Reformation done by Act of Parliament REformation may be considered two wayes Either 1. As preached and imposed under pain of Spiritual Censures and of Exclusion from the Communion of the Church and a deprivation of all the Priviledges consequent to that Communion And this is certainly the Right of the Church and was accordingly practiced by the Church in our English Reformation 2. As Enacted as a Law of the Land and consequently as urged the same way as other Laws are under temporal Penalties and external Coercion and encouraged by temporal Advantages And this is undoubtedly the Right of the Secular power And this was all in which the Secular power did concern it self in the Reformation What I can further foresee in favour of our Adversaries is that 1. The Secular Power ought in Conscience to be herein advised by the Ecclesiasticks and 2. That though external obedience may be paid to the mistaken Decrees of the Secular power following the mistaken part of the Ecclesiasticks yet the Obligation in Conscience and Right of such Decrees must be derived from the Justice of the Churches proceedings in advising the Magistrate so that no Act of the Magistrate can make amends for any Essential defect in the proceedings of the Church But the only Effect of the Magistrates concurrence in that Case is that what is already performed without Heresy or Schism in the Church may be by that means settled in such a particular Commonwealth without Schism or Sedition in the State And therefore seeing they suppose that at the Reformation the greater number of the Bishops then being were overawed and deprived of the Liberty of their Votes by the Secular Magistrate and it is the nature of all Societies to be swayed by the greater Part therefore they may think it unreasonable to ascribe the Reformation to the Church of England but only to a Schismatical part of it so that the Magistrate having attempted this Reformation without warrant from the Church they think they do well to call our Reformation it self Parliamentary To this therefore I Reply 1. That the use we make of this Topick of the Magistrates concurrence is indeed no other than to clear our Reformation from being Seditious which is ordinarily charged on Us by our Adversaries and much more ordinarily on the forreign Protestants 2. That for clearing the very proceedings of the Magistracy from being Heretical or Schismatical to the Conscience of the Magistracy it self it is sufficient that the Magistracy gave its Assistance and Protection to no other Church but such as at least according to the genuine Dictate of their Conscience was neither Heretical nor Schismatical But this Justification of the private Conscience of the Magistracy is I confess a thing we are at present not so necessarily concerned for and therefore 3. We grant farther that for satisfying our own Consciences of the Justice of these proceedings of the Magistracy it is requisitethat we be satisfied that they were Advised by that part of the Clergy whose Advice we conceive they ought to have followed So that if this may appear in the Case we are speaking of this and this alone will be a sufficient Vindication of the Magistrates proceedings to the Consciences of its Subjects 4. Therefore the Determination of the Justice of the Advice followed by the Magistrate may be resolved two wayes Either from the merit of the Cause or from the Legal Authority and Right the Persons may be presumed to have to be consulted on such occasions As for the former it is in the present Case the principal Dispute Whether the Reformation undertaken by the Magistrate was right or not and therefore very unfit to be relyed on as a Presumption to prove the Magistrates proceedings Irregular The later therefore only is proper to be insisted on here And it consists of two charges That by the Laws of the Land the Magistrate ought to have been advised by the Bishops then possessed of the several Sees and That in advising with the Clergy whoever they were he ought to have allowed them the Liberty of speaking their minds and to have been swayed by the greater part These things are conceâ—ved so necessary as that the Magistrate not observing them may be presumed to act as no way influenced by the Clergy Which is the Reason why they call our Reformation wherein they suppose them not observed Parliamentary 1. Therefore as to the Legal Right of the Popish Clergy to advise the Secular Magistrate two things may be Replyed 1. That this Legal Right may be forfeited by the Persons by their Personal misdemeanors and of this forfeiture the Secular Magistrate himself is the proper Judge and that this was exactly the Popish Bishops Case at that time 2. That the consideration of this Legal Right is of no use for satisfying the Consciences of their Subjects which yet is the only use that is seasonable for this occasion 2. As for the Canonical freedom to be allowed them in advising and the obligation of the Magistrate to follow the advice of the greater part These Canonical Rights can only satisfie the Consciences of their own Communion but cannot be pretended necessary to be observed where there are different Communions For 1. The Romanists themselves never allow that freedom to Persons out of their Communion as was plain in the Council of Trent and still appears on all occasions 2. Especially in particular National Churches as ours was they themselves will not deny that the greater part may prove Heretical and therefore likely to prevail by Plurality of Votes in which Case themselves would notwithstanding think it unequal for the Magistrate to be swayed by them 3. This has alwaies been the Practice of the Church and the Catholick Emperors never to allow any Canonical Right to the Assemblies and Censures of Hereticks as Athanasius was restored first by Maximinus Bishop of Triers then by Pope Julius after that by Maximus Bishop of Jerusalem and at last by the Emperour Jovinian without any Canonical revocation of the Synods that had condemned him Many Instances of the like Nature might be given 4. The Popish Clergy had given the first Precedent of this Liberty themselves in refusing to admit of the Canonical Appeal of the Protestants from the Pope to a free General Council FINIS Exom Second Edition Sect. 1. Ch. 19. §. 4. p. 74. Sect. 2. Ch. 21. §. 3. p. 188. Append. Ch. 5. §. 2. p. 516. See Verons Lat. Answ. to Q. Gener. 8. p. 561. at the end of the Exom Exom Sect. 1. Chap. 16. §. 3. p. 58. Sect. 2. Ch. 21. §. 4. p. 190. Sect. 2. Ch. 3. p. 90. White 's Tab. Suffrag As the Florentine Council c. As of Constance c. Answ. to Q. 4. pag. 86. Dr. Stillingfleet Suppositions (a) (a) Feb. 25. 1569. Propositions a a Prop. 1. 2 3 4. b b Prop. 6. c c Prop. 1 2. d d Prop. 3. e e Prop. 7.8 9 10 11 12. f f Prop. 13. g g Prop. 14. h h Prop. 15. i i Prop. 16.17 18. k k Prop. 19. l l Prop. 21 23 24 m m Prop. 20. n n Prop. 22. * * Prop. 22. Ep. 188. ad Mart. Mayer Ep. 72. ad Stephfratr * * Vid Consid. of Pres. Concern ††For the Jesuites see the Provine Letâ— and the Moral Theolog. of the Jesuites and for the rest of that Communion the Jesuites defence of themselves by way of recremination against others Vid. II. 1 2. Exomolog Sect. 2. Ch. 16. §. 2. P. 162. Ed. 2. On 1 Cor. III. 15. Vid. Q. I. §. I.
Liber cui Titulus Two Discourses against the Romanists c. Authore H. Dodwell IMPRIMATUR Geo. Hooper R mo D n◠Archiepiscopo Cantuar. à Sacris Domest Junui 8. 1676. TWO SHORT DISCOURSES Against the ROMANISTS 1. An Account of the Fundamental Principle of Popery and of the insufficiency of the Proofs which they have for it 2. An Answer to Six Queries proposed to a Gentlewoman of the Church of England by an Emissary of the Church of Rome By HENRY DODWELL M. A. and sometimes Fellow of Trinity Colledge near DVBLIN LONDON Printed for Benj Tooke and are to be sold at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-yard 1676. AN ACCOUNT OF THE Fundamental Principle OF POPERY As it is a Distinct Communion AND Of the insufficiency of the Proofs which they have for it WITH A PREFACE concerning the Vsefulness of this Undertaking By HENRY DODWELL LONDON Printed for Benjamin Tooke 1676. A PREFACE Concerning the USEFULNESS Of the following HYPOTHESIS § 1. THough I cannot undertake for what is mine in the management of the following Discourse yet as to the design for which I am wholly beholden to the Goodness of my Cause and the intrinsick reasonableness of the Evidences which prove it good I think I may without Immodesty affirm that if it hold it must be of universal use with them of the Roman Communion use I § 2. For 1. it must be of great use for the Laity and the Vulgar who either have not the Abilities or cannot spare the time which would be requisite for Enquiring into the particular Disputes to have the Controversies reduced into a narrow compass And especially if these few things to which they are reduced may suffice for securing the Duty incumbent on such Persons as well as if the Enquiry had been more minute and when withal the Evidence on which their Resolution depends is suited to the capacity of that sort of persons Now all these things are provided for by the following Hypothesis § 3. All the Disputes between us are reduced to this one of the Popes Supremacy over the Catholick Church diffusive As for our Differences in Other Particulars it is here proved that if we be not mistaken in This themselves either cannot charge us with Errour or not with any Errour of that consequence as may excuse them either for Separating from our Communion or for that rigorous Imposing their own Opinions which are contrary to it § 4. And this does indeed effectually secure the Duty of Ordinary Laicks in this whole affair For the Obligation incumbent at least on such Persons who are not by their particular Calling obliged to Enquire can only be to know so much as may secure their Christian Practice and that is sufficiently secured by due adhering to that Communion where they may reasonably expect the performance of those Divine Promises which are conveyed in the use of the Sacraments and the other Ordinary Means of Grace so that the main concernment of such Persons is this to know where such a Communion is to be had Now the solving of this Question appears from the Principles here laid down sufficient to decide the whole Dispute concerning the true Communion If it should prove true that the Pope has this Authority over the Catholick Church diffusive it would follow that his particular Church must be the Catholick Church virtual and so must have a Title to all those Promises made to the Catholick Church in the Scriptures thus much at least will follow even according to their Hypothesis who do not pretend that these Promises reach so high as Infallibility and therefore that they were obliged to submit to Active Obedience to all Lawful Impositions and Passive even in Unlawful ones so that in all Cases it would be Unlawful to joyn with any other Communion in opposition to it And on the other side if it prove false it will plainly follow that it is unlawful either for those who are already in that Communion to continue in it seeing they cannot continue in it without being accessary to the Divisions of Christendom by abetting a Tyrannical Power over it or for others to desert their own Communion to come to the Roman which cannot on those Principles be done with any such pretence of Necessity as may excuse their Separation from being Schismatical § 5. The Evidence also into which this Dispute is ultimately resolved must needs be such as must be suitable to the meanest capacity that is capable of acting prudently in this great affair and certainly every one is in Interest as well as Duty obliged to make use of his utmost Prudence in a matter wherein his greatest Interests are so nearly concerned For the meanest Prudence that is will require that where they cannot choose their way there at least they should choose their Guide And it is only the Authority of the Pope as a Principle of Unity and of the Church adhering to him as a Guide in Controversies of which this Hypothesis allows them a Liberty to judge in order to their own private satisfaction And as the matter is such concerning which the meanest Prudence that can deserve the name of Prudence is obliged to judge so the Evidence is such as every one must be capable of judging who is capable of being Prudently and Rationally a Christian. For the very Truth of Christianity it self in reference to us in this Age must be proved by Historical Testimonies of the Miracles by which it was attested from the beginning and the Canon of the Scripture must be proved by the Testimonies of those by whom the Scriptures were delivered And it is the same Historical Testimony whether of express Scripture or of express Tradition to which they are here referred for the proof of this Supremacy of the Pope and the Subject concerning which this Testimony was to be given could not but have had so general an influence on their Practice if they had acknowledged any dependence on this Supremacy as that it must have been as notorious to them who gave it as those Miracles or that Canon and therefore their Testimony must have been as Credible in one Case as in the other § 6. Besides that the Negative Argument which I here make use of is much less Questionable than the Affirmative That is there is much more reason to doubt of a pretended Tradition if it be not expresly mentioned in the Primitive Authors and doubting is sufficient for my purpose to overthrow the Credit of that which pretends to be an Article of Faith than to believe a thing to have descended from the Apostles because those Authors pretend it did so For in their Affirmations they many times deliver what they think on their own Conjectural Reasonings wherein they are as Fallible as others But what they have not mentioned if it be not allowed to conclude that they knew it not and that therefore there was then no Historical Evidence for it seeing that could not have escaped their knowledge
themselves unavoidably reduced to this choice whether they will embrace these Doctrines rather than forbear their Communion or whether they will keep off from their Communion rather than own these Schismatical Doctrines Nor will it be hard to judge how they would be likely to determine in such a Case For if their aversation to these Doctrines be greater than their kindness to particular Opinions or Practices of the Roman Communion as I have already shewn that it is reasonable to believe that it is frequently the Case of Persons not yet Proselyted by them they must necessarily think themselves obliged on these terms to continue where they are § 15. 2. And the same things proportionably applyed may serve to shew the usefulness of this Hypothesis for gaining several moderate Persons of the Romanists themselves They who call the Doctrine of the Popes Infallibility Archi-Heretical and confess themselves unable in this Principle to defend their Church against us when they shall find that the Fundamental Principle of their own as a distinct Communion is this confessedly indefensible Archi-Heretical Doctrine that without this they cannot justifie either their Separation or their Impositions they cannot think it safe in Conscience to continue any longer divided from us § 16. The same thing is also applicable to that other Doctrine which prevails with several very considerable Parties of the Roman Communion That the Supreme Judge of Controversies on Earth is either the diffusive Catholick Church or a Council that is truly Free and General and accordingly received as such by the Catholick Church diffusive and that that alone is the seat of Infallibility They who are of this Judgment if the following Hypothesis hold true must necessarily be obliged to change their Communion on two accounts 1. That they cannot make out their own Title to their being the Catholick Church in this sense nor can they consequently prove that many of our Doctrines which they condemn as Heretical have ever been Canonically condemned by this Judge of Controversies This will hinder them from abstaining from our Communion for them And 2. that on these Principles the Doctrines of the Popes Monarchy and Infallibility must be Heretical This will oblige them to abstain from the Communion of those who maintain them § 17. 1. They cannot make out their Title to their own being the Catholick Church in this sense For evidently they are not the Catholick Church diffusive many considerable parts whereof are not in Communion with them And therefore all the Plea they can make to the Authority or Infallibility of the Catholick Church must be grounded on the Notion of a Catholick Church Virtual which Notion they must needs disclaim in asserting the Power of the diffusive Catholick or its Lawful Representative over all particular Churches These things I conceive so clear from the Doctrine here delivered as that I cannot think my self obliged to say any more concerning them at present Hence it will follow that all those particular Doctrines which have been defined against us only by the Western Councils without the Suffrages of the Eastern Bishops or the reception even of all the Western Churches themselves must fail of that pretence to Infallibility which is here even from their own Principles proved necessary to justifie their Separation from us on that account And when these are deducted there will remain but few instances of Doctrines disputed between us if any which themselves can pretend to have been defined by the united Suffrages of all Eastern and Western Bishops and unanimously received in the particular Dioceses Nor can they on these terms give any account why they condemn and exclude from their interest in the common Judicatory of Christendom as many and as great and every way as considerable Churches as themselves § 18. 2. But if such Western Councils as are in this point defended by our Adversaries of this Faction must indeed be admitted for the Supreme visible Judicatories and consequently as intitled to that Infallibility which is by them ascribed to this Supreme Judicatory I cannot conceive how they can avoid thinking themselves obliged in Conscience to separate from the Communion of them who ascribe this Infallibility to the Pope and his Conclave For there is nothing that can be said to justifie their Separation from us but will as strongly prove them obliged to separate from their own Brethren of that Perswasion For these Councils have taken upon them to decide the Controversie concerning the Supremacy by declaring this Power to be in the Church diffusive and themselves to be Lawful Representatives of that Church and consequently that all Ecclesiastical Power the Papacy it self being also expresly mentioned was subject to them For can they think that Propositions neither Necessary as to their matter nor Evident as to their Proof can oblige Subjects to their Belief under pain of incurring the Censure of Heresy only on account of their being defined by their Supreme Judge of Controversies And is there any thing that themselves can pretend to have been more expresly defined by that Judge than this is If they will think to evade this Argument by pretending that this Doctrine of the Power of their Judge of Controversies is not so properly de fide it self as a Principle antecedent to the belief of all Particulars that are so yet this can derogate nothing from their obligation to separate from the Communion of Dissenters concerning it For can they think themselves obliged to Separate for the denyal of one particular defined by that Authority And is there not incomparably more reason they should do so for the denyal of the Authority it self Is not the Authority it self more Fundamental than the particulars can be which on these Principles derive their whole Credibility from it And must it not be much more heinous to destroy the Credit of all possible Particulars which on these Principles is included in the Judge of Controversies than to refuse an actual Assent to any one Particular And as it hence appears that the matter of these Differences among themselves is more momentous and more obliging to a Separation than themselves can pretend those to be wherein they differ from us so I may add farther that the Separation which ought in Conscience to follow hereupon must be equally irreconcileable For will it not come to the same Event whether we utterly disown a visible Judge of Controversies or whether we indeed own one but own such a one as that our Adversaries cannot think themselves obliged to stand to his decision In both Cases there is equally acknowledged a Liberty of Appeal from all Power that is acknowledged by the Adversary And that Power which must decide Controversies against an Adversary who does not think himself obliged as much as in Conscience to submit to such a Decision must do it either by force or Arbitration which are Remedies as allowable by our Principles as by those of our Adversaries Nay in this Case
by this means come to be Responsible not only for the dangerous Doctrines of their whole Church but also for the Personal Errors of their Priests and particular Confessors both as they are by the Principles of that Communion allowed to be the Authentical Proponents of the Doctrines of their Church to unlearned Persons who are not themselves qualified for Judging concerning them as their Church is of the Doctrines of Christ to the Learned and as the same Rules of Prudence oblige them as strongly to trust their particular Priests for Opinions as they do their Church for Doctrines of Faith where they are still presumed as uncapable of Judging themselves II. If by this possibility of Salvation mentioned in the Question be meant only a possibility of the Event notwithstanding the dangerousness of the condition of Persons of that Communion upon account of their being of it then the Resolution will depend on this How far Errors of their own nature damnative may not prove actually destructive to the Salvation of the particular Erroneous Person on account of the Ignorance and Unvoluntariness with which the Person comes to be engaged in such Errors For on these accounts it may be conceived that the Errors may either not be imputed to her at all or be imputed in so low a degree as to become pardonable by the general Stipulations and promises of the Gospel for the pardoning of Sins of Inadvertency and humane frailty which are supposed expiable by a general Care of fulfilling the conditions of the Evangelical Covenant together with a general implicite Repentance of Sins unknown as well as known Now of these two waies whereby an Error damnative of its own Nature may be hindred from proving actually damnative in the Event to the Erroneous Person it is only an Invincible Ignorance that is such as can be remedied by no means that are in the power of the Person who is supposed Erroneous that can hinder all Imputation of her Error to her and only such a degree of Vincible Ignorance can suffice for extenuating the Imputation so far as to render it pardonable in the way now mentioned that is very hardly avoidable by the Person considering the frailty to which her condition in this Life is obnoxious So that for judging concerning the Condition of Revolters which is the Gentlewomans case the Enquiry will be what degree of Ignorance they are capable of that may make their Errors Involuntary that is How far such as they are may be capable of being Ignorant of their Duty to adhere to ours as the true Communion And for discerning this these following Particulars would be fit to be considered 1. That we are all agreed Romanists as well as Protestants that all sorts of Persons Ignorant as well as Learned are obliged to adhere to the true Communion whatever that is in contra-distinction to others at least under pain of losing the Ordinary means of Salvation and consequently that comfortable satisfaction of the security of their own condition which they who enjoy the Ordinary means of Salvation must needs be more capable of than they who are necessitated to repose their whole confidence in Gods Extraordinary Mercies 2. That all Persons being thus obliged by God to embrace the true Communion the Inducements to it must be supposed sufficient for the conviction of all and consequently suited to the capacities of all who are thus concerned to receive Conviction 3. Therefore the Reasons being thus supposed sufficient for the conviction of all there can be no pretence of Invincible Ignorance for any but such as are Ignorant of those Reasons which cannot be supposed to be the case of Revolters Hence it follows at least that if Revolters act rationally that is Enquire what it is they leave and why and accordingly follow their Convictions as they ought before their Change they cannot be supposed capable of Invincible Ignorance So that the only imaginable pretence for rendring their Error Invincible must be the supposed Invincibleness of those Prejudices which may hinder a well-meaning Person acting conscientiously from acting rationally Which muft be either 1. Opinions conceived obligatory in Conscience hindring the Persons embracing them from Enquiry or following their own Convictions of which kind many instances may be produced which are favoured by the Casuists of the Roman Church Or 2. Precipitation in passing Sentence on a partial Evidence resolving on some particular advantage of one Cause without considering its disadvantages or the advantages of the contrary Cause which might possibly over-weigh it if impartially considered Or 3. An undiscernible favour to one Cause more than another whereby we wish it rather true in regard of its greater complyance with some particular Interest or Affection which may be thought Innocent at least if not commendable which may the more likely prejudice a well-meaning Conscientious Person because it may indeed be Prudent in some Cases and it is not easie for a Person acted by it to discern when it is not But it is hard to conceive how any of these mistakes can be Invincible in Revolters Not the 1. for 1. There can be no reason to take up such Opinions so gratuitously which are so Prejudicial to all Reasoning in general 2. There can be no reason to take them for granted as first Principles without Enquiry by which means very absurd Propositions may be taken up by very rational Persons where it is known that many skilful and as far as can be judged Conscientious Persons do not only question but deny them 3. Revolters from us cannot as much as pretend any Prejudices of Education to excuse such mistakes seeing that among Us they find them utterly discountenanced And as they have thus neither Reason nor among Us Authority that may induce them to the belief of those Doctrines So neither 4. Can the Authority of our Adversaries be any probable inducement to perswade Revolters to the belief of these irrational Doctrines 1. Because the Romanists themselves are sensible of the absurdity of these Doctrines and their unserviceableness to their own Interests when they have to deal with Persons whom they desire to seduce so that they are not likely to recommend such Doctrines to such Persons as Credible on account of their own Authority For if they should offer to perswade such as they esteem Hereticks of the unlawfulness of intermedling in Religious Disputes or following their own Convictions in them it would be the means to make it impossible to Proselyte such to their own Party 2. If they should be so imprudent as to perswade them of the Truth of these Doctrines so prejudicial to their own interests in these Circumstances yet the Person tempted would need no other Argument to confute them than their attempts to Proselyte her at the same time when they should teach her that it were unlawful to hearken to any Reasons or to venture her own Judgment concerning them if contrary to what at present she believed to be true 3.
will observe She will find that their Arguments from this and the like Topicks only aim at For because they challenge such a Priviledge themselves they fancy Us to do so to and that our design is not to overthrow a Judge of Controversies but only to translate that Title from the Pope to Luther or some others of our eminent Reformers which is far from our design But this difference in Opinion does not in the least prove but that upon a particular Enquiry into the merit of the Cause one Party may be found to have the advantage of the other which is all that we pretend to 3. That this difference of the several Parties of the Reformation in other things is rather a very strong Presumption for an Ignorant Person who must conduct her self by Presumptions that there is great reason for those things wherein they are all agreed and indeed is a greater Argument for the Credibility of the Reformation in general than for that of the Roman Communion For to a dis-interessed Person the Agreement of those is a more valuable Argument for the Truth of what they say who seem most of all acted by the merit of the things and least of all influenced by the Opinions and Authorities of a few and there can hardly be conceived a more considerable Argument of their freedom in Judgment than their actual difference in other things What therefore the Protestants are agreed in seems more likely to be the real sense of all that are so agreed upon an Impartial Enquiry whereas the Romanists are generally Influenced by a few of the Court of Rome to whom the rest do generally conceive themselves obliged in Conscience to conform And this advantage of the differences of Protestants for recommending their Credibility in other things above that of their Adversaries to the Trust of an Ignorant Person will appear the more remarkable if it be considered 4. That they are not only agreed in general in the fitness of a Reformation but also in most of the Particulars to be Reformed Indeed if they were only agreed in general that it were fit a Reformation should be but agreed in no Particulars it might seem too probable a Suspicion that it was not Truth but Faction and the disturbance of the Publick that was their common design But that is far from being the Case here 5. The Divisions of the Protestants in Doctrine are not so irreconcileable as they may seem The Harmony of Confessions shew them agreed in the Principal As for the others it is plain that our Church of England does not think them worth contending for whilst She admits the several Parties into her Communion and if other Protestants think otherwise yet She is not Responsible for them because She is not of their mind The most pernicious Principles of all which most Naturally tend to Division and which make the differences resulting from them most impossible to be reconciled are the differences concerning Church Government and in that our Church has Innovated nothing that should cause any breach even from the Roman much less from any other part of the Catholick Church And most of their other Differences are no longer Irreconcileable than the Persons are likely to continue averse to Reconciliation but these Differences about Church-Government are so derived from the nature of the Things as that they may Cause Division among Persons otherwise well-meaning and of a Peaceable Disposition 6. This Argument from the Divisions of Protestants is principally proper for such as are not actually engaged in any particular Communion of them and even to them ought to have no more force than that of a Prudent Presumption till the Person so Presuming might have leasure to examine Particulars But that seems not to be the Gentlewomans Case whom I suppose to have been hitherto educated in the Church of England and to have had sufficient opportunities of Informing her self concerning us For such a one it would sure be sufficient that our Church is no way guilty of these Divisions whatsoever may be the Case of other Protestants Q. 5. Why the Church of England doth not hold up to Confession Fasting-days Holy Oyl which we our Selves commend IT is a mistake that the Questionist does suppose Us to commend Holy Oyl However we think all the Instances here mentioned lawful and indifferent and so to be as obnoxious to the Prudence of particular Church-Governors as other things of that nature are by all acknowledged to be and we shall conceive our Selves secure of the Gentlewomans Communion if She will not alter till our Adversaries prove them necessary Antecedently to Church Authority which is more than they will as much as pretend to at least concerning some of them These things therefore being thus supposed I shall propose two things to the Gentlewomans Consideration 1. That supposing We were to blame in omitting them yet this were no ground for Her to leave our Communion 2. That as far as they are not imposed by our Church there was reason for their not imposing them 1. Supposing that we were indeed to blame in omitting these Ecclesiastical Observances yet this would be no sufficient ground to excuse the Gentlewoman for leaving our Communion For 1. No Indifferent thing how imprudent or inexpedient soever and that is the highest Charge that the Churches mistake in a matter of this nature is chargeable withal as long as the Object is supposed of its own nature Indifferent as long as it is not sinful and certainly it can be no Sin to submit for Peace's sake to an imprudent Constitution can excuse a departure from a Communion that is in other regards allowable 2. Whatever a Separation on this account might be in others yet it is less excusable in Subjects who are no way Responsible for as much as the Imprudences of such Constitutions and who are certainly bound to bear with all tolerable frailties of their lawful Governours and who are not indeed so well qualified for Judging concerning them as neither being so well skilled in Politicks generally nor being made acquainted with the secret Reasons of such Constitutions which might make that which without them might seem strange appear highly commendable when considered with them 3. The Gentlewomans Sex and possibly her particular Condition may not have those Advantages which many others though Subjects also have for Judging concerning them These Arguments are so agreeable to the Principles of our Adversaries themselves as that they frequently make use of them for retaining Persons in their own Communion Which the Gentlewoman may be pleased to take notice of if any of her Tempters should Question them here where they are disserviceable to their Interests But farther 4. Abuses in Governours acknowledging themselves Fallible though they be supposed indeed to be Abuses are much more tolerable than in those who do not seeing there may be hopes that Governours acknowledging themselves Fallible my in time be better informed and may then themselves reform
yet thus much at least will follow that we cannot be satisfied that they had any such Evidence which is enough to render it doubtful to us whether it were an Apostolical Tradition Now that they did not mention this Supremacy I do not desire the Ignorant to take the bare word of our Authors but I am content that they trust their own Judgments concerning the passages produced as far as they are capable of judging them or where they find themselves unable that there they acquiesce in the Confessions of candid learned Men though of our Adversaries Communion Which is no more than what they themselves count Prudent in the like Cases when they occurr in the management of their secular affairs use II § 7. Nor is it only thus Convenient but it is almost Necessary in dealing with our Adversaries to begin at least with this Fundamental Principle For till they be convinced of the Fallibility of their Guide all the Reasons produced against them are only taken for Temptations and tryals of the stedfastness of their Implicite Faith And in affairs of this nature they are taught to distrust their own Judgment nay in matters of Faith the most Learned Clergy are taught to do so as they are considered in their private capacity as well as the more ignorant Laity and they are further taught that in such matters their Faith is by so much the more excellent and meritorious by how much more it captivates their Understandings and that this captivating of their Understandings implies a denial of their own Judgments when different from that of their Superiors Now upon these terms it is impossible to deal with them by particular Reasonings For the utmost that can be expected from the clearest Reasonings is that their private Judgments may be convinced by them But if when this is done they distrust their own Judgments nay think themselves obliged to deny their own Judgments in complyance with that of their Superiors nay take it to be the greater glory of their Faith to deny the greater and more powerful Convictions it will then follow that by how much more Conscientiously they Act according to their own Principles by so much the less capable they must be of this kind of Reasoning It must needs be in vain to urge them with such Reasons by which they will not be tryed though they should indeed prove convictive and that to their own Understandings § 8. Nor indeed is it rational to expect that they should be otherwise disposed pursuant to their Principles For all Prudent Considerers of things will confess that one direct proof that a thing is actually True is more considerable than many Probabilities to the contrary Especially if the direct proof be of it self stronger than any contrary Objection as indeed no Objection can be so sufficient to prove any Proposition false as the Infallibility of the Proponent is to prove it true Which must the rather hold considering that they take the judgment of their Judge of Controversies for an adaequately-infallible Proof never remembring that though indeed the Spirit of God be Infallible yet the Arguments whereby they prove their Judge of Controversies so assisted by that Spirit as to partake of its Infallibility that is so assisted as that their Judge of Controversies shall Infallibly follow the Infallible Guidance of the Spirit otherwise themselves cannot pretend that all assistance of the Spirit must infer Infallibility unless they will grant that every good Christian is Infallible because they cannot deny that he is so assisted I say these Arguments are only Moral and such as may in many Cases be exceeded by Arguments taken from the nature of the thing and that the Consequence must follow the weaker part so that still their Faith can be no more than morally certain though their Judge of Controversies were granted to be Infallible in regard of his assistance § 9. Yet even so it should be remembred on our part that no Arguments were fit to be admitted against the sense of an infallible Judge but such as might exceed those whereby their Judg of Controversies seems to them to be proved Infallible which would cut off many of those Arguments which are used in the particular Disputes But beginning at their First Principle it is easie to shew that they are obliged to take our Arguments into serious consideration and to determine according as they judge Reasonable in their private Judgments For the Judge of Controversies cannot in reason oblige them to captivate their Understandings to it self till it be proved And the Arguments here used are Antecedent to that Proof And when upon examination of the Credentials of the Judge of Controversies their proof of such a Judge shall be found insufficient they will then and not till then have reason to trust their private Judgments in the particular Disputes And then and only then the particular Disputes may be likely to obtain an equal hearing from such of them as are truly Conscientious use III § 10. Besides if this Hypothesis hold true it will be very useful both to retain several in the Reformed Communion and to bring several others over from the Roman who are already by their Principles disposed for the Reformation 1. There may be several who in the particular Disputes may probably incline to the Roman side and yet have an abhorrence for the Roman rigour in those principal ones concerning Infallibility and the Popes Supremacy These if they may be perswaded that they may be admitted to that Communion without professing the Belief of those Principles to which we are as yet to suppose them so very averse may be tempted to think it lawful to joyn themselves in Communion with them This seems plainly to have been Mr. Cressy's Case whose entrance into that Communion was very much facilitated by the account of Infallibility given him by Dr. Veron whereby he was perswaded that it was only a School-term not used in the Decrees of any received Councils no nor any way expresly defined and that the use of it would not be exacted from him by their Church as a Condition of her Communion For he acknowledges he had formerly believed that this main ground of the Roman Religion so he calls it namely the Infallibility of that Church was as demonstratively confutable as any absurdity in Mathematicks And particularly he confesses that Mr. Chillingworth's Arguments against it had to him appeared unanswerable and that his Book alone had the principal influence on him to shut up his entrance into Catholick Unity But it is here proved that whatsoever may be thought of the Word concerning which more may be said than was observed by Mr. Cressy's Friends but that it is unnecessary to say it on this occasion yet the Thing must necessarily be maintained by them on the same Principles by which they have presumed to censure the Reformation and in that very sense wherein our Arguments are so conclusive against it It is very
strange to me and seems disagreeable I will not say to that Candor but that accurateness which was observed by him in that Enquiry that he could pretend that it was the Word Infallibility against which Mr. Chillingworth's Arguments had been so successful or that he could satisfie himself with that pretence in a matter of that importance Indeed if his Arguments had been Grammatical there might have been some colour for pretending that advantage was taken from the ambiguity of the Word to pick out the most Invidious sense among those many other more favourable ones of which it was capable but being Notional and taken from the nature of the Thing they must necessarily be levelled against it in some certain signification And it had been easie to have shewn that they do as clearly overthrow the Infallibility of Judgment in a Creature in the use of Fallible Means which is the sense which I have here proved the Romanists obliged to maintain though their Infallibility were derived from the Divine assistance as if it were derived from their own Nature as that of God is which is the sense which Mr. Cressy would make to be only concerned in these Arguments It might easily have been also shewn that Mr. Cressy himself grants the very sense of the word here defined and cannot deny but that it is very properly and naturally signified by it nay that by his own Principles the Churches not using it in her Canons can be no Argument that she ever intended to leave private Persons at their liberty to use it or forbear it as they pleased Whence it were easie further to infer not only that it must needs be intolerable for private persons to deny it but also that it must be justly Suspicious as much as to wave it since it has been used though on pretence of another sense applicable to it but never intended by them who brought it into the Roman Church though at first they might have forborn the introducing of it And if it be not free to Subjects either to deny or forbear it what room can be left for their Indulgence so much celebrated in this particular Nay what Indulgence could it be if they might indeed be excused from the Word as long as they are obliged to maintain the Thing I say obliged by doing that which cannot possibly be defended without supposing it Certainly they cannot think but that Actions are as significative as Words in reference to God and their own Consciences § 11. So also for the other point concerning the Popes Supremacy it is an usual Artifice whereby many others are seduced that they are perswaded that they may take the same Liberty that the French take in Questioning the Popes Monarchical Power But from the Principles here laid down it plainly appears that the Liberty taken by them is rather connived at by the Roman Court on politick Considerations than approved or allowed by the Roman Communion as consistent with their Principles The like might have been shewn concerning several other Consequential Doctrines which facilitate the seducing of Proselytes as that of the Distinction between the Church and Court of Rome and the possibility of Reforming the Abuses of the Court by the Power of the Church c. § 12. Now in Persons who have not been inured to those Prejudices of Education and that great Credulity which are insensibly infused into Persons bred in that Communion which must be supposed to be the Case of them who are not as yet Proselyted to it these general Principles of Infallibility and the Popes Supremacy are like to meet with the most difficult reception For to such who have had experience of the difficulty of things by their own tryal of them and who are not averse to any pains that may appear requisite for the satisfaction of their Consciences it is so far from being likely to appear that it is an Act of Christian Vertue to avoid Evidence or to suppress their Convictions when different from the Sense of those few interessed Persons who are plainly possessed of the Government of that whole Communion as that till their Infallibility be first proved it is not likely to pass for an Act of common honesty Nay their expecting such unreasonable Concessions from them at first would to such Persons be a very just reason of suspecting them when they should find themselves treated by them at the same rate as they might expect to be by the most professed Deceivers For what more likely Art could any Deceiver use than to perswade those whom he had a mind to seduce to trust in him without and against their own Convictions Nor is it likely that they who have no other inducement than the intrinsick reasonableness of its proof should be perswaded to believe it as easily as they who have been inured to it by Prejudices of their Education Nor is there that violence offered to their Faculties in following a weak and doubtful Proof in one particular instance as in renouncing their clearest Convictions Universally in all matters to be defined by their Judge of Controversies And therefore it is very possible for Persons favourable to the sense of the Romanists in many of the particular Disputes still to be very averse to their pretences to Infallibility and this not as it is usually said by our Adversaries only out of a haughtiness and unwillingness to yield but on rational and truly-Conscientious accounts § 13. Nor is the other Doctrine concerning the Monarchical Power of the Pope less unacceptable to Persons of another Communion before they are brought over to the Roman I will not mention how much the consequence of believing such a Doctrine may impose upon their Liberty because that will not by our Adversaries be thought a Conscientious Disswasive from it Though certainly it be very allowable to stand upon their own Rights till they be convinced out of them by a greater Evidence than would suffice for Concessions of less importance which is sufficient for my present design That which I had rather insist on at present is the indesensibleness of the abuses of the Court of Rome which are so gross and provoking as that generally they are the last things to which Revolters are reconciled and usually when they are so it is only on pretence that that Church is not concerned for them But by this Monarchical Power of the Pope the power of Reforming them is ascribed Only to him whose Interest it is they never be Reformed and so to destroy all hopes of Reformation Which is a consideration that if seriously thought of would certainly startle many of those who are brought over to them on accounts truly Conscientious being seduced to it by such false pretences § 14. For when it shall appear to this sort of Persons as I have endeavoured to make it appear by the following Hypothesis that their joyning in that Communion must necessarily imply their approbation of these Unacceptable Doctrines they must find
they cannot plead even that pretence of Canonical Punctuality at least so long to forbear separating from the Communion even of acknowledged Hereticks till their Cause were declared to be Heresy by their competent Judge For they who believe these Councils to have been the Supreme Judicatories must consequently conceive themselves obliged to believe that their Superiority over the Pope has been defined by a Canonical Authority and they who do so can have nothing left to excuse them for forbearing an actual Separation And as it thus appears that they must hold themselves obliged to abstain from the Communion of those Persons who professedly and expresly own this Doctrine of the Popes Monarchy So when they shall find that this Monarchy is indeed the Fundamental Principle of the whole Roman Communion as distinct from others they must by the same Principles think themselves obliged to abstain from the Communion of that whole Church not only of those who do expresly defend that Monarchy but also of others though in terms denying it as long as they keep to that Communion which cannot be kept without consequentially defending it It is in vain to think to weaken the Authority of the Decision of those Councils because it was in a matter concerning their own Interest For besides that this will give Us a plain advantage against any Authority whereby they can pretend that we are Canonically censured They themselves are sensible on other occasions that this is inseparably the Right of the Supreme Judicatory to Judge even in matters of its own Interest seeing there lies no Appeal from it even in such Cases to any other Judicatory that might Judge more impartially concerning them And they who think the Supreme Judicatory Infallible must think themselves also obliged not only to a Canonical Acquiescence for Peace's sake but also to an Internal Assent and Approbation of the Justice of such a Decree even out of Conscience This I conceive at least sufficient to prove in this Case of persons not proselyted as well as in the former of persons already of that Communion that they who do more firmly adhere to this Doctrine of the Superiority of the Catholick Church diffusive must think themselves obliged to separate from their communion when they are convinced of the inconsistency of this Doctrine with it The only difference is that this firmer adherence to this Doctrine may more ordinarily and easily be expected from Persons not yet Proselyted than from those who are prejudiced in favour of the contrary by their Education in that Communion These are those Dividing Principles intimated in the following Answer to the Queries proposed to the Gentlewoman though I was unwilling on that occasion to enlarge further concerning them use IV § 19. A fourth Use of this Hypothesis is for the direction of Peacemakers to let them see what it is that renders our reconciliation impossible and which if it be not first accommodated must render all their endeavours in particular Questions unsuccessful and therefore against which they ought more earnestly to strive by how much they are more zealous for Catholick Peace The way hitherto attempted has been to endeavour to reconcile our particular differences This has been either by clearing their respective Churches from all those things for which they have not expresly declared and of which express Professions are not exacted from Persons to be reconciled unto them by how great Authority soever of their particular Communicants they have been countenanced or maintained This way has been taken on their side by Mr. Veron c. and on ours by Bishop Montague Or where the Churches have declared themselves there by allowing the greatest Latitude of Exposition and putting the most favourable Sense on their Decrees of which they are capable Thus Grotius has dealt with the Council of Trent and S. Clara with our English Articles The design of all the endeavours of this kind has been to reconcile the Churches without any yielding on either side I confess I think the number of Controversies may be exceedingly diminished by this way of proceeding which must needs be very acceptable to any who is more a Lover of the Catholick Church's Peace than of Disputation Many of the Tenets on both sides that are very invidiously represented by Adversaries will on a closer examination appear to be either mistakes of the Writers meanings or Opinions of particular Writers or senses of the Church's Decrees which were never designed by the Church that made them and consequently unnecessary to be assented to in order to a reconciliation But when all is done they will fall very short of reconciling the different Communions For though all their particular Decrees even concerning Faith were made tolerable by these means 1 yet that were not sufficient to prove their Communion Lawful and 2 yet there can be no hopes of reconciling all particular Decrees by these means but some will still remain which will make their Communion intolerable to them of the other side § 20. 1. Though all their particular Decrees of Faith might by these means be made tolerable yet that were not sufficient to prove their Communion lawful For neither is there any security that that sense of their Decrees which might be taken for tolerable would in Practice prove such as would be admitted by Governours so as that they on the other side might on their owning of that sense be received to their Communion No though it were countenanced by Doctors of never so eminent note nay by the Ecclesiasticks who should receive them For still their Church ought to be admitted to be the most Authentick Expositer of her own meaning And I do not doubt but several of their Proselytes who should go over to them on account of many of these moderate Explications would find themselves mistaken in many things as soon as their Church had any obligation to explain her self concerning them And though the Church might not think it worth her interposition to do it upon the reconciliation of every particular Proselyte yet She must certainly think her self obliged to it in order to the reconciliation of the whole Communions Then many of these palliations would certainly be found so repugnant to her design and so destitute of any plausible appearance as though She had been willing to yield in earnest in instances wherein She might not seem to do so and that is the utmost condescension that can in reason be expected from a Church which pretends to be Infallible at least while She pretends to be so yet they would not afford them even so as much as a Salvo for their reputation Nay though all her present Decrees of Faith had appeared tolerable and appeared so in that very sense wherein She really understood them yet even this would not suffice for a solid reconciliation of Communion as long as the same Authority by which these other Decrees had been defined is still owned to be Infallible For still the next General
Council in the sense wherein they give that Title to such as are not truly Occidental may define new Articles never yet defined or at least declare such Propositions to be so which as yet while they are not defined may very innocently be disbelieved And then as they who even now believe what has been defined hitherto not for the intrinsick Probability of the things defined but for the Authoriâ—y whereby they are defined must find themselves obliged by the same Principles to receive such new Definitions of the same Authority So we who even now disbelieve them on account of the unsatisfactoriness of their intrinsick Proofs and for the contrary Proofs produced against them and who do not believe the Authority of their Proponent a sufficient Argument to countervail these intrinsick confutations must still continue to disbelieve them even when they shall be so defined which will then oblige us again to divide as great a distance as ever Nor is this to be looked on as a Case unlikely to happen considering that there are already many very suspicious Doctrines so universally received as that their Learned men confidently tell us that some of them are ferè de fide and doubt of others whether they be not already altogether so Where it is observable that the grounds of their judging so are either the expressness of those Decrees of their Church which are already made concerning them or the Universality of their reception or the stress which is laid upon them which in all likelyhood would prevail with such a General Council if it had been assembled to give their Suffrages for them § 21. 2. But though a reconciliation of the Particulars hitherto defined might have been more available for a solid Peace than it hence appears likely that it would be yet even this is not Practicable by all the means of Reconciliation that have as yet been thought of Some things have been defined in both Communions with such a design upon Dissenters as that no mollifying Arts of Interpretation can prevail with any unprejudiced Person to believe that the Senses really intended by them are reconcileable Nor indeed have the Romanists any reason to expect that we should agree with them in all the Particulars defined by them whilst we do not agree with them in ackowledging the Credibility of their Judge of Controversies For Antecedently to their being defined they confess many of them so obscure as that they may pardonably be disbelieved and opposed And how can any wise man expect that all Men should be of one mind in so many instances of such a nature And yet even one unlawful Condition of Communion is alone sufficient to make their Communion unlawful and the Churches irreconcileable § 22. Now that there are somethings for which their Church her self is unavoidably concerned wherein we have all the reason that can be desired to expect that She should yield to us in order to the accommodation of our differences I think I might confidently Appeal to as many Learned Men though of our Adversaries Communion as have had as well the Courage to speak their thoughts as the Candor to follow their own Convictions The Testimonies of many of them to this purpose are already so well known as that I believe it will not be expected that I should exceed my present designed brevity by producing them This therefore being supposed it will plainly follow that no solid Peace can be expected with those of that Communion without some Concessions on their side and therefore that which inevitably hardens them against all Concessions must consequently ruine all hopes of a lasting Reconciliation Now this is done by their Doctrine of Infallibility and their own Title to it This is it that makes them presume to define such things as themselves confess to be inevident Antecedently to their own defining them This makes it impossible for them as long as they pretend to it to submit those things as much as to a review in this Age of Knowledge which were at first defined in Ages of very great Ignorance This hinders them from yielding to the clearest Convictions to the contrary or from acknowledging them even where they cannot chuse but yield to them This keeps them from reforming any of those Errors of which we have reason to believe themselves so sensible since the great modern improvements of Ecclesiastical Learning as that they would not have introduced them if they had not found them already admitted and thought themselves obliged not to desert them nor to believe any Evidence sufficient to prove them blame-worthy when they had once found them so admitted And therefore it will concern all hearty well-wishers to Catholick Peace to lay out their Zeal and Industry principally to discredit this one Doctrine which is so extremely pernicious to it § 23. And in order hereunto I have endeavoured to make it appear that the challenge of Infallibility to their whole Communion is truly grounded on a Principle disclaimed by considerable numbers of their Communicants that is the Popes absolute and unaccountable Monarchy over the Catholick Church Whence it will follow that though Infallibility did indeed belong to the Supreme Representative of the Catholick Church diffusive yet they can lay no claim to it who deny his Papal Monarchy And therefore they who believe these Promises of Infallibility to have been originally made only to the Catholick Church diffusive and withal deny this absolute Monarchy of the Pope cannot lay any better claim to this Infallibility than any other part of the Catholick Church diffusive that is as great and as considerable as themselves But themselves confess Churches no less ample for extent and indeed more considerable for the multitude of Apostolical Sees than their own to be so far from being Infallible as that they believe them actually mistaken even in matters of Faith and that for several Centuries together before the Reformation And therefore all the Authority which they can challenge on these Principles is only a Canonical one such as is due to particular Provincial or National or Patriarchal districts which are on all sides acknowledged to be Fallible Which will not only concern the Council of Trent but also all other Councils that are only Occidental § 24. Now this Concession alone that they are Fallible would at least be sufficient to shew that they could not think it unlawful to review their own Decrees and either to correct or repeal them as they should Judge it reasonable upon that review And though indeed it is not for the Interest of the Publick that Governours should be too easie in rescinding their own Acts and especially at the motion of such an challenge it as a Duty from them to rescind them and when it cannot be done without an acknowledgment of their having been formerly mistaken yet it is withal as little for that Interest that they should wholly devest themselves of the Power of actually Practising it when it shall appear
necessary by the exigences of the Communities for which they are intrusted And if in any Case this may be allowed to be Expedient there can be no reason to doubt but that it is so here The thing is of that importance as that upon it depends the Reconciliation of the Divided Parties of Christendome which are neither likely to be subdued by the Power of any one nor possible to be reconciled without Concessions on some if not on all sides by Churches as well as by private Persons and it cannot appear on which side the Concession is fit to be made unless all submit to a tryal and resolve upon tryal to yield to what they shall judge reasonable Besides there is a particular Reason why the Church should reserve an open Ear for all things that can be urged for her information in matters of Faith Not only in regard that the things are such as do not derive their Lawfulness or Unlawfulness from her Authority but are what they are either True or False Antecedently to it so that her Authority as it cannot change the Nature of the things in themselves so neither can it alter their obligation in reference to the Consciences of those who are otherwise perswaded Nor that She must be Responsible to God how little soever She be so to her Subjects if She betray her trust in the Faith once delivered to her and thereupon drive out of her Communion Persons who ought to have been encouraged to continue it and break off from the Communion of other Churches with whom She ought to have maintained a correspondence But also because her whole Authority depends on it For if She be Erroneous in Fundamentals especially if her Error be by way of Defect in them She is uncapable of being a Christian Church and consequently uncapable of Ecclesiastical Authority So that as She tenders her whole Authority in other things She is obliged to use all diligence to secure her self from Error in these and it must be her best Policy to do so Nay the greatest Human Authorities that are and who are most Critical in insisting on these Punctualities of Policy in maintaining what they have once determined yet think it no disparagement to them to condescend to a review and to change their Judgments upon better Information And since the retriving of that sort of Learning which is requisite for clearing Apostolical Tradition which came in with the Reformation of Religion the Church of Rome her self is much better informed and better qualified for Judging than She was in those obscurer Ages wherein She first defined them § 25. Supposing therefore that She were thus disposed to come to a review it plainly follows further that the whole force of her new Decrees upon this review must be resolved into the merit of the Cause For when her Judgment has once been acknowledged Fallible there can then remain no further pretence of any greater Certainty in her Conclusions than in the Premises from whence they were deduced by her And from hence it would be very reasonable to expect 1. that She would not upon this new review define what She should believe insufficiently proved Antecedently to her Definition This being applyed to particulars would cut off very many of her newly introduced Articles which her most eminent Champions confess inevident Antecedently to her defining them And we might expect the number of Articles which would be reduced upon this way of Tryal the more considerable if 2. all those counterfeit Miracles and Revelations and all those counterfeit Authors and Authorities were waved which at the defining of these Articles were generally believed genuine but are since as generally acknowledged to have been Forgeries All those Doctrines which upon such Testimonies as these were taken for Apostolical must lose their Credit of being so as soon as these Testimonies shall be convicted of incompetency for assuring us what was Apostolical Especally 3. if none but the earliest Writers be trusted as indeed none else are competent for conveying Apostolical Tradition to us And 4. if they were wary in this kind to impose no Doctrines as Conditions of their Communion but such as might appear even to themselves very Necessary and very Evident If the defalcations were made which we have reason to believe would be made even by themselves upon the Suppositions now mentioned I do not see any reason to despair of so much Liberty to be allowed by them as would suffice to reconcile our Communions And this I believe will be an information very useful and very acceptable to all hearty desires of the Peace of Christendom that is indeed to all truly-Christian Spirits use V § 26. A fifth Use of this Hypothesis is that it will serve for a Scheme of Principles to justifie the Reformation for which some of our modern Adversaries have been so very importunate Nor do I pretend hereby to supersede the Endeavours of that admirable Person who has already undertaken them His Principles do excellently well shew that as to the Resolution of our Faith in those Particulars which are truly of an Apostolical Original and wherein we do agree with the Romanists themselves we can sufficiently prove them derived from the Apostles by competent Testimonies of the several Ages through which they must have passed without being any ways beholden to an Infallible Judge of Controversies Nay that such an Infallible Judge is indeed a Means improper for such an End as requiring many such things for its proof to us who must be supposed to live at a distance from the time of its Original Institution as are every way at least as liable to Dispute as the Controversies to be determined by it So that hence it appears that we may be Christians nay and Catholicks too that is that we may believe as many Articles as at first were imposed as necessary to be believed without the least obligation of being Romanists that is of believing all their superinduced Novel Doctrines And this is of excellent use against them in the whole Dispute concerning the Resolution of Faith where they pretend that the Books of the Scriptures themselves and the Sense of those Books and consequently all the Articles which are proved from those Senses cannot be proved Credible to Us without the Authority of their Judge of Controversies and therefore that as we follow this Authority in these things so we ought to follow it in all other things equally recommended by it which must therefore be equally Credible with them This Consequence will indeed hold with them concerning whom the Supposition is true and therefore it cannot be strange that the Romanists who profess to believe our common Articles on the Credit of this Authority should look on those whom they call Hereticks as choosers in Religion and as self condemned in refusing to believe other things as credible and credible on the same Principles with those they do believe they still supposing that they whom they call
Hereticks believe the common Articles on the same Principles on which themselves believe them But from the Principles of that excellent Person it plainly appears that the Supposiâ—ion is not true concerning Us and that as we profess we do not so there is nothing that can in Reason oblige us to believe even our common Articles on the Authority of their or any other pretended Infallible Judge of Controversies § 27. But the Principles here advanced do not so much concern the Articles wherein we are agreed as those wherein we differ and therefore will more immediately reach the Popish Communion as Popish and the Protestant as properly so called that is as protesting against their Errors and against the Uncanonical courses taken by them for Imposing their Errors and for the suppressing of all opposition to the contrary Here it is first proved that it being our part only to Assert our own Liberty from their Additional Articles they are obliged to prove not we to disprove their Impositions Then because the first Principles of their Impositions are not agreed on by themselves but expresly denied by several Persons in their Communion therefore I have proceeded to enquire after them by knowing what it is that they are obliged by necessary consequence to maintain on account of their being of that Communion so that by finding these we have all their particular Doctrines reduced to their first Principles And the discovery of the weakness of the proofs producible for these upon the former Supposition that they are obliged to prove them is as clear a Discovery of the Justice of the Reformation from the first Principles as the nature of the thing will bear use VI § 28. A sixth and last Usefulness of this Hypothesis above others is that it is capable of a more easie proof and a proof more likely to prevail ad homines For the several Parties among our Adversaries will not only grant us each of the Premises but undertake to prove them for us and an indifferent Person will not be beholden to either of them for the Conclusion That he cannot be true to the Principles of their Communion or to use their language that he can be no sound thorough Catholick who does not hold Infallibility and that confined to that part of the Church which is in their Communion on account of their being virtually Catholick the Jesuites and other high Papalins will affirm and it is that for which they contend To them therefore I shall refer all those of that Communion who shall doubt of the cogency of the proofs here produced for further satisfaction I could heartily wish that the odium of this reference might make them decline the Service and should take it for a highly commendable condescension if such as they who have devoted themselves to the Service of the Catholick Church could be perswaded to declare their dislike of Principles so pernicious to Catholick Peace But I fear it is a favour too great to be expected from them If any therefore doubt of the other Premiss viz. the indefensibleness of this challenge to Infallibility and of this Notion of a Catholick Church virtual on which that challenge must be grounded he may be pleased to consult those of their Writers who defend the Supremacy of General Councils or rather of the Catholick Church diffusive So that this way of proceeding will be most sutable for all sorts of Adversaries If they read it with a desire of satisfaction they will find that more easie when they shall consider that it proceeds only on that which themselves do partly grant true already so that there will only one Premiss remain concerning which they can desire further satisfaction If they read it with a design of confutation they will also find that more difficult when they shall remember that they cannot undertake it without engaging a very considerable Party among themselves in the defence of these Fundamental Principles of their whole Communion § 28. Many great and considerable improvements might have been also made of this difference of their Authors in matters of so great importance to their common Interests which may hereafter be more fully enlarged on as themselves shall administer a further occasion for it This will shew how little reason they have to boast of their Unity when it thus appears that they are so little agreed in these Principles of their Unity So that as it has already appeared that their difference herein must in reason oblige them to separate in their Communion if they act conformably to their Principles so nothing but a provocation like that which was given to Luther and Henry the Eighth can be wanting to them who deny this Monarchy of the Pope to make them do as they did viz. actually to divide their Communion as their Principles already oblige them This will also let them see how little advantage their Laity is like to have above ours in judging of the Controversies which divide our Communions They would have them take the Judge of Controversies's word for the Particulars That may be when they have found him But when there are different Pretenders as there are here the Pope the Council and the Church diffusive how shall they judge who has the justest Claim Must they judge of the reasons at least of Credibility That is it that we would have them do and for which we are blamed as putting them upon a task too difficult for them or encouraging them to entertain too good an Opinion of their own abilities Must they take the Pope's word in the Case But he is yet only a Party and till the Motives of Credibility be tryed can have no advantage above others his Competitors And then why may not They be trusted also If they be all trusted their Pretensions being so inconsistent the Laick who trusts them must still be lest as irresolute as ever Must they therefore follow the judgment of their most Credible Divines concerning it But that will again be as hard a task as the former to be able in so great apparent Equality to distinguish who are the most Credible especially abstracting from the merit of the Cause And what advantage the favourers of the Papacy have in numbers that the others have in disinteressedness which will go very far in recommending the Credibility of an Authority in such a Case as this is Besides the greatest Authority of Divines will not by themselves be allowed for any more than a probable and therefore a very fallible inducement But how much more so when there are other Divines as eminent as themselves of another Judgment And even Infallibility it self if it be received on a Fallible recommendation will still amount to no higher than a Fallible Proof which even themselves cannot judge sufficient for their purpose in such a Case as this is If both Pretenders and Divines be trusted on both sides as far as their Pretensions are not inconsistent with each other this will effectually serve
my purpose and convince the Laick who trusts them of the insecurity of their whole Communion For he must thus be obliged to grant both the Premisses of the Argument by which I have here proved it unsecure The Major is this Infallibility as appropriated to the Roman Communion by their Title to their being virtually Catholick that is by their adhering to the Papacy as a Principle of Catholick Unity in the sense above explained is the Fundamental Principle of that whole Communion as distinct from others This he must believe on the Authority of the Popes themselves who have declared for it and of the Jesuites and the rest of the high Papalins The Minor this But this Authority of the Papacy on which the Title of that whole Communion to Infallibility is grounded is false and improbable This he must also for the same reason believe on the Authority of all those who defend the Supremacy of General Councils or of the diffusive Catholick Church So that in this way of judging by Authorities which is agreeable to the Genius and Principles and Arguments of that Church against us in other like Cases the Laity at least must be obliged to distrust their whole Communion as Fundamentally grounded on an unwarrantable Principle But of these and other like matters perhaps a larger account may be given on future occasions A positive ACCOUNT OF THE Fundamental Controversie On which Depend all other Disputes betwixt the Romanists and the other Communions of Christendom with a short discovery of the little evidence they have on the Roman side in this Controversie BY the Fundamental Controversie I mean that on which the particular Controversies do depend and wherein what is maintained by the Ch. of Rome does so nearly concern her that the whole subsistence as a distinct Communion must adaequately depend on the Truth or Falshood of it And her Assertion herein is that Fundamental Principle the confutation of which is alone sufficient for convicting her of the guilt of that Separation of Communion which has been caused by her unwarrantable Impositions in the particular Disputes and for excusing all others who have permitted themselves to be excluded from her Communion rather than they would profess the belief of Errors which was required as a Condition of their Communion So that the Confutation of this Fundamental Principle does virtually and consequentially contain a resolution of all other particular Controversies debated between us For finding out this Fundamental Principle I suppose 1. That the first Formal Separation I will not yet say Schism for that implies a fault in it which is to appear from what follows was made by the Romanists at least as to us in England with whom they communicated in the same Publick Offices till they separated themselves upon the prohibition of Pius V. 2. That this Formal Separation without sufficient positive grounds for it though there were no sufficient convictive grounds to the contrary is the Sin of Formal Schism which is as properly incurred if the Separation be unnecessary as if it be unreasonable if it be without as if it be against reason 3. This being supposed for our Justification who were on y passive in the Separation it is not requisite that we confute their pretences but it is abundantly sufficient that the proofs produced by them are not directly conclusive to their purpose 4. This purely-negative way of proceeding that they want sufficient ground to justifie their Practice being alone sufficient for our purgation the proof that the grounds of their separating from us were sufficient which is their positive Assertion will be incumbent on our Adversaries and we cannot be obliged to disprove them 5. This obligation to Prove is incumbent on them not only as they are the first Separaters which may only concern us of the English Communion but also as the Imposers of their own Sentiments on others as Conditions of Catholick Communion Which will also relate to forreign Protestants who were driven from their Communion being not suffered to continue in it but on such Conditions 6. Our Adversaries being thus obliged to give a Positive account of their own proceedings they have no way to justifie themselves but by vindicating that on which themselves lay the stress of their Separation so that if they fail here no other proof will be sufficient for proving the necessity of it which was noted to be meant by the Fundamental Principle Here therefore two things will be necessary to be shewn 1. what this is on which they lay this stress 2. that it is no way justifiable For the First it is clear 1. That the particular Propositions debated betwixt us are not by themselves thought necessary to our Salvation necessitate medii so as that our Ignorance or disbelief of them should deprive us of some necessary Truth without which we cannot be saved For they themselves excuse such as did disbelieve them as we do before the definition of their Church 2. That even supposing we were erroneous in things not thus necessary yet this were not sufficient to justifie their Separation or Imposition on intrinsick accounts that is an Error of so small importance as to the value of the thing could not in that regard of its intrinsick value excuse either their Separation from us because we hold it or their so rigorous Imposition of their own sentiments on us concerning it 3. That as there is no Intrinsick Necessity of the Truth of the Propositions for our Salvation so neither 1. is there that Extrinsick Evidence of their being revealed by the Apostles that must necessarily argue in him that should deny them an Irreverence and Obstinacy against the Divine Veracity on which their Credibility depends This also appears from their excusing the Errors of the Antients who if they had had such Evidence in their times could not have been inculpably Erroneous Which they take up from what S. Augustine had said to that purpose in his Disputes with the Donatists concerning the Case of St. Cyprian whom he therefore makes more excusable in the same Error of Rebaptizing Hereticks than the Donatists because he lived before but they after the Nicene decision of that whole Dispute Nor 2. do themselves pretend that any Error which may not be presumed obstinately persisted in is sufficient to justifie a Separation from the Communion of Persons so Erroneous 4. Hence it follows that seeing neither the Intrinsick Necessity of the Propositions themselves nor their Extrinsick Evidence Antecedently to the definition of the Church are on their own Principles sufficient to justifie the Severity of their proceedings against us The only thing they have more to alledge for it must be our Disobedience in disbelieving those Propositions notwithstanding the Authority which their Church has given them by her Definition 5. That the Obedience required to these Propositions is not only not to make Parties and Divisions in the Church against them such as our Church is generally thought
to require to the xxxix Articles but also Positively to believe them not only as Truths but also as matters of Faith 6. That this Positive Belief of their Church's Definitions exteriorly professed in joyning in their Offices and in abstaining from the Communion even of Peaceable Dissenters and censuring them as Hereticks cannot veraciously nor consequently without Sin be performed without an Internal Assent 7. That this Internal Assent cannot safely be given without a satisfactory conviction of the Truth of the Propositions so assented to 8. And therefore that such an Assent may be given to Propositions defined by their Church only on account of her Authority it is requisite that her Authority be such a Medium as may assure us of the Truth of those Propositions 9. This Assurance if it be nor according to the Doctrine of their greatest Pretenders to Reason Mathematical yet must at least for matters of Faith and such these Definitions are by themselves esteemed be Moral that is such as may exclude all Probability if not all Possibility of Doubting whether they be True 10. That Authority which upon its own account may be an Argument to convince us of the Truth of her Definitions must not be such as must depend on the use of Means both 1. because that will leave a Liberty for such as are competent Judges of them to have recourse from such Authority to the Means themselves on which such her Credibility will depend which the Romanists will by no means permit And 2. because the Means are by themselves acknowledged frequently Fallible and the Infallibility only affixed to the Conclusions 11. That Authority which may assure us of the Truth of its Definitions independently on the Means must needs be Infallible in its Judgment Which though some few late Authors have endeavoured to avoid yet the Generality of them have found themselves in pursuance of the former Principles obliged to assert it 12. This Infallibility of Judgment surpassing the use of Ordinary Means must needs be Supernatural and Extraordinary and therefore as to the light by which it judges it must be assisted by new Revelations though it be conversant about no newly-Revealed Objects 13. This Infallibility is by them challenged to themselves by virtue of those Promises of the Spirit in the Scriptures which themselves confess to belong only to the Catholick Ch. not to any one particular Denomination of Christians 14. That therefore their Title to this Infallibility must according to their own Principles be resolved into those Proofs whereby they make out their Title of being the Catholick Church 15. They themselves do not nor cannot pretend to be the Catholick Ch. diffusive that is that all the Regular legal original Successors to the Apostles in all Apostolical Sees most of which they cannot deny to have been in the Oriental parts have ever submitted to their Authority or are united to them in external visible Communion Nay they have condemned a much greater number of Apostolical Sees than they have among themselves 16. That therefore the Notion of Catholick to which they may with any colour pretend must be so limited as that it may agree to a Party of Christians in opposition to others 17. That though it may indeed be true admitting an Appeal to the Primitive records that a particular Church may hold all that which was originally taught by the Catholick Church diffusive without any novel abusive Impositions that may oblige any Conscientious Persons to keep off from her Communion and so by accident may deserve the name of Catholick as that name distinguishes from other Christian Societies of Hereticks and Schismaticks Yet speaking of such an Authority as they own in the Roman Church which may prescribe against such Appeals so that its own only sense is to be presumed to be the Sense of the Catholick Church without particular convincing Evidences of the concurrence of all in the Primitive Ages with them this plainly requires that this Notion of Catholick be certainly fixed and fixed to a particular Judicatory and this Antecedently to a tryal by the Primitive Records For this prescribing against an Appeal so rational as to the nature of the thing must plainly imply an obliging Jurisdiction Antecedently to and therefore Independently on that tryal And Jurisdiction can signifie nothing unless the Judicatory to whom it belongs be also notorious and notorious also Antecedently to the same tryal So that in this way of proceeding it must necessarily be supposed that one certain part of the Catholick Church can never cease to be Catholick nor to have a Jurisdiction over the Catholick Church diffusive 18. These things cannot be ascertained to a particular Church so as to prescribe against the now-mentioned way of trying it without maintaining the Notion of a Catholick Church Virtual That is we cannot be assured that a particular Church must necessarily be Catholick Antecedently to the tryal of its Catholicism by a recourse to the Primitive Records but by being first assured that that particular Church shall never fail of being Catholick it self and that all other particular Churches must approve of their Catholicism by their conformity to that which can never be otherwise So that on these terms the knowledge of that one Church and what is maintained by her will be virtually a knowledge of the Catholick Church diffusive and what ought to be maintained by them Which things put altogether do plainly make up that which our Adversaries mean when they speak of a Catholick Church virtual 19. This Notion of a Catholick Church virtual which may agree to one part of the Catholick Church diffusive in contradistinction to all others must imply such a Principle of Unity to which all the rest are obliged though that one part only do actually adhere to it 20. This Principle of Unity must not only be a Principle of Order but of Influence For it is only by virtue of this Influence of this one Church over all others that we can conclude that all others are obliged to be like it and it is only on this obligation of all other Churches to be like her that her Title to the name of the Catholick Church Virtual is adaequately grounded 21. This Principle of Unity must be in the Governours of such a particular Church For our Adversaries will not have the Promises of the Spirit made to the People but to their Governours So that the People can have no further Right in them but on condition of adhering to their Governours who therefore must be the first Principle of Unity 22. This Principle of Unity must not depend on the Authority of the Church diffusive Otherwise that same Authority of the Church diffusive might recall it in which Case the adhering to it would not prove a certain Note of Catholicism 23. To apply therefore all this to the Romanists their whole pretence of being the Catholick Church is adaequately grounded in that Notion of a Catholick Church virtual whereby they confine
it to that Multitude of Christians who are united under a visible Monarchical Head as a Principle of their Unity to which Jure Divino all are bound to be obedient 24. This Monarchical Head to which they pretend a nearer interest than others is the Papacy The Summary Seeing therefore that nothing else can excuse their new Impositions but the Authority by which they are Imposed And Seeing that no Authority can be sufficient for their purpose to oblige their Subjects internally to believe what is neither Necessary as to its matter nor Evident as to its proof Antecedently to the Definition of such an Authority but one that must be Infallible Seeing that they who do not in terms pretend the Popes Infallibility necessary and they who do so already own what I would prove that all must own according to their Principles can make no Plea to Infallibility but from those Promises of the Spirit which themselves confess to have been primarily made to the Catholick Church and therefore though an Infallibility even in Judgment were granted to belong to the Catholick Church yet that can signifie nothing to our Adversaries purpose till they can prove themselves to be that Catholick Church to which alone those Promises confessedly belong Seeing evidently they are not the Catholick Church diffusive and can therefore only pretend to the Title of their being the Catholick Church virtual Seeing this Notion of the Catholick Church Virtual must necessarily imply such a Principle of Unity to which all the Catholick Church diffusive is obliged to adhere as to a certain Standard of their Catholicism and this Principle of Unity to which they can lay claim above other Christian Societies is only the Papacy and the Papacy as a Principle of Unity must be a Principle not of Order only but of Influence and that independently on the Judgment of the Catholick Church diffusive All these things being considered together It will plainly follow that if this influential independent power of the Papacy cannot be proved all their pretences to Infallibility or even to any Authority for deciding these Controversies between us must fall to the ground and consequently all their particular Decisions depending on them will neither be valid in Law nor obliging in Conscience which will leave their Separation and Impositions destitute of any pretence that may excuse them from being Schismatical This is therefore the Fundamental Principle on which all their Authority in defining all other particular Doctrines must originally depend And to shew that this Principle is insufficiently proved will alone be enough to invalidate all their other Definitions Secondly Therefore to shew the insufficiency of their proof of it This Proof must either be α from Tradition And for this it is observable that I. This Notion of the Catholick Church Virtual if it had been True must have been originally delivered by the unanimous consent of the Catholick Church diffusive We cannot judge otherwise unless we suppose a great defect either of the Apostles in not teaching or of the Church in not preserving the memorial of such a Fundamental Principle of their Unity II. This Topick of Tradition delivered down by the Catholick Church diffusive is the only proper one for the Church who pretends to this Authority to prove it by And till it be proved and proved to the judgment of particular Subjects there is no reason that She should expect that they should think themselves obliged in Conscience to submit to her Authority For Authority can be no rational Motive to them to distrust their own Judgments till it self be first proved and acknowledged And therefore if it do not appear and appear to us from this Topick we can have no reason to believe it III. This Notion of the Catholick Church Virtual does not appear to have been ever delivered as the sense of the Catholick Church diffusive 1. Not of that Catholick Church diffusive which was extant in the beginning of the Reformation For then 1. The Greeks and most of the Eastern Christians professedly oppose it 2. Many of the Western Christians themselves especially of the French and Germans did not believe it 3. The Western Church it self Representative in four by them reputed General Councils of Pisa Constance Siena and Basile did not own the Popes Supremacy as a Principle of Catholick Unity but expresly by their Canons declared themselves to be his Superiors and treated him as being wholly subject to their Authority This was not long before the Reformation and what they did had not then been repealed by any Authority comparable to theirs 2. Not of the Catholick diffusive Church in antienter times 1. Not of the Greeks ever since their Schism as the Latines call it under Photius 2. Before that time even whilst they were united with the Latines the Popes Supremacy was disowned by them in that famous 28. Canon of Chalcedon which equalled the Bishop of Constantinople with him of Rome and owned only an Ecclesiastical Right in both of them for the dignity of their Cities which as I have already warned will not suffice for our Adversaries purpose that I may not now mention the Canon of Constantinople so expounded by the Fathers of Chalcedon in place and maintained by the Greek Emperors It was also disowned by the Council of Antioch against Julius Disowned by the African Fathers by whom the only Plea the Popes had from the Council of Nice was found to be a forgery 3. Not of the Catholick diffusive Church in those Primitive times while the Christians lived under Heathen Emperours For 1. The Romanists themselves are unwilling to be tryed by them unless we will allow them to quote from the Decretal Epistles c. which Learned Men among themselves do confess to be suspicious or manifest Forgeries 2. Aeneas Sylvius who was afterwards Pope Pius II. acknowledged that before the Council of Nice little respect was had to the Bishop of Rome above others 3. It appears by the freedom wherewith Pope Stephen was resisted by St. Cyprian and Pope Victor by the Asiatick Bishops and by St. Irenaeus And 4. By the Canon of Carthage under St. Cyprian which declared that no Bishop was subject to another but that every one was Supreme in his own charge under God not now to mention other passages in him to the same 5. By the weakness of the Testimonies alledged to this purpose the Presidency in the Region of the Romans in Ignatius the powerful Principality in St. Irenaeus the Pontificatus Maximus Ironically derided by Tertullian and the one Bishop and one See in St. Cyprian c. β For the Scriptures themselves do not seem very confident of them without the Expositions of the Fathers AN ANSWER TO Six Queries Proposed to a Gentlewoman of the Church of ENGLAND by an Emissary of the Church of ROME fitted to a Gentlewomans capacity By HENRY DODWELL M. A. and sometimes Fellow of
Trinity Colledge near DVBLIN LONDON Printed for Benj. Tooke and are to be sold at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-yard 1676. THE CONTENTS Q. 1. Whether any one going from the Church of England and dying a Roman Catholick can be saved page 1. Q. 2. Whether they be Idolaters or No 39 Q. 3. Where was the Church of England before Luther's time 48 Q. 4. Why all the Reformed Churches are not United in One 81 Q. 5. Why the Church of England doth not hold up to Confession Fasting-days Holy Oyl which we our Selves commend 94 Q. 6. Why was Reformation done by Act of Parliament 110 ERRATA P. 34 l. 13 before vet add may p. 42. l 13. after office add of p. 58. l. 10. even for when p. 92 l. 2. shews p. 115. l. 8. for its r. his A PREFACE IT is of no further concernment to acquaint the Publick with the occasion of penning these Papers than as the occasion might have an influence on the design and as it may be very useful to inform the Reader of the design that he may the better know what to expect in the performance He may therefore be pleased to understand that the following Queries were tendred to a Gentlewoman of the Communion of the Church of England by a Romanist who had a design of seducing her and that they were answered by another hand but on such Principles or in such a way of management as that it did not give her the desired satisfaction This gave occasion to some that were concerned for her to shew the Paper to some others in order to the inviting them to undertake it in a way that might be likely to prove more successful By this means of communication it came at length to my hands from a Person who first desired my Opinion concerning it and then with some earnestness importuned me to commit my thoughts to writing Pursuant therefore to this occasion my design was in the first place to shew from sound Principles that the Church of England is able to defend her Reformation from the Errors of the Romanists and to clear her self as far as She is charged with that Breach of Communion which followed thereupon without giving any advantage to the Non-Conformists to justifie either their first Separation from Vs or their Eternal Subdivisions from one a-another Nor was I willing to engage a Person in the Gentlewomans condition in any Controversies that might be spared without Injury to the merit of the Cause or to debate even such as could not so be spared by such Arguments as might exceed her opportunities of Enquiring or her capacity of Judging so as to oblige her to depend on the conduct of others more Inquisitive and Judicious But I have either waved Authorities where I could debate the Case by Arguments less liable to Dispute and better suited to the understanding of a Gentlewoman or where I have been necessitated to insist on them I have endeavoured to make out their Credibility by such Presumptions as are easie to be understood and familiar in parallel Cases and generally granted as most Prudent whenever unskilful Persons find themselves obliged to acquiesce in the conduct of Persons more skilful and Judicious than themselves And I have purposely avoided all citations of Authors even where necessary but such as were to be had even in English and therefore might be consulted by the Gentlewoman her self I confess those other Reasonings fit for Scholars as they are more subtle so they are withal more solid and conclusive But withal I consider 1. that those things wherein Scholars have the advantage of unlearned Persons are principally such wherein Reading is absolutely necessary for their Historical conveyance to us It is certainly impossible for any to know what Doctrines were maintained in the Apostles times and consequently what Doctrines are true where they are supposed capable of no other Evidence of their being true but because they were so maintained without insight into the several Histories Authors of the intermediate Ages through which they are to be deduced But for other things whose evidence of their being true does not depend on such a conveyance the Reason of the thing is a sufficient Evidence and of this every equally rational Person how little soever he be conversant in Authors is an equally competent Judge And of this kind are many of the things here mentioned on which the stress of the Cause depends The prudent Reader will easily discern which they are without my instancing And 2. even in those things which depend on Positive Revelation and wherein the only means of our Assurance of them is Historical Tradition though it be indeed true that Persons of little Reading cannot so competently assure themselves of the writings and opinions of former Ages without the assistance of others more conversant in those Studies yet since it is not the way of Prudent rational Persons therefore to conclude a thing to have been revealed by the Apostles because such Authors tell us that it was so much less because such Authors maintained it as their own Opinion but first to assure themselves of such things on which the Credibility of such Authors in such matters may be made clear to us and then of those Expressions from whence they conclude such Authors to have given Testimony to such a thing as an Apostolical Tradition it is plain that the judgment of these things depends wholly on the reason of the things themselves And therefore where Learned Men are agreed as to their accounts of the Authors and their Expressions and where the only remaining Dispute is whether such undoubted Works of such Authors be competent for the conveyance of a Tradition and whether such Expressions considered in all their circumstances come home to the Controversies at present debated these are things whereof common Prudence and a cultivated natural Judgment may as well qualifie Men to pass a Censure as the greatest Reading imaginable And this seems to me the best way in affairs of this nature to wave such things as were disputed among Learned men concerning their Historical Informations and only to found my reasonings on their unanimous Concessions And most of the Controversies betwixt Us and the Romanists are of that nature as to be capable of this way of management Now this way of not intermedling in the Disputes of Learned men but only proceeding on their unquestioned concessions is as most solid and satisfactory to the most accurate Learned men themselves so most prudent and easie for those who are unlearned And 3. even as to those other things wherein I have indeed proceeded on popular Presumptions yet considering that these are the only reasons which God has fitted to the capacities of the greatest part of Mankind and that God is in his Goodness concerned to give them reasons sufficient for their direction and that the nature of the things themselves is of importance to his Government and that it is therefore requisite that
their direction be such as may not only excuse their mistakes but secure them of the Truth itself I say these things being considered there will be reason to believe that however fallible such general Presumptions may be in their own nature yet that God in his Goodness has so ordered the matter in affairs of this nature as that those who are guided by these Presumptions may by the use of them be secured of the Truth it self in these particulars As for the Method observed in this Discourse it is such as I conceived most clear and comprehensive in few words and yet withal most accurate and satisfactory to a doubting Person For any one may be much more secure of a Consequence when he is first secured of all its Principles and he can much better judge of them when he has an intire prospect of them in the natural order wherein they lye and wherein they are necessary for the deduction of such a Consequence Yet I have neither deduced my Principles too remotely but as near as I could find them clear and indisputable nor have insisted on the proof of those that were clear any further than I conceived it necessary to do so from the actual Disputes concerning the Consequence And I have been careful rather to prove than to confute which I conceived to be a course as less Invidious to Adversaries who should find themselves no further concerned than as the consequences of positive Truths might make them concern'd so also more satisfactory to a Person in the Gentlewomans condition And in the whole I am so little conscious of any design of displeasing any to whom Truth it self might not prove displeasing as that if any Adversary shall think it worth his time to Answer what I have said I am not my self affraid of provocation from any thing which he can say in following my Precedent AN ANSWER TO Six Queries c. Q. 1 Whether any one going from the Church of England and dying a Roman Catholick can be saved I. IF by the words can be saved be meant a possibility in regard of the means we then deny it For we hold that such Errors are maintained in that Communion as are in their own nature destructive of Salvation Such are 1. The Doctrines even of their Church which oblige them to do mischief as those concerning the Popes Supremacy over Princes in Temporals and concerning their Duty of prosecuting Hereticks The loosness of their Casuistical Divinity countenanced by such Authorities of Casuists as must needs influence such Persons as act conformably to the Principles of that Communion and their generally allowing a greater Liberty to such persons as are desirous to reconcile their Vices with their hopes of Eternity by their licentious applications of those two Distinctions of Precepts and Counsels and of Mortal and Venial Sins whereby they make most Duties Counsels and most Sins only Venial Which danger is the more considerable to an Ignorant Person who for want of skill of her own must in Prudence and by the Principles of that Communion be obliged to trust such un-secure Guides 2. Not to mention the ill influence of several of their Doctrines on the Lives of such as own them the very imposing them as matters of Faith the Excommunicating and Anathematizing all that deny them the condemning Dissenters as guilty of Heresy and Schism at least what they call Material the inserting several of their controverted Doctrines into their Liturgies so that they who cannot believe them cannot veraciously joyn with them in their Devotions are Innovations from the liberty allowed in the Primitive Church wherein many whom all own for excellent Persons and good Catholicks never owned nay some of them doubted of or contradied such Conditions of Communion in sum their unreasonable grounds of dividing Catholick Communion and their Uncharitableness to Dissenters are Errors dangerous to the Salvation of the Person owning and abetting them For all will own even the Romanists themselves that the Crime of breaking Catholick Communion where it is justly imputed is destructive of Salvation 3. Several Abuses of that Church I say of the Church not only of particular Persons in it are so gross as that several of the most eminent and candid men of their own Communion have owned them for such such as Prayer in an unknown Tongue denying the Chalice to the Laity Fabulous Saints and Stories still continued in the best approved Ecclesiastical Offices Martyrs canonized for bad Causes conducing to the greatness of the Roman See as Beckes for Example Yet by the Principles of that Communion pretending to Infallibility it is impossible that any Abuse in defence of which their Church is engaged as She is here should ever be reformed because it is impossible that a Church so pretending to be Infallible should ever grant any such thing to be an Abuse And many more Abuses are by the moderate Persons of their Communion owned in the Court of Rome which yet by the power allowed to the Court over their Church by the general consent of the Church it self cannot possibly be reformed Seeing therefore that the Church of Rome does thus oppose all possible Reformation of Abuses of this nature and seeing that whilst these Abuses are not reformed many of them may justifie a Separation and most of them may do it when all hopes of Reformation are professedly opposed Catholick Peace on such terms as may not only lawfully but commendably be yielded will be impossible And the abetting of such a Party as makes Catholick Peace on just terms impossible must needs be an Error destructive of Salvation This is a mischief unavoidably consequent to mistakes in a Society pretending to be Infallible As these Errors are thus of their own nature destructive of Salvation so going over to that Communion from another does naturally involve the Person doing so in the actual guilt of the Errors themselves 1. Because Communicating according to all does involve the Persons Communicating in the guilt of such Errors at least as are imposed as conditions of the Communion as these are in the Church of Rome This needs not to be proved against the Romanists who insist on it against Us as much as We do against them 2. This must especially hold in such as revolt from our Church to theirs both because such an embracing of their Communion is more an Argument of choice and designed preference in such as leave others to come to it than in such as are born in it and consequently must signifie a more express approbation of the terms of it and because more explicite recantations of our Doctrines are required even from Laick Revolters than from such as are born in it 3. Because the Resignation of Judgment is expected more intire from Women and Laicks than from skilful Persons who may in some Cases be allowed the liberty of their own Judgments even by the Principles of that Communion so that Persons in the Gentlewomans condition may
it were impartially Enquired into there would not be greater and better attested Miracles for Invocation of Saints among the Romanists than for the Invocation of Daemons among the Pagans 4. That the same Arguments used by the Scriptures and Primitive Christians against the Heathen Idolatries are applyed by the Protestants to the Image-worship among the Papists now and the same Answers given by the Papists now were then also insisted on by the Pagans 5. That as these are very shrew'd Suspicions of the dangerousness of this Worship so this danger is ventured on without the least necessity there being undeniable Security from the Primitive Records and Revelations of Christianity that God is pleased to accept such Prayers as are addressed to him through the Intercession of Christ alone so that there can be no necessity of having also recourse unto the Saints 6. That Image-worship is not countenanced by as much as any Venerable Authority of truly Primitive Christianity and that the Second Nicaene Council that introduced it was put to very disingenuous Shifts of counterfeit Authorities for it 7. That whatever may be thought of the Worship designed by the Roman Church yet even Mr. Thorndike himself with whose Authority our Adversaries principally urge us in this Dispute does not deny that Idolatry is practiced by the Ignoranter Persons of that Communion which the Gentlewoman may justly fear lest it should prove her own Case 8. That the Roman Church her self cannot be altogether excused from the Idolatry of her Ignorant Communicants seeing she puts unnecessary Scandals in Ignorant Persons way and is guilty of encouraging their Ignorance and Carelessness of Judging in matters of Religion 9. That the Practice of that Communion is generaâ—ly worse and grosser than their Principles as the Gentlewoman may inform her self of in that impartial account which is given of them by Sir Edwyn Sandys in his Speculum Europae which yet is observed and countenanced by their most Eminent Guides so that such as She cannot secure themselves from the danger of it 10. That the Romish Church is by so much the more culpable in this Particular because She has not been content only to countenance and encourage a Practice in so great danger of proving Idolatrous so needless in it self so destitute of all Authority either of Scripture or the Primitive Catholick Church which yet does so extremely stand in need of Authority but She has also imposed it as a Condition of her own Communion which She calls Catholick so that they who are willing to Believe and Practice all that was Believed and Practised in the Primitive Church must now be Anathematized and condemned for Hereticks for refusing to Believe or Practice any more or to condemn those as Hereticks who do refuse it Q. 3. Where was the Church of England before Luthers time THE design of asking this Question is certainly to make our Confession of Novelty in such Cases wherein our Adversaries presume our Novelty so notorious as that we our Selves cannot deny it an Argument against Us yet they themselves are concerned in some Cases to deny its cogency For even they cannot deny that the deprivation of the Laity of the use of the Cup for Example has been lately introduced into their Church by a publick Law If therefore it may appear that our Church is Antient as to all intents and purposes wherein Antiquity may be available but that the Church of Rome is not so and that in the sense wherein the Church of England has begun since Luther there is no reason to expect that She should have been Antienter and that the Justice of her Cause does not require it and that the Antiquity upon these Suppositions confessedly allowed to the Church of Rome is no Argument for the Justice of her Cause these things I think will contain a fully satisfactory Answer to the Gentlewomans Question I shall not at present engage on an accurate Discussion of these Heads but shall only suggest such short Observations as may let her see how unreasonable our Adversaries confidence is in this Argument wherein they do so usually triumph Therefore 1. Antiquity is indeed necessary to be pleaded for Doctrines such especially as are pretended to belong to the Catholick Faith and which are urged as Conditions of Communion This is the Case wherein it is urged by Tertullian and Vincentius Lirinensis in their very rational Discourses on this Argument And for this I think we may challenge the Church of Rome her self to instance in one positive Doctrine imposed by us which She her self thinks not Ancient I am sure the Controversie is so stated commonly that we are blamed not for Believing any thing antient or necessary which is not but for not believing some things which She believes to be so And if She her self believe all our Positives and withal believes that nothing is so to be believed but what is Antient it will clearly follow that She cannot in consistency with her own interests deny the Antiquity of our Positive Doctrines But for the other Doctrines superadded by them and denied by us which are indeed the true occasion of the present Divisions of Communion we charge them with Innovation and are very confident that they will never be able to prove them to the satisfaction of any Impartial Person either from clear Scripture or from genuine Antiquity of the first and purest Ages which are the way wherein we are willing to undertake the proof of our positive Doctrines Nay their greatest Champions decline the tryal and complain of the defectiveness and obscurity of the Primitive Christian Writers which they would not have reason to do if they thought them clear on their side These things therefore being thus supposed That no Doctrines ought to be imposed but what are Ancient That ours are so by our Adversaries own Confession and that our Adversaries Doctrines are not so and that in Judging this the private Judgments of particular Persons are to be trusted as the measures of their own private Practice as it is plain that those Discourses of Tertullian and Vincentius Lirinensis are principally designed for the satisfaction of particular Persons which had been impertinent if the Churches Judgment had been thought Credible in her own Case as a Judge of Controversies besides that even now this Argument from Antiquity is made use of for convincing such as are supposed unsatisfied with her Authority and therefore to whom that Authority can be no Argument which Liberty of private Judgment is then especially most fit to be indulged when the distance is so remote as it is now when no Church has now those Advantages for conveying down Apostolical Tradition in a Historical way as She had then These things I say being thus supposed it will follow that we are wrongfully Excommunicated and therefore that we have no reason to fear that their Censures should be confirmed by God And though I confess every Error in the Cause of the Churches Censures will
openly in our own Defence Nor 3. Is it necessary to expect that there should have been an open opposition of them even as soon as countenanced by Authority For if even in the reproof of the miscarriages of private Persons Christianity obliges us to proceed with all possible candor and modesty we are certainly much rather obliged to proceed so in dealing with Persons of Authority We should give them time to reflect and we should bear with any Personal inconveniences that are not directly sinful rather than occasion those disturbances which are usually to be expected from a publick opposition of them Nor is this forbearance more agreable to reason than to the sentiments of those Ages who were generally possessed with an excessive veneration for Authority especially Ecclesiastical so that there is reason to believe that they would bear with such Errors as long as the Abuses were tolerable however otherwise inconvenient 4. Therefore that which makes these Errors intolerable to private Persons in dealing with Authority for of such I speak is the imposing and urging them as Conditions of Communion And this might have been shewn to have been late not before their Errors were defined and imposed in their Councils And therefore it was but lately that any publick opposition was to be expected even from them who were in their Consciences perswaded that our Adversaries Doctrines were Erroneous And 5. When they were thus imposed yet even then private Persons were concerned in Conscience as well as Prudence to forbear an open opposition when there were no hopes of doing good nay too probable fears of prejudicing their Cause by it for the future when upon their opposition they must have expected to have been condemned when being condemned they were to be cast out of Communion when being Excommunicated for such a Cause others would have been deterred by their Example and their credit must have been impaired by the Infamy incurred by the Canon-Law then in force and their very condemnation would for the future mightily prejudice Mens minds against the like attempts when none could revive the like true Doctrine without the dis-repute of being supposed to revive an anciently-condemned Heresy and when there were no hopes of being able to preserve themselves in opposite Assemblies without Bishops to Head them without whom they could not maintain a Succession of Priests nor consequently of Sacraments and the like employments and advantages of Ecclesiastical Assemblies and when no Bishops were likely to countenance such a design whilst they were held in such captivity to the Court of Rome by Oaths as well as their other Worldly Interests and when no Persons of a free ingenuous temper were likely to attain the honour of Episcopacy These Reasons with a very easie Application may suffice to shew that in an ordinary way there was no reason to expect the Reformation sooner than it was And that there was no necessity sufficient to oblige God to interpose to raise Men up to it Extraordinarily will appear if it be considered 6. That it is not every necessity of the Church that can oblige God to use such Extraordinary means but only such a necessity as must have destroyed a Church from the Earth that is such a Society of Men wherein Salvation might be attained by the ordinary Prescriptions of the Gospel Now the prevalency of these Errors does not oblige us to acknowledge that such a Church as this must have failed even in those Ages wherein these Errors are supposed to have prevailed for some Centuries before the Reformation For 1. Though the Occidental Church had failed yet Christ might have had such a Church among the several Communions of the Orientals And I know no greater inconvenience in this regard in admitting the faileur of the Occidental church than what our Adversaries themselves are obnoxious to in admitting the like defection in the Oriental 2. The prevailing of these Errors does not oblige us to deny an ordinary possibility of Salvation according to the Prescriptions of the Gospel even in the Church of Rome it self in those Centuries before the Reformation For 1. We do not deny all Necessaries to Salvation even according to the ordinary Prescriptions of the Gospel to have been taught even then in the Church of Rome The Errors we charge them with are not of Defect but Adding to the Original Articles of Faith And therefore 2. If it may appear that the sin of Adding to the Faith was not to such as were no farther accessary to it than by continuing in the Communion of such as were really guilty of it so imputable ordinarily as to hinder the Salvation of such as were not otherwise wanting to themselves in their own Endeavours or at least not in such a degree as to oblige God to interpose in an Extraordinary way for its Ordinary prevention this will be sufficient to shew that supposing those Errors so dangerous as we do indeed suppose them yet God was not obliged to raise up and maintain a Communion in opposition to them for preventing the failing of such a Church as I have spoken of even in these Western Parts And that this was so may appear from these Considerations 1. That that skill in Ecclesiastical Learning by which our first Reformers were enabled to discover these Errors was generally wanting in the Ages before the Reformation which might make their mistakes then much more pardonable than now 2. That the great mischief of these Errors is not so much the believing more for matters of Faith than really was so as the mischievous Consequence of doing so the Divisions of the Church necessarily following hereupon the condemning of good Catholicks for Hereticks and Schismaticks and excluding them from Communion and hereby making the peace of Christendome impossible on any just and tolerable terms and Abuses impossible to be Reformed Which was not so imputable in those Ages when there was no visible Communion to be condemned by joyning with that of Rome for as for the even unjust Excommunication of particular Persons Providence is not so concerned as to interpose Extraordinarily for their prevention This I say on Supposition that the Waldenses and Albigenses c. were such as our Adversaries represent them If they were ootherwise then among them there was a Succession for so long of Churches holding our Doctrines before Luther 3. The Prudential Reasons now given might then generally excuse private Persons and all such as were not accessary to the guilt of introducing those Errors who were much the greater Part and it is only for the greater Part that Providence is necessarily concerned from the guilt of not publickly Reforming them Yet even they are not so Excusable now when the power of the Pope is so much decryed and there are so many Churches and Church-Governours under whose Protection they may put themselves and with whose Communion they may joyn in opposition to them 3. The Antiquity allowed to their Errors on this Supposition is not
sufficient to Justifie their Cause For 1. This Antiquity is not Primitive but only of some later Ignorant Ages And the Unreasonableness of presuming Doctrines to have been Primitive only because they were actually found embraced by the Church in later Ages and of Prescribing on that account against a new Examination of them by immediate recourse to the Originals might have been shewn from the Fathers as well as from the Protestants 2. The Antiquity of those Notions of theirs whereby they confine the Catholick Church to that part of it in the Roman Communion which might have been proved Fundamental to all their other Doctrines as they are made Articles of Faith and Conditions of Communion is contradicted by the Oriental Churches generally who are as ancient and of as Unquestionable a Succession as the Church of Rome her self and as ancient in teaching the contrary 3. The utmost Antiquity which we allow for their unwarrantable Doctrines is not so great as must be acknowledged by all that will Judge candidly for several which on all sides are acknowledged to be Heretical I do not only mean those of the Arians but also of those great Bodies of the Oriental Historians and Euâ—ychians continuing to this day divided from the Roman Church especially if they be really guilty of those Heresies which are charged on them and they must by Romanists be held guilty of some for Justifying their own Practice of condemning them 4. Some of their present Decrees particularly those concerning the admission of the Apocryphal Books into the Canon and receiving Unwritten Traditions with Equal Reverence with the Written Word of God I doubt are not more anciently imposed as Conditions of Catholick Communion than the Council of Trent it self which was since Luther And both of these are very considerable and especially the later is very Fundamental to many of their other Decrees Q. 4. Why all the Reformed Churches are not Vnited in One I Presume the design of this Question is not so much a Curiosity to be Informed either of the Politick Reasons which in the Course of Second Causes might have an Influence on those Divisions which were occasioned by the Reformation or of those that might move God to permit Second Causes to act according to their Natural Inclination without the Interposition of any Extraordinary restraint but only to lay hold on that Advantage from our acknowledged Divisions which they may seem to afford to the Prejudice of our common Cause I shall therefore at present onâ—y propose such things to the Gentlewomans Consideration as may let her understand the weakness of this Argument how Popular soever when they conclude us either mistaken our Selves or at least unfit to Guide others in the General Reformation because we are not all agreed in all the Particulars To this purpose it will be at present sufficient to insist on two things 1. That there is no reason why the Romanists should upbraid Us with this Argument and that it is their Interest as well as ours to Answer it 2. That the Argument it self is of no force as it is used by them against us 1. There is no Reason why the Romanists should upbraid Us with this Argument and they as well as we are obliged to Answer it For 1. This very Argument was by the Primitive Heathens made use of against Christianity in General as it is now against Us and our Adversaries would do well to consider whether the same Answers pleadable by themselves now in behalf of those Christians and actually pleaded by the Apologists then be not as pleadable for Us now Nay this multitude of Sects in Christianity is even now the great Argument of Irreligious Persons against the Truth of Religion and I cannot believe that any Piously disposed Person among them can be pleased to allow the Argument to be of any force in either Case rather than want an Argument against Us. Yet I believe they will never be able to shew any Disparity 2. If they speak not of Dividing Principles but of actual Divisions they as well as we have such among themselves They have Divisions betwixt the Irish Remonstrants and Anti-Remonstrants Molinists and Jansenists as well as Thomists and Scotists and Jesuites some of which Parties are Divided as well in Communion as in Opinions If they say that these Divisions are not the faults of their Opinions but the particular perversity of Persons who will not stick to those Principles which might keep them United when their Interest inclines them otherwise the same will be pretended by every Dividing Party If they think it Injurious that their whole Communion should be charged with the misdemeanors of Persons condemned by it We all of Us plead the same for there is no Party that does not condemn all others in those things wherein they Divide from themselves 3. If they think our Differences concerning the Particulars we would have Reformed an Argument that the whole design of a Reformation is in it self Suspicious and Uncertain let them consider what themselves do or can say when they are in the like way of Arguing urged by Us with the several Opinions concerning the Seat of Infallibility whence our Authors conclude the Uncertainty of the thing it self It might easily have been shewn upon this and the like Occasions how they do and are obliged to acknowledge the Unreasonableness of this way of Arguing But the designed Brevity of my present Employment only permits me to point at the Heads of what might be said not to enlarge on the Particulars 4. It might have been shewn that these Differences among them concerning the Judge of Controversies tend Naturally and by due Rational Consequence to the dissolution of their Communion a Charge which we think cannot be proved against that which we believe the Right Communion 2. Therefore to shew directly the weakness of this Argument Let it be considered 1. That whatever Differences they upbraid us with yet they can never prove that they follow by any Natural and Rational Consequence from the General Principles of the Reformation though possibly they may indeed have been occasioned by that Liberty of Spirit which was absolutely requisite for undertaking a design of such a Nature as it must on all sides be acknowledged possible that things really good may notwithstanding prove occasions of Evil. And how very Unjust and Unreasonable it is to charge Personal Faults upon Designs that is in this Case the faults of Reformers upon the Reformation all even the Romanists themselves will acknowledge in Cases wherein they are dis-interessed 2. That this being Supposed all that they can conclude from these Divisions of the Reformers is only that no one Communion of the Reformers has that advantage over the rest as that Antecedently to all Enquiry into the merit of the Cause its Word is fit to be trusted as a Guide in Controversies to assure any of its own Truth and of the Error of all differing from it This if the Gentlewoman
what is amiss without the compulsion of their Subjects which can never be expected from such as pretend to be Infallible 5. If Abuses of this Nature be conceived a sufficient Reason for leaving a Communion wherein we are already much more are they sufficient for hindring our access to another wherein as yet we are not So that this same Reason if it should make her desert the Communion of the Church of England would also hinder her joyning in that of Rome in which the most Judicious and Candid Persons of that Communion will acknowledge Abuses of the like nature 2. As far as these Omissions are countenanced by our Church there is reason for it I say as far as they are countenanced by our Church and therefore the reason I shall give for such Omissions shall be as they are considered under that Notion 1. Therefore for Fasting Days I think they are imposed with the same design of Religion in our Church as in that of Rome for that account of Jejunium Cecilianum which is given by some is not taken for the true sense of our Church by her most genuine Sons and that our Church is conceived to have as much Authority to oblige her Subjects in Impositions of that Nature so that I cannot look on this disuse prevailing in Practice as countenanced by our Church If the Gentlewoman be so zealously concerned for them I am sure She may Practice them in our Communion as well as in that of Rome as several others do 2. Confession even to a Priest in order to his Advice and Absolution our Church I think owns as much as that of Rome though we do not make it a Sacrament nor make it absolutely necessary in an ordinary way for the remission of every particular Sin that it be particularly confessed That the Practice of it is at present discontinued our Church I think is not the Cause That She has not interposed her Authority to continue it might have been excused 1. Because the thing is only of Ecclesiastical Right For the ancientest obligation to confess Sins though scandalous in their own nature yet not become notorious though that differed much from the Confession which is now used in the Roman Church was first introduced after the Persecution by Decius and that in opposition to the Novatians as Socrates affirms and this was also afterwards taken awav by Nectarius Bishop of Constantinople who ordered every one to be left to his own Conscience in that matter for which other Bishops were so far from censuring him that they followed him in it almost in all places as the same Historian tells us and that omission was vehemently pleaded for by St. Chrysostome and obtained for no small time in the Greek Church whatsoever it did in other places Whence it follows that She has power in discretion to determine concerning its actual practice what She thinks fit 2. Farther this being supposed that it was in our Churches power not to Impose it that She did act prudently in not Imposing it but rather recommending it to the Liberty of private Devotions will appear if it be considered that if She had imposed it She must necessarily have excluded all such frâ—â— her Communion as had not been satisfied with it and it had not been Prudent to have excluded Persons from her Communion for Indifferent things avoidable by her when She was complaining of the like Tyranny In the Church of Rome especially considering that it was also likely that the number was great of those who were so dissatisfied with it However if the Gentlewoman be desirous to Practice it for her own Edification I believe She may be furnished with Persons fitted for it in the Church of England 3. As for the use of Holy Oyl in any of the pretended Sacraments we do not so far condemn it as to refuse Communion with other Churches that use it nay we our Selves retain it as a decent Ceremony of Consecration in the Coronations of our Princes Only we again conceive it 1. A matter indifferent in it self and not Essential to those Offices because of the differences in the Church concerning it 2. This being supposed our Church does no way conceive it Prudent to continue it both because it was the design of the Reformation to reduce the Sacraments to their Primitive Simplicity that so Persons might ComCommunicate in them on the same free terms as then and because the Errors of those who made them Essential to the Mysteries were of great Consequence and very fit to be so discountenanced by a discontinuance of the Practice it self If by the Holy Oyl here mentioned be meant particularly their Sacrament of Extreme Unction â— Our Adversaries cannot prove a Sacramental Unction for the first Centuries A Miraculous one they may but seeing themselves confess the ordinary Use of the Miracle to have ceased there is no necessary reason obliging our Church to continue the external Ceremony This is at least sufficient to shew that it is in the Churches power to continue it or not Which being supposed I add 2. That even in regard of the benefit expected by it whether of Bodily recovery or remission of sins or Spiritual strength against the Agony of Death the Gentlewoman nor any other Subject of our Church can suffer no loss by our Church's discontinuance of it For all these things are as certainly attainable by the means continued in our Church from Unquestionable Apostolical Tradition as the Prayers and Absolution of the Priest and the blessed Sacrament as they could by the Unction it self so that I cannot perceive how a devout Person need to be concerned for the want of it on the terms now mentioned Especially considering 3. That in the way it is Administred among them to Persons past hopes of recovery and usually past sense of their own condition it cannot be conceived in any rational way capable of Edifying the Devotion of the Person concerned and no other way is suitable to the Dispensation of the Gospel And supposing it no Sacrament there is no reason imaginable why the Prayers of the Assistants for such a Person may not be as acceptable to God without the observation of this external Ceremony as with it And as upon these concessions its Continuance must needs appear unnecessary so 4. It would be inexpedient to countenance the Errors consequent to the Opinion of its being a Sacrament which are of so weighty a concernment by continuance of a Custom which may so easily be spared These things may suffice at present for satisfying the Gentlewoman of her little concernment for it without engageing on the Dispute concerning its lawfulness Now this Fundamental Principle of our Churches Proceedings in these and the like Particulars concerning the power of the Church for Innovating from Ancient Customes not only by Adding new ones but Abrogating old ones might have been proved not only from the Principles but from several Practices of the Roman Church her self Q. 6. Why was