Prejudices is Will they say to defend themselves that their is a very great difference between the Jewish Visible Church and the Christian that this has its Rights Priviledges and Promises which the other had not For she has a Soveraign Authority over the Faith of her Children a priviledge that she can never err and promises of a perpetual visibility But to come to that they ought first to renounce all those general proofs upon which they found that Absolute Obedience to the Latin Church They need say no more as the Author of the Prejudices has done that the darkness of our minds our personal Prejudices the uncertainty wherein we are of being deceived in our Judgments the being overwhelmed with a thousand cares and a thousand Temporal necessities which almost wholly take us up and which will not allow us to give more then a very little Time to the Examining the Truths of Religion the want of necessary helps the ignorance narrow and limited understandings of the greatest part of mankind constrain us to refer our selves to the Church All that would be to no purpose if they restrain it to a priviledge of the Christian Church For these very same general reasons had place in the time of the Jewish Church men saw not then more clearly then they do in these days they were not more assured in their Judgments they were not less cumbred with worldly affairs they were not less unprovided of necessary helps for the Examination of the Truths of Religion they were not then less ignorant and their minds less narrow then men are now in these days and yet notwithstanding all that did not make it their duty blindly to follow their Pastors or Ordinary Guides These are then nothing but shadows and frivolous pretences which having been of no force then cannot have any weight now We need not further say as the Author of Prejudices has done That it is certain that God can save men and even the most ignorant and simple That yet he does not offer them any other way to Salvation then that of the True Religion That it is therefore necessary that that should be not only possible but easy to be known that yet notwithstanding it is clear that there is no way more difficult more dangerous and less fitted to all capacities then that of examining all its Tenets One may equally apply all those propositions to the Times of the Old Testament as well as to those of the New God could save men there He made no other way to Salvation then that of the True Religion That ought then to have been easily known and that way of Examination was not less dangerous nor more fitted to all sorts of capacities then it is now Notwithstanding all that had not any force to hinder the Faithful from Examining it They cannot then in these days draw any consequence from what they so propose I affirm the same thing of all those other inconveniences which they invent to take away from every one that right of Examining the State of Religion by the Scripture and not wholly to believe their Pastors as that it would be to introduce a Principle of Schism and Division that every one might make himself a Judge of the Church that every one might make a Religion according to his Fancy that it is a great rashness for private Persons to imagine that they have more Understanding and more Wisdom than the whole Church and other such like things They may see that all those arguings are brought in vainly and to no purpose for if they were good and solid being so general as they are they would serve for all Times and all Places and would have their Force in favour of the Jewish Church as well as they would have them conclude in Favour of the Latin In the second place those Rights Priviledges and Promises which they would ascribe to the Christian Visible Church in exclusion of the Jewish are evidently null if they would make them depend precisely on Christianity For as I have before noted the Greek Church the Armenian the Nestorian and Aethiopian might pretend to them as justly as the Latin and yet the Latin applies them to her self in particular to the prejudice of all the others They ought then either to shew us what reason she has to appropriate those Rights Priviledges and general Promises and to make that that regards the Body of the Universal Church become particular to her or it is necessary they shew us that indeed they are not those Rights Priviledges and Promises that are common to all Christian Societies and that they are peculiar to the Latin Church But they know not how to do either the one or the other For neither Nature nor Grace have given any of those Priviledges or Rights to the Latins in exclusion from all other Christians They are neither more Lords of our Consciences nor more Infallible than others Christianity is Uniform throughout The Scripture also does not contain any one particular promise for them On the contrary Saint Paul says That in Jesus Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek nor Barbarian nor Scythian nor Bond nor Free but Christ is all and in all So that the Latin Church has no reason to draw that to her self which is a common Right nor to pretend any peculiar Priviledges But in the summ of all we have made it appear in the foregoing Chapters that those pretended Priviledges of Infallibility which they ascribe to the Christian Church Visible and those promises of perpetual Visibility in that Sence of Visibility wherein they understand it are Chimaeras which have not any Foundation either in Scripture or Reason And as to that right of Soveraign-Authority it cannot here be alledged but to very ill purpose For it is that which is yet in Dispute and whereof we have shewn the falsity from the example of the Jewish Church But they may draw from that example a consequence against the Latin one because that if that pretence would have been heretofore pernicious and destructive to Religion and the true Church as they may see it would have been it follows that it will be so yet in these days If then they cannot set before us any other difference between those two Terms and those two Churches which hinders my Conclusion the Argument will hold intire for it will not be enough to overthrow it meerly to say that the Christian Church has that Authority and that the Jewish had it not but they ought to give us a reason for it 3. But to proceed with our Reflexions If that Maxim whereof we treat were true that is to say if men were bound to give to their ordinary Pastors a blind obedience in the matters of Religion to see with their Eyes to tread in their Steps and to devest themselves of their own conduct to rest upon theirs the Jews who rejected Jesus Christ and his Doctrine during the time of his Preaching
matter of this importance we should take the greatest care to avoid dazling our sight with words that would have more of shew then Solidity it will be good to inform our selves more exactly whether this way is so easy as they represent it whether there do not occur some Obstacles that hinder our passing further and whether it be not of so excessive a length that we ought not rationally to hope to come to the end of it whatsoever diligence we use whether it be fitted to all the World and whether there be not any person who may not going on faithfully in it arrive to the end whether it leads Behold here another Conclusion against our way inwraped under a so to wit that it is of a length so excessive as we ought not rationally to hope ever to get to the end whatsoever diligence we use and that at least it is not fitted to all the World In what follows he fills his Chapter with the Objections and difficulties that tend to turn away men from the Scripture and to make them conceive that in effect it is that infinite way which has no issue at all of which he had spoke and that way of so excessive a length that we could never come to the end of whatsoever Diligence we should use But the meaning of that is that according to him the way to be assured of the Articles of the Faith by the Scripture is absolutely unprofitable to all men of what order soever they be and for what Truth soever it be For an infinite way which has no issue and the length of which is so excessive that we could never with all the diligence we should use come to the end of it is equally unprofitable to all as well to the Learned as the Ignorant And moreover the greatest part of the difficulties that render it infinite according to him being not to be found in some private passages but in the Scripture in general it follows that we can never be assured by that means of any Truth So that behold here according to the Author of the Prejudices the Scripture absolutely unprofitable and that for all sorts of men and all sorts of Truths In one word as the Tilte of his Chapter bears it is a ridiculous way and impossible to instruct men in the Truth Whatsoever Prejudice there has been in the Church of Rome against the Reformation I cannot believe that it would not be shaken at so scandalons and un-un-Christian a Proposition For to treat the holy Scripture which is the Oracle of Christians and the word of God as a ridiculous way and to reject it as absolutely unprofitable and improper to instruct men in the Truth without distinction without Limitation as much for one sort as for another as much for one truth as for another is methinks a new Gospell which we have not yet heard spoken of for there was never any thing spoke so high till this or to say better none were ever yet carried out to such Excesses We have read in Pamelius and some others with Indignation and Horrour That the Scripture is a nose of wax which may he turned which way we please and that it is far more easy to wrest it to Profane and Impious things then it is to make use of half the verses of Virgil to Compose Epithalamiums We have seen in Pighius and elsewhere that the Scripture is a dumb Rule a dumb Witness a dead and lifeless thing a Sword that cuts with both edges and such other Expressions injurious to the Scripture But no body that I know of ever went so far yet as to make it a ridiculous way for the Instructing of men in the Truth There are enough in the world who know that these Gentlemen of whose number the Author of the Prejudices is write nothing but for one and the same Intrest and with the same Spirit I may therefore methinks with very good reason make use for this occasion of what the Author of the Translation of the New Testament of Mons has wrote in his Preface to oppose it to the Author of the Prejudices to shew him that the Spirit that animates them is an unequal Spirit that blows both cold and hot For behold what that Preface carries in it We hope that not only the Souls of the more learned but even of the Simpler sort may find here that is to say in the Translation that which shall be necessary for their instructtion provided that they read at with an intire Simplicity of heart and Address themselves humbly to the Son of God in saying to him with Peter Lord to whom should we go It is thou who hast the words of Eternal Life and it is thou alone who canst make us learn They must goe to him as those in the Gospel of when it is said that they came to hear him and to be healed of their Diseases And a little lower The Holy Scripture is like to a great River saith Saint Gregore which has always slid 〈◊〉 and which will do so 〈◊〉 the end of the world The great and the small The mighty and the feeble may find there that living water which rises up even unto Heaven it â—ffers it self to all and is fitted to all it has a simplicity that descends even to the Souls of the most simple and a height that excercises and elevates the most raised all may draw there indiffirently but it will be farr from being able to be drawn dry by filling us we may always lose our selves in the bottomless depths of learning and wisdom that we may adore without being able to comprehend But that which ought to comfort us in that Obscurity is that according to Saint Augustine the holy Scripture sets before us in an Easy and Intelligible manner all that which is necessary to us for the Conduct of our Lives which she explains and makes clear her self in telling us clearly in some Places that which she said obscurely in others This Language is very different from that which they hold in the Book of the Prejudices The one says That we shall find in the Scripture all that which is necessary for our Instruction and the other assures us that the way of the Scripture is Ridiculous and Impossible to instruct men in the Truth The one declares that the Scripture propounds to us after an Easy and Intelligible manner all that is necessary for the Conduct of our lives which it explains and makes clear her self and the other says that it is a way of so excessive a length that we ought not rationally to hope ever to come to the end whatsoever dilligence we should use The one makes it a means of Instruction proper not only for Inlightned Souls but even for the Simpler sort for great and small for strong and weak and the other in making it an Infinite way which has no Issue makes it improper not only for the simple but even for the most
to correct them and notwithstanding to enter into its Communion and to live under its Ministry But so far are we from being able to make a supposition of this nature that on the contrary there is nothing more certain than this Truth That as there are Unjust Rash and Schismatical Separations so there may be also not only Just and Lawful ones but Necessary and Indispensable ones also So the Primitive Christians withdrew themselves from the Jewish Church after it had obstinately remained in its unbelief and afterwards the Orthodox in the first Centuries held no Communion with the Valentinians nor with the Manichees nor in general with those Hereticks who disturb'd the Purity of the Gospel with their Errors Nay when the Arians had even made themselves Masters of the Synods and Churches there was an actual Separation made of a very great number of persons as well of the Body of the Clergy as that of the People who would not have any Communion with them and who endur'd upon that account all sorts of persecutions Therefore also it was that S. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers earnestly exhorted the Bishops and the Orthodox people by a publick Letter that he address'd to them The Name of Peace sayes he to them is indeed very specious and the meer appearance of Vnity has something splendid in it But who knows not that the Church and the Gospel acknowledges no other Peace than that which comes from Jesus Christ that which he gave to his Apostles before the glory of his Passion and that which he left in Trust with them by his eternal Command when he was about to leave them It is this peace which we have taken care to seek when it has been lost and to re-establish when it has been disturbed and to preserve after we have found it again But the sins of our Times and the Ministers or Fore-runners of Antichrist will not suffer us to be the Authors of so great a good nor that we should so much as partake of it They have their Peace which they boast of which is nothing else but an Vnity of Impiety while they carry themselves not as the Bishops of Jesus Christ but as the Prelates of Anti-Christ And about the end of his Letter I exhort you sayes he that you take heed of Anti-Christ Be not deceived by a foolish love of Walls nor respect the Church more on Roofs and in Houses nor strive no more on such frivolous considerations for the Name of Peace As for my self I find more certainty in the Mountains in the Forests in the Lakes in Prisons in Gulphs for there it was that the Spirit of God animated the Prophets Separate therefore your selves from Auxentius who is an Angel of Satan an Enemy to Christ an open Persecutor a Violator of the Faith who made a deceitful Profession of the Faith before the Emperour in which he joyn'd Blasphemy to that Deceit Let him assemble as many Synods as he pleases against me let him make me be declared a Heretick as he has often already done let him proscribe me by Publick Authority let him stir up the wrath of the Great Men against me as much as he will he can never be any other to me than a Devil since he is an Arian I shall never have peace but with those who following the Decree of our Nicene Fathers would anathematize the Arians and acknowledge Jesus Christ to be truly God S. Epiphanius also relates that before the Synod of Seleucid wherein Arianism was establish'd many people who found themselves to be under the Jurisdiction of Arian Bishops remained firm in the confession of the True Faith and set up other Bishops themselves And the Histories of Socrates Theodoret and Sozomen may teach us that while the Arians possess'd the Temples and the Sees of the Churches the Orthodox held their Assemblies apart in the Fields as well as in private Houses With the same Judgement S. Ambrose teaches That Jesus Christ alone is he from whom we ought never to separate our selves and to whom we ought to say Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life That above all things the Faith of a Church ought to be regarded that we ought to hold it there if Jesus Christ dwells there but if a people may be found to be there who are Violaters of the Faith or that an Heretical Pastor has polluted that habitation we ought to separate our selves from the Communion of Hereticks and to avoid all commerce with that Synagogue That we ought to separate our selves from every Church that rejects the true Faith and does not preserve the fundamentals of the Apostles Preaching without fear lest its Communion should brand us with some note of Perfidiousness There could not therefore be a more unreasonable thing in the World than to prepossess ones self in general against all manner of Separation for it is manifest that the communion of men is no otherwise desirable than as it can consist with the communion of God and that when that of men shall be found to be directly opposite to the true service of God and our own salvation which is the only End of a Religious Society we ought no longer to hesitate about our Separation But to make out this Truth yet a little more clear we need but to set before their eyes what we have already said in the First Part that the Church may be consider'd either in respect of its Internal State in as much as it is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ the Society of the truly Faithful and the true Elect of God without any mixture of Hypocrites and the worldly pure throughout as she is in Gods sight or in respect of its External State in as much as it is a Society which in the profession of one and the same Religion includes a sufficiently great number of the Hypocrites and worldly who do not belong to the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ nor are of the Church but in appearance only That Distinction is evident enough of it self not to need any proof and our Adversaries themselves will not oppose it But altho' they do not oppose that Distinction yet they never fail of confounding both those respects For when they speak of the Promises that God has made concerning the perpetual subsistence of his Church where it would be just to refer them to the Church only as made up of the Truly Faithful since to speak properly God looks upon them alone as his true Church they refer them to the Church in as much as it is mixt with the worldly and hypocrites And when the Contest is about establishing the Duties to which a Religious Society engages us where it would be just to consider the Church as mingled with the good and the wicked the faithful and the worldly such as it appears to us they consider it as it is pure and without any mixture of Hypocrites such as it is in the
not God his Prophets and his Altars yet among them Lord said Elias they have killed thy Prophets and thrown down thy Altars And the hundred Prophets of God that Obadiah hid in two Caves to withdraw them from the persecution of the Idolatress Jezabel the Altar of God that Elias repaired in Carmel to sacrifice there by the miraculous fire that fell down from Heaven to consume the victim the calling of Elisha and Micaiah and in a word the whole History of those schismatical Ten Tribes does it not evidently note that God looked on them as his true Church in which there was yet a means to be saved We must not therefore abuse that which the Fathers have wrote against Schismaticks in intending to aggravate their crime and to draw them from it nor must we take their expressions in the whole rigour of the letter Their meaning is not that all those generally who are found engaged in a Schismatical Communion even down to Tradesmen and Labourers who remain there with an upright heart and through the prejudice of their consciences are out of the Church and eternally damned but that the Authors and Defenders of Schism who run into it through their personal interests or out of a spirit of fierceness pride and an hatred incompatible with the Spirit of Jesus Christ commit a horrible crime and that while they are in that state they remain deprived of all hopes of salvation That if the Fathers have said any thing more generally and which cannot be thus restrained it is just to understand it in a comparative sense that is to say that setting that Schismatical party of the Church in opposition to that which is not so the hope of salvation appears evidently in this which it does not in the other where it is obscured by that Schism The End of the Third Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS 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. I. 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 THE Order of the Matters of this Treatise requires that we now go on to that Separation which the Author of the Prejudices calls Positive and that after having confirmed the Right that our Fathers had to Examine the State of Religion and the Church in their days after our having shewed the indispensable necessity that lay upon them to forsake the Assemblies of the Church of Rome and to live apart from her Communion that we also establish the Right that they had to set up a Christian Society among themselves notwithstanding their going off from the other Party who were not for a Reformation and to make up alone and apart a Body of the Church or an External and visible Communion This is that which I pretend to establish in this Fourth and last Part and to that end I shall here Treat of two things The first shall respect the Right of those Publick Assemblies and the Second shall be concerning that of the Gospel Ministry wherein our Function lies Howsoever these two things have a dependance one upon another it will yet be well to Treat of them with some distinction To make the First clear I shall first lay it down as an indisputable Truth That the Right of Religious Assemblies naturally follows that of Societies I mean That as far as a Religious Society is Just and Lawful so far the Assemblies that are therein made are Just and Lawful and that on the contrary as far as a Society is unjust and wicked so far its Assemblies are so too This Principle is evident to common sence and it is for that Reason that we condemn the Assemblies of the Heathens Jews and Mahometans as Unlawful and Criminal because their Societies are impious and wicked and that having no right to be united to believe and practice those Errors which they believe and practice they have also no right to Assemble themselves together in order to make a Publick Profession It is for the same Reason that we hold on the contrary the Christian Assemblies to be not only Just and Allowable but to be necessary and commanded by Divine Right because the Christian Society that is to say the Church is it self also of Divine Right It is then True that the Right of Assemblies follows that of Societies But we must further suppose as another evident and certain Truth That our Fathers before the Reformation were Latin Christians living in the Communion of the Latin Church in which they made as considerable a party as the rest of the Latins and that from Father to Son throughout a long succession Time out of mind they enjoyed with the others the rights of that Society That they were equally in possession of it with the other common Assemblies of that Religion having a part in the Ministry in the Churches in the Sacraments in the publick Prayers in the Reading and Preaching of the Word and that as far as the communion of the Latin Church was lawful so far the part that our Fathers had in it was lawful also That it was not a company of Strangers or unknown persons come from the utmost parts of America or the Southern Lands nor a sort of People dropt down from the Clouds who were newly joyned together with them in the same Society but Persons and whole Families setled a long time ago who were joyned together with them in the Profession of the Christian Religion many Ages before and who by consequence were in possession of the Rights of that Society Although had they been Strangers Americans and Barbarians on whom God should have suddenly bestowed the Favour of Calling them to the True Faith and the True Holiness of Christanity yet we could believe that by that thing alone they would have been invested in all the Rights of that Society as much as if they had had it by a long possession time out of mind But howsoever it be they were Christians from Father to Son and neither their blood nor their birth did distinguish them from the others We are now concerned only to search out whether that which hapned to our Fathers that is to say their Reformation their Condemnation by the Popes and by their Council of Trent and their Separation from the Church of Rome can be able to spoil them of all their Rights For if it be True that they were fallen off either by their own ill Carriage or by the meer Authority of the Church of Rome we must yield that our Assemblies are Unlawful and Criminal but if on the contrary they were not so fallen off if that which hapned to them did nothing else but confirm their Right and render it more pure more just and more indisputable they ought also
us that we do not deceive our selves in that particular choice that we make of the Authority of the Latin Church to refer our selves to her For we must in that choice rely on our own Reason Who shall secure us that the Lain Church herself does not deceeive her self in the discerning that she makes of the Tenets of Religion That Church is composed of the People and Prelates those people have not more Light than other men and those Prelates are not less subject than the others to that darkness of understanding to Negligence to Prejudices to Passions to a secret Obstinacy in their Opinions and beyond all that they have not a peculiar Interest to favour mens Errors and Superstitions to retain them the more easily in their obedience But those People and those Prelates are a very great number What does that signifie The Heathens and their Guides are yet a far greater number than they and yet they fail not to deceive themselves They are say they rich and powerful and raised in dignity The Heathens and the Mahometans are not less They have external marks but who knows whether those marks are good and whether they do not abuse themselves in the Consequence they pretend to draw from them They assure you that they do not deceive themselves they condemn you if you do not believe that which they believe and they live as to themselves in a perfect peace of mind But the Author of those Prejudices has taught us to answer That all those who compose other Societies appear to have the same assurance with us that they are in the Truth they do not condemn the Latins with less confidence than the Latins condemn them with they are not less exempt from the fear of deceiving themselves they live also in as great a Peace and Tranquillity That assurance also and that confidence that freedom from trouble and fear that Peace and that Tranquillity grounded upon the belief that they are in the right way and that they walk after their Light are marks so ambiguous and so deceitful that they may be found most frequently to be joyned infinitely more frequently with Errour and the way of Hell than with Truth and the way of Salvation These are the very words of the Author of those Prejudices whereof we change only the Application But say they yet farther Do you not believe that the Latin Prelates have a more clear light than you We cannot know any thing by that and they do not know anything themselves from thence since no person can make himself certain by his own light according to the Author of Prejudices They may from thence methinks see of what Nature that Argument is but they will be more apt to be distasted with it if they will but consider that their Principle tends to confound all Religion and to render the very existence of a Deity suspected For if there be nothing of certainty in those Judgments that we make by our own light why do we follow the Christian Religion more than the Pagan or the Mahometan Is it because that the Church has bid us do so This is but a very bad reason for the Church would never tell us that its Religion was bad when it would be so in effect there is no Society whatsoever but would say that its Religion was good and better than all others Is it because our Birth our Education Interest Reputation or the the friendship that we have with some persons or the Laws of the Country wherein we are will not suffer us to embrace any other Religion and such-like motives that engage us These are yet but the very worst Reasons and those who are not Christians but from thence though possibly they may not be a small number may say that they are not at all such for if those very tyes had been applyed to Paganism they would have been Pagans as they are now Christians How then ought we to be Christians It is necessary that we should be so from out of a Love and Approbation of that Religion it self But that Love and that Approbation ought to be the effects of our own Light and not of that of other men and our own light ought to dictate to us what is the Religion of God and to make us approve of and love it under that quality Should we then have nothing of certainty in that matter should we be always in doubt under a pretence that our Light might deceive us and those admirable effects that Religion produces in our souls that confidence quiet joy that tranquillity hope freedom from trouble and from fear would they be nothing but ambiguous and deceitful marks which are most frequently to be found more joyned with error and the way of Hell then with the Truth and way of salvation thither it is that that Principle of the Author of those Prejudices leads us Besides how do we come to believe there is a God Is it because the Church tells us so That would be a very ill reason for we believe on the contrary that there is a Church but by the belief that we have that there is a God we believe it without doubt by the impression of a thousand Characters of the Deity in our minds and on our hearts that appearin the Fabrick of the World in his Government or his ordering the Affairs of it and particularly in man himself and in his most pure and most natural inclinations Our Reason it self is a lively Image of it But that impression is wrought but by our own Eyes which make us see a Deity in things it is not by others Eyes that we see it but by our own Is it necessary then that we should doubt whether there be a God or not Must we never be certain because our Eyes deceive us somtimes and because we are not Infallible The Author of the Prejudices will say without doubt That we urge his Principle too farr that he never pretended to shew that we could not be assured by our own light without the Authority of the Church that there was a God and that the Christian Religion in opposition to that Religion which the Jews now profess or to all those Fantastick Religions that reign in the World and are the meer effects of the impostures and humours of men cannot but be the true Religion That that discernment is not hard to be made the advantage of the Christian Religion above all those others being most clear and manifest Indeed so he has explained himself from the very beginning of his Preface whence it appears that he would not hinder the examination of the matters of Religion but when particular controversies that divide the divers Sects of Christians shall be treated of I may say then if I am not mistaken That there are two parts in his Hypothesis that in the first he yields to every one a liberty to judg by his own Light of the Truth of the Christian Religion
receive the Sacraments from their hands They cannot say that the Church would then be dispersed nor that the greater number of the Pastors had carried away with them all the Rights of the Society but they ought on the contrary to say that being obstinate in Error and abandoning the Purity of the Faith they themselves in that respect lost the Right of being in the Society and making up a Body of an External Communion For that Principle remains always unshaken that Error Superstition and falshood do not give the least Right to any men to Assemble and that a Society is Just only in proportion to that that it has of true Doctrine and Evangelical Worship So that the greater number of the Pastors is not a Party absolutely necessary to the Body of the Church for its subsistence and this appears evidently from the Example of the Orthodox in the Time of the Arrians for as I have said before their External Communion did not cease to subsist in divers places separated from the Body of the Pastors they met together they prayed to God in Common they heard his word they received his Sacraments in a word they performed all the actions of Religion under the Ministry of those few persons that remained This is precisely the Case wherein our Fore-Fathers found themselves in the Time of the Reformation as I have before shewn and it will not signify any thing to say that that small number of Pastors that our Fathers followed had themselves according to us corrupted their Ministry by the Errors and Superstitions of the other Pastors and that they received their Call from their hands for I affirm that their return to the true Doctrine rectified their Call and freed it from all the impurity or ill it could have had after the same manner that Felix Bishop of Rome and Meletius Bishop of Antioch who being ordained by the Arrians rectified their Ministry by Preaching the Truth and opposing of Heresy and as Liberius and a great number of the other Bishops who had subscribed to Arrianism purified their Call in returning to the True Faith which they had forsaken It is certain therefore that the greater number of the Pastors is not a party of the Body of the Church absolutely necessary for the subsistence of the External Communion and that it is an Error to imagine that the bond of the Society depends on them or that there can be no Assemblies made of those who shall be separated from them but such as are Unlawful and Schismatical But in the Second place I affirm that it is not even absolutely necessary and in all respects to the making that External Society to subsist among the Faithful that it should have Pastors For as it is nature alone that makes man a Sociable living Creature that is to say that renders him capable of Civil Society and gives him also a right to it so also it is Grace which makes a Christian a sociable man which renders him I would say capable of a Religious Society and gives him a right to it Ten Men that should meet one another hy Chance in an uninhabited Desart would they not have a Right to joyn themselves actually together to assemble and to take all the joynt deliberations in publick that they should Judge necessary for their own preservation And would it not be an extravagance to demand of them what Magistrate had assembled them what publick Authority had called them together who had given them a right to speak among themselves and to consult for their common interests Then when there are lawful Magistrates their intervention is necessary for the calling and Authorising of Civil Assemblies and if any undertake to assemble together without their Authority or without their consent their Assemblies are rash and unlawful but it does not follow from thence that Magistrates should be so absolutely necessary to a Society that when there should be none men could not any more speak or act together nor assemble themselves nor take common Consultations It is the same thing in Religion if Ten Laymen of the Faithful should meet together casually or to speak better if the sole Providence of God should make them meet one another in a Desart Island or in the farthest part of America and engage them all their days in a strange Land and if they should come to acknowledge each other for true Faithful Christians can any believe that 〈◊〉 ought to remain so dispersed that they could never lawâ—â—â—â—â— commune together concerning the Christian Faith and Pieâ—â— nor meet together to provide for the preservation of their Religion This is that which I hold to be not only unable to be maintained but impious For as Nature alone assembles men when they have no Magistrates and cannot have any so Grace alone assembles Christians when they have no Pastors and cannot have any She will not suffer them to remain in an intire dispersion while there remains yet any means to assemble them it is she alone that convokes or calls them together and her instinct forms an unanimous consent in them that consent alone renders their Assembly as lawful as it can be made by the Convocation of Pastors Thus also divers Parties who divided the Latin Church in the Time of the Great Schism of the Anti Popes protested That they met together at the Council of Constance when they no more acknowledged the Pope nor by consequence held any more a Head that could lawfully call them together for they declared that they called one another together and that they assembled themselves sub Capite Christo under Jesus Christ their common Head that is to say by his instinct and under his Authority which suplied the want of a Pope Quatenus say they in illo quiest verus Ecclesiae sponsus congregati in unum simul matrem Ecclesiam divisam uniamus In respect of an Assembly in the Body of a Council each Bishop each Prelate was but a meer private man as much as every Believer is in respect of an Assembly in the Body of the Church and yet notwithstanding they assembled they reunited themselves they deposed a false Pope who troubled them even then and they created another A mutual Convocation then which is nothing else but an unanimous consent is sufficient to make an Assembly lawful when there is no Publick Authority that can call them together This is that which justifies the Conduct of our Fathers in some places of this Kingdom at the beginning of the Reformation for they Assembled sometimes without any Pastors to pray to God together and to Read the Holy Scriptures their Consciences could not any more allow them to be present at the Assemblies of the Roman Communion and not having further any Pastor who might Assemble them after the Ordinary manner the Spirit of Christianity Assembled them under the Soveraign Pastor and Bishop of Souls which is Jesus Christ and their mutual consent without doubt made their Society and their
Consequence it is to that we must refer that Call If I had a mind here to set down all the passages of St. Augustine when he establishes this Truth I should engage my self in an excessive Tediousness It shall suffice to set down some few that may clearly let us see what his Doctrine was upon this matter Judas says he Represented the Body of the wicked and Saint Peter represented the Body of the good the Body of the Church I say The Body of the Church but the Church which consists in the good For if St. Peter had not represented that Church our Lord would not have said to him I give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven For if that had been said but to St. Peter only the Church does not do it But if it be done in the Church to wit that the things that are bound on Earth are bound in Heaven and that those which are loosed on Earth are loosed in Heaven in as much as he which the Church Excommunicates is Excommunicated in Heaven and he to whom the Church is Reconciled is Reconciled in Heaven since that I say is done in the Church it follows that St. Peter receiving the Keys represented the Holy Chvrch. And as the good who are in the Church were represented in the person of St Peter so the wicked who are in the Church were represented in the person of Judas and it is to those that Jesus Christ said Me you have not always And further after having described the Church of the Truly Faithful in these Terms God has sent his Son into the World to the end that those who believe in him should by the laver of Regeneration be loosed from their Sins as well Original as Actual and that being delivered from Everlasting Damnation they should live in Faith Hope and Charity as Pilgrims in this World amidst Temptations and Labours and amidst the Corporal and Spiritual Consolations of God walking in Christ Jesus who is their way But because in that very way in which they walk they are not free from those Sins that arise through the Infirmity of this Life he has appointed them the saving Remedy of Alms to help their prayers which he has commanded them to make Forgive our Trespasses as we forgive them that Trespass against us After I say having described the Church of the Just in that manner he adds This is that which makes the Church blessed in Hope in this miserable life and it is this Church that Saint Peter represented by the primacy of his Apostleship Nam Ecclesiae gerebat figurata generalitate personam If you look upon Saint Peter in himself he was but a man by Nature a Christian by Grace and the first of the Apostles by the super-abundance of Grace But when Jesus Christ said to him I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven he Represented the whole Body of the Church that Church I say which in that Age was moved with divers Temptations as by so many Storms Torrents and Tempests and which yet does not fall into ruine because it is founded upon the Rock from which Saint Peter took his Name I say that Saint Peter took his Name from it for as the Name of Christian is derived from Christ and not that of Christ from that of Christian so that of Saint Peter is derived from the Rock and not that of the Rock from the Name of St. Peter and therefore Jesus Christ said to him Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church For Saint Peter having made this Confession Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God our Lord told him that he would build his Church upon that Rock which he had confessed For that Rock was Jesus Christ upon which Saint Peter himself is built according to what is said No man can lay other Foundation then what is already laid which is Jesus Christ It is that Church therefore that was founded upon Jesus Christ which received from him in the Person of Saint Peter the Keys of that Kingdom that is to say the Power of binding and loosing In the same sense he says elsewhere That there are some things said to Saint Peter that plainly seem properly to belong to him and which nevertheless cannot be so well understood if they are not referred to the Church that Saint Peter represented and of which he was the Figure by that Primacy which he had among the Disciples as are adds he these words I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven Yet elsewhere Jesus Christ has given the Keys to his Church to the end that that which it should bind on Earth should be bound in Heaven and that whatsoever it should loose should be loosed that is to say to the end that he that should not believe that his Sins are pardoned in the Church to him they should not be pardoned and that on the contrary he who being in the bosom of the Church should beleive that his Sins were pardoned and who should be reduced by a holy correction should obtain pardon It is not rashly says he in another place that I make two Orders of men One sort are so much in the House of God that they are themselves that House that is built upon a Rock and that which is called the only Dove the Spouse without Spot and Wrinkle the Inclosed Garden the hidden Fountain the Wells of Living Water the Paradise where the Fruit of Apples is It is this House which has received the Keys and the Power to bind and loose and it is this to which he said That if any would not hearken to it when it Reproved and Corrected that he should be esteemed as a Heathen man and a Publican That House consists in Vessels of Gold and Silver in Precious Stones and Incorruptible Wood and it is to that that Saint Paul says Bear with one another in love keeping the Vnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and again The Temple of God is Holy which Temple ye are It Consists in the good in the Faithful in the Holy Servants of God spread abroad every where joyned together in a spiritual Vnity by the Communion of the same Sacraments whether they know one another by sight or whether they do not But as for the others they are so in the House as not at all to belong to the Structure of the House and they are not in that Society that is Fruitful in Peace and Righteousness They are as the Chaff amidst the good Corn and we cannot deny that they are in the House since the Apostle says that there are in the
Scripture we find in the History of the Church of Israel that Jehis King of the Ten Tribes Reformed that Church that he took away the Worship of the False gods which Ahab had introduced that he demolished the Temple of Baal and broke down his Images see here without doubt a good Reformation Notwithstanding it is said that he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam but that he retained the worshipping of the Golden Calves that were at Dan and Bethel It is also related that he accomplisht that Reformation in a very odious manner and very unworthy of a Prince that made profession of the fear of God For having assembled all his People he told them that he would serve Baal much more then Ahab had done he commanded that all his Prophets and Priests should meet together and all the worshippers of that false God to Celebrate a Solemn Feast for him He himself pointed out the day of the Feast and caused a Publication of it to be made But when the Assembly was come into the House of Baal and all those poor People who trusted in his word when they thought of nothing but their Devotions he put them all to Death without letting any one escape Suppose we that we ought to Judge of a Reformation by the persons that make it what may not be said against this here Jehu made use of Hypocrisy and Treachery he broke the publick Faith and his own in the most Scandalous manner in the World and the most contrary to the sincerity of an honest man Besides that he yet remained in the Superstitions of Jeroboam and made the Israelites remain in them too If we would believe the Author of the Prejudices the Reformation that he made would be rather the work of the Devil then that of the Spirit of God Jehu would not have been Extraordinarily chosen by God to reform his Church and purge it from Idolatry But this is not the Sentiment of the Scripture it does not without doubt approve of the Treachery and Hypocrisy of Jehu it condemns the Golden Calves that he kept up but it does not omit the praising of that Reformation in that good which it had and to say that it was well pleasing to God And it is True that Jehu was extraordinarily called to that as it appears by the Anointing that the Prophet Elisha gave him by one of his Disciples We find in that same Scripture the History of divers other Reformations which were made in the Church of Judah but we find also that they were almost wholly different among themselves Some went so far as the abolishing the usage of the high places and the Groves which were Heathenish Superstitions and the incense that was offered to the Serpent of Aaron which was a kind of Idolatry others yet retained all these things Some even of those who made these Reformations committed Actions very unpleasing to God which the Scripture Reflects on It says of Asa who was one of those Reformers that being sick of the disease whereof he died he sought not to God but to the Physitians It says of Jehoshaphat who was another that he aided a wicked King and that he loved those whom God hated because he joyned himself with wicked Ahab It says of Joash who was yet another that he fell in with the people into the Exercise of Idolatry and the use of the Groves and that he cruelly killed a Prophet because he opposed those Superstitions If you Judge of those Reformations by their persons according to the Principle of the Author of the Prejudices you must say not only that those Reformers ought not to be heard but that the Spirit of God was not there For you see their Dissentings since some went further then the others and that some condemn'd what the others retained you see their personal Actions that you cannot excuse since the Scripture it self condemns them But if you Judge according to the Scripture which is more worthy to be followed then the Author of the Prejudices you will give to those Reformations the Praises which they merit in themselves you will approve of the more perfect ones you will distinguish in the imperfect the good from the bad without having respect to the Persons and when at last you would Judge of the Persons you would do it as Justice and Charity would Ordain you to do If the Principle of the Author of the Prejudices were reasonable in regard of the Reformers of the Latin Church it is certain that it would be so further in regard of the Propagators of the Christian Religion and of its Ordinary Teachers I would say that if those of the Church of Rome had reason not to hear the Reformers because they had differences among themselves because they spoke injurious words of one another in the heat of their disputes because they can take notice of some Vices in them or a Conduct that may be suspected to have had too much Worldly Policy it follows from thence by a far greater reason that the Heathens ought not to have heard the Christians as often as they should have seen the same things to have appeared among them But when was it that they might not have seen them appear The Age of the Apostles which we may justly call the Age of innocence and of the peace of the Church in comparison of others was that exempted from Divisions and Vices Those who have read the Epistles of Saint Paul cannot be ignorant that there were divers among the first Preachers of Christianity who would yet have retained Moses with Jesus Christ and the Law with Grace that there were divers who opposed themselves to Saint Paul about divers points of his Doctrine and who laboured to blast the honour of his Ministry that there were some who in Preaching the Gospel discovered themselves to be too much Transported with humane Passions that there were even some who went so far as to deny the Doctrine of the Resurrection Saint Paul does not spare them and the Just Complaints that he frequently makes of them sufficiently note that they had not on their parts all the respect for him which they ought to have had Notwithstanding whatsoever complaints he made of them howsoever vehement he was in his disputes yet we do not see that he Excommunicated them nor that he delivered them over to Satan as he did the incestuous person of Corinth He defends his Apostleship he calls them deceitful workers Ministers of Satan Transformed into the Ministers of Righteousness but he fails not yet in the same Chapter to give them the Title of Ministers of Jesus Christ Are they Ministers of Jesus Christ I speak as a Fool I am more Would the Author of the Prejudices have thought it well done if the Heathens of that Time had followed his Maxim and if without ever Examining the Christian Religion in it self they should have presently prejudged upon the Divisions which
they beheld and upon the Moderation that Saint Paul yet kept towards those persons whom elsewhere he Treated roughly enough that the Spirit of God did not accompany the Christians and that their Doctrine could not proceed from Heaven Will they say that those Infidels ought to have carried themselves after that manner in the time of Constantine when the Bishops that composed the Council of Nice appeared so eager and so divided among themselves that they presented the Emperour with Books of Accusations one against another managing a bloody War while they saw themselves united together in the same Assembly Will they say that they had Reason to be prejudiced against Christanity then when they saw the quarrels that rent the Church upon the Subject of the Consubstantiality of the Son of God or then when they saw those which fell out about the word of Hypostasis between the Orthodox themselves who accused one another to be Hereticks or then when the East and West were divided about the concurrence of Meletius and Paulinus for the Bishoprick of Antioch or when the Two great and Illustrious Reformers of the Church in the Time of the Arrians Eusebius of Verceil and Lucifer of Cagliari were divided upon the Subject of the Arrian Bishops who returned to the Orthodox Faith or when the Catholicks and the Donatists mutually persecuted one another and that in the very Flames of those Persecutions the Catholicks did not cease to call the Donatists always their Brethren although they oftentimes called them also Hereticks Schismaticks Pharisees c. And though they loaded them with injuries and though the Donatists on their part Treated the Catholicks with all the indignities imaginable even to the outragiously rejecting of the name of Brethren which they gave them Those who are well versed in Ecclesiastical History will yield that we might urge those Examples a great deal further if we would but take the pains to do it for there have been very few Ages wherein Christians have not been divided between themselves and that frequently upon grounds trivial enough and wherein there may not have been found in their Conduct that very thing which the Author of the Prejudices believes to be incompatible with the Spirit of God that is to say the heats of Dispute on the one side and on the other some Measures of that which he calls Humane Policy I shall not here mention the disorders which hapned about the business of Nestorius and his Heresy nor those which followed quickly after on the occasion of the Eutychians and Monothelites I shall omit the Schism of the Greeks and Latins and the re-unions which they made up sometimes among themselves out of a Humane Policy I shall say nothing of the confusions wherewith the Latin Church was agitated in those Times which Baronius calls unhappy and wherein he says the Popes made void the Acts of one another Infelicissimo tempora cum alter alterius res gestas intrusus quisque Pontifex aboleret In effect Formosus having accepted of the Papacy against the Oath that John VIII had made him take in deposing him that he would never think of being Bishop Stephen VII his Successour made him to be condemned in open Council and all the Ordinations that he had made to be void and having at last caused his Body to be taken out of his Grave he made the three Fingers wherewith they give their blessing to be cut of and thrown into the River Tiber but John IX Successour to Stephen Assembled another Council at Ravenna wherein he not only made all that Stephen and his Council had done against Formosus to be void but he even made all his Acts to be Canonically burned re-establishing the memory of Formosus and the Ordinances that he had made Some Time after Sergius a great Enemy of Formosus came to the Papacy and he annulled in his turn the Acts of the Council of Ravenna and made void all the Ordinances of Formosus Notwithstanding the Church of Rome reckons all those men among her Popes and acknowledges them all to have been lawful ones And which is further remarkable John IX in the same Act wherein he makes void the Council of Stephen and wherein he condemns it to the Flames he does not fail to call Stephen his Predecessor of Holy Memory Piae recordationis predaecessorem Upon which Baronius exhorts his Readers to Consider that although the Popes have had Predecessors very worthy of blame yet they have been wont notwithstanding to have a great deal of respect for them So that says he although Stephen had been a Detestable Pope who had invaded the Sea and who during his Papacy had committed all sorts of Execrable crimes yet John nevertheless calls him his Predecessor of Holy Memory which may appear at lest as strange as the Moderation of Zuinglius and Calvin in respect of Luther I might add to all that another Example drawn from the Conduct of the Church of Rome upon the occasion of her latter Schisms Every one knows the Divisions of the Fourteenth Century which divided all the West about the concurrence of two Anti-Popes Both Parties were extreamly Animated they look'd upon one another as Excommunicated as Anti-Christs the Enemies of God and his Church they mutually Anathematised one another they took up Arms one against another and made a bloody War Vrban VI. on his side in a Bull that began The Vine of the Lord of Sabaoth that is to say the holy Church of Rome has a great evil in her Womb and sends forth grievous Sighs c. Treats his Anti-Pope and his cardinals as a child of iniquity and Son of Perdition Vipers wicked Wretches animated with the Spirit of the Devil Schismaticks Apostates Conspirators Blasphemers c. He deposed and spoiled them of all their Honours Dignities Prelacies Offices and Benefits he confiscated their goods and declared their persons to be infamous and detestable he Excommunicated all those who believed who received them their Defenders and Favourers and even those who should give them Ecclesiastical burial if they did not pull them out of the Grave again with their own hands he forbad all faithful People of what Quality soever even Kings themselves Queens Emperours to receive them into their Lands to give or to send them either Bread or Wine or Meat or Wood or Money or Merchandise He Excommunicated particularly all those who should hold his competitor for Pope or who should call him Pope or who should receive any Favours Indulgences Dignities or Prelacies from him And as if all that had not been enough he ordained a Holy Croisado against those Shismaticks and those condemned Persons to pursue and root them out under the same Priviledges which are given to those who take up Arms for the Conquest of the Holy Land He absolved also the subjects of those Princes who should acknowledge his Anti-Pope of their Oath of Allegiance and he Excommunicated those subjects