signifie by the Church The Clergy in their publick capacity are not the Church but the Rulers of the Church Ecclesiastici but not Ecclesia they are denominatives of the Church Bishops and Pastors of the Church and in their personal capacity are but parts and members of the Church and are never in the New Testament call'd the Church indefinitely and this is so notorious and evident in Scripture that it is never pretended otherwise but in 18 of S. Matthew Dic Ecclesiae If thy Brother offend thee rebuke him and then before two or three and if he neglect them tell it unto the Church that is to the Rulers of the Church say the Roman Doctors But this cannot be directly so for Ecclesia or Church is the highest degree of the same ascent first in private to one of the Church surely for they had no society with any else especially in the matter of fraternal correption then in the company of some few of the Church still for not to heathens and at last of the whole Church that is of all the Brethren in your publick Assembly this is a natural Climax and it is made more then probable by the nature of the punishment of the incorrigible they become as Heathen because they have slighted the whole Church and therefore are not to be reckon'd as any part of the Church And then lastly this being an advice given to S. Peter and the other Apostles that they in this case should tell the Church by the Church must be meant something distinct from the Clergy who are not here commanded to tell themselves alone but the whole Congregation of Elders and Brethren that is of Clergy and people It is not to be denied but every National Church whereof the King is always understood to be the supreme Governour may change their form of Judicature in things I mean that are without that is such things which are not immediately by Christ intrusted to the sole conduct of the Bishops and Priests such as are the Ministery of the Word and Sacraments and the immediate cure of Souls Concerning other things S. Paul gave order to the Corinthians that in the cases of law and matters of secular division upon interest which the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 6. 2 3 4. those who are least esteemed in the Church should be appointed to judge between them by way of reference But by the way this does not authorize the Rulers of Churches the Pastors and Bishops to intermeddle for they are most esteem'd that is the Principals in the Church but then this very thing proves that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the duty and right of judging is in the whole Church of the Saints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know ye not that the Saints shall judge the world that is the Church hath the power of judging and it is yet more plain because he calls upon the Church of Corinth to delegate this judicature this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this little this least Judgement though now it is esteemed the Greatest but little or great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do you appoint the Judges those that are least esteemed And for other things they may appoint greater Judges and put their power in execution by such ministeries which are better done by one or by a few persons than by a whole multitude who in the declension of piety would rather make Tumults than wise Judgements And upon this account though for a long time the people did interest themselves in publick Judicatures and even in elections of Bishops which were matters greater then any of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this S. Cyprian said was their due by Divine right Vide S. Cypr. ep 68. 32. 28. let him answer for the expression yet in these affairs the people were also conducted and so ought to be by their Clergy-guides who by their abilities to perswade and govern them were the fittest for the execution of that power But then that which I say is this that this word Ecclesia or Church signifying this Judicatory does not signifie the Clergy as distinct from their flocks and there is not any instance in the New Testament to any such purpose and yet that the Clergy may also reasonably but with a Metonymie be represented by the word Church is very true but this is onely by the change of words and their first significations They are the fittest to order and conduct the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole Ecclesiastical Judicature Vt omnis actus Ecclesiae per Praepositos gubernetur Epist. 27. it is S. Cyprian's expression That whatever act the Church intends to do it should be governed by their Rulers viz. by consent by preaching by exhortation by reason and experience and better knowledge of things but the people are to stand or fall at these Judicatories not because God hath given them the judgment of an infallible Spirit more than to the whole Church or Congregation but because they are fittest to do it and for many other great reasons And this appears without contradiction true because even the Decrees of General Councils bind not but as they are accepted by the several Churches in their respective Districts and Dioceses of which I am to give an account in the following Periods But if this thing were otherwise yet if by the Church they understand the Clergy only it must be all the Clergy that must be the judge of spiritual questions for no example is offered from the N. T. no instance can be produc'd that by Ecclesia is meant the Clergy and by Clergy is meant only a part of the Clergy these cannot in any sense be the Catholick Church and then if this sense were obtained by the Church of Rome no man were the better unless all the Bishops and Priests of the world were consulted in their Questions They therefore think it necessary to do as God did to Gideon's Army they will not make use of all but send away the multitude and retain the 10000 and yet because these are too many to overthrow the Midianites they Reduce them to 300. The Church must have a representative but this shall be of a select number a few but enough to make a Council A General Council is the Church Representative and it is pretended here they can set their foot and stand fast upon infallibity for all the promises made to the Church are crouded into the tenure and possession of a General Council Archidiac in cap. Praecipu 11. q. 3. and therefore Dic Ecclesiae is Tell it to the Council that 's the Church said a great Expositor of the Canon Law This indeed is said by very many of the Roman Doctors but not by all and therefore this will at first seem but a trembling foundation and themselves are doubtful in their confidences of it and there is an insuperable prejudice laid against it by the title of the first General Council that ever was Acts 15. 4. that I mean of Jerusalem where the Apostles were presidents and the Presbyters were assistants but the Church was
the body of the Council When they were come to Jerusalem they were receiv'd of the Church 22. and of the Apostles and Elders And again Then it pleased the Apostles and Elders with the Church to send chosen men 23. and they did so they sent a Decretal with this style The Apostles and Elders and Brethren send greeting to the Brethren which are of the Gentiles Now no man doubts but the Spirit of Infallibility was in the Apostles and yet they had the consent of the Church in the Decree which Church was the company of the converted Brethren and by this it became a Rule certainly it was the first precedent and therefore ought to be the measure of the rest and this the rather because from hence the succeeding Councils have deriv'd their sacramental sanction of Visum est Spiritui sancto nobis now as it was the first so it was the only precedent in Scripture and it was manag'd by the Apostles and therefore we can have no other warrant of an Authentick Council but this and to think that a few of the Rulers of Churches should be a just representation of the Church for infallible determination of all questions of Faith is no way warranted in Scripture and there is neither here nor any where else any word or commission that the Church ever did or could delegate the Spirit to any representatives or pass Infallibility by a Commission or Letter of Attorney and therefore to call a General Council the Church or to think that all the priviledges and graces given by Christ to his Church is there in a part of the Church is wholly without warrant or authority But this is made manifest by matter of fact and the Church never did intend to delegate any such power but always kept it in her own hand I mean the supreme Judicature both in faith and discipline I shall not go far for instances but observe some in the Roman Church it self which are therefore the more remarkable because in the time of her Reign General Councils were arrived to great heights and the highest pretensions Clement the 7th calls the Council of Ferrara Vide edit Roman Actorum Generalis octavae Synâ—di per Anton. Bladrum 1516. the Eighth General Synod in his Bull of the 22th of April 1527. directed to the Bishop of Fernaesia who it seems had translated it out of Greek into Latin yet this General Council is not accepted in France but was expresly rejected by King Charles the 7th and the instance of the Cardinals who came from P. Eugenius to desire the acceptation of it was denied This Council A. D. 1431. was it seems begun at Basil and though the King did then and his Great Council and Parliament and the Church of France then assembled at Bruges accept it yet it was but in part for of 45 Sessions of that Council France hath receiv'd only the first 32. and those not intirely as they lie but with certain qualifications Aliqua simpliciter ut jacent alia verò cum certis modificationibus formis as is to be seen in the pragmatick Sanction To the same purpose is that which hapned to the last Council of Lateran which was called to be a countermine to the second Council of Pisa and to frustrate the intended Reformation of the Church in head and members This Council excommunicated Lewis the XII th of France repealed the Pragmatical Sanction and condemned the second Council of Pisa. So that here was an end of the Council of Pisa by the Decree of the Lateran and on the other side the Lateran Council had as bad a Fate for besides that it was accounted in Germany and so called by Paulus Langius a Monk of Germany In Chron. Sitizensi A. D. 1513. A pack of Cardinals it is wholly rejected in France and an appeal to the next Council put in against it by the University of Paris And as ill success hath hapned to the Council of Trent which it seems could not oblige the Roman Catholick countries without their own consent But therefore there were many pressing instances messages petitions and artifices to get it to be published in France First to Charles the IX th by Pius Quartus An. Dom. 1563. than by Cardinal Aldobrandino the Pope's Nephew 1572 then by the French Clergy 1576 in an Assembly of the States at Blois Peter Espinac Arch Bishop of Lyons being Speaker for the Clergy after this by the French Clergy at Melun 1579. the Bishop of Bazas making the Oration to the King and after him the same year they pressed it again Nicolas Angelier the Bishop of Brien being Speaker After this by Renald of Beaune Arch-Bishop of Bruges 1582. Vide Thuan. hist. lib. 105. revieu du Concile de Trent lib. 1. and the very next year by the Pope's Nuncio to Henry the 3d. And in An. Dom. 1583. and 88. and 93. it was press'd again and again but all would not do By which it appears that even in the Church of Rome the Authority of General Councils is but precarious and that the last resort is to the respective Churches who did or did not send their delegates to consider and consent Here then is but little ground of confidence in General Councils whom surely the Churches would absolutely trust if they had reason to believe them to be infallible But there are many more things to be considered For there being many sorts of Councils General Provincial Gratian dist 3. caâ— Pâ—rrè National Diocesan the first inquiry will be which of all these or whether all of these will be an infallible guide and of necessity to be obeyed I doubt not but it will be roundly answered that only the General Councils are the last and supreme Judicatory and that alone which is infallible But yet how Uncertain this Rule will be Vbi supra act 3. appears in this that the gloss of the Canon Law * says Non videtur Metropolitanos posse condere Canones in suis Conciliis at least not in great matters imò non licet yet the VII th Synod allows the Decrees Decistones localium Conciliorum the definitions of local Councils But I suppose it is in these as it is in the General they that will accept them may and if they will approve the Decrees of Provincial Councils they become a Law unto themselves and without this acceptation General Councils cannot give Laws to others 2. It will be hard to tell which are General Councils Lib. 1. c. 4. de Concil Eccles Sect. Vocuntur enim and which are not for the Roman Councils under Symmachus all the world knows can but pretend to be local or provincial consisting only of Italians and yet they bear Vniversal in their Style and it is always said as Bellarmine * confesses Symmachus
Concilio Generali praesidens and the 3d. Council of Toledo in the 18th Chapter uses this mandatory form Praecipit haec sancta Vniversalis Synodus 3 But if we will suppose a Catachrêsis in this style and that this title of Vniversal means but a Particular that is an Universal of that place though this be a hard expression because the most particular or local Councils are or may be universal to that place yet this may be pardon'd since it is like the Catholick Roman style that is the manner of speaking in the Universal particular Church but after all this it will be very hard in good Earnest to tell which Councils are indeed Universal or General Councils Bellarmine reckons eighteen from Nicene to Trent inclusively so that the Council of Florence is the sixteenth and yet Pope Clement the seventh calls it the eighth General and is reproved for it by Surius who for all the Pope's infallibility pretended to know more than the Pope would allow The last Lateran Council viz. the fifth is at Rome esteem'd a General Council In Germany and France it passes for none at all but a faction and pack of Cardinals 4. There are divers General Councils that though they were such yet they are rejected by almost all the christian world It ought not to be said that these are not General Councils because they were conventions of heretical persons for if a Council can consist of heretical persons as by this instance it appears it may then a General Council is no sure rule or ground of faith And all those Councils which Bellarmin calls reprobate are as so many proofs of this For what ever can be said against the Council of Ariminum yet they cannot say but it consisted of DC Bishops and therefore it was as general as any ever was before it but the faults that are found with it prove indeed that it is not to be accepted but then they prove two things more First That a General Council binds not till it be accepted by the Churches and therefore that all its authority depends on them and they do not depend upon it And secondly that there are some General Councils which are so far from being infallible that they are directly false schismatical and heretical And if when the Churches are divided in a question and the communion like the Question is in flux and reflux when one side prevails greatly they get a General Council on their side and prevail by it but lose as much when the other side play the same game in the day of their advantages And it will be to no purpose to tell me of any Collateral advantages that this Council hath more than another Council for though I believe so yet others do not and their Council is as much a General Council to them as our Council is to us And therefore if General Councils are the rule and law of faith in those things they determine then all that is to be considered in this affair is Whether they be General Councils Whether they say true or no is not now the question but is to be determin'd by this viz. whether are they General Councils or no for relying upon their authority for the truth if they be satisfied that they are General Councils that they speak and determine truth will be consequent and allowed Now then if this be the question then since divers General Councils are reprobated the consequent is that although they be General Councils yet they may be reprov'd And if a Catholick producing the Nicene Council be r'encontred by an Arian producing the Council of Ariminum which was farre more numerous here are aquilis aquilae pila minantia pilis but who shall prevail If a General Council be the rule and guide they will both prevail that is neither And it ought not to be said by the Catholick Yea but our Council determin'd for the truth but yours for errour for the Arian will say so too But whether they do or no yet it is plain that they may both say so and if they do then we do not find the truth out by the conduct and decision of a General Council but we approve this General because upon other accounts we believe that what is there defin'd is true And therefore S. Austin's way here is best Neque ego Nicenum Concilium neque tu Ariminense c. both sides pretend to General Councils that which both equally pretend to will help neither therefore let us go to Scripture But there are amongst many others two very considerable instances by which we may see plainly at what rate Councils are declar'd General A. D. 755. There was a Council held at C. P. under Constantinus Copronymus of 338 Bishops It was in that unhappy time when the question of worshipping or breaking images was disputed A D. 786. aut 789. This Council commanded images to be destroyed out of Churches and this was a General Council and yet 26 or as some say 31 years after this was condemned by another General Council viz. the second at Nice which decreed images to be worshipped not long after about five years this General Council of Nice for that very reason was condemned by a General Council of Francford and generally by the Western Churches Now of what value is a General Council to the determination of questions of faith when one General Council condemns another General Council with great liberty and without scruple And it is to no purpose to allege reasons or excuses why this or that Council is condemn'd for if they be General and yet may without reason be condemn'd then they have no authority but if they be condemned with reason then they are not infallible The other instance is in those Councils which were held when the dispute began between the Council and the Pope The Council of Constance consisting of almost a thousand Fathers first and last defin'd the Council to be above the Pope the Council of Florence and the fift Council in the Lateran have condemn'd this Council so far as to that article The Council of Basil all the world knows how greatly they asserted their own Authority over the Pope but therefore though in France it is accepted yet in Italy and Spain it is not But what is the meaning that some Councils are partly approv'd and partly condemned the Council of Sardis that in Trullo those of Francfort Constance and Basil but that every man and every Church accepts the General Councils as far as they please and no further The Greeks receive but seven General Councils the Lutherans receive six the Eutychians in Asia receive but the first three the Nestorians in the East receive but the first two the Anti-trinitarians in Hungary and Poland receive none The Church of England receives the four first Generals as of highest regard not that they are infallible but that they have determin'd wisely and holily Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata It
they did and were certainly in the right Vide Marsil Patav. in defens pacis and if any man shall think otherwise he can never be sure that they were in the wrong Part. 2. c. 20. especially when he shall consider that the Council of the Apostles not only admitted Presbyters but the Laity who were parties in the Decree as is to be seen in the * Cap. 15. V. 22. 23. Acts of the Apostles And that for this there was also a very great Precedent in the Old Testament in a case perfectly like it when Elijah appealed to the people to Judge between God and Baal 1 Kings 18. which of them was the Lord by answering by fire 8. But how if the Church be divided in a Question which hath caused so great disturbances that it is thought fit to call a Council here will be an Eternal Uncertainty If they call both sides they will never agree If they call but one then they are Parties and Judges too Socrat. lib. 2. cap. 16. In the General Council of Sardis by command of the two Emperors Constans and Constantius Sozomen l. 3. c. 10. all Bishops Catholick and Arians were equally admitted so it was also both at Ariminum and Seleucia and so it was at Ferrara where the Greeks and Latines sate together But if one side onely exclude all the adversaries and declare them criminals before hand as it happened at Trent and Dort how is that one party a representative of the Church when so great a part of Christendom is not consulted not heard not suffer'd 9. Suppose a Council being called the Bishops be divided in their opinion how shall the decision be By the major number of voices surely But how much the major shall one alone above the equal number carry it That were strange that one man should determine the faith of Christendom Must there be two thirds as it was propounded in Trent in some cases but if this be who shall make any man sure that the Holy Spirit of God shall go over to those two thirds and leave the remaining party to themselves And who can ascertain us that the major part is the more wise and more holy or if they be not yet that they shall speak more truth But in this also the Doctors are uncertain and divided and how little truth is to be given to the major part in causes of faith the Roman Doctors may learn from their own Abbot of Panormo Panorm in corp s ignificasti de Elect. and the Chancellour of Paris The first saying The opinion of one Godly man ought to be preferr'd before the Pope's if it be grounded upon better authorities of the Old and New Testament and the latter saying Every learned man may and ought to withstand a whole Council if he perceive it erres of malice or ignorance 10. The world is not yet agreed in whose power it is to call the Councils and if it be done by an incompetent authority the whole convention is schismatical and therefore not to be trusted as a Judge of Consciences and questions of faith The Emperors always did it of old and the Popes of late but let this be agreed first and then let the other questions come before them till then we cannot be sure 11. Lastly if General Councils be suppos'd to be the rule and measure of Faith Christendom must needs be in a sad condition and state of doubt for ever not onely because a Council is not called it may be in two or three Ages but because no man can be sure that all things are observed which men say are necessary neither did the several Churches ever agree what was necessary nor did they ever agree to set down the laws and conditions requisite to their being such and therefore they have well and wisely comported themselves in this that never any General Council did declare that a General Council is infallible Indeed Bellarmine labours greatly to prove it out of Scripture his best argument is the promise that Christ made that when two or three are gathered in my name I will be in the midst of them and I will be with you to the end of the world Now to these authorities I am now no other way to answer but by observing that these arguments do as much prove every Christian-meeting of any sort of good Christians to be as infallible as a Council and that a Diocesan Council is as sure a guide as a General and it is impossible from those or any other like words of Christ to prove the contrary and therefore gives us no certainty here But if General Councils in themselves be so uncertain yet the Roman Doctors now at last are come to some certainty for if the Pope confirm a Council then it is right and true and the Church is a rule which can never fail and never can deceive or leave men in uncertainty for a spirit of infallibility is then in the Churches representative when head and members are joyn'd together This is their last stress and if this cord break they have nothing to hold them Now for this there are divers great Considerations which will soon put this matter to issue For although this be the new device of the Court of Rome and the Pope's flatterers especially the Jesuites and that this never was so much as probably prov'd but boldly affirm'd and weakly grounded yet this is not defin'd as a doctrine of the Roman Church Lib. 3. cap. 9 de Concil Ecclesia For 1. we find Bellarmine reckoning six cases of necessity or utility of calling General Councils and four of them are of that nature that the Pope is either not in being or else is a party the person to be judg'd As 1. if there be a schism amongst the Popes of Rome as when there happen to be two or three Popes together which hapned in the Councils of Constance and Basil. Or 2. if the Pope of Rome be suspected of heresie Or 3. when there is great necessity of reformation of manner in head and members which hath been so notoriously called for above 400 years Or 4. if the election of the Pope be question'd Now in these cases it is impossible that the consent of the Pope should be necessary to make up the Authority of the Council since the Pope is the pars rea and the Council is the onely Judge And of this there can be no question And therefore the Popes authority is not necessary nor of avail to make the Council valid 2. If the Popes approbation of the Council make it to be an infallible guide then since without it it is not Infallible not yet the supreme Judicatory it follows that the Pope is above the Council which is a thing very uncertain in the Church of Rome but it hath been denied in divers General Councils as by the first Pisan by the Council of Constance the fourth and fifth Sessions by the Council of Basil
is as every one likes for the Church of Rome that receives sixteen are divided and some take-in others and reject some of these as I have shown 5. How can it be known which is a General Council and how many conditions are requir'd for the building such a great House The question is worth the asking not only because the Church of Rome teaches us to rely upon a General Council as the supreme Judge and final determiner of questions but because I perceive that the Church of Rome is at a loss concerning General Councils A. D. 1409. deâ—â—oâ—cil Eccles. l. â— c. 8. The Council of Pisa Bellarmine says is neither approv'd nor reprov'd for Pope Alexander the 6th approv'd it because he acknowledg'd the Election of Alexander the 5th who was created Pope by that Council and yet Antoninus called it Conciliabulum illegitimum an unlawful Conventicle But here Bellarmine was a little forgetful for the fift Lateran Council which they in Rome will call a General hath condemn'd this Pisan with great interest and fancie and therefore it was both approv'd and reprov'd But it is fit that it be inquir'd How we shall know which or what is a General Council and which is not 1. If we inquire into the number of the Bishops there present we cannot find any certain Rule for that but be they many or few the parties interested will if they please call it a General Council And they will not dare not I suppose at Rome make a quarrel upon that point when in the sixth Session of Trent as some printed Catalogues * 1546. inform us they may remember there were but 38 persons in all at their first sitting down of which number some were not Bishops and at last there were but 57 Archbishops and Bishops in all In the first Session were but three Archbishops and twenty three Bishops and in all the rest about sixty Archbishops and Bishops was the usual number till the last and yet there are some Councils of far greater antiquity who are rejected although their number of Bishops very far surpass the numbers of Trent In Nice were 318 Bishops in that of Chalcedon were 600 and in that of Basil were above 400 Bishops and in that of Constance were 300 besides the other Fathers as they call them But this is but one thing of many though it will be very hard to think that all the power and energy the virtual faith and potential infallibility of the whole Christian Church should be in 80 or 90 Bishops taken out of the neighbour-Countreys 6. But then if we consider upon what pitiful pretences the Roman Doctors do evacuate the Authority of Councils we shall find them to be such that by the like which can never be wanting to a witty person the authority of every one of them may be vilified and consequently they can be infallible security to no man's faith Charles the 7th of France and the French Church assembled at Bruges rejected the latter Sessions of the Council of Basil because they depriv'd P. Eugenius and created Felix the 5th and because it was doubtful whether that Assembly did sufficiently represent the Catholick Church But Bellarmine says that the former Sessions of the Council of Basil are invalid and null because certain Bishops fell off there and were faulty Now if this be a sufficient cause of nullity then if ever there be a schism or but a division of opinions the other party may deny the Authority of the Council and especially if any of them change their opinion and go to the prevailing side the other hath the same cause of complaint but this ought not at all to prevail till it be agreed how many Bishops must be present for if some fail if enough remain there is no harm done to the Authority But because any thing is made use of for an excuse it is a sure sign they are but pretended more than regarded but just when they serve mens turns The Council of C. P. under Leo Isaurus is rejected by the Romanists because there was no Patriarch present but S. German though all the world knows the reason is because they decreed against images But if the other were a good Reason then it is necessary that all the old Patriarchs should be present and if this be true then the General Council of Ephesus is null because all the Patriarchs were not present at it and particularly the Patriarch of Antioch and in that of Chalcedon there wanted the Patriarch of Alexandria And the first of C. P. could not have all the Patriarchs nether could it be Representative of the whole Church because at the same time there was another Council at Rome and which is worse to the Romanists than all that the Council of Trent upon this and a 1000 more is invalid because themselves reckon but three Patriarchs there present one was of Venice another of Aquileia and the third was only a titular of Jerusalem none of which were really any of the old Patriarchs whose Authority was so great in the Ancient Councils 7. It is impossible as things are now that a General Council should be a sure Rule or Judge of Faith Bellarm. lib. 1. de Concil Eccles. cap. 15. since it can never be agreed who of necessity are to be called and who have decisive voices in Councils Sect. At athâ—licorum At Rome they allow none but Bishops to give sentence and to subscribe and yet anciently not only the Emperours and their Embassadours did subscribe but lately at Florence Lateran and Trent Cardinals and Bishops Abbots and Generals of Orders did subscribe and in the Council of Basil Priests had decisive voices and it is notorious that the ancient Councils were subscribed by the Archimandrites who were but Abbots not Bishops L â—b 2. de Concil act 6. and Cardinal Jacobatius affirms that sometimes Lay-men were admitted to Councils to be Judges between those that disputed some deep Questions Nay Gerson says that Controversies of Faith were sometimes referred to Pagan Philosophers who though they believ'd it not yet supposing it such they determin'd what was the proper consequent of such Principles which the Christians consented in and he says Socrat. l. â— c 5. Eccles. hist. it was so in the Council of Nice as is left unto us upon record * And Eutropius a Pagan was chosen Judge between Origen and the Marcionites and against these he gave sentence and in behalf of Origen Certain it is that the States of Germany in their Diet at Noremberg propounded to Pope Adrian the VI th that Lay-men might be admitted as well as the Clergy and freely to declare their judgments without hindrance And this was no new matter for it was practis'd in all Nations in Germany France England and Spain it self as who please may see in the 6th 8th and 12th Councils of Toledo So that it is apparent that the Romanists though now they do not yet formerly
in the second the sixteenth and eighteenth and 33 d Sessions by the Council of Bruges under Charles the VII th and by the pragmatick Sanction all which have declar'd that A General Council hath its authority immediately from Christ and consequently not depending on the Pope and that it is necessary that every person in what dignity soever though Papal should be obedient to it in things that concern faith the extirpation of schism and the reformation of the Church of God both in head and members This is the decree of the Council of Constance which also addes further That whosoever shall neglect to obey the commands statutes ordinances and decrees of this or any other General Council lawfully assembled in the things aforesaid or thereunto pertaining viz. in matters of faith or manners made or to be made if he do not repent of it he shall undergo a condign penance yea and with recourse to other remedies of law against him of what condition estate or dignity soever he be though he be the Pope The same was confirm'd in the Council of Lausanna and the second Pisan in the third Session so that here are six General Councils all declaring the Pope to be inferior and submitted to a Council They created Popes in some of them they decreed when Councils should be called they Judged Popes they deposed them they commanded their obedience they threatned to impose penances if they obeyed not and to proceed to further remedies in law and the second Pisan beside the former particulars declared that the Synod neither could nor should be dissolved without their universal consent nevertheless by the common consent it might be removed to a place of safety especially with the Pope if he could be got to consent thereunto always provided it be not at Rome And yet this very Council was approv'd and commended by Pope Alexander the 5th Platina in Alex. Quinto Naucl. tom 2. generat 47. as both Platina and Nauclerus witness and the Council of Constance was called by Pope John the 23. He presided in it and was for his wicked life deposed by it and yet Platina in his life says he approv'd it and after him so did Pope Martin the 5th as is to be seen in the last Session of that Council and Eugenius the 4th Vide 16. c. 18. Session and the Council of Basil and Lausanna was confirm'd by Pope Nicolas the 5th as is to be seen in his Bull and not only Pope Martin the 5th but Pope Eugenius the 4th approv'd the Council of Basil. It were a needless trouble to reckon the consenting testimonies of many learned Divines and Lawyers bearing witness to the Council's superiority over Popes More material it is that many famous Universities particularly that of Paris Erford Colein Vienna Cracovia all unanimously did affirm the power of General Councils over Popes and principally for this thing relied upon the Authority of the General Councils of Constance and Basil. Now if a General Council confirmed by a Pope be a Rule or Judge of Faith and Manners then this is an Article of Faith that the Authority of a General Council does not depend upon the Pope but on Christ immediately and then the Pope's confirmation does not make it valid any more than the confirmation or consent of the other Patriarchs for their respective Provinces For here are many Councils and they confirmed by divers Popes But that it may appear how Uncertain all De comparatione authoritatis Papae Conci ii even the Greatest things are at Rome Cardinal Cajetan wrote a Book against this doctrine and against the Councils of Constance Basil and Pisa and Gerson the Chancellor of Paris which book King Lewis the XII th of France required the University of Paris to examine which they did to very good purpose And the latter Popes of Rome have us'd their utmost diligence to disgrace and nullifie all these Councils and to stifle the voice and consciences of all men and to trample General Councils under their feet Now how can the Souls of Christian people put their questions and differences to their determination who themselves are biting and scratching one another He was likely to prove but an ill Physician who gave advices to a woman that had gotten a cold when himself could scarce speak for coughing I am not concern'd here to say what I think of the question or whether the Council or the Pope be in the right for I think as to the power of determining matters of Faith infallibly they are both in the wrong But that which I observe is That the Church of Rome is greatly divided about their Judge of Controversies and are never like to make an end of it unless one Party be beaten into a good compliant belief with the other I shall only add a conclusion to these premisses in the words of Bellarmine De Concil cuthor l. 2. c. 24. Sect. Accedit Si Concilia Generalia possent errare nullum esset in Ecclesia firmum judicium quo Controversiae componi Vnitas in Ecclesiâ servari possit If a General Council can erre there is no sure judgement in Church for the composing Controversies and preserving Unity I shall not need to take advantage of these words by observing that Bellarmine hath by them evacuated all the Authority of the Pope's defining questions in Cathedrâ for if a General Council can fail nothing amongst them can be certain This is that which I observe that since this thing is rendred so Uncertain upon the stock of their own wranglings and not agreeing upon which are General Councils one part condemning some which very many others among them acknowledge for such it is impossible by their own Doctrine that they can have any place where to set their foot and say Here I fix upon a Rock and cannot be moved And there being so many conditions requir'd and so many ways of failing laid to their charge and many more that may be found out and it being impossible that we can be infallibly assured that none of them hath hapned in any General Council that comes to be question'd How can any man rely upon the decision of a Council as infallible of which he cannot ever be infallibly assured that it hath proceeded Concilialiter as Bellarmine's new word is or that it hath in it nothing that does evacuate or lessen its authority And after all this suppose we are all agreed about any Convention and allow it to be a General Council yet they do not always end the questions when they have defin'd them and the Decrees themselves make a new harvest of Uncertainties Of this we have too many witnesses even all the Questions which in the world are made concerning the sense and meaning of the Decrees and Canons in the respective Councils And when Andreas Vega and Dominicus à Soto and Soto A. D. 1546. and Catarinus who were all present at the Council of Trent
things we cannot certainly know that the Church of Rome is the true Catholick Church how shall the poor Roman Catholick be at rest in his inquiry Here is in all this nothing but uncertainty of truth or certainty of error And what is needful to be added more I might tire my self and my Reader if I should enumerate all that were very considerable in this inquiry I shall not therefore insist upon their uncertainties in their great and considerable Questions about the number of the Sacraments which to be Seven is with them an Article of Faith and yet since there is not amongst them any authentick definition of a Sacrament and it is not nor cannot be a matter of Faith to tell what is the form of a Sacrament therefore it is impossible it should be a matter of Faith to tell how many they are for in this case they cannot tell the number unless they know for what reason they are to be accounted so The Fathers and School-men differ greatly in the definition of a Sacrament and consequently in the numbring of them S. Cyprian and S. Bernard reckon washing the Disciples feet to be a Sacrament and S. Austin called omnem ritunt cultus Divini a Sacrament and otherwhile he says there are but two and the Schoolmen dispute whether or no a Sacrament can be defin'd And by the Council of Trent Clandestine Marriages are said to be a Sacrament and yet that the Church always detested them which indeed might very well be for the blessed Eucharist is a Sacrament but yet private Masses and Communions the Ancient Church always did detest except in the cases of necessity But then when at Trent they declar'd them to be Nullities it would be very hard to prove them to be Sacraments All the whole affair in their Sacrament of Order is a body of contingent propositions They cannot agree where the Apostles receiv'd their several Orders by what form of words and whether at one time or by parts and in the Institution of the Lord's Supper the same words by which some of them say they were made Priests they generally expound them to signifie a duty of the Laity as well as the Clergy Hoc facite which signifies one thing to the Priest and another to the People and yet there is no mark of difference They cannot agree where or by whom extreme Unction was instituted They cannot tell whether any Wafer be actually transubstantiated because they never can know by Divine Faith whether the supposed Priest be a real Priest or had right intention and yet they certainly do worship it in the midst of all Uncertainties But I will add nothing more but this what Wonder is it if all things in the Church of Rome be Uncertain when they cannot dare not trust their reason or their senses in the wonderful invention of Transubstantiation and when many of their wisest Doctors profess that their pretended infallibility does finally rely upon prudential motives I conclude this therefore with the words of S. Austin Remotis ergo omnibus talibus De Vnit. Eccles cap. 16. c. All things therefore being remov'd let them demonstrate their Church if they can not in the Sermons and Rumors of the Africans Romans not in the Councils of their Bishops not in the Letters of any disputers not in signs and deceitful Miracles because against these things we are warned and prepar'd by the word of the Lord But in the praescript of the Law of the Prophets of the Psalms of the Evangelists and all the Canonical authorities of the Holy Books And that 's my next undertaking to show the firmness of the foundation and the Great Principle of the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland even the Holy Scriptures SECTION II. Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures to Salvation which is the great foundation and ground of the Protestant Religion THis question is between the Church of Rome and the Church of England and therefore it supposes that it is amongst them who believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God The Old and New Testament are agreed upon to be the word of God and that they are so is deliver'd to us by the current descending testimony of all ages of Christianity and they who thus are first lead into this belief find upon trial great after-proofs by arguments both external and internal and such as cause a perfect adhesion to this truth that they are Gods Word an adhesion I say so perfect as excludes all manner of practical doubting Now then amongst us so perswaded the Question is Whether or no the Scriptures be a sufficient rule of our faith and contain in them all things necessary to salvation or Is there any other word of God besides the Scriptures which delivers any points of faith or doctrines of life necessary to salvation This was the state of the Question till yesterday And although the Church of Rome affirm'd Tradition to be a part of the object of faith and that without the addition of doctrine and practises deliver'd by tradition the Scriptures were not a perfect rule but together with tradition they are yet now two or three Gentlemen have got upon the Coach-wheel and have raised a cloud of dust enough to put out the eyes even of their own party Vid. hist. â—oncil Trident. sub Paul 3. A. D. 1546. making them not to see what till now all their Seers told them and Tradition is not onely a suppletory to the deficiencies of Scripture but it is now the onely record of faith But because this is too bold and impossible an attempt and hath lately been sufficiently reprov'd by some learned persons of our Church I shall therefore not trouble my self with such a frontless errour and illusion but speak that truth which by justifying the Scripture's fulness and perfection will overthrow the doctrine of the Roman Church denying it and ex abundanti cast down this new mud-wall thrown into a dirty heap by M. W. and his under-dawber M. S. who with great pleasure behold and wonder at their own work and call it a Marble Building 1. That the Scripture is a full and sufficient rule to Christians in faith and manners a full and perfect Declaration of the will of God is therefore certain because we have no other For if we consider the grounds upon which all Christians believe the Scriptures to be the word of God the same grounds prove that nothing else is These indeed have a Testimony that is credible as any thing that makes faith to men The universal testimony of all Christians In respect of which S. Austin said Evangelio non crederem c. I should not believe the Gospel if the Authority of the Church that is of the universal Church did not move me The Apostles at first own'd these Writings the Churches receiv'd them they transmitted them to their posterity they grounded their faith upon them they proved their propositions by them by them
at Nice they procur'd great authority to the Nicene faith which was not onely the truth but a truth deliver'd and confirm'd by the most famous and excellent Prelates that ever the Christian Church could glory in since the death of the Apostles But yet that the inconvenience might be cut off which came in upon the occasion of the Nicene addition for it produc'd thirty explicative Creeds more in a short time as Marcus Ephesius openly affirm'd in the Council of Florence in the Council of Ephesus which was the third general it was forbidden that ever there should be any addition to the Nicene faith Concil Ephes. Can. 7. That it should not be lawful from thence forward for any one to produce to write or to compose any other faith or Creed besides that which was defin'd by the Holy Fathers meeting at Nice in the Holy Spirit Here the supreme power of the Church a General Council hath declar'd that it never should be lawful to adde any thing to the former confession of faith explicated at Nice and this Canon was renewed in the next General Council that of Chalcedon That the faith formerly determin'd should at no hand in no manner be shaken or moved any more The Author of the Letter p. 7. meaning by addition or diminution There are some so impertinently weak as to expound these Canons to mean onely the adding any thing contrary to the Nicene faith which is an answer against reason and experience for it is not imaginable that any man admitting the Nicene Creed can by an addition intend expressly to contradict it and if he does not admit and believe it he would lay that Confession aside and not meddle with it but if he should design the inserting of a clause that should secretly undermine it he must suppose all men that see it to be very fools not to understand it or infinitely careless of what they believe and profess but if it should happen so then this were a very good reason of the prohibition of any thing whatsoever to be added lest secretly and undiscernably the first truth be confuted by the new article And therefore it was a wise caution to forbid all addition lest some may prove to be contrary And then secondly it is against the experience of things for first the Canon was made upon the occasion of a Creed brought into the Council by Charisius but all Creeds thereupon were rejected and the Nicene adhered to and commanded to be so for ever In Can. 7. vide Balsam in â—unâ— For as Balsamon observes there were three things done in this Canon 1. There was an Edict made in behalf of the things decreed at Ephesus 2. In like manner the holy Creed being made in the first Synod this Creed was read aloud and caution was given that no man should make any other Creed upon pain of deposition if he were an Ecclesiastick of excommunication if he were a Laick 3. The third thing he also thus expresses The same thing also is to be done to them who receive and teach the decrees of Nestorius So that the Creed that Charisius brought in was rejected because it was contrary to the Nicene faith but all Symbols were for ever after forbidden to be made not onely lest any thing contrary be admitted but because they would admit of no other and this very reason S. Athanasius assign'd why the Fathers of the Council of Sardis denyed the importunity of some Epist ad Epict. who would have something added to the Nicene confession they would not do it lest the other should seem defective And next to this it was carefully observed by the following Councils 4. 5. 6. and 7. and by it self in a great Affair for 1. though this Council determin'd the Blessed Virgin Mary to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of God against Nestorius yet 2. the Fathers would not put the Article into the Creed of the Church but esteemed it sufficient to determine the point and condemn Nestorius And 3. the Greek Church hath ever since most religiously observ'd this Ephesine Canon And 4. upon this account have vehemently spoken against the Latines for adding a clause at Gentilly in France Epist ad Epict. 5. S. Athanasius speaking of the Nicene Faith or Creed says It is sufficient for the destruction of all impiety and for the confirmation of all the Holy Faith in Christ and therefore there could be no necessity of adding any thing to so full so perfect an Instrument and consequently no reasonable cause pretended why it should be attempted especially since there had been so many so intolerable inconveniencies already introduc'd by adding to the Symbols their unnecessary Expositions 6. The purpose of the Fathers is fully declar'd by the Epistle of S. Cyril Cyril Alex. ad Johan Antioch Sess. 5. in which he recites the Decree of the Council and adds as a full explication of the Council's meaning We permit neither our selves nor others to change one word or syllable of what is there The case is here as it was in Scripture to which no addition is to be made nothing to be diminished from it But yet every Doctor is permitted to expound to inlarge the expressions to deliver the sense and to declare as well as they can the meaning of it And much more might the Doctors of the Church do to the Creed To which although something was added at Nice and Constantinople yet from thence forward they might in private or in publick declare what they thought was the meaning and what were the consequents and what was virtually contain'd in the Articles but nothing of this by any authority whatsoever was to be put into the Creed For in Articles of Belief simplicity is part of it's excellency and sacredness and those mysteriousnesses and life-giving Articles which are fit to be put into Creeds are as Philistion said of Hellebore medicinal when it in great pieces but dangerous or deadly when it is in powder And I remember what a Heathen aid of the Emperour Constantius who troubled himself too much in curiosities and nice arguings about things Unintelligible and Unnecessary Christianam religionem absolutam simplicem anili superstitione confudit In qua scrutandâ perplexiùs quà m in componendâ graviùs excitavit dissidia quae progressa fusiùs aluit concertatione verborum dum ritum omnem ad suum trahere conatur arbitrium Christian Religion is absolute and simple and they that conduct it should compose all the parts of it with gravity not perplex it with curious scrutinies not draw away any word or Article to the sense of his own interest For if it once pass the bounds set by the first Masters of the Assemblies and lose that simplicity with which it was invested there is no term or limit which can be any more set down Exempla non consistunt sed quamvis in tenuem recepta tramitem latissimè evagandi sibi faciunt potestatem The
are apt to be earnest in their perswasion and over-act the proposition and from being true as he supposes he will think it profitable and if you warm him either with confidence or opposition he quickly tells you It is necessary and as he loves those that think as he does so he is ready to hate them that do not and then secretly from wishing evil to him he is apt to believe evil will come to him and that it is just it should and by this time the Opinion is troublesome and puts other men upon their guard against it and then while passion reigns and reason is modest and patient and talks not loud like a storm Victory is more regarded than Truth and men call God into the party and his judgments are us'd for arguments and the threatnings of the Scripture are snatched up in haste and men throw arrows fire-brands and death and by this time all the world is in an uproar All this and a thousand things more the English Protestants considering deny not their Communion to any Christian who desires it and believes the Apostles Creed and is of the Religion of the four first General Councils they hope well of all that live well they receive into their bosome all true believers of what Church soever and for them that erre they instruct them and then leave them to their liberty to stand or fall before their own Master It was a famous saying of Stephen the Great King of Poland that God had reserved to himself three things 1. To make something out of nothing 2. To know future things and all that shall be hereafter 3. To have the rule over Consciences It is this last we say the Church of Rome does arrogate and invade 1. By imposing Articles as necessary to salvation which God never made so Where hath God said That it is necessary to salvation that every humane Creature should be subject to the Roman Bishop Extrav de Majorit obedien Dicimus definimus pronunciamus absolutè necessarium ad salutem omni humanae Creaturae subesse Romano Pontifici But the Church of Rome says it and by that at one blow cuts off from Heaven all the other Churches of the world Greek Armenian Ethiopian Russian Protestants which is an Act so contrary to charity to the hope and piety of Christians so dishonourable to the Kingdom of Christ so disparaging to the justice to the wisdom and the goodness of God as any thing which can be said Where hath it been said That it shall be a part of Christian Faith To believe that though the Fathers of the Church did Communicate Infants yet they did it without any opinion of necesty And yet the Church of Rome hath determin'd it in one of her General Councils Sess. 1. cap. 4 as a thing Sine Controversiâ Credendum to be believ'd without doubt or dispute It was indeed the first time that this was made a part of the Christian Religion but then let all wise men take heed how they ask the Church of Rome Where was this part of her Religion before the Council of Trent for that 's a secret and that this is a part of their Religion I suppose will not be denied when a General Council hath determin'd it to be a truth without controversie and to be held accordingly Where hath God said that those Churches that differ from the Roman Church in some propositions cannot conferre true Orders nor appoint Ministers of the Gospel of Christ and yet Super totam materiam the Church of Rome is so implacably angry and imperious with the Churches of the Protestants that if any English Priest turn to them they re-ordain him which yet themselves call sacrilegious in case his former Ordination was valid as it is impossible to prove it was not there being neither in Scripture nor Catholick tradition any Laws Order or Rule touching our case in this particular Where hath God said that Penance is a Sacrament or that without confession to a Priest no man can be sav'd If Christ did not institute it how can it be necessary and if he did institute it yet the Church of Rome ought not to say it is therefore necessary for with them an Institution is not a Command though Christ be the Institutor and if Institution be equal to a Commandment how then comes the Sacrament not to be administred in both kinds when it is confessed that in both kinds it was instituted 2. The Church of Rome does so multiply Articles that few of the Laity know the half of them and yet imposes them all under the same necessity and if in any one of them a man make a doubt he hath lost all Faith and had as good be an Infidel for the Churche's Authority being the formal object of Faith that is the only reason why any Article is to be believ'd the reason is the same in all things else and therefore you may no more deny any thing she says than all she says and an Infidel is as sure of Heaven as any Christian is that calls in question any of the innumerable propositions which with her are esteem'd de fide Now if it be considered that some of the Roman doctrines are a state of temptation to all the reason of mankind as the doctrine of Transubstantiation that some are at least of a supicious improbity as worship of Images and of the consecrated Elements and many others some are of a nice and curious nature as the doctrine of Merit of Condignity and Congruity some are perfectly of humane inventions without ground of Scripture or Tradition as the formes of Ordination Absolution c. When men see that some things can never be believ'd heartily and many not understood fully and more not remembred or consider'd perfectly and yet all impos'd upon the same necessity and as good believe nothing as not every thing this way is apt to make men despise all Religion or despair of their own Salvation The Church of Rome hath a remedy for this and by a distinction undertakes to save you harmless you are not tied to believe all with an explicite Faith it suffices that your Faith be implicite or involved in the Faith of the Church that is if you believe that she says true in all things you need inquire no further So that by this means the authority of their Church is made authentick for that is the first and last of the design and you are taught to be sav'd by the Faith of others and a Faith is preached that you have no need ever to look after it a Faith of which you know nothing but it matters not as long as others do but then it is also a Faith which can never be the foundation of a good life for upon ignorance nothing that is good can be built no not so much as a blind obedience for even blindly to obey is built upon something that you are bidden explicitely to believe viz.
remaining miracle and intail of infallibility in the Church to go on in the delivery of this for by that time that all the Apostles were dead and the infallible spirit was departed the Scriptures of the Gospels were believed in all the world and then it was not ordinarily possible ever any more to detract faith from that book and then for the transmitting this book to after ages the Divine providence needed no other course but the ordinaary ways of man that is right reason common faithfulness the interest of souls believing a good thing which there was and could be no cause to disbelieve and an Uniuersal consent of all men that were any ways concern'd for it or against it and this not only preach'd upon the house tops but set down also in very many writings This actually was the way of transmitting this book and the authority of it to after ages respectively These things are of themselves evident yet because I. S. still demands we should set down some first and self evident principle on which to found the whole procedure I shall once more satisfie him And this is a first and self evident principle whatsoever can be spoken can be written and if it he plain spoken it may be as plain written I hope I need not go about to demonstrate this for it is of it self evident that God can write all that he is pleased to speak and all good scribes can set down in writing whatsoever another tells them and in his very words too if he please he can as well transcribe a word spoken as a word written And upon this principle it is that the Protestants believe that the words of Scripture can be as easily understood after they are written in a book as when they were spoken in the Churches of the first Christians and the Apostles and Evangelists did write the life of Christ his doctrines the doctrines of faith as plain as they did speak them at least as plain as was necessary to the end for which they were written which is the salvation of our souls And what necessity now can there be that there should be a perpetual miracle still current in the Church and a spirit of infallibility descendant to remember the Church of all those things which are at once set down in a book the truth and authority of which was at first prov'd by infallible testimony the memory and certainty of which is preserved amongst Christians by many unquestionable records and testimonies of several natures 2. As there was no necessity that an infallible Oral tradition should do any more but consign the books of Scripture so it could not do any more without a continual miracle That there was no continued miracle is sufficiently prov'd by proving it was not necessary it should for that also is another first and self-evident principle that the All wise God does not do any thing much less such things as miracles to no purpose and for no need But now if there be not a continued miracle then Oral tradition was not fit to be trusted in relating the particulars of the Christian Religion For if in a succession of Bishops and Priests from S. Peter down to P. Alexander the seventh it is impossible for any man to be assured that there was no nullity in the ordinations but insensibly there might intervene something to make a breach in the long line which must in that case be made up as well as they can by tying a knot on it It will be infinitely more hard to suppose but that in the series and successive talkings of the Christian religion there must needs be infinite variety and many things told otherwise and somethings spoken with evil purposes by such as preach'd Christ out of envy and many odd things said and doctrines strangely represented by such as creep into houses and lead captive silly women It may be the Bishops of the Apostolical Churches did preach right doctrines for divers ages but yet in Jerusalem where fifteen Bishops in succession were circumcis'd who can tell how many things might be spoken in justification of that practice which might secretly undervalue the Apostolical doctrine And where was the Oral tradition then of this proposition If ye be circumcis'd Christ shall profit you nothing But however though the Bishops did preach all the doctrine of Christ yet these Sermons were told to them that were absent by others who it may be might mistake something and understand them to other senses than was intended And though infallibility of testifying might be given to the Church that is to the chief Rulers of it for I hope I. S. does not suppose it subjected in every single Christian man or woman yet when this testimony of theirs is carried abroad the reporters are not always infallible And let it be considered that even now since Christianity hath been transmitted so many ages and there are so many thousands that teach it yet how many hundreds of these thousands understand but very little of it and therefore tell it to others but pitifully and imperfectly so that if God in his Goodness had not preserv'd to us the surer word of the prophetical and Evangelical Scriptures Christianity would by this time have been a most strange thing litera scripta manet As to the Apostles while they lived it was so easie to have recourse that error durst not appear with an open face but the cure was at hand so have the Apostles when they took care to leave something left to the Churches to put them in minde of the precious doctrine they put a sure standard and fixt a rule in the Church to which all doubts might be brought to trial and against which all heresies might be dashed in pieces But we have liv'd to see the Apostolical Churches rent from one another and teaching contrary things and pretending contrary traditions and abounding in several senses and excommunicating one another and it is impossible for example that we should see the Greeks going any whither but to their own superiour and their own Churches to be taught Christian Religion and the Latins did always go to their own Patriarch and to their own Bishops and Churches and it is not likely it should be otherwise now than it hath been hitherto that is that they follow the religion that is taught them there and the tradition that is delivered by their immediate superiours Now there being so vast a difference not only in the Great Churches but in several ages and in several Dioceses and in single Priests every one understanding as he can and speaking as he please and remembring as he may and expressing it accordingly and the people also understanding it by halves and telling it to their Children sometimes ill sometimes not at all and seldom as they should and they who are taught neglecting it too grosely and attending to it very carelesly and forgeting it too quickly and which is worse yet men expounding it according to
Religion when he weakly forsook it Protestants are not renouncers of tradition for we allow all Catholic traditions that can prove themselves to be such but we finding little or nothing excepting this that the Bible is the word of God and that the Bible contains all the will of God for our salvation all doctrines of faith and life little or nothing else I say descending to us by an Universal tradition therefore we have reason to adhere to Scripture and renounce as I. S. is pleased to call it all pretence of tradition of any matters of faith not plainly set down in the Bible But now since we renounce no tradition but such as is not and cannot be prov'd to be competent and Catholic I hope with the leave of I. S. we may discourse out of Scriptures and Councils Fathers and reason history and instances For we believe tradition when it is credible and we believe what two or three honest men say upon their knowledge and we make no scruple to believe that there is an English Plantation in the Barbadoes because many tell us so who have no reason to deceive us so that we are in a very good capacity of making use of Scriptures and Councils c. But I must deal freely with Mr. S. though we do believe these things upon credible testimony yet we do not think the testimony infallible and we do believe many men who yet pretend not to infallibility And if nothing were Credible but what is infallible then no man had reason to believe his Priest or his Father We are taught by Aristotle that that is credible Quod pluribus quod sapientibus quod omnibus videtur and yet these are but degrees of probability and yet are sufficient to warrant the transaction of all humane affairs which unless where God is pleased to interpose are not capable of greater assurance Even the miracles wrought by our Blessed Saviour though they were the best arguments in the world to prove the Divinity of his person and his mission yet they were but the best argument we needed and understood but although they were infinitely sufficient to convince all but the malicious yet there were some so malicious who did not allow them to be demonstrations but said that he did cast out Devils by Beelzebub Here we live by faith and not by knowledge and therefore it is an infinite goodness of God to give proofs sufficient for us and fitted to our natures and proportion'd to our understanding but yet such as may neither extinguish faith nor destroy the nature of hope which although it may be so certain and sure as to be a stedfast anchor of the soul yet it may have in it something of Natural uncertainty and yet fill us with all comfort and hope in believing So that we allow tradition to be certain if it be universal and to be credible according to the degrees of its Universality and disinterested simplicity and therefore we have as much right to use the Scriptures and Fathers as I. S. and all his party and all his following talk in the sequel of this second way relying upon a ground which I have discovered to be false must needs fall of it self and signifie nothing But although this point be soon washt off yet I suppose the charge which will recoyle upon himself will not so easily be put by For though it appears that Protestants have right to use Fathers and Councils Scriptures and reason yet I. S. and his little convention of four or five Brothers of the tradition have clearly disintitled themselves to any use of these For if the oral tradition of the present Church be the infallible and only rule of faith then there is no Oracle but this one and the decrees of Councils did bind only in that age they were made as being part of the tradition of that age but the next age needed it not as giving testimony to it self and being it 's own rule And therefore when a question is to be disputed you can go no whither to be tried but to the tradition of the present Church and this is not to be proved by a series and order of records and succession but if you will know what was formerly believed you must only ask what is believed now for now rivers run back to their springs and the Lamb was to blame for troubling the Wolf by drinking in the descending river for the lower is now higher and you are not to prove by what is past that the present is right but by the present you prove what was past and Harry the seventh is before Harry the sixth and Children must teach their Parents and therefore it is to be hop'd in time may be their Elders But by this means Fathers and Councils are made of no use to these Gentlemen who have greatly obliged the world by telling us a short way to Science and though our life be short yet art is shorter especially in our way in Theology Concerning which there needs no labour no study no reading but to know of the present Church what was always believed and taught and what ought to be so Nay what was done or what was said or what was written is to be told by the present Church which without further trouble can infallibly assure us And upon this account the Jesuits have got the better of the Jansenists for though these men weakly and fondly deny such words to be in Jansenius yet the virtual Church can tell better whether they be or no in Jansenius or rather it matters not whether they be or no for it being the present sense of the Pope he may proceed to condemnation But I. S. offers at some reason for this For saith he Fathers being eminent witnesses to immediate posterity or children of the Churches doctrine received and Councils representatives of the Church their strengths as proofs nay their very existence is not known till the notion of the Church be known which is part of their definition and to which they relate This is but part of his argument which I yet must consider apart because every proposition of his argument hath in it something very untrue which when I have remark'd I shall consider the whole of it altogether And here first I consider that it is a strange proposition to say that the existence of the Fathers is not known till the notion or definition of the Church be known For who is there of any knowledge in any thing of this nature that hath not heard of S. Austin S. Jerom S. Ambrose or S. Gregory The Spaniards have a proverb There was never good Oglio without Bacon nor good Sermon without S. Austin and yet I suppose all the people of Spain that hear the name of S. Austin it may be five hundred times every Lent make no question of the Existence of S. Austin or that there was such a man as he and yet I believe not very many of them can tell
the definition of the Church Thousands of the people and the very boys see the pictures of S. Austin sold in Fairs and Markets and yet are not so wise as to know the notion or nature of the Church and indeed many wiser people both among them and us will be very much to seek in the definition when your learned men amongst your selves dispute what that nature or definition is But it may be though I. S. put Fathers and Councils into the same proposition yet he means it of Councils only and that it is the existence of Councils which is not to be had without the notion or definition of Church and this is as false as the other for what tradesman in Germany Italy France or Spain is not well enough assur'd that there was such a thing as the Council of Trent and yet to the knowing of this it was not necessary that they should be told how Church is to be defin'd Indeed they can not know what it is to be church-Church-Councils unless they know as much of Church as they do of Councils But what think we Could not men know there was a Council at Ariminum more numerous than that at Nice unless they had the notion of Church Certainly the Church was no part of the definition of that Council nor did it relate save only as enemies are relatives to each other and if they be yet it is hard to say they are parts of each others definition But it may be I. S. means this saying of good and Catholic Councils yet they also may be known to have been without skill in definitions Definitions do not tell An sit but quid sit the first is to be supposed before any definition is to be inquir'd after Well! but how shall the being or nature of Church be known that 's his second proposition and tells us a pretty thing Nor is the being or nature of Church known till it be certainly known who are faithful or have true faith who not which must be manifested by their having or not having the true Rule of faith Why but does the having the true rule of faith make a man faithful Cannot a man have the true rule of faith and yet forsake it or not make use of it or hide the truth in unrighteousness Does the having the best antidote in the world make a man healthful though he live disorderly and make no use of it But to let that pass among the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is more remarkable is That the being or Nature of Church is not known till it be certainly known who are faithful or have true faith I had thought that the way in the Church of Rome of pronouncing men faithful or to have true faith had been their being in the Church and that adhering to the Church whose being and truth they must therefore be presupposed to believe had been the only way of pronouncing them faithful which I suppos'd so certain amongst them that though they have no faith at all but to believe as the Church believes had been a sufficient declaration of the faith of ignorant men But it seems the Tables are turned It is not enough to go to the Church but first they must be assured that they are faithful and have true faith before they know any thing of the Church But if the testimony of the present Church be the only rule of faith as I. S. would fain make us believe then it had been truer said a man can not know the being or nature of faith till he be well acquainted with the Church And must the Rule of faith be tried by the Church and must the Church be tried by the rule of faith Is the testimony of the Church the measure and touchstone of faith and yet must we have the faith before we have any knowledge whether there be a Church or no Are they both first and both prove one another and is there here no circle But however I am glad that the evidence of truth hath brought this Gentleman to acknowledge that our way is the better way and that we must first chuse our religion and then our Church and not first chuse our Church and then blindly follow the religion of it whatsoever it be But then also it will follow that I. S. hath destroyed his main hypothesis and the oral tradition of the present Church is not the Rule of faith for that must first be known before we can know whether there be such a thing as the Church or no whose rule that is pretended to be And now follows his conclusion which is nought upon other accounts Wherefore saith he since the properties of the Rule of Faith do all agree to Tradition our Rule and none of them to theirs it follows the Protestant or Renouncer of Tradition knows not what is either right Scripture Father or Council and so ought not to meddle with either of them To this I have already answered and what I. S. may do hereafter when he happens to fall into another fit of demonstration I know not but as yet he hath been very far from doing what he says he hath done that is evidently prov'd what he undertook in this question And I suppose I have in a following Section of this book evidently prov'd that Tradition such I mean as the Church of Rome uses in this inquiry leads into error or may do as often as into truth and therefore though we may and do use tradition as a probable argument in many things and some as certain in one or two things to which in the nature of the thing it is apt to minister yet it is infinitely far from being the rule of faith the whole Christian faith But I wonder why I. S. saith that for want of Tradition we cannot know either right Scripture Fathers or Councils I do not think that by tradition they do know all the books of Scriptures Do they know by Universal or Apostolical Tradition that the Epistle to the Hebrews is Canonical Scripture The Church of Rome had no tradition for it for above four hundred years and they receiv'd it at last from the tradition of the Greek Church and then they not the Roman Church are the great conservers of tradition and they will get nothing by that And what universal tradition can they pretend for those books which are rejected by some Councils as particularly that of Laodicea which is in the Code of the Universal Church and some of the Fathers which yet they now receive certainly in that age which rejected them there was no Catholic tradition for them and those Fathers which as I. S. expresses it were eminent witnesses to their immediate posterity or children of the Churches doctrine received in all likelyhood did teach their posterity what themselves professed and therefore it is possible the Fathers in that Council and some others of the same sentiment might joyn in saying something which might deceive their
together that indeed they are inke varied in divers figures and unsensed characters they are nothing else For 1. It is false that all reason for so he must mean if he would speak to any purpose is fetch'd from the natures of things some rely upon Concessions and presuppositions only some upon the state of exterior affairs and introduced Oeconomies or accidental mesnage of things some upon presumptions and some even upon the weaknesses of men upon contingencies and some which pretend to be reasons rely upon false grounds and such are I. S. his demonstrations But suppose they did as indeed the best reasons do what then Why then the best nature that is I suppose he means the humane unalterable abstracting from disease and madness is the ground of the humane part of Christian tradition This proposition hath in it something that is false and something that is to no purpose That which is false is that the nature of man unless he be mad or diseas'd in his brain is Unalterable As if men could not be chang'd by interest or ambition pride or prejudice by weakness and false Apostles mistake or negligence And by any of these a man that naturally hath faculties to understand and capacity of learning and speaking truth may be so changed that he is very alterable from good to bad from wise to foolish from the knowledge of the truth to believe a lie and be transported by illusions of the Devil Every man naturally loves knowledge that 's his nature and it is the best nature but yet it is so alterable that some men who from the principles of this best nature are willing to learn and they are ever learning yet they are so altered that they never come to the knowledge of truth But supposing that this best nature is the ground of the humane part of tradition yet it is not the ground of the humane part of tradition as it is unalterable but as it hath a defectible understanding and a free and a changeable will and innumerable weaknesses for these are so in this best nature that it can never be without them And therefore because this ground may be slippery there will be no sure footing here Especially since it is but the ground of the humane part of tradition for which cause it can be no more ground of truth in religion than the Roman story than Plutarch or Livy is of infallible indefectible truth in history and therefore I. S. does very wisely add to this the incomparable strengths of the supernatural assistances of the Holy Ghost But these alone can be sufficient if they could be proved to be given infallibly absolutely and without the altering condition of our making right use of them without grieving the Holy Spirit of which because there is no promise and no experience it is no wild Conceit to think tradition may be uncertain and yet our discourses in Religion by other principles be certain enough But now I perceive that I. S. is no such implacable man for all the seeming fierceness of his persuasion in his new mode of Oral tradition but that in time he may be reduc'd to the old way of this Church and ground as he does mainly here her infallibility not upon new demonstrations taken from the nature of things but upon the continual assistances and helpes of the only infallible spirit of God That indeed is a way possible if it were to be had but this new way hath neither sense nor reason And therefore in this place he wisely puts the greatest stress upon the other I should have proceeded a little further if I could have understood what I. S. means by any piece of nature built on Tradition and if he had not here put in the phrase of a wild Conceit I should have wanted a name for it but because it is no other I shall now let it alone and dig into the other mines and see if they be more dangerous than these Bugbears The third Way THe third Way I must needs say is a fine one He offers to prove my Dissuasive to be no Dissuasive no nor can it be a Dissuasive And why because to Dissuade is to unfix the understanding from what it held before which includes to make it hold or assent that what it held before certain is false or at least uncertain And here before I proceed further it is fit we acknowledge that we owe to I. S. the notice of these two mysteries 1. What is meant by Dissuading and that it is making a man to change his opinion an unfixing of his mind And the second That this unfixing the minde makes the minde to shake or to be chang'd to be uncertain or to think the proposition fit to be held we being thus instructed in these grounds of some new design'd demonstration may the surer proceed For wisely he adds a conjecture that surely by my Dissuasive from Popery I intend to oblige men to assent to the contrary I do believe indeed I did but my first aim was to dissuade that is to unfixe them and afterwards to establish them in the contrary Well! thus far we are agreed but for all this The thing I intend cannot be done by me I cannot dissuade because I have no peculiar method of my own but I use those means which others use to prove errors by and if the way I take be common to truth and error It is good for nothing error shall pretend to it as well as truth I must have a particularity of method above what is in others Now this is strange that I should be so severely dealt with why is more requir'd of me than of others I take the same way that the writers of books of controversie us'd to take I quote Scriptures and Fathers and Histories and instances and I use reason as well as I can I finde that Bellarmine and Baronius Card. Perron and Gregory de Valentia Stapleton and Hart Champian and Reynolds use the same Dull way as I do and yet they hope to persuade and Dissuade according to the subject matter and why my penny should not be as good silver as theirs I know not but I hope I shall know by and by why the true reason why I cannot Dissuade and that I miscall my book a Dissuasive is because the method which I take is common to those discourses which have in them power to satisfie the understanding and those who have no such power But herein is a wonderful thing my book cannot dissuade because I take a way which is taken in discourses which can satisfie the understanding For if some discourses proceeding my way can satisfie the Understanding as I. S. here confesses then it is to be hop'd so may mine at least there is nothing in my method to hinder it but it may yea but this method is also us'd in Discourses which have no such power well and what then Is not therefore my method as good a method as can be
made for me I know not certainly that any thing I say against your religion is true Page 258. c. All the men that tell us that Cardinal Chigi is now Pope are fallible they may be deceiv'd and they may deceive and yet I suppose Mr. White though he also be fallible is sufficiently certain he is so and if he did make any doubt if he would sail to Italy he would be infallibly assur'd of it by the Executioners of the Popes Censures who yet are as fallible as any the officers of Montfalcon But I. S. however says I ought to confess that I ought not to dissuade from any thing in case neither the Fathers nor my self be infallible in any saying or proof of theirs For the infallibility of the Fathers I shall have a more convenient time to consider it under his eighth way But now I am to consider his reason for this pretty saying which he says he evinces thus Since to be infallible in none hic nunc taking in the whole complexion of assisting circumstances is the same as to be hic nunc fallible in all or each and if they be fallible or may be deceiv'd in each they can be sure of none it follows that who professes the Fathers and himself though using all the means he can to secure him from error fallible in each must if he will speak out like an honest man confess he is sure of none This is the evident demonstration and indeed there are in it some things evidently demonstrative The first is That to be infallible in none is the same as to be fallible in all Indeed I must needs say that he says true and learnedly and it being a self evident Principle he might according to his custome have afforded demonstrations enough for this but I shall take it upon his own word at this time and allow him the honour of first communicating this secret to the ignorant world that he that is not infallible is fallible Another deep note we have here his words laid plain without their Parentheses can best declare the mystery If they be infallible or may be deceiv'd in each they can be sure of none it follows that they that profess they are fallible in each must confess they are sure of none If I. S. always write thus subtilly no man will ever be able to resist him For indeed this is a demonstration and therefore we hope it may be aeternae veritatis for it relies upon this first and self evident principle idem per idem semper facit idem Now having well learned these two deep notes out of the school and deep discourses of I. S. let us see what the man would be at for himself and though we find it in his Parentheses only yet they could not be left out and sense be intire without them When he talkes of being infallible if the notion be applied to his Church then he means an infallibility antecedent absolute unconditionate such as will not permit the Church ever to err And because he thinks such an infallibility to be necessary for the setling the doubting mindes of men he affirms roundly if infallibility be denied then no man can be sure of any thing But then when he comes to consider the particulars and cannot but see a man may be certain of some things though he have not that antecedent infallibility that quality and permanent grace yet because he will not have his Dear notion lost that infallibility and certainty live and dye together he hath now secretly put in a changeling in the place of the first and hath excogitated an infallibility consequent conditionate circumstantiate which he calls hic nunc taking in the whole complexion of assisting circumstances Now because the first is denied by us to be in any man or company of men and he perceives that to be uncertain in every thing will not be consequent to the want of this first sort he secretly slides into the second and makes his consequent to rely upon this deceitfully And if the argument be put into intelligible terms it runs thus If when a whole complexion of assisting circumstances are present that is a proposition truly represented apt to be understood necessary to be learned and attended to by a person desirous to learn when it is taught by sufficient authority or prov'd by evidence or confirm'd by reason when a man hath his eyes and his wits about him and is sincerely desirous of truth and to that purpose himself considers and he confers with others and prays to God and the thing it self is also plain and easie then if a man can be deceiv'd he is sure of nothing And this is infallibility hic nunc But this is not that which he and his parties contend to be seated in his Church for such a one as this we allow to her if she does her duty if she prays to God if she consider as well as she can and be no way transported with interest or partiality then in such propositions which God hath adopted into the Christian faith and which are plain and intended to be known and believ'd by all there is no question but she is infallible that is she is secur'd from error in such things But then every man also hath a part of this infallibility Some things are of their own nature so plain that a man is infallible in them as a man may infallibly know that two and two make four And a Christian may be infallibly sure that the Scriptures say that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that there shall be a resurrection from the dead and that they who do the works of the flesh shall not inherit the kingdom of God And as fallible as I or any Protestant is yet we cannot be deceived in this if it be made a question whether fornication be a thing forbidden in the New Testament we are certain and infallibly so that in that book it is written flee fornication An infallibility hic nunc if that will serve I. S. his turn we have it for him and he cannot say that we Protestants affirm that we are fallible when we do our duty and when all the assisting circumstances which God hath made sufficient and necessary are present we are as certain as infallibility it self that among the ten Commandements one is Thou shalt not worship any graven Images and another Thou shalt not commit adultery and so concerning all the plain sayings in Scripture we are certain that they carry their meaning on their forehead and we cannot be deceiv'd unless we please not to make use of all the complexion of assisting circumstances And this certainty or circumstantiate infallibility we derive from self evident principles such as this God is never wanting to them that do the best they can and this In matters which God requires of us Deus neminem deserit nisi prius deserentem if we fail not in what
which there is probable reason or fair pretence in the world Nothing that can handsomely or ingeniously deceive a man Such as is your half Communion worship of images prayers not understood and some others And therefore you may be ashamed to say you still maintain the field against us for if you do not why do you say you do but if you still maintain the field you may be more asham'd for why will you stand in a falshood and then call your selves equal combatants if not Conquerors But you may if you please look after victory I am only in the pursuit of truth But to return It seems he knows my mind for this and in my liberty of prophecying my own words will beyond all confute evince it that they have probabilities and those strong ones too But now in my Conscience this was unkindly done that when I had spoken for them what I could and more than I knew that they had ever said for themselves and yet to save them harmless from the iron hands of a tyrant and unreasonable power to keep them from being persecuted for their errors and opinions that they should take the arms I had lent them for their defence and throw them at my head But the best of it is though I. S. be unthankful yet the weapons themselves are but wooden daggers intended only to represent how the poor men are cosen'd by themselves and that under fair and fraudulent pretences even pious well meaning men and men wise enough in other things may be abus'd And though what I said was but tinsel and pretence imagery and whipt Cream yet I could not be blam'd to use no better than the best their cause would bear yet if that be the best they have to say for themselves their probabilities will be soon out-ballanc'd by one Scripture testimony urg'd by Protestants and Thou shalt not worship any graven images will out weigh all the best and fairest imaginations of their Church But since from me they borrow their light armour which is not Pistol proof from me if they please they may borrow a remedy to undeceive them and that in the same kind and way of arguing If I. S. please to read a letter or two of mine to a Gentlewoman not long before abus'd in her religion by some Roman Emissaries there he shall see so very much said against the Roman way and that in instances evident and notorious that I. S. may if he please he hath my leave put them in ballance against one another Collection of Polemical and moral discourses Pag. 703 and try which will preponderate They are printed now in one Volume and they are the easier compar'd But then I. S. might if he had pleas'd have considered that I did not intend to make that harangue to represent that the Roman Religion had probabilities of being true but probabilities that the religion might be tollerated or might be endured that is as I there express'd it whether the Doctrines be commenc'd upon design and manag'd with impiety and have effects not to be endur'd and concerning these things I amass'd a heap of considerations by which it might appear probable that they were not so bad as to be intollerable and if I was deceiv'd it was but a well meant error hereafter they shall speak for themselves only for their comfort this they might have also observ'd in that book that there is not half so much excuse for the Papists as there is for the Anabaptists and yet it was but an excuse at the best as appears in those full answers I have given to all their arguments in the last edition of that book amongst the Polemical discourses in folio I shall need to say no more for the spoiling this Mine for I. S. hath not so much as pretended that the probabilities urg'd for them can out-weigh or come to equal what is said against them and I humbly suppose that the difficulties will be increased by the following book The sixth and seventh Ways THE sixth mine is most likely at the worst to prove but a squib I. S. says I should have made a preface and before hand have prov'd that all the arguments I us'd were unanswerable and convictive which indeed were a pretty way of making books to make a preface to make good my book and then my book cannot but in thankfulness make good the preface which indeed is something like the way of proving the Scriptures by the Church and then back again proving the Church by the Scriptures But he adds that I was bound to say That they were never pretended to be answer'd or could not or that the Protestants had the last word But on the contrary I acknowledge that the evidences on both sides have been so often produc'd that it will seem almost impossible to bring in new matter or to prevail with the old This is the great charge the sum of which is truly this I have spoken modestly of my own undertaking and yet I had so great reason to deplore the obstinacy of the Roman Priests their pertinacy and incorrigible resolution of seeming to say something when they can say nothing to the purpose that I had cause to fear the event would not be so successful as the merit of our cause and the energy of the arguments might promise I confess I did not rant as I. S. does and talk high of demonstrations and unmistakable grounds and scientifical principles and Metaphysical nothings but according as my undertaking requir'd I proceeded upon principles agreed on both sides If Scripture and Fathers Councils and reasons the analogy of faith and the Doctrines of the Primitive Church from which I proved and shall yet more clearly prove the Church of Rome hath greatly revolted will not prevail I have done I shall only commit the cause to God and the judgement of wise and good men and so sit down in the peace of my own persuasions and in a good Conscience that I have done my endeavor to secure our own people from the temptation and to snatch others as brands from the fire Only I wish here I had found a little more worthiness in I. S. than to make me speaking that I have brought nothing but common objections or nothing new I suppose they that are learned know this to be a Calumny and by experience they and I find that whether the objections be new or old it is easier to rail at them all than answer any To this as it is not needful to say any more so there cannot any thing else well be said unless I should be vain like the man whom I now reprove and go about to commend my self which is a practice I have neither reason nor custome for But the seventh Way is yet worse For it is no thing but a direct declamation against my book and the quotations of it and having made a ridiculous Engine of Corollaries in his Sure-footing against the quotations in Dr. P. his
Fathers but as he is a witness no man hath reason to take his word But to the thing in question Whatever we Protestants think or say yet I. S. saith our constant and avowed doctrine meaning of the Church of Rome is that the testimony of Fathers speaking of them properly as such is infallible If this be the avowed doctrine of the Roman Church then I shall prove that one of the avowed doctrines of that Church is false And secondly I shall also prove that many of the most eminent Doctors of the Church are not of that mind and therefore it is not the constant doctrine as indeed amongst them few doctrines are 1. It is false that the Testimony of the Fathers speaking of them properly as such is infallible For God only is true and every man a lyar and since the Fathers never pretended to be assisted by a supernatural miraculous aide or inspired by an infallible spirit and infallibility is so far beyond humane nature and industry that the Fathers may be called Angels much rather than infallible for if they were assisted by an infallible spirit what hinders but that their writings might be Canonical Scriptures And if it be said they were assisted infallibly in some things and not in all it is said to no purpose for unless it be infallibly known where the infallibility resides and what is so certain as it cannot be mistaken every man must tread fearfully for he is sure the Ice is broken in many places and he knows not where it will hold It is certain S. Austin did not think the Fathers before him to be infallible when it is plain that in many doctrines as in the damnation of infants dying Unbaptiz'd and especially in questions occurring in the disputes against the Pelagians about free will and predestination without scruple he rejected the doctrines of his predecessors And when in a question between himself and S. Hierom about S. Peter and the second chapter to the Galatians he was press'd with the authority of six or seven Greek Fathers he roundly answered that he gave no such honour to any writers of books but to the Scriptures only as to think them not to have erred Ep. S. Aug. ad Hierom. quâ— est 19. Inter operâ— Hierom. 97. multiâ—â—liis locis other Authors he read so as to believe them if they were prov'd by Scriptures or probable reason Not because they thought so but because he thought them prov'd And he appeals to S. Hierom whether he were not of the same minde concerning his own works And for that S. Hierom hath given satisfaction to the world in divers places of his own writings * S. Hierom. l. 2. apelog contr Ruff Epist. 62. ad Theoph. Alex Epist. 65 ad Pammach Ocean Epist. 76. ad Tranquil epist. 13. ad Paulinum praefat in lib. de Hebr. nomin I suppose Origen is for his learning to be read as Tertullian Novatus Arnobius Apollinarius and some writers Greek and Latin that we chuse out that which is good and avoid the contrary So that it is evident the Fathers themselves have no conceit of the infallibility of themselves or others the Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists only excepted and therefore if this be an avowed doctrine of the Roman Church there is no oral tradition for it no first and self evident principle to prove it and either the Fathers are deceiv'd in saying they are fallible or they are not If they be deceiv'd in saying so then that sufficiently proves that they can be deceiv'd and therefore that they are not infallible but if they be not deceiv'd in saying that they are fallible then it is certain that they are fallible because they say they are and in saying so are not deceiv'd But then if in this the Fathers are not deceiv'd then the Church of Rome in one of her avowed doctrines is deceiv'd saying otherwise of the Fathers than is true and contrary to what themselves said of themselves But 2. If it be the avowed doctrine of the Church of Rome as I. S. says it is yet I am sure it is not their constant doctrine Certain it is S. Austin was not infallible for he retracted some things he had said and in Gratians time neither S. Austin nor any of the Fathers were esteemed infallible and this appears in nine chapters together of the ninth distinction of Gratians decree Dist. 9. Decret cap. Nolo meis but because this truth was too plain to serve the interest of the following ages the gloss upon cap. Nolo meis tells us plainly that this was to be understood according to those times when the works of S. Austin and of the other holy Fathers were not authentic but now all of them are commanded to be held to the last title and a marginal note upon the gloss says Scripta Sanctorum sunt ad unguem observanda So that here is plain variety and no constant oral tradition from S. Austins time downwards that his and the fathers writings were infallible till Gratians time it was otherwise and after him till the gloss was written It is as Solomon says There is a time for every thing under the Sun There is a time in which the writings of the Fathers are authentic and a time in which they are not But then this is not setled no constant business Now I would fain know whether Gratian spake the sense of the Church of his age or no If no then the Fathers were of one mind and the Church of his age of a contrary and then which of them was infallible But if yea then how comes the present Church to be of another mind now And which of the two ages that contradict each other hath got the ball which of them carries the infallibility Well! however it come to pass yet the truth is I. S. does wrong to his own Church and they never decreed or affirm'd the Fathers to be infallible And therefore the Glossator upon Gratian was an ignorant man and his gloss ridiculous Ecce quales sunt decretorum glossatores quibus tanta fides adhibetur said A. Castor and Duns Scotus gave a good character of them Mittunt remittunt tandem nihil ad propositum But the mistake of this ignorant Glossator is apparent to be upon the account of the words of Gelasius in dist 15. cap. Sancta Rom. Eccl. where when he had reckon'd divers of the Fathers writings which the Church receives he hath these words Item Epistola B. Leonis Papae ad Flavianum Episcopum C. P. destinatum cujus textum aut unum iota si quisquam idiota disputaverit non eam in omnibus venerabiliter acceperit anathema fit Now although this reaches not neer to infallibility but only to a non disputare and a venerabiliter accipere and that by idiots only and therefore can do I. S. no service yet this which Gelasius speaks of S. Leo's Epistle to Flavianus the
heretic or his tenet as heresy But this is so notoriously false as nothing is more and it is infinitely confuted by all the Catalogues and books of the fathers reckoning the heresies where they are pleased to call all opinions they like not by the names of heresy Haeres 90. Philastrius writes against them as heretics and puts them in his black Catalogue who expounds that of making man in the image and likeness of God spoken of in Genesis to signifie the reasonable soul and not rather the Grace of the Holy Spirit He also accounts them heretics who rejected the LXX and followed the translation of Aquila which in the Ancient Church was in great reputation Some there were who said that God hardned the heart of Pharaoh Haeres 77. and these he calls heretics and yet this heresy is the very words of Scripture Haeres 71. and some are reckon'd heretics for saying that the Deluge of Deucalion and Pyrrha was before Noahs flood But more consider able is that heresy Haeres 74. which affirm'd that Christ descended into hell and there preach'd to the detained that they who would confess him might be sav'd Now if Philastrius or any other writer of heretics were in this case infallible what shall become of many of the Orthodox fathers who taught this now condemned doctrine So did Clemens Alexandrinus Anastasius Sinaita S. Athanasius S. Hierom S. Ambrose and divers others of the most eminent fathers and S. Austin affirm'd that Christ did save some but whether all the damned then or no he could not resolve Euodius who ask'd the question * Vide Jacob. Vsser primat Hibern cap. de limbo PP That it was not lawful for Christians to swear at all upon any account was unanimously taught by S. Hilary and S. Hierom S. Chrysostom S. Ambrose and Theophylact * Vide Erasmum in declarat ad Censuras Facult Thed Paris p. 52. edit Froben A. D. 1532 no not cum exigitur jus-jurandum aut cum urget necessitas and that it is crimen Gehenna dignum a damnable sin Whether that was the doctrine of the Church of Rome in those days I say not but if it were why is the Church of Rome of a contrary judgement now If it were not then a consenting testimony of many fathers even of the greatest ranke is no irrefragable argument of the truth or Catholic tradition and from so great an union of such an authority it was not very hard to imagine that the opinion might have become Catholic from a lesser spring greater streams have issued but it is more than probable that there was no Catholic oral tradition concerning this main and concerning article and I am sure I. S. will think that all these fathers were not only fallible but deceiv'd actually in this point By these few instances we may plainly see what little of infallibility there is in the fathers writings when they write against heretics or heresies or against any article and how then shall we know that the fathers are at all or in any case infallible I know not from any thing more that is said by I. S. But this I know that many chief men of his side do speak so slightly and undervalue the fathers so pertly that I fear it will appear that the Protestants have better opinion of them and make better use of the Fathers than themselves Praefat. in Pentateuch What think we of the saying of Cardinal Cajetan If you chance to meet with any new exposition which is agreeable to the Text c. although perhaps it differ from that which is given by the whole current of the Holy Doctors I desire the Readers that they would not too hastily reject it And again Let no man therefore reject a new exposition of any passage of Scripture under pretence that it is contrary to what the Ancient Doctors gave In Epiph. p. 244. What think we of those words of Petavius There are many things by the most Holy Fathers scattered especially S. Chrysostom in his Homilies which if you would accommodate to the rule of exact truth they will seem to be void of good sense P. 110. And again there is cause why the authority of certain Fathers should be objected for they can say nothing but what they have learned from S. Luke neither is there any reason why we should rather interpret S. Luke by them than those things which they say by S. Luke And Maldonate does expresly reject the exposition which all the Authors In Matth. 16. 18. which he had read except S. Hilary give of those words of Christ The gates of hell shall not prevail against it De sacr tom orig continentiâ apud Bellar. de Cler. lib. 1. cap. 15. vide etiam hist. Conc. Trident l. 7. Michael Nedina accuses S. Hierom as being of the Aerian heresy in the Qu. of Episcopacy and he proceeds further to accuse S. Ambrose S. Austin Sedulius Primasius Chrysostom Theodoret Oecumenius and Theophylact of the same heresy And Cornelius Mussus the Bishop of Bitonto expresly affirms that he had rather believe one single Pope In Epist. ad Rom. c. 14. than a thousand Augustines Hierom's or Gregories I shall not need any further to instance how the Council of Trent hath decreed many things against the general doctrines of the fathers as in the placing images in Churches the denying of the Eucharist to Infants the not including the Blessed Virgin Mary in the general evil of Mankind in the imputation of Adams sin denying the Chalice to the Laity and Priests not officiating the beatification and Divine vision of Saints before the day of judgment If it were not notorious and sometimes confessed that these things are contrary to the sense of a troop of fathers there might be some excuse made for them who give them good words and yet reject their authorities so freely that it sometimes seems to pass into scorn But now it appears to be to little purpose Sess. 4. that the Council of Trent enjoyns her Clergy that they offer not to expound Scripture against the unanimous consent of the fathers for though this amounts not to the height of I. S. his saying it is their avowed and constant doctrine that they are infallible but ad coercenda petulantia ingenia the contrary is done and avowed every day And as the fathers prov'd themselves fallible both as such in writing against heretics and in testifying concerning the Churches doctrine in their age so in the interpretations of Scripture in which although there be no Universal consent of Fathers in any interpretation of Scripture concerning which questions mov'd so the best and most common consent that is men of great note recede from it with the greater boldness by how much they hope to raise to themselves the greater reputation for wit and learning Sess. 11. And therefore although in the sixth General Council the Origenists were condemned for bringing
Solomon but when we consider those men who detain the Faith in Vnrighteousness it is no wonder that God leaves them and gives them over to believe a Lye and delivers them to the spirit of Illusion and therefore it will be ill to make our Faith to rely upon such dangerous foundations As all the Principles and graces of the Gospel are the propriety of the Godly so they only are the Church of God of which glorious things are spoken and it will be vain to talk of the infallibility of God's Church the Roman Doctors either must confess it Subjected here that is in the Church in this sense or they can find it no where In short This is the Church in the sense now explicated which is the pillar and ground of truth but this is not the sense of the Church of Rome and therefore from hence they refusing to have their learning can never pretend wisely that they can be Infalliby directed We have seen what is the true meaning of the Church of God according to the Scriptures and Fathers and sometimes Persons formerly in the Church of Rome In the next place let us see what now a days they mean by the Church with which name or word they so much abuse the world 1. Therefore by Church sometimes they mean the whole body of them that profess Christianity Greges pastoribus adunatos Priest and People Bishops and their Flocks all over the world upon whom the name of Christ is called whether they be dead in sins or alive in the spirit whether good Christians or false hypocrites but all the number of the Baptized except Excommunicates that are since cut off make this body Now the word Church I grant may and is given to them by way of supposition and legal presumption as a Jury of twelve men are called Good men and true that is they are not known to be otherwise and therefore presum'd to be such And they are the Church in all humane accounts that is they are the Congregation of all that profess the name of Christ of whom every particular that is not known to be wicked is presum'd to be good and therefore is still part of the External Church in which are the wheat and the tares and they are bound up in Common by the Union of Sacraments and external rites De doctr Christ. lib. 3. c. 32. name and profession but by nothing else This Doctrine is well explicated by S. Austin That is not the body of Christ which shall not reign with him for ever And yet we must not say it is bipartite but it is either true or mixt or it is either true or counterfeit or some such thing For not only in eternity but even now hypocrites are not to be said to be with Christ although they may seem to be of his Church But the Scripture speaks of those and these as if they were both of one body propter temporalem commixtionem communionem Sacramentorum they are only combin'd by a temporal mixtion and united by the common use of the Sacraments And this to my sense all the Churches of the world seem to say for when they excommunicate a person then they throw him out of the Church meaning that all his being in the Church of which they could take cognisance is but by the Communion of Sacraments and external society Imped ri non debet fides aut charitas nostra ut quoniam zizania esse in Ecclesiâ cernimus ipsi de Ecclesiâ recedamus â— Cypr. lib. 3. ep 3. ad Maximum Now out of this society no man must depart because although a better union with Christ and one another is most necessary yet even this cannot ought not to be neglected for by the outward the inward is set forward and promoted and therefore to depart from the external communion of the Church upon pretence that the wicked are mingled with the godly is foolish and unreasonable for by such departing Scil. ep 51. edit Rigaltianae a man is not sure he shall depart from all the wicked but he is sure he shall leave the communion of the good who are mingled in the common Mass with the wicked or else all that which we call the Church is wicked And what can such men propound to themselves of advantage when they certainly forsake the society of the good for an imaginary departure from the wicked and after all the care they can take they leave a society in which are some intemperate or many worldly men and erect a Congregation for ought they know of none but hypocrites So that which we call the Church is permixta Ecclesia as S. Austin is content it should be called a mixt Assembly Vbi suprà and for this mixture sake under the cover and knot of external communion the Church that is all that company is esteemed one body and the appellatives are made in common and so are the addresses and offices and ministeries because of those that are not now some will be good and a great many that are evil are undiscernably so and in that communion are the ways and ministeries and engagements of being good and above all in that society are all those that are really good therefore it is no wonder that we call this Great mixtion by the name of Ecclesia or the Church But then since the Church hath a more sacred Notion it is the spouse of Christ his dove his beloved his body his members his temple his house in which he loves to dwell and which shall dwell with him for ever and this Church is known and discern'd and lov'd by God and is United unto Christ therefore although when we speak of all the acts and duties of the judgments and nomenclatures of outward appearances and accounts of law we call the mixt Society by the name of the Church Yet when we consider it in the true proper and primary meaning by the intention of God and the nature of the thing and the Entercourses between God and his Church all the promises of God the Spirit of God the life of God and all the good things of God are peculiar to the Church of God in God's sense in the way in which he owns it that is as it is holy United unto Christ like to him and partaker of the Divine nature The other are but a heap of men keeping good Company calling themselves by a good name managing the external parts of Union and Ministery but because they otherwise belong not to God the promises no otherwise belong to them but as they may and when they * In Ecclesiâ non est macula aut ruga quia peccatores donec non poenitet eos vitae prioris nâ—n sunt in Ecclesiâ cum autem poenitel jam sani sunt Pacian ep 3. ad Symp onium Idem aâ—t S. Hieron comment in Ephes. c. 5. Maculaâ—i ab eâ Ecclesiâ alieni esse censentur nisi rursum per
present Inquiry The event and intendment of the premisses is this They who slighting the plain and perfect rule of Scripture rely upon the Church as an infallible guide of faith and judge of questions either by the Church mean the Congregation and Communion of Saints or the outward Church mingled of good and bad and this is intended either to mean a particular Church of one name or by it they understand the Catholick Church Now in what sense soever they depend upon the Church for decision of questions expecting an infallible determination and conduct the Church of Rome will find she relies upon a Reed of Egypt or at least a staff of wooll If by the Church they mean the Communion of Saints only though the persons of men be visible yet because their distinctive cognisance is invisible they can never see their guide and therefore they can never know whether they go right or wrong Lib. 3. de Eccl. milit cap 10. And the sad pressure of this argument Bellarmine saw well enough Sect. Ad hoc necesse est It is necessary saith he it should be infallibly certain to us which Assembly of men is the Church For since the Scriptures traditions and plainly all Doctrines depend on the testimony of the Church unless it be most sure which is the true Church all things will be wholly uncertain But it cannot appear to us which is the true Church if internal faith be required of every member or part of the Church Now how necessary true saving Faith or holiness is which Bellarmine calls internal faith I referr my self to the premisses It is not the Church unless the members of the Church be members of Christ living members for the Church is truly Christ's living body And yet if they by Church mean any thing else they cannot be assur'd of an infallible guide for all that are not the true servants of God have no promise of the abode of the Spirit of truth with them so that the true Church cannot be a publick Judge of questions to men because God only knows her numbers and her members and the Church in the other sense if she be made a Judge she is very likely to be deceiv'd her self and therefore cannot be relied upon by you for the promise of an infallible Spirit the Spirit of truth was never made to any but to the Communion of Saints 3. If by the Church you mean any particular Church which will you chuse since every such Church is esteemed fallible But if you mean the Catholick Church then if you mean her an abstracted separate Being from all particulars you pursue a cloud and fall in love with an Idea and a child of fancy but if by Catholick you mean all particular Churches is the world then though truth does infallibly dwell amongst them yet you can never go to school to them all to learn it in such questions which are curious and unnecessary and by which the salvation of Souls is not promoted and on which it does not rely not only because God never intended his Saints and servants should have an infallible Spirit so to no purpose but also because no man can hear what all the Christians of the world do say no man can go to them nor consult with them all nor ever come to the knowledge of their opinions and particular sentiments And therefore in this inquiry to talk of the Church in any of the present significations is to make use of a word that hath no meaning serving to the end of this great Inquiry The Church of Rome to provide for this necessity have thought of a way to find out such a Church as may salve this Phaenomenon and by Church they mean the Representation of a Church The Church representative is this infallible guide The Clergy they are the Church the teaching and the judging Church And of these we may better know what is truth in all our Questions for their lips are to preserve knowledge and they are to rule and feed the rest and the people must require the law from them and must follow their faith Heb. 13. 7. Indeed this was a good way once even in the days of the Apostles who were faithful stewards of the mysteries of God And the Apostolical men the first Bishops who did preach the Faith and liv'd accordingly these are to be remembred that is their lives to be transscribed their faith and perseverance in faith is to be imitated To this purpose is that of S. Irenaeus to be understood Tantae ostensiones cum sint Lib. 3. cap. 3. in principis non oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem quam facile est ab Ecclesiâ sumere cum Apostoli quasi in repositorium dives plenissimè in eâ contulerint omnia quae sint veritatis ubi omnis quicunque velit sumat ex eâ potum vitae Haec est enim vitae introitus Omnes autem reliqui fures sunt latrones propter quod oportet devitare quidem illos As long as the Apostles lived as long as those Bishops lived who being their Disciples did evidently and notoriously teach the doctrine of Christ and were of that communion so long they that is the Apostolical Churches were a sure way to follow because it was known and confess'd These Clergy-guides had an infallible Unerring spirit But as the Church hath decayed in Discipline and Charity hath waxen-cold and Faith is become interest and disputation this Counsel of the Apostle and these words of S. Irenaeus come off still the fainter But now here is a new question viz. Whether the Rulers of the Church be the Church that Church which is the pillar and ground of truth whether when they represent the diffusive Church the Promises of an indeficient faith and the perpetual abode of the Holy Spirit and his leading into all truth and teaching all things does in propriety belong to them For if they do not then we are yet to seek for an Infallible Judge a Church on which our Faith may relie with certainty and infallibility In answer to which I find that in Scripture the word Ecclesia or Church is taken in contradistinction from the Clergy but never that it is us'd to signifie them alone Act. 15. 22. Then it pleas'd the Apostles and the Elders with the whole Church to choose men of their own company c. And the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the Church of God Act. 20. 28. And Hilarius Diac. observes that the Apostle to the Church of Coloss sent by them a message to their Bishop In Col. 4. 16. Praepositum illorum per eos ipsos commonet ut sit sollicitus de salute ipsorum quia plebis solius scribitur epistola ideò non ad rectorem ipsorum destinata est sed ad Ecclesiam observing that the Bishop is the Ruler of the Church but his Flock is that which he intended onely to
and understood the meaning of the Council as well as any except the Legats and their secret Juncto wrote books against one another and both sides brought the words of the Council for themselves and yet neither prevailed Sancta Croce the Legat who well enough understood that the Council intended not to determine the truth yet to silence their wranglings in the Council let them dispute abroad but the Council would not end it by clearing the ambiguity And since this became the mode of Christendom to do so upon design it can be no wonder that things are left Uncertain for all the Decrees of Councils It is well therefore that the Church of Rome requires Faith to her Conclusions greater than her Premisses can perswade It is the only way of escaping that is left them as being conscious that none of their Arguments can enforce what they would have believ'd And to the same purpose it is that they teach the Conclusions and definitions of Councils to be infallible though their Arguments and Proceedings be fallible and pitiful and false If they can perswade the world to this they have got the Goal only it ought to be confess'd by them that do submit to the definition that they do so mov'd to it by none of their Reasons but they know not why I do not here enter into the particular examination of the matters determined by many Councils by which it might largely and plainly appear how greatly General Councils have been mistaken This hath been observed already by many very learned men And the Council of Trent is the greatest instance of it in the world as will be made to appear in the procedure of this Book But the Romanists themselves by rejecting divers General Councils have as I have above observ'd given proof enough of this That all things are here Uncertain I have prov'd and that if there be error here there can be no certainty any where else Bellarmine confesses So that I have thus far discharg'd what I undertook But beyond this there are some other particulars fit to be consider'd by which it will yet further appear that in the Church of Rome unless they will rely upon the plain Scriptures they have no sure foundation instance in those several Articles which some of the Roman Doctors say are de fide and others of their own party when they are press'd with them say they are not de fide but the opinions of private Doctors That if a Prince turn Heretick that is be not of the Roman party he presently loses all right to his temporal Dominions That the Pope can change Kingdoms taking from one and giving to another this is esteemed by the Jesuits a matter of Faith It is certa indubitata definita virorum clarissimorum sententia said Creswel the Jesuit in his Philopater F. Garnet said more it is Totius Ecclesiae quidem ab antiquissimis temporibus consensione recepta doctrina It is receiv'd saith Creswel by the whole School of Divines and Canon-Lawyers nay it is Certum de fide It is matter of Faith I know that the English Priests will think themselves injur'd if you impute this Doctrine to them or say It is the Catholick Doctrine and yet that this power in Temporals that he can depose Kings sometimes is in the Pope Contr. Barclai cap. 3. Non opinio sed certitudo apud Catholicos est said Bellarmine It is more than an opinion it is certain amongst the Catholicks Now since this is not believ'd by all that call themselves Catholicks and yet by others of greatest note it is said to be the Catholick Doctrine to be certain to be a point of Faith I desire to know Where this Faith is founded which is the house of Faith where is their warrant their authority and foundation of their Article For if an English Scholar in the Colledge at Rome had in confession to F. Parsons Creswel Garnet Bellarmine or any of their parties confessed that he had spoken against the Pope's power of deposing Kings in any case or of any pretence of killing Kings it is certain they could not have absolved him till he had renounc'd his Heresy and they must have declar'd that if he had died in that perswasion he must have been damned what rest shall this poor man have or hope for He pretends that the Council of Constance had declar'd for his opinion and therefore that his and not theirs is certain and matter of Faith They tell him no and yet for their Article of Faith have neither Father nor Council Scripture nor Reason Tradition nor Ancient Precedent where then is this foundation upon which the article is built It lies low as low as Hell but can never be made to appear and yet amongst them Articles of faith grow up without root and without foundation but a man may be threatned with damnation amongst them for any trifle and affrighted with clappers and men of clouts If they have a clear and certain rule why do their Doctors differ about the points of faith They say some things are articles of faith and yet do not think fit to give a reason of their faith for indeed they cannot But if this be the way of it amongst Roman Doctors they may have many faiths as they have Breviaries in several Churches secundum usum Sarum secundum usum Scholae Romanae and so without ground or reason even the Catholicks become hereticks one to another it is by chance if it happen to be otherwise 2. What makes a point to be de fide If it be said The decision of a General Council Then since no General Council hath said so then this proposition is not de fide that what a General Council says is true is to be believed as matter of faith for if the authority be not de fide then how can the particulars of her determination be de fide for the conclusion must follow the weaker part and if the Authority it self be left in uncertainty the Decrees cannot be infallible 3. As no man living can tell that a Council hath proceeded rightly so no man can tell when an Article of faith is firmly decreed or when a matter is sufficiently propounded or when the Pope hath perfectly defin'd an article of all this the Canon law is the Greatest testimony in the world where there is Council against Council Pope against Pope and among so many decrees of faith and manners it cannot be told what is and what is not certain For when the Popes have sent their rescripts to a Bishop or any other Prelate to order an affair of life or doctrine either he wrote that with an intent to oblige all Christendom or did not If not why is it put into the body of the laws for what is a greater signature or can pass a greater obligation then the Authentick Code of laws But if these were written with an intent to oblige all Christendom how come they to be prejudic'd
rescinded abrogated by contrary laws and desuetude by change of times and changes of opinion And in all that great body of laws registred in the decretum and the Decretals Clementins and Extravagants there is no signe or distinctive cognisance of one from another and yet some of them are regarded and very many are not When Pope Stephen decreed that those who were converted from heresie should not be re-baptiz'd Euseb. lib. 7. hist. 4. c. 3 4. lib. de unico baptis c. 14. and to that purpose wrote against S. Cyprian in the Question and declar'd it to be unlawful and threatned excommunication to them that did it as S. Austin tells S. Cyprian regarded it not but he and a Council of fourscore Bishops decreed it ought to be done and did so to their dying day Bellarmine admits all this to be true but says that Pope Stephen did not declare this tanquam de fide but that after this definition it was free to every one to think as they list nay Bellar. lib. 4. de Pont. Rom. c. 7. Sect. Et per hoc that though it was plain that S. Cyprian refus'd to obey the Pope's sentence yet non est omninò certum that he did sin mortally By all this he hath made it apparent that it cannot easily be known when a Pope does define a thing to be de fide or when it is a sin to disobey him or when it is necessary he should be obeyed Now then since in the Canon law there are so very many decrees and yet no mark of difference of right or wrong necessary or not necessary how shall we be able to know certainly in what state or condition the soul of every of the Pope's subjects is especially since without any cognisance or certain mark all the world are commanded under pain of damnation to obey the Pope In the Extravagant de Majoritate Obedientiâ are these words Dicimus definimus pronunciamus absolutè necessarium ad salutem omni humanae creaturae subesse Romano Pontifici Now when can it be thought that a Pope defines any article in Cathedra if these words Dicimus definimus pronunciamus necessarium ad salutem be not sufficient to declare his intention Now if this be true that the Pope said this he said true or false If false how sad is the condition of the Romanists who are affrighted with the terrible threatnings of damnation for nothing And if it be true what became of the souls of S. Cyprian and the African Bishops Epist. S. Cyprian ad Pompeium who did not submit to the Bishop of Rome but call'd him proud ignorant and of a dark and wicked mind Seriò praecepit said Bellarmine he seriously commanded it but did not determine it as necessary and how in a Question of faith and so great Concern this distinction can be of any avail can never be known and can never be prov'd since they declare the Pope sufficiently to be of that faith against S. Cyprian and the Africans and that in pursuance of this his faith he proceeded so far and so violently But now the matter is grown infinitely worse For 1. the Popes of Rome have made innumerable decrees in the Decretum In l. Benè à Zenoâ—e c. de quadrien praescript Decretals Bulls Taxes Constitutions Clementines and Extravagants 2. They as Albericus de Rosate a Great Canonist affirms sometimes exalt their constitutions and sometimes abase them according to the times And yet 3. All of them are verified and impos'd under the same Sanction by the Council of Trent Sess. 25. c. 20. all I say which were ever made in favour of Ecclesiastical Persons and the Liberties of the Church which are indeed the greater part of all after Gratians decree witness the Decretals of Gregory the 9 th Boniface the 8 th the Collectio diversarum Constitutionum literarum Romanorum Pontificum and the Decretal Epistles of the Roman Bishops in three Volumes besides the Ecloga Bullarum motuum propriorum All this is not onely an intolerable burden to the Christian Churches but a snare to consciences and no man can tell by all this that is before him whether he deserve love or hatred whether he be in the state of mortal sin of damnation or salvation But this is no new thing More than this was decreed in the Ancient Canon law it self Decret dist 19. c. Sic omnes C. Eniâ—vero Sic omnes Sanctiones Apostolicae sedis accipiendae sunt tanquam ipsius Divinâ voce Petri firmatae And again Ab omnibus quicquid statuit quicquid ordinat perpetuò quidem infragibiliter observandum est All men must at all times with all submission observe all things whatsoever are decreed or ordain'd by the Roman Church Nay licèt vix ferendum although what that holy See imposes be as yet scarce tolerable yet let us bear it and with holy devotion suffer it says the Canon Ibid. In memoriam And that all this might indeed be an intolerable yoke the Canon Nulli fas est addes the Pope's curse and final threatnings Sit ergo ruinae suae dolore prostratus quisquis Apostolicis voluerit contraire decretis and every one that obeys not the Apostolical decrees is majoris excommunicationis dejectione abjiciendus The Canon is directed particularly against the Clergy And the gloss upon this Canon affirms that he who denies the Pope's power of making Canons viz. to oblige the Church is a heretick Now considering that the decree of Gratian is Concordantia discordantiarum a heap or bundle of Contrary opinions doctrines and rules and they agree no otherwise then a Hyaena and a Dog catch'd in the same snare or put into a bag and that the Decretals and Extravagants are in very great parts of them nothing but boxes of tyranny and errour usurpation and superstition onely that upon those boxes they write Ecclesia Catholica and that all these are commanded to be believ'd and observ'd respectively and all gainsayers to be cursed and excommunicated and that the twentieth part of them is not known to the Christian world and some are rejected and some never accepted and some slighted into desuetude and some thrown off as being a load too heavie and yet that there is no rule to discern these things it must follow that matters of faith determin'd and recorded in the Canon law and the laws of manners there established and the matter of salvation and damnation consequent to the observation or not observation of them must needs be infinitely uncertain and no man can from their grounds know what shall become of him There are so very many points of faith in the Church of Rome and so many Decrees of Councils which when they please make an Article of faith and so many are presumptuously by private Doctors affirm'd to be de fide which are not that considering that the common people are not taught to rely upon the plain
words of Scripture and the Apostles Creed for a sufficient rule of their faith but are threatned with damnation if they do not believe whatever their Church hath determin'd and yet they neither do nor can know it but by the word of their Parish Priest or Confessor it lies in the hand of every Parish Priest to make the People believe any thing and be of any religion and trust to any Article as they shall choose and find to their purpose The Council of Trent requires Traditions to be added and received equal with Scriptures they both not singly but in conjunction making up the full object of faith and so the most learned and indeed generally their whole Church understands one to be incomplete without the other and yet Master White who I suppose tells the same thing to his Neighbours affirms that it is not the Catholick position That all its doctrines are not contain'd in Scripture which proposition being tied with the decree of the Council of Trent gives a very good account of it and makes it excellent sense Thus Traditions must be receiv'd with equal authority to the Scripture saith the Council and wonder not for saith Master White all the Traditions of the Church are in Scripture You may believe so if you please for the contrary is not a Catholick doctrine But if these two things do not agree better then it will be hard to tell what regard will be had to what the Council says the People know not that but as their Priest teaches them And though they are bound under greatest pains to believe the whole Catholick Religion yet that the Priests themselves do not know it or wilfully mis-report it and therefore that the people cannot tell it it is too evident in this instance and in the multitude of disputes which are amongst themselves about many considerable Articles in their Catholick religion Vide Wadding of Immac oncept p. 282. p. 334. alibi Pius Quintus speaking of Thomas Aquinas calls his doctrine the most certain rule of Christian religion And divers particulars of the religion of the Romanists are prov'd out of the revelations of S. Briget which are contradicted by those of S. Katherine of Siena Now they not relying on the way of God fall into the hands of men who teach them according to the interest of their order or private fancy and expound their rules by measures of their own but yet such which they make to be the measures of salvation and damnation They are taught to rely for their faith upon the Church and this when it comes to practise is nothing but their private Priest and he does not always tell them the sense of their Church and is not infallible in declaring the sense of it and is not always as appears in the instance now set down faithful in relating of it but first consens himself by his subtilty and then others by his confidence and therefore in is impossible there can be any certainty to them that proceed this way when God hath so plainly given them a better and requires of them nothing but to live a holy life as a superstructure of Christian Faith describ'd by the Apostles in plain places of Scripture and in the Apostolical Creed in which they can suffer no illusion and where there is no Uncertainty in the matters to be believ'd IV. The next thing I observe is that they all talking of the Church as of a charm and sacred Amulet yet they cannot by all their arts make us certain where or how infallibly to find this Church I have already in this Section prov'd this in the main Inquiry by shewing that the Church is that body which they do not rely upon but now I shall shew that the Church which they would point out can never be certainly known to be the true Church by those indications and signs which they offer to the world as her characteristick notes S. Austin in his excellent Book De Vnitate Ecclesiae Lib. de Vnit. Eccles. cap. cap. 17. Ergo in Scripturis Canonicis eam Ecclesiam requiramus cap. 3. affirms that the Church is no whereto be found but in Praescripto legis in prophetarum praedictis in Psalmorum cantibus in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Sanctorum canonicis authoritatibus in the Scriptures only And he gives but one great note of it and that is adhering to the head Jesus Christ for the Church is Christ's body who by charity are united to one another and to Christ their Head and he that is not a member of Christ cannot obtain salvation And he adds no other mark but that Christ's Church is not this or that viz. not of one denomination but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dispersed over the face of the earth The Church of Rome makes adhesion to the head Bellarm. de Eccles Militant lib. 3. cap. Sect. Nostra autem Sententia not Jesus Christ but the Bishop of Rome to be of the essential constitution of the Church Now this being the great Question between the Church of Rome and the Greek Church and indeed of all other Churches of the world is so far from being a sign to know the Church by that it is apparent they have no ground of their Faith but the great Question of Christendom and that which is condemn'd by all the Christian world but themselves is their foundation And this is so much the more considerable because concerning very many Heads of their Church it was too apparent that they were not so much as members of Christ but the basest of Criminals and Enemies of all godliness And concerning others that were not so notoriously wicked they could not be certain that they were members of Christ or that they were not of their Father the Devil The spirit of truth was promis'd to the Apostles upon condition and Judas fell from it by transgression But the uncertainties are yetgreater Adhering to the Pope cannot be a certain note of the Church because no man can be certain who is true Pope For the Pope if he be a Simoniac is ipso facto no Pope as appears in the Bull of Julius the 2d And yet besides that he himself was called a most notorious Simoniac Sixtus Quintus gave an obligation under his hand upon condition that the Cardinal d'Este would bring over his voices to him and make him Pope that he would never make Hierom Matthew a Cardinal which when he broke the Cardinal sent his Obligation to the King of Spain who intended to accuse him of Simony but it broke the Pope's heart and so he escaped here and was reserved to be heard before a more Unerring Judicatory And when Pius Quartus used all the secret arts to dissolve the Council of Trent and yet not to be seen in it and to that purpose dispatch'd away the Bishops from Rome he forbad the Archbishop of
Turris to go Hist. Concil Trid. lib. 7 ◠D. 156◠because he had been too free in declaring his opinion for the Jus Divinum of the Residence of Bishops he at the same time durst not trust the Bishop of Cesena for a more secret reason but it was known enough to many He was a familiar friend of the Cardinal of Naples whose Father the Count of Montebello had in his hand an Obligation which that Pope had given to the Cardinal for a sum of money for his Voice in the Election of him to the Papacy And all the world have been full of noises and Pasquils sober and grave Comical and Tragical accusations of the Simony of the Popes for divers ages together and since no man can certainly know that the Pope is not Simoniacal no man can safely rely on him as a true Pope or the true Pope for an infallible Judge 2. If the Pope be a Heretick he is ipso facto no Pope now that this is very possible Bellarmine supposes because he makes that one of the necessary cases in which a General Council is to be called as I have shewed above And this uncertainty is manifest in an instance that can never be wip'd off for when Liberius had subscrib'd Arianism and the condemnation of S. Athasius and the Roman Clergy had depriv'd Liberius of his Papacy S. Felix was made Pope and then either Liberius was no Pope or S. Felix was not and one was a Heretick or the other a Schismatick and then as it was hard to tell who was their Churches head so it was impossible that by adherence to either of them their subjects could be prov'd to be Catholicks 3. There have been many Schisms in the Church of Rome and many Anti-popes which were acknowledged for true and legitimate by several Churches and Kingdoms respectively and some that were chosen into the places of the depos'd even by Councils were a while after disown'd and others chosen which was a known case in the times of the Councils of Constance and Basil. And when a Council was sitting and it became a Question who had power to chuse the Council or the Cardinals What man could cast his hopes of Eternity upon the adherence to one the certainty of whose legitimation was determin'd by power and interest and could not by all the learning and wisdom of Christendom 4. There was one Pope who was made head of the Church before he was a Priest It was Constantine the second who certainly succeeded not in S. Peter's Privileges when he was not capable of his Chair and yet he was their head of the Church for a year but how adherence to the Pope should then be a note of the Church I desire to know from some of the Roman Lawyers for the Divines know it not I will not trouble this account with any questions about the Female-head of their Church I need not seek for matter I am press'd with too much and therefore I shall omit very many other considerations about the nullities and insufficiencies and impieties and irregularities of many Popes and consider their other notes of the Church to try if they can fix this inquiry upon any certainty Bellarmine reckons fifteen notes of the Church It is a mighty hue and cry after a thing that he pretends is visible to all the world 1. The very name Catholick is his first note he might as well have said the word Church is a note of the Church for he cannot be ignorant but that all Christians who esteem themselves members of the Church think and call themselves members of the Catholick Church and the Greeks give the same title to their Churches Nay all Conventions of Hereticks anciently did so and therefore I shall quit Bellarmine of this note by the words of Lactantius which himself * Bellarm. l. 4. de Notis Eccles. cap. 1. Lact. lib. 3. Divinar institut cap. ult also a little forgetting himself quotes Sed tamen singuli quique Haereticorum coetus se potissimum Christianos suam esse Catholicam Ecclesiam putant 2. Antiquity indeed is a note of the Church and Salmeron proves it to be so from the Example of Adam and Eve most learnedly But it is certain that God had a Church in Paradise is as good an argument for the Church of England and Ireland as for Rome for we derive from them as certainly as do the Italians and have as much of Adam's religion as they have But a Church might have been very ancient and yet become no Church and without separating from a greater Church The Church of the Jews is the great example and the Church of Rome unless she takes better heed may be another Rom. 11. 20 21. S. Paul hath plainly threatned it to the Church of Rome 3. Duration is made a note now this respects the time past or the time to come If the time past then the Church of Britain was Christian before Rome was and blessed be God are so at this day If Duration means the time to come for so Bellarmine says Denotis Eccles. lib. 4. cap. 6. Ecclesia dicitur Catholica non solùm quia semper fuit sed etiam quia semper erit so we have a rare note for us who are alive to discern the Church of Rome to be the Catholick Church and we may possibly come to know it by this sign many ages after we are dead because she will last always But this sign is not yet come to pass and when it shall come to pass it will prove our Church to be the Catholick Church as well as that of Rome and the Greek Church as well as both of us for these Churches at least some of them have begun sooner and for ought they or we know they all may so continue longer 4. Amplitude was no note of the Church when the world was Arian and is as little now because that a great part of Europe is Papal 5. Succession of Bishops is an excellent conservatory of Christian doctrine but it is as notorious in the Greek Church as in the Roman and therefore cannot signifie which is the true Church unless they be both true and then the Church of England can claim by this tenure as having since her being Christian a succession of Bishops never interrupted but as all others have been in persecution 6. Consent in doctrine with the Ancient Church may be a good sign or a bad as it happens but the Church of Rome hath not and never can prove the pure and prime Antiquity to be of her side 7. Vnion of members among themselves and with their head is very good if the members be united in truth for else it may be a Conspiracy and if by head be meant Jesus Christ and indeed this is the onely true sign of the Church but if by head be meant the Roman Pope it may be Ecclesia Malignantium and Antichrist may sit in the chair But the uncertainty
of this note as it relates to this question I have already manifested and what excellent concord there is in the Church of Rome we are taught by the Question of supremacy of Councils or Popes and now also by the strict and loving concord between the Jansenists and Molinists and the abetters of the immaculate conception of the B. Virgin-Mother with their Antagonists 8. Sanctity of doctrine is an excellent note of the Church but that is the question amongst all the pretenders and is not any advantage to the Church of Rome unless it be a holy thing to worship images to trample upon Kings to reconcile a wicked life with the hopes of heaven at the last minute by the charm of external ministeries to domineer over Consciences to impose useless and intolerable burdens to damn all the world that are not their slaves to shut up the fountains of salvation from the people to be easier in dispensing with the laws of God than the laws of the Church to give leave to Princes to break their Oaths as Pope Clement the 7 th did to Francis the first of France to cosen the Emperor Vid. The Legend of Flamens Revieu de Concile de Trent l. ◠◠7. and as P. Julius the second did to Ferdinand of Arragon sending him an absolution for his treachery against the King of France not to keep faith with hereticks to find out tricks to entrap them that trusted to their letters of safe conduct to declare that Popes cannot be bound by their promises for Pope Paul the 4 th in a Conclave A. D. 1555. complained of them that said he could make but four Cardinals Hist. Concil Trident. lib. 5. because forsooth he had sworn so in the Conclave saying This was to bind the Pope whose authority is absolute that it is an Article of faith that the Pope cannot be bound much less can he bind himself that to say otherwise was a manifest heresie and against them that should obstinately persevere in saying so he threatned the Inquisition These indeed are holy doctrines taught and practis'd respectively by their Holinesses at Rome and indeed are the notes of their Church if by the doctrine of the head to whom they are bound to adhere we may guess at the doctrine of their body 9. The prevalency of their doctrine is produc'd for a good note and yet this is a greater note of Mahumetanism than of Christianity and was once of Arianism and yet the Argument is not now so good at Rome as it was before Luther's time 10. That the chiefs of the Pope's religion liv'd more holy lives than others gives some light that their Church is the true one But I had thought that their Popes had been the chiefs of their religion till now and if so then this was a good note while they did live well but that was before Popery Since that time we will guess at their Church by the holiness of the lives of those that rule and teach all and then if we have none to follow amongst us yet we know whom we are to fly amongst them 11. Miracles were in the beginning of Christianity a note of true believers Marc. 16. 17. Christ told us so And he also taught us that Antichrist should be revealed in lying signs and wonders and commanded us by that token to take heed of them And the Church of Rome would take it ill if we should call them as S. Austin did the Donatists Mirabiliarios Miracle-mongers concerning which he that pleases to read that excellent Tract of S. Austin De Vnitate Ecclesiae cap. 14. will be sufficiently satisfied in this particular and in the main ground and foundation of the Protestant Religion In the mean time Tom. 13. p. 193. it may suffice that Bellarmine says Miracles are a sign of the true Church and Salmeron says that they are no certain signs of the true Church but may be done by the false 12. The Spirit of Prophecy is also a prety sure note of the true Church and yet in the dispute between Israel and Judah Samaria and Jerusalem it was of no force but was really in both And at the day of Judgment Christ shall reject some who will alledge that they prophesied in his name I deny that not but there have been some Prophets in the Church of Rome Johannes de Rupe seissâ Anselmus Marsicanus Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincoln S. Hildegardis Abbot Joachim whose prophecies and pictures prophetical were published by Theophrastus Paracelsus and John Adrasder and by Paschalinus Rigeselmus at Venice 1589 but as Ahab said concerning Micaiah these do not prophesy good concerning Rome but evil and that Rome should be reformed in ore gladii cruentandi was one of the Prophesies and Vniversa Sanctorum Ecclesia abscondetur that the whole Church of the Saints shall be hidden viz. in the days of Anti-christ and that in the days of darkness the elect of God shall have that faith or wisdom to themselves which they have and shall not dare to preach it publickly was another prophecy and carries its meaning upon the forehead and many more I could tell but whether such prophesies as these be good signs that the Church of Rome is the true Church I desire to be informed by the Roman Doctors before I trouble my self any further to consider the particulars 13. Towards the latter end of this Catalogue of wonderful signs the confession of adversaries is brought in for a note and no question they intended it so But did ever any Protestant remaining so confess the Church of Rome to be the true Catholick Church Let the man be nam'd and a sufficient testimony brought that he was mentis compos and I will grant to the Church of Rome this to be the best note they have 14. But since the enemies of the Church have all had tragical ends it is no question but this signifies the Church of Rome to be the only Church Indeed if all the Protestants had died unnatural deaths and all the Papists nay if all the Popes had died quietly in their Beds we had reason to deplore our sad calamity and inquir'd after the cause but we could never have told by this for by all that is before him a man cannot tell whether he deserves love or hatred And all the world finds that As dies the Papist so dies the Protestant and the like event happens to them all excepting only some Popes have been remark'd by their own Histories for funest and direful deaths 15. And lately Temporal Prosperity is brought for a note of the true Church and for this there is great reason because the Cross is the high-way to Heaven and Christ promised to his Disciples for their Lot in this world great and lasting persecutions and the Church felt this blessing for 300 years together But this had been a better argument in the mouth of a Turkish Mufty than a Roman Cardinal And now if by all these
Covenant in which they can receive the gift of eternal life which I take to be the proper reasons why the Church baptizes Infants all these are wholly deriv'd to us from Scripture-grounds But then as to that Reason upon which the Church of Rome baptizes Infants even because it is necessary and because without it children shall not see God it is certain there is no Universal or prime Tradition for that S. Austin was the hard Father of that doctrine And if we take the whole doctrine and practice together without distinction that it was the custom so to do in some Churches and at sometimes is without all question but that there is a tradition from the Apostles so to do relies but upon two witnesses Origen and S. Austin and the latter having receiv'd it from the former it relies wholly upon his single testimony which is but a pitiful argument to prove a tradition Apostolical * Secundum Ecelesiae observantiam a◠in Levit. c. 12. 13. Hom. 8. quem locum citat Perron haec autem verba non aiunt ab Apostolis hanc manasse observantiam Lib. de baptis cap. 18. He is the first that spoke it but Tertullian that was before him seems to speak against it which he would not have done if it had been a tradition Apostolical And that it was not so is but too certain if there be any truth in the words of Ludovicus Vives In S. August de civit Dei l. 1. c. 27. saying that anciently none were baptiz'd but persons of ripe age which words I suppose are to be understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for the most part But although the tradition be uncertain weak little and contingent yet the Church of God when ever she did it and she might do it at any time did do it upon Scripture-grounds And it was but weakly said by Cardinal Perron Replique à la response du Roy Jaques p. 701. that There is no place of Scripture by which we can evidently and necessarily convince the Anabaptists For 1. If that were true yet it is more certain that by Tradition they will never be perswaded not only because there is no sufficient and full tradition but because they reject the Topick 2. Although the Anabaptists endeavour to elude the arguments of Scripture yet it follows not that Scripture is not clear and certain in the Article for it is an easie thing to say something to every thing but if that be enough against the argument then no Heretick can be convinc'd by Scripture and there is in Scripure no pregnant testimony for any point of faith for in all questions all Hereticks prattle something And therefore it is not a wise procedure to say The adversaries do answer the testimonies of Scripture and by Scripture cannot be convinc'd and therefore chuse some other way of probation For when that is done will they be convinc'd and cannot the Cardinal satisfie himself by Scripture though the Heretick will not confess himself confuted The Papists say They answer the Protestants Arguments from Scripture but though they say so to eternal ages yet in the world nothing is plainer than that they only say so and that for all that confident and enforc'd saying the Scriptures are still apparently against them 3. If the Anabaptists speak probably and reasonably in their answers then it will rather follow that the point is not necessary than that it must be prov'd necessary by some other Topick 4. All people that believe Baptism of Infants necessary think that they sufficiently prove it from Scripture and Bellarmine though he also urges this point as an argument for Traditions yet upon wiser thoughts he proves it and not Unsuccessfully by three arguments from Scripture 3. Like to this is the pretence of the validity of the Baptism of Hereticks It is Cardinal Perron's own instance and the first of the four he alledges for the necessity of Tradition This he holds for a doctrine Orthodox and Apostolick and yet says he there is no word of it in Scripture Concerning this I think the issue will be short If there be nothing of it in Scripture it is certain there was no Apostolical tradition for it For S. Cyprian and all his Collegues were of an opinion contrary to that of the Roman Church in this Article Epist. ad Pompeium and when they oppos'd against S. Cyprian a Tradition he knew of no such thing and bad them prove their tradition from Scripture 2. S. Austin who was something warm in this point yet confesses the Apostles commanded nothing in it but then he does almost begus to believe it came from them Consuetudo illa quae opponebatur Cypriano ab eorum traditione exordium sumpsisse credenda est si cut sunt multa quae universa tenet Ecclesia ob hoc ab Apostolis benè praecepta traduntur quanquam scripta non reperiantur which in plain meaning is this We find a Custome in the Church and we know not whence it comes and it is so in this as in many other things and therefore let us think the best and believe it came by tradition from the Apostles But it seems himself was not sure that so little a foundation could carry so big a weight he therefore plainly hath recourse to Scripture in this Question Contra Donatist l. 4. c. 14. c. 17. 24. Whether is more pernitious not to be baptiz'd or to be re-baptiz'd is hard to judge nevertheless having recourse to the standard of our Lord where the monuments of this are not estimated by humane sense but by Divine authority I find concerning each of them the Sentence of our Lord to wit in the Scriptures But 3. The Question it self is not a thing necessary for S. Cyprian and the Bishops of Cappadocia and Galatia and almost two parts of the known world whose sentiment was differing from others yet liv'd and dyed in the Communion of those Churches who believ'd the contrary doctrin and so it might have been still if things were estimated but according to their intrinsick value Lib. 1. de Baptist cap. 18. And since as S. Austin says they might safely differ in judgment before the determination of this Question in a Council it follows evidently that there was no clear tradition against them or if there were that was not esteem'd a good Catholick or convincing argument For as it is not imaginable so great and wise a part of the Catholick Church should be ignorant of any famous Apostolical tradition especially when they were call'd upon to attend to it and were urg'd and press'd by it so it is also very certain there was none such in S. Cyprian's time because the sixth general Council approv'd of the Canon made in the Council of Carthage Can. 2. because in praedictorum praesulum locis solum secundùm traditam eis consuetudinem servatus est 4. It had been best if the Question had never been mov'd and
the next best had been to have suppress'd and forgotten it instantly for as it came in by zeal and partiality in the hands of the Cappadocian Bishops so it was fed by pride and faction in the hands of the Donatists and it could have no determination but the mere nature of the thing it self all the Apostles and Ministers of Religion were commanded to baptize in water in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and this was an admission to Christianity not to any sect of it and if this had been consider'd wisely so it had been done by a Christian Minister in matter and form there could be no more in it And therefore the whole thing was to no purpose so far was it from being an Article of Faith 4. The next pretence is that the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son is an Article of our Faith and yet no where told in Scripture and consequently tradition must help to make up the object of our Faith To this some very excellent persons have oppos'd this Consideration that the Greeks and Latins differ but in modo loquendi and therefore both speaking the same thing in differing words show that the Controversie it self is trifling or mistaken But though I wish them agreed yet when I consider that in all the endeavours for Union at the Council of Florence they never understood one another to purposes of peace I am apt to believe that those who would reconcile them shew their piety more than the truth of the thing and that the Greeks and Latins differ'd intirely in this point But then that on the Latin side there should be a tradition Apostolical can upon no other account be pretended but that they could not prove it by Scripture or shew any Ecclesiastical law or authority for it Now if we consider that the Greeks pretend their doctrine not only from Scripture but also from immemorial tradition that is that they have not innovated the doctrine which their Fathers taught them and on the other side that the Latins have contrary to the Canon of the Council of Ephesus superadded the clause of Filióque to the Constantinopolitan-Creed and that by authority of a little Convention of Bishops at Gentilly neer to Paris without the consent of the Catholick Church and that by the Confession of Cardinal Perron Contr. le Râ—y Jaques p. 709. not only the Scripture favours the Greeks but Reason also because it is unimaginable that the same particular effect should proceed from two principles in the same kind and although the three Persons created the world yet that production was from the Divine essence which is but one principle but the opinion of the Latius is that the Holy Ghost proceeds from two Persons as Persons and therefore from two principles it will be very hard to suppose that because all this is against them therefore it is certain that they had this from Apostolical tradition The more natural consequence is that their proposition is either mistaken or uncertain or not an article of Faith which is rather to be hop'd lest we condemn all the Greek Churches as Infidels or perverse Hereticks or else that it can be deriv'd from Scripture which last is indeed the most probable and pursuant to the doctrine of those wiser Latins who examin'd things by reason and not by prejudice But Cardinal Perron's argument is no better than this Titius was accus'd to have deserted his station in the Battel and carried false Orders to the Legion of Spurinna He answers I must either have received Orders from the General or else you must suppose me to be a Coward or a Traytor for I had no warrant for what I did from the Book of Military Discipline Well what if you be suppos'd to be a Coward or Traytor what hurt is in that supposition But must I conclude that you had Order from the General for fear I should think you did it on your own head or that you are a Traytor That 's the case Either this proposition is deriv'd to us by Apostolical tradition or we have nothing else to say for our selves well Nempe hoc Ithacus velit The Greeks allow the argument and will say thus You had nothing to say for your selves unless we grant that to you which is the Question and which you can never prove viz. that there is for this Article an Apostolical tradition but because both sides pretend that let us try this thing by Scripture And indeed that 's the only way And Cardinal Perron's argument may by any Greek be inverted and turned upon himself For he saying It is not in Scripture therefore it is a tradition of the Church it is as good an argument It is not deliver'd to us by universal Tradition therefore either it is not at all or it is deriv'd to us from Scripture and upon the account of this for my part I do believe it 5. The last instance of Cardinal Perron is the observation of the Lord's Day but this is matter of discipline and external rite and because it cannot pretend to be an article of faith or essentially necessary doctrine the consideration is differnt from the rest And it is soon at an end but that the Cardinal would fain make some thing of nothing by telling that the Jews complain of the Christians for changing Circumcision into Baptism and the Saturday-sabbath into the Dominical or Lord's-day He might as well have added They cry out against the Christians for changing Moses into Christ the Law into the Gospel the Covenant of works into the Covenant of faith Ceremonies into substances and rituals into spiritualities And we need no further inquiry into this Question but to consider Perron ibid. 710. what the Cardinal says that God did the Sabbath a special honour by writing this ceremonial alone into the summary of the moral law Now I demand Whether there be not clear and plain Scripture for the abolishing of the law of Ceremonies If there be then the law of the Sabbath is abolished It is part of the hand-writing of ordinances which Christ nail'd to his Cross. Now when the Sabbath ceases to be obligatory the Church is at liberty but that there should be a time sanctified or set apart for the proper service of God I hope is also very clear from Scripture and that the circumstances of religion are in the power of the presidents of religion and then it will follow from Scripture that the Apostles or their Successors or whoever did appoint the Sunday-festival had not onely great reason but full authority to appoint that day and that this was done early and continued constantly for the same reason and by an equal authority is no question But as to the Sabbath S. Paul gave express order that no man should be judged by any part of the ceremonial law and particularly name 's the Sabbath-days Colos. 2. 16. saying They all were a shadow of things
but the Churches in the first ages practis'd otherwise and the Greeks never believ'd it nor are all the Latin Churches of that opinion as shall be shown in the sequel The second Canon of the Council in Trullo commands observation of no less than fourscore and five Canons Apostolical deliver'd to the Church but besides that no Church keeps them there are not many who believe that they came from the Apostles S. Austin said that the Communicating of Infants was an Apostolical Tradition but neither the Protestants nor the Papists believe him in that particular Stromat lib. 1. lib. 2. c. 39. Clemens Alexandrinus said that Christ preach'd but one year S. Irenaeus confutes that Tradition vehemently and said it was an Apostolical Tradition That Christ was about 50 years of age when he died and therefore it must be that he preach'd almost 20 years for the Scripture says Matth. 4. 17. Jesus began to be about 30 years old Marc. 1. 14. when he was baptiz'd and presently after he began to preach Luc. 3. 23. Now this story of the great age of Christ Irenaeus says That all the old men that were with Saint John the Disciple of our Lord say that S. John did deliver unto them Nay not only so but some of them heard the same from others also of the Apostles There were many more of such traditions the day would fail to reckon all the Vnwritten Mysteries of the Church Cap. 29. said the Author of the last Chapters of the Book de Spiritu Sancto falsly imputed to S. Basil and yet he could reckon but a few all the rest are lost and of those that remain some are not at all observ'd in any Church But there cannot be a greater instance of the vanity of pretending Traditions than the collection of the Canons Apostolical by Clement Lib. 1. c. 18. Câ—â—h fide which Damascen reckons as parts of the New Testament that is equal to Canonical Writings of the Apostles but Isidore Hispalensis says they were Apocryphal made by hereticks and publish'd in the name of the Apostles Apud Gratian. dist 16. c. Canonâ—s but neither the Fathers nor the Church of Rome did give assent to them and yet their authority is receiv'd by many in the Church of Rome even at this day But it is to be observ'd that men accept them or refuse them not according to their authority which in all the first fifty at least is equal But if they be for their interest then they are Apostolical if against them then they are interpolated and Apocryphal and spurious and heretical as it hath happened in the fifth Canon and the 8â…˜ But this is yet more manifest if we consider what * Tract 26. in Matth. Oportet causè considerare ut nec omnia secreta quae feruntur nomine Sanctorum suscipiamus propter Judaeâ—s qui fortè ad destructionem veritatis Scripturarum nostrarum quaedam finxerunt confirmantes dogmata falsa nec omnia abjiciamus quae pertinent ad demonstrationem Scripturarum nostrarum magni ergo viri est audire adimplere quod dictum est Omni probate quod bonum est tenere Tamen propter eos qui non possunt quasi Trapezitae inter verba discernere vera hobeantur an falsa non possunt semetipsos cautè◠servare ut verum quidem teneant apud se ab omni autem specie malâ abstineant nemo uti dâ—bâ—t ad confirmationem dogmatum libris qui sunt extra Canonizatas Scripturas Origen says No man ought for the confirmation of doctrines or opinions to use books which are not Canoniz'd Scriptures Now for ought appears to the contrary many Traditions were two or three hundred years old the first day they were born and it is not easie to reckon by what means the Fathers came or might come to admit many things to be Tradition and themselves were not sure therefore they made rules of their conjecture presumptions and sometimes weak arguings It will be much more hard for us to tell which are right and which are wrong who have nothing but their rules which were then but conjectural and are since prov'd in many instances to be improbable 1. Such is that rule of S. Austin Lib. 4. de baptis contr Donat. c. 24. c. 6. Whatsoever was anciently receiv'd and not instituted so far as men looking back may observe by posterity that is not decreed by Councils may most rightly be believ'd to descend from Apostolical Tradition That is if we do not know the beginning of an universal custom we may safely conclude it to be Primitive and Apostolick Which kind of rule is something like what a witty Gentleman said of an old man and an old woman in Ireland that if they should agree to say that they were Adam and Eve no man living could disprove them But though these persons are so old that no man remembers their beginning and though a custom be immemorial and hath prevail'd far and long yet to reduce this to the beginning of things may be presum'd by him that a mind to it but can never convince him that hath not And it is certain this rule is but a precarious pitiful Presumption since every ancient custom that any succeeding age hath a mind to continue may for the credit of it and the ignorance of the original like new upstart Gentlemen be entituled to an Honourable House Every one believes the Commandments of his Ancestors to be Traditions Apostolical said S. Hierom And that these came in by private authority and yet obtain'd a publick name we have competent warranty from Tertullian De Coronâ Milit. c. 4. who justifies it thus far Do you not think it lawful for every faithful man to appoint what ever he thinks may please God unto discipline and salvation And From whomsoever the Tradition comes regard not the Author but the Authority And S. Irenaeus tells Apud Euseb. l. 5. c. 26. Gr. 24. Lâ—t that the variety of keeping Lent which puts in strongly also to be an Apostolical Tradition began among his Ancestors who did not accurately observe their customs who by a certain simplicity or private authority appointed any thing for their posterity So that here it is apparent that every private man that was of an ancient standing in the Church might introduce customs and usages which himself thought pious And next it is also evident that when these customs deriv'd from their Ancestors hapned to continue in a lasting use their posterity was very apt to call them Traditions Apostolical according to * Lib. de Coronâ Militis Si legem nusquam reperio sequitur ut Traditio consuetudini morem hunc dederit habitu um quandóque Apostoli authoritatem ex interpretatione rationis Tertullian who confessed this very thing Thus things indifferent being esteem'd useful or pious became customary and then came for reverence into a putative and usurp'd authority But they
who having this warning from the very persons whence the mistake comes will yet swallow the hook deserve to live upon air and fancy and to chew deceit But this Topick of pretended Tradition is the most fallible thing in the world for it is discover'd of some things that are called Apostolical tradition that they had their original of being so esteemed upon the authority and reputation of one man Some I say have been so discover'd Papias was the Author of the Millenary opinion which prevailed for about three whole ages and that so Universally that Justin Martyr said it was believ'd by all that were perfectly Orthodox and yet it recurres to him onely as the fountain of the Tradition But of this I shall say no more because this instance hath been by others examin'd and clear'd The assumption of the Virgin Mary is esteem'd a Tradition Apostolical but it can derive no higher then S. Austin In serm de Assumptione whose doctrine alone brought into the Church the veneration of the Assumption which S. Hierom yet durst not be confident of But the Tradition of keeping Easter the fourteen day of the Moon deriv'd onely from S. John Salmeron tract 51. in Rom. 5. p. 468 in marg and the Asâ—atick Bishops but the other from S. Peter and S. Paul prevail'd though it had no greater authority But the Communicating of Infants prevail'd for many ages in the West S. Hierom. dial adv Lucifer and to this day in the East and went for an Apostolical Tradition but the fortune of it is chang'd and it now passes for an errour and S. Hierom said It was an Apostolical Tradition that a Priest should never baptize without Chrism but of this we have scarce any testimony but his own But besides this there was in the beginning of Christianity some Apocryphal books of these Origen gave great caution Tract 26. in Matth. and because the falsity of these every good man could not discover therefore he charges them that they should offer to prove no Opinion from any books but from the Canonical Scriptures as I have already quoted him but these were very busie in reporting traditions The book of Hermes seduc'd S. Clemens of Alexandria into a belief that the Apopostles preach'd to them that died Infidels and then rais'd them to life and the Apocryphal books under the title of Peter and Paul make him believe that the Greeks were sav'd by their Philosophy and the Gospel of Nicodemus so far as yet appears was author of the pretended tradition of the signing with the Sign of the Cross at every motion of the body and led Tertullian and S. Basil and in consequence the Churches of succeeding ages into the practise of it A little thing will draw on a willing mind and nothing is so credulous as piety and timerous Religion and nothing was more fearful to displease God and curious to please him than the Primitive Christians and every thing that would invite them to what they thought pious was sure to prevail and how many such pretences might enter in at this wide door every man can easily observe Add to this that the world is not agreed about the competency of the testimony or what is sufficient to prove tradition to be Apostolical Some require and allow only the testimony of the present Catholick Church to prove a Tradition which way if it were sufficient then it is certain that many things which the primitive Fathers and Churches esteem'd tradition would be found not to be such because as appears in divers instances above reckon'd they admitted many traditions which the present Church rejects 2. If this were the way then truth were as variable as time and there could be no degrees of credibility in testimony but still the present were to carry it that is every age were to believe themselves and no body else And the reason of these things is this because some things have in some ages been universally receiv'd in others universally rejected I instance in the state of Saints departed which once was the opinion of some whole ages and now we know in what ages it is esteemed an error 3. The Communicating Infants before instanc'd in was the practise of the Church for 600 years together Maldonat in 6. Joh. 53. videetiam Espéncaeuâ— de adorat Eucharist l. 2. c. 12. Now all that while there was no Apostolical tradition against this doctrine and practice or at least none known for if there had these Ages would not have admitted this doctrine But if there were no tradition against it at that time there is none now And indeed the Testimony of the present Church cannot be useful in the Question of Tradition if ever there was any age or number of orthodox and learned men that were against it only in a negative way it can be pretended that is if there was no doctrine or practice or report ever to the contrary then they that have a mind to it may suppose or hope it was Apostolical or at least they cannot be sure that it was not But this way can never be useful in the Questions of Christendom because in them there is Father against Son and Son against Father Greeks against Latin and their minds differ as far as East and West and therefore it cannot be in our late Questions that there was never any thing said to the contrary but if there was then the testimony of the present Church is not sufficient to prove the tradition to be Catholick and Apostolick 4. If the testimony of the present Church were a sure record of Tradition Apostolical then it is because the present Church is infallible but for that there is neither Scripture nor Tradition or if there were for its infallibility in matter of faith yet there is none for its infallibility in matter of fact and such is the Tradition concerning which the Question only is Whether such a thing was actually taught by an Apostle and transmitted down by the hand of uninterrupted succession of Sees and Churches Antiquissimum quodque verissimum We know the fountains were pure and the current by how much the nearer it is to the spring it is the less likely to be corrupted And therefore it is a beginning at the wrong end to say The present Church believes this therefore so did the primitive but let it be shewed that the primitive did believe this for else it is Out-facing of an Opponent as if he ought to be aasham'd to question whether you have done well or no. For if that question may be ask'd it must be submitted to trial and it must be answer'd and the holding the opinion will not justifie the holding it that must be done by something else therefore the sampler and the sampled must be compar'd together and it will be an ill excuse if a servant who delivers a spotted garment to his Lord and tells him Thus it was deliver'd to me for thus you see
it is now If he can prove it was so at first he may be justified but else at no hand And I and all the world will be strangely to seek what the Church of Rome means by making conformity to the Primitive Church a note of the true Church if being now as it is be the rule for what it ought to be For if so then well may we examine the primitive Church by the present but not the present by the primitive 5. 5. If the present Catholick Church were infallible yet we were not much the nearer unless this Catholick Church could be consulted with and heard to speak not then neither unless we know which were indeed the Catholick Church There is no word in Scripture that the testimony of the present Church is the infallible way of proving the unwritten word of God and there is no tradition that it is so that I ever yet heard of and it is impossible it should be so because the present Church of several ages have had contrary traditions And if neither be why shall we believe it if there be let it be shewed In the mean time it is something strange that the infallibility of a Church should be brought to prove every particular tradition and yet it self be one of those particular traditions which proves it self But there is a better way Vincentius Lerinensis his way of judging a traditional doctrine to be Apostolical and Divine is The consent of all Churches and all Ages It is something less that S. Austin requires Lib. 2. de doct Christiana c. 8. Ecclesiarum Catholicarum quamplurimùm sequatur authoritatem inter quas sane illae sunt quae Apostolicas sedes habere Epistolas accipere meruerunt He speaks it of the particular of judging what Books are Canonical In which as tradition is the way to judge so the rule of tradition is the consent of most of the Catholick Churches particularly those places where the Apostles did sit and to which the Apostles did write But this fancy of S. Austin's is to be understood so as not to be measur'd by the practise but by the doctrine of the Apostolical Churches For that any or more of these Churches did or did not do so is no argument that such a Custom came from the Apostles or if it did that it did oblige succeeding ages unless this Custom began by a doctrine and that the tradition came from the Apostles with a declaration of it's perpetual obligation And therefore this is only of use in matters of necessary doctrine But because there is in this question many differing degrees of authority he says that our assent is to be given accordingly Those which are receiv'd of all the Catholick Churches are to be preferr'd before those which are not receiv'd by all and of these those are to be preferr'd which have the more and the graver testimony but if it should happen which yet is not that some are witnessed by the more and others by the graver let the assent be equal This indeed is a good way to know nothing for if one Apostolical Church differ from another in a doctrinal tradition no man can tell whom to follow for they are of equal authority and nothing can be thence proved but that Oral tradition is an uncertain way of conveying a Doctrine But yet this way of S. Austin is of great and approved use in the knowing what Books are Canonical and in these things it can be had in some more in some less in all more than can be said against it and there is nothing in succeeding times to give a check to our assents in their degrees because the longer the Succession runs still the more the Church was established in it But yet concerning those Books of Scripture of which it was long doubted in the Church whether they were part of the Apostolical Canon of Scripture there ought to be no pretence that they were deliver'd for such by the Apostles at least not by those Churches who doubted of them unless they will confess that either their Churches were not founded by an Apostle or that the Apostle who founded them was not faithful in his Office in transmitting all that was necessary or else that those Books particularly the Epistle to the Hebrews c. were no necessary part of the Canon of Scripture or else lastly that that Church was no faithful keeper of the Tradition which came from the Apostle All which things because they will be deny'd by the Church of Rome concerning themselves the consequent will be that Tradition is an Uncertain thing if it cannot be intire and full in assigning the Canon of Scripture it is hardly to be trusted for any thing else which consists of words subject to divers interpretations But in other things it may be the case is not so For we find that in divers particulars to prove a point to be a Tradition Apostolical use is made of the testimony of the three first Ages Indeed these are the likest to know but yet they have told us of some things to be Traditions which we have no reason to believe to be such Onely thus far they are useful If they never reported a doctrine it is the less likely to descend from the Apostles and if the order of succession be broken any where the succeeding ages can never be surer If they speak against a doctrine as for example against the half-Communion we are sure it was no Tradition Apostolical if they speak not at all of it we can never prove the Tradition for it may have come in since that time and yet come to be thought or call'd Tradition Apostolical from other causes of which I have given account And indeed there is no security sufficient but that which can never be had and that is the Universal positive testimony of all the Church of Christ which he that looks for in the disputed Traditions pretended by the Church of Rome may look as long as the Jews do for their wrong Messias So much as this is can never be had and less than this will never do it I will give one considerable instance of this affair The Patrons of the opinion of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin-mother Salmeron disp 51. in Rom. 5. allege that they have the consent of almost the Universal Church and the agreeing sentence of all Universities especially of the chief that is of Paris where no man is admitted to be Master in Theology unless he binds himself by oath to maintain that doctrine They allege that since this question began to be disputed almost all the Masters in Theology all the Preachers of the Word of God all Kings and Princes republiques and peoples all Popes and Pastors and Religions except a part of one consent in this doctrine They say that of those Authors which are by the other side pretended against it some are falsly cited others are wrested and brought in against their
ambiguous or obscure in case any Brother be a Doctor endued with the grace of knowledge but be curious with your self and seek with your self but at length it is better for you to be ignorant lest you come to know what ye ought not for you already know what you ought Faith consists in the rule Lib. de veland To know nothing beyond this is to know all things Virg. c. 1. Regula quidem fidei una â—mnino est sola immobilis irreformabilis To the same purpose he affirms that this Rule is unalterable is immoveable and irreformable it is the Rule of faith and it is one unchangeably the same which when he had said he again recites the Apostles Creed Lib. de veland Virg. c. â— he calls it legem fidei this law of faith remaining in other things of discipline and conversation the grace of God may thrust us forward and they may be corrected and renewed But the faith cannot be alter'd there is neither more nor less in that And it is of great remark what account Tertullian gives of the state of all the Catholick Churches and particularly of the Church of Rome in his time That Church is in a happy state into which the Apostles with their bloud pour'd forth all their doctrine De praescript c. 36. let us see what she said what she taught what she published in conjunction with the African Churches she knows one God the creator of the World and Jesus Christ of the Virgin Mary the Son of God the Creator and the resurrection of the flesh she mingles the Law and the Prophets with the Evangelical and Apostolical writings and from thence she drinks that faith she sings with Water she cloaths with the holy Spirit she feeds with the Eucharist she exhorts to Martyrdom and against this Institution receives none This indeed was a happy state and if in this she would abide her happiness had been as unalterable as her faith But from this how much she hath degenerated will too much appear in the order of this discourse In the confession of this Creed the Church of God baptiz'd all her Catechumens to whom in the profession of that faith they consign'd all the promises of the Gospel S. Hilar. l. 10. de Trinit vers finem For the truth of God the faith of Jesus Christ the belief of a Christian is the purest simplest thing in the world In simplicitate fides est in fide justitia est in confessione pietas est Nec Deus nos ad beatam vitam per difficiles quaestiones vocat nec multiplici eloquentis facundiae genere sollicitat in absoluto nobis ac facili est aeternitas Jesum Christum credimus suscitatum à mortuis per Deum ipsum esse Dominum confitemur This is the Breviary of the Christian Creed and this is the way of salvation lib. de Synodis saith S. Hilary But speaking more explicitely to the Churches of France and Germany he calls them happy and glorious qui perfectam atque Apostolicam fidem conscientiâ professione Dei retinentes conscriptas fides hûc usque nescitis because they kept the Apostolical Belief for that is perfect Thus the Church remaining in the purity and innocent simplicity of the Faith there was no way of confuting Hereticks but by the words of Scripture or by appealing to the tradition of this Faith in the Apostolical form and there was no change made till the time of the Nicene Council but then it is said that the first simplicity began to fall away and some new thing to be introduc'd into the Christian Creed True it is that then Christianity was in one complexion with the Empire and the division of Hearts by a different Opinion was likely to have influence upon the publick peace if it were not compos'd by peaceable consent or prevailing authority and therefore the Fathers there assembled together with the Emperour's power did give such a period to their Question as they could but as yet it is not certain that they at their meeting recited any other Creed than the Apostolical for that they did not In Antidoto ad Nicolaum 5. Papam Laurentius Valla a Canon in the Lateran Church affirms that himself hath read in the ancient Books of Isidore who collected the Canons of the ancient Councils Certain it is the Fathers believ'd it to be no other than the Apostolical faith and the few words they added to the old form was nothing new but a few more explicate words of the same sense intended by the Apostles and their Successors as at that time the Church did remember by the successive preachings and written Records which they had and we have not but especially by Scripture But the change was so little or indeed so none as to the matter that they affirmed of it Epiphan in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This was the Creed deliver'd by the Holy Apostles and in the old Latin Missal published at Strasburgh An. Dom. 1557. after the recitation of the Nicene Creed as we usually call it it is added in the Rubrick Finito Symbolo Apostolorum dicat Sacerdos Dominus vobiscum So that it should seem the Nicene Fathers us'd no other Creed than what themselves thought to be the Apostolical And this is the more credible because we find that some other Copies of the Apostles Creed particularly that which was us'd in the Church of Aquileia hath divers words and amplifications of some one Article as to the Article of God the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth is added invisible and impassible which though the words were set down there because of the Sabellian Heresie yet they said nothing new but what to every man of reason was included in the very nature of God and so was the addition of Nice concerning the Divinity of the Son of God included in the very natural Filiation expressed in the Apostles Creed and therefore this Nicene Creed was no more a new Creed than was that of Aquileia which although it was not in every word like the Roman Symbol yet it was no other than the Apostolical And the same is the case even of those Symbols where something was omitted that was sufficiently in the bowels of the other Articles Thus in some Creeds Christ's Death is omitted but his Crucifixion and Burial are set down The same variety also is observable in the Article of Christ's descent into Hell which as it is omitted in that form of the Apostolical Creed which I am now saying was us'd by the Nicene Fathers so was it omitted in the six several Recitations and Expositions of it made by Chrysologus and in the five Expositions made of it by S. Austin in his Book de Fide Symbolo and in his four Books de Symbolo ad Catechumenos and divers others So the Article of the Communion of Saints which is neither in the Nicene nor Constantinopolitan Creed nor
in the ancient Apostolical Creeds expounded by Marcellus Ruffinus Chrysologus Maximus Taurinensis Venantius Fortunatus Etherius and Beatus Lib. 1. contra Elipand Tolet. yet because it is so plain in the Article of the Church as the omission is no prejudice to the integrity of the Christian Faith so the inserting it is no addition of an Article or Innovation So these Copies now reckon'd omit in the beginning of the Creed Maker of Heaven and Earth but out of the Constantinopolitan Creed it is now inserted into all the Copies of the Apostolical Symbol Now as these omissions or additions respectively that is this variety is no prejudice to these being the Apostles Creed So neither is the addition made at Nice any other but a setting down what was plainly included in the Filiation of the Son of God and therefore was no addition of an Article nor properly an explication but a saying in more words what the Apostles and the Apostolical Churches did mean in all the Copies and what was deliver'd before that Convention at Nice But there was ill use made of it and wise men if they had pleased might easily have foreseen it But whether it was so or no for I can no otherwise affirm it than as I have said yet to add any new thing to the Creed or to appoint a new Creed was at that time so strange a thing so unknown to the Church that though what they did was done with pious intention and great advantage in the Article it self yet it did not produce that effect which from such a concurrence of sentiments might have been expected For first even some of the Fathers then present refus'd to subscribe the Additions some did it as they said against their will some were afraid to use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Consubstantial and most men were still so unsatisfied that presently after Council upon Council was again called at Sirmium Ariminum Seleucia Sardis to appease the new stirrs rising upon the old account and instead of making things quiet they quench'd the fire with oyle and the Principal persons in the Nicene Council Casu Hosii planè miserabâ—li Cathulicus Orbis contremâ—it concussaeque sunt solidissimae petrae Baron A. C. 347. 17. 18. chang'd their minds and gave themselves over to the contrary temptation Even Hosius himself who presided at Nice and confirm'd the former Decrees at Sardis yet he left that Faith and by that desertion affrighted and shook the fabrick of the Christian Church in the Article added or explained at Nice In the same sad condition was Marcellus of Ancyra Vide Epist. Marcellinorum ad Episcipos in Dio-Caesarea exulantes a great friend of S. Athanasius and an earnest opposer of Arius so were the two Photinus's Eustathius Elpidius Heracides Hygin Sigerius the President Cyriacus and the Emperour Constantine himself who by banishing Athanasius into France by becoming Arian and being baptiz'd by an Arian Bishop secur'd the Empire to his sons as themselves did say as it is reported by Lucifer Calaritanus * Pro S. Athanas l. 1. apud Baron A. â— 336. 13. and that he was vehemently suspected by the Catholicks is affirmed by Eusebius Hierom Ambrose Theodoret Sozomen and Socrates But Liberius Bishop of Rome was more than suspected to have become an Arian Idem aiunt Martinus Polâ—nus Alphonsus de Castro Volaterranus as Athanasius himself S. Hierom Damasus and S. Hilary report So did Pope Felix the second and Leo his successor It should seem by all this that the definitions of General Councils were not accounted the last determination of truths or rather that what propositions General Councils say are true are not therefore part of the body of faith though they be true or else that all these persons did go against an establish'd rule of faith and conscience which if they had done they might easily have been oppress'd by their adversaries urging the plain authority of the Council against them But Neither am I to urge against thee the Nicene Council nor thou the Council of Ariminum against me was the saying of S. Austin even long after the Council of Nice had by Concession obtain'd more authority than it had at first Now the reason of these things can be no other than this not that the Nicene Council was not the best that ever was since the day that a Council was held at Jerusalem by all the Apostles but that the Council's adding something to the Creed of the Church which had been the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Christian faith for 300 years together was so strange a thing that they would not easily bear that yoke And that this was the matter appears by what the Fathers of the Church after the Council did complain Dum in verbis pugna est dum de novitatibus quaestio est dum de ambiguis dum de Authoribus querelae est dum de studiis certamen est dum in consensu difficultas est dumque alter alteri anathema esse coepit prope jam nemo est Christi S. Hilar. After the Nicene Synod we write nothing but Faiths viz. new Creeds while there is contention about Words while there is question about Novelties while there is complaint of ambiguities and of Authors while there is contention of parties and difficulty in consenting and while one is become an Anathema to another scarce any man now is of Christ. And again We decree yearly and monethly faiths of God we repent when we have decreed them we defend them that repent we anathematize them that are defended we either condemn foreign things in our own or condemn our own in forein things and biting one another we are devour'd of one another This was the product of leaving the simplicity and perfection of the first rule by which the Church for so many ages of Martyrdom was preserv'd and defended and consummated their religious lives and their holy baptism of bloud and which they oppos'd as a sufficient shield against all heresies arising in the Church And yet the Nicene Fathers did adde no new Article Quid unquam aliud Ecclesia Conciliorum decretis enisa est nisi ut quod antea simpliciter credebatur hâ—c idem posteà diligentiùs crederetur Vincent Lirin contr haeres cap. 32. of new matter but explicated the Filiation of Jesus Christ saying in what sense he was the Son of God which was in proper speaking an interpretation of a word in the Apostles Creed and yet this occasion'd such stirs and gave so little satisfaction at first and so great disturbances afterward that S. Hilary * Lib. de Synodis call'd them happy who neither made nor knew nor receiv'd any other Symbol besides that most simple Creed us'd in all Churches ever since the Apostles days However it pleas'd the Divine Providence so to conduct the spirits of the Catholick Prelates that by their wise and holy adhering to the Creed as explicated
The Question is made What is meant by it They that have a mind to it understand it easily enough it was a declaration of the coming of the Messias into the world the great proof that Jesus of Nazareth was the Shiloh or he that was to come For whereas the Jews were the Inclosure and peculiar people of God at the comming of the Messias it should be so no more but the Gentiles being called and the sound of the Gospel going into all the world it was no more the Church of the Jews but Ecclesia totius mundi the Church of the Universe the Universal or Catholick Church of Jews and Gentiles of all people and all Languages Now this great and glorious mystery we confess in this Article that is we confess that God hath given to his Son the Heathen for an Inheritance and the utmost parts of the world for a possession that God is no respecter of persons Acts 10. 35. but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him This is the plain sense of the Article and renders the Article also highly considerable and represents it as Fundamental and it is agreeable with the very Oeconomy of the Gospel and determines one of the greatest questions that ever were in the world the dispute between the Jews and Gentiles and is not only easie and intelligible but greatly for Edification Now then let us see how the Church of Rome by her Head and Members expound or declare this Article I believe the Holy Catholick Church so it is in the Apostles Creed I believe one Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church so the Nicene Creed Here is no difference and no Commentary but the same thing with the addition of one word to the same sense onely it includes also the first Founders of this Catholick Church as if it had been said I believe that the Church of Christ is disseminated over the world and not limited to the Jewish pale and that this Church was founded by the Apostles upon the rock Christ Jesus But the Church of Rome hath handled this Article after another manner she hath explain'd it so clearly that no wise man can believe it she hath declar'd the Article so as to make it a new one and made an addition to it that destroys the principal Sanctam Catholicam Apostolicam Romanam Ecclesiam omnium Ecclesiarum Matrem Magistram agnosco I acknowledge the holy Catholick and Apostolick Roman Church the Mother and Mistress of all Churches And at the end of this declaration of the Creed it is added as at the end of the Athanasian This is the true Catholick faith without which no man can be saved And this is the Creed of Pope Pius the fourth enjoyn'd to be sworn by all Ecclesiasticks secular or Religious Now let it be considered Whether this Declaration be not a new Article and not onely so but a destruction to the old 1. The Apostolical Creed professes to believe the Catholick or Universal Church The Pope limits it and calls it the Catholick Roman Church that by all he means some and the Vniversal means but particular But besides this 2. It is certain this must be a piece of a new Creed since it is plain the Apostles did no more intend the Roman Church should be comprehended under the Catholick Church than as every other Church which was then or should be after And why Roman should be put in and not the Ephesine the Caesarean or the Hierosolymitan it is not to be imagined 3. This must needs be a new Article because the full sense and mystery of the old Article was perfect and complete before the Roman Church was in being I believe the holy Catholick Church was an Article of faith before there was any Roman Church at all 4. The interposing the Roman into the Creed as equal and of the extent with the Catholick is not onely a false but a malicious addition For they having perpetually in their mouths That out of the Catholick Church there is no Salvation and now against the truth simplicity interest and design of the Apostolical Creed having made the Roman and Catholick to be all one they have also establish'd this doctrine as virtual part of the Creed that out of the Communion of the Church of Rome there is no Salvation to be hoped for and so by this means damn all the Christians of the world who are not of their Communion and that is the far biggest part of the Catholick Church 5. How intolerable a thing it is to put the word Roman to expound Catholick in the Creed when it is confess'd among * Driedo de dogmat Eccl. lib. 4. c. 3. p. 3. themselves that it is not of faith that the Apostolick Church cannot be separated from the Roman and * Lib. 4. de Pontif. Rom. c. 4. Sect. At secundum Bellarmine proves this because there is neither Scripture nor Tradition that affirms it and then if ever they be separated and the Apostolick be remov'd to Constantinople then the Creed must be chang'd again and it must run thus I believe the holy Catholick and Apostolick Constantinopolitan Church 6. There is in this declaration of the Apostolical Creed a manifest untruth decreed enjoyn'd profess'd and commanded to be sworn to and that is that the Roman Church is the Mother of all Churches when it is confessed that S. Peter sate Bishop at Antioch seven years before his pretended coming to Rome and that Hierusalem is the Mother of all Churches For the Law went forth out of Sion and the Word of the Lord from Hierusalem Apud Baron AD. 382. n 15. and therefore the Oecumenical Council of Constantinople in the Consecration of S. Cyril said Vide etiam S. Basil tom 2. ep 30. Greg. Theol. We shew unto you Cyril the Bishop of Jerusalem which is the Mother of all other Churches The like is said of the Church of Cesarea with an exception onely of Jerusalem quae prope mater omnium Ecclesiarum fuit ab initio nune quoque est nominatur quam Christiana respublica velut centrum suum circulus undique observat How this saying of S. Gregory the Divine can consist with the new Roman Creed I leave it to the Roman Doctors to consider In the mean time it is impossible that it should be true that the Roman Church is the Mother of all Churches not onely because it is not imaginable she could beget her own Grand-mother but for another pretty reason which Bellarmine hath invented Though the Ancients every where call the Roman Church the Mother of all Churches Lib. 1. de Rom. and that all Bishops had their Consecration and Dignity from her Pontif. c. 23. Sect. Secunda ratio yet this seems not to be true but in that sense because Peter was Bishop of Rome he ordain'd all the Apostles and all other Bishops by himself or by others Otherwise since
all the Apostles constituted very many Bishops in divers places if the Apostles were not made Bishops by Peter certainly the greatest part of Bishops will not deduce their original from Peter This is Bellarmine's argument by which he hath perfectly overthrown that clause of Pius quartus his Creed that the Roman Church is the Mother of all Churches He confesses she is not unless S. Peter did consecrate all the Apostles he might have added No nor then neither unless Peter had made the Apostles to be Bishops after himself was Bishop of Rome for what is that to the Roman Church if he did this before he was the Roman Bishop But then that Peter made all the Apostles Bishops is so ridiculous a dream that in the world nothing is more unwarrantable For besides that S. Paul was consecrated by none but Christ himself it is certain that he ordain'd Timothy and Titus and that the succession in those Churches ran from the same Original in the same Line and there is no Record in Scripture that ever S. Peter ordain'd any not any one of the Apostles who receiv'd their authority from Christ and the Holy Spirit in the same times altogether which thing is also affirm'd by a Institut moral part 2 l. 4. c. 11. Sect. Altera opinio Azorius and b De tripl virt Theolog. disp 10. Sect. 1. n. 5. 7. Suarez who also quotes for it the Authority of S. c Quaest. Vet. N. Test. q. 97. Austin and the Gloss. So that from first to last it appears that the Roman Church is not the Mother-Church and yet every Priest is sworn to live and die in the belief of it that she is However it is plain that this assumentum and shred of the Roman Creed is such a declaration of the old Article of believing the Catholick Church that it is not onely a direct new Article of faith but destroys the old By thus handling the Creed of the Catholick Church we shall best understand what they mean when they affirm that the Pope can interpret Scripture authoritativè and he can make Scripture Ad quem pertinet sacram Scripturam authoritativè interpretari Ejus enim est interpretari cujus est condere He that can make Scripture can make new Articles of faith surely Much to the same Purpose are the words of Pope Innocent the fourth Innocent 4. in cap. super eo de Bigamis He cannot onely interpret the Gospel but adde to it Indeed if he have power to expound it authoritativè that is as good as making it for by that means he can adde to it or take from the sense of it But that the Pope can do this that is can interpret the Scriptures authoritativè sententialitèr obligatoriè so as it is not lawful to hold the contrary is affirm'd by Augustinus Triumphus a Qu. 67. a. 2. Turrecremata b Lib. 2. c. 107. and Hervey c De potestate Papae And Cardinal Hosius d De expresso Dei verbo in Epilogo goes beyond this saying That although the words of the Scripture be not open yet being uttered in the sense of the Church they are the express words of God but uttered in any other sense are not the express word of God but rather of the Devil To these I only adde what we are taught by another Cardinal who perswading the Bohemians to accept the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in one kind tells them and it is that I said before If the Church Card. Cusan Epâ—st 2. ad Bâ—hâ—mâ—s de usu Communionis p. 833. viz. of Rome for that is with them the Catholick Church or if the Pope that is the Virtual Church do expound any Evangelical sense contrary to what the current sense and practice of the Catholick Primitive Church did not that but this present interpretation must be taken for the way of Salvation For God changes his judgement as the Church does Epist. 3. p. 838. So that it is no wonder that the Pope can make new Articles or new Scriptures or new Gospel it seems the Church of Rome can make contrary Gospel that if in the primitive Church to receive in both kindes was via salutis because it was understood then to be a precept Evangelical afterwards the way of Salvation shall be changed and the precept Evangelical must be understood To take it in one kind But this is denyed by Balduinus In 1. Decret de summa Trinitate fide Cathol n. 44. 15. dist Canones who to the Question Whether can the Pope find out new Articles of Faith say's I answer Yes But not contrary It seems the Doctors differ upon that point but that which the Cardinal of Cusa the Legat of P. Nicolas the fifth taught the Bohemians was how they should answer their objection for they said if Christ commanded one thing and the Council or the Pope or the Prelates commanded contrary they would not obey the Church but Christ. But how greatly they were mistaken the Cardinal Legat told them Epist 2. ad Bohemos p. 834. edit Basil. A. D. 1565. Possible non est Scripturam quamcunque sive ipsa praeceptum sive consilium contineat in eos qui apud Ecclesiam existunt plus auctoritatis ligandi haebere aut solvendi fideles quà m ipsa Ecclesia voluerit aut verbo aut opere expresserit and in the third Epistle he tells them The authority of the Church is to be preferr'd before the Scriptures In piorum Clypeo qu 29. artit 5. The same also is taught by Elysius Nepolitanus It matters not what the primitive Church did no nor much what the Apostolical did Pighius Hierarch l. 1. c. 2. For the Apostles indeed wrote some certain things not that they should rule our Faith and our Religion but that they should be under it that is they submit the Scriptures to the Faith nay even to the Practice of the Church For the Pope can change the Gospel said Henry the Master of the Roman Palace Ad legatos â—ohemicos sub Felice Papa A. D. 1447. vide Polan in Dan. 11. 371. and according to place and time give it another sense insomuch that if any man should not believe Christ to be the true God and man if the Pope thought so too he should not be damn'd said the Cardinal of S. Angelo And Silvester Prierias * Sylvest Prierias cont Lutherum Conclu 56. expressly affirmed that the authority of the Church of Rome and the Pope's is greater than the authority of the Scriptures These things being so notorious I wonder with what confidence Bellarmine can say That the Catholicks meaning his own parties do not subject the Scripture but preferre it before Councils and that there is no controversie in this when the contrary is so plain in the pre-alledged testimonies but because his conscience check'd him in the particular he thinks to escape with a distinction
If the Catholicks sometimes say That the Scriptures depend upon the Church or a Council they do not understand it in respect of authority or in themselves but by explication and in relation to us * Bellarm. de Concil author lib. 2. cap. 12. Sect. Diximus Which is too crude an affirmative to be believ'd for besides that Pighius in his Epistle to Paul III. before his Books of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy affirms that the whole authority of the Scripture depends upon the Church and the Testimonies above cited doe in terms confute this saying of his the distinction it self helps not all for if the Scriptures have quoad nos no authority but what the Pope or the Church is pleas'd to give them then they have in themselves none at all For the Scriptures were written for our learning not to instruct the Angels but to conserve the truths of God for the use of the Church and they have no other use or design And if a man shall say the Scriptures have in themselves great authority he must mean that in themselves they are highly credible quoad nos that is that we are bound to believe them for their own truth and excellency And if a man shall say They have no authority quoad nos but what the Church gives them he says They are not credible in themselves and in se have no authority so that this distinction is a Metaphysical Nothing and is brought only to amuse men that have not leisure to consider And he that says one says the other or as bad under a thin and transparent cover The Church gives testimony external to the Scripture but the internal authority is inherent and derives only from God But let the witness of the Church be of as perfect force as can be desir'd I meddle not with it here but that which I charge on the Roman Doctors is that they give to their Church a power of introducing and imposing new Articles of Belief and pretending that they have power so to do and their definitions are of authority equal if not superiour to the Scriptures And this I have now prov'd by many testimonies to all which I add that of the Canon Law it self Dist. 19. Can. in Canonicis In which Gratian most falsly alledges pretended words of Saint Austin which Bellarmine * De Concil authorit lib. 2. cap. 12. Sect. Respondâ—o ad Graâ—ianum calls a being deceiv'd by a false Copy and among the Canonical Scriptures reckons the decretal Epistles of the Popes inter quas sanè illae sunt quas Apostolica Sedes habere ab eâ alii meruerunt accipere Epistolas Now who can tell of any Copy of S. Austin or heard of any in which these words were seen Certainly no man alive but if Gratian was deceiv'd the deceivers were among themselves and yet they lov'd the deception or else they might have expung'd those words when Gregory the 13th appointed a Committee of learned men to purge that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it yet remains and if they do not pass for Saint Austin's words yet they are good Law at Rome 10â— Com. tit 1. de Ecclesiâ ejus authorit And Hereticks indeed talk otherwise said Eckius Objiciunt Haeretioi Major est authoritas Scripturae quam Ecclesiae but he hath confuted them with an excellent Argument The Church using bloud and strangled hath by authority chang'd a thing defin'd by the Scripture Behold says he the power of the Church over Scripture I love not to take in such polluted channels he that is pleased with it may find enough to entertain his wonder and his indignation if he please to read a fol. 126. 1. b. 104. b. 133. b. Capistrano b pag. 42. n. 15. p. 11. n. 18. 124. n. 9. Cupers c defens Trid. l. 1. l. 2. explic orthod l. 2. Andradius d pag. 3. l. 22. cap. 3. Sect. 3. Antonius e de fide justif 74. 6. hierarch Eccl. l. 1. c. 2. 3. 4. in praefatione ad Paulum terâ—ium Pighius f Contr. Luthâ— Concl. 56. Sylvester Prierias g dis contr Luther 8. de Eccl. Concl. 1. l. edit 1554. Johannes Maria Verratus h Encherid cap. 1. Coster i in 3. l. decâ—etal de convers conjug c. ex publico n. 16. Zabarel and k de verb. Dei l. 3. c. 10. Sect. Ad decimum quintum Bellarmine himself who yet with some more modesty of expression affirms the same thing in substance which according as it hath been is and is still likely to be made use of is enough to undo the Church The word of the Pope teaching out of his Chair is non omnino not altogether or not at all the word of man that is a word liable to error but in some sort the word of God c. Agreeable to which is that which the Lawyers say that the Canon Law is the Divine Law so said * Super. 2. decret de jurejur c. Nimis n. 1. Hostiensis I hope I shall not be esteemed to slander her when these writers think they so much honour the Church of Rome in these sayings In pursuance of this power and authority Pope Pius the 4th made a new Creed and putting his power into act did multiply new Articles one upon another And in the Council of Trent amongst many other new and fine Doctrines this was one That it is Heresie to say That Matrimonial Causes do not pertain to Ecclesiastical Judges and yet we in England owe this priviledge to the favour and bounty of the King and so did the Ancient Churches to the kindness and Religion of the Emperour and if it were so or not so it is but matter of Discipline and cannot by a simple denial of it become an Heresie So that what I have alledged is not the opinion of some private Doctors but the publick practise of the Roman Church Lib. Benedicti de Benedict Bon niae excusus A. D. 1600. Commissum ei Papae munus non modò articulos indeterminatos determinandi sed etiam fidei Symbolum condendi atque hoc ipsum Orthodoxos omnes omnium saeculorum agnovisse palam confessos esse it was said to Paulus Quintus in an address to him And how good a Catholick Baronius was in this particular An. Dom. 373. n. 22. we may guess by what himself says concerning the business of the Apollinarists in which the Pope did and undid Vt planè appareat says Baronius ex arbitrio pependisse Romani Pontificis Decreta sancire sancita mutare 2. That which I am next to represent is that the Church of Rome hath reason and necessity to pretend to this power of making new Articles for they having in the body of their Articles and in the publick Doctrines allowed by them and in the profession and practises of their Church so many new things
which he tells of the fellow's beast Bellar. lib. 3. de Euchar. c. 8. who left his barley at the Command of S. Anthony of Padua and went to worship the Sacrament Such things as these it is no wonder that they are either acted or believ'd in the Church of Rome since so many Popes and Priests are Magicians and since that villain of a man Pope Hildebrand as Cardinal Beno relates in his life could by shaking of his Sleeve make sparks of fire fly from it I end this and make no other use of it then what is made by Aventinus Lib. 5. l. 7. saying That this Pope under shew of Religion is said to have laid the foundation of the Empire of Antichrist Multi falsi prophetae nebulas offundunt fabulis miraculis Exempla vocant à veritate Christi plebem avertunt Falsi tum prophetae falsi Apostoli falsi sacerdotes emersêre qui simulatâ religione populum deceperunt magna signa atque prodigia ediderunt in templo Dei sedere atque extolli super id quod colitur coeperunt Dumque suam potentiam dominationémque stabilire conantur charitatem simplicitatem Christianam extinxerunt And they continue to do so to this day where they have any hopes to prevail without discovery Secondly themselves acknowledge That there are many things of which was no inquiry in the Primitive Church which yet upon doubts arising are now become perspicuous by the diligence of after-times it is the acknowledgement of the Cardinal of Rochester Lib. 3. De cultu sanctorum c. 9. And Bellarmine helps to make this good with a considerable instance Sect. Praetered Cum scriberentur Scripturae nondum coeperat usus vovendi sanctis Contre le Roy de la Grand Bretaigne and Cardinal Perron addes Et quant aux autheurs plus proche du siccle Apostolique encore qu'il ne se trouve pas de vestiges de ceste coustume c. Neither in the age of the Apostles that is when the Scriptures were written nor in the age next to it are there any footsteps of Vowing to Saints for then the custom was not begun The Pope's infallibility goes amongst very many for a Catholick doctrine In Spain and Italy in Austria and Poland it is so Lib. 4. De Pontâ—fiâ—◠〈◊〉 cap. 2. Sect. Secunda 〈◊〉 Sect. Ex 〈…〉 and every where else where the Jesuits prevail but when Bellarmine had affirm'd that Nilus Gerson Almain Alphonsus à Castro and Pope Adrian the VI. had taught that the Pope might be a heretick if he defines without a General Council and in his censure of them affirm'd that this opinion is not propriè haeretica he plainly by certain and immediate consequence confesses that for 1400 or 1500 years the Judgement of the Pope was not esteem'd infallible Now if this be true it is impossible that it can ever be determin'd as a Catholick truth for there is no Catholick Tradition for it There was not for many ages and therefore either there is no Tradition in the present Church for it or if there be it is contrary to the old Tradition and therefore either the Tradition of the present Church is no rule or if it be it is a very new one and several ages are bound to believe contradictory propositions That the Pope is above a Council is held by some Roman Catholicks and it is held so by all the Popes and hath without scruple been determin'd in the chair and contended for earnestly for about two hundred years past and yet all the world knows it was not so of old Lib. 2. de Concil author c. 14. For we know when the Question began Sect. Vltima sententia ca. 17. Sect. Tertia propositiâ— even in the time of the first Council of Pisa a little before the Council of Constance and now that the Pope is above the Council is sententia ferè communis nay it is ferè de fide saith Bellarmine Which expression of his shows plainly that Articles of faith grow in the womb of the Roman Church as an Embryo to be perfected when the Pope shall see his time Nay if the Pope's definition in Cathedrâ be infallible or if it can be known where the Popes does define in Cathedrâ this proposition that the Pope is above a Council is more than ferè de Fide for that the Council is superior is an heretical opinion and the favourers of it Hereticks Pius quartus affirm'd in his Complaint against Lansack the French Embassadour in the Council of Trent A D. 1562. and he threatned to persecute and chastise them And the like is to be said concerning that fine new Article of faith made by Pope Paul the fourth of which I have spoken in the first Section that a Pope cannot be bound much less can be bind himself viz. by any Oath for that was the Subject matter of the discourse The number of the seven Sacraments is now an Article of the Roman faith taught in their Catechisms determin'd in their Councils preach'd in their Pulpits disputed for against their adversaries and yet the Council of Florence was the first Council and Peter Lombard was the first man we find ever to have precisely fixt upon that number as Bellarmine a Lib. 2. De effect Sacr. c. 25. Sect. Secunda probatio and Valentia b In Thom. tom 4. disp 3. q. 6. punct 2. Sect. Tertiò objiciunt c. sufficiently acknowledge even when they would fain deny it Here I might instance in the Seal of Confession which as they have at Rome passed it under a Sacramental lock and key and founded upon a Divine law for so they pretend is one of the new Articles of Faith which wholly depends upon the authority of the Church of Rome who for the sake of this and many other Articles is compell'd to challenge a strange power even of making and imposing new Creeds or of quitting her new Articles But the whole order of Sections in this Chapter will be one continued argument of this particular SECTION VI. Of the Expurgatory Indices in the Roman Church THey use indirect and unworthy arts that they may do it without reproach and discovery and for this I instance in the whole affair and annexes of their Expurgatory Indices Concerning which three things are said in the first part of this Dissuasive 1. That the King of Spain gave a Commission to the Inquisitors to purge all Catholick Authors but with a clause of secresie 2. That they purg'd the Indices of the Fathers works 3. That they did also purge the works of the Fathers themselves The first and the last are denied by them that wrote against the Dissuasive The second they confess and endeavour to justifie But how well will appear when I have first made good the first and the last 1. That the King of Spain gave a clancular Commission to the Inquisitors can be denyed by
the infallibility or the authority of the Church but upon an implicite Faith you can no more establish a building than you can number that which is not Besides this an implicite Faith in the Articles of the Church of Rome is not sense it is not Faith at all that is not explicite Faith comes by hearing and not by not hearing and the people of the Roman Church believe one proposition explicitely that is that their Church cannot erre and then indeed they are ready to believe any thing they tell them but as yet they believe nothing but the infallibility of their Guides and to call that Faith which is but a readiness or disposition to have it is like filling a man's belly with the meat he shall eat to morow night an act of Understanding antedated But when it is consider'd in it's own intrinsick nature and meaning it effects this proposition that these things are indeed no objects of that Faith by which we are to be sav'd for it is strange that men having the use of reason should hope to be sav'd by the merit of a Faith that believes nothing that knows nothing that understands nothing but that our Faith is completed in the essential notices of the Evangelical Covenant in the propositions which every Christian man and woman is bound to know and that the other propositions are but arts of Empire and devices of Government or the Scholastick confidence of Opinions something to amuse consciences and such by which the mystick persons may become more knowing and rever'd than their poor Parishioners 3. The Church of Rome determines trifles and inconsiderable propositions and adopts them into the family of faith Of this nature are many things which the Popes determine in their chairs and send them into the world as oracles What a dangerous thing would it be esteem'd to any Roman Catholick if he should dare to question Whether the Consecration of the Bread and Wine be to be done by the prayer of the Priest or by the mystick words of Hoc est corpus meum said ove the Elements For that by the force of those words said with right intention the bread is transsubstantiated Lib. 1. de Sacr. Euchar. cap. 12. Sect. Est igitur and made the body of Christ Ecclesia Catholica magno consensu docet said Bellarmine so it is also in the Council of Florence in the Instruction of the Armenians Lib. 1. Sent. dist 8. so it is taught in the Catechism of the Council of Trent so it is agreed by the Master of the Sentences and his Scholars by Gratian and the Lawyers and so it is determin'd in the law it self Cap. Cum Martha extr de celebratione Missarum And yet this is no certain thing and not so agreeable to the spirituality of the Gospel to suppose such a change made by the saying so many words And therefore although the Church does well in using all the words of Institution at the Consecration for so they are carefully recited in the Liturgies of S. James S. Clement S. Basil S. Chrysostom S. Ambrose the Anaphora of the Syrians Inter Evangelistas quae omittuntur ab uno supplentur ab alio Innocentius de offic in the Universal Canon of the Ethiopians only they do not do this so carefully in the Roman Missal but leave out words very considerable words which S. Luke and S. Paul recite viz. which is broken for you Missae l. 3. c. 17. or which is given for you and to the words of Consecration of the Chalice they add words which Christ did not speak in the Institution and Benediction yet besides this generally the Greek Fathers and divers of the Latine do expressly teach that the Consecration of the elements is made by the prayers of the Church recited by the Bishop or Priest For the Scripture tells us that Christ took the bread he blessed it and brake it and gave it to them saying Take eat It is to be supposed that Christ consecrated it before he gave it to them and yet if he did all the Consecration was effected by his Benediction of it And if as the Romanists contend Christ gave the Sacrament of the Eucharist to the two Disciples at Emmaus it is certain there is no record of any other Consecration but by Christs blessing or praying over the elements It is indeed possible that something more might be done than was set down but nothing less and therefore this Consecration was not done without the Benediction and therefore Hoc est corpus meum alone cannot do it at least there is no warrant for it in Christs Example And when S. Peter in his Ministery did found and establish Churches Orationum ordinem quibus oblata Deo sacrificia consecrantur à S. Petro primò fuisse institutum said Isidore Remigius Hugo de S. Victore and Alphonsus à Castro S. Peter first instituted the order of Prayers by which the sacrifices offer'd to God were consecrated and in the Liturgy of S. James after the words of Institution are recited over the Elements there is a Prayer of Consecration O Lord make this Bread to be the body of thy Christ c. Which words although Bellarmine troubles himself to answer as Cardinal Bessarion did before him yet we shall find his answers to no purpose expounding the prayer to be onely a Confirmation or an Amen to what was done before for if that Consecration was made before that Prayer how comes S. James to call it Bread after Consecration And as weak are his other answers saying The Prayer means that God would make it so to us not in it self which although S. James hath nothing to warrant that Exposition yet it is true upon another account that is because the Bread becomes Christs body onely to us to them who communicate worthily but never to the wicked and it is not Christs body but in the using it and that worthily too And therefore his third Answer which he uses first is certainly the best and that is the answer which Bessarion makes That for ought they know the order of the words is chang'd and that the Prayer should be set before not after the words of Consecration Against which although it is sufficient to oppose that for ought they or we know the order is not chang'd for to this day and always so far as any record remains the Greeks kept the same order of the words and the Greek Fathers had their sentiment and doctrine agreeable to it And as in S. James his Liturgy so in the Missal said to be of S. Clement the same order is observed and after the words of the Institution or Declaration God is invocated to send his Holy Spirit to make the oblation to become the body and bloud of Christ. And in pursuance of this Justin Martyr calls it Apol. 2. lib. 8. cont Celsum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ad quorum preces
and making Religion and the Service of God to consist in things indifferent So they made void Gods Commandment by turning Religion into superstition 2. Whereas humane laws customs and traditions may oblige in publick and for order sake and decency and for reputation and avoiding scandal and to give testimony of obedience and are not violated if they be omitted without scandal and contempt and injury with a probable reason yet to think they oblige beyond what man can see or judge or punish or feel is to give to humane laws the estimate which is due to divine laws So did the Pharisees Quicquid sapientes vetant palà m fieri id etiam in penetralibus vetitum est said Rabbi Bachai But this is the Prerogative of Divine Laws which oblige as much in private as in publick because God equally sees in the Closet and in the Temple Men cannot do this and therefore cannot make Laws to bind where they can have no cognisance and no concern 3. Humane authority is to command according to its own rate that is at the rate of humane understanding where the obedience may be possibly deficient because the understanding is fallible But the Divine authority is infallible and absolute and supreme and therefore our obedience to it must be as absolute perpetual and indeficient But the Pharisees had a saying and their practice was accordingly Si dixerint scribae dextram esse sinistram sinistram esse dextram audi eos said the forenamed Rabbi 2. The second degree in which this express'd it self among the Pharisees was that they did not onely equal but preferr'd the Commandments of men before the Commands of God Plus est in verbis scribarum quam in verbis legis * In â—itulis Thalmudicis Baba Metzias B. rechoâ—h c. and of this the instance that our Blessed Saviour gives is in the case of the Corban and not relieving their Parents Sacrum erit quicquid paravero in futurum ad os patris * Rabbi Nissim If they said it was dedicated their Father 's hungry belly might not be relieved by it And this our Blessed Saviour calls as being the highest degree of this superstition a making the Commandment of God of no effect by their tradition this does it directly as the other did it by necessary and unavoidable consequence Now that the Church of Rome is greatly guilty of this criminal way of teaching and mis-leading the Consciences of her disciples will appear in these amongst many other instances SECTION X. Of the Seal of Confession 1. I First instance in their Seal of Confession And the question is not Whether a Priest is to take care of his Penitent's fame or whether he be not in all prudent and pious ways to be careful lest he make that Entercourse odious For certainly he is But whether the Seal of Confession be so sacred and impregnable that it is not to be opened in the imminent danger of a King or Kingdom or for the doing the greatest good or avoiding the greatest evil in the world that 's now the question and such a Broad Seal as this is no part of the Christian Religion was never spoken of by the Prophets or Apostles in the Old or the New Testament never was so much as mention'd in the Books of the Ancient Fathers and Doctors not so much as named in the Ancient Councils of the Church and was not heard of until after the time of Pope Gregory the seventh Now how this is determin'd practis'd in the Church of Rome we may quickly see The first direct Rule in the Western Church we find in this affair Decretal de poenitentâ—is remissionibus is the Canon of the Lateran Council Cap. Omnis utriusque in which to Confess at Easter was made an Ecclesiastical Law and as an Appendix to it this caution Caveatautem omninò ne verbo aut signo aut alio quovis modo aliquatenus prodat peccatorem sed si prudentiore consilio indiguerit illud absque ullâ expressione personae requirat This Law concerning them that do confess their secret sins to a Priest in order to Counsel comfort and pardon from God by his Ministery is very prudent and pious and it relates only to the person not to the crimes these may upon the account of any doubt or the advantage of better counsel and instruction be reveal'd the person upon such accounts may not Nisi veritas aut obedientia aliud exigat In 3. dist 21. as S. Bonaventure said well Unless truth or obedience require the contrary for indeed the person is not often so material as to the inquiry of future counsel or present judgment as the greatness and other circumstances of the sin But this was an ancient Ecclesiastical Rule â—ib 7. cap. 16. hist. Eccles. as we find it related by Sozomen Presbyterum aliquem vitae integritate quam maximè spectabilem secretorum eitam tenacem ac sapientem huic officio praefecerunt A penitentiary Priest was appointted for the Penitents a man that was of good life wise and secret So far was well and agreeable to common prudence and natural reason and the words of Solomon Prov. 11. 13. Qui ambulat fraudulenter revelat arcanum qui autem fidelis est celat amici commissum There is in this case some more reason than in ordinary secrets but still the obligation is the same and to be governed by prudence and is subject to contradiction by greater causes The same also is the Law in the Greek Church Epist. ad Amphilochium mentioned by S. Basil Our Fathers permitted not that women that had committed Adultery and were penitent should be delated in publick * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A. D. 1603. This is the whole ground and foundation on which the Seal of Confession does or can rely save only that in several Churches there were several Laws in after-ages to the same purpose and particularly in the 11th Canon of the Church of England adding also the penalty of irregularity to every Priest that shall reveal any thing committed to him in private Confession but with this Proviso that it be not binding in such cases where the concealment is made capital by the Laws of the Kingdom which because it is very strict and yet very prudent I shall make it appear that the Church of England walks wisely in it and according to the precedents of the Ancient Catholick Church in commanding the Seal to be broken up in some cases and yet she hath restrain'd it more than formerly was observed in the Churches of God Burchard expresâ—ly affirms Lib. 19. Decreti sui c. 37. Concil Moguaâ— cap. 10. 21. that before the Nicene Council the penitentiary Priest might publish what he heard in Confessions if it were for the good of the penitent or for the greatness of the crime it seem'd fit to the Confessor And that he says true we have sufficient testimony from
for it is in the second Council of Cabailon and not in Theodore's Penitential But I will not trouble the Reader further in the matter of the Latine Church in which it is evident by what hath been already said there was concerning this no Apostolical Tradition How it was in the Greek Church is onely to be inquir'd Now we might make as quick an end of this also De poenit dist 5. c. In poenit if we might be permitted to take Semeca's word the gloss of the Canon Law which affirm's that Confession of deadly sins is not necessary among the Greeks because no such tradition hath not descended unto them This acknowledgement and report of the Greeks not esteeming Confession to a Priest to be necessary is not only in the Gloss above cited De poenit dist 1. c. Quidam Deo but in Gratian himself and in the more ancient Collection of Canons by Burchard and Ivo Carnotensis Bellarmine fancies that these words ut Graeci are crept into the Text of Gratian out of the Margent Well! suppose that but then how came they into the elder Collections of Burchard and Ivo That 's not to be told but creep in they did some way or other because they are not in the Capitular of Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury and yet from thence this Canon was taken and that Capitular was taken from the second Council of Cabaillon De poenit lib. 3. cap. 5. in which also there are no such words extant So the Cardinal In which Bellarmine betrays his carelessness or his ignorance very greatly 1. Because there is no such thing extant in the world that any man knows and tells of as the Capitular of Theodore 2. He indeed made a Penitential a Copy of which is in Benet College Library in Cambridge from whence I have receiv'd some Extracts by the favour and industry of my friends and another Copy of it is in Sir Robert Cotten's Library 3. True it is there is in that Penitential no such words as ut Graeci but a direct affirmation Confessionem suam Deo soli si necesse est licebit agere 4. That Theodore should take this Chapter out of the second Council of Cabaillon is an intolerable piece of ignorance or negligence in so great a Schollar as Bellarmine when it is notorious that the Council was after Theodore above 120. years 5. But then lastly because Theodore though he sate in the Seat of Canterbury yet was a Greek born his words are a good Record of the opinion of the Greeks that Confession of sins is if there be need to be made to God alone But this I shall prove with firmer testimonies not many Epist. Canon ad Letorum but pregnant clear and undeniable S. Gregory Nyssen observ'd that the ancient Fathers before him in their publick discipline did take no notice of the sins of Covetousness that is left them without publick penance otherwise than it was order'd in other sins and therefore he interposes his judgment thus But concerning these things because this is praetermitted by the Fathers I do think it sufficient to cure the affections of Covetousness with the publick word of doctrine or instruction curing the diseases as it were of repletion by the Word That is plainly thus The sins of Covetousness had no Canonical Penances impos'd upon them and therefore many persons thought but little of them therefore to cure this evil let this sin be reprov'd in publick Sermons though there be no imposition of publick penances So that here is a Remedy without Penances a Cure without Confession a publick Sermon instead of a publick or private Judicatory But the fact of Nectarius in abrogating the publick penitentiary-Priest upon the occasion of a scandal does bear much weight in this Question I shall not repeat the story who please may read it in Socrates Sozomen Epiphanius Cassiodore and Nicephorus and it is known every where Relect. de poenit part 5. Sect. Only they who are pinch'd by it endeavour to confound it as Waldensis and Canus some by denying it Ad sextum p. 31. edit Salmanticae 1563. per Matthiam Gartium as Latinus Latinius others by disputing concerning every thing in it some saying that Nectarius abrogated Sacramental Confession others that he abrogated the publick only so very many say and a third sort who yet speak with most probability that he only took away the office of the publick Penitentiary which was instituted in the time of Decius and left things as that Decree found them that is that those who had sin'd those sins which were noted in the Penitential Canons should confess them to the Bishop or in the face of the Church and submit themselves to the Canonical penances This pass'd into the office of the publick Penitentiary and that into nothing in the Greek Church But there is nothing of this that I insist upon but I put the stress of this Question upon the product of this For Eudaemon gave counsel to Nectarius and he followed it that he took away the penitentiary Priest Lib. 5. cap. 19. ut liberam daret potestatem utì pro suâ quisque conscientiâ Eccl. hist. lib. 7◠cap. 16. ad mysteria participanda accederet So Socrates and Sozomen to the same purpose ut Vnicuique liberum permitteret prout sibi ipse conscius esset confideret ad mysteriorum Communionem accedere poenitentiarium illum Presbyterum exauthoravit Now if Nectarius by this Decree took away Sacramental confession as the Roman Doctors call it then it is a clear case the Greek Church did not believe it necessary if it was onely the publick Confession they abolished then for ought appears there was no other at that time I mean none commanded none under any law or under any necessity but whatever it was that was abolished private Confession did not by any decree succeed in the place of it but every man was left to his liberty and the dictates of his own Conscience and according to his own persuasion to his fears or his confidence so to come and partake of the Divine mysteries All which is a plain demonstration that they understood nothing of the necessity of Confession to a Priest of all their sins before they came to the holy Sacrament And in pursuance of this are those many Exhortations and discourses of S. Chrysostom who succeeding Nectarius by his publick doctrine could best inform us how they understood the consequence of that decree and of this whole Question The summe of whole doctrine is this It is not necessary to have your sins revealed or brought in publick not onely in the Congregation but not to any one but to God alone Homil. 56. sive 8. de Poenit tom 1. Make a scrutiny and pass a judgement on your sins inwardly in your Conscience none being present but God alone that seeth all things And again Declare unto God alone thy sin Homil. 9. de Poenit.
they please but they cannot tell certainly what is truth But then as for Peter Lombard himself all that I said of him was this that he could not tell he could not determine whether there was any substantial change or no. If in his after discourse he declares that the change is of substances he told it for no other than as a meer opinion if he did let him answer for that not I for that he could not determine it himself expressely said it in the beginning of the eleventh distinction And therefore these Gentlemen would better have consulted with truth and modesty if they had let this alone and not have made such an outcry against a manifest truth Now let me observe one thing which will be of great use in this whole affair and demonstrate the change of this doctrine These three opinions were all held by Catholics Innocent de offic Mis. part 3. cap. 18. and the opinions are recorded not only by Pope Innocentius 3. but in the gloss of the Canon Law it self Cap. cum Martha in gloss â—â—trav de celebr miss For this opinion was not fix'd and setled nor as yet well understood but still disputed as we see in Lombard and Scotus And although they all agreed in this as Salmeron observes of these three opinions as he cites them out of Scotus that the true body of Christ is there because to deny this were against the faith and therefore this was then enough to cause them to be esteemed Catholics because they denied nothing which was then against the faith but all agreed in that yet now the case is otherwise for whereas one of the opinions was that the substance of bread remains and another opinion that the substance of bread is annihilated but is not converted into the body of Christ now both of these opinions are made heresie and the contrary to them which is the third opinion pass'd into an article of faith Vbi supra Quod vero ibi substantia panis non remanet jam etiam ut articulus fidei definitum est conversionis sive transubstantiationis nomen evictum So Salmeron Now in Peter Lombards time if they who believed Christs real presence were good Catholics though they believed no Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation that is did not descend into consideration of the manner why may they not be so now Is there any new revelation now of the manner Or why is the way to Heaven now made narrower than in Lombards time For the Church of England believes according to one of these opinions and therefore is as good a Catholic Church as Rome was then which had not determined the manner Nay if we use to value an article the more by how much the more Ancient it is certainly it is more honourable that we should reform to the Ancient model rather than conform to the new However this is also plainly consequent to this discourse of Salmeron The abettors of those three opinions some of them do deny something that is of faith therefore the faith of the Church of Rome now is not the same it was in the days of Peter Lombard Lastly this also is to be remark'd that to prove any ancient Author to hold the doctrine of Transubstantiation as it is at this day an article of faith at Rome it is not enough to say that Peter Lombard or Durand or Scotus c. did say that where bread was before there is Christs body now for they may say that and more and yet not come home to the present article and therefore E. W. does argue weakly when he denies Lombard to say one thing viz. that he could not define whether there was a substantial change or no which indeed he spake plainly because he brings him saying something as if he were resolv'd the change were substantial which yet he speaks but obscurely And the truth is this question of Transubstantiation is so intricate and involved amongst them seems so contrary to sense and reason and does so much violence to all the powers of the soul that it is no wonder if at first the Doctors could not make any thing distinctly of it However whatever they did make of it certain it is they more agreed with the present Church of England than with the present Church of Rome for we say as they said Christs body is truly there and there is a conversion of the Elements into Christs body for what before the Consecration in all senses was bread is after Consecration in some sense Christs body but they did not all of them say that the substance of bread was destroyed and some of them denied the conversion of the bread into the flesh of Christ which whosoever shall now do will be esteemed no Roman Catholick E. W. pag. 37. And therefore it is a vain procedure to think they have prov'd their doctrine of Transubstantiation out of the Fathers also if the Fathers tell us That bread is chang'd out of his nature into the body of Christ that by holy invocation it is no more common bread that as water in Cana of Galilee was chang'd into wine so in the Evangelist wine is changed into bloud That bread is only bread before the sacramental words but after consecration is made the body of Christ. For though I very much doubt all these things in equal and full measures cannot be prov'd out of the Fathers yet suppose they were yet all this comes not up to the Roman Article of Transubstantiation All those words are true in a very good sense and they are in that sense believ'd in the Church of England but that the bread is no more bread in the natural sense and that it is naturally nothing but the natural body of Christ that the substance of one is passed into the substance of the other this is not affirmed by the Fathers neither can it be inferred from the former propositions if they had been truly alledged and therefore all that is for nothing and must be intended only to cosen and amuse the Reader that understands not all the windings of this labyrinth In the next place I am to give an account of what passed in the Lateran Council upon this article For says E. W. Pag. 37. the doctrine of Transubstantiation was ever believed in the Church though more fully and explicitely declared in the Lateran Council But in the Dissuasive it was said Letter to a friend pag. 18. that it was but pretended to be determined in that Council where many things indeed came then in consultation yet nothing could be openly decreed Nothing says Platina that is says my Adversary nothing concerning the holy land and the aids to be raised for it but for all this there might be a decree concerning Transubstantiation To this I reply that it is as true that nothing was done in this question as that nothing was done in the matter of the Holy War for one was as much
decreed as the other For if we admit the acts of the Council that of giving aid to the Holy Land was decreed in the 69. Canon Ad liberandum terram sanctam de manibus impiorum Extrav de Judaeis Saracenis Cum sit alias 71. So that this answer is not true But the truth is neither the one nor the other was decreed in that Council For that I may inform this Gentleman in a thing which possibly he never heard of this Council of Lateran was never published nor any acts of it till Cochlaeus published them A. D. 1538. For three years before this John Martin published the Councils and then there was no such thing as the acts of the Lateran Council to be found But you will say how came Cochlaeus by them Vide praefat Later Concil secundum p. Crab. To this the answer is easie There were read in the Council sixty Chapters which to some did seem easie to others burdensome but these were never approved but the Council ended in scorn and mockery and nothing was concluded neither of faith nor manners nor war nor aid for the Holy Land but only the Pope got mony of the Prelates to give them leave to depart But afterwards Pope Gregory IX put these Chapters or some of them into the Decretals but doth not intitle any of these to the Council of Lateran but only to Pope Innocent in the Council which Cardinal Perron ignorantly or wilfully mistaking affirms the contrary But so it is that Platina affirms of the Pope plurima decreta retulit improbavit Joachimi libellum damnavit errores Almerici The Pope recited 60. heads of decrees in the Council but no man says the Council decreed those heads Now these heads Cochlaeus says he found in an old book in Germany And it is no ways probable that if the Council had decred those heads that Gregory IX who published his Uncles decretal Epistles which make up so great a part of the Canon Law should omit to publish the decrees of this Council or that there should be no acts of this great Council in the Vatican and that there should be no publication of them till about 300. years after the Council and that out of a blind corner and an old unknown Manuscript But the book shews its original it was taken from the Decretals for it contains just so many heads viz. LXXII and is not any thing of the Council in which only were recited L. X. heads and they have the same beginnings and endings and the same notes and observations in the middle of the Chapters which shews plainly they were a meer force of the Decretals The consequent of all which is plainly this that there was no decree made in the Council but every thing was left unfinished and the Council was affrighted by the warlike preparations of them of Genoa and Pisa and all retir'd Concerning which affair the Reader that desires it may receive further satisfaction if he read the Antiquitates Britannicae in the life of Stephen Langton out of the lesser History of Matthew Paris Vide Matth. Paris ad A. D. 1215. Naâ—cteri generat 41. ad eundem annum Et Sabellicum Eâ—â—ead 9. lib. 6. Godfridum Monachum ad A. D. 1215. as also Sabellicus and Godfride the Monk But since it is become a question what was or was not determin'd in this Lateran Council I am content to tell them that the same authority whether of Pope or Council which made Transubstantiation an article of faith made Rebellion and Treason to be a duty of Subjects for in the same collection of Canons they are both decreed and warranted under the same signature the one being the first Canon and the other the third The use I shall make of all is this Scotus was observed above to say that in Scripture there is nothing so express as to compel us to believe Transubstantiation meaning that without the decree and authority of the Church the Scripture was of it self insufficient And some others as Salmeron notes Tract 16. tom 9. p. 110. affirm that Scripture and Reason are both insufficient to convince a heretic in this article this is to be prov'd ex Conciliorum definitione Patrum traditione c. by the definition of Councils and tradition of the Fathers for it were easie to answer the places of Scripture which are cited and the reasons Now then since Scripture alone is not thought sufficient nor reasons alone if the definitions of Councils also shall fail them they will be strangely to seek for their new article Now for this their only Castle of defence is the Lateran Council Indeed Bellarmine produces the Roman Council under Pope Nicholas the second in which Berengarius was forc'd to recant his error about the Sacrament but he recanted it into a worse error and such which the Church of Rome disavows at this day And therefore ought not to pretend it as a patron of that doctrine which she approves not And for the little Council under Greg. 7. it is just so a general Council as the Church of Rome is the Catholic Church or a particular is an Universal But suppose it so for this once yet this Council medled not with the modus viz. Transubstantiation or the ceasing of its being bread but of the Real Presence of Christ under the Elements which is no part of our question Berengarius denied it but we do not when it is rightly understood Pope Nicholaus himself did not understand the new article for it was not fitted for publication until the time of the Lateran Council how nothing of this was in that Council determin'd I have already made appear and therefore as Scotus said the Scripture alone could not evict this article so he also said in his argument made for the Doctors that held the first opinion mentioned before out of Innocentius Nec invenitur ubi Ecclesia istam veritatem determinet solenniter Neither is it found where the Church hath solemnly determin'd it And for his own particular though he was carried into captivity by the symbol of Pope Innocent 3. for which by that time was pretended the Lateran Council Lib. 3. de Euchar c. 23. Sect. Vnum tamen yet he himself said that before that Council it was no article of faith and for this thing Bellarmine reproves him and imputes ignorance to him saying that it was because he had not read the Roman Council under Greg. 7. Scotus negat doctrinam de conversione transubst esse antiquam Henriquez lib. 8. c. 23. in Marg. ad liter h. nor the consent of the Fathers And to this purpose I quoted Henriquez saying that Scotus saith the doctrine of Transubstantiation is not ancient the Author of the Letter denies that he saith any such thing of Scotus But I desire him to look once more and my Margent will better direct him What the opinion of Durandus was in this Question if
many ways it is a figure So that the whole force of E. W s. answer is this that if that which is like be the same then it is possible that a thing may be a sign of it's self and a man may be his own picture and that which is invisible may be a sign to give notice to come see a thing that is visible I have now expedited this topic of Authority in in this Question amongst the many reasons I urged against Transubstantiation E. W. p. 42. which I suppose to be unanswerable and if I could have answered them my self I would not have produc'd them these Gentlemen my adversaries are pleas'd to take notice but of one But by that it may be seen how they could have answered all the rest if they had pleased The argument is this every consecrated wafer saith the Church of Rome is Christs body and yet this wafer is not that wafer therefore either this or that is not Christs body or else Christ hath two natural bodies for there are two Wafers To this is answered the multiplication of wafers does not multiply bodies to Christ no more than head and feet infer two souls in a man or conclude there are two Gods one in heaven and the other in earth because heaven and earth are more distinct than two wafers To which I reply that the soul of man is in the head and feet as in two parts of the body which is one and whole and so is but in one place and consequently is but one soul. But if the feet were parted from the body by other bodies intermedial then indeed if there were but one soul in feet and head the Gentleman had spoken to the purpose But here these wafers are two intire wafers separate the one from the other bodies intermedial put between and that which is here is not there and yet of each of them it is affirm'd that it is Christs body that is of two wafers and of two thousand wafers it is at the same time affirm'd of every one that it is Christs body Now if these wafers are substantially not the same not one but many and yet every one of these many is substantially and properly Christs body then these bodies are many for they are many of whom it is said every one distinctly and separately and in its self is Christs body 2. For his comparing the presence of Christ in the wafer with the presence of God in heaven it is spoken without common wit or sense for does any man say that God is in two places and yet be the same-one God Can God be in two places that cannot be in one Can he be determin'd and number'd by places that fills all places by his presence or is Christs body in the Sacrament as God is in the world that is repletive filling all things alike spaces void and spaces full and there where there is no place where the measures are neither time nor place but only the power and will of God This answer besides that it is weak and dangerous is also to no purpose unless the Church of Rome will pass over to the Lutherans and maintain the Ubiquity of Christs body In Ps. 33. Yea but S. Austin says of Christ Ferebatur in manibus suis c. he bore himself in his own hands and what then Then though every wafer be Christs body yet the multiplication of wafers does not multiply bodies for then there would be two bodies of Christ when he carried his own body in his hands To this I answer that concerning S. Austins minde we are already satisfied but that which he says here is true as he spake and intended it for by his own rule the similitudes and figures of things are oftentimes called by the name of those things whereof they are similitudes Christ bore his own body in his own hands when he bore the Sacrament of his body for of that also it is true that it is truly his body in a Sacramental spiritual and real manner that is to all intents and purposes of the holy spirit of God According to the words of S. Austin cited by P. Lombard Lib. 3. de Trin. c. 4. in fine P. Lombard dist 11. lib. 4. ad finem lit C. We call that the body of Christ which being taken from the fruits of the Earth and consecrated by mystic prayer we receive in memory of the Lords Passion which when by the hands of men it is brought on to that visible shape it is not sanctified to become so worthy a Sacrament but by the spirit of God working invisibly If this be good Catholic doctrine and if this confession of this article be right the Church of England is right but then when the Church of Rome will not let us alone in this truth and modesty of confession but impose what is unknown in Antiquity and Scripture and against common sense and the reason of all the world Christs real and spiritual presence in the Sacrament against the doctrine of Transubstantiation printed at London by R. Royston she must needs be greatly in the wrong But as to this question I was here only to justifie the Dissuasive I suppose these Gentlemen may be fully satisfied in the whole inquiry if they please to read a book I have written on this subject intirely of which hitherto they are pleas'd to take no great notice SECTION IV. Of the half Communion WHen the French Embassador in the Council of Trent A. D. 1561. made instance for restitution of the Chalice to the Laity among other oppositions the Cardinal S. Angelo answered that he would never give a cup full of such deadly poison to the people of France instead of a medicine and that it was better to let them die than to cure them with such remedies The Embassador being greatly offended replied that it was not fit to give the name of poyson to the bloud of Christ and to call the holy Apostles poysoners and the Fathers of the Primitive Church and of that which followed for many hundred years who with much spiritual profit have ministred the cup of that bloud to all the people this was a great and a public yet but a single person that gave so great offence One of the greatest scandals that ever were given to Christendom was given by the Council of Constance Sess. 13. which having acknowledged that Christ administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds of bread and wine and that in the Primitive Church this Sacrament was receiv'd of the faithful under both kinds yet the Council not only condemns them as heretics and to be punished accordingly who say it is unlawful to observe the custome and law of giving it in one kinde only but under pain of excommunication forbids all Priests to communicate the people under both kinds This last thing is so shameful and so impious that A. L. directly denies that there is any such thing which if it
be not an argument of the self-conviction of the man and a resolution to abide in his error and to deceive the people even against his knowledge let all the world judge for the words of the Councils decree as they are set down by Carranza Lugduni A. D. 1600. apud Hiratium Cardon p. 440. at the end of the decree are these Item praecipimus sub poena excommunicationis quod nullus presbyter communicet populum sub utraque specie panis vini I need say no more in this affair To affirm it necessary to do in the Sacraments what Christ did is called heresie and to do so is punished with excommunication But we who follow Christ hope we shall communicate with him and then we are well enough especially since the very institution of the Sacrament in both kinds is a sufficient Commandment to minister and receive it in both kinds For if the Church of Rome upon their supposition only that Christ did barely institute confession do therefore urge it as necessary it will be a strange partiality that the confessed institution by Christ of the two Sacramental species shall not conclude them as necessary as the other upon an Unprov'd supposition And if the institution of the Sacrament in both kinds be not equal to a command then there is no command to receive the bread or indeed to receive the Sacrament at all but it is a meer act of supererogation that the Priests do it at all and an act of favour and grace that they give even the bread it self to the Laity But besides this it is not to be endur'd that the Church of Rome only binds her subjects to observe the decree of abstaining from the cup jure humano and yet they shall be bound jure Divino to believe it to be just and specially since the causes of so scandalous an alteration are not set down in the decree of any Council and those which are set down by private Doctors besides that they are no record of the Church they are ridiculous A. D. 1562. weak and contemptible But as Granatensis said in the Council of Trent this affair can neither be regulated by Scripture nor traditions for surely it is against both but by wisdom wherein because it is necessary to proceed to circumspection I suppose the Church of Rome will always be considering whether she should give the chalice or no and because she will not acknowledge any reason sufficient to give it she will be content to keep it away without reason And which is worse the Church of Rome excommunicates those Priests that communicate the people in both kinds Vide Preface to the Dissuasive part 1. Canon comperimus de consecrat dist 2. but the Primitive Church excommunicates them that receive but in one kind It is too much that any part of the Church should so much as in a single instance administer the Holy Sacrament otherwise than it is in the institution of Christ there being no other warrant for doing the thing at all but Christs institution and therefore no other way of learning how to do it but by the same institution by which all of it is done And if there can come a case of necessity as if there be no wine or if a man cannot endure wine it is then a disputable matter whether it ought or not to be omitted for if the necessity be of Gods making he is suppos'd to dispense with the impossibility But if a man alters what God appointed he makes to himself a new institution for which in this case there can be no necessity nor yet excuse But suppose either one or other yet so long as it is or is thought a case of necessity the thing may be hopefully excus'd if not actually justified and because it can happen but seldom the matter is not great let the institution be observed always where it can But then in all cases of possibility let all prepared Christians be invited to receive the body and bloud of Christ according to his institution or if that be too much at least let all them that desire it be permitted to receive it in Christs way But that men are not suffered to do so that they are driven from it that they are called heretic for saying it is their duty to receive it as Christ gave it and appointed it that they should be excommunicated for desiring to communicate in Christs bloud by the symbol of his bloud according to the order of him that gave his bloud this is such a strange piece of Christianity that it is not easie to imagine what Antichrist can do more against it unless he take it all away I only desire those persons who are here concerned to weigh well the words of Christ and the consequents of them He that breaketh one of the least of my Commandments and shall teach men so and what if he compel men so shall be called the least in the Kingdom of God To the Canon last mentioned it is answered that the Canon speaks not of receiving the sacrament by the communicants but of the consummating the sacrifice by the Priest To this I reply that it is true that the Canon was particularly directed to the Priests by the title which themselves put to it but the Canon meddles not with the consecrating or not consecrating in one kind but of receiving for that is the title of the Canon The Priest ought not to receive the body of Christ without the bloud and in the Canon it self Comperimus autem quod quidam sumpta corporis sacri portione à calice sacrati cruoris abstineant By which it plainly appears that the consecration was intire for it was calix sacrati crâ—ioris the consecrated chalice from which out of a fond superstition some Priests did abstain the Canon therefore relates to the sumption or receiving not the sacrificing as these men love to call it or consecration and the sanction it self speaks indeed of the reception of the sacrament but not a word of it as it is in any sense a sacrifice aut integra sacramenta percipiant aut ab integris arceantur So that the distinction of sacrament and sacrifice in this Question will be of no use to the Church of Rome For if Pope Gelasius for it was his Canon knew nothing of this distinction it is vainly applied to the expounding of his words but if he did know of it then he hath taken that part which is against the Church of Rome for of this mystery as it is a sacrament Gelasius speaks which therefore must relate to the people as well as to the Priest And this Canon is to this purpose quoted by Cassander In consult de sacra Commun And 2. no man is able to shew that ever Christ appointed one way of receiving to the Priest and another to the people The law was all one the example the same the Rule is simple and Uniform and no appearance of
These words from the Scripture Adimantus propounded Yet remember not only there but also here concerning the zeal of God he so blames the Scriptures that he adds that which is commanded by our Lord God in those books concerning the not worshipping of images as if for nothing else he reprehends that zeal of God but only because by that very zeal we are forbidden to worship images Therefore he would seem to favour images which therefore they do that they might reconcile the good will of the Pagans to their miserable and mad sect meaning the sect of the Manichees who to comply with the Pagans did retain the worship of images And now the three testimonies are verified and though this was an Unnecessary trouble to me and I fear it may be so to my Reader yet the Church of Rome hath got no advantage but this that in S. Austins sense that which Romanists do now the Manichees did then only these did it to comply with the Heathens and those out of direct and meer superstition But to clear this point in S. Austins doctrine the Reader may please to read his 19. book against Faustus the Manichee cap. 18. and the 119. Epistle against him chap. 12. where he affirms that the Christians observe that which the Jews did in this viz. that which was written Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God thou shalt not make an idol to thee and such like things and in the latter place he affirms that the second Commandment is moral viz. that all of the Decalogue are so but only the fourth I add a third as pregnant as any of the rest for in his first book de consensu Evangelistarum speaking of some who had fallen into error upon occasion of the pictures of S. Peter and S. Paul he says Sic nempe errare meruerunt qui Christum Apostolos ejus non in sanctis condicibus sed in pictis parietibus quaesiverunt The Council of Eliberis is of great concern in this Question and does great effort to the Roman practices E. W. pag. 57. E. W. takes notice of it and his best answer to it is that it hath often been answered already He says true it hath been answered both often and many ways The Council was in the year 305. of 19. Bishops who in the 36. Canon decreed this placuit picturas in Ecclesiis esse non debere It hath pleas'd us that pictures ought not to be in Churches That 's the decree The reason they give is ne quod colitur adoratur in parietibus depingatur lest that which is worshipped be painted on the walls So that there are two propositions 1. Pictures ought not to be in Churches 2. That which is worshipped ought not to be painted upon walls Pag. 57. E. W. hath a very learned Note upon this Canon Mark first the Council supposeth worship and adoration due to pictures ne quod colitur adoratur By which mark E. W. confesses that pictures are the object of his adoration and that the Council took no care and made no provision for the honour of God who is and ought to be worshipp'd and ador'd in Churches illi soli servies but only were good husbands for the pictures for fear 1. they should be spoiled by the moisture of the walls or 2. defaced by the Heathen the first of these is Bellarmines the latter is Perrons answer But too childish to need a severer consideration But how easie had it been for them to have commanded that all their pictures should have been in frames upon boards or cloth as it is in many Churches in Rome and other places 2. Why should the Bishops forbid pictures to be in Churches for fear of spoiling one kind of them they might have permitted others though not these 3. Why should any man be so vain as to think that in that age in which the Christians were in perpetual disputes against the Heathens for worshipping pictures and images they should be so curious to preserve their pictures and reserve them for adoration 4. But then to make pictures to be the subject of that caution ne quod colitur adoratur and not to suppose God and his Christ to be the subject of it is so unlike the religion of Christians the piety of those ages the Oeconomy of the Church and the analogy of the Commandment that it betrays a refractory and heretical spirit in him that shall so perversely invent an Unreasonable Commentary rather than yield to so pregnant and easie testimony But some are wiser and consider that the Council takes not care that pictures be not spoil'd but that they be not in the Churches and that what is adorable be not there painted and not be not there spoiled The not painting them is the utmost of their design not the preserving them for we see vast numbers of them every where painted on walls and preserved well enough and easily repair'd upon decay therefore this is too childish to blot them out for fear they be spoiled and not to bring them into Churches for fear they be taken out Agobardus Bishop of Lions above 800. years since cited this Canon in a book of his which he wrote de picturis imaginibus which was published by Papirius Massonus and thus illustrates it Recte saith he nimirum ob hujusmodi evacuandam superstitionem ab Orthodoxis patribus definitum est picturas in Ecclesia fieri non debere Nec quod eolitur adoratur in parietibus deping atur Where first he expresly affirms these Fathers in this Canon to have intended only rooting up this superstition not the ridiculous preserving the pictures So it was Understood then But then 2. Agobardus reads it Nec not Ne quod colitur which reading makes the latter part of the Canon to be part of the sanction and no reason of the former decree pictures must not be made in Churches neither ought that to be painted upon walls which is worshipped and adored This was the doctrine and sentiment of the wise and good men above 800. years since By which also the Unreasonable supposition of Baronius that the Canon is not genuine is plainly confuted this Canon not being only in all copies of that Council but own'd for such by Agobardus so many ages before Baronius and so many ages after the Council And he is yet farther reproved by Cardinal Perron who tells a story that in Granada in memory of this Council they use frames for pictures and paint none upon the wall at this day It seems they in Granada are taught to understand that Canon according unto the sense of the Patrons of images and to mistake the plain meaning of the Council For the Council did not forbid only to paint upon the walls for that according to the common reading is but accidental to the decree but the Council commanded that no picture should be in Churches Now-then let this Canon be confronted with the Council
able to make us wise unto salvation Are they profitable to all intents and purposes of the spirit that is to teach to reprove to correct to instruct Is the end of all this Oeconomy to make a Christian man yea a Christian Bishop perfect Can he by this dispensation be throughly furnished unto all good works and that by faith in Jesus Christ If so then this is the true principle the Apostolical way the way of God the way of salvation And if Scriptures the books written by the finger of God and the pen of Apostles can do all this then they are something more than Inke varied into divers figures unsensed characters and I know not what other reviling Epithets I. S. is pleased to cast upon them Yea but all this is nothing unless we know that Scriptures are the word of God that they were written by the Apostles and of this the Scriptures cannot be a witness in their own behalf And therefore oral tradition must supply that and consequently is the only first and self-evident principle To this I answer that it matters not by what means it be conveyed to us that the Scriptures are the Word of God Oral tradition is an excellent means but it is not that alone by which it is conveyed For if by oral tradition he means the testimony of the Catholick Church it is the best external ministery of conveyance of this being a matter of fact and of so great concernment To which the testimony of our adversaries Jews and Heathens adds no small moment and the tradition is also conveyed to us by very many writings But when it is thus conveyed and that the Church does believe them to be the Word of God then it is that I inquire whether the Scriptures cannot be a witness to us of it 's own design fulness and perfection Certainly no principle is more evident than this none more sure and none before it Whatever God hath said is true and in Scripture God did speak and speak this and therefore this to us is a first at least an evident principle Yea but if this proposition that the Scriptures are the Word of God is conveyed to us by oral tradition this must needs be the best and only principle for if it be trusted for the whole why not for every particular This Argument concludes thus This is the gate of the House therefore this is all the house Every man enters this way and therefore this is the Hall and the Cellar the Pantry and Dining room the Bedchambers and the Cocklofts But besides the ridiculousness of the argument there is a particular reason why the argument cannot conclude The reason in brief is this because it is much easier for any man to carry a letter than to tell the particular errand It is easier to tell one thing than to tell ten thousand to deliver one thing out of our hand than a multitude out of our mouths one matter of fact than very many propositions as it is easier to convey in writing all Tullies works than to say by heart with truth and exactness any one of his Orations That the Bible was written by inspired men God setting his seal to their doctrine confirming by miracles what they first preached and then wrote in a book this is a matter of fact and is no otherwise to be prov'd unless God should proceed extraordinarily and by miracle but by the testimony of wise men who saw it with their eyes and heard it with their ears and felt it with their hands This was done at first then only consign'd then witnessed and thence delivered And with how great success and with the blessing of how mighty a providence appears it in this because although as S. Luke tells us many did undertake to write Gospels or the declaration of the things so surely believ'd amongst Christians and we find in S. Clement of Alex. Origen S. Irenaeus Athanasius Chrysostom and S. Hierom mention made of many Gospels as that of the Hebrews the Egyptians Nazarenes Ebionites the Gospel of James Philip Bartholomew Thomas and divers more yet but four only were transmitted and consigned to the Church because these four only were written by these whose names they bear and these men had the testimony of God and a spirit of truth and the promise of Christ that the spirit should bring all things to their minds and he did so Now of this we could have no other testimony but of those who were present who stop'd the first issue of the false Gospels and the sound of the other four went forth into all the world according to that of Origen Ecclesia cum quatuor tantum Evangelii libros habet per universum mundum Evangeliis redundat heresies cum multa habeant unum non habent Those which heretics made are all lost or slighted those which the spirit of God did write by the hands of men divinely inspired these abide and shall abide for ever Now then this matter of fact how should we know but by being told it by credible persons who could know and never gave cause of suspicion that they should deceive us Now if I. S. will be pleas'd to call this Oral tradition he may but that which was deliver'd by this Oral tradition was not only preach'd at first but transmitted to us by many writings besides the Scriptures both of friends and enemies But suppose it were not yet this book of Scriptures might be consigned by Oral tradition from the Apostles and Apostolic men and yet tradition become of little or no use after this consignation and delivery For this was all the work which of necessity was to be done by it and indeed this was all that it could do well 1. This was all which was necessary to be done by Oral tradition because the wisdom of the divine spirit having resolved to write all the doctrine of salvation in a book and having done it well and sufficiently in order to his own gracious purposes for who dares so much as suspect the contrary there was now no need that Oral tradition should be kept up with the joynture of infallibility since the first infallibility of the Apostles was so sufficiently witnessed that it convinced the whole world of Christians and therefore was enough to consign the Divinity and perfection of this book for ever For it was in this as in the doctrine it self contain'd in the Scriptures God confirmed it by signs following that is by signs proving that the Apostles spake the minde of God the things which they speak were prov'd and believ'd for ever but then the signs went away and left a permanent and eternal event So it is in the infallible tradition delivered by the Apostles and Apostolic age concerning the Scriptures being the word of God what they said was confirm'd by all that testimony by which they obtained belief in the Church to their persons and doctrines but when they had once deliver'd this there needed no
posterity and consequently the very ground of I. S. his demonstration is digg'd up for it was very possible the Fathers might teach something that contradicts the present oral tradition of the Church because when they were alive they believed the contradictory But further yet can I S. affirm that by the oral tradition of the present Church we can be infallibly taught which books were written by the Fathers and which not If he can how haps it that the Doctors of his Church are not agreed about very many of them some rejecting that as spurious which others quote as Genuine If he cannot then we may have a title to make use of the Fathers though we did renounce tradition because by tradition certain and infallible they do not know it and then if either they do not know it at all or know it any others ways than by tradition we may know it that way as well as they and therefore have as good a title to make use of them as themselves But the good man proceeds Since pretended instances of traditions failing depend on history and historical certainty cannot be built upon dead characters but on living sense in Mens hearts deliver'd from age to age that those passages are true that is on Tradition it follows that if the way of tradition can fail all history is uncertain and consequently all instances as being matters of fact depending on history To this I answer that it is true that there are many instances in which it is certain that tradition hath fail'd as will appear in the following Section and it is as true that the record of these instances is kept in books which are very Ancient and written by Authors so credible that no man questions the truth of these instances Now I grant that we are told by the words deliver'd by our Forefathers that these books were written by such men but then it may be our Forefathers though they kept the books safe yet knew not what was written in them and if all the contents of the book had been left only to rely upon the living sense in their hearts and the hearts of their posterity we should have had but few books and few instances of the failing of tradition only one great one would have been left that is the losing of almost all that that is now recorded would have been a fatal sign that Traditions fail was the cause of so sad a loss It is well tradition hath help'd us to the dead characters they bear their living sense so within themselves that it is quickly understood when living men come to read them But now I demand of I. S. whether or no historical certainty relies only on certain and indefectible tradition If it does not then a man may be certain enough of the sacred history though there be no certain oral tradition built on living sense in mens hearts delivered from age to age If he does then I must ask whether I. S. does believe Tacitus or that there was such a man as Agricola or that the Senate decreed that Nero should be punish'd more majorum If he does believe these stories and these persons then he must also conclude that there is an Oral indefectible tradition that Tacitus wrote this book and that every thing in that book was written by him and it remains at this day as it was at first and that all this was not convey'd by dead and unfens'd characters but by living sense in our hearts But now it will be very hard for any man to say that there is such an infallible Tradition delivering all that Roman story which we believe to be true No man pretends that there is and therefore 1. History may be relied on without a certain indefectible oral tradition And 2. The tradition that consigns history to after ages may be and is so most commonly nothing but of a fame that such a book was written by such a famous person who liv'd in that age and might know the truth of what he wrote and had no reason to lie but was in all regards a very worthy and a credible person Now here is as much certainty as need to be the thing it self will bear no more and almost all humane affairs are transacted by such an Oeconomy as this and therefore it is certain enough and is so esteemed because it does all it's intentions and loses no advantage and perswades effectually and regularly engages to all those actions and events which history could do if the certainty were much greater For the certainty of persuasion and prevailing upon the greatest parts of mankind may be as great by history wisely and with great probability transmitted as it can be by any imaginary certainty of a tradition that any dreamer can dream of Nay it may be equal to a demonstration I mean as to the certainty of prevailing For a little reason to a little understanding as certainly prevailes as a greater to a deep and inquisitive understanding and mankind does not need demonstrations in any case but where reason is puzled with an aequilibrium and that there be great probabilities hinc inde And therefore in these cases where is a probability on one side and no appearance of reason to the contrary that probability does the work of a demonstration For a reason to believe a thing and no reason to disbelieve it is as proper a way to persuade and to lead to action as that which is demonstrated And this is the case of history and of instances which though they cannot no not by an Oral tradition be so certain as that the thing could not possibly have been otherwise yet when there is no sufficient cause of suspicion of fraud and imposture and great reason from any topic to believe that it is true he is a very fool that will forbear to act upon that account only because it is possible that that instance might have been not true though he have no reason to think it false And yet this foolish sophisme runs mightily along in I. S. his demonstrations he cannot for his life distinguish between credible and infallible Nothing by him can make faith unless it demonstrate that is nothing can make faith but that which destroys it by turning it into Science His last argument for his second way of mining is so like the other that it is the worse for it Since reasons are fetch'd from the Natures of things and the best nature in what it is abstracting from disease and madness unalterable is the ground of the humane part of Christian tradition and most incomparable strength is supperadded to it as it is Christian by the supernatural assistances of the Holy Ghost It is a wild conceit to think any peice of nature or discourse built on it can be held certain if Tradition especially Christian tradition may be held uncertain In this Jargon for I know not what else to call it there are a pretty company of nothings put
not fully observed others according to the quality of the matter and time being obliterated or abrogated by the Magistery of the whole Church De Coron milit cap. 3. â— Tertullian speaks of divers unwritten Customs of which tradition is the author custom is the confirmer and faith is the observer Such are the renunciations in the office of Baptism trine Immersion tasting milk and honey abstinence from the Bath for a week after the receiving the Eucharist before day or in the time of their meal from the hand of the presisidents of Religion anniversary oblations on birth-days and for the dead not to fast not to kneel on Sundays perpetual festivities from Easter to Whitsuntide not to endure without great trouble bread or drink to fall upon the ground and at every motion to sign the forehead with the sign of the Cross. Some of these are rituals and some are still observed and some are superstitious and observ'd by no body and some that are not may be if the Church please these indeed were traditions or customes before his time but not so much as pretended to be Apostolical but if they were are yet of the same consideration with the rest If they be customs of the Church they are not without great reason and just authority to be laid aside But are of no other argument against Scripture than if all the particular customs of all Churches were urg'd For if they had come from the Apostles as these did not yet if the Apostles say dicit Dominus they must be obeyed for ever but if the word be dico ego non Dominus the Church hath her liberty to do what in the changing times is most for edification And therefore in these things let the Church of Rome pretend what traditions Apostolical she please of this nature the Church may keep them or lay them aside according to what they judge is best For if those Canons and traditions of the Apostles of which there is no question and which are recorded in Scripture yet are worn out and laid aside those certainly which are pretended to be such and cannot be proved cannot pass into perpetual obligation whether the Churches will or no. I shall not need upon this head to consider any more instances because all the points of Popery are pretended to rely upon Tradition The novelty of which because I shall demonstrate in their proper places proving them to be so far from being traditions Apostolical that they are mere Innovations in Religion I shall now represent the uncertainty and fallibility of the pretence of Traditions in ordinary and the certain deceptions of those who trust them the impossibility of ending many questions by them I shall not bring the usual arguments which are brought from Scriptures against traditions because although those which Christ condemns in the Pharisees and the Apostles in Heretical persons are not reprov'd for being Traditions but for being without Divine authority that is they are either against the Commandment of God or without any warrant from God yet if there be any traditions real and true that is words of God not written they if they could be shown would be very good But then I desire the same ingenuity on the other side and that the Roman Writers would not trouble the Question or abuse their Readers by bringing Scriptures to prove their traditions not by shewing they are recorded in Scripture 2. Thes. 2. but by bringing Scriptures where the word tradition is nam'd 2. Tim. 2. For besides that such places cannot be with any modesty pretended as proofs of the particular traditions it is also certain that they cannot prove that in General there are or can be any unrecorded Scripture when the whole Canon should be written consign'd and entertain'd For it may be necessary that traditions should be call'd on to be kept before Scriptures were written and yet afterwards not necessary and those things which were deliver'd and are not in Scripture may be lost because they were not written and then that may be impossible for us to do which at first might have been done But this being laid aside I proceed to Considerations proper to the Question 1. Tertullian S. Hierom and S. Austin are pretended the Great Patrons of Tradition and they have given rules by which we shall know Apostolical Traditions and it is well they do so for sand ought to be put into a glass and water into a vessel something to limit the running element that when you have receiv'd it you may keep it A nuncupative record is like figures in the air or diagrams in sand the air and the wind will soon disorder the lines And God knowing this and all things else would not trust so much as the Ten words of Moses to oral tradition but twice wrote them in Tables of Stone with his own singer Clem. Alexan. Strom. lib. 1. pag. 276. I know said S. Clement that many things are lost by length of time for want of writing and therefore I of necessity make use of memorials and collection of Chapters to supply the weakness of my memory And when S. Ignatius in his journey towards Martyrdom confirm'd the Churches through which he passed by private exhortations as well as he was permitted he exhorted them all to adhere to the tradition of the Apostles meaning that doctrine which was preach'd by them in their Churches and added this advice or caution Eusib lib. 3. That he esteem'd it was necessary that this Tradition should be committed to writing Eccles. hist. c. 35. Graec. that it might be preserv'd to posterity and Reports by word of mouth are uncertain that for want of good Records we cannot tell who was S. Peter's Successor immediately whether Clemens Theo loret l. r. c. 8. Eccles. hipâ— Linus or Anacletus and the subscriptions of S. Paul's Epistles having no record but the Uncertain voice of Tradition are in some things evidently mistaken and in some others very uncertain And upon the same account we cannot tell how many Bishops were conven'd at Nice Eusebius says they were 250. S. Athanasius says they were just 300. Eustratius in Theodoret Bellar. de Concil Eccles. l. 1. c. 5. Sect. De numerâ— says they were above 270. Sozomen says they were about 310. Epiphanius and others say they were 318. And when we consider how many pretences have been and are daily made of Traditions Apostolical which yet are not so a wise man will take heed lest his credulity and good nature make him to become a fool S. Clemens Alexandrinus says that the Apostles preach'd to dead Infidels and then rais'd them to life and that the Greeks were justified by their Philosophy and accounts these among the Ancient Traditions Epist. ad Episc. Antioch Pope Marcellus was bold to say that it was an Apostolical Tradition or Canon that a Council could not be called but by the authority of the Bishop of Rome