is there that a suspected and accused Party 's own Word should be admitted as his sufficient Justification Especially in things known to be false by Sense and Reason and contrary to Holy Scripture and therein contrary to that far mor general certain and impartial Tradition for the Scriptures being the Word of God. The as for the Infallibility of this Delivery we know that there is no such Attribute as Infallibility belonging to any Creature or its actings although it be impossible in sensu Composito for any one to err or deceive while he thinks and speaks the Truth and therefore all Mans Infallibility consists in his Faculties being guided infallible by the Infallible God and by Him kept from Error and so far and so long as he is so he can neither deceive nor be deceived Yet even then he is fallible in himself But now that God ever did or will ever so guide any Man we must come to know it either by his Promise to do it or his Testimony that he has done it or by the Testimony and Tradition of others concerning it As for his Promise 'T is very true that our Blessed Saviour did Promise to his Holy Apostles and Disciples That his Spirit should guide them in all Truth John 16.13 i. e. Those Truths which he had taught them vers 14 15. And that by enabling them to remember them John 14.26 And also into Truth concerning things to come for so it follows in verse 13. And that the Holy Ghost should dwell in them Chap. 14.17 Now if this Guidance be understood of Infallible and as promised to all Christ's Disciples and all their Successors in their common Faith it will prove that all true Christians are infallible which perhaps will be thought too much Or if promised only to all the Apostles and all their Successors in the Ministry of the Gospel this also will prove too much for the Romanists purpose But the truth is that though the Promise be to be applied to all the Apostles and Disciples and all their Successors yet not to all in the same extent of Guidance for then all their Successors must have the Spirit of Prophecy and the afore-knowledge of things to come which is not pretended by any to be true and common Experience shews the contrary The assistance therefore and guidance promised relates diversly to those to whom the Promise was made 1. As to all holy Disciples in all Ages whom the Holy Ghost doth sanctifie it guides them by infallibly bringing them to believe all Truths necessary to be believed by them in order to their Salvation so that they shall not fail to believe them who are therefore said to be led by the Spirit Rom. 8.14 And to be the Sons of God and to have the Spirit dwelling in them Rom. 8.9 John 14.17 But yet they are not subjective infallible in their Faculties or Act of Believing but only as guided by the Holy Spirit 2. As to all the Holy Apostles and divers others Holy Disciples of that Age the Guidance promised is to instruct and enable them infallibly to know remember and Preach unto others the whole Counsel of God taught by our Saviour for Mans Salvation and to confirm that Assistance in Teaching by miraculous Works and to some of them infallibly to pen is also and unto some to fortel things to come 3. And as to all the Successors of the Apostles in the office of the Ministry and Preaching of the Gospel whether single or conjoyned the Guidance of the Holy Ghost promised is not immediate constant or subjective infallible but is only so far forth as by its Pastoral Gifts and Graces it enables them to discover and deliver those Truths which it hath inspired others in that first Age infallibly to record in the Holy Scripture and which it now intends by their Ministry to work the Hearts of all who shall be Saved to give a true divine Faith unto and by it to bring them infallibly to Salvation For which Purpose Christ hath promised to be with them alway even to the end of the World Matth. 28.20 assisting them by Gifts protecting their Persons and blessing their Labours and that the true doctrine of Faith which St. Peter had professed and should both Preach and Pen by infallible Assistance should never fail to be Preached and Believed nor his personal Belief of it wholly fail but continue to eternal Life and that the Gates of Hell should not be able to prevail against his Church but that there should always be on Earth a faithful People professing the Gospel Truth and worshiping God in the Spirit But for any Infallibility that such Successors have in giving the meaning of Scripture we cannot find that Christ ever promised it much less to any particular Church or Pastor above all the rest And indeed some interpretations of Scripture which those have given us who pretend most to Infallibility are so evidently false and vain not to say prophane that they have thereby sufficiently convinced us of the Vanity of their own Pretensions And as for that appropriating Claim which is laid to it by the particular Church of Rome and those of its Communion there are many shrewd and violent Presumptions in prejudice of it As 1. That the Assertors of it are not yet agreed in what Ensuring-Office to lodge their Infallibility whether in the Bishop or in a General Council or both or in oral Tradition and it may well seem strange to us that those who as is now pretended did formerly make so much use of it should forget in what Cabinet they laid up so precious a Jewel or forget to deliver the Keys of it to ther Successors which alone if ever they had it may sufficiently shew how possible it is for a Tradition to miscarry 2. It is also vilely suspicious that they so keep up their Traditions in their Sleeve for either they cannot or will not ever give out a perfect Catalogue of their traditional Doctrines which as they tells us are kept up in reserve with wise Men perfectioribus in occulto tradita Which truly has an evil appearance as if they did purposely conceal the just number of them that so they might forge some upon occasion to serve a turn when there should be need of a new Article to promote the interest of that Church in some present juncture of affairs though we would willingly be so Charitable as to hope it is not so 3. But how shall we ever be able to overcome the so many Contradictions which have happened between Pope and Pope yea the Pope and himself between Council and Council pila minantia pilis we cannot see how such Contradictions can be consistent with a Spirit of Infallibility and in the mean while what a scandalous diversion was it to the World to see two or three Popes at once thundring out Anathema's and tilting their Infallibilities at one another and a Council at last putting them all in a
whereof they cannot give us a greater Certainty at least as great as this But besides all this every true Believer who hath a true saving Faith which is the Gift of God alone infused into him and wrought by the Operation of the Holy Ghost hath a further Certainty of what he believes For the Object to be believed being offered and brought home to his Faculties by the Preaching of the Word the Holy Ghost makes the Ordinances effectual for the working of Saving Faith in the Hearts of all who are ordained to Eternal Life by clearly shining upon the Truths proposed to them out of the Holy Scriptures in which respect it is called a Spirit of Revelation and by opening strengthning and raising their Understanding by a Special Donum intellectus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the owning and acknowledging of the Truth in which respect it is called a Spirit of Wisdom Eph. 1.17 by which they are enabled clearly to discern and fully to assent unto those Divine Rays and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherewith its self hath invested Divine Truth in the Scriptures by a kind of spiritual Sensation as the Eye doth unto Light and Colours or by a kind of Spiritual Intelligentia whereby it assents unto this Object as a First Principle in Credendis un-induced by any preceding Process of Ratiocination which is a Fides divina Principiorum And from it will be produced a Divine Faith to the Conclusion which may be inferred from it that so much of the Holy Scripture is the Word of God. Much after the same way by which those to whom the Word of God was immediately revealed were assured of its being the very Word of God and not any illusion which was offered to them But as the Matter there was new and to be by them offered to the Faith of others there were added miraculous Works of a Divine Power to accompany the Revelation into the World which might give Assurance that the Words because the Works did proceed from God and this Divine Working was to be observable by others to whom those Messengers were sent whereunto their own Senses might give Testimony of the Works done and their Reason That they must needs proceed from a supernatural Cause But now the Conviction here being but for the Person of the Believer in order only to his particular Salvation both the Illumination of the Mind Illustration of the Object and the powerful Workings which are here upon the Conscience accompanying it are all transacted within the Precincts of the Soul and intended no further only as they may be reported by him unto others and then they will have the force of an human Testimony of what has passed within himself And this cannot be called a private Spirit for it is the same Holy Spirit which opens the Hearts of all who receive the Word by a divine Supernatural Faith necessarily required for their Salvation and it works this Conviction and Assent not immediately at least ordinarily but by the means of that same word which it had before revealed by others for the common good of the Church and the common Salvation of all of them that believe Such an assurance as this is cannot be wrought but by God himself and therefore it is Supernatural Faith. And to shew that this is no singular Opinion but the common Doctrine owned and taught by the Learned of both Communions I shall mention only two Testimonies of each one Aquinas secunda secundae Qu. 8. Art. 4. in Corpore speaking of the donum intellectus saith that it illustrates the Mind of a Man enabling it to know a certain supernatural Truth His words are illustrat mentem hominis ut cognoscat veritatem quandam supernaturalem And in the same place ad tertium he saith of the same special gift of Understanding that it is never wanting unto Holy Men in things necessary to Salvation Nunquam se subtrahit sanctis circa ea quae sunt necessaria ad salutem The other is that of Archbishop Lawd in his Conference with Mr. Fisher the Jesuite where Paragraph 16. he hath these Words But if by Faith they mean the Habit or Act of divine infused Faith by which Vertue they do believe the credible Object and thing to be believed then their Speech is true and confessed by all Divines of all sorts For Faith is the Gift of God of God alone and an infused Habit in respect whereof the Soul is meerly recipient And therefore the sole Infuser the Holy Ghost must not be excluded from that work which none can do but He. For the Holy Ghost as he first dictated the Scripture to the Apostles so did he not leave the Church in general nor the true Members of it in particular without Grace to believe what himself had revealed and made credible So that Faith as it is taken for the vertue of Faith whether it be of this or any other Article though it receive a kind of Preparation or occasion of Beginning from the Testimony of the Church as it proposeth and induceth to the Faith yet it ends in God revealing within and teaching within that which the Church Preached without For till the Spirit of God move the Heart of Man he cannot Believe be the Object never so credible Thus far he and to the same purpose he produces St. Augustine Aquinas Canus and Stapleton And this is truly a Divine Faith not only as it is given to a Divine Testimony as the Object and as induced by a Divine Testimony as the Medium or motive of Assent but also as it is infused into the Soul by God as the Author and Giver of it and it cannot be but that the Special Providence of God that guides Men unto Salvation should concern it self to bring all such without fail to the knowledge and Belief and such knowledge and Belief of all those Truths without the Knowledge and Belief whereof he hath determined not to save them But as for any other Men they do never savingly believe And as to other Matters the same special Providence will certainly give them such Assurance of them as he shall think needful for his own Glory and Service and for their Obedience Comfort and Salvation who dispenseth to all Men freely such Measures of Gifts and Graces as it pleaseth him Phil. 3.15 And for the ordinary extent of such Assurance it may be further considered That the Assurance which a Man hath of necessary Truths will reach unto many more Truths which have consanguinity or necessary connexion with them as Causes or Consequents or else by vertue of the Penning and Context As we see an whole Board fastned by a Nail driven in one Place because of the continuity of the Parts and a Seal confirming an whole Indenture though affixed but to one part of the Parchment And thus a Testimony of the Holy Scripture concerning some particular part of it self being the Word of God will take in very many others Thus have we considered
from thence returning to recover as much as we can of that which we laid aside to try the Experiment And lastly for the new Demonstrations which some have lately advanced to prove the infallibility of Oral Tradition from the impossibility of its miscarrying and that what is this day declared for Apostolical Doctrine must needs have been always so declared because it cannot be imagined that those who delivered it one day for such should have forgotten what they had heard but the day before or that they would report that to others which they had not heard themselves This I say doth require and needs more Charity and good nature in an Adversary than it is like to meet withal out of their own Communion and but rarely there And really the Demonstration is so extraordinary that did not we see it made use of by themselves we might rather have supposed it to have been hatched by the heat and sweat of some Man's Brain who was no well-wisher to the Doctrines which it is brought in favour of But however that be I am confident that seven Cities will hardly contend for the honour of his Birth who had the felicity to be the first Inventor and for our selves we shall desire to be well assured not only of the goodness and infallibility of their Memories and of their Honesty who all along delivered these things but also of their due attention to and right apprehension of the things which they heard And also that Men of so good Memories might not likewise have so good Inventions or at least some of them as to light upon some private opinions of their own which they might impart unto others and which might insensibly in tract of time be spread abroad and so far liked by the generality that for the very agreableness of them to their Minds and conveniences for their Interests they might be worthy to be ascribed either to some extraordinary Spirit in the Author if known or else to the Apostles themselves And this be spoken without any worse reflection upon their Memories or Fidelity which have been shewn to be a very insufficient enumeration of the possible yea and probable causes of a miscarriage in Oral Tradition But this demonstration has convinced Protestants of this at least that as far as this is confided in Demonstration at present runs very low in the Church of Rome And to keep our Country People from being overmuch convinced by it we shall need only to put them to read a leaf in Chaucer where they may perceive that our Language notwithstanding daily use and Tradition is so much altered from what it was three hundred Years ago that what was then ordinarily spoken is now hardly to be understood But wherever the Romanists shall at length agree to place this their Infallibility nay though every one of their Communion might have it who would but pretend to it let them make the best use of it they can for their own private assurance and comfort But if they will needs make it Argumentative to convince others of the Divine Authority of what they deliver we hope they will first prove to us such their Infallibility by clear promises in Scripture or testimonies from Scripture or else by universal Tradition of the Churches of Christ concerning it or else shew us some unquestionable works of divine Power wrought in Confirmation I say not of their Doctrines but of their own Infallibility in testifying that the Doctrines were taught by Christ and his Apostles which is pretended to have accompanied the Tradition through all Ages and therefore the Miracles must run parallel with it and accompany it in a constant Succession to be the Credential Letters of the successive deliverers and reporters to the Men of each particular Generation For it seems a very unreasonable thing for any Disputant to require such a Postulatum to be granted him by his Antagonist that whatsoever he shall say is not only true but infallibly true which is such a begging of the Question as shews how poorly he is provided to give Men a just satisfaction and is as much as to say He is resolved never to dispute about any thing which he proposes I will add no more but only this upon the whole Master That while the Romanists do offer us more Certainty for the Scriptures being the Word of God than we need They cannot perform to us so much Certainty for those unscriptural Doctrines as we do justly require and expect before we entertain them So prone are some Men to dream of Supererogating while in truth they fall shamefully short of doing their necessary Duty FINIS A Catalogue of some Books Printed for Henry Mortlack at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard A Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer by T. C. Wherein the true Grounds of Faith are cleared and the False discovered the Church of England vindicated from the Imputation of Schism and the most important particular Controversie between us and those of the Church of Rome throughly examined By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. and Dean of St. Paul's Folio The second Edition Origines Britannicae Or the Antiquity of the British Churches with a Preface concerning some pretended Antiquities relating to Britain in vindication of the Bishop of St. Asaph By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls Folio The Rule of Faith Or an Answer to the Treatise of Mr. J. S. Entituled Sure Footing c. By John Tillotson D. D. To which is adjoyned A reply to Mr. J. S.'s third Appendix c. By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Octavo A Letter to Mr. G giving a true Account of a late Conference at the D. of Pauls A second Letter to Mr. G. in answer to two Letters lately published concerning the Conference at the D. of Pauls Veteres Vindicati In an Expostulary Letter to Mr. Sclater of Putny upon his Consensus Veterum c. wherein the absurdity of his Method and the weakness of Reasons are shewn his false Aspersions upon the Church of England are wiped off and his Faith concerning the Eucharist proved to be that of the Primitive Church Together with Animadversions on Dean Boileu's French translation of and Remarks upon Bertram An Answer to the Compiler of Nubes Testium Wherein is shewn That Antiquity in relation to the Points in Controversie set down by him did not for the first five hundred Years Believe Teach and Practice as the Church of Rome doth at present Believe Teach and Practice together with a Vindication of Veteres Vindicati from the late weak and dis-ingenuous Attempts of the Author of Transubstantion defended by the Author of the Answer to Mr. Sclater of Putney A Letter to Father Lewis Sabran Jesuit in answer to his Letter to a Peer of the Church of England wherein the Postscript to the Answer to the Nubes Testium is vindicated and Father Sabran's Mistakes farther discovered A second Letter to Father Lewis Sabran Jesuite in answer to his Reply A Vindication of the Principles of the Author of the Answer to the Compiler of Nubes Testium in Answer to a late pretended Letter from a Dissenter to the Divines of the Church of England Scripture and Tradition compared in a Sermon Preached at Guild-Hall Chappel Nov. 27. 1687. By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls the second Edition A discourse concerning the Nature and Grounds of the Certainty of Faith in Answer to J. S. his Catholick Letters by Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St Pauls The Council of Trent examined and disproved by Catholick Tradition in the main Points in Controversie between us and the Church of Rome with a particular Account of the Times and Occasions of introducing them Part I. To which a Preface is prefixed concerning the true Sense of the Council of Trent and the Notion of Transubstantiation By Ed. Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls
apart Now we assent unto all the Articles of our Faith by a Divine Faith and this Faith is firm and certain subjective But the Romanists pretend to give an infallible subjective Certainty of them and so by out-bidding us invite Men over into their Communion And it is to be considered whether our subjective Certainty be sufficient for saving Faith or an infallible subjective Certainty be required to it As for our parts we do not at all doubt but that God will infallibly in the event bring all his Elect unto true Faith and by it unto Salvation though he do not make them all infallibly perswaded of it in this Life A Subjective Certainty of what we believe is sufficient for adhering unto Jesus Christ and Obedience the Fruit thereof and for our own Comfort and therefore to bring us to Salvation without being infallibly certain Subjective of all the things which we do believe And one cannot readily give an account why any Men should so covet to be infallibly certain of their Belief and yet in the mean while take up and content themselves with a conjectural Certainty or certainty of Hope only concerning their own Salvation unless it were because it is the Interest of some Men to have others fully perswaded of their Doctrines of Purgatory Superogation Infallibility c. that so they may lead them by a blind Belief and Obedience to what they please but to keep them in the mean while uncertain of their Salvation that they may the more willingly take off their Masses Merits and Pardons and such like Commodities in barter for their Earthly Gold and Silver But let us come now to consider the first Proposition and how we are assured of it which is That the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God revealed by Him and committed to Writing by the infallible Guidance of the Holy-Ghost and contain the Doctrine of Christ and of his Holy Prophets and Apostles And that we may take our Rise a little backward That there is a God and he infallible in Knowledge and Veracity and that he Created Man after his own Image are Truths which the World hath been so long in quiet Possession of that I think I may take them for granted at least for the present and then it is a thing most agreeable to the Wisdom Goodness and Justice of God to believe that seeing God doth expect that Man should know worship and obey him according as Man's dependence on him and the Preparations which he hath laid in for it in the Fabrick and Furniture of his Nature do require and it seems necessary that he should have made some sufficient Promulgation of his Will and Pleasure unto Man as a perfect and certain Rule of his Faith and Practice according to which he may take an account of him hereafter For which purpose the natural Reason of Man in this corrupt Estate is not a sufficient Rule as woful Experience teacheth and therefore it was necessary that God should make some further Revelation of his Mind unto us to clear up and correct our natural Notions and to discover what further he doth require us to believe and do in order to Salvation And for the certainty of such Rule it is very consentaneous to the Wisdom of God in this shortness of Man's Life and multitude of the Persons concerned to commit such Rule to Writing rather than to intrust it to the conveyance of oral Tradition which all just and wise Law-givers have found it necessary to decline But however a revealed Rule there must be and there is nothing in the World which can with any Reason or Probability lay claim to it but only the Holy Scriptures and this they do accordingly For we often find them challenging to themselves this Prerogative Thus saith the Lord and I the Lord have spoken it Jesus answered and said and he taught the People saying and all Scripture is given by divine Inspiration Holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost For tho' all the Books of Scripture were not then written when the Apostles wrote that yet all the necessary Articles of Faith were and many more Which claim had it not been a true one it would certainly have been the greatest Forgery Usurpation and Blasphemy against God himself that is Imaginable and then we might have rationally expected that the great and good God would have been so Jealous of his own Honour and Man's Salvation as in all this time by some signal Act of his Providence to disown it and discover the Imposture But since he hath not done any such thing but on the contrary hath made it his Work by his wonderful Providence to maintain and preserve it for so many Hundreds of Years and accompanied the Preaching of it for the Conversion of Souls unto himself and the Reformation of the World of Mankind What else can be thought but that he thereby owns it to be his Certainly such a Proof as this concerning any Man's Book would be a violent Presumption that he were the true Author of it and he would be thought a very unreasonable Man who should but call it into question But we have greater Certainty than this for the Matters contained in the Holy Scriptures I mean the Heavenliness of the Matter the Majesty of the Stile the Harmony of the Parts the Consent of the several Writers the design of the whole to lay Man low and to advance God's Glory in Man's Salvation These and such like Beams of divine Light are so agreeable to the Notion of God written in our Hearts that both of them do plainly appear to have been written by the same Finger of God and the one to confirm explain and perfect the other Which Heavenly Characters and claim have been owned and admitted and the certainty of the Holy Scriptures being the Word of God revealed by him and penned by the infallible direction of the Holy Ghost been thereupon believed and attested by all the Churches of Christ in all Ages notwithstanding other differences that were and are among them unanimoully by so many wise holy and learned Men in a matter which was of infinite concernment to them to be well assured of and wherein they could neither have any design nor opportunity of combining together for the deceiving of others Now this unanimous Testimony of the Church although it be but a humane Testimony and not infallible yet being corroborated by the aforesaid Considerations it is sufficient to give any reasonable Man a satisfaction and an assurance that the Holy Scriptures were revealed by God and penned by his infallible Guidance as great as any other matter of Fact and this is such can at this distance by humane testimony be capable of yea and a far greater For there is no Effect wrought by any Man that can verge forth so many Rays from the nature of the Act or thing done pointing at and singling out its Cause and owning its Original but that it
might have been done by some other Man So that I might fold up what hath been said into this form of Argument That which pretending to be revealed by God and penned by his Assistance hath been owned by his special Providence and which having manifest Characters of of Divinity shining in it hath been owned believed and attested by all the Churches of Christ in all Ages as the Word of God revealed by him and penned by the infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost and containing the Doctrine of Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles That is the Word of God revealed by him and penned by the infallible Guidance of the Holy Ghost and doth contain the Doctrine of Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles But the Holy Scripture pretending to be revealed by God and penned by his Assistance hath been owned by his special Providence and having manifest Characters of Divinity shining in it hath been owned believed and attested by all the Churches of Christ in all Ages as the Word of God revealed by him penned by the infallible Guidance of the Holy Ghost and containing in it the Doctrine of Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles Therefore the Holy Scripture is the Word of God revealed by him and penned by the infaillible guidance of the Holy-Ghost and doth contain in it the Doctrine of Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles And if all Men would be brought to have such a certainty as these Arguments are in themselves apt to produce in well disposed Minds they must needs think themselves under the highest obligations to provide for the Salvation of their Souls by following the Directions prescribed in the Holy Scriptures in order thereunto And for the number of Canonical Books in Scripture we have the like uniform Testimony of the Churches of Christ in all Ages ever since the Epistle to the Hebrews was received by the Latin Church and the Apocalypse by the Greek Church Which two Books do not add any Article of Faith necessary to Salvation which was not contained in those other Books which were before that time universally received But every faithful Soul hath a far greater Certainty of the Holy Scriptures being the word of God than hath been hitherto mentioned which I shall shew when I have considered the second Proposition which is this That all the Articles of Faith which we Protestants do believe and profess are recorded in the Holy Scriptures as taught by Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles and there contained either in express Words or in Principle from which they may be firmly deduced and concluded Now having such an assurance as I have shewn above that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God we have built the Articles of our Faith upon this Rock and shall be ready to receive any more which we can be convinced to be contained in it but no other till we have good assurance that they have been revealed from God some other way For divine Faith must be founded on a divine Testimony But for the better clarifying of our Thoughts and Apprehensions in this our second Inquiry it will not be amiss for us to distinguish 1. Of the Assent given to those Articles which must be alway an Assent of divine Faith but a divine Faith is sometimes Explicit and express when we do actually apprehend and conceive of the Proposition which we assent unto whether it be expresly laid down in Scripture or we plainly see it to be deduced from what is there laid down But sometimes it is implicite and vertual only as when we assent unto some general Proposition actually apprehended though we do not distinctly consider the particulars included in it and in like manner when we assent unto some Principle laid down in Holy Scriptures though we do not actually apprehend those other Truths which have a necessary consequential Dependance on it we are said to believe these latter also implicitly and as it were in semine because we do expresly believe that which implies or infers them For instance when I assent unto this General God knows the Hearts of all Men I do implicitly assent unto this God knows my Heart though perhaps I may not have as yet particularly assented unto it And so when I assent unto this that Christ was true Man I do vertually assent unto this that Christ had a reasonable Soul because it may be firmly inferred from the former though I have not yet actually inferred it or assented to it 2. Of the necessity of such assent which is diverse according to the diverse Nature and import of the matters to be believed Some are necessary to be believed and done necessitate medii or else we shall never be Saved Some things are necessary necessitate Praecepti only that is without the Belief and doing whereof we sin For the first sort they are such things without the believing and doing whereof God has determined never to save a Man for both our Salvation and also the means and terms of it depend wholly upon God's Good-will and Pleasure and therefore we must take our Measures of such Necessity from God's revealed Will only And from that we learn that God has afforded greater Discoveries of things to be believed in some Ages than in others and given greater abilities and advantages to some Men than to others and acordingly doth require more things to be believed and more explicit Faith of them from some Men than from others unto which by his Providence he will bring them and not save them without such a belief of such Truths And as for the latter sort if they be necessary to be expresly and explicitly believed though we sin if we do not so believe them being sufficiently propounded unto us and we having abilities to apprehend them yet upon a sincere Repentance the Non-belief of them shall not prejudice our Salvation But in many things if we do but use our best endeavours to attain the knowledge of them having a readiness to believe and obey whatsoever we can get a particular Knowledge of to be the Will of God such an implicit Faith and readiness will be accepted for the Deed as if we had expresly believed them Now for such things are necessary to be explicitly believed by all Men with a Divine Faith or else they cannot be saved They are not many and are all contained in the Scriptures and may be clearly learned from thence by any ordinary Capacity The Ancients made account they were all comprised in the Apostles Creed the Lords Prayer and the ten Commandments and Bellarmine himself confesses that they are all contained in the Scriptures omnia sunt scripta quae sunt omnibus necessaria Lib. 4. De verbo Dei non scripto cap. 11. And that they are so will be evident to any one that will examine the Particulars And therefore they may be clearly learnt from thence and we may be as much assured of them as of any thing which we
Bag together It seems very unworthy of the whole Blessed Trinity to assert that the Holy Ghost that holy Dove which was wont to inhabit only those Candida tecta of pure and sanctified Souls and to move and inspire only Holy Men of God 2 Pet. 1.21 under the mosaick Dispensation should now in times of a more plentiful effusion of its Grace and Holiness under the Gospel take up its residence in and give out Oracles from such impure Sinks of Sin Error and Ignorance as many of those who have pretended to this infallible Guidance are confessed to have been That the Holy Spirit who is so apt to be grieved by the resisting of his Motions and even by corrupt Communication Eph. 4.29 should digest things so contrary to his holy Nature and not withdraw from such a Soul Or can it be imagined that the Holy Jesus would ever by his Promise oblige the Holy Spirit to such an Office And for those few others among them who were holy and good Men we must be well assured that they were true Bishops but whether they were duly elected and ordained or so much as Baptised their Doctrine of the Priests Intention being necessary to a Sacrament makes it impossible for us to know and for one that is not so qualified such Assistance is not claimed or pretended to And as for Councils being infallible the claim allows it only to General Councils Which certainly may best of any pretend unto it from the Promise as being supposed to be the universal Church represented and thereby also impowered to conclude all by its Determinations But was there ever a true General Council besides that at Jerusalem Acts 15. whose Canons are recorded in the Holy Scriptures of which we are well assured that it was infallibly guided in decreeing as St. Luke was also in recording of its Canons but that Council tells us nothing of a successive Infallibility in the Church of Rome nor any thing of these its Doctrines And for all other Councils be they what they will all their decisions were to be guided by the Holy Scriptures and not to be received if contrary thereunto as the best and most ancient of them have professed and practised and so did the Holy Fathers own concerning them and acknowledge concerning their own Writings never pretending to give or admit of any infallible rule of Faith distinct from the Holy Scriptures And if they did not pretend to it but rather disclaim it we have little reason to believe others who pretend to it for them but rather to suspect that they do therein but serve their own private Interest And if we do but well consider the Pretence we shall find it clogged with so many Uncertainties that it can never make its way through them to give any tolerable Security to particular Christians which yet it is now made use of for 1. For first a private Christian may be convinced of Truths delivered in the Holy Scriptures and firmly believe them and yield Obedience to the Commands therein contained and be assured that in so doing he shall not fail to attain Salvation and not only morally and rationally assured but also have a Divine supernatural Faith thereof wrought in his Heart by the Gift of God and the Operation of the Holy Ghost as was shewed before Now either of these Convictions or Beliefs do bind the Man not to let go those Truths which he hath so believed whereof Christ will one day take an Account how they have been kept by him as he did of the Churches Revel 3.8.10 And therefore he must neither through Carelessness lose them nor through Cowardise deny them through Treachery betray them nor through Apostacy renounce or disclaim them Wherefore I see not how one that hath so believed the Truth can resign up himself to others and compromise his Faith to believe whatsoever they shall offer to him Since thereby he would trust his eternal Concernments in the Hands of Men foregoing that sure hold which God had given him on the sure word of Prophecy to which he ought to bind himself as unto a Rock or Mast But were that Lawful for him to resign up his Faith to the Decisions of a general Council yet before he could do it prudentially it were fit he should have good Assurance given him 1. That the Council whose Canons are offered to his Faith was really a General Council and duly elected by all that were to be represented and concluded by it But if he must suspend till the Church of Rome be agreed on a just list of general Councils I believe he may wait till Dooms-day for at present they fluctuate between Eight and one and twenty as they do for the Notes of the Church between Costerus his three and Bozius his Hundred 2 That the major number of Suffrages were always for the truth and had the infallible Guidance on their side and therefore that they were never contradicted by the greater number in any other such general Council and that the Canons made were the judgment of that major Part and not of the lesser 3. That these Canons which are now offered to us are the genuine Canons which that major part did then make and subscribe unto and not since counterfeited or corrupted and that here are all For Bellarmine and Baronius we see make no scruple to cashier a Canon out of an admitted Council if it be not for their turn upon pretence that the Pope consented not to that Canon though he did to all the rest and also that a like divine Providence hath watched over these Canons as hath done over the Holy Scriptures And yet further if the Romanists think by this Argument to produce in Christians an infallible Assent of a Divine Faith unto these Doctrines then the Priest who brings them to Mens Ears had need not only to be infallible in receiving and delivering them but also give Evidence that he is so by some unquestionable Miracle And yet after all this unless the faculty of the hearer be infallibly guided to assent unto it he will not believe infallibly for we find that many of the Jews did not so much as believe although they heard our Saviours Doctrine and saw his mighty Works All which and many more that might be named are so great Incertainties that they are sufficient to deterr any prudent Christian from ever parting with his present Security for a new one which is thus attended tho it were Lawful for him to do it But how much better is it a for a well-grounded Christian to keep his sure Footing on the Terra firma of Holy Scriptures than to commit himself to so great Uncertainty Which seems to be an adventure not much unlike the Methods of the new Philosopher who would perswade us to strip our selves of all the prejudices of Faith Sense Reason yea and of our very first notions that we may the better swim unto that rocky Truth That we have a Being and