God hath visited the people that sat in darkness in China in the East and West Indies we cannot be ignorant One Religion granted muchwhat the same as at the present for the last 1000 years in its Liturgies and Publick Service in its Altars and quotidian Sacrifice in its high veneration of the celestial Favorites and daily communication by a commemoration of the Saints in glory with the Church triumphant as likewise in its unbounded charity even to the Souls of its supposed-necessitous brethren of the next world in its variety of Religious Orders Fraternities and Votaries in its holy love to chastity silence solitudes and poverty in its unarguing and miscalled blind obedience to the laws of its Superiors in its glorying thro all the past ages of miracles and prophecy One religion I say appearing in all these for so many ages much-what the same and very reverend for its antiquity yet still going on resistless flourishing and spreading its armes abroad further and further toward the East and toward the West with continued and unwearied missions And another religion every day varying from its self and subdividing into smaller Sects after the 70th or 80th year of its age beginning to decline and wither and loose ground in many places where it was formerly well rooted and whilst it promiseth its self still to destroy Antichrist growing each day feebler and He that it names so stronger To summe up all the surest trial of the doctrines of any Church after that by Scripture which is pretended for all sides is First by their conformity with Antiquity i. e. by the doctrines of the former Church 2. By the holines which these doctrines produce in the members of such a Church For the first we are to search the Fathers or some of them or if it be but one of those who are more voluminous concerning such points as are now controverted not as such Fathers are quoted by others but in their own writings For the 2d to read the books of Devotion and the Lives of Holy men of either party Which two who carefully examines notwithstanding the commonly used objections of disagreement ambiguity or impertinency in the first the Fathers of forgery in the second the Lives of Saints he shall be abundantly satisfied concerning truth and error And the grand causes of the continued distractions of opinions I conceive are either the not perusing of the Fathers writings themselves but quotations of them in others where many times a sentence taken by it self may be without any forcing capable of a sence contradictory to the context or the not casting of the search upon the Fathers but Scriptures only or the searching of the Scriptures also not only in an affirmative but negative way taking all that for false or unlawful or unuseful not only what is against them but what is not in them Again in the searching of the Fathers Councils c the reasons why we assent not to them when found contrary to our former opinions are 1. The being bred-up in doctrines repugnant unto their decrees and in places persecuting such tenets which makes us averse from truth that will destroy us averse not by denying it when we know it but by preventing to our power the apprehension of arguments perswasive to it and by a willing entertaining reasons which are never wanting against it Now that this conformity to opinions happens by education and interest rather than argument is plain in that all other things remaining the like i. e. as much judgment and diligence and books c and our education or interest being only changed contrary opinions are as readily the one as the other entertained See before § 14. 2. A general inclination in our nature to opinions that give more liberty and that more throw off yokes 3. A conceit false that Antichrist is to be a Christian in profession and a ruler in the Church Which with the texts of S. John 1 Ep. 2. 18. 4. 3. at one blow cuts off the head of all Church-authority Tradition Fathers Councils how ancient soever farther than we find them to agree with Scripture and that is with our fancies upon Scripture or sometimes upon one uncompared text thereof According to what hath bin considered in this Treatise methinks some of those passages urged long since by Sr. Edwin Sandys in his Relation of the Western relig p. 30. c. as the ordinary plea of the Ch. of Rome and her adherent Churches have something in them not easily to be answered if we joyn with them the notion of Catholick Ch. as explained by Mr. Thorndyke in his printed letter to his brother and the experiences of our times since Sr. Ed. Sandys's decease Mr. Thorndyke's words are these Christians when they profess to believe i. e. in the Creed the Catholick Ch. do not believe that there is in the world a number of men that profess to be Christians c but that there is a Corporation of true Christians founded by our Lord and his Apostles which hereticks and schismaticks cannot have communion with and this is that which the stile Catholick and Apostolick Church signifies as distinguishing the body of true Christians to wit so far as profession goeth from the conventicles of hereticks and schismaticks For this title of Catholick would signifie nothing if hereticks and schismaticks were not barred the communion of the Ch. Thus far he Where his interpreting the believing of the Catholick Ch. to be the believing of a distinction of the profession of Catholicks from the conventicles of Hereticks must needs infer that the Church Catholick which soever it is is a Church or Churches distinguished not only in its internal communion with Christ its head but in its external profession and communion of its members amongst themselves from the external communion and profession of hereticks Sr. Edw. Sandys's discourse by way of objection is this If all other Churches besides the Roman and those united with her have had either their end and decay long since or their beginning but of late if this being founded by the Prince of the Apostles with promise to him by Christ that hell-gates should not prevail against it but that himself will be assisting to it till the consummation of the world hath continued on now till the end of 1600 years with an honourable and certain line of near 240 Popes Successors of Peter both tyrants and traitors pagans and hereticks in vain wresting raging and undermining If all the lawful General Councils that ever were in the world have from time to time approved and honoured it if God hath so miraculously blessed it from above as that so many sage Doctors should enrich it with their writings such armies of Saints with their holines of Martyrs with their blood of Virgins with their purity should sanctify and embellish it If even at this day in such difficulties of unjust rebellions and unnatural revolts of her nearest children yet she stretcheth out her armes
and tho the Church can make nothing de fide i. e. to be divine Revelation which was not so always from our Saviour's and the Apostles times yet all divine Revelation is not de fide in another sence i. e. proposed by the Church to Christians as necessary to be believed and thus a proposition may be de fide to day which yesterday was not And those who affirm the Church to be unerrable in all points de fide mean not in all points absolutely which may possibly be derived from some traditional principle of Faith but only in so many of them as she proposeth to Christians tanquam de fide or necessary to be believed whilst very many theological propositions probably deducible from the delivered principles and even mentioned affirmatively in Councils yet are no part of these necessarily injoyned credends To return now to our matter whence we digressed § 11. and to pass from Bellarmin to some other late writers of the Roman Church of the moderatest sort These seeing that some deductions and consequences from revealed and traditional doctrines are neither so immediate and clear nor yet so necessary to be known and the contradictory of them to be confuted as others do assert and derive the Churches inerrability chiefly or only from evidence of Tradition not certainty of reason or extraordinary illumination of the Spirit Whence these also holding the Church'es infallibility in all things which she determineth tanquam de fide do likewise maintain all things determined by her tanquam de fide to be only doctrines traditional or those so evidently deductive as that in substance they are coincident with that which is traditional See Dr. Holden de resol Fid. 1. l. 9. c. I will transcribe you some part Quaedam consecutiones adeo evidenter constant primo intuitu ut nemo sanoe mentis supposita praemissarum veritate possit ullatenus de rei veritate ambigere as there he names this Duas esse in Christo voluntates proved ex duplici natura Christi against the Monothelites Quoecunque autem sub hac ratione conditione declarantur denunciantur ab Ecclesia universa seu a Concilio Generali veram habent divinae fidei seu veritatum revelatarum Catholice traditarum certitudinem c. Aliae sunt consecutiones sequelae quae non adeo manifeste evidenter emicant effulgent quin studium aliquod scientia requiratur c. Hujusmodi autem veritates quarum aliquas vidimus in Conciliis Generalibus definitas supremam illam Catholicam certitudinem quam vi traditionis universae attribuimus articulis fidei habere nequeunt Nullos etenim agnovit Ecclesia divini luminis radios sibi de novo affulgentes quibus veritatibus recenter detectâ—s particularium hominum ratiocinatione quodammodo develatis possit certitudo ab omni prorsus periculo erroris immunis atque fidei revelatis catholice traditis articulis par aequalis succrescere Thus Dr. Holden to whom I may add Mr. Cressy in his Motives approved by several Sorbon-Doctors 33. c. Besides the certain Traditional doctrine of which he speaks before other points of doctrine there are sometimes decided in Councils rather by the judgment and learning of the Bishops considering texts of Scripture wherein such points seem to be included and weighing together the doctrines of ancient Fathers and modern Doctors now such doctrines or decisions many Catholicks conceive are not in so eminent a manner the necessary objects of Christian faith c. Then after If in such Decisions as these latter are there should happen to be any error which yet we may piously believe the assistance of God's H. Spirit promised to the Church will prevent but if this should happen c. And c. 41. And many Catholick writers there are who upon the same grounds with Mr. Chillingworth extend the promise of the holy Spirits assistance to the Church not to all inconsiderable circumstantial doctrines but to substantial and traditionary only Thus he See like things in F. Sancta Clara syst fid 12 13 14. c. -12 c. p. 110. Singula quae in Conciliis tractantur non sunt ejusdem considerationis Illa quae a Theologis hinc inde agitantur ante definitiones examinantur tandem non nisi magno labore rerum consequentiarum subtili trutinatione ex discursu longo perplexo ad Conclusiones statuendas devenitur hujusmodi omnia si tanquam non necessaria errabilia putantur nihil est contra Ecclesiae infallibilitatem And 13. c. p. 147. Cum hac tamen doctrina bene stat proloquium illud Scholasticorum Ecclesiam simpliciter non posse errare in fide licet bene circa fidem seu in appendicibus fidei hoc est ut alii loqui malunt in non-fundamentalibus seu non-necessariis And one such point which he instanceth in tho not as a determination of any Council yet see Concil Lateran 3. Can. which seems somewhat to favour this opinion yet as a common received tenent in some former times is this Papam ex Christi institutione plenissimam habere in universum orbem jurisdictionem temporalem eamque in Imperatores Reges transfudisse adeo ut habeat toti mundo dominari omnia regna disponere 12. c. p. 124. where he quotes many Authors Quod tamen saith he hoc saeculum in Scholis non fert ut satis colligitur ex Suaresio Bellarmino aliis See likewise the Authors quoted in Bellarmin de Roman Pont. 5. l. 5. c. § Argumentum postremum and § Sanctus quoque Bonavent where he names Hugo de S. Victore about 1130. who was one of the first qui temporalem potestatem summâ— Pontisici ex Christi institutione tribuit And is not Stapleton quoted before of the same opinion with these when he saith It is sufficient that the Church be infallible in the substance of faith in public doctrines and things necessary to Salvation as Bellarmin grants some points de fide are not being the end of infallibility given God and Nature as they are not defective in necessaries so neither being superabundant in superfluities c. And doth not St. Austin's Saying so much noted shew him too of the same opinion I will transcribe it somewhat more fully than usual as being very considerable Answering to St. Cyprian's Authority urged against him by the Donatists for rebaptization of such as had bin only baptized by Hereticks amongst other things he goes on de Baptism 2. l. 3. c. Quis autem nesciat sanctam Scripturam c posterioribus Episcoporum literis ita praeponi ut de illa omnino dubitari disceptari non possit utrum verum vel utrum rectum sit quicquid in ea scriptum esse constiterit Episcoporum autem literas quae post confirmatum Canonem scribuntur c. per Concilia licere reprehendi si quid c. ipsa Concilia quae per singulas regiones
strangers And tho there shall be Antichrists and falling away from the faith as there was even in the Apostle's times yet that falling away from the faith shall be also from the Church but the Church it self i. e. that whole external communion which was in times before the Church of Christ for I speak not of any one particular place from any of which I conceive one time or other Christianity may be banished or if you will the visible body of the Clergy openly cohering in that external communion shall never go into Apostacy Nor shall the Apostates fall away in but out of the external communion of the former Church and so always be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in respect of their opinion but decession not in respect of the truth of but their dissent from the Church in what they maintain and shall for ever be known * either by their going out of the former and setting up new communions Jud. 19. Heb. 10. 25. 1 Jo. 2. 19. 2 Tim. 3. 8. Jude 11. opposing those in authority and so Tertullian Praejudicatum est adversus omnes haereses id esse verum quodcunque primum id esse adulteratum quodcunque posterius * or by the former Church thrusting them out which shall never joyn with them But t is to be noted that most of those divisions of the Church if not all which have separated from a former communion are such as have not bin first expelled by the Church and then set up a new communion upon necessity but such as have left it always pretending that there be some tenets or practices in the former Church for which tho she permitting to them all their own opinions they could not communicate with her Now that communion which they tho indulged their own tenets will not return to t is plain that at first they did reject whatever they pretend to the contrary and tho the other Ch. also ejected them for both these well consist And such Apostates also may be known always at their first going out tho not so well afterwards by the smallnes of their number As Arrianism which was the greatest division that ever happened in the Church for 1500 years never prevailed upon all parts of the Church's communion the Western continuing for a major part untainted with it touching which see Ch. Gov. 2. part 40. § c. and in both the Eastern and Western it ever had an external communion of the Catholicks opposit to it and in its first rise was easily discerned by the paucity of that Sect as the beginnings of all heresies are easily known neither are they tho some of them of very speedy growth yet of long continuance See 2 Tim. 3. 1 8 9. Jude 11. Act. 5. 38. Neither had the contrary conceit to wit of the external visible body of the Church her falling away from Christ by which the sheep are to seek for a right shepherd ever got so much strength amongst Christians but from a supposing of Anti-Christ to be in profession a Christian and one of that Church in which it is said he shall sit notwithstanding that others of whom the same thing was said viz. that they shall sit in the Holy place see Matt. 24. 15. Dan. 11. 41. were not in their outward profession members of the Church But this is an opinion as is elsewhere shewed groundless and the going out of Babylon Rev. 18. 4. which is there spoken of place not of former communion as suppose it were said to the Christian Churches that are now in Turky to remove from thence interpreted in this sence is a dangerous principle to breed Schisms and ruin souls in causing mens forsaking of the external communion of the Catholick Church of Christ that is in present being Which Church many think shall be always so conspicuous and set on an hill that it shall in all times out-number any separating Sect both for the multitude of people and extent of Nations And we have found it so till Luther's time the fore-mentioned Arrianism never ruling in the most of Christians who adhered still to the Nicene Creed but in some of the chiefest of the Clergy the Bishops such as were intruded by the Emperor the orthodox Bishops being thrust out and carried away with his inclinations and these chiefly in the Eastern Churches As for the objection of Antichrist's times those who think the Supposition that he shall be a professor of Christianity false will easily grant that the Church then shall be a smaller number in respect of Infidels but not in respect of Hereticks And for that objection Matt. 24. 11 12 13 Luk. 18. 8. we have seen our Saviour's words fulfilled in Mahomet and those seduced by him and in many heretical Sects also and in a more general corruption of manners even amongst the orthodox without any infringement of what is here affirmed See more of this in Success of Clergy § 1. First therefore those within the bounds of the Church that follow blind leaders without all trial are void of excuse Not because they do not quit all leaders absolutely and guide themselves by the Scriptures but because the Church of God i. e. the Pastors and Teachers thereof having our Saviour's promise never so to be blind but that salvation and escaping the pit should be always had in her as it in all times hath bin both in the Jewish and since in the Christian Church there are at all times other leaders who are illuminated with God's Spirit and whose light not put under a bushel but set on a candlestick shines before them whom they may securely follow So that the people are never left nakedly to the Scriptures or to the Law without orthodox Teachers and Guides therein or without an external communion lawful and safe to be adhered to nor such Teachers left without manifest testimony to all that will look after it that they are sent from God and that their communion is the true Church either by their shewing miracles and other signs of their mission or by their succession to and consent with the former Church which shewed miracles and by all other Sects tho perhaps at length out-numbring them yet discerned always to be few at first and to go out from them So under the Law the whole Order of God's Priests never fell so away at any time neither before nor in nor after the Babylonish captivity till the coming of Christ according to the promise Gen. 49. 10. and our Saviour's testimony Lu. 16. 16. Jo. 4. 22. Matt. 23. 2. but that there was always a remnant of them by the former marks to be easily discerned from the Apostatizers serving the Lord with a true worship and having a flock amongst the people obedient to them And at Christ's coming when Satan was let loose to deceive the Sanedrim and infatuate all the former chief Ecclesiastical Governors God gave all the people sufficient testimony by miracles
plus perturbat infirmos bonos quam corrigit animosos malos 3ly When such Separation may offend against some duty to which we are obliged either by the Divine or Civil laws As the children may not abandon their parents or the wife her husband on such pretence neither is it required where necessary commerce or natural or religious relations will not permit it This is clear from the Apostle's permission of the Christians commerce with the heathen and idolaters 1 Cor. 5. 10. yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world with idolaters c. for then must ye needs go out of the world So likewise when we cannot communicate in the publick or also private worship of God in the Sacraments c with the orthodox and godly with whom we ought without such a mixture of the impious and profane as is not in our power to prevent here no necessity of Separation from those impious and profane lies upon us for so must we needs go out of the Church or relinquish those from whom we receive much benefit The same it is for relinquishing near relations for so we must abandon our habitations But note always that at such times when such necessities theirs or ours do not force or exact from us such converse t is a far better practice if not a necessary duty to separate even for diet cohabitation discours c from the Schismatical in opinions or notoriously wicked in manners tho by their great numbers we are confined to much solitude Now to come closer to our matter in hand tho in some pretences which may be made here as of our selves being sufficiently grounded in truth and out of danger of seducement or infection and of our good purpose in our association with the Schismatical only for converting some of them for which our Saviour allows converse with publicans some of the reasons for separation contained in these Scriptures seem to be removed as that of avoiding infection and partaking of their sin tho give me leave to interpose here that in such conversation t is very hard to be so innocent that some compliances must not be made by one who would by no means be discovered what he is both in discours and actions some way prejudicial to the truth neither can there scarce be any Schismatical Church wherein some of their public practices prayers discipline will not be contrary to the conscience of one that is orthodox Tho thus I say some of the reasons for Separation be removed yet are there some other of those reasons remaining still of force As that we may not seem to countenance them in evil and that by our deserting them some of them at least may be ashamed when especially if it be in such a conjuncture of time wherein the foundations of a Schism are shaken our open profession of truth may startle those whom our discours cannot work on and our example in going before them perhaps be more effectual than our reasons in only directing them the way But in our continuing still in their Society tho our private instructions and reproofs may manifest to some that we countenance them not yet to most these cannot do so nor to any perhaps so much as we ought For whilst we pretend our fellowship with them to be only to reprove them how can we do this so fully and so far as duty obligeth when we are to reprove them chiefly in that also wherein we continue fellowship with them namely in their separated communion from the Church In which separation yet we bid or seem to bid them God speed so long as we also abide with them in it But besides these reasons of Separation the preserving our selves from infection from their judgments the discouraging of the offenders c touched in some of these texts yet some other of those Scriptures as 1 Cor. 10. 20 21. 1 Cor. 5. 5 13. 2 Cor. 6. 14 17. seem to lay yet a more special injunction upon us especially not to communicate with them in their Sacraments and publick Divine worship and this upon some other yet higher reasons namely the duty of the publick owning and professing our religion and the keeping it pure and unmixed with any unbelieving schismatical or heretical assemblies For the Sacrament being instituted as for a sacred instrument of our communion with the Deity so also for a publick testimony and mark of a strict league and amity between all those who together partake it neither will the honor we owe to God the Father who dwelleth in us and adopts us for his children 2 Cor. 6. 16 18. nor to God the Son whose members we are 1 Cor. 6. 15 16. nor to the Holy Spirit whose Temples we are 1 Cor. 3. 16 17. suffer us by such a sacred and solemn ty to link and unite our selves to any congregations that are estranged from him or disclaimed by him This is making fellowship between righteousnes and unrighteousnes mingling light and darknes 2 Cor. 6. 14. joyning the members of Christ to a Spiritual harlot by which they two become one body 1 Cor. 6. 15 16. For the Sacrament hath this vertue that those become one body amongst themselves that partake it See 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. and by touching the unclean we also become unclean Lev. 5. 2 3. and all those separations under the law of the corporally unclean from the congregation of the Lord because they were to be a sanctified people unto the Lord and holy as he is holy see Lev. 11. 43 44. were only types of the Separation which ought to be from notorious sinners which we here speak of to which the Apostle makes application of them 2 Cor. 6. 17. Be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing saith the Lord taken out of Esai 52. 11. And hence also taketh he strict order for the sudden separation and ejection of such persons out of the Church especially from communicating the Sacraments thereof as of Leaven from a lump unleavened that the Passeover may not be celebrated with such a meslange see 1 Cor. 5. 2 5 7 13 ejection or casting them out where the Church hath the power or her going out from them 2 Cor. 6. 17. where they have the power but still a separation there must be Else in consorting with them we provoke the Lord to jealousie 1 Cor. 10. 22. as if we are not true and loyal to him and entirely his Now tho some of the texts urged by us speak only concerning non-communicating with idolaters who worship not the same God with us nor use the same Sacraments which I grant is a much greater crime in any Yet 1. first they may be enlarged upon the same grounds namely the publick signification of the Sacraments that the partakers thereof are co-united in the same faith and charity to those congregations who worship the same God but not in that way he requires and who are any way opposite by a division of themselves