lightly to believe the Calumnies wherewith they have laboured to darken our first Reformers and to cease to give himself over to a passionate Spirit that suggests those odious accusations against persons whose lives have appeared pure and intire to a great people who having known and followed them can give a better Testimony of their Conduct then their interested Enemies do Let him Remember what Monsieur Arnaud has wrote to justify some of the Religious of our time whom he accuses to have been Uncommunicants Asacramentarians and foolish Virgins who in all matters affected an Extravagant and Schismatical Singularity That there was a Time in the life of Saint Teresia her self who was the Ornament of these last Times wherein she was decried not only concerning the Faith but concerning manners also That moreover divers have thought her possessed with a Devil and would have her Conjure That after that and toward the end of her life she was Treated as one possessed with a Devil as a Hypocrite and Dissembler and one that had lost all Honour They publickly defamed her in the Pulpits in the Churches and they compared her with one Magdalen de la Craix a Woman filled with a lying Spirit and Famous throughout all Spain for her Forgeries and her Communication with the Devil That they witnessed against her and her Religious things of so foul a nature that they were accused in the Sacred Office and charged with having committed a Thousand Forgeries That the Inquisition was forced to inform against her and her Nuns and that they expected every day when they should be made Prisoners That her Books were seized by the same Inquisition to be censured That her General markt out one of her Monasteries to be a Prison for her That the Popes Nuntio Treated her as a turbulent Woman and a common Whore That he thought to have overturned from top to bottom a new Edifice of the Dechaussez That he used them with the greatest rigour banishing some imprisoning others and generally condemning them as if they had been a People of a new Sect infected with Errors or such an ill life as it was necessary to cut off that course that they might not infect and destroy the whole World This is well nigh the Treatment that they give the first Reformers they have laboured to cover them with reproaches to weaken the efficacy of their Preaching and those very persons themselves that so loudly complain that we load them with Calumnies by so unjust a proceeding are now a days the first that make use of it themselves against us CHAP. VI. A Further Justification of the first Reformers against the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices contained in his Tenth and Eleventh Chapters AS the Book of the Prejudices is nothing else but a confused heap of Objections and unjust Accusations that the Author of that Book has piled up one upon another without Connexion and without Order So I find my self constrained that I may not break off the Connexion of my Subject to break off that of his Chapters Therefore after having answered his third where his Invectives begin against the manners and conduct of the first Reformers I shall dismiss the Examination of his 4th 5th and 6th Chapters where he Treats about the Call of the Ministers of our Communion to my Fourth Part and where he Treats of the Right that we have to a Gospel Ministry and that which he afterwards says in the 7th 8th and 9th Chapters concerning our pretended Schism to my Third Part wherein we shall Treat of our Separation from the Church of Rome and I shall now pass on to the Examination of his 10th 11th 12th and 13th wherein he renews the same personal Invectives against the first Reformers But as those Chapters are composed of almost nothing else but frivolous matters swelled up with Declamatory Exaggerations by Injuries and Passion We shall not think it unfit if setting aside all that in them which is to no purpose or too passionate we set down in a few Words all that that is more Essential in those Objections and that we Answer them also in a few Words 1. Objection is That Andrew Carolostadius Arch-Deacon of Wittenburg whom Melanchton runs down as a brutish Fellow without wit and without Learning who embraced the Fanatical Doctrine of the Anabaptists was the first who had the boldness to assault the Doctrine of the Real presence and to that effect he invented an Extravagant Explication of those words This is my Body saying that by the word This Jesus Christ did not mean that which he held in his hand but that he pointed to his own true Body Answer It is not True that Carolostadius was the first that opposed the Doctrine of the Real presence Bertram Erigenes Rabanus opposed it in the ninth Century when Paschasius spread it abroad Berengarius opposed it in the Eleventh and in the Age of the Reformation it self the Bohemians called Taborites and those of the Valleys of Piemont and Province called Waldenses openly rejected it So that although all they have said of Carolostadius were true yet we have not any particular interest in him and we shall say in respect of him that which Saint Augustine said in respect of Caecilianus Caecilianus is not my Father for Jesus Christ has said call no man Father upon Earth for one is your Father even God but I call Caecelianus my Brother my good Brother if he be a good man but my bad Brother if he be not good Notwithstanding I know not whether that pretended Anabaptism of Carolostadius is not an ill-grounded Accusation into which Mclancthon and Luther himself who did not love Carolostadius might have been surprized as it frequently happens among persons divided in their Opinions at least it is certain that Carolostadius defended himself by publick Writings and that he protested that he was innocent And as to that Explication that he gave of the word This in the words of Jesus Christ it is an Error from the Truth and a false gloss on the Signification of that Word but it is an Error notwithstanding that does not hinder that the ground of his sentiment concerning the Eucharist should not be true and right and how many different interpretations are there of the same word upon which they refute one another amongst the Doctors of the Church of Rome and who almost all say things very remote from common sence 2. Object Zuinglius had already began his Reformation before ever he spoke a word of the Real Presence and Adoration of the Host although he notes in his Works that from that very Time he was perswaded in his heart that Jesus Christ was not really present in the Eucharist But as it is very hard to believe that during all that Time he never said Mass that he never assisted at it and that he never administred the Sacrament that he should not all the while be discovered by those who
gone so far as to have caused a rupture of Communion So that it is not for these kinds of things that our Fathers left the Church of Rome they had more sufficient more urgent and indispensable reasons in the other controversies among which that of Justification by Meritorious Works and by Indulgences Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass Invocation of Saints and Angels religious worshipping of Images Humane Satisfactions the Lordship of the Pope and his Clergy over mens Consciences held the chiefest place These are the true Points which caused a Separation and if the others contributed any thing to it it was only by the connexion which they had with these here or because they noted a general Spirit of Superstition contrary to true Piety or in fine by reason of their number for sometimes divers both less dangerous each to a part all together make a mortal and incurable disease However it be it appears that our Fathers had besides but too just and necessary reasons of their Separation But to come to set out this matter in its full evidence it will be requisite to see what they can say in opposition to what I have said It seems to me that they can take but one of these Three sides 1. Either to deny that the Transubstantiation Adoration of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass c. which we call Errors are so in effect Or 2. To say That even when they should suppose that they were Errors they would not nevertheless take away from the Church of Rome the quality of a true Church Neither would they be incompatible with salvation and by consequence they could not be a sufficient cause of Separation 3. Or in fine to maintain that even when these Points should be a sufficient cause of Separation they could not be so at least in regard of our Fathers because our Fathers were by right subject to their ordinary Pastors dependent upon their Hierarchical Government and chiefly upon that of the Church of Rome which they pretend is the Mother and Mistress of all others and the Center of Christian Unity from whence it follows that they could never separate themselves but that on the contrary they were bound to receive all the conditions it required to be in its Communion These are the only Three things in my judgement which they can propose with any colour I will examine the last in the following Chapter let us here consider these two others The First necessarily engages the man who will make use of it to enter into an Examination of the foundation of those matters or which comes to the same things solidly to establish the Infallibility of the Church of Rome and of that Party that adheres to it which is a general Controversie that includes all the others as I have shewn in the First Part of this Work And by consequence he must renounce all that wrangling dispute which goes only upon prejudices The justice or injustice of our Separation will depend on the Foundation For how can they assure themselves that those things which we call Errors and a false Worship are on the contrary Evangelical Truths and a right and lawful Worship without going on to that Examination which shews as I have already frequently observed that all those indirect attacks which they assault us with are nothing else but vain amusings and beatings of the Air which serve only to make a noise The second thing will not less engage them in the Examination of the foundation of those matters than the First For in supposing that those things which we call Errors are such in effect they must necessarily see of what nature they are and what opposition they have to true Piety to judge aright whether they are sufficient causes for a Separation and whether our conscience cannot accommodate it self to them I confess that this is no very hard matter to be known for how small a knowledge soever they may have of Religion and the Worship of God they may very easily perceive that if Transubstantiation for example is an Error they cannot but adore the substance of Bread in the room of Jesus Christ they may easily perceive that if the worshipping of Images is forbidden by the second Commandment of the Law they draw upon themselves the jealousie of God as he himself declares there they may easily perceive that if the Sacrifice of the Mass is not in effect a propitiatory Sacrifice by which they may apply to themselves the vertue of that on the Cross they do an injury to the only Sacrifice of Jesus Christ and that they vainly seek the vertue of it in an Act where it is not applyed They may easily perceive that if the Lordship that the Church of Rome or its Councils usurp over mens Consciences is ill-grounded that they render unto men a kind of adoration which is only due to God alone which cannot but be an unpardonable crime in regard of him who has said Thou shalt have no other Gods before me But whether it would be an easie or a difficult matter to be known that is not the business about which we dispute at present It is sufficient to shew that the Separation of our Fathers had just sufficient necessary and indisputable causes supposing that what they said of the Errors of the Church of Rome were true and that they could not be accused either of rashness or of Schism without contesting their supposition nor that they could contest their supposition without coming to an inspection into the very things themselves Whence it follows that all that dispute which they raise against us about Forms is but a meer vain wrangling unworthy of any sound persons If that which our Fathers have laid down concerning the Errors which the Church of Rome forces men to believe to be of her Communion be not true we do not any further pretend to defend their Separation but if it be true God and men will bear them witness that it was justly done and according to the dictates of an upright conscience They will say it may be That we ought not upon such light grounds to suppose that that which our Fathers said concerning the Errors of the Church of Rome is true since they are the Points in dispute wherein the Church of Rome pretends that we are in an Error as we pretend that she is But there cannot be any thing said more frivolous for the supposition that we make is in words of good sense and right reason because we make it to force our adversaries to come to a discussion of the things themselves upon which the judgement that ought to be made of our Separation depends and to make them acknowledge that all those Accusations which they form against our Fathers that they have broken the Christian Unity that they have forsook the Church that they have made a criminal Schism are rash accusations unjust and precipitate since they cannot rightly
as Hereticks or the enemies of the Churches peace Therefore it was that Constance reproached Liberius that he was alone and that he opposed himself to all the world in the defence of Athanasius When so great a part of the world said he to him resides in thy person that thou alone shouldst take the part of a wicked man and dare to break the peace of the whole world I would be alone answered Liberius the cause of the faith is nevertheless weakned For heretofore there were but three found who resisted the Command of a King Liberius himself was banished from which he was not freed till after he subscribed to Arianism And as the West was then less infected with this Heresie than the East the Emperour caused a Council to assemble at Ariminum in which after specious beginnings the end was very unhappy For the Bishops renounced therein the Orthodox Doctrine which made the Son of God of one and the same Essence with his Father To this effect they rejected the word consubstantial which the Council of Nice had inserted into its Creed as a word that was scandalous sacrilegious and unworthy of God which was no where to be found in the Scripture and they banished it from the Church This appears by the Letter of that Synod it self to the Emperour Constance set down by S. Hilary in which they gave the Emperour thanks that he had shewn them what they ought to do to wit to decree that no body should speak any more either of substance or of consubstantial which are names unknown to the Church of God and that they rejoyced because they had acknowledged the very same thing that they had held before They add That the Truth which cannot be overcome has obtained the victory so that that name unworthy of God which was not to be found wrote in the Sacred Laws should not be for the future mentioned by any person and they declare That they intirely hold the same Doctrine with the Oriental Churches and that they have rendred unto them and him a full obedience It was that reason for which Auxentius Bishop of Millan an Arian said in his Letter to Valentinian and Valens Emperours That he ought not to endure that the Vnity of six hundred Bishops should be broken by a small number of contentious persons So that Vincentius Lirinensis makes no scruple to acknowledge That the poyson of Arianism had infected not some small parts only but almost all the world and it was to that sense that Phaebadius a French Bishop who lived in those times said That the subtilty and fraud of the Devil had almost wholly possessed mens minds that it perswaded them to believe Heresie as the right Faith and condemned the true Faith as an Heresie And a little lower having an eye to what had been done at the Council of Ariminum The Bishops saith he made an Edict that no one should mention one only substance that is to say that no one should preach in the Church that the Father and the Son were but one only vertue I might add to these testimonies that of Gregory Nazianzen in the Oration that he made in the praise of S. Athanasius There after having described the furies of George Patriarch of Alexandria and an Arian and the impieties of the Council of Seleucia he adds We may see one sort unjustly banished from their Sees and other put into their places after their having subscribed to the impiety which was required of them as a necessary condition Plotting never ceased on one side nor the Calumniator on the other This is that which has made many among us fall into the snare who were else invincible for although their error did not go so far as to seduce their minds yet they subscrib'd notwithstanding and by that means conspired with the most wicked men and if they were not partakers in their flames they were at least blackned with their smoak This is that which has made me often pour forth rivers of tears beholding wickedness spread abroad so wide and so much every where and that those themselves that ought to have been the defenders of the Word there have become the persecutors of the Orthodox Doctrine For it is certain that the Pastors have been carried away after an insensible manner and to speak with the Scripture divers Pastors have left my Vineyard desolate they have abused and loaded that desirable portion with shame that is to say the Church of God which the sweat and blood of so many Martyrs before and since the coming of jesus Christ had besprinkled and which was consecrated by the sufferings of God himself who dyed for our salvation If you except some few who have either been despised by reason of the obscurity of their names or who have resisted by their vertue for it is very requisite that there should yet have some remained to be as it were a seed and a root to Israel to make it flourish and revive again all were swayed by the Times There was only this difference among them that some were fallen deeper into the snare and others more slowly that some were the chief in wickedness and others held the second place Cardinal Baronius could not avoid making this reflection in setting down this passage So it was that Gregory deplored the ruine of the whole Eastern Church But if we would add the ruine that befell the Western Church which I have just before described we shall easily judge that there has not been any time since wherein the whole Christian World has been more disturbed than it was then since almost all the Preachers of the Churches were fallen into the precipice and that the face of the Catholick Church was never so dreadful But the second Action which we have propounded is not less certain than the former to wit that those among the Orthodox who had any zeal or courage separated themselves from the Body of their ordinary Pastors and would not own them for their Pastors while they remained in Heresie In effect that was the chief cause for which they suffered so many murders and banishments the Arians no wayes tolerating those who refused their Communion The perpetual Accusation wherewith they charged them was That they were the Schismaticks who had violated the Peace and Unity of the Church This is that which Auxentius reproached S. Hilary with and Eusebius of Verceille in the Letter which I have before cited They are said he men condemned and deposed who think of nothing but making of Schisms wheresoever they come for so it was that that false Bishop called the just Separation to which S. Hilary exhorted the faithful by his Writings as we have seen in the preceding Chapter Socrates the Ecclesiastical Historian relates upon this subject that the cruelty of the Arians proceeded to that height that they forced by all sorts of unjust wayes men and women to receive the Sacrament at their hands
that every Society which has not that extension is not the Church so that this reasoning is alwayes sound your Society is shut up in a little part of the world Therefore it is not the Church and that it is by this Principle that S. Augustine has disputed against the Donatists and convinced them of Schism This is the summ of his eighth Chapter In the ninth he labours to apply these general Maxims to our Separation and 1. He sayes That our Communion is not spread over all the world any more than that of the Donatists and that not having that visible extension which is the perpetual mark of the True Church it follows that it is not so and by consequence that we are all Schismaticks 2. He sayes We carry the principle of the Donatists much higher than those Schismaticks stretch'd it for as for them they did not say that there ever was a time in which the Church had wholly fell into Apostasic and that they excepted the Communion of Donatus but as for us we will have it that there has been whole Ages in which all the world had generally apostatized and lost the faith and treasure of salvation 3. He labours to shew that the Societies of the Berengarians of the Waldenses and Albigenses c. in whom he sayes we shut up the Church could not be this Catholick Church of which S. Augustine speaks And lastly He concludes from thence that we are Schismaticks and by consequence out of a state of salvation Before we enter upon the particular Examination of the Propositions whereof this Objection is made up it will be good to note that there is nothing new in all that and that it is nothing but that some mark of visible extension that the greatest part of the Controversial Writers of the Roman Communion have been wont to propound when they would give the marks of the True Church There is this only difference to be found in it that the others labour to ground this upon what they produce out of the passages of the Scripture whereas the Author of the Prejudices grounds his argument upon the sole Authority of S. Augustine and some Fathers But when it should be true that S. Augustine and the African Fathers disputing against the Donatists should have prest this visible extension of the Church too much and urged it further than they ought will the Author of the Prejudices believe that he ought to hold all those things that the Fathers have advanc'd in their disputes for infallible and all their reasonings and hypotheses to have been so Does he not know what Theodoret himself who was a Father has noted concerning some of those who were before him That the vehemence of Disputation had made them fall into excesses just as those who would rectifie a crooked Tree turn it too much on the other side from that straightness which it ought to have And is he ignorant of what S. Athanasius said concerning Dionysius of Alexandria whose Authority the Arians objected to him That Dionysius had said so not with design to make a simple exposition of his faith but occasionally having a respect to the times and persons That a Gardiner is not to be found fault with if he cultivate his Trees according to the quality of the soil sowing one planting another pruning this and plucking up that We must sayes S. Jerome distinguish between the different kinds of writing and especially of Polemical and Dogmatical For in the Polemical the dispute is vagous and when they answer to an adversary they propound sometimes one thing and sometimes another they argue as they think fit they say one thing and do another or as the Proverb sayes they offer bread and give one a stone But in the Dogmatical on the contrary they speak openly and ingenuously We may easily apprehend by that that we ought not to hold for Canonical all that the Fathers may have wrote in the heat of their disputes or to take what they have said according to the rigour of the Letter since they themselves acknowledge that having the Pen in their hands they often advance things that on other occasions ought not to be press'd So that though it should be true that S. Augustine and the African Fathers had made that visible extension an inseparable and perpetual mark of the True Church yet we should not fear to say in respect of them what S. Augustine himself has said concerning S. Cyprian whom the Donatists objected to him I do not hold the Writings of Cyprian for Canonical but I examine them by the Canonical Scriptures That which I find in them conformable to the holy Scriptures I receive with praising him and I reject with the respect that I owe to his person what I find in them disagreeing thereto We should make no scruple to apply to them what the same S. Augustine has said on the subject of S. Hilary and some other Fathers whom they alledg'd to him We must throughly distinguish these sorts of writings from the Authority of the Canonical Books For however we should read them yet we cannot draw convincing testimonies from them and it is allow'd us to depart from them when we see that they themselves have departed from the truth It is therefore certain that the Author of the Prejudices has but weakned his proof when instead of labouring to establish it on the Scripture as the rest have done he restrains it to the meer Authority of S. Augustine and some Fathers We have thought that we ought to have freely represented this to the Author of the Prejudices to oblige him a little to moderate his pretensions for he imagin'd that the sole Authority of S. Augustine and some Fathers was enough to convince us I will sayes he convince them we have frequently told him already and shall tell him here again That the Scripture is the only rule of our Faith that we do not acknowledge any other authority able to decide the disputed Points in Religion than that of the Word of God and that if we sometimes dispute by the Fathers it is but by way of condescention to those of the Church of Rome to act upon their own principle and not to submit our consciences to the word of men But because that he may also imagine under a pretence of this declaration that we have no other way to answer his argument I shall undertake to answer here and shew him if I can that he has abused the Authority of S. Augustine and that he has neither comprised or had a mind to comprehend either the true sentiments of that Father or ours This is that which I design to shew him in this Chapter and in the following But before we enter upon this matter it will be necessary to clear in a few words the History of the Donatists and to represent what was the beginning of their quarrel and what their Separation was The Author of the
and which the Donatists acknowledg'd to be Orthodox was then actually and in effect spread over the whole Earth that is to say that it had a great extent among the Nations of it whereas that of the Donatists was shut up within one small part of Africk It was upon this that they abused a passage of the Canticles which they read after this manner Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth where thou feedest where thou makest thy flocks to rest in the South explaining this in the South as if he would have noted the place and said in Africa whereas it should be read at noon-day meerly to note the hour of the day when the Shepherd led his flock under some shade for their rest This is that which makes S. Augustine also speak to them sometimes of the Apostolical Churches and those to whom S. John wrote his Apocalypse with whom they had no communion and to reproach them so often for being separated from all the World The third Observation is That that Society which the Donatists acknowledged to be Orthodox and which was in effect spread over many Nations had not cut off the Donatists from its communion nor had separated the former from it if they had not excommunicated them nor pronounced Anathema's against those who should not hold Cecilianus to be innocent or the Traditors to have been good men When any one of them return'd to the Church they did not seek to make them renounce any other thing than their Schism nor to embrace any thing besides peace And even in the judgement of the Synod of Rome Milciades and his brethren offered to hold communion with the Bishops that Majorinus had ordained and in the Conference at Carthage they offered to the Donatist Bishops to own them for Bishops and to preserve their Sees to them without requiring any other condition of them than that of brotherly Unity It was therefore the Donatists who separated themselves wilfully out of a meer spirit of division and the Church was in respect of them in a passive Separation Lastly The fourth Observation is That although the Donatists should have had any just occasion to separate yet they had urged their Separation notwithstanding as far as it could go for they had carried it so far as even to break that general bond which yet in some manner united all those who make an external profession of Christianity good and bad Orthodox and Hereticks which yet in some manner make but one body in opposition to Pagans and other people absolutely Infidels Their Principle was That all the Christians in the World except the party of Donatus being sullied with the contagion of the Traditor Cecilianus all that they had also done became sullied by the uncleanness of their persons and upon this Principle they condemned the Christianity of the Universal Church they rejected her Baptism and her Sacraments although at the bottom they had the same with hers and they look'd upon that Society to be no otherwise than an Assembly of Pagans and Infidels with whom they would have nothing common This is what St. Augustine reproaches them with in divers places in his Writings They say sayes he that they are Christians but they say also that they only are so They make no scruple to say that they know that out of their Sect there are no Christians You hold sayes he to them elsewhere that all Christian Holiness has been abolish'd among the Nations where the Apostles had establish'd it because they have communicated with those whom your Fathers condemned in their Council of Carthage Therefore it was that they thought themselves grievously affronted when the Catholicks called them their Brethren they fled from their Communion they would not so much as sit together with them and they re-baptiz'd all those who had been baptiz'd in the Church when they came over to their Communion neither more or less than if they had come out of Paganism because they maintained that in effect the Church was absolutely perish'd throughout all the Earth except in their Party These are the matters of fact that I have thought my self bound to explain We must now return to the Objection of the Author of the Prejudices and examine it in the meaning of S. Augustine and the African Fathers the proposition of which it is composed The first is That there is a Church from which it is never allow'd any man to separate himself under what pretence soever and from which all those who do so separate themselves are Schismaticks This first Proposition is ambiguous and so confused that we can very hardly comprehend in what sense the Author of the Prejudices has meant it Every one knows that there is in the World a Body of people or of Nations who profess themselves to be Christians and to whom one may yet in some manner give the name of the Church because that all such Christians are yet in some respect within the General Call of the Gospel It is therefore this Church of which he means to speak But what likelihood is there that to accuse us of Schism he should have form'd so vagous an Idea of the Church since he knows very well that we are no more separated from this body than the other communions that compose it are or than the Church of Rome her self in particular is Every one knows that this body of Christians is divided into divers communions or particular Societies that bear the name of Churches as the Greek the Roman the Protestant the Coptick the Jacobite the Nestorian the Armenian Does he mean any one of these Churches But if that be so why does he not distinctly and without any hesitation tell us which it is and if he would that it should be that of Rome what ground is there to believe that he would have it so why did he not explain himself why did he make an end even to say That it should be in our choice whether that Church should be the Greek or the Nestorian or the Jacobites and that he did not pretend to determine it To what purpose are all these goings about Every one knows yet that God alwayes preserves in the world his truly faithful and his Children who are the true Church which he has predestinated to eternal Salvation But the Author of the Prejudices has formerly declared himself against this notion of the Church and he is so very earnest to reject it that we cannot impute it to him without doing him wrong We cannot even believe that he means That we ought not to separate our selves from a Communion when it is Orthodox and when those who separate themselves from it are Schismaticks For he has also declar'd himself against this Notion of the Church because sayes he in taking this way the examination of Schism would be remitted to that of the Opinions and that we must alwayes know whether the Communion that they forsake is Orthodox
Church no one is responsible but for his own crimes and not for those of others at least if he take no part with them or do not approve them or consent to them So that while there is no obstinateness to maintain error while there is no danger of being seduced and while one is not bound to take any part in the evil nor to hide ones faith and piety under the vail of hypocrisie this Father yields that we should have communion with Hereticks as the ancient Prophets had communion with the Idolaters of their times and as Jesus Christ and his Disciples had communion with the Pharisees and Sadducees and were found among them in the same Assemblies But when there is an invincible opinionativeness and error is so deeply rooted that there is no more hope of its being healed S. Augustine would in this case that a man should separate himself from their communion This is that which he teaches in the same Book of the True Religion The Church sayes he suffers their error while they have no accusers or do not defend their false opinions with obstinacy but when they are accused and defend themselves obstinately in their opinions she separates them from her communion which is formally to acknowledge the right of active separation in an Orthodox Church And from the same we may evidently conclude that this Father does not approve that we should remain in an Heretical Communion when there is the least necessity of partaking in error wickedness or superstition whether in effect or appearance and that he would on the contrary conclude that in this case the good should separate themselves for the conservation of their own righteousness But to give a yet greater light to this matter we must note that according to the Doctrine of this Father every Society whatsoever it be that determines a false Doctrine and publishes Books of it to teach it posterity and who will have none receive its communion but those who approve that Doctrine in giving the Orthodox a just occasion to separate themselves she her self first of all breaks the bond of Unity and it is she that makes the active separation and becomes schismatical This is that which he teaches in his Treatise against Cresconius This Donatist had said to him that if he did not approve of the crime of the Traditors if on the contrary it displeased him he ought to fly from and abandon the Church of the Traditors To answer to this S. Augustine sayes first of all that though there should have been Traditors in his Church yet he ought not to forsake it while he did not communicate with their crime and that on the contrary he condemned it and laboured to correct it by preaching and discipline He proves it by the example of S. Cyprian who declaimed against the vices of the Church but who did not separate himself from it and by that of David of Samuel of Isaiah of Jeremiah of Zachary and other Saints who cryed out against the Transgressors of the Law yet without separating themselves notwithstanding Since immediately after he adds Is it that the Traditors have instituted some new Sacraments or some new Baptism Is it that they have composed Books to teach others to do or imitate the action of the Traditors or that they have recommended those Books to posterity or that we hold and follow that Doctrine If they had done so and suffered no person to have been in their communion but those who would read their Books and approve that Doctrine I say that they would have separated themselves from the Vnity of the Church and if you saw me in their Schism you would then have reason to say that I were in the Church of the Traditors These words note clearly what I have said that when a Church teaches a false Doctrine which it makes to enter into the use of the Sacraments and that it would receive into its communion none but those who approve it it is not only just to separate from her but it is she her self that breaks the bond of the Unity of the Church and casts her self into Schism But this is precisely that which the Church of Rome does in respect of us for she has not only decided as of faith the Doctrines that we do not believe to be true she has not only set forth Books to teach those Tenets to Posterity but she has cut off all those from her communion who will not believe them after the manner that she teaches them So that we have in this regard a just reason to say that it is she that has made the active separation and if it be true that we have reason in the foundation it is she that has broken the Christian Unity and to which the Schism ought to be imputed and not to us who are in a meer passive separation From whence by the way it further follows that to the deciding the Question of the Schism that is between us and to know which of the two parties is to blame we must necessarily come to the discussion of the controverted Articles For if the Church of Rome has decided nothing that is not conformable to the Gospel she has a right to reject all those from her communion who refuse to believe her Doctrine we will grant this But if she has decided Errors it is certain also that the necessity which she has imposed on others to believe and practise them in order to their being in her communion renders her guilty of Schism All depends therefore on the discussion of the foundation For there is no ground left of doubting that according to the Doctrine of S. Augustine it is not only permitted but even necessary to the Orthodox in some certain cases to be no longer joyned in the assemblies of those who teach those errors and to live separated from their communion We shall see in the close whether that multitude and visible extension can take away that right from a small party restrain'd to a few persons and places for there remains nothing but this doubt to be taken away but to effect this we must go on to the examination of the second Proposition of the Author of the Prejudices The infallible and perpetual mark sayes he to know the Church by according to S. Augustine and the other African Fathers is a visible extension throughout all Nations because that visible extension according to them agreed with the Church in all Ages and that it is a negative mark that is to say that every Society which has not that extension is not the Church so that this arguing is alwayes just your Society is shut up in a small part of the world therefore it is not the Church It is adds he by this principle that S. Augustine has disputed against the Donatists and convinc'd them to be schismaticks This Proposition is not less captious nor less ambiguous than the former For if the Author of the
excommunicate all those who would not believe them As to the fifth S. Augustine did not intend to say that those who had separated themselves from the Arians when the Arians were the Masters of the Ministry were Schismaticks since he himself calls them the Stars of Heaven the Couragious and Unshaken firmissimi qui fortiter pro fide exulabant he never meant to condemn their Assemblies which they made apart to have nothing common with Heresie since it was nothing else but the effect of that heroical courage which he ascribes to them and of that ardent zeal which they had for the glory of God In effect S. Hilary praises some Bishops of France Germany and Flanders of whom he writes that they had separated themselves from the communion of those who held the Orthodox Bishops in Exile and in particular he extolls those among them who having appealed to a Synod of Bithynia remained firm and constant in the faith and in gathering themselves into a communion among themselves they separated themselves from the communion of the others S. Augustine has therefore answered that they were no wayes Schismaticks for two reasons The first is because the causes for which they refused communion with the Arians and withdrew themselves from their Ministry were just and lawful not frivolous and capricious as those of the Donatists but weighty and fundamental since they disputed about the Eternal Divinity of Jesus Christ which the Arians would abolish The second because that although these couragious men of S. Augustine had renounced the communion of the Arians and withdrawn themselves from their Ministry yet they did not believe notwithstanding that there was absolutely no more salvation to be had in the Society which they had forsaken For besides that receiving as they did their Baptism from it they could not doubt that the Children who dyed before they were infected with that Heresie were saved they did not also condemn the simple and the weak who remained unfeignedly in that communion without taking part in the impieties which were taught there so that their separation did not absolutely respect that Society but only the Hereticks that corrupted it But this is that which we say concerning the Berengarians the Waldenses the Albigenses c. we need but only to apply the same answer to them Lastly as to that which regards the sixth Objection S. Augustine has said that there was a considerable difference between the time wherein the Arians made up almost the whole body of the Christian Church and that wherein the true Doctrine was re-established in a great part of the Churches that the first was a time of oppression and the other a time of liberty that in the former time there being scarce any more a visible communion on the Earth under which the faithful might place themselves they could remain under a corrupted Ministry from which each one in particular had a right to separate the pure from the impure in waiting till God should deliver his Church out of the hands of those bad Pastors But in the second time where the Orthodox and Arian communions were in a visible opposition and such as was every where known it was not possible for them to remain under the Arian Ministry without having an Arian heart or at least without falling into a detestable hypocrisie For in the opposition of these two communions this very thing that they should remain in the Arian was a manifest condemnation of the Orthodox which they could not do without being either Arians or hypocrites Moreover in the former time those who remained out of necessity under the Ministry of the Arians remained there in grief and ardently desiring that God would procure them some means to get out of it and to return to an Orthodox Ministry But in the latter God having given them the power to joyn themselves to a pure communion they could not remain in the Arian without loving and being pleased with it through those worldly interests which they could never prefer before the Confession of a pure faith without being injurious to God without wounding their own consciences without having a debauched and profane spirit and in a word without binding over themselves to eternal damnation Behold here what S. Augustine has answered and it is no hard matter to judge that we must answer them thus when they make the like Objections to us We must distinguish between two Times to wit that which went before the Reformation and that which followed it and by the same reasons which I have alledged we will shew them that although it was possible in the former time for some to work out their own salvation under the corrupted Ministry of the Latin Church yet it does not follow that we may do so at this day under that of the Church of Rome since those two communions are now found to be set in opposition I shall not urge this matter further We may now methinks conclude from all that which I have handled in the foregoing Chapter and in this that if there ever was a vain and ill-grounded Objection that which the Author of the Prejudices has made against us is certainly one of that nature His Argument is founded upon nothing else but false or ill-understood Propositions For it is not true that S. Augustine believed that there was any particular Society among all those which make a profession of Christianity from whose Assemblies one might not in certain cases depart and withdraw ones self from its communion It is not true that the Separation which is between the Church of Rome and us is that which that Father has absolutely condemned and for which he accuses the Donatists to be Schismaticks It is not true that he would accuse them of Schism without examining the foundation by a meer passive Separation as that is wherein we are from the Church of Rome It is not true that he has taken that visible extension throughout all Nations for a perpetual mark of the true Church It is not true that he would have that mark to decide the question of the true Church when the Doctrine of it is disputed It is not true that we hold that the Church before the Reformation had perished throughout all the Earth It is not true that we reduce all to the Berengarians Waldenses and Albigenses c. only Lastly It is not true that the Doctrine of S. Augustine upon this subject is any way contrary to us but it is true that our Principles have all the conformity with his that any man can reasonably require This is in my judgement that which may be clearly collected from that which I have said As the Interest that we have in the clearing of this matter does not go much farther I would here put an end to this Chapter and this Third Part concerning our Separation if the interest of Truth and Charity did not bind me to make a reflection upon a Proposition that the Author of
Contested and when we alleadge to you the Body of the Pastors Extension Multitude and the other advantages of the Church of Rome we do not pretend to own that the Doctrine of that Church is false or that its Worship is corrupted or to conclude that those Advantages alone would give it the Quality of a True Church though it should not be Orthodox but we pretend only that setting aside the Discussion of Doctrines we can Convince you of Schism by those Prejudices alone which without any further Examination mark out which of the two Communions is the True Church and by Consequence which is false and Schismatical I have already answered Divers Times this Objection but that it may be reviv'd here further in the Minds of the Readers I shall not fail to shew yet farther the Vanity of it and to discover more and more on which side the Fallacy lies I say then that when I suppose in this Dispute that we have Right at the Bottom my Supposition is just and within the Rules of good Reason for I do not Suppose it either as a thing that I have already proved nor as a thing granted to me but as a Matter which ought to be Examin'd and on the Examination of which that Question of Schism and the True Church ought necessarily to depend We would say they shew you without entring into the Discussion of the Doctrine by meer Prejudices that you are guilty of Schism and that you have no Right to be in a Society nor to gather Assemblies And as for me I pretend to shew that that way is Illusory and Sophistical and that one ought to examine the Doctrines in order to know which of the two Communions is Schismatical and which is the True Church To this effect I prove that though the Protestant Party should be despoiled of all those Advantages treated on Provided it have on its side the True Doctrine and Worship and the Church of Rome have it not it has all the Rights of a Christian Society that its Assemblies are Lawful and that its Separation from the Church of Rome is just from whence it evidently follows that all those Prejudices are to no purpose in the deciding of our Question and that all depends on the Discussion of those Points that are in Controversy between us See here the use of my Supposition The Business at present is not to know whether we have Right in the Foundation or not if that were all the Business I would not suppose it at all I would prove it but the Business is to know whether they can by those meer Prejudices prove that our Separate Assemblies from those of the Church of Rome are unlawful But I shew that they cannot because if we have Reason on our side in the Matters that are Controverted our Assemblies are Lawfull notwithstanding those Prejudices In a word we pretend to maintain our Assemblies no otherwise then by the Right that the Foundation gives us but by that Right alone we pretend to maintain them so that when they Contest it with us we run back to the Foundation and we shew them that the Foundation is sufficient to render our Assemblies Lawfull from whence it necessarily follows that they can't treat us as unjust and Schismaticks otherwise then in coming to the Discussion of the Foundation it self When therefore they tell us that to Convince us of Schism they need but to set aside the Discussion of Doctrines it is as much as if they should say that to shew us that we have no Reason they need but to lay aside that Reason upon which we ground our selves The Author of the Prejudices has found this shift to be so Fine and Ingenuous that he has Judged it worthy to be Consecrated to Posterity by one of his Books In Fine if we were to clear this Truth by Examples we need but to repeat here two things which we have justified in the Third Part and which are clear and certain out of the History of the Antient Church The one That in the Time of the Arrians the Body of the Pastors followed Heresy and the other That a small Number of the Orthodox a small Party separated from the Body of its Pastors and spoiled of all those kinds of Advantages did not fail to set up its Assemblies apart and to hold the best Christian Society that it was possible for them to do Those that were Hereticks filled the Churches and as for the Orthodox they met as they could sometimes in the Fields and sometimes even in the Churches of the Novatians As these Matters of Fact are Indisputable and Justified by History we have nothing else to do but to demand of the Author of the Prejudices Whether he believes that those Orthodox were Schismaticks for having so Separated themselves from the Body of their Pastors not only by a Negative Separation but even by a Positive one Whether he believes that their Assemblies were Unlawfull Whether he believes that they had done better to have remained in the same Communion with Hereticks then in withdrawing from them Whether he thinks that the Arrians could have said to them with any Reason That without Entring upon any Examination of their Doctrine they could Convince them of Schism by that Separation alone Whether he believes that those Orthodox had given a very ill answer in saying That since their Separation was only founded on their Doctrine it was by that that they ought to judge and not by those vain and deceitfull Advantages which sometimes follow the Church but which oftentimes Abandon it also and upon which nothing of Certainty can be established The Author of the Prejudices may answer what he pleases but we are at least assured that he can neither condemn the Arrians without Justifying us nor justify the Orthodox without Condemning himself It is Necessary then that we come to agree in this Truth That the Right to be in an External Society and by Consequence to raise Assemblies belong to the truly Faithful only and that if it falls out that the Body of the Pastors teaches false Doctrine and corrupts the Ministry to that degree that it cannot be allowed to the Faithfull to live in Communion with them The True Faithfull remain yet united among themselves by that External Union out of which their Assemblies proceed and that by Consequence they have a Right to meet together and to make up a Body in a visible Communion But they will say If it falls out that generally all the Pastors forsake those pretended True Faithfull whereof you speak Who is there that shall Assemble them they are all but so many meer private men and what Right have those private men to gather Assemblies besides Religious Assemblies are chiefly Instituted for the Preaching of the Word and Administration of the Sarraments and can any ascribe the Right of Preaching and Administring the Sacraments to meer private men Separated from their Pastors When therefore
into a inevitable Damnation and to have precipitated others by their Example to consent to the Ruin of the Christian Religion and utter extinction of the Church and that lest they should have been wanting in that respect and blind Obedience that the Court of Rome and its Prelats require of all the World This would be in Truth to set that obedience at two high a price and it would cost us very dear but they will find but few persons of good understanding who will not confess that that would be to push on things a little too far They will say it may be that we ought not also to suppose a thing so much in Question that that prodigious corruption of the Latin Church whereof we speak and those pretended Interests of the Christian Religion and Mens Salvation which according to us obliged our Fathers to Reform themselves without having any regard of the Court of Rome or its Prelats were nothing else but Chimaera's that we our selves have formed at our pleasure or specious pretences that our Fathers took for occasions to separate themselves and that we take after them to defend them with To answer to this Objection I will not say that there is no appearance that our Fathers made use of those motives as a pretence to cover their other Interests with They can scarce know how to imagin any interests interwoven in a business that evidently drew after it a Thousand persecutions and a Thousand afflictions and wherein they were necessarily to go through the most violent storms as the sequel will justify In effect let them say as much as much as they will that Luther was hurried away by his resentments it belongs to those who Treated him with so much injustice to dispute that matter with him before the Tribunal of God who will one day render to every man according to his works But as to our Fathers who had no part in those personal Quarrels they can no ways be suspected to have had an interest of Passion or Animosity I will not likewise say that if our Fathers themselves had had other interests then those which they have set before us which is contrary to all appearance that yet it cannot be said in respect of us that we do not follow them in the True Faith since we have had leasure enough to acknowledge what our Reformation has drawn along with it and what it has cost us But I will only say that I make that supposition only to let our Adversaries see that without amusing us any more with those formalities and those perplexing ways which they make use of continually which are proper for nothing but to defend Errors and to destroy the Church by the Tyranny of those who govern they ought to come to the bottom and to Determine with us those Fundamental Articles upon which we ground the right that our Fathers had to Reform themselves I do not then prejudge any thing by my supposition I explain only the sentiment of the Protestants and the perswasion that they entertain If what they say is not true it is certain that they have had Reason to Reform themselves for without any more Reasoning a man ought always to prefer God and his own Salvation before a hundred Popes and before ten Thousand Bishops We ought then to come to an Examination of those Matters This is what the Author of those Prejudices as hot as he is in his Controversy has been forced to acknowledge For to disintangle himself from an Argument to which he says the whole Book of the Apology of Mr. Daille is reducible and which he represents in these words We ought not to remain united to such a Communion as binds us to profess Fundamental Errors against the Faith and to practise an Idolatrous and Sacrilegious Worship But the Church of Rome binds us to profess divers fundamental Errors and to practise Idolatrous and Sacrilegious Worship diverse ways as in the Adoration of the Host c. Therefore we ought not to remain in her Communion c. He distinguishes between two sorts of Separation one of which he calls simple and Negative which says he consists more in the Negation of certain Acts of Communion then in Positive Acts against that Communion from which we separate The other he calls a Positive Separation which includes the Erecting of a separate Society the Establishing of a new Ministry and the positive Condemnation of the former Communion to which it had been Vnited Upon that Distinction he says That it is to no purpose that the Calvinists say That their Consciences will not any more allow them to be united with the Catholicks sheltring themselves under that Ambiguous Term of Vnion That their Consciences cannot any further hinder them from taking part in some Actions which their false Principles make them look upon as criminal but they would no ways engage them to all those excesses to which they are carri'd out That in fine if it were true that without betraying your Consciences they could not give that honour which we pay to the Saints and their Relicks they ought to content themselves not to give it But that it will in no wise follow from thence that they ought to go about to set up a body apart That it is this latter sort of Separation whereof they accuse us and that it is that kind of it that we ought to justify our selves from And a little lower If says he the Calvinists should make what suppositions they pleased upon the State of the Church of Rome if they should as much as they had a mind to do accuse it of Error and Idolatry it would be enough to Answer them in one word That if those pretended Errors should give them any right to refuse to profess them and to practise those actions which should include them yet they no ways gave them any night to set up themselves against the Church of Rome to anathematize her to set up a body a part and to take to themselves the Quality of Pastors although they had neither Authority nor Mission I do not now meddle with that positive Separation which the Author of the Prejudices makes so great a Crime in us We shall shew in the end that our Fathers did nothing in that respect but what they were bound to do in their Consciences and with the neglect of which they could not dispence without Sin But this we shall come to consider in its proper place it may be enough for us at present to know that with the consent of the Author of Prejudices we may suppose it as a thing indisputable That our Fathers obeying the Dictates of their Consciences had right to resuse to profess those Errors in which they believed the Church of Rome to be entangled and no more to take any part in certain actions that involved those Errors I profess it were desirable that the Author of Prejudices had told us a little more clearly his
Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Adoration of the Host And that which is yet further considerable is That as the Essential Truths of Religion are so linked with one another that there is not any one that may not be as I may so speak the Center of all the rest that is to say which may not have references to all the rest and immediate connexions and which all the others may not serve to prove and uphold which makes out divers ways or manners of establishing them in the minds of the most simple even so those Errors that are destructive are so repugnant to those Truths that there is not any one which may not be opposed not only by all in general but even almost by each one in particular which shews that there are divers ways of overthrowing them and destroying them in the minds of the weakest and when they shall escape one of those ways they will be sufficiently overthrown by another For Example Transubstantiation which is repugnant to the sincerity of God is also repugnant to the Truth of the humane nature of Jesus Christ to the formation of his Body of the substance of the B. Virgin to the state of that Glory wherein he is at present to the Article of his Ascension and of his existence in Heaven to the manner in which he dwells in us which is by his Spirit and by our Faith to the nature of that hunger and thirst which we should have for his flesh and for his blood which is Spiritual to the Character of both the Sacraments wherein there never is any Transubstantiation made and to the perpetual Order that God observed when he wrought Miracles which was to lay them open to mens Eyes and Sences so that when a man should not be capable of perceiving any of those repugnances he would perceive the others which would produce the same effect and which would be sufficient to make him reject those Errors See here then all the Conditions that are necessary for the forming of a True Faith even in the Souls of the most simple behold them found in the Scripture and by consequence behold the Scripture remaining the Rule of Faith in spight of all the endeavours of the Author of the Prejudices It is in vain that he so strongly opposes it it will always be what God has made it that is to say the Fountain and only source of the Truth of Religion or as St. Irenaeus speaks the Foundation and Pillar of our Faith which only can give us quiet of mind and peace of Conscience The Difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices forms against the Scripture have these Three Characters The one That they may be turned against himself that is to say that as he has made them upon the subject of the Scripture We may also make them upon the subject of Tradition and the Church of Rome to which he would send us back the other That in regard of the Scripture they are null and to no purpose and the Third That in regard of Tradition and the Roman Church they are solid and unconquerable and this is what will appear if what I have said in this and in the foregoing Chapter be well Examined The End of the Second Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE THIRD PART Of the Obligation and Necessity that lay upon our Fathers to separate themselves from the Church of Rome CHAP. I. That our Fathers had just sufficient and necessary Causes for their Separation supposing that they had right at the bottom in the controverted Points WE should certainly be the most ungrateful persons in the World if after the favour that God has shewn us in re-establishing the Purity of his Gospel in the midst of us we should not think our selves bound to give him everlasting Thanks So great and precious an advantage highly calls for our resentments and that in enjoying it with delight we should pay our Acknowledgements to the Author of it But what ground soever we should have to rejoyce in God we must notwithstanding avow that we should be very insensible in regard of others if we could behold without an extream affliction the misery of so many men who voluntarily deprive themselves of that good Those who are at present engaged in those Errors and Superstitions from which it has pleased the Divine Goodness to deliver us are our Brethren by the External Profession of the Christian Name and by the Consecration of one and the same Baptism and how can we intirely rejoyce while we see them in a state which we believe to be so bad and so contrary to our common Calling I know that God only who is the Lord of mens hearts and minds can dissipate that gloomy darkness which they are involved in and that it is our Duty to pour out our ardent and continual Prayers to him for his Grace for them but we ought not to neglect humane methods among which that of justifying the Conduct of our Fathers in the subject of their Separation is one of the most efficacious and as it is by that especially that they labour to render us odious so is to that that I shall allow the sequel of this Work The Separation of our Fathers ought to be distinguish'd into three Degrees the First consists in that which they have loudly pronounc'd against the Doctrines and Customs of the Church of Rome which they judg'd to be contrary to Faith and Piety and which they have formally renounced the Second consists in this that they have forsook the External Communion of that Church and those of its party and the Third in that they have made other Assemblies than hers and that they have rank't themselves under another Form of Ministry We have treated of the First already where we have shewn the Justice and Necessity of the Reformation which our Fathers made the Third shall be spoken to in the Fourth Part and this is designed to examine the Second Our Inquiry therefore at present will be to know whether our Fathers in Reforming themselves ought to have separated themselves from the other Party who were not for a Reformation or whether notwithstanding the Reformation they ought yet to have abode with them in one and the same Communion and to have liv'd in that respect as they did heretofore This is that which I pretend to make clear in this Third Part of this Work To enter upon this business I confess that if we could suppose it as a certainty That all Separation in matters of Religion is odious and Criminal we ought to be the first in condemning the Actions of our Fathers and that whatever aversion we should have for the Errors and Abuses which we see reigning in the Church of Rome we ought to labour to bear them as patiently as it could be possible for us to do in waiting till it should please God
to correct them and notwithstanding to enter into its Communion and to live under its Ministry But so far are we from being able to make a supposition of this nature that on the contrary there is nothing more certain than this Truth That as there are Unjust Rash and Schismatical Separations so there may be also not only Just and Lawful ones but Necessary and Indispensable ones also So the Primitive Christians withdrew themselves from the Jewish Church after it had obstinately remained in its unbelief and afterwards the Orthodox in the first Centuries held no Communion with the Valentinians nor with the Manichees nor in general with those Hereticks who disturb'd the Purity of the Gospel with their Errors Nay when the Arians had even made themselves Masters of the Synods and Churches there was an actual Separation made of a very great number of persons as well of the Body of the Clergy as that of the People who would not have any Communion with them and who endur'd upon that account all sorts of persecutions Therefore also it was that S. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers earnestly exhorted the Bishops and the Orthodox people by a publick Letter that he address'd to them The Name of Peace sayes he to them is indeed very specious and the meer appearance of Vnity has something splendid in it But who knows not that the Church and the Gospel acknowledges no other Peace than that which comes from Jesus Christ that which he gave to his Apostles before the glory of his Passion and that which he left in Trust with them by his eternal Command when he was about to leave them It is this peace which we have taken care to seek when it has been lost and to re-establish when it has been disturbed and to preserve after we have found it again But the sins of our Times and the Ministers or Fore-runners of Antichrist will not suffer us to be the Authors of so great a good nor that we should so much as partake of it They have their Peace which they boast of which is nothing else but an Vnity of Impiety while they carry themselves not as the Bishops of Jesus Christ but as the Prelates of Anti-Christ And about the end of his Letter I exhort you sayes he that you take heed of Anti-Christ Be not deceived by a foolish love of Walls nor respect the Church more on Roofs and in Houses nor strive no more on such frivolous considerations for the Name of Peace As for my self I find more certainty in the Mountains in the Forests in the Lakes in Prisons in Gulphs for there it was that the Spirit of God animated the Prophets Separate therefore your selves from Auxentius who is an Angel of Satan an Enemy to Christ an open Persecutor a Violator of the Faith who made a deceitful Profession of the Faith before the Emperour in which he joyn'd Blasphemy to that Deceit Let him assemble as many Synods as he pleases against me let him make me be declared a Heretick as he has often already done let him proscribe me by Publick Authority let him stir up the wrath of the Great Men against me as much as he will he can never be any other to me than a Devil since he is an Arian I shall never have peace but with those who following the Decree of our Nicene Fathers would anathematize the Arians and acknowledge Jesus Christ to be truly God S. Epiphanius also relates that before the Synod of Seleucid wherein Arianism was establish'd many people who found themselves to be under the Jurisdiction of Arian Bishops remained firm in the confession of the True Faith and set up other Bishops themselves And the Histories of Socrates Theodoret and Sozomen may teach us that while the Arians possess'd the Temples and the Sees of the Churches the Orthodox held their Assemblies apart in the Fields as well as in private Houses With the same Judgement S. Ambrose teaches That Jesus Christ alone is he from whom we ought never to separate our selves and to whom we ought to say Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life That above all things the Faith of a Church ought to be regarded that we ought to hold it there if Jesus Christ dwells there but if a people may be found to be there who are Violaters of the Faith or that an Heretical Pastor has polluted that habitation we ought to separate our selves from the Communion of Hereticks and to avoid all commerce with that Synagogue That we ought to separate our selves from every Church that rejects the true Faith and does not preserve the fundamentals of the Apostles Preaching without fear lest its Communion should brand us with some note of Perfidiousness There could not therefore be a more unreasonable thing in the World than to prepossess ones self in general against all manner of Separation for it is manifest that the communion of men is no otherwise desirable than as it can consist with the communion of God and that when that of men shall be found to be directly opposite to the true service of God and our own salvation which is the only End of a Religious Society we ought no longer to hesitate about our Separation But to make out this Truth yet a little more clear we need but to set before their eyes what we have already said in the First Part that the Church may be consider'd either in respect of its Internal State in as much as it is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ the Society of the truly Faithful and the true Elect of God without any mixture of Hypocrites and the worldly pure throughout as she is in Gods sight or in respect of its External State in as much as it is a Society which in the profession of one and the same Religion includes a sufficiently great number of the Hypocrites and worldly who do not belong to the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ nor are of the Church but in appearance only That Distinction is evident enough of it self not to need any proof and our Adversaries themselves will not oppose it But altho' they do not oppose that Distinction yet they never fail of confounding both those respects For when they speak of the Promises that God has made concerning the perpetual subsistence of his Church where it would be just to refer them to the Church only as made up of the Truly Faithful since to speak properly God looks upon them alone as his true Church they refer them to the Church in as much as it is mixt with the worldly and hypocrites And when the Contest is about establishing the Duties to which a Religious Society engages us where it would be just to consider the Church as mingled with the good and the wicked the faithful and the worldly such as it appears to us they consider it as it is pure and without any mixture of Hypocrites such as it is in the
judge of their Action either to condemn or absolve it until first of all they have examined the Causes of their Separation and the Reasons which they have alledged which can never be done but by a discussion of the Foundation In effect Every Accusation which has no certain Foundation and which one must be compell'd to retract is precipitate and rash But that which they form against our Fathers before their having examined the foundation is of that nature It has no certain foundation for they cannot know whether their action be just or unjust and they may be forced to retract it when they shall have examined their reasons It is therefore a condemnable rashness in them who have a right to repell till they have made that examination and it is to oblige them to do it that we suppose that our Fathers had right at the Foundation CHAP. II. That our Fathers were bound to separate themselves from the Body of those who possess'd the Ministry in the Church and particularly in the See of Rome supposing that they had a right at the Foundation BUt they will say Whatsoever we should pretend we can never do otherwise than condemn the Separation of your Fathers not for not having just grounds of Separation but because the right of separating ones self does not belong to all sorts of persons and the Church of Rome being by a special priviledge the Mother and Mistress of all others we could never lawfully separate our selves from her and because it is on the contrary indispensably necessary to the salvation of men to obey and to remain in her Communion So that your Fathers being on one side subject to their ordinary Pastors they ought never to have divided themselves from their Body for what cause soever there should have been and on the other side there being no True Church and by consequence no Salvation to be had otherwise than in the Communion of the See of Rome it is a crime for any to separate themselves from it whatsoever pretence they can urge for that purpose This Objection is founded upon these two Propositions the one That we never ought to separate our selves from the Body of her ordinary Pastors and the other That we ought never to separate from the Church of Rome in particular As to the first of these Propositions I confess as I have said elsewhere that the people owe a great respect and obedience to the Pastors that administer to them the nourishment of their souls the words of eternal life according to the Precept of St. Paul Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls This obedience ought to be accompanyed with a real esteem that should make us to presume well of them which should give us a readiness to be instructed by their word and be very remote from calumnies murmurs and rash suspicions founded upon light appearances and that obedience that esteem that good opinion ought to be without doubt greater for all the Body in general than for particular men in it for there is a greater probability that a whole body should contain more light and by consequence more authority than each private man could have I say that when even Vices are generally spread over the whole body of the Pastors the people ought to labour to bear them with patience and cover them as much as they can with charity in praying to God that it would please him to cleanse his Sanctuary and to send good Labourers into his harvest and howsoever it should be while they can work out their salvation under their Ministry they ought not to separate themselves from them But we ought not also to imagine that the Duty of a people toward their ordinary Pastors should be without all bounds or that their dependance on them should have no measure That which we have said in the first Chapter touching the bonds of Church Communion ought to be extended to the Pastors and to the people their duties are mutual and there is none but Jesus Christ alone on whom they can depend without conditions To flatter the Body of the Pastors with that priviledge is to set up men upon the Throne of God to inspire them with pride vanity negligence it is to set up a Lordship in the Church that Jesus Christ has forbid and to give Pastors the boldness to do and adventure upon all things It is certain therefore that the Tye which the Faithful have to their ordinary Pastors is limited and that it ought to endure but as far as the glory of God the Fidelity that we owe to Jesus Christ and the hope of our own salvation can subsist with their Government If it fall out so that their Government cannot be any further compatible with those things in that case they ought to separate and it would be to set up the most senseless wicked and profane proposition in the world to say the contrary The Ministry of the Pastors is establish'd in the Church only as a meer external means to preserve the True Faith and Worship there and to lead men to salvation But the Light of Nature teaches us that when meer external means shall be remote from their end and that instead of guiding us to their end they turn us away from and deprive us of it that then the love which we have for the end ought to prevail over that which we may have for the means because the means are only desirable in reference to their end and the regard which we have for them is but an effect or a production of that which we have for the end So that when those who are wont to distribute to us aliments necessary to our lives give us on the contrary poysonous meat instead of aliments and when they will force us to take them we must no longer doubt that the interest of our life ought to take us off from that Tye which we might have had to those persons A Guide is a means to conduct us to the place whither we desire to go but when we know that that Guide leads us in a false way and that instead of helping us to go to that place he makes us wander from it it is no question but that we ought to separate from him and renounce his conduct The ordinary Pastors are Guides men that ought to shew us the way to Heaven if therefore instead of shewing us they make us go a quite contrary way who can doubt that we are bound to forsake them But they will say How can they be forsaken without resisting God himself who has subjected them to them Is not their Ministry a Divine Institution and is it not Jesus Christ who by the testimony of St. Paul has given some to be Apostles some Pastors and Teachers for the assembling of the Saints I answer That we must distinguish that which there is of divine in a Ministry from that which there is
hinder but that she may externally deny the faith of Jesus Christ but that she may intirely lose her love and the communion of our Saviour and the quality of the True Church and by consequence that we should not be bound to separate from her while she should be in that state and till it should please God to re-establish her See here of what force those proofs are which they produce to ground this special priviledge of the Church of Rome upon It is not hard to see that a man of good understanding who would satisfie his mind and his conscience upon so weighty a point ought not to remain there but that he ought to pass on to the other way of clearing that doubt which I have noted which is to judge of the pretension of the Church of Rome by the examination of her Doctrines and her Worship For it is there principally that the characters of truth and infallibility ought to be found and by consequence he must come to the foundation and no further amuse himself with Prejudices As to the second Way by which I have said we might clear this Question Whether it be necessary to the salvation of Christians to be joyned to the Church of Rome it consists in examining whether it be true that God has made her the Mistress of all other Churches whether there is any particular order that binds us indispensably to her For if that be so the Separation of our Fathers must be condemned but if it be not so we must judge of that Church as of all other particular Churches and say that we cannot and ought not to separate our selves from her but when we have just and lawful causes so to do There is no person who does not judge that we cannot pass over lightly a point of so great importance which ought to serve for a general and perpetual Rule to all Christians and that if the Church of Rome would so set her self beyond a state of equality above other Churches it is necessary that she should produce some very express and indisputable Order of God for it But instead of that she does nothing but reverberate the same passages which I have mentioned She boasts her self to be the See of S. Peter and under that pretence she applyes to her self all that she can find in the Scripture in favour of that Apostle and particularly the Order that Jesus Christ gave him to feed his sheep as if the Office of the Apostleship in which Jesus Christ re-established him by those words could be communicated to his Successors or as if the foundation that Jesus Christ supposed and upon which he re-established him in saying to him feed my sheep to wit that he should love him more than the rest was not a thing purely personal in S. Peter and whereof it was not in his power to transmit any part to his Successors nor by consequence to invest them with his Office which was restored to him only upon a supposition of that love or lastly as if the office of feeding Christ's sheep included an absolute and indispensable necessity for the sheep to receive their death when they should give it them under the name of their food It must be acknowledg'd that there never was a higher pretension than this of the Church of Rome for what more could she pretend to then to make Heaven it self depend on her communion and to leave no possibility of salvation to any but those who should be in her communion and under her dependance But it must also be acknowledged that there never was any thing worse established than that pretension They alledge in its favour nothing that is clear and distinct and even the consequences which they draw for it are made after a very strange manner This is in my judgement the Reason why our Adversaries when they treat of this matter do not insist much upon Scripture but fly off presently to the Fathers and the usage of the Ancient Church For by this means they hope to prolong the dispute to eternity and that notwithstanding the Church of Rome shall be alwayes in possession of that Despotical Authority which she exercises over the Churches that remain in her communion In effect the life of a man would scarce suffice to read well and throughly examine all the Volumes which have been composed on one side and on the other upon this Question of the place that the Church of Rome and its Bishops have held among the Christian Churches during the first six Centuries and of the Authority which they had then But to say the truth there is too much artifice in that procedure for that the Church of Rome should be the Mistress of all others and that no one could be saved but in her communion that does not depend upon the order of men but only on that of God and when they should find among the Antients a thousand times more complaisance for the See of Rome than they had that may very well establish an ancient possession and make clear the fact but it can never establish the right of it To establish a right of that nature a word of God an express declaration of his will is necessary for it is a right not only above nature but even above the ordinary and common favour that God gives to other Churches and which by consequence depends only upon God And so it is but a wandring from the way to go to search for the grounds of it in the Writings of Men. It is no hard matter to conceive that those Bishops which were raised to Dignities in the Metropolis of the World and engaged in the greatest affairs might mannage matters so as to ascribe to themselves those rights which no wayes belonged to them nor to imagine that their flatterers and Courtiers might not have offered more incense to them than they ought nor that those persecuted ones who had recourse to their protection might not have helped the increase of their Authority nor that the Princes and Emperors who had need of them might not have given them those priviledges which they ought not to have had that which renders to a just title all that which they alledge in their favour suspected and to no purpose at all Notwithstanding there are moreover evident matters of fact that let us clearly see that the Ancient Church did not acknowledge that Universal Episcopacy that the Bishops of Rome pretend to nor that absolute and indispensable necessity to be joyned to their See to be saved nor that their Church should be the Mistress of all the rest 1. Every one knows that the Bishops of Rome were anciently chosen by the suffrages of the people and of the Clergy of that Church without any other Churches taking part in those Elections which is a mark manifest enough that they did not mean that those Bishops should be Universal Bishops nor that they should have a more peculiar interest in their creation than
Prejudices had some interest to leave his Readers in the ignorance of those particular matters of fact but since he and I have not the same view of things he ought not to take it ill that I supply his defect and that I lay down that which he would not In the year 306. God having given peace to the Church after the cruel persecutions of Dioclesian the people of Carthage being assembled by the direction of some neighbouring Bishops chose Cecilianus for their Bishop in the place of Mensurius who had been dead some time before and Cecilianus afterwards received his Ordination at the hands of Felix Bishop of Aprungis This Election had displeased some of that Church through their private interests so that they formed a party against him and this party having called Secundus Primate of Numidia with a great many other Bishops to the number of Seventy they made his Ordination void and ordained one Majorinus in his place Cecilianus was upheld by a great part of the Church and kept himself in his Bishoprick Majorinus was upheld also by those of his party and the Bishops of Numidia which made them set up at Carthage Altar against Altar that is to say that each Bishop set up his Assemblies apart and so the Church of Carthage was rent But this Division did not stop at Carthage for the Bishops of Africa took part some with Cecilianus and the others with Majorinus one of these was called Donatus from whose name all that Sect came in the end to be called Donatists Each party laboured to fortifie themselves by reasons the Donatists on their side at first accus'd Felix the Ordainer of Cecilianus and afterwards Cecilianus himself of having been Traditors that is to say of having delivered their Bibles to the Pagans for them to burn them during the persecutions The others on the contrary maintained that it was a false accusation of which they had neither conviction nor proof because that Cecilianus had not been heard before his condemnation and they also accused some of those who had condemn'd him of having been themselves Traditors and to have mutually absolv'd one another of that crime in a Synod which they had held The quarrel growing high the Donatists presented a Petition to the Emperour Constantine to intreat of him some Judges because that in Africa they were all divided and parties and the Emperour commissioned for that purpose Milciades Bishop of Rome Merodes Bishop of Milan Maternus Bishop of Cologne Reticus Bishop of Autun and Marinus Bishop of Arles These Judges met together with some other Bishops of Italy all in number to nineteen and having taken an exact knowledge of that business they justified Cecilianus and confirmed him in his Bishoprick nevertheless without making void either the Ordination of Majorinus or that of his Successors but the Donatists would not acquiesce in this judgement They said that Milciades had himself been a Traditor and that he defended the Traditors They had recourse again to the Emperour who ordain'd that the cause should be search'd again and determined in a Council at Arles where the Donatists having been again condemn'd they appealed to the Emperours own person and the Emperour having taken cognizance of it himself condemned them After all this the Opinionativeness of the Donatists was so great that instead of submitting themselves to so many judgements they chose rather to separate themselves from the whole Church They made therefore a General Schism with the whole Christian World and to colour it with some appearance of reason they maintained that all the world had fallen into Apostasy through the meer Communion which it had with the Traditor Cecilianus They would no more own either any Church or Christianity in the world but what was in their party and they rebaptized all those who had been baptized in the Church since the business of Cecilianus S. Augustine and the other Fathers of Africa had fairly told them that Cecilianus was innocent that though he should not have been innocent the Judges could have done no less than to have absolved him there having been no proofs against him and that though even the Judges should have judg'd wrong yet all the world could not have been guilty of that crime since the greater part of the Churches and of the persons that compos'd them had had no knowledge of that affair that though they should have had knowledge of it they could have done no otherwise than referr'd it to Judges or lastly not being willing to refer it to Judges prudence and charity would have oblig'd them to have bore with the wicked in the external communion of the Church rather than to have broken Peace and Christian Unity for personal crimes which were not communicated to them who had no part in them All these reasons did not hinder the Donatists from remaining obstinate in their conclusion which was that all the Church had lost its righteousness by the Communion which it had with Cecilianus and that there was no more any Christianity in the World except in the party of Donatus From hence it was that the Question arose between them which of the two Parties was the Church Upon this History we must make four Observations which it may be will not be impertinent in the end The first is That the Donatists would not own that Party for Orthodox which was contrary to them whom they accused neither of any Error in the Faith nor any depravation of Worship and that the Church on its side did not accuse the Donatists of any Heresie in the Faith For as for the Question of the Validity or Invalidity of the Baptism of Hereticks neither the one nor the other made that the occasion of their breach and it was not upon that that the Donatists founded their Separation We confess both one sort and the other said Cresconius one and the same Jesus Christ born dead and risen again We have one and the same Religion and the same Sacraments and there is no difference between us about the practice of Christianity S. Augustine said also That their difference was not about the head but about the body that is to say that their dispute was not about Jesus Christ our Saviour but about his Church And elsewhere That they agreed in Baptism in the Creed and in the other Sacraments of our Lord. All the pretence of this Rupture was the personal faults of two or three Bishops which were not proved on one side nor owned on the other and whereof the greatest part of the world had no knowledge So that the Dispute concerning the Church was not between two Communions that contested one with the other about the purity of Doctrine but between two Communions which mutually acknowledg'd one another to be Orthodox yet disputed one with the other the title of the quality of the Church of Jesus Christ The second Observation that I shall make is that the opposite Party to the Donatists
them from the Church because they brought in a new Heresie into it But why also did the same S. Augustine with the whole Church of God hold the Donatists to be justly excommunicated against whom these things are written and why did not they receive them into their communion but only after signs of repentance and the imposition of hands Jesus Christ who propounded the Parable of the Tares did not he clearly ordain excommunication elsewhere saying that if our brother would not obey the Church correcting him we ought to reckon him as a Heathen and a Publican That which manifestly shews us that it is one thing to excommunicate and another to pluck up the Discipline of the Church excommunicates but it does not pluck up See here precisely that which S. Augustine himself said non estis ad eradicandum sed ad corrigendum From whence the truth of that which I have said appears that according to this Father there is a bad separation and that is schismatical in its own nature and another that is not so and that although it is never permitted us to make the former yet it does not follow that we may not make the latter provided we do it upon just causes and observe the rules of Prudence and Charity in it We must therefore lay it down as a certain truth that S. Augustine thought that we might sometimes break the communion of the Sacraments and Assemblies we are only concerned to know in what case he thought that that separation should be made To make this point clear I shall say in the Sixth place that when S. Augustine considered the Church in the meer mixture with the wicked that is to say in the mixture with those whose manners are vicious and criminal he taught that those who are in office in the Church may proceed to the excommunication of impenitent sinners when those sinners are few in number and when there is ground to believe that they may disturb the peace of the Church but if the crime includes a whole multitude and that the Body in general is infected then he would that the good should content themselves to preserve their own righteousness without partaking of the sins of the wicked he would that they should groan under it and pray to God but he would not that they should separate themselves When the evil sayes he has seized the greater number nothing remains for the good to do but to groan and lament And a little lower If the contagion of sin has invaded the multitude then it is necessary that Discipline should be used with mercy for the counsels of Separation are vain pernicious and sacrilegious But when he considers the Church not only as a mixture of good and wicked but also as a mixture of the truly faithful and Hereticks I maintain that he has formally acknowledg'd the justice and necessity of a separation not only in regard of some particular persons but in regard even of entire Societies provided they go not so far as that which he calls Eradication We have already noted that he would that we should according to S. Paul pronounce an Anathema against those who preach another Gospel than that which he has preached But this very thing gives the faithful a right to reject the communion of Heretical Societies and to separate themselves from their Assemblies In his Book of the True Religion he aggravates it as a very strange thing and very much deserving to be condemn'd that the Heathen Philosophers who had other sentiments concerning Divinity than the people should partake in the worship of the people In their Schools sayes he they had sentiments differing from those of the people and yet notwithstanding they had Temples common with the people The people and their Priests were not ignorant that these Philosophers had opinions contrary to theirs touching the nature of the Gods since every Philosopher was not afraid of publishing his opinions and of labouring at the same time to perswade them and others and yet nevertheless with that diversity of sentiments they did not fail to assist at the publick worship without being hindred by any body A man that speaks after this manner would not think it ill that any should separate themselves from Heretical communions But he yet further explains himself more clearly afterwards For he sayes That if the Christian Religion should do nothing else but correct that vice it would deserve infinite praises And he adds immediately after That it appears by the example of so many Heresies that have deviated from the rule of Christianity that they would not admit to the communion of the Sacraments those who taught concerning God the Father his Wisdom and his Grace otherwise than the truth would allow them and who would perswade men to receive their false Doctrine But that is not only to be found true in regard of the Manichees and of some others who have other Sacraments than we but also in regard of those who having the same Sacraments have sentiments differing from us in other things and errors which they obstinately defend for they are shut out from the Catholick communion and the participation of those same Sacraments which they have common with us From whence comes it to pass therefore you will say that S. Augustine seems sometimes to ascribe to the Orthodox the right only of a passive separation in regard of Heretical Societies that is to say that he would not that we should separate from them even then when they separate themselves For he sayes in some place that though the Traditors should have openly maintain'd in the Church that their Action was good and holy that is to say that they ought to have delivered up their Bibles to the Pagans for them to burn them and that though they should even have wrote on that subject provided they had not set up their Assemblies apart nor separated themselves yet we ought not to have abandoned for them the good wheat which signifies this to us that we ought not to separate our selves from those though their Doctrine whereof he had spoken was detestable contrary to the faith conscience and good manners In effect he speaks almost alwayes of the Heretical Societies of his time as of those who were themselves cut off from the communion of the Church and whom the Church had not rejected I answer that S. Augustine would have us suffer the communion of Hereticks in certain cases but that he would have us also in other cases to separate our selves from them While we are in no danger of partaking with their errors neither in effect nor in appearance but that we may preserve the profession of our faith pure without consenting to impiety or seeming to consent to it and that there should not be on the part of the Hereticks that obstinacy of opinion he would have us suffer their communion For it is the manifest Doctrine of this Father that in the Society of the
Augustine had been very well able to have prov'd that they were Schismaticks but that he had not notwithstanding been able to conclude from thence that his Society was the True Church The reason of this is because they had broken the general bond of an External Call that S. Augustine would have them obliged to keep even in regard of Hereticks so that according to him they might very well have been Schismaticks although the Church which they had forsaken had not been the true Church He prov'd therefore that his Society was the true Church only because they acknowledg'd it to be Orthodox and did not lay to its charge either any Error in the Faith or depravation in Worship For in supposing that confession it manifestly appears that that time was a time of the increase of the Church since it cannot be deny'd that the Church does not then encrease when the true Doctrine is spread abroad in all places from whence would follow that the Society that taught that true Doctrine throughout the world was the true Church rather than a small party that were shut up within one only Province So that the Error of the Donatists consisted in this in that they would have restrain'd the Church in their Africa in a time wherein it manifestly increased in all Nations and this increase was manifest by the acknowledgement which they themselves made that the Society that was spread over all the world was Orthodox This is that precisely that Bellarmine would say He would have S. Augustine reason after this manner in a time wherein it manifestly appears that the Church encreases it is an error not to acknowledge that Society that is spread over all the world to be the true Church of Jesus Christ in opposition to a small party But in this time it manifestly appears that the Church increases since by your own confession it is the true Doctrine and not Heresie that multiplies it self Therefore it is an error not to acknowledge at this time the Society that is spread over the world to be the true Church This is in effect the true reasoning of S. Augustine and Bellarmine is no wayes deceiv'd in it But it clearly follows from thence that according to S. Augustine that visible extension may be sometimes a mark of the true Church in opposition to a small party to wit then when the true and pure Doctrine is spread abroad every where because that is the time of the increase of the Church But it does not follow that this mark is perpetual since the time of that increase does not last alwayes From whence it appears that the arguing of S. Augustine can have no place in the question that is between the Church of Rome and us In one word then when we contest the title of the true Church with a Society that does otherwise own us to be Orthodox then visible extension decides the question according to S. Augustine But then when we contest that title with a Society that accuses us with false Doctrine that visible extension decides nothing and the difference cannot be determined but by the discussion of the foundation it self S. Augustine alledg'd it in the former case and the Author of the Prejudices alledges it in the latter What need we to do more to set down this truth in its full evidence and to give the Author of the Prejudices entire satisfaction Do we need to let him see that if they had accused the Society of S. Augustine of false Doctrine that Father had not pretended in this case that that visible extension should have decided the contest but that he would have decided it at the foundation Need we to go yet farther and to shew him that S. Augustine has formally acknowledg'd that there have been in effect times wherein the true Church has had no visible extension If we could shew him these two things he would methinks have some reason to be contented and to leave us in peace about this business of extension Let us therefore endeavour to satisfie him about these two Articles The first will be decided if we here appeal to what I have related of that Father on the occasion of what Cresconius had said to him that he ought to withdraw himself from the Church of the Traditors Is it sayes he that the Traditors have composed Books to shew that we ought to do or imitate their action Is it because they have recommended those Books to posterity Is it because we hold and follow that Doctrine If they had done that and if they would have permitted none to remain in their communion but such as would read those Books and approve that Doctrine I say that they would have separated themselves from the Unity of the Church and if you saw me in their Schism you would then have reason to say that I am in the Church of the Traditors We need no great learning to understand by this discourse 1. That S. Augustine had acknowledg'd that if in effect his Society had determined a false Doctrine if it had framed Books about it and suffered no person its communion who had not approved it it had lost the title of the True Church although that visible extension should have been secured to it 2. That if the Donatists who were but a small party had accused it it would have admitted them to proof without a wrangling with them about that extension For he who sayes Is it because we hold and follow that Doctrine makes us sufficiently see that he would not have refused them liberty to come to a proof if his adversaries had said that they held and followed it indeed And it ought not to be said that S. Augustine makes not that supposition only in regard of the whole of his Society but only in regard of some Traditors For he makes that supposition in regard of that same Society that Cresconius had called the Church of the Traditors and these words Is it because we hold and follow this Doctrine leave no place for that evasion See here the first Article the second is yet more formal in S. Augustine for no one can doubt that he has not acknowledg'd that there have been in effect times wherein the true Church has scarce had any visible extension This is that which he has in his Letter to Hesychius wherein he treats of the state of the Church in those miserable times which Jesus Christ foretold in the four and twentieth of S. Matthew Then the Sun sayes he shall be darkned and the Moon shall not give her light the Stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken The Church shall not appear because the wicked becoming persecutors shall no more observe any bounds in their cruelties Temporal Prosperity shall accompany them every where so that seeing no occasion of fear they shall say peace and security to themselves Then the Stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens
shall be shaken because many in whom grace seem'd to be resplendent shall yield to the persecutors and some of the most firm among the faithful shall be troubled The Church sayes he shall not appear Ecclesia non apparebit She will not therefore have then that visible extension which the Author of the Prejudices would have to be her perpetual mark for all Ages He further acknowledges the same thing in his Epistle to Vincentius where he treats of the state of the Church under the Arians There he teaches in express terms That the Church is sometimes obscured and covered with clouds through the great number of offences that she is then only eminent in her most firm defenders while the multitude of the weak and carnal is overwhelmed with the floods of temptation That under the reign of the Arians the simple suffered themselves to be deceiv'd that others yielding through fear dissembled and in appearance consented to Arianism That indeed some of the most firm escaped the snares of those Hereticks but that they were but few in number in comparison of the rest That nevertheless some of them generously suffer'd banishment and some others lay hid here and there throughout the Earth I pray tell me what visible extension could the Orthodox communion have then which subsisted only in a small number of the firm of whom even the greatest part had suffered exile or lay hid here and there throughout all the Earth I confess that History notes that there were yet some small flocks in some places of the East and of the West who set up their Assemblies apart as at Edessa at Nazianzen at Antioch and in some Provinces of France and Germany but what was this in comparison of the Arian communion which had fill'd the Churches and held Councils as we have so often proved We must therefore seriously profess that this visible extension is a vain and deceitful mark when they would make it perpetual to the true Church as the Author of the Prejudices would make it and that no one could abuse with greater injustice the Authority of S. Augustine than he has done We must profess also that a small handful of the Faithful a little party have right to separate themselves from the whole multitude I mean from a communion spread over all the world which has on its side the Ministry the Pulpits the Councils the Schools Titles Dignities and all that retinue of temporal splendour when it has not the true Faith For the rest that which I have handled in this Chapter about the two former Propositions of the Author of the Prejudices already sufficiently lets us see the falseness of his argument For if he would take the pains to read this Chapter with never so little application he will see all these following Propositions well establish'd there 1. That in General this Author has not compris'd the true Hypothesis of S. Augustine nor the state of his dispute against the Donatists 2. That he can draw no advantage from the divers wayes in which that Father conceived the word Church 3. That the separation which that Father judg'd to be fit to be condemned and wicked under what pretence soever it should be made is wholly different from that which is between the Church of Rome and us 4. That there is not any Christian Society from which one may not lawfully separate ones self in a certain case and manner 5. That that which is disputed between the Church of Rome and us being of this number they must consider the causes and circumstances of it rightly to judge of it and not pretend to convince us of Schism without entring upon any other discussion 6. That according to the principles of S. Augustine the Church of Rome is Schismatical in respect of us supposing that she is in error because it is she that has broken Christian Unity and that we are in respect of her in a passive separation 7. That it is absurd to make that visible extension a perpetual mark of the true Church which way soever they take it 8. That this pretended mark is contrary to the experience of our Age and does not properly agree to any one of these Societies that at this day divide Christianity 9. That it is contrary to the experience of the Ages past and to the Doctrine of the Fathers 10. That it is rejected in the sense of the Author of the Prejudices by the famous Doctors of the Roman communion 11. That it has no foundation in the dispute of S. Augustine against the Donatists 12. That it is even directly opposite to the Doctrine of that Father These are the just and natural consequences that are drawn from the things which I have handled in this Chapter I will examine in the following the other Propositions of the Author of the Prejudices CHAP. V. A further Examination of the Reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices upon the subject of our Separation THe Third Proposition of the Author of the Prejudices is already sufficiently confuted by what I have said He sayes that since our Society is not visibly extended throughout all Nations therefore it cannot be the True Church But we have shewn him that we cannot at this day rationally attribute that visible extension throughout all Nations to any of the Societies that divide Christianity and by consequence that it is a chimerical mark by which we may conclude that there is no true Church in the world since there is none which is not visibly excluded from many Nations We have shewn him also that his pretended mark does not agree either with the experience of the Ages past nor with the doctrine of the Fathers nor even with that of the Doctors of the Roman Church and that instead of having any foundation in the Doctrine of S. Augustine it is evidently contrary to him So that we have nothing to do at present but to go on to the Examination of the Fourth and Fifth Proposition They bear this sense That the Calvinists urge the principle of the Donatists far higher than ever those Schismaticks did For as for them they did not say that there was any time wherein the whole Church had fallen into Apostasy and they excepted the Communion of Donatus whereas the Calvinists would have it that there have been whole Ages wherein all the Earth had generally apostatized and lost the faith and treasure of salvation That the Societies of the Berengarians the Waldenses and Albigenses c. in which he sayes that some of us include the Church could not be that Catholick Church whereof S. Augustine speaks To establish that which he layes to our Charge concerning the entire extinction of the Church he first produces the testimony of Calvin This is sayes he that which Calvin has distinctly declared in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans where after having pretended that the threatning that S. Paul uses against those who do not remain in
purity of the faith in the Church nor to have extirpated Arianism since that however corrupted and infected the Church was with that Heresie there was yet a way to work out their salvation in her communion and under her Ministry 4. If he sayes to us that our Fathers ought not at least in reforming themselves to have separated themselves from those who were not for a Reformation nor to have forsook their communion and assemblies I will also say to him that after this reckoning the Orthodox in labouring to purge the Church from Arianism ought not at least to have separated it self from those who would retain Arianism but that they ought to have remained with them in one and the same communion and in the same assemblies which nevertheless they did not 5. If he sayes to us that the Berengarians the Waldenses and Albigenses were Schismaticks since they had withdrawn themselves from a communion and a Ministry under which God yet preserves the truly faithful I will likewise say to him that those couragious men of S. Augustine were in this reckoning Schismaticks since they had not less withdrawn themselves from that communion and publick Ministry when that Ministry was in the hands of the Arians as I have shewn by express testimonies 6. If he tells us lastly that since we acknowledge that they could have worked out their salvation under the Ministry of the Roman Church before the Reformation we ought to confess that we may yet at this day be saved in it since things are in the same estate now in which they were before I shall tell him that the Arians could have raised the same objection against the Orthodox after their separation For the Arians did not pretend to have changed any thing in the state of the Ministry under which S. Augustine acknowledged that God had preserved the truly faithful So that all the Objections which he shall make against our Hypothesis will be common to those against that of S. Augustine and the Author of the Prejudices will himself be as much concerned as we to answer them But not to refer our selves wholly to him let us see whether those difficulties are of such a weight as that there is no way left rationally to satisfie us It seems to me therefore that as to the first S. Augustine has said that it is great injustice to demand the names of those particular men who kept themselves pure under an impure Ministry since we do not keep a register of every particular man nor of the state of their consciences and that it is sufficient to know in the general that the promises that Jesus Christ has made alwayes to preserve to himself a Church upon Earth are inviolable that we must not therefore doubt that there has alwayes been good seed in the midst of the Arian tares It is the same answer that we make there needs nothing but to apply it To the second he has answered that the simplicity of many among the people who went not so far as to understand the bad sense of the Arian expressions sheltred them under Heresie that many others of the more enlightned remained in silence through the fear of persecutions contenting themselves to keep their own faith pure without partaking in the wickedness of the wicked and without listing themselves up against it In effect it is a Maxim of Phoebadius That it is sufficient to an humble conscience to keep its own faith without engaging it self to refute the belief of others and it is one of S. Augustine himself That no body can be culpable for the sins of another nor by consequence for the Heresies and Superstitions that infect a Ministry provided he take no part in them and no wayes consent to them either in effect or appearance But this is yet the same answer that we make for as I have already said we do not doubt that there was among the people a very great number of persons whose light went no further than the meer knowing of the chief Articles of Christianity contained in the Creed in the Decalogue and Lords Prayer and who by consequence were hid under those capital Errors with which the publick Ministry was then loaded We no wayes doubt that in the midst of that darkness there were not a great many enlightned persons who through the fear of persecutions remained under the same corrupted Ministry with the others separating the good from the bad discerning the Errors and Superstitions taking no part in them and living as to other things in that hope that they should not be culpable for the sins of others To the third S. Augustine has answered that it is an absurd Objection For it is not more absurd to say that we ought not to take care to heal a Disease under a pretence that as great as the Disease is life yet remains than to say that we ought not to take care to purge the Church and the Ministry from a Heresie that infects it under a pretence that there is yet a way to be saved in her communion and under her Ministry That we must on the contrary labour as much as possibly we can to re-establish Christianity in its whole frame lest the evil should increase and be made incurable through a too great negligence and least that good which remains in the Church should be wholly corrupted by the contagion of the evil But this is also the very same answer that we make Our Fathers ought to have employed all their endeavours to reform the Latin Church by their Exhortations by their Books by their Sermons by their Example because that we ought alwayes as much as possibly we can and as the time and our knowledge call us to it to labour to settle Religion in a state of purity lest in the end Errors and Superstitions render themselves universal and the whole Church should perish through our negligence For although Jesus Christ has promised us that it shall never perish yet notwithstanding this would be to tempt God and to render our selves unworthy of his grace to neglect the means that he gives us for its preservation and that so much the more as according to humane judgements there was no other than that of the Reformation To the fourth S. Augustine has answered That in labouring to purge the Church from Arianism it was necessary that they should separate themselves from the communion of those who obstinately persisted in that Heresie and the fixed resolution that they testified to remain in it was a sufficient cause to make them withdraw themselves from their Assemblies But we answer with greater advantage that our Fathers in labouring for a Reformation ought to have forsaken the Assemblies of those who not only were fixed in the opinion of having nothing reformed and opposed themselves with all their might to hinder a Reformation but who went so far as to impose a new necessity on mens consciences to believe their Opinions and even to
the Prejudices has set before us which is that Schismaticks are out of a state of Salvation For I hold that this Proposition cannot be maintain'd after the manner that the Author of the Prejudices has propounded it that is to say absolutely and without any distinction I am not ignorant that to establish this rigorous sentiment they produce some passages of the Fathers who have in effect spoke of Schism in extreamly vehement terms as if they had a design to exclude from the communion of God and all hopes of salvation all those in general who should be found engaged in it But that very thing ought to be an example to let us see that we must not alwayes take according to the rigour of the Letter all that the Fathers have said in the heat of their disputes For unless we should be altogether unreasonable we must place a difference between three sorts of persons who are to be found in a Schismatical communion 1. The Authors of Schism who usually are the Pastors and Guides of the flock 2. Understanding persons who take part in the affairs and who very well knowing what they do give their consent to Schism and defend the Authors of it 3. The people that is to say the ignorant persons who scarce know any thing that passes or who know but very confusedly And for that which regards the Authors and other intelligent persons as it is most frequently passion interest pride and ambition that make them separate and that all those passions turn them in the end into an implacable hatred against their brethren they deserve our condemnation for those crimes are incompatible with the Spirit of Jesus Christ and it is a manifest demonstration that the world and its corruption reigns in the souls of those who are guilty of it we must therefore say of such Schismaticks as these that while they remain in this condition there is no hope of salvation for them because that the true faith the Covenant of God and the communion of Jesus Christ cannot subsist under the reign of those brutal passions But to imagine that the whole body of a people who are to be found engaged in a Schism either through the faction of the more powerful or a conscience prepossess'd by a zeal without knowledge by a Piety too scrupulous should be depriv'd of all hope of salvation this would be without doubt to fall into a very rigid Opinion To make this clear by Examples I have already mentioned elsewhere that Victor Bishop of Rome excommunicated the Churches of Asia upon the difference about the day of Easter from whence there followed a Schism between those Churches and this of Rome I do not now enquire to which of the two parties the crime of the Separation ought to be imputed either to the Asiaticks who adhered too strictly to the custom of their Ancestors and the Authority of Polycarp or to Victor who without Prudence and Charity separated him from divers great and flourishing Churches about a matter that was left self-free and indifferent in Religion I only say that this would be an horrible injustice to condemn those people to eternal flames who should be found to be engaged in that ridiculous quarrel only through the capricious humours of their Bishops In effect we have seen that notwithstanding this Schism they did not fail both the one and the other to sit together in the Council of Nice We must pass the same judgement of a Schism that fell out in the fourth Century at Antioch between the Meletians and the Eustatians both the one and the other Orthodox and separated from the Arrians but who nevertheless would not communicate together because that although Meletius had preached and defended the Council of Nice and suffered persecution for it yet he had been created Bishop by the Arians by reason of which the other Orthodox would no more communicate with those of his party which obliged them to hold their Assemblies apart It was therefore a true Schism on one side and on the other but as it proceeded only from an excess of zeal on the side of the Eustatians we ought not to pass a sentence of damnation so lightly against them I say the same thing of the Schism that fell out about the end of the Fifth Century between Acatius Bishop of Constantinople and Felix the Third Bishop of Rome who mutually excommunicated one another for the interests of John Talaia and Peter Mongus competitors for the Patriarchate of Alexandria Acacius defended the side of Peter whom Felix accused to be a Heretick and an enemy to the Council of Chalcedon and Felix on the contrary upheld Talaia whom Acacius had accused of Perjury and to be unworthy of a Bishoprick and this Schism also lasted down to their Successors thirty and five years between the East and West But although Acacius drawn in by intrigues to the side of an hypocrite had wrong at the foundation yet we ought not notwithstanding to believe that all those great Churches who kept communion with him and defended his memory after his death were absolutely cut off from the hope of Paradise In the Sixth Century there was another Schism whereof I have already spoken which was very contentious and embroiled under the Emperour Justinian Vigilius being Bishop of Rome and Mennas Patriarch of Constantinople The ground of the quarrell was taken from the Writings that had been approved in the Council of Chalcedon and which afterwards were condemned as heretical by the Emperour Justinian and the condemnation was subscribed by Mennas and the other Patriarchs and their Bishops Vigilius who was of another opinion undertook the defence of those Writings and excommunicated Mennas and the rest who had condemned them But some Months after he took off his Excommunication at the solicitation of the Empress Theodora to whom he owed his Bishoprick and which was more in the following year he himself pronounced an Anathema against those three Writings But the Bishops of Africa Illyria and Dalmatia persisted to defend them and those in Africa assembled in Council excommunicated Vigilius as a dissembler Some time after Vigilius repenting himself of that which he had done undertook a second time the defence of those Writings Justinian on the contrary made an Edict by which he renewed their condemnation and Vigilius on his side excommunicated all those who should consent to this Edict In fine the Fifth General Council assembled at Constantinople where in spight of all the Decrees of the Bishop of Rome the three Writings were condemned and all those who should approve them were excommunicated Vigilius persisting in his opinion was banished and dyed some years after But his Successors Pelagius and Gregory approved the Council and subscribed to what had been done there and it was in fine generally received by all and reckoned for a Fifth General Council We must acknowledge that if the people were to be saved or damned according to the good or
not God his Prophets and his Altars yet among them Lord said Elias they have killed thy Prophets and thrown down thy Altars And the hundred Prophets of God that Obadiah hid in two Caves to withdraw them from the persecution of the Idolatress Jezabel the Altar of God that Elias repaired in Carmel to sacrifice there by the miraculous fire that fell down from Heaven to consume the victim the calling of Elisha and Micaiah and in a word the whole History of those schismatical Ten Tribes does it not evidently note that God looked on them as his true Church in which there was yet a means to be saved We must not therefore abuse that which the Fathers have wrote against Schismaticks in intending to aggravate their crime and to draw them from it nor must we take their expressions in the whole rigour of the letter Their meaning is not that all those generally who are found engaged in a Schismatical Communion even down to Tradesmen and Labourers who remain there with an upright heart and through the prejudice of their consciences are out of the Church and eternally damned but that the Authors and Defenders of Schism who run into it through their personal interests or out of a spirit of fierceness pride and an hatred incompatible with the Spirit of Jesus Christ commit a horrible crime and that while they are in that state they remain deprived of all hopes of salvation That if the Fathers have said any thing more generally and which cannot be thus restrained it is just to understand it in a comparative sense that is to say that setting that Schismatical party of the Church in opposition to that which is not so the hope of salvation appears evidently in this which it does not in the other where it is obscured by that Schism The End of the Third Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE FOURTH PART Of the Right that our Fathers had to hold a Christian Society among themselves by Publick Assemblies and the Exercise of the Ministry CHAP. I. That our Fathers had a Right to have their Church-Assemblies separate from those of the Church of Rome on the supposition that they were right in the Foundation THE Order of the Matters of this Treatise requires that we now go on to that Separation which the Author of the Prejudices calls Positive and that after having confirmed the Right that our Fathers had to Examine the State of Religion and the Church in their days after our having shewed the indispensable necessity that lay upon them to forsake the Assemblies of the Church of Rome and to live apart from her Communion that we also establish the Right that they had to set up a Christian Society among themselves notwithstanding their going off from the other Party who were not for a Reformation and to make up alone and apart a Body of the Church or an External and visible Communion This is that which I pretend to establish in this Fourth and last Part and to that end I shall here Treat of two things The first shall respect the Right of those Publick Assemblies and the Second shall be concerning that of the Gospel Ministry wherein our Function lies Howsoever these two things have a dependance one upon another it will yet be well to Treat of them with some distinction To make the First clear I shall first lay it down as an indisputable Truth That the Right of Religious Assemblies naturally follows that of Societies I mean That as far as a Religious Society is Just and Lawful so far the Assemblies that are therein made are Just and Lawful and that on the contrary as far as a Society is unjust and wicked so far its Assemblies are so too This Principle is evident to common sence and it is for that Reason that we condemn the Assemblies of the Heathens Jews and Mahometans as Unlawful and Criminal because their Societies are impious and wicked and that having no right to be united to believe and practice those Errors which they believe and practice they have also no right to Assemble themselves together in order to make a Publick Profession It is for the same Reason that we hold on the contrary the Christian Assemblies to be not only Just and Allowable but to be necessary and commanded by Divine Right because the Christian Society that is to say the Church is it self also of Divine Right It is then True that the Right of Assemblies follows that of Societies But we must further suppose as another evident and certain Truth That our Fathers before the Reformation were Latin Christians living in the Communion of the Latin Church in which they made as considerable a party as the rest of the Latins and that from Father to Son throughout a long succession Time out of mind they enjoyed with the others the rights of that Society That they were equally in possession of it with the other common Assemblies of that Religion having a part in the Ministry in the Churches in the Sacraments in the publick Prayers in the Reading and Preaching of the Word and that as far as the communion of the Latin Church was lawful so far the part that our Fathers had in it was lawful also That it was not a company of Strangers or unknown persons come from the utmost parts of America or the Southern Lands nor a sort of People dropt down from the Clouds who were newly joyned together with them in the same Society but Persons and whole Families setled a long time ago who were joyned together with them in the Profession of the Christian Religion many Ages before and who by consequence were in possession of the Rights of that Society Although had they been Strangers Americans and Barbarians on whom God should have suddenly bestowed the Favour of Calling them to the True Faith and the True Holiness of Christanity yet we could believe that by that thing alone they would have been invested in all the Rights of that Society as much as if they had had it by a long possession time out of mind But howsoever it be they were Christians from Father to Son and neither their blood nor their birth did distinguish them from the others We are now concerned only to search out whether that which hapned to our Fathers that is to say their Reformation their Condemnation by the Popes and by their Council of Trent and their Separation from the Church of Rome can be able to spoil them of all their Rights For if it be True that they were fallen off either by their own ill Carriage or by the meer Authority of the Church of Rome we must yield that our Assemblies are Unlawful and Criminal but if on the contrary they were not so fallen off if that which hapned to them did nothing else but confirm their Right and render it more pure more just and more indisputable they ought also
been noted in the Third Part. But sometimes the ground of those Divisions is taken from Doctrine or Worship or the general Rules of Manners and consists in those things that are acknowledged by both sides to be weighty and essential and in this Rank we may place those Divisions which arose in the Antient Church by reason of the Samosatenians the Arrians the Macedonians Nestorians and Eutychians I acknowledge that when the Question is only about Divisions of the former sort we cannot rationally hinder our selves from acknowledging that Party to be the Body of the Church which has the advantages before spoken of and looking by consequence on the other Party as a Sect cut from it The one is the Tree and the other the cut-off Branch the one is the Sun and the other a separated Ray. And the Reason that makes that Prejudice Just is not that the greater party cannot have done wrong at the bottom or that it cannot erre For it frequently happens that Prejudice Passion Interest Cabals prevail among those who have the Ecclesiastical Authority in their hands which makes them give unjust Judgments and it may be the Author of the Prejudices would not maintain all the decisions and Excommunications of the Church of Rome to be Just But the Reason of that Prejudice is that though even the greater Part should have done wrong in the Foundation yet the matter treated on is not of such importance as that it can take away from a Society the Quality of the true Church of Jesus Christ while sound Doctrine intirely subsists there and Worship remains pure From whence it follows that there being there no sufficient cause of Separation the lesser Party can't be looked upon otherwise then as Schismatical because it is cut off from the Greater without necessity and supposing at the same time that it should have Reason in the Foundation yet its Separation would not cease to be criminal It is in this Case that Saint Augustin would have those whom violence or as he says carnal Sedition has driven from the Christian Assemblies to suffer patiently the injury done to them without throwing themselves either into Heresy or Schism and without setting up of Assemblies apart but that they should maintain and defend even to the death the Faith which they know Preached in the Church Sine ulla says he Conventiculorum segregatione usque ad mortem defendentes Testimonio juvantes eam fidem quam in Ecclesia Catholica praedicari sciunt But it is otherwise when the Division is about matters of the Second sort those I mean that are founded upon the weighty points of Doctrine or Worship For then the true Church ought alone to be sought for where the true Faith is where it is goes neither by extent of places nor by number nor by the Body of Pastors or Prelates nor by the Walls of Temples nor by Councils that we ought to Judge of it but by the true Doctrine and where that is to be found there without doubt is a Right to be in a Society and to gather Assemblies The Reason is evident because we cannot say in that Case that although the more numerous Party more extended and which has the Body of Pastors of its side should be wrong in the Foundation yet that it would not always keep the quality of a true Church as it may be said in the former Case For a Society that Teaches Error and practises a false Worship and that will receive none into its Communion but those who believe all that it believes and practise all that it practises cannot be a True Church whatsoever advantages it have otherwise so that finding it opposite to another pure Society there is no need to hesitate in ones Choice In the first Case the lesser Party cannot be other then Schismatical because whatsoever Reason it may have at the bottom it would be better to yield then to Separate ones self but it is not so in the Second for it would be better to separate ones self then to yield since in yielding one should fall into Fundamental Errors and Superstitions contrary to true Piety In a word in the former Case the Number Dignity Extent of place the Body of the Pastors Multitude ought to prevail over Reason in a particular Injustice because a Church may be in some respect unjust without hazarding the Salvation of its Children but in the Second Reason drawn from Injustice Error false Doctrine false Worship is a thousand times more considerable then all those advantages which I have noted because we cannot renounce the true Doctrine and the true Worship of God in things of great moment in which our Salvation would not be absolutely concerned It is this difference that causes us to take notice of two different ways in the Fathers which appear so opposite and contrary one to another that at first sight trouble our minds For when they wrote against the Novatians or against the Donatists or against the Luciferians who separated themselves out of frivolous Reasons that is to say upon points of Discipline and personal accusations but who otherwise acknowledged the Church they had quitted to be Orthodox they set before the people that Multitude Extension the Body of the Pastors Succession and other advantages of that Nature as things that shewed of what side the Church was and then they held that the lesser Party cut off from the greater was as a Member divided from the Body a Branch cut off from the Tree or as a Ray Separated from the Sun But when they were engag'd against the Arrians who taught false Doctrine they did not care to make use of those sorts of Arguments on the contrary they restrain'd themselves to look for the Church where the True Doctrine and Faith was and they had no Consideration either of the Body of the Pastors or of the Multitude or Pulpits or Councils when the Arrians made use of them to the Prejudice of the true Doctrine as I have shewn in the Third Part. But that very thing evidently discovers the Ordinary Cheat that their Missionaries are guilty of and the other petty Writers of Controversy of the Church of Rome and into which the Author of the Prejudices himself falls Which is that in stead of following with respect to us the way of Writing that the Fathers took when they wrote against the Arrians from whom they differed in points of Doctrine since the Cause is like they follow on the contrary that that the same Fathers took against the Novations the Donatists and Luciferians with whom they did not quarrel about matters of Doctrine which is a meer Sophism where they confound two altogether different Questions in referring to one Case that which cannot have any place but in the other But they will say Are not you your self guilty of Fallacy in perpetually supposing as you do in this dispute that you have Right at the Bottom For that is the thing that is most
them and will shed abroad his blessing upon your cares as far as shall be necessary for his own glory and the good of the people in whose favour you labour and he himself will one day give you a reward for all those toilsome Labours Although you do not need to be excited to do good yet I take the confidence to hope that you will be some way encouraged in the Duties of your place by the reading of this Work which will more and more discover to you the Justice of it You will see therein the Conduct of our Fathers justified in regard of their Reformation and Separation from the Church of Rome and by consequence you will therein see not only the Right that we have but the Obligation and indispensable Necessity also wherein we are to live apart and divided from that Church and united among our selves in a Religious and Christian Society till it shall please God to make the Causes of that Division cease and joyn again that which men I would say what the Court of Rome and her Council of Trent have put asunder That Re-Vnion is a Happiness that wee will alwayes beg of God with the most ardent Prayers and which we will receive as one of his highest Favours if his hand should bestow it But it is also a thing which it is impossible for us to promise our selves while we shall not see the same desire of a good and holy Reformation which was almost general in our West in the daies of our Fathers to be again revived in the Church of Rome which yet they knew how to stifle with incredible skill An Authour of those Times who himself contributed as much as any other to clude the good effects of that desire has not failed to own it and which is more to own it to be just I do not deny saies he that many at the beginning were not urged by a motion of Piety earnestly to cry out against some manifest Abuses and I confess that we must attribute the chief cause of that Division that at present rends the Church to those who being puff'd up with a vain pride under a pretence of Ecclesiastical power contemned and haughtily and disdainfully rejected those who admonish'd them with reason and modesty And imediately after that same Author reasoning about the means to re-establish a holy peace between the two parties I do not believe adds he that we ought ever to hope for a firm peace in the Church if those who have been the cause of that dis-union do not begin by themselves that is to say unlesse those who have the Ecclesiastical Government in their hands relaxe a little of that great rigour and contribute something to the peace of the Church and unlesse in hearkning to the ardent prayers and exhortations of the greatest part of good men they apply themselves to reform those manifest abuses by the Rule of the holy Scriptures and of the Antient Church from which they have wandred After this manner a man engaged in the Communion and Interests of the Church of Rome spake even in the Time of the Councill of Trent He would indeed after that have us also whom he accuses to have gone too far in the other extream yield something on our side and that we should return as he speaks to our selves but it ought not to be thought strange that he being such a one as he was would lenify by that corrective the confession that he made before and it is enough for us that he has owned the force of the evil and taken notice of the true and only remedy God who holds the hearts of all in his hand kindle in them the love of the true Religion and give us all the grace to look to the Blood that has ransomed the Church and that first Spirit who consecrated it to one onely Jesus Christ her Lord and Husband For it is he only who can re-unite us without me sates he ye can do nothing and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad I pray that the same God who has given you the knowledge of his Gospell would make you persevere in it to the end that he would confirm his love and fear in the souls of my Lords your children who already so well answer the honour of their birth and the cares you have taken for their Education and lastly that he would more and more shed abroad his blessings over your person and over all your house This is that which I desire from the bottom of my heart and that you would do me the favour to believe that I am My LORD Your Lordships Most Humble and Most Obedient Servant CLAVDE The ATTESTATION WE whose names are underwritten certify that we have read the Answer of Monsieur Claude our most honoured Colleague to a Book Intituled The Prejudices c. in which we have found nothing contrary to the Sentiments of the Religion which we profess Signed at Paris the nine and twentieth of November 1672. DAILLE ' MESNARD The Reader is desired to take notice That the word Historical in the Running-Title was inserted without the Translators knowledge or Consent An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE FIRST PART Wherein it is shewn that our Ancestours were obliged to Examine by themselves the state of Religion and of the Church in their Days CHAP. I. General Considerations upon this Controversy The Division of this Treatise IT is not difficult to understand why those who were possest of the Government of the Western Church in the days of our Fathers and those who have since succeeded them in the Church of Rome have thought themselves so much concerned to oppose the Reformation It would oblige them to strip themselves of that Soveraign and and absolute Authority which they had Usurped and by which they had disposed the Consciences of men to their wills And it would force them to give an Account of that Publick management which they held in their hands and no person is ignorant that that is a thing of all others in the World most intolerable to those persons who have made a Secular Empire of the Government of the Church As those Interests have made them lay hold of all they could to defend themselves so they have raised a new Controversy touching the Right that our Fathers had to reform themselves They demand of us who our Reformers were from whence they came and what Call they had for so Great a Work They accuse them to have been Rebels and Schismaticks who lifted themselves up against the Authority of their Mother the Church and broke the sacred bond of the Christian Communion They have defamed their persons as much as ever they could and have laid to their charge the most wicked manners to the end they might render them odious In fine they have put forward all that they could believe capable of retaining the people in a blind
pretence and bordering on the greatest rashness For the Authority of the Church of Rome and the pretended faults of the Reformation whatsoever they be are not Principles so demonstrative and so evident among Christians that after them they ought to hear nothing more We ought then to yield to this proof its place in our discussion but without any prejudice as to those that may be drawn for or against the very Tenets that are contested which ought to be first examined as the more natural and most decisive That being so I hold that that which they have set before us will be to no purpose at all For if from the Examination that we shall make of those matters in themselves it results that those things are not Errors which we have rejected as such but Christian Truths we have no further need either of the Authority of the Church of Rome or of the prejudices against the Reformation The Reformation is sufficiently overthrown And if on the contrary it results that those are Errors all the Authority of the Church of Rome and all the prejudices in the World shall not be able to perswade men of good understandings that they are Truths and by consequence that the Reformation is not just for it is always just to extirpate Errors It seems to me to appear already that that debate which they have raised against us about the Justice of our Reformation and our separation from the Church of Rome is rather a field wherein they would busy themselves in subtilties and declamations to amuse the People then a just Controversy whence one might justly expect any profit Yet as those subtilties and declamations how vain and false soever they are fail not of finding applause in the World and always making some impressions on the minds of men we acknowledge the too great effect that they have produced which is that the greatest part of those of the Church of Rome look upon us as Schismaticks and think that we have disturbed the peace of the Family of God and violated the right of that Religious Society which had united us with them The Idea which they form of our Religion appears not half so odious to them After what manner they have disguised us the most equitable among them discern and fail not sometimes freely to confess the same that we have all Doctrines that are necessary to mens Salvation that our Worship as plain as it is has nothing which does not tend to nourish in their hearts a true Piety and a solid Vertue and that as to the Form of our Government it has nothing so remote either from prudence or from equity or from the Charity that Jesus Christ has recommended to us But it is a far different Idea which they Form within themselves of our Separation for it becomes insupportable to them when they compare it with the Specious name of a Church that ought to command the Veneration of all Holy men So that this is most ordinarily the matter of their reproaches which they the more exaggerate as a thing about which they imagine we have not the least shew wherewith to defend our selves I dare affirm that as to the far greater part that is the chiefest and almost the only matter that makes them appear so much Exasperated against us It is necessary then that we justify our selves and that we clear to their minds that honour which we have not only to live among them in the same civil Society but also to depend on their lawful Authority in respect of those humane affairs wherein we are engaged Our own Innocence commands it of us not to say that the inheritance which we have received from our Fathers is of a value sufficiently great to merit a defence after what manner soever they attack it We ought then to indeavour to let them see that that which they are made to believe concerning us is nothing but a false imputation that we have an infinitly greater respect for the Church then any of those who oppose themselves to hinder its Reformation that their Maxims tend to the Ruin of the Church where ours tend only to preserve it that our Separation from Rome is nothing else but an effect of that Love and Jealousy that we have for the Church and that it will be most unjust if they shall hate us upon an account that ought on the contrary to draw from them all their esteem and Love toward us It is then about this that we intreat that they would calmly hear us and judge us without passion and without interest in the fear of that God whom we all acknowledge for our Soveraign Judge Those who always act against us with a pride that hurries them away and who have resolved to condemn us and to the uttermost of their power to destroy us what ever we say will not possibly take our request to be just and in that Case we shall content our selves as to them with the Testimony of our Consciences which perswades us not only that God will not condemn us for having been Reformed but also that he certainly will if we do not in that follow the sence of our hearts But there are yet enough persons in the Church of Rome of too much equity to follow the Examples of such a sort of People these equitable persons are those of whom we demand that hearing and that same equity and moderation of which they make such profession and which the importance of the subject treated on challenges them to yield us We shall tell them nothing which shall not be founded either on matters of fact known to all or upon the inviolable principles of Religion or upon the light of Common sence To set down this matter in some order I propose to my self to make evident these four Propositions 1. That our Fathers had both right and obligation to examine the State of Religion and the Latin Church such as it was in their days 2. That the Reformation which they made was just and lawful 3. That in Reforming themselves they had right and were bound to separate themselves from the Church of Rome 4. That in Reforming and Separating themselves they had right and obligation to maintain among themselves a Christian Society by publick Assemblies and the exercise of the Ministry I do not pretend that in Treating of these four Propositions I have exhausted all my subject but yet I hope that there will be few Questions that have some Relation to it which I do not sufficiently touch upon and few Objections which I do not answer I will particularly answer to all those that are contained in that Book of Prejudices as the order of the matters that I Treat of shall present them to me none of which will begin to oppose themselves till the seventh Chapter because that Author having passed by in silence a great many things that belong to the Foundation of this Controversy it will be necessary to touch upon
Saint Paul calls her the Body of Jesus Christ But the Body of Jesus Christ is Eternal Jesus Christ promises to be with his even unto the end of the World and says that the Comforter shall abide with them for ever and that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against his Church But it is no need of heaping up these Proofs of a thing which was never contested God will always keep a Church upon Earth that is to say he will always have a number of true Believers whom he will guide by his Word and by his Spirit and they are those that are betroth'd to him for ever and the Mystical Body of his Son to whom he will grant his gratious presence for ever and an assured Victory against the Gates of Hell There is nothing disputed in that point Our business is only to enquire whether all that Body composed of the good and the wicked that Assembly in which the worldly men and Hypocrites are mixt with the truly Faithful and that which they call the Visible Church can never fall into errour after what manner soever it be Whether it is not possible for that party of the men of the World which may be sometimes the stronger to corrupt the publick Ministry and for the same in respect of some errours and superstitions less Fundamental to infect the Good and to draw them tho' not so far from the Truth as to make them wholly lose the true Form of Piety and Communion with God for if that might happen the Church would be brought to nothing yet after such a manner as that their Faith and their Religion could not be said to be altogether pure But this experience justifies For in the Corruptions of the Church of Isral and in those times wherein they had introduc't the Worship of false Gods into the publick Ministry God had reserv'd seven thousand men who had not bowed their knees to Baal and that which is most considerable is that that very Religion of those seven thousand was not pure for they liv'd in that Schism that Jeroboam made and no more went to render that Worship to God which they were bound to pay at Jerusalem but to Bethel It will signify nothing to them to say that the Church then subsisted in the Tribe of Judah for besides that that would not hinder any from seeing clearly by that example of those seven thousand that God can when he pleases preserve his own in a corrupted Communion and that yet the far greater number might fall into errour and that the publick Ministry might be contaminated it will not follow notwithsanding that that Church was wholly extinct which is only that which we say Besides that I say it is yet manifest that those two Churches that of Israel and that of Judah were often found to depart both together sometimes from the true Worship of God as it appears from that which Jeremiah says That God having given a Bill of Divorce to that of Israel for her Idolatries Judah her Sister feared not but that she also had turned aside from his true Worship It appears also by that which Ezekiel said that Samaria had not committed half the sins of Judah who had justifi'd her Sister in multiplying her Abominations The same History of the Kings of Israel and Judah teaches us concerning Joram the Son of Ahab King of Israel that he clave to the sins of Jeroboam by which he had made Israel to sin and that at the same time Joram the Son of Jehoshaphat and his Son Ahaziah Reigned in Judah and walked after the ways of the Kings of Israel in doing that which displeased the Lord. But without going so far is it not true that when Jesus Christ came into the World he did not find a pure Church upon Earth The Schismatical Samaritans had so confused a Religion that Jesus Christ did not scruple to say that Salvation was of the Jews The Jews on their side had defac'd their Religion by a thousand superstitions and by the false Doctrine of the Pharisees and in fine they had crucifi'd the Lord of Life the only Messoas they expected Notwithstanding which we ought not to believe that the Church was perished from the Earth and that God did not preserve his Children in the midst of those Confusions The same thing happened then when the Arrians had made themselves Masters of the Ministry of the Church and when under the Emperour Theodosius the younger the Eutichians prevailed in the second Council of Ephesus For it would be a very absurd thing to imagine that during the time of the Triumph of those Hereticks there were no more any true Believers in those Churches all whose Pulpits they had fill'd and none in all that Communion but those who obeyed the erronious Councils of Milan of Ariminum and of Ephesus At this very day the most zealous among those of the Church of Rome acknowledge that God saves many persons who live under the Schismatical Ministry of the Greeks and the Muscovites although besides that Schism they accuse them of holding a multitude of errours and superstitions For so Possevin sets it down in one of his Relations of Muscovy We ought not then to make the subsistance of the Church to depend absolutely on that Infallibility whereof we dispute We ought yet far less to abuse the promises of God by pretending under that pretext that they can never do that that is ill The true use of the promises is to encourage us to our Duty and in stead of making us presumptious they ought on the contrary to humble us and to shew us the horrour of our sins when it is contrary to that promise For so the Scripture makes use of it in the second Book of the Kings upon the subject of the Idolatries of Manasseh King of Judah for after having reckoned them over particularly it adds that he set up a graven Image of the Grove that he had made in the House of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his Son In this House and in Jerusalem which I have chosen out of all the Tribes of Israel will I put my Name for ever See there the promise employed to its right use not to defend Manasseh in what he had done under a pretence that God had promised that his Name should never depart from the Temple which is the Language they speak in these days but to condemn Manasseh of that that as much as it lay in his power he had nullified that promise of God And so also it is that good men ought to speak to the Corrupters of Religion God has promised us that he would betroth his Church to himself for ever and you have laboured to break off that happy Marriage Jesus Christ has promised us that he will be always with us even unto the end of the world and you have endeavoured to deprive us of his presence He has promised us that his Holy
they make use of the Visibility of the Church to prove its Infallibility The True Church of Jesus Christ says one ought always to be Visible always plainly to be discerned whence it follows that she cannot err for if it were possible for her to do so she could be no longer acknowledged as a True Church and there would be no more means proposed to all men for their Salvation None can be saved out of the Communion of the True Church since it is impossible for any to be saved without Faith and that according to the Apostle none can have Faith without that Preaching which ought to be made by the Ministers of the Church The True Church ought then to be always Visible to the end that all men should set themselves under its Ministry to obtain Salvation or that at least they should be inexcusable if they did not so place themselves and by Consequence it is necessary that she should be Infallible To this Reason which alone makes a long Controversie and about which they make very long Chapters they add some passages of Scripture from whence they conclude that the Church is always Visible and some others that contain in their Opinion not only the promises of a perpetual Visibility but of a Visibility shining with such a brightness and such splendour that the True Church may be known to Strangers and Infidels to be so To Answer this Argument of theirs in the first place I say That the True Church may be so far from being always discernable by all men as they pretend it to be as that one cannot say so much as that all men have always been able to know that there has been a Society of Christians in the World for not to alledge that the Christian Church in its Original then when the Apostles were as yet in Jerusalem or thereabouts was very little known to the rest of the world not to say that the knowledge of that new Society did not so soon spread it self over the Roman Empire nor in the bordering Countries that the most of the people were ignorant for some time of what it was to be Christians it cannot be denyed that many Ages had slipt away before that the most considerable part of the Earth as all America could have any knowledge that there were any Christians in the World How then can any one say the True Church is always Visible and always discernable to all men Is it because those Americans before these last Ages were not men or is it because they were not bound to work out their own Salvation They ought then in good earnest to acknowledge that God is most free in the dispensing of the means of Salvation which he proposes to whom he will and refuses to whom he will Till the external Communion with the True Church shall be the only means of and absolutely necessary to Salvation none can conclude that she ought to be perpetually visible and discernable by all men For it frequently happens that God for most just reasons but which we ought not to search out with too great Curiosity may withdraw from men the external means of their Salvation and yet notwithstanding he does not fail to convince by other ways which render them inexcusable worthy of Condemnation Men are bound to place themselves in the true Church then when it is discernable to them to be so but when it is not so as it is not at this day to the Southern Nations we ought not to believe that God will damn them for not having put themselves into it they have other crimes enough to be punished for without making God to violate his Justice in that respect See here what I say for the defending of Gods Justice and to let you see the rashness of those Arguments which suppose that God is bound to make those Gentlemen Infallible to the end that he may condemn men with some reason But further I do not deny that one cannot in some sence say that God has always preserved some True Church Visible upon Earth but that one ought not to play with those ambiguous Terms it is necessary to make a distinction and to shew clearly in what sence it may and in what sence it may not be found to be True For beside that that I have said in the first place That the True Church is not Visible nor to be generally known by all we ought not to imagine that the True Church must be always Visible in one certain place that is to say that one only People one Society one body which has been for time a True Church may not in the end lose that quality after whatsoever manner that comes to pass whether it be by an entire forsaking of Christianity or whether it be by an extreme and general Corruption of that Religion God has sometimees taken away his Candlestick from the midst of a people according to that threatning which he made to the Church of Ephesus I will come quickly unto thee and take away thy Candlestick out of its place except thou repent The greatest part of the African Churches which heretofore were so flourishing are now no longer so and there is not any place upon the Earth neither Paris nor Constantinople nor Jerusalem nor Antioch nor Rome nor Avignon neither the Latin Church nor the Greek nor the Armenian nor the Aethiopian neither the Chair of Saint Peter nor that of Saint James nor that of Saint John nor that of Saint Denis that can promise it self that it shall never perish There are no such promises in the Scripture and it is a speech very criminal in the Mouth of any Church whatsoever it be if she says I sit a Queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow When therefore they shall say that God keeps up always a True Church in the World let them remember that it is in a way Independant on any Places and Sees or if that restriction will not please them let them produce those clear and solid and peculiar priviledges to us which may set the Latin Church above all its Fellows For as to that that some set before us that saying of Jesus Christ to S. Peter I have prayed for thee that thy Faith fail not it is clear from a plain view of that passage that it only regards the person of Saint Peter with relation to that violent Temptation wherewith he was hurried in the House of the High Priest and under which there wanted but a little of his Faith having wholly perished and that it does not in the least concern his pretended Successours whereof there is not so much as one word in all the Scripture I say the same to that Commandment that Jesus Christ gave him to Feed his sheep which respects only his re-establishment in the Office of an Apostle after his fall nor is there any promise adjoyned for his Successors nor for their See whereof there is not a
word mentioned either there or any where else And as to that passage Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church c. Whether they understand it of that Confession which Saint Peter had made or whether they refer it to his person I say that no one can understand it of his Successors since there is not any mention made of them either directly or indirectly For when the See of Rome was not when it had never yet been The Church did not fail of being built upon that Confession of Saint Peter comprehended Jesus Christ upon whom the Church is every way built but also because that Confession of Saint Peter or Saint Peter Confessing was as one of the Chief Stones in that mystical Building which is not left alone for Jesus Christ who is not only the Foundation but the Soveraign Architect has added many others in all Ages and will always joyn others to them till the Building be intirely finished that is to say till God fulfilled the Decree of his Election But to go on with our Discourse of the Visibility of the True Church I affirm in the third place that we ought to know very well what a True Church Visible is For we ought not to imagine that all those persons who compose that Visible Society should be that True Church None but those True Believers I would say those who joyn to their external Profession of Christianty a true and sincere Piety are really the Church of Jesus Christ and as for the others that is to say the worldly Prophane and Hypocritical they are but the Church in appearance only and not indeed For having no inward Calling which consists in Faith and Love they do not belong to the Mystical Body of our Saviour nor are they of his Communion Notwithstanding they do not fail to be mixt with the Faithful by reason of that external profession as if they really were in the same Religious Society with them What then is the Visibility of the True Church as to us It is not that we can distinctly and with any certainty affirm Behold these be the Truly faithful of Jesus Christ None but but God alone can know them after that distinct manner and and without a possibility of being deceived But this we may say of that Visible Society that Vnder that Ministry and in that Communion God preserves and raises the truly Faithful Whence we may from this Judgment with Solidity and Truth and I may say also without a possibility of being deceived that there is a True Visible Church In that sence I declare that there has always been some way or other a True Church Visible upon Earth not but that God can make it wholly disappear to the Eyes of men whensoever it shall please him to do so without doing men any wrong or any breach of his promises since he has without doubt extraordinary ways to beget Faith in the hearts of his Children and to keep them on in that course and to lead them in the end unto Salvation without making use either of the publick Assemblies or Ministry but only because we ought not to believe that there ever hapned since the first rise of Christianity an Eclipse so full and intire that one could not some way say There is a Society in which God does keep the truly Faithful I say after some way For as that Judgment depends on two things the one to be able to know a Society and a Ministry and the other to know that under that Ministry and in that Society a Man may work out his own Salvation in respect of the first it is necessary to distinguish between two seasons the one of Liberty and Prosperity where the Church has its Assemblies and exercises its Ministry openly in the face of all the World For then she is much more visible then she would be otherwise that is to say it is far more easy to be known what Society and what Ministry that is Such was the State of the Church under Constantine and other Christian Emperours and it is in such times as those that the promises of Its outward splendour if there are any such in Scripture are accomplished The other season is that of its Afflictions and Persecution such was that of the first Century of the Church under the Pagan Emperours and the Enemies of Christianity For none can deny that then the Church was less discernable by its Assemblies not only because they were more private and less exposed to the publick view but also yet further because the name of Christian had been defamed by a thousand calumnies and charged with a thousand false imputations which made the knowledge of the Church to be far more difficult And it will be to no purpose to say That then the Church was visible and illustrious by the blood of its Martyrs For the blood of its Martyrs did not in the least hinder the accusing of the Christians of most odious crimes that which hindred its being liable to be easily known Those Accusations were as a Cloud before the eyes of the Common people which was necessarily to be discipated before they could come to know what Christianity was So that the True Church is more or less Visible according to the difference of its Seasons As to the second thing which is to know that one may be saved in that Society and under that Ministry it is necessary that we distinguish of the two States or Conditions wherein that Society may be found The one is a more pure State then when the word of God is preached without mixtures of the Doctrines of men when the publick Worship is perform'd without superstitions and the Sacraments plainly administred according to their Primitive Institution and when generally Religion is established taught and observed after the same manner wherein Jesus Christ and his Apostles left it to the World In that Condition it is certain that the True Church in very visible and very discernable for it is easy to behold all the Characters of its Truth which only consist in its Conformity to that lively primitive and natural Image of Christianity which God has left us in his Holy Scriptures But it is not less certain that a Church may fall into a quite contrary Condition that is to say into a State of Corruption then when it adds to divine Truths strange and adulterate Doctrines when it mingles superstitions with the true Worship of God and when in stead of a just Government it exercises an insolent and absolute Dominion over Mens Consciences in one word then when all things appear so confused and in that disorder that one can scarce any more see any traces of that beautiful and glorious Image of Christianity which I have before spoke of to shine forth In that Condition I affirm that True Church is very hard to be known for howsoever it were most Visible in quality of a Church because its Assemblies might be
much frequented it would be nevertheless least of all so in the quality of a True Church in that its natural beauty is so darkned and its Visage so disfigured that in judging according to its Appearances one can but very difficultly say that God does yet preserve some Faithful ones in that Communion and under that Ministry But they will say may not a Church fall into that Condition and yet for all that be a true Church I answer that a Visible Society as I have shewn is not called a true Church but only with respect to those true Believers who are in it and not with respect to the others When then it comes to pass that the party of the Men of the World prevails and fills that Society with its Corruptions all that Society taken in the general does not fail as yet to be called a True Church while their is some appearance how small soever it may be that God does yet keep and hold in it those good men who do not defile their Souls with that Corruption of the wicked But how can say they yet further those good men preserve themselves in the midst of such a Society I answer That they may preserve themselves there after that manner that one may preserve himself in a contagious Air where he draws in the Air because it is necessary to his Life but yet he may keep himself as well as he can from that Contagion by the help of Antidotes There are two things in a Corrupted Church the good and the evil if a Man can separate that good from the evil that is to say if he can take the one and keep himself from the other without falling into Hypocrisy and being bound to do as those who equally take the good and the evil which he knows not how to do without dividing between God and his Conscience he may be saved in a corrupted Communion and there may not be another more pure This evidently appears from the Examples of Zachary and Elizabeth of Simeon of Joseph and the Holy Virgin and divers other persons who liv'd in the Jewish Church when our Saviour came into the World and who preserved their Piety though that Church was fallen into the highest Corruption under the Ministry of the Scribes and Pharisees Jesus Christ himself who reproved the abuses of those wicked men and exhorted his disciples to take heed of their false Doctrines did not fail to live in that Common Society and to be found in the Temple with them and after that he had been Crucified by them his disciples did not wholly withdraw themselves from their Communion during some time and till they had indispensable reasons for it I will shew in the Progress of this Treatise that it does not from thence follow that we may at this day abide in the Roman Communion and that it much less follows that we may return thither by forsaking the Communion of the Protestants under a pretence that we may separate the good from the bad the pure from what is impure since we can no more do that then not become wicked Impostures Hypocritical and Detestable before God and Men. But as this is a point that belongs to another Place it shall suffice me to have clearly shewn in this Chapter in what manner and with what distinctions it may be said that there is always a true Visible Church and to have made it appear that it no ways follows from thence that she must needs be Infallible as the Church of Rome pretends that she is After all this it is not difficult to find out the just and true sence of some passages of Scripture which they abuse in this matter of Visibility For as to that of the Gospel whereof we have spoken Tell it to the Church and if he will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as the Heathens and the Publicans It is clear that particular Churches are treated of there and that the personal differences which we may have one with another and the meaning of it is that the Faithful are bound when they receive any wrong from their brethren to carry their complaints to the Church and to refer themselves to its Judgment Or if it is not to be understood in those Times and in those places where there shall be Churches established to the Judgment of their Guides and Pastors who may end those private Quarrels And if they will infer from thence that then there must be always a Visible Church that may be in a Condition to attend to those Reconciliations this is that that has no colour of Reason For that Command of Jesus Christ obliging the Faithful no further then as it lies in their power it would be but a very bad arguing to say that he has so engaged for that that he will so order it that there shall be perpetually a visible Assembly to hear Complaints and give Judgments It is within a little as if one should say that he was engaged that we should always have wherewithal to Lend and wherewithal to give Alms because he has bid us to Lend without hoping for any thing again and to make our selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness Or that our Kings were bound never to leave vacant the Office of a Constable or that of the Mayor of the Palace under a pretence that heretofore they order'd their subjects to acknowledge those Dignities and to have recourse to them in certain Affairs Tell it to the Church then does not in the least suppose that the True Church ought to be always in such a State wherein she should have Authority to pass her Judgments for the determining private Quarrels And besides what I have said Experience contradicts it for it is most true that during the hottest Persecutions of the Heathen Emperours where all was laid in desolation that it had in many places nothing like a Visible Tribunal to which men could easily address themseves There are some other Passages that denote the duty of the Pastors and in particular of the Apostles as those where they are called The Salt of the Earth the light of the World a City set upon a Hill a Candle not lighted to be set under a Bushel and the Gentlemen of the Roman Church do not fail to set them down to give some colour to their Pretensions But this is evidently to abuse the Scriptures to make them establish the perpetual Visibility of the Church after that meaning wherein they understand those passages which exhort the Apostles and after them the Ministers of the Gospel to acquit themselves faithfully of their charge without negligence and weariness from the Consideration of their Calling and the end to which God had appointed them For besides that their Office does not bind them to that of a Martyr which does not suppose a very splendid State of the Church Besides that the same does not oblige them to be Martyrs if they were not specially
if you would give to the simpler sort to those Babes for Example whereof Jesus Christ speaks that his Mysteries have been revealed unto them if you give them I say that right and liberty to judge of that important and fundamental Question to wit Whether the Call of a man be Extraordinary and Divine or whether it be not so whether his Miracles are those of a true Minister of God or of a false Prophet whether it be a true Angel of Light or a disguised Angel of darkness and to judge of all those things after the Church and against the Church I see no Reason why they should refuse them the right and liberty of judging also of its Doctrine and the points of Religion whereof the true knowledge is by nothing near so difficult God had forewarned his People that they should not give themselves over to be deceiv'd by the first appearances of Miracles and he had appointed that they should judge of them by the Doctrine they accompanied Whence it follows that the discerning of Miracles and judging of that Doctrine are two inseparable things and that their right belongs to the same persons If there arise saith God among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder And the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet or that dreamer of dreams For the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart It appears from thence that the way for men to judge well of Miracles is to examine the Doctrine of him that works them So that if they will a gree to give the people a right to discern Miracles they cannot take away from them that of discerning that Doctrine they uphold Jesus Christ supposes the same thing when he says that there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and that they shall work great signs and wonders to seduce if it were possible the very Elect. For how could they otherwise discern those Miracles of the false Prophets but by examining their words So a famous man of the Roman Communion has not scrupled to write that we are bound to reject Miracles and those men who make use of them then when they are joyned with a Doctrine which the Church has condemned his words are considerable and very well deserve to be transcrib'd The Application says he and direction of a miracle to prove the Truth of a Doctrine is an enterprise so rash and so scandalous that it deserves to be punished There is not any Catholic in the World who knows his Creed and understands it that can be capable of such a persuasion What if the appearance of a Miracle is contrary to the definitions of the Church can any one hesitate or doubt whether it would be better to adhere to the Church supported by the truth of a Miracle or to deny the truth of a Miracle founded upon the Authority of the Church Saint Peter has taught us a great while since what we are to do on that occasion He had been an eye Witness of the Transfiguration of our Saviour and of that glory that lay hid under the Vail of a Suffering and Mortal state and yet nevertheless he trusts more in the obscurity of Prophets than to the clear and manifest experience of his Eyes we have a more sure word of Prophesie The Authority of the Church which is in nothing less than that of the Prophets breaks in pieces all those reasons that oppose it and we ought to take to our selves in regard of the Church that which Saint Peter says with respect to the Prophets To which we do well that we take heed gathering together all our attention to know the true sence of the Church and turning aside from all the Miracles and all those Reasons the men propound to us to make us call into question that which we know the Church to have determined We may see clearly by that passage how far one may carry that Principle of the Authority of the Church in the thoughts of those that admit of it that is to say even to make Miracles themselves submit to it He says that we ought to Collect all our attention to know the true Sentiments of the Church and to turn aside from all those Miracles which would make us call into question that which the Church has determined He says that to go about to make use of Miracles for the proving of a Doctrine that is condemned by the Church is a rash and scandalous enterprise and such as deserves to be punished In effect if they suppose that Maxim that we ought to give to the Church an absolute obedience to see with her Eyes and to rest upon her Conduct those Miracles could not make them be heard whom the Church should have condemned and by which they should have been looked on as false Miracles the Consequence is good and just But because that very thing applied to the times of the first rise of Christianity justifies the Unbeleivers condemns the proceedings of Jesus Christ and his Appostles accuses those of rashness who have believed on their preaching destroys the Gospel and overthrows the Christian Church it is a manifest proof that that Maxim it self is false and rash since those Consequences that arise from it are so detestable that they leave neither to Jesus Christ nor to the Apostles any way to make their Gospel to be heard by men with a good Conscience and the care of their Salvation 8. They must give me leave to speak a little earnestly for the interest of our Lord Jesus Christ The more I consider these inevitable Consequences of that Maxim the more I am astonished If those first Christians who had been Jews could not hear the Doctrine of the Son of God nor receive his Miracles without violating of their Duty toward the Church that had condemned them what scruples might not all that cast into all the Christians that are at this day in the World For in fine we are the Successors of that people our Fathers were not Converted but by their Ministry If then we cannot see clearly that they themselves had a right to be Converted if they laid down on the contrary a Principle which of right ought to have hindered their Conversion where then are all we as many as we are The Reasons that the Author of those Prejudices produces to make us devest our selves of our own guidance in favour of the Church that we should see with her Eyes and tread in her steps had as much place with the Jews as they have with us they could not doubt but that their Church was the Church of God none can dispute with them that eminent Authority which had so many external marks To her belonged the Adoption the
difficulty to get thither and yet that belonging of right to the examination of all men the darkness of the understanding the easiness wherewith men may deceive themselves the want of necessary helps the ignorance and simplicity of the greatest part of men would not hinder it Those are then no other than frivolous Reasons which cannot take away from men that right that God and Nature have given them They ought therefore to enjoy it at least in some respect to wit for the deciding of the question whether they ought to lose it or no. 13. But it is certain they can never so enjoy it in that regard nor decide that Question without entring upon an examination of all their Doctrines which lets us see yet more and more the absurdity of our Adversaries Principle For there is not any Principle more absurd than that which destroys it self which cannot be established but by making use of a contrary Principle and which precisely can have no place but there where it cannot be of any use But all that may be said of that Principle of those Gentlemen since it is most true that to establish it one must necessarily proceed to examine their Doctrines and that they can never know whether they ought to refer themselves to the Latin Church or examine that Doctrine by themselves till they have made that examination that is to say till there shall be no farther occasion to refer themselves to that Authority of the Latin Church which makes pleasant sport enough This is that which is evidently manifest if one consider it that before one can acknowledge the Authority of the Latin Church it must be supposed that one is assured that among all the Religious Societies that are in the World the Christian is the only one in which one ought to place himself and that can never be known but by one way only which is that of examining its Doctrine and its Worship In effect there is not any one of those external marks that can make that difference The Jews had their Miracles Antiquity Succession an uninterrupted Duration the Holiness of their Patriarchs the Light of their Prophecies the Majesty of their Ceremonies we do not dispute these marks with them and as to Temporal Prosperity they had it heretofore and we are not assured that we have always had that whereof we make such boasting which nevertheless is not very great The Mahometans glory that they have the same things with the consent of the People and the admirable success of their Arms and as for Antiquity which they fail in they say that as Jesus Christ did but succeed Moses so Mahomet also has succeeded Jesus Christ As for the Heathens they had as I have said their Miracles their Saints their Prophets their Ceremonies their Succession their uninterrupted Duration their Temporal Prosperities and if we strive with them about Antiquity and Multitude the advantage will not lye on our side There is then nothing more deceitful than those external appearances separated from their Doctrines they are as proper to make a Jew remain a Jew a Heathen a Heathen and a Mahometan to remain a Mahometan as to make a Christian to remain a Christian whence it follows that to form well that difference and to be assured that the Christian Communion is the only good one one ought to examine its Worship and its Doctrines Moreover before they could acknowledge the Authority of the Latin Church they must suppose that a man is sure that among all the Christian Sects the Latin only is the true Church and that cannot be known but by the examination of its Doctrines Those external marks can be no ways proper for it The Greeks the Abyssines the Nestorians ascribe to themselves Antiquity Succession Miracles an uninterrupted Duration as well as the Latins They have their Saints their Prophets their Ceremonies and their Multitude which is not less considerable and as to worldly Prosperity the Abyssines may boast of it and the Muscovites also who make a part of the Greek Church and who knows whether that of the Latin Church shall never change It is then manifest that they can conclude nothing from those marks separated from their Doctrine they are so ambiguous and uncertain that they cannot fix any setled Judgment upon them concerning the truth of the Latin Church But supposing that they could by those external marks or by any other ways which they would take be assured that the Latin Church was the true Church I say it must necessarily be understood in this Sence to wit that in that visible Communion God brings up and preserves his truly Faithful ones For it is in those only that that name of the visible Church is verified and not in the prophane the wicked and the worldly who are mingled with them and who are none of that Body that is the Spouse of Jesus Christ They must then be assured before they can know whether they ought to refer themselves absolutely to that Body of Pastors that governs the Latin Church that the prophane and the worldly do not prevail in that Body and that they never have prevailed for if they do prevail or if they ever have prevailed they may introduce errours into the publick Ministry and false Worship or suffer them to come in through their negligence or otherwise or scatter abroad the ill Doctrines of the Schools amongst the People favour ill customs and in a word corrupt that Communion as it appears that that did come to pass in the Jewish Church and sometimes in the Christian But how can any be fully assured that it may not be so at present otherwise then by the examining of her Doctrine They ought then to give up that point of external marks our Fathers have gained their cause without going any farther by the Prejudices of Corruption which I have set down in the second and third Chapters But if you take them only as meer conjectures and if you will reckon them to be nothing it is certain that to be assured that there is nothing corrupted in a Communion where God brings up and preserves his true Faithful people that the publick Ministry is pure in all its Doctrines and in its Worship one must of necessity take that way of examination and that examination must be very exact So that before we can enter only upon that Question whether we ought to give to the Latin Church a Soveraign Authority over our Faith and Consciences the discussing of which they know not how to avoid all must be examined from whence it follows that that Principle which I have opposed is absur'd because it destroys it self and none can ever practise it till it cannot be any more of any use and more absur'd yet in that when it would hinder us from examining it constrains us to make an examination as exact as can be thought of CHAP. IX An Examen of those Reasons they alleadge to Establish that Soveraign Authority
principle of Unity would they give us to settle all in the same thoughts in that search which they should make of the true Church The Jews would say We are the true Church of God the Mother Church from which the Christians have separated themselves The Pagans will say We are that Mother Communion for as well the Jews as the Christians came out of the midst of us The Mahometans will say That as Christianity was the perfection of the Law so their Religion is the perfection of the Gospel The Greeks would come foorth and maintain That they are the true Catholick Church and not the Latins the Copticks the Abyssines the Jacobites and Armenians maintain That as well the Latins as the Greeks departed from the Church when their Council of Chalcedon had made void the Council of Ephesus The Arians will say That if one latter Council could abrogate what had been done by a former as it appears from the Example of the Council of Chalcedon then that of Ariminum might very well correct and repair the Errors of that of Nice In fine every one would alledge his Reasons and concern himself to know which of all those Communions was the true and good one and which had the true Faith Tell us what means of Unity would you have beyond that to hinder men from dividing themselves For if it be true that in yielding men a right to examine the matters of Religion they open a Gate to let in Divisions and Heresies by reason of the Confusion of mens minds it is not less true that in leaving them a liberty to examine those Churches and Religious Societies to come to know which is the True you open the same Gate to Errors and Apostacies If you would further take from them that Liberty of searching out the true Church and if you say that they ought to suppose the Latin to be it without other reason besides that that is very absurd you introduce a Maxim that under a pretence of shutting the Door to all Divisions shuts it also to all Conversions For why should not every Society have right to say the same thing So the Jew without any other Reason would presume for the Jewish Communion the Heathen for the Heathen the Greek for the Greek and every one for that wherein he finds himself set That then would not be so much a Principle of Unity in the true Faith as a Principle of Confusion and Obstinacy a Principle that would be not so proper to keep men in the Unity of the true Faith as in that of any Religion whatsoever it might be without coming to know whether it were good or bad In the second place I say That with all that they do not yet make any thing of that which they would lay down if they would avoid those Heresies and those Divisions which may arise from the inequality of humane understandings when men are left to be Masters of their own Sentiments For to obtain that effect they must suppose that that Maxim of referring ones self absolutely to the Pastors of the true Church when they shall be so assured will be received and followed by all men But who can tell them that men will not divide upon that very Principle and that when they endeavour to make them receive it they can make them agree If they apprehend so much those Divisions and Errors in the matters of Religion what assurance can they have that there shall not be any upon that point of the Authority of the Church Is it because mens minds will less differ about that subject then about others or that that same Authority proves it self as the First Principles do Who has told them that those who shall once have received this Maxim will not be un-blinded in the end and that they will not be weary in fine of remaining slaves to men in respect of their Consciences which is the most considerable part of themselves and that which should give them the greatest Jealousie So that that pretended Remedy of Schisms and Divisions is null for you must always run upon that Rock you would avoid to wit of the humane understanding and wipe off its differences its inequalities its humors at the same time that you would have them give away that liberty of judging the points of the Faith Let us suppose since our Adversaries would have us that that Principle of absolute obedience to the Guides of the Church had had place from the birth of Christianity would it have hindred the Heresies of the Valentinians of the Gnostics of the Marcionites of the Montanists and the Manichees Would it have hindred the Arrians the Samosatences the Eutychians the Nestorians and so many others that in the first Ages of Christianity troubled the State of Religion To say that those men were presumptuous and rash is but to say what we would have which is that there can be no humane means that can stop that rashness and presumptuousness of men and that it is a folly to go about to do it They may by the force of Torments and Prisons by their Threats or their Promises hinder the external effects but that is not to contain men in the Unity of the Faith but it is to contain them in that of Hypocrisy and of Treachery A second Inconvenience is That they cannot give to the Church that is to say to the Body of the Pastors that respect which is due to them for where they should be set up to be Judges of Controversies private men would rise up against them and those private men would on the contrary become their Judges But that Inconvenience is not so great as that it should make us hazard our own Salvation How many Judges have in we our Civil Society to whom we yet give that respect that is due to them though still we are not bound to believe that all that they have judged is well judged The respect which men owe to their Pastors is not unlimited it has its bounds and its measures while they act as true Pastors in Teaching the pure Truth and acquitting themselves of their Duty they are worthy to be heard to be followed to be respected But when they come to be Deceivers if that in stead of Teaching the Truth they oppose it if they mix with Gold and Silver Wood Hay and Stubble to make use of the words of the Apostle they deserve in that regard neither the Hearing nor Respect For they are neither Pastors nor the Church but only as they Teach the Truth and follow Righteousness and when they withdraw themselves from it give us their own Fancies or when they follow their Passions then they are but private men who belye their Character and they can owe them nothing for those kinds of things but repulses and contempt or at the most but Indulgence if the Evil be yet tolerable that is to say if their word and their conduct do not destroy the Gospel or hinder a saving
of their Alms and he may be seen far oftner in the field with the Souldiers then in his Cloister He ought to be the Father and the Instructer of his Brethren but he is their Seducer and their Tyrant For while he enjoys himself and lives in Pomp and Delights those poor miserable Religious pass away all their days in murmurings and afflictions That Author describes in the same Stile the Lives of the Canons Monks and other Ecclesiasticks and that which he has said does not leave us any more room to doubt that there was in the Church in those days as great and as general a disorder as can be conceived He does not spare the Court of Rome but on the contrary he sets forth livelily enough their excess even to say that that Court is the Seat of the Beast that is to say the Church of the wicked that is the Kingdom of darkness That it is a loathsome pit that devours Riches and is filled by Covetousness That the Law is far from the Priest the Visions of the Prophet and the Councel of the old men That the heads of the Church serve themselves by Simony and Ambition and that in a word the sins of those people are such that they cannot be either concealed or denyed since Rome is become a Gulph of Crimes Where the Pope ought to cry with Jesus Christ Come and you shall find rest for your Souls he cries Come and see me in a far greater Pomp and Pride then ever Solomon was in come to my Court empty your purses there and you shall find destruction for your Souls The disorder of that Court and that of the whole Clergy of those times was a thing so little to be contested that Adrian the sixth did not scruple to acknowledge it in the Memoirs that he gave his Nuntio for the Diet of Nuremberg and which Raynaldus Relates For he gave him an express charge to confess That the Troubles of Germany about the matters of Religion had fallen out by Reason of the sins of Men and particularly of the Priests and Prelats of the Church That the Scripture shewed that the sins of the people came from those of their Priests for which Reason it was as Chrysostome says that when our Saviour would heal Jerusalem he entered first into the Temple to correct the sins of the Priests doing like a wise Physitian who goes to the root of the evil That for many years past abominable things had been committed in the holy See that spiritual things had been abused through the excess of its Injunctions and that all things had been perverted there That the evil had spread it self from the Head to the Members from the Popes to the Inferiour Prelats and that as many as they all were that is to say Prelats and Ecclesiasticks they were come to that pass that for a long Time there had not been any that were good no not so much as one We could produce a multitude of other such Testimonies if we did not hope that unbyass'd persons would agree upon it as not long since an Author in these Times has done in a Book Intituled Motives to a Re-union to the Catholick Church The cause of the Separation says he was the open abuse of Indulgences and the Ignorance Covetousness and the Scandalous lives of the Church-men The Superstition of the meaner sort of people who had not been well instructed the immense riches and riotous profuseness of the Prelats their too great care in Externals in their Magnificence Ornaments and increasing of Ceremonies and little Devotion in the Chief-worship of God the indiscreat zeal of some Brethren who seemed to have cast off all honour for the Master to give it to his Servants The Tyranny that Parents exercised over their Children to imprison them in Cloisters the wickedness of those who contrived false Miracles to draw to themselves the concourse of the People Add to that Politick humane Considerations of some Princes and Kings who had not received from the Pope all possible Satisfaction or who took occasion from thence to cast themselves among a Party of persecuted men the better to Establish their affairs in brief all that which Ignorance Superstition and Covetousness could Contribute served for a pretence to those who would separate themselves to Reform those Disorders The Ground was not only specious but it had been in a manner accompanied with Truth if the Church in those days had been throughout in that miserable condition which we have described and principally so in those places wherein that detestable Separation began Those who separated were aided indirectly by the zeal of some good men who cried out loudly against those disorders abuses and corruptions of manners The people who judged no otherwise then by the appearance suffered themselves to be easily carried away with that Torrent seeing that they did not complain but of those things which they knew were but too true and which the better sort of Catholicks granted Behold then in what a condition the Church was in those days and we may from thence methinks ask all rational persons whither they believe in good earnest that our Fathers ought to have expected a Reformation from the hands of a Clergy which on the one side had so many worldly interests that bound them to oppose it and which on the other found it self so deeply sunk into Ignorance Superstition and Corruption But to urge that matter yet further we need but to set down those just complaints which they had made for a long time touching those disorders and the continual demand that all the World made for a good Reformation at least in respect of manners of Discipline and those most gross abuses without ever being able to obtain it I pass by the complaints of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries which would be but too great if they were compared with those just grounds that all honest men in those days had for them For those two Centuries were famous for wickedness grievous crimes and those who know any thing of History cannot deny it But not to go so far not to say any thing either of the Scandalous Lives of the Popes of that Time or the Wars wherewith they filled all the West or of the Abuses they committed in their Excommunications or of the Baptizing of Bells Wherewith they increased the Ecclesiastical Ceremonies or of the vices which reigned then throughout all the Clergy can they tell us what good effect those smart Censures of Saint Bernard wrought and those of Petrus Cluniensis of Abbot Joachim of Petrus Blesensis of Conrard Abbot of Vrspurg of Honorius of Autun of Bernard Monk of Cluny of Arnoul an English Monk of John Bishop of Salisbury of Matthew Paris of William Durandus Bishop of Mande of Robert Bishop of Lincolne of Francis Petrarch Archdeacon of Parma of John Vitoduram of Dante of Marsilius of Padua and I know not how many others who cried out as loudly
wrote to Leo with all the respect imaginable and let him see that the Questors and those who had till that time upheld them had dishonoured his See and his Church that as to himself he found himself very unhappy to see that their Calumnies should have prevailed over his Innocence and he further offered to give over that matter of Indulgences and wholly to be silent in it provided that his Adversaries should do the like But whether it was that all that Negotiation of Miltit was but feigned on his part or that in effect his counsel was not approved by those of his Party as Luther himself insinautes it is certain that from the time that that Letter had been drawn from him George Duke of Saxony a Prince that stuck very close to the Interests of the Pope desired that he would make a publick Disputation at Leipsic upon the matters in controversy the dispute was managed the beginning between Eccius and Carolostad concerning Free-will and Grace but they drew in Luther himself upon the subject of Indulgences of Purgatory and the Power of the Pope And they procured almost at the same time from the Universities of Cologn and Lovain a condemnation of divers Articles drawn out of his Books He defended himself against these new Adversaries and made the World see by his publick writings the truth of his Doctrine and the injustice of those Condemnations But within a little after Pope Leo being unwilling to try any thing further published his terrible Bull of Excommunication against him which they call the Bull Exurge There after having earnestly importuned Jesus Christ Saint Peter and Saint Paul with all the Saints in Paradise to come to the succour of the Church of Rome he sets down in particular one and forty Articles of Luthers Doctrine which he declared to be respectively pestilent destructive scandalous false heretical offending pious Ears seducing Souls and contrary to the Catholick Truth and to the Charity to the respect and obedience that was owing to the Church of Rome which is the Mother of all the Faithful and the Mistriss of the Faith and as such severally he condemned them disproved them rejected them and declared that they ought to be rejected by Christians of both Sexes He forbad all Bishops Patriarchs Metropolitans and generally all Church-men and Kings the Emperour the Electors Princes Dukes Marquesses Earls Barons Captains c. and in a word all sorts of men to hold those Articles or to favour them in any manner what soever under the penalty of Excommunication and being deprived of their Lands and of their Goods and treated as infamous Hereticks favourers of Hereticks and guilty of High Treason And as to Luther he complained of him that he would not come to Rome where he would have let him have seen that he had not done so much evil as he believed and he agravated it as a great rashness in him to have appealed to a Council against the Constitutions of Pius the Second and of Julius the Second who would have those punished as Hereticks that made such appeals That therefore he condemned as Hereticks him and all his Adherents if in the space of fifty days they did not renounce all their Errours he forbad all Christians to have any Commerce or Conversation with them or to yeild them any necessary things and gave his Orders to the Emperour to Kings and Princes c. to seize their Persons and to send them to Rome promising great rewards to those who should do so good a work Luther some time after wrote against that Bull and appealed afresh to a Council lawfully called notwithstanding he justified himself with great solidity about all those condemned Articles And it is pertinent to note that among those Articles that the Pope Anathematized as Heretical or Rash or Scandalous and contrary to the Catholick Truth these following Propositions might be found That that Proverb was most true that said That the best Pennance is a good Life that it would be very well if the Church in a Council should ordain that the Laity should receive the Communion in both kinds That the Treasure of the Church from whence the Pope drew his Indulgences is not the Merits of Jesus Christ and the Saints That the Bishop of Rome the Successour of Saint Peter is not the Vicar of Jesus Christ over all the Churches of the world nor that there was any one established by Jesus Christ himself in the Person of Saint Peter That it is not in the power of the Church or of the Pope to make Articles of Faith nor to establish new Laws for Manners or for good Works That tho' the Pope should hold with a great part of the Church an opinion which should not it self be erronious yet it would not be a sin or an heresy to hold a contrary opinion especially in things not necessary to Salvation until a General Council should have disproved the one and approved of the other that the Ecclesiastical Prelats and Secular Princes did not do ill when they abolished the Order of begging Friers That Purgatory could not be proved by the Holy Canonical Scripture These Propositions are declared to be either pestilent or pernicious or scandalous or heretical without specifying any one in particular for the Pope speaks of them only in the whole that they are such So it was that Leo and all his Court managed those matters To affirm that a true amendment of Life a holy and sincere return from Vice to Vertue is the best of all Pennances appeared to be a detestable crime to them To wish that a General Council might establish the Communion of the Eucharist according to the Institution of Jesus Christ and the Custom of the Primitive Church was such an abomination with them as was thought sufficient to deserve the Flames Not to beleive that the Merits of Jesus Christ and of the Saints made up a certain Treasure which neither Faith nor Holiness nor Repentance could give the Faithful any part of but which were to be dispenced only by the way of Indulgences for money pass'd in their Judgments for a Hellish Heresie To hold that our Faith has nothing else but the Word of God for its object and not that of men also and that God alone can impose moral Laws on the Conscience was in their opinion an astonishing wickedness To believe that one may without Herefy hold an opinion contrary to that of the Pope in matters not necessary to Salvation and not determined by any Council was a pestilent errour To give the least blow to the interests of Monks or the Fire of Purgatory was an horrible sacriledge for which there was not any remission After that condemnation the Pope wrote to John Frederick Elector of Saxony earnestly entreating him not to give any more protection to Luther and he sent Hierome Aleander his Nuntio into Germany to cause that condemnation to be executed But Aleander not being able to obtain of
own thoughts of that Negative Separation But howsoever he has carried himself in his Expressions I may say if I am not mistaken without fear of any opposition that that which he has here granted us is not one of those Concessions which are sometimes given to adversaries only to cut off the Dispute but that indeed he has spoken according to his real thoughts For when in a Controversy of this nature a man distinguishes about this general Thesis That one ought to separate from a Church which binds one to profess Error in noting that it may be said in two sences the one That one ought to separate ones self Negatively in not medling with that which would wound the Conscience and the other That one ought to separate positively that is to say that one ought to set up a Society separate from that and to establish a new Ministry That he quitted the former sence in saying only that it was very ill applied to the Catholick Church restrained himself only to the latter that he would say that it was this latter kind of Separation whereof he accused us and about which we ought to justify our selves that our Consciences could not any further hinder us then from taking part in those actions which our Principles should make us look on as Criminal that if we could not without betraying our Consciences render that Honour to Saints and Relicks which they give them we ought to content our selves with not doing it When a man I say speaks as the Author of Prejudices after this manner in the heat of a dispute which he believes to be as weighty as that there is a great likelyhood that it is not a meer condescending to his adversaries but a true and lively expression of that which he finds in himself to be very Just and Reasonable Howsoever it be without informing our selves further about a thing wherein we are little concern'd we will suppose it since he will have it so as a proposition not to be disputed That our Fathers could lawfully seperate from the Church of Rome by a Negative Separation that is to say in not to taking any part in that which would wound their Consciences But that signifies in our stile that they had right to reform themselves since we call nothing else precisely Reformation but that publick Rejection which they made of divers things which they judged to be ill and contrary to Christianity Whether they did ill to go further and to proceed to a Positive Separation that is a Question apart which does not in the least hinder that their Reformation taken only as a Negative Separation might not have been done with Justice and according to that right that Conscience gives to every man But now methinks this point being so well clear'd clears a multitude of others and we may by that concession of the Author of Prejudices very well decide some Questions In the first place They ought no further to set before us that absolute obedience to the Orders and decisions of the Church of Rome in the matters of Faith and Worship to which they would hitherto have all the Faithful indispensably obliged For if those whose Consciences shall tell them that That Church binds them to believe Errors and to practise a false worship may refuse to profess to believe those Errors and to performe that Worship who sees not that that absolute obedience is overthrown Since it will depend on the dictates of the Conscience of every one and that the Conscience of each one will give it its bounds and suspend it in respect of some certain things and actions 2. The Church of Rome can no more treat those as Disobedient and Rebellions who through the dictates of their Consciences refuse to profess to believe that which she decides and to practise that which she ordains nor persecute them as such and whatsoever she should make them suffer upon that pretence of Rebellion and Disobedience would be but an unjust persecution of which she will be bound to give an account to God and men 3. They cannot also any farther demand of us what Call our Fathers had to reform themselves that is to say to reject their Superstitions and the Errors which were to be found in the Church of Rome in their days for they needed nothing else but the motions of their Consciences to give them a Right to refuse to profess them 4. They ought also to acknowledge that the Authority of the Church how great soever it may be is it yet far less then that of the Conscience since it is not only limited but surmounted and that whensoeveer they should be in oppositian a man would have right to leave the Authority of the Church and to follow his Conscience 5. And since even an erronious Conscienes such as the Author of the Prejudices supposes ours and that of our Fathers to be could suspend Acts commanded by the Church it follows necessarily from thence that to reconcile the Church and the Conscience when they should be set in opposition we must come to the Foundation and discuss the things themselves for there is no other way to free the Conscience from Errors And how much more are we obliged to do it when the Church abuses her Authority in teaching those things which are really false or in commanding those actions which are indeed unjust and criminal All then depends on the discussion of those matters by themselves But they will say your Fathers ought to have been contented to have made use of their rights each one in particular they could have kept themselves from making any profession of believing those pretended Errors and not have taken any part in those actions which they disapproved and yet nevertheless have kept silence Wherefore did they disturb the publick peace by their Tumults Why did they divulge by their out-cries the Judgment which they made of the Tenets and Customs of their Church Did they not in that sin against that respect which they owed to their Prelats and that Charity which they owed to their Brethren To answer to this Objection I say That the keeping silence is not always equally just it has its bounds and its measures according to the weight of the things that are treated of and to the Circumstances of Times and Persons If the business had been only about some meer Questions of the School upon points of Speculation or about some unprofitable Ceremonies or some bad order in the Government or even about some popular Superstitions which should not have proceeded so far as to corrupt the saving Efficacy of the Gospel I confess our Fathers had been more obliged to have kept silence then to have encountred their Prelats and raised those troubles through the diversity of their Opinions The Love of Peace respect for Order Christian Charity bidds us to bear things of that nature well which we do not so well approve of our selves and even there to follow the
God to worship him purely and to remove far from them all that which they believed to be contrary to a Spiritual-Life and their own Salvation For they need not for that any other Call then the Obligation that lies upon every one to save himself and the necessity of beating back all that which would oppose it self to so just an Obligation There are not in a Civil Society any certain Select Persons who only have a right to Live to Act and to labour for others whilst those others should be dead or not able to move So also there are none in a Religious Society who ought to believe and to be good for others whilst those others should remain in ignorance or in sin and that Implicit Faith which some have invented by which a man is to believe in general that which the Church believes to go no further is in truth the most Commodious way of all others for those men who have something else to do then to serve God but it is also most proper for the Damnation of men Faith then is a thing so common as to belong to particular Persons she is so one in the whole Body of the Church as to distribute her self to each one and one could not be of that Body of the Church if one were not a believer as one could not be of the Body in a Civil Society if one were not a man and had not Life So each man has not only a personal Call but lies also under an Obligation to believe and to live as a good Christian whence it follows that each man has a Call to remove far from him all that he shall judge to be contrary to the Truth of his uprightness Faith and Piety as also that being under an Obligation to live Holily and Justly he has a Call to avoid Sins and to repent of them when soever he shall commit them But is not this some will say to rend the Church by Divisions and to make ones self guilty of a Schism so to reject out of self-will the common Sentiments and Customes without the consent of the whole Society No certainly for the true Union of the Church does not consist in holding of Errors how common soever they may be nor in any false-worship after what manner soever it be Established These things do not only not belong to a Christian Communion but they destroy it as diseases how popular and general soever they may be do bring nothing but desolation on a Civil Society instead of being the Bonds to Unite it So the Union of the Church doth not bind any person in that respect on the contrary it engages us to shew our Brethren a good Example in beginning to Reform by our selves For the greater Love any one has for the Church the more he ought to free it from those evils that press in upon it and especially then when those evils shall put it into a manifest danger of Ruin If it is so our Adversaries will yet further reply Is not that some way to break that Communion when those things that you renounce are Publick and common I confess that it is to break a Society but a bad Society which being against the right of Christianity gives no lawful Call to any person to enter into it or to defend it but on the contrary she gives a Call to all and binds them at the same time to break and oppose it A Corrupted Church has two bonds of its Communion the one consisting in what is good the other in what is ill the one of which makes it to be a Church the other a Corrupted Church the one binding not only men among themselves but with God also and the other that in Uniting men among themselves tends to divide and separate them from God The former of those bonds ought to be regarded and preserved intire as much as lies in our power but the Second is a mortal bond which no person has a right to make and which all men have a Call and Obligation to dissolve It is as certain that the first of those bonds gives us a right and Call to Act against the other for Truth and Piety Authorise us against Error and Superstition and it is the Love that we bear to the Church that opens our mouths against its Corruptions There can then be nothing further contested about the personal Call of our Fathers concerning their own Reformation But had they any Right to Labour in the Reforming of others Who can doubt it Charity would have bound them to procure that good for others which they had thought it their duty to procure for themselves That Christian Communion in which they lived among their Brethren did not less oblige them to it The Interest of the Glory of God which appeared to them to cry loudly for a general Reformation urged them on to it and their own Innocence exacted it of them that they should make it appear to the Eyes of the Publick in laying open the Foundations of those Errors which they were constrained to forsake which could not well have been done without exhorting others to imitate them Being then bound to all these Duties none can deny that they had not a sufficient Call to stir up their Brethren to Reform themselves with them That which I have said will appear more evident if we pass on to the Consideration of the Circumstances of the Reformation for we have already seen after a long and vain Expectation there could be nothing more hoped for on the side of Rome or its Prelats We have seen also that the evils whereof our Fathers made such Complaints and which they would have cured did not lye in things indifferent that were trivial or tolerable but in the very Essentials of Religion and these two Circumstances added to what I have just before represented let us see that our Fathers were not only in the right and not only under an Obligation but under a necessary and indispensable Obligation to do that which they have done I confess that if the Court of Rome and its Clergy would have laboured in good earnest for a Reformation it had been the Duty of our Fathers to have received it from their hands for how rude and corrupt soever their Call had been that Action had rectified it I confess also that if the Dispute had been only about things of small imporstance our Fathers had done better to have kept themselves quiet as I have acknowledged in the foregoing Chapter But they can alleadge neither the one nor the other for Rome and its Bishops were obstinate in the design to Reform nothing and matters were reduced to the very utmost extremity so that the Call of our Fathers appears yet more indisputable being grounded on these three Foundations of Right of Obligation and Necessity and that same Necessity was so much the greater as the evil was more inveterate and had spread it self almost over all the parts of the
matter which shall be Treated of in its place In effect there are two sorts of Calls which we ought not to confound That of the Reformation and that of the perpetual Exercise of the Gospel-Ministry And the Author of the Prejudices himself seems to have Judiciously enough distinguished them when he lays down two sorts of Separation the one Negative which consists only in a rejecting of those things that are ill and the other Positive which goes so far as to set up a Body apart with the Exercise of the Ministry We shall therefore speak elsewhere of the Right that our Fathers had to set up a publick Ministry and it shall suffice for the present to have solidly Established their Call to Reform To shut up this Chapter it remains only that we speak a Word to a Question which they here raise about this Call in the same sence in which we here consider it For they demand of us whether it was Ordinary or Extraordinary To which I Answer That it was both the one and the other in different respects It was Ordinary as to its Right since all men have an Ordinary and perpetual Right to reject Errors and Superstitions and to employ themselves in making their Brethren to reject them according to the Common Laws of Piety and Charity The Pastors also have an Ordinary and perpetual Right to do the same Thing and to make use of that Publick Authority which their Function gives them for the guidance of their Flocks It was Ordinary as to the Obligation which lay as well upon the People as the Pastors to do that which they did because it was a Law of Christianity and not a new Law or Commandment that bound them to it their Duty was founded upon the principles of that very Gospel and of the same Christian Religion which Jesus Christ had Founded and whereof they made a Profession But I affirm that it was likewise Extraordinary in two things First of all in respect of that extream and indispensable Necessity which lay upon them to do what they did For although we have always a Right to reject those Errors and that false Worship which may creep into the Church and although we should be always bound to make use of it also if it were so yet it is not always Necessary to come to the practise or the Exercise of that Right and of that Obligation at least to so Publick and Splendid a one as that of our Fathers was because the Church is not always in a State of Confusion and Disorder as she was in their Time Things Ordinarily glide away in a more regulated course the Publick Ministry is more pure and the Gospel more disingaged from the oppression of Traditions or Humane Superstitions Secondly That Call was Extraordinary in respect of those qualities wherewith God invested our first Reformers and those who joyned with them in so great a work for it is not an Ordinary thing to see such eminent gifts and that in so great a Number as those which appeared in the Age of the Reformation accompanied with such an Heroical Spirit as our Fathers had and such a great Love for the purity of the Gospel as the People had who received their Instructions All which constrains us to acknowlede a particular and special Providence of God throughout the whole Conduct of that great Divine Work who raised up Labourers fitted for the Harvest which he had prepared CHAP. V. An Answer to the Objections that are made against the Persons of the Reformers WE have hitherto methinks sufficiently justified the Action of our Fathers in the business of the Reformation It appears that they had but too many Reasons to suspect a great Corruption not only in the Government of the Church but in the Worship and Doctrines of it also and too just motives to engage them to make a more particular Examination It may not less appear by what we have said concerning the Infallibility of the Church of Rome and that absolute Authority which she ascribes to her self over mens Consciences that her pretensions have no Foundation and that all the Faithful have a Right to Judge of the matters of Religion by themselves and to discern what is good from what is ill We have seen nevertheless that our Fathers were not moved so publickly to make use of their Right but by an extream and utmost Necessity and if they will do them Justice they ought freely to acknowledge what the Author of the Prejudices has not dared to deny that they had a sufficient Call to go as far as a Negative Separation and openly to refuse to believe and to Act what their Consciences should not allow them to approve But as that Motion of Conscience was not Universal or common to all those of their Time and as it had encountred the interests of a great Body that was in possession of the Government of the Latin Church they have laboured to render it odious by all sorts of ways and even those who were not able directly to condemn it have not failed to search out divers pretences to cry it down and having nothing to say against their Actions they have taken up something against their persons This is that that the most of our Adversaries endeavour with great Care this is that that their Writers of Controversies and Missionaries who are spread abroad on all sides among us and who make use of all sorts of ways to gain Proselytes do even now all their days and this is that that the Author of the Prejudices in particular has done His Argument may be well nigh reduced to this That there is no likelyhood that God committed the care of Reforming his Church to persons whose Life and Conduct was Disorderly and Scandalous And the Conclusion that he pretends to draw from it is that we ought to reject without any further Examination that Reformation and to put our selves into the Communion of the Church of Rome 1. It will be no difficult matter to shew him that Blessed be God we have as to what concerns us on every side matter of Edification from the manners of those who were first of all made use of in so Holy and so Necessary a Work and this we shall presently make out But before I come to that I am obliged to tell him that his way of Reasoning is the most captious and the most contrary to the interests of the true Religion that can be imagined and that it is contrary even to the Interests of that Church of Rome which it would defend I say in the first place that it is captious For since our Fathers Reformed themselves only out of the motion of their Consciences which dictated to them that they ought to do it for the Glory of God and their own Salvation how can he pretend that we who have followed them out of the same Reason can revoke an Action which we believe to be just and lawful out of meerly
adored it and that he should never have done the same Actions that were practised by others they may very well understand what Judgment their Ministers used in their Conduct during those first Years For according to all their Principles they ought to have Condemned it since it was as little allowable to Zuinglius to partake with that Worship as it is at present to the Calvinists and since they pretend that it is so far forbidden them that they urge the Obligation that they say lies upon them not to take any part in it as the chief Reason of their Separation So that Zuinglius remaining yet in Communion with those who adored the Eucharist contributed to that adoration by his Ministry and joyning himself to their Assemblies rendred himself guilty of all those sins which the Calvinists apprehend to be committed in remaining united to the Church He would every day have betrayed his Conscience he would every day have committed a criminal Idolatry And it is in that condition that the Calvinists pretend that God made use of him for the greatest Work that ever was done which was the Reformation of the Error of all their Fathers Answer As that Accusation is founded upon this only thing That it is very hard to be believed so also we shall here Answer in saying That it is very hard to be believed That Zuinglius did any thing during that Time that should be repugnant to the Dictates of his Conscience All the Histories of his Life shew that he was a man of strict Piety and of a severe Virtue that he was not used to those Juggles of the Hypocrite which we may see practised by so many and even by those who would appear the most severe and that moreover he never did any thing remote from the sincerity of an honest man They cannot then without equally violating the Laws of Justice and those of Charity suspect on those meer Conjectures that he went contrary to his sentiments on that Occasion and the Author of the Prejudices ought to produce the proofs of his Accusation or to suffer himself to be condemned for Injustice and Malignity It is true that during that Time Zuinglius neither quitted his Ministry nor forsook those who adored the Eucharist but who has told the Author of the Prejudices that men ought to forsake a People that are in Error in the same Time that they have hopes of disabusing them and labour to reduce them into the right way As the Reformation of a Church is not the work of a Day none can think it strange that Zuinglius did not propose all of a sudden all that he had to say and that he did one thing after another It is sufficient that during the Time wherein he set himself to that Work he did not in the least partake in the abuses which he had a design to correct and therefore the Author of the Prejudices ought not to have accused him without ever laying down the proofs of his Accusation The History of Zuinglius relates that he was called to the Church of Zurich in the beginning of the Year 1519. and that from the first moment wherein he was there he set himself with all his might to the Instruction of his Flock to the Reformation of those grosser Errors wherewith the Ministry was then infected and to the correcting of mens manners which succeeded so well with him by the blessing of God that within less then four years he changed the Face of that Church and disposed it to a thorough Reformation But among those Errors that he opposed he applied himself particularly to the Sacrifice of the Mass shewing the People out of the Scripture that there could be no other real Sacrifice then that upon the Cross whence it is very easy to conjecture that he carefully avoided to assist in a Ceremony that he so openly opposed and from which he himself withdrew his Hearers 3. Object Zuinglius engaged the Magistrates of Zurich to call a Synod and to make themselves Judges and Arbiters for the Ordering the State of the Religion of their Canton There was never till then a Synod of that Nature spoke of and it is an astonishing thing that mens rashness and insolence should have been able to have carried them out to so great an excess The Council of two hundred that is to say Two hundred Burghers of a Switz Town as learned and ready in matters of Divinity as one may believe the Switz Burghers were called together all the Church-men under their jurisdiction to dispute before them with an Intention to Order the State of Religion with the understanding of the matter Answer It were much to be wished that the discourse of the Author of the Prejudices were as well Ordered as that Action of the Senate of Zurich was besides these Abuses and Superstitions that were Ordinary they had seen for some Time past a Preacher of Indulgences in that Church called Samson sent by the Pope to distribute his Pardons That Preacher managed his part so well that there were not any Crimes how great soever they were that were or should be committed which he did not set a price upon without making any other difficulty then about the Sum that was be paid to him and by that means he put the whole Country into a dreadful disorder filling it with profligate Persons Zuinglius opposed this Seducer with all his might and at the same time he laboured to give his Flock the knowledge of the true Principles of the Christian Religion and to reduce them back to one only Jesus Christ and his Scripture in freeing them from the Errors and Superstitions of Mens Invention But as the Word of God was never yet without Adversaries the greater number of the Church-men lifted themselves up against Zuinglius and accused him before the people to be a Heretick which forced the Senate it self to take knowledge of those Accusations and to call together a Synod composed of all the Church-men of its State wherein every one had the liberty to propose what he would against Zuinglius and Zuinglius that of defending himself And that very thing was done by the consent of the Bishop of Constance who sent his Deputies thither and among others John le Fevre his Vicar General What was there in all that that might not come from the Justice and Prudence of a Senate If the Accusations wherewith they charged Zuinglius had been well grounded it had been the Duty of the Magistrate to have enjoyned him Silence and being false as they were it was the Magistrates duty to uphold him What is it that the Author of the Prejudices can blame in that Conduct They called a Synod We maintain it to be the Right of Kings and Soveraign Magistrates within the extent of their States The Holy Story Testifies that Josias intending to set up the pure worship of God in his Kingdom called together an Assembly of Priests Prophets
her by her common Practice which being open to the Eyes of all the World discovers much more clearly the true Sentiments of that Church when the decisions of the Councils do not and the Act of which the people scarce know any 2. Because the Council of Trent it self and the Act of the Profession of the Faith obliging as they do those who submit themselves to it to receive in general unwritten Traditions and those things which the Church of Rome Observes they engage them by consequence to receive and practise all that which is commonly observed and practised in that Church under a pretence of Tradition and observance although it should not be formally contained either in the decisions of Councils or in that Profession of Faith So that the Conscience of a man who is in that Communion binds him to believe and do all that others believe and do 16. Objection The Third kind of Calumny is not less ordinary in their Ministers nor less unjust in it self It consists in running down as blameable Errors certain Articles of the belief of the Church which not only were no Errors but about which they have been at last constrained to acknowledge that the difference between them and the Church consists more in words then in the thing it self whether they themselves have forsook their first thoughts to take up those of the Catholicks or whether by a blind rashness they had openly condemned them without understanding them To prove this Corruption the Author of the Prejudices lays down the point of Justification which he says the first Reformers took for the chief ground of their Separation and yet nevertheless he adds one of their Professors of Sedan named Ludovicus le Blanc who has made some Theses of Justification after having examined the Doctrine of the Catholicks and that of the Protestants and their principal differences about that matter concludes upon all the Articles that that of the Catholicks is good and that the Protestants are only contrary to them in name Answ I acknowledge that in this Controversy the Church of Rome takes the word Justification in one sence and that we take it in another and I do not deny but that has sometimes produced in that dispute ambiguities and differences or Words This is also that which M. le Blanc had a design to clear in his Theses of Justification which the Author of the Prejudices has abused But besides that in that very thing we have two advantages over the Church of Rome the one that we speak as the Scripture has done and that we take the words after the manner that Jesus Christ that Saint Paul and Saint James have taken them when they have Treated about this Doctrine whereas the Church of Rome gives them another sence and the other that in so taking the words in their true Signification that Idea that we give of Justification is distinct and clear where that of the Church of Rome is embroiled and confused Besides that I say it is certain that we have but too real differences upon that point which no ways consists in words but in the very things themselves and which make very weighty Controversies To Manifest this Truth we need but to cast our Eyes upon the four chief Doctrines that form the Idea of our Justification according as the Scripture has given it us The First is That it is an Act of the Soveraign mercy of God that pardons our sins and which by Vertue of the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ discharges us from the punishment we have deserved by them The Second is That God out of that same mercy in pardoning our sins adopts us for his Children and gives us a right to his Eternal Inheritance by the merit of Jesus Christ his Son The Third That we apply to our selves the satisfaction and merit of Jesus Christ by a lively Faith accompanied with a sincere Repentance and a Holy Recourse to the Divine Mercy and that it is this Faith that puts us into the Communion of our Redeemer And the Fourth That God in pardoning and adopting us imposes this Condition upon us that for the time to come we live Holily according to the Laws which he has given us and that this very thing is a necessary Consequence of that Communion which we have with Jesus Christ as well as of our Faith our Repentance and our Recourse to the Divine mercy There is not any one of these parts of our Justification upon which we have nor very considerable differences with the Church of Rome For in the First we differ 1. Concerning him who Pardons us The Church of Rome would have it not only that it should be God in the Quality of a Soveraign Judge but men also that is to say Priests and Bishops in Quality of inferiour and Subordinate Judges and that their Absolution is a Judiciary Act for so the Council of Trent has defined it to be But we believe that there is none besides God who can pardon our sins under the Quality of a Soveraign Judge and that the Pardon which we receive from the Mouth of his Ministers is a Ministerial Pardon which consists in a Declaration that they make to us of Gods Pardon as the Interpreters of his will revealed in the Gospel 2. We differ about the extent of that Pardon The Church of Rome would have it that God in pardoning the Sin retains the Punishment that is to say that he acquits us from eternal Punishment but that reserves to himself the inflicting of Temporal Punishments and we on the contrary hold that he remits all sorts of Temporal and Eternal punishments and that the Afflictions which he sends us are not the Punishments of his Justice but the Corrections and Chastisements of his Fatherly Discipline 3. From whence there arises a Third difference which consists in this that the Church of Rome believes that those Temporal Punishments wherewith God visits us are true Satisfactions to his Justice for our sins which we deny 4. There arises from thence yet another difference concerning that which they call those penal works which every one imposes upon himself or which their Confessors impose on their Penitents for they would that these should be also satisfactions to the Justice of God which we do not believe 5. The Church of Rome would have it that those satisfactory Punishments should go beyond this Life and it is partly upon this that they ground their Doctrine of Purgatory which we reject 6. It is also upon that very thing that the Indulgences of the Church of Rome are grounded which cannot be taken for meer Relaxations of Canonical Punishments since they extend most frequently very far beyond the life of man and sometimes even unto five and twenty and Thirty thousand Years 7. We may say also that it is a difference which we have with them by which we understand that first Act of the mercy of God that Pardons our sins which comes from the
themselves if they should yield any obedience to their Soveraigns On the other side Clement VII who kept his seat at Avignon was not wanting to proceed against Vrban and his Followers and to Treat him and his Party with the same heat that Vrban had shew'd against him See here differences which were methinks sufficiently heightned Notwithstanding whatsoever Animosity there was there between those two parties whatsoever Wars they made one against another whatsoever Anathema's they mutually thundred out the Church of Rome has not failed to own and Canonize for Saints those person who lived and died in those two contrary Obediences and who even died in the hottest Quarrels of those two Anti-Popes For she has Canonized on the one side Saint Catherine of Siena who took part with Vrban and who Treated his competitor as Anti-Christ and a member of the Devil and his Cardinals as Devils incarnate and on the other side she has Canonized Peter of Luxemburg who died the Cardinal of Clement VII and who had received that Dignity from his hands against the express prohibition of Vrban VI. under pain of Excommunication so that here are two Saints on the one and the other side lawfully Excommunicated Mr. Daille in his Answer to the Monsieurs Adam and Cottiby intending to retort this same Objection that the Author of the Prejudices gives us has set before us the Example of Saint Jerome and Saint Cyril of Alexandria who were cruelly and passionately carried out against Saint John Chrysostom so far as to compare his fall to the fall of Babylon and to call him Traytor Judas Jechonias he has also alledged the Example of Stephen Bishop of Rome who in the Quarrel that he had with Saint Cyprian calls him a false Christ a false Apostle and deceitful worker But the Author of the Prejudices does not think that these Examples are to the purpose He says That the Difference between Saint Chrysostome and Saint Jerome and Saint Cyril respected only personal Actions in which none ever denied but that it might happen to the Saints themselves to be surprized in respect of one another But this is only a shift for if we may understand that it has hapned to the Saints to be violently carried out against another Saint after the fiercest manner in the World upon personal differences which have no other Foundations then a Surprise I see not why we may not also understand that it may happen to good men to be violently carried out against one another about the points of Religion which afford a more just pretence of Animosity when each thinks he has the Truth of his side Before I let go this Example I cannot forbear noting by the by that it is but very ill to the purpose that the Author of the Prejudices censures M. Daille for having said that Theophilus of Alexandria and Epiphanius had condemned Excommunicated and deposed Chrysostom from his Bishoprick for it is evident to those who are not ignorant of History that Theophilus condemned and deposed him and that Epiphanius being gone to Constantinople before that same condemnation refused to hold Communion with Chrysostom which is precisely that which M. Daille would have said But the Author of the Prejudices does not Answer me better upon the Quarrel of Saint Cyprian and Stephen Their difference says he was only upon a point which had not then been decided by the Church This Evasion is very pittiful The more trivial the occasion is about which one is violent that passion is both the more blameable and the prejudice against the persons who are so carried away with it is the better grounded To Answer after that manner aggravates the passion of Stephen in stead of excusing it Stephen adds he who had more reason at the bottom was carried out by the ardour of his Zealonly to some threats of Excommunication Or if you will to an Excommunication which having had no ground would have produced no real division and would not have hindred but that Saint Cyprian should still have been honoured by the Church of Rome and Saint Stephen by that of Africa It is not certain that Stephen had more reason at the bottom then Saint Cyprian on the contrary there were in their days as many Hereticks at least whose Baptism ought to have been rejected as there was whose ought to have been admitted And as for the rest whether Stephen had in effect Excommunicated Saint Cyprian or whether he had meerly threatned it what is that to our Question If he contented himself with a meer Threatning of it he remained in Communion with a man whom he called a false Christ a. false Apostle a. deceitful Worker and with a man whom on his part he accused of Stupidity of Pride of Obstinacy of Presumption of Folly of blindness of Mind and of Wickedness He abode in Communion with Firmilianus who had the same interests with Saint Cyprian and who also accused Stephen of Inhumanity Boldness of Insolence of Schism and manifest Folly who compared him to Judas and said of him that he took part with Hereticks If he actually Excommunicated them it further notes the excess of his Passion which could not in effect have been Judged to have been less then a Passion and a violent heat since according to the Author of the Prejudices himself it would have had no ground and would not have hindred but that Saint Cyprian should have been always honoured by the Church of Rome Since the Author of the Prejudices was in the way to refute the Answer of M. Daille it had possibly more conduced to the publick Edification if in stead of shallowly insisting on those remote Examples he had applied himself to that wherein M. Daille adjoyns the fierce injuries wherewith the Divines of the Roman Church may be every day seen to rend one another although they then remain and though they yet live in one and the same Communion They acknowledge one another for Brethren they assist at the same Altars they call upon the same Saints and yet nevertheless as M. Daille relates they write one against another after the most passionate and violent manner in the World One sort of them say of their Adversaries That they were infected with Heresies and were Enemies of the Apostolick See and that their Opinion was full of Heresie and Perfidiousness That it was Presumptious Injurious to the State of the Religious and that it savoured of Calvinism and to speak Plainly that it was Erroneous in the Faith that it openly stifled the word of God and the Authority of the Fathers that it was blasphemous against Jesus Christ and all the Saints plainly and evidently Heretical and contrary to the Council of Trent The others say on the contrary That the Propositions which they have laid down were false rash presumptious pernitious to all faithful People that they were Erroneous and injurious to the Bishops tending to overthrow or disturb the Hierarchy and that
have us that we should be with her For in respect of the Lutherans the business is only about a meer Toleration which we give to those among them who desire it with a Spirit of Charity waiting till it shall please God to dissipate their Error But the Church of Rome that calls it self infallible would have us not only to have a meer Toleration for her but that we should make a profession of believing all that she believes for when she separated her self from us she Anathematised all those who did not believe all that she had decided in her Council of Trent The Matters therefore are not equal between the Roman and the Lutheran Communion in respect of us To put them into an Equality it is necessary that the Roman Church should openly put her self into the state wherein the Lutherans are that she renounce the Invocation of Saints Religious worship of Images humane Satisfactions Indulgences Purgatory the worshipping of Relliques the publick Service in an unknown Tongue the merit of good Works Transubstantiation Adoration of the Sacrament the Sacrifice of the Mess the Papal Monarchy the pretension of Infallibility the blind Obedience that she would have us give to her decisions It is necessary that she should acknowledge the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith and manners that she should carefully recommend the Reading of them to the People that she should confess their sufficiency without the help of tradition that she should believe the Authority of that Scripture independent even in respect of us on that of the Church that she should distinctly lay down the Doctrine of Justification and that of the distinction of the Law and the Gospel that she should form a Just Idea of the Faith and of good works and that she should take care to abolish all the popular Superstitions which we behold among them When she shall have done all that with some other things which the Lutherans have done also although she do retain the point of the Real presence after the same manner that they do we shall not fail to offer her the same Toleration which we yield to the Lutherans and the same conditions which we give to them which is that we should not engage our selves to believe that presence that we should always protest against it as an Error and that they shall do nothing to force us to embrace it When the Church of Rome shall be in that condition which I have set down if we do not make her these offers if we do not even make them with all the ardour imaginable we will be very well contented in that Case that they should accuse us of humane Policy and that they should tell us that we are a sort of men without any Conscience Justice and Charity But 'till then we will take God and men to witness that there is not the least equity in those invectives and that it is to oppress our innocency to ascribe that as the Author of the Prejudices has done to an interested Policy or a capricious humour which is but too well founded upon the things themselves See here what I had to say upon the Twelfth Chapter of the Author of the Prejudices It may now be Judged of what force his Accusations are We should after that pass on to his Thirteenth Chapter But as that Chapter is but a sending us to a Book of Monsieur Arnaud's Intituled The Overthrow of the Morals of Jesus Christ by the Calvinists I shall also content my self with referring my Readers to the Answer which I hope to make him It shall suffice for the present to say That the Doctrine of the Saints Perseverance as the Synod of Dort has laid it down is a Doctrine of the Scripture and that all the pretended Consequences which Monsieur Arnaud would draw from it are of the same nature of those which profane Persons draw from all the Doctrines of Religion when they would abuse them to their Ruin CHAP. VIII That our Fathers in their Design of Reforming themselves were bound to take the Holy Scripture alone for the Rule of their Faith IT it now necessary to Examine by what Principle or upon what Rule our Fathers proceeded in their Reformation But before we go any further we shall do well to weigh what the Author of the Prejudices says who has made an express Chapter upon this matter The Argument of that Chapter is framed in these words That the way which the Calvinists propound to instruct men in the Truth is ridiculous and impossible After having entred upon his subject As the matter is saith he about the promise which they make of discovering divers Truths of the Faith to the Catholicks which are in their Judgments obscured and quite altered in the Church of Rome there will be nothing more Just or more natural then in the first place to inquire into the way which they would take to perform it to the end that we may Judge by the very nature of that way what we may justly expect For if it be found that they would engage us in an infinite way and which could not come to an issue there could not be a more lawful excuse to hinder us from hearkening to them nor a more evident conviction of the rashness of their enterprise Behold here methinks Two Declarations of that Author sufficiently express concerning the means which we propound to instruct men in the Truth the one That it is a ridiculous and impossible way and the other That it is an infinite way c. and which can come to no issue for we may well perceive that that Periphrasis of expression If it be found that they would engage us in an infinite way c. made use of in the beginning of a Disputation means that it will be so found in effect and that it is as much as if it had been positively said they would engage us in an infinite way and which has no end there being no other difference between those two expressions unless that this latter is the more plain and that the other has more of the Air of the Philosophical Method of those Gentlemen After that preamble the Author goes on It is true says he that if we will hear them speak upon this subject without any more deep searehing into that which they say we shall have reason enough to be satisfied For they baldly promise to lead us to the Faith by a short an easy and a clear way without confusion without danger of wandring aside and this way say they is the Examination of the Articles of the Faith by the Scripture which is the only Rule that God has given us for the deciding of the differences of Religion and assuring us of what we ought to believe all others being subject to Error This is the Explication of the way which we propose which is to take the Holy Scripture for the only Rule of our Faith He adds But because in a
Parishioners of Saint Hilary Montanus But on the contrary in the view of that Ignorance under which they were held For see how they speak Our Lord said I have Compassion on the Multitude for they have nothing to eat and you see the Complaint that the Prophet made The Children ask for Bread and there is none to give unto them It were a small matter if they would content themselves with the not giving them the Bread of the Gospel They will not suffer them to take it and if they take it They snatch it out of their Hands They do not Instruct them and they would hinder them so that they should not Instruct thenselves out of the word of God and that that Prophecy should not be accomplish'd Erunt omnes docibiles Deo and they shall be taught of God I thought my self bound to make these first Reflections to shew the injustice and inequality of these men that we have to do with Nihil est says Cicero quod minus ferendum sit quam rationem vitae ab altero reposcere eum quinon posset suae reddere Notwithstanding after having a little cooled that impetuous motion of the Author of the Prejudices I shall not fail to Justify our Fathers touching the Principle upon which they made their Reformation I say then in the first place That they could not in that State wherein things were take the Church in their days for the Rule of their Faith without renouncing Common sence The Church in their days or to speak better that which they would call the Church was made up of Three sorts of persons The Court of Rome the Prelats and the other Clergy and the People The Court of Rome was the source of all evil it was that that had spread abroad all the Errors and Superstitions in the Latin Church or that had at least fomented and maintained them when they took their rise elsewhere Her Usurpations and the disorder of her Government was one of the complaints of our Fathers They complained of her Principles her Maxims and some decisions of the Faith which she had caused to pass in Councils that were servilely subjected to her will and her interests She was therefore a resolute party in this affair evidently interested and by consequence uncapable of Judging It is True that she called her self the Mother and the Mistress of all Churches and that one of her pretensions was Infallibility in the Faith But that very thing was one of the Errors of which our Fathers required a correction whatever probability she had of ascribing it to her self Adrian the sixth acknowledged a great part of the disorders of that Court in his instructions to his Nuntio whom he sent to the Diet of Nuremberg as we have already seen and the General voice of the whole Church which demanded a long time ago a Reformation in capite membris make it known enough to leave us out of all doubt Moreover the Court of Rome did so loudly and vehemently declare her self against a Reformation that it could not be any further hoped for and why should our Fathers have taken her for the Rule of Faith since not only the Gallican Church who lived in Communion with her maintained that she was not but even the Experience of many years had very evidently shewed that she could not be Does not Tertullian turned Montanist Testify That Eleutherius Bishop of Rome had received the Prophecies of Montanus of Priscilla and Maximilla and that he had already wrote Letters of Communion to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia which were Montanists and that those Letters should have their effect although Praxeas had not made them to be recalled in relating false things concerning those Churches and their Prophets And has not the sixth General Council condemned Pope Honorius as a Monothelite Heretick with Sergius Patriaerch of Constantinople and some others I know that some have said that that Council was deceived in the business of Honorius but without entring upon that Question in which it is certain that they deceive themselves as not long since P. Louis Thomassin Priest of the Oratory in his Dissertation about that sixth Council has acknowledged It is enough that that Council condemned Honorius for an Heretick and that it proscribed his name and his Memory For that Condemnation after what manner soever it hapned is an Authentick Declaration that a General Council has held that Popes may Err and by eonsequence that they are not the Rule of Faith And it is nothing to the purpose to say as P. Thomassin has done that Henorius Erred only in the quality of a private man and not as Pope or to speak more properly That he did not Err but only that he had a mind to make use of a Dispensation for the procuring the peace of the Church which was divided about the Question whether there were two wills and two operations in Jesus Christ or whether there was but one and that he desired that they would be silent about that point Which side soever they chuse it will always follow from that Example of Honorius that the Bishops of Rome are not the Rule of Faith For to make a Rule of Faith it is not enough to be exempt from Error either in quality of Popes or even in the quality of private men it is further necessary that they should be always in a state of not fomenting or entertaining Heresy but of opposing it on the contrary of condemning it when it has made any progress and of maintaining the True Faith But this is that which they cannot say of Honorius in respect of the Heresy of the Monothelites That Heresy had over-ran all the East the Patriarchates of the East were infected with it the Emperour Heraclius had established it by a publick Edict a Council it self held at Constantinople had confirmed it whether therefore they say that Honorius embraced Heresy in quality of a private man or whether they say that by a false Dispensation he would only have imposed silence on the Orthodox which way soever they take it is manifest that he was not in a state under the quality of Pope to put a stop to the course of Heresy nor to succour the true Faith For what likelyhood is there that as Pope he should have condemned himself as a private man or that in quality of Pope or as they speak ex cathedra he should have Published the Truth that ought to be held while his own private opinion was that he should hold his peace about it and suppress it It is therefore a Mockery to make a Rule of Faith of such a Pope who through his own private Heresy or his imprudent Dispensation could not hinder Monothelism from Triumphing And it cannot be a less one if they should pretend that the Church of Rome should be the True Rule of Faith while such Popes are her Head since she can do nothing without them and since they might
without a Case of necessity but only at the Solemn Feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide of giving of Milk and Honey to the Baptized of Administring the Eucharist to little Children after Baptism of Praying standing upon the Lords day and from Easter till Whitsuntide of Celebrating the Communion on the Evening of Fast-days of every ones carrying home with him a piece of the Bread of the Communion of distributing the Cup to all the faithful Communicants of receiving the Communion not on ones Knees but standing of mutually kissing one another before the Communion and divers others which the Latins have Abrogated On the other side how many Latin Traditions are there which the use of the Church of Rome Authorises at this Day of which we cannot find the least Trace in the Primitive Church and which from thence visibly discover themselves to be New and by consequence false and not Apostolical as the Worshipping of Images Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Adoration of the Host Use of Altars that of Lights or Tapers Masses without any Communion the Divine Service in a Tongue not understood by the People the Soveraign Authority of the Church of Rome over all other Churches Auricular Confession the Number of the seven Sacraments and as many more that the Primitive Church which came nearest to the Apostles never knew as we have often Justified from whence it follows that they are not Apostolical and descending from that only and last Revelation without which there is no word of God There is therefore nothing more improper to be the Rule of Faith then that pretended Tradition which is not established upon any certain Foundation which serves for a pretence to Hereticks which is embraced pro and con which changes according as times and places do and by the favour of which they may defend the greatest absurdiries by meerly saying that they are the Traditions which the Apostles Transmitted from their own Mouths to their Successours In a word if they would have us to believe a Mystery with a Divine Faith if they would that we should practise a Worship with a perswasion that it is agreeable to God they ought to shew us that that Mystery and that Worship proceeds from the Revelation of Jesus Christ and his Apostles for without that all that is in the World is of Men's Invention since after Christ and his Apostles there has been no Revelation as we are both agreed But they can only shew us that by these two ways either by that of the Scripture in shewing us that those Mysteries and that Worship are conformable to it or by that of Transmission viva voce But as to that Transmission viva voce we are so far from being able to have a Divine certainty that we can't have so much as a humane for the Reasons which I have alleadged Which are that from the beginning of Christianity Hereticks have boasted of them and yet they were not believed for them that the Orthodox themselves were deceived in them alleadging them in false and vain things which the following Ages have rejected that the Schismatical Churches alledge them against the Latins and the Latins against the Schismaticks without one sides having any better ground then the other that the Church of Rome sets them before us for those New things which the first Ages never knew It remains therefore that the way of the Conformity to the Scripture upon which we are all agreed is that in which the Divine Revelation is contained CHAP. IX An Examination of the Objections which the Author of the Prejudices makes against the Scripture BUt this way of the Scripture according to the Author of the Prejudices is Infinite Ridiculous Impossible it has such consusions and length that we cannot come to the end of it with all our diligence The Principle of the Calvinists says he includes all these Maxims without which it cannot subsist 1. That the Church is not infallible in its decisions concerning the Faith 2. That Traditions do not make any part of the Rule of the Faith 3. That the Scripture contains in general all the points of Faith and so that whatsoever is not contained in the Scripture cannot be of Faith 4. That it contains them clearly and after a manner that is fitted to the under standing of all the World So that the certainty of that way and the hope that we can rationally conceive of it must depend upon the certainty of these Maxims Upon that we must note that it is not here Questioned whether the Scripture be Divine or not but that supposing that it is so he says only That he must demand of us those formal and decisive passages that prove those four Propositions And that when we do propose any one we must first be assured that it is taken out of a Canonical Book and to that effect we must examine the controversy of the Canonical Books and see by what Rules they may be known 2. We must be certain that that passage is conformable to the Original and to that effect we must consult the Originals 3. We must be certain that there are not different ways of Reading it that may weaken the proof 4. That we must narrowly see into the sence of the passage not to give it too great a Latitude nor to blind our selves with an appearance 5. That we must see whether there are no expressions or contrary passages which force us to take the passage in another sence 6. That we ought to consult the Interpreters of one side and of the other and to know what they say upon that passage 7. That after this we must come to the distinction of Fundamental points and those that are not Fundamental and prove it by Scripture 8. That we must examine the passages which each Sect produces in its Favour 9. That lastly after all this it is necessary that a man should trust his own Eyes and his Memory which failing to go through all the former reasons and preserving only a consused Idea of them will not further allow him to make a Just Judgment of things He concludes from thence that this way is not only interrupted with unconquerable difficulties and obstacles but that it is of a length so little proportioned to mens minds that it is evident that it cannot be that which God has chosen to instruct us in the Truths by which he would lead us to Salvation For says he if they themselves who make a profession of spending all their lives in the Study of Divinity ought to Judge that Examination to be above their abilities what will become of those who are obliged to spend the greatest part of their Time in other Occupations What will become of Judges Magistrates Tradesmen Labourers Souldiers Women Children who have as yet a very weak Judgment What will become of those who do not understand so much as any of the Languages into the which the Bible is Translated What will become of the blind who know not
its greatest contests with the Latin was always a Catholick Church she was of as great Antiquity as the Roman she had an uninterrupted duration from many Ages ago she had her large extent and her multitude as well as the Roman she had a Personal Succession of her Bishops down from the Apostles she gloried in a Conformity to the Doctrine of the Fathers she had her members united among themselves and with her Patriarchs she did no less then the Roman affirm her Doctrine to be Holy and her word to be Efficacious and that her Authors were holy men she has yet at this day her Miracles which she boasts of she had her Prophets and Temporal Prosperity in a word she might propound all that which the Church of Rome alleadges The Aethiopian Church on her side may do it as much and yet nevertheless those Marks no ways conclude a Soveraign and Infallible Authority for them they do not therefore conclude it for the Roman Church The Second Reason is that of all those pretended marks some are disputed with the Church of Rome others are fallaciously attributed to it and others conclude nothing less then that which they pretend We dispute with her her Conformity to the Fathers the Unity of her Members between themselves and with their Head the Holiness of her Doctrine and the Efficacy of her Word It is true that she boasts of these advantages but if we should come to examine them we should find they would have nothing of Solidity in them she fallaciously ascribes to her self the name of the Catholick The Antiquity and Holiness of her Authors Miracles Prophecy and the Personal Succession of her Bishops For before they can make any advantage of those marks they ought to shew that she is a Catholick not only in name but in deed that she has chang'd nothing in the Antient Doctrine nor in the Antient worship that she has in nothing degenerated from her first Authors that she is conformable to her first Christians whose Miracles and Prophecys are beyond all question that her Bishops are the Successors of the Mind and Doctrine as well as of the Sees of the Antient Bishops and unless they do so those marks are an Illusion She produces others which conclude nothing less then that which she should conclude as the Multitude of her Children or the largeness of her extent and Temporal Prosperity which are wordly advantages more proper to denote a corruption then an Infallibility The third Reason is That there are contrary Characters in the Church of Rome which note not only that she has been and that she is yet subject to err but that she has actually err'd and we have propos'd some in the beginning of this Treatise which it may be deserve to be better consider'd No man can therefore establish any thing of certainty upon those pretended external marks and in general that principle of the Soveraign and Infallible Authority of the Church of Rome cannot be a matter of divine Faith on which side soever he takes it nor by Consequence can any of those things be so which depend upon that Authority See here then the Obligation which lies upon those in the Roman Communion to the Author of the Prejudices for having thus Abolish'd all manner of Divine Faith for those things which that Church teaches by her Authority in shutting up as he has done the way of the Scripture with his Obstacles and unconquerable Difficulties he has reduc'd all to meer Conjectures or almost all to humane Testimonies Is it therefore after that manner that he would have us believe Transubstantiation the Real presence Purgatory The Sacrifice of the Mass Is it upon the Foundations of that nature that he would have us to Invocate Saints that we should worship Images That we should adore the Host and receive the Indulgences of the Pope and Absolutions of their Confessors But he has done yet worse for it is not only the Laity and private men from whom he has taken away a divine Faith he has torn it away even from the whole Body of his Church from her Prelats her Popes and her Councils since if this Point of their Soveraign and Infallible Authority is founded upon nothing but Conjectures and humane Testimonies They can neither have a Divine Faith for those Conjectures and those humane Testimonies nor for all those other things which depend upon them Have they a Revelation an immediate Illumination that instructs them There is no more either for the Popes or Councils Should they have it from the Scripture The Author of the Prejudices has told them that it is an Infinite a Ridiculous way to Instruct men in the Truth a path which we cannot know how to find an end of whatsoever Diligence we use But it may be he says that only for the Laity and not for the Clergy Let us see his words Even those says he who profess to spend their whole Lives in the Study of Divinity ought to judge that Examination to be above all their Abilities The Church of Rome the Body of her Prelats the Councils cannot at furthest but be made up of those men who profess to spend their whole Lives in the Study of Divinity and that Examination is above all their Abilities He ought not to say that they can altogether do that which it would be impossible for each one to do in particular For when they go about to decide the matters of Faith by their Soveraign Authority as they pretend that Councils should do each particular man ought to be assured by himself of the Truth and not to refer himself to the knowledge of his Brethren With what Conscience therefore can they exercise their Authority With what Conscience can they decide the points of the Faith and propose them to be believed as points of a Divine Faith With what Conscience can they retain men in their Dependance And with what Conscience can men remain therein The Author of the Prejudices may disintangle this Business with his Church as it shall please him we have no peculiar Interest in it but only to let him see more and more the Truth of that which I have said elsewhere that he does not sufficiently consider what he has wrote Let us grant him that there is no necessity of a Divine Faith for the establishing of that Article of the Soveraign and Infallible Authority of the Roman Church let us yield if he will have it so that he may be contented with the having a humane certainty such as he may have it is clear that whether he takes the way of Tradition or that of the Examination of the External marks we shall find the same Difficulties there thes me Obstacles the same Hindrances the same length that the Author of the Prejudices pretends to have discovered in the way of the Scripture And as the External Marks themselves cannot be otherwise justified then by Tradition it shall suffice to shew what I have
all that it is necessary that every one should mistrust his own Eyes and the defects of his memory and that he should be always recollecting his first thoughts to keep himself from passing a wrong Judgment In fine we will also demand of the Author of the Prejudices whether he would not give the Scripture this Honour to reckon it for one part of Tradition since it contains the first Sermons of the Apostles from whence we may draw a great deal of light for the deciding of the Question upon which we are which is that of the Authority and Infallibility of the Church of Rome For how can any man rationally determine himself upon a point of that weight without consulting the first and the most Antient piece of Tradition But that being so we see here how we are fallen back into the difficulties and perplexities which the Author of the Prejudices pretends to be unconquerable And as those Gentlemen are liable enough to be beaten with their own Weapons we will only turn against him the conclusions that he pretends to draw against us from his Principles and demand of him Whether he believes this way very proper for those who are Obliged to spend the greatest part of their time in other Employments Whether he believes it proper for Judges Magistrats Tradesmen Labourers Souldiers Women Children for those who do not understand any of the Languages into which the Fathers are Translated for the Blind who cannot Read and for those who have no quickness of understanding If I only propounded to my self to refute this Author I might content my self with what I have said and wait with patience for what he should have to propose to disintangle his Catechumeni from the Difficulties and lengths whereinto he himself has plunged them But because I desire also to satisfy mens Con Consciences I think my self bound to Answer directly to his Objections Let us therefore see those four Maxims which he says our Principle includes and without which he is certain it cannot subsist As to the first we shall tell him that it does not belong to us to lay down the proofs of this Proposition That the Church of Rome for this is that we are about is not infallible in her decisions concerning the Faith she is naturally subject to be deceived if she pretends to have a priviledge that exempts her from a weakness common to all men it belongs to her to shew it and to convince the world of it but till then we shall always have a ground to presume that she is subject to that general Law and that is sufficient without any other proof to hinder us from acknowledging her for the Rule of Faith As to the Second which is That Traditions do not make up any part of the Rule of Faith we shall tell him That it is not necessarily incumbent on us to bring a passage of Scripture to exclude Traditions that Common sence is enough for that because it dictates to all men even to the most simple if they would take heed that after sixteen hundred years or thereabouts which are gone since the Apostles days Tradition cannot but be a very confused and uncertain thing and that being so vagous as it is after its having passed through the hands of an infinite number of men naturally unsetled and changeable it is not imaginable that they should not have altered increased lessened it since that happens through a long tract of Time to all other things and by consequence that it could not at present but be out of a condition to serve for a Rule of Faith Thus far the most simple are within the limits of nature and general Experience If they pretend that Tradition ought to be exempted it does not belong to us to shew that it is not it is their part who make that pretension to produce their Reasons and yet for all that it must be presumed on the side of Nature and general Experience It appears therefore already that the Two First Propositions which our Hypothesis includes according to the Author of the Prejudices to wit That the Church of Rome is not Infallible in its decisions concerning the Faith and that Traditions do not make up any part of the Rule of Faith do not give us the least difficulty but they give an infinite one to our adversaries For they ought solidly to prove the contrary Propositions not only to the Learnned and knowing persons but to the most simple also to Tradesmen to Labourers to Souldiers to Women and generally to all or otherwise they abuse their credulity retaining them without Reason and without Justice in their Communion in which they cannot remain with a good Conscience unless they are assured of the Truth of these two Articles That the Church of Rome is Infallible in her decisions of Faith and that Traditions make up a part of the Rule of Faith But how can those people have that certainty As for what respects the Third Proposition to wit That the Scripture contains all the points of the Faith generally it has no more need then the others to be proved by passages of Scripture It is sufficient to establish it to see that we cannot be assured of the Faith either by the decisions of the Church or Tradition For that thing it self necessarily leads all Christians to the Scripture alone there being nothing besides the decisions of the Church and Tradition that can Dispute a part with it There remains therefore only the Fourth Proposition which is That the Scriptures generally contain all the points of Faith after a manner fitted to the understandings of all the World But this proposition so framed is not ours neither is it included in our Hypothesis We only say that that which the Scripture contains in a manner fitted to the understanding of all the World concerning the Faith and Manners is sufficient for Salvation provided that moreover they have not Errors that hinder that effect But there is no need of proving this proposition by Texts of Scripture It sufficiently proves it self as well by the very nature of the things that the Scripture clearly Teaches as by the light of common sence and the first notions of the Conscience For those first notions dictate to all Christians that although God be free in the dispensation of his Call he is notwithstanding in good earnest towards all those to whom his Call is addressed and that there being among those the weak as well as the strong the simple as well as the Learned it must necessarily be concluded that he would render his Salvation inaccessible or impossible to the simpler sort provided that they seriously applyed themselves to it according to their Call The Author of the Prejudices himself acknowledges this Principle and he calls it a principle of common sence He draws ill consequences from it but the True Consequence that must be drawn is Those things which the Scripture clearly Teaches and after a manner
necessary to Salvation I will maintain to him that his proposition is impious that it manifestly tends to make Socinians and Arrians to be received into the Church and almost all Hereticks since it bannishes out of the number of the Articles of the Faith all the Tenets which those Hereticks dispute and which they do not see in the Scripture But it is not very difficult to satisfy that demand I speak of such a clearness as will convince a sincere person who does not blind himself either by passion or malice or interest or prejudice but lets his Reason and his Conscience act in good Earnest This is well near the Answer that the Author of the Prejudices would make if we asked him the same Question touching the clearness which he pretends there is in Tradition or in the infallible voice of the Church for his Justice is so great that he does never propose any difficulties of our Principle to us which are not common to the Principle of the Church of Rome and which by consequence he would not be bound to answer himself as well as we Notwithstanding I shall tell him that he grosly deceives himself if he imagins that we will only acknowledge those things for Articles of Faith which are clearly contained in the Scripture It is true that we acknowledging them only for the Articles of Faith which are necessary to the Salvation of the most simple does not hinder but that other things which are contained in the Scripture with less evidence may also be Articles of the Faith although not absolutely necessary for all that which is in the Scripture after what manner soever it be contained there is of Faith He does not less deceive himself if he imagins that although the Articles which the Socinians and Arrians and other Hereticks dispute were of the number of those which are not so clearly contained in the Scripture and the knowledge of which is not absolutely necessary to the Salvation of the simple yet that we ought to receive those Hereticks into the Church There is a great difference between simple persons who do not conceive a Fundamental Truth otherwise then under a general notion and indistinctly without going any farther and those going so far as a distinct Idea of the Truth expresly deny it and substitute a false and deceitful Idea in its place The former may be in a State of Salvation and ought to be received into the Church whereas the second sort ought to be banished as persons infected with a pernitious Error A Peasant may be made to believe in good earnest that Jesus Christ is God and that the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are but one only God without going any farther because he will not understand the terms of Nature Essence Person Hypostatical Union and others that are made use of upon that subject and he will also be ignorant of the subtil and frivolous distinctions of the Hereticks Who can deny that such a man holds the Truth under a General Idea And who will not yet place a very great difference between him and a Socinian who very well knowing what these Propositions mean Jesus Christ is God by his Essence The Father Son and Holy-Ghost are Three Persons and one only Divine Nature will deny them and substitute in their places these other Propositions Jesus Christ is God only by the dignity of his Office and Glory of his Exaltation The Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost being only so by Denomination It would be a very hard case in my Judgment to exclude the former from the Church but it would be a sin to admit the latter and this shews us by the way the falshood of the reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices But we ought to resume our discourse I say therefore the same thing of the Third condition as of the two Former The things whereof we treat perswade themselves and make themseves to be perceived as true and Divine as well by the weakest as the strongest For although the weaker are not in a condition to render a Reason exactly of their perswasion as a Learned man would do yet notwithstanding we must not doubt but they are rightly perswaded A Tradesman a Peasant a Labourer know not how to explain either the rules of right reasoning or the mediums that Logick affords to discover the faults of Sophistry or false reasoning and yet nevertheless they do yet apprehend a just reasoning and reject a bad It is the same thing of a good Doctrine and a false the weaker sort may receive the one and reject the other when it shall be presented to them and they would make that discernment by the meer Judgment of their Consciences though they should not be capable of Explaining their Reasons well For there are two ways of being perswaded of a Truth and knowing a falshood the one is by a simple apprehension and the other by reflection the first comes from a meer impression of the Objects that make themselves to be discerned by their very nature and the other comes from Meditation and Study through the application of certain Rules I confess that there is more confusion in the first but that has also sometimes more force and more certainty then the Second As for that which regards the Fourth Condition which is That the Faith should be pure and free'd from every damnable Error besides that which I have said that the meer sentiment of Conscience is enough for the weaker sort to make them discern the good from the bad and by Consequence to reject the false Doctrines that shall concern their Salvation besides that I say it is certain that damnable Errors that is to say those which are incompatible with a true and saving Faith have a natural repugnancy with the Truths that are Essential to Religion wherewith the simpler sort are endowed so that those Truths alone are sufficient for the rejection of Errors without any absolute necessity that they should have a greater stock of Learning For Example The principle of the Adoration of one only God in the Souls of the weakes sort in our Communion is sufficient to make them reject a Religious worship paid to Creatures without their lying under a necessity of entring further into the Controversy which we have with the Church of Rome upon that subject The Principle of confidence in God alone is sufficient to make them reject invocation of Saints and Angels and a confidence in their merits The principle of the one only Sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross for the Expiation of our sins is sufficient to make them reject humane Satisfactions Purgatory and the Indulgences of the Pope The Principle of the Mediation of one only Jesus Christ is sufficient to make them reject the Intercession of Saints and Angels The Principle of the Truth of the humane nature of Jesus Christ like unto us in all things except sin is sufficient to make them reject the Real Presence
eyes of God We may say that this confusion is the source of all their Errors and the foundation of all their Fallacies which they make on this matter We ought therefore in order to our judging aright of a Separation to represent this Distinction to our selves and to form within our selves a just Idea of it For in the first place it is without all doubt that we never ought to separate our selves from the Communion of the truly Faithful who alone are the Spouse of Jesus Christ and his Mystical Body If such a Separation should go so far as to break the Internal Bond of that Communion which consists in having the same Faith and Christian Holiness we could not make it without separating our selves at the same time from Jesus Christ himself and by consequence depriving our selves of all hopes of salvation since there is no Name under Heaven given by which men may be saved but only that of Jesus Christ If it should not go so far as to break the bond of Internal Communion but only of the External that is to say no longer to acknowledge others for our Brethren and Members of the same Body nor to frequent the same Assemblies with them this is a True Schism which offends against the Laws of Charity and which the Authors shall especially answer for before the Judgement-seat of God And such were the Schisms of the Novatians the Donatists the Luciferians and many others which were founded meerly upon personal interests or at least upon light and frivolous pretences It is further beyond doubt that we ought not to break that External Communion which it has with the worldly and profane that are mixt in a Religious Society while they make a profession of the true Faith practising a sincere Worship and submitting themselves to that Rule of Manners which the Gospel layes down to us although otherwise their Lives and Actions should very ill answer their Profession I confess that every Church well ordered ought to have its Laws for the repressing of the Vicious and leading them back to repentance and that when it cannot come to that end by the way of Exhortation and Censure it has a right absolutely to cut them off from the body of that Society But besides that those kinds of Excommunications ought never to fall upon a whole people or upon a whole multitude for fear of involving the innocent with the guilty they never ought to be used but in respect of impenitent sinners only obstinate in their crimes and publickly maintaining them For the rest we ought to agree that an exact discerning of the good and the wicked will not be made till the last day and that till then God would have us suffer that mixture without partaking with the sins of the wicked and without approving them but yet without breaking under that pretence the bond of External Communion The Reason of this conduct is that it would not be possible for one to deprive ones self of the communion of the wicked without depriving ones self at the same Time of that of many righteous as St. Augustine has very well demonstrated against the Donatists So that it would not be a sufficient reason for forsaking the communion of a Church only to alledge a general depravation of manners even when it should be true that it did reign therein But it is no less certain that when it falls out that one party of the Church considered in the second respect that is to say in as much as it is a mingled Body of good and bad should confirm it self in Errors and in practices contrary to the service of God and the salvation of men and that not only it rejects the instructions given it upon that occasion but would even force all others to have the same sentiments and to practise the same Worship the Separation of the other Party is just necessary and indispensable It is just for every where where there can be nothing else but an unjust Communion there is Justice in a Separation from it But there can be nothing else but an unjust Communion with a Party which essentially destroyes the True Worship of God which shuts up it self in Errors directly contrary to mens salvation and which through an intolerable Tyranny would constrain all those who live in it to make a Profession of the same Errors It is then just for a man to separate himself from it But I say further that that Separation is necessary and indispensable for divers Reasons The First of all is because of the visible danger whereby a man would insensibly expose himself to let his Faith be corrupted and his Worship be violated by the commerce which that same Communion would force him to In effect when a man is in those Assemblies and sees himself under one and the same Ministry with persons infected with Errors and engaged in a false Worship and who would force all others to be there too what caution soever he should use it is impossible that he should preserve himself in Purity or at least that he should not be in continual danger of corrupting himself or falling into hypocrisie in making a profession to believe that which he does not He ought therefore to separate himself Secondly He ought to do so by reason of the inevitable danger to which he would expose his children For if it should be true that Adult persons might live in communion with such a Party as I have suppos'd without being infected with its poyson or without being hypocrites which it is no wayes possible for them to do it would not be conceivable that their children could be exempted from that danger by ordinary wayes whatsoever care they should elsewhere take of their education It would be therefore to prostitute and destroy them and by consequence for a man to destroy himself for every one ought to answer before God for the salvation of his children as his own But besides these two interests which impose an indispensable necessity on him it is 3. further certain that a man could not without a crime nor even without a manifest contradiction own those for his brethren whom he believes God does not own for his children and who are not in a condition to become such A Religious Society is a Mystical Family into which to judge of it according to its natural appointment one ought to admit those only who may be charitably and rationally judg'd to be in a state of Adoption towards God and at the farthest such as are apparently in a state of Conversion or of Repentance and in regard even of these latter there ought to be some Time suspended before the giving them external pledges of that Communion till their Conversion or their Repentance appear more fully They suffer the wicked to be there when their birth or their hypocrisie have externally introduc'd them only by accident to avoid troubles and scandals And therefore it was that the Ancient Church acknowledg'd
but three sorts of persons only to be in its Communion the Faithful the Catechumeni and the Penitents but as for those who taught false Doctrine or practis'd a false Worship it never had any Union with them Not only the Ancients had no Communion with them but to shew how necessary and indispensable they judg'd a separation from them to be they went so far as to refuse their Communion with the Orthodox themselves when either by surprise or weakness or some other interest they had receiv'd Hereticks into their Communion altho' as to themselves they had kept their Faith in its Purity We find in the Life of Gregory Nazianzen that his Father who was also called Gregory and who was Bishop of Nazianzen before him having been deceiv'd by a fallacious Writing and having given his Communion to the Arians all the Monks of his Diocess with the greatest part of his Church separated themselves from him altho' they well knew that he had not changed his mind nor embraced Heresie And even the Orthodox of the Church of Rome refused to hold Communion with Pope Felix as Theodoret tells us altho' he intirely held the Creed of the Council of Nice because he held Communion with the Arians This I mention not absolutely to approve of that carriage but only to shew how far their aversion went heretofore which they had for holding Communion with Hereticks Those who are prepossess'd against all sorts of Separation in the Matters of Religion ought to remember that the obligation that lyes upon them to hold Communion with those with whom they are externally joyn'd is not without its bounds and measures We are joyn'd together under certain conditions which are principally the profession of a pure faith or at least such as is free from all damnable Errors a Worship freed from all that which is opposite to the essence of Piety in a word a Publick Ministry under which we may work out our own salvation While these conditions remain they make the Communion subsist but when they fail the Communion fails also and there is a just ground for a Separation provided we observe these necessary Cautions They cannot say in this case that we separate our selves from the Church nor that we forsake her Communion or that we break her Unity For the forsaken party being truly such as we suppose it ought not to be any more looked on as the Church of Jesus Christ but only as a party of the worldly who were before mingled with the Truly Faithful and who through their obstinacy in their Errors and false Worship had discover'd themselves and had themselves torn off the vail which as yet confounded them after a manner with the others The Orthodox in the first Ages did not in the least break the Unity of the Church when they would not hold Communion with the Valentinians the Marcionites the Montanists the Manichees and the other Heterodox of those times as I have noted already no more than those who with so much constancy and resolution refused to hold Communion with the Arrians We ought not therefore presently to condemn all kind of Separation and since there are such kinds of it as are necessary just and lawful as there are such as are unjust and rash it would be the extremity of folly to judge of all after the same manner without any difference or distinction The Roman Church her self which has sometimes cut off whole Nations as France and Germany from her Communion which may have been seen to have been so often divided into divers parties whereof one has excommunicated the other would not it may be freely suffer that we should treat of matters with this confusion So that disputing at present about our Separation with her we shall demand no unjust or unreasonable thing when we tell them that we ought to examine of what nature that Separation is to consider the reasons and wisely to weigh the circumstances for if our Fathers separated themselves upon light grounds and without having any sufficient cause if they were even under circumstances which ought to have bound them to have remained united with the other Party which was not for a Reformation we shall agree with all our hearts to condemn them but if on the contrary the reasons which they had were just sufficient and necessary if there was nothing in the circumstances of times places persons that could hinder them from doing that which they did it is certain that instead of condemning them we should bless them we should think our selves happy in following their footsteps and as for the reproaches and venomous accusations of the Author of the Prejudices and such like we should bear them with patience looking on them as the effect of a blind passion Let us therefore begin to make that Examination by the Causes of our Separation Every one knows what the matters that divide us are that they are not either Points of meer Discipline such as that for which Victor Bishop of Rome separated his Church from those of Asia who should keep the Feast of Easter on the fourteenth day of the Moon nor meerly Questions of the School which consist in nothing but terms remote from the knowledge of the Vulgar as that which they call trium Capitulorum which raised so many troubles in the Times of the Emperour Justinian and Pope Vigilius nor in meer personal interests such as we may see in the Schisms of Anti-Popes nor purely in personal Crimes or Accusations as in the Schism of the Donatists nor even in a general corruption of Manners altho' that was extreamly great in the time of our Fathers The Articles that separate us are points that according to us essentially disturb the Faith by which we are united to Jesus Christ points which essentially alter the Worship that we owe to God which essentially deprave the sources of our Justification and which corrupt both the external and internal means of our obtaining Grace and Glory In a word they are such Points as we believe to be wholly incompatible with salvation and which by consequence hinder us from being able to give it the Title or the Quality of a true Church of Jesus Christ to a Party which is obstinate in the profession and practice of them and which would force us to be so too I confess that we cannot say that our Controversies are all of that importance there are some undoubtedly which are of lesser weight and force which it was fitting for them to reform themselves in but which notwithstanding would not have given alone a just cause of Separation In this rank I place the Question of the Limbus of the Antient Fathers that of the Local Descent of Jesus Christ into Hell that of the distinction of Priests and Bishops to be of Divine Right that of the keeping of Lent and some others of that nature where there might have been seen Error and Superstition enough to be corrected but which would not have
and another I am of Christ is Christ sayes he divided Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul Which implyes this that we are all immediately united to Jesus Christ because it is he only who dyed for us and in his name alone that we are baptized and to pretend that the faithful are joyned to Jesus Christ by his Ministers is to divide him into as many Parties or into as many Sects as there are Ministers But it manifestly follows from thence that the faithful ought to be no further united with their Pastors than as it shall appear to them that their Pastors are to Jesus Christ and that they ought to separate from them when it shall appear to them that they themselves are separated from him and that they would separate the Flocks which they had committed to them This is what the light of common sense dictates without further reasoning for to what good would the Communion of those pretended Pastors tend howsoever invested they should be in Titles and Dignities without that of Jesus Christ That which I have said of their Communion with them I must also say of their dependence on them That which the Faithful have upon Jesus Christ is immediate and absolute and that which they have on their Pastors is mediate and conditional our Souls and our Consciences do not belong to them to dispose of at their will and pleasure In this respect we belong to Jesus Christ alone who has purchased us at the price of his blood and who governs us by his Spirit and his Word The Pastors are only Ministers Interpreters or the Heralds who make us to understand his Voice and all the dependence which we have on them is founded upon that which both they and we have upon Jesus Christ our Soveraign Lord of which it is both the cause and the rule and measure We ought therefore to be subject to them while they shall act as his Ministers and his Interpreters while their Actions and their Government bear the characters of his Authority But as those Ministers are men who may abuse their Offices and act against their head if it happen that the characters of the Divine Authority which subjects us to them do not appear in their word if there appear a contrary character there if instead of leading us to Jesus Christ they turn us from him if they would govern as Lords and not as Ministers if they attribute that absolute obedience to themselves which we own to none besides our Saviour In a word if to depend on them we must violate the dependence which we have on Jesus Christ can they then say that we cannot and that we ought not to separate from them and to renounce an unjust Government If they would decide this Question by the Scripture St. Paul tells us That if he himself or an Angel from Heaven should preach to us another Gospel than that which he has preached he should be accursed He sayes that upon the occasion of some false Teachers that troubled the Churches of Galatia and speaking only of them one would think that he ought to have been contented to have let his Anathema fall upon those particular Teachers that might err and who had not so great an Authority but that one might very well separate himself from them when they should happen to prevaricate But to take away all pretence of distinction and wrangling disputes he makes a most express choice of two of the greatest Authorities that were among creatures of an Angel and an Apostle the only two created Authorities to which God has communicated the favour of Infallibility and he has enjoyn'd us to anathematize them if it should happen that they should preach another Gospel than that of Jesus Christ we know very well that the Angels of Heaven are uncapable of ever committing that sin we know very well that he himself would never have committed it and yet notwithstanding he turns his discourse upon himself and upon the Angels and is not this to give us to understand that there is no created Authority either in the Heaven or upon the Earth upon which we ought absolutely to depend and from which we ought not to separate in case it should turn us from Jesus Christ Let them tell us whether the dependance that the people owe to the body of their ordinary Pastors that is to say of those who possess the Offices of the Church who may have been very ill chosen who may have intruded themselves by very bad wayes who may be carried out therein to all the passions and disorders of humane nature whether I say the dependence which they owe to them be stronger and more inviolable than that which they ought to have for an Apostle and such an Apostle as St. Paul and even for an Angel from Heaven if he should become a Preacher This latter dependence notwithstanding is not absolute it may be lawfully broken upon a certain case who will take the boldness to say after that that it cannot and ought not to be done in a like case But if to the Scripture we would add experience that would teach us that there have been sometimes those seasons in which good men have been forced to separate themselves from the Body of their Pastors for not to speak of the seven thousand which in Elias's time preserved their purity against the Idolatry whereinto the Church of Israel had fallen who according to all that appears lived separated from the Body of their Idolatrous Pastors at least in a negative Separation we need but to turn our eyes to the Example of the Orthodox in the time of the Arians For there are two actions evident in that History one that Arianism had invaded the body of the Ordinary Pastors and the other that those among the Orthodox who were of any zeal and courage separated themselves from that infected body and would not own them for True Pastors while they should remain in Heresie The first of these Actions is justified by almost an infinite number of proofs taken out either from History or the Testimony of the Ancients For before the death of Constantine the Arians who had been condemned in the Council of Nice fell upon the person of St. Athanasius and some time after they banish'd him as far as Treves This was their first Victory but they did not stop there they got over to their side the Spirit of Constance after the death of Constantine who remaining sole Emperour employed all his Authority and the Arians all their artifices to establish Arianism every where The greatest part of the Bishops fell either under their violence or seduction Divers Councils were assembled and many forms of faith laid down there which all tended to set up the Dogm of Arius some more openly and others more covertly Those among the Bishops who made any opposition were cruelly persecuted deposed from their places sent into exile and treated
Councils of Ariminum and of Constantinople which included all the East and all the West and if they had had no more but that they ought not to have separated from the body of their actually governing Pastors that they might have cleaved to a Synod which was past and gone It was therefore the importance of the Truth that was contested and that of the Error that was opposite to it which made the Separation and not the meer Authority of the Nicene Fathers and therefore it is that S. Augustine disputing against Maximinus an Arian would that they should set aside as well the Council of Nice as that of Ariminum and that they should only contend about the things themselves Not but that sometimes the Orthodox did set before them the Council of Nice according to the manner of disputes where one will neglect no advantage for its being ever so small but it was as a little help and not as the essential reason of their Separation which was alwayes taken from the thing it self and from the testimonies of the Scripture so that that difference is very frivolous If they say lastly that the point that was controverted then was one of a far greater importance than those upon which our Fathers separated themselves I answer that indeed the Article of the Consubstantiality of the Son is one of the chief and most fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion but that does not hinder that those that are controverted between the Church of Rome and us should not also be of the greatest importance to salvation and sufficient to cause a separation And when they would make the justice or injustice of ours to depend on that they must quit all that vain dispute of prejudices and go on to the discussion of the foundation it self The Author of the Prejudices must not take it ill that in endeavouring to decide the Question concerning the right of the Separation of our Fathers I make use here of his own proper testimony For it is a matter surprising enough that writing in his Eighth and Ninth Chapters in which he would he sayes convince us of Schism without entring upon a discussion either of our Doctrine or our Mission that he should not have remembred what he himself had just before said in the Seventh First of all he there proposes this difficulty as on our side If the visible Church were really fallen into Error as we suppose that it is possible for it to do if it drive away the truly faithful from its bosome if it persecute them must those truly faithful needs be deprived of all external worship in Religion must they needs cleave to the Church to perish with them since we suppose that it resides in them alone Is it not against the Divine Providence that the true worshippers of God the true heirs of Heaven cannot form a Church in the World and that God has not left any means to provide against so strange an inconvenience He answers plainly That indeed that inconvenience is exceeding great but that it is not necessary that God should have provided against it by remedies because he has resolved to hinder it from ever falling out in alwayes preserving the True Ministry in his Church So that it can never be in a necessity of being re-established and that very thing is a certain mark that that inconvenience can never happen in that God has not provided any remedy for it He sayes that so it is that our Ministers ought to conclude and not to conclude as they do in supposing that the visible Church may fall into ruine that there is a necessity of having recourse to the establishment of a new Ministry Since immediately after he adds But if the adhaesion which they have to their sentiments hinders them from coming to agree to this consequence they ought rather to conclude that those pretended truly faithful must remain in that state without Pastors and without any external worship and that they should rather expect that God should raise up some extraordinarily and with visible marks of their mission than to usurp to themselves a right of creating Ministers and Pastors and giving them power to govern the Churches and administer the Sacraments We have already shewn him and we shall yet further shew him in the end that it is not without reason that we suppose that the Ministry may be corrupted in the Church We shall shew him also that the consequence which we draw from it concerning the re-establishing of the Ministry is just and right and that a faithful people have a right in that case to create their Ministers and their Pastors and to give them power to govern their Churches and to administer the Sacraments But as we are only disputing at present about knowing whether we may separate our selves from the body of the ordinary Pastors when they are fallen into errors incompatible with our salvation and when they will force the people to profess the same Errors it shall suffice at present to take notice that the Author of the Prejudices comes to agree that when persons are perswaded that the body of those who possess the Ministry in the Church is fallen into Error and when it drives away from its bosome and persecutes those who maintain the Truth they may remain separated without acknowledging that Body for their Pastors and without assisting in their external worship provided that they do not make other Ministers But who sees not that this is precisely to acknowledge the right of that Separation about which the question at present is Who sees not that it is at least in that respect a discharging our Fathers from the Accusation of Schism and to declare them further innocent of that crime which he would design to lay to their charge at last Our Fathers did not collect that consequence of the Author of the Prejudices they did not conclude that the Ministry must be incorruptible in the Church in that which it had of humane in it This is not a place to dispute whether they adhered too much to their own opinions where because that in effect they judg'd well that manner of reasoning is pernicious Howsoever it were they have concluded quite otherwise they were perswaded that the body of those who possessed the Ordinary Ministry in the Latin Church were fallen not only into an Error but into many and into such as were contrary to mens salvation that it was guilty of opinionativeness in maintaining them that it did impose a necessity upon all to profess them that it drove away from its bosome those who refused that obedience It was upon this that they separated themselves from them not acknowledging them any more for their Pastors and assisting no further in their external worship Thus far the Author of the Prejudices does not condemn them he would only that they should have remained throughout without Pastors and without external worship We shall see in its place whether
there is reason for that or no it is sufficient that he consents that they should not any more have had those for their Pastors which were so before and that they should have withdrawn themselves from their communion and external worship we demand no more at present We ought now to pass on to the second Proposition upon which the Objection is grounded that I have propounded in the beginning of this Chapter and to examine whether the Priviledge of the Church of Rome is such that one ought not upon any pretence whatsoever to separate ones self from her communion All the world knows that this is the pretension of that Church and that it is for that that she makes her self the Mother and the Mistress of all others and that she has also made it to be defined in her Council of Trent It is upon that account that one of her Popes Boniface the Eighth formerly determined That it was necessary to the Salvation of every creature to be subject to the Bishop of Rome But clearly to decide so weighty a Question there seems to me to be only these two wayes The first is to enquire whether that Church can or cannot fall into Error and cease to be the True Church of Jesus Christ for if it be true that she can never fall into Errors nor lose the quality of a true Church we must conclude that we ought alwayes to remain in her Communion But if on the contrary she may erre and cease to be a true Church we must also conclude that we may and ought to separate our selves when there shall be a just occasion there The second way is that laying aside the Question Whether she may err or not we examine whether it be true that God has made her the Mistress of all other Churches as she pretends whether he has established her to be the perpetual and inviolable Center of the Christian Unity with a command to all the faithful not to fly off from her For if it be an Order that God has made we cannot resist it without destroying our selves but if it be only an ill-grounded pretension of that Church her communion is neither more necessary nor more inviolable than that of other particular Churches But as to the first of these wayes I have already shewn that it engages those who will follow it in the examination of the foundation and in effect the proofs that they set before us to establish the Infallibility of the Roman See are neither so clear nor so concluding that it should not be necessary to see whether the Doctrines that the Church of Rome teaches answer that pretension which she makes to be infallible and unable to fall away or to say better those proofs are so weak and so trivial that they themselves bind us to have recourse to the examination of the Doctrines of that Church to judge of her pretension by them These two Arguments are equally good as to their form The Church of Rome cannot err in the Faith therefore the things which she teaches us of Faith are true And the things which the Church of Rome teaches us are not true therefore the Church of Rome may err I do not here examine the question which of these two wayes of reasoning is the more natural I yield if they will that they should chuse the first but when they shall have chose it good sense would also require that if the things which they shall set before us to prove this Proposition The Church of Rome cannot err in the faith do no wayes satisfie the mind if instead of assuring us they plunge us into the greatest uncertainties we must pass over to the other way and by consequence we must enter into the examination of the foundation But to judge of what nature those proofs are which they give for the infallibility of the Church of Rome we need but a naked view of them For they are not the express declarations of the will of God although it should be very necessary that they should have such a one for the establishment of so great and peculiar a priviledge the knowledge of which is so very important to all Christians They are not evident consequences drawn from some passages of Scripture or some actions of the Apostles they are neither clear and convincing reasonings nor even strong presumptions and such as have much likelihood They are strained consequences which they draw as they are able from two or three passages of the Scripture and which a man that should have never heard them speak of that Infallibility with all his circumspection would not have gathered They produce the Testimony that St. Paul gives to the Church of Rome in his dayes That her faith was spoken of through all the world and they consider not that he gives the same testimony to the Thessalonians in far higher terms than to the Romans for he tells them That they were an example to the faithful and that the word of the Lord sounded from them not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place also Although they do not conclude the infallibility of the Church of Thessalonica from thence They do not see that he renders well near the same testimony to the Philippians in adding a clause that seems much more express to wit That he is assured of this very thing that he which had begun a good work in them would perform it until the day of Jesus Christ Although they cannot notwithstanding conclude infallibility from thence in the behalf of the Church of Philippi In effect these testimonies only regard the persons who at that time composed those Churches and not those who should come after them and do not found any priviledge on them They produce the passages of the Gospel that relate to S. Peter as this Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it and this I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven c. and this I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not when therefore thou art converted strengthen thy brethren and this Feed my sheep But to perceive the weakness of the consequence which they draw from these passages we need but to see that which is between two things of which it is necessary that we should be assured before we can conclude any thing First of all we must be assured that S. Peter was at Rome that he preached and fixed his See there for these actions are not so evident as they imagine they are inveloped with divers difficulties that appear unconquerable and accompanied with many circumstances that have no appearance of truth and which make at least that whole History to be doubted I confess that the Ancients did believe so but they have sometimes readily admitted Fables for truths and after all these
are matters of fact whereof we have not any Divine Revelation about which according to the very principle of our Adversaries all the whole Church may be deceived and which by consequence are not of faith nor can serve as a foundation for an Article so much concerning the faith as this is That the Church of Rome cannot err and that it is alwayes necessary to salvation to be in her communion Secondly We must be assured that the Bishops of Rome are the True and ordinary Successors of S. Peter in the Government of every Christian Church For why should not they be his Successors in the Government of the particular Church of Rome as well as the Bishops of Antioch in the particular Government of that of Antioch When the Apostles preached in those places where they gathered Churches and setled Pastors they did not intend that those Pastors after them should receive all the rights of their Apostleship nor that they should be Universal Bishops They say that there must have been one and that that could have been in no other Church but that where S. Peter dy'd But all this is said without any ground The Church is a Kingdom that acknowledges none besides Jesus Christ for its Monarch he is our only Lord and our Soveraign Teacher and after that the Apostles had formed Churches and that the Christian Religion had been laid down in the Books of the New Testament the Pastors had in those Divine Books the exact Rule of their Preaching and their Government Those who have applyed themselves only to that have alwayes well governed their Flocks without standing in need of that pretended Universal Episcopacy which is a Chimerical Office more proper to ruine Religion than to preserve it In the Third place we must be assured that S. Peter himself had received in those passages some peculiar dignity that had raised him above the other Apostles and some rights which were not common to all of them But this is what they cannot conclude from those forecited passages for granting that Jesus Christ has built his Church upon S. Peter has he not also built it upon the other Apostles is it not elsewhere written That we are built upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone Is it not written That the New Jerusalem has twelve foundations wherein the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb are written If Jesus Christ has prayed for the perseverance of the faith of S. Peter has he not made the same Prayer for all the other Keep them sayes he in thine own name that they may be one as we are If he said to him Strengthen thy Brethren is it not a common duty not only to the Apostles but to all the Faithful Let us consider one another sayes S. Paul to provoke unto love and to good works If he said to him Feed my sheep did he not say to all in common Go and teach all Nations If he said to him I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven has he not said to all of them I appcint unto you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven In the Fourth place we must be assured that when there should be in all those passages some peculiar priviledge for S. Peter exclusive from the rest of the Apostles that it is a thing that could be transmitted down to his Successors and not some personal priviledge that resided in him alone and must have dyed with him For can we not say that the twelve Apostles being the twelve foundations of the Church the priviledge of S. Peter is to be first in order because he was the first who laboured in the conversion of the Jews at the day of Pentecost and in that of the Gentiles in the Sermon that he made to Cornelius May we not say that Jesus Christ has particularly prayed for his perseverance in the faith because that he alone had been winnowed by the Temptation that hapned to him in the Court of the High Priest That he said to him alone When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren because that he alone had given a sad experience of humane weakness That he said to him thrice Feed my sheep or my lambs because that he only having thrice denyed his Master by words full of horror and ingratitude our Lord would for his consolation and re-establishment thrice pronounce words full of love and goodness In fine when those Texts should contain a peculiar priviledge that might be communicated to the Successors of S. Peter we must be assured that that priviledge must be the perpetual infallibility of the Church of Rome and a certainty of never falling away from the quality of a True Church And this is that which they know not how to conclude from those passages for in respect of the first The Church may have been built upon S. Peter and upon his first Successors and remain firm and unshaken upon those foundations that is to say upon their Doctrine and Example although in the course of some Ages the Bishops of Rome have degenerated and changed the faith of their Predecessors and the words of Jesus Christ extended even to the Successors of S. Peter would not be less true when they should not extend themselves unto all those who bear that name S. Paul has called the Churches of Asia in the midst of which Timothy his Disciple was when he wrote his first Epistle to him he has I say called them the pillar and ground of Truth For although those Titles belong in general to every Church it is notwithstanding certain that they regard more directly and more particularly that part of the Universal Church I would say the Churches of Asia where Timothy resided when S. Paul wrote to him But the word of this Apostle does not fail to be true although in the course of many Ages those Churches have degenerated from their first purity and though the Successors of Timothy lost it very quickly after And as to the Prayer that Jesus Christ made to God that the faith of S. Peter might not fail when they would extend it down to his Successors they cannot conclude a greater Infallibility for them than that of S. Peter himself who preserving his faith concealed at the bottom of his heart outwardly denyed his Master three times and who according to the opinion of our Adversaries lost entirely his love and had fallen from a state of Grace being no more either in the Communion of God nor in that of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ Let the Church of Rome therefore call her self infallible as much as she pleases in vertue of the Prayer of Jesus Christ that Infallibility will not
in that of other Bishops Since the Popes were raised to that high Dignity wherein we behold them at this day each Nation has thought that it ought in some manner to participate in their Nomination because the business was about one common interest they would have the Protectors of their Interests in the Colledge of Cardinals and Princes themselves have interpos'd but they can see nothing like that in the Primitive Church Rome alone made her Bishops without the participation of other Churches 2. Victor Bishop of Rome having excommunicated the Churches of Asia who celebrated the Feast of Easter after the manner of the Jews S. Irenaeus with the Bishops of France opposed themselves to that Excommunication and wrote as well to Victor as to the other Bishops and in effect those Churches of Asia did not cease to remain in the Communion of the Catholick Church notwithstanding that action of Victor as it appears from the Testimony of Socrates who formally sayes that those who contended about the business of Easter did not nevertheless refuse communion with one another So that their Bishops were called and received in the Council of Nice without any difficulty for Eusebius notes expresly among those who were called by Constantine the Syrians the Cilicians and the Mesopotamians who were Quartodecumani he sayes that Constantine would conferr pleasantly and familiarly with the Bishops about matters that were in question and that he would bring them all by that means to the same opinion even about the matter of Easter and S. Athanasius testifies that it was to accord that difference that all the World was assembled at the Council of Nice and that the Syrians came to the same opinion with the rest and that they earnestly contended against the Heresie of Arius which shews us that they assisted at the Council without any notice being taken of Victor's Excommunication From whence it is no very hard matter to conclude what Aeneas Sylvius Cardinal of Sienna and afterwards Pope has acknowledged in one of his Letters That before the Council of Nice every one lived according to his own wayes and that men had but a very small regard to the Church of Rome 3. In the sixth Century a great trouble being raised in the Church upon the occasion of three Writings the one of Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus the other of Ibas Bishop of Edessa and the third of Theodoret of Mopsuesta which had been read and approved in the Council of Chalcedon but whom the most judged to be Heretical Pope Vigilius openly took up the desence of those three Writings and vigorously oppos'd himself to the condemnation that the Emperour Justinian and the Eastern Patriarchs had made of them But in the end being drawn to Constantinople he changed his opinion and consented to that condemnation whither he was carried out to it by the complaisance which he had for the Emperour who had a great affection for that business or whether out of some other principle Howsoever it were that action appear'd so criminal in the eyes of a great number of Orthodox Bishops that they separated themselves and their Churches from the Communion of Vigilius and his Party and even the Church of Africa assembled in Council as Victor of Tunis an African Bishop witnesses who lived in those times Synodically excommunicated that Pope leaving him notwithstanding means to re-establish himself by repentance These Actions prove in my judgement very sufficiently that the faithful then did not look upon the Church of Rome as the Mistress of all others nor on the communion or dependance on its See as a thing absolutely necessary to the salvation of Christians There can nothing be said in effect more opposite to the Spirit of the Christian Religion than that Imagination God had heretofore fixed his Communion with that of the Israelites and established in Jerusalem and in its High Priests the center of Ecclesiastical Unity But when Jesus Christ brought his Gospel into the world he changed that order not by transporting the rights of Jerusalem to Rome nor those of the High Priests to the Popes but by abolishing wholly that necessity of Communion to a certain place and that particular dependance on a certain See This is what S. Paul clearly enough teaches in his third Chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians In the new man sayes he there is neither Greek nor Jew neither Circumcision nor Vncircumcision neither Barbarian or Scythian bond or free but Jesus Christ is all and in all He had had no reason to express himself after that manner if that new man whereof he spoke had necessarily been a Roman and depending on the Communion of the Bishop of Rome So also the same Apostle setting that Evangelical Church that Jesus Christ had assembled in opposition to the ancient and earthly Jerusalem makes not that opposition to consist in this that the one is Jerusalem and the other Rome the one the head City of Judaea and the other that of the Empire but he makes it to consist in this that one is earthly and the other heavenly the one below and the other on high the one ty'd to a certain place from whence it cannot go and the other independent on all manner of particular places in the world and having no necessary dependence on any but Heaven For it is to this purpose that he calls the Jerusalem that is above the heavenly Jerusalem the City of the living God the Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven It is in the view of that that Jesus Christ said to the Samaritan Woman believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth The Samaritans would establish the center of Religion on the Mountain where Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs had built an Altar to God the Jews on the contrary established it in the City of Jerusalem To all that Jesus Christ opposes not the Capital City as the new Mountain which he had chosen nor Rome as another Jerusalem but the Spirit and the Truth that is to say Faith and Piety alone abstracted from all those relations to particular places and independent on all Cities and Mountains The same thing is justified by the censure that S. Paul passed on the Corinthians in that one said I am of Paul another I am of Apollos and another I am of Cephas that is to say of Peter For we ought not to imagine that those men meant that they were so of Paul or of Apollos or of Peter as to be no more of Jesus Christ or that they would take Paul or Apollos or Cephas for heads equal to Jesus Christ They were Christians and they were not ignorant of the difference they were to make between Jesus Christ and his Apostles No without doubt they were not ignorant
of it but they would have subordinate heads humane heads on whom they might depend by an external dependance and that was necessary for them to be by that means linked to Jesus Christ after the same manner that they would have us at this day to depend on the See of Rome Wherefore did S. Paul say to them Is Christ divided Why did he not say to them that as for Paul and Apollos they had no reason to take them for their heads but that it was far otherwise as to Peter since God had set up him and his Successors for ever to be the heads of the Universal Church Why in stead of that did he conclude after this manner That no one should glory in men for all things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods Is it not to let them understand that Jesus Christ is the only head of the Church that there is only his communion that is absolutely necessary and that as for other Ministers whosoever they were they were appointed for our use as all other things to serve us in as much as they lead us to Jesus Christ If the Church under the New Testament ought to be inviolably ty'd to the See of Rome how should the Scripture have been silent in so weighty a truth which could not be ignor'd without extream danger nor contested without evident damnation Notwithstanding we do not find any other head of the Church in those Sacred Books but Jesus Christ nor any other High Priest but him We do not find in the Scripture any Universal Bishop nor Ministerial head or subordinate or any particular Church the Mistress of all others We find there indeed that Jesus Christ being ascended up on high gave some to be Apostles others to be Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for the assembling of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ How came the Apostle to forget in that Enumeration the chief of all Offices to wit that of the Ministerial Head of the whole Church and the Universal Vicar of Jesus Christ in the Government and conduct of his flock If the Christian Church ought in that to resemble the Synagogue and to have as that a Soveraign High Priest upon earth who should be the head of that Religion and who should have his Successors as the ancient High Priest had whence comes it that the Scripture has alwayes regarded that Ancient High Priest as a Figure of Jesus Christ that it alwayes referred it to him and never to the Roman Bishops nor even to S. Peter who was then alive and who should by consequence have exercised that pretended charge which they would make to descend from him There is therefore no lawful foundation in all that pretension of Rome and her See We ought to pass the same judgement on all other Sees and other particular Churches with which it is just we should hold communion while they teach good and sound Doctrine and that we should even bear with them when they should fall into some errors provided they constrain no body to believe them but from which it is also just to separate our selves when they shall fall into errors contrary to the communion of Jesus Christ our only Saviour and when they would violently force all others to believe the same If in a long course of Ages Rome has usurped by little and little the rights that do not belong to her if she has found it very easie through the ignorance or complaisance of men in the diverse intrigues of the World to raise her Throne as high as our Fathers beheld it and as we do yet at this day If her flatterers have not failed alwayes to raise her pretensions as high as Heaven and if she has been lull'd asleep with the sound of those sweet charms that enchant her we do not believe that that ought to prejudice our separation We have no other aversion for her communion than that which our conscience gives us and if it shall please God to re-establish her in her ancient purity she would not have so great a joy to spread forth her arms to us as we should have an impatience to demand her peace of her But as long as we shall see her in that bad state wherein we are perswaded she is we cannot but bewail and pray for her and yet notwithstanding no body can blame us for preferring our own salvation to her communion CHAP. III. That the Conduct of the Court of Rome and those of her party in respect of the Protestants has given them a just cause to separate themselves from them supposing that they had had right at the foundation BEfore we leave this matter of our Separation from the Church of Rome there yet remains two Questions for us to examine the one Whether our Fathers were not too precipitate in so great an affair whether they did not act with too much haste or Whether they had sufficient motives from the conduct of those from whom they separated to forsake in the end their communion The other Whether with all that they can say that they separated themselves from the communion of the Catholick Church spread over the whole World as the Donatists did heretofore and whether they did not fall into the same crime with those ancient Schismaticks against whom Optatus and S. Augustine so strongly disputed I will treat of this second Question in the following Chapter and this here shall be design'd to the clearing of the former To effect this methinks we need but freely to set before their eyes all that I have said in the second Part touching the necessity that lay upon our Fathers to reform themselves For since it clearly results from those matters of fact which I have set down that the Popes and those of their party were so far from applying themselves seriously to a Reformation that they studied on the contrary only how to stifle the truth from the very first moment they beheld it appear and to defend their Errors and Superstitions by all manner of wayes who sees not that that inflexible resolution which had not yielded either to the first or second admonition rendred from that time the separation of our Fathers just and exempted them from all reproach For when there are Errors capable of giving ground for a separation it ought to be defer'd only upon a hope of amendment and that hope seem'd to be sufficiently destroy'd by those Historical actions which I have already set down Notwithstanding to shew them more and more how the conduct of our Fathers was very prudent in that respect and full of circumspection it will not be besides our purpose to resume here the close of their story from the unjust condemnation of Luther and his Doctrine made by Pope Leo the Tenth
readily subject Germany to the Council of the Pope and because the Pope used also all his endeavours to stir up new affairs for the Emperour on the side of Italy Moreover a division fell out in the Council for the Pope having transferr'd it from Trent to Bolognia to have it more at his ordering the greatest part of the Bishops yielded to that transferring but many also held themselves firm to Trent and would not obey it which made a great difficulty to arise when the Emperour and the Princes of Germany came to demand as they afterwards did that the Council should be re-established at Trent because those of Bolognia stood upon it as a point of honour not to go back to find those of Trent there King Francis the First dyed in this time and Henry the Eighth King of England being dead also the Reformation was quickly after received in England under the Reign of Edward the Sixth which a little disturb'd the joyes of the Court of Rome They were yet more disturb'd by the Acts of Protestation which the Emperour had made against the Assembly at Bolognia that he had treated it as an unlawful Assembly and a Conventicle insisting that they should return to Trent with threats that if the Pope continued to neglect his duty he would himself out of his own Authority provide for the disorders of the Church They were troubled also at the Interim which the same Emperour published afterwards throughout all Germany This Interim was a certain Formulary of Religion that the Emperour had made to be drawn up to be observed until the holding of a Lawful Council He establish'd therein the whole Body of the Roman Doctrine and allowed only the Marriage of Priests and Communion under both kinds But although this Formulary was neither approved by the one sort nor the other that at Rome the Pope had censured it and the Protestants look'd upon it as the greatest of all their oppressions the Emperour did not fail to use violence to the Protestants to make them receive it And this filled Germany with an infinite number of persecutions such as those that Conquerours when they cruelly abuse their prosperity as Charles the Fifth did are wont to make the vanquished suffer But while he thus satiated himself with these violences and indignities Paul the Third dyed at Rome the tenth of November 1549. The Death of this Pope was follow'd with divers Writings which wounded his Memory in the most bloody manner in the world But letting pass his Manners and the rest of his Government wherein we are not concerned I shall only say that the evils which our Fathers suffered in all places for the Cause of the Reformation during the fifteen years of his Papacy cannot be express'd For under the name of Hereticks or Lutherans they imprisoned them they banished them they deprived them of their Estates they massacred them they burned them and not to speak of our France England Scotland Flanders Holland Brabant Haynalt Artois Spain Savoy Lorrain Poland were as so many Theatres wherein there might be every day seen some of those Tragical Executions and where they spoke of nothing but the extirpation and rooting out of these Hereticks Julius the third succeeded Paul This man freely transferr'd his Council back to Trent to make all opposition between the Emperour and himself cease but in the Bull which he publish'd he declar'd that it belong'd to him to rule and guide the Council that he remitted it to be followed and continued in the same state in which it was when it was broken off and that he would send his Legates thither to preside in his place in case he could not come thither himself in person These clauses netled the Protestants so that seeing themselves press'd by the Emperour to submit themselves to the Council they freely declared to him that they could not do it otherwise than upon these conditions to wit That they should begin to treat of matters all anew without having regard to that which had been already done That their Divines should be received and have a deliberative voice That the Pope should not pretend to preside but that he should submit himself to it and in fine that he should absolve the Bishops from the Oath by which they were ty'd to him and that without that they could not hold that to be a free Council Notwithstanding this Declaration the Emperour made his Decree by which he ordain'd that they should submit themselves to the Council promising on his part that he would give Safe-Conduct to all the World to come thither and to propose there all that they should judge necessary for the good of the Church and salvation of Souls and that he would give order that all things should be treated and determined holily and Christianly according to the holy Scripture and the Doctrine of the Fathers and that the state of the Church should be reformed there and false Doctrines and Errours taken away Thus the Council of Trent was continued whither the Pope sent his Legate and two Nuntio's to preside there in his Name with orders to begin the first Session the first day of May 1555. which was yet nevertheless prorogued to the first of September following The Elector of Saxony and the Duke of Wirtemberg both Protestants with some Imperial Cities resolved to send their Deputies thither and made them demand of the Emperours Embassadour a Letter of Safe-conduct in the same form that the Council of Basil had given it to the Bohemians with an intermission till their Divines should be arrived This demand was not without some difficulty but the Question having been agitated at Rome they thought good to agree that they should have a Safe-conduct in general terms without delaying upon that account the decision of the chief matters and before the expediting of this Safe-conduct they had determined the principal Points touching the Eucharist to wit Transubstantiation the Real Presence the Adoration of the Host the Concomitance the Custom of the Feste Dieu the reservation of the Sacrament and the necessity of Auricular Confession before the Communion They agreed only with the Embassadour of the Emperour that they should delay the decision of these four Questions Whether it was necessary to salvation that all should receive the Sacrament in both kinds Whether he that received in one took less than he that received in both Whether the Church was in an Error when she ordained that the Priests only should receive in both Whether the Eucharist ought also to be given to little children Which was already a meer Fallacy as if the Protestants had nothing to propose but only about those four Questions When the Protestant Deputies were arrived they openly complained of the form of their Safe-conduct and they demanded one in the form of that of Basil to the Bohemians but they refused it They demanded that they might be heard in full Council but they would not and they obtained with great
difficulty to be heard in a Congregation in the house of the Legate In this Congregation they demanded on the behalf of their Masters 1. That the Article of the Superiority of the Council above the Pope decided in the Councils of Constance and Basil might be laid down for a foundation 2. That the Pope since he was a party in this affair should not preside in the Council but that he should submit to it both himself and his See to be judged there 3. That he should for this effect absolve the Bishops of the Oaths that he had given them 4. That the matters which had been already decided should be judged of again after their Divines had been heard since they could not till then have come to the Council not having had Safe-conduct 5. That they should deferr all judgement till they came 6. That they should judge according to the Word of God and the common belief of all Christian Nations But the Prelates would not hear these Propositions and the Legate who consulted the Pope upon all matters and more especially upon these had already thus vehemently explained himself That they had much rather lose their lives than release any thing of the Authority of the Holy See Some dayes after the Divines of Wirtemberg and those of Strasburg arrived at Trent and presented their Confession demanding that it should be examined and offering themselves to explain and defend it but this was to no purpose for the Pope had expresly forbad his Legate to permit that they should enter upon any publick conference neither vivâ voce or by Writing in the matters of Religion Thus things were carried on in this Council But while affairs were manag'd after this manner the Pope who for some time before had been discontented at the Emperour had made his Treaty with King Henry the Second and the King on his side had also very secretly treated with Maurice the Elector of Saxony for the Liberty of Germany so that matters were all on a sudden ready for a War and the news being come to Trent the Pope presently separated the Assembly giving order to his Nuntio's to give notice of it every where and to suspend the Council till another time This War freed Germany from its slavery under Charles he was forced to set all the Princes at liberty whom he kept Prisoners and in fine to make the Peace which was concluded at Passaw the last day of July 1552. By this Peace it was concluded that the Emperour should call within six Months the General Assembly of the Empire there to provide means for the accommodating of the differences of Religion and that notwithstanding no person should be disquieted upon that occasion and thus the Interim of the Emperour was abolished But if Germany had then any Quiet the Persecutions were enflamed elsewhere against the Reformed Edward the Sixth being dead in England and Mary having succeeded him the Pope sent Cardinal Pool thither in quality of his Legate who negotiated there the re-establishing of the Authority and Religion of the Pope This made the flames to be kindled and their punishments to be renewed after the most cruel manner in the world for in one only year they made an infinite number of the people to be burn'd for the sake of Religion and one hundred seventy and six persons of great quality Elizabeth the Daughter of Henry the Eighth and Sister to Mary was confin'd to a strait Prison On the other side Ferdinand King of Hungary and Bohemia and Arch-Duke of Austria made a rigorous Edict upon the same occasion for all the Lands of his obedience and drove away from Bahemia alone more than two hundred Ministers The Emperour on his part alwayes caused the Laws of the Inquisition to be most rigorously observed in the Low-Countreys The Duke of Savoy did the same thing in his Countreys France every day beheld nothing but these sad Executions and yet nevertheless all these bloody pursuits did but increase in all places the number of those who embraced the Reformation Pope Julius the Third dyed the three and twentieth of March 1555. and Marcellus the Second was chosen in his place who not having held the See more than-two and twenty dayes had for his Successour Paul the Fourth In this same year there was an Imperial Assembly held at Ausburg where the Treaty of Peace made at Passaw was confirmed and the freedom of Religion granted by the Emperour and the King of the Romans in Germany The Decree was presently published But notwithstanding the people of Austria and Bavaria having demanded with very great urgency a Reformation of their Princes it was refused them and they agreed only that they should receive the Communion under both kinds in waiting for a Council This did not fail to give great displeasure to the Pope beholding on one side that all parts of the World were swallow'd up by the Superstitions and Errors of his Church and on the other that even the Roman Catholick Princes of whom he expected an entire obedience undertook without his consent to change something in Religion In this same time Charles the Fifth weary of affairs and having but a weak constitution resolved to quit the World and for this effect having made Philip his Son to come to Brussells he demis'd to him the Soveraignty of the Low-Countreys in his favour and a Month after he yielded to him the Crown of Spain He resigned the Empire to Ferdinand his Brother and reserving to himself the Pension of an hundred thousand Crowns he retired into a Monastery This hapned in the year 1556. and he dyed two years after the one and twentieth of September 1558. Pope Paul the Fourth from the first beginning of his Papacy turn'd all his thoughts to avoid the Council and to make the rigors of the Inquisition to rule in all places saying That this was the only means to destroy Heresie and the only fort of the Apostolick See For this effect he made an Ordinance which he caused all the Cardinals to sign by which he renewed all the censures and punishments denounced by his Predecessors against the Hereticks and declared that all the Prelates Princes Kings and Emperours fallen into Herefie ought to be held fallen from and deprived of all their Benefices Estates Kingdoms or Empires without any other declaration that they could not be re-established by any authority not even by that of the Apostolick See and that their goods should be given to the first possessor He quarrell'd at the same time with Ferdinand maintaining that the Resignation of Charles in his favour could not be done but by his hands and that in that case it belonged to him to make whom he should please Emperour Notwithstanding two things fell out that gave him a great deal of grief the one that Mary Queen of England being dead Elizabeth succeeded her and that the Emperour Ferdinand having propounded to the Protestants in the Diet of Ausburg which was held in
which is that which he would avoid What therefore is this Church It is sayes he the Catholick Church wheresoever it be We are now as wise as we were before for it alwayes remains to be enquir'd into What is that Catholick Church I freely confess that it seems to me that he would point it out to us by a certain mark which is the visible extension throughout all Nations but in effect he does it not for he sayes in the end that this is but a Negative mark that is to say that every Society which has not that mark is not the Church So that according to him this is a mark only proper to shew what it is not and not to shew what it is Whence therefore shall we know what this Church is Moreover his Proposition is not only ambiguous through the word Church but it is further so through that of Separation for there is more than one sort of Separation There are such as are unjust and criminal in their own nature and there are others which are only so in causes and circumstances there are also such as are permitted and those that deserve to be condemned there are necessary ones and such as are rash so that one cannot make any general proposition upon this matter which would not be captious and proper to make a Fallacy It is necessary therefore in order to his acting with sincerity that the Author of the Prejudices should openly explain his meaning which he labours to establish by the Authority of S. Augustine and the other Fathers and after having so cleared and establish'd it he should propound his conclusion that he would pretend to draw from it for then we should see whether we ought to yield or deny it But to begin a convincing argument by a principle so vagous and so confused as this that we have seen and even to affect that confusion without being willing to explain himself is in my judgement a procedure very fit to be suspected and which may justly make us doubt that instead of a convincing argument he gives us nothing but a Fallacy To clear this doubt it will be here necessary to give a clear and distinct Idea of the Doctrine of S. Augustine upon this subject about which we are disputing First Then we must know that this Father acknowledg'd that the truly Faithful only and the truly Just in opposition to the Wicked the Wordly Infidels and Hereticks were the true Church properly so called and this is what may be proved by an infinite number of passages It must not be imagin'd sayes he in his answer to Petilianus that the wicked belong to the Body of Jesus Christ which is the Church under a pretence that they corporally partake of the Sacraments The Sacraments are holy even in such persons but they serve only to increase their condemnation because they give and receive them unworthily And as for them they are not in that assembly of the Church of Jesus Christ which consisting in his members increases by being compacted and fitly joyned with the increase of God For this Church is built upon a Rock according to what our Saviour said Vpon this Rock I will build my Church and the others are only built upon the sand as the same Lord said I will liken him who heareth my words and doth not what they teach to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand And elsewhere Both the good and the wicked may baptize but there is but one only God alwayes good who can wash the conscience The wicked are therefore at present condemned by Jesus Christ because they have a wicked and defiled conscience and at present they are not of his Body which is the Church although the Church her self is ignorant that they are not for Jesus Christ cannot have any of his members condemned So that they baptize being themselves out of the Church For God is not pleased that all these Monsters should be reckon'd among the members of that only Dove nor that they should enter into his enclosed Garden the keeper whereof can never be deceiv'd And elsewhere Whether they seem to be in the Church or whether they be openly discover'd to be out of it that which is flesh is alwayes flesh That the chaff as it is unfruitful flyes in the air whether it be blown thither by the occasion of some temptation as by the wind or no it is alwayes chaff Those who being hardned by carnality are mingled in the Assembly of the Saints cease not to be separated from the Vnity of that Church which is without spot or wrinkle It is therefore certain that S. Augustine acknowledg'd none to be properly the Church but the truly Faithful and truly Righteous But because that these faithful and these righteous are mix'd with the wicked the worldly and Hereticks in the circle of the same External Call as the chaff is with the good seed in the same Floor or as the Tares are mingled with the good Wheat in the same Field We must note in the second place that S. Augustine gives another notion of the Church which he calls the mixed Church and it is to explain this notion that he sets before us all the comparisons that the Scripture makes use of to represent the mixture of the good with the bad in the same Call that of the field where the Son of Man cast his seed and where the Enemy arose in the night and sowed his Tares also so that the Wheat and the Tares must grow there together till the time of harvest that of the Net that the Fisherman cast into the Sea and which inclosed equally the good and bad Fish that of the Floor where the good Grain is mixed with the Chaff and that of the House in which there are Vessels of Gold and Silver and others of Wood and Earth It is for the same thing that he makes use of the distinction of the true body of Jesus Christ and the mixed body of Jesus Christ meaning by true the truly faithful and righteous only and by mixed the faithful and righteous joyned with those who are not so and that both together by reason of their mixture in one and the same external call make in a manner but one and the same body He makes use for the same purpose of the distinction of being of the Church and being in the Church and he would that none but the truly faithful and righteous are of the Church but that the others are in the Church and by this means he forms two Idea's of the Church the one distinct and the other confused the distinct restrains the Church precisely to those in whom she properly consists and who are her true members and these are the truly righteous and faithful but the confused includes all those who externally profess themselves to be Christians the good Wheat and the Tares the Chaff and the good Seed the good and
the bad Fish the Vessels of Gold and Silver and those of Wood and Earth and in this confus'd notion the Church is the Field the Floor the Net and the House that the holy Scripture speaks of But as this mixture which I have spoken of may be understood two wayes either in respect of Manners or in regard of Doctrines we must note in the Third place that this notion of the Mixed Church according to S. Augustine is divided into two for he would have us sometimes conceive of it as a Body wherein the righteous are only mingled with the unrighteous that is to say with the wicked whose manners are vitious and corrupted and sometimes also he would have us conceive it as a Body where the Hereticks are mixed with the truly faithful as well as the righteous with the unrighteous In the former case the mixed Church is a pure communion in respect of Doctrine but corrupted in regard of manners and in the second it is a communion not only corrupted in regard of manners but impure also and corrupted in regard of its Tenets These two sorts of mixture are without doubt in the Hypothesis of S. Augustine the first made all the ground of his dispute against the Donatists and as for the second he often explains himself in his Books and particularly in the Psalms against the Donatists where he sayes That after Jesus Christ had purged his floor by the preaching of the Cross the righteous were as the new seed which he spread abroad over all the Earth to the end they should make another harvest at the end of the world But that this harvest grew up amidst the Tares because there are Heresies every where Haec messis crescit inter zizania quia sunt haereses ubique In that same Psalm and elsewhere in divers places he quotes the Example of the Jewish Church in which he saies that the Saints the Prophets and the righteous were mixed not only with the wicked whose manners were debauched and criminal but also with the superstitious and Idolaters that which leaves no difficulty about it for Idolatry is the greatest of all Heresies We must note in the Fourth place that S. Augustine would have us consider the mixed Church in two different States For as for that which respects mens manners he sayes that sometimes the wicked do not prevail over the righteous either in number or Authority but that sometimes also they prevail in such a manner that the good are often oppress'd under their multitude and this is that which he treats particularly of in his Third Book against Parmenianus And so in regard of Heresies he means that sometimes they grow so powerful as to infect almost all the Body and this is what he expresly shews in a Letter to Vincentius a Donatist Bishop and in that which he wrote to Hesychius Thus it is that S. Augustine has conceiv'd of the Church and according to these different notions and these different states he has spoken differently of separations from it As for that which regards the truly righteous and faithful there is no question but that he thought that we ought to have not only an internal communion of charity with them founded upon the Unity that is between all the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ who have all but one and the same faith one and the same piety and the same righteousness but an external communion also which consists in joyning with them in the same Assemblies in partaking of the same Sacraments in approving their faith piety good works and in one word in accounting them their brethren as far as it is possible for them to know them But this is not that which makes the difficulty all the Question is concerning the mixed Church and all the dispute is to know how according to S. Augustine the Corn and the Tares that is to say the truly faithful and the Hereticks ought to remain together in the same communion and in what case they might separate themselves We must therefore note in the Fifth place that in the Doctrine of that Father there is a certain separation that a man can never make under any pretence whatsoever without being a Schismatick and that there is another that he may lawfully make and which it is sometimes necessary that he should He has distinguish'd between two external bonds that should unite us to one another the first is that of the External and General Call to Christianity the second is that of the participation of the same Sacraments and the same Assemblies It is the first bond that S. Augustine would have to be inviolable not only in regard of the faithful between themselves but also in regard of the wicked and Hereticks and not only while we suffer them to be in the publick Assemblies but even then when we excommunicate them and deprive them of the communion of the Sacraments And thus it is that he understands that which Jesus Christ said in his Parable That the Tares ought not to be pluck'd up which the Enemy had sown among the good Wheat in the same field but that he would leave both to grow together until the harvest and it is this kind of Unity whereof he sayes that there is no just necessity of ever breaking praecidendae unitatis nulla est justa necessitas it is the Unity of the same Net that enclos'd both good and bad Fish the Unity of the same Floor that contain'd both the good Seed and the Chaff the Unity of the same Field where the Tares grew up with the Wheat the Unity of the same House where there are Vessels of Wood and Earth with those of Gold and Silver and in a word this Unity that we call the external and general call to Christianity It is therefore first of all in this sense that he means that there is a Church from which we ought never to separate our selves under any pretence whatsoever and from which all those who separate themselves are Schismaticks for he understands it of that mixed Church that Field that Floor that Net that common House out of which we must never go forth nor drive out others howsoever wicked and Heretical they may be there being none but God who can make this separation and who will in effect make it at the end of the world And as it was thus that the Donatists had separated themselves so it was chiefly upon this that he convinced them of Schism for they own'd none for Christians but those of their own Party they rejected the Baptism of all the rest they looked upon them as Pagans who had no more any shadow of Christianity and when Proselytes came over to them they made them pass through all the degrees of the Catechumeni before they would receive them and they began to make them Christians anew as if they had come out of a Society of absolute Infidels as I have noted in my Fourth
Observation on their Story This Distinction that I have of these two sorts of separation is clearly to be found in the Doctrine of S. Augustine He notes both the one and the other in his third Book against Parmenio where he treats of this matter very largely When any brother sayes he that is to say any Christian among those who are in the Society of the Church falls into so great sins that they judge worthy of an Anathema I would have them proceed to his Excommunication if that may be done without any danger of Schism but yet it ought to be done with that charity that S. Paul recommends to us to wit that we should not treat him as an Enemy but as a Brother for you are not called to pluck up but to correct If he does not acknowledge nor correct his fault by repentance he wilfully goes out of himself from the Church and it will be his own will that separates him from the Christian Vnity Our Lord himself said to his servants when they would pluck up the Tares mixed with the Wheat leave them to grow up together until harvest and he gives the reason to wit lest sayes he that in plucking up the Tares you pluck up the Wheat also See here precisely these two separations whereof I speak the one that deprives one of the communion of the Sacraments and the other which breaks of Christian Unity one which is but to correct and the other which goes as far as to pluck up This Father alledges for the same thing the Example of S. Paul who in the Excommunication of the Incestuous person in Corinth did indeed deliver that miserable person to Satan but only for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus that is to say that he depriv'd him of the communion of the Sacraments but that he did not wholly pluck him up out of the field of the Church He alledges yet further what the same Apostle wrote to the Thessalonians If any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother He alledges lastly that which S. Paul wrote to the Corinthians touching the same incestuous penitent that they ought to pardon him Lest Satan should get an advantage over us for we are not ignorant of his devices What means the Apostle sayes he by these words lest Satan should get an advantage over us for we are not ignorant of his devices It is that under the appearance of a just severity he sometimes perswades to a violent cruelty desiring nothing more than to break the bond of peace and charity well knowing that while that bond shall be preserved among Christians he cannot hurt them and that his devices and designs would vanish There cannot be a more perfect example of that first separation given than that of the Donatists in respect of the Church for as I have said already they so absolutely separated themselves from it that they did not own it to be any longer Christian in any manner and therefore it was that they re-baptiz'd all those who came over to their party But we cannot also give a better example of the second than that of the Church it self in regard of the Donatists for although they would separate themselves from the Church yet the Church did not fail to look upon them as Christians and in some manner as Brethren The Donatists sayes S. Augustine are impious in going about to re-baptize all the world but as for us who have better sentiments we dare not even disapprove of the Sacraments of God in a Schismatical Communion In respect of the things about which we agree they are yet with us and in respect of the things about which we differ they are separated from us This approach to us and this separation are not ordered by the motions of the body but by those of the mind and as the union of bodies is made by the continuity of the places they fill up so the union of spirits also is made by the consent of wills If those who have forsaken the Vnity of the Church do other things than those that are done in the Church they are in that regard separated from her but if they do that which is done in the Church they remain as yet in that regard in a common union The Donatists are therefore with us in some things and they are separated from us in some others I cannot here avoid taking notice of the Error into which the Author of the Prejudices seems to have fallen about the meaning of these words of S. Augustine in the second Book against Parmenianus praecidendae unitatis nulla est justa necessitas There is no just necessity to break off Vnion For it seems that he thought that this Maxim regarded all manner of separation not considering that it only respects that of the Donatists which consisted in the breaking the general bond of Christianity and not that which consists in refusing our communion to those who corrupt Religion by their pernicious Superstitions and Errors If he had taken the pains to have read ten or twelve lines higher he had found that S. Augustine had strongly establish'd the necessity of separating our selves from Hereticks S. Paul sayes that Father writing to the Galatians manifestly forbids them to hear those who did not preach Iesus Christ but a falshood and a lye If any one should preach another Gospel to you than what you have received let him be Anathema He would that we should pronounce an Anathema against those who preach to us any thing beyond what we have received He would elsewhere that there can be no just necessity of breaking of unity Who sees not that he must make a distinction and that according to him there is a separation that is good just and necessary and another unjust unlawful and schismatical Although this Distinction is unquestionable yet I shall not fail to produce here a Canon that establishes it out of the very Doctrine of S. Augustine as clearly as we can desire it It is in the Decree of Gratian under the name of Pope Vrban in these terms Some men say that when we excommunicate persons who have deserv'd to be excommunicated we go against the Parable of the Gospel where our Lord forbids us to pluck up the tares out of his field They say also that this contrary to S. Augustine who assures us that we ought not to divide its unity and that we must tolerate the wicked and not reject them But first of all we answer that if we ought not to excommunicate the Hereticks and the wicked S. Augustine would have done ill to have joyn'd himself to the Legates of the Holy Church of Rome and to the other Holy Bishops to excommunicate Pelagius and Celestinus and to separate
Prejudices means that that visible extension is a perpetual mark of the Orthodox communion that alwayes distinguishes it from impure or heretical communions so that this Orthodox communion as far as it is visible can never be restrained to a few persons and places it is certain that this was not the opinion of S. Augustine nor that of the other Fathers and it is certain also that the celebrated Authors of the Church of Rome reject the Proposition in this sense as false and absurd and that in effect it is manifestly contrary to experience To set forth the truth of what I propound I will begin with experience and as that of our Age presents it self first to our view I say that if we must act at this day according to the principle That the true Orthodox Church ought to be visibly extended over all Nations we must conclude that there is no true Orthodox Church in the world For it is most true that of all the communions which at this day divide Christianity there is not any one to whom this mark can agree I will not say that there are divers parties in the known world which have not so much as yet heard of Christianity nor that there are others who after having received it have absolutely rejected it to embrace the Mahometan Religion I will not here speak of the Greek communion separated from the Roman nor of the Coptick or Nestorian or of the Jacobites or Armenian which evidently have not that visible extension throughout all Nations I will only speak of the Roman and the Protestant as they are at present He must sayes the Author of the Prejudices be wholly blind that can dare to maintain that the society of Calvinists which is wholly shut out of Italy Spain Flanders a great part of Germany Swedeland Denmark Muscovy Asia Africa of almost all America is that which Jesus Christ has spread over all the world But before he argues after this manner he ought to take heed that we cannot say the same thing of the Roman communion For is it not true that it is at this day excluded from Swedeland Denmark a great part of Germany a part of Switzerland a part of Greece Muscovy Africa Aethiopia Persia Tartary China Japan of the Indies and from the greatest part of America And the Author of the Prejudices ought not to pretend the prevailing of some Colonies of Missionaries whom the Pope sends here and there to gain Proselytes For since he will not have it that we should gain any thing by the Colonies of English and Dutch who have establish'd themselves in all the parts of the world why would he help himself by the Missionaries and Pensionaries that the Congregations de fide propaganda maintain in foreign Countreys Why should they be more reckon'd for any thing than those Colonies of English and Dutch who have the exercises of their Religion as free as those of the Roman Communion They are sayes he such Merchants as are in those Countreys only for the sake of Trade But do not those Merchants pray to God in the form of their Religion in what Countreys and with what design soever they are Is it that those Merchants being so much ty'd as they are to their Trading make no open profession of their Religion or that they have not in the greatest part of those places where they are their ordinary Assemblies with their Ministers as well as the Missionaries He must yield in good earnest that the Christians are now divided and separated from one another about matters of faith and worship in their different Societies or communions of which each one has its seat and bounds apart beyond which we cannot say they are visibly extended if we would speak with any reason and that there is no one that is throughout all Nations in the form of a communion of visible Society From whence it follows that all this dispute of the Author of the Prejudices is but a beating the air and which he can never apply to any real subject The Experience of former Ages is not less contrary to the Proposition of the Author of the Prejudices than that of our Age. For if we consult History we shall find that it has fallen out often that an Heretical communion has spread it self every where while the Orthodox communion was so limited that it did not seem to take up any space If in the time of the Arians they had disputed by this principle by which the Author of the Prejudices would decide our differences I mean if they would have treated that communion as Heretical that was not visibly spread over all the Nations and that as Orthodox which was the Arians had easily overcome The Heresie of the Arians and Eunomians sayes S. Jerom possess'd all the East except Athanasius and Paulinus S. Hilary sayes the same thing The greatest part of the Ten Provinces of Asia excepting Eleusius and some others do not truly know God In those time sayes the Author of the Life of S. Gregory Nazianzen the Church was oppressed by the Arian Heresie many Bishops were banished and vexed by torments and calumnies a thousand wayes many Presbyters and many numerous Flocks were brought down to the utmost misery exposed to the injuries of the weather as no more having any house of prayer where they might meet That Heresie had almost fill'd all the Earth and it triumph'd being upheld by the power of the Emperour so that good men had not so much as the justice of the Laws against the wicked And because the Pastors or to say better the concealed Wolves under the appearance of Pastors had the liberty to drive the Orthodox Bishops out of the Churches who alone were worthy to serve Jesus Christ the Soveraign Bishop it hapned that some overcome with fear others deceived by fair words others gained by money others surprized through their own simplicity embrac'd that Heresie and opened their bosoms and gave their communion to their adversaries This was that that oblig'd the Fathers to elevate the little number and the little flock above extension and multitude Where are those men saith Gregory Nazianzen who reproach us with our poverty and insolently boast themselves of their riches who would define the Church by multitude and contemn the little flock They measure Divinity they weigh the people in the ballance they esteem the illiterate and cover with injuries the lights of the world they heap together the common stones and despise the pretious not remembring that the more the thick darkness surpasses in number the Stars the more the ordinary stones surpass the pretious in quantity the more those Stars and pretious stones surpass the ordinary stones in purity and excellency This Father who had seen in his time the Hereticks masters of the whole Church and their communion spread very wide and far in the East and in the West while the Orthodox durst not appear was so far from having
the Faith and the True Orthodox Church to be regulated by that extension that he made on the contrary this extension a ground of reproach to the Arians taking that for a mark of Heresie which the Author of the Prejudices would have us take for a mark of Orthodoxy Are you ignorant sayes he that the faith as miserable and forsaken as it is is a thousand times more pretious than impiety in splendor and abundance Is it so that you prefer the multitude of the Canaanites before one only Abraham or all the inhabitants of Sodom before one only Lot or all the Midianites to one only Moses Notwithstanding you know that these Saints were but strangers and foreigners among those people I pray tell me whether the three hundred that lapped the water with Gideon were not more to be esteemed than all those thousands who cowardly forsook him whether the servants of Abraham who were few in number were not to be preferr'd to all those Kings who with their innumerable Armies were overcome But I pray yet farther tell me how you understand that which is said when the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea a remnant only shall be saved and this other passage I have reserv'd to my self seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal The matter will not go as you imagine no without doubt for God takes no pleasure in a multitude As for you you reckon your thousands but God reckons those who work out their salvation you heap up a great pile of dust but I assemble the vessels of election There is nothing so great before God as the pure Doctrine and a soul that is filled and adorned with the Tenets of the Truth S. Athanasius or if you will Theodoret is not less express about the subject of a small number in opposition to that extension and multitude than S. Gregory Nazianzen Shall we not sayes he hearken to Jesus Christ who sayes That many are called and few chosen that straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life and few there be that find that gate or this way What man of good understanding will not rather chuse to be among this small number that enters into life than to be joyned to this multitude that goes to perdition If we had lived in the age of S. Stephen should we not have rather chose his party though it should have been forsaken by all else buried under stones and exposed to all manner of reproaches than the party of that multitude which thought that the faith ought to follow the greatest number One man alone who has the Truth on his side is more to be esteemed than ten thousand rash men and this is what the Scriptures of the Old Testament confirm for when millions of men fell under Gods sword one Phineas alone oppos'd himself in the breach and put a stop to the anger of the Lord. If he had not resisted that torrent which bore down all the others if he had approved that which the multitude did he had never himself been commended above all he had never put a stop to the flood of divine vengeance nor had saved that remnant which was after that the object of Gods mercy It was therefore a thing worthy of praise that one man alone should boldly maintain right and justice against the opinion of the multitude Go if you will and be drowned with the multitude that perished in the deluge but give me leave to save my self in the Ark with that small number Be consumed if you please with the inhabitants of Sodom I shall not fail to go out of it with Lot alone Thus these Fathers spoke concerning the state whereto the Orthodox communion might be sometimes reduced and into which it had been in effect reduced which evidently shews us that this visible extension is not a perpetual mark of the True Church and that it is not so very necessary that this arguing should be always just Your society is not spread every where over the world therefore it is not the Church This Vincentius Lirinensis has also acknowledg'd in his Admonition against Heresies for he acknowledges that it may sometimes fall out that Heresie invades the whole Church and he makes a question what he ought to do in that case What ought we to do sayes he when some new contagion endeavours to infect not one part only but the whole Body of the Church in general Quid si novella aliqua contagio non jam portiunculam sed totam pariter Ecclesiam commaculare conetur What visible extension could the Orthodox communion have throughout all Nations in those unhappy times in which the same Vincentius Lirinensis sayes that the greatest part of the good were put to death or imprisoned or banish'd or condemned to the Mines or hid in Desarts and Caves exposed to savage Beasts to hunger thirst and nakedness Horum pars maxima interdictis urbibus protrusi atque extorres inter deserta speluncas feras saxa nuditate fame siti affecti attriti tabefacti sunt What visible extension could that same Orthodox communion have in the time wherein S. Athanasius cryed out after this manner Who is there among the servants of Jesus Christ that these rebells have not calumniated or whom they have not lain snares for Who is there that the Emperour has not banished upon their false accusations he who has alwayes so readily hearkned to them who has alwayes so constantly refused to hear whatsoever should be said against them and who never refused to believe all that they have said against others Where now a dayes shall we find a Church that worships Jesus Christ with liberty If Churches have any piety they are in danger if they dissemble they are alwayes in fear The Emperour has fill'd all with wickedness and hypocrisie as far as things depend on him I know that there are every where many persons who have piety and a love of Jesus Christ but in what place so ever they are they are forced either to conceal themselves as the Prophets and as the great Elias till they find some faithful Abdias who should hide them in a Cave or to to go dwell in the Desarts For it is most true that these wicked men make use of the same calumnies against the good that Jezebell made use of against Naboth and the Jews against Jesus Christ And the Emperour who stirs up himself to defend Heresie and to overthrow the Truth as Ahab overthrew Naboth 's Vineyard refused nothing to the desires of these Hereticks because these Hereticks also spake to him only according to his desires The Fathers had then no regard to seek for the true Church either in that visible extension or in that temporal glory or splendor or in a word any where else than in the True Faith and there it is that they seek for it in effect The Church sayes the
Author of the Commentary on the Psalms attributed to S. Jerom does not consist in her Walls but in the truth of her Tenets She is where the true Faith is For as to the other it is but fifteen or twenty years since the walls of these Churches were in the power of Hereticks They possess'd all these Churches which you see But the Church was where the True Faith was As the Author of the Prejudices has not scrupled sometimes to make use of the Testimonies of our own Authors when he thought he could draw any advantage from them he will not it may be take it ill if I oppose to him also upon the subject about which we now dispute the Testimony of two men famous in the Roman communion and who well deserve to be heard the one is Driedo whom Bellarmine calls a most learned man and the other is Bellarmine himself both very great defenders of the Church of Rome See here therefore what Cardinal Bellarmine hath wrote in the name of both in his Controversies of the Church We must note sayes he according to the Doctrine of Driedo that it is not necessary that the Catholick Church should have that extension in all places all at once or in the same time that is to say that there should be the faithful in all Provinces and that it is enough if that be successively done From whence it follows that when there should remain but one Province alone that should retain the true Faith this Province would not fail to be truly and properly called the Catholick Church provided that we see clearly that it is the same Church which sometimes or at divers times is found spread over all the world Could any one have more clearly contradicted the Author of the Prejudices He would that this visible extension through all Nations should be a perpetual mark of the True Church and these here say that it is sufficient that it is sometimes and even in divers times successively he would that this extension should be the mark of the Church for all following Ages and these here maintain that it is not necessary He would that this reasoning should be alwayes just your society is shut up in a small part of the world Therefore it is not the Church and these here say that when there should remain but one only Province that should retain the true faith this Province would not cease to be properly and truly called the Catholick Church But it may be that Bellarmine had not observed that his opinion and Driedo's favoured the Donatists and that it was contrary to the doctrine of S. Augustine This may be so in effect not only because a man in writing may not have all things in view but because also at the bottom the sentiment of these Doctors is very remote from that of the Donatists and that it does not encounter that of S. Augustine It is yet true that Bellarmine saw that they could make that Objection which he has prevented and answered this I say to the end the Author of the Prejudices may see that this which he has treated of as an Argument and as a convincing Argument for which he has made two Chapters Bellarmine has look'd on as a very trivial objection which he proposes and resolves in a few words They will say sayes he that this is to fall into the Error of Petilianus and the Donatists who maintain'd that in truth the Church had been spread over all the world but that it was afterwards lost in all the Provinces and remain'd no where but in Africa which S. Augustine disputes against I answer that the Error of the Donatists consisted in two things the first that they would have it that the Church should be in Africa only in a time wherein it manifestly increased throughout all the world the second in that they could not connect their Church of Africa with that which had before been spread through all the world for in that Church there they had alwayes good and bad as S. Augustine proves whereas they would compose theirs of the righteous only This Answer of Bellarmine overthrows all the pretensions of the Author of the Prejudices for it establishes these following Propositions 1. That Visible Extension is not a mark of the true Church but in a certain time that is to say when we see it manifestly increase throughout all the world from whence it follows that this mark is vain at other times 2. That the Argument of S. Augustine concludes only for the time then being by reason of that manifest fruitfulness from whence it follows that it is very impertinent that the Author of the Prejudices goes to apply it to these last Ages wherein we maintain the field of the Church has been fruitful only in Errors and Superstitions 3. That if the Donatists had accused all the world to have fallen into Heresie and if they had said by consequence that it was not the time of fruitfulness for the Church it had been in vain for S. Augustine to alledge to them the visible extension of his Church to exempt himself from entring into the discussion of that accusation from whence it follows that it is also in vain that the Author of the Prejudices propounds the visible extension of his since we say that it is fallen into fundamental errors 4. That the Argument of S. Augustine concluded because the Donatists agreed that his communion was Orthodox from whence it follows that that of the Author of the Prejudices concludes nothing since we question that Orthodoxy of his Church 5. That by consequence visible extension is not a mark that can make us know which is the True Church when the dispute is between two Societies contesting that Orthodoxy between themselves but at farthest only when the dispute is between two Societies that mutually own one another to be Orthodox from whence it follows that the Author of the Prejudices makes use of this mark to no purpose since our chief question is to know whether the Church of Rome is Orthodox or no. All these consequences which flow naturally from the answer of Bellarmine contradict the Argument of the Author of the Prejudices and it concerns him to see after what manner he can decline the Authority of this Cardinal But some will say lastly It may be Bellarmine was deceived and that he had not well understood the state of the question which was between S. Augustine and the Donatists nor well comprehended the true Hypothesis of that Father I confess that this may be but it may be also that he did well understand it and that the misconstruing should be on the side of the Author of the Prejudices This is that which must be further cleared and for this effect we must note a thing that the Author of the Prejudices seems not to have comprized which is that if the Donatists had accused the Society of S. Augustine of Heresie S.
was the time whereof Hilary speaks in his Writings which you artificially make use of to elude so many Divine Testimonies which I have set before you as if the Church had perished throughout all the world You may as well say that there were no more Churches in Galatia when the Apostle said O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that after having begun in the Spirit you should end in the flesh for thus it is well nigh that you calumniate the learned Hilary under a pretence that he censured the negligent and the fearful for whom he has as it were so many birth-pangs till Iesus Christ should be formed in them Who is there that knows not that in the time of Arianism divers simple persons deceived by obscure expressions imagined that the Arians believ'd the same thing with themselves that others yielded through fear and dissimulation and consented in appearance to heresie not walking in integrity in the way of the truth of the Gospel you would see you Donatists that he had not pardoned those persons for you are not ignorant of the doctrine of the Scripture upon this subject Read what S. Paul has wrote concerning S. Peter See afterwards what S. Cyprian has thought was to be done on these occasions and you will find that it is to very ill purpose to blame the mildness of the Church which gathers together the members of Iesus Christ when they are dispersed instead of dispersing them when they are gathered together Howsoever it be there have been yet some firm ones who were sufficiently enlightned to know the snares of the Hereticks They were indeed very few in number in comparison of others but yet nevertheless some of them generously suffered banishment for the cause of the faith and others kept themselves concealed here and there throughout the earth Thus it was that the Church which increased in all Nations preserved within her self the good Wheat of our Lord and thus it is that she will preserve her self unto the end till she extend her self over all people and even over the Barbarians themselves The Church therefore consists in the good seed that the Son of Man has sown and of which it is said that it should grow up until the harvest amidst the Tares The field is the world and the harvest is the end of the world See here after what manner S. Augustine declares his opinion concerning the state of the Church and its subsistence under the Arians since coming afterwards to speak of a passage of S. Hilary which they had objected to him he sayes that we must understand that which he had said not in regard of the good Wheat which was yet mingled with the Tares but only in regard of the Tares or if his words had any relation to the good Wheat we must take them as only designing to enflame the zeal of the fearful by such answers And he adds that the holy Scripture it self frequently makes use of this way of expressing it self in general terms which at first seem to belong to the whole body but which notwithstanding regard only a part Habent etiam scripturae canonicae hunc arguendi morem ut tanquam omnibus dicatur ad quosdam verbum perveniat We may now see very clearly that we are so far from being like to the Donatists as the Author of the Prejudices layes it to our charge that we tread on the contrary in the footsteps of St. Augustine For first of all our Hypothesis touching the subsistence and obscurity of the Church is throughout conform to his We say as he does that God has alwayes preserved his truly faithful in the very communion of the corrupted Church We say with him that in the most violent entring in of Error and Superstition God has not left himself without witness since he has raised up not only persons but whole Societies that have openly and couragiously maintained the truth and withdrawn themselves from under the Roman Domination And as to the passages that the Author of the Prejudices objects to us out of Calvin and our Confession of Faith we give the same explication of it that S. Augustine gave to those of S. Hilary which the Donatists objected to him That is to say that that defection of all the world and that ruine and desolation whereinto the Church had fell that Eclipse of the truth and treasure of salvation are expressions that regard properly only the Tares that covered the Field of the Church and not the good Seed which was mingled with those Tares These expressions only regard the greater number of those who followed those Superstitions and Errors and not those who in the midst of that confusion kept their Religion pure and much less those who had the courage to oppose themselves openly to Error and to resist it even unto Persecutions and Martyrdom I know that he has accustomed himself to form some difficulties and Objections against our Hypothesis but we have this satisfaction to know that he can make none that does not equally regard the Hypothesis of S. Augustine and ours and to which by consequence the Author of the Prejudices himself would not be obliged to answer if he would not act the Donatist He confesses himself that S. Augustine had acknowledged that there might have been some Catholicks hid in Heretical communions and besides he cannot deny that the passage which I have set down is express upon that subject 1. If therefore he demands of us who those faithful were who before the Reformation kept their faith pure without infecting themselves with the publick errors and if he urges us to mark them out to him one after another to tell him their names and their Genealogy I will demand of him likewise who were those good seed of S. Augustine who under the Arian Ministry preserved their faith without being infected with Heresie and I will intreat him to mark them out to me by name and to give me their history 2. If he demands of us how we understand those persons could with a good conscience live under a Ministry where they taught Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the religious worshipping of Images which we believe to be fundamental errors I will also demand of him how he understands that the good seed of S. Augustine could live under an Arian Ministry where they taught that the Son of God was not consubstantial with his Father and that the Father was not the Father eternally which are errors that the Author of the Prejudices himself judges abominable 3. If he tells us that our Fathers ought not therefore to have undertaken a Reformation but that they ought to have left things in the estate wherein they were since howsoever corrupted the Latin Church was according to us we could yet be saved in her communion I shall tell him that by the same reason the Orthodox ought not to have taken care to have re-established the
bad conduct of their Pastors Heaven and Hell would be very miserably dispensed while the time of those disorders lasted For our adversaries themselves are constrained to confess that this quarrell that made so great a noise that produced so many Excommunications so many Separations so many acts of violence and so many banishments and which ended by the dishonour of the Council of Chalcedon was founded upon nothing but a personal animosity sayes Baronius or as Sirmundus sayes upon an indifferent controversie which concerned nothing the doctrine of the faith on which side soever it had been decided If we must therefore judge according to the relation of these two Authors all that we can say is that both the parties were equally Schismatical who violated the peace and unity of the Church without any just reason and who mutually excommunicated one another for nothing and if we add that rigorous judgement against the Schifmatical Societies without any exception or distinction we must say that there was then no longer a true Church upon the Earth nor any hope of salvation But to go yet further If all those who live in the communion of Schismaticks are out of the Church in a state of Damnation I would fain have them satisfie me about some difficulties that I find in the History of the same Vigilius For the two first years of his Papacy it was he that was called a false Pope a Schismatick an Usurper of the Bishoprick of Sylverius whom the Hereticks had banished to set up this man who had promised them to communicate with them And in effect Liberatus and Victor of Tunis relate that after he was in possession of the Papacy he wrote to the Hereticks as having the same faith with them and Bellarmine declares that at this time Vigilius was an Anti-Pope and a Schismatick because that Sylverius the lawful Pope was yet living and there could not be two lawful Popes at the same time Baronius and Petavius say the same thing Notwithstanding it is true that during these two years of Schism Vigilius was peaceably acknowledged to be the Bishop of Rome both by the Church of Rome and by all Christendom No Church refused to live in his communion no Bishop withdrew himself from him as a Schismatick He performed without any opposition all the Functions of his Bishoprick he received the honours and had the profits of it All the Earth was then Schismatical with him and by consequence there was no further either a Church or Salvation in the World if it was only in the person of Sylverius and some Bishops who had subscribed to the Sentence of the Deposition and Anathema that Sylverius being in Exile pronounced against Vigilius and against all those who should adhere to him After this I would fain have them tell me how Vigilius could pass from the state of a Schismatick to that of a true Pope It was say Baronius and Bellarmine by the consent of the Clergy and People of Rome who assembled together and chose him lawfully after the death of Silverius But besides that this new Ordination of Vigilius and this Assembly of the People and Clergy is an effect of the invention of Baronius which is grounded upon nothing but one word of Anastasius the Popes Library-keeper who lived above three hundred years after besides this I say that the People of Rome and that Clergy had not they themselves lost through Schism the form of the true Church how was it restored to them how could they re-establish themselves Who gave that right to a company of Schismaticks cut off from the communion and the covenant of Jesus Christ to make a Rebell a Schismatick an excommunicated person a man that by the sentence of Sylverius could not perform any Sacerdotal Function to make such a one I say a lawful Pope See here already some inconveniencies considerable enough that flow from that rigorous sentiment but if we would go yet further we may find it may be others that are not less severe For what will they say to the Schisms that fell out so frequently in the Latin Church through the concurrence of Anti-Popes Will they dare roundly to pronounce all those people who have lived and dyed under the obedience of those false Popes and who by consequence having been engaged in a true Schism have been totally cut off from the Christian Communion and deprived of salvation Let the Author of the Prejudices who has taken such pains to damn the World without any mercy take the pains if he pleases to examine one matter of fact that I will set before him and which should be enough methinks to decide this Question at least in regard of him It is this that during the great Schism of two Anti-Popes which was ended at the Council of Constance there were Saints that the Church of Rome has canonized and whom it prayes to who lived and dyed under two contrary obediences and who by consequence dyed both the one sort and the others in a true Schism For in the year 1380. S. Catherine of Siena dyed under the obedience of Vrban the Sixth in the year 1381. S. Catharine of Swedeland the Daughter of S. Bridget dyed under the same obedience In the year 1395. S. Margaret of Pisa dyed under the obedience of Boniface the Ninth in the year 1399. S. Dorothy of Prussia dyed under the obedience of the same Pope and in the year 1405. S. William the Hermite of Sicily dyed under the obedience of Innocent the Seventh On the other side in the year 1382. S. Peter of Luxemburg dyed under the obedience of Clement who was the Anti-Pope of Vrban and some time after S. Vincent of Ferrara lived and wrought Miracles in the party of Benoist the Anti-Pope of Gregory the Twelfth Behold here Saints of both sides and yet one or the others must of necessity have been Schismaticks From whence it appears that the Church of Rome her self is concerned to oblige the Author of the Prejudices to moderate his style and not to take as it seems he has done that which the Fathers have said in disputing against the Schismaticks in its utmost latitude But although all that I have said should have no place the holy Scripture distinctly decides this difficulty For if he would but read the History of the Ten Tribes of Israel after they were separated from that of Judah at the instigation of Jeroboam he will find that they were in a real Schism since they had forsaken the Worship at Jerusalem and had built new Altars against the express commandment of God and yet nevertheless that did not hinder God from preserving his truly faithful and elect even in the midst of them For there were those seven thousand who in the time of Elias had not bowed the knee to Baal and whom S. Paul calls the remnant of the Election of Grace were not these Israelites engaged in a bad party Had
Rights of that Society were so inseparably joyned to those who opposed the Reformation that that Society could not subsist without them and that separating themselves out of the motives of an ill-grounded Prejudice or in giving a Just ground to others to separate themselves from them they should have carried away all that Society with them This cannot be said For among all those persons who compose the Body of the Visible Church it is certain that there are none to how high Dignities soever they may be raised and whatsoever number of them there may be that are such Essential Parts as without which the Church cannot subsist while there are two or three remaining who may assemble together in the Name of Jesus Christ For Jesus Christ himself restrained himself to that Number When two or three of you are gathered together in my Name I will be in the midst of you Jesus Christ himself alone his Truth his Gospel his Providence and his Spirit are essential to the Church without which she can never subsist but she may without the Pope without the Court of Rome without the Council of Trent without the Bishops and without the people who follow Rome and in a word without that whole Party which refused the Reformation The Christian Society does not depend on their capricious humours nor on their Temporal Interests They are not the Soul of that Body They will be Members of it while they make profession of the True Faith or at the furthest while they do not oppose it but when they shall obstinately remain in Errors incompatible with the Communion of Jesus Christ and when they shall break by unjust Anathema's the bond of that Society We may very well say that the Body of the Visible Church is Lessened but we can never say that their withdrawing leaves the Faithful under a Dispersion The better to understand this Truth we must know That although that External Society be common to the good and the bad to the truly Faithful to Hereticks and the men of the World in a word to all those who are found to be externally mingled in the Body of the Church yet in effect the Right of that Society will not to speak properly belong to any but the truly Faithful For the wicked the Hereticks and those Worldly men who fill up their Assemblies are only associated here while they remain such in dishonouring God by the Contempt they have of his word and the Indignities they offer in receiving his Sacraments Therefore God said to the wicked in Isaiah When you come to appear-before me who has required this at your hands to tread my Courts And in the Fiftieth Psalm David assures us that God has said to the wicked What hast thou to do to Read my Laws and to take my Covenant into thy Mouth Since thou hast hated instruction and hast cast my Words behind thee It is certain then that the right of the External Society resides in the Faithful only who only are the Church of Jesus Christ his Mystical body for which he dyed the Seed which he sowed with his own hand against his harvest As to the rest they are in that Communion only by Accident and are the seed of Tares which the Enemy rising at night has thrown into the Field of the Son of God and which grows with the Wheat until the Time of the Harvest and it is also only by Accident that they are suffered there to wit because most commonly their wickedness is not known or if it be their Conversion may yet be Charitably hoped for or in fine it may fall out that in going about to pull up the Tares one must also pluck up the Wheat with it But being what they are they have not any part in the rights of that Society and of those Assemblies Therefore Jesus Christ has promised his presence to none but such as shall be assembled together in his Name And Saint Austin expresly Teaches that the Power of the Keys and that of binding and loosing was given to the Church of the Just and true Believers in opposition to the wicked to Hereticks and to the men of the World that are mixt with them And it is said of that Church only so considered in that same opposition what Jesus Christ has said in the Gospel If thy Brother sin against thee tell it to the Church and if he refuse to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen man and a Publican Which lets us see that he gave only the truly Faithful the Right to be in a Society for there those only have a Right to be in a Religious Society who have the power of binding and loosing and of hearing those private complaints to Judge concerning them But according to him the truly Faithful have only that power and it is only to those that Jesus Christ has given it They are then none but those to speak properly in whom the Right of being in an External Society and of making those Assemblies resides That being so laid down who sees not that when it falls out that the Body of that mixed Church is divided into divers parties about those important matters that respect either Faith or Worship or the General Rules of Manners all the Rights of that Christian Society remain in that Party which retains true Doctrine and Piety because it is on that side that the truly Just and Faithful place themselves There it is that the true Church of Jesus Christ is assembled in his Name to which he has promised his presence for as I have before said Error Superstition and Injustice give none a Right to be in a Society nor by consequence any to make those Assemblies But they will say if the Body of the Pastors be found in the other Party if External Splendor Multitude Extent Succession Authority of Councils are found there can any one forbear acknowledging it to be the Body of the Church There are seen amongst them the Pulpits Schools Churches Bishopricks Benefices Revenues Dignities and in a word all those advantages that mark out the Body of the Visible Church A Party that is in that condition cannot suffer that any should put its Rights in Question its Assemblies pass for lawful throughout all the World and the Assemblies only of the other Party are here Treated of who finding themselves spoiled of those advantages cannot be considered otherwise then as a Sect divided from the Body as a Branch separated from the Tree or as a Ray divided from the Sun according to the comparison of the Fathers I answer That those Divisions that fall out in a mixed Church may be of two sorts for sometimes they are founded only upon personal accusations or points of Discipline or light and less important Questions the Foundation of the Orthodox Doctrine and true Worship remaining intire in both Parties Of this sort were the Divisions of the Novatians the Donatists the Luciferians as it has
it should be True that the Right of being in an External Society That of making Assemblies that of Preaching That of Administring the Sacraments that of Binding and Loosing and the whole Ministerial Power should reside in the Faithfull only yet it must be Confess'd notwithstanding That all those Rights are to no purpose while they are Separated from their Pastors because that each person among them being but a meer private man they could not reduce those Rights into Act as they say that is to say They could not tell how to make any Actual Function They have none who could join them together into a visible Body none among them can Lawfully Assemble them none can Exercise the Functions of the Ministry among them none can either Preach or Administer the Sacraments or Exercise the Power of the Keys Whence it follows that whatsoever Right they have ascribed to them yet they do not cease to be in that Condition in a True Dispersion according to what is said in the Scripture I will smite the Shepherd and the Sheep shall be scattered abroad And therefore Saint Paul says That God has given some to be Apostles others to be Prophets others Evangelists and others Pastors and Teachers for the Assembling of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the Edifying of the Body of Christ The Church in as much as she is an External Society is as an Organical Body which has its noble parts necessary for Life without which it could not subsist for a moment and those parts are her Pastors who are not it may be absolutely necessary for the Subsistence of Faith and Piety in the Souls of particular men but who are at least absolutely so for the Subsistance of that External Society and the Publick Exercise of Religion If they overthrow this Order they change the Church into a rash Assembly made by Chance and Licentiousness and of whose Convocation there can be no Reason given Even the very name alone of the Church which signifies a called Assembly denotes that to assemble in a Body there ought to be a Lawful Call which can be in none but the Pastors The Pastors are then necessary to Bind an External Society but they are yet further so for the setting it in any Order for otherwise it will depend on the Capricious humour of each private man to usurp the Publick Functions each man will Imagine himself to have a Right to Preach the word of the Gospell to Administer the Sacraments and to do the other Functions of the Ministry which would turn the Church into an Anarchy These are to me the most specious Objections that they can make against what I have said concerning the Right that the Faithfull have to be in a Society even then when they are Separated from the Body of their Pastors and they cannot Complain that I have weakned them for they will not find any thing either in that Book of the Prejudices or it may be in all their other Controversial Writings that will appear to have as much Force and Likelihood of Truth as that which I have gathered together in these few words To Answer in some Order I shall in the first place affirm That that Objection does not any way touch the Body of the Protestants since it is evident not only that all their Pastors were not contrary to the Reformation but also that in the greatest part of those places wherein it was made those who were most ardently engaged in it were persons high in Office and Dignity in the Latin Church Who had as much a Call as they can reasonably desire to preserve the Bond of Society intire and to call Assemblies together It is as certain that in divers places the Reformation was made by the consent of the greatest part of their Pastors as in England in Scotland in Swedland in Denmark in Saxony in the Palatinate in Hessia in Switzerland and in many more Cities and Countrys in Germany So that we may say with certainty That the Reformed People Separated from the Roman Communion did not assemble of themselves but that they kept up an External Society under the lawful Ministry of a Considerable number of their Pastors who called them together into a Body or to speak better who hindred their dispersion and preserved the Bond of their Unity They had in that Number their Monks their Preachers Priests Curates Canons Doctors Professours in Divinity whole Universities and Abbies Bishops Arch-Bishops Cardinals and if the light of the Gospel had not been then inaccessible to the See of Rome they had had it may be Popes themselves for some of them were sensible enough of the Necessity of a Reformation Howsoever it be we may say That there was yet in the Body of the Pastors a Remnant according to the Election of Grace as there was in the Time of the Arrians according to the Remark of St. Gregory Nazianzen I confess that in some places the People of themselves Assembled to Chuse their Pastors but when they should have been guilty of any irregularity in that besides that they cannot impute it to all the Body it would have been rectified by the approbation that all the other Pastors made of that Election and by the right hand of Fellowship which they gave them finding themselves to be in the same Ecclesiastical Assemblies with them and acknowledging them for their Brethren and Companions in the Work of Jesus Christ And by so much the more as the Times of Persecution wherein the Faithful were then often forced them to pass over those Formalities which it was impossible for them to observe and as God himself seemed to have ratified the choice of those persons by the blessing which he spread upon their Labours as he did particularly upon the Ministry of John le Mason la Riviere whom the people chose at Paris in the Year 1555. But howsoever we are but a very little concerned in the Principles upon which that Objection is grounded yet we shall not fail notwithstanding to Examine them to know a little more distinctly of what necessity Pastors are for the subsistence of the Society or External Communion of the Church I say then in the first place it must not be thought that the Bond of the External Society of the Faithful absolutely depend on their Union or as Cardinal du Perron speaks on their Adherence to the Body of their Pastors It may fall out sometimes that the Body of the Pastors that is to say the greater number of them fall into Heresy and corrupt the Ministry in such a manner as the Faithful would be bound to Separate themselves from them If there yet remain some few Pastors who maintain the True Doctrine and oppose Error in that Case I say that the Faithful may most lawfully hold a Christian Society with them in the using of all their Functions assemble themselves under their Ministry hear the word of the Gospel from their Mouths and
Assemblies most lawful For as to that which is said in the Scripture I will smite the Shepheard and the Sheep shall be scattered abroad it would be manifestly to abuse that passage if they would conclude from it an absolute necessity of the Pastors for the subsistence of that Society For that is a Prophecy which notes not that which the Faithful ought to do when they have no Pastors but that which should befal the Disciples of Jesus Christ in the Time of his Passion when the fury of the Jews and the sad Condition wherein they should behold their Divine Master should force them to be scattered which has nothing common to the Question we are now Treating of In the Third place I say that to understand well the true use and the Necessity of the Actions of the Ministry the Church must be considered in two Seasons in her first formation and in her subsistence For in her first formation it is certain that the Actions of the Ministry were necessary for the calling of men to the light of the Gospel whereof as yet they had no knowledge and by Consequence they were necessary to the Establishment of the Christian Communion or Society amongst them which could not be without that knowledge To this end Jesus Christ employed his Apostles and Evangelists Go says he and Teach all Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and it is that to which Saint Paul has a chief regard when he says That Christ has given some Apostles and some Prophets and some Exangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the gathering together of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ Those glorious Heralds by the efficacy of their word accompanied with the power of Jesus Christ called together the Church if we must so say as the Holy Assembly of God they Established the Christian Religion in the World and so united men among themselves in an External Society by the profession of one and the same Faith of one and the same Hope and Charity which inspired them so that the Acts of their Ministry were absolutely necessary for that first Establishment because their Preaching was the only means that God would make use of to draw men from the Pagan Idolatry or the Jewish Obstinacy and to give them that Faith without which they could never have had a Christian Society In this respect there is Reason to urge the force of the word Church which signifies not a rash and tumultuary Assembly made by chance or Sedition but an Assembly lawfully called for it was God himself who called it by the voice of his Apostle according to the Prophecy of David The mighty Lord the Eternal God hath spoken and called to all the Earth from the rising up of the Son to the going down of the same He has called the Heavens from on high and the Earth to Judge his People saying Gather ye my Saints together In this first Establishment the Apostles and Evangelists did three things On one hand they spread abroad the Faith every where and by this means bound men in an External Communion or Society on the other hand they set together the Christian Truths which are the Objects of Faith in the Cannon of the Scriptures and in fine they established Ordinary Pastors for the upholding and Government of the Church By the first of those things in Establishing the Faith in mens hearts they assembled called them together and put them into a Society by the second they laid as I may so speak the Fountain or the External and perpetual Magazine of the Evangelical Doctrine By the Third they provided for the Ordinary Dispensation of that Fountain setling of Ministers to distribute it by their Preaching the Sacraments and the Exercise of Discipline Of these three things there is none but the first only to which we ought to refer the Convocation of the Church and Establishment of the Christian Society But we must say that all Three serve for its preservation and increase for they are so many ways and means which the Apostles left for the preservation of the Faith and strengthning of it in those who had before received it and to propagate it to their Children and in those who had not as yet received it in which the preservation of a Society consists The first contributes much for as Lights or Torches lighted all together preserve and mutually strengthen their fire and are capable of lighting others So many faithful Christians united together confirm one another in the Faith and Piety and are fit to Communicate that Faith and Piety to those who have not yet received it The Second does not contribute less for the Faithful preserve and increase their light their Faith Piety Sanctity by the immediate Reading of the Holy Scriptures Infidels themselves may be converted this way and those that go astray be brought back to the purity of the Gospel The Third is also of exceeding great Use for the Pastors by their Preaching their Direction and their Writings by their Examples by the Sacraments they Administer and in a word by all the Actions of their Ministry confirm the Faith where it is and propagate it where it is not The Divine Wisdom has so prepared its divers means for the preservation of that Society and the Propagation of his Church That if the Actions of the Ministry do not produce that effect for which they are appointed the other means shall and supply that defect In Effect when the publick Preaching and presence of the Pastors fail the Reading of the Scripture private Exhortation of the simple Christians the writings of their Pastors either dead or absent may come to succour and make the Faith and Charity and Piety subsist and by consequence the External Society of the Church and its Assemblies How then are the Actions of the Ministry necessary They are so first By Necessity of Precept as they speak I mean as it is a means that Jesus Christ has ordained the Use whereof we cannot neglect without sin Those who contemn it resist the Order that God himself has established and make themselves unworthy of his Grace and to this those passages in the Scripture refer which recommend the Pastors to the Faithful He that heareth you heareth me and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me Obey them that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls 2. The Actions of the Ministry are necessary to the Churches well being though not absolutely necessary to its being It is not absolutely impossible for a Church to subsist without having actually any Pastors not only because sometimes Faith and Piety may subsist without their heavenly food which is the Word and Sacraments as a Body may subsist sometimes without its nourishments but also because one part of that food may come to us otherwise then from the mouth of the
Pastors as I have shewn But they are necessary to the well being of a Church but it is the hand of the Pastors alone that dispences the Sacraments to us and their Preaching is a publick instruction that more strongly sets before our Eyes the Truths of the Gospel that livelily applies its Precepts its Promises its Threatnings and its Exhortations to us and frequently forces us to make those Reflections on our selves which we should not do without their Aid Their Authority restrains us their light inlightens us their Direction guides us their Example excites us and their Labours case ours It is certain that a Flock without a Pastor cannot but be in a very bad condition for howsoever each of the Mystical Sheep who compose it may defend themselves against the assaults of the Wolves yet it is not ordinarily done either with such force or such success as when the defending of them lies in the hands of Faithful Pastors to whom God communicates a greater measure of his Light and Grace and although the External Society among the simple Faithful may not cease to subsist though they have not actually any Pastor since they may be joyned together in Jesus Christ by the profession of one same Faith and the same Piety which assembles them by vertue of the first Convocation that the Apostles made yet that Society as far as it is External would be far better maintained by the Actions of the Ministry of the Pastors then it would be otherwise 3. I shall not fear to say that even the Actions of the Ministry are necessary for the perpetual subsistence of that External Society for however the meer Reading of the Word of God Publick Prayers in Common the mutual Exhortations of the Faithful and the Writings of the Doctors of the Church are without doubt sufficient to preserve the Faith and Piety in the Souls of men not only during some time but even always if they do not neglect their duty yet notwithstanding it must be acknowledged that according to the way that we are made and to speak as they say after the manner of men a Flock cannot abide a long Time without a Shepherd so as not to fall into Negligence and by that Negligence into an Oblivion of its duty and in fine so as the Sheep should not be in a great danger of dispersion See here after what manner Pastors are necessary to the Church but to imagine that it cannot absolutely have any more a Christian Society or lawful Assemblies among the Faithful when their Ordinary Pastors forsake them is that which they can never maintain with any Reason For the Faithful are the Sheep of Jesus Christ and when their Pastors scatter them the Grace and Name of Jesus Christ calls them together They are in a Society by the right of the first Convocation of the Church which is a perpetual right which subsists every where where the True Faith and true Christian Piety are found Common among many persons and it is from that perpetual and immovable Right that that of the actual Assemblies Flowes But what Order can they hold in their Assemblies since they have none to direct them Externally I answer That the same Spirit of Grace which inspired them with Piety and Charity would it self suggest an Order and subject them one to another by a mutual consent for God does not forsake his own Children though men and the Church may always say in the Languague of the Prophet When my Father and Mother forsake me the Lord shall take me up If there be any Magistrate to be found among the Faithful it belongs to him to settle an Order among them for the Civil Society comes in Naturally to the succour of the Religious when the Religious is cast into any Extremity If there be no Magistrate they ought to agree about an Order in private Conferences before they come to Assemble together in a Body to avoid Confusion and every one has a Right to make those private Conferences But what can they do in those Assemblies They may pray to God there they may implore the succours of his Providence and put their Trust in his Promises They must begin by that Afterwards they will search out all possible means to have Pastors called to that Office by the Ordinary ways to receive the Sacraments and Preaching of the Gospel from them but if that is impossible or if they see that that would be evidently to Tempt God and put the Flock in danger of dissipation it is Necessary in that case that the Flock should chuse a Pastor for it self and Consecrate him to God by ardent Prayers in committing to his Trust the Rights of the Ministry that reside in the Body of the Faithful to whom Jesus Christ according to Saint Augustine has given the Power of the Keys For we ought not to imagine that the Body of the Faithful should be stripped of the Right of the Ministry as often as they should be actually without Pastors That Right is inviolable it cannot be either lost or separated from the Body of the Faithful We will in the Close examine whether an Election made after that manner gives a sufficient Call it is sufficient at present to know that neither the Right of a Christian Society nor that of Christian Assemblies is so necessarily tied to the Pastors That when there should be none of them the Faithful could not remain united together externally in a Body of a Visible Church or make those Assemblies lawful The Author of the Prejudices Treating about this matter distinguishes between two sorts of Separations the one Negative the other Positive There is says he a meer Negative Separation which consists more in the denyal of certain Acts of Communion then in positive Actions against that Society from which one separates And there is another Positive Separation which includes the erecting of a Separate Society the Establishment of a new Ministry and the positive Condemnation of the former Society to which he was united He says afterwards That we did not content our selves with the first kind of Separation that we have gone further that we have formed a new Society a new Church that we have set up new Pastors That it is that kind of Separation whereof he accuses us and that it is this also that we ought to Justify our selves about He repeats the same things in the end and concludes That when the Faithful should believe themselves obliged out of a good Conscience to separate themselves Negatively they ought not to form a Society nor have any Pastors But that they ought to remain in that State without any Pastors and without any External Worship in waiting until God extraordinarily raise up some with visible Characters of their Mission I acknowledge that that Distinction of two kinds of Separation is of some Use and I have my self made use of it for the putting of the matters of this Treatise into a more natural Order
but I deny that the Consequences which the Author of the Prejudices pretends to draw from them are True We shall see in the sequel whether the Society of the Protestants separated from those of the Church of Rome may with any reason be called a new Church We shall see also what Right they had to a Gospel-Ministry and whether they can say that their Ministry is new I consider only that Principle which he propounds which is That when the Faithful separate themselves Negatively from those with whom they were before united they ought not to set up a Society apart For he knows not how to say any thing that is more contrary to Piety and the Spirit of Christianity I hold then that if that Negative Separation of the Faithful be Just if it be necessary if they made it out of a good Conscience not only they can but they ought to hold a Christian Society among themselves to make a Visible Body to Assemble to pray to God together to Read his Word to consult and deliberate for their common Interests even while they should be separated from the greater number of the Ordinary Pastors or even when they should have no Pastors among them I mean that that is not only a Right but a Duty an Obligation and such an Obligation that there is nothing can dispence with but an absolute and invincible impossibility The Reason upon which I found this Proposition is taken from the very Nature of the Christian Faith Piety and Charity For when God has given us these vertues he has by that very thing indispensably bound us to keep and strengthen them and by consequence he has bound us to practise those means which he himself has established for that purpose But among those means That of External Communion with our Brethren to whom he has given the same grace is one of the most considerable as I have said before Therefore Saint Paul told the believing Hebrews Let us take heed to stir up one another to Charity and good works not forsaking the Assembling of our selves together but admonishing one another And to the Colossians Let the word of Jesus Christ dwell richly in you in all wisdom Teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs And to the Thessalonians We entreat that you would admonish the disorderly that you comfort those that are in affliction that you uphold the weak And to the Ephesians Speake ye one to another in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Moreover according as our Brethren labour on their part in the preservation and confirmation of our Faith Piety Hope and Charity by the Society that we hold with them so we produce the same effect in respect of them for we mutually edify one another But it is further a Duty to which Christianity engages us God would not that we should only labour for our own preservation he would have us also take care of that of our neighbours and it would be a detestable word in the mouth of a Christian if he should say with Cain Am I my Brothers keeper We are further bound to propagate our Faith and Piety in the Souls of our Children and to labour even to the utmost of our power to make it spring up in the Souls of Infidels as one lighted candle may light another which evidently notes that the Instinct of Christianity is an instinct of Society that carries us out not only to own our Brethren when they are so but to gain more then we had before and even those which we cannot have In fine Piety would have us give God the highest honour and Worship that it is possible for us to give him But it is certain that God is more honoured in a Society when all in one Body offer up their Prayers to him their vows and their praises then when each does it apart more hearts united together pay God a homage more worthy of his Majesty They cannot then imagine a State more contrary to the nature of the true Faith of Christian Piety and Charity than that of Dispersion nor by consequence any thing that the Faithful ought to have more horror for and when the misery of the Age shall cast them into it by an unavoidable necessity they ought always to preserve a Spirit of Society and to pant after the company of their Brethren My Soul said David then when he was in that Condition Thirsteth after God after the living and true God O when shall I come and appear before the presence of God! My Tears have been my meat Day and Night while they say unto me Where is now thy God I remember the Time wherein I went with the multitude and when I went sweetly in company with others with the voice of Triumph and praise unto the House of God It is so certain that the Actual dispersion of the Faithful does not break the natural bond of their Society for they are always Brethren Children of the same Family it can only suspend the Acts of it and when that absolute necessity which forced them into dispersion is gone they return of themselves naturally into an actual Society by the force of that Unity of Faith and Religion that is among them without any necessity of a new Convocation It will signify nothing to say that the Duties which I have noted respect the Faithful only then when they are already in an Actual Society but that they are not bound to remain there nor to enter into it when they have no Pastors to Assemble them For I say that those Duties arise not from the nature of that Society but from that of Faith Piety and Charity and by consequence they bind them to preserve an actual Society where-ever it is and even to make one where it is not yet that is to say they oblige us to United all those to us in whom we see the same Faith Piety and Charity shine forth that we perceive in our selves In a word since Faith Piety Charity and the other Christian Vertues bind us to those Duties they bind us also to an External Society without which they cannot be performed whence it comes to pass that the Faithful are called in the Scripture Sheep not in respect of their Ordinary Pastors but in respect of their Faith in Jesus Christ to note That it is the Faith and not the Ministry which makes the Society and which renders by consequence their Assemblies lawful and necessary CHAP. II. That the Society of the Protestants is not a New Church ONe of the most Ordinary and powerful means that they make use of to render us odious to the People and to drive them from our Communion is to represent us to them as Innovators and full of Confusions who have overthrown all and made a new Religion and a new Church and it is very true that the greatest part of the World
are upon For if they mean That the Society or Church of the Protestants is new in respect of the State wherein it was or of that external form which it had immediately before the Reformation we shall voluntarily agree that it is made new in that sence after the same manner that the Scripture calls the Regenerate a new Man or as God promises to give us a new heart or as they call a House repaired and put into its natural State a new House That would speak the Favour God shew'd to our Fathers in re-establishing the Christian Society in that Just and lawful State wherein it ought to be according to its first Establishment and that that State is very much different from that wherein it was immediately before the Reformation This is that which we do not deny and are so far from it that on the contrary we praise and glorify God for it But if they mean that we have made a new Church that is to say one essentially differing from that which Jesus Christ and his Apostles would establish in the World and which has always subsisted even to our days or that in all that which depends on us we have not re-established it in its first and lawful State this is what we deny and in this sence which is the only one that can render the Accusations of our Adversaries just we maintain that we have not in the least made a new Church In a word we say that the Church of Jesus Christ has subsisted down from the Apostles to us inclusively in all that which it has Essentially and that she yet subsists at this day among us but that having changed her State or External Form in the Ages that preceeded the Reformation she was re-established in her just and lawful State by the Reformation of our Fathers which no ways hinders but that she was and might always be the same Church To make this Truth to be the better understood we need only to clear on the one side what that Essence of the Church is that ought always to remain immovable to shew that it may be but one and the same Church by descent and uninturrepted Succession and on the other side what State it is that she has suffered change in and how it could be altered and repaired The Essence of the Church consists in this That it is a Body of divers persons united together in the Commnion of one only True God under one only Jesus Christ their Head and Mediatour and it is Jesus Christ himself that has given us this Idea of it when he says that This is life Eternal to know the only True God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent That Definition which we give of the Church supposes 1. The subject or matter whereof the Church is composed which are divers men divers persons united among themselves and with God 2. It supposes the Necessary means without which that Communion cannot be which are the word of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit 3. It contains not only the True Faith Charity Hope which are the natural bonds of that Communion but all the other Christian Vertues also as Worship Adoration Truth Obedience Thanksgiving Justice Temperance c. which are the the duties to which that Communion engages us 4. It comprehends in it further all the fruits that we gather from that Communion as Remission of Sins Peace and Tranquillity of Soul Consolation in Afflictions Succours in Temptations c. 5. In fine it includes all the Rights that necessarily follow that Communion as that of being joyned together in an External Society that of Publick Assemblies that of the Ministry that of the Sacraments and that of External Government and Discipline See here that which is Essential to the Church for I call that Essential without which the Church cannot subsist and which yet is sufficient to make it subsist that which cannot subsist if that Church fail to subsist and that which cannot be wanting if there be a Church As to the State in respect of which it suffers changes it consists in all that that depends on the different disposition of Times Places and Persons For Example To have the Bodily presence of Jesus Christ to have Apostles and Evangelists for its Pastors to have the Miraculous gifts of healing that of Tongues that of the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Faithful by Visible Symbols that of Prophecy and that of an external and infallible direction and instruction is a State wherein the Church was in the Time of its Birth but which was changed in the other Times that followed To have Pastors illustrious for Zeal Learning and Piety as a Saint Augustine a Saint Basil a Saint Chrysostom is a State wherein it was not always nor every where but in some Times and Places only To be flourishing and in Peace without Persecution without Schism without Error is a State wherein it has neither been always nor in all Places nor in respect of all those persons who have composed it but which it has been in in some Times and Places only and with respect to some Persons We ought then to set down in their proper Order those things which belong to the State of the Church and to its Essence and which by Consequence are liable to change as to be extended every where or in the greatest part of the World to have a multitude or the greatest number Temporal Splendor or outward Glory Peace whether in regard of those without or in respect of those within Liberty in External Profession Visibility of Assemblies Purity of the Ministry Holiness of External Worship Form of Government that of Discipline and that of Liturgies an Actual Bond of the Parts of the Church in one Body of External Communion and the Actual Exercise of the Ministry or if you will the Actual Presence of the Pastors All those are things that do not absolutely belong to the Essence of the Church but only to its State or Condition and of which it may be sometimes spoyled either wholly or in Part without being absolutely destroyed It may be restrained to a few places and a few persons and therefore it is called in some places of Scripture a little Flock she may be so in her low State We are says Saint Paul not many wise not many mighty not many noble but God has chosen the weak things of this World to confound the strong She may be in Trouble and in Affliction through the Persecution of Infidels as she was under the Heathen Emperours or in Fighting against Hereticks as she has been almost always she may lose the Visibility of her Assemblies as she did in most places in the Time of Decius and Dioclesian she may find her Ministry corrupted as it hapned in the Time of the Arrians she may see her external Worship sullied by Actions of superstition and Idolatry as it fell out in Judah and Israel in the days of the Prophets As to
the Form of her Government we cannot deny that in that respect she has not under-went divers changes I do not mention the Introduction of the Episcopal Order for that is a Question but I speak of those changes that have befel her through the Usurpations and Contests of the first See's and chiefly by the Usurpations of that of Rome which the greatest part of the World will own to have been very considerable Her Discipline and her Liturgies have also undergone many Changes and they cannot in that regard ascribe any Uniformity to the Church either in respect of Times or Places In fine she has sometimes beheld the Body of her Ordinary Pastors turned against her self she has seen a great part of her true Children scattered and dispersed here and there without being able to perform any Acts of an External Society and she has seen some of her Flocks deprived of their Pastors and forced to set up some among themselves in the room of those who had abandoned them For all that fell out in the days of the Arrians the Councils determined Heresy the greatest part of the Orthodox who opposed themselves to their Impiety were either banished or forced to fly into the Desarts and according to the Testimony of St. Epiphanius divers People who saw that their Bishops were turned Arrians in the Council of Seleucia looked on them as the miserable Desertors of their Ministry and set up themselves other Bishops The greatest part of those Changes that fall out in the Church come from two sources the one That she is mixed with the Worldly and Profane in the band of the same External Profession and the other That the Truly Faithful themselves who only are the Church of Jesus Christ as truly Faithful as they are fail not to have a great many other imperfections their knowledge is obscure their Righteousness is accompanied with its faults their Inclinations are not all right and even their most just Inclinations do not fail to have some farther irregularity These two Fountains produce an heap of evils and disorders the Worldly on their part bring thither Covetousness Ambition Pride Opinionativeness contempt of God his Mysteries and Worship Politick Designs Worldly Interests a Spirit of Grandeur Luxury Superstitions Heresies Love of Dominion Presumption Opinion of Infallibility Forgeries and all other Perversities of the heart of Man The Faithful they bring thither on their side their Ignorance their Negligence their Fearfulness their Simplicity and sometimes their Passions their Personal Interests and Vices From all which a Chaos is made up of darkness and Confusion a Mystery of Iniquity a Spiritual Babylon that perpetually makes war against the Church which reduces her sometimes into very strange Extreamities and which would without doubt destroy her if her Eternal Head did not keep her up above all I acknowledge that the Spirit of God fights against that Babylon on the Churches side and that he presides over that Chaos to expel those Confusions and to hinder the Churches Perishing But it must not be imagined under a pretence of that presence of the Spirit of God that there never happens any disorder in it He indeed always preserves the Essence of the Church but he frequently permits her State to be altered This is the Effect that that heap of Crimes Vices and Imperfections may produce which I have mentioned as well on the side of the Truly Faithful as on that of the Worldly They never go so far as to destroy her intirely but they go so far sometimes as to spoil her of her Ornaments of her External Advantages and even of her very Health if I may so speak and therefore Jesus Christ told his Disciples In the World you shall have Tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the World God has always preserved and he will preserve to the end of all Ages a Body of many persons united together in the Communion of his Son Jesus Christ This Body can never perish it can never cease to be nor lose any thing that is absolutely necessary to its subsistence but it may be deprived of its large Extent Temporal Splendor Worldly Glory Peace Rest and Visibility It may see its Ministry Corrupted in as much as it is in the hands of men it may see its External Worship dishonoured and Error and Superstition fill its Pulpits Possess its Schooles and diffuse it self over its Councils its true Members may be hindred from making external Assemblies and a Body of a Visible Communion and it may be abandoned by its Pastors and reduced to a Necessity of Creating others See here what the State of the Church is Upon all these Illustrations it will be no difficult matter to decide the Question concerning the Novelty and Antiquity of our Church For if we have made a Society essentially different from that which Jesus Christ and his Apostles formed at the first and which has all a long subsisted down from his Birth to this present if we cannot justly say That we are a Body of many Persons united together in the Communion of one only true God under one only Jesus Christ our Head and Mediatour if they can with any ground contest with us the Unity of the True Christian Faith Piety and Holiness in one word if we want any thing that is necessary to the Constitution of the Church and its subsistence or if there be any thing in us that hinders that that good which we have does not produce its effect to give us the Form and Nature of a True Church it is certain that we have made a new Church and by a Consequence a false and an Adulterous Church But if we can truly and justly glorify God for all that which makes up the Essence of a True Church if our Faith is sound if our Piety is pure if our Charity is sincere if we can upon good grounds maintain that God preserves and upholds in the External Communion of that Body which we compose the Truly Faithful and Just persons who only as I have said often are the Church it is certain also that there is nothing more unjust then that Accusation of a New Church which they charge us with There never was in the World any other Church of God then that of his truly just and Faithful Ones that Body only is in the Communion of the Father and of his Son Jesus Christ that alone is intrusted with the Truth that alone is animated by the Holy Spirit that alone is God's Inheritance his People his Vine his enclosed Garden his House and Mystical Family as the Scripture calls it that alone in fine has all the Rights of the Ecclesiastical Society the Right of External Assemblies that of the Ministry Sacraments Government and Discipline Let the Author of the Prejudices and his Brethren stir themselves as much as they please let them animate one another let them cry out write Prejudices and invectives never so much against us let
them do all that they please we are firm and fixed upon two Principles against which we are sure they cannot do any thing The one That if our Communion Teaches the True Doctrine if it has the True Worship and the True Rules of Christian Sanctity to a degree sufficient for Salvation and if the Causes for which we separated our selves from the Church of Rome were Just God nourishes and preserves his True Faithful Ones in our Communion whatsoever mixture there may be of Worldly Wicked and Hypocrites in it The other That if God nourishes and preserves his truly Faithful in our Communion we are the True Church of God that which has a Right to be in a Society and to which all the other Rights that follow that of a Society belong of Assemblies Ministry Sacraments Government Discipline and by Consequence we are the Church which succeeds not only de Jure but de Facto the Church of the Apostles that of the Ages following and even that which was immediately before the Reformation These two Propositions are framed in clear and distinct Terms they have neither Ambiguity nor Equivocation but I hold also that they are of a certain and indisputable Truth For there neither is nor ever was there any other True Church then that of the Truly Faithful and there never will be any other The Holy Scripture sets down no other Reason will not suffer us to acknowledge any other The Fathers never owned any other This is the constant and evident Principle of Saint Augustine as may be seen in the Fourth Chapter of the Third Part and it is also the Principle of the other Fathers as may be Justified by almost an infinite Number of passages The Antient Catholick Church says Clemens of Alexandria is but one only Church which assembles in the Vnity of one only Faith by the will of one only God and the Ministry of one only Lord all those who are before Ordained that is to say whom God has predestinated to be Just having known them before the Foundation of the World Where is the place where Jesus Christ should dwell says Origen It is the Mountain of Ephraim which signifies a fruitful Mountain but where are those fruitful Mountains among us where Jesus Christ dwels They are those on whom the fruits of the Spirit Joy Peace Patience Charity and other vertues may be found They are those fruitful Mountains which bring forth fruit to Jesus Christ and which are eminent for knowledge and hope And a little after The Grace of the Holy Spirit has gone over to the People of the Gentile and their Antient Solemnities are come to us because we have with us the True High-Priest after the Order of Melchizedec True Sacrifices are offered up amongst us that is to say the Spiritual Sacrifices and it is among us that he builds with living Stones the Temple of God which is the Church of the living God And elsewhere The Church desires to be united to Jesus Christ but note that the Church is a Society of the Saints And further elsewhere explaining those words Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church The Church says he that God builds consists in all those who are perfect and are full of those words thoughts and actions that lead to blessedness and a little lower How ought we to understand those words The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it For that expression is ambiguous is it the Rock that he speaks of or if it be of the Church is it that the Rock and the Church are but one and the same thing This latter I believe to be True for the Gates of Hell prevail neither against the Rock upon which Jesus Christ has built his Church nor against the Church according to that which is said in the Proverbs That the way of the Serpent is not found upon the Rock If the Gates of Hell do prevail against any there is neither that Rock upon which Jesus Christ builds the Church nor the Church that Jesus Christ builds upon the Rock For that Rock is inaccessible to the Serpent and stronger then the Gates of Hell And as to the Church as it is the Building of Jesus Christ she can never let in the Gates of Hell against her those Gates may very well prevail against every man that is without the Church and separated from that Rock but never against the Church Jesus Christ says Saint Ambrose knows those that are his and as to those who do not belong to him he does not vouschafe even to know them And elsewhere God called his Tabernacle Bethlehem because the Church of the Righteous is his Tabernacle and there is a Mystery in it for Bethlehem is Situate upon the Sea of Galilee on the East side which signifies to us that every Soul that is worthy to be called the Temple of God or the Church may be built upon the waves of this World but can never be drowned it may be encountred but can never be overthrown because it represses and calms the wild impetuousness of sufferings It looks upon the Shipwraecks of others while it self is safe from danger always ready to receive the illumination of Jesus Christ and to rejoyce under his Rays And further elsewhere he says Expresly That as the Saints are the Members of Jesus Christ so the wicked are the Members of the Devil Saint Hierome Teaches the same thing The Church says he which is the Assembly of all the Saints is called in the Scripture the Pillar and ground of Truth because she has in Jesus Christ an eternal firmness And in the Exposition of the Song of Songs he lays down this Maxim That the Church is the Assembly of all the Saints and that she is brought in speaking in the Canticles as if all the Saints were but one person And even the Author of the Commentary on the Psalms ascribed to Saint Hierome Explaining these words of the Prophet I will drive away from the City of the Lord all the workers of Iniquity The City of the Lord says he is the Church of the Saints the Congregation of the Just I do not deny that the Fathers sometimes give a very large extent to the Church when they consider it as mingled with almost an infinite number of the wicked and the Worldly as we have frequently explained it already and it is to this Idea that they refer their comparisons of a Field of the Air and the rest which we have often mentioned But it is certain That when the Question is to be decided which of the two Parties that make up that mixed Body is the Church that they unanimously agree to give that Title to the truly Faithful and to the Righteous only and that they deprive the wicked and the worldly of it and it is for this Reason that Saint Augustine always distinguishes in that extent of the mixt Church two People
or two Nations Jerusalem and Babylon which although they be mixed together do not fail to be really separated and he would have the Head of the one to be Jesus Christ but the Devil the head of the other It is for the same Reason that he distinguishes between being in the Church and being of the Church for he would that although the wicked might be in the Church yet that nevertheless they were not of the Church that they doe not belong to its Body but that they are in its Body as ill humours that oppressed and disturbed it and it is to the Faithful alone Exclusively to all others that he ascribes all the Rights of the Church although the wicked may sometimes have the dispensing them in quality of Ministers and Pastors for he would in that Case that those might be inhabitants of Babylon who distributed that good which did not belong to them but to the Truly Faithful only the only Inhabitants of Jerusalem It is then a certain and manifest Truth That the Truly Faithful only are the Church and that to them alone belong all the Rights of the Church but if we would here add another to it which is not less certain since it is founded upon the promises of Jesus Christ to wit That there always has been a Church in the World it would evidently follow That if our Communion has the advantage of the True Faith and Worship over the Roman Communion in a word if we have Reason at the Foundation we are not only the True Church but that we are so by a Just Succession de jure and de facto to that Church which preceded us and which even preceded us immediately before the Reformation It is no more to be inquired after where it was or which it was for the promise of Jesus Christ assures us that he had one his Scripture Reason the Fathers declare to us that it consisted wholly in the Truly Faithful Put then these truly Faithful where you please in France in Spain in Italy in the West in the East or in the Indies if you will it is nothing to our Question If we are truly Faithful as they we are their lawful Successours in all the Rights of the Christian Society Whether we received the Faith from their hands or whether we received it elsewhere it matters not we do not fail to be their true Heirs for God as Saint John Baptist said may even of these Stones raise up Children unto Abraham They are our Fathers by the Right of Age but they are our Brethren also by the Unity of the same Faith and one and the same Spirit that animates us and makes us to be one Body with them When they were in the World in what condition soever they were the Ministry was theirs the Sacraments were theirs the Right of Assemblies belonged to them since those things can only belong to the Faithful and when God has sent them to their rest that Mystical Heritage could be raised by none but other true Believers for such is the Law of the Family of God that it is neither flesh nor blood nor Transmission of Pulpits and Benefices that make a Succession but the Spirit of Jesus Christ or as Tertallian speaks the Consanguinity of the Faith and Doctrine If then we have that Spiritual Consanguinity we are their true Successours and we make but one only body one Church with them But they will say How can it be that you should make but one only Body with the Church which was before the Reformation since that Church lived then in Communion with those from whom you are now Separated She had an Exterual Worship quite differing from yours she was under quite another Ministry then yours for she was under a Ministry that professed to invocate Saints religiously to Worship their Images and their Reliques to Sacrifice really the Body of Jesus Christ to believe Transubstantiation the Real Presence and all the other Articles that you at this day profess to reject How can you be the same Church How can your Ministers be Successours to those who were at that time Bishops Arch-Bishops Cardinals Patriarchs and Popes Your Liturgies are different your Discipline is not less you have neither Feasts nor Processions nor any of the Solemnities practised openly among us how can it be otherwise then that you should be a new Church I answer First That if that Reasoning were Just it would conclude that the Church before the Reformation was not the same Church with that which the Apostles established at first for according to the Idea that the Holy Scripture gives us of the Apostolick Church we cannot see there any thing like to that which was done immediately before the Reformation We find there neither the same Tenets nor the same Worship nor the same Solemnities nor the same form of Ministry nor the same Government nor the same Discipline nor the same Sacraments nor the same Liturgies nor in fine any thing of that which our Fathers reformed Let them tell us then after what manner they mean that the Church before the Reformation was not the one and the same Church with that of the Apostles For if they were in effect two different Churches and that we were obliged to chuse one to have Communion with or an Identity with as they speak we should not hesitate upon the choice We should have a thousand times more Consolation and Assurance to find our selves conformed to the Apostolick Church then to be in nothing different from that which immediately preceded the Reformation since the Apostolick ought to be lookt on as the Mother Church the Original Exemplar or Pattern to all the Ages following from which it is not allowable to recede Let the Author of the Prejudices then if he pleases do one of these two things either shew us in the Church of the Apostles all those things which we have not in Conformity with the Church that was immediately before the Reformation and upon which ground he would have us be a new Church let him shew us that there was Transubstantiation there the Real presence the Sacrifice of the Mass the Adoration of the Eucharist the Worshipping of Images the Invocation of Saints the Worshipping of Reliques the Orders and vows of their Religious the Caelibacy of Church-men Worship in an unknown Tongue Their Feasts Processions and in general all that that according to him made us a new Church differing from that which preceded the Reformation or if he will not engage himself so far let him at least tell us after what manner he understands that the Church before the Reformation was not it self a new Church differing from that which the Apostles established He cannot tell how to do the first of those things because it is absolutely impossible and he can never do the second because his principles wholly oppose it and in effect it is true that those who believed and practised all that which I have
noted were not one and the same Church with that of the Apostles If then he can do neither the one nor the other he ought to look to it how he means that his Church should be the True Church of Jesus Christ for it is enough as to us to find our selves conformable to the Church of the Apostles since that being as we are certain that it is the same Body that God has Established upon Earth to which Jesus Christ has promised a perpetual subsistence and without which we should very difficultly know precisely how he has Executed his promise we should no ways doubt that we were the same Church which has subsisted even down to the Time of the Reformation For when we should be ignorant of the manner how it has subsisted when we should not be able to understand that we should be notwithstanding certain that it has subsisted since the word of Jesus Christ is inviolable and none can call it in question without impiety whence it follows that we are not a new Church but the same which has always abode and which was immediately before the Reformation That way which we hold to assure our selves of this Truth is not only good solid and certain but it is yet further the only one that any Communion can or ought to hold if it would be certain with a good Conscience that it was the true Church of Jesus Christ which has always subsisted and which will always subsist I would say it ought to compare it self with the Church of the Apostles to know whether it be conformable to that and as to what respects the following Ages it ought to rest assured upon the word of Jesus Christ who has said that he will be with his until the end of the World for that certainty arises from thence that being one with the Church of the Apostles it is also one with that of all the Ages following But if he will take another way and say that Communion is the same with the Church of the fifteenth or sixteenth Age therefore it is the same with that of the Apostles because that Jesus Christ has promised that his Church shall always subsist it is evidently to expose himself to Error and Illusion and to follow a very false and deceitful way of Reasoning The Reason is evident because by this means one is liable to take that for the Church in the 15 or 16 Age which it may be is not so For in that visible Body which they call the Church mixed there are two Parties the one which is properly the Church and the other which is not the one which is the Wheat that the Son of God has sown and the other which is the Tares sown by the hand of the Enemy the one which is the good seed and the other which is the chaff But it may so fall out that the Tares should exceed the Wheat and that a heap of chaff should cover the good seed and by consequence the conformity which they pretend to have with that Church might be nothing else but a conformity with the Chaff and the Tares and not with the Wheat which would be the greatest of all Illusions But if they took the former way they would be in no danger of falling into that Error because we know that in the Church of the Apostles the Wheat surmounted the Tares the good grain the Chaff and that that which appeared to their Eyes was of Jesus Christ and not of the wicked one whence it follows that they could not be deceived in taking one Unity for another This then is the way that we hold and which by the Grace of God gives us great peace of Conscience those who follow the other ought to take heed that they go not from it See here my first Answer the second is That that which regards the Essence of the Church never ought to be confounded with that which regards only its Condition The Church as I have so often already said consists only in the truly Just and Faithful and not in that confused heap of the worldly who Assemble with them under the same Ministry and who partake of the same Sacraments That therefore which makes the Essence of the Church is the True Faith Piety and Charity and it is most true that those Vertues cannot be without the true Doctrine disintangled from all those Errors which separate us from the Communion of one only God and the Mediation of one only Jesus Christ Whence it follows That the True and pure Doctrine is the Essence of the Church But it is also true that while the Foundation of the True Doctrine remains in a Communion and there is yet left there some liberty to the Minds and Consciences of men for the choice of the Objects of the Faith and Practice of the Actions of Religion how impure soever that Communion may be whatsoever Errors may be Taught there whatsoever false Worship they may practise there how corrupted soever the Publick Ministry may be there is always a means there to separate the good from the bad and to secure one's self from this in holding to the other without falling into Hypocrisy or acting against the Dictates of ones Conscience by false shews But I affirm this to be the Condition of that Visible Communion that we call the Latin Church immediately before the Reformation I acknowledge that Transubstantiation was believed there the Real presence the Sacrifice of the Mass the merit of good Works Purgatory human Satisfactions Indulgences the Monarchy of the Pope that they religiously Worshipped the Images of God there and those of the Saints that in those days they gave a Religious Worship to Reliques that they adored the Eucharist there as being the very person of Jesus Christ that they then Invocated the Saints and in a Word that they then believed and practised all that which they now believe and practise in the Church of Rome But the foundation of Christianity was as yet there and we may truly say that in that good which there was there they had light enough to reject that which was bad That Commandment alone Thou shalt Worship one only God was enough to let a good Soul know that he ought not to adore either Saints or Angels or to call upon them or render any Religious Worship to their Images and Reliques nor to take any Creature for the Object of this Devotion The Doctrine of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the Cross and that of his sitting on the Right hand of God was sufficient to make them reject those of the Sacrifice of the Mass the Real presence Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Host Haman Satisfactions Indulgences and Purgatory For it is true that the Religion then was composed of two contradictory Parties that overthrew one another those who took things on the wrong side destroyed the good by the bad for in adoring for Example the Saints and Angels they overthrew that good Doctrine Thou
shalt worship one only God in believing the Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation they annihilated in effect the Sacrifice of the Cross and they removed as much as in them lay Jesus Christ from the Right hand of his Father But those who took things in a good sence destroyed on the contrary the evil by the good for in adoring one only God they taught others not to pay any Religious Worship to Creatures in placing their confidence in the Death of Jesus Christ for their sakes they taught Learned to reject the Sacrifice of the Mass all humane Satisfactions and in seriously believing that Jesus Christ was in Heaven they were dis-abused about his corporal presence on the Altars In fine they could each in particular very well do what our Fathers did altogether when they Reformed themselves for their Reformation wrought nothing but what the same Doctrine which they had Taught them One only God and one only Jesus Christ made them reject all that they rejected Besides it is certain that the greatest part of those things which we believe contrary to the true Faith were then Taught and received and practised in the Latin Church more by force of Custom then any publick Authority that could impose any necessity on mens Consciences even according to the principles of the Church of Rome at this day which leaves private men liberty enough to reject them And when they should come to be even publickly determined with all the necessary formalities which they have not been yet there would always remain to every private man a natural right to examine and reject them since the Authority of Men how great soever it be can never bind the Consciences of the Faithful We do not therefore Question but that God has always preserved under that Ministry a great number of persons who have made that Separation of the good from the ill and it is in those that the Church may subsist But besides those how many simple people were there whose own simplicity and ignorance hid them from those Errors that then reigned in the Ministry They knew enough to believe in one only God the Father Son and Holy Ghost their Creator and Father and in one only Jesus Christ their Redeemer Born Crucified and raised again for them and to practice without Superstition all the Actions of Christian Piety that those Doctrines inspired into them but they did not know enough to believe the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation the real presence humane Satisfactions the merit of good Works and a multitude of other things that did not enter into them Their knowledge was bounded with the Articles of the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments which they received with all the submission of their hearts and which they laboured to practise the best that they could and we ought not to doubt that that knowledge alone plain and disintangled from all Error which they had furnished them with a sufficient direction for their Salvation without their being bound to make a more express rejecting of those Doctrines they did not understand But supposing that they had a knowledge of them I say that we ought carefully to distinguish two sorts of Times the one in which the falseness of a Doctrine or Worship is not so palpable discovered and open to mens Eyes that their should be only a voluntary blindness or an ill Prejudice that should hinder us from acknowledging and understanding how that Doctrine and that Worship are contrary to the True Faith and Piety and the other in which that falseness and contrariety are so openly or publickly manifested that one cannot be ignorant of them or not see them without shutting voluntarily ones Eyes For in the second of those Times every one is bound for the integrity of his Faith and Religion and the preservation of his Soul earnestly and publickly to reject those Errors to avoid them with an aversion to withdraw from those Assemblies where they are either taught or practised and not to take part how little soever or if any do they have no excuse for their crime and this is the Time wherein we are at this day But as to the former it is enough not to be corrupted with them without any absolute necessity of testifying publickly that strong aversion In the second Time they ought to look on those kinds of things as they are in Effect because they are fully discovered and they may be seen in all that have them to be opposite to the glory of God and Salvation of men But that Obligation can never be so strong in the first Time because there one has neither the same light nor the same helps nor the same easiness to own them to be such as they are not only meer natural Light dictates this Distinction but Jesus Christ himself has very well established it in the Gospel If I had not come says he and spoken unto them they had not had Sin but now they have no Cloak for their Sin which evidently establishes those two seasons I spoke of the one wherein the Manifestation of good and evil is not yet so throughly made that one can acknowledge them in their greatest Latitude and the other wherein it is so that one cannot without a crime know it confusedly But I say that before the Reformation they were in that first Time in regard of that which we call the Errors and Superstitions of the Church of Rome they were neither so well Examined nor so clearly discovered as they have been since the Faithful then could not openly believe and practise them for that could not be done according to us in any Time without destroying the true Faith and Piety but they could look upon them with a greater indifference bear them with far less Pain nor cease for all that from frequenting their Assemblies from holding their peace and contenting themselves with keeping their own Righteousness See here after what manner we believe that the Essence of the Church was preserved before the Reformation How corrupted soever the Ministry was the Foundation of Christianity remained there and God had yet his remnant there according to the Election of Grace that is to say his Truly Faithful It was those alone in all that great mixt body who were the Church for they only were in Communion with God and his Son they alone enjoyed the benefits of the Gospel Covenant to them only how small a number soever they were pertained all the Rights and advantages of the Church of the External Society of Assemblies of the Ministry of the Holy Scriptures of the Sacraments Government and Discipline according to the inviolable Maxim of Saint Paul All things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the World or Life or Death or things present or things to come all are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods All the rest then which were without in that mixed Body which they Call the Latin Church and which had
any Relation to that Religion was not of the Essence of the Church but its State the mixture of Errors and Abuses with the sound Doctrine the Corruptions of Worship the Vices of the Ministry the Superstitious Ceremonies the form of Government the Religious as they speak that is to say the divers Orders of Monks the different degrees of the Hierarchy Feasts Processions Fasts and in a Word all that which has been noted in the Objection and in which that Church was then different from the Protestant All that I say belonged to the condition of the Church then and could by consequence be changed without making either the one or the other a new Church That the Faithful found themselves insensibly overpowred by almost an infinite number of the Worldly who mingled themselves with them as Tares with the Wheat That those worldly made themselves Masters of the Pulpits the Ministry the Councils that they brought in Errors Superstitions and Abuses that they changed the form of the Government of the Church and that of the Publick Worship all that does not respect the Essence of the Church which consists only in the True Faith but its Condition so that when our Fathers Reformed those things we may well say they Changed the State of the Church in their days but not that they changed the Church nor that they made a new one and their Church will not cease notwithstanding that Change to be joyned by a true Succession of Times and Persons to that which was before A Town full of Strangers who make themselves more powerful there left desolate by those popular diseases which those Strangers brought thither and filled with those disorders which they caused does not cease to be the same Town by a True Succession of Times and Persons when those Strangers should quit it and its good Citizens be established in their Just and Lawful State as heretofore Rome sackt by the Goths did not cease to be the same Rome when it was freed from them and a River swelling with the Waters of the neighbouring Brooks that make it overflow the Fields and break over its Banks is yet the same River when those Waters go back and retire into their Ordinary Channel CHAP. III. That the Ministry Exercised in the Communion of the Protestants is Lawful and that the Call of their Ministers is so also WE come now to Justify the Right that we have to the Gospel-Ministry and to defend our Call not only against the Ordinary Objections of those of the Church of Rome but also against the Accusations of the Author of the Prejudices in Particular For that Author who thinks it meritorious to go beyond others especially in his Passions is not contented meerly to say that we are Pastors without Mission and Ministers without a Call but by a heat of Zeal obstinately adhering to him he call us Thieves and Robbers Tyrants Rebells false Pastors and Sacrilegious Vsurpers of the Authority of Jesus Christ Nevertheless as those injuries are nothing else but the Effect of his ill humour it will be no hard matter to shew him that all the Conditions that we can rationally require to make a Ministry Just and Lawful are to be found in that of the Protestant Ministers and that Thanks be to God they can reproach them with nothing on that occasion This is that which I design to shew in this Chapter and to this Effect I shall first propound some Observations which I Judge necessary for the unfolding of that Question I say then in the First place That we do not here dispute about the Call that our Fathers had for a Reformation but only of that which they had and which we have after them for the Ordinary Ministry of the Gospel For we ought to take great heed least we confound as the Author of the Prejudices has done those two sorts of Calls that we acknowledge our Fathers to have had and which the Church of Rome disputes with them For That which they had to Reform themselves that is to say to reject that which we call their Errors and Superstitions that were brought into the Latin Church and that which regards the Ordinary Preaching of the word of the Gospel the Administration of the Sacraments and the Exercise of Discipline These two Calls are wholly different The one which is that of the Reformation is of Right common to all Christians there being no one who is not Lawfully called by his Baptism to destroy Errors contrary to the Nature or Purity of the true Faith and to exhort his Neighbours to do the same thing for the Interest of his own Salvation and that of the Glory of God as I have already shewn in my Second part From whence it follows That in that Respect they can have nothing to say against our Fathers and much less against those whom they call the first Reformers since being as they were in publick Offices they had more of a Call for that then was necessary The other which is that which respects the Ordinary Preaching of the Word of the Gospel the Administration of the Sacraments and the exercise of Discipline is not common to every private man On the contrary no one ought on his own head to thrust himself in without being otherwise Lawfully called The Reason of this Difference is that the Reformation consisted in the meer Acts of Faith and Charity which are those Particular Acts that none can dispence with because no one can say that it does not belong to him to be of the true Faith or to be Charitable but the Preaching of the Word the Administration of the Sacraments and the exercise of Discipline are those Acts of Authority that no one can do in his own name but in the name of another that is to say in the Name of God or in the Name of the whole Church so that he ought to be Lawfully Authoriz'd to do them It is then this latter Call that we are concerned about in this Question 2. In the Second place we must note that we do not here any more dispute about that Extraordinary Ministry which Jesus Christ himself immediately Communicated to his Apostles to give men the first Call to the Christian Faith and to Assemble them in a Society For our Fathers did not make any new Convocation nor any new Society nor any new Church as I have shewn in the Two Foregoing Chapters They did not preach a new Testament or a new Covenant differing from that which the Apostles preached They were not qualified either as new Apostles or new Prophets or new Evangelists they did not bring with them any new Revelation to the World but they Purged and Reformed the Corrupted State of Religion and the Church by the same Scriptures that the Apostles left us they laboured to Reduce things into their Antient and Natural State and for the rest they Preached the same Gopel and Administred the same Sacraments that the Apostles left and
naturally goes before the Ministry it does not depend upon the Ministry but the Ministry on the contrary depends upon it as in the Civil Society the Magistracy depends upon the Society and not the Society upon the Magistracy In the Civil Society the first thing that must be thought on is that Nature made men afterwards we conceive that she Assembled and United them together and lastly that from that Union that could not subsist without Order Mastistracy proceeded It is the same thing in a Religious Society the first thing that Grace did was to produce Faith in the Hearts of men after having made them believe she United them and form'd a mutual Communion between them and because their Communion ought not to be without Order and without Government from thence the Ministry arose So that a Lawful Ministry is after the True Church and depending upon it It is not a Lawful Ministry that makes it to be the True Church for it is so by the Truth of its Faith and it would yet be so when it actually had not any Ministers but it is the True Church that makes the Ministry to be Lawful since it is from the Truth of a Church that the Justice of its Ministry proceeds The Argument therefore of the Author of the Prejudices involves the Dispute in a ridiculous Circle for when he would prove that we are not the True Church because we have not a Lawful Ministry we maintain on the contrary That we have a Lawful Ministry because we are the True Church And he cannot say that we are the cause of the ridiculous Circle because our way of Reasoning follows the Order of Nature and his does not follow it I omit that his first Proposition which is Where there is no Lawful Ministry there is no True Church is Equivocal For either he understands by that Lawful Ministry Ministers actually Established or else he means a Right to Establish them If the former his Proposition is false for the True Church may be without having actually any Ministers that is no ways impossible as I have already shewn And if he means the latter his Proposition is not to his purpose for it would maintain that the Society of the Protestants has a full and entire Right to set up Ministers for its Government supposing that it had the True Faith as it may appear by what I have said and as it will appear yet more clearly by the following Observation 8. I say then in the eighth place That the Body of the Church that is to say Properly and Chiefly the Society of the truly Faithful not only has the Right of the Ministry but that it is also that Body that makes a Call Lawful of persons to that Office This Truth will be confirmed by what I have already shewn without any further need of new Proofs But as the Question concerning the true Fountain whence that Call proceeds is it self alone almost all the difference that is between the Church of Rome and us about this matter and that moreover it is extreamly Important to the Subject we are upon It is necessary for us to examine it a little more carefully They cannot then take it ill that I insist a little more largely upon this Observation then I have done upon the rest To make it as clear as I can possibly I propose to Treat of three Questions The first shall be To know whether naturally a Call belongs to the Pastors only excluding the Laity or whether it belongs to the whole Body of the Church The Second Whether in case it belongs to the whole Body of the Church it can be said that the Church can of it self spoil it self of its right or whether it has lost it any way that it could be supposed to have And the Third Whether the Body of the Church may confer Calls immediately by it self or whether the Church is alwayes bound to confer them by means of its Pastors As to the first of these Questions All the Difficulty it can have comes only from the false Idea of a Call that is ordinarily formed in the Church of Rome For first They make it a Sacrament properly so called and they name it the Sacrament of Orders From whence the thought readily arises that the Body of the People cannot confer a Sacrament They Imagine next That that Sacrament impresses a certain Character which they call an Indelible Character and which they conceive of as a Physical Quality or an Absolute Accident as they speak in the School and as an Inherent Accident in the Soul of the Minister They perswade themselves further that Jesus Christ and his Apostles left that Sacrament and that Physical Quality in trust in the hands of the Bishops to be communicated by none but them With that they mix a great many Ceremonies and External Marks as Unction and the Shaving which they call the Priesty Crown They add to all that Priestly Habits the Stole the Alb the Cope the Cross the Miter the Rochet Hood Pall c. They make Mysterious Allegories upon these Ceremonies and those Ornaments they distinguish those Dignities into divers Orders they frame a Hierarchy set out by the Pompous Titles of Prelats Primates Arch-Bishops Patriarchs Cardinals c. They write great Books upon all these things and the half of their Divinity is taken up in explaining their Rights Authority Priviledges Immunities Apostolick Grants Exceptions c. What ground is here that all good men should not believe that the Church-men are at least men of another kind from all others and that they are no wayes made of the same blood of which Saint Paul says that God has made all Mankind Notwithstanding when we examine well that Call what it is to form a just Idea of it we shall find that properly it is but a Relation that results from the Agreement of three Wills to wit that of God that of the Church and that of the Person called for the consent of these three make all the Essence of that Call and the other things that may be added to it as Examination Election Ordination are Preambulatory Conditions or Signs and External Ceremonies which more respect the Manner of that Call then the Call it self In Effect in a Call we can remark but three Interests that can engage one to it that of God since he that is called ought to speak and Act in his Name that of the Church that ought to be Instructed Served and Governed and that of him who is called who ought to fulfil the Functions of his Charge and to Consecrate his Watchful Diligence Cares and Labours to it from whence it follows That that Call is sufficiently formed when God the Church and the Person called come to agree and we cannot rationally conceive any thing else in it But as to the Will of the called it does not fall into the Question for we all acknowledge that no one can be forced to receive the Office of the
there over the Good that they would make themselves Masters of those Calls and that they could neither more nor less Communicate them to the wicked and the worldly then if there were no Believers in the Church I Answer That it is true that whether those Calls come from the Pastors only or whether they proceed from the Body of the Church we could have no certainty that they should be well made as to the choice of Persons for God has not promised his Faithful Ones even when they shall be a greater number then the worldly that they shall alwayes make good Elections they may without doubt be deceived in that respect although there may be a greater Likely hood that those Elections should be more just when they should be made by a Body in which one is assured that there are allwayes True Believers then when they should be made by a more particular Body whereof one cannot have the same Assurance But not to stay upon that I say that my Argument Respects not the goodness of that Election but the Validity of the Call in it self whether it be conferred upon a good man or whether on a wicked for the Call of a wicked man ought not to cease to be good although the Choice should be illmade My meaning then is that if the Call proceed only from the Body of the Pastors without the consent of the whole Church Intervening after whatsoever manner it may be so brought about as that it may proceed from a Body of impious and Prophane Persons who should all be really Separated from the Church and who would have no part in its Interests so that it would be to make the Divine Authority that ought to accompany that Call and the Validity of the Actions of the Ministry to depend on a Body of wicked men and to make the Enemies of God the fit Depositaries of his Will which to me seems no wayes conformable to the Order of his Wisdom especially when there is another Body where we know that he alwayes preserves and upholds his Faithful But they will say yet further If your arguing took place it would take away from the Pastors all the Functions of their Ministry to give them to the Body of the Church The Pastors would have no more any Right either to Preach or to Administer the Sacraments or to Govern the Church or to censure or to suspend or to Excommunicate For it we say that that Call would not depend upon them under a pretence that we have not any Certainty that God preserves and will alwayes Preserve True Believers amongst them we must say the same that the Government of the Church Preaching the Administration of the Sacraments and the Exercise of Discipline could not be committed to them since we have not any more Certainty for those things that there should be any truly Faithful among them then we have upon the matter of that Call so that all must be overthrown if that Reason take place I answer That the Donatists heretofore fell into that Extravagance to imagine that the Preaching of the Gospel the Sacraments and the other Actual Functions of the Ministry ought to be performed by Holy Pastors to become good and valid and not by the Wicked so that being moreover Prejudiced with this thought that the whole Body of those Pastors who retained Communion with Caecilianus were fallen off from their Righteousness and become Wicked they held that there was not any more a Church in the World besides the Party of Donatus But Saint Augustine shew'd them that their Principle was false and it is worthy the noting by what Way he made them see the falsness of their Opinion for it was neither by telling them that the Body of the Pastors when they all became Wicked failed not to be the Church of Jesus Christ nor in holding that Jesus Christ having at first put the Ministry into the hands of the Pastors it must necessarily follow by that very thing that he was bound to preserve their Righteousness or at least alwayes to preserve the truly just and Faithful Persons in their Body and those who should make the Sacraments to all the rest He says nothing of all that but he had recourse to the Body of the Church and he says that the Sacraments are not the Pastors nor the Power of the Keys nor that of Binding and Loosing nor any of the Functions of their Ministry but that all that belongs to the Church that it is that that Baptises when the Pastors Baptise that it is that that binds when the Pastors bind and that looses when they loose and that it is to her that Jesus Christ has given all those Rights But what will you say he understands by that Church The Truly Faithful whatsoever they be the Wheat of God the good Seed the good Fish as they are called in a word the Just the Children of God in Exclusion of the Worldly It is from that Fountain that the Validity of the Sacraments is drawn and the other Functions of the Ministry and not from the Body of the Pastors I say then the same thing All that which the Body of the Pastors does it does in the name of the Church and by Consequence in the name of Jesus Christ for the Name of Jesus Christ is in the Name of the Church it is the Church that preaches by them that administer the Sacraments by them that governs by them that censures that suspends that absolves that Excommunicates by them they are only its Ministers and the Dispensers of its rights Whether then they be wicked whether they be Prophane or Impious that hurts their own Persons but it does not hurt their Functions because their Functions are not their own but the Churches Furthermore that Hypothesis of St. Augustine concerning the source from whence the Validity of the Action of the Ministry proceeds furnishes us with another Argument which to me seems Demonstrative not only from the Authority of that Father but from the Nature of the thing it self For it is evident that we ought to refer that Call to the same Body to which God originally gave the Power of the Keys and which is exercised by the Pastors so that the Pastors are no more but the Dispensers of its Rights As that which makes Baptism the Communion the Government and the Acts of Discipline good and valid is not because they proceed from the Pastors only but because they proceed from the Body of the Church So the same must be said that that which makes a Call good valid and lawful is because it comes from the Church that is to say from the truly Faithful But it is certain that it is properly the Body of the Faithful that has received Originally the Power of the Keys that is exercised by the Pastors and upon which the Validity of all the Actions of the Ministry depends as being done in the Name and Authority of the whole Body and by
the Churches and not those private mens who Communicated it they were bound to refer theirs to the greatest Glory of God and the Edification of his Church and not to the Wills and Interests of the Court of Rome and its Prelates altho' ir was through their Channel that they had received it They did well therefore to make use of that which they had of good in their Call to purify that which was bad in it and they also did well to make use of it against the ill intention of those who had given it them for an ill end even as those who have received Baptism from an Heretical or Schismatical Society are bound by that same Baptism which they have received from them to oppose themselves as much as possibly they can to that Heresy or Schism and to make use of their very Baptism for it altho' it should be against the intention of those who gave it to them I acknowledge also that there were some few who received their Call immediately from the Churches hand I would say the Body of the faithful people and we may say of those that their Call was extraordinary in the sense that we call unusual things Extraordinary which happen very rarely and which are done against Custom and ordinary practice For howsoever that those Calls were not unlawfully made and without Right as I have proved in the foregoing Chapter it is notwithstanding True that it is not nor ought to be the Common Practice and that it has no place but in a case of absolute Necessity So also in the Church of Rome the Call of Martin V. may be said to be Extraordinary who was called to the Papacy immediately by the whole Body of the Latin Prelates assembled in the Council of Constance and not by the Colledge of Cardinals as it is ordinarily done As to those Ministers who succeeded them and who received their Ordination from the hands of the first Reformers their Call was without doubt Ordinary and conformable to the practice of the Antient Church according to the Idea that the Scripture gives us of it and all that it can have of Extraordinary consists in this that in the distinction of Bishops and Presbyters they have not followed them and it is the Presbytery and not the Bishop who gives the Ordination but in that very thing they did nothing remote from that which was practised in the Apostolick Church acording to the Idea of it that the Scripture furnishes us with since Saint Paul saith in express terms concerning Timothy That he had received it by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery I do not here enter upon the Question whether that Distinction is of Divine or only of Humane Right I will say something to that in the close I do not so much as blame those who observe it as a thing very Antient and I would not have it made a matter of difference in those places wherein it is established but I say where that Distinction is not observed as it is not nor can be amongst the Protestants of this Kingdom their Call will not cease to be lawful since besides the Case of absolute necessity which sufficiently dispences with that Form besides that neither the Bishop nor the Presbyter are of themselves any more than Executors of the Will of the Church in that Regard and not the Masters of that Call besides that I say there is a Formal Text of the Apostle that justifies the Right that the Church has to give the Imposition of hands by the Presbytery which alone is sufficient to stop the mouth of all Contradiction whatsoever That being so explained we may easily see what we ought to answer to all those petty Objections of which the Author of the Prejudices has composed his fourth and fifth Chapters Some says he were called to the Ministry and made Pastors only by Lay-men others were ordained by Priests only and those who had been Ordained by Bishops lifted themselves up against their Ordainers and that Church which had given them their Mission I have shewn in the foregoing Chapter that those who were called by Lay-men that is to say by the whole Body of the Church had a sufficient Call That which I have also said concerning those who received their Ordination from the Presbytery does not leave any more difficulty and as to those who resisted their own Ordainers I have shewn that they did nothing in all that whereunto their very Office did not bind them We may see saith he yet further by the thirty first Article of their Confession of Faith that it was upon this supposition of a power given immediately by God to these men Extraordinarily sent to Order the Church a new that all their pretended Reformation is founded That Article of our Confession of Faith says not that the Church had absolutely perished nor that the Ministry was intirely extinguished but that the Church was fallen into Ruine and Desolation and that its State was interrupted which only shews that she as well as the Ministry under which she was were both in the greatest Corruption and this is that which we also hold It says not that God had given an immediate Mission to the Reformers but that God had raised them up after an extraordinary manner to order the Church a new That signifies that God by his Providence gave them Extaordinary Gifts to undertake so great a Work as that of the Reformation was and that he accompanied them with his Blessing All that includes neither a new Revelation nor a new immediate Mission and hinders not that the Right which they had to employ themselves in it should not be annexed to their Charge and that it should not be common not only to all the Pastors but even to all Christians as I have shewn in my Second part Their Discipline adds he Ordains that the Priests of the Roman Church who upon turning of Calvinists should be Elected to the Office of Ministers should receive a new Imposition of hands which shews that they suppose their precedent Mission to be Null and so that that which Luther and Zuinglius Received from the Church of Rome signify'd nothing whence it follows that that which they ascribe to them can be no other than Extraordinary There is a great Difference between the Call which was given before the Reformation and that which is at this day given in the Roman Church since those Two Communions are separated The Former was indeed very much corrupted but yet nevertheless it supposes the consent of the whole Latin Church and it was not given by a Party so confirmed in Errour where the second supposes no other than the consent of a Party so confirmed in those Errours which we believe to be most contrary to the Purity of the Gospel which makes the matter so that our Society can no more look upon it as a Lawfull Call in regard of it and its Service Besides that when
to our Children as well as to us it ought to be given not only to us but to our Children So that without going any further I have in that respect all the Certainty that I can reasonably desire As to the second I say that the Word Baptise equally signifying in the Original Tongue to plunge and to wash and being used divers times in this latter sence as it may appear in the Translation of Mons in the seventh of Saint Mark and eleventh of Saint Luke and there being moreover nothing in the Scripture that precisely enjoins Immersion or forbids Aspersion it is my part to believe that in the Thoughts of Jesus Christ those two wayes of Baptizing are indifferent and that so much the more as I know the Spirit of the Gospel is not so nice and punctual about forms or the manners of External Actions which is proper to Superstition So that I have further for that all the Assurance that I ought to have For the third being certain as I am by the Promises of Jesus Christ that God has alwayes Preserved a True Church in the World that is to say the Truly Faithful howsoever mixt they may have been with the Worldly I am assured also that the Baptism which was Administred not only before the Reformation but since in the Latin Church and in other Christian-Societies where the Essence of Baptism remains is good because that being made in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost it is the Baptism of the True Church although it be administred by Persons filled with Errors and Superstitions Baptism is not theirs they are only the Ministers of it That Sacrament belongs to God and his Truly Faithful ones in what Quarter of the World soever they be That same Scripture that sayes That the Promise is made to us and to our Children and to all that are a far of even as many as the Lord shall call says by a necessary Consequence that the Seal of that Promise which is Baptism and all the other Rights of the Covenant of Jesus Christ belongs to us and to our Children that is to say to the Truly Faithful The Hereticks who Administer it do not do it as a good that belongs to them under that Quality for in that respect nothing belongs to them but as a good that belongs to the True Church the Dispensation whereof they have by the part which they have yet with her For they Baptise not by that which divides them from the truly Faithful but by that which after some manner Associates and unites them with them It is therefore the Baptism of the True Church which they give and not that of Heresy it is the Church that Baptises by them and in that respect they are yet as I have said the Dispensers of its goods If the Author of the Prejudices desires yet further to see a greater Number ot proofs drawn from the same Scripture that should Establish this Truth he needs but to read what Saint Augustine has wrote in his Treatise against the Epistle of Parmenio and that of Baptism against the Donatists and he will learn there not to make any more Questions of that Nature I know not for the rest whether he as well as the others of his Communion who shall take the pains to read this work will be satisfied But I dare say at least that I have done all that was possible for me to do to set before them without Offence the Truths that are most Important for them to know It belongs to them to make a serious Reflection upon that which I have represented to them and upon the present State of Christianity which the prophaneness Impiety and Debauchery of mens Minds do every day reduce into an Evident danger of ruine if we do not bring a Remedy both on the one and the other side Nevertheless instead of having in view that grand Interest upon which the Glory of God wholly depends and the Salvation of men they apply themselves only to destroy us and their Passion prevails to that height that they do not take heed of making irreparable Breaches in Religion as that is of bringing the Use and Authority of the Holy Scripture to nothing provided they can but do us any Mischief But although they should do whatsoever they pleas'd God would alwayes be a Witness on our Side that in the Foundation of the Cause that upon which we have Separated from them is the Love which we have for the Truth and the Desire that we have to Work out our own Salvation And to let them see that it is not a false Prejudice that Corrupts us let them go through all the Christian Communions that are in the world Let them Judg in cold blood and I am assured that they will come to a serious Agreement that ours is the purest Church nd the most approaching to the Primitive one Our Opinions are the Fundamental Opinions of Religion which are great Solid and Convincing our Worship has nothing that is not Evangelical for it consists in Prayers to God in Thanksgivings in Singing of Psalms in Celebration of Fasts in Humiliation in Acts of Repentance in tears and groans when we are prest with the thoughts of our Sins and the Wrath of God our Morals consist more in Exhortations in Censures in Corrections in Threatnings on Gods side in Representations of the Motives that bind us to do good Works then in unprofitable decisions of Cases of Conscience Our Government is plain remote from the Formalities of the Bar founded as much as can be upon good Reason Justice and Charity but very opposite to the Maximes of Humane Policy and especially to Ambition Covetousness and Vanity which we believe to be the Mortal Enemies of Religion Every one in the World knows that and yet notwithstanding the Author of the Prejudices and all those who with him take false lights have not fail'd to cry out against us not only after a very uncharitable but an unchristian manner As for us we shall alwayes pray to God for those who will not Love us we shall bless them that Curse us but we shall also with Gamaliel give them this Advice Take heed that in Tormenting us you do not fight against God instead of fighting with him Let us pray on both sides that he would give us his Blessing and his Peace and that he would make us to do his Will FINIS A TABLE OF THE CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS The First Part. Wherein it is shewn that our Ancestors were obliged to Examine by themselves the State of Religion and of the Church in their Days CHap. I. General Considerations upon this Controversy The Division of this Treatise Page 1. Chap. II. That the State of the Government of the Latin Church some Ages ago gave to our Fathers Prejudices of its Corruption in Doctrine and Worship sufficient to drive them more nearly to Examine their Religion Page 8. Chap. III. That
the External State of that Religion it self had in the times of our Fathers Signs of its Corruption sufficient to afford them just Motives to Examine it Page 23. Chap. IV. That such a Corruption of the Latin Church as our Fathers had conceived was no ways an Impossible thing Page 37. Chap. V. More particular Reflections upon that priviledge of Infallibility which they ascribe to the Church and of its Authority Page 45. Chap. VI. An Examination of the Proofs which they produce to Establish the Infallibility of the Church-of Rome Page 54. Chap. VII That the Authority of the Prelates of the Latin Church had not any Right to bind our Fathers to yield a blind Obedience to them or to hinder them from Examining their Doctrines Page 75. Chap. VIII A further Examination of that Authority of the Prelates and that Absolute Obedience which they pretend ought to be given them Page 85. Chap. IX An Examen of those Reasons they Alledge to Establish that Soveraign Authority of the Prelates in the Latin Church Page 109. The Second Part. Of the Justice of the REFORMATION CHap. I. That our Fathers could not expect a Reformation either from the hands of the Popes or from those of the Prelates Page 125. Chap. II. A Confirmation of the same thing from the History of that which passed in the first Quarrels of Luther with the Conrt of Rome concerning Indulgences Page 142. Chap. III. That our Fathers not being able any more to hope for a Reformation on the part of the Pope or his Prelates were indispensably bound to provide for their own Salvation and to Reform themselves Page 156. Chap. IV. That our Fathers had a Lawful and sufficient Call to Reform themselves and to labour to Reform others Page 166. Chap. V. An Answer to the Objections that are made against the Persons of the Reformers Page 177. Chap. VI. A further Justification of the first Reformers against the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices contained in his Tenth and Eleventh Chapters Page 196. Chap. VII An Answer to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Chapters of the Prejudices Page 222. Chap. VIII That our Fathers in their Design of Reforming themselves were bound to take the Holy Scriptures alone for the Rule of their Faith Page 241 Chap. IX An Examination of the Objections which the Author of the Prejudices makes against the Scripture Page 260. The Third Part. Of the Obligation and Necessity that lay-upon our Fathers to separate themselves from the Church of Rome CHap. I. That our Fathers had just sufficient and necessary Causes for their Separation supposing that they had Right at the Bottom in the Controverted Points Page 1. Chap. II. That our Fathers were bound to Separate themselves from the Body of those who possess'd the Ministry in the Church and particularly in the See of Rome supposing that they had a Right at the Foundation Page 15. Chap. III. That the Conduct of the Court of Rome and those of her Party in respect of the Protestants has given them a just cause to separate themselves from them supposing that they had Right at the Foundation Page 53. Chap. IV. An Examination of the Objection of the Author of the Prejudices taken out of the Dispute of Saint Augustine against the Schism of the Donatists Page 79. Chap. V. A further Examination of the Reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices upon the Subject of our Separation Page 113. The Fourth Part. Of the Right that our Fathers had to hold a Christian Society among themselves by Publick Assemblies and the Exercise of the Ministry CHap. 1. That our Fathers had a Right to have their Church-Assemblies separate from those of the Church of Rome on the Supposition that they were right in the Foundation Page 1. Chap. II. That the Society of the Protestants is not a new Cburch Page 28. Chap. III. That the Ministry Exercised in the Communion of the Protestants is Lawful and that the Call of their Ministers is so also Page 48. Chap. IV. An Answer to the Objections of the Author of the Prejudices about the Call of the first Reformers and the Validity of our Baptism P. 84 The End of the CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS Advertisement THere is newly Published a Book Entituled ☞ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Treatise wherein you have 1. The Divine Auhtority of the Holy Scriptures proved by undeniable Demonstrations and the Cavils of Objectors confuted 2. A Continuation of the Metaphors Allegories and Express Similitudes of the Old and New Testament gradually expounded Parallel wise with short Inferences from each 3. Sacred Phylologie viz. the Schemes and Figures in Sriipture reduced under their proper Heads with a brief Explication of the most obscure 4. A Treatise of the Types Parables and Allegories in the Old and New Testament 5. Plain and Evident Demonstrations that by the Great Whore Mystery Babylon is meant the Papal Hierarchy or present Church of Rome The whole VVork being partly Compiled and partly Translated from the VVorks of many Learned and Orthodox VVriters Ancient and Modern compleating what was intended by the Undertakers in order to explain that difficult part of the Word of God It being encouraged and recommended by divers Worthy Ministers of London as useful for all Students in Sacred Writ Sold by John Hancock at the Three Bibles over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil and Benj. Alsop at the Angel and Bible in the Poultrey over-against the Compter Cassander Consult art de Eccles Luke 22. 25 26. 1 Pet. 5. Bernard in Cant. Serm. 77. Item Serm. 33. Nicol Cusan lib. 3. de Concord Cath. c. 29. 1 Tim. 6. 10 3. Col. 5. Nicolaus de Clemangis de corrupto Statit Ecclesiae Bernard de verbis Evangel Dixit Simon c. pag. 1000. Marsil de Pad Defens pacis Part 2. cap. 20. History of the Council of Trent Book 6. In the Instructions and Missives of the most Christian King for the Council of Trent In the same Instructions and Missives Distinct. 96. Canon 7. Aug. Steuchus De fals Donat. Constantini Froissard Tom. 3. Fol. 147. Angel Politian Orat. pro Sen. ad Alexand Sextum Raynald ad Ann. 1492. ss 27. Decretal Greg. lib. 1. tit 7. Can. Quanto in Glossa Itinerar Ital. Part 2. de coron Rom. Pontif. Raynald ad Ann. 1162. Baron ad Ann. 1162. Concil Lateran Sess 7. 9. in Orat. Paulus Jovius in Philippo 3. †Renvoy signifies properly a simple dismission granted to one that being appealed or called before a superiour Judg requires to be dismissed to the prosecuting of his suit already begun before the inferiour his Ordinary Judge Platina in vit Sexto Decret tit 2. cap. 1. Sext. Decret Extravag lib. 1. De major obed cap. 1. Baron ad Ann. 1076. Platin. in vit Bonif. 8. Joan. Gerson de Eccles. potest Consid 10. Decretal Gregor lib. 3. tit 8. cap. 4. Decret part 2. Caus 25. Quest 1. Canon 6. ad Gloss Bernard Epist 42.
is Sin methinks it is not ill grounded to say either that the Church of Rome Sins when she invocates those Canonized Saints without any certainty of Faith or that she holds it as a matter of Divine Faith that the Pope cannot be deceived The Author of the Prejudices shall chuse which side he pleases if he takes the last he contradicts himself if he takes the former Saint Paul condemns him for he condemns all those who throw away the Acts of their Religion after that manner at all Adventure If the Efficacy of Agnus Dei's has not been established by the Councils that belief may be found at least heretofore so strongly and universally established in the Church of Rome that it may be very well ascribed to her without any fear of mistaking They tell us that Pope Vrban V. sent to John Palcologus the Emperour of the Greeks an Agnus folded up in fine Paper wherein there was written Fine Verses which explained all its properties Those Verses carry with them That the Agnus was made of Balmsanus and Wax with Crisom and that being Consecrated by Mystical words it drove away Thunder and scattered Storms that it gave Women an easy Birth that it prevented one from perishing on the Seas that it took away Sin that it kept back the Devil that it made a man to grow Rich that it secured one against Fire that it hindred one from dying a sudden death that it gave a man Victory over his Enemies and that in Fine a small piece of the Agnus had as much Vertue as the whole As for that which regards the Infallibility of the Popes their Temporal power over Kings and their Pre-eminence over the Councils we do not say that those were Articles of the Faith received throughout the whole Church of Rome There is not one of us that knows not that those pretensions were always opposed by the Sounder part of the French But they cannot deny that they were not at least the Pretences of Rome and that its Popes did not Determine That it was necessary to the Salvation of every Creature to be subject to them They cannot deny that Pope Gregory VII did not decide in a Council That the Church of Rome did never Err and that it would never Err according to the Testimony of the Scripture nor that the opinion of those who believe that the Pope is Infallible in his decisions of Faith is not the more common and general one in the Church of Rome and that those who hold it speak of the other only as an opinion that the Church Tolerates for the present and that they look upon it as an Errour and such a one as approaches even to Heresie for those are the express words of Bellarmine They cannot deny that they generally hold in the Church of Rome that the Pope is by Divine right the Soveraign Monarch of the Church whom all Christians are bound to obey the Soveraign and Universal Vicar of Jesus Christ his Soveraign Pastor to whom Jesus Christ has given a fulness of power which goes not far from ascribing Infalliblity to him They cannot deny that the Popes did not often define that the Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all other Churches and that the Council of Trent has not also declared it in divers places They cannot deny that the Popes did not pretend to be above the Councils that Sixtus IV. did not condemn a certain man called Peter de Osma for having taught that the Pope could not dispence with the Ordinances of the Universal Church nor that Leo X. did not declare in the Council of Lateran with the approbation of the Council That it was evident as well from the Testimony of Scripture as that of the Fathers and of other Bishops of Rome who had gone before and by the Holy Cannons and by the very Confession of the Councils themselves that the Pope alone had a right and power to call Councils together to transfer and dissolve them as having Authority over all Councils They cannot deny that the same Leo did not condemn Luther for having appealed from him the Pope to a Council against the Constitutions says he of Pius II. of Julius II. who ordained that those who made such Appeals should be punished with the same Penalties that were decided against Hereticks nor that the Council of Trent did not submit it self to its Confirmation of the Pope as it may appear by the last Act of that Council And as to the pretences of the Popes over the Temporalties of Kings they cannot deny that Clement V. has not declared in one of his Clemintines as they are called That it ought not not to be Questioned but that he had a Superiority over the Empire and that the Empire being void he sucbeeded in the power of the Emperour nor that Alexander VI. did not give out of his pure Liberality says he of his certain knowledge and fullness of power to the Kings of Castile and Leon all the Lands newly discovered in the Indies as if they had belonged to him nor that Gregory VII did not decide in his Council of Rome That the Pope could depose Emperours and dispence-with the Oaths of Allegiance to their Subjects nor that Innocent III. did not ordain in the Council of Lateran That if any Temporal Prince neglected to purge his Territories of all Heresie the Bishops should Excommunicate him and that if within a Year he gave no Satisfaction they should make it known to the Soveraign Bishop to the end that he should declare his Subjects absolved from their Duty of Fealty and that he should expose his Land to be taken by Catholicks They cannot also deny as to Practice that there are not divers Examples to be found of Popes who undertook effectually to depose Emperours and Kings and to give away their Kingdomes to others In fine as to that which regards their Jurisdiction over Souls in Purgatory no Body is ignorant that the Popes pretended to have Power to draw Souls out of Purgatory at least through the dispensation of the Treasure of the Church which is that which they say is made up of the Super-abundant Satisfactions of Jesus Christ and the Saints It is upon that also that their Indulgences in respect of the Dead are Founded and Leo in his Bull of Excommunication against Luther had wrote That Indulgences were neither necessary nor useful to the Dead Furthermore I cannot forbear taking notice here of the Fallacy that the Author of the Prejudices gives us and which is common to him with a great many other persons He would have us Judge of that Doctrine of the Roman Church but only by that which she has decided in her Councils or by that which is contained in an Act of the Profesion of the Faith which she makes those make who embraue her Communion This I say is a perfect Fallacy 1. Because we ought also to Judge of