consigned to Writing By which means the Word written and unwritten were not Two different Rules but as to all necessary matters of Faith one and the same And the unwritten Word so far from losing its Authority that it was indeed the more firmly Establish'd by being thus delivered to us by the holy Apostles and Evangelists We receive with the same Veneration whatsoever comes from the Apostles whether by Scripture or Tradition provided that we can be assured that it comes from them And if it can be made appear that any Tradition which the Written Word contains not has been received by All Churches and in All Ages we are ready to embrace it as coming from the Apostles Monsieur de Meaux therefore ought not to charge us as Enemies to Tradition or obstinate to receive what is so delivered Our Church rejects not Tradition but only those things which they pretend to have received by it But which we suppose to be so far from being the Doctrine of the Apostles or of All Churches in All Ages that we are perswaded they are many of them directly contrary to the Written Word which is by Themselves confessed to be the Apostles Doctrine and which the best and purest Ages of the Church adhered to ARTICLE XXV Of the Churches Authority THE Church i. e. The Vniversal Church in All Ages having been Establish'd by God the Guardian of the Holy Scriptures and of Tradition we receive from her the Canonical Books of Scripture It is upon this Authority that we receive principally the Song of Solomon as Canonical and reject other Books as Apochryphal which we might perhaps with as much readiness otherwise receive By this Authority we reverence these Books even before by our own reading of them we perceive the Spirit of God in them And when by our reading them we find all things conformable to so Excellent a Spirit we are yet more confirmed in the belief and reverence we before had of them This Authority therefore we freely allow the Church that by her hands in the succession of the several Ages we have received the Holy Scriptures And if as universal and uncontroverted a Tradition had descended for the Interpretation of the Scriptures as for the receiving of them we should have been as ready to accept of that too Such a declaration of the sense of Holy Scripture as had been received by all Churches and in all Ages the Church of England would never refuse But then as we profess not to receive the Scriptures themselves only or perhaps principally upon the Authority of the Roman Church which has in all Ages made up but a part and that not always the greatest neither of this Tradition so neither can we think it reasonable to receive the sense of them only from her though she profess never so much to invent nothing of her self but only to declare the Divine Revelation made to her by the Holy Ghost which she supposes has been given to her for her direction Whilst we are perswaded that neither has any Promise at all been made to any particular Church of such an infallible direction and have such good cause to believe that this particular Church too often instead of the divine Revelations declares only her own Inventions When the dispute arose about the Ceremonies of the Law Acts 15. the Apostles assembled at Jerusalem for the determination of it When any Doubts arise in the Church now we always esteem it the best Method to decide them after the same manner That the Church has Authority not only in matters of Order and Discipline but even of Faith too we never deny'd But that therefore any Church so assembled can with the same Authority say now as the Apostles did then Acts 15.28 It has seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to Vs This we think not only an unwarrantable presumption for which there is not any sufficient ground in Holy Scripture but evidently in its self untrue seeing that many such Councils are by the Papists themselves confessed to have erred Hence it is that we cannot suppose it reasonable to forbid Men the Examination of the Churches Decisions which may err when the Holy Apostles nay our Saviour Christ himself not only permitted but exhorted their Disciples to search the Truth of their Doctrine which was certainly Infallible Yet if the determination be matter of Order or Government as not to Eat of things offered to Idols c. or of plain and undoubted Precept as to abstain from Fornication and the like Here we fail not after the Example of Paul and Silas to declare to the faithful what her decision has been and instead of permitting them to judg of what has been so resolved teach them throughout all places to keep the Ordinances of the Apostles Acts 16.4 Thus is it that we acquiesce in the judgment of the Church and professing in our Creed a Holy Catholick Church we profess to believe not only that there was a Church planted by our Saviour at the beginning that has hitherto been preserved by him and ever shall be to the end of the World but do by consequence undoubtedly believe too that this Vniversal Church is so secured by the Promises of Christ that there shall always be retain'd so much Truth in it the want of which would argue that there could be no such Church We do not fear that ever the Catholick Church should fall into this entire Infidelity But that any particular Church such as that of Rome may not either by Error lose or by other means prevaricate the Faith even in the necessary Points of it this we suppose not to be at all contrary to the Promise of God Almighty and we wish we had not too great cause to fear that the Church of Rome has in effect done both It is not therefore of the Catholick Church truly such that we either fear this infidelity or complain that she hath endeavoured to render her self Mistress of our Faith But for that particular Communion to which Monsieur de Meaux is pleased to give the Name tho she professes never so much to submit her self to the Holy Scripture and to follow the Tradition of the Fathers in all Ages yet whilst she usurps the absolute Interpretation both of Scripture and Fathers and forbids us to examine whether she does it rightly or no we must needs complain that her Protestations are invalid whilst her Actions speak the contrary For that if this be not to render her self Mistress of our Faith we cannot conceive what is In a word tho we suppose the Scriptures are so clearly written that it can very hardly happen that in the necessary Articles of Faith any one man should be found opposite to the whole Church in his Opinion Yet if such a one were evidently convinced that his Belief was founded upon the undoubted Authority of Gods Holy Word so far would it be from any Horror to support it that it is at this day
strictly required and more duly observed than it is The Canons of our Church do perhaps require as much as the Primitive Christians themselves did and it is more the decay of Piety in the People than any want of Care in her that they are not as well and regularly Practised We do not believe Penance to be a Sacrament after the same manner that Baptism and the Holy Eucharist are because neither do we find any Divine Command for it nor is there any Sign in it established by Christ to which his Grace is annexed We suppose that if the Ancient Church had esteemed it any thing more than a part of Christian Discipline they would not have presumed to make such changes in it as in the several Ages it is evident they did The Primitive Christians interpreting those places of ‡ Mat. 18.18 John 20.23 St. Matthew and St. John which Monsieur de Meaux mentions of publick Discipline and to which we suppose with them they principally at least if not only refer at first Practised no other For private faults they exhorted their Penitents to Confess them to God and unless some particular Circumstances required the Communication of them to the Priest plainly signified that that Confession was not only in its self sufficient but in effect was more agreeable to Holy Scripture than any other If the Conscience indeed were too much burdened by some Great fault or that the Crime committed was notoriously Scandalous then they advised a Confession to the Priest too But this was not to every Priest nor for him just to hear the Confession and then without more ado to say I absolve thee They prescribed in every Church some Wise Physician of the Soul on purpose for this great Charge that might pray with the Penitent might direct him what to do to obtain Gods favour might assist him in it and finally after a long Experience and a severe Judgment give him Absolution This was the Practise of the Eastern Church till upon occasion of a certain scandal Nectarius first began to weaken it in his Church at Constantinople and St. J. Chrysostome his Successor seconded him in it They reduced the Practise to what it had been in the Beginning that open and scandalous Sins should be openly punished by the publick Discipline of the Church and the private be Confessed only to God Almighty Yet still the publick Confession remained in the Practise of the Western Church Pope Leo I. to take away the occasions of Fear and Shame that kept many from the exercise of it first ordered that it should be sufficient to Confess to God and the Priest only which is the first plausible Pretence offered by them for Auricular Confession Thus this Practise now set up for a Sacrament instituted by our Saviour and absolutely necessary to obtain God's pardon first began But the performance of it was yet left to every Mans liberty About 1215 Years after Christ the Council of Lateran first Commanded it to be of necessary observance But we do not find that till the Council of Trent in the last Age it was ever required to be received absolutely as a Sacrament of Divine Institution and necessary to Salvation This short View of the Practise of Antiquity in this point may be sufficient to shew that unless it were the publick power of the Church to censure open and scandalous Offenders which was the Key of Discipline our Blessed Saviour left to it for the rest several Churches and Ages had their several Practises They advised private Confession as upon many accounts which Monsieur de Meaux Remarks and which we willingly allow very useful to the Penitent but it was not for above a 1000 Years ever looked upon as absolutely necessary nor by Consequence as Sacramental The Church of England refuses no sort of Confession either publick or private which may be any way necessary to the quieting of mens Consciences or to the exercising of that Power of binding and loosing which our Saviour Christ has left to his Church We have our Penitential Canons for publick Offenders We exhort men if they have any the least doubt or scruple nay sometimes tho they have none but especially before they receive the Holy Sacrament to Confess their sins We propose to them the benefit not only of Ghostly Advice how to manage their Repentance but the great comfort of Absolution too as soon as they shall have compleated it Our form of Absolution after the manner of the Eastern Church at this day and of the Universal Church for above 1200 Years is Declarative rather than Absolute Whilst we are unable to search the Hearts of men and thereby infallibly to discern the sincerely contrite from those that are not we think it Rashness to pronounce a definitive Sentence in God's Name which we cannot be sure that God will always confirm When we visit our Sick we never fail to exhort them to make a special Confession of their sins to him that Ministers to them And when they have done it the Absolution is so full that the Church of Rome its self could not desire to add any thing to it For the rest We think it an unnecessary Rack to mens Consciences to oblige them where there is no scruple to reveal to their Confessor every the most secret fault even of Wish or Desire which the Church of Rome exacts Nor dare we pronounce this Discipline Sacramental and necessary to Salvation so that a contrite Sinner who has made his Confession to God Almighty shall not receive a Pardon unless he repeat it to the Priest too This we must beg leave with assurance to say is directly contrary to the Tradition of the Church and to many plain and undoubted places of Holy Scripture And if this be all our Reformation be guilty of That we advise not that which may Torment and Distract but is no way apt to settle mens Consciences nor require that as indispensably necessary to Salvation which we find no where commanded by God as such we assure Monsieur de Meaux we see no cause at all either to regret the Loss or to be ashamed of the Change ARTICLE XIII Of Extreme Vnction OF all those pretended Sacraments of the Roman Church that have no foundation in holy Scripture this seems to stand the fairest for it Here is both an outward and visible Sign and an inward and spiritual Grace tied to it Insomuch that Monsieur de Meaux himself who never attempted to say any thing of it in the two foregoing Instances yet fails not to put us in mind of it in this To interpret rightly that place of St. 1 James 5.6 14.13 James which is alledged to prove it we must remark that anointing with Oyl was one of those Ceremonies used by the Apostles in working their miraculous Cures Mark 6.13 They cast out devils says the Evangelist and anointed many sick persons with Oyl and cured them Sometimes they used only Imposition of hands
Years only an Advertisement was prefix'd to a new Edition of the Book which neither touches at all the greatest part of the Exceptions that had been made against it nor gives any satisfaction to those it do's take notice of It has been the constant method of Monsieur de Meaux having once written to leave his Tracts to the World and take no care to defend them against those assaults that seem with success enough to have been sometimes made upon them We should think the great Employments in which he has had the Honour to be engaged might have been the cause of this did not he who takes no care to defend his old Books find still time enough to write new Perhaps he looks upon his pieces to be of a Spirit and Force sufficient to despise whatever attempts can be made upon them but sure he cannot be ignorant that Protestants make another and far different Conclusion and look upon those Opinions to be certainly indefensible which so able and eminent an Author is content so openly and if I may be permitted to add it so shamefully to forsake What other Answers besides those I have now mentioned have been made to it I cannot undertake to say Two others only that I know of have been publish'd the Author of the latter of which Monsieur de Brueys having in a very little time after his writing left his Religion might have made a new instance of Monsieur de Meaux 's Conquests did not his inability to answer his own arguments against the Exposition give us cause to believe that some other Motives than those of that Book induced him so lightly to forsake a Cause which he had so soundly and generously defended And now after so many Answers yet unreplied to if any one desires to know what the design of the present undertaking is they may please to understand that having by a long Converse among the Papists of our own and other Countries perceived that either by the ignorance or malice of their Instructors they have generally very false and imperfect Notions of our Opinions in the matters in Controversie between us I have suffered my self to be perswaded to pursue the Method of Monsieur de Meaux 's Exposition as to the Doctrine of the Church of England and oppose sincerely to what he pretends is the Opinion of the Roman Church that form of Faith that is openly profess'd and taught without any disguise or dissimulation among us I was not unwilling to take the Method of Monsieur de Meaux for my direction as well upon the account of the great Reputation both of the Book and of the Author as because it is now some years that it has pass'd in our Language without any answer that I know of made to it Besides that the late new Impression made of it with all the advantages of the Advertisement and Approbations which the later French Editions have added to it seemed naturally to require some such Consideration I do not pretend by any thing of this to treat Monsieur de Meaux as an Enemy but rather as both his great Learning and that Character which I have ever learnt very highly to reverence oblige me to follow him as my Guide To render an account to him and to the World what our differences are and point out in passing some of those reasons that are the most usually given amongst us wherefore we cannot totally assent to what he proposes I am perswaded the whole is done with that Charity and Moderation that there is nothing in it that can justly offend the most zealous Enemy of our Church If I knew of any thing in it that without dissembling the Truth might have been omitted I sincerely profess I would most willingly have done it being desirous to please all that so if it be the will of God I may by any means gain some For this cause chiefly have I forborn to set my name to it lest perhaps any prejudice against my Person might chance to injure the Excellence of the Cause which I maintain This effect at least if no other I would willingly hope such a Treatise may have upon those of our Country that have been taught to believe very differently concerning us That they would please no longer to form such horrible Ideas of our Profession as they have heretofore been wont to do at least till it can be shewn that I have either palliated or prevaricated the Doctrine of the Church of England in this Exposition Which I am yet so assured I have not done that I◠here intirely submit both my self and it to her Censure of whose Communion I esteem it my greatest Happiness that I am and for whose preservation and Enlargement I shall never cease as I ought to pray A Collection of some of those Passages that were corrected in the first Edition of the EXPOSITION suppressed by Monsieur de Meaux To which is added the Censure of the Faculty of Louvain upon some part of the Doctrine still remaining in it § I. MOnsieur de Meaux in the very beginning of his Book speaking of the design of it had these Words 1. Edit So that it seems then to be very proper to propose to them the Protestants the Doctrine of the Catholick Church separating those Questions which the Church has decided from those which do not belong to Faith p. 1. It is evident the meaning of Monsieur de Meaux in that passage must have been this That whatsoever was either not at all contained in his Exposition or was otherwise maintain'd by any particular Authors beyond the Exposition he gives us of those Points which are here mentioned was not to be look'd upon by us as any of the Church's Decision nor necessary to be received by us as matter of Faith I shall not need to say how many Doctrines and Decisions not only of private Writers but of the very Council of Trent it self this would have at once cut off It would perhaps have been one of the fairest Advances towards an Union that ever the Church of Rome yet offered But it seems whatever Monsieur de Meaux supposed this was thought too great a condescension by others and he was therefore obliged without changing any thing in his Book to give us a quite other account of the design of it Later Editions So that it seems then we can do nothing better than simply to propose to them the Protestants the sentiments of the Catholick Church and distinguish them from those Opinions that have been falsely imputed to her Which is but little to the Purpose II. 1 Edit p. 7 8. The same Church teaches That all Religious Worship ought to terminate upon God as its necessary End So that the Honour which the Church gives to the Blessed Virgin and to the Saints is religious only because it gives them that Honour with relation to God and for the love of him So that then so far ought one to be from blaming the Honour
too much upon our Ignorance and indeed to give too great a scandal to many of her own Communion more zealous than himself for this service And therefore we find it now expounded in a manner more conformable to the truth though still exceedingly mollified T is upon this is founded the Honour which we give to Images and again When we honour the Image of an Apostle or Martyr our Intention is not so much to honour the Image as the Apostle or Martyr in presence of the Image VII In the Section of Justification Monsieur de Meaux has omitted this whole paragraph since his first Edition The Catholick Church says he is no where more invincible than in this point and perhaps it would need no long discourse to shew that the more one searches by the Scriptures into the design of the redemption of Mankind which was to make us Holy the more one shall approach to our Doctrine and the more depart from the opinions of Calvin which are not maintainable nay are contradictory and ruinous of all true and solid piety 1 Ed. p. 36 37. Monsieur de Meaux may please some other time to expound to us what those Opinions of Calvin in this matter are which the Church of Rome is so invincible in and which all parties among them will agree to be so contradictory and ruinous to all true and solid piety as he then said In the mean time we will only beg leave to observe on occasion of this Correction that perhaps there are some in the Church of Rome of Mr. Calvin's mind in the worst of those Principles Monsieur de Meaux refers to and to assure him that there are several Protestants in the World that are not tho they dare not therefore so severely censure the Opinions of those that are IX Monsieur de Meaux having in a very few words explained the Doctrine of Justification upon which the Council of Trent is so long and perplex'd assured us in his first Exposition That that was enough for any Man to know to make him a through Christian Thus have you seen what is most necessary in the Doctrine of Justification and our Adversaries would be extraordinarily contentious not to confess that there is no need to know any more to be a solid Christian 1 Ed. p. 47. This would have been of great advantage to us and have freed us from the Anathema's of many other Particulars of which we more doubt than of any thing Monsieur de Meaux has expounded of it but this others thought too great a Concession and the Bishop therefore without changing any thing in his Premises was forced to draw a very different Conclusion from them Thus have you seen what is most necessary in the Doctrine of Justification and our Adversaries would be very unreasonable if they should not confess that this Doctrine suffices to teach Christians that they ought to refer all the Glory of their Salvation to God through Jesus Christ X. In the Article of Satisfaction Monsieur de Meaux speaking of the Temporal and Eternal Punishment of Sin and how the one may be retain'd when the other is forgiven had this Paragraph in the first Edition since struck out The Church has always acknowledged these two different manners of applying the Remission of Sins which we have proposed because she faw that in the Scriptures besides the first Pardon and which ought to be the only if Men were not ungrateful and which is pronounced in the terms of a pure Remission there is another Absolution and another Grace that is proposed in form of a Judgment where the Church ought not only to loose and remit but also to bind and retain 1 Edit p. 54 55. The Censure pass'd upon this were enough to make one suspect that either Monsieur de Meaux or his Correctors were sensible upon further Consideration that they could not so easily find out these two forms so distinguish'd in holy Scripture or prove that the Church had always acknowledged them and therefore judged it safer not to undertake it XI In the Article of Confirmation speaking of the Imposition of Hands Monsieur de Meaux insinuated in his first Exposition that it had always been accompanied with the use of Chrism ever since the Apostles Thus says he all Christian Churches have religiously retained this Practice accompanying it the Imposition of Hands with holy Chrism 1 Ed. p. 65. This was too clearly false to be suffer'd to pass and therefore it is now more loose so as to admit of an Equivocation and yet seem to say still the same thing Thus all Christian Churches since the Apostles times have religiously retained it making use also of holy Chrism XII In the Article of the Sacrifice of the Mass Monsieur de Meaux having expounded it according to our Principles in his first Edition concluded with us too So that it the Mass may says he be very reasonably called a Sacrifice 1 Ed. p. 115. But since the Correction the Conclusion is much strengthned tho the Premises remain the same So that there is nothing wanting to it to make it a true Sacrifice XIII As to the point of the Pope's Authority the first Exposition ran much higher than it seems the Spirit of the Gallicane Church could bear So that our Profession of Faith obliges us as to this point to believe the Roman Church to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches and to render a true Obedience to the Pope the Successor of St. Peter and Vicar of Jesus Christ 1 Ed. p. 166. It is now more loose and in general thus We acknowledg a Primacy in the Successors of the Prince of the Apostles to whom for that cause we owe that Obedience and Submission which the holy Councils and Fathers have always taught the Faithful 5 Ed. p. 210. But it may be what was struck out of the Exposition to please the Correctors Monsieur de Meaux recompensed in his Letter to satisfy his Holiness XIV In the Conclusion Monsieur de Meaux telling us that none of those Articles he had expounded according to our own Principles destroyed the Foundation of our Salvation added in his first Exposition what that Foundation was viz. The Adoration of one only God Father Son and Holy Ghost and the Trust in one only Saviour 1 Ed. p. 160. It is hard to say why this was not let pass for we are unwilling to believe that the Church of Rome has any other Foundation for Salvation than this But it may be to have put down this as the Foundation of Salvation would have been too plainly to shew that then we certainly have this and that without mixture of any thing destructive thereunto XV. Monsieur de Meaux go's on in a very candid manner since struck out In effect says he in all these Explications which contain the very bottom of our Belief there is not any one word repugnant to these two Principles either directly or by Consequence So that
acknowledging then this That the Church of Rome do's believe and profess all that is essential to preserve the substance of the Christian Religion so that they cannot reasonably impute to us any Doctrine contrary thereunto they must at the same time acknowledg by their own Principles that the Church of Rome is a true part of the Church of Christ to which every Christian is obliged to unite himself in his Heart and in effect as far as in him lies 1 Ed. Monsieur de Meaux may please to know that we do confess the Church of Rome to be a part of the true Church thô indeed we think one of the worst and that we do with all our Hearts desire a Union with her and in effect do shew it as far as we are able by retaining whatever we can of the same Doctrines and Practices with her And if this were all they desired of us as indeed it is all they ought and all we can do However an absolute Union would not thereby be obtained yet might we live at least like Christians and Brethren in a common Charity with one another and so dispose our Minds as by God's Grace to come in a little time to some better agreement in the rest too than ever we are like to do without it These are some of those Passages that gave occasion to the correction we have spoken of at the Sorbon and to the suppression of the whole first Edition however authorized by the Bishops of France in the same words it now is I might have added many more but instead of it will beg leave to offer the Reader one Correction made very lately by another Faculty that of Louvain if not immediatly of Monsieur de Meaux's Exposition yet at least of a Doctrine which they were before-hand given to understand was so explained in it Monsieur de W itte Pastor and Dean of St. Maries in the City of Michlin having in a Discourse with some Persons of that City on the 8th of July last maintain'd the Authority of the Church and Pope according to the manner of Monsieur de Meaux's Exposition complaint was made of him first to the Inter-noaen then to his Holiness himself and four Propositions drawn up against him as the Heads of his Heresy Monsieur de Witte maintain'd his Opinion in several Papers printed to that end in the * Intituled Prosecutio probationis locum Mar. 16. non recte resundi in Apostolorum principis successores 4th of which after several other Authorities of Persons of their Church defending the same Doctrine He tells them That the Golden Exposition of Faith of Monsieur the Bishop of Condom Nihil praeterea ad sanam Catholicam Orthodoxam fidem deposcit aurea illa Expositio Catholicae fidei Jacobi Episcopi Condomensis praeter Illustrissima Clarissimonum Virorum Elogia ipsius S. Patris Innocent xi peramantissimis literis comprobata required nothing more to the Sound Catholic and Orthodox Faith in this Matter which Exposition besides the Elogies of many other Eminent Persons was also approved by our Holy Father Innocent the 11th himself in his kind Letter to him But all this could not prevail with them to respect his Doctrine ever the more for Monsieur de Meaux's Exposition or his Holinesses Brief The Faculty of Divinity at the command of the Nonce and with the knowledg no doubt and assent of the Pope to whom the whole Affair had been communicated censured his Propositions Nov. 3. 1685. and especially the second in which Monsieur de Meaux's Exposition of the Catholick Faith was principally concerned as scandalous and pernicious Judicamus eam censurari posse uti scandalosam perniciosam May those who insist so much on the Fidelity and Authority of Monsieur de Meaux's Exposition please calmly to consider these things and tell us how we can rely on such an Exposition of their Doctrine as notwithstanding so many formal Approbations first of the Bishops of France was yet corrected in so many places by the Sorbon and secondly of the Pope Cardinals and others in Italy and of the whole Body of the Clergy of France in their Assembly has yet so lately been censured at the command of the Nonce and with the consent of his Holiness by the Faculty of one of their most eminent Universities to be scandalous and pernicious A TABLE OF THE ARTICLES Contained in this TREATISE I. THe Introduction Page 3 II. That Religious Worship is to be paid to God only Page 6 III. Of the Invocation of Saints Page 9 IV. Of Images and Relicks Page 13 V. Of Justification Page 19 VI. Of Merits Page 21 VII Of Satisfactions Purgatory and Indulgences Page 24 PART II. VIII Of the Sacraments in general Page 33 IX Of Baptism Page 35 X. Of Confirmation Page 39 XI Of Penance and Confession Page 40 XII Of Extream Vnction Page 44 XIII Of Marriage Page 45 XIV Of Holy Orders Page 46 XV. Of the Eucharist and first of the Explication of those words This is my Body Page 47 XVI Do this in remembrance of Me. Page 54 XVII The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning this holy Sacrament 55 XVIII Of Transubstantiation and of the Adoration of the Host. 58 XIX Of the Sacrifice of the Mass 62 XX. Of the Epistle to the Hebrews 67 XXI Reflections upon the foregoing Doctrine 69 XXII Of communicating under one kind 72 PART III. XXIII Of the Word written and unwritten 75 XXIV Of the Authority of the Church 76 XXV The Opinion of the Church of England as to the Authority of the Church 80 XXVI The Authority of the holy See and of Episcopacy 81 XXVII The Close 82 ERRATA PReface Page xxix the number of the Sections mistaken to the â—nd P. xxxii l. 15. dele 5 Ed. p. 210. P. xxxiv l. 28. r. Mechlin ib. l. 33. r. Inter-nonce Book P. 13. l. 10. r. Practise P. 20. l. 5. r. works it in us P. 22. in the Margin l. 9. del 16. P. 23. the same P. 24. Marg. del p. 66. P. 34. l. 18. r. Vertue P. 36. l. 13. r. Mr. de Meaux l. 14. Charity P. 40. l. 13. r. Vertue P. 69. Marg. ib. r. ver 24. AN EXPOSITION OF THE Doctrine of the Church of England In the several Articles expounded by Monsieur de MEAUX I. The Introduction IT has always been esteemed more reasonable to doubt of Principles first and then to deny the Conclusions that are drawn from them than having granted the Foundation afterwards to cavil at the clear and necessary Deductions from it To profess that Religious Worship is due to God only and at the same time to say that we ought to adore Men and Women Crosses and Images and all that infinite variety of Follies which these latter Ages have set forth under the pious name of Relicks To declare That we are saved only by Christ's Merits and yet still continue to teach us that we ought to set up our own In a
word to say That the Death of Christ was a perfect Sacrifice and one drop of his Blood more than sufficient for the Redemption of Mankind and nevertheless go on to require our Satisfactions as necessary too and oblige us to believe that other Propitiatory Sacrifices besides that of the Cross ought to be offered up continually to God in his Church for the Sins both of the Dead and the Living This must certainly be the part of a Disputant either too ignorant to understand or too obstinate to submit to any Conviction Monsieur de Meaux the design of whose Exposition seems rather to be an Apology for the Popish Religion than a free Assertion and Vindication of its Errors is above all things sensible of the Justice of this Reflection and therefore endeavours by all means possible in the very entry of his Treatise to prepare his Reader against it By shewing the Injustice of charging Consequences upon Men which they do not allow and that therefore tho their Superstructure should chance to overthrow their Foundation yet since they profess not to know that it does so they ought not to be taxed with what they do not believe It is not deny'd but that Consequences may be sometimes either so obscure or so far distant that a Person prejudicate for the Principle may well be excused the charge of a Collection which his Actions shew he neither believes nor approves But when the Conclusions as well as Principles are plain and confess'd and the Dispute is only about the Name not the Thing we must beg leave to profess that we cannot chuse but say that he believes not as he ought the infinite Merits of Christ's Sacrifice who requires any other Offering for Sin and that no subtilty of Argument will ever perswade us that those destroy not their Principle of worshipping God only whom we see contrary to his express Command prostrate every day before an Image with Prayers and Hymns to Creatures that have been subject to like Infirmities with our selves and that are perhaps at this very time in a worser Estate than the most miserable of those that call upon them for their assistance Be it therefore allow'd to be as great a Calumny as Monsieur de Meaux can suppose it to accuse Men of Consequences obscure and disavow'd the Opinions we charge the Church of Rome with are plain and confess'd the Practice and Prescription of the chiefest Authority in it And to refuse our Charge of them is in good earnest nothing else than to protest against a matter of Fact a Plea which even Justice it self has told us may without Calumny be rejected as invalid However thus much at least we have got by this Reflection that it directs us to the true State of the Controversy between us and shews That we who have been so often charged by the Church of Rome as Innovators in Religion are at last by their own confession allow'd to hold the ancient and undoubted Foundation of the Christian Faith and that the Question between us therefore is not Whether what we hold be true which is on all hands agreed but Whether those things which the Roman Church has added as Superstructures to it and which as such we reject be not so far from being necessary Articles of Religion as they pretend that they indeed overthrow that Truth which is on both sides allow'd to be Divine and upon that account ought to be forsaken by them The Declaration of this not so much by any new proof as by clearing rather the true state of those Points which are the subject of our Difference is the design of the following Articles in which I shall endeavour to give a clear and free account of what we can approve and what it is that we dislike in their Doctrine and as far as the shortness of this Discourse will allow touch also upon some of those Reasons that are the most usually given by us for both ARTICLE II. That Religious Worship is to be paid to God only THat Religious Worship is due to God only how necessary soever those Practices of the Roman Church which we are hereafter to consider may have rendred it to Monsieur de Meaux to declare yet is it we suppose but little necessary for us to say We firmly believe that the inward acknowledgment of his Divine Excellencies as the Creator and Lord of all things is a part of the supream Worship that is due to him We believe that all the Powers of our Soul ought to be tied to him by Faith Hope and Charity as to that God who alone can establish and make us happy And tho we do not think that there is now any sensible or material Sacrifice to be offered to Him under the Gospel as there was heretofore under the Law yet do we with all Antiquity suppose the Sacrifice of Prayer and Thanksgiving to be so peculiarly his due that it cannot without derogation to his Honour be applied to any other What our Opinion is of that Worship which the Roman Church pays to the Blessed Virgin and Saints departed we shall hereafter fully shew But certainly great was the difference of those Holy Men whom Monsieur de Meaux mentions as their fore-runners in this practice from the present manner of the Popish Invocation Gregory Nazianzen in a Rhetorical Apostrophe called to Constantius in one to his Sister Gorgonia in another Oration but he prayed to neither St. Basil St. Ambrose St. J. Chrysostom St. Hierom St. Augustin they desired sometimes that the Martyr or Saint would joyn with them in their requests but they were rather Raptures and Wishes than direct Prayers and their formal Petitions but especially those of the Church were only to God Almighty They doubted whether the Saints could hear them or no and were rather inclined to believe that they could not The Addresses of the Mind which the Church of Rome allows no less than the others to them they look'd upon to be so peculiarly God's due that they supposed he did not communicate them to the very Angels that are in Heaven They declared against all thoughts of being assisted by the Merits of their Saints or that God would ever the more readily or indeed so soon accept their Prayers coming by the Intercession of another as if they had gone themselves directly to the Throne of Grace In a word they never imagined that this was an Honour due to them but on the contrary constantly taught that it was a Service belonging only to God Almighty Well therefore might * And that it is the most he does Se de Cult Lat. l. 3. c. 18. Monsieur Daillé refer the beginnings of this Invocation to these Men whose innocent Wishes and Rhetorical Flights being still increased by the Superstition of after-Ages first gave birth to this Worship But certainly the Romanists cannot with any reason alledge them in favour of their Error till it be shewn either that we are mistaken in those
differences we have here declared to be between what they did and what the Church of Rome now practises or that they are otherwise proved to be so inconsiderable as not to make any notable alteration in it And yet that the Ages before knew nothing even of this not only their confessed inability to produce any Proofs from them of this Superstition but the contrary Testimonies of the undoubted Writings of Ignatius Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Novatian and Others so plainly shew that it ought not to be esteemed at all rash at this distance to assert that in this very small Change the Fathers of the fourth Century did certainly begin to depart from the Practice and Tradition of those before them And if that Reason of the Church of Rome be of any strength why they pray'd not to the Holy Men under the Old Testament viz. because they were not then admitted to the sight of God and therefore ought not to be prayed to It seems to us that not only the greater part of the Primitive Fathers but even those very Men Monsieur de Meaux mentions could not certainly have allowed such an Invocation as is now used in their Church the most of them being notoriously known and even by their own Writers freely confessed to have believed the same That neither do the Saints and Confessors of the Christian Church any more enjoy the Presence of God even now Thus much was thought fit to be said to remove that Prejudice Monsieur de Meaux had thrown in the way We go on now with him to consider the Doctrine it self and what our Church's Opinion is of it ARTICLE III. Of the Invocation of Saints THE Invocation of Saints as it is stated by Monsieur de Meaux we look upon to be one of those Practices which our Church stiles fond things vainly invented and grounded upon no Warrant of Holy Scripture but indeed repugnant to God's Word Artic. xxii Monsieur de Meaux himself dares not say that they do or can ordinarily by any ability in themselves hear see or know the Wants State or Prayers of Men upon Earth to be mindfull of them unto God in Heaven Nor can it ever be proved that by any of those ways which he proposes but seems himself not to lay any great stress upon they are certainly and particuly communicated to them We think therefore that till this be cleared it is â—o great a hazard to leave a Mediator who both certainly knows our wants and has promised to hear us that has invited us nay commanded us to come to him in all our Needs to go to Intercessors which God has no where appointed and which we can never be sure our Prayers shall come up to It sufficeth not that they may know some things in some places at some times and of some Men extraordinarily unless we could tell what Saints and what things and in what places and at what times they do know them When this is cleared it may then be more reasonable to desire us to joyn with them in this Service In the mean time tho we should not charge them with Idolatry meerly for this yet we must needs confess we cannot but think these Addresses to be too full of hazard and uncertainty to venture any Requests at all much less so many as they do every day upon them In vain therefore does Monsieur de Meaux endeavour to defend the Innocence of this Invocation whilst he forgets to shew us the Reasonableness of it We should be pleased indeed to be assured of that but we cannot be convinced that we ought to joyn in the Practice till we are satisfied of the other too And yet we cannot but regret that if their design be truly no more than this to entreat the Saints to pray for them we should find the greatest part of their Service addressing to them after so contrary a manner that they would interpose not only their Intercessions but their Merits too for their forgiveness Not only that they would pray to God for them but that they would themselves bless them That the Angels and Saints would give them Strength Grace Health and Power That St. Peter would have Mercy upon them and open to them the Gate of Heaven That the Blessed Virgin would protect them from their Enemies and receive them at their Death In a word that she would command her Son to forgive them by that Right This Passage is often deny'd See Cassander Consult in Art 21. which as a Mother she had over him All which their very publick Rituals so far allow that the Service which is paid to God in his Church by the Mediation of Christ is infinitely exceeded by the Addresses of this nature through the Merits of the Virgin Mary and of the Saints Now if these Prayers signify no more than as Monsieur de Meaux expounds them to entreat the Saints to pray for them why have we such Scandal given us in the Practice If they intend really what we suppose and what their words do certainly signify what Ingenuity can it be to impose upon us in the Declaration However at least they will please to excuse us that we have fallen at so just a stumbling Block and charged them as derogating from the Merits of Christ whilst they have thus cry'd up the Merits of their Saints and of a Presumption unwarrantable if not wholly Idolatrous in desiring any but God alone to help and succour and give them those Blessings which God only has power to dispense 1. When therefore we shall be certainly assured that all that infinite number which the Church of Rome has canonized are truly and infallibly Saints 2. When we shall be assured that these Saints do already enjoy the Presence of God Almighty a Circumstance which the Papists themselves confess necessary to warrant their Invocation 3. When it shall be made undoubtedly appear that either by their own Knowledg or by some other Revelation they do ordinarily and particularly understand all the Requests that are made to them so that we can be as secure of their hearing us as when we desire our Brethren upon Earth to pray for us 4. When the Liturgies of their Church shall be reformed and all those dangerous Insinuations of the Merit and Personal Assistance of their Saints be removed 5. When those desperate Doctrines and yet more desperate Addresses of their School-men and Controvertists which scandalize the more moderate even of their own Party shall be censured 6. And Men taught to practise this Invocation with such Sobriety as neither to make it so freely and publickly their Worship as they do nor with any Opinion of being either sooner heard or more effectually answered by this way of Address than by going directly to God by our Saviour and only Mediator Jesus Christ 7. In a word when even an Invocation so moderated shall be shewn either to have been commanded by God Almighty or to have been advised by
day scandalizes not only so great a number of Christians but even our common Enemy the Jew Turk In a word which is so far from being commanded by God that it needs many nice Distinctions to render it not directly opposite to an express Prohibition and is therefore if not down-right Idolatry to those who know how to direct their Intention aright yet to the Simple and Ignorant that is to the much greater number and the most zealous practioners of this Service so very near it that the Generality of the wisest Papists no less than We complain of it For the honour that is due to Reliques no Protestant will ever refuse whatever the Primitive Church paid them or may be fit to express the Honour we ought to retain for those Bodies that by Martyrdom have been made Sacrifices to God Almighty If this be all Mr. de Meaux desires of us we are ready to profess our Opinion that we judg it to be neither offensive to God nor fit to be scrupled by any good Man We believe that according to the Circumstances of the Times the Church may testify this Honour by more or less outward Signs and Marks of Respect And we do with satisfaction read that Declaration of Mr. de Meaux That we ought not to be servilely subjected to these outward Ceremonies but to be invited by them to offer up to God that reasonable service in Spirit and in Truth which he requires of us And if this be the State of the Question we confess the Explication of it has taken away a great part of the difficulty But what then means the Council of Trent to tell us That we are not only to honour them but to worship them too That by doing so we shall obtain many Benefits and Graces of God That these sacred Monuments are not unprofitably revered but are to be sought unto for the obtaining their help and assistance to cure the Sick to give Eyes to the Blind Feet to the Lame and even Life to the Dead How comes it to pass that their Church not only honours them which we could allow but carries them in Processions makes Offerings to them gives Indulgences to such as shall go to visit them prescribes Pilgrimages to them swears by them touches their Beads or Hankerchiefs with them to sanctify them thinks to obtain one Blessing by virtue of this Relick another from that and the like superstitious usages which we suppose we have good reason with our Chnrch to conclude to be fond things vainly invented Art xxii and grounded upon no Authority of Holy Scripture but indeed repugnant thereunto When therefore all these Abuses which we have named and which Monsieur de Meaux seems content to allow with us to be such shall be corrected When in the matter of Images 1. The Hymns and Addresses that teach us so contrary to the Spirit of Christianity to demand Graces of them and to put our Trust in them shall be reformed St. Thomas and his Abettors censured and all other Marks of an unwarrantable Worship be forbidden 2. When the Pictures of God the Father and of the holy Trinity so directly contrary both to the second Commandment and to St. Paul's Doctrine shall be taken away and those of our Saviour and the blessed Saints be by all necessary Cautions rendred truly the Books not Snares of the Ignorant When in points of Relicks 3. they shall be declared to have no sanctifying Virtue in them 4. Nor that they ought to be sought to for any Assistance Spiritual or Temporal to be expected from them 5. When it shall be resolved to be no matter of Merit to go to visit them 6. Nor any more extravagant Indulgences be set forth for Pilgrimages unto them When all these things which Monsieur de Meaux passes over and which yet are undeniably their Practice and our Scandal shall be corrected Then will we both believe and submit to the rest which he desires of us We will honour the Relicks of the Saints as the Primitive Church did we will respect the Images of our Saviour and the Blessed Virgin And as some of us now bow towards the Altar and all of us are enjoyned to do so at the Name of the Lord Jesus so will we not fail to testify all due Respect to his Representation In the mean time if the Outcries of their own Church at these Abuses cannot prevail with them to redress them yet at least they will confirm us in the Reformation we have made of them and whilst we find Hezekiah commended in the holy Scripture for destroying the Brazen Serpent thô made by God's express Command and in some sort deservedly honourable for that great Deliverance it brought to the Jews 2 King 18. Because the Children of Israel offered Incense unto it We shall conclude our selves to be by so much the more justifiable in that the Images we have removed were due only to the Folly and Superstition of Men and have been more scandalously abused to a worser and greater dishonour of God ARTIC V. Of Justification THE Doctrine of Justification is one of those Points that deserves our careful Consideration as being not only one of the chiefest of those Points wherein we suppose the Church of Rome to have prevaricated the Faith but as Monsieur de Meaux remarks one of the first that gave occasion to that Reformation that was made from it It is not necessary to say to what an Extravagance the business of Pardons Indulgences and other means of satisfying the Divine Justice was arrived and how much more confidence the People generally put in the Inventions of Men than in the Merits and Satisfaction of Christ If they have been somewhat better instructed since they may thank the Reformation for it tho we fear all the difference is that they are somewhat more reserved in exposing these Follies now but yet still retain the Foundation of that Doctrine upon which they are built We willingly allow Monsieur de Meaux this honour that he has reduced the long Decrees of the Council of Trent to a short and easie Debate and proposed the things which contain our Difference with such tenderness as might invite us to close with a great part of it did not the Decrees of the Council seem too plainly to refuse Monsieur de Meaux's Exposition of them We believe with him That our Sins are freely forgiven by God's Mercy through Christ and that none of those things which precede our Justification whether our Faith or our good Works could merit this Grace We are perswaded that our Sins are not only covered but are entirely done away by the Blood of Jesus Christ We confess that the Righteousness of Jesus Christ is not only imputed but actually communicated to the Faithful through the operation of the holy Spirit in so much that they are not only reputed but made just by his Grace We deny not that this Righteousness is a true Righteousness even in
and those who were departed only not lost by death But then it is to be observed that when they most ordinarily prayed for the dead yet was there nothing determined as to this Point all was left to the Piety and Opinion of particular men nor durst they absolutely resolve whether the dead received any benefit by them as both the learned of the Church of Rome themselves Confess and the Writings of Primitive Antiquity even to St. Augustine himself undoubtedly shew Now as there is none of us that will condemn the Charity of any man to pray or fast or afflict himself for the Pardon and Forgiveness of his Friends his Countrey or his Church so it be done without any fond Opinion of Merit or Satisfaction and to hope too by such Prayers to obtain God's mercy for them So if any one will put up his particular Requests for the dead too for any of those ends for which the Primitive Christians did we shall not condemn him Only let not that be made an Article of our Faith which we can never be assured of and which when it was most Practised was received only as a private Opinion and in a Sense far different from what is now asserted And for the rest We shall not refuse to Consent to any Liberty whereby Peace may be obtained and our free Justification by Faith in Christ not injured PART II. OF THE SACRAMENTS ARTICLE IX Of the Sacraments in General THE Doctrine of the Sacraments has always been esteemed one of the most considerable obstacles to our union with the Church of Rome We cannot imagine why Monsieur de Meaux should insinuate as if our disputes about these except it be in the point of the Eucharist were not so great as about other matters unless it be to serve for an excuse for his own passing so lightly over them or to make us less careful in examining their Doctrine The Sacraments of the New Testament in that proper sense in which we now take the word we have always look'd upon to be not only Holy Signs to represent and confirm to us the Grace of God but also effectual Tokens of his good Will to us by which he does work invisibly in us and strengthen and confirm our Faith in him To obtain the benefit of the Holy Sacraments we cannot believe it to be enough that we have no ill disposition but do suppose that it is a sufficient Obstacle if we have not a good one Artic. 25. of the Ch. of En. We confess that the Faith of the Church and those who present them to Baptism is all that is required to prepare Infants to receive the spiritual Regeneration which that Sacrament confers But for those who by age are capable of it we suppose both in Baptism and in the holy Eucharist an actual faith of Gods Promise annexed to the outward signs which we receive to be indispensably necessary for the partaking of their effects And tho if the rest be agreed we shall not desire to determine any mans belief as to the manner how the Sacraments confer that Grace which God has promised by them yet we judg it more agreeable to the Analogy of our Faith to say That upon the performance of the outward Ceremony God bestows the inward Blessing than that the Blessing is conferr'd by Virtue of the Words which are pronounced and the action which is done to us as Monsieur de Meaux has expounded it We do not by this at all take off from the necessity of the outward signs We confess That besides the inward Preparation there is required for our Sanctification a special operation of the holy Spirit and an application of Christs Merits by the means of the holy Sacraments This we are so perswaded of that we profess them to be ‖ So our Chu Catechism necessary to Salvation insomuch that whosoever either carelesly neglects or presumptuously despises the use of them will in vain expect it by any other means For the number of the Sacraments we acknowledg only two as generally necessary to Salvation and are surprized to see the Council of Trent damning all such as will not receive a number which neither has the Scripture any where declared nor was it that we know of till the very 12th Century ever heard of in the Church * De Cerm. Ec. c. l. 1. c. 12. Hugo de St. Victor is the first that we can find it in 1130 Years after Christ ‖ Lib. 4 Sent. Dist 2. Lombard and the Schoolmen follow'd him Pope ‡ Ann. 1439. in Conc. Flor. Eugenius in his instructions to the Armenians gave yet more countenance to it but that all those Ceremonies which the Church of Rome now receives are truly and properly Sacraments and that there be neither more nor less than Seven never any one absolutely determined till the Council of Trent first Canonically decreed it and commanded the Church under an Anathema to receive it The special consideration of their five pretended Sacraments will give us an opportunity more particularly to establish that number we our selves propose This presumption of the truth we must not omit here That not only the Ancient Fathers of the Church when they speak of the Sacraments properly as we now do mention only Baptism and the Lords Supper but even the Papists themselves who establish more yet confess these to be so far the Principal that our own Article says but little more than what their greatest Schoolmen have voluntarily confessed ARTICLE X. Of BAPTISM HOW strict our Church is in maintaining the necessity of Baptism the very Office by which we do administer it sufficiently shews See our Office Of Pub. Bapt We declare that all men are conceived and born in sin and that none can enter into the Kingdom of God except he be regenerate and born anew of Water and of the Spirit This is the Law of Christ which the Eternal Truth has established and whosoever shall presume to oppose it let him be Anathema But now as all other Laws so this of Christ must we think be interpreted according to the rules of natural Equity The Ancient Church constantly professed her belief that Martyrdom excused the defect of Baptism Many of the Papists themselves suppose that the desire of it when by some unavoidable necessity the Sacrament its self cannot be obtained shall be reputed for it Monsieur de Meanx insinuates that the Acts of Faith Hope and Charicy may supply the want of it ⸫ Ep. 70. if it be indeed his St. Bernard plainly concludes the same If says he a man desirous of Baptism be suddenly cut off by Death in whom there wanted neither found Faith nor devout Hope nor sincere Charity God be Merciful unto me and pardon me if I err but verily of such a Ones Salvation in whom there is no other defect but his faultless lack of Baptism despair I cannot nor induce my mind to think his Faith void his
Hope confounded and his Charity fallen to nothing only because he hath not-that which not contempt but impossibility with-holdeth When therefore so many ways have been allowed to excuse the defect of Baptism tho our Church has rather taken all imaginable care that Infants shall not die without it than presumed rashly to determine what shall become of them if they do yet we cannot but condemn the uncharitableness of the Church of Rome in Excluding them from all Part in Jesus Christ and denying that Mercy to a tender and impotent Age which they so liberally extend to those of Riper years If not the Want but the Contempt of this Sacrament be the only thing that is damnable to be sure no Contempt of Baptism can be in them If the desire of Baptism in those that are capable of it is by many of the Church confessed to be reputed for Baptism why shall we not hope that God who is all merciful will accept the Desire of the Church and of their Parents in their behalf who by their Age are not capable to have any of their own ‖ By Monsieur de Meaux see before If Faith Hope and Charity as Monsieur de Meaux himself implies may excuse them who actually have these Graces tho they want this Sacrament why may not that Faith that Hope that Charity of the Church which being imputed to them renders them capable of Baptism be as effectual to stand instead of it to them as their own proper Faith for Others if a necessity which could not be avoided prevents it In a word Since such is the Mercy of God that to things altogether impossible he bindeth no man but where what he Commands cannot be performed accepteth of our Will to do it instead of the Deed. 2. Seeing God's Grace is not so absolutely tyed to the Sacraments but that many exceptions have been and are still Confessed to be sufficient to obtain it without the external Application of them Seeing 1 Cor. 7. 3. St. Paul has told us that the Seed of faithfull Parentage is Holy from the very Birth as being born within the Covenant of Grace Tho we determine nothing yet we think it the part of Charity not only to take all the Care we can to Present our Infants to Baptism whilst they live but if by any unavoidable necessity they should die without it ‖ See Cassan Consult Art 9. de Bapt. Infant Where he cites many others of the C. of R. of the same Opinion to Hope well of them Remembring that Judgment of God Exod. 4. who when Moses neglected to Circumcise his Son spared the Child in that he was innocent but sought to kill Moses for his Carelesness in the Omission A necessity therefore of Baptism we constantly maintain but absolutely to determine that all those who die without it are excluded from the Grace of Christ neither will Monsieur de Meaux presume to do of Men nor dare we much less to affirm it of Infants The Lutherans condem the Anabaptists for refusing Baptism altogether to Children which we also condemn in them But that therefore they make no allowance for extraordinary Cases where both the Church and the Parents desired to have Baptized them only that some unavoidable Accident prevented it neither did Cassander believe Consult Art 9. nor do the terms of their Confession at all require For the Calvinists so far were they from being the Authors of this charitable opinion towards Infants dying unbaptized That many of the most Eminent men of the Church of ‡ Gerson Gabriel Biel Cajetan and others Rome have long before them maintained the same To conclude If Monsieur de Meaux himself do's in good earnest believe the danger so great as he pretends may he then please to consider What we are to Judge of those who in so many places have not left any Ministers at all to confer this Sacrament For our parts we freely declare their hazard to be infinitely greater than either the Childrens or their Parents who are so far from that indifference Monsieur de Meaux most injuriously charges them with that in places where publick Ministers reside that they have the opportunity to do it they fail not with all imaginable Care to Present them in the Ambassadors Chappels to Baptism if they have but the least apprehension that they are not in a Condition to be carried to their own Temples ARTICLE XI Of CONFIRMATION TO clear our way to that particular Examination that is necessary of the following pretended Sacraments of the Roman Chruch it will be necessary to observe that by their own Confession these three things are absolutely required to the Essence of a true Sacrament 1. Christ's Institution 2. An outward and visible Sign 3. An inward and spiritual Grace by Christ's promise annexed to that Sign We cannot but admire that neither in the Council of Trent or in the Catechism made by its Order is there any Attempt to prove either of these from the Holy Scripture as to the Point of Confirmation It was so much the more necessary to have done this in that Many of the greatest Note in the Roman Church had denied the Divine Institution of it and some of them were approved by the Holy See its self that did it The outward Sign has been none of the least Controversies that have exercised their own Pens and indeed since they have laid aside that of Imposition of hands which they confess the Apostles used it was but reasonable to have shewn us some Authority for that other they have established in its stead What Monsieur de Meaux expounds is a clear Vindication of our Practice but defends nothing of their own Doctrine That we think it to have been an Ancient custom in the Church and which the very Apostles themselves Practised to lay hands on those that had been Baptized and in imitation whereof we our selves at this day do the like the Practise of our Church sufficiently declares We Confess that the use of Chrism in Confirmation was very Ancient yet such as we deny to have been Apostolical We do not our selves use it yet were that all the difference between us we should be far from judging those that did The Discipline of our Church allows none that is not of the Episcopal Order to Confirm And for the benefit of it as the Bishop prays to God for his Holy Spirit to assist us in the way of Virtue and Religion to Arm us against Temptation and to enable us to keep our Baptismal Covenant which we then our selves repeat and in the Presence of the Church-openly ratifie and confirm So we Piously hope that the Blessing of the Holy Spirit descends upon us through his Prayer for all these great Ends both to strengthen the Grace we already have and to increase it in us to a more plentiful degree ARTICLE XII Of Penance and Confession FOR Penance and Confession we wish our Discipline were both more
and sometimes they did it without either Together with these outward signs they usually added Prayer too some Invocation at least in the name of Jesus Christ as the more substantial and more effectual Assistance So that St. James's Direction there If any man be sick let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him with Oyl in the name of the Lord and the Prayer of Faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up referring as is evident to those miraculous cures which the Apostles and their Successors in the Primitive Church wrought by such anointing We look upon it that the advice in as much as it belonged to that could neither have been the Institution of a Sacrament at all and that together with the miraculous power of healing it is now long since ceased in the Church Monsieur de Meaux ought not to refuse this Interpretation : Vid. Sacram. Grge. p. 66 Et Rursus 251. serqq Menard annot 3 MSS. alia ejusd opin The Ancient Rituals of the Roman Church for above 800 Years after Christ shew that they esteemed this to be the meaning of it they understand it plainly of bodily Cures Cajet Annot. in loc and Cardinal Cajetan himself freely confesses that it can belong to no other Our Saviour and his Apostles when they thus miraculously healed the infirmity of the Body at the same time forgave the sin of the soul too For this cause St James adds And if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him Tho this extraordinary Power be now ceased both in the One and the other kind yet we still endeavour to perform whatever we are capable of on these occasions We send for the Elders of the Church when we are sick they pray over us if we stand charged with any private sins or publick Censures we confess them to them and they fail not by their Absolution as far as in them lies to forgive us This is all we think is now remaining for us to fulfil of what this Text requires We anoint not our sick for the recovery of their bodily health as St. James here prescribed because the miraculous power of healing to which that Ceremony ministred is ceased in the Church We pray over them if it please God for the recovery of their present Health but especially for their Eternal Salvation We exercise the power of the Keys to the forgiveness of their sins because the benefit of this is the same now that ever it was Christ's Promise remains and whilst we piously make use of the same means we doubt not but it shall be to the like Effect ARTICLE XIV Of MARRIAGE FOR the point of Marriage Monsieur de Meaux says nothing but what we willingly allow of We deny that it is a ⸫ Lomb. of our side See Cassand Con. Sacrament after the same manner that Baptism and the holy Eucharist are because it both wants an outward sign to which by Christs Promise a Blessing is annex'd and is so far from being generally necessary to Salvation as they are and as we suppose all true and proper Sacraments ought to be that the Church of Rome has thought fit to deny one of the most considerable parts of their Communion altogether the use of it ARTICLE XV. Of Holy Orders THE Imposition of Hands in holy Orders being accompanied with a Blessing of the Holy Spirit may perhaps upon that account be called a kind of Particular Sacrament Yet since that Grace which is thereby conferr'd whatever it be is not common to all Christians nor by consequence any part of that foederal Blessing which our Blessed Saviour has purchased for us but only a separation of him who receives it to a special Employ we think it ought not to be esteemed a common Sacrament of the whole Church as Baptism and the Lords Supper are The outward sign of it we confess to have been usually Imposition of hands and as such we our selves observe it Yet as we do not read that Christ himself instituted that sign much less tied the promise of any certain Grace to it so Monsieur de Meaux may please to consider that there are many of his own Communion that do not think it to be essential to holy Orders nor by consequence the outward sign of a Sacrament in them We confess that no man ought to exercise the Ministerial Office till he be first consecrated to it We believe that it is the Bishops part only to Ordain We maintain the distinction of the several Orders in the Church and tho we have none of those below a Deacon because we do not read that the Apostles had any yet we acknowledg the rest to have been anciently received in the Church and shall not therefore raise any controversie about them ARTICLE XVI Of the EVC HARIST And first of the Explication of those Words This is my Body IN our entry upon this Point we cannot but testifie our just regret That this holy Sacrament which was designed by our Blessed Saviour not only to be the greatest assurance of his love to us but the strongest Engagements of our Charity to one another should have become the chiefest subject of our contentions and widened that breach which it ought to have closed Monsieur de Meaux who grounds his opinion of the Corporeal presence of Christ in this Holy Eucharist upon the words of Institution which he contends ought to be litterally understood yet proposes two Cases wherein he seems to allow it might have been lawful to forsake the Letter We will join issue with him upon his own terms and shew 1. That there are such grounds in those words for a figurative interpretation as naturally lead to it 2. That when we come to consider the Intention of our Saviour in this holy Sacrament we are yet more strongly confirmed in it It is confessed by the greatest Authors of the Church of Rome that if the relative This in that proposition This is my Body refers to that Bread which our Saviour Christ held in his hand at the time when he spoke those Words the natural repugnancy there is between the two things affirmed of one another Bread and Christs Body will necessarily require the figurative interpretation For this is impossible says ‖ Gratian de Consecrat d. 2. c. 55. Gratian That Bread should be the Body of Christ It cannot be says ⸫ L. 3. de Euch. c. 19. SS Primum Card. Bellarmine That that proposition should be true the former part whereof designeth Bread the later the Body of Christ ‡ Id. ib. l. 1. c. 1. So that if the Sense be This Bread is the Body of Christ either it must be taken Figuratively thus This Bread signifies the Body of Christ or it is plainly absurd and Impossible The whole difficulty therefore as to our first point consists in this Whether our Saviour Christ when he said This is
of Holy Scripture and without Gods infinite Mercy absolutely destructive of their eternal Salvation have been built upon it As we hope that these declarations have been permitted by God to fall from the greatest and most Esteemed of their Church not only to confirm us in our Faith but also to prepare the way for their return to that Catholick truth from which they have so long erred so we doubt not by Gods blessing but that they will in time attain to it when being sensible of that Tyrannical usurpation that has been made over their Consciences and resolved to use that Knowledg God has given them to search the Scriptures and examine their Faith and not servily follow every Guide that will but pretend to lead them They shall seriously and indifferently weigh all these things and find that therefore only they have thought us in darkness because their own Eyes were shut that they might not discern the light ARTICLE XIX Of Transubstantiation and of the Adoration of the Host WHat remains of this Subject of the Holy Eucharist being wholly consequent upon the foregoing mistaken interpretation of the Words of our Blessed Saviour before considered we should have passed them over as things we have in effect already declared that the Church of England receives not but that we are perswaded the particular consideration of them will yet more fully shew the falsness of that Foundation upon which they are built Monsieur de Meaux in proving the Corporeal presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist from the Words of institution This is my Body had something that at least seemed to favour his mistake but to produce them here for Transubstantiation that is not only to argue the presence of Christ's substance but also the change of the substance of the Bread and Wine into it he has not the least appearance of the Text for him Indeed were there no other way for Christ to be present in the Eucharist but only by this change it might then be allowed that having as he imagines proved the one he had in effect established the other But the number of those who interpret the Words in like manner according to the Letter yet are as great enemies as our selves to this change and suppose Christs Body to be present by a Vnion of it to the Bread rather then by a Conversion of the Bread into it not only shews that there is no necessary consequence at all between the real presence and Transubstantiation but that there is another manner of Christs presence both more agreeable to Holy Scripture than that which they advance and that takes off infinite difficulties which their Transubstantiation involves them in That the Substance of the Sacred Figures remains in this Sacrament after the Consecration those clear expressions of St. Paul wherein he so often calls them * 1 Cor. 10.16 c. 11.26 Bread and Wine after it seem to us plainly to shew †Acts 2.46 c. To break Bread the Holy Scripture tells us was the usual Phrase all the time of the Apostles for receiving the Holy Communion and which the Blessed Spirit himself dictated These passages Monsieur de Meaux certainly ought not to put off with a Figurative meaning unless he can give us some good reason why he follows the High road of the Literal interpretation in the one to establish the Substance of Christs Body in the Sacrament and forsakes it in the other to take away the Presence of the Bread from it For the Adoration of the Host The Church of England consequently to her Principles of the Bread and Wine 's remaining in their natural substances See her Rubrick at the end of the Communion Office professes that she thinks it to be Idolatry and to be abhorred of all faithful Christians Monsieur de Meaux in Conformity to theirs tells us That the presence of Christs Body in the Eucharist ought to carry all such as believe it without all scruple to the Adoration of it This therefore being taken as a Principle acknowledged by them it may not be amiss to observe that since it is certain that neither Christ nor his Apostles appointed or practised nor the Church for above 1000 Years required or taught any Adoration of this Holy Sacrament neither could they according to Monsieur de Meaux's Principles have believed the Corporeal Presence of our Blessed Saviour in it Is there any of the Evangelists that mentions it They all tell us Take Eat Do this in remembrance of me But does any one add This is my Body fall down and Worship it When St. Paul reproved the Corinthians for violating this Holy Sacrament 1 Cor. 11.20 c. is it possible he could have omitted so obvious a Remark and so much to his purpose That in profaning this Holy Sacrament they were not only guilty of the Body and Bloud of Christ which it was instituted to represent to us but even directly affronted their Blessed Master corporally present there and whom instead of profaning they ought as they had been taught to Adore in it With what simplicity do the Ancient Fathers speak of this Communion in all their Writings The Elevation of the Sacred Symbols was not heard of till the Seventh Century and then used only to represent the lifting up of Christ upon the Cross not to expose it to the People to adore it The Bell the Feast of the St. Sacrament the Pomp of carrying it through the Streets all the other Circumstances of this Worship are inventions of yesterday The exposing of it upon the Altar to make their Prayers before it their Addresses to it in times and cases of Necessity their performing the chiefest acts of Religion in its presence never mentioned in Antiquity Nay instead of this Worship they did many things utterly inconsistent with it They disputed with the Heathens for worshipping Gods their own Hands had made Was it ever objected to them that they themselves did the same Worship a Deity whose substance they first formed and then spoke it into a God They burnt in some Churches what remained of the Holy Sacrament They permitted the People to carry it home that had Communicated They sent it abroad by Sea by Land without any the least regard that we can find had to its Worship They buried it with their Dead they made Plaisters of the Bread they mix'd the Wine with their Ink. These certainly were no instances of Adoration Nor can we ever suppose that they who did such things as these ever believed that it was the very Body and Bloud of their dear Master whom they so much loved and whom doubtless they would have been as ready to have worshipped had they so believed as both Monsieur de Meaux supposes they ought to have been and as we see others for the rest no more pious than those Primitive Christians were now to do it ARTICLE XX. Of the Sacrifice of the Mass A Third Consequence of the Corporeal Presence
the greatest glory of S. Athanasius that he stood up alone against the whole World in defence of Christs Divinity when the Pope the Councils the whole Church fell away Conclude we therefore that God who has made us and knows what is best and most proper for us as he has subjected us to the Government and Direction of his Church for our Peace and Welfare so to secure our Faith he has given us his Holy Word to be the last resort the final infallible Rule by which both we and the Church its self must be directed And from this therefore if any one shall endeavour to turn us aside or preach any other Gospel unto us than what we have therein received Gal. 1.8 9. tho he were an Apostle from the Grave or even an Angel from Heaven let him be Anathema ARTICLE XXVI The Opinion of the Church of England as to the Authority of the Church FOR the two last Articles of Monsieur de Meaux's Exposition I might very well have pass'd them by The Church of England whose Doctrine I pretend to explain is but very little concerned in them Therefore only in a word That we allow the Church a just Authority in matters of Faith both the declaration of our xxth Article and the subscription we make to the whole 39 shew Such a deference we allow to her decisions that we make them our directions what Doctrine we may or may not publickly maintain and teach in her Communion In effect we shew whatever Submission we can to her Authority without violating that of God declared to us in his Holy Scriptures Whatsoever deference we allow to a National Church or Council the same we think in a much greater degree due to a General And whensoever such a one which we much desire shall be freely and lawfully assembled to determine the Differences of the Catholick Church none shall be more ready both to assist in it and submit to it ARTICLE XXVII Of the Authority of the Holy See and of Episcopacy FOR the Pope's Authority tho' we suppose no good Consequence can be drawn from that Primacy we are content to allow St. Peter among the Apostles for that exorbitant Power which has of late been pretended to Yet when other Differences shall be agreed and the true Bounds set to his Pretences we shall be content to yield him whatsoever Authority the Ancient Councils of the Primitive Church have acknowledged and the Holy Fathers have always taught the faithful to give him This Monsieur de Meaux ought to be contented with who himself absolves us from yielding to those pretences that have indeed very justly rendred this Authority not only odious but intolerable to the World Let those who are Enemies to Episcopacy and who deny any due respect to the Chair of St. Peter answer for themselves The Church of England has both retain'd the one and will be ready according to what we have before declared when ever it shall be requisite to acknowledge the other THE CLOSE SUCH is the Doctrine of the Church of England in those points which Monsieur de Meaux has thought fit to propose as the principal matters in debate betwixt us May it please the unprejudiced Papist to say what he can find in All these to warrant that bitter and unchristian hatred they have conceived against us To cut us off as much as in them lies from the Communion of Christs Church on Earth and to deny us all part of his promises in Heaven We firmly believe the Holy Scriptures and whatsoever they teach or command we receive and submit to as to the Word of God We embrace all the ancient Creeds and in them all that Faith which the Primitive Christians supposed and which the Religious Emperors by their Advice decreed should be sufficient to intitle us to the common name of Catholicks What new Donatists Gentlemen are you to presume to exclude us from this Character And may we not justly demand of you what S. Augustin once did of them on the same occasion You say that Christ is Heir of no Lands De unitate Eclesia c. 6. but where Donatus is Co-heir Read this to us out of the Law and the Prophets out of the Psalms out of the Gospel out of the Sacred Epistles Read it to us and we will believe We accept the Tradition of Primitive Antiquity truly such with a Veneration we dare confidently say greater than your selves We have shew'd that the very grounds of our difference is that you require us to believe and practise such things as the Holy Scripture forbids us and the Primitive Church never knew You command us to worship Images See Article 4. Is it not evident that both the Law and the Gospel have forbid it and is it not confess'd that both the Apostles and their Successors abhorred the very name You command us to communicate only under one kind That is in our Opinion nay it is in yours too Article 23. to contradict the Institution of our Blessed Saviour and the practice of the very Roman Church for above a Thousand years and of all other Christians to this very day You command us to pray to Saints and Angels Article 3. Col. 2. v. 18. Rev. 19.10 22.9 Does not St. Paul forbid it Did not the holy Angel twice refuse it from St. John And many Centuries pass without One probable Instance of any that did it You command us under pain of your Anathema to believe Transubstantiation Article 19. Do you your selves understand what you mean by it Is it any where written Was it ever mention'd for above a Thousand years You bid us Adore the Holy Sacrament Article 19. Has Christ prescribed it Have his holy Apostles written it Did not here also above a Thousand years pass before any one attempted it You require us to believe the blessed Eucharist to be a true and real Propitiatory Sacrifice for the sins and satisfactions both of the Dead and of the Living Article 20. Have ye any probable proof of it Are ye yet or ever like to be agreed among your selves about it Do not your own principles evidently shew the contrary Men and Brethren Consider we conjure you these things And if you please consider us too what we are and what our Manners and Conversation among you has been Believe us at least that we have no other End but Truth in these Enquiries No other Interest but to save our souls and go the surest and directest way to Heaven The Proofs we offer they are not vain Conjectures they are clear we think convincing Arguments And though the design of this little Treatise has been rather to shew you what our Doctrine is than to give a just account of those Reasons that detain us in it Yet perhaps even in this there may be somewhat to shew that we do not altogether build in the Air but deserve certainly to have our Articles and our Canons both better