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A36261
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Two short discourses against the Romanists by Henry Dodwell ...
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Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing D1825; ESTC R1351
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55,174
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261
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not excuse the Censured Person for continuing out of her Communion when the Communion may be recovered by any Submission how inconvenient and harsh soever if it be not sinful yet that is the very Case here that we are not only wrongfully Excommunicated but the terms proposed for our restitution to Communion would be directly sinful as has been shewn before Whence it will follow that we are excusable not only in suffering our Selves to be cast out of their Communion but also in continuing out of it But because this is not our whole Case who do not only abstein from their Communion but set up a Communion of our own and maintain an Ecclesiastical Body Politick distinct from theirs our defence herein will depend on the Justice of the Ecclesiastical power of those Persons who govern our Ecclesiastical Assemblies And therefore 2. All our concernment for Antiquity here will be that our Bishops derived their power from such as derived theirs with a power of communicating it in a continual Succession from the Apostles And this we do acknowledge true concerning the Popish Bishops themselves and do derive the validity of our Orders from the Antiquity of theirs without any more prejudice to our Cause than the Primitive Catholicks did suffer by acknowledging the validity of Baptism administred by Hereticks For the Succession of their Pastors is very reconcilable with a supposed Innovation in their Doctrines and certainly themselves cannot deny that it is so whilst they charge the Orientals with Heresie whom yet they cannot deny to have alwaies maintained as uninterrupted a Succession of Bishops as themselves especially considering that the Innovations we charge them with of adding false and new Articles of Faith not of denying the old ones do not in the least interrupt or invalidate their Succession This therefore being supposed that the first Bishops of our English Reformation received their power from such as had derived theirs by an uninterrupted succession from the Apostles it will follow that they were valid Bishops and if so had the power of keeping Church-Assemblies and exercising Jurisdiction in them both for the Government of their present Charges and communicating their power to succeeding Generations For nothing of this is pretended to exceed the power of a valid Bishop The charge of Heresy it self cannot hinder the validity of their Orders either received or communicated though it may indeed in the Judgment of them who believe them so render them obnoxious to Canonical Incapacities of executing them and to Legal Degradations not from the Character but from the actual Jurisdiction properly belonging to their Office But to such Canonical Incapacities and Degradations they will not deny even validly-Ordeined Persons themselves to be obnoxious and therefore cannot make that an Argument against the validity of our Orders And yet when this Charge of Heresy against our Bishops is not here to be Judged by the pretences of our Adversaries but by the merit of the Cause and therefore is not to be taken fâ—r granted till it be proved That therefore which is indeed new in the Church of England is That though her Positive Doctrines and Orders be Ancient yet the Profession of her Negatives and the open Assertion of her Liberty from the Encroachments of the Roman Court and all her other Practices grounded on these Principles were not avowed by her Ecclesiastical Governors for several Centuries before the Reformation And in Answer hereunto I shall insist on the heads already intimated Therefore 1. There was no reason to expect that her opposition to these Errors should have been Ancienter though we should suppose the Errors themselves to have been so For there was no reason to expect that Errors should have been discovered for some Ages before the Reformation when there was so great a want of that kind of Grammatical and Historical Learning which is only fit to qualifie a Person to Judge of Ecclesiastical Tradition at least they were not likely to have been discovered by such a number as had been requisite to maintain an open opposition And if the Errors had been discovered yet it was not easie to expect success in holding out against the Court of Rome which was then so very powerful and there was no reason to expect such attempts from Prudent Persons where there was no probability of success And there was yet least reason of all to expect this opposition from Bishops then when no Bishops were made without the Popes consent which he was not likely to give to such as were likely to oppose him when after they were made they were obliged to be true to Him by express Oaths as well as by their Interests of peaceable continuance or hopes of future preferment when at least it was impossible to resist their Fellow-Bishops the generality of whom were in all likelyhood swayed by these Prejudices when they had seen mighty Princes themselves worsted in those Contests and the extreme Severity of that Court against Dissenters when lastly differing from the Church of Rome in any thing was counted Heresy and Heresy was prosecuted with the extremest Infamy which must needs weaken the Authority of those Opposers with others as well as other Penalties of the canon-Canon-Law Nor 2. Does the Justice of our Cause require a greater Antiquity for our Negatives For 1. Our Negatives are not pretended to be of perpetual obligation but only for preventing the malignity of the contrary Affirmative Articles to which they are opposed And therefore there is no reason to expect Formal Negatives opposed to Additional Articles from the beginning before the Additional Articles themselves were thought of nor to expect a Reformation of Abuses before there were Abuses to be Reformed seeing that in course of Nature these Negatives presuppose the contrary Affirmatives as a pretence of Reformation must also presuppose Abuses And therefore the pretence of the greater Antiquity of our Adversaries Errors and Abuses is so far from prejudicing the reputation of our Negatives and Reformation as that it is indeed the best Argument of their Justice and Seasonableness For such Negatives as these and such a Reformation must needs have been unwarrantable if there had not been before Errors fit to be denyed and Abuses fit to be reformed Nor 2. Is it any Prejudice to the Justice of our Cause that these Errors were not opposed with formal Negatives as soon as they appeared For such Errors as these were usually first received as the Opinions of private Persons before they were countenanced by Authority and whilst they proceeded no further there was not that mischief in them nor consequently that obligation to oppose them as when at length they came to be so countenanced For the Errors of Private Persons whilst they are no more are not conceived so to oblige us to be of their mind as that our silence should in any Prudence be expounded as an Argument of our consent and consequently cannot be such a provocation to us to oppose them
openly in our own Defence Nor 3. Is it necessary to expect that there should have been an open opposition of them even as soon as countenanced by Authority For if even in the reproof of the miscarriages of private Persons Christianity obliges us to proceed with all possible candor and modesty we are certainly much rather obliged to proceed so in dealing with Persons of Authority We should give them time to reflect and we should bear with any Personal inconveniences that are not directly sinful rather than occasion those disturbances which are usually to be expected from a publick opposition of them Nor is this forbearance more agreable to reason than to the sentiments of those Ages who were generally possessed with an excessive veneration for Authority especially Ecclesiastical so that there is reason to believe that they would bear with such Errors as long as the Abuses were tolerable however otherwise inconvenient 4. Therefore that which makes these Errors intolerable to private Persons in dealing with Authority for of such I speak is the imposing and urging them as Conditions of Communion And this might have been shewn to have been late not before their Errors were defined and imposed in their Councils And therefore it was but lately that any publick opposition was to be expected even from them who were in their Consciences perswaded that our Adversaries Doctrines were Erroneous And 5. When they were thus imposed yet even then private Persons were concerned in Conscience as well as Prudence to forbear an open opposition when there were no hopes of doing good nay too probable fears of prejudicing their Cause by it for the future when upon their opposition they must have expected to have been condemned when being condemned they were to be cast out of Communion when being Excommunicated for such a Cause others would have been deterred by their Example and their credit must have been impaired by the Infamy incurred by the canon-Canon-Law then in force and their very condemnation would for the future mightily prejudice Mens minds against the like attempts when none could revive the like true Doctrine without the dis-repute of being supposed to revive an anciently-condemned Heresy and when there were no hopes of being able to preserve themselves in opposite Assemblies without Bishops to Head them without whom they could not maintain a Succession of Priests nor consequently of Sacraments and the like employments and advantages of Ecclesiastical Assemblies and when no Bishops were likely to countenance such a design whilst they were held in such captivity to the Court of Rome by Oaths as well as their other Worldly Interests and when no Persons of a free ingenuous temper were likely to attain the honour of Episcopacy These Reasons with a very easie Application may suffice to shew that in an ordinary way there was no reason to expect the Reformation sooner than it was And that there was no necessity sufficient to oblige God to interpose to raise Men up to it Extraordinarily will appear if it be considered 6. That it is not every necessity of the Church that can oblige God to use such Extraordinary means but only such a necessity as must have destroyed a Church from the Earth that is such a Society of Men wherein Salvation might be attained by the ordinary Prescriptions of the Gospel Now the prevalency of these Errors does not oblige us to acknowledge that such a Church as this must have failed even in those Ages wherein these Errors are supposed to have prevailed for some Centuries before the Reformation For 1. Though the Occidental Church had failed yet Christ might have had such a Church among the several Communions of the Orientals And I know no greater inconvenience in this regard in admitting the faileur of the Occidental church than what our Adversaries themselves are obnoxious to in admitting the like defection in the Oriental 2. The prevailing of these Errors does not oblige us to deny an ordinary possibility of Salvation according to the Prescriptions of the Gospel even in the Church of Rome it self in those Centuries before the Reformation For 1. We do not deny all Necessaries to Salvation even according to the ordinary Prescriptions of the Gospel to have been taught even then in the Church of Rome The Errors we charge them with are not of Defect but Adding to the Original Articles of Faith And therefore 2. If it may appear that the sin of Adding to the Faith was not to such as were no farther accessary to it than by continuing in the Communion of such as were really guilty of it so imputable ordinarily as to hinder the Salvation of such as were not otherwise wanting to themselves in their own Endeavours or at least not in such a degree as to oblige God to interpose in an Extraordinary way for its Ordinary prevention this will be sufficient to shew that supposing those Errors so dangerous as we do indeed suppose them yet God was not obliged to raise up and maintain a Communion in opposition to them for preventing the failing of such a Church as I have spoken of even in these Western Parts And that this was so may appear from these Considerations 1. That that skill in Ecclesiastical Learning by which our first Reformers were enabled to discover these Errors was generally wanting in the Ages before the Reformation which might make their mistakes then much more pardonable than now 2. That the great mischief of these Errors is not so much the believing more for matters of Faith than really was so as the mischievous Consequence of doing so the Divisions of the Church necessarily following hereupon the condemning of good Catholicks for Hereticks and Schismaticks and excluding them from Communion and hereby making the peace of Christendome impossible on any just and tolerable terms and Abuses impossible to be Reformed Which was not so imputable in those Ages when there was no visible Communion to be condemned by joyning with that of Rome for as for the even unjust Excommunication of particular Persons Providence is not so concerned as to interpose Extraordinarily for their prevention This I say on Supposition that the Waldenses and Albigenses c. were such as our Adversaries represent them If they were ootherwise then among them there was a Succession for so long of Churches holding our Doctrines before Luther 3. The Prudential Reasons now given might then generally excuse private Persons and all such as were not accessary to the guilt of introducing those Errors who were much the greater Part and it is only for the greater Part that Providence is necessarily concerned from the guilt of not publickly Reforming them Yet even they are not so Excusable now when the power of the Pope is so much decryed and there are so many Churches and Church-Governours under whose Protection they may put themselves and with whose Communion they may joyn in opposition to them 3. The Antiquity allowed to their Errors on this Supposition is not