that great Benefit of the Remission of our Sins in the Blood of Christ and thereby of our Reconciliation to God so in the Answer mentioned before is contained that singular Benefit of perfecting our Sanctification by the nourishing and corroborating our inward man by eating or partaking of the Spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of our Saviour which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper Verily that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly in counterdistinction to Typically or Symbolically the Bread and Wine being but Types or Symbols of this Touching which in the Answer to the Question What are the Benefits whereof we are made partakers thereby it is said The strengthening and refreshing our Souls by the Body and Blood of Christ as our Bodies are by the Bread and Wine viz. which are but Types of the true spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of Christ but they have a very handsome Analogy the one to the other But we proceed to the following words And indeed that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reverâ or really not as one scoptically would make us to profess that this real participation of the Body and Blood of Christ has no reality any where but in our phancy which we call Faith To which sense the Translator of the peaceable method for the re-uniting Protestants and Catholicks speaks in his Preface to his Translation To which exception this Notion of the Primitive Fathers according to which our Communion-Service is framed and our Homilies allude to and we so much insist upon is not lyable By the Faithful and that only by them which Body and Blood the Faithful do not receive by champing it with their Teeth and swallowing it down their Throat But by a fervid and living devotional Faith more than ordinarily kindled at the Celebrating the Holy Eucharist they draw this Divine and Celestial Food the true Manna from Heaven into their Hearts whereby their inward Man is fed and strengthened and nourished up to Eternal Life and so the New Birth getting growth daily arrives at last to the due measure of the stature of Christ. 6. This is the Priviledge of the faithful Receiver But for those that are devoid of this true and living Faith though the Divine Body and Blood of Christ is every where present to the faithful yet they who are unregenerate and consequently devoid of the Divine Life are capable of no union therewith nor of any growth or strength therefrom But it is like the light shining into a dead man's eye of which there is no vital effect But for those who are regenerate and consequently have a real hunger and thirst after the Righteousness of God though the great Feast upon this Heavenly Food is more especially and copiosely injoyed in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist yet they may in some good measure draw it in day by day by Faith and Devotion as without the Presence of the Bread and Wine we may at any time devotionally think of the Sacrifice of the Death of our Saviour But certainly this solemn Institution of Celebrating his last Supper being particularly and earnestly injoyn'd us by Christ if we conscientiously observe the same it will have a more than ordinary efficacy in us for the ends it was appointed 7. Sixthly and lastly as those words of the Catechism the Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received c. have considered in themselves a very easie and natural sense so explained as we have according to the Analogy of the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers and our Church's Homilies that allude to them explained them so do they not at all clash with those words of the Rubrick affixed at the end of the Communion-Service where it is affirmed That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remains still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christ's Natural Body to be at one time in more places than one There is I say in this no contradiction to what occcurs in the Catechism which affirms that there is a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lord's Supper though here a Real Presence is denyed of the natural Body of Christ. But it is to be considered that this Affirmation and Negation is not of the same Body of Christ and therefore can be no contradiction and further to be observed how the very Rubrick suggests to us this distinction of the Natural Body of Christ which is appropriated to his particular Soul and which hung on the Cross and was Crucified and his Divine or Spiritual Body the Body of the Essential Life or Spirit of the Eternal Logos and therefore rightly termed the Body of the Logos incarnate or of Christ. And therefore when passages of the Ancient Fathers in the Primitive Times before the degeneracy of the Church came in may some of them favour a Real Absence other a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ according as different places of the Scripture might occur to their minds touching this matter the controversy might well be composed by distinguishing betwixt the Natural Body of Christ and his Divine or Spiritual Body According to the former whereof is the Real Absence according to the latter the Real Presence of Christ's Body and Blood to be received by the Faithful in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist CHAP. VIII 1. Monsieur Maimbourg so cunning and cautious as not to attempt to bring the Protestants to Transubstantiation by their common consent in the Real Presence but by a more general Maxime which he says we are all agreed in 2. The aforesaid Maxime with the Explication thereof 3. Six Supposals surmiz'd for the strengthening this Engine for the pulling the Protestants into the belief of Transubstantiation 4. A Counter-Engine consisting of sixteen common Notions in which not only the Romanists and we but all mankind are agreed in 5. An Examination of the strength of Monsieur Maimbourg's Engine by recurring upon occasion to these Common Notions The first Prop examined viz. the Churches Infallibility by assistance of the Spirit and discovered to be weak from the Dissention of Churches in matters of Faith in his sense 6. From the promise of the Spirit being conditional 7. And from the Predictions in the Prophetical Writings of a general Degeneracy of the Church 8. The Examination of the second Prop that would have Transubstantiation believed upon the Synodical decision of a fallible Church 9. The Examination of the third Prop that would have the Synodical decision pass into an Article of Faith 10. The fourth Prop examined by defining truly what
in a salvable condition without this Decision as Monsieur Maimbourg confesses himself Or that the Holy Ghost will assist such Assemblies as are worldly and carnally minded and are called to conclude for the worldly Advantage and Interest of a worldly Polity who for the upholding and increasing their Temporal Empire whereby they Lord it over the World and ride on the necks of Kings and Princes call themselves Spiritual Certainly when all Christian Truth tends to real and indispensable Holiness if mankind were not left to the liberty of their own Will but Christ would have them so infallibly wise he would all along have prepared them for it by making them unexceptionably Holy that they might become wise in his own Way and Method 7. And lastly There being Predictions in Daniel and the Apocalpyse of an Antichristian State in the Church to come in which there will be such a general Apostasie from the Apostolick Purity even according to their own Interpreters I demand what assurance we have that these Times came not in a very great measure upon the Church some hundreds of Years before Transubstantiation was concluded on by the Roman Church which therefore must much invalidate the pretence of the Infallibility of any such Councils And our Church of England as all know in her Homilies whether by inspiration or by mere solid Reason and Judgement refers the vision of the seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalypse to the Church of Rome And I hope to any unprejudiced Reader that has leisure to examine things I have even demonstratively made out that truth in my Exposition of the Apocalypse and most punctually and distinctly of all in my Ioint-Exposition of the thirteenth and seventeenth Chapters thereof Synops. Prophet Book 1. Chap. 11 12 13 c. with the preparatory Chapters thereto Let any one read them that please and in the due fear of God consider them Wherefore to conclude touching this first Prop of his general Maxim whereby he would insinuate that Synods to whose definitive Sentence he would have us to stand are assisted by the Holy Ghost it does not only not underprop but undermine his grand Maxim Forasmuch as we have no assurance that those Roman Councils which have concluded for Transubstantiation were assisted by the Holy Ghost but rather quite contrary 8. The second Prop is That whether a Synod be or be not assisted by the Holy Ghost we are to stand to their determination If the Synod be not assisted by the Holy Ghost then they are fallible and may be in the wrong so that the sense is whether the Synod determine right or wrong yet we are to stand to their determination Which as odly as it sounds yet in some sober sense I must confess ingenuously for ought I know may be true that is in such things as are really disputable and which for no sinister base design but merely for the peace of the Church and Her Edification it has been thought fit to make a Synodical Decision of the Controversie But is this colour enough for the Church of Rome's Determination to be stood to Of making the Bread in the Sacrament to be transubstantiated into the very Body of Christ that hung on the Cross at Ierusalem and has ever since his Ascension been in Heaven by the Priest's saying over it This is my Body the Bread still remaining Bread to all outward appearance as before so that Christ is fain to be at the expence of a perpetual Miracle to make the transubstantiated Bread look like Bread still though it be really the Body of Christ that hung on the Cross at Ierusalem Which as I have noted above is against his Wisdom and Goodness in that if Transubstantiation be a true Article of the Christian Faith this is the most effectual way imaginable to make men if left to their own free thought to mis-believe it however force and cruelty might constrain them to profess it And so it is against his Goodness to expose so great a part of his Church to such bloody Persecutions as this Article has occasioned in the Christian World That Christ should do a perpetual Miracle not that will confirm mens Faith but subvert it not to edifie his Church but distract it and lay all in confusion and blood Let any one consider how likely this is to be This therefore could never be a point bonâ fide disputable but to such as were horribly hoodwinkt with prejudice and blinded with a desire of having a thing concluded by the Church which was of such unspeakable advantage as they then thought for the magnifying the Priest-hood though I believe nothing will turn more to their Disrepute and shame in the conclusion Now I dare appeal to Monsieur Maimbourg himself whether we are to stand to the Determination of a fallible Synod in a Point that besides what I have already hinted contradicts all those Common Notions which I have above recited and in which all mankind are agreed And such is this point of Transubstantiation 9. Now for the third Prop That whatever Matters of Opinion as they are for the present but such are decided by such a Synod pass into Articles of Faith this Prop is also really a puller down of this general Maxim For by an Article of Faith must be meant such an Article as after the synodical Decision is necessary to be believed by all Parties upon pain of Damnation But to this I answer first No Falshood can be an Article of Faith nor can what is in it self false by all the declaring in the World that it is true become true by the first Common Notion And secondly Since the whole Church before in which arose the Controversie were in a salvable Condition how Unchristian an act must this be to put so many thousand Souls in the State of Damnation by so unnecessary nay mischievous a synodical Decision And therefore what pretence can there be to the Assistance of the Holy Ghost which Christ has promised his Church when they machinate that which so manifestly tends according as the Synod acknowledges to the Damnation of such a multitude of Souls which before the Decision were in a salvable Condition and also to most barbarous Persecutions of their Persons as it is notoriously known in History touching Transubstantiation 10. The fourth Prop charges those with the guilt of Schism and Heresie that will not close with the above-said Synodical Decisions be they what they will In which matter we cannot judge whether the charge be right unless we first understand what is truly and properly Heresie and Schism The former whereof I demand what it can be but a dissent from the Catholick Church even in those things in it that are Apostolical For whatever National Church is found to have all and nothing else in it but what is Apostolical or not inconsistent with the Apostolical Doctrine and Practice is most assuredly one part of that one Catholick and Apostolick Church which we profess our
those Decisions or any of like nature which may concern the Iustifiableness of our Christian Worship and indispensable way of Salvation the Church has Authority as she ever had in such Controversies to ratifie such Articles of Faith but she is not said to have Authority to make every Synodical Decision an Article of Faith whether the nature thereof will bear it or no. Nay her Authority is excluded from inforcing any thing besides what is clearly enough contained in the Scripture as assuredly those points are above mentioned though with weak or cavilling men they have been made questionable to be believed for Necessity of Salvation Which is the proper Character of an Article of Faith according as the Preface to the Athanasian Creed intimates And Monsieur Maimbourg himself is so sensible of this main Truth that in the Explication of his general Maxime he acknowledges that the Church has no Autority to coin any New Articles of Faith but only to declare she has discovered them existent before in the Scriptures but not so clearly espi'd or discerned as by an assembled Synod 5. But certainly no Article of Faith that is to say no Truth necessary to Salvation can be said to be pre existent in the Scriptures and having lain hid to be discovered afterwards that is not discovered but by such forced Interpretations of the Text that are repugnant to Common Sense and Reason Is not this a Reproach to the Wisdom of God that he should inspire the Holy Penmen to set down Truth necessary to Salvation so obscurely that the meaning cannot be reached without doing violence to Common Sense and Reason and running counter to those previous Principles without which it is impossible to make sense of any writing whatever Or without interpreting one place of Scripture repugnantly to the plain sense of another Which this Article expresly forbids as unlawful So plain is it that our Church limits the Authority of a Synod to certain Rules agreed of on all hands against which they have no Authority to define any thing And plain places of Scripture is one Rule contrary to which it is not lawful to interpret any either pretendedly or really obscure place Nor can any place at all be plain without the admittance of those Proleptick Principles of rightly circumstantiated sense and common undeniable Notions essentially ingrafted in the mind of man whether they relate to Reason or Morality These both Synod and Contesters are supposed to be agreed on and therefore no Synodical Decision repugnant to these according to our Church in interpreting of Scripture if I rightly understand her ought to have Autority with it 6. But as for doctrinal Decisions such as concern the Justifiableness of the Christian Worship and are of Necessity to Salvation and such as although either weak or willful cavilling men may make questionable yet are clearly enough delivered in Scripture these questionless a Synod has Autority to determine as Articles of Faith And such as have not the like Clearness nor Necessity as also innocent and indifferent Rites and Ceremonies when the one and the other seem advantagious to the Church such Synodical Decisions may pass into Articles of Communion in that sense I have above explained And lastly As in that case of the Synod of Dort when the points controverted have on both sides that invincible Obscurity and Intricacy and there seems to be forcible Arguments for either conclusion What I humbly conceive is to be done in that case I have fully enough expressed already and therefore think it needless again to repeat 7. In the mean time I hope I have made it manifoldly apparent that Monsieur Maimbourg's general Maxime viz. That the Church in which are found the two Parties concerned has ever had the Power to determine all differences and to declare that as Matter of Faith which before there was no Obligation to believe And that we are bound to acquiesce in her Decisions under the penalty of being Schismaticks is not especially as he would have his Maxime understood agreed on by all Churches as well Protestant as Pontifician And that therefore this Snare or Net wherewith he would catch and carry Captive the Protestants into a Profession of the Infallibility of the Church in Synodical Decisions so that the Church must be first allow'd Infallible that we may glibly swallow down whatsoever she decides even Transubstantiation it self with all other Errours of the Church of Rome this Net or Snare I hope I have sufficiently broken And I will only note by the bye how the subtilest Romanists declining the Merits of the Cause labour Tooth and Nail to establish the absolute Infallibility of their Church But our Saviour tells us By the fruit you shall know them Wherefore any man or Company of men that profess themselves infallible their Infallibility must be examined by their Doctrines which if they be plainly any one of them false their boast of Infallibility most certainly is not true 8. But forasmuch as an Appeal to a Maxime pretended to be agreed upon by both sides both Papists and Protestants is made use of with so much Wit and Artifice to ingage the Protestants to imbrace Transubstantiation and the rest of the Romish Errours I hope Monsieur Maimbourg will not take it amiss if I civilly meet him again in his own Way and show him by an Appeal not only to one Maxime but above a dozen at least of Common Notions which I did above recite and in which both Papists and Protestants and all mankind are agreed that it may demonstratively be made evident that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is grosly false For that which in it self is false no declaring or saying it is true though by the vote of an entire Synod can make it true by the first of the Common Notions above-mentioned Chap. 8. Sect. 4. Secondly Whatever is plainly repugnant to what is true is certainly false and consequently can be no due Article of a true Faith or Religion by the second and third Common Notions And therefore Transubstantiation cannot pass into an Article of Faith by the Authority of any Synod whatever Thirdly Now that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false is manifest from the assurance of our Senses rightly circumstantiated To which our Saviour Christ appeals who is wiser than all the Synods that ever were or will be as was observed in Common Notion the fourth But our Senses assure us it is Bread still not the Body of Christ. Fourthly If Transubstantiation be true an Essence or Being that is one remaining still one may be divided or separated from it self which is repugnant to the fifth Common Notion Fifthly If Transubstantiation be true the whole is not bigger than the part nor the part less than the whole which contradicts the sixth Common Notion Sixthly If Transubstantiation be true the parts in a Division do not only agree with the whole but agree one with another and are indeed absolutely the same for divide a
Heresy and Schism is 11. The fifth Prop further explained by Mounsieur Maimbourg in two Propositions 12. An Answer to the two Propositions 1. I HAVE I hope by this time sufficiently proposed and confirmed both the Truth and Usefulness of the distinction of the Body and Blood of Christ which occurs in the Primitive Fathers into Natural and Spiritual or Divine From whence it may plainly appear to any pious and uprejudiced Reader that the Inference of a Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the Real Body and Blood of Christ from a Real Presence of them in the Lord's Supper is very weak and invalid Which Monsieur Maimbourg as well as the Bishop of Meaux formerly Bishop of Condom though he take special notice of in his Peaceable Method viz. that this Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper is generally acknowledged by the Protestants Chap. 3. whom he will have to hold That the Sacrament is not a Figure or empty Sign without Efficacy but they do maintain saith he that it does communicate unto us in a most real and effectual Manner the Body of Jesus Christ to be the Food of our Souls And he will have Monsieur Claud himself acknowledge that before this Novelty of Transubstantiation was introduced every one believed that Iesus Christ is present in the Sacrament that his Body and Blood are there truly received by the faithful yet he is so wise and cautious as not to trust to the strength of this Engine for the pulling us back into a belief and profession of that incredible Hypothesis but according to the Fineness of his wit has spread a more large Net to catch us in and carry us captive not only into this gross Errour of Transubstantiation but into all other Errours which the Church of Rome has broached or may hereafter broach and propose as Articles of Faith And therefore it is a point worth our closest consideration 2. His general Maxim is this That that Church in which are found two Parties concerned has ever had the power to determine all differences and to declare that as matter of Faith which before there was no obligation to believe and that we are bound to acquiesce in her Decisions under Penalty of being Schismaticks By the Church her declaring as matter of Faith which seems to sound so harshly he does not mean That the Church has Authority to frame New Articles of Faith pag. 17. but that She is to act according to a Rule which is Holy Scripture and Tradition truly and purely Apostolical from which we have also received the Holy Scripture it self And page 18. The Church never did make and undoubtedly never will make any New Articles of Faith since it is not in her power to define any thing but according to the Word of God which she is always to consult with as with her Oracle and the Rule she is bound to follow His meaning therefore must be this That besides those plain and Universally known Articles of the Christian Faith and acknowledged from the very beginning of Christianity such as are comprised in the Apostles Creed there have been and may be other Articles of Faith more obscurely and uncertainly delivered in Scripture which until the Church in a lawful Synod or Council has determined the sense of those places of Scripture that appertain to the Controversie men have no obligation to believe but go for the present for but uncertain and indifferent Opinions But when once the true Church in which the Parties differing in Opinion are and her lawful Representative assisted by the Holy Ghost as is affirmed Chap. 2. pag. 28. a Canonical Assembly which alone has full Power and Sovereign Authority to say juridically Chap. 4. pag. 27. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us has given definitive Sentence touching the Controversie that which before was but an indifferent Opinion becomes now Matter of Faith and is to be received as an Article of Faith by the Dissenting Party upon penalty of being Schismaticks and Hereticks This I conceive to be his precise meaning But the great Artifice of all is That he will have this meaning of his to be the general Opinion also of the Protestant Churches Who can says he page 27. question but the Protestant Churches of England France Germany and Switzerland and the Low Countries do hold as a Fundamental Maxim that in such Controversies as do arise concerning Doctrine in Matters of Religion the true Church of which the Dissenting Parties are Members has full and sovereign power to declare according to the Word of God what is of Faith and that there is an Obligation of standing to her Decrees under pain of being Schismaticks And page 35. I demand saith he nothing more for the present I will content my self with what themselves do grant That that Church of which the Parties contesting are Members be she fallible or infallible has full power to decide Differences and her Decrees do oblige under the Penalty of being Schismaticks 3. Now from this general Maxim granted as he conceives on both sides and which he does chiefly endeavour to prove from the carriage of the Synod of Dort toward the Arminians all which things to repeat here would be too moliminous and inconsistent with the Brevity I intend a full Answer to Monsieur Maimbourg's Method requiring some more able Pen he declining I say all dispute touching the Merit of the Cause the point of Transubstantiation he would hence draw us in to the imbracing that Doctrine merely because we were once of that Church that has Synodically determined for it and consequently reconcile us to all the rest of the Errours of the Church of Rome But that we may not so easily be taken in this Net or pulled in by this Engine we will first examine the Supposals that support the strength of it or of which it does consist The first and chiefest whereof is That such Synods to whose definitive sentence he would have us stand are assisted by the Holy Ghost The second That whether they be or be not we are to stand to their determination The third Whatever Matters of Opinion as they are for the present but such are decided by such a Synod pass into Articles of Faith The fourth That those that will not close with these Decisions be they what they will they are guilty of Schism as being bound to assent The fifth That these decisive Synods or Assemblies are to decide according to the Rule of the Word of God The sixth and last That both the Protestants and Papists are agreed in all these 4. Now before I examine these Particulars these Supposals Parts or Props of his general Maxim by which he would draw the Protestants again into the Church of Rome and make them embrace Transubstantiation and all other Superstitions and Errours which they have Synodically decided for matters of Faith I will following the very method of this shrewd Writer
Articles of Faith not proved to be the Opinion of the Protestant Churches 4. That our English Church is against it largely proved out of her Articles 5. No Article of Faith pre-existent in Scripture that cannot be fetched thence but by interpreting against the Proleptick Principles of rightly circumstantiated Sense and Common Notions ingrafted essentially in the Humane Understanding 6. Of Decision of points necessary to Salvation and to the justifying the Christian Worship and those that are less necessary and less clear and lastly those that have an Insuperable Difficulty on both sides 7. Monsieur Maimbourg's general Maxime that it is not agreed in by the Protestant Churches abundantly demonstrated with a Note of the Subtilty of the Romanists in declining the Dispute of the particular merits of their Cause and making it their business to perswade first that their Church is Infallible 8. A Meeting with Monsieur Maimbourg once more in his own Method and thereby demonstrating that Transubstantiation is grosly false and consequently the Church of Rome fallible with an hint of a true peaceable Method of reconciling Papists and Protestants 1. WHerefore it seems needful to take notice of this distinction of the Doctrinal Decisions of Synods that some pass into or rather are of the nature of the Articles of Faith the knowledge of them being necessary to keep us from Sin and Damnation And such were the Doctrinal Decisions of those ancient Primitive Councils who out of Scripture plainly declared the truth of the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the God-head without which the Church would be involved in gross Idolatry And therefore the Decisions of the Controversies did naturally pass into professed Articles of the Christian Faith and such as our Salvation depended on But to imagine that every Doctrinal Decision of a Synod passes into a proper Article of Faith without which there is no Salvation and that a Synod has power to make that an Article of Faith before which men were safe and sinless as to that point is to put it into the power of a Synod to damn God knows how many Myriads of men which Christ dyed for and had it not been for these curious or rather mischievous Decisions might have been saved than which what can be more prodigious 2. Whence we see plainly it is most necessary to make this distinction in Doctrinal Decisions of Synods that some may be Articles of Faith others only Articles of Communion that if any oppose or disparage the said Articles whether they be of the Clergy or Laity they make themselves obnoxious to Excommunication and if a Clergy-man does not subscribe to them he makes himself uncapable of Ecclesiastical Imployment This is all that Monsieur Maimbourg can squeeze out of all his Citations out of the story of the Synod of Dort so far as I can perceive or his Translator in his Preface and Appendix out of those he produces touching the Church of England 3. And that which his Translator in his Preface would make such a great business of viz This wise Kings answer to M r Knewstubs at the Conference at Hampton Court when he was asked How far an Ordinance of the Church was to bind men without impeachment of their Christian Liberty to which he said he would not argue that point with him but answer therein as Kings are wont to speak in Parliament Le Roy s'avisera And therefore I charge you never speak more to that point how far you are bound to obey when the Church has once ordained it I say nothing more can be collected out of this answer but that he modestly intimated his Opinion that he meant not that all Synodical Decisions passed into Articles of Faith but may be only Articles of Communion in the sense I have already explained And what I have already said if seriously and considerately applyed to what he produces in his Appendix will easily discover that they prove nothing more touching the Church of England than what we have already allowed to be her Doctrine touching the Authority of Synods But that a Synod without any limitation or appeal to certain Principles in which both the Synod and Parties contesting are all agreed in may by her bare immediate Authority give what sense she pleases on places of Scripture alledged in the Controversy and that her Decision passes into an Artiticle of Faith which the Parties cast are bound to assent to under the pain of becoming Hereticks and Schismaticks Nothing can be more contrary than this to the Declarations of the Church of England So far is it from truth That all the Protestant Churches are agreed in his grand Maxime above mentioned 4. Let the Church of England speak for her self Artic. 19. As the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch so also the Church of Rome has erred not only in their Living and Ceremonies but also in Matters of Faith And Article 21. General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometimes have erred even in things appertaining to God wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scriptures Here our Church plainly declares that forasmuch as a Council or Synod consists of fallible Persons they can determine nothing necessary to Salvation but what they can make out that it is clearly to any unprejudiced Eye contained in the Scripture not fetched out by weak and precarious Consequences or phanciful Surmises much less by a distorted Interpretation and repugnant to Common Sense and Reason which are necessarily supposed in the understanding of any Scripture or Writing whatsoever as I have intimated above And even that Article 20. which the Translator produces in his Preface in the behalf of Monsieur Maimbourg's grand Maxime do but produce the whole Article and it is plainly against it For the words are these The Church has power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Autority in Controversies of Faith and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another Wherefore although the Church be a Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same so beside the same ought it not to inforce any thing to be believed for Necessity of Salvation It is true the Church is here said to have Authority in Controversies of Faith As certainly if any should raise new Stirs in any National Church touching such points as the Antient Primitive Synods have concluded for in the behalf of the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the God-head pretending they have clearer demonstrations than ever yet were proposed against
propose not only one Maxime but several Maximes wherein both the Romanists and We and indeed all mankind are agreed in and which therefore I will instead of Maximes call Common Notions in allusion to those of Euclid And the first shall be this I. That which in it self is false no declaring or saying it is true can make it true II. Whatever is plainly repugnant to what is true is certainly false III. Whatever is false can be no due Article of a true Faith or Religion IV. The senses rightly circumstantiated are true Judges of their Object whether such an Object be Earth Air Fire or Water Body or Spirit and the like Besides that this is a Common Notion with all mankind the Incarnate Wisdom himself has given his suffrage for it in his arguing with S t Thomas Iohn 20. v. 27. Then saith he to Thomas Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing What is this but the appealing to the truth of sense by our Saviour himself And Luke 24. v. 29. Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self handle me and see for a spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see I have Here is an appeal both to Sense and Reason at once and that about the very Body of Christ touching which the great Controversie is raised V. An Essence or Being that is one so long as it remains so as it is distinct from others so it is undividable or inseparable from it self VI. The whole is bigger than the part and the part less than the whole VII In every Division though the parts agree with the whole yet they disagree amongst themselves So that the part A. is not the very part B. nor the part B. the very part C. nor can each part be truly and adequately the whole by the foregoing common Notion VIII The same Body cannot be actually a Cube and a Globe at once and there is the same reason of any other different Figures of a Body IX No Revelation the Revealing whereof or the manner of the Revealing whereof is repugnant to the Divine Attributes can be from God X. No Tradition of any such Revelation can be true for as much as the Revelation it self is impossible XI No interpretation of any Divine Revelation that is repugnant to rightly circumstantiated Sense and pure and unprejudiced Reason whether it be from a private or publick hand can be any Inspiration from God XII No Body can be bigger and less than it self at once XIII That Individual Body that is already nor ceaseth to be cannot be made while it is already existing XIV One and the same Body cannot be both present with it self and many thousand miles absent from it self at once XV. One and the same Body cannot be shut up in a Box and free to walk and run in the Fields and to ascend into the very Heavens at the same time XVI And lastly to omit many other such self-evident Truths or Common Notions it is impossible that a man should swallow his whole Body Head Feet Back Belly Arms and Thighs and Stomach it self through his Mouth down his Throat into his Stomach that is every whit of himself into one knows not what of himself less than a Mathematical point or nothing For if all be swallowed what is there left of the man for it to be swallowed into but a mere point or rather nothing 5. Certainly all the World as well Papists as Protestants as soon as they do but conceive the meaning of the Terms will assent to the Truth of these Propositions at the very first sight which therefore has made me call them Common Notions Let us now apply our selves to the use of them in the examining the strength of Monsieur Maimbourg's general Maxime wherein he will have the Papists and Protestants agreed The first Prop thereof is That the true Church is infallible by the promise made to her of being assisted by the Holy Ghost But here I demand whether this promise be made to the Universal Church or any Particular Church or Churches throughout all Ages That it is not made to the Universal Church throughout all Ages is plain in that the parts thereof have been and are still divided in several matters of Faith That no such promise is made to any Particular Church or Churches is plain from hence that these Churches are not named in any part of the Scripture which omission is incredible if there had been any such entailment of Infallibility upon any Particular Church or Churches But of all Churches I humbly conceive it is impossible it should be the Church of Rome unless it be possible that all those Common Notions which I have set down and in which all the World even the Church of Rome her self if they will speak their Consciences are agreed in be false which they must be if Transubstantiation be true And therefore let any man judge whether is themore likely viz. That Transubstantiation should be false or those Common Notions not true 6. Again How does it appear that this promise of the assistance of the Holy Ghost is not conditional Indeed Christ says Iohn 16. 13. When the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth viz. the same spirit that is promised chap. 14. v. 15 16 17. But the words of this pretended Charter of Infallibility are there set down more fully If you love me keep my commandments And I will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you for ever even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive The promise of the assistance of the Holy Ghost for the infallibly concluding what is true even from the words of this pretended Charter of Infallibility is conditional that is to say if they so love Christ as to keep his commandments and become not worldly and carnal for the World cannot receive this spirit of truth then this spirit which leadeth into all truth shall assist them Wherefore as many as Christ sends this infallible spirit to he first fits them for it by mortifying the spirit of the World in them and making them members of his truly Holy Church for the calling themselves Holy Church makes them never a jot the more Holy if they really be not so by the first common Notion And besides If the Words of this Charter of Infallibility had not been so express yet in common sense and reason this condition would necessarily have been understood Forasmuch as nothing can be more absurd than to imagine the Assistance of the Holy Ghost to be so cheap and trivial a thing as to be procured for the concluding Controversies arising or set on foot in the Church which are needless and frivolous or more for satisfying Curiosity than Edification and which tend to Division and tearing the Church violently into parts which was one before and
Belief of in our Creed And for the latter it can be nothing else but a separation from the Catholick Church or from any Church that is part thereof even then when she approves her self to be Catholick that is to say even then when she is Apostolick or though she be Apostolick and offers no opinions or usages but such as are conformable to the usages and Doctrines of Christ and his Apostles or have no repugnancy thereto To separate from the Church in such circumstances as these certainly is that great Crime of Schism but to separate from that part of the Church which imposes opinions and practices plainly repugnant to the Precepts of Christ and his Apostles this is no Schism but Union with the truly antient Catholick and Apostolick Church And the declaring it Schism does not nor can make it so by Common Notion the first And if it were Schism to separate from such a Church as propounds things repugnant to the Precepts of Christ and his Apostles the guilt of this Schism is not upon them that thus separate but upon those that impose such Anti-Apostolical matters 11. The fifth Prop That these decisive Synods or Assemblies are to decide according to the Rule of the Word of God the strength of this Prop he endeavours more fully to display pag. 34. and he calls upon the Brethren of the Reformed Churches to reflect seriously upon these two Propositions he sets down The first is That as the Word of God is infallible in it self so certainly the judgment of him who truly judges according to this Rule is also infallible And consequently they are obliged to believe That the Church when she judges according to this Rule or the Word of God does not only not err but that she also cannot err The second That they the Reformed are bound as well as we the Romanists to believe that the Church of God deciding Controversies of Faith does judge according to the true sense of the word of God Because upon the matter it is concerning this very sense that she gives judgment betwixt the Parties who give it a different sense and who are obliged in Conscience to submit to her judgment under pain of being Schismaticks and Hereticks as their Synod of Dort has positively declared 12. The first of these Propositions may pass for firm and sound provided that the meaning of her judging according to this rule is the giving the right and genuine sense thereof Of which she can neither assure her self nor any one else but by being assured of that Holiness Integrity and singleness of Heart in those of the Synod that makes them capable of the Assistance of the Holy Ghost and also that their Decision clashes not with those indeleble Notions in the Humane Soul that are previous Requisites for the understanding the meaning of not only the Holy Scriptures but of any writing whatever And unto which if they find any thing in the letter of the Sacred Writ repugnant they may be sure it is a Symbolical or Figurative Speech but in other writings that it is either a Figurative Speech or Nonsense He that has not this previous furniture or makes no use of it it is impossible he should prove a safe judgeof the sense of Scripture And if he runs Counter to what is certainly true it is evident his Interpretation is false by the second Common Notion and that he is not inspired by Common Notion the eleventh Touching the second Proposition I demand how any can be bound to stand to the judgment of any Synod if they decline the previous Requisites without which it is impossible to understand the right meaning of any writing whatsoever and whether their pretending to judge according to a Rule does not imply that there are some Common Principles in which all Parties are agreed in according to which though they cannot discern that the Synod has certainly defined right yet if the Synod run Counter to them they may be sure they have defined wrong touching the very sense controverted between the Parties Their professing they judge according to the Rule implies the Rule is in some measure known to all that are concerned Nor does it at all follow because the Object of their decision is the very sense controverted between the Parties that the Synod may give what judgment she will break all Laws of Grammar and Syntax in the expounding the Text much less contradict those Rules which are infinitely more Sacred and inviolable the Common Notions which God has imprinted essentially on the Humane Understanding If such a violence be used by any Interpreters of Scripture neither the Synod of Dort nor any Reformed Church has or will declare That under pain of being Schismaticks and Hereticks they are obliged in Conscience to submit to their determination CHAP. IX 1. The examination of the sixth Prop by demanding whether the Maxime Monsieur Maimbourg proproses is to be understood in the full sense without any Appeal to any common agreed on Principles of Grammar Rhetorick Logick and Morality 2. Instances of enormous Results from thence with a demand whether the Protestant Churches would allow of such absurd Synodical Decisions 3. That the Citations of History touching the Synod of Dort prove not that all Synodical Decisions pass into proper Articles of Faith with the Authors free judgment touching the Carriage of that Synod and of the Parties condemned thereby 4. His judgment countenanced from what is observed by Historians to be the sentiments of King James in the Conference at Hampton Court 1. AND yet the sixth and last Prop of the general Maxime implies as much which affirms That both the Protestants and Papists are agreed in all the five foregoing Supposals or to speak more compendiously in that his general Maxime That that Church in which are found the two Parties concerned has ever had the power to determine all differences and to declare that as matter of Faith which before there was no obligation to believe and that we are bound to aquiesce in their decisions under the penalty of being Schismaticks But I demand here of Monsieur Maimbourg whether he will have his Maxime understood in a full latitude of sense and that immediately without recourse to any Principles in which the Synod and the Parties are agreed and Counter to which if any determination be made it is null such as Grammatical Syntax and Lexicographical sense of Words and which are Laws infinitely more sacred and inviolable the Common Notions as I said before essentially imprinted on the Soul of man either of Truth or Morality whether without being bounded by these the Protestant Churches as well as the Pontifician are agreed that we are to stand to the Determination of a Synod under the penalty of being Schismaticks 2. As for example If a Synod should interpret Drink ye all of this of the Clergy only and declare it does not reach the Laity though the Apostles and Primitive Church understood it did If
consecrated Wafer into two viz. A. and B. this A. and B. are the same intire Individual Body of Christ according to this Doctrine which contradicts the seventh Common Notion Seventhly If the said Doctrine be true one and the same Body may be a Cube and a Globe at once have the figure of an Humane Body and of a Pyramid and Cylinder at the same time according as they shall mould the Consecrated Bread which is repugnant to the eighth Common Notion Eighthly Transubstantiation if it be any truth at all it is a Revealed Truth but no Revelation the Revealing whereof or the manner of Revealing is repugnant to the Divine Attributes can be from God by Common Notion the ninth but if this Doctrine of Transubstantiation were a Truth it seems not to sute with the Wisdom of God to reveal a Truth that seems so palpably to overthrow and thwart all the innate Principles of humane Understanding and the assurance of the rightly circumstantiated Senses to both which Christ himself appeals and without which we have no certainty of the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles And he hence exposes his Church to be befool'd by all the lucriferous fictions of a fallacious Priesthood And besides this the circumstances or manner of its first Revelation at the Lord's Supper as they would have it shows it cannot be for the Consecrated Bread retaining still the shape and all other sensible qualities of Bread without any change and that by a miraculous supporting them now not inherent in their proper subject Bread which is transubstantiated into that very Body that holds it in his hands or seems so to do I say as I have also intimated before to be thus at the expence of so vast a Miracle here at his last Supper and to repeat the same Miracle upon all the Consecrations of the Bread by the Priest which is the most effectual means to make all men Infidels as to the belief of Transubstantiation and to occasion thence such cruel and bloody Persecutions is apparently contrary to the Divine Wisdom and Goodness and therefore neither pretended Tradition nor fresh Interpretation of the inspired Text can make so gross a falshood true by the tenth and eleventh Common Notions Ninthly If Transubstantiation be true one and the same Body may be many thousand times bigger or less than it self at the same time forasmuch as the least Atom or particle of his Body or Transubstantiated Bread is his whole Body as well as the bigger lump according to this Doctrine which contradicts the twelfth Common Notion Tenthly If this Doctrine be true The same Individual Body still existing and having existed many Years may notwithstanding be made whiles it already exists which contradicts the thirteenth Common Notion Eleventhly If Transubstantiation be true one and the same Body may be present with it self and many thousands of miles absent from it self at once be shut up in a Box and free to walk in the Field and to ascend into Heaven at the same time contrary to the fourteenth and fifteenth Common Notions And lastly If this Doctrine be true a man may swallow his own Body whole Head Feet Back Belly Arms and Thighs and Stomach it self through his Mouth down his Throat into his Stomach that is to say every whit of himself into one knows not what of himself less than a Mathematical Point or nothing This Christ might have done and actually did if he did eat the Consecrated Bread with his Disciples which contradicts the sixteenth Common Notion Wherefore since in vertue of one single Maxim Monsieur Maimbourg supposing the Protestants as well as the Paepists agreeing therein though in that as I have show'd he is mistaken would draw in the Protestants to imbrace the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and other Ertors of the Roman Church I appeal to him how much more reasonable it is that he and as many as are of his perswasion should relinquish that Doctrine it contradicting so many Common Notions which not only all Papists and Protestants but indeed all the whole World are agreed in And hence clearly discerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church upon which this and other erroneous Doctrines are built such as Invocation of Saints Worshiping of Images and the like plainly to fail that they should bethink themselves what need there is to reform their Church from such gross errours and to pray to God to put it into the mind of their Governours so to do which would be a peaceable method indeed for the reuniting Protestants and Catholicks in matters of Faith and principally in the subject of the Holy Eucharist as the Title of his Method has it But to require an Union things standing as they are is to expect of us that we cease to be men to become Christians of a novel Mode unknown to the Primitive Church and under pretence of Faith to abjure the indeleble Principles of sound Reason those immutable Common Notions which the Eternal Logos has essentially ingrafted in our Souls and without which neither Certainty of Faith can consist nor any assured sense of either the Holy Scriptures or any Writing else be found out or understood Soli Deo Gloria