their joining to the Idol Feasts for an Idol was nothing and so that wstich was offered to an Idol could contract no defilement from the Idol it being nothing Now if the meaning of their being partakers with Devils imports only their joining themselves in Acts of Fellowship with Idolaters then the Sin of this would have easily appeared without such a re-inforcing of the Matter For tho' an Idol was nothing yet it was still a great Sin to join in the Acts that were meant to be the Worship of this nothing This was a dishonouring of God and a debasing of Man But St. Paul seems to carry the Argument farther that how true soever it was that the Idol was nothing that is a dead and lifeless thing that had no Vertue nor Operation and that by consequence could derive nothing to the Sacrifice that was offered to it Yet since those Idols were the Instruments by which the Devil kept the World in Subjection to him all such as did partake in their Sacrifices might come under the Effects of that Magick that might be exerted about their Temples or Sacrifices By which the Credit of Idolatry was much kept up And though every Christian had a sure defence against the Powers of Darkness as long as he continued true to his Religion yet if he went out of that Protection into the Empire of the Devil and joined in the Acts that were as a Homage to him he then fell within the reach of the Devil and might justly fear his being brought into a Partnership of those magical Possessions or Temptations that might be suffered to fall upon such Christians as should associate themselves in so detestable a Service In the same Sense it was also said 1 Cor. 10.18 that all the Israelites who did eat of the Sacrifices were partakers of the Altar That is that all of them who joined in the Acts of that Religion such as the Offering their Peace-Offerings for of those of that kind they might only eat all these were partakers of the Altar That is of all the Blessings of their Religion of all the Expiations the Burnt-offerings and Sin-offerings that were offered on the Altar for the sins of the whole Congregation For that as a great Stock went in a common Dividend among such as observed the Precepts of that Law and joined in the Acts of Worship prescribed by it Thus it appears that such as joined in the Acts of Idolatry became partakers of all that Influence that Devils might have over those Sacrifices and all that continued in the Observances of the Mosaical Law had thereby a partnership in the Expiations of the Altar so likewise all Christians who receive this Sacrament worthily have by their so doing a share in that which is represented by it the Death of Christ and the Expiation and other Benefits that follow it This seemed necessary to be fully explained For this Matter how plain soever in it self has been made very dark by the ways in which some have pretended to open it With this I conclude all that belongs to the first Part of the Article and that which was first to be explained of our Doctrine concerning the Sacrament By which we assert a real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ but not of his Body as it is now glorified in Heaven but of his Body as it was broken on the Cross when his blood was shed and separated from it That is his Death with the merit and effects of it are in a visible and federal Act offered in this Sacrament to all worthy Believers By Real we understand True in opposition both to Fiction and Imagination And to those Shadows that were in the Mosaical Dispensation in which the Manna the Rock the brazen Serpent but most eminently the Cloud of Glory were the Types and Shadows of the Messias that was to come With whom came Grace and Truth that is a most wonderful Manifestation of the Mercy or Grace of God and a verifying of the Promises made under the Law In this Sense we acknowledge a real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament Though we are convinced that our first Reformers judged right concerning the use of the Phrase real Presence that it were better to be let fall than to be continued since the Use of it and that Idea which does naturally arise from the common acceptation of it may stick deeper and feed Superstition more than all thoâ—e larger Explanations that are given to it can be able to cure But howsoever in this Sense it is innocent of it self and may be lawfully used though perhaps it were more cautiously done not to use it since advantages have been taken from it to urge it farther than we intend it and since it has been a snare to some I go in the next Place to explain the Doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning this Sacrament Transubstantiation does express it in one Word but that a full Idea may be given of this Part of their Doctrine I shall open it in all its Branches and Consequences The Matter of this Sacrament is not Bread and Wine For they are annihilated when the Sacrament is made They are only the remote Matter out of which it is made But when the Sacrament is made they cease to be And instead of them their outward Appearances or Accidents do only remain Which though they are no Substances yet are supposed to have a Nature and Essence of their own separable from Matter And these Appearances with the Body of Christ under them are the Matter of the Sacrament Now though the Natural and Visible Body of Christ could not be the Sacrament of his Body yet they think his real Body being thus veiled under the Appearances of Bread and Wine may be the Sacrament of his glorified Body Yet it seeming somewhat strange to make a true Body the Sacrament of it self they would willingly put the Sacrament in the Appearances but that would sound very harsh to make Accidents which are not Matter to be the Matter of the Sacrament Therefore since these words This is my Body must be literally understood the Matter must be the true Body of Christ so that Christ's Body is the Sacrament of his Body Christ's Body though now in Heaven is as they think presented in every Place where a true Consecration is made And though it is in Heaven in an extended State as all other Bodies are yet they think that Extension may be separated from Matter as well as the other Appearances or Accidents are believed to be separated from it And whereas our Souls are believed to be so in our Bodies that though the whole Soul is in the whole Body yet all the Soul is believed to be in every Part of it but so that if any Part of the Body is separated from the rest the Soul is not divided being one single Substance but retires back into the rest of the Body They apprehend that Christ's Body is present after
whether formally or substantially or some other way Some Schoolmen thought that the Matter of Bread was destroyed but that the Form remained to be the Form of Christ's Body that was the Matter of it Others thought that the Matter of the Elements remained and that the Form only was destroyed But that to which many inclined was the Assumption of the Elements into an Union with the Body of Christ or a hypostatical Union of the eternal Word to them by which they became as truly a Body to Christ as that which he has in Heaven Yet it was not the same but a different Body Stephen Bishop of Autun was the First that fell on the Word of Transubstantiation Amalric in the beginning of the Thirteenth Century denied in express Words the corporal Presence De Sacram Altaris c. 13. He was condemned in the Fourth Council of the Lateran as an Heretick and his Body was ordered to be taken up and burnt And in opposition to him Transubstantiation was decreed Yet the Schoolmen continued to offer different Explanations of this for a great while after that But in conclusion all agreed to explain it as was formerly set forth It appears by the crude Way in which it was at first explained that it was a Novelty And that Men did not know how to mould and frame it but at last it was licked into shape the whole Philosophy being cast into such a Mould as agreed with it And therefore in the present Age in which that Philosophy has lost its Credit great Pains are taken to suppress the New and freer Way of Philosophy as that which cannot be so easily subdued to support this Doctrine as the Old one was And the Arts that those who go into the New Philosophy take to reconcile their Scheme to this Doctrine shew that there is nothing that subtile and unsincere Men will not venture on For since they make Extension to be of the Essence of Matter and think that Accidents are only the Modes of Matter which have no proper being of themselves it is evident that a Body cannot be without its Extension and that Accidents cannot subsist without their Subject so that this can be in no sort reconciled to Transubstantiation And therefore they would willingly avoid this special Manner of the Presence and only in General assert that Christ is corporally Present But the Decrees of the Lateran and Trent Councils make it evident that Transubstantiation is now a Doctrine that is bound upon them by the Authority of the Church and of Tradition And that they are as much bound to believe it as to believe the corporal Presence it self Thus the going off from the Simplicity in which Christ did deliver the Sacrament and in which the Church at first received it into some sublime Expressions about it led Men once out of the way and they still went farther and farther from it Pious and Rhetorical Figures pursued far by Men of heated Imaginations and of inflamed Affections were followed with Explanations invented by colder and more designing Men afterwards and so it increased till it grew by degrees to that which at last it settled on But after all if the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence had rested only in a Speculation tho' we should have judged those who held it to be very bad Philosophers and no good Criticks yet we could have endured it if it had rested there and had not gone on to be a matter of practice by the Adoration and Processions with every thing else of that kind which followed upon it for this corrupted the Worship The Lutherans believe a Consubstantiation and that both Christ's Body and Blood and the Substance of the Elements are together in the Sacrament That some explain by an Vbiquity which they think is communicated to the Human Nature of Christ by which his Body is every where as well as in the Sacrament Whereas others of them think that since the words of Christ must needs be true in a literal sense his Body and Blood is therefore in the Sacrament but in with and under the Bread and Wine All this we think is ill grounded and is neither agreeable to the words of the Institution nor to the nature of things A great deal of that which was formerly set forth in defence of our Doctrine falls likewise upon this The Vbiquity communicated to the Humane Nature as it seems a thing in it self impossible so it gives no more to the Sacrament than to every thing else Christ's Body may be said to be in every thing or rather every thing may be said to be his Body and Blood as well as the Elements in the Sacrament The impossibility of a Bodies being without extension or in more places at once lies against this as well as against Transubstantiation But yet after all this is only a Point of Speculation nothing follows upon it in practice no Adoration is offered to the Elements and therefore we judge that Speculative Opinions may be born with when they neither fall upon the Fundamentals of Christianity to give us false Ideas of the Essential parts of our Religion nor affect our practice and chiefly when the Worship of God is maintained in its Purity for which we see God has expressed so particular a concern giving it the Word which of all others raises in us the most sensible and the strongest Ideas calling it Iealousie that we reckon we ought to watch over this with much caution We can very well bear with some Opinions that we think ill grounded as long as they are only matters of Opinion and have no Influence neither on Mens Morals nor their Worship We still hold Communion with Bodies of Men that as we judge think wrong but yet do both live well and maintain the Purity of the Worship of God We know the great design of Religion is to govern Men's Lives and to give them right Ideas of God and of the Ways of Worshipping him All Opinions that do not break in upon these are things in which great forbearance is to be used large Allowances are to be made for Mens Notions in all other things and therefore we think that neither Consubstantiation nor Transubstantiation how ill grounded soever we take both to be ought to dissolve the Union and Communion of Churches But it is quite another thing if under either of these Opinions an Adoration of the Elements is taught and practised This we believe is plain Idolatry when an Insensible piece of Matter such as Bread and Wine has Divine Honours paid it when it is believed to be God when it is called God and is in all respects Worshipped with the same Adoration that is offered up to Almighty God This we think is gross Idolatry Many Writers of the Church of Rome have acknowledged that if Transubstantiation is not true their Worship is a strain of Idolatry beyond any that is practised among the most depraved of all the Heathens The only excuse that
Testament answered 84 Concerning the various Readings 85 The nature and degrees of Inspiration 86 Concerning the Historical parts of Scripture 87 Concerning the Reasonings in Scripture 88 Of the Apocryphal Books 89 ARTICLE VII 91 NO difference between the Old and New Testament Ibid. Proofs in the Old Testament of the Messias 92 In the Prophets chiefly in Daniel 94 The Proofs all summed up 95 Objections of the Jews answered 96 The hopes of anotheâ— Life in the Old Testament 97 Our Saviour proved the Resurrection from the words to Moses 98 Expiation of Sin in the Old Dispensation 99 Sins then expiated by the Blood of Christ Ibid. Of the Rites and Ceremonies among the Jews 100 Of their Iudiciary Laws 101 Of the Moral Law Ibid. The Principles of Morality 102 Of Idolatry 103 Concerning the Sabbath Ibid. Of the Second Table 104 Of not coveting what is our Neighbours 105 ARTICLE VIII 106 COncerning the Creed of Athanasius Ibid. And the condemning Clauses in it Ibid. Of the Apostles Creed 107 ARTICLE IX 108 DIfferent Opinions concerning Original Sin Ibid. All men liable to Death by it 109 A Corruption spread through the whole Race of Adam Ibid. Of the state of Innocence 110 Of the effects of Adam's Fall 111 God's Iustice vindicated 112 Of the Imputation of Adam's Sin 113 St. Austin's Doctrine in this Point 114 This is opposed by many others Ibid. Both sides pretend their Doctrines agree with the Article 116 ARTICLE X. 117 THE true Notion of Liberty Ibid. The Feebleness of our present state 118 Inward Assistances promised in the New Covenant 119 The effect that these have on men 120 Concerning Preventing-Grace Ibid. Of its being efficacious or universal 121 ARTICLE XI 122 COncerning Iustification Ibid. Concerning Faith 123 The differences between the Church of England and the Church of Rome in this Point 124 The conditions upon which men are justified 126 The use to be made of this Doctrine 127 ARTICLE XII 128 THE necessity of Holiness Ibid. Concerning Merit 129 Of the defects of Good Works Ibid. ARTICLE XIII 131 ACTIONS in themselves good yet may be sins in him who does them Ibid. Of the Seventh Chapter to the Romans 132 This is not a total Incapacity Ibid. ARTICLE XIV 133 Oâ— the great extent of our Duty Ibid. No Counsels of Perfection 134 Many Duties which do not bind at all times Ibid. It is not possible for man to supererogate 135 Objections against this answered 136 The steps by which that Doctrine prevailed 137 ARTICLE XV. 138 CHrist's spotless Holiness Ibid. Of the Imperfections of the best men 139 ARTICLE XVI 140 COncerning Mortal and Venial Sin Ibid. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost Ibid. Of the Pardon of Sin after Baptism 141 That as God forgives the Church ought also to forgive 142 Concerning Apostacy and sin unto Death 143 ARTICLE XVII 145 THE state of the Question 146 The Doctrine of the Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians Ibid. The Doctrine of the Remonstrants and the Socinians 147 This is a Controversy that arises out of Natural Religion Ibid. The History of this Controversy both in ancient and modern times 148 The Arguments of the Supralapsarians 152 The Arguments of the Sublapsarians 158 The Arguments of the Remonstrants 159 They affirm a certain Prescience 161 The Socinians Plea 164 General Reflections on the whole matter 165 The advantages and disadvantages of both sides and the faults of both 166 In what both do agree 167 The sense of the Article 168 The Cautions added to it Ibid. Passages in the Liturgy explained 169 ARTICLE XVIII 171 PHilosophers thought men might be saved in all Religions Ibid. So do the Mahometans Ibid. None are saved but by Christ 172 Whether some may not be saved by him who never heard of him Ibid. None are in Covenant with God but through the knowledge of Christ 173 But for others we cannot judge of the extent of the Mercies of God Ibid. Curiosity is to be restrained 174 ARTICLE XIX 175 WE ought not to believe that any are Infallible without good Authority Ibid. Iust prejudices against some who pretend to it 176 No Miracles brought to prove this Ibid. Proofs brought from Scripture 177 Things to be supposed previous to these Ibid. A Circle is not to be admitted Ibid. The Notes given of the true Church 178 These are examined Ibid. And whether they do agree to the Church of Rome 179 The Truth of Doctrine must be first settled Ibid. A Society that has a true Baptism is a true Church 180 Sacraments are not annulled by every Corruption Ibid. We own the Baptism and Orders given in the Church of Rome 181 And yet justify our separating from them Ibid. Objections against private judging 182 Our Reasons are given us for that end Ibid. Our Minds are free as our Wills are 183 The Church is still Visible but not Infallible Ibid. Of the Popes Infallibility 184 That was not pretended to in the first Ages Ibid. The Dignity of Sees rose from the Cities 185 Popes have fallen into Heresy Ibid. Their Ambition and Forgeries Ibid. Their Cruelty 186 The Power of deposing Princes claimed by them as given them by God Ibid. This was not a Corruption only of Discipline but of Doctrine 187 Arguments for the Popes Infallibility 188 No Foundation for it in the New Testament Ibid. St. Peter never clâ—imed it 189 Christ's words to him explained Ibid. Of the Kâ—ys of the Kingdâ—m of Hâ—â—vâ—n 190 Of binding and loosing Ibid. ARTICLE XX. 192 OF Church Power in Rituals Ibid. The Practice of the Jewish Church 193 Changes in these sometimes necâ—ssary Ibid. The Practice of the Ap stles 194 Sâ—bjâ—cts must obey in lawful things Ibid. But Superiâ—rs must not impose too much 195 The Church has Authority though not Infallible Ibid. Great Respâ—ct due to her Decisions 196 But no absâ—lute Submâ—ssion Ibid. The Church is the Depâ—sitary of the Scriptures 197 The Church of Rome run in a Circle Ibid. ARTICLE XXI 199 COuncils cannot be called but by the Consent of Princes Ibid. Tâ—e first were called by the Roman Emperors Ibid. Afterwards the Popes called them 200 Then some Councils thought on methods to fix their meeting Ibid. What makâ—s a Council to be General Ibid. What numbers are necessary 201 Hâ—w thâ—y must he cited Ibid. Nâ— Rules given in Scripture concerning their Constitution Ibid. Nazianzen's Complaints of Councils 202 Councils have been câ—ntrary to one another Ibid. Disâ—rders and Intriguâ—s in Councils Ibid. They judgâ— not by Inspiration Ibid. The Churches may examine their proceedings and judge of them 203 Concerning the Popes Bull confirming them Ibid. Thâ—y have an Authority but not absolute Ibid. Nâ—r do they need the Popes Bulls 204 The several Churches know their Traditions best Ibid. The Fathers do argue for the truth of the decisions but not from their authority Ibid. No prospect of another General Council 205 Popes are jealous of them Ibid. And the World expects little from them Ibid. Concerning the words
Saviour's words Ibid. The discourse Joh. 6. explained 312 It can only be understood spiritually 313 Bold Figures much used in the East Ibid. A plain thing needs no great proof 314 Of unworthy Receivers and the effect of that sin 315 Of the effects of worthy receiving Ibid. Of Foederal Symbols 316 Of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ Ibid. Of the like Phrases in Scripture 317 Of our Sense of the Phrase Real Presence Ib. Transubstantiation explained 318 Of the words of Consecration 319 Of the Consequences of Transubstantiation Ibid. The grounds upon which it was believed 320 This is contrary to the Testimony of all our Faculties both Sense and Reason Ibid. We can be sure of nothing if our Senses do deceive us 321 The Objection from believing Mysteries answered 322 The end of all Miracles considered Ibid. Our Doctrine of a Mystical Presence is confessed by those of the Church of Rome 323 St. Austin's Rule about Figures Ibid. Presumptions concerning the belief of the Ancients in this matter 324 They had not that Philosophy which this Doctrine has forced on the Church of Rome 325 This was not objected by Heathens 326 No Heresies or Disputes arose upon this as they did on all other Points 327 Many new Rituals unknown to them have sprung out of this Doctrine Ibid. In particular the adoring the Sacrament 328 Prayers in the Masses of the Saints inconsistent with it Ibid. They believed the Elements were Bread and Wine after Consecration Ibid. Many Authorities brought for this 329 Eutychians said Christ's Humanity was swallowed of his Divinity 330 The Fathers argue against this from the Doctrine of the Eucharist Ibid. The Force of that Argument explained 331 The Fathers say our Bodies are nourished by the Sacrament Ibid. They call it the Type Sign and Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ 332 The Prayer of Consecration calls it so 333 That compared with the Prayer in the Missal Ibid. The progress of the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence 334 Reflection on the Ages in which it grew 335 The occasion on which it was advanced in the Eastern Church 336 Paschase Radbert taught it first 337 But many wrote against him Ibid. Afterwards Berengarius opposed it 338 The Schoolmen descanted on it Ibid. Philosophy was corrupted to support it 339 Concerning Consubstantiation Ibid. It is an Opinion that may be born with 340 The Adoration of the Eucharist is Idolatry Ibid. The Plea against that considered Ibid. Christ is not to be worshipped though present 341 Concerning reserving the Sacrament Ibid. Concerning the Elevation of it 342 ARTICLE XXIX 343 THE wicked do not receive Christ Ibid. The Doctrine of the Fathers in this Point Ibid. More particularly St. Austin's 344 ARTICLE XXX 345 THE Chalice was given to all Ibid. Not to the Disciples as Priests Ibid. The breaking of Bread explained 346 Sacraments must be given according to the Institution Ibid. Nâ— Arguments from ill consequences to be admitted unless in cases of necessity 347 Concomitance a new Notion Ibid. Vniversal practice for giving the Chalice Ibid. The case of the Agrarii 348 The first beginning of taking away the Cup Ibid. The Decree of the Council of Constance 349 ARTICLE XXXI 350 THE term Sacrifice of a large signification Ibid. The Primitive Christians denied that they had any Sacrifices Ibid. The Eucharist has no virtue but as it is a Communion 351 Strictly speaking there is only one Priest and one Sacrifice in the Christian Religion 352 The Fathers did not think the Eucharist was a Propitiatory Sacrifice 353 But call it a Sacrafice in a larger sense Ibid. Mâ—sses without a Communion not known then 354 None might be at Mass who did not communicate Ibid. The Importance of the Controversies concerning the Eucharist 355 ARTICLE XXXII 356 NO Divine Law against a Married Clergy Ibid. Neither in the Old or New Testament but the contrary 357 The Church has not Power to make a perpetual Law against it Ibid. The ill consequences of such a Law 358 No such Law in the first Ages Ibid. When the Laws for the Celibate began 359 The practice of the Church not uniform in it Ibid. The progress of these Laws in England 360 The good and the bad of Celibate balanced Ibid. It is not lawful to make Vows in this matter 361 Nor do they bind when made Ibid. Oaths ill made are worse to be kept 362 ARTICLE XXXIII 363 A Temper to be observed in Church Discipline Ibid. The necessity of keeping it up Ibid. Extremes in this to be avoided 364 Concerning the delivering any to Satan Ibid. The Importance of an Anathemea 365 Of the effect of Church-Censures Ibid. What it is when they are wrong applied 366 The causless jealousy of Church-Power Ibid. How the Laity was once taken into the exercise of it 367 The Pastors of the Church have Authority Ibid. Defects in this no just cause of Separation 368 All these brought in by Popery Ibid. A Correction of them intended at the Reformation 369 ARTICLE XXXIV 370 THE Obligation to obey Canons and Laws Ibid. The great Sin of Schism and Disobedience 371 The true Notion of Scandal Ibid. The fear of giving Scandal no warrant to break established Laws 372 Human Laws are not unalterable Ibid. The Respect due to Ancient Canons 373 The Corruptions of the Canon Law Ibid. Great Varieties in Rituals Ibid. Every Church is a compleat Body 374 ARTICLE XXXV 375 THE occasion of compiling the Homilies Ibid. We are not bound to every thing in them Ibid. But only to the Doctrine 376 This illustrated in the Charge of Idolatry Ib. What is meant by their being necessary for those times Ibid. ARTICLE XXXVI 377 THE occasion of this Article Ibid. An Explanation of the words Receive ye the Holy Ghost 378 ARTICLE XXXVII 379 QVeen Elizabeth's Injunction concerning the Supremacy Ibid. The Popes Vniversal Iurisdiction not warranted by any of the Laws of Christ 380 Nor acknowledged in the first Ages 381 Begun on the occasion of the Arian Controversy Ibid. Contested in many places 382 The Progress that it made Ibid. The Patriarchal Authority founded on the division of the Roman Empire sunk with it 383 The Power exercised by the Kings of Judah in Religious Matters Ibid. That is founded on Scriptures 384 Practised in all Ages Ibid. And particularly in England 385 Methods used by Popish Princes to keep the Ecclesiastical Authority under the Civil Ibid. The Temporal Power is over all persons 386 And in all causes Ibid. The Importance of the Term Head 387 The Necâ—ssity of Capital Punishments Ibid. The measure of these 388 The Lawfulness of War Ibid. Our Saviour's words explained Ibid. In what cases War is juâ—t 389 Warranted by the Laws of God 390 How a Subject may serve in an unlawful War Ibid. ARTICLE XXXVIII 391 COncerning Property and Charity Ibid. The Proportion of Charity to the Poor 392 ARTICLE XXXIX 393 THE Lawfulness of Oaths proved Ibid. From Natural Religion and
the Scriptures Ibid. The Form of Swearing among the Jews 394 Our Saviour's words and St. James's against all Swearing explained 395 When Oaths may be lawfully taken 396 The End of the Table of the Contents AN EXPOSITION OF THE XXXIX ARTICLES OF THE Church of England TITLE Articles whereupon it was agreed by the Archbishops and Byshops of both Provinces and the whole Cleargie in the Convocation holden at London in the yeare of our Lorde GOD 1562. according to the computation of the Church of Englande for the avoiding of the diversities of opinions and for the stablishing of consent touching true Religion Put forth by the Queens authoritie The INTRODUCTION THE Title of these Articles leads me to consider 1. The Time the Occasion and the Design of Compiling them 2 dly The Authority that is stampt upon them both by Church and State and the Obligation that lies upon all of our Communion to Assent to them and more particularly the Importance of the Subscription to which the Clergy are obliged As to the 1 st It may seem somewhat strange to see such a Collection of Tenets made the Standard of the Doctrine of a Church that is deservedly valued by reason of her Moderation This seems to be a departing from the Simplicity of the First Ages which yet we pretend to set up for a Pattern In those times the owning the Belief of the Creeds then received was thought sufficient And when some Heresies had occasioned great Enlargements to be made in the Creeds the Third General Council thought fit to set a Bar against all further Additions and yet all those Creeds one of which goes far beyond the Ephesine Standard make but One Article of the Thirty nine of which this Book consists Many of these do also relate to subtile and abstruse Points in which it is not easy to form a clear Judgment and much less can it be convenient to Impose so great a Collection of Tenets upon a whole Church to Excommunicate such as affirm any of them to be erroneous and to reject those from the Service of the Church who cannot Assent to every one of them The Negative Articles of No Infallibility No Supremacy in the Pope No Transubstantiation No Purgatory and the like give yet a further Colour to Exceptions since it may seem that it was enough not to have mentioned these which implied a tacit rejecting of them It may therefore appear to be too rigorous to require a positive condemning of those Points for a very high degree of Certainty is required to affirm a Negative Proposition In order to the explaining this matter it is to be confessed that in the beginnings of Christianity the Declaration that was required even of a Bishop's Faith was conceived in very general Terms There was a Form setled very early in most Churches This St. Paul in one place calls The Form of Doctrine that was delivered in another place The Form of Sound Words Rom. 6.17 1 Tim. 4.6 6 3. 2 Tim. 1.13 which those who were fixed by the Apostles in particular Churches had received from them These words of his do import a Standard or fixed Formulary by which all Doctrines were to be examined Some have inferred from them that the Apostles delivered that Creed which goes under their Name every where in the same Form of Words But there is great reason to doubt of this since the first Apologists for Christianity when they deliver a short Abstract of the Christian Faith do all vary from one another both as to the Order and as to the Words themselves which they would not have done if the Churches had all received one setled Form from the Apostles They would all have used the same Words and neither more nor less It is more probable That in every Church there was a Form setled which was delivered to it by some Apostle or Companion of the Apostles with some Variation of which at this distance of time considering how defective the History of the First Ages of Christianity is it is not possible nor very necessary for us to be able to give a clear Account For Instance In the whole Extent or Neighbourhood of the Roman Empire it was at first of great Use to have this in every Christian's mouth That our Saviour suffered under Pontius Pilate because this fixed the Time and carried in it an Appeal to Records and Evidences that might then have been searched for But if this Religion went at first far to the Eastward beyond all Commerce with the Romans there is not that reason to think that this should have been a part of the shortest Form of this Doctrine it being enough that it was related in the Gospel These Forms of the several Churches were preserved with that Sacred Respect that was due to them This was esteemed the Depositum or Trust of a Church which was chiefly committed to the keeping of the Bishop In the First Ages in which the Bishops or Clergy of the several Churches could not meet together in Synods to examine the Doctrine of every new Bishop the Method upon which the Circumstances of those Ages put them was this The New Bishop sent round him and chiefly to the Bishops of the more Eminent Sees the Profession of his Faith according to the Form that was fixed in his Church And when the Neighbouring Bishops were satisfied in this they held Communion with him and not only owned him for a Bishop but maintained such a Commerce with him as the state of that Time did admit of But as some Heresies sprung up there were Enlargements made in several Churches for the condemning those and for excluding such as held them from their Communion The Council of Nice examined many of those Creeds and out of them they put their Creed in a fuller Form The Addition made by the Council of Constantinople was put into the Creeds of some particular Churches several Years before that Council met So that though it received its Authority from that Council yet those Fathers rather confirmed an Article which they found in the Creeds of some Churches than made a New one It had been an unvaluable Blessing if the Christian Religion had been kept in its first Simplicity The Council of Ephesus took care that the Creed by which men profess their Christianity should receive no new Additions but be fixed according to the Constantinoplitan Standard yet they made Decrees in Points of Faith and the following Councils went on in their steps adding still new Decrees with Anathematisms against the contrary Doctrines and declaring the Asserters of them to be under an Anathema that is under a very heavy Curse of being totally excluded from their Communion and even from the Communion of Jesus Christ. And whereas the New Bishops had formerly only declared their Faith they were then required besides that to declare That they received such Councils and rejected such Doctrines together with such as favoured them who were sometimes meâ—tioned by
taught a Middle Doctrine Asserting an inward Grace but subject to the freedom of the Will And that all things were both decreed and done according to the Prescience of God in which all future Contingents were foreseen He also taught that the first Conversion of the Soul to God was merely an effect of its free choice so that all Preventing-grace was denied by him which came to be the peculiar distinction of those who were afterwards called the Semi-Pelagians Prosper and Hilary gave an account of this System to S. Austin upon which he writ against it and his Opinions were defended by Prosper Fulgentius Orosius and others as Cassian's were defended by Faustus Vincentius and Gennadius In conclusion St. Austin's Opinions did generally prevail in the West only Pelagius it seems retiring tâ— his own Country he had many followers among the Britans But German and Lupus being sent over once and again from France are said to have conquered them so intirely that they were all freed from those Errors Whatever they did by their Arguments the Writers of their Legends took care to adorn their Mission with many very wonderful Miracles of which the gathering all the pieces of a Calf some of which had been drest and the putting them together in its Skin and restoring it again to Life is none of the least The Ruin of the Roman Empire and the disorders that the Western Provinces fell under by their new and brabarous Masters occasioned in those Ages a great decay of Learning So that few Writers of Fame coming after that time St. Austin's great Labours and Piety and the many vast Volumes that he had left behind him gave him so great a Name that few durst contest what had been so zealously and so copiously defended by him And though it is highly probable that Celestine was not satisfied with his Doctrine yet both he and the other Bishops of Rome together with many Provincial Synods have so often declared his Doctrine in those Points to be the Doctrine of the Church that this is very hardly got over by those of that Communion The chief and indeed the only material difference that is between St. Austin's Doctrine and that of the Sublapsarians is That he holding that with the Sacrament of Baptism there was joyned an inward Regeneration made a difference between the Regenerate and the Predestinate which these do not He thought Persons thus regenerate might have all Grace besides that of Perseverance but he thought that they not being predestinated were certainly to fall from that state and from the Grace of Regeneration The other differences are but forced Strains to represent him and the Calvinists as of different Principles He thought that overcoming Delectation in which he put the Efficacy of Grace was as Irresistible though he used not so strong a word for it as the Calvinists do And he thought that the Decree was as Absolute and made without any regard to what the Free-Will would chuse as any of these do So in the main Points the Absoluteness of the Decree the Extent of Christ's Death the Efficacy of Grace and the Certainty of Perseverance their Opinions are the same though their ways of expressing themselves do often differ But if St. Austin's Name and the Credit of his Books went far yet no Book was more read in the following Ages than Cassian's Collations There was in them a clear Thread of good Sense and a very high Strain of Piety that run through them and they were thought the best Institutions for a Monk to form his Mind by reading them attentively So they still carried down among those who read them deep Impressions of the Doctrine of the Greek Church This broke out in the Ninth Century in which Godescalcus a Monk was severely used by Hincmar and by the Church of Rheims for asserting some of St. Austin's Doctrines against which Scotus Erigena wrote as Bertram or Ratramne wrote for them Remigius Bishop of Lyons with his Church did zealously assert St. Austin's Doctrine not without great sharpness against Scotus After this the matter slept till the School-Divinity came to be in great Credit And Thomas Aquinas being counted the chief Glory of the Dominican Order he not only asserted all St. Austin's Doctrine but added this to it That whereas formerly it was in general held That the Providence of God did extend it self to all things whatsoever he thought this was done by God's concurring immediately to the Production of every Thought Action Motion or Mode so that God was the First and Immediate Cause of every thing that was done And in order to the explaining the joint Production of every thing by God as the First and by the Creature as the Second Cause he thought at least as his Followers have understood him That by a Physical Influence the Will was predetermined by God to all things whether good or bad so that the Will could not be said to be free in that particular Instance in sensu composito though it was in general still free in all its Actions in sensu diviso A distinction so sacred and so much used among them that I chuse to give it in their on Terms rather than translate them To avoid the consequence of making God the Author of Sin a distinction was made between the Positive Act of Sin which was said not to be Evil and the want of its Conformity to the Law of God which being a Negation was no positive Being so that it was not produced And thus though the Action was produced jointly by God as the first Cause and by the Creature as the Second yet God was not guilty of the Sin but only the Creature This Doctrine passed down among the Dominicans and continues to do so to this day Scotus who was a Franciscan denied this Predetermination and asserted the Freedom of the Will Durandus denied this Immediate Concourse in which he has not had many Followers except Adola and some few more When Luther began to form his Opinions into a Body he clearly saw that nothing did so plainly destroy the Doctrine of Merit and Justification by Works as St. Austin's Opinions He found also in his Works very express Authorities against most of the Corruptions of the Roman Church And being of an Order that carried his Name and by consequence was accustomed to read and reverence his Works it was no wonder if he without a strict examining of the matter espoused all his Opinions Most of those of the Church of Rome who wrote against him being of the other Persuasions any one reading the Books of that Age would have thought that St. Austin's Doctrine was abandoned by the Church of Rome So that when Michael Baius and some others at Louvain began to revive it that became a matter of Scandal and they were condemned at Rome Yet at the Council of Trent the Dominicans had so much credit that great care was taken in the penning their Decrees to avoid all
Reflections upon that Doctrine It was at first received by the whole Iesuit Order so that Bellarmine formed himself upon it and still adhered to it But soon after that Order changed their Mind and left their whole Body to a full liberty in those Points and went all quickly over to the other Hypothesis that differed from the Semi-pelagians only in this that they allowed a Preventing-Grace but such as were subject to the Freedom of the Will Molina and Fonseca invented a new way of explaining God's foreseeing future Contingents which they called a Middle or Mean Science by which they taught That as God sees all things as possible in his knowledge of simple Apprehension and all things that are certainly future as present in his knowledge of Vision so by this knowledge he also sees the Chain of all Conditionate Futurities and all the Connexions of them that is whatsoever would follow upon such or such conditions Great Jealousies arising upon the Progress that the Order of the Jesuits was making these Opinions were laid hold on to mortify them so they were complained of at Rome for departing from St. Austin's Doctrine which in these Points was generally received as the Doctrine of the Latin Church and many Conferences were held before Pope Clement the Eighth and the Cardinals where the Point in debate was chiefly What was the Doctrine andTradition of theChurch The Advantages that St. Austin's Followers had were such that before fair Judges they must have triumphed over the other Pope Clement had so resolved but he dying though Pope Paul the Fifth had the same Intentions yet he happening then to be engaged in a Quarrel with the Venetians about the Ecclesiastical Immunities and having put that Republick under an Interdict the Jesuits who were there chose to be banished rather than to break the Interdict And their adhering so firmly to the Papal Authority when most of the other Orders forsook it was thought so meritorious at Rome that it saved them the Censure So instead of a Decision all sides were commanded to be silent and to quarrel no more upon those Heads About Forty years after that Iansenius a Doctor of Louvain being a zealous Disciple of S. Austin's and seeing the Progress that the contrary Doctrines were making did with great Industry and an equal Fidelity publish a Voluminous Systâ—m of St. Austin's Doctrine in all the several Branches of the Controversy And he set forth the Pelagians and the Semipelagians in that Work under very black Characters and not content with that he compared the Doctrines of the Modern Innovators with theirs This Book was received by the whole Party with great Applause as a Work that had decided the Controversy But the Author having writ with an extraordinary Force against the French Pretensions on Flanders which recommended him so much to the Spanish Court that he was made a Bishop upon it all those in France who followed St. Austin's Doctrine and applauded this Book were represented by their Enemies as being in the same Interests with him and by consequence as Enemies to the French Greatness so that the Court of France prosecuted the whole Party This Book was at first only prohibited at Rome as a Violation of that Silence that the Pope had enjoined afterwards Articles were pickt out of it and condemned and all the Clergy of France were required to sign the Condemnation of them These Articles were certainly in his Book and were manifest Consequences of St. Austin's Doctrine which was chiefly driven at though it was still declared at Rome That nothing was intended to be done in prejudice of St. Austin's Doctrine Upon this pretence his Party have said That those Articles being capable of two Senses the one of which was strained and was Heretical the other of which was clear and according to St. Austin's Doctrine it must be presumed it was not in that second but in the other sense that they were condemned at Rome and so they signed the Condemnation of them But then they said that they were not in Iansenius's Book in the sense in which they condemned them Upon that followed a most extravagant Question concerning the Pope's Infallibility in Matters of Fact It being said on the one side That the Pope heving condemned them as Iansenius's Opinions the belief of his Infallibity obliged them to conclude that they must be in his Book Whereas the others with great Truth affirmed That it had never been thought that in Matters of Fact either Popes or Councils were Infallible At last a new Cessation of Hostilities upon these Points was resolved on yet the Hatred continues and the War goes on though more covertly and more indirctely than before Nor are the Reformed more of a piece than the Church of Rome upon these Points Luther went on long as he at first set out with so little disguise that whereas all Parties had always pretended that they asserted the Freedom of the Will he plainly spoke out and said the Will was not Free but Enslaved Yet before he died he is reported to have changed his Mind for tho he never owned that yet Melancthon who had been of the same Opinion did freely retract it for which he was never blamed by Luther Since that time all the Lutherans have gone into the Semipelagian Opinions so entirely and so eagerly that they will neither tolerate nor hold Communion with any of the other Persuasion Calvin not only taught St. Austin's Doctrine but seemed to go on to the Supralapsarian way which was more openly taught by Beza and was generally followed by the Reformed only the difference between the Supralapsarians and the Sublapsarians was never brought to a decision Divines being in all the Calvinists Churches left to their freedom as to that Point In England the first Reformers were generally in the Sublapsarian Hypothesis But Perkins and others have asserted the Supralapsarian way Arminius a Professor in Leyden writ against him Upon this Gomarus and he had many disputes and these Opinions bred a great distraction over all the Vnited Provinces At the same time another Political matter occasioning a division of Opinion Whether the War should be carried on with Spain or if Propositions for a Peace or Truce should be entertained It happened that Arminius's followers were all for a Peace and the others were generally for carrying on theWar which being promoted by the Prince of Orange he joyned to them And the Arminians were represented as Men whose Opinions and Affections leaned to Popery So that this from being a Doctrinal Point became the distinction of a Party and by that means the differences were inflamed A great Synod met at Dort to which Divines were sent from hence as well as from other Churches The Arminian Tenets were condemned but the difference between the Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians was not medled with The Divines of this Church though very moderate in the way of proposing their Opinions yet upon the main adhered to St.
a Foederal State of Salvation but Christians To them is given the Covenant of Grace and to them the promises of God are made and offered So that they have a certainty of it upon their performing those conditions that are put in the promises All others are out of this Promise to whom the Tidings of it were never brought but yet a great difference is to be made between them and those who have been invited to this Covenant and admitted to the outward Profession and the common Privileges of it and that yet have in effect rejected it These are under such positive denunciations of Wrath and Judgment that there is no room left for any charitable Thoughts or Hopes concerning them So that if any part of the Gospel is true that must be also true that they are under Condemnation Joh. 3.19 for having lov d darkness more than light when the Light shone upon them and visitâ—d them But as for them whom God has left in Darkness they are certainly out of the Covenant out of those Promises and Declarations that are made in it So that they have no Foederal Right to be saved neither can we affirm that they shall be saved But on the other hand they are not under those positive denunciations because they were never made to them Therefore since God has not declared that they shall be damned no more ought we to take upon us to damn them Instead of stretching the severity of Justice by an Inference we may rather venter to stretch the Mercy of God since that is the Attribute which of all others is the most Magnificently spoken of in the Scriptures So that we ought to think of it in the largest and most comprehensive manner But indeed the most proper way is for us to stop where the Revelation of God stops And not to be wise beyond what is written but to leave the secrets of God as Mysteries too far above us to examine or to sound their depth We do certainly know on what terms we our selves shall be saved or damned And we ought to be contented with that and rather study to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling than to let our minds run out into uncertain Speculations concerning the Measures and the Conditions of God's uncovenanted Mercies We ought to take all possible care that we our selves come not into Condemnation rather than to define positively of others who must or who must not be condemned It is therefore enough to fix this according to the Design of the Article That it is not to free Men to chuse at pleasure what Religion they will as if that were left to them or that all Religions were alike which strikes at the Foundation and undermines the Truth of all Revealed Religion None are within the Covenant of Grace but true Christians and all are excluded out of it to whom it is offered who do not receive and believe it and live according to it So in a word all that are saved are saved through Christ but whether all these shall be called to the Explicite Knowledge of him is more than we have any good ground to affirm Nor are we to go into that other Question Whether any that are only in a state of Nature live fully up to its Light This is that about which we can have no certainty no more than whether there may be a Common Grace given to them all proportioned to their State and to the Obligations of it This in general may be safely believed That God will never be wanting to such as do their utmost endeavours in order to the saving of their Souls But that as in the Case of Cornelius an Angel will be sent and a Miracle be wrought rather than that such a Person shall be left to perish But whether any of them do ever arrive at that state is more than we can determine and it is a vain attempt for us to endeavour to find it out ARTICLE XIX Of the Church The Uisible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in the which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments be duely administred according to Christ's Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same As the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their Living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith THIS Article together with some that follow it Relates to the Fundamental difference between us and the Church of Rome They teaching that we are to judge of Doctrines by the Authority and the Decisions of the Church whereas we affirm That we are first to examine the Doctrine and according to that to judge of the Purity of a Church Somewhat was already said on the Sixth Article relating to this matter What remains is now to be considered The whole Question is to be reduced to this Point Whether we ought to Examine and Judge of Matters of Religion according to the Light and Faculty of judging that we have or if we are bound to submit in all things to the Decision of the Church Here the matter must be determined against private Judgment by very express and clear Authorities other wise the other side proves it self For we having naturally a Faculty of judging for our selves and using it in all other things this freedom being the greatest of all our other Rights must be still asserted unless it can be made appear that God has in some things put a Bar upon it by his Supreme Authority That Authority must be very express if we are required to submit to it in a Point of such vast Importance to us We do also see that Men are apt to be mistaken and are apt likewise willingly to mistake and to mislead others and that particularly in matters of Religion the World has been so much imposed upon and abused that we cannot be bound to submit to any sort of persons implicitely without very good and clear grounds that do assure us of their Infallibility Otherwise we have just reason to suspect that in matters of Religion chiefly in Points in which Human Interests are concerned Men may either through Ignorance and Weakness or Corruption and on Design abuse and mislead us So that the Authorities or Proofs of this Infallibility must be very express since we are sure no Man nor Body of Men can have it among them but by a Privilege from God and a Privilege of so extraordinary a nature must be given if at all in very plain and with very evident Characters since without these Human Nature cannot and ought not to be so tame as to receive it We must not draw it from an Inference because we think we need it and cannot be safe without it That therefore it must be so because if it were not so great Disorder would arise from the want of it This is certainly a wrong way of arguing
We must be then well assured in whom this great Privillege is vested before we can be bound to acknowledge it or to submit to it So here a great many things must be known before we can either argue from or apply those Passages of Scripture in which it is pretended that Infallibility is promised to the Church And if private Judgment is to be trusted in the Inquiries that arise about all these particulars they being the most important and most difficult matters that we can search into then it will be thought reasonable to trust it yet much further It is evident by their proceeding this way that both the Authority and the Sense of the Scriptures must be known antecedently to our acknowledging the Authority or the Infallibility of any Church For it is an Eternal Principle and Rule of Reason never to prove one thing by another till that other is first well proved Nor can any thing be proved afterwards by that which was proved by it This is as impossible as if a Father should beget a Son and should be afterwards begotten by that Son Therefore the Scriptures cannot prove the Infallibility of the Church and be afterwards proved by the Testimony of the Church So the one or the other of these must be first settled and proved before any use can be made of it to prove the other by it The last way they take to find out this Church by is from some Notes that they pretend are peculiar to her such as the Name Catholick Antiquity Extent Bellar. Contr. Tom 2. l. 4. Duration Succession of Bishops Vnion among themselves and with their Head Conformity of Doctrine with former times Miracles Prophecy Sanctity of Doctrine Holiness of Life Temporal Felicity Curses upon their Enemies and a constant Progress or Efficacy of Doctrine together with the Confession of their Adversaries And they fancy that wheresoever we find these we must believe that Body of Men to be Infallible But upon all this endless Questions will arise so far will it be from ending Controversies and settling us upon Infallibility If all these must be believed to be the Marks of the Infallible Church upon the account of which we ought to believe it and submit to it then two Enquires upon every one of these Notes must be discussed before we can be obliged to acquiesce in the Infallibility First Whether that is a true Mark of Infallibility or not And next Whether it belongs to the Church which they call Infallible or not And then another very intricate Question will arise upon the whole Whether they must all be found together or How many or which of them together will give us the entire Characters of the Infallible Church In discussing the Questions Whether every one of these is a true Mark or not no use must be made of the Scriptures for if the Scriptures have their Authority from the Testimony or rather the Decisions of the Infallible Church no use can be made of them till that is first fixed Some of these Notes are such as did not at all agree to the Church in the best and purest Times for then she had but a little Extent a short-liv'd Duration and no Temporal Felicity and she was generally reproached by her Adversaries But out of which of these Topicks can one hope to fetch out an Assurance of the Infallibility of such a Body Can no Body of Men continue long in the constant Series and with much Prosperity but must they be concluded to be Infallible Can it be thought that the assuming a Name can be a Mark Why is not the Name Christian as solemn as Catholick Might not the Philosophers have concluded from hence against the First Christians That they were by the confession of all Men the true Lovers of Wisdom since they were called Philosophers much more unanimously than the Church of Rome is called Catholick If a Conformity of Doctrine with former times and a Sanctity of Doctrine are Notes of the Church these will lead men into Enquiries of such a nature that if they are once allowed to go so far with their private Judgment they may well be suffered to go much further Some Standard must be fixed on by which the Sanctity of Doctrine may be examined they must also be allowed to examine what was the Doctrine of former times and here it will be natural to begin at the first times the Age of the Apostles It must therefore be first known what was the Doctrine of that Age before we can examine the Conformity of the present Age with it A Succession of Bishops is confessed to be still kept up among corrupted Churches An Union of the Church with its Head cannot be supposed to be a Note unless it is first made out by some other Topicks That this Church must have a Head and that he is Infallible For unless it is proved by some other Argument That she ought to have a Head she cannot be bound to adhere to him or to own him and unless it is also proved that he is Infallible she cannot be bound absolutely and without restrictions to adhere to him Holiness of Life cannot be a Mark unless it is pretended that those in whom the Infallibility is are all holy A few holy men here and there are indeed an Honour to any Body but it will seem a strange Inference That because some few in a Society are eminently holy that therefore others of that Body who are not so but are perhaps as eminently vicious should be Infallible Somewhat has been already said concerning Miracles The pretence to Prophecy falls within the same Consideration The one being as wonderful a Communication of Omniscience as the other is of Omnipotence For the Confession of Adversaries or some Curâ—es on them these cannot signifie much unless they were Universal Fair Enemies will acknowledg what is good among their Adversaries But as that Church is the least apt of any Society we know to speak good of those who differ from her so she has not very much to boast as to others saying much good of her And if Signal Providences have now and then happened these are such things and they are carried on with such a depth that we must acquiesce in the Observation of the wisest Men of all Ages That the race is not to the swift nor the battel to the strong Eccl. 9.11 But that time and chance happeneth to all things And thus it appears That these pretended Notes instead of giving us a clear Thread to lead us up to Infallibility and to end all Controversies they do start a great variety of Questions that engage us into a Labyrinth out of which it cannot be easy for any to extricate themselves But if we could see an end of this then a new set of Questions will come on When we go to examine all Churches by them Whether the Church of Rome has them all And if she alone has them so that no
belong'd to it but challenging a great many that were flatly denied and rejected Such as the right of receiving Appeals from the African Churches in which reiterated Instances and a bould Claim upon a Spurious Canon pretended to be of the Council of Nice were long pursued but those Churches asserted their Authority of ending all matters within themselves In all this Contest Infallibility was never claimed no more than it had been by Victor when he excommunicated the Asian Churches for observing Easter on the Fourteenth Day of the Moon and not on the Lord's-Day after according to the Custon of the Roman as well as of other Churches When Pope Stephen quarrelled with St. Cyprian about the rebaptizing of Hereticks Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. 5. c. 23 24 25. Cypr. Ep. 74 75. Firmil Con. Sard. C. 3 7. Cyprian and Firmilian were so far from submitting to his Authority that they speak of him with a freedom used by Equals and with severity that shewed they were far from thinking him Infallible When the whole East was distracted with the Disputes occasioned by the Arian Controversy there was so much Partiality in all their Councils that it was decreed That Appeals should be made to Pope Iulius and afterwards to his Successors though here was an occasion given to assert this Infallibility if it had been thought on yet none ever spoke of it Great Reverence was paid to that Church both because they believed it was founded by St. Peter and St. Paul and chiefly because it was the Imperial City for we see that all other Sees had that degree of Dignity given them which by the Constitution of the Roman Empire was lodged in their Cities And so when Byance was made the Imperial City and called New Rome though more commonly Constantinople it had a Patriarchal Dignity bestowed on it and was in all things declared equal to Old Rome only the point of Rank and Order excepted This was decreed in two General Councils the Second and the Fourth Con. Constant Can. 3. Con. Chalced C 28. in so express a manner that it alone before equitable Judges would fully shew the Sense of the Church in the Fourth and Fifth Century upon this Head When Pope Liberius condemned Athanasius and subscribed to Semi-Arianism this was never considered as a New Decision in that matter so that it altered the the state of it No use was made of it nor was any Argument drawn from it Liberius was universally condemned for what he done and when he repented of it and retracted it he was again owned by the Church We have in the Sixth Century a most undeniable Instance of the Sense of the whole Church in this matter Pope Honorius was by the Sixth General Council condemned as a Monothelite and this in the presence of the Popes Legates and he was anathematized by several of the succeeding Popes It is to no purpose here to examine whether he was justly or unjustly condemned it is e nough that the Sense both of the Eaâ—tern and Western Church appeared evidently in that Age upon these two Points That a Pope might be a Heretick and that being such he might be held accursed for it Con. Sinuess An. 303. Tom. 1. Conc. And in that time there was not any one that suggested that either he could not fall into Heresy since our Saviour had prayed that St. Peter's Faith might not fail or that if he had fallen into it he must be left to the Judgment of God but that the Holy See according to the Fable of P. Marcellin could be judged by no body The Confusions that followed for some Ages in the Western Parts of Europe more particularly in Italy gave occasion to the Bishops of Rome to extend their Authority The Emperors at Constantinople and their Exarchs at Ravenna studied to make them sure to their Interests yet still asserting their Authority over them The new Conquerors studied also to gain them to their side and they managed their matter so dextrously that they went on still increasing and extending their Authority till being much straitned by the Kings of the Lombards they were protected by a new Conquering Family that arose in France in the Eighth Century who to give Credit both to their Usurpation of that Crown and to the extending their Dominions into Italy and the assuming the Empire of the West did both protect and enrich them and enlarged their Authority the greatness of which they reckoned could do them no hurt as long as they kept the Confirmation of their Election to themselves That Family became quickly too feeble to hold that Power long and then an Imposture was published of a Volume of the Decretal Epistles of the Popes of the first Ages in which they were represented as acting according to those high Claims to which they were then beginning to pretend Those Ages were too blind and too ignorant to be capable of searching critically into the truth of this Collection it quickly passed for â—urrent and though some in the beginning disputed it yet that was soon born down and the Credit of that Work was established It furnished them with Precedents that they were careful enough not only to follow but to outdo Thus a Work which is now as universally rejected by the Learned Men of their own Body as spurious as it was then implicity taken for genuine gave the chief Foundation during many Ages to their unbounded Authority And this furnishes us with a very just Prejudice against it That it was managed with so much Fraud and Imposture to which they added afterwards much Cruelty and Violence the two worst Characters possible and the least likely to be found joined with Infallibility For it is reasonable enough to apprehend that if God had lodged such a Privilege any where that he would have so influenced those who were the Depositaries of it that they should have appeared somewhat like that Authority to which they laid Claim and that he would not have forsaken them so that for above Eight hundred Years the Papacy as it is represented by their own Writers is perhaps the worst Succession of Men that is to be found in History But now to come more close to prove what is here asserted in this part of the Article If all those Doctrines which were established at Trent and that have been confirmed by Popes and most of them brought into a new Creed and made parts of it are found to be gross Errors or if but any one of them should be found to be an Error then there is no doubt to be made but that the Church of Rome hath erred So the Proof brought against every one of these is likewise a proof against their Infallibility But I shall here give one Instance of an Error which will not be denied by the greater part of the Church of Rome They have now for above Six hundred Years asserted That they had an Authority over Princes not only to convict and
For so great and so important a Matter as this is must be supposed to be either expresly declared in the Scriptures or not at all The Article affirming That some General Councils have erred must be understood of Councils that pass for such and that may be called General Councils much better than many others that go by that Name For that at Arimini was both very Numerous and was drawn out of many different Provinces As to the strict Notion of a General Council there is great Reason to believe that there was never any Assembly to which it will be found to agree And for the Four General Councils which this Church declares she receives they are received only because we are persuaded from the Scriptures that their Decisions were made according to them That the Son is truly God of the same Substance with the Father That the Holy Ghost is also truly God That the Divine Nature was truly united to the Human in Christ and that in One Person That both Natures remain distinct and that the Human Nature was not swallowed up of the Divine These Truths we find in the Scriptures and therefore we believe them We reverence those Councils for the sake of their Doctrine but do not believe the Doctrine for the Authority of the Councils There appeared too much of Human Frailty in some of their other Proceedings to give us such an Implicite Submission to them as to believe things only because they so Decided them ARTICLE XXII Of Purgatory The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory Pardons Worshipping and Adoration as well of Images as of Relicks and also Invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture but rather repugnant to the Word of God THERE are two small Variations in this Article from that published in King Edward's Reign What is here called the Romish Doctrine is there called the Doctrine of School-men The plain reason of this is that these Errors were not so fully espoused by the Body of the Roman Church when those Articles were first published so that some Writers that softened matters threw them upon the School-men and therefore the Article was cautiously worded in laying them there But before these that we have now were published the Decree and Canons concerning the Mass had passed at Trent in which most of the Heads of this Article are either affirmed or supposed though the formal Decree concerning them was made some Months after these Articles were published This will serve to justifie that diversity The second difference is only the leaving out a severe word Perniciously repugnant to the Word of God was put at first but perniciously being considered to be only a hard word they judged very right in the Second Edition of them that it was enough to say repugnant to the Word of God There are in this Article five Particulars that are all Ingredients in the Doctrine and Worship of the Church of Rome Purgatory Pardons the Worship of Images and of Relicks and the Invocation of Saints that are rejected not only as ill grounded brought in and maintained without good warrants from the Scripture but as contrary to it The first of these is Purgatory concerning which the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that every Man is liable both to Temporal and to Eternal Punishment for his Sins that God upon the Account of the Death and Intercession of Christ does indeed pardon Sin as to its Eternal Punishment but the Sinner is still liable to Temporal Punishment which he must expiate by Acts of Pennance and Sorrow in this World together with such other Sufferings as God shall think fit to lay upon him but if he does not expiate these in this Life there is a State of Suffering and Misery in the next World where the Soul is to bear the Temporal punishment of its Sins which may continue longer or shorter till the Day of Judgment And in order to the shortening this the Prayers and Supererogations of Men here on Earth or the Intercession of the Saints in Heaven but above all things the Sacrifice of the Mass are of great Efficacy This is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome asserted in the Councils of Florence and Trent What has been taught among them concerning the Nature and the Degrees of those Torments though supported by many pretended Apparitions and Revelations is not to be imputed to the whole Body and is indeed only the Doctrine of Schoolmen though it is generally preached and infused into the Consciences of the People Therefore I shall only examine that which is the established Doctrine of the whole Roman Church And first as to the Foundation of it that Sins are only pardoned as to their Eternal Punishment to those who being justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ. Rom. 5.1 There is not a colour for it in the Scriptures Remission of Sins is in general that with which the Preaching of the Gospel ought always to begin and this is so often repeated without any such reserve that it is a high assuming upon God and his Attributes of Goodness and Mercy to limit these when he has not limited them but has expresly said that this is a main part of the New Covenant Jer. 31.34 Heb. 8.12 that he will remember our sins and iniquities no more Now it seems to be a Maxim not only of the Law of Nations but of Nature that all offers of Pardon are to be understood in the full extent of the Words without any secret Reserves or Limitations unless they are plainly expressed An Indemnity being offered by a Prince to persuade his Subjects to return to their Obedience in the fullest Words possible without any reserves made in it it would be lookt on as a very perfidious thing if when the Subjects come in upon it trusting to it they should be told that they were to be secured by it against Capital Punishments but that as to all Inferior Punishments they were still at Mercy We do not dispute whether God if he had thought fit so to do might not have made this distinction nor do we deny that the Grace of the Gospel had been infinitely valuable if it had offered us only the Pardon of Sin with relation to its Eternal Punishment and had left the Temporal Punishment on us to be expiated by our selves but then we say this ought to have been expressed The Distinction ought to have been made between Temporal and Eternal and we ought not to have been drawn into a Covenant with God by words that do plainly import an intire Pardon and Oblivion upon which there lay a limited Sense that was not to be told the World till it was once well engaged in the Christian Religion Upon these Reasons it is that we conclude that this Doctrine not being contained in the Scriptures is not only without any warrant in them but that it is contrary to those full offers of
But we have not so learned Christ. We ought not to lie even for God much less for our selves or for any other pretended ends of keeping the World in awe and order therefore all the Advantages that are said to arise out of this and all the Mischief that may be thought to follow on the rejecting of it ought not to make us presume to carry on the Ends of Religion by unlawful Methods This were to call in the Assistance of the Devil to do the Work of God If the just Apprehensions of the Wrath of God and the Guilt of Sin together with the Fear of Everlasting Burnings will not Reform the World nor Râ—strain Sinners we must leave this Matter to the wise and unsearchable Judgments of God The next Particular in this Article is the condemning the Romish Doctrine concerning Pardons That is founded on the Distinction between the Temporal and Eternal Punishment of Sin and the Pardon is of the Temporal Punishment which is believed to be done by a Power lodged singly in the Pope derived from those Words Feed my Sheep and To thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven This may be by him derived as they Teach not only to Bishops and Priests but to the Inferior Orders to be dispensed by them and it excuses from Penance unless he who purchases it thinks fit to use his Penance in a medicinal way as a Preservative against Sin So the Virtue of Indulgences is the applying the Treasure of the Church upon such Terms as Popes shall think fit to prescribe in order to the redeeming Souls from Purgatory and from all other Temporal Punishments and that for such a number of Years as shall be specified in the Bulls some of which have gone to Thousands of Years one I have seen to Ten hundred thousand And as these Indulgences are sometimes granted by special Tickets like Tallies struck on that Treasure so sometimes they are affixed to particular Churches and Altars to particular Times or Days chiefly to the Year of Jubilee they are also affixed to such things as may be carryed about to Agnus Dei's to Medals to Rosaries and Scapularies they are also affixed to some Prayers the Devout saying of them being a mean to procure great Indulgences The granting these is left to the Pope's Discretion who ought to distribute them as he thinks may tend most to the Honour of God and the Good of the Church and he ought not to be too profuse much less to be too scanty in dispensing them This has been the received Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome since the Twelfth Century and the Council of Trent in a hurry in its last Session did in very general Words approve of the Practice of the Church in this Matter and Decreed that Indulgences should be continued only they restrained some Abuses in particular that of selling them yet even those Restraints were wholly referred to the Popes themselves So that this crying Abuse the Scandal of which had occasioned the first beginnings and progress of the Reformation was upon the matter established and the correcting the Excesses in it was trusted to those who had been the Authors of them and the chief Gainers by them This Point of their Doctrine is more fully opened than might perhaps seem necessary if it were not that a great part of the Confutation of some Doctrines is the exposing of them For though in Ages and Places of Ignorance these things have been and still are Practised with great assurance and to very extravagant excesâ—es yet in Countries and Ages of more Light when they come to be questioned they are disowned with an assurance equal to that with which they are Practised elsewhere Among us some will perhaps say that these are only exemptions from Penance which cannot be denied to be within the Power of the Church and they argue that though it is very fit to make severe Laws yet the execution of these must be softened in practice This is all that they pretend to justify and they give up any further Indulgences as an abuse of corrupt Times Whereas at the same time a very different Doctrine is Taught among them where there is no danger but much profit in owning it All this is only a pretence for the Episcopal Power in the inflicting abating or commuting of Penance is stated among them as a thing wholly different from the power of Indulgences They are derived from different Originals and designed for Ends totally different from one another The one is for the outward Discipline of the Church and the other is for the inward quiet of Consciences and in order to their future State The one is in every Bishop and the other is asserted to be peculiar to the Pope Nor will they escape by laying this Matter upon the Ignorance and Abuses of former Times It was published in Bulls and received by the whole Church So that if either the Pope or the diffusive Body of the Church are Infallible there must be such a Power in the Pope and the Decree of the Council of Trent confirming and approving the Practice of the Church in that Point must bind them all For if this Doctrine is False then their Infallibility must go with it For in every Hypothesis in which Infallibility is said to be lodged whether in the Pope or in Councils this Doctrine has that Seal to it As for the Doctrine it self all that has been already said against the distinction of Temporal and Eternal Punishment and against Purgatory overthrows it since the one is the Foundation on which it is built and the other is that which it pretends to secure Men from And therefore this falls with those All that was said upon the Head of the Sufficiency of the Scriptures comes also in here For if the Scriptures ought to be our Rule in any thing it must be chiefly in those Matters which relate to the Pardon of Sin to the quiet of our Consciences and to a future State Therefore a Doctrine and Practice that have not so much as Colours from Scripture in a matter of such Consequence ought to be rejected by us upon this single Account If from the Scripture we go to the Practice and Tradition of the Church we are sure that this was not thought on for above Ten Centuries all the Indulgences that were then known being only the abatements of the severity of the Penitentiary Canons But in the Ages in which aspiring and insolent Popes imposed on Ignorant and Superstitious multitudes a jumble was made of Indulgences formerly granted of Purgatory and of the Papal Authority that was then very implicitly submitted to and so out of all that mixture this arose Which was as ill managed as it was ill grounded The natural tendency of it is not only to relax all publick Discipline but also all secret Penance when shorter Methods to Peace and Pardon may be more easily purchased The vast Application to the
these are of no Value being only Inventions to deceive Men and to expose Religion to Mockery But even severe and afflicting Fasting if done only as a Punishment which when it is over the Penance is believed to be compleated gives such a low Idea of God and Religion that from thence Men are led to think very slightly of Sin when they know at what price they can carry it off Such a continuance in Fasting in order to Prayer as humbles and depresses Nature and raises the Mind is a great mean to reform the World but Fasting as a prescribed Task to expiate our Sins is a scorn put upon Religion Prayer when it arises from a serious Heart that is earnest in it and when it becomes habitual is certainly a most effectual mean to reform the World and to fetch down Divine Assistances But to appoint so many vocal Prayers to be gone through as a Task and then to tell the World that the running through these with few or no inward Acts accompanying them is Contrition or Attrition this is liker a Design to root out all the Impressions of Religion and all sense of that Repentance which the Gospel requires than to promote it This may be a Task fit to accustom Children to but it is contrary to the true Genius of Religion to teach Men instead of that reasonable Service that we ought to offer up to God to give him only the Labour of the Lips which is the Sacrifice of Fools Prayers gone through as a Task can be of no value and can find no acceptation in the sight of God And as St. Paul said that if he gave all his goods to the poor and had not Charity he was nothing 1 Cor. 13 1 2. So the greatest profusion of Alms-giving when done in a mercenary Way to buy off and to purchase a Pardon is the turning of God's House from being a house of prayer to be a den of thieves Upon all these Reasons we except to the whole Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome as to the Satisfaction made by doing Penance And in the last place we except to the Form of Absolution in these Words I Absolve thee We of this Church who use it only to such as are thought to be near Death cannot be meant to understand any thing by it but the full Peace and Pardon of the Church For if we meant a Pardon with relation to God we ought to use it upon many other occasions The Pardon that we give in the Name of God is only declaratory of his Pardon or supplicatory in a Prayer to him for Pardon In this we have the whole Practice of the Church till the Twelfth Century universally of our side All the Fathers all the ancient Liturgies all that have writ upon the Offices and the first Schoolmen are so express in this Matter that the thing in Fact cannot be denied Morinus has published so many of their old Rituals that he has put an end to all doubting about it In the Twelfth Century some few began to use the Words I Absolve thee Yet to soften this Expression that seemed New and Bold some tempered it with these Words in so far as it is granted to my frailty and others with those Words as far as the accusation comes from thee and as the pardon is in me Yet this Form was but little practised So that William Bishop of Paris speaks of the Form of Absolution as given only in a Prayer and not as given in these Words I Absolve thee He lived in the beginning of the Fourteenth Century so that this Practice though begun in other Places before that Time yet was not known long after in so publick a City as Paris But some Schoolmen begun to defend it as implying only a declaration of the Pardon pronounced by the Priest And this having an air of more Authority and being once justified by Learned Men did so universally prevail that in little more than sixty Years time it became the universal Practice of the whole Latin Church So sure a thing is Tradition and so impossible to be changed as they pretend when within the compass of one Age the new Form I Absolve thee was not so much as generally known and before the end of it the old Form of doing it in a Prayer with Imposition of Hands was quite worn out The Idea that arises naturally out of these words is that the Priest pardons Sins and since that is subject to such abuses and has let in so much corruption upon that Church we think we have reason not only to deny that Penance is a Sacrament but likewise to affirm that they have corrupted this great and important Doctrine of Repentance in all the Parts and Branches of it Nor is the matter mended with that Prayer that follows the Absolution The Passion of our Lord Iesus Christ Rituale Romanum de sacr poeniten the Merits of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints and all the good that thou hast done and the evil that thou hast suffered be to thee for the remission of Sins the increase of Grace and the reward of eternal Life The third Sacrament rejected by this Article is Orders which is reckoned the sixth by the Church of Rome We affirm that Christ appointed a Succession of Pastors in different Ranks to be continued in his Church for the Work of the Gospel and the Care of Souls and that as the Apostles setled the Churches they appointed different Orders of Bishops Priests and Deacons And we believe that all who are dedicated to serve in these Ministries after they are examined and judged worthy of them ought to be separated to them by the Imposition of Hands and by Prayer These were the only Rites that we find practised by the Apostles For many Ages the Church of God used no other therefore we acknowledge that Bishops Priests and Deacons ought to be blest and dedicated to the HolyMinistry by Imposition of Hands and Prayer And that then they are received according to the Order and Practice setled by the Apostles to serve in their respective Degrees Men thus separated have thereby Authority to perfect the Saints or Christians that is to perform the Sacred Functions among them to minister to them and to build them up in their most Holy Faith And we think no other Persons without such a Separation and Consecration can lawfully touch the Holy Things In all which we separate the Qualifications of the Functions from the inward Qualities of the Person the one not at all depending on the other The one relating only to the Order and the good Government of the Society and the other relating indeed to the Salvation of him that Officiates but not at all to the Validity of his Office or Service But in all this we see nothing like a Sacrament Here is neither Matter Form nor Institution here is only Prayer The laying on of Hands is only a gesture in Prayer
one Wife He adds upon that this is a great Mystery That is from hence another Mystical Argument might be brought to shew that Iew and Gentile must make one Body for since the Church was the Spouse of Christ he must according to that Figure have but one Wife and by consequence the Church must be One Otherwise the Figure will not be answered unless we suppose Christ to be in a State answering a Polygamy rather than a single Marriage Thus a clear Account of these Words is given which does fully agree to them and to what follows But I speak concerning Christ and the Church This which is all the Foundation of making Marriage a Sacrament being thus cleared there remains nothing to be said on this Head but to Examine one Consequence that has been drawn from the making it a Sacrament which is that the Bond is Indissoluble And that even Adultery does not void it The Law of Nature or of Nations seems very clear that Adultery at least on the Wife's part should dissolve it For the end of Marriage being the ascertaining of the Issue and the Contract it self being a mutual transferring the Right to one anothers Person in order to that End the breaking this Contract and destroying the End of Marriage does very naturally infer the Dissolution of the Bond And in this both the Attick and Roman Laws were so severe that a Man was Infamous who did not Divorce upon Adultery Our Saviour when he blamed the Iews for their frequent Divorces Matth. 5.32 Matth. 19.9 Mark 10.11 Luke 16.18 established this Rule that whosoever puts away his Wife except it be for Fornication and shall marry another committeth Adultery Which seems to be a plain and full Determination that in the Case of Fornication he may put her away and Marry another It is True St. Mark and St. Luke repeat these Words without mentioning this Exception so some have thought that we ought to bring St. Matthew to them and not them to St. Matthew But it is an universal Rule of expounding Scriptures that when a Place is fully set down by one inspired Writer and less fully by another that the Place which is less full is always to be expounded by that which is more full So tho' St. Mark and St. Luke report our Saviour's Words generally without the Exception which is twice mentioned by St. Matthew the other two are to be understood to suppose it for a general Proposition is true when it holds generally and Exceptions may be understood to belong to it though they are not named The Evangelist that does name them must be considered to have reported the matter more particularly than the others that do it not Since then our Saviour has made the Exception and since that Exception is founded upon a natural equity that the Innocent Party has against the Guilty there can be no reason why an Exception so justly grounded and so clearly made should not take place Both Tertullian Basil Chrysostom and Epiphanius allow of a Divorce in case of Adultery Tertul. lib. 4. cont Marcion c. 34. Basil. Ep. ad Amphil c. 9. Chrysos hom 17. in Matth. Epiph. haeres 59. Cath. Conc. Elib c. 65. Conc. Arel c. 10. Conc. Affric c. 102. Causa 32. q. 7. In decr Eug. in Conc. Flor. Erasm. in 1. Ep. ad Cor. 7. Cajetan in Matth. 19. c. 9. Cathar in 1. Ep. ad Cor. 7. l. 5. Annot. and in those days they had no other Notion of a Divorce but that it was the Dissolution of the Bond the late Notion of a Separation the Tie continuing not being known till the Canonists brought it in Such a Divorce was allowed by the Council of Elliberis The Council of Arles did indeed recommend it to the Husband whose Wife was guilty of Adultery not to Marry which did plainly acknowledge that he might do it It was and still is the constant practice of the Greek Church and as both Pope Gregory and Pope Zachary allowed the Innocent Person to Marry so in a Synod held at Rome in the Tenth Century it was still allowed When the Greeks were reconciled to the Latins in the Council of Florence this matter was past over and the care of it was only recommended by the Pope to the Emperor It is true Eugenius put it in hisInstruction to the Armenians but tho' that passes generally for a part of the Council of Florence yet the Council was over up before that was given out This Doctrine of the Indissolubleness of Marriage even for Adultery was never settled in any Council before that of Trent The Canonists and Schoolmen had indeed generally gone into that Opinion but not only Erasmus but both Cajetan and Catharinus declared themselves for the Lawfulness of it Cajetan indeed used a Salvo in case the Church had otherwise Defined which did not then appear to him So that this is a Doctrine very lately settled in the Church of Rome Our Reformers here had prepared a Title in the new Body of the Canon Law which they had Digested allowing Marriage to the Innocent Party And upon a great occasion then in Debate they declared it to be Lawful by the Law of God And if the Opinion that Marriage is a Sacrament falls the conceit of the absolute Indissolubleness of Marriage will fall with it The last Sacrament which is rejected by this Article that is the Fifth as they are reckoned up in the Church of Rome is Extreme Vnction In the Commission that Christ gave his Apostles among the other Powers that were given them to confirm it one was to cure diseases and heal the sick pursuant to which St. Mark tells Mark 6.13 that they anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them The Prophets used some Symbolical actions when they wrought Miracles so Moses used his Rod often Elisha used Elijah's Mantle our Saviour put his Finger into the deaf Man's Ear and made Clay for the blind Man and Oil being upon almost all occasions used in the Eastern Parts the Apostles made use of it But no hint is given that this was a Sacramental Action It was plainly a Miraculous Virtue that healed the Sick in which Oil was made use of as a Symbol accompanying it It was not prescribed by our Saviour for any thing that appears as it was not blamed by him neither It was no wonder if upon such a president those who had that extraordinary Gift did apply it with the use of Oil not as if Oil was the Sacramental Conveyance it was only used with it The end of it was Miraculous it was in order to the recovery of the sick and had no relation to their Souls though with the cure wrought on the Body there might sometimes be joined an operation upon the Soul and this appears clearly from St. Iames's words James 5.14 15. Is any sick among you let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray over him anointing him with
express in this matter as is possible The whole Constitution of their Worship and Discipline shews it Their Worship concluded always with the Eucharist Such as were not capabl e of it as the Catechumens and those who were doing Publick Penance for their Sins assisted at the more general parts of the Worship and so much of it was called their Mass because they were dismissed at the Conclusion of it When that was done then the Faithful staid and did partake of the Eucharist and at the conclusion of it they were likewise dismissed from whence it came to be called the Mass of the Faithful The great Rigor of Penance was thought to consist chiefly in this That such Penitents might not stay with the Faithful to communicate And though this seems to be a Practice begun in the Third Century yet both from Iustin Martyr and Tertullian it is evident that all the Faithful did constantly communicate There is a Canon among those which go under the name of the Apostles Can. 9. Aâ—ost against such as came and assisted in the other parts of the Service and did not partake of the Eucharist The same thing was decreed by the Council of Antioch Con. Antioch Can. 2. Const. Apost l. 8. cap. 11. Hom. 3. in Ep. ad Eph Lib. 2. And it appears by the Constitutions That a Deacon was appointed to see that no man should go out and a Subdeacon was to see that no Woman should go out during the Oblation The Fathers do frequently allude to the Word Communion to shew that the Sacrament was to be common to all It is true in St. Chrysostom's time the Zeal that the Christians of the former Ages had to communicate often began to slacken so that they had thin Communions and few Communicants against which that Father raises himself with his Pathetick Eloquence in words which do shew that he had no Notion of Solitary Masses or of the Lawfulness of them And it is very evident that the Neglect of the Sacrament in those who came not to it and the Prophanation of it by those who came unworthily both which grew very scandalous at that time set that Holy and Zealous Bishop to many Eloquent and Sublime Strains concerning it which cannot be understood without making those Abatements that are dâ—e to a copious and Asiatick stile when much inflamed by Devotion In the succeeding Ages we find great Care was taken to suffer none that did not communicate to stay in the Church and to see the Mysteries There is a Rubrick for this in the Office mentioned by Gregory the Great Dialog Conc. Mogunt Can. 43. The Writers of the Ninth Century go on in the same Strain It was decreed by the Council of Mentz in the end of Charles the Great 's Reign That no Priest should say Mass alone for how could he say The Lord be with you or Lift up your hearts if there was no other Person there besides himself This shews that the practice of Soâ—itary Masses was then begun but that it was disliked Walafridus Strabus says That to a lawful Mass it was necessary that there should be a Priest Walaf Strab. de rebus Eccles c. 22. together with one to answer one to offer and one to communicate And the Author of Micrologus who is believed to have writ about the End of the Eleventh Century does condemn Solitary Communions as contrary both to the Practice of the Antients and to the several parts of the Office So that till the Twelfth Century it was never allowed of in the Roman Church as to this day it is not practised in any other Communion But then with the Doctrine of Purgatory and Transubstantiation mixt together the saying of Masses for other Persons whether alive or dead grew to be considered as a very meritorious thing and of great Efficacy Thereupon great Endowments were made and it became a Trade Masses were sold and a small Piece of Money became their Price So that a prophane sort of Simony was set up and the holiest of all the Institutions of the Christian Religion was exposed to Sale Therefore we in cutting off all this and in bringing the Sacrament to be according to its first Institution a Communion have followed the Words of our Saviour and the constant Practice of the whole Church for the first Ten Centuries So far all the Articles that relate to this Sacrament have been considered The variety of the Matter and the Important Controversies that have arisen out of it has made it necessary to enlarge with some Copiousness upon the several Branches of it Next to the Infallibility of the Church this is the dearest piece of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome and is that in which both Priests and People are better instructed than in any other Point whatsoever and therefore this ought to be studied on our side with a Care proportioned to the Importance of it That so we may govern both our selves and our People aright in a matter of such Consequence avoiding with great Caution the Extremes on both hands both of excessive Superstition on the one hand and of Prophane Neglect on the other For the nature of Man is so moulded that it is not easy to avoid the one without falling into the other We are now visibly under the Extreme of Neglect and therefore we ought to study by all means possible to inspire our People with a just Respect for this Holy Institution and to animate them to desire earnestly to partake often of it and in order to that to prepare themselves seriously to set about it with the Reverence and Devotion and with those Holy Purposes and Solemn Vows that ought to accompany it ARTICLE XXXII Of the Marriage of Priests Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by God's Law either to vow the Estate of Single Life or to abstain from Marriage Therefore it is lawful for them as well as for all Christian Men to Marry at their own discretion as they shall judg the same to serve better to Godliness THE first Period of this Article to the word Therefore was all that was published in King Edward's time They were content to lay down the Assertion and left the Inference to be made as a Consequence that did naturally arise out of it There was not any one Point that was more severely examined at the time of the Reformation than this For as the irregular Practices and dissolute Lives of both Seculars and Regulars had very much prejudiced the World against the Celibate of the Roman Clergy which was considered as the occasion of all those Disorders so on the other hand the Marriage of the Clergy and also of those of both Sexes who had taken Vows gave great Offence They were represented as Persons that could not master their Appetites but that indulged themselves in Carnal Pleasures and Interests Thus as the Scandals of the Unmarried Clergy had alienated the World much from them so the
the concurrence of other Churches In the way of managing this every Body of Men has somewhat peculiar to it self and the Pastors of that Body are the properest Judges in that matter We know that the several Churches even while under one Empire had great varieties in their Forms as appears in the different Practices of the Eastern and Western Churches And as soon as the Roman Empire was broken we see this Variety did increase The Gallican Churches had their Missals different from the Roman And some Churches of Italy followed the Ambrosian But Charles the Great in compliance with the desires of the Pope got the Gallican Churches to depart from their own Missals and to receive the Roman which he might the rather do intending to have raised a New Empire to which a Conformity of Rights might have been a great Step. Even in this Church there was a great Variety of Usages which perhaps were begun under the Heptarchy when the Nation was subdivided into several Kingdoms It is therefore suitable to the Nature of Things to the Authority of the Magistrate and to the Obligations of the Pastoral Care That every Church should act within her self as an entire and independent Body The Churches owe only a Friendly and Brotherly Correspondence to one another but they owe to their own Body Government and Direction and such Provisions and Methods as are most likely to promote the great Ends of Religion and to preserve the Peace of the Society both in Church and State Therefore we are no other way bound by Antient Canons but as the same reason still subsisting we may see the same cause to continue them that there was at first to make them Of all the Bodies of the World the Church of Rome has the worst Grace to reproach us for departing in some Particulars from the Antient Canons since it was her ill Conduct that had brought them all into desuetude And it is not easy to revive again Antiquated Rules even though there may be good reason for it when they fall under that tacit Abrogation which arises out of a long and general disuse of them ARTICLE XXXV Of Homilies The Second Book of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joined under this Article doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine and necessary for these Times as doth the Former Book of Homilies which were set forth in the Time of Edward the Sixth and therefore we judg them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understanded of the People The Names of the Homilies 1. Of the right use of the Church 2. Against Peril of Idolatry 3. Of repairing and keeping clean of Churches 4. Of Good Works First Of Fasting 5. Against Gluttony and Drunkenness 6. Against Excess of Apparel 7. Of Prayer 8. Of the Place and time of Prayer 9. That common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministred in a known tongue 10. Of the reverent estimation of God's Word 11. Of Alms-doing 12. Of the Nativity of Christ. 13. Of the Passion of Christ. 14. Of the Resurrection of Christ. 15. Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. 16. Of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost 17. For the Rogation-days 18. Of the state of Matrimony 19. Of Repentance 20. Against Idleness 21. Against Rebellion AT the time of the Reformation as there could not be found at first a sufficient Number of Preachers to instruct the whole Nation so those that did comply with the changes which were then made were not all well-affected to them so that it was not safe to trust this matter to the Capacity of the one side and to the Integrity of others Therefore to supply the Defects of some and to oblige the rest to teach according to the Form of sound Doctrine there were two Books of Homilies prepared the first was published in King Edward's time the second was not finished till about the time of his Death so it was not published before Queen Elizabeth's time The Design of them was to mix Speculative Points with Practical matters Some explain the Doctrine and others enforce the Rules of Life and Manners These are plain and short Discourses chiefly calculated to possess the Nation with a Sense of the Purity of the Gospel in opposition to the Corruptions of Popery and to reform it from those crying Sins that had been so much connived at under Popery while men knew the Price of them how to compensate for them and to redeem themselves from the Guilt of them by Masses and Sacraments by Indulgences and Absolutions In these Homilies the Scriptures are often applied as they were then understood not so critically as they have been explained since that time But by this Approbation of the two Books of Homilies it is not meant that every Passage of Scripture or Argument that is made use of in them is always convincing or that every Expression is so severely worded that it may not need a little Correction or Explanation All that we profess about them is only that they contain a godly and wholesom Doctrine This ratheâ— relates to the main Importance and Design of them than to every Passagâ— in them Though this may be said concerning them That considering thâ— Age they were written in the Imperfection of our Language and some lesser Defects they are Two very extraordinary Books Some of them arâ— better writ than others and are equal to any thing that has been writ upon those Subjects since that time Upon the whole matter every one whâ— subscribes the Articles ought to read them otherwise he subscribes a Blank he approves a Book implicitely and binds himself to read it as he may be required without knowing any thing concerning it This Approbation is not to be stretched so far as to carry in it a special Assent to every Particular in that whole Volume but a man must be persuaded of the main of the Doctrine that is taught in them To instance this in one particular since there are so many of the Homilies that charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry and that from so many different Topicks no man who thinks that Church is not guilty of Idolatry can with a good Conscience subscribe this Article That the Homilies contain a good and wholesom Doctrine and necessary for these times for according to his sense they contain a false and an uncharitable Charge of Idolatry against a Church that they think is not guilty of it and he will be apt to thâ—nk that this was done to heighten the Aversion of the Nation to it Therefore any who have such favourable thoughts of the Church of Rome are bound by the force of that Persuasion of theirs not to sign this Article but to declare against it as the authorizing of an Accusation against a Church which they think is ill grounded and is by consequence both unjust and uncharitable By necessary for these times is not to be meant
in which Dr. Pocock and Dr. Lightfoot were singularly eminent In all Dr. Hammond's Writings one sees great Learning and a solid Judgment A just Temper in managing Controversies and above all a Spirit of True and Primitive Piety with great Application to the right understanding of the Scriptures and the directing of all to practice Bishop Pearson on the Creed as far as it goes is the perfectest Work we have His Learning was profound and exact his Method good and his Stile clear he was equally happy both in the force of his Arguments and in the plainness of his Expressions Upon the Restoration of the Royal Family and the Church the first Scene of Writing was naturally laid in the late Times and with Relation to Conformity But we quickly saw that Popery was a restless thing and was the standing Enemy of our Church So as soon as that shewed it self then our Divines returned to those Controversies in which no man bare a greater share and succeeded in it with more honour than Bishop Stillingfleet both in his Vindication of Archbishop Laud and in the long-continued Dispute concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome When the dangers of Popery came nearer us and became sensible to all persons then a great Number of our Divines engaged in those Controversies They writ short and plain and yer brought together in a great variety of small Tracts the substance of all that was contained in the Large Volumes writ both by our own Divines and by Foreigners There was in these a Solidity of Argument mixed with an agreeableness in the way of Writing that both pleased and edified the Nation And did very much confound and at last silence the few and weak Writers that were of the Romish side The inequality that was in this Contest was too visible to be denied and therefore they who set it first on foot let it fall For they had other methods to which they trusted more than to that Unsuccessful one of Writing In those Treatises the Substance of all our former Books is so fully contained and so well delivered that in them the Doctrines of our Church as to all Controverted Points is both clearly and copiously set forth The perusing of all this was a large Field And yet I thought it became me to examine all with a due measure of exactness I have taken what pains I could to digest every thing in the clearest method and in the shortest compass into which I could possibly bring it So that in what I have done I am as to the far greatest part rather an Historian and a Collector of what others have writ than an Author my self This I have performed faithfully and I hope with some measure of Diligence and Exactness Yet if in such a variety some important matters are forgot and if others are mistaken I am so far from reckoning it an injury to have those discovered that I will gladly receive any advices of that kind I will consider them carefully and make the best use of them I can for the undeceiving of others as soon as I am convinced that I have misled them If men seek for Truth in the Meekness of Christ they will follow this Method in those private and Brotherly Practices recommended to us by our Saviour But for those that are contentious and do not obey the Truth I shall very little regard any Opposition that may come from them I had no other Design in this Work but first to find out the Truth my self and then to help others to find it out If I succeed to any degree in this Design I will bless God for it And if I fail in it I will bear it with the Humility and Patience that becomes me But as soon as I see a better Work of this kind I shall be among the first of those who shall recommend That and disparage This. There is no part of this whole Work in which I have labour'd with more Care and have writ in a more uncommon Method than concerning Predestination For as my small Reading had carried me further in that Controversy than in any other whatsoever both with relation to Ancients and Moderns and to the most esteemed Books in all the different Parties so I weighed the Article with that Impartial Care that I thought became me and have taken a Method which is for ought I know new of stating the Arguments of all Sides with so much Fairness that those who knew my own Opinion in this Point have owned to me That they could not discover it by any thing that I had written They were inclined to think that I was of another Mind than they took me to be when they read my Arguings of that side I have not in the Explanation of that Article told what my own Opinion was yet here I think it may be fitting to own That I follow the Doctrine of the Greek Church from which St. Austin departed and formed a new System After this declaration I may now appeal both to St. Austin's Disciples and to the Calvinists whether I have not stated both their Opinions and Arguments not only with Truth and Candor but with all possible Advantages One reason among others that led me to follow the Method I have pursued in this Controversy is to offer at the best means I can for bringing men to a better understanding of one another and to a mutual Forbearance in these matters This is at present the chief Point in difference between the Lutherans and the Calvinists Expedients for bringing them to an Union in these Heads are Projects that can never have any good Effect Men whose Opinions are so different can never be brought to an Agreement And the settling on some Equivocal Formularies will never lay the Contention that has arisen concerning them The only possible way of a sound and lasting Reconcilation is to possess both Parties with a Sense of the Force of the Arguments that lye on the other side that they may see they are no way contemptible but are such as may prevail on wise and good men Here is a Foundation laid for Charity And if to this men would add a just Sense of the Difficulties in their own Side and consider that the ill Consequences drawn from Opinions are not to be charged on all that hold them unless they do likewise own those Consequences then it would be more easy to agree on some General Propositions by which those ill Consequences might be condemned and the Doctrine in general settled leaving it free to the men of the different Systems to adhere to their own Opinions but withal obliging them to judge charitably and favourably of others and to maintain Communion with them notwithstanding that Diversity It is a good Step even to the bringing men over to an Opinion To persuade them to think well of those who hold it This goes as it were half way and if it is not possible to bring men quite to think as
Name This increased daily We have a full Account of the special Declaration that a Bishop was obliged to make in the First Canon of that which passeth for the Fourth Council of Carthage But while by reason of new Emergencies this was swelling to a vast Bulk General and more Implicit Formularies came to be used the Bishops declaring that they received and would observe all the Decrees and Traditions of Holy Coâ—â—cils and Fathers And the Papacy coming afterwards to carry every thing before it a Formal Oath that had many loose and indefinite words in it which were very large and comprehensive was added to all the Declarations that had been formerly established The Enlargements of Creeds were at first occasioned by the Prevarications of Hereticks who having put Senses favouring their Opinions on the simpler Terms in which the First Creeds were proposed it was thought necessary to use more express words This was absolutely necessary as to some Points for they being obliged to shew that the Christian Religion did not bring in that Idolatry which it condemned in Heathens it was also necessary to state this matter so that it should appear that they worshipped no Creature but that the Person to whom all agreed to pay Divine Adoration was truly God And it being found that an Equivocation was used in all other words except that of the same Substance they judged it necessary to fix on it besides some other words that they at first brought in but which were afterwards made more doubtful by the Glosses that were put on them At all times it is very necessary to free the Christian Religion from the Imputation of Idolatry but this was never so necessary as when Christianity was engaged in such a Struggle with Paganism And since the main Article then in dispute with the Heathens was Idolatry and the Lawfulness of worshipping any besides the Great and Eternal God it was of the last Importance to the Christian Cause to take care that the Heathens might have no reason to believe that they worshipped a Creature There was therefore just reason given to secure this main Point and to put an end to Equivocation by establishing a Term which by the Confession of all Parties did not admit of any It had been a great Blessing to the Church if a Stop had been put here and that those nice Descantings that were afterwards so much pursued had been more effectually discouraged than they were But men ever were and ever will be men Factions were formed and Interests were set up Hereticks had shewed so much Dissimulation when they were low and so much Cruelty when they prevailed that it was thought necessary to secure the Church from the Disturbances that they might give them And thus it grew to be a Rule to enlarge the Doctrines and Decisions of the Church So that in stating the Doctrines of this Church so copiously our Reformers followed a Method that had been used in a course of many Ages There were besides this common Practice two particular Circumstances in that time that made this seem to be the more necessary One was That at the breaking out of that Light there sprang up with it many impious and extravagant Sects which broke out into most violent Excesses This was no extraordinary thing for we find the like happened upon the first spreading of the Gospel many detestable Sects grew up with it which tended not a little to the defaming of Christianity and the obstructing its Progress I shall not examine what Influence Evil Spirits might have both in the one and the other Bâ—t one visible occasion of it was That by the first Preaching of the Gospel as also upon the opening the Reformation an Enquiry into the Matters of Religion being then the Subject of mens Studies and Discourses many men of warm and ill-govern'd Imaginations presuming on their own Talents and being desirous to signalize themselves and to have a Name in the World went beyond their Depth in Sâ—udy without the necesâ—ary degrees of Knowledge and the yet more necessary dispositions of Mind for arriving at a right understanding of Divine Matters This happening soon after that the Reformation was first set on foot those whose Corruptions were struck at by it and who both hated and persecuted it on that account did not fail to lay hold of and to improve the Advantage which these Seâ—ts gave them They said That the Sectaries had only spoke out what the rest thought and at last they held to this That all Sects were the Natural Consequences of the Reformation and of shaking off the Doctrine of the Infallibility of the Church To stop those Calumnies the Protestants in Germany prepared that Confession of their Faith which they offered to the Diet as Ausburg and which carries its name And after their Example all the other Churches which separated from the Roman Communion published the Confessions of their Faith both to declare their Doctrine for the Instruction of their own Members and for covering them from the Slanders of their Adversaries Another reason that the first Reformers had for their descending into so many Particulars and for all these Negatives that are in their Confessions was this They had smarted long under the Tyranny of Popery and so they had reason to secure themselves from it and from all those who were leavened with it Those here in England had seen how many had complied with every Alteration both in King Henry and King Edward's Reign who not only declared themselves to have been all the while Papists but became bloody Persecutors in Q. Mary's Days Therefore it was necessary to keep all such out of their Body that they might not secretly undermine and betray it Now since the Church of Rome owns all that is positive in our Doctrine there could be no Discrimination made but by condemning the most important of those additions that they have brought into the Christian Religion in express words It is true that in Matters of Fact or in Theories of Nature it is not safe to affirm a Negative because it is seldom possible to prove it yet the Fundamental Article upon which the whole Reformation and this our Church depends is this That the whole Doctrines of the Christian Religion are contained in the Scripture and that therefore we are to admit no Article as a part of it till it is proved from Scripture This being laid down and well made out it is not at all unreasonable to affirm a Negative upon an Examination of all those places of Scripture that are brought for any Doctrine and that seem to favour it if these are found not at all to support it but to bear a different and sometimes a contrary sense to that which is offered to be proved by them So there is no weight in this cavil which yet may look plausible to such as cannot distinguish common Matters from Points of Faith This may serve in general to justify the largeness and the
particularities of this Confession of our Faith There were some steps made to it in K. Henry's Time in a large Book that was then published under the Title of The Necessary Gruâ—ition that was a Treatise set forth to instruct the Nation Many of thâ— Errors of Popery were laid open and condemned in it but none were obliged to assent to it or to Subscribe it After that the Worship was Reformed as being that which pressed most And in that a Foundation was laid for the Articles that came quickly after it How or by whom they were prepared we do not certainly know By the remains of that time it appears that in the alterations that were made there was great precaution used such as indeed matters of that Nature required Questions were framed relating to them these were given about to many Bishops and Divines who gave in theit several Answers those were collated and examined very carefully all sides had a free and fair hearing before Conclusions were made In the fermentation that was working over the whole Nation at that time it was not possible that a thing of that nature could have passed by the methods that are more necessary in Regular Times And therefore they could not be offered at first to Synods or Convocations The Corruptions complained of were so beneficial to the whole Body of the Clergy that it is justly to be wonder'd at that so great a number was prevailed with to concur in Reforming them But without a Miracle they could not have been agreed to by the Major part They were prepared as is most probable by Cranmer and Ridley and published by the Regal Authority Not as if our Kings had pretended to an Authority to judge in Points of Faith or to decide Controversies But as every private man must chuse for himself and believe according to the convictions of his Reason and Conscience which is to be examined and proved in its proper place so every Prince or Legislative Power must give the publick Sanction and Authority according to his own Persuasion this makes indeed such a Sanction to become a Law but does not alter the Nature of Things nor oblige the Consciences of the Subjects unless they come under the same Persuasions Such Laws have indeed the Operation of all other Laws but the Doctrines Authorised by them have no more truth than they had before without any such Publication Thus the part that our Princes had in the Reformation was only this that they being satisfied with the Grounds on which it went received it themselves and enacted it for their People And this is so plain and so just a consequence of that liberty which every man has of believing and acting according to his own Convictions that when the one is well made out there can be no colour to question the other It was also remarkable that the Law which stood first in Iustinian's Code was an Edict of Theodosius's who finding the Roman Empire under great distractions by the diversity of Opinions in Matter of Religion did appoint that Doctrine to be held which was received by Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter Bishop of Alexandria such an Edict as that being put in so conspicuous a part of the Law was a full and soon-observ'd Precedent for our Princes to act according to it The next Thing to be examined is the Use of the Articles and the Importance of the Subscriptions of the Clergy to them Some have thought that they are only Articles of Union and Peace that they are a Standard of Doctrine not to be contradicted or disputed that the Sons of the Church are only bound to acquiesce silently in them and that the Subscription to them amounts only to a general Compromise upon those Articles that so there may be no disputing nor wrangling about them By this means they reckon that though a man should differ in his Opinion from that which appears to be the clear sense of any of the Articles yet he may with a good Conscience subscribe it if the Article appears to him to be of such a nature that though he thinks it wrong yet it seems not to be of that consequence but that it may be born with and not contradicted I shall not now examine whether it were more fit to leave men to the due freedom of their thoughts and that the Subscription did run no higher it being in many cases a great hardship to exclude some very deserving persons from the Service of the Church by requiring a Subscription to so many particulars concerning some of which they are not fully satisfied I am only now to consider what is the Importance of the Subscriptions required among us and not what might be reasonably wisht that it should be As to the Laity and the whole Body of the People certainly to them these are only the Articles of Church-Communion so that every person who does not think that there is some proposition in them that is Erroneous to so high a degree that he cannot hold Communion with such as profess it may and is obliged to continue in our Communion For certainly there are many Opinions held in Matters of Religion which a man may believe to be false and yet he may esteem them to be of so little Importance to the chief design of Religion that he may well hold Communion with those whom he thinks to be so mistaken Here a necessary distinction is to be remembred between Articles of Faith and Articles of Doctrine The one are held necessary to Salvation the other are only believed to be true that is to be revealed in the Scriptures which is a sufficient Ground for acknowledging them true Articles of Faith are Doctrines that are so necessary to Salvation that without believing them no man has a foederal Right to the Covenant of Grace These are not many and in the Establishment of any Doctrine for such it is necessary both to prove it clearly from Scripture and to prove its being necessary to Salvation as a mean setled by the Covenant of Grace in order to it We ought not indeed to hold Communion with such as make Doctrines that we believe not to be true to pass for Articles of Faith though we may hold Communion with such as do think them true without stamping so high an Authority upon them To give one Instance of this in an undeniable particular In the days of the Apostles there were Judaisers of two sorts some thought the Iewish Nation was still obliged to observe the Mosaical Law but others went further and thought that such an Observation was indispensably necessary in all men to Salvation Both these Opinions were wrong but the one was tolerable and the other was intolerable Because it pretended to make that a necessary condition of Salvation which God had not commanded The Apostles complied with the Judaisers of the first sort 1 Cor. 9.19 to 23. as they became all things to all men that so they might gain
some of every sort of men Yet they declared openly against the other and said that if men were Circumcised or were willing to come under such a Yoke Christ profited them nothing and upon that supposition he had died in vain From this plain Precedent we see what a difference we ought to make between the holding Errors in Doctrinal Matters 5. Gal. 3. 2. Gal. 21. and the Imposing them as Articles of Faith We may live in Communion with those who hold Errors of the one sort but must not with those of the other This also shews the Tyranny of that Church which has imposed the belief of every one of her Doctrines on the Consciences of her Votaries under the highest pains of Anathema's and as Articles of Faith But whatever those at Trent did This Church very carefully avoided the laying that weight upon even those Doctrines which she received as true and therefore though she drew up a large Form of Doctrine yet to all her Lay-Sons this is only a Standard of what she teaches and the Articles are to them only Articles of Church-Communion The Citations that are brought from those two great Primates Laud and Bramhall go no further than this They do not seem to relate to the Clergy that subscribe them but to the Laity and Body of the People The People who do only join in Communion with us may well continue to do so though they may not be fully satisfied with every Proposition in them Unless they should think that they struck against any of the Articles or Foundations of Faith and as those Great men truly observe there is a great difference to be observed in this particular between the Imperious Spirit of the Church of Rome and the modest freedom which ours allows But I come in the next place to consider what the Clergy is bound to by their Subscriptions The meaning of every Subscription is to be taken from the design of the Imposer and from the words of the Subscription it self The Title of the Articles bears That they were agreed upon in Convocation For the avoiding of diversities of Opinions and for the stablishing consent touching true Religion Where it is evident that a Consent in Opinion is designed If we in the next place consider the Declaration that the Church has made in the Canons we shall find that though by the Fifth Canon which relates to the whole Body of the People such are only declared to be Excommunicated ipso facto who shall affirm any of the Articles to be Erroneous or such as he may not with a good Conscience Subscribe to yet the 36 th Canon is express for the Clergy requiring them to Subscribe willingly and ex animo and acknowledge all and every Article to be agreeable to the word of God Upon which Canon it is that the Form of the Subscription runs in these words which seem expresly to declare a man's own Opinion and not a bare consent to an Article of Peace or an Engagement to silence and submission The Statute of the 13 th of Queen Elizabeth cap. 12. which gives the Legal Authority to our requiring Subscriptions in order to a man's being capable of a Benefice requires that every Clergyman should read the Articles in the Church where he is to serve with a Declaration of his Unfeigned Assent to them These things make it very plain that the Subscriptions of the Clergy must be considered as a Declaration of their own Opinion and not as a bare Obligation to silence There arose in K. Iames the First 's Reign great and warm Disputes concerning the Decrees of God and those other Points that were setled in Holland by the Synod of Dort against the Remonstrants Divines of both sides among us appealed to the Articles and pretended they were favourable to them For though the first appearance of them seems to favour the Doctrine of Absolute Decrees and the Irresistibility of Grace yet there are many expressions that have another face and so those of the other Persuasion pleaded for themselves from these Upon this a Royal Declarations was set forth in which after that mention is made of those Disputes and that the men of all sides did take the Articles to be for them order is given for stopping those Disputes for the future and for shutting them in God's promises as they be generally set forth in the Holy Scriptures and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them and that no man thereafter should put his own Sense or Comment to be the meaning of the Article but should take it in the Literal and Grammatical Sense In this there has been such a general acquiescing that the fierceness of these Disputes has gone off while men have been left to Subscribe the Articles according to their Literal and Grammatical Sense From which two Things are to be inferred The one is that the Subscription does import an Assent to the Article and the other is that an Article being conceived in such general words that it can admit of different Literal and Grammatical Senses even when the Senses given are plainly contrary one to another both sides may Subscribe the Article with a good Conscience and without any Equivocation To make this more sensible I shall give an instance of it in an Article concerning which there is no Dispute at present The Third Article concerning Christ's descent into Hell is capable of Three different Senses and all the Three are both Literal and Grammatical The First is that Christ descended locally into Hell and preached to the Spirits there in prison and this has one great advantage on its side that those who first prepared the Articles in K. Edward's Time were of this Opinion for they made it a part of it by adding in the Article those words of St. Peter as the Proof or Explanation of it Now though that period was left out in Q. Elizabeth's Time yet no Declaration was made against it so that this Sense was once in possession and was never expresly rejected Besides that it has great support from the Authority of many Fathers who understood the descent into Hell according to this Explanation A Second Sense of which that Article is capable is That by Hell is meant the Grave according to the Signification of the Original Word in the Hebrew and this is supported by the words of Christ's descending into the lower parts of the Earth as also by this That several Creeds that have this Article have not that or Christ's being buried and some that mention his Burial have not this of his Descent into Hell A Third Sense is That by Hell according to the Signification of the Greek Word is to be meant the Place or Region of Spirits separated from their Bodies So that by Christ's descent into Hell is only to be meant that his Soul was really and entirely disunited from his Body not lying dead in it as in an Apoplectical Fit nor
is to be believed  Pr. so also is it to be believed Art 4. MS. Christ did truly arise again  Pr. Christ did truly rise again  MS. until he return to judge all men at the last day  Pr. until he return to judge men at the last day Art 6. MS. to be believed as an Article of the Faith  Pr. to be believed as an Article of Faith  MS. requisite as necessary to Salvation  Pr. requisite or necessary to Salvation  MS. In the name of holy Scripture  Pr. In the name of the holy Scripture  MS. but yet doth it not apply  Pr. but yet doth not apply  MS. Baruch  Pr. Baruch the Prophet  MS. and account them for Canonical  Pr. and account them Canonical Art 8. MS. by most certain warranties of Holy Scripture  Pr. by most certain warrant of Holy Scripture Art 9. MS. but it is the fault  Pr. but is the fault  MS. whereby man is very far gone from his original righteousness  Pr. whereby man is far gone from original righteousness  MS. in them that be regenerated  Pr. in them that are regenerated Art De Gratia non habetur in MS. Art 10. MS. a good will and working in us  Pr. a good will and working with us Art 14. MS. cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety  Pr. cannot be taught without arrogancy and iniquity  MS. we be unprofitable Servants  Pr. we are unprofitable Servants Art 15. MS. sin only except  Pr. sin only excepted MS. to be the Lamb without spot  Pr. to be a Lamb without spot  MS. but we the rest although baptized and born again in Christ yet we all offend  Pr. but all we the rest although baptized and if born in Christ yet offend Art De Blasphemia in Sp. Sanct. non est in MS. Art 16. MS. wherefore the place for Penitence  Pr. wherefore the grant of Repentance Art 17. MS. so excellent a benefit of God given unto them be called according  Pr. so excellent a benefit of God be called according  MS. as because it doth fervently kindle their love  Pr. as because it doth frequently kindle their love Art Omnes Obligantur c. non est in MS. Art 18. MS. to frame his life according to the Law and the light of Nature  Pr. to frame his life according to that Law and the light of Nature Art 19. MS. congregation of faithful men in the which the pure Word  Pr. congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word Art 20. MS. The Church hath Power to decree rites or ceremonies and authority in controversies of Faith And yet   These words are not in the Original MS.  MS. ought it not to enforce any thing  Pr. it ought not to enforce any thing Art 21. MS. and when they be gathered together forasmuch  Pr. and when they be gathered forasmuch Art 22. MS. is a fond thing vainly invented  Pr. is a fond thing vainly feigned Art 24. MS. in a Tongue not understanded of the People  Pr. in a Tongue not understood of the People Art 25. MS. and effectual signs of grace and God's good will towards us  Pr. and effectual signs of grace and God's will towards us  MS. and extream annoyling  Pr. and extream unction Art 26. MS. in their own name but do minister by Christ's Commission and authority  Pr. in their own name but in Christ's and do minister by his Commission and authority  MS. and in the receiving of the Sacraments  Pr. and in the receiving the Sacraments MS. and rightly receive the Sacraments  Pr. and rightly do receive the Sacraments Art 27. MS. from others that be not christned but is also a sign  Pr. from others that be not christned but it is also a sign  MS. forgiveness of sin and of our adoption  Pr. forgiveness of sin of our adoption Art 28. MS. to have amongst themselves  Pr. to have among themselves  MS. the bread which we break is a partaking Communion of the body of Christ.  Pr. the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Thrist  MS. and likewise the Cup of blessing is a partaking Communion of the blood of Christ.  Pr. and likewise the Cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.  MS. or the change of the Substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood cannot be proved by holy Writ but is repugnant  Pr. or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the supper of the Lord cannot be proved by holy Writ but it is repugnant  MS. but the mean whereby the body of Christ is received  Pr. and the mean whereby the body of Christ is received  MS. lifted up or worshipped  Pr. lifted up and worshipped Art 31. MS. is the perfect redemption  Pr. is that perfect redemption  MS. to have remission of pain or guilt were forged Fables  Pr. to have remission of pain and guilt were blasphemous Fables Art 33. MS. that hath authority thereto  Pr. that hath authority thereunto Art 34. MS. diversity of countries times and mens manners  Pr. diversity of countries and mens manners  MS. and be ordained and appointed by common autority  Pr. and be ordained and approved by common authority  MS. the consciences of the weak brethren  Pr. the consciences of weak brethren Art 35. MS. of Homilies the Titles whereof we have joined under this Article do contain  Pr. of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joined under this Article doth contain  MS. wholesome Doctrine and necessary for this time as doth the former book which was set forth  Pr. wholesome Doctrine necessary for these times as doth the former book of Homilies which were set forth MS. and therefore are to be read in our Churches by the Ministers diligently plainly and distinctly that they may be understanded of the people  Pr. and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the people  MS. ministred in a tongue known  Pr. ministred in a known tongue Art De Libro Precationum c. non est in MS. Art 36. MS. in the time of the most noble K. Edward the Sixth  Pr. in the time of Edward the Sixth  MS. superstitious or ungodly  Pr. superstitious and ungodly Art 37. MS. whether they be Ecclesiastical or not  Pr. whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil  MS. the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended  Pr. the minds of some dangerous folks to be offended  MS. we give not to our Princes  Pr. we give not our Princes  MS. or of Sacraments  Pr. or of the
Sacraments  MS. the Injunctions also lately set forth  Pr. the Injunctions also set forth  MS. and serve in the Wars  Pr. and serve in lawful Wars Art 38. MS. every man oughteth of such things  Pr. every man ought of such things Art 39. Edw. 6. qui sequuntur non sunt in MS. WE Th' archbishops and Bishops of either Province of this Realm of England lawfully gathered together in this Provincial Synod holden at London with Continuations and Prorogations of the same do receive profess and acknowledge the xxxviii Articles before written in xix Pages going before to contain true and sound doctrine and do approve and ratify the same by the subscription of our hands the xi â—h day of May in the year of our Lord 1571. and in the year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth by the Grace of God of England France and Ireland Queen Defender of the Faith c. the thirteenth Matthue Cantuar. Rob. Winton Jo. Heref. Richarde Ely Nic. Wigorn. Jo. Sarisburien Edm. Roffen N. Bangor Ri. Cicestren Thom. Lincoln Willhelmus Exon. From these Diversities a great difficulty will naturally arise about this whole Matter The Manuscripts of Corpus Christi are without doubt Originals The hands of the Subscribers are well known they belonged to Archbishop Parker and were left by him to that College and they are Signed with a particular care for at the end of them there is not only a Sum of the number of the Pages but of the Lines in every Page And though this was the Work only of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury yet the Archbishop of York with the Bishops of Duresme and Chester Subscribed them likewise and they were also Subscribed by the whole Lower House But we are not sure that the like care was used in the Convocation Anno 1571. for the Articles are only Subscribed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Ten Bishops of his Province nor does the Subscription of the Lower House appear These Articles were first Printed in the Year 1563. conform to the present Impressions which are still in use among us So the Alterations were then made while the thing was fresh and well known therefore no Fraud nor Artifice is to be suspected since some Objections would have been then made especially by the great Party of the Complying Papists who then continued in the Church They would not have failed to have made much use of this and to have taken great advantages from it if there had been any occasion or colour for it and yet nothing of this kind was then done One Alteration of more Importance was made in the Year 1571. Those words of the 20 th Article The Church hath power to Decree Rites or Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith were left out both in the Manuscripts and in the Printed Editions but were afterwards restored according to the Articles Printed Anno 1563. I cannot find out in what Year they were again put in the Printed Copies They appear in two several Impressions in Queen Elizabeth's Time which are in my hands It passes commonly that it was done by Archbishop Laud and his Enemies laid this upon him among other things That he had corrupted the Doctrine of this Church by this addition but he cleared himself of that as well he might and in a Speech in the Star-Chamber appealed to the Original and affirmed these words were in it The true account of this difficulty is this When the Articles were first setled they were Subscribed by Both Houses upon Paper but that being done they were afterward Ingrossed in Parchment and made up in Form to remain as Records Now in all such Bodies many Alterations are often made after a minute or first Draught is agreed on before the matter is brought to full Perfection so these Alterations as most of them are small and inconsiderable were made between the time that they were first Subscribed and the last Voting of them But the Original Records which if extant would have cleared the whole matter having been burnt in the Fire of London it is not possible to Appeal to them yet what has been proposed may serve I hope fully to clear the difficulty I now go to consider the Articles themselves ARTICLE I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity There is but one living and true God everlasting without bodie parts or passions of infinite power wisdom and goodness the maker and preserver of all things both visible and invisible and in the unity of this godhead there be three persons of one substance power and eternity the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost THE Natural Order of Things required That the First of all Articles in Religion should be concerning the Being and Attributes of God For all other Doctrines arise out of this But the Title appropriates this to the Holy Trinity because that is the only part of the Article which peculiarly belongs to the Christian Religion since the rest is Founded on the Principles of Natural Religion There are Six Heads to be Treated of in order to the full opening of all that is contained in this Article 1. That there is a God 2. That there is but One God 3. Negatively That this God hath neither Body Parts nor Passions 4. Positively That he is of Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness 5. That he at first Created and does still Preserve all things not only what is Material and Visible but also what is Spiritual and Invisible 6. The Trinity is here Asserted These being all Points of the highest consequence it is very necessary to state them as clearly and to prove them as fully as may be The First is That there is a God This is a Proposition which in all Ages has been so universally received and believed some very few Instances being only assigned of such as either have denied or doubted of it that the very consent of so many Ages and Nations of such different Tempers and Languages so vastly remote from one another has been long esteemed a good Argument to prove that either there is somewhat in the Nature of Man that by a secret sort of Instinct does dictate this to him or that all Mankind has descended from one common Stock and that this belief has passed down from the first Man to all his Posterity If the more Polite Nations had only received this some might suggest that wise men had introduced it as a mean to govern human Society and to keep it in order Or if only the more barbarous had received this it might be thought to be the effeâ—t of their Fear and their Ignorance but since all Sorts as well as all Ages of men have received it this alone goes a great way to assure us of the Being of a God To this Two things are Objected 1 st That some Nations such as Sâ—ldania Formosa and some in America have been discovered in these last Ages that seem to acknowledge no
Holy Ghost it must be understood of the Father for when the Father is named with Christ sometimes he is called God simply and sometimes God the Father This Argument from the Threefold Salutation appears yet stronger in the Words in which St. Iohn addresses himself to the Seven Churches in the beginning of the Revelations Rev. 1.4 5. Grace and Peace from him which is which was and which is to come and from the seven Spirits which are before his Throne and from Iesus Christ. By the Seven Spirits must be meant one or more Persons since he wishes or declares Grace and Peace from them Now either this must be meant of Angels or of the Holy Ghost There are no where Prayers made or Blessings given in the Name of Angels This were indeed a worshipping them against which there are express Authorities not only in the other Books of the New Testament but in this Book in particular Nor can it be imagined that Angels could have been named before Iesus Christ So then it remains that Seven being a Number that imports both Variety and Perfection and that was the Sacred Number among the Iews this is a Mystical Expression which is no extraordinary thing in a Book that is all over mysterious And it imports one Person from whom all that variety of Gifts Administrations and Operations that were then in the Church did flow And this is the Holy Ghost But as to his being put in order before Christ as upon the supposition of an Equality the going out of the common order is no great matter so since there was to come after this a full Period that concerned Christ it might be a natural way of Writing to name him last Against all this it is objected That the Designation that is given to the first of these in a Circumlocution that imports Eternity shews that the Great God and not the Person of the Father is to be meant But then how could St. Iohn writing to the Churches wish them Grace and Peace from the other Two A few Verses after this the same Description of Eternal Duration is given to Christ and is a strong Proof of his Eternity and by consequence of his Divinity So what is brought so soon after as a Character of the Eternity of the Son may be also here used to denote the Eternal Father These are the Chief Places in which the Trinity is mentioned all together I do not insist on that contested Passage of St. Iohn's Epistle There are great doubtings made about it 1 Joh. 5.7 The main ground of doubting being the Silence of the Fathers who never made use of it in the Disputes with the Arians and Macedonians There are very considerable things urged on the other hand to support the Authority of that Passage yet I think it is safer to build upon sure and undisputable grounds So I leave it to be maintained by others who are more fully persuaded of its being Authentical There is no need of it This matter is capable of a very full Proof whether that Passage is believed to be a part of the Canon or not It is no small Confirmation of the Truth of this Doctrine that we are certain it was universally received over the whole Christian Church long before there was either a Christian Prince to support it by his Authority or a Council to establish it by Consent And indeed the Council of Nice did nothing but declare what was the Faith of the Christian Church with the addition only of the Word Consubstantial For if all the other Words of the Creed settled at Nice are acknowledged to be true that of the Three Persons being of one Substance will follow from thence by a just consequence We know both by what Tertullian and Novatian writ what was the Faith both of the Roman and the African Churches From Irenaeus we gather the Faith both of the Gallican and the Asiatick Churches And the whole proceedings in the Case of Samosatenus that was the solemnest business that past while the Church was under Oppression and Persecution give us the most convincing Proof possible not only of the Faith of the Eastern Churches at that time but of their Zeal likewise in watching against every Breach that was made in so Sacred a part of their Trust and Depositum These things have been fully opened and enlarged on by others to whom the Reader is referred I shall only desire him to make this Reflection on the state of Christianity at that time The Disputes that were then to be managed with the Heathens against the Deifying or Worshipping of Men and those extravagant Fables concerning the Genealogies of their Heroes and Gods must have obliged the Christians rather to have silenced and supprest the Doctrine of the Trinity than to have owned and published it So that nothing but their being assured that it was a Necessary and Fundamental Article of their Faith could have led them to own it in so publick a manner since the Advantages that the Heathen would have taken from it must be too visible not to be soon observed The Heathens retorted upon them their Doctrine of a Man's being a God and of God's having a Son And every one who engaged in this Controversy framed such Answers to these Objections as he thought he could best maintain This as it gave the Rise to the Errors which some brought into the Church so it furnishes us with a Copious Proof of the common Sense of the Christians of those Ages who all agreed in general to the Doctrine though they had many different and some very Erroneous ways of explaining it among them I now come to the special Proofs concerning each of the Three Persons But there being other Articles relating to the Son and the Holy Ghost the Proofs of these Two will belong more properly to the Explanation of those Articles Therefore all that belongs to this Article is to prove that the Father is truly God but that needs not be much insisted on for there is no dispute about it None deny that he is God many think that he is so truly God that there is no other that can be called God besides him unless it be in a larger sense of the word And therefore I will here conclude all that seems necessary to be said on this first Article on which if I have dwelt the longer it was because the stating the Idea of God right being the Fundamental Article of all Religion and the Key into every part of it this was to be done with all the Fulness and Clearness possible In a word to recapitulate a little what has been said The liveliest way of framing an Idea of God is to consider our own Souls which are said to be made after the Image of God An attentive Reflection on what we perceive in our selves will carry us further than any other thing whatsoever to form just and true Thoughts of God We perceive what Thought is but
Deuteronomy The First Book of Chronicles Ecclesiastes or Preacher Ioshua The Second Book of Chronicles Cantica or Song of Solomon Iudges The First Book of Esdras Four Prophets the greater Ruth The Second Book of Esdras Twelve Prophets the less And the other Books as Hierom saith the Church doth read for Example of Life and Instruction of Manners but yet it doth not apply them to Establish any Doctrine Such are these following The Third Book of Esdras The Fourth Book of Esdras The Book of Tobias The Book of Iudith The rest of the Book of Esther The Book oâ— Wisdom Iesus the Son of Syrach Baruch the Prophet The Song of the Three Children The History of Susanna Of Bel and the Dragon The Prayer of Manasses The First Book of Maccabees The Second Book of Maccabees All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical IN this Article are Two important Heads and to each of them a proper consequence does belong The First is That the Holy Scriptures do contain all things necessary to Salvation The Negative Consequence that ariseth out of that is That no Article that is not either Read in it or that may not be proved by it is to be required to be believed as an Article of Faith or to be thought necessary to Salvation The Second is The settling the Canon of the Scripture both of Old and New Testament and the consequence that arises out of that is The rejecting the Books commonly called Apocryphal which though they may be Read by the Church for Example of Life and Instruction of Manners yet are no part of the Canon nor is any Doctrine to be Established by them After the main Foundations of Religion in General in the belief of a God or more specially of the Christian Religion in the Doctrine of the Trinity and of the Death Resurrection and Ascension of Christ are laid down The next Point to be settled is What is the Rule of this Faith where is it to be found and with whom is it lodged The Church of Rome and We do both agree that the Scriptures are of Divine Inspiration Those of that Communion acknowledge That every thing which is contained in Scripture is true and comes from God but they add to this That the Books of the New Testament were occasionally written and not with the design of making them the full Rule of Faith but that many things were delivered Orally by the Apostles which if they are faithfully Transmitted to us are to be received by us with the same Submission and Respect that we pay to their Writings And they also believe That these Traditions are conveyed down infallibly to us and that to distinguish betwixt true and false Doctrines and Traditions there must be an infallible Authority lodged by Christ with his Church We on the contrary affirm That the Scriptures are a compleat Rule of Faith and that the whole Christian Religion is contained in them and no where else and although we make great use of Tradition especially that which is most Ancient and nearest the Source to help us to a clear understanding of the Scriptures yet as to Matters of Faith we reject all Oral Tradition as an incompetent mean of conveying down Doctrines to us and we refuse to receive any Doctrine that is not either expresly contained in Scripture or clearly proved from it In order to the opening and proving of this it is to be considered what God's design in first ordering Moses and after him all Inspired Persons to put things in Writing could be it could be no other than to free the World from the Uncertainties and Impostures of Oral Tradition All Mankind being derived from one common Source it seems it was much easier in the first Ages of the World to preserve the Tradition pure than it could possibly be afterwards There were only a few things then to be delivered concerning God as That he was one Spiritual Being That he had Created all things That he alone was to be Worshipped and Served the rest relating to the History of the World and chiefly of the first Man that was made in it There were also great advantages on the side of Oral Tradition the first men were very long-liv'd and they saw their own Families spread extreamly so that they had on their side both the Authority which long Life always has particularly concerning Matters of Fact and the credit that Parents have naturally with their own Children to secure Tradition Two Persons might have conveyed it down from Adam so Abraham Methuselah lived above Three hundred years while Adam was yet alive and Sem was almost an hundred when he died and he lived much above an hundred years in the same time with Abraham according to the Hebrew Here is a great period of Time filled up by Two or Three Persons And yet in that Time the Tradition of those very few things in which Religion was then comprehended was so Universally and Intirely corrupted that it was necessary to correct it by immediate Revelation to Abraham God intending to have a peculiar People to himself out of his Posterity commanded him to forsake his Kindred and Country that he might not be corrupted with an Idolatry that we have reason to believe was then but beginning among them We are sure his Nephew Laban was an Idolater And the danger of mixing with the rest of Mankind was then so great that God ordered a Mark to be made on the Bodies of all descended from him to be the Seal of the Covenant and the Badge and Cognisance of his Posterity By that distinction and by their living in a wandring and unfixed manner they were preserved for some time from Idolatry God intending afterwards to settle them in an Instituted Religion But though the Beginnings of it I mean the Promulgation of the Law on Mount Sinai was one of the most amazing things that ever happened and the fittest to be Orally conveyed down the Law being very short and the Circumstances in the delivery of it most astonishing and though there were many Rites and several Festivities appointed chiefly for the carrying down the Memory of it though there was also in that dispensation the greatest advantage imaginable for securing this Tradition all the main Acts of their Religion being to be performed in one Place and by men of one Tribe and Family as they were also all the Inhabitants of a small Tract of Ground of one Language and by their Constitutions oblig'd to maintain a constant Commerce among themselves They having further a continuance of Signal Characters of God's Miraculous Presence among them such as the Operation of the Water of Jealousy the Plenty of the Sixth Year to supply them all the Sabbatical Year and tilâ— the Harvest of the following Year Together with a Succession of Prophets that followed one another either in a constant course or at least soon after one another but
not express themselves so as that they should be clearly understood It is also to be observed That the New Dispensation is opposed to the Old as Light is to Darkness an Open Face to a Veiled and Substance to Shadows Since then the Old Testament was so clear that David both in the 19 th and most copiously in the 119 th Psalm sets out very fully the Light which the Laws of God gave them in that darker State we have much more reason to conclude That the New Dispensation should be much brighter If there was no need of a certain Expounder of Scripture then there is much less now Nor is there any Provision made in the New for a sure Guide No Intimations are given where to find one From all which we may conclude That the Books of the New Testament were clear in those days and might well be understood by those to whom they were at first addressed If they were clear to them they may be likewise clear to us For though we have not a full History of that Time or of the Phrases and Customs and particular Opinions of that Age yet the vast Industry of the succeeding Ages of these two last in particular has made such discoveries besides the other collateral advantages which Learning and a Niceness in Reasoning has given us that we may justly reckon that though some Hints in the Epistles which relate to the particulars of that Time may be so lost that we can at best but make conjectures about them yet upon the whole matter we may well understand all that is necessary to Salvation in the Scripture We may indeed fall into Mistakes as well as into Sins And into Errors of Ignorance as well as into Sins of Ignorance God has dealt with our Understandings as he has dealt with our Wiils He proposes our Duty to us with strong Motives to Obedience he promises us inward Assistances and accepts of our sincere Endeavours And yet this does not hinder many from perishng Eternally and others from falling into great Sins and so running great danger of Eternal Damnation and all this is because God has left our Wills free and does not constrain us to be good He deals with our Understandings in the same manner he has set his Will and the knowledge of Salvation before us in Writings that are framed in a simple and plain Stile in a Language that was then common and is still well understood that were at first designed for common Use They are soon read and it must be confessed that a great part of them is very clear So we have reason to conclude that if a man reads these carefully and with an honest Mind if he prays to God to direct him and follows sincerely what he apprehends to be true and practises diligently those Duties that do unquestionably appear to be bound upon him by them that then he shall find out enough to save his Soul and that such Mistakes as lye still upon him shall either be cleared up to him by some happy Providence or shall be forgiven him by that Infinite Mercy to which his Sincerity and Diligence is well known That bad men should fall into grievous Errors is no more strange than that they should commit heinous Sins And the Errors of good men in which they are neither wilful nor insolent will certainly be forgiven as well as their Sins of Infirmity Therefore all the ill use that is made of the Scripture and all the Errors that are pretended to be proved by it do not weaken its Authority or Clearness This does only shew us the danger of Studying them with a biassed or corrupted mind of reading them too carelesly of being too curious in going farther than as they open matters to us and in being too implicite in adhering to our Education or in Submitting to the Dictates of others So far I have explained the First Branch of this Article The Consequence that arises out of it is so clear that it needs not be proved That therefore nothing ought to be esteemed an Article of Faith but what may be found in it or proved from it If this is our Rule our entire and only Rule then such Doctrines as are not in it ought to be rejected and any Church that adds to the Christian Religion is erroneous for making such Additions and becomes Tyrannical if she imposes them upon all her Members and requires positive Declarations Subscriptions and Oaths concerning them In so doing she forces such as cannot have Communion with her but by affirming what they believe to be false to withdraw from that which cannot be had without departing from the Truth So all the Additions of the Five Sacraments of the Invocation of Angels and Saints of the worshipping of Images Crosses and Relicks of the Corporal Presence in the Eucharist of the Sacrifice offered in it for the dead as well as for the living together with the Adoration offered to it with a great many more are certainly Errors unless they can be proved from Scripture and they are intolerable Errors if as the Scripture is express in opposition to them so they defile the Worship of Christians with Idolatry But they become yet most intolerable if they are imposed upon all that are in that Communion and if Creeds or Oaths in which they are affirmed are required of all in their Communion Here is the main ground of justifying our forming our selves into a distinct Body from the Roman Church and therefore it is well to be considered The further discussing of this will come properly in when other Particulars come to be examined From hence I go to the Second Branch of this Article which gives us the Canon of the Scripture Here I shall begin with the New Testament for though in order the Old Testament is before the New yâ—t the Proof of the one being more distinctly made out by the concurring Testimonies of other Writers than can possibly be pretended for the other and the New giving an Authority to the Old by asserting it so expresly I shall therefore prove first the Canon of the New Testament I will not urge that of the Testimony of the Spirit which many have had recourse to This is only an Argument to him that feels it if it is one at all and therefore it proves nothing to another person besides the utmost that with reason can be made of this is that a good man feeling the very powerful Effects of the Christian Religion on his own Heart in the reforming his Nature and the calming his Conscience together with those Comforts that arise out of it is convinced in general of the Whole of Christianity by the happy Effects that it has upon his own Mind But it does not from this appear how he should know that such Books and such Passages in them should come from a Divine Original or that he should be able to distinguish what is Genuine in them from what is Spurious To come
The Stile and Matter of the Revelation as well as the designation of Divine given to the Author of it gave occasion to many Questions about it Clemens of Rome cites it as a Prophetical Book Clem. in Ep. ad Coâ— Justin cont Tryphon Irenaeus l 5. c. 30. Eus. Hist. l. 4. c. 24 26. l. 5. c. 18. l. 7. c. 27. Iustin Martyr says it was writ by Iohn one of Christ's Twelve Apostles Irenaeus calls it the Revelation of St. Iohn the Disciple of our Lord writ almost in our own Age in the End of Domitian's Reign Melito writ upon it Theophilus of Antioch Hyppolitus Clemens and Dennis of Alexandria Tertullian Cyprian and Origen do cite it And thus the Canon of the New Testamentseems to be fullymade outbythe concurrent Testimony of the several Churches immediately after the Apostolicaltime Here it is to be observed that a great difference is to be made between all this and the Oral Tradition of a Doctrine in which there is nothing fixed or permanent so that the whole is only Report carried about and handed down Whereas here is a Book that was only to be copied out and read publickly and by all Persons between which the difference is so vast that it is as little possible to imagine how the one should continue pure as how the other should come to be corrupted There was never a Book of which we have that reason to be assured that it is genuine that we have here There hapned to be constant Disputes among Christians from the Second Century downward concerning some of the most important Parts of this Doctrine and by both sides these Books were appealed to And though there might be some Variations in Readings and Translations yet no question was made concerning the Canon or the Authenticalness of the Books themselves unless it were by the Manichees who came indeed to be called Christians by a very enlarged way of speaking since it is justly strange how men who said that the Author of the Universe and of the Mosaical Dispensation was an Evil God and who held that there were Two Supreme Gods a Good and an Evil one how such men I say could be called Christians The Authority of those Books is not derived from any Judgment that the Church made concerning them but from this That it was known that they were writ either by men who were themselves the Apostles of Christ or by those who were their Assistants and Companions at whose Order or under whose Direction and Approbation it was known that they were written and published These Books were received and known for such in the very Apostolical Age it self so that many of the Apostolical men such as Ignatius and Polycarp lived long enough to see the Canon generally received and settled The suffering and depressed state of the First Christians was also such that as there is no reason to suspect them of Imposture so it is not at all credible that an Imposture of this kind could have passed upon all the Christian Churches A man in a Corner might have forged the Sibylline Oracles or some other Pieces which were not to be generally used and they might have apâ—â—ared soon after and Crâ—dit might have been given too easily to a Book or Writing of that kind But it cannot be imagined that in an Age in which the belief of this Doctrine brought men under great Troubles and in which Miracles and other extraordinary Gifts were long continued in the Church that I say either False Books could have been so early obtruded on the Church as True or that True Books could have been so vitiated as to lose their Original Purity while they were so universally read and used and that so soon or that the Writers of that very Age and of the next should have been so generally and so grosly imposed upon as to have cited Spurious Writings for True These are things that could not be believed in the Histories or Records of any Nation Though the Value that the Christians set upon these Books and the constant use they made of them reading a parcel of them every Lord's Day make this much less supposable in the Christian Religion than it could be in any other sort of History or Record whatsoever The early spreading of the Christian Religion to so many remote Countries and Provinces the many Copies of these Books that lay in Countries so remote the many Translations of them that were quickly made do all concur to make the Impossibility of any such Imposture the more sensible Thus the Canon of the New Testament is fixed upon clear and sure Grounds From thence without any further Proof we may be convinced of the Canon of the Old Testament Christ does frequently cite Moses and the Prophets he appeals to them and though he charged the Iews of that time chiefly their Teachers and Rulers with many Disorders and Faults yet he never once so much as insinuated that they had corrupted their Law or other Sacred Books which if true had been the greatest of all those Abuses that they had put upon the People Our Saviour cited their Books according to the Translation that was then in Credit and common Use amongst them When one asked him which was the great Commandment he answered How readest thou And he proved the chief things relating to himself his Death and Resurrection from the Prophecies that had gone before which ought to have been fulfilled in him He also cites the Old Testament Luke 24.44 by a Threefold Division of the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms according to the Three Orders of Books into which the Iews had divided it The Psalms which was the first among the Holy Writings being set for that whole Volume St. Paul says That to the Iews were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3.2 He reckons that among the chief of their Privileges but he never blames them for being unfaithful in this Trust and it is certain that the Iews have not corrupted the chief of those Passages that are urged against them to prove Jesus to have been the Christ. So that the Old Testament at least the Translation of the LXX Interpreters which was in common use and in high esteem among the Iews in our Saviour's time was as to the main faithful and uncorrupted This might be further urged from what St. Paul says concerning those Scriptures which Timothy had learned of a Child these could be no other than the Books of the Old Testament Thus if the Writings of the New Testament are acknowledged to be of Divine Authority the full Testimony that they give to the Books of the Old Testament does sufficiently prove their â—uthority and Genuineness likewise But to carry this matter yet further Moses wrought such Miracles both in Egypt in passing through the Red-Sea and in the Wilderness that if these are acknowledg'd to be true there can be no question made of his being sent of God and authorized by
all impure Desires being enjoined as indispensably necessary for without holiness no man can see the Lord. And thus every thing relating to this Article is considered and I hope both explained and proved ARTICLE VIII Of the Three Creeds The Three Creeds Nice Creed Athanasius Creed and that which is commonly called the Apostles Creed ought throughly to be received and believed for they may be proved by most certain Warrants of Holy Scripture ALthough no doubt seems to be here made of the Names or Designations given to those Creeds except of that which is ascribed to the Apostles yet none of them are named with any exactness Since the Article of the Procession of the Holy Ghost and all that follows it is not in the Nicene Creed but was used in the Church as a part of it for so it is in Epiphanius In Anchoreto before the Second General Council at Constantinople and it was confirmed and established in that Council Only the Article of the Holy Ghost's proceeding from the Son was afterwards added first in Spain Anno 447. which spread it self over all the West So that the Creed here called the Nice Creed is indeed the Constantinopolitan Creed together with the Addition of Filioque made by the Western Church That which is called Athanasius's Creed is not his neither â—or as it is not among his Works so that great Article of the Christian Religion having been settled at Nice and he and all the rest of the Orthodox referring themselves always to the Creed made by that Council there is no reason to imagine that he would have made a Creed of his own besides that not only the Macedonian but both the Nestorian and the Eutychian Heresies are expresly condemned by this Creed and yet those Authorities never being urged in those Disputes it is clear from thence that no such Creed was then known in the World as indeed it was never heard of before the Eighth Century and then it was given out as the Creed of Athanasius or as a Representation of his Doctrine and so it grew to be received by the Western Church perhaps the more early because it went under so great a Name in Ages that were not Critical enough to judge of what was genuine and what was spurious There is one great difficulty that arises out of several Expressions in this Câ—â—ed in which it is said That whosover will be saved must believe it That the Belief of it is necessary to Salvation and that such as do not hold it pure and undefiled shall without doubt perish everlastingly Where many Explanations of a Mystery hard to be understood are made indispensably necessary to Salvation and it is affirmed That all such as do not so believe must perish everlastingly To this two Answers are made 1. That it is only the Christian Faith in general that is hereby meant and not every Period and Article of this Creed so that all those severe Expressions are thought to import only the necessity of believing the Christian Religion But this seems forced for the words that follow And the Catholick Faith is do so plainly determine the sâ—gnification of that word to the Explanation that comes after that the word Catholick Faith in the first Verse can be no other than the same word as it is defined in the third and following Verses so that this Answer seems not natural 2. The common Answer in which the most Eminent Men of this Church as far as the Memory of all such as I have known could go up have agreed is this That these Condemnatory Expressions are only to be understood to relate to those who having the Means of Instruction offered to them have rejected them and have stifled their own Convictions holding the Truth in Unrighteousness and chusing darkness rather than light Upon such as do thus reject this great Article of the Christian Doctrine concerning One God and Three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and that other concerning the Incarnation of Christ by which God and Man were so united as to make one Person together with the other Doctrines that follow these are those Anathâ—maes denounced Not so as if it were hereby meant that every man who does not believe this in every tittle must certainly perish unless he has been furnished with sufficient means of conviction and that he has rejected them and hardned himself against them The Wrath of God is revealed against all sin and the wages of sin is Death So that every Sinner has the Wrath of God abiding on him and is in a state of Damnation yet a sincere Repentance delivers him out of it even though he lives and dies in some sins of Ignorance which though they may make him liable to damnation so that nothing but true Repentance can deliver him from it yet a general Repentance when it is also special for all known sins does certainly deliver a man from the guilt of unknown sins and from the Wrath of God due to them God only knows our hearts the degrees of our knowledge and the measure of our obstinacy and how far our Ignorance is affected or invincible and therefore he will deal with every man according to what he has received So that we may believe that some Doctrines are necessary to Salvation as well as that there are some Commandments necessary for Practice and we may also believe that some Errors as well as some Sins are exclusive of Salvation all which imports no more than that we believe such things are sufficiently revealed and that they are necessary Conditions of Salvation but by this we do not limit the Mercies of God towards those who are under such darkness as not to be able to see through it and to discern and acknowledge these Truths It were indeed to be wished that some express Declaration to this purpose were made by those who have Authority to do it But in the mean while this being the Sense in which the Words of this Creed are universally taken and it agreeing with the Phraseology of the Scripture upon the like occasions this is that which may be rested upon And allowing this large Explanation of these severe words the rest of this Creed imports no more than the Belief of the Doctrine of the Trinity which has been already proved in treating of the former Articles As for the Creed called the Apostles Creed there is good reason for speaking so doubtfully of it as the Article does since it does not appear that any determinate Creed was made by them None of the first Writers agree in delivering their Faith in a certain Form of Words every one of them gives an Abstract of his Faith in Words that differ both from one another and from this Form From thence it is clear that there was no common Form delivered to all the Churches And if there had been any Tradition after the Times of the Council of Nice of such a Creed composed by the Apostles the Arians
Literal and Grammatical Sense Since therefore the words God's wrath and damnation which are the highest in the Article are capable of a lower sense Temporary Judgments being often so expressed in the Scriptures Ex. 32.10 and 〈◊〉 the whole Old Testâ—ment Mat. 3.7 1 Thess. 2.16 Luk. 23.40 1 Cor. 11.29 1 Pet. 4.17 Rom. 13.2 2 Câ—r 7.5 John 8.10 11. Rom. 14.13 therefore they believe the loss of the Favour of God the Sentence of Death the Troubles of Life and the Corruption of our Faculties may be well called God's wrath and damnation Besides they observe That the main point of the Imputation of Adam's Sin to his Posterity and its being considered by God as their own Act not being expresly taught in the Article here was that moderation observed which the Compilers of the Articles have shewed on many other occasions It is plain from hence that they did not intend to lay a Burthen one Mens Consciences or oblige them to profess a Doctrine that seems to be of hard digestion to a great many The last prejudice that they offer against that Opinion is That the softening the terms of God's wrath and damnation that was brought in by the followers of St. Austin's Doctrine to sâ—ch a moderate and harmless Notiâ—n as to be only a loss of Heaven with a sort of unactive Sâ—â—ep was â—n effect of their apprehending that the World could very ill bear an Opinion of so strange a sound as that all Mankind were to be Damned for the Sin of one Man And that therefore to make this pass the beâ—ter they mitigated Damnation far below the Representation that the Scriptures generally give of it which propose it as the being adjudged to a place of Torment and a state of Horror and Misery Thus I have set down the different Opinions in this point with that true Indifference that I intend to observe on such other occasions and which becomes one who undertakes to explain the Doctrines of the Church and not his own And who is obliged to purpose other Mens Opinions with all Sincerity and to shew what are the Senses that the Learned Men of different persuasions in these matters have put on the words of the Article In which one great and constant Rule to be observed is To represent mens Opinions candidly and to judge as favourably both of them and their Opinions as may be To bear with one another and not to disturb the Peace and Union of the Church by insisting too much and too peremptorily upon matters of such doubtful Disputaion but willingly to leave them to all that liberty to which the Church has left them and which she still allows them ARTICLE X. Of Free-Will The Condition of Man after the Fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to Faith and calling upon God Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God without the Grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will and working with us when we have that good will WE shall find the same Moderation observed in this Article that was taken notice of in the former where all disputes concerning the degrees of that feebleness and corruption under which we are fallen by the Sin of Adam are avoided and only the necessity of a preventing and a cooperating Grace is asserted against the Semipelagians and the Pelagians But before we enter upon that it is fitting first to state the true Notion of Free-Will in so far as it is necessary to all rational Agents to make their Actions morally good or bad since it is a Principle that seems to rise out of the Light of Nature That no man is accountable rewardable or punishable but for that in which he acts freely without force or compulsion and so far all are agreed Some imagine That Liberty must suppose a freedom to do or not to do and to act contrariwise at pleasure To others it seems not necessary that such a liberty should be carried to denominate Actions morally good or bad God certainly acts in the perfectest liberty yet he cannot sin Christ had the most exalted liberty in his Human Nature of which a Creature was capable and his Merit was the highest yet he could not sin Angels and glorified Saints though no more capable of Rewards are perfect Moral Agents and yet they cannot sin And the Devils with the damned though not capable of further Punishment yet are still Moral Agents and cannot but sin So this Indifferency to do or not to do cannot be the true Notion of Liberty A truer one seems to them to be this That a Rational Nature is not determined as mere Matter by the Impulse and Motion of other Bodies upon it but is capable of Thought and upon considering the Objects set before it makes Reflection and so chuses Liberty therefore seems to consist in this inward capacity of thinking and of acting and chusing upon Thought The clearer the Thought is and the more constantly that our choice is determined by it the more does a Man rise up to the highest Acts and sublimest Exercises of Liberty A question arises out of this Whether the Will is not always determined by the Understanding so that a Man does always chuse and determine himself upon the account of some Idea or other If this is granted then no liberty will be left to our Faculties We must apprehend things as they are proposed to our Understanding for if a thing appears true to us we must assent to it and if the Will is as blind to the Understanding as the Understanding is determined by the Light in which the Object appears to it then we seem to be concluded under a Fate or Necessity It is after all a vain attempt to argue against every man's experience We perceive in our selves a liberty of turning our Minds to some Ideas or from others we can think longer or shorter of these more exactly and steadily or more slightly and superficially as we please and in this radical freedom of directing or diverting our Thoughts a main part of our Freedom does consist Often Objects as they appear to our Thoughts do so affect or heat them that they do seem to conquer us and carry us after them some Thoughts seeming as it were to intoxicate and charm us Appetites and Passions when much fired by Objects apt to work upon them do agitate us strongly and on the other hand the Impressions of Religion come often in our Minds with such a secret force so much of Terror and such secret Joy mixing with them that they seem to master us yet in all this a Man Acts freely because he thinks and chuses for himself And though perhaps he does not feel himself so entirely balanced that he is indifferent to both sides yet he has still such a remote liberty that he can turn himself to other Objects and Thoughts so
to pursue We are never to mix these two together or to imagine that the Condition upon which Justification is offered to us is the Consideration that moves God as if our Holiness Faith or Obedience were the moving Cause of our Justification oâ— that God justifies us because he sees that we are truly just For though it is not to be denied but that in some places of the New Testament Iustification may stand in that Sense because the word in its Signification will bear it yet in these Two Epistles in which it is largely treated of nothing is plainer than that the design is to shew us what it is that brings us to the Favour of God and to a state of Pardon and Acceptation So that Iustification in those places stands in opposition to Accusation and Condemnation The next Term to be explained is Faith which in the New Testament stâ—nds generally for the Complex of Christianity in opposition to the Law which stands as generally for the Complex of the whole Mosaical Dispensation So that the Faith of Christ is equivalent to this the Gospel of Christ because Christianity is a Foederal Religion founded on God's part on Promises that he has made to us and on the Rules he has set us and on our part on our believing that Revelation our trusting to those Promises and our setting our selves to follow those Rules The believing this Revelation and that great Article of it of Christ's being the Son of God and the true Messias that came to reveal his Father's Will and to offer himself up to be the Sacrifice of this New Covenant is often represented as the great and only Condition of the Covenant on our part but still this Faith must receive the whole Gospel the Precepts as well as the Promises of it and receive Christ as a Prophet to Teach and a King to Rule as well as a Priest to Save us By Faith only is not to be meant Faith as it is separated from the other Evangelical Graces and Virtues but Faith as it is opposite to the Rites of the Mosaical Law for that was the great Question that gave occasion to St. Paul's writing so fully upon this Head since many Judaizing Christians as they acknowledged Christ to be the true Messias so they thought that the Law of Moses was still to retain its force In opposition to whom St. Paul says That we are justified by Faith without the works of the Law Rom. 3.28 Gal. 2.16 Rom. 2.12 It is plain that he means the Mosaical Dispensation for he had divided all Mankind into those who were in the Law and those who were without the Law That is into Iews and Gentiles Nor had St. Paul any occasion to treat of any other Matter in those Epistles or to enter into nice Abstractions which became not one that was to Instruct the World in order to their Salvation Those Metaphysical Notions are not easily apprehended by plain Men not accustomed to such Subtilties and are of very little value when they are more critically distinguished Yet when it seems some of those Expressions were wrested to an ill sense and use St. Iames treats of the same matter but with this great difference that though he says expresly That a man is justified by Works and not by Faith only yet he does not say by the Works of the Law Jam. 2.24 so that he does not at all contradict St. Paul the Works that he mentions not being the Circumcision or Ritual Observances of Abraham but his offering up his Son Isaac which St. Paul had reckoned a part of the Faith of Abraham This shews that he did not intend to contradict the Doctrine delivered by St. Paul but only to give a true Notion of the Faith that justifies that it is not a bare believing such as Devils are capable of but such a believing as exerted it self in Good Works So that the Faith mentioned by St. Paul is the Complex of all Christianity whereas that mentioned by St. Iames is a bare believing without a life suitable to it And as it is certainly true that we are taken into the Favour of God upon our receiving the whole Gospel without observing the Mosaical Precepts so it is as certainly true that a bare professing or giving credit to the Truth of the Gospel without our living suitably to it does not give us a right to the Favour of God And thus it appears that these two Pieces of the New Testament when rightly understood do in no wise contradict but agree well with one another In the last place we must consider the signification of Good Works By them are not to be meant some voluntary and assumed pieces of Severity which are no where enjoyned in the Gospel that arise out of Superstition and that feed of Pride and Hypocrisy These are so far from deserving the name of Good Works that they have been in all Ages the Methods of Imposture and of Impostors and the Arts by which they have gained Credit and Authority By Good Works therefore are meant Acts of true Holiness and of sincere Obedience to the Laws of the Gospel The Terms being thus explained I shall next distinguish between the Questions arising out of this Matter that are only about Words and those that are more Material and Important If any Man fancy that the Remission of Sins is to be considered as a thing previous to Iustification and distinct from it and acknowledge that to be freely given in Christ Jesus and that in consequence of this there is such a Grace infused that thereupon the Person becomes truly just and is considered as such by God This which must be confessed to be the Doctrine of a great many in the Church of Rome and which seems to be that established at Trent is indeed very visibly different from the Stile and Design of those Places of the New Testament in which this matter is most fully opened But yet after all it is but a question about words for if that which they call Remission of Sins be the same with that which we call Iustification and if that which they call Iustification be the same with that which we call Sanctification then here is only a strife of words Yet even in this we have the Scriptures clearly of our side so that we hold the form of sound words from which they have departed The Scripture speaks of Sanctification as a thing different from and subsequent to Iustification 1 Cor. 6.11 Now ye are washed ye are sanctified ye are justified And since Justification and the being in the Love and Favour of God are in the New Testament one and the same thing the Remission of Sins must be an Act of God's Favour For we cannot imagine a middle state of being neither accepted of him nor yet under his Wrath as if the Remission of Sins were merely an extinction of the guilt of Sin without any special Favour If therefore this
Remission of Sins is acknowledged to be given freely to us through Jesus Christ this is that which we affirm to be Iustification though under another name We do also acknowledge that our Natures must be sanctified and renewed that so God may take pleasure in us when his Image is again visible upon us and this we call Sanctification which we acknowledge to be the constant and inseparable effect of Iustification So that as to this we agree in the same Doctrine only we differ in the use of the Terms in which we have the Phrase of the New Testament clearly with us But there are two more material differences between us It is a Tenet in the Church of Rome That the Use of the Sacraments if Men do not put a bar to them and if they have only imperfect Acts of Sorrow accompanying them does so far compleat those weak Acts as to justify us This we do utterly deny as a Doctrine that tends to enervate all Religion and to make the Sacraments that were appointed to be the solemn â—â—ts of Religion for quickning and exciting our Piety and for conveying Grace to us upon our coming devoutly to them becomes means to flatten and deaden us As if they were of the nature of Charms which if they could be come at tho' with ever so slight a preparation would make up all defects The Doctrine of Sacramental Justification is justly to be reckoned among the most mischievous of all those Practical Errors that are in the Church of Rome Since therefore this is no where mentionâ—d in all these large Discourses that are in the New Testament concerning Justification we have just reason to reject it Since also the natural consequence of this Doctrine is to make Men rest contented in low imperfect Acts when they can be so easily made up by a Sacrament we have just reason to detest it as one of the depths of Satan The Tendency of it being to make those Ordinances of the Gospel which were given us as means to raise and heighten our Faith and Repentance become Engines to encourage Sloth and Impenitence There is another Doctrine that is Held by many and is still Taught in the Church of Rome not only with Approbation but Favour That the inherent Holiness of good Men is a thing of its own nature so perfect that upon the account of it God is so bound to esteem them just and to justify them that he were unjust if he did not They think there is such a real condignity in it that it makes Men God's adopted Children Whereas we on the other hand Teach That God is indeed pleased with the inward Reformaâ—â—on that he sees in good Men in whom his Grace dwells that he approves and accepts of their Sincerity but that with this there is still such a mixture and in this there is still so much Imperfection that even upon this account if God did straitly mark Iniquity none could stand before him So that even his acceptance of this is an Act of Mercy and Grace This Doctrine was commonly Taught in the Church of Rome at the time of the Reformation and together with it they reckoned that the chief of those Works that did Justify were either great or rich Endowments or excessive Devotions towards Images Saints and Relicks by all which Christ was either forgot quite or remembred only for form-sake esteemed perhaps as the chief of Saints not to mention the impious Comparisons that were made between him and some Saints and the Preferences that were given to them beyond him In opposition to all this the Reformers began as they ought to have done at the laying down this as the Foundation of all Christianity and of all our hopes That we were reconciled to God meerly through his Mercy by the Redemption purchased by Jesus Christ And that a firm believing the Gospel and a claiming to the Death of Christ as the great Propitiation for our Sins according to the Terms on which it is offered us in the Gospel was that which united us to Christ that gave us an Interest in his Death and thereby justified us If in the management of this Controversy there was not so critical a Judgment made of the Scope and several Passages of St. Paul's Epistles and if the Dispute became afterwards too abstracted and metaphysical that was the effect of the Infelicity of that Time and was the natural consequence of much disputing Therefore tho' we do not now stand to all the Arguments and to all the Citations and Illustrations used by them and tho' we do not deny but that many of the Writers of the Church of Rome came insensibly off from the most practical Errors that had been formerly much taught and more practised among them and that this matter was so stated by many of them that as to the main of it we have no just Exceptions to it Yet after all this beginning of the Reformation was a great Blessing to the World and has proved so even to the Church of Rome by bringing her to a juster sâ—nse of the Atonement made for Sins by the Blood of Christ and by taking Men off from external Actions and turning them to consider the inward Acts of the Mind Faith and Repentance as the Conditions of our Justification And therefore the Approbation given here to the Homily is only an Approbation of the Doctrine asserted and proved in it Which ought not to be carried to every particular of the Proofs or Explanations that are in it To be Iustified and to be accounted Righteous stand for one and the same thing in the Article And both import our being delivered from the Guilt of Sin and entitled to the Favour of God These differ from God's intending from all Eternity to save us as much as a Decree differs from the Execution of it A Man is then only Iustified when he is freed from Wrath and is at peace with God And tho' this is freely offered to us in the Gospel through Jesus Christ yet it is applied to none but to such as come within those Qualifications and Conditions set before us in the Gospel That God pardons Sin and receives us into favour only through the Death of Christ is so fully expressed in the Gospel as was already made out upon the second Article that it is not possible to doubt of it if one does firmly believe and attentively read the New Testament Nor is it less evident that it is not offered to us absolutely and without Conditions and Limitations These Conditions are Repentance with which remission of sins is often joined and Faith Gal. 5.6 Luke 24.47 Acts. 2.38 but a faith that worketh by love that purifies the heart and that keeps the â—ommandments of God Such a Faith as shews it self to be alive by Good Works by Acts of Charity and every Act of Obedience by which we demonstrate that we truly and firmly believe the Divine Authority of our Saviour and his Doctrine
a piece of the Fiction of the Parable which cannot enter into any part of the Application of it Col. 1.24 What St. Paul says of his filling up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for his body's sake which is the Church is as appears by the words that follow whereof I am made a Minister only applicable to the Edification that the Church received from the Sufferings of the Apostles It being a great confirmation to them of the Truth of the Gospel when those who preached it suffered so constantly and so patiently for it by which they both confirmed what they had preached and set an Example to others of adhering firmly to it And since Christ is related to his Church as a Head to the Members it is in some sort his suffering himself when his Members suffer and that Conformity which they ought to express to him as their Head was necessary to make up the due Proportion that ought to be between the Head and the Members So St. Paul rejoyced in his being made conformable to him And this as it is a Sense that the words will well bear so it is certain they are capable of no other sense for if the sufferings of the Apostles were meritorious in behalf of the other Christians some plain account must have been given of this in the New Testament at least to do honour to the Memory of such Apostles as had then died for the Faith If it is suggested that the living Apostles were too modest to claim it to themselves that will not satisfy all runs quite in a contrary Stile The Mercies of God and the blood of Christ being always repeated whereas these are never once named Now to imagine that there can be any thing of such great use to us in which the Scripture should be not only silent but should run in a strain totally different from it is not conceivable For if in any thing the Gospel ought to be full and explicite in all that which concerns our Peace and Reconciliation with God and the means of our escaping his Wrath and obtaining his Favour There is another Doctrine that does also belong to this Head which is Purgatory that is not to be entred on here but is referred to its proper place Thus it appears how ill this Doctrine of Works of Supererogation is founded and upon how many accounts it is evidently false and yet upon it has been built not only a Theory of a Communication of those Merits and a Treasure in the Church but a Practice of so foul a nature that in it the words of our Saviour spoken to the Iews My house is a house of Prayer Mark 11.17 but ye have made it a den of Thieves are accomplished in a high and most scandalous manner It has been pretended that this was of the nature of a Bank of which the Pope was the Keeper and that he could grant such Bills and Assignments upon it as he pleased This was done in so base and so crying a manner that all who had any sense of Probity in their own Church were ashamed of it In the Primitive Church there were very severe Rules made obliging all that had sinned publickly and they were afterwards applied to such as had sinned secretly to continue for many Years in a state of Separation from the Sacrament and of Penance and Discipline But because all such general Rules admit of a great variety of Circumstances taken from Mens Sins their Persons and their Repentance there was a Power given to all Bishops by the Council of Nice to shorten the time and to relax the severity of those Canons and such Favour as they saw cause to grant was called Indulgence This was just and necessary and was a Provision without which no Constitution or Society can be well governed But after the Tenth Century as the Popes came to take this Power in the whole extent of it into their own hands so they found it too feeble to carry on the great Designs that they grafted upon it They gave it high Names and called it a plenary Remission and the pardon of all Sins which the World was taught to look on as a thing of a much higher nature than the bare excusing of Men from Discipline and Penance Purgatory was then got to be firmly believed and all Men were strangely possessed with the terror of it So a deliverance from Purgatory and by consequence an immediate admission into Heaven was believed to be the certain effect of it And to support all this the Doctrine of Counsels of Perfection of Works of Supererogation and of the Communication of those Merits was set up and to that this was added That a Treasure made up of these was at the Pope's disposal and in his keeping The use that this was put to was as bad as the Forgery it self Multitudes were by these means engaged to go to the Holy Land to recover it out of the hands of the Saracens Afterwards they armed vast Numbers against Hereticks to extirpate them They fought also all those Quarrels which their ambitious Pretensions engaged them in with Emperors and other Princes by the same Pay and at last they set it to Sale with the same Impudence and almost with the same Methods that Mountebanks use in the venting of their Secrets This was so gross even in an Ignorant Age and among the ruder sort that it gave the first Rise to the Reformation and as the progress of it was a very signal Work of God so it was in a great measure owing to the Scandals that this shameless Practice had given the World And upon this single reason it is that this matter has been more fully examined than was necessary for the thing is so plain that it has no sort of difficulty in it ARTICLE XV. Of Christ alone without Sin Christ in the truth of our nature was made like unto us in all things sin only except from which he was clearly void both in his flesh and in spirit He came to be a Lamb without spot who by sacrifice of himself once made should take away the sins of the World and sin as St. John saith was not in him But all we the rest although baptized and born again in Christ yet offend in many things and if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us THis Article relates to the former and is put here as another Foundation against all Works of Supererogation for that Doctrine with the Consequences of it having given the first Occasion to the Reformation it was thought necessary to overthrow it entirely and because the Perfection of the Saints must be supposed before their Supererogation can be thought on that was therefore here opposed That Christ was holy without spot and blemish harmless undefiled and separate from sinners Heb. 7.26 that there was no guile in his mouth that he never did amiss but
went about always doing good and was as a lamb without spot is so oft affirmed in the New Testament 1 Pet. 1.19 that it can admit of no Debate This was not only true in his Rational Powers the superior part called the Spirit in opposition to the lower part but also in those Appetites and Affections that arise from our Bodies and from the Union of our Souls to them called the Flesh. For tho' in these Christ having the Human Nature truly in him had the Appetites of Hunger in him yet the Devil could not tempt him by that to distrust God or to desire a miraculous supply sooner than was fitting He overcame even that necessary Appetite whensoever there was an occasion given him to do the will of his heavenly Father Joh. 4.34 He had also in him the aversions to pain and suffering and the horror at a violent and ignominious Death which was planted in our Natures and in this it was natural to him to wish and to pray that the Cup might pass from him But in this his Purity appeared the most eminently That tho' he felt the weight of his Nature to a vast degree he did notwithstanding that limit and conquer it so entirely that he resigned himself absolutely to his Father's Will Not my will but thy will be done Besides all that has been already said upon the former Articles to prove that some taint and degree of the Original Corruption remains in all Men the peculiar Character of Christ's Holiness so oft repeated looks plainly to be a distinction proper to him and to him only We are called upon to follow him to learn of him and to imitate him without restriction whereas we are required to follow the Apostles only as they were the followers of Christ 1 Cor. 11.1 1 Pet. 1.15 Mat. 5.48 And though we are commanded to be holy as he was holy in all manner of conversation that does no more prove that any man can arrive at that pitch than our being commanded to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect will prove that we may become perfect as God is The Importance of these words being only this That we ought in all things to make God and Christ our patterns and that we ought to endeavour to imitate and resemble them all we can There seems to be a particular design in the Contexture and Writing of the Scriptures to represent to us some of the Failings of the best Men For though Zacharias and Elizabeth are said to have been blameless that must only be meant of the Exterior and Visible part of their Conversation that it was free from blame Luk. 1.6 and of their being accepted of God but that is not to be carried to import a sinless Purity before God For we find the same Zachary guilty of misbelieving the Message of the Angel to him to such a degree Ver. 20. that he was punished for it with a Dumbness of above Nine Months continuance Perhaps the Virgin 's Question to the Angel had nothing blame-worthy in it Luk. 2.49 Joh. 2.4 but our Saviour's Answers to her both when she came to him in the Temple when he was Twelve Years old and more particularly when she moved him at the Marriage in Cana to furnish them with Wine look like a Reprimand The Contentions among the Apostles about the Preheminence and in particular the Ambition of Iames and Iohn cannot be excused St. Peter's Dissimulation at Antioch in the Judaizing Controversy Matth. 20.20 24. Gal. 2.11 12 13 14. Act. 15.39 and the sharp Contention that happened between Paul and Barnabas are recorded in Scripture and they are both Characters of the Sincerity of those who Penned them and likewise Marks of the Frailties of Human Nature even in its greatest Elevation and with its highest Advantages So that all the high Characters that are given of the best Men are to be understood either comparatively to others whom they exceeded or with relation to their outward Actions and the visible parts of their Life Or they are to be meant of their Zeal and Sincerity which is valued and accepted of God and as it was to Abraham is imputed to them for Righteousness Yet this is not to be abused by any to be an encouragement to live in Sin for we may carry this Purity and Perfection certainly very far by the Grace of God In every Sin that we commit we do plainly perceive that we do it with so much freedom that we might not have done it here is still just Matter for Humiliation and Repentance By this Doctrine our Church intends only to repress the Pride of vain-glorious and hypocritical Men and to strike at the Root of that filthy Merchandise that has been brought into the House of God under the pretence of the Perfection and even the over-doing or supererogating of the Saints ARTICLE XVI Of Sin after Baptism Note very deadly sin willingly committed after Baptism is the sin against the Holy Ghost and unpardonable Wherefore the grant of Repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after Baptism After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from grace given and fall into sin and by the grace of God we may arise again and amend our Lives And therefore they are to be condemned which say they can no more sin as long as they live here or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent THis Article as it relates to the Sect of the Novatians of old so it is probable it was made a part of our Doctrine upon the Account of some of the Enthusiasts who at that time as well as some do in our Days might boast their Perfection and join with that part of the Character of a Pharisee this other of an unreasonable rigour of Censure and Punishment against Offenders By deadly Sin in the Article we are not to understand such Sins as in the Church of Rome are called mortal in opposition to others that are venial As if some Sins though Offences against God and Violations of his Law could be of their own nature such slight things that they deserved only Temporal Punishment and were to be expiated by some piece of Pennance or Devotion or the Communication of the Merits of others The Scripture no where teaches us to think so slightly of the Majesty of God or of his Law There is a curse upon every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 And the same Curse must have been on us all if Christ had not redeemed us from it The wages of Sin is death And St. Iames asserts that there is such a Complication of all the Precepts of the Law of God both with one another and with the Authority of the Lawgiver that he who offends in one point Jam. 2.10 11. is guilty of all So since God has in his Word given
consider Mankind thus lost with an Eye of pity and having designed to rescue a great number out of this lost state he decreed to send his Son to dye for them to accept of his Death on their account and to give them such Assistances as should be effectual both to convert them to him and to make them persevere to the â—nd But for the rest he framed no positive Act about them only he left them in that lapsed state without intending that they should have the benefit of Christ's Death or of efficacious and persevering Assistances The Third Opinion is of those who are called Remonstrants Arminians or Vniversalists who think that God intended to create all Men free and to deal with them according to the use that they should make of their liberty that therefore he foreseeing how every one would use it did upon that Decree all things that concerned them in this life together with their Salvation and Damnation in the next That Christ died for all Men That sufficient Assistances are given to every Man but that all Men may chuse whether they will use them and persevere in them or not The Fourth Opinion is of the Socinians who deny the certain Prescience of future Contingencies and therefore they think the Decrees of God from all Eternity were only general that such as believe and obey the Gospel shall be saved and that such as live and dye in Sin shall be damned But that there were no special Decrees made concerning particular persons these being only made in time according to the state in which they are They do also think that Man is by nature so free and so entire that he needs no inward Grace so they deny a special Predestination from all Eternity and do also deny inward Assistances This is a Controversy that arises out of Natural Religion For if it is believed that God governs the World and that the Wills of Men are free then it is natural to enquire which of these is subject to the other or how they can be both maintained Whether God determines the Will Or if his Providence follows the motions of the Will Therefore all those that believed a Providence have been aware of this difficulty The Stoicks put all things under a Fate even the God's themselves If this Fate was a necessary Series of Things a Chain of Matter and Motion that was fixed and unalterable then it was plain and downright Atheism The Epicureans set all things at liberty and either thought that there was no God or at least that there was noProvidence ThePhilosophers knew not how to avoid this difficuly by which we see Tully and others were so differently moved that it is plain they despaired of getting out of it Joseph Ant. Jud. lib 18. c. 2. de Bell. Jud. lib. 2 c. 7. The Iews had the same Question among them for they could not believe their Law without acknowledging a Providence And yet the Sadducees among them asserted Liberty in so intire a manner that they set it free from all restraints On the other hand the Essens put all things under an absolute Fate And the Pharisees took a middle way they asserted the Freedom of the Will but thought that all things were governed by a Providence There are also subtle Disputes concerning this matter among the Mahometans one Sect asserting Liberty and another Fate which generally prevails among them In the first Ages of Christianity Iren. Adv. Her lib. 1. c. 1. Epiph. Her 31. Clem. Alex. Paed. lib. 1. c. 6. Orig. Peri. archon l. 3. Phiolcal c. 12. Explain 21. Ep. ad Rom the Gnosticks fancied that the Souls of Men were of different Ranks and that they sprang from different Principles or Gods who made them Some were Carnal that were devoted to Perdition others were Spiritual and were certainly to be saved Others were Animal of a middle Order capable either of Happiness or Misery It seems that the Marcionites and Manichees thought that some Souls were made by the bad God as others were made by the good In opposition to all these Origen asserted That all Souls were by Nature equally capable of being either good or bad and that the difference among Men arose merely from the freedom of the Will and the various use of that Freedom That God left Men to this liberty and rewarded and punished them according to the use of it yet he asserted a Providence but as he brought in the Platonical Doctrine of Preexistence into the Government of the World and as he explained God's loving Iacob and his hating of Esau before they were born and had done either Good or Evil by this of a regard to what they had done formerly so he asserted the Fall of Man in Adam and his being recoverd by Grace but he still maintained an unrestrained Liberty in the Will His Doctrine though much hated in Egypt was generally followed over all the East particularly in Palestine and at Antioch S. Gregory Nazianzen and S. Basil drew a system of Divinity out of his Works in which that which relates to the Liberty of the Will is very fully set forth That Book was much studied in the East Chrysostom Isidore of Damiete and Theodoret with all their followers taught it so copiously Orig. Philocanâ— that it became the received Doctrine of the Eastern Church Ierome was so much in love with Origen that he Translated some parts of him and set Ruffin on Translating the rest But as he had a sharp quarrel with the Bishops of Palestine so that perhaps disposed him to change his Thoughts of Origen For ever after that he set himself much to disgrace his Doctrine and he was very severe on Ruffin for Translating him Though Ruffin confesses that in Translating his Works he took great Liberties in altering several passages that he disliked One of Origen's Disciples was Pelagius a Scottish Monk in great esteem at Rome both for his Learning and the great strictness of his Life Ruffin Peror in Vers. Com. Orig. in Ep. ad Rom. Chrys. Ep. 4 ad Olymp. Isid. Pelus Lib. 1. Ep. 314. He carried these Doctrines further than the Greek Church had done so that he was reckoned to have fallen into great Errors both by Chrysostom and Isidore as it is represented by Iansenius though that is denied by others who think they meant another of the same Name He denied that we had suffered any harm by the Fall of Adam or that there was any need of inward Assistances and he asserted an entire Liberty in the Will S. Austin though in his Disputes with the Manichees he had said many things on the side of Liberty yet he hated Pelagius's Doctrine which he thought asserted a Sacrilegious Liberty and he set himself to beat down his Tenets which had been but feebly attackt by Ierom. Cassian a Disciple of St. Chrysostom's came to Marseilles about this time having left Constantinople perhaps when his Master was banished out of it He
other Church has them equally with her or beyond her If all these must be discussed before we can settle this Question Which is the true Infallible Church A Man must stay long e're he can come to a point in it Therefore there can be no other way taken here but to examine first What makes a particular Church And then since the Catholick Church is an united Body of all particular Churches when the true Notion of a particular Church is fixed it will be easy from that to form a Notion of the Catholick Church It would seem reasonable by the Method of all Creeds in particular of that called the Apostles Creed that we ought first to settle our Faith as to the great Points of the Christian Religion and from thence go to settle the Notion of a true Church And that we ought not to begin with the Notion of a Church and from thence go to the Doctrine The Doctrine of Christianity must be first stated and from this we are to take our measures of all Churches and that chiefly with respect to that Doctrine which every Christian is bound to believe Here a distinction is to be made between those Capital and Fundamental Articles without which a Man cannot be esteemed a true Christian nor a Church a true Church And other Truths which being delivered in Scripture all Men are indeed obliged to believe them yet they are not of that nature that the Ignorance of them or an Error in them can exclude from Salvation To make this sensible It is a Proposition of another sort That Christ died for Sinners than this That he died at the Third or at the Sixth Hour And yet if the Second Proposition is expresly revealed in Scripture we are bound to believe it Since God has said it though it is not of the same nature with the other Here a Controversie does naturally arise that wise People are unwilling to meddle with What Articles are Fundamental and what are not The defining of Fundamental Articles seems on the one hand to deny Salvation to such as do not receive them all which Men are not willing to do And on the other hand it may seem a leaving Men at liberty as to all other particulars that are not reckoned up among the Fundamentals But after all the Covenant of Grace the Terms of Salvation and the Grounds on which we expect it seem to be things of another nature than all other truths which though revealed are not of themselves the Means or Conditions of Salvation Wheresoever true Baptism is there it seems the Essentials of this Covenant are preserved For if we look on Baptism as a Foederal admission into Christianity there can be no Baptism where the Essence of Christianity is not preserved As far then as we believe that any Society has preserved that so far we are bound to receive her Baptism and no further For unless we consider Baptism as a sort of a Charm that such words joined with a washing with Water make one a Christian which seems to be expresly contrary to what St. Peter says of it 1 Pet. â— 21 That it is not the washing away the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good Conscience towards God that saves us We must conclude That Baptism is a Foederal thing in which after that the Sponsions are made the Seal of Regeneration is added From hence it will follow That all who have a true Baptism that makes Men Believers and Christians must also have the true Faith as to the Essentials of Christianity The Fundamentals of Christirnity seems to be all that is necessary to make Baptism True and Valid And upon this a distinction is to be made that will discover and destroy a Sophism that is often used on this occasion A True Church is in one sense a Society that preserves the Essentials and Fundamentals of Christianity In another sense it stands for a Society all whose Doctrines are true that has corrupted no part of this Religion nor mixed any Errors with it A true Man is one who has a Soul and a Body that are the Essential Constituents of a Man Whereas in another sense a Man of Sincerity and Candor is called a true Man Truth in the one Sense imports the Essential Constitution and in the other it imports only a Quality that is accidental to it So when we acknowledge that any Society is a true Church we ought to be supposed to mean no other than that the Covenant of Grace in its Essential Constituent parts is preserved entire in that Body and not that it is true in all its Doctrines and Decisions The Second thing to be considered in a Church is their Association together in the use of the Sacraments For these are given by Christ to the Society as the Rites and Badges of that Body That which makes particular Men Believers is their receiving the Fundamentals of Christianity so that which constitutes the Body of the Church is the Profession of that Faith and the use of those Sacraments which are the Rites and Distinctions of those who profess it In this likewise a distinction is to be made between what is Essential to a Sacrament and what is the exact observance of it according to the Institution Additions to the Sacraments do not annul them though they corrupt them with that adulterate mixture Therefore where the Sponsions are made and washing with Water is used with the words of Christ there we own that there is a true Baptism Though there may be a large Addition of other Rites which we reject as Superstitious though we do not pretend that they null the Baptism But if any part of the Institution is cut off there we do not own the Sacrament to be true Because it being an Institution of Christ's it can no more be esteemed a true Sacrament than as it retains all that which by the Institution appears to be the main and essential parts of the Action Upon this account it is That since Christ appointed Bread and Wine fo his other Sacrament and that he not only blessed both but distributed both with words appropriated to each kind we do not esteem that to be a true Sacrament in which either the one or the other of these kinds is w ithdrawn But in the next place there may be many things necessary in the way of Precept and Order both with relation to the Sacraments and to the other publick Acts of Worship in which tho' Additions or Defects are Erroneous and Faulty yet they do not annul the Sacraments We think none ought to Baptize but Men dedicated to the Service of God and Ordained according to that Constitution that was settled in the Church by the Apostles and yet Baptism by Laicks or by Women such as is most commonly practiced in the Roman Church is not esteemed null by us nor is it repeated Because we make a difference between what is Essential to a Sacrament and what is
requisite in the regular way of using it None can deny this among us but those who will question the whole Christianity of the Roman Church where the Midwives do generally Baptize But if this Invalidates the Baptism then we must question all that is done among them Persons so Baptized if their Baptism is void are neither truly Ordained nor capable of any other act of Church-Communion Therefore mens being in Orders or their being duly Ordained is not necessary to the Essence of the Sacrament of Baptism but only to the regularity of Administring it And so the want of it does not void it but does only prove such Men to be under some Defects and Disorder in their Constitution Thus I have laid down those distinctions that will guide us in the right understanding of this Article If we believe that any Society retains the Fundamentals of Christianity we do from that conclude it to be a true Church to have a true Baptism and the Members of it to be capable of Salvation But we are not upon that bound to Associate our selves to their Communion For if they have the Addition of false Doctrines or any unlawful parts of Worship among them we are not bound to join in that which we are persuaded is Error Idolatry or Superstition If the Sacraments that Christ has appointed are observed and ministred by any Church as to the main of them according to his Institution we are to own those for valid Actions But we are not for that bound to join in Communion with them if they have Adulterated these with many Mixtures and Additions Thus a plain difference is made between our owning that a Church may retain the Fundamentals of Christianity a true Baptism and true Orders which are a consequent upon the former and our joining with that Church in such acts as we think are so far vitiated that they become unlawful to us to do them Pursuant to this we do neither repeat the Baptism nor the Ordinations of the Church of Rome We acknowledge that our Fore-fathers were both Eaptized and Ordained in that Communion And we derive our present Christianity or Baptism and our Orders from thence yet we think that there were so many unlawful Actions even in those Rituals besides the other corruptions of their Worship that we cannot join in such any more The being Baptized in a Church does not tie a Man to every thing in that Church it only ties him to the Covenant of Grace The Stipulations which are made in Baptism as well as in Ordination do only bind a Man to the Christian Faith or to the faithful dispensing of that Gospel and of those Sacraments of which he is made a Minister So he who being convinced of the Errors and Corruptions of a Church departs from them and goes on in the Purity of the Christian Religion does pursue the true effect both of his Baptism and of his Ordination Vows For these are to be considered as ties upon him only to God and Christ and not to adhere to the other Dictates of that body in which he had his Birth Baptism and Ordination The great Objection against all this is That it sets up a private Judgment it gives particular persons a right of judging Churches Whereas the Natural Order is That private persons ought to be Subject and Obedient to the Church This must needs feed Pride and Curiosity it must break all Order and cast all things loose if every single Man according to his Reading and Presumption will judge of Churches and Communions On this Head it is very easy to Employ a great deal of popular Eloquence to decry private mens examining of Scriptures and forming their judgments of things out of them and not submitting all to the judgment of the Church But how absurd soever this may seem all Parties do acknowledg that it must be done Those of the Church of Rome do teach That a Man born in the Greek Church or among us is bound to lay down his Error and his Communion too and to come over to them and yet they allow our Baptism as well as they do the Ordinations of the Greek Church Thus they allow private Men to judge and that in so great a Point as what Church and what Communion ought to be chosen or forsaken And it is certain That to judge of Churches and Communions is a thing of that Intricacy that if private judgment is allowed here there is no reason to deny it its full scope as to all other Matters God has given us rational Faculties to guide and direct us And we must make the most of these that we can We must judge with our own Reasons as well as see with our own Eyes Neither can we or ought we to resign up our Understandings to any others unless we are convinced that God has Imposed this upon us by his making them infallible so that we are secured from Error if we follow them All this we must examine and be well assured of it otherwise it will be a very rash unmanly and base thing in us to muffle up our own Understandings and to deliver our Reason and Faith over to others blindfold Reason is God's Image in us and as the Use and Application of our Reason as well as of the Freedom of our Wills are the highest Excellencies of the Rational Nature so they must be always claimed and ought never to be parted with by us but upon clear and certain Authorities in the Name of God putting us implicitly under the Dictates of others We may abuse the Use of our Reason as well as the Liberty of our Will and may be damn'd for the one as well as the other But when we set our selves to make the best use we can of the freedom of our Wills we may and do upon that expect secret affistances We have both the like promises Direction to the like Prayers and Reason to expect the same Illumination to make us see know and comprehend the Truths of Religion that we have to expect that our Powers shall be inwardly Strengthened to love and obey them Psal. 119.18 35. David prayes that God may open his Eyes as well as that he may make him to go in his ways The Promises in the Prophets concerning the Gospel-Dispensation carry in them the being Taught of God as well as the being made to walk in his ways Ephes. 1 18.3.17 and the enlightening the mind and the eys of the mind to know is prayed for by St. Paul as well as that Christ might dwell in their hearts Since then there is an Assistance of the Divine Grace given to fortify the Understanding as well as to enable the Will it follows that our Understanding is to be imployed by us in order to the finding out of the Truth as well as our Will in order to the obeying of it And though this may have very ill consequences it does not follow from thence that it is
not true No consequences can be worse than the Corruption that is in the World and the Damnation that follows upon sin and yet God permits it because he has made us free Creatures Nor can any reason be given why we should be less free in the use of our understanding than we are in the use of our Will or why God should make it to be less possible for us to fall into Errors than it is to commit Sins The Wrath of God is as much denounced against Men that hold the Truth in unrighteousness as against other Sins Rom. 1.18 24 26. 2 Thes. 2.11 and it is reckoned among the heaviest of Curses to be given up to strong delusions to believe a lye Upon all these reasons therefore it seems clear that our Understandings are left free to us as well as our Wills and if we observe the Stile and Method of the Scriptures we shall find in them all over a constant Appeal to a Man's Reason and to his Intellectual Faculties If the mere dictates of the Church or of Infallible Men had been the resolution or foundation of Faith there had been no need of such a long Thread of Reasoning and Discourse as both our Saviour used while on Earth and as the Apostles used in their Writings We see the way of Authority is not taken but Explanations are offered Proofs and Illustrations are brought to convince the Mind which shews that God in the clearest Manifestation of his Will would deal with us as with reasonable Creatures who are not to believe but upon Persuasion and are to use our Reasons in order to the attaining that Persuasion And therefore upon the whole matter we ought not to believe Doctrines to be true because the Church teaches them but we ought to search the Scriptures and then according as we find the Doctrine of any Church to be true in the Fundamentals we ought to believe her to be a true Church and if besides this the whole Extent of the Doctrine and Worship together not only with the essential parts of the Sacraments but the whole Administration of them and the other Rituals of any Church are pure and true then we ought to account such a Church true in the largest Extent of the word true and by consequence we ought to hold Communion with it Another question may arise out of the first words of this Article concerning the Visibility of this Church Whether it must be always Visible According to the distinction hitherto made use of the resolution of this will be soon made There seem to be Promises in the Scriptures of a perpetual Duration of the Christian Church I will be with you always Matth. 28.20 Matth. 16.18 even to the end of the world And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church The Iewish Religion had a Period perfixed in which it was to come to an end but the Prophecies that are among the Prophets concerning the new Dispensation seem to import not only its Continuance but its being continued still Visible in the World But as the Iewish Dispensation was long continued after they had fallen generally into some very gross Errors so the Christian Church may be Visible still though not Infallible God may preserve the Succession of a true Church as to the Essentials and Fundamentals of Faith in the World even though this Society should fall into Error So a Visible Society of Christians in a true Church as to the Essentials of our Faith is not controverted by us We do only deny the Infallibility of this true Church And therefore we are not afraid of that Question Where was your Church before Henry the Eighth We Answer It was where it is now here in England and in the other Kingdoms of the World only it was then corrupted and it is now pure There is therefore no sort of Inconvenience in owning the constant Visibility of a constant Succession and Church of true Christians true as to the Essentials of the Covenant of Grace though not true in all their Doctrines This seems to be a part of the Glory of the Messias and of his Kingdom That he shall be still visibly worshipped in the World by a Body of Men called by his Name But when Visibility is thus separated from Infallibility and it is made out that a Church may be a true Church though she has a large Allay of Errors and Corruptions mixed in her Constitution and Decisions there will be no manner of Inconvenience in owning a constant Visibility even at the same time that we charge the most eminent part of this Visible Body with many Errors and with much Corruption So far has the first part of this Article been treated of From it we pass to the second which affirms That as the other Patriarchal and Apostolical Churches such as Ierusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so the Church of Rome has likewise erred and that not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith It is not questioned but that the other Patriarchal Churches have erred both that where our Saviour himself first taught and which was governed by two of the Apostles successively and those which were founded by St. Peter in Person or by Proxy as Church History represents Alexandria and Antioch to have been Those of the Church of Rome by whom they are at this day condemned both of Heresy and Schism do not dispute this Nor do they dispute that many of their Popes have led bad and flagitious Lives They deny not that the Canons Ceremonies and Government of the Church are very much changed by the Influence and the Authority of their Popes But the whole question turns upon this Whether the See of Rome has erred in matter of Faith or not In this those of that Communion are divided Some by the Church or See of Rome mean the Popes personally so they maintain That they never have and never can fall into Error Whereas others by the See of Rome mean that whole Body that holds Communion with Rome which they say cannot be tainted with Error and these separate this from the Personal Infallibility of Popes for if a Pope should err they think that a General Council has Authority to proceed against him and to deprive him And thus though he should err the See might be kept free from Error I shall upon this Article only consider the first Opinion reserving the Consideration of the second to the Article concerning General Councils As to the Popes their being subject to Error that must be confessed unless it can be proved that by a clear and express Privilege granted them by God they are excepted out of the common condition of Human Nature It is further highly probable that there is no such Privilege since the Church continued for many Ages before it was so much as pretended to and that in a time when that See was not only claiming all the Rights that
condemn them of Heresy and to proceed against them with Church-Censures but that they had a Power to depose them to absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and to transfer their Dominions to such Persons as should undertake to execute their Sentences Tâ—is they have often put in execution and have constantly kept up their 〈…〉 it to this day It will not serve them to get clear here to say That these were the violent Practices of some Popes What they did in many particular Instances may be so turned off and left as a Blemish on the Memories of some of them But the Point at present in question is Whether they have not laid Claim to this as a Right belonging to their See as a part of St. Peter's Authority descended to them Whether they have not founded it on his being Christ's Vicar who was the King of kings and Lord of lords Dict Papâ—e l. 1. Ep. Greg. 7. Post Ep. 55. Extravag de Major Obâ—d c 1. to whom all power in heaven and in earth was given Whether they have not founded it on Ieremy's being set over nations and kingdoms to root out pluck down and to destroy and on other places of Scripture not forgetting that the first Words of the Bible are In the beginning and not In the beginnings from which they inferred That there is but one Principle from whence all Power is derived And that God made two great lights the Sun to rule by day which they applied to themselves This I say is the Question Whether they did not assume this Authority as a Power given them by God As for the applying it to particular Instances to those Kings and Emperors whom they deposed that is indeed a personal thing Whether they were guilty of Heresy or of being favourers of it or not And whether the Popes proceeded against them with too much Violence or not The Point now in Question is Whether they declared this to be a Doctrine that there was an Authority lodged with their See for doing such things and whether they alledged Scripture and Tradition for it Conc. Lat. 3. cap. 27. Conc. Lat. 4. Can. 3. Con. Lug. Now this will appear evident to those who will read their Bulls In the Preambles of which those Quotations will be found as some of them are in the Body of the Canon Law And it is decreed in it that the belief of this is absolutely necessary to Salvation This was pursued in a Course of many Ages General Councils as they are esteemed among them have concurred with the Popes both in General Decrees assâ—rting this power to be in them and in special Sentences against Princes This became the universally-received Doctrine of those Ages No Vniversity nor Nation declaring against it not so much as one Divine Ciâ—â—â—lian Canonist or Casuist writ against it as Card. Perron truly said Câ—rd Perron Harangueau tiers estat It was so certainly believed that those Writers whom the deposed Princes got to undertake their defence do not in any of their Books pretend to call the Doctrine in General in question Two things were disputed One was Whether Popes had a direct power in Temporals over Princes so that they were as much subject to them as Feudatory Princes were to their Superior Lords This to which Boniface the 8th laid claim was indeed contradicted The other Point was Whether those particulars for which Princes had been deposed such as the giving the Investitures to Bishopricks were Heresies or not This was much contested But the power in the case of manifest Heresy or of favouring it to Depose Princes and Transfer their Crowns to others was never called in Question This was certainly a definition made in the Chair ex Cathedra For it was addrest to all their Community both Laity and Clergy Plenary Pardons were bestowed with it on those who executed it The Clergy did generally preach the Croisades upon it Princes that were not concerned in him that was deposed gave way to the publication of those Bulls and gave leave to their Subjects to take the Cross in order to the Executing of them And the People did in vast Multitudes gather about the Standarts that were set up for leading on Armies to Execute them while many Learned Men writ in defence of this Power and not one Man durst write against it This Argument lies not only against the Infallibility of Popes but against that of General Councils likewise And also against the Authority of Oral Tradition For here in a Succession of many Ages the Tradition was wholly changed from the Doctrine of former times which had been That the Clergy was subject to Princes and had no Authority over them or their Crowns Nor can it be said That that was a Point of Discipline for it was founded on an Article of Doctrine Whether there was such a power in the Popes or not The Prudence of Executing or not Executing it is a Point of Discipline and of the Government of the Church But it is a Point of Doctrine Whether Christ has given such an Authorityto St. Peter and his followers And those Points of Speculation upon which a great deal turns as to practice are certainly so important that in them if in any thing we ought to expect an Infallibility For in this case a Man is distracted between two contrary Propositions The one is That he must obey the Civil Powers as set over him by an Ordinance of God so that if he resist them he shall receive in himself Damnation The other is That the Pope being Christ's Vicar is to be obeyed when he Absolves him from his former Oath and Allegiance and that the new Prince set up by him is to be obeyed under the pain of Damnation likewise Here a Man is brought into a great strait and therefore he must be guided by Infallibility if any thing So the whole Argument comes to this Head that we must either believe that the Deposing Power is lodged by Christ in the See of Rome or we must conclude with the Article that they have Erred and by Consequence That they are not Infallible For the Erring in any one Point and at any one Time does quite destroy the Claim of Infallibility Before this Matter can be concluded we must consider what is brought to prove it What was laid down at first must be here remembred That the Proofs brought for a thing of this Nature must be very express and clear A Privilege of such a sort against which the appearances and prejudices are so strong must be very fully made out before we can be bound to believe it Nor can it be reasonable to urge the Authority of any Passages from Scripture till the Grounds are shewn for which the Scriptures themselves ought to be believed Those who think that it is in general well proved That there must be an Infallibility in the Church conclude from thence that it must be in the Pope For if
common and that openly and fairly For if every good Man that prays earnestly to God for the Assistance and Direction of his Spirit has reason to look for it much more may a Body of Pastors brought together to seek out the Truth in any point under debate look for it if they bring with them sincere and unprejudiced Minds and do pray earnestly to God In that case they may expect to be directed and assisted of Him But this depends upon the Purity of their Hearts and the Earnestness of their Endeavours and Prayers When any Synod of the Clergy has so far examined a Point as to settle their Opinions about it they may certainly decree that such is their Doctrine And as they judge it to be more or less important they may either restrain any other Opinion or may require positive Declarations about it either of all in their Communion or at least of all whom they admit to minister in Holy Things This is only an Authority of Order for the maintaining of Union and Edification And in this a Body does no more as it is a Body than what every single Individual has a right to do for himself He examines a Doctrine that is laid before him he forms his own Opinion upon it and pursuant to that he must judge with whom he can hold Communion and from whom he must separate When such Definitions are made by the Body of the Pastors of any Church all Persons within that Church do owe great respect to their Decision Modesty must be observed in descanting upon it and in disputing about it Every Man that finds his own thoughts differ from it ought to examine the Matter over again with much attention and care freeing himself all he can from Prejudice and Obstinacy with a just distrust of his own Understanding and an humble respect to the Judgment of his Superiors This is due to the considerations of Peace and Union and to that Authority which the Church has to maintain it But if after all possible methods of Enquiry a Man cannot master his Thoughts or make them agree with the Publick Decisions his Conscience is not under Bonds Since this Authority is not absolute nor grounded upon a promise of Infallibility This is a Tenet that with Relation to National Churches and their Decisions is held by the Church of Rome as well as by us For they place Infallibility either in the Pope or in the Universal Church But no Man ever dreamt of Infallibility in a particular or National Church And the Point in this Article is only concerning particular Churches for the Head of General Councils comes in upon the next That no Church can add any thing as necessary to Salvation has been already considered upon the Sixth Article It is certain that as we owe our hopes of Salvation only to Christ and to what he has done for us so also it can belong only to him who procured it to us to fix the Terms upon which we may look for it Nor can any Power on Earth clog the offers that he makes us in the Gospel with new or other Terms than those which we find made there to us There can be no dispute about this For unless we believe that there is an Infallible Authority lodged in the Church to explain the Scripture and to declare Tradition and unless we believe that the Scriptures are both obscure and defective and that the one must be helped by an Infallible Commentary and the other supplied by an Authentical Declarer of Tradition we cannot ascribe an Authority to the Church either to contradict the Scripture or to add necessary conditions of Salvation to it We own after all That the Church is the Dispositary of the whole Scriptures as the Iews were of the Old Testament But in that Instance of the Iews we may see that a Body of Men may be faithful in the Copying of a Book exactly and in the handing it down without corrupting it and yet they may be mistaken in the true meaning of that which they preserve so faithfully They are expresly called the keepers of the Oracles of God Rom. 3.2 And are no where reproved for having attempted upon this Depositum And yet for all that Fidelity they fell into great Errors about some of the most Important parts of their Religion which exposed them to the rejecting the Messias and to their utter ruin The Church's being called the Witness of Holy Writ is not to be resolved into any Judgment that they pass upon it as a Body of Men that have Authority to Judge and give Sentence so that the Canonicalness or the Uncanonicalness of any Book shall depend upon their Testimony But is resolv'd into this that such Successions and Numbers of Men whether of the Laity or Clergy have in a course of many Ages had these Books preserved and read among them so that it was not possible to corrupt that upon which so many Men had their Eyes in all the Corners and Ages of Christendom And thus we believe the Scripture to be a Book written by inspired Men and delivered by them to the Church upon the Testimony of the Church that at first received it knowing that those great Matters of Fact contained and appealed to in it were true And also upon the like Testimony of the succeeding Ages who Preserved Read Copied and Translated that Book as they had received it from the first The Church of Rome is guilty of a manifest Circle in this Matter For they say they believe the Scriptures upon the Authority of the Church And they do again believe the Authority of the Church because of the Testimony of the Scripture concerning it This is as false reasoning as can be imagined For nothing can be proved by another Authority till that Authority is first fixed and proved And therefore if the Testimony of the Church is believed to be sacred by virtue of a Divine Grant to it and that from thence the Scriptures have their Credit and Authority then the Credit due to the Church's Testimony is Antecedent to the Credit of the Scripture And so must not be proved by any passages brought from it otherwise that is a manifest Circle But no Circle is committed in our way who do not prove the Scriptures from any supposed Authority in the Church that has handed them down to us But only as they are vast Companies of Men who cannot be presumed to have been guilty of any Fraud in this matter it appeared further to be morally impossible for any that should have attempted a Fraud in it to have executed it When therefore the Scripture it self is proved by Moral Arguments of this kind we may according to the strictest Rules of Reasoning examine What Authority the Scripture gives to the Pastors of the Church met in lesser or greater Councils ARTICLE XXI Of the Authority of General Councils General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of
to what was set out in its proper Place And although we set a due value upon some of the Apocryphal Books yet others are of a lower Character The First Book of Maccabees is a very grave History writ with much exactness and a true Judgment but the Second is the Work of a mean Writer He was an Abridger of a larger Work and as he has the Modesty to ask his Readers Pardon for his Defects so it is very plain to every one that reads him that he needs often many grains of allowance So that this Book is one of the least valuable Pieces of the Apocrypha and there are very probable Reasons to question the Truth of that Relation concerning those who were thus prayed for But because that would occasion too long a Digression we are to make a difference between the Story that he relates and the Author 's own Reflections upon it for as we ought not to make any great Account of his Reflections these being only his private Thoughts who might probably have imbibed some of the Principles of the Greek Philosophy as some of the Iews had done or he might have believed that Notion which is now very generally received by the Iews that every Iew shall have a share in the World to come but that such as have lived ill must be purged before they arrive at it It is of much more importance to consider what Iudas Maccabeus did 2 Maccab. 12.40 which even by that Relation seems to be no more than this That he finding some things Consecrated to the Idols of the Iamnites about the Bodies of those who were killed concluded that to have been the cause of their Death And upon this he and all his Men betook themselves to Prayer and besought God that the Sin might be wholly put out of remembrance He exhorted his People to keep themselves by that Example from the like Sin and he made a Collection of a Sum of Money and sent it to Ierusalem to offer a Sin-offering before the Lord. So far the matter agrees well enough with the Iewish Dispensation It had appeared in the days of Ioshua how much guilt the Sin of Achan though but one Person had brought upon the whole Congregation and their Law had upon another Occasion prescribed a Sin-offering for the whole Congregation to expiate Blood that was shed when the Murderer could not be discovered That so the Judgments of God might not come upon them by reason of the cry of that Blood And by a parity of Reason Iudas might have ordered such an Offering to free himself and his Men from the guilt which the Idolatry of a few might have brought upon greater Numbers such a Sacrifice as this might according to the nature of that Law have been offered But to offer a Sin-offering for the Dead was a new thing without ground or any intimation of any thing like it in their Law So there is no reason to doubt but that if the Story is true Iudas offered this Sin-offering for the Living and not for the Dead If they had been alive then by their Law no Sin-offering could have been made for them for Idolatry was to be punished by cutting off and not to be expiated by Sacrifice What then could not have been done for them if alive could much less be done for them after their death So we have reason to conclude that Iudas offered this Sacrifice only for the Living And we are not much concerned in the Opinion which so slight a Writer as the Author of that Book had concerning it But whatever might be his Opinion it was far from that of the Roman Church By this Instance of the Maccabees Men who died in a State of mortal Sin and that of the highest nature had Sacrifices offered for them Whereas according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome Hell and not Purgatory is to be the Portion of all such So this will prove too much if any thing at all that Sacrifices are to be offered for the Damned The design of Iudas his sending to make an Offering for them as that Writer states it was that their Sins might be forgiven and that they might have a happy Resurrection Here is nothing of Redeeming them out of Misery or of shortening or alleviating their Torment So that the Author of that Book seems to have been possessed with that Opinion received commonly among the Iews That no Iew could finally perish as we find S. Ierom expressing himself with the like partiality for all Christians But whatever the Author's Opinion was as that Book is of no Authority it is highly probable that Iudas's design in that Oblation was misunderstood by the Historian and we are sure that even his sense of it differs totally from that of the Church of Rome A Passage in the New Testament is brought as a full proof of the Fire of Purgatory 1 Cor. 3. from V. 10. to 16. When St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians is reflecting on the Divisions that were among them and on that diversity of Teachers that formed Men into different Principles and Parties he compares them to different Builders Some raised upon a Rock an Edifice like the Temple at Ierusalem of Gold and Silver and noble Stones called precious Stones whereas others upon the same Rock raised a mean Hovel of Wood Hay and Stubble of both he says every man's work shall be made manifest For the day shall reveal it because it shall be revealed by fire for the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is And he adds If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward and if any man's work shall be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire From the first view of these words it will not be thought strange if some of the Ancients who were too apt to Expound places of Scripture according to their first appearences might fancy that at the last day all were to pass through a great Fire and to suffer more or less in it But it is visible that that Opinion is far enough from the Doctrine of Purgatory These words relate to a Fire that was soon to appear and that was to try every Man's work It was to be revealed and in it every Man's work was to be made manifest So this can have no relation to a secret Purgatory Fire The meaning of it can be no other but that whereas some with the Apostles were building up the Church not only upon the Foundation of Jesus Christ and the Belief of his Doctrine but were teaching Men Doctrines and Rules that were Vertuous Good and Great Others at the same time were daubing with a profane mixture both of Judaism and Gentilism joining these with some of the Precepts of Christianity a day would soon appear which probably is meant of the destruction of Ierusalem and of the Iewish Nation or
it may be applied to the Persecution that was soon to break out in that day those who had true Notions generous Principles and suitable Practices would weather that Storm Whereas others that were entangled with weak and superstitious Conceits would then run a great risk though their firm believing that Jesus was the Messias would preserve them Yet the weakness and folly of those Teachers would appear their Opinions would involve them in such danger that their escaping would be difficult like one that gets out of a House that is all on fire round about him So that these words cannot possibly belong to Purgatory but must be meant of some signal discrimination that was to be made in some very dreadful appearances which would distinguish between the true and the false Apostles and that could be no other but either in the destruction of Ierusalem or in the persecution that was to come on the Church though the first is the more probable It were easy to pursue this Argument further and to shew that the Doctrine of Purgatory as it is now in the Roman Church was not known in the Church of God for the first six hundred Years that then it began to be doubtfully received But in an ignorant Age Visions Legends and bold Stories prevailed much yet the Greek Church never received it Some of the Fathers speak indeed of the last probatory Fire but though they did not think the Saints were in a state of consummate Blessedness enjoying the Vision of God yet they thought they were in a state of ease and quiet and that in Heaven St. Austin speaks in this whole matter very doubtfully he varies often from himself Aug. de Civit. Dâ—i l. 21. c. 18. ad 22. Enâ—â—â—r c. 67 68 69. Ad Dulcid 〈◊〉 primâ— he seems sometimes very positive only for two States at other times as he asserts the last probatory Fire so he seems to think that good Souls might suffer some grief in that sequestred state before the last Day upon the account of some of their past Sins and that by degrees they might arise up to their Consummation All these Contests were proposed very doubtfully before Gregory the Great 's days and even then some Doubts seem to have been made But the Legends were so copiously plaid upon all those Doubts that this Remnant of Paganism got at last into the Western Church Tertul. de Câ—r mil. c. â— de Ex. 〈◊〉 c. 13. â—â—prian 〈◊〉 34.37 〈…〉 75. l. 3. â—3 It was no wonder that the Opinions formerly mentioned which began to appear in the Second Age had preduced in the Third the practice of Praying for the Dead of which we find such full evidence in Tertullain and St. Cyprian's Writings that the matter of Fact is not to be denied This appears also in all the Antient Liturgies And Epiphanius charges Aerius with this of rejecting all Prayers for the Dead asking why were they prayed for The Opinions that they fell into concerning the State of departed Souls in the Interval between their Death and the Day of Judgment gave occasion enough for Prayer they thought they were capable of making a Progress and of having an early Resurrection They also had this Notion among them That it was the peculiar Priviledge of Jesus Christ to be above all our Prayers but that no Men not excepting the Apostles nor the Blessed Virgin were above the Prayers of the Church They thought this was an Act of Church-Communion that we were to hold even with the Saints in Heaven to pray for them Thus in the Apostolical Constitutions in the Books of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and in the Liturgies that are ascribed to St. Basil and St. Chrysostom Dion de Eccl. Hierar Cap. 7. they offer unto God these Prayers which they thought their reasonable Service for those who were at rest in the Faith their Forefathers Fathers Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles Preachers Evangelists Martyrs Confessors Religious Persons and for every Spirit pâ—rfected in the Faith especially for our most Holy Immaculate most Blessed Lady the Mother of God the ever Virgin Mary Particular Instances might also be given of this out of St. Cyprian St. Ambrose Nazianzen and St. Austin Aug. Conf. l. 9. c. 19. who in that famous and much cited Passage concerning his Mother Monica as he speaks nothing of any Temporal Pains that she suffered so he plainly intimates his belief that God had done all that he desired Thus it will appear to those who have examined all the Passages which are brought out of the Fathers concerning their Prayers for the Dead that they believed they were then in Heaven and at rest and by consequence though these Prayers for the Dead did very proâ—ably give the chief rise to the Doctrine of Purgatory yet as they then made them they were utterly inconsistent with that Opinion Tertullian who is the first that is cited for them says we make Oblations for the Dead Supra and we do it for that Second Nativity of theirs Natalitia once a year The Signification of the word Natalitia as they used it was the Saint's Days of Death in which they reckoned he was born again to Heaven So though they judged them there yet they offered up Prayers for them And when Epiphanius brings in Aerius asking Why those Prayers were made for the Dead Though it had been very natural and indeed unavoidable if he had believed Purgatory to have answered that it was to deliver them from thence yet he makes no such answer but only asserts that it had been the Practice of the Church so to do The Greek Church retains that Custom though she has never admitted of Purgatory Here then an Objection may be made to our Constitution that in this of praying for the Dead we have departed from the practice of the Ancients We do not deny it both the Church of Rome and we in another Practice of equal Antiquity of giving the Eucharist to Infants have made changes and let that Custom fall The Curiosities in the Second Century seem to have given rise to those Prayers in the Third and they gave the rise to many other Disorders in the following Centuries Since therefore God has commanded us while we are on Earth to pray for one another and has made that a main Act of our Charity and Church-Communion but has no where directed us to pray for those that have finished their Course and since the only pretence that is brought from Scripture of St Paul's praying that Onesiphorus might find mercy in the day of the Lord cannot be wrought up into an Argument for it cannot be proved that he was then Dead and since the Fathers reckon this of praying for the Dead only as one of their Customs for which they vouch no other Warrant but Practice since also this has been grosly abused and has been applied to support a Doctrine totally different from theirs we think that we have as good a Plea
therein and was the Lord of Heaven and Earth and therefore was not to be Worshipped by mens hands that is Images made by them who needed nothing since he gives us life breath or the continuance of Life and all things He therefore condemns that way of Worship as an effect of Ignorance and tells them of a day in which God will judge the World It is certain that the Athenians at that time did not think their Images were the proper resemblances of the Divinity Tully Cic. de Nat. Deor. l. 1. cap. 27. who knew their Theology well gives us a very different account of the notion that they had of their Images Some Images were of no Figure at all but were only Stones and Pillars that had no particular shape others were Hieroglyphicks made up of many several Emblems of which some signified one perfection of the Deity and some another and others were indeed the Figures of Men and Women but even in these the Wiser among them said they Worshipped One Eternal Mind and under him some Inferior Beings Demons and Men who they believed were subordinate to God and governed this World So it could not be said of such Worshippers that they thought that the Godhead was like unto their Images since the best Writers among them tell us plainly that they thought no such thing St. Paul therefore only argues in this against Image-Worship in it self which does naturally lead Men to these low thoughts of God and which is a very unreasonable thing in all those who do not think so of him It is contrary to the Nature and Perfections of God Few men can think God is like to those Images therefore that is a very good Argument against all Worshipping of them And we may upon very sure grounds say that the Athenians had such elevated Notions both of God and of their Images that whatsoever was a good Argument against Image-Worship among them will hold good against all Image-Worship whatsoever But as St. Paul staid long enough at Athens to understand their Opinions well and that no doubt he learned their Doctrine very particularly from his Convert Dionysius so at his coming to Corinth from thence when he had learned from Aquila and Priscilla the state of the Church in Rome and no doubt had learned among other things that the Romans admired the Greeks and made them their Patterns he in the beginning of his Epistle to them having still deep impressions upon his Spirit of what he had seen and known at Athens arraigns the whole Greek Philosophy Rom. 1.20 to the end and specially those among them who professed themselves wise but became fools who though they knew God yet glorified him not as God nor were thankful but became vain in their imaginations so that their foolish heart was darkened They had high speculations of the Unity and Simplicity of the Divine Essence but they set themselves to find such excuses for the Idolatry of the Vulgar that they not only continued to comply with them in the grossest of all their practices but they studied more laboured Defences for them than the ruder multitudes could ever have fallen upon They knew the true God for God had shewed to them that which might be known of him but they held the truth in unrighteousness and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and fourfooted beasts and to creeping things Which seems to be a description of Hieroglyphick Figures the most excusable of all those Images by which they represented the Deity This St. Paul makes to be the original of all the Corruption and Immorality that was spread over the Gentile World which came in partly as the natural consequence of Idolatry of its debasing the Ideas of God and wounding true Religion and Virtue in its source and first seeds and partly as an effect of the just Judgments of God upon those who thus dishonoured him That was to a very monstrous degree spread over both Greece and Rome Of these St. Paul gives us some very enormous Instances with a Catalogue of the Vices that sprang from those vitiated Principles These two passages the one of St. Paul's Preaching and the other of his Writing being both applied to those who had the finest Speculations among the Heathen do evidently demonstrate how contrary the Christian Doctrine is to the Worshipping of Images of all sorts how speciously soever that may be disguised If these things wanted an Explanation we find it given us very fully in all the Writings of the Fathers during their Disputes with the Heathens They do not only charge them with the false Notions that they had of God the many Deities they Worshipped the absurd Legends that they had concerning them but in particular they dwell long upon this of the Worshipping God in or by an Image with Arguments taken both from the pure and spiritual Nature of God and from the plain Revelation he made of his Will in this matter Upon this Argument many long Citations might be gathered from Iustin Martyr Just. Mart. Apol. 2. Clem. Alex. Strom. l. 1.5 Protr Orig. Cont. Cels. l. 2.3.5.7 Tertull. Apol. Cypr. de Idol Vanitate Arnob. Lib. 5. Minut. Felix Oct. Euseb. praep Evang. l. 3. Lactan. l. 2. c. 2. Ambros Resp. ad Sym. August de Civitate Dei l. 7. c. 5. Orig. Con. Cels. l. 7. Euseb. Praep. Ev. l. 3. c. 7. Max. Tyr. diss 38. Jul. Frag. Ep. Euseb. praep Evan. l. 4. c. 1. from Clemens of Alexandria Origen Tertullian Cyprian Arnobius Minutius Felix Lactantius Eusebius Ambrose and St. Austin Their Reasonings are so clear and so full that nothing can be more evident than that they condemned all the use of Images in the Worship of God And yet both Celsus Porphiry Maximus Tyrius and Iulian told them very plainly that they did not believe that the Godhead was like their Images or was shut up within them they only used them as helps to their Imagination and Apprehension that from thence they might form suitable thoughts of the Deity This did not satisfy the Fathers who insisted on it to the last that all such Images as were made the objects of Worship were Idols so that if in any one thing we have a very full account of the sense of the whole Church for the first Four Centuries it is in this matter They do not speak of it now and then only by the way as in a Digression in which the heat of Argument or of Rhetorick may be apt to carry men too far they set themselves to treat of this Argument very nicely and they were engaged in it with Philosophers who were as good at Subtleties and Distinctions as other Men. This was one of the main parts of the Controversy so if in any Head whatsoever they writ exactly upon those Subjects They attack'd the established Religion of the Roman Empire and this was not to be done with Clamour nor
could they offer at it in a plain contradiction to such Principles as are consistent with the Christian Religion if the Doctrine of the Roman Church is true Here then we have not only the Scripture but Tradition fully of our side Some pretended Christians it is true did very early Worship Images but those were the Gnosticks held in detestation by all the Orthodox Irenaeus Epiphanius and St. Austin tell us Iren. l. 1. c. 24. Epiph. Haeres 27. August de Haeres cap. 7. that they Worshipped the Images of Christ together with Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle Nor are they only blamed for Worshipping the Images of Christ together with these of the Philosophers but they are particularly blamed for having several sorts of Images and Worshipping these as the Heathens did and that among these there was an Image of Christ which they pretended to have had from Pilate Besides these Corrupters of Christianity there were no others among the Christians of the first Ages that Worshipped Images This was so well known to the Heathens that they bring this among other things as a reproach against the Christians that they had no Images Which the first Apologists are so far from denying that they answered them That it was impossible for him who knew God to Worship Images But as human Nature is inclined to visible Objects of Worship so it seems some began to Paint the Walls of their Churches with Pictures or at least moved for it In the beginning of the Fourth Century this was condemned by the Council of Eliberis Can. 36. It pleases us to have no Pictures in Churches lest that which is Worshipped should be Painted upon the Walls Towards the end of that Century we have an account given us by Epiphanius Epiph. ep ad Joan. Hieros of his Indignation occasioned by a Picture that he saw upon a Veil at Anablatha He did not much consider whose Picture it was whether a Picture of Christ or of some Saint he positively affirms it was against the Authority of the Scriptures and the Christian Religion and therefore he tore it but supplied that Church with another Veil It seems private Persons had Statues of Christ and the Apostles Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. 7. c. 18. Aug. in Psal. 113. de Moribus Eccl. Cath. c. 34. which Eusebius censures where he reports it as a remnant of Heathenism It is plain enough from some passages in St. Austin that he knew of no Images in Churches in the beginning of the Fifth Century It is true they began to be brought before that time into some of the Churches of Pontus and Cappadocia which was done very probably to draw the Heathens by this piece of conformity to them to like the Christian Worship the better For that humour began to work and appeared in many Instances of other kinds as well as in this It was not possible that People could see Pictures in their Churches long without paying some marks of respect to them which grew in a little time to the downright worship of them A famous instance we have of this in the Sixth Century Serenus Bishop of Marseilles finding that he could not restrain his People from the Worship of Images broke them in pieces upon which Pope Gregory writ to him blaming him indeed for breaking the Images Greg. Epist. l. 9. Ep. 9. but commending him for not allowing them to be worshipped This he prosecutes in a variety of very plain Expressions It is one thing to worship an Image and another thing to learn by it what is to be worshipped He says they were set up not to be worshipped but to instruct the Ignorant and cites our Saviour's Words Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve to prove that it was not lawful to worship the work of mens hands We see by a fragment cited in the Second Nicene Council that both Iews and Gentiles took advantages from the Worship of Images to reproach the Christians soon after that time The Iews were scandalized at their Worshipping Images as being expresly against the Command of God The Gentiles had also by it great advantages of turning back upon the Christians all that had been written against their Images in the former Ages At last in the beginning of the Eighth Century the famous Controversy about the having or breaking of Images grew hot The Churches of Italy were so set on the worshipping of them This is owned by all the Historians of that Age Anastasius Zonaras Câ—drenus Glycâ—s Theophanes Sigebert Otho Pris. Urspergensis Sigonius Rubens and Ciaâ—â—nius that Pope Gregory the Second gives this for the reason of their Rebelling against the Emperor because of his opposition to Images And here in little more than an Hundred Years the See of Rome changed its Doctrine Pope Gregory the Second being as positive for the worshipping them as the first of that Name had been against it Violent Contentions arose upon this Head The breakers of Images were charged with Iudaism Samaritanism and Manicheism and the worshippers of them were charged with Gentilism and Idolatry One General Council at Constantinople consisting of about Three hundred and thirty eight Bishops condemned the Worshipping them as Idolatrous but another at Nice of Three hundred and fifty Bishops though others say they were only Three hundred asserted the Worship of them Yet as soon as this was known in the West how active soever the See of Rome was for establishing their Worship a Council of about Three hundred Bishops met at Francfort under Charles the Great which condemned the Nicene Council together with the Worship of Images The Gallican Church insisted long upon this matter Books were published in the Name of Charles the Great against them A Council held at Paris under his Son did also condemn Image-worship as contrary to the Honour that is due to God only and to the Commands that he has given us in Scripture The Nicene Council was rejected here in England as our Historians tell us because it asserted the Adoration of Images which the Church of God abhors Agobard Bishop of Lions and Claud of Turin writ against it the former writ with great vehemence The Learned Men of that Communion do now acknowledge that what he writ was according to the sense of the Gallican Church in that Age And even Ionas of Orleans who studied to moderate the matter and to reconcile the Gallican Bishops to the See of Rome yet does himself declare against the Worship of Images We are not concerned to examine how it came that all this vigorous opposition to Image-worship went off so soon It is enough to us that it was once made so resolutely let those who think it so incredible a thing that Churches should depart from the received Traditions answer this as they can As for the Methods then used and the Arguments that were then brought to infuse this Doctrine into the World Acta Con. Nic. 2. Action 4 5 6
7. he who will read the History and Acts of the Nicene Council will find enough to incline him to a very bad Opinion both of the Men and of their Doctrine though he were ever so much inclined to think well of them Aquin. To. 1. quaest 25. dispuâ— 54. Sect. 2. After all though that Council laid the Foundation of Image-worship yet the Church of Rome has made great Improvements in it since Those of Nice expressed a detestation of an Image made to represent the Deity they go no higher than the Images of Christ and the Saints whereas since that time the Deity and the Trinity have been represented by Images and Pictures and that not only by connivance but by Authority in the Church of Rome Bellarmine Suarez and others Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. c. 8. Suarez M. 3. Ysambert de Mist. Incarn ad quaest 25. dis 3. Vasquez in 3 Aquin. disp 103. c. 3. Cajetan in 3. Aquin. quaest 25. A. 3. prove the Lawfulness of such Images from the general practice of the Church Others go further and from the caution given in the Decree of the Council of Trent concerning the Images of God do infer that they are allowed by that Council provided they be decently made Directions are also given concerning the use of the Image of the Trinity in Publick Offices among them In a word all their late Doctors agree That they are lawful and reckon the calling that in question to be not only rashness but an error and such as have held it unlawful to make such Images were especially condemned at Rome December 17. 1690. The varieties of those Images and the boldness of them are things apt to give horror to modest Minds not accustomed to such Attempts It must be acknowledged that the Old Emblematical Images of the Egyptians and the grosser ones now used by the Chineses are much more instructing and much less scandalous Figures Con. Nic. 2. Act. 7. Act. 6. As the Roman Church has gone beyond the Nicene Council in the Images that they allow of so they have also gone beyond them in the degrees of the Worship that they offer to them At Nice the Worship of Images was very positively decreed with Anathema's against those who did it not A bare Honour they reckoned was not enough They thought it was a very valuable Argument that was brought from those words of Christ to the Devil Câ—n. Nâ—c Act. 5. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve that here Service is only appropriated to God but not Worship Among the Acts of Worship they reckon the Oblation of Incense and Lights and the reason given by them for all this is because the Honour of the Image or Type passes to the Original or Prototype So that plain and direct Worship was to terminate on the Image it self Durâ—n in Sâ—nâ—en l. 3. 〈◊〉 9. qu. 〈…〉 15. And Durandus passed for little less than a Heretick because he thought that Images were worshipped only improperly and abusively because at their presence we call to mind the Object represented by them which we worship before the Image as if the Object it self were before us The Council of Nice did plainly assert the direct Worship of Images but they did as positively declare That they meant only that it should be an honorary Adoration and not the true Latria which was only due to God And whatever some Modern Representers and Expositors of the Roman Doctrine may say to soften the harshness of the Worship of Images it is very copiously proved both from the Words of the Council of Nice Con. Nic. Act. 2. and from all the Eminent Writers in that Communion ever from the time of Aquinas Aquin. 3. p. q. 25. Art 3. See to the same purpose Alex. Hales Bonaventure Ricardus de Media villa palud Almans Bâ—el Summa Angelica and mâ—ny more cited by Bishop Stilligfleet 's Defence of the Charge of Idolatry Part. 2. Chap. 2. and of the Modern Schoolmen and Writers of Controversy that direct Worship ought to be offered to the Image it self This reserve of the Latria to God being an evident proof that all inferior Acts of Worship were allowed them But this reserve does no way please the later Writers for Aquinas and many from him do teach that the same Acts and Degrees of Worship which are due to the Original are also due to the Image they think an Image has such a relation to the Original that both ought to be worshipped in the same Act and that to Worship the Image with any other sort of Acts is to Worship it on its own account which they think is Idolatry Whereas others adhering to the Nicene Doctrine think that the Image is to be worshipped with an inferior Degree that otherwise Idolatry must follow So here the danger of Idolatry is threatned of both sides and since one of them must be chosen thus it will follow that let a Man do what he can he must commit Idolatry according to the Opinion of some very Subtile and Learned Men among them The Council of Trent did indeed decline to give a clear Decision in this Matter Con. Trid. Sess. 25. and only decreed that due Worship should be given to Images but did not determine what that due Worship was And though it appears by the Decree that there were Abuses committed among them in that Matter yet they only appoint some Regulations concerning such Images as were to be suffered and that others were to be removed but they left the Divines to fight out the Matter concerning the due Worship that ought to be given to Images They were then in hast and intended to offend no Party and as they would not justifie all that had been said or done concerning the Worship of Images so they would condemn no part of it See Bishop Stillingfleet ut Supra yet they confirmed the Nicene Council and in particular made use of that Maxim of theirs that the Honour of the Type goes to the Prototype Pont. Rom. Ordo ad Recip Imper Rubri and thus they left it as they found it So that the Dispute goes on still as hot as ever The Practice of the Roman Church is express for the Latria to be given to Images and therefore all that write for it do frequently cite that Hymn Crux Ave spes unica auge piis justitiam In benedictione novae Crucis Rogamus te Domine Sancte Pater Omnipotens sempiterne Deus ut digneris benedicere hoc lignum Crucis tuae ut sit Remedium Salutare generi humano sit Soliditas fidei profectus bonorum operum Redemptio animarum sit Solamen protectio ac tutela contra saeva jacula Inimicorum Per Dom. Sanctificetur lignum istud in nomine Patris Filii Spiritûs sancti benedictio illius ligni in quo membra sancta Salvatoris suspensa sunt sit in isto ligno ut
not err in discharging their Commission and the Terms of the Covenant of Grace being thus settled by them all who were to succeed them were also empowered to go on with the Publication of this Pardon and of those glad Tidings to the World So that whatsoever they declared in the Name of God conform to the Tenor of that which the Apostles were to settle should be always made good We do also acknowledge that the Pastors of the Church have in the way of Censure and Government a Ministerial Authority to remit or to retain Sins as they are Matters of Scandal or Offence tho' that indeed does not seem to be the meaning of those Words of our Saviour and therefore we think that the power of pardoning and retaining is only declaratory so that all the exercises of it are are then only effectual when the Declarations of the Pardon are made conform to the Conditions of the Gospel This Doctrine of ours how much soever decried of late in the Roman Church as striking at the Root of the Priestly Authority yet has been maintained by some of their best Authors and some of the greatest of their School-men Thus we have seen upon what reason it is that we do not conclude from hence that Auricular Confession is necessary in which we think that we are fully confirmed by the Practice of many of the Ages of theChristian Church which did not understand these words as containing anObligation to Secret Confession It is certain that the Practice and Tradition of the Church must be relied on here if in any thing since there was nothing that both Clergy and Laity were more concerned both to know and to deliver down faithfully than this on which the Authority of the one and the Salvation of the other depended so much Such a Point as this could never have been forgot or mistaken many and clear Rules must have been given about it It is a thing to which Humane Nature has so much repugnancy that it must in the first forming of Churches have been infused into them as absolutely necessary in order to Pardon and Salvation A Church could not now be formed according to the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome without very full and particular Instructions both to Priests and People concerning Confession and Absolution It is the most intricate Part of their Divinity and that which the Clergy must be most ready at In Opposition to all this let it be considered that though there is a great deal said in the New Testament concerning Sorrow for Sin Repentance and Remission of Sins yet there is not a Word said nor a Rule given concerning Confession to be made to a Priest and Absolution to be given by him There is indeed a Passage in St. Iames's Epistle relating to Confession but it is to one another not restrained to the Priest James 5.16 as the Word rendred Faults seems to signify those Offences by which others are wronged in which case Confession is a degree of Reparation and so is sometimes necessary but whatever may be in this it is certain that the Confession which is there appointed to be made is a thing that was to be mutual among Christians and it is not commanded in order to Absolution but in order to the procuring the Intercessions of other good Men and therefore it is added and Pray for one another By the words that follow that ye may be healed joyned with those that went before concerning the Sick it seems the Direction given by St. Iames belongs principally to Sick Persons and the conclusion of the whole Period shews That it relates only to the private Prayers of good Men for one another The effectual fervent Prayer of a righteous man availeth much So that this place does not at all belong to Auricular Confession or Absolution Nor does there any Prints appear before the Apostacies that happened in the Persecution of Decius of the Practice even of confessing such heinous Sins as had been publickly committed Then arose the famous contests with the Novatians concerning the receiving the lapsed into the Communion of the Church again It was concluded not to exclude them from the hopes of Mercy or of Reconciliation yet it was resolved not to do that till they had been kept at a distance for some time from the Holy Communion at last they were admitted to make their Confession and so they were received to the Communion of the Church This time was shortned and many things were past over to such as shewed a deep and sincere Repentance and one of the Characters of a true Repentance upon which they were always treated with a great distinction of Favour was if they came and first accused themselves This shewed that they were deeply affected with the Sense of their Sins when they would not bear the load of them but became their own Accusers and discovered their Sins There are several Canons that make a difference in the degrees and time of the Penance between those who had accused themselves and those against whom their Sins were proved A great deal of this strain occurs often in the Writings of the Fathers which plainly shews that they did not look on the necessity of an Enumeration of all their Sins as commanded by God Otherwise it would have been enforced with Considerations of another nature than that of shortning their Penance The first occasion that was given to the Church to exercise thisDiscipline was from the frequent Apostacies into which many had lapsed during the Persecutions and when these went off another sort of Disorders began to break in upon the Church and to defile it Great numbers followed the Example of their Princes and became Christians but a mixed Multitude came among them so that there were many Scandals amongst that Body which had been formerly remarkable for the purity of their Morals and the strictness of their Lives It was the chief business of all those Councils that met in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries to settle many Rules concerning the degrees and time of Penance the Censures both of the Clergy and Laity the Orders of the Penitents and the Methods of receiving them to the Communion of the Church In some of those Councils they denied Reconciliation after some sins even to the last though the general Practice was to receive all at their Death Dallaeus de Confessione Morinus de Poenitentia but while they were in a good state of Health they kept them long in Penance in a publick Separation from the Common Priviledges of Christians and chiefly from the Holy Sacrament and under severe Rules and that for several Years more or fewer according to the Nature of their Sins and the Characters of their Repentance of which a free and unextorted Confession being one of the chief this made many prevent that and come in of their own accord to confess their sins which was much encouraged and magnified Confession was at first made
be of no value in the sight of God Yet the whole Practice of their Church runs upon these Acts as if a Man's going through them and making himself think them could be of great Value in the sight of God The Third Branch of the Matter of this Sacrament is the Satisfaction or the doing the Penance which by the constant Practice of the Church for above Twelve Centuries was to be performed before Absolution could be given except in extraordinary Cases such as Death or Martyrdom But in these latter Ages in which the necessity of Confession is carried higher the obligation to Satisfaction or the doing of Penance is let fall lower A distinction is invented by which Confession and Contrition Attrition at least are made essential Parts of the Sacrament without which there is no Sacrament as Soul and Body are essential to the being of a Man And Satisfaction is considered only as an integral Part such as an Eye or a Limb in a Man which is necessary to the Order of it but not to its being If Satisfaction is considered as that which destroys the Habits of Sin and introduces the Habits of Virtue If it is Purgative and Medicinal and changes a Man's Principles and Nature then it ought to be reckoned the Principal and least Dispensable thing of all Repentance For our confessing past Sins and sorrowing for them is only enjoined us as a mean to reform and purify our Nature If we imagine that our Acts of Repentance are a Discounting with God by so many pious Thoughts which are to be set against so many bad ones this will introduce a sort of a Mechanical Religion which will both corrupt our Ideas of God and of the Nature of Good and Evil. The true and generous Notion of Religion is that it is a System of many Truths which are of such Efficacy that if we receive them into our Minds and are governed by them they will rectify our Thoughts and purify our Natures And by making us like God here they will put us in a sure Way to enjoy him eternally hereafter Sorrow for past Sins and all Reflections upon them are enjoined us as means to make the Sense of them go so deep in our Minds as to free us from all those bad Habits that Sin leaves in us and from those ill Inclinations that are in our Nature If we therefore set up a sorrowing for Sin as a Merchandize with God by so many Acts of one kind to take off the Acts of another here the true Design of our Sorrow is turned into a trafficking by which how much soever Priests may gain or the value of Sacraments may seem to rise Religion will certainly lose in its main Design which is the planting a new Nature in us and the making us become like God Confession and Contrition are previous Acts that lead to this Reformation which as they teach is wrought by the Satisfaction therefore we must needs condemn that Doctrine which makes it less necessary and more dispensable than the other In the case of Death we confess all the Rights of the Church with relation to a Man's Scandals and his Obligations to make publick Penance may and ought to be then forgiven him But we think it one of the most fatal Errors that can creep into any Church to encourage Men to rely on a Death-bed Repentance The Nature of Man leans so much this way that it is necessary to bend the Point as strong as may be to the other Hand The Promises of the Gospel run all upon the Condition of Repentance which imports a Renovation of the inner Man and a Purity of Life So that no Repentance can be esteemed True but as we perceive that it has purified our Hearts and changed our Course of Life What God may do with Death-bed Penitents in the Infinite Extent and Absoluteness of his Mercy becomes not us to Define but we are sure he has given no Promises to such Persons in his Gospel and since the Function of Clergy Men is the dispensing of that we cannot go beyond the Limits set us in it So there is no reason to make this part of Repentance less necessary or obligatory than the other but very much to the contrary Another exception that we have to the allowed Practice of that Church is the giving Absolution before the Satisfaction is made upon its being enjoined and accepted by the Penitent This is so contrary to all ancient Rules that it were a needless Labour to go to prove it The thing being confessed by all And yet the Practice is so totally changed among them that such as have blamed it and have attempted to revive the ancient Method have been censured as guilty of an Innovation savouring of Heresy Because they condemn so general a Practice that it would render the Infallibility of the Church very doubtful if it should be pretended to have erred in so Universal a Practice Hasty Absolutions contrary both to the whole design of the Gospel and to the constant Practice of the Church for at least Twelve Centuries are now the avowed Methods of that Church to which in a great Measure all that Corruption of Morals that is among them owes its rise and continuance For who can be supposed to set himself against those Inclinations to Sin that are deeply rooted in his Nature and are powerfully recommended by the Pleasure and Gain that arises out of vitious Practices if the Way to Pardon is cast so wide open that a Man may Sin as long and as securely as he will and yet all at once upon a few Acts that he makes himself go through he may get into a State of Grace and be pardoned and justified The power that is left to the Priest to appoint the Penance is a Trust of a high Nature which yet is known to be universally ill applied so that Absolution is generally prostituted among them The true Penance enjoined by the Gospel is the forsaking of Sin and the doing Acts of Vertue Fasting Prayers and Alms-giving are Acts that are very proper Means to raise us to this Temper If Fasting is joined with Prayer and if Prayer arises out of an inward Devotion of Mind and â—s serious and fervent then we know that it has great Efficacy as being one of the chief Acts of our Religious service of God to which the greatest Promises are made and upon which the best Blessings do descend upon us Alms-giving is also a main Part of Charity Which when done from a right Principle of loving God and our Neighbour is of great Value in his Sight But if Fasting is only an exercise of the Body of abstaining so long and from such things this may perhaps trouble and pain the Body but bodily Exercise profiteth nothing so not to mention the Mockery of Fasting when it is only a delay of eating after which all Liberties are taken or an abstinence which is made up with other delicious and inflaming Nutritives
that imports the Designation of the Person so prayed over In the Greek Church there is indeed a different Form for though there are Prayers in their Office of Ordination Haberti pontif Graecum Morinus de Ordinat Sacâ—is yet the words that do accompany the Imposition of Hands are only Declaratory The Grace of God that perfects the feeble and heals the weak promotes this Man to be a Deacon a Priest or a Bishop let us therefore pray for him By which they pretend only to judge of a divine Vocation All the ancient Rituals and all those that treat of them for the first Seven Centuries speak of nothing as Essential to Orders but Prayer and Imposition of Hands It is true many Rites came to be added and many Prayers were used that went far beyond the first Simplicity But in the Tenth or Eleventh Century a new Form was brought in of delivering the Vessels in ordaining Priests and Words were joined with that giving them Power to offer Sacrifices to God and to celebrate Masses and then the Orders were believed to be given by this Rite The delivering of the Vessels look'd like a Matter and these Words were thought the Form of the Sacrament and the Prayer that was formerly used with the Imposition of Hands was indeed still used but only as a Part of the Office no Hands were laid on when it was used And tho' the Form of laying on of Hands was still continued the Bishop with other Priests laying their Hands on those they Ordained yet it is now a dumb Ceremony not a word of a Prayer being said while they lay on their Hands So that tho' both Prayer and Imposition of Hands are used in the Office yet they are not joined together In the conclusion of the Ofsice a new Benediction was added ever since the Twelfth Century The Bishop alone lays on his Hands saying Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins ye remit they are remitted and whose sins ye retain they are retained The number Seven was thought to sute the Sacraments best so Orders were made one of them and of these only Priesthood where the Vessels were declared to be the Matter and the Form was the delivering them with the words Take thou Authority to offer up Sacrifices to God and to Celebrate Masses both for the Living and the Dead In the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost The Schoolmen have taken a new way of explaining this whole matter borrowed from the Eucharist that is made up of Two parts the Consecration of the Bread and of the Wine both so necessary that without the one the other becomes void So they teach that a Priest has Two Powers of Consecrating and of Absolving and that he is Ordained to the one by the delivery of the Vessels and to the other by the Bishop's laying on of Hands with the words Receive the Holy Ghost and they make the Bishop and the Priest's laying on Hands jointly to be only their declaring as by a Suffrage that such a Person ought to be Ordained So totally have they departed from the Primitive Forms If this is a Sacrament and if the Sacrament consists in this Matter and Form by them assigned then since all the Rituals of the Latin Church for the sirst Ten Centuries had no such Form of Ordaining Priests this cannot be the Matter and Form of a Sacrament otherwise the Church had in a course of so many Ages no true Orders nor any Sacrament in them Nor will it serve in answer to this to say that Christ Instituted no special Matter nor Form here but has left the specifying those among the other Powers that he has given to his Church For a Sacrament being an Institution of applying a Matter designed by God by a particular Form likewise appointed to say that Christ appointed here neither Matter nor Form is plainly to confess that this is no Sacrament In the first Nine or Ten Ages there was no Matter at all used nothing but an Imposition of Hands with Prayer So that by this Doctrine the Church of God was all that while without true Orders since there was nothing used that can be called the Matter of a Sacrament Therefore though we continue this Institution of Christ as he â—nd his Apostles settled it in the Church yet we deny it to be a Sacrament we also deny all the inferior Orders to be Sacred below that of Deacon The other Orders we do not deny might be well and on good reasons appointed by the Church as steps through which Clerks might be made to pass in order to a stricter examination and trial of them like Degrees in Universities But the making them at least the Subdiaconate Sacred as it is reckoned by Pope Eugenius is we think beyond the Power of the Church for here a Degree of Orders is made a Sacrament and yet that Degree is not named in the Scripture nor in the first Ages It is true it came to be soon used with the other Inferior Orders but it cannot be pretended to be a Sacrament since no Divine Institution can be brought for it And we cannot but observe that in the definition that Eugenius has given of the Sacraments which is an Authentical piece in the Roman Church where he reckons Priests Deacons and Subdeacons as belonging to the Sacrament of Orders he does not Name Bishops though their being of Divine Institution is not questioned in that Church Perhaps the Spirit with which they acted at that time in Basil offended him so much that he was more set on depressing than on raising them In the Council of Trent in which so much Zeal appeared for recovering the Dignity of the Episcopal Order at that time so much eclipsed by the Papal Usurpations when the Sacrament of Orders was Treated of they reckoned Seven Degrees of them the highest of which is that of Priest So that though they Decreed that a Bishop was by the Divine Institution above a Priest yet they did not Decree that the Office was an Order or a Sacrament And the Schoolmen do generally explain Episcopate as being a higher Degree or Extension of Priesthood rather than a new Order or a Sacrament the main thing in their Thoughts being that which if true is the greatest of all Miracles the wonderful Conversion made in Transubstantion they seem to think that no Order can be above that which qualifies a Man for so great a Performance I say nothing in this place concerning the power of Offering Sacrifices pretended to be given in Orders for that belongs to another Article The Fourth Sacrament here rejected is Marriage which is reckoned the last by the Roman Account In the Point of Argument there is less to say here than in any of the other but there seems to be a very express warrant for calling it a Sacrament from the Translation of a passage in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians Ephes. 5.32 in which he makes an allusion while he
treats of Marriage to the mutual relation that is between Christ and his Church from that state of Life and says There is a great Mystery here the Vulgar has Translated the word Mystery by Sacrament So though the words immediately following seem to turn the matter another way but I speak concerning Christ and the Church yet from the promiscuous use of those two words and because Sacraments were called the Mysteries of the Christian Religion the Translator it seems thought that all Mysteries might be called Sacraments But it is so very hard here to find Matter Form a Minister and a Sacramental Effect that though Pope Eugenius in that famous Decree of his is very punctual in assigning these when he explains the other Sacraments yet he wisely passed them all over when he came to this and only makes a true consent necessary to the making the Sacrament We do not deny Marriage to be an Ordinance of God but we think that as it was at first made in the state of Innocence so it is still founded on the Law of Nature and though the Gospel gives Rules concerning the Duties belonging to this state of Life as it does concerning the Duties of Parents and Children which is another Relation founded on the same Law of Nature yet we cannot call it a Sacrament for we find neither Matter Form Institution nor Federal Acts nor Effects assigned to it in the Gospel to make us esteem it a Sacrament The Matter assigned by the Roman Doctors is the inward Consent by which both Parties do mutually give themselves to one another the Form they make to be the Words or Signs by which this is expressed Now it seems a strange thing to make the secret Thoughts of Men the Matter Upon the whole Doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning the Sacraments as it is explained by the Schoolmen I have followed the Account given by Honoratus Fabri in his Summula Theologica who is dead within these Ten Years I knew him at Rome Anno 1685. He was a true Philosopher beyond the Liberties allowed by his Order and studied to reduce their School-Divinity to as clear Ideas as it was capable of So that in following him I have given the best and not the worst Face of their Doctrine His Book was Printed at Lions Anno 1669. and their Words the Form of a Sacrament all Mutual Compacts being as much Sacraments as this there being no visible material things applied to the Parties who receive them which is necessary to the being of a Sacrament It is also a very absurd Opinion which may have very fatal Consequences and raise very afflicting Scruples if any should imagine that the Inward Consent is the Matter of this Sacrament here is a Foundation laid down for voiding every Marriage The Parties may and often do Marry against their Wills and though they profess an outward Consent they do inwardly Repine against what they are doing If after this they grow to like their Marriage Scruples must arise since they know they have not the Sacrament because it is a Doctrine in that Church that as Intention is necessary in every Sacrament so here that goes further the Intention being the only Matter of this Sacrament so that without it there is no Marriage and yet since they cannot be married again to compleat or rather to make the Marriage such Persons does live only in a State of Concubinate On the other hand here is a Foundation laid down for breaking Marriages as often as the Parties or either of them will solemnly Swear that they gave no Inward Consent which is often practised at Rome All Contracts are sacred things but of them all Marriage is the most Sacred since so much depends upon it Mens Words confirmed by Oaths and other solemn Acts must either be binding according to the plain and acknowledged Sense of them or all the Security and Confidence of Mankind is destroyed No Man can be safe if this principle is once admitted that a Man is not bound by his Promises and Oaths unless his Inward Consent went along with them and if such a fraudulent thing may be applied to Marriages in which so many Persons are concerned and upon which the Order of the World does so much depend it may be very justly applied to all other Contracts whatsoever so that they may be voided at pleasure A Man's Words and Oaths bind him by the Eternal Laws of Fidelity and Truth and it is a just prejudice against any Religion whatsoever if it should teach a Doctrine in which by the secret reserves of not giving an Inward Consent the Faith which is solemnly given may be broken Here such a Door is opened to Perfidy and Treachery that the World can be no longer safe while it is allowed hereby lewd and vitious Persons may intangle others and in the mean while order their own Thoughts so that they shall be all the while free Next to Matter and Form we must see for the Institution of this Sacrament The Church of Rome think that is strong here though they feel it to be hardly defensible in the other Points that relate to it They think that though Marriage as it is a Mutual Contract subsists upon the Law of Nature yet a Divine Virtue is put in it by the Gospel expressed in these Words This is a great Mystery or Sacrament so the explaining these Words determines this Controversy The chief Point in dispute at that time was Whether the Gentiles were to be received to equal Priviledges with the Iews in the dispensation of the Messias The Iews do not to this day deny but that the Gentiles may be admitted to it but still they think that they are to be considered as a distinct Body and in a lower Order the chief Dignity being to be reserved to the Seed of Abraham Now St. Paul had in that Epistle as well as in his other Epistles asserted that all were equal in Christ That he had taken away the middle wall of partition that he had abolished the Ground of the Enmity Eph. 2.15 16 20 21. which was the Mosaical Law called the Law of Commandments contained in Ordinances that he might make both Jew and Gentile one new Man one entire Body of a Church He being the chief corner Stone in whom the whole building was fitly framed together And so became a holy habitation to God Thus he made use of the Figure of a Body and of a Temple to illustrate this Matter and to shew how all Christians were to make up but one Body and one Church So when he came to speak of the Rules belonging to the several States of Human Life he takes occasion to explain the Duties of the married State by comparing that to the Relation that the Church has to Christ And when he had said that the married Couple make but one Body and one Flesh which declares that according to the first Institution every Man was to have but
the First Innocent Ep. 1. ad Decent how much soever it is insisted on is really an Argument that proves against it and not for it For not to enlarge on the many idle things that are in that Epistle which have made some think that it could not be genuine and that do very much sink the credit both of the Testimony and of the Man for it seems to be well proved to be his The passage relating to this matter is in answer to a demand that was made to him by the Bishop of Eugubium Whether the Sick might be Anointed with the Oil of the Chrism And whether the Bishop might Anoint with it To these he answers That no doubt is to be made but that St. Iames's words are to be understood of the Faithful that were sick who may be Anointed by the Chrism which may be used not only by the Priests but by all Christians not only in their own necessities but in the necessities of any of their Friends and he adds that it was a needless doubt that was made whether a Bishop might do it For Presbyters are only mentioned because the Bishop could not go to all the Sick but certainly he who made the Chrism it self might Anoint with it A Bishop asking these Questions of another and the answers which the other gives him do plainly shew that this was no Sacrament practised from the beginnings of Christianity for no Bishop could be ignorant of those It was therefore some newly begun Custom in which the World was not yet sufficiently instructed And so it was indeed for the subject of these questions was not pure Oil such as now they make to be the matter of Extreme Unction But the Oil of Chrism which was made and kept for other occasions and it seems very clear that the miraculous power of Healing having ceased and none being any more Anointed in order to that some begun to get a Portion of the Oil of Chrism which the Laity as well as the Priests applied both to themselves and to their Friends hoping that they might be Cured by it Nothing else can be meant by all this but a superstitious using the Chrism which might have arisen out of the memory that remained of those who had been cured by Oil as the use of Bread in the Eucharist brought in the Holy Bread that was sent from one Church to another and as from the use of Water in Baptism sprung the use of Holy Water This then being the clear meaning of those words it is plain that they prove quite the contrary of that for which they are brought and though in that Epistle the Pope calls Chrism a kind of a Sacrament that turns likewise against them to shew that he did not think it was a Sacrament strictly speaking Besides that the Ancients used that word very largely both for every mysterious Doctrine and for every holy Rite that they used In this very Epistle when he gives directions for the carrying about that Bread which they Blessed and sent about as an Emblem of their Communion with other Churches he orders them to be sent about only to the Churches within the City because he conceived the Sacraments were not to be carried a great way off so these Loaves are called by him not only a kind of Sacrament but are simply reckoned to be Sacraments We hear no more of Anointing the Sick with the Chrism among all the Ancients which shews that as that practice was newly begun so it did not spread far nor continue long No mention is made of this neither in the first Three Ages nor in the Fourth Age though the Writers and particularly the Councils of the Fourth Age are very copious in Rules concerning the Sacraments Nor in all their penitentiary Canons when they define what Sins are to be forgiven and what not when Men were in their last Extremities is there so much as a hint given concerning the last Unction The Constitutions and the pretended Dionisius say not a word of it though they are very full upon all the Rituals of that time in which those Works were Forged in the Fourth or Fifth Century In none of the Lives of the Saints before the Ninth Century is there any mention made of their having Extreme Unction tho' their deaths are sometimes very particularly related and their receiving the Eucharist is oft mentioned Nor was there any question made in all that time concerning the Persons the Time and the other Circumstances relating to this Unction which could not have been omitted especially when almost all that was thought on or writ of in the Eighth and Ninth Century relates to the Sacraments and the other Rituals of the Church It is true from the Seventh Century on to the Twelfth they began to use an Anointing of the Sick Lib. Sacram Gregor Menardi Nota. according to that mentioned by Pope Innocent and a peculiar Office was made for it but the Prayers that were used in it shew plainly that it was all intended only in order to their recovery Of this anointing many Passages are found in Bede and in the other Writers and Councils of the Eighth and Ninth Century But all these do clearly express the Use of it not as a Sacrament for the Good of the Soul Bede Hist. Ang. l. 3. c. 15. Euchol Gra. p. 408 but as a Rite that carried with it Health to the Body and so it is still used in the Greek Church No doubt they supported the Credit of this with many reports of which some might be true of Persons that had been recovered upon using it But because that failed so often that the Credit of this Rite might suffer much in the Esteem of the World they began in the Tenth Century to say That it did Good to the Soul even when the Body was not healed by it and they applied it to the several Parts of the Body This begun from the Custom of applying it at first to the diseased Parts This was carried on in the Eleventh Century And then in the Twelfth those Prayees that had been formerly made for the Souls of the Sick though only as a Part of the Office Decr. Eug. in Con. Flor. Con. Trid. Sess 14. the Pardon of Sin being considered as Preparatory to their Recovery came to be considered as the main and most essential Part of it Then the Schoolmen brought it into shape and so it was decreed to be a Sacrament by Pope Eugenius and finally established at Trent The Argument that they draw from a parity in reason that because there is a Sacrament for such as come into the World there should be also One for those that go out of it is very trifling for Christ has either Instituted this to be a Sacrament or it is not One If he has not Instituted it this pretended fitness is only an Argument that he ought to have done somewhat that he has not done The Eucharist was considered by
the Ancients as the only Viaticum of Christians in their last Passage With them we give that and no more Thus it appears upon what Reason we reject those Five Sacraments though we allow both of Confirmation and Orders as Holy Functions derived to us down from the Apostles and because there is a visible Action in these though in strictness that cannot be called a Sacrament yet so the thing be rightly understood we will not dispute about the Extent of a Word that is not used in Scripture Marriage is in no respect to be called a Sacrament of the Christian Religion tho' it being a State of such Importance to Mankind we hold it very proper both for the Solemnity of it and for Imploring the Blessing of God upon it that it be done with Prayers and other Acts of Religious Worship But a great difference is to be made between a pious Custom begun and continued by publick Authority and a Sacrament appointed by Christ. We acknowledge true Repentance to be One of the great Conditions of the New Covenant but we see nothing of the Nature of a Sacrament in it And for Extreme Unction we do not pretend to have the Gift of Healing among us and therefore we will not deceive the World by an Office that shall offer at that which we acknowledge we cannot do Nor will we make a Sacrament for the Good of the Soul out of that which is mentioned in Scripture only as a Rite that accompanied the curing the Diseases of the Body The last Part of this Article concerning the Use of the Sacraments consists of Two Parts the First is Negative that they are not ordained to be gazed on or to be carried about but to be used And this is so Express in the Scripture that little Question can be made about it The Institution of Baptism is go preach and baptize And the Institution of the Eucharist is take eat and drink ye all of it Which Words being set down before those in which the Consecrating them is believed to be made This is my body And this is my blood and the Consecratory Words being delivered as the Reason of the Command take eat and drink nothing can be more clearly exprest than this that the Eucharist is consecrated only that it may be used that it may be eat and drunk The Second Part of this Period is that the Effect of the Sacraments comes only upon the Worthy receiving of them of this so much was already said upon the first Paragraph of this Article that it is not necessary to add any more here The pretending that Sacraments have their Effect any other way is the bringing in the Doctrine and Practice of Charms into the Christian Religion And it tends to dissolve all Obligations to Piety and Devotion to a Holiness of Life or a Purity of Temper When the being in a Passive and perhaps Insensible State while the Sacraments are applied is thought a Disposition sufficient to give them their Vertue Sacraments are federal Acts and those visible Actions are intended to quicken us so that in the use of them we may raise our inward Acts to the highest Degrees possible but not to supply their Defects or Imperfections Our Opinion in this Point represents them as means to raise our Minds and to kindle our Devotion whereas the Doctrine of the Church of Rome represents them as so many Charms which may heighten indeed the Authority of him that Administers them but do extinguish and deaden all true Piety when such helps are offered by which the worst Men living and dying in a bad State may by a few faint Acts and perhaps by none at all of their own be well enough taken care of and secured But as we have not so learned Christ so neither dare we corrupt his Doctrine in its most vital and essential Parts ARTICLE XXVI Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers which hinder not the Effect of the Sacraments Altho in the Uisible Church the Evil be ever mingled with the Good and sometime the Evil have chief Authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments yet for as much as they do not the same in their own Name but in Christ's and do Minister by his Commission and Authority we may use their Ministry both in hearing the Word of God and in receiving the Sacraments Neither is the Effect of Christ's Ordinance taken away by their Wickedness Nor the Grace of God's Gifts diminished from such as by Faith and rightly do receive the Sacraments ministred unto them which be Effectual because of Christ's Institution and Promise although they be ministred by Evil Men. Nevertheless it appertaineth to the Discipline of the Church that enquiry be made of Evil Ministers and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their Offences and finally being found Guilty by just Iudgment to be deposed THE occasion that was given to this Article was the heat of some in the beginnings of the Reformation who being much offended at the publick Scandal which was given by the enormous Vices that were without any Disguise practised by the Roman Clergy of all Ranks did from thence revive the conceit of the Donatists who thought that not only Heresy and Schism did invalidate Sacred Functions but that personal Sins did also make them void It cannot be denied but that there are many Passages in St. Cyprian that look this Way and which seem to make the Sacraments depend as much on the good State that he was in who administred them as the Answer of their other Prayers did In the Progress of the Controversy with the Donatists they carried this Matter very far and considered the Effect of the Sacraments as the Answer of Prayers So since the Prayers of a wicked Man are Abomination to God they thought the Vertue of these Actions depended wholly on him that officiated Against this St. Augustin set himself very zealously He answered all that was brought from Cyprian in such a manner that by it he has set us a Pattern how we ought to separate the just Respect that we pay the Fathers from an Implicite receiving of all their Notions If this Conceit were allowed of it must go to the secret Thoughts and inward State in which he is who officiates for if the Sacraments are to be considered only as Prayers offered up by him then a Man can never be sure that he receives them Since it is impossible to see into the Hearts or know the Secrets of Men. Sacraments therefore are to be considered as the publick Acts of the Church and though the Effect of them as to him that receives them depends upon his Temper his Preparation and Application yet it cannot be imagined that the Vertue of those federal Acts to which Christians are admitted in them the Validity of them or the Blessings that follow them can depend on the secret State or Temper of him that Officiates Even in the case of publick Scandals though
among themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's Death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with faith receive the same 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. Transubstantiation or the change of the Substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be Proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after a Heavenly and Spiritual manner and the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's Ordinance reserved carried about lifted up and Worshipped In the Edition of these Articles in Edward the VIth's Reign there was another long Paragraph against Transubstantiation added in these words Forasmuch as the Truth of Man's Nature requireth that the Body of one and the self-same Man cannot be at one time in divers places but must needs be in one certain place therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and divers places And because as Holy Scripture doth teach Christ was taken up into Heaven and there shall continue unto the end of the World a Faithful Man ought not either to Believe or openly Confess the Real and Bodily Presence as they term it of Christ's Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper WHEN these Articles were at first prepared by the Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's Reign this Paragraph was made a part of them for the Original Subscription by both Houses of Convocation yet extant shews this But the design of the Government was at that time much turned to the drawing over the Body of the Nation to the Reformation in whom the old Leven had gone deep and no part of it deeper than the belief of the Corporeal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament therefore it was thought not expedient to offend them by so particular a Definition in this matter in which the very word Real Presence was rejected It might perhaps be also suggested that here a Definition was made that went too much upon the Principles of Natural Philosophy which how true soever they might not be the proper subject of an Article of Religion Therefore it was thought fit to suppress this Paragraph though it was a part of the Article that was Subscribed yet it was not published but the Paragraph that follows The Body of Christ c. was put in its stead and was received and published by the next Convocation which upon the matter was a full Explanation of the way of Christ's Presence in this Sacrament that he is present in a heavenly and spiritual Manner and that Faith is the mean by which he is received This seemed to be more Theological and it does indeed amount to the same thing But howsoever we see what was the Sense of the first Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's Reign it differed in nothing from that in King Edward's Time And therefore though this Paragraph is now no Part of our Articles yet we are certain that the Clergy at that time did not at all doubt of the Truth of it we are sure it was their Opinion Since they subscribed it though they did not think fit to publish it at first and though it was afterwards changed for another that was the same in Sense In the treating of this Article I shall first lay down the Doctrine of this Church with the Grounds of it and then I shall examine the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which must be done copiously For next to the Doctrine of Infallibility this is the most valued of all their other Tenets this is the most Important in it self since it is the main Part of their Worship and the chief Subject of all their Devotions There is not any one thing in which both Clergy and Laity are more concerned which is more generally studied and for which they pretend they have more plausible Colours both from Scripture and the Fathers and if Sense and Reason seem to press hard upon it they reckon that as they understand the Words of St. Paul every thought must be captivated into the obedience of Faith 2 Cor. 10.5 In order to the expounding our Doctrine we must consider the Occasion and the Institution of this Sacrament The Iews were required once a Year to meet at Ierusalem in remembrance of the deliverance of their Fathers out of Egypt Exod. 12.11 Moses appointed that every Family should kill a Lamb whose Blood was to be sprinkled on their Door-posts and Lintels and whose Flesh they were to eat at the sight of which Blood thus sprinkled the destroying Angel that was to be sent out to kill the First-born of every Family in Egypt was to pass over all the Houses that were so marked And from that passing by or over the Israelites the Lamb was called the Lord's passover as being then the Sacrifice and afterwards the Memorial of that Passover The People of Israel were required to keep up the Memorial of that Transaction by slaying a Lamb before the Place where God should set his Name and by eating it up that Night They were also to eat with it a Sallet of bitter Herbs and unleavened Bread and when they went to eat of the Lamb they repeated these Words of Moses That it was the Lord's Passover Now tho' the first Lamb that was killed in Egypt was indeed the Sacrifice upon which God promised to pass over their Houses yet the Lambs that were afterwards offered were only the Memorials of it though they still carried that Name which was given to the First And were called the Lord's Passover So that the Iews were in the Paschal-Supper accustomed to call the Memorial of a thing by the Name of that of which it was the Memorial And as the Deliverance out of Egypt was a Type and Representation of that greater Deliverance that we were to have by the Messias the first Lamb being the Sacrifice of that Deliverance 1 Cor. 5.7 John 1.29 Compare Matt. 26.26 Mark 14.22 and the succeeding Lambs the Memorials of it so in order to this new and greater Deliverance Christ himself was our Passover that was sacrificed for us He was the Lamb of God that was both to take away the Sins of the World and was to lead Captivity Captive To bring us out of the Bondage of Sin and Satan into the Obedience of his Gospel He therefore chose the time of the Passover that he might be then offered up for us And did Institute this Memorial of it while he was celebrating the Iewish Pascha with his Disciples who were so much accustomed to the Forms and Phrases of that Supper in which every Master of a
and the full Evidence of an Object that is before us and that is clearly apprehended by us So there is a great difference to be made between our Reasonings upon Difficulties that we can neither understand nor resolve and our Reasonings upon clear Principles The one may be false and the other must be true We are sure that a Thing cannot be one and three in the same respect our Reason assures us of this and we do and must believe it but we know that in different respects the same thing may be one and three And since we cannot know all the possibilities of those different respects we must believe upon the Authority of God revealing it that the same thing is both one and three tho' if a Revelation should affirm that the same thing were one and three in the same respect we should not and indeed could not believe it This Argument deserves to be fully opened for we are sure either it is true or we cannot be sure that any thing else whatsoever is true In confirmation of this we ought also to consider the nature and ends of Miracles They put Nature out of its channel and reverse its fixed Laws and Motions and the end of God's giving Men a power to work them is that by them the World may be convinced that such Persons are Commissionated by him to deliver his Pleasure to them in some Particulars And as it could not become the Infinite Wisdom of the Great Creator to change the Order of Nature which is his own Workmanship upon slight Grounds so we cannot suppose that he should work a Chain of Extraordinary Miracles to no purpose It is not to give credit to a Revelation that he is making for the Senses do not perceive it on the contrary they do reject and contradict it and the Revelation instead of getting credit from it is loaded by it as introducing that which destroys all credit and certainty In other Miracles our Senses are appealed to but here they must be appealed from nor is there any Spiritual end served in working this Miracle for it is acknowledged that the effects of this Sacrament are given upon our due coming to it independent upon the Corporal Presence So that the Grace of the Sacrament does not always accompany it since unworthy Receivers tho' according to the Romish Doctrine they receive the true Body of Christ yet they do not receive Grace with it And the Grace that is given in it to the worthy Receivers stays with them after that by the destruction of the Species of the Bread and Wine the Body of Christ is withdrawn So that it is acknowledged that the Spiritual effect of the Sacrament does not depend upon the Corporal Presence Here then it is supposed that God is every day working a great many Miracles in a vast number of different Places and that of so extraordinary a nature that it must be confessed they are far beyond all the other Wonders even of Omnipotence and yet all this is to no end that we can apprehend neither to any sensible and visible end nor to any Internal and Spiritual one This must needs seem an amazing thing that God should work such a Miracle on our behalf and yet should not acquaint us with any end for which he should work it To conclude this whole Argument We have one great advantage in this matter that our Doctrine concerning the Sacrament of a Mystical Presence of Christ in the Symbols and of the effects of it on the worthy and unworthy Receivers is all acknowledged by the Church of Rome but they have added to this the Wonder of the Corporal Presence So that we need bring no Proofs to them at least for that which we teach concerning it since it is all confessed by them But as to that which they have added it is not necessary for us to give Proofs against it it is enough for us if we shew that all the Proofs that they bring for it are weak and unconcluding They must be very demonstrative if it is expected that upon the authority and evidence of them we should be bound to believe a thing which they themselves confess to be contrary both to our Sense and Reasons We cannot by the Laws of Reasoning be bound to give Arguments against it it is enough if we can shew that neither the words of the Institution nor the Discourse in the sixth of St. Iohn do necessarily infer it and if we shew that those Passages can well bear another sense which is agreeable both to the words themselves and to the style of the Scriptures and more particularly to the Phraseology to which the Iews were accustomed upon the occasion on which this was Instituted and if the words can well bear the Sense that we give them then the other advantages that are in it of its being simple and natural of its being suitable to the design of a Sacrament and of its having no hard consequences of any sort depending upon it then I say by all the Rules of expounding Scripture we do justly infer that our Sense of those words ought to be preferred This is according to a Rule that St. Augustin gives to judge what Expressions in Scripture are Figurative and what not Lib. 3. de Doct. Chris. c. 16. If any place seems to command a Crime or horrid Action it is Figurative And for an Instance of this he cites those Words Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man you have no life in you Which seems to command a Crime and an horrid Action and therefore it is a Figure commanding us to communicate in the Passion of our Lord and to lay up in our Memory with delight and profit that his Flesh was crucified and wounded for us And this was given for a Rule by the great Doctor of the Latin Church so the same Maxim had been delivered almost two Ages before him Hom. 7. in Levit. by the great Doctor of the Greek Church Origen who says that the understanding our Saviour's words of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood according to the Letter is a Letter that kills These Passages I cite by an Anticipation before I enter upon the enquiry into the Sense of the ancient Church concerning this Matter because they belong to the words of the Institution at least to the Discourse in St. Iohn Now if the Sense that we give to these Words is made good we need be at no more pains to prove that they are capable of no other Sense Since this must prove that to be the only true Sense of them So that for all the Arguments that have been brought by us against this Doctrine arising out of the Fruitfulness of the Matter we were not bound to use them For our Doctrine being confessed by them it wants no Proof and we cannot be bound to prove a Negative Therefore though the Copiousness of this Matter has afforded us many
Arguments for the Negative yet that was not necessary For as a Negative always proves it self so that holds more especially here where that which is denied is accompanied with so many and so strange Absurdities as do follow from this Doctrine The last Topick in this Matter is the Sense that the ancient Church had of it For as we certainly have both the Scriptures and the Evidence of our Senses and Reason of our side so that will be much fortified if it appears that no such Doctrine was received in the First and best Ages And that it came in not all at once but by degrees I shall first urge this Matter by some general Presumptions And then I shall go to plain Proofs But though the Presumptions shall be put only as Presumptions yet if they appear to be violent so that a Man cannot hold giving his Assent to the Conclusion that follows from them then though they are put in the Form of presumptive Arguments yet that will not hinder them from being considered as concluding ones By the stating this Doctrine it has appeared how many Difficulties there are involved in it These are Difficulties that are obvious and soon seen They are not found out by deep enquiry and much speculation They are soon felt and are very hardly avoided And ever since the Time that this Doctrine has been received by the Roman Church these have been much insisted on Explanations have been offered to them all and the whole Principles of natural Philosophy have been cast into a new Mould that they might ply to this Doctrine At least those who have studied their Philosophy in that System have had such Notions put in them while their Minds were yet tender and capable of any Impressions that they have been thereby prepared to this Doctrine before they came to it by a Train of Philosophical Terms and Distinctions so that they were not much alarmed at it when it came to be set before them They are accustomed to think that Ubication or the being in a Place is but an Accident to a Substance So that the same Bodies being in more Places is only its having a few more of those Accidents produced in it by God They are accustomed to think that Accidents are Beings different from Matter like a sort of cloathing to it which do indeed require the having of a Substance for their Subject But yet since they are believed to have a being of their own God may make them subsist As the Skin of a Man may stand out in its proper Shape and Colour though there were nothing but Air or Vacuity within it They are accustomed to think that as an Accident may be without its proper Substance so a Substance may be without its proper Accidents And they do reckon Extension and Impenetrability that is a Bodies so filling a Space that no other Body can be in the same Space with it among its Accidents So that a Body composed of Organs and of large Dimensions may be not only all crouded within one Wafer but an entire distinct Body may be in every separable Part of this Wafer At least in every piece that carries in it the Appearances of Bread These besides many other lesser Subtilties are the evident Results of this Doctrine And it was a natural Effect of its being received that their Philosophy should be so transformed as to agree to it and to prepare Men for it Now to apply this to the Matter we are now upon We find none of these Subtilties among the Ancients They seem to apprehend none of those Difficulties nor do they take any pains to solve or clear them They had a Philosophical Genius and shewed it in all other things They disputed very nicely concerning the Attributes of God concerning his Essence and the Persons of the Trinity They saw the Difficulties concerning the Incarnation of the Eternal Word and Christ's being both God and Man They treat of Original Sin of the Power of Grace and of the Decrees of God They explained the Resurrection of our Bodies and the different States of the Blessed and the Damned They saw the Difficulties in all these Heads and were very Copious in their Explanations of them And they may be rather thought by some too full than too sparing in the canvassing of Difficulties But all those were more speculative Matters in which the Difficulty was not so soon seen as on this Subject Yet they found these out and pursued them with that Subtilty that shewed they were not at all displeased when occasions were offered them to shew their Skill in answering Difficulties Which to name no more appears very evidently to be St. Augustin's Character Yet neither he nor any of the other Fathers seem to have been Sensible of the Difficulties in this Matter They neither state them nor answer them nor do they use those reserves when they speak of Philosophical Matters that Men must have used who were possessed of this Doctrine For a Man cannot hold it without bringing himself to think and speak otherways upon all natural Things than the rest of Mankind do They are so far from this that on the contrary they deliver themselves in a way that shews they had no such Apprehensions of Things They thought that all Creatures were limited to one Place And from thence they argued against the Heathens who believed that their Deities were in every one of those Statues which they consecrated to them From this Head they proved the Divinity of the Holy Ghost Because he wrought in many different Places at once Which he could not do if he were only a Creature They affirm that Christ can be no more on Earth since he is now in Heaven and that he can be but in one Place They say that which hath no Bounds nor Figure and that can neither be touched nor seen cannot be a Body That Bodies are extended in some Place and cannot exist after the Manner of Spirits They argue against the Eternity of Matter from this that nothing could be produced that had a Being before it was produced And on all Occasions they appeal to the Testimony of our Senses as Infallible They say that to believe otherwise tended to reverse the whole State of Life and Order of Nature and to reproach the Providence of God since it must be said that he has given the Knowledge of all his Works to Liars and Deceivers if our Senses may be false That we must doubt of our Faith if the Testimony of hearing seeing and feeling could deceive us And in their Contests with the Marcionites and others concerning the Truth of Christ's Body they appeal always to the Testimony of the Senses as Infallible And even treating of the Sacrament they say without Limitation or Exception that it was Bread as their Eyes witnessed and true Wine that Christ did Consecrate to be the Memorial of his Body and Blood and they tell us in this very Particular that we ought not to
doubt of the Testimony of our Senses Another presumptive Proof that the Ancients knew nothing of this Doctrine is that the Heathens and the Iews who charged them and their Doctrine with every thing that they could invent to make both it and them odious and ridiculous could never have passed over this in which both Sense and Reason seemed to be so evidently on their side They reproach the Christians for believing a God that was Born a God of Flesh that was crucified and buried They laughed at their belief of a Judgment to come of endless Flames of a heavenly Paradise and of the Resurrection of the Body Those who writ the first Apologies for the Christian Religion Iustin Martyr Tertullian Origen Arnobius and Minutius Felix have given us a large Account of the Blasphemies both of Iews and Gentiles against the Doctrines of Christianity Cyril of Alexandria has given us Iulian's Objections in his own Words who having been not only initiated into the Christian Religion but having read the Scriptures in the Churches and being a Philosophical and Inquisitive Man must have been well instructed concerning the Doctrine and the Sacraments of this Religion And his Relation to the Emperor Constantine must have made the Christians concerned to take more than ordinary Pains on him When he made Apostacy from the Faith he reproached the Christians with the Doctrine of Baptism and laughed at them for thinking that there was an Ablution and Sanctification in it conceiving it a thing Impossible that Water should wash or cleanse a Soul Yet neither he nor Porphiry nor Celsus before them did charge this Religion with the Absurdities of Transubstantiation It is reasonable to believe that if the Christians of that time had any such Doctrine among them it must have been known Every Christian must have known in what Sense those Words This is is my body and This is my blood were understood among them All the Apostates from Christianity must have known it and must have published it to excuse or hide the shame of their Apostacy Since Apostates are apt to spread Lies of them whom they forsake but not to conceal such Truths as are to their Prejudice Iulian must have known it and if he had known it his Judgment was too True and his Malice to the Christian Religion too Quick to overlook or neglect the Advantages which this part of their Doctrine gave him Nor can this be carried off by saying that the eating of human Flesh and the Thyestean Suppers which were objected to the Christians relate to this When the Fathers answer that they tell the Heathens that it was a downright Calumny and Lie And do not offer any Explanations or Distinctions taken from their Doctrine of the Sacrament to clear them from the mistake and malice of this Calumny The Truth is the execrable Practices of the Gnosticks who were called Christians gave the Rise to those as well as to many other Calumnies But they were not at all founded on the Doctrine of the Eucharist which is never once mentioned as the Occasion of this Accusation Another Presumption from which we conclude that the Ancients knew nothing of this Doctrine is that we find Heresies and Disputes arising concerning all the other Points of Religion There were very few of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion and not any of the Mysteries of the Faith that did not fall under great Objections But there was not any one Heresy raised upon this Head Men were never so meek and tame as easily to believe things when there appeared strong Evidence or at least great Presumptions against them In these last Eight or Nine Centuries since this Doctrine was received there has been a perpetual Opposition made to it even in dark and unlearned Ages In which implicite Faith and blind Obedience have carried a great sway And though the Secular Arm has been employed with great and unrelenting Severities to extirpate all that have opposed it Yet all the while many have stood out against it and have suffered much and long for their rejecting it Now it is not to be imagined that such an opposition should have been made to this Doctrine during the nine hundred Years last past and that for the former eight hundred Years there should have been no Disputes at all concerning it And that while all other things were so much questioned that several Fathers writ and Councils were called to settle the Belief of them yet that for about eight hundred Years this was the single Point that went down so easily that no Treatise was all that while writ to prove it nor Council held to establish it Certainly the Reason of this will appear to be much rather that since there have been Contests upon this Point these last Nine Ages and that there were none the first Eight this Doctrine was not known during those First Ages and that the great Silence about it for so long a time is a very strong Presumption that in all that time this Doctrine was not thought of The last of those Considerations that I shall offer which are of the nature of presumptive Proofs is that there are a great many Rites and other practices that have arisen out of this Doctrine as its natural Consequences which were not thought of for a great many Ages but that have gone on by a perpetual progress and have increased very fruitfully ever since this Doctrine was received Such are the Elevation Adoration and Processions together with the Doctrine of Concomitance and a vast number of Rites and Rubricks the first occasions and beginnings of which are well known These did all arise from this Doctrine it being natural especially in the Ages of Ignorance and Superstition for Men upon the supposition of Christ's being Corporally present to run out into all possible Inventions of Pomp and Magnificence about this Sacrament and it is very reasonable to think that since these things are of so late and so certain a date that the Doctrine upon which they are founded is not much ancienter The great Simplicity of the Primitive Forms not only as they are reported by Iustin Martyr and Tertullian in the Ages of the Poverty and Persecutions of the Church but as they are represented to us in the Fourth and Fifth Century by Cyril of Ierusalem the Constitutions and the pretended Areopagite have nothing of that Air that appears in the latter Ages The Sacrament was then given in both kinds it was put in the hands of the Faithful they reserved some portions of it It was given to Children for many Ages The Laity and even Boys were imployed to carry it to dying Penitents what remained of it was burnt in some places and consumed by the Clergy and by Children in other places the making Cataplasms of it the mixing the Wine with Ink to sign the Condemnation of Hereticks are very clear Presumptions that this Doctrine was not then known But above all their not adoring the Sacrament which
is not done to this day in the Greek Church and of which there is no mention made by all those who writ of the Offices of the Church in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries so copiously this I say of their not adoring it is perhaps more than a presumption that this Doctrine was not then thought on But since it was established all the Old Forms and Rituals have been altered and the Adoring the Sacrament is now become the main act of Devotion and of Religious Worship among them One ancient Form is indeed still continued which is of the strongest kind of Presumptions that this Doctrine came in much later than some other Superstitions which we condemn in that Church In the Masses that are appointed on Saints-days there are some Collects in which it is said that the Sacrifice is offered up in honour to the Saint and it is prayed that it may become the more valuable and acceptable by the Merits and Intercessions of the Saint Now when a practice will well agree with one Opinion but not at all with another we have all possible reason to presume at least that at first it came in under that Opinion with which it will agree and not under another which cannot consist with it Our Opinion is that the Sacrament is a federal act of our Christianity in which we offer up our highest Devotions to God through Christ and receive the largest Returns from him It is indeed a Superstitious conceit to celebrate this to the honour of a Saint but howsoever upon the supposition of Saints hearing our Prayers and Interceding for us there is still good sense in this but if it is believed that Christ is Corporally present and that he is offered up in it it is against all Sense and it approaches to Blasphemy to do this to the Honour of a Saint and much more to desire that this which is of infinite value and is the foundation of all God's Blessings to us should receive any addition or increase in its value or acceptation from the Merits or Intercession of Saints So this tho' a late practice yet does fully evince that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence was not yet thought on when it was first brought into the Office So far I have gone upon the Presumptions that may be offered to prove that this Doctrine was not known to the Ancients They are not only just and lawful Presumptions but they are so strong and violent that when they are well considered they force an assent to that which we infer from them I go next to the more plain and direct Proofs that we find of the Opinion of the Ancients in this Matter They call the Elements Bread and Wine after the Consecration Iustin Martyr calls them Bread and Wine Apolog. 2. and a nourishment which nourished He indeed says it is not common Bread and Wine which shews that he thought it was still so in Substance And he illustrates the Sanctification of the Elements by the Incarnation of Christ in which the human Nature did not lose or change its Substance by its Union with the Divine So the Bread and the Wine do not according to that Explanation lose their proper Substance when they become the Flesh and Blood of Christ. Irenoeus calls it that Bread over which thanks are given and says it is no more common Bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things an earthly and a heavenly Lib. 4. de haer c. 34. Lib. 1. adver Marcion c. 14. Lib. 3 adver Marcion c. 19. Tertullian arguing against the Marcionites who held two Gods and that the Creator of this Earth was the bad God but that Christ was contrary to him urges against them this that Christ made use of the Creatures And says he did not reject Bread by which he represents his own Body And in another Place he says Christ calls Bread his Body That from thence you may understand that he gave the figure of his Body to the Bread Origen says we eat of the Loaves that are set before us Lib. 8. contâ—a Celsum Which by prayer are become a certain holy body that sanctifies those who use them with a sound purpose St. Cyprian says Christ calls the Bread that was compounded of many grains Ep. â—6 Ep. 63. his Body And the Wine that is pressed out of many grapes his Blood to shew the Vnion of his People And in another Place writing against those who used only Water but no Wine in the Eucharist He says we cannot see the Blood by which we are Redeemed when Wine is not in the Chalice by which the Blood of Christ is shewed Epiphanius being to Prove that Man may be said to be made after the Image of God though he is not like him urges this In Anchoreto That the Bread is not like Christ neither in his invisible Deity nor in his Incarnate likeness for it is round and without feeling as to its vertue Gregory Nyssen says the Bread in the beginning is common In orat de baptis Christi but after the Mystery has consecrated it it is said to be and is the Body of Christ To this he compares the Sanctification of the mystical Oil of the Water in Baptism and the Stones of an Altar or Church dedicated to God St. Ambrose calls it still Bread De Benedict Patriarch c. 9. Hom. 24. in Ep. ad Cor. and says this Bread is made of the food of the Saints St. Chrysostom on these words the Bread that we break says What is the bread The Body of Christ What are they made to be who take it The Body of Christ. Which shews that he considered the Bread as being so the Body of Christ as the worthy Receivers became his Body which is done not by a change of Substance but by a Sanctification of their Natures St. Ierom says Christ took Bread Comm. in St. Matth. c. 26. that as Melchisedeck had in the figure offered Bread and Wine he might also represent the truth that is in Opposition to the Figure of his Body and Blood St. Augustin does very largely compare the Sacraments being called the Body and Blood of Christ Cit. apud Fulgent de Baptismo with those other Places in which the Church is called his Body and all Christians are his Members Which shews that he thought the One was to be understood Mystically as well as the other He calls the Eucharist frequently our daily Bread and the Sacrament of Bread and Wine All these call the Eucharist Bread and Wine in express Words But when they call it Christ's Body and Blood they call it so after a sort or that it is said to be or with some other mollifying Expression St. Augustin says this plainly Aug. Ep. 23. ad Bonifac Serm. 2. in Psal. 33. Chrys. Ep. ad Caesâ—r in coâ—ment in Ep. ad Gaâ— c. 5. after some sort the Sacrament of the Body of Christ is his Body and
the Sacrament of his Blood is the Blood of Christ he carried himself in his own hands in some sort when he said This is my Body St. Chrysostom says the Bread is thought worthy to be called the Body of our Lord And in another Place reckoning up the improper Senses of the word Flesh he says the Scriptures use to call the Mysteries that is the Sacrament by the Name of Flesh and sometimes the whole Church is said to be the Body of Christ. So Tertullian says Christ calls the Bread his Body and names the Bread by his Body Tertul. Lib. 4. adv Marci c. 40. The Fathers do not only call the consecrated Elements Bread and Wine They do also affirm that they retain their proper Nature and Substance and are the same thing as to their Nature that they were before And the Occasion upon which the Passages that I go next to mention are used by them does prove this Matter beyond Contradiction Apollinaris did broach that Heresy which was afterwards put in full Form by Eutycheâ— and that had so great a Party to support it that as they had one General Council a pretended one at least to favour them so they were condemned by another Their Error was that the human Nature of Christ was swallowed up by the Divine if not while he was here on Earth yet at least after his Ascension to Heaven This Error was confuted by several Writers who lived very wide one from another And at a distance of above a hundred Years one from another St. Chrysostom at Constantinople Theodoret in Asia Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch and Gelasius Bishop of Rome All those write to Prove that the human Nature did still remain in Christ not changed nor swallowed up but only sanctified by the Divine Nature that was united to it They do all fall into one Argument which very probably those who came after St. Chrysostom took from him Epist. ad Celarium So that though both Theodoret and Gelasius's Words are much fuller yet because the Argument is the same with that which St. Chrysostom had urged against Apollinaris I shall first set down his Words He brings an Illustration from the Doctrine of the Sacrament to shew that the human Nature was not destroyed by its Union with the Divine and has upon that these Words As before the Bread is sanctified we call it Bread but when the Divine Grace has sanctified it by the means of the Priest it is freed from the name of Bread and is thought worthy of the name of the Lord's Body though the nature of Bread remains in it And yet it is not said there are two Bodies but one Body of the Son So the divine Nature being joined to the Body Both these make one Son and one Person In Photi Bibli Cod. 229. Ephrem of Antioch says The Body of Christ which is received by the faithful does not depart from its sensible Substance So Baptism says he does not lose its own sensible Substance and does not lose that which it was before Dial. 1st and 2d â—ont Eutych Theodoret says Christ does honour the Symbols with the name of his Body and Blood not changing the nature but adding grace to nature In another Place pursuing the same Argument he says The mystical Symbols after the sanctification do not depart from their own nature For they continue in their former substance figure and form and are visible and palpable as they were before But they are understood to be that which they are made Pope Gelasius says The Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ are a divine thing Lib. de duâ—bus nat Christ for which reason we become by them partakers of the divine Nature and yet the substance of Bread and Wine does not cease to exist And the image and likeness of the Body and Blood of Christ are celebrated in holy Mysteries Upon all these Places being compared with the Design with which they were written which was to prove that Christ's Human Nature did still subsist unchanged and not swallowed up by its Union with the Divinity some Reflections are very obvious â—irst If the corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament had been then received in the Church the natural and unavoidable Argument in this Matter which must put an end to it with all that believed such corporal Presence was this Christ has certainly a natural Body still because the Bread and the Wine are turned to it and they cannot be turned to that which is not In their Writings they argued against the possibility of a substantial Change of a Human Nature into the Divine but that could not have been urged by Men who believed a substantial Mutation to be made in the Sacrament For then the Eutychians might have retorted the Argument with great Advantage upon them The Eutychians did make use of some Expressions that were used by some in the Church which seemed to Import that they did argue from the Sacrament as Theodoret represents their Objections But to that he answers as we have seen denying that any such substantial Change was made The Design of those Fathers was to prove that things might be united together and continue so united without the change of their Substances and that this was true in the two Natures in the Person of Christ And to make this more Sensible they bring in the Matter of the Sacrament as a thing known and confessed For in their arguing upon it they do suppose it as a thing out of dispute Now according to the Roman Doctrine this had been a very odd Sort of an Argument to prove that Christ's Human Nature was not swallowed up of the Divine because the Mysteries or Elements in the Sacrament are changed into the Substance of Christ's Body only they retain the outward appearances of Bread and Wine To this an Eutychian might readily have answered that then the Human Nature might be believed to be destroyed And though Christ had appeared in that likeness he retained only the Accidents of Human Nature but that the Human Nature it self was destroyed as the Bread and the Wine were destroyed in the Eucharist This had been a very absurd way of arguing in the Fathers and had indeed delivered up the Cause to the Eutychians Whereas those Fathers make it an Argument against them to prove that notwithstanding an Uninion of two Beings and such an Union as did communicate a Sanctification from the one to the other yet the two Natures might remain still distinguish'd and that it was so in the Eucharist Therefore it might be so in the Person of Christ. This seems to be so evident an Indication of the Doctrine of the whole Church in the Fourth and Fifth Century when so many of the most eminent Writers of those Ages do urge it so home as an Argument in so great a Point that we can scarce think it possible for any Man to consider it fully without being determined by it
our Saviour's speaking of giving his Flesh to them to eat it he adds They foolishly and carnally thought Lib. 20. con Faust. c. 21. in Psal. 98. v. 5. that he was to cut off some parcels of his Body to be given to them but he shews that there was a Sacrament hid there and he thus Paraphrases that Passage The words that I have spoken to you they are spirit and life Vnderstand spiritually that which I have said for it is not this Body which you see that you are to eat or to drink this Blood which they shall shed who crucifie me But I have recommended a Sacrament to you which being spiritually understood shall quicken you And tho' it be necessary that it be celebrated visibly yet it must be understood invisibly Primasius compares the Sacrament to a Pledge Comm. in 1 Ep. ad Cor. which a dying Man leaves to any one whom he loved But that which is more Important than the Quotation of any of the words of the Fathers is that the Author of the Books of the Sacraments which pass under the Name of St. Ambrose Lib. 4. dâ— Sacram. c. 5. tho' it is generally agreed that those Books were writ some Ages after his Death gives us the Prayer of Consecration as it was used in his time He calls it the Heavenly Words and sets it down The Offices of the Church are a clearer Evidence of the Doctrine of that Church than all the Discourses that can be made by any Doctor in it the one is the Language of the whole Body whereas the other are only the private reasonings of particular Men And of all the Parts of the Office the Prayer of Consecration is that which does most certainly set out to us the sense of that Church that used it But that which makes this Remark the more Important is that the Prayer as set down by this pretended St. Ambrose is very near the same with that which is now in the Canon of the Mass only there is one very Important variation which will best appear by setting both down That of St. Ambrose's is Fac nobis hanc oblationem ascriptam rationabilem acceptabilem quod est figura Corporis Sanguinis Domini nostri Iesu Christi qui pridie quam pateretur c. That in the Canon of the Mass is Quam oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quae sumus benedictam ascriptam ratam rationabilem acceptabilemque facere digneris ut nobis Corpus Sanguis fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Iesu Christi We do plainly see so great a resemblance of the later to the former of these two Prayers that we may well conclude that the one was begun in the other but at the same time we observe an Essential difference In the former this Sacrifice is called the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ. Whereas in the later it is Prayed that it may become to us the Body and Blood of Christ. As long as the former was the Prayer of Consecration it is not pofsible for us to imagine that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence could be received for that which was believed to be the true Body and Blood of Christ could not be called especially in such a part of the Office the Figure of his Body and Blood and therefore the change that was made in this Prayer was an evident proof of a change in the Doctrine and if we could tell in what Age that was done we might then upon greater certainty fix the time in which this change was made or at least in which the inconsistency of that Prayer with this Doctrine was observed I have now set down a great variety of Proofs reduced under different Heads from which it appears evidently that the Fathers did not believe this Doctrine but that they did affirm the contrary very expresly This Sacrament continued to be so long considered as the Figure or Image of Christ's Body that the Seventh General Council which met at Constantinople in the Year 754 and consisted of above Three hundred and thirty Bishops when it condemned the Worship of Images affirmed that this was the only Image that we might lawfully have of Christ and that he had appointed us to offer this Image of his Body to wit the Substance of the Bread That was indeed contradicted with much confidence by the Second Council of Nice in which in opposition to what appears to this day in all the Greek Liturgies and the Greek Fathers they do positively deny that the Sacrament was ever called the Image of Christ and they affirm it to be the true Body of Christ. In conclusion I shall next shew how this Doctrine crept into the Church for this seems plausible that a Doctrine of this nature could never have got into the Church in any Age if those of the Age that admitted it had not known that it had been the Doctrine of the former Age and so upwards to the Age of the Apostles It is not to be denied but that very early both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus thought that there was such a Sanctification of the Elements that there was a Divine Vertue in them And in those very Passages which we have urg'd from the Arguings of the Fathers against the Eutychians tho' they do plainly prove that they believed that the Substance of Bread and Wine did still remain yet they do suppose an Union of the Elements to the Body of Christ like that of the Human Nature's being united to the Divine here a Foundation was laid for all the Superstructure that was afterwards raised upon it For tho' the Liturgies and Publick Offices continued long in the first simplicity yet the Fathers who did very much study Eloquence chiefly the Greek Fathers carried this matter very far in their Sermons and Homilies They did only apprehend the Profanation of the Sacrament from the unworthiness of those who came to it and being much set on the begetting a due reverence for so holy an action and a seriousness in the performance of it they urg'd all the Topicks that sublime Figures or warm Expressions could help them with and with this exalted Eloquence of theirs we must likewise observe the state that the World fell in in the Fifth Century Vast Swarms out of the North over-run the Roman Empire and by a long continued Succession of new Invaders all was sackt and ruined In the West the Goths were followed by the Vandals the Alans the Gepides the Franks the Sweves the Huns and the Lombards some of these Nations but in conclusion the Saracens and Turks in the East made Havock of all that was polite or learned by which we lost the chief Writings of the first and best Times but instead of these many spurious ones were afterwards produced and they passed easily in dark and ignorant Ages All fell under much oppression and misery and Europe was so over-run with Barbarity and Ignorance that it cannot be easily
apprehended but by such as have been at the pains to go through one of the ungratefullest pieces of Study that can be well imagined and have read the Productions of those Ages The understanding the Scriptures or Languages or History were not so much as thought on Some affected Homilies or Discantings on the Rituals of the Church full of many very odd Speculations about them are among the best of the Writings of those Times They were easily imposed on by any new Forgery witness the Reception and Authority that was given to the Decretal Epistles of the Popes of the first Three Centuries which for many Ages maintained its credit tho' it was plainly a Forgery of the Eighth Century and was contrived with so little Art that there is not in them colour enough to excuse the ignorance of those that were deceived by it As it is an easie thing to mislead ignorant multitudes so there is somewhat in Incredible Opinions and Stories that is suited to such a state of Mankind and as Men are apt to fancy that they see Sprights especially in the Night so the more of darkness and unconceivableness that there is in an Opinion it is the more properly calculated for such times The Ages that succeeded were not only times of Ignorance but they were also times of much Corruption The Writers of the Fourth and Fifth Century give us dismal Representations of the Corruptions of their times and the scandalous unconstancy of the Councils of those Ages is too evident a proof of what we find said by the Good Men of those days But things fell lower and lower in the succeeding Ages It is an amazing thing that in the very Office of Consecrating Bishops Examinations are ordered concerning those Crimes the very mention of which give horrour De Coitu cum Masculo cum Quadrupedâ—bus The Popes more particularly were such a Succession of Men that as their own Historians have described them nothing in any History can be produced that is like them The Characters they give them are so monstrous that nothing under the authority of unquestioned Writers and the Evidence of the Facts themselves could make them credible But that which makes the Introduction of this Doctrine appear the more probable is that we plainly see the whole Body of the Clergy was every where so Influenced by the management of the Popes that they generally entred into Combinations to subject the Temporalty to the Spiritualty and therefore every Opinion that tended to render the Persons of the Clergy Sacred and to raise their Character high was sure to receive the best entertainment and the greatest incouragement possible Nothing could carry this so far as an Opinion that represented the Priest as having a Character by which with a few words he could make a God The Opinion of Transubstantiation was such an Engine that it being once set on foot could not but meet with a favourable reception from those who were then seeking all possible colours to give credit to their authority and to advance it The numbers of the Clergy were then so great and their contrivances were so well suited to the credulity and superstition of those times that by Visions and wonderful Stories confidently vouched they could easily infuse any thing into weak and giddy Multitudes Besides that the Genius of those Times led them much to the love of Pomp and Shew they had lost the true Power and Beauty of Religion and were willing by outward Appearances to balance or compensate for their great Defects But besides all those general Considerations which such as are acquainted with the History of those Ages know do belong to them in a much higher Degree than is here set forth There are some Specialities that relate to this Doctrine in Particular which will make the Introduction of it appear the more Practicable This had never been condemned in any former Age for as none condemn Errors by Anticipation or Prophesy so the Promoters of it had this Advantage that no formal Decision had been made against them It did also in the outward sound agree with the Words of the Institution and the Phrases generally used of the Elements being changed into the Body and Blood of Christ Outward sound and appearance was enough in Ignorant Ages to hide the Change that was made The step that is made from believing any thing in General with an indistinct and confused Apprehension to a determined way of explaining it is not hard to be brought about The People in General believed that Christ was in the Sacrament and that the Elements were his Body and Blood without troubling themselves to Examine in what Manner all this was done So it was no great step in a dark Age to put a particular Explanation of this upon them And this Change being brought in without any visible Alterations made in the Worship it must needs have passed with the World more easily For in all Times visible Rites are more minded by the People than speculative Points which they consider very little No Alterations were at first made in the Worship the Adoration of the Host and the Processions invented to Honour it came all afterwards Greg. Doâ—râ—t Lib. â— Tit. 42. cap. 10. Honorius IV. who first appointed the Adoration does not pretend to Found it on ancient Practice Only he commands the Priests to tell the People to do it And he at first enjoined only an Inclination of the Head to the Sacrament But his Successor Gregory IX did more resolutely Command it and ordered a Bell to be rung at the Consecration and Elevation to give notice of it that so all those who heard it might kneel and join their Hands and so Worship the Host. The first Controversy about the Manner of the Presence arose incidentally upon the Controversy of Images The Council at Constantinople decreed that the Sacrament was the Image of Christ in which the substance of Bread and Wine remained Those at Nice how furiously soever they fell upon them for calling the Sacrament the Image of Christ yet do no where blame them for saying that the substance of Bread and Wine remained in it For indeed the Opinion of Damascene and of most of the Greek Church was That there was an Assumption of the Bread and Wine into an Vnion with the Body of Christ. The Council of Constantinople brought in their Decision occasionally that being considered as the setled Doctrine of the Church whereas those of Nice did visibly Innovate and Falsify the Tradition For they affirm as Damascene had done before them that the Elements weâ—e called the Antitypes of Christ's Body only before they were consecrated but not after it Which they say none of the Fathers had done This is so notoriously False that no Man can pretend now to justify them in it since there are above twenty of the Fathers that were before them who in plain words call the Elements after Consecration the Figure and Antitype of Christ's
Body Here then was the Tradition and Practice of the Church falsified which is no small Prejudice against those that support the Doctrine as well as against the Credit of that Council About thirty Years after that Council Paschase Radbert Abbot of Corby in France did very plainly assert the corporal Presence in the Eucharist He is acknowledged both by Bellarmin and Sirmondus to be the first Writer that did on purpose advance and explain that Doctrine He himself values his Pains in that Matter and as he laments the slowness of some in believing it so he pretends that he had moved many to assent to it But he confesses that some blamed him for ascribing a Sense to the Words of Christ that was not consonant to Truth There was but one Book writ in that Age to second him the Name of the Author was lost till Mabillon discovered that it was writ by one Herigerus Abbot of Cob. But all the Eminent Men and the great Writers of that time wrote plainly against this Doctrine and affiâ—med that the Bread and Wine remained in the Sacrament and did nourish our Bodies as other Meats do Those were Rabanus Maurus Archbishop of Mentz Amalarius Archbishop of Triers Heribald Bishop of Auxerre Bertram or Ratramne Iohn Scot Erigena Walafridus Strabus Florus and Christian Druthmar Three of these set themselves on purpose to refute Paschase Rabanus Maurus in an Epistle to Abbot Egilon wrote against Paschase for saying that it was that Body that was born of the Virgin that was crucified and raised up again which was daily offered up And though that Book is lost yet as he himself refers his Reader to it in his Penitential so we have an Account given of it by the Anonymous defender of Paschase Ratramne was commanded by Charles the Bald then Emperour to write upon that Subject which he in the beginning of his Book promises to do not trusting to his own Sense but following the Steps of the Holy Fathers He tells us that there were different Opinions about it Some believing that the Body of Christ was there without a Figure Others saying that it was there in a Figure or Mystery Upon which he apprehended that a great Schism must follow His Book is very short and very plain He asserts our Doctrine as expresly as we our selves can do He delivers it in the same Words and proves it by many of the same Arguments and Authorities that we bring Raban and Ratramne were without dispute reckoned among the first Men of that Age. Iohn Scot was also commanded by the same Emperour to write on the same Subject He was one of the most Learned and the most Ingenious Men of the age and was in great Esteem both with the Emperour and with our King Alfred He was reckoned both a Saint and a Martyr He did formally refute Paschase's Doctrine and assert ours His Book is indeed lost but a full Account of it is given us by other Writers of that Time And it is a great Evidence that his Opinion in this Matter was not then thought to be contrary to the general Sense of the Church in that Age For he having writ against St. Augustin's Doctrine concerning Predestination there was a very severe Censure of him and of his Writings published under the Name of the Church of Lions In which they do not once reflect on him for his Opinions touching the Eucharist It appears from this that their Doctrine concerning the Sacrament was then generally received Since both Ratramne and he though they differ'd extreamly in that Point of Predestination yet both agreed in this It is probable that the Saxon Homily that was read in England on Easter-day was taken from Scot's Book which does fully reject the corporal Presence This is enough to shew that Paschase's Opinion was an Innovation broached in the Ninth Century and was opposed by all the Great Men of that Age. The Tenth Century was the blackest and most ignorant of all the Ages of the Church There is not one Writer in that Age that gives us any clear Account of the Doctrine of the Church Such remote Hints as occur do still savour of Ratramne's Doctrine All Men were then asleep and so it was a fit time for the Tares that Paschase had sown to grow up in it The Popes of that Age were such a Succession of Monsters that Baronius cannot forbear to make the saddest Exclamations possible against their Debaucheries their Cruelties and their other Vices About the middle of the Eleventh Century after this Dispute had slept almost two hundred Years it was again revived Bruno Bishop of Angiers and Berengarius his Archdeacon maintained the Doctrine of Ratramne Little mention is made of the Bishop but the Archdeacon is spoken of as a Man of great Piety So that he past for a Saint and was a Man of such Learning that when he was brought before Pope Nicolaus no Man could resist him He writ against Paschase and had many followers The Historians of that Age tell us that his Doctrine had overspread all France The Books writ against him by Lanfranc and others are filled with an impudent corrupting of all Antiquity Many Councils were held upon this Matter and these together with the Terrours of Burning which was then beginning to be the common Punishment of Heresy made him renounce his Opinion But he returned to it again yet he afterwards renounced it Though Lanfranc reproaches him that it was not the Love of Truth but the Fear of Death that brought him to it And his final Retracting of that renouncing of his Opinion is lately found in France as I have been credibly informed Thus this Opinion that in the Ninth Century was generally received and was condemned by neither Pope nor Council was become so odious in the Eleventh Century that none durst own it And he who had the Courage to own it yet was not resolute enough to stand to it For about this Time the Doctrine of extirpating Hereticks and of deposing such Princes as were Defective in that Matter was universally put in Practice Great Bodies of Men began to separate from the Roman Communion in the Southern Parts of France and one of the chief Points of their Doctrine was their believing that Christ was not corporally Present in the Eucharist and that he was there only in a Figure or Mystery But now that the contrary Doctrine was established and that those who denied it were adjudged to be burnt it is no wonder if it quickly gained Ground when on the one hand the Priests saw their Interest in promoting it and all People felt the Danger of denying it The Anathema's of the Church and the Terrours of Burning were infallible Things to silence Contradiction at least if not to gain Assent Soon after this Doctrine was received the Schoolmen began to refine upon it Lib. 4. Dist. 11. as they did upon every thing else The Master of the Sentences would not determine how Christ was Present
is offered in this matter is that since the declared Object of Worship is Iesus Christ believed to be there present then whether he is present or not the Worship terminates in him both the secret acts of the Worshippers and the professed Doctrine of the Church do lodge it there And therefore it may be said that tho' he should not be actually present yet the act of Adoration being directed to him must be accepted of God as right meant and duly directed even tho' there should happen to be a mistake in the outward application of it In answer to this we do not pretend to determine how far this may be pardoned by God whose Mercies are infinite and who does certainly consider chiefly the Hearts of his Creatures and is merciful to their Infirmities and to such Errors as arise out of their weakness their Hearts being sincere before him We ought to consider this action as it is in it self and not according to Mens Apprehensions and Opinions about it If the conceits that the Ancient Idolaters had both concerning their Gods and the Idols that they Worshipped will excuse from Idolatry it will be very hard to say that there were ever any Idolaters in the World Those who Worshipped the Sun thought that the great Divinity was lodged there as in a Vehicle or Temple but yet they were not by reason of that misconception excused from being Idolaters If a false Opinion upon which a practice is founded taken up without any good authority will excuse Mens Sins it will be easie for them to find Apologies for every thing If the Worship of the Elements had been commanded by God then an Opinion concerning it might excuse the carrying of that too far but there being no Command for it no hint given about it nor any insinuation given of any such practice in the beginnings of Christianity an Opinion that Men have taken up cannot justifie a new practice of which neither the first nor a great many of the following Ages knew any thing An Opinion cannot justifie Mens practice founded upon it if that proves to be false All the softning that can be given it is that it is a sin of Ignorance but that does not change the nature of the action how far soever it may go with relation to the Judgments of God If the Opinion is rashly taken up and stiffly maintained the Worship that is introduced upon it is aggravated by the ill foundation that it is built upon We know God by his Essence is every where but this will not justifie our Worshipping any Material Object upon this pretence because God is in it we ought never to Worship Him towards any visible Object unless he were evidently declaring his Glory in it as he did to Moses in the Flaming-bush to the Israelites on Mount Sinai and in the Cloud of Glory or to us Christians in a sublimer manner in the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ. But by this parity of Reason tho' we were sure that Christ were in the Elements yet since he is there Invisible as God is by his Essence every where we ought to direct no Adoration to the Elements we ought only to Worship God and his Son Christ Jesus in the grateful remembrance of his Sufferings for us which are therein commemorated We ought not to suffer our Worship to terminate on the Visible Elements because if Christ is in them yet he does not manifest that visibly to us Since therefore the Opinion of the Corporal Presence upon which this Adoration is founded is False and since no such Worship is so much as mentioned much less commanded in Scripture and since there can scarce be any Idolatry in the World so gross as that it shall not excuse it self by some such Doctrine by which all the acts of Worship are made to terminate finally in God we must conclude that this Plea cannot excuse the Church of Rome from Idolatry even though their Doctrine of the Corporal Presence were true But much less if it is False We do therefore condemn this Worship as Idolatry without taking upon us to define the Extent of the Mercies of God towards all those who are involved in it If all the Premises are True then it is needless to insist longer on explaining the following Paragraph of the Article that Christ's Body is received in the Sacrament in a heavenly and spiritual Manner and that the Mean by which it is received is Faith For that is such a natural result of them that it appears evident of it self as being the Conclusion that arises out of those Premises The last Paragraph is against the reserving carrying about the lifting up or the worshipping the Sacrament The Point concerning the Worship which is the most essential of them has been already considered As for the reserving or carrying the Sacrament about it is very visible that the Institution is Take eat and drink ye all of it which does import that the consumâ—ng the Elements is a part of the Institution and by consequence that they are a Sacrament only as they are distributed and received It is true the practice of reserving or sending about the Elements began very early the state of things at first made it almost unavoidable When there were yet but a few converted to Christianity and when there were but few Priests to serve them they neither could nor durst meet all together especially in the times of Persecution so some parts of the Elements were sent to the absents to those in Prison and particularly to the Sick as a Symbol of their being parts of the Body and that they were in the Peace and Communion of the Church The Bread was sent with the Wine and it was sent about by any Person whatsoever sometimes by Boys Eus. Hist. lib. 6. c. 44. as appears in the famous Story of Serapion in the Third Century So that the condition of the Christians in that time made that necessary to keep them all in the sense of their obligation to Union and Communion with the Church and that could not well be done in any other way But we make a great difference between this practice when taken up out of necessity tho' not exactly conform to the first Institution and the continuing it out of Superstition when there is no need of it Therefore instead of Consecrating a larger portion of Elements than is necessary for the occasion and the reserving what is over and above and the setting that out with great Pomp on the Altar to be worshipped or the carrying it about with a vast Magnificence in a Procession invented to put the more honour on it or the sending it to the Sick with Solemnity we chuse rather to Consecrate only so much as may be judged fit for the number of those who are to communicate And when the Sacrament is over we do in imitation of the practice of some of the Ancients consume what is left that there may be no occasion
26. in Joan. St. Augustin expresses himself in the very Words that are cited in the Article which he introduces with these words He that does not abide in Christ and in whom Christ does not abide certainly does not spiritually eat his Flesh nor drink his Blood tho he may visibly and carnally press with his Teeth the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ But he rather eats and drinks the Sacrament of so great a Matter to his Condemnation And in another Place he says Lib 21. de Civ Dei c. 25. Neither are they speaking of vitious Persons to be said to eat the Body of Christ because they are not his Members to which he adds He that says Whoso eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood abides in me and I in him shews what it is not only in a Sacrament but truly to eat the Body of Christ and to drink his Blood He has upon another Occasion those frequently cited Words speaking of the difference between the other Disciples and Iudas in receiving this Sacrament Tract 54. in Joan. These did eat the Bread that was the Lord panem Dominum but he the Bread of the Lord against the Lord panem Domini contra Dominum To all this a great deal might be added to shew that this was the Doctrine of the Greek Church even after Damascene's Opinion concerning the Assumption of the Elements into an Union with the Body of Christ was received among them But more needs not be said concerning this since it will be readily granted that if we are in the Right in the main Point of denying the corporal Presence that this will fall with it ARTICLE XXX Of both Kinds The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to Lay People For both Parts of the Sacrament by Christ's Ordinance and Commandment ought to be ministred to all Christian Men alike THere is not any one of all the Controversies that we have with the Church of Rome in which the decision seems more easie and shorter than this The words of the Institution are not only equally express and positive as to both kinds but the diversity with which that part that relates to the Cup is set down seems to be as clear a demonstration for us as can be had in a matter of this kind and looks like a special direction given to warn the Church against any corruption that might arise upon this Head To all such as acknowledg the Immediate Union of the Eternal Word with the Human Nature of Christ and the Inspiration by which the Apostles were conducted it must be of great weight to find a Specialty marked as to the Chalice of the Cup it is said Drink ye all of it whereas of the Bread it is only said Take eat so we cannot think the word all was set down without design It is also said of the Cup and they all drank of it which is not said of the Bread We think it no piece of trifling nicety to observe this Specialty The words added to the giving the Cup are very particularly Emphatical Take eat This is my Body which is given for you is not so full an Expression as Drink ye all of this for this is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of Sins If the surest way to judg of the extent of any Precept to which a reason is added is to consider the extent of the Reason and to measure the extent of the Precept by that then since all that do communicate need the remission of Sins and a share in the New Covenant the reason that our Saviour joins to the distribution of the Cup proves that they ought all to receive it And if that Discourse in St. Iohn concerning the eating of Christ's Flesh and the drinking his Blood is to be understood of the Sacrament as most of the Roman Church affirm then the drinking Christ's Blood is as necessary to Eternal Life as the eating his Flesh by consequence it is as necessary to receive the Cup as the Bread And it is not easie to apprehend why it should still be necessary to consecrate in both kinds and not likewise to receive in both kinds It cannot be pretended that since the Apostles were all of the Sacred Order therefore their receiving in both kinds is no Precedent for giving the Laity the Cup for Christ gave them both kinds as they were Sinners who were now to be admitted into Covenant with God by the Sacrifice of his Body and Blood They were in that to shew forth his death and were to Take eat and drink in remembrance of him So that this Institution was delivered to them as they were Sinners and not as they were Priests They were not constituted by Christ the Pastors and Governours of his Church till after his Resurrection when he breathed on them and laid his hands on them Joh. 20.22 and blessed them So that at this time they were only Christ's Disciples and Witnesses who had been once sent out by him on an extraordinary Commission but had yet no stated Character fixed upon them To this it is said that Christ by saying Do this constituted them Priests so that they were no more of the Laity when they received the Cup. This is a new conceit taken up by the Schoolmen unknown to all Antiquity There is no sort of Tradition that supports this Exposition nor is there any reason to imagin that Do this signifies any other than a Precept to continue that Institution as a Memorial of Christ's Death and Do this takes in all that went before the taking the giving as well as the blessing and the eating the Bread nor is there any reason to appropriate this to the Blessing only as if by this the Consecrating and Sacrificing Power were conferred on the Priests From all which we conclude both that the Apostles were only Disciples at large without any special characters conferred on them when the Eucharist was instituted and that the Eucharist was given to them only as Disciples that is as Laymen The mention that is made in some places of the new Testament only of breaking of Bread can furnish them with no Argument for it is not certain that these do relate to the Sacrament or if they did it is not certain that they are to be understood strictly for by a Figure common to the Eastern Nations Bread stands for all that belongs to a Meal and if these places are applied to the Sacrament and ought to be strictly understood they will prove too much that the Sacrament may be consecrated in one kind and that the breaking of Bread without the Cup may be understood to be a compleat Sacrament But when St. Paul spoke of this Sacrament he does so distinctly mention the drinking the Cup as well as eating the Bread that it is plain from him how the Apostles understood the words and intent of Christ and how this Sacrament was received
were a mere question of Words to dispute concerning the term Sacrifice to consider the Extent of that Word and the many various respects in which the Eucharist may be called a Sacrifice In general all Acts of Religious Worship may be called Sacrifices because somewhat is in them offered up to God Let my Prayer be set forth before thee as Incense and the lifting up of my Hands as the evening Sacrifice Psal. 141.2 Psal. 51.17 The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit A broken and a contrite Heart O God thou wilt not despise These shew how largely this Word was used in the Old Testament So in the New we are exhorted by him that is by Christ to offer the Sacrifice of Praise to God continually that is the Fruit of our Lips giving Thanks to his Name A Christian's dedicating himself to the Service of God Hebr. 13.15 Rom. 12.1 is also expressed by the same Word of presenting our Bodies a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable to God All Acts of Charity are also called Sacrifices an odour of a sweet smell Phil. 4.10 a Sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God So in this large Sense we do not deny that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving And our Church calls it so in the Office of the Communion In two other respects it may be also more strictly called a Sacrifice One is because there is an Oblation of Bread and Wine made in it which being sanctified are consumed in an Act of Religion To this many passages in the Writings of the Fathers do relate This was the Oblation made at the Altar by the People And though at first the Christians were reproached as having a strange sort of a Religion in which they had neither Temples Altars nor Sacrifices because they had not those things in so gross a manner as the Heathens had yet both Clemens Romanus Ignatius and all the succeeding Writers of the Church do frequently mention the Oblations that they made And in the Antient Liturgies they did with particular Prayers offer the Bread and Wine to God as the Great Creator of all things Those were called the Gifts or Offerings which were offered to God in imitation of Abel who offered the Fruits of the Earth in a Sacrifice to God Both Iustin Martyr Irenaeus the Constitutions and all the antient Liturgies have very express Words relating to this Another respect in which the Eucharist is called a Sacrifice is because it is a Commemoration and a Representation to God of the Sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the Cross In which we claim to that as to our Expiation and Feast upon it as our Peace-offering according to that antient Notion that Covenants were confirmed by a Sacrifice and were concluded in a Feast on the Sacrifice Upon these Accounts we do not deny but that the Eucharist may be well called a Sacrifice But still it is a commemorative Sacrifice and not propitiatory That is we do not distinguish the Sacrifice from the Sacrament as if the Priests consecrating and consuming the Elements were in an especial manner a Sacrifice any other way than as the communicating of others with him is one Nor do we think that the consecrating and consuming the Elements is an Act that does reconcile God to the Quick and the Dead We consider it only as a federal Act of professing our Belief in the Death of Cstrist and of renewing our Baptismal Covenant with him The Virtue or effects of this are not General they are limited to those who go about this piece of Worship sincerely and devoutly they and they only are concerned in it who go about it And there is no special Propitiation made by this Service It is only an Act of Devotion and Obedience in those that eat and drink worthily and though in it they ought to pray for the whole Body of the Church yet those their Prayers do only prevail with God as they are devout Intercessions but not by any peculiar Virtue in this Action On the other hand the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that the Eucharist is the highest Act of Homage and Honour that Creatures can offer up to the Creator as being an Oblation of the Son to the Father So that whosoever procures a Mass to be said procures a new piece of Honour to be done to God with which he is highly pleased and for the sake of which he will be reconciled to all that are concerned in the procuring such Masses to be said whether they be still on Earth or if they are now in Purgatory And that the Priest in offering and consuming this Sacrifice performs a true Act of Priesthood by reconciling Sinners to God Somewhat was already said of this on the Head of Purgatory It seems very plain by the Institution that our Saviour as he blessed the Sacrament said Take eat St. Paul calls it a Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord and a Partaking of the Lord's Table and he through his whole Discourse of it speaks of it as an Action of the Church and of all Christians but does not so much as by a Hint intimate any thing peculiar to the Priest So that all that the Scripture has delivered to us concerning it represents it as an Action of the whole Body in which the Priest has no special share but that of officiating In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a very long Discourse concerning Sacrifices and Priests in order to the explaining of Christ's being both Priest and Sacrifice There a Priest stands for a Person called and consecrated to offer some living Sacrifice and to slay it and to make reconciliation of Sinners to God by the shedding offering or sprinkling the Blood of the Sacrifice This was the Notion that the Iews had of a Priest And the Apostle designing to prove that the Death of Christ was a true Sacrifice brings this for an Argument that there was to be another Priesthood after the order of Melchisedec He begins the fifth Chapter with settling the Notion of a Priest Heb. 5.10 according to the Iewish Ideas And then he goes on to prove that Christ was such a Priest called of God and Consecrated But in this Sense he appropriates the Priesthood of the New Dispensation singly to Christ in opposition to the many Priests of the Levitical Law And they truly were many Priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason of Death But this Man Heb. 7.24 because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood It is clear from the whole Thread of that Discourse that in the strictest Sense of the Word Christ himself is the only Priest under the Gospel and it is also no less evident that his Death is the only Sacrifice in opposition to the many Oblations that were under the Mosaical Law to take away Sin Which appears very plain from these Words Who needeth not daily as those High-Priests to offer up
effect of Church-Censures The straining this matter too high has given occasion to extremes on the other hand If a man is condemned as an Heretick for that which is no Heresy but is an Article founded on the Word of God his Conscience is not at all concerned in any such Censure Great Modesty and Decency ought indeed to be shewed by private persons when they dispute against publick Decisions But unless the Church is Infallible none can be bound to implicit Faith or blind Submission Therefore an Anathema ill founded cannot hurt him against whom it is thundred If the Doctrine upon which the Censures and Denunciations of the Church are grounded is true and if it appears so to him that sets himself against it he who thus despises the Pastors of the Church despises Christ In whose Name and by whose Authority they are acting But if he is still under Convictions of his being in the right when he is indeed in the wrong then he is in a state of Ignorance and his Sins are Sins of Ignorance and they will be judged by that God w ho knows the sincerity of all mens Hearts and sees into their secretest Thoughts how â—ar the Ignorance is wilful and affected and how far it is sincere and invincible And as for those Censures that are founded upon the Proofs that are made of certain Facts that are scandalous either the person on whom they are charged knows himself to be really guilty of them or that he is wronged either by the Witnesses or the Pastors and Judges If he is indeed guilty he ought to consider such Censures as the Medicinal Provisions of the Church against Sin He ought to submit to them and to such Rebukes and Admonitions to such publick Confessions and other Acts of Self-Abasement 2 Tim. 2.26 by which he may be recovered out of the snare of the Devil and may repair the publick Scandal that he has brought upon the Profession of Christianity and recover the honour of it which he has blemisht as far as lies in him This is the submitting to those that are over him and the obeying them as those that watch for his soul and that must give an account of it But if on the other hand Heb. 13.17 any such person is run down by Falshood and Calumny he must submit to that Dispensation of God's Providence that has suffered such a load to be laid upon him He must not betray his Integrity he ought to commit his way to God and to bear his burden patiently Such a Censure ought not at all to give him too deep an inward concern For he is sure it is ill founded and therefore it can have no effect upon his Conscience God who knows his Innocence will acquit him though all the World should condemn him He must indeed submit to that separation from the Body of Christians But he is safe in his secret Appeals to God who sees not as man sees but judges righteous Judgment And such a Censure as this cannot be bound in Heaven In the pronouncing the Censures of the Church great care and tenderness ought to be used for men are not to be rashly cut off from the Body of Christ nothing but a wilful Obstinacy in Sin and a deliberate Contempt of the Rules and Orders of the Church can justify this Extremity Scandalous Sinners may be brought under the Medicinal Cure of the Church and the Offender may be denied all the Privileges of Christians till he has repaired the Offence that he has given Here another Extreme has been run into by men who being jealous of the Tyranny of the Church of Rome have thought that the World could not be safe from that unless all Church-Power were destroyed They have thought that the Ecclesiastical Order is a Body of Men bound by their Office to preach the Gospel and to offer the Sacraments to all Christians but that as the Gospel is a Doctrine equally offered to all in which every man must make the particular Application of the Promises the Comforts and the Terrors of it to himself as he will answer it to God so they imagin that the Sacraments are in the same promiscuous manner to be offered to all Persons and that every man is to try and examine himself and so to partake of them but that the Clergy have no Authority to deny them to any Person or to put marks of distinction or of Infamy on men And that therefore the Antient Discipline of the Church did arise out of a mutual Compromise of Christians who in times of Misery and Persecution submitted to such Rules as seemed necessary in that state of things but that now all the Authority that the Church hath is founded only on the Law of the Land and is still subject to it So that what Changes or Alterations are appointed by the Civil Authority must take place in bar to any Laws and Customs of the Church how Antient or how Universal soever they may be In answer to this it is not to be denied but that the degrees and extent of this Authority the methods and the management of it were at first framed by common consent In the times of Persecution the Laity who embraced the Christian Religion were to the Church instead of the Magistrate The whole concerns of Religion were supported and protected by them and this gave them a Natural Right to be consulted with in all the decisions of the Church The Brethren were called to join with the Apostles and Elders in that great Debate concerning the Circumcision of the Gentiles which was settled at Ierusalem and of such Practices we find frequent mention in St. Cyprian's Epistles The more Eminent among the Laity were then naturally the Patrons of the Churches But when the Church came under the Protection of Christian Princes and Magistrates then the Patronage and Protection of it fell to them upon whom the Peace and Order of the World depended Yet though all this is acknowledged we see plainly that in the New Testament there are many general Rules given for the Government and Order of the Church Timothy and Titus were appointed to ordain to admonish and rebuke and that before all The Body of the Christians is required to submit themselves to them and to obey them which is not to be carried to an indefinite and boundless degree but must be limited to that Doctrine which they were to teach and to such things as depended upon it or tended to its Establishment and Propagation From these general Heads we see just grounds to assert such a Power in the Pastors of the Church as is for Edification but not for Destruction and therefore here is a Foundation of Power laid down though it is not to be denied but that in the application of it such Prudence and discretion ought to be used as may make it most likely to attain those Ends for which it is given A general Consent in time of Persecution was necessary
withstood St. Peter to his Face when he thought that he deserved to be blamed and he speaks of his own line and share as being subordinate in it to none And by his saying that he did not stretch himself beyond his own Measure 2 Cor. 10.14 he plainly insinuates that within his own Province he was only accountable to him that had called and sent him This was also the Sense of the Primitive Church That all Bishops were Brethren Collegues and Fellow-Bishops And though the Dignity of that City which was the Head of the Empire and the Opinion of that Church's being founded by St. Peter and St. Paul created a great Respect to the Bishops of that See which was supported and encreased by the eminent Worth as well as the frequent Martyrdoms of their Bishops yet St. Cyprian in his time as he was against the suffering of any Causes to be carried in the way of a Complaint for Redress to Rome so he does in plain words say That all the Apostles were equal in Power De Unit Eccles. and that all Bishops were also equal since the whole Office and Episcopate was one entire thing of which every Bishop had a compleat and equal share It is true he speaks of the Vnity of the Roman Chureh and of the Union of other Churches with it but those words were occasioned by a Schism that Novatian had made then at Rome he being elected in opposition to the Rightful Bishop So that St. Cyprian does not insinuate any thing concerning an Authority of the See of Rome over other Sees but speaks only of their Union under one Bishop and of the other Churches holding a Brotherly Communion with that Bishop Through his whole Epistles he treats the Bishops of Rome as his Equals with the Titles of Brother and Collegue In the first General Council the Authority of the Bishops of the great Sees is stated as equal Conc. Nic. Can. 6. The Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch are declared to have according to Custom the same Authority over the Churches subordinate to them that the Bishops of Rome had over those that lay about that City This Authority is pretended to be derived only from Custom and is considered as under the Limitations and Decisions of a General Council Soon after that the Arian Heresy was so spread over the East that those who adhered to the Nicene Faith were not safe in their numbers Ep. 10. ad Greg. and the Western Churches being free from that Contagion though St. Basil laments that they neither understood their matters nor were much concerned about them but were swelled up with Pride Athanasius and other oppressed Bishops fled to the Bishops of Rome as well as to the other Bishops of the West it being natural for the oppressed to seek Protection wheresoever they can find it And so a sort of Appeals was begun and they were authorized by the Council of Sardica But the ill effects of this Con. Sard. Can. 3 7 Con. Constant Can. 3. if it should become a Precedent were apprehended by the Second General Council in which it was decreed That every Province should be governed by its own Synod and that all Bishops should be at first judged by the Bishops of their own Province and from them an Appeal was allowed to the Bishops of the Diocess whereas by the Canons of Nice no Appeal lay from the Bishops of the Province But though this Canon of Constantinople allows of an Appeal to the Bishops of every such Division of the Roman Empire as was known by the name of Diocess yet there is an express Prohibition of any other or further Appeal which is a plain repealing of the Canon at Sardica And in that same Council it appears upon what the Dignity of the See of Rome was then believed to be founded For Constantinople being made the Seat of the Empire and called New Rome the Bishops of that See had the same Privileges given them that the Bishops of Old Rome had except only the Point of Rank which was preserved to Old Rome because of the Dignity of the City This was also confirmed at Chalcedon in the middle of the Fifth Century Con. Chalced Can. 28. This shews that the Authority and Privileges of the Bishops of Rome were then considered as arising out of the Dignity of that City and that the Order of them was subject to the Authority of a General Council Conc. Afric cap. 101. 1â—5 Epâ—st ad Bonifac. Celâ—st The African Churches in that time knew nothing of any Superiority that the Bishops of Rome had over them They condemned the making of Appeals to them and appointed that such as made them should be excommunicated The Popes who laid that matter much to heart did not pretend to an Universal Jurisdiction as St. Peter's Successors by a Divine Right they only pleaded a Canon of the Council of Nice but the Africans had heard of no such Canon and so they justified their Independence on the See of Rome Great Search was made after this Canon and it was found to be an Imposture So early did the See of Rome aspire to this Universal Authority and did not stick at Forgery in order to the compassing of it In the Sixth Century when the Emperor Mauritius continued a Practice begun by some former Emperors to give the Bishop of Constantinople the Title of Universal Bishop Greg. Ep. Lib. 4. Ep. 32 34 36 38 39. Lib. 6. Ep. 24 28 30 31. Lib. 7. Ep. 70. Pelage and after him Gregory the Great broke out into the most Pathetical Expressions that could be invented against it he compared it to the Pride of Lucifer and said That he who assumed it was the forerunner of Antichrist and as he renounced all Claim to it so he affirmed that none of his Predecessors had ever aspired to such a Power This is the more remarkable because the Saxons being converted to the Christian Religion under this Pope's direction we have reason to believe that this Doctrine was infused into this Church at the first Conversion of the Saxons yet Pope Gregory's Successor made no exceptions to the giving himself that Title against which his Predecessor had declaimed so much But then the Confusions of Italy gave the Popes great Advantages to make all new Invaders and Pretenders enlarge their Privileges since it was a great accession of Strength to any party to have them of their side The Kings of the Lombards began to lye heavy on them but they called in the Kings of a new conquering Family from France who were ready enough to make new Conquests and when the Nomination of the Popes was given to the Kings of that Race it was natural for them to raise the Greatness of one who was to be their Creature so they promoted their Authority which was not a little confirmed by an Impudent Forgery at that time oâ— the Decretal Epistles of the first Popes in
for not following them in this as we have for not giving Infants the Sacrament and therefore we think it no Imputation on our Church that we do not in this follow a groundless and a much abused Precedent though set us in Ages which we highly reverence The greatest Corruption of this whole matter comes in the last place to be considered which is the Methods proposed for redeeming Souls out of Purgatory If this Doctrine had rested in a Speculation we must still have considered it as derogatory to the Death of Christ and the Truth of the Gospel but it raises our Zeal a little more when we consider the use that was made of it and that Fears and Terrors being by this means infused into Mens minds new Methods were proposed to free them from these The chief of which was the saying of Masses for departed Souls It was pretended that this being the highest Act of the Communion of Christians and the most sublime Piece of Worship therefore God was so well pleased with the frequent Repetition of it with the Prayers that accompanied it and with those that made Provisions for Men who should be constantly imployed in it that this was a most acceptable Sacrifice to God Upon this followed all those vast Endowments for saying Masses for departed Souls Though in the Institution of that Sacrament and in all that is spoken of it in the Scripture there is not an hint given of this Sacraments are positive Precepts which are to be measured only by the Institution in which there is not room left for us to carry them further We are to take eat and drink and thereby shew forth the Lord's death till his second coming All which has no relation to the applying this to others who are gone off this Stage therefore if we can have any just Notions either of Superstition or of Will-worship they are applicable here Men will fancy that there is a virtue in an Action which we are sure it has not of it self and we cannot find that God has put in it and yet they without any Authority from God do set up a new piece of Worship and imagine that God will be pleased with them in every thing they do or ask only because they are perverting this piece of Worship clearly contrary to the Institution to be a Solitary Mass. In the Primitive Church where all the Service of the whole Assembly ended in a Communion there was a Roll read in which the Names of the more Eminent Saints of the Catholick Church and of the Holy Bishops Martyrs or Confessors of every particular Church were registred This was an honourable remembrance that was kept up of such as had died in the Lord. When the soundness of any Persons Faith was brought in suspicion his Name was not read till that Point was cleared and then either his Name continued to be read or it was quite dasht out This was thought an Honour due to the Memory of those who had died in the Faith And in St. Cyprian's time in the Infancy of this Practice Cypr. Epist. 1. Oâ—on ad â—leb Furer we see he counted the leaving a Man's Name out as a thing that only left a Blot upon him but not as a thing of any Consequence to his Soul for when a Priest had died who had by his Last Will named another Priest the Tutor or Guardian of his Children this seemed to him a thing of such ill Example to put those Secular Cares upon the Minds of the Clergy that he appointed that his Name should be no more read in the daily Sacrifice which plainly shews unless we will tax St. Cyprian with a very unreasonable Cruelty that he considered that only as a small Censure laid on his Memory but not as a Prejudice to his Soul This gives us a very plain View of the Sense that he had of this Matter After this Roll was read then the general Prayer followed as was formerly acknowledged for all their Souls and so they went on in the Communion-Service This has no relation to a Mass said by a single Priest to deliver a Soul out of Purgatory Here without going far in Tragical expressions we cannot hold saying what our Saviour said upon another occasion My house is a house of prayer but ye have made it a den of thieves Mark 11.17 A Trade was set up on this Foundation The World was made believe that by the Virtue of so many Masses which were to be purchased by great Endowments Souls were redeemed out of Purgatory and Scenes of Visions and Apparitions sometimes of the tormented and sometimes of the delivered Souls were published in all Places which had so wonderful an effect that in two or three Centuries Endowments increased to so vast a degree that if the Scandals of the Clergy on the one hand and the Statutes of Mortmain on the other had not restrained the Profuseness that the World was wrought up to upon this account it is not easy to imagine how far this might have gone perhaps to an entire subjecting of the Temporalty to the Spiritualty The Practices by which this was managed and the Effects that followed on it we can call by no other Name than downright Impostures worse than the making or venting false Coyn when the World was drawn in by such Aâ—â—s to plain Bargains to redeem their own Souls and the Souls of their Ancestors and Posterity so many Masses were to be said and Forfeitures were to follow upon their not being said Thus the Masses were really the Price of the Lands An Endowment to a Religious Use though mixed with Error or Superstition in the Rules of it ought to be held Sacred according to the Decision given concerning the Censures of those that were in the Rebellion of Corah Numb 16.38 So that we do not excuse the Violation of such from Sacriledge yet we cannot think so of Endowments where the only Consideration was a false Opinion first of Purgatory and then of Redemption out of it by Masses this being expressed in the very Deeds themselves By the same Reasons by which private Persons are obliged to restore what they have drawn from others by base Practices by false Deeds or counterfeit Coyn Bodies are also bound to restore what they have got into their Hands by such fraudulent Practices so that the States and Princes of Christendom were at full liberty upon the discovery of these Impostures to void all the Endowments that had followed upon them and either to apply them to better Uses or to restore them to the Families from which they had been drawn if that had been practicable or to convert them to any other use This was a crying Abuse which those who have observed the progress that this matter made from the Eighth Century to the Twelfth cannot reflect on without both Amazement and Indignation We are sensible enough that there are many political Reasons and Arguments for keeping up the Doctrine of Purgatory