the Form of her Government we cannot deny that in that respect she has not under-went divers changes I do not mention the Introduction of the Episcopal Order for that is a Question but I speak of those changes that have befel her through the Usurpations and Contests of the first See's and chiefly by the Usurpations of that of Rome which the greatest part of the World will own to have been very considerable Her Discipline and her Liturgies have also undergone many Changes and they cannot in that regard ascribe any Uniformity to the Church either in respect of Times or Places In fine she has sometimes beheld the Body of her Ordinary Pastors turned against her self she has seen a great part of her true Children scattered and dispersed here and there without being able to perform any Acts of an External Society and she has seen some of her Flocks deprived of their Pastors and forced to set up some among themselves in the room of those who had abandoned them For all that fell out in the days of the Arrians the Councils determined Heresy the greatest part of the Orthodox who opposed themselves to their Impiety were either banished or forced to fly into the Desarts and according to the Testimony of St. Epiphanius divers People who saw that their Bishops were turned Arrians in the Council of Seleucia looked on them as the miserable Desertors of their Ministry and set up themselves other Bishops The greatest part of those Changes that fall out in the Church come from two sources the one That she is mixed with the Worldly and Profane in the band of the same External Profession and the other That the Truly Faithful themselves who only are the Church of Jesus Christ as truly Faithful as they are fail not to have a great many other imperfections their knowledge is obscure their Righteousness is accompanied with its faults their Inclinations are not all right and even their most just Inclinations do not fail to have some farther irregularity These two Fountains produce an heap of evils and disorders the Worldly on their part bring thither Covetousness Ambition Pride Opinionativeness contempt of God his Mysteries and Worship Politick Designs Worldly Interests a Spirit of Grandeur Luxury Superstitions Heresies Love of Dominion Presumption Opinion of Infallibility Forgeries and all other Perversities of the heart of Man The Faithful they bring thither on their side their Ignorance their Negligence their Fearfulness their Simplicity and sometimes their Passions their Personal Interests and Vices From all which a Chaos is made up of darkness and Confusion a Mystery of Iniquity a Spiritual Babylon that perpetually makes war against the Church which reduces her sometimes into very strange Extreamities and which would without doubt destroy her if her Eternal Head did not keep her up above all I acknowledge that the Spirit of God fights against that Babylon on the Churches side and that he presides over that Chaos to expel those Confusions and to hinder the Churches Perishing But it must not be imagined under a pretence of that presence of the Spirit of God that there never happens any disorder in it He indeed always preserves the Essence of the Church but he frequently permits her State to be altered This is the Effect that that heap of Crimes Vices and Imperfections may produce which I have mentioned as well on the side of the Truly Faithful as on that of the Worldly They never go so far as to destroy her intirely but they go so far sometimes as to spoil her of her Ornaments of her External Advantages and even of her very Health if I may so speak and therefore Jesus Christ told his Disciples In the World you shall have Tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the World God has always preserved and he will preserve to the end of all Ages a Body of many persons united together in the Communion of his Son Jesus Christ This Body can never perish it can never cease to be nor lose any thing that is absolutely necessary to its subsistence but it may be deprived of its large Extent Temporal Splendor Worldly Glory Peace Rest and Visibility It may see its Ministry Corrupted in as much as it is in the hands of men it may see its External Worship dishonoured and Error and Superstition fill its Pulpits Possess its Schooles and diffuse it self over its Councils its true Members may be hindred from making external Assemblies and a Body of a Visible Communion and it may be abandoned by its Pastors and reduced to a Necessity of Creating others See here what the State of the Church is Upon all these Illustrations it will be no difficult matter to decide the Question concerning the Novelty and Antiquity of our Church For if we have made a Society essentially different from that which Jesus Christ and his Apostles formed at the first and which has all a long subsisted down from his Birth to this present if we cannot justly say That we are a Body of many Persons united together in the Communion of one only true God under one only Jesus Christ our Head and Mediatour if they can with any ground contest with us the Unity of the True Christian Faith Piety and Holiness in one word if we want any thing that is necessary to the Constitution of the Church and its subsistence or if there be any thing in us that hinders that that good which we have does not produce its effect to give us the Form and Nature of a True Church it is certain that we have made a new Church and by a Consequence a false and an Adulterous Church But if we can truly and justly glorify God for all that which makes up the Essence of a True Church if our Faith is sound if our Piety is pure if our Charity is sincere if we can upon good grounds maintain that God preserves and upholds in the External Communion of that Body which we compose the Truly Faithful and Just persons who only as I have said often are the Church it is certain also that there is nothing more unjust then that Accusation of a New Church which they charge us with There never was in the World any other Church of God then that of his truly just and Faithful Ones that Body only is in the Communion of the Father and of his Son Jesus Christ that alone is intrusted with the Truth that alone is animated by the Holy Spirit that alone is God's Inheritance his People his Vine his enclosed Garden his House and Mystical Family as the Scripture calls it that alone in fine has all the Rights of the Ecclesiastical Society the Right of External Assemblies that of the Ministry Sacraments Government and Discipline Let the Author of the Prejudices and his Brethren stir themselves as much as they please let them animate one another let them cry out write Prejudices and invectives never so much against us let
None are ignorant how they had mingled some false pieces into the true Works of the Fathers as in those of Justin Martyr of Origen of Saint Cyprian of Saint Athanasius of Saint Hilary of Saint Ambrose of Saint Chrysostome of Saint Jerome of Saint Augustin and almost generally of all the Fathers whose names they have made use of to authorise their forgeries None are ignorant what alterations they had made in the true writings of the Fathers whether by changing their words or adding to them or sometimes in cutting off considerable clauses and whole passages entire Who sees not that these ill practises which of themselves are so odious in all sorts of matters and especially in those of Religion could not but encrease the just suspitions that our Fathers had of all that which they named Tradition 14. We might make the same judgment of that visible abuse about Reliques which was brought into the Church For on the one side the devotion of the people was so hot as to that point that it could not keep it self within any measure and on the other the Cheats about them were so multiplied that even those of the weakest understandings could not behold them without being ashamed of them That prodigious quantity of the wood of the true Cross which is scattered over the World witnesses this as likewise the Slippers and Hose of Saint Joseph the Shift of the Blessed Virgin her Coifs her Fillets her Girdles her two Combs her Cloaths her Wedding-Ring the Sword wherewith Saint Michael fought with the Devil the twelve Combs of the Apostles some of the Stones wherewith Saint Steven was stoned the Skin of Saint Bartholomew the Coals that broiled Saint Laurence Aarons Rod the Bones of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob And beyond all that the multiplication of one and the same Relique which is to be found in divers places for there is nothing more ordinary then for one to see two three or four Bodies of the same Saint as of Saint Gervase Saint Protais Saint Sebastian of Saint Pretonilla Saint Anthony and some others All which being very much recommended to the People as the true objects of their Devotion not only without any certain grounds but very often with all the appearances of falsness could not but create a vast prejudice of corruption in that Church and Religion 15. Moreover when our Fathers cast their eyes upon the four chief means that God has established in his Church for the preserving of true Faith and Piety in it which are the Scriptures the publick Worship Preaching and the Sacraments and when they considered after what manner they were altered and the use of all those means almost brought to nothing it was not possible they could do otherwise than conclude that corruption whereof we dispute For as to the Scripture instead of making that the only Rule of Faith they had joyn'd Traditions with them that is to say the most uncertain thing in the World the most subject to Impostures and the most mixed with humane inventions and weaknesses Instead of recommending the reading of that Divine word to the Faithful for their Instruction and their Comfort it could scarce be found even in the hands of some Church-men And as for the Schools they knew far better how to quote Aristotle the Master of the Sentences Albertus Magnus Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventure then the Prophets and Apostles As for the publick Service they performed it some Ages ago in a strange Tongue unknown to the people who by this means were depriv'd of that benefit which they might justly expect So that the Assemblies were become in that respect Springs stopt up for any publick edification and their little Prayers themselves the Lords Prayer and the Creed were then read almost only in Latin and the Women and Children and People seemed to know God only by the Idea that was given them of that Tongue in which notwithstanding they understood nothing As for Preaching besides that the Pulpit in the greatest part of that time was abandoned we have yet some Books of the Sermons which they made in those days as of Jacobus de Voragine of a Menot a Maillard a Barelette a Discipulus de Tempore which did no very great honour to their Age. They treat there far oftner of the Legends of the Saints then the truths of Religion and that which was yet more deplorable instead of the Word of God they Preached almost nothing else but scandalously extravagant Opinions raw Parallels of a Saint with Jesus Christ ridiculous stories pleasant buffooneries and such like things which to speak moderatly were exceedingly remote from the natural design of the Pulpit and rendred it not only despised but after a sort odious For that which respects the Sacraments not to touch on those multitudes of unprofitable ceremonies wherewith they had loaded them we must confess that that opinion of the necessity of the intention of the Priest which was so generally taught in the School and which Eugenius the Fourth had defin'd in his Instruction to the Armenians in the Council of Florence it destroy'd almost all the benefit of those sacred Mysteries and cast mens Consciences into perpetual scruples and uncertainties For unless they could establish a revelation for every particular Christian what assurance could we have that he who administers the Sacrament to us had an intention to do that which the Church enjoyns him to do or that he had not an intention contrary to that of the Church What assurance could be given that in all that long Train of Priests Bishops and Popes that is to say the Bishops of Rome who had been from the beginning of Christianity down to this present time there had not been any in whom that intention which they make so necessary to the operation of the Sacrament had been defective Yet if one only Priest that shall happen to Baptise a Pope had not had an intention to Baptize him or if he himself was not truly a Priest by the default of the intention of him who gave him Orders or him who Baptized him If one only Bishop who confers Orders on a Pope then when he is made Priest had not an intention to do what the Church pretends to do all that which would come in consequence of that default would be spoiled the Bishops that that Pope afterwards should promote would not be lawful Bishops the Priests on whom those Bishops had conferred Orders would be no lawful Priests and the Sacraments that those Priests should administer would not be lawfully administred What could our Fathers think of such a dreadful confusion which they knew not how to undo unless by supposing a perpetual Miracle Which is that God should have so over-rul'd the intention of all those men that howsoever Wicked Athestical Hypocritical or Profane they should have been yet that not one of them nevertheless should fail in having an intention to do that which the Church enjoyns But what assurance have we
so that we see them do that openly after their promotion which they secretly coveted before All their Care is for the Temporal and nothing for the Spiritual But this was never the mind of the Emperours They did not then think that the Spiritual affairs would be ingulpht in the Temporal when they gave those goods to the Churches So our Fathers were but too well acquainted with that Spirit of Avarice with animated the Governours of the Church in their Days and every one knows that one of the matters that very much Scandalized them and made them deliberately examine the state of Religion was the Traffick of Indulgences In effect what likelyhood was there that a Vice that corrupts all things and which St. Paul calls the root of all evil and elsewhere a kind of Idolatry being as it was for many Ages so universally spread over the Clergy over the Head and the Members even to the Monks themselves what likelyhood I say was there that this Vice which was found to be so much increased by their Superstitions should have left Religion in its natural purity 4. Our Fathers discern'd a prodigious neglect of the Functions of the Ministry joyn'd with that Covetousness For a Preaching Bishop was for a long time so rare that it was altogether unusual The Care of the poor the visiting of the sick the comforting the Afflicted the correcting the Ignorant the studying of the Scriptures and all the other offices belonging to the Pastoral Crosier were if not quite quite abandoned yet at least extremly neglected All was may almost reduc't to saying of the service as one speak and to reading of the Administration of the Sacraments the Formularies of a Liturgy which a very few of the People understood and neither he himself sometimes who read it before them It was this that made Nicholas de Clemangis Archdeacon of Bayeux who flourished in the beginning of the fifteenth Centuary to say that the study of the Holy Scriptures and those who taught them were derided by all and that which is yet more amazing is that it is chiefly the Bishops that scoff at them preferring their own Traditions to the Ordinances of God Now a days the charge of Preaching which is an Office so admirable and so glorious and which heretofore belonged to the Pastours only is now thought so vile by them that there is nothing which they judge more unworthy of their Grandeur and to bring more reproach to their Dignity He adjoyns that they made no difficulty openly to profess that it belonged only to the begging Fryars to Preach and not to them But this Negligence did not spring up in that Age of the Reformation nor in that that immediatly preceded it for since the ninth Century the Pastors of the Church have been extream slack in dressing the Vineyard of our Lord. Which could not but have made way for false Doctrines and Superstitions and have caused a very great alteration in Religion 5. Ignorance was one inevitable Consequence of that carelessness of the Ministers of the Church that is to say that which of all things in the world was the most improper to engage any to have relied on their Conduct and to have rested assured of the sincerity of their instructions This Ignorance was very great and very general in the time of our Fathers and the most prejudiced of our Adversaries will not deny it But it had began a great while before their days as it appears from the Barbarism of the Schools and from the matter and stile of the greatest part of the Books that the preceding Age had produced and from the express Testimony of divers Authours The Church of God saith St. Bernard every day in divers manners finds by sad experience in what great danger she is when the Shepheard knows not where the Pastures are nor the Guide where the right way is and when that very man who should speak for God and on his side is ignorant what is the will of his Master In these days said Marsilius of Padoua in the fourteenth Century in these days wherein the Government of the Church is corrupted the greatest part of the Priests and Bishops are but meanly instructed in the Holy Scriptures and I dare say they are uncapable of deciding the doubts of their Faith For Ambition Covetousness and Canvassings obtain the Temporal Benefices and they purchase in effect by their services or by their prayers by their Gold or by their Favour all the Dignities of the Age. God is my witness and a great number of his faithful also that I remember I have seen many Priests many Abbots and many Prelats so void of knowledge that they have not known how to speak even according to the Rules of Grammar Is it not very natural to conclude that a number of Errors and Superstitions would infallibly accrew from the favouring of this Ignorance and thereby be established in the Church and that that would produce Novelties and that those which formerly were but private opinions or which consisted but in some first dispositions and tendencies to Errors would become general and be changed into habits 6. But might not our Fathers very well conclude the same thing from that dreadful depravation of manners which they and their Fathers had seen reign for so long a time among the Church-men Those who have any knowledge of History are not ignorant of the Lamentations that all honest men made then and the mournful descriptions that they have left of those times in their writings One may read for the twelfth Century only St. Bernard for the thirteenth Cardinal Hugo for the fourteenth William Bishop of Mende for the fifteenth Werner Rollewink a Carthusian Monk of Cologne for they say but too much for the justifying of these Articles and for the sixteenth which was the Age of the Reformation who does not know that it was extremely corrupted One of the matters of which the Ambassadour of the Duke of Bavaria so vehemently complain'd before the Council of Trent on the behalf of his Master and upon which he so much insisted was the wicked lives of the Clergy where he said that he could not describe their horrible wickednesses without offending the chast ears of the Audience He subjoyns That the Prince his Master remonstrated to the Council That the Correction of points in Doctrine would be vain and unprofitable if they did not first correct their manners That the Clergy was defamed by reason of their Luxury That the Civil Magistrate did not suffer any Lay-man to have a Concubine that notwithstanding amongst the Clergy it was so common a thing to have them that amidst a hundred Priests one could not find above three or four who either kept not Whores or were not Married the one secretly and the others publickly It is with shame that I speak of it said the Cardinal of Lorrain in an Oration that he made to the same Council but it is also
which they gave to none but the chief and greatest of the Gods And that that worship about which the Question was was only an inferiour and lower kind of Worship So they defended their worshipping of Images by that Distinction of Absolute and Relative Worship but that was the very same distinction which the Pagans serv'd themselves of to excuse the Worship they rendred to the Statues of their Gods alledging that any one very much wrong'd them in imagining that they serv'd Stocks of Wood or Stones but their Devotion was carried out only to those objects that those Statues represented They defended the Invocation of Saints by that distinction That they did not pray to them as the Authors of those graces which they desired but only as they were meer Intercessours before God But yet the very Heathens said the same as to those Prayers which they offered up to their Inferiour Gods whom they acknowledg'd to be but as the Friends and Favourites of the great God whom they made use of towards him to obtain blessings for themselves They defended a Company of Opinions and Customs in their Religion by saying that they were the Traditions which they had received from the hands of their Fathers but that defence had yet this unhappiness that it favoured the Jews against those censures of Jesus Christ and that which Jesus Christ had wholly beaten down by those words in vain do they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men 8. We might here very well joyn to what has been said the scandal our Fathers must needs have taken at that School-Divinity which for a long time had fill'd the World with Questions not only vain and frivolous but pernicious also and leading men to wickedness we could make a long Catalogue of those Questions if the common interest of Christianity did not oblige us to conceal them from the Publick but because we fear the ignorant or the malicious will lay it to our charge that we would impose on the World under a pretence of an affected modesty we will send our Readers to that Collection which Cardinal Perron himself has made in his Treatise of the Eucharist Page 920. where I assure my self they will find on one only Article which is that of the Incarnation of the Word more then enough to justify that which I have said What can any one think of such a manner of treating of the Mysteries of Religion and of that Art they had joyn'd with it to defend all things by and that even the most remote from sence and by distinctions crude and senceless if it were not that all that was very likely to raise an abundance of Errors and excellently contrived for the maintaining of all such as Ignorance Passion Engagements or Interests would yet have produced I know that the wiser sort among our Adversaries are themselves ashamed of it but they cannot deny that it was almost the only way of Teaching the Divinity of Rome for a long time before the Reformation and that it was but a very just prejudice against the State of Religion that depended so absolutely on that of the Schools 9. One of the Effects of that disorder of the Schools was the depraving of Christian Morality by the introduction of divers destructive Maxims which tended only to corrupt men's minds and hearts as well in respect of Piety towards God as of Justice and common Charity toward men and of that Temperance that every man ought to maintain in his Actions It would be too long to relate in this place all the proofs that make good this Charge I shall content my self to alleadge only some Pieces that have made too much noise in the World to be unknown They are on one side the Provincial Letters ascribed to Mr. Paschal and some other Treatises which we have seen Publish'd against the Moral Divinity of the Jesuits And on the other side The Apology for the Casuists and the Book of Amedeus Guimenius Those former pieces accuse the Jesuits of Teaching and establishing Maxims Rash Erroneous Scandalous and altogether contrary to good manners and the others let us see that the Doctrine of the Jesuits in that respect is wholly like to that of the Antient School-men and that one cannot condemn the Jesuits without condemning at the same time the whole Antient School of the Roman Church For Example The one sort accuses the Jesuits of Teaching That it is lawful for one man to rejoyce within himself at the death of another and to desire it not only when it is an evil to him who suffers it but also when it is advantageous to him who desires it But Guimenius shews us that that is exactly the Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas of Cajetan and divers others who all maintain the same The one accuses the Jesuits for Teaching That it is but a Venial sin to be disobedient to Divine Inspirations But Guimenius shews that that is also the Doctrine of Aquinas and Cajetan They accuse the Jesuits of Teaching That it is lawful to advise and at the same time to draw in a man to commit a lesser Sin to avoid a greater Evil As to perswade a Lascivious man to meer Fornication that he may avoid committing Adultery But Guimenius proves this to be the Doctrine of Cajetan Sotus and Sylvester Prierias They accuse the Jesuits of maintaining that a man may not only not remove an occasion or ground of sin from another whom they know will abuse it to that end but that they may at the same time present it to him and by that means lay a snare for him to make him fall into Sin provided they do it with a good intention either to correct his Viciousness or to make him shun some other inconvenience so that a Husband who is jealous of his Wives committing Adultery may present her with an opportunity or occasion to commit it and a Father may lay an occasion in his Childrens way to steal from him But Guimenius lets us see that this is the very opinion of Aquinas Sotus Navarr and of Cajetan I omit an abundance of other beastly cases which no one can propose without wounding his modesty They will say to this it may be that the Sorbonne has censured that Book of Guimenius but this Answer signifies nothing for we are not concerned to know what the Sorbonne holds in these days nor what it approves or condemns but to know whether those Authors that Guimenius has alledged are well or ill quoted whether it were not true That those Scandalous and Pernicious Maxims were taught in the School in the days of our Fathers and whether our Fathers ought not to have looked on them as evident and certain proofs of a great corruption 10. I know not whether we might not here make a particular Reflexion on the procedure of the Council of Constance which notwithstanding the safe conduct granted by the Emperor Sigismund to John Huss and Jerome of Prague made no scruple to
condemn them to be burnt alive and to Cause that Sentence of their Condemnation to be executed For so that Council violated the publick Faith by a most Solemn and resplendent Action But it was not contented with that unless it did at the same time add a Decree that it expresly made on that Subject bearing this with it that all Letters of safe Conduct granted to Hereticks by any Emperors Kings or Princes ought not to hinder the Judges to whom it should appertain to take Cognisance of their Crimes whether they were Lay-men or Church-men from proceeding against them and punishing them with the greatest severity Aeneas Sylvius relates that that sentence through the force of which they were exposed to the Fire was given in Full Council Lata est says he in concessu Patrum adversus contumaces sententia CREMANDOS esse qui Doctrinam Ecclesiae respuerent prior igitur Joannes combustus est Hieronimus diu postea in vinculis habitus cum resipiscere nollet pari supplicio affectus He adds that those two men suffered that Torment with and admirable Fortitude singing of Hymns in the midst of the Flames This was in that time very astonishing to see a Council gathered in a Body wholly intent upon the causing the death of two Christians since it is certain amongst Christians that the Church has no power over the Temporal Lives of men But that Scandal was yet made greater by the way they carried it on for to come to that they made no difficulty of violating all that was the most sacred and inviolable in humane Society I would say the publick Faith given by the Authentick Authority of the Soveraign Magistrate and given with all the appearances of their own consents as one may collect from the Words of Aeneas Sylvius For he says as that Council was labouring in the affairs of Bohemia Placuit tandem Sigismundo Imperatore suadente Joannem Hieronymuus ad Synodum vocari They thought good through the Entreaties of the Emperor Sigismond that John and Jerome should be called to the Council They then made no scruple of violating that Faith to which they had consented and not only to break it by that Action and in that Practise but framed at the same time a Decree to authorise that breach of Faith and made it a lawful Rule for Posterity to go by Who can deny that our Fathers had not here a just cause to be shaken at that management of affairs which had violently born down all that wise and moderate men since have conceived and that they had not reason to joyn that to all those other things I have mentioned as a most powerful prejudice against a Religion that maintain'd it self by such strange proceedings 11. They might have added also to the rest methinks the establishment of Inquisitions and usage of Croisado's against those who were pretended to be Hereticks For it is most true that such a way of maintaining Religion by Torments and Armies raised by the Clergy as the Popes had used some ages since against the Waldenses the Albigenses the Wicklifists and the Hussites was not at all proper to make it be beloved or to instil into mens minds an extream good opinion of it There where they would introduce the Faith by force they shut up peoples hearts instead of gaining them That course is good no farther then for Temporal Monarchies or Mundane Religions where men are not much concerned whether they reign over the Spirits of men provided they reign over their Bodies But that is not at all the way that Jesus Christ uses who sets up his throne in their Consciences and who knows no other conquests but those which the sword that comes from his mouth gains 12. But besides those cruel ways which they made use of for the upholding their Religion they employed yet others as well as those which tho' they were not so severe did not fail of being as odious and of raising as strong suspitions against that Religion it self I might rank in this place those false Miracles which they invented every day to gain credit to some Doctrines and Devotions which of themselves had no foundation at all in the word of God For every own knows how much these sort of Fables were in use in the days of our Fathers and some Ages before with what care they spread them among the people in Preaching them up with Zeal and defending them with heat and in stuffing their Legends with them and other Books of that nature But every own knows likewise that the greatest part of them were so grosly invented that a very mean understanding could easily detect their falsness We might joyn with those false Miracles those stories of Visions or Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin or some other Saint to the Religious men or women which were so frequent that one can find nothing else in the Books of the Monks of those Ages We might Place here also those so often devised Tales of the returns of Souls out of Purgatory of their Apparitions their Complaints and pitiful Groans of their requests to be eased of their pains by their Masses and Foundations and of the outcries and terrible din that they made upon Mens least neglect to perform what they beg'd of them I do not now examine whether those Doctrines which gave ground to those pretended Miracles to those Visions and Apparitions were Evangelical or not it is enough for me to note that that falseness that appear'd in the greatest part of those gross Inventions which were so often publickly detected rendred that Religion justly suspected not only in respect of those Opinions and Devotions which they pretended to authorise by those frauds but also in general as to all that which came under the name of Traditions 13. Might we not say the same thing of so many forged and supposititious Books the making and use of which had been so frequent in the Ages that preceeded the Reformation not to meddle with what is reported of the Monks that they did not scruple to serve themselves by forged Deeds to enrich their Convents and gain Priviledges to them Without touching upon that there are few Persons that are ignorant of what Character the Decretal Epistles of the Antient Popes are collected under the name of one Isidore Mercator whereof the Court of Rome has made so advantagious a use for the establishing of its Authority and of the pretended donation of Constantine by which that Emperour is said to have given away the Roman Empire and all its rights to the Pope Every own knows also how they had forg'd whole Books and Treatises under the most Antient and Venerable names as the Epistle of the Blessed Virgin to Saint Ignatius the Works of Dionysius the Areopagite the Epistles of Saint Martial the Acts of the Passion of Saint Andrew by the Priests of Achaia the Liturgies of Saint James Saint Peter and of Saint Mark and divers others of the same nature
Reason that Saint Paul had caution'd the Faithful to take heed that no one seduc'd them through Philosophy and vain deceitful reasonings after the Traditions of men after the rudiments of the Wisdom of the World and not after Jesus Christ 9. They will say without doubt that all these considerations how strong soever they appear do yet make no more then conjectures and likelihoods which ought to have been immediatly stifled by the only name of the Church which improves so profound a respect for it self in the Souls of all true Beleivers But that very thing serv'd but to increase the just suspitions of our Fathers They understood what respect they ow'd to the Church but they were not also ignorant how easie it was to be deceiv'd by so specious a Name That visible society of men who profess Christianity which we call the Church is not wholly composed of true Believers it takes into its Bosome a great number of false Christians of wicked Worldly and Hypocritical men who are mingled with the good as chaff amongst the Wheat or as the mud of the Stream is with the Water of the Fountain And as on the one side the false Christians are not all so after the same manner for some are full of light and knowledge others of ignorance some are prophane others superstitious one sort are full of contrivances and intrigues in the affairs of Religion others take little care of its interests some are ambitious others covetous others fierce and inflexible others full of impostures and deceits according as we see those different humours ordinarily reign among the men of the world so on the other side the true Beleivers who are in the same visible Society have not all of them the same Degree either of knowledge or sanctification that they have more or less of natural light more or less of supernatural grace more or less of zeal of courage or of vigour according to the measure of the Spirit that is communicated to them it is now almost scarce conceivable that that Medley should not corrupt Religion in a long Train of Ages and that it should not cause to enter in Maxims Doctrines Services and Customs far more conformable to the Spirit of the World then to that of Jesus Christ There needs but a little leven saith Saint Paul to corrupt the whole Mass From thence that two Parties whereof the one is good the other is evil are joyned together experience always instructs us that the ill does far more easily deprave the good then the good better the bad And we cannot say that God is bound to hinder that Corruption and that otherwise his Church would Perish from the Earth For besides that it no way belongs to us to order so boldly what God is bound to do or not to do for the execution of his designs it is certain that he has not hindred it as we have but just before seen in the Church of the Jews nor in the Eastern Christian Churches nor in the the whole Body of the Church in the time of the Arians He has other ways to preserve his Elect and his sincerely Faithful ones who only are to speak properly his Church he can preserve them in the midst of a corrupted Ministry and when that is become impossible he knows how to separate them from the wicked and to draw them away from their Communion But we will speak to that more largely at the end of this Treatise 10. To go on with our Remarks That which I have said supplies us with another which is not less considerable than the rest It is in consequence of that mixture of the good and the wicked in the same visible Church that it might fall out and it has very frequently hapened that the far greatest Number the external Splendour Force and Authority is found among the Party of the wicked and that they are cheifly those who fill up the highest places in the Church For as those highest places yeild them honour and the goods of the World in a very great measure so it is very natural that they should be more hunted after and obtain'd by the men of the World then by the truly Faithful who ordinarily are not so violently carried out to those things After that manner one may very often see the Government of the visible Church to fall into exceedingly wicked hands and then there needs but a capricious Humour but a Passion but an Interest but a Whimsey but some neglect or some other thing of the like nature which it is not hard to conceive to be in such Persons as we suppose to bring into the Church false Doctrines and false Worship to which those of the best minds shall no sooner oppose themselves but they shall be immediatly quell'd which often forces them to keep silence and to give way for a season till it shall please God to deliver them from that oppression 11. Could it not in the least happen that those errours and superstitions that were but little taken notice of at first sprung up in the Schools or among some other sort of men should be by little and little and insensibly spread over the Body of the Church by the means of ignorance and negligence of the Pastours And might not the same thing fall out according to the pleasure and interest that the Pastors might take to see them establish't that in the end being found to be rooted in mens minds and as I may so say incorporated into Religion they might be lookt upon as Traditions or as Customs that for the future ought to be observ'd as Laws No one can deny that a multitude of things had crept after that manner into the Latin Church as the keeping back the Cup which the Concil of Constance had taken up in express terms as a Custome that had been says it rationally introduc'd and which ought to be kept as a Law It was after the same manner that the Celibacy of Priests the Worshipping of Images the Distinction of Meats and many other things which how particular and private soever they were at first came after to be made publick and in the end to be changed into Articles of Religion 12. All these Reflexions might serve to let our Fathers understand that it was no ways impossible for the state of the Latin Church to be corrupted but besides that Reason those examples and that experience which convinc't them of it they yet farther saw the plain proofs of it in the Declarations of the Holy Scripture For after whatsoever manner they expounded that Mystery of Iniquity of which Saint Paul speaks to the Thessalonians which in his days had began to work and that Captivity of God's People whom God commanded to go out of Babylon lest in partaking of its sins it partook also of its plagues no one could avoid acknowledging from those two places but that a great Corruption must needs fall out in the visible Church The
Spirit shall be always with us and you have greived and drove him away 4. If the Church might err say they yet farther God would then be unjust in commanding us to keep our selves under the Guidance and the Ministry of the Church for that would not be an assured means of obtaining salvation All men know says Monsieur the Cardinal of Richelieu that God could not with any justice bind his creatures to incline to an end without giving them means to come to that end The Church cannot err since if she did err we should not have any means to come to everlasting salvation where God would have us come under the conduct of the Church But the Answer is not difficult God would that we should be saved under the Conduct of the Church that is to say of the Pastors of it not by giving a blind obedience to all that they tell us but by a wise discerning of that which is good from that which is bad and that we may make that discernment he has given us his word to which he will have usbring all that the Pastors teach to examine their Doctrine according to that Rule This is the assured means that he has left us for that If that means is not so agreeable to the men of the world who have other business to mind and wont break their brains with the Reading of the Word of God God will tell them one day that their greatest business was to serve him and to save themselves and that if they have not searched out the true means they ought only to accuse their own neglect and their too great grasping of the things of this world If they yet urge that that means is neither easie nor proper for the meaner sort we need but compare it with that of the pretended Infallibility of the Church and we shall quickly see that this last is infinitely more difficult and far less proper for the simple than the other For without taking notice of the impossibility that there is for them to be assured of this Principle that the Latin Church is Infallible supposing at the same time that it was where should any Woman or Tradesman go to seek that Infallibility to be persuaded that that which they believe and that which they practise is the true Belief and the true Worship of the Church Will they go to seek it in the Practises and Customs of the People But they all agree that the people may fall into those abuses and Superstitions that the Church does not at all approve of Will they look for it then from the voice of their Curate or from that of their Bishop But their Curate and their Bishop may be mistaken shall it be then from the Words of the Pope pronounc'd ex Cathedra But that poor Tradesman and that Woman can neither know where to find the Pope nor what they mean by ex Cathedra shall it be then from the Universal consent of the Church and her common customs But who shall tell them what that Universal Consent is Must those poor people know what they generally hold and prectise in France in Germany in Spain in Italy or that which they generally teach in the Schools It is then necessary for them to learn Greek and Latine But when they shall have learnt that how can they understand the true sence of the Councils since that without going any further the greatest part of the Canons of that of Trent are conceived in general and Ambiguous Terms which may be explained in divers sences and which very thing some say was done with design for the carrying on the different Opinions of the Schools Moreover those general and ambiguous terms somtimes leave the mind undetermined and the Conscience in suspence in matters of practice where they make it necessary to do a thing without shewing them after what manner they should do it For Example the Council of Trent decides That one ought to give to Images that Worship that is due to them this is the Infallible Voice of the Church which binds a man to give some Worship to Images which if he does not he fails in doing his Duty But what that Worship is the Council says nothing to Is it a Negative or a Positive Worship Is it that the same that they give to those they represent should be communicated to the Image as well as the Original or is it meant only of such Relative Worship that the Image should have no part of it or if has any part what is it Is it simply a customary Worship which consists in making use of those representations to excite their Piety by the remembrance of things past To tell that the Council says nothing It says indeed that the Worship which they give to Images relates to those they represent but this is not to define of what nature that Worship is for of what kind soever it is one may always say it has reference to the Original It says indeed yet further that when any Kiss their Images when they Bow to them and Kneel before them they adore Jesus Christ and the Saints but those terms denote only an external Worship without determining any thing of a more internal one and when it should determine of an internal that Council says not a word whether the Image has any part or what part it has Notwithstanding which they ought necessarily to determine it to some internal Worship for of that they treat How shall any man know whether that side which he takes in this matter be good or bad since the voice of the Church has abandoned him and after it has as it were set him in the midst of four ways and commanded him to march on never shews the way that he ought to follow but leaves him in the necessity of placing his Devotion at all adventure They will say that this is to urge things too far as to what relates to Women and Tradesmen For those persons know not what use to make of the Infallibility of the Church but only for certain General Articles which they cannot doubt of that the Church Teaches But not to insist here that those General Articles are themselves subject to form different meanings in the minds of the more simple and that they ought to make their choice with some certainty I say that the Worshiping of Images and other such like things is more used by such sort of persons than others and that many of those Devotions are proper to them about which they cannot have any certainty nor by Consequence practise them with any Faith I place in this Rank the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin which they solenmly celebrate for who can give them any certainty in that point Yet nevertheless it is a piece of Worship it is a matter of Practice or Duty whereof they cannot acquit themselves of a good Conscience without being assured of that which they do 5. In sine
of their Alms and he may be seen far oftner in the field with the Souldiers then in his Cloister He ought to be the Father and the Instructer of his Brethren but he is their Seducer and their Tyrant For while he enjoys himself and lives in Pomp and Delights those poor miserable Religious pass away all their days in murmurings and afflictions That Author describes in the same Stile the Lives of the Canons Monks and other Ecclesiasticks and that which he has said does not leave us any more room to doubt that there was in the Church in those days as great and as general a disorder as can be conceived He does not spare the Court of Rome but on the contrary he sets forth livelily enough their excess even to say that that Court is the Seat of the Beast that is to say the Church of the wicked that is the Kingdom of darkness That it is a loathsome pit that devours Riches and is filled by Covetousness That the Law is far from the Priest the Visions of the Prophet and the Councel of the old men That the heads of the Church serve themselves by Simony and Ambition and that in a word the sins of those people are such that they cannot be either concealed or denyed since Rome is become a Gulph of Crimes Where the Pope ought to cry with Jesus Christ Come and you shall find rest for your Souls he cries Come and see me in a far greater Pomp and Pride then ever Solomon was in come to my Court empty your purses there and you shall find destruction for your Souls The disorder of that Court and that of the whole Clergy of those times was a thing so little to be contested that Adrian the sixth did not scruple to acknowledge it in the Memoirs that he gave his Nuntio for the Diet of Nuremberg and which Raynaldus Relates For he gave him an express charge to confess That the Troubles of Germany about the matters of Religion had fallen out by Reason of the sins of Men and particularly of the Priests and Prelats of the Church That the Scripture shewed that the sins of the people came from those of their Priests for which Reason it was as Chrysostome says that when our Saviour would heal Jerusalem he entered first into the Temple to correct the sins of the Priests doing like a wise Physitian who goes to the root of the evil That for many years past abominable things had been committed in the holy See that spiritual things had been abused through the excess of its Injunctions and that all things had been perverted there That the evil had spread it self from the Head to the Members from the Popes to the Inferiour Prelats and that as many as they all were that is to say Prelats and Ecclesiasticks they were come to that pass that for a long Time there had not been any that were good no not so much as one We could produce a multitude of other such Testimonies if we did not hope that unbyass'd persons would agree upon it as not long since an Author in these Times has done in a Book Intituled Motives to a Re-union to the Catholick Church The cause of the Separation says he was the open abuse of Indulgences and the Ignorance Covetousness and the Scandalous lives of the Church-men The Superstition of the meaner sort of people who had not been well instructed the immense riches and riotous profuseness of the Prelats their too great care in Externals in their Magnificence Ornaments and increasing of Ceremonies and little Devotion in the Chief-worship of God the indiscreat zeal of some Brethren who seemed to have cast off all honour for the Master to give it to his Servants The Tyranny that Parents exercised over their Children to imprison them in Cloisters the wickedness of those who contrived false Miracles to draw to themselves the concourse of the People Add to that Politick humane Considerations of some Princes and Kings who had not received from the Pope all possible Satisfaction or who took occasion from thence to cast themselves among a Party of persecuted men the better to Establish their affairs in brief all that which Ignorance Superstition and Covetousness could Contribute served for a pretence to those who would separate themselves to Reform those Disorders The Ground was not only specious but it had been in a manner accompanied with Truth if the Church in those days had been throughout in that miserable condition which we have described and principally so in those places wherein that detestable Separation began Those who separated were aided indirectly by the zeal of some good men who cried out loudly against those disorders abuses and corruptions of manners The people who judged no otherwise then by the appearance suffered themselves to be easily carried away with that Torrent seeing that they did not complain but of those things which they knew were but too true and which the better sort of Catholicks granted Behold then in what a condition the Church was in those days and we may from thence methinks ask all rational persons whither they believe in good earnest that our Fathers ought to have expected a Reformation from the hands of a Clergy which on the one side had so many worldly interests that bound them to oppose it and which on the other found it self so deeply sunk into Ignorance Superstition and Corruption But to urge that matter yet further we need but to set down those just complaints which they had made for a long time touching those disorders and the continual demand that all the World made for a good Reformation at least in respect of manners of Discipline and those most gross abuses without ever being able to obtain it I pass by the complaints of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries which would be but too great if they were compared with those just grounds that all honest men in those days had for them For those two Centuries were famous for wickedness grievous crimes and those who know any thing of History cannot deny it But not to go so far not to say any thing either of the Scandalous Lives of the Popes of that Time or the Wars wherewith they filled all the West or of the Abuses they committed in their Excommunications or of the Baptizing of Bells Wherewith they increased the Ecclesiastical Ceremonies or of the vices which reigned then throughout all the Clergy can they tell us what good effect those smart Censures of Saint Bernard wrought and those of Petrus Cluniensis of Abbot Joachim of Petrus Blesensis of Conrard Abbot of Vrspurg of Honorius of Autun of Bernard Monk of Cluny of Arnoul an English Monk of John Bishop of Salisbury of Matthew Paris of William Durandus Bishop of Mande of Robert Bishop of Lincolne of Francis Petrarch Archdeacon of Parma of John Vitoduram of Dante of Marsilius of Padua and I know not how many others who cried out as loudly
own thoughts of that Negative Separation But howsoever he has carried himself in his Expressions I may say if I am not mistaken without fear of any opposition that that which he has here granted us is not one of those Concessions which are sometimes given to adversaries only to cut off the Dispute but that indeed he has spoken according to his real thoughts For when in a Controversy of this nature a man distinguishes about this general Thesis That one ought to separate from a Church which binds one to profess Error in noting that it may be said in two sences the one That one ought to separate ones self Negatively in not medling with that which would wound the Conscience and the other That one ought to separate positively that is to say that one ought to set up a Society separate from that and to establish a new Ministry That he quitted the former sence in saying only that it was very ill applied to the Catholick Church restrained himself only to the latter that he would say that it was this latter kind of Separation whereof he accused us and about which we ought to justify our selves that our Consciences could not any further hinder us then from taking part in those actions which our Principles should make us look on as Criminal that if we could not without betraying our Consciences render that Honour to Saints and Relicks which they give them we ought to content our selves with not doing it When a man I say speaks as the Author of Prejudices after this manner in the heat of a dispute which he believes to be as weighty as that there is a great likelyhood that it is not a meer condescending to his adversaries but a true and lively expression of that which he finds in himself to be very Just and Reasonable Howsoever it be without informing our selves further about a thing wherein we are little concern'd we will suppose it since he will have it so as a proposition not to be disputed That our Fathers could lawfully seperate from the Church of Rome by a Negative Separation that is to say in not to taking any part in that which would wound their Consciences But that signifies in our stile that they had right to reform themselves since we call nothing else precisely Reformation but that publick Rejection which they made of divers things which they judged to be ill and contrary to Christianity Whether they did ill to go further and to proceed to a Positive Separation that is a Question apart which does not in the least hinder that their Reformation taken only as a Negative Separation might not have been done with Justice and according to that right that Conscience gives to every man But now methinks this point being so well clear'd clears a multitude of others and we may by that concession of the Author of Prejudices very well decide some Questions In the first place They ought no further to set before us that absolute obedience to the Orders and decisions of the Church of Rome in the matters of Faith and Worship to which they would hitherto have all the Faithful indispensably obliged For if those whose Consciences shall tell them that That Church binds them to believe Errors and to practise a false worship may refuse to profess to believe those Errors and to performe that Worship who sees not that that absolute obedience is overthrown Since it will depend on the dictates of the Conscience of every one and that the Conscience of each one will give it its bounds and suspend it in respect of some certain things and actions 2. The Church of Rome can no more treat those as Disobedient and Rebellions who through the dictates of their Consciences refuse to profess to believe that which she decides and to practise that which she ordains nor persecute them as such and whatsoever she should make them suffer upon that pretence of Rebellion and Disobedience would be but an unjust persecution of which she will be bound to give an account to God and men 3. They cannot also any farther demand of us what Call our Fathers had to reform themselves that is to say to reject their Superstitions and the Errors which were to be found in the Church of Rome in their days for they needed nothing else but the motions of their Consciences to give them a Right to refuse to profess them 4. They ought also to acknowledge that the Authority of the Church how great soever it may be is it yet far less then that of the Conscience since it is not only limited but surmounted and that whensoeveer they should be in oppositian a man would have right to leave the Authority of the Church and to follow his Conscience 5. And since even an erronious Conscienes such as the Author of the Prejudices supposes ours and that of our Fathers to be could suspend Acts commanded by the Church it follows necessarily from thence that to reconcile the Church and the Conscience when they should be set in opposition we must come to the Foundation and discuss the things themselves for there is no other way to free the Conscience from Errors And how much more are we obliged to do it when the Church abuses her Authority in teaching those things which are really false or in commanding those actions which are indeed unjust and criminal All then depends on the discussion of those matters by themselves But they will say your Fathers ought to have been contented to have made use of their rights each one in particular they could have kept themselves from making any profession of believing those pretended Errors and not have taken any part in those actions which they disapproved and yet nevertheless have kept silence Wherefore did they disturb the publick peace by their Tumults Why did they divulge by their out-cries the Judgment which they made of the Tenets and Customs of their Church Did they not in that sin against that respect which they owed to their Prelats and that Charity which they owed to their Brethren To answer to this Objection I say That the keeping silence is not always equally just it has its bounds and its measures according to the weight of the things that are treated of and to the Circumstances of Times and Persons If the business had been only about some meer Questions of the School upon points of Speculation or about some unprofitable Ceremonies or some bad order in the Government or even about some popular Superstitions which should not have proceeded so far as to corrupt the saving Efficacy of the Gospel I confess our Fathers had been more obliged to have kept silence then to have encountred their Prelats and raised those troubles through the diversity of their Opinions The Love of Peace respect for Order Christian Charity bidds us to bear things of that nature well which we do not so well approve of our selves and even there to follow the
from Interests and continency was always joyned to their Ministry We may say of that Author without doing him an injury that he does not write ill what he thinks but that he scarce thinks well that which he writes and that which I shall here come to shew is an Example of it for he here lays down a great Trifle under the shew of one of the fairest things in the World Saint Cyprian Saint Athanasius and those other Bishops were not Marryed I see it but who told him That they did it by vertue of a general Law that forbad Bishops to be Married Who told him that divers other Bishops who were not less great then those for their Sanctity their disengagement from the interests of the World never lived in Marriage as Saint Spiridion Saint Gregory the Father of Gregory Nazianzen Saint Gregory Nysscne Saint Prosper Saint Hilary Sydonius Apollinaris Synesius Saint Eupsychus of Cesarea and divers others Who told him that Priests were not generally Married in the Primitive Church whether it were in the East or in the West as may be justified by a Thousand Proofs And in fine that they do not vainly wrangle in saying that those Bishops or those Priests were really Married before their Ordination but that they were not during their Prelateship or Priesthood whether it were that their Wives were dead and whether they were put away it is good to Note what the History of Saint Eupsychus of Cesaria in Cappadocia relates whom Saint Athanasius formally called a Bishop suffered Martyrdom within a little after his Marriage being as yet as it seemed in the days of his Nuptials and what Saint Cyprian relates of Novatus a Priest who was accused to have kicked his Wife who was great with Child and to have caused an Abortion which evidently concludes the use of Marriage during the Prelateship and Priesthood What then can the Author of the Prejudices conclude from the Example of Saint Athanasius and Saint Chrysostome and those others unmarried unless this that each one was in that regard in his full liberty and that as there were some that did marry so there were also some that did not Did he need for so little a matter to declaim Rhetorically and to set down these great words with an Emphasis That our Reformers struck mens Eyes with a Spectacle that could not but Create horrour according to the general Idea's of Piety and Vertue that the Fatheri give us I shall not say that the Idea's of Piety and Virtue do not depend on the Fathers but on the Gospel and right Reason and that it is by them that we ought to judge the Fathers and not those by the Fathers I will not say that the Fathers of the purer Antiquity are so far from giving us an horrour at the Marriage of Ecclesiasticks that Chrysostom assures us on the contrary that what Saint Paul wrote to Titus concerning a Bishops being the Husband of one Wife he has wrote wholly to stop the months of those Hereticks who condemned Marriage and to shew that Marriage is not only an Innocent thing but that it is so Honourable also that according to him it may be elèvated as high as the Episcopal Throne But I will only say and I will say it with an assurance of its being approved by all honest and upright men that the Marriage of Church-men which of it self is an honest and Holy State practised under the Old Law practised in the primitive Church and Authorised by the Scripture cannot be considered but with the greatest Edification when it shall be set in opposition to the disorders and filthinesses that Caelibacy has produced which is but a purely humane Institution without any lawful Foundation It belongs therefore to those of the Church of Rome to tell us whether they are much edified by the lives that their Priests led in the Age of the Reformation and by that permission which they gave them for a Sum of Money publickly to keep their Concubines They are to tell us whether they have no horrour for those strange assertions of their Doctors That a Priest Sins less who through the infirmity of the flesh falls into the Sin of Fornication then if he should marry and that it is a less evil for Priests to burn then to Marry As for us we have that general precept of Saint Paul which has its use as well in respect of Church-men as others if they cannot contain let them Marry and the Doctrine of the same Apostle Marriage is Honourable in all or in all things but the Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge But the Author of the Prejudices says That the Law of Celibacy whether it were just or unjust or whether it did not begin if they will have it so till Pope Siricius's time they cannot at least deny That the spirit of God did not carry out all the Famous Bishops of Old and those who have been eminent for Sanctity to imitate Saint Paul and to follow that Counsel which he gives to renounce Marriage to set themselves wholly to please God and that the same spirit did not from the very first Ages of the Church inspire a very great number of Christians of both Sexes to remain Virgins all their Lives as Saint Justin witnesses and Origen against Celsus Whence then comes it to pass that there should have nothing appeared of that instinct or of those motions of Gods spirit in the pretended Reformers nor in the Societies which they have established any more than all those other Graces which shone so Illustriously in the Saints of Antiquity Here is yet further another example of that which I said just before that that Author does not take too much care of that which he writes For can there be a rasher thing in the World than to offer to thrust ones self into the Counsels of God and magisterially to decide what qualities the Reformers ought to have had Continency and Virginity are the Cifts that God distributes to men as he pleases but it is what he has given only to some Persons it no ways follows either that their Persons were not acceptable to him nor that he could not make use of them in the greatest works of his Providence Abraham the Father of the Faithful as the Scripture calls him was not he Married Isaac Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs who founded the Church of Israel were not they Moses the deliverer of the Antient People by whom God gave his Law and by whom he had wrought so many Miracles was not he Aaron and all the High-Preists who succeeded him were not they All those Calls and divers others whereof the Scripture speaks were methinks most weighty and for the greatest part extraordinary and nevertheless we do not see that God in giving them has made any Reflection upon the Advice of the Authour of the Prejudices Who ever gave him a right to lay down Rules with such Authority of what God ought
adored it and that he should never have done the same Actions that were practised by others they may very well understand what Judgment their Ministers used in their Conduct during those first Years For according to all their Principles they ought to have Condemned it since it was as little allowable to Zuinglius to partake with that Worship as it is at present to the Calvinists and since they pretend that it is so far forbidden them that they urge the Obligation that they say lies upon them not to take any part in it as the chief Reason of their Separation So that Zuinglius remaining yet in Communion with those who adored the Eucharist contributed to that adoration by his Ministry and joyning himself to their Assemblies rendred himself guilty of all those sins which the Calvinists apprehend to be committed in remaining united to the Church He would every day have betrayed his Conscience he would every day have committed a criminal Idolatry And it is in that condition that the Calvinists pretend that God made use of him for the greatest Work that ever was done which was the Reformation of the Error of all their Fathers Answer As that Accusation is founded upon this only thing That it is very hard to be believed so also we shall here Answer in saying That it is very hard to be believed That Zuinglius did any thing during that Time that should be repugnant to the Dictates of his Conscience All the Histories of his Life shew that he was a man of strict Piety and of a severe Virtue that he was not used to those Juggles of the Hypocrite which we may see practised by so many and even by those who would appear the most severe and that moreover he never did any thing remote from the sincerity of an honest man They cannot then without equally violating the Laws of Justice and those of Charity suspect on those meer Conjectures that he went contrary to his sentiments on that Occasion and the Author of the Prejudices ought to produce the proofs of his Accusation or to suffer himself to be condemned for Injustice and Malignity It is true that during that Time Zuinglius neither quitted his Ministry nor forsook those who adored the Eucharist but who has told the Author of the Prejudices that men ought to forsake a People that are in Error in the same Time that they have hopes of disabusing them and labour to reduce them into the right way As the Reformation of a Church is not the work of a Day none can think it strange that Zuinglius did not propose all of a sudden all that he had to say and that he did one thing after another It is sufficient that during the Time wherein he set himself to that Work he did not in the least partake in the abuses which he had a design to correct and therefore the Author of the Prejudices ought not to have accused him without ever laying down the proofs of his Accusation The History of Zuinglius relates that he was called to the Church of Zurich in the beginning of the Year 1519. and that from the first moment wherein he was there he set himself with all his might to the Instruction of his Flock to the Reformation of those grosser Errors wherewith the Ministry was then infected and to the correcting of mens manners which succeeded so well with him by the blessing of God that within less then four years he changed the Face of that Church and disposed it to a thorough Reformation But among those Errors that he opposed he applied himself particularly to the Sacrifice of the Mass shewing the People out of the Scripture that there could be no other real Sacrifice then that upon the Cross whence it is very easy to conjecture that he carefully avoided to assist in a Ceremony that he so openly opposed and from which he himself withdrew his Hearers 3. Object Zuinglius engaged the Magistrates of Zurich to call a Synod and to make themselves Judges and Arbiters for the Ordering the State of the Religion of their Canton There was never till then a Synod of that Nature spoke of and it is an astonishing thing that mens rashness and insolence should have been able to have carried them out to so great an excess The Council of two hundred that is to say Two hundred Burghers of a Switz Town as learned and ready in matters of Divinity as one may believe the Switz Burghers were called together all the Church-men under their jurisdiction to dispute before them with an Intention to Order the State of Religion with the understanding of the matter Answer It were much to be wished that the discourse of the Author of the Prejudices were as well Ordered as that Action of the Senate of Zurich was besides these Abuses and Superstitions that were Ordinary they had seen for some Time past a Preacher of Indulgences in that Church called Samson sent by the Pope to distribute his Pardons That Preacher managed his part so well that there were not any Crimes how great soever they were that were or should be committed which he did not set a price upon without making any other difficulty then about the Sum that was be paid to him and by that means he put the whole Country into a dreadful disorder filling it with profligate Persons Zuinglius opposed this Seducer with all his might and at the same time he laboured to give his Flock the knowledge of the true Principles of the Christian Religion and to reduce them back to one only Jesus Christ and his Scripture in freeing them from the Errors and Superstitions of Mens Invention But as the Word of God was never yet without Adversaries the greater number of the Church-men lifted themselves up against Zuinglius and accused him before the people to be a Heretick which forced the Senate it self to take knowledge of those Accusations and to call together a Synod composed of all the Church-men of its State wherein every one had the liberty to propose what he would against Zuinglius and Zuinglius that of defending himself And that very thing was done by the consent of the Bishop of Constance who sent his Deputies thither and among others John le Fevre his Vicar General What was there in all that that might not come from the Justice and Prudence of a Senate If the Accusations wherewith they charged Zuinglius had been well grounded it had been the Duty of the Magistrate to have enjoyned him Silence and being false as they were it was the Magistrates duty to uphold him What is it that the Author of the Prejudices can blame in that Conduct They called a Synod We maintain it to be the Right of Kings and Soveraign Magistrates within the extent of their States The Holy Story Testifies that Josias intending to set up the pure worship of God in his Kingdom called together an Assembly of Priests Prophets
they had abused the Conduct of the people in Teaching them those things which they had no proofs for Notwithstanding I see well that the Author of the Prejudices tells us how he understands we should be bound to believe things upon this frivolous Foundation that there may be some in the World able to prove them or that it may be there might be some to come hereafter to do it This is the Faith which he wishes that the Magistrates and People of Zurich would have had for the hindring their Reformation He would have had them imagined that although they should have seen nothing that should have perswaded the Worshipping of Images and that of Reliques the Sacrifice of the Mass and the other points that were in Controversy yet that they ought not to have ceased from believing them with a Divine Faith and to have devoutly practised them because there might have been possibly some men in the World ready enough to prove them or that if there were none then there might have some arose afterwards to have done it By this Principle the Jews and Heathens may yet at this day accuse all the Conversions of the first Christians of Rashness 10. Object The Calvinists cannot deny that their pretended Reformation was not established on the Spirit of Error and that the Burger-masters of Zurich were not perswaded of falshood since they immediately rejected divers things which Zuinglius had maintained there with as much obstinaecy as those points of Doctrine which they have yet common with him He laid down also some Propositions manifestly contrary to the Scripture without taking any pains to explain them Answ When the Author of the Prejudices will take the pains to consider well the sence of Zuinglius and ours he will find a perfect agreement Zuinglius denied the Intercession of the Saints we do no less in the sence wherein they understand the word Intercession in the Church of Rome to wit that the Saints intercede for us as True Mediators We deny not that the Saints pray in general for the Church a Prayer of Charity and Communion Zuinglius denied it no more then we Zuinglius denied that it was allowable to make Images for the use of Religion we deny it with him We believe that it is indifferent to make them for a Civil use Zuinglius never said the contrary Zuinglius said that the True way not to err was to cleave wholly to the Word of God we say so also He said that Jesus Christ alone was given us for the Pattern of our Life and not the Saints But he meant it of a first and perfect Pattern and so he explained himself when he added these words Capitis enim est nos deducere non Membrorum It belongs to the Head to guide us and not to the Members There is nothing in that contrary to the Scripture 11. Object Zuinglius to gain the Burgermasters to his side had the art to pick out certain vulgar Reasonings and very well sitted to the Vnderstandings of the Switzers he declaimed fiercely against the Popes who had forbidden the Priests Marriage he highly exaggerated the Rigidness of the Command of the Church which enjoyned Abstinence from Meats which he Attributed to the Popes only Answ Those Vulgar Reasonings were nevertheless very pertinent Reasons for they made them see that the Prelates had Usurped a Tyrannical Domination over their Consciences and that they Exercised it after the most Scandalous manner in the World enjoyning a Caelibacy that filled the Church with beastlinesses and impurities and forbidding the use of Meats on certain days which they abstained not from themselves For the rest those injurious Discourses against a whole Nation which had always a great deal of Vertue and Glory are not methinks within the Rules of Christian Charity nor even within those of Civil Honesty If the Switzers have not naturally as florid a wit as some other Nations have they have a Solid Right Judicious Laborious Constant Faithful Sincere mind which are Qualities far more estimable then those which usually accompany that which they call the Heat of Imagination 12. Object Zuinglius answered to a Reason of the Chancell ur of Zurich after a very False and Sophistical manner at the Foundation but proper enough to confound the understandings of the Switzers He accused the Chancellour of Ignorance in that he took he said these words The field us the World for a Parable whereas they were only an Explication of the Parable and not the Parable it self But the Chancellour would have said no more but this That these Words The seed is the Word of God could not be taken according to the Letter since they were the Explication of a Parable to which they had Reference therefore Zuinglius took great heed how he answered and he was forced to save himself by a trick in giving the words a change For there is no body who sees not that what the Chancellour said was indisputable and that those words The seed is the word of God being the Explication of a Parable could not be taken in the Letter but that it is as if Jesus Christ had said When I spake of the seed in this Parable I mean by that the Word of God But these words This is my Body being no Explication of any Parable and not being accompanied with any circumstances that should oblige us not to take them according to the Letter there is nothing more ridicul us then to compare them with the Expressions that explain Parables Answ This is no great subtilty from a man who talks of nothing but a gross and Suitz understanding As we ought not to take litterally those words which explain a Parable so we ought not to take litterally those words which explain a Sacrament For in this respect a Sacrament is as a Visible Parable since it is a Visible sign that represents an invisible Grace The Reason for which we ought not litterally to take those words that explain a parable is because we see the matter Treated of there is one thing that represents another and which by consequence cannot be that other thing Substantially and Really And the whole Reason for which we ought not to take literally the words that explain a Sacrament is because we see the matter Treated of there is one thing which signifies another and which by consequence cannot be that thing Substantially and Really So that these words This is my Body and those The seed is the Word of God are alike and if we ought not to take the latter litterally because they are the Explication of a Parable we ought not also to take the others litterally because they are the Explication of a Sacrament These are the principal Objections of the Tenth Chapter of the Book of Prejudices excepting one which is taken from the manner wherein they formed our first Assemblies at Paris at the beginning of the Reformation and the Election that they made there
of a Layman to the calling of the Ministry for the Solution whereof I remit you to the Fourth Part where it shall meet with its fit place We are now to go on to the Eleventh Chapter 13. Object All the Discourses and all the Writings of the Reformers says the Author of the Prejudices breathed forth nothing but a poysonous malignity and an implacable hatred against the Church of Rome and that Spirit is so plain to be seen that it astonishes me how persons be they never so Little equitable can endure it and not conclude as Reason would force them to do that it is impossible they should have done that by the Spirit of God Answ To answer to that Reproach I shall not here make an Apology for injuries and outrages under a pretence of zeal as Mr. Arnaud has done in his pretended Overthrow of the Morality of Jesus Christ For I acknowledge that zeal ought to be moderate and discreet I shall not also say that the Author of the Prejudices may with very good Reason leave that Censure to a Pen less violent and less passionate then his own which in giving us Lessons of Mildness and Charity should it self fill his Pages with nothing but these words Insolent Râ—sh Ridiculâ—us Impostors Calumniators Furious Devils and Instruments of Devils For any one may very well apply these words of the Gospel according to the Translation of Mons to him Take out first the Beam that is an thine own Eye and then shalt thou sâ—e how to take out the mote that is in thy Brothers Eye But I shall say that when they find in the Writings of the first Reformers Expressions that plainly appear to be too vehement whether in respect of things or persons equity would require it of them that before they Judge they should consider whether they had not some particular Circumstances that obliged them to speak after that manner But although we acknowledge that our first Reformers were not wholly free from faults and that we no ways pretend to Canonize all their Words nor all their Actions yet if they take heed to the Circumstances of the Times wherein they wrote they will see that they ought to Judge of them far otherwise then the Author of the Prejudices has done and that it is neither through malignity nor hatred that they spoke with so much vehemence against the Church of Rome but that they were urged to it by Reasons which they Judged most Weighty First of all they thought that there was some necessity of using such a Stile to awaken men out of that profound sleep wherein they appeared to have been for a long time and to put all of them into that just fear which they ought to have of God's Judgments when they were plunged into Errors like to those wherein they pretended the Church of Rome then was And it is most true that until their days the World had lain under a great Insensibility Not that they did not know the evil that they did not bewail it that they did not thirst after a remedy and that they did not readily hear all who would proclaim it but after all they remained all along in the same State or to say better they grew worse and worse every day Upon that account it was that our first Reformers thought that they ought to represent things livelily without extenuating words to make the greater impression upon those minds that security or fearfulness had held bound in sleep 2. They were obliged to all that by the Protection that Errors and Abuses found in their days among the greater part of the Prelats and the Monks of the Church of Rome who had Orders from Rome as I have proved elsewhere to lift themselves up in all places for the defence of that which they called the Antient Religion and who accused the Reformers of Heresy and Impiety For then it was necessary to make use of all the force of Expressions that they had to dissipate those accusations and to discover to the World the grosness of the Abuses which the Court of Rome maintained 3. They saw themselves further constrained to it by the severity which they had to wipe of on the part of their Adversaries for as they were perswaded of the Justice of their Cause the most natural effect of the Persecutions which they were to endure was to open their eyes more and the more to urge their understanding to acknowledge that Justice and to make all the World acknowledge it not only to comfort themselves and to encourage themselves in their afflictions but also to strengthen their Brethren whom they saw every where in the Fetters of the Inquisitions Being then provoked to it by these Three Reasons the one taken from the stupidity wherein they saw the greatest part of men the other from the obstinate defence that was made of Errors and Abuses and the Third from the Persecutions which they had to endure it must not be reckoned such a wonder that they spoke with vehemence upon the Subject of the Roman Religion It had been ill done to have done so otherwise 4. They themselves ought to acknowledge that the greater part of those Abuses were of such a nature that it had been a very hard matter not to have spoke of them without Indignation As for example that vain Devotion that they had kindled in the minds of the People for Images Reliques for Agnus Dei's for Pilgrimages that credulity which they had instilled into them for all sorts of Miracles for Apparitions of Saints for the returns of Souls out of Purgatory and I know not how many other things which our more inlightned Age has some kind of shame of but which yet made up the greatest part then of Religion with respect to practise How could they coldly Treat of the Abuse of Indulgences which had gone so far as not only to give pardon of sins for Money by means of Confession and Contrition but even to pardon them in express words without either as Pope Bonifâ—ce the IX did to the whole State of John Galeacius Viscount of Milan For so Corionel relates it in his History where he says that The Lombards not being able by Reason of the War which they were engaged in to go to Rome to gain Indulgences Pope Boniface at the request of John Galeacius gave the same Indulgences to Milan that were at Rome and would that all the Subjects of that Viscount should be absolved from all their sins without any Contrition or Confession Sianche non fosse Contrito ne Confesso fosse absoluto di qualcunque peccato With a charge nevertheless to remain Ten days at Milan and to visit five Churches every Day and to offer to one of those Churches the two Thirds of that which they should have dispended if they had gone to Rome The Pope took one Third part to himself and designed the rest to the building of a certain Church Behold here that which
the point of the Real presence and about some Questions of the Schools which we cannot yet impute to their whole Body and as for the rest they reject with us the Invocation of Saints Religious Worship of Images humane Satisfactions Indulgences Purgatory worship of Reliques the publick Service in an unknown Tongue the merit of good Works Transubstantiation the sacrifice of the Mass the Monarchy of the Pope the opinion of the Infallibility of the Church and the principle of blind obedience to the decisions of Councils They acknowledge the Scriptures to be the only Rule of Faith they carefully practise the Reading of them they own their sufficiency they believe their Authority independant from that of the Church in regard of men They distinctly explain the Doctrine of Justification and that of the use of the Law and its distinction from the Gospel they do not conceive amiss of the nature of Faith and that of good works and as for popular superstitions we can scarce see any reign among them Would to God the Church of Rome were in that condition and that we could purchase it at the price of our Blood and our Lives But alas We are very far from seeing any likely-hood of success to that wish all those points that I have set down are so many differences which we have with her and in our Judgments there are so many Errors and so many abuses in her and we are so far from any reasonable hope of their Correction that we see on the contrary that they strengthen themselves in them every day and that they discover every day more and more signs of their aversion for or contempt of a Reformation Who therefore can think it strange that upon the business of Religion we place a great difdifference between those of the Roman Church and those who are called Lutherans the one appears to us as a Body spread all over with a great many boils which all together put a stop to the Functions of Life and the others as a Body that has only one or two which do not hinder its Life or its Action In a word we do not believe that those who have imbibed the Tenets of the Roman Church where we differ from them and who practice them are in the way of Salvation as well by reason of the Quality of the greatest part of those Tenets as by reason of their number But as to the Errors which remain yet among the Lutherans we do not pass the same Judgment either as to their Quality or their number I say as to their Quality and the reason that we alledge is is very solid whatsoever endeavors they have used to elude it for although the opinion of the Lutherans about the Real presence be erroneous though we are so far from approving of it that we oppose it as much as possibly we can yet while they shall make a profession as they do to distinguish in the Sacrament the substance of bread from that of the Body of Jesus Christ we cannot say that their Error compels them actually to adore the meer creature of Bread for the same Body of Jesus Christ that is hypostatically united with the word We can very well say that they deceive themselves in imagining that the Body of Jesus Christ is in a place where it is not but we cannot tell them that they take another subject for the Body of Jesus Christ which really and in effect is not so They do not therefore deceive themselves in regard of the Object of their Adoration for they do not take the one for the other I would say they do not take the substance of Bread for the Body of Jesus Christ but they deceive themselves in regard of the place wherein they conceive the Body of Jesus Christ to be for they conceive it to be in the Bread and it is not there But this Error about the place how gross soever it be does not notwithstanding include Idolatry for as I have said they do not take one subject for another the substance of Bread for the Body of Jesus Christ But it is otherwise in the Church of Rome for if she deceives her self she does it not only as to the place wherein she conceives the Body of Jesus Christ but also as to the subject that she takes for the Body of Jesus Christ since it is in effect but the substance of Bread There is actually and really in the Sacrament but one only substance the Church of Rome does not distinguish it from the Object of her Adoration on the contrary she delieves it to be the Body of Jesus Christ and she Adores it under that Quality if she deceives her self it is manifest that in believing she adores the Body of Jesus Christ she adores that which is actually the substance of Bread It is to no purpose therefore that the Author of the Prejudices says That it is false that the Catholicks adore the Sacrament in taking that word for an external Vail That makes nothing to the Question Whether they adore or do not adore the accidents of Bread that is to say its figure colour roundness is a thing by it self whereof we do not now dispute we speak now of the substance which the Priest holds in his hands But it is yet nothing to the purpose what he further adds That although the Bread should remain there as the Lutherans hold yet we could not accuse the Catholicks of adoring it their adoration terminates upon Jesus Christ alone whom they believe to lie hid under those sensible species This is an Ordinary Fallacy of their Missionaries fit only to deceive Children I distinguish We cannot accuse those of the Church of Rome of believing that they adore the Bread or of being willing to adore it or of having an intention to adore the Bread I grant it for they believe that it is no longer Bread they believe that the substance of Bread is changed into that of Jesus Christ so that they can never be accused of believing that they adore or that they are willing to adore or that they have an intention to adore the Bread They defend themselves in that whereof no Body accuses them But if the bread remain in effect no Bread I deny that we cannot accuse them of adoring that which is actually and in the Truth of the thing Bread in believing that it is the Body of Jesus Christ and a man must be of a very bad faith not to see it For if I should imagine for example that a Tree that a Rock that a flower was a God hid under the form of a Tree a Rock a Flower and if I should adore it under that Quality of a God which my imagination gave it it would be past all doubt that I should adore a Tree a Rock a Flower in believing my self to adore God But besides that we are in regard of the Lutherans in very different Terms from those wherein the Church of Rome would
learned The one extends its use unto all that is Necessary for Instruction and the Conduct of life and the other in heaping up of general difficulties makes it unprofitable to Instruct us in the least Truths What Judgment can we make of this diversity unless this that the language of these Gentlemen changes according to the difference of Times and Interests as one has said of them elsewhere When the case is about gaining credit to their Translation of the New Testament they speak as advantagiously of the Scripture as it is possible for them to speak and when the business is to oppose a Reformation made according to the Rule of the Scripture but which notwithstanding has not the happiness of their Agreement you see what they say of that same Scripture The Scripture shall then to speak properly be only to be commended by the Intrest of their Translation and as long as that Interest shall remain shall be the Collection of the divine Teachings of our Lord The Testament that assures us of the Inheritance of our Father The mouth of Jesus Christ who although he is in Heaven speaks continually upon earth not only the nourishment of sound Souls and those who are establish'd in grace as the Body of the Son of God but even the Consolation of Sinners the light of the blind the remedy of the Sick and the life of the dead For these are the Titles that the Preface gives it but whenever that Interest shall cease those praises shall do so too and it shall be nothing but a Ridiculous way and impossible for the Instructing of men in the Truth I would therefore very fain know of these Gentlemen whether it were only upon the sight of their Translation that S. Cyprian S. Augustine and S. Gregory wrote that which the Preface relates or whether those Fathers did not consider the Scripture in it self For if it be the first they forgot to tell us that they only spake out of a Prophetick Spirit of that Translation and if it be the Second why have they entertained us with that admirable proportion of the Scripture to great and small to the strong and weak and that easy and intelligible manner wherewith it propounds to us all that is necessary for the Conduct of our life since that without the Translation of Mons it is an Infinite way which has no end a ridiculous way and Impossible to Instruct men in the Truth What can the Author of the Prejudices say to defend himself from this Manifest Contradiction which he discovers between him and his Colleague Will he say that the Scripture is in truth a good means for the Instruction of men but that it is so only with the Interpretations of the Fathers But the Author of that Preface speaks for Scripture alone separated from the Interpretation of the Fathers such as its Translation is for he excuses himself in that he had not made a collection of notes and explanations drawn out of the writings of the holy Fathers and he does not fail to say that in his Translation as plain as it is not only the Souls of the more learned but of the more simple also and unlearned may find that which will be necessary for their Instruction Will he say that he does not mean to exclude the learned from the use of the Scripture but only the more simple for the Instruction of which former he does not deny but that it would be a most proper means But besides that his Brother speaks formally of the Instruction of the more simple why has the Author of the Prejudices made it a ridiculous and Impossible way an infinite way which has no Issue a way which is of so excessive a length that one can never rationally hope to come to the end of it whatsoever diligence one should make Will he say that the Scripture ought to be joined with Tradition and that without Tradition it cannot give a perfect Instruction But the Preface says expresly that they will find in that Translation all that will be necessary for Instruction Will he say that in order to the Scriptures Instructing one the Sence of the Church ought to be added to it But the Preface says that according to Saint Augustine the Scripture lays down all that is necessary for the Conduct of our lives after a most easy and Intelligible manner and that she explains and makes clear her self Will he say that in order to the Scriptures being capable to Instruct us we ought at least to read it with Dependance upon the Church and to take it from her hand But wherefore then would these Gentlemen have the People to read their Translation since they are only private Doctors and not the Church Wherefore when the Prelats rais'd to the highest dignities have forbid the reading of it by their Ordinances have we seen Printed writings maintain on the contrary there was in those Ordinances a Threatning of the Will and Commandment of God who would that we should hear his Son and not that we should suppress his Gospel a Contradiction to the Holy Scripture which was set down in writing for no other end but to be heard and practis'd by all Nations of the world a Contradiction of all the Councils which have always taken the Scripture for the Judge of the belief of the Church and of all the Difficulties and Questions that can arise in the Doctrine of Faith or Manners a Contradiction of all the Holy Fathers who advis'd the Faithful above all things continually to read the word of God Why has one Introduc'd two Lay-men Parishoners Saint Hilary Montanus saying one to another The Bishops cannot take away from us the Gospel that Jesus Christ has given us that God spoke to all his People when he said To day if you will hear my voice harden not your Hearts a Bishop cannot take away our Eyes from us to hinder us from seeing and considering our way we should not see Jesus Christ our Saviour our Pastor and our great Bishop who goes before us in his Gospel That if a Bishop would turn us away from if an Apostle if an Angel from Heaven would stop up this way and would go about to lead and guide us in another we ought not to believe him Why has he made us see those Parishoners holding That there is nothing more contrary to the Gospel then a prohibition to read and have it that bread and nourishment is not more necessary to preserve the life of the Body then the word of God is to maintain Life in our Souls That all Christians have a natural right that cannot be taken from them of Instructing themselves by the word of God and labouring to understand it and that the Holy Scriptures were given to the whole Church and not only to the Bishops who have no right to deprive the Faithful of them That this is say they what the Divel would preach up if he were
as their words should be found confirmed by proofs drawn from the Scripture They have said that they did not care for the Testimony of men but that they would confirm what they said by the Voice of God which was more certain then all Demonstrations or to say better the only Demonstration It is Evident therefore that our Fathers could not take any other Rule of the Faith or Principle of the Reformation then the Holy Scripture In effect the Scripture is the Word of God the Law of our Soveraign Lord according to which we must all be Judged Pastors and People great and small Learned and Ignorant It contains the Foundations of Divine Revelation without which there is neither Faith nor a good Conscience nor peace of mind nor hope of Salvation and if they would consider these things a little more carefully then they ordinarily do I am perswaded they would make no Difference with us about this Article All Christians are agreed that the Word of God is the only source of all the Mysteries that are necessary to our belief in Order to our Salvation and that his will is the only Rule of our Worship This is a Maxim about which there is no dispute between us and those of the Church of Rome for they know with us that Faith comes out of the Word of God and that it is in vain to Honour God when we follow the Commandments of men All our difference consists but in the knowing where that word and that will is we restrain it to the Scripture our Adversaries extend it further for they would have it to be found in Traditions in the writings of the Fathers in the decisions of the Popes in the Determinations of the Councils and in all that which they call the belief of the Church not only while those things are conformable to the Scripture but also while they are besides the Scriptures But as for the decisions of the Popes and Councils our Adversaries themselves consess that God gives them not any new and immediate Revelation that discovers new Objects of Faith to them or new ways of Worship and that since Jesus Christ and his Apostles God has not given the like Revelations to men either in these latter or the proceeding Ages It is certain says Monsieur du Val his words being set down by Monsieur Arnaud in his second Letter That the Holy Ghost does not assist the Pope in the decisions of points of Faith by an immediate and express illumination as well because that Illumination would be miraculous and that there would be no necessity of establishing such a Miracle as because that no Pope ever attempted to prove that when he would decide any matter he should be immediately and expresly inlightned by the Holy Spirit A Council also adds he has not the like illumination or ever had And if ever any had had it it would have been without doubt the first of all which the Apostles held at Jerusalem at a time wherein the Holy Ghost visibly descended upon the Faithful And yet notwithstanding the Apostles in that Council did not determine any point of difference about the Legal Ceremonies by an express and immediate illumination but after a long debate and discussion It is therefore an unquestionable Truth that there is no new and immediate Revelation in the Church and that Revelation ceased in Jesus Christ and his Apostles From whence it evidently follows that all that is to be found either in the decisions of the Popes or in the Definitions of the Councils or in the Writings of the Fathers or the belief of the Church or in that which they call Tradition or in a word in all that proceeds from the Mouth and hands of men whatsoever Denomination they may pass under is the word of God but as far as it may be found conformable to that Revelation of Jesus Christ and his Apostles But that being so as it is without any difficulty how can they be certain of that Conformity but as they refer to and compare things with the Scripture They say that there are certain Articles of that Revelation which the Apostles have delivered down in Trust from their own living voice alone to their Successors and which from hand to hand have came down to us But besides that that very thing is a matter of History about which we cannot have any certainty of Faith and upon which by Consequence we can build nothing firmly what certain sign can they give us to know those pretended Apostolical Traditions by or to discern the True by when they should be mingled with the false From the first Rise of Christianity Hereticks would say as may be seen in Saint Irenaeus to gain credit to their Errors that they had were the secret Mysteries which the Apostles taught not to all in Common but to the perfect in particular Papias himself as Eusebius Testifies had made a Collection of Tables and New Doctrines under the Title of unwritten Traditions which he had Learned from the Mouths of those who had seen the Apostles and conversed familiarly with them Saint Irenaeus speaks of a certain Tradition which had passed for currant in his Time in Asia as immediately coming from the Apostle Saint John to wit That Jesus Christ Taught after his Fortieth Year which is notwithstanding now held to be false by all Chronologers They do not not hold the Opinion of the Mâ—llenaries to be less false which divers Antient Fathers have approved and maintained as a Tradition proceeding from the Apostles The Churches of Asia who have the Feast of Easter Celebrated precisely on the Fourteenth Day of the Moons Age after the Vernal Equinox boast for that purpose of the Tradition of Saint John and Saint Philip and the rest of the Church hold on the contrary by Apostolical Tradition that it ought to be Celebrated on the Sunday of our Lord's Resurrection The Greeks Nestorians Abassines Latins Armenians have their contrary Traditions for Tradition changes its Face and Form according as the Nation changes one sort hold for a Tradition the necessity of three immersions in Baptism and that of the use of Leavened bread in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the other mock at it and reject it The one sort believe a Purgatory by Tradition the others believe it not The one by Tradition Circumcise their Children the others have that practise in horrour as being a Relique of Judaism The one sort fast by Tradition upon the Saturday the rest have that fasting in Execration One sort by Tradition Sacrifice Lambs at this day after the manner of the Jews the rest detest that custom Who can say Justly in so great a Confusion which this is Apostolical and this is not so Moreover there are a great many Antient Traditions which publick use heretofore Authorised and which Time has so abolished that there remains not the least shadow of them among the Latins as that of not Baptizing
said in the way of Tradition for all will be reduced to that 1. In the first place it is certain that we ought not to take all sorts of Traditions to be true indifferently since we have already seen that there are some false and Apocryphal so that we must learn plainly to distinguish it by it self the good and the Authentick from the others and to that effect to know certainly the rules by which we ought to make that distinction always remembring that the Authority of the Church of Rome is not here of any use because it is in question and that it is that Authority which we are treating of in that search See here already a no small Confusion for we must for this turn over a great many Books be well read in Histories Pass a great many Judgments which cannot be very easy to a man who will not help himself with the Authority of the Scripture 2. After we have set aside Apocryphal Tradition and it being restrained to the True we must enter upon the Examination of the question that is controverted to wit Whether the Authority of the Church of Rome as it pretends at this day be taught in that Tradition And to this effect he must see whether the Passages that are brought to prove it are faithfully related and for that he must consult the Originals and compare them with the Translations which require a great knowledge of the Tongues or at least as the Author of the Prejudices says that one should referr himself to a sufficient number of fit persons to have no occasion to doubt of the Fidelity of their Relations And as the number of Antient Books is not small that Consultation could not but be long enough 3. He must not forget also to inquire whether there be not diverse ways of reading the Passages that may weaken that proof For since the Author of the Prejudices would have us observe this Precaution to assure our selves of one only passage of Scripture why would he not have it observed to assure himself of the Passages of that Tradition It will therefore be necessary to consult the Manuscripts of Libraries or at least to read the notes which the Criticks have made upon the Books out of which those Passages shall be taken this would be yet a matter of further Labour 4. But must he not also be bound to examine narrowly the meaning of the Passages not to give them too great a Latitude and avoid being blinded with a meer Appearance For if there are in the Scripture as the Author of the Prejudices assures us that the Passages that appear clearly to Contain certain Truths and which do not in Effect contain them are an occasion of deluding those who are too easily led by that Appearance which at first sight presents it self Why must it not be so in Tradition also They ordinarily alleadge that Passage of Saint Irenaeus in Favour of the particular Church of Rome Ad haue Ecclesiam propter Potentiorem Principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est cos qui sunt undique Fideles in qua semper ab 〈◊〉 qui sunt undique Conservata est ea quae est ab his Apostolis Tradâ—tio These words seem clear to the Partisans of the Court of Rome for the establishing a necessity of being united with the particular Church of Rome and living in Dependance upon it and yet if we look a little narrowly into them we may see that they signify nothing less then that which they pretend they signify and that Irenaeus would only say thus much That the Faithfull came from all parts to the Church of Rome by reason of the Imperial power which drew all the World thither and that from thence it was that they all together preserved the Doctrine that the Apostles had left without their having any considerable difference between them That this was the meaning of Saint Irenaeus appears from the Connexion of his discourse wherein he proposes to prove that the Pretended Traditions of Hereticks could not come from the Apostles and his reason is that if they could have come from them they would have been yet found in his Time in the Churches which they had instituted and particularly in the Roman which was in a manner an Abridgment and Composition of all others by reason of the concourse of all Nations to Rome So that to shew that the Church of Rome in those times did not own any of the Tenets of those Hereticks was at once to shew that they were Traditions unknown to all the Churches and by Consequence false and not Apostolical This Example therefore shews us that one ought not to let himself be dazzled by the first Appearances of a Passage but that it ought to be narrowly examined and that as every one may see requires time and is not altogether so easy to be done 5. To carry on that Examination well in respect of the Passages of the Scripture the Author of the Prejudices would that we should carefully consider the like Expressions and contrary Passages to see whether we should not be bound by them to give another meaning to those Passages which we gather He says That Common Sense dictates this Rule and that it is full of Equity and Justice I see not therefore how he can exempt his Catechumeni from it in regard of the Passages of Tradition It is requisite that he should carefully remark the ways of speaking in the Fathers in diverse matters in order to the making them mutually give light to one another It is necessary that he should look after the contrary Passages of the Antients and that he compare them one with another to draw out clear Observations from them But this will be yet further no small Business for it is very well known that there are things enough in the Antients directly opposite to the Pretensions of the Church of Rome 6. But not to detain the Readers much longer upon so clear a matter all the Intricate Perplexity which he pretends to find in the way of the Scripture fâ—lls back again upon the way of Tradition when they would by this without the aid of the Scripture be fully satisfied concerning the Authority of the Church of Rome It is necessary to discern a true Tradition from a false one It is necessary to consult the Originals It is necessary to know the Different Ways of reading passages It is necessary to search out the meaning with great Attentiveness It is necessary to examine the like Expressions and contrary Passages It is necessary to see divers Interpretations of both sides It is necessary to know why the Roman Church distinguishes between points which every Faithful man is bound to believe with a distinct Faith and those which it is enough to believe upon the Faith of the Church It is necessary to Examine that which each Sect that does not acknowledge the Roman Church says against her And after
Prejudices means that that visible extension is a perpetual mark of the Orthodox communion that alwayes distinguishes it from impure or heretical communions so that this Orthodox communion as far as it is visible can never be restrained to a few persons and places it is certain that this was not the opinion of S. Augustine nor that of the other Fathers and it is certain also that the celebrated Authors of the Church of Rome reject the Proposition in this sense as false and absurd and that in effect it is manifestly contrary to experience To set forth the truth of what I propound I will begin with experience and as that of our Age presents it self first to our view I say that if we must act at this day according to the principle That the true Orthodox Church ought to be visibly extended over all Nations we must conclude that there is no true Orthodox Church in the world For it is most true that of all the communions which at this day divide Christianity there is not any one to whom this mark can agree I will not say that there are divers parties in the known world which have not so much as yet heard of Christianity nor that there are others who after having received it have absolutely rejected it to embrace the Mahometan Religion I will not here speak of the Greek communion separated from the Roman nor of the Coptick or Nestorian or of the Jacobites or Armenian which evidently have not that visible extension throughout all Nations I will only speak of the Roman and the Protestant as they are at present He must sayes the Author of the Prejudices be wholly blind that can dare to maintain that the society of Calvinists which is wholly shut out of Italy Spain Flanders a great part of Germany Swedeland Denmark Muscovy Asia Africa of almost all America is that which Jesus Christ has spread over all the world But before he argues after this manner he ought to take heed that we cannot say the same thing of the Roman communion For is it not true that it is at this day excluded from Swedeland Denmark a great part of Germany a part of Switzerland a part of Greece Muscovy Africa Aethiopia Persia Tartary China Japan of the Indies and from the greatest part of America And the Author of the Prejudices ought not to pretend the prevailing of some Colonies of Missionaries whom the Pope sends here and there to gain Proselytes For since he will not have it that we should gain any thing by the Colonies of English and Dutch who have establish'd themselves in all the parts of the world why would he help himself by the Missionaries and Pensionaries that the Congregations de fide propaganda maintain in foreign Countreys Why should they be more reckon'd for any thing than those Colonies of English and Dutch who have the exercises of their Religion as free as those of the Roman Communion They are sayes he such Merchants as are in those Countreys only for the sake of Trade But do not those Merchants pray to God in the form of their Religion in what Countreys and with what design soever they are Is it that those Merchants being so much ty'd as they are to their Trading make no open profession of their Religion or that they have not in the greatest part of those places where they are their ordinary Assemblies with their Ministers as well as the Missionaries He must yield in good earnest that the Christians are now divided and separated from one another about matters of faith and worship in their different Societies or communions of which each one has its seat and bounds apart beyond which we cannot say they are visibly extended if we would speak with any reason and that there is no one that is throughout all Nations in the form of a communion of visible Society From whence it follows that all this dispute of the Author of the Prejudices is but a beating the air and which he can never apply to any real subject The Experience of former Ages is not less contrary to the Proposition of the Author of the Prejudices than that of our Age. For if we consult History we shall find that it has fallen out often that an Heretical communion has spread it self every where while the Orthodox communion was so limited that it did not seem to take up any space If in the time of the Arians they had disputed by this principle by which the Author of the Prejudices would decide our differences I mean if they would have treated that communion as Heretical that was not visibly spread over all the Nations and that as Orthodox which was the Arians had easily overcome The Heresie of the Arians and Eunomians sayes S. Jerom possess'd all the East except Athanasius and Paulinus S. Hilary sayes the same thing The greatest part of the Ten Provinces of Asia excepting Eleusius and some others do not truly know God In those time sayes the Author of the Life of S. Gregory Nazianzen the Church was oppressed by the Arian Heresie many Bishops were banished and vexed by torments and calumnies a thousand wayes many Presbyters and many numerous Flocks were brought down to the utmost misery exposed to the injuries of the weather as no more having any house of prayer where they might meet That Heresie had almost fill'd all the Earth and it triumph'd being upheld by the power of the Emperour so that good men had not so much as the justice of the Laws against the wicked And because the Pastors or to say better the concealed Wolves under the appearance of Pastors had the liberty to drive the Orthodox Bishops out of the Churches who alone were worthy to serve Jesus Christ the Soveraign Bishop it hapned that some overcome with fear others deceived by fair words others gained by money others surprized through their own simplicity embrac'd that Heresie and opened their bosoms and gave their communion to their adversaries This was that that oblig'd the Fathers to elevate the little number and the little flock above extension and multitude Where are those men saith Gregory Nazianzen who reproach us with our poverty and insolently boast themselves of their riches who would define the Church by multitude and contemn the little flock They measure Divinity they weigh the people in the ballance they esteem the illiterate and cover with injuries the lights of the world they heap together the common stones and despise the pretious not remembring that the more the thick darkness surpasses in number the Stars the more the ordinary stones surpass the pretious in quantity the more those Stars and pretious stones surpass the ordinary stones in purity and excellency This Father who had seen in his time the Hereticks masters of the whole Church and their communion spread very wide and far in the East and in the West while the Orthodox durst not appear was so far from having
the Magistrates receive their Jurisdiction from it He adds afterwards That it is the same in the Keys of the Church that Jesus Christ gave them to the whole Church in the person of Saint Peter And that it is the Church that Communicates them to the Prelats but which notwithstanding Communicates them without depriving it self of them so that says he the Church has them and the Prelats have them but in a different manner for the Church has them in respect of Origine and Vertue and the Prelats have them only in respect of Vse The Church has them vertually because she can give them to a Prelate by Election and she has them Originally also For the Power of a Prelate does not take its origine from it self but from the Church by means of the Eelction that it makes of him The Church that chose him gives him that Jurisdiction but as for the Church it receives it from no Body after its having once received it from Jesus Christ The Church therefore has the Keys Originally and Virtually and whenever she gives them to a Prelate she does not give them to him after the manner that she has them to wit Originally and Virtually but she gives them him only as to Vse To this we may add that some Councils of these latter Ages as those of Constance and Basil seem to have acted themselves upon this Principle when they gave themselves the Title of Representing the whole Universal Church Vniversalem Ecclesiam Representans For to what end did they take that specious Title if they would not acknowledge that the Origine of the Authority of the Prelats or the Pastors is in the Body of the whole Society and that it is from thence that it is transmitted to them to exercise it in the name of the whole Body But that which is most considerable is That it appears from the Testimony of the Holy Scripture that the Body of the Church that is to say the faithful people in opposition to the Pastors has taken part from the beginning in the Acts of its proper Government and particularly in the Calls of Ministers which evidently notes that it is a natural Right that belongs to it For that when after the Apostacy and Tragical Death of Judas they were to substitute another Apostle in his place Jesus Christ not having done it immediately by himself before his Ascention the History of the Acts relates that the whole Church which then only Consisted in an hundred and twenty Persons was Assembled and that upon the Proposal that Saint Peter made to them they appointed two upon whom the Lot having been cast and falling upon Matthias with a common consent he was put into the number of the Apostles They were there about the Call of an Apostle that is to say of a Minister who ought to come immediately from God and therefore it was that they cast the Lot but because the Church was then formed and that Jesus Christ being no more corporally present upon Earth those Calls could not be made wholly and immediately by him men took some part in them for by their Election they limited the Lot to two persons and in the end declared by their acquiesence that they look'd upon the Declaration of the Lot as if it had been the very voice of Jesus Christ This is all the part that men could take there but it was not only the Apostles who did those two things it was the whole Body of the Church The History notes that the Assembly was about an hundred and twenty persons that Saint Peter made a Proposal to them that upon that Proposal of Saint Peter they presented Two Joseph and Matthias and that the Lot falling upon Matthias he was numbred with the Eleven Apostles by common Agreement that is to say by the common consent of all That evidently shews us that the Body of the Faithful and not meerly the Body of the Pastors is the Right source of Calls The same things appear in the Call of the Seven Deacons for the Story expresly notes that the murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews falling out and giving occasion to the Apostles to think of that Call they called the multitude of the Disciples and that when they had made a Proposal to them the Assembly approved of it and that in the end they chose seven persons whom they presented to the Apostles who after having prayed to God laid their hands on them But that further le ts us see from whence a Lawful Call proceeds to wit from the Body of the Faithful and not meerly from the Body of the Pastors for it was the whole Assembly that approved of the Proposal of the Apostles and that chose and not the Apostles alone who did nothing else but propose and lay their hands on them This is further justified by the Practice of the Apostles which would readily admit the people in the most weighty Affairs that respected the Government of the Church into their deliberations and Acts when that might be done without Confusion So in the First Council of Jerusalem the Question being ventilated whether the Observation of the Ceremonies of the Law was necessary to the Gentiles it is said that it pleased the Apostles and Elders or Presbyters for it is the same thing with the whole Church to send to Antioch and write to the Church there That Letter was in effect written in the name of all and sent to all indifferently The Apostles and Elders and Brethren unto the Brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Cyria and Cilicia and it is expreslynoted that when Jude and Silas who were the bearers of that Letter were arrived at Antioch they Assembled the multitude that is to say the people and there acquitted themselves of their Commission which distinctly shews that the people then took cognizance of the matters of Religion and that they interven'd in publick Deliberations So when Saint Paul would Excommunicate the Incestuous person of Corinth he calls the Church to that Action In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my Spirit let such a man be delivered unto Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh that the Body may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus which notes the same thing Those who have read the writings of Saint Cyprian Bishop of Carthage cannot be ignorant that that great Saint governed his Church by the common Suffrages not only of his whole Clergy but of all his people also and that he consulted with them in the most weighty Affairs since he has declared it himself in divers places of his writings I could not saies he in one of his Epistles to his Clergy answer to that which our Brethren Donatus Fortunatus Novatus and Gordius have wrote to me because I am alone for from the first entrance into my Bishoprick I purposed to do nothing of my self without your Counsel and the Consent