminal he taught that those who are in office in the Church may proceed to the excommunication of impenitent sinners when those sinners are few in number and when there is ground to believe that they may disturb the peace of the Church but if the crime includes a whole multitude and that the Body in general is infected then he would that the good should content themselves to preserve their own righteousness without partaking of the sins of the wicked he would that they should groan under it and pray to God but he would not that they should separate themselves When the evil sayes he has seized the greater number nothing remains for the good to do but to groan and lament And a little lower If the contagion of sin has invaded the multitude then it is necessary that Discipline should be used with mercy for the counsels of Separation are vain pernicious and sacrilegious But when he considers the Church not only as a mixture of good and wicked but also as a mixture of the truly faithful and Hereticks I maintain that he has formally acknowledg'd the justice and necessity of a separation not only in regard of some particular persons but in regard even of entire Societies provided they go not so far as that which he calls Eradication We have already noted that he would that we should according to S. Paul pronounce an Anathema against those who preach another Gospel than that which he has preached But this very thing gives the faithful a right to reject the communion of Heretical Societies and to separate themselves from their Assemblies In his Book of the True Religion he aggravates it as a very strange thing and very much deserving to be condemn'd that the Heathen Philosophers who had other sentiments concerning Divinity than the people should partake in the worship of the people In their Schools sayes he they had sentiments differing from those of the people and yet notwithstanding they had Temples common with the people The people and their Priests were not ignorant that these Philosophers had opinions contrary to theirs touching the nature of the Gods since every Philosopher was not afraid of publishing his opinions and of labouring at the same time to perswade them and others and yet nevertheless with that diversity of sentiments they did not fail to assist at the publick worship without being hindred by any body A man that speaks after this manner would not think it ill that any should separate themselves from Heretical communions But he yet further explains himself more clearly afterwards For he sayes That if the Christian Religion should do nothing else but correct that vice it would deserve infinite praises And he adds immediately after That it appears by the example of so many Heresies that have deviated from the rule of Christianity that they would not admit to the communion of the Sacraments those who taught concerning God the Father his Wisdom and his Grace otherwise than the truth would allow them and who would perswade men to receive their false Doctrine But that is not only to be found true in regard of the Manichees and of some others who have other Sacraments than we but also in regard of those who having the same Sacraments have sentiments differing from us in other things and errors which they obstinately defend for they are shut out from the Catholick communion and the participation of those same Sacraments which they have common with us From whence comes it to pass therefore you will say that S. Augustine seems sometimes to ascribe to the Orthodox the right only of a passive separation in regard of Heretical Societies that is to say that he would not that we should separate from them even then when they separate themselves For he sayes in some place that though the Traditors should have openly maintain'd in the Church that their Action was good and holy that is to say that they ought to have delivered up their Bibles to the Pagans for them to burn them and that though they should even have wrote on that subject provided they had not set up their Assemblies apart nor separated themselves yet we ought not to have abandoned for them the good wheat which signifies this to us that we ought not to separate our selves from those though their Doctrine whereof he had spoken was detestable contrary to the faith conscience and good manners In effect he speaks almost alwayes of the Heretical Societies of his time as of those who were themselves cut off from the communion of the Church and whom the Church had not rejected I answer that S. Augustine would have us suffer the communion of Hereticks in certain cases but that he would have us also in other cases to separate our selves from them While we are in no danger of partaking with their errors neither in effect nor in appearance but that we may preserve the profession of our faith pure without consenting to impiety or seeming to consent to it and that there should not be on the part of the Hereticks that obstinacy of opinion he would have us suffer their communion For it is the manifest Doctrine of this Father that in the Society of the
shall be shaken because many in whom grace seem'd to be resplendent shall yield to the persecutors and some of the most firm among the faithful shall be troubled The Church sayes he shall not appear Ecclesia non apparebit She will not therefore have then that visible extension which the Author of the Prejudices would have to be her perpetual mark for all Ages He further acknowledges the same thing in his Epistle to Vincentius where he treats of the state of the Church under the Arians There he teaches in express terms That the Church is sometimes obscured and covered with clouds through the great number of offences that she is then only eminent in her most firm defenders while the multitude of the weak and carnal is overwhelmed with the floods of temptation That under the reign of the Arians the simple suffered themselves to be deceiv'd that others yielding through fear dissembled and in appearance consented to Arianism That indeed some of the most firm escaped the snares of those Hereticks but that they were but few in number in comparison of the rest That nevertheless some of them generously suffer'd banishment and some others lay hid here and there throughout the Earth I pray tell me what visible extension could the Orthodox communion have then which subsisted only in a small number of the firm of whom even the greatest part had suffered exile or lay hid here and there throughout all the Earth I confess that History notes that there were yet some small flocks in some places of the East and of the West who set up their Assemblies apart as at Edessa at Nazianzen at Antioch and in some Provinces of France and Germany but what was this in comparison of the Arian communion which had fill'd the Churches and held Councils as we have so often proved We must therefore seriously profess that this visible extension is a vain and deceitful mark when they would make it perpetual to the true Church as the Author of the Prejudices would make it and that no one could abuse with greater injustice the Authority of S. Augustine than he has done We must profess also that a small handful of the Faithful a little party have right to separate themselves from the whole multitude I mean from a communion spread over all the world which has on its side the Ministry the Pulpits the Councils the Schools Titles Dignities and all that retinue of temporal splendour when it has not the true Faith For the rest that which I have handled in this Chapter about the two former Propositions of the Author of the Prejudices already sufficiently lets us see the falseness of his argument For if he would take the pains to read this Chapter with never so little application he will see all these following Propositions well establish'd there 1. That in General this Author has not compris'd the true Hypothesis of S. Augustine nor the state of his dispute against the Donatists 2. That he can draw no advantage from the divers wayes in which that Father conceived the word Church 3. That the separation which that Father judg'd to be fit to be condemned and wicked under what pretence soever it should be made is wholly different from that which is between the Church of Rome and us 4. That there is not any Christian Society from which one may not lawfully separate ones self in a certain case and manner 5. That that which is disputed between the Church of Rome and us being of this number they must consider the causes and circumstances of it rightly to judge of it and not pretend to convince us of Schism without entring upon any other discussion 6. That according to the principles of S. Augustine the Church of Rome is Schismatical in respect of us supposing that she is in error because it is she that has broken Christian Unity and that we are in respect of her in a passive separation 7. That it is absurd to make that visible extension a perpetual mark of the true Church which way soever they take it 8. That this pretended mark is contrary to the experience of our Age and does not properly agree to any one of these Societies that at this day divide Christianity 9. That it is contrary to the experience of the Ages past and to the Doctrine of the Fathers 10. That it is rejected in the sense of the Author of the Prejudices by the famous Doctors of the Roman communion 11. That it has no foundation in the dispute of S. Augustine against the Donatists 12. That it is even directly opposite to the Doctrine of that Father These are the just and natural consequences that are drawn from the things which I have handled in this Chapter I will examine in the following the other Propositions of the Author of the Prejudices CHAP. V. A further Examination of the Reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices upon the subject of our Separation THe Third Proposition of the Author of the Prejudices is already sufficiently confuted by what I have said He sayes that since our Society is not visibly extended throughout all Nations therefore it cannot be the True Church But we have shewn him that we cannot at this day rationally attribute that visible extension throughout all Nations to any of the Societies that divide Christianity and by consequence that it is a chimerical mark by which we may conclude that there is no true Church in the world since there is none which is not visibly excluded from many Nations We have shewn him also that his pretended mark does not agree either with the experience of the Ages past nor with the doctrine of the Fathers nor even with that of the Doctors of the Roman Church and that instead of having any foundation in the Doctrine of S. Augustine it is evidently contrary to him So that we have nothing to do at present but to go on to the Examination of the Fourth and Fifth Proposition They bear this sense That the Calvinists urge the principle of the Donatists far higher than ever those Schismaticks did For as for them they did not say that there was any time wherein the whole Church had fallen into Apostasy and they excepted the Communion of Donatus whereas the Calvinists would have it that there have been whole Ages wherein all the Earth had generally apostatized and lost the faith and treasure of salvation That the Societies of the Berengarians the Waldenses and Albigenses c. in which he sayes that some of us include the Church could not be that Catholick Church whereof S. Augustine speaks To establish that which he layes to our Charge concerning the entire extinction of the Church he first produces the testimony of Calvin This is sayes he that which Calvin has distinctly declared in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans where after having pretended that the threatning that S. Paul uses against those who do not remain in
naturally goes before the Ministry it does not depend upon the Ministry but the Ministry on the contrary depends upon it as in the Civil Society the Magistracy depends upon the Society and not the Society upon the Magistracy In the Civil Society the first thing that must be thought on is that Nature made men afterwards we conceive that she Assembled and United them together and lastly that from that Union that could not subsist without Order Mastistracy proceeded It is the same thing in a Religious Society the first thing that Grace did was to produce Faith in the Hearts of men after having made them believe she United them and form'd a mutual Communion between them and because their Communion ought not to be without Order and without Government from thence the Ministry arose So that a Lawful Ministry is after the True Church and depending upon it It is not a Lawful Ministry that makes it to be the True Church for it is so by the Truth of its Faith and it would yet be so when it actually had not any Ministers but it is the True Church that makes the Ministry to be Lawful since it is from the Truth of a Church that the Justice of its Ministry proceeds The Argument therefore of the Author of the Prejudices involves the Dispute in a ridiculous Circle for when he would prove that we are not the True Church because we have not a Lawful Ministry we maintain on the contrary That we have a Lawful Ministry because we are the True Church And he cannot say that we are the cause of the ridiculous Circle because our way of Reasoning follows the Order of Nature and his does not follow it I omit that his first Proposition which is Where there is no Lawful Ministry there is no True Church is Equivocal For either he understands by that Lawful Ministry Ministers actually Established or else he means a Right to Establish them If the former his Proposition is false for the True Church may be without having actually any Ministers that is no ways impossible as I have already shewn And if he means the latter his Proposition is not to his purpose for it would maintain that the Society of the Protestants has a full and entire Right to set up Ministers for its Government supposing that it had the True Faith as it may appear by what I have said and as it will appear yet more clearly by the following Observation 8. I say then in the eighth place That the Body of the Church that is to say Properly and Chiefly the Society of the truly Faithful not only has the Right of the Ministry but that it is also that Body that makes a Call Lawful of persons to that Office This Truth will be confirmed by what I have already shewn without any further need of new Proofs But as the Question concerning the true Fountain whence that Call proceeds is it self alone almost all the difference that is between the Church of Rome and us about this matter and that moreover it is extreamly Important to the Subject we are upon It is necessary for us to examine it a little more carefully They cannot then take it ill that I insist a little more largely upon this Observation then I have done upon the rest To make it as clear as I can possibly I propose to Treat of three Questions The first shall be To know whether naturally a Call belongs to the Pastors only excluding the Laity or whether it belongs to the whole Body of the Church The Second Whether in case it belongs to the whole Body of the Church it can be said that the Church can of it self spoil it self of its right or whether it has lost it any way that it could be supposed to have And the Third Whether the Body of the Church may confer Calls immediately by it self or whether the Church is alwayes bound to confer them by means of its Pastors As to the first of these Questions All the Difficulty it can have comes only from the false Idea of a Call that is ordinarily formed in the Church of Rome For first They make it a Sacrament properly so called and they name it the Sacrament of Orders From whence the thought readily arises that the Body of the People cannot confer a Sacrament They Imagine next That that Sacrament impresses a certain Character which they call an Indelible Character and which they conceive of as a Physical Quality or an Absolute Accident as they speak in the School and as an Inherent Accident in the Soul of the Minister They perswade themselves further that Jesus Christ and his Apostles left that Sacrament and that Physical Quality in trust in the hands of the Bishops to be communicated by none but them With that they mix a great many Ceremonies and External Marks as Unction and the Shaving which they call the Priesty Crown They add to all that Priestly Habits the Stole the Alb the Cope the Cross the Miter the Rochet Hood Pall c. They make Mysterious Allegories upon these Ceremonies and those Ornaments they distinguish those Dignities into divers Orders they frame a Hierarchy set out by the Pompous Titles of Prelats Primates Arch-Bishops Patriarchs Cardinals c. They write great Books upon all these things and the half of their Divinity is taken up in explaining their Rights Authority Priviledges Immunities Apostolick Grants Exceptions c. What ground is here that all good men should not believe that the Church-men are at least men of another kind from all others and that they are no wayes made of the same blood of which Saint Paul says that God has made all Mankind Notwithstanding when we examine well that Call what it is to form a just Idea of it we shall find that properly it is but a Relation that results from the Agreement of three Wills to wit that of God that of the Church and that of the Person called for the consent of these three make all the Essence of that Call and the other things that may be added to it as Examination Election Ordination are Preambulatory Conditions or Signs and External Ceremonies which more respect the Manner of that Call then the Call it self In Effect in a Call we can remark but three Interests that can engage one to it that of God since he that is called ought to speak and Act in his Name that of the Church that ought to be Instructed Served and Governed and that of him who is called who ought to fulfil the Functions of his Charge and to Consecrate his Watchful Diligence Cares and Labours to it from whence it follows That that Call is sufficiently formed when God the Church and the Person called come to agree and we cannot rationally conceive any thing else in it But as to the Will of the called it does not fall into the Question for we all acknowledge that no one can be forced to receive the Office of the