Covenant is grounded we cannot receive an Idolater though we do admit such as are in errours that produce no other effect but mistaken apprehensions and judgements It is unreasonable to say that if the Presence is acknowledged Adoration ought to follow for we will excommunicate none for a consequence were it never so well deduced so long as they hold not that consequence And if Calvin argued as he did from that absurdity it was not that he thought they ought to adore because they believed Consubstantiation but rather to let them see how unreasonable it was to believe it since they did not adore it and yet it must be confessed the argument is not unanswerable For it may be said that as Princes when â—â—ey are in any place Incognito even though they are known yet their being Incognito shews that they will not have that respect paid them which is otherwise due to them So that Christ being present in an invisible manner is not to be adored I shall not determine whether the Argument or the Answer is stronger yet this must be confessed that upon so dubious a consequence it were a very unreasonable Cruelty to deny the holding Communion with those that believed such a presence though we refuse to communicate with those that joyn Adoration to it 2. There is a great difference to be made between the receiving men that hold erroneous Tenets to our â—ommunion that we believe is pure and undefiled and the joyning our selves to a Communion in which we must profess those very errours which we condemn and by solemn acts of Worship must testifie before God and the World that we believe that which inwardly and in our Consciences we think false The former is only a tolerating or conniving at the errours of others without any sort of approbation of them whereas the other is the fullest and most publick contradiction to our Consciences that is possible 3. As long as any Errours do not strike against the foundations of the Christian Religion we own that we will bear with them at least not oblige others especially the Laity in whom there is not that danger of spreading them to renounce them before we admit them to the Sacraments But the case of the Church of Rome is very different among whom this opinion is but one of very many opinions that we think reverse the whole nature and design of Christianity of which some short hints were given in the Remarks upon the Letter of the Assembly General 4. It is a very ill Inference to conclude because that we think a man can be saved that believes the Corporal Presence therefore we have done amiss to separate from their Communion We may think men may be saved though they are in some errours that in us were damnable after the illumination we have had especially if we should profess that we believe them when we do not believe them and therefore if we cannot continue in their Communion without professing that we believe those Errours they were to blame for imposing them on us and not we for separating from them when they had imposed them 5. That which the African Fathers objected to the Donatists was very pertinently urged against them who grounded their Separation only upon this That there were some corrupt members in the Communion of the Church And this was very justly cast back on them upon their receiving the Maximianists whom they had formerly condemned as Schismaticks to their Communion But it has no relation to us who have not separated from their Church upon any such personal account Therefore since the chief grounds of our Separation are the corruptions in their Worship and our being obliged to bear a share in those corruptions it is clear that our receiving to our Communion those who have not corrupted their Worship and come to joyn with us has no relation to that dispute bâ—tween the African Fathers and the Donatists 6. There is one thing in the Method which we freely confess to be true That there is none of the controverted points that are harder to be believed than this of the Real Presence It is no wonder it should be so since it has the strongest Evidences both of Sense and Reason against it But if it is so hard to be believed it is very severe to prosecute those who cannot bring themselves to believe it in so extreme a manner as that Church has done and still does Upon the whole matter this Method is so weak in all the parts of it that its being set first gives no great hopes of any thing extraordinary to follow The Second Method IS to lay this before them that according to the light of Nature and their own Confession in the matters of our Salvation which is the one thing that is needful we ought always to chuse the surer side Now it is certain that according to that Decree of the Synod of Charenton it is indifferent to them whether one believes the Real Presence or whether they believe it not and we hold it necessary to believe it therefore it is the surer side to believe it and if they could but disengage themselves a little from their prejudices they would follow this way The same may be said of all the other points in dispute Mestresat the Minister in his Treatise of the Church says that things necessary to Salvation are only those that are so expressly set down in the Scriptures that no doubt can be made of them Such as are the Articles of the Apostles Creed If there is any thing that is obscure says he then I assert it is not necessary and therefore one may be a very good Christian without it and may have both Faith Hope and Charity It is evident that the points in dispute which they maintain against us are not so clearly expressed in the Scripture that one cannot doubt concerning them Since we maintain on good grounds that they are not there So that according to their own Doctrine one can disbelieve them without endangering his Salvation But we say that it is necessary under the pain of damnation to believe the contrary opinion and therefore if they will take the surest side they ought to submit to us Remarks 1. IT is something odd to see so great a Body use this Logick That because we think an errour is not damnable and such as obliges us to excommunicate all that hold it therefore we think it indifferent to believe it or not We judge it an errour and while we think it so it were a lie for us to say that we did believe it and this especially in such publick Acts of Worship of God which are grossly Idolatrous by their own Confession while we hold this persuasion is so far from being a thing indifferent that we know nothing more damnable For this were to lie every day to God and the World and to commit Idolatry in a manner more absurd than the most barbarous Nations have been
it cannot be proved that any thing else is to be understood by the word Church in that place A third difficulty may be also raised upon the extent of the word Prevail whether a total overthrow or any single advantage is to be understood by it or whether this prevailing is to be restrained only to the fundamentals of Christianity or is to be extended to all sorts of truth or whether it is to be understood of corrupting the Doctrine or of vitiating the Morals of Christians Thus it is apparent how many difficulties may be started concerning the meaning of those words So that at best the sense of them is doubtful and therefore it will be a strange and rash adventure to determine any thing in matters of great moment upon the authority of such a figurative expression 3. Though the Roman Church had been corrupted that will not infer that the Gates of Hell had prevailed against the Church for that being but the Center of the Union of some of the Western Nations a corruption in it does not prove that the whole Church was corrupted for there were many other Churches in other parts of the World besides those of that Communion The Tenth Method IS that of the Bishop of Meaux lately of Condom in his Book entituled The exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church In which he does in every Article distinguish between that which is precisely of Faith and that which is not so and shews that there is nothing in our belief that may give distast to a reasonable Spirit unless they will look on the abuses of some particular persons which we condemn as our belief or impute Errours to us falsely or charge us with the explications of some Doctors that are neither received nor authorized by the Church This method is taken from S. Hilary in his Book of Synods Let us says he altogether condemn false Interpretations but let us not destroy the certainty of the Faith The Word Consubstantial may be ill understood but let it be established in a sense in which it may be well understood The right state of the Faith may be established among us so as we may neither reverse that which has been well establishedpunc nor cut off those things that have been ill understood Remarks SOmewhat was said in the Preface with relation to this which shall not be here repeated It is not to be denied but in the management of Controversies the heat of Dispute has carried many too far and some have studied to raise many Imaginary Controversies which subsist only upon some misunderstood terms and expressions of the contrary party And things have been on all hands aggravated in many particulars out of measure So that they have deserved well of the Church that have brought matters as near a Reconciliation as may be But after all this it were a strange imposition on this and the preceding age to persuade the World that notwithstanding all the differences of Religion and the unhappy effects that have followed upon them that they really were all the while of the same mind but were not so happy as to find it out till that excellent Prelate helpt them to it by letting them see how near the concessions of both sides are to one another so that a little conversation and dexterity iâ— putting the softest construction that may be on the contrary persuasion might bring them to be of the same mind But if in order to this the sense of both sides is so far stretched that neither party can own it for a true account of their sentiments then this must be concluded to be only the Ingenious Essay of a very witty man who would take advantage of some expressions to perswade people that they have opinions which really they have not I shall not enter into a particular disquisition of those things which have been already so fully examined but refer the Reader to the Answers that have been given to that famous Book 2. The received and authorized Offices of the Church of Rome and the Language in which they do daily make their Addresses to Heaven is that on whiâ—h the most unanswerable and the strongest part of our Plea for our Separation is founded and it is not an ingenuous way of writing to affix some forced senses to those plain expressions because they being so gross as they are all wise or learned men are ashamed to defend them and yet know not how to get them to be reformed or thrown out Therefore it is that they set their Wits on work to put some better construction on them But this is a clear violence to the plain sense of those Offices extorted by the evidence and force of Truth and gives us this advantage that it is plain those that so qualifie them are convinced that their Church is in the wrong and yet for other ends or perhaps from a mistaken notion of Unity and Peace they think fit to continue in it 3. It is to be hoped that those who have cited this passage out of S. Hilary will consider those other passages cited out of him against Persecution though a great Errour made in the Translation of this citation makes me fear that they who rendred it had read him very cursorily The Eleventh Method IS drawn from those General Arguments which Divines call the Motives of Credibility It is that made use of by Tertullian in his Book of Prescriptions and by S. Austin who reckons up the Motives that held him in the Catholick Church Remarks 1. AS for the Case of Tertullian and S. Austin a great deal was said formerly to shew the difference between the Age they lived in and the grounds they went on and the present state of the Western Church 2. When it is considered that a course of many Ages which by the Confession of all were times of Ignorance and Superstition has made a great change in the World that the gross Scandals and wonderful Ignorance of those that have governed the See of Rome that the Dissolution of all the Rules of Ecclesiastical Order and Discipline both among Clergy and Laity that the Interest the Priests particularly the Popes and the begging Orders that depended on them had to promote those was so great and undisputâ—d that it is notorious all the worst methods of forgeries both of Writings to authorize them and of Miracles and Legends to support them were made use of When I say all these things are so plain to every one that has lookt a little into the History of former ages it is no wonder if the Church of Rome is so much changed from what it was formerly That the motives made use of by Tertullian and S. Austin do not at all belong to the present state of the Churches of that Communion But on the contrary instead of motives to perswade one to continue in it there appear upon a general view a great many just and well-grounded prejudices to dispose a
man to forsake that Communion The Twelfth Method IS both very short and very easie It is to catch them in this Dilemma Before Wickliff Luther and Calvin and one may say as much of the Waldenses that lived in the Twelâ—â—h Century the Church of those of the P R. Religion was either made up of a little number of the Faithful or was not at all in being If it was not at all in being then theirs is a False Church since it is not perpetual as the True Church ought to be according to the promise of Iesus Christ The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her and I am with you even to the end of the World If their Church was in being it must have been according to their own principles Corrupted and Impious Because they cannot shew that little number of the pretended Faithful who before the Reformation did condemn as they now do all the Assemblies of the Popish Churches as over-run with Idolatry and Superstition They behaved themselves at least as to outward appearance as others did And thus their Church which was composed of that small unknown flock was not Holy and by consequence was not the True Church Remarks 1. TO the greatest part of this answer has been already given We acknowledge the Church of Rome was a True Church and had in it the means of Salvation though it was over-run with Errours and Christ is truly with his Church as long as those means of Salvation do remain in it So was the Iewish Church a True Church after she was in many points corrupted in her Doctrine 2. In those dark Ages many might have kept themselves free from the defilements of their Worship though no account is given of them in story So seven thousand had not bowed their knees to Baal in Elijah's time who were not so much as known to that Prophet though it might have been expected that they would all have willingly discovered themselves to him And since he knew nothing of them it is very probable they concealed themselves with great care from all others 3. All good men have not all the degrees of Illumination for there might have been great numbers that saw the corruptions of their Church but were so restrained by other opinions concerning the Unity of the Church that they thought it enough to infuse their notions into some few Disciples in whom they confided and on some perhaps that which Elisha said to Naaman the Syrian being wrong understood by them had great influence Others observing that the Apostles continued to worship at the Temple and offer Sacrifices which S. Paul and those with him that purified themselves must have done might have from that inferred that one might comply in a Worship though they disliked many things in it which if I am not much misinformed is a Maxime that governs many in the Roman Communion to this day I do not excuse this compliance but it is not so criminal as at first view it may appear to be If it is truly founded on a mistake of the mind and not on a baseness in the will or a rejecting of the Cross of Christ especially in men that had so faint a twilight as that was which they were guided by in those blind times 4. But to make the worst of this that can be and should we grant that through fear they had complied against their Consciences this only must make the conclusion terrible to them if they did not repent of it But God might have ordered the conveyance of truth to be handed down by such defiled hands and their not being personally holy must not be urged too far to prove that they could not be the true Church This will come too near the Doctrines of the Donatists and many of S. Austin's sayings which they unreasonably object to us may be turned upon them And it will very ill become a Church that acknowledges the Succession of the Bishop of Rome to have been the chief conveyance of Tradition which is a much greater matter in their principles than it is in ours to urge the Holiness of the Members to be essential to the being of a Church when it is acknowledged what a sort of men the Heads of their Church have been for diverse Ages The Thirteenth Method IS taken from the nature of Schism which one ought never to make what reasons soever may be pretended for it for according to the Minister â—hemselves no other reason can be given for their Separation but the Errours which they pretend had crept into the Church But those who were in it as well as thâ—y were did strongly assert as we do to this day that these were no Errours at all but Truths And it is certain that of opinions which are so different the one must be the true Doctrine and the other must be Errour and falshood and by consequence the one must be the good grain and the other must be the Tares Now it does not belong to particular persons by their private authority to pluck up that which they pretend to be Tares There is none but God who is the true Father of the Family that has this authority and can communicate it to others It is he who appoints the Reapers that is the Pope and the Bishops who are represented by the Angels to separate the Cockle from the Wheat and to pluck out the one without touching the other till the time of Harvest that is in a Council or by the common consent of the whole Church and in that case a Council is not necessary Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up But he said Nay lest while ye gather up the Tares ye root up also the Wheat with them let both grow together until the Harvest Therefore one ought never to sâ—parate upon what pretence soever it be but he must bear with that which he thinks is an abuse and errour and stay till the Church plucks up the Cockle This is one of the Methods of S. Austin in his Treatises against the Donatists in which he shews from the Examples of Moses Aaron Samuel David Isaiah Jeremy S. Paul who tolerated even the false Apostles that we ought never to separate from our Brethren before the solemn condemnation of the Church He says pursâ—ant to this that the Donatists were intolerably wicked for having made a Schism for having erected an Altaâ— against an Altar and for having separated themselves from the Inheritance of Jesus Christ which is stretched ouâ— over all the Earth according to the promise that was made to it He addâ— that if they thought that was but a smâ—â— matter they had nothing to do but to sâ— what the Scripture teaches us by the examples we find in it of the punishment of sâ— great a crime for says he Those that made an Idol of the Golden Calf were only punished by the Sword whereas those who made the Schism were swallowed
up by the Earth So that by this diversity of the punishments one may know that Schism is a greater crime than Idolatry We may likewise see how upon the same subject he exhorts the Donatists to renounce their wicked Schism in his â—71 Epistle in which among other things he has those excellent words Why will you tear the Lords garments and why will you not with the rest of the World leave that Coat of Charity entire that is all woven of one Thread which even his Persecutors themselves would not rend And a little after this You pretend that you would avoid that Cockle that as you alledge is mixt among us and that before the time of Harvest whereas indeed it is you your selves that are this Cockle for if you were the good grain you would bear with it and would not separate your selves from the Corn of Jesus Christ. We need only change the name Donatists into Calvinists This is it that shews to what degree the Church ever was and ever must be acknowledged to be Infallible since we must submit to its Decisions and the Fathers have established this so strongly that one ought never to separate from her and that one is by so much the more obliged to continue united to her because she never refuses to hear the Remonstrances made to her by her Children Remarks 1. IT was observed before how unreasonable it was to build much on â—n Allegory but on this occasion the Allegory is so clearly forced that it gives just cause of Suspicion that the cause is weak that must be supported by such Arguments For our Saviour makes it so plain that the Harvest is the end of the World that the Reapers are Angels and that upon his last coming they shall gather together the wicked and cast them into Hell and that the Righteous shall shine in Heaven That the applying this to a General Council in which Heresie shall be condemned is such a fetch that it must be confessed they have as easie Consciences as they have warm Fancies that are wrought on by it 2. As for that which S. Austin drew from this against the Donatists who justified their Separation on the account of the sins of those who were in the Communion of the Church it was as pertinent as this is strained for the ground of the Schism being only the mixture of the Cockle with the Wheat nothing could be more strongly urged against them But it is quite out of the present Controversie between them and us who do not separate for this mixture but finding the Wheat it self so much corrupted took care to cleanse it 3. We freely acknowledge the great sin of Schism and the severe punishment due to it but for all the severity of the punishment inflicted on Corah and his Partners we do not doubt but when the Temple was so defiled by Idolatry under the Kings that polluted the Altar and the Courts of the Lords House with Idols it was not only no sin but a commendable piece of Religion in such cases to have withdrawn from so impious a Worship This is our present case and if what we object to their Worship is true then our Separation from it is as necessary a Duty as is the preserving of our lives from Poysons or Infectious Diseases 4. The true scope of that Parable seems to be a reproof to the Violence of such Church-men as are too apt to condemn and pluck up every thing that they think to be Cockle and when the declaring what is Cockle is lodged with them they will be sure to count every thing such that does not please them And then that same heat that makes them judge those opinions to be Cockle sets them on to root them out with such violence that much good Wheat is in danger to be pluckt up Therefore to repress this our Saviour commands them under that figure to let both grow till the end of the World that is not to proceed to extremities and to rigorous Methods but to leave that to God who will judge all at the last day If this were well considered it would put an effectual stop to that Spirit of Persecution which ferments so violently in that Church The language of which is always this Let uâ— go and pluck up the Tares or that of the two Disciples who would have called for Fire from Heaven and because Heaven will not answer such bloody demands they try to raise such Fires on Earth as may burn up those whom they call the Tares Not knowing what the true Spirit of Christianity is and that the Son of Man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them And forget that our Saviour commanded them to let the Tares grow till the Harvest But this is one of the mischiefs that follows the humour of expounding the Scriptures fancifully That the plain meaning of clear Texts is neglected while forced and Allegorical expositions are pursued 5. When it is clearly proved that the majority of the Pastors of the Church is Infallible then we shall acknowledge that all Separation from them is simply unlawful But till that is done we can no more think it a sin when in obedience to the Rules of the Gospel we withdraw from such false Teachers as corrupt it Then it were for Common Subjects to refuse to obey the Subordinate Magistrates when they clearly perceive that they have revolted from their duty to their Supream Authority And since we are warned to beware of false Teachers we know no other way to judge of them but the comparing their Doctrine with that which is delivered to us in Scripture The Fourteenth Method IS for the Confirmation of the former In order to which we must ask the Calvinists upon all their Articles that which S. Austin asked of the Donatists when the Church reconciled to her self Hereticks that were penitent without re-baptizing them For Example Whether was the Church still a True Church or not when before the Schism was made Iesus Christ was adored in the Holy Eucharist If she was the true Church then none ought to have separated from her for any practice that was authorized by her If she was not the true Church from whence came Calvin out of what soil did he grow or out of what Sea was he cast or from which of the Heavens did he fall From whence are these Reformers come From whom have they received their Doctrine and the authority to Preach it Let those who follow them consider well where they are since they can mount no higher than to those for their Original For us we are secure in the Communion of that Church in which that is to this day universally practised that was also practised before Agripinus 's time and also in the interval between Cyprian and Agripinus And afterwards he subjoyns these excellent words that are Decisive But neither did Agripinus nor Cyprian nor those that have followed them though they
had opinions different from others separate themselves from them but remained in the Communion and Unity of the same Church with those from whom they differed That is to say they waited till the Church should have decided the difference and after he had resumed a little of what he had formerly said he concludes thus If then the Church was lost for holding that the Baptism of Hereticks was good they cannot shew the Original of their Communion But if the true Church did still subsist they cannot justifie their Separation nor the Schism that they have made One may say all this against the Waldenses the Lutherans the Calvinists and the other Hereticks who cannot mount higher than to Waldo to Luther to Calvin or their other Heads This Method of S. Austin's is most excellent But if our Brethren the pretended Reformed will defend themselves by saying as in effect they do say in some of their Books That it was not they who made the Separation but rather that it came from us and that we have cut them off from our Communion To this it must be answered That there are two sorts of Sâ—paration the one is Criminal the other is Iudicial In the first one separates himself from his Pastor by a manifest Disobedience in the second the Pastor separates him from the Flock who is making a party and refuses to submit to the Orders of the Church The one is a Sin and the other is the Punishment The one is a voluntary departure the other is the being cut off by a Sâ—ntence even as the Iudge pronounces a Sentence of Condemnation against one that has killed himself The proof of those two different Separations is to be found in the Thirty eighth Letter of S. Cyprians where he speaks of one Augendus who had gone over to the party of Felicissimus the Deacon and it appears that that great Saint had suspended and excommunicated him for having withdrawn himself from his Obedience and for having engaged others in the same Separation Let every one says he that has folfollowed his Opinions and Faction know that he shall communicate no more with us in the Church since of his own accord he has chosen to be separated from the Church In his Seventy sixth Epistle he says the same thing of Novatian and those who had joyned with him in his Revolt Because they leaving the Church by their Rebellion and breaking the Peace and Unity of Jesus Christ have endeavoured to establish their authority and to assume a Supreme Jurisdiction to themselves and to usurp power to Baptize and to offer Sacrifice This Distinction is also clearly stated in the fourth Action of the Council of Chalcedon where those two Ancient Canons of the Council of Antioch that were drawn out of Canons of the Apostles were cited The first is concerning those that were separated the other is concerning those who of their own accord did separate themselves The Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was thought proper for this purpose to transcribe here those two Canons which are the fundamental Laws of the practice of the Church with regard to Hereticks and Schismaticks whom she throws out of her bosome and who have separated themselves from her These Canons are the Fourth and Fifth of the Council of Antioch and the Twenty seventh and Thirtieth of the Apostolick Canons and the pretended Reformed cannot reject their Authority since they observe among themselves the same Discipline when any particular persons whether Ministers or others of their Communion will not submit to the Decisions of their Synods Remarks 1. FOr the first branch of this Method the Reformed are not at all concerned in it for they do not deny the Church of Rome to be still a True Church and that her Baptism and Ordinations are valid and that they are not to be repeated and therefore though it was very pertinent to urge the Donatists as S. Austin did who held that the Sacraments in an ill mans hands had no vertue at all and that the Church had every where failed so that there was no Church but that which was among them Yet all this is foreign to the state of the Controversie between us and the Church of Rome and we do freely acknowledge that in such a matter as the Re-baptizing Hereticks it had been a very great sin to have broken Communion with the rest of the Church 2. Yet upon this very head P. Sâ—ephen did excommunicate S. Cyprian who yet for all that did not depart from his former opinion or practice So here was such a Schism as they object to us S. Cyprian thought the Rebaptizing Hereticks was well grounded Stephen thought otherwise and did excommunicate him If upon that a lasting Schism had followed in the Church S. Cyprian might have been held the fountain of it by those who condemned his opinion but if his opinion was true he could be no Schismatick So we desire the grounds of our Separation may be examined if they will not bear such a Superstructure we confess we deserve the severest censures possible but if they are solid then the guilt of the rent that is in the Church must lie somewhere else than on us 3. We do not deny but there are two sorts of Separation which are here very well distinguished and without seeking for any proof in so clear a matter We confess that when any separates himself from the Church upon any unjustifiable account those Canons and the highest severities of Church-censures ought to be applied â—o them but all this is upon supposition that the departure is ill grounded and therefore all those Rules that have been â—aid down in general against Heresie and Schism must still suppose the Church to â—e pure and uncorrupted 4. It is plain by these very Canons how much that power of the Church may be and was abused The Council of Antioch being composed of the favourers of Arius deposed Athanasius and resolved to silence him and such other Church-men as receiv'd the Nicene Doctrine in such a manner that they should be no more able to withstand their designs And therefore they made those Canons according to former customes which in the stile of that Age was called the Canon or Rule for none that has considered things will believe that the Canons that are called Apostolical were made by the Apostles and their chief design was levelled against Athanasius and the Orthodox party But at that same time as the Orthodox in the East did not submit to this so neiâ—her did the Bishops 〈◊〉 the West take any notice of it anâ— Chrysostome who was bred up at Aâ—tioch and so could not but know in what esteem those Canons were held did not look on himself as bound by them anâ— made no account of them when they were objected to him Thus though iâ— general these are gooâ— Rules and such aâ— ought to be obeyed where the Synod or the Bishop do not abuse their power yet
which we have separated from the Church of Rome are not to be found among those Churches Such as the adoring the Consecrated Elements the denying the Wine to the People the saying Masses for Redeeming Souls out of Purgatory the having Images for the Trinity the immediate Invocation of Saints for the pardon of Sin and those blessings which we receive only from God Besides an infinite variety of other things Not to mention their denying the Popes authority And to turn this argument on them Those parts of their Worship in which they differ so much from the Eastern Churches do afford us very good arguments to evince that they are Innovations brought in since these ages in which those Churches held Communion with the Roman Church And do prove that at the time of their Separation they were not introduced in the Western Church For when we find such a keenness of dispute concerning one of the most indifferent things in the World as whether the Sacrament should be of Leavened or Unleavened Bread can we think that if the Latines had then worshipped the Sacrament they had not much rather have objected to the Greeks their Irreverence upon so high an occasion than have insisted on the matter of unleavened Bread As for the conclusion we do acknowledge it is such as becomes an Assembly of Bishops But whether it becomes men of their Characters of their Birth and of their Qualities to pretend to such gentleness and meekness when all the World sees such notorious proofs given to the contrary I shall not determine but will leave it to their own second thoughts to consider better of it We find both the King and the Clergy of France expressing great tenderness towards the persons of those they call Hereticks togetherwith their resolutions of gaining them only by the Methods of Persuasion and Charity and yet the contrary is practisâ—d in so many parts of France that considering the exact Obedience that the Inferiour Officers pay to the Orders that are sent them from the Court we must conclude these Orders are procured from the King without his being rightly informed concerning them And since we must either doubt of the sincerity of the Kings Declarations or of the Assemblies we hope they will not take it ill if we pay that Reverence to a Crowned Head and to so illustrious a Monarch as to prefer him in the competition between his credit and theirs and they must forgive us if we stand in some doubt of the sincerity of this Declaration till we are convinced of it by more Infallible proofs than words or general Protestations The Conclusion THus I have made such Remarks on these Methods as seem both just and solid I have advanced no assertion either of Fact or Right concerning which I am not well assured and which I cannot justifie by a much larger series of proofs than I thought fit to bring into a Discourse which I intended should be as short as was possible But if that be necessary and I am called on to do it I shall not decline it I have with great care avoided the saying any thing meerly for contentions sake or to make up a Muster of many particulars for I look on that way in which many write for a cause as some Advocates plead for their Clients by alledging every thing that may make a shew or biass an unwary hearer as very unbecoming the profession of a Divine and the cause of Truth which we ought to assert And there is scarce any thing that shews a man is persuaded of the truth he maintains more evidently than a sincere way of defending it For great subtilties and deep fetches do naturally incline a Reader to suspect that the Writer was conscious to himself of the weakness of his cause and was therefore resolved to supply those defects by the quickness and nimbleness of his parts But having now said what I think sufficient in the way of Remâ—rks upon the Letter and the Methods published by the late Assembly General of the Clergy of France I now go on to some Methods which seem strong and well grounded for convincing those in Communion with the Church of Rome that they ought to suspect the ground they stand on In which I shall observe this Method First I shall offer such grounds of just suspicion and jealousie as may dispose every considering man to fear and apprehend that their Church is on a wrong bottom from which I shall draw no other Inferences but that they are reasonable grounds to take a man a little off from the engagement of his former Education and Principles and may dispose him to examine matters in dispute among us with more application and less partiality And then I shall shew upon more demonstrative grounds how false the foundations are on which the Church of Rome is established both which I shall examine only in a general view and in bulk without descending by retail unto the pâ—rticulars in Controversie between us 1. And first It is a just ground to suspect any Church or Party of men that pretend to have every thing pass upon their word or authority and that endeavour to keep those who adhere to them in all the Ignorance possible that divert them from making Enquiries into Religion and do with great earnestness infuse in them an Implicite Belief of whatsoever they shâ—ll propose or dictate to them The World has found by experience that there is nothing in which fraud and artifices have been more employed than in matters of Religion And that Priests have been often guilty of the basest impostures And therefore it is a shrewd Indication that any sort of them that make this the first and grand principle which they infuse into their followers that they ought to believe every thing that the majority of themselves decree and do therefore recommend Ignorance and Implicite Obedience to their people and keep the Scriptures out of their hands all they can and wrap up their Worship in a language not understood by the vulgar are not to be too easily believed But that they may be justly suspected of having no sincere designs since Truth is of the nature of Light And Religion was sent into the World to enlighten our minds and to raise our understandings 2. It is a just ground of Jealousie of any Church if she holds many opinions which have a mighty tendenâ—y to raise the Empire and Dominion of the Clergy to a vast height A Reverence to them for their works sake is due by the light of Nature But if Priests advance this further to such a pitch that every one of them is believed qualified by his Character to work the greatest Miracle that ever was The change of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ besides all the other Consecrations by which Divine Vertues are brought down on such things as they bless If it is also believed necessary to enumerate all secret sins to them and
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becomes both to their Characters and Qualities and to whom I know better what is due than to presume to say any thing in contradiction to them if I were not led to it by that which I owe to Truth and to the God of Truth After I have examined both their Letter and the Methods added to it I will venture further and offer on the other hand such Considerations as are just and lawful prejudices against that Communion and are such as ought at least to put all men in doubt that things are not right among them and to dispose them to believe that matters in Controversie between them and us ought to be examined more exactly and impartially and that upon a general view the prejudices lie much stronger in our favours than against us The Letter writ by the Assembly of the Clergy to the Calvinists in France The Arch-Bishops Bishops and the whole Gallican Clergy assembled at Paris by the Kings authority wish to their Brethren of the Calvinist Sect Amendment and a return to the Church and an Agreement with it Brethren THE whole Church of Christ does now of a great while groan and your Mother being filled with holy and sincere tenderness for you does with regret see you rent from her Belly her Breasts and her Bosome by a voluntary Separation and continue still to stray in the Desart For how can a Mother forget the Children of her Womb or the Church be unmindful of her love to you that are still her Children though you have forgot your duty to her The Infection of Errour and the violence of the Calvinistical Separation having drawn you away from the Catholick Truth and the purity of the Ancient Faith and separated you from the head of the Christian Unity From hence is it Brethren that she groans and complains most grievously but yet most lovingly that her bowels are torn She seeks for her Sons that are lost she calls as a Partridge as a Hen she would gather them together as an Eagle she provokes them to fly and being again in the pangs of travel she desires to bear you a second time ye little Children that so Christ may be again formed in you according to Truth in the way of the Catholick Church Therefore we the whole Gallican Clergy whom the Holy Ghost has set to govern that Church in which you were born and who by an uninterrupted Inheritance hold the same Faith as well as the same Chairs which those Holy Bishops held who first brought the Christian Religion into France do now call on you and as the Embassadors of Christ we ask you as if God did beseech you by us Why have you made Separation from us For indeed whether you will or not such are your circumstances that you are our Brethren whom all our Common Father did long ago receive into the adoption of Children and whom our common Mother the Church did likewise receive into the hope of our Eternal Inheritance And even he himself who first bewitched you that you should not obey the Truth of the Gospel the Standard-bearer of your profession did at first live amongst us as a Brother in all things of the same mind with us Were we not all of the same houshold Did we not all eat of the same Spiritual meat And did not he perform among us the mutual Offices of Brotherly Charity See if you can find any excuse either to your Father your Mother or your Brethren to take off the Infamy of so wicked so sudden and so rash a flight of this dividing of Christ the renting the Sacraments of Christ an impious War against the members of Christ the accusing the Spouse of Christ and the denial of the Promises of Christ Excuse and wash off these things if you can But since you cannot do it then confess that you are fallen under that charge of the Prophet An evil Son calls himself righteous but he cannot wash off his departure Wherefore then Brethren have you not continued in the root with the whole World Why did you break the Vows and the Wishes of the Faithful with the Altars on which they were offered Why did you intercept the course of Prayer from the Altars from whence was the ascent to God Why did you then with Sacrilegious hands endeavour to remove the Ladder that came down to those Stones that so Prayers might not be made to God after the customary manner Other Sectaries hitherto have indeed attempted that not that they might overthrow the Altar of Christ but that they might raise up their own Altar such as it was against the Altar of Christ. But you as if you had designed to destroy the Christian Sacrifice have dared to commit a crime unheard of before these times You have destroyed the Altars of the Lord of Hosts in which the Sparrow Christ had chosen to himself an House and the Turtle the Church a Nest where she might lay her young It was this Schismatical fury that brought forth these things and allhat has followed since either of Wars against the Church or of Errours against the Ancient Doctrine Nor would we have those things ascribed so much to your Inclinations as to the nature of Schism But this is that upon which we expostulate with you in particular and which we ask of you without ceasing Why have you made the Schism And unless you answer this how well soever you may speak or write of other things it is all to no purpose We do not doubt but in answer to this you will make use of that old and common defence of all Schismaticks and that you who upon trial know that it is not possible to shake the Doctrines believed by us will begin to inveigh against the Morals of our men as if holier persons who love severer Laws could not hold it creditable for their reputation or safe to their Consciences to live with such men These are the things forsooth Brethren for which the Unity of Christ is rent by you the Inheritance of your Brethren is blasphemed and the Vertue and Truth of the Sacraments of the Church are despised Consider how far you have departed from the Gospel in this These things that you object were less considerable both for number and weight or perhaps unknown and may be not at all true But if they had been true and acknowledged and worse than they were yet those Tares ought to have been spared by Christians for the sake of the Wheat for the vices of the bad are to be endured because of the mixture of the good Moses endured thousands that murmured against God Samuel endured both Eli's Sons and his own that acted perversly Christ himself our Lord endured Iudâ—s that was his Accuser and a Thief and also his Betrayer The Apostles endured false Brethren and false Apostleâ— that opposed them and their Doctrine And S. Paul who did not seek his owâ— things but the things of Jesus Christ conversed with great patience among
those that sought their own things anâ— not the things of Iesus Christ. But you dear Brethren not only have not endured the Church your Mother and thâ— Spouse of Christ but have rent torn and violated her Unity And that yoâ— might thus rend tear and violate heâ— you have charged the blemishes of private persons on her whom Christ has cleansed with the washing of Water through the Word of Life that he might present her glorious to himself without either spot or wrinkle or any such thing What remains then Brethren but that for your sakes we follow that advice of the Holy Ghosts Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Sons of God And that by the Bowels of Mercy which you have hitherto torn by the Womb of the Church your Mother which you have burst by the Charity of Brethren which you have so oft violated by the Sacraments of God which you have despised by the Altars of God which you have broken and by every thing Sacred or Divine that is worshipped either in Heaven or Earth we exhort you with the Hearts of Brethren to amend to return and to be reconciled And what indeed remains but that you forgetting the Schism and remembring your Mothers Breasts should again come home where there are so many hired Servants that have bread enough while you cannot gather up crumbs for satisfying in any sort your Spiritual hunger being in a dry and untrodden Desart Why then do you delay or withstand this Are you ashamed to be reckoned Children with those among whom the eldest Son Lewis is daily erecting new Trophies to the Church his best Mother Who by reason of your wilfulness is in this only not entirely happy that although he is daily decreeing many things both religiously and piously for maintaining Christianity yet he sees some of his own Subjects who have of their own accord forsaken the Religion of their Country and have betaken themselves to foreign rites being Apostates from Religion and deserters of the Ancient Warfare to continue still in their Errour And this Most Christian King did lately in our hearing say That he did so earnestly desire to see all those broken and scattered parcels brought back to the Unity of the Church that he would esteem it his Glory to compass it with the shedding of his own Royal blood and even with the loss of that Invincible Arm by which he has so happily made an end of so many Wars Will you then Brethrâ—n envy that Palm of Victory to this most August Prince and your King that has subdued so many and such mighty Enemies that has taken so many strong Towns and has conquer'd such great Provinces and is eminent in his Triumphs of all sorts and yet would prefer this Victory to all the rest But Brethren while we thus call upon you and exhort you to the Counsels of Peace do not you say Seek us not for this is the language of Iniquity by which we are divided and not of Charity by which we are Christians Remember that the Spirit of Truth and Peace has commanded us by the Prophet not to cease to say to those who deny that they are our Brethren You are our Brethren What time can offer it self more fitly for calling you back to the Roman Communion than this in which Pope Innocent governs the Roman Church whose life and manners being formed according to the ancient and severe discipline present a perfect pattern of Holiness to the Christian World So that it will be both for your Honour as well as for your Happiness and a mark of great Vertue in you to joyn your selves to him who is such an eminent cherisher of all Vertue Therefore as for you that need a Physician that are the members of Christ and noble ones too bought with the same price but are torn from the Head and Body of the Church through the wicked fraud of all our common Enemy we pray you by the Eternal God suffer your selves to be healed receive this admonition and this humble Prayer of ours For such is our gentleness and compassion towards you that we can confidently use the lowest expressions possible And do you in a Brotherly manner take hold of this occasion that we offer you with such brotherly love that so at last through the grace of our God the night of stupifying Errour being dissipated the Light of Divine Truth may shine daily more and more suffer nor the weak and ignorant part of the Christian flock to perish because of some Jealousies that you have rashly taken up against our Faith Do you think it unseemly to discover your Disease to the Physician Give place both to Repentance and Physick and address your selves humbly to God and esteem this to be that which is chiefly and only honourable in Christians But if you will with obstinate minds refuse to do this while we thus exhort you if you will not be overcome by Prayers nor bended by Charity nor wrought on by Admonitions to a Reconciliation the Angels of Peace will weep bitterly but yet for all that we will not leave you to your selves though that were but just to be done to persons so excessively obstinate we will not give over our seeking for the Sheep of Christ among the Hedges and Thorns and when we have done all by which your minds ought to have been reconciled to us at last our Peace which is so earnestly and sincerely offered to you when it is rejected by you shall return to us Nor will God any longer require your Souls at our hands And as this your last errour will be worse than your former so your last end will be worse than any thing you have formerly felt But Brethren we hope better things and things which accompany salvation Francis Arch-bishop of Paris President Charles Maurice Arch-bishop and Duke of Rheims Charles Arch-bishop of Ambrun Iames Arch-bishop and Duke of Cambray Hyacinth Arch-bishop of Alby Mi. Phelipeaux Arch-bishop of Bourges Iames Nicholas Colbert Arch-bishop of Carthage Coadjutor of Rouen Lewis of Bourlemont Arch-bishop of Bourdeaux Gilbert Bishop of Tournay Nicholas Bishop of Riez Daniel Bishop and Earl of Valence and Die Gabriel Bishop of Autun William Bishop of Bazas Gabriel Bishop of Auranches Iames Bishop of Meaux Sebastian Bishop of St. Malo L. M. Ar. de Simiane Bishop and Duke of Langres Fr. Leo Bishop of Glandeves Lucas Bishop of Frioul I. B. M. Colbert Bishop and Duke of Mountauban Charles Bishop of Montpellier Francis Bishop of Mande Charles Bishop of La Vaur Andrew Bishop of Auxerre Francis Bishop of Troyes Lewis Bishop and Earl of Chalons Francis Bishop of Triguier Peter Bishop of Bellay Gabriel Bishop of Conserans Lewis Bishop of Alet Humbert Bishop of Tulle I. B. D' Estampes Bishop of Marseilles Fr. de Camps designed Coadjutor of Glandeves De St. George designed Bishop of Mâ—scon Paul Phil. de Lusignan Lud. d' Espinay de St. Luc C. Leny de Coadelets La Faye Cocquelin
Plea of those persecuted men so fully that it may be well concluded that the Spirit that acted in Hilary is not the same with that which now inspires the Reverend Prelates of that Church To this I might add the known History of the Priscillianists that fell out not long after I shall not presume to make a parallel between any of the Gallican Church and Ithacius who persecuted them of whom the Historian gives this Character That he was a vain sumptuous sensual and impudent man and that he grew to that pitch in vice that he suspected all men that led strict lives as if they had been inclined to Heresie And it is also to be hoped that none will be so uncharitable as to compare the Priscillianists with those they now call Hereticks in France whether we consider their opinions that were a revival of the blasphemies of the Gnosticks or their morals that were brutal and obscene even by Priscillian's own confession Now Ithacius prosecuted those in the Emperours Courts and went on in the pursuit though the great Apostle of that age Martin warned him often to give it over In conclusion when Ithacius had set it on so far that a Sentence was sure to pass against them he then withdrew from it Sentence was given and some of them were put to death upon which some Bishops excommunicated Ithacius yet S. Martin was wrought on to communicate with him very much against his mind being threatned by the Emperour Maximus that if he would not do it Troops should be ordered to march into Spain to destroy the rest of them This prevailed on that good man to joyn in Communion with those that had acted so contrary to the mercifulness of their Religion and to the sacredness of their Character But no Arts could work on S. Martin to approve of what they had done The effects of this were remarkable for when S. Martin went home if we will believe Sulpitius an Angel appeared to him and reproved him severely for what he had done upon which he with many tears lamented much the sin he had committed by his communicating with those men and would never after that communicate with any of that party And during the sixteen years that he survived that Sulpitius who lived with him tells us that he never went to any Synod and that there was a great withdrawing of those Influences and Graces for which he had been so eminent formerly And thus if S. Martin's example and practice is of any authority the Cruelty of that Church that has engaged all the Princes of Europe as much as was in their power to do what Maximus then did and the present practices of the Bishops about the Court might justifie a Separation from them But we do not proceed upon such disputable grounds To this I shall only â—dd the aâ—thority of another Father who tâ—oâ—gh he was none of the Gallican Bishops 〈◊〉 since he is more read and esteemed in that Church than any other of all the â—athers it is to be hoped that his authority may be somewhat considered It is S. Austin He was once against all sorts of severity in matters of Religion and delivered his mind so pathetically and elegaâ—tly on that subject that I presume the Reader will not be ill pleased to hear his own words writing against the Manicheans whose impieties are too well known to be enlarged on so as to shew that even in the account which the Church of Rome makes of things they cannot pretend that the Protestants are as bad as they were He begins his Book against them with an earnest Prayer to God that he would give him a calm and serene mind so that he might study their conversion and not seek their ruine to which purpose he applies those words of S. Paul to Timothy the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be meek towards all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing them that oppose themselves To which he adds these words Let them exercise Cruelty upon you who do not know with what difficulty truth is found out and how hardly errours are avoided Let them exercise Cruelty upon you who do not know how rare and hard a thing it is to overmaster carnal imaginations with the serenity of a pious mind Let them exercise Cruelty upon you who do not know with what difficulty the eye of the inward man is healed that so it may behold its Sun Let them exercise Cruelty upon you who do not know with what groans and sighs we attain the smallest measure of the knowledge of God And in the last place let them exercise Cruelty upon you who were never themselves deceived with any errour like that with which you are now deceived It is true it may be pretended that he became afterwards of another mind but that will not serve to excuse the severities now on foot the case being so very different The Donatists in his time very generally fierce and cruel one sort of them the Circumcellionists acted like mad men They did lie in wait for S. Austin's life they fell upon several Bishops with great barbarity putting out the eyes of some and cudgelling others till they left them as dead Upon this the Bishops of Africk were forced to desire the Emperours protection and that the Laws made against Hereticks might be executed upon the Donatists and yet even in this S. Austin was at first averse It is true he afterwards in his Writings against the Donatists justified those severities of fining and banishing but he expresses both in his own name and in the name of all those Churches great dislike not only of all Capital proceedings but of all rigour and when the Governours and Magistrates were carrying things too far he interposed often and â—ith great earnestness to moderate their severity and wrote to them that if they went on with such rigour the Bishops would rather bear with all the violences of the Donatists than seek to them for redress and whole Synods of Bishops concurred with him in making the like Addresses in their favours And though there were excesses committed in some few instances yet we may easily conclude how gentle they were upon the whole matter from this that he says that the Fines imposed by Law had never been exacted and that they were so far from turning the Donatists out of their own Churches that they still kept possession of several Churches which they had violently invaded and wrested out of the hands of the Bishops It is plain then since he justified those severities only as a necessary restraint on the rage to the Donatists and a just protection of the Bishops that this has no relation to the hardships the Protestants now suffer it not being pretended that they have drawn it upon themselves by any tumultuary or irregular proceedings of theirs So much seemed necessary to shew how different the Spirit of the present Clergy oâ— France is
from that which animated the Church in the former and best ages The Reverend Prelates say in their Letter That they hold the same Faith with their Predecessors If this were true in all points it were indeed very hard to write an Apology for those that have separated from them I shall not engage in a long discussion of the sentiments of the Ancient Bishops of the Gallican Church yet that the Reader may not be too much wrought on by the confidence and plausibleness of this expressionâ— I shall only give a taste of the Faith of the first of all the Gallican Clergy whose works are yet preserved and that is Irenaeus I shall instance it in two particulars the one is the hinge upon which all our other Controversies turn that is whether the Scriptures or Oral Tradition is to be appealed to for determining matters of Controversie The other is the most material point in difference among us concerning the presence of Christ in the Sacrament whether in it we really receive the substance of Bread and Wine or only the Accidents As to the first he directly appeals to the Scriptures which he says were the Pillar â—nd ground of Truth and adds that the Valentinians did appeal to Oral Tradition from which he â—urns to that Tradition that was come from the Apostles on which he insists very copiously and puts all the authority of Tradition in this That it was derived from the Apostles And therefore says that if the Apostles had delivered nothing in Writing we must then have followed the Order of Tradition And after he has shewed that the Tradition to which the Valentinians pretended was really against them and that the Orthodox had it derived down from the Apostles on their side he returns to that upon which he had set up the strength of his cause to prove the truth from the Scriptures Now the Scriptures being the foundation on which the Protestants build and Oral Tradition together with the authority of the Church being that on which the Church of Rome builds it will be easie to every one that considers those Chapters referred to in Irenaeus to gather upon which of those he grounded his belief As for the other particular he plainly calls the Sacrament that Bread over which thanks have been given and says our flesh is nourished by the body and blood of Christ and concludes that our flesh by the Sacrament has an assurance of its Resurrection and Incorruptibility More particularly he says Our blood is encreased by the blood of Christ and that he encreases our body by that bread which he has confirmed to be his body and that by these the substance of our body is encreased and from thence he argues that our bodies receive an encrease not by any internal or invisible way but in the natural way of nourishment and so concludes that our bodies being nourished by the Eucharist shall therefore rise again Every one that considers the force of these words must conclude that he believed our bodies received in the Sacrament a real substance which nourished them and not bare Accidents If then upon this essay it appears that the first Writer of all Gallican Bishops does agree with the Protestants both in that which is the foundation upon which they build their whole cause and also in that particular opinion which is believed to be of the greatest importance then the Reader has no reason to believe that the present Bishops of France hold the same Faith which their Predecessors taught who first preached the Christian Religion in that Kingdom But now I come to answer the main Question which is indeed the whole substance of the Letter Why have they made the Schism If such a Letter with such a demand in it had come from the Abassin or Armenian Churches or perhaps from the Greek Churches whose distance from us is such and the oppressions they groan under are so extreme that they have little heart and few opportunities to enquire into the affairs or opinions of others it could not have been thought strange but to hear it from these among whom those live who have so often both in Writings and Discourses answered this question so copiously is really somewhat unaccountable Yet this is not all but it is added That the Protestants upon trial finding they could not shake their Doctrine have charged them only for their ill lives as if that were the ground of the Separation This it must be confessed had better become the affected Eloquence of a Maimbourg than the sincerity of so many eminent men of whom the mildest censure that can be past in this particular is That some aspiring Priest being appointed to pen this Letter that was better accustomed to the figures of a clamorous Rhetorick than the strict measures of Truth gave it this turn hoping to recommend himself by it and that the Bishops signed it in haste without considering it well Who of all the Protestants have made that Experiment and found that the Faith of the Church of Rome was not to be attackt and that she can only be accused for the ill lives of some in her Communion If this were all we had to object we do not deny but that all that the Fathers retorted on the Schismaticks particularly the Donatists did very justly fall on us and that we could neither answer it to God to the World nor our own Consciences if we had separated from their Church on no other account And this is indeed so weak a Plea that the Penner of the Letter shewed his skill at least if he was wanting in his sincerity to set up a pretence which he knew he could easily overthrow though the reasons he brings to overthrow it are not all pertinent nor convincing But this in conclusion is so managed as to draw an occasion from it to complement the present Pope some way to make an amends for their taking part with their King against him All that is to be said on this Head is That Protestants are not so unjust as to deny the Pope that now reigns his due praises of whose vertue and strictness of life they hear such accounts that they heartily wish all the Assembly of the Clergy from the President down to the Secretaries would imitate that excellent Pattern that he sets them A Zeal for converting Hereticks does not very well become those whose course of life has not been so exemplary that this can be imputed to an inward sense of Religion and to the motives of Divine Charity But in this point of the corruption of mens lives we may add two things more material The one is if a Church teaches ill Morals or at least connives at such Casuistical Doctrines as must certainly root out all the principles of moral vertue and common goodness out of the minds of men then their ill Morals may be improved to be a good argument for a Separation from them How much the Casuistical Doctrine of those
who are the Chief Confessors in that Communion has been corrupted of late we may learn from what has been published by many among themselves particularly by their late Address to the present Pope and by the Articles condemned both by Pope Alexander the Seventh and by the Pope that now reigns But yet how faint those censures are every one that has read them must needs observe This is not all The dissolving of Oaths and Vows the dispensing with many of the Laws of God the authorizing Subjects to shake off their Princes yoke if he does not extirpate Heresie and Hereticks the butcheries of those they call Hereticks and that after Faith given to the contrary having been for some Ages the publick practices of the Court of Rome in which several General Councils have also concurred with them are things both of such a nature and have been so openly avowed as well as practised in that Church that this argument from the corruption of their Morals may be well fastened on their whole Church If likewise many opinions are received among them which do naturally tend to slacken the strictness of holiness and give the World more mild Ideas of sin and make the way to the favour of God accessible even without a real Reformation then there will be more weight in this argument than may at first view appear The belief of the Sacraments conferring Grace ex opere operato the Vertue of Indulgences the Priestly Absolution the Communication of Merits the Vertue supposed to be in some Pilgrimages in Images and Priviledged Altars in Fraternities and many consecrated things together with the after-game of Purgatory and of Redemption out of it by Masses these with many more devices are such contrivances for enervating the true force of Religion and have such effects on the lives of men who generally are too easie to hearken to any thing that may make them hope well while they live ill that when we complain of a great dissolution of mens Morals that live under the influences of that Religion this charge is not personal but falls on their Church in common In the next place that vast corruption of Ecclesiastical Discipline and of all the Primitive Rules occasioned chiefly by the exorbitant power the Popes have assumed of dispensing with all Laws the gross sale of such Graces at Rome the Intrigues in the Creation of the Popes themselves the universal neglect of the Pastoral care among the superiour Orders of the Clergy do give men just and deep prejudices against a Church so corrupt in her ruling Members and do raise great dislike of that extent of Authority which the Bishops of Rome have assumed that have cut all the Banks and let in such an inundation of ill practices on the World And if once in an Age or two a Pope of another temper of better Morals and greater strictness arises we are notwithstanding that to judge of things not upon rare and single instances but upon their more ordinary and natural effects Thus laying all these things together it will appear that our exceptions to that Church upon the account of their Morals is not so slight as the Penner of that Letter has represented it and that his Instances for living among ill men have no relation to this matter But this is the weakest Plea we have for our Separation and as strong soever as it may be in it self we build upon solider foundations In order to the opening this I shall premise a little of the true end and design of Religion which is to beget in us so deep a sense of the Divine nature and perfections aâ— may most effectually engage us to become truly Holy There are two Inclinations in the nature of men that dispose him to corrupt the Ideas of God the one is an Inclination to cloath him in some outward figure and present him to our senses in such a manner that we may hope by flatteries or submissions by pompous or cruel services to appease him And the other is a desire to reconcile our notions of Religion to our vicious habits and appetites that so we may some way pacifie our Consciences in the midst of our lusts and passions And thus the true notion of Idolatry is the representing of God to us so as that we may hope to gain his favour by other methods than our being inwardly pure and holy And the immorality of this consists not only in the indecency of such representations and their unsuitableness to the Divine nature but likewise in this that our notions of God which ought to be the seeds of Vertue and true Godliness by which our natures are to be reformed are no more effectual that way but turn only to a Pageantry and spend themselves in dressing up our worship so as we think will better agree with one that is like our selves Now we find the chief design of the Gospel was to root this out of the World and to give us the highest and perfectest Ideas of the purity and goodness of the Divine nature that might raise in us that inward probity of Soul compâ—ehended in the general name of Charity or Love which is the proper Character of the Christian Spirit We have also the Divine Holiness so presented to us that we can never hope to attain the favour of God here or Eternal happiness hereafter but by becoming inwardly and universally holy Now our main charge against the Church of Rome is That this which is the great design of the Christian Religion is reversed among them and that chiefly in four things 1. In proposing visible objects to the adorations of the people against not only the current of the whole Scriptures but the true Idea and right notion of God and this not only by Precept in the Images of our Saviour and the Saints but by a general tolerance in the Images of the blessed Trinity it self Thus the senses having somewhat set before them on which they may work do naturally corrupt the mind and convert Religion which is an inward and spiritual work into an outward gross homage to these objects 2. In setting up the Intercession of Saints as if either God had not a capacity of attending to the whole Government of the World or were not so merciful or good but that as Princes are wrought on by the interposition of their Courtiers so he needed to have such importunities to induce him to be favourable to us The very Plea commonly used for this from the resemblance of Earthly Courts is the greatest debasing of the Divine Nature that is possible And when the Addresses made to these Saints in the publick Offices of the Church are the very same that we make to God or our Saviour That they would pardon our sins give uâ—â—race assist us at all times and open the Kingdome of Heaven to us and when after those things have been complained of for above an Age and that upon a general review of their Offices
they are still continued among them we must conclude that the honour due to the Creator is offered to the Creature I need not bring Instances of these they are so well known 3. In â—The many Consecrations that are used among â—hem of Images Crosses Habits Water Salt Oyl Candles Bells Vessels Agnus Dei's and Grains with a vast deal more by which those things are so consecrated as to have a vertue in them for driving away Devils for being a security both to Soul and Body and a remedy against all Temporal and Spiritual evils This way of Incantations was one of the grossest pieces of Heathenism and is now by them brought into the Christian Religion And the opinion that upon these Consecrations a Vertue is conveyed to those things is infused into the people by their authorized offices In which if in any thing it is not to be believed that the Church lies and deceives her Children This is plainly to consider God as the Heathens did their Idols and to fetch down Divine Vertues by charms as they did And 4. Their worshipping with Divine Honour that which by all the Indications that we can have of things we know is no other than what it appears to be even Bread and Wine in its substance and nature Thus Divine Adoration is offered to those Elements contrary to the universal practice of the Christian Church for 1200 years and this passes among them as the most important piece of their Worship which has almost swallowed up all the rest Thus the true Ideas of God and the chief design of the Christian Religion is overthrown in that Communion and what can we think of a Church that in the most important of her Offices adds this Prayer to the absolution of Sinners The passion of our Lord Iesus Christ the merits of the blessed Virgin and all the Saints and whatever good thou hast done and whatever evil thou hast suffered be to thee for the pardon of sin the increase of Grace and the reward of eternal life where we see clearly what things they joyn in the same breath and in order to the same ends with the passion of Christ. When they have cleansed their Churches of these objects of Idolatry and Superstition and their Offices of those Impious Addresses to Saints and that infinite number of Enchantments then they may upon some more advantage ask Why have we made the Schism It is because they have corrupted the Doctrine of Christ and the Gospel and if those things upon which the Separation subsists were removed it could no more subsist than Accidents can do without a Subject The next thing upon which we ground our Separation is That not only the Church of Rome would hearken to no Addresses nor Remonstrances that were made to her for reforming those abuses but that by Anathema's and the highest censures possible all are obliged to believe as she believes in those very particulars and are bound to joyn in a Worship in which those things which we condemn are made indispensable parts of our publick Devotions So that we must either mock God by concurring in a Worship which we believe Impious and Superstitious or we must separate from them None can be admitted to Benefices of Cure or preferment without swearâ—ng most of these Opinions which we think are false Nor can any Eminent Heretick be received among them without swearing that he in all things receives the Doctrines of the Church of Rome and that he thinks all that do not receive them worthy of an Anathema If the Errours of the Church of Rome had been only speculative opinions or things of less moment we could have better born with them or if they had only held to their own customes without imposing them on us we could have held in several things a sisterly Communion with them as we do with the Greek Churches but when they have not only brought in and obstinately maintained those corruptions but have so Tyrannically imposed them on the World it is somewhat strange to see men make such grimaces and an appearance of seriousness while they ask this question of which they know so well how to have resolved themselves One thing is likewise to be considered that in the examination of the corruptioâ—s of that Communion it is not sufficient to say somewhat to sweeten every one of them in particular but it is the complication of all together that we chiefly insist on since by all these set together we have another view of them than by every one of them taken asunder This then is our answer to the question so often repeated We have not made the Schism from the Church of Christ as it was setled by the Apostles and continued for many ages after them but they have departed from that and have refused to return to it On the contrary they have condemned and cursed us for doing it Upon this all that they objâ—ct against the first Reformers as having been once of their Communion falls to the ground For if these things which we object to them are true then since no man is bound to continue in Errours because he was bred up in them this is no just prejudice against those men All the flourishes raised upon this ground are but slight things and favour more of a monastick and affectate Eloquence than of the weight and solidity of so renowned a Body What is said of pulling down the Altars and of that elegant figure of Christs being the Sparrow and the Churches being the Turtle that loved to make their Nests in them is really very hard to be answered not for the strength that is in it but for another reason that in Reverence to that Assembly I shall not name The Sacrifice of the death of Christ we acknowledge as that only by which we come to God and in a general sense of that term the commemoration of it may be also called a Sacrifice and the Communion Table an Altar and such we still retain and for any thing further either of Altar or Sacrifice till they give a better authority for it than a fanciful allusion â—o an ill-understood Verse of a â—salm we shall not be much concerned in it If Wars and Confusions have followed in some places upon the reforming those abuses they were the effects of the Rage and Cruelty of those Church-men that seemed never like to be satiated with the blood of those that had departed from them And if the specious pretence of Edicts Princes of the Blood the preserving the House of Bourbon the defending France from Foreigners joyning with that natural appetite that is in all men to preserve themselves engaged some in Wars under the minority of their Kings it is nothing but what is natural to man and these who condemn it most yet ought to pity those whom their Predecessors in whose steps they now go constrained to do all that they did And the Rebellions in England and Ireland in King Henry the Eighth Edward
the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth's time when no Persecutions provoked them to them and no Laws gave them any colour for them are a much stronger prejudice against their Church chiefly since these were set on by the Authority and Agents of Rome so that they may well give over the pursuing this matter any further As for the argument set before them from the Greatness and Glory of their King and his Zeal to have all again re-united into one Body how powerful soever it may be to work upon their fears and to touch them in their Secular concerns it cannot be considered as an argument to work on their reasons They expressed their Zeal for their King in his greatest extremity while he was under age and after all the heavy returns that they have met with since that time they have continued in an Invincible Loyalty and submission in all things except in the matters of their God If the Heroick greatness Glorious success and the more inherent qualities of a Princely mind are good Arguments to work on Subjects they were as strong in the times of a Trajan a Decius or a Dioclesian to perswade the Christians to turn Heathens But it is very probable this is the strongest of all those motives that have produced so many Conversions of late while men either to make their Court or to live easie are induced to make shipwrack of the Faith and of a good Conscience And I shall not add that it seems those who are so often making use of this Argument feel the mighty force it has on themselves and so imagine it should prevail as much on others as they find it does on their own Consciences or rather on their Ambition and Covetousness I will prosecute the matter of this Letter no further and therefore shall not shew in how many places the Secretary that penned it has discovered how much he is a Novice in such matters and what great advantages he gives to those who would sift all the expressions the figures and the periods in it But the Respect I pay to those that subscribe it as well as the importance and gravity of the subject stop me So from the reviewing this Letter I go next to consider the Methods laid down by the Assembly for carrying on those Conversions A MEMORIAL Containing diverse Methods of which very great use may be made for the Conversion of those who profess the pretended Reformed Religion The first Method Is that which Cardinal Richelieu used for reducing either in the way of Disputâ— or Conference those of the P. R. R. and to perswade them in an amicable manner to re-unite themselves to the Church THis Method is to attack them by â— Decree of a Synod of theirs thaâ— met at Charenton 1631. by which theâ— received to their Communion those of thâ— Ausbourg Confession who hold the Reaâ— Presence of the Body of Iesus Christ in the Eucharist together with diverse other Articles that are very different from the Confession of Faith of those that are the P. Reformed Vpon which the Minister Dailee in his Apology says That if the Church of Rome had no other errour besides that they had not had a sufficient reason for their separating from her It is certain that none of all the other points of our Belief that are controverted are either of greater importance or harder to be believed than this which has been ever esteemed even by themselves one of the chief grounds of their Separation and is that by which the people are most amused As for that which the Minister Dailee says for eluding the force of this Objection That the Lutherans do not adore Iesus Christ in the Sacrament It is altogether unreasonable since Calvin himself reproves the Lutherans for that and is forced to acknowledge that adoration is a necessary consequence of the real Presence What is more strange says he than to put Jesus Christ in the Bread and not to adore him and if he is in the Bread then he ought to be adored under the Bread Thus since according to the Calvinists in the same Synod one does not overthrow the grounds of Salvation by the belief of the Real Presence and the other points of their Confession concerning which they dispute that Cardinal thought he could convince them of their errour in separating faom the Communion of the Church of Rome in which according to their own Maximes one could be saved It was by the like reasoning that the African Fathers convinced the Donatists called the Primianists that they had unjustly separated themselves from the Catholick Church because it received Cecilian iâ—to its Communion since they had made a decree of Vnion with the Maximianists whom they had formerly condemned It was in the Council of Carthage held under Anastasius that the Fathers used this against those Hereticks and in the Fourth Canon they set this before them That they might see if they would but open their eyes a little to the Divine Light that they had as unjustly â—ut themselves off from the unity of the Church as the Maximianists according to what they said had separated themselves from their Communion Remarks IF Cardinal Richelieu had not â—een an abler States-man than as it appears by this argument he was a Divine the Princes of Europe would not have such cause as they have at present to dread the growth of the French Monarchy of which he laid the best and strongest foundations It is a common Maxime That no man can excel but in one thing so since his strength lay in the Politicks no wonder he had no great Talent for Divinity But if this at first view seemed to him to have somewhat in it to amuse weak minds especially when it surprized them with its novelty yet it is a little unexpected to find it taken up by so great a Body and set in the front of their Methods for making Proselytes after the weakness of it has been so evidently discovered 1. Great difference is to be made between a speculation that lies in the mind and is a mans particular opinion and that which discovers it self in the most solemn acts of Worship for the former unless it is such as subverts the foundations of Religion we can well bear with it These are errours in which the person that holds them is only concerned whereas the other errors become more fruitful they corrupt the Worship they give scandal and infect others Therefore we will without scruple own that whether a man believe Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation so long as that lies in his brain as a notion we may conclude him a very ill Philosopher and a worse Divine for holding it but still we will receive him to our Communion that being a solemn stipulation of the New Covenant made with God through Christ And therefore since such a person acts nothing contrary to that Covenant we ought to admit him to it But Idolatry being contrary to the Laws upon which that
and theirs is the affirmative and since all Negatives especially in matters of Religion prove themselves it falls to their share to prove those Additions which they have made to our Faith and to the Doctrine contained in the Scriptures 3. Though this is a sure Maxime yet our Plea is stronger for there are many things taught by them against the express words of Scripture as their worshipping Images their noâ— drinking all of the Cup their worshipping of Angels their not worshipping God in a tongue which the unlearned understand and to which they can say Amen their setting up more Mediatoâ—â— between God and us than one Whereas S. Paul exhorting us to make Prayerâ— to God tells us there is one Mâ—diâ—tor which shews that he spake there his single Intercession with God on our behalf 4. We do not only build our Doctrine upon some few passages of the Scripture in which perhaps a Critical Writer might easily raise much dust but upon that in which we cannot be so easily mistaken which is the main scope of the whole New Testament and the design of Christianity which we believe is reversed in their Church by the Idolatry and Superstition that is in it 5. As for the particulars which they call on us to prove as they are very few so scarce any of them is of the greatest consequence The first is a speculative point about which we would never have broke Communion with them For the second that we receive Christ only by Faith if the third is true that the Sacrament is still Bread then that must be also true Now S. Paul calls it so four several times as also our Saviour calls the Cup the Fruit of the Vine As for our denying Purgatory it is a Negative and they must prove it Nor should we have broken Communion for their opinion concerning it if they had not added to that the redeeming Souls out of it with Masses by which the Worship is corrupted contrary to the institution of the Sacrament And for the last in the sense in which many of them assert it we do not raise any Controversie about it for we know that God rewards our good works or rather crowns his own Grace in us The fifth Method IS the Peaceable Method and without dispute founded on the Synod of Dort which all the pretended Reformed Churches of France have received and which has defined according to the Holy Scripture that when there is a dispute concerning any Controverted Article between two parties that are both within the true Church it is necessary to refer it to the judgement of the Synod and that he who refuses to submit himself becomes guilty of Heresiâ— and Schism Now if we will run back to the time in which the dispute began concerning any Article for instance that of the Real Presence both the parties in thâ— debate as well the Ancestors of those of the P. R. Religion as ours were in thâ— same Church which was the true Church for there was no other before the Sâ—paration which was not then made Then their Ancestors who would not submit to the Iudgement of the Church and have separated from her on no other account but because she had condemned their sentiments were Schismaticks and Hereticks And those who at this day succeed them are in the same manner guilty since they follow their opinions And to this they can make no other Answer but that which the Hereticks that have been condemned in all Ages might have made This Method is proved in all its parts in the little Treatise that has been made about it Remarks IT is not unwisely done to call this a Method that is to pass without dispute for it will not bear one And 1. There is this difference between the principles of Protestants and those of the Church of Rome that whereas the latter are bound to justifie whatever has been decreed in a General Council as a rule either of Faith or Manners the sormer are not so tied and much less are they bound by the decision of a National Council though never so solemn It is natural for all Judicatories to raise their own authority as high as they can and so if any Synod has made any such Declaration it lies on them to justifie it but the rest of those who have separated from the corruptions of the Church of Rome are not concerned in it 2. The principle of Protestants with relation to the majority even in a General Council is That when any Doctrines are established or condemned upon the Authorities of the Scriptures those who differ from them and do think â—hat the Council misunderstood the Scriptures are bound to suspect themselves a little and to review the matter with greater application and not to adhere to their former opinions out of pride or obstinacy They are also bound to consider well of their opinions though they appear still to be true yet if â—hey are of that importance that the publishing them is necessary to Salvation for unless it is so the Peace of the Church is not to be rent by them Yet if they are required to profess that they believe opinions which they think false if tâ—ey were never so inconsiderable no man ought to go against his Conscience But if a man after his strictest enquiries is still persuaded that a Council has decreed against the true meaning of the Scriptures in a point necessary to Salvation then he must prefer God to Man and follow the sounder though it should prove to be the much lesser party And if any Company or Synod of Protestants have decreed any thing contrary to this in so far they have departed from the Protestant principles 3. Difference is to be made also between Heresie and Schism in a Legal and a Vulgar sense and what is truly such in the sight of God The Sentence of a Supream Court from which there lies no Appeal makes one legally a Criminal But if he is innocent he is not the less innocent because a hard Sentence is past against him So Heresie and â—chism may take their denominations from the Sentence of a National or General Council But in that which is the sense of those words that makes them Criminal Heresie is nothing but an obstinate persisting in errours contrary to Divine Revelation after one has had a sufficient means of Inâ—truction and Schism is an ill grounded Separation from the Body of the Church So it must be the Divine Revelation and not the authority of a Synod that can prove one who holds contrary opinions to be an Heretick and the grounds of the Separation must be likewise examined before one can be concluded a Schismatick 4. Though the Conclusions and Definitions made by the Synod of Dort are perhaps generally received in France yet that does not bind them up to subscribe every thing that was asserted in that Synod Nor do they found their assent to those opinions on the authority of that Synod but upon the
Evidence of those places of Scripture from which they deduced them 5. Since those of that Communion object a National Synod to the Protestants this may be turned back on them with greater advantage in some points established by Councils which they esteem not only General but Infallible In the Third Council of the Lateran it was decreed That all Princes who favoured Hereticks did forfeit their Rights and a Plenary Indulgence was granted to all that fought against them In the Fourth Council at the same place it was decreed That the Pope might not only declare this forfeiture but absolve the Subjects from their Oaths of Obedience and transfer their Dominions upon others In the First Council at Lions they joyned with the Pope in thundring the Sentence of Deposition against the Emperour Frederick the First which in the preamble is grounded on some places of Scripture of which if they were the Infallible Expositors then this power is an Article of Faith And in the last pâ—ace the Council of Constance decreed That the Faith of a Safe-Conduct was not to be kept to an Heretick that had come to the place of Judgement relying on it even though he would not have come without it When Crueltâ— Rebellion and Treachery were thus decreed in Courts which among them are of so sacred an authority It is visible how much greâ—ter advantages we have of them in this point than any they can pretend against us 6. For the Synod of Dort I will not undertake the Apology neither for their Decrees nor for their Assertions and will not stick to say that how true soever many of their Conclusions may be yet the defining such mysterious matters as the order of the Divine Decrees and the Influences of Gods Grace on the wills of men in so positive a manner and the imposing their Assertions on all the Ministers of their Communion was that which many as sincere Protestants as any are have ever disliked and condemned as a weakening the Union of the Protestant Church and an assuming too much of that authority which we condemn in the Church of Rome For though they supposed that they made their definitions upon the grounds of Scripture so that in this sense the authority of the Synod was meerly Declarative yet the question will still recur Whether they understood the passages which they built on right or not And if they understood them wrong then according to Protestant principles their Decrees had no such binding authority that the receding from them could make one guilty either of Heresie or Schism The Sixth Method IS to shew them that the Roman Church or that Church which acknowledges the Pope or the Bishop of Rome the Successor of S. Peter to be her Head all the World over is the true Church Because there is no other besides her that has that undoubted mark which is a perpetâ—al Visibility without Interruption since Christ's time to this day This is a Method common to all the Catholicks and is very well and briefly set forth in the little Treatise of the true Church joyned to that of the Peaceable Method This is that of which S. Austin makes most frequent use against the Donatists and chiefly in his Book of the Vnity of the Church and in his Epistles of which the most remarkable passages relating to this matter are gathered together by the late Arch-bishop of Rouen in the first Book of his Apology for the Gospel in which he handles this matter excellently well One may add to this Method the Maxims of which Tertullian makes use in his Treatise of Prescriptions against the Hereticks and also Vincentius Lyrinensis in his Advices It is enough to say on this occasion that those two Treatises may satisfie any that will read them without prepossession in order to their forming a just Iudgement of the true Church of Iesus Christ and of all those Societies that would usurp that name Remarks THis Method is so common that there was no reason in any sort to give Mr. Maimbourg the honour of it unless it was that the Assembly intended to do him this publick honour to ballance his disgrace at Rome But let us examine it 1. This asserts that no other Church has a perpetual Succession without interruption but that which derives it from Rome which is so contrary to what every one knows that Mr. Maimbourg was certainly inspired with the Spirit of his Order when he writ it Do not all the Greek Churches and all the Churches that have their Ordination from them all from the Northern Empire of Muscovy to the Southern of the Abassines together with all those in the East derive from the Apostles by an uninterrupted series For till the Authority of the Church of Rome is proved which is the thing in question their being declared Schismaticks or Hereticks by it does not interrupt this Succession 2. The Church of England has the same Succession that the Church of Rome had in Gregory the Great 's time to wave the more ancient pretensions of the Brittish Churches and the Bishops of this Church being bound by one of their Sponsions made at their Consecration according to the Roman Pontifical to instruct their flock in the true Faith according to the Scriptures they were obliged to make good this promise Nor can it be pretended that they have thereupon forfeited their Orders and by consequence their Succession 3. The Succession of the Church of Rome cannot be said to be uninterrupted if either Heresie or Schism can cut it off It is well known that Felix Liberius and Honorius to name no more were Hereticks and if Ordinations by Schismaticks or unlawful Usurpers be to be annulled which was judged in the case of Photius and was often practised at Rome then the many Schisms and unjust usurpations that have been in that See will make the Succession of their Orders the most disputable thing that can be especially during that Schism that lasted almost forty years all the Churches of that Communion having derived their Orders from one or other of the Popes and if the Popes at Avignon were the Usurpers then let the Gallican Churches see how they can justifie the series of their Ordinations To all which may be added the impossibility of proving a true Succession in Orders if the Vertue of the Sacraments depends on the Intention of him who officiates since secret Intentions are only known to God 4. The ground on which the Donatists separated from the Orthodox Churches being at first founded on a matter of Fact which was of the pretended Irregularity of those who ordained Cecilian which they afterwards defended upon this that the Church could be only composed of good men and that the Sacraments were of no Vertue when dispensed by ill hands all that S. Austin says is to be governed by this Hypothesis against which he argues And it being once granted that the Church was not corrupted neither in Doctrine nor Worship we are very ready
what is the true sense of those passages that are in dispute but by that same Church which conveys it to you This is S. Austin's method in many places but above all in his Book De utilitate Credendi and in his Book Contra Epistolam fundamenti In which he says I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Church did not oblige me to it This Method is handsomely managed in the Treatise of the true Word of God joyned to the Peaceable Method Remarks 1. GReat difference is to be made between the conveyance of Books and an Oral Tradition of Doctrine It is very easie to carry down the one in a way that is Morally Infallible An exact copying being all that is necessary for that Whereas it is morally impossible to prevent frauds and impostures in the other in a course of some Ages especially in times of Ignorance and Corruption in which the Credulity of unthinking people has made an easie game to the Craft and Industry of covetous and aspiring Priests Few were then at the pains to examine any thing but took all upon Trust and became so ready of belief that the more incredible a thing seemed to be they swallowed it down the more willingly 2. If this way of reasoning will hold good it was as strong in the mouths of the Iews in our Saviours time for the High Priest and Sanhedrim might have as reasonably pretended that since they had conveyed down the Books in which the Prophecies of the Messiah were contained they hâ—d likewise the right to expound those Prophecies 3. A Witness that hands a thing down without Additions is very different from a Judge that delivers things on his own Authority We freely own the Church to be such a Witness that there is no colour of reason to disbelieve the Tradition of the Books but we see great cause to question the credit of her decisions 4. In this Tradition of Books we have not barely the Tradition of the Church for it We find in all ages since the Books of the New Testament were written several Authors have cited many and large passages out of them We find they were very quickly translated into many other Languages and diverse of those are conveyed down to us There were also so many Copies of these Books every where that though one had resolved on so Sacrilegious an attempt as the corrupting them had been he could not have succeeded in it to any great degree Some additions might have been made in some Copies and so from those they might have been derived to others but these could not have bâ—en considerable otherwise they had been discovered and complained of and when we find the Church engaged in contests with Hereticks and Schismaticks we see both sides appealed to the Scriptures and neither of them reproached the other for violating that Sacred Trust. And the noise we find of the small change of a Letter in the Aâ—ian Controversie shews us how exact they were in preserving these Records As for the Errours of Transcribers that is incident to the Nature of Man and though some Errours have crept into some Copies yet all these put together do not alter any one point of our Religion so that they are not of great consequence Thus it appears how much reason we have to receive the Scriptures upon the credit of such a Tradition But for Oral Tradition it is visible how it might have been so managed as quickly to change the whole Nature of Religion Natural Religion was soon corrupted when it passed down in this Conveyance even during the long lives of the Ancient Patriarchs who had thereby an advantage to keep this pure that after ages in which the life of Man is so shortned cannot pretend to We also see to what a degree the Iewish Tradition became corrupted in our Saviours time particularly in one point which may be called the most essential part of their Religion to wit concerning their Messias what the nature of his Person and Kingdome were to be So that they all expected a Great Conquerour a second Moses or a David so ineffectual a mean is Oral Tradition for conveying down any Doctrine pure or uncorrupted The Ninth Method IS to tell them the Church in which they were before they made the Separation was the true Church because it was the only Church so that they could not Reform the Doctrine without making another Church For then she must have fallen into Errour and by consequence the Gates of Hell must have prevailed against her which is directly contrary to the Promise of Iesus Christ that cannot fail The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her Remarks 1. A Church may be a True Church and yet be corrupted by many Errours for a â—rue Church is a Society of men among whom are the certain means of Salvation and such was the Iewish Church in our Saviours time For their Sacrifices had still an Expiatory Vertue and the Covenant made with that people stood still and yet they were over-run with many Errours chiefly in their notions of the Messias And thus as long as the Church of Rome acknowledges the Expiation made by the Death of Christ and applied to all that truly believe and amend their lives so long she is a True Church So that those of that Communion who adhere truly to that which is the great fundamental of the Christian Religion may be saved But when so many things were added to this that it was very hard to preserve this fundamental truth pure and entire then it was necessary for those who were better enlightned to call on others to correct the abuses that had crept in 2. It is hard to build a great super-structure on a figurative expression of which it is not easie to find out the true and full sense And in this that is cited there are but three terms and about every one of them great and just grounds of doubting do appear 1. It is not certain what is meant by the Gates of Hell which is an odd figure for an assailant If by Gates we mean Councils because the Magistrates and Courts among the Iews sate in the Gates then the meaning will be that the Craft of Hell shall not prevail against the Church that is shall not root out Christianity or if by Gates of Hell or the Grave according to a common Greek Phrase Death be to be understood it being the Gate through which we pass to the Grave then the meaning is this that the Church shall never die or be extinguished Nor is there less difficulty to be made about the signification of the word Church Whether it is to be meant in general of the body of Christians or of the Pastors of the Church and of the majority of them The Context seems to carry it for the Body of Christians and then the meaning will be only this That there shall still be a Body of Christians in the World And
of him that had so left it by his Will Certainly if that Commemoration was believed to be of any advantage to the Dead this had been an unreasonable piece of Cruelty in him to deny a Presbyter that comfort for so small a fault And therefore we may well infer from hence that by this Remembrance and the Thanksgivings they offered to God for such as had died in the Faith they intended only so far to celebrate their Memories as to encourage others to imitate those Patterns they had set them 6. I shall not engage in any Dispute concerning the Canonicalness of the Books of the Maccabees only as this general prejudice lies against all the Books called Apocryphal that the Council at Laodicea which was the first that reckoned up the Câ—non of the Scripture does not name them So as to the Book of the Maccabees it is hard to imagine that one who professes that he was but an Abridger of Iason's Five Books and gives us a large account of the difference between a Copious History and an Abridgement could be an Inspired Writer The Sixteenth Method TO Conclude one may solidly confute our Innovators by the Contradiction that is in their Articles of Faith shewing â—hem the Changes that they have made in the Ausburg Confession as also in all the different Expositions of their Faith which they have received and authorized since that time which shews that their Faith being uncertain and wavering cannot have the Character of Divine Revelation which is certain and constant There is nothing but the Faith that admits of no Reformation Tertullian made use of this Argument in many of his Books and Hilary handles it excellently well against the Emperour Constantius upon the occasion of the new Symbols which the Arians published every day changing their Faith continually while the Catholick Church continued firm to that of Nice One may likewise use another Method which is to make it appear that there is a Conformity between the Roman and Greek Churches in the chief Articles of Faith that are in dispute between us and the P. Reformed and that in these the Roman Church does likewise agree with those Sociâ—ties which separated themselves from the Church for Errours which the P. Reformed condemn with her such as the Nestorians and Eutychians To these Methods it will be necessary to add particular Conferences solid Writings Sermons and Missions and to use all these means with a Spirit of Charity without bitterness and above all without injuries Remembring that excellent saying of S. Austin's I do not endeavour to reproach those against whom I dispute that I may seem to have the better of them but that I may become sounder by convincing them of their Errour And following the Canon of the Council of Africk that appointed that though the Donatists were cut off from the Church of God by their Schism yet they should be gently dealt with that so correcting them with meekness as the Apostle says God may give them the grace of Repentance to know the truth and to retire themselves out of the snare of the Devil in which they are taken Captives Remarks 1. IF we did pretend that the first Reformers or those who drew the Ausburg confession were inspired of God in compiling what they writ there were some force in this Discourse But since we build upon this principle that the Scripture is the only ground on which we found our Faith then if any person how much soever we may honour his memory on all other accounts has misunderstood that we do not depart from our principle when we forsake him and follow that which appears to be plainly delivered in the Scriptures 2. We freely acknowledge that the Faith admits of no Reformation and that we can make neither more nor less of it than we find in the Scriptures but if any Church has brought in many Errours we do not think it a Reforming the Faith to throw these out The Faith is still the same that it was when the Apostles first delivered it to the Church nor was it the Faith but the Church that was pretended to be Reformed And if after a long night of Darkness and Corruption those that began to see better did not at first discover every thing or if some of the prejudices of their Education and their former opinions did still hang about them so that others who came after them saw further and more clearly This only proves that they were subject to the Infirmities of the Humane Nature and that they were not immediately inspired of God which was never pretended 3. Great difference is to be made between Articles of Faith and Theological Truths The former consists of those things that are the Ingredients of our Bâ—ptismal Vows and are indeed parts of the New Covenant which may be reduced to the Creed and the Ten Commandments The other are opinions relating to these which though they are founded on Scripture yet have not that Influence either on our Hearts or Lives that they make us either much better or much worse Among these we reckon the Explanation of the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament and the Influence of the Divine Grace upon our Wills If some of the Confessions of Faith among the Protestants differ much in these matters that is not concerning Articles of Faith but Theological Truths In which great allowances are to be made for difference of opinion And as particular Churches ought not to proceed too hastily to decisions in matters that are justly disputable so the rigorous imposing of those severe definitions on the Consciences of others by Oaths and Subscriptions and more particularly all rigour in the prosecution of those that differ in opinion is both disagreeing to the mildness of the Christian Religion and to the Character of Church-men and in particular to the principles upon which the Reformation was founded 4. As for the Greek Churches together with the other Societies in the East we do not deny that many of those corruptions for which we condemn the Church of Rome are among them which only proves that the beginning of these is elder than the Ninth or Tenth Century In which those Churches began to divide such is the worshipping of Images the praying to Saints and some other abuses 5. To this it must be added that for diverse Ages the oppression under which those Churches have fallen and the great Ignorance that has overspread them have beâ—n such that no wonder if those Greeks that have been bred up in the States of the Roman Communion and so were leavened with their opinions have found it no hard task to impose upon their weak and corrupt Countrey-men whatsoever opinions they had in charge to infuse into them So that we may rather wonder to find that all those abuses for which we complain of the Church of Rome are not among them than that some have got footing there 6. But after all this the main things upon
if their Absolution is thought to have any other Vertue in it than a giving the Peace of the Church with a Declaration of the terms upon which God pardons Sinners If the Vertue of the Sacraments upon which so much depends according to their principles is so entirely in the Priests power that he can defeat it when he pleases with a cross intention so that all mens hopes of another state shall depend on the Priests good disposition to them by which every man must know how necessary it is to purchase their favour at any rate If likewise they pretend to an Immunity from the Secular Judge and do all enter into Oaths which center in him whom they acknowledge their Common Head whose authority they have advanced above all the powers on Earth so that he can depose Princes and give away his Dominions to others It must be confessed that all these have such Characters of Interest and Ambition on them and are so little like the true Spirit of Christianity or indeed the Common Principles of Natâ—ral Reason and Religion that a man is very partial who does not think it reasonable to suspect such proceedings and a Church that holds such Doctrines 3. It is likewise reasonable to suspect any Church that holds many opinions that tend much to a vast encrease of their Wealth and to bring the greatest Treasures of the World into their hands The power of redeeming Souls out of Purgatory has brought more Wealth into the Church of Rome than the discovery of the Indies has done to the Crown of Spain Such also was the power of Pardoning and of exchanging Penances for Money by which the World knew the price of Sins and the rates at which they were to be compounded for The Popes power of granting Indulgences the vertue of Pilgrimages the communication of the merits of Orders to such as put on their Habits and in a word the whole authority that the Câ—â—râ— of Rome has assumed in these latter ages that tend so much to the encrease of their Revenue are all such evident Indications of particular ends and private designs that he must be very much wedded to his first impressions that does not upon this suspect that matters have not been so fairly carried among them that nothing ought to be doubted which is defined by them 4. It is a very just cause of suspecting every thing that is managed by a company of Priests if they have for several Ages carried on their designs by the foulest methods of Forgery and Imposture of which they themselves are now both convinced and ashamed When the Popes authority was built on a pretended Collection of the Letters which the Popes of the first ages after Christ were said to have writ and their assumed Jurisdiction was justified by those precedents which are now by themselves acknowledged to be forgeries When the Popes Temporal Dominion was grounded on the Donations of Constantine of Charles the Great and his Son Lewis the Good which appear now to be notorious forgeries When an infinite number of Saints of Miracles Visions and other wonderful things were not only read and preached to the people but likewise were put into the Collects and Hymns used on their Festivals which wrought much on the simplicity and superstition of the vulgar many of which are now proved to be such gross impostures that they are forced to dash them out of their Offices and others against which there lyes not such positive proof yet depend on the credit only of some Legend writ by some Monks When many Books past over the World as the Writings of the most Ancient Fathers which were but lately writ and many of their genuine Writings were grossly vitiated When all those things are become so evident that the most Learned Writers amongst themselves particularly in the Gallican Church have not only yielded to the proofs brought by Protestant Writers in many of these particulars but have with a very Commendable Zeal and Sincerity made discoveries themselves in several particulars into which the others had not such advantages to penetrate There is upon all these grounds good cause given to mistrust them in other things and it is very reasonable to examine the assertions of that Church with the severest rigour since an Imposture once discovered ought to bring a suspicion on all concerned in it even as to all other things 5. There is likewise great reason to suspect all that are extream fierce and violent that cannot endure the least contradiction but endeavour the ruine of all that oppose them Truth makes men both confident of its force and merciful towards such as do not yet receive it Whereas Errour is Jealous and Cruel If then a Church has decreed that all Hereticks that is such as do not submit to all her decisions are to be extirpated if she has bound all her Bishops by Oath at their Ordinations to Persecute them to the utmost of their power If Princes that do not extirpate them are first to be excommunicated by their Bishops and after a years Contumacy are to be deposed by the Popes and their Kingdomes to be given away If all Hereticks upon Obstinacy or Relapse are to be burnt and if they endeavour in all places as much as they can to erect Courts of Inquisition with an absolute authority in which Church-men forgetting their Character have vied in Inventions of Torture and Cruelty with the bloodiest Tyrants that have ever been Then it must be confessed that all these set together present the Church that authorizes and practises them with so dreadful an aspect so contrary to those bowels and tendernesses that are in the nature of man Not to mention the merciful Idea's of God and the wonderful meekness of the Author of our Holy Religion that we must conclude that under what form soever of Religion such things are set on foot in the World such a Doctrine is so far from improving and exalting the nature of man that really it makes him worse than he would otherwise be if he were left to the softness of his own nature And certainly it were better there were no revealed Religion in the World than that mankind should become worse more cruel and more barbarous by its means than it would be if it were governed by Nature or a little Philosophy Upon all these grounds laid together it is no unreasonable thing to conclude that a Church liable to such imputations ought justly to be suspected and that every one in it ought to examine well on what grounds he continues in the Communion of a society of men against which such strong prejudices lie so fairly without the least straining or aggravating matters too much I proceed now to the second part of my undertaking which is to shew that the grounds upon which that Church builds are certainly weak if not false And 1. They boast much of a Constant Succession as the only infallible mark to judge of a Church and