have said of the Popes Infallibility and his being the only Judge of Controversies is true p. 410. and that himself does hold them as truths de Fide p. 425. He tells us likewise in the Chapter entituled Calumniae â—lutae That some not of the unlearned only but learned too had clancularly aspersed him as if he had said it was not matter of Faith That the Church could not err That she was not the supream and only Judge That the Pope was not Head of the Church That he sought the union of Religion by remitting part of the Faith The cry of this was so great that he tells us he set forth a publick Programma in his own vindication wherein he declares his assent to those things which he was supposed to have denied and says they are Veritates Fidei Truths belonging to the Faith though not defined by the Council Ipsissimis terminis and that he did not intend by any of his Explications any such diminution of their Faith as his accusers mistook him to intend but only used this as a necessary method to reduce such as were gon astray He often taxes them to shew wherein he had expresly impugned those Truths which they thought him to have betray'd and tells them their oversight lay in this that when he said such and such Truths were not de fide Catholica they mistook him as though he had denied them to be necessary Truths which he denies himself to have the least implied and declares his own belief of the Popes Infallibility adding withal that the Explication which he had given of himself in this instance he would have understood with respect to all the Matters he had handled as Transubstantiation Merits Images Adoration of the Eucharist c. This he look'd upon he tells us p. 315. as the most expedient Method to propose only those Doctrines which the Council expresly commanded to be held and pass the rest in silence when they expect to win Runnagates to the Faith whom if they can bring first to the admission of this there will be opportunity gained to prevail with them in the rest I will not take the advantage given me by this mans fraud to accuse M. Condom of the like but only infer in part from hence that the Doctrine of this Exposition which differs not from Verone's has been look'd on with a jealous eye among themselves whatever approbation it may have now and again that the Gentlemen have no reason to be angry since themselves have made the detection if we fear to swallow abait that may conceal a hook What was done to remedy those Abuses which were in vain complained of will be better justifiable after examination of the particulars when we shall be capable to consider on whom the Schism and the miseries consequent upon it may be most justly charged I thank the Advertiser that he forbears reproaches though he says he could find ground enough for them in abuses that are among us for which although I hope he could find but few yet I shall hold my self indebted to him the forbearance of all Invectives and the silence of those Abuses which shall any way appear to be disallowed by their Church I likewise beg of God that they may read without bitterness and may that God from whom alone is all success who knows the progress of Error and its increase through mens making his Religion subservient to their own ambition intrests and hypocrisies so effectually touch the hearts of all that all parties may act and with their utmost strength endeavour all which true sincere Piety and a zeal for God and his glory free from all other ends and intrests does oblige them to for healing the Wounds of his afflicted Church CONSIDERATIONS ON THE Late Bishop of Condom's BOOK ENTITULED An Exposition of the Catholick Faith in Matters of Controversie SECT I The Design of his Treatise considered AS to this first Section wherein he mentions his Design having considered it in part already I have little more to add I confess it very expedient to consider the Grounds of the first Separation and the necessity of a Right Explication of their Churches Tenents and that these ought to be taken from the publick Acts of the Church and not from particular Doctors for the reason quoted out of M. Daille That the sentiments of particular persons ought not to be imputed to the whole body only here is one thing wanting which we desire might be declared that all Tenents of particular Doctors contrary to any of this which shall be delivered as the sense of the Church are false and disowned by it for to say it is implied is not sufficient when a Church pretends to declare her self to her Adversaries who charge her with other Doctrines maintained by her But for what he adds from Mr. Daille That no separation ought to be but upon the account of Articles authentickly estabished to the belief and observance of which all persons are obliged I must here observe That this Concession does not affect the Church of England till it be proved that by Reforming her self she has departed either from the true Faith or from some authority to which she was lawfully subject not that I hold National Churches less obliged to preserve the unity of the whole than every particular member that of the Church wherein he lives but that I maintain a Church that is not dependent upon others can never be said to have done any thing to prejudice the unity of the Catholick Church by reforming abuses within her self and taking the best expedients to preserve the foundations of Faith and promote good life so that all 39 Artic. of the Church of England things be done to edifying as it is express'd by the Church of England Artic. 34. Whereas he says that what he writes shall be approved of in the Church and be conformable to the Doctrine of the Council I could wish he had promised that it should be the true and only Sense of the Council and that it should likewise be the whole Doctrine of the Church in the Particulars he treats of Another thing is necessary for me to premise here that what Advantages he may take from the Principles of some Reformists in these Disputes I think my self not much concerned in having declared that I will oblige my self only to the Consequences that may be drawn from the Principles of the Church of England SECT II. Concerning the Church of Rome's embracing all the Fundamentals of Religion THis Section premiseth That the Church of Rome believes and professes all the Fundamental Articles of Faith particularly those in the Apostles Creed which we are so far from denying that we plead and challenge it being sure it will give us this Advantage that they can never charge us with Innovation nor with departure from the Faith if these are all the Fundamental and Principal Articles But M. Condom pretends that they also can draw from hence great
Advantages which we seek to deprive them of by saying they destroy those Articles by interposing others contrary to them Thus much is said and yet is more than need be said for if we say only that they have added others to them which are not necessary parts of Faith this alone is enough to bar them all Advantages which they may promise themselves from holding the Fundamentals But M. Condom foreseeing that it would be urged against him that those Doctrines which the Church of Rome hath added to the Faith do by evident consequence destroy those which it acknowledges as the necessary and fundamental Truths endeavours to prevent us this Advantage by objecting That M. Daille has owned in behalf of the Lutherans and it is a thing in it self evident that the Consequences of a Doctrine ought not to be attributed to a Church that formally rejects those Consequencs which Answer he concludes will easily defend them when they are charged with Consequences distructive of the Truth I likewise own the Maxime so far as it is grounded upon Reason but in Reason we ought to distinguish between the Persons that own such Consequences and those who do not Which Distinction will enforce at least thus much that we who being separate from the Church of Rome do evidently see such Consequences naturally following any of their Doctrines can never with safety receive them For though we should grant those Consequences which the Church of Rome rejects are not to be charged upon her yet it were to be granted only upon this very reason that she professes not to see them and she were to be allowed innocent only so far as she sees them not So that the self same Reason that would exempt her from the Charge would bring us deeply under it if acknowledging of such Consequences we should embrace the Doctrines whence they flow and the Church of Rome is therefore utterly inexcusable in enjoyning such things on those who profess they see such Consequences in them as destroy the Faith and is less excusable in its own holding them the greater Means and Opportunities she has had to discern their pernicious Effects Again Reason does oblige us to distinguish between Consequences which are only Inferences that may be drawn by remote Arguments from an Opinion and such as have a real Influence upon our Practice An Instance will explain my Meaning Suppose for the present the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone did by consequence infer good Works unnecessary he ought not to be charged with this Consequence who disowns it and disowning it shews that he thinks them necessary and therefore does them But if any holding this Opinion should neglect them out of a dependance on his being justified without them I do not think M. Condom would account it Calumny to charge him with the Consequence And therefore the Reason M. Daille gives upon which they refused not to joyn Communion with the Lutherans because their Opinion has no Poyson in it is not so contemptible for they who joyned Communion with them joyned not in their Error nor in any evil Practice consequent upon it And be Christ's humane Nature never so essential to Religion yet the Lutheran Opinion did never cause them to deny the verity of his humane Nature nor reach to what the Church of Rome does whilst it commands the Worship of that which we cannot think a lawful Object for us to give it to So that perhaps it may be a greater difficulty to defend the Church of Rome in this respect than M. Condom is willing to believe But this Gentleman has put us to a needless trouble hitherto if he make good his further Promise and shew by his Exposition that the Church of Rome is so far from ruining the fundamental Articles of Faith either directly or indirectly that on the contrary she establishes them after so solid and evident a manner that no one can question her right understanding them without great Injustice I hope he means such a right understanding them as that she holds nothing directly or indirectly prejudicial to them and hereupon I shall go on with him to the Particulars SECT III. Concerning Religious Worship as due to God alone MR. Condom's Title of this Section is Religious Worship is terminated in God alone But if he had said it is due to God alone it had been more consistent with his first Article that he is pleased to own for Fundamental Sect. 2. But that Adoration which is due to God alone he says the Church of Rome teaches to consist in believing him to be the Creator and Lord of all things and in adhering to him with all the powers of our Soul by Faith Hope and Charity as to him alone who can render us happy by the communication of an infinite Good which is himself The Church of England teaches and challenges the same as a Truth that indispensably binds us to have recourse in all our Necessities to him alone who is the Creator and Lord of all things to adhere to him alone with all the powers of our Soul without dividing our Hearts to any other to place our Hope and Confidence in him only who is that infinite and eternal Good which alone can satisfie us to love him above all things who hath first loved us with a Love so far passing all understanding out of which Love he hath created redeemed preserves us and hath provided such Rewards for them that love him This interior Adoration he says has its exterior Marks of which the principal is Sacrifice which cannot be offered to any but God because a Sacrifice is established to make a publick Acknowledgment and a solemn Protestation of God's Sovereignty and our absolute Dependance Granting but this true that this internal Adoration has some exterior Marks as Sacrifice for instance which cannot be given but to God alone it will be very difficult in my Judgment to prove that Invocation Prostration or any other exterior Forms of Adoration which are commonly used in Religious Worship are not thus peculiar to God alone For if the Reason why Sacrifice is thus peculiar to him be this its being established to make a publick Acknowledgment and solemn Protestation of God's Sovereignty and our absolute Dependance since he cannot argue it thus peculiar barely from God's establishment of it Sacrifice being the exterior part of his Worship before the Law of Moses and doubtless as much his Peculiar then as after so that it depends upon the Reason of its establishment which indeed is solid its having been used and determined by the practice of the whole World for a publick Acknowledgment of God's Sovereignty c. This will conclude no less for any external Signs of Adoration used and determined by the like universal consent and practice to express the same Sentiment and declare the like Dependance For though external Actions signifie as the inward Sentiments determine them yet in all reason general Use and Custom ought to
An Advertisement WHen the late Answer to the Bishop of Meaux came forth this was just finished but laid by as useless till upon an after View it was thought it might be serviceable because of a more particular Explication of the Church of England ' s Sentiments in it and likewise a more full Expression of the Romish Doctrines from the Publick Acts of that Church and its direct answering M. Condom ' s Reasons which the other Author does not propose to himself AN ANSWER TO THE Bishop of Condom Now of MEAVX His Exposition of the Catholick Faith c. Wherein the DOCTRINE of the Church of Rome Is DETECTED And that of the Church of England EXPRESSED FROM THE Publick Acts of both CHURCHES To which are added Reflections on his Pastoral Letter LONDON Printed by H. C. for R. Kettlewel and R. Wells at the Hand and Scepter against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet street 1686. Imprimatur Guil. Needham R mo in Christo Patri ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archi-Ep Cantuar. a Sacr. Domest Ex Aedib Lambeth Jun. 4. 1686. THE PREFACE HIM that shall think fit to answer this Treatise M. Condom desires pag. 51. to consider that to accomplish his intent 1st He must not undertake to refute the Doctrine contained in it it not being his design to prove but only to propose it in this Book But I hope if in persuing the design of his Book in some places I observe the falshood or danger of some of these Doctrins or the insufficience of his Reasons given to establish them it may be allowed especially if they are but such hints as are as necessary for the subverting the Design of the Treatise as his Reasons given to establish the Doctrine are for the explication of it 2ly That it would be a quitting the design of this Treatise to examine the different Methods which Catholick Divines have used to explicate the Doctrine of the Council of Trent and the different consequences which particular Doctors have drawn from it But with his leave if himself be no other than a Particular Doctor for we can allow him to be no more as yet till those Approbations collected in the Advertisement from several of the most principal Divines and others in the Church and at last from the Pope himself which are pleaded for his greater authority come to be considered it can be no quitting the design of his Book if any part of it be the Exposition of the Doctrine of that Council to take notice if there be occasion of any different Explication which others have given of it For though their Explication being different does not prove his not to be contained in it yet first it assures us that the words which are used by the Council to express its Doctrine are ambiguous since different explications pretend equally to be explications of the Council And thereby 2ly we are left uncertain in what sense the Church holds the Doctrine which we have no reason to take from him unless upon examination it shall hereafter appear that he has a greater authority to declare the sense held by the Church than the other had 3ly That to urge any thing solid against this Book and which may come home to the Point it must be proved That the Churches Faith is not here faithfully expounded and that by Acts which the Church has obliged her self to rceeive This last clause may either plead for my proving that he himself has not expounded it faithfully by such Acts or that my proof of the falsity of his Exposition must in all things be made out by such Acts. In the former case I shall hold my self obliged when I oppose him to do it from those Acts produced by himself or others as much owned by the Church In the latter presumptive proofs that conclude with greater probability for the falshood than his for the truth of his Exposition are the utmost that ought to be required there being no reason that he should oblige me to proofs of another nature than what he brings himself Or else 4ly That it must be shewn that this Explication leaves all the Objections in their full force and all the Disputes untouched Herein I shall be especially careful since he has expresly obliged me to it to consider what Objections are in force and what Disputes remain 5ly Or in fine It must be precisely shewn in what this Doctrine subverts the foundations of Faith Of this likewise I shall be careful but suppose in some cases it appear that in all probability though not precisely it subverts the Faith certainly a Church that ought to provide for the preservation cannot justifie her self in commanding things that in every mans judgment tend to the destruction of the Faith and if it appear that this Doctrine does and experience testifie it has greatly prejudiced the foundations of Faith shall the whole world be obliged to forbear providing for their common Christianity till all its Foundations be totally overthrown The Author though he seems to acquaint us with his design yet has not positively express'd the end he aims at but so far as I can dive into it it is this 1st To take off that false Idea which Protestants have framed to themselves of the Church of Rome for such he takes notice they have p. 1. upon which he thinks it beneficial to explicate to them what the Church has defined in the Trent Council upon the main Points in controversie And thereby 2ly to gain a good opinion in the Reformers of the Churches innocence 3ly By this explication of their Doctrine to shew that the main Disputes are not so material as they have been thought and that many of them are at an end 4ly That the Matters from which the first grounds of Separation were taken by this Explication being cleared and appearing not so ill as they have been judged they are no longer justifiable Causes of a Separation whereby we are concluded under a necessity of joining with the Church of Rome The first of these he intimates as his aim when he tells us he had observed many had a false Idea of their Church whereupon he took a resolution to explicate their Doctrine p. 1. The third and fourth are implied in the two effects proposed to himself from this Exposition p. 2. The conclusion that our distance is no longer justifiable is not positively inferred by M. Condom But the Advertisement as it sometimes calls for the Removal of our false Conceptions sometimes for a better opinion of the Church sometimes challenges that an end is put to the main Disputes does also in this clearly discover it self and tell us That we may hereupon be justly afraid Ado. p. 9. to persist in a Schism which is manifestly founded upon false Principles even in the most principal Points Now no man will oppose the first intent it being most just that every man be willing to lay aside his false or prejudicate Opinions Nor the second for the same
but he does not in all this say that it is the true and only Sense of the Council And further That for these Reasons he does not only think it worthy his Commendation but to be read and esteemed by all He does not say nor mean esteemed for the only Sense of the Council as is plain by the Latine Copy And further We hope this Work by the Grace of God will bring forth much Fruit and will not a little help to propagate the Orthodox Faith In all which he neither declares it for the Sense of the Council nor confirms it as such nor does any thing to make it authentick if that be to authorize it as a Truth throughout the whole Church which yet is the least that could be lookt for in this Case for the Reasons given The utmost therefore that can be made of it is only that it has the commendation of his private Judgment for a prudent useful good Book likely to work no small Effects for the propagation of the Catholick Faith So that this will be no great prejudice to any Proofs that shall be made against M. Condom where I may attempt in opposition to him to shew that he has not fully given the Doctrine of his Church But the Advertizer raising himself on this Foundation that this Exposition is as true and as authentick as he pretends it and laying on this Presumption further that it has most effectually served the Ends it aims at insults over the Reformed as if the Day was clearly gained boasting the pretended Victory not over the Answerers only but all Reformers What particular Advantages he pretends over the Answerers I meddle not with wanting both opportunity to procure and capacity to understand their Books if French nor will I be obliged to concern my self with any pretended to be gotten over any Numbers of the Reformed either for their false Opinions Doctrines or Concessions in any Cases but where the like may seem pretended from like Doctrines or Concessions of the Church of England Whether he has such real Cause to Boast will not appear till the End But what of his is added to back M. Condom shall be considered under their particular Heads in the Exposition Pag. 18. He goes on to vindicate M. Condom First That he has done well to propose the true Tenets of the Council and their Church and distinguish them from those that are falsly imputed to her No body will blame his Aim in this God forbid that any should refuse to hear what may inform them and remove their Prejudices Secondly That he has done but just in taking the Doctrine of the Church from the Council of Trent Nor will any blame him for this or require him to justifie the Council from the great suspitions that are justly had of it for be the Council what it will it 's sufficient for the Exposition that the Doctrine of it is universally received throughout their Church Nor shall Father Pont's History because he here is said to be a profess'd enemy to the Council of Trent either prejudice me against its Doctrines or make me call its Decisions ambiguous without apparent grounds for it Thirdly That his choice was not amiss in pitching upon those Points from which the subject of the Reformation was taken But however if new Matters have been added by themselves since which make the distance wider those may well be added as Obstacles to a present Union and without reflecting on the Bishops sincerity or accusing him to have on purpose left out the greatest difficulties it may be allowed me to produce others so far as they are material to shew that some great Objections are yet in force and many great Disputes untouched But whether he has been so faithful to his promise as to affirm nothing to make the Council better understood which is not approved of in the Church and manifestly conformable to it will appear when the particulars are examined There is one thing more that will greatly affect me as well as the other Answers against whom it 's urged p. 23. That it 's to no purpose to object against this Exposition the Bull of Pius the Fourth for that the design of this Book says the Advertiser has nothing of those Glosses and Commentaries which with great reason that Pope condemned some of which usually fill'd the Margins with their own Imaginations and gave them for the Text it self and such for the conservation of Unity the Pope was obliged not to permit nothing of which nature is in this Exposition But he need not have taken all this pains if himself durst have relied on his former proof of its authentickness yet to make this of any strength to back what he had said before he should have told us by what authority he declares what sort of Comments and Glosses the Pope forbids in that Bull or the Reasons upon which he did it Let this be one reason yet what shall hinder but Father Paul's may be another that it was to withstand the checks which the Council might be said to give to the Papal power and disable all from using it to the prejudice of the Court of Rome To believe which we have greater grounds than Father Paul's bare assertion but much less to believe the Advertiser since the Bull in express words forbids not only such Interpretations as Comments and Glosses but all Annotations Scholia's and every kind of interpretation whatsoever decreeing likewise all such as any should attempt to make wittingly or ignorantly with or by whatsoever authority void and null Whereas in the conclusion p. 24. he says That suppose we call for the Reformation of Abuses it is one way of suppressing them to shew the Truth in purity not excluding other means I shall here take occasion to remember out of M. Verone in his Epitome of his Methods part of whose method M. Condom exactly follows how little we can propose to our selves from these fair pretences of representing the truth in purity towards this effect which will also shew in part upon what grounds this Doctrine of the Exposition may find that approbation which it has amongst them and yet be far from being so truly and universally received as is pretended This M. Vernone is most eminent for the use of this Method to separate the Decrees of the Council from the Opinions of all particular persons whatsoever and the Doctrine he would perswade as the Churches sense seems in all things as moderate as this of M. Condom He says they do no further honor Images than as they use outward respect to the Bible and other sacred Utensils and speaks of Transubstantiation Merits c. much after the same moderation and will not have the Infallibility of the Pope to be matter of the Catholick Faith And yet this Person though he Verone's Epit. 〈…〉 Convin â—…et declares the Doctrine of their Church in a way fair to appearance tells us nevertheless that what other Doctors
the Justification of a Sinner Decrees as follows THat all Men are lapsed with Adam cap. 1. That Concil Trid. Ses 6. hereupon cap. 2. God sent his Son Christ whom he doth propose a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood for the Sins of the whole World But though he died for all c. 3. yet those only receive the Benefit to whom the Merit of his Passion is communicated That we are to conceive of Justification c. 4. as of the Translation of Man from the State wherein he was born as a Child of Adam to the State of Grace and Adoption through Christ which Change is not wrought without our being washed in the Laver of Regeneration or desire so to be That the beginning of Justification c. 5. in persons adult is the preventing Grace of God i. e. his free Calling whereby Man consenting and co-operating with his exciting and assisting Grace is disposed to prepare himself for Justification which he does willingly and might refuse Which Disposition is wrought after this excitement of Grace c. 6. by believihg willingly the divine Revelations and Promises particularly that God justifieth the Sinner through Grace and then out of a Sense of Sin turning from God's Justice to his Mercy hoping in him for Pardon and thereupon beginning to love him and hate Sin purposing to be Baptized and to begin a new Life That Justification followeth this Disposition c. 7 which is not only the Remission of Sins but the Renovation of the inner Man and hath five Causes the Final the Glory of God and Eternal Life the Efficient God who washeth away Sin and sanctifieth the Meritorious Christ who by his Passion hath merited Justification for us and satisfied his Father the Instrumental the Sacrament of Baptism the only Formal Cause Justice given by God whereby we are renewed in the Spirit of our Minds and not accounted only but made truly just every man receiving it according to the good pleasure of the Holy Ghost and according to his own proper Disposition receiving together with Remission of Sins Faith Hope and Charity That when it is said We are justified by Faith and freely c. 8. it ought to be understood because Faith is the beginning of Justification and the things that precede it are not meritorious of Grace That although it be necessary to believe c. 9. that Sins are not remitted to us but by the free Mercy of God through Christ yet we are not to believe they are remitted to him that vaunteth and reposeth himself only in the confidence and certainty of their Remission neither ought it to be said that Justification is perfected only by Faith excluding all doubt That those who are thus justified c. 10. by bringing forth good Works are more justified By taking the like View of the Doctrine of the Church of England in this Point we shall easily discern the things in difference She then declares 1. THat we are accounted righteous before God only for the Merit Articles of the Church of England Arti. 11. of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith and not for our own Works and Deservings wherefore that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholesom Doctrine and full of Comfort 2. That by Justification She means the Forgiveness of our Sins 2. Hom. of Justification part 1. and Trespasses That this being received of God's Mercy and Christ's Merits embraced by Faith is taken and allowed of God for our perfect and full Justification That nothing on the behalf of Man does contribute to this Justification but only a true and lively Faith which Faith is also the gift of God But this Faith does not shut out Repentance Hope Love Dread and the Fear of God from being joyned with Faith in every man that is justified but it shutteth them out from the Office or justifying nor does it shut out the Justice of good Works necessarily to be done afterwards of Duty to God but only excludes them from deserving our Justification which comes freely from the Mercy and Grace of God whereby he has provided that Ransom to be paid by Christ which all the World in any part was not able to pay of themselves 3. That this Saying that we are justified by Faith only is not 3. Ibid p. 2. meant as if justifying Faith were alone in any without Charity c. at any time or season nor the other that we are justified freely so as to imply that we may be idle or that nothing is required to be done on our parts neither that other of our being justified without Works that we should do nothing at all but thus to take away clearly all merit of our Works to deserve Justification at God's hands and also to express the Weakness of man and the Goodness of God the imperfection of our Works and the most abundant Grace of Christ and to ascribe the merit and deserving of our Justification to Christ alone That though we have and ought to have Faith within us with Hope Charity and other Graces and do never so many good Works thereunto we must renounce the Merit of all our said Virtues that are or may be in us as things too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve remission of Sins i. e. our Justification and must trust only in God's Mercy and the Sacrifice of Christ for the same 4. That therefore Christ himself is the only meritorious Cause of 4. Ibid. pa. 3. it That our own Works do not justifie us to speak properly of Justification i. e. to say our Works do not merit or deserve Remission of Sins but God of his own Mercy gives it us through the Deservings of his Son Nevertheless because Faith doth send us to Christ for this Remission and by it we embrace the Promise of God's Mercy and of the Remission of our Sins which thing none other of our works properly do therefore it is said that Faith without Works doth justifie us 5. But this Faith that justifies is not a dead or carnal but a 5. Hom. of Faith part 1. living Faith and this living Faith is a full Trust in God through Christ which upon the consideration of the greatness of his Mercy which it apprehends and relies upon is at the same time moved through the assistance of the Spirit to serve and please him out of this pure and only Principle the Love of God Now he that will consider and compare these Doctrines with each other will find that they both agree in the lapsed State of Mankind and the necessity of God's sending his Son whom he hath set forth to be our Propitiation and that though he died for all yet those only are benefited to whom his merit is communicated but when they come to express the nature of Justification the Church of Rome conceives it to be not only the Remission of sins but likewise the Renovation of the Inward man the Church of England by Justification means only Forgiveness of sins
do are but so many gifts of his Grace That the first of these may give some abatement to their Doctrine of Justification so as to make it not absolutely destructive of the Faith I have already owned but that it should give the like to their Opinion of the Merit of good Works there is not the same necessity upon me to acknowledge And then it is not material to the Point to say all the good works they do are but the Gifts of his Grace unless it be added that they merit through Grace withal i. e. not of the intrinsick Grace that wrought them but of the free Grace of God that accepts them to that reward which they are not deserving of The Pharisce in the Parable that trusted in his own Righteousness did yet acknowledge it not of his own working alone for he thanks God that he was not an Extortioner c nor as other Men and yet he was not justified because he had not recourse to God's Mercy But not to conceal any thing that may encline us to a favourable Construction I must also take notice that the Council of Trent at first proposes Eternal Life as a Recompence which is faithfully rendred to the good works and merits of God's Children in virtue of his Promise And had it staid there I am obliged to confess it had not decreed any thing prejudicial to the Faith for having respect unto the Promise it does thereby respect the Grace as promising though not as bestowing the Gift But when it comes afterwards to declare an intrinsick value in our works and that eternal Life is truly merited by them its Eye is taken wholly off both from the Promise and the Grace for if it had intended to have shewn that they merit by virtue of the Promise it must have acknowledged that though they had an intrinsick and real worth yet it was not such as could render them acceptable for so great a reward not supposing God's Promise Those therefore who speak of good works as meritorious by virtue of God's Promise only though they use an unfit Expression cannot be said to destroy the Grace of God But which of these two Opinions shall be said to speak the Sense of the Council Both are indeed allowed but those who hold the Extream are the prevailing part if Bellarmine may be believed Bell. de Justif lib. 5. cap. 16. in relating Matter of Fact The Works of just men are meritorious of eternal Life ex condigno this is the common Opinion of Divines and it is most true But then will not the Church of Rome have a great advantage of us by this Concession Perhaps not near so great as they imagine when it is considered First That this Church allows though not absolutely enjoyns a Doctrine to be maintained that is contrary to the Faith and injurious to God's Grace which it cannot justifie as a Church Secondly That it likewise has given occasion by its own Definitions to this Doctrine which in words clearly express it which renders it more inexcusable Lastly In that it has further taken upon it to decree an Anathema against him that shall say That the good works Conc Trid. Sess 6. Can. 32. of a man justified do not truly merit encrease of Grace and eternal Life as also encrease of Glory Which no man can avoid acknowledging that will profess with the Scriptures that the gift of God is eternal Life and that he saves us not by the works of Righteousness which we have done but of his own Mercy What M. Condom inserts by the way That our Hope and Confidence in Christ does not wholly extinguish Fear on account of our selves I am not obliged to gainsay that I know of by any Doctrine of the Church of England provided I disallow that which is decreed Can. 16. If any say or believe that he shall certainly have by certainty of infallible Faith the gift of Perseverance to the end unless he know and have learned it by special Revelation let him be Anathema For though a careful and awful Fear does intermix with a Christians Confidence yet it may be such as may exclude all doubt without Revelation having no other foundation than that upon which St. Paul declares That nothing shall be able to separate Christians from the Love of God neither Tribulation nor Persecution c. because out of a certain knowledge of the sincerity of their own hearts and the certainty of God's never-failing Promise that he will never forsake those who forsake not him they may be certain that nothing shall be able to separate them from their Duty As to that great Advantage therefore which he may be thought to have gotten of us in that the real Difference between us in these two Points of Justification and the Merit of Works may not appear so great as it was thought and pleaded by the first Reformers who declared it one of the principal causes of their Separation I answer That I have evidenced a Doctrine generally held in the Church of Rome and exprest in the Words of the Council in the Point of Merit of good Works whilst they are taught to be deserving of eternal Life of their own intrinsick worth to be destructive of the Faith and injurious to the Grace of God however in that the Council in one place does mention God's Promise to accept of them I am unwilling to charge it expresly on the Council though it seems afterwards to leave the Promise and plead a real worth in our works which are wrought by Grace however those who say they merit ex condigno do certainly destroy the Faith which are the greater number of their Divines So in the Point of Justification I have shewn too great appearance that their Doctrine taken in the most favourable Sense does prejudice the Faith Again having produced the Doctrine of the Church of England on both Points she holds no other than she always did and still maintains the same neither does it that I know of cast any greater reproach on the Roman Church on this account than what the very Doctrine of the Council will maintain it in and therefore I see no reason to be ashamed of our Doctrine or think the worse of our Reformation for this being a part of it Again there 's none in the least versed in the History of the Reformation abroad but knows it to have been occasioned by Luther's writing against Indulgences which brought in the Disputes of Merits and Justification Purg tory Penance the Authority of the Pope and General Councils with amany others and although Luther published his Opinions in these points yet did he not separate from the Church immediately Bull. Leonâ— 10. An. 1520. but desired a Reformation instead of which Pope Leo excommunicates him and condemns 42 Articles extracted out of his Books on these and other points so that whoever may have pleaded this as the principal could never conceive it the only Point that
could Pardon no Punishments 95. Theses Lut. Anno 1517. but what himself in the Church imposed and pleads against his Adversary that he designed to Pardon no other So that had the Pope then declared their grant to no further purpose we might have had some reason to have credited M. Condom's exposition But when the Council coming to the decision of this which being the first occasion of the breach ought if any thing to have been particularly discussed has only declared That there is a Power of granting them in the Church and commended their use but not determined to what effect whether to that which Luther owned or that which his Adversaries pretended what can we conclude less than that it allows them to the effects pretended by those Agents that dispersed them Wherein Bellarm. fully confirms us saying Those Catholicks are not in the right who think Bellar. Lib. de Indulg c. 7. Indulgences to be no other than Remissions of Ecclesiastical Discipline Whose Authority I use not here only as great upon the reasons he gives for his Opinion as First That if they were to no other effect than this there would be no need of a stock of merits Secondly That the Church would herein greatly deceive her Children whilst freeing them from pains in this life it sends them to those of Purgatory That Thirdly They could not be granted for the dead that are not under nor in need of the Churches Discipline But chiefly upon the matter of fact that he relates How many when they receive Indulgences confess and perform their satisfactions that sometimes the Popes in their Briefs of Indulgence require the Priests to impose Penitential satisfactions that therefore in the Judgment both of the Popes and People they are principally and chiefly beneficial to remit the pains of Purgatory But possibly they may tell us however this Council did something considerable in abolishing those unlawful gains that were made by the markets of them This indeed might have been something had they designed it to abolish the Penitential Tax issued out of the Apostolick Chamber sometime before which rates sins at certain sums or had it taken effect to that end but instead thereof we know those faculties to have been since renewed and still confirmed Concerning Purgatory the pretended foundation of it is this That those who depart this life indebted to the Divine Justice some pains which it reserved are to suffer them in another life that hereupon they offer Prayers for such by these kind of satisfactions to win God to be more mild to them in those Chastisements In opposition to this our Church has delivered herself thus That the Scripture doth acknowledg but two places after Hom. of Prayer Part. 3. this life the one proper to the Elect and Blessed of God the other proper to the Damned Souls That a Art 22. therefore the Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory and Pardons relating to it 〈◊〉 a â—ond thing vainly invented without warrant from Holy Scripture and rather repugnant to it It 's vain in that it wants a warrant from Scripture and is likewise very repugnant to it in that we are encouraged in our Christian course by the Scripture from the shortness of our afflictions to all which an eâ—…s put by death after which all that die in the Lord are blâ—… in this that they rest from their labours I must therefore deny this to be the ground of those Prayers which were made for the â—…d in the Primitive Church and am by this alone sufficiently warranted to deny it that those Prayers were made for the Patriarchs and Prophets the Apostles and Martyrs as well as for all others that departed in the Communion of the Church and therefore could not relate to any intent of easing them from any pains they were believed to suffer but rather to the Resurrection that time of refreshment Acts 3. 19. that shall come from the presence of the Lord. Whereas M. Condom pretends to argue from that which is done by God's Servants many of whom afflict themselves for the sins of all the People as well as for their own out of a zeal to God and charity to their Brethren affections that all ought to express That God out of a delight to gratifie these his friends accepts of their Mortifications in abatement of the Punishments he has prepareed for others I cannot but admire to see a Man write so much without Book as to infer from hence a power in the Church to apply these services to particular Persons in Indulgences and that these shall be available to ease men of those Punishments they suffer for their sins after death for to these ends he must say this or else he says nothing for it 's nothing to his purpose what respect God may have to the Prayers Fastings and Humiliations of the faithful to with-hold his Judgments from a sinful Nation And if said upon those other accounts it 's altogether without warrant from his Christianity We see then apparently the differences that are unresolved by any thing said in this explication of M. Condom viz. 1. That the Church of Rome has advanced a new Article of Faith upon which it grounds these Doctrines and Practices 2. That it abuses the Penances used in the Church to ends not warranted from Christianity neglecting that upon which they take place in it 3. That in pretending to do things in satisfaction to the Divine Justice they have not cleared themselves from the scandal given to their Christian Brethren by such a bold pretence 4. That by setting up a stock of merits out of the supererogatory works of others they are manifestly injurious to Christ whose merits are proposed by God for our only trust they even void in my judgment the terms of the Covenant of Grace which requires That every man prove his own work in that as to God Gal. 5. v. 6. every man shall bear his own burthen 5. That it pretends to grant Indulgences to purposes which they never served in the Christian Church of the first Ages and to an effect even beyond the present life 6. That it teaches an unknown state after the present life wherein we are to lie under the severity of God's Wrath for an uncertain time to the manifest discouragement of us in our Christian course notwithstanding their pretence to the contrary to the destruction of our confidence in God's mercy and our Saviours merits and to the apparent prejudice of that Christianity they pretend to advance of which hereafter 7. And lastly That as if these things were not enough they Concil Trid. Sess 14. â— have decreed Anathemas 1 Can. 12 Against him that shall say When God remits the sin he always remits the punishment 2 Can. 13 Or that we do not satisfie for our sins in abatement of the Tempoporal punishment by works voluntarily undertaken or enjoyned for that end but the best Penance is a new life 3
of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of Sins But I say unto you that I drink not henceforth of the Fruit of the Vine until that day when I drink it new with you in the Kingdom of my Father When St. Matthew here tells us that our Lord took Bread and having blessed brake and gave it to his Disciples saying This is my Body and having took the Cup and blessed likewise gave it to them saying This is my Blood Is it not manifest that he says this Bread is my Body Can this demonstrate any thing but what he gave to them broke blest and took in order to it when there is no mark given to know that he intended to speak of somewhat else Nor will it avail to say This does not demonstrate that he took at first because he blessed after he had taken it before he said This is my Body for at least it must be that which he broke after he had given Thanks and that of necessity is the same Bread that he took Again his words This is my Body will never bear such a forced Construction as This Bread is now abolished to make room for my Body for his Affirmative Is does not in the least alter it but requires and supposes the thing true at the time he speaks it This must be This i. e. Bread and Wine which God's Word demonstrateth at the time that it is his Body and Blood But whatever This may demonstrate it will be impossible to prove the Disciples understood it to demonstrate any thing which the Scriptures express not Now when St. Matthew brings in our Lord speaking after the delivery of the Cup that he would not drink any more of the Vine does he not apparently suppose it to be Wine after his delivery of it to his Disciples or at least when he delivered it Nor will it at all advantage them to say that St. Luke makes him speak it before the Consecration or Blessing of the Elements for whether he spoke it before or after or both it is certain that if St. Matthew had understood the Wine to be no more Wine he could not have placed these words of our Lord after the delivery of the Cup. So when St. Paul says 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ the Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ Does not he say that it is Bread still though it be the Communion of the Body of Christ Nor shall any thing hinder but that the substance of Bread remaining we may spiritually communicate of his Body If our Communion were carnal possibly it might be difficult to understand but that being not proved nor to be proved for the Reasons given from the difference between the New and Old Testament no man can find any difficulty in apprehending it So then M. Condom's great Bluster about our Saviour's explicating usually to his Disciples what he taught in Parables and Figures which is not done here and his Omnipotence to work whatever he said falls to nothing For our Lord's Discourse being easily intelligible according to our Sense of his presenting his Body and Blood under these Elements to be spiritually received but not to be understood so easily in theirs they have the most need to seek for an explication that shall determine them to their Sense especially since it is thus evident that the Apostles understood it to be Bread and Wine as we do so that 't is they have made the forced Construction by denying it Nor can our Lord's Omnipotence take place here till it be proved what he intended to bring to pass thereby Whereas he says The Laws of Discourse that teach us a Sign receives often the Name of the thing represented yet will not allow it in a Sign that has no relation to the thing as in this instance of a morsel of Bread to signifie the Body of man what if we should say the less relation it has to the thing the further it is from being it and the more probable to be only a Sign how would he disprove us by the Laws of Discourse which being used only to express our Conceptions can receive no more bounds than they Yet had he considered but the purpose for which our blessed Saviour gives us his Body to be the Nourishment of our Souls he would not have determined so positively that Bread which is the Food of our Bodies has no analogy with that which is to feed our Souls He might have found Examples even in holy Writ where Christ calls himself a Door the Way and a Vine which things have yet not the least analogy with the Body of a man but yet sufficiently represent the purposes for which he calls himself so and are easily understood without conceiving him to be changed into a Door c. or any of these to be changed into him SECT XI Of the Words Do this in remembrance of Me. NOT having at all insisted on these Words Do this in remembrance of me I am not at all concerned to answer what he says to prove That a Remembrance may be consistent with a real partaking of a thing remembred being sure that let him make the best of it it can never make any thing against me or conclude that we must partake of Christ in any other manner than what I have set sorth But whereas he pretends to take an advantage from an Answer generally used by us That this Remembrance does not exclude all kind of Presence but that which strikes the Senses so as to make this his own for that they though they affirm Jesus Christ to be present yet acknowledg at the same time that he is not present after a sensible manner He must give me leave to say that not determining as yet any thing concerning our Doctrine till after it be explained and considered his Answer is perfectly an Illusion in that though they pretend him not present in a sensible manner i. e. visibly appearing to their Senses yet they own him present in a bodily and carnal manner and to be eaten carnally as if a man should swallow a Pill in a Conserve the Pill is not taken in a sensible manner but yet the very substance of it is taken into the Stomach I shall not therefore demand by that Query which he is pleased to call Equivocal why they think it not enough to say The Son of God is present to us by Faith but by that he confesses to be without equivocation how they come to know by Faith that he is present after a bodily or carnal manner And whether his Real Presence though spiritual known by Faith is not sufficient to work all the necessary Effects in the just man who lives by Faith SECT XII Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Real Presence WHereas M. Condom thinks himself to have gotten
great advantages by his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Calvinists in this point I thought my self unconcerned with his Objections the Church of England not having tyed her Faith to Calvin or any other but grounded it on the Scriptures Only that no man may suspect them to be of any force against the Doctrine held by the Church of England I saw it necessary to set down and explain her Doctrine and see whether any thing here urged can conclude it to be in the least absurd or inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures or with itself The Church of England then teaches 1 Catech. That the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Prayer 2 Exhortation at the Communion That we therein spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood we dwell in Christ and Christ in us we are one with Christ and he with us 3 Art 28. The Bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ and likewise the Cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ 4 Homily of the Sacrament That we must be sure to hold that there is no vain Ceremony no bare sign no untrue figure of a thing absent But as the Scripture saith the table of the Lord the bread and cup of the Lord the memory of Christ the annunciation of his death yea the Communion of the body and blood of the Lord in a marvellous Incorporation which by the operation of the Holy Ghost the very bond of our conjunction with Christ is through Faith wrought in the souls of the faithful whereby not only their souls live to eternal life but they trust also to win their bodies a resurrection to immortality Therefore 5 Prayer of Consecration she prays that in partaking of these his Creatures of bread and wine we may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood 6 Catech. That the benefits that we receive by thus partaking of the body and blood of Christ are the strengthning and refreshing of our souls by these as our bodies are by the bread and wine 7 Homily of the Sacrament Ibid. That thus much the faithful see hear and know herein the favourable mercies of God sealed the satisfaction of Christ confirmed and the remission of sins established 8 Art 28. That nevertheless there is no Transubstantiation or Change of the substance of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper 9 Hom. Ib. Wherefore we are not to regard specially the earthly Creatures which remain but always to hold fast and cleave by Faith to Christ the Rock 10 Art 28. Whose body is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner 11 Hom. Ib. Wherefore it is well known the meat we seek is spiritual heavenly and not earthly invisible and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal 12 Art Ib. The means therefore whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith 13 Hom. Ib. So that to think that without Faith we may enjoy the eating his body or drinking his blood is but to dream a gross and carnal feeding basely binding our selves to the Elements and Creatures As for those then that hold it no more than a bare sign and the Celebration and Communion thereof barely the renewing our Profession or a remembrance only of Christ Crucified whom it representeth they are wide from the Church of England on the one side as the Church of Rome on the other Nor do those who only hold it a sign effective to apply the benefits of the death of Christ not supposing it to tender Christ as present to us and to be received by us before we partake in the benefits of his death express exactly in my judgment the sense of our Church Although there is so near a conjunction of Christ with his benefits that one cannot well be apprehended without the other I conceive therefore that in the sense of our Church not only the benefits of Christ but Christ himself is tendred to us in this Holy Sacrament and is to be eaten by us before we partake of his benefits not that we are bodily to partake of him for this end but in that it seems to be the intention of our blessed Savour under these Elements to give us himself and to put us in the actual possession of himself so that in the use of this ordinance as verily as a man does bodily receive the earthly Creatures so verily does he spiritually receive the body and blood of Christ For our better apprehension of which Mystery it will be necessary more particularly to consider what it is which we do hereby receive and in what manner we are made partakers of it Concerning the first the truth which we hold you see is this that we do not here receive only the benefits that flow from Christ but the very body and blood of Christ i. e. Christ himself Crucified for as the bread and wine avails not to our bodily sustenance unless the substance of those Creatures be first received so neither do we partake of the benefits of Christ to our spiritual relief except we have first a Communion with Christ himself This the words of our blessed Saviour Joh 6. 57 Encline me to believe where he says that he that eateth him shall live by him intimating that we must be partakers of him before we can have life from him So the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 10. 16 The bread which we break Is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ evidently imply that we are therein to partake of Christ himself This I take to be that great mystery of our union with Christ whereby we are made members of his body of his flesh and of his bones And this I look upon to be that 〈◊〉 the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God in the 6th of St. John But now if it be demanded how we can eat the flesh of Christ and partake of his body and blood to conceive this eating in a carnal sense is as gross an imagination as that of those Joh. 6 who asked within themselves How can this man give us his flesh to eat we must not think then that we cannot truly feed on Christ unless we receive his substance into our bellies but must consider that the eating and drinking our Saviour speaks of must be spiritual according to the nature of his Gospel and therefore we must enquire therein what it is to eat and drink spiritually Now then if we consider what appetites are in our souls and what those appetites crave or ought at least to long after we shall easily discern what it is to eat and drink spiritually Now we know that in the 5th of St. Matthew our Saviour intimates to us that we ought to have a spiritual hunger and thirst after righteousness which
Institution of our Lord who blessed Bread and Wine for this only purpose that we might take eat and drink and thereby partake of his Body and Blood in that it not only lays aside the End of his Institution but sets up a new Action of a greater value as is pretended in that also whilst it pretends to apply the Benefits of Christ's Death by this new means it takes off the necessity of using that of our Saviour's own appointment and occasions men to be wholly careless of it when hereby they are warranted to partake of all his Benefits and incur not the danger they would if they should come to partake of the Sacrament with impenitent hearts in that likewise it pretends this Sacrifice propitiatory for men after Death thereby in a great measure voiding the necessity of a Christian Life especially considering that Doctrine which is commonly taught in that Church that this Sacrifice avails ex opere operato that all the Benefits of Christ are derived upon the People by the very external Work done the people not being concerned in or assisting to the Sacrifice either in their Prayers or participation and withal their practice of sacrificing for any whatever dying within their Communion to free them from the pains of Purgatory SECT XI Of his Reflections BY the Grounds then upon which I have proceeded I am little concerned with the Explication he gives of the Epistle to the Hebrews to shew that their Doctrine of the Sacrifice ascribing all the virtue wholly to the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross does not impeach or prejudice its efficacy which the Apostle there pleads Which if it were granted as that it cannot well be for that they have set up a Sacrifice which shall make God more propitious to us than the Sacrament which does possess us of all the Benefits of Christ's Death yet this could no way justifie them in setting up a Sacrifice representative of Christ's Death to Effects which he had not appointed pretending thereby to make application of his Sacrifice on the Cross which he has not warranted them to apply by such means and to such persons also as they cannot from Scripture warrant it beneficial to However notwithstanding M. Condom seems to remove all Equivocation in the Word Offer he either still uses it equivocally or expresses not the Sense of those of his Communion for Bellarmine places not the Sacrifice only in presenting to God Christ crucified but in destroying the Elements that were there before and making Christ present under their Species as dead on the Cross And the Catechism favours this Sense when it says The Priests that sacrifice act not in their own persons but in the person of Christ when they make to be present his Body and Blood So that if we consider this especially if joyned with the Doctrine of Eckius that those Representations which the Church makes of Christ as dead by making his Body as such to appear before God and his Blood as separate from it by these Ceremonies that are used in this Action are the things that constitute the Sacrifice Against whom Chemnitius disputes so largely from this Epistle to the Hebrews If this be considered it will be evident that in this Epistle was not made use of to such impertinent purpose against them as this Gentleman pretends In his Reflections there is little material for me to consider the Grounds of all their Doctrine being overthrown But because he presses it so earnestly I must take notice of the main thing in it Here then he would first perswade us that the main difference between us is that of the Real Presence This we indeed allow That their Error in this Point is the Foundation of the Doctrines they build upon it but this makes it not necessary that their consequent Doctrines and Practices shall not be judged more prejudicial to Christianity than their first Error There scarce ever was a Heresie but pretended to deduce all its Errors from some Doctrine that had appearance of Truth and that did not in itself expresly contradict or prejudice the Faith though by the progression they drew from it the whole Faith has been subverted But then he farther argues That the Real Presence is owned by the Lutherans though they consider not the consequences of it That the Calvinists themselves have declared the Lutheran Doctrine to have no poyson in it and that it does not subvert the Foundations of Faith That further some Calvinists have said that the Catholicks reason better and more consequently than the Lutherans whence he concludes It is an established Truth that the Roman Doctrine in this point contains nothing but the Doctrine of the Real Presence rightly understood An Inference that has not the least coherence with the Premises Can any man of Sense allow this a rational Argument The Lutherans hold a Real Presence the Calvinists say There is no Poyson in their Doctrine The Lutherans admit not such Consequences as we do the Calvinists say we reason better than the Lutherans therefore it is an established Truth that our Doctrine contains nothing but the Real Presence rightly understood But to answer it so far as it may seem any way to give him an advantage The Lutherans do indeed hold a Real Presence in a Sense different from that I have explained but then they do no obtrude their Sense upon others as a necessary condition of Communion so that we may communicate with them without professing their error nor do they hold such a Local Presence as the Church of Rome nor does their Opinion lead them to the Worship of any Creature nor do they acknowledge any Presence of Christ therein but only in the act and to the end of his Institution of this Sacrament and if this has led some to a Declaration that the Lutheran Opinion does not subvert the foundation of Faith upon this account that it proceeds not to any further Effects destructive of it shall this be taken for an acknowledgment that the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which obliges to such practices upon it as are inconsistent with the Faith is not such as ought to break communion with her And suppose it to have been said that the Catholicks reason better and more consequently than the Lutherans if it has been said by any of those that allowed Communion with the Lutherans it 's manifest that when they said so they did not think but that the Roman Doctrine was much more inconsistent with Christianity And that the World may see it is so I shall transcribe the difference which a Lutheran gives us between the Adoration they tender Christ in the Eucharist and that which is given by the Church of Rome He places the difference chiefly in two Particulars First that the Church of Rome requires that the Sacrament Gerhard Loc. Com De sacra Caena de Vener it self or all that which according our Lord's Institution we receive should be adored with the honour due
or Services performed by their Friends afterwards whereby simple Souls must necessarily be entangled in the Snares of their Sins there being so great likelihood that Pardon being held forth upon such undue grounds the corruption of our Nature will take hold of and presume upon it when we have not wrought in our selves a true Repentance That in those things which they call Sacraments they will not suffer us to distinguish either in that Grace which the Ceremony signifieth or in the Force whereby they concur to the obtaining of it whereas our Christianity requires us to distinguish between Graces given to this or that particular effect and those that are given for the general and perpetual subsistence of Christianity and likewise between those Offices that are effective of Grace by virtue of a peculiar and special promise to those effects and others that are only used by the Church out of a hope that our Prayers shall be heard to those effects That they conceive Christ present in the Eucharist after such a manner as it does no way appear he promised his Presence therein that hereupon it is required that Adoration due to God alone be given to the Sacrament which if the Elements remain is by themselves confessed to be Idolatry and therefore may justisiably by us who know them to remain be so accounted That without warrant they make the Eucharist a Sacrifice as distinct from a Sacrament and of a greater virtue as a Sacrifice than when it is received as a Sacrament according to our Saviour's Institution That they warrant it propitiatory for those who use it not according to his Institution whereby they frustrate the End of his blessing Bread and Wine and commanding it to be received and likewise void the necessity of a Christian Life applying the Benefits of Christ's Sacrament to such as come not worthily to partake of it and pretending it efficacious to ease them of punishments which they are to suffer for sins after Death That whilst they with-hold the Cup from the Laity they void Christ's Institution who enjoyned and appointed both they likewise rob Christians of their Birthright and cannot warrant one part of this Sacrament beneficial to all those effects for which Christ was pleased to bless both Bread and Wine That whilst they plead for Traditions they thereby endeavour to obtrude upon us their own Corruptions and by these instead of interpreting pervert the Scriptures and by Traditions of men have indeed in many things made void the Comandments of God That by claiming an Authority for the Church above the Scriptures which they do to justifie what the Church of Rome has decreed against them they do indeed advance an Authority that may destroy our common Christianity That in pleading their Pope universal Bishop not to speak of their Ambition in this Aim they require us to submit to an Authority for the sake of Unity which is not only none of God's Ordinance but such as Experience has shewn to have almost wholly destroyed that Christianity which Unity should preserve Having shewn I say the danger of these Doctrines in particular and their inconsistence with Christianity when I reflect upon them all together and find that our Union with the Church of Rome requires submission to them all must conclude that whatever allowance might be made in some one of them provided that the rest of that Christian Truth which they hold did so prevail over the Error that it did not take effect in their practices to God's Dishonour or the subversion of a Christian Life yet to submit to them all as we must do if we will have peace with the Church of Rome is to redeem the Communion of the Church by transgressing that Christianity which the Church is appointed to maintain and absolutely to prostitute our own and the Souls committed to our Charge The Case is little otherwise in those other things which M. Condom lets alone as things of themselves not sufficient matter of Separation these if taken together though singly they may not be very considerable render the Means of Salvation very difficult since the Substance of Christianity being overwhelmed and choaked with a deal of Rubbish Opinions Customs Observations Ceremonies c. it is a thing very difficult for simple Christians to discern the Substance from the Shadow and almost impossible to pass through such a multitude of Observations Customs and Ceremonies which create so much business in the Practice of Religion and upon which so great Zeal is spent without Superstion and Will-Worship and a fond Opinion of those Services placing their hope of God's Favour upon these carnal Observations and humane Inventions which indeed are nothing to the Reality of Religion So that these at least must be allowed to add to that Mass of Corruption which they seek to obtrude upon us though of themselves they are not of such a poysonous Nature But though we cannot joyn with them without manifest prejudice to our Christianity yet it is most easie for them to come to us and would be for the great advantage of our Christian Religion as even themselves must and do acknowledge For first Those Doctrines which are established by the Church of England at least such as concern the Foundation of Faith have been in all Ages professed by the Church of Rome itself This M. Condom allows as to Fundamentals That the Church of Rome holds all which the Reformers do They further agree with us That we are to pray unto God through Christ That God may be worshipped in Spirit without an Image That we may have recourse to him in all our Necessities without seeking the Relicks of Saints That Jesus Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification That men may do good Works and shall never fail of Salvation through not confiding in them That there be two Sacraments which have the Promise of Grace That Christ is really and spiritually received by some in the Lord's Supper That Christ made an Oblation of himself upon the Cross for the Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction of the whole World And where they with hold the Cup from the Laity and forbid the Administration of the Sacraments in the vulgar Tongue yet even in these they condescend to us for the Lawfulness of the Practice even in respect to the Law of God and oppose them only in regard of their necessity and conveniency and for that the Church of Rome hath otherwise ordained They acknowledge likewise the Authority of written word of God and the Design of Providence in their being written for our Learning They acknowledge the Church does and ought to act in deciding Controversies of Faith according to the Scripture committed to her and to tell us nothing from herself and invent nothing new in her Doctrine Again secondly The Truths we hold even by the judgment of several of the Learned Writers of the Church of Rome have been in all ages deemed sufficient to salvation so that we reject no
Doctrine the explicit Belief whereof is absolutely necessary For first in respect of Knowledge the Schoolmen hold That much less is needful to be explicitly believed than what is contained in our Doctrines For whereas we entertain and embrace not only the Doctrine of the three Creeds but also sundry other Truths as appears by our Homilies and Articles they declare it needful to believe some but the whole Creed others the Nicene and Athanasian joyned with the Apostolical to make a man a compleat Believer and this although we go no further than the proper Sense of the words and have no great distinct knowledge of the Matters whereof however there is none will deny but the Church of England has a perfect understanding as also a right apprehension of them according to their true Christian Sense in which the whole Christian Catholick Church ever understood them Secondly For Practice they grant That we may obtain Salvation without undergoing such Duties as we refuse For if one worships God without an Image they do not deny this worship to be acceptable If a man pray immediately to God through Christ they will not say this Devotion is fruitless If one perform the best works he can Bellar. de Justif l. 5. c. 7. which we also require and stand not upon their Merit but only upon the Mercy of God as we do they judge it to be not only profitable but also commend it as most secure They deny not but sometimes true Contrition does obtain Pardon without Penance or the Priest's Absolution They cannot deny but Concil Trid. Sèss 13. cap. 8 that to receive Christ spiritually in the holy Sacrament is sufficient to all the Effects of it for the Council places the difference between those that receive it worthily and those that receive it to their own destruction in this that the former receive him both sacramentally and spiritually the other only sacramentally Nor I suppose will they deny that he that relies only on Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross has a sufficient expiation for Sins whilst he confides only in him whom God hath set forth to be our Propitiation Nor that we receive the Sacrament aright when we communicate in both kinds Likewise if a man believes no more than is contained in the Scriptures they confess him to believe as much as is necessary and profitable to all men And if a man submits to the Authority of the Church in all things which she acts for the maintenance of that Christianity she ought to preserve whilst she acts according to God's Word and her own Commission both given and limited by it they cannot say I presume that such aman disowns her Authority or voids Gods Ordinance or that the Church which professes herself to have no other Authority but acts according to this which is given her of and limited by the Scriptures does not do what she ought for the maintenance of Chrstianity and discharge of her Trust Again Thirdly The Doctrines which we disown were not received as Articles of Faith nor the contrary judged heretical by the Church of Rome for many hundred years after Christ For a Bellarm. l. 4 de Verbo Dei c. 11. that Church held at first by our Adversaries own confessions all things which the Apostles used to preach openly and which were necessary and profitable for all men to be contained in the Scriptures b Greg. Patriarch Alexan. Even the Popes themselves disowned the Title of Vniversal Bishop neither has that Church as yet decreed itself infallible though pretended by her Champions so to be c Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. c. 9. Neither did they anciently worship Images or approve the Image of God to be made nor does any worship of Saints appear therein for 300 years after Christ and it grew therein by degrees and came in by custom says Bellarmine d Bellar. de Sanct. Beat. l. 1. c. 8. Wherein Purgatory for a time was not known nor for a long time after resolved which way it concerned Salvation e Bell. lib. 2. de Purgat c. 1. either in regard of the Persons thereby to be purged whether the damned justest or middle sort or in regard of the Ends and Effects which it hath whether to satisfie God's Justice by punishing Sin or to diminish and take away the Affections of Sin yet remaining by corrections and chastisements Wherein f Bell. l. 2. de Indu c. 17. Indulgences as now practised were not known nor any instance of them till a thousand years after Christ wherein Transubstantiation was not heard of till the Council of Lateran Wherein a thousand years after Christ and more the Sacrifice in the Eucharist was said g Aquin. par 3. quaest 83. art 1. to be only a Memorial and Representation of our Saviour's Sacrifice upon the Cross wherein the Cup was administred to the Laity and the Priests received not the Eutharist alone but together with the People Further It 's evident that we run no hazard neither do we venture upon any dangerous practice but walk in the safe way to salvation There is no danger in offering our Devotions to God through Christ and to him only as there is in the worship of Saints which is not only without warrant and most likely to be offensive to God but is even Idolatry if a right distinction be not always preserved which is very difficult to be preserved at all times nor in omitting the use of Images nor in having recourse to God's Providence only leaving the Reliques of Saints as is confessed to be if the use of Images seduce us to believe any divinity or vertue in them to place any trust in them or hope any thing from them Nor is there any danger in relying on Christs Merits and God's Mercy for the Remission of our sins not depending upon our own works but doing what we are able in obedience to God and after all saying we are unprofitable servants vilifying ourselves but magnifying the grace of God as there may be in trusting to our own Righteousness Nor in requiring Contrition as absolutely necessary to the Remission of sins as there is if we content our selves with less Nor whilst we reject the Adoration of the Sacrament so we offer up our souls to Christ in Heaven as may be in worshipping the Sacrament which themselves confess to be Idolatry if the opinion of Transubstantion be false Nor in not relying on the Sacrifice of the Eucharist but frequenting it as a Sacrament with due preparation nor in receiving it in both kinds according to Christ's institution as may be in supposing it beneficial when we use it not according to Christ's institution which obliges us to partake of it as a Sacrament and in withholding part of it when it does not appear that he has left any such power in the Church to minister but a part of what he commanded Nor in chusing the Scriptures for a Guide so we sincerely follow
pleases to reform herself need not fear this Crime she may remove those Laws that prejudice the salvation of the Members of her Communion establish those for herself that tend to the exceeding benefit of Christianity as well as the Peace of Christ's Church and thereby provide for the Purity of Faith and Unity of the Church withal And I see no reason why the Church of England being a part of the Church Catholick but no way subject to the Church of Rome may not adventure to desire them to consider the things that belong to their own Salvation as well as the Peace of Christ's Church and how much they are concerned and obliged by all the commands and bonds of Unity that are obligatory upon Christians as to lay aside their claim to an Authority over all the Churches of Christ which is not given them of God and which they chiefly challenge to maintain what they cannot otherwise defend so especially to reform all those Customs Laws and Practices that have been experienced prejudicial to the Faith and establish such as may advance and promote it since by doing this which is otherwise their duty they may procure that which themselves pretend so earnestly to seek and which we acknowledg and pray for as the greatest blessing next to Purity of Faith the Peace and Union of the Church of Christ Reflections upon his Pastoral Letter THere can be but two aims as I apprehend in dispersing this Letter among us one to persuade us that there is no such Persecution of Protestants in France as is pretended the other that the Reasons upon which such multitudes are Proselyted to the Church of Rome or those at least which M. Meaux gives in this Letter are so convincing as to oblige the rest of the World to follow their example What he affirms in relation to the first that not one among them had suffered violence either in Person or Goods is so notorious a falshood that I may leave all those to believe him that can For none certainly can admit the belief of it but such as can force themselves to believe against all the evidence of their senses and reason Waving this therefore I shall content my self to examine the main thing that concerns us Whether there be any thing of solidity in the motives he gives to confirm his Proselytes Though herein I shall not concern myself with what particularly relates to the French Protestants or with any advantages that he may seem to have over them but only with such as may be supposed of equal force against the Reformed Church of England my business being only to oppose the design that seems aimed at in their dispersing this Letter among us The first thing considerable is what he says pag. 4. That himself and his other Colleagues have this glory which they will not suffer to be taken from them that they have never condemned their Predecessors and Preached no other Doctrine than what they received from them Whereas the Bishops of England c. at their going off from the Church of Rome manifestly renounced the Doctrin of their Predecessors Now no man will envy them this glory that they have obstinately retained those Errors and Corruptions which their Predecessors had admitted The glory of the Bishops of England is this that having purged themselves from those corruptions which time and superstition and base intrests had brought into the Church of God they now retain the Doctrine of the Apostles and Primitive Christians from which the Romanists pretending to follow their Predecessors are greatly deviated For though M. Meaux has the face to say That we cannot produce any one instance of a change in Doctrine and that those changes we pretend are rightly called Insensible because we cannot make them out Yet the pitiful defence he has made for his Church in those particulars wherein we charge them with Innovations does sufficiently shew them to be such and the inconsistency of those Doctrines with Christianity does likewise evidence that though they may have been called insensible changes because insensibly introduced yet now they are visibly and palpably destructive of the Faith It 's true indeed as he says The succession of Pastors and Doctrine ought not to be separated and blessed be God our Church of England as it now holds the Christian truth in the Purity of it has also enjoyed as uninterrupted a succession of Pastors as any Church whatever But the Romanists pretences to a succession of Pastors is vain so long as the Christian Doctrine is not preserved entire which an uninterrupted succession of Pastors proves not to be so preserved whilst there is a possibility for those Pastors to admit Innovations agreeable to their own Opinions or Interests The next considerable thing that he urges is the Authority of St. Cyprian from whom he cites several passages pretended to conclude us under a necessity of holding Communion with the Church of Rome and to render all that separate from it guilty of Schism Wherein since he blames others for not taking his Doctrine entire he ought to have been sincere himself and not have caught up fragments of him here and there to adorn his deceitful discourse In the first place cited St. Cyprian does indeed say That to manifest the unity of his Church our Saviour said to Peter single Thou art Peter c. but he says likewise That he gave to all his Apostles equal power but this M. Meaux thought best to leave out His words are The Lord said unto Peter Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church c. and I give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and Loquitur Dominus ad Petrum Ego tibi dico quia tu es Petrus super istam Petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam portae inferorum non vincent eam Et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum c. Et iterum eidem post Resurrectionem dicit Pasce oves â—â—as Super unum aedificat Ecclesiam Et quamvis Apostolis omnibus parem potestaâ—… triona dicat sicut misit me Pater Ego mitto vos c. tamen ut unitatem manifestaret unitatis ejuâ—…m originem ab aâ—o incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit Hoc erat utique ceteri Apostoli quod fuit Petrus pari consortio pra diti honoris potestatis sed Exordium ab unitate proficiscitur ut Ecclesia una monstretur Cyp. Lib. de unitate Ecclesie also after his Resurrection feed my sheep He builds his Church upon Vnity And though he gave to all his Apostles equal power saying As my Father sent me so send I you c. yet that he might manifest the Vnity he dispenses his Authority to one as the original of Vnity That therefore which Peter was the same were the rest of the Apostles joyned in the same fellowship of Honour and Authority but the beginning of it proceeds from Vnity that it might evidence the Church
to be one It 's evident therefore that St Cyprian did not hereby intend to acknowledg St. Peter to be the Head of the rest of the Apostles or that they derived their Authority from him since he says That they had an equal Power and Authority given them by Christ His meaning then can be only this that to evidence the necessity of Unity in the Church our Saviour gave that Authority first to Peter single which he afterwards gave to all together to shew them that they ought in their several functions to aim all at the same thing the Vnity of his Church He says indeed that Episcopacy is one but he adds what M. Meaux thought best for his Cujus à singulis in solidum Pars tenetur Ibid. purpose to leave out Whereof every one holds a part with full and ample Power He says likewise Adulterari non potest sponsa Christi incorrupta est Pudica but he does not say it for any such reason as this Gentleman pretends lest we should imagine some cases might happen in which it might be lawful to separate from the Church or reform her Doctrine as thought it were impossible for a Church to fall into error or to have need of being reformed The coherence of the Discourse makes them bear a different meaning viz. That the true Spouse of Christ cannot admit this Vnity to be interrupted will not be corrupted to division This Father further says That he that separates himself from the Church has no part in Christs promises c. We readily affirm the same of such as do it without a cause But no advantage can be hence taken against us 'till M. Meaux has first proved that the Church of Rome is this only true Church of Christ He would have gained a great point indeed if we were obliged to take it for granted that the Roman is this only true Church of Christ and if the true Church was not to be sought and known by an examination of her Doctrines and their consistency with the Faith But he grosly abuses this good Father when he would persuade us that St. Cyprian would not suffer men to enquire after the true Church by examining her Doctrine but to know her first and then believe we cannot have salvation out of her For so far as I can observe he does not give the least intimation of any such thing in his Book De unitate Ecclesiae And if he should I see no reason that any have to subscribe to him when indeed the Church being a Society professing the Faith of Christ and subsisting for the maintenance of it there can be no means of knowing which is that Church but by knowing first the Faith of Christ and also that this Church professes and holds the same But I need not dispute about that for which he falsly pretends this Authority It 's true in this Book De Vnitate St. Cyprian only urges the Unity of the Church and the Crime of those that break it but there would be no reason to look upon his Arguments so strong if the Church he defends had done any thing to the prejudice of the Faith and therefore in other places he defends the cause of the Church in this case by the righteousness of it by proofs from Scripture of the innocency and lawfulness of that which was imputed to her as a Crime And therefore I most of all admire that he could have the face to abuse those other words of St. Cyprian in his Epistle to Antonian to so false an intent as if he had used them to forbid an enquiry after mens Doctrine and to oblige us to submit to that which the Church holds without enquiry Whereas not only the case St. Cyprian writes upon is utterly different but even the method he takes in this very Epistle to satisfie Antonian and the connection of his Discourse shew his sense to be as different from what M. Meaux would impose on us as possibly can be For in the beginning of the Epistle he tells him That his careful and Epist 51. ad Anton. solicitous enquiry after the truth was not to be blamed tho' he was in part blamable in that he wavered in the Resolution he had first taken and certified him and Cornelius of that he would not communicate with Novatian After which he proceeds to give him an account of the cause of the Church upon what account they admitted lapsed persons to the Communion which was charged as a crime on the Church by Novatian relating the matter of fact the reasons of it and its consistency with Christian Discipline proving it out of the holy Scriptures Then he further gives account of the Election of Cornelius to the Bishoprick of Rome of his Manners and Life and purges him from the scandal his Adversaries had thrown upon him And then indeed he says As for that which concerns the person of Novatian since you desire to be informed what Heresie he has introduced you must know before all things that we need not curiously enquire what he has taught since he hath taught out of the Church who or what soever he be he can be no Christian being out of the Church of Christ. But in the following words he gives the reason of it because he had broke the Vnity of the Church by ambitiously aspiring to the Bishoprick and getting himself made Bishop by some deserters and to make a greater party setting up several other salse Bishops in those Provinces and Cities wherein were already seated Bishops of an approved Faith and tried Constancy Whereupon he indeed says It was no matter whether Novatian introduced any Heresie or not solong as he was the Author of so great a Schism Whereby it appears that he is far from supposing what M. Meaux pretends he only telling Antonian That it was no matter what Doctrine Novatian taught because he had shewn himself unchristian by breaking the Vnity of the Church and making a Schism without cause So that the case supposed is that of man breaking the Unity of the Church be his Doctrine what it will tho' the same which the Church teaches not a case wherein the Church needs a Reformation and the adverse party has Truth and Scripture of his side as it must have been to be applicable to the Church of Rome and the Reformed It 's true St. Cyprian likewise says The promise of our blessed Saviour to be in the midst where two or three are gathered together supposes them assembled in Christ which he thinks they cannot be whilst they are seperate from the Church of Christ But this is begging the Question to use this against us till it appears that the Church of Rome is the only True Church of Christ But M. Meanx says The Church of which this holy Martyr speaks is that which acknowledges at Rome the head of her Communion and in the Place of Peter the eminent degree of the Sacerdotal Chair which there acknowledges the Chair
reason any further than to prevent the swallow of their Errors with this bait What I intend is to evidence that there are Matters of that weight in controversie notwithstanding the pretence of this Book to have discussed and answered the most material as will abundantly justifie the Reformed in their distance from the Church of Rome and which is more conclude them under a necessity of maintaining that distance as things now stand THE ADVERTISEMENT TO THE Bishop of Condom's Book Considered THE Advertisement begins with a Supposition which it thinks we must necessarily allow That M. Condom has faithfully expounded the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in this Treatise from his beng a Bishop in the Church whose Understanding therefore and Sincerity ought not to be suspected and afterwards from his being called to be Praeceptor to the Dauphin Son to so great a King and Defender of the Catholick Religion But yet he tells us Though the sincerer part of the Reformed acknowledged it would take away great Difficulties if approved and owned for their Doctrine yet they would never believe it such or that it would be approved at Rome being prepossessed with Prejudice and false Opinion But without reflecting either upon the Bishop's Understanding or Sincerity we have a great deal of reason to expect he shew us an Authority that warrants him to give us this Exposition and declare it to us as the faithful and true Sense and only Doctrine of the Church since the Pope hath peremptorily forbidden Bulla Pii quarti super Confirm Concil Trid. all Prelates of whatever Order Condition or Degree to set forth any Exposition of the Doctrine of the Trent-Council reserving it to the Apostolical See Setting then his Authority as questionable for the present aside I am no more convinced by the Nature of the Exposition that it is the genuine Sense of the Church of Rome in all points than those who first saw the Book Whether it be Prejudice or Prepossession that blinds my Understanding will not appear till after the Discussion of Particulars Pag. 2. He tells us of two Answers to this Treatise and that both of them agreed in questioning M. Condom's Authority to expound the Council and that his Exposition agrees not with the Decisions of the Council nor with their Profession of Faith Concerning these things I shall determine nothing till I come to the Particulars But whereas he saies Pag. 3. That one of them has drawn a wrong Conclusion from those Softnings of M. Condom to confirm themselves in a better Opinion of the Reformation I do not think the Inference altogether so absure as the Advertizer pretends it for do not they in a great measure justifie the Reformed who call for the Reformation of those Abuses which the Church of Rome herself pretends to condemn but will not or has not rectified The next Thing it endeavors is to prove p 4. That this Exposition of M. Condom's is the true Sense of the Church which is grounded first upon the general Approbation his Book received throughout the whole Church testified by Lerters from all sorts of People not in France only but at Rome especially in Eight Letters concerning it from Cardinals and others of great Merit But taking it for granted without any further Examination That all these Men by their Approbations of this Book do consent that this Exposition is the true Sense of the Church which is more than need be granted since some only say it is a Method very ingenious and good to force the Calvinists to confess the atholick Faith yet this will not suffice where there are so many Writers of as great Authority and Eminence in the Church as any of these that have though not perhaps undertook to expound the Council as this Author yet to declare and defend a Doctrine much different from this from the same Council and in behalf of the same Church And suppose the Number that approved it great yet Cardinal Bona's Letter informs us that some found fault with it and those he must mean of their own Church when he gives this Reason that he does not wonder at it Because all Works great and above the common Level find Persons still to contradict them And be the Number what it will I suppose he will not as it is not reasonable seek for the Churches Doctrine by counting Noses Then for the Letter of Cardinal Sigismond which says the Advertizer shews how ill grounded that Scruple is against this Exposition from the Pope's Prohibition to explicate the Council To me it rather shews how well it is grounded for his Words are Certainly it was never his intention to give the interpretation of the Tenets of the Council but only to deliver them in his Book rightly explicated in such sort that Hereticks may be convinced and especially in those things which the holy Church obliges them to believe Which if it signifie any thing must be That his Exposition is not an interpretation of the Council obliging any to believe it as Matter of Faith but a Design of explicating it in such sort as he judged useful for convincing Hereticks But if this will not content we have an Approbation from the Pope himself after which 't was needless to mention others says the Advertizer and let me add without which his others signifie little to his Point The Gentleman calls it a Breve wherein the Pope gives his Approbation and that so express as to leave no further doubt and in the most authentick manner that could be expected I have considered it and yet my Doubt is not vanished and when the least that could have been expected in reason on Account of the difficulty of believing it express'd by the Reformed five or six years before the Date of this Breve from the Pope as also from the Nature of the thing which being an exposition of Faith ought to be so received by all that not one man hold Tenets different from it as also from the former Pope's Prohibition of all Explication of this Council is that the Pope should have declared that this Exposition did perfectly contain the true and whole Faith of the Church in the Points expounded and that it should be lookt upon as authentick as if made by the Apostolick See it self We may have that Charity for the Advertizer as to think its his good desire to have it made authentick that makes him look upon it as such and suppresses all his Doubts But we who desire no less than he that it were so have yet some peculiar Reasons to see to our selves that we are not imposed on and therefore to examine what Authority this Approbation gives it All which the Pope here saies to approve it is no more than this That it contains such Doctrine and is composed in such a Method and with so much Prudence that it is thereby rendred proper to instruct and to extort even from the unwilling a Confession of the Catholick Faith
has read the many convincing evidences throughout that whole Book on which M. Daille grounds himself should urge against him only a bare improbability of his understanding the sentiments of foregoing Ages without the least confutation of the things on which he grounds himself So neither is it directly to the question for this does not necessarily suppose that M. Daille should know the sentiments of foregoing Ages better than they for they might know their sense well enough and yet embrace opinions which themselves thought probable and not presently apprehend wherein they contradicted the sentiments of their Predecessors As for that he says to make it still less credible that M. Daille has quoted in his Book several express Texts by which it 's shewn that they pretended in Praying to Saints to follow the example of their Predecessors It 's idle either to expect a satisfactory answer to such an uncertain Discourse or to hope to gain belief when he has not given us the particulars by which only it can be judged how far it does conclude But now the advantage he takes at present from this consent of this being in use in the fourth Age is only this That he hopes those of M. Daille's Communion will have more respect to these Men than with him in derision to give them the name of Reliquarists and that as they dare not accuse those of Idolatry by Praying to Saints or of destroying that trust which Christians ought to put in Jesus Christ so he hopes henceforwards that they will not cast the like reproaches on the Church of Rome when they consider they cannot do it without accusing at the same time those excellent Men. This he may promise himself that we shall not shew any thing like derision of those excellent Men nor give them reproachful names But what he further aims at depends upon the truth of his supposition that by accucusing the Church of Rome as Idolatrous in this respect we cast the same reproach on those famous Men A thing that he who knows the mighty difference we plead between the practice first growing into a custom and those gross extravigancies to which it is since encreased should not have supposed without shewing the practises to be the same Which how they first began and by what degrees encreased to their present height as First From Mens desires to one another to be mindful of them after-their departure Secondly From an opinion that some help was communicated to the Church from the fellowship between the Militant and the Church-Triumphant grounded upon a supposition that if Souls departed were mindful of any thing they bore the same affection to their Members as when on Earth and so would intercede with God for them which Thirdly Begun to be more confirmed by some miraculous effects which God was pleased to work in places where the memory of the Martyrs was had in Reverence Which Fourthly Gave occasion to those Prayers which were made upon a faint supposition of their knowing things below which Prayers were rather Wishes than Prayers as Cassander Vtinam Sancti orent And so grew by degrees as Men willing to justifie themselves in what they had gave entrance to persuaded themselves more of the probability by framing suppositions to themselves of God's wanting not means to make known their desires to them 'till it came at last to be received that God really did make them known by ways best known to himself which is now made matter of Faith and the practise thus encreased absolutely commanded Those who are willing to see particular information I refer to that excellent Book of Bishop Vsher's Answer to the Jesuits Challenge and for the degrees by which the publick Forms now in use got possession in the Liturgies to Dr. Chaloner's Progress of Heresie This Digression in me I hope is pardonable since M. Condom himself led me out of the way with whom I now return to follow the design SECT IV. Concerning Invocation of Saints HEre in the first place he acknowledges That the Church of Rome does teach them that it is profitable to pray to Saints Now this the Church of England declares to be 39 Articles of the Church of England Article 22. unprofitable and a vain invention not grounded upon any Warrant in Scripture but rather repugnant to the Word of God But he goes on and says The Church of Rome teaches them to pray to Saints in the same spirit of charity and according to the same order of fraternal society which moves us to demand assistance from our brethren here on earth whence their Catechism concludes that if Christ's mediatorship receive no prejudice from the intercession made to the faithful who live with us neither does it from the intercession made to the Saints But here we must take leave to observe that if the ground upon which they found this Doctrine be as he intimates that Relation and Fellowship which Saints departed have with the Church here as we the living members have one with another as I confess may be implied in the instances given in that Catechism of Job's praying for his friends c. mention'd before it insers the conclusion here spoken of yet it cannot be said that this Church teaches men to pray after no other manner to the Saints than to their brethren that are living nor with no Concil Trid. Sess 25. Dec. de Invocat greater confidence of success since the Council expresly decrees for the Invocation of them and also for Mental Supplication and M. Condom acknowledges a peculiar acceptableness of these with God upon account of their virtues p. 9. and their Catechism Cat. Rom. de Culen Inv. expresly teaches that God confers many benefits upon us for their sake and merit He passes on to shew us from their Catechism the difference between their imploring the aid of Saints and the assistance of God that they pray to Saints to undertake their cause with God but to God to give them the things they ask and therefore their Forms are different that where they are not the intention of the Church reduces them all to this difference Not denying for the present but the intention of the Church may be to reduce them to this distinction yet it shall remain questionable whether it may lawfully use such Forms as according to their nature are proper only to God and by which themselves express desires that ought to be peculiar to him to the Saints with a different intention For a further confirmation of the sense delivered he produces the injunction of the Council to the Bishops what they ought to teach the people concerning Invocation of Saints That the Saints who reign with Jesus Christ offer up to God their prayers for men that it is good and profitable to invocate them after an humble manner and to have recourse to their prayers aid and assistance to obtain of God his benefits through our Lord Jesus Christ his Son who is our sole Saviour
being so great a proneness in Man's nature to Idolatry and so great strength in an Image to draw carnal minds to it Concerning the second it takes notice only of what Naclantus has said upon it whose Doctrine it sticks not to call Idolatry That we are not only to Worship before the Image as some too cautiously speak but to Worship the Image and that with the same Worship that is to be given to the Prototype But what the Church decrees in this point we have seen that though it be not what Naclantus professes yet it 's more than M. Condom is willing to confess and is altogether without any warrant from our Christianity As to the third our Church says not any where that I have observed that to Worship before an Image is Idolatry nor does it say that sort which the Council has decreed is Idolatry but it says in general that the use of Images in Religious Worship necessarily leads to Idolatry and let me add that which the Council decrees does lead somewhat more to it than the other in that it 's more difficult to give a Worship to the Image and at the same instant direct it to the object it represents naâ— this creates so great a difficulty that it shall be very hard for a Man to preserve himself from it in his Devotions to the Saints by their Images as it 's no easie matter for a Man to preserve so many distinct intentions as are necessary to the directing a Reverence to and yet not fixing it on the Image but directing it with his Devotions to the object it represents which must not stay there neither if that object be any other than God or Christ so as to fix any trust upon it but must go further to God in whom alone their trust is to be reposed But then as to the practises of particular Persons she sticks not to call them Idolatrous and fears not to determine it from what she relates of their Pilgrimages to Images their repairing to them to be healed of Diseases their hanging up Crutches before them to shew the vertue they had found by and from them Wherein if she relates true matter of Fact as that we have great reason to believe we need not fear that she can be justly taxed by any as fixing Calumnies upon the Roman Church when she speaks of so many Idolatries practised in it To the last our Church has said that for Bishops whose is the care of Souls to maintain or set up Images in Churches is to shew themselves to be careless Pastors that have no respect to the Souls for which they are to be accountable And undoubtedly the Idolatries or other Crimes of particular Persons in this practice are highly chargeable on the Church of Rome which commands that as a practice beneficial to salvation and condemns those who reject it which creates such difficulties in the Worship of God as make Idolatry almost unavoidable especially in the simple sort for whom Who will or can undertake that they shall preserve the Devotions of their hearts so entire as they ought for God alone among such diversity of Objects and Relations It will be to little purpose to say the Council has taken care to prevent abuses when it has enjoyned a practice so liable to them unless the necessity of using them were as evident as the danger Besides those remedies as they have taken but little effect so neither are they likely whilst the Church is so far from Cat. Rom. de Cultu Venerat seeing or owning any such abuses that she commands her Pastors to teach the People not only that it is lawful to have Images in Churches and to give Honour and Worship to them when the Honour is referred to the Prototype but that it has been done with exceeding good and benefit to the People unto this very day Now what satisfactory defence has M. Condom made for his Church in all or in part of these points when first he presumes it lawful to use Images and that in Churches and Religious Worship and acknowledges the Church of Rome to command Honour to be given to them for the sake of their Prototypes this at least it does command though he is not willing to own so much but yet shews us not the least warrant from Holy Scripture upon which this command is founded When also those very reasons which he has used to vindicate his Church from commanding direct Idolatry do necessarily involve all those in it who ever have conceived any vertue in Images or terminated any Worship on them and likewise shew it extreamly difficult to avoid Idolatry and almost impossible but that the vulgar should be ensnared thereby But M. Condom goes on and says That after the same manner we ought to understand that Honour which they pay to Relicks but this he says without citing the Council which Concil Trid. Sess 25. had he look'd into it would have taught him that it ought to be after a quite different manner It s decree indeed is only general that they are to be venerated by the faithful but when it comes to its Anathema it not only condemns them that say veneration ought not to be given to the Relicks of Saints or that these and other their Monuments are unprofitably Honoured but those likewise that shall say their Memories or Relicks are in vain frequented for imploring of their help So that if this be allowed to interpret the veneration it enjoyns to be given to Relicks it is far different from the Honour given to Images not only in M. Condom's sense but even in the sense of the Council for it declared no vertue to be in no trust to be reposed nothing to be hoped for from Images But in these it supposes some vertue something that may contribute help and encourages Recourse yea Pilgrimages to them for that purpose And this the Catechisms confirms so perfectly that the only argument it brings upon this Subject is to confirm the People in a confidence of help by them for it says If the Vestments Towels yea the Shadow of Cat. Rom. de Cultu Venerat the Saints when living did drive away Diseases and restore Health Who dares deny that God by the sacred Ashes Bones and other Relicks of his Saints does miraculously work the same effects with more to the same purpose And having shewn this I need not say any thing to what reasons are brought by M. Condom to justifie that which is not the declared sense of the Council yet so far as they may seem to relate to it I shall consider them in short after a necessary reflection on what is said by the Catechism to build up the People in a vain and pernitious confidence of help from them To this I say therefore it is not for them to ask us Who can deny but God may do this or that but to shew us that he does No Man will pretend to limit
much less deny the effects of God's Omnipotent Power but every Man ought to look for sufficient evidence that this or that is the effect of his Power before he believe it especially before he ground a dependance upon any thing as endued with a vertue from him to work such effects And then to what is said before this in that Catechism concerning Ibid. the miraculous effects that God was pleased to work at the Sepulchres of the Saints and Martyrs in the Primitive times of the Church I answer That God's doing such things then is no argument that he does the like now neither does it give us any more ground to expect the like than his empowering Men to work Miracles to presume on him for the same power still Besides we know God was pleased in condescension to Mens infirmities to win them over by means that ministred to that love of the present World and the advantages of it which Christianity being received obliged them to cast off So that to assure Men or give them hopes of those things from the Saints which God assures them not of from their Christianity is still to maintain in Men those affections to the present World which are inconsistent with their Profession and the ready way to cause them to set up the Saints in the highest place of their affection when they are taught to have recourse to these for such things of the present World which God has given them no absolute promise to supply And therefore 't is in vain for M. Condom to urge us to consider That they Honour them as Victims that have been offered to God when the Honour that is paid them is not barely upon this account as he would insinuate but upon a quite different score That of obtaining help from them the hope of which from others may easily alienate a Man from God when he seeks not in all his necessities immediately to him alone Whereas he invites us further to consider how a Man's love to another propagates itself without being divided to his Children Friends and after that by several degrees to the Representation of him to any remains of him and to any thing that renews it in his remembrance and that Honour has the like Progression and that the Exterior Worship he might have added also Interior for such they give to Saints in mental supplication and seem to do the same when they confide in them and frequent their Relicks for help has its source in God himself and returns back to him so that this Worship which himself alone animates cannot create his Jealousie To say that God himself animates a Worship which they presume to frame for him and foolishly give to others out of a pretence of Honouring him upon so little grounds from their Christianity does very ill beseem a Bishop But questionless he clean forgot himself when he would have us gather from the Progress he marks of Love how pleasing this Honour that has the like Progression must be to God when the Author of the Book of Wisdom cap. 14. vers 15. has shewn us that foolish affection thus propagating itself to have been one of the chief originals of Idolatry An instance enough to make all Men afraid how through a fond zeal and carnal fancy they frame the Worship of God according to their own pleasing Notions As vain and altogether as unbecoming is his other conceit That as God is not jealous of the love of Men when they love their Neighbour for the love of him no more can he be thought to be of his Honour when out of a respect to him we Honour those whom he has Honoured For dares he say that by the Honour God has given to his Saints he has made them the objects of our Worship as he has our Neighbour the object of our Love Might not the Pharisees with greater reason and shew of wisdom have pleaded for their Corban that God being to be Honoured before and above their Parents what was vowed or designed to his Honour could not without high offence be given to their Parents and yet does not our blessed Saviour tell them that hereby they made void the Commandment of God Since M. Condom is willing after all to acknowledg a Power in his Church to abate of these things according to the Exigencies of Times that her Children might not be slavishly subject to sensible things as it makes but little for the Credit of his Church which has endeavoured to impose such things on those who only desired to be disentangled from them professing them to be Clogs that kept down their Souls and depressed them in their flight to Heaven and has thereby caused so great Division in the Church of Christ so I hope it gives us ground to say it is now high time to abate them to her Children that have so long lain under the Burthen But what great part of our Controversies are abated by this better understanding he pretends to have given us I am not able to see after so close a Consideration Then for the things he concludes with That it is great Injustice to accuse their Church of placing all her Piety in these Devotions to Saints It is a great deal more than ought to be that she places so great a part of it therein and if any have censured her as placing all or the chief of it therein themselves have given too just occasion for this Censure by their unwarrantable Means that are used among them to make men vainly zealous of these Devotions But such a Conclusion as he ends with I should little have expected from a person that has treated hitherto with such seeming Moderation To say their Church was obliged to condemn all that reject this Practice as being obliged not to suffer any Practice which is beneficial to Salvation to be despised nor a Doctrine authorized by Antiquity to be condemned by Novellists is very strange in a man that has not pretended to prove this Practice beneficial to Salvation nor at all shewed it to be authorized by Antiquity and has scarce been able by all that he has endeavoured to vindicate from absolute and direct Idolatry not in the least from leading unavoidably to it SECT VI. Of Justification NOT to dispute as yet whether this Point be the principal or was proposed by the Reformers as the most essential Cause of their Separation if M. Condom thought it so he has taken but little pains to represent the Doctrine of his Church in a Point so material out of sixteen Chapters of the Council on that Subject to mention but two Passages neither of which express the Substance of their Doctrine Whereby he has occasioned me the Trouble of drawing an Abstract of their Sentiments out of the Council before I can free my self from his confused Expressions or propose the Doctrine of the Church of England upon this Subject thereby to determine the Matters in Dispute The Council of Trent then concerning
than so he still may glory in his works though not as wrought by himself What he adds out of another Session will come to be considered in its proper place but so far as it relates to the point in hand that they confess man has nothing to glory nor for which he may confide in himself is true but it is upon this ground they confess it that we can do nothing of our selves but all through Christ who strengthens us not upon any supposition that what a man has wrought through Christ that strengthened him may not be confided in as meritorious upon that score for though the Council says we merit and satisfie in Christ it can mean no more than through his assistance that enables us to do such works for it sticks not to say the fruits worthy of Repentance have a virtue in them though drawn from him as wrought by his grace Besides there is ground enough to conceive that they make some distinction between the satisfactory works of Penance which are spoken of in that Session and those good works which it speaks of here in the business of Justification so that what is spoken of the merit of them cannot be drawn into consequence to prove that they understand no greater merit in these which are works of a different nature and whose virtue is endeavoured to be set forth to a different purpose viz. of meriting eternal life whereas the other pretends only to the satisfaction of adebt of temporal punishment Now then to subjoin the Doctrine of the Church of England in this point which teaches 1 Hom. of good Works Part 2. That such Works only are good which are done in obedience to God's Commandments 2 Ib. Par. 1. That no Works done without Faith are pleasing to God in that the measures of them are not taken from the facts themselves but from the ends out of which they are done 3 Hom. of Justifie Par. 2. That though a man do never so many good Works yet we must renounce the merit of all our virtues and good deeds which we either have done shall door can do as things far too weak and insufficient to deserve at God's hands 4 Ib. Par. 3. our imperfection being so great through original sin that all is imperfect that is within us and therefore cannot merit 5 Art 12. That albeit good Works which are the fruits of Faith and follow after Justification cannot put away our sins and endure the severity of God's Judgment yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God 6 Hom. of Faith Par. 2. That true Faith is always productive of them and they are inseperable from it By this we may frame the comparison and find that both agree in this That good works are necessary to a Christian that they are pleasing and acceptable to God being done both in obedience to his will and out of the power of his grace that all Christian works proceed from grace that a man cannot glory in himself on this score but in Christ the Author and Finisher of them But then the difference lies First in that the Church of England says our good works though pleasing to God cannot bear the Tryal if examined by the rigour of his Justice They on the other side That a Christian by his works wrought in God does satisfie the Divine Law with respect to the present state We again disclaim all assiance in our works as things insufficient to deserve Remission of sins or merit for us eternal life They on the other side profess our works to have that intrinsick value in them upon the account of their being the effects of grace as that a Christian may be truly said to have merited by them that eternal life which he shall obtain in time if he depart this life in a state of grace These being the Two Points whereon depends the Dispute I am not moved by any thing said here by M. Condom in vindication of his Churches Sentiments to recede in the least what the Church of England has declared and professed concerning them For though the Precepts Exhortations Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel shew that we must work out our own Salvation by the grace of God assisting us yet they shew not that what is done by us does merit our Salvation or can in justice claim it of God Neither is it altogether so just that his Church should use the Word Merit to express the acceptableness of good Works with God since She limits it to a Sense different from what was anciently understood thereby Nor will I fear to maintain That those who will have the Works of Christians to merit Heaven of their own intrinsick value though supposing that value still arising from its being wrought by Grace do hold a Tenet prejudicial to the Faith whilst they hold not the Grace of God through Christ again necessary to accept of that to such a reward which the intrinsick worth of it does not deserve nor his free Mercy in bestowing Eternal Life according to his promise For though the first Principle producing such works the help granted through Christ be heavenly yet seeing that Grace does not immediately produce the work but by co-oporating with the Soul of man infected with Concupiscence it cannot be said either that such works are truly perfect or that they can demand a reward as if they had been the Effects of Grace alone without the Allay that Concupiscence and humane Weakness gives to abate their value Nor will I decline to say that he that shall maintain the Merit of our good works such as truly merit eternal Life is thereby injurious to the Merits of Christ for since the Scripture not only accounts Grace whereby good works are wrought to be given us of his Merits but likewise that Eternal Life is the Gift of God through Christ He that shall ascribe his Merits to the first Effect Rom. 6. alone and not acknowledge them to the second does not make that acknowledgment of the Merits of Christ which the Scriptures do oblige These Gentlemen may hence see by this upon what account we think them injurious to the Merits of Christ and his Grace notwithstanding their Confessions that they are not acceptable to God but by and in him because they think themselves acceptable for the value of their works which they may still say are acceptable in and by him because Effects of his Grace but we think require a further Grace still the Mercy of God through Christ accepting them to such effect as they are not worthy of Neither do the Three Points which M. Condom thinks so decisive as to this Matter shewn out of the Council give us any full satisfaction viz. That our Sins are pardoned us out of pure Mercy for the sake of Jesus Christ That we are indebted for that Justice which is in us by the Holy Ghost to a Liberality bestowed on us gratis That all the good works we
3 Cap. 4. That Contrition is a grief of mind joyned with the hatred of sin and a purpose of sinning no more which although sometimes it may reconcile to God yet that effect is not to be ascribed to it alone without a desire of the other parts of this Sacrament That Attrition nevertheless or sorrow arising from the fear of punishment and filthiness of sin which is not perfect Contrition so it exclude an intention of sinning again with hope of pardon is the gift of God and though without the Sacrament of itself it cannot justifie us yet in the Sacrament it disposes a man for receiving the grace of God 4 Cap. 5. That by the Institution of this Sacrament an entire confession of sins is by Divine Law necessary to all that fall after Baptism God having made his Ministers Judges to whom all mortal sins are to be laid open that they may pronounce the sentence of their Remission or Non-remission 5 Cap. 6. That although their Absolution be but the Dispensation of another's gift yet they are not barely Ministers to pronounce or declare to the Church forgiveness of sins but their sentence is a Judicial act and to be look'd upon ratified as the sentence of a Judge and being of this nature is not to be esteemed valid unless the Priest has a serious intention of pronouncing the sentence of Absolution 6 Cap. 8. That when God remits the sin he does not always remit the punishment altogether that so the order of his Justice requires him to proceed that therefore there is a necessity of those satisfactory Punishments or Penances which are imposed after Absolution to appease the Divine Justice Now by this view of their Doctrine we may discern how far the practice of Penance in this Church differs from the use it ought to have in the Church of Christ The satisfactions or penitential works which by the Church should be first imposed and enjoyned the sinner to work in him a true humiliation that thereby being satisfied of his true repentance it may with authority pronounce him absolved from those sins whereof the cure is presumed are in this Church imposed after it has warranted the Absolution to an unheard of end the satisfaction of Divine Justice Then again it exceeds its authority in warranting Absolution before it has procured the only condition to which the Gospel tenders it Repentance The Church of Rome does indeed acknowledge Contrition or the sorrow that worketh true Repentance to be a part of this Sacrament but yet she does not make it absolutely necessary but allows it to be supplied by something that is not perfect Contrition even the Council you see declares Attrition to be not only the gift of God but that which does dispose a man for God's pardon in this Sacrament which is in effect to say that what is wanting to true Repentance is supplied by submitting our sins to the Church in Confession and the sentence or acquittal of the Priest thereupon That this is indeed their meaning is more plain from their Catechism which first its true sets forth Cat. Trid. de Confess Sac. Poenit. the great benefit and advantage of Contrition yet afterwards as if that were not the only condition of pardon tendred in the Gospel it requires that the people be further taught That although it must be confess'd that our sins are blotted out by Contrition yet inasmuch as few arrive to so great a degree of sorrow for them as that requires they are therefore but very few that can place their hope of pardon in that way wherefore it was necessary that our most merciful Lord should provide for the common salvation of mankind by an easier way which out of his wise counsel he did when he delivered the Keys of his heavenly Kingdom to his Church For according to the Doctrin of the Catholick Faith it must be believed and constantly affirmed by all that if a man be but so affected in his mind as to be sorry for the sins he has committed intending withal not to sin for the time to come although he have not that sorrow which is sufficient to obtain forgiveness yet when he shall have duly confess'd his sins unto the Priest all his sins shall be remitted and forgiven to him by the power of the Keys so that it was deservedly said by our forefathers that by the Keys of the Church an entrance is opened into the Kingdom of Heaven of which it is not lawful for anyman to doubt since it is decreed by the Council of Florence That the effect of the Sacrament of Penance is Absolution from our sins Joyn then but this to their Doctrine of Satisfactions Indulgences and Purgatory and we shall see how full of Poysons all this Composition of their Discipline is while the people are first taught and perswaded that their sins are cured by the sentence of Absolution once pronounced that this supplies the defects of their Repentance and opens them an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven that the Penances after imposed are not enjoyned as though their sins were not wholly pardoned but to extinguish a debt of temporal punishment that there is a stock of satisfactions remaining in the Church performed by others which they may procure by Indulgences to be applied to themselves that having this Absolution at their death they are not to doubt but that their sins are absolved and so there is no more to be feared than some pains in Purgatory and those to be ransomed too if any friends after their death will but purchase certain Services to give them ease or if themselves leave but enough to purchase these endeavours for their acquittal Who sees not that this destroys our common Christianity of which I suppose M. Condom so sensible that he durst not propose any thing of his Churches Doctrine in this point knowing that all his extenuations could not secure it from being prejudicial to the truth Extream Vnction Extream Unction being pretended to derive its Institution from St. James if we consider his words we shall better apprehend whether the Church of England be in the right in excluding it from the Sacraments Cap. 5. v. 14. Is any sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him and anoint him with oyl in the Name of the Lord and the Prayer of Faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him Here the Apostle directs the sick to call for the Elders of the Church whom we allow to be the Ministers and this questionless for their assistance to those effects which the Apostle orders them to assist them in The means to which he directs are two to pray over them and anoint them with oyl in the Name of the Lord and this in order to two ends the recovery of the sick and the remission of sins Now to both these
measure of it to another and consequently we must still labour and pray to him 3 1 Thess 3. 10. to encrease our faith As we have therefore received Christ so we must walk in him 4 Eph. 4. 15. growing up unto him in all things which is our Head from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh encrease of the body unto the edifying of itself in love and for this end hath God ordained Publick Officers in his Church 6 Eph. 4. 12. for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ wherefore God hath made them able Ministers of the New Testament 7 2 Cor. 3. 6. even Ministers of the spirit that giveth life 8 1 Cor. 3. 5. Ministers by whom we believe even as the Lord gives to every man When we have therefore received the spirit and faith we must desire 9 1 Pet. 2. 2. to grow thereby and as grown men too we must desire this food of the Lord's Table to continue our strength of which being made partakers the Lord doth grant us 10 Eph. 3. 16 19. to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith and being rooted and grounded in love may comprehend and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge and be filled with all the fulness of God Hereby therefore all that M. Condom argues from the Doctrines of the Reformed in this point falls to nothing that which he urges against those who say the Sacraments are bare signs proves nothing to the prejudice of the Church of England which I have shewn accounts them to be Seals exhibitive of the body and blood of Christ So for the advantage that he builds upon from the Gallican Catechism which he tells us teaches That though Christ be truly communicated to us both by Baptism and the Gospel yet nevertheless it is only in part and not fully I for my own part should not stick to say as much and I presume the reason given above for the necessity of this Sacrament will abundantly justifie me in it and that I need not upon this account be forced to hold any other participation of Christ in the holy Sacrament than that by spiritual faith Nor should I stick to say what the Gallican Confession does concerning our partaking of Christ's substance namely Although Christ be in Heaven there to remain till he come to judge the World yet we believe that through the secret and incomprehensible power of his spirit he nourisbeth and quickneth us by the substance of his body and blood apprehended or received by faith Nor need I by this be obliged to allow the substance of Christ to be otherwise than spiritually eaten or that our union is any other than the participation of his quickning spirit As little is the advantage he pretends from another thing in their Catechism That the body of our Lord Jesus offered to reconcile us to God is now given to assure us of that reconciliation it having been shewn how our blessed Saviour is truly tendred to that effect in this holy Sacrament and yet that Christ is to be received spiritually and by faith to that effect also that with this Doctrine there may be and is an apparent distinction maintained between the participation of Christ and that of his benefits Having thus shewn his Objections all invalid I need not enter into a particular discussion of the large Harangue he makes upon them which is no other than an illusion But to shew him that is so good at finding out difficulties for us that we need not seek far to find some for them Let him resolve us according to their Principles First How Christ being as they say bodily and wholly received by them into their bowels there should be any need of receiving this Sacrament more than once They cannot use the answer insisted on by us for that they plead they receive him not by faith spiritually and to find a way of solving it they must shew how Christ that is once truly received into their bodies goes out again Again Let them shew us how the body and blood of Christ which being bodily present is also bodily received and eaten both by good and bad should turn to the salvation of one and damnation of the other when our Saviour saith whoso eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood hath eternal life Joh. 6. 54. They cannot say the one eats him spiritually the other not since they make the sacramental eating not to be spiritual both therefore eating him sacramentally we are to look for a reason of its different effects Nay let them shew us how when Christ tells us his flesh profiteth nothing which must necessarily be understood if carnally received according to the gross conception of those that questioned how he would give them his flesh to eat their eating it which is no other than taking the substance of his flesh into their bodies should be at all profitable to eternal life SECT XIII Of Transubstantiation and Adoration c. TO return then with M. Condom to consider their Doctrine of Transubstantiation and Adoration consequent upon it I shall not dispute with him whether those species or accidents that remain supposing according to their Doctrine the substance of the Elements changed be a sign or not But having shewn from the plain words of our Lord and evident testimonies of the Apostles that the sense of our Lord's words infer no such corporal presence of Christ as they suppose nor any such change of the Elements as they call Transubstantiation and likewise shewn all that this Gentleman seeks to prove it by insignificant I may well conclude the Church of Rome has in this point set up a new Doctrine of Faith even destructive of the Faith inasmuch as it decrees and commands Adoration even the honour due to God himself to be given to this Sacrament Which Concil Trid. Sess 13. c. 5. many of themselves confess to be Idolatry supposing this first Doctrine of Transubstantiation false Nor will it signifie any thing to say as M. Condom That some of the most learned and intelligent of the Reformed have granted those who are perswaded of the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament ought to pay him in it their adorations who they are that have said so much I am not concerned to search possibly some may have said that if he was indeed really present as they say Adoration ought to be given to him but none I believe that all who are perswaded of its being so ought to pay it him there so as to imply that men ought upon a perswasion that may be false to venture
upon an action that is Idolatry if it should be false without examining the grounds on which they hold such a vain perswasion and destructive practice Questionless we are to adore God wherever he is present yet to pay our Adorations where he has not assured his presence though we fondly imagine it shall not excuse us from Idolatry SECT XIV Of the Sacrifice of the Mass COncerning this the Church of England declares Article 31. Articles of the the Church of England Article 31. The offering of Christ once made is that perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the Sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for sin but that alone Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it was commonly said that the Priests did offer Christ for the quick and dead to have remission of pain or guilt were blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits Nevertheless it must be observed that she does not stick to call the holy Sacrament 1 Thanksgiving after the Communion A Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving 2 Ibid. yea and to plead before God the Merits and Death of his Son that through faith in his blood we and all his whole Church may obtain Remission of sins and all other benefits of his Passion So that she does not deny it to be after some sort propitiatory Further She directs us most fully to render our souls and bodies an acceptable Sacrifice to the service of Almighty God So that whilst M. Condom has thus ambiguously explicated their Doctrine the difference does not appear so great as really it is for the Church of Rome is not content if we say that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving or a commemorative Sacrifice representing that upon the Cross but requires Concil Trid. Sess 22. can 3. that we acknowledge it a true propitiatory Sacrifice and decrees Anathema against all that do not own it to be truly such So that when M. Condom tells us from the Council of Trent That this Sacrifice is instituted only to represent that which was once accomplished on the Cross to perpetuate the Memory of it and to apply its saving Virtue for the remission of sins which we daily commit All this must be allowed true and the proper ends of the Institution of the Holy Sacrament But the Council pleads them for the Institution of a different thing a Sacrifice as distinct from a Sacrament as is plain in that very Sess 22. cap. 1. Chapter Which is more fully exprest in the Catechism which teaches That the Eucharist was instituted by our Lord for Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Euch. Sacrif Two Causes one to be our heavenly Food and to preserve us in our spiritual Life the other That the Church might have a perpetual Sacrifice for the expiation of Sins Then it tells us that these two Ends are greatly different the Sacrament is perfected by the Consecration but the efficacy of the Sacrifice consists in its being offered Wherefore the Eucharist whilst it is in the Pyx or when it is carried to the Sick is only a Sacrament not a Sacrifice Again as a Sacrament it is only Matter of Merit to them that receive but as a Sacrifice it is effectual both to Merit and Satisfaction for as Christ by his Sufferings merited and satisfied for us so those that offer Concil Trid. Sess 22. this Sacrifice merit the Fruits of his Passion and satisfie also Hereupon the Council further decrees 1 Cap. 2. That this Sacrifice be offered as propitiatory not only for the Sins Punishments satisfactions and other Necessities of the Living but likewise for the Dead that are not throughly purged from their Guilt And then 2 Cap. 6. It approves and commends private Masses wherein the Priest alone communicates offering the Sacrifice for all the People Thence 3 Can. 3. It condemns those who say it is profitable only to them that communicate or that say it ought not to be offered for the Sins Punishments Satisfactions and other Necessities both of the Dead and Living The whole Dispute then ought not to be reduced to the Real Presence only as M. Condom would perswade us but to these further Queries First Upon what ground they make our Saviour in the Institution of his last Supper to have instituted it to a different Purpose than that of a Sacrament so as it may be a Sacrament to a man when it is not a Sacrifice and a Sacrifice propitiatory for them that partake not of it as a Sacrament Secondly Upon what ground they make this Action as a Sacrifice distinct from that of communicating propitiatory for the Quick and Dead Thirdly Upon what account they attribute a certain Satisfaction to this offering of Christ which a man obtains not by partaking of his Body and Blood in the Sacrament whereas if all the virtue be by them confess'd to be from Christ's Sacrifice upon the Cross he that is a partaker of Christ must certainly by being so be partaker of all the Merits and Satisfaction of his Death Fourthly Upon what ground they warrant their private Masses to be propitiatory for particular persons whether dead or living for whom they offer them having no warrant from their Christianity to make application of his Merits to them in this way Nor does any thing said by M. Condom give us the least satisfaction to these Demands for he shews us but a very insufficient ground upon which he does not doubt but this Action as distinct from that of communicating makes God propitious to us viz. because it represents his Son Christ unto him as crucified For to ground a Hope he should have shewn us a Promise that God would be propitious upon such a Representation We doubt not but Jesus Christ presenting himself before the face of God is powerful in his intercession for us but what assurance have we that upon every fancied Representation of ours we can cause him thus to present himself For presume him present from the Consecration we cannot till the End to which his Presence is applied by private Masses be first shewn to be the End of Christ's Institution and blessing Bread and Wine to be used to such a purpose and after such a way Nor does M. Condom pretend to shew us by what authority his Church warrants the application of this Sacrifice to the Dead that are in Purgatory-pains or to the Living that come not to partake thereof View then but this Doctrine which the Church of Rome maintains that as it is a Sacrifice it is more available than as a Sacrament that as a Sacrifice it is applied to those who do not partake of it as a Sacrament that also as such it is propitiatory for the sins punishments satisfactions and all other necessities not of the living only but likewise of the dead and judge whether this Doctrine does not in effect yea in reality void the
a thing very greatly to be feared whilst the substance under it is the blood of Christ. Thirdly Many men cannot abide the taste nor smell of wine wherefore that that which was ordained for spiritual health might not prejudice the health of the Body it was very wisely enacted by the Church that all her faithhful Children should receive one kind alone To this may be added other reasons That in some Countries wine is scarce and cannot be gotten without long and tedious Journeys But that which is most of all to the purpose the Heresie of such was to be rooted out as declared whole Christ to be under both Species and said the Body only was contained in the bread and the blood in the wine But he further tells us That the Church has reserved to her self the re-establishment of both kinds according as it should become more advantagious to Peace and Unity 'T is well she has kept to herself a Power of re-establishing that which she never had Power to dis-establish but how forward she has been to do any thing towards Peace and Unity all the World sees by her sirst occasioning so great a breach by this very thing And to me her last reason that she gives makes it evident that she still maintains and justifies her Sacriledg which robs Christians of their Birthright to the apparent prejudice of Peace yea to the rendring Unity impossible unless men will part with their Christianity But it 's most ridiculous when he comes to conclude from the concession of some Protestants That bread alone might be administred in case a man made protestation of a natural aversion to wine that therefore according to the Principles of the Reformed the matter in question regards not Faith and so is altogether in the Power of the Church For without determining whether their decision be right or wrong can it be argued from them that allow the Church may administer it only in one Species in case of such necessity that therefore the Church has authority to refuse administring it in both wheresoever she pleases to refuse it Can it be said that those who allow her a Power to dispense with some in case of absolute necessity do thereby allow her any Power to prohibit all People who are not comprehended in the case and being not comprehended look upon themselves greatly injured by being thus deprived of it And whereas he infers from hence that it regards not Faith his argument is as strong as if because the Jews were not circumcised in the Wilderness it should be said the Synagogue might have dispensed afterwards with that Law and said that Circumcision was not essentially necessary to a Jew because in a case of necessity where it could not be used Jews had lived without it SECT XVII Of the written and unwritten Word WHereas he says That the unwritten Word was the first Rule of Christianity and when the Writings of the New Testament were added this did not lose its Authority so that whatever was taught by the Apostles by Writing or Word of Mouth is to be received with equal veneration and that it is a sign that a Doctrine comes from the Apostles when it is universally received by all Christian Churches without any possibility of shewing its beginning I must not admit it but with these limitations First That nothing shall be imposed on us as a Doctrine coming from the Apostles but what shall evidently appear to have been universally received by all Christian Churches without beginning and that as fully to in all the parts of it that shall now be pleaded for For it is in vain to tell us that some things were delivered by the Apostles by Word of Mouth and those that have been from the beginning so received in the Christian Church universally throughout all Ages and Places ought to be looked upon as such unless what ever they would have us submit to as such be made appear so to be Secondly That these Traditions be not acknowledged of themselves sufficient to build any matter of Faith upon and this for two Reasons one because we cannot have that certainty of these as ought to be had to ground any thing as necessary to salvation of this all the Scriptures are an evident proof for undoubtedly the Apostles wrote not any thing to their Churches which they had not by preceding instructions gave them ability to understand notwithstanding which we see those instructions are now in great part lost though the Scriptures are preserved and they were so soon gone out of the Church that in a few Ages after the Apostles we find men giving them divers interpretations The other because we are told The Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3. 15. which though spoken of the Writings of the Old Testament yet since none can deny the Divine Providence to have had the same end in ordering and inspiring the Writers of both namely that the Scriptures should be written for our Learning is as undeniable a Truth with reference to the New as Old Testament so that whatsoever is necessary to salvation must be either contained in or deducible from them Whereupon the Church of England professes That Holy Scripture containeth Art 6. all things necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be requiredof any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation These exceptions which were necessary in respect of the premises laid down are altogether needless if we look to the Conclusion inferred viz. That we ought not to wonder if they being careful to gather all their Fathers left them should conserve the Deposition of Tradition as well as that of the Scriptures Certainly no man ever blamed the Church of Rome for keeping the Tradition she received from the Apostles but for setting up Traditions that were never deposited with her much less with the whole Church The Council of Trent indeed in its first Decree is very reserved concerning Traditions and speaks cautiously thus The Holy Synod finding Christ's Truth and Holy Discipline partly in Scriptures and partly in unwritten Traditions which either were taken from Christ's Mouth by the Apostles or were Sess 4. delivered by the Apostles themselves inspired by the Holy Ghost and have passed as it were from hand to hand to us and following the example of the Orthodox Fathers doth with the like Religious affection receive all the Books of the New and Old Testament as also the Traditions themseves pertaining to Faith and Manners But under this fair pretence of receiving Traditions either taken from Christ's Mouth or delivered by the Apostles themselves and passed from hand to hand unto them they make their Decrees by Traditions of a quite different nature Traditions of yesterday such as appear neither always nor universally received abusing likewise their more ancient to justifie all the abuses time
and superstition brought in Thus they pretend their Decree for the Worship of Saints and Relicks and the use of Images according to the Tradition or received Practice of the Catholick Church in the first times and consent of Fathers and Decrees of Councils when yet M. Condom contents himself with Tradition but from the fourth Century if we would allow it him And so the Gentlemen do well to plead that we should receive a Doctrine as coming from the Apostles when it is universally received without possibility of shewing its beginning by all Christian Churches thereby to obtrude that which had no beginning in it for three hundred years Thus they Decree Indulgences to have been in use in the Church in the most ancient times when yet they could not but be sensible that the use of them was perverted to a quite different purpose from its antient end and notwithstanding their desire that they might be restored to ancient Custom yet we know the Novel is still the modern practice Thus for Purgatory the Council commands that sound Doctrine be taught concerning it from the ancient Fathers when no such thing appears either anciently or universally in the Church And yet at another time that which Christ himself hath taught and was delivered both to and from the Apostles shall not serve to make it necessary Thereupon it Decrees Sess 21. cap. 1. That though Christ instituted the Sacrament under both kinds and delivered it in both to his Apostles yet this does not bind all men to receive it in both Now then for these men to press Traditions on us when they will neither let us know what nor how many they are nor prescribe any bounds to them nor six any certain Rules to discern them by nor be obliged themselves to stand by them and under that pretence to come now fifteen hundred years after the Apostles and impose on us the single Tradition of one Church nay not only her ancient and original Traditions but Novelties foisted in to maintain her corruptions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and ancient Tradition And all this to decline an indifferent Tryal by Scripture under pretence that all necessary Truths cannot be found therein without recourse to Tradition if putting on I say so fair a disguise to so fraudulent a purpose they urge this Argument that the Apostles delivered things by word of mouth which ought to be received as of any force to oblige us to receive all which they have the confidence to tell us comes from them What is it but a vain endeavour to impose on the World as if all men had lost common sense and understanding SECT XVIII Of the Authority of the Church UPon this subject M. Condom writes after so rambling and confused a manner that I must first be at the trouble to pick out what he designs to prove before the solidity of his Arguments can be examined His aim then I take to be couched in those words pag. 45. wherein he concludes from the Article of our Creed concerning the Holy Catholick Church That they oblige themselves to acknowledge an infallible and perpetual verity in the Universal Church Now herein he has neither expresly told us what this Universal Church is whether the Church of Rome alone or all other Christian Churches with it nor whether he means the Church collective the whole body of Christians or representative the Bishops in Council or the Pope where some fix this Infallibility But whereas he afterwards confounds the Catholick Church with the Trent Council which by her Decrees if we believe him has tied herself up that she cannot make herself Mistress of our Faith I conceive I may without offence determine that the verity he intends to prove is that there is an Infallibility resting somewhere in the Catholick Church of Rome To which if he would oblige us to consent it had been but reasonable to have sixt this Infallibility in something certain though at present I will not stand upon it but consider his Discourse which begins thus The Church being established by God to be the Guardian of Scripture and Tradition we receive the Canonical Scripture from her and let our Adversaries say what they will we doubt not but it is her Authority that principally determines them to Reverence as Divine Books Which first sentence is a manifest contradiction it being absolutely impossible that that which is established by God to be the Guardian of Scripture and the Traditor of it to others should be the Authority that makes it Scripture which it is before it is put into its Guardianship and certainly its being Scripture or a Writing of Divine Inspiration is that which makes them principally reverenced as Divine Books not that which tells us that they are so But then he gives us instances of Three Books especially which he conceives received upon that authority The Canticle of Canticles St. James and St. Jude Where in the first place the Gentleman does ill to joyn these together as believed or to be believed upon the same grounds the Canticle of Cantiles being long before the Christian Church the others since Therefore I must answer him distinctly Supposing then that which common sence is able to inform us that this Book called The Song of Songs is more antient than the Church of Christ and that the Church never had as she has never pretended to have any express Revelation whether this Book was written by inspiration from God as we believe the Law and the Prophets beside the credit upon which it received it from the Synagogue it 's certain that the only thing questionable is whether it was received by the Synagogue as divinely inspired if it appears to have been so received it is not any authority of the Christian Church that has made it Scripture and if the Church had pretended it Scripture without evidence of its being received from them or particular Revelation shewn in the case it would have been never the more a Divine Book nor any man obliged to receive it as such And I marvel the Gentleman should be carried so far by the spirit of Contradiction and desire to bear down his Christian brethren as to set up a Principle that betrays our common Christianity by giving notice to the World that those Scriptures of the Old Testament whereby the Church pretends to convince the Jews of the necessity of becoming Christians are not to be received for the Word of God but upon the authority of her own Decrees Then for the Epistle of James rejected by Luther and St. Jude by others nothing can be more manifest to any that will but take the pains to consider it that the Writings of the Apostles were first kept by and entrusted in the hands of those Churches to which they were sent as the Epistles to Corinth Rome Ephesus c. It is therefore reasonable to conceive those Writings so dispersed when collected into one body and submitted to by
to be received for the Word of God if not confirmed by the Scripture because the Motives upon which they were received cannot be as evident as those of the Scriptures Questionless no man can deny the Traditions of the Jews to be as useful for the understanding the Old Testament as any now for that of the New but then it was they perverted the Use of Traditions when they taught them for God's Commandments But that which he infers from this that has given us both so much trouble is just nothing Upon this account the Church professes she tells us nothing from herself and that she invents nothing new in her Doctrine Whoever thought that their Church ever professed the contrary or can conceive that any Church will profess otherwise the question then is not what she professes but what she has done and let me tell him that his own words are as great an argument against the Church's absolute and Infallible Authority as any can be given For if upon the account of her being established by God to be the Guardian of the Scripture and Tradition and the deliverer of them to her Children she be obliged to profess suppose what may reasonably be supposed that she be but obliged to act as she does profess that she delivers nothing new nothing from herself nothing but by the interior direction of the Holy Ghost Shall not her Authority be confined within these limits Shall she have any power to act beyond them or if she be accused as having acted against that Christianity that she ought to have maintained Shall it not be shewn de facto that she has not or if that seem too apparent Shall it be pleaded that she is infallible and cannot have acted against it though it 's visible to all but them that plead so that she has But he further tells us That there being a dispute raised in the times of the Apostles the Holy Ghost put an end to it by the Church and the method then taken by the Apostles to decide it has taught succeeding Ages by what authority all other differences are to be ended so that as often as any divisions shall happen the Church will interpose her Authority and her Pastors assembled will say after the Apostles It seemeth good unto the Holy Ghost and to us What they will say I know not I am sure this gives them no warrant to say the like It 's true this practice of the Apostles has directed the Church upon differences that have hapned to assemble its Pastors for the ending them but I see no promise here that they shall have the like assistance with the Apostles who not only had the Spirit of God at all times in a measure which no man can pretend to have now at any time but had likewise frequently immediate inspirations And if a man should think they had an immediate inspiration upon the place signifying how they should order the matter he might have grounds for his opinion very considerable inspirations being then so frequent even at the common Assemblies of Christians and St. Paul being so cautions as to difference things of his own from the Commands of the Lord although he thought himself at the same time to have the Spirit of God But whether so or not no Councils can from hence presume that the Holy Ghost will lead them into all Truth in whatsoever they take a humour to determine because Christ promised to send his Spirit to his Apostles to lead them into all Truth for the teaching and establishing our common Christianity Father Paul tells us of a Proverb which perhaps this Gentleman may have known to pass in France That the modern Council had more Authority than that of the Apostles because their own pleasure only was sufficient ground for the Decrees without admitting the Holy Ghost whether verified in this of Trent I shall not say but the ground of it is certainly possible and God that has promised to lead men by his Spirit into all Truth has not said he will lead them whether they will or no. Whereas then he says further That when the Church has spoken her Children will be taught that they ought not to examine again the Articles so resolved on but are bound humbly to receive her decisions and that they are resolved to follow the example of Paul and Silas not permitting them to be again discussed but teaching all to observe the ordinances of the Apostles He would have done well to have shewn us that the Decrees of the Trent Council are as much the acts of the Holy Ghost as that of the Apostles before he had required us to think them act as justifiably in teaching them as Paul and Silas did But by the way if he speaks this as the fix'd resolution of all their Church not to admit a new discussion of what has been decided but to require all to observe it he lets us know an excellent Resolution of his Church and how much it is for her turn that differences in Religion be everlasting But thus it is he tells us the Children of God acquiesce in the Judgment of the Church believing that from her mouth they hear the Oracle of the holy Ghost This he should have forborn to have said till he had shewn by something more than he has hitherto that God has bid his children to hear his Word from the mouth of any Church speaking without the Scripture that contains it but especially methinks he should not have presumed to say this is the ground why in our Creed having said I believe in the Holy Ghost we add immediately The holy Catholick Church if we had no other ground to believe the Holy Catholick Church than he has hitherto shewn I am sure we should have but very little for so great an Article of Faith But no wonder he builds his faith on no better grounds since he has framed a new sense of the Article of which if I convince him by the Catechism of his own Church I suppose he may be inclinable to hear it even that then teaches him That the word Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Ecclesia quibus siguris Church in this Article does chiefly denote the whole number of Believers including both good and bad not the Rulers only but those likewise who are to obey and if so I know not how a man is obliged by believing this Article to acknowledge any Infallibility in the governours of any Church or to think that if they err this Article of our Creed should become false or that he has ever the less faith in God if he apprehend or fear least the Rulers of the Church should abuse their power Whereas after this he endeavours to perswade us That the Catholick Church meaning that of Rome is so far from making herself Mistress of our Faith as she is accused that on the contrary she has done what she could to limit and deprive herself of all the means of
be obeyed Now what answer would a man give to this Certainly That the Laws of God are to be obeyed before those of men that the Christian Religion though it obliges to obey God is not destructive of Government because it commands Obedience to the Higher Powers that therefore no good Christian can or will make a pretence of Conscience to the prejudice of the Peace where there is not an absolute necessity and that he will submit even where he cannot obey If this be all the answer that can be given as it is all that ever I understood to be given in this case yet still there is a possibility left for ill men to use a pretence of Religion to disturb the Peace and still the like possibility will be left and consequently the Objection remain in as much force as that Possibility gives it so long as there is a difference possible between the Laws of God and those of our Superiors and no man will have us I hope to avoid this inconvenience to acknowledge no other God than our Superiours I say therefore thirdly That as every man has a judgment of discretion to chuse his own Religion so every Christian has the like judgment to consider whether what he submits to the belief of be consistent with his Christianity That having undertaken to be a Christian he is thereby obliged to the Authority of the Church in all cases wherein Christianity requires submission to that Authority that this having appointed means by which and set her bounds within which and established ends for which she is to determine things concerning Christian Truth he is obliged to give her Obedience whilst she provides in all things for that Christianity that she ought to maintain But if he shall perceive her in any thing to have acted beyond her Power or against the interest of Christian Religion he will consider also how necessary it is that a man mistake not in a thing wherein Christianity is so greatly concerned as it is in the Churches Peace and will thereupon seek all due and possible means of Information and if it still appear that the Church requires his Obedience where his Conscience will not give him leave to pay it he will endeavour by all the ways of Peace and Meekness to prevail with his Governours to remove the burthen and will not make a breach but where he cannot comply and hold his Christianity And whilst both Governours and Governed shall thus both regard the Laws of him that is the God of all the one taking faithful care to provide in all things for the maintenance and encrease of the Christianity the Church is entrusted to preserve the other studying in all things the Will of God and giving thanks to him for so great a help as is the Ministry of his Church and gladly entertaining what is by her shewn to be his Will from those Holy Writings wherein he has revealed it What can be more conducing to the establishment of all Christian Truth and Peace 'T is true there still lies a possibility for men upon pretence of Conscience to disturb all our Peace but the same there is of abusing the greatest grace of God And no man that will not set up his own wisdom above that of God can hope or presume though every man be bound to wish and endeavour a final end of all Controversies in Religion the Apostle having told us 1 1 Cor. 11. 19. that there must be Heresies and our blessed Lord 2 Luke 17. that Offences will come though he denounces a woe to them through whom they come Nor ought this any more to be cast as a Reflection upon those who as much as is possible and as much as in them lies labour after peace only resolving to hold the Truth that through the wickedness of some they cannot accomplish what they so earnestly pray for and endeavour after than it ought upon our Christian Religion that it is destructive of Civil Government because some have abused it as a pretence to subvert and disturb it No man certainly dares think our Saviour to be ever less the Prince of Peace or ever the less sincerely desirous of it when he left it as his peculiar Legacy to his Disciples for that out of a foresight of the unhappy Divisions of the Christian World he tells us 3 Matth. 10. 34. That he came not to send Peace on earth but a sword to set the father against the son and the son against the father All that M. Condom objects from the Actions of the Gallican Synods falls within these two Objections which I have answered I shall not therefore lengthen this Tract by a particular application there being nothing of moment but what may without difficulty be solved by one or both of these answers which I have given to that therein which seemed to be of force against the Doctrine of the Church of England in this point whose cause it is that I have undertaken SECT XX. Of the Authority of the Pope WHereas M. Condom asserts the Popes Authority from the Primacy invested by our Lord in St. Peter and the acknowledgment of this Primacy by the Holy Councils and Fathers in the Pope as St. Peter's Successor I need only deny that which he asserts without proof and am not obliged to evidence by any proofs that he has no such Authority 'till I am shewn what obedience is claimed by or given to him and his title and right thereto Their Profession of Faith is thus I acknowledg the Holy Profess Fidei Pii Quarti Catholick and Apostolick Church of Rome to be the Mother and Mistriss of all Churches And I vow and swear true Obedience to the Bishop of Rome the Successor of Peter Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ This Supremacy the Church of England denies him to have any title to a Hom. for Whitsunday Part 2. as touching that they will be termed Universal Bishops and Heads of all Christian Churches through the World we have the Judgment of Gregory expresly against them who writing to Mauritius the Emperor condemned John Bishop of Constantinople in that behalf calling him The Prince of Pride Lucifer ' s Successor c. and again b Hom. against Rebellion Part 5. The Bishop of Rome being by the order of God's Word none other than the Bishop of that one See and Diocess and never yet well able to govern the same did by intolerable ambition challenge not only to be Head of all the Church dispersed through the World but also to be Lord over all Kingdoms of the World Although he is pleased to wave those things that are disputed in the Schools concerning this extravagant Power and Authority of the Pope as not being Articles of the Catholick Faith I must tell him it would have removed great jealousies if as he has declared them not Articles of the Catholick Faith so he had owned them to be false For as the